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Chris Anderson: So I guess
what we're going to do is

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we're going to talk about your life,

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and using some pictures
that you shared with me.

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And I think we should start
right here with this one.

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Okay, now who is this?

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Martine Rothblatt: This is me
with our oldest son Eli.

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He was about age five.

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This is taken in Nigeria

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right after having taken
the Washington, D.C. bar exam.

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CA: Okay. But this doesn't
really look like a Martine.

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MR: Right. That was myself as a male,
the way I was brought up.

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Before I transitioned from male
to female and Martin to Martine.

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CA: You were brought up Martin Rothblatt.

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MR: Correct.

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CA: And about a year after this picture,
you married a beautiful woman.

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Was this love at first sight?
What happened there?

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MR: It was love at the first sight.

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I saw Bina at a discotheque
in Los Angeles,

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and we later began living together,

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but the moment I saw her,
I saw just an aura of energy around her.

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I asked her to dance.

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She said she saw an aura
of energy around me.

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I was a single male parent.
She was a single female parent.

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We showed each other
our kids' pictures,

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and we've been happily married
for a third of a century now.

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(Applause)

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CA: And at the time, you were
kind of this hotshot entrepreneur,

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working with satellites.

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I think you had two successful companies,

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and then you started
addressing this problem

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of how could you use satellites
to revolutionize radio.

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Tell us about that.

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MR: Right. I always
loved space technology,

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and satellites, to me, are sort of
like the canoes that our ancestors

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first pushed out into the water.

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So it was exciting for me
to be part of the navigation

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of the oceans of the sky,

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and as I developed different types
of satellite communication systems,

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the main thing I did was to launch
bigger and more powerful satellites,

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the consequence of which
was that the receiving antennas

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could be smaller and smaller,

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and after going through
direct television broadcasting,

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I had the idea that if we could make
a more powerful satellite,

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the receiving dish could be so small

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that it would just be a section
of a parabolic dish,

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a flap of a plate embedded
into the roof of an automobile,

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and it would be possible to have
nationwide satellite radio,

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and that's Sirius XM today.

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CA: Wow. So who here has used Sirius?

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(Applause)

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MR: Thank you for
your monthly subscriptions.

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(Laughter)

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CA: So that succeeded despite
all predictions at the time.

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It was a huge commercial success,

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but soon after this, in the early 1990s,

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there was this big transition in your life
and you became Martine.

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MR: Correct.
CA: So tell me, how did that happen?

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MR: It happened in consultation with Bina
and our four beautiful children,

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and I discussed with each of them

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that I felt my soul was always female,
and as a woman,

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but I was afraid people would
laugh at me if I expressed it,

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so I always kept it bottled up

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and just showed my male side.

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And each of them
had a different take on this.

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Bina said, "I love your soul,

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and whether the outside
is Martin and Martine,

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it doesn't it matter to me,
I love your soul."

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My son said, "If you become a woman,
will you still be my father?"

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And I said, "Yes,
I'll always be your father,

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and I'm still his father today."

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My youngest daughter did an absolutely
brilliant five-year-old thing.

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She told people, "I love my dad
and she loves me."

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So she had no problem
with a gender blending whatsoever.

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CA: And a couple years after this,
you published this book:

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"The Apartheid of Sex."

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What was your thesis in this book?

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MR: My thesis in this book is that there
are seven billion people in the world,

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and actually, seven billion unique ways
to express one's gender.

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And while people may have
the genitals of a male or a female,

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the genitals don't determine your gender

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or even really your sexual identity.

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That's just a matter of anatomy

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and reproductive tracts,

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and people could choose
whatever gender they want

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if they weren't forced by society
into categories of either male or female

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the way South Africa used to force people
into categories of black or white.

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We know from anthropological science
that race is fiction,

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even though racism is very, very real,

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and we now know from cultural studies

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that separate male or female genders
is a constructed fiction.

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The reality is a gender fluidity

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that crosses the entire continuum
from male to female.

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CA: You yourself don't always
feel 100 percent female.

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MR: Correct. I would say in some ways

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I change my gender about as often
as I change my hairstyle.

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CA: (Laughs) Okay, now, this is
your gorgeous daughter, Genesis.

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And I guess she was about this age
when something pretty terrible happened.

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MR: Yes, she was finding herself
unable to walk up the stairs

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in our house to her bedroom,

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and after several months of doctors,

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she was diagnosed to have a rare,
almost invariably fatal disease

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called pulmonary arterial hypertension.

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CA: So how did you respond to that?

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MR: Well, we first tried to get her
to the best doctors we could.

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We ended up at Children's National
Medical Center in Washington, D.C.

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The head of pediatric cardiology

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told us that he was going to refer her
to get a lung transplant,

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but not to hold out any hope,

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because there are
very few lungs available,

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especially for children.

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He said that all people
with this illness died,

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and if any of you have seen
the film "Lorenzo's Oil,"

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there's a scene when the protagonist

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kind of rolls down the stairway
crying and bemoaning the fate of his son,

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and that's exactly
how we felt about Genesis.

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CA: But you didn't accept that
as the limit of what you could do.

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You started trying to research
and see if you could find a cure somehow.

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MR: Correct. She was in the intensive
care ward for weeks at a time,

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and Bina and I would tag team
to stay at the hospital

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while the other watched
the rest of the kids,

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and when I was in the hospital
and she was sleeping,

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I went to the hospital library.

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I read every article that I could find
on pulmonary hypertension.

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I had not taken any biology,
even in college,

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so I had to go from a biology textbook
to a college-level textbook

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and then medical textbook
and the journal articles, back and forth,

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and eventually I knew enough to think
that it might be possible

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that somebody could find a cure.

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So we started a nonprofit foundation.

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I wrote a description
asking people to submit grants

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and we would pay for medical research.

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I became an expert on the condition --
doctors said to me, Martine,

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we really appreciate all the funding
you've provided us,

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but we are not going to be able
to find a cure in time

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to save your daughter.

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However, there is a medicine

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that was developed at the
Burroughs Wellcome Company

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that could halt the progression
of the disease,

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but Burroughs Wellcome has just
been acquired by Glaxo Wellcome.

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They made a decision not to develop

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any medicines for rare
and orphan diseases,

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and maybe you could use your expertise
in satellite communications

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to develop this cure
for pulmonary hypertension.

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CA: So how on earth did you get
access to this drug?

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MR: I went to Glaxo Wellcome

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and after three times being rejected
and having the door slammed in my face

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because they weren't going
to out-license the drug

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to a satellite communications expert,

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they weren't going to send the drug
out to anybody at all,

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and they thought
I didn't have the expertise,

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finally I was able to persuade
a small team of people to work with me

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and develop enough credibility.

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I wore down their resistance,

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and they had no hope this drug
would even work, by the way,

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and they tried to tell me,
"You're just wasting your time.

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We're sorry about your daughter."

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But finally, for 25,000 dollars

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and agreement to pay 10 percent
of any revenues we might ever get,

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they agreed to give me
worldwide rights to this drug.

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CA: And so you put this drug on the market
in a really brilliant way,

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by basically charging what it would take
to make the economics work.

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MR: Oh yes, Chris, but this really wasn't
a drug that I ended up --

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after I wrote the check for 25,000,

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and I said, "Okay, where's
the medicine for Genesis?"

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they said, "Oh, Martine,
there's no medicine for Genesis.

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This is just something we tried in rats."

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And they gave me, like,
a little plastic Ziploc bag

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of a small amount of powder.

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They said, "Don't give it to any human,"

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and they gave me a piece of paper
which said it was a patent,

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and from that, we had to figure out
a way to make this medicine.

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A hundred chemists in the U.S.
at the top universities

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all swore that little patent
could never be turned into a medicine.

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If it was turned into a medicine,
it could never be delivered

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because it had a half-life
of only 45 minutes.

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CA: And yet, a year or two later,
you were there with a medicine

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that worked for Genesis.

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MR: Chris, the astonishing thing
is that this absolutely worthless

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piece of powder

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that had the sparkle of a promise
of hope for Genesis

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is not only keeping Genesis
and other people alive today,

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but produces almost a billion
and a half dollars a year in revenue.

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(Applause)

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CA: So here you go.

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So you took this company public, right?

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And made an absolute fortune.

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And how much have you paid Glaxo,
by the way, after that 25,000?

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MR: Yeah, well, every year we pay them
10 percent of 1.5 billion,

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150 million dollars,
last year 100 million dollars.

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It's the best return on investment
they ever received. (Laughter)

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CA: And the best news of all, I guess,

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is this.

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MR: Yes. Genesis is an absolutely
brilliant young lady.

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She's alive, healthy today at 30.

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You see me, Bina and Genesis there.

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The most amazing thing about Genesis

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is that while she could do
anything with her life,

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and believe me, if you grew up
your whole life with people

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in your face saying
that you've got a fatal disease,

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I would probably run to Tahiti and just
not want to run into anybody again.

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But instead she chooses to work
in United Therapeutics.

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She says she wants to do all she can
to help other people

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with orphan diseases get medicines,

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and today, she's our project leader
for all telepresence activities,

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where she helps digitally unite
the entire company to work together

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to find cures for pulmonary hypertension.

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CA: But not everyone who has this disease
has been so fortunate.

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There are still many people dying,
and you are tackling that too. How?

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MR: Exactly, Chris. There's some 3,000
people a year in the United States alone,

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perhaps 10 times that number worldwide,

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who continue to die of this illness

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because the medicines
slow down the progression

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but they don't halt it.

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The only cure for pulmonary hypertension,
pulmonary fibrosis,

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cystic fibrosis, emphysema,

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COPD, what Leonard Nimoy just died of,

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is a lung transplant,

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but sadly, there are only enough
available lungs for 2,000 people

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in the U.S. a year
to get a young transplant,

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whereas nearly a half
million people a year

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die of end stage lung failure.

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CA: So how can you address that?

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MR: So I conceptualize the possibility

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that just like we keep cars and planes

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and buildings going forever

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00:13:03,104 --> 00:13:07,331
with an unlimited supply
of building parts and machine parts,

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why can't we create an unlimited supply
of transplantable organs

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to keep people living indefinitely,

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and especially people with lung disease.

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So we've teamed up with the decoder
of the human genome, Craig Venter,

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and the company he founded

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with Peter Diamandis,
the founder of the X-Prize,

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to genetically modify

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the pig genome

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so that the pig's organs will not
be rejected by the human body

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and thereby to create an unlimited supply

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of transplantable organs.

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We do this through our company,
United Therapeutics.

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CA: So you really believe that within,
what, a decade,

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that this shortage of transplantable lungs
maybe be cured, through these guys?

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MR: Absolutely, Chris.

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I'm as certain of that as I was
of the success that we've had

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with direct television
broadcasting, SiriusXM.

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It's actually not rocket science.

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It's straightforward engineering away
one gene after another.

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We're so lucky to be born in the time
that sequencing genomes

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is a routine activity,

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and the brilliant folks
at Synthetic Genomics

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are able to zero in on the pig genome,

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find exactly the genes
that are problematic, and fix them.

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CA: But it's not just bodies that,
though that is amazing.

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(Applause)

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It's not just long-lasting bodies
that are of interest to you now.

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It's long-lasting minds.

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And I think, like,

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this graph for you
says something quite profound.

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What does this mean?

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MR: What this graph means,
and it comes from Ray Kurzweil,

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is that the rate of development
in computer processing

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hardware, firmware, and software,

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has been advancing along the curve

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such that by the 2020s, as we saw
in earlier presentations today,

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there will be information technology

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that processes information
and the world around us

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at the same rate as a human mind.

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CA: And so that being so, you're actually
getting ready for this world

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by believing that we will soon
be able to, what,

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actually take the contents of our brains
and somehow preserve them forever?

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How do you describe that?

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MR: Well Chris, what we're working on
is creating a situation

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where people can create a mind file,

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and a mind file is the collection
of their mannerisms, personality,

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recollection, feelings,

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beliefs, attitudes and values,

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everything that we've poured today
into Google, into Amazon, into Facebook,

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and all of this information stored there
will be able, in the next couple decades,

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once software is able
to recapitulate consciousness,

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be able to revive the consciousness
which is imminent in our mind file.

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CA: Now you're not just
messing around with this.

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You're serious. I mean, who is this?

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MR: This is a robot version of
my beloved spice, Bina.

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And we call her Bina 48.

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She was programmed
by Hanson Robotics out of Texas.

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There's the centerfold
from National Geographic Magazine

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with one of her caregivers,

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and she roams the web

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and has hundreds of hours
of Bina's mannerisms, personalities.

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She's kind of like a 2-year old kid,

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but she says things
that blows people away,

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best expressed by perhaps

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a New York Times Pulitzer-Prize
winning journalist Amy Harmon

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who says her answers
are often frustrating,

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but other times as compelling
as any flesh person she's interviewed.

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CA: And this is your thinking here,
part of your hope here, is that

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this version of Bina can in a sense
live on forever, or some future upgrade

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to this version can live on forever?

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MR: Yes. Not just Bina, but everybody.

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You know, it costs us virtually nothing
to store our mind files

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on Facebook, Instagram, what-have-you.

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Social media is I think one of the most
extraordinary inventions of our time,

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and as apps become available
that will allow us

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to out-Siri Siri, better and better,

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and develop consciousness
operating systems,

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everybody in the world,
billions of people,

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will be able to develop
mind clones of themselves

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that will have their own life on the web.

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CA: So the thing is, Martine,

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that in any normal conversation,
this would sound stark-staring mad,

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but in the context of your life,
what you've done,

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some of the things we've heard this week,

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the constructed realities
that our minds get,

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I mean, you wouldn't bet against it.

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MR: Well, I think it's really nothing
coming from me.

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If anything, I'm perhaps a bit
of a communicator of activities

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that are being undertaken
by the greatest companies

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in China, Japan, India, the U.S., Europe.

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There are tens of millions of people
working on writing code

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that expresses more and more aspects
of our human consciousness,

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and you don't have to be a genius
to see that all these threads

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are going to come together
and ultimately create human consciousness,

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and it's something we'll value.

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There are so many things
to do in this life,

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and if we could have a simulacra,
a digital doppelgänger of ourselves

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that helps us process books, do shopping,

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be our best friends,

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I believe our mind clones,
these digital versions of ourselves,

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will ultimately be our best friends,

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and for me personally and Bina personally,

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we love each other like crazy.

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Each day, we are always saying, like,
wow, I love you even more

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than 30 years ago.

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And so for us, the prospect of mind clones

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and regenerated bodies

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is that our love affair, Chris,
can go on forever.

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And we never get bored of each other.
I'm sure we never will.

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CA: I think Bina's here, right?
MR: She is, yeah.

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CA: Would it be too much, I don't know,
do we have a handheld mic?

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Bina, could we invite you to the stage?
I just have to ask you one question.

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Besides, we need to see you.

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(Applause)

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Thank you, thank you.

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Come and join Martine here.

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I mean, look, when you got married,

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if someone had told you that,
in a few years time,

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the man you were marrying
would become a woman,

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and a few years after that,
you would become a robot

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-- (Laughter) --

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how has this gone? How has it been?

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Bina Rothblatt: It's been really
an exciting journey,

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and I would have never
thought the at the time,

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but we started making goals
and setting those goals

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and accomplishing things,

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and before you knew it,
we just keep going up and up

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and we're still not stopping,
so it's great.

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CA: Martine told me something
really beautiful,

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just on a short Skype before this,

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which was that he wanted
to live for hundreds of years

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as a mind file,

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but not if it wasn't with you.

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BR: That's right,
we want to do it together.

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We want cryogenics as well,
and we want to wake up together.

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CA: So just so as you know,
from my point of view,

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this isn't only one of the most
astonishing lives I have heard,

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it's one of the most astonishing
love stories I've ever heard.

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It's just a delight to have you
both here at TED.

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00:20:36,300 --> 00:20:37,646
Thank you so much.

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MR: Thank you.

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(Applause)