Friedberg notes DNA sequencing costs dropped from $100 million twenty years ago to $100 today, enabling new biological discovery approaches.
“Now DNA sequencing costs have gotten so cheap, right? Twenty years ago it cost $100,000,000 to sequence the human genome. Today it costs 100, and you can do it in a few hours.”
“So what's happened in biologicals is historically input companies would try and inoculate microbes or get them to grow that they were grabbing from the environment.”
Friedberg states current potato planting costs can reach 40% of grower revenue.
“So when you add up the cost of the labor, the fuel, of the resourcing needed to store all of the what's called seed potato, all the fumigants, it can be as much as 40% of the revenue of that potato grower.”
Friedberg states US healthcare costs 15% of GDP and continues rising annually.
“Healthcare today costs roughly 15% of our GDP. That's an insane statistic and it is rising year after year in The United States, and it's such a complex issue.”