Who you are defines how you build.

This is the Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders series.

Brought you by Stanford E. Corner.

On this episode, we're joined by George Skangos.

George is the former CEO of Biogen and the current president and CEO of Verbiotechnology,

a company that is developing new therapies to fight some of the world's most dangerous infectious diseases,

including COVID-19.

Here's host and Stanford Structural Biology Professor Jodi Pugolisi.

The thing that touched me most about George is he was a professor at Johns Hopkins,

starting out as a professor when I was a student there.

Our paths never crossed because I was, didn't want to get my hands wet with biology.

I was too busy doing chemistry and physics at the time. But that leads me to the question of his own life's trajectory and the exceptionally courageous move

that he made in the 1980s to move from a cushy academic job into what was then the nascent field of biotechnology.

And so I really just wanted to start off by asking George to maybe tell a little bit about his trajectory

and, you know, what pushed him to make this jump from academia to biotechnology.

And, you know, when you started off getting a PhD, I'm sure you had some vision of what it is you wanted to do.

And, you know, now sitting where you are now, you know, how is that path diverged or met what you dreamed of years ago?

Okay. Well, first of all, let me say thank you to you, Ravi, and to Jody, for the invitation.

I'm really happy to be here today, and this should be fun and interactive, and so I encourage people to ask questions.

Look, I graduated from Cornell. I was a bio major.

I worked for a couple years for a company that manufactured laboratory supplies from

microbiology labs.

...