First of all, my name is Stephane Bancel. I'm the CEO of Moderna. So, I'm trained as an engineer. I loved chemistry. So, I studied a lot of biochemistry. That led me to do more classes in genetics. And I got into biology through the back door through genetics.
That is exciting, exciting stuff. So, we'll just jump straight into some questions. This question was actually emailed to me from Marseilles from France, a student there. Like I said, a lot of kids watch the recording afterwards. The student wanted to know with this week's successful phase three cancer vaccine results, does this feel like for you one of those moments when a vision you've championed for years is finally becoming a reality?
Yes. And to give you a sense, the first time we discussed with my team the idea of using mRNA to make an individualized treatment. Meaning if you and I, Ralph, get diagnosed that we have skin cancer today in the same hospital by the same doctor, Moderna will make a drug for you and will make a drug for me that's a different chemical. So that first idea happened in June 2015. So think about the journey from June 2015 to literally this week where we have phase three data. We know for sure it's working and we're going to go very quickly file to the regulators, FDA and around the world, to get these two patients hopefully next year when they have time to do their review to make sure everything is good. It shows you that when you do science and biology, but I think it's true in a lot of places in life and in business, when you try to do big things they take time and you need to have a great team around you, you need to be resilient because many people thought we were crazy, thought it will never work, and go back to the data and the facts so that you can manage that.
That's brilliant, brilliant advice. I have a question from Asvika in India. She had a very good question. Asvika, you can unmute to ask Mr. Bancel. Go ahead, pal.
Yeah, I'm from Madurai, especially in South India, and my question is: I'm deeply interested in computer science and data science and I'm fascinated by how data and AI are becoming tools for scientific discovery. Looking at your journey across engineering, biotechnology and business, do you think the innovators of the future will be the specialist in one field or people who can complete disciplines like mathematics, computer science, biology and business? And if you were starting out as a student today, what would you learn first to prepare for that future? But you do have a keen interest in mathematics.
That's a wonderful question and very thoughtful one. I will definitely start by science. Science, mathematics, engineering, those are hard things to learn and they get harder to learn as you get older. So I would say do all the hard work early. And in today's world, mathematics, data science are going to be critical. As we get more and more technology in the world, we're going to be able to analyze a huge quantity of data. In our field, making medicine, the quantity of data is gigantic. Think about you have 20,000 genes, you have 20 trillion cells, 40,000 metabolites like insulin, you know, and cholesterol and so on. So we're going to make huge progress in the world whether it's fusion energy or clean energy or medicines by really understanding what's going on in the physical world and be able to find solutions. And so I think math and data science, you cannot go wrong.
That's great. And I would be remiss, I had a student email me this and this came from Poland. But I would be remiss because not many people are aware about your work in education equity and your philanthropic work and we try and encourage the kids on these about giving back to their community and doing for those who can do nothing in return, just to kind of spread kindness. This student emailed me and they wanted to know you were able to come to the United States and study at the University of Minnesota with the help of a need-based scholarship. How much did having someone invest in your potential before you had achieved everything you've achieved influence your commitment today to creating educational opportunities for other young people?
Yes, it's a wonderful question and indeed that has a huge impact on me. I mean two things had a huge impact on me which I only realized much later in life. One is I was raised in Jesuit education. So for those of you who don't know, Jesuit is a subbranch of Catholic religion, but the Jesuit they educate you with a very big mindset of serving. So you know religious people have different philosophy, but Jesuit is about serving and doing God's work through action. So that has a huge impact on me. And then the other one is of course that scholarship you mentioned because my parents went from a middle income family in Marseilles, France, couldn't afford to send me of course to America to graduate school. I didn't want to take on debt because I was worried to starting my life with debt will be complicated and so I got that scholarship from Procter and Gamble and that was of course a godsend because I could go to Minnesota for my masters. That is and it changed the world too, like that, it's just that kind of spark that started a fire that started just...
Which is why to your point, Ralph, my wife and I do a lot of giving to education. We actually started a Jesuit new school in Marseilles in a low-income neighborhood of Marseilles. We're doing a lot of things in the US also for education and so on. Because the way we think about it is one kid educated, think about the lifetime trajectory, what they're going to do for the world, the family they're going to raise, the children. So the impact is multigenerational and as we all know, education is key. Look, my wife came from a very low-income family. You know, her dad worked in the railroad in Minnesota in US. I come, you know, and education is why I've been successful and so I will always, always advise all the young students is you can change your life and the life of your future family by just learning, working hard, and you can do amazing things and have fun doing it. Like my job is fun, like I literally tap dance to the office every day because I work with very smart people that I choose to be very nice and kind and respectful because I hired everybody, started the place from scratch and we're doing good work because we're making medicine to help people that are sick. So, it's very energizing. You know, we're not making guns or we're not making cars or other things. We're doing things that every day you go home at night and you achieve something. You move a ball down the field to help people around the planet. Think about the COVID vaccine that we did during the pandemic is just trying to help people and that's having meaning in life is much more important than making money.
That's and that's brilliant. And I saw an interview where you were talking about education equity and it was I think it was dealing with the Posse Foundation about and I'm a firm believer in that, that tests don't measure everything. It doesn't measure the human heart and you know it shouldn't be the wealthy kids just learning about certain things. So I'll move it along. We have a question from Amarita in India. You had an awesome question my friend. Go ahead and ask Mr. Bancel.
Sir, I have two questions. The first one is what are the strategies do you use to manage stress and avoid leadership burnout? And the second question is how do you think AI will change the required skill set for the next generation of business leaders?
Those are wonderful smart questions. Geez, you guys are way much smarter than I was at your age. So stress is a very, very important question. And we are all different meaning we have different genes, different body, different culture and so on. So I'm going to be careful to share what I've learned. I've learned first that social media is terrible. And so that you know and you can check I am on no social media. Zero. Okay. I'm not on Facebook, not on Instagram, not on TikTok, on nothing. Why? Because the instant very positive, very negative thing mess up your brain and create a lot of anxiety and stress. So I get my news because you need to know what's going on in the world by reading newspaper even online by reading high quality media. So whether the content is checked, where there's accountability, and not being on social media makes me very calm. So one thing, the second thing I do sport. I've realized I didn't know when I was your age, but I realized as I started to have my career and also more stress that by doing sport and for me it's running, even when like Wednesday morning with the big news with the cancer product. I was going to go on live TV in New York. I went run in the morning even half an hour just to calm me down. I took a nice cold shower, you know, put my suit on and so you learn with age and what works for you. But experiment, experiment. The other thing I learned is if I don't sleep enough, I don't deal with stress well. I'm short with people, which I don't want to be, of course. My fear sometimes takes over my thinking when I'm tired. So, I try to be very disciplined to go to bed at around the same time and try to get a good night of sleep. I don't have my phone in my bedroom. It's another disciplined thing. When I go to bed, I plug my phone in my bathroom. I turn it off physically. It's off and I go to bed. So those things I've learned are really important to keep me with low stress or be able to manage my stress.
On the second question on the AI skill set. Of course, you need to be black belt in using AI because it's a new tool. So, you need to keep learning how to use it and ask not only the AI itself tips about how to use it better because it sees how you are using it so it can help you but ask friends. I do a lot of time where I share with my friends, hey, how are you doing this? How you doing that? Because it's a new tool that's new to all of us. So none of us know all the things it can do. So of course learning the tool, learning also about human psychology at the end of the day to achieve big things you need people to work with you, teams, but all of us are different people. So I would say a thing that has been very helpful to me. It's a psychology system that you guys can start reading about. It's called the Enneagram. E-N-N-E-A-G-R-A-M. You can find books on Amazon or other places. It's a system of nine personalities that was developed hundreds of years ago that describe for each personality what do you look like when you are healthy, when you are good, and when you are unhealthy. And then how do you manage other personalities to be effective? That has to be useful for me at home because my wife and I have a different personality type and at work. So I think if you can learn how to be effective with people that are different from you, that's how you make strong team when there is different skills because we are all biased, you know. And if you can use tools like AI to be productive, if you can do those two things together, you'll be very successful.
Brilliant advice, guys. This is like one in a million. I'm so happy that we're able to connect with Mr. Bancel. We're going to go with a few more questions and let him go because it's getting kind of late for our kids in Eastern Asia. So, one of the students in Florida emailed me this. They want to know when we talk about educational equity, and I'm sorry we're jumping all over the place because you are truly a Renaissance man. Do you think we're giving students enough access to information or are we also failing to give them access to people and experiences that can expand their sense of what's possible like dreaming?
