Naming the first biotech company, Herbert Boyer
Interviewee: Herbert Boyer. Herb Boyer talks about how the first biotech company got its name. (DNAi Location: Manipulation > Production > Players > Herbert Boyer > Naming the company)
And he always told the story, he, we'd call it Bob-Herb or Herb-Bob, and, and I said no, no way I'm going to do that. So he said all right, we've got a meeting tomorrow, your assignment tonight is come up with the name. And so I go in the next morning and Tom Perkins who was our, our investor and who was Chairman of the Board for a number of years, Bob, myself and Tom had this little meeting in the office in Embarcadero Center in San Francisco, away up about 32 floors, you know. God, never seen offices like so nice in all my life, okay, compared to my office. But I remember Bob says well, you know, what are we going to call this company, you know, we've got to incorporate it, we need something. I said well, and I'd thought about it a little bit, and so I wrote down on the blackboard "genetic," underneath it "engineering" and underneath that "technology". So we take G-e-n underline that, engineering, underline e-n, and then tech from technology and come out Genentech.
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- ID: 15032
- Source: DNALC.DNAi
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