OpenAI’s Sam Altman rose to prominence after releasing ChatGPT late last year, but a different area of technology also piqued his interest. The tech entrepreneur has invested $180 million in a company that aims to reverse aging and extend human life, MIT Technology Review reported Wednesday.
Retro Biosciences, a biotechnology company based in San Francisco, announced in April 2022 that it has secured funding for its ambitious mission: to add 10 years for “healthy human life”. Despite announcing the multi-million dollar funding, the source of the funding has remained anonymous until now—it all came from Altman. Retro’s website just reads: “We are lucky to have initial funding in the amount of $180 million, which will take us to our first proof of concept, and safe operation of the company over a decade.”
Altman’s investment in Retro in 2021 is one of the largest investments by an individual in an anti-aging startup, MIT Technology Review reported. The company’s founders are biotech veterans. Joe Betts-LaCroix has advised numerous startups and founded two research-based startups. Sheng Ding is a senior researcher at the Gladstone Institute, known for its biomedical research, and has launched four other companies. And Matthew Buckley has a background in biotechnology and healthcare companies, Illumina and Bayer Healthcare.
Betts-LaCroix is also a part-time partner at Y Combinator, the startup incubator that Altman ran from 2014 to 2019. Altman first became interested in health research after reading about a study in which old mice were revived with the blood of young mice. He then connected with Betts-LaCroix to fund a company that would research various aspects of aging and biology.
Retro was Altman’s first major investment in biotech, but not his first major technology investment. In 2021, he put $375 million into a fusion energy startup called Helion Energy, which aims to produce unlimited clean energy.
“Many. I basically just took all the liquid net worth and put it into these two companies,” Altman said MIT Tech Review.
Retro refused fortunerequest for comments. OpenAI did not return immediately fortunerequest for comments.
In 2019, Altman became the CEO of OpenAI, an artificial intelligence research company. First, the company created an AI art tool called DALL-E (to be unveiled in 2021) that can create many images from text messages. Then, last November, OpenAI launched ChatGPT, an internet-famous chatbot that can encourage human-like conversations with users, answer questions in seconds and create amazingly detailed content from seemingly simple instructions.
Altman is not the only Silicon Valley entrepreneur interested in health and longevity. Peter Theil donated millions to a non-profit longevity foundation in 2006, and has predicted “improved health and longevity for all.” Calico Life Sciences, a company focused on aging research, has been backed by high-profile investors including Google’s parent company, Alphabet. And Altos Labs, a company reportedly backed by tech moguls including Jeff Bezos, announced that it has received a $3 billion investment in early 2022. Its stated mission is to reverse disease, injury and disability throughout human life. Even the Saudi government says it will invest $1 billion a year to find ways to slow the aging process.
Silicon Valley entrepreneurs have also been high-profile figures on health and longevity. Bryan Johnson, a 45-year-old tech CEO, has spent more than $2 million since the start of 2023 on drugs and treatments to try and keep himself looking like an 18-year-old. He has dedicated doctors monitoring the aging process in organs and tracking metrics like body fat and the heart of mice.
“The whole field of longevity has shifted to a more strictly clinical space,” says George Church, a geneticist at Harvard University. Bloomberg.
Besides investing millions into longevity startups, Altman also participated in his own age-reversal rituals. He reportedly tries to eat healthy, exercise regularly and take the diabetes drug metformin which is believed to increase longevity.
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