Apple is a disruptive company in many ways. Even on his own board of directors, he has people who want to change things, far beyond technology products and how we interact with them. Today we tell you how one of those managers, Arthur Levinson, is not only an Apple manager. He but, literally, he wants to make us immortal. And no, this is not any clickbait.
Arthur Levinson and immortality with his feet on the ground
That the human being reflects on death, and wants to circumvent it by reaching “eternal life” will not surprise you, surely. But that an Apple executive is also one of the founders of Calico, a alphabet company (Google’s parent company), whose mission is to “leverage advanced technologies and model systems to further our understanding of the biology that drives human aging” and “design interventions that enable people to live longer lives,” that’s already which may surprise you a little more.
It’s not new for tech giants to have alliances that don’t go off in the face. But it may come as a surprise that the Chairman of the Board of Directors of Apple is also the CEO and founder of Calico Labs (short for California Life Company), owned by Alphabet, Google’s parent company. Therefore, it is important not to confuse the position of CEO, the chief executive officer, with the chairman of the board. Both positions are at Apple, and both Tim Cook and Arthur Levinson are managers. But their functions are completely different. In this case, Levinson is one of the top managers of the company, who acts in accordance with the organization’s bylaws and is appointed by the shareholders’ meeting.
What Arthur Levinson does at a Google sister company
Calico is one of Alphabet’s specialty companies. And Levinson in its founder and chief executive officer (CEO). Before taking up this position, he was working at another genetics and technology company, Genetech, which is owned by the Roché group. Levinson holds a PhD in Biochemistry from Princeton University, and has published scientific articles and registered numerous US patents. He has worked in cancer research, in the field of biotechnology, and has been a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In addition, he was the director of Google between the years 2004 and 2009.
Calico is a company that seeks to “understand the science of aging and develop drugs to address age-related diseases.” Likewise, they work “in a unexplored area like aging. To do this, they range from the smallest, such as understanding how yeast fungi age, to collaborations with other companies and scientists from multiple disciplines. Thus, fighting longevity is his maxim.
Calico It is one of those “silent companies” of the tech giants. It acts discreetly, “in the background”, and is not usually mentioned much within the public sphere and the media. Its advances focus on very specific aspects, in very specific areas. It is a “relatively” young company, since it was founded in 2013, and therefore, it is another of the reasons why they still do not focus on “the magic pill of eternal youth”. The company itself claims that this terrain is new and unexplored. And that many advances still need to be made, before “stopping old age with a pill”. But the idea, the mission, the resources and this Apple executive have already laid the foundations.