Podcast macro Ben Lamm Abundance 2026
Ben Lamm, CEO of Colossal, discusses his company's synthetic biology platform that uses AI to bring back extinct species like woolly mammoths, while spinning out multiple companies targeting massive markets like plastic degradation, artificial wombs, and invasive species control. The company has grown from zero to a $10 billion valuation in 4 years with 260 scientists and is building an end-to-end pipeline for creating living biological products.
Summary
Ben Lamm founded Colossal after meeting Harvard's George Church, who said he would work on bringing back mammoths if given unlimited capital. What started as a potential side project became a $10 billion company in 4 years with 260 scientists (200 in the US, 60 in Australia) focused on de-extinction and synthetic biology. The company has publicly announced efforts to bring back woolly mammoths, Tasmanian tigers, dodos, and moas, and has already successfully created dire wolves from a 73,000-year-old skull in 18 months.
Colossal operates as a platform company spinning out specialized subsidiaries. Their first spinout, Breaking, addresses the global plastic crisis by using microbes that actually break chemical bonds of plastics rather than just creating smaller microplastics. The same AI and synthetic biology platform enables multiple applications across different markets.
The company has made significant international deals, including a nine-figure partnership with the UAE to create the world's first bio-vault for preserving endangered species' genetic material. This represents a new business model where countries become customers for biodiversity preservation services.
Lamm emphasizes that AI is essential to everything they do - without it, none of their work would be possible. They've achieved remarkable progress in gene editing, moving from doing a couple of edits at 40% efficiency to hundreds of edits at 90% efficiency, far surpassing competitors. The company is also developing artificial wombs for three different animal categories and has acquired the world's top two cloning companies, with one achieving 78% cloning efficiency compared to the industry standard of 2%.
Other applications include gene drives for invasive species control (a $5.4 trillion global problem), disease-resistant plants and animals, and improved IVF technologies. Lamm believes synthetic biology paired with AI will be humanity's most transformative technology, representing multi-trillion dollar market opportunities across numerous sectors.
Key Insights
- Colossal has achieved hundreds of gene edits simultaneously at 90% efficiency, vastly outperforming competitors who celebrate doing a couple edits at 15-40% efficiency
- The company operates on a platform model where the same system that can bring back a mammoth can also create microbes that break chemical bonds of plastics
- Countries are becoming customers for biodiversity preservation, with the UAE partnership representing a nine-figure initiative for both parties
- EY estimated that 12.5% of global consumers buy something extinct-related annually, representing a $1.7 trillion market opportunity for de-extinction
- Without AI, Colossal would not be able to do anything they're currently doing - every aspect of their synthetic biology work depends on AI integration
Topics
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