How to Make a Masterpiece
Change your mindset
My podcast, Life Sciences Today, is picking up speed—5 episodes in 2 weeks, with 10 more queued up.
One of the most striking recent interviews was with Ori Warshavsky, COO of Polypid—a company playing the long game in surgical infection prevention. They’ve been at it for nearly two decades, building a platform for the local delivery of antibiotics that last 30 days (vs. the usual 3–4 weeks).
Polypid is a masterclass in slow-cooked innovation—proof that in healthcare, patience often beats speed.
🎧 Listen to the episode with Ori Warshavsky Post-surgical care with PolyPid - Life Sciences Today
The Sculptor's Mindset
I once heard a story about the difference between Israeli and Japanese sculptors.
The Israeli buys a huge block of wood. He circles it. Starts cutting. At the end of the day, unhappy with the result, he throws it out.
Next day—new block. Same process. Thirty days, thirty blocks. On day 31, he has a masterpiece.
The Japanese artist? Same block of wood. But he studies it. Circles it. Thinks. One day, two days, a month. Then one morning, he picks up his tools. By lunch, he’s carved a masterpiece.
Same result and same amount of time. Two different mindsets.
But there’s a paradox:
The right mindset can help you move much faster, even in a world that requires long timelines, deep science, and regulatory rigor.
In this essay, I will discuss how adopting the right mindset can help us move a lot faster; even in the heavily regulated life sciences industry.
Slow Burn, Massive Impact
Polypid didn’t rush. Their drug-delivery platform releases just 54mg of antibiotics locally over 30 days—compared to 2,000mg systemically over 10.
They're addressing a 12-million-procedure U.S. market, starting with colorectal surgery and expanding to C-sections, breast reconstructions (with 20–30% infection rates), and joint replacements.
Each infection can cost hospitals $25,000–$100,000—and trigger Medicare penalties.
Polypid isn’t just a drug company. It’s a case study in disciplined innovation under regulatory constraints.
And they started in 2008—long before LLMs or AI agents could accelerate any of it.
Fast is Now Possible. Your Mindset is the Barrier.
James Currier from NFX put it well:
“You think you're moving fast enough. You're not.”
He’s right. Especially in life sciences, where most teams confuse “rigor” with “inertia.”
AI doesn’t second-guess. It doesn’t seek consensus. It doesn’t procrastinate.
It sees the signal. It ships the insight.
Today, the biggest drag on innovation isn’t regulatory—it’s psychological. We’re too slow because we’ve been trained to be slow.
What Moving Fast Really Looks Like
I’m leading an AI clinical data cleaning project using GPT-4o, Claude, o1 for system design, Windsurf, and a team of three interns.
In 3 days, we built a polished prototype that parses trial data dictionaries and flags issues. We’re running at 6x the speed of a senior dev team.
We’re learning by shipping. Fixing bugs instantly. Making mistakes daily—and moving forward anyway.
We had two blockers in 72 hours: one in database structure, one from Git. Solved both in under 3 hours because we didn’t stop to overanalyze, or point fingers.
One key learning?
Don’t let the AI get too clever.
Windsurf rewrote our README behind our backs.
Creepy—but fixable.
You’ve Been Trained to Move Slowly
Most founders in life sciences are trained by slow systems:
School is slow. Biotech orgs are slower. Everyone wants consensus. Everyone’s afraid of screwing up.
But here’s the truth: the FDA didn’t ask you to move this slowly.
Take RBM (risk-based monitoring). The FDA signaled in 2011 that modern methods were needed. Yet today, 95% of trials still rely on manual reviews and paper forms.
The enemy isn't the agency—it’s the mindset.
Reset your speed bar. Then reset your team’s.
The Product is the Team
My interns don’t know it’s “impossible” to build an agentic AI platform in 8 weeks.
So they just build.
You might not have interns. You might just have yourself. That’s fine.
But watch for the traps: Imposter syndrome. Perfectionism. The fear of moving too far, too fast, and breaking what worked before.
These patterns slow you down. And they sabotage you and your team.
If you need a reason to push through it, do it for them: your co-founders, your family, your patients.
They’re counting on your velocity.
Don’t hurt them with your hesitation.
Summary
Your human team is your product.
Especially in life sciences, where regulatory burden, distributed teams, and long timelines require intense trust and clarity.
The 800 trillion synapses in the human associational cortex do what AI can't: constantly integrating context, reading between lines, understanding unstated assumptions, cultural context, design goals, and navigating social/political dynamics shaping what software actually needs to do.
Design your mission to augment your team with AI. You can use AI to build more complex products faster.
🎙 Life Sciences Today — My Podcast for Leaders
I host leaders in life sciences. We talk about their personal journey.
I dive into the business model and how they capture value—not just the tech.
If you're changing the game in drug development, clinical ops, or RWD—I’d love to feature you.
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About Me
I’m a former pharma-tech founder who bootstrapped to exit.
Now I help TechBio and digital health CEOs grow revenue—by solving the tech, team, and GTM problems that stall progress.
If you want a warrior to work by your side, DM me on substack, LinkedIn or X