Martin Varsavsky has never had a job in his life. Not one. He
arrived in New York at 26 as an Argentine refugee, convinced a
Nobel Prize-winning scientist to build a biotech company with
him, and has been founding unicorns ever since — six in total,
spanning telecoms, fertility, and now AI medicine. At 66, he has
just launched Certuma, the first medical AI company explicitly
designed to be FDA-regulated and capable of writing
prescriptions. The trigger: an AI correctly diagnosed a condition
in his eye, recommended a specific medication, and then said 'I'm
not a doctor.' He decided to fix that. In this ICONS episode,
Martin covers his entire arc — from the pre-money valuation
insight that unlocked entrepreneurship for him, to the meeting
with the King of Spain where he said fertility — not nationalism
— was the country's greatest threat. He talks about the
technology his companies are building to make having children
easier, the ethical lines he draws on designer babies, why he
believes frozen embryos should be stored as a backup for
civilization, and how cycling 14 hours a week at age 66 means he
never had to plan for his own decay.
Topics Discussed
Fleeing Argentina during the military dictatorship, arriving
in New York at 26 with nothing
Never getting a job offer — and how the same bank that
rejected him funded his first company
Co-founding biotech with Nobel Prize winner César Milstein:
how a random holiday party at Oxford changed everything
The Columbia MBA lesson that unlocked entrepreneurship: the
magic of pre-money valuations
Three consecutive telecom unicorns: Viatel ($1.2B exit),
Jaztel (€4B+ exit), and Yardcom
His method: solve problems you personally experience —
telecoms, fertility, now AI medicine
The fertility crisis: every developed country is collapsing
toward 1.0 — and the political divide nobody talks about
His private meeting with the King of Spain: 'Your heirs will
have no inhabitants in this kingdom'
Gameto's Fertilo treatment — compressing IVF from 14 days of
injections to 3 days
Overture: the embryology robot that automates the making of
human embryos with ICSI
Vitara: the artificial womb saving premature babies, and the
FDA battle blocking it
Why frozen embryos should never be discarded — as insurance
for the species, not for religious reasons
Embryo selection: monogenic illness screening yes, designer
babies: where he draws the line
Germany: the worst country in Europe for IVF regulations, and
why
Certuma: the AI doctor company born to be regulated — and the
story behind the founding moment
Starting his most ambitious company at 66, and why age is a
bias not a barrier
Longevity through sport: 14 hours of cycling a week, blood
work every quarter
US vs. Europe: healthcare waste, defence spending, and what
America gets wrong about learning from Europe
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