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Home » Diary Of A CEO: w/ Dr. David Sinclair (Transcript)

Diary Of A CEO: w/ Dr. David Sinclair (Transcript)

Editor’s Notes: In this compelling episode of The Diary Of A CEO, Harvard professor David Sinclair shares insights from his 30 years of research into the science of longevity and age reversal. He challenges the traditional view of aging as a natural inevitability, explaining how recent lab breakthroughs have successfully reset the age of cells by 75% in just eight weeks. By viewing the body’s genetic code as a software system that can be reinstalled, Sinclair outlines how specific lifestyle changes—such as diet, exercise, and biohacking—can potentially add a decade to one’s life. The discussion provides a roadmap for understanding the biological “Information Theory of Aging” and offers practical steps for living a longer, healthier life. (March 23, 2026)

TRANSCRIPT:

Introduction and Early Inspiration

STEVEN BARTLETT: Dr. David Sinclair, I have waited many years to speak to you, and I’ve been so keen to speak to you for so many years because so much of the research and the information I’ve consumed on the subjects we’re going to talk about today comes from you, directly from research you’ve done and from theories and ideas and hypotheses that you formed. I think the place that this conversation should start is probably with this picture because it appears to be incredibly formative in your journey.

DAVID SINCLAIR: Oh, yes, that is an important picture. True. This is a picture of my grandmother and me when I was in my early 20s. I’m now 56, if you’re wondering. And my grandmother has played a major role in my life. I’m going to have to be careful not to get too emotional because she’s now passed away, but she’s inspired me to do the best I can to leave the world a better place. And I found it.

The Book That Changed Everything

STEVEN BARTLETT: And there’s this particular book here called Now We Are Six it is.

DAVID SINCLAIR: Anyone who’s read my book Lifespan knows that this book is very important to me. And I didn’t realize it, of course, when I was a kid that this was going to change my whole life. And there’s a poem at the back there that my grandmother Vera used to read me when I was six. And it goes like this.

“When I was one, I had just begun. When I was two, I was nearly new. When I was three, I was hardly me. When I was four, I was not much more. When I was five, I was just alive. But now I am six. I’m as clever as clever, so I think I’ll be six now forever and ever.”

I’m getting chills reading this again and hearing this poem again, because the impact on me was the following. That subconsciously my grandmother was saying, you don’t want to grow up. Adults can be evil. She grew up after World War II. There was horrendous impact on her and her family in Hungary. And she thought that a child is innocent and people shouldn’t grow up.

But what actually happened was I realized, why do people grow old? That’s a terrible thing to happen. And so I’ve spent my life trying to figure out, why do we get old? Why do we grow up? Why do we get frail? Because I also think that if we can solve that, understand it, slow it, even reverse it now, we will have the biggest impact on human health in history.

A Grandmother’s Honest Words About Death

STEVEN BARTLETT: Am I right in thinking your grandmother told you at that young age that she was going to die, that you were going to die, that your parents were going to die?

DAVID SINCLAIR: Yes, she did tell me that. I remember it very clearly, actually. I was on the floor and she was crouching down, and I said, “Vera.” I didn’t call her Grandma. She didn’t want to be called Grandma. She wanted to be young, like a kid, too. I said, “Vera, will you always be here to protect me? Will you always be around?”

And she said, “No, I’m going to die.” I’m like, “What do you mean?” She goes, “Everything dies. I’m going to be gone. Your parents will be gone, your pet cat will be dead pretty soon, and you yourself will be dead one day,” at age 4 or 5. That’s heart wrenching, right?

We’ve all gone through this realization around that age that the world that we believe in and see will one day all be gone. That moment, I remember it so clearly because I thought, that’s not fair. Why would any species be made or created that knew that fact? That’s cruel. It’s better to either not know or to not exist. But to know that that’s what’s going to happen is really cruel.

And so I vowed, actually legitimately, around the age of 18, to get a PhD, to go to the United States and develop a research lab to try and do something about it. The preservation of health and life is the most important thing that we can do as human beings. We do it with some drugs to treat that disease and the other disease — cancer, heart disease, Alzheimer’s. But what’s underlying that, what’s really causing about 150 to 200,000 people every day to die, is the underlying universal process we call aging.

And for far too long, we’ve ignored it or accepted it as natural, therefore acceptable. And I fundamentally reject the idea that aging, just because it’s natural, is acceptable. There will be a day when we look back at today and think how medieval were our medicines and how sad it was that we accepted that we became frail before 100.

Challenging the Belief That Aging Is Inevitable

STEVEN BARTLETT: If someone has just clicked on this conversation now and they believe, deep in their core, that they’re probably going to live to 80 years old and that we all are, and that we’re never going to be able to do anything about it, because that’s just the way that it is — people get old and then they die, and aging is a fact of life, as the phrase goes, and you just have to accept it.