Video summary
In this episode of Impact Theory, host and guest discuss a revolutionary approach to medicine centered on Dr. Bob Hariri's vision for eliminating death through regenerative therapies. A self-made billionaire with over 140 patents in biomedicine and aerospace, Dr. Hariri is the founder of Human Longevity Inc., Celgene Cellular Therapeutics, and his newest venture, Cellularity. The conversation highlights how he aims to bring living cells into mainstream medicine as a scalable economic solution for treating life-threatening diseases like cancer and autoimmune disorders. His primary motivation stems from personal loss due to degenerative aging and inflammatory conditions affecting family members, driving him to create tools that manage these issues similarly to common colds rather than fatal events. Dr. Hariri explains his unique methodology of approaching medical problems as engineering challenges: identifying root causes, breaking down complex systems, and designing precise solutions. He emphasizes the importance of preventative maintenance in healthcare, drawing a direct parallel between aviation safety protocols—where parts are replaced before failure—and human health management through genomics. By reading an individual's genome to identify risk factors early, doctors can implement preemptive diagnostics and therapies that prevent diseases from reaching lethal states. This engineering mindset is applied not just to biology but also to business strategy, where he avoids tunnel vision by surrounding himself with diverse teams who challenge his assumptions rather than acting as sycophants. The discussion delves into the concept of "longevity escape velocity," a term coined by Ray Kurzweil suggesting that medical advances will eventually outpace aging itself. While acknowledging the fear associated with immortality, such as potential exhaustion or cognitive decline, Dr. Hariri argues for replacing failing body parts like knees and hearts rather than trying to stop time entirely. He notes that while machines have finite lifespans requiring replacement, humans could adopt a similar model where biological components are swapped out proactively. This perspective shifts the focus from merely extending life indefinitely to maintaining high-quality function through continuous repair and regeneration using nature's own toolset of living cells. Beyond technical achievements, Dr. Hariri shares his philosophy on leadership and character development within Cellularity and other ventures. He prioritizes loyalty, honesty, and a willingness to embrace failure as essential traits in employees, citing Jocko Willink's concept of "Extreme Ownership." He admits that even with significant success, he fears becoming dogmatic or overconfident, so he actively seeks out opposing viewpoints to ensure his team remains innovative and grounded. His advice for the next generation is simple yet profound: pursue only what you absolutely love rather than doing something because others expect it of you. Ultimately, Dr. Hariri's legacy goal is to alleviate pain and suffering by harnessing stem cells from sources like placenta to repair damaged tissues, ensuring that future generations live in a world where serious diseases are manageable conditions rather than death sentences.
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You can come to me and tell me you
screwed up. It It doesn't bother me at
all.
It's It's not coming to me and telling
me you screwed up when you did.
I embrace failure. You know, I win or
learn, right? People can make mistakes
and own up to it. That's a success as
far as I'm concerned.
Everybody, welcome to Impact Theory.
You're here, my friends, because you
believe that human potential is nearly
limitless, but you know that having
potential is not the same as actually
doing something with it. So, our goal
with this show and company is to
introduce you to the people and ideas
that will help you actually execute on
your dreams. Now, today's episode is a
little bit different than normal. This
was shot off-site at an event called
Abundance 360, which is put on by Peter
Diamandis. It is an absolutely amazing
event and gave us access to somebody
that, for scheduling reasons, we have
never been able to actually get on the
show. So, I'm really excited that we're
able to bring him to you this way, but
this was shot off-site. We know that you
guys are still going to enjoy it.
All right, today's guest is a
ridiculously successful serial
entrepreneur in both biomedicine and
aerospace, a self-made billionaire. He
holds more than 140
issued and pending patents and has
helped pioneer the use of stem cells to
treat a range of life-threatening
diseases. He's the co-founder of Human
Longevity Inc. as well as the chairman,
founder, chief scientific officer, and
former CEO of Celgene Cellular
Therapeutics, one of the world's largest
human cellular therapy companies. And
his insights and discoveries have
literally reshaped the industry of human
longevity. He's authored over 100
published chapters, articles, and
abstracts on a variety of related
topics, and he is quite simply the
information age's renaissance man. A
neurosurgeon, a biomedical scientist,
adjunct associate professor, and
successful entrepreneur. He serves on
numerous boards, including Bionic
Laboratories, Cryoport, Myos, and
Provista Diagnostics, but is also widely
renowned for his discoveries of the
existence of pluripotent stem cells in
the placenta.
He served in the military, is a
jet-rated commercial pilot with
thousands of flying hours in more than
60 military and civilian aircraft, and
the founder of the Rocket Racing League,
an Extreme Aerospace Corporation. This
guy is impossible to put in a box. He's
both an MD and a PhD who's as likely to
be found in a research lab as he is in
the boardroom. He's received countless
awards for his breakthrough work in both
biomedicine and aviation, including the
Fred J. Epstein Lifetime Achievement
Award and the Thomas Alva Edison Award
in both 2007 and 2011. His most recent
endeavor, called Cellularity, is poised
to define the future of regenerative
medicine, bringing us one step closer to
meaningfully extended human life. So,
please, help me in welcoming the man who
was appointed Commissioner of Cancer
Research by New Jersey Governor Chris
Christie, the Chairman and CEO of
Cellularity, Dr. Robert Hariri.
Thank you so much for joining me today.
I'm super excited to have you here. Full
disclosure, everybody, uh Bob and I know
each other off camera and have now for a
few years.
That's right.
Which is pretty crazy. So, I'm really
amped up to get you on and give you a
chance to talk about some of the things
that I know you've got going on in your
life. And I think the the most fun place
to start with you is um you've been
absurdly
successful by every like worldly
measure,
but you're still super driven.
What drives you? Like, why the new
company, Cellularity? Why are you doing
that? It's going to take an incredible
amount of time, energy, and effort. So,
what is the goal with the company and
why are you so driven to make it happen?
Well, you know, I think it it it goes
back to one of our early conversations.
When I remember flying into um
into the little tiny airport uh near
your offices outside of LA and I picked
you up, remember?
Yes.
And we started talking about where we
thought cellular medicine and stem cells
were going to go to change the lives of
people that we care about and
we talked about
the fact that a new revolution in
medicine was upon us
and we got very far along, but we
haven't completed the journey yet. And
so part of my part of the driving force
behind Cellularity and my efforts to
lead us into this next evolution is to
bring all of these therapeutic products
to the mainstream. Just like, you know,
the remarkable things you've done in
nutrition would not have been possible
if it was unapproachable economically,
right? So so that was part of this whole
mission. So Cellularity is a product of
20 years of effort to turn living cells
into medicines, um identify the best
places where they work, and then deliver
them in a scalable economical way so
that everybody has access.
But why do you give a Like it's
going to be so much work and when I even
just thinking about what you had to do
to like pull some of this technology out
of the old company and keep going, like
I wanted to take a nap just after
hearing that story and that's just to
get started. So what what is driving you
like as an individual?
I think it's you know, same kind of
stuff that drives you. We we know that
we have the ability to change the world.
We know that we've already taken steps
in that direction. If we don't
follow it to the end game,
people like you and me will wind up
feeling totally unfulfilled and
frustrated.
And and and you know, listen, in a
practical sense, I've got children and
and my children should have the benefit
of growing up in a world where things
that terrified people, cancer,
autoimmune disease,
um serious degenerative diseases should
be something that's managed just like
you manage a common cold. And and I know
that we have in our in our arsenal today
tools that can do this.
There's enormous value for the public
and for people we care about. And I know
that a lot of what you've done has been
driven by your own concern for people in
your circle, family, friends, et cetera.
You know, you helped revolutionize the
way people address issues around weight
and so on. I feel the same passion to do
what we can for people that that I care
about. My brother, my brother's been
stricken with with inflammatory bowel
disease and so on.
Um you know, I've lost I've lost family
members to degenerative diseases of
aging. I know we can do a better job.
And so that's what drives me. It's you
know, that's the that's the pre the
premier factor. But there's also the
remarkable rewarding opportunity of
building a business that can be so
highly valued that all of the
stakeholders internally, the employees,
the the consultants, the advisers, the
shareholders, and the public get to
benefit from that value as well.
Yeah, it's you know, I often tell my um
listeners that we're living through a
change in times right now partly because
of social media and and I definitely
think about it through that lens. I
think look at at no other time in human
history have you been rewarded for as a
marketing vehicle been rewarded for
being truly an authentic and good
person. Like wanting good things for
people did not used to historically be
the most potent marketing vehicle you
could have, but now it really is. And
because of that I'm finding this cadre
of entrepreneurs that like I like as
people that are smashing it. How did you
how were you able to look at a problem
as like
big as
cancer, um, where you've had just from a
business perspective had your primary
wins, um,
looking at that there's an entire
industry around throwing away placental
I mean didn't think of it as placental
stem cells, but essentially that's what
they were doing and recognize that and
saying there's, you know, something for
disruption here. Um, do you just think
you're you just got a more vast
intellect or is there some cuz I see in
you like the scrapper kid like from the
street who, you know, would get in
fights and not let people push him
around and that's actually what's made
you so successful as an entrepreneur.
What do you think? Is that Is that
accurate or
You know what? I I um
I'm flattered that you picked that up on
that with me because I mean to be honest
with you,
um, I mean it's it's pretty accurate. I
I um
I come from a pretty
modest background where you you know,
you kind of ate what you killed and you
you lived a life based upon the the
amount of effort you put in and how
smart you were in navigating towards an
end game you saw for yourself. So, you
know me, I wanted to when I was a kid, I
wanted to be an airline pilot and so
learning how to fly and getting into
flying jets and ultimately, you know, uh
uh
using that that stepping stone to get me
into engineering. And then and then as
an engineer and I went to I went to
Columbia I went to a great a great
university with a great engineering
school. I I learned a lot about
approaching problems in a systems, uh,
um, oriented manner. And so when I wound
up going to medical school and training
as a surgeon,
every problem I saw in the clinic, I
approached as if it was an engineering
problem.
That I think really really helped me.
Um,
and and you know,
I have often said this.
Medicine is a vocational training
uh industry where you learn from more
seasoned experienced physicians and
surgeons. You adopt their practices and
principles and then you go out and you
use what you learned in your career
often with minimal modification.
But if But in medicine, if you approach
everything from an engineering point of
view, okay? You break it down to the to
the problem, identify the root cause,
and then you try and engineer a solution
to the root cause of the problem.
Yeah, where this is all going is is
pure insanity. It gets me really
excited. So, I always tell people and
I've said on my show literally a
thousand times, I plan to live forever.
Uh you're one of the people I'm counting
on to make that happen, by the way. So,
to We got to work together.
in a heartbeat.
Um I live between the friction of I plan
to live forever, but I understand I can
have an aneurysm and die before the end
of this interview and I get that. And
you know, for me the the sort of joy is
that friction.
Um
I have two questions for you. One, like
what does the actual future of medicine
look like? And I'm going to put that in
a three-year time horizon so that we're
not just grasping at straws. Like what
does the the near future of um medicine
look like? And then and and I'll re-ask
it, but um what happens in a world where
we live forever?
So, you know,
there's never been more going on in
medicine than there is today. There's
never been more going on in the tools
and the resources available to
researchers to identify new strategies
to approach disease and to approach
things like aging, etc. The um the
challenge is that we're working You talk
about friction. You know, we're working
in a system where the navigation of a
breakthrough from the bench to the
bedside to being available in real you
know in prime time for everybody
is a very complex convoluted
bureaucratic
political process. Okay? You know it
costs a lot of money to get a new any
new therapy to the marketplace so it
makes a difference.
Now that's rubbing up against the fact
that our ability to diagnose disease is
better than ever.
Um imaging technology and you know you
mentioned human longevity we have the we
have the most sophisticated ways of
screening individuals and identifying
problems early. Genomics is a way to
identify the master warning signals out
there and to look before things start to
go awry. Right now at human longevity
one of the things they do at
the company that I founded with Peter
and with Craig Venter is um
is we read the genome as a way to
understand what your biological road
map's going to take you down. And if we
understand that you are at risk for
certain things, you do a couple of
things. You increase vigilance um and
you and you would and you use certain
measures which are preemptive. I believe
that the time is upon us where
everyone has the ability to have their
genomics read and deciphered.
The understanding of what that genome
means for your risk for developing
disease is getting better and better and
better.
If I know that I'm at risk for certain
things and I simply pay attention, you
can treat these things earlier when when
the impact of treatment is that much
more important. And the reality is that
um if you
I mean
the American Cancer Society has said for
the last 40 years
early cancer detection is the is the
most important factor
in outcome.
And
you know every stage zero cancer,
virtually every stage zero cancer is
curable.
So, if we know from your genome that
you're at a risk for developing that
cancer, and you simply pay attention,
and you do preemptive
diagnostic work, and you do preemptive
therapeutic work, you you could
potentially prevent all cancers from
reaching a a lethal state.
All right, we're going to take a hard
right turn. But, now I want to ask um I
read this book called Einstein's Dreams.
It ended up Man, I I don't even remember
why I picked it up. Probably because it
was thin, if I'm honest. There'd be a
bigger sense of accomplishment actually
finishing the book. Um
my reading list.
It's good. You'll love it. And in it,
it's uh this guy like pontificating
about time, right? And how different
things would be if XYZ thing about time
were different. And one of them is he
goes to this world where um people live
forever. And in that world, people
bifurcate into some people do absolutely
nothing cuz there's always time to do it
tomorrow. And then other people do
everything all the time because there's
enough time to do all of their passions.
And I always found that so interesting.
And it's one of those I've asked like at
parties a thousand times about like
which camp people thought they would
fall into. But, what do you really think
the world looks like? Cuz I really
believe and I don't know that you do,
but I really believe on a long enough
timeline, and maybe it's not in my
lifetime, but a hundred years, two
hundred years, at some point from now,
we get to the point where every year
that we live, we add a year or more in
just medical advances.
Escape velocity, right?
Exactly. So, we will at some point, I
truly believe, live forever.
What are you like if you live forever?
Wow, scary even to think about it.
Does it really scare you? Why does it
scare you? I've never used that word.
Well,
it's it's scary because
as I've gotten older, I think my pace
has kind of continued,
but I feel like there's exhaustion
coming. So, the concept of having
an overarching exhaustion.
Overarching,
you know, the will to continue to work
at that pace
is is is is either diminished or lost.
Now, saying that, if I kind of knew that
I had a lot more time, I'd be much more
comfortable with adjusting the pace,
right? I would probably be
um be willing to perhaps change the
tempo of things that I'm doing, and I
don't know if that's actually good. Um I
personally know that people think along
the lines you're thinking, that we're
we're working so so well at improving
the um
the tools we have to live longer,
that eventually, like you said, every
year you're alive, you've allowed so
much more breakthroughs so many more
breakthroughs to occur that you can live
that much longer afterwards. Uh you
know, Ray Kurzweil says that we're
approaching a longevity escape velocity.
I think that that's that's a really
interesting concept, and we may be
there, but I think that the escape is
going to be some alternative form of
life. So, the people like Ray, and you
know, a lot of our colleagues in the
Silicon Valley, they see that extended
extended survival is cognitive survival,
right? Transferring intellect and
cognitive ability into a more durable
form, which gets back to why I'm also so
interested in regenerative medicine,
because one thing I can tell you, again
as an engineer, is that there is no
machine that has an infinite lifespan.
And so, although elements of us
theoretically
could be could be managed to live
forever. The machine would have to be
replaced.
Right? Sort of like airplanes. Uh we
talked about this.
Um most of the airplane people fly in
are decades old because
in aviation they figured out that as a
machine the parts and of airplanes have
a limited lifespan. And so the best way
to protect against failure of an
airplane
is to have a preventative maintenance
program. You know, my airplane is
it's 15 years old now. It's already been
rebuilt, torn apart and rebuilt already.
And and I replaced, you know, and I have
a manufacturer recommended plan where
where I basically replace pumps and
parts and valves
at a time when the industry said they're
old enough that fail probability of
failure has increased. And so that
preventative approach is sort of what we
should do in health care as well. I
mean, I mean, think about this, right?
If we got to the point and we're working
with Martine Rothblatt at United
Therapeutics to do this, we get to the
point that you'll have replacement parts
off the shelf
you actually would be better off having
the things which wear out faster replace
your knees, your elbows, your hips, your
heart
you'd be your lungs, you'd be better to
have those things replaced
while you were still functioning well
because you now eliminated the downside
of having to live with a failing part.
Airplanes don't fly well when the valves
don't work anymore or the pumps don't
work anymore.
But if you replace those, a 70-year-old
airplane can fly just as well.
So, oddball question here. You're a
pilot, I've flown with you. It's
amazing.
Um
your plane is pretty cool, by the way.
I know whatever people are thinking at
home it's not quite as cool as your
plane actually is. What's the closest
you've ever come to crashing?
Um you know, I've had I've had
emergencies. Never never come uh close
to any
uh
any any lethal failure in part because
you know, I I I tend to be a very
safety-focused
guy. So so this is the the cool thing
about about the kind of airplanes we
fly.
Um
and I use this in some of my talks. If
you look at the glare shield of my
cockpit and you've been in the cockpit
with me. I have these two really cool
buttons. One's a master caution and
one's a master warning. Okay? One
flashes yellow, one flashes red.
The what what aviation has done is it's
figured out that through a system of
diagnostics it can evaluate
mission-critical components, parts, um
functional systems and evaluate them and
determine if something is going awry and
needs to be addressed or if something's
actually gone and failed. So you get the
yellow flashing light way before you get
the red flashing light. But that allows
you when you get the yellow flashing
light, the master caution, to take steps
to ameliorate the problem. So for
example, the other day I had a hydraulic
pump uh uh start to fail in the
airplane. Got a master caution, yellow
light, look at the look identify on the
diagnostic what the problem was, go into
the checklist, and then you take a
series of steps so that that failure
isn't a fatal failure.
We can do that with body, too. That's in
part what we do at Human Longevity with
the genomics, right? If I can identify a
problem early on and then if I have if I
have help getting to the root cause, I
can address the root cause problem with
one step or another to make that no
longer a lethal problem.
Is it the same way that you would
approach a business problem?
Um I I think I try to.
Um I try not to be too emotional and try
and be practical about it.
But the
the fact is that if you're good enough
to see an impending failure and address
it, it's a hell of a lot cheaper and
it's a hell of a lot easier and you get
to sleep a lot earlier
if you can do it before it goes
completely haywire. So we do and I my
team have a phenomenal team at
Celularity. People you know it's funny
Celularity is a brand new business. The
average number of years employees at
Celularity have worked with me is almost
10 years.
Wow.
Okay. So these are people who have been
around a long time with me. It's a
spectacular group of people and every
one of them every one of them
understands the way I approach problems
and I found that they're really really
good at coming to me when something is
going awry and they're already thinking
in terms of okay
what's the solution?
The problems identified focus on the
solution and come up with a with a
series of options. And that's an
engineering approach. So lots of
non-engineers are acting like engineers
at Celularity.
Now and maybe it's in the answer about
thinking like an engineer but how do you
you you've been working in arenas that
it's what I call when things stack. So
you've got a lot of disparate experience
and a lot of disparate companies but
there's a way that they all stack on
each other in that the information that
you learned in one company is going to
help you with the next one HLI and
Celularity have so much overlap. Um
how have you kept your thinking fresh?
How do you avoid falling into the trap
of becoming dogmatic as you become more
of an expert?
Um I I think it's important
to avoid that pitfall you have to
surround yourself with people
um who approach things differently
um who challenge you. You know not a lot
of, you know, sycophants who just want
to sort of, you know, make you happy.
And also, you know what? You need to
bring in new blood
with completely
opposing
points of view. So, we've tried to do
that at Cellularity and I I think it's I
think it's it's it's very helpful. But
at the same time, I want people to
to fully exploit the power of this
connectivity to our our our original
parent company, to the companies we're
strategically partnered with, to allied
companies that are that are equity
holders in Cellularity, but also
business partners.
And by doing that, I think we I think we
avoid lots of the lots of the problems
or the tunnel vision that could be
created. But, you know, I I need to I
need to come and rely on a lot of my
friends and colleagues out there to make
sure that I'm not missing something.
That's Sometimes when I have to call
you.
Uh uh that's interesting. Um
I love you said something in there which
made me think of Lincoln who used a team
of rivals, which I always found really
really interesting. Yeah, I I've not
read it, but familiar with the concept.
I've never done it in my businesses, but
one thing especially because Impact
Theory is such a creative endeavor, I
have real fear of getting a bunch of
people together that think in one way
and aren't able to break out of that and
that the more we think we know the more
we're sort of trapping ourselves in a
box. So, it's interesting to hear that
you're you're leveraging the other side
of the coin, which is continuity, which
is shorthand, which is trust, which is
actually really really powerful. What is
What would you say is the number one
trait that you look for in a new
employee?
You know, so um,
there there has to be
a fundamental loyalty that an individual
has to the company.
Um, I I'm you know, I'm maybe it's nerdy
and geeky of me, but I like people who
walk around wearing, you know, the logo
the logo wear of the company and
actually actually have a sense of
ownership. You know, um, Jocko Willink,
you know, the Navy SEAL has got a great
book with um, Leif Babin called um,
Extreme Ownership.
Extreme Ownership. Great book, right?
And these guys get it because, um,
unless you are completely completely,
uh,
invested in what you're doing and that
in me that includes company and you
don't and you have loyalty to it, um,
you you you're not as motivated to be
thinking critically about what you do
and what the people around you do and
the immediate, mid-term and long-term
impact on the business. And so, getting
that loyalty has been very very
important to me. And and a a a a kin to
that,
people have to have honesty. You know,
I'm you can come to me and tell me you
screwed up. That that doesn't bother me
at all.
It's it's not coming to me and telling
me you screwed up when you did. So, that
degree of honesty is also important.
Listen, you you know me. I've I've said
this for a long time.
I embrace failure. You know, um,
Mandela said, "I win or learn." Right?
We have the same approach. You know,
people can can, um,
as long as they have the the internal
intellectual loyalty to what we're
doing,
if they make mistakes and own up to it
so that we can make a directional change
to get us where we're going, that's a
success as far as I'm concerned.
How do you find that? Like, what do you
look for in the interview?
Is it gut? Is it like certain questions?
Is it on the resume?
You know,
I I try and be good at it and you
everybody thinks they're great judges of
character and this and that, right? I've
been I've been fooled, you know? Um I
think we all have, right? I mean, I've
had partners and I've had people in my
lifetime who I thought were totally
loyal and honest and they really
weren't. It's It's very tough, but I
think when you make a decision,
you can't just walk away from the
decision and say it's somebody else's
problem. You have to You have to spend
time
watching watching the process that
anybody you bring in,
how they
assimilate and integrate. And if you see
friction and if you see You know what?
It's very funny. I I have a Like I said,
I have people who've been with me for a
long time. Uh you know, my assistant
Danielle's been with me for God almost
20 years, right?
Whoa.
You know, so so
I I look at You know, if the hair on the
back of my neck isn't standing up, but
it's standing up on them, I should pay
attention.
Yeah, that that is really something. So,
read this book by Ray Dalio called
Principles.
Um and he said, "I went from" He had
this massive failure in the early '80s,
lost basically just shut his company
down. And it was just heartbreaking to
him. And he said, "I went from thinking
I know I'm right to asking myself, how
do I know I'm right?"
And I thought, "Whoa, that's really
really smart." And, you know, getting
into a creative space, which is like for
all the success that I've had in
business, I've always had it in an area
where I didn't know. And so, I was naive
and I brought the naivete to the table
and I've always felt one of my greatest
strengths is my ferocious willingness to
learn and the fact that I'll just
outwork anybody. And so, I've actually
had trepidation coming into an area
where I'm like, I feel like I already
understand it. I know this. I know this
space. And it's my training, it's my
background, my first love. I spent a lot
of years um percr- uh perfecting my
craft. And so coming back to it, I have
one overwhelming fear. How do I know I'm
right? And so reading that and getting a
team together where it's like if the
hair isn't standing up on the back of my
neck, but I look at them and everybody
else is freaking out, I'm like, okay,
maybe there really is something here.
You're clearly better than I am. I can't
find it in an interview. I'm the guy you
were talking about. Like I used to think
I'm really a good judge of character. In
fact, there is so much content out in
the world that I've created talking
about my techniques for like recognizing
and all that, only to come to find out
that like if I'm better than most, that
would be terrifying cuz I still have so
much to learn.
Yeah, me too. Me too. And you know, it's
frustrating because you walk away from a
bad, you know, from a really bad choice
at when someone else presented it to you
and you finally figure it out and you
say, "What How did that evade me?" You
know, "How did I not see that coming?"
And if you had to say of all the traits
that make up your personality, what is
the one most closely related to the
level of success you've had?
You know, I don't I'm a pretty fearless
guy.
You know,
there's not a lot that scares me.
And I don't mind looking stupid. I don't
mind falling on my face.
I don't mind
failing and and and owning up to it. So
I think for me, the ability to embrace
failure is is a for me it's a strength,
I think.
But I but I
I'm not a quitter. And so if you have
the two, not afraid to fail,
but you don't quit when you fail, I
think that's a pretty decent
combination.
Talk to me about your residency, which I
imagine is probably one of the times
where those two traits came in handy.
What was that like? How did you make it
through?
Listen, I loved it. I was a Listen,
the truth of the matter is that that
as hard as it was
on me as an individual, the hours,
uh the pressure, and so on and so forth.
Um I learned so much and I built so much
confidence. You know, that's kind of the
problem, too. You walk out of surgical
resident and fellow training
thinking that like, you know, you can do
everything. You walk away with a little
bit of a Superman syndrome. And that
actually that actually you have to
temper over time and figure out, you
know what? Um
in that environment, you develop the
skills to get you where you had to go,
uh but but I wanted I wanted to get back
into the research and and designing
things and developing things.
Um but I but I still I still to this day
have incredibly close friends who we all
were in the same boat together training.
And
you know, I I I can't even tell you the
stories. The stories are probably the
best part of it.
I've heard some of the stories.
I know.
Yes, and they are good stories.
stories. Um before I ask my last
question, where can these guys find you
online?
So, um
I've I've entered into the world of
social media with Twitter.
Nice.
Uh it was a little scary at the
beginning, but we're we're finally we're
finally back.
Um so so it's it's @haririrobert.
You know, again, it shows my my um lack
of sophistication. I went last name
before first name.
Um but the good thing is if you have you
figure out my last name, which isn't
that hard, h a r i r i, and you put in
that and I I come up pretty so I'm
@haririrobert. And then I use LinkedIn
pretty um pretty voraciously. Um not on
the other stuff, but uh but I'm I'm I'm
but Cellularity, our company and um our
Lifebank USA uh
business unit are all in the social
media. By the way, it's important that I
mention this. So, as you know,
Cellularity, c e l u l a r i t y, is a
misspelling of cellularity with two L's
intentionally because cellularity is a
spinout of Celgene. And Celgene, as you
know, is the hundred billion dollar
biopharma that I was so fortunate to be
part of for more than 15 years after
they acquired my company Lifebank
Cryogenics.
But Celgene was a spinout of Celanese,
the chemistry company. So C E L to C E L
to C E L for me is a way to, you know,
maintain that connectivity. And then the
the singularity connection I think is
pretty obvious, too.
Mhm. Yeah, no, I thought that was really
cool. And I'm going to sneak one more
question in if you'll bear with me. What
are the key lessons that you've taught
your kids about being successful,
however you define it in their lives?
You know, the one thing I've told them
is only do something you absolutely
love. Don't do anything because you're
doing it for me or for your mom or for
your friends or for the rest of your
family. You're doing it because
because this is where you want to spend
your time. And my kids, I'm very
fortunate, I have three great kids.
Uh my youngest daughter is just she's a
dynamo. My son is off the charts. He he
puts me to shame. If I if I was half as
smart as my son, I could have actually
made something of myself.
Uh
but my kid my kids are spectacular. But
but I I don't want them, for example,
going into medicine because their dad's
in medicine. And that's all I want my
kids is just do something you're in love
with. You know me, I love aviation. In
fact, I say well, people say why are you
doing cellularity? I got to do
cellularity so I can pay for my jet
fuel.
Right? So um so I you know, it's it's
it's doing what you absolutely love.
Uh that's a pretty good answer. All
right, last question. What's the impact
that you want to have on the world?
You know, my parents died early as I I
from diseases that they shouldn't have
died early from.
Um it was it was
my mother died of something which today,
my products we have today, would have
cured her.
Would have cured her. So, I want to I
want to do things that help help people
um get through the stuff that robbed me
and my family members of of of of our
loved ones uh and hopefully
we can inspire other scientists and
other people in the field to to use
these living cells as nature's repair
kit.
It is They are nature's tool set to fix
things. If we can just figure this out,
harness it, and disseminate it, um we're
going to alleviate a lot of pain and
suffering.
I love that. Bob, thanks so much for
joining me, man. It's fantastic.
Guys, this is one of those times I'm
honored to get to really spend time in
an interview format with somebody that I
know and love and care about and get to
share them with you. And what I hope you
took away from this is somebody that has
looked at the absolute biggest problems
that we face as a species and said those
are my problems to solve. And one by one
he's gone after them and built some of
the most important companies in the
battle against cancer. And now seeing
what he's doing in terms of
extending human life, extending human
cognition, and the the real efforts that
are going to be made in that because of
him and because of the energy that he's
willing to put in, and quite frankly,
the willingness to learn, grow, and get
better. And and that's what I love. And
I I'm certainly not discounting
anything. He's a very smart person, and
if you spend time with him, that will
come across in spades. But I don't value
raw intelligence. What I value is people
that do something with whatever they
have. And more than most people I've
ever met in my life, this guy makes use
of every moment of every natural talent
that he has to spin into something that
is truly useful by putting in the time
and the energy to fail over and over and
learn from those failures and grow and
not be afraid to look stupid and just
keep going and because of that he has
one of the most amazing and incredible
lives on two fronts. One, just
financially he's
hit the jackpot in a way that is
unbelievable. And then two, the people
around him actually like him and that's
awesome to say and I hope
something that people will say about me
one day. So guys, if you haven't already
be sure to subscribe and until next time
my friends, be legendary. Take care.
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