Feldman's Faves: November 1, 2021

GOOD MORNING BL5 – Well, you have endured many months of being force-fed my random thoughts. I have enjoyed the exercise of sharing a part of myself that is NOT doing deals and fighting fights (for the first time in 20 years). The people in this section are really smart and interesting and you are all great at what you do. But I think seeing and getting to know so many of you as people during this period in ways I never had before is the greatest gift I have been given as section head. I don’t know exactly how the next phase of our back to the office plan will play out in granular detail but I do know that it will be great to be face to face more often once again. We will find ways to connect as firm and as a section that allows our unique and very special culture to continue to thrive.

BTW, for my fellow Peloton fanatics, I highly recommend you try the POWER ZONE TRAINING PROGRAM. It takes five weeks but it is remarkable how much you will be able to improve your FTP results (if you actually care about that stuff)…..

As per usual, I don’t really have a theme today, just topics of interest to me.

The Lincoln Highway By: Amor Towles – This week is the perfect week to end this series. One of the first books I recommended was A Gentleman in Moscow, which many of you read and enjoyed. Amor Towles is probably my favourite contemporary writer. As you know I absolutely LOVED A Gentleman in Moscow. It was so beautifully and playfully written that I rank it as my number one recommendation of this series. Whenever I read Towles I actually think of our good friend and partner, Jonathan Lampe, who in my experience is the best writer of any lawyer I have ever known. He is careful, thoughtful and meticulous when it comes to everything he writes. There is never a word that is extraneous or out of place. It is truly masterful. Towles writes this way too. His use of language, his phrasing and his sentence structure is so carefully constructed and thoughtful that reading his work is akin to experiencing any great work of art. In The Lincoln Highway, Towles uses one of my favourite literary devices as he tells the story from the perspective of multiple characters. One reviewer described The Lincoln Highway as follows: It’s June 1954, and 18 year old Emmett Watson is being driven home by Warden Williams after serving time in a Kansas youth facility. Emmett has to tie up his late father’s estate, and then he and his little brother Billy will be leaving town for a fresh start in life. Emmett and Billy have different ideas about which direction they should head - Billy wants to follow the Lincoln Highway, where their mother, (who walked out on the family many years ago) is thought to be living. Emmett wants to follow wherever the work is, however, much to Emmett’s surprise, Duchess and Wooly, who are still supposed to be serving time in the facility where Emmett was, have managed to secrete themselves in the trunk of Warden William’s car, and are intent on a road trip of their own! What follows is madness and mayhem, but what a journey! What an inventive and absorbing read this is. The characters are wonderful - all memorable in their own special way, the storyline is just an escapade full of humour and joy, not to mention some moving scenes thrown in for good measure. Can’t praise it enough! - I agree with this assessment - Here is an a great review from the NYT - https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/05/books/review/amor-towles-lincoln-highway.html

How I Built This with Guy Raz -Moderna and Flagship Pioneering: Noubar Afeyan – Earlier this year I suggested that Daniel Humm (chef and owner of Eleven Madison Park) might the most interesting man in the world. Well, it is possible that Guy Raz has found an even more interesting man in Noubar Afeyan. Afeyan is a Canadian and American citizen who emigrated to Canada (Montreal to be precise) from Lebanon as a child. He was an academic whiz kid with degrees from McGill and MIT and was one of the early pioneers in the world of biotech. Flagship Pioneering was his brainchild that is a combination of academic research, applied science, an incubator and a VC shop all rolled into one. He has taken many companies public in this space and is a self-made billionaire as a result. His most famous creation is Moderna and his most famous invention is the Moderna Covid vaccine. He was an early adapter of MNRA in biotech and had no idea when he started Flagship and Moderna that this would be his homerun and his most significant contribution to humanity. Afeyan has had many successes and many failures, but in the true entrepreneurial spirit, he views everything as a learning experience leading only to success. I LOVE THAT. Here is the excerpt from the PODCAST - In the field of bio-tech, it can take 10 years and millions of dollars to see if an experimental idea might turn into a life-saving treatment—if it ever does. Noubar Afeyan fully understood those risks when he co-founded Moderna in 2010. He and his colleagues were looking for a way to deploy the Messenger RNA molecule to tackle life-threatening diseases. In January of 2020, an urgent opportunity presented itself in the form of a deadly virus that was spreading across the globe. At a breathtaking pace, Moderna produced a prototype for a COVID-19 vaccine, partnered with the NIH to test it, and produced millions of doses, becoming part of the most rapid vaccine roll-out in human history. While Moderna is the best known of Noubar's companies, he has launched many others in the bio-tech space as part of Flagship Pioneering, his multi-billion dollar venture studio:https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/how-i-built-this-with-guy-raz/id1150510297?i=1000538028889

Thank you for your ongoing engagement and participation throughout this series – it has been fun and educational to get your perspectives on topics other than the law.

And remember (as always) to stay safe, stay healthy and to docket daily.

With much appreciation,

Jon