Sam Altman , founder of OpenAI and creator of ChatGPT , is investing $180 million in Retro Biosciences , a company that seeks to extend people’s lives.
Sam Altman , founder of OpenAI and head behind ChatGPT , is aiming for a winner and now he is targeting a company that seeks to delay death in people.
Altman is investing $180 million in a startup called Retro Biosciences that aims to expand life expectancy by an extra 10 years.
Financing
According to the MIT Technology Review , Altman invested this large amount in 2021 for seed funding, but it’s not until now that it’s just been made public that the innovator provided the money.
Retro Biosciences is a scientific effort that seeks to promote technologies such as single cell multi-omics and computational biology to reprogram cells and give them more years of life, preventing multiple diseases and expanding people’s life expectancy.
About eight years ago, Altman became interested in so-called “young blood” research. These were studies in which scientists mated young and old mice so that they shared a blood system. The surprise: the old mice seemed to be partially rejuvenated. There, Altman, as head of Y Combinator, a small project incubator, tasked his staff with investigating the progress being made by anti-aging scientists.
According to one of the directors of Retro Biosciences , Altman’s name was withheld so as not to create distractions for companies, causing a bad reputation in the press and hindering the development of the research that the company is engaged in.
more investments
Altman also invested $375 million in Helion Energy , a startup that is trying to build a nuclear fusion reactor.
All of these companies, including OpenAI, are what Altman calls “hard” startups, those that require huge investments to make scientific breakthroughs and master difficult technologies.
Hard-science companies are more expensive to fund, but Altman thinks his bigger goals are more likely to attract talented engineers. He recently tweeted a quote from Victorian-era architect Daniel Burnham: “Don’t make small plans. They have no magic to stir the blood of men.