Kind: captions
Language: en
everybody Welcome to impact Theory you
are here my friends because you believe
that human potential is nearly Limitless
but you know that having potential is
not the same as actually doing something
with it so our goal with this show and
Company is to introduce you to the
people and ideas that are actually going
to help you execute on your dreams all
right today's guest is a hyper
intelligent furiously educated Onan Army
hellbent to to create a brighter future
While others may look forward and see
only a dystopian world where the
machines enslave us for our heat energy
he sees only amazing possibilities and
this optimism coupled with a metric ton
of grit and degrees in molecular
genetics and aerospace engineering from
MIT and an MD from Harvard Medical
School have helped him shape himself
into one of the most potent
entrepreneurial forces on the planet he
has committed to helping at least 1
million entrepreneurs create companies
that matter and he believes that the
best way to predict the future is to
create it as such he's founded 17
companies himself and invested in
countless more that are designed to
alter the very fabric of human society
from Human longevity Inc and cellularity
which together aim to keep us all
healthy and add 30 high performance
years to the human lifespan to
Singularity University which is
disrupting education and business quite
frankly and planetary resources a
company that builds the spaceship's
humankind will need to you guessed it
mine asteroids he's literally
constructing our future one
game-changing Enterprise at a time he's
also the founder and executive chairman
of X prise the legendary nonprofit that
gave birth to privatize space flight and
continues to incentivize some of the
biggest scientific and technological
breakthroughs of the 21st century it is
not hard to see my friends why Fortune
Magazine is named of one of the 50
greatest leaders of our time so please
help me in welcoming the man who has a
stamp with his face on it the multiple
time New York Times best-selling author
of bold and abundance the future is
brighter than you think Dr Peter
diamandis it is so good to have you on
the show man it is so great to be here
pal I I need to get a copy of that
introduction so I can send it to my
mom that is I think very reasonable and
I love story about the fact that your
family really wanted you to go to
medical school which you did dutifully
as a good Greek boy I did sent them the
diploma and then rapidly pursued your
dreams yeah that was uh uh my parents
both were born in Greece in the Island
of Lesbos and came over uh after World
War II and I grew up in a in a medical
family and of course back then right you
know you were either a doctor a lawyer
or maybe maybe an engineer but you know
doctor and lawyer was the highest
profession and and so it was expected uh
that I'd become a physician and it uh it
drove a good part of my life uh at the
end of the day I sort of rationalized
becoming a doctor was a great sort of
stepping stone towards my desire My True
desire of going into space because when
I looked at the uh the actual stats out
of every hundred
astronauts uh the largest chunk were
military and I was not likely to go to
the military the next largest chunk were
doctors and then it went down to
scientists and engineers and so I said
okay doctors I can do that there's a lot
of familial pressure to go into that
especially as a son of immigrants what
was the narrative you were telling
yourself when you said okay actually I'm
not going to do that I'm going to well I
kept it secret um really yeah I mean I I
I sort of uh I
externally was the good Greek head of
the alter boy you know going to MIT to
study biology on my way to medical
school and all of my space interests
were extracurricular you know up in my
up in my room I had a closet packed with
explosives I mean literally literally my
my best you guys were just buying them
right yeah back then uh you could you
could mail order explosives and my
friend Billy and I would have would buy
the very best stuff we could you know we
start with pottassium nitrate uh salt
peter uh and and charcoal and sulfur
which is a makes a reasonably good
gunpowder how did you figure that out oh
it's I had this great book called Poor
Man's James Bond which was and then
there was in the Anarchist Cookbook both
of those gave me every formulation I
wanted listen I'm just saying the stuff
was available back then that's you're
really in trouble with two boys by the
way oh I listen and if they ever if they
ever watch the
show I have done ban the show for them
but you know we it was my friend Billy
and I used to build uh explosives and we
the pottassium per chlorate versus
pottassium nitrate generated its own
oxygen so it could explode under water
and and that was really great because we
made these little bombs that we'd throw
in the pool it blow up until one day I
remember uh at Jonathan Lynn's home we
threw it in and it you know you got this
explosion of water going out and then we
heard this crack and his pool basically
cracked across the entire I learned one
of my my rules of physics that fluids
are not
compressible it's a good lesson yeah had
I had a fun childhood but all of the
non-medical stuff was sort of literally
in the
closet and so you've got pretty specific
advice of following your passion and
doing that at what point do you tell
your parents how do they react how do
you keep going in that direction well
so
um it was an interesting Moment In Time
because you know I went to MIT and I was
doing molecular genetics during the day
and at night and weekends I would go and
sort of hang out at the mvl the man
vehicle lab which is where the
astronauts were being trained and I'd
volunteer to do research and I would do
that in the side and were you doing
molecular genetics because you thought
it would feed into a yes that was it was
that was the medical that was the
highest
probability path to getting accepted to
medical school got it which was sort of
like the second to last goal graduating
medical school was the was the Target
and um and so I did everything space I
was while I was undergrad I started my
first organization ever it's called
students for the exploration and
development of space saids it still is
God knows 35 40 years later the world's
largest college space organization wow
and uh Jeff Bezos I met through SS he
was the president of the Princeton
chapter and I found myself running a a
national and international organization
of fellow student Space Cadets and a lot
of the guys I work with now that have
co-founded companies came out of ss it
was sort of my sge was my magnet for
attracting uh like-minded people around
the world right it's sort of like this
you put out this call and say this is
what I stand for this is what I care
about anyone who wants to join me you
know come did you actually write like a
Manifesto uh yes I did write a Manifesto
in and it was interesting the year was
19 was about 1981 1982 to there was a
magazine back then called Omni magazine
do you remember Omni magazine okay well
it was uh so it got this Manifesto got
published in three magazines and it said
we students that that space is our
future and the government is mortgaging
our future and it was this long letter
to the editor uh that said any students
who are passionate about opening up
space you know it's our Legacy join me
in this organization I got letters from
around the world of people wanted to
join and form a chapter of SS anyway it
was awesome fast forward I get into
Medical School uh and I'm going through
medical school and I'm still doing all
my extracurricular space activities I'm
still running you know saids I'm I
started a launch company I had started a
university I mean I'm running two
startups during medical school which was
kind of an insane there's so much time
there so much time time in medical
school yeah I get back to that but so
we're at a point where uh we had to
declare our internship and residency
this thing called match and it scared
the living out of me um I found
myself in a situation where I was able
to skate by in medical school uh in that
there was always someone else watching
and if I made a mistake it would be
caught and and it sort of got known that
my heart and soul wasn't in medicine it
was in this other stuff I was doing but
when it came time to become an intern
and resident
you're at that point you're going to
become a real doctor and if you're not
being paying attention you're going to
kill people right and that scared me it
really scared me so I remember going and
calling um the head of the man vehicle
Lab at MIT and explaining the situation
said can I come back and enter the
doctorate program there I I need I need
a timeout for medical school right to
figure out what I want to do with my
life and uh I got accepted back into the
aerospace engineering degree Ree and and
followed that uh and eventually got my
aerospace engineering degrees went back
and finished medical school but by that
time the two companies I had started
were going forward I like you said
mailed a diploma to my my parents and
said okay listen I got to fess up I'm
not going to practice
medicine wow you took that really really
far really far but that it's very
impressive that you could do that all at
the same time I mean just knowing you
personally from a time management
perspective your use of time is is
unbelievable I mean it's literally
unbelievable and I'm a guy dude I grind
I work hard I'm not afraid of that but
watching what you accomplish with 24
hours is pretty startling so kudos to
you thank you one thing I want to talk
about you've talked about going back to
your dad and your mom and dad both grew
up on Lesbos um you once likened your
dad moving to New York and becoming a
doctor um being akin to you going to
Mars like talk me so this is really
similar to Lisa's dad's story so he grew
up in a tiny village in the middle of
the mountains in Cypress goes to Athens
and then ultimately to London and when
you talk to him that's what it sounds
like like the the DraStic change in
worldview and how that impacted him what
was that like for your dad what did that
leave on you yeah so I grew up with the
stories of my dad uh of him you know uh
speaking about times where he did not
have enough to eat where when uh all his
friends and they he was in a small uh
Village called Miss
in island lesos and he talks about you
know tending to you know the the sheeps
and goats and picking olives and that
was you know how he helped keep his
family fed especially during the war and
when he left to go take his entrance
exam to medical school when he took the
boat to Athens for the first time you
know his father was there waving him off
and saying if you don't pass don't come
back who and talk about pressure yeah
wow he did pass and goes to medical
school and and has to work a job uh
during the day and he couldn't go
classes to pay for his medical school
and to pay for room and board and so he
ended up studying at night and I grew up
with this uh with this sense of you do
what you need to do to make it happen
and you pursue your dreams and you and
education is like the most important
thing you could possibly get he doesn't
speak a word of English and he just does
what it takes and when I think about the
journey he made from this small village
uh on on lesvos to becoming a very
successful New York physician it's like
this epic journey of improbabilities and
I think about uh that's for me the
equivalent of going from here to Mars
which is something I do intend
eventually to do yeah I love that yeah
it's um did you look at your dad as a
hero growing up oh he was very much a
hero I mean so you weren't dismissing
him God
dismissing him at all I was in awe and I
listened as much and you know I have two
uh six-year-old boys now fraternal twins
and I think about how do I convey the
lessons that I learned from my father
cuz I'm not growing up in that level of
hardship I am yes squeezing every you
know nanc of time out of every hour but
still I just uh you know just am
so appreciative of what he did right I
would have had none of these
opportunities had he not taken that leap
he did I love what you're saying about
your dad that he did whatever it took
and he got the result um you've said
this is one of my favorite quotes of
yours I'm going to paraphrase it but um
people need to stop focusing on the
problem and start focusing on the
solution how do you teach people to do
that like what are you going to do with
your kids to get them to be solution
oriented so I I have a belief that every
problem is
solvable it may not be easy come up with
that because that for most people would
seem pretty counterintuitive well
because as I think about the world we're
living in
today it's the realization that we have
solved so many problems to achieve this
extraordinary world we live in today in
terms of Global Production of food of
energy of water of information we're
living in in the world of Star Trek you
know I mean it's you think about that
that we can diagnose almost anything I
can read your genome for a hundred bucks
in a matter of a couple of hours and
understand all 3.2 billion letters of
your life and have an AI analyze it and
tell me about yourself right I can I can
one of these devices call up any piece
of information talk to anyone on the
planet these are this is Magic this is
crazy stuff you know just 20 years ago
let alone you know a 100 years ago or a
thousand years ago so
you know the realization is any problem
is only a problem contextually today and
we're going to be creating the tools and
knowledge to be able to solve that
problem and I I believe that any problem
not forbidden by the laws of physics is
solvable and even then we're going to
sort of learn where the boundaries of
physics truly are so just to give you an
idea why this is such an important
question for me so the whole point of
impact theory is me going okay now that
I don't have to worry about money like
what do I really want to do uh what I
want to do is overcome the poverty of
mindset so most people I just think have
a frame of reference that is so
counterproductive that they don't end up
ringing the potential out of themselves
right so um God forbid something happens
to you and your wife and your kids end
up growing up with somebody else they
just have a different frame of reference
and that ultimately stunts their
development right that's like my belief
when somebody grows up in the inner
cities or in Tanzania you know don't
have access to the education system
whatever it is that causes them to have
that mindset they have that mindset and
so I'm trying to to the question how do
you at scale by leveraging Behavior not
changing it how do you make sure that
everybody encounters that mindset so
first of all thank you for that because
that mindset is the virus we need to let
loose into into the cosmos right it's
the realization if if people truly
believe what you're saying then
everybody becomes a problem solver right
and then problems vanish I mean
ultimately at scale 8 billion people
solving problem after problem after
problem means that this world is just
dealing with higher order problems which
is fantastic uh I think it's it's by
story I think it's by what you do here
it's the stories that we tell it's the
examples that we give um you know you
have to ask yourself the question is is
somebody uh who has got that
mindset uh smarter probably not they've
just had better experiences and perhaps
luck along the way so I'll give you one
example I mentioned SS earlier so SS was
my first organization ever I'm at MIT
I'm it's my sophomore year and I'm
passionate about space I find out
there's no student space organization at
MIT oh my God it's you're crazy it's MIT
student space organization and so I go
to the MIT uh Student Center and I find
out you need to get uh five signatures
to start a group and I I'm the first I
get three of my fraternity Brothers uh
uh Bill Brad and Roland as the third and
then one of their girlfriends Natalie
our first five and we get it we submit
it and I'm here I'm running the student
space organization and I go and I poster
MIT this is before the days of the
internet right before computers like SK
like like rub on letter type of days
like you know in photo photocopy days
this is 1982 thereabouts and I I I
postered the entire campus and 30 people
show up at this meeting where I pitch
this idea of creating a student space
organization and after that meeting I
was so enthralled by this level of
energy like oh my God this has a future
and I remember standing outside the
Student Center looking up at the stars
and sort of seeing fast forward this
organization actually becoming what it's
become and I sent out letters along with
two of my colleagues and it gets
published by astronomy analog and Omni
magazine and hundreds of people write
letters back in and the
organization blossoms into an
international student space organization
I find myself running in the living room
of my fraternity right now uh it was a
success and I became addicted to that
feeling of
success now had that been a
failure had I done that and next year no
one showed up and it flopped maybe we'd
be having a different story right but in
the success I was like okay what can I
do next and next for me uh was something
called the space generation foundation
and then International Space University
ISU which is you know another major
nonprofit success but has grown into
$100 million University you know around
the world and it's just been amazing but
I think part of this is putting yourself
out there and trying it's the ratio of
zero to Z to one is infinite and how do
you get people to just try to overcome
their fears that's the hard part and
it's the realization that it's okay to
fail but it's even better to
succeed very well said so
so the key moment in that for me and you
put your finger on it is writing or
getting the signatures to start the
organization to believe that you could
pull it off um is that optimism
something that you cultivated in your
life or is it something that you come by
naturally so interesting right so it
came it what is when you peel that onion
of taking that first step that zero to
one and and and getting those five
signatures what drove that right so what
drove that was
my my childhood passion and interest in
space I was so interested in space so
enthralled by it that
ultimately uh I was sort of like mythed
there was no space group there and I was
like okay opportunity I'll create one so
the question then becomes you know what
drove that passion in me right and when
I think about going back to my kids I
talk about the three things I want for
them I I boil it down to the three most
important things that are important for
any child my children in particular that
I'm driven with them is helping them
find their passion I don't care what it
is I don't care if it's like you know
Barbie dolls or you know right now it's
Minecraft and Legos but it's find that
passion that will drive them self-driven
learning and self-driven
investigation uh the second thing is
curiosity uh in a world where you can
know anything curiosity is so critically
important and then grit and you know
grit uh you know grit and your story
just speaks volumes and so passion
curiosity and and grit for me was what I
happened to have learned I learned grit
from my dad because I saw him not give
up right and so in my in my household
when with my kids you know we we joke
and seriously say what's the one thing
we don't do and they'll say we don't
give up right so it's like it's just
just it's and every day when I walk them
to school the last thing I say to them
is ask good questions today and while
we're walking to school I say what
questions do you have for me and so it's
I want to get a culture of question
asking and a culture of not giving up
and passion it's my job to observe the
natural passion and then just fuel it
what do you want to do okay paper
airplane's fantastic we're going to
learn every about every paper airplane
out there and why they work I love that
what I love about that is it's
systematized right like so few people
can get to the point where they can
explain how I'm going to um inculcate
this into my kids life I I ask people
about their kids a lot because kids are
the one thing that really forces people
to say what am I trying to teach right
what am I trying to pass on I've got
this universe of things that I think
about and I'm going to boil it down to
something that I can you know pass on to
the next generation and when it comes to
kids people take that really seriously
uh so it it cuts through all the BS and
gets to the point where people are you
know what they really believe in enough
that they're going to try to pass it on
but a lot of people fall down in the how
well so it's interesting my kids are
going into kindergarten and I think
about uh honestly will they ever go to
college and do we actually
reinvent what school is like for them
what role do I play I mean one of the
things that I'm excited about is getting
them involved in Dean cayman's first
robotics competition right so first
robotics if you don't know about it is
this incredibly Rich after School
experience where kids first starting
with Legos build robotic Legos to do do
certain things and then at the high
school level a first robotics team gets
a basically a box of stuff they have to
build a robot that accomplishes a
certain task like like picks up
basketballs and and shoots them into the
hoop while knocking out other robots and
it's you it's about uh learning how to
think through a problem and build the
system and become engineers you know
ultimately our society tends to make
Heroes out of who rock stars sports
stars your chance of becoming a rock
star or sport star or probably like you
know only thing less than that is
probably becoming an astronaut but at
the end of the day uh you know so we we
idolize these rock stars these TV stars
these sports stars and and that's okay I
guess but we should be idolizing you
know people like yourself and and
engineers and scientist
and you know incredible people on the
planet and so first robotics is all
about recognition uh and celebration of
Engineers and scientists all right what
is the most important elements to
thinking like an
entrepreneur um being fascinated by how
you would solve it and then creating
something that you really want and that
you authentically believe in like you do
this show and then being able to express
it to people
so you know I'm working right now on a
on my 19th startup um and it's a it's
it's why undersold you in the intro at
the but that's but um but the uh it's
Reinventing the news media right W so
it's it's a really exciting one I'm so
excited about it I can't say much about
it but right now when you're watching
the news on TV whatever you're counting
on an individual called a news Editor to
decide what you put into your brain
right and it's insane that you should
allow the crisis News Network or the
constantly negative News Network
whatever you call CNN I love my little
my little you know little tweaks on Jabs
on CNN but we allow them to decide what
I should s over and over and over again
and your mindset is everything so
imagine if you could have some other
mechanisms for controlling what you see
and when you see it anyway I won't go
into more than that but at the end of
the day um I'm I'm excited by this in
theory and we are building the beta
right now and for me the tire hits the
road as an entrepreneur if I love it and
I use it and until I love it and and use
it all the time it doesn't go into the
ethos out there it needs to be something
I'm passionate about for anybody who
doesn't know what is your fascination
with Star Trek and How Deeply have you
baked it into it's that green chck
companies
um so uh so I was born in the 60s and
and uh and Apollo occurred Apollo 11
occurred in
1969 which was an incredibly formative
moment in my life the entire Apollo
program and at the same time you know
Star Trek debuted in 1966 I didn't see
it then I saw it in the reruns and it
had three seasons in total but when I
was seeing it 1969 1970 Apollo showed me
what was going on right now and Star
Trek is this is where we're going and
that one two punch just made me enamored
with the future in space that this was
this was the destiny of humanity we were
about to launch into the cosmos and so I
became enamored with Star Trek and the
more you look at Star Trek Star Trek uh
Jean ronberry the Creator uh writer
producer of Star Trek I know his son Rod
Roddenberry Jee rodry was a brilliant
man what jean rodry
created was a set of
Technologies on that show that are still
driving us today right so he had the
communicator right that you would be
able to just tap into and talk to
anybody on the planet and of course you
know we take that for you know that was
a crazy idea back in the 60s with rotary
dial you know landline
phones uh he had the tricorder right and
we have just in within the X prize as
you know we just had the awarding of the
$10 million Qualcomm Tri quarter xprize
the tri quarter was a thing that bones
or Spock would use to diagnose someone
and go you know Jim he's an alien you
know or he's got rillian fever or
whatever the case might be and uh and so
we we challenged teams throughout the
world here to create the Star Trek triy
quar a device that could diagnose 15
diseases for you as a mom 2:00 in the
morning when your kid is sick uh they
you know he has the replicate device
that you know you can create anything
and that's you know we're just on the on
the on the way towards that with 3D
printing and so Star Trek just created
these amazing uh this view of the of the
future and probably one of the most
interesting views of the future that no
one talks about is the future of Star
Trek had no
economy in a world in which you can
create anything money has little to no
value Val you're living in a world of
abundance where you can create anything
you want disease is cured education is
available through an AI you can create
anything through it through this you
know replicator you can go any place and
what really had value in the future and
will have value for us in the future is
raw material like you know an asteroid
worth or a planet worth over here uh
energy from the Sun or from in that case
di lithium crystals or information sets
to manufacture something so I see the
Star Trek universe as really a Target
we're heading towards I love how so one
of my favorite things is when somebody
who's very successful who I take very
seriously as an entrepreneur as a
thinker whatever is so impacted by
something pop culture that it makes its
way into everything that they do and so
um at the last year's visioneering
Summit literally all the teams
presenting a new potential um xprize had
to say how the X prise was in line with
roddenberry's um world view I that was
amazing and then the tri quarter X prise
so let's talk about how somebody can go
and see Star Trek and see this absurd
device which everybody else discounts
and just says it's fiction it could
never be and then the person namely you
that goes no no no we can there's a way
to actually make that like is it just
been like first you ear in a little
credibility with yourself and then a
little bit more and a little bit more
and it Stacks up till you're so Brazen
that you go for the tricorder like how
does that happen um first of all I would
pait that science fiction uh all science
fiction written television movies and so
forth create this believable future and
after you've read it or watched it if
you are all of a sudden back in reality
here there's this dissonance between
this should be possible right and we're
here and
and if you you know can make that leap
to say okay it's possible how do we get
there and X prizes are all about saying
I don't care where you went to school
what you've ever done if you solve this
problem you win and so it's putting out
a
bold uh objective goal right like here's
the 15 diseases you have to be able to
to detect and here are the vital
symptoms that will detect and if you do
this you win 10 million bucks and we're
not too far from that being possible for
all of us what I mean by that is we're
within 10 to 20 years from us being able
to be in a world where we can speak our
desires to an AI and that AI is able to
drive 3D printing technology synthetic
biology technology eventually
nanotechnology and your your thoughts
verbalized become matter right I mean it
really is it's going from mind to matter
to Marketplace and I talk about this you
know we're all going to become
entrepreneurs in the future where if I
have an idea for something that I truly
desire like like I want this mug and I
can say to my AI listen I want something
you can carry some hot coffee and I like
a you know I'd like a handle on it and
can you color it white and can you give
it the thermal property so that
something inside of will stay warm for a
much longer period and I'd like it to be
less than 10 cents so pick a material
that that's cheap and I can look at and
say yeah can you scale a little bit
larger I haven't written a piece of code
I've just I'm expressing what I want
that's in my mind in my heart and this
AI is in taking that desire and
converting it to the right code or the
right whatever it might be so that it
becomes a file that can be then
manufactured and that level of magic is
coming very fast
it's coming very fast it's sort of Iron
Man and Jarvis materialized in the next
decade what are you most excited about
right now with technology like that
getting so near term what's Jazz
everything man so I'm I'm driven by two
moonshots that I'm on right now I'm on a
moonshot for mining asteroids and the
mining of the asteroids is just a part
of the opening up the space Frontier
right that during our lifetimes in the
next 10 to 20 years that we're going to
be moving irreversibly into space right
uh I'm so thrilled that Jeff Bezos is
doing what he's doing with blue origin I
knew Jeff at the earliest days of Amazon
I remember him telling me I'm building
Amazon by which by the way is a half a
trillion dollar company right I'm
building Amazon in order to make the
money to go and open the space Frontier
wow right and so it was about two months
ago uh he sold a billion dollars of
Amazon stock to continue fueling wow
blue origin space company and then uh
Elon Musk who I met now back
in uh
2001 um has been as passionate about
opening up space and really SpaceX is
just light years ahead of most all the
other aerospace companies so you got two
incredible wealthy passionate driven
entrepreneurs opening up space my part
of that is with a company called
planetary resources that's going out to
these asteroids that are rich in fuels
in particular hydrogen and oxygen which
is Rocket Fuel from the shuttle main
engine and then Platinum Group metals
and construction metals and so forth and
these are trillion doll assets if I can
if I can lasso one of those and put on
the public markets i' I'd be set for
life we our first Target asteroid is
something like a 10 to 100 trillion
dollar asset depending upon you know how
you value it or devalue it right um the
other thing I'm passionate about is is
human vity it's the realization that we
are now gaining the tools to begin to
understand why we age and ultimately why
we
die and the question is do we have to
you know certain species of Life on this
planet uh sharks whales turtles have
known multi hundred-year lifespans I
remember seeing a show on that while I
was in medical school and I locked in
and said okay if they can why can't I
and I said clearly it's a hardware or
software problem and so I've dedicated a
lot of my energy and and you named in
the two companies human longevity and
cellularity human longevity is the
genomic side of the equation cellularity
is the stem cell side of the equation uh
which are just two of a couple of the
different Technologies and there are
many others why do stem cells excite you
stem cells excite me because they are
our primordial stuff
so
um let me give you a oneone lesson in
stem cells so uh when a woman gets
pregnant and a fetus starts developing
in the uterus what is surrounding that
that fetus and creating sort of the nest
for it is the placenta and the placenta
actually is supplying to that fetus all
of the stem cells that it needs to grow
every tissue every organ in every part
of its body so a stem cell is a
primordial cell that can develop into
anything brain liver heart lung skin
bone cage whatever it might
be and when that child is born when you
know my children were born I actually
stored their placentas there's a company
called lifebank uh people store Cord
Blood my recommendation is that's great
at a minimum store the the placental
cord blood and there's lots of companies
that will do that but I think storing
the placenta is much more powerful right
it's not just the the cells that
generate the hoptic system it's all of
the stem cells that create the child
anyway um in a child that's whose blood
and tissues are coursing with stem cells
whenever any damage takes place any
inflammation occurs those stem cells are
go to that point of inflammation and
very rapidly repair what's going on but
as we grow
older two things happen one our stem
cell populations in our bone in our fat
in our in our organs diminishes hundreds
or thousands of fold so far less stem
cells going through our body and the
stem cells in our body have undergone
genetic changes because of radiation the
stuff you drink and eat it's just the
normal degradation of of your genome
which changes over your lifespan so if I
go and I extract stem cells in my body
right now if my Blown Blown marrow or
fat which are the two largest reserves
and I sequence it and if I could compare
it to the stem cells of my birth I would
see that that's changed so my stem cells
have now reduced in number and have
become somewhat scile so their ability
to continue to repair me has reduced
which is one of the theories of why we
age and so one of my business partners
my co-founder of human longevity uh and
my partner in founding cellularity Bob
Bob's an mdphd and maybe a fighter pilot
one of the rock stars in the stem cell
world has actually done the work to show
if you take um in this case he did the
work in in mice you take the placentas
of that mice you convert it to dosages
of stem cells that you then give to that
Mouse at the end of its life like at
this case typically a 26-month old mouse
you will extend that mouth's life
another 30 to 40% wa right you'll add
another year almost onto it and that's
been repeated in a number of different
ways there's a whole thing called the
young blood experiments being done at
Stanford uh and right now the
experiments are going on in humans as
well that if you know it's sort of like
uh sort of Dracula and the vampire but
if you take the blood of a young
individual and transfuse it or the
plasma uh not the cellular portion right
into an older person you will get a lot
of return to youthful State and in
reality um it turns out that uh there
are a number of stem cell clinics
outside the United States and I happen
to know a number of 80s something year
old billionaires who go and don't get
Young Blood infusion but get stem cell
infusions why not young blood well it
turns out that the stem cells actually
generate the
um uh the growth factors and all the
chemical mure that is in the plasma and
they live for 100 days now is it stem
cells from themselves no it's stem cells
from newborns really it's the stem cells
from the placentas or the cord
blood that are typically thrown away
that is utterly fascinating I could do
an entire show just picking your brain
about that and these are kinds of
conversations that I think were verboden
or were crazy before but there are a lot
of scientists today talking about aging
as a
disease not an inevitability right how
do you feel about augmenting yourself
like are you going to do it maybe you
won't be an early adopter but would you
oh I would be an early adopter yeah I
was on stage speaking at Singularity
University and uh uh the guy who spoke
after me was talking about implantables
and he says yes we have these uh these
little RFID things that you can put data
onto plant them and he he's and so
afterwards I
said can I and he said sure and so he
went back on stage and he implanted
right here you can feel
it whoa yeah I've got this little RFID
if you take your nearfield ID with your
phone you get my business card off of it
are you serious yeah do you have one on
your phone I don't have it turned on but
we'll we'll we'll turn on after this
we'll take a little while do it crazy
but um so listen I think there's got to
be some level of safety but I'm much
more risk felic than
I would say yeah yeah you know I think
it's interesting because today if you
think about uh the world of
sensors I've got uh heart rate and steps
on here very soon we'll have uh glucose
and blood pressure and other elements
and we're probably within 5 years Apple
Samsung Google Facebook everyone's
working on on sensors for your body so
man I could keep going on forever but so
limited time there's two things I want
to talk about um is it true that you
have like a board of advisers that are
science fiction writers we do uh we have
created at the x prise foundation a
board of 35 science fiction writers that
we will we've just formed it but we'll
call on because at the end of the day
you know coming up with X prises coming
up with you know big bold crazy ideas
that are on the verge of just being
doable um you know why not calling
people who's professionist to come up
with those things and what do you think
they do to stay at the edge of that are
they just researching real world
Technologies or they so I I've asked
it's becoming harder to write stuff
which is real hardcore science fiction
because all the things we used to think
of I mean once you've got Ai and
nanotechnology nothing's impossible
right we're sort of like game over or
game start well that brings me to my
next question so and very interesting
that you switched it from game over to
game start uh as this happens AI comes
on um uh just we're at a place where
robotics AI we can create just about
anything we want humans are essentially
wiped out from the current way we think
about jobs or call it roughly 50% um
what happens societally what happens to
the generation that would have to make
that transition what does Universal
basic income look like like what is all
that so um when people sort of ask me
are you fearful of AI you know is AI the
devil is it going to you know destroy is
it determinator can destroy Humanity I I
answer no it's not I think AI is
probably one of the artificial
intelligence when I say AI is one of the
most important tools Humanity will ever
create that will become our partner in
solving any challenge we want and so I
differ with you know Stephen Hawking and
Elon Musk and Bill Gates it's kind of
hard to go up against those guys but I
disagree I think that's that's their uh
you know amydala speaking and they've
seen Terminator too many times um but at
the end of the day I am concerned about
AI taking our jobs I am concerned about
Ai and
Robotics uh disrupting a lot of our
current jobs I'm not concerned in the
long term because I think we're going to
adapt Society to that's fine but in the
near term it's the rate at which we're
going to be losing jobs right we've all
we've lost jobs over and over and over
again I remember the number particular
in
1810 uh we had 84% of Americans were
farmers and today it's under 2% wow 84%
to 2% wiped out all those jobs and of
course we became far more efficient and
now robots robotic tractors and so forth
we'll do the farming and such and that's
that kind of magnitude change is fine of
going from 50% of our jobs I tell my
sister all time was an
anesthesiologist that her job is going
to be replaced much better by an AI and
robot right than the human doctor right
and all surgery will be done by robots
and all diagnosticians will be replaced
by
AIS but it's the rate at which we do
those transitions truck drivers taxi
drivers all those things being
replaced and today our meaning of our
life is wrapped up in what we do so the
two issues with technological
unemployment is how you earn your living
and then what you do to create
significance in your
life um and so the first I think is
going to be solved by Universal basic
income I think ultimately we're we're
demonetizing the cost of living it's
becoming cheaper and cheaper to live
right so the example I give today is uh
you know this device will eventually
become your teacher and your healthc
care provider for free the same way that
access to the world's information is
available across the world for
free uh a car today you know I love my
car and and I'm not a car guy but I love
I love the Tesla but I'm going to park
it or get rid of it when autonomous
Teslas and autonomous cars come online
because autonomous cars going to be 10
times cheaper and far more convenient so
we're going to give up car ownership for
something that's on10th the cost and
then you a whole bunch of things change
but how we deal with the significance of
our jobs in our lives that's going to be
an interesting question and so I'm
concerned about that I'm concerned about
people feeling angry towards technology
for disrupting their lives and that's
something I'm spending a lot of time
thinking about these days did you read
Fahrenheit 451 God back in high school I
think the thing I found really
interesting about that and it planted a
seed in my head was that there exists
out in the woods the people who so were
unwilling to give up books that they
were more prepared to give up society
and so they move out into the woods and
I that seems an inevitability as we be
especially when I think about it not so
much as AI but I think about it as um
human machine interface so as we begin
implanting things into our brains that
augment it or even just as we begin
messing with our own Gene sequencing and
um people that you know refuse to start
doing selection on um genetic criteria
for their babies and like
eventually they'll lose like it just
doesn't seem like eventually those
people will lose the people who are the
leites and yeah so it it is true I think
we're going to uh split Humanity into
those who want to retain their old ways
and and that's been the case always uh
and those who choose to if you would
plug in
and I think it's interesting because
I've thought a lot about that and i'
I've written about that I think that
once we are able to connect the brain to
the cloud and Ray kwell puts that date
as early to mid 2030s right
2033 2035 times check that's you know 16
years from now thereabouts that's not
very far away I mean 16 years ago was uh
you
2001 right I mean not not I remember it
like it was yesterday so and of course
you've got amazing individuals like
Brian Johnson with Colonel and Elon Musk
with neurolink and a whole bunch of
other players out of Facebook out of
Google uh working on this technology as
well um it's about how do you enhance
human
intelligence and then ultimately you
know human intelligence is the most
important thing we can have and I think
once you're able to enhance your
intelligence and sort of plug into what
I call the meta intelligence where you
if you plug into the cloud and I can
know the thoughts of every man woman and
child on this on this world and know
anything I wanted anytime it's
so
powerful so addicting that I think to
unplug from that would be to feel like
you're you're shut off and you're blind
from the
world it's so interesting how much fear
and anxiety people have over the change
and and all that and my whole thing is
you get you focus on so if you're
focusing on that then it's going to be
big and scary but at the same time if
you focus on the potential beauties of
the you know billions of new minds
coming online and being connected to
them and the revelations that will
happen and as we um really take control
of the next phase of our Evolution like
how interesting it gets have you read um
homu deas I haven't yet oh you're going
to love it you're going to love it so
I've become a total evangelist for this
book absolutely obsessed got to get the
author on here um and he basically walks
through sort of how the the way the
human mind works you know my obsession
with narrative and fiction he does the
most eloquent job of
explaining that our fictions the stories
that we tell are like David Foster
Wallace's notion of this is water like
they're so everpresent these stories
that we're telling each other we don't
even realize that they're stories so one
of the examples he gives is money right
money is an inter subjective truth it is
only real in as long as we believe
everybody believes it right right the
second people don't believe in it like
that like it ceases to have any value
whatsoever and he said and he he lists
like I mean just five six seven
different narratives and one of the that
we're all taking for granted and one of
the most beautiful was how during the
Crusades the Christians and the Muslims
lined up perfectly and it's it is in
their symmetry in that they're telling
the same fiction just from opposite
sides right one true God one true God uh
that wants us to reclaim the holy land
the only part that's different is their
true God is different than theirs and so
they Collide and kill each other but and
he talks about how if either of them
like the story had been different like
oh um pretenting you know one true God
what he wants is for you to live in
peace and Harmony and land mass is
totally irrelevant when it meets this
force that has to have the land mass
then then they would acques right it is
only because they're telling the exact
same story from opposite sides that you
get the historic Collision that we got
and he talks about how to anybody living
back in that time it would have made
sense right so if you're this kid
growing up in England that's about to go
fight the Crusades the woman whose
attention you want like she's looking at
you like oh my God you're going to go
off to the Crusades and you know she's
fluttering her eyelashes and their
family is like oh my God you're going to
bring glory to the family and to the
church like this is amazing you should
be doing it but now when we look back at
it it seems so absurd yeah and so and he
says there you can take any time in
history you want and to those people the
fiction would have been invisible it
would have all seemed absolutely
objectively true and it was being
mirrored back to you at every level of
your Society to the point where you
can't see it but that with enough
distance you'll say well that was
obviously ridiculous and he said so what
do you believe in right now that 100
years from now will seem patently
ridiculous just got the chills so it's
like that to me is when I look at the
stories people tell themselves whether
it's the Terminator whether it's the
Borg whatever story they're telling
about this scary future it's like okay
well as long as you're in a group that's
sort of self-reinforcing that I get it I
get why it seems like we have to like
we're already at war with AI like
emotionally and it hasn't even been
truly created yet it's just it's the
other right it's the different so how we
get over that as a species is something
that I find utterly fascinating I don't
think at all that I have the answer and
we're going to find out during our
lifetimes yeah I mean that's the most
incredible thing that I I keep reminding
people like wake up the next 20 years
this game plays out right which is why
I'm so convinced we're in the middle of
a video game anyway you know it's it's
like we're living during the most
extraordinary times it's all playing out
we're in the Final Phase of the game
play and we're right here right now
clearly we're this is a simulation it's
interesting there are I heckled you a
little bit at exerprise when you brought
that up I want to believe that because
it fits so well with my like Matrix
Mythos but for whatever I can't get over
time and if somebody can explain to me
how either the people watching cuz the
only reason to do a simulation is to
watch it play out and if you don't live
long enough to watch it play out then
there would be no point so for us but I
you could create a simulation have it
have it play out at a billion times the
clock speed so that's where I end up and
and uh and replant it and restart it
again and the you know this whole notion
of parallel universes I mean the notion
that that I mean if I were a scientist
trying to create a a if I could create a
virtual computational world right using
what ever quantum computers and and set
up an AI inside and set the original
conditions and let it play out and tweak
the conditions and have it play out and
running Monti Carlo simulation what's
that that it's a it's a it's a
simulation in which you change uh a few
small variables and run a million of
them in parallel or in in you know a
billion of them in parallel imagine a
world in which in in Alien civilization
you set the starting conditions and and
you know literally let an infinite
number of these play out in parallel and
then see what
happens I don't know it's
uh I I find these thoughts too
compelling to just let go yeah I'm with
you the one that I think freaked me out
was when I realized that um
the DNA first of all is can be
represented as zeros and ones so already
just life is could essentially be
digital code but um yeah I find that
stuff utterly utterly fascinating yeah
and again next 20 years dude um anyway
it's just an amazing life I consider
myself so lucky to be live right now
exactly all right before I ask my final
question where can these guys find you
online uh so dam andis.com is my website
I put out a weekly Tech blog I work a
lot on this on Friday and Saturday thank
you um and uh uh on Twitter I'm just uh
uh just my name Peter dandis you know
Singularity University come and get
involved in Su uh we run programs for
executives for graduates uh express.org
XPR i.org you know we're taking on the
world's biggest problems anyway fun
stuff I love it what's the impact you
want to have on the
world um
so my MTP what I call my massively
transformative purpose is to INSP ire
and guide the transformation of Humanity
on and off the Earth and just to to peel
the onion there um I believe that we are
undergoing a transformation as a
species from what we have today to this
notion of a meta
intelligence and that transformation is
happening both on the earth and off the
earth I had to add that non-ar part for
the child in me right uh and I think
that's going to have to be inspired and
and properly uh guided to uh to have the
minimal negative impact I think this is
happening I think we are the lungfish
coming out of the land I think we are
speciating as a species uh there just
way too the rate of change is way too
high and so I think about that um I want
to help make the the human race a
multiplanetary species and for me it's
about changing the mindset of people
from scarcity minded to abundance minded
I think that changes the game when
people uh go from no it's all mine to
there's an infinite amount let's share
right
so so far so good having fun I love it
man thank you so much for coming on the
show thank you pal absolutely
fantastic all
right guys I'm telling you this is
somebody that you're going to want to
get to know at every conceivable level I
really believe that he is leading the
world in terms of understanding not only
where we are near-term future where we
could be uh and how we're going to get
there um into the future and I think
there are very very few people that do
it with the level of compassion um
brotherly love like one thing about this
guy that you learn very quickly behind
the scenes like he's got that Greek
warmth he is so kind brings you into a
big hug it's it is amazing and he greets
the transition from where we are today
to where we we can be in the future with
that same sense of love compassion
empathy and it's wonderful I don't think
there's anybody on the planet that I
have met that would be better suited to
do that to introduce people to the
Technologies the ideology the things
that we're going to need to do and he
knows how to go raise the funds to
actually make these companies real to
get them to be profitable and most
importantly and this is the thing he
will never get enough credit for he has
a huge long range Vision but he always
starts with what do we have to do today
how do we do today and then tomorrow one
step after another until the grand dream
becomes very Blas where you've seen him
execute so many steps that it becomes an
inevitability I've never met anybody
else as good as he is at that and for
that reason I beg you go learn from him
don't even just listen to what he says
watch what he does because that will
highly instruct you and what you should
be doing all right he and I are in the
middle of a BET right now it is the
first to three million followers and I'm
begging you help this man beat me go
follow him it will improve your life I'm
not kidding dive in get to know them and
guys if you haven't already be sure to
subscribe and until next time my friends
be legendary take
care hey everybody thanks so much for
joining us for another episode of impact
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