Hi and welcome to the A16Z podcast. I'm Hannah and this episode is all about the science around the

study of ancient DNA with David Reich, Professor of Genetics at Harvard Medical School,

and author of the recently published book, Who We Are and How We Got Here, Ancient DNA and the New Science of the Human Past,

along with Jorge Condi, general partner on the biofund at A16Z. The field of studying the ancient genome has

exploded over the last five years in what's really almost a scientific revolution. The conversation

starts with the so-called black hole of mitochondrial Eve and how this new revolution is

enabling us to move past that black hole, to what new tools make this ancient DNA factory

possible, the most revelatory

discoveries that this new knowledge has given us, both about ancient archaic humans, but also about

modern humanity and the ways in which ancient DNA can tell us not just about our own biology,

but about our history, who we are today, and even the struggles and challenges we've survived as a species.

You talk in the book a little bit about the importance

of mitochondrial Eve.

Can you explain who this mitochondrial Eve is

and what the importance of that is in this field?

So if you go back in time,

take all the seven billion or so people

living in the world today

and find how many mothers those 7 billion people have in the previous generation, it will be

only, you know, one or two billion.

Go back another generation, it will be a smaller number.

And go back a generation will be an even smaller number.

...