Kind: captions
Language: en
you are living in the most disruptive
time in human history given the advances
in Ai and biotechnology you might have
to contend with the possibility of human
immortality it's certainly not a
guarantee but advances in health span
anti-aging and cellular biology make it
one of the most important conversations
of Our Time Investments and decisions
made now will reverberate for
generations to come here to talk about
the State of Affairs is Dr Bill
Green you as an investor have a very
difficult job and as an investor you
have to bet against the consensus and be
right so what I want to know is what is
it that you really believe in in your
specialty of Biotech that you're willing
to bet big on
fundamentally we're here to invest in
people and companies and ideas that are
going to lead to real breakthrough
Therapeutics that can treat delay and
even prevent diseases of Aging more
broadly in biotech we're here to create
the next generation of therapies that
are safer more effective and more
tailored to the actual problem that
individuals have as opposed to really
broad
populations and that's exciting how far
are we going to be able to push it so if
we can slow down aging I'm sure we can
both agree on that the question becomes
can we stop aging can we reverse it the
short answer is absolutely we know we
can in
worms sometimes in
mice can we do it in humans at the level
of our cells yes can we do at the level
of our whole
body maybe the question is do we want to
what we really want to do is live our
lives in health with vitality and not
spend increased ing portions of Our
Lives debilitated by chronic disease
that's what most people really think
about they don't they don't necessarily
want to live forever but they definitely
want to live healthy I do most of us do
and that absolutely has a has a role to
play with the biology of Aging with
slowing down the processes by which
aging if you will goes wrong I'll be
very eager to have the debate about
whether we should want to or actually
live forever but first I want to know so
given that you're looking at this
there's a real shot that we're going to
be able to uh we know we can reverse it
in a Cell but there's a shot that we
might be able to as we get more
breakthroughs do that at the level of
the whole body what is the BET as you
look at this as an investor there's
going to be a few things on the table
that you think okay it's maybe one of
these and I'll make this number up but
maybe one of these five things what what
is that small handful of things that you
think have a real shot to be a
blockbuster some of what uh really leads
to chronic disease and degenerative
disease is fibrosis it literally instead
of being pliable and and resilient our
tissues can get fibrotic and and and
connective tissue builds up and and
actually
not only reduces the ability to move but
actually reduces the function so think
about your heart which has to beat every
second uh if it if it becomes fibros it
can't expand it can't relax it can't
beat strongly and that that's one of the
causes of heart failure if we could
actually re and we've thought that that
fibrotic process is a one-way Street
once it starts you maybe can slow it
down but you could never stop it or
reverse it
if we could reverse fibrosis we could
unlock a lot of resilience in our organs
and tissues and that could actually
reverse some of the diseases of Aging is
there anything that we see in the
research that that's promising like is
somebody actually working on this lots
of companies are working on it and uh
even more
encouragingly uh researchers from a
variety of biology perspectives are
really looking at the connection between
chronic inflammation and and how that
leads to fibrosis and looking at that
edge of how does it become how does it
cross that line from I'm inflamed to I'm
actually building up unhealthy
connective tissue and and being and
becoming restrictive uh so there's lots
of research going on there there's lots
of scientists working on it I can't say
today who's going to find the exact
right thing but I'm highly confident
that given the thoughtful thoughtfulness
and investment in research that we will
have several ideas to try out as
Therapeutics and one of them may well
work how do you evaluate a company so
for people listening that don't know a
lot about biotech investing uh it's had
a brutal bare Market the last couple
years some people think that maybe we're
beginning to thought out again going
back to the idea you have to be able to
bet against the consensus and be right
how do you look into this are you
evaluating the entrepreneurs are you
evaluating the science how do you
develop confidence when the world thinks
you're
crazy you have to be a little crazy to
invest in biotechnology because there's
so many ways that things can go wrong
and at its heart while we study the
science we utilize the science we
exploit the science we don't know all
the science so by doing clinical trials
by developing a drug it turns out we
discover for more science unfortunately
sometimes that means the answer is no
so at its heart we invest in people it's
people that make this work it's people
that that figure out the science it's
people that use what they're learning
along the way to go back and question
their assumptions and refocus to find
the right path if they find they're on
the wrong path that's a hard that's a
hard skill it's a rare quality and
that's what we look to invest if we find
those people and help those people
create companies there's a definitely
higher chance of success what do you
think about somebody like Elon Musk so I
don't know how much you know about my
background but I started out as an
entrepreneur uh had to learn business
and when I look at Elon I see somebody
that is a once in a generation maybe
even less than that mind in terms of his
ability to actually get something across
the finish line and I am a gast Bill a
gast at the number of people that look
at him and see um a loose cannon
somebody that can't be trusted uh people
throw Shad at him as an entrepreneur you
didn't found this out or the other uh if
I'm running my human evaluation
algorithm on him I come back it's just
all green lights even though for sure
he's going to get things wrong there's
no doubt about that uh but he from just
a track record perspective and ability
to process d data quickly um he falls
into a very elite category but even he
despite the number of billion dooll
companies that he has been a meaningful
contributor to uh there are still people
that discount him so what does your
algorithm look like as you evaluate an
entrepreneur and use him as an example
so I can understand how you think
through
this with the caveat that I don't know
Alon musk personally
uh I'm inclined to agree with you that
he almost he must have a a once- in a
generation mind and uh is incredibly
smart incredibly driven and clearly is
able to to organize people drive people
and get things done there's no question
those traits are necessary in any
entrepreneurial activity and absolutely
necessary in biotech
too in
addition what's a little different about
biology and biotech compared to broadly
speaking Tech is often in
Tech we know the science we know the
physics the question is can the
engineering work can we actually make
something that will do the thing that we
want to do in biotech we don't have
perfect knowledge we actually don't know
at the end of the day whether if we get
all the science right get the
engineering right get the clinical
trials right if it will actually work
until we do the experiment in people and
that is a that's a that introduces a
couple things that are different one
there's a tolerance for for risk that
and embracing of of that kind of risk
that you just have to take and we have
to be data driven we have to actually
accept the fact that sometimes we learn
that biology is going in a different
direction than we thought and that's a
little different in
we can't just force that we can't force
or cajo that to be different the other
thing that's that's a little different
sometimes is when we're talking about
making Pharmaceuticals and making
biotech drugs we are talking about
people we do have to be really
thoughtful about how we design clinical
trials who we put in clinical trials and
that's that's just another dimension
Beyond pure entrepreneurship that we
have to take into account so uh all the
entrepreneurial and uh Brilliance lights
flash green for me totally agree with
you in a biotech setting you have to
have all that and then also the ability
to learn from the science um except that
you might have to really retrench and
refocus and go in a different direction
and uh really pay attention to how we're
going to protect people as we as we do
those clinical trials I think that to me
is exactly so what I hear you describing
as basically first principles thinking
you have to go in look at the data you
have to make sure that you're
understanding what's really happening
you have to be willing to adjust to that
that to me in a nutshell is what makes
Elon so fascinating is he thinks from
first principles so when I talk to
budding entrepreneurs about you know how
are you going to be successful it's what
I call the physics of progress the
reason I call it the physics of progress
is it it I really believe that it is
foundational uh I'll I'll lay it out but
I don't think there's anything beneath
this and for people that haven't heard
of first principles thinking it's
getting Beyond analogy you're getting to
the actual root physics of the situation
so progress to me happens in the
following way um you're going to come up
with a guess as to how to overcome an
obstacle to reach your goal so uh you
need to know what your goal is you need
to know what's currently stopping you
like why will you not just automatically
get to your goal entropy is one easy way
to think about it the world's just
working against you in a thousand
different ways whether it's biology and
it's incredibly complicated whether it's
humans in a biotech uh setting where
they're just not being compliant um
other companies that are trying to scoop
you and move faster whatever it is
there's just going to be a lot of things
working against you so you have to
identify I know where I want to go I
know what's standing between me and
getting there and I'm going to come up
with my best guest on how to overcome
that you're going to need to come up
with uh a point of data that you're
going to use to determine whether you
actually move towards your goal or or
not and then you're going to run a test
and you're going to try that thing that
you came up with and it's probably not
going to work as well as you wanted to
but you're going to learn in that
failure and then you're going to start
over and you're going to be a little bit
more informed you're going to come up
with a little bit better hypothesis
maybe a slightly different metric by
which to judge it you're going to run
that experiment it's going to fail again
and you're just going to exist in that
Loop the reason that Elon seems utterly
fascinating to me and for people that
don't know uh he has a company called
neurolink and they are trying to do
effectively computer brain interfaces so
he is somebody that's very much in the
biotech space as well as many other
spaces um and when you hear him talk
that's his process he wouldn't call it
the physics of progress obviously but
you're just you're trying something
you're iterating you're learning you're
getting your ego out of the way um in
order to build upon that
so if we agree that that is the only
path forward and if you see another path
now is the time to tell me uh but if we
can agree that that's the only path
forward how do you figure out if the
person you're sitting across from is
actually going to be able to do
that great question
and boy I wish I had an algorithm that I
could write on a 3x5 card so I could
interview potential CEOs and say ah got
it ABC uh it's it's it's hard um and
it's hard in part because no one goes to
school to study how to have those
qualities that ability to be data driven
that ability to wash rinse repeat and
and get it a little bit better and a
little bit better and have the
fortitude uh to to be able to do it and
to
communicate effectively with
stakeholders why we're doing it this way
and why we took that step and why we're
taking the next step uh I it's it's hard
and I think it's a relatively rare
skill the the algorithm that I use
personally is asking people about what
adversity they've faced in their lives
and professional sometimes personal but
certainly professionalized how they
worked around it uh what what they did
in the face of
failure uh success what's the right
answer to that question
there's more than one right answer
absolutely
um the right answer that I really like
is it hurt I was
sad I had to take couple days and really
think about why am I doing this but then
I then I thought about it and I thought
there's another path forward what I have
to do is this what we have to do as a
team is that whatever it is and then we
went and did it and and it was hard but
we got
somewhere that's an answer I love to
hear now there is a very hard reality to
be faced in entrepreneurship and in fact
let me set the stage for people so
according to your own website and I've
heard you answer this question before so
I know what you're going to say but
according to your own website you guys
have up to a billion dollars a year to
invest um with the goal of making Health
span available to everybody that gets
complicated and I'm sure we'll talk more
about later but the reason I bring that
up now is you have a lot of money and by
biotech standards you guys are arguably
the biggest player in the space and as
the chief investment officer you're the
one that's going to have to make a call
on a lot of people uh and with no sort
of easy answer you have to accept that
even if the person gives that answer
there is just a sense of raw intellect
and I have interviewed to hire I've
interviewed over 1500 people which
doesn't sound like a lot unless you're
an entrepreneur and you know just how
many hours that is um and what I've
learned is that hiring borders on
Impossible and that the situation is so
artificial that the only way for me to
know if somebody's going to be good is
to actually work with them for a while
so we ended up building in a 90day
probationary period my default answer is
no I know what metric tricks you're
going to need to hit for me to be
comfortable moving outside of the 90-day
window but I really need to see are you
smart and I'm looking for people that
are really smart and if you know my
personal philosophy that makes me deeply
uncomfortable that that's a thing but
that's a real thing um I'm also looking
at not just resilience which is what you
described I'm looking for raw
unadulterated Obsession I'm looking for
somebody that borders on mentally ill
that they they are so all in that
nothing is going to stop
them I'm going to guess given your
experience you know those things to be
true so my question becomes how when
you're not hiring somebody how do you
get to know them well enough to know if
they're just giving you lip service in
the meeting or if they really have what
it takes to um plow through what could
be 10 years of sort of blind faith that
you see something other people don't and
that they'll overcome the nigh
insurmountable obstacles that are
inevitably going to come their way yeah
important topic uh important topic in in
anyone's work life uh and absolutely in
ours uh I'm going answer that in just a
question in just a moment couple things
about what we're doing at Evolution from
an investment standpoint that I think
can be helpful uh one of the challenges
in biotech is as you
mentioned experiment fail iterate
experiment fail iterate move ever closer
uh with each cycle to the ultimate goal
is absolutely important in biotechnology
when each of those experiments or each
of those efforts is uh a clinical trial
it's expensive and uh one of the biggest
challenges possibly the biggest
challenge in biotech
is even if you're on the right path
getting more Capital to to do the
experiment enough times to get you there
is really hard investors are fickle uh
even Venture capitalists are a little
bit fickle they're they have to be they
need most your average Venture Capital
firm has to obviously make money it
needs to make money in a certain time
period it's more patient than
highfrequency trading but it's not
infinitely patient Capital so one of the
things that we bring as impact investors
into the space is the ability to support
companies and entrepreneurs through more
Cycles uh to to hopefully give them the
chance to succeed where other sources of
capital might not initially give it to
them so that's a that's a real
intentional piece of why we have an
investment function and uh why we're
we're supporting it with with to the
extent that we are because we think this
this space new space difficult biology
new bi biology needs companies need the
ability to to iterate more than once and
to get more than one shot at success if
they have the right people in the right
science and so we're here to support
them for a longer period of time if that
makes
sense
uh to to answer your question about how
do you get to know leadership teams uh
and development teams of Biotech
companies to to both assess whether they
have the the raw Obsession and the
resilience to get there and to help them
to build more of that into what they do
uh it takes time um one of the things
that's challenging that's been many
things have been challenging about covid
but being on boards in during covid uh
is only superficially convenient because
you do board meetings over Zoom but uh
there's a real piece that you miss by
going and being with your leader
leadership team in person spending time
with them having dinner and lunch with
them standing around having coffee and
actually talking about what they did
over the weekend what's happening at
home how they're integrating their work
life uh both professionally and
personally those
three-dimensional ways of of
understanding people are what give you
the opportunity to catch them doing
something right which reinforces all the
things we want to reinforce and
entrepreneurs and help them course
correct if you can see something that
that they can be coached
on do you know who John Wooden is the
coach yes yeah okay so John Wooden
famous college basketball coach um I
don't think this is an apocryphal story
but even if it is it's very interesting
he said he used to spill water behind a
star player and then see how they would
respond he would have like the um tow
boy spill water and he would see how
people would respond to them and if they
were kind and courteous then he was like
okay cool I know this player has
character and if they were um a jerk and
mean-spirited then he was like no matter
how good of a player I can't have
somebody that brings that attitude um is
there a similar spirit in entrepreneurs
that you look to to see um that they
have the it Factor that's going to help
them be successful
100% this is uh thank you for asking
that question I didn't know that story
about John Wooden but I love it
uh I don't provoke CEOs and and biotech
Executives by uh doing something
annoying and seeing how they'll respond
uh although it's not a bad idea I um
absolutely look for the no job is too
small attitude I love leaders who come
from a service
mindset uh if I see a
CEO making coffee for people
people putting new paper towels on the
paper towel roll staying late to uh
being the last guy out of the office not
because he's driven I mean yes he's he
or she is driven but also because
they're cleaning up from from the day I
love that uh I absolutely love the no
job is too small uh attitude and I think
that leaders who come from that place
Empower their people to think no job is
too big for them if there are a um few
buckets in front of us of what you think
is is actually going to push healthspan
forward what do you have the most
conviction
in I think there's almost no question
that addressing chronic inflammation as
a root cause of chronic disease uh will
yield some really inter in and hopefully
uh breakthrough
therapies uh I also have a real belief
that next
Generation uh next there's some Next
Generation technologies that are going
to really have potentially have an
impact here and by that I mean the kinds
of technologies that can yield more than
one kind of therapeutic so getting away
from one disease or one approach to
disease we've seen that Gene editing is
really exciting there's been a lot of
investment first therapeutic has gotten
approved in gene editing that's good but
that of course that's pretty permanent
that changes your genetic
makeup uh We've also seen in in the
longevity and health span World a lot of
interest in cellular reprogramming
actually going and taking cells and
moving them back to a more youthful
State really exciting but also sort of a
blunt instrument uh you're changing the
whole cell which could have um all sorts
of effects good and maybe less good I'm
really excited about what's the next set
of advances in manipulating the genes
and the cells that will take all the
best things from those
and and be really applicable to the long
term for broad populations we talk about
the epig genome a lot in aging so the
genome is your DNA it's the blueprint of
of how you're built and what you do the
epigenome is how those genes are
expressed and there's Dynamic control
over your life about gene expression
goes up gene expression goes down and
there's lots of paths that the body uses
to manipul to change that and those
controls over not are you driving a car
and is it a car or a submarine but how
how fast is the car going is your foot
on the gas is your foot on the brake
those those kinds of processes are
really important for aging and if we
could
control the epig genome if we could edit
the epig genome the way we can edit the
genome we might have a more Dynamic way
to change the the expression of cells
and to therefore maybe temporarily move
them to a more youthful state or only
move part of the cell to a more youthful
State and that potentially could have
wide ranging impact over time this is
not an overnight thing but over time
that sort of approach could be really
important for chronic diseases so I'm
really excited about people doing
fundamental Research into how we can
manipulate cells to get them to do the
right thing in a more Dynamic way okay
this is really interesting um there was
a recent study that came out of Harvard
that took mice and
uh I think genetic or bred them to have
a predisposition to breaking in the DNA
because the fundamental question was uh
is this a DNA mutation problem where hey
you get an x-ray you fly you're exposed
to all these things that are damaging
your DNA and aging is basically the
accumulation of these mutations where
we're just putting the DNA back together
in the wrong way or is it something to
do with the epig genome where the as
this starts to get complicated but but
the way that you're marking the DNA for
what genes to express is called
methylation so your genes are tightly
bound up and you basically loosen parts
of it to say I'm a skin cell I'm a heart
cell I'm an eye cell whatever
differentiation uh the theory went that
it's either all of these gene mutations
in the DNA that are causing the problem
or it's the way that they are getting
marked uh so that they're basically
dedifferentiating so now instead of
being clearly an ey cell and the wrong
part of it has become loose and is
expressing itself and uh this very
clever experiment showed that even these
mice that their DNA is constantly
breaking and needing to be repaired at
the end when you looked at their DNA it
was the same it wasn't accumulating a
bunch of mutations instead what was
happening is that we were getting
dedifferentiation the methylation the
the bookmarking to use a very layman's
term that you may hate uh is the
and so um that to me makes a lot of
sense that you're really excited about
this but what I want to know is okay one
do you think that would you be willing
to make the declarative statement that
the epig genome errors in the epig
genome is
aging
ah
absolutely the only caveat I'd say is
that's not the only process process of
Aging it's not the only different
different um definition of Aging but it
I believe it is a definition of Aging it
is one of the processes that is aging
and when expression through the
epigenome when control of the epigenome
goes wrong that is absolutely I believe
one of the ways that aging goes wrong
and we get disease so it's one of the
pathways that's really important okay so
what are let's go through the Hallmarks
of Aging I've heard you talk about
something I have not heard other people
talk about which is emerging Hallmarks
of Aging so I'm going to guess it goes
something like this there are the things
that we know and have already named and
you're going to tell us what those are
known as the Hallmarks of Aging wrinkly
skin being the one that everybody can
see much to my dismay uh and then you've
got things that we're just now
discovering is what I'm guessing you're
going to call the emerging Hallmarks and
then I would love to one lay those out
and then uh the last part of this is
understanding which of those do you
inker controlled by the epig genome and
then since you're not willing to say
that that is the sum total of Aging what
sits outside of
that well this is a great conversation
and there might be a job for you at
evolution in our science department
actually helping create that future we
think about these things
so the term Hallmarks of
Aging refers to a set of ways if you
will that the cell can go bad over time
uh in response to all the slings and
arrows and insults that cells are
subject to as as we live our lives um
things can start going wrong DNA can
break of course uh when DNA breaks
accumulate uh enough and don't get
repaired enough in my mind that sends
you down the path of
cancer uh when theep genome breaks that
sends you down the the path potentially
of cancer but but certainly of these
chronic diseases and aging but there are
other ways that uh that cells can can go
bad if you will uh they
can lose their ability
to fold proteins correctly to actually
create the architecture that they need
to create and like any other structure
if if you don't if you don't put the
pieces of wood together you don't get a
house you get something crazier uh so
misfolded proteins is is a is a real
Hallmark of how cells can go wrong and
that can lead to aging the ability to to
clean house if you
will so over time uh proteins get
misfolded and some things get created
that that don't work out or they just
break and the cell has to renew itself
and actually clean house and clean up
messes and and do constant upkeep like
we have to do on our houses um the
ability of cells to do that is is
critical and if they lose the ability
which we give fancy terms to like
autophagy which is literally eating the
cell eats the misfolded proteins if we
lose that ability that's another way
that we lose the ability to renew and be
youthful uh yet another is energy cells
need energy uh the battery if you will
cells are these uh organel called
mitochondria and if the mitoch the
mitochondria do a lot more than just be
batteries but think of them as a battery
in your cell that provides
energy if the battery runs down can't be
recharged anymore you need new batteries
but we're not great at making new
mitochondria that that are youthful we
can make new mitochondria that don't
work as well as they used to so uh
mitochondrial biology is another
Hallmark of Aging so these are examples
of ways the if I if you will the
original Hallmarks of Aging were how do
cell
processes go wrong and how does that
lead to aging on the emerging side first
of all science marches on we're learning
more and
and uh always and some Hallmarks of
Aging may be less Hallmark maybe they're
more consequence than cause and one
example that's been potentially
controversial in the in the Aging
biology world is tiir we've heard a lot
about tiir shortening so is teir
shortening a cause of disease or is it a
marker that bad things have happened
don't know uh but to the extend the
latter then maybe teir shortening isn't
as much a Hallmark of Aging as some of
the other things that are more
fundamental uh but thing but new science
will bring new processes in we'll learn
more about how cells work and there's a
constant process on the uh academic
science and thought leader side on what
what are some of these other things
we're seeing cells do and could they be
Hallmarks of Aging the other way that I
like to think of Hallmarks of Aging
though is to get out of it's It's about
cells but it's not all about cells aging
is as you said is sure people should
care about their cells I guess but it's
pretty hard to tell people you should
think about your cells you can
definitely tell people you don't want
wrinkly skin right do this but if you
say you don't want to lose your
autophagy so do this that's a harder
cell
um but aging is is so much more than
cells what about intrinsic capacity what
about Vitality which let's make that
more biologic muscle strength the
ability of your muscles to recover after
exercise and self-renew and be strong
what about your senses uh what about
cognition broadly and biologically it's
not just about neurodegenerative disease
are there ways in which we could look at
the
biology of the Aging brain and and ask
can we enhance cognition biologically
and uh
to embrace if you will those as
Hallmarks of Aging to
worthy of the same scientific treatment
worthy of the same focus and worthy of
of Therapeutics development when you're
looking at the complexity of all of this
stuff how do you think we're going to be
able to begin weeding through this stuff
uh for me AI feels like the closest
thing that we have to a magic cure so if
any sufficiently advanced technology is
indistinguishable from Magic I would say
that we're we're getting pretty close to
that and we're filming this not long
after the um the firing of Sam Alman and
the near immediate rehiring of Sam Alman
and there is a lot who's the CEO of open
AI um and there is a lot of debate about
whether um their new thing I think
called
qar uh is Agi and that that spooked
everybody and that's why they fired him
and this is really a battle around
safety um but what what do you think
about about that how much of a
difference do you think AI is going to
make how much does that fall into your
investment thesis um and and you know as
as all the things you just laid out are
incredibly complicated and it feels like
we're sort of at base camp of Mount
Everest and we have a long way to go um
does AI feel to you like the elevator to
the top of Mount Everest that it feels
to me for me AI is a
tool it's a great tool potentially used
well like any tool
uh
harnessed and exploited and and adapted
I think
AI is already an important tool in in
drug Discovery uh and can be even more
important to to your
point it's possible for for folks like
me to make things sound real complicated
but at the end of the day the way we
make progress is by breaking things down
into doable tasks take that Hill take
the next Hill take the next Hill
uh we don't I don't stay up at night
thinking this is hopelessly complicated
I'm I'm drowning rather it's how can we
address this question to answer that
question to make that thing work so that
becomes then uh a set of addressable
problems a set of addressable puzzles
and AI is a remarkable tool for reducing
complexity it's one of its best things
one of its best most validated uses and
to reduce complexity in what's the
Hallmark of aging and what's the
connection between autophagy and wrinkly
skin that's where AI is having a role
today in in our world and will have a
really big role Tomorrow there's no
question so is it the uh is it the
elevator to uh to from the base camp to
the summit I'd say uh it's the fixed
ropes you get to the next level and
instead of being presented with oh boy
it's windy it's really steep uh I'm
afraid I'm going to fall off the
mountain oh there's a rope I can grab
onto that and pull myself up and guide
myself along now I'm feeling more
surefooted I like that that's a a good
analogy so um let's talk about those
questions that we have to ask and answer
in order to get where we want to go um
do you have a sense of what they
specifically are the goal is to make it
linear so you're you're suggesting
perhaps that there's a linear process we
figure out the biology that translates
into mice that translates into people uh
and that translates into drugs which
translates into prevention um the goal
is to make it as linear as possible but
what are the specific linear steps
so
uh looking at the early side we really
need to understand as much cell biology
as we
can answer the questions about how these
Hallmarks of Aging work together how
they interact uh how one leads to
another and
importantly can we not just
ask if we stop this bad process will
celles get better because we know the
answer is yes
but rather to ask if we
intervene late there's already some
damage because how do we know we know
that uh we know that we're getting a
disease when there's either a sign or a
symptom so can we use that biology in
whichever Hallmark of Aging one wants to
talk about or whichever biologic process
mitochondria fibrosis whatever it is
that you want to do can we can we find
ways to start when the damage has not
become permanent but already started and
move things backward so that's a
that that opens up a whole set of of
inquiry at the at the early science
level professors in Labs uh uh
entrepreneurs in Labs asking fundamental
basic questions about how cells work uh
that doesn't look like a drug yet um and
there's a lot of work happening in that
area and we need to have more of that we
at Evolution are funding new and
emerging scientists to ask questions
that we don't even know how to ask
yet but um we want to know if we can
intervene if we can if we
can if we can make mitochondria work
better if we can uh restart autophagy if
we can restart the process of of
refolding unfolding and refolding
misfolded proteins so there's some very
specific sets of basic questions that
that uh uh scientists and Labs need to
answer then really
important uh are the questions about
translation we can't go we never could
go and we never will go from even with
AI even with the best AI from uh we
predict this chemistry will do this in a
cell let's put that in 5,000 people and
see what happens oh there's there's some
stuff we got to do in the middle uh we
certainly have to do our best to predict
whether it will be actually useful and
importantly whether it will be safe so
that's where translational science
animal testing uh and the whole chunk of
moving from Discovery to development
happens so we know there's a whole bunch
of questions that are pretty standard
every Pharma company every biotech
company asks questions like if there's a
model of a disease in a mouse does it
make does this therapy make the mouse
better or not those are useful those are
important but we need new questions new
models we really need new models because
aging isn't a disease that is a or b on
or off one or zero it's a process so we
need to be thinking in some ways
linearly but less statically about
biomarkers about predictive models again
AI can help us ask some of those
questions and maybe even can help us
design organs on a
chip uh so that we can iterate more
cheaply uh in that is this likely to be
safe let's make some predictions let's
when you say organs on a chip are we
talking purely um we map out the way
that a given organ reacts to um given in
chemistry true is that the punchline is
it's basically just pure predictive this
is how a liver works so that that is
actually a pretty useful tool yeah um uh
I think when people talk about organs on
a chip they talk about that they also
talk in a
more physical way
literally taking cells putting them
together and helping them encouraging
them them to interact with each other to
be not just a cell okay a cell we study
it now we're going to make a prediction
about a
human what lies in the middle are groups
of cells cells communicating with each
other cells working together uh that
becomes tissues that become organs that
become people so organ on a chip also is
not just uh a predictive an in silico if
you will computer predictive process
it's also a whole set of approaches
today of taking groups of cells putting
them together and studying them in a
more systems way asking what they can do
as a group uh and putting them to work
to ask questions then about chemistry
and stuff so literally creating mini
organs sometimes called organoids uh and
making them functional to to answer
questions so we can have a model now in
between cells worms and mice actually
model how organs might respond to aging
or therapies that can in that can
interfere with that okay there's
something very very intriguing here let
me ask you do you think we live in a
simulation I'm thinking about this for a
second I am going to say I'm already
surprised I thought you would give me a
shoot from the hip answer that no of
course
not all right here's my
answer one of the things that makes
humans demonstrably different from other
organisms on the planet are we have
Consciousness and we
think that's a good
thing but it gets us in trouble and
partly it gets us in trouble because
thinking outside of your own head is
really hard it's hard personally it's
hard professionally and it's actually
hard scientifically so in that light we
do create by by looking at all the
experiences we've had all the knowledge
we've learned all the things we've
learned from iterating and experimenting
and doing well in jobs and and messing
up in other jobs and and watching other
people do well and mess up uh we we
think we know some truth we say this is
my approach this is my approach to
science this is my approach to
interpreting those data um we've all
heard there's lies damn lies and
statistics well we can convince
ourselves that data is showing us a
bunch of different things and in that
light we are living in our own heads and
we are creating the simulation that we
live in we can't or it's very very hard
to say I'm going to step back from my
round truth assumptions about what this
experiment should show or what that drug
should do and actually be open to
looking at what's really happening
that's super hard uh if we can do it
even a little bit breakthroughs happen
people make breakthroughs in their
careers they make scientific
breakthroughs and insights they invent
new things uh so in that light we are
living in a simulation that we create in
our
heads uh and the interesting thing is
everyone simulation isn't exactly the
same do I believe that there's objective
reality of absolutely I'm a scientist I
believe in objective reality there there
are facts and in that light uh because
if there weren't if we were truly living
in a simulation be probably a lot easier
to develop drugs in The Matrix than in
the real world where biolog is messy and
we don't know everything so uh I don't
think there's a difference so I'm on the
record of having said that we don't live
in a simulation I don't think but I've
said many times what you just said which
is is there really a difference between
being trapped in your own mind and
living in a true objective
simulation uh it is a fact that the
human brain is encased in total darkness
and yet as I look at you it doesn't feel
like that it feels like light is hitting
my brain and I'm simply seeing what is
there versus electromagnetic signals
being processed by my brain and creating
a sense that I'm seeing something but
given that we see
0.35% of the available electromagnetic
spectrum we know that we are
oversimplifying the world grossly and it
becomes a question of okay well if I'm
simplifying it then my brain is making
decisions about what to show me and not
show me it's interpreting what it sees
and what's the interpretation all right
I want to set that aside for a second
and even though I don't know that I
believe this I'm going to make my best
pitch for that we really do live in a
simulation okay uh it goes like this and
the reason that I was thinking about
this is you were talking about Ai and
the complexity of all this and being
able to build
organs in silico that meaning on Silicon
chips it's a fancy way of saying that
it's a computer simulation um so I spend
the vast majority of my time building
video games which is not something
people know much about me yet but they
will if I have anything to do with it uh
and what you begin to realize is you can
create a relatively simple set of
procedural rules and from that is born
an incredible amount of complexity and
so many of the most played video games
and the one I will use have you ever
seen Minecraft yes okay oh I'm I love
this okay uh I've I've got a daughter
I've got nieces amazing so you know the
drill um I have had the Good Fortune of
encountering Minecraft very late in my
life so I don't take it for granted so
when I encountered Minecraft I was like
what on Earth is this incredibly complex
universe that I've stumbled upon where
everybody gets their unique seed and as
you explore the world you realize it's
more and more complicated um I got tired
of being blown up by what are known as
creepers and so I looked up online like
do you keep the creepers away and it was
like put a cat in a boat and I was like
what like that was AI had not seen a cat
and I did not understand why you would
put a cat in a boat anyway what I began
to realize was from a relative I mean
compared to biology it is Minecraft is
stupid simple but from this
incredibly simple set of rules comes an
unimaginable amount of emergent
complexity and as I was playing the game
I realized I was explaining to some of
my teammates how I play and they're like
that's not how most people play
Minecraft and I was like whoa why and so
anyway you begin to realize not only is
there emerging complexity but then the
behaviors of the people engaging with
this simulation also have their own
emergent ways of playing the game that
weren't contemplated when the rules were
set forth in motion now given then that
you can create from procedural rules you
can create something of near infinite
complexity
that to me feels so analogous to the way
that life is and I think the the mistake
that people make when they're assessing
biology is they mistake unknown for
unknowable and I think that biology is
knowable even though it is very
complicated and even though right now we
know so very little and therefore are
able to make so few
predictions as AI becomes more complex
it the reason that AI is so powerful and
the reason that I consider this the
elevator to the peak of Mount Everest is
that what we have not been able to
figure out yet are the patterns that
emerge from the simple set of rules once
we can identify the patterns we can work
backwards to the simple set of rules but
if we can't figure out the patterns
first I mean this is like Newton's Laws
of Motion which then Einstein obviously
refined upon but by discovering simpler
and simpler equations so my hope is that
what AI will be able to do is stop being
tricked by the apparent complexity of
the emergent behavior and it will be
able to ascertain the simple set of
rules that give rise to these patterns
but it has to be able to parse through
these patterns first so when I look at
okay one I want to get back to that the
set of questions that you pose that we
have to be able to ask and answer in
order to truly tame by biology okay so
we have to ask and answer these
questions to really be able to control
biology to do what I think we will be
able to do which
is extend human life
indefinitely now I would like to
introduce for people that don't know the
Dunning Krueger effect so that I people
don't waste time saying that this is Tom
uh in the grips of this which is true by
the way all right the Dunning Krueger
effect is you know so little you think
you know a lot
I completely
acques I know so little it feels like I
know a lot but this is where I think
that we can start to I think that
embracing the Dunning Krueger effect is
the right first step to embarking on a
very complicated journey and I think
that it is actually useful to try to
connect dots that may not connect in the
end and this is something that I look
for in entrepreneurs can you create a
narrative that allows you to have a
direction that you're moving in and at
the same time question your own
narrative because you know it's wrong so
what I'm about to lay out I know is
wrong but it's going to allow me to move
in a direction okay so here are the
questions that I think we have to
answer what causes aging that's question
number
one if we understand what causes aging
then the question becomes can we reset
that process if we can reset that
process then can we solve for
persistence the reason I think
persistence matters is the only reason
that humans care about each other about
themselves is there is a continual sense
of identity so I love my wife my wife
even though she's changing over time and
I'm changing over time we have a sense
of persistence so I have a sense that I
have shared my life with a continual
entity I have a sense that I am a
continual entity and all of that now the
reason that I think that matters is
right now there is an organism on earth
that is truly Immortal meaning unless it
dies a violent death it will never die
and that is this jellyfish the thing is
the
jellyfish to renew its process it has to
basically dedifferentiate all of its
cells back to a Pur poent state so it
basically becomes
a amorphous blob that then reconstitutes
itself back into the jellyfish now I'm
going to guess that if it had memory or
whatever which it probably doesn't but
if it did that would all be wiped out in
that process of becoming Pur potent
again and then reconstituting itself so
that feels like again fully embracing
the Dunning Krueger effect that this is
way too simplistic and we will find over
time that that I'm just not getting
enough into the Nuance but that gives us
something directional to work with with
that what we have to figure out is what
is aging which I think we've covered
which aging is the epig genome beginning
to break down not mutations in DNA but
the way that we bookmark our DNA so that
the cells begin to lose focus and as the
cells begin to lose focus then we would
we age we see all the things we think of
as
aging but to fix that we would have to
remove all of those things which we have
shown uh the yamanaka forget his first
name won the Nobel Prize for showing
that you could bring a cell back to a
Pur potent stage but I have a feeling if
we did that to the whole body that we
would dedifferentiate to the point of
nonsensical like we would cease to be
the same
organism uh and so we have to be able to
solve for that problem if we actually
want one organism to live
forever so uh some great topics to
unpack there
uh in no particular
order you are cor I believe you're
correct can't prove it I believe you're
correct that if we
could become the jellyfish and actually
piece by piece or as as a whole
organism truly reprogram ourselves all
the way back to the beginning we would
this is the metaphysical part I'll get
to the biologic part in a second we
would almost certainly be resetting our
brain which would necessarily reset our
Consciousness which would necessarily
wipe out all those memories and all the
things that we thought of his
life so speaking just for
me look I'm not ready to die I got a lot
left to do in life I got decades I'd
love to live a really long time but am I
willing to say that
sacrificing everything that I've seen
done and felt in life to make my liver
last forever no uh we're humans we're
not jellyfish so that's that's personal
that's
philosophical um I think everyone would
agree with you including myself on the
on the AI part it is a fascinating topic
and applying this tool but also this
approach
to thinking about aging thinking about
drug Discovery thinking about uh
medicine is a fantastic topic one of the
things the reason I call AI a tool and
not sort of the solution it's a tool is
at the end of the
day as far as I know and I don't know
everything AI has to work with the data
set that it's
presented with not anymore they're now
creating synthetic data sets this is one
of the big potential breakthroughs fine
no problem but they are someone
someone's creating the synthetic data
set the AI is creating the synthetic
data set now it's spun off of the
original I I'm going to assert that my
point isn't yet we may get to the part
where my point is vitiated but I'm going
to assume that my Point's still still
valid at the end of the
day the algorithm the
algorithms are working from a set of
ground truths that they have to be
presented with they're not making up
ideas uh
now if and
when algorithms start making up ideas
and saying if that were true then this
might be
true and I'm not sure if it's true
but I wonder if this thing could happen
that's getting closer to what happens
with humans but let's assume for the
moment that at some point at some
fundamental level there's a set of facts
that um are taken as ground truths by
the algorithm to spin up to reduce
complexity to make predictions and even
spin up synthetic data sets what's never
in that world what's never going to go
away is the need to
create more ground truth to actually
make observations to take human to make
living things to take biology and
actually ask questions that yield New
pieces of data we need more data uh we
know that if we're building AI
algorithms if we're building neural
networks they they love data right they
get better and better the more data you
feed them they want more data we still
have a lot of data to create we don't
know we we know a lot about the EP
genome we don't know everything we don't
know all the observations that create
those
fundamental simple sets of observations
and rules that you spoke about so in
Minecraft or a game any game you can set
up a set of facts and create enormous
complexity from it um I fundamentally
believe we haven't observed all the
fundamental facts of biology yet and
therefore or we're not going to put
scientists out of business uh we have to
do experiments we have to make
observations we have to be curious and
say I wonder what would happen if we did
this what would that show and be
surprised if we were never once we stop
being surprised by every experiment then
AI can take over but until then we're
creating new pieces of information that
will change those algorithms that will
change the predictions that will change
the synthe itic data sets so we we can't
stop doing that real basic piece that
real fundamental let's make observations
about aging and biology and that's the
engine that will drive the whole thing
forward what is it you think humans will
always be better at than
AI the list is getting
shorter uh but I do
think the word that keep coming to my
mind is
curiosity I think humans have a
remarkable
capacity to say I wonder what would
happen if and I understand that you
could certainly program a computer to
try every simulation
possible that's a little different than
making a choice that to your analy of
put a cat in a boat that's going to save
you over here we could never see the
path to we could never figure out from
first principles why the cat in the boat
means you're not going to get your head
chopped off at a different place in a
different chapter in a different part of
the game um even if in retrospect it
seemed obvious um but this is different
this is the
imagining Why without knowing without
having any logical reason why would we
go ask that question why would we try
that thing out that's what humans are
really good at and there's something
about intuition that's real um it's not
a random process um I don't think
scientists are essentially brownie in
motion just randomly doing experiments
and every once in a while brownie in
motion what's that
uh random essentially random motion uh
of subatomic part you know electrons
just kind of vibrating around molecules
vibrating around uh do you think we live
in a determined
Universe again
a there's an objectively correct answer
of yes or no I don't know it I choose to
I choose to believe
that like a video
game the outcomes the the complex
outcomes of the basic rules are somewhat
predetermined but
but unlike a game we can change the
rules that's where science comes in
that's where intuition and Imagination
are we changing the rules are we just
discovering more of what's already set
in stone I think I think there are some
rules that we can't break we can't
change I used to think I think we all
used to think that was Newton's Laws
right that that's there's a speed limit
in the universe and it's the speed of
light except I don't know we'll find out
maybe it's not all the way true but
that's discovering something that
already exists versus changing
it at one level I agree with you at
another
because
because or humans are built off of those
rules if in
fact there's something we can learn
about and I'm not a particle physicist
so I'm way over my skis here but let's
just
say we discovered an ability to act we
discovered that light doesn't go always
in a straight line it can be bent into a
curve okay fine we discovered that but
if we could harness that then we could
absolutely be changing the rules by
which bodies move in Space by which
speed limits in outer space are
constructed uh and by analogy to
something we care about here change the
rules of how diseases start progress and
maybe go backwards if we can make it if
we can discover something sure that
exists but then manipulate that to make
aging not a linear process but a curved
process that maybe can curve back upon
itself that you don't have to want to
live forever that's just a very
pragmatic approach to totally changing
the game on how Therapeutics
work do you believe you can violate the
laws of
physics I know that I cannot violate the
laws of physics okay so when you say
change rules what do you mean because
when I when I think of rules the rule
set to me of how everything in life
Works including biology is the laws of
physics and the laws of physics I'm
going to guess end up being relatively
simple and from that emerges the
incredible complexity but there is no
changing that there's discovering it
there's and once you understand it then
you can harness the power but I don't
think Einstein changed Newton's Laws I
think Newton just had a an incomplete
understanding of um physics Einstein got
closer but even Einstein died not fully
understanding physics we still don't
fully understand physics so it's not
that I think we're changing things I
think we're discovering it now I don't
know if this is core to your thesis and
I'm just hung up or if it's core to your
thesis then we need to debate it if it's
not core to your thesis uh I will relent
but I am very much hung up on the idea
of changing the rules oh okay
well let's see if you agree with this
there's rules and there's
rules it may be that the speed of light
is the speed limit in the universe it
maybe that's a rule there's also a
rule that uh the speed limit on I280 in
copertino is 65 miles an
hour you can choose to break that rule
and there may be consequences or there
may not be consequences um but you
wouldn't have been able to break that
rule if cars could only go 20 M an hour
you had to learn more you had to
discover more in order to create cars
that could go 80 miles an hour and then
you have a choice to break the rules so
do I think that there are fundamental
ground truths in the universe I actually
do uh I don't know who created them I
don't know what they are but I think
they
exist but how they get implemented and
the rules by which not just we choose
how fast to drive but the rules by which
literally our organs interact our body
ages are I actually think built on
they're built on those ground truths but
there's a lot more rules that come into
play to create a body to create disease
and to approach treating disease so if
we know more about those rules we can I
think break some assumption how about
one way to say one way to bridge the gap
between this rule conversation is if we
replace rules with
assumptions we assume we know how humans
work we assume we know know how to treat
cancer we assume that we can't reverse
fibrosis well that's true given the
rules we know but maybe we discover
something and that says oh we can break
that rule but we had to put a cat in a
boat we had to give
people vitamin E we thought it wasn't
good for you then we thought it was good
for you but now we're giving people
vitamin E is doing this thing and that
changes something so I do think that we
can change the rules of the game in
medicine but we need need to know more
to do it and we need to use tools like
AI to actually reduce the complexity so
we don't
just randomly try stuff do you think the
AI is going to be able to learn to speak
in
DNA probably I don't see why not what
will that look
like at some romantic level I suppose it
could be creating life it could be
changing the nature of life it could be
changing our how our brain works but in
the more mundane way that that things
seem to work out in our world what it's
likely to do
is to predict with far better certainty
how to prevent damage to DNA how to
repair damage to DNA I think something I
think it will work and I think it will
have a real impact for example in
cancer in what way I think
that I I don't know how far off this is
but I want to believe it's in our
lifetime that using AI we will be able
to create tools and by this I mean
probably molecules or some version of a
molecule uh that can crawl down your
chromosome look at your DNA find areas
of damage and like repairing the ties uh
on railroad tracks um repair them before
the train comes and gets thrown off the
rails uh that
is not possible today people like to
talk about it's not possible to we don't
have a molecule that can crawl down your
DNA and find the right damage to fix
very specifically we take holistic
approaches we give drugs that affect
your whole body um even Gene editing
which sounds pretty precise we know that
uh edits are created in places other and
where you want to make the edits now
we're pretty robust and that hasn't led
to wholesale chaos in people but but
there's consequences every drug that
works has has negative consequences at
some point so I think I think AI will
help us to create tools that are much
more dynamic in that sense as we start
targeting the different Therapeutics
whether it's cell therapies whether it's
Gene editing um what do you think is
going to be the the consequences of that
over the next let's say decade do you
have um a near-term Target that you
think that we're going to be able to
meaningfully hit is it life extension is
it health span extension what do you
think is more near
term in the uh in the spirit of of
breaking big problems up into solvable
chunks I think in 10 years there's no
question that we're going to have
discovered some more of those
fundamental
simple ground truths uh that that create
the complexity of biology we're going to
understand some things that we don't
understand now we won't have observed
them yet but we will and we will use
that to look at in a new way the
approach to some diseases and to some
processes that lead to disease so in 10
years we'll know more in a in a in a
fairly fundamental way and two we will
apply that
to new sorts of of
approaches to a variety of diseases of
aging and processes of Aging that I
think for
sure uh that's and and that's the chunk
that Evolution can bite off today now
we're we're be we're we're focused on
much more than just that we're we're
looking Beyond 10 years we're looking at
the long
term what that turns into what that 10
years worth of work turns into is new
Therapies in development for new
definitions of disease so that's where
we get to some of the interesting things
that really people care about that that
affect you know what happens when I go
to the doctor today or how do I think
about going to the doctor I think within
10 years we'll think about going to the
doctor differently we we will start to
really move from if I feel good I don't
go to the doctor oh I feel sick I go to
the doctor now it's kind of too late for
a whole bunch of things but we can try
to stop or reverse whatever bad thing is
happening today but in the intervening
time a whole bunch of things have
happened to us that we probably didn't
want to have happen I think we will
within 10 years start to really see a
shift to thinking about our health as a
Continuum to
saying that story in our mind I don't
want to look in the mirror and see
wrinkled skin so I'm going to put
sunscreen on today uh we're going to be
able to take that approach in so many
more ways not because it's a good idea
but because we'll have we'll have
actually shown people that it makes a
difference I think that's what that's
what we need that's what we need to do
to make that leap is it's one thing to
say eat your vegetable
get enough protein exercise get enough
sleep we all know those things are
helpful we all know those things have a
meaningful impact in your health span
and yet we don't always do them in part
because it feels hard but in part
because I want to see tomorrow the
results of what I did today not I want
to see in 30 years the results of what I
did today so we're impatient we all are
uh we should be I think within 10 years
we will start to to really see this
fundamental Research into aging biology
start to yield um
both uh opportunities for drug
development but also approaches to
treating people that will give people
more of that aha moment in a relevant
time frame and so it will seem today
what seems today sort of unnatural for a
lot of people to think about well if I
if I do the right things
today I'll be better in 30 years but
tomorrow I'm just going to feel tired or
that I didn't get that donut or whatever
um to give them something that they can
feel maybe not tomorrow but next year
they can see and that's where we talk
about this geeky thing we need
biomarkers for disease we need we need
to be able to do clinical trials and and
have intermediate outcomes things that
we can measure in blood that will
predict diseases of aging later but
they're more important than just
clinical trials they're important for
people because of just just as today we
can measure your cholesterol and say gee
your cholesterol is really high we kind
of know that if you don't do anything
you're going to be at higher risk of
this later so really we should do
something about it we need more of those
and aging research will give me give us
more of those things uh to work with and
to the extent we can show that they're
predictive that they that they help us
break some of the rules then we'll have
a a mindset of I want to do these things
today whether it's take a supplement or
make a lifestyle change or go to the
doctor and say let's do a survey of the
of the Aging diseases that I might be
susceptible to and not just feel
depressed about it but have something to
do about it that's that's what we can do
I think we can move there we can start
moving there in 10 years and over the
next 20 30 years which isn't that long
will really have some
things and so I it's my understanding
you guys are funded for 20
years at the end of that 20 years what
would you expect the average life
expectancy to be and before you answer
that I'll give you some stats in 1900
the average life expectancy was 47 years
in the US uh as of 2023 the average life
expectancy is 79 years that's an
increase of almost 70% in 100 years um
what do you think we can do in the next
20 I'll give you a couple answers to
that one uh
left in a relatively perfect world with
people going to the doctor and doing all
the right things uh that average
lifespan will inevitably inch up it will
because we'll uh take care of ourselves
we'll we'll edit ourselves to the extent
we can will prevent chronic disease to
the extent we can and an average life
expectancy will move up uh Now by what
percent so over the last I don't know
five or six years it's been
0.008% per year with a couple down years
thrown in the mix for good measure buty
small amount I was going to measure that
I was going to add that uh what can
change that is we can we can do things
to ourselves that will definitely lower
that number so I can't give you a
prediction for what the average lifespan
will be in 5 years because I can't tell
you whether uh we have created a new
pathogen that wipes us out or whether
we've all decided to stop exercising or
whether for that matter we cure diabetes
like those are things that will
meaningfully affect these
curves back to the speed limit idea
though personally and and frankly
Evolution isn't concerned
with in and of itself for its own
purpose extending the theoretical
maximum lifespan there is some
presumably theoretic maximum lifespan we
humans haven't lived beyond the
120s uh there's probably some number and
I don't know what it is that is the in
in the absence of a wholesale jellyfish
like re um
restarting
some some point at
which basically something stops working
and beyond our ability to fix it so
there's some there's some theoretic
maximum
lifespan uh I don't know that we're
going to change that in 10 years or 20
years we might um it may or may not be
important to do so it's vitally
important that we change Health span the
percentage of our life lives that we're
living in relative Health as opposed to
relative decline why is that vital that
is vital
because so average human lifespan is
extended from 49 to 70 something
true but
today one in three people is living with
multiple chronic
diseases uh 20% of people living with I
think three or more and that number is
going up not down we're spending a
larger percentage of our time living
with chronic disease so we're adding
years but in one way in one sense to
what ends now as an individual look if
you live to 90 and fall off Mount
Everest right before the summit at the
age of 90 you probably feel like you had
pretty good
life uh but if you live to
90 and the last 30 years of your life
you're in an out of the hospital you
have multiple diseases you can't do the
things you want to do you can't work
that's that's no good for you and it's
also really no good for society and
civilization
uh the the big picture the biggest
picture is across the planet people are
living longer that's good news also
fertility rates are dropping people are
having less babies uh and you put those
two things together and there's no I'm
not editorializing I'm not I'm not I'm
giving the news not the weather um
that's just true uh
as as that happens a whole bunch of the
assumptions on which we've built
everything have to come into question
we've built everything we do on the
assumption that there's lots of young
people eager to get into the job market
and they're productive and and make
money and support older people and then
there's older people and they kind of
leave um what happens when there's fewer
young people coming into the job market
into the prod productivity Market
broadly speaking and more people not
leaving well one thing we got to think
about
is are
we I mean I'm not an aist and I'm not
accusing anyone of being an ages but are
we kicking are we kicking people to the
side of the curb at 65 and saying you're
done well we know not doing that um but
to to say something
more rational how are we ensuring that
as we age as a people that we can remain
vital productive working
producing paying taxes all the things
that we want to do well if we're sick
and have multiple chronic diseases that
that impoverish us financially uh
emotionally and physically we're not
going to be able to do that so it is in
my mind absolutely vital that we improve
health span uh because I need it you
need
it uh children need it uh and Society
needs it we have to keep people
productive and vital we and we want it
that doesn't NE one doesn't need to
extend the theoretic maximum lifespan to
do that it's a it's a different approach
we have to stop the RAV of Aging without
having to stop aging itself and that's
what we're really concerned with and
that by the way is where I think we can
have real impact in the 10 20 30y year
time frame we can make a real impact
here if we do it if we bring together
scientists uh
investors uh companies really exploiting
the the science that we're that we're
discovering uh and other stakeholders we
have to deliver this to people and we
certainly can't be having a mindset that
well we'll figure out a way to do this
for one person at a cost of a billion
dollars I mean that's exciting I guess
for that one person but this is a we're
we're a civilization that's Global we're
societies that are Global and evolution
is absolutely concerned with global
accessibility so we need solutions that
are broadly applicable but if we can do
that uh and I'm sure we can we'll have
an impact globally that's really big and
and it's going to take all of us it's
it's not I mean evolution is really set
up to be a convener a catalyst to bring
attention to this to put Capital to work
uh at the pain points and to and to jump
start and bring in additional capital
and that's across the value chain if you
will from new scientists with new ideas
to starting new companies uh which which
we're going to work on to investing in
companies that that exist to bring more
investors into that space and showing
them it's uh a fun pool to swim in and a
safe place to invest and then getting
those therapies uh through clinical
trials and thinking about Regulatory and
Commercial Frameworks and delivery
Frameworks to think about
prevention medicine more forthrightly
than treatment medicine so we're
concerned with all those things and as
we develop the best way to to the best
way to create that change isn't to
browbeat people into believing it it's
to show people why it matters to them to
give them tools that they want to use
for themselves and that means
discovering more stuff breaking some
rules creating new drugs and getting
them delivered to people yeah I think
that is a really good way to get people
to care is to make it tangible in their
own lives um even something as stupid
simple as if you reduce the inflammation
in your body you will feel so different
that's one of the things I wish if I
could snap my fingers and give people
would be um just to show them what it
feels like to not eat sugar when you
break that addiction to sugar and you no
longer get headaches because you're
hungry and you don't get grumpy because
your blood sugar has dropped and you
don't feel inflamed and your joints
don't hurt it feels awesome and you end
up not wanting to go back down that path
another thing if I could give give
people a glimpse into
is in terms of getting them to take this
stuff seriously and this is what you
were speaking to but just to say it
really concisely the pyramid's about to
flip so we have always had more young
people than old people and so you had
this huge young base and people died off
as they got older and the retirement age
was 65 because 90% of people were dead
at 60 and so what you were effectively
saying is the vast vast vast majority of
people are going to work until they die
so you're going to contribute to a
system
to which you're never going to remove
anything from the system and cool we're
in a good spot the problem is is people
keep retiring at 65 but they live to 79
you now have a problem and as we
increase the chronic disease burden that
people are able to carry now all of a
sudden you're staying alive but as you
said you're in and out of the hospital
you're a massive drain on the system and
I'm going to be directionally correct if
not precisely accurate when I say in
something like the next 10 to 20 years
2third of our GDP will go to healthcare
that that is completely unsustainable
especially when you look at the debt
crisis that we're in now this is fun to
have this conversation with you somebody
that really understands the
macroeconomic climate and so getting
people to understand that this isn't
just a Health crisis of the disease
burden that people are carrying due to
Modern lifestyle but this is also an
economic crisis when when you've got so
much Global debt you've certainly in the
US you've got so much money printing
known as monetizing the debt where we're
basically saying ah it's all good uh
we'll just keep printing literally
making them up more dollars more dollars
more dollars and you end up in a
position where you've got health care
that's draining your GDP but you've
already got servicing the debt that's
draining your GDP and the only way that
you have to address it is to print more
money give people stimulus checks but
you then are constantly flirting with
inflation and as you push that too high
uh you can obviously end up in an
extremely dark position where if you get
into even just radical inflation forget
hyperinflation where the dollar becomes
meaningless where you're just at you
know 15 to 20% inflation that's real
nightmare scenario and now you increase
what's known as the jinny coefficient
where you've got the discrepancy between
people that are rich and people that are
poor just become so extreme and now you
have the division reaching really
extreme proportions and so when you look
at somebody like Ray doio who for people
that don't know him nobody has made more
money betting on the fact that they
understand where the world is going than
Ray Delio built the largest hedge fund
in the world he's a global investor he
spent over a hundred million just
assessing the last 500 years of history
and the debt cycle that we go in and how
predictable all of this stuff is uh
normally when we get into the kind of
debt numbers that we're talking about
now and there is another Rising Global
power like we have it almost always ends
in war something like 65 to 70% it's
ended in a hot War uh Rallo has upped
his estimate of a global war to
50% when I look at the things that are
going to exacerbate that I know most
people are going to put climate as the
number one I'll say debt is probably
number one number two is going to be the
increased burden of Health span not
being increased at the rate that disease
burden becomes a problem and now you
have because of
demographics you've got this flipped
pyramid and you've got no way to combat
it so when I look at what you guys are
doing at
Evolution becomes urgent urgent couldn't
agree more I've often said you to my
colleagues when they ask why am I doing
this that uh the health span crisis is
the climate change crisis of human
biology it's that big a deal I
agree now we could look at that and
sketch out a fairly dark future and
there are futurists who do that and it's
relatively straightforward to say lot of
debt emerging Powers uh lot more debt uh
spending a lot of money on Debt Service
and Health Care crowding out other
things drain on GDP printing too much
money that's a that's those do
potentially follow one another so one
can walk down the path of that fairly
dark future uh I have to say I think one
should be as an investor very cleare
eyed but to be a venture capital
investor you have to be an optimist you
just have to be so I look at
that and I see tremendous opportunity I
see an opportunity that hasn't ever
existed so let's start with what exactly
is that opportunity I'm going to tell
you let's start with people people are
living
longer and we keep talking about the
problems of chronic disease I think
about it every day but what about the
opportunity in that people do live in
their own heads are Minds evolve just as
our bodies do and as we get older
assuming we can keep up with cognition
and we don't get Nur degenerative
disease we know that for
example uh things that we call judgment
wisdom get better as you get older now
we know that the frontal lobe uh which
is important in humans is one of the
things that distinguishes humans from
primates isn't fully developed till
you're 30 or
40 so as humans live longer there is
potential for human insight and human
capacity that we haven't fully unlocked
yet so there's things that we can't
predict what would happen if our
Workforce were made up of people with
much with quantifiably more wisdom and
judgment than it is today I'm not ing
the workforce today but that might
unlock some pretty interesting
opportunities so I think there's
opportunity uh to affect the
macro by addressing Health span
also to come back to the dark economic
future look I worry about those things
too on the other
hand to take off my biologist hat for a
moment
the US dollar is backed by the full
faith and credit of the United States
government it's not backed by gold in
Fort Knox or silver in in Nevada anymore
so to the
extent that we it's really important
that we
believe that the United States is the
most productive Nation on earth and the
biggest engine of of creation of wealth
and opportunity and productivity on
Earth which it is um to the extent we
believe it then we live it just as when
you start a
company the the odds are the chips are
all stacked against you the but people
do it because they believe and they
believe and they work hard and all of a
sudden maybe not all of a sudden maybe
it takes a little while they they build
stuff and create stuff we as a as a
people in the United States can keep
creating stuff and building stuff
focusing on actually doing real things
and
that that becomes reality um that
becomes the strength of the dollar to
extent and then of course people around
the world have to believe it for the for
the dollar to continue being the reserve
currency of the world that's important
uh I
personally there's something we haven't
talked about yet I
personally
am not as bullish on
crypto currency as some others are
because I actually really like the
dollar being the reserve currency of the
world I like people believe in the
United States is something special
economically and prod productively
because I really don't want to see
people saying we don't need dollars
anymore because then that dark future of
we got a lot of debt it's going to get
bigger there's $ 52 trillion of unfunded
pension and retirement mandates globally
as it is today and that and the bottom
of that Iceberg of debt is not going to
get smaller as we get older
that becomes more of a real problem not
a theoretic problem uh if we say well
currency doesn't matter um all that all
those dollars are just pieces of paper
that's a problem and I don't want that
future and I don't think we we're I
don't think we're condemned to that
future I think
uh
entrepreneurs regular folks people go to
work in the real world people go to work
they're productive
they buy house is um we need to we need
to make sure that that opportunity is
available as broadly as possible for
sure
um that's not just a good idea it's
really important uh and we need
to uh make sure that people continue to
believe that there's a reason to keep
doing those things and if we do I'm
actually pretty optimistic about our
economic future uh as well as our health
future seems pretty inevitable that the
economy will write itself
eventually uh the thing that I don't
think people take into consideration is
that economic Bloodshed cares not about
the individual it's perfectly happy for
there to be a 10 15E period of just
absolute agony for everybody uh and then
you come out the other side and you're
fine like the even if there is a hot War
the hot war will eventually end and so
the bad news is that going through that
even a 5-year period when you're living
it on the ground is an interminable
amount of time it's just unbearable and
yeah look at 2008 for sure much Le I
mean sure the Great Depression but we we
don't remember that we weren't there we
were there for 2008 and it was really
scary and really painful and it didn't
care who you were I agree correct so my
thing is look I one I don't think it
takes any energy to be pessimistic I
think it takes a lot of energy to be
optimistic I think optimism is the right
place to put your energy as a you know a
20 plus year entrepreneur I know what it
means every day to wake up and be like
wow the odds are stacked against me and
yet I'm going to show up and just play
my guts out but at the same time I have
learned as I have gotten older and wiser
is that to understand the context you're
living in so that you can play the game
well I think life is a winnable game uh
that isn't just but money is a part of
it and anybody that blinds themselves to
that I think is very foolish and so to
understand where we are in what is
really a pretty predictable cycle I
think is very important no Reserve
currency has lasted much more than a
hundred years and depending on where you
start the clock we're somewhere between
70 years and like 115 or something so uh
it ain't going to last forever so now
let me ask you you brought up crypto I
didn't know if you'd be well versed in
crypto um do you think even though I
know you don't want it now do you see it
as an inevitability and if it is not an
inevitability what is it that draws
people to it now in this moment even if
they're just the
Obscure you said you said the most
correct thing just now that you've said
all day I am not an expert in crypto
that is that is absolutely true uh with
that in
mind I didn't say I don't want
it uh I think it
exists and I think it has a role the
future that I'm not excited
about not sure whether it's going to
happen or not but the future I'm not
excited about is that Sovereign
currencies become irrelevant and that
only crypto
matters
um that
presents I think a lot of
uncertainty and upends a lot of
assumptions on on which all of us are
living our lives
that could be a pretty big dis pretty
terrible displacement
so I'm not anti-
crypto um I'm anti a future where
nothing matters because I'm an optimist
um now what's the attraction
today gosh that's a great question I
think to some people it's getting
something for nothing I'm going to go
mine Bitcoin and I'm going to
essentially get something for nothing um
gold rushes are relevant humans are
humans are attracted to that okay we're
not going to stop that
but let's remember in the gold rush in
1849 very few Prospectors got rich but
many endur ing fortunes were created by
selling picks and shovels so as as
currency is digitized as National
barriers to economic activity continue
to fall irrespective of any government
wanting to change
that let's pay attention to who's
selling the Pix and shovels how do we
how do we create an ecosystem that
allows for crypto to exist and create
opportunity from that and I don't have
the answers because I'm not an expt
expert but I think there's I think
that's attractive to people and should
be and attractive to entrepreneurs and
there are things Beyond exchanges that
can be created and built businesses that
can be created and built that that
Encompass and maybe even um improve
digital currencies uh so that I think is
is attractive and
interesting yeah crypto to me is a very
interesting use case um I'm intrigued by
your reaction to not wanting there to be
no Sovereign
currencies um I don't know how I feel
about it is the honest answer I'm very
much not a oh just rip the Band-Aid and
go entirely to cryptocurrency I think
it's uh I like living in the US the US
is predicated on a strong government
having power that they can project into
the world uh being financially strong
all of those things are amazing and I
love it the most and I'm perfect ly
happy to um have a government the
problem is going back to how much of
this stuff is predictable so humans work
in a certain way again just to bolster
my own argument that we're living in a
simulation um we are born of a simple
set of rules and because of that human
behavior there's a great quote any one
man is this is a paraphrase any one man
is a mystery but as a totality they are
a mathematical certainty I think any
individual human is near impossible to
predict but when you step back all of
the sudden humans become really
predictable in their behaviors and there
is yet to be a government that did not
print their way out of problems and
eventually that stops working and you
just get so much debt that there has to
be a reset and it's just we are so
perfectly marching down rayo's six phase
cycle six the sixth phase being total
collapse Ray alio puts us in Phase 5 and
a half which is so deeply
disconcerting um but it seems pretty
self-evident given the amount of debt
that we're taking on um so when I look
at that I ask myself when I think about
crypto I ask myself one question will
tomorrow be more or less digital than
today and the answer is more because
every kid that's born into a world that
is increasingly digital that just
becomes day Reger for them it is it's
just of course to them buying a an
outfit inside of a video game is as
meaningful as the outfit that they buy
in their real life that's just
self-evident they don't even think about
it what do you mean they they wouldn't
understand like oh God I forget who said
this but they their kid asked them for
v-bucks which is the dollars inside of
fortnite and uh the parent was like why
do you want that it's not real and their
answer was what do you mean it's not
real they it wasn't even like a
challenge they just didn't understand
what they meant by the statement and so
as that happens those kids will than
rais kids that are even more digital
than they are and as things go digital
everything we care about including money
is going to become digitized now the
question is what's a darker future where
the government controls the digital
currency and they can track every dollar
you spend and if they don't like the way
you've done something or spent money
they'll just stop you or one where it's
sensor resistant and no one can stop you
now the bad news news is people in
crypto want me to be oh crypto is
seizure proof it's not it might be
seizure res resistant but if a
government comes to me and says I'm
locking you up forever unless you give
me your code I'm giving them my code so
I don't understand people's push back on
that that that is self-evident so but it
is harder for sure to censor and I think
that that is ultimately a good thing um
but I also don't want a world that just
flips on a dime the slower the
transition the happier I will be uh it
just gives everybody time to acclimate
have you been paying attention what's
going on in
Argentina uh a little bit Yeah be very
interested to see how this plays out
like you I have not paid super close
attention but um one of the things that
the guy that was just elected cites is
that that basically when you monetize
debt you are stealing from people uh and
so
with all the money printing going on
something like 2third of all the money
that's ever existed was created in the
last I don't know whatever three years
it's really pretty
startling um well look I think what we
really need speaking of living in a
simulation I think we need Thomas
Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton to come
and take a look at this and give us
their perspectives right um can you
Channel their
perspective I don't know that I can but
I'd really like to hear it um we were of
course
this this conversation happened in the
early 20th century around the gold
standard is only you can only print as
many dollars as you have gold because
someone decided gold was valuable and
important
um and then we changed our mind
and uh to your point I guess it works
until it doesn't work but it really
worked
uh so no debt isn't the right answer
infinite debt isn't the right answer
which would tell someone like me that
there's some optimal amount of debt and
and one can look over time and say oh
too much debt not enough debt monetizing
debt th those are all good arguments I
agree with you though
that one of the great things about
humans and civilization it with some
notable course Corrections it sort of
moves forward we're not going back to
the gold stand standard unless something
really bad happens uh and we're not
stopping the digitization of currency
unless something really good or really
bad happens so I agree with
you the question is what do we do about
it how do we adapt to it not unlike
climate change I guess you got two
choices we can say thanks Earth it's
been great and create civilization on
mars or we can figure out how to adapt
to the reality the climate's Chang the
climate changes it's all it's go gets
warmer it gets colder and our biology is
a little bit fixed in time uh we can't
evolve to be heat or cold tolerant in
the extreme in 20 years but climate's
going to change it is changing so how do
we adapt how do we use technology to
adapt how do we create Technologies to
adapt um how do we look at big picture
things like can we moderate the rate of
climate change all important but
uh changing the trajectory of the
warming of the Earth from 1 degrees
centigrade to 75 degrees centigrade to
1.25 degrees cenr okay if it goes too
fast and we don't have time to adapt if
it goes slow enough we have more time to
adapt I like that but
I presume that if we could truly stop
and reverse climate change we'd pretty
soon be talking about an ice age and
that wouldn't be so cool either so it's
all about can we adapt currency is going
to get more
digital governments will seek
to assert control over that just as they
seek to assert control over banking
transactions of dollars um and we have
to adapt we have to right siiz policy
and we have to adapt technologically and
economically and personally to to that
digitization and that's where I think it
gets
interesting all right you talked about
slowing things down uh not wanting
change to happen so rapidly we can adapt
talk to me about if if we're going to
try to reach um longevity escape
velocity where for every year that we
live technology adds more than a year to
our lives what lifestyle interventions
should people be doing that will have
the biggest impact and help them live
not only healthy but as long as possible
well it's a great analogy so back to why
does it matter to you today matters to
you today because if you do things today
that we think we know work or do know
that
work uh essentially what you're doing is
buying yourself Health span time for
technology to catch up and and do some
things so just like if we can slow down
climate change we buy ourselves more
time to adapt if we can slow down the
unhealthy aging process by using tools
we have today we buy ourselves time for
evolution to make all the Investments
it's making for the ecosystem to deliver
more knowledge develop more Therapeutics
create preventatives we we need time to
do those things so what works today
unfortunately or fortunately I think
it's a lot of things that we know
uh we'll start we can start anywhere
getting enough sleep uh when we sleep
our bodies do all sorts of incredible
things and and sleep researchers are
finding more and more incredible things
that happen when we sleep it's it's the
opposite of a passive process it's
actually just as important as being
awake um we've learned that when we
sleep
aspects of our immune system get turned
up so there's a circadian rhythm when we
sleep our immune system is like okay
he's sleeping let's go fix some things
let's go find some inflammation to to to
quell uh let's go find some infections
to treat so sleep is important um it's
hard we we give up sleep voluntarily for
work for
recreation um but but sleep's important
so get enough sleep uh nutrition
uh my wife is uh is in food
Banking and uh is far more of an expert
on clinical nutrition than I but Ultra
processed foods not so good for you um
in ways that we're only really
understanding today now a little bit of
course a little bit's not going to hear
we're human beings are the most
resilient species it's amazing what we
can kind of do to ourselves and and do
well with for a while um so
a little bit is fine but but whole
wholesale replacing excuse me replacing
the diet with ultra processed foods we
know is not good for you and the more uh
science learns about it the worse it
looks um you
mentioned uh things like um food
composition are we eating forget Ultra
processor I we eating more sugar and
carbohydrates more proteins and fats
more vegetables no no meat some
meat uh good news the human body can
adapt to a variety of
diets most fat diets work in the short
term none of them work in the long term
but fundamental approach
to healthy mix of real food makes over
time over the short term makes you feel
better that's good news and over the
long term there's almost no question it
it it's it's good for you and good for
slowing down uh aging processes so so
those are some Basics uh I'm a fan of an
appropriate amount of exercise humans
were to to either steal a line from a
sports book or a Bruce springing song we
were born to run we don't have to run
but we were born to move um our brain
may or may not re our brain loves it may
or may not require it we could in some I
think dystopian future actually live in
The Matrix and just be brains hooked up
to water baths but we like our bodies we
use our bodies our bodies and our minds
work together uh it likes a little
exercise um in whatever form and amount
works for you so those are some basic
things uh I am not here to push a
supplement or even supplements in
general I think that to the extent that
we are missing micro and Macro Nutrients
happens um because of the way we because
of life and the way we make food then
replacing what we're missing is
important um it remain I think the
jury's out on whether um giving Supra
normal amounts of supplements big
pharmacologic amounts of supplements is
always good always bad or sometimes good
it's going to take a lot more clinical
research um that's where things like
drug repurposing comes in where um
looking
at um drugs like metformin or rapamycin
that in the longevity world have a lot
of currency but looking at them
objectively it makes sense there there
may be something there but I don't think
we're going to be at a place where
there's a magic pill that everyone takes
that's a poly pill that um replaces good
nutrition sleep exercise you know basic
things that don't eat too much sugar um
I don't think that I don't think we need
that future I don't think we want that
future I don't think that future is
actually possible I don't think there's
a magic pill
um and then there's and then there's
paying attention to the primary and
secondary prevention to use an
epidemiologic term that we know we know
that if someone has known heart disease
they really need to pay attention to
things like lipid levels and cholesterol
we know that that that will save
people's lives it might save your life
if you've had a heart attack and you
have really high cholesterol it could
save your life
now 35-year-old healthy person thinking
about can I buy a house is inflation too
high what's my job how's my how's my
relationship with my spouse uh they may
not be thinking about their lipids but
primary prevention has a role too at
least getting checked so getting people
into really a mindset of we should be in
a preventative mindset today we know
enough that uh people should have a
preventative mindset today is is true
now
what what sometimes gets confusing is we
do epidemiologic studies and
say if you're cholest if you're 35 and
healthy and your cholesterol is
175 you might have a
0.1 increased chance of something
someday that's pretty abstract it's
pretty hard to to interpret that for my
present in my future and it kind of
feels like there might be some pros and
cons in there somewhere so that's
complicated but it's worth having the
discussion because only by having the
discussion will you find out if you're
at really big risk or maybe you're kind
of doing okay and you just need to do
more what you're doing but let's have
that conversation let's get people to
think about their long-term health is
something worth checking in on today
just as we encourage people to start
saving money for retirement early even
if it feels like you're giving up
spending some money today we really want
people to do it and there's all sorts of
good reasons so I think those are some
real basic things that we give lip
service to and we spend some effort on
but if we could really cause change if
we could really get people to think
about that the way they think about
putting a seat belt on when they get in
a car right that was a social change
that saved a lot of lives that wasn't
inevitable we introduced seat belts we
mandated them it wasn't obvious that
everybody would comply and kind of
unthinkingly wear seat belts but it's
been a good thing so how do we get that
speaking of things like seat belts I
know you know about vaccines vaccines
have now become very controversial um
how should should people be thinking
about
vaccines I can only tell you how I think
about
them and you you might expect someone
like me to say all vaccines good well
vaccines are complicated and and the
answer is it
depends there are
diseases that are preventable with
vaccines that have
been in millions and millions and
millions and millions of humans uh and
that have contributed meaningfully
really meaningfully to that increase in
lifespan that you talked about so one of
the things that that lifespan didn't
March up from 49 to 79 just
CZ it marched up due to clean
water uh
antibiotics vaccines and a couple other
things but vaccines are in the mix uh
there were a lot of kids that died of a
lot of bad diseases
that still exist that don't die because
of the basic childhood
vaccines uh they're safe they're
effective it's I don't think that there
people can have a conversation about it
but boy that stuff's really good for you
it's really good it's responsible to do
for your children and your family and
for yourself now where it gets
interesting is a new dis a new vaccine
for a new disease we don't know
everything about the disease we don't
know everything about the vaccine in
order to create vaccines quickly we use
new technologies so we have new disease
with somewhat you know some predictable
and some unpredictable effects on people
short and long term new vaccine which
stimulates your immune system to
interact with that disease in some
predictable ways maybe some
unpredictable ways new
technology that is really great but you
know we don't know everything about it
so now we got three unknowns think about
that complexity thing we now have three
unknowns in like three dimensions that
we've just been hit with all at
once making predictions about the future
for you as an individual in that
environment pretty hard to do I wouldn't
stake my career in saying what's going
to happen to you tomorrow if I do this
to you
today um that's a tough one uh so are
all vaccines good no no there's been
lots of vaccines that haven't worked out
in the clinic or or in people uh one
example that I can think of uh having
been raised in New England in the US is
Lyme disease so Lyme disease real
problem uh first lime
vaccine uh was developed it did what it
was supposed to do in terms of
stimulating the immune system against
the um the bacteria that caused the L
disease but it didn't really work out
because people got um reactions to it
that were complicated and had something
to do with the interaction of the human
body and that bacteria and and the
vaccine that you could only figure out
when you gave it to a lot of people and
kind of did the population experiment we
don't like to think that we're being
experimented on but we're doing
experiments on ourselves all day every
day right we're eating Ultra processed
foods we're doing an experiment what
happens if you do that is it good or bad
we're I don't know flying around and
exposing ourselves to Cosmic raise uh in
airplanes is that good or bad turns out
it hasn't really caused a problem but
could have could have been something
that that would be a problem
so um vaccines with a capital V are not
all good or all bad and there's nothing
like the like the tincture of time and
data to help determine better who should
get vaccines when should they get them
um you're right theyve become really
controversial and Co was an incredibly
difficult scary painful challenging
expensive time for the planet um but
take a step back it was an emerging
disease it is an emerging disease but it
became an emerging disease that we were
worried might wipe everybody out let's
not forget that that was a legit worry
that people had um we had do something
about that the best tool we could think
of was develop a vaccine quickly um
it's been
effective it's become controversial in
part
because if you ask people to do
something based on
statistics none of us are statistics so
that's that's been true throughout
history that's not a covid-19 vaccine
question that's a human experience
question that we've always had why
should you put your faith in this thing
well on average you'll be better off if
you do
okay but what about me how does that how
do I make a prediction about whether I
will benefit or be harmed by that it's
hard it's impossible to answer with
certainty the more data we have the more
precisely we can answer the more
confidently we can answer but we were
you know in a really scary time the best
tool we could think of was create
vaccines those vaccines did what they
were supposed to do do what they're
supposed to
do uh it seems clear that they were
broadly speaking super effective we
probably
avoided Millions to hundreds of millions
of deaths and if you're one of those
people that would have died and didn't
you're pretty happy I got to say you
can't necessarily know if you were one
of those people but there's probably a
few hundred million happy people uh
because of that now there's some unhappy
people take the vaccine you didn't get
sick well see I didn't need the vaccine
or did the vaccine prevent your disease
never know can't can't play the game
twice so it's hard I'm sympathetic um
even as someone who's invested in a
vaccine company that developed a
life-saving vaccine um I'm sympathetic
to to both sides of this of this
conversation I just think it's really
important to to
remember that at the end of the day it's
not politics at the end of the day it's
not belief at the end of the day it's
are we doing the best we can do to keep
the most people safe and healthy for the
longest period of time and if we have
enough Goodwill towards towards folks
who are doing that then we move forward
and if we lose Goodwill towards people
doing that then it gets harder to to
keep doing the things that we're trying
to help people
with I know people are going to ask in
the comments where do you get the
estimation of a hundred million people
uh alive because of the vaccine so I
don't remember the exact number uh but
the US CDC has done some model has done
modeling around this and um uh I could
certainly find the epidemiologic
modeling it's it's it's actually I think
way more than 100 million I think I
think the
estimates uh based on what the case
fatality rate before there was a vaccine
was with the case fatality rate after
the vaccine the rate of spread now
there's there's a again
uh one could kibit over this uh because
well but there were all those social
interventions did they work did they not
work um leaving all that aside for the
moment because I don't know right I I
don't know whether social distancing
saved a lot of lives or didn't save a
lot of lives it's not my area of
expertise lot of heat and passion around
that um I'm talking about vaccines you
know and um but people have tried to
tease out just the impact of the
vaccines and I think uh the estimates
are pretty high for uh the number of
lives it probably saved the thing I'll
be very interested to see there's a guy
named Gary Brea who is convinced the
insurance industry is going to down rate
people that had the vaccine I don't know
if he's right but that is certainly a
very interesting metric to pay attention
to over the next couple years do they
see patterns in the data that indicate
that it helped didn't help held steady
um I'll be watching that closely well
the the insurance industry is
either the most important industry
you've ever created or the most evil
industry you've ever created interesting
give me the case where it's the most
evil well you're asking
people to
bet on something that hasn't happened
that's what insurance is right uh
homeowners insurance you're asking
people what's the what's your
quantification of the bet that your
house is going to burn down now health
insurance is a little different um
health insurance is probably an oxymoron
right we're not insuring against Bad
Health we're financing health care
that's a that's a whole different story
but insurance is essentially a bat in a
market where uh there's no real product
and it's
unclear uh who has I mean the insurance
companies have the best data Actuarial
tables about this um
so do we need it I mean it's pretty
intangible we need food clothing and
shelter as you pointed out we need money
to do stuff
um but do we need insurance or do we
want insurance or if we create an
environment with the perception of need
of insurance I don't know I don't know
but that's the case that it's not an
unfettered good is there now uh Lloyds
of London would say well no I mean
commercial shipping wouldn't happen
without Lloyds of London insuring cargo
ships they're probably right too you
know there I'm just saying it's not an
unfettered good it's not an
inevitability
um insurance companies downrating people
presumably for things like life
insurance based
on um did they get a covid vaccine well
insurance companies down rate people for
smoking pretty darn good evidence that
if you smoke for 30 years 40 years uh a
pack of cigarettes a day or the
equivalent you're pretty much more
likely to to live a shorter and
simultaneously more expensive life than
if you didn't and that's fair there
really good
data
um now insurance companies rate people
on all sorts of things that we know
about and don't know
about uh are all those ratings Fair
doubtful there no doubt we know that
insurance companies rate people on
social decisions really social decisions
auto insurance if you are married versus
unmarried your car insurance is
cheaper but does everybody get married
should everybody get married should you
get married so you have cheaper car
insurance is that what is that what the
insurance industry wants is that right I
don't know but they do it um do we have
enough data to rate people's long-term
likelihood of dying a more expensive
death because of covid vaccines of
course we don't we don't even know what
the pros and cons of the vaccine are
over a 10-year period much less a
100-year period so I can't stop the
insurance company from doing or any
insurance company from doing it but I'm
not sure it's going to that that rating
would be based on things that you and I
would agree are super rational and great
sets of data
bill this has been amazing where can
people follow
you uh I'm on LinkedIn uh uh and uh
evolutions on LinkedIn uh
uh I'm on Instagram although that's more
about uh cute pictures of my dog and
food we've food we've cooked um but
we're there um just but Bill
Green
uh I'll get it to you it's w w green WG
n e uh and I'm on LinkedIn uh through
Evolution for sure I love it all right
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enjoyed this episode be sure to check
out this other conversation with Peter
diamandis for those that take the time
to understand the most likely path
forward there will be huge opportunities
to help you better navigate what's
coming I bring you futurist Peter
diamandis