
Google announces Calico, a new company that will focus on health and well-being - spankalee
https://plus.google.com/+LarryPage/posts/Lh8SKC6sED1
======
FD3SA
Absolutely brilliant. Finally, Aubrey De Grey's unapologetically
straightforward logic [1] regarding aging has gained traction with the crowd
who has the means to tackle this grand challenge. I am sincerely proud of Page
and Brin for their vision and commitment.

This is one of those rare times that powerful people make bold choices that
catalyze a shift in the world's thought paradigm. Aging will now be seen for
what it is: the root of all chronic illness.

1\.
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMAwnA5WvLc](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMAwnA5WvLc)

~~~
300bps
_catalyze a shift in the world 's thought paradigm_

Absolutely. The goal should be to enact a vector of a new paradigm, as
proactive team players synergize an out-of-the-box strategy of functionality
and infotainment, re-engineering the learning curve framework of your dotted-
line relationship.

~~~
bsullivan01
Personally I hope that Google is humble enough to morph cross-platform
mindshare in addition to growing killer channels and facilitating bleeding-
edge infrastructures.

This approach will surely recontextualize best-of-breed vortals, implement
world-class research and innovate value-added technologies by embracing
impactful infomediaries.

Imagine how much longer we'd live if we leveraged sticky e-services, brand
user-centric channels, iterated seamless deliverables and matrix impactful
architectures?

~~~
clicks
Your snark is unnecessary and very misplaced.

This _will_ result in a significant thought paradigm shift in all things
health-related, and it's a great thing that a company with as many resources
and as high of a profile as Google is looking into this. Google is a company
that is making self-driving cars, providing incredibly fast internet to
consumers, providing Internet to suffering areas with a new idea (the Loon),
exploring definitively new ideas for hardware (Google Glass) -- and now
they're looking into aging.

I'd say Google guys are sufficiently more respectable than the political
chameleon who's lobbying DC today [1], and just recently directed considerable
resources on ads advocating a host of anti-environmental causes [2].

[1]: [http://www.politico.com/story/2013/09/mark-zuckerberg-
dc-969...](http://www.politico.com/story/2013/09/mark-zuckerberg-
dc-96933.html)

[2]:
[http://thinkprogress.org/immigration/2013/04/26/1925921/mark...](http://thinkprogress.org/immigration/2013/04/26/1925921/mark-
zuckerbergs-new-political-group-spending-big-on-ads-supporting-keystone-xl-
and-oil-drilling/)

~~~
bsullivan01
what Jrockway said
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6407580](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6407580)

But your comments are factually wrong. None of Google's products you mention
are new or really that much better (so far.)

>> _Google is a company that is making self-driving cars_

So is every major car manufacturer out there. Who's ahead of the game? I don't
know because Google gets all the press and fawning from fanboys--like you.

 _" >>providing incredibly fast internet to consumers_

Experimenting in a few ares with plenty of subsidies doesn't count. The much
hated Verizon has done a LOT more on that regard
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verizon_FiOS](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verizon_FiOS)

 _" >> providing Internet to suffering area with a patently new idea (the
Loon)"_

Not providing anything yet, just experiments and Loon is not a new idea at
all.
[http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB120347353988378955.ht...](http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB120347353988378955.html)

">> exploring definitively new ideas for hardware (Google Glass)" Not a new
idea at all. Different thinking of course but the verdict is still out.

One day--the focused like a laser--Google will manufacture their toilet paper
and you'll be here to wonder how we managed without toilet paper before Google
invented it.

~~~
robotresearcher
> Who's ahead of the [self-driving car] game? I don't know because Google gets
> all the press and fawning from fanboys--like you.

It's Google. They have the right people, the right ideas, the resources, and
they started first. Source: I'm a prof in a related field with graduated PhD
students at Google.

The Google cars get press because they are really very good.

~~~
coldtea
> _It 's Google. They have the right people, the right ideas, the resources,
> and they started first._

I believe we covered the "fawning from fanboys" part already.

> _Source: I 'm a prof in a related field with graduated PhD students at
> Google._

That's not a "source". That's at best a "full discosure" and at worst a
"conflict of interest" in this discussion...

~~~
agumonkey
Sebastian Thrun's team was the first winner of DARPA driverless vehicles (2nd
year) challenge, the year before that contestants failed very early. Do you
know car manufacturers with such know-how ? They probably had research about
it but I doubt they were as complete. Since Google backed the project they did
very extensive tests in the real world. GM and such are bringing back computer
aided driving but I'm sure they're too busy sustaining their business to put
resources in something as disruptive and risky.

------
ianstallings
I for one welcome my immortal transhumanist cyborg overlords.

But seriously, the fact that the first thing they do is start a corporation to
control the science is not exactly comforting to me. Genentech is known for
selling Avastin, their drug that fights cancer for $55k after they received
harsh criticism for the proposed cost of $100k+/year.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bevacizumab#Costs](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bevacizumab#Costs)

I fear a future where "all men are created equal", but only some can afford to
become immortal and others cannot. We already see some of that now. Tons of
ethical questions around this topic.

~~~
jerf
Like with anything else, the question isn't whether the rich will be able to
afford it, the question is how much progress can we make in making it cheap,
how quickly, to get it to how many people?

It is a _moral imperative_ to make sure that short-sighted class warfare does
not cut off the nose to spite the face by destroying this work under the guise
of egalitarianism, because we can not turn on a dime and immediately grant it
to everyone on day one. Yes, the rich will get it first. We need to ensure
that market mechanisms remain functional and that they end up subsidizing the
research the rest of us need. If we build gates and walls, they'll just end up
captured in a heartbeat. Don't let them be built.

(Once the market has chewed on it and made it as cheap as possible, consider
subsidizing it or something, but for the love of Life itself, don't break the
market and destroy the research before it even happens. Seemingly suboptimal
situations may need to be relatively briefly tolerated to make sure this
happens at all.)

~~~
ginko
But what about generation warfare?

Imagine having to live in a world where all the positions of power are
permanently occupied by people from the generation of your great-grandparents.

~~~
jerf
You mean, that there might be a war between the 150 year olds and the 250 year
olds? Sign me up! I don't even care for which side!

The base state of the world that we live in is that _everybody dies_. Your
hypotheticals about how horrible it might be to live in a world where people
might not die have to be _pretty horrible_ to compete with what is _already
true_.

(Mind you, this is not an unleapable bar, in my opinion, but it's much higher
than you just leapt.)

~~~
briancaw2
Dying isn't horrible at all. It's a part of the lifecycle.

~~~
LoganCale
Of course it's horrible. Life is all there is. When you die, from your
perspective, that is the end of all things. That's pretty horrible. Just
because it's natural doesn't make it good.

~~~
nostrademons
I remember discussing this in both of my philosophy courses, Intro and
MetaEthics. In the intro course, the question was "Why should you _fear_
death? When you're dead, by definition, you're not around to fear it, so why
should you care?"

In meta-ethics, the question was "What does it mean for something to be
horrible in the first place? How do you decide something is good or bad in the
first place? If you fear your own nonexistence, why do you not fear the
nonexistence of, say, unicorns?"

I never took an evolutionary psych course, but I read a bunch of their
textbooks. I'd imagine the answer they'd give is "Of course you believe death
is horrible. If your ancestors didn't, they wouldn't have an aversion to
death, and so they would never have been around to reproduce, and so you
wouldn't have been born. Therefore, we select for animals that fear death,
because all animals that do not fear death never come into existence." There's
something comforting about that perspective, knowing that our fears are
nothing but evolutionary chance at work, but it's interesting to think that
our fear of nonexistence is a consequence of our existence.

~~~
repsilat
There was a book on that a little while ago by Shelly Kagan (decent excerpt at
[1]). I think the evolutionary perspective is clearly "correct," but it
doesn't quite answer the big questions for me. It establishes that "death is
bad" is an axiom of our ethical system (and not a theorem of it,) but it has
nothing to say when we ask whether we should attempt to adjust our morality.

1: [http://chronicle.com/article/Is-Death-Bad-for-
You-/131818/](http://chronicle.com/article/Is-Death-Bad-for-You-/131818/)

------
bowlofpetunias
Most of the world suffers from the health problem of never even reaching a
ripe old age, and much of the rest from the problem of not being able to
afford it, and increasingly so.

This is not about making the world a better place. This about allowing the
elite that can afford it to live forever.

~~~
enraged_camel
Your logic can be dismissed as nonsense with a very easy thought experiment.

Imagine you have two groups of people: Group A and Group B. You are voting on
a technology that can prevent 90% of deaths in Group A. Do you vote yes or no?

If you vote no, congratulations, you just condemned a large group of people to
continue dying for the sake of egalitarianism.

(The reason this thought experiment is powerful is that it strips the scenario
of value-judgments such as "elite" and "poor.")

~~~
gilrain
Your logic can be dismissed as a false dichotomy.

~~~
enraged_camel
Of course. After all, it is simply a stripped down version of the parent
comment that I responded to. He polarized the scenario such that it was a
false dichotomy, but _even then_ it was flawed.

------
Techowl
There are a lot of ethical arguments happening in this thread, and I'm
concerned that most of them are missing the point. They tend to center on the
idea that these technologies will help the wealthy, while leaving most of the
world to suffer.

I'd love to see Google work on initiatives to give the world's poor access to
clean water and basic healthcare. Those are awesome causes -- maybe the
world's most awesome. But if we categorize pressing third-world health issues
as the World's Most Awesome Cause, well, aren't age-related diseases the
World's Second Most Awesome Cause?

We should for sure allocate more resources to the World's Most Awesome Cause.
But why are people attacking funding for the World's Second Most Awesome
Cause? Convince people not to buy top-tier smartphones, or expensive cars, or
big houses, and donate to charity instead. But don't try to convince people to
die of heart disease. Even if this new Google initiative isn't the absolutely
most optimal way to spend money to serve humanity, it's pretty high up on the
list.

Please remember that about two-thirds of all deaths world-wide are caused by
aging [1]. It isn't just the elite who are getting heart attacks, and long-
term, I'd be shocked if it were only the elite who were receiving effective
treatments to prevent them.

1 -
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_causes_of_death_by_rate](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_causes_of_death_by_rate)

Edit: formatting.

------
gdulli
I'd rather see a high quality of life for everyone on earth for 80 years than
150+ year life spans for the first world. Which will just further increase the
footprint of the rich and divert resources from the poor.

Not to mention, it's a more attainable goal. It doesn't help much to keep the
body going for 50 more years if you can't also keep the brain going. I believe
these are very different problems. If you can somehow solve both, it doesn't
help if you can't feed and house all these people.

~~~
VikingCoder
You either believe in capitalism, or you don't.

Google believes in capitalism. They will offer goods and services to people
who can afford them, and they will also work to make their products more
accessible to those with limited resources.

I personally believe Android will have enormous long-lasting positive impacts
on the rest of the world. A $25 smartphone ... A $10 smartphone... A $5
smartphone... Giving access to instant communication, and huge amounts of
information, will in the long run dramatically improve human lives. My
personal opinion.

~~~
jbooth
I also disagree with the parent poster but you absolutely do not either
"believe in capitalism, or you don't".

The only pure capitalist societies are anarchist hellholes. Among nice
societies, capitalism is implemented all sorts of different ways with the
things capitalism does poorly[1] papered over in different ways.

[1] law enforcement, basic standard of living for all, various economic
regulations to address market failures, e.g. I can't legally plug in a
transmitter at 100MHz and 1000 watts and black out WNBC in my neighborhood,
and can't sell capitalist let-the-market-decide food out of a roach den

~~~
VikingCoder
I didn't intend my first statement to be absolutist, and I do not believe I
need to resort to some extreme form of free market society, in order to have
my vision of reality work.

gdulli was criticizing a corporation for providing goods and services that a
relative minority of the wealthy can provide.

I assert that that criticism is only valid, if you have fundamental problems
with capitalism itself. The way I stated that was, "you either believe in
capitalism, or you don't." I am not aware of a better way to state that. It's
a matter of faith / belief / an assumption. If you share in that view, you can
correctly engage in one set of logical discussion. If you do not share in that
view, you can only engage in another set of logical discussions. Watching
someone criticize a corporation for providing luxury goods is ample evidence
that they're having the wrong kind of discussion. Their first necessary step
would be to convince me that we should abandon capitalism. Period. There's no
other first move in that game.

~~~
jbooth
Well, if we're being honest, this isn't particularly capitalist of Google.
It's an idealist, good-intentions-and-ego-driven play. Yes, they want to
capture some of the value that they eventually might create but they are not
doing it primarily for money.

~~~
outside1234
yeah right!

------
jhardcastle
Interesting is that Art Levinson will remain Chairman at Apple. Apparently the
two giants are working together here.

> Tim Cook, Chief Executive Officer of Apple, said: “For too many of our
> friends and family, life has been cut short or the quality of their life is
> too often lacking. Art is one of the crazy ones who thinks it doesn’t have
> to be this way. There is no one better suited to lead this mission and I am
> excited to see the results.”

~~~
grinich
I think there's a pretty big misconception about Silicon Valley executives
hating each other. (My guess is this comes from our media-driven obsession
with the good vs. evil narrative.) In reality, a lot of these companies aren't
that different, and the skills+personalities+struggles of CEOs are actually
remarkably similar.

They might have different opinions or frustration with the competition, but
most of what they focus on is not letting the company die from the inside.
i.e: AOL/Palm/HP/Netscape couldn't innovate and imploded.

Eric Schmidt was on Apple's board up until the day shareholders (implicitly)
deemed it to be a conflict of interest. I'm sure he was a great asset for
Apple learning the importance of internet services. It's a shame that short-
sighted investors are too captivated by competition to realize how cooperative
Silicon Valley really is. There are only a handful of situations in tech where
crushing your competition is actually a positive strategic move.

The rising tide floats all boats.

~~~
nostromo
More evidence of this is the Breakthrough Prize:
[http://breakthroughprizeinlifesciences.org/sponsors](http://breakthroughprizeinlifesciences.org/sponsors)

Sponsored by Sergey Brin and Mark Zuckerberg (and Yuri Milner).

------
PeterisP
An interesting trend is that we're now no longer relying on governments to
pursue big, hairy, audacious goals. Governments and also capital markets
nowadays seem unable to pursue any really long-term projects at all.

Instead, all the future-advancing progress seems to be made by independently
rich individuals; and also not by the "aristocratic-rich" families, but by
noveau riche upstarts such as Brin, Musk and others. What does it say about
our current, traditional institutions if they seem unable to do that? Are they
broken, and can they be fixed somehow?

~~~
Eliezer
In the depths of the Great Stagnation, all significant technological progress
occurs due to ascended post-exit Silicon Valley moguls personally funding it
(with money they own or fully control) out of the goodness of their own
hearts. Venture capitalists can't see how to flip it in 3 years and science
bureaucrats can only give money to other bureaucrats.

------
antirez
Cool, however while waiting for their results, please eat healthy, do a lot of
gym, lift heavy weight and become stronger.

------
kaws
Wow! This reminds me of a comment I saw on HN, or maybe it was a blog post
about either Google's Project Loon, or Google Glass. I can't seem to find a
link or the actual author, but they essentially said:

 __" What I care about is that Google has become a machine that turns
advertising dollars into fundamentally groundbreaking new projects like Google
Glass, Project Loon, and self-driving cars. They’re not just trying to make
money: they’re trying to use that money on far-fetched moon-shot projects with
the chance to be genuinely revolutionary. I admire that." __

Now they are investing in a new realm where they are "excited about tackling
aging and illness." Google's ambition, and vision is inspiring! Hopefully we
see some innovation in this sector from this investment.

------
waterlesscloud
"So I’m tremendously excited about the innovative new way we’re funding this
project"

What does that refer to?

~~~
notatoad
from the Time article[1], although they don't say it explicitly i get the
impression that they're going to run it essentially like a charity - just dump
money on it, and not expect any financial return.

[1] [http://business.time.com/2013/09/18/google-extend-human-
life...](http://business.time.com/2013/09/18/google-extend-human-life/)

~~~
julespitt
Peculiar it isn't just set up as a charity then.

Although perhaps Larry Page just wants to avoid the strange vagaries of non-
profit governance, if I were to guess why.

~~~
notatoad
setting it up as a charity causes trouble if they want to start collecting
profits down the road. non-profits don't get to become for-profit as soon as
they build something profitable.

------
throwaway172
To what extent is this guided by the self-interest of aging tech darling CEOs
(Larry Page must be in his 40s by now)? As a young person I tend to think
"some of these health issues ought to be solved problems by the time I'm
older." But I don't have the kind of capital to spend on it that companies
like Google, or persons like Larry Page, do.

Regardless of motivation, I'm happy to see investment in this domain.

~~~
melling
How many diseases have we cured in the past 20 years? The past 40 years?
Medical advances are really, really slow. As for the "self-interest" question
(that's why you created a throw away account?), I'm sure as you get a little
older, and you notice people dying who are close to your age, you might be
wish that people took an interest in being self-serving a couple decades
earlier.

Steve Jobs, for example, had billions of dollars, had his genome sequenced,
and probably tried very hard not to die so young. I bet if he had known 10
years earlier that he was going to die from pancreatic cancer, some of that
money would have gone into searching for a cure.

Larry Page might live a perfectly healthy life, die in his sleep at 101, out
living most of us. However, if you've got that kind of money and influence,
why not buy some real insurance.

~~~
throwaway172
For example, polio was cured less than 60 years ago. We know much more about
the effects of radiation (sunscreen, anyone?) than we did 40 years ago. Genome
sequencing is becoming slightly more affordable (than even 10 years ago) due
to tech advances; we can predict hereditary disease in some instances (BRCA
mutations, etc).

Steve Jobs is actually a terrible example. To quote wikipedia, "Despite his
diagnosis, Jobs resisted his doctors' recommendations for medical intervention
for nine months,[170] instead consuming a psuedo-medicine diet in an attempt
to thwart the disease." Pseudo is Greek for "false." And if you want cancer
solved by the time you get it, you probably have to pony up the money before
your diagnosis.

I'm not disagreeing that medical advances are relatively slow, but on the
scale of human life, Page has probably at least another 40 years of advances
left to see. And that's a lot.

~~~
melling
Great, you pulled out one disease in the past 60 years. Really slow progress.
In the next 40, we should see a few more advances, but if we really want to
move the needle, we need to be more aggressive.

9 months is not much time. If Steve were just an average person, his condition
probably wouldn't have been discovered as early as it was. He simply
squandered the little extra time that he had. There's no guarantee that he it
wouldn't have killed him in the long run even if he had gone under the knife
earlier. Pancreatic cancer, in general, is pretty deadly:
[http://www.cancer.org/cancer/pancreaticcancer/detailedguide/...](http://www.cancer.org/cancer/pancreaticcancer/detailedguide/pancreatic-
cancer-survival-rates)

Randy Pausch had pancreatic cancer and died at 47:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Randy_Pausch](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Randy_Pausch)

Sure, it's great that we can predict with a higher accuracy what diseases we
might get. Now it would probably be helpful if we could cure most of them.

------
tassl
I have always been interested on life-extension with a focus on healthy life.
My background is mainly engineering (computer science, mechanical engineering)
with focus on machine learning and statistics.

I was thinking on taking some graduate program that would help the transition
in this kind of companies; does anybody knows a university/program that would
help? I have checked some graduate bioinformatics, but I am not sure what
would be more helpful in the long term.

Any idea/suggestion?

~~~
Lost_BiomedE
In the current environment, if you already have an engineering undergrad, an
MBA would do you best. I am not a fan of the programs, but the degree will
open doors that are mostly shut for pure engineers.

In many areas and locals, not necessarily Silicon Valley, a pure engineering
man is seen as a lackey. An engineer with business cred is considered
valuable, just my experience.

~~~
tassl
Thanks for your answer! I guess I would have to be more precise :)

My intent is to have a technical role in the space, not a management one. I
can imagine how most of the problems facing require machine learning and
statistics, so I am more interested on how to complement these skills to be
able to transition into an space that fascinates me.

~~~
Lost_BiomedE
Depends. In a mid-sized company, they expect senior/VP technical lead to have
something like an MBA. In a small start-up, founders are generally required to
be able to navigate both sides a bit. I would really consider it.

You can learn what you want on the technical side outside of college. Now, if
you want to be in a research institution or academia, you don't need the MBA,
but then there is the whole can of worms of how to gain influence enough to do
the research you want.

------
zmmmmm
Weird thing for Page to say:

> So I’m tremendously excited about the innovative new way we’re funding this
> project

Are they doing something other than just dumping money into it, siphoned from
their core business? Or am I reading this wrong?

------
nova
Well, deathism going out of fashion with one of the biggest technological
companies of the world can only be good.

This is the greatest news I've heard in a long time and even if it ends up in
nothing the attitude alone is commendable.

------
kafkaesque
Have to put on my tin foil hat for this. NSA-related, too, so you're warned.

This makes me wonder just how much Google works with the US government. I'm
not saying the result of whatever Calico wants or will do (because it's all
pretty vague right now) is a negative.

But Calico seems to come at a time when Obama is pushing for universal health
care, which will be a huge industry. Last I heard, it was estimated at $1.1
trillion.

It just feels like the US has a tendency to take something good (universal
health care), and make it into something bad ("We will use this to
profile/monitor every US citizen").

~~~
cromwellian
Healthcare is based on science, and science requires data processing to see
the correlations. We'd probably be able to spot a lot more common causes of
diseases if people weren't so guarded with their medical history. This doesn't
really have anything to do with government, it has to do with solving
problems.

The US already has HIPAA, so I don't get the point. This just seems like a
weak attempt to say something negative about Google's announcement.

~~~
kafkaesque
Medical history is a double-edged sword in the US. Why do you think people are
so reluctant to share it when they are being judged, charged more, charged
less, etc. depending on it?

If this weren't the case, some Americans wouldn't have a problem with
'divulging' their medical history.

Health care _is_ based on science, you're right, but there are factors that
influence what is researched and where funds go. Plus, putting it in practice
or implementing it according to the right policy; this is another issue.[1]

Also, I think you're undermining the magnitude of lobbying.

But Google is a huge company, with a lot of power and capital. So, like I said
in response to someone else, I am very interested in the details of Calico.

[1] [http://billmoyers.com/2013/05/18/blinding-us-from-
science/](http://billmoyers.com/2013/05/18/blinding-us-from-science/)

~~~
cromwellian
Well, the way to solve the charging issue is to have universal healthcare for
all in which no one can be denied care. Given that, I don't see why I should
care why anyone know my cholesterol or blood pressure.

And where is Google advocating for cuts in public science spending, or
lobbying to get regulations reduced on harm-causing environmental agents? This
is a non-sequitur with respect to Calico.

Part of big data is transparency, removing ignorance. We overspend on
healthcare and treatments that don't work, precisely because we haven't
crunched the numbers and informed the public and based policies based those
insights. Obamacare took a lot a flack over this ("death panels!!"), but if
you want to talk about optimizing health, then using computer science to
evaluate medical data to target spending at stuff that works and extends life
and well-being the most is a huge win.

Standing in the way of that is conspiracy nuts who obsess over the privacy of
their vital fluids and that somehow, scientists recommending that your
favorite treatment is nothing more than a very expensive placebo is a death
panel.

In a perfect world, no one could be denied healthcare, and everyone's medical
records (anonymized) and history would be open to all scientists in the world
for exploring the connections between disease.

I'd certainly like to know that 10,000 other people, who have the same gene X
as me, who also developed symptom Y after behavior Z, and that scientists
could also make that connection and begin to figure out how to target
treatments, rather than counting on some hope that some study will get the
right participants with the right set of histories to figure this out.

------
Legogris
Am I the only one seeing the obvious connection between this, Google's general
business model and technologies and the recruitment of Ray Kurzweil as
Director of Engineering? If and when we realize the singularity is a real
possibility, Google will have the platform ready. For better or worse.

------
hglaser
Why is Google announcing this company? Will Google own it? Invest in it?

------
mrschwabe
Apparently your internet browsing data is not enough, Google also wants your
medical records and DNA.

Seriously though, I wouldn't trust any company connected with Google for
'health and well being'. Their total disregard for privacy would imply they
are not working in my best interest for health either.

~~~
psbp
Did anyone read the article? This seems to be a biomedical company focused on
engineering solutions to aging/illness. It's seemingly not Google Health 2.0.

~~~
mrschwabe
Sure, but if their plans involve bringing said solutions to the masses - this
skepticism applies. Just imagine the millions of hipsters lining up for the
Google, er, Calico vaccination.

~~~
psbp
Google has a history of opening up its research. I doubt the medical community
would accept a "google" vaccine without overwhelming consensus.

~~~
frozenport
The medical community has shown itself time and again to accept treatments
with marginal advatnages and meciine with dubous wholistic heatlh effects
(trading stroke for cancer). At the end of the day, pharmacueticals are not
know for integrity.

------
cbhl
I'm sceptical, since Google Health never quite caught on. There's room for
improvement, certainly, but the regulatory requirements for mixing health and
tech, and the externalities of dealing with vendors' proprietary formats will
make this challenging at best.

~~~
psbp
This doesn't seem like a Google Health type service.

~~~
cbhl
Even if it's more like Thalmic Labs or 23andMe, I'm worried about whether
fundamental infrastructure (or a leap-frogging equivalent, like cell phones)
will be widespread enough for this sort of research/work to be useful to the
people who need it most.

Like, there are feel-good stories like Dean Kamen's Slingshot (IIRC, he
partnered with Coca-Cola to distribute the things) but I have absolutely no
idea how well such things work in the field and the papers written about
things like the Roundabout PlayPump are pretty damning.

------
MAGZine
Wonder if this company is part of the reason for deciding to shutter Google
Health? People might've been mighty upset if Google took their health records
and then opened a website like this. Not saying that they still didn't benefit
from the information dump

~~~
psbp
I don't think this is a site. It seems like a research arm. They probably did
use Google health to gather the prerequisite data.

------
saucetenuto
So now we know what Steve Yegge was talking about, when he said he was moving
to some mysterious "making peoples' lives better" project.

Cool.

------
robomartin
This is potentially great news. The funny thing is that the first thing that
crossed my mind is a book I read many years ago: Great Mambo Chicken and the
Transhuman Condition.

[http://www.amazon.com/Great-Mambo-Chicken-Transhuman-
Conditi...](http://www.amazon.com/Great-Mambo-Chicken-Transhuman-
Condition/dp/0201567512/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1379525359&sr=8-1&keywords=great+mambo+chicken)

------
orky56
Not surprised in the least that Page referenced Bill Marris for "bringing this
idea to life." Marris has been pivotal in taking Google beyond its traditional
role with this and Google Ventures. He has recognized and successfully
utilized Google's resources to push Google to its full potential and reshape
what Google stands for. Very excited to see what happens with Calico and
Marris' next achievements.

------
joering2
Disclaimer: I do not hate Google; I use their search and email daily.

I hate to be this guy, but...

> OK so you’re probably thinking wow! That’s a lot different from what Google
> does today.

Not really. Google is in a business of selling ads. In addition, they do make
money on selling/sharing/exchanging information, mostly indirectly.

> But as we explained in our first letter to shareholders, there’s tremendous
> potential for technology more generally to improve people’s lives.

.. and shareholders did not care about that. If you own shares of a hospital
chain then you may care. But when you hold shares of Subway, Coca-Cola or
Google, in those particular markets you care less about people's lives. You
care about bottom line.

> So don’t be surprised if we invest in projects that seem strange or
> speculative compared with our existing Internet businesses.

We are not surprised. But since you sun-setting pretty good, useful projects
like Google Reader, and you taking Jobs advice of "stay focus on only couple
[most profitable] projects at the time", we ask: "where is the catch and how
you gonna make money _otherwise_ than selling info or exchanging it?"

Just recently I have cancelled my 23andme kit (they gave me some hardtime
though and never fully recovered the fee (taking legal action is simply not
worth the $)), because after doing some research I found it that 23&me owner
is family with Brin. There is no chance in this world you will tell me Google
will not try to make money off of my DNA this or another way)

[http://www.crunchbase.com/company/23andme](http://www.crunchbase.com/company/23andme)

~~~
cromwellian
Guilty-by-association and paranoia. Check. (23andme is not owned by Google and
I'm pretty sure their T&S/privacy policy and HIPAA cover what can be done with
your personal records)

Obligatory and irrelevant Google Reader reference. Check. Right, the world
would be better off if Google spent more time investing in yet more social
sharing web app features, and not on reducing high way fatalities or
increasing health.

Missing. No mention of PRISM.

~~~
brymaster
Googler drunk on company koolaid. Check.

~~~
cromwellian
Ad-hominem. Check.

------
tarwatirno
To the people who are saying that this will only be for the rich: I would like
to point out that we already spend over $500 billion on Medicare. In other
words we already spend 10 times Google's yearly revenue, half-assedly patching
up the symptoms of the disease that every single human is already afflicted
with, and we do it for everyone. If they actually solve this problem, it won't
go only to rich people, because of the amount of money that buying it for
everyone will save everyone.

(Yes, some problems might come in if they invent something that can keep you
young if you start at 30, but doesn't do anything if you start at 65, however
the long term benefit would still be amazing and maybe make the Republicans'
dream of getting rid of Medicare finally come true...)

To the people who say death is natural: Many, many natural things are bad
(high child mortality, smallpox, etc.) and many artificial things are good
(antibiotics, vaccines, the computer letting you read this comment.)
Naturalistic Fallacy.

To the people who say death is good: No it's not. My parents had me when they
were older. Now my dad has a kind of cancer that is associated with aging
(multiple myeloma.) He was diagnosed my first year of college (luckily he has
been doing rather well considering for five years now.) I get to look forward
to loosing him before I turn 30. I don't care why you think death is great
because of its benefit to society; I don't want to loose my dad. Also, my kids
will almost certainly never know their grandfather, just like I never knew
mine (He died of the same kind of cancer a few months before I was born,)
which is sad. You are severely underestimating the value of not having to
watch people you care about shrivel up before your eyes and be irrevocably
destroyed, knowing that there is nothing you can do to stop it.

------
rottyguy
A potential side-effect to this company would be googles technology expertise
married to the biotech/pharma? world. We often hear that this drug cost
billions to manufacture and therefore we need to recoup our costs through it's
sales. Perhaps we see less expensive drugs as a result during this journey.
That would be a huge win IMO.

------
rodly
Call me crazy here guys, but what exactly will Calico produce/make/do/etc?

The top comment makes me feel like I'm missing a magical paragraph in the OP
that details their cure for death, ugliness and stupidity.

~~~
dragonwriter
> Call me crazy here guys, but what exactly will Calico produce/make/do/etc?

Presumably, its going to do research (probably secondary with an aim to
commercialization, rather than basic research) on health problems,
particularly on aging and aging-related diseases.

> The top comment makes me feel like I'm missing a magical paragraph in the OP
> that details their cure for death, ugliness and stupidity.

Its not a startup looking for venture capital that needs to demonstrate an MVP
to attract investors in the near term, its a project that's already funded by
Google as a small (by comparison to Google's available resources), effort.
Efforts like that don't need to have a product on day one, they need a
_mission_.

------
ph0rque
Someone should write a short story (Doctorow, perhaps?) of a supercentenarian
baby-boomer who is woken from a coma to suddenly find himself unwillingly
young again, and explore the moral ramifications.

------
X4
human subject a892857 identified with probability to get hit by bus ->
starting assisnation drone to increase efficiency. Art Levinson, Chairman and
former CEO of Genentech and Chairman of Apple, will be Chief Execution
Officer.

The fact they open Calic makes me hate them. They could have gone in every
sector, but not in the one that is there to actually improve our life. They
will algorithmically help kill much more people efficiently. Money powers the
healthchare system.

------
ilbe
Fine, but, I would say that before one jumps into whatever treatments will be
offered, given capable legs, they must first walk and ride a bike more.

------
product50
Meanwhile Microsoft gives $40B back to shareholders.

------
o0-0o
I can't see the page, it says...

This post could not be found. Your URL may be incorrect, the post may have
been deleted, or this account may not have access to the post.

This is the URL it takes me to:
[https://plus.google.com/+LarryPage/posts/Lh8SKC6sED1](https://plus.google.com/+LarryPage/posts/Lh8SKC6sED1)

~~~
cbhl
It's a public Google+ by Larry Page:

\-----

I’m excited to announce Calico, a new company that will focus on health and
well-being, in particular the challenge of aging and associated diseases. Art
Levinson, Chairman and former CEO of Genentech and Chairman of Apple, will be
Chief Executive Officer.

OK … so you’re probably thinking wow! That’s a lot different from what Google
does today. And you’re right. But as we explained in our first letter to
shareholders, there’s tremendous potential for technology more generally to
improve people’s lives. So don’t be surprised if we invest in projects that
seem strange or speculative compared with our existing Internet businesses.
And please remember that new investments like this are very small by
comparison to our core business.

Art and I are excited about tackling aging and illness. These issues affect us
all—from the decreased mobility and mental agility that comes with age, to
life-threatening diseases that exact a terrible physical and emotional toll on
individuals and families. And while this is clearly a longer-term bet, we
believe we can make good progress within reasonable timescales with the right
goals and the right people.

Our press release has a few more details though it’s still very early days so
there’s not much more to share yet. Of course when Art has something more
substantial to communicate (and that will likely take time), he’ll provide an
update. Finally, thanks to Bill Maris for helping bring this idea to life and
getting Art involved, and to Sergey Brin for consistently supporting 10X
thinking like this. It’s hard for many companies to make long term
investments. So I’m tremendously excited about the innovative new way we’re
funding this project. Now for the hard work!

[http://googlepress.blogspot.com/2013/09/calico-
announcement....](http://googlepress.blogspot.com/2013/09/calico-
announcement.html)

------
_pferreir_
Why not targeting something like this instead?

[http://www.theguardian.com/society/2013/jun/13/antibiotics-c...](http://www.theguardian.com/society/2013/jun/13/antibiotics-
crisis-already-happening)

I think it will be much more of a problem in the long term than aging (pun not
intended).

------
kinnth
What a ploy! It's so that you will search more throughout your life time!
Cunning buggers! :D

------
devanti
the google founders' quest to live forever begins

------
sachdevap
Pop the Google pill and get a healthy life, with some ads on your arms and
back.

------
ghostdiver
CPC in AdWords will skyrocket on Calcio pages and in SERPS overall, the price
of SEO in health* niche will also be very high, because as I guess Google will
use SERPs to promote their new business.

------
outside1234
Google sure has a short memory:
[http://www.google.com/intl/en_us/health/about/](http://www.google.com/intl/en_us/health/about/)

------
gesman
No wonder my health and personal development related site dropped from the
first page of Google to nowhere.

Replaced by bunch of Youtube links and wikipedia.

Google is getting into conflict-of-interest endeavors.

------
BrainInAJar
*Google announces Calico, a new company that will harvest your private medical data in to the Google panopticon, in order to sell you to advertisers.

~~~
cookingrobot
If they wanted your health data they'd just make this a new google service. By
making it a new seperate company they've gone out of their way to ensure they
don't have access to that data.

------
brownBananas
Not going to lie, I read the first two lines, stopped, opened a new tab, and
searched for Calico. Then came back and read the rest of the post.

~~~
vacri
I really wish tech companies would stop naming themselves after things that
already exist. It just pollutes the search space, and there are plenty of
nonce words out there that sound cool.

------
gvr
This sounds super interesting. I couldn't find a site for the company; do they
have one?

Calico.com is registered to Oracle and there's nothing there.

------
JonFish85
Ok, I'll bite: what is the over/under on when this will be shut down like so
many other Google projects?

(Question is only half-serious)

~~~
notatoad
it will be shut down when management decides it no longer has a chance of
being successful. if it is successful, it will not be shut down.

stop getting emotionally attached to google products. they aren't your
children.

~~~
JonFish85
Yikes, that's a little harsh. I don't really care about any of the products
they've shut down, it was just a tongue-in-cheek observation that I find
curious. I use Google search, calendar & gmail. If they shut those down, I'd
be sad. Otherwise I don't really care much.

~~~
notatoad
if you cared as little as you are pretending to, you wouldn't feel a need to
whine about it. every single article relating to anything google, there's a
bunch of you down at the bottom of the comments section whining about google
shutting down failing products. get over it, or at least shut up about it.
it's not funny, it's just pathetic. google is a company, they shut down
products when they aren't working out. that's how companies work.

------
ape4
Self driving cars would be good for old folks.

------
rhizome
This is a fairly predictable feel-good initiative after being hammered on
their involvement in NSA matters.

------
eli_gottlieb
So basically, Google are now openly admitting that they're trying to take over
the world.

~~~
mcv
Not so much "taking over" as "being given in exchange for eternal life". They
know how to make any deal attractive.

------
znowi
Fountain of youth for the rich. This is a lot more profitable than selling ads
on the net :)

------
frozenport
With all that Google knows about you, they might as well have a clone ready
when you die!

~~~
VLM
Unless you're about 95 years old today, GOOG will probably shutter the service
before you die.

They already went thru one iteration of electronic medical record, which is
too bad because it sounded interesting but the first time I heard about it was
on a READER feed as it was being shutdown. Before READER shut down of course.

------
mehuldesai
Typical of the billionaires. Is the aging funding for society or there own
motality. Ellison does stuff like this. I didn't read the article fully but on
the surface they would be better doing as Gates is doing, funding suffering.
Funding their own future to me is not very honorable and respectful.

------
sunseb
We are close to immortality, but we are also close to self-extinction.

Isn't that fascinating ?

------
narrator
The low budget open source version of this is going on over at longecity.org

------
tomw1808
Wow, sounds like Monsanto for Nerds.

~~~
dragonwriter
> Wow, sounds like Monsanto for Nerds.

Its more like Genentech (at least in focal domain) than Monsanto, but
"Genentech for Nerds" would be still just be Genentech -- who, incidentally,
shares its Chairman with Calico.

------
nomoral
people, aging is not a bug, its a feature!

~~~
pjscott
I don't want it to happen, and it sucks. Call it a bug, or call it a feature,
but remember that what you call it doesn't make it any more desirable.

------
taigeair
is there a website for this?

------
crassus
This is a great first step. But realistically they can only move so fast with
FDA regulation increasing your iteration cycle time on therapies to 10 years.
Our biomedical regulatory regime is extremely risk averse.

If we had a regime where anyone could voluntarily place any therapy into their
own body, we'd move a lot faster. Yes, a few more people would die in testing.
But a lot more lives would be saved by the therapies produced.

~~~
diydsp
Not only would more die in testing, but more would die in everyday use and
results would be so mixed you could hardly get any information out of the
experiments.

One of my biggest clients is in the medical device industry. From the surface
appearance, any company could make a simulacrum of their main products with
perhaps 90% cost-cutting... but life-saving devices are not like inferior
iPods or graphic designs. It's not just things like a crappy user interface,
poorer display quality and periodic crashes interrupting your musical flow you
would have to deal with if any New Jack could make medical devices, but
infection, worsened health, extraneous visits to doctors, untraceable health
conditions, lack of accountability by your doctor and yes, death through
everyday use, etc. After hearing conservative cheapskates bitch about wasted
expenses of FDA regulation and liberals bitch about "how easy it is to walk
around the FDA," I have come to fully doubt both (read: realize how much
they're talking out of their ani) and respect the FDA after working in such
close vicinity to them.

And anyway, yes anyone can voluntarily place any therapy in your body- you
just can't get a corporation to help you with it in the U.S.

------
bsullivan01
Great, but will wait till something cool comes out of it, or when they shut it
down. Right now that's all I can say with the info given.

But yeah, Google has managed to suck the oxygen out of others with every new
announcement (self-driving cars are one example
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autonomous_car#History](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autonomous_car#History)
)

~~~
gefh
Tesla, Mercedes, and others are all working _harder_ on self driving cars now.

~~~
bsullivan01
Who's getting virtually all the press? That was my point

------
melange
I wonder why they chose today to announce this.

------
api
I'd love to see some of these want-to-live-forever transhumanist moneybags
actually put some money behind some of these things and move them past the
pipe dream phase. I hope this is somehow a step in that direction.

BTW: Calico... what a non-ValleyHipster name...

~~~
bitwize
_BTW: Calico... what a non-ValleyHipster name..._

Yeah... they should have gone with Doctr.

~~~
ianstallings
.io

------
siljrath
yup. valid cncerns, good comments. bring on some more michael tellinger -ism,
then we can have a bit more peace of mind about the aubrey de gray -ism, when
it's not part of that capitalist, corporatist, monopolist-wannabe paradigm.
could be great tho. (love the comment: rising tide floats all boats)

