John Freund is an American satirist and business executive.[1][2] Freund and collaborator David Porter created the 1981 satirical poster Bedtime for Brezhnev[3][4][5] and co-authored the 1982 satirical book The Official MBA Handbook or How to Succeed in Business Without a Harvard MBA,[1] which spent 16 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list.[6][7]Freund is the co-founder of Intuitive Surgical,[8] and the co-founder and former CEO of Arixa Pharmaceuticals.[9] He founded Skyline Ventures in 1997.[2]
John Freund | |
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| Alma mater | Harvard University |
| Occupation(s) | Founder and CEO of Skyline Ventures |
| Website | www |
Early life and education
Freund grew up in New York City. He graduated in 1975 with a B.A. from Harvard[1] where he was an editor of the Harvard Crimson.[10][11][12] After completing his B.A., Freund received an M.D. from Harvard Medical School.[13] He received an MBA from Harvard Business School in 1982.[1]
Career
Early career
In April 1981, while enrolled in Harvard Business School, Freund collaborated with classmate David Porter on a satirical poster for an imaginary movie called Bedtime for Brezhnev, featuring then-president Ronald Reagan.[3][11][5] The poster sold 275,000 copies,[14] and sales of Bedtime for Brezhnev earned them enough money to pay their second year tuition.[1][5] In the 2021 book Cowboy Presidents, it was reported that Reagan was rumored to have loved the poster.[14]In 1982, Freund and David Porter co-authored the book The Official MBA Handbook or How to Succeed in Business Without a Harvard MBA, which they published under the pen names Jim Fisk and Robert Barron, respectively.[1][15] The idea for the book first emerged when Freund and Porter approached the publisher Simon & Schuster to distribute Bedtime for Brezhnev, but the head of trade paperbacks instead suggested the pair write a satirical book about MBA's.[13][16] At the time of the book's release, both men were preparing to start jobs with investment banks.[1][11] The Official MBA Handbook or How to Succeed in Business Without a Harvard MBA spent 16 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list.[6][7]
Medical startups
Freund began his business career as an investment banker in 1982 with Morgan Stanley.[6] In 1995, he co-founded the robotics startup Intuitive Surgical.[8][17] Freund negotiated a licensing agreement with SRI for surgical technology that formed the nucleus of Intuitive Surgical's line of products.[2]Freund founded the venture capital firm Skyline Ventures in 1997[2][6] to invest in early-stage biotech.[18] Skyline was the lead investor in SI-Bone, a manufacturer of sacroiliac fusion implants that became commercially available in 2009. Following the investment, Freund joined the board of directors.[19] In 2016,[20] Freund co-founded the antibiotics manufacturer Arixa Pharmaceuticals and served as the company's CEO.[9] During Freund's tenure, the company developed ARX-1796,[21] an oral version of a β-lactamase inhibitor called avibactam that was previously only able to be administered intravenously.[22] Freund ran Arixa Pharmaceuticals as a virtual company, crediting low-overhead costs in the development of ARX-1796.[21] Arixa Pharmaceuticals was acquired by Pfizer in 2020.[9]
Personal life
In 1979, Freund married Linda Gray Sexton, a writer and the daughter of the Pulitzer prize winning poet Anne Sexton.[6] They divorced in 1998.[6] Freund is married to Linda S. Grais.[23]