1. The addressable market size is everyone. Not just people 65+. Longevity can and should start being solved at a young age. Everyone dies, most everyone cares and thinks about this. Warren Buffett said it right, “You have only one mind and one body for the rest of your life. If you aren’t taking care of them when you’re young, it’s like leaving that car out in hailstorms and letting rust eat away at it. By the time you’re 40 or 50, you’ll be like a car that can’t go anywhere.”
2. The market that cares the most is growing, and the concentration of wealth is moving with them. By 2030, all baby boomers will be older than age 65, expanding the senior citizen age group to 1 in every 5 Americans. In just two decades, older people would outnumber children for the first time in U.S. history. Americans over 50 accounted for $7.6 trillion in direct consumer spending and related economic activity in 2015, and controlled more than 80% of household wealth. Global spending power of those age 60 and over will reach $15 trillion annually by 2020.
3. It doesn't need to be complicated to make a difference. The levers we have to extend healthspan and lifespan are within our power now. The best strategy we have today is to delay the onset of The Big Three—cardiovascular disease, cancer, and neurodegenerative diseases. We’re learning that the underlying biological mechanisms for these chronic illnesses are the same, e.g. oxidative stress, chronic inflammation, changes in the microbiome, gene expression. The problem with healthcare today is that it is disease-centric. We have cardiologists for heart disease, neurologists for Alzheimer’s, oncologists for cancer, and specific treatment plans for each. What if it’s the same disease manifesting in different forms? Today, we can improve lifestyle in a way that minimizes or removes those underlying causes and delays the onset of all 3, and as a result, extending healthspan and lifespan.
4. Technology is ready. The key to developing effective technologies in this space is scalability and personalization. We're all unique, what gives you 5 more healthy years may not do the same for me. Scale is easily reached with today's software and personalization is improving with AI and consumer health data being captured from wearables, biomarker testing, Apple Health Kit, and more.