Inspired with Alexa von Tobel
00:16:35 · Alexa von Tobel, Ben Lamm
[00:16:35] S1: I mean, you've literally worked in mobile apps, gaming, AI, conversational intelligence, and now biotechnology. [00:16:41] S2: Yeah. And satellites. Yeah. [00:16:42] S1: Yeah. In in satellites. Like, you truly have touched more industries than most people. Yeah. There are. But those are all... But the thing [00:16:49] S2: about them, though, right, is that all of them are, I would say, like, all of them are still somewhat of a systems design that required technology enablement. Right? And so, like, had, like, software is a small contained, you know, system. A software system that has a back end that talks to space is just another... A different type of system. For us to be successful at de extinction or even advanced species preservation and biobanking, you have to have the entire system. Right? And so I I think looking at, like, being able to take a step back and look at the forest for the trees so that you understand what you need, even if I don't understand exactly how to do this. Right? Like, people will be like, well, how do you deliver large cargo into safe harbor sites? And I was like, I don't know. Like, that... I don't know how to do that. Like, that's not my job. Right? But I know that's one of the things that's really important. So we went and found the people to do that. Right? [00:17:49] S1: It almost sounds, Ben, like you are exceptional at, knowing the hard questions to ask.
00:17:49 · Alexa von Tobel, Ben Lamm
[00:17:49] S1: It almost sounds, Ben, like you are exceptional at, knowing the hard questions to ask. [00:17:56] S2: Yeah. I love to ask them. Right? But but I also... I actually like the research. And so, like, George Church, the nicest thing anyone's ever said to me was George Church said, I'm the best student he's never had. And I don't mind... That's the one brag I will ever do about myself because I just... He was so kind because he did... Like, he he... He's like, you real... Because... And it's all because of the questions I ask because he'll say something, I'll ask him, didn't understand what it meant. I'll write it down and then I may have to ask it three or four times to understand it. But like, I really want to learn at like I don't think I'll ever be a PhD level, you know, Nobel laureate biologist, but I think that I wanna be thoughtful enough that I can ask questions, but also kind of like naive enough that I can ask questions that go against like, oh, well, we've always done it exactly this way. So I I think I've just, through dumb luck, found the balance of like being able to ask the right questions, but also being naive and knowing enough about the topic to ask the right questions, but being naive enough about the topic that I can ask questions that they're like, well, yeah, we we didn't think of it that way.
00:19:04 · Alexa von Tobel
[00:19:04] S1: You're a little fearless at diving into your curiosity and, smart enough to know, where you need to put people to get things done. I wanna transition to Colossal just because I'm truly deeply interested and curious about what you are up to. And I just... For for everybody listening, in 2021, you cofounded Colossal Biosciences with the renowned Harvard geneticist you just mentioned, doctor George Church. I mean, Ben, even for you as somebody who's touched all these crazy industries, like, diving into de extinction is just candidly wild. Like, it's wild. I, like, can't wait to tell my children that I spent the day with you, because it's wild. Were you not a little nervous being like, now I'm gonna go and, like, de extinct animals and being like, okay. I'm over my skis even for you, Ben.
00:20:02 · Ben Lamm
[00:20:02] S2: I... So I thought, so a couple things. One is, on the naive side, I think I was naive about parts of it. Right? I was like, oh, all you gotta do is... Like George convinced me very early that all the technologies fundamentally exist in some form or fashion. Right? So there's opportunities for invention, but it's really also just a lot of innovation. Right? Like like the iPhone. Right? Like the iPhone is an incredible innovation. Not really an invention. Like, we had kinda 99% of the parts. Right? And so my my view was George got me very comfortable, and I'm a Trust but Verify guy. So even though I had meetings with George, I went and talked to a bunch of other external scientists, spent some of my own money, like, hiring some consultants and kinda thinking through this whole problem. And and I got to the point where it's like, yes, we have all the tools and technologies. Now the naive part, what came in was I thought that, you know, there's so much more than the lab work here. Right? And so if we only had to raise capital, do it in a lab and then be like, here's a dire wolf, Here's a woolly mammoth. Here's a thylacine. That that... And that's kinda what I thought, the naiveness, then then I think that's hard. But what most people don't realize is for as much as the insane science that there is that we have to to build in in the system, not sure we'll talk about that we had to... That we we... We've been very successful at building. We... There's just as much policy work working with indigenous people groups, working with, like, answering hard ethical questions. How does it apply to conservation? And we're very split with conservation crowd. Like half the conservation crowd is like, we are doomed and what we're doing in conserving land, which is something I still believe we should do, only gets us so far because we have human, know, human advancement, you know, right on the heels of it. Right? And we're losing species at such a crazy rate that we need alternatives. Sometimes people embrace those alternatives, but change is new and scary. And sometimes people are like, we know what we're doing isn't gonna work long term, but but this seems like you're distracting what we should be doing. And so so there's a lot more nuanced to the business.
00:22:21 · Ben Lamm, Alexa von Tobel
And then eventually even the economic models outside of just like, if the business was just raise money, make these animals, build technologies that you can monetize, that is kind of I think where we thought. And and I have no problem admitting that there's so much more to the company that that really had to be developed and that we learned. Right? And we just... One of the things I think we did really good at is like the the... You've got two types of critics. Right? You've got you've got just the absolute asshole critics. Right? That are like... Are those are your your couch ex blue sky folks that are like, we hate you because it's Tuesday. And then and then you've got like the other people that are like, we don't like what you're doing because of this. And you're like, oh, shit. That's a really that's that's a really good point. And so we, we have found in our one of the things that I think the number one thing we did right with Colossal is we were able to bifurcate that audience. And then the, the people that we, that we designated as informed critics that were like, oh, you're the top of your field in like mammoth research. What what what do you mean we're using the wrong genomes? Right? So calling that person, it was a... Like, that... That's just a good business. [00:23:39] S1: Totally get it. Yeah. You're like, that's actually just helpful. You're like Yeah.
00:23:39 · Alexa von Tobel, Ben Lamm
[00:23:39] S1: Totally get it. Yeah. You're like, that's actually just helpful. You're like Yeah. [00:23:43] S2: But but but what we're curious is that category of critics has actually like leaned into us. And and I think it's because we we went to them and we're like, wait, wait, what do you mean? What can we what can we do? Right? And then we would implement what they'd say. And then we go back to them and be like, what else you got? And then they'd be like, this is confusing me. Like, we we said terrible things about you. Why are you talking to us? [00:24:05] S1: By the way, I always call it LITTP, lean into the pain. Lean into the critics. Yeah. Really, really LITTP. Ben, just in plain crazy English, what the hell is de extinction? Like, what are you doing [00:24:19] S2: Yeah. For [00:24:20] S1: all of us who are who who are not geneticists? [00:24:24] S2: Yeah. So it... It's not possible to say... Like, sometimes it turns into a philosophical debate, but it's it's... And and it's funny because at the beginning of the company... I'll tell you this one quick story. At beginning of the company, we did all this, like, we're gonna announce the company. We're gonna... And and and for some reason at the time, we were like, whatever we do, do not mention Jurassic Park. That's gonna scare people. Do not mention Jurassic Park. And so we spent like... Did media training and all these... [00:24:50] S1: Were you like, Jurassic Park? Oh, I wasn't supposed to