Get Pushback
The Translation Problem
Alex Baca
Hi, I'm Alex and this is my family.
My wife, our dog Charlemagne, and me.
When I was a kid, I was diagnosed with leukemia.
I survived because the science reached me.
That's what drove me into deep tech — to fight back.
Fighting Back
My mission: Getting life-saving breakthroughs to every patient.
Protenus
I built systems that halted drug diversion and privacy breaches, directly protecting patients from harm. Our technology achieved the highest KLAS score ever for patient safety monitoring.
Recursion
I developed the AI powering 2.2 million drug experiments weekly, compressing years of research into weeks. Our goal: accelerate critical cures to patients when they need them most.
Recursion changes drug discovery economics
Traditional
$2 billion, 15 years, most fail
Recursion
AI tests millions of possibilities in weeks
Scale
65 petabytes of biological data
Then I realized something terrible.
I quietly disabled our flagship AI model
The one that "saved weeks"
The one that "predicted toxicity"
The one everyone praised
No one noticed.
The Investment
Years of dedication built this model
The builders, immensely proud, hailed it as their magnum opus.
Executives championed it to Wall Street as a triumph of innovation.
Drug programs lauded its constant ability to "save weeks" and "de-risk development."
The verdict was unanimous: this was undeniably impactful.
One week passe
Zero tickets.
Zero complaints.
Zero questions.
Nothing.
Drug programs hit their milestones on schedule. Scientists used their own judgment like they always had.
If it actually saved weeks, they'd yell when it broke.
But they weren't yelling.
They learned to go along with the program.
Technology was real. Impact was a story.
I tried fixing it from inside
300-person team
Built Translation Platform team
36 → 18 months
Cut drug-to-trial time in half
Human response
Created predictive models
The problem was bigger than one company.
Techstars Scale
I joined Techstars to help AI founders
5K
companies backed
16
unicorns created
$20B+
raised
1%
acceptance rate
Harder than Harvard
The Pattern
Why Brilliant AI Still Struggles for Adoption

Halsted AI
An AI that watches surgical videos and catches errors before they become lawsuits. Like game film review for surgeons.
Hospitals should be lining up. They're not.
The hurdle isn't building breakthrough AI. It's the human element: translating innovation into irresistible adoption.
I used to believe better technology saved lives.
Now I know:
Technology that doesn't reach people saves no one.
5,000 companies. Same pattern.
The information existed. It just wasn't reaching the CEO.
At Techstars, I watched brilliant founders make avoidable mistakes — not because they lacked data, but because no one would tell them what it meant. The honesty gap isn't a character flaw. It's a structural problem.
Why Sopheva
That's why I started Sopheva
The honest conversation you can't have anywhere else
The honesty gap
Executives making $20M decisions with nobody willing to push back. Your team won't tell you the hard truth. Your coach isn't awake at 11pm. ChatGPT agrees with everything you say.
Here's how Sopheva solves it:
AI that actually argues with you
Six expert perspectives that debate each other, challenge your assumptions, and force you to see what you're missing.
For decisions that actually matter
The ones where you need someone to say 'have you considered that this could blow up?'
THE MECHANISM
You bring a decision. Sopheva runs it through 6 expert perspectives — simultaneously.
Finance Lens
Cost, ROI and risk
Operations Lens
Feasibility and throughput
Market Strategist
Positioning and demand
Behavioral Economist
Biases and incentives
Industry Veteran
Practical experience
Growth Advisor
Scaling and acceleration
They debate each other. They challenge your assumptions. They disagree.
You get a map of the decision space, not a single answer.
THE CATCH
What almost happened
A first-time founder. 48 hours to decide on a $25M acquisition offer.
1
ABOUT TO SIGN
$25M
  • 60-day exclusivity
  • First-time founder
2
SOPHEVA CAUGHT

Uncovered: Urgent second buyer creates hidden leverage
3
OUTCOME
$45M
+$20M value created
"Exclusivity is the most expensive thing you can give away for free. The $25M wasn't a ceiling — it was a floor."
— Sopheva's David Rubenstein (Carlyle Group founder)
The same problem. A different room.
I survived because the science reached me.

Now I'm building something so the truth reaches you.
Somewhere in your company, someone knows.
They're just not telling you.