WARNING: CRISPR, Capital, and the Slow Erosion of Human Inheritance
Updated
If tech billionaires get their way, we may soon live in a future where children are not simply conceived and born, but are instead manipulated genetically before their first breath. What does this mean? Inherited illness is not merely treated before birth, but is edited out altogether. Think stronger bones, sharper minds, and fewer anxieties. Sounds straight out of a dystopian nightmare, but it is not. For Preventive, a San Francisco startup backed by OpenAI’s Sam Altman and his husband Oliver Mulherin, and Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong, this future is not hypothetical. No indeed. It is a business plan they are actively pursuing. And it didn’t begin in a research university or a medical ethics board. Instead, like many Silicon Valley ventures, it came to life in a WeWork.
Presently, armed with $30 million in venture capital, Preventive claims it intends to develop embryo-editing technologies designed to prevent genetic illnesses. Its co-founder, Lucas Harrington, is trained in CRISPR and has previously worked with Nobel laureate Jennifer Doudna, who helped discover it. To undoubtedly calm the masses, Preventive insists it won’t hold clinical trials until the technology at hand is “proven safe.” But hold on. The framing of “until it’s safe” inherently presumes a future where this line will be crossed, suggesting that the only barrier is timing. Seems like a clever way to transform ethical restraints into a temporary delay, while raising the stakes to transcend policy or science into the realm of spiritual or existential. Preventive further pushes the ongoing debate over synthetic embryos to the level of metaphysical and human meaning.
Should the use of CRISPR make us feel comfortable with Preventive‘s fast-tracked project? It is essential to be clear about what CRISPR is, because it is not magic, and it is not a cure. It is a molecular scalpel that can cut DNA at specific sites and potentially rewrite what follows next. It works by exploiting a bacterial defense system and has already been used to treat rare blood diseases in adults. But what happens when this new-age tool is used to target embryos before life has begun? This matters because gene editing does not just affect one person. The ripple effect is profound, writing genetic code into future generations. Suddenly, medicine as we know it is thrown out the window, to be replaced by designer embryos for the elite. Armstrong, whose net worth, according to Forbes, is $12.5 billion, remarked that it was correct to attempt to eliminate preventable diseases, stating:
“More than 300 million people globally live with genetic disease. Foundational research should be done to determine if safe and effective therapies can be developed to cure these diseases at birth. It is far easier to correct a smaller number of cells before disease progression occurs, such as in an embryo.”
In the blink of an eye, the guiding ethos that should be driving Preventive have pivoted from medical humility, that values the sacredness of human life, to the complete technological disruption of it. Preventive aims to treat human biology like code, strip it of the essence of life, solve it like a startup problem, and scale it for billions like software. All so they can have superior babies. Clearly, in their world, there is no waiting for ethical consensus. Instead, it is simply a race to the regulatory gray zone. In this case, the target isn’t a specific market. It is much greater; it’s the human genome. And the end product isn’t a savvy app. It is a child. Indeed, Preventive isn’t a social media project, meaning bugs aren’t crashes per se. Nope, they are mutations, and like failures, they will be inherited.
So, where is this regulatory gray zone? Because editing embryos for reproduction is illegal in the United States, Preventive is reportedly looking abroad for a place to set up shop, including the United Arab Emirates, where the legal environment tends to be more permissive. As previously noted, the company’s co-founder, Lucas Harrington, is trained in CRISPR and has worked with Doudna, who helped discover it. What Preventive is doing is not isolated. Altman, Armstrong, Peter Thiel, and Alexis Ohanian—names interchangeable with technology’s dystopian boundary—have each invested in a larger network of companies that aim to reshape reproduction itself. These include Orchid, Nucleus Genomics, and Herasight. These outfits offer polygenic risk scores that estimate an embryo’s likelihood of developing disease, anxiety, or even scoring higher on intelligence metrics. Parents going through IVF are already being offered “healthier embryo” selection services.
What Preventive proposes is simply the next logical step for these deep-state billionaires. Meaning, don’t just screen for potential shortcomings—edit them out.
Armstrong tweeted that gene editing could create children “less prone to heart disease” and with “stronger bones.” Sure, that idea sounds practical, maybe even compassionate. But there remains a problem. Undoubtedly, the boundary between therapy and enhancement is not fixed, it is contextual. Think about it. What begins as prevention quickly becomes preference. And once one child is edited to be “resilient,” the market incentive shifts. What parent wants to send their unedited child into a world where others are optimized? The frighteningly corrupt reality of this scenario is that none of it makes sense.
Excited to be an investor in Preventive!
More than 300 million people globally live with genetic disease. Foundational research should be done to determine if safe and effective therapies can be developed to cure these diseases at birth. It is far easier to correct a smaller… https://t.co/UOO5MOItOo
— Brian Armstrong (@brian_armstrong) November 6, 2025
In addition to red flags being raised by many, scientists and ethicists have also expressed concern over projects like Preventive that aim to rework humanity. Fyodor Urnov of UC Berkeley called the premise of doing so “either lying, delusional, or both.” Stanford bioethicist Hank Greely noted that the risk-benefit ratio “sucks at this point,” and even Jennifer Doudna has urged restraint. She has repeatedly warned that public trust and rigorous oversight must come before any move toward editing embryos for live births.
This historical warning for the dangerously slippery slope was also heard in 2018 when Chinese scientist He Jiankui edited embryos to resist HIV. He was jailed for his work, and a global moratorium followed. Yet here we are today. Thanks to the introduction of the deadly COVID-19 mRNA gene-altering jabs, the next wave of gene therapies is being rapidly pushed onto society. Many might deduce that, with venture capital flowing and mRNA injections still on the market, the urgent caution is fading.
Preventive, and companies like it, are driving humanity to a civilizational crossroad. Why? Because the beautiful randomness of birth, along with its vulnerability and sacredness, is now subject to design. And despite the fact that gene editing could erase certain diseases, access will not be equal. Make no mistake, some will be edited to fit a new standard, and many others will be left behind. If this technology takes hold, this, my friends, is an unprecedented shift in inherent meaning, because if you edit the blueprint of life, you don’t just alter a child. No, indeed, you redefine what it means to be human.
