We all share the same biology. A longevity breakthrough in Beijing works in Portland. This is the rare race where everyone, every nation, and every p… - Peter Diamandis

And this doesn’t just mean taking physical risks. The science shows that other risks — emotional, intellectual, creative, social — work just as well. “To reach flow,” explains psychiatrist Ned Hallowell,22 “one must be willing to take risks. The lover must be willing to risk rejection to enter this state. The athlete must be willing to risk physical harm, even loss of life, to enter this state. The artist must be willing to be scorned and despised by critics and the public and still push on. And the average person — you and me — must be willing to fail, look foolish, and fall flat on our faces should we wish to enter this state.

Every time a technology goes exponential, we find an internet-sized opportunity tucked inside. Think about the internet itself. While it seemingly decimated industries — music, media, retail, travel, and taxis — a study by McKinsey Global Research found the net created 2.6 new jobs for each one it extinguished.

Synthetic biology56 is built around the idea that DNA is essentially software — nothing more than a four-letter code arranged in a specific order. Much like with computers, the code drives the machine. In biology, the order of the code governs the cell’s manufacturing processes, instructing it to make specific proteins and such. But, as with all software, DNA can be reprogrammed. Nature’s original code can be swapped out for new, human-written code. We can co-opt the machinery of life, telling it to produce — well, whatever we can think of.