Vikram Bajaj, the former co-founder of Google life sciences startup Verily and chief scientific officer of cancer biotech company Grail, has joined Foresite Capital as a managing director. Foresite is a venture capital and private equity firm that invests in health care companies.
Looking ahead: Bajaj will help identify companies that personalize medicine and treatment based on people's individual genetic code. Jim Tananbaum, Foresite's CEO, told Axios that hiring Bajaj and others is about expanding the scope of investable companies. "The world is going to favor the superior product, clinically, and the product that reduces costs to the system," Tananbaum said.
Robots that double as security guards are growing as a presence in cities across the U.S., per McClatchy DC. The bots, equipped with laser scanning, 360-degree video, and thermal imaging are self-sufficient, cheaper than human beings, can work 24-hour days, and require no benefits.
Yes, but: Letting the bots loose on the streets can be dangerous, and some manufacturers are still working out how to ensure the robots don't hurt pedestrians in their path. Meanwhile, no mechanism to hold the robots, or their human operators, accountable has been established yet. "If you have a robot with no distinguishing marks, who are you going to call?" A. Michael Froomkin, a University of Miami Law School professor, told McClatchy.
A number of tech companies have joined Apple, PayPal, Lyft and Yelp in a corporate brief urging the Supreme Court to reject the notion that businesses can choose to discriminate against LGBT customers.
