Biotech CEO Explains Cancer Drug Development and Girardian Philosophy

Iosif Gershteyn [00:00:00] What is the value of gaining the world if you lose your soul? So thinking about what is your soul? What am I willing to do? What am I not willing to do? And more importantly, what am I trying to accomplish? And why am I doing this? And am I doing this as part of copying somebody else's dream? Or does this connect to something that I think is important, that can be an expression of my being that I can be proud of? I'm Bruce figure, a veterinarian living in Sylvia, Kansas, and you're listening to the Vance Crow podcast.

Vance Crowe [00:00:30] Welcome back to the podcast. I'm glad you're here. Today I sit down with iOS, Gerstein iOS, I was a little bit unsettling of a guest. I would ask him questions and instead of answering right away, IOIF would pause and he would think about what he was gonna say, almost to the degree where I was asking myself, should I interrupt and ask a new question to make him more comfortable? Maybe it'll be something that he wants to answer. But what I came away with after listening to him for a little bit is that he's actually very deliberate. All of his words are specifically chosen, and he thinks about his answers. This makes him a very interesting guest and we got to explore topics that are as wide ranging as any we've ever done. On this podcast, we talk about the fact that he is running a company that is discovering pharmaceuticals for rare cancers. He's trying to cure cancer. We also discuss his time at a theater troupe in Russia and what he learned about how to take up more space and how to, how to act on a stage and how that applies to regular life. And we even get to talk about one of my favorite topics, which is philosophy, and more specifically about Renee Gerard. If you're a longtime listener of the podcast, you know that all of these topics normally are in just one interview. But iOS is an exceptional person that expands his his way of thinking into all different kinds of domains. And I think you're going to enjoy this conversation.

Vance Crowe [00:02:02] One thing that I love about interviewing people like iOS is it tells me if you adjust as an interviewer to the person that you're talking to, you can prompt them to talk about things that maybe they haven't even thought of themselves. We're doing this every day with Legacy Interviews, and we've developed a way to be able to get people to open up, to feel comfortable being vulnerable, so that they can tell some of the most important family stories that they have, stories that will be incredibly valuable as they are passed down to children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and even beyond. If you're interested in having me sit down with your loved one to talk about their childhood and where they came from, their career, their marriage, parenting, and then the wisdom that they've learned along the way, go to Legacy Interviews dot com to find out more. We've been doing these interviews here in St. Louis, and we love to do that because we control the environment and we have everything down to a perfect science and art. But every once in a while we are heading out on the road. We're doing some in northern Iowa. We're even doing some in outside of Springfield, Illinois. So if you don't think your family can make it here to do a legacy interview, why don't you contact us? If we can line up the right situation, we may be able to travel to you. It's just a thought that we've been building out and I'd love to work on it with you. So to find out more, go to Legacy Interviews dot com. Alright, without further ado, let's head to the interview with iOS f Gerstein iOS.

Vance Crowe [00:03:37] Gerstein, welcome to the podcast.

Iosif Gershteyn [00:03:40] Thank you.

Vance Crowe [00:03:41] So when we were first talking, you mentioned that I said you were born in Russia and you said, no, I was actually born in the Soviet Union. Why did you make that distinction?

Iosif Gershteyn [00:03:52] Well, Russia changed. There was the Soviet Russia, and then after the fall of the Soviet Union, there was very difficult decade. The, and the Russian culture changed into what it started to be now and what, where, what it is now. And so the Soviet Russia, I think, is distinct from modern Russia. And therefore, speaking, speaking about where I'm from, having the context of time and the the political context, I think adds, adds color. And

Vance Crowe [00:04:30] That's more than me being like I grew up in eighties America. Like it is, is is did culture change a lot more for Russia than it did between the eighties and the US to now?

Iosif Gershteyn [00:04:45] I don't know if the culture changed more in Soviet Russia in the eighties to modern Russia in the 2020s than America did in the 1980s to America in the 2020s. But if America in the 1980s was the United States of America, and now it was Missouri, the, the, the free state of Missouri, then even if the equivalent cultural change had happened, the context would've been different. So the fall of the Soviet Union broke apart a giant union into its constituent parts, constituent nations. So I do think that even independent of the cultural change, the self-perception of the the country definitely changed.

Vance Crowe [00:05:41] And so what part of the Soviet Union were you living in?

Iosif Gershteyn [00:05:44] I was born in the, in in, which was the third largest city in Russia up until recently. Now it's the fourth. You could think of it if Moscow was the capital and St. Petersburg was the cultural capital, then Uni Gu in some ways could be considered the scientific capital. A lot of the nuclear project of the Soviet Union was, was done in the, the scientific work was done in Uni Guru. So, and

Vance Crowe [00:06:12] You came over when you were three years old. What were your parents doing in Russia at the time?

Iosif Gershteyn [00:06:17] So my father was a physicist and my mother taught physics. And so they left, they were, they were dissidents in some ways. They, they weren't. My father was imprisoned for, for a protest against the Soviet power, well against the Soviet government. And they considered him one of the organizers of the protests. And so they put him in in prison and he organized a hunger strike. And the time at, at that time there was such a disarray politically that they actually were able to ensure his release

Vance Crowe [00:06:57] Whoa, through a hunger strike.

Iosif Gershteyn [00:06:58] Through a hunger strike.

Vance Crowe [00:07:00] There's a certain kind of courage that a hunger strike takes because it's not like you're going against the butt of a gun. You're going against your own mind, your own ability to be like, fine, I give up because everybody around you would be like, here, break the break the fast.

Iosif Gershteyn [00:07:17] Yeah, my father is a very strong-willed man.

Vance Crowe [00:07:22] And then when you moved to the United States, what did they take up as work?

Iosif Gershteyn [00:07:27] My father started working for himself. He was building scientific equipment, scientific measurement equipment, mainly for physics research. I believe he had a visiting scientist appointment at MIT as well. My mother took care of us. She opened a school for the immigrant children, taught us literature, poetry language, and then went on to create documentary films

Vance Crowe [00:07:57] About what,

Iosif Gershteyn [00:08:00] She made several films about writers, artists and immigrants. The immigrant experience coming from Russia to America and how one of her first films was how my generation were adapting two cultures at the same time.

Vance Crowe [00:08:21] Tell me about that. How were you adapting in two cultures?

Iosif Gershteyn [00:08:25] Well, there's this concept of third culture kid where you have one culture in the home and then another culture in the country that you live in. And so the, the previous generation that brought you there, they more or less have a complete mentality of the home culture. And then you're surrounded by people from the new culture or from the, from the culture of, of your place of residence. And when you grow up, you're switching between these two cultures and it gives you a perspective, which is a bit disorienting because you can see, you don't, you don't have complete buy-in into either culture. You can see the limitations or the biases inherent in either culture and you switch between them. That switching gives, gives a, gives a unique perspective on things. It has certain advantages, but also from the literature I read, it also delays decision making and family formation.

Vance Crowe [00:09:35] That's interesting. I mean, because I'm imagining you're a child and you're maybe in sixth or seventh grade, your friends are starting to have a lot of influence on you, you know, how they kind of think about things and how they, how they're gonna react to certain information. And then you're also aware that like, my parents will see this completely differently than, than everyone here. And, and like the challenge of that of of yeah, probably making it so it'd be difficult to know which direction should I go? Am I going more towards the second culture, which is my, you know, my friends and the thing I'm pulled to are the first culture of my family, which is hard 'cause when you're an adolescent, you're kind of always trying to break away from your family.

Iosif Gershteyn [00:10:18] Yeah, yeah. I think that there is definitely a, a narrative of revolt of Youth Revolt and going against, that's largely, largely I think, more of a western idea than an Eastern idea from what I've read. It doesn't seem to be a universal aspect of adolescents and teenagers to revolt, but definitely both in Russian and American cultures, that's, that's a factor. So, yeah.

Vance Crowe [00:10:59] So when you, you grew up in this, you know, third culture, how did it impact you? What was your life like growing up?

Iosif Gershteyn [00:11:10] I was, I was gifted with an endowment of two very, very strong cultures. I was enamored with the great writers of the Russian tradition, like sto, the Sevki ov, as well as the theatrical tradition stemming from that. And I had complete access to and had the, the joy of reading Shakespeare in the original, the, the joy of having access to all of the English and American literature as well, and, and, and modern pop culture. You know, Terminator two, I watched as a kid loved it. And that's now I think such a large part of global culture, the American pop culture being a, a staple of global culture, especially from the say nineties to now that I, that I think I benefited greatly from having native English language access to the dominant global culture, as well as inheriting what I think is the best from Russian literary traditions.

Vance Crowe [00:12:29] And so if you were growing up in Boston, then, did you go to one of those Boston schools?

Iosif Gershteyn [00:12:35] Yes, I went to a suburban high school, which I found very chafing. I did not enjoy school. I loved college, but I did not enjoy school to the extent that I decided to graduate early. So I skipped a year of high school and I made a commitment not to come back for the fourth year, even if I didn't get into university.

Vance Crowe [00:12:59] And where'd you go to University

Iosif Gershteyn [00:13:01] Brandeis.

Vance Crowe [00:13:02] And what did you study there?

Iosif Gershteyn [00:13:04] I studied econ and psychology, and then I did an accelerated master's in finance.

Vance Crowe [00:13:12] And what did you imagine yourself to be in the future?

Iosif Gershteyn [00:13:16] When I got to college, I thought I'd be a writer. By the end of the first semester, I thought of I'd be in finance.

Vance Crowe [00:13:27] Why the big change? That's a huge change, right? Those are, one is emotional and one is, you know, numbers driven.

Iosif Gershteyn [00:13:36] I took two classes in my first semester of college. One was called the Philosophy of Market, another one was Econ two A. And so intro to econ mixed with the philosophy of economics got me enthralled in the, in the idea that we could solve a lot of philosophical problems without appealing to, to argumentation, but having it play out in the real world. And ultimately that's what led to finance, which is, well, I don't need to prove to you that my idea is better than yours. I can just make money. And that's its own reward. Like, that's, that's the proof, the proof is in the pudding. So you, you know, we can be as smart as we want, but having, having that framework, that philosophy can be instantiated in real life in such a way that you can prove it's right or wrong and I can prove them right by a superior return or generating alpha. That was very exciting to me. And at that point, I had bought in to a neoclassical conception of economics. And so the quantification of human experience appealed to me greatly.

Vance Crowe [00:14:51] What does that mean? The quantification of human experience?

Iosif Gershteyn [00:14:56] If you get into economics as a philosophy, you're, you're, you're buying into a bunch of axioms, one of which is largely utilitarianism, right? So the idea that people respond to incentives and then those, and then people are maximizing their utility. So if you, if you think about those two ideas in economics, that people respond to incentives and people maximize their utility. They on, at first blush, they're very, very attractive. They seem to explain so much behavior. And then you have a bunch of empirical study that can, that can come to model that and have predictive value. Beautiful. Then you understand its circularity and stupidity, but it takes a very long time to get beyond that illusion.

Vance Crowe [00:15:48] I think a lot of people would be very curious to hear the circularity and, and stupidity of that.

Iosif Gershteyn [00:15:53] Okay, well what's the definition of an incentive?

Vance Crowe [00:15:56] Something that draws you towards it, you know, you have the benefit of getting it

Iosif Gershteyn [00:16:01] Something that gets you to do something, right? So the incentive is what's an incentive? An incentive is something that gets you to do something. What what gets you to do something? It's an incentive, it's a circular definition. You have to operationalize it by saying income maximization or some kind of utility maximization. Then, okay, what is utility? Utility is something that provides value. What, how do, how anything can provide value? So if I'm trying to sell you a pill that will cure cancer, I'm trying to sell you a pill that will kill you. Cyanide pill, why does one have more value than the other? Because

Vance Crowe [00:16:41] I want one and I wanna avoid the other.

Iosif Gershteyn [00:16:43] Okay. So where does that, where does that want come from? It comes from axioms. It comes, it comes from a non universal axiom. It says life is better than death. I want to live and I do not want to die. There is no rationality to it. Rationality is instrumental here. So if I wanted to die, I should buy the cyanide pill. If I want to live, I should buy the cure. But you can't model that. You can't really model such a diversity of utility functions. So we simplify everything, simplify a simplify, and it all boils down to resource allocation. And what do we mean by resource allocation? Usually either money or if we're really smart money and time. So, and they're pretty much, you have to hold up with more is better. We want more money, we want more time, more is better. And then with all of those simplifications, with by, by by, by focusing your attention from the 360 degree view of life that you could be looking at and you di dig it down to those three degrees and you exclude everything else. Only then does economics and finance really work as a worldview, as a coherent, cohesive philosophy that explains everything. But I had to believe in it to understand it, in order to get past it. What I've realized in my life is I can't really understand anything unless I believe it to be the truth. So I have to be completely illusioned in love with it in order to get into it, in order to spend all my time trying to understand it, to get to the bottom of it.

Iosif Gershteyn [00:18:17] And only then when I'm at the bottom of it, when I, I found the answer, then I see it's cracks and then I start getting more and more critical and I get the necessary distance and I see, ah, that's part of the picture. But definitely not all

Vance Crowe [00:18:29] That's a part of being the third culture kid that can see the cracks in the, in the various kinds of culture.

Iosif Gershteyn [00:18:36] Might be, might be,

Vance Crowe [00:18:38] Yeah. I mean it's interesting because when you fall in love with something like an idea, you know, whether that's something as complex as, you know, economics or even like, oh, I'm gonna do this for my health, right? And you really do have to fall in love with it in order to, to fully embrace it enough to be able to discover like, oh, this is fasting, that is the way to go. I've gotta get my ketones up and I've gotta get all of this, you know, stuff going in line and how long should I go for and what cardio should I do in line with it? And then only after you've done it for a while, you realize like, oh, this isn't gonna be the only thing that works, right. I've gotta figure something else out to answer these problems that aren't resolved by it. But as a, from the, from the first person perspective, it's really expensive to have, to fall in love with your ideas in order to be able to understand them

Iosif Gershteyn [00:19:30] Absolutely. Takes a lot of time and it's very emotional. So, you know, gotta choose them wisely.

Vance Crowe [00:19:37] What's been an idea that you've fallen in love with?

Iosif Gershteyn [00:19:43] Well, I fell in love with Ardi in philosophy not that long ago. And it, it took me for quite a spin. It took me for quite a spin.

Vance Crowe [00:19:53] This delights me. I love gerardi in philosophy, but I don't know that I've hit the bottom of it, but let's, what, what first attracted you to Rene Girard?

Iosif Gershteyn [00:20:03] What first attracted to me, to Rene Girard was that Peter Thiel was talking about it.

Vance Crowe [00:20:07] Me too. Yeah.

Iosif Gershteyn [00:20:09] And I loved Peter Thiel's book Zero to One. It's one of the cornerstone business books that, you know, I recommend to friends and that I read. And so I figured if, if he likes Gerard, I should take a look and read into it. And I had given him a shot once before, but it was a very cursory shot and I thought it was a bit simple. And then I gave it a real shot, maybe year and a half ago, a real shot. And then it drove me into this absolutely horrible state of disillusionment, detachment, and dysthymia. It was because the ultimate conclusion of his philosophy in many ways is that the world is going to end and it's inevitable and it's coming soon, and there's literally nothing that we can do about it. And the best thing that we can probably do is just stand back and detach

Vance Crowe [00:21:12] And become Catholic, right? That's, that ultimately was his, his. So for people that don't know it, I, I had a somewhat similar experience, so I'm very interested in seeing where this goes. But if you were gonna give, you know, just a high level overview of what Gerard thinks, how would you do that?

Iosif Gershteyn [00:21:32] Gerard believes that desire is triangular, which means that instead of me wanting that phone, because I want that phone, I want that phone because I see you wanting that phone and I want to want that phone, and therefore I think I want that phone. And he thinks that, that this, that's the metaphysical desire, let's the physical desire, metaphysical desire. So the metaphysical desire is, I want that phone because of what it, who I am when I want that phone, when I own that phone. When I think, when I think that, I think that by owning that phone, I am a more complete, that my existence is more complete. And the reason I think that is because I see you wanting that phone. And he believes that metaphysical desire largely is mimetic all the way down. So there is no true metaphysical desire. Everything's a copy of a copy of a copy. So that's disorienting. I mean, you can counterbalance that with physical desire, the desire for the pleasure of eating food or other hedonic pleasures. But the most of the, most of the desires in life, the ones that drive us to be exceptional in work, to be exceptional in family, to be exceptional as as an identity, or to want things as an identity, he would put into the concept of metaphysical desire. Now, metaphysical desire is largely tied to the concept of prestige, which is exclusionary by nature because it's a social hierarchical factor.

Iosif Gershteyn [00:23:08] So as a social hierarchical factor, unless you have strict divisions in which you no longer have a reference group, like you don't back in, for example, medieval societies, a peasant would never compare himself or be jealous of a king 'cause it would be outside of the comparator group. But as, as society becomes more fluid, as there is more social mobility, everybody starts comparing themselves to everybody. But necessarily there is a hierarchical structure of prestige, which means there's more and more resentment building up in the hearts of men in the, in, in, in society. And that resentment ultimately leads to such, such a large amount of envy and repressed anger that it needs an outlet and therefore a scapegoat is found. And that scapegoat is usually killed either physically or symbolically in order to relieve that suffering from that, that that externalization of the internal state and then a return to normalcy can happen. So those are probably a summary of the first

Vance Crowe [00:24:31] Two thesis. Yeah, that's, that's core I, one of the big things that I found with Gerard was his ability to explain why mobs form and listeners of the podcast know that I had a couple of experiences while living in Kenya where I saw mobs do horrible things and, and really feel that they are the most powerful, most dangerous force on earth as a group of human beings that have given themselves over to, to this like, we need to purge this bad thing, whether it's a thief or some kind of perceived injustice, and that they will go all the way to killing something and then feel no remorse whatsoever. No one will feel like they had responsibility. And I had never seen that up close and personal in the us. And when I came back, I really struggled for a very long time with explaining what happened. And when I found Gerard and he was saying, this is actually the base case, this is what always happens. And that unless you find some way for the mob to vent their resentment to like dissipate that in some way, you will always have mob action killing people. And I'm the same way with you. Like, I can look around and say, well, as long as we keep everybody moving up into the right on their financial agendas, or like they, they feel like they're doing better than they were before, then things are okay, but that the world can get out of control really fast and in very dark ways when things start moving down. And, and that, that's like a, a really scary thing to grapple with because like, like Gerard basically came to the conclusion is there is no other way to get out of it other than in his view, Christianity.

Iosif Gershteyn [00:26:15] Well, that's not how I read it.

Vance Crowe [00:26:19] Interesting.

Iosif Gershteyn [00:26:19] When, when, when I understood it to be that Christianity largely was a force that tried to subvert the scapegoat mechanism, but has ended up perverting it in western society. So in Christian society, instead of finding the weaker to victimize, they, the, the, the the need for victimization remains, but the obvious victim or the weaker is protected. And so the victimization happens on behalf of the victim.

Vance Crowe [00:26:52] So let's pause for a second and go back and explain what we're talking about. So Gerard, what he was saying, or my read on it, and you can update this, is one of the key things that Christianity gave the world was the idea that you could have a perfect being. And this perfect being was scapegoated. So like the, the crowd of, of angry Jewish people and the, the leaders put this person up on a cross, they killed him. And because of that sacrifice, now you could dissipate all of the, the, all of the angst that was going on. And if people followed Christianity, they would follow some pretty simple rules. Like one would be don't join mobs. So like the story of Peter joining the mob, you know, saying, no, no, I wasn't with Jesus, I was with the crowd that's showing anybody can do it. The, the stories around like forgiveness. And he who cast the first stone is, you know, like he was without sin, should cast the first stone. So Christianity was really all about not joining the mob and doing your best to stay away from it. So I'm entering it from, from that point. But you're saying he also took it a step further and, and said this is being bastardized.

Iosif Gershteyn [00:28:09] Yes. So because the, the necessity of scapegoating continues in a society, the question of who becomes the scapegoat and how to select scapegoats because the mechanism remains unchanged. That's, that's why, from what I understand, he says that in the age of Christianity we try to victimize whatever we label as an oppressor rather than the oppressed. So victimizing the stronger rather than the weaker on behalf of the weaker. So there, the, the, the mechanism is the same, it's just perverted.

Vance Crowe [00:28:51] Oh, that's interesting. I guess I could see that happening. I think like, I mean like we see that going on all the time, right? And that, that that then turns the victim culture into one that is like, I think particularly dangerous, right? Because then, then e everyone can be a victim and you can point at someone

Iosif Gershteyn [00:29:11] Who

Vance Crowe [00:29:11] As an oppressor and really that, that that really probably increases the power of, of the mob by an order of magnitude. But it wasn't my understanding that when I read Gerard, I hear him basically saying, the only way you yourself can get out of joining the mob and being a part of this like whirlwind force is to hold yourself to Christian ideals of saying, I won't cast the first stone and I won't join the, the group of people yelling and screaming.

Iosif Gershteyn [00:29:41] Yes. I mean the, the ideal is to disattach is to not play the mimetic game is to question your desire. And Luke Burgess wrote a wonderful book about this wanting, and he, he, he, he translated a lot of girard's thought into, you know, thick desires, thin desires. And I think he has a very, a, a very powerful take on translating a lot of girard and philosophy into something readily understandable and, and and easily digestible.

Vance Crowe [00:30:18] Now you applied this somehow to like business, eh,

Iosif Gershteyn [00:30:24] So me and a teacher of philosophy, Michael Millman, developed a course called Vision X Form. So, and we, we put it on vision x form.com and what we did is we looked at the best ideas from philosophy that we could find and we saw what is their application to entrepreneurship. So we, we went through ideas by Machia Valley, Plato, Nietzche, heider, different thinkers who have something to share, which we found to be valuable for entrepreneurs to think through. And these ideas generally take some time to, to understand, but once, once understood properly, they change the perspective, they change, they change the perspective on how you look at what you do and how you connect what you do to why you do, and how you connect why you're doing something to who you are.

Vance Crowe [00:31:38] I think for most entrepreneurs that are, you know, trying to run a business, they're like, man, I'm just barely hanging on. I gotta spend every waking moment I can working on my business or taking care of my family. And that's really just comes down to that. How would you make the case that spending time studying and thinking about philosophy is a valuable balance against what the entrepreneur faces?

Iosif Gershteyn [00:32:06] I think there is one simple selling point, which is burnout. If you're working hard and that work is not connected to a deep meaning, then there's a much higher chance that you will quit the marathon because you're treating it like a sprint. The other question is, which is arguably worse, let's say you get to the finish line, but there's nothing there and you feel empty and you've spent all this time in your life to get to some sum in your bank account, but no feeling of accomplishment or a feeling of emptiness. Well that would probably be worse in some ways than failing.

Vance Crowe [00:32:54] Oh man, I think about if you lose your family while you're trying to become rich, like there's you, you've lost all possibility of wealth. Like that's, that's the thing that matters.

Iosif Gershteyn [00:33:03] What is the value of gaining the world if you lose your soul,

Vance Crowe [00:33:05] Right?

Iosif Gershteyn [00:33:06] So thinking about what is your soul, what am I willing to do? What am I not willing to do? And more importantly, what am I trying to accomplish and why am I doing this? And am I doing this as part of copying somebody else's dream? Or does this connect to something that I think is important? Or does this connect to something that resonates inside myself and that I can, that can be an expression of my being that I can be proud of?

Vance Crowe [00:33:34] Yeah. 'cause how horrifying would it be if you had that, you know, ardian mimetic desire of like, I wanna be a business owner and I wanna be, you know, this and that. And you get there and you realize like, well, I never actually wanted this, I just wanted it because that other guy wanted it and he seemed like things were going pretty well for him.

Iosif Gershteyn [00:33:50] Yeah. I think Jonathan by wrote his personal story specifically about that, about him wanting to be an ent, wanting to be an entrepreneur because he, he saw it as because he was in the throttle of mimetic desire and then disconnected from that ran an anti-emetic pattern of basically trying to be a monk. And then understanding that that was just another infl just another version of mimetic desire of, it's a, I thought his, his lectures on Gerard were, were excellent.

Vance Crowe [00:34:26] So it's not just that you're a guy sitting around talking about philosophy and, and business. You actually run a business right now. Talk about your, your company.

Iosif Gershteyn [00:34:37] So about six and a half years ago, me and my co-founder, Victor Gold Macher established immu immu is an oncology company where we've developed bispecific antibodies for hard to treat cancers. And we, we've done that with immune independent system. So we have a mechanism that's a direct molecular mechanism interacting with cancer cells while keeping healthy cells unaffected. So if you think about cancer treatment, you can imagine three major categories. You small molecule drugs, biologics, proteins, and whole cell therapies. So cell therapies, so small molecules are the chemotherapeutic agents that have been used for a very, very long time. Think of them as poisons. They're injected into the, the bloodstream. They affect healthy cells and cancer cells. The goal there is to affect cancer cells preferentially and to kill off the cancer cells without killing too many of the healthy cells and then letting the body regenerate. So in that way they're quite dirty. Biologics, antibody-based therapeutics have a targeting mechanism. So the idea there is to affect the cancer cells without affecting healthy cells.

Iosif Gershteyn [00:36:08] So there they seek a tumor associated antigen, which is a cell surface marker that's prevalent on cancer cells and not prevalent on healthy cells. And there they interact in some way with the cancer cell through that target. One of the more popular avenues has been something called antibody drug conjugate. So we take one of those small molecule poisons, we connect it with a targeting mechanism on the antibody, and so the antibody hones in on the cancer cells and then releases or throws in the poison and kills the cancer cell while minimally affecting outside cells. That's the goal. And then there's the whole cell therapeutics such as CAR T chimeric, antigen receptor T cells, which have been commercialized, where there cells are actually modified in order to, there are living drugs, there's, there are cells that are modified to target and kill cancer cells and they've shown quite some efficacy in liquid tumors. What we're doing is we're in the biologic space where we have bispecific antibodies. So instead of an A DC where you have a targeting mechanism and then poison, which can kill the cancer cell, but either can kill some surrounding cells because the poison goes around, or potentially if the poison is internalized and kills the cell from the inside, it, the, the cell dies in a way that it's blown up and goes through the, through the immune system, pardon?

Iosif Gershteyn [00:37:59] Through the circulatory system pro potentially provoking an immune response, the most dangerous of which can be lethal, which is a cytokine release storm. Instead what we've done is we've developed a bispecific antibody where instead of the drug part that kills the cancer cell, we turn on the suicide pathway of the cell, the apoptotic mechanism. So healthy cells, when they are no longer functional, they kill themselves, they turn on apoptosis, and then they, they bleb and then they're excreted through the body without triggering an immune response In cancer cells, that mechanism is turned off. Now what we do is we found a way to turn on that mechanism and so we target the cancer cells and then we turn on their natural death system because the natural death system, the apoptotic pathway involves blabbing, which is packaging the internal contents of the cell. There is, we avoid the most of the risks of cytokine release syndrome. And because we're not using poison, we're we're, we're also not creating damage or we should not be creating damage to surrounding cells.

Vance Crowe [00:39:21] So it's, when you describe it in this way, it seems like the obvious answer for cancer treatment, just get the cancer cells to kill themselves. Why is, why is your thing that you're doing novel? Why has nobody done this before?

Iosif Gershteyn [00:39:36] There have been many attempts to do this and they have failed. We, what we've been working on is we found a way to get it to work through a mechanism that was here unto unknown. So there was some basic biological breakthrough that Victor Gold Macher and I worked on, and obviously we're also supported by our team.

Vance Crowe [00:40:05] So why'd you get into this world?

Iosif Gershteyn [00:40:11] I thought it was the absolute best thing I could do with my life. So I was always interested in biology and after working in finance, well during, while I was working in finance for a few years, I was studying physiology, neuroscience, mostly physiology and neuroscience independently, later immunology. And I was lucky enough to know some wonderful, wonderful professors who let me sit in on their classes, notably Professor Andre Ky of Boston University and learn more deeply and building on that knowledge base at the time, I, I was running one of my first startups. It, I got the time to, to work on my first medical device startup with actually Professor tki, which we were able to license at the start of the pandemic, which was a telemedicine device. And then I worked on a cancer vaccine startup with a scientist from Columbia and independently of me that got out licensed. And while I was working on that, I was introduced to Victor Gold Macher, which was quite a funny story. He had come up with an idea for a project and he was looking for, he was looking for a partner to build the company with.

Iosif Gershteyn [00:41:48] And so actually the scientist from Columbia who, who I was working with was a common friend. And so Victor asked him if he could recommend anybody and we were introduced, well, when we were introduced it was very funny 'cause we had known each other our whole lives. His wife was my teacher of Russian literature, so I spent 10 years in their house every week. But we had never known each other professionally. So

Vance Crowe [00:42:24] That had to be a trip when you're getting together and being like, wait, you,

Iosif Gershteyn [00:42:28] Exactly, that was, that's why when we were being introduced and given formal introductions, we both had giant smiles on our face and you know, very quickly we were able to make a handshake deal and then we formalized it, but it was off to the races since then. So

Vance Crowe [00:42:46] That was several years ago,

Iosif Gershteyn [00:42:47] Six and a half years ago.

Vance Crowe [00:42:49] What has been the progress?

Iosif Gershteyn [00:42:51] The progress has been dramatic. It took a very long time to get to the stage we're at now we're at the drug candidate stage, but we've first validated our drug candidate in vitro. So on cell lines, shown that it was eff affectatious in cell killing, then we validated it in vivo. So we would take mice, inject human xenograft tumors, so that's tumors from real cancer patients, immortalized cancer lines, wait for the tumor to grow to an established size and then see how effective we were at shrinking the tumor. And we were, we were able to show dramatic incredible effects. And then recently we were able to show that that's also dose dependent. So the larger the dose of our drug, the more, the more affectatious we are in reducing tumor volume. And now we're onto our non-human primate monkey toxicology studies where we've been able to show on, on the initial study that we don't have any signs of toxicity.

Vance Crowe [00:44:09] And so how long until a drug like this, if things continue to progress at the rate they are until it gets into the market?

Iosif Gershteyn [00:44:17] Well, assuming that there is no delay in funding, then we would say perhaps conservatively 18 months to get to clinical trials. And then a phase one clinical trial, phase one slash two clinical trial could be completed. I, I don't, let's say, let's say just optimistically three years. And then depending on the designation of such drug, whether it's an orphan drug, whether it's a breakthrough designation, whether depending on the regulatory pathway, say another two years. So let's say six, another six to eight years until it can come onto the market.

Vance Crowe [00:45:01] Would you say this is a cure for cancer?

Iosif Gershteyn [00:45:09] I hope so. Or it could be, if not a cure for cancer. Well, it's very ambitious to say it would be a cure for cancer. I would hope that it would be. We've se we've seen the curing of completely curing tumors in mice. So for certain mice it has been a cure. Does that translate into humans? We think the efficacy has a very good chance of translating into humans. We believe it will translate into humans. We've run a bunch of experiments to validate our thesis on why the translation will work. But if it, but as an adjunct, as a, as a combination therapy with other approaches, it very well could be the cure for many patients.

Vance Crowe [00:45:58] What would a world look like if you were able to conquer cancer?

Iosif Gershteyn [00:46:03] Well then we would have to be focusing on a Alzheimer's. So I think that the, the, the, the dragon of the 21st century is cancer, but the dragon of the 22nd century is dementia and Alzheimer's.

Vance Crowe [00:46:19] Tell me more about that.

Iosif Gershteyn [00:46:22] Well, what's the point of prolonging life if you lose your cognitive faculties?

Vance Crowe [00:46:27] Yeah, that's right.

Iosif Gershteyn [00:46:29] So right now the bottleneck that I see, well we have, we have three major bottlenecks in terms of longevity, which is cardiovascular disease, so heart attack strokes, then, then cancer, and then dementia, Alzheimer's, right? So we have a pretty good grasp on the heart disease. We, we know a lot of its mechanisms and I think that there's gonna be continued progress on managing that and repairing that. And there is interesting technologies that, that can, that can work on that system

Vance Crowe [00:47:05] And people focusing in on it much, much earlier and trying to find how do we, how do we signal to a person that seems healthy in their forties that they need to start caring about their heart health so that that way when they're in their seventies, they're, they're not trying to undo years and years of damage.

Iosif Gershteyn [00:47:22] Absolutely. People are becoming more health conscious. It's, it's become, it's, it's become a normal thing to exercise, which is probably the greatest intervention you can have. And heart disease is something that I think we can, we can work on and that we can, we, we can create new therapies for. But cancer is the, the killer that is the greatest bottleneck in my opinion right now, of longevity. And if we can, and the, if we can solve that, which, and cancer is so many different diseases, it's not a single disease, it's just a blank term. But if we can make a, a significant dent on that, and if as you say, we can cure cancer as a whole, then the next step is to preserve cognitive function is to prevent Alzheimer's or cure Alzheimer's. Do

Vance Crowe [00:48:20] You think that's possible?

Iosif Gershteyn [00:48:22] Yes.

Vance Crowe [00:48:24] What do you anticipate the mechanism would be towards doing something like that?

Iosif Gershteyn [00:48:29] I don't know. I, I, I'm, I'm in touch with the CEOs of two very, very promising Alzheimer's treatment companies, and they're both very excited about their results and I hope that both of them work out and make a meaningful impact.

Vance Crowe [00:48:50] What is the state of getting something through the regulatory world these days?

Iosif Gershteyn [00:48:56] It's extraordinarily difficult. The, the FDA is very careful and wants to make sure that, that the clinical trials don't harm patients. So they ask for a lot of data to approve an IND and most of that data is to confirm the safety, to confirm that when you're going through dose escalations, you're mid, you're not gonna be killing patients.

Vance Crowe [00:49:28] And how has it been for you to learn how to navigate this if you weren't in this space before?

Iosif Gershteyn [00:49:35] It's been a journey. It's been a journey. I'm blessed to work with some of the best people in the industry, world class experts who give guidance and, and input into how to develop a pathway through how to, how to, how to design a clinical trial that's, that's gonna be conclusive. So I mean, most of, most of the work, all of the work now has been preclinical. It's all been research and development preclinical. So that's where I've developed some expertise. And now hopefully moving into the clinical phase over the next two years will open up a whole new vista of opportunity as well as experience.

Vance Crowe [00:50:25] So the interesting thing is, as you're talking about working on cures for cancer, is that when we were talking before the show, you mentioned that you went to Russia to study theater,

Iosif Gershteyn [00:50:37] So

Vance Crowe [00:50:38] This was not like the, the most direct path. What took you over to Russia? Why theater?

Iosif Gershteyn [00:50:45] It was a opportunity in my early twenties, I was invited to join an international cohort at the Russian Institute of Theater Arts, Russian Academy of Theater Arts. It's GTAs, it's one of the two major theater schools in Russia, Moscow Art Theater school. And because my mother was very involved in the theater world and very, she was invited to present her documentary film in in Moscow, I, and I was the cameraman for, for, for her film. So I came along with the, with the group to the film festival. And there a professor from, from the Midwest actually was organizing a group of Americans to study in Moscow. And it was, there was a program in acting and a program in direction, the direction was under Dmitri Moff. So I jumped at the opportunity and I went for half a year to Moscow and studied theatrical direction, watched an extraordinary amount of wonderful plays, and was able to be inspired by all the creative ingenuity that the directors and actors had had put forth.

Vance Crowe [00:52:20] How does one study direction? What are, what are you learning when you're studying that?

Iosif Gershteyn [00:52:26] So it was a shock when I was in university, there was a right answer, you know, marginal demand equals marginal supply. That's the equilibrium point. And that's the answer I come into first day of theater school and they say, okay, in a large room, take up as much space as you can. How do you do that? It's, it's not a logical question, it's, it, it, it's, so most people, myself included, we start running around the room, we start running around the room and you know, we're just trying to take up space. You know, some people are spreading their arms out. This one girl actually beats us all. She stands in the middle of the room and starts screaming. She took up the most space, she, she got it done. Or another one we go into, we partner up male female and start dancing. And they say, okay, now you're, you need to dance in a way that shows that you are powerful. So try to maximize your, your, your strength and your confidence during your dance. Now we are not told how to dance and we weren't, this wasn't a step dance, this wasn't like the fox trot. This was somehow change your being right now such that people around you can notice. And these are questions that somebody who is trained, you know, in economics, you know, in finance, these are not questions that have the answer.

Iosif Gershteyn [00:54:07] This is, so I had to change the way that I would approach what I was being taught from a direct, linear, rational, logical way of answering the question to holistic associative creative act where there is not truly a right answer, but there are better answers and worse answers.

Vance Crowe [00:54:31] That is fantastic, right? I, because any person that hears that question thinks, well what, what, what would I do? And then realizing that at least initially the answer is entirely inside of you. Right? And, and like you, you establishing an answer that you're right isn't necessarily wrong, but couldn't that maybe could be, could be done better. So how, what did you take away from this? Where did you see it, the ability to apply these types of ideas in, in the world?

Iosif Gershteyn [00:55:05] The most important thing I took away from theater school was the importance of per choosing your perception. My favorite game that I learned from theater school, which I taught at a seminar on philosophy, the Abigail Adams Institute a few years ago, was this, look into you, you partner up and you look into the eyes of the person, you look at the face of the person for about three minutes if you're gonna do it right. And you just look at how ugly and stupid they are. By the end of the three minutes, if you really focus your intention on noticing every imperfection on everything wrong with them, they will become the most hideous, dead eyed, off-putting person in the world. Then you snap and you spend three minutes seeing how this is the most wonderful, beautiful, caring, kind real person you've ever seen. And by the end of the three minutes you will almost be in love with that person. It's so shocking. If you actually do it, if you do it with intention, you can get a flavor in about one minute. So if you spend two minutes doing this exercise, you will, you'll get a flavor of it. If you actually spend the three minutes and the three minutes doing it, it will change you forever because you will know that you are creating the reality in front of you. You are very, very much selecting if you are going to like this person or if you're not going to like this person, if you're gonna see the best in them or if you're not gonna see the or, if you're gonna see the worst in them. And also the way that they're going to respond to you is largely going to be a function of how you choose to see them.

Vance Crowe [00:56:44] Whoa, that's very powerful because you can see it in all the things that you do and, and the different perceptions you've had in a person over time and how that changes how you even see what, see, see them with your eyes.

Iosif Gershteyn [00:56:59] Yes. It changed. A good friend of mine, Phillip Maman, is interested in mindfulness and and he works closely with Elm Langer.

Vance Crowe [00:57:11] Was that the guy I watched on your podcast? Yes,

Iosif Gershteyn [00:57:13] Very

Vance Crowe [00:57:13] Good podcast. Like even the first like few minutes I dropped into that I was like, this is disorienting, it's so on point, keep going.

Iosif Gershteyn [00:57:24] And he's really good about seeing what's interesting, what's new, what's good around him. And it's infectious. It's infectious, it's a practice and it's so it's, it makes you present and it makes life worth living every moment.

Vance Crowe [00:57:48] Yeah, he was describing it as, you know, you have a friend that's always late and you could say, oh look how selfish this person is. They don't think of me. But if you really look at it like, look how spontaneous they are, look how they always have a story and that story is gonna be filled with drama that you just don't have in your life and, and or look at and just, just any number of things where at first you're like, yeah, but that's not what happened. And you're like, well, it just depends on the perception of what happened. I mean, I think about couples and the, the like in a marriage, how you perceive what the other person is, how you choose to perceive what they're doing changes the dynamic of that conversation. The way you choose to perceive the motivations of your children really impacts how you, how you get them. Do you feel you were able to internalize this? Are you able to apply this as you're walking through your day?

Iosif Gershteyn [00:58:42] I try. I try. Sometimes I succeed. Not always it's, but sometimes, you know, and on relationships, I had a friend, have a friend, she's been married for over 40 years and her mantra to avoid conflict with her husband is assume generous intentions. So instead of getting angry with some miscommunication is just assume that their intentions are good. And if we, if we assume that, if we practice assuming that then we can become much less reactive, create much more positive interactions.

Vance Crowe [00:59:30] The thought that came up, this seems totally random, but over the weekend I heard Mike Tyson on a podcast and he was sitting there saying, you like me now because I'm on shrooms and I smoke weed and you wouldn't like me if you, if I weren't doing those things. That to me like is in line with what you're talking about with intention, right? That's like, people wouldn't like me if, how does that strike you?

Iosif Gershteyn [01:00:03] People wouldn't like me if he thinks that he is liked because of his way of being Yes. And his way of being he attributes to the use of marijuana and psilocybin. Right?

Vance Crowe [01:00:17] That's right.

Iosif Gershteyn [01:00:22] I think experiences can be transformative and can make you into a better person. I don't think that people like Mike Tyson because he is doing X or YI think that if he has transformed himself into being a likable person, that's why he is liked. So him, he's mis misattributing why people like him. It's not that he is on weed and shrooms and that's why people like him. It's who he is his, his way of being in the world. Maybe when he is on those substances or maybe as a result of those substances. But that's how I would probably look at it.

Vance Crowe [01:00:59] Yeah, he, he's been an interesting character to watch because he embodies a sort of philosophical worldview that is far, far more empathetic and sympathetic than most people would ever guess. This, like, you know, the world's strongest man you'd never want to get in the boxing ring with him. And then he lost a daughter to an accident where she, she accidentally killed herself on a treadmill and he spent all this time in prison and he had his people that were his friends, you know, stole from him. And so you end up taking this character that, that like used to be seen as, like I would, would you take a punch for a million dollars if it was Mike Tyson? And, and then going to being like a person that seems more empathetic and sympathetic than most people. And I think your world view of being able to see the best or worst in people is, I don't know if it's an advantage or not, but it's certainly different than most of the finance business world, VC world that surrounds you.

Iosif Gershteyn [01:02:01] Well, finance and business is all about relationships, right? Every, ultimately all of the numbers are abstractions on relationships, relationships between money flows and relationships between entities and all of the money flows and all of the entities boil down to people. So whether or not we abstract away from the relationships, relationships are the fundamental, are the fundamental layer of social reality and money is an abstraction on top of that layer.

Vance Crowe [01:02:35] What is money?

Iosif Gershteyn [01:02:39] Money is either the store of value or it is a collective dilution. Could be both.

Vance Crowe [01:02:48] Yeah, it's interesting to think about how relationships and money are all tied together. And if you can get a, if a person that you are in a relationship with gives you money, what that does to the nature of the relationship and what it says about the nature of the relationship

Iosif Gershteyn [01:03:03] That depends on the philosophical context. So in the west we very much like to create borders and delineate personal relationships from transactional relationships.

Vance Crowe [01:03:14] It's only business.

Iosif Gershteyn [01:03:15] It's, yeah, it's, it's either all business or it's all personal. We hate mixing, we like strong borders. In some cultures in the east, those borders are more fluid and there isn't. So I think in the West there is an idea that personal relationships are, in some sense holy and transactional relationships are in some sense profane. And so mixing the holy and the unholy is very much frowned upon because we have a, a sense of disgust, a lack of purity that's associated with the mixing of those two, of those of those two things that should be independent. But that is not a universal, there are cultures where money and personal relationships are not considered distinct, where a financial arrangement between, between generations is as part of the social structure as the personal relationships. So filial pity has, has a financial dimension as well.

Vance Crowe [01:04:30] Yeah, I mean that's such a, a core part of the west culture that you most people don't even understand. I mean, what you're describing is something different than even I understood, but like, you know, we have all these axioms, right? Like it's only business or time is money, but that's like very distinctly saying, Hey, I can cut off this conversation with you to go talk to another person as long as I describe, well it's 'cause I've got business with them. And you'd be like, okay, I understand and accept that. Whereas in other cultures, if I break off a conversation with you in order to be on time with that other person, it's hugely offensive and, and you know, breaking away that relationship. And it's just funny because I, and this kind of circles back to the beginning of the conversation, it's almost impossible to perceive your own culture if you don't have something else to judge it against because it's just water. You just assume everyone operates and thinks in this way.

Iosif Gershteyn [01:05:26] Absolutely. The ultimate water is consciousness.

Vance Crowe [01:05:31] Say more about that.

Iosif Gershteyn [01:05:32] Well, we, we can't imagine a world without consciousness because our imagination is a function of consciousness. So when you said our culture is invisible to us because we are subsumed in it, well yes, you can have more than one culture. You can, you know, somewhat get a, a a bit of perspective on the culture if, if you are, if, if you get outside of the culture in some way. But underneath that, at the most basic level is c consciousness conscious experience. And there is no way to get outside that. The closest thing I know to getting outside consciousness is general anesthesia. And I've had general anesthesia once in my life and it was a shocking experience. And because time no longer existed, I, I thought it would be akin to sleep, but instead it was absence. So it did not that, that time when I was under general anesthesia did not exist for me. So that was the only time truly when consciousness was separate where, where I had the experience of non-experience, which is not an experience. So it's a conceptualization of a lack. It's, it's a,

Vance Crowe [01:06:54] You're describing an experience I had that I had no idea what I was in for. 'cause you like, oh, I'm going under anesthesia. I thought the same thing, I'm gonna be asleep. But it was like a split second. I went from, I was in this room doing this thing and now I'm in this other space and I feel intense pain that I did not, I was not prepared for. And, but I'd never thought about it as being a lack of consciousness. So what is consciousness?

Iosif Gershteyn [01:07:26] There are a bunch of definitions of consciousness and they're all lacking probably because our whole idea of definition is already a function of consciousness. So most of the way that we, that we think the form of our thinking is roughly metaphor is this, is like that this This is a line, a line is like a stick. Oh, I know what a stick is and therefore I can abstract it into a line. A line has function, this and that. Consciousness doesn't conform to that because it's unique. It's singular. It is. It is the plane on which you can create metaphor. It is every, all of experience funnels into consciousness now. So I don't have a definition of consciousness.

Vance Crowe [01:08:19] Neither do i, I think about it a lot because I notice with my daughters, right, they are conscious, but they are not fully self-aware, right? She, my, my daughter, violet doesn't know that. She's thinking she's just been doing it the whole time. And if you said, if you ask her questions like, what are you thinking about? Like it's, it's like a does not compute syntax error. And, but there'll come a day when she will be aware to be like, oh, I am thinking and I'm existing. And I like, they're, they're kind of mixed together, but it's very, very hard to describe what it is. She's conscious. But what does that mean? I don't know. I mean, I think she's conscious. I guess that's my best estimation is that

Iosif Gershteyn [01:09:03] Well, I think, you know, that she's conscious and we, we know we can sense consciousness when it is around us. We, we, we know what is and isn't consciousness, just like we know what is and isn't life, even though life doesn't have a good solid definition itself. But Jung actually spoke that he emerged into self-consciousness as if out of a fog. So it was a, it was a, it was a singular event in his life going from that childlike stake of consciousness, but not self-awareness to self-awareness. It's a, it's a, it's a step. And it, it's interesting to think about the levels of consciousness and, for example, childish consciousness that is not self-aware versus self-aware consciousness, which is no longer, you no longer have access to consciousness that's not self-aware outside of brief periods when you're so engrossed into some interaction with the environment to some activity and to some flow state where you forget about yourself.

Vance Crowe [01:10:12] That's right. And that's, I guess maybe even that childhood consciousness without self-awareness is a little bit like the Garden of Eden concept, right? Where, where once you leave the garden, you can't go back in. But what kind of existence would it be with, without, without self-awareness, right? If you were just, or with Yeah. If you were just conscious but not self-aware, it would be lacking in some fundamental part of the human experience.

Iosif Gershteyn [01:10:40] I think it's mostly the peak human experiences when we lose ourselves. So that's why we love flow state so much. I don't think we're self-conscious when we are completely in the moment in our environment. So how painters lose themselves for hours when they paint, or how athletes when they're at peak performance are totally singularly focused on their goals. David Foster Wallace wrote this wonderful essay, how Tracy, something Broke my Heart. I, I, I forget the name of the essay, but Tracy was some wonderful,

Vance Crowe [01:11:17] I'll look it up and put it in the show notes.

Iosif Gershteyn [01:11:18] Yeah. Some wonderful tennis prodigy who had a very short career and she wrote an autobiography and he read it, and he was reviewing this autobiography and he spoke about how he was, he had high hopes of this, this, this genius of movement, being able to tell us what it felt like to be a genius of movement, because he played competitive tennis as well. And he realized his limitations, and he said she was so unreflective, there was such a deep lack of introspection that it was a, it was very disappointing to read that autobiography. And the thesis that he puts forth is that you have to lack skill and introspection in order to perform exceptionally in sport. So you're there that, that, the being able to be present and being able to introspect are contradictory. And, and Remind reminds me of a, of a book between the, the tension between a man of action and a man of reflection. It was Zorba the Greek,

Vance Crowe [01:12:31] Yeah,

Iosif Gershteyn [01:12:31] Yeah. Zorba the Greek, which is where they, the two characters Zorba, who is just a man of action, just living in the moment, not reflective. And then the narrator who is a man of letters, who is always reflecting, always analyzing and thereby not acting. And the, the necessity for both. The necessity for both, while at the same time being in conflict.

Vance Crowe [01:12:56] This is astounding to me because in, so I do these things, Legacy Interviews where I interview people to, to tell their life stories. And I have definitely seen people that have been at the very, very top right. They've built up businesses highly successful. It's not that they don't have a great story, it's that they haven't really thought about their story very much. And you think about other people that, you know, maybe had more moderated lives. They, they do have a bit of both of them in them, but I could, I would never have put those two things together that, that by being self-aware, it may keep you from reaching certain levels of greatness because I guess it, of course it would, right? You become, you become embarrassed or nervous or not not fully engaged in it because you're thinking about yourself. That's very profound.

Iosif Gershteyn [01:13:51] There's a book called Muscle by, by a writer, Fussel, good book. And it's an autobiography of a, a, a somewhat mediocre bodybuilder. And he came to New York, I believe in the seventies or maybe eighties, and he was super into bodybuilding, and he's the son of a professor from England, an intellectual, clearly he was, he wrote a, a very, very good book. And he said that he knew that he would never be great as a bodybuilder because he didn't have the requisite faith. He didn't have the requisite assuredness. He always had the doubt. So when he says, when the bodybuilders at the gym would say something like, lightweight baby or no pain, no gain, they would completely mean it. They were completely, they, they gave 100% of their being to doing that, to lifting that weight, to believing those mantras. And he would imitate that. But he didn't have the abandon. He didn't, he was 99% in it, but he couldn't give the a hundred percent because of his reflective nature. And that's what he thinks prevented him from being a great bodybuilder. Yeah.

Vance Crowe [01:15:04] And that's kind of like in the, the Steinbeck book where he talks about the difference between being a good man and a great man. Right? A great man has to give up a lot of, of what a good man has in order to become that. Right. Whether that's your family or your, or the things that you love and care about. Iosf, this has been a phenomenal conversation. I, I would keep this going for a long time, but I know we have to stop. So if people wanted to learn more about your company, where would they go to find that?

Iosif Gershteyn [01:15:37] Immu.com. I-M-M-U-V-I a.com or in terms of the philosophy work?

Vance Crowe [01:15:44] Yeah, definitely that one too.

Iosif Gershteyn [01:15:45] Vision x form.com. V-I-S-I-O-N-X-F-O-R m.com.

Vance Crowe [01:15:53] That sounds great. Hey, man, thank you so much for coming on here.

Iosif Gershteyn [01:15:56] Thank you for inviting me. It was a pleasure.