Jeff Bezos is backing a Silicon Valley tech firm called Altos Labs that could make him and other investors immortal beings.
The Amazon founder is reportedly footing the bill for a startup based in Silicon Valley. The tech firm called Altos Labs focuses on finding ways to reverse the aging process.
Although this might not sound like a genuine project, Furthermore, several billionaires are backing up the company’s anti-aging research.
The company is currently receiving aids from Russian-Israeli billionaire Yuri Milner, and Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, according to MIT Technology Review.
Altos Labs is a biological reprogramming tech firm that has been hiring top scientists from around the world, paying them salaries as high as $1 million. Aside from that, the company assures them that they can pursue their own research on anti-aging and reversing the process of cell aging.
A Nobel Prize Winner Joins The Research
The folks joining the research include noted biologists at the Salk Institute in La Jolla, California, Juan Carlos Izpisúa Belmonte. He and several other scientists will be working closely with Altos Labs. Aside from that, Nobel Prize winner scientist Shinya Yamanaka will be joining the Altos scientists advisory board. He won a Nobel Prize for his research into an aging reversal in cells.
Biological reprogramming is adopted to rejuvenate cells. There’s no dearth of startups that are hard at works on biological reprogramming. However, only Altos Labs has managed to receive aids huge funding. The world’s richest man, Bezos, is currently 57 years old. Also, he has a net worth of about $201 billion, according to Bloomberg’s Billionaires index.
Bezos has been interested in longevity research for a long time. In fact, he previously backed an anti-aging company called Unity Biotechnology. Regrettably, MIT Technology Research did not divulge Bezos’ stake in Altos. Nevertheless, this implies he is aware of his age.
This belief reflects in his letter to Amazon shareholders. In his letter, Bezos quoted biologist Richard Dawkins.
“Staving off death is a thing that you have to work at…If living things don’t actively work to prevent it, they would eventually merge with their surroundings and cease to exist as autonomous beings. That is what happens when they die.”
However, it is barely surprising that billionaires are willing to back something that could allow them to live as long as possible. Regrettably, it is still unclear how Altos Labs plans to achieve it.
It is also worth mentioning here that the MIT Technology Review report claims that there is no deadline associated with this research. Aside from that, the firm is simply focusing on creating “great science.”
