Lesson from Dr. Salk

I heard Phil Town got interested in biotech and invested in a business which had Dr. Jonas Salk, the inventor of the Salk Polio Vaccine, as Chairman of the Board. Phil Town helped the struggling company raise money – and ended up on the Board, also.

As a Board member, Phil Town had the privilege of knowing Dr. Salk personally. He was truly a great man in private as well as one of the most influential men in the history. One night after a dinner at his beautiful home in La Jolla, he told me a story about how people are toward you when you're trying to do something new.

He said that when he first started developing the vaccine against polio, the people who loved him and wanted the best for his career and his life told him that if his idea was any good, it would have been done already. But it hadn't been accomplished before; therefore it couldn’t work and he was wasting most of his time. Dr. Salk realized that as much as they loved him, they didn’t see the possibilities he saw... and so he continued in spite of the skepticism.

Finally, years later, when polio had been nearly eliminated from the planet and millions had been saved, the people who loved him and wished him well in his career came to him at award ceremonies to congratulate him and to tell him they knew it would work all along.

He said to expect this process in anything you are doing that is going to make a real difference in the world: First, they will say it will never work. Second, they will say it works, but it's trivial. Third, after you've succeeded, the exact same people will say they knew it would work all along!

Phil Town has always appreciated that advice from one of the great men of our time. Phil Town hopes you can use it, too.