Lawrence A. Bock, an Encinitas biotech entrepreneur who founded the San Diego Science Festival and used it as a model to create the USA Science and Engineering Festival, has died of pancreatic cancer.

He was 56.

His death Wednesday was confirmed by USA Science and Engineering, the nation’s largest science festival. This year, the event drew more than 350,000 people. In a statement, the festival’s executive director, Marc Shulman, called Bock a “brilliant entrepreneur” and “passionate philanthropist.”

Bock was born Sept. 21, 1959, in Brooklyn, N.Y. A short time later, his family moved to Chappaqua, a hamlet in nearby Westchester County.

Bock earned a bachelor’s degree in biochemistry at Bowdoin College in Maine and a master’s in business administration from UCLA. His wife, Diane Bock, said he had wanted to go to medical school, but he didn’t get in. Instead, he took a job at biotech firm Genentech, which was then a startup. “He worked in the lab and very soon became interested in the business side of science,” she said.

Bock went on to found, advise or finance dozens of biotech companies, including Gen-Probe and Idec Pharmaceuticals. He also co-founded San Diego’s Illumina, which is now the world leader in technology for sequencing genes.

“Larry was one of the best venture capitalists I have ever known,” said Ivor Royston, a San Diego oncologist and managing member of Forward Ventures, a life-science venture capital company.

He said Bock also “was very concerned about the state of science and engineering education in schools. He wanted the nation to produce better scientists and to have them become more competitive throughout the world.”

That impulse led Bock to establish the San Diego Science Festival in 2009. It became an annual event that today is known as the San Diego Festival of Science and Engineering. Bock also founded the USA Science and Engineering Festival to promote science, technology, engineering and math education nationally.

He told the San Diego Union-Tribune in 2014: “As a society, we get what we celebrate. We celebrate athletes, pop stars and Hollywood actors and actresses, but we don’t celebrate science and engineering.” The festival aimed to correct that, he said.

His wife said he was proud of what the festival had become. It reflected his “love of science, entrepreneurship, jovial spirit, sense of adventure and his fondest hopes and dreams as a dad,” she said.

in addition to his wife, Bock is also survived by two daughters, Quincy Bock Stokes and Tasha Bock, and his mother, Uli Proctor of Sierra Madre.

Larry Bock was an inspiration to me. And like other leaders I have personally followed, it was a result of my first interaction with Larry Bock in 2012 that I now understand why Larry will be known throughout the scientific and business community as a legend. Larry's accomplishments were such that I became drawn into what inspired this man to start over 40 companies, and to use his biomedical science research background to become a serial, ultra successful entrepreneur. And the more I learned about Larry's background, the more I appreciated his achievements against the odds of his challenges, that most would call a disability. Over the past four years, I witnessed the building of his personal brand that defied the term disability, and memorialized his legacy as The Innovator with a Purpose.

I met Larry via telephone in 2012 before the first USA Science & Engineering Festival in Washington DC. And after our brief call, we would periodically text each other. Each text that came from Larry, was an encouragement hoping that I would get closer to scheduling the long awaited interview with Larry. An innovator starting up 40 companies, essentially a self made billionaire, was a real inspiration to a serial entrepreneur like myself who relishes in the joy and pain of "making payroll," and the highs and the lows of launching opportunities for job creation and wealth creation. One of the last text messages that I received from Larry back in February 2015 was an introduction to Marc Schulman, Larry's appointed Executive Director of the USA Festival, and like all information shared by Larry, I would, with a deliberate intent, follow up. The results of our followup led to our creation of "What Works" in STEM Education, and a website that is underway to help find out "What Works." Our goal is to ensure that best practices are replicated, and the most effective STEM educational experiences, are highlighted in order to help the nation produce more successful STEM prepared students, parents, and professionals, especially in communities of color. Teamed with The 100 Black Men of Greater Washington DC, The USA Science & Engineering Festival set out to find out if the 350,000 plus in attendees at the Festival that Larry Bock Founded "Worked" to inspire students to become STEM professionals, teachers to become more effective at teaching STEM, and parents to be more engaged in the life of their child's success.

It is our honor to share with our audience, excerpts from the Official Memorial Statement the USASEF used to dedicate a tribute to Larry's life. As for true legends, as Maya Angelou has said so poetically, "It's not what you say, but it's what you do, and how you make me feel that I remember." This to me, transcends truth to power and reflects Larry's accomplishments. The very concept of the Festival has inspired me to believe that we as a media outlet, can engage, educate, and empower others to want to become STEM contributors to our economy, and to our world. The Festival's desire to find out "What Works' by analyzing, and predicting outcomes that could help to revolutionize a standard, and bring forth evidence that Larry's concept of the Festival "Works."

"May this tribute to Larry Bock also be a reminder that it is people like Larry who may have had just a little (if not a lot) to do with young peoples, educators, and parent's interest in science, proficiency in technology, curiosity about engineering, and a love for math". Keith Moore-OGTV Founder.

Committed to Ventures, Access To Capital, and Commercialization

It should also be noted that my quest to follow Larry led me to travel to the Boston Museum of Science, a few weeks ago, as Larry was a supporter of this venture fund community. Not knowing anyone personally before attending, I met some amazing people who cared about community, and know how to raise capitol to grow companies, and Move America Forward, and so, our quest and our Work continues...thanks to some wonderful linkages from the Boston event.

It is our hope that OGTV will be able to work with organizations like Xconomy to honor Larry Bock, the Innovator With a Purpose, and establish solid grounds of common interest to stir innovation in America, and help America Move Forward. http://www.xconomy.com/boston/2016/06/24/influx-slides/ ]

More on The Life of Larry Bock (Excerpts from Marc Schulman-USASEF Executive Director on official Larry Bock Memorial Statement)

Larry Bock was the Founder and Principal of Science Spark, a 501(c)3 non-profit corporation, and was the founder of the USA Science & Engineering Festival which has attracted millions of participants after only 4 festivals. In 2008, Larry launched the San Diego Science Festival to educate and inspire our next generation to pursue STEM careers. Today, that original vision has grown into the nation’s largest science festival in Washington, D.C., and an organization with a global impact on STEM education—a testimony to Larry’s enduring impact on the future of discovery and innovation!

Larry was actively involved in Science Spark and the Festival until the very end, and his vision, dedication, and mostly his humor and support of this work, will be sincerely missed. We extend our deepest condolences to his beloved family – his wife, Diane, and his daughters, Tasha and Quincy (and Quincy’s husband, John) and his service dog, Tripp. Larry’s blindness was not normally evident to the people he worked with. The pride that Larry took in his many professional achievements was surpassed only by his pride in his two daughters, the ultimate expression of his joie de vivre. The “Festival Family” the Bock’s have created owes a lifetime of gratitude for the millions of young students their festival has inspired. In addition to his work with Science Spark, Larry was a serial entrepreneur who founded, co-founded or financed the early stage growth of 40 companies from inception to an aggregate market capitalization of $70 Billion. Mr. Bock was a General Partner of CW Ventures, a 100M life sciences venture capital fund, and a Special Limited Partner to Lux Capital, a 100M nanotechnology-focused venture capital fund. Prior to that, he spent nine years as a partner at Avalon Ventures with his friend, Kevin Kinsella. He was a Member of the Board of Directors of FEI Corporation (NASDAQ: FEIC), the leading supplier of tools for nanotechnology research.

Mr. Bock started his career as a Researcher in the early days at Genentech, Inc. in the field of infectious diseases, where he was on the team that received the AAAS Newcomb Cleveland Prize for demonstrating the world’s first recombinant DNA vaccine. His most recent venture, Aira, a visual services company for the blind in which he co-founded. He was a Venture Capital Associate with Fairfield Ventures (now Oxford Bioventures)

He has received several awards and honors. Mr. Bock was selected as by the US Commission for UNESCO as the nominee representing the United States of America in the international competition for the 2011 Kalinga Prize for the Popularization of Science. He was a recipient of the Hoyt S. Vandenberg Prize from the Air Force Association for the best STEM Education Program and also of the 2014 Viktor Hamburger Outstanding Educator Prize of the Society of Developmental Biology. He was selected by Venture Capital Journal as one of the “Ten Most Influential Venture Capitalists,” by Red Herring as one of the “Top Ten Innovators,” by Forbes-Wolfe NanoReport as the “Number One Powerbroker in Nanotechnology,” by Ernst & Young as a Finalist for “Entrepreneur of the Year,” and by Small Times as “Innovator of the Year” and “Top 3 Business Leaders of the Year.” He received the Einstein Award by the Jerusalem Foundation for lifetime contributions in the field of life sciences. He was one of a dozen individuals invited to the signing of the 3.7B 21st Century Nanotechnology Act by President George Bush in the Oval Office.

Mr. Bock was the Founder and Initial CEO of Neurocrine Biosciences (NASDAQ: NBIX – neuroimmunology), Nanosys Inc., Pharmacopeia (NASDAQ: PCOP - combinatorial chemistry (which spun off Accelrys (NASDAQ: ACCL – computer-aided-drug and material discovery)), GenPharm International (Private – transgenic animals, acquired by Medarex for 100M and also spun off Pharming Group N.V.), Caliper Technologies (NASDAQ: CALP – lab-on-a-chip and subsequently acquired by Perkin Elmer for $650 Million), Illumina Technologies (NASDAQ: ILMN – human genotyping), IDUN Pharmaceuticals (Private – apoptosis, acquired by Pfizer (NYSE: PFE) for 250M)) Metra Biosystems (NASDAQ: MTRA – musculoskeletal disease diagnosis, merged with Quidel (NASDAQ: QDEL)), and FASTTRACK Systems (Private – accelerated clinical drug development). Mr. Bock was a co-founder of Argonaut Technologies (NASDAQ: AGNT – automated chemistry merged with Biotope (NASDAQ: BIOT)), ARIAD Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: ARIA – intra cellular signal transduction), Athena Neurosciences (NASDAQ: ATHN – molecular neurobiology, acquired by Elan Pharmaceuticals (NYSE: ELN) for 700M)), Vertex Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: VRTX – rational drug design), and Onyx Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: ONXX – molecular oncology). He also helped found and was previously on the Scientific Advisory Board of Conforma Therapeutics (Private – cellular chaperones – acquired by Pfizer for 250M).

Mr Bock was a seed stage investor in Acceleron Pharma (Private – metabolic and musculoskeletal diseases), Aurora Biosciences (NASDAQ: ABSC – high throughput drug discovery, acquired by Vertex Pharmaceuticals for 650M), Cambrios (Priviae – biology directed electronic assembly), River Medical (Private – drug delivery, purchased IVAC from Eli Lily in an LBO and did a 700M merger with IMED to form Alaris Medical (NASDAQ: AMI – medical devices)), Genocea Biosciences (Private – vaccine development) Plexikon Pharmaceuticals (Private – scaffold based drug design which was acquired by Daiihi Sankyo for $800 M) Poland Partners (Private - a 62.5M venture capital fund investing in Central Europe), Sequana Therapeutics (NASDAQ: SQNA - genomics, merged with Arris Pharmaceuticals to form AXYS Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: AXPH) and subsequently acquired by Celera Genomics (NASDAQ: CRA)), Sirtris Pharmaceuticals (Private – gene regulation), Software Transformation (Private – object based software programming, acquired by Novell (NASDAQ: NOVL) for 25M), Surface Logix (Private – nano- imprint lithography), and Talarian (NASDAQ: TALR – real time, high content information processing over distributed networks merged with TIBCO (NASDAQ: TIBX)). He is also was previously on the Scientific Advisory Board of Protia L.L.C.

Larry was also an early stage venture investor in Biosym Technologies (Private – computer-aided-drug discovery – acquired by Corning (NYSE: GLW) for $250M. Gen- Probe (NASDAQ: GNPR – DNA diagnostics, acquired by Chugai Pharmaceuticals for 180M), Gensia Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: GNSA – cardiovascular drugs, merged with Sicor to become Gensia-Sicor and subsequently acquired by TEVA Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: TEVA)), IDEC Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: IDEC – monoclonal antibody therapy, merged with Biogen to become Biogen Idec (NASDAQ: BIIB)), Oclassen Pharmaceuticals (Private - dermatology, acquired by Watson Pharmaceuticals (NYSE: WPI) for 180M), and Viagene (Private – gene therapy, acquired by [Chiron Corporation] for 100M).

OGTV Asks That You Step In The Ring, and Do The Right Thing in 2016, and support the work of innovation, and the legacy of Larry Bock. Thank you Marc Schulman. You have stepped into some very large shoes. As author of Steppin In The Ring, know that you know that OGTV and Our Team Approach, will be there to support you, the USASEF Team, and collaboratively we will find out "What Works" in STEM Education.

OpenGovTV.com is multi-platform web site featuring resources, news, experts on STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) and analysis of the global impact on education, politics, and business. OGTV possesses the technical know-how, content expertise to deliver customized solutions for minority institutions (HBCU's) (MSI). OGTV’s media marketing firm is a leader in connecting enterprising programs and entrepreneurs to federal programs on STEM.

As the U.S. enters into its first full-scale international conflict in more than a decade, military technology has taken front stage. Technology often causes titanic shifts in military strategy. The atomic bomb rewrote the rules of military engagement. The last Gulf War used technology to eliminate some of the need for massive use of ground troops and saved thousands of lives, according to William Schneider William Schneider , chairman of the Defense Science Board under Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld Donald Rumsfeld .

Most combat technologies likely to be showcased in Iraq are already in the arsenal, but today the U.S. is financing the development of more-advanced military technologies to deal with future threats. "After 9/11, there was an intensified interest and availability of resources to address the military transformation for the 21st century," says Schneider.

The Department of Defense is not your average customer. With a 2003 budget of $379 billion, its buying power is massive. The Defense Science Board recently compiled a study for the DoD that highlighted nanotechnology as one of the six technology areas earmarked for big money. It regularly briefs Rumsfeld, and Schneider says Rumsfeld is well aware of what nanotech can do.

After the National Science Foundation, the DoD is the largest supporter of nanotech research. As part of the National Nanotechnology Initiative's $710 million 2003 budget, the DoD is committing $201 million for research in nanoelectronics, magnetics, nanomaterials by design, and detection and protection against chemical, biological, radiological and explosive threats.

This is an old pattern repeated: Military needs often bankroll commercial technologies. Computers grew out of a need for more effective weaponry. The DoD's need for advanced electronics and communications financed the development of and created the first markets for semiconductors (the Minuteman program) and the Internet (redundant communications network in case of nuclear war).

Schneider anticipates the military will adopt a larger presence in driving tech development in the coming years. It will pick up some of the slack left as corporations retrench and clip research and development.

One trend in the military that has grown more prevalent since the Gulf War is modern technology's ability to reduce the need for troop presence. Defense leaders are optimistic about the prospect of nanosensors being deployed in combat. These nano-enabled sensors will be extraordinarily precise, incredibly tiny and lightweight. Satellites and J-Star radar systems in 707 planes are part of the solution, but tiny, mobile and cheap sensors that can detect enemy troop movements will fill in the blanks. "Nanoscale sensors have the potential to dispel the fog of war," says Schneider. "Richness in sensors allows commanders to have a complete picture of the tactical battlefield."

The ability of the nanosensors to detect the presence of single molecules of selected substances will be most relevant to homeland defense and combat against foes like Iraq. Many companies have moved into the sensor market to work on biological and chemical warfare protection. Companies like Cepheid and Ibis Therapeutics are moving down from the micro-scale to identify chemical and biological threats.

In May, the Army gave Cepheid a $3.4 million contract to develop reagents for detection of biothreats and other pathogens. Meanwhile, some of the nanoscale approaches to chemical and biological threats from university-based nanotech research are gaining steam. Last month, Chad Mirkin 's Northwestern spinoff Nanosphere entered into a development contract with the U.S. Government Technical Support Working Group to use Nanosphere's proprietary biomolecular detection system (using gold nanoparticles) for detection of biological warfare agents like anthrax. Charles Lieber 's Harvard spinout Nanosys anticipates having a commercial nano-enabled sensor product within the next three years.

Companies are also working to protect soldiers through the destruction or neutralization of chemical and biological agents. James Baker 's University of Michigan spinoff NanoBio created a white, creamy liquid substance called NanoProtect. It can be sprayed or rubbed on equipment, clothing and people that have been exposed to biological agents, including anthrax and smallpox. A five-year, $11.8 million Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency grant funded Baker's research that resulted in NanoProtect.

Kansas State researcher Kenneth Klabunde reported in August that his magnesium oxide nanoparticles were able to kill bacteria in less than five minutes. Klabunde is now targeting biological agents like E. coli and anthrax. The solid nanoparticles can be placed in air filtration units or sprayed as a powder. His Kansas State spinout NanoScale Materials plans to register the magnesium oxide as a biocide with the EPA and build a factory to mass-produce the nanoparticles. NanoScale was founded in 1995 with a grant from the U.S. Army Research Office, which wanted to use its nanocrystals to adsorb and destroy chemical warfare agents.

Nanotech will also be used to protect the military's most precious asset: the human soldier. Researchers are currently working on embedding nanosensors into ultra-strong and lightweight nanomaterials for the military uniforms of the future at MIT's new Institute of Solider Nanotechnologies. The Army awarded $50 million to the ISN in April as part of the "Objective Force Warrior" program, which seeks to develop "a lightweight, overwhelmingly lethal, fully integrated individual combat system."

"The uniforms we have today are not so different from the ones we had in Vietnam, which are not so different from the ones in Custer's day," says Ned Thomas Ned Thomas , MIT materials science professor and director of the ISN. MIT is hoping to develop flexible bullet-proof battle armor that can not only reject or filter out chemical agents and toxins, but also weigh less than the average 120 pounds of equipment that today's special forces carry on a three-day mission. The ISN breaks its nanotech efforts into three areas of focus: protection (against bioweapons and gunshots), performance enhancement (helping to lift heavy objects) and injury intervention and cure. All the projects are predicated on nanoscale approaches.

The ISN is a huge undertaking, staffed by 150 researchers, including 35 MIT faculty members from eight different departments. MIT also selected several industrial partners to staff the ISN with their own researchers in a bid to bring the nanotech research closer to a reality. DuPont brings years of experience in fibers and polymer materials. Raytheon will handle systems integration. The ISN's budget is $10 million per year over the next 5 years, and it will be moving into a brand-new 28,000-square-foot facility this spring.

One particularly exciting ISN project is a collaboration between MIT chemist Tim Swager and mechanical engineer Ian Hunter Ian Hunter . They turned an electroactive polymer into an actuator so that the material could change to exert force with an electrical signal, basically creating an exomuscle. The project has shown great progress: Right now, the synthetic muscle is close to the capabilities of human muscle. "The materials become dynamic," says Thomas. "Flexible, then rigid on command. This tickles the generals." Imagine, if a soldier is in battle and happens to break his leg, the nanomaterial could stiffen to form a hardened material that immobilizes the leg like a cast. Or if a soldier was shot in the arm and blood loss was a dire concern, the material could tighten and constrict blood flow around the wound to form a tourniquet. The potential exists for such a system to provide a soldier with superhuman strength.

The uniforms of the future could also use nanoscale sensors to detect soldiers' physiological signs, monitoring heart rate, blood pressure, levels of hydration and chemical signs of stress. Military commanders could conceivably use the sensors to identify the most alert and battle-ready soldiers to serve as the mission's point people.

But do not confuse the ISN with pure blue-sky research. The 35 ISN faculty members have started a total of 30 companies among them. The government expects to see a multitude of commercial spinoffs from all of the DoD's spending. The DoD's sensor funding can be expected to bear fruit for the medical services industry, as advanced remote physiological sensing and monitoring could have an enormous impact on home monitoring in the nursing industry. In the process, it could lead to better at-home care for seniors, cutting health care costs.

While sensors may be the first step in nanoelectronics, U.S. Army Research's Henry Everitt Henry Everitt says that over the long term, quantum computing will leave a vast footprint on national security and military conflict. If practical, development of a quantum computer could create a supercomputer with a billion-fold increase in performance. It would gain enormous processing power through the ability of quantum systems (such as a collection of atoms) to be in many different states at once. In theory, this would allow the computer to perform many different computations simultaneously at a much quicker rate than conventional computers.

Quantum computing would be especially useful for code breaking. "All conventional encryption would be vulnerable with quantum computing," says Everitt. "We could protect against another 9/11 because we could break all codes and read all messages." However, he says that a quantum computer will not be developed this decade. While the timetables for many of nanotech's defense applications exceed ten years, some research will reach the commercial market in the near term. "Our intentions are not to work for 20 years on the battle suit and then unveil it," says MIT's Thomas. "We're hoping to deliver some surprises and grab some low-hanging fruit." Everitt concludes: "Nanotech will be pervasive in the military of the future. It has to be."

When it came time to invite a representative company to attend President Bush's signing of a bill last December authorizing $3.7 billion in federal spending on nanotechnology over the next four years, a three-year-old Silicon Valley company named Nanosys got the call.

It is easy to see why. Painstakingly assembled by experienced entrepreneurs, famous academic researchers and big-name venture capitalists who know how to dazzle Wall Street, Nanosys is the epitome of a start-up shooting for business glory.

It brandishes a portfolio of impressive patents, covering processes like ways to make wires one ten-thousandth the thickness of a human hair, and is pursuing research projects that could affect consumer electronics, energy and communications.

But for all its glamour and promise, Nanosys does not expect to sell products commercially until 2006. For actual sales and profits, one needs to look to a more prosaic company, Nanofilm, a developer of optical coatings that is based in an industrial park in Valley View, Ohio, outside of Cleveland. It has been profitable since 2001.

''We're the quiet company,'' said Scott E. Rickert, a 51-year-old former chemistry professor at Case Western University who has been president of Nanofilm since he founded the company in 1983.

While Nanosys represents the aspirations of many of the 400 to 500 nanotechnology ventures that analysts say have sprung up in recent years, Nanofilm's story may actually be more relevant to the start-ups in the field struggling to survive. Together, the two companies show the diversity of the nanotechnology business landscape and some of the uncertainties it holds for investors.

Nanotechnology, a term based on the nanometer, which is one-billionth of a meter, has attracted investment not only from privately held start-ups, but also from giants like I.B.M., General Electric and DuPont, which are eager to exploit the potentially valuable properties of materials so small that their dimensions can be measured in molecules. The federal government estimates that nanotechnology, a catch-all label for products and processes that operate on the molecular scale, will have a $1 trillion economic impact by 2015.

It may take that long to sort out the business models best suited to thrive in the nascent field.

Nanosys, based in Palo Alto, Calif., offers a model that is particularly compelling to Wall Street. Its neighborhood is home to Hewlett-Packard, Stanford University and some of Silicon Valley's most prestigious law firms and venture capitalists -- the entrepreneur's equivalent of beachfront property. Its scientific advisory board includes luminaries like [Dr. Charles M. Lieber (born 1959)] of Harvard, a leader in research on how to build nanoscale wires, and [Dr. Armand Paul Alivisatos (born 1959)], a chemist at the University of California at Berkeley whose research helped found the Quantum Dot Corporation, a start-up company that makes crystalline nanoscale tags that are used in the study of cell behavior.

[Nanosys]'s chief architect and chairman, [Lawrence Alan Bock (born 1959)], 45, was already well known as a biotechnology entrepreneur and, by his description, was semiretired when he became interested in nanotechnology in 2000. ''I had done reasonably well in biotech,'' he said, summing up his track record involving 14 start-ups, with 12 of them going public or sold to other companies for a total of more than $1 billion.

Dr. Rickert of Nanofilm, by contrast, had no business experience and, he soon discovered, no ability to attract investment from venture capitalists when he formed his company. Instead of having wide-ranging patents from leading university laboratories, he had only his own idea for a new, unusually rapid way to make ultrathin, superrepellent coatings for glass, plastic and metal surfaces.

When he changed his company's name to Nanofilm from Flexicrystal in 1985, the ''nano'' prefix had none of the allure it had when Nanosys was started in 2001. Outside molecular research circles, the name conjured up little except ''nanu-nanu,'' the way Robin Williams's goofy alien on the television show ''Mork and Mindy'' said goodbye.

''I got a lot of grief,'' Dr. Rickert said in an interview at the company's headquarters.

[Lawrence Alan Bock (born 1959)]'s track record, the growing interest in nanotechnology in the late 1990's, and his strategic approach produced a much different reception for Nanosys. He tells visitors he spoke to 1,000 researchers over an 18-month period before he and his co-founders, Calvin Y.H. Chow and Steven Empedocles, settled on a name, business plan and financial structure for Nanosys.

Nanosys's initial goal is to use its expertise in nanoscale silicon structures and related inorganic materials to build sensors and other simple products that its business partners would manufacture. In time, it hopes those efforts can become the foundation for more complicated devices like silicon solar panels, powerful memory chips and thin films for flexible electronic displays.

In essence, the company is creating a miniportfolio of nanotechnology bets that will allow it to pick out the most promising areas as some fall by the wayside and others arise. Nanosys has raised $55 million from venture capitalists like Venrock Associates, the venture arm of the Rockefeller family, and smaller firms like Lux Capital and Harris & Harris that are specializing in nanotechnology and related areas.

Nanosys has also raised more than $15 million from government research grants and deals with business development partners like DuPont, Intel, Matsushita Electric Works and In-Q-Tel, the Central Intelligence Agency's investment arm. Strategic alliances with big businesses are fraught with dangers for small companies, but one thing Nanosys and Nanofilm have in common is the belief that they will need such relationships to turn the new technology into profits.

With Nanosys's second round of financing, which brought in $15.5 million in 2002, it far surpassed the total invested in Nanofilm over its entire existence. Nanofilm started with capital gathered from a small group of individual investors led by Donald McClusky, who had recently retired as vice chairman of Goodyear when Dr. Rickert set out to commercialize his thin-film technology.

Dr. Rickert and Mr. McClusky managed to raise $1 million from friends and family by 1988. That supported enough development work for Dr. Rickert to persuade LensCrafters in 1989 to pay Nanofilm to build two 1.5-ton robots to put its high-strength, protective nanocoating on premium eyeglasses. LensCrafters also agreed to pay a $4 royalty for every pair of glasses sold. Nanofilm became profitable the following year.

But Dr. Rickert's reliance on his relationship with LensCrafters backfired in 1991 when the Persian Gulf war broke out, the economy slumped and LensCrafters decided to shut its manufacturing in favor of outsourcing its production. Nanofilm shrank from 17 employees to 5. Dr. Rickert eliminated his salary and the others were cut to 65 percent.

''We nearly went bankrupt,'' Dr. Rickert said. The company survived only because a lens-cleaning solution it had developed turned out to be popular with opticians and grew into a profitable line of products under the Clarity brand name.

Today, Nanofilm's films use nanostructured properties to keep rain off binoculars, preserve the shine on expensive faucets and protect display screens on A.T.M.'s and laptop computers. Other films from the company resist fogging or are scratch resistant.

''The company we are most like is International Flavors and Fragrances,'' said Dr. Rickert, referring to the world's largest producer of food flavorings and scents for household products and cosmetics. ''We sell very small quantities of our materials at high prices. I can do it anywhere in the world with just a few people.'' In fact, Nanofilm has become a multinational with a small sales and distribution outpost in the Netherlands.

Later this year, Nanofilm will distribute its first consumer product for the auto market -- an antistreaking windshield coating that mimics the nanoscale structures on the surface of lotus leaves that repel dirt. A couple of drums of the material's active compound could be made in a month's time and would be enough to treat every windshield in the world, Dr. Rickert said.

When a raindrop or a bug hits the coating, which is intended to be applied once a year, the pressure melts the surface molecules for an instant, causing anything on the surface to slip away, Dr. Rickert said. But ''it's not perfect,'' he said, noting that because of its electrical characteristics, the film attracts some dust.

Still, such innovations have kept Nanofilm growing and, since 2001, steadily profitable. Revenues topped $15 million last year, Dr. Rickert said. The company began paying dividends to its 40 investors in 2001 and now has 65 employees.

Nanofilm's ambitions, though modest compared with those of Nanosys, are expanding. Dr. Rickert said his goals included increasing revenues to $30 million to $50 million over the next five years.

If Nanofilm hits an area of research that requires a huge, rapid investment with potentially high returns, the company might try to spin that project off into a company backed by venture capital, he said.

Dr. Rickert, however, does not want to expose Nanofilm to venture capitalists and investment bankers who might be impatient for growth and might push to sell the company or take it public. Instead, he said, Nanofilm will borrow money when necessary and continue to pursue joint development agreements with major customers, like its four-year-old partnership with Carl Zeiss Inc., the American subsidiary of the German high-performance optics company.

''We're on an exponential growth curve,'' Dr. Rickert said. ''We feel like it's our decade but it's on our schedule.''

Such caution and focus provide no guarantee against losses. But Nanofilm's approach does prove that profits can be made in nanotechnology.

If the field is to become an important economic engine, in all likelihood there will have to be hundreds of small companies like Nanofilm exploiting different niches.

Whether those smaller companies will be operating in the shadow of a successful giant called Nanosys -- or reminiscing about how sweeping ambitions could not save a well-financed, well-placed start-up -- is harder to predict.

Correction: March 18, 2004, Thursday An article in Business Day on Monday about start-ups in the field of nanotechnology misidentified the former employer of Donald McClusky, who led a small group of investors in a company called Nanofilm. He retired as vice chairman of B. F. Goodrich, not Goodyear.

• JONES: What I would really like to do is record a biography. Your story from the 1 beginning. Let's go back to the very beginning. Where were you born? 2

• BOCK: I was born in Brooklyn, New York. I grew up most of my life in Chappaqua, 3 New York, the suburb of New York City. It's where the Clintons now live. I went to 4 college in Maine. 5

• JONES: Let me ask you a little bit about your family and growing up. Did you have 6 siblings? 7

• BOCK: I had one brother and – one brother and two parents. [Laughs] I actually got 8 introduced to the biotech industry by my father who was an early stockbroker in the 9 field. 10

• JONES: Who was he with? 11

• BOCK: He was with multiple different firms, but probably at the time, it was mostly 12 in the biotech area, Bear Stearns. 13

• JONES: So he's in finance and your mother – did she work or was she a homemaker? 14

• BOCK: She was a professional chef. She was the chef for Carroll O'Connor, Archie's 15 Bunker's restaurant. 16

• JONES: In New York? 17

• BOCK: In New York, but when I was a freshman in college, they moved out to 18 California. She moved out to Beverly Hills to open up a restaurant in Los Angeles and 19 I continued to go to college in Maine, but then afterwards, moved out to California. 20

• JONES: Well, growing up, your father is in finance, the family is pretty well to do; you 21 have opportunities – 22

• BOCK: My father was a stockbroker up and down, up and down. He lived for the 23 moment. And so it was either boom or bust. 24

• JONES: Were you a good student? 25

• BOCK: I was a good student. I was a straight-A student and went to college. Actually, 26 I didn't get into the colleges that I was hoping for. 27

• JONES: So was this Harvard, Yale, Princeton – 28

• BOCK: Yes – or Amherst, Williams, the small liberal arts college. I got into one on 29 the waiting list and ended up going there. 30

• JONES: Well, Bowdoin is a good place. 31

• BOCK: Yes. In fact, there's kind of a funny story. I had a friend who used to play jokes 32 on me. He had his sister pretend she was someone else and ask me out to the prom. 33 The next day I went to school, thinking this girl asked me out to the prom and I 34 looked like a fool. And then fast forward, about three months, I was on the waiting 35 list for Bowdoin and I got a phone call that night from a lady and who says: "Oh, you 36 cleared the waiting list." Oh, it's him playing the same joke. So I cursed her out and 37 found out it was really the lady from Bowdoin. 38

• JONES: And you majored in biochemistry. Had you developed an interest in science 39 prior to this? 40

• BOCK: Yes, I was always interested in science. 41

• JONES: Where did that come from? Your dad is a stockbroker. Did he have any –? 42

• BOCK: Actually, it probably came from high school. I went to a pretty innovative 43 high school and we got to do things you could not do in a science class these days: 44 anesthetize rats, perform surgeries, bring them back, do all sorts of experiments on 45 them. So it just really intrigued me. I was headed down the medical school route, but 46 didn't get into medical school. And that was when I was searching for what I was 47 going to do next and I landed a job at Genentech. 48

• JONES: Did you get any kind of pressure to go to medical school? I don't know if 49 pressure is the right word, but I guess there's an expectation at home that you would 50 succeed professionally. 51

• BOCK: Yes. 52

• JONES: That was just kind of assumed. Did you see medical school as a way of 53 accomplishing that? 54

• BOCK: I actually was really interested in medicine and did a lot of voluntary work, 55 working with mentally challenged kids and stuff and really loved that. I had straight 56 A's through high school and college and had all the right background. So I was kind 57 of floored when I didn't get in. But in retrospect, God kind of had his hand on my 58 shoulder in getting this job at Genentech. 59

• JONES: Right, especially – what was the year? 60

• BOCK: It was 1981. 61

• JONES: Okay. So that's really early on. You are in Bowdoin on the East Coast. There's 62 no real logical connection to that next step, Genentech. 63

• BOCK: Through my father. So my father interestingly was a stockbroker and he was 64 doing a lot of the trading in a lot of these biotech stocks. One day he took me to his 65 office to meet this guy that he thought was really interesting and that I should meet: [David Abraham Blech (born 1955)]. He said, "Hey, this guy is a music major and he started up several of 67 these biotech companies. Why don't you do that?" And I said, "Well, I don't really 68 have the background to do that." He said, "Well, this guy is a music major." I met 69 David Blech that day in his office. I had just started thinking about what I was going 70 to do next. So I went after the various jobs of what some of the leading biotech 71 companies at that time. 72

• JONES: So David Blech made a good impression on you?

• BOCK: He did. He's incredibly creative. I think the biggest impression was that he must have been in his early 30s or even late 20s at that time. He had a couple of 100 million dollars to his name. He left the office with my dad and then he came back about 20 minutes later because he forgot to validate his parking ticket. [Laughs]

• JONES: Well, that's in 1981. He must have just started [Genetic Systems Corporation] Genetic Systems.

• BOCK: Yes.

• JONES: And so it was brand new.

• BOCK: Yes, I think at that time, he had Genetic Systems, and one other, maybe BTG.

• JONES: So did you do a little research into what was out there? 82

• BOCK: Yes. I started applying to the various biotech companies and I applied to 83 Genentech. I got rejected about three times before they took me as a research 84 associate. I worked there for approximately three years. 85

• JONES: Well, I would like to hear about Genentech, but were there other firms that 86 you looked at? 87

• BOCK: I applied to Amgen. I applied to – I think it was Codon. It was the one started 88 up by the ex-Genentech founders, one of the early Genentech guys, right by 89 Genentech. 90

• JONES: Oh, was it called Codon? 91

• BOCK: Not Codon. Not Cetus [either]. I did apply to Cetus as well. 92

• JONES: There's a small company that I think Sharon Carlock was the person and the 93 manufacturing guy from Genentech started – 94

• BOCK: Yes, exactly, and it was right there in South City. In fact, they rented an old 95 Genentech building in the process. 96

• JONES: So you talked to them. 97

• BOCK: I talked to them. Then I talked to a lot of academic-type genetic engineering 98 type jobs, but I really wanted to be in a small company. I went up to Genentech. I can 99 remember the first interview, sitting in the lobby and it was this warehouse kind of 100 building. I didn't really know what to expect while waiting for my interview, I heard 101 over the loud speaker – the employees had access to the PA system – and they were 102 broadcasting messages like "Kirk to enterprise," [laughter] over the general PA 103 system. I go, "What a fun place. I really want to work here." 104

• JONES: Yeah, the culture was famed, wasn't it? 105

• BOCK: It was. It was just an amazing. I can't remember what the average age was, but 106 it seemed like it was under 28 and they were all goofy, funny people and it was this 107 environment where you felt like you wanted to work all day. I spent hours and hours 108 a day there, but I never thought I was working. 109

• JONES: So the flip side of the fun part is – and I talked to David Goeddel about this – 110 you know they're really driven and focused and get it right. And it was really 111 important to be good. 112

• BOCK: To be good and competitive, they created this culture within the company 113 where different groups were working on the same project. They were literally 114 competing with each other, which is an odd thing. You think that they would be 115 working together, but I think it ended up being an effective strategy. That's the good 116 news. The bad news is that there was some dysfunctionality in that projects would 117 wax and wane in popularity. Genentech probably gave up on some real interesting 118 programs because they hit some technological snafu. 119

• JONES: Can you remember any examples? 120

• BOCK: I worked in a group that worked on a lot of the blood, plasminogen activator 121 and things like that. So urokinase plasminogen activators were always kind of waxing 122 and waning. EPO, I remember days when EPO was a project that we were working 123 on, but Amgen got way ahead and I can even remember days when they had a chance 124 to license EPO from Amgen for probably a dime. 125

• JONES: Really? Amgen was ready to give up on it? 126

• BOCK: Well, not ready to give up. They were strapped for cash, too, and Genentech 127 could have been their partner in the process. I was working in a program in the 128 vaccine group that waxed and waned many times. So we were both doing animal and 129 human vaccines, but with hepatitis B. We were competing with Chiron on that and 130 they obviously succeeded. We were doing all these animal vaccines and they were 131 interested in animal vaccines. I don't know all the details of it, but Genentech had a 132 lot of dumb luck in the process. One of which was, as I recall, right at the key point 133 with hGH. Some kids came down with the Jakob-Creutzfeldt syndrome from the bovine derived form. If that had not happened, Genentech might not have been the 135 company it is today. 136

• JONES: That's interesting. You mentioned urokinase. Was urokinase already a 137 product? 138

• BOCK: While I was there, they were all research projects. I think I left right as tPA 139 was being approved. Urokinase had even dropped down as a not a major program. 140

• JONES: So you arrived at this point in your career. You're just getting started. You’re 141 working hard at the science. Is it your plan to be an industrial scientist? 142

• BOCK: I thought about reapplying to medical school, which I did, but partially 143 through that whole David Blech thing, I ended up applying to business school. With 144 science you have to be really good with your hands, particularly back then because 145 you are washing glass plates and pouring agar in them. It was an art as much as a 146 science. I was good at certain things, but not great at all things. I decided to go down 147 the business route. 148

• JONES: I'd be interested in to hear just a bit more about some of the projects that you 149 worked on at Genentech. When you arrived, who did you talk to when you first got 150 there? Who interviewed you? 151

• BOCK: Dennis Kleid was probably the main person. I worked for a scientist named 152 Steve Shire, who reported up to Dennis Kleid, up to and another guy named Jackal 153 Bijeski. Dennis was an early founder of the company and most of the programs that 154 we were involved in were his sort of his vision, so a lot of the animal vaccines. I 155 predominantly worked on foot-and-mouth disease at the company. 156

• JONES: How did that go? When you first walked into the lab, what did they have you 157 do? 158

• BOCK: I was a protein chemist. They had just gone to Plum Island, which was the 159 only place where you were allowed to work on foot-and-mouth disease and take 160 various fragments of the foot-and-mouth disease. 161

• JONES: So you took it back? 162

• BOCK: They did, but they had to take it to pieces. There was a lot of fear about 163 taking anything off of Plum Island. So that's right about the time I arrived when there 164 were dozens of subtypes of foot and-mouth disease. So we were working on the first 165 one and I was in the group that was responsible for purifying it from E. coli and then 166 getting it ready for injection into cattle. Well, first into rats just to see if it raised a 167 tiger and then into cattle. And then that early work was one of the first vaccine 168 projects that ended up winning the science magazines, Newcomb Cleveland Prize. 169

• JONES: Is that after you cloned it? 170

• BOCK: It had gone from cloning it to purifying it to injecting it into cattle and 171 shoving it with protective in cattle, but that was what the science paper was about. So 172 I wasn't responsible for all of those. I was responsible for just a small part of that. 173

• JONES: From there, you're still working with Dennis Kleid and the next thing? 174

• BOCK: Yes, at Genentech, you're kind of pulled from project to project depending on 175 need. I remember one point they were working on bovine growth hormone and it was 176 right around Christmas when they hit a milestone from what I believe was Monsanto 177 for like a million dollar payment and everybody had to stay there for basically all of 178 Christmas to purify enough of this bovine growth hormone. They were supposed to 179 get a milligram of it in order to be able to hit the milestone payment. So you are 180 pulled from project to project. And I was a researcher associate. I wasn't a senior 181 scientist or anything. I was pretty low down. 182

• JONES: Right. But it was enjoyable? 183

• BOCK: Oh loved it, truly loved it. Best job I've ever had. 184

• JONES: And at some point, you start thinking about med school, but are you paying 185 attention to the business aspects? 186

• BOCK: Not a lot, but a young person, if somebody says "go think about business 187 school," "I don't know about business school." 188

• JONES: Who said it? 189

• BOCK: Probably my dad. And I applied to a number of business schools. I got into 190 UCLA. I didn't get into some of the others. And went there. They had a program between your summer of your first and second year to become a venture capital 192 fellow where you got to work with a venture firm for the summer. And I was 193 fortunate enough to work for this guy named Jean Deleage, who was one of the early 194 VCs in the industry. So I got to go with him to lots of board meetings for different 195 biotech companies and so forth. 196

• JONES: Well, tell me a bit about that experience. Certainly, that's an eye-opening 197 thing to see how – 198

• BOCK: Yeah, there were early investors in Chiron. So got to go to Chiron a lot. I was 199 an observer at board meetings and stuff. 200

• JONES: What do you remember observing? 201

• BOCK: That's a good question. Well, let's see. I love when they say the ones that they 202 were really involved was Chiron plant genetics; at the time they were involved in 203 gene. 204

• JONES: Plant genetics – was that Peter Meldrum? 205

• BOCK: It was out in Davis and had the tubers, if you remember those, they were tiny 206 little potato things that were encapsulated in some resin. The part that I learned from 207 Jean Deleage and I can remember it distinctly: It was all about the people and he had 208 a particular phenotype of person that he was going after to be investor, to invest in 209 and that's probably the most important thing. 210

• JONES: Did he articulate that? 211

• BOCK: Well, he probably did articulate it. He was very French. So it was really hard 212 to understand. And he's passed away recently. Did you guys get to do an interview of 213 him? 214

• JONES: No, we didn't. It was in 2009 or something, wasn't it? 215

• BOCK: It's been a while, yes. Interestingly, there was another guy in that office and 216 I'm forgetting his name but he was – it was two VCs that were sharing an office: Burr, 217 Egan & Deleage and Sofinnova. And there was a guy – and I think at that point it was 218 Wells Fargo Ventures who – what relayed to me the story. Jean Deleage was an early 219 investor in Genentech and so forth. But this guy, and I'm trying to remember his name, was really an elderly gentleman. He was apparently the guy that Bob Swanson 221 was thinking about interning or doing something in the VC world and he was talking 222 to Kleiner Perkins and he went and met with this guy. And this guy claims that he 223 was the guy who introduced him to Herb Boyer and said, "Well, you ought to take a 224 look at this stuff." One of the things I found most fascinating was looking at the 225 business plan of all these companies that had gone on—like Genentech—to be 226 successful. The original business plans were in there plus everybody's notes and 227 everything. And I remember reading the notes. 228

• JONES: Well, I'll track down the names. Is he still around? 229

• BOCK: I imagine he passed away. But he was in the offices with Burr, Egan & Deleage 230 and he – I believe he was with Sofinnova because he was French as well, but I think at 231 that point also he somehow was associated with Wells Fargo Venture Funds. 232

• JONES: Okay, that's enough information. I think I can find the name. 233

• BOCK: Yeah, I thought that was fascinating. 234

• JONES: So you're looking at these business plans. You had worked at Genentech and 235 then – 236

• BOCK: And now I can go look at the business plans of what it looked like at the 237 beginning. All these business plans of companies that had totally been successful yet 238 had gone a long way. I got to look at these things and see really what it was that they 239 were pitching at the earliest point and that was probably the most valuable thing that 240 I got access to that summer. 241

• JONES: And did you feel like you were taking to this? You had spent a lot of time 242 doing science, thinking about med school, but this is something completely different, 243 but it sounded good to you? 244

• BOCK: Yeah, it definitely sounded good and I got involved while I was at UCLA in 245 the Entrepreneurship Club and the most valuable experience I had was the business 246 plan competition and did that and won that competition. So that was kind of the 247 impetus to getting into this VC world and the entrepreneurship world. 248

• JONES: When you were at UCLA, is there anybody there talking about biotech or still 249 too small to track? 250

• BOCK: Oh, there's definitely people talking about biotech and biotech had matured 251 in some sense at that point. The companies were here to stay. They were here to stay 252 even when I joined them. I would say I thought it was rocky, but they were here to 253 say. 254

• JONES: Okay. Anything else to note about your time at UCLA? 255

• BOCK: So I got that internship with Burr, Egan & Deleage and I was looking at a 256 spin-out of Hybritech for Burr, Egan & Deleage called Cytotech which was – 257

• JONES: That was an early one. Paul Rosinack? 258

• BOCK: Paul Rosinack, exactly. And it ended up not being successful but I done a 259 whole due diligence package on it for Burr, Egan & Deleage. And the venture firm 260 that I eventually was going to join, Fairfield Ventures, got hold of that and then they 261 contacted me. And then when I graduated from business school, I ended up working 262 for them full time. 263

• JONES: So it was on the strength of that report? 264

• BOCK: On that, yes, on the strength, exactly. 265

• JONES: Okay. And Fairfield was located – 266

• BOCK: Fairfield was located in Connecticut. Fairfield was an older kind of older 267 venture fund but it merged with a venture operation coming out of Corning Life 268 Sciences and at that point of that merger, they raised a new fund and they opened a 269 West Coast office and I joined a guy named Ned Olivier. I don't know if you knew 270 him. 271

• JONES: Yes. I have an interview, yeah. 272

• BOCK: He's very interesting to open up the Costa Mesa office. That was my first job 273 out of business school. 274

• JONES: Yes, and Corning at that time had gotten into Genencor? 275

• BOCK: Genencor was probably even started while I was still at Genentech. I think the 276 early stages of Genencor had gotten started because Herb Heyneker. He was at 277 Genentech in the same protein chemistry group that I was part of and was a co-founder, I think, of Genencor along with Jonathan MacQuitty, with whom my path 279 crossed at a later point. 280

• JONES: Herb Heyneker was one of the original cloners; right? 281

• BOCK: Yes, absolutely. 282

• JONES: So you learned a lot about the science – 283

• BOCK: Yes– and the enthusiasm and the rigor and so forth. After I left, I joined 284 Fairfield Ventures. 285

• JONES: Well, what kind of offer did they make you? 286

• BOCK: Open as an associate. I was an associate. I wasn't a partner. And I was 287 working directly for Ned. Fairfield was new to the biotech arena and Ned was 288 spearheading that and it was always a tension within Fairfield about these biotech 289 companies. They don't have any revenue, why are we investing in them? Let's invest 290 in more of the hardware – computer hardware type things. 291

• JONES: So you're making justifications? 292

• BOCK: Yeah, we're making justifications and Ned was the ultimate salesperson. Ned 293 said, "Look, we're not known in the biotech arena." So he strung himself to the 294 coattails and got into a couple of deals that Kleiner Perkins was involved with early 295 on. Those included IDEC, Gen Probe – I'll think of them in a second – Gensia. And 296 then we're kind of riding the coattails of Kleiner Perkins in those deals and I really 297 wanted to do some startups. I was looking at doing something in the neuroscience 298 field and it was in that area that I bumped into Kevin Kinsella, who will become my 299 future business partner and we had collided in the lab with a guy named Dennis 300 Selkoe at Harvard. 301

• JONES: When you say collided, did you actually meet – 302

• BOCK: We were both talking to him and we both thought he'd be a good person to 303 start a company with. Kevin was a lot more senior and had done this many more 304 times. So Avalon, where Kevin was, and Fairfield decided to collaborate to form 305 Athena Neurosciences and then then Kleiner Perkins and IVP joined in. And then 306 Kevin became my role model. So he and Howard Birndorf that I had met in this whole process were the people I wanted to be like. Kevin was a founder of Hybritech 308 with Ivor and then founded Gen Probe and so I got to see him in that Gen Probe 309 context. Ivor was a founder of IDEC. I don't remember if Howard was involved. 310

• JONES: I think he was involved. 311

• BOCK: I think he was. But then I would see Howard at Gensia and Viagene, and 312 several others. So Kevin and Howard were the people I wanted to be like – very 313 different personalities [laughs]. I started trying to put together another company in 314 the area of – I'm trying to remember the order. I think it was in the area of transgenic 315 animals called GenPharm and Kevin and I did that together and that's when I re-316 crossed paths with Herb Heyneker and Jonathan MacQuitty because they were trying 317 to do the same thing out of Genentech. 318

• JONES: They were at Genencor by that time; right? What was Genencor doing with 319 transgenic animals? 320

• BOCK: They were at Genencor. They were looking at vehicles to produce more 321 complex proteins even more cheaply and transgenic animals offered that potential 322 hope. Kevin and I corralled the leading transgenic scientists out there into a company 323 called Chimera and they had a company – I can't remember what it was called, but 324 the two merged together to become GenPharm. So that was the second company I 325 was involved with Avalon while I was still at Fairfield and then the third was Vertex 326 Pharmaceuticals. And then it was after that, that I joined Kevin full time. 327

• JONES: So for those companies, you're doing the due diligence and – 328

• BOCK: So Kevin had a model of proactively creating companies from scratch 329 themselves as opposed to a business plan that would come in and the model that I 330 learned from Kevin was he was spending a great deal of time figuring out who the 331 world's leaders were in those fields and it was just the time of my life because we'd be 332 running around the world, interviewing and meeting with all these people, and then 333 figuring out who were the ones to create the constellations of the company around. 334 And so that's a process I learned through Kevin, through GenPharm, Vertex, and 335 Athena, and then I joined them full time after that to do it on my own, but under the 336 auspices of Avalon. 337

• JONES: Yeah, well, it's an interesting approach and when you went to Harvard, you're 338 talking to – 339

• BOCK: Dennis Selkoe. 340

• JONES: Selkoe. This is Athena, the beginnings of Athena. Kevin is already lining 341 people up. What was the purpose of your visit? 342

• BOCK: To do the same thing. I was trying to do the exact same thing – I wanted to do 343 something in neuroscience and I was working in particular with some people at UC 344 Irvine that ended up forming Cortex, and Dennis Selkoe at Harvard, which became 345 Athena. 346

• JONES: Yes. So did you have this idea, too, at the same time, like "maybe we can start 347 something"? 348

• BOCK: Yes, absolutely, yes, and maybe we can start something and Kevin was doing 349 it and then we joined forces. 350

• JONES: You were lining up the scientific people. What's the plan for lining up the 351 business people or putting organizations together? 352

• BOCK: So in the case of Athena, the person that we came across who had a similar 353 sort of vision was trying to do that at a company and I'm forgetting, it's called Sicor or 354 – it was up in the Bay Area – named Larry Fritz and he became the first full time 355 employee of Athena and actually held his offices – the original Athena offices were in 356 the offices of Kleiner Perkins up in the Bay Area, because Kleiner Perkins, Venrock, 357 IVP, Avalon and Fairfield were the original – 358

• JONES: Everybody was in it. 359

• BOCK: In it, yes. 360

• JONES: And you would get the scientist first and then go find somebody – 361

• BOCK: Kevin's model was to lock up the key scientific visionaries in the form of an 362 SAB, kind of gain access to the core technology of the company through doing that. 363 They would form kind of a warm nest in which probably the full time scientific 364 visionary would fall. Often that group of scientific visionaries knew that Larry Fritz was in their network and that was the basis of the company really to write the 366 business plan and go out and get the first round of major financing. 367

• JONES: Yes. How? 368

• BOCK: It was that simple. 369

• JONES: How important was IP in this equation? 370

• BOCK: It wasn't as important in the early days. It was really more of an idea and 371 scientific founders and science visionary, it became more and more important with 372 the companies I was involved with as time went on. 373

• JONES: Well, you had to make a departure at some point from Fairfield. Kevin had 374 Avalon? 375

• BOCK: Kevin had Avalon. It was called the Avalon III and Kevin's funds were really 376 small by venture standards. I think Avalon I, II, and III probably cumulatively raised 377 about 2- $3 million. And then I joined him to raise Avalon IV, which was about a $4 378 million venture fund, as I recall. 379

• JONES: So was it just the two of you at that point? 380

• BOCK: No, there were two other people that he brought in at the same time to do 381 Avalon IV that were on the more high tech type side and Dennis Altbrandt and Dean 382 Hovey. But Kevin and I mostly focused on the biotech and that was when I had to do 383 my first company by myself and I learned a lot of lessons in that. 384

• JONES: So tell me about that. 385

• BOCK: It was called Metrad Biosystems and it was a company in the area of 386 diagnostics for osteoporosis and it ended up going public and being acquired. But it 387 was the hardest project. I almost died in doing it. Probably had to go 150 VCs before I 388 raised the first round of financing for it. So it was a big learning process. 389

• JONES: What was the obstacle? 390

• BOCK: Ironically, I went to the VCs that I knew early on: Kleiner Perkins and Delphi 391 Bioventures, who had been part of a lot of the things. And I had it focused it as both 392 diagnostics and therapeutics and they didn't really like that and I just kept with that vision and talked to all these other VCs and eventually I just focused it just on 394 diagnostics and they became the first two investors. So they were the first two I 395 approached and I approached a lot of them afterwards. Then I re-changed the vision 396 to be what I should have been listening to early on and just had it focused on 397 diagnostics. And I think it turned out that one of their grandparents tripped down 398 the stairs and died of osteoporosis. So all of a sudden oh, gee, I remember something 399 about osteoporosis, yes. So a couple of things came together at the same time. So 400 yeah, that was the first one 401

• JONES: So you had trouble raising the money and pitching it the right way? 402

• BOCK: Pitching it. But I learned everything I needed to do in that deal and then it 403 became easier after that. 404

• JONES: But you ran into every other objection or every – 405

• BOCK: Every objection. And all the ones before that, I was kind of tagging along and 406 following Kevin and helping but I wasn't doing it myself. So this was the one I had to 407 cut my teeth on and really do it myself and then the other one in that partnership 408 was a company called ARIAD Pharmaceuticals. 409

• JONES: What were they doing? 410

• BOCK: They are involved in intracellular signal transduction. 411

• JONES: That was pretty early on – 412

• BOCK: Yes. Exactly. ARIAD still exists today, but it's had a rocky sort of history. And 413 then at that point, some of the other technology partners did some other high tech 414 things and stuff like that. So we – that whole fun was only about two years long. And 415 then we went out and raised a venture fund called Avalon Medical Partners and that 416 really was – 417

• JONES: Is this Avalon V? 418

• BOCK: It's [crosstalk] called the Avalon V, but it was called Avalon Medical Partners. 419

• JONES: Okay. Well, tell me – and Kevin is telling me this is – Sandoz is involved in 420 this. 421

• BOCK: Exactly. So Kevin was out doing things and I had this idea for a medical – 422 Avalon Medical Partners were a medically focused venture fund and I was calling 423 some major pharma companies and literally I picked up the phone to call Sandoz and 424 get the name of their chief technology officer. 425

• JONES: So you're trying to go to the technology people to sell them – 426

• BOCK: To sell them. To get the funding and I called Sandoz in Switzerland and the 427 chief technology officers picks up the phone and I said, "Well, I'm trying to get the 428 contact information for Stephan Geutman." "Well, I am Stephan Geutman. What is 429 this regarding?" So I pitched him on the idea on the phone and a week or so later, 430 we're out there pitching them in person and they became pretty much the – they 431 were the sole limited partner of Avalon Medical Partners which was – it was intended 432 to be a $10 million fund over five years; basically, $2 million a year. 433

• JONES: Was it Medical Partners prior to Sandoz? This is what Kevin told me 434 yesterday that Sandoz said, "Yeah, we'll go into this, but just therapeutics; that's what 435 we want" – 436

• BOCK: To do, yes. 437

• JONES: So wasn't Medical Partners prior to Sandoz? 438

• BOCK: Well, the package that we were presenting to them was called Avalon Medical 439 Partners but it was all biotech. 440

• JONES: That’s interesting. I mean, the prior fund had a couple of successes with tech 441 companies, yes? 442

• BOCK: Kevin had multiple successes prior to my joining him with various tech 443 companies like Landmark Graphics, Spectrographics and things like that and the 444 fund I joined him with, the biggest winners in that fund were Metrad and ARIAD and 445 One Tech Company and then Avalon Medical Partners. 446

• JONES: So did those successes with ARIAD and – I'm sorry the other one was? 447

• BOCK: Metrad. 448

• JONES: Metrad, yes. You guys got together and said this is where it's going? So let's 449 just do bio? 450

• BOCK: Yes, biotech was hot right at that moment. The interesting thing is right after 451 we closed the fund, biotech went into a nuclear winter. 452

• JONES: Was this '87? 453

• BOCK: It was about '87. And in retrospect – so Sandoz gave us this money to create 454 two companies a year over five years and then pretty much at the end of that 455 timeframe, we had ten companies created, and then the biotech market opened up 456 and we were very lucky in that we had some ten great companies right at that 457 timeframe, all of which were going public one after another. 458

• JONES: Phenomenal success in that. 459

• BOCK: It was the best thing that Sandoz ever gave in their 10 million – I don't 460 remember what it was, but it was on the order of a couple of $100 million that they 461 got back from their 10 million in it. 462

• JONES: I'd like to talk more about each of the companies actually, but the idea from 463 the beginning, how much input did Sandoz have on the project? 464

• BOCK: Yes, so it was very interesting. So the good news was that Sandoz really – I 465 mean they're Swiss and they kept us to the letter of agreements which was to create 466 two companies per year, but we gave them certain rights that are probably not a good 467 thing and they had a right to be a first round investor in a company. That was not a 468 problem. They had a right to kind of a first look to potential product application, to 469 potential corporate partnerships with the companies. That was a problem. So in each 470 one of the deals, we pretty much had to negotiate to waive that right, and that kind of 471 irritated them in the process. And it really – and they actually stuck this guy in our office that was a Sandoz spy, 473 who became a big VC himself, David – David [Schnell] I'll remember his name. He's 474 at Prospect Partners. Anyway, so they had this spy and they're checking on us all the 475 time and they made some incredible blunders, Sandoz did, in this sort of sticking to 476 the letter of the agreement. One of them was with Onyx Pharmaceuticals. They said 477 because Onyx was basically a spin-out of Chiron – which was kind of their arch 478 nemesis at that time because Chiron was backed by Ciba Geigy – they were not used 479 to do the fact that they were funding something that was spun out of Ciba Geigy and 480 actually asked for their money back for that deal, which we got Institutional Venture Partners to do because they loved the deal and the amount of money that Sandoz left 482 on the table just from those type of maneuvers was astronomical in retrospect. Yes, so there was a little bit of a battle on each of the companies that got created in 484 the fund. And then there were some companies that got started that didn't fit into the 485 model that they didn't really want to be involved in. One of them was called River 486 Medical. That was a medical device company. So it wasn't a therapeutic entity and 487 that became – that ended up having a successful product, so successful it acquired 488 IVAC, the big medical device company, which then was merged with IMED to 489 become – I can't remember the name of the company now.

• JONES: All of this is really interesting, if we go back to the start of this fund as a kind 491 of novel arrangement. 492

• BOCK: And it was a completely different venture model, too, because we had these 493 great economics and so the deal with Sandoz was that they put $2 million a year into 494 Avalon, $1 million to be invested in the two companies, so half a million in each and 495 $1 million to kind of operate, pay the salaries, and the running around money for the 496 general partners of Avalon. And then we had this other fund called Avalon 497 Bioventures with Institutional Venture Partners, where if we created a company, it 498 automatically put a half a million dollars into that company. 499

• JONES: And that was okay with Sandoz? 500

• BOCK: That was okay because they supported it. It just helps. But our economics 501 were that we had a 50 percent carried interest. Most VCs have a 20 percent carried 502 interest and they have to return a $100 million fund before they see anything. We 503 only had to return like 1 million of that, 2 million each year before we saw anything. 504

• JONES: Well, how did you get that figure? 505

• BOCK: Because Sandoz was not interested in the return on money. 506

• JONES: They wanted access – 507

• BOCK: Access to deals and the way it was sold to them, it was a window on 508 technology. And in the end, it became kind of funny because when the first checks 509 started coming in, they go, "Well, you get a return on these things?" They didn't really 510 get it. And literally, this $10 million investment – I can't remember numbers, but it was in the hundreds of millions – over $100 million now coming into the R & D group 512 at Sandoz, not the pension fund. And also all these other arms at Sandoz are trying to 513 grab at the money. So it was a very successful financial deal for them. They ended up 514 not being a successful source of products but that was because they chose not to do 515 it. They ended up being a successful source of product for other pharma companies. 516

• JONES: This fund and the previous fund, there were four people involved doing tech. 517 Is this just you and Kevin? 518

• BOCK: It's me, Kevin, and a guy named John Hendrick, who's kind of the chief 519 financial officer of it. Yes, so it's just the three of us and we had a couple of associates 520 that came and went. 521

• JONES: So it's mostly you and Kevin who are searching out the deals and evaluating 522 them and doing all that stuff. So where did you start? What was the first company? 523

• BOCK: The first company I did was Neurocrine Biosciences. 524

• JONES: That was down here; right? 525

• BOCK: That was down here. The second one was – 526

• JONES: Well, tell me about that. How did that come about? Howard was in that, 527 wasn't he? 528

• BOCK: Howard was an investor in that, yes. Howard was an initial board member 529 and investor in that and so was Harry Hixson, who was an Amgen kind of fame. It 530 was based upon the work of a guy named Wylie Vale at Salk, who later on did 531 another company I was involved with: Acceleron, which is a recent public company. 532

• JONES: So this is your carrying on, you're interested in doing brain stuff? 533

• BOCK: Yeah, it was a neuroendocrinology company, so the brain immune system 534 kind of connection. And the technical founder was a guy named Wylie Vale at Salk 535 and another one named Larry Steinman, who did multiple other companies out of 536 Stanford. 537

• JONES: Yeah, so Sandoz took a look at this and said, "Yeah, okay"? 538

• BOCK: Yeah, they didn't really have the right to sort of say "we weren't going to do" – 539 we just had to create companies and I don't think Sandoz had – did they have any 540 deals with? – I can't remember if they had any specific deals with Neurocrine. I don't 541 think so. But yeah, that was the first one that got funded. And oh, I should drop back. 542 In ARIAD, when we formed ARIAD, it was an interesting financing thing in that the 543 first major venture investor, besides Avalon, was Kleiner Perkins plus David Blech. So 544 the idea was Kleiner Perkins and Avalon put a small amount of money in it and then 545 we would do one of these Reg D private placements as a way of getting the company 546 well financed right at the beginning through David Blech. And that became the 547 largest Reg D private placement at that time in ARIAD and that was the strategy we 548 used in Neurocrine again. So it was David Blech was part of that, as well as Kleiner 549 Perkins. 550

• JONES: So you got that going? 551

• BOCK: Got that going. The next one was a company called Pharmacopeia that I did 552 and meanwhile Kevin was doing Onyx as his first company and then Sequana – no – 553

• JONES: Sequana was not till – 554

• BOCK: Onyx – Kevin did three companies in Avalon: Sequana, Onyx, and Aurora 555 Biosciences. And I did Neurocrine, Pharmacopeia, Idun Pharmaceuticals, and Caliper 556 Technologies. 557

• JONES: Okay. Caliper – well, Kevin told me yesterday Sandoz is only interested in 558 therapeutics, but Caliper – what did Caliper do? 559

• BOCK: Was a lab on a chip, microfluidics lab on a chip technology. 560

• JONES: Did it take any work to persuade them? 561

• BOCK: No. I think they were fine with that. Oh, another one, Argonaut Technologies 562 and before Caliper. 563

• JONES: Okay, tell me a little bit each of those and how they developed? 564

• BOCK: Pharmacopeia was the most fun, easiest project I ever did. It was a 565 combinatorial chemistry area. Nothing ever went wrong with Pharmacopeia. 566 Everything went great, got – signed lots of corporate partnership deals, went public. It was just a gem to work on. Argonaut was somewhat of a spin-out of Pharmacopeia 568 in that it did, it also worked in the combinatorial chemistry area, but it automated it 569 within instrumentation. So it was not as big an idea but kind of a spin-off of 570 Pharmacopeia. And then Caliper Life Sciences was also a total fun project. I had a slow start in that we had to do a couple of mergers with some other 572 companies but once it got going, it was a big success and it was a valuable one for me, 573 financially valuable one. It was the most financially valuable one for me because it got 574 pulled along with this whole Internet boom at the time. And Kevin had left Avalon to 575 become the full-time CEO of Sequana. And so basically Kevin and I and John shared 576 things: 40 percent, 40 percent, 20 percent. And then Kevin left. So Kevin's 40 percent 577 was shared by John and I in Caliper because he had left to do Sequana and that ended 578 up being a huge financial success for me. 579

• JONES: Well, what did that mean at that point when he goes to be CEO of Sequana? 580

• BOCK: It was near the end of the Avalon fund. So it was kind of a shame thing 581 because – I mean, he totally believed that this genomics thing was the way to go, 582 made a lot of sense, and probably the best thing for Sequana to have him as a CEO, 583 but it was a good thing for me in retrospect from a financial standpoint. 584

• JONES: But you guys had great success by that time, so this is – 585

• BOCK: Yes, everything all happened at once. 586

• JONES: So you started the companies but the success with the companies – 587

• BOCK: The success with the companies all started around that 1992 timeframe, I 588 think. It's just one after another. Either they were acquired or they went public and so 589 Onyx obviously went public, Neurocrine went public, Pharmacopeia went public, 590 Aurora went public and then was acquired by Vertex for a lot of money in a very short 591 period of time. The River Medical thing happened. There was no failure or anything 592 within that Avalon fund. They were all huge financial successes. 593

• JONES: Which is kind of phenomenal. 594

• BOCK: Yes. No, it was – it was a combination between being smart and a lot of dumb 595 luck. 596

• JONES: So what are your thoughts personally? Kevin is going to go off and go do 597 something else. You had so much success. That's all taken care of and then – 598

• BOCK: I'd like to think that Kevin and I kind of grew apart, but that in retrospect, we 599 probably should have stayed together. He went on to Sequana. I finished out the 600 Avalon fund with Caliper and then at that point, I went in, raised the funds just with 601 IVP and Kleiner Perkins to do one start up in the bioinformatics area. They ended up 602 funding a company called DoubleTwist that they were more interested in what we 603 were doing. 604

• JONES: So you didn't get it off the ground? 605

• BOCK: Well, so DoubleTwist ended up buying this entity that we were doing, I think, 606 for about $750,000. So it was good for us. DoubleTwist eventually went under, but we 607 were lucky because we got cash out right from the beginning. So that was success. 608 And then I went on to do another company called Illumina before changing fields 609 completely. 610

• JONES: Well, Illumina was obviously another huge thing. So tell me the Illumina 611 story, the beginnings of Illumina in detail. 612

• BOCK: So Illumina had an interesting beginning. What we were actually looking at 613 was not a genomics company. It was a sensor on a chip idea and it was the ability to 614 put highly – lots of sensors on a chip all at once. Kind of like the Affymetrix kind of 615 idea but not necessarily DNA. Just to be able – the ability to detect on one chip many, 616 many different things. And we had come across this technology out of Caltech that 617 we thought was the be-all and end-all. 618

• JONES: Who was it? 619

• BOCK: It was a guy named Nate Lewis, big name guy at Caltech. Nate did not want 620 to do a company with us. There was somebody else approaching him and he wanted 621 to do a company. 622

• JONES: Do you know who that was? 623

• BOCK: It was a company called Cyranose it basically was a nose on a chip and I don't 624 remember who the original investors in it were. I think it was – not Oxford Bioscience Partners, but Oxford Capital Partners, the other Oxford but I may be wrong on that. 626 And our feelings were hurt. 627

• JONES: You had gotten to a certain stage – 628

• BOCK: We were so convinced we wanted to do a company in this field based on this 629 technology and so forth and – 630

• JONES: When you say we, who was it? It was John – 631

• BOCK: Me and John Stuelpnagel. 632

• JONES: How did you get hooked up with John? 633

• BOCK: So John was working for me as a summer intern and he was at UCLA and he 634 was in the same program that I was originally when I did the Burr, Egan & Deleage 635 thing and I always would hire summer interns out of the UCLA system and then we 636 worked on this bioinformatics company and I really felt John was great. I convinced 637 him not to go back to UCLA to finish his second year and to work full time here and 638 he convinced UCLA to let him work here, take a leave – well, not even take a leave. 639 Do his – almost his whole thing remotely. And he still ended up being valedictorian 640 of that class. So yeah, he came – 641

• JONES: You weren't giving him enough to do. 642

• BOCK: Well, I don't know, he's a pretty hard worker. So the Cyranose thing– Nate 643 Lewis and this other guy who I had done some other project with, Bob Grubbs, who 644 was –who I knew well because he was a founder of Pharmacopeia and he was with 645 Nate Lewis and they just, they didn't – 646

• JONES: So he was Caltech? 647

• BOCK: He was also Caltech. He's a Nobel laureate in chemistry at Caltech. So they 648 didn't want to do it. 649

• JONES: You had this experience with Pharmacopeia. That was a great success; right? 650 Everything worked. 651

• BOCK: Yes. 652

• JONES: But you couldn't get – 653

• BOCK: No. They really wanted to do it with the other group. I think he regrets it. But 654 let's see. Oh, okay, so we then started looking for competitive approaches to the 655 Cyranose one and approached this guy named David Walt, who actually I had seen 656 years and years ago because Avalon looked at one point, doing a deal with David 657 Walt based on this fiber optic technology he had, but it wasn't developed enough. 658 And that was probably five or six years before and at this point, it had gotten well 659 enough advanced. So we used David Walt's technology as the basis of a new company 660 and it wasn't going to be focused on genomics per se. It was actually going to be this 661 sort of nose on a chip technology. 662

• JONES: What kind of particular applications did you have in mind? 663

• BOCK: It could be anything – industrial, where you were wanting to detect – where 664 you didn't really know what you were trying to detect. 665

• JONES: Because you could detect…? 666

• BOCK: You could look at a whole signal and because you were taking so many inputs 667 and everything had a unique signature, you could then isolate what it was. It was a 668 general idea. And so we licensed this technology from David Walt. And meanwhile, 669 there was this guy that we were trying to recruit to Caliper, who was a genomics, 670 really smart genomics guy, out of Affymetrix named Mark Chee and he wanted to do 671 his own thing and we exposed him to the technology at Illumina and he said, "Well, 672 you know, this could be used for genomics." 673

• JONES: So none of the chemistry guys had been thinking in those terms? 674

• BOCK: At that point Mark Chee was probably the person who kind of thought this 675 could be used for genomics and came up with this unique way of tagging these beads 676 so that you can go back and figure out what bead was what like at some later point. 677 And there was this other guy named Tony Czarnik who had done another 678 combinatorial chemistry company called Irori, who we recruited. That was the 679 original team of Illumina. 680

• JONES: Those are the technical people? 681

• BOCK: Those are the technical people. And then Jay Flatley came in about probably, 682 I guess, about a year and a half after that, a year and a half after that. John was the 683 acting CEO prior to Jay coming in. 684

• JONES: So recruiting, how did you select Jay Flatley? 685

• BOCK: He came through a search firm. So I don't remember which one. His name 686 came up through a search firm and there weren't a lot of analytical instrumentation 687 companies at that time, but molecular dynamics was one of the more successful ones. 688 So he had come into that method. And yeah, so that's how Illumina got started. 689

• JONES: Now that's the beginnings. And how long did you stay involved? 690

• BOCK: Only about two and a half years. I got a medical condition, had to take off to get some treatments. At that point, let's see – no, I ended up doing – I ended up switching fields completely and decided to go into – start something in the nanotechnology field called Nanosys and then after that, I kind of called it quits and haven't been doing anything for 12 years.

• JONES: Well, CW Group, that's the successor to Avalon? 696

• BOCK: Right – no, so Avalon – the successor to – well, there really wasn't a successor 697 to Avalon. Avalon kind of stopped at the end of Avalon Medical Partners and then 698 Kevin restarted it again to create Avalon VI several years later. Catalyst BioVentures 699 was the thing that we created, this bioinformatics company. And then – so that got 700 acquired and right then, I got approached by CW Ventures, which is a long-term, 701 long time healthcare venture fund, about joining them as a partner. And John joined 702 as an associate at that time and Illumina was the first company that got created in 703 that partnership. 704

• JONES: Okay. So [Nanosys] – how did you get interested in nanotechnology?

• BOCK: Biotech to me started getting too crowded. It used to be you form an advisory board, find a scientific visionary, you have a company.

• JONES: So that was your model from the beginning?

• BOCK: Yeah.

• JONES: And you were finding that didn't –

• BOCK: That wasn't working in biotech anymore. I mean, some of the last companies I did in the biotech arena, we ended up having to get lots of license agreements. And Idun Pharmaceuticals, I think we had about close to 20 license agreements just to start up the company. So it was becoming more and more work and then they were more and more – more and more people were doing the same types of companies at the same time. So I just went to look for something, new territory.

• JONES: So things had changed at universities where people are doing this basic research?

• BOCK: Yeah, well, and the same professors were starting multiple companies over and over again and Leroy Hood and Lander, Eric Lander and Bob Langer. It just – it was neither virgin territory where it could be done. And this was the early days of nanotechnology and it offered all the – it had all the same elements of the early days of biotech, but without that kind of competitive feel to it.

• JONES: How important, in this whole thing – how important for you is sort of the technical sweetness of the –

• BOCK: Everything and the people – those are the two most important things.

• JONES: But are you really jazzed by the technology?

• BOCK: Oh, yes, absolutely. I was mesmerized by the technology and everyone. I thought "Wow, there's never going to be a better technology than this one," and sure enough, two years later, there is something.

• JONES: So Nanosys, what did they do exactly?

• BOCK: It was a platform technology company in the space of what were called inorganic – inorganic nanoparticle semiconductors and it took Nanosys a long time to figure out what the best application of that technology is. And Nanosys is just at the verge – I think they had their second profitable year this year. They are becoming the technology that provides most of the color in most flat panel displays.

• JONES: Okay, well, you say you retired, but in my notes, I've got all kinds of stuff here [crosstalk].

• BOCK: I retired but I'm still a venture partner of a venture firm called Lux Capital. I still invest in things through that but after Nanosys, I took my family abroad for two years for fun and I checked out. Then I came back and I completely changed. I'm now focused on this science education world.

• JONES: Yeah. When you checked out for two years, what was that experience like? My question is when you come back, have you really checked out?

• BOCK: Well, no, we went to London to live on a gap year for my younger daughter's 745 gap year before college. And I was miserable when we got there because what was I 746 going to do with myself all the time? And about three months later, I didn't want to 747 move back. 748

• JONES: What did you find to do with yourself? 749

• BOCK: We just traveled and had fun. 750

• JONES: Okay, great. And you got involved with Venrock at some point? 751

• BOCK: I'm a limited partner. 752

• JONES: Oh, okay, you're a limited partner. But you had seeded some things. 2003 is 753 Acceleron. 754

• BOCK: Yes, Acceleron. 755

• JONES: Why did you do that one? 756

• BOCK: Because Wylie Vale was a founder of it and I did Neurocrine with him. 757

• JONES: So he's a friend? 758

• BOCK: A friend, yes, but I was not an active investor in seed. 759

• JONES: And Bock Family Ventures, that's 2006. There's a bunch of companies in 760 there. 761

• BOCK: Yes. In fact, some of these things keep coming back, like Conforma is a 762 company there. Larry Fritz, the guy I originally did Athena with, I did another 763 company with him called Idun Pharmaceuticals and then I did Conforma with him, where he really was a founder of Conforma. I was just an investor. So there are a lot of 765 examples of people from the past. 766

• JONES: Coming back. 767

• BOCK: Coming back yes, multiple times. In fact, there's one in there called Protia 768 that is –Tony Czarnik was one of the four original founders of Illumina and he got 769 crosswise with some of the other founders of Illumina and they had a falling out. In 770 fact, there was a wrongful termination. 771

• JONES: What was the issue? Was it a control issue? 772

• BOCK: No, I think John just didn't like him, didn't think he was performing. So they 773 fired him, but they probably didn't fire him the right way. So he – Tony won like a $7 774 million lawsuit against Illumina, which is a big amount of money for Illumina at that 775 time, but then he went in and founded another company called Protia and 776 approached me to be a scientific advisor to that. 777

• JONES: A scientific advisor? 778

• BOCK: Yes. I mean, an advisor to that and it was a brilliant idea and I never heard 779 from Tony. He called me up and asked me a few questions every once in a while and 780 the next thing I know I'm getting this K 1 that have all this quote/unquote, income, 781 and I hadn't seen any checks and I called Tony. I said, "Well, why am I getting this K 1 782 on Protia?" And he had just sold Protia – a tiny sliver of Protia to Celgene and a 783 company called Deuteria. 784

• JONES: So I guess around 2007, is that when you start to get into the education stuff: 785 San Diego Science Festival? 786

• BOCK: Yes, exactly. 787

• JONES: So tell me about that. 788

• BOCK: When I was abroad in Europe, I saw the science festival as opposed to a 789 science fair. They were more of a celebration of science and engineering, more like an 790 art or music or film festival than a science fair competition poster session. And I 791 thought, "Well, that's a cool idea." And then I heard this guy give a speech, Dean 792 Kamen who is the inventor of the Segway and he said this quote that just really resonated with me: "You get what you celebrate." So you celebrate Britney Spears and 794 Lindsay Lohan and you generate a lot of them, but we don't celebrate science and 795 engineering. I wanted to put on the largest celebration of science and engineering. So I created 797 this event here in San Diego called the San Diego Science Festival and that went 798 really well and my main sponsor of that came back to me afterwards and said – 799 Lockheed Martin said, "Hey, let's do it in Washington, D.C., and do it as a national 800 event." So that's really what I've been working on for the last five years. 801

• JONES: So you've been involved in every one of those? That's your thing? 802

• BOCK: Yes. We just had our last one about four weeks ago and we had 325,000 803 attendees over a weekend to it. So it has grown and grown and grown. 804

• JONES: And you have fun doing that? 805

• BOCK: Yes. I mean, I'm not getting paid. [Laughs] I better be having fun. There are 806 times when I'm not having fun. 807

• JONES: It seems it could be a logistical nightmare. 808

• BOCK: Oh, it is. It is a huge – we are the single largest events in the Washington 809 Convention Center's history. This year on our sneak peek day, we had close to 50,000 810 kids come and if you take – and that amounts to about 800 school buses. So 800 811 school buses and you take the length of a school bus, it's about five miles worth of 812 school buses. Well, that's a huge logistical thing getting into Washington, DC. Lots of 813 challenges. 814

• JONES: And what do you want to do with it? I imagine it's evolved over time a bit? 815 What have you learned about reaching out? 816

• BOCK: It’s kind of a grassroots type of thing. We have close to 1,000 organizations 817 that participate in it, including companies like Illumina and some of the other 818 companies that I've been involved with. But it's just to get kids excited about science 819 and engineering. And now Lockheed has come back and upped their ante again. So 820 they make it harder and harder each time to not do it again. 821

• JONES: Well, I know Ian was very pleased to have the opportunity to do something 822 for it. 823

• BOCK: Who was that? 824

• JONES: Ian with Life Sciences Foundation. 825

• BOCK: Oh, with Life Science Foundation. Oh, yes, they presented. So he would know 826 what it was like. If it was a success for them or not, I don't know. 827

• JONES: He was saying he got Francis Collins to show up. 828

• BOCK: Yes, Francis was there and Francis is the exact icon of the type of person that 829 we want to have at the event. He's really good in inspiring kids and then he pulls out 830 his guitar and sings science rock songs. 831

• JONES: Yes, good. I see that you also did something with, or are still doing something 832 with CONNECT – you're helping? 833

• BOCK: I've been on the various CONNECT Springboard's stuff over time. And I was 834 really much more involved with CONNECT when Duane Roth was still there because 835 he was instrumental in helping me get the San Diego Science Festival going. 836

• JONES: What's going on with CONNECT? Do you have any idea? 837

• BOCK: I don't. 838

• JONES: Cambridge. This is in England, or is this in Massachusetts? 839

• BOCK: No, Cambridge, England. 840

• JONES: Doing the same thing over there? 841

• BOCK: Well, I didn't do that. That's the one I saw in England that I thought was a 842 good idea that I wanted to bring that idea back. 843

• JONES: Yeah, I got the note here. Okay. Anything else? 844

• BOCK: Nope, that sounds like it. 845

• JONES: Okay. Well, I appreciate. 846

• BOCK: I hope my stories were consistent with Kevin's. [Laughs] 847

• JONES: Sure. And there's so many companies here. I hope if we could get back with 848 you at some point, to maybe ask specific things about specific companies to help our 849 historical research efforts. That would be much appreciated. 850

• BOCK: Well, it's interesting. These companies, they – some of them, like Athena, do 851 not really exist anymore. So it's hard to even though what happened with a lot of 852 these things. Onyx now is part of Amgen. So they disappeared. Caliper is part of 853 PerkinElmer. 854

• JONES: Yes, well, it's interesting. I'm talking about public companies in these cases 855 but even over the course – I mean, I think it was just a few years ago, right, that the 856 biotech industry started to break even? 857

• BOCK: Is that right? 858

• JONES: Yes, in the aggregate. So there was a lot of money lost along the way, but 859 those firms that were acquired, they've got technology. I don't know if there is any 860 way to really assess the value of what came out of the whole thing. 861

• BOCK: But it is such an amazing thing. I remember going to that first H and Q 862 Conference that I went to. It was tiny. 863

• JONES: Were you there for the first one? 864

• BOCK: Not for the very first one but – or even the second or third one. And I mean, it 865 was tiny and now it's [crosstalk], so I don't even want to go near that place. It's such a 866 nightmare. Or BIO. BIO is a good example. That thing was like nothing. In fact, I 867 remember ABC and BIO. There were a couple of these different associations being 868 formed sort of simultaneously. Nobody thought they would ever get critical mass to 869 really be an industry association. Now you go to BIO and it's a massive event for San 870 Diego. 871

• JONES: Well, that's interesting. That was the talk at the time that there wouldn't be a 872 critical mass? 873

• BOCK: Oh, sure. I think one of them was IVC, Association of Biotech Technology 874 Companies. 875

• JONES: There was IBA and ABC. 876

• BOCK: ABC. 877

• JONES: Both of the two. 878

• BOCK: Yes, and one of them didn't succeed. I think it was ABC. Yes, but one really 879 focused on the small companies. One focused on the big, and the one that focused on 880 the small companies wasn't really going to succeed or whatever. And I see that same 881 thing happen in the nanotechnology, for these industry associations to get enough 882 critical mass. It will happen, but it take a while. 883

• JONES: Well, it's interesting you really did check out. You're a little bit of a rarity in 884 that respect. I mean, a lot of these guys won't check out. 885

• BOCK: Howard, I think checked out. 886

• JONES: Yes, I guess.

• BOCK: Kevin checked out a little bit. I mean, he started doing these international investing for a while before he came back into the high tech world.

• JONES: Well, maybe it's something about San Diego, but I think up in the Bay Area 890 and Boston, it is so hard for people to check out.

• JONES: Brook Byers checked out for a while and then –

• JONES: Did he? Well, he was always officially sort of [crosstalk].

• BOCK: Well, he left and wasn't doing anything active for a while and then came 894 back.

• JONES: I didn't know that.

• BOCK: I'm not coming back. [Laughs] I'm having too much fun.