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◼ DEBRIEF Bloomberg Businessweek November 11, 2019“We will use biology essentially to
manufacture all physical goods”
andrice—whichmakeuphalftheglobalfertilizerusage—
don’thavethesemicrobes.Whatwe’redoingis takingthe
DNAcodefromthemicrobesonthesoybeans,redesigning
it toworkwiththemicrobesin thecorn.Thenyouapplyit as
a seedtreatment,andit’llfertilizethatcropsoyoucanwean
cornofffertilizerovertime.That’stheidea,andit’saboutan
$80billionmarketforfertilizer,justin thatapplicationalone.
Sowhat’sthevisionforyourbusinessmodel?
You’rea bigcompany,andyouhaveanideaforwhat
you’dlikea celltodo.Youcometous,andweagreeon
thespec.Weprogramthecelltodoit.Wegiveyouthat
cellapp.That’sourproduct.It’sessentiallyanintellectual-
propertylicense.We’vewrittena pieceofcustomsoftware
foryou,exceptit’sa customgenomeinsidea cell.Youthen
takethatbackandbuilda businessaroundit.Thekeyis:I
needtogeta pieceofthat.It couldbea royaltyor—wejust
announceda partnershipwithY Combinator—wecantake
equityin companiesthatarebuildingontopofourplatform.
Wewanttomakeit sothateverybodyusesourplatformto
programcells.It’smuchcheaperthanit’sbeenhistorically.
Youwanttostarta biotechcompany?You’vegottobuild
a lab.You’vegottogetequipment.You’vegottogetallthe
labmaterials.Allthesethingsareanenormousupfront
expense,andit reallylimitsinnovation.Sowhatwe’resay-
ingtotheY Combinatorcompaniesis:Justuseourplat-
form.We’vealreadybuiltallthat.Wehavethathugefixed
cost,andyougeta lowmarginalcost.AndI willprogram
thatcellforyouinexchangefora chunkofyourcompany.
That’sthedeal.
Howmanypartnershipsareyouguysuptonow?
Wehave 50 cellprogrammingappsthatwe’redeveloping
withabout 25 differentcustomerstoday,mostlylargecom-
panies.Thatnumber’sgoingtostarttogoupa lot,because
we’reworkingwithsmallercompaniesnow.Andonceyou
thinkofit asa technologythatyoucanprogramtodonew
things,it’scleartomethatwewillusebiologyessentially
tomanufactureallphysicalgoodsin thefuture.Everything.
Wherearewecapableofgoing?
You’vehadanImpossibleBurger,right?Youbiteinto
thatthing,andit bleeds.Where’sthebloodcomefromin
a veggieburger?Whatthey’vedoneis they’vetakenthat
brewers’yeastandprogrammedit toincludethegenefor
hemoglobin—which makes your blood red. They brew it up
and produce hemoglobin. They add it to the burger, and
lo and behold, It smells right. It tastes right. It cooks right.
You need that stuff to have a veggie burger not taste like
cardboard. So people are excited about things like thetrillion-dollarmarketforbeef.Butyouareonlyseeingsome
earlyapplications there.
Look inside an apple. There’s a level of nanotechnology
and molecular complexity that is much greater than your
Apple computer. That’s the kind of stuff where biology excels.
It makes that thing from nothing. We don’t have any way
to make highly molecularly complex nanotechnology on the
cheap, except through biology. Biology is this really weird
thing we completely take for granted. Plant a seed. Add air,
water, and sunlight. And this thing manufactures itself, right?
It’s got solar panels, it’s powering itself. If Apple showed up
and was like, “I invented this seed, you plant it in your yard”—
we’d be like, “This is alien technology.” I think some of the
applications will be advanced materials and electronics. It’ll
make food more efficiently. It’ll be everything.
How are you going to scale?
More robots. You think about Moore’s Law and the dou-
bling effectiveness in the semiconductor industry every
24 months for 50 years. The last five years of Ginkgo, we’ve
been roughly tripling the output of our facility and halving our
cost annually. Today we’re about 10 times cheaper than doing
it with a scientist at the bench. Actually, that was last year.
Now we’re about 20 times cheaper, and then next year it’ll be
40 times cheaper and then 80 times cheaper. Somewhere
around there, everybody comes and starts working with us.
We haven’t brought up GMOs [genetically modified organisms]
yet. I thought I wasn’t supposed to like them?
Yeah, I love GMOs. I did an editorial in the New York Times
maybe three years ago that said, “I run a GMO company. I
think we should label GMOs.” This is right around the time the
legislature was looking at national GMO labeling laws here
in the U.S., so let’s just say this was against industry opin-
ion at the time. After I wrote that letter, I got hate mail from
a Nobel laureate. Scientists look at this and say, “There’s
been all these safety studies. There’s a million, trillion meals
eaten in the U.S. And there haven’t been safety issues [con-
cerning GMOs]. We just need to do a better job communi-
cating the science.”
The reality is, it’s not an issue of safety. It’s an issue of trust.
Do people trust the organizations deploying important pow-
erful technology to be acting in their interests? What you’ve
seen with GMOs was a lack of trust in those organizations.
The basis of trust is transparency. If you tell me, “I really
want to know if this is in my food,” and I tell you, “oh, heck
no—I’m gonna fight till my dying day to not let you know
that,” your assumption is, “oh, it must be bad.” And that’s
a very rational, reasonable response. So our view is, we