After rumors formulated around the firm, the three founders Rick Klausner, Hans Bishop, and Yuri Milner have decided to confirm their internet fame and announce their ambitious project idea. With nearly 3 billion dollars invested from others into their startup, the group believes they may have a solution to the age-old quest for the elixir of life.
The legend of the elixir to life, the fountain of youth, has dated back thousands of years ago from the mouth of a Taino Indian legend. The legend goes that whoever bathed in its waters would be able to restore their youth, effectively reversing the agents of time. Since then, the legend has yet to be proven, and other companies have made attempts to achieve the same idea, but none have been successful. Big names like Google, Jeff Bezos, Dr. Milner, and Mr. Page (billionaires) have invested in companies like Calico Life services, X Prize Foundation, and Human Longevity, but all companies have yet to produce a successful product. Such an idea has made an attractive appearance among the media, but the end result is always failure. This draws us back to the fact of today’s elixir of youth founding story that has such high rates of failure, yet has so much money believing in its capacity.
Nonetheless, the Altos Foundation is just as invested in its mission as others’ dollars are invested in them. They have studied years of biological advancements and have even hired a star-studded team of scientists to help work towards their goal. One of their creative strategies has looked into the makeup of diseases, not for prolonging life, but to learn about the factors that determine life. Experiments have also been made, describing how four gene-regulating proteins serve to return cells to factory settings. Other experiments have involved weird tumors that caused cells to turn into a weird mixture of tissues. Along with plenty of other experiments, the Altos Foundation has been able to identify a method for partially restoring genes that defend against aging. Tests run on mice have been particularly successful in defending against the aging-enhancing processes seen in diseases like progeria. As a result, developed solutions have been used to improve the rate of healing muscles, and protect the liver from damage caused by the use of painkillers. As of now, there are many more steps and processes to be implemented before the team thinks they have their final product, but as of now, their results seem to be promising.
Given their already successful campaign, it is not hard to agree with the decision of other investors to put $3 billion into the startup. But, at the end of the day, the world never provides any givens and in today’s changing world, the risk of the unexpected is always around the corner. To the investors of the startup, the risk remains that their billions of dollars might be lost in the failure of another overly ambitious startup. But somehow the Altos Foundation’s ambitions might pay off. It’s what risk is, the danger of losing everything invested for the opportunity of making 10 times the amount you originally started with. But as an investor, it is always important to remember that with investing comes risk and so the most important rule of investing is to never lose money. Obviously losing money is bad, but losing it unnecessarily is even worse. It means that the investment was avoidable, yet the investment was still made. For now, we will just have to wait and see whether the quest for the elixir of youth becomes successful or not, never undervalue the value lost in risk.
