NoorSiddiqui

LubaNoor, thank you so much for coming on the show. Really appreciate your time.Link

NoorYeah.Link

LubaOkay. You're the most enthusiastic and, some would say, extra person I know.Link

NoorOkay.Link

LubaFor better or for worse. You proposed to your husband?Link

NoorYes.Link

LubaAnd it was a really incredible, like, flash mob dance proposal. Tell me more about it.Link

NoorOh, wow. Okay, so for some reason, ever since I was young, I always really wanted to do no inbound for boys. I was only outbound, because I thought that that would lead to a better outcome. And I just thought that, you know, for literally your husband and your life partner, you can't settle for less, right? You have to get the best possible match. So I don't know, for some reason from a very young age, I was always very set on that.Link

And my husband really wanted to propose, and I was always like, no, I have to propose first. I was really aggressive about it. And he was super annoyed. But I just felt really strongly that I needed to love him enough to want to do something like that. And I wanted to have that much conviction. And it was just really funny, because we ended up doing this crazy flash mob, and it was really fun. And, like, I love dances and I love spectacles.Link

But his proposal that he did afterwards actually kind of stuck with me more. Usually our constant fight that we have as a couple is who's cooler. I always say I'm cooler. He always says he's cooler. It's really kind of a silly and ridiculous argument to have with your partner, but I will give it to him that I actually loved his proposal more. Yeah, I really love the proposal. It's one of my favorite memories ever. And it was really cool to get so many of our friends involved, and get this choreographer and all these ladies.Link

LubaWas he surprised?Link

NoorOh, he was super surprised. I mean, he wasn't surprised, I would say, like the hour of... I think I just got too excited on the phone.Link

LubaJust paint the picture for the viewer. What was the proposal? What did you do?Link

NoorOh, okay. So basically I found a choreographer in LA to custom choreograph these, like, eight songs that really mean a lot to him. So it started with this song called "Blue Like Blue," which was his favorite song when he was like five years old.Link

LubaWow. Okay.Link

NoorAll the way up to songs that are more meaningful to us as a couple. And the thing that he always makes fun of is that he's like, you never actually asked. You just danced and were like, oh, you must assume that this is the proposal.Link

Basically he's on the top of a set of stairs, and then there's a sign that says "Will you marry me?" And I don't drop down on one knee, because I was like, oh, that's too masculine, I would never do that. And so what I do instead is I literally just run toward him, and if he didn't catch me, then I would just fall over like this.Link

LubaWow. Okay.Link

NoorSo that's the thing that he always laughs at. He's like, you never actually asked. There was no confirmation. It was either I let you fall, or...Link

LubaOr he caught you. Okay. So it was implicit. I love it.Link

NoorSo I was like, that's an implicit yes.Link

LubaIt would have been very... I mean, because you've seen the proposal rejection videos, right? Where guys get rejected. It's really sad.Link

NoorYeah. If I were to get rejected, it would have been really bad.Link

LubaYou'd just slam on the ground.Link

NoorYeah.Link

LubaBut wow. I love the fact that from an early age, you had this conviction that you were going to be the chooser and you were going to choose the best, because it kind of really maps in parallel with the company that you're working on, which is like, we're choosing the best baby, the super baby. But how did you get that conviction that you must be the one to propose and you must be the chooser? Was there someone in your childhood that affected that, or were you just a rebel?Link

NoorThat's really funny. I don't know. I think I just always find it interesting that people seem to worry a lot about stuff that I think is dumb, and then they don't seem to worry about stuff that I think is really important, right? So, I don't know, I think when I was growing up, I did see a lot of people in relationships where I'm like, but do you even want to marry this person? It didn't really have an affirmative yes or no.Link

And I think who you marry is probably one of the biggest, most important decisions in your life. And I think your embryo and your babies is like that too. I mean, I don't have a baby yet, so I don't really know. But most people say that they love their baby even more than their spouse, and they know they would die for their...Link

LubaMhm.Link

NoorYou know, I don't know if you've heard this really horrible thing that couples say, but they're like, oh, how old was our kid before you'd be willing to have your spouse die for the kid? That thing.Link

LubaOh, wow. I've never heard of that.Link

NoorOh, it's shockingly young. People are like, oh, yeah, three months, six months, nine months.Link

LubaWow. So yeah, this kid... I feel like that's trading apples to oranges, because it's a very different type of love.Link

NoorBut no, I agree. I would just reject the premise, because it's too sad. I wouldn't want that to happen. But I think the thing that it illustrates that's really surprising is just, you know, you fall in love with this person, but that usually takes many years for people to develop a really strong bond. But with this baby, you fall in love, apparently more than with your spouse, within six months, which is crazy. And then I think almost universally, people say by age five they would choose the child over their spouse.Link

LubaWow. That makes me kind of sad.Link

NoorNo, it makes me kind of sad, too. But I guess maybe when we experience it...Link

LubaYeah, we'll find out.Link

NoorI guess we'll find out.Link

LubaSo how did you know Frost, your husband, was the one?Link

NoorHow did I know he was the one? Oh, I think it's just his heart. I mean, I don't know, maybe that's cliché or something, but to me, it seems like the most important thing for somebody to spend your life with. It sounds really kind of maybe mean to say, but the quality of their heart, right? Because it's someone who you're sharing your heart with, right?Link

So, yeah, he just has this really pure and childlike heart. And I feel like life beats people down, you know. A lot of people who are quite young, even in their 30s, you'll meet them and they're jaded. They're too serious, super jaded. It's almost like they're dead and they're zombies already, you know? And that to me would be like a life sentence of not having, you know, a good life.Link

And I think for him, the thing that always stood out to me is I feel like I'm hanging out with a five-year-old, in the best possible way. Everything is new and exciting. And he has so much curiosity, and goes into everything with so much depth and excitement, that I think a lot of people lose as they get older, because they're like, oh yeah, this is just like that other thing. And it's like, no, it's not actually like the other thing. You just lost the curiosity and the energy and the excitement.Link

And I think also, if you have a love for life, I think you're also going to have a love for your kids and a love for your spouse. And I think it just kind of makes everything better. It infects everything. And I also think that, selfishly, it's an amazing reminder for me. Every time I'm interacting with him, I'm like, oh, wow, this is how I want to be, you know what I mean?Link

LubaYeah, yeah, yeah.Link

NoorAnd there are other people you interact with and it's like, I don't want to be like that.Link

LubaYeah. Exactly.Link

NoorRight. So, I don't know. Very selfish reasons.Link

LubaDo you think it's possible to spark your excitement for life back? Like, let's say you are jaded and nothing is exciting anymore, but you want to bring back your childlike enthusiasm and curiosity. Is that possible to do?Link

NoorI think it definitely is possible. I think that's usually why people are so excited about traveling, right? Because if they get out of their routine, then they see something new. They sometimes get out of the rut, whatever the mental rut is that's causing them to be so regimented and jaded.Link

I'm trying to think, what else could people do? I think that's the most canonical thing, but I also feel like the really woo advice is true too, which is just, you can't spend your day doing stuff that's soul-deadening, because then you will deaden your soul, right? There's kind of a reason why those people end up like that. It's because literally every day they spend crushing their soul, so then they end up wearing it on their face. Soul-crushing.Link

LubaYes.Link

NoorRight. So if you do the opposite, every day you're doing something that genuinely energizes you. You're, you know, I don't want to say, again, following your heart. Right? If you're a painter and you love painting, right... but if you're like Picasso and you're trying to do physics like Einstein, you're not going to have a good time, right? So I think that is also a really big part of it: are you following your intuition or are you subduing your intuition?Link

LubaBut I would also add to that, I think it's also self-awareness. And at the end of the day, everything is a choice. Maybe you are in a situation where what you're doing is objectively not that exciting, but then you choose to make it exciting, because you're like, I take responsibility for how I view my life. And you can try to induce the enthusiasm and childlike curiosity in just, I don't know, sitting on a bench and staring at the water. Or let's say you're washing the dishes or doing something mundane. And you can find excitement in that too.Link

NoorYeah, that's for people who I think are much more advanced than me spiritually. But yes, I think that stuff is true. I'm just gonna be honest. For me, I'm kind of much more black and white. I can feel the life leaving my body if I am with the wrong person for too long.Link

LubaThat's fair.Link

NoorBut no, I think what you're saying is very wise. I think it's actually a quality to cultivate.Link

LubaIt's like a muscle to develop.Link

NoorYeah. It's harder. It's a harder skill. And I think it is a more enduring skill, because it allows you to have more flexibility in what you do, because then you can do more things. But I think it really is a quality that people have to cultivate over their lives.Link

LubaYeah, yeah. So since you were very little, you were like, the person I choose is super important, and I have the choice of who I choose. And the baby I have is super important, because obviously I have, or I could ideally have, the choice of how healthy my baby is going to be.Link

NoorYeah, yeah, yeah.Link

LubaAnd so when you were 17, you applied to the Thiel Fellowship with that idea initially?Link

NoorYeah.Link

LubaFirst of all, how did you even find out about the Thiel Fellowship? And for anyone listening, the Thiel Fellowship is where you get like 100K not to go to college and pursue your wildest idea. Now it's 200K.Link

NoorOh, 200?Link

LubaOkay. Well, inflation. Or maybe 250, I don't know.Link

NoorOkay. But I was like, oh dang, I got the V0.Link

But how did I find out about it? Yeah, it's so funny. I literally found out about it online. I was just on some random forum. I don't even remember which one. And then I remember the moment that I saw it, I was like, this is the thing that I want to do. And it sung to me in this really... I don't know, just very memorable. I definitely thought, oh, there's zero chance I'm gonna get this. But it was like, oh my God, this is definitely the thing that I want, way more. I didn't have as much conviction where I was like, oh, I really want to study this thing or go to this school. But when I saw that, I was like, this is the thing I really want.Link

LubaAnd why is that? Like, why was that? Because I bet like 99% of kids would be like, this is not for me.Link

NoorOh, that's so funny. I don't know why, actually, at the time. Because the thing is, you know, I'm 32 now, and I found this website when I was 16, so I was actually kind of almost a different person. I was like V0.Link

LubaThat was half your life ago.Link

NoorIt was half of my life ago. But I think it was just the thing that all kids crave, but maybe especially me, which was that I just thought there wasn't any time in school where it was really about what you wanted to do. It was always like, okay, perform, do well on this test, do well on this test. And I was like, okay, cool. I can jump when you say jump, but what if I want to cartwheel? You know, never got to cartwheel. So I never thought that what I was learning in school was really that interesting or that useful. I just thought it was a bad use of time.Link

So, yeah, I think at the time it was just insanely novel, this idea that you're going to give a 17-year-old money and then the license to just work on whatever they want to work on. And the stuff that the people in the fellowship had built were products that I already used. Like, I actually used PayPal very extensively because I...Link

LubaWait, why were you using PayPal extensively as a 16-year-old?Link

NoorSo my high school business was, actually, a very unfortunate one. It was scalping tickets.Link

LubaWhat does that mean?Link

NoorOkay, so basically, if you know that a band is going to be really big... I liked really indie music, but I always knew them before they were cool.Link

LubaWow. Like VC, but for music. That's really cool. I didn't know that.Link

NoorSo you're like, oh, this band is gonna go, this is gonna sell out for sure. You get on their early mailing list. So anyways, I would just buy tickets and sell them. This is actually not a good practice. I learned later that this is unethical.Link

LubaOh, it's basically StubHub.Link

NoorYeah, I guess, but I learned later that you're not supposed to do this. But at the time it was a necessary evil, because my parents didn't want me going to these concerts, so they obviously weren't going to pay for it. So I had to have my own secret stash of money to be able to fund my concert-going.Link

LubaOh, quite a rebel.Link

NoorYeah, exactly. So anyways, I just thought it was cool that, the products that I used, oh my God, there was someone who had to come up with it, and actually build it, and that guy is gonna fund this. That's crazy. I just thought that it was insanely cool. And then it ended up being even way cooler than I thought when I actually went and interviewed.Link

LubaAnd your parents were cool with you taking that leap?Link

NoorThey were very uncool. They were immigrants from Pakistan. And their dream was always for you to go to a good school, become a doctor or an engineer, a professor...Link

LubaProfessor. Just infinitely be in school.Link

NoorThat's kind of the dream.Link

LubaThat's okay.Link

NoorYeah. The opposite, not going to school, is the most disastrous, sad dishonor that I could do. But, I don't know, for some reason, I think parents also fall into this weird love vortex with their kid. So when they see their kid really happy, they can't not be happy for them. So I kind of didn't tell them about anything...Link

LubaWow.Link

NoorUntil I won. And then when I told them that I won, they could see that I was so excited. They couldn't be like, no.Link

LubaYeah.Link

NoorSo they could tell that it was something that I was super stoked about. And then they had a lot of reservations that we worked through. It was probably the most, quote unquote, conflict that I had with them, which at the time I thought was insane. But now I understand completely, because, have you met a 17-year-old? They're like a small child.Link

LubaYeah.Link

NoorI was like, how could they possibly live alone or have a job or whatever?Link

LubaThat's true. I moved from Belarus to Canada when I was 17, and now I see, like, 21-year-olds and I'm like, wow, you are a child.Link

NoorA child, right? But I think the thing is that you meet other 21-year-olds and you're like, oh, you're very capable.Link

LubaYeah.Link

NoorYou know, do you think you were a child at 17? Were you very capable?Link

LubaI don't know. I thought I was very capable, but having seen all of them, I always think they're all children.Link

NoorI actually think anyone under 25 is a child now. So, I don't know, I think your perspective just gets more...Link

LubaYeah. As you get older.Link

NoorBecause you've seen so many things, and you're just shocked that someone hasn't, right? And how different it makes the way they move and what they do, right? Because they just don't know any better. It makes things better in a lot of ways, but it also makes things a little worse, or questionable.Link

LubaYeah. In which other ways were you eccentric as a child, or otherwise different?Link

NoorHmm. I don't know. I feel like these always have to be pointed out by other people, you know what I mean? Because you're like, I'm me. This is the way I am.Link

LubaSo you don't really have that secondary perspective?Link

NoorYeah, maybe lack of perspective. I mean, I've never been a very introspective person.Link

LubaI feel like you're a very introspective person.Link

NoorYou're very sweet. But I think probably what has been reported to me most aggressively throughout my entire life is that I kind of don't seem to notice how other people think.Link

LubaBeat to your own drum. I think that's a good thing, especially for what you're doing.Link

NoorYeah. I don't know. I think in high school that doesn't really earn you any favors. You end up being the weird kid very much by default. But then you go to some strange place like San Francisco, and it ends up being fine.Link

LubaYeah. You end up having lots of friends because that's kind of...Link

NoorThat's the default. That's the honeypot that gets people to come here.Link

LubaSo then at 17, you do meet a bunch of other people that are kind of the same flavor of different as you are, in the Thiel program, right?Link

NoorYeah.Link

LubaWhat was that like?Link

NoorIt was really, really cool. But it was funny, I had two really, really big learnings from that. One was that, as friends, founders were actually really bad friends.Link

LubaOh. Say more.Link

NoorWell, I think, you know, founders are always dropping everything for their company, right? And I always thought that it would be amazing to have all your friends be founders, because they're doing the same thing as you. And it was really amazing to have that community, and I wouldn't trade it for the world. But I had a sort of newfound appreciation, I'd say, for people who aren't as ambitious in their work, because they are more ambitious in their friendships and their relationships and their other things.Link

And I just realized that, oh, wow, you actually can't have all your relationships be the same. There's this value in having people who have different perspectives and aren't the same as you, right? So it was really amazing to have this group of people who are all the same. But it was also very humbling to be like, oh, but these aren't the people who are gonna be able to come when your car has a flat on the side of the road in Carmel, or wherever random place you end up.Link

LubaAre you still friends with anyone from your batch?Link

NoorOh, yeah. No, I'm definitely super close. They were my bridesmaids at my wedding.Link

LubaYeah, yeah, they're very close. And so there's just a different flavor of a friend, not a friend who's going to come, as you said.Link

NoorI would say that the ones who are really close to you, they are actually that type. They are the ones who will drop anything; they're not fair-weather friends. But I guess what I'm saying is, it's so much rarer to find that in a founder type than it is in a normal person type, or someone who isn't as obsessed with their work.Link

LubaYeah, exactly.Link

NoorBecause it's sort of like you have to be their top two person or top three person for them to be able to do that, because otherwise how are they going to build their company?Link

LubaYeah. And I was actually just talking to Spenser Skates from Amplitude, and he's like, yeah, I basically had to give up on all of my friendships, cut them off, unless they were willing to stay in touch with me, because everything was going into the company. And I thought it was really funny, because I remember in high school I was kind of that person where I would drop in and out of friend groups and I would only come to some things. And I remember getting kind of negative feedback for that. But I was always thinking that whatever I was working on was more important.Link

NoorAnd it's like, well, that has a cost.Link

LubaYeah.Link

NoorRight. Some people will want to maintain a relationship with you, and some people won't. For some people, it's too hurtful. So it's really interesting to get to that right group of friends, where the founders understand, because they're like, oh yeah, well, I'm screwed as well, I have to do the same thing, right? Like, something happened and I was, you know, living under a rock for three months, or however long the grind is. So they understand, but then they can't reciprocate, right? Often only a very, very small fraction of them can reciprocate.Link

LubaWait, but you're married to a founder. You're both super ambitious. Frost has a really successful company himself. So how does it work in a relationship with two founders? What type of sacrifices do you guys have to make? Or what type of unspoken understandings do you have in your family?Link

NoorYeah. Oh my God, it's so cute that we're a family now. It's actually really funny. It was only on my wedding day that I actually clocked that. Oh my God, this person is now in my family. Because I always thought of him as, oh, this is this guy I picked up off the streets of Palo Alto, you know what I mean? It's weird. It's weird that you get to select this one family member, you know what I mean?Link

LubaYou're gonna be my family now.Link

NoorYeah, exactly. But it's not just a thing between you. It's like you have this whole ceremony, this wedding, right? Where everyone else now has to acknowledge that, no, yes, this person actually really is my family, and their extended family too.Link

LubaYeah. And then their family becomes your family.Link

NoorOh, but yeah, what are the agreements? Yeah, no, I definitely don't think that we would have been able to meet or get married, like, now, or in the founding of our company, right?Link

LubaInteresting.Link

NoorBecause it's such an intense, insanely busy time.Link

LubaBecause you guys met when you were in the Thiel Fellowship and he was at school, right?Link

NoorYeah, yeah, we met when I was like 18.Link

LubaOkay.Link

NoorSo we actually had, like, you know...Link

LubaA child.Link

NoorYeah. We had like eight or ten years to kind of grow together. Kind of like we saw each other grow. And I think that was the investment that he needed to make for me to want to marry him, honestly. Because, I mean, I think, you know, us women, we need a lot of investment, right? In order to decide...Link

LubaRight. In order to choose.Link

NoorIn order to choose. And I think the whole wooing process should be very difficult and complex and inscrutable to the male species.Link

LubaWhich is exactly what you did for ten years.Link

NoorFor a good reason. And he succeeded. But I don't think he would have been able to while he was running his company. That's why I think it's funny that you mentioned that about the other founders. I think it's really hard to pursue your partner at the same time as your company. Both are just very energy-expensive tasks.Link

LubaSo by the time he proposed, or you proposed... both of you proposed...Link

NoorYeah.Link

LubaYou doubled up.Link

NoorDoubled up.Link

LubaYou guys were already both founders, right? But you kind of had all these years to create a foundation.Link

NoorYeah, exactly. I mean, foundation sounds dramatic, but it is sort of like, I just think it takes a while to really trust and get conviction in a person, right? So yeah, I think we had that by then. It was sort of inevitable. And I think neither of us had the energy to be like... we both wanted a crazy dramatic proposal. And we were like, all right, well, what are we going to do?Link

LubaYeah, I love it. Okay. So coming back to the Thiel Fellowship. Founders not being amazing friends was one thing that you learned. What was the second thing that you wanted to mention?Link

NoorOh, well, yeah, the work thing is more just that it was super inspiring. Growing up in Virginia and, you know, D.C., there's only, like, okay, you can work for the government, you could be a doctor, you could be a lawyer, right? Those are like the only jobs.Link

LubaYou can be in school indefinitely.Link

NoorYeah, exactly. You can be a lobbyist, all of those jobs. First of all, I remember when I was a kid being like, what does that job actually do? There was never any clear explanation. I was like, oh, it's like daycare, but for adults.Link

LubaDaycare for adults.Link

NoorThat's really what I thought jobs were. I didn't understand what they were.Link

And then, yeah, just coming to San Francisco and meeting all these people who are literally building just a complete dream. You meet them one day, they just have this, you know, 30-minute monologue about this crazy thing that doesn't make any sense. And then you meet up with them six months later, and they have a team of 30 and they've raised like $50 million and they have, whatever, 10 million in revenue. And it's like, wait, what? So you can just spawn your ideas from fiction into real life? And that was just outside of my mind map of what could exist in the world.Link

And I think that was really the thing that totally changed my life trajectory, because there were so many things that I thought were too big or too crazy to even dream, that I had unconsciously been like, oh, that's outside the realm of possibility for me. And then by meeting all these people who both failed and succeeded at their thing, I was sort of like, oh, but this can just be your life. You can just keep failing and succeeding at something that actually means something to you.Link

And I just thought it was really cool that even people who failed weren't treated as outcasts or lepers, you know what I mean? I saw them, you know, lose $100 million and then raise another $200 million. And I was like, wait, really? You don't just get blacklisted, and all your friends hate you forever? And let's be clear, it is very sad to lose money and fail. I don't think that they were completely unscathed by it.Link

But it was really, really impressive to see someone whose thing that they built and worked so hard on fell completely apart, right? Like the funding round fell apart, or the acquisition fell apart, or co-founder drama. There are so many reasons why companies fail. And then for them to just immediately get back on their feet, get back on the horse and just do something else, and then to see that next thing be the biggest success. I just thought that was the coolest redemption story ever. But not even just the coolest story. Again, it was just sort of outside the realm of possibility.Link

I mean, the other hero I have that's kind of really random is Arnold Schwarzenegger.Link

LubaOh my God, I'm obsessed with Arnold Schwarzenegger. I love that he reinvented himself for the times, and he was top of his game. I think he's very inspiring.Link

NoorYeah, exactly. So the thing that I find really inspiring about him... I also obviously think it's cool to be a bodybuilder, but separately from that, he was just this random guy in, like, random Austria.Link

LubaYeah, a random town.Link

NoorAnd then, you know, he becomes this insane bodybuilder, which no one thought was a thing. And then an actor, and then an insane actor, which no one thought was a thing, and then a politician.Link

And again, I just love when people defy what's possible or what people say to them. I don't even think it's about the defying thing. I think it's more just the fact that they did what they wanted to do, regardless of the fact that everyone else said that they couldn't do it. Because you're only going to live once, right? So he's going to die, and he would have left so much on the table if he didn't do his other dreams of becoming, you know, an actor and a politician. And I don't care what you think about politics or what you think about his acting. I just think it's inspiring to pursue what it is that you want to do, even if you suck at it, even if everyone says you suck at it. It doesn't matter, because it's your life that's expiring, you know.Link

Luba100%. Yeah, I remember reading the story of Arnold Schwarzenegger in one of his autobiographies and having the same reaction of, wow, he had a vision.Link

NoorYeah.Link

LubaAnd he succeeded at this vision. And then he had another vision, and he was like, why not me? I'm going to do this too.Link

NoorYeah.Link

LubaAnd similarly, when I was at Waterloo and I was part of the entrepreneurial program there, I also saw startup founders, and I was like, wow. My mind was blown that that was possible. You know, you have an idea, you raise money. And even people who didn't succeed were still given permission to try again.Link

Okay. So tell me how you started Orchid. So there was this Thiel Fellowship chapter, and then you went to Stanford, which was kind of counter to what the Thiel Fellowship was supposed to be.Link

NoorYeah.Link

LubaWhat happened?Link

NoorOh, it's actually really funny. I mean, all these choices seemed really obvious to me at the time, because I was like, okay, the best possible choice for me after high school is to do the Thiel Fellowship. I'm gonna learn a ton. And then for me, the most obvious thing after the fellowship was, well, I learned a ton about this, but there are all these gaps, and things that I don't know, and things I'll never be able to learn or go deep on again. And those are things I want to go do at Stanford. So I just find it funny, because at every point, people were pissed. They were like, wait, why are you doing this? But to me, it seemed really obvious.Link

So, yeah, basically, at the time of the Thiel Fellowship, I actually applied with an idea hilariously quite similar to Orchid, but just didn't have the tools that worked to make it happen. And then that was kind of my goal going to Stanford: okay, I'm going to leave here with enough knowledge about AI and genomics and single-cell sequencing and embryology and IVF to actually be the right person to build this company.Link

Because what I learned was basically, hey, building a company is super hard and super draining, and it has to be, at least for me, something that I feel is my life's work, to be worth the amount of, you know, pain and suffering and struggling.Link

LubaAnd actually, on pain and suffering, what type of rejection therapy did you have to go through to be working on a space as hard as Orchid is?Link

NoorOh, that's really funny. I think it's just the usual stuff, honestly. You know, whenever you're a new person entering a space, especially a regulated or a medical space, you have a bunch of experts saying it can't be done, it's not possible. Or even if it is possible, it shouldn't be done. Or even if it is possible and it should be done, no one will buy it, right?Link

LubaRight.Link

NoorSo there are always people, anytime you make anything new, who are more established, who've been in this space longer, who say it's not possible or it won't be a good market, right? But that's kind of what your job is as a founder: basically be able to prove them wrong. But not just to prove them wrong verbally, but show them. Show them with the numbers. Show them with the customers. Show them with the value of the product.Link

But again, I have to say, this kind of goes back to my personality. I never really cared about that stuff. That wasn't actually very hard for me, because...Link

LubaBecause you already don't care what people think.Link

NoorI really... I mean, it's weird. I care a lot about what my husband thinks, what my mom thinks, what people who are close to me think. But for the vast majority of people, I'm sort of like... well, it's actually really funny. One thing I also learned during the fellowship is that a lot of people give advice. And as a young person, I think it's really overwhelming to be getting opposite advice from different people. And then someone told me something that I think about every time I get advice now, which is: do you want to be like the person you're getting the advice from?Link

And one of the funniest examples of that is, I remember being at the gym, and there was this gym bro, super jacked, and he was getting lectured by this really scrawny, nerdy guy about how to build muscle. And the nerdy guy was like, no, you have to do these types of reps, have this type of food, or whatever. And then you just look at him, and he's really skinny and scrawny. He's really smart, probably has like a 500 IQ, but does not...Link

LubaDoesn't have the results.Link

NoorYeah, yeah. And then this other guy, you know, probably not 500 IQ, but clearly jacked.Link

LubaClearly jacked.Link

NoorI was like, I think I should probably just listen to what the jacked guy is saying here, you know? But both people are advocating really passionately for their thing. So that is actually happening a lot in your life, right? Like, are you taking marriage advice from someone who's gotten divorced?Link

LubaMhm.Link

NoorAre you taking company advice from someone whose company has less revenue, or isn't in the space that you're operating in, right? You really have to be super specific about what you are trying to achieve, and should that person really be speaking about it? Because people will speak on anything, right?Link

LubaYeah. People are very opinionated.Link

NoorYeah. So I think that was another thing that was funny. So, yeah, I don't know. I just think for me, it almost didn't matter whether they were right or wrong, because I wanted it so badly for myself. I was sort of like, this is something... I don't even want to have a family or a baby if I can't do this, because...Link

LubaTell me a bit more about that. When did you realize this?Link

NoorIt was actually kind of close to the moment in time where I was like, wait, a kid isn't so abstract. It's gonna be with this specific person at some unknown date.Link

LubaOkay. So it was through your journey of meeting Frost and getting closer with him.Link

NoorI guess, yeah. Because I sort of was like, you know, when you're a kid, you're like, okay, eventually I'm going to meet Mr. Right, and eventually I'm going to have a kid, but it's so abstract.Link

LubaYeah, yeah, yeah. You're not actually thinking about it.Link

NoorYou're not actually thinking about it. And I was like, wait. Okay, you know, we're going to get married at some point, and then we're gonna have a kid at some point. And that kid... I feel like, oh my God, there's this massive responsibility that I have to this kid, which is I don't want them to, you know, suffer the same way that I saw my mom go blind. And then, you know, at Stanford and other places, I learned that my mom was actually incredibly mild, right? Like, a lot of...Link

LubaWell, because at this point your mom is fully blind? Or what's the situation?Link

NoorYeah, she's been fully, legally blind for over, I don't know, 15 years now. But she does have a tiny bit of vision. She has some depth perception. But, yeah, I guess my point is that she lost her vision as an adult, right? So she was able to see through childhood. She was able to see into her 30s, right? And then her vision started degrading.Link

So there are a lot of other conditions that are way worse than that, in the sense that they cripple you from birth, right? They prevent you from being able to walk. There are children who are just nonverbal and will never be able to speak. And, you know, their parents are really, really sad, because they're like, well, when we die, what's going to happen? We can't take care of this person. There's no space for them. There's no way for them to be able to live independently. So it's a really hard thing for those families to navigate.Link

And, yeah, I don't know. Again, it's kind of back to this thing that we've been talking about, which is, people really like to obsess over, I don't know, their wedding photographer and their knives and their forks, but they're not like, hey, is it the right person? And then, you know, when I have a kid, are they going to be able to have a healthy life, right? Or do I want to plan my nursery, make the colors cute, right?Link

LubaYeah.Link

NoorLike, I mean, I really do like aesthetics. I think it's beautiful. It's like, celebrate and enjoy life. And I love flowers and things like that. But I don't know, it's just weird. I do find it kind of shocking that people don't take something that's so consequential seriously. Your genetics literally shape your entire life in ways that are so extreme, yet people completely turn a blind eye to it.Link

And I guess it kind of makes sense, in the sense that historically, for all of time, the only way to reproduce and to have a kid was to roll the dice, and to hope for the best. But to me, I just always thought that was insane. I was always like, I can't have it be the case that for the most important person in my life, I have to roll the dice. I want to be able to give them a better chance than I had, and than my mom had. And, I don't know, I guess I was like, well, hopefully someone will fund this, because I need this for myself.Link

LubaSo it became much more of an acute problem that you cared about when it became more clear, with you meeting the right person?Link

NoorYeah.Link

LubaBut you were saying that at 17 you applied to the Thiel Fellowship with a somewhat similar idea. What was that driven by?Link

NoorI don't actually know. It's actually funny that you asked that. What was that actually driven by?Link

LubaBecause at that point, you know, you having a baby was very abstract.Link

NoorYeah. Honestly, I think there were a couple of traumatic sex ed classes, if you remember that.Link

LubaI actually have never taken sex ed, because in Belarus they didn't have it.Link

NoorOkay, well, basically, there's one day where they just show a woman giving birth, and it's the most dramatic... you know, she's just bleeding and screaming, and it's just a full frontal of, you know... And, yeah, I think I just saw that, and I was like, this is not how it's going to be for me. Like, I cannot. We need to make this process better, less medieval, and more safe for both people involved.Link

I think my parents had actually opted me out of it, and then I think I had to come back to my desk to get my pencil case or something. And I somehow came in at the exact moment where that scene was being shown, and I was so traumatized by it. Which is hilarious.Link

But, yeah, I don't know. I actually don't know why I was so obsessed with embryos even then. I think I was just, even from that age, sort of like, hey, this is crazy. All the humans that have ever existed have been populated by women. We just created all the humans, right? That just seems kind of crazy. There are none that are created any other way. Nuts.Link

LubaYeah.Link

NoorAnd then the actual process of how the humans get created is always kind of glossed over, you know what I mean? Your parents are always like, oh, yeah, you came from a stork, you know? And, yeah, I don't know. I think it's just, this is this thing that half of all humans do to create all the humans, yet it's sort of incredibly under-researched and under-engineered. And just compare it to, okay, how much money goes into ad targeting? Probably 100x compared to birth, right?Link

So to me, I think I was always just really fascinated by it. I was sort of like, this is so important. I guess I'm gonna have to do it, I guess like every woman in the past has had to do it. This seems like the main place to work on, because anything that you do affects all future everyone, all humanity, all future generations. So to me, I just saw it as, wow, this is a really powerful pivot point, not only in people's lives, but also just in history, if we're able to get it right.Link

LubaFor sure.Link

NoorBecause then you get to just upgrade all the humans moving forward. They just don't have to have diseases. They don't have to suffer in the way that... it sucks to suffer when you just have something that's chronic and there's no treatment solution.Link

LubaWhat are some other decisions that you think people take very lightly?Link

NoorPeople take very lightly...Link

LubaSo there is who you marry. There is the genetic future of your child.Link

NoorMhm. What else? Where you work.Link

LubaOkay.Link

NoorI think that, you know, you're going to spend more time working than you are with your family, right? A lot of people are spending 40, 50, 60 hours a week on their job. How much time are they spending with their spouse or their kids, right? And it's like, are you really working on the thing that matters to you at a soul level, that you're good at at a soul level? Or are you just doing the thing that, I don't know, your intro class in college made seem kind of exciting? You know what I mean?Link

LubaYeah. So you basically look at life to see what are the most impactful choices. Like, where do you spend your time, what type of future do you create for yourself, what type of person will you spend most of your time with, which is your spouse.Link

NoorYeah. And your life. People should take this more seriously. I don't know. Yeah, I think you just don't want to be complacent. Penny wise, pound foolish, right? I'd rather be the opposite.Link

LubaWait. Sorry. No, I don't actually know what the expression is.Link

NoorOh, yeah, yeah. So the expression is, you don't want to be penny wise, pound foolish. Meaning, for every penny, you're really careful about how you spend it. But then if you look at the larger thing, that was a mistake, right? So it's better to be the opposite. You're dropping pennies all the time, but at the global level, I'm walking in the right direction. I'm going to the place that I actually want to go.Link

LubaDo you feel like in your life there were some decisions, looking back, where you were penny... what's the expression?Link

NoorPenny wise and pound foolish. Oh, yeah. All the time. I mean, I think the biggest example is spending money, right? So basically, growing up, I grew up with immigrants, right? My parents didn't have very much money growing up. They obviously, you know, made it, but it's so ingrained, right? Like my dad, I think growing up he was able to have Coca-Cola like once a year. It was the biggest luxury, to be able to have a Coke.Link

LubaAnd did he actually have money to spend on Coke more often, and it was his choice to be like...Link

NoorSo growing up as a kid, yeah, he had it once a year.Link

LubaRight.Link

NoorAnd then when he moved to America, every day, because he was so happy. But then that was hilarious, right? Because it's actually super bad for his health to be having soda every day. But for him, he wouldn't say this, but unconsciously it's almost like the biggest success. And it is, right? Like the idea of being obese is actually okay. Wow, you defeated nature. It used to be so hard to get sugars and fats, and you just managed to get the maximum of them, right?Link

So that's one silly example. There are other examples. You know, they ended up getting a really beautiful house, but they refused to heat it, right? They would wear like seven jackets in the winter, because they're like, we don't want to waste money on our heating.Link

LubaYeah, right. You know, this really reminds me of Belarus. For people in the USSR, the mentality was to be incredibly frugal, because nice things were incredibly rare. So a lot of people would buy a TV and then put a cover around the remote so that they don't make the remote dirty.Link

NoorOr the TV cover.Link

LubaYeah, exactly. Or the entire couch, they would cover it with something. And it's like, well, what is the point of this thing if you can't even enjoy it and use it?Link

NoorExactly. But you have to live in such abundance to be able to be like, oh, it's fine, I'm going to be able to have another remote and another couch, right? If you live in this environment of, oh, it's really scarce to be able to get this thing, then it makes sense.Link

So I actually literally watched them do this stuff, and I remember laughing at them as a kid, being like, oh, this is so funny and crazy, and I'm not going to do that. But that mentality was still part of my workflow, right? I wasted so much of my own time and so much of my team's time basically demanding that stuff always get done the most affordable way. And, you know, haggling with vendors. And we didn't necessarily need to haggle, but every single contract was always like, you know, rub them down to the bone.Link

LubaDo you still do that?Link

NoorI think my team would say that I still do that, but comparatively to how I used to be, no. I would say that now I'm very different. I think I value time more. Time is also money, right? Before, I used to value my time at zero.Link

LubaAnd what changed? Why did you start valuing your time more? Was there a specific moment that made you realize, maybe there was a situation where you were like, why did I spend, whatever, a week negotiating this contract for an extra $200?Link

NoorI think it's kind of like interacting with people that you admire, right? I would talk to people who had companies that were 20 times as successful as mine, or our investors or something like that. And then they would tell me how they did something, and I would be gasping at the amount of what I perceived as waste. But then they kind of did the math.Link

For example, something I was always really, really against, and I'm still kind of against, is recruiters, right? Because recruiters charge a crazy percentage of the person's salary. And I'm like, I'd rather just pay them more, right?Link

LubaYeah.Link

NoorBut then you have to think from the business perspective of, well, how long does it take you to close the candidate, and what's the cost to the business of leaving this role open for six more months, or three more months, or even two more months, right? It could be critical. It could be trajectory-altering for the company to leave that role open, right?Link

So, I don't know, I think it's a lot of things like that where I'm just like, okay, wow, my frame was actually completely wrong. Yes, from a dollars-and-cents perspective today, but it was too myopic. If you want to go big and get that big outcome, then you've got to do what they do, right? Which is value time as the scarce resource, rather than money.Link

LubaAnd who are some people that you've been most inspired by in your entrepreneurial journey?Link

NoorI don't know. I'm really inspired by kind of everyone. I try not to interact with people who don't inspire me, to be honest. That seems really, really mean. But I think the founders that are inspiring, there are so many. I mean, we're lucky to have some of them on our cap table, right?Link

LubaLike, who's a recent person who inspired you with their story?Link

NoorDylan's story of building Figma, I think, is insane and super impressive. Brian's story of building Coinbase is also crazy and unreal. You know, I think everyone either hates or loves Elon, but, dude, the guy's space rockets... it's pretty impressive what the guy's built. I think it's hard not to be impressed.Link

But also, I mean, even if it's not some amazing commercial success, I just feel like I get to meet people every day who I think are super inspiring, right? Like, you know, you're making this amazing content that's really creative and cool and full of life. And I think that's just important. I really don't think you should interact with anyone who hasn't inspired you in some way. That's my actual... if I interact with someone and there's not something about them that just makes me light up, makes me excited, makes me happy...Link

LubaLife's too short.Link

NoorYeah, life's too short. Just skip the meeting. You know, it's better to doom scroll than to do that.Link

LubaOh, that's a hot take. Really?Link

NoorI mean, yeah. I don't know. I think maybe people are at different levels of sensitivity. For me, who I'm around really affects me. What I'm around, what I see.Link

LubaDo you cut people often? It seems to me, like, you know, at some point you do your audit.Link

NoorI don't think I need to cut people, to be honest. I think I'm just so straightforward. They'll be offended, you know. Like, if they say something that I think is really sad, I'll be like, that's so sad. And they'll be like, what do you mean? Like, they'll be complaining about their life, and I'll be like, why are you being so depressing? And then they'll just self-select, like, I'm never talking to her. I don't think I've ever had to. People just don't want to be around me because I'm too direct.Link

LubaWhich sometimes can hurt people, because they want to protect themselves and tell a story to themselves.Link

NoorI just think, you know, there are some people who talk to people like vanilla, and that's true.Link

LubaYou're not vanilla.Link

NoorI actually, you know, it's funny, I used to not like vanilla. I love vanilla now. Vanilla and chocolate are both really great flavors. I used to only be into the exotic flavors.Link

LubaWell, the best place for ice cream is definitely Garden Creamery.Link

NoorOh, I do love Garden Creamery. I also love Smitten, but it's a lot more vanilla.Link

LubaSmitten has really good texture too. But, you know, Garden Creamery has matcha. They have like four different types of green tea, hojicha, and they have matcha.Link

NoorIt's really good. It's really, really tasty. But I think the way that you judge an ice cream shop is by their vanilla ice cream, actually. Because if they can't do the basics well...Link

LubaYeah. They can't do anything. Okay.Link

NoorI love ice cream. Sorry. I do.Link

LubaWait, have you tried my ice cream? I love making ice cream. I'll have to make you ice cream sometime. And then you'll judge me.Link

NoorI love ice cream. I feel bad for all the humans that had to exist pre-ice cream.Link

LubaI agree. Ice cream is the best. Also froyo.Link

NoorI do love froyo. Froyo is really good too. And frozen Greek yogurt.Link

LubaOkay. Sorry. In which parts of your life are you vanilla?Link

NoorI would say most parts, actually. I don't know. I think with family and friends, I think it's just really important to be good to people and just be reliable to people. I really want to be that way. I don't think you want to be exotic with your... I don't know, you just call your mom. I call my mom. I like calling my mom. I like talking to her, you know?Link

I think there's a really fun quote. I forget who it is, but it really stuck with me from high school, which is: be regimented and vanilla in your life so that you can be wild and original in your work. And again, I think it's the same thing of, well, what do you want to value? To me, hopefully the biggest contribution I'm going to make is going to be my work. So then I shouldn't be wasting my time making all these unconventional decisions in...Link

LubaIt's almost the same as choosing the same outfit every day so you don't spend your time...Link

NoorWell, okay, that's actually a funny one, because I'm actually kind of against that now. For me personally, I get a lot of joy out of colors and fabrics and clothes. And I think I overcorrected earlier, because I was like, oh, if I want to be taken seriously, then I have to wear all black or whatever.Link

LubaAnd now look at you.Link

NoorYeah. Now I'm wearing a cape.Link

LubaNo, no, I love it.Link

NoorBut I think, again, it's just about what makes you happy. For me, clothes and fabrics and stuff like that make me genuinely happy. So I'm basically losing energy by not putting a little bit of my energy into it. But I think for other people it's genuinely just a burden.Link

LubaYeah.Link

NoorAnd I think for them it is a good hack, because they get to basically eliminate a source of lame friction in their life. For me, I guess I'm a little bit more like that about food. I have the same egg burrito every day for breakfast.Link

LubaYou eat it in the car. So that's true, for anyone listening.Link

NoorYeah. It takes me like eight hours to eat.Link

LubaOkay, let's talk about your work.Link

NoorYeah.Link

LubaWhat is a super baby?Link

NoorWhat is a super baby? A super baby is a baby that gets to be scanned pre-pregnancy and pre-birth, and basically gets radically lower odds for disease and much higher odds for health. And I think that's what a super baby is today. But I think in the future, a super baby is going to be even more than that. Today, what Orchid offers is, I would say, super baby version zero, which is getting to live a life, hopefully, at radically lower odds for disease. And I think that in the near future it's going to be even more than that.Link

And I think you're kind of already seeing that with longevity and gene therapies, that people are finally interested in this idea of, oh, maybe I don't want to die sooner than I have to, right? This idea of, oh, can I extend my life? And I think, weirdly, that should start in the embryo, right? Because if you want to give your child the chance to live the longest, you know, what are the things that kill you the earliest, right? Cancer, heart disease, those types of things.Link

So, yeah, it's just really interesting. If you look at centenarians, right, people who live to be over 100, they all have patterns in their genes where...Link

LubaHow have they figured out what it is in their genes that actually makes them live so long?Link

NoorThere are some things that they've isolated. There are some specific variants where they're like, oh, okay. And they're able to trace it back, and they're able to say, okay, this person has much higher cancer resistance than average, or much better heart disease resistance than average. But that's kind of the ongoing research: well, it works in this specific person, but if we go and edit this gene in another person, will that context carry over, right? Is it truly causative? That's basically what people are trying to unravel.Link

But I think what's really exciting about this moment right now is that, with AI, it's going to become more and more possible to go through all this data in a lot more granularity, and to understand these patterns in our DNA that previously were too high-dimensional for the human mind to really look at. So I think it's this golden age where there's way more data being generated, and then the possibility to actually evaluate that data. And then hopefully, you know, use it in the most high-impact way possible, which, you know, I think is babies.Link

LubaYeah. True. Yeah, I've done genome sequencing, and it's been on my list to actually run the sequence through one of the models to see what interesting facts it uncovers about my genome. I don't know if I'll be able to action on any of it, but at least it's interesting.Link

NoorThe technology is going to be so much more advanced in a couple of years that I'm sure we'll find all kinds of crazy things.Link

LubaYeah.Link

NoorAnd even if maybe you're not able to act on it now, maybe you'll be able to later, maybe soon, right?Link

LubaYeah.Link

NoorBecause I think that's the other thing. As more people learn about it, more people can enroll in trials to actually try to find solutions.Link

LubaSo, yeah, it's really shocking the amount of things people will find out.Link

NoorYeah.Link

LubaI don't know if we will want to know. Okay. So now when you go and test your embryos, there is PGT-A testing and then there is Orchid testing. What is the difference? Like, why does PGT-A suck, and why is Orchid much better?Link

NoorOkay, yeah. So PGT-A, you can think of it as what's called chromosome testing, right? So if you were to look at a book, PGT-A is kind of like, let me just read the table of contents. Let me just find out: does my book have 23 chapters or not? But then you don't actually read any of the words, any of the letters. So what Orchid is, is it can sequence the entire genome, which is kind of the equivalent of saying, let me spell-check and read the entire book. So you get 100 times the data.Link

So it's kind of like the difference between, am I spell-checking just the table of contents, or am I spell-checking, you know, all 23 chapters, all 3 billion letters? And because of that, we can scan and detect the risk for thousands of different diseases. So things like... most people don't know there are the genetic forms of autism, the genetic forms of birth defects, genetic forms of cancer. And all the testing that people are getting today, before their pregnancy or during their pregnancy, is actually looking at a tiny fraction.Link

So that's what I think is really sadpeople think, oh, but I already got genetic testing. Well, unfortunately, not all genetic tests are created equal. It's kind of like if you were to say, oh, I spell-checked my book, but you really only spell-checked the first page. Oh, well, 99% of your book has typos in it and you don't even know. But again, I think a lot of times when people are making these decisions, there's not a lot of thought that goes into it.Link

But that's kind of why, again, I feel so passionate about it. Because, hey, maybe you don't even care about you. To be honest, I did sequence myself for my embryos, but I can see, a lot of our users who sequence their embryos probably don't sequence themselves, because they're like, well, I'm already born. Whatever health conditions I have, I'm kind of already dealing with. But when you're creating that next human, that next life that you're going to love more than yourself, it really matters to see what they're going to inherit, and how can we minimize the chance that something goes wrong.Link

Because the other thing people don't realize is, even if you and your partner are totally fine, every embryo has what are called de novo, or spontaneous, mutations. So the gene that caused my mom to go blind, she didn't inherit it from either of my grandparents. It was something that affected her by bad luck, right?Link

And that's kind of, again, what I think is super evil. This genetic lottery, I think, is super evil and unfair, right? By total lottery, you just end up being able to walk or not, being able to be verbal or not, being able to see or not. And I was just like, there's no other place in medicine, or in our lives, where we would accept that outcome, right? You wouldn't be like, hey, I'm going to roll the dice: I'm either going to live in a really high-crime neighborhood or a really safe one. You'd be like, no, no, no, I'm gonna for sure maximize the chance that where I rent or buy my house is not a shooting range, right? And most people wouldn't care if their house burned down if their kid was fine, right? But vice versa, they wouldn't, right?Link

LubaWhat are some ethical lines that you think are not okay to cross in genetic testing?Link

NoorI think that it's never okay to overstate what you can deliver, right? Especially in this moment, right? People are looking for certainty. People really care about the outcome. And I think the ultimate responsibility for any company operating in this space, and I think I always repeat this ad nauseam at Orchid, is just, you know, you have to have evidence for whatever you're claiming, right?Link

So, yeah, I think it's really bad for the industry if people start exaggerating or overstating or over-determining what people can know about their embryos, right? Because, you know, there are multiple pieces of our testing, right? There are monogenic diseases, and then there are genetic risk scores, which are more probabilistic. They're using kind of AI models to model risk, and that's kind of a proxy for what you might have. It's kind of like you can say that an embryo is in the 99th percentile of risk, or the embryo is two times or three times as likely, but that's not the same as saying that they definitively have it, right?Link

So I think it's really important that scores and results and reports are calibrated and counseled correctly. Basically, what I mean by that is you shouldn't overpromise a parent, right? So we never tell parents, hey, there's a guarantee that your child will never have autism, right? Because we can't do that. But what we can do is we can scan for hundreds of different genes that are linked to autism, right? So we can tell you your embryo doesn't have the set of genes that have been associated with it, but that doesn't mean that you have no chance, right?Link

And same with cancer, right? Obviously we all know people who unfortunately got cancer, maybe because they smoked, or maybe because of an unknown reason, right? We can scan for the genetic causes, but that's not the same as being able to tell someone, hey, there's no chance your child is ever going to get cancer, right? So I think these types of claims are really, really important to get right, because if you don't, you just lose someone's trust, right?Link

Because at the end of the day, I take it extremely seriously that we're handling the most important cells for the most important moment in people's lives. So, yeah, I think the most important ethical line is: make sure that 100% of what you're reporting is correct, is true, right? And if it's not, then you have to be honest, right? So what that means is we'll say we cannot report this specific gene if that sample had data that was degraded, or DNA that was degraded at that specific location. And people sometimes get upset. They're like, oh my God, I really wanted to know about that. And I'm like, well, sometimes the sample's degraded. And as much as we would love to be able to get a result, sometimes you can't.Link

LubaAnd how quickly is the technology moving, so that we're getting more and more answers?Link

NoorOh, I think it's moving insanely fast. I think what's really cool is that everyone has sort of realized that the genome is this amazing resource to mine. Entire countries, entire agencies are spending, you know, millions of dollars and tons of resources on sequencing their populations, and then pairing that sequence data with their medical records, with their smartwatch data, with their blood tests. And all of that is creating really, really rich resources to be able to build better and better models for diseases. Basically, specialists, like a cardiologist or a dermatologist or an oncologist, are working on: hey, how do we define this disease more concretely, rather than having a really vague phenotype to work with? Because the more precise you make the disease definition, the better the model can become.Link

LubaAnd so just to clarify, for anyone to use Orchid, do they have to go through an IVF process? Or can you get pregnant naturally and then somehow get the cells to test with Orchid?Link

NoorRight. Yeah. This is probably one of the most, I guess, controversial takes I have, which is that I think people aren't going to have sex the old-fashioned way for babies, right? Because, I mean, right now already, most of the time people are having sex, it's not for babies, right? So I think the moment when you choose to have a baby is much more considered, right?Link

And I think it's already the case that, you know, women are having... recently there was a stat that I think shocked most people, which is that more women over 40 are having kids, for the first time ever in America, than teenagers.Link

LubaWow. So pregnancies in your 40s are more common than...Link

NoorYeah. But unfortunately, biology hasn't caught up, right? So that still means that egg freezing and IVF are a big part of it. And, you know, we see tons of people where they don't have any infertility issue, but they're sort of proactively choosing to freeze their eggs, to make embryos, because they know they want to have a family. They know they maybe want to have more than two kids, even. And they want to maximize the chance that they're able to do that on the timeline that they want. And also now, because of Orchid, they can actually increase the chance that they have the healthiest baby, a healthier child.Link

LubaDo you drink a lot of Diet Coke?Link

NoorYes, actually, I love Diet Coke.Link

LubaIs that from your dad, who loves Coke?Link

NoorMaybe it is, actually. I don't know. You know what? Maybe it is, because I find it almost medicinal. Like the way that people describe some sort of ointment that makes them feel better. It's like, okay, I can have specifically Diet Coke. It could be regular Coke. I just have Diet Coke because it makes me feel slightly better, right? Some people are like, oh, my knee hurts, whatever. And then you're like, I'll just have some Diet Coke.Link

LubaYeah.Link

NoorMy knee hurts, I have a headache, I have a stomach ache, I'm sleepy: all of them are solved by Diet Coke. Oh, I can't think of how to write this email: Diet Coke. That's how I've got it. But yeah, it's not very good for me.Link

But, yeah, I would obviously say that, you know, women are on birth control for 15 years, 20 years, right? Is that low-dose exposure probably better or worse than taking hormone medication, for women who aren't on birth control? Well, did you know that it's not really historically normal for us to have so many periods, right? It used to be that we were pregnant most of the time, 18 or 20 years pregnant or breastfeeding. So basically there are some researchers who are looking into it and saying, is a woman menstruating this much actually really bad for her health?Link

LubaOh, interesting.Link

NoorSo then there's this trade-off of, oh, well, is it better to be on birth control, simulating pregnancy, or pregnant? What's actually optimal for the female body's physiology? No one really knows. And I'm not trying to say, oh, throw your hands up in the air, no one really knows. I'm just saying always calculate what the trade-offs, the costs and benefits, are.Link

So for me, again, it was really more just this very global, high-level thing: a baby's going to be the most important person in my life. I want to be able to make as many embryos as safely as possible, to maximize the chances that the kid is healthy.Link

So obviously V0 is that you want everyone to be able to live a healthy life and have no disease, right? That's obviously table stakes. We definitely want to do that. But after that, I mean, the thing that I think is pretty unfortunate is that we don't all get to experience peak experiences, right? Like, I'm never going to swim as fast as Michael Phelps. It's just not in the cards for me. The build isn't there, right? And, you know, there are people who are tetrachromats, so they can see 100 million colors, and, you know, we can only see a million, right? And I don't know, I think that's a...Link

LubaSo you want to be in the game of enhancement.Link

NoorWell, I don't know if it's even considered enhancement, right? Because there are already people who have these abilities. But yes, I guess some people would argue that it's an enhancement. But to me, I would say it's leveling the playing field, right?Link

LubaYeah, but if you're working with embryos, wouldn't that mean that you would enhance the embryos to have certain things? Or are you saying that you would pick the embryos that have certain enhancement capabilities, because you'd be able to screen for them?Link

NoorI think people are going to upgrade embryos, meaning what they're going to do is they're going to incorporate variants that they know are beneficial, whether that's protective for disease, so basically helps people be more resistant to, you know, cancer or heart disease. But I think there are obviously other qualities. For example, there's a Finnish Olympian who was basically naturally blood doping. It's quite trivial for him to do all endurance sports. It just doesn't cost his body as much. Or some people are naturally stronger.Link

So why is it the case that only some people should be able to be Olympians, right? Yeah, it is a genetic lottery. Some people are just genetically lucky; they get to have the cards. And I'm not diminishing... obviously Michael Phelps and any Olympian has to have an insane work ethic and an insane diet. Genetics are not enough. But they are the starting line.Link

For example, I was never going to beat Michael Phelps, no matter how much I train or how much I eat. I'm never going to be able to. First of all, you know, the whole... but even among, you know, men, right, there's a massive difference in terms of how much they can compete. And that's only one dimension, right? There are so many other things that...Link

LubaOkay, this reminds me of how you can be born into your family, and your parents have a certain vision for you, and they're like, oh, I really want my kid to become, whatever, a software engineer. And it's kind of like their own unrealized ambition is being fed into the child. Where do you think the line is going to be between parents wanting their kid to be something and enhancing their genes in a certain way, where it becomes controlling, or an extension of their own desires for their child?Link

NoorYeah. I think that's going to be a really interesting question, and how governments will choose to regulate it. But I mean, I think people do a soft version of that already with mate selection, right? Like, you know, if people really want their child to be an athlete... it's wild to me, because I've heard guys be like, oh yeah, I'm only talking to girls who were athletes, because they really want their kid to be, like, whatever.Link

LubaReally interesting.Link

NoorI mean, I don't know, I talk to a lot of crazy people, so maybe some of them, right? But, you know what I mean? Whoever you're choosing as your partner, you're either consciously or unconsciously... you know that's going to affect your child, right? Do you value beauty the most in your partner? Do you value intelligence? Do you value compassion? Whatever you value most inherently is going to come through in your partner selection, right?Link

But no, I think you're obviously taking it to a whole new level by actually engineering an embryo. And I think it's going to be really interesting, uncharted waters, right? Because I think different governments are going to choose to regulate it differently based on what their values are. And to me, that's something I think is really cool about the world: every culture has super different...Link

LubaValues.Link

NoorValues. That's true. Because some cultures are like, oh my God, the entire point of the next generation is that they have to be better in whatever XYZ ways, right? And others are kind of like, oh no, the point is more to enjoy, or relax, or, I don't know. There are just really different value systems, right? And then obviously the kid is born, and they have free will over however they want to develop and what choices they want to make for their own life, given their culture, their tradition.Link

I think we can all imagine really dystopian and horrible versions of this, where your parents are really, you know, shoehorning you into doing something. But, I don't know, to me it just seems like such a cooler story for humanity, right? That we kind of get to escape the box. It's almost like we get to escape the video game, right? It used to be the case that, hey, this is the code, and we're just, you know, stuck with it. And now we actually get to write our own narrative.Link

LubaThen we get to write our own story.Link

NoorAnd we get to write our own story, you know, for hopefully the person who you're going to be the best steward of, right? Which is your child.Link

LubaLet's say this technology, to whatever extent it's imaginable, already exists. What are the things that you're picking for your own kid in this world?Link

NoorOh, I know. I think for me, a lot of people think this would be sensory overload, but I really like the tetrachromat stuff, the people who can see more colors. I feel like that would be such a fun life. They see snow, and instead of seeing white snow, apparently they describe it as almost holographic, lots of different colors. And I'm like, it's basically just that your everyday life ends up being more colorful. It's more cinematic, you know?Link

It's not the only thing, but that's the one I have the most fun with, that I really, personally wish for, because I just love nature. I love the forest, I love the water. And I'm just like, I already get so much joy.Link

LubaI don't know why, but for some reason I have images of *Twilight*. You know the movie *Twilight*?Link

NoorOh, really? I don't know. Oh, interesting. I haven't watched it. Is it about this?Link

LubaIt's not really, but I feel like there were some, you know, vampires in the movie that had these special capabilities of seeing life in some different way. And maybe I'm imagining things, but I just have these scenes of, you know, this vampire, and they were seeing everything in color.Link

NoorYeah, yeah. I don't know. I just think there are a ton of these. Humans are just really cool and diverse. There are a ton of things that humans have that just seem like they would be awesome to have, right? There are other people who only need to sleep a few hours per night.Link

LubaYeah, that's true. That would be really cool. I would definitely pick that. Although, oh, you know, I wouldn't pick that if my partner slept a lot more hours.Link

NoorWait, why? That's even better.Link

LubaI feel like it's fun to align your schedules with your partner as much as possible, especially things like night and morning rituals.Link

NoorNo, but it's so easy to align, because you can basically just pop in at whatever time, because you have so much more time in the middle. You get to have a whole other life in that time, a nightlife, while they're sleeping.Link

But no, I totally agree with you. I have heard this is a big thing. It's actually really funny, because that's kind of happening for me and my husband. We're kind of diverging. We used to both be night owls. And now I'm still a night owl, but now he's a super early bird. He wakes up at like 5 a.m.Link

LubaOh, wow. What time do you wake up?Link

NoorI go to bed at like three, so.Link

LubaOh my God. Okay. Got it. Yeah, that's why you texted me really late when we were coordinating. I was like, why are you not sleeping?Link

NoorI know, that's why. That's my time to shine.Link

LubaOkay. Since you're working in such an important field, which literally defines humanity, how has working in this space changed your view on the meaning that we create in life, and just mortality, and what we carry forward in life?Link

NoorHmm. Wow. That's a very deep question. I think I just think about dying a lot.Link

LubaOh. You do?Link

NoorYeah. I think about dying a lot, but it's not in a sad way. It's just like, there's not that much time left. There's always not that much time left. You're always the oldest you've ever been.Link

LubaI mean, you're also the youngest you're ever going to be.Link

NoorRight. The youngest you're ever going to be. But I don't know, I think from a young age, even before the company, I was always like, you know, there's not that much time left. You're always expiring. Your energy is always expiring, if that makes sense. Maybe it sounds really negative, but I think I feel it in the opposite way.Link

LubaI mean, it's a reframe, to treat your life as: life is too short, you want to make the most of it.Link

NoorYeah, I just think your life is so precious. There are so many constant reminders every day, right? To me, every sunset is a reminder, right? Every sunset to me is so stunning and beautiful. It's literally the entire world creating this painting, this spectacle in fire and light, you know? And then there's one day where the sun is going to not shine anymore. It's literally going to explode, and it's going to be over, right? I'm obviously not going to live to that. But even the sun, even this crazy celestial body, is one day going to expire, right? It's this beauty that it gets to show us, right? And I only get to see a tiny fraction of those, right?Link

And you see a flower bloom, and, well, first of all, how insane is the flower? It literally came from the dirt. Like, brown dirt. So ugly. And then it has the most beautiful leaves. We can't create that. The texture of those petals and the pigments of those colors, the brightness of those purples and pinks. We can't even paint anything or create fabrics like that. And yet that flower gets to bloom for like three days that I get to see it before it dies, right? So it's like all of life is constantly dying and constantly alive.Link

LubaYeah, but just for a moment.Link

NoorRight. So, I don't know, I think I just see that everywhere. And for me, it gives me both this urgency and this lack of preoccupation, if that makes sense. I'm sort of like, you know what I mean? I could be looking at a flower right now. Why would I want to...Link

LubaDo you think your own life is constantly a blooming flower, or is there a peak to your own blooming? And what would that look like?Link

NoorOh, yeah, of course. You have a peak and then you expire, right? A flower has a life cycle, right? It blooms and then it dies. So that's the other reason why it's really important to work on stuff that I think is important. Because, whether you like it or not, you just become more irrelevant with time, right? You don't have to, but it is kind of a default that you have to fight harder and harder against.Link

Because, you know, it's kind of like your brain is like a book that's already been written. Now, are you gonna write over it? Are you gonna erase and make new pages or not? The more that you get filled up with things, the harder it is to be empty, right? And sometimes there's a benefit to being empty, and there's a benefit to having all this knowledge written up. But for a lot of things, it's a balance, right? You have to have enough empty pages, you have to have enough inexperience, you have to have enough hotshot energy, and you have to have enough experience to actually be able to pull it off. And that moment is actually an extremely short amount of time in people's lives, where they're relevant enough to be able to do something, but they're also inexperienced enough to actually want to make it happen and not see all the ways that it can fail.Link

LubaWhat are your biggest hopes for your future child?Link

NoorI mean, it's always what I... between me and my husband, I was like, just always do the more epic thing. That's kind of, here's a choice: just try it. That's how I decide. It's a tiebreaker. Whatever would be more epic, do that.Link

I don't know. I think a lot of people say they want their kid to be happy. I think that's good too. But if it was just that, that's kind of lame. You're just going to be happy, but you're going to be mediocre and lame and never did anything interesting. I would rather you have some more sad time, but then you ended up, you know, really... I don't know what I mean by that. Like, pushing yourself to the limits of whatever you could accomplish. To me, for some reason, I think that's more important, or more motivating, than, okay, were you at a nine happiness for 70 years? As opposed to, oh, you had ten years where you were only at a two happiness, but then you literally actually reached your full potential, and followed your heart, and did all your real dreams. But, okay, fine, you had to experience some suffering to do that. I don't know, I think...Link

LubaSo it sounds like you want them to be true to themselves and their desires, and live to the fullest extent of whatever that is.Link

NoorI really want them to follow their dreams. Whatever their dream is, I want them to not be too afraid of failing, or disappointing their parents, or disappointing society, to not go out for whatever their real dreams are.Link

LubaI love that. Noor, I want to wrap up with a couple of lightning round questions, so these could be short.Link

NoorYeah.Link

LubaWhat's a daily habit that is secretly a little insane?Link

NoorI don't know. I think I'm pretty ordinary in my life. My honest daily habit is that I have matcha every morning, and it gives me an insane amount of happiness that I think is probably unrealistic. I love the color, the deep green. The color of the matcha literally makes me smile every time I make it. I just love how bright green it is, and the smell of it. So I don't think it's insane. I think everyone has their morning beverage. But for me, I think it's probably a little bit cartoonish how happy it makes me to have matcha. It is definitely a huge happiness boost that seems absurd.Link

LubaThe payoff per minute is really high.Link

NoorYeah.Link

LubaWhat's a trait of yours that you're most grateful for?Link

NoorI'm most grateful for... I think it's this thing I was talking about, not caring very much about what other people think. Because in high school, when I was a kid, it really made me an outcast and not have a lot of friends. But I think, yeah, as an adult, it's paid off. Because I didn't realize, actually, for other people, how much anxiety and angst and work it takes for them to just do what they want to do. It really feels kind of like running through walls for them, and to me it doesn't. It's just who you are. It's just a fortunate thing that it's not very costly to me.Link

And I feel lucky for that, because I think some people perceive me as, I don't know, brave or something. And it's actually not bravery. It's just that I don't feel it. It's almost like you wouldn't call someone brave who doesn't even need a jacket outside, but they run really hot, right?Link

LubaRight.Link

NoorSo it's the same thing. It's like, well, to me, it doesn't cost very much to do what I want.Link

LubaYeah, I very much relate to that, because people always say, oh my God, you moved away from Belarus when you were 17, that must have been so hard. And I'm like, no, it was not very hard, because that's just what I wanted and that's just who I am. But for a lot of other people, it would have been brave. So I get it.Link

NoorYeah. But it's a huge asset, right? Because your whole life would have been different...Link

LubaExactly.Link

NoorIf that had been really costly for you.Link

LubaTotally. Right. Okay. What's one thing that you'd tell yourself when you were 17 years old and applying for college?Link

NoorLike advice?Link

LubaYeah, like advice, or some words of encouragement or wisdom.Link

NoorWhat would I tell them? Don't take yourself so seriously.Link

LubaWere you taking yourself very seriously then?Link

NoorYes.Link

LubaOh. You were.Link

NoorYes. Very seriously.Link

LubaOkay. Yeah. I think that's actually something that's very funny. I think taking yourself less seriously takes time, actually.Link

NoorI mean, I don't know, maybe that was the order for me. I think for me, when I was really young, I took myself the most seriously, and I didn't realize until I got older that I could relax. For me, when I was that age, I feel like I had so much to prove. I was just like, oh my God, I got this crazy opportunity, and I've done nothing to show for it, and I need to, you know, prove myself. And I think as I got older, and I was able to do things that I really wanted to do, that I thought were hard... you know what I mean? Once I'd proved it to myself, then I was like, okay, relax a little. Now I don't have to take myself too seriously.Link

LubaAnd how old were you when that happened?Link

NoorI don't know. A week ago.Link

LubaA week ago? Yesterday?Link

NoorYesterday. This morning I decided I shouldn't take myself... No, I mean, I think it's a gradual thing, right? As you accomplish your goals, you always have bigger and bigger goals. But I think you just have to go through a few cycles. I think you have to go through maybe two to four rounds of: this is an impossible task, I would be such a cool person if I could do this. And then you do it, and then you pick the next one, and you take yourself seriously, because you're really clenched again, and you're like, oh, I need to go do the next thing.Link

LubaAnd do you think you're a cool person now?Link

NoorI mean, I'm almost cool. I'm almost cool.Link

LubaWhat would make you cool?Link

NoorWhat would make me cool? Oh, I don't know. Just, you know, the next thing.Link

LubaWhat's the next thing?Link

NoorYou know, upgrading all humans.Link

LubaOh, wow, that's quite an achievement.Link

NoorOnce they're all upgraded, then I'll finally be cool.Link

But no, I'm definitely not some Zen monk or something like that. But I think there was a time where there was real uncertainty, right? Where you're really unsure of yourself, and you're like, oh, am I going to be able to do this thing or not? And once you've done that a few times... I mean, a silly example is just, you know, in college, right? Where you're like, am I going to pass or fail this class? And you manage to pass a couple of these ones that people are like, oh my God, these are weeder courses, right? And, you know, with a company, it's like, am I going to get my first customer? Am I going to get my first investor? There are just so many of these things, right? Like, oh, am I going to pass?Link

LubaSo once you've proven it a few times to yourself, then you can think of yourself as upgraded.Link

NoorWell, I don't even think it's upgraded. I think you basically just have this muscle that you trust. One thing I also always tell the team is: confidence is about competence. True confidence is that you're actually just competent, right? Fake confidence is fake because you're not competent, right? So in order to have true confidence, you have to genuinely be competent. And how are you genuinely competent? Well, you actually have to go do things and succeed at them. And in order to succeed at them, you're also going to fail a bunch of times. And then the part that's really messy, that sucks, is the part where you're only failing, and you're like, well, I'm not competent, I'm only incompetent. But eventually enough incompetence wraps around to competence.Link

LubaI love that. Yeah. Noor, this was so much fun. Thank you so much for your time.Link

NoorThanks for having me.Link

LubaIt's amazing.Link