Core Memory

Over the past five years, Alex Colville has become one of the most influential figures in the longevity and aging fields.
There’s a decent chance you have not heard of him, which is a bit by design. Unlike many longevity gurus, Colville does not seek much attention and, for the most part, operates in the background where he’s been doling out many millions of dollars in investments. Today, Colville runs age1, a venture capital firm that has backed the likes of Loyal, Science, Conception and a bunch of other companies listed as “Stealth” on its web site.
Colville is the guy I call to reality check whatever is being hyped up in Longevity Land. He studies the actual science. He reaches sober conclusions. He’s honest about where the technology is today and what might show promise in the future.
In this episode, we get into Colville’s takes on GLP-1s, partial cell reprogramming, China’s biotech rise, the odd animals teaching us the most about longevity and, well, the prospects of living forever. We also get into Colville’s life and unusual rise as the longevity kingmaker, and, of course, we discuss keeping a human head alive without a body because what choice did we have.
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OUR SPONSORS
SendCutSend
You know who else makes stuff for America? That would be SendCutSend. If you want to celebrate our great nation by building a metal part, then head on over to SendCutSend where you’ll get a 15 percent discount thanks to Core Memory on whatever you’re trying to build. We believe in you.
Brex
The Core Memory podcast is also sponsored by Brex, the intelligent finance platform built to help companies spend smarter and move faster.
Did we go to Texas, find a telescope ranch and then obtain an entire nebula in Brex’s honor? Oh yes, we did.
We run on Brex and so should you. Learn more about Brex right here.
Timestamps (they link out to YouTube)
0:00 Intro2:41 Meet the Switzerland of Aging8:01 Why Did Aging Become the Enemy?10:28 What Can an Axolotl Teach Us?26:23 What Works in Worms, but Not Yet in Humans?30:16 The Longevity Expert Who Takes Nothing34:37 Are GLP-1s Already Anti-Aging Drugs?44:14 Can We Make Old Cells Young Again?58:48 What Do Hibernating Squirrels Know?1:05:02 When Does Medicine Become an Upgrade?1:09:57 Has CRISPR Lived Up to the Hype?1:12:43 What Are Altos and Calico Really Doing?1:20:24 The Breakthrough That Could Change Everything1:25:14 Will China Win the Biology Race?1:28:24 Why a Virtual Cell Is Not a Cell1:30:28 A Head in a Waymo?


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Every couple of days, a new AI-meets-biotech startup sends me a pitch, and the pitches all sound the same. AI is amazing, and it can now tame biology. We’re on the cusp of producing new cures for diseases at a rapid rate, and these startups know just how to get the job done. To which you should wonder – is this at all true?
On this week’s Core Memory episode, we have brought in the big brains to answer – or at least debate – this question. Our resident science whiz and medical professional Eryney Marrogi takes on the hosting duties to interview Abhishaike Mahajan, he of Owl Posting and now OpenAI Foundation fame.
These two men of science take hold of this AI/biotech moment to explore where we’re seeing the most promise from this new wave of technology and where the messiness of biology continues to confound AI. They also get into some lighter topics like our collective death from AI bioweapons and China’s impending biotech dominance. Good times.
You’re all probably buzzing over Moderna’s stock price doubling and the end of cancer. So ride that enthusiasm right into this podcast and see how you’re feeling on the other side.
If you can spare a minute, please do us a favor by filling out this ever so brief survey, so we can learn a bit more about our subscribers. Help us be better for you. Thanks!!

OUR SPONSORS
SendCutSend
You know who else makes stuff for America? That would be SendCutSend. If you want to celebrate our great nation by building a metal part, then head on over to SendCutSend where you’ll get a 15 percent discount thanks to Core Memory on whatever you’re trying to build. We believe in you.
Brex
The Core Memory podcast is also sponsored by Brex, the intelligent finance platform built to help companies spend smarter and move faster.
Did we go to Texas, find a telescope ranch and then obtain an entire nebula in Brex’s honor? Oh yes, we did.
We run on Brex and so should you. Learn more about Brex right here.
Timestamps (they link out to YouTube)
0:00 Intro4:24 Is Intelligence the Bottleneck?6:58 A Thousand von Neumanns12:29 The Cancer Drug That Failed21:15 Can AI Read a Tumor?31:38 Is Text All You Need?44:39 The Machine Nobody Built54:16 A Trillion Dollar Organoid?1:02:26 Biosecurity Lost the Plot1:06:02 ChatGPT vs. a Virus1:19:13 Why the Terrorists Failed1:24:37 Who Gets to Order DNA?1:42:41 China Wins Biology1:53:41 The Lab Nobody Funds
Thanks for listening!



This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.corememory.com/subscribe

Most people think that the Red Bull guy Felix Baumgartner holds the skydiving record. But this is not the case.
The real record-holder is Alan Eustace. In 2014, at age 58, the Google engineer rode a helium-filled balloon into the stratosphere and then fell back to Earth from 135,890 feet. Eustace’s fall lasted 4 minutes and 27 seconds, and he broke the sound barrier, reaching a max speed of 822 mph. And now, in a very rare appearance, Eustace has come on the podcast to discuss his adventure.
Baumgartner, who dropped from 128,852 feet, received tons of attention because Red Bull turned his jump into a media spectacle. Eustace, by contrast, came up with the plan for his jump and spacesuit at his kitchen table, paid for a small team to help him build his suit and then did his skydive with just a single reporter there as a witness.
This all fits with Eustace’s personality. He’s quite private and just goes about his work.
It took several months of begging to get Eustace on the show, and I don’t think he’s ever discussed his skydive in this type of detail before.
In this episode, we get into what drove a 58-year-old man to want to chase this feat, the rich history of stratosphere jumping and Eustace’s remarkable career as one of the key Google engineers who built the modern internet. We also hear Eustace’s thoughts on AI and his latest quest to search the ocean floor.
(I apologize for saying that Eustace jumped from space in the episode. It was the stratosphere. I was excited.)
If you can spare a minute, please do us a favor by filling out this ever so brief survey, so we can learn a bit more about our subscribers. Help us be better for you. Thanks!!

OUR SPONSORS
SendCutSend
You know who else makes stuff for America? That would be SendCutSend. If you want to celebrate our great nation by building a metal part, then head on over to SendCutSend where you’ll get a 15 percent discount thanks to Core Memory on whatever you’re trying to build. We believe in you.
Brex
The Core Memory podcast is also sponsored by Brex, the intelligent finance platform built to help companies spend smarter and move faster.
Did we go to Texas, find a telescope ranch and then obtain an entire nebula in Brex’s honor? Oh yes, we did.
We run on Brex and so should you. Learn more about Brex right here.
Timestamps (they link out to YouTube)
00:00 Intro03:26 Chasing Alan Eustace07:42 Rocket Sleds and Seatbelts10:38 Why Build a Capsule?13:00 Kittinger’s Three Jumps18:11 The Idea Takes Hold21:07 Elon’s Mars Greenhouse23:18 The Jump That Failed28:37 Solving the Death Spin30:07 Racing Red Bull32:26 One Reporter, No Livestream34:12 The Kittinger Coincidence38:26 Not Your Typical Daredevil40:43 Goodbye Videos for His Kids44:35 The First Spacesuit Jump48:37 Two Hours to Space50:53 Google Earth in Reverse54:36 Can I Get a Countdown?58:55 Breaking the Sound Barrier1:00:08 The Crash Landing1:02:16 What It Really Cost1:08:28 The Magic of Gas Balloons1:10:30 Did the Jump Change Him?1:17:03 The VLSI Golden Age1:22:56 Is AI Revolutionary?1:29:20 The Google Translate Story1:35:49 The Fall of DEC1:41:09 Reinventing the Data Center1:48:51 Impossible to Inevitable1:51:40 Inside Commonwealth Fusion1:56:21 Hunting Amelia Earhart2:03:21 What’s Under the Golden Gate?



This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.corememory.com/subscribe

Treating cancer remains a crude practice. We cut, burn and poison tumors, and we do all this with relatively little precision around both the initial treatment and our ongoing monitoring of how effective the treatment is. You show up for scans now and again and hope that whatever you’ve been doing has been working.
Ben Woodington - who is an absolute unit - and the team at Coherence have come up with a new way to monitor and treat tumors. They’ve built an implant that, as the name suggests, gets placed inside the body to keep a constant watch on a tumor’s behavior. The chip also brings with it the ability to deliver electrical signals that may blunt a tumor’s growth. We’re talking constant monitoring of a tumor to see if treatments are working and the ability to read and write electrical signals as part of a totally novel bio-tech device.
In this episode, Ben explains how this technology works and, more broadly, he walks us through the emerging field of neuro-oncology or cancer neuroscience. We have a look at Coherence’s device, which is reminiscent of Neuralink’s implant, and rival technology.
Since we recorded this episode, Coherence has begun a study in Australia where its device is being used to record and stimulate brain activity in patients having brain tumors removed. The company has also put out a paper detailing some of its work and has brought on Neuralink’s neurosurgery lead Matthew MacDougall as an advisor and investor.
This episode was a treat for me because I had no idea this type of technology even existed, and because Coherence seems to have made a remarkable amount of progress on its hardware in a short time.
If you can spare a minute, please do us a favor by filling out this ever so brief survey, so we can learn a bit more about our subscribers. Help us be better for you. Thanks!!

OUR SPONSORS
SendCutSend
You know who else makes stuff for America? That would be SendCutSend. If you want to celebrate our great nation by building a metal part, then head on over to SendCutSend where you’ll get a 15 percent discount thanks to Core Memory on whatever you’re trying to build. We believe in you.
Brex
The Core Memory podcast is also sponsored by Brex, the intelligent finance platform built to help companies spend smarter and move faster.
Did we go to Texas, find a telescope ranch and then obtain an entire nebula in Brex’s honor? Oh yes, we did.
We run on Brex and so should you. Learn more about Brex right here.
Timestamps (they link out to YouTube)
0:00 Intro3:54 Cut It, Poison It, Burn It. Is There a Fourth Way?6:16 Your Tumor Is Rewiring Your Brain8:29 The Clunky Device That Somehow Already Works11:35 Why Patients Take It Off15:12 Inside the Implant: A Neuralink for Tumors20:32 Could a Chip Replace the MRI?27:13 What the Mice Are Already Telling Them31:38 First Humans, and Why It's Always Australia35:36 "They Should Have Hired a Few Apple Engineers"43:24 Neuralink vs ONWARD: Who's Right About the Spine?47:09 The Idea Nobody Else in Neurotech Had1:01:45 Cut One Nerve and the Cancer Stops Spreading1:06:12 A Cancer Sensor Inside All of Us?1:09:12 Do Cancer Drugs Work Better Before 11 a.m.?1:14:59 If AI Ran Medicine, It Would Build This



This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.corememory.com/subscribe

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