How To Live To 150 The Science & Tech Of Growing Young Rich Roll Podcast

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what would life be like if you could live to 150  healthily what about 200 what about beyond that   well it's a very interesting question  a question with profound philosophical   moral ethical psychological environmental  and economic implications but for today's   guest a very interesting russian chemical engineer  turned investment banker turned venture capitalist   it's not merely an academic thought experiment  because cutting edge breakthroughs are very much   on the horizon his name is sergey young he's the  founder of the 100 million dollar longevity vision   fund he's an xprize foundation board member and  a development sponsor of the age reversal xprize   which is a global competition designed to find  a cure for aging he's also the author of the   brand new book the science and technology of  growing young which is a really fascinating   demystification of the longevity landscape  it's a look in the near and less near   future of advancements and possibilities that  await us and the many practical things that we   can and should all be doing now to live healthily  to 100 and beyond why am i telling you all this   because he is right here right now on this very  podcast so please hit that subscribe button and   let's do this this is me and sergey young  heading down the longevity rabbit hole sergei nice to meet you thank you for doing this  driving up here been looking forward to meeting   you reach everyone it's uh it's good to have you  i'm very excited excited to talk about all this   kind of stuff but before we get into any of this  i got to know i mean i can't believe your last   name is young yeah as somebody of russian  descent that can't be your real last name   so you have a stage name yes i do uh so and when  people ask me about that i'm really upfront so   this is the truth i started to spend a lot of time  in u.s in the last five years since i've developed   a passion to change the world and and u.s is a  biggest inefficiency that we have healthcare-wise   it's like the most inefficient healthcare system  in a world with 18 percent of gdp spent on   on lifespan which is constantly declining in the  last five years so and then i so i use my russian   family name and then the whole conversation like  every first 20 minutes of every conversation was   what about your leader what about the country what  about vodka what about uh bears on the street so   can i have this conversation yes i can right  so but then you start with almost like negative   consideration and then you turn it to neutral and  positive and it's like hard work on the first 30   minutes of every conversation and it was pretty  detrimental for my mission right because what   i want to concentrate on about bright future  what we can do today what are the choices that   we're facing today rather than explaining this  whole russia story so what i thought uh and i i   was just looking at tony robbins who said i've  created this tony robbins guy so i google him   so apparently his family name is not robbins oh  i didn't know that okay that was the case for me   and i thought well if tony can do it right what  i've so i and i met a beautiful uh chinese lady   when we were discussing age reversal x prize  competition and her family name uh was young   i am married man so i just bought the name for  her and i'm like you have a beautiful family name   and she said well come on sergey we all have like  our different names here because i will if i will   run on my link 1 4 it's just very difficult to  integrate into the culture so i thought okay   i can do it as well so what i've done and for  russian men to change the family name it's it's   like it's a big decision so what i've done just to  uh i gotta make it comfortable for me i registered   a trademark sergey young i'm 100 uh owner of this  yeah and um and i just give myself an opportunity   to use that so that's that's the story listen  you're in you're in los angeles right now oh   yeah this is like this is yeah ain't nothing but  a thing here yeah yeah but again and it's it's not   something that i hired from but it's it's really  turned my conversation from explaining the past to   create in the future and and this is what i wanted  to do right so we're going to get into all things   longevity the near future the crazy latter future  that awaits us the current state of affairs and   all of which is broken down beautifully in in your  new book growing young which i'm really enjoying   it's actually a much breezier read than i was  expecting like that you have your scientific you   know rabbit holes that you go down from time to  time but overall um it's kind of a page turner for   the subject matter that you're tackling with all  of this it is the biggest challenge was to just   to keep it simple and we we literally um took  out the chapter on theories of aging because   in the end of the of the day we don't have like  the theory and it was 40 pages of hard science   so in the end we just end up with explaining  the hallmarks like what are the roots of aging   and confirming that we still don't have an answer  yeah well aging anti-aging longevity are themes   that we've explored pretty extensively here on  the show i've had your friend david sinclair   a couple times and i've had dan buettner the  blue zones guy here like we talk about this   a lot but one area that we haven't  really kind of cast our glance on is this   future imagining that the book opens up with which  is right out of a movie like walk me through like   to me it feels quite pollyanna but i want to hear  your perspective on on this sort of optimistic   perspective that you have on how all of this could  play out in the next 50 100 200 years yeah um okay   so i call it fall horizon or like horizon  3. so well first of all i must say that   i'm waiting for this with combination of  excitement and fear as well there's so many   things that we need to solve on this planet before  we actually can enjoy living in a human body 2.0   version so but so that's one two is is is a bit  far away it's 25 to 50 years from now it's we we   don't need to decide you know everything on how  it will look like but when i see the future it's   a future when we will have an opportunity  to redefine what human body and mind means   and for me it's it's a very positive problem  so we're gonna switch from biological view of   human body into more engineering view like an  all-car metaphor when you can extend resource   of the old car just replacing like the parts so my  future is about our ability to regenerate organs   ability to alter our genes when we and  we already know 3 000 genes in our dna   which are responsible for aging processes which  starts probably after age of 20 25. in our life  

my future is about internet of body when we are  full of sensors who are helping us to prevent   diseases by identifying the very early stage  of it like a cancer cancer or heart disease etc   and we live in there so we we already have some  wearables yeah you got a bunch on you yeah i have   yeah yeah you're covered in yeah so purple  technology that's a zeo patch right so that's   um what does that mean so basically it's it's  just doing electrocardiogram of your heart   for seven days in a row and it's very reliable  way to monitor your heart performance rather   than one of akg that you can do it's um well  it's just seven days and nights of your hard   work uh so you just it's re recorded here on  the ceo it's not it doesn't sync to an app on   your phone well like that not yet potentially in  a few years time there's there's no uh obstacles   for this to integrate like you know have glucose  monitor here and i'm not from levels do you have   the levels uh yeah i'm actually i i order levels  uh but right now i think it's a different producer   i just had my annual checkup this tuesday i'm 49  everything is fine i can run another 151 years   but then so coming back to your question rich so  for me the future is also about internet of body   about our ability to detect uh the disease  before it's even manifest itself develops   itself my future is about helping people who are  suffering today from neurogenerative diseases   by supplementing and helping their brain to  work through brain computer ai integration   so for me it's not a cyborg thing for me is uh is  an opportunity to help people in their like 80s   90s to actually have a clear mind and enjoy  their life not to be in a fragile stage and   well the other piece of it is human avatars we are  longevity vision fund in my font which supports   affordable and accessible version of longevity  and digital health we look at few human avatars   projects but we still undecided whether it's going  to be like robotic avatar route or virtual avatar   because virtual it's just much easier to replicate  ourselves in a virtual world i i just couldn't   really accept that as a person as a human being  so i would love us to stay in the real world   but um well that's uh that might be there so  there's there's plenty of things which gonna   happen well i wanna walk through all of these  technological advances um in in in a serial   fashion but before we wade any deeper into this  perhaps we should define our terms a little bit   yeah you know how do you think about longevity  because that means different things to different   people yeah that's true well remember i'm really  interested in developing a solution which are   accessible for as many people as possible so my  definition of longevity is intentionally broad   whatever increase the average health span  and lifespan on earth is longevity for me   and there's a lot of reasons behind that partly  because aging is not considered as disease   in official terms so you couldn't really  invest in aging and have your investments   protected pay off your billions of  dollars if you want to invest in that   but partly because you need to be intentionally  brought and work with a health span to make sure   the ears that we add to someone's life are  healthy and happy years and not necessarily   like you just said in five to ten years in the  end of that so that's my definition of longevity   so in terms of kind of where we're at right now  and what we're on the cusp of there's a variety   of buckets here um and it's super interesting  you know you're talking about your wearables   you know i'm wearing a whoop strap i think you  have an aura ring on yeah i don't know you would   have four three or four well you also have an  apple watch so that's doing whatever it's doing   we're only going to see the expansion of  these devices in the refinement of them   until we reach some inflection point where all  our biomarkers are not only getting tracked in   real time they're getting uploaded to  some cloud and they're being computed   alongside these other massive data sets the  numbers are getting crunched and some ai is   getting a really refined glimpse or picture of  what human health is and that of course leads us   into this new field of not only early detection  but early diagnosis and the ability to kind of   catch things before they even get to a certain  point where they become malignant or problematic   for the human body when you have a less well  pretty lower chances of recovery like stage four   cancer is probably 20 to 30 recovery rates stage  one like early detected cancer gives you 93 to 100   recovery chances so that's the case but i  mean you're right this is the future that we   aiming for we're working towards so with that  i mean there's all sorts of there's a whole   ethical you know sort of discussion that  i want to have with you but we can kind of   table that this is my favorite utopia yeah i love  morality or immortality no this is yeah this is   that i read that chapter twice because this is  what i really want to talk about with you but   um what is what are we looking at in the next  you know five or so years in terms of where   this wearable technology is because it's some  of it's better than others um you can tell that   this is in a you know to kind of extend the age  metaphor in its embryonic state in terms of its   maturity and its ability to really provide  you with accurate information that's that's   that's uh that has a practical application for  the individual obviously the data is what's most   important to the companies that are creating these  but in terms of of how we use this data to improve   our lives like where is that heading and kind of  what's next in terms of what we can expect well   let's that's just a lot of thoughts around this  question so one is one third of the world data   is health care related well that's a lot right  and and this is great it's a great opportunity   second is um well it's an uh it's almost like  an anecdote i think it was uk health regulator   who just prohibited the purchase of fax machines  for hospitals and like when was the last time you   i mean you've seen fax machine that's that's more  of a glimpse into like where we're at in terms of   yeah well let's start well that's again every risk  is an opportunity so both in the us and uk up to   in some of the cases up to 70 of the data transfer  is happening through fax machine and it's i think   it's ridiculous yeah it is so in the future  data is an opportunity and i do believe that   and i'm always saying that the  largest health care companies on earth   in 10 years time gonna be amazon apple  sure uh microsoft or whatever the big tech   uh who are interested and and engaging in the  healthcare space so the change will come not from   us or the old players doing new things the  change will come from new players doing new   things well and that's exactly the beauty  of wearables and its ability to collect data   and then store it in cloud and then artificial  intelligence pre-analyze that so i i think about   like wearables though that we have i do believe  that in the next two to three years we'll add few   um important features to measure like our glucose  to measure our blood pressure and then if you add   it to what what you can measure today well that's  i do think it's 90 to 95 of the health data you   need to measure on ongoing basis about your body  uh there's this little human interaction needed   in actually analyzing all of that even today  early like liquid biopsy early cancer diagnostic   companies just run exactly the same procedure  data cloud ai and then feedback loop to you   and well that's i i do think it's an  opportunity and it's going to be much more   kind of friendly um integrated version  of wearables for all of us and again uh   this will help us to fight uh as i call  killer monster diseases like heart disease uh   cancer diabetes and it's probably after age of 50  this uh these three diseases are responsible for   about 70 75 percent of that so and they're all  preventable moreover the cost of all of this gonna   decrease exponentially so we at longevity vision  fund when we invest in technologies like this   the optimization gain is not 10 to 20 but 10 20 50  times against car and technology so it's much more   efficient and cheaper version of the healthcare  and the paradigm going to be like super preventive   super personalized rather than one size fits all  at ridiculous prices i feel like the pandemic   uh really accelerated this process  no like gasoline on this fire from   telemedicine to obviously the introduction  or the the the heightened interest of the   tech giants getting into this of course  amazon being you know the obvious oh yeah   player who's going to move in here in a big way  i just know from wearing a whoop strap like oh   the you know you get emails like pay attention to  your respiratory rate if you see a wild swing like   that could be an early indicator of being sick and  i think this is only going to be more ubiquitous i   mean levels when you look at it they're predicting  something like 30 of americans are going to be   diabetic or prediabetic by 2050. so blood glucose  monitoring is going to be just basically something   that most people are going to be doing especially  as the price point comes down yeah yeah well   that's amazing and if you look at the whoops of  this world this will transform itself from being   like activity tracker to our very own personalized  healthcare device so that's why you know i'm   i was not a big fan of wearables even three to  four years ago i really just forced myself to use   it like ordering like whoop that you having just  to make sure i i start to collect the data and   form like a database of my own health indicators  so this is just going to change our ability to   uh control our health but also it gives  us an opportunity to take responsibility   back because think about this i do believe  like 95 percent of our health choices today   are delegated to other companies and other players  and they're not necessarily doing this in our   own interest from regulators to you know big food  producers health care providers the overall health   health care system it's a sticky wicket i mean  it's a tangled knot of vested interests and   cronyism and just a massive byzantine bureaucracy  that you know well-intentioned politicians are   always trying to you know make malleable and  always come up short i mean i know that's a   big part of your mission is like how do we revamp  healthcare how do we create a system that that is   compatible with this modern age and the power of  these technologies that we have to revolutionize   how we think about not just aging but preventing  and and diagnosing and treating disease   yeah i agree with you and what we have today is i  call it the system of collective irresponsibility   because no one is really responsible for making  sure you have healthy choices along your life road   and and it's partly because we don't feel  that we can manage that and i do think the   the arrival of wearables of more data-driven  medicine give us this opportunity to feel in   control to feel responsible for health choices  yeah i mean so much of it is environmental   though because those healthy choices are not  as easily accessible as the vending machine   or the drive-through oh this is my biggest  pain right and and it's and i do think it's   it's really unfair to the people specifically here  in the u.s right when we spend 18 percent of gdp   on healthcare again three at least three out  of last five years lifespan was decreasing   we're like the only developed country on  earth which has its lifespan decreasing and   what is happening like 70 of um antibiotics is  consumed not by people but poor animals animals   yeah and and so i just had a chat with uh with the  ceo and head of science at human longevity center   in san diego when i do my annual checkup  and and i was just asking guys what what   is your biggest worry about u.s nation and  i kind of thought it's a sugar because we   just consume enormous amount of sugar against  our interest in the form of um well different   foods but mostly sugar drinks and to my  surprise they said you know what sergey   the the biggest problem is actually antibiotics  resistant developed by the fact that people just   have still have this habit to consuming  meat and fish which is made in very cruel   uh industrial terms and has things which shouldn't  be there like growth hormones antibiotics equally   bacteria and and it's so caloric intensive it  actually works against your longevity because   there's a lot of disagreement in in the science  world what actually today would actually give you   an opportunity to extend your life uh but there's  almost one agreement that that decreasing your   calories intake uh is the best way to add at least  two four five healthy and happy years and like   just consuming this whole animal protein thing  increase your calorie intake by what 50 to 100   so if you on a plant base well that's like the  easiest way for you to manage this whole thing   without torturing yourself with like everyday  choices can i eat that or not i'm so for me   default choice i'm like as plant-based as possible  because even if i'll eat like a half of this table   of vegetables i'm still going to be fine and  there's it's just healthy on on so many fronts   for your mind and your body so i run on vegetables  all right you now you're speaking my language okay   yeah you know let's do it i'm all about that so  we're on the same page as far as that as far as   that is concerned i'm interested in how i mean you  have a you have a lens on the us healthcare system   you know where we've gone awry how does that  square with with how russia handles it like what   the difference is there yeah so yeah i'm more  knowledgeable in how it's done in uk because   i'm part of um uk parliamentary group on national  longevity strategy and singapore because i have a   lot of friends i'm actually doing a presentation  on on in july to singapore authorities to make   the first countrywide longevity program for the  whole country i'm actually my resolution for this   year to find a country which i can change and  so that's why i'm working with uk and singapore   um well singapore spends five percent of its gdp  on healthcare and this is together with japan this   is the highest lifespan average lifespan you have  in in the world so compare it with like 18 percent   that we spend here so that's that's one two is we  need to accept that um to stay on longevity breach   and enjoy all these technologies  that i have in a near horizon   in horizon 2 which will be available to us widely  in 5 10 15 years you need to make a change today   right to be healthy and happy in 15 years time to  enjoy all of this and a lot of these choices are   about your your own lifestyle so what is your  diet what is the level of physical activity   how peaceful is your mind because every time we  talk about our own health we tend to defer to   physical health while mental is is equally  important to that so that's why when   when we do a change program for huge corporation  and again it's all pro bono um everything i do in   longevity is is me sharing the best of me with the  world um so when we do a program like a corporate   longevity program the largest i've done was three  for 300 000 people in like 29 countries uh we just   work through the five buckets one is uh like  annual checkup and and any composition of this   has changed dramatically in the last five years  um bad habits like no smoking you know no alcohol   a lot of this kind of stupid mistakes that we do  in terms of the bad habits third is about diet   changing everything in the vending machines in the  canteen so people have uh more plant-based choices   and i was also actually insisting that they have  like uh vegetables fridays and mondays but uh   i haven't find any big company who are just  comfortable with with you know narrowing down   the choice to vegetables only but i'm you know  this is it's tough we can't get the fast food   restaurants out of a lot of the hospitals oh yeah  it's insane right yeah or schools right yeah so   that's the third one fourth is physical activity  leveraging variables even the current version of   whoops or feed beats or apple watch um to measure  uh the steps like 10 000 steps a day and it   builds up like department by department business  unit to business unit country competing with   country who's done more steps that's exciting  and thief is is um peace of mind which is a lot   of things i call it think and grow young which  is sleep and i know you have matthew walker on   your podcast his book changed my whole approach  to sleep i i was just crazy right it is like i   was just looking at my sleep hours as like  endless credit where i can borrow the hours   and apparently i think this research came up  like last month that if you sleep like five to   six hours a day your chances to get alzheimer's  like 40 percent higher so then it's meditation   because we all have extremely high cortisol  level our body and mind were never designed   to handle amount of stress that we have here and  like having access to constantly negative news   that we have around us um is pretty bad and  then it's a lot of different things like act   of kindness sense of purpose that you that you  have it's it's very important as well so it's it's   a little bit longer answer but you know all of  these five buckets are important as well because   human body and mind um are probably  the most complex thing on this planet   and yet the uh sorry that steppenwolf was there  but but of the protocols you just mentioned   they're all very rudimentary elementary simple  things that we can do now we can talk about all   the crazy future devices and wearables and the you  know genetic engineering that we're going to get   into but fundamentally right now do these things  take care of yourself in the best way that you   know how to and most people are already aware on  some level of all of these things it's a matter of   implementing them into your life but the one piece  the one the one bucket there that you mentioned   that i'm not sure we've talked enough about  at least on this podcast is this idea of   of um of getting these you know consistently  getting checkups so that if you have a problem   you're in an early detection phase and i think  that's in part informed by on some level a   distrust of the medical establishment i mean your  own personal story of going to the doctor and just   being prescribed like you take this and you're  good the inquiry doesn't really extend beyond that   right hopefully as scanning and you know testing  diagnostics improve we'll be better at that early   detection phase but i just know for myself i'm  like when i go to the doctor he's going to take my   blood he's going to say whatever i'm like what am  i really gonna get out of that am i really gonna   uh you know put myself in a position where if  i do have some latent condition and it's early   phase that it will even be detected yeah so things  have changed dramatically in in this field like   right now i mean you can do like full body mri and  the current version of these devices is like as   precise as possible they actually upgrade the  the software there every six months so just a   few years ago when i started to do my checkups um  it was radiologists looking through my scans and   human being without support from computer uh  is successful in terms of detecting probably   yeah as far as i recall 38 of early stage cancer  cases just based on the review of the scans but if   you empower this radiologist with artificial  intelligence and it's not i it's not either   or it's not mutually exclusive like people  think it's actually a combination of human   and artificial intelligence success rate is 98  to 99 well that's that's amazing and it's also   it's becoming less invasive right just a few  years to check colon cancer it's like a few   thousand dollars procedure it's invasive you do  it under sedation right now we have cola guard 19   and that's it and it's it's as precise as  um as the procedure you do a few years ago   and uh it's just amazing how you know like for 19  dollars how you can avoid like one of the largest   risk of your life get any colon cancer because  usually it's manifest itself at a very late stage   so a lot of discoveries is actually stage four  cancer when uh recovery rates are uh very low   and or this thing like you know zeo patch  which will kind of measure uh the work of   your heart so i do think it's time for us  to change our view on on what is actually um   almost any healthcare provider has to offer to us  because of this speed of technological development   and scientific development is just accelerating  right it is crazy how humans i mean once you if   you were to get cancer you would spend any amount  of money that you have in order to eradicate it   but we won't spend the nineteen dollars for  the test yeah it's yeah i i actually find it   really counterintuitive and uh every proactive  treatment is at least 10 to 20 times cheaper   than treating like post factum treating disease  at the late stage one and then recovery rates   like in terms of impact on on the quality of  your life it's just amazing so my father had   lung cancer back in 2005. and he survived  but a guy just shrunk in size by one-third   and his quality of life never recovered and and  this isn't not the type of longevity that we all   you know want to have so we just influence our  um health uh in an advanced manner well this   well that's one when it's this separate issue  and separate aspect of that i don't want to if   you want to go to that the version of medicine  that you will find in the hospital next door   is 17 years old well that's that's  the time between approval of something   until it gets kind of distributed and available  in the healthcare system so think about you just   you go there and like what is offered to you  is dated what in year 2000 well that's another   problem i'm still kind of thinking how to solve it  but again it is about different players disrupting   this whole thing it's not about making efficient  current systems yeah sure so you can't you can't   just focus on the technological innovation  without tackling the regulatory landscape i   mean that is those things go hand in hand because  uh you'll never get out of the gate with anything   in terms of you know implementation if you  can't deal with the regulatory and that's   perhaps the bigger hurdle here you  do have all these startup companies   who are coming on board i presume  a lot of them will end up getting   absorbed by the larger tech companies as they  consolidate here um but the governmental piece   is is really the the mount everest of enacting  positive change yeah that's true well the biggest   change that we can do is just accept in in  regulatory terms accepting aging is disease   because this will give you like a framework for  investment because i'm always saying that that   longevity and age reversal is like a next cancer  case we're right in the middle of winning the war   against cancer you think about 20 years ago people  were deferring the deferring the date of their   uh cancer screening because if they had a  cancer it's almost like piece of that yeah   that that's there's a psychological piece there  yeah yeah most people are just like i don't want   to know you know or i'm too afraid to find out  because then suddenly my life's going to change   it's not the case anymore uh so we again early  stage cancer diagnosis gives you 93 to 100   chances to recover and we still have this kind  of old 20 years old mentality to face that   well you're talking about classifying aging as a  disease that's something i talked about with david   on the show about i mean there's a hurdle in just  getting people's minds around that right which is   i would suspect one reason why you want to go to  a smaller country like singapore or what have you   where you can run kind of a pilot program um  easier to you know sort of test the waters and   enact change in a smaller situation rather than  just you know trying to combat the powers that be   in washington yeah that's true right kind of  like how is it el salvador or ecuador where   bitcoin just became like legal tender yeah like  it's just you know do it in a smaller country   and then you know the dominoes begin to fall from  there yeah but on that idea of aging as a disease   like where are we in terms like if you go to  capitol hill and you're you know testifying before   congress on these issues like getting those people  to wrap their heads around that i mean good luck   oh yeah it was probably the most difficult  challenge that i've a challenge i've ever faced   and and we we all longevity related uh scientific  and technological community are struggling   with that and um again i still don't know the  answer uh but what i do know that with the age   your chances to get heart disease cancer  diabetes are exponentially higher look   at the recent covet example unfortunately covet  were detrimental for the old part of population   so this there's a clear case behind it because if  you go to walgreens or cvs today and you ask for   drug against aging they would think you're crazy  or they would send you to cosmetics or supplements   and and this is counterintuitive so i do think we  would need to change it good news i think it was   back in 2018 world health organization actually  uh had a special code for for aging and like   age-related diseases risk in its global  uh like a territory of uh diseases and i   do think with just consistent work in terms of  establishing dialogue with with washington dc   uh and what fda or uh any other government bodies  uh has to offer and has to listen it's just it's   gonna be there so i don't really know when will  happen if you ask me i do think there's just some   few smaller countries in the world will accept  this i will create the viable economic model for   investments in longevity and this will happen  because cancer today is 100 billion dollars of   research and development money funded every year  to fight cancer and that's why 6 out of 10 u.s  

biggest revenue drugs are oncology  drugs back in 2008 it was statins   remember my story viagra and only one on culture  drug right now it's six out of ten so the same   should happen in in fighting aging and age-related  disease right now longevity is one or two billion   uh dollar investments every year so when i set up  longevity vision fund with hundred million dollars   this is not my money this is money of investors  um people thought you know we just crazy we became   imagine largest longevity focused fund in the  world with 100 million in financial industry terms   this is the most insignificant amount of money  they can have and again people thought we just uh   we're doing a lot of stupid things but things have  changed in the last two to three years and again   i agree with your reach that kovit has accelerated  a lot of the mind shift and basically created a   showcase of so many different technologies which  can help us from various genome sequencing that   we've done in couple of days yeah right and that  was the next thing i wanted to talk about the   other piece you know in this near horizon in  this effort to kind of normalize the idea of   of of growing to 150 years old in addition to  the wearables and the big data sets and the early   um the diagno the diagnostics and the early  detection is this genetic engineering piece   yeah so before we go into like technological and  and scientific aspect of that this there's a huge   ethical debate and trade-offs that we need to sort  out before we actually embrace uh that in fact my   belief that in 10 20 years time when the science  and technology will be there ethics and regulation   will not be there to embrace and accept that  that's that's going to be our biggest obstacles   and that's why morality of immortality discussion  is so important how do we need to change the world   for us to embrace the idea of living longer again  separate topic so think about what has happened   in in gene editing and gene therapy front in the  last 10 to 20 years we've been able to sequence   our genome we right now we know 3 000 genes which  are responsible for the aging processes in our   body and just uh probably decades ago chin therapy  was a tool to help people with the rare genetic   diseases some of them it was group of hundred or  200 people all around the world suffering from   this extremely rare genetic disease so this is  where we were uh 10 plus years from now so then   probably five years uh ago we the the portfolio  of gene therapies against rare genetic disease   really expanded again against rare disease  so right now we can help 400 million people   who suffer from rare diseases all around the  world it's called rare but it's not rare at all   it's 400 million people on this planet that's  a lot and then we just see in the cases of   gene therapy addressing much broader issues  like vaccines that we that we have against covet   are typical example of gene therapy we just  don't recognize that this is the move which   can help us to happen uh to and to address covet  or the there's the other drug i don't want to   gonna mention its name which lows your cholesterol  level not statin you just do this every six months   and uh it's the addressable market for that is  40 of people on this planet who has elevated   cholesterol level um so we just in the course  of 10 plus years we've moved from something very   niche risky uh to the tool and any technology  which can help half of the planet and this is   how fast uh the pace of of the progress uh is  but again uh when i think about gene editing and   gene therapy i'm more focused on helping people  who suffer rather than going into in a sci-fi   territory yeah yeah yeah when people think you  know i mean this is a part of it we might have   to have the morality discussion sooner rather  than yeah because it it it really does impact   everything that we're talking about i mean  when you're talking about genetic engineering   it wasn't that long ago where it cost billions  of dollars to do this mapping and now it's very   cheap and fast and affordable but it continues  to you know grow and expand and and evolve and   now we're into this prime editing phase of it  right which is kind of the the evolution of   explain what that is because it's pretty wild  yeah so this there's a number of um okay so we   can when we talk about gene editing we have  um uh the technology which is uh in use is   like a crispr so that's like uh um almost like  genetic scissors which cut the part of your   dna which is not working and replace it with the  with the other while it's it's it's it's been   basically a revolution in terms of uh our  ability to uh change our genetic code there's   so many different technologies which has been  developed since that right for example like speak   to david sinclair he is a big fan of epigenetic  reprogramming and and the fact is that you don't   really need to change the composition of dna  you can just silence or in opposite uh give an   opportunity to certain genes to express itself and  that's that's a nicer and more safe way to address   your genetic uh problem or well the way genes are  like at influencing what is happening in our body   is just uh you know proteins right the creation  of different proteins with the different functions   so you can have like a viral vector well that's  the actual term which just goes into the cell with   uh with with the different genetic materials  which produce the protein which you're missing in   your body which can be which which basically the  trigger for disease or your dysfunction or your   shorter life etc so and it's and there's so many  things happening in gene editing and gene therapy   uh world like you can take take your immune cells  like t cells and reprogram them outside human body   it will be yours so and then you just uh you  know make sure it it uh they come back to you   um and uh and they fight cancer this is  like the definition of uh immune oncology   and i know quite a few of people who actually  weren't really untreatable 10 years ago   but right now with this personalized version  of genetic and when you're on t cells fighting   your own cancer cells it's it's just really  mind-blowing yeah i mean there it's this weird   stew of miraculous and terrifying because the  idea that we're going in and we're snipping dna   or we're you know muting or silencing  certain sequences and activating others   it just makes me there's a part of me that cringes  inside because behind it all there is a certain   you know uh human spirit to be celebrated but  also a hubris that i'm not sure is as checked as   maybe it should be you know what i mean we always  go into these things thinking well it's it's a   binary thing we turn this gene off or whatever it  is and it'll have this a to b kind of impact but   we're not very good at looking at at these things  from a more holistic perspective and realizing   all the downstream implications of these things  that we just didn't understand or realize because   we you know we jumped before we stopped so i  do believe in the collective wisdom and you are   not alone so if you ask i think it was a study  done five years ago in use us in the uk so when   people has been offered to chance to uh extend  their lifespan if they can by 10 or 20 years so   we've got more than 65 percent people say no so  even if you say it's healthy and happy years we   have a lot of limiting beliefs and it's a lot of  things that we even don't know what we don't know   about this whole thing so one of the challenges  in our space is like how do we define that how do   we communicate that this is an opportunity how do  we manage the risk and uh again as i say uh in the   morality of immortality chapter we have created  technologies to extend our life but we haven't   created a life that we want to extend and there's  so many ethical trade-offs that we need to solve   in terms of the our own health and in terms of  the health of the planet before the idea of life   extension will be interesting and positive for  you and for so many people and here in the u.s or   people on the planet i mean i know you're an  optimist with all of this stuff but when i kind   of cast my gaze across history i don't see human  beings being very good at at grappling with the   ethical implications of technological innovation  because it's almost as if it's our biological   imperative to continue to iterate and invent and  progress and we give lip service to the idea of   should we or should we not do this but ultimately  it's going to happen no matter what right and i'd   like to think that yes we're going to put together  a manhattan project type brain trust to really   think about you know the profound unbelievably  profound implications of this vein of science   and hopefully there's lots of smart people like  yourself who are thinking about this and and   working on it but it's so intertwined with every  other challenge that we're facing and every other   you know existential threat to the future of the  planet and humanity that i can easily descend into   a more despairing view of how this is going  to play out i agree so world shouldn't consist   of sergey youngs yeah i'm because i'm like  super optimistic guy you know i need to be   super optimistic to fight the problem which we  haven't sold through the history of evolution   or uh the history of science right uh so that's  one there's always a the we need a balancing act   from the public right from uh people who are much  more skeptical about this because they are not   coming up with answers they coming up with great  questions and this is what we so my concern is   that we're working on this science and technology  of that and no one is working on the ethical side   right and please don't make you know make me  responsible for that i think it's our common   problem and i also agree with yurich that we  don't have a choice i mean this is happening it's   not like you we can sit down and decide what is  going to happen and we will just accept the fact   that or you know approve this whole thing this is  happening silver tsunami is happening development   of gene editing and gene therapy technologies is  happening increase of the lifespan is happening   100 years ago the average lifespan on earth was  what 35 years right now it's again for developed   uh uh countries it's 75. no one ever had a  debate like can we allow this to happen or not so   in a way this is a trajectory and and  what i what i would like to do is for   us to start a conversation start a thinking  process about how the world should change   how our relationship with mother nature should  change how our ethical norms social constructs   needs to change i would nominate you've  all know a harare to be in charge of that   inquiry yeah but we need to have a diversity  of uh uh opinions i think you all has a little   bit more uh like a dramatic view of our future  specifically uh just which derives from change in   uh healthcare like genetic uh gene editing  technologies but again i mean it's not up to   me to decide but it's just it's our collective  problem it's our collective discussion it's our   collective choice right right yeah and the same  goes to again like using plastics or allowing   dictatorships to happen or just how we  think about social constructs like marriage   all of which are in play and in flux yeah as these  technologies become more mature i mean beyond this   this you know shorter shorter window this shorter  horizon you know the other section of your book is   about this uh more expanded horizon of things that  you know are going to be they're kind of in their   in their infant state that you're predicting are  going to be realities and i don't know how long   the window is here but it gets pretty crazy right  it is we're talking about you know not just things   like organ regeneration and you know growing new  body parts like the way that we're cultivating   cellular meat right now but uh the idea of  tele-existence and ai brain integration and   uploading your consciousness to the cloud like  the stuff that is truly of science fiction and   some kind of utopian philip dick meets aubrey  de grey scenario yeah but it's just like well   let's just balance that so imagine our  conversation happening back in 1990   we like we really i mean we humans are really  bad with like predicting the future so in a way   my i don't want to predict the future with  um which should be like as precise as 100   the only reason why i'm trying to predict the  future and highlight all these technologies is to   for us to start thinking and making these  choices today to make sure that we are   comfortable with you know all this scientific  technological societal progress that we have   because to solve a problem of plastic to solve  a problem of um industrial production of meat   you don't need to wait for 2050. it should be  solved right now and i'm happy there's just a  

lot of technologies and and innovation  happening in the space like plant-based   meat right which is uh which will change the  landscape uh pretty significantly but again for   me it's a wake-up call like predicting the future  is a wake-up call that we need to have today   yeah i have bruce friedrich coming tomorrow  who's from this organization called the good   food institute oh yeah he's at the center of  this whole yeah and plant-based meals we need   more people like that um indeed but  on this idea like it's such an amazing   provocative i call it a thought experiment you  would call it a future reality to just consider   the implications of living to 200 and beyond  that the the possibility of being immortal i   mean these are questions that humanity is reckoned  with and wrestled with you know as far as we've   been a thing right and the idea of should we  is is really amazing right and you kind of   walk through like let's have the ethical  conversation like should we do this like   what happens to humanity what happens to the  human psyche when you wake up in the morning   and you have a choice for just how long yeah you  want to live yeah there's a few things there um   one i i just wanted to be upfront i'm not a big  fan of immortality right because i do think if   you take out the death from the human life cycle  we are not going to be human life is meaningless   in life with its preciousness yeah exactly so  that's that's my thought well the second thought   i think it's very unlikely that we will have  a moment in our life when we will reach the   point when when you just in one day you decide  are you going to be immortal or not it's going   to be serious of your life extension decisions  which you do like every 5 to ten years uh so   let's change your perspective you would actually  be much more in control to defining the quantity   but also the quality of your life so this this  is what's gonna happen um in the future which   actually raises one of the questions that that i  ask uh in the book um so your decision to extend   your life or not is considered in our society  and culture is considered suicide or playing god   and then my my related question like will we have  like a bravery to make this decision you know when   i think about this in my own terms i would just  hate the idea of like you know i need to decide   on my own about this so that's this  actually you know makes my mind tired   imagine yeah unless you're in that situation  yeah how you would process it yeah exactly so   that's just and it's again it's just one of the  questions there's more of that so if we're going   to be living 200 years for example like paint  the picture of what this looks like yeah uh   so then so what's going to happen uh with our  marriages so right now depending on the country   two-thirds of the marriages going through divorce  in the first three five or seven years after the   uh wedding so what will happen with uh with the  family right with with marriage's institution will   we consider more like a kids-raising partnership  thing uh and again i i don't know the answer   for 150 years yeah so it's it's very  difficult to imagine so and and this   is or think about your career should our  life consist of several beautiful mini lives   well that's uh that's the question and and just  a lot of constructs in our society are not really   supporting this this whole idea of the longer life  and i do think since as we discussed our lifespan   increased uh twofold in the last hundred years  i don't we've done any kind of rethinking on how   our society is structured on uh in this regard  yeah i mean there's so many questions there is   the question of of you know what is the meaning  of all of this if it proceeds indefinitely like   what is god what is faith yeah there's the more  practical considerations of how does this impact   the environment this is my favorite you know a  limited amount of resources we're talking about   living longer which means more people you have a  whole thing about you know reducing the the birth   rate and this notion that actually population's  going to decrease which i struggle with you   know comprehending or not really cleaning or  agreeing with it so um so let's just talk a   little bit about this so there's a good study  uh i think published last well early last year   uh so if you look at reproduction rates all around  the planet we for every women um it's below two   so that's basically less than you know kind of two  kids per family in i don't remember the figure for   us but it's probably somewhere around 1.5 like in  some of the places like poland it's actually 1.3   so we are if you look at you and you put all of  this in in a mathematical model um the population   of earth gonna peak that somewhere around 10 or  11 billion by year 2050 and then it's going to   decrease the china will lose uh will it will  population of china going to decrease from   1.4 billion to 800 million people uh by the end  of this century and and the same will happen   everywhere with the exception of africa they still  have african continents and countries there they   still have pretty high uh reproduction rates that  foundation the foundation of that idea is premised   on raising the standard of living right like the  more that you educate people the more that you   and this is why paul hawkins big thing in drawdown  is educating girls so the more educated the women   are the less likely they are to have children so  as you raise that floor then you're looking at   one or two kids at most if you get it down to one  then we're in a declining population yeah well if   you're going down two because remember they need  to do a job like for uh her and her husband right   and obviously there's there's a different trend we  we can see we see decoupling like our reproductive   function from our kind of life it's just a lot of  technological front in terms of um our ability to   have babies without actually you know being your  like mother of this but what i was about to say   is um this whole thing is is happening and um our  reproduction race has been in decline and simply   because people have more choice there's just more  alternatives and it's it's good that they they're   using that but again it's you don't want to live  in the world like i think it was singapore figure   like 25 of the people of population of singapore  is already 65 plus so you need to respond and some   same happening in japan same will happen in u.s  so we need to work with the increasing quality of   life of the people who are in in all stage and the  way to address that is is addressing health span because we need to increase health span in  parallel with with what is happening now we   increase of the lifespan as well so that's  one and there's external component to that   your own health is important but the  health of the planet is important as well   because many of us behave in a way that we  just ignore we don't take responsibility   for what what's our relationship with mother  nature is because simply the old mentality is   like you know i will not be alive then yeah  and and this thing will be sorted out by my   kind of kids and and grandkids sure so the idea if  you're going to be around a lot longer than yeah   again remember i'm like ideally right so the  idea is getting that yeah the idea is that   if we face a problem that we're going to live  with consequences of our own action i think   this will drive a much larger uh feeling and sense  of responsibility for what we're doing so anyway   but if you're a dude and you're around for  200 years and you had a kid 50 years ago   who doesn't talk to you anymore maybe you  think maybe i should have another one right   or if you're a woman and you're in this future  situation that you're imagining where you could   actually toggle your biological age and you  know i want to be 25 or whatever and you're   fertile for 200 years are you only going  to have one or two kids yeah we're going   to have multiple generations of kids that's and  they're all going to be living that long yeah   so i don't know the math seems yeah so i've done  the math so i was just planning i'm visualizing   a lot because i do believe like my mantra is to  live 200 years in 25 years old body so that's   i'm a great believer of psychological aspect of  aging it's actually this changing to this paradigm   mental paradigm has changed my life a lot because  every morning i wake up i have like three fourth   of my life ahead of me i can dream i can think big  i can actually change the world in a positive way   but um so if if you think about this one um i do  so the math is if i'm going to have in my like 150   years old party uh so i just did a calculation  and if i will invite only immediate family   and immediate friends it's gonna be like  15 000 people party when i turn 150.  

we'll be back in a sec but first if you dig  this podcast and i hope you dig this podcast   then i think you'll really enjoy my latest  book voicing change featuring excerpts from   poignant essays by and glorious photography  of some 50 of my favorite guests over the last   eight plus years of doing this thing this podcast  it's a gorgeous artful compendium of the show and   copious wisdom shared therein all wrapped in a  hardcover coffee table form that provides a great   taste of what we do here at the rrp and serves  as a beautiful keepsake or gift for the ardent   fan the book is only and exclusively available  on our website signed copies are available and   we are shipping globally direct to any coffee  table on planet earth so to learn more and snag   your copy today visit richroll.com vc that's  richroll.com vc all right let's get back into it   one thing that comes to my mind when i the more  i think about this is the mental health piece of   this my instinct is that it would provoke an  existential crisis in many because in tandem   with these innovations will come basically an  economy driven by ai and robots who are performing   a lot of the jobs that we don't have and maybe we  have a universal basic income situation but like   where are people going to find meaning in their  lives and when they're going to be living so long   how do you anchor you know that that quest or  whatever it is that gets people excited when they   wake up in the morning to go out and be in the  world how does that how does that get anchored in   a timeline that has become so extended like  i i don't know that we're we can even predict   what that would feel like yeah i agree and um  again i can talk only in terms of opportunities   in the future which kind of this picture of  the future give us uh today i'm also again   i'm not really like the futurist who just like  embrace whatever will happen there for me it's   just important reason to have a discussion that  we have today and go through our choices but i   do think it's an opportunity for us for us and i  know it sounds idealistic to connect to ourselves   because i do believe that uh if you take out the  noise of the environment and our social norms and   social pressure we are much better we are much we  humans are kind okay so that's the opportunity to   relate to your heart to your mind to realize your  dreams to to do the things that you always were   dreaming of doing so that's um so that's my yeah  and uh opportunity talk i hear that well let's   talk about the economic implications of all of  this because the other piece which is kind of a   gattaca thing right or what was that other movie  where they were all up in like some orbiting   spacecraft where they were sleeping in pods and  i can't remember it but anyway you know as this   plays out in science fiction typically there's  going to be a huge underclass and there will be   the one percent who have access to this type of  technology to you know be if not immortal live   for a very long time in beautiful bodies and have  access to all of these privileges that the rest   of us don't the example that you you illustrate  in the book is or the kind of thought experiment   is the dictator who you know basically refuses  to step down is going to be there forever   yeah um the power differential and the economic  implications of this yeah so i do believe that   everything we've seen in terms of  scientific and technological progress in the course of like every invention  in the course of 10 to 20 years   becoming like super affordable so think  about the smartphone example uh like a   seller of phone like 25 30 years ago it was  a thing which cost you like 10 000 dollars   probably more it was like super heavy uh right  now if you go to like electronic market in china   you're gonna pay like nine dollars for the working  version of the smartphone so that's why or you   think about cola guard example uh which helps to  identify colon cancer it's extremely early stage   well this is test which cost nineteen dollars  so i do believe that technological and and   scientific innovation give us an opportunity  not to kind of increase the gap but as also to   empower um and and bring technologies and  inventions which would improve everyone's life   but again like we just we keep coming back to  that uh i so my yeah i'm always it's it's funny so   i have a mission of changing one billion lives and  it's always going to be one person in the audience   who just stand up and and say sergey why only  one billion we have seven billion people on   the planet and you forgot about the rest so i i  like when people kind of make me responsible for   like whole problems of this world but in  a way i'm just i'm in a i'm on a mission   to bring affordable and accessible version of  health to everyone at the fraction of cost against   what we pay today think about you know even if we  and every technology that we invest in is like 10   20 times cheaper than today's equivalent so think  about us releasing like nine percent of us gdp   and spending on some other things right yeah  education housing helping you know making people   uh happier i think the opportunity is there and  i i don't really gonna accept the idea of well   sergey well this is your thought well let's just  like how are you gonna solve it i i accept that   idea guys there's something happening and this  is gonna happen whether we want it or not like   twofold increase of a lifespan that we've seen  in the last country well let's have a dialogue   let's be active let's be responsible let's make  sure we we take back control and responsibility   for our own health and the health of our planet  so that's the idea yeah in other words you're   confident that these difficult questions and  and problems that this will will bring up or   ourselves also solvable yeah yeah i do like  everything we solved so far right in human   history and we always have a tendency to look  like a negative side

2021-08-21

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