"Adventures in Extreme Science"
April 04, 2011
Profile of Eric Schadt:
From Crick and Watson through J. Craig Venter, we had all our eggs in one basket — molecular biology, gene mapping, whatever you want to call it. It failed. And now we're counting on this guy. . . .
Yale wanted him to start a systems-biology department, and Genentech wanted him as its head of genetic research, a story that harkens once again to the constants of smarts and salesmanship: "When I was interviewing for that job, the head of the company's research department said, 'You're either completely full of shit or the smartest person on earth. We're not smart enough to know. But we're willing to bet that you're the smartest person on earth.' "