Retro set a goal above all else, and to achieve it as quickly as possible, they decided to break a few rules.
Instead of looking in one direction (which is already difficult and unpredictable), Retro is conducting research in five directions at once. And this expensive, risky strategy is only possible because Sam Altman is behind it.
Typically, in the biotech industry, companies take what they believe Bulk SMS Myanmar could be an exceptional breakthrough and, after years of work and expensive clinical trials, sell their results to a pharma or med giant.
“Usually in this industry you take one idea and spend nine years on it, and then eventually maybe it works, maybe it doesn’t,” says Betts-Lacroix, the startup’s founder.
Altman and Betts-Lacroix had long discussed starting a longevity company based on a single treatment, but the more they talked, the more they became concerned about other things.
"Sam was willing to do something different and spend a lot of money on several things at once."
Betts-Lacroix, the co-founder of Retro, was a three-year-old who didn't immediately find his way into science: he ended up at Harvard College by chance, following his girlfriend. After moving to Silicon Valley, in 2000 he co-founded OQO Inc., a well-known but unsuccessful manufacturer of tiny personal computers, and then worked at the well-known but unsuccessful gene-sequencing startup Halcyon Molecular Inc.
“I was in a subculture where we thought we were redefining society. We were starting from scratch and could make our own rules.” – Betts-Lacroix, co-founder
