11–20 of 400 posts
Regardless of motivation, I'm happy to see investment in this domain.
To what extent is this guided by the self-interest of aging tech darling CEOs (Larry Page must be in his 40s by now)? As a young person I tend to think "some of these health issues ought to be solved problems by the time I'm older." But I don't have the kind of capital to spend on it that companies like Google, or persons like Larry Page, do. Regardless of motivation, I'm happy to see investment in this domain.
The capital us youngins have is time and ability if not money. This is a great example of moguls and companies willing to put that resource in given an availability of the talent and ability.
Interesting is that Art Levinson will remain Chairman at Apple. Apparently the two giants are working together here. > Tim Cook, Chief Executive Officer of Apple, said: “For too many of our friends and family, life has been cut short or the quality of their life is too often lacking. Art is one of the crazy ones who thinks it doesn’t have to be this way. There is no one better suited to lead this mission and I am exc…
They might have different opinions or frustration with the competition, but most of what they focus on is not letting the company die from the inside. i.e: AOL/Palm/HP/Netscape couldn't innovate and imploded.
Eric Schmidt was on Apple's board up until the day shareholders (implicitly) deemed it to be a conflict of interest. I'm sure he was a great asset for Apple learning the importance of internet services. It's a shame that short-sighted investors are too captivated by competition to realize how cooperative Silicon Valley really is. There are only a handful of situations in tech where crushing your competition is actually a positive strategic move.
The rising tide floats all boats.
To what extent is this guided by the self-interest of aging tech darling CEOs (Larry Page must be in his 40s by now)? As a young person I tend to think "some of these health issues ought to be solved problems by the time I'm older." But I don't have the kind of capital to spend on it that companies like Google, or persons like Larry Page, do. Regardless of motivation, I'm happy to see investment in this domain.
I'm sceptical, since Google Health never quite caught on. There's room for improvement, certainly, but the regulatory requirements for mixing health and tech, and the externalities of dealing with vendors' proprietary formats will make this challenging at best.
Calico.com is registered to Oracle and there's nothing there.
I'd love to see some of these want-to-live-forever transhumanist moneybags actually put some money behind some of these things and move them past the pipe dream phase. I hope this is somehow a step in that direction. BTW: Calico... what a non-ValleyHipster name...
Yeah... they should have gone with Doctr.
But seriously, the fact that the first thing they do is start a corporation to control the science is not exactly comforting to me. Genentech is known for selling Avastin, their drug that fights cancer for $55k after they received harsh criticism for the proposed cost of $100k+/year.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bevacizumab#Costs
I fear a future where "all men are created equal", but only some can afford to become immortal and others cannot. We already see some of that now. Tons of ethical questions around this topic.