The State of Organizations 2023 - Flipbook - Page 27
CHAPTER 2: LESSONS FROM LEADERS
Shooting for
the moon: How
PsiQuantum forged
its own path
can be generated at any level and
propagate in any direction. When you’re
tackling big questions with unknown
answers, you’ve got to allow that and
then filter those ideas. A big part of my
role is making sure everyone is heard.
Can you describe some of the cultural
or organizational elements that have
enabled you to deliver on this big bet
you’ve described?
Dr. Jeremy O’Brien, cofounder and
CEO of PsiQuantum, discusses bucking
conventional wisdom, attracting worldclass talent, and staying focused on a vision.
P
siQuantum is on a mission to
build the first useful quantum
computer, a machine that can
solve impossible problems beyond
the capabilities of anything that exists
today. Since its founding in 2015, the
company has expanded to more than
200 employees and has raised more than
$700 million in private capital, bringing
its valuation to more than $3 billion. We
spoke with cofounder and CEO Jeremy
O’Brien about his vision for the company
and the people, culture, and mindsets
that enable its success.
What drives you and your organization?
We founded this company on the
conviction that quantum computing is
the most profoundly world-changing
technology that humans have discovered
and that to do anything useful, you need
a million-plus qubit quantum computer.
This was contrary to the dominant
thinking at the time, which was to scale
up from ten qubits to maybe 100 or 1,000.
If you think the goal is to get to the top
of the Empire State Building, you build
longer ladders. If you realize that the
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goal is to reach the moon, you take a
completely different approach. That’s
what we did. Seven years later, the
consensus is that we were right.
We are still fanatical about getting to
a million-plus qubits, and we have a
viable path to deliver on that promise.
Our commitment to this goal is driven
by our understanding that only at such
scales will quantum computers address
the substantive problems impacting
health, the environment, and innovative
materials. This belief has always been
the guiding light for everything we do,
and it’s why the smartest people want to
come work with us.
Let’s talk more about finding the best
talent. What do you think has enabled
your organization to attract the right
people with the right skills?
My two main reports—our chief
operating officer and chief business
officer—are multiventure CEOs. They
are vastly more experienced than me in
the semiconductor industry and in the
broader tech industry. I think there’s
The State of Organizations 2023
something about the organization that
attracts people like them. In addition
to the vision, we have an extremely
profound technology, a unique approach
to delivering it, and a focused discipline
to maximize progress against our
end goal. I’ve heard some colleagues
describe it as a less-than-once-in-alifetime opportunity.
When I talk to colleagues about what
keeps them here, it’s the people and
our bold vision. We’ve recruited these
supersharp, technically gifted individuals
who are collaborating in the most
extreme ways. Then it’s the technical
and business rigor of what we’re trying to
achieve. Our team is remarkably humble,
especially as it faces solving problems of
unprecedented scale. No one pretends
to have all the answers, and yet we
continually strive to achieve results that
have never been done before.
We also care about bringing together a
diverse group of people—including those
with experience in different industries,
roles, and functions. Since my university
days, I’ve always been clear that ideas
My cofounders and I all came from the
academic research world, as did many
of our peers in the industry. We decided
early on to exercise this academic
mentality and turn ourselves into a
relentless industrial machine. It comes
down to being a fanatic about impact—
every cent and every minute must be
spent on getting to the moon. We’re not
writing academic papers, and we’re not
interested in some cool demonstration of
an algorithm unless it’s useful.
It’s a balancing act. We need to
stay focused to this path that we’ve
defined—especially when we’re
spending hundreds of millions of dollars
on building out our capabilities. But at
the same time, we need to recognize
when it’s time to be flexible and change.
There have been times when employees
have raised concerns or challenged the
prevailing thinking, and we’ve listened
and changed course.
If we fast forward to making your vision
a reality, how do you see PsiQuantum’s
role within the quantum-computing
ecosystem, particularly when it comes
to working with potential strategic
partners?
When it comes to the commercialization
of the technology, the guiding principle
is always, “How do we create the biggest
positive impact on the world as quickly
as possible?” There is huge value to be
created. We’re taking problems that
are otherwise impossible to solve and
suddenly making that possible. There are
plenty of spoils to go around.
It just doesn’t make sense to obsess
about capturing the maximum value
or being the singular entity in the
ecosystem. Of course, we’re a commercial
organization and we do have to think
about revenue, but we’re guided by
impact at a higher level. If we get that right,
then everything else will flow. It’s really an
extension of our “no distractions” policy.
Everything we do has to be focused on
the highest-impact applications with the
highest-impact partners who are going
to deploy this technology at scale in the
shortest time possible.
‘When I talk to colleagues
about what keeps them
here, it’s the people and
our bold vision.’
March 2023
More about
Dr. Jeremy
O’Brien
Cofounder and CEO
of PsiQuantum
Dr. Jeremy O’Brien is cofounder and
CEO of PsiQuantum, a quantumcomputing company on a mission to
build the world’s first commercially
useful quantum computer and deploy
it to tackle some of the greatest
challenges we face across climate,
healthcare, life sciences, energy and
beyond. Dr. O’Brien has dedicated 25
years to this mission, having identified
quantum computing as the most
profoundly world-changing technology
due to its potential to unlock solutions
to otherwise impossible problems.
PsiQuantum is building a utilityscale, fault-tolerant quantum
computer with a silicon photonicsbased architecture that enables
manufacturing in a conventional silicon
chip foundry. Photonic qubits have
significant advantages at the scale
required to deliver a fault-tolerant
quantum computer, and PsiQuantum
partnered with semiconductor
company GlobalFoundries to achieve
this objective. With core quantum
components already in volume
production, this is an unprecedented
economic signal of maturity for a
technology that is often viewed as
being at the early research phase.
Prior to founding PsiQuantum, Dr.
O’Brien was professor of physics and
electrical engineering at Stanford and
Bristol Universities and director of the
Centre for Quantum Photonics.
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