During his surgical residency at Virginia Mason Medical Center in the early 1980s, Moll says he was “struck by the size of the incision and injury created just to get inside the body.”[1] He left his residency to develop the safety trocar, which helped make general laparoscopic surgery possible, and funded - and later sold - two medical equipment businesses in Silicon Valley: Endotherapeutics (acquired by United States Surgical) and Origin Medsystems (acquired by Eli Lily).[1][2][3] He also obtained an M.S. degree in business management from Stanford University.