Jeff Bezos thinks that lots of money can buy a life that never ends.
Jeff Bezos, founder and former CEO of Amazon, is the latest billionaire to put money into a company that is trying to fight age. MIT Tech Review says that a new company called Altos Labs has started up with plans to do more study into reprogramming, a technology that can slow down aging. By adding proteins to a cell, reprograming basically tells the cell to go back to a state where it can make new, young cells, which are what the body is made of.
After leaving his job as CEO of Amazon in July, Bezos said he would focus on charity work and other hobbies, such as his ongoing space rivalry with Elon Musk. This week, Bernard Arnault of LVMH is richer than Bezos, but the top spot changes hands every so often. Having about $200 billion in assets isn’t enough for Bezos, though, so he also invests some of his money through Bezos Expeditions, an investment company.
DEATH BY CHEATING — A lot of rich people, like Larry Page, Peter Thiel, and Larry Ellison, have also put money into study into anti-aging. Last year, Bezos and Thiel put money into Unity Technologies, a company that wants to make medicines that fight age. Page, one of the co-founders of Google, has put a lot of money into a company called Calico.
Anti-aging is interesting, maybe because money hasn’t been able to beat death yet. For people like Bezos, whose wealth can change whole businesses and take them to the stars, some may think that their money should also be able to fight aging.
In the past few years, Bezos’s public image has changed a bit. He used to be seen as a data-driven geek, but now he’s seen as more of the powerful businessman he is, as shown by his newly toned arms and fitted clothes. Trying to fight aging seems to fit in with these attempts to create a new public image that shows how powerful Amazon is.
Not much is known about Altos Labs, like how much money it has raised. MIT Tech Review says that it is hiring scientists and offering $1 million pay per year. Researchers will be able to work for the company in California, the UK, and Japan.
HARDLY FOR THE GOOD OF ALL — The effects of getting older might be worth fighting, especially as people get older and can’t move around as much and enjoy life as much. But some people say that millionaires like Bezos shouldn’t be choosing which causes to fund. Instead, they say, he should pay his fair share of taxes and the public should have a say in these choices. Recent news stories have shown that Bezos and other wealthy people use complicated plans to avoid paying taxes on their huge amounts of money.
