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“We both found each other obnoxious.“

That’s how Sergey Brin characterized the first time he met Larry Page.

Larry had just come to Stanford to start grad school, and Sergey was giving his group a tour of the campus. Right off the bat, the duo started bickering.

About everything.

Each of the two had strong opinions, and a stubborn will to emerge out on top.

However during those first few days in a new environment, deep down Larry was suffering from heavy doses of impostor syndrome:

“At first it was pretty scary. I kept complaining to my friends that I was going to get sent back home on the bus.“

Sergey is the joker, while Larry has always been the more serious, quiet type. Yet, their personalities complement each other perfectly. Their individual minds have a specific flair of genius which when brought together adds up to more than the sum of its parts.

When two minds meet, the results are never straightforward. It’s the only world where mathematical rules don’t apply. When Larry and Sergey put their brains together, 1+1 ended up equaling 3.

1 + 1 = 3

This 3 turned out being Google, internet juggernaut and one of the most powerful companies in the world at the moment.

Luckily, Sergey assures us that total world domination is still not in the cards.

“We are currently not planning on conquering the world.“

Too late. They already did.

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Let’s screw with everyone

On the eve of their IPO, the Google founders decided to give an interview.

To “Playboy” magazine.

It caused a huge ruckus. Up to that point Google had been very vague when it came to handing out information on the inner workings of the company. Could the interview fill in the blanks?

Suddenly, all over Wall Street you saw guys in ties with a smutty magazine in hand. The financial analysts could finally pretend that they were reading “Playboy” for the articles.

However, instead of being happy they could tell their wives and girlfriends they were doing “research”, the entire financial industry was in uproar over the situation. Apparently, that’s not how you do things. You are not supposed to release new information so close to the date of the IPO.

Sergey and Larry did not give a f*%k. They just included a copy of the article in the official documents for the event. Minus the pictures of course.

Problem solved.

It was not the first time the two showed everyone who is the boss. And it certainly wouldn’t be the last.

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I want to download the entire internet - Find a problem you want to solve

The idea for Google search came in a round about way. Page had been playing around with an early search engine when he discovered that it gave back not only a bunch of websites, but also information on links.

This caught his curiosity. What do these links mean? He knew that it could be important, but didn’t know how yet. At the time, Page was trying to decide on his research topic, and put this into the running.

Luckily, his advisor Terry Winograd picked it for him.

“Well, that one seems like a really good idea.“

That brought with it another conundrum. How to do this? How to analyze the meaning of the links?

No problem thought Page, I will just download the entire World Wide Web.

Putting the whole web on his computer was a wild scheme that only an impossible thinker of Larry Page’s caliber could come up with. Almost everyone else questioned the achievability of such a task. Not Page.

He liked the challenge, calling his approach a healthy disregard for the impossible.

“Having a healthy disregard for the impossible. That is a really good phrase. You should try to do things that other people would not.“ - Larry Page

The key characteristic of Larry Page is that he sees reality differently. While most people think in terms of what is not possible, Larry looks at the world through brightly colored glasses. His eyes are instead open to the possibilities.

Faced with an impossible challenge, knowing full-well that he might fail, Page rolled up his sleeves and went to work. However, he also knew that he couldn’t do it alone. For this, he enlisted Brin.

His buddy Sergey had been working on a different project, one focused on data mining. Larry’s idea intrigued him. The web has lots of stuff to mine, so he agreed to join forces. With a tough task ahead, they rallied the full power of Stanford’s resources and got on it.

When the guys got back the data, they started to see patterns. With the structure of the entire WWW stretched out in front of their eyes, they were slowly discovering how it works. Some pages had a lot of links going to them, while others very few.

Then in a flash of brilliance, Page had an idea. The way the links to pages were structured reminded him of citations. In the academic world, the more important a paper is, the more citations it gets. Maybe webpages function in the same way? The more authoritative ones have more pages linking to them?

This was a genius insight, and the key to unravelling the mystery.

Ideas often arise in strange ways. Archimedes discovered his famous law when he was getting into the bathtub. While these types of moments appear to come out of nowhere, in reality they have been ruminating in your subconscious for a long time. Deep inside your brain there are processes being stirred, connecting things, until one day they come out to the surface.

One strength of Larry Page was his analogical thinking. His mind was able to notice the similarities between two totally disparate systems, academic citations and web pages.

This type of ability often sits at the core of history’s greatest innovations. Henry Ford’s car assembly line drew inspiration from a meat-packing factory. Steve Jobs’s genius lay in how he was able to draw analogies from the unlikeliest of places.

For Page and Brin, this analogy solved the problem of search.

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Being unconventional means you will often be misunderstood

This insight formed the basis of Google’s search algorithm. With further research and Sergey’s math whiz skills, they perfected it. Now you could go on the web and find what you were looking for.

They decided to shop their search engine around. The duo were sure that takers would come knocking at their door. A few bucks in their pockets before continuing their research at university could come in handy. This should be a slam dunk.

Yet, the real world is often different from what one hopes it to be. Despite the brilliance of their invention, no one wanted to buy their baby! They would go demonstrate the power of their search engine by firing it up next to all its rivals. While the the other search engines had trouble even finding their own homepage, Google produced great results.

The executives just shook their heads. We don’t want it. It’s too good!

They said that if the users got results that they were looking for, they would quickly leave the site. The strategy of the big internet players was to keep people wandering their site for as long as possible. That’s why these sites were often big, flashy, and full of different features. The logic was that the more time they spend there, the more money will end in the site’s coffers.

The guys running the internet giants actually wanted their search engines to be deliberately bad!

In emoji talk that’s a Facepalm.

The Google guys were left baffled. Shouldn’t the purpose be to provide the user with what they are looking for? For them, it was relevance that should be the only thing that matters. How relevant are the search results to the thing that the user is actually searching for?

There was a huge disconnect between their philosophy and the one of the people running the big incumbents.

“Our mission was to organize global information and make it accessible and useful to everyone.“ - Larry Page

The mission of the other players on the market was to make money.

By being focused on trying to make a buck, the executives missed the forest for the trees. Sure, people would linger a bit longer on their sites. However, the lousy search results they were getting also meant that they were growing more frustrated.

This left the Google guys in a unique position. Their unconventional thinking made them try to figure out problems that no one else was working on.

“The best projects are likely to be overlooked, not trumpeted by a crowd; the best problems to work on are often the ones nobody else even tries to solve.“ - Peter Thiel

This problem orientated way of thinking has been the key to Google’s success. The fact that their primary drive is not making the most money possible also means that they are OK with making mistakes.

“We do lots of stuff. The only way you are going to have success is to have lots of failures first.“ - Sergey Brin

The Google guys have a mindset that encourages lots of failures. The only way you will find what works is by discovering what doesn’t work first. Their process pushes serendipity and exploring different paths. After all, originally they didn’t set out to create a search engine. The search engine was just a result of them trying to solve an interesting problem.

“We need to be the kind of company that is willing to make mistakes. Because if we’re not making mistakes, then we’re not taking risks. And if we’re not taking risks, we won’t get to the next level.“ - Larry Page

Google has a culture that encourages learning from mistakes. “Fortune” magazine writer Adam Lashinsky calls it controlled chaos.

“Narrowly controlled chaos - or managed chaos, which is what they call it - is exactly what they are trying to do. They want to encourage zaniness. On the other hand, they want to figure out a way to control the zaniness.“ - Adam Lashinsky

The Google founders were not about the money at all costs. They made the unconventional choices, the ones that people told them would make them less money. It turns out, they made even more money.

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Simple, yet elegant execution

The books you read are a window into your soul. Growing up, Larry was a voracious reader. One of his favorite books was the autobiography of Nikola Tesla. He loved how the whacky scientist went about making his discoveries. However, there was also one main lesson that he took out of it.

“Invention is not enough. Tesla invented the electric power we use, but he struggled to get it out to people. You have to combine both things: invention and innovation focus, plus the company that can commercialize things and get them to people.“ - Larry Page

There is a simple equation for success: idea + execution = result.

Tesla had great ideas, but failed at the execution. Larry was determined not to end up like his hero. This reminder has influenced his tremendous drive. He knows that it’s not enough to have lightbulbs constantly flashing in your head. You have to also roll those ideas out in the real world. Execution is what matters.

While Google’s idea was great, it was not completely original. Jon Kleinberg had come up with a similar algorithm while working in an IBM lab. More intriguingly, Robin Li, a Chinese software engineer working for Dow Jones in New Jersey even patented an algorithm called RankDex a year earlier. However, their companies didn’t see the value in these ideas, and so their inventions lay on the wayside.

What differentiated Google from earlier efforts was how they put everything into practice. When Page and Brin decided to go full speed ahead, they turned it on. Often working long hours deep into the night, their product started to take shape.

Their path was not straight-forward. As with any young start-up, they encountered many problems on the way. One was capacity. In order to get their search to work, they needed lots of computing power.

They resorted to begging, borrowing, even sometimes downright stealing computers for their project. They didn’t have the money to buy huge servers, so they came up with cheaper alternatives. Like real MacGyvers, Sergey and Larry basically made their search engine run on a soap on a rope, and some matches.

This has become known as the concept of pile-up computing. They would buy a bunch of cheap computers, strip them down to essential parts, and then connect them. Voila, you have a data center.

This type of resourcefulness made it much cheaper to run their infrastructure than what their competitors were doing. They also built in redundancy, meaning that if one computer fails, another one takes their place almost immediately.

They would fret over details, trying to make everything run faster and more efficiently. Larry realized that if you were going make their site sticky, it needed to be fast. People want everything now, and speed on the internet is king.

The Google homepage was kept simple. They didn’t have the talent to design something catchy, so they decided to leave it be. Unintentionally, they stumbled onto a gold mine.

Yup, because they sucked at something, they managed to make bank.

In the process, they came up with the way that Google rolls out their products to this day. They adhere to the philosophy of permanent beta. Google releases unfinished products and then tweaks them as they go along. Gmail was in this status for many, many years. Their strategy is to put stuff up in the air and see if it flies.

“Launch early, iterate often.“

However, what pushed them forward to execute is the fact that they enjoyed what they were doing. Albert Einstein, in a letter to his son wrote that the best way to learn almost anything is to do something with such enjoyment that you don’t notice the time pass:

“That is the way to learn the most, that when you are doing something with such enjoyment that you don’t notice that the time passes. I am sometimes so wrapped up in my work that I forget about the noon meal.“ - Albert Einstein

Not just learning, this is also the best way to build a product. Reaching states of flow can keep you working at times when other types of motivation would give out.

“What is the one sentence summary of how you change the world? Always work hard on something uncomfortably exciting!“ - Larry Page

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Building monorails, and going to the Moon

While Sergey and Larry will forever be remembered as the “search guys”, their breadth, and their scope are much wider. Before building the Google search engine, Sergey tried out several projects, and was involved in many activities, even trying trapeze.

Larry had about 10 different topics he was considering for his PhD thesis. At Michigan, he was especially interested in the problems of transportation, and was a member of a championship solar powered car racing team.

Sergey and Larry are expert-generalists, modern day Renaissance Men. They are constantly thinking about different things, and learning on the go. Due to the wide range of interests of its founders, Google has expanded into a variety of domains.

They have even established a division focused on what they call “Moonshot thinking”. Inspired by John F. Kennedy’s bold vision to go the Moon, “moonshots” are visionary projects that everyone else thinks are crazy. In many ways, they exemplify the traits that Google was founded upon: curiosity, imagination, and boldness.

They also are adept at using different types of thinking methods when needed. Larry Page has both used first principles thinking, and analogical thinking when building up his company.

In his foreword to the book “How Google Works”, Larry Page gives a short overview of his philosophy on first principles thinking:

“When I was younger and first started thinking about my future, I decided to either become a professor or start a company. Either option would give me the freedom to work from first principles. This autonomy of thought is behind almost everything we do at Google, behind our greatest successes and some of our impressive failures.”

This has been reflected in the way that Google is run. The idea is not just to improve things incrementally, but to try to think radically out of the box. Page calls it 10x thinking. Instead of improving something by 10%, just radically rethink something from scratch. It’s not about putting a lot of effort into working on old problems, instead it’s about changing the question itself.

However, first principles thinking isn’t the only thing that Google innovates by. Thinking by analogies has its place too. After all, the idea for Google search came from a brilliant analogy. The great thing about the Google guys is that they intuitively know when to use analogical thinking, and when to go for thinking in first principles instead.

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A shorter version of this article was originally published on “Medium” here. The version above is longer and covers more points.

Credit: 1;

“If the question is whether we can stop this pandemic with this vaccine, then my answer is: Yes.“ - Ugur Sahin

On the 9th of November came the bombastic announcement. There is a vaccine against Covid-19 that is 90% effective. The big company in the headlines is Pfizer. Donald Trump of course quickly claimed that it was him who was behind the vaccine, and accused the company of delaying the announcement in order to hurt his bid for the presidency.

However much of the research and development of the vaccine was done by a small German company called BioNTech. This medical start-up was created in 2008 by Ugur Sahin, Ozlem Tureci, and their colleague Christoph Huber.

Sahin and Tureci are a husband and wife team from Germany, but of Turkish immigrant origin. Sahin was born in Turkey and moved to Germany as a small child. Tureci was already born in Germany, but her father had emigrated to the country from Istanbul.

You could term the trio as a group of reluctant entrepreneurs. The founders of the company always thought of themselves as medical researchers first. They only created their company in order for the wider world to benefit from their research. In the process, they got really, but really rich.

For Sahin and Tureci, BioNTech was not their first company. In 2001, they founded Ganymed Pharmaceutical, which was a company that focused on cancer immunotherapies. In 2016, they sold it Astellas Pharma, a Japanese company. This deal made them instant billionaires.

However, their main baby is BioNTech, a spin-off that they created in 2008 in order to focus on more innovative treatments of cancer. They grew the company quite rapidly, and their leadership put it in a position to develop a vaccine that could stop the current global pandemic. The treatments that the company is planning to roll out could revolutionize the world of medicine.

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Create a core competence and use analogical thinking

The reason why BioNTech was able to produce a Covid-19 vaccine so quickly is because it had profound expertise in a unique technology. This technology allows it not only to create new ways of treating cancer, which is the field it was originally specialized in, but also to apply it for other medical problems. One of these other applications is the creation of vaccines.

The technology is inspired by the body itself. Through millions of years of evolution, the human body had developed unique capabilities to solve problems. DNA functions as the instruction manual to create messenger RNA molecules (mRNA). These are then used to create various types of proteins, the building blocks of life. This process serves as the basis of the human immune system’s ability to fight off viruses and other dangerous pathogens.

Long ago, some researchers had realized that if this process were to be replicated synthetically, you could turn the body into its own drug factory. The idea is simple. If you have the ability to create your own mRNA, then you can create any type of protein you want. These can be different types of enzymes, or antibodies for all kinds of viruses.

However, the problem was that in all the different early trials that were held to test this insight, the body rejected these synthetic mRNA molecules. Most scientists turned their back on the idea, and the few that were still working on it had a hard time getting funded. The breakthrough came when researchers Katalin Kariko and Drew Weissman replaced one of mRNA’s nucleosides with a tweaked version. With this change, the body no longer put up a barrier to these synthetic mRNAs.
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Step 1: Create a core competence

The paper describing this process came out in 2005. In the meanwhile, Sahin and Tureci were working in their first company, Ganymed. There, they focused on various types of more traditional treatments for cancer, but were quite interested in the promise that synthetic mRNA could bring. While the 2005 paper went mostly unnoticed in the wider scientific world, Sahin was one of the first to see its significance.

He realized that with its findings, he could finally fulfill his secret dreams. The couple decided to sell off their first firm to a Japanese company, and focus on the promise of this new technology in the treatment of cancer. When they founded BioNTech in 2008, the mRNA platform was to be what they based their research and products around.

BioNTech is an immunology company which has the synthetic mRNA platform as its core competence. A core competence is something that a company is really good at, and that gives it an advantage in the marketplace. In a cult article from 1990, business researchers C.K. Prahalad and Gary Hamel described how cultivating a core competence is crucial for success.

One example that they give is that of 3M, a company that was able to leverage their competence with sticky tape into a wide variety of products:

“Consider 3M’s competence with sticky tape. In dreaming up businesses as diverse as Post-it notes, magnetic tape, photographic film, pressure-sensitive tapes, and coated abrasives, the company has brought to bear widely shared competencies in substrates, coatings, and adhesives and devised various ways to combine them.”

BioNTech’s expertise in the mRNA platform gives it unique insights that it can utilize in the marketplace to roll out new types of treatments in different areas.

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Step 2: Use analogical thinking

The key to be able to use your core competence in a variety of contexts is analogical thinking. This was at the root of why Sahin was able to leverage his mRNA work to create a vaccine for Covid-19. The professor realized that his company’s mRNA platform could be adapted for a variety of fields. The work that BioNTech did to create anti-cancer mRNA drugs could be modified to create anti-viral vaccines with only a few tweaks.

The ability to use analogical thinking is what is behind the success of innovators such as Steve Jobs. The founder of Apple could see a toaster and use that as inspiration to create his computers. Larry Page and Sergey Brin used an analogy from their academic work (citations) to create the search engine that became Google. Every entrepreneur that wants to successfully grow their business needs to be able to master this type of thinking.

In an analogy you usually have two things that you are comparing: two systems. One that you know well, the source system. And another one where you want to apply this knowledge, the target system. The 3 things that you need to do is: map, apply, and learn. You take what you know in your source system and apply it in your target system.

Ugur Sahin had a good knowledge of using the mRNA platform for cancer. This was his source system. He noticed that something similar could be done for viral vaccines, the target system. What happened next was the mapping and application.

This wider application of a core technology then leads to a more generalized learning, which strengthens the core competence of the company. BioNTech is slowly acquiring the ability to rapidly apply its mRNA platform in different contexts, allowing it to develop a variety of different types of treatments for all kinds of diseases and other medical problems.

The creation of the Covid-19 vaccine serves as a successful proof of concept, which could mean an explosion of mRNA technologies appearing in disparate scenarios. According to Frank Rosa, who is the chief technology officer at another medical startup, the upside is huge:

“The potential for mRNA therapies is simply huge.“

BioNTech, with all its knowledge and experience is well placed to take advantage of these developments. All this due to the fact that it is learning to apply its core competence in different areas.

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Constant learning gives you a comparative advantage

In January 2020, Ugur was reading a scientific journal, when he came across an article that described the outbreak of some sort of an unknown disease in China. Scanning the news, he immediately knew what it meant. A global pandemic was coming. In the evening he told his wife, and they decided to re-orient the work of the company towards producing a vaccine.

This is the relative strength of Sahin. He loves reading, and he is constantly doing it. During his free time, his head is buried in scientific journals. However, he is not only reading, but always thinking about how he can apply what he reads to his work.

Many years before, coming across the findings of Katalin Kariko helped him improve his mRNA platform. He later even hired her for his company. Reading a medical study on the events in China early into the outbreak, allowed him to act fast. As they say, luck favors the prepared mind.

This constant quest for knowledge, and ability to see the applications of what he learns, give Ugur Sahin a visionary view for his company. This vision is what allowed him to grow his company so fast, even despite the fact that it was not making any money.

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Find a problem you want to solve

What makes it all easy for Sahin and his wife is that they found a problem that they want to solve, and they dedicated their life to it. Their company is just a by-product of this passion. It gives them a purpose, which creates their personal drive.

Sahin revealed in an interview that work for them is fun.

“We are thoroughbred scientists. We love our work, and we love talking about it. Work is never stress for us, something we try to catch a break from.”

This primary drive to create medical breakthroughs that would benefit humanity also gives Sahin and Tureci a different mindset. One that proved to be at the right place at the right time.

The thing about Sahin is that he isn’t really interested in the money. He does it for the research. As a young guy, he dedicated himself to solving the problem of cancer. The traditional therapies weren’t always working, and he set out on finding new, more effective ones.

Unfortunately, often the research that could be beneficial to the wider world, doesn’t make it out of the university laboratory. The bigger companies don’t pick it up. There is a disconnect between research and commercialization. Sahin knew that if he wanted to make a real difference, he would need to apply his research for real. That’s why he started his two companies.

Sahin saw a hole on the market. Based on the short-sighted strategies of the large players, he smelled that the time was right to bring in a new way of looking at things. The big pharma firms usually only focus on research that is guaranteed to rake in the big bucks.

When old incumbents become too focused on guarding their acquired rights, and not enough on innovating and going with the times, time is ripe for what business researcher Clayton Christensen called “disruptive innovations”. This is when a small, new market player comes in with a new way of doing things. This is exactly the case of BioNTech.

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Create the ability to test multiple ideas at the same time

In an interview with a German online magazine, Ozlem Tureci stated that you should always actively seek out situations where you fail. According to her:

“The search for innovation is an ongoing process of trial and error. We don’t just accept that as something that happens and from which we learn: We actively seek these situations. Basically, I believe that such an approach helps you in many areas not only to overcome setbacks, but to turn them into something positive.”

Only through failure will you learn what works and what doesn’t. This is the philosophy that Sahin and Tureci implemented at their company, and one that many wise philosophers have preached throughout the millennia.

The pandemic period really showed the strengths of the couple’s vision. In order to create the vaccine, Sahin created a project he dubbed “Lightspeed”. The goal was to develop a vaccine to the virus as soon as possible. They started off with 20 potential candidates, and narrowed it down to 5. These five they then tested more closely.

Their competitors usually proceed by selecting one candidate and working on it. By having a wider pool of potential candidates, Sahin’s company increased its chances of hitting one that works. This reflects on a fundamental way their company functions.

Early on into their entrepreneurial career, Sahin and Tureci realized that if you want to succeed, you need to hedge your bets. That’s how BioNTech is run. They deliberately built up the company’s ability to do that. This is also the strategy that they used in order to develop the vaccine.

Don’t put all your eggs in one basket, but instead you should have several tracks running. This creates the ability to test multiple ideas at the same time. This is a strategy that is implemented in different ways in various sectors. For example, website developers like to use A/B testing, where they test multiple versions of the website at the same time. They then pick the one that engages the visitors the most.

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Personalization leads to better solutions for customers (patients)

According to a report from the consulting firm McKinsey, the prime driver of success in marketing in the next five years will be personalization. The company Salesforce defines personalization as:

“Personalization is the act of tailoring an experience or communication based on information a company has learned about an individual.”

The trend for tailoring solutions to individuals is becoming stronger and stronger. At the beginning of the 21st century, when the internet was taking off, all the ads that you would come across were static. Everyone saw the same ads. However, marketers were starting to work on creating the advertiser “nirvana”, a world where everyone sees personalized ads, ones that are based on their own needs and preferences.

We live in such a world now. Many companies are working on customizing and personalizing experiences. While this trend has its positives and negatives for the internet, in medicine this is all positive. Sahin and Turekci founded BioNTech in order to offer personalized solutions to each patient.

They saw that each patient suffers differently from cancer. The normal treatments are all standardized, which means that they don’t always work effectively for all patients. However, if these treatments were personalized according to patient needs, then the success of recovery from diseases could drastically improve.

While most big pharma companies are concentrating on standard one-size-fits-all solutions, the married couple wanted to roll out personalized solutions. This was the unique vision that started their company. If this vision is achieved, it could lead to better treatments for patients.

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Find stable partners you trust

One important lesson that you can spot when looking at how Sahin and Tureci run their business is that they value trust. As a husband and wife, they have found the ideal situation to steer their company. However, this type of pattern can be found all throughout their business.

When they started their first company, Ganymed, their chief investors were a pair of brothers, the Strungmanns. When they founded their second company, it was once again the brothers that they turned to. This is a key lesson. Find stable partners that you trust.

They also created a strategic partnership with the giant pharmaceutical Pfizer. The idea is to combine the core competences of the two companies in a mutually beneficial partnership. BioNTech has the research and the technology, while Pfizer brings in the money, manufacturing ability, and legislative know-how.

This partnership with Pfizer was key for the rapid development of the vaccine. The cooperation between the two companies was set up really quickly, because they already have a long-standing relationship. One project that they had been cooperating on is the development of an influenza vaccine. While in most cases partnership agreements take a long time to negotiate, it took only one call from Sahin to his friend at Pfizer to set up the development of the Covid-19 vaccine.

It’s all about being consistent and persistent. You need to understand who the right people are, and then stick to them. This helps you to build structures much faster and without hiccups. These stable partnerships based on trust are a key pillar of BioNTech’s success.

These types of partnerships also buy you time. For Sahin, time is something that is more valuable than money.

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Keep in mind what you can and cannot control

Ancient wisdom is often the best wisdom, because it’s time tested. That’s why ancient philosophers like Epictetus still inspire people even two millennia after their death. The Stoic philosopher’s biggest lesson was to focus on what you can control, and don’t worry about the rest.

In her interview, Tureci echoed the ancient philosopher’s thoughts:

“A principle that repeatedly proves to be timeless for me here is to identify which things we really cannot change and to accept them. In return, however, the determination and the courage to concentrate on the things that are in our sphere of influence - it is often bigger than you first think.”

Keep in mind what you can and cannot control. The take-away is to focus on things that you can change. According to Tureci, this is often bigger than you first think. In another interview, Sahin elaborated a similar insight, and talked about a technique that he uses when trying to define the risks, and to convince investors.

“Show that this is what you know, and define the unknowns.”

Whether he is aware of it or not, Sahin applies the so-called Rumsfeld Matrix in his work. This tool comes from a famous remark that the then US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld uttered during the US invasion of Iraq in the early 2000’s. It has proven quite useful in project management. You define the known knowns, the known unknowns, and keep in mind that there are also the unknown unknowns. The last part is always the most dangerous.

Not knowing things is a standard part of any entrepreneurial journey. Sahin always reminds everyone that visionary products take time.

“In my first conversations with BioNTech investors, I told them this is not the usual type of company to invest in, because we will probably not have measurable results, at least in the sense of something that’s really great, within 10 years.”

For Sahin, it is crucial to be honest about the risks. Not only to the investors, but also to yourself. As another visionary, the legendary physicist Richard Feynman said, it is important not to fool yourself. You are usually the easiest person to fool. Always keep that in mind.

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How to apply

While there are some specificities that apply only in the pharma, biomedical, and life sciences sectors, many of the lessons from Sahin and Tureci can be used in the wider business world.

Here are some of the top business lessons from the entrepreneurial journey of the husband and wife team. Their work could stop the current pandemic, and maybe help revolutionize medical treatment in the future. All the while making the couple billions of dollars in the process.

Find a problem you want to solve.

Create a core competence and use analogical thinking.

Constant learning gives you a comparative advantage.

Create the ability to test multiple ideas at the same time.

Personalization leads to better solutions for customers.

Find stable partners you trust.

Keep in mind what you can and cannot control.

A shorter version of this article originally published on “Medium” here. The version above is longer and covers more points.

Credit: 1;