Flashback: Ben Lamm of Colossal: Value Your Critics

What I Know

By the time he teamed up with Harvard geneticist George Church to found Colossal Biosciences, Ben Lamm had founded, built, and sold five companies. This one would be the most audacious yet: Its goal is to create disruptive conservation technologies, including, to de-extinct the woolly mammoth. Yes, it is actively working to edit elephant genes to create a cold-hearty herbivore to help decelerate melting of the arctic permafrost, and, thus, prevent release of 600 tons of carbon a year. It’s also working with existing species-conservation efforts globally–and hopes to apply its technology to save animal populations from going extinct. But with the audacious mission comes a lot of questions–and many critics. Lamm told host Christine Lagorio-Chafkin that he learns more from his detractors than from his supporters–and he welcomes both hearing from them, and, in a couple cases, he’s actually hired them to work with him.