The New Era of Consumer DNA Tests

You feel comfy?

I feel ready to go. Ready?

Yeah. All right. I think we're locked in. We're good. Yeah. Okay. All right. Yeah. If there's nothing else I could tell you, let's get started. We'll go into it. All right. Kyan Sudeji.

Sudeji.

Sudeji.

Okay.

I want to do it over again.

Okay, do it.

I prepared for this. I listened to other videos where people said it, but I knew I was like, did they say it right?

Yeah, it's hard. It's hard. It's a hard name.

That's what I was worried. Okay. Kian Sedeghi.

Sedeghi. Yes. Yeah, that's correct.

Thank you for rolling in here. You are the co-founder and CEO of Nucleus Channel Works.

CEO.

Just founder.

Just founder. There's actually no co-founders.

It's important to make that distinction.

Yeah, I mean, I think it is.

No, no, it is. It's good. All right. I'm just going to do a little— I'm just going to introduce people to you just a little bit.

Okay.

And then, and then we'll jump in. But so Nucleus, we're going to get into it pretty deep, but it's a new type of DNA testing and there's lots of ins and outs to it. You went to the University of Pennsylvania briefly. You are a dropout. You're a Thiel Fellow.

Correct.

So fallen into that camp. I think the company started in 2021.

Yes, it was incorporated.

Yes. And then you've been rolling out new services. You have a service, if I remember right, the one that you really first started getting attention for was around measuring people's IQ.

Yeah, we do an adult DNA testing, and which includes traits like IQ all the way to diseases as well.

Right, and then just in the last month, I think, launched Nucleus Embryo.

Yeah, so we have basically 3 main products. One is the DNA health product, Nucleus Health, you can think of it as. Another is genetic matching. So you can see if you're a match with your partner, basically if you're carriers for the same rare hereditary marker. And then now we have nucleus embryo. So one of the things that's really unique about us as a business is we go the entire stack, right? So we do basically sequencing analysis from adults now all the way to embryos, which I think really violates a lot of the underlying assumptions of what it means to be a genetics company today.

And we're going to get into all this. I just wanted to cover some of the bases.

Are we live though?

Yeah, we're live. We're going, we're going, man. I have to— oh, and before we get too much farther, I just have to say that this podcast was made possible by the good people at E1 Ventures. We'll give them a little applause. Okay.

What do all these buttons do is the question now, because that one does that.

We got good sounds, but I try not to go too wild with the soundboard. That was just, just a little love for the, for the people helping us along. Okay. So the note— that was just the intro. Now we'll get into the good stuff. I mean, I don't think this is like meant to be as radical as it sounds. I guess you're, you're a, I would say a lively and semi, semi-controversial figure. I think.

Depends who you ask.

In this realm. Yeah. I mean, you guys, you made a big play at one point as 23andMe was, was on its going through financial difficulties.

That's a whole nother story.

That could be another podcast. Which I want to get into. There's some people who gripe online. You're not alone in this. Companies like Orchid get these gripes about eugenics and things like that with these DNA tests. And then there's some people when you launch the IQ test that were grumbly about like, can we trust the science on all this? And then beyond all that, you're just like, you're a mark, you're a good marketer, you're, you're active on Twitter, you're— yeah, like I said, lively, I think is fair.

I think that's a— yeah, I think that's fair.

Okay. So I want to— I mean, I want to cover the company's technology. I do want to do like a little bit on your backstory first. I mean, I think you're of Persian-Iranian descent, correct? And your father immigrated to the United States.

Yeah, my dad, my mom and my dad both actually are from Iran. Post-'79 Revolution, they had to leave Iran. My dad specifically actually had to escape Iran. So he spoke badly against the government. I like to joke, you know, like father, like son. And they basically tried to kill him. So he had to escape, eventually ended up in America. And, you know, he sort of has this kind of proverbial kind of classic American dream story. He's flipping hamburgers at McDonald's. He eventually becomes a doctor, goes to Harvard Medical School, becomes an ophthalmologist. And, you know, my mother has a similar story. She had to leave Iran. She eventually became like— she could speak, I think, 4 different languages fluently. She met my dad in Canada, I think, actually. And I like to say for my mother, you know, she has 3 PhDs: me, my brother, and my sister. You know, she's world-class, world-class what she does. And I think my parents sort of gave me this backdrop of kind of the determination of an immigrant family household with the kind of opportunity of America, which is, you know, the breeding ground for many, many different founders.

And did you grow up in Boston or Canada?

Brooklyn.

Brooklyn.

Brooklyn. Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay. I actually, in part, New York. People ask me, well, why is Nucleus in New York City a lot? And one of the very just pragmatic reasons is that I'm from New York.

Okay.

You know, so Yeah.

When I grew up, I just grew up with a ton. All, most of my best friends were Persian. I, I played tennis with all these. I just, I was like a pretty competitive tennis player. I just happened to be like, I grew up in Texas. A bunch of the best people in the state were, were a bunch of Persian kids who, who I hung out with like at school and then at tennis. And, and yeah, it was like a big part of my life. I kind of, the families are always so warm and yes, feed you lots.

Lots.

Yeah. And I, I just got, I got totally embraced into that, that community. It was really cool. Cool. And then, okay, so you're at UPenn. I think you're studying computational biology.

Yeah, I was studying comp bio even before Penn. So, you know, unfortunately, my cousin, she went to sleep one day and she didn't wake up. So she died in her sleep.

I read about the story. Yeah.

And I, you know, I asked my dad at the time, you know, my dad's obviously a physician. I said, like, you know, how does this happen? He said, oh, you know, bad genetics. And I was like, what the hell does that mean? And that got me very interested in thinking of disease as like a problem to be solved. I think I intuitively recognized that if there's like one 15-year-old that suddenly dies in her sleep and another 15-year-old that doesn't, there's something like wrong here. That's like a problem to be solved. And that actually, I think, eventually informed me, you know, decades later, I guess, what we're doing now. But I started becoming very curious with CRISPR specifically, like gene editing technology, right? It's a device that you can actually use it to engineer genetic material. And so I joined one of the first do-it-yourself genetic laboratories in high school. And this is really kind of notable timing because now the same journalist that covered that story— so I was in this do-it-yourself genetic laboratory and we were we were engineering yeast to make them illuminate. We added bacteria to make them—

This is in Brooklyn?

This is in Brooklyn.

Okay.

It's a warehouse in Brooklyn. This is like OG hacker, like weird, like biohacker though, not like necessarily classical programming hacker.

Yeah.

And there was a journalist there and the journalist was covering this sort of DIY, like CRISPR movement. And then she ended up writing a story about just like this 17-year-old, you know, engineering things. Like, what the hell is this kid doing here anyways? And then now, like, you know, almost 10 years later, she's writing this another story on us, but about Nucleus Embryo. This is the Wall Street Journal? This is the Wall Street Journal.

What's her name?

Her name is Amy Marcus. Okay.

Okay. She's like a, she's a bio, she's a health reporter.

Yeah, health bio reporter. And so to me, it's kind of a weird, crazy kind of long-term timeline thing because you can see how different technologies and different interests are eventually going to converge, right? Because like, you know, I started off not on the programmatic side, but on the actual like kind of wet labs, like, you know, it's much messier than the computer. And I in part went toward like combining atoms and bits together because I found the wet laboratory to not be very iterable. So my mind, I felt like it was always very imaginative and can kind of create anything in my mind, but then bringing it into the physical plane via pipette, I struggled with. On the computer, it was much more of like kind of an immediate instantiation of my logic, where logic can lead to creation much faster. And now I feel like I'm almost coming around again in the journey by being like, wait a second, these technologies— and this is sort of a meta point that we can talk about later on the pod— but, you know, the sequencing, analyzing, editing stack, it's almost in a weird way a culmination of all my experiences.

Yeah. And you're 25?

25.

Yeah, 25. So it's funny, I'm old enough to have like— I mean, I like lived through the birth of DIY bio. And, you know, it's kind of funny because when the genome— when we first did the whole genome around what, 2000, 2001-ish, you know, everyone thought there would be this immediate kind of revolution. And then, and then I guess about 15 years passed and the DIY bio revolution really started to kick off from Stanford and some other places. And once again, it felt like, oh, okay, we've turned biology into code. And we have done some of that, but it always goes slower than than people think. So you didn't have the feeling because you are— you're so young that you'd kind of missed that wave already.

Yeah, no, I think one thing that has always been very true with me is I just follow my curiosity very much and it led to gene editing and I was like, well, I really like this, but it's not very edible. So now let me go study kind of the intersection of bits and atoms. Let me go do computational biology at Penn. And then that led me to being in a genetics class one day where I literally— the professor brought up the decreasing cost of sequencing a human genome. I'm sure very, you know, a lot of your listeners are familiar with this chart. Basically, it shows that it used to be $1 billion to read a human genome. And then now, you know, at the time in 2020, it was $1,000. And I literally remember going in class thinking, okay, well, obviously this price is going to converge on zero. Obviously there's going to be an exponential proliferation of this data. Obviously someone needs to build the application layer for DNA. And with that in mind, I, you know, turned to my classmate and I said, you know, this is crazy. Like, the world's going to look different in 10 years from now. And they said to me, okay, well, is this going to be on the midterm? I said, okay, I got the fuck out of here. I got to get out of here, man. So this is not— this is not for me. And so I left. I moved back into Brooklyn. There's this whole story now. I don't know how should I get into it, but I actually lied to my parents. Sorry, Mom, Dad. I told them because, you know, the immigrants make wrong, you know, you don't, you know, you don't leave Penn from an immigrant's— you know, unless you want to get killed, you know. So I was like, oh, working with the professor at Penn. There was no professor at Penn. I was grinding in my bedroom for a year. I filled an 18-subject notebook books, basically the underpinning, almost like the intellectual foundation for building this sort of application layer that combines all these different genetic analyses together. And that eventually led to Nucleus. And, you know, my parents said to me, we're kicking you out of the home. And I said, okay, well, that's not—

they said what?

We're kicking you out of the home.

Kicking you out?

Because it's been like a year. They're like, what? Like, what do you even do?

So you were actually living at home while you were doing this?

Oh my God. Yeah. Like in my bedroom.

So what, you would like fake going to meetings?

I would. Yeah. I mean, they don't know it was COVID too. So it's not like I'm like going to the— I'm like also It's really funny because I would pull up like the DNA ATCG on my computer and I would like show my family that, like, look how cool this is. They'd be like, wow, that's crazy. Like the DNA on your computer? I'm like, yeah, right? Like this lab is some really cool lab. And it was, it was a frontier project, you know? And that's the thing though, which is like one of the hardest things I think people maybe sometimes miss about starting a company like Nucleus is like, you know, you need to have not only exceptional investigativeness but then exceptional enterprisingness. And usually those are kind of very paradoxical characteristics that don't exist in someone. And I think that The thing is that like when you're under such intense pressure, you're able to like push yourself to the nth degree in both, right? Like, you know, I feel like I can oscillate between both as needed. Right now I'm probably more on the enterprise side of my life, but if I ever needed to, I could go back in the investigative side. But during that year of COVID it was, it was isolating. It was lonely. It was brutal. It was friggin hard.

Yeah.

But, you know, now, you know, you have the fruits of your labor show eventually because you were in those notebooks you were filling.

It was what, what were you like? You were, you were trying to, you were trying to devise a software platforms.

The thing I was thinking about is, okay, how do you— basically, I was thinking, how do you— like, if you were going to— and this is very related to the EmbryoTh launch too— it's like, if you're going to build software that could accept any kind of DNA file, right? Because DNA testing technology has gone through many evolutions. And the thing I realized was, well, actually, the kind of testing is basically becoming, if not already, a commodity, right? In other words, everything from collecting the human sample or the embryo sample to generation of the raw DNA file is becoming commoditized. So the true value lies after the atoms have been translated into bits. And then so it's all at that point. You can almost think of DNA naively as like a text file, right? It's like, how do you build software that analyzes a text file? And that was the profound realization I had, which is the reason why this company today could have been started in a bedroom and not in a literal wet lab is because suddenly genetics is actually a computational science. And that is something that I think at the time it was obvious to me retrospectively, as I see how other companies have kind of built out their technologies, that actually wasn't obvious.

So this was kind of what I was asking earlier. If you're in my seat, somebody who's covered this stuff for a long time, I, you know, people have been, like I said, telling me this is a computational problem. This is all software now for, yeah, 10, 12, 15 years. And what, it just, it's just taken longer. You know, obviously people have been working on that. You've got Drew Endy at Stanford. George Church does so much stuff. Stuff like this, but you, you, you just felt like there were obviously opportunities people had missed, or—

I think a lot of things. I think one, that people forget that even when 23andMe got started in 2006, the cost of being a human genome was $10 million a sample.

Yeah.

So in my mind, any sequencing company that had existed even in 2010, 2015, it was way too expensive. When I started Nucleus in 2021, around a year later, I went to set up the initial infrastructure. I was quoted a price of like, you know, $2,000 per genome. And then literally 2 months later, it dropped down to, you know, whatever, $200 bucks, you know, from Illumina. And I started thinking, well, you know, like, you know, whatever people have told me is basically complete bullshit because sequencing has been way, way, way, way too expensive. I mean, the fact that 23andMe was still the company after 20 years, right? 23andMe started in 2006, right? Since 2006, there's been 7,000 ridesharing companies. There's been a million social media companies. You know, there's been a bajillion crypto companies. Where are the genetics companies, right? If you go and say, okay, name me another genetics company, people cannot think of one. And then it's actually related to a lot of the Embryo launch we just did too, because if you think about Embryo, Nucleus Embryo, it's software. We're the application layer. We don't do the testing. We actually don't really, you know, we're partners with Genomic Prediction. We recommend people do Genomic Prediction to do the testing for their embryos. But fundamentally, we're an application layer. We're embryo selection software. And I think it's the greatest manifestation of this idea, which is us saying, you know, how do you know that genetics is now computational science? Well, we have a product in production that literally takes in raw DNA files from another laboratory and that we analyze and give results to the patient. That's how you know, I think, that we're finally actually there. And in part, that's because because the sequencing cost is actually now a couple hundred bucks. It's not $1,000, it's not tens of thousands of dollars. And also, I think there's a way you have to tell this story that a lot of sequencing companies historically missed, right? Even, even, you know, some of the people you mentioned, they started— they've thrown their hat in the ring to start companies before. They didn't tell the right story to consumers. And that's something that I think 23andMe, you know, actually did successfully. It lost a lot of credit for that in the last, you know, several years. But they actually told a compelling story about why it matters to do genetic tests. But of course, it was about genealogy. And so now the kind of scope of what it means to be a genetics company is expanding. That's how I think about it.

Okay. I have— I'm going to fast forward for a second and then I'm going to come back because I do want to still ask about sort of that, the Thiel Fellowship and making this leap. But I want to hit this point. So the 23andMe, I mean, I think a lot of people listening to this will probably know this, but, you know, they only ever partly because of the cost issue you're talking about were testing 1% of your DNA, this, this small sample. And, and, and to your point, you know, some of the ancestry information was pretty interesting. But when you start digging a little deeper into the medical stuff, I always found it like kind of unfulfilling. And maybe, you know, for some people that's a good thing. It just means your DNA is not that interesting. But, you know, so now we've moved to this new era where you can do whole genome sequencing and go over the whole thing. I actually did— I did a story with Illumina I want to say about a decade ago, they used to have a program where you could pay quite a bit of money to have your whole genome sequenced and they would pair you with a doctor. And so I actually went through that process for a story. So I've had my whole genome sequenced for a long time.

And you can do it again, right? Don't you have the Nucleus DNA kit somewhere?

Yes, I do.

Let's do that.

Yeah. So I've been bad. I got this months ago.

Okay.

And you've been texting me until I do it.

That's my job.

You can tell me if it's so old that if it still looks like this.

Let's see.

Let's see. But, uh, it's like, oh, oh, well, I unwrapped the whole, whole kit.

Is this— okay, here we go.

Is this too— will this still work? I think this is like 5 or 6 months.

I, I think this will still work.

Yes.

Okay. DNA is a very stable molecule.

Should I keep going or, or—

I mean, it seems like your sample's in there, so it seems like you collected your sample already.

No, no, no, I haven't.

Oh, you haven't?

I haven't. I haven't.

Okay. Oh, this is a recollect kit. That's why.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Oh yeah. Cause you messed up the first time. All right. So then you need a swab and, you know, it's so easy. Just take your swab and just swab your cheeks.

I was telling you, I chew on these nicotine mints all the time. And I think, I think I did try to do this once before. I think it messed up.

You know, the kit is usually more beautiful than this.

You know, has it changed?

No, no, this is a recollect. So we sent you a, you know, not as nice, I have to say. If it's a recollect, we're like, okay, we'll send you a new one, but we won't get the nice, you won't get the nice kit.

I apologize for that. The, and so, okay, so you can test your whole genome. It's been cool. So I, you, when I did that test, I had this doctor, Brad Pittay in San Diego. He'd kind of partnered with Illumina and it was really cool. I mean, you can bring up your whole genetic code. There were, when I was looking at this a lot, there were all these open source applications where you can like go hunt around for things you're interested in. It was awesome. And then every now and then he'll call me and whatever, something updates in the software and he's like, oh, just so you know, you know, you might want to keep an eye out for this or that. If I do, if I do your test today, I know you have these different product lines, but okay. I mean, I find this fascinating because like to your point, 23andMe was this huge hit. It felt like did very well for a while, really captured— everybody knows that brand, but it was this very limited test. So in some ways you guys have just, you just rebooted this idea, you know, not, not I know there's more to it, but in some ways you've just rebooted this idea for a whole genome sequence era.

I think so. The way to think about the genetics industry is the following. There are consumer genetics businesses which historically have been kind of gimmicks where like people always talk about 23andMe, but obviously Ancestry is actually the largest genetic testing company in the world and they do genealogy. Obviously it's called Ancestry. So that's kind of one division. Then there's kind of clinical genetics companies that do like hereditary breast cancer screening, for example, like Myriad Genetics. Then there's preconception testing, right, to see basically if you're— you and your significant other at risk of passing down a serious genetic condition to your child, which is a company like Natera. Natera is like a $20 billion company. Actually, they do other things, but it's a $20 billion company. Then there's pharmacogenomics, where basically your DNA can affect you in 1,000 different drugs. Right. And then there's also IVF testing companies, right, which look at basically your embryos and give you information into your embryos.

Orchid, we put a whole video out with them.

Yeah.

Nor's cool.

Drug prediction. There's many of them. And what we do is we combine all these companies, all these applications into one. Because the fundamental realization of a company like Nucleus is the application layer is king, the software layer is king, and there's really no actual difference between analyzing an embryo DNA file and an adult DNA file. Looks the same. Similarly, when you analyze for genealogy or you analyze for breast cancer or schizophrenia or pharmacogenomics, again, once you have the whole genome, there is no reason why there should be 6 different companies focused on 6 different applications. Historically, that made sense because it was almost like the old analogy where there's a fence set up for a long-lost problem, right? In other words, there were so many fences set up because the underlying assumption of these businesses was that you couldn't read the whole genome. So think of your DNA as like a 1,000-page book, right? You could maybe read a page of the book. But and so, you know, different companies said, okay, we'll each focus on different pages. And then those companies actually became very successful. Us, we're collapsing that model. We're saying actually every application can exist in Nucleus. We are building the health and reproductive stack. And moreover, there's no such thing as a genetics company. And that we can talk about too, because the thing that people forget too about 23andMe is they'll sometimes say, oh, 23andMe is a one-time test. The ethos of a business of 23andMe, it was an offshoot of Google, right? 23andMe's first investor was, was Google. It was part of the kind of Web 2.0 movement where the idea was similar to Google or Facebook's model, which is collect a lot of data and then sell that to a third party. In other words, the customer wasn't the customer. 23andMe could have been the most successful consumer health business ever. They could have been, right? I mean, they kind of predicated the longevity movement and they had more reach and distribution than any other longevity kind of, you know, consumer health startup. The reason why they didn't do that, because that wasn't their business. Business. People sometimes will conflate the fact that genetics is, is one time. That's why it's not a good business. You know, genetics actually, I would argue one, I'd argue it's actually something that is increasingly valuable year over year. But even barring that point, the reason why 23andMe didn't create recurring value for the consumer is because they were trying to serve the pharma company, right? It was the Google model, the Facebook model, the customers and the customer. And that collapsed. Yes. And that collapsed in itself because 23andMe data is so fundamentally limited, it's actually not all that good for making drugs. And so if 23andMe had said, actually, the DNA is the foundation to build a real-time, consumer-centric, quantified health platform, where you take someone's genetics, their blood, their MRIs, their wearables, and we integrate all that together, they would be worth, you know, 100x. They would have gotten acquired for 100x, and they did. And so from that perspective too, you start realizing DNA is one of many tools to build this consumer health stack, and moreover, DNA as the only lab test that's generational in nature, right? And that's what's so interesting. You know, you take a blood test in mom, you're not going to and use that to make insights into your future child, obviously, right? But genetics is literally what you pass down to your child, right? It's literally— you're a function of your mom and your dad. And so in that way too, you start realizing this idea that, you know, we call it generational health, the nucleus, that, um, you know, when you do a genetic test, you're actually also doing genetic tests for your, for your, for your child, but also for your mother, for your brother, for your sister.

In other words, there's a familial nature to the diagnostic test that, simply speaking, for whatever reason, no one is taking advantage Well, because I think sometimes if you did do 23andMe, you know, it felt unfulfilling because unless you had something horrendous like the BRCA gene or something, you know, there were only like 3 or 4 things where it was like, you're— you really should go check this out. Otherwise it's kind of like, oh, you might be like kind of predisposed to this or that. And it was sort of like, well, what am I supposed to do?

And that's— and that's in part because the technology was so limited. So let me give you an example. So now you would expect around 90% of Nucleus customers they find out that they're actually carrier for a genetic marker they didn't know. That's pretty crazy. I mean, basically, like, for me, for example, I'm a carrier for cystic fibrosis. I had no idea. Obviously, it's not in my family because it's a recessive condition.

Now, what do you do with that?

Well, I mean, now the key is every single time I go on a date with anyone, I'm not even kidding. I'm like, hey, I mean, I mean, I don't want my kid to have cystic fibrosis. Yeah, right. The worst thing that could happen— it still happens— is millions of basic genetic conditions where, you know, you, you you date someone, you get married, you fall in love, and you simply don't swab your cheeks. And then God forbid your son or daughter has a very serious debilitating disease that just invisibly, you know, has passed down. I mean, so what do you do? I mean, literally, if you are— if you and your significant other— in my case, if my girlfriend was also a carrier for cystic fibrosis, I would do a nucleus embryo.

Yeah.

So now we think about that. Now we create the stack. Wait, let's stop for one second.

I saw you do an Instagram date with a woman and you guys went to this longevity place.

Yeah, it's my—

you had some What did you go into? It was like— it was a lymph—

lymph— lymphatic drainage or something.

Lymphatic drainage. You guys were getting along. She was very nice. She was very nice. Yeah, you guys were having— she was fully into the whole— so you go into this— this video is great, people should go look at it. Um, and, and you're very clear, you know, it's like, we're gonna have this date, but at the end we're gonna, we're gonna do our test, and like, if, if we're not a match, this whole thing is over. And you guys are kind of getting along. I mean, I mean, you're both— you, you're both very nice to each other, seem like you're enjoying the lymphatic drainage and, and having a good time. And then you do the test at the end, you're not a match. I, I was trying to pause the screen, like, what, what was— or maybe it's her medical information and we can't talk about it. It is her medical situation, but like vaguely she has—

basically, yeah, there was a risk of the child having a serious condition. I'm not going to specify what it was, but I, I think that, you know, it's funny because why don't you guys just call it off and you like hug her and send her on her way? You know, it might seem like sci-fi, like, and creepy maybe, even almost, but you know, this is done in certain communities. The Ashkenazi Jewish community, for example, they will only matchmake based off of people are not the same carrier for the same condition.

I think because they have like Cannavans and all kinds of—

yeah, they have all sorts of different carriers for things. But like, the thing is that what's interesting about this is like, when you're dating someone, presumably you are doing— you're getting as much information as you can. Like, let's be real, you know, you're looking at their Instagram, you know, you're looking at their parents, you're looking at their job, their career, their this, you're looking at everything. I mean, it's your significant other, right? This might be the most important decision, probably is the most important person of your entire life. There's no reason why— I mean, I think it's very reasonable to be like, well, like, is our DNA compatible? Are we a genetic match? Like, I think it's a very reasonable question. You don't want to have a child with a serious condition. You know, a swab could save your future child's life. I mean, you're probably going to swab your cheeks. And so in this case, I think it was interesting because it was actually an organic date. It was all real and we didn't actually know. And, you know, on the one hand, I think, you know, Ora, she was sort of the girl in the video. I think she was like disappointed that we weren't a genetic match. But also I think I think in a way it's also really informative. Like, I don't know, I felt like in a really way empowering. Like, imagine, like, you know, you fall in love and then, you know, you're gonna have kids. And you can do nucleus embryo, so it's fine, right? You can always do that and you can pick the embryo without the condition. And again, that's why it's like sometimes people are like, oh, I don't want to do it because what if we're not a genetic match?

But if you love her, you're a true love, that's fine.

You can then do IVF and you can pick the baby without the condition.

Yeah, right.

But at the beginning phase, before you're like, okay, who should I date? I mean, I think it's pretty reasonable to say, hey, you know, you should swab your cheeks.

Yeah. And how, like, okay, because it's all percentages, right? I mean, well, in this case it wouldn't In this case it would be—

because so genetics is different. There's different kinds of genetics. So one is like kind of what people might know, like where, you know, someone falls in some sort of like in The Simpsons or something, radioactive material, they get some mutation and then like they have some trait. That's a model of like what's called monogenic conditions or conditions where, you know, I know, you know, this where there's like a bad marker and you get a disease. Single gene. Yeah, single gene, like a BRCA variant, for example. Even BRCA, though, is probabilistic in nature, but basically it's high penetrance. So you'd expect to get this condition. Condition, right? And so a lot of— or not a lot, a portion of the rarer genetic conditions are, you can imagine, more deterministic in nature. Then it gets to common conditions, like things like heart disease, things like schizophrenia, like Parkinson's, for example, different cancers, where it's more probabilistic in nature, where it's like, hey, you know, typical woman has whatever, 13% chance of breast cancer, you have a 25% chance, or, you know, apply that across schizophrenia or anything else. And in the kind of genetic matching we right now, it's very much in this camp, which is like the more deterministic camp. So it's very, it's very kind of cut and dry. Right. But I do want to emphasize this point again. You know, if you are not a genetic match to someone, that is the beginning of the story of having healthy children. That is not the end of the relationship, because then what do you do? Right. And this is kind of the beauty of the kind of health and reproductive stack that we're building. This is sort of the, you know, really unique things about Nucleus and the fact that we do adult testing. We also do now embryo analysis as well, which is, hey, you guys are both carriers of cystic fibrosis. We're going to make sure that when you go do IVF, we're going to pick a baby without cystic fibrosis. Yeah, right. And maybe even beyond without cystic fibrosis, they won't even necessarily need to be a carrier for cystic fibrosis. Right. We can go even one step beyond because now all of a sudden there's this idea of generational health where you literally, from your bloodline, so to speak, are getting rid of a bad marker. I mean, I don't think there's a family that wouldn't say, okay, well, obviously, why not? Right. Especially if you're going to do IVF. Why not?

And then, okay, so Let's dig into that for a second. And I don't mean this to be super combative. Before you came on, I was just like asking some friends, you know, and so because you're talking about being quite general purpose, if I look at someone like Orchid, you know, they've got— they have their own labs, right? And they're doing— I went to an IVF clinic. I mean, they've got this partnership. There's an embryologist there, Pamela. We did a video with her. I mean, she's amazing at her job just selecting these cells. There's a lot of stuff that goes into it. Right. And, and so you could argue, okay, Well, if I'm doing the IVF part, Orchid pays so much attention to this. They've done all this science. They've got these relationships with the IVF clinic. You know, they're really putting so much focus and attention into this. Some of my biotech friends were like, well, Nucleus, you know, they don't have their own lab. This is all software. And yeah, I mean, I think they were presenting this as a ding, right, that the level of science is different with a company like Orchid versus you guys. And maybe this is kind of where you're at or maybe not. Yeah, I was just— and I know I appreciate— I've seen you on Reddit. I mean, you take all questions and, you know, seems like you're totally good addressing things like this.

Yeah, absolutely. There are companies like the ones you mentioned that are focused on the testing. Of the embryos, right? And there's many of them, right? Genomic Predictions, our partners, um, we focus on the analysis. It's not that it's— analysis is better than the testing. I mean, the testing, the function of the testing in the context of like a, you know, laboratory is to principally generate a raw DNA file. That raw DNA file is then analyzed, right? The value exists in the application layer. It's not that the lab testing is more important than the lab analysis, or the analysis is more important than the state. It's about what do you want to focus on. We focus on the analysis, we focus on the software, right? We are the only selection software, we're the only genetic optimization software. We provide analysis on everything. So from our perspective, we're actually complementary to these companies that you mentioned. We're actually not competitive with them. We want people, more and more people, to do IVF. We want people to get access to the raw files, and then at that point, people can actually genetically optimize their babies on Nucleus. And I think that's interesting because for us, there's a couple things that we do fundamentally differently. One is we don't put an arbitrary line in the sand and saying, hey, you can get diseases, but you can't get traits. We believe in genetic optimization. We believe if couples want access to height or IQ or hair color or eye color or, you know, alcohol dependency, right, they should have access to that. Another thing is we really believe in the consumer deciding. So this is a different approach than some of the companies that focus on the testing, right? Which is we really see it not as the doctor's choice to make the decision, right? If you go to an IVF clinic today, generally speaking, the doctor is the one that's picking the embryo. We see it as very similar to our model in the context of adult populations as well, which is this idea of participatory medicine. So just take a step back here to kind of understand the kind of ideological framework, which is, you know, Dr. Leroy Hood is a very famous scientist. He said that, you know, the best medical system is one that follows these 4 P's structure. So one that's personalized, that's predictive, and that's participatory. And one more, I think I'm missing it. Predictive, maybe. And basically he described a system that at the that can prevent conditions, that can predict conditions before they happen, effectively switching from a sick care system to a true preventative system. And part of that is actually the consumer being in the driver's seat. It's actually not the physician. So the physician historically has been, I would argue, somewhat of a gatekeeper, somewhat of a blocker. And you can see already in the kind of upstream, in the adult land, in the adult testing and longevity land, led by someone like Bryan Johnson, which is like, I am actually the agent of my own healthcare. We are taking that principle now and applying to the embryonic context. By being software, it's not a disadvantage, it's actually an advantage because now anyone from any IVF clinic, no matter what company they use, can actually take their files, bring it to our software, and then they can literally get insight on every disease, every trait. We are not beholden by the, frankly, more conservative. And I would argue, and I think you would actually see this in the IVF clinics today, they often will conflate translate science for politics, right? They'll say, hey, you can't get analysis on your baby's height. Why? Yeah, that's the single greatest polygenic model we have today is for height. You know, you go to an IVF clinic and the doctor will say, no, no, you can't decide off of that. So suddenly we're not just kind of philosophically different in that, hey, we're approaching from a software layer because we actually want everyone to have access to it, right? Once you're a lab test, you're fundamentally limited. For us, it's like, well, you can go do your lab testing anywhere, you can generate the raw files, you can bring it to us. Now what happens? One, you're in the driver's seat, not your physician. Very important to us. Two, you have access to everything, everything from schizophrenia and alcohol dependence to your baby's eye color. It's not for us to say, and it's our— in our opinion, it's not for the physician to say what you should and shouldn't optimize for. And then three, by combining our might— because to be clear, we do adult testing and analysis, right? We're not— we, you know, we, we operate many laboratories. Nucleus is actually an informatics laboratory. We're actually one of the only clinical single-grade whole genome informatics laboratories in the entire country. So there's two laboratories we use. There's the wet lab and there's a dry lab. We own and we operate our dry lab informatics laboratory. Right. It's not exactly even correct to say we're not a lab. We are a lab. On the wet lab side of things, we also, as you know from the swab you have, we also do that testing as well. So we're very familiar with the kind of testing. And the thing we've realized over time is that the testing, it's not what's interesting. I mean, the testing, I mean, you saw the cost curve, right? It was $1 billion. Now it's, now it's $100 $1,000. You know what's going to happen in the next 5 years, Ashlee Vance? That's going to be nothing. Everything is going to be moved to the software layer. So it's not about science, it's about the fundamental alpha for the consumer in terms of access, in terms of the breadth and depth of analysis. It exists in the application layer. And on that last point, which is because we do test adults, we can actually make the IVF process much cheaper and much more effective and targeted for parents. Why? Well, the reality is that if you, if you have like a human embryo, the fundamental thing is where does the embryo come from? It comes from mom and dad, right? We offer some of the cheapest clinical grade whole genome testing in the United States. So we can very effectively sequence mom and dad and then inform the parents on the specific markers they need to watch out on and then run a cheaper genetic test at the embryonic level. So suddenly now we've actually made genetic testing not something for the super rich, not something for the crème de la crème of Silicon Valley, but something that anyone anywhere can access. And so that's kind of the last thing, which is by leveraging our strength science and adult testing and kind of going full stack now, we can also make it cheaper and accessible, not just patient empowered and not just giving someone the full stack of information.

Why you guys partner with Illumina?

We have partnered with Illumina and now we partner with Genomic Prediction. So in a way, it's actually very similar if you think about it, right? Like people don't think about us in the adult testing context as being an application layer, but functionally speaking, we are. And that actually goes back to, I'm not sure if you know this, but there was a company way back when it was called Impute.me, it was run by our chief scientist. Impute.me was a software service where you could actually take a raw me file and upload to Impute.me. And so that was one of the times Lasse and I, the founder of Impute.me, he and I became very close. I was actually emailing him under a pseudonym. There's a whole story. I was asking very technical questions under a pseudonym.

Because you didn't want him to know you were younger.

I don't even know. I don't even— I think so. I didn't want him to look me up. So I was like, my name is Bob, who's the worst pseudonym ever. This is my biggest regret during that year is I should have thought of a better pseudonym. I could have gone like crazy. Bob? Come on, Kieran. What the hell? So I was emailing under Bob. And the thing that I think Lasse was so, so intelligent for realizing, and maybe the best, you often realize this, like the best insights kind of are accidents almost. Like you're almost going through the idea maze and you're like, oh, well, let me just do this next obvious thing. And the thing I realized, this was now almost, you know, Impute.me existed like 10 years ago, 10+ years ago, is that actually the 23andMe customers, they could take their raw file and bring it to Impute.me. And so from Lossie's perspective, and Nucleus now owns, we actually acquired Impute.me, and so it sort of kind of informs our fundamental way that we see this. And also me in my bedroom, again, I told you it's always a software problem for me. This is always a software problem. It's not a lab testing problem. Was that, wait a second, you can actually apply that same logic of 23andMe to Impute.me to now embryos for Nucleus. And the thing was, at the same time in parallel, as we started talking genomic prediction, and I said, hey, why don't we, for the first time ever, build this stack to together. And so I think it's sort of this beautiful thing that to say what you said earlier, which is like, oh, genetics is computational science. People have been saying that for two decades. It's here.

Yeah. Yeah.

It's live. It's in production.

I hope so. So when I got my whole genome, I got the file and yeah, for better or worse.

And what'd you do with the file? You probably went around and uploaded it.

I uploaded it.

Yeah, you uploaded it, right?

Exactly.

But that's a great example, right? Because you have the file, you realize, wait a second, Who cares? Like, the test is cool, but the function of the test is the analysis.

Well, you know, because you could, you could hop to Ancestry.

Yeah, exactly.

There's a couple others.

There was a lot. Prometheus was like one.

MyHeritage, I think. And then it's interesting because, you know, like 23andMe, I felt like it did really well in the US. But if you start uploading to these other sites, you get connections with people from other parts of the world. And, and, and yeah, so I've been doing that for a long time. BetterWorthMyDNA. And now long I've just given up on that.

Ashlee Vance, think about this. Now think about from what you were doing. How long ago was this?

I mean, I've been doing— I've been uploading that. Yeah, for a decade.

So for a decade now we are taking that and saying, hey, why not for embryos?

Yeah.

I mean, think about that. It is a natural continuation of an already existing phenomenon that exists in the adult DNA land, which is the alpha is not in the generation of the file. The alpha is in the analysis.

That makes sense. I mean, we might as well get into this. I don't think we're going to crack any new ground. But, you know, clearly every time you post, every time Noor from Orchid Post, you know, when we did our video, get all the eugenics stuff. So there are like, there's two bits of this, right? So one is like health and I have a lot of trouble with the critics on, on that one. I feel like this is coming from a place where they don't really understand what's going on. So, you know, to me, if you're looking at these embryos and one has, you know, a chance of having this, this monogenetic horrible debilitating disease and you cannot do that. To me, that seems obvious. Then the next step, people, even some people grumble about that, but then the next step is like, oh, okay, now we're doing eye color and now we're doing height. And then, um, you know, again, I don't think we're gonna break new ground here because this is like a long-running debate. I think, um, people fear that then suddenly you end up with like all the kids look the same cuz there's like some trend. I think people will want different things and, and stuff like that. But I mean, the, the biggest thing I've been noticing as a reporter who covers this stuff that I don't think the public is aware of is, is whether it's Orchid or you guys or other, like the, like the, this moment has arrived in, in 2025 in a pretty big way. This is not going away. We're gonna get better and better data. There's gonna be more choices to be made. Um, I don't think like most people are sort of, to me, if feels like the stuff we talked about, the things that I've been covering for 20 years, to your point, are here. I don't think most people are paying attention to this. So what's— what, like, how is this going to play out, man? Because there is going to be— there's going to be a backlash. There's going to be— every time I talk to people, they just say, well, okay, then we need ethicists, and, and this is medical, people take this stuff very seriously. In my experience, tech always kind of like outpaces, you know, regulatory. Um, like, if society wants this, society is going to push it forward fast. And so I don't know, I mean, yeah, like, tell me.

I have a lot of thoughts. If there—

yeah, okay, so tell me some of your thoughts and then tell me, tell me what like 5 or 10 years from now looks like.

First things first is, you know, all the time in, in the longevity movement, people say I'm going to optimize my health. Nobody bats bats an eye. I'm going to optimize my life, no one bats an eye, right? And when people talk about longevity, and this is related to embryos, it's inextricable, and I'll explain why. When people talk about longevity, they don't just mean I want the absence of disease, right? We all know that. People want peak performance. They want to thrive. They don't just want not Alzheimer's, right? They want to be in the best possible shape.

In other words, if an adult could be taller, lots of people would choose that. Yeah, like instantly.

Exactly. And So there's really this false line in the sand between diseases and traits. In other words, there actually is no difference. And you know, this isn't like a philosophical point. This is actually almost like a genetic point. What do I mean by this? What I mean is that like, if you actually look genetically, what you find is that the extreme enough version of any trait is a disease. So we tend to think of a trait as a disease. It's like a, like a very sharp distance, but it's actually not. Let me give you some examples. Height, right? The extreme end of height is Marfan syndrome. It's a disease. The other end is Morphism is a disease. IQ, one end is autism, right? The other end can be some sort of, you know, you literally are incapacitated, right? In other words, there's kind of a much more inextricability of diseases and traits. It's this fallacious dichotomy. And when you actually do genetic studies on longevity, right, what do you find the genes that are associated with longevity? It's something like APOE, which is a gene that's associated with Alzheimer's. In other words, it makes a lot of sense. If you don't have Alzheimer's, you live longer. In other words, there's been this weird thing where people say, oh, you know, somehow diseases and traits are very separate, but it's a completely arbitrary line in the sand. They're actually, genetically speaking, and also if you just literally think about it, it's one just long continuum, one spectrum. And so we really don't see— and on that point too, you know, I don't see there a difference between saying I want to optimize my embryo in the same way that when the child's born, you want to optimize every aspect of them. You want them to be as healthy as possible. You want them to get the best possible education. You want them to be on the best sports team. You want them to have the best friends, right? It's like this parental optimization of your child. Genetics is just another tool in the toolkit that helps parents give their child, you know, their son, their daughter, the best start in life. And I think the thing that people actually get tripped up on is on the underlying assumption that genetics is deterministic. It's not, and it never will be. When people mention Gattaca, they never mention the fact that—

I saw you get that a lot.

It's really funny. It's like, oh, is it Gattaca or Theranos? Like, it's like on the one end, it's like the most powerful technology.

And like, we brought to work— X was, uh, Gattaca, and Reddit was Theranos.

Yeah, it's like, it's like if it's Gattaca, it's like the most consequential technology ever, it's gonna like dramatically change the world. If it's Theranos, it's a sham. So I don't know what people think, like what's the consensus, right? And the reality is that genetics is not nothing, it's not everything, it's something in between. And we know this intuitively, right? Like if you ask anyone like, oh, do you think "Hey, how genetic do you think height is?" Someone would probably say, "Well, it's probably pretty genetic, right? Probably 80% or so of height is attributed to genetics." If you ask something like extroversion, for example, it's dramatically less. In other words, different phenotypes are more or less driven by genetics. And in other words, genetics is not deterministic and never will be deterministic, right? Even if you built the best possible genetic model in the world for IQ, there's still error bars. That's not a bug, that is a feature. That is a feature. Because, you know, DNA is not destiny. In other words, when you put it from that perspective, you realize this isn't some evil deterministic tool that's going to create some crazy, you know, unsubstantiated caste system. This is actually a tool that is like any other modern medical intervention that's going to help babies live longer, healthier lives. And in fact, it is the only diagnostic test. It is the only lab test that you can even run at that level because there's no body. You can't run a blood test. You can't give your baby a vaccine, but you can run their whole genome. And imagine this. I know right now someone's using Nucleus Embryo and they're going to pick a baby that is not an E4 carrier for Alzheimer's. And this baby is going to have a dramatically lower risk for Alzheimer's than they would have had. And I know that maybe 40, 50 years from now, that, you know, that baby is going to be living their life beautifully. It's going to be thriving. And they won't even know that the underlying genetic code was in a simple software in the cloud, a simple decision, a click of a button, basically stopped debilitating pain and suffering for their entire family. That's what Nucleus embryo is about. It is about the ultimate instantiation of preventative medicine and optimization. Right. If a parent wants their child not to have a cancer, that's their right. That's their choice. If a parent wants their kid to be taller, that's also their choice. And let me tell you why that already actually exists in society today. Right. One of my friends came up to me in a spirited debate and said, Kian, I think this is eugenics. I said, okay, well, why?. And we started talking and I said, you know, when you go to, you know, when you're at a party, you know, who do you go to? Oh, I want someone who's tall. I want someone who's this. I want someone who's smart. So, you know, where do you think the DNA comes from? It comes from mom and dad, right? You're already selecting for the phenotypes that you want, whatever it is you want. And people want very different things. 6'5", right? 6'5", right? And what do you think that is? You're going to make your— yeah, exactly. You're going to make your baby taller. And so like, I always find it strange because embryo, embryo selection is always a relative optimization. You're picking from the DNA material of mom and dad, which you've actually already selected for by the nature of selecting for your partner. And so, you know, it's actually, I think people get these ideas so confused. Yeah, go ahead.

Well, okay, I'm gonna try to ask a question where I may end up looking stupid and possibly offending people, but here we go. I mean, so many of the fascinating people that I've interviewed over the last 20 years are on the spectrum, you know? And it's like incredibly high-functioning, exceptional, brilliant people. Brilliant people. If we do this for 100 years, you know, and people are trying— there are costs that come with being on the spectrum, right? And so you could imagine a world where society is like trying to push away from that. Yeah.

I don't know if I agree with that. Let me tell you a little more about this.

Well, some people I think would like choose it, but I think writ large, I suspect not. You know, do we end up with like less exceptional people in 100 years? It's so funny. You know?

Someone said this on Twitter. I was like, I was going to send them like so many podcasts I've done because me, I'm in the 99th percentile for my genetic risk for schizophrenia. Okay. Crazy, right? I was that weird. You know, we don't want that. It's interesting because if you actually do population studies and do correlations of polygenic scores, high schizophrenia genetic disposition is associated with being an artist. Makes sense. Low ADHD is associated with being like a doctor. And what we find is, generally speaking, founders tend to be very high schizophrenic. And for me, knowing that piece of information, being empowered by that information, you know, if I was using Nucleus Embryo, I would actually pick a more schizophrenic baby. And to be clear, I'm not saying I want the baby is not going to get schizophrenia. It's a disposition, right? So I'm saying, hey, you know, instead of having, you know, whatever, 0.5% population chance, maybe it has a 3, 4x higher chance, right, relative to the population. And because I know, and this is, this is a fundamental point, actually, oh my God, I cannot express this enough times, and I've been saying this for years, which is This is a great example of the inextricability of disease and traits. You cannot select for diseases without selecting also for a trait. If I select for higher schizophrenia, I'm inextricably selecting for creativity. Similarly, if I select lower for schizophrenia, I'm also selecting for lower creativity. These things are a complex web of what's called pleiotropy, basically.

Why would you take that risk, darling?

Because I know, I know the risk. Because the risk is still pretty small. Like, for me, even though I'm in the 99th percentile for genetic risk for schizophrenia— 99th percentile genetic risk— it's relative risk. What does that mean functionally? That means I have around a 1.5% chance of schizophrenia. That's still really low.

Yeah, but why would you— I, I understand what you're saying, you would want your child to have the potential for more creativity, but like, why would you even— I, I mean, it just seems like a 1% chance in risk.

Like, I mean, you know, you could— there's so many things. Like, to me, that 1% chance for me is— it's very little. It's a very minimal risk for what you can get.

Yeah.

Also, another thing is that for me, I know that we don't care later But here's the thing, which is the— for me, I know there's not a family history of schizophrenia in my family either. So I mean, if you think about the disease model threshold, basically one way— and this is maybe a little bit too technical, but let's just go here. Let's fly. So if you think about getting a disease, okay, imagine that getting the disease is some really, really complex function of genetics and environment, which it is, right? At some point, imagine there's whatever, 100 random variables in this, and each variable is like a 0 or 1. Just imagine it. This way. And basically, if you get enough 1s across these 100 variables, and let's say you cross like 90, you get the disease. This is kind of like this— this is how people actually think about disease. Like, there's this like threshold model, which is like past a certain point of different environmental genetic factors, you will get a condition, right? If there is a family, a genetic history, like in my family, we all have very high genetic risk for schizophrenia, but we don't have schizophrenia. In other words, for whatever reason in my family, that kind of complex function never crossed the 90 threshold. So I'm not worried given the kind of set of genetic and environmental factors, right? Because obviously given my entire family history plus my genetics, that's like kind of my kind of scope. I'm not worried that that introduction in this case is going to introduce kind of cross that barrier. And the thing is, you know, someone might be listening to this and be like, oh, this is such a technical point. Like Kian understands so much about this stuff that like he can almost like optimize. But that's what we're trying to do for everyone, right? People should understand these trade-offs. Like there are babies running around with 99% schizoaffective schizophrenia, right? 99 of them don't have schizophrenia, right? 99 out of 100, right? So, I think this is part of the difficulty of actually eventually creating this genetic optimization software, which is we have to understand the inextricability of diseases and traits and what you're optimizing for and not, and realize that there are very high-functioning exceptional people with extreme genetic dispositions. One more point here, which is to be very clear, I'm not selecting for a hereditary marker. I'm not selecting for a Braca, right? I'm not saying I'm going to give my kid Braca so they're more— I think no, no, no, that's bad. That's like a very high penetrant decision that would take your kid's chance from, let's say, like 1% to like, I don't know, 80% or something. That's obviously not— I mean, that's crazy. I think that'd be crazy to do that, to select for that, maybe even unethical, you could argue. This is a polygenic prediction, right? So it's inherently probabilistic. And knowing all like the prior weights of my entire family, I think it makes sense. And, you know, me, I have a high genetic risk for schizophrenia. You know, my parents, obviously, you know, where does my DNA come from? Mom and dad. You can induce that my mom and dad have a higher genetic schizophrenia. What is my point? My point is that genetics is actually a lot more interesting than people think in that the diseases and traits are a lot more inextricable, which is why we shouldn't put an arbitrary line in the sand. Instead, we should educate parents about the different trade-offs and choices. And then this gets to the fundamental point, which is different parents want different things. Notice the way you reacted when I said I'm going to pick my kid to be more schizophrenic because, you know, naturally I'm more, you know, genetically schizophrenic. You said, what the hell is wrong with you? Right? In other words, you might not do that, right?, which is great. And you see that already when people pick embryo and, excuse me, when people pick sperm and egg donors, people actually will pick for different things. Some will value IQ more, some will value EQ more, some will value some other axes more, maybe height or physical appearance, right? And so all these things together, you actually have a world where everyone's informed, everyone's using our genetic optimization software, and people are picking based off what matters most to them, which is different. And you actually never end up in this world where everyone picks for the same things. Uh, one final point here, which is there's a great example that our, one of our advisors gives in the scientific advisory board. He went to a deaf couple one time and he said, what kind of kid do you want to have? And they said, I want to have a deaf child. Is it for you or me to say, oh no, no, that's not right? It's up to the parents. People have different value frameworks. They make different decisions. You're going to see that playing out globally, basically, when people use the software.

So what do you think this looks like in 5 or 10 years? Like everybody's doing that?

I think a couple of things. One is I think IVF becomes much cheaper and much more ubiquitous, right? Right now it's still invasive. It's still kind of really expensive. It's still sort of painful. Painful. I, I think, you know, stem cells, you make eggs, you make sperm.

I think, and to get the most out of the— whether it's you guys, organs— to get— in order for people to be able to take advantage of these types of technologies the most, I mean, you really, you, you have to do IVF if you're focused on the, the child part.

Yes. So, so yes, you— if you want to do nucleus embryo, you have to do IVF. Today. The reason why I keep saying today is like, I really do think in the future IVF won't even be a thing that's different. It's just going to be how people have children. I really believe that because, because what's going to happen is going to become so much cheaper, so much easier. You can make stem cells, make into gametes, whatever. And then all of a sudden you're going to be able to effectively anyone, literally anywhere could. I mean, maybe even you can take your own cells and, you know, make the cells like, who knows? And so having sex to have kids, I do think it's going to eventually be an archaic a very archaic thing. I do believe that. And I actually think genetic technology is along there with AI going to be the single most consequential technological revolution ever because it literally is the language of life. And on that point, you're going to bring together sequencing DNA, analyzing DNA, and also then editing DNA. And then that stack forms. And then of course, all these things are related to each other because you, you, if you don't understand DNA well, you can't possibly edit it, right? Like, like this is something that people always miss. It's like, they're like, oh, we're going to engineer DNA, CRISPR and all these things. It's like, yeah, but what are you going to engineer. In order to engineer, you have to understand DNA. We don't even have a whole genome database today that's millions of people large. The largest whole genome base is half a million people in the UK Biobank. Half a million people, right? Think about that. There are billions, billions, billions of genomes to be sequenced, billions of genomes to be phenotypically mapped. And then think about all that data to then far greater understand the actual underlying genetic architecture. All that information is going to be fed into then actually understanding more and more what are actually the causal markers, which then all that information is going to be fed to and what actually can be edited and engineered. And I actually think of it as almost the great equalizer, because now suddenly anyone anywhere can actually use genetic technology to— and it's so cheap, it's so beautiful. It's like your iPhone, right? It's like, you know, the college— I put this on Twitter— the college student has the same iPhone as the billionaire, right? It's no different. It's the same thing. Genetic technology to make sure anyone anywhere can basically have the child they want. I think that's a beautiful thing.

So it's something would have to change in some ways. There was the scientist in China who—

what, Dr. He? I think.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Um, you know, he got thrown in jail for 3 years after editing some babies to block HIV. Yeah. And, you know, so, so it's like, seems pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty pro, um, health, you know. I mean, I mean, try to make sure they didn't get HIV later on. Got thrown in jail. Um, Chinese government, they've like let him reopen a lab, but he's kind of like being monitored all the time. He just got married to, to Kathy Tiananmen Square, and now they won't— the Chinese government won't let her come back into China. So, you know, they're upset with him. The scientific community was outraged because he raced forward doing this stuff before people felt like they'd solved all the ethics. And so, like, if we're thinking of the Overton window on some of this, I mean, you know, huge backlash against what he was doing. And then now companies like yours are out here, you know, offering these services more and more where we're kind of heading this direction. Yeah, I'm trying to— I try to figure out where—

I think a couple of things here. One is that, like, look at the CRISPR. You know how the baby was recently— for the first time ever, there's a baby that was CRISPR.

That was in the US.

Yeah, that was the United States. Yeah, they cured— they cured a baby of— in Romania, some really rare hereditary condition.

Right.

And so I want to say a couple of points on this. One is extraordinary scientific achievement. I mean, amazing.

So why was that okay? And what he did was not okay.

I think you have to ask society that.

Okay.

But, but I think one thing on this point is that, you know, we need to use the entire genetic stack here, right? Ultimately, genetically engineering a baby to get rid of a hereditary disease, the fact that we can do that today is exceptional. But also there's preconception testing, right? There's a reason why mom and dad can get together, swab their cheeks to describe so that you, God forbid, have a baby with a severe debilitating disease and then need to use some of the most frontier technology in the world we have to try to cure that baby, right? If mom and dad had swabbed their cheeks, you could, you know, use IVF and then avoided it. So on And this point, I think it's really, really important to say, which is gene editing for gene editing purposes. When we have technology that's easier, cheaper, and basically already mass ubiquitous to stop a baby from having HIV, to stop a baby having rare hereditary disease that exists today, that future is here today, right? You could do preconception testing at scale and you could in a single generation rid the entire world of monogenic disease. That's today with no gene editing required.

Which like people should know are like the worst conditions.

I mean, it's horrible. It's brutal.

Yeah, kids dying at really young ages.

Horrible.

Horrible.

Truly horrible. And this is what's really interesting now, which is like, you shouldn't just gene edit for the person you're gene editing. The gene editing should come when it's actually like you can't already use the tools we have to basically stave off disease, if that makes sense. So like HIV and these hereditary conditions, like using CRISPR, I'm almost like, like it's a great, it's amazing. And especially in the baby's case in the United States, that's amazing. I mean, that's like a feat of science. And thank God for that baby. Thank God for that family. But also, people should be aware that there's upstream measures they could take to make sure that we don't have to, you know, solve the problem, but you can prevent it in the first place.

Why do you think it was okay that we— it was because it was the US and not China?

I think because it was a really rare hereditary disease. Okay, it's less like cosmetic, right?

Because he was kind of just preparing them for maybe in life they encountered HIV.

Or the thing too, though, to remember is that like for a lot of the phenotypes, they're polygenic. So a lot of the times people think it's like, okay, I'm going to switch this one thing again. It's like if you're like going to gene edit BRCA, which increases your risk of breast cancer, why would you even do that? Like, just, just you can just do IVF and screen it out. Like, there's no reason to engineer that. It doesn't even make sense. What's going to be the future in my mind of gene editing is going to be multiplex engineering, right, where you can actually engineer many, many sites in the genome. Genome. But the thing with that is to do that, you actually need to identify the causal markers in the different parts of the genome. And we often know that a region of DNA is associated, but we don't know that it's actually causal. Okay. And to do that, there needs to be even more research. And so maybe my point is that like, it's going to be a company like Nucleus that actually puts these pieces together because there is no, you know, it's interesting. Brian Armstrong put a tweet up recently about a gene editing startup. And, you know, there's many.

How awesome the Core Memory podcast is.

Yeah, exactly. That's great. Amazing. Thank you. Thank you, Brian. Can you—

you did it!

I did it!

I remembered the button.

Okay, how do I stop it? It goes on. Okay. Um, and so he was talking about gene editing, and I think that's like great. Like, I think like it's great that like these babies are— like, these babies that now have these genetic conditions that didn't use these preventive genetic measures, they, they, you know, CRISPR should become cheaper and better and faster. But I really think to do the kind of engineering that people imagine, you're going to need to combine a dramatic increase in genetic understanding, right? It's going to— this is a decades-long play, dramatic increase in genetic understanding through the rise of like whole genome testing analysis company, and then applying those learnings throughout the entire stack from adults all the way down to embryos. And actually, you know, I'm looking around and I see Nucleus. It's the only company that's actually saying, actually, forget about, you know, you're doing this, you're doing this, we're going to do the entire stack. And, you know, my background is in gene editing originally before I went to the computer side of things. I don't see a world where as the decades come, you're going to combine massive whole genome datasets, you're going to combine artificial intelligence, you're going to combine a profoundly new knowledge of the human genome. IVF is going to become much, much, much cheaper. And suddenly you can do mass multiplex engineering at scale across anyone. And I think that's actually a beautiful future because any anyone, no matter your background, no matter how much money you have, can access basically the best possible genetics. Like now everyone can give their child the best start in life. And here's the kicker, that society will never be deterministic because DNA is inherently not deterministic, right? So if you can have people without disease, if someone wants their child to be taller, or if they want their child to have, you know, brown eyes, or if their child wants to maybe be more schizophrenic, whatever it is, now anyone, no matter actually the combination of mom and dad, if you think about it, you're not limited by mom and dad's genes. It's literally anyone can can access the best genetics. And so I think that is a great equalizer for society. I think that's an awesome future to build toward. We're far from it. We're far from it. But I think that's what's coming in the future.

So on, on Reddit, I know we're kind of joking about it, but I mean, you did a Q&A and you did get—

oh, wow. That Q&A was intense.

You got a bunch of questions.

I would say something about this Q&A, which is I want to apologize to the Reddit community because I put this Q&A out and I was like, oh, maybe one person asked me a question because I think it was about 23andMe and Collapse at the time.

Time. You got a lot on that. Yes.

Let's just say we were— I was caught up in conversations around 23andMe and that whole thing, because it's a whole thing. And so I'm like distracted the entire day, and I opened up Reddit, I'm like, oh my God.

And you— I mean, you got— there were a handful that basically I would summarize them as, you're 25-year-old, you're a Teal Fellow, you dropped out, How are we at all supposed to trust you? You're enthusiastic about all this stuff. You're like, you know, if you put those dots together, it's like you can have a stereotypical sort of view of like vaguely where you're coming from. I know you listed off like, look, these are our scientific advisors. These are, you know, they're people at the top of their field. So I'm putting that part out there. But you know, there is a world where you go off and get a medical degree or a PhD and, and come and do this. I mean, you have— there is a— there's an argument to be made that you've kind of stacked the deck against you just because this is biotech, it is medical. People like to see this kind of credentials, um, in this type of thing.

I think ultimately the, the measure of Nucleus is what we put out into the the world where people can use, touch, feel, see, learn. And I think that those comments are understandable. I understand why people are saying it. I think the most beautiful thing about the company is that we are live in production and that when people do Nucleus, when they actually see the product, when it goes from this kind of abstract teal fellow mess to, wait, let me actually use the product. And then they see a video of a patient, for example, recently he was suffering. He, you know, he had brain fog.

Dog.

No doctor could figure out what was wrong with him. His name is Ethan, um, and he did Nucleus, and we found out that he had a condition called hereditary hemochromatosis, which can, you know, lead to excess iron levels, uh, iron levels in the blood. And then from there, he actually started doing monthly blood withdrawals, which effectively saved his life. These are very different narratives, right? The thing that I always find funny about the Theranos comments is we're live in production, baby. We're live in production, baby. You know, if, if, you know, I, I never did a Theranos test. You know, you want to do Nucleus test, go order it right now, right? You can go order it. People have used it. People see it. And it's funny because a journalist said to me yesterday, they said, you know, sometimes I look at your Twitter and I'm like, okay, like this is, you know, this guy's like very energetic. He's out there. He's, you know, super, you know, young. And then I use the Nucleus product and I was like, oh my God, this product is rigorous. It's beautiful. Everything's well cited. You're talking about, you know, Nucleus is a clinical laboratory. We're clear certified, we're CAP accredited, we're physician ordered, right? We're on at this point, you know, decades worth of scientific research. Research, right? I mentioned, you know, Lasse Fogersen, our chief scientist. He's been doing this, you know, such a long time, almost as long as I've been alive. And so when you start actually looking about what we put into the world, that's how I want us to be assessed. I want us to be assessed by how much value are we giving patients? What are we telling patients? And then what you find is when you actually look at that, you find that we're helping parents, we're helping couples, we're helping individuals live longer, healthier lives and have healthier children. And so to me then, what people saying say, doesn't matter because I know we're shipping our customers value. I know customers are using it, they're getting value. And now I know in the embryonic context, right, people have already used Nucleus Embryo and they've said to me, you know, this is the most spectacular product I've ever used. That is the measure. And, you know, it's funny, I got a funny LinkedIn DM yesterday from someone that said they saw the launch. I think he said my wife is doing IVF and she saw the launch of Nucleus Embryo. She started crying. She said, the world needs this. That's what this is about.

Okay. Can I— will you— one more devil's advocate?

Sure, go ahead.

I'll change tack. This is just from— this is from a friend who actually knows what they're talking about.

Which friend is this? Is this a friend who builds a competitive company?

I don't know. I'm not— I'm not—

this is a friend who—

sometimes people's friends in tech are like, like, let me You know, um, you know, they're saying doesn't actually detect thousands of serious diseases. Um, they're kind of like knocking on the, the whole genome part, receiving 1% of data, um, running through software that's not validated.

I mean, first I would say, you know, to the audience, which is like, you know, whenever someone says my friend in Silicon Valley, almost certainly this person has some vested interest in saying something that is negative or positive. Just, just be always aware of that. Always know who's saying I mean, it's just not true. I think there's a reason why Genomic Prediction picked Nucleus to do our analysis, because again, we are a clinical-grade whole genome laboratory. We are at this point probably one of the most well-backed genetic testing companies in the world. We have an army of scientists and engineers, and we again are live in production. So the science— I mean, I would tell your friend, go to Nucleus and see what you learn, which is we can screen for over 900 conditions. By combining the power of our whole genome test in adults with genomic predictions technology. Suddenly you can screen for not only hereditary conditions, but also you can do polygenic testing as well. And I said to you, I think we're complementary to the companies that you mentioned as well. If someone does one of those companies, they can take their raw whole genome file and they can upload to Nucleus. I mean, that's what we do. That's what we do. We're in a way, actually, I would argue we're more suited than a lot of the IVF testing companies for what we do. Because all our models touch grass. We have adults that do our models, right? Where do you think the embryo models come from? They come from adults, right? And so in that way, we're actually much better, I would argue, at not just testing and validating our models, but moreover, we're better at actually, during the IVF process, to keep cost as cheap as possible because there's going to be certain companies that say, oh, you need to do this test on your embryos. But what they don't tell you is that by actually combining our adult testing technology with the different technology at the embryonic level, we can make things much cheaper and more accessible. And moreover, on that point, again, I want to be very clear, we're a software layer. We don't see ourselves as competitive with these other IVF testing companies. We see them as complementary. You can go do those companies. In fact, you need to do one of those companies before you come to Nucleus, and then you can bring over the DNA data and then you can start optimizing your embryos based on whatever you want. And so I think, you know, a rising tide will bring up all ships. And I think it's really interesting. Nucleus is is in a funny position because depending on who you ask, they will say our competitors are different people, right? Some people will say 23andMe, another person will say some other consumer health startup, then someone else would say some IVF testing company, and then someone else would say some PGX company. And I always find it funny— what's PGX? Pharmacogenomics, like how your DNA affects the pricing of drugs, right? Because we also— also some will even say other clinical genetics companies like Myriad, for example, or Natera, right? Because they can't pin us down. And the reason why they can't pin us down is because we are violating all the underlying assumptions of what does it mean to be a genetics company. They want to pigeonhole us 23andMe, they want to pigeonhole us in the IVF testing market. They want to pigeonhole us in clinical testing. We do it all. Why do we do it all? Because again, we're this application layer. So we will just— we can take in the data from these people. We can focus all our effort, all our capital, all our scientific expertise on building the best possible software. And part of building the best possible software— this is an important point— isn't just the rigorous science. That's a must, right? The most rigorous science. But also it's making software that's actually usable for people. One of the things about if If you notice that, you know, there was a thread on Twitter that I think got millions and millions of impressions. It was screenshots of our interface. And I was thinking, I was like, why did that resonate so much with this Twitter user?

What, people were like into it or?

They loved it.

Okay.

And I think it's because for the first time we built true selection software. Like literally, it's, you know, embryo 1, embryo 2, embryo 3, embryo 4, right? You can compare across any vertical, any axis. You can rank them, you can sort them, you compare them, right? You can leave notes on them. You can even name them if you want. In other words, it's true consumer first healthcare. And that is in itself a narrative violation for the IVF testing industry, which is saying what the adult genetic testing industry said 20 years ago when 23andMe got launched. So follow this with me, Ashlee. In 2006, I would argue one of the most profound breakthroughs of 23andMe wasn't necessarily the microwave technology. It was the fact that we are going to go direct to consumer and give them insights into their DNA. That was a, that was a crazy idea. You're going to give someone a bracket? Are you, are you crazy? Right. That was a crazy That's the idea. Now you're seeing the same thing. Nucleus is taking that D2C ethos. To be clear, we are consumer-initiated, but we're really consumer-focused. We're taking that ethos and we're going out to a world where it's honestly a stronghold by IVF physicians and clinics, and the doctors really feel like they're the ones in charge of the embryo. And then we're breaking that. So you should almost expect as Nucleus Embryo scales, as we help more parents optimize their embryos, you're going to see in the same way that people revolted against the kind of customer-centricity of a 23andMe, they're going to revolt again. And they're going to say, oh, it's the science, it's this, this is that. But actually what it's about is not about the science. It's about politics. It's about power. It's about power that they have over the process. Because fundamentally, you start empowering patients, right? Someone is going to lose power in that equation, right? The IVF clinic starts losing some power. The doctors start losing some power. Even I would argue some of the other companies start losing some power because it comes all about the customer, which is not just how it should be in the adult world, which, you know, on the back of 23andMe were pioneering, but now also in the IVF testing world. And then also the fundamental realization that these things are false dichotomies that, you know, the application layer doesn't matter, the analysis layer is what matters. And we're actually integrating in the adult and embryonic testing.

Okay. I'm keeping an eye on time. I just want to change gears just for, just for a couple seconds.

I feel like we could go on for hours. Are we going to the Joe Rogan style? I mean, let's go, baby. Let's go.

We'll break you down. Hour 10. I've always wanted to do this. Oh, wait, one real quick question. Is this, is it US only for the moment?

No, we accept files from anywhere.

From anywhere. Okay.

And Nucleus Embryo specifically, you're talking about?

Or— Yeah, no, I mean, so, so you accept people's DNA, but like, if I want to order a test, do I have to order a test?

We're actually launching international very soon. So if you want to do that, you know, DM me on Twitter or the like. Right now, like strictly speaking, like right now it's US-based for the testing. Nucleus Embryo is anyone, anyone can do it. Also, if you upload your whole genome file, you can come from anywhere. Our testing infrastructure is about to launch internationally in a couple of weeks.

Wait, so do I have to do the test or I could just upload my file?

I would still recommend doing our test because, you know, I don't know the quality of the file that you have. Okay. Inspector did the test.

It was Illumina.

It was Illumina.

It was trustworthy. Really quick, just, I hang out with a lot of Thiel Fellows. I've actually never really talked to anyone about the process. I mean, and we have a lot of young kids who listen to the show and I mean, what's it like? I don't know if this is a secret or not. No, it's not a secret. Yeah.

It's not a secret.

What happens? I mean, you send in some application and—

You know, I actually, I think I applied to the Thiel fellowship like 5 years in a row. So if you're out there and you've applied so many years in a row, know that it's a slog, can be a slog. I think in a way that's a good thing actually, because it kind of tests to see who's actually committed. I think the best way, I mean, implicitly what you're asking me here, I think is like one, how do you get in and then what's it actually like? There's like two questions.

Just totally curious what it's like.

I'm like, because some people always ask me this, like how do you get into the Thiel Fellowship? I would say that the people getting into the Thiel Fellowship are are people who, generally speaking, drop out before. Like, I was out of school before the Thiel Fellowship, you know, admitted me. And I know that's been true for many of my peers as well. They were actually out of school already working on their thing. Okay. So that's one thing to note. It's like almost like the ultimate test of how much conviction you have is not if someone sends you $100,000 and then you do it. It's already— are you doing it? Yeah. It's like the best evidence is that you're already doing it. So that's one thing. When you're actually in, I mean, it's a lot of fun, primarily because of the the community, right? I mean, there's an application process, whatever. But the community, I think, is what is just so phenomenal.

I mean, you're hanging out with like the people in your cohort, your class, but then also all the previous ones and the people in Peter's—

Peter, I mean, yeah, I mean, also we're founders from back to— I mean, founders from that RC round. So I also had, I think, maybe a different experience too, because I was sort of exposed to that kind of world before even doing the Thiel Fellowship. Like, Deleon led the round. Keith and Deleon led the round in late 2020. 21, and then the Thiel Fellowship probably came, I think, a year later, maybe. And so, like, I sort of, like, saw that a little bit. And it's kind of funny, actually, to be backed both by Thiel's Foundation and the Founders Fund because they're actually very independent entities. They usually don't like to cross over. Okay. So that's interesting. But really, the value is— the value is in the network of kids and the fact that you can— I mean, it's so small. I mean, you know, it's like, so nice, so small. Yeah, it's just— it's just one of these things.

Well, and then in the Thiel Fellowship, I guess it's changed a bit over the years. Used to be paying you to drop out of school, and then now it seems more like this couple years to go work on your—

they still give you like $100,000, right?

But it seems less, um, dependent on you dropping out and doing it. I, I don't know, it just, it seems like a way to explore, um, an idea if you're, if you're— how many, is there a number on how many each year, or they—

I think it's around 20 if I remember correctly. I'm not completely sure, but I think around 20.

And what, and you get selected and then you all meet for like a dinner or something like that?

Meetups, dinners, you go to Peter's house if you're Yeah, that's always fun. You know, there's always like, you know, it's interesting. It's interesting because sometimes like people are on very different parts of their journey in the Thiel Fellowship now too. Like someone might have like, like raised money and like be building their thing, right?

And so it can be— I was trying to get at, it used to look more the same. It was like someone's like a freshman or sophomore and they're bailing out. Now it feels—

Yeah, it used to be like, you know, Dylan from Figma where it's like literally like, you know, like the raw dog, you know, it's like, okay, let's just give this kid money. I'm like, let's hope for the best. That's right. Yeah, I think it's evolved a lot. I think they're going back to their roots now, actually, a lot. And they're trying to find really the undiscovered talent. I mean, I mean, I have to give a shout out to Corey Levy from Z Fellows who's done— I mean, I was originally a Z Fellow before Founders Fund invested before Thiel Fellowship. I was a Z Fellow. And Corey, you know, had this program where you could actually text him. So, you know, Corey Levy or not, I don't know. Okay. Oh my God, Corey's great. He has a program where it's called First Tax, where basically he has a phone number. Okay. And you could just text him. And actually, originally, the funding for Nucleus came from I found this firsttext.com and I found this. There was literally just a web page with the phone number and I texted him. It's on my Android.

You just text the idea.

I said, hey, yeah, I'm Kian, I'm building blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And this is a funny story. So I text him. He doesn't respond for like a week, 2 weeks. Eventually he responds, oh, sorry, you know, can we talk? I said, okay, sure. And then he says, okay, let's talk at this day, this time. I say, okay. I go outside. He doesn't call me. And then I'm like, well, these fucking investors, you know, they're the biggest assholes. And then he— by the way, I'm like desperately trying to find money because my parents are like, you can get kicked out of the home. So I'm like, I don't know anybody— I don't know how any of this thing even works? And then he's like oh sorry! I'm so sorry, I have two phones... Who has 2 phones?! He was making fun of Cory now because he's his friend but Corey's fantastic just everyone knows. But it's okay if I go to my basement when I see my brother you get outta here. Like kicked him out of the base that I talked about before and I'm like "nucleuses!" Blah blah blah blah bla blah! You know what year verbal diarrhea occurred or something. Oh no!

No more words for me anymore.

And then I remember it's like 45 minutes straight. He's just like listening. Corey's kind of like a quiet, like very astute person. And he goes, so it's a better 23andMe. Exactly. Exactly. I was like, maybe I should just let him know that. I was like, maybe that's how you pitch. Actually, he ended up coming in investing, you know, $100,000 also with Ed Landos. So it was $200,000 and that's how Nucleus got started.

Okay.

And so, you know, and then now I think Z Fellows is— I mean, so now First Text became Z Fellows and Z Fellows to me is like the most preeminent program today in finding young founders. I mean, Cory does not get enough credit. He's kind of done this very quietly. I think he, he, he is in every single great deal, every single top founder.

That's how I feel. Oh my God. Where did he, where did he work before he became a—

Cory, he, he, he built a company. I can't remember the name of the company. He built a company. He actually sold it to ancestry.com, which is pretty funny. And then from there, he started doing different projects to help basically very young, very ambitious technical founders get their start. And then I think he had a couple of really big winners and he could scale it more and more and more and more. And now suddenly he has almost this like mini monopoly on like every young, you know, person under 25 that's trying to business. He, he manages to kind of find them when they're truly undiscovered and put them in. And I think people like Corey don't get enough credit in Silicon Valley because it's very easy to follow on capital, right? The hardest thing is when there's a kid. And also shout out to Delian and Keith at the time when Founders funded the round, because in the seed round, I mean, oh my God, every single investor said no. I mean, every single one. They don't understand it. To like, no one ever really bought into 23andMe. 3, there's like the whole Theranos thing that they're kind of scared about, right? And like those, those reasons. And it's also not really tech. It's, it is tech. I would argue it's actually tech, but they don't really see it that way.

When you're pitching to— because I would have been close on my Theranos heels, right?

Yeah, it was not, it's not a good time. And then they all said no. And then I'll never forget in founder's fund pitch meeting, I get introduced to Keith. I think, you know, Keith takes the meeting. Good on Keith.

Keith, our boy.

Keith, our boy. Yeah. And Keith, Keith says, I'm pitching him. He says, you know, the cost of sequencing is going to come down dramatically in the next 5 years. I was like, wait a second. He's the first investor that actually has some clue of what the hell is going on here.

Seriously?

Right. And I couldn't believe it. He's the first one. He's like, you know, I just gave a company, you know, half a billion dollars to actually do that. I said, what?

What?

Like, first of all, half a billion dollars. My mind, I was like, that's a lot of money. And then I was like, what is he even talking about? And then I was like, well, what's the name of the company? And he's like, no, no, I can't say. It's confidential. So we get off the phone and I'm like, well, he does not know what he's dealing with. And so I find a patent, okay, with the name Gilad. And I'm— and I— and this is a really funny story. I find this patent and I somehow find his phone number and I text him and I'm like, hey, my name is Kieran. I'm really good friends with Keith. Lie. And I'm like, you know, do you want to like, you know, talk? And Gilad's actually— well, actually, before I break it, let me just keep— finish the story. And so this guy's like, okay, sure. It's like, he's messing with Keith, I guess. Like, he got my number, whatever. And so we get on the phone the next day. So I pitched Keith Friday, we get on the phone with Gilad on Saturday. And Gilad and I are talking and it turns out Gilad is the CEO of a company called now public Ultima Genomics. So Ultima Genomics is a new sequencing company that's looking to drive down the cost of sequencing. They raised like half a billion dollars. A lot of it's from Keith. I think Keith's actually on the board. And I'm telling Gilad and he says, this is such a good idea. Okay. And I'm like, thanks. He's like, well, you know, how much money have you guys raised? I'm like, basically nothing. He's like, what? That's crazy. And then he's like, where'd you get your PhD from? Yeah, I said, no PhD. He said, really? I said, yeah, just my bedroom, I guess, Brooklyn. And he's like, okay, okay, okay, one second. And then supposedly he called Keith and was like, you have to invest in this company. And then I spoke to Deleon on that Monday and then 5 minutes in the call, Dylan said, we're investing. And so I have to give credit to, you know, people who took big bets. And of course, Alexis Ohanian too, from 776, a big bet. They just saw something they believed. And I think that's the hardest thing now. It's like there's, there's Nucleus Embryo, there's the Wall Street Journal articles, you know, Twitter's a riot, you know, we're causing riots on Twitter, you know, we're doing the podcast. Okay, now if someone wants to invest, I'm sort of like, yeah, I mean, thank you for the support. Of course, I love it. You know, it's great to be partnership. But come on, let's be real. Like, there was a time when I was in my bedroom with notebooks. And these are people who allocated millions of dollars toward us. Yeah, right. That, that to me is the true spirit of venture. So that's kind of what I always, what I always think about.

Okay, it's cool. I think I feel like there's obviously a lot of people super into Peter Thiel and Founders Fund and what they do. And then there's, you know, there's a whole world of people who sort of, well, they kind of like detest Peter on a political, personal level and maybe are suspect of Founders Fund. I always find find the Founders Fund people in that orbit in particular to be, um, just like— don't agree with everything, but who does? I just find them to be really intellectually stimulating.

I think there's no greater party than a Founders Fund party. Yeah, it is maniacal because—

and I know, I don't know, there's people who just would think it's all evil or whatever, but I, I go spend a weekend And with the Founders Fund circle, I'm like, honestly, my brain is just humming as I'm going to bed. It's hard to like, like actually I'm a really good sleeper. It's hard to sleep because you just have all these story ideas and then you just, I have major imposter syndrome because you're just with all these incredibly high IQ. I'm usually like a talker. And then that's like one of the few places where I just shut up or try to, and I just, and then people ask me about the stuff I'm doing. Whatever I'm doing is not, is not interesting compared to whatever is about to tumble out of your mouth. Just, just keep talking.

What's so interesting about founders, I mean, think about Nucleus, right? Like, they really do live up to their ethos. Like, I think like sometimes on Twitter, it's like kind of a joke, like this idea of contrarian, but like, here's a, here's a 20-year-old kid dropout. No reputation, knows nobody in his bedroom with notebooks, right? I never forget the time when I was on my LinkedIn, fairly, you use my LinkedIn back then. I see like Keith O'Boyle looked at your profile. And the fact that he looked at that profile and then invested in a bio— I mean, seed round, founders fund, institutional investors in a bio-related company.

Okay.

In a random-ass kid, you know, off, you know, in Brooklyn. I mean, they live up to their ethos, man. Like, they take— I mean, they take the swing. And I texted Keith recently. I was messing with him. I was like, look, you know, look at the launch of Nucleus. I'm I'm like, look, you know, 5 years ago I called it. And that's the thing, which is to actually have the proof hit the pudding, right? It's kind of what I say to you about like some of the hater comments. It's like, you can say whatever you want, the proof is in the pudding.

Yeah.

I mean, you can go back 8 years, you can read my work I was doing with gene editing in the laboratory in the Wall Street Journal. I love genetics. And the thing is, I was telling someone recently, that's my friend, which is when you are so sincere in what you do, and right when the mind, body, soul is aligned, it shines so bright. It, you know, everyone is, I think, lifted up by it. And I think that's where I feel like I'm in my life. Like a lot of times in college, I didn't feel that way. Right. But when I am on this like pathless path, I just feel so like, like, you know, I see like angel numbers around me. Like I feel just so like, you know, it's just I'm called, you know, to do it. So I'm very, very grateful for that.

Well, I mean, that's cool. That's when you know, yeah, you're doing what you're supposed to do. I think I'm supposed to let you get to Berkeley. Yeah. So thank you so much for your time. Thanks to E1 Ventures for helping us out. Yeah. No, thank you so much for coming to the office. Give them the love. Give them the love. Okay. That was for both of you.

I was going to say.

That was for both. No, but thanks for trekking out here from New York. And it's actually like mynucleus.com.

mynucleus.com if you want to do the embryo stuff. Davidnickelson.com/embryo.

People want to check out. All right. Awesome. Thank you so much. Have a great rest of your day. Thanks, Ashlee. And, uh, thanks everyone for listening. Core Memory is hosted by me, Ashlee Vance. The show is produced by David Nickelson and me. Our theme music is by James Mercer and John Sortland, and the show is edited by the John Sortland. Thank you all for listening. As mentioned, this show is sponsored by Yuan Ventures.

Thanks.