“I really believe Abu Dhabi is going to give us a window into the future… Geographically, it’s so well situated.”
Welcome to the first episode of the Emerging From a Post-Pandemic World series, presented by ADGM. Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM) is an international financial centre (IFC) located in the capital city of the United Arab Emirates. Established by UAE Federal Decree as a broad-based financial centre, ADGM augments Abu Dhabi’s position as a global hub for business and finance and serves as a strategic link between the growing economies of the Middle East, Africa and South Asia and the rest of the world.
Michael Moe and Jim Mellon discuss their companies’ efforts to improve education and health care, respectively. They describe the advancements in each industry and how they will transform society while solving some of the world’s biggest challenges. Moe sees education innovation as a huge economic driver, particularly in the Middle East where it will power the region’s knowledge economy. Mellon emphasizes the importance of first improving quality of life before extending lifespans and predicts the mass adoption of meat alternatives that will address persistent health issues and climate change.
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MODERATOR
SPEAKER
Jim Mellon
Chairman & Co-Founder
Juvenescence
Anthony Scaramucci
Founder & Managing Partner
SkyBridge
TIMESTAMPS
0:00 - Intro
7:55 - American education system
8:55 - Healthcare and education in the Middle East and beyond
11:29 - Longevity and anti-aging advancements
12:57 - AgTech and food chain transformation
20:43 - Education as an economic driver
24:45 - Economic incentives driving AgTech, BioTech and education
30:08 - Education as an equalizer
31:31 - Quality assurance in education
35:35 - Non-linear education timeline
37:00 - Juvenescence, metabolic switch and restructuring society around longer life
43:02 - Intermittent fasting and biological breakthroughs
45:42 - Making education and healthy living more engaging
52:00 - Democratizing and reimagining education and healthy living
56:27 - Abu Dhabi as a global center
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
Anthony Scaramucci: (00:49)
Welcome back to SALT Talks. My name is Anthony Scaramucci, I am the founder of SkyBridge Capital, a global alternative investment firm and chairman of SALT, a global thought leadership forum encompassing finance, technology, and politics. SALT Talks is a digital interview series with the world's foremost investors, creators and thinkers. Just as we do with our global SALT events, we aim to empower big, important ideas and provide a window into the minds of subject-matter experts. We are excited today to bring you the first episode in a new series of SALT Talks with our friends at Abu Dhabi Global Markets regarding new paradigms in a post-pandemic world. Co-hosting today's talk with me is my dear friend, Mark Cutis, the chief executive officer of ADGM, which obviously stands for Abu Dhabi Global Markets. ADGM is an award-winning international financial center located on the beautiful Al Maryah Island in Abu Dhabi.
Anthony Scaramucci: (01:53)
We hosted our inaugural SALT Abu Dhabi Conference at Emirates Palace in 2019 and are excited to bring that event back to the UAE in the coming months. On today's SALT Talk, we will be hosting a conversation about new healthcare and education. This is very applicable and important for the post-pandemic world. These are two of the most successful investors and entrepreneurs, Jim Mellon and Michael Moe. Jim, Jim Mellon is a British entrepreneur, investor and philanthropist with a wide range of interests. Through his private investment company Burnbrae Group he has a substantial holdings in real estate as well as private and public companies. Jim's investment philosophy is underpinned by a careful analysis of new industries, or major shifts in markets. Most recently has focused on investments and businesses in healthcare, biotechnology and Ag tech. His recent book Juvenescence mark the beginning of a rush of capital into the nascent field of aging research, and also led to the formation of the company Juvenescence with his partners.
Anthony Scaramucci: (03:06)
Juvenescence is a leading biopharma company in the commercialization of therapies to slow stop and reverse aging. More recently, Jim authored the book Moo's Law, focused on investment opportunities in the new agrarian revolution and fields of cellular agriculture. Jim co founded agronomics to invest in a portfolio of leading companies in the sector and is its largest investor. Jim sits on the board of trustees of the Buck Institute for Research on Aging, and of the American Federation for Aging Research AFAR. He's a trustee of Biogerontology research... Excuse me, let me say that again, he is a trustee of Biogerontology Research Foundation, and an Honorary Fellow of Oriel College at the University of Oxford, where he established the Mellon Center for Longevity. And Jim also sits on the advisory board of the Milken Institute's Center for the Future of Aging. And I might add, Jim, you're going to be a really good friend of mine because I expect to keep this hair and my face unwrinkled. So I'm really looking forward to spending more time with you Jim.
Anthony Scaramucci: (04:24)
Michael Moe is the founder of GSV, a modern merchant bank that invests advises and partners with the fastest growing most dynamic companies in the world, the stars of tomorrow. He's currently serves as the CEO of GSV asset management. Regarded as a preeminent authority on growth investing Michael's honors include institutional investors, all American research team and the Wall Street Journal's best on the street award. Michael is the author of several best selling books. Michael has increasingly focused recently on his greatest passion education. He is a visionary in the field of Ed Tech. He has a passion that he is pursuing for the last three decades. Today he sits on the board of directors of Coursera, Curious, GSVlabs, Course Hero, Class Dojo, Parchment, Storm Wind, OZY Media. Michael and his business partners, Deborah Quazzo created the GSV ASU summit, the world's greatest Thought Leadership Forum in the field of Ed Tech.
Anthony Scaramucci: (05:33)
And my friend Mark Cutis, I'm looking over you and telling you, sir, that you and I are the underachievers here, sir. I don't know what we're doing with our careers after reading those two amazing bios. But I turn it over to you, sir, to start the questioning. And thank you guys so much for joining us on SALT Talks today.
Michael Moe: (05:50)
Thanks Antony.
Jim Mellon: (05:50)
Thanks Antony.
Mark Cutis: (05:52)
Thank you, Anthony. It's quite a pleasure to be involved with this group of the four of us here. And I do want to say both of you are covering two key areas education, and health care, that I think in so many ways will define the new post pandemic age. But if I could just step back for a moment and say, you have amazing credentials, you've achieved a lot. But when I think of the four of us, Anthony Scaramucci, has had many experiences that will be difficult to replicate. And if we do have a moment at the end, I would love to ask him some questions of his career, particularly in the Trump administration. But in any event, I won't delve into that I'll just go straight.
Anthony Scaramucci: (06:41)
Well, first of all, Cutis it was a very long career.
Mark Cutis: (06:44)
Exactly.
Anthony Scaramucci: (06:44)
I just want to make sure everybody knows that, okay? And if you want to make me feel better, you can say it lasted 954,000 seconds. Keep going Mark.
Mark Cutis: (06:54)
Okay, but let me just put in my two cents here. You're the only person that I know, that has emerged from that administration, which hasn't really been battered. So I think at another time, we'll talk about your longevity, and your ability to essentially come out of this unscathed.
Anthony Scaramucci: (07:12)
[crosstalk 00:07:12].
Mark Cutis: (07:12)
So I want to turn for a moment to Michael, on education. And the issue with education, particularly for the Middle East is seminal. Now, before we talk about the Middle East, I want to ask you about the states. America has the best and the worst, kind of like Charles Dickens, with the best of times the worst of times. We have the best schools. And we also have massively underperforming schools particularly in our high school systems that have left behind a large swath of America. And I know that's been something that you have had close to your heart. Can you tell us a little bit about America, what we need to do in the States? And then we'll turn to your big project in the Middle East?
Michael Moe: (07:54)
Yeah, well, fundamentally, one of the biggest problems in America and this also is a problem many places in the world, is that your future is determined by how well you select your parents. And that fundamentally, is just unfair. And so we believe, I believe strongly that talent is pretty equally distributed around the world, but opportunity is not. And so how do you change that equation? How do you give everybody an equal opportunity to participate in the future? And the foundation of that is access to quality education.
Mark Cutis: (08:28)
Great. So when we talk about the region, because I think this is going to be one area yours in healthcare, that will be defining for the modern age for this area and for the world. What sort of initiatives if you can just touch upon those are you thinking about and what are you trying to do? Before we talk about why you're in Abu Dhabi?
Michael Moe: (08:52)
Sure. To back up even GSV stands for Global Silicon Valley, which is basically what we felt was a trend 10 years ago was the mindset of innovation, entrepreneurship that's made Silicon Valley such a remarkable place was spreading throughout the world. And we wanted to connect Silicon Valley with the emerging Global Silicon Valley. As it relates to specifically the Middle East, and I'm going to broaden that scope. The Middle East is a fascinating place in terms of the oil powered the manufacturing economy, where education is going to power the knowledge economy, and this region gets that. And so how do you transform a society? It's getting access to quality education. And so both the acknowledgement, and the mindset that education needs to be at the top of list of priorities is very, very clear. And so we feel that support in every kind of level of conversations that we've had and that's why we are so excited about putting a flag in Abu Dhabi.
Mark Cutis: (09:56)
So one more last question before I turn to Jim. And it's kind of a banal suggestion, but there isn't a one size fits all for education. But are there common characteristics that you think would apply to the US, the Middle East and Europe for that matter?
Michael Moe: (10:14)
Well, I think there's a key philosophy. So if you think about, one idea is that the word elite means scarcity in most parts of the world, where elite really means to mean excellence, as well as cost and quality are directly associated. So what we need to be able to do is make high quality education as at lower cost as humanly possible, if not free. So we're invested in Coursera, they have over 80 million students on their platform, 97% of them don't pay a dime. And so there's many, many, many lessons to learn from different parts of the world in different areas of where there's both opportunity and excellence. But I would say it starts with a mindset.
Mark Cutis: (10:58)
That's great. That's excellent, thank you for that. I'm going to turn to Jim for a moment. Anthony talked about longevity. And you were a member, you're still a part of The Buck Institute, which I belonged to, at one point in time. Tell us a little bit about longevity, what it means because many people have confused longevity with people becoming gnarled and living to be 110 but without a quality of life. Because I know, that's not what you mean.
Jim Mellon: (11:28)
Yeah, our first mission, and what we do, is to try and improve the quality of life in the latter years. And about 15% of people's lives at the moment are characterized towards the end of their lives by one or more severe illness. And our mission to begin with, is to try and reduce that period, which can be as long as 13 years. So rather than trying to extend life, which is our secondary mission, which I think will happen by the way. And so we are looking at aging as a central disease from which the diseases of aging cascades, all the familiar ones that we know about, like cancer or heart disease or dementia. They proliferate as you get older, so they are diseases of aging. And what we're trying to do is to address aging as a central disease, which is now possible, which in turn will lessen the burden of these diseases of aging, which are really quite dreadful and their impact on older people.
Mark Cutis: (12:32)
Great. And part of your mission also, is to help mankind change their dietary input various proteins or various ways of eating. There's been a lot of work in this area, which has applicability here, from a food security standpoint, but more importantly, you're saying to make the planet sustainable, we need to do different things in the way we grow food.
Jim Mellon: (12:55)
Yeah, I agree with that Mark. So basically, after the Second World War and led by the United States, intensive farming became the norm, that is animals reared in very close proximity and the use of antibiotics and hormones and so forth to encourage growth and to stop disease became rife. That intensive farming is not a big threat to humanity, partly because it's the biggest source of global emissions. And if you're a believer in global warming, which I am, it's something that needs to be addressed. It's about 20% of all global emissions. Partly because 80% of antibiotics go into farmed animals. And if you think about it, this pandemic is pretty bad. But just imagine if we had a bacterial rather than a viral pandemic and the antibiotics didn't work anymore, we could have... and I'm not making this up, because none of us would have thought a year and a half ago, that this would be as bad as it is. But we could have a black death on our hands where a third of the world's population died, for instance.
Jim Mellon: (13:58)
So we need to do something about reducing antibiotic usage in animals otherwise, we become more and more resistant to antibiotics. On top of that, one of the great causes of disease in the world is, frankly speaking the food that people eat. And you may have seen that Nestle admitted, their board admitted that 80% of the food, they're one of the largest food companies in the world, was bad for human health. And this is across the world basically. Diabetes has gone up from 1% in China, in 1980, to 13% today. And it's as a result of the Western diet. The food that we eat needs to change. And one way that we can do it and the technology is here is to eat plant based foods which are better substitutes than the food from intensive farming. And perhaps more excitingly use cellular agriculture, which is growing food and labs and factories to create healthy alternatives without antibiotics, without emissions without great land, use without water use, on the scale that it's currently being used. So it's a very exciting time. And there are many companies out there now with viable products.
Mark Cutis: (15:07)
Maybe you can touch upon briefly on a few of these companies that you've backed and what they're doing, particularly when they're growing meat in a petri dish exactly, from cells. So tell us a little bit about that.
Jim Mellon: (15:18)
So if I just showed you my little fingernail, and we took a sample from a cow that was equivalent to the size of my little fingernail now, was about 2.5 milliliters. The idea is that in 40 days, that little fingernails worth of sample and the cow goes back, it doesn't get slaughtered, it goes back to its field will grow into the equivalent of seven or eight cows worth of beef, about 3,000 kilos. Whereas the conventional way of growing cows would take about 28 months. And the way it works is that from my little fingernails worth of sample, stem cells, which are the precursor cells for all of us, are extracted differentiated into the cell types that you want, which are typically muscle and fat, grown in large steel containers that are called bio reactors. And this is why it's so interesting to me, because my background is in biotech.
Jim Mellon: (16:11)
So this is a biotech process. There's no genetic modification. There's no Frankenstein element to this. But the cells are bathed in the media, which is the nutrients which are roughly equivalent to what cows would get from plants. And that growth hormones, which are roughly equivalent to what cows get in nature, are introduced as well. And then you get this glute gloop that is amalgamated and creates this beef. And that can be done across all species without the use of antibiotics, no bacterial contamination. And it can also be done in materials. So some of our companies are growing leather in laboratories, cotton, cocoa. And all of these things will substitute very effectively for the Frankly speaking, poor quality food that is being offered to most consumers at the moment. And this will happen within 10 years. So I just want to make up... I'll quickly finish three predictions.
Jim Mellon: (17:03)
In 10 years time, there will be no dairy industry as we know it on the planet. None. Already plant alternatives are a huge business. And you saw that only went public quite recently. But precision fermentation is coming down the pipe very quickly. And there will be no cows producing milk in the way that we see them at the moment, within 10 years. In 10 years, 50% of the meat market will be plant based, or cell Ag based, and over 50% of the fish market will be cell based fish. So this is happening extremely quickly and will be one of the world's most transformative industries.
Mark Cutis: (17:38)
Wow. That's amazing. And I think if we step back, and I'm going to turn it over in a moment to Anthony. From the prospect of educating the masses, you mentioned 97% take Coursera courses for free to being able to change the food chain, and to provide people with nutritious food that doesn't damage the planet is amazing, and it's brave new world. On that note, Anthony I'll turn it over to you.
Anthony Scaramucci: (18:08)
I appreciate [inaudible 00:18:09]. Fascinated by the discussion. I want to ask both gentlemen, the same question in their respective fields. And this is about political will, not just in our countries, the UAE or the United States, but global political will, on things like changing the food paradigm, changing the food supply chain, but then also discussing education. And as Michael knows, in the United States, education being a big issue, I'm the product of a public school. But we have a tremendous amount of special interests in education that prevent us from making innovation. Jim, is that the case in what you're discussing as well. And so let's start with Jim, where is the political will, where the potential political unity to get these things done that you're talking about in the future?
Jim Mellon: (19:02)
Well, it's a great question, Anthony. And we're in the UAE, which imports between 85 and 90% of its food. It's one of the most food insecure countries in the world. Other countries like this would be my own country, the UK which imports 50% of its food. And so countries such as the UAE or the UK, have a natural inclination to accelerate the process of substituting the current form of agriculture. And so you're seeing a lot of innovation here forward thinking, and frankly, capital going into this into this area. So where the government's have a vested interest in making it happen, you get a bigger propellant. But I wouldn't discount the United States or European countries which have net food export as either. The US has a quite a good regime for regulating novel foods and as does Europe. And we're very surprised at the speed at which some of this stuff is happening.
Jim Mellon: (19:55)
So for instance, I can confidently predict that by the end of this year, the fish coming out of laboratories will be on the market for US consumers. Chicken is already on the market in Singapore, it's already on the market in Israel. This is the dial up phase of the Internet of this industry. But if we can pick some of the winners out of that dial up phase, we're going to do very well. But overall, I think the public is beginning to embrace this very much. And you can see that and Beyond Meat, Impossible Burger, Oatly. The enthusiasm for those companies is reflective of general enthusiasm, particularly among younger people to save the planet by changing the food system.
Anthony Scaramucci: (20:36)
Michael.
Michael Moe: (20:37)
Yeah, so just following up on that point. What's happened is it's completely well known that in the knowledge economy in a global marketplace, what you know, your education makes the difference, not only for an individual, but for a company, and for that matter, a country. You only need to look at Singapore, which has really been the model for investing in human capital for over the last 50 years, where they started their independence, the same year that Jamaica did both hit about $2,500 GDP per capita. And because of the prioritization of education in Singapore it was a big part of what fueled that success of that country, which GDP, per capita [inaudible 00:21:24] is in excess in the United States. One of the things about, back to the point about Abu Dhabi, I think that Abu Dhabi is creating what is going to be the next Singapore.
Michael Moe: (21:35)
All the pieces of fundamentals in place, including that understanding of investing in the knowledge economy, but you only need to look at places like China and India, how education is really what they view is their key strategic advantage to fit to fast forward into the future. You look at the United States, and I too went to public schools, both public elementary and high school as well as college. And the fact of the matter is, the system that's been created in the United States today doesn't work. It's rigged. You only need to look at our nation's capital, right across the Potomac River in Alexandria, Virginia, Thomas Jefferson High School is the number one high school United States, right across Washington Memorial is the worst High School in United States yet Washington Memorial spends twice as much as Thomas Jefferson. Effectively Washington Memorial gets 30,000 per kid and is a dropout factory where less than half the kids that enter that school finish at school. That's unacceptable in a country like the United States.
Michael Moe: (22:40)
And the fact that because of this whole idea of the American dream, and how education really was that opportunity to advance your cause, that doesn't exist today. 70% of the kids are born poor, or remain poor. That system isn't acceptable. I think there's great awareness, but to your point, there is a very significant entrenched status quo namely unions and other people that benefit from the old system, which frankly it doesn't work. You look at every single data point, and you look at how America is competing against the rest of the world. You got parents, you got businesses that say, we can't employ students coming out of our schools, they can't read they can't write. You got parents that see studies that show this generation of the children will be less educated themselves. You got politicians are actually seeing that it's pulling for the first time to change the dynamics. And against that you got the [inaudible 00:23:27] status quo.
Michael Moe: (23:27)
And the good news is, I think America is finally starting to see 200... The union says, give us more time, give us more money. And American people are saying 200 years is long enough, we need to change things today.
Anthony Scaramucci: (23:38)
I just want to have a follow up, then I'll turn it back to Mark. And this is a follow up again, for both of you. And I appreciate what you're saying because all of us are friends with Michael Milken. He once pointed out to me that the women's liberation movement caused people like Meg Whitman not to be school teachers, they went on to become billionaires of eBay and CEOs of Hewlett Packard. I guess what I'm wondering and this applies to both of you as it relates to incentives, human capital and human ingenuity. It seems like in Jim's business, we have that and all that Jim opined, and that whether or not that's true. But it seems like in the educational businesses, we don't have that for some reason. In terms of you look at salaries, and you look at where people are. What's your reaction to that Jim? Do we have enough incentives economically to get the world going to where you see it going? And then for Michael, how do we make those incentives better in education?
Jim Mellon: (24:44)
So I think the incentives are fairly well entrenched by the IP, the Intellectual Property system patents around the world. And that works very well in biotech and that biotech IP system has been transferred into the novel foods business. So there'll be a period of 10, 15 years of commercial exploitation, which will be the base of the price of innovation, which is a well established and US led system. The same applies on the science of longevity. The longevity science is not just for the elites, as Michael was... The elites, the wrong way of describing it, not the way you described it. But you know what I'm saying. It's for everyone, ultimately, because we live quite a long life. And so if there's 10 years of patent exploitation on some of the drugs and therapies, that biotech companies such as ours are developing. That's a relatively short space of time in human longevity. And so I think this will become available for everyone.
Jim Mellon: (25:45)
And there are already drugs and therapies out there that we can all take to make ourselves live longer. And we know that people are getting better educated about food. And they are as a result, changing their diets. And so sugar consumption is beginning to go down for the first time ever in the United States than in Europe, which is a great thing, because sugar is directly related to a lot of disease, not just diabetes, but also Alzheimers, and the proliferation of Alzheimers, as a result is going down, which is wonderful news. That is based partly on this IP system. And I'm not going to put any words into Michael's mouth. But education doesn't really have IP around it, it has passion and commitment and money and governmental will, which is a very different thing.
Michael Moe: (26:33)
So looking at, back to what incentives need to be aligned to create change, I think, frankly, a lot of change is taking place in front of our eyes, which was catalyzed in many respects by the pandemic. In fact, you basically had 1.6 billion students that were instantly put online last March, essentially, that's 20% of the world's population that was thrown in the deep end of the online learning pool and told to sink or swim, some sank, some got to the edge of the pool crawled out and will never go back in. Many flail around a little bit and all of a sudden this digital education, which should be growing at a nice rate, but only 2% of the overall $7 trillion education spend has massive acceleration. Which by the way and we all know, it wasn't perfect in terms of the quality and access and so forth.
Michael Moe: (27:22)
But I think people can start to see the future and how you can start to not have to fight this entrenched status quo. But I think also you look at the great education systems around the world where you seeing kids more effectively educated, Finland, China, Singapore, Korea. One of the big changes or big differences is just the prioritization of education, and the people going in that field are the top of their class, not near the bottom. So you look at the conversation that goes along with that. In Finland, for example it's double that, the United States, right? There's all sorts of different movements that represents the complex system like healthcare. But the good part of this is change is happening in terms of investment categories. We frankly, stay away from where the control is taken out of our hands. And so investing in, for example, charter school, physical charter schools in the United States there's better places where you can see more explosive opportunity, and frankly, where there's going to be more of a systemic impact.
Michael Moe: (28:28)
So I think, again ultimately, capitalism does work. We can talk about contemporary capitalism, which is going to be a modification of that. But the fact of the matter is, you're seeing a wave of entrepreneurs that are coming into space, you're seeing amazing ideas. And you're seeing venture capital that is coming into the education space that is about 20x, of what it was 10 years ago. And that's because the growth is happening. You now have 40 unicorns in Ed Tech. People couldn't have imagined that five years ago. And so there's a bunch of different pieces that all add up to a big piece. And I think this wave is happening in a major way. And when I say it's such a big change, we had before Corona BC, and now you have AD, after the disease, and effectively the future is accelerated to the present.
Anthony Scaramucci: (29:18)
I think it's a good point. I just want to cap it off, because I worry about this, given the neighborhood I grew up in. I grew up in a blue collar neighborhood. My dad was a crane operator, so we had a hourly wage. But we felt very aspirational. There is stuff going on in the UK here in the United States, where blue collar families that were once aspirational, feel desperation. And the goal politically has to be from a policy perspective, to reach those people. Now they'll become less populistic, if you will, if that's even a word. I'm channeling my George W. Bush, Mark Cutis, less populistic. They'll become less nationalistic. And so hopefully we can figure out good policies to do that for these communities.
Michael Moe: (30:08)
Well, I think what you're seeing, again, there's all these different... there's all this anger out there, there's all these people that are creating different movements. And if you boil it down, they're angry. What they're angry about is they don't feel like they're participating in the future. And the system is rigged.
Anthony Scaramucci: (30:26)
Exactly.
Michael Moe: (30:26)
And you know what? They're right. The system is rigged, and they aren't participant in the future. And this goes back to the foundation, how you fix that is through providing access to quality education, like you had through your public schools, like I had through my public schools. But far too few kids, I mean, fewer and fewer are getting that type of opportunity. And that doesn't work. That's not sustainable.
Anthony Scaramucci: (30:48)
We certainly agree. I'll turn it back to Mark. But I appreciate the insight that you provide.
Michael Moe: (30:55)
Thank you.
Mark Cutis: (30:56)
Michael, I want to turn to you one more time on education. And you mentioned, bringing the full bearing of the capitalist system to seek new solutions, to make a difference, and to democratize education. And I think everyone will agree and everyone will nod their head, but tell me, how should we address the potential for shysters, and people who come in to this space, and I won't refer to the last administration and the universities that they fomented. And that caused a lot of problems. But how do we address those issues? And I'm not suggesting more regulation. But I'm asking you, how do you think we should be thinking about that to protect people from being sold a bill of goods?
Michael Moe: (31:40)
So one of the biggest reasons that you're seeing change happen faster in education, which historically was very slow to change, is because the internet not only provides access, but it provides transparency. And so I think there are a number of education operators that I can think of that basically, were really good at selling things, but weren't that good at actually delivering the goods and delivering quality. Less mean exposed. The information travels so fast. And you can see what goes on with artificial intelligence, you're getting real time results in what's going on in school. So it's no longer kind of after the fact to say, "Oh, my God, nobody learned anything in this classroom." Where they had this tutor, and this tutor didn't help me at all. That's just the transparency I think is extraordinarily important. I think is a waste of the financial lens of what we're seeing because this industry is getting so much attention, right. And there are very sophisticated people involved. They're just much more scrutiny-
Mark Cutis: (32:41)
So greater transparency and scrutiny?
Michael Moe: (32:42)
And scrutiny. And because now everybody gets the fact, what's the purpose of education is to give people the knowledge and the education, the learning they need to be successful. Or whatever that's defined as. And now you can actually measure it, we call that return on education. And that we think the companies that actually are going to create the biggest investment returns are the ones that create the greatest education returns. And that type of alignment, I think creates huge acceleration for what is already happening very fast.
Mark Cutis: (33:13)
But we've seen what's happening now with technology, and the new administration is looking at ways of curtailing the power of these large technological giants. Do you think we're ever going to get to that point where it'll be a similar situation? Because if you're referring to an unfettered space where it's open, then you're expecting civil society to harness the bad players. And you're suggesting that with artificial intelligence and with transparency, those issues will be addressed? Is it possible that we'll create another large operator in the space?
Michael Moe: (33:49)
So, heretofore there is no... Despite the second largest industry in the world spending nearly 10% of GDP, there was no large education companies. You got to scratch your head and say, why? Well, there's a number of reasons we could talk about if of interest, but much of that has changed. And you're seeing [inaudible 00:34:07], BYJU in India has gone from nothing to valued at $16 billion today. You have companies like Coursera, which basically was a freemium model [inaudible 00:34:18] in the public market, six, seven billion. So I believe you're going to see many, many mega cap education technology company. And again, all that with success comes not only scrutiny, but same when you get network effects, which are happening in this business where you get a disproportionate gain to the leader in the category. More scrutiny or more regulations ultimately happening.
Michael Moe: (34:46)
You see which is now happening in China. Where in China some of the two largest education companies in the world were in China, and they've gotten destroyed over the last several months, because the Chinese government has said, what they're saying is that kids are studying too much. I don't really believe that's the real message. So now there's concern about what the future of these companies that are providing tutoring are, TAL and New Oriental.
Mark Cutis: (35:09)
Interesting. So you've also talked about kids going to university that perhaps they're better served, not going straight to university but experiencing different jobs and getting into the job sector, doing something different than the traditional out of high school into college into the workforce. How do you see that potentially developing?
Michael Moe: (35:33)
I think people need to reimagine education. There are certainly some people, they're not going to go through a traditional route. But there's many other people that are going to get knowledge and get skills from other ways, which could include jobs. And what we've got today is you no longer can go fill up your knowledge tank [inaudible 00:35:53] and drive off through life. You're going to continually need to be learning things on an ongoing basis. Some of that might come from your occupation, some of that's going to be coming from online learning, some of that's going to come from games. There's just a number of ways that you're going to be able to mix and match and really create what I call a knowledge portfolio that allows me the future opportunities. A small part of that is going to come from traditional education. I think there's going to continue to be brick and mortar schools that educate a bunch of people. But this ongoing learning, which is the huge market, is going to happen a variety of ways.
Mark Cutis: (36:25)
Thank you. If I may, Jim, I'd like to turn to you for a moment, you have a great company Juvenescence. And it has this breakthrough metabolic product, which is called Metabolic Switch, as you know, in this region, in the GCC 30 to 35% of the people have metabolic diseases. Tell us a little bit about that. And also, if you can weave in some takeaways as to what we should be doing after this program, because that's also I think, will be useful to our audience.
Jim Mellon: (36:57)
Okay. Well, so Metabolic Switch is part of the consumer division of Juvenescence. And it's a very different market to the one that we're traditionally in, which is pharmaceuticals and regenerative medicine. So we hired people from Weight Watchers as an example from Vitamin Shoppe in the US to head up the launch. And it'll be followed by several other products that will be good for, for instance, the next one is Spermidine, which is good for your metabolic health, sorry, your mitochondrial health. But what we're trying to do is to get products that are scientifically proven, and this one comes out of the Buck Institute, which you know very well. And not just some sort of quackery that sold in a health food shop. And so Metabolic Switch puts you into a state of ketosis straightaway and it keeps you there for 10 hours. And you don't have to go through the ketogenic diet, which most people can't tolerate, because it's too difficult to do. So it's a great substitute for willpower actually.
Mark Cutis: (38:01)
So you don't have to go through the ketogenic diet?
Jim Mellon: (38:03)
No, it does it for you.
Mark Cutis: (38:04)
Okay, maybe you can explain that to us.
Jim Mellon: (38:06)
Yeah. So it basically is, it induces ketosis through its mechanism. And in the same way, as if you went on a ketogenic diet, but without you having to watch what you're eating, basically. So it's fantastic for this region. And actually, we would love for it to be, once we're fully embedded in the US to be commercialized in this region as well, because it will have a very positive effect. One of the problems is that it tastes absolutely horrible. And so they're working on new flavors to try and make it palatable, because it's a breakfast drink that you drink in the early morning. But there are things that people can do today, the statement of the obvious, don't smoke, do some exercise, not too much exercise, eat healthfully. People know all about that. But that won't keep you alive, any way above your normal lifespan, which is around 85 for the developed world.
Jim Mellon: (39:06)
But I do think, Mark that in 20 years time, children will be born with a life expectancy of between 110 and 120. And then we have to rethink the world. And that will happen because about 20 years ago, the human genome was unveiled and the key pathways that cause us to age, they don't determine us to die, but they cause us to age can now be manipulated. So all of them have been proven in mammals and in some cases in human beings, to enable us to live a little bit healthier and a little bit longer. So one key thing that I'm not advocating this as a medical practitioner, but you can go into a pharmacy here and get Metformin. Metformin is a frontline diabetic drug, but it has been proven empirically and in very many studies, it's been around since 1957, to be safe and to be anti cancer, and to be anti Alzheimers and to keep you alive longer, and it's a generic drug. So it's available to everyone, it costs cents.
Mark Cutis: (40:07)
It's been around for a long time obviously.
Jim Mellon: (40:08)
It's been around for a long time. Many millions of people use it. So that's one thing that you could do today.
Michael Moe: (40:15)
[inaudible 00:40:15]
Jim Mellon: (40:16)
What you're doing, and you look great, by the way. The last thing I'll just say, as a little soundbite is I completely agree with what Michael is saying. The paradigm at the moment is we assume we're going to live to 85 or 90. And if we make it to 65, maybe a little bit longer. So that paradigm is you're born, you learn, you earn, you retire, and you expire. That paradigm needs to be ripped up, thrown away. And that's why what Michael is doing is so important, because as he said, education is a continuum, you won't be... You said fill up your tank of gas and 25 you're on the road. You have to continuously reinvent yourself. But you also have to think, first of all, how are we going to finance our lives? We're not going to be able to retire at 65 years old, governments will not be able to support that. And secondly, how you're going to occupy your life, it's like waking up in the morning, with 36 hours ahead of you, instead of 24 hours.
Jim Mellon: (41:13)
We need new structures, we need new ways of building relationships. And this is going to happen very, very quickly. So as I said, within 20 or so years, life expectancy at birth is 110 or 120. Will humanity be able to cope with it? I hope so I believe so.
Mark Cutis: (41:30)
That's quite the challenge. Please.
Michael Moe: (41:31)
I was going to say, reminding me, you talked about the treatment, the taste, the side effect it tasted bad. That's one of the issues which historically education, it tasted bad. And so you find the entrepreneurs that are really succeeding, some of them might advise you, if I would advise you, this was amazing. [inaudible 00:41:49] $16 billion market [inaudible 00:41:51], we serve you broccoli, but we put chocolate on it. And so they don't tell you put chocolate until learning. We have a concept called Hollywood meets Harvard, how do you make education entertaining and engaging? How do you create great professors to be stars, right? In all in a way that you're going to learn more, it's going to be more, it's going to make more of a difference.
Mark Cutis: (42:11)
But that will be different from... That will be an evolutionary process, because you mentioned, for instance, Korea, in Asia, where they subject the children to very long hours of studying. And the idea is rote education, right? And then you pass the test, and in many other countries too. That will have to evolve. And we'll have to, as humans will have to go to a higher level to begin to appreciate this.
Michael Moe: (42:34)
Absolutely.
Mark Cutis: (42:35)
This is the world of I guess that Peter Diamandis talked about, the world of abundance, where we're going to have infinite resources. And then we're going to have to spend time thinking through this is what you're referring to. I want to ask you, again, a very basic question. You mentioned Metformin, how about intermittent fasting for the people in the region who have these metabolic disorders? Do you think if they practice intermittent fasting, eating within these time, windows of six to eight hours, it can actually help them?
Jim Mellon: (43:03)
Absolutely. Absolutely. We have plenty people in the longevity industry, who do use intermittent fasting, including the guy who advocates Metformin, more than any other my friend Nir Barzilai from Einstein University in New York. He's also a practitioner of intermittent fasting. So absolutely. But these things will not keep you alive to the 110, or 120. It's the new therapies that are being developed now, that are based on biological change. Because all of the gains in life expectancy that we've had in the last century or so which is roughly double our life expectancy, have come from environmental gains, they haven't come from any fundamental biological change. If we took someone from 1900, and put them around us today, they'd live just as long as us, but in those days, they lived to 47 years on average.
Mark Cutis: (43:51)
Exactly.
Jim Mellon: (43:52)
So environmental change has been the key driver. The next stage of longevity increase is biological. And that's happening very quickly. The science of longevity is catching up with the aspiration of just about everyone to live a longer and importantly, healthier life.
Mark Cutis: (44:09)
Great. One more basic question. You also mentioned that not too much exercise. And in this region, there is this tendency for a cohort of young people to really work out hard and also to get pumped. How do you see that?
Jim Mellon: (44:26)
Well, all they have to do is to watch as I did last week, the match between Denmark I can't remember what the other team was. And the young guy collapsed with a heart attack on the field. That's the danger. Use drugs that are enhancing drugs, do too much exercise and you put tremendous strain on your organs. You certainly won't live longer as a result of doing that. So don't do it.
Mark Cutis: (44:54)
That's categorical. Thank you. On that note, I want to turn it back to Anthony.
Anthony Scaramucci: (44:58)
Well, it's interesting the exercise category people don't realize that but particularly as you age, you got to have moderate exercise because otherwise you'll, you'll hurt your kidneys actually. But I want to ask you both something for the common person. So let's start with you, Michael. I want to educate my seven year old, he's tied up on his phone, and he's tied up on his Nintendo Switch, and he's got a PlayStation, and an Xbox. Just kidding, he doesn't have all those things, but you get the point that I'm making. So what do I do as a parent, to break that stronghold? And to get them to start thinking more about the entertainment aspects of education?
Michael Moe: (45:43)
Well, I think that's it. Find things, put chocolate on the broccoli. Games is going to be an important way that people learn things, especially young people going forward. You look at Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg both learned coding because of the games that they played. It's finding things that they want to do, as opposed to being forced to do. But also say, as a parent being engaged. One of the most important things for student's success is having an adult that has really taken an active role in their learning. And in fact, in I see some of the most successful schools, and that can be in very difficult situations. It's required to have at least a parent that's really on top of it, [inaudible 00:46:28]. And kids like a parent that's curious.
Anthony Scaramucci: (46:32)
And so the same sort of question for you, Jim, what do we do to get these kids... Obviously, can't bring the Oreos into the house or the Coca Cola. We saw Cristiano Ronaldo do that with the Coke the other day, drop $4 billion in market cap of the company. But what are some of the simple things that parents can do for their children to get them thinking about longevity and health?
Jim Mellon: (46:59)
I was shocked to see that 70% of 18 year olds in America are obese. That is unbelievable. There were almost none in 1950. One of the key reasons for that is the corn sugar syrup, which was subsidized and remains subsidized by the federal government in the United States. And food companies have been living under an umbrella of price protection for far too long. So yes, there's a parental influence. But parents can't monitor everything in the supermarket, they haven't got the time to pick out the best foods necessarily. But what I would say and I think this is really important in the year of COP26 and talking about global warming, with Joe Biden at the helm there, is that carbon taxes should be levied on conventional food producers that do damage to people's health. That should be a universal phenomenon. And it's great for governments because they all need money at the moment. But at the same time, carbon credits should be used to promote alternative protein and food producers to make alternative foods more commercially palatable for people to buy.
Jim Mellon: (48:13)
And so it's the parents I can't really say anything about except that most parents want the best for their children. But when faced with a panoply of rubbish in the supermarket, isn't it best just to get rid of that rubbish and subsidy with good stuff?
Anthony Scaramucci: (48:31)
Well, listen, I think it's, it's spot on. I think one of the problems though, is if I took you to the local diner here, the plate size in 1950 was this and the plate size now is that. And people they've created habits for themselves, myself included. Trust me, I have many nights of self loathing when I know I've overindulged. But I guess it's also education, isn't it, Michael? Isn't it an educational thing as well, in terms of creating these habits? Isn't the health component that Jim's talking about part of your education story?
Michael Moe: (49:10)
Absolutely. Again it's knowledge economy, and it's how people obtain knowledge to give them an opportunity to participate in future and health is obviously fundamental to that. I think it's made a difference, or at least has made a difference with many people I know, when they put the calories of a food on the menu. All of a sudden you're aware of it, gives you some information, you say holy cow, that's not worth 1,200 calories to eat this sandwich. It's just being informed and again, that we're in a world of infobesity, there's so much Information. So how do you create signals amongst that noise? How do you create crisp ways for people to obtain that knowledge? Because there's so much information out there that it's hard to know what's good and what's not. I just listened to my friend Jim, he tells me, no.
Jim Mellon: (50:01)
No.
Mark Cutis: (50:01)
I can just jump in for a second. I think the challenge of the modern age is not that we follow the elites is that the common man has to take responsibility for himself and herself. And this concept of infobesity, everybody knows that you shouldn't be eating that way. Honestly, everyone knows, no one is shocked. But they have chosen to eat that way, just the way people have chosen not to take the vaccine. So ultimately, as we go into the next, the New World, we're all going to have to be much more responsible for ourselves. The state will have to help people who try, but it's very tricky because we don't want the state to be heavy handed. And I think this is going to be an evolving political problem.
Michael Moe: (50:45)
Yeah. And, by the way, going back to a previous question, I don't want to imply that I think it's also... The secret to getting kids to learn is to give them corn syrup, right? I'm saying that creating things, ways to learn things that they want to do. You look at Roblox, Roblox has a $65 billion market cap. Kids love doing that and they're learning stuff, right? It's a creator economy. And that's the type of thing to think how you integrate that with obtaining real knowledge that can help you be successful is how I think about that.
Mark Cutis: (51:22)
Absolutely.
Anthony Scaramucci: (51:22)
Mark, if you don't mind. I have one last question for both.
Mark Cutis: (51:26)
Please.
Anthony Scaramucci: (51:26)
And then I'm going to let you conclude us here. We're talking about the democratization of your ideas. Both in education and in health and fitness and awareness and longevity to that common man. Mark is right, some people are making very bad decisions. But how do we make sure that everything that we're talking about today doesn't come across pedantic, doesn't come across elitist, and we can get it disseminated into those areas that they're so desperately needed?
Michael Moe: (52:00)
25 years ago, I wrote a white paper called The Dawn of the Age of Knowledge, and in that predicted or forecast the emergence of the knowledge economy and how the internet was going to change everything, and how education is going to be at the center, and how online learning was going to democratize education. Increase in access, lower the cost, and that ultimately improve the quality. The problem with that 25 years ago, not one part of the system was really ready to accomplish that, including me. John Chambers, 20 years ago, said, online education was going to be so big, it was going to make email look irrelevant. The problem with that 20 years ago, you didn't have the computer power, you didn't have video on the internet. Teachers weren't digital natives. They're digital immigrants. Every aspect it just wasn't ready, right? Today that's changed.
Michael Moe: (52:45)
And even poor kids, and again the ability. It used to be the dream to be able to provide cheap technology people [inaudible 00:52:52]. And there's some issues, but that's really not the issue. Cheap technology, whether a person's paying for... My daughter taught in most poor schools, basically in America, she said, every kid was, 100% minority. She said, every single kid had a smartphone. That shocked me, but that's what she said what the reality was.
Michael Moe: (53:14)
I don't think that's the issue. The issue really is about providing ways to not just put education, physical education online, but to reimagine how you can do this better, faster and fairer, more democratized. And by the way, that's what's so exciting, that's what gets me excited, when you see these... what I call weapons of mass instruction. So these rapidly scaling, easy to access, removing friction, from the ability to get the education or need to be successful.
Anthony Scaramucci: (53:48)
Jim, anything you want to add?
Jim Mellon: (53:52)
Yeah. I just say that an example of how we are living in better times is the fact that these vaccines would develop so quickly. This is the best example I can think of, in the olden days, it would take at least 10, 15 years to develop a vaccine. Within six months, US companies German company, a British company had developed a effective and now readily available vaccines, at least in the developed world.
Anthony Scaramucci: (54:16)
And safe vaccines.
Jim Mellon: (54:17)
Safe.
Anthony Scaramucci: (54:17)
It's important for us to [crosstalk 00:54:19].
Jim Mellon: (54:18)
Everyone should be having these vaccines. Everyone should be having these vaccines. They've done that really, really quickly. And that's an illustration of how first of all the collaborative power of the internet that Michael was talking about bring scientists around the world together very effectively. And secondly, our knowledge of biology, it's so much better than it was just 10 years ago, or 20 years ago. So I'm very optimistic that if in the last seven years we've been able to cure HIV, to cure Hepatitis C, to develop cancer immunotherapy and to develop CRISPR-Cas9, all of which are multi billion and very effective industries. What's the next seven years going to be like it's going to be even better. We should be very optimistic.
Jim Mellon: (55:02)
I feel that we're very lucky to be living in this age notwithstanding the pandemic, which will be gone quite quickly. All the good stuff that Michael's talking about, all the good stuff that you're doing Anthony. All good stuff that you're doing in Abu Dhabi. And the stuff that we're doing in our companies is just a small microcosm of all the great stuff that's being done by a collaborative humanity. Just don't listen to the noise and just let's be optimistic.
Anthony Scaramucci: (55:30)
Well, Jim, can you make me taller though? I'm just curious.
Jim Mellon: (55:35)
Yes, yes.
Anthony Scaramucci: (55:35)
Throw that in there before we... Okay, good. I'll be-
Jim Mellon: (55:38)
You're pretty tall already.
Anthony Scaramucci: (55:39)
I'll be talking to you after this SALT Talk to figure out how to do that. Again, and I expect it to be very easy. It's like a free stride-
Jim Mellon: (55:47)
It's hanging upside down for a couple of weeks. You look remarkably young, I have to say. You look the same age as your son. So that's a great tribute to you and your genetic makeup.
Anthony Scaramucci: (55:56)
That's because I'm a television person, I know how to do lighting better than anyone. That's why. Well, thank you guys. Do you have any follow up questions Mark?
Mark Cutis: (56:09)
Yeah, just one basic question. You're both here in Abu Dhabi. Tell us a little bit about that. And because you're doing some extremely exciting things that are pathbreaking. And you've chosen to be here, how does that fit into your game plans?
Michael Moe: (56:27)
So after having the opportunity to be here, a number of times and other places, I really believe that Abu Dhabi is going to give us a window to the future. And for a variety of reasons. One, we talked about before just the prioritization of going from an oil economy to a knowledge economy. But also just the smart people doing important things, but also just geographically. As this world becomes more global and more connected, which it is every day, Abu Dhabi as we know, it's a two and a half hour flight to Mumbai, it's a three hour flight to Tel Aviv, it's a four hour flight to the west coast of Africa. It's just so well situated. When we look at the power, I call it the VCIIP, Vietnam, China, India, Indonesia, Philippines, I mean, how could you be in a better place to reach these, where the world's going to be created for the future.
Michael Moe: (57:22)
And so the great leadership, of course, but the many, many smart people that increasingly are coming here. I think you're going to see the real network effects. And so we're going to plant a flag here as we said, we're going to be running money out of here. We'll be running innovation labs out of here. We're putting big conferences out of here. And we're going to be very active in helping. We hope to build this ecosystem, that I think in next 10 years, it's going to blow people away.
Mark Cutis: (57:48)
That's very exciting. Jim.
Jim Mellon: (57:50)
Well, I have not much to add to what Michael said, except I agree with it all. But I will just give you a little bit of historical flavor. When I started my career, I started in Hong Kong, where I have permanent residency as I do here as well. And I have to say, and I wrote an article about a couple of weeks ago. The minister of tourism, read somewhere that this is the new Hong Kong. This is the new Hong Kong, flat taxes easy to incorporate businesses, multicultural, very forward thinking. You just have to look around at the infrastructure as well. We are super, both Michael and myself super excited to be involved. An honor to be here actually.
Michael Moe: (58:34)
I have to ask you. What is your view of what is going on in Hong Kong right now? It's obviously quite troubling, since it will be in the new Hong Kong. Well, Hong Kong is going to be a bit replaced by [inaudible 00:58:45]. I think, again, and Singapore, which has been an interesting place. Again, I think there's so much opportunity, but what's your reaction to what's going on in Hong Kong?
Mark Cutis: (58:51)
What's happening in Hong Kong is very complex. But it certainly looks like, even to the untrained eye let alone to the professional. That there's a dramatic sea change that is underway. But for us, what we're looking at is that you have an ecosystem that we're building an ecosystem in ADGM, where the fact that you can now get golden visas, which was never the case before. The fact that you have very low taxes, the fact that the pandemic was handled very well. Because if you think about many Asian countries, they handled the pandemic very well. But then they shut down the country, so you couldn't come in and out. Whereas in the UAE, you were able to travel in and out most of the time. So if you combine that with the basic edifice of this country, which is low taxes, you have access to capital, because you have large sovereign wealth funds, you have the foundational pillars of ADGM which is common law, and a smart regulator. And you have expenses that are actually amongst the lowest in the world, particularly because of housing.
Mark Cutis: (59:54)
You're creating an environment where young motivated people who want to do things can come here. And that's the aspiration, is to create the future here. And to encourage innovation and to encourage people to come here.
Jim Mellon: (01:00:09)
And it's safe.
Mark Cutis: (01:00:10)
And it's safe. Exactly. Absolutely.
Jim Mellon: (01:00:13)
Which is a big consideration.
Michael Moe: (01:00:13)
And that's beautiful.
Mark Cutis: (01:00:15)
Excellent.
Anthony Scaramucci: (01:00:17)
All of you forgot to mention the food. So since I'm Italian, I got to throw that in there. Some of the best restaurants in the world are in the UAE. But guys, thank you so much for joining SALT Talks with us in this new partnership that SALT has with ADGM. This will be the beginning, you guys are the inaugural part of this series that Mark and I will be doing. And so we're both very grateful to you. And I look forward to seeing you in Abu Dhabi soon. I can't wait to get over there. Mark's promised me easy entrance and easy exit. Isn't that right, Mark?
Mark Cutis: (01:00:51)
Absolutely. Absolutely.
Anthony Scaramucci: (01:00:53)
I can't wait to get over there. I'm going to have Jim pick the restaurant though. So that I know that it's plant friendly, and all that other good stuff. Thank you guys again for joining us.
Michael Moe: (01:01:03)
Thanks Anthony.
Jim Mellon: (01:01:04)
Thanks.
Mark Cutis: (01:01:04)
Thank you Anthony.
Jim Mellon: (01:01:04)
Thank you Anthony.