Reed Jobs is steering the conversation away from his surname and toward a bigger ambition: building new paths in cancer research. As the founder of Yosemite, the oncology-focused venture firm he launched in 2023, Jobs says the company is designed to turn early academic ideas into biotech ventures with a blend of philanthropy and venture capital.
Three years after launch, Yosemite has grown to a team of 17 and is preparing its second fund, targeting $350 million. Jobs says about one-third of that capital will support companies the firm helps create directly, often in partnership with researchers at universities such as Yale, Berkeley, and Stanford. The rest will back outside companies aligned with Yosemite's cancer-first strategy.
Among the firm's notable bets are Azalea, which emerged from a grant to Jennifer Doudna's lab and is now in clinical development, and Quarry, a company working on induced proximity, a therapeutic approach that helps the body's own cleanup systems break down disease-causing proteins.
Jobs argues that the biggest shift in biotech is the growing role of AI. In his view, it is speeding up drug discovery, improving trial design, and helping researchers explore targets that were once considered out of reach. He points to advances in epigenetic gene editing, safer delivery methods for gene-editing tools, and AI-assisted work on difficult cancer targets such as KRAS and p53.
He also sees major promise in clinical trials, where AI could help build synthetic control arms and reduce the time and cost of testing new treatments. Beyond that, Jobs says Yosemite is backing a wide range of approaches, including gene therapy, immunotherapy, radiopharmaceuticals, and digital health, all with the same goal: accelerating meaningful progress for patients.
For Jobs, the message is simple: the next wave of cancer innovation will likely come from combining scientific creativity, patient capital, and computational power. If that momentum continues, the future of oncology could become faster, more precise, and more collaborative.