Alex Zhavoronkov's Longevity Pledge
Alex Zhavoronkov founded one of the earlier companies in the now growing longevity industry, In Silico Medicine. There is a cycle in every industry, in which founders of successful companies tend to invest a fraction of their gains in new startups, either directly or via industry-focused funds, and act as philanthropists in support of relevant academic research. This reinforces and accelerates growth. The early longevity industry contains a good number of zealots willing to do more than invest only a fraction of their wealth. Thinking a great deal about health, aging, mortality, and medicine tends to focus the mind on what one truly gains from holding on to wealth in a world in which everyone becomes sick, aged, and dies.
What frustrates me is that most people do not pay enough attention to the inevitable decline, frailty, loss of function, diseases, and death that are associated with aging and choose to be distracted and spend their time on attention-grabbing causes that only provide a temporary reward. The problem is here, right now, and every individual contributor can make a difference. Like climate change or poverty, aging research requires everyone on the planet to become involved. But unlike climate change, aging is causing millions of casualties and suffering worldwide today and right now.
On the positive side, after two decades of hard work, my commercial ventures have started yielding financial returns. It would be logical to donate part of my wealth to charitable foundations focusing on aging research. Over the past two decades, I supported many projects in longevity, saw many failures, analyzed a massive number of grants, and learned how to evaluate the impact of the various longevity initiatives. In addition to capital, I can now bring years of experience, and multiple partner organizations to the most impactful projects. Therefore, I would like to pledge everything I have now, and what I will get in the future, to only one cause - extending healthy productive longevity for all human beings. Instead of donating just a portion of my wealth and energy to this cause, I would like to do more.
I pledge to spend 100% of my time and personal resources to accelerate research and clinical deployment of longevity technologies. At present, I do not plan to leave an inheritance, and I will invest everything I have into projects and companies that extend healthy, productive life for everyone on the planet.