[nijuashi]

I think the article correctly points out the problem with the story of the company. At least to investors, their effort looks too unfocused by trying to be everything at once. Is it a software company or biotech company? I guess you’ll have to open the box to find out.

[colingauvin]

From my observations, I think Cony is very quick to identify when a particular technology has outpaced the rest is the portfolio, and so he is very quick to spin up a new venture to try and capitalize on that, rather than waiting for the rest of the portfolio to catch up and deliver.

How many useful technologies were created in pursuit of a goal that ultimately was never realized, but were later repurposed into something incredible in an entirely different field or market? My guess is (and this is just a guess), that the newcos were attempts to capitalize on technology created in pursuit of other goals. If you need 5 things to come together to design a drug, and you only get 3 of them, you may fail to get the drug, but you still have 3 pieces of valuable technology that it might make sense to commercialize.

Also, biotech failure rate is up there with restaurants. It's always a roll of the dice....so if you can roll more dice for marginal cost, its basically always a good idea.