Rose Li Interview

You started on an academic and research track before becoming an entrepreneur. What convinced you to leave the research path and build a company?

Raising kids. I hit a point where a traditional job felt too stressful and inflexible. There was no remote work, and the day-to-day logistics were intense. I wanted work I could do on a project basis, away from the office, while still being present for my kids when they got home and wanted to talk through their day. It wasn’t some grand epiphany. It was a practical decision to build a life that worked.

How did your PhD training change the way you think about business problems?

A PhD doesn’t just teach content, it reinforces traits. I’m naturally curious, skeptical, and I ask a lot of questions. The PhD experience also builds persistence. Almost everyone hits a wall during a PhD where they want to quit, and finishing proves to you that you can push through long, difficult stretches of work. When I interview candidates with PhDs, I assume they’ve had to persist through setbacks and grind, and that’s often correlated with how they operate in demanding roles.

What parts of your Princeton experience have helped you most after graduation?

The network. Princeton has a strong culture of alumni engagement and people helping each other. If I meet someone who went there, there’s an immediate affinity and a sense that we’re part of the same community, which often translates into people being more willing to help.

You’ve studied at more than one elite school. How would you compare the alumni network and community across them?

Princeton’s alumni culture is unusually strong. There’s a real tradition of reunions and staying connected over decades. Other schools can be excellent academically and teach you how to think, but they don’t always have the same “automatic” alumni pull. That said, alumni culture can change over time as schools invest more in undergrad experience and community.

At the NIH you worked in an environment driven by evidence and peer review. What did you have to adjust or rethink when you entered the startup world?

The biggest shift was control and speed. Government is a massive bureaucracy, and change is slow. In a small business, especially one you run, you can implement what you believe quickly. I also realized that in large systems, policies have to be broad because they’re managing thousands of people. In a small company, you can design benefits and practices to match what you believe actually helps employees, and you can do it without layers of approval.

How did you decide to turn your research experience into a commercial, paid service instead of staying purely in academia or government?

I realized there’s a real market for the skills behind research, not just the academic version of research. What I did in government often involved convening experts, defining the right questions, synthesizing input, and producing clear outputs. As an external contractor, I could do that work faster and with less bureaucracy. It’s applied work: start with what you want to accomplish and work backwards to the most efficient way to get there.

What’s an example of work you can do well even if you’re not the technical subject-matter expert?

Program reviews and strategy processes. Every few years, groups need to assess what they’ve done and decide where to go next. The content varies, but the mechanics don’t. I’m good at structuring the process: building the right committee, setting the questions, organizing subgroups, running meetings so decisions happen, and ensuring a real report comes out on time. The value is making the whole effort

actually move forward.

How do you think AI will affect your work specifically: replacement or complement?

Complement. It helps people work faster, but it doesn’t replace critical thinking. You still have to check what it produces, validate sources, and decide what makes sense. My concern is that some people treat AI output as “the answer” instead of using it as an assistant. The value remains the human ability to reason, judge, and synthesize.

What advantage does being a domain expert give you compared with someone who’s “just” a business founder?

In my world, credentials matter because of how the NIH and similar environments operate. A PhD can function as a shortcut signal that you understand the culture and rigor, and that you’re not just chasing money. That said, I’ve had outstanding employees without advanced degrees who solve problems, think clearly, and perform at a very high level. The degree is a signal, not the whole story.

When you hire young people into your field, what do you look for?

Curiosity, analytical thinking, and problem-solving. I don’t want passive, box-checking behavior. I also want people who can collaborate well and who are willing to be in the office at least part of the week because in-person interaction creates faster learning and more useful informal communication.

Have you seen changes in office culture and attendance since the pandemic?

es. Before, everyone came in. After COVID, it became harder to bring people back consistently. We’ve had to be more deliberate about which days are in-person and how we create reasons for people to be together. It’s a real cultural shift.

If you were starting over as a student today, would you do anything differently?

Knowing what I know now, I probably would have studied engineering. I didn’t have that perspective early on because it wasn’t the world I came from. I’m still grateful for a rigorous liberal arts education because it taught me how to think, break problems apart, and build confidence that I could figure things out even when the material felt advanced. That skill transfers no matter what field you end up in.