--- title: Ben Lamm On Focusing On The Future | TIME description: Ben Lamm, a 2025 TIME100 Next honoree, is the CEO and co-founder of Colossal Biosciences, a company that seeks to restore extinct species. And recently, even drawings of wooly mammoths have found their way to Lamm. “The thing that inspired us most was not what we were doing, but two years ago, we started getting letters. We started getting pictures of mammoths and not-so-well-drawn dodos from kids,” he said at the TIME100 Davos Dinner. The flurry of drawings and pictures from not only children but parents and teachers too encouraged Lamm and his colleagues to develop an entirely new team dedicated to the young people inspired by Colossal Biosciences’ work. “We changed our core values as a company where a third of our business now is really focused on the next generation,” said Lamm. “I think that kids are the most important asset that we would ever have.” The entrepreneur sees the next generation as imperative to success in the future. “Our investment in solving solutions are only going to be as good as if these kids take those solutions and run with the ball or then take it to the next level,” he said, noting that, since his company turned its focus toward children, business, recruitment, and funding have all “taken off.” canonical: https://time.com/video/iJGQupoI/ og:title: Ben Lamm On Focusing On The Future og:description: Ben Lamm, a 2025 TIME100 Next honoree, is the CEO and co-founder of Colossal Biosciences, a company that seeks to restore extinct species. And recently, even drawings of wooly mammoths have found their way to Lamm. “The thing that inspired us most was not what we were doing, but two years ago, we started getting letters. We started getting pictures of mammoths and not-so-well-drawn dodos from kids,” he said at the TIME100 Davos Dinner. The flurry of drawings and pictures from not only children but parents and teachers too encouraged Lamm and his colleagues to develop an entirely new team dedicated to the young people inspired by Colossal Biosciences’ work. “We changed our core values as a company where a third of our business now is really focused on the next generation,” said Lamm. “I think that kids are the most important asset that we would ever have.” The entrepreneur sees the next generation as imperative to success in the future. “Our investment in solving solutions are only going to be as good as if these kids take those solutions and run with the ball or then take it to the next level,” he said, noting that, since his company turned its focus toward children, business, recruitment, and funding have all “taken off.” og:url: https://time.com/video/iJGQupoI/ og:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/iJGQupoI/poster.jpg?width=720 og:type: video.other twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Ben Lamm On Focusing On The Future twitter:description: Ben Lamm, a 2025 TIME100 Next honoree, is the CEO and co-founder of Colossal Biosciences, a company that seeks to restore extinct species. And recently, even drawings of wooly mammoths have found their way to Lamm. “The thing that inspired us most was not what we were doing, but two years ago, we started getting letters. We started getting pictures of mammoths and not-so-well-drawn dodos from kids,” he said at the TIME100 Davos Dinner. The flurry of drawings and pictures from not only children but parents and teachers too encouraged Lamm and his colleagues to develop an entirely new team dedicated to the young people inspired by Colossal Biosciences’ work. “We changed our core values as a company where a third of our business now is really focused on the next generation,” said Lamm. “I think that kids are the most important asset that we would ever have.” The entrepreneur sees the next generation as imperative to success in the future. “Our investment in solving solutions are only going to be as good as if these kids take those solutions and run with the ball or then take it to the next level,” he said, noting that, since his company turned its focus toward children, business, recruitment, and funding have all “taken off.” twitter:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/iJGQupoI/poster.jpg?width=720 --- # Ben Lamm On Focusing On The Future > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. 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They are at time.com/newsletters and are separate from a paid subscription. ## Video: Ben Lamm On Focusing On The Future [Watch (HLS stream): Ben Lamm On Focusing On The Future](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/iJGQupoI.m3u8) (2:33)  _Published 2026-01-20. Ben Lamm, a 2025 TIME100 Next honoree, is the CEO and co-founder of Colossal Biosciences, a company that seeks to restore extinct species. And recently, even drawings of wooly mammoths have found their way to Lamm. “The thing that inspired us most was not what we were doing, but two years ago, we started getting letters. We started getting pictures of mammoths and not-so-well-drawn dodos from kids,” he said at the TIME100 Davos Dinner. The flurry of drawings and pictures from not only children but parents and teachers too encouraged Lamm and his colleagues to develop an entirely new team dedicated to the young people inspired by Colossal Biosciences’ work. “We changed our core values as a company where a third of our business now is really focused on the next generation,” said Lamm. “I think that kids are the most important asset that we would ever have.” The entrepreneur sees the next generation as imperative to success in the future. “Our investment in solving solutions are only going to be as good as if these kids take those solutions and run with the ball or then take it to the next level,” he said, noting that, since his company turned its focus toward children, business, recruitment, and funding have all “taken off.”_ --- Jan 20, 2026 11:21 PM UTC --- ## More From This Series [All Videos](https://time.com/video/) [LIVE: TIME100 Talks Most Influential Companies](/video/UIFgCIow/):29 ### LIVE: TIME100 Talks Most Influential Companies [TIME100 Talks Most Influential Companies | TIME100 Talks \(Full Event\)](/video/JZ7YdSD9/):34 ### TIME100 Talks Most Influential Companies | TIME100 Talks (Full Event) [2021 TIME100 Next Honorees | TIME100 Talks](/video/XrBC99Dj/) ### 2021 TIME100 Next Honorees | TIME100 Talks --- ## Transcript About two years ago, we started getting these weird letters. We started getting these, like pictures of mammoths and kind of like pseudo well-drawn or not so well drawn dodos from like, kids and parents and teachers and like Iowa and and it was like, and it just became a thing and it just became more of a thing and more of a thing. And it became so much of a thing that we said, oh my gosh, we have to devote a whole team to this. And we changed our core values as a company, where a third of our business now is really focused on the next generation, and it's focused on kids. And, you know, I did I dabbled in an AI and, you know, and there's been some great AI speakers tonight. But ultimately, I think the thing that I'm the most excited about is kids. And maybe I'm biased because I'm a new sleepless father, but ultimately, like kids are the ones that are going to inherit our problems. And even if we think of the coolest, greatest solutions, if they don't adopt them and they don't use them, and we just kind of preach down to them or don't include them in the conversation. Uh, I think that's a really, really big miss. And so we now spend a third of our time thinking about how we communicate what we do in a way that, like those parents in Middle America or someone in another country can understand what we're doing and empower it. And it's completely changed our business model. It's completely changed how we do fundraising. It's completely changed everything about us because we focus on the conversation of kids. And I think that that if you look at like, you know, kids get a really bad rap these days, especially like when there's some, you know, terrible event around the world and something gets activated and people are like really mad at kids for taking this position. It's really our fault because we aren't including them in the dialogue. We are not being collaborative with them and we are not rebuilding trust with our kids. And so the thing that I'm most excited about is that next generation, I think that kids are the most important asset that we will ever have. I think a lot of you in this room probably have kids, and I think hopefully many of you agree with me. Um, and, and I just want to say that at the end of the day, I think that our investment in solving these solutions are only going to be as good as if these kids take those solutions and run with the ball or then take it to the next level. And so that's something that's completely changed my life. It's completely changed our company's lives. Uh, and it's completely changed our perspective. And ever since we started spending a third of our time investing in the youth, the next generation, the rest of our business, recruiting everything, funding everything has taken off. And so that's the thing I'm most excited about is not woolly mammoths, but actually just kids. So thanks. ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"Ben Lamm On Focusing On The Future","description":"Ben Lamm, a 2025 TIME100 Next honoree, is the CEO and co-founder of Colossal Biosciences, a company that seeks to restore extinct species. And recently, even drawings of wooly mammoths have found their way to Lamm.\n\n“The thing that inspired us most was not what we were doing, but two years ago, we started getting letters. 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