We are sick.

Chronic health conditions have exploded:

  • Metabolic (obesity, diabetes, heart disease)

  • Autoimmune (allergies, asthma, IBS, eczema)

  • Psychological (anxiety, depression)

  • Sensory (myopia, hearing loss)

  • Skeletal (osteoporosis, back pain, cavities)

  • Muscular (inactivity, muscle atrophy)

  • Reproductive (infertility, sexual dysfunction, child development)

  • ...and more.

Pills and surgery don't work.

Modern medicine is miraculous and moronic. It’s miraculous at treating acute conditions: a broken arm, a gunshot wound, organ failure, most infections. But it’s moronic for treating chronic conditions – diseases of civilization. Diseases of lifestyle.

Lifestyle is the way.

If a pill offered the same benefits as exercise, it'd be hailed as a miracle drug. The best way to address chronic conditions is to proactively prevent them, not reactively try to treat them. Being healthy is the product of a million little daily actions. Being healthy is a habit.

Change the habitat, change the habit.

Willpower is overrated. A zoo doesn't expect primates to count calories or exercise three times a week; smart zookeepers design a habitat that satisfies the physiological and psychological needs of a species. Humans live in a habitat too: not just raw physical spaces (home, office, school, gym), but also ambient features (lights, temperature, sound); social environments (family, friends, neighbors, coworkers); other species (pets, plants, food); microorganisms (gut, skin); culture (laws, traditions, ideas); and technology (car, fridge, phone). If humans are to change our habits, our habitats have to change.

Embrace old and new.

Biology is the original biotech. We believe the most effective ideas hew closely to our wild nature -- even if achieved with novel technology. Let's take the best of the old, mix it with the best of the new, and make something awesome.

We love cults...

It's great when people care. Ideology, identity, and community are powerful sources of long-term motivation. So we love products that have a cult following -- but we aren't dogmatic about which one (e.g., paleo).

...and passive interventions.

Humans are lazy. Over 60% of Americans don't even take their prescriptions properly (i.e., swallow a pill). Will your product still be effective on the laziest, least motivated, most aggressively unhealthy person? If so, we should talk.

Whether your product cultivates cults or helps the hopeless, it should genuinely make people healthier.

No magic bullets, no bullshit.

Duh.