How AI Is Helping Solve Extinction w/ Ben Lamm | EP #53

28:59So George's thesis, which is proven, I've now been to the Arctic and I've been with the Army Corps of Engineers in the Permanfrost tunnels and actually been inside of the Permanfrost not walked above it. And they have shared with me if this all melts humanities in a lot of trouble. And so George's, so this has been a concern of George's for a long time. We talked about this 1 .5 degree tipping point, But what's interesting is George teamed up with some folks, some incredible folks, Nikita in Siberia, outside of Cherchke, and they created something called Pleistestine Park, where they've actually published in 8 or 10 peer -reviewed papers have come up in scientific journals showing that the reintroduction of cold tolerant fauna back at the right biodiversity levels and density levels back into the Arctic tundra and the removal of these low carbon yielding carniferous trees with that, this extremely dark bark.

30:04They're not efficient at carbon sequestration. They actually are almost like heat lightning rods than permaid set. So the removal of the trees, which they've done with bulldozers and tractors and the reintroduction of these muscox and bison and others, they've actually shown that they've been able to lower ground temperatures by up to eight degrees and sustained them, which is incredible. In mammoths, and this is going into Georgia's theory, is that mammoths could be an accelerant to that, because they're also hurting animals, they're also major herbivores. They do a great job of like that nitrogen oxygen cycle in the summer months of permeating out the Arctic grasslands.

30:43But then in the winter months, they also love to knock down elephants or notorious for knocking down trees. There's incredible documentaries and published papers out there showing that they actually know, they actually, African -Forest dolphins in particular, knock down trees that are low carbon yielding. It's so weird. It's, nature is just amazing. It's incredible. And so that combination, you got these natural bulldozers, you got these natural herbivores, and then their migratory patterns actually help to get rid of that insulation layer in the snow, impact the snow so that the winter months that cold winter air can actually help get closer to the ground.

31:25So it starts in a colder temperature going into the summer months, so less actually thaw. So these animals are like 12 feet high, 8 ton. Yeah. Yeah, they're big. Most people think that when they think William Amas, a lot of times I think people think of the straight test elephant or they think of, you know, the Colombian mammoths and a few of these other species that end up being a little bit bigger, but most, most of Wollimamis were about the size of African elephants today, which, which, you know, sounds small, but if you see an African elephant, it's a, it's a massive animal. And they need to be cold tolerant, which is a part of the changes you're making, because you're not going to take an elephant, an African elephant, and move it up there.

32:08So, so what's interesting about that is we're not just doing the shaggy coat, we're also doing this subcutaneous fat layer. And then there's other things that are kind of like what we kind of joke internally, they're like beneath the hood that no one actually sees. Like, TRIB B3 and like, it's, like, they actually, and it's not just mammoths, but like, caribou, polar bears, some wolf species actually have this where they produce hemoglobin at a different rate and a different ability. So they can actually produce oxygen at, you know, sub -freezing temperatures. Like we can't at negative 40, we don't have our blood crystallizes.

32:46We can't, we can't breathe at that temperature. But they actually can because of how their hemoglobin works. And the same thing goes for nerve endings. Our nerve endings would just be fried. Their nerve endings are actually different than ours due to some of these genes. So yeah, so there's under the hood stuff that we're doing. But actually, elephants are more temperate than people think. One of our partners in Canada actually has Asian elephants, which people think are just you know, tropical species. And we've been up there with them, and we have videos of them actually breaking through the ice, swimming in frozen lakes, rolling around in the snow.

33:21You know, those are like, sub -preasing temperatures, but those aren't negative 40. But elephants are pretty tolerant species that people don't think of. So you raised $225 million. A large chunk of it from an amazing investor, entrepreneur, industry, magnet, Thomas Tall. Yeah. Thomas, Thomas Tull, as well as his fund USIT are both our largest investors and we're very grateful to Thomas. And he's in the movie business. So Thomas is actually a technologist and you know Thomas, so you've met Thomas, but he's most known for legendary pictures, which was actually weirdly a movie studio, but it was actually technology -driven.

34:03So they actually built, they actually used a lot of technology in terms of like how the people like how did legendary have so many hits They actually had technology and models around what they wanted to to go produce and so You know Thomas is very passionate not just about you know movies, but also science and and technology and also education and he does feel that like us chronically in this story and sharing it with the world while educating and inspire the next generation of people that you know, could want to grow up and be a scientist. You know, I'm super passionate about longevity and health span and how to add 10, 20 health years onto your life.

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36:13Now back to the episode. I'm going to get back to you. How in the world do you start at a standing start and raise $225 million for the extinction company? Because that in itself is a moonshot. We'll come back to that in a minute. So how far are you from this incredible bringing back the Wolliamameth? Where are we on this journey? What's your time frame, what can you say? Yeah, so we have successfully achieved induced pluripotent stem cells in elephants, which is a feat in itself, which I can explain why it's interesting. We have narrowed down our gene list to about 60, 65 genes that we're editing.

36:57We've established satellites and we're in the editing process. So we've already edited about 20 different genes and we're doing functional assays, ensuring and testing and whatnot. And then the big key thing that we've done from a systems approach perspective is that we've parallel path all the different components, right? So, you know, I think a lot of people would have done the computational analysis, then done the gene editing, then wanted to work on creating induced port button stem cells, then worked on somatic cell nucleotransfer. We actually have an an entire embryology lab that's just working on cloning in a lot of other non -model organisms, non -model organisms out there other than mice and pigs, so that we are the most proficient at it, so that when we have those embryos, we can do that cloning staff.

37:46And we have an entire animal husbandry team that's working with elephants in Africa and here in the States. And so for us, we're well on our way. We believe we'll have our first calves by early 2028. We are on track for that The biggest hurdle is it's a 22 month gestation. So I mean what we'll have embryos before mom's who are listening to this You know imagine carrying your Your embryo for 22 months, you know Three times the length of a typical But if I was saying it's only 13 and a half days is that crazy? So that is insane 13 You can barely do anything in 13 and a half days. Yeah, but it's crazy is that a a file scene which is a wolf size mark.

38:32Let's come back to that. I'm just going to get excited about the just. So I'm going to put a pin in the woolly mammoth here and we're going to come back to more of this conversation. But it's not just the woolly mammoth you're bringing back. And I think that's important. This began as a single dream, a single moon shot from George. But once the technology exists and the mindset and now the capital and the team, there's a lot of extinct animals out there. And people have been aggregating genomes. So I know there's a lot you can't speak about. How many can you speak about? So we publicly announce we're working on the MAMF, the Philoseean, and the Dodo.

39:15The Dodo's our first avian species. We get a lot of people pinging us about all kinds of extinct species. you know, you know, we have the dinosaur question, we get it all, right? And so, so for us, you know, those are three massive teams that are focused. And then, you know, we are doing exploratory research on other species, but the biggest thing for us is, you know, really kind of combining the which species we should do with why we should do it, right? And so there's some cool species that have brought up to us and we're like, but why would we do that? And so what's the impact of that? And there's other people pursuing the extinction on species that are great, but they don't have the same kind of impact that we think they should have, so we are not pursuing them.

40:02All right, let's hit the policy in first. We can only hit the three, but there may be more of the works. All right, there are more of the works. You just have to talk about that. And look at possibly go wrong. OK, so the thylacene. So what is a thylacene and 12 and a half -day gestation period? Yeah, the thylacene is an extinct marsupial that almost... It's also referred to as the Tasmanian tiger, even the Tasmanian wolf. It's a marsupial, but it looks like a wolf. It's an absolutely beautiful animal that went extinct in 1936 in Tasmania. And it was the top, it was the apex predator of the food chain.

40:43It was incredible. And the Australian government actually put bounties on the heads of the phylocines and eradicated them. So they were paid to eradicate the species. But unfortunately enough some of them were preserved in ethanol and Dr. Andrew Paz, like George, where it was really his man with was the phylocine. and he's worked for the last 15 years on collecting samples in DNA. And now the tools are making it easier in him to kind of assemble that genome. And the dodo similar story? So dodo's, okay, so biocene is another mammal, makes a lot of sense, it's a very similar process. It has easier challenges, 13 -1 -2 -2 -2 -2 -2 -2 months.

41:34we actually even have to assemble that, the front end of the genome because they got about 92 % long -wean gene, like incredibly well -preserved genome, which is amazing. But a lot of that. It went extinct so recently. Yeah, and they got well -preserved. It's so well -preserved, yeah. And so it's almost inverse of the mammoth, right? It's like harder, more editing, more computational analysis, easier genome assembly, and easier gestation, right? And so we loved the phylasene as a bolt as our second species, because the mammalian same team, same structure, but it was exactly inverse problem set.

42:12So we thought we could learn a lot, complimentary looking at it from kind of that system's lens. The dodo. So the dodo, we didn't pursue that. Like this is where you've got to believe that everything happens on some level for a reason. And what was crazy about the dodo was Beshipiro, who's incredible. She's our lead paleogenesis. She's one of the top ancient DNA experts in the world. She wrote the book. You're that kid? One of your future career options is an ancient paleogeneticist. Yeah. God. Crazy. It's crazy. It's amazing. It's crazy. And she actually has a Dodo tattoo and she had been working for over 10 years on the Dodo genome.

42:57been to Mauritius, had worked on with museum samples, had been assembling it, but once again massively underfunded. She's very well known and a lot of her stuff has incredible funding, but this was not a project that was super well -funded, but something that's really passionate to her. And what was interesting was our investors kind of led the Dotto project, where Thomas and Gibri are, and a few others said, listen, if you are the Dixtingtree company, The dodo is the face of human -caused extinction right or wrong. Why are we not doing that? So I talked to Beth. It's a little, it's very similar in many ways, easier and some harder and others.

43:37It forced us to develop new tools around like primordial germ cells and other things that we didn't have that we don't need for other projects. And we told our investor base that you guys support us with the financing, we will pursue it. and we have the subject matter expert in death. And so that was one that we're very fortunate for them that it kind of came from the general public and our investors that really kind of drive that decision. Amazing, and just note here, the last widely accepted citing of the Dodo was in 1662. Yeah. Been a while. A few hundred years. Yeah, been a while. And so, what you're going to think of this, the pictures you see of the Dodo's, a lot of those are like chicken and turkey feathers.

44:24So we're actually doing computational analysis. Like people just think that Dodos were like brown or white and they may have been, but we're actually verifying that the gene, what you see in museums has been assembled. Yeah, human bias comes in there. So people say to me last year, when I was bragging about you and bragging about the company and saying, you know, in the middle of the worst investment meltdown here comes. The Dictiontion company raising money at a $1 .4 billion pre -money and their mouth just drops. And it's like, what in the world is their business model? So let's jump into that because to raise capital and you need something exciting, you need a massive transformative purpose, you need a great team, and you need a good business model or a great business model.

45:13So what is it? Yes, we kind of have like two parts of the business model. One is all about, we're huge believers in option value, right? And so we believe that very similar to the Apollo program on the path to the, you know, the de -extinction of mammoths and dialysis and dead -os and maybe other PCs, we will build technologies that have an application not just for conservation, but for human health care. And so that innovation creates a massive kind of option value for our investors, right? Because like bold and all our incredible investors out there, you know, when we create those technologies and we spend them out of the company, you know, all of our shareholders give those, give their appropriate shares in that spinout.

45:59We did that last year with Ford Bio, which is our first computational biology software platform. We didn't have all the tools we really needed to do this. who wouldn't build them. And then we realized that as application other places, we raised an over -subscribed 30 million dollar round for that business, which was amazing. And that Kentway privacy, that's just actually crushing it. And you know, Kent's as well. And they're doing quite well. They're doing mid -seven figures in ARR already, which is just, I mean, in this market, first off, our company that just started is incredible. They just announced a major partnership with Google.

46:34And so the first part of our business model is really in the technologies, right? Like how do we build, you know, we've got about 36 patents in process and, you know, we've got another spinout on the horizon. Probably this year, probably early next year, but we've got what we think is our next really strong advancement. But any of these advancements, any of these spinouts and this option value could be multi -billion dollar companies in themselves, right? I think that we'll probably have 10 plus spin outs, or potentially more over the life of our company. Which by the way, as an entrepreneur, sort of stunning this, it's an interesting approach that a lot of individuals don't take.

47:18Typically, you retain that inside the company, make it a division of your company, hire a president to run it. And it's great, right? The investors love you for this because it allows you to focus on the primary purpose of what you built colossal for and gives this incredible optionality adjacency for everybody else and doesn't take your eye off the ball. So great idea for other entrepreneurs to be. No, we need to this tech anyway, right? Now there's another tech that we've built that's amazing that we don't think has a marketability outside of what we're using it for. So we're not going to go spin those out, right?

47:58like what I just did not everything we make. So there's a lot of intentionality to creating that option value that's meaningful. And then the second part of our business is around education and partnerships. And so we mentioned, obviously Thomas and others, we're working on a big entertainment partnership around the docu -series, letting educational content around that docu -series. We want to chronicle this for the world. And media and entertainment does make money. And what's interesting about that aspect of the business is that it's starting to lead us into conversations with governments where governments where, you know, we're in the middle of, I can't say who yet, you know who, but we're in the middle of closing a very large eight figure and a separate nine figure.

48:54country. They are not planet Earth. Yeah, it is. It is on planet Earth. Where governments are, you know, while we want to open source all of the technologies for conservation, some governments have some critically endangered issues and need us to help them preserve their keystone species that's very important to their cultures. And so, you know, we are working on two very large deals that have very large price tags to them are still massively, they are a massive accelerant to these countries

49:33biodiversity restoration programs. In one case, we're cutting down a country's work by 20 years and saving them hundreds of millions of dollars. And so when you can show that you can create that value for countries and allow them to preserve their animals on that scale, as well as they can save their conservation, the budgets of conservation hundreds of millions of dollars that can be then applied in other and potentially better ways and cut decades off their rewilding timelines. It's a value prop that one of the negative criticisms we've got at launch was you're taking money away from conservation.

50:15It's like, first of all, we're reading new money and new technologies to conservation. And we're going to show the world that you can actually do really smart innovative ways of using technology in select cases of conservation that shortens timelines by decades and saves hundreds of millions of dollars. So you can actually help governments take a number of their species that are on the edge of coin extinct and to help bring back those populations. You know, one of the things I find amazing when we first discussed it, I said, well, okay, I understand how you go to get a embryo or a single cell of a phylasene or a dodo, but how do you grow it into the whole animal?

51:01Where do you incubate it? And I have to say, you don't consider this an independent moonshot, but I think the The idea of the endpoint here of ultimately an artificial room is an amazing moonshot into itself. So, what are you doing in the New York terms? Where do you incubate the embryo for 22 months for a woolly mammoth? So it's weird. I'm so close to the science and the teams I live and breathe in stand -alabs. Most days what I'm not traveling. And so what's weird to me, and I love that you brought this up, is that the extinction no longer to me seems like a moonshot. Because I'm just so close, I know where we are and I know how fast some things are coming.

51:47And so it just doesn't seem like a moonshot anymore based on where we are, right? And what the tangible progress that we see on a quarter of a quarter basis. What's interesting to me is what I do see think as well as a moonshot is our artificial or more X -Euter development. And I met with the X -U -DRO development teams. We found that people resonated better with that than artificial wounds, but they're the same. And I'm actually sitting in my office at the X -U -DRO development lab. So I'm spending a lot of time now on that, given that the de -extinction side of the business is very, I feel like, has all the right people in rolling.

52:27I'm sitting a lot of time on X -U -DRO development systems now for the artificial womb. And what's interesting is all of the animals, our first generation of animals will all be born through serocacy. So that's why the big animal has been drew group. So we don't need artificial wounds to be successful in thousands. So slow that down. Slow it down a second. So for a woolly mammoth, you're going to have made these edits in some 60 or 70 low -sci, whether it's a gene replacement or a CRISPR edit or whatever it might be. and you've got a single effectively fertilized cell of a woolly mammoth -like species.

53:07And you probably have a number of these, right? You've probably done this in vitro hundreds of them. Like when you have a surrogate child and you do in vitro fertilization, and in this case, who is the surrogate? So two things that you brought up, I think you're really shing. I think that we will shock people in the next year with some of our successful IVF and cloning numbers Cloning historically in that that's the somatic sonica transfer part and then the acceptance through somatic cell nuclear transfer. So this is a somatic cell body cell versus your gametes versus your Exactly. And nuclear transfer is taking the nucleus out, putting it into a different cell.

54:01Into one of those eggs cells, right? And we've had a couple really interesting breakthroughs that we will be announcing in the not too distant future that increase the efficiency of that over 25X of what's out there, which is incredible. And so to that process, we are going to be using Asian elephants as our seriots for the mammoth. We'll be using, this is interesting about the thylacene and we'll come back to our official wounds here in a second. But with the thylacene, we're using the closest phylogenetic relative in that desiureate family is actually the fat tailed dynart. It's like a marsupial mouse.

54:45It's like this big. And so it's funny people are like, wait, you're telling me a wolf -sized animal is going to come up from this, but they're younger at the same size. They're both this, when they're born after that 13 -apdays gestation, they're about the size of a great surprise. And most marsupials gestate mostly outside of the womb so that leads to other challenges that we're working on, like exopods, isn't it? Yeah. Exactly. But our goal, though, is long -term. We want our system, we want exuter development or artificial wounds that we can grow a thousand mammoths, right? Because we won't be able to grow a thousand mammoths, you know, the old fashioned way, right?

55:22And so being able to do that for not just mammoths, but imagine a world peter where, you know, we're down, we have 100x, we're down 100x right now on a number of species or a number of blue whale individuals in the ocean. Imagine a world where we can work with governments to grow where you have these football size systems where you can grow 100 blue whales for reintroduction. So we can get the... For the rhino for lions. For the rhino. For anything, right? It's like, let's let conservationists and rewilding partners work to do the hard work of reintroducing the species and socializing and hurt dynamics, and all that incredible work that they do, but the gestation, let's grow them all ex -utero.

56:15I actually believe that the artificial womb has a more potential for impact in the world, even than our de -extinction work. We have a 17 -person team working on the ex -utero development systems here. We also have a partnership with the University of Melbourne outside of our dialysis and partnership that's working on it. We fund people in George's lab that's working on it. So it's a combined team of probably about 25, 26 people that are working on artificial wounds here at Colossal that we want to be able to grow everything in. Is this an artificial wound that will take a embryo from single cell through to surviving on its own?

56:57So it really is the work of the science fiction stories of a real... It's a true artificial wound. And so like Alan Flake, for example, who's in an incredible mind, he doesn't work with Colossus, he's amazing. He's done, he did the BioBag lamb work back in like 2015. I remember that. He's very focused on later stage, you know, for premiums, exactly. And they do a micro surgery in the ambelicus and whatnot. And that's great for that use case, it's incredible. And he is the world's best at it. But what we really want to do is we don't want to be doing, if you want to grow a thousand of animals, we don't want to be doing a lot of microsurgery in that in that in that in that in Billicus.

57:40So really being able to build a artificial placenta or sorry artificial kind of this endometrial layer of the uterine wall that a placenta can can connect to. Yeah. Now the beautiful thing for us. Well, here's the beautiful thing about it though, is that while there's varying different placental types, I didn't know that I thought everything just threw in a bag inside of another bag, right? Before I started this, but there's actually different placental types, right? And what's interesting is that that comes from the embryo. And so the embryo basically makes the organ that invades this uterine wall.

58:20So we really have to get right the gas exchange and the, as well as nutrient and extra exchange through kind of this like, you know, system. I know you know, Doris Taylor, we're working with her on, you know, desalularized membranes. So it's really kind of interesting because we're bringing all these different people like Doris together to think through how you could build these membranes through synthetic biology that a embryo would want to placenta to invade into, right? So that it's as natural as possible. Everybody, this is Peter, a quick break from the episode. I'm a firm believer that science and technology and how entrepreneurs can change the world is the only real news out there worth consuming.

59:08I don't watch the Crisis News Network. I call CNN or Fox and hear every devastating piece of news on the planet. I spend my time training my neural net the way I see the world by looking at the incredible breakthroughs in science and technology. How entrepreneurs are solving the world's grand challenges, what the breakthroughs are in longevity, how exponential technologies are transforming our world. So twice a week I put out a blog. One blog is looking at the future of longevity, age reversal, biotech, increasing your health span. The other blog looks at exponential technologies, AI, 3D printing, synthetic biology, AR, VR, blockchain, and these technologies are transforming what you as an entrepreneur can do.

59:54If this is the kind of you use you want to learn about and shape your neural nets with, go to demandis .com, backslashblog, and learn more. Now back to the episode. You know, I can't help but ask some timelines here. you said that the Wolley Mammoth is 2028. We're recording this in mid, you know, their, entering third quarter of 2023. So five years out, can you give us timelines on the Dodo and the Thelousine? Yeah, so the Thelousine, I would assume that you would see it sooner, given that it's a, a, 12, 14 and a half day gestation. So there's a higher probability of that. In the Dodo, what's really interesting about the Dodo is, It's about a 30 -day gestation, right?

1:00:39And we're using these sterile chickens. This to me is crazy about, this is the kind of stuff that you've learned about biology that you're like, wait, what? That to me sounds like science fiction. But they've actually, you can actually take edited primordial germ cells of it, and they've done this experiment, where they've taken, edited these, these things called primordial germ cells that are found in birds, and they take these primordial germ cells of ducks. in certain, insert them into that of a sterile chicken. The sterile chicken's mate and egg is laid, it hatches and it's a duck. Like that to me, I know that sounds like, we talk about de -extinction, I can't help it.

1:01:22Oh yeah, that's fine, we got that. That to me is the stuff that just seems like, wait, I still have a hard time doing it. So we have an entire avian genomics curve now that's focused on cultivating these primordial germ cells. which is very, very difficult. And the closest living relative to the dodo is the actually nick of our pigeon, which is beautiful. It's nothing like what we think the dodo look like. And so if we can get those primordial germ cells completed in a stable and growing in culture at the right scale fast, then I think the dodo could be in the next couple of years. That's really the rate limiting factor is, Now, if it takes us two years to do that, then I think it'd be, you know, 2020.

1:02:08So, you bet on the Tasmanian Tiger before the Dodo? It's, you just have this variable, you have this massive variable in the primordial germ cells. If that, if the PGC step works, I bet on the Dodo first. All right, all right. Okay, so I'm not gonna ask you to tell me what's next, but I am gonna ask you to tell me. You're gonna told you about me and the style. Yeah. Order of magnitude, how many species have you been dreaming about? Are there dozens or hundreds of species that could be on the de -extinction list? I think for us, you know, there will be a handful, I think, over time for us. When you open source of technology for others to play with.

1:02:49Yeah, absolutely. I think that for conservation purposes, right? Like, I do think that the extinction is something that needs to be measured and thought thought out well of like what's the intention of it and where are you doing it. And remember, all the species that we're working on, we want to be wild. So we're working with local governments, in some cases, foreign governments. We're working with indigenous people groups. We're working with private landowners. So there's a lot of people that go into this outside of just the colossal team, right? So you really need to collaborate in what not.

1:03:22So we are going to open source all the technologies for Comps that have an application to conservation, for conservation purposes. There will be some de -extinction tech that we just don't open source, because we just think that maybe not everyone should have that. Okay, now let's get to the top secret part of this episode. A billionaire comes to you and says, listen, Ben, I want to bring back the dinosaurs, or at least a dinosaur. You know, this is something I truly want to do, I want to demonstrate it's possible for scientific purposes. We're not going to be wild with these guys. And you say to them, no, you say it's impossible.

1:04:00Come on, give up here. What's possible here? I mean, a chicken is kind of a dinosaur in one sense. Yeah, Burt's virtue is generally scary. So the, like, I don't know, I think that Burt's are dinosaurs like Kenneth Lackavara, arguably number one palantinoves in the He's like dinosaurs are rondes and so they're birds. They're the dinosaurs that made it. And so I had been asked that question, not once, that the theme that we get, it was just a 30th anniversary of Jurassic Park. So you can believe the number of calls, press, everything that asks us about dinosaurs. So it is impossible to bring back a dinosaur.

1:04:46I was a great people's heart, one. I say that because right now for a technology perspective, we can go back, you know, a million or so years in terms of like that, that ancient DNA. But the problem is unless you find some frozen dinosaur or some dinosaur that was just so well -reserved in a cave that hasn't fossilized, you're not going to get any DNA. And now what you could do, which I think is interesting, is you, I do think that you can do ancestral reconstructions through computational analysis of early dinosaur -like birds. I think that is a possibility in terms of computational analysis.

1:05:28It's also possible to demeneralize dinosaur bones to get amino acids, but you're not going to get even small fragments of DNA, right? So I mean, so I do think that from a technological perspective, humanity will have the ability to do ancestral state reconstructions of like early birds or early mammals, but we will not be able to de -extinct the dinosaur. And I think those technologies could be applied in better ways. Like how do we you know, more drought, you know, how do we make more drought resistant animals or crops? How do we, you know, I think growing 100 blue whales at the same time or a thousand will have more meaningful impact.

1:06:16And I think it's as hard as engineering a precursor to birds. Okay, well, I'll have to break the news to my 12 year olds, but we'll be right back. Let's go back, my friend. So we're talking to entrepreneurs here about moonshots. And I want to hit on two points for those who are dreaming big dreams and want to go and make a dent in the universe and go and do something. Because I think you said it really beautifully in the beginning. This is my shot of doing something significant in life. And if I don't take it, I'll never be able to look at myself in the mirror and say, you could have. And you didn't.

1:06:57So let's talk about that. And let's talk about the importance of having, what is it that allows you to feel the confidence to take it on in a field that isn't yours? And then the third thing I want to talk about is how in the world do you raise money for something like this? Like when I want to talk about those early conversations because no bucks, no buck Rogers. So take it from there. Yeah, I think that, you know, I'll start with the raising capital side and we'll go from there. You know, we were very mindful in terms of who we approach, right? Now, after we started raising capital and we went public with the news that we're working on this, we did have a lot of conversations because people were like, super interested.

1:07:49And look, we got a lot of nose. in any deal that I've ever done, I have yet to have the experience where you just walk in and someone's like, I love that idea. Here's a term sheet that's blank, as much money as you want it, whatever prize and whatever terms, I get to see that deal. I hear stories in the movies of those deals, like the Silicon Valley napkin on a Sunday night before the partner meeting. Yeah, I've heard those stories too. I've never experienced them. So maybe I'm just not good. But the but but but but but really being intentional that we had to Align This project with people like you with people like Tom's toll people like you know Jim Briar and Tim Draper These are all people that that think it like you know to use your words that think in abundance that that want to advance humanity that have all made a ton of money and they're not just doing it for the money, they want to make money and return money to their shareholders, but at the same time they want to push all of humanity forward, right?

1:08:53And so we were very thoughtful on who we went to and why. And who is who? Who is who in the early days? I mean George is on as the scientific advisor, What term did you use for George in the early days? Well, I said co -founder and then it's better enough. Yeah, and so I said co -founder. But what's interesting is that because George, to your point, has done a lot of companies, people are like, oh, but he's not working on too many things. He's like, yeah, but ask him. If you know him, ask him. And when people, several people reach out to him, he's like, oh, yeah, he's like, he's like, I love all the projects that work here.

1:09:30But this one, you could hear in his voice how he felt. I mean, you've talked about this. It's like you could hear the difference in his voice on this one. And so it was me. It was Andrew who we'd started a handful of companies together. He's been a great product guy. And he's been part of your team over years, for years. And really leading product. You guys have a great track record together. Great, great track record. Kent Wakeford, right? And Kent moved across country to help me get this thing started. But of course, Andrew and Kent neither either of them had sort of this biological background?

1:10:06I know. I know. We had zero. I reached out to, I was fortunate to win Ernst and Young on for the year a few years ago. I met Jody Simone, who's incredible, who did carbon 3D. He's an amazing entrepreneur. If you haven't talked to him, you should talk to him. He's amazing. I love Joe. I was connected to the EY network. I was like, I'll talk to him. So I started having a couple of these like individual science conversations and I and they were like we would love to work with George on this We'd love to advise you on who you should hire and we'd love to be on our scientific advisory board So we had very early success on the even though we had zero people internally on On the science team we had very early success on the He saw on the Scientific Advisory Board to help guide us.

1:10:57And then George said, hey, one of my post -docs has been poached to go do venture capital. I think that she would do much, this is what she wants to do, this area on who you've met has been time with. And he's like, this is what she wants to do more than anything. And if she really has the opportunity, I think she'll succeed and be the bridge between Harvard and Colossal. And so I had one meeting with her, you know, and I don't think I've ever told Ariana that I should tell her this about how amazing it was. I remember like hanging up the phone or the Zoom with her, and I was in Omaha, Nebraska, what I zoomed, and I call our other scientists, Sarah Ord, who'd worked with me before it, and it consults with me at Hybergenne, or whatnot, and choose our only other scientists, and I was like, oh my gosh, we have to went from the church lab, and we have two scientists now.

1:11:48And I was like so ecstatic, right? Because we had one from Harvard, one from Johns Hopkins, I was like, those are good, like we got this, right? And Ariona was a really great moment when we were like, oh my gosh, we can recruit scientists this. We knew we could get advisors to it, but could we recruit actual scientists that wouldn't go pursue a drug? And it was like eight people. I remember when Kent moved to Dallas to help us get started and we were in one of my other company's offices and we're sitting there at Dave Cops from Worlds. We were sitting there at Dave's in Worlds offices and kids and I were looking around and it was like, so it's us.

1:12:34But those are the fun days when you have a blank piece of art. I remember those days. I think I came on as an advisor or just about that point and then it could just you to bold and a few other funds. What was the first capital you brought in? Was it convertible note? Was it your own money? Was it a foreign investor? Yeah, so I spent, and I do this with all of the companies that I could work on. And I never asked for terms on it. I knew a lot of people asked for terms on it. I don't though. So I spent a little over, I spent low seven figures on this from my pocket. Just for, you know, before we started in 2021, talking to people, traveling, hiring, external, social, scientists, like, I am a somewhat trustable verify guy.

1:13:19And so, you know, trusted George, but I was like, is it as close as he says and whatnot. So I want to, so I spent that capital on my own dime. And then, and then like kind of doing that research. And then, you know, some of the first money in was, you know, Thomas Tall, Bold, Jazz Ventures, Tim Draper, you know, what's interesting, and then Tom Chi. Like, I remember Tom Chi was the biggest check in the seed, and Tom Chi got it. And I was like, you know, you have these pivotal moments in your journey where, you know, my conversation, our first conversation where you're like, you need to go do this.

1:14:01like you you were very inspiring to me like and this is before you even introduced me to the bolting you're like you need to go do this how can I help and so you were a major inflection point which I really appreciate when I talked to animal capital I was laying I'd been told no handful times I was exhausted there's like a 9 p .m. call talked to Marshall and Marshall's like yes we're in we're in right now a lot of you 250 ,000 dollars tomorrow and I was like that was an inflection point because that was very early before we had Aryon or whatnot. And then Tim Draper, which he came on and he came and wrote a million dollars, and then when I talked to Tom Chi, Tom was like, he totally got it.

1:14:46His fund at one is so focused on impact. But to impact the way a co -founder of Google X with Astro on the team there. And just amazing and thoughtful. He understood the science and he was like, you know, we'll take the rest of the round. And I was like, amazing, right? And so, you know, because I felt like we were too early almost for the big traditional funds. And so we raised all of it on a convertible note with a cap. So we raised at the time $8 million with Thomas kind of rounding that out. And then Thomas was, and then Thomas was, we then raised another eight on a uncap note, which, you know, if you can get it.

1:15:34And Thomas was the one that said, you need to go, you need more money. And so, he was, so, they, Thomas would have put more money in. We filled out that remaining, we launched with 16 million. And within a week, we were getting term sheets from funds that wanted to put in 40 million in in D &A. And so that happened very quickly. I called Tom Chi, called you, called Thomas Tallah and Thomas, and like none of us got the consistent message we got generally, none of us got as much as we wanted in the seed. And so they're like, we'll give you a term sheet. And so we ended up raising 60 versus 40. And we brought in new partners, which is great, but a lot of obviously our early team.

1:16:21What's your, it's a beautiful, beautiful start -up story, and I love the fact that you made the commitment yourself with your own capital, which if you're able to do it as an entrepreneur, it's a show of success, a show of commitment beyond just your time, that your team from previous ventures continue to join you, that George's right -hand person joined the team, so there's the formulation, the scientific advisory board. You know, and but it was doing this also at a very difficult time to raise capital just for contextual period. What's your advice for entrepreneurs looking at take on a moonshot?

1:16:59Any any take any big takeaways A couple big takeaways for me are you will I Did have a little bit of you know, I have a proven track record I did get more notes that I anticipated because I was like, how can you guys not want to do this? This is incredibly valuable for the world. It's like, if you could go back to the 60s, but you could offer someone a time machine and go back to the 60s and be like, hey, would you want to invest in NASA, which I would argue is the regardless of how you feel about America, worldwide, or politics, or the side, or whatever, NASA is the number one brand that came out of America.

1:17:40Okay, everyone supports NASA. Like it is the brand. And it's like, if you could invest in NASA, why would you invest in NASA? Like it's crazy. It's an absolutely no -brainer. And so I will say that it was a little bit struggling that we did get knows, because I was shocked. I mean, not surprised, I'm pretty, it's so very little at the beginning. But so I was like, you know, really smart team, you can't get sold, you take companies, public sold companies for billions of dollars, you know, me and Andrew had done quite well. So I was like, I feel like we had stuff that like people would get behind.

1:18:15But you, I'd say if you're going to do a moonshot, you have to be even thicker skinned. And I think going through the process, not of successfully building startups, but I've been told no so many more times before I started colossal, that I was so used to being told no, that it just didn't really affect me. I was, I had the conviction. And so you have to like you can't go talk to two people or five people and be told no four times I'm like, I can't do this, you know, I mean I've been told probably no a thousand times team tech or capital So I mean, you know if you have all three girls said You look sounds like you came in first with team.

1:18:57Yeah, and and then capital and then then then on George of the tech Yeah, and is that what you would recommend for moonshots? I just think it's I think it's team and conviction is just so important, right? Like George has a saying where he doesn't let anyone in his lab use the word impossible He's like we may not understand how to do it yet, but I won't use the word impossible And he doesn't allow it in his lab and and I think that that it was inspiring just to start to start the company with George because I mean George was so happy when we lay in when when we raised $8 million. I know. I mean, come on, it was like orders of magnitude more than even WFR.

1:19:39Yeah, he was ecstatic. He's like, are you serious? Like, he was so excited. Are you guys playing with, you know, large language models or what's coming in AI in the work that we're playing? Yeah, so we are, so on the large language model piece, we have an outside of form bio, we have a genotype to phenotype team. And it's really helpful for a literature review, right? Because there's a lot of stuff that comes out. Obviously, you know, some of these things are gated in time. So it doesn't help with some of the most recent articles that have come out. But it does help with reviewing peer reviewed papers, making summaries for onboarding and whatnot.

1:20:20So we are using chat GPTA and several of the other large language models out there. We're also using some of the generative AI tools out there to talk about, like, you know, we have an idea for this educational experience that we're working on. And, you know, instead of going and copying up, we're using some of the generative tools there. So, yeah. Outside of the models that we're building for, like, we have a tool that's pretty cool internally that actually makes recommendations of what tool sets that will create to use for each edit that has the least likelihood of off -targets. And like that's insanely valuable, right?

1:21:06All right, last subject I wanna get into here before I ask you what your ex -price should be. Let's go ahead, the morals and ethics. I have to imagine you get a lot of people sort of raising their hands and saying, you know, come on, I mean, you're playing God. How can you find this morally acceptable? What's the ethics involved here? Aren't people going to use this technology? Not to bring back extinct species, but to sort of like come up with, you know, low -end and dark cats and, you know, cats with horns and a whole slew of mix -and -match. You know, and it's a lot of, I remember when I was in, at the Whitehead Institute at MIT as an undergrad, you know, the early days of genetic engineering and the conversation was all around these restriction enzymes that are going to allow us to reinvent species and come up with things and a lot of debate and discussion about the ethics and morality.

1:22:07Now, it's calm down, it's come back now with AI, but have you reignited that? Are you getting a lot of people concerned about this going out of bounds? Well, you know, AI, you know, synthetic biology is hard to put, you know, CRISPR, it's hard to put the genie back in the bottle on some of these things, right? And so we work very closely with the federal government and we've been public about our investment from Inkyu -Tell and whatnot. And so we want to be part of the teams and helps think through like what should be used and why and where do we draw boundaries around it. You know, I think that we've been very We fortunate with people like Alta Charo and others, which is also one of the world's leading biologists as we joined our team.

1:22:52And we've been very fortunate to pull together not just scientists and biologists, but also conservation groups. And we partnered with all the top conservation groups, because we've really listened in. I think I have a different perspective now than I did maybe 10 years ago on critics, and kind of like including ethical critics. And you know, I think you can learn a lot from an informed critic, right? Like they are the subject matter expert. They don't have to share your belief. And we've taken this attitude that it's not our job to persuade anyone. It's our job to educate people and be transparent about what we're doing.

1:23:26And so that's what we strive to do. And then we really try to listen to those feedback. And some of our earliest critics have become our most valuable assets. And like Lou Vidal, he was pretty negative when we came out. And now we could not be where we are on the mammoth project without it. Yeah, you know, I have to point out the human brain is incredible at imagining all of the terrible things that can happen as a result of some technologies. I mean, we have been trained by Hollywood and the Crisis News Network to always go dystopian all the time. And it's just, you know, it makes a billion dollar blockbusters.

1:24:09But we don't think about what would happen if the technology didn't come into existence, right? I mean, this is the technology that can bring back extinct animals and maintain, you know, large breeding herds for animals on the bridge on the on the precipice of extinction. You brought up a good point there. You know me and I don't I'm an eternal optimist So I don't think as much about. By the way, Optimus live an average of 15 years longer than pessimists so go. We get, so that's going to take me from like 400 to 415s. So that's great. So I'm excited about that. That's great. That's great data.

1:24:51And so what's interesting is that, but fourth, dystopian, because we, outs, even if you talk through it and you understand the ethical applications, because I would argue we play God every day. We eradicated the dodo. We eradicated the thylacene. And we had a hand in our early, and I didn't have a hand in eradicating the mammoths, right? And when we chopped down a forest or polluted our rivers or take medicines, you know, we played God every day with our own bodies. So I think that this is an opportunity to not only undo the sins of the past, but fundamentally for that dystopian crowd, I believe that hopefully it doesn't get to this point, but wouldn't we want a de -extinction toolkit and wouldn't we want the capabilities to bring back at least keystone species that are fundamental to ecosystems, which are fundamental to things like food security.

1:25:38So in the event that we do lose all species, isn't it better? We can all say that we just want to preserve life, which is great. But in the event that we had to bring stuff back, isn't it better that we have that capability set for those, just I don't believe in that world, but for the dystopians of the world, I think it is better that we have that tool, that those capabilities in that knowledge because we are losing species at an alarming rate and in the event having the tools to bring them back is better than not. Beautifully said. Alright Ben, here we go. It's a few years from now. I'm done so incredibly well on my colossal investment and I'm like, you know, I want to say thank you Ben.

1:26:22I want to fund a Ben Lamb ex -prize. What is an ex -prize that you want to inspire entrepreneurs around the world to go morning through night to go and solve? Do you have one? Yes, I do. And I don't, you know, I don't think I'll get to it, but hopefully, and hopefully, you know, I would love it. If someone does, I'd love to advise it. But, you know, I think that Elon is doing an incredible job of recognizing that we have to extend consciousness into the universe and become an interplanetary species. And I think that's amazing. And I'm holding this glow -drevoid space that's an investor, I'm a huge fan, supporter.

1:27:01But interestingly enough, most of the world is covered by water, right? And I think that there's an opportunity when we start to think about like sustainability and these closed ecosystems that we are gonna have to do for off -world, I'd love to see that happen here also in parallel to extending live interplanetary is I'd like to see that happen here in the oceans, right? I would like you've got these like little, you know, hotels that have like the rooms underwater, but it's like we should have the technologies where we can colonize which will force us to build closed systems, right? Where we have to go.

1:27:44Yeah, Yeah, yeah, like life support systems. Also, we have to be more thoughtful about food, sustainability. So I'd love to build sustainable underwater cities. I think that, you know, I think that will make us appreciate our oceans more. You know, if you have reefs and fish outside and kelp outside versus plastic. So I would love to see an ex -price on building not in underwater hotel, but a sustainable underwater city city. How big a population? You know, I mean, we don't have to be... We have to be numbers on this. Yeah, that's fair. I mean, I think you need a small town. I think you need like 10 ,000 people.

1:28:24Wow. I mean, I mean, I mean, real cities. Like, you know, like real, like, eventually metropolitan cities. But yeah, I know that's not going to start there. But I mean, that would be the goal. It's like, how do you get to a 5 ,000 person sustainable city? Not like 50 or 100, like a real city. Ben, I can honestly say it is always an incredible pleasure when I get your phone calls and Peter, do you have a second? And updates I get from you are amazing. Where on the planet you are when you call me, you know, it's sort of Russian roulette. You are an example of what an amazing CEO can do. I just want to say thank you on behalf of bold myself, George Church, and humanity as you bring these technologies to bear.

1:29:11I mean, everything from the artificial womb to hoping, rewild, extinct species to actually bring species back from the press -specific extinction. That's amazing work. Thank you. Thank you, buddy. Appreciate you. Take care.