CZI's philosophy is to pursue transformative, paradigm-shifting medical advances. The organization explicitly avoids incremental improvements, such as extending a cancer patient's life by a few months. Instead, it directs all its resources towards ambitious goals like outright curing or preventing diseases, fostering a culture of "unbridled ambition."

The next leap in biotech moves beyond applying AI to existing data. CZI pioneers a model where 'frontier biology' and 'frontier AI' are developed in tandem. Experiments are now designed specifically to generate novel data that will ground and improve future AI models, creating a virtuous feedback loop.

CZI focuses on creating new tools for science, a 10-15 year process that's often underfunded. Instead of just giving grants, they build and operate their own institutes, physically co-locating scientists and engineers to accelerate breakthroughs in areas traditional funding misses.

CZI set an audacious goal to cure all disease. When scientists deemed it impossible, CZI's follow-up question, "Why not?" revealed the true bottleneck wasn't funding individual projects, but a systemic lack of shared tools, which then became their core focus.

AI models are trained on large lab-generated datasets. The models then simulate biology and make predictions, which are validated back in the lab. This feedback loop accelerates discovery by replacing random experimental "walks" with a more direct computational route, making research faster and more efficient.

Fears that universal tools reduce differentiation are misplaced. Instead of just leveling the playing field, open tools like OpenFold raise the entire industry's baseline capability. This shifts competition away from who builds the best foundational model to who can ask the most insightful scientific questions.

Instead of generating data for human analysis, Mark Zuckerberg advocates a new approach: scientists should prioritize creating novel tools and experiments specifically to generate data that will train and improve AI models. The goal shifts from direct human insight to creating smarter AI that makes novel discoveries.

Instead of funding small, incremental research grants, CZI's philanthropic strategy focuses on developing expensive, long-term tools like AI models and imaging platforms. This provides leverage to the entire scientific community, accelerating the pace of the whole field.

CZI's strategy creates a "frontier biology lab" to co-develop advanced data collection techniques alongside its "frontier AI lab." This integrated approach ensures biological data is generated specifically to train and ground next-generation AI models, moving beyond using whatever data happens to be available.