Twenty years ago, Jason Matheny was a public health student who in his spare time was crusading to create a meat industry that would be less reliant on animals. 

In 2004, after he founded New Harvest to popularize cultured meat, his fame grew. The New York Times profiled him in its annual “Ideas of the Year” feature in 2005. That same year Discover magazine named cultured meat one of the most notable tech stories. For the next several years, Jason was the face of the movement to grow real meat without animals, traveling the world to persuade governments and food companies alike that they should be investing in a future where people would eat meat, but not animals. 

By 2009, now armed with his BA, MBA, MPH, and PhD, Jason began turning his attention toward preventing the more immediate and potentially catastrophic risks humanity faces. After leaving New Harvest, he eventually rose to become the director of Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA), a federal agency that develops advanced technologies for national intelligence. Running the federal intelligence agency would eventually lead Jason to helm a national security center at Georgetown University, followed by a high-profile national security role in the Biden White House, to now being the CEO of the Rand Corporation. He was even named one of Foreign Policy's “Top 50 Global Thinkers.”

As you’ll hear in this interview, Jason shifted from his work on cultivated meat toward national security as he became convinced that technology can vastly improve both human and animal welfare, and that the only real threat to technological advancement is an apocalyptic catastrophe like a synthetic virus or asteroid. He still cares about the welfare of those of us living today—human and nonhuman alike—but Jason’s primary preoccupation has become reducing civilization-threatening risks so that our species can keep progressing into the deep future.

I think you’ll find this conversation with this leading thinker as riveting as I did. Jason even talks about what technologies he hopes listeners will pursue to mitigate existential risks, so be sure to listen closely!

Discussed in this episode

• Jason recommends reading The Precipice by Toby Ord.

• Jason passed the New Harvest torch onto Isha Datar, who was our guest on Episode 42.

• Our Episode 89 with Rep. Ro Khanna regarding his legislation relating to national security implications of losing the alt-meat race.

• Paul’s thoughts in The Hill on government funding for alt-meat.

More about Jason Matheny

Jason Matheny is president and chief executive officer of the RAND Corporation, a nonprofit, nonpartisan research organization that helps improve policy and decisionmaking through research and analysis. 

Prior to becoming RAND's president and CEO in July 2022, he led White House policy on technology and national security at the National Security Council and the Office of Science and Technology Policy. Previously, he was founding director of the Center for Security and Emerging Technology at Georgetown University and director of the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA), where he was responsible for developing advanced technologies for the U.S. intelligence community. 

Before IARPA, he worked for Oxford University, the World Bank, the Applied Physics Laboratory, the Center for Biosecurity, and Princeton University. Matheny has served on many nonpartisan boards and committees, including the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence, to which he was appointed by Congress in 2018. 

He is a recipient of the Intelligence Community's Award for Individual Achievement in Science and Technology, the National Intelligence Superior Service Medal, and the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers. He was also named one of Foreign Policy's “Top 50 Global Thinkers.” 

Matheny holds a Ph.D. in applied economics from Johns Hopkins University, an M.P.H. from Johns Hopkins University, an M.B.A. from Duke University, and a B.A. in art history from the University of Chicago.