VISION

The future is open

Rebuilding the machinery of science for our abundant future

The coming years will bring an era of unprecedented scientific and technological advancement. Exponential progress in artificial intelligence is converging with central advances in other key fields to dramatically accelerate the pace of innovation across virtually all domains.

This inflection point provides an unparalleled opportunity, and an urgent mandate, to fundamentally rethink the institutions, systems, and tools that drive scientific progress. We believe an abundant future for all is possible – but not inevitable. To bring it about, we must rebuild the machinery of science to be more efficient, scalable, and open. We need visionary leaders who drive transformative change in the way science is funded, conducted, and communicated.

Our Mission and Vision

To steer science and technology toward an abundant future for all

We believe…

Abundance is nigh

The next decade promises to be the fastest period of scientific and technological progress in history (so far). Rapid advancements in AI, automation of science and engineering, and maturing technologies across genomics, synthetic biology, immunology, materials science, renewable energy and beyond promise to revolutionize scientific processes and accelerate technological innovation. At a civilization scale, we are about to get much wealthier, very fast.

We are at a crossroads

As this horizon nears, we should not expect our old assumptions about how prosperity is converted into scientific progress — and vice versa — to hold. Will new technologies entrench existing systems of power and inequality, or enable an abundant future for all? By default, transformative change in these areas is likely to be largely driven by private investment. Government and other institutions will take more time to adapt, but we can be partners for speeding this up by charting a path.

Science is ripe for transformation

In order to navigate this period of dramatic change and to pave the way for a shared, scientifically advanced future, we need to channel research in high-leverage directions, to coordinate at large scales, to improve the way scientific funding is deployed, and to ensure that scientific knowledge is widely shared. We must rethink these core aspects of science holistically, as they are interdependent.

Principles

Given the novelty of emerging technologies and unknowns about the future, we believe more experimentation around public goods is needed to develop conviction about what will work. We hope to provide a dedicated space for this exploration. We want to help make science better, faster, and cheaper, while ensuring that everyone participates in its benefits. Our principles guide our decisions around allocating resources across programming areas.

We build for the future

We build for the world we see coming, not the world as it exists today. We prioritize near-future challenges and opportunities for step-change impact that will reshape humanity’s relationship to science and technology. Our focus is on transformational rather than incremental change.

We catalyze change

We invest in public goods that unlock systemic change and catalyze broader funding and impact. We target areas where markets and institutions struggle, identify key barriers, and seek to accelerate innovation via interventions that enable more than one person or group to make progress.

We do the experiment

We learn through rapid experimentation and embrace decisive action. Instead of deferring to status quo, getting lost in theory, worrying about reputational risk, or being beholden to any outcome or approach, we run targeted experiments with clear hypotheses and tight feedback loops. We have a large appetite for risk and treat both successes and failures as valuable sources of insight.

We are radically transparent

We recognize the multiplicative effect of radical transparency. We’re committed to doing all we can to make it easy for others to follow, reuse, and improve on whatever we do, and build this commitment into our program design at a foundational level.

Approach

To achieve our mission, Astera supports the creation of public goods to accelerate scientific and technological progress.

We want to meet the challenge of this moment by seeding a vibrant ecosystem of mission-driven, open-source products and organizations. We aim to play a leading role in the transition to a shared and abundant future by experimenting with unexplored approaches, embracing scientific and technical risk, and leveraging our $2.5 billion endowment to chase impact at scale.

Learn more about Astera and our programs and stay in touch with us through our newsletter or Substack.