AI4S Needs Madmen and Visionaries | A Conversation with Odin of Valhalla: "If God Exists, How Can I Tolerate Not Being God?" [Highway Podcast]

🚗 This is a "road trip podcast" — we took the podcast on the road, recording while driving. The scenery and relaxed vibe along the way drew out conversations we wouldn't normally have.

🚥 This week's Crossing guest has a resume so unconventional it almost sounds made up.

He is Odin, founder of Valhalla. Dropped out of high school, then self-studied his way into Zhejiang University; completed dual undergraduate degrees in pharmacy and physics; left two master's programs; then got into David Baker's lab — right before Baker won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, which is when he chose to leave, throwing himself into AI for Science entrepreneurship and raising tens of millions of dollars in short order.

He named himself Odin (the Norse Allfather) and his company Valhalla (where warriors gather to face Ragnarök). He says: "If gods exist, how could I tolerate not becoming one? Therefore gods do not exist — if you can create all things, you are god."

Along the way, he dropped one quotable line after another:

On entrepreneurial motivation: "Entrepreneurship is fundamentally my dissatisfaction with the world."

On leaving a Nobel lab: "For me, it was a gilded cage — beautiful, but it limited my capacity for greatness."

On worldview: "The world isn't a slapdash operation — it's a randomly diffusing particle. What you need isn't to guess the right direction, but to converge on the next collision point as fast as possible."

On fundraising and temptation: "In the fundraising process, it's easy to be alienated — are you building for VCs, for the market, or for yourself?"

We also talked about his "omnimodal molecular world model" and "general scientific AI" — essentially building "the steam engine of scientific discovery for a new era," compressing centuries of human scientific progress; and we discussed Buddhism, Jiang Wen, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, and his perpetual refrain: "Eyes open, get to work."

This is a conversation about ambition, original intent, rebellion, and a young man's bet on "molecular world models" in the AI era. You'll hear from a 00s founder who studies Buddhism and wears a headscarf, talking about "practicing discipline, concentration, and wisdom; extinguishing greed, anger, and delusion" while ambitiously throwing himself into AI for Science entrepreneurship.

🎬 Our video podcast will be released simultaneously on Koji's WeChat Channels, Douyin, Xiaohongshu, Bilibili, YouTube, and other platforms.

📒 The transcript will be published on the Crossing WeChat official account.

🟢 00:28 Rapid-fire Q&A:

Age, alma mater, MBTI and zodiac sign, one-sentence description of Valhalla, funding status, team size, pre-entrepreneurship experience

🟢 02:26 A name that "went with the mistake"

Before world models became hot, they were already calling it a "molecular world" model.

Why does almost everyone only work on proteins, only on single modalities, while he insists on going omnimodal? He says: it's not that others can't do it — they have "inertia."

An intuition from five years ago studying physics — hydrogen bonds, hydrophobicity, van der Waals forces in biology are all just Taylor expansions of electromagnetic force — what does this have to do with unifying all molecular design?

"If you can simulate and design molecules in every modality, in a sense you are creating, you are god"

🟢 08:00 One undergrad, 8 targets, all-in on one round

It used to take one PhD student per target; now one undergrad handles it, solved 8 in a row.

ODesign: "If we brothers had more money, we could make it an industry"?

Going all-in on 8 targets directly, producing sub-nanomolar active molecules every round — where exactly is AI helping science?

"In the end it doesn't replace humans; it liberates humans from tedious engineering problems, to focus on more philosophical, more fundamental questions."

🟢 09:41 "Scientific General AI"

Four eggs every morning upon waking.

The Buddha taught me three things: "waiting, fasting, thinking" — why has this entrepreneur turned daily life into spiritual practice?

One day when you go to the hospital for a blood test, paying 20 RMB extra could screen for early-onset Alzheimer's — what model capabilities lie behind this?

Why can this "only be done in 2026"? — the answer has nothing to do with technology inflection points.

🟢 13:18 Everyone is "waiting for the wind" in their respective domains

AlphaFold, diffusion, Yang Song's SDE paper... which gust of wind truly blew AI for Science into the air?

Drug pipelines look most profitable — why is he firmly avoiding them in the short term? "Starting with pipelines from day one easily makes you the enemy of pharma companies, not their friend."

A 30-person team — why did they have COO, admin, HR, even a cashier from day one? A counterintuitive hiring sequence.

Platforms and pipelines seem like a binary opposition, yet he says they're "organically unified" — how?

🟢 21:23 I bet on Baker winning the Nobel, then I left

Staying in a lab that just won the Nobel, momentum surging, resources pouring in — he chose to leave anyway.

He was convinced Baker would win before he even went — "where did this conviction come from?" Intuition, all-in.

On a balcony in Seattle facing Mount Rainier, he figured something out: those beautiful titles are "cages made of jade — beautiful, but they limit your capacity for greatness."

"All my life I've cultivated no virtue, only loved killing and arson" — why did he use this line to describe himself at the time?

🟢 24:58 Like Zhu Yuanzhang rebelling, returning to Pei County to call on brothers

Starting in January, calling people one by one — what brought scattered PhD students back together?

Titles? Money? He says it was more "conviction, vow-power, and historical reputation."

Imagining that "truly great" thing: letting undergraduates make professor-level scientific discoveries, "the steam engine of scientific discovery for a new era" — this analogy starts from the Spinning Jenny.

🟢 27:50 Everything is a good thing

Is "this is a good thing" his catchphrase? He says he abandoned the binary of good and bad long ago.

"Good and bad exist only in your own mind" — mind turning with circumstances, is this spiritual victory or something else?

Dropping out in his final year of high school, keeping his enrollment while self-studying at home, biking 10 kilometers daily to the library, Shanxi winters without gloves — how did he test into Zhejiang University?

"I don't have good study methods, I just studied 16 hours a day."

🟢 31:58 "The secret to winning a Nobel"

The "secret to winning a Nobel" he learned from Baker — so simple it's almost absurd.

"You decide": when to delegate, when to make the call?

"Build good companies that all Chinese investors can afford to invest in"

A hard tech #1 "basically only gets one shot" — most research talent wants to wait until their thirties or forties for "one fatal strike," why couldn't he wait?

🟢 37:25 Entrepreneurship is spiritual practice, constantly subtracting

In the fundraising process, "it's easy to be alienated."

Building for VCs, building for the market, building for yourself — which do you choose? He admits he wavered too.

What stories do VCs love today? Frankensteining world models, frankensteining agents, stitching on robotics, anti-aging... why are all of these "alienation"?

Investors kept pressing him on model architecture, but he says it doesn't matter that much: "architecture is impermanent" — then what is the other shore?

A wave of PhDs and professors collectively going into business — what does he think of this trend? "Now is the Warring States period; in 5 years there will be a Qin that unifies all."

🟢 48:18 Why he named himself "Odin"

Odin, Valhalla, Ragnarök — behind this whole Norse mythology naming system lies no small ambition.

"If gods exist, how could I tolerate not becoming one? If you can create all molecules, then you are god."

From proteins, to RNA, DNA, to gene editing — how far can the path of "reprogramming all life" theoretically go?

Creating consciousness, creating life from inorganic matter — what does he think of the ethics? He says that's still far away; drug development is merely a "byproduct."

🟢 1:01:00 "What is the meaning of the Patriarch's coming from the West?"

"When you become very rich, very successful, do you still remember your original intention?"

He's worn the headscarf for so many years; initially it was for hippie culture, but the reason became incredibly simple.

"The journey matters more than the destination" — why does this founder value original intent above all else?

Welcome to subscribe to Crossing: 🚦 We follow the industry changes and new entrepreneurial opportunities brought by the new wave of AI technology.

🚦 Crossing is Steve Jobs's metaphor for Apple — standing at the crossroads of technology and liberal arts, where great products are born. AI is transforming industries across the board; we seek out, interview, and bring together a new generation of AI entrepreneurs and active participants in the AI era, exploring and embracing new changes and new possibilities together.

👦🏻 Host Koji: I founded Crossing, launched AI Hacker House (a community space for a new generation of AI entrepreneurs), and serve as Venture Partner at ZhenFund. I believe technology, especially AI, represents the greatest value creation opportunity of our generation. Koji on Jike, Koji's website