company-builder
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Verdis Norton Started Again at 69 - and Made Retirement Look Premature
After four decades in corporate strategy, a Coast Guard veteran from rural Utah tried retirement. Then Verdis Norton built his consequential second act - a global company begun when he was 69.
Anthony Viscogliosi Has Spent 40 Years Turning Research Into Companies
Before Anthony Viscogliosi built medical-device companies, he built an information advantage. Four decades later, the analyst’s habit still shapes how he and his brothers buy, operate and sometimes buy back businesses.
Bill Stapleton Kept the Founder’s Nerve - Then Chose a Second Act
After building HealthPlanOne for 16 years, Bill Stapleton did something many founders postpone forever: he let the company outgrow his title, then carried the operating lessons into a new CEO chapter.
Ben Camp Is Building the Search Engine for a Decision Nobody Wants to Get Wrong
A seminary student wandered into digital marketing and found a problem worth a decade. Now Ben Camp is turning the internet's noisiest doorway into a calmer, more useful place to choose care.
Russ Richmond Is Building Software for the People Stuck Between Strategy and the Shift
The Laudio co-founder has spent a quarter-century turning healthcare data into action. His product insight is disarmingly simple: software should give a manager time back, then get out of the way.
The Minneapolis Shop That Turns Lab IP Into Real Companies
Most venture firms write checks and wait. Invenshure hires the scientists, licenses the patents, and builds the company itself - one hard problem at a time.
The Recruiter That Wants to Be Inside the Company Before It Writes the Check
Cannon Project recruits the people who make an early startup real, then selectively backs the companies it has helped assemble. Its wager is simple: hiring is not only a service - it is a way to see the market from inside the engine room.
Inside the Tennessee Family Office Quietly Building a Portfolio of Unsexy Companies
The Providence Groups turned a long-term-care operator in White House, Tennessee into a ten-company family office that bets on septic pumping, nurse staffing, and construction - the businesses nobody posts about.
David Steinberg
David Steinberg is Chief Business Officer at Formation Bio, an AI-native pharmaceutical company in New York, where he runs in- and out-licensing and pipeline strategy. A serial biotech company builder, he co-founded PureTech Health and served as its Chief Innovation Officer, was a General Partner at Longwood Fund, and founded or led a string of NASDAQ-listed and venture-backed companies including Pyxis Oncology, Vor Biopharma, Vedanta Biosciences and Be Biopharma. He pairs a Cornell biology degree with a University of Chicago Booth MBA and a career that began in R&D and strategy consulting.
Peter DiLaura
Peter DiLaura is the CEO and Board Director of Helicore Biopharma, a San Mateo biotech building long-acting antibody-peptide conjugates that go after obesity by neutralizing the GIP hormone in the bloodstream rather than blocking its receptor. With nearly three decades of company-building behind him - CEO roles at Initial Therapeutics and Second Genome, business and strategy chief at Sonoma Biotherapeutics, and time as an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at Third Rock Ventures - he is the operator brought in to turn a $65M Series A and a clinic-ready antibody into medicines that aim for quarterly dosing and better-quality weight loss.
Julie Grant
Julie Grant is a General Partner at Canaan, a $5B technology and healthcare venture capital firm, where she leads biopharma investments and company formation on the West Coast. She co-founded and served as founding CEO of Day One Biopharmaceuticals, a purpose-built pediatric oncology company that grew to a $1.5B+ valuation and was later acquired by Servier. A Yale-educated molecular biophysicist who went on to Stanford MBA and Cambridge MPhil, Grant brings rare operational depth to venture - having sat in the CEO chair before returning to investing. In 2023, President Biden appointed her to the National Cancer Advisory Board. She is the fourth woman to become a General Partner at Canaan.