Our goal is to make 100-years-old the new 60
This story about a new venture backed by Craig Venter, Peter Diamandis and Robert Hariri has been reported by a number of news outlets in the past day or so. It's worth reading and noting because:
Ambition - Helping everyone to live to 100 in good health is a massive ambition. You would be hard pressed to find many better examples of what Jim Collins calls a "Big Hairy Audacious Goal". Only time will tell whether they're able to achieve this goal but there's no doubt that the magnitude of the shift is disruptive rather than incremental in nature.
Credibility - This announcement isn't just talk. The guys behind the venture are doers. They have a track record of setting extremely ambitious goals and then turning them into reality. For Craig Venter that includes being the first person to decode the human genome and for Peter Diamandis that includes establishing the X-Prize which, among other things, led directly to the creation of Virgin Galactic.
Impact - The implications, even if they are only half successful, are massive across a wide range of industries. Healthcare, pharmaceuticals, aged care, financial services, housing and construction, entertainment, retailing, leisure and travel etc. etc. etc. For some businesses the change represents a major opportunity and for others it represents a source of ongoing vulnerability. My sense is that the distinction between those businesses for which it is an opportunity and those for which it is a vulnerability is a function of management mindset rather than industry.