{ "docId": "019dd923-622c-750b-8b9a-1a3bea94baf9", "docSlug": "c358888161f0", "documentTitle": "Ginkgo Bioworks (DNA)", "authorId": "58_Scorpion_Capital", "authorName": "Scorpion Capital", "documentKindSlug": "activist-deck", "documentKindLabel": "Activist deck", "sourceTypeSlug": "short_seller", "sourceTypeLabel": "Short seller", "presentationDate": "2021-10-06 00:00:00", "orientation": "landscape", "aspectRatio": 1.2941177, "pageNumber": 136, "pageCount": 175, "prevPage": 135, "nextPage": 137, "slideType": "expose_contradiction", "function": "expose_contradiction", "density": "overcrowded", "nDataPoints": 0, "notes": "The slide relies heavily on expert testimony to debunk the company's marketing narrative.", "elementsJson": [ "paragraph", "quote_block", "footnote" ], "metadataConfidence": 0.95, "imagePath": null, "slideHref": "/slides/019dd923-622c-750b-8b9a-1a3bea94baf9/136", "deckHref": "/decks/019dd923-622c-750b-8b9a-1a3bea94baf9", "deckJsonHref": "/decks/019dd923-622c-750b-8b9a-1a3bea94baf9.json", "deckAnchorHref": "/decks/019dd923-622c-750b-8b9a-1a3bea94baf9#slide-136", "components": [ { "bbox": null, "kind": "callout", "text": "Ginkgo uses fancy videos and drivel to create mystery around its commodity strain engineering lab, slapping the word “Foundry” on it.", "attrs": null, "subkind": null, "toolName": "Visual emphasis", "toolSlug": "visual-emphasis", "confidence": null, "componentId": "019dd953-2b62-723f-b691-4ebaf2f172e0", "frameworkName": null, "frameworkSlug": null }, { "bbox": { "h": 0.05, "w": 0.9, "x": 0.05, "y": 0.28 }, "kind": "paragraph", "text": "Typical strain engineering involves trial and error in manipulating yeast in different combination", "attrs": null, "subkind": "paragraph", "toolName": null, "toolSlug": null, "confidence": null, "componentId": "5f24c092-4f6d-481d-9194-5b55d92fdd33", "frameworkName": null, "frameworkSlug": null }, { "bbox": { "h": 0.05, "w": 0.9, "x": 0.05, "y": 0.5 }, "kind": "paragraph", "text": "Just automated liquid handling into well plates to automate repetitive pipette-ing", "attrs": null, "subkind": "paragraph", "toolName": null, "toolSlug": null, "confidence": null, "componentId": "8317ca83-423c-4fc7-9287-e241db97bb5d", "frameworkName": null, "frameworkSlug": null }, { "bbox": { "h": 0.03, "w": 0.9, "x": 0.05, "y": 0.77 }, "kind": "paragraph", "text": "Strain engineering is a highly repetitive process", "attrs": null, "subkind": "paragraph", "toolName": null, "toolSlug": null, "confidence": null, "componentId": "f17a53e8-4cc7-44b0-b5db-0c58c7e1521c", "frameworkName": null, "frameworkSlug": null }, { "bbox": { "h": 0.15, "w": 0.9, "x": 0.05, "y": 0.8 }, "kind": "quote", "text": "“Let's say you want to produce an ingredient that's used as a skin whitening agent. It exists in nature, but it's very expensive to isolate from the tree it grows on. What you can do is go to this tree; you can say here's a DNA sequence that encodes for it. Take that DNA sequence and put it in a yeast cell. Grow the yeast cell up in a fermenter, and it produces it. If you put it in a yeast cell, and it doesn't work, you look and say, what's wrong with it? It's a seven-step process, and each one of these steps requires an enzyme to be able to do the manipulation. You can think of it as like you're building a Lego model, and you need to put these pieces together, and each enzyme adds a different piece until you get the final product with all the pieces on there. You go, and you do your experiments, and you say what happened is the first four enzymes worked great, but the fifth enzyme just doesn't work, so I need to manipulate, I need to get a different enzyme. So, you go, and you try a different enzyme, and you put it back in the yeast cell, and you grow it up, and you try again. And then you try it again and again. It's a repetitive process.” - Former Ginkgo executive", "attrs": null, "subkind": "testimonial", "toolName": null, "toolSlug": null, "confidence": null, "componentId": "176e2eb4-f732-49e5-a972-4ce6b5a12a38", "frameworkName": null, "frameworkSlug": null }, { "bbox": { "h": 0.15, "w": 0.9, "x": 0.05, "y": 0.33 }, "kind": "quote", "text": "“Typically, when somebody talks about a fermenter, it's a pretty big piece of equipment. What they're doing is these microtiter plates, which are mini-fermenters, and you can buy it. They took all of the money that they've raised, and they put it into the equipment to be able to do parallel processing of yeast cells. It's not always yeast, but yeast is their organism of choice.” - Former Ginkgo executive", "attrs": null, "subkind": "testimonial", "toolName": null, "toolSlug": null, "confidence": null, "componentId": "491139f0-c0f9-4a41-af1f-75d04374cfd0", "frameworkName": null, "frameworkSlug": null }, { "bbox": { "h": 0.2, "w": 0.9, "x": 0.05, "y": 0.55 }, "kind": "quote", "text": "Q: “They're using large well plates, so they have hundreds of thousands of little chambers, and robots are just little machines that are able to pipette into hundreds of wells?” A: “Exactly. It's a combination of a liquid handling system and analytics. It injects one sample—usually, they repeat it 10 times just to make sure. They inject it into the wells, carry out the fermentation, and then they have analytics to look at and see the results. The ones that they like the best, they further iterate on, and if those are promising, then they'll grow them up into larger fermenters. And these could be 10 mil or 100 mil bona fide fermenters where they've got agitation; they've got aeration, it's a controlled environment.” - Former Ginkgo executive", "attrs": null, "subkind": "testimonial", "toolName": null, "toolSlug": null, "confidence": null, "componentId": "570c026c-5ba5-4221-a379-aabf7de76cc1", "frameworkName": null, "frameworkSlug": null }, { "bbox": null, "kind": "quote", "text": "“Typically, when somebody talks about a fermenter, it's a pretty big piece of equipment. What they're doing is these micro-titer plates, which are mini-fermenters, and you can buy it. They took all of the money that they've raised, and they put it into the equipment to be able to do parallel processing of yeast cells. It's not always yeast, but yeast is their organism of choice.” — Former Ginkgo executive; “Exactly. It's a combination of a liquid handling system and analytics. It injects one sample—usually, they repeat it 10 times just to make sure. They inject it into the wells, carry out the fermentation, and then they have analytics to look at and see the results. The ones that they like the best, they further iterate on, and if those are promising, then they'll grow them up into larger fermenters. And these could be 10 mil or 100 mil bona fide fermenters where they've got agitation; they've got aeration, it's a controlled environment.” — Former Ginkgo executive; “Let's say you want to produce an ingredient that's used as a skin whitening agent. It exists in nature, but it's very expensive to isolate from the tree it grows on. What you can do is go to this tree; you can say here's a DNA sequence that encodes for it. Take that DNA sequence and put it in a yeast cell. Grow the yeast cell up in a fermenter, and it produces it. If you put it in a yeast cell, and it doesn't work, you look and say, what's wrong with it? It's a seven-step process, and each one of these steps requires an enzyme to be able to do the manipulation. You can think of it as like you're building a Lego model, and you need to put these pieces together, and each enzyme adds a different piece until you get the final product with all the pieces on there. You go, and you do your experiments, and you say what happened is the first four enzymes worked great, but the fifth enzyme just doesn't work, so I need to manipulate, I need to get a different enzyme. So, you go, and you try a different enzyme, and you put it back in the yeast cell, and you grow it up, and you try again. And then you try it again and again. It's a repetitive process.” — Former Ginkgo executive", "attrs": null, "subkind": null, "toolName": "Authority citation", "toolSlug": "authority-citation", "confidence": null, "componentId": "019dd953-2b62-723f-b691-52855b9c65db", "frameworkName": null, "frameworkSlug": null }, { "bbox": { "h": 0.02, "w": 0.3, "x": 0.05, "y": 0.97 }, "kind": "source-note", "text": "Source: Scorpion Capital consultation calls with experts", "attrs": null, "subkind": null, "toolName": null, "toolSlug": null, "confidence": null, "componentId": "cfeb046d-8884-4650-9380-cfff3efa0e2a", "frameworkName": null, "frameworkSlug": null }, { "bbox": { "h": 0.2, "w": 0.9, "x": 0.05, "y": 0.05 }, "kind": "title", "text": "Ginkgo uses fancy videos and drivel to create mystery around its commodity strain engineering lab, slapping the word “Foundry” on it. Ex-employees explained that its simply “parallel processing of yeast cells” using liquid handling machines to automate the repetitive task of using pipettes to inject samples into well plates.", "attrs": null, "subkind": "headline", "toolName": null, "toolSlug": null, "confidence": null, "componentId": "6c451fe0-c491-4fc4-92a9-6dcb61457eec", "frameworkName": null, "frameworkSlug": null } ], "metrics": [], "tools": [], "frameworks": [], "arcBeats": [ { "to": 175, "from": 9, "beatId": "ffe290af-3a4f-4e06-8d60-dfbfc07d2e08", "arcName": "Overcoming the Monster", "arcSlug": "overcoming-monster", "beatName": "Expose Contradiction", "beatSlug": null, "evidence": "The deck presents evidence contradicting Ginkgo's claims and highlighting potential wrongdoings.", "position": 1, "confidence": 0.8, "parentBeatName": null, "parentBeatSlug": null } ], "loops": [], "imagePathAlt": null, "thumbSrc": null, "thumbSrcAlt": null, "locked": true }