AI will fundamentally reshape humanity’s place in the world.
Artificial intelligence is accelerating, and with it are emerging many potential futures and many ranges of outcomes for humanity. Astera exists to help bring about the best possible AI future: one where AI helps us solve some of our most entrenched challenges and augments what our species is capable of.
The future is not yet set, but we hold the conviction that the best version of it requires being able to systematically ask and answer important questions at the roots of science and technology. We’re helping explore these foundational ideas.
Looking for high-leverage neglected ideas
Breakthrough innovation happens by thinking about what’s possible in the future. This process is messy and uncertain. As a result, many ideas are often neglected that have the most potential for outsized returns.
Astera supports the early exploration for such ideas. We like developing new ideas before they’re popular or attractive to most funders. For our biggest bets, we invest in long-term infrastructure and operationalize in-house teams and projects.
Our systems need to evolve
The current systems of funding, publishing, and organizing science are optimized for a world that no longer exists. We focus on neglected ideas that aren’t supported well through existing institutions.
Reform doesn’t happen well in the abstract. It has to be grounded in real problems and users. We use the work itself to iterate on how the systems around it should change. We make it our job to tinker with the frameworks our efforts operate in. We also share what we learn on this front to inform broader systemic change.
Uncertainty and chaos can paralyze us. Experimentation is often the fastest path forward for neglected ideas. We share results regardless of outcome: what worked, what didn’t, and what we’d do differently.
The world is constantly evolving, and our systems should too. We are willing to re-examine our institutions and test new frameworks that accelerate progress.
The most valuable bets are also often high risk. We value innovators who embrace this by complementing opinionated visions with the humility to be wrong.
We are builders at heart. We want our work to have broad impacts rooted in utility. We love seeing our tools, breakthroughs, and lessons scaled through adoption.
Astera was co-founded and funded by Jed McCaleb and Seemay Chou in 2020 to focus on high leverage ideas that have no clear home in existing markets, institutions, or funding systems.
