Dan Doctoroff

which killed his father and his uncle. Recently, sadly, Dan was also diagnosed with a l S. I sat down with Dan at Bloomberg recently and talked about his life, philanthropy, and his desire to now do what he can help cure a l S. Dan recently, about a year ago, you were diagnosed with a l S, which is a very sad tragic disease. What was your reaction when you heard about this. Well, I was actually shocked, despite the fact that my father and uncle died of the disease,

and I didn't expect it at all. Um. I really hadn't felt many symptoms. Um. But I went away on a trip to Iceland with my wife, and I had breathing problems and I couldn't climb rocks. I got exhausted climbing hills, which is really weird because I was in pretty good shape, and so I decided to go see a doctor not thinking it was a l S, and he noticed my muscles twitching and brought in the head of neurology um at the hospital that I went to, and he almost immediately declared I probably had a L

S given my family history. So then I reached out to other doctors who I knew in the A L S field, and they basically confirmed it with a series of tests. But your father who died of a LS and your uncle who died of LS, they had a gene which is kind of an A L S gene. You had earlier been tested for that gene years ago and we were told you didn't have it. No, I had never been tested. I never wanted to be tested because I didn't want to have to tell my kids

if I tested positive. So everyone sort of assumed I had a LS based on my results and my family history. But when the genetic testing came back, I did not have the same genetic mutation that my dad and my uncle, and by the way, their first cousin had, so it's throughout my family. But I didn't have the gene, which

has happened like A five times in history. So for people who were not familiar with a l S. It first became well known to the public when lou Garic, the famous baseball player, contracted it and died relatively quickly thereafter. He was in his thirties. I believe at the time since that time, since the nineteen thirties, have we made

that much progress in diagnosing or treating a LS. So there had been virtually no progress for a hundred and forty years from the time it was discovered in eighteen seventy. My uncle died in two thousand and ten, and in two thousand and ten I decided, you know, look in my family, it's hereditary. My dad had died in two

thousand and two. I gotta do something, and so I hired a team of scientists to understand why there was so little progress made in the disease, and we came up with a set of theories and created an organization around those theories. Um that included, you know, funding of consortia, funding of core scientific resources that anyone in the world could draw on, bringing in biotech and pharma into the process, and there's been an explosion of progress over the last

ten years. I'm really proud that Data Organization Target a LS has has played a major role in catalyzing the product dress. Now, when you were told recently you have about a year ago a LS, you didn't say I'm now gonna just take life very easy. You decided you're gonna go raise another two fifty million dollars for target a LS. Why did you say you wanted to put the energy and effort into that, knowing it probably really

wouldn't help you. Because first of all, this affects my family. UM. You know, even though I don't have the same genetic mutation that my dad and uncle did, I may have another genetic mutation that has not been discovered yet. UM, and my cousins, my brothers might have a l S. So it's very personal for me. But the other thing is, and most people don't recognize this, one in four hundred people who are alive today will die of ALS if

we don't come up with treatments. And so target ALS has been amazingly successful over the last ten years, and I thought there was nothing more important that I could do than to scale up target ALS and hopefully see real treatments that saved people's lives within the next five to ten years. And hopefully we'll be at a point within ten years that we can see a day when

everybody's lives get extended and saved. A number of years ago, there was so called ice bucket Challenge and where I think people were having water dumped on their heads and uh, it was designed to raise money for a LS. I think it did raise a fair amount of money, over a hundred million dollars, but that was not for research. That was for care of those who already have a l S. Is that right. Some of it went to research, but most of it went to patient care, which is important.

I mean, this is a devastating disease. UM. You know what happens in a LS is the signals that get sent from the brain to the muscles to move die and when that happens, people get paralyzed, and it's just a progressive disease where you lose more and more control UM.

So patient care is really important. We have to always find the right balance between patient care and research because at the end of the day, the thing that is going to save the lives of those one in four people UM is treatments, and we need a lot of effort to actually come up with effective treatments. Now today we still do not know what causes a LS. Is it a genetic thing completely or is it environmental or is there some combination. What do we really know about

what causes a LS? Well, there are certain genetic causes that we know our respond table for a l S, but that's only about ten of the cases. The other we don't really know. We know now what the biological pathways are UM, so we have a much better understanding of the science and that is leading to UM potential treatments, But the really understanding the cause, I think we're still got a long way to go. We to talk about a little bit more about a l S in a moment.

Let me talk about your background. Where are you from? I grew up in Birmingham, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit, Okay. And your father was My father was a lawyer who became the chief judge of the Michigan Court of Appeal. And at what age did he contract a LS? Sixty six years old. My mother, who was a psychologist, had just died of a rare net cancer at sixty four, and literally within weeks of her dying, he started to show symptoms UM that would later be diagnosed as a

l S. He started a limp. Basically, you weren't what age now and that today I'm sixty four, so about the same age your father, A little bit a little bit less. Where'd you go to college Harvard? And what did you study there? And what did you want to be? I didn't know what I wanted to be. I studied government, um, because I didn't know anything better. Um. But my biggest achievement in college was meeting my wife freshman year. We've now been dating or married forty five years, so that

was my biggest achievement. Achievement. So after college? Who went to law school at the Universit Chicago? Before I did that, I was a political pollster for a firm called Market Opinion Research, and I'd be flying all over the country as a twenty two year old advising candidates. And the fact that they listened to me discouraged me so much that I decided to go to law school. The fact that they were listening to a year olds exactly, all right,

she went to law school the universe Chicago. And what did you do after you graduated? Um? I went to work for Lehman Brothers. So you were an investment banker? And how long did you do that three years? And then you went into the calling of private equity right to the firm that became partners. Okay, and so you did that for how many years? Fourteen? All right? So how did you become close to or get to know

Mike Bloomberg. It's it's actually a funny story. So back, I was sitting in the stands of the World Cup semi final game out at the Meadowlands in New Jersey, was Italy versus Bulgaria. A friend literally dragged me um to the game. I didn't want to go. It was like a hundred degrees. We took the bus. It took forever, but I walked into the stadium that day and I thought it was the most amazing sporting event I had ever seen. Um. Everyone was painted in Bulgarian and Italian colors. Um,

you couldn't sit down. So I was standing there through the match thinking to myself, Um, you could play this game in New York with any two countries in the world and it would feel exactly the same. And then I started thinking about the Olympics, which had always been a fan of, and saying, why has the most international city in the world never hosted the most international event. And I left the stadium that day with this vague

notion that New York got to host the Olympics. And so I built a plan with advisors about how New York could host the Olympics, and eventually I showed it to Mike Bloomberg. When he was running the company, he wasn't contemplating running for mayor. He gave some money, he went on the board UM, and then when he shockingly won to be mayor, he asked me to join him in City Hall. And what did you do at City Hall? For Mike Bloomberg? In the city so, I was responsible

for everything economic and financial. So my title was Deputy Mayor for Economic Development and rebuilding. First task was rebuilding the World Trade Center site. But then we really rethought the future of New York physically and financially UM by having a five borough economic development strategy. Now, after serving as Deputy Mayor of New York for development and other projects dealing with economic development, you left after how many years?

I was there for six years and then Mike. One day, Mike Bloomberg, we sat in this bullpen in City Hall. It's an open space, UM, and I sat basically behind him. One day, he wheeled around and he UM said, Uh, what would you think about going over and running Bloomberg? And I said to him, what are you talking about? UM, in the six years that we have sat here together, we have discussed the company for one hour total, and he said, no, I think you'd be really good. UM.

I'd never run a big company before. UM. I didn't know anything about Bloomberg. When I was in private ectuity, I was a light user of Bloomberg. I knew one person at the company and he said, no, I think you'd be really good. So I said, okay, I'll think about it. So I came back the next day said okay, I'm gonna do it. I'm not going to do it for the same salary I was getting paid in government, which was one dollar UM. And I started UM about six weeks later, and after it was announced publicly that

I was going to go run Bloomberg. UM, I said to Mike, Okay, I'm doing it. What do you want me to do? UM? He said, I don't know. I haven't been there for six years. You go figure it out. And I did so. How many years did you run bloom Seven? Seven years? And the company grew pretty nicely during that period. Yeah, I mean we as soon as I got there the financial crisis happened, UM, but we grew from I think five point four billion in revenues UM to nine in the seven years that I was there.

After Mike finished his third term as mayor, he came back and being resumed the position of being Shio. You left the company and you still another company called Sidewalk Labs. What was that? That was a company I formed with Larry Page and Google became alphabet UM that was focused on urban innovation. And what we wanted to do was

built up the most innovative place in the world. But also by focusing on building a place, UM developed ideas urban innovation ideas that could UM dramatically transform UM the cities. So you're running that company, and then when you got the news that you had a LS, you decided, I'm out of this. I'm gonna go throw myself to target

A LS. Is that right, basically? And I still over on the board of a couple of the companies that we created, But yeah, my focus was definitely on a l S. And you know, I also wanted to spend much more time with my family with friends, travel, UM, do things that I had always wanted to do, and UM, it's actually worked out amazingly. Well, you've been around young people for much of your career as well, and you've hired many young people at Bloomberg New York City sidewalk Labs.

Somebody says I want to be a person has an impact on society. What would you recommend that somebody do to train themselves and to work their way up to be somebody that's impactful on society. Well, I think the first thing, you've got to believe in something that you really care about. You know, I've been fortunate that over the course of my career, I've come up with things

that have mattered to me. UM, and I've pursued them. Um. You know the best advice I ever got, UM was from Mike Bloomberg, and he said to me at one point, he said, and UM, show me somebody who's never lost, and I'll show you a loser. UM. And I believe that that if you believe in something, go after it. Take risk. Obviously they should be smart risks, but they

should be around things that you really care about. So you would see your legacy as being actually target als and helping to moderate the impact of the LS, if not curing it. That's my final legacy. I'm proud of some of the other stuff that I've done as well, Um, you know, the transformation of New York after nine eleven. I'm also incredibly proud of a lot of the companies we created, it Sidewalk, I'm proud of the Chad. I'm proud of a lot. But I feel like i've I've

I've done a lot. How do you think New York City is doing today? Mike Bloomberg is no longer mayor. There's been mayor after him, and now we have new Mayor Eric Adams in New York. Um, it's New York as as safe as it was when you were in the government, It's not as safe as it was. Crime is clearly rising. I mean, it's not back to the dark old days of you know, pre Juliani in the not early nineties. But we've got to be careful because safety is a foundation of everything. And so I know

the current mayor is committed to reducing crime. Um, but we're gonna have to be incredibly aggressive in making sure that crime does not in you involved any longer in New York City matters or your advice. Theyor and governor actually asked me to co chair a panel or a task force on reviving the commercial districts throughout the city.

So I've been in the middle of that well that later this fall will produce the report that hopefully, you know, will be pretty um inspiring here and in other places. One of the other projects you conceived of is the Shed, and you were for a while the chairman of it for a long time. You got it off the ground. What is the Shed? We want to put a cultural institution on the far west side of Manhattan. And so what we decided to do was create a new kind

of cultural institution that would be remarkably adaptable. Um. The spaces could be adapted to anything. Um. They could accommodate virtually all forms of artistic expression. UM. There's many different venues in it. The building literally moves back and forth. It is so flexible. It's sort of an architectural marvel. Um. And I'm really proud of it now. Perhaps the most famous person who had a LS was Luke Garrick, where

some people still call it glu Garrick's disease. But another famous person had it with Stephen Hawking, and he lived for some thirty plus years with it. How do you explain that sometimes people can live for thirty years plus. A couple of people live beyond ten years. One of the decisions that I'm going to face, because my major symptom is respiratory and that's why people ultimately die, is to get a tracheostomy um, which means that you can't

breathe independently. You also can't eat, and you also generally cannot talk, so you communicate by looking and spelling out words on a computer screen. And you know a lot of people I don't want to live that way. UM, I think I probably would. UM. I want to see my grandchildren grow up. UM. I still think I could be engaged in things. Again, that's sort of my optimistic nature, that it's not just about believing there's a cure, um, but it's sometimes about believing that the better of too

bad alternatives UM is something worth doing. So you know it, faced with that choice, I think that's what I would do, And you know I'll need a lot of help, but fortunately I can afford it. The word progressive is a word used for a l S and other diseases as well. Progressive is a euphanism for it's never going to get better,

it's going to get worse. So progressive in the case of a l S means you're going to die much sooner than you would otherwise die absence some sort of miracle progress, which I don't really expect for of a l S. Patients die within three to five years. Many people when they face death and the certainty of death, and everybody's going to die at some point, but people generally think it's way down the road or over the horizon. You know that within three to five years it's more

likely than not that you will not be alive. So how do you deal with that every day when you get up? You Know, the interesting thing is I have been in an amazing mood ever since I've been diagnosed. I've had maybe one down hour communatively in the last year. Um and I've got many theories to try and explain it. The biggest one is when I was diagnosed, I stopped thinking about the future. It was not something I tried to do. I think it was sort of my optimistic

nature protecting me. And it's not like I'm in denial. I know the statistics. I spend lots of time with a l S patients. I've lived with it with my father, my uncle, my college roommate died of a l s UM. So I know what's going to happen. UM. But I stopped thinking about the future, and that has been just an enormous benefit for me. I have a lot of other theories to explain why I've been so unfazed by the disease, why I've been so happy. UM. That includes

I've had a great life. UM. I have a wonderful family, I've got great friends. I've done what I wanted career wise. UM. I've done outside things like the Shed or the Olympics that I wanted to do because I was passionate about them. Um. I've had a great life, and obviously I wanted to continue. But if it doesn't, I'm grateful for the life that I've had. And then you know, I've been bathed in sort of like the love and support of so many people.

When I announced that I had a l s UM, I got at thousands of notes, you know, lots of people talking about the impact that I've had on their life, etcetera. I literally felt like I died and witnessed my funeral. But then the last part of it is UM, I feel like I've got purpose. UM with target A ls UM, I feel like I can contribute to saving people's lives, maybe my own, unlikely my kids, my family, but those one in four people, and there's nothing more important than that.

So I feel like I'm on my last mission and it gives me a real sense of purpose. Thanks for listening to hear more of my interviews. You can subscribe and download my podcast on Spotify, Apple, or wherever you listen Meann