253. Meet the Founder of the Billion Dollar Backed Wayve w/ Amar Shah | Co-founder of Wayve

24:03But honestly, I really know very little about the clinical process and the trials of drug discovery. And it's beyond me. But that initial part of turning a real problem into something that a computer could solve, I think there were quite a lot of similarities. The types of models were slightly different, but relatable enough. So the drug discovery uses something called transformers, particularly spatially invariant ones, which are quite different from convolutional neural networks. But we had been tracking this research even at Wave because once we had started, we saw Transformers being published in 2017.

24:39And then BERT, which was an initial, like kind of a precursor to ChatGPT and these large language models. So all of these types of models were really in the limelight, especially when, well, the culmination was the release of ChatGPT, which came just after we started Charm. So, yeah, we'd been tracking that research. So I'm not tracking anywhere near as much now. It's just moving too fast. Back then, we were really on top of it. And so, yeah, there were still so many unknowns. And I think that's something I should add, that the only reason these were possible were because somehow we found great other people to collaborate with.

25:20And even in Wave today, I probably understand 15 % of the technology. And that's what blew my mind. Because when you do a PhD, which is what I was doing for a while, you really own the whole stack. You decide, what is the question I want to ask? What is the experiment I need to do to answer that question? How do I have to write the code? I have to run the experiments, analyze the data. I have to go and present the results in a conference. And you do that whole thing as one person. When you're doing a company like Wave, it's completely the opposite. You have to find people, delegate, and align everyone on the same direction.

25:58this is the North Star where we're headed. I would like to achieve this. I don't know how to. How do you think we should do it? And really relinquish decision-making, decentralize it, give people autonomy and responsibility and accountability. And I think that's what I learned. It was a big challenge for me, to be honest. It's so different from anything I've done. Not something you really get taught, but it just shows you the power of if you get great people together on one mission. It's just really powerful force. And so since then, I've been less dissuaded by multidisciplinary problems, because I think that's where magic happens.

26:38And even in nature, you see the most proliferation of life at the boundaries of ecosystems, because there's interesting things going on when you mix different types of people or environments or weathers and so that's something that's been fascinating and subsequently I like learning so when I meet people at Wave who've worked on cars their whole lives that's super interesting to me in a very different way to what I've experienced at university and so yeah this is partly why I like multidisciplinary type of ventures.

27:12Amardeep Parmar:And so with CHAMP right so the idea is obviously applying these AI models machine learning to that new area what happened there what happened when you've built the business and where did it get to? So the premise initially was to build software where we would build a tool which a pharmaceutical company could use to assess lots of drugs in a computer before taking them to a lab. When we were raising capital, our initial offers were from software type investors, typical VCs. And we realized that we had a big gap in our combined group, which was a lack of knowledge or experience in creating drugs.

27:49And that we thought that might hold us back. So we went back to talk to life science investors. And for them, they were typically much less well versed in AI. And so they saw it as a Wizard of Oz thing. It was like magic to them. And they were quite enamored by it, honestly. And we were offered a lot more money, in fact. But the condition was that we had to use our tools to make drugs because that is all they knew. And so I think it was the right decision for the company, but less so for myself, because I I didn't want to sit around waiting for clinical trials. At the end of the day, even if you can accelerate the discovery, it'll always take quite a long time to show it's safe in a human.

28:29And that can take years, maybe even a decade. And so I kind of saw that the world of AI is moving so fast. If I was bogged down into a business that was doing clinical trials, I was going to miss out on this AI boom. So I personally decided to reduce my role as an advisor. I helped get it going. And then, yeah, the company's doing well. We're going to have a drug and clinical trial for leukemia next year. But then, yeah, I started doing much more angel investing after that. Yeah, so obviously, you've been to invest in how many companies now? Or is it public invasion? In total, I've invested in about 80 companies, half through a fund and half personally.

29:11And so obviously, once you got to that level,

29:14Amardeep Parmar:and obviously with your profile at Wave in particular, you must have a lot of people coming to you who see your background see what you can add to them as a strategic investor as well how did you go about learning who should invest and who shouldn't because obviously you're going to get so much people so many people coming towards you yeah gosh i still don't know the answer to this to be honest but when i think about my personal investing um i have many things i'm trying to achieve um a small part of it is trying to get a financial return but i don't think that's the biggest part of it i think a bigger part of it is to learn and to just be able to follow someone's journey maybe in an area that I don't know much about but would like to learn more about it's also entertaining because I often like these people and just want to be a part of their lives and so there's multiple objectives I'm trying to achieve which make it a bit of a difficult decision so but usually it's somebody I look more for because I invest very early at pre-seed I'm mostly looking for personalities and do I believe in the person and do I like the vision to what they're headed towards and slightly less so about what they've achieved so far and of course we like to bet on people where we can believe in that vision and their ability to execute and achieve it which includes recruiting others onto their boat and journey investors customers etc and just seeing that all play out it's kind of like a slightly expensive movie you're going to which lasts a decade or more and so and also so I tried to have some diversity of types of companies my first company was in space technology for example I've always been fascinated by space and briefly worked at NASA and so that was my first first investment and then things like underwater robotics were quite wild and a few more space ones yeah all sorts of things can you remember every company you've invested in now oh my god um if if i have the list i'll i could tell you exactly how i met them and how what i thought about them but i probably couldn't list all of them now no is there anybody that's really stood out that's gone through really well after you've invested in them um or highlights there's some that are doing really cool things that i think they're yet to show they're great businesses but they're doing epic things uh one is called space forge which which is actually based in Cardiff, they actually do what's called manufacturing in space.

31:40So they send a machine into low Earth orbit, manufacture things, and then bring it back, which sounds wild. But there are some real benefits for doing that because you have zero gravity and zero degrees Kelvin, and you can get much more precise manufacturing for silicon or antibiotics, things like that. I think it's incredible. And yeah, definitely the future. So that's one I find really exciting to just read about.

32:13Amardeep Parmar:Obviously, investing in 80 companies, that's a lot more than most angel investors, right? I think I've got six. So it's not quite your level yet. What's your plan for that? Are you planning to continue angel investing? How do you think about the portfolio diversification and building that overall pitch for your son of? I definitely won't go at the same rate. There's this idea in reinforcement learning called exploration and exploitation. Very, very loosely, whenever you're doing anything new, you should spend the first section just exploring a lot to gather information. And then once you've got enough information, you can narrow down and focus and exploit your knowledge.

32:51You can use this in job search, in dating, you could use this in anything. And so I think I probably went a bit bit far, but that first AT is very much exploration. Now I think I'll be a bit more discerning and be a bit more selective. I was also doing quite small investments, to be honest. I don't think any of them would materially impact me financially. But now I think I'm going to concentrate a little bit more, spend more time with people. I think that AT has given me quite a lot of feedback on

33:21Amardeep Parmar:what I like, what I don't like. Where was I right about my PCs? Oh, they're wrong. And by the way, even AT is probably not enough to know if you're good at this. There's a lot of stochasticity and luck and timing and so many different factors involved. You can't really tell if you're a good investor for decades, I would say. So now, yeah, I'm probably going to be a little bit more concentrated. Have you heard of the secretary problem? Yes, I was thinking about whether I should talk about it or not. But yes, this is one of the only sort of theorems from my maths degree that I use in my life. Yeah, probably the only one.

33:54Amardeep Parmar:Shall I explain it? And you can correct me when I do it. I think I should explain it. Yeah, do it. So the idea is that whenever you're trying to make a decision about anything, and I've heard it applied to dating from example as well, right? You should get a reasonable sample. I'd say 500 people, as the first on a dating app, right? You'd swipe through 33 people and no matter what you say, no. But then you keep track of who's the best person. And then after the best person you meet after that is when you say yes to. so in an investing sense you want to look at a sample of a reasonable reasonably large sample of companies before you say yes to anybody and then you now have your benchmark of what good looks like and then you invest in the companies that meet that benchmark and now you can explain how much better than I can and correct me yeah that's pretty pretty much right yeah I was like I felt pressure there because I was like well I might explain you've done like 10 times as many investments as me and you've got a PhD.

34:47I don't think I use this principle accurately in my approach but yeah.

34:52Amardeep Parmar:I think that's a big thing where I actually give this advice to founders is that when you're looking for agent investors it's actually a good idea to look like people who haven't done many because they are often a bit more trigger happy. As if somebody now tries to pitch you and you've seen you've invested in 80 companies you've seen thousands and thousands of pitch days it's way harder to impress you. When someone first starts agent investing they've often got that like new puppy energy right like oh this sounds amazing i'm gonna invest right and then after a bit they realize actually wait there's 10 other companies doing the same thing but as a founder it can be quite good sometimes to get those people on board right yeah i don't know i think you ideally you don't want to end up feeling like you con someone as well because this is a long-term partner so you want you want to make sure you're both doing something you both will long-term be happy with so i'd probably put a little bit of a question mark on that idea but you're right i think that is what would happen but you don't want them to then say oh i wish i hadn't done that then they just you know check out yeah i guess it's still the case of them wanting to invest it's just that they're not as quite jaded yet right whereas the longer you've been in the game the harder it is to impress you i think i think so yeah but you also mentioned that some of your investments are through funds as well and how do you think about that in terms of investing directly into people versus now becoming an lp you're investing in funds instead.

36:10Amardeep Parmar:Because I've moved more towards I'll invest in funds because I get too much deal flow. And because of the community, if I keep saying no to me, people aren't going to like me anymore. So if I just say invest in funds instead, then it helps me manage that side of things. That's true, yeah. Again, I think you're doing the same process when you invest in a fund. You're backing the GPs and the team and their ability to get exciting deals. So actually the process is somewhat similar. The outcomes of funds have less variance, I suppose. And so in a way, that's nice. I think I view the funds more as efficiency.

36:44Like I don't have, if I'm doing other things, I don't have the time to see so many companies. So you're kind of paying for the service of somebody looking at a lot of things. And I think there is a place for those too. I think the slight challenge I have is some funds have interesting incentive because of the way they're paid, the 2-in-20 type model. And I think that's something to be mindful of. It's usually aligned with DLPs. But I think for some founders, that can be not the right thing to take a lot of venture money for that reason. So typically a fund, because of the power law distribution of outcomes, funds, slightly exaggerating, but push their founders to all shoot for the moon.

37:33And that may not be the best decision for some founders, but it is probably the best way to operate a fund. And so I'm very conscious of that potential misalignment having been a founder. These are the only small caveats I have about fund investing. But usually if you invest, pre-seed funds are usually quite, their equity is quite similar to that of the founder in terms of seniority. So usually these things are mitigated, but yeah, slightly technical.

38:06Amardeep Parmar:So obviously with your background as a founder as well, what's some of the advice you're often giving to the founders in your portfolio? Is there any way you tend to direct them in a certain way or to help nudge them to try and avoid some of the mistakes you've made in the past? yeah it depends on the type of company most of the ones i work with are so-called deep tech so typically have revenues a long way away and have to do a similar sort of game that we did to keep people excited and and buying into the mission all the way along the path so a lot of the work is about communication actually how do you convey your idea in a palatable way that would resonate with the audience.

38:44So I'll give you an example at Wave, right? So at the time, not many people knew what deep learning really meant. How is it different from SLAM, which was the alternative at the time? And we thought about what is our, who is our audience? Typically, there were people in their mid early forties, GPs of funds, still quite young, but, you know, may have young children. And we had this idea to anthropomorphize our idea and make it relatable to them. So I had an angel investor who was in that age group, and he had a young son. And so in one of our pitch decks, the first page was a picture of this boy.

39:22And we said, in 10 years, he's going to learn to drive a car in 40 hours of training. And here's a Waymo car that's had 10 million hours, and it's worse than he'll be in 40 hours. And why is that? And then we talk about this boy learns with a neural network. And when he learns to ride a bicycle, you don't give him a set of rules to follow. He kind of has to wobble a bit, fall over sometimes, and then eventually he'll know how to do it, and he won't be able to tell you how he's done it. You can't convey that in natural language or code. And so that was like a bit of a light bulb for the audience to say, actually, this makes sense.

39:58This is why I can see why this approach works. And so that process, it's not, I don't know, it's an art or a science, but helping founders to convey their technologies in a way that's relatable, digestible and I found this hard because being an academic you learn to be incredibly precise you don't like saying things that could be slightly off so this analogy is not perfect it definitely is an approximation to the truth but because it helps convey a message so much you have to be comfortable with slightly loosening the boundaries of truth and that's something I found hard but I try to help my founders with when conveying their products and

40:39Amardeep Parmar:ideas so i should say with deep tech companies because it's so long before you actually make money right and bring the revenue in how is that especially with ai now and the disruption how do you feel when you're missing in those companies where the future is much less certain well not that was ever certain but it feels much less certain was in the past so when you're making a 10-year bet in 10 years time i think you've mentioned it with mcharm about how the world is going to be totally different so how do you think about that when such long timelines on deep tech? Yeah, it's definitely something that's concerning me.

41:10I look for particular modes that I think make sense. So for example, in the AI world, it's very hard to compete with big tech on compute or data. They probably have a lot more than anyone else does. And their cost of capital is lower because they have huge balance sheets. So one area, for example, where I look is, is there a deep tech company which has the ability to create proprietary data potentially of the type that doesn't exist yet? So one I've invested in is a female health tech company, where they're creating a menstrual device, which is collecting a lot of menstrual data. And the device itself is relatively affordable, it'll be used by people, they won't make that much money off the device, but this data no one in the world owns.

42:01So they're not competing with Google, with Meta. And once they collect this data, they can subsequently build therapies on it and do research on it. So this is a deep tech company in a way. They're not going to make meaningful profit for a long time. But I can see the moat and the value in that data in the future. So that's an angle I like to go for with deep tech. But yeah, the world has very much changed because now we're seeing companies get to like 100 million ARR in a year. And I don't think who really ever had that before. So it's something I'm finding a bit challenging, honestly, and not sure how to play.

42:40The problem with the AI stuff is for everyone like that that takes off, there's probably 100 that completely flopped. So it makes it very hard to invest. And I think we had a similar paradigm in the dot-com era where, yes, a small number of people did really well, but actually most people didn't. And I think we might be approaching a similar situation now, especially with the price inflation of AI startups. The valuations are really high right now. So I'm kind of being very tentative about investing in AI right now. Maybe I'm just not good enough. I'm sure there are people out there that know a lot more about how to do it, but I'm tentative, I would say.

43:18Amardeep Parmar:And I know right now you're working on something in stealth, which is related to some of these different areas we're talking about as well. Is there anything you can tease us with and let us know about? Sure. It's in the intersection of hardware and software. very much has the idea, related idea to what I've just described, of collecting novel data sets that hopefully will be monetizable one day in a very useful way to a society. The thing I really like about it is it's democratizing an incredible technology that is Nobel Prize winning, is a big hint, but doesn't exist in many countries in the world yet.

43:54and part of the mission will involve giving free machines to countries in Africa and Asia which is quite feels quite rewarding for me because I think some other especially therapeutics one of the my hesitations with it is these therapies will most likely be used by the and their top five percent wealthy people in the world and that's a bit of a shame but I think the thing I'm working on now will be democratizing. So you'll hear about it soon, I think.

44:28Amardeep Parmar:And obviously, we've haven't built such giant companies in the past. How does that inform how you're building today? Is it you're building very differently to how you did in the past? Have you been quite consistent in your methodology and the things that you think are important? Yeah, I think the main thing I've learned is how to get myself out of a job sort of thing. Before I was doing everything, I was doing the accounts, the payroll, I was taking the bins out, I wired our office for Ethernet cables, and I've learned how to figure out what's important for me to understand and delegate what isn't.

45:01Also, my personal utility curve has changed. And so everything I do now is just for the mission and less so financially driven. Of course, if I have customers and investors, I'm going to do what's best for them. I'm technically not an employee of my current company, which is strange. change i'm just a shareholder and it's my capital actually and so that's been quite interesting it means i don't have to have a nine to eight p.m job but i probably do that anyway because because i want to um and i think i've learned how to pace myself actually i think i've become a bit wiser it's possible why i got ill i was at least in part due to stress and like not taking care of myself So I'm very aware to be a bit more balanced in my life.

45:49Also, small things like I read so many more novels now since COVID. And I've noticed how much that's helping my day-to-day work in just understanding narratives or conveying a message and starting to see synergies in different activities and prioritizing more balanced existence. and would probably purport for people to think about, you know, not letting go of hobbies and other things, because I think that you get incredible things in the intersection of your life. There's the famous story of Steve Jobs going to a polygraphy course when he was meant to be studying, and that ended up becoming the typescript in his first computers, and it was very attractive for customers.

46:33So who would have thought that would have happened? And, you know, so I think that that's what I'm learning more about how to, you know, not forget about wider life and make everything meld together to have a, we only get one life. So you don't want to just be building startups alone. I think that's where I've become wiser, let's say.

46:50Amardeep Parmar:I think I've always found that the people who are really got to their laser stages, they're the ones who are the biggest champions of balance. Because about the time you have people at the beginning, like, oh, no, I've got to do this. for people who've actually got a lot further. They're like, well, actually, I should have been way more kind to myself later on, earlier on in the journey. And obviously, we've got a bunch of business books here. But have you got any recommendations for the novels and the fiction side that you've really enjoyed? Oh, I don't know about novels, but the book that came to mind was one I read a couple of years ago related to this topic.

47:23I'm not sure if it will help founders who are a big beginning, but maybe it's worth reading early on, actually. It's called The Second Mountain, the high level premises exactly as you say like we spend the first part of our lives chasing we're climbing ladders we're building our education careers status wealth um and then we get to a point where we're doing okay and we think and then we have a bit of a lull and think what's next and we climb a second mountain which is more about giving back contribution society to society family and about other people and I don't think life is that it's not that binary but I think certainly for myself where I passed that transition a couple of years ago I just think maybe it's better to have a smoother transition where you know we get off this very individual race and start thinking about contribution more broadly so I really learned got a lot out of that

48:17Amardeep Parmar:book when I read it and before we get to a quick question as well what are the dreams for the companies you have at the moment so obviously wave what's the big mission there what's the big mission for charm and for the company you're currently building whatever you can say so like just to look into that long term of like what impact you can make for the companies you've done so for wave i think the first massive well the big milestone coming next year touchwood is launching a service in london but the way we pitched even from the beginning was we want to be the first company to get to robotaxis in 100 cities.

48:53And I actually think we've got a good shot. We've driven in over 90, I believe. But deploying services is a whole other thing. But we have now offices in Tokyo, Stuttgart, California, Vancouver, and London. And I think we've got a really good shot of getting to that. So then, you know, that's sort of touching world domination. So that would be incredible. I think it'll take another five to ten years, maybe more. So yeah, that'll be an incredible place to be. With Charm, what we were hoping to build is an engine that just churns out drug candidates for all sorts of different diseases as like a machine.

49:34And then each drug will take years to develop. But we would like dozens of drugs to be generated from this system over the next one or two decades. My last company, I think this is probably going to sound the most bold. I would like to eradicate terminal cancer. That's what we're doing.

49:55Amardeep Parmar:So that's three fairly bold missions. And I think the last one is probably the boldest. What we're doing as well, so we're 250 something episodes in. And in 200 episodes time, we get people back again. So that's in two years time. Two years. Okay. Where do you think you could be in two years time? And what we'll do? we'll have a little TV up here and we'll play back what you say right now and then we can then see like how close did you get to it you mean for these companies that I mentioned or for for I guess what's your next for the next two years what's your main um for the company I'm working with the project I'm working on now I'd like to have a working system that is deployed in one of the countries I mentioned in Asia or Africa starting to provide value to them just one I think that's That's what I would like to achieve in two years.

50:45Amardeep Parmar:Okay, we'll play that back in two years time. You sat here again. Okay. So it's going to be tough. Time for the quick five questions now. Yeah. So first one is who are free Asians in Britain you think are doing incredible work and you'd love to shout them out? One is a founder I've met a couple of years ago called Bhavi Metakra. He is the CTO of Hippo's Wife. They make an airbag for the knee, but most excitingly, he and his co-founder built their prototypes in the lecture room at university because they were finding it a bit boring and I just saw a demo of theirs and eventually became their first investor found them more investors to um to back them and they end up leaving their university so I feel a little bit guilty so I don't think his mom likes me very much but um I think he was a really cool die to work with.

51:36And then I met a really inspiring lady called Hashimi, who is a student in high school, 15-year-old lady. And I saw some robotics project her and her friends were working with. And they were looking, they'd, you know, just done this off their own pocket money. Their parents gave them a little bit. The school saw and thought, wow, this school, they give them a few hundred pounds. And then they were invited to a competition in America, and they needed about 8 ,000 pounds to go. They couldn't raise it. So somehow I found out about it and sent them to the Wave team and they ended up being sponsored to go.

52:14But it was just really inspiring to see a group of very young girls just doing robotics for fun and actually taking it seriously. And so that was an inspiring one for me. And I think slightly different track, Avse Mishusunak. I think he's, he had a hard time in his role. I think on the whole, he was mostly liked, but, you know, he was caught between rocks and hard places in his role. I think he's quite eloquent, generally kind and thoughtful. He's also an East African Asian. So I think he's done well for our community's brand in a way. He's also recently become an ambassador to Prostate Cancer UK, which is related to what I'm working on now.

52:59so I'm hoping to meet him soon to discuss it so I think those are three that come to mind

53:04Amardeep Parmar:so the first one you mentioned there so they're actually like going viral this morning I don't know if you saw their story no not yet so they're building in their apartment and obviously what they're building it looks like there's wires coming out with it everything yeah so they basically got reported by somebody who thought they were building bombs and then like the police knocked down their door and like broke in oh and like like at gunpoint and then that's like showcase like look no this is we're building something can we've got investors but that was like a news right i clearly missed this he's definitely been stopped on the tube because they used to meet on a platform at i think waterloo station and build there because one lives in one part of london the other lives on the left and they've had people's report like something not stodgy and they've definitely been stopped there so they're probably on like wanted posters in the stations now yeah it's quite well but yeah very bold guys so next thing is if you want to find out more about you and what you're building now where should they go to um you'll hear about it soon i think here um we'll be publicizing in um later this year probably in conjunction with movember too many hints today should they follow you on linkedin or how can they think you have yes i'm generally not very present online but yeah i'll probably post about this there for sure and then is there the only way that the audience could help you today.

54:23Just curious what interests you, which areas of technology do you think are underrated, underinvested in and why? We all know about AI, of course, there's plenty of investment there, but if there are areas of, especially science, that you think deserve much more attention from society, investors and entrepreneurs, I'm very interested to hear your thoughts.

54:46Amardeep Parmar:So thanks so much for coming on. And for the audience as well is that with what you've built like amongst all the podcast guests we have like this is almost intimidating for me just how much success you've had and how much been able to build and how you met as well I should probably say this at the beginning is that you just came to one bar coffee events and you were very casual very relaxed then when we added you on the LinkedIn I was like wait like I had no idea about what you built in the past so the way you've come across is very humble and just whenever we have events and I can see how you're interacting with people especially early stage founders, which you don't have to do at the stage you've been able to grow to.

55:21Amardeep Parmar:That's really cool for us to see and to have that model of people who have been from the community and been very successful, who still are able to keep their feet on the ground and really help out the next generation. So thank you for that. Have you got any final words yourself? I appreciate you saying this. I think it comes from realizing how fortunate I've been in all my endeavors, like most of the things I've done, I've observed somebody before me do something kind of similar and think, oh, okay, maybe that means I can do it. And also in all these companies, as I mentioned, it was so much a joint effort.

55:56Like I think very little was about myself and my skill sets and my knowledge are pretty limited compared to the groups. And I think the only thing I did well was getting myself out of other people's way, but giving them a platform to operate. And And so I realize, you know, everything requires having incredible partners. And also, it's great to meet other people, kind of to live through them vicariously, because that period was fascinating for me, and I'll never get it back. So I'd love to help people do that part of the journey and make sure they achieve to their fullest potentials. I think there's a lot of negative self-talk, especially in the UK and Europe.

56:37We're not as boisterous and out there as our American friends. And so just making sure people are not underselling themselves, I think, is important to me because I think we have a lot of potential. And sadly, not all of it is realized. So I think that's kind of what I would like to contribute going forward if I can.