Sebastian Gensior

European biopharma is a maddening paradox. It has the academic firepower to generate groundbreaking discoveries but lacks the financial machinery to turn them into therapies. This is not a new problem, and it’s not a small one either. Yet every time I see another promising European biotech sell out

There’s an old saying in Silicon Valley: when in doubt, invoke physics. And so the term “first principles” has become one of those phrases—like “disruption” or “pivot”—that is routinely abused by people who’ve never used a soldering iron. Everyone wants to think from first principles. Few

There’s a curious delusion that haunts modern professionals. The belief that before you start something—anything, really—you must first understand it completely. As if mastery precedes curiosity. As if competence is a prerequisite, not a result. It’s nonsense, of course. And nowhere is this more obvious than

What Is a p-Value? The p-value measures the probability of observing data as extreme as the actual results, assuming the null hypothesis (H0 ) is true. It does not measure the probability of the null hypothesis itself. Formally, the p-value is defined as: $$ p = P(\text{Data} \mid

There’s a specific look founders get when I ask, “What’s your runway?” It’s part shame, part bravado, and part magical thinking. “Maybe a couple of months,” they say, casually, like they’re describing a parking ticket. Sometimes, the answer is worse: “We already ran out, actually.” In

There you are—armed with a lukewarm flute of prosecco, trying to make small talk with a stem cell biologist in a conference centre that sounds like Heathrow Terminal 5 during a baggage handler strike. You lean in. You nod. You squint as though comprehension is a muscle group you’

There’s a peculiar optimism embedded in the English language: pulling yourself up by your bootstraps. The phrase is now Silicon Valley gospel—synonymous with grit, frugality, and making something from nothing. Originally, though, it was a joke. A 19th-century absurdity. The physical act of lifting oneself by one’

In Germany, there is a saying: "Wenn du Visionen hast, geh zum Arzt.” If you have visions, see a doctor. A punchline, yes, but also a worldview—orderly, sober, engineered for reliability. It's a good attitude for bridge-building or train schedules. But it’s a death

In the courtship rituals of modern fundraising, there exists a peculiar form of digital simping: the obsessive fawning over “curated investor lists.” Like suitors armed with a Rolodex of names but no real intimacy, startups fire off pitches to anyone vaguely associated with a term sheet. It’s Tinder for

Dan Davies—veteran analyst, ex-regulator, and professional myth-buster—has written what might be the most depressingly accurate book of 2024: The Unaccountability Machine: Why Big Systems Make Terrible Decisions—and How the World Lost Its Mind. It is, to put it politely, a masterclass in how large institutions