Martine Rothblatt, Ph.D. | Academy of Achievement

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As the founder of the satellite radio network SiriusXM, she had already revolutionized the fields of communications and broadcasting, when her seven-year-old daughter fell ill. Doctors diagnosed pulmonary hypertension, an incurable lung disorder, and gave the child little chance of surviving to adulthood. This unexpected crisis led to an abrupt career change. Setting aside her past business commitments, Rothblatt gave herself a crash course in medical science and founded a new company, United Therapeutics, to find a treatment that could save her daughter’s life. Since then, the company has developed successful treatments for pulmonary hypertension, as well as for the cancer neuroblastoma. Martine Rothblatt’s books and published writings range over subjects from gender identity to the concepts of “mind uploading” and “technological immortality.” She has been repeatedly cited as the highest-paid executive in the biopharmaceutical industry and the highest-paid female chief executive in the world. Today, she is Chair and CEO of United Therapeutics, and her adult daughter works alongside her."/> <link rel="canonical" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/martine-rothblatt-ph-d/"/> <meta property="og:locale" content="en_US"/> <meta property="og:type" content="article"/> <meta property="og:title" content="Martine Rothblatt, Ph.D. | Academy of Achievement"/> <meta property="og:description" content="Martine Rothblatt’s patented inventions span the fields of satellite communication, medicinal biochemistry and cognitive software. As the founder of the satellite radio network SiriusXM, she had already revolutionized the fields of communications and broadcasting, when her seven-year-old daughter fell ill. Doctors diagnosed pulmonary hypertension, an incurable lung disorder, and gave the child little chance of surviving to adulthood. This unexpected crisis led to an abrupt career change. Setting aside her past business commitments, Rothblatt gave herself a crash course in medical science and founded a new company, United Therapeutics, to find a treatment that could save her daughter’s life. Since then, the company has developed successful treatments for pulmonary hypertension, as well as for the cancer neuroblastoma. Martine Rothblatt’s books and published writings range over subjects from gender identity to the concepts of “mind uploading” and “technological immortality.” She has been repeatedly cited as the highest-paid executive in the biopharmaceutical industry and the highest-paid female chief executive in the world. Today, she is Chair and CEO of United Therapeutics, and her adult daughter works alongside her."/> <meta property="og:url" content="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/martine-rothblatt-ph-d/"/> <meta property="og:site_name" content="Academy of Achievement"/> <meta property="article:modified_time" content="2021-05-21T14:39:43+00:00"/> <meta property="og:image" content="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051741im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/rothblatt-Feature-Image-2800x1120-1.png"/> <meta property="og:image:width" content="2800"/> <meta property="og:image:height" content="1120"/> <meta name="twitter:card" content="summary"/> <meta name="twitter:site" content="@achievers1961"/> <script type="application/ld+json" class="yoast-schema-graph">{"@context":"https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051741/https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/#organization","name":"Academy of Achievement","url":"https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/","sameAs":["https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051741/https://www.linkedin.com/company/american-academy-of-achievement","https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051741/https://www.youtube.com/channel/UChe_87uh1H-NIMf3ndTjPFw","https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051741/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academy_of_Achievement","https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051741/https://twitter.com/achievers1961"],"logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","@id":"https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/#logo","inLanguage":"en-US","url":"/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/12.png","contentUrl":"/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/12.png","width":1200,"height":630,"caption":"Academy of Achievement"},"image":{"@id":"https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/#logo"}},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/#website","url":"https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/","name":"Academy of Achievement","description":"A museum of living history","publisher":{"@id":"https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/#organization"},"potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":"https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/search/{search_term_string}","query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"ImageObject","@id":"https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/martine-rothblatt-ph-d/#primaryimage","inLanguage":"en-US","url":"/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/rothblatt-Feature-Image-2800x1120-1.png","contentUrl":"/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/rothblatt-Feature-Image-2800x1120-1.png","width":2800,"height":1120},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/martine-rothblatt-ph-d/#webpage","url":"https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/martine-rothblatt-ph-d/","name":"Martine Rothblatt, Ph.D. | Academy of Achievement","isPartOf":{"@id":"https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/martine-rothblatt-ph-d/#primaryimage"},"datePublished":"2021-05-19T19:33:52+00:00","dateModified":"2021-05-21T14:39:43+00:00","description":"Martine Rothblatt\u2019s patented inventions span the fields of satellite communication, medicinal biochemistry and cognitive software. As the founder of the satellite radio network SiriusXM, she had already revolutionized the fields of communications and broadcasting, when her seven-year-old daughter fell ill. \u00a0Doctors diagnosed pulmonary hypertension, an incurable lung disorder, and gave the child little chance of surviving to adulthood. This unexpected crisis led to an abrupt career change. Setting aside her past business commitments, Rothblatt gave herself a crash course in medical science and founded a new company, United Therapeutics, to find a treatment that could save her daughter\u2019s life.\u00a0 Since then, the company has developed successful treatments for pulmonary hypertension, as well as for the cancer neuroblastoma. Martine Rothblatt\u2019s books and published writings range over subjects from gender identity to the concepts of \u201cmind uploading\u201d and \u201ctechnological immortality.\u201d She has been repeatedly cited as the highest-paid executive in the biopharmaceutical industry and the highest-paid female chief executive in the world.\u00a0 Today, she is Chair and CEO of United Therapeutics, and her adult daughter works alongside 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[(max-width:992px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2021/05/rothblatt-Feature-Image-2800x1120-1.png"></div> <div class="display--table"> <div class="display--table-cell"> <figcaption class="feature-area__text ratio-container__text container"> <div class="feature-area__text-inner text-white"> <h2 class="serif-8 feature-area__text-subhead back"><a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever">All achievers</a></h2> <h1 class="serif-1 entry-title feature-area__text-headline">Martine Rothblatt, Ph.D.</h1> <h5 class="sans-6 feature-area__blurb">Founder of SiriusXM and United Therapeutics</h5> </div> </figcaption> </div> </div> </figure> </header> </div>  <nav class="in-page-nav row fixedsticky"> <ul class="nav text-xs-center clearfix" role="tablist"> <li class="nav-item col-xs-3"> <a class="nav-link active" data-toggle="tab" href="#biography" role="tab" data-gtm-category="tab" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever Biography">Biography</a> </li> <li class="nav-item col-xs-3"> 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class="tab-pane active" id="biography" role="tabpanel"> <section class="achiever--biography"> <div class="banner clearfix"> <div class="banner--single clearfix"> <div class="col-lg-8 col-lg-offset-2"> <div class="banner__image__container"> <figure class="ratio-container ratio-container--square bg-black"> <img class="lazyload banner__image" data-src="/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/WhatItTakes_256_rothblatt-190x190.jpg" alt=""/> </figure> </div> <div class="banner__text__container"> <h3 class="serif-3 banner__headline"> Listen to this achiever on <i>What It Takes</i> </h3> <p class="sans-6 banner__text m-b-0"><i>What It Takes</i> is an audio podcast produced by the American Academy of Achievement featuring intimate, revealing conversations with influential leaders in the diverse fields of endeavor: public service, science and exploration, sports, technology, business, arts and humanities, and justice.</p> </div> </div> </div> </div> <div class="row"> <header class="editorial-article__header col-md-8 col-md-offset-2 text-xs-center"> <i class="icon-icon_bio text-brand-primary"></i> <h3 class="serif-3 quote-marks">I’m transcending the border of my body to connect with a greater creator collectivity. I’m transcending white or black to just be a person. I’m transcending flesh to be a consciousness. I’m transcending Earth to be part of the galaxy. I’m transcending limitations to be unlimited.</h3> </header> </div> <div class="row"> <aside class="col-md-4 sidebar clearfix"> <h2 class="serif-3 p-b-1"></h2> <div class="col-xs-12 sidebar--chunk p-b-2"> <dt class="serif-7">Date of Birth</dt> <dd class="sans-2"> October 10, 1954 </dd> </div> </aside> <article class="editorial-article col-md-8"> <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd"> <html><body data-rsssl="1"><p>The attorney, author, entrepreneur, inventor and biotechnologist known today as Martine Rothblatt was born in Chicago, Illinois and was known for 40 years as Martin Rothblatt.  The emergence of Martine as a transgender person occurred midway through a remarkable career that crosses boundaries between professional disciplines as well as traditional gender roles.</p> <figure id="attachment_70214" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-70214" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-70214 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051741im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/wp-2280-Rosa-Lee-and-Hal-Rothblatt-and-Martin.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="size-full wp-image-70214 lazyload" alt="" width="2280" height="962" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20210905051741im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/wp-2280-Rosa-Lee-and-Hal-Rothblatt-and-Martin.jpg 2280w, /web/20210905051741im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/wp-2280-Rosa-Lee-and-Hal-Rothblatt-and-Martin-380x160.jpg 380w, /web/20210905051741im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/wp-2280-Rosa-Lee-and-Hal-Rothblatt-and-Martin-760x321.jpg 760w, /web/20210905051741im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/wp-2280-Rosa-Lee-and-Hal-Rothblatt-and-Martin-1536x648.jpg 1536w, /web/20210905051741im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/wp-2280-Rosa-Lee-and-Hal-Rothblatt-and-Martin-2048x864.jpg 2048w, /web/20210905051741im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/wp-2280-Rosa-Lee-and-Hal-Rothblatt-and-Martin-1520x641.jpg 1520w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/wp-2280-Rosa-Lee-and-Hal-Rothblatt-and-Martin.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-70214" class="wp-caption-text">Martin Rothblatt (center) was born in 1954 to Rosa Lee (left), a speech therapist, and Harold (right), a dentist.</figcaption></figure> <p>Rothblatt grew up in the Metropolitan area of San Diego, California.  The secure life of the family was shattered when Martin was only five years old. The father of the family was injured in a car accident and it appeared that he would be paralyzed for life.  He closed his dental practice and declared bankruptcy, fearing that he would never walk again.  An experimental surgery at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota repaired the damage to the elder Rothblatt’s spine.  He recovered completely and was able to resume a successful practice.  From this experience, Martine Rothblatt drew the lesson that human ingenuity could overcome the most difficult challenges.</p> <figure id="attachment_70229" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-70229" style="width: 2304px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-70229 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051741im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/high-frontier-and-2000-August-US6105060-drawings-with-title.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="size-full wp-image-70229 lazyload" alt="" width="2304" height="1164" data-sizes="(max-width: 2304px) 100vw, 2304px" data-srcset="/web/20210905051741im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/high-frontier-and-2000-August-US6105060-drawings-with-title.jpg 2304w, /web/20210905051741im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/high-frontier-and-2000-August-US6105060-drawings-with-title-380x192.jpg 380w, /web/20210905051741im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/high-frontier-and-2000-August-US6105060-drawings-with-title-760x384.jpg 760w, /web/20210905051741im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/high-frontier-and-2000-August-US6105060-drawings-with-title-1536x776.jpg 1536w, /web/20210905051741im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/high-frontier-and-2000-August-US6105060-drawings-with-title-2048x1035.jpg 2048w, /web/20210905051741im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/high-frontier-and-2000-August-US6105060-drawings-with-title-1520x768.jpg 1520w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/high-frontier-and-2000-August-US6105060-drawings-with-title.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-70229" class="wp-caption-text">As an undergraduate, Rothblatt became a convert to Gerard K. O’Neill’s<em> “High Frontier” </em>plan for space colonization. Rothblatt was later retained by O’Neill to handle business and regulatory matters for his newly invented satellite navigation technology, known as the GeoStar.; After founding Sirius Satellite Radio in 1990 and struggling to fund her vision, Rothblatt learned the value of patents with U.S. Patent No. 6,105,060, “System for providing global portable internet access using low earth orbit satellite and satellite direct radio broadcast system,” issued in 2000.</figcaption></figure> <p>A gifted student who loved music and astronomy, the younger Rothblatt enrolled at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), but grew restless and left after sophomore year to travel and explore the world.  Traveling from Europe to the Middle East and East Africa, Rothblatt arrived in the summer of 1974 on the island nation of the Seychelles in the Indian Ocean, home to a NASA satellite tracking station.</p> <figure id="attachment_70224" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-70224" style="width: 2560px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-70224 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051741im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/3panel-Martin-and-Bina-1982-Bina-and-daughter-Family-1992-scaled.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="size-full wp-image-70224 lazyload" alt="" width="2560" height="650" data-sizes="(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px" data-srcset="/web/20210905051741im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/3panel-Martin-and-Bina-1982-Bina-and-daughter-Family-1992-scaled.jpg 2560w, /web/20210905051741im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/3panel-Martin-and-Bina-1982-Bina-and-daughter-Family-1992-380x96.jpg 380w, /web/20210905051741im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/3panel-Martin-and-Bina-1982-Bina-and-daughter-Family-1992-760x193.jpg 760w, /web/20210905051741im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/3panel-Martin-and-Bina-1982-Bina-and-daughter-Family-1992-1536x390.jpg 1536w, /web/20210905051741im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/3panel-Martin-and-Bina-1982-Bina-and-daughter-Family-1992-2048x520.jpg 2048w, /web/20210905051741im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/3panel-Martin-and-Bina-1982-Bina-and-daughter-Family-1992-1520x386.jpg 1520w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/3panel-Martin-and-Bina-1982-Bina-and-daughter-Family-1992-scaled.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-70224" class="wp-caption-text">Left: Martin Rothblatt married Bina Aspen in 1982.; Center: 1980: Rothblatt enjoying the outdoors with daughter, Sunee.; Right: Martine Rothblatt with her family in 1992. From left: Jenesis, Sunee, Eli, Martine, Bina, and Gabriel.</figcaption></figure> <p>The massive spherical satellite dishes atop a mountaintop on a remote island inspired Rothblatt with a vision of a world united by satellite communications.  Returning to UCLA, Rothblatt pursued a degree in communications studies.  In an astronomy class, Rothblatt encountered the writings of Princeton physicist Gerard O’Neill, an advocate of space settlement and colonization.  O’Neill’s book <em>The High Frontier</em> inspired a generation of technologists and space enthusiasts, including Rothblatt and future Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.</p> <p>After graduating <em>summa cum laude</em> in 1977, with a senior thesis on international direct-broadcast satellites, Rothblatt enrolled in UCLA’s joint-degree program in business and law.  While earning simultaneous J.D. and MBA degrees, Rothblatt set out to master the regulatory regime governing space flight and satellite communications.</p> <figure id="attachment_70247" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-70247" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-70247 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051741im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/wp-Howard-Stern-SiriusXM-NASDAQ.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="size-full wp-image-70247 lazyload" alt="" width="2280" height="836" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20210905051741im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/wp-Howard-Stern-SiriusXM-NASDAQ.jpg 2280w, /web/20210905051741im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/wp-Howard-Stern-SiriusXM-NASDAQ-380x139.jpg 380w, /web/20210905051741im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/wp-Howard-Stern-SiriusXM-NASDAQ-760x279.jpg 760w, /web/20210905051741im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/wp-Howard-Stern-SiriusXM-NASDAQ-1536x563.jpg 1536w, /web/20210905051741im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/wp-Howard-Stern-SiriusXM-NASDAQ-2048x751.jpg 2048w, /web/20210905051741im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/wp-Howard-Stern-SiriusXM-NASDAQ-1520x557.jpg 1520w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/wp-Howard-Stern-SiriusXM-NASDAQ.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-70247" class="wp-caption-text">In 1990, Rothblatt founded SiriusXM Radio. Today, the company has grown to be the largest audio entertainment company in North America. Left: Martine Rothblatt with SiriusXM’s marquee talent, the “King of All Media” Howard Stern. Since 2006, he has produced and hosted <em>The Howard Stern Show</em> exclusively for the satellite radio company.</figcaption></figure> <p>While in graduate school, Rothblatt joined the Organization for the Advancement of Space Industrialization and Settlement (OASIS) and became a regular contributor to the OASIS newsletter, publishing numerous articles on the law of satellite communications.  Rothblatt also prepared a business plan for the Hughes Space and Communications Group to provide communication service to Latin America.  The Hughes Group did not adopt the plan at the time, but it would eventually provide the basis of the PanAmSat system.</p> <figure id="attachment_70285" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-70285" style="width: 782px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-70285 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051741im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/book-apartheid-of-sex.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="size-full wp-image-70285 lazyload" alt="" width="782" height="1318" data-sizes="(max-width: 782px) 100vw, 782px" data-srcset="/web/20210905051741im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/book-apartheid-of-sex.jpg 782w, /web/20210905051741im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/book-apartheid-of-sex-225x380.jpg 225w, /web/20210905051741im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/book-apartheid-of-sex-451x760.jpg 451w, /web/20210905051741im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/book-apartheid-of-sex-760x1281.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/book-apartheid-of-sex.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-70285" class="wp-caption-text">Rothblatt transitioned in 1994, at the age of 40. In her 1996 book, <em>The Apartheid of Sex: A Manifesto on the Freedom of Gender</em>, Rothblatt makes a case for the adoption of a new sexual model that accommodates every shade of gender identity. She reveals that traditional male and female roles are dictated neither by genetics, genitals, nor reproductive biology, but rather by social attitudes that originated in early patriarchal cultures and that have been institutionalized in modern law, and she calls a new acceptance of human sexuality in all its prismatic variety.</figcaption></figure> <p>After receiving both a law degree and an MBA in 1981, Rothblatt was hired by the Washington, D.C. law firm of Covington & Burling.  The young attorney was assigned to represent the television broadcasting industry before the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), which regulates broadcast satellites. Within the year, Rothblatt married Bina Aspen, a realtor from Compton, California. Each had a child from a previous relationship, so they legally adopted one another’s children to form a blended family.  In time they would have two more children together.</p> <p>In 1982, Rothblatt left Covington and Burling, continuing to represent scientific institutions and government agencies before the FCC while studying astronomy at the University of Maryland.  During this period, Rothblatt assisted the National Academy of Sciences in protecting the radio astronomy “quiet bands” used for deep space research, and advocated NASA’s interests in its tracking and data relay satellites.  Gerard O’Neill, who had fired Rothblatt’s imagination as an undergraduate, retained the young attorney’s services to address business and regulatory issues for a new system of satellite navigation technology he had developed. Known as Geostar, the new system enabled precise location tracking of aircraft, but Rothblatt foresaw a more expansive use of the technology.</p> <figure id="attachment_70295" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-70295" style="width: 2311px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-70295 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051741im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Family-1992-and-UT.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="size-full wp-image-70295 lazyload" alt="" width="2311" height="864" data-sizes="(max-width: 2311px) 100vw, 2311px" data-srcset="/web/20210905051741im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Family-1992-and-UT.jpg 2311w, /web/20210905051741im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Family-1992-and-UT-380x142.jpg 380w, /web/20210905051741im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Family-1992-and-UT-760x284.jpg 760w, /web/20210905051741im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Family-1992-and-UT-1536x574.jpg 1536w, /web/20210905051741im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Family-1992-and-UT-2048x766.jpg 2048w, /web/20210905051741im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Family-1992-and-UT-1520x568.jpg 1520w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Family-1992-and-UT.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-70295" class="wp-caption-text">Soon after Martine Rothblatt founded what would become SiriusXM, her daughter, Jenesis, was diagnosed with pulmonary arterial hypertension. Rothblatt created a foundation to find a cure for what was then called primary pulmonary hypertension (PPH) which led to the creation of her pharmaceutical company, United Therapeutics.</figcaption></figure> <p>The PanAmSat system Rothblatt had first proposed in graduate school was taken up by the founder of Spanish International Network and with Rothblatt’s assistance became the first private international space-based communications system, a successful competitor to the longtime monopoly Intelsat.  PanAmSat would provide the foundation for the international Spanish-language television network Univision.</p> <p>In 1986, Rothblatt discontinued private law practice and astronomy studies to become the full-time CEO of Geostar.  During this time, Rothblatt led successful efforts to win international agreements for the allocation of satellite orbits and spectrum frequencies for space-based navigation services.  The Geostar Satellite System enabled geolocation tracking of aircraft, but Rothblatt foresaw a more expansive use of the technology.</p> <figure id="attachment_70381" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-70381" style="width: 2560px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-70381 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051741im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/2006-June-marnasdaqsmiling-scaled.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="size-full wp-image-70381 lazyload" alt="" width="2560" height="1707" data-sizes="(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px" data-srcset="/web/20210905051741im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/2006-June-marnasdaqsmiling-scaled.jpg 2560w, /web/20210905051741im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/2006-June-marnasdaqsmiling-380x253.jpg 380w, /web/20210905051741im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/2006-June-marnasdaqsmiling-760x507.jpg 760w, /web/20210905051741im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/2006-June-marnasdaqsmiling-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, /web/20210905051741im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/2006-June-marnasdaqsmiling-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, /web/20210905051741im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/2006-June-marnasdaqsmiling-1520x1013.jpg 1520w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/2006-June-marnasdaqsmiling-scaled.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-70381" class="wp-caption-text">Martine Rothblatt, the Founder and CEO of United Therapeutics, at Nasdaq in 1999. She earned $38 million in 2013, making her the nation’s highest-paid female executive. Now publicly traded, the company is experimenting with pig cloning and genetic modification to create lung transplants. (Photo Courtesy of United Therapeutics)</figcaption></figure> <p>Meanwhile, the PanAmSat system Rothblatt had first proposed in graduate school was taken up by the founder of Spanish International Network and with Rothblatt’s assistance became the first private international space-based communications system, a successful competitor to the longtime monopoly Intelsat.  In addition to satellite-based telephone services, PanAmSat would provide the foundation for the international Spanish-language television network Univision. In 1986, Rothblatt discontinued private law practice and astronomy studies to become the full-time CEO of Geostar.  During this time, Rothblatt led successful efforts to win international agreements for the allocation of satellite orbits and spectrum frequencies for space-based navigation services, and eventually for direct-to-person satellite radio transmissions.</p> <figure id="attachment_70354" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-70354" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-70354 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051741im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/2014-wp-GettyImages-460351450.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="size-full wp-image-70354 lazyload" alt="" width="2280" height="1560" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20210905051741im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/2014-wp-GettyImages-460351450.jpg 2280w, /web/20210905051741im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/2014-wp-GettyImages-460351450-380x260.jpg 380w, /web/20210905051741im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/2014-wp-GettyImages-460351450-760x520.jpg 760w, /web/20210905051741im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/2014-wp-GettyImages-460351450-1536x1051.jpg 1536w, /web/20210905051741im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/2014-wp-GettyImages-460351450-2048x1401.jpg 2048w, /web/20210905051741im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/2014-wp-GettyImages-460351450-1520x1040.jpg 1520w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/2014-wp-GettyImages-460351450.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-70354" class="wp-caption-text">Martine Rothblatt and her wife Bina in 2014. In 2004, they co-founded The Terasem Movement Foundation, a not-for-profit private operating foundation that is based in Vermont. Their mission is to promote the geoethical (world ethical) use of nanotechnology for human life extension. The foundation conducts educational programs and supports scientific research and development in the areas of cryogenics, biotechnology, and cyber consciousness.</figcaption></figure> <p>Working with Geostar confirmed Rothblatt’s perception that satellite radio services could be used for many other purposes besides locating aircraft.  In 1990 Rothblatt left Geostar to create two new companies: WorldSpace and Sirius Satellite Radio. WorldSpace became the first global satellite radio network, while Sirius provided commercial-free music and information broadcasts directly from satellites to its users’ car radios.  Rothblatt deftly persuaded FCC commissioners to grant the necessary licenses by designing Sirius as a subscription service rather than an advertiser-supported commercial network. Sirius operates a small fleet of satellites, enabling listeners to tune into the same stations anywhere in the United States.  The system also gives pilots instant access to real-time weather information, a great step forward in air traffic safety.</p> <figure id="attachment_70375" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-70375" style="width: 1600px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-70375 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051741im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/2010-180911_HeatherSten_Wired_Bina48_016.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="size-full wp-image-70375 lazyload" alt="" width="1600" height="2133" data-sizes="(max-width: 1600px) 100vw, 1600px" data-srcset="/web/20210905051741im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/2010-180911_HeatherSten_Wired_Bina48_016.jpg 1600w, /web/20210905051741im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/2010-180911_HeatherSten_Wired_Bina48_016-285x380.jpg 285w, /web/20210905051741im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/2010-180911_HeatherSten_Wired_Bina48_016-570x760.jpg 570w, /web/20210905051741im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/2010-180911_HeatherSten_Wired_Bina48_016-1152x1536.jpg 1152w, /web/20210905051741im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/2010-180911_HeatherSten_Wired_Bina48_016-1536x2048.jpg 1536w, /web/20210905051741im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/2010-180911_HeatherSten_Wired_Bina48_016-760x1013.jpg 760w, /web/20210905051741im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/2010-180911_HeatherSten_Wired_Bina48_016-1520x2026.jpg 1520w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/2010-180911_HeatherSten_Wired_Bina48_016.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-70375" class="wp-caption-text">BINA48, named and modeled after Bina Aspen, is a humanoid robot, consisting of a bust-like head and shoulders mounted on a frame, developed by Hanson Robotics and released in 2010. BINA48 is one of the world’s most advanced social robots based on a composite of information from several people including Rothblatt’s wife, Bina. Bina48 is an early illustration of part one of the Terasem Hypothesis: A conscious analog of a person may be created by combining detailed data about the person (mindfile) using future consciousness software (mindware).</figcaption></figure> <p>The music, news and information services provided by SiriusXM, as the company is now known, were an enormous success.  Rothblatt stepped down as Chairman and CEO in 1992 but remained a major shareholder.  When the company went public two years later, Rothblatt enjoyed a significant financial windfall. At this point, Rothblatt had made enough money to provide for a growing family and enjoy a very comfortable retirement, but the following years would bring great changes and harrowing challenges.</p> <p>At age 40, Rothblatt underwent sex reassignment surgery and in 1994, publicly identified for the first time as transgender, changing her legal name to Martine Aliana Rothblatt. As Martine, she has become a vocal advocate for transgender rights and has led efforts to establish appropriate health law standards for the transgender community, and to resist discriminatory legislation.  Martine Rothblatt has shared her thoughts on gender and identity in her 1995 book, <em>Apartheid of Sex: A Manifesto on the Freedom of Gender</em>.</p> <figure id="attachment_70329" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-70329" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-70329 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051741im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/2014-wp-GettyImages-460621194.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="size-full wp-image-70329 lazyload" alt="" width="2280" height="1517" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20210905051741im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/2014-wp-GettyImages-460621194.jpg 2280w, /web/20210905051741im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/2014-wp-GettyImages-460621194-380x253.jpg 380w, /web/20210905051741im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/2014-wp-GettyImages-460621194-760x506.jpg 760w, /web/20210905051741im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/2014-wp-GettyImages-460621194-1536x1022.jpg 1536w, /web/20210905051741im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/2014-wp-GettyImages-460621194-2048x1363.jpg 2048w, /web/20210905051741im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/2014-wp-GettyImages-460621194-1520x1011.jpg 1520w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/2014-wp-GettyImages-460621194.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-70329" class="wp-caption-text">September 12, 2014: Martine Rothblatt, CEO of United Therapeutics Corporation and creator of SiriusXM, is the highest-paid executive in the country. Her book, <em>Virtually Human,</em> explores what the not-too-distant future will look like when cyberconsciousness becomes part of our daily lives. (Andre Chung/The Washington Post/Getty)</figcaption></figure> <p>In the same year that Martine Rothblatt announced a public redefinition of her identity, she confronted an experience every parent fears. Her seven-year-old daughter Jenesis was diagnosed with primary pulmonary hypertension (PPH), an incurable malady of the lungs that her doctors predicted would end her life within a few years.  Determined to explore every option that could save her daughter’s life, Rothblatt created the PPH Cure Foundation to mobilize research efforts.</p> <p>Suspending her business concerns, Martine Rothblatt set out to learn everything she could about her daughter’s illness, giving herself a crash course in biology, a subject she had last studied in 10th grade. Her research quicky led her into the complex issues around organ transplantation, particularly the use of animal organs in human medical treatment (xenotransplantation).  Rothblatt undertook a doctoral course in medical ethics at the London School of Medicine and Dentistry, commonly known as Barts (for St. Bartholomew’s Hospital), part of the University of London system.  Frustrated with the slow pace of the search for a cure, and confident that she could manage a superior research effort, Rothblatt founded a new medical biotechnology company, United Therapeutics, in 1996.</p> <figure id="attachment_70338" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-70338" style="width: 1920px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-70338 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051741im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/manufactured-lung-scaffold-scaled.jpeg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="size-full wp-image-70338 lazyload" alt="" width="1920" height="2560" data-sizes="(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px" data-srcset="/web/20210905051741im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/manufactured-lung-scaffold-scaled.jpeg 1920w, /web/20210905051741im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/manufactured-lung-scaffold-285x380.jpeg 285w, /web/20210905051741im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/manufactured-lung-scaffold-570x760.jpeg 570w, /web/20210905051741im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/manufactured-lung-scaffold-1152x1536.jpeg 1152w, /web/20210905051741im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/manufactured-lung-scaffold-1536x2048.jpeg 1536w, /web/20210905051741im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/manufactured-lung-scaffold-760x1013.jpeg 760w, /web/20210905051741im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/manufactured-lung-scaffold-1520x2027.jpeg 1520w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/manufactured-lung-scaffold-scaled.jpeg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-70338" class="wp-caption-text">2017: Martine Rothblatt holding a lung that is 3D-printed from human collagen, fiber grown in genetically modified tobacco plants, with the help of Texas A&M University at United Therapeutics’ Organ Manufacturing Group in Manchester, N.H. On April 26, 2017, 3D Systems and United Therapeutics Corporation announced plans to develop solid-organ scaffolds for human transplants. The multi-year collaboration and development agreement combines the 3D printing and precision healthcare expertise of 3D Systems with the regenerative medicine and organ manufacturing capabilities of United Therapeutics Corporation. The agreement focuses on development of 3D printing systems for solid-organ scaffolds, beginning with lung scaffolds. The printing system will target collagen and building block proteins as scaffold raw materials. United Therapeutics will cellularize the scaffolds with patient-specific biological material, including re-differentiated stem cells. (Photo Courtesy of United Therapeutics)</figcaption></figure> <p>Meanwhile, Rothblatt’s activities in telecommunications continued to bear fruit. She helped pioneer airship internet services with her Sky Station project in 1997, persuading the FCC to allocate frequencies for airship-based internet services. The same year, she left the last of her telecommunications commitments, leadership of WorldSpace, to become the full-time Chairman and CEO of United Therapeutics.</p> <p>Over the next few years, United Therapeutics developed Orenitram, an effective medication for pulmonary hypertension.  Jenesis Rothblatt grew to adulthood and became an executive with the business that had saved her life.  Thousands who would have otherwise died are now living and using this medication.  Since then, the company has created a treatment for neuroblastoma, a cancer that most often arises in the adrenal glands. This too has saved thousands of lives. United Therapeutics is now pursuing methods to manufacture a virtually unlimited supply of substitute organs for transplant. These methods include repairing donated organs previously considered too damaged for transplant, and xenotransplantation — adapting animal organs for human use.</p> <figure id="attachment_70320" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-70320" style="width: 1920px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-70320 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051741im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/guiness-world-record-scaled.jpeg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="size-full wp-image-70320 lazyload" alt="" width="1920" height="2560" data-sizes="(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px" data-srcset="/web/20210905051741im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/guiness-world-record-scaled.jpeg 1920w, /web/20210905051741im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/guiness-world-record-285x380.jpeg 285w, /web/20210905051741im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/guiness-world-record-570x760.jpeg 570w, /web/20210905051741im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/guiness-world-record-1152x1536.jpeg 1152w, /web/20210905051741im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/guiness-world-record-1536x2048.jpeg 1536w, /web/20210905051741im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/guiness-world-record-760x1013.jpeg 760w, /web/20210905051741im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/guiness-world-record-1520x2027.jpeg 1520w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/guiness-world-record-scaled.jpeg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-70320" class="wp-caption-text">On December 7, 2018, Martine Rothblatt earned a certification in the Guinness Book of World Records for the farthest distance traveled by electric helicopter (prototype), 56.82 km (35.00 miles). The helicopter was created by Tier 1 Engineering, and flown by pilot Ric Webb. Rothblatt’s ultimate goal is to secure federal approval of the battery-powered helicopters for use in transporting accident victims and organ transplants to hospital facilities.</figcaption></figure> <p>In her 1997 book <em>Unzipped Genes</em>, explored the legal, ethical and political issues arising from the sequencing of the human genome.  She led the International Bar Association’s project to draft a Universal Declaration on the Human Genome and Human Rights for the United Nations, officially adopted by the by the United Nations General Assembly in 1998.  Martine Rothblatt was awarded her Ph.D. in medical ethics in 2001.  Her dissertation was published in 2003 as <em>Your Life or Mine: How Geoethics Can Resolve the Conflict Between Private and Public Interests in Xenotransplantation</em>.</p> <p>Dr. Rothblatt’s interests continued to grow beyond law, technology and medicine into ever larger questions.  In 2004, Rothblatt launched the Terasem Movement, “a transhumanist school of thought” exploring the prospect of “technological immortality” via mind uploading and geoethical nanotechnology.  She elaborated on these ideas in her 2011 book <em>From Transgender to Transhuman: A Manifesto on the Freedom of Form</em>, and on artificial intelligence in <em>Virtually Human</em> (2014).</p> <figure id="attachment_70287" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-70287" style="width: 1707px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><noscript><img class="wp-image-70287 size-full " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051741im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/2019-GettyImages-1148951768-scaled.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="wp-image-70287 size-full lazyload" style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.5); font-weight: bold; font-size: 1rem;" alt="" width="1707" height="2560" data-sizes="(max-width: 1707px) 100vw, 1707px" data-srcset="/web/20210905051741im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/2019-GettyImages-1148951768-scaled.jpg 1707w, /web/20210905051741im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/2019-GettyImages-1148951768-253x380.jpg 253w, /web/20210905051741im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/2019-GettyImages-1148951768-507x760.jpg 507w, /web/20210905051741im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/2019-GettyImages-1148951768-1024x1536.jpg 1024w, /web/20210905051741im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/2019-GettyImages-1148951768-1365x2048.jpg 1365w, /web/20210905051741im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/2019-GettyImages-1148951768-760x1140.jpg 760w, /web/20210905051741im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/2019-GettyImages-1148951768-1520x2280.jpg 1520w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/2019-GettyImages-1148951768-scaled.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-70287" class="wp-caption-text">May 2019: Jenesis Rothblatt, Martine Rothblatt, and Bina Rothblatt at the Liberty Science Center Genius Gala 8 at Liberty Science Center in Jersey City, New Jersey. (Eugene Gologursky / Getty Images for Liberty Science Center)</figcaption></figure> <p>United Therapeutics prospered, and by 2013 Dr. Rothblatt was reported to be the highest-paid female CEO in America, based on the value of the stock options in her compensation package. In 2017 <em>Forbes</em> magazine named Rothblatt one of the “100 Greatest Living Business Minds” of the past century, citing her achievements as a “perpetual reinventor, founder of Sirius and United Therapeutics, and creator of PanAmSat.”</p> <p>As United Therapeutics continued its quest to manufacture an unlimited supply of organs for transplant, Rothblatt gave more thought to the timely delivery of transplant organs — often a matter of life and death — in an environmentally sustainable way.  Drawing on her expertise as a licensed airplane and helicopter pilot, she set out to develop and manufacture an electric helicopter, powered by batteries that could be charged from a renewable energy source. The first EPSAROD (Electrically Powered Semi-Autonomous Rotorcraft for Organ Delivery), took flight in 2016.  Through a United Therapeutics subsidiary, Lung Technology PBC, Rothblatt continued to support research in eVTOL (electric vertical takeoff and landing) technology, and in 2018 personally set a world’s record for speed, altitude, and flight duration in an electric helicopter.</p> <figure id="attachment_63314" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-63314" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-63314 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051741im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/wp-2019Summit_0248-Copy.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="size-full wp-image-63314 lazyload" alt="" width="2280" height="1520" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20210905051741im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/wp-2019Summit_0248-Copy.jpg 2280w, /web/20210905051741im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/wp-2019Summit_0248-Copy-380x253.jpg 380w, /web/20210905051741im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/wp-2019Summit_0248-Copy-760x507.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/wp-2019Summit_0248-Copy.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-63314" class="wp-caption-text">September 14, 2019: Guest of honor Dr. Martine Rothblatt addresses Academy delegates and members during a symposium at the American Academy of Achievement’s 53rd International Achievement Summit in New York City.</figcaption></figure> <p>The same year, Rothblatt opened a new headquarters for United Therapeutics in Silver Spring, Maryland. Called the Unisphere, at 210,000 square feet of space it is the world’s largest site net-zero (carbon-neutral) office building.  Heated and cooled entirely by on-site sustainable energy, it is equipped with a million watts of solar power, 52 geothermal wells, and a subterranean labyrinth to store excess energy.  Electrochromic glass windows and partitions brighten and darken to control light and heat, while giving the occupants a graphic demonstration of the building’s net energy use.</p> <p>Martine Rothblatt regularly discusses her thoughts on “the coming age of… cyberconsciousness and techno-immortality” in her blog <em>Mindfiles, Mindware and Mindclones</em>.  Collaborating with Hanson Robotics, Rothblatt has created a humanoid robot modeled on her partner Bina, programmed to reflect Bina’s memories, feelings and beliefs. Called BINA48, “one of humanity’s first cybernetic companions” can sit for interviews and has completed a college-level philosophy course.  Rothblatt has also created a website <em>Lifenaut.com</em> as a place where others can upload their thoughts to create “cybernetic doubles” of themselves.</p> <figure id="attachment_63442" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-63442" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-63442 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051741im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/wp-2280-2019Summit_0714.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="size-full wp-image-63442 lazyload" alt="" width="2280" height="1824" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20210905051741im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/wp-2280-2019Summit_0714.jpg 2280w, /web/20210905051741im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/wp-2280-2019Summit_0714-380x304.jpg 380w, /web/20210905051741im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/wp-2280-2019Summit_0714-760x608.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/wp-2280-2019Summit_0714.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-63442" class="wp-caption-text">Awards Council member Sir Peter Jackson, director, writer, and producer of the <em>Lord of the Rings </em>trilogy, presents the Golden Plate to Dr. Martine Rothblatt, Founder and Chairman of United Therapeutics and creator of SiriusXM Satellite Radio, at the 2019 International Achievement Summit’s Banquet of the Golden Plate in New York City.</figcaption></figure> <p>Cited as one of <em>Business Insider’</em>s “Most Powerful LGBTQ+ People in Tech” in 2018, Rothblatt was awarded the UCLA Medal, the university’s highest honor, in recognition of her creation of SiriusXM satellite radio, advancing organ transplant technology, and having “expanded the way we understand fundamental concepts ranging from communication to gender to the nature of consciousness and mortality.”</p> </body></html> <div class="clearfix"> </div> </article> </div> </section> </div> <div class="tab-pane" id="profile" role="tabpanel"> <section class="clearfix"> <header class="editorial-article__header"> <figure class="text-xs-center"> <img class="inductee-badge" src="/web/20210905051741im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/inducted-badge@2x.png" alt="Inducted Badge" width="120" height="120"/> <figcaption class="serif-3 text-brand-primary"> Inducted in 2019 </figcaption> </figure> </header> <div class="row"> <aside class="col-md-4 sidebar"> <dl class="clearfix m-b-0"> <div class="col-xs-12 sidebar--chunk p-b-2"> <dt class="serif-7">Career</dt> <dd class="sans-2"> <div><a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/#filter=.artificial-intelligence">Artificial Intelligence</a></div> <div><a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/#filter=.author">Author</a></div> <div><a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/#filter=.business-executive">Business Executive</a></div> <div><a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/#filter=.entrepreneur">Entrepreneur</a></div> <div><a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/#filter=.media-and-technology-entrepreneur">Media and Technology Entrepreneur</a></div> <div><a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/#filter=.manufacturer">Manufacturer</a></div> <div><a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/#filter=.attorney">Attorney</a></div> <div><a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/#filter=.biomedical-engineering">Biomedical Engineering</a></div> <div><a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/#filter=.biomedical-researcher">Biomedical Researcher</a></div> <div><a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/#filter=.futurist">Futurist</a></div> </dd> </div> <div class="col-xs-12 sidebar--chunk p-b-2"> <dt class="serif-7">Date of Birth</dt> <dd class="sans-2"> October 10, 1954 </dd> </div> </dl> </aside> <article class="col-md-8 editorial-article clearfix"> <p>Martine Rothblatt’s patented inventions span the fields of satellite communication, medicinal biochemistry and cognitive software. As the founder of the satellite radio network SiriusXM, she had already revolutionized the fields of communications and broadcasting, when her seven-year-old daughter fell ill. Doctors diagnosed pulmonary hypertension, an incurable lung disorder, and gave the child little chance of surviving to adulthood. This unexpected crisis led to an abrupt career change.</p> <p>Setting aside her past business commitments, Rothblatt gave herself a crash course in medical science and founded a new company, United Therapeutics, to find a treatment that could save her daughter’s life. Since then, the company has developed successful treatments for pulmonary hypertension, as well as for the cancer neuroblastoma.</p> <p>Martine Rothblatt’s books and published writings range over subjects from gender identity to the concepts of “mind uploading” and “technological immortality.” She has been repeatedly cited as the highest-paid executive in the biopharmaceutical industry and the highest-paid female chief executive in the world. Today, she is Chair and CEO of United Therapeutics, and her adult daughter works alongside her.</p> </article> </div> </section> </div> <div class="tab-pane" id="interview" role="tabpanel"> <section class="clearfix"> <div class="col-md-12 interview-feature-video"> <figure> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051741if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/4PMTOy39CU4?feature=oembed&hd=1&modestbranding=1&rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Rothblatt_Martine_2019_MasterEdit.00_53_27_27.Still054-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Rothblatt_Martine_2019_MasterEdit.00_53_27_27.Still054-760x428.jpg"></div> <div class="video-tag sans-4"> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> <div class="video-tag__text">Watch full interview</div> </div> </div> </figure> </div> <header class="col-md-12 text-xs-center m-b-2"> <i class="icon-icon_bio text-brand-primary"></i> </header> <aside class="col-md-4 sidebar"> <h2 class="serif-3 achiever--biography-subtitle"></h2> <div class="sans-2">New York City</div> <div class="sans-2">September 14, 2019</div> </aside> <article class="editorial-article col-md-8">   <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <p><strong>We’ve read that you became interested in space travel and colonization while you were in college. How did you follow through on that?</strong></p> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051741if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/Y-dhs53qDQc?feature=oembed&hd=1&modestbranding=1&rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Rothblatt_Martine_2019_MasterEdit.00_18_04_09.Still047-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Rothblatt_Martine_2019_MasterEdit.00_18_04_09.Still047-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p>Martine Rothblatt: I became a writer and a member of an organization called the Organization for the Advancement of Space, Industrialization, and Settlement. It’s a mouthful so we went by the acronym OASIS, which is what those letters break down to. It was an organization started by a physicist at Princeton named Gerry O’Neil. And to show you how — it’s funny how — my thing I love most of all, when things come full circle in a positive way. So we were just talking about Jeff Bezos a moment ago. So last year, he kind of came out and said that the reason he founded Amazon and the reason he’s done all of these things to build it up and form Blue Origin and everything was because he was a student of Gerry O’Neill’s at Princeton in the ‘80s and read about Dr. O’Neill’s ideas for moving most of humanity into space. And he decided that that was his purpose in life, and it was just like, “How do I make that practically happen? Start with Amazon and then Blue Origin.”</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd"> <html><body data-rsssl="1"><figure id="attachment_70470" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-70470" style="width: 1103px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-70470 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051741im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Martine-Early-Bibliophile.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="size-full wp-image-70470 lazyload" alt="" width="1103" height="776" data-sizes="(max-width: 1103px) 100vw, 1103px" data-srcset="/web/20210905051741im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Martine-Early-Bibliophile.jpg 1103w, /web/20210905051741im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Martine-Early-Bibliophile-380x267.jpg 380w, /web/20210905051741im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Martine-Early-Bibliophile-760x535.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Martine-Early-Bibliophile.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-70470" class="wp-caption-text">Young Martin Rothblatt was a fanatical reader, the kind of kid who would spend an entire family vacation with his nose in a book. As an adolescent, he was influenced by the historical novel <em>Exodus</em> by Leon Uris; anything by science fiction and popular science writer and biochemist Isaac Asimov; and <em>Black Like Me </em>by John Howard Griffin.</figcaption></figure> <p><strong>And you started Sirius XM Satellite Radio. How did you come up with that idea?</strong></p> </body></html> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051741if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/pbe6AXrYN6M?feature=oembed&hd=1&modestbranding=1&rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Rothblatt_Martine_2019_MasterEdit.00_19_24_15.Still048-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Rothblatt_Martine_2019_MasterEdit.00_19_24_15.Still048-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> <figcaption class="achiever__interview-video-terms"> <span>Keys to success —</span> <a class="comma-item" href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/keys-to-success/vision/">Vision</a> </figcaption> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p>Martine Rothblatt: I had, previously, was responsible for another type of satellite communication system where we would track the locations of vehicles. That system was actually invented by Dr. O’Neill. As I got to know him and we shared our vision for building cities and space settlements and space, he said, “Martine, I’ve come up with this idea for using satellites to locate objects on the earth…” — this was before GPS — “…and I believe that this can help eliminate planes crashing into each other, vehicles getting lost or stolen. It could be more efficient for people. People could find their ways around. Would you be willing to take this idea and get the government to approve it, raise the money for it and make it happen?” So I said like, “Yes, Dr. O’Neill, I will,” because he was my hero. As he was Jeff (Bezos)’s hero, he’s an amazing person. So I did that, and we did launch those satellites and tracked thousands of vehicles and tracked planes. Actually, those satellites are still operating today. But that’s… I was doing that. I said, you know, the same signals of sending latitude and longitude could be used for sending music. And it would be a way to connect, to be able to listen to the same channel while you travel the hundreds of miles instead of constantly changing. It would be a way to get the kind of channels that I personally love, which are jazz mostly, be able to get these channels outside of New York or Los Angeles and anywhere in the country.</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd"> <html><body data-rsssl="1"><p><strong>How did you make that leap from tracking airplanes to broadcasting music and information programming?</strong></p> <p>Martine Rothblatt: Well, I’m an amateur musician. You know, I play keyboards and flute. So I’m deeply into music and I’m running this company that’s using satellites to track vehicles. I had previously been involved in getting the FCC to approve satellites for television broadcasting so it was kind of logical to say, “How can I combine satellites for television broadcasting with satellites to track things moving around?” You don’t need to watch TV while you’re driving, but you do need to listen to music or now podcasts. So it was, I think, a natural logical evolution.</p> <figure id="attachment_70452" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-70452" style="width: 2560px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-70452 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051741im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/martine-flute-studio-copy-scaled.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="size-full wp-image-70452 lazyload" alt="" width="2560" height="1920" data-sizes="(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px" data-srcset="/web/20210905051741im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/martine-flute-studio-copy-scaled.jpg 2560w, /web/20210905051741im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/martine-flute-studio-copy-380x285.jpg 380w, /web/20210905051741im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/martine-flute-studio-copy-760x570.jpg 760w, /web/20210905051741im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/martine-flute-studio-copy-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, /web/20210905051741im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/martine-flute-studio-copy-2048x1536.jpg 2048w, /web/20210905051741im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/martine-flute-studio-copy-1520x1140.jpg 1520w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/martine-flute-studio-copy-scaled.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-70452" class="wp-caption-text">Martine Rothblatt—a lifelong musician who plays the piano, flute, and drums—records in a Bethesda, Maryland, studio for a new album release by the Alan Scott Band. Music inspired her entrepreneurial start with satellite radio.</figcaption></figure> <p><strong>One of the breakthroughs with Sirius was the breadth of programming. You could hear almost anything you wanted with better reception and no commercials.  How did you decide on that? </strong></p> </body></html> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051741if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/h_tzGSHOyhs?feature=oembed&hd=1&modestbranding=1&rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Rothblatt_Martine_2019_MasterEdit.00_26_05_12.Still049-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Rothblatt_Martine_2019_MasterEdit.00_26_05_12.Still049-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> <figcaption class="achiever__interview-video-terms"> <span>Keys to success —</span> <a class="comma-item" href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/keys-to-success/preparation/">Preparation</a> </figcaption> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p>Martine Rothblatt: I personally don’t like commercials. So I’m like a channel surfer. When the commercial comes on, I’ll surf right past it. I used to mostly listen between 88 to 92 megahertz, because that’s like the non-commercial band. You’ve got to remember that my original, original training is I’m basically what they call a spectrum manager. I worked with the FCC to get frequencies of the electromagnetic spectrum set aside for new services. So I am a spectrum geek is a fair thing to say. So I knew there was a need for content without commercials.</p> <p>Secondly, I knew there was a need for the content that we have in big cities like New York in all the other places in the country. So I said, “How can I go about doing that?” There was no more room on the AM and FM radio band. But I knew as a spectrum geek that there was millions of more spectrum than between AM and FM that could be transmitted by satellite because those frequencies were not used for other things and they passed through the atmosphere.</p> <p>So I studied the physics of it. I designed the satellite communication system. I found the radio frequencies that would pass through the atmosphere and pass through like the leaves in the trees — places like Rock Creek Park and whatnot — as good as possible. There’s a lot of just “devil is in the details” issues, like when it rains leaves absorb more frequencies when they didn’t. I pulled all this together, I went to the FCC, which I knew because that was my business, that was my career. I said, “I propose we create a satellite digital audio radio system,” which is the technical name for Sirius XM.</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <p><strong>What did they say? </strong></p> <p>Martine Rothblatt: “No,” they said. The first thing they said is, “It won’t work.” They said, “Won’t work.” That was the very first thing they said. So I built a system. I don’t know if you remember, there used to be… <em>USA Today</em> was the tallest building across the Potomac. So I put a pseudo-satellite transmitter on top of that building that had the equivalent power of a satellite in space. And WPFW used to have a station on H street right near Chinatown where it is right now. So I went into their studios, because our offices were in Tech World right around the corner from there.</p> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051741if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/D4rAsTvo498?feature=oembed&hd=1&modestbranding=1&rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Rothblatt_Martine_2019_MasterEdit.00_31_18_20.Still050-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Rothblatt_Martine_2019_MasterEdit.00_31_18_20.Still050-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> <figcaption class="achiever__interview-video-terms"> <span>Keys to success —</span> <a class="comma-item" href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/keys-to-success/perseverance/">Perseverance</a> </figcaption> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p>I brought the FCC people into my car and I drove them all around downtown Washington and I showed them that no, satellite communications does work. So they said, “Okay, it works. Secondly, any frequencies that you want are going to have to be taken away from somebody else because the military uses all these frequencies and television news gathering trucks use these frequencies…” All the frequencies are being used by somebody or another, but mostly they’re not being used very efficiently.</p> <p>So I then created a grass roots movement of rural organizations. A lot of them were search-and-rescue type organizations who would benefit from having 24 hours of content being broadcast all the time by satellite, including aircraft in flight. And I had over 300 grassroots organizations in turn, including community groups in places like Oklahoma and Nebraska. I proved, because the law says the FCC is supposed to allocate the radio frequencies, quote unquote, “in the public interest.” So I said the public interest is to have the same diversity of programming in big cities everywhere in the country. Satellites can do it. Then they said, “Well, it’s not legal for one company to control 100 channels across the entire country.”</p> <p>In fact, it wasn’t even legal for one company to control more than three channels in any one city. So I said, I had to come up with an entirely new concept for them. I said, “Well, that’s true if it’s free. But what if we make people pay for this?” And they’d never thought of that. They said, “Well, that’s something completely different.”</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd"> <html><body data-rsssl="1"><figure id="attachment_70456" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-70456" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-70456 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051741im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/2014-wp-GettyImages-828918418.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="size-full wp-image-70456 lazyload" alt="" width="2280" height="1642" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20210905051741im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/2014-wp-GettyImages-828918418.jpg 2280w, /web/20210905051741im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/2014-wp-GettyImages-828918418-380x274.jpg 380w, /web/20210905051741im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/2014-wp-GettyImages-828918418-760x547.jpg 760w, /web/20210905051741im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/2014-wp-GettyImages-828918418-1536x1106.jpg 1536w, /web/20210905051741im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/2014-wp-GettyImages-828918418-2048x1475.jpg 2048w, /web/20210905051741im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/2014-wp-GettyImages-828918418-1520x1095.jpg 1520w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/2014-wp-GettyImages-828918418.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-70456" class="wp-caption-text">September 2014: Martine Rothblatt, CEO of United Therapeutics and former CEO of SiriusXM, is the highest-paid female CEO in the country with total earnings of $38 million. (Andre Chung for The Washington Post/Getty Images)</figcaption></figure> <p><strong>Because it’s on a subscription basis?</strong></p> <p>Martine Rothblatt: It is subscription based. That gave me the business model that I needed.</p> <p><strong>How do you go about finding frequencies? What does that look like?</strong></p> <p>Martine Rothblatt: So what that looks like is the government publishes a chart and the chart shows all of the frequencies and it’s separate from the lowest frequencies in the kilohertz range to the highest frequencies in the gigahertz range. And every use, such as police radio or wireless garage door openers or the television trucks that have the antennas that pop up and beam car accident footage, every single use — jet planes to pilots to control tower, military demo — is a use approved by the government. And then these charts, they’re each given a different color, and because there’s so many different uses even run out of colors so they start making hashes and dots and stuff. So this is called a chart of the electromagnetic spectrum. And I know that chart as well as somebody would know the map of the U.S. and the 50 states.</p> <p><strong>Sirius was successful but then you ran into a major health crisis in your family.  Can you tell us about that?</strong></p> </body></html> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051741if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/JA8GwS5c5GM?feature=oembed&hd=1&modestbranding=1&rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Rothblatt_Martine_2019_MasterEdit.00_31_21_11.Still051-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Rothblatt_Martine_2019_MasterEdit.00_31_21_11.Still051-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> <figcaption class="achiever__interview-video-terms"> <span>Keys to success —</span> <a class="comma-item" href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/keys-to-success/courage/">Courage</a> </figcaption> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p>Martine Rothblatt: At first we didn’t know what was wrong with our daughter, Jenesis. And when a doctor comes in and says he’s only seen less than five patients with this; they all died. They’re all kids. All he can recommend us to do is to meet with the transplant coordinator, but not to hold out hope that we’re going to find a lung transplant for a person as small as a five-, six-year-old kid. We were both crying and nothing mattered to me. But still, I never thought that I personally could come up with a medicine because it wasn’t my field. And I think if there’s any lesson from my life that can be learned is that don’t think there’s anything that you cannot do.</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd"> <html><body data-rsssl="1"><figure id="attachment_70446" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-70446" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-70446 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051741im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/2014-wp-GettyImages-460351446-1.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="size-full wp-image-70446 lazyload" alt="" width="2280" height="1517" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20210905051741im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/2014-wp-GettyImages-460351446-1.jpg 2280w, /web/20210905051741im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/2014-wp-GettyImages-460351446-1-380x253.jpg 380w, /web/20210905051741im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/2014-wp-GettyImages-460351446-1-760x506.jpg 760w, /web/20210905051741im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/2014-wp-GettyImages-460351446-1-1536x1022.jpg 1536w, /web/20210905051741im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/2014-wp-GettyImages-460351446-1-2048x1363.jpg 2048w, /web/20210905051741im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/2014-wp-GettyImages-460351446-1-1520x1011.jpg 1520w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/2014-wp-GettyImages-460351446-1.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-70446" class="wp-caption-text">September 12, 2014: Martine Rothblatt greets Frank J. Sasinowski, an old friend and counsel, before the start of a meeting at United Therapeutics in Silver Spring, Maryland. (Andre Chung for The Washington Post /Getty Images)</figcaption></figure> <p><strong>So fast forward, and now you’re one of the most admired CEOs in all of biopharmaceutical work.  How did that happen?</strong></p> </body></html> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051741if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/3Vajkh9Xh0w?feature=oembed&hd=1&modestbranding=1&rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Rothblatt_Martine_2019_MasterEdit.00_31_25_10.Still052-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Rothblatt_Martine_2019_MasterEdit.00_31_25_10.Still052-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> <figcaption class="achiever__interview-video-terms"> <span>Keys to success —</span> <a class="comma-item" href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/keys-to-success/perseverance/">Perseverance</a> </figcaption> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p>Martine Rothblatt: What happened, in fact, was I said, “Let me find anybody who’s working on this disease.” There were only 20 people in the whole U.S. who are working on it because everybody died of it. And I said I did have financial — money — resources from taking Sirius public. So I said to them, “Look, I’ll give you grants if you can come up with a medicine for my daughter.” They took the grants, they never came up with anything. I contacted all the major pharmaceutical companies. They said, “We’re not interested in this disease, it only affects 2,000 people. Finally, one doctor said, “You know, Martine, I think you can if you want to save Jenesis, you’re going to have to do it yourself.” And I said myself, “I don’t know anything about biology.” They said, “You could figure that out, you’ve launched these satellites.” And that’s when the light turned on in my head. They said, “If you don’t do this, Jenesis is not going to make it.”</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <p><strong>How old was Jenesis? </strong></p> <p>Martine Rothblatt: She was seven at that time. So I said, “Okay, let’s forget Sirius, forget satellites. My purpose in life is just to save Jenesis. So I taught myself biology, I taught myself everything about this.</p> <p><strong>How? Did you just get books and start reading? </strong></p> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051741if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/jA2dOeFVXg4?feature=oembed&hd=1&modestbranding=1&rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Rothblatt_Martine_2019_MasterEdit.00_35_01_12.Still053-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Rothblatt_Martine_2019_MasterEdit.00_35_01_12.Still053-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> <figcaption class="achiever__interview-video-terms"> <span>Keys to success —</span> <a class="comma-item" href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/keys-to-success/preparation/">Preparation</a> </figcaption> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p>Martine Rothblatt: Fortunately, Children’s National Medical Center in Washington, D.C. — I know where you know where it is on Michigan Avenue — my daughter was there week after week after week, and I was there with her. And they had a great — a great — library. They have things like card catalogues and reader’s guides that fortunately, us being kids of the ‘60s, we knew what they were.</p> <p>So I was able to use those tools, read the books, read the journal articles. I read a journal article, I wouldn’t understand it, so I go to the dictionary. Look up the words I didn’t understand, I’d go back to the journal articles. I’d find like a high school biology book then a college anatomy book. I just kept going back and forth until I could understand.</p> <p>I think what I can do is I can pick out the important parts of descriptions of knowledge much more efficiently than most people can. I can separate the wheat from the chaff. Like, if there’s a peer-reviewed journal article, most people will try to read the whole article, okay. That will take a long time. They may fall asleep doing it. They may get a headache from doing it.</p> <p>I can look at this whole article and say, you know, these three paragraphs out of maybe like 100 or 200 paragraphs have the meat of the article. So I’ll digest those three paragraphs and then I’ll look in the references at the back of the article and I’ll go pull every article that that article referenced. And they do that until I’ve reached like a point of diminishing returns where I’ve digested everything on the field.</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd"> <html><body data-rsssl="1"><figure id="attachment_70483" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-70483" style="width: 2560px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-70483 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051741im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Tesla-Bell-429-scaled.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="size-full wp-image-70483 lazyload" alt="" width="2560" height="1920" data-sizes="(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px" data-srcset="/web/20210905051741im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Tesla-Bell-429-scaled.jpg 2560w, /web/20210905051741im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Tesla-Bell-429-380x285.jpg 380w, /web/20210905051741im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Tesla-Bell-429-760x570.jpg 760w, /web/20210905051741im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Tesla-Bell-429-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, /web/20210905051741im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Tesla-Bell-429-2048x1536.jpg 2048w, /web/20210905051741im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Tesla-Bell-429-1520x1140.jpg 1520w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Tesla-Bell-429-scaled.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-70483" class="wp-caption-text">2016: Martine Rothblatt and her team converted a Robinson R44 helicopter to fly on an electric drive system. The original Lycoming engine was replaced with the two YASA electric motors, driven with dual Rinehart Motion Systems (RMS) propulsion inverters. Battery power was supplied by a custom assembled BRAMMO battery pack.</figcaption></figure> <p><strong>So for the rest of us who want to be more efficient, tell us a couple tips for doing that. </strong></p> <p>Martine Rothblatt: Don’t worry about the details. That’s it. It’s really as simple as that. Just skip the details. Focus on like the 30,000-foot view.</p> <p><strong>What is that in this case?</strong></p> </body></html> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051741if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/lWze_mdRsVE?feature=oembed&hd=1&modestbranding=1&rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Rothblatt_Martine_2019_MasterEdit.00_58_17_05.Still055-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Rothblatt_Martine_2019_MasterEdit.00_58_17_05.Still055-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> <figcaption class="achiever__interview-video-terms"> <span>Keys to success —</span> <a class="comma-item" href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/keys-to-success/vision/">Vision</a> </figcaption> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p>Martine Rothblatt: So the 30,000-foot view that I realized from reading these articles in the case of my daughter is that the pulmonary artery, which is the artery that takes blood from the heart to the lungs, is different from every other artery in your body, which is kind of interesting.</p> <p>The reason it’s different from every other artery in your body is arteries take blood <em>from</em> the heart, veins take blood <em>to</em> the heart. So all of the other arteries in your body take blood, which is full of red blood cells that have been freshly oxygenated. So when your heart pumps, all your body gets freshly oxygenated blood. So those arteries respond to the blood cells that have fresh oxygen.</p> <p>Except the pulmonary arteries take blood from your heart, but it takes it to your lungs to get oxygenated. So those arteries are different. They are the only arteries in the body that carry de-oxygenated blood, blood full of the carbon dioxide that we get from our respiration cycle. So I said those arteries must be different, must be biochemically different than any other artery. And if I can find a molecule that will speak just to those arteries, I can open up those arteries and leave all the rest of the arteries alone.</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd"> <html><body data-rsssl="1"><p><strong>Is that the medicine you eventually found? </strong></p> <p>Martine Rothblatt: That that is the medicine. And that’s a 30,000 foot view, that’s not talking about long names of molecules and stuff like that. That’s just, “I want a molecule that’s going to talk to these arteries that are different because they carry de-oxygenated blood.”</p> <p><strong>So does your company make this medicine?</strong></p> <p>Martine Rothblatt: We make this medicine.</p> <figure id="attachment_70437" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-70437" style="width: 619px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-70437 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051741im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/nbaa-13-1.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="size-full wp-image-70437 lazyload" alt="" width="619" height="619" data-sizes="(max-width: 619px) 100vw, 619px" data-srcset="/web/20210905051741im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/nbaa-13-1.jpg 619w, /web/20210905051741im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/nbaa-13-1-380x380.jpg 380w, /web/20210905051741im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/nbaa-13-1-190x190.jpg 190w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/nbaa-13-1.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-70437" class="wp-caption-text">Martine Rothblatt with her daughter, Jenesis. In 1990, Jenesis was diagnosed with a rare and fatal disease. Today, she is healthy and working at United Therapeutics as their Manager of Telepresence and Virtual Worlds Training.</figcaption></figure> <p><strong>How old is your daughter now? </strong></p> <p>Martine Rothblatt: She’s 32. She works in our company. She’s delightful. I love She knows that.</p> <p><strong>How many other lives do you suppose your company has saved?</strong></p> <p>Martine Rothblatt: Well, we know that over 50,000 people are living with pulmonary hypertension. And when she was diagnosed, only 2,000 were because they all died.</p> <p><strong>How does that feel? </strong></p> <p>Martine Rothblatt: Don’t think that there’s anything you cannot do.</p> <p><strong>What is something you want to make sure you do before you die?</strong></p> <p>Martine Rothblatt: Create an unlimited supply of transplantable organs.</p> <p><strong>Why did you pick that? </strong></p> </body></html> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051741if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/Cs2EtvUxp_Y?feature=oembed&hd=1&modestbranding=1&rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Rothblatt_Martine_2019_MasterEdit.00_19_24_15.Still048-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Rothblatt_Martine_2019_MasterEdit.00_19_24_15.Still048-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> <figcaption class="achiever__interview-video-terms"> <span>Keys to success —</span> <a class="comma-item" href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/keys-to-success/passion/">Passion</a> </figcaption> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p>Martine Rothblatt: I picked that because I think it picked me, to be frank. One reason I picked it is because I know I can achieve it. I feel it’s realistic, I can achieve it. I feel I’m probably the — it sounds arrogant, but I think it’s kind of a fact — I think I’m probably the only person in the world that can make that happen a few decades sooner than it would happen otherwise. And it’s because I have the resources to do it, I have bit by bit built the teams of scientists who are most confident of doing it. I have the motivation and passion to do it because I am convinced that not only my daughter, but the thousands of people who take our medicines will eventually need a transplant.</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd"> <html><body data-rsssl="1"><p><strong>What organs are we talking about?</strong></p> <p>Martine Rothblatt: Lungs, livers, kidneys and hearts.</p> <p><strong>So thousands of people will live longer?. </strong></p> <p>Martine Rothblatt: Millions.</p> <figure id="attachment_70463" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-70463" style="width: 2560px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-70463 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051741im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/XenoPig-scaled.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="size-full wp-image-70463 lazyload" alt="" width="2560" height="1912" data-sizes="(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px" data-srcset="/web/20210905051741im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/XenoPig-scaled.jpg 2560w, /web/20210905051741im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/XenoPig-380x284.jpg 380w, /web/20210905051741im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/XenoPig-760x568.jpg 760w, /web/20210905051741im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/XenoPig-1536x1147.jpg 1536w, /web/20210905051741im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/XenoPig-2048x1530.jpg 2048w, /web/20210905051741im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/XenoPig-1520x1135.jpg 1520w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/XenoPig-scaled.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-70463" class="wp-caption-text">2011: Martine Rothblatt holding a genetically engineered pig with Frank J. Sasinowski, counsel. One of Rothblatt’s organ manufacturing strategies is xenotransplantation, the idea of transplanting an animal’s organs into humans who need a replacement. In 2011, United Therapeutics acquired Revivicor Inc., a Blacksburg, Virginia, regenerative medicine company that spun out of the U.K. company best known for producing the first cloned animal, Dolly the Sheep. Now it produces genetically modified pigs for xenotransplantation studies funded by United Therapeutics.</figcaption></figure> <p><strong>That would be a pretty good legacy. </strong></p> <p>Martine Rothblatt: I don’t even think about it like that. To me, that’s an honor to have that legacy. It’s my purpose in life.</p> </body></html> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051741if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/b5hbp5h0afo?feature=oembed&hd=1&modestbranding=1&rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Rothblatt_Martine_2019_MasterEdit.00_03_58_25.Still046-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Rothblatt_Martine_2019_MasterEdit.00_03_58_25.Still046-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> <figcaption class="achiever__interview-video-terms"> <span>Keys to success —</span> <a class="comma-item" href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/keys-to-success/integrity/">Integrity</a> </figcaption> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p>I didn’t ask to be in the biology field, but life brought me there. So now I’m here, I’m going to be the absolute best biotechnologist I can be. And the particular field that’s been set before me is organ transplantation. So I will achieve that before the end of the decade. And I’m equally adamant that I do that in a green fashion. That I do that from buildings which have zero carbon footprint and with the organs delivered by helicopters that also have zero carbon footprints.</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd"> <html><body data-rsssl="1"><figure id="attachment_70487" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-70487" style="width: 2560px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-70487 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051741im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/martine-flying-scaled.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="size-full wp-image-70487 lazyload" alt="" width="2560" height="956" data-sizes="(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px" data-srcset="/web/20210905051741im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/martine-flying-scaled.jpg 2560w, /web/20210905051741im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/martine-flying-380x142.jpg 380w, /web/20210905051741im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/martine-flying-760x284.jpg 760w, /web/20210905051741im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/martine-flying-1536x573.jpg 1536w, /web/20210905051741im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/martine-flying-2048x764.jpg 2048w, /web/20210905051741im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/martine-flying-1520x567.jpg 1520w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/martine-flying-scaled.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-70487" class="wp-caption-text">Rothblatt is an airplane and helicopter pilot with night-vision goggle (NVG) certification. She generally pilots a Pilatus PC-12NG and a Bell 429WLG. Before the end of the 2020s, Rothblatt’s goal is to develop an unlimited supply of manufactured organs and have them delivered by zero-carbon EVTOLs —“electric vertical takeoff and landing.”</figcaption></figure> <p><strong>You think so big. What advice would you give to those listening who also want to do big things? </strong></p> </body></html> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051741if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/RJKICVkLlTA?feature=oembed&hd=1&modestbranding=1&rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Rothblatt_Martine_2019_MasterEdit.00_53_27_27.Still054-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Rothblatt_Martine_2019_MasterEdit.00_53_27_27.Still054-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p>Martine Rothblatt: I would say don’t focus on my big <em>thinking</em>, focus on my practical <em>doing</em>. So like a million times more important than my big thinking is that practical doing. In 1990 I said that I would launch a satellite radio system that would provide 100 channels of non-commercial programming throughout all of North America, and it was launched in 2000.</p> <p>By 2000, I said, I would, I say, if it was the last thing I do in my life I would develop a medicine to save Jenesis. Okay, developed that medicine and actually had the three of them approved by 2010. In 2010, I said before the end of the teens, before the end the twenty-teens, we would manufacture an organ and bring an end-stage lung disease patient back to life.</p> <p>It’s now 2019, and we’ve brought hundreds of end-stage lung disease patients back to life with manufactured organs. And now in the 2020s, before the end of this decade, I said I would like to develop an unlimited supply of manufactured organs and have them delivered by zero carbon EVTOLs —“electric vertical takeoff and landing” — electric helicopter aircraft. And that is the purpose of my life during the 2020s. Other than just reading, playing music, looking at stars and hanging out with Bina!</p> </div> </div>     <aside class="collapse" id="full-interview">    <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <p><strong>We’re going to shift gears now and ask about your early life. What was it like for you growing up?</strong></p> <p>Martine Rothblatt: So it was a good life growing up. I would say that I really had every advantage and my parents loved me. They loved each other madly. They were married for almost 50 years. So it was a great life growing up. But I think it was a great life actually, because of things that happened when I was really barely cognizant of what life was all about in my first ten years.</p> <p>So first, my father was in a horrible car accident. And he was paralyzed as a result of this car accident shortly after he had set up this dental office in a suburb of San Diego. So he had no way to go to the dental office. He was paralyzed on the bed, and he had borrowed all this money to set up the dental office. He had to declare bankruptcy. He had to let go of his employees. He began studying accounting because he thought that was the only way that he could support his family.</p> <p><strong>How old were you?</strong></p> <p>Martine Rothblatt: I was five years old. The next thing that happened was that they found out that there was an experimental procedure — surgery —available at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester. He was air-ambulanced to Rochester. They fixed his spine, and he came back walking, able to be a dentist again, became a bowler! I mean, you name it, they completely fixed him.</p> <p><strong>What kind of impact did that have on you?</strong></p> <p>Martine Rothblatt: It had a huge impact, which I’ve only really appreciated recently. I shared this story last month when I opened up, at the Mayo Clinic, the world’s first lung restoration center, where lungs that are donated after people die but are not useful for transplantation are thrown away. We take them from the bio waste and restore them to being a perfectly good lung that ends up being transplanted in other people.</p> <p>So when I cut the ribbon on the center where we do this at the Mayo just a couple weeks ago, I told the story. I said I want everybody to know I feel especially proud to open up this center at the Mayo Clinic, because I would not be the positive, optimistic person I am if the Mayo Clinic had not really saved my father’s life. If I had grown up with a father who was embittered, who felt they studied to be a dentist and now they were stuck in bed all the time and he would be embittered, I would have been embittered, I think. I think I would have been a depressed kid, followed narrow horizons. Instead, my dad was like, “Look, I’ve been cured by technology. Technology is awesome. It’s positive. It’s given me my life back.” And I said, “The fact that we have this huge center now at the Mayo Clinic, that’s kind of what goes around, comes around. You know, you guys saved my father and I’m here now, able to help you save hundreds of other people who need lung transplants.”</p> <p>When we signed our agreement with the Mayo Clinic, I went to the waiting room, which is no longer their reception room, which is like the one that my father went to. All like wood, wood paneled stuff and whatnot. And it was like, “Whoa, this is like where I feel my life began.”</p> <p><strong>How do you mean your life began?</strong></p> <p>Martine Rothblatt: I think it began because that was when my father… That was when, like in a quantum sense, my life could have gone two directions. It could have gone the “life’s not fair and you just have to deal with that,” or “Life is amazing, and you need to celebrate it.” That was when, and I saw there was like a quantum kind of split there in that hospital reception room at the Mayo where I had never been in. But I knew for sure my father had been there.</p> <p>I think because other individuals helped my parents overcome from car accidents that would have led them to have very depressed lives and would have ended up bringing my sister and I up in a very depressed environment. But because other people before me made the world a better place with science and technology, it allowed me to be brought up in a household of optimism and positivism.</p> <p><strong>Do you think of that as just good luck? </strong></p> <p>Martine Rothblatt: There’s certainly an element of luck in it. But there’s also a huge element in that people <em>made</em> their luck. So the surgeons who developed that procedure, it didn’t just fall from the skies. Those surgeons had developed that procedure over a number of years. The Mayo Clinic, if you read the story about the Mayo brothers and their wives — who were unsung heroes but were equally responsible. The women of the Mayo, which are now being finally recognized and celebrated, were the bedrock of it. So all of that wasn’t luck. The Mayo was the result of blood, sweat and tears, and science and technology and advancement.</p> <p>Then the fact that between my father and my mother, they were persistent in pinging their doctors. “Isn’t there…” Obviously, there was no Google or anything back then. But pinging their doctors, “Isn’t there anything? Have you heard of anything?” So one of my parents’ doctors must have told them that, “We heard of something at the Mayo. We’ll refer you.” So it was persistence. One of my mantras at United Therapeutics in general is just like, “Persistence is omnipotence.” If you don’t give up, you won’t fail. So there was that persistence in my parents’ cultural DNA.</p> <p><strong>Your father was paralyzed for a year. Your daughter was so sick you thought she was going to die. You went through a lot when you came out as transgender. You give off this vibe that everything’s been easy. Hasn’t it been hard at times?</strong></p> <p>Martine Rothblatt: Compared to what other people have been through, it <em>has</em> been easy. I mean, we are in a world where people are bombed relentlessly. Can you imagine what it would be like to be a kid and you can’t see? Hear bombs crashing? There are people who don’t eat for days at a time. I’m sure, you fast for the day here or there and you know what happens when your stomach starts gripping. There are people who are in terrible physical pain. There’s a lot of bad things in the world. Compared to all of those bad things I have nothing to complain about.</p> <p><strong>How did you first become involved with new technology and invention? What were you thinking of inventing? </strong></p> <p>Martine Rothblatt: I was thinking of inventing ways to live in space. And thinking of inventing ways to have orbiting space cities that would relieve the overpopulation of the Earth. As we just talked, both of us being kind of like children of the ‘60s. So when we got to the ‘70s and ‘80s, that was the first time people were kind of saying there’s overpopulation, because the world’s population had begun doubling pretty quickly by that time. And I thought that, you know, “Why are we thinking that there’s overpopulation when we’re just like on one tiny speck of a planet and there’s a vast galaxy of millions, hundreds of millions, actually billions of planets out there? Why can’t we build huge colonies that orbit around the Earth, orbit around the sun, go out and live in space?”</p> <p>It’s a kind of a logically obvious place to go. It’s just as obvious as when everybody was sort of stuck in Europe and there and there was overcrowding. The lords and the kings had all the land, and the serfs and the regular people had nothing.</p> <p>So then, “Why don’t we cross this ocean and go to these other places? Well, yeah, there’s people there but we could just take the land away from them and at least we’ll have land. We can’t take the land away from the kings because they’re more powerful than us and will kill us.”</p> <p><strong>How far away are we from people living in space?</strong></p> <p>Martine Rothblatt: Definitely this century. There’s no doubt about it. I would say…30 years.</p> <p><strong>And what does a space colony look like? </strong></p> <p>Martine Rothblatt: It does not look like the International Space Station. It looks like what Gerry O’Neill originally wrote about in <em>The High Frontier</em>, which was his book. Which is a miles-long structure with a blue sky inside it, because it’s so deep that there’s atmosphere and on the people live on the inside cylinder, the inside surface of the cylinder of the structure. The cylinder rotates like this, so there’s always artificial earth gravity on the living surface. So you’re walking around, you’re not floating around. You have 24- hour sunlight for agricultural areas and normal day and night cycles. It’s just like super, super, super, super-sizing the biggest malls that we have today.</p> <p><strong>Would there be an advantage to living up there as opposed to, say, Connecticut? </strong></p> <p>Martine Rothblatt: I don’t necessarily think so. I think it’s different. I couldn’t say that one is better than the other. I’m often asked by people, “Are you going to buy a ticket to go into orbit?” I always say no. I feel I’m on the coolest spaceship of all right, on the Earth. I’m an amateur astronomer at night. I look at the stars and I treasure the stars. This is the best spaceship… in the Earth. The Earth is the best spaceship.</p> <p><strong>Why do you treasure the stars?</strong></p> <p>Martine Rothblatt: They connect me to a larger reality.</p> <p><strong>What does that feel like? </strong></p> <p>Martine Rothblatt: It feels beautiful. It feels beautiful, it just feels like… I always like to transcend the border of my skin. It’s why, to me, love is the most powerful of all forces that humans ever experience. Because when you love another person, you have transcended your skin. You’ve bonded with that other person. And there is something in the human spirit that loves to connect.</p> <p><strong>What is the meaning of life? </strong></p> <p>Martine Rothblatt: Wow, you just get right to it don’t you? I think the meaning of life is to enjoy it. I think the meaning of life is to enjoy it, is enjoyment, is happiness, is happiness. And happiness is connected to everybody else’s happiness.</p> <p>The more people that are happy around you, the happier you’ll be and vice versa. All the way back in the 1600s, Francis Bacon, who wrote like the first encyclopedia of science, he told the king — he was a top lawyer and adviser to the King of England — and he said, “You can’t have most of your people starving and miserable because they’re going to revolt. And when they revolt, they’re going to ask for the king’s head and you’re not going to be very happy.” So it’s in the king’s own interest to raise everybody up. And we just heard John Doerr say pretty much the same thing. One of the most successful investors in contemporary times is telling us that the most important thing is to help everybody else be successful.</p> <p><strong>That seems to be where you get your joy from. </strong></p> <p>Martine Rothblatt: I do. I get my joy, I really get my joy from seeing people happy. It really doesn’t necessarily… if they’re not suffering and they’ve learned a new subject. If somebody has found a new passion, if somebody’s found love. You know what? I just saw Andrew Weil and his new wife; they found love. I’m really, really happy when people fall in love.</p> <p><strong>Do you ever sleep? </strong></p> <p>Martine Rothblatt: Oh, yeah. I love sleeping.</p> <p><strong>How do you know all these different things if you sleep?</strong></p> <p>Martine Rothblatt: Because I love reading. I am the worst bibliophile in the world, I’m the worst person to go to a museum with because I sit there…</p> <p><strong>How many books you read in a week?</strong></p> <p>Martine Rothblatt: I read at the same time… My reading habit is I usually read like 10 to 15 books at the same time. So I’ll read like a page of this one, a chapter of this one, two chapters of that one. Three pages of this one.</p> <p><strong>Do you group them in a certain way?</strong></p> <p>Martine Rothblatt: I really rely on serendipity. I have them open, the ones I like — not the Kindle books — I have them open. And then just moment to moment I go by serendipity, which book calls out to me.</p> <p><strong>So you could mix a poetry book with a biography, with a memoir?</strong></p> <p>Martine Rothblatt: Oh yeah. With science, with physics, with astronomy.</p> <p><strong>Do you think that helps you create some of your ideas?</strong></p> <p>Martine Rothblatt: Totally, totally.</p> <p><strong>And what is that magic mix? Is it being attuned to — or being open to —serendipity?</strong></p> <p>Martine Rothblatt: Being curious. Loving. Loving human culture. Loving nature. I think I’d say between those three things. Curiosity, like, “I’m curious about this. How does this work?” I will say I am curious about everything. I don’t think there’s anything that I’m not curious about. I’m curious about fashion, I’m curious about art, curious about music, curious about architecture.</p> <p>That’s why I think this Academy is so awesome, because there’s such a diversity of people who are recognized here and who are present here. Upstairs, just before I met you, there’s Andrew Weil, who’s a naturopathic person. I’m talking with him and I’m talking with Steven Rosenberg, who is the antithesis of that. He is the solid, normal cancer medicine thing, but everybody is together. And not to even get into the musicians and all that. So I’ll show you a good example.</p> <p>I was out yesterday for coffee with a friend of mine, Art Kaplan. He’s one of the — he probably is <em>the</em> U.S. number one bioethicists and he’s at NYU. He was important to one thing I wanted to do, which is we manufacture these organs. But to manufacture an organ, before you put it in a person, the FDA of course wants you to test it in an animal.</p> <p>However, an animal is not a person. Their immune system is completely different. And if I manufacture an organ designed to work good in a person, it’s not going to work very good in the animal, the animal’s immune system will attack it. So I came up with the idea of, “How about the people who have donated their bodies to science, but we can’t use their organs, perhaps because they have an infection or they have cancer, but they’ve donated their bodies to science? Can we use these bodies that had been donated to science to test our manufactured organs in?” So that’s like in a way is kind of crazy, nobody’s ever done that before.</p> <p><strong>Do you mt’s crazy that no one thought of it?</strong></p> <p>Martine Rothblatt: Well, it sounds a little macabre. Anytime you deal with dead people, I mean. This is why I kind of preferred being in satellite communications, because it’s cleaner. But nobody thought about it before. I met through — again serendipity, because I’m curious — I went to the Kennedy Center, there was a concert, I met this guy who is the head of transplant medicine at NYU Medical Center, who he himself had heart failure and needed to have a heart transplant transplanted into him by other members of his own team.</p> <p><strong>You went to a concert and because you met someone, you had a conversation that led you…</strong></p> <p>Martine Rothblatt: To testing organs in dead people.</p> <p><strong>And that is going to save lives?</strong></p> <p>Martine Rothblatt: And that is going to save lives. That’s going to make it possible to have an unlimited supply of transplantable organs.</p> <p><strong>When you can do so many things, why did you pick that to work on? Do you enjoy it most?</strong></p> <p>Martine Rothblatt: I don’t really enjoy being in biology. I think I’m too empathetic a person to be in the life sciences. In the field I’m in, people are constantly dying. Even our patients are dying. We keep them alive as long as we can. Like, we have a medicine for neuroblastoma. It saves the lives of half the kids with neuroblastoma. They never get cancer again. They take their medicine for two months, five years later, they’re cured. They still don’t have the cancer back. They live a normal life. But the other half of the kids, the medicine doesn’t work for. And I meet their parents and it’s some sad stories. We did save our daughter’s life, that’s beautiful. And she’s great, she’s in her 30s, she’s takes our medicine every day. I’ve met many other people whose… the medicine stopped working for them and eventually they died.</p> <p><strong>When you spoke at the Academy, in this room of Nobel laureates and Pulitzer Prize winners and some of the most successful businessmen, you chose to talk about being a good person. And why did you do that? </strong></p> <p>Martine Rothblatt: Because I think kindness is more important than intelligence. When I wrote my book on genetic modification and reproductive freedom, it was called <em>Unzipped Genes</em>. So when I when I wrote that book, I had to think a lot about genetic enhancement and genetic modification, disability rights. I talked to a lot of disability rights people. I talked to people with spina bifida to really understand their take on genetic modification. And I came to, a lot of people said, “Well, it would be good if we made ourselves smarter and smarter through genetic modification.”</p> <p>And I became really skeptical about that. I said, “We could become as smart as we want right now just by… we’ve got unlimited hundreds of millions of children who are born that received scarcely any education at all. Every human being’s got a brain that’s better than the fastest supercomputer we’ve ever made. I don’t think it’s a matter of we’re not smart enough. The smartest people in the country got us into world war after world war and endless wars and now global warming on the brink of extinction. I don’t think we need more smartness. I think we need more kindness.</p> <p><strong>(START HERE)</strong></p> <p><strong>How do we get that? How do we get more kindness? </strong></p> <p>Martine Rothblatt: I haven’t figured out anything better than Gandhi’s quote of being the change you want to see.</p> <p><strong>You’ve certainly made a change in the world. The medicines United Therapeutics has produced have saved so many lives.</strong> <strong>How does that make you feel? </strong></p> <p>Martine Rothblatt: I feel blessed. I feel lucky. I feel kissed by life, like life just planted a whole row of kisses on me. I feel grateful.</p> <p><strong>When you spoke to the Academy, you were talking about grace, “an undeserved benefit” as you said. Can everyone have grace?</strong></p> <p>Martine Rothblatt: I believe so. I do believe so.</p> <p><strong>Why do you single out that word as important? </strong></p> <p>Martine Rothblatt: Because I try to understand in my mind, why is it that people are so stupid and yet humanity moves forward. It seems to me if it’s just like everybody was as stupid as it seems we are, myself included… I do stupid things. We all do stupid things, and you know, we’ve got enough nuclear weapons to kill everybody multiple times over.</p> <p>So why is it that when we’re enmeshed with so much stupidity, we actually are living for most people the best lives that we ever lived? We eradicate smallpox, we’ve eradicated smallpox, which was the worst killer that human life ever faced. We’re getting close to eradicating other diseases. We very much manage HIV, which in my own lifetime was like a horrible epidemic that came out of nowhere and killed people I knew and loved.</p> <p>And now it’s like a manageable condition that people can live their whole lives with. So when I try to understand how is it that that out of all the vast stupidity of humanity, we’re able to nevertheless move ourselves forward, I think it’s this thing called grace. That it starts with a few people wanting to do something to overcome nature, overcome randomness, overcome evilness.</p> <p>The lady I was sitting next to — the Nobel laureate from Liberia [<a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/leymah-gbowee/">Leyma Gbowee</a>]—overcoming evil, evilness. And one person does that, they inspire other people. Like now I have a thousand people in United Therapeutics. If you ask most anybody in the company though, “What’s our purpose?” They say, “We are going to create an unlimited supply of transplantable organs, so nobody ever has to die on the organ wait list again.” That’s grace. That’s being courageous in the face of both blind nature, bad luck, and human stupidity.</p> <p><strong>You have quoted Einstein saying there are two things that are infinite, the universe and human stupidity. </strong></p> <p>Martine Rothblatt: And he wasn’t sure about the first. He was certain about the second.</p> <p><strong>When you say we’re stupid, what do you mean? Can you give us some examples of stupid things?</strong></p> <p>Martine Rothblatt: Building enough nuclear weapons to kill everybody in the world multiple times over is stupid. Ignoring the absolutely clear evidence that humans are increasing the temperature of the world, the ice caps are melting, and not turning on a dime to reverse that. But instead in a very realistic — and it’s funny how ironic the example is — putting the pedal to the metal. And withdrawing from the Paris Climate Accords, spewing more pollution. All of it. And we’re all not… None of us are angels. We’re all sinners, I take trips that I don’t need to take. I make more carbon footprint that I need to make. So I’m not saying that I’m any less stupid than everybody else.</p> <p><strong>Given all these things that are happening, you stay positive. Do we keep advancing because there’s a good energy?</strong></p> <p>Martine Rothblatt: There <em>is</em> a good energy. And I think that that’s actually a beautiful synonym for what I mean by grace. There is a good energy that persists despite stupidity. And if you look at the arc of all human history, it’s kind of like Martin Luther King’s quote that, you know, the arc of [history] is long, but it ultimately bends towards justice.</p> <p>So I’d say the arc of good energy, the arc of grace is long, but it ultimately will surpass stupidity. For example, at United Therapeutics we’ve built the world’s largest zero-carbon footprint building. It’s in our headquarters in Silver Spring, it has zero-carbon footprint. It’s a 150,000-square foot, ten-story building full of laboratories. We use the Earth as our battery to store all of the heating and cooling.</p> <p><strong>And if some people come to your place in Maryland and try to copy that…</strong></p> <p>Martine Rothblatt: I wish more would. It opened last year, and I invite you to come and visit it. We put right on the walls of the building that the purpose of this building is to inspire a thousand other buildings like this.</p> <p><strong>And you talk about the knock-on effect of good energy.</strong></p> <p>Martine Rothblatt: And that is grace. That is grace. For the whole world to not drown in global warming is a kind of an undeserved benefit, because the whole world didn’t necessarily do anything to create a zero-carbon footprint future. But enough people are contributing to that, and it knocks on and knocks on and knocks on.</p> <p>Even like the smallpox example I gave. Yeah, it was great that Edward Jenner came up with this almost 200 years ago. But it’s the vaccinator in Afghanistan who risks her life to go into the tiniest village where people actually think she may be a CIA agent or something like that — because of the way we went around the whole Osama thing — that risks her life to vaccinate the last person to wipe out [smallpox]. That’s grace. And that one woman vaccinator to me outweighs the mountain of human stupidity.</p> <p><strong>You think about so many things, and you’ve said you read so many books at once. Have you ever wondered if you had ADHD or ADD?</strong></p> <p>Martine Rothblatt: No, I don’t think so. I’ve never been told that I did.</p> <p><strong>Do you feel pretty focused? </strong></p> <p>Martine Rothblatt: I do. I would say if anything has pushed me to be ADHD-ish, it is smartphones.</p> <p><strong>Do you try to limit your use of them?</strong></p> <p>Martine Rothblatt: Not very successfully.</p> <p><strong>Do you trying to tell your kids to limit their use? </strong></p> <p>Martine Rothblatt: Not very successfully, I bought all my grandkids the best smartphones I could find.</p> <p><strong>Do you worry about that? A lot of people are worried about the time kids spend on their phones.</strong></p> <p>Martine Rothblatt: I’m a little bit skeptical because I grew up in the age of television and like I said, I was a communications studies undergrad major at UCLA. And people were saying, “Oh, this generation is ruined from watching television!” I remember statistics that by the time a person is 18, they’ve seen 10,000 people killed in Westerns and whatnot on TV. In fact, I think you turned out pretty good. So I’m a little bit skeptical of that. I will say that my grandkids, play some video games on their computer, which seem like, “Oh my God!” They seem pretty violent, but they’re actually sweet. I’ve never seen them hurt a cat or a dog or really… no anything. I think the human mind, it’s an extraordinary thing, and it can segue off bad things.</p> <p>I mean, if you want to talk about bad things affecting people, how about the Bible? I’m not saying that the Bible is bad, but I’m saying there’s some amazing violence in the Bible. People stoned to death and burnt for no reason just because they happen to live in a particular city. In fact, all humanity wiped out like some bioterror type of thing. And when that was the only content that people had, they had to read that all year long over and over, and before our generation, people could memorize whole parts of the Bible and whatnot. And all those people pretty much turned out okay. So I’m a skeptic actually that content is responsible for the problems of society.</p> <p>And I’m a skeptic — my law program, when I went to graduate school and law school, it was a communications law program. And we were pretty much persuaded that freedom of speech and freedom of thought are much better than any efforts to constrain them. So I’m pretty skeptical about things like Internet censorship and those kinds of things.</p> <p><strong>What are you most optimistic about as you look at the years ahead? What are you most excited about when it comes to the capability of the human mind? </strong></p> <p>Martine Rothblatt: I’m really excited about the ability to vanquish diseases that cause human suffering. I think pain is a really bad thing and there are a lot of people in pain. They are in pain because of neuromuscular things, or they’re in pain because of cancer. I think that we’ll look back at this point in time and people say, “Oh my God, I can’t believe these people lived their lives in pain.” When I walk in a store sometimes and you’ll see a person, their face locked in a frown. I used to think, “Wow, that’s a mean old person.” And now I realize that that person is probably just in pain, and they’re just kind of grimacing and trying to get through the day.</p> <p><strong>You think that physical pain will be gone one day?</strong></p> <p>Martine Rothblatt: Yes, absolutely. In this century. I’m completely confident of that. And people will think it was crazy. If I was to say, “Did you think one day the threat of mass infectious disease will be gone?” If you were to say that in Thomas Jefferson’s time, they’d say, “No. Are you crazy? There’s an epidemic sweeps through here every couple of years and wipes everybody out and nobody is going to be able to get on top of smallpox or typhoid and all these things.” But oh my God. We’ve knocked off one after another after another, and it used to take centuries.</p> <p>Now we’re not completely on top of HIV, and there are people that don’t have access to medicines. But let’s look at the big picture: we took a horrible disease that nobody saw coming, wiping out virtually 100 percent of its victims. And in essentially 20 years — which in the span of time is a pretty short period of time — in 20 years we’ve brought the disease under complete management. Somebody can live a normal life span, and we’ve brought the cost of those medicines down to a dollar a day. All in 20 years. A civilization that can do that will definitely, positively get on top of pain and cancer and heart disease in this century.</p> <p><strong>You’ve talked about your study methods and the frequency spectrum and all the bodies of information that you’ve mastered. Do you have a photographic memory?</strong></p> <p>Martine Rothblatt: No.</p> <p><strong>But you have a good memory.</strong></p> <p>Martine Rothblatt: It’s a good memory. I agree. But I’m a big believer in mnemonic devices. For instance I’ll use acronyms to help me remember things.</p> <p><strong>Can you share one with us?</strong></p> <p>Martine Rothblatt: I have this one acronym called “unither marine.” “Unither” is the contraction of our company’s name, United Therapeutics, and every one of those letters reminds me of one of the people who report to me and the activities that they’re responsible for, because I feel my main responsibility is working for the thousand people at United Therapeutics.</p> <p>I’ll give you another acronym I like a lot, because you mentioned [the book] <em>Virtually Huma</em>n. I’m really interested in the meaning of life and the difference between digital life and biological life. One of my favorite acronyms is OMERRDA, which is “O” for organize, a definition of life. So what is the definition of life? People often stumble over that. It’s like, “Well, I’m not really sure is a virus alive, or bacteria or whatever. Is a robot alive?”</p> <p>So biologists have agreed that things that are alive are: Organized, that’s the O; exchange matter and energy with the environment, that’s the “ME.” They reproduce, that’s the “R.” They respond to stimuli, that’s a second “R,” They develop, that’s the “D,” and they adapt, that’s the “A.” So whenever I’m stopping and thinking about, “Is this kind of cyber life — cyber consciousness, virtual life, synthetic life — is this alive or not?” I just remember OMERRDA, and that’s how I memorized the biologist definition of life. But I’ve got like a gazillion of those acronyms in my head.</p> <p><strong>Forbes called you one of the “100 Greatest Business Minds,” and many people have talked about your brilliant mind and your perpetual reinvention of things. Most of us are taught in school to “know your lane” and just go deep into one thing. If you had done that, what a loss it would have been. What are we to take from this? </strong></p> <p>Martine Rothblatt: It’s a good question. I think it’s difficult to apply one person’s lessons to everybody. There are people who would be really good at being a jack of all trades, and there’s people who would be really good at just being a super master pianist, flutist, gene editor, whatever. So everybody needs to be in touch with their own soul. Be wary when people say you can’t do something. Strive for happiness, be practical.</p> <p>You ask about little mnemonics and mantras, so the mantra that I live my life most by I break down to C Q P L. And C is “Be curious.” Curiosity, question authority. Okay? So you can be in a narrow lane — deep, deep, deep in a narrow lane — and be very curious, because there’s no subject in the world that you cannot be endlessly curious about. If you’re interested in one particular vegetable, there is an infinite amount of information that can be learned about each particular vegetable. The DNA inside the vegetable, why does that DNA express this way in certain climates and a different way in other climates? How does it interact with the soil, with the light? It’s infinite. How can you make food out of it? What kind of food? What are all the different dishes? Every topic is infinite. Be curious. Which means you’ve got to love life, okay?</p> <p>Secondly is to question authority. We live in a society of rules and it’s probably deep in our DNA that there’s got to be a rule for this, a rule for that. And it makes sense. The chimpanzees before us that did not follow all of the rules and just ran out in front of the lion got eaten and that DNA didn’t go too far. But now, in our society, question authority. It doesn’t mean walk in front of a truck and say, “I’m going to question the laws of physics.”</p> <p><strong>But when the FCC says you can’t do satellite radio?</strong></p> <p>Martine Rothblatt: Then you can do it. Or instead of walking in front of a truck, why don’t you maybe walk around the truck, or find another way. My partner Bina and I, we always say to each other, “Find another way.” Whenever we’re told no, we say, “Find another way.” There are many ways you can’t go, but there is always, always, always another way. Just like there’s an infinite amount of knowledge on any possible topic. There is always another way to do something.</p> <p>The third one is to act practically. Every project can be divided up into a lot of small pieces, and every time you do a small piece you will have an energy to do the next piece and the next piece. So no matter what project you have, if you’re writing a book, write a page a day. If you’re trying to manufacture an unlimited supply of organs, start off with manufacturing just a few dozen organs. Trying to manufacture a few dozen organs, start off by manufacturing one organ. You’re trying to manufacture one organ, start off manufacturing part of the organ. See if you could keep it going for a minute or hour a day. Every single problem can be divided up in a number of little pieces.</p> <p>And fourth and finally is “Act lovingly.” Whatever you do, try to do it in a way that’s going to make the world a happier place. To me, love — the definition of love that resonates most with me is the one from Robert Heinlein, who is my favorite science fiction writer. And his definition of love is, “Love is the emotion where the happiness of another person or persons is essential to your own happiness.” So always act in a way to make the world a happier place.</p> <p>Be curious, question authority, act lovingly and do practically. And love. Do everything out of love.</p> <p><strong>How old were you when you thought of these four things? </strong></p> <p>Martine Rothblatt: It was probably when people began asking me, “How did you accomplish all these things, Martine?” I would say around 50 when I began to speak to other groups and share inspiration with other groups. So I had to kind of analyze what my algorithm was, if I could put it that way.</p> <p>And I realized my algorithm was first just loving knowledge, all that bibliophile, museophile kind of stuff we talked about. Secondly, I realized my algorithm was questioning authority. You could talk to my kids. We had the “Question Authority” bumper sticker on our minivan. “Question Authority,” that’s probably my favorite bumper sticker. That one and “Celebrate Diversity” would be my two favorite bumper stickers. And then the “Do practically” is — everybody of says what you said, “Martine, you’ve got all these great ideas…” But I don’t think it’s the ideas that’s so important, it’s what you do with them. It’s the execution. It’s the being practical.</p> <p>The organization I’m most fond of my membership in is called the American Philosophical Society. It was started by Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson in the 1700s and it’s still in existence and active in Philadelphia today. And their mantra, which was developed by Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson, was to celebrate useful knowledge. So it’s a practicality and we all know Franklin was a practical person. Thomas Jefferson was a very practical person.</p> <p><strong>What do you think is the most practical skill you have that’s helped you in life?</strong></p> <p>Martine Rothblatt: I think it’s being able to relate to other people and encourage other people to do more than they think they can do. To show them through some kind of breadcrumbs that I know you didn’t think that you could do this, but you actually can do it if you do this breadcrumb, that breadcrumb, these five breadcrumbs, you’ll get to your goal.</p> <p>And people were like, “Whoa, I never thought of it that way.” So it’s encouraging. I define myself as CEO standing not for “chief executive officer.” I define it as “chief encouragement officer.” And what I enjoy doing most in my company is just walking around the laboratories and the hallways and talking to people and encouraging them to their next step. I think that’s what I’m best at.</p> <p>I’m not a molecular biologist, I’m not a pharmacologist. I did understand the type of medicine that we needed to make. I wasn’t going to be the person in the laboratory with the white coat and the pipette and the test tube. But I was able to find all of those chemists and show them that this is a molecule you could make. These are the steps on how you would make it.</p> <p>Maybe a really good analogy, to me, is I’m a conductor. A conductor’s job is to make sure that every musician in the orchestra does the best that they can do and shows them that they can all play a symphony together that probably none of them thought they could do. And the conductor gets them all to work together by knowing each person’s part. When you look at a conductor’s score for music, it’s got the strings, the horns, the trumpets. It’s got everybody’s stanza on there. So I’m kind of a conductor and a composer of practical technologies.</p> <p><strong>So for those listening out there, what would you tell them if you met them at a concert, or walking down the street?</strong></p> <p>Martine Rothblatt: Go to all the concerts you can go to. Talk to different kinds of people. Diversity is the water of hope.</p> <p><strong>You make these musical analogies. Do you think music is a particularly apt metaphor, or is especially conducive to creativity?</strong></p> <p>Martine Rothblatt: I think that music is — in the truest sense of music, which begins with rhythm and begins with vibration, begins with your heartbeat — I think that music is necessary, if not sufficient, for life.</p> <p><strong>What kind of music do you particularly like to play? </strong></p> <p>Martine Rothblatt: I like to play jazz. I like to play blues. But I also play popular songs. I like to play songs like “Fly Me to the Moon.” You know, just little popular things. I play some classical music. I like to play Chopin preludes.</p> <p><strong>Do you have a favorite song? </strong></p> <p>Martine Rothblatt: I love this song, it’s another popular song called “Impossible Dream.” It was a theme song from <em>Man of La Mancha</em>, I think. So I can play that. I play flute, I like improvising, I like doing jazz improvisation on flute. Right now I’m practicing a song called “Color My World” by Chicago because the head of clinical development at United Therapeutics, Lee Peterson, she’s a totally amazing rock and roll drummer. She’s got two bands in the Raleigh-Durham area and so for our Christmas parties, her band plays at our Christmas parties and we dance and enjoy it. They insist that I come up and play one song with them which… I don’t want to be like that CEO that’s pushing himself on the band. But originally, I agreed to do the cowbell. So I played cowbell with them on one song. This year we’re doing “Color My World” as one of those songs, so I’m going to play the flute part, which comes in in the third section of that song.</p> <p><strong>You’ve spoken about eliminating physical pain from our lives. What about emotional pain? Will we ever eliminate that?</strong></p> <p>Martine Rothblatt: One of the points I made in my book, <em>Virtually Human</em>, is that I believe the two most important professions in the future — and some people don’t like to hear this, but I have to say my truth — are psychologists and lawyers.</p> <p><strong>Why?</strong></p> <p>Martine Rothblatt: Because our minds are extraordinarily complex, and as we create cyber-conscious twins of ourselves, we’re only going to become more complex. Basically, a cyber-conscious twin of yourself is essentially what it says. You’re going to have two minds to manage, and a lot of us can barely manage our one mind. We’re going to need professional help.</p> <p><strong>What do you mean, having two minds? How can we do that?</strong></p> <p>Martine Rothblatt: By uploading your personality, recollections, feelings, mannerisms, beliefs, attitudes and values digitally, and coupling that with software that can figure out the way you respond to the world but do that all digitally. There will be a second one of you that is operating outside of your flesh body.</p> <p>So in the future the two most important professions are going to be psychologists and lawyers. Psychologists, because as we have more and more things that we need to grapple with, with our minds, it’s going to be hard to sort through it and it would only be natural that we need expert guides to help us sort through the emotional pain that we have from relationships, from career choices, from life choices.</p> <p>The one thing that’s continued to increase in our lives are choices. And it’s hard to make those choices. It’s good to have an expert guide to help you. And that’s what — whether you want to call them therapists or psychologists or psychiatrists — that’s what they do. As we begin digitally uploading our mind and having digital twins, or what we call cyber-conscious versions of ourselves, the choices and the options are going to become even more complicated.</p> <p>Also, the benefits will grow as well. But it never stopped people, people always were willing to accept the problems that went along with the benefits. We like cars, but we have tens of thousands of people that die every year in car accidents. We accept that we like cars. We’re going to have a lot of emotional pain by having a digital twin. But we’ll accept that for the benefits of being able to process twice as much reality as we can do when we’re just one mind doing it.</p> <p><strong>So we’re going to be able to take our minds, put our contents into a computer with artificial intelligence?</strong></p> <p>Martine Rothblatt: Yes. You will be able to, I’ll give you an example. You’ll be able to do, say, three interviews at the same time of different people. It’ll be great content from all three of the interviews. Each of the, say two, digital twins of yourself will brief you, will give you the <em>Cliff’s Notes </em>version, will brief all three of you with the <em>Cliff’s Notes</em> version of how the interview went. You can stream it, you can watch it. You may be a little bit slower, your digital twins a little bit faster. So your mind will literally expand.</p> <p><strong>But there’s only going to be one human body, so they’re not face to face with someone they’re interviewing.</strong></p> <p>Martine Rothblatt: Well, face to face on a screen and then with a hologram. And then, I don’t know if you’ve seen the BINA48 robot that we’ve built. So they’ll be physically instantiated sooner than you think.</p> <p><strong>And the benefits will be great, even if it’s more stressful?</strong></p> <p>Martine Rothblatt: You’ll be able to live two lives in the time of one, and that will cause stresses that also cause benefit. And the psychologists are there to help you with the stress. The other thing is more people, more options, more social collisions. And that’s the job of lawyers. A lot of people like to knock down lawyers, but they forget that before there were lawyers, things were settled with swords and arrows. Lawyers are there to prevent us settling things with swords and arrows.</p> <p><strong>How soon are we going to need all these lawyers and psychologists?</strong></p> <p>Martine Rothblatt: This century. Things are moving very fast, as Ray Kurzweil says, because of the exponential growth in information technology. This century will be equivalent in linear time to a thousand years. So if I was to say something would take 300 years to happen, it’s going to happen in 30 real years.</p> <p><strong>Let’s take up a different topic that also speaks to so much about you. What is the biggest misconception people have about a transgender person? </strong></p> <p>Martine Rothblatt: Well, it’s impossible for me to answer that question, because I’m only one transgendered person. And every transgender person is different, you know? So I really can’t speak for everybody else.</p> <p>I could say for me, it’s the conception that I don’t want to be one sex and I only want to be the other gender, okay? So it’s the “either or” conception. In fact, I don’t really like the boundary of “male or female.” I enjoy transcending that boundary. I have male energy. I have female energy. Intellectually, the tribe that I would claim for myself is the female tribe. I think it’s probably more because I’m just in absolute awe, more in awe of women than I am of men.</p> <p>It would be like picking a sports team that you like better. When I think, as I said in my remarks, the incredible burden that women have, I think women have carried civilization on their backs. I cannot wrap my head at all around misogyny or racism, these kinds of artificial reasons to be against a demographic or characteristic. It’s completely… it eats at me. I don’t understand it. And why somebody would tell somebody else what to do with their own body? I don’t get it. So I identify with women, but it doesn’t mean that my gender is just female or just male. My gender is Martine and I’m very happy just being an individualistic gender.</p> <p>I wrote this book titled <em>The Apartheid of Sex</em> back in the ‘90s. And while a lot of people now, they don’t really know what the word <em>apartheid</em> means, but it meant the artificial division of everybody in South Africa into being either black or white. And you had separate legal rules that went with you if you were black or white. To me, it’s just as artificial to divide all people into saying, “You’re either male or female. If you’re male, you’ve got certain rights.” If you’ve got like, “Female, you can be paid less,” and blah, blah, blah. So I don’t like artificial borders like that. It runs against my own personal spirit.</p> <p>So to summarize, the biggest misconception about transgendered people is that all transgender people want to run away from their old gender and go to a new one. That is true for many people, okay, but it’s not true for everybody. One of the things I’m super, super happy about with the millennial generation is I see so many people coming out as gender non-binary, which is in <em>Apartheid of Sex</em>. That’s why I call it the apartheid, like in that book, I said there really is not just two separate genders, there’s a million different genders.</p> <p>Now I’ve got friends of mine saying, “Oh my God, I didn’t know what to do, my daughter is saying that she doesn’t want to be a girl and she doesn’t want to be a boy. And so what? I say love the person as they are. Love the person as they are. Why are you… it’s their life. You know, you’ve got <em>your</em> life. Why are you trying to impose like a particular gender on — whether it’s your son or your daughter — your offspring?</p> <p>They usually say things similar to what people said to me being in an interracial marriage. They say, “Oh well, they’re going to have a tough time in society,” and “You know, your kids are going to be not black or not white.” Our spirit is stronger than other people’s oppression. Our spirit is stronger than other people’s prejudice. People would rather face social difficulties and overcome them than live their entire life in a mental prison.</p> <p><strong>Do you think your sexuality has helped you think differently than other people? </strong></p> <p>Martine Rothblatt: Probably. If you ask me, what’s my favorite word? I mean, nobody ever asked me this. I’m just asking myself that right now. I would probably say “transcendental.” I just love transcending things. In fact, on Twitter I describe myself as “I’m a transcender, not transgender.”</p> <p><strong>What do you mean? What are you transcending?</strong></p> <p>Martine Rothblatt: I’m transcending the border of my body to connect with a greater creator collectivity. I’m transcending white or black to just be a person. I’m transcending flesh to be a consciousness. I’m transcending Earth to be part of the galaxy. I’m transcending limitations to be unlimited.</p> <p><strong>And when people call you an inventor, a visionary, a mom, one of the greatest business minds in the United States, what do you call yourself? </strong></p> <p>Martine Rothblatt: Martine.</p> <p><strong>Well, thank you. </strong></p> <p>Martine Rothblatt: My pleasure. Thanks for talking with me.</p> </div>  </aside>  <div class="read-more__toggle collapsed" data-toggle="collapse" data-target="#full-interview"><a href="#" class="sans-4 btn">Read full interview</a></div> </article> </section> </div> <div class="tab-pane" id="gallery" role="tabpanel"> <section class="isotope-wrapper">  <header class="toolbar toolbar--gallery bg-white clearfix"> <div class="col-md-6"> <div class="serif-4">Martine Rothblatt, Ph.D. Gallery</div> </div> <div class="col-md-6 text-md-right isotope-toolbar"> <ul class="list-unstyled list-inline m-b-0 text-brand-primary sans-4"> <li class="list-inline-item" data-filter=".photo"><i class="icon-icon_camera"></i>23 photos</li> </ul> </div> </header> <div class="isotope-gallery isotope-box single-achiever__gallery clearfix"> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/nbaa-13-1.jpg" data-image-caption="Martine Rothblatt with her daughter, Jenesis. In 1990, Jenesis was diagnosed with a rare and fatal disease. Today, she is healthy and working at United Therapeutics as their Manager of Telepresence and Virtual Worlds Training." data-image-copyright="nbaa-13" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/nbaa-13-1-380x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2021/05/nbaa-13-1.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.75" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Tesla-Bell-429-scaled.jpg" data-image-caption="2016: Martine Rothblatt and her team converted a Robinson R44 helicopter to fly on an electric drive system. The original Lycoming engine was replaced with the two YASA electric motors, driven with dual Rinehart Motion Systems (RMS) propulsion inverters. Battery power was supplied by a custom assembled BRAMMO battery pack." data-image-copyright="Tesla Bell 429" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Tesla-Bell-429-380x285.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Tesla-Bell-429-760x570.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.70394736842105" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Martine-Early-Bibliophile.jpg" data-image-caption="Young Martin Rothblatt was a fanatical reader, the kind of kid who would spend an entire family vacation with his nose in a book. As an adolescent, he was influenced by the historical novel Exodus by Leon Uris; anything by science fiction and popular science writer and biochemist Isaac Asimov; and Black Like Me by John Howard Griffin." data-image-copyright="Martine Early Bibliophile" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Martine-Early-Bibliophile-380x267.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Martine-Early-Bibliophile-760x535.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.8" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/wp-2280-2019Summit_0714.jpg" data-image-caption="Awards Council member Sir Peter Jackson, director, writer, and producer of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, presents the Golden Plate Award to Dr. Martine Rothblatt, Founder and Chairman of United Therapeutics and the creator of SiriusXM Satellite Radio, at the Banquet of the Golden Plate gala." data-image-copyright="wp-2280-2019Summit_0714" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/wp-2280-2019Summit_0714-380x304.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2019/10/wp-2280-2019Summit_0714-760x608.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.74736842105263" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/XenoPig-scaled.jpg" data-image-caption="2011: Martine Rothblatt holding a genetically engineered pig with Frank J. Sasinowski, counsel. One of Rothblatt’s organ manufacturing strategies is xenotransplantation, the idea of transplanting an animal’s organs into humans who need a replacement. In 2011, United Therapeutics acquired Revivicor Inc., a Blacksburg, Virginia, regenerative medicine company that spun out of the U.K. company best known for producing the first cloned animal, Dolly the Sheep. Now it produces genetically modified pigs for xenotransplantation studies funded by United Therapeutics." data-image-copyright="XenoPig" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/XenoPig-380x284.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2021/05/XenoPig-760x568.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.71973684210526" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/2014-wp-GettyImages-828918418.jpg" data-image-caption="September 2014: Martine Rothblatt, CEO of United Therapeutics and former CEO of SiriusXM, is the highest-paid female CEO in the country with total earnings of $38 million. (Andre Chung for The Washington Post/Getty Images)" data-image-copyright="2014-wp-GettyImages-828918418" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/2014-wp-GettyImages-828918418-380x274.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2021/05/2014-wp-GettyImages-828918418-760x547.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.25394736842105" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/3panel-Martin-and-Bina-1982-Bina-and-daughter-Family-1992-scaled.jpg" data-image-caption="Left: Martin Rothblatt married Bina Aspen in 1982.; Center: 1980: Rothblatt enjoying the outdoors with daughter, Sunee.; Right: Martine Rothblatt with her family in 1992. From left: Jenesis, Sunee, Eli, Martine, Bina, and Gabriel." data-image-copyright="3panel-Martin-and-Bina-1982---Bina-and-daughter---Family-1992" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/3panel-Martin-and-Bina-1982-Bina-and-daughter-Family-1992-380x96.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2021/05/3panel-Martin-and-Bina-1982-Bina-and-daughter-Family-1992-760x193.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.75" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/martine-flute-studio-copy-scaled.jpg" data-image-caption="Martine Rothblatt—a lifelong musician who plays the piano, flute, and drums—records in a Bethesda, Maryland, studio for a new release by the Alan Scott Band. Mmusic inspired her entrepreneurial start with satellite radio." data-image-copyright="martine flute studio copy" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/martine-flute-studio-copy-380x285.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2021/05/martine-flute-studio-copy-760x570.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.66578947368421" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/2014-wp-GettyImages-460351446-1.jpg" data-image-caption="SILVER SPRING, MD -- SEPTEMBER 12: Martine greets Frank J. Sasinowski, old friend and counsel, before the start of a meeting. Martine Rothblatt, CEO of United Therapies and former CEO of SiriusXM, is the highest paid CEO in the country. Rothblatt founded UT after her daughter was diagnosed with a rare lung disease. She is also transgender and married to the same woman for 32 years. (photo by Andre Chung for The Washington Post via Getty Images) MAGAZINE" data-image-copyright="2014-wp-GettyImages-460351446" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/2014-wp-GettyImages-460351446-1-380x253.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2021/05/2014-wp-GettyImages-460351446-1-760x506.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.66710526315789" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/2006-June-marnasdaqsmiling-scaled.jpg" data-image-caption="Martine Rothblatt, the Founder and CEO of United Therapeutics, at Nasdaq in 1999. She earned $38 million in 2013, making her the nation’s highest-paid female executive. Now publicly traded, the company is experimenting with pig cloning and genetic modification to create lung transplants. (Photo Courtesy of United Therapeutics)" data-image-copyright="2006 June -marnasdaqsmiling" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/2006-June-marnasdaqsmiling-380x253.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2021/05/2006-June-marnasdaqsmiling-760x507.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1.3333333333333" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/2010-180911_HeatherSten_Wired_Bina48_016.jpg" data-image-caption="BINA48, named and modeled after Bina Aspen, is a humanoid robot, consisting of a bust-like head and shoulders mounted on a frame, developed by Hanson Robotics and released in 2010. BINA48 is one of the world’s most advanced social robots based on a composite of information from several people including Rothblatt’s wife, Bina. Bina48 is an early illustration of part one of the Terasem Hypothesis: A conscious analog of a person may be created by combining detailed data about the person (mindfile) using future consciousness software (mindware)." data-image-copyright="2010-180911_HeatherSten_Wired_Bina48_016" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/2010-180911_HeatherSten_Wired_Bina48_016-285x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2021/05/2010-180911_HeatherSten_Wired_Bina48_016-570x760.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.66710526315789" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/wp-2019Summit_0248-Copy.jpg" data-image-caption="Guest of honor Dr. Martine Rothblatt, Founder and Chairman of United Therapeutics and the creator of SiriusXM Satellite Radio, addresses delegates and members during a symposium of the International Achievement Summit." data-image-copyright="wp-2019Summit_0248 - Copy" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/wp-2019Summit_0248-Copy-380x253.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2019/10/wp-2019Summit_0248-Copy-760x507.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.68421052631579" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/2014-wp-GettyImages-460351450.jpg" data-image-caption="Martine Rothblatt and her wife Bina in 2014. In 2004, they co-founded The Terasem Movement Foundation, a not-for-profit private operating foundation that is based in Vermont. Their mission is to promote the geoethical (world ethical) use of nanotechnology for human life extension. The foundation conducts educational programs and supports scientific research and development in the areas of cryogenics, biotechnology, and cyber consciousness." data-image-copyright="2014-wp-GettyImages-460351450" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/2014-wp-GettyImages-460351450-380x260.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2021/05/2014-wp-GettyImages-460351450-760x520.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1.3333333333333" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/manufactured-lung-scaffold-scaled.jpeg" data-image-caption="2017: Martine Rothblatt holding a lung that is 3D-printed from human collagen, fiber grown in genetically modified tobacco plants, with the help of Texas A&M University at United Therapeutics’ Organ Manufacturing Group in Manchester, N.H. On April 26, 2017, 3D Systems and United Therapeutics Corporation announced plans to develop solid-organ scaffolds for human transplants. The multi-year collaboration and development agreement combines the 3D printing and precision healthcare expertise of 3D Systems with the regenerative medicine and organ manufacturing capabilities of United Therapeutics Corporation. The agreement focuses on development of 3D printing systems for solid-organ scaffolds, beginning with lung scaffolds. The printing system will target collagen and building block proteins as scaffold raw materials. United Therapeutics will cellularize the scaffolds with patient-specific biological material, including re-differentiated stem cells. (Photo Courtesy of United Therapeutics)" data-image-copyright="manufactured lung scaffold" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/manufactured-lung-scaffold-285x380.jpeg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2021/05/manufactured-lung-scaffold-570x760.jpeg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.66578947368421" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/2014-wp-GettyImages-460621194.jpg" data-image-caption="September 12, 2014: Martine Rothblatt, CEO of United Therapeutics Corporation and creator of SiriusXM, is the highest-paid executive in the country. Her book, Virtually Human, explores what the not-too-distant future will look like when cyberconsciousness becomes part of our daily lives. (Andre Chung/The Washington Post/Getty Images)" data-image-copyright="2014-wp-GettyImages-460621194" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/2014-wp-GettyImages-460621194-380x253.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2021/05/2014-wp-GettyImages-460621194-760x506.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1.4990138067061" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/2019-GettyImages-1148951768-scaled.jpg" data-image-caption="May 2019: Jenesis Rothblatt, Martine Rothblatt, and Bina Rothblatt at the Liberty Science Center Genius Gala 8 at Liberty Science Center in Jersey City, New Jersey. (Eugene Gologursky / Getty Images for Liberty Science Center)" data-image-copyright="2019-GettyImages-1148951768" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/2019-GettyImages-1148951768-253x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2021/05/2019-GettyImages-1148951768-507x760.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1.3333333333333" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/guiness-world-record-scaled.jpeg" data-image-caption="On December 7, 2018, Martine Rothblatt earned a certification in the Guinness Book of World Records for the farthest distance traveled by electric helicopter (prototype), 56.82 km (35.00 miles). The helicopter was created by Tier 1 Engineering, and flown by pilot Ric Webb. Rothblatt’s ultimate goal is to secure federal approval of the battery-powered helicopters for use in transporting accident victims and organ transplants to hospital facilities." data-image-copyright="guiness world record" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/guiness-world-record-285x380.jpeg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2021/05/guiness-world-record-570x760.jpeg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.37368421052632" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Family-1992-and-UT.jpg" data-image-caption="Soon after Martine Rothblatt founded what would become SiriusXM, her daughter, Jenesis, was diagnosed with pulmonary arterial hypertension. Rothblatt created a foundation to find a cure for what was then called primary pulmonary hypertension (PPH) which led to the creation of her pharmaceutical company, United Therapeutics." data-image-copyright="Family-1992-and-UT" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Family-1992-and-UT-380x142.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Family-1992-and-UT-760x284.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1.6851441241685" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/book-apartheid-of-sex.jpg" data-image-caption="Rothblatt transitioned in 1994, at the age of 40. In her 1996 book, The Apartheid of Sex: A Manifesto on the Freedom of Gender, Rothblatt makes a case for the adoption of a new sexual model that accommodates every shade of gender identity. She reveals that traditional male and female roles are dictated neither by genetics, genitals, nor reproductive biology, but rather by social attitudes that originated in early patriarchal cultures and that have been institutionalized in modern law, and she calls a new acceptance of human sexuality in all its prismatic variety." data-image-copyright="book-apartheid of sex" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/book-apartheid-of-sex-225x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2021/05/book-apartheid-of-sex-451x760.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.36710526315789" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/wp-Howard-Stern-SiriusXM-NASDAQ.jpg" data-image-caption="n 1990, Rothblatt founded SiriusXM Radio. Today, the company has grown to be the largest audio entertainment company in North America. Left: Martine Rothblatt with SiriusXM’s marquee talent, The “King of All Media” Howard Stern. Since 2006, he has produced and hosted The Howard Stern Show exclusively for the satellite radio company." data-image-copyright="wp-Howard-Stern---SiriusXM-NASDAQ" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/wp-Howard-Stern-SiriusXM-NASDAQ-380x139.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2021/05/wp-Howard-Stern-SiriusXM-NASDAQ-760x279.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.50526315789474" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/high-frontier-and-2000-August-US6105060-drawings-with-title.jpg" data-image-caption="As an undergraduate, Rothblatt became a convert to Gerard K. O’Neill’s “High Frontier” plan for space colonization. Rothblatt was later retained by O’Neill to handle business and regulatory matters for his newly invented satellite navigation technology, known as the GeoStar.; After founding Sirius Satellite Radio in 1990 and struggling to fund her vision, Rothblatt learned the value of patents with U.S. Patent No. 6,105,060, “System for providing global portable internet access using low earth orbit satellite and satellite direct radio broadcast system,” issued in 2000." data-image-copyright="high-frontier-and-2000-August-US6105060-drawings-with-title" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/high-frontier-and-2000-August-US6105060-drawings-with-title-380x192.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2021/05/high-frontier-and-2000-August-US6105060-drawings-with-title-760x384.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.37368421052632" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/martine-flying-scaled.jpg" data-image-caption="Rothblatt is an airplane and helicopter pilot with night-vision goggle (NVG) certification. She generally pilots a Pilatus PC-12NG and a Bell 429WLG. Before the end of the 2020s, Rothblatt’s goal is to develop an unlimited supply of manufactured organs and have them delivered by zero-carbon EVTOLs —“electric vertical takeoff and landing.”" data-image-copyright="martine-flying" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/martine-flying-380x142.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2021/05/martine-flying-760x284.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.42236842105263" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/wp-2280-Rosa-Lee-and-Hal-Rothblatt-and-Martin.jpg" data-image-caption="Martin Rothblatt (center) was born in 1954 to Rosa Lee (left), a speech therapist, and Harold (right), a dentist." data-image-copyright="wp-2280-Rosa-Lee-and-Hal-Rothblatt-and-Martin" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/wp-2280-Rosa-Lee-and-Hal-Rothblatt-and-Martin-380x160.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2021/05/wp-2280-Rosa-Lee-and-Hal-Rothblatt-and-Martin-760x321.jpg"></div>  </figure>    </div> </section> </div> </div> <div class="container"> <footer class="editorial-article__footer col-md-8 col-md-offset-4"> <div class="editorial-article__next-link sans-3"> <a href="#"><strong>What's next:</strong> <span class="editorial-article__next-link-title">profile</span></a> </div> <ul class="social list-unstyled list-inline ssk-group m-b-0"> <li class="list-inline-item"><a href="" class="ssk ssk-facebook" data-gtm-category="social" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Shared Achiever on Facebook"><i class="icon-icon_facebook-circle"></i></a></li> <li class="list-inline-item"><a href="" class="ssk ssk-twitter" data-gtm-category="social" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Shared Achiever on Twitter"><i class="icon-icon_twitter-circle"></i></a></li>  <li class="list-inline-item"><a href="" class="ssk ssk-email" data-gtm-category="social" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Shared Achiever via Email"><i class="icon-icon_email-circle"></i></a></li> </ul> <time class="editorial-article__last-updated sans-6">This page last revised on May 21, 2021</time> <div class="sans-4"><a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/how-to-cite" target="_blank">How to cite this page</a></div> </footer> </div> <div class="container"> <div class="col-md-8 col-md-offset-4"> <hr class="m-t-3 m-b-3"/> <iframe src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051741if_/https://embed.podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/martine-rothblatt-transcending-boundaries/id1025864075?i=1000458405231&itsct=podcast_box_link&itscg=30200" height="175px" frameborder="0" sandbox="allow-forms allow-popups allow-same-origin allow-scripts allow-top-navigation-by-user-activation" allow="autoplay *; encrypted-media *;" style="width: 100%; overflow: hidden; border-top-left-radius: 10px; border-top-right-radius: 10px; border-bottom-right-radius: 10px; border-bottom-left-radius: 10px; background-color: transparent; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;"></iframe> </div> </div> <div class="container interview-related-achievers"> <hr class="m-t-3 m-b-3"/> <footer class="clearfix small-blocks text-xs-center"> <h3 class="m-b-3 serif-3">If you are inspired by this achiever’s story, you might also enjoy:</h3> <div class="centered-blocks"> <div class="isotope-achiever business build-or-create-things curious resourceful start-a-business " data-year-inducted="2001" data-achiever-name="Bezos"> <div class="achiever-block view-grid"> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/jeffrey-p-bezos/"> <figure class="ratio-container ratio-container--square bg-black"> <div class="lazyload box achiever-block__image" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/bezos-new-profile-square-190x190.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/05/bezos-new-profile-square-380x380.jpg"></div> <div class="achiever-block__overlay"></div> <figcaption class="text-xs-center achiever-block__text"> <div class="display--table"> <div class="display--table-cell"> <div class="achiever-block__text--center"> <div class="achiever-block__name text-brand-primary">Jeffrey P. 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class="achiever-list-name">Dame Julie Andrews</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/maya-angelou/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Maya Angelou</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/frances-h-arnold-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Frances H. Arnold, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/robert-d-ballard-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Robert D. Ballard, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/sir-roger-bannister-2/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sir Roger Bannister</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/john-banville/"><span class="achiever-list-name">John Banville</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/ehud-barak/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ehud Barak</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/lee-r-berger-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Lee R. Berger, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/sir-timothy-berners-lee/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sir Tim Berners-Lee</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/yogi-berra/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Yogi Berra</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/jeffrey-p-bezos/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Jeffrey P. Bezos</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/benazir-bhutto/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Benazir Bhutto</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/simone-biles/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Simone Biles</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/keith-l-black/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Keith L. Black, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/elizabeth-blackburn/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Elizabeth Blackburn, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/david-boies-2/"><span class="achiever-list-name">David Boies</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/norman-e-borlaug/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Norman E. Borlaug, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/benjamin-c-bradlee/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Benjamin C. Bradlee</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/sergey-brin/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sergey Brin</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/carter-j-brown/"><span class="achiever-list-name">J. Carter Brown</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/linda-buck/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Linda B. Buck, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/carol-burnett/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Carol Burnett</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/george-h-w-bush/"><span class="achiever-list-name">George H. W. Bush</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/susan-butcher/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Susan Butcher</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/sir-michael-caine/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sir Michael Caine</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/james-cameron/"><span class="achiever-list-name">James Cameron</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/benjamin-s-carson/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Benjamin S. Carson, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/jimmy-carter/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Jimmy Carter</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/johnny-cash/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Johnny Cash</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/william-j-clinton/"><span class="achiever-list-name">William J. Clinton</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/francis-s-collins/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Francis S. Collins, M.D., Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/denton-a-cooley/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Denton A. Cooley, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/francis-ford-coppola/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Francis Ford Coppola</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/ray-dalio/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ray Dalio</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/olivia-de-havilland/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Dame Olivia de Havilland</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/michael-e-debakey-m-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Michael E. DeBakey, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/michael-dell/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Michael S. Dell</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/ron-dennis/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ron Dennis</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/joan-didion/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Joan Didion</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/david-herbert-donald-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">David Herbert Donald, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/david-doubilet/"><span class="achiever-list-name">David Doubilet</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/jennifer-a-doudna-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Jennifer A. Doudna, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/rita-dove/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Rita Dove</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/sylvia-earle/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sylvia Earle, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/elbaradei/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Mohamed ElBaradei</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/gertrude-elion/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Gertrude B. Elion, M.Sc.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/larry-j-ellison/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Larry J. Ellison</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/nora-ephron/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Nora Ephron</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/julius-erving/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Julius Erving</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/tony-fadell/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Tony Fadell</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/paul-farmer/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Paul Farmer, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/suzanne-farrell/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Suzanne Farrell</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/anthony-s-fauci-m-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Anthony S. Fauci, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/sally-field/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sally Field</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/lord-norman-foster/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Lord Norman Foster</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/aretha-franklin/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Aretha Franklin</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/milton-friedman-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Milton Friedman, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/carlos-fuentes/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Carlos Fuentes</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/athol-fugard/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Athol Fugard</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/peter-gabriel/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Peter Gabriel</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/ernest-j-gaines/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ernest J. Gaines</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/william-h-gates-iii/"><span class="achiever-list-name">William H. Gates III</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/leymah-gbowee/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Leymah Gbowee</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/frank-gehry/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Frank O. Gehry</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/murray-gell-mann-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Murray Gell-Mann, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/vince-gill/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Vince Gill</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/ruth-bader-ginsburg/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ruth Bader Ginsburg</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/louise-gluck/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Louise Glück</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/whoopi-goldberg/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Whoopi Goldberg</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/jane-goodall/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Dame Jane Goodall</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/doris-kearns-goodwin/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Doris Kearns Goodwin, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/mikhail-s-gorbachev/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Mikhail S. Gorbachev</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/nadine-gordimer/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Nadine Gordimer</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/stephen-jay-gould/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Stephen Jay Gould, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/carol-greider-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Carol W. Greider, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/john-grisham/"><span class="achiever-list-name">John Grisham</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/sir-john-gurdon/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sir John Gurdon</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/dorothy-hamill/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Dorothy Hamill</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/demis-hassabis-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Demis Hassabis, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/lauryn-hill/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Lauryn Hill</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/sir-edmund-hillary/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sir Edmund Hillary</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/reid-hoffman/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Reid Hoffman</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/khaled-hosseini/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Khaled Hosseini, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/ron-howard/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ron Howard</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/john-hume/"><span class="achiever-list-name">John Hume</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/louis-ignarro-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Louis Ignarro, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/daniel-inouye/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Daniel K. Inouye</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/jeremy-irons/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Jeremy Irons</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/john-irving/"><span class="achiever-list-name">John Irving</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/kazuo-ishiguro/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sir Kazuo Ishiguro</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/sir-peter-jackson/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sir Peter Jackson</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/donald-c-johanson/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Donald C. Johanson, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/frank-m-johnson/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Frank M. Johnson, Jr.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/philip-johnson/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Philip C. Johnson</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/chuck-jones/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Chuck Jones</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/james-earl-jones/"><span class="achiever-list-name">James Earl Jones</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/quincy-jones/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Quincy Jones</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/beverly-joubert/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Beverly Joubert</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/dereck-joubert/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Dereck Joubert</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/paul-kagame/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Paul Kagame</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/thomas-keller-2/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Thomas Keller</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/anthony-m-kennedy/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Anthony M. Kennedy</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/carole-king/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Carole King</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/b-b-king/"><span class="achiever-list-name">B.B. King</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/coretta-scott-king/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Coretta Scott King</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/henry-kissinger-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Henry A. Kissinger, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/willem-j-kolff/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Willem J. Kolff, M.D., Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/wendy-kopp/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Wendy Kopp</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/henry-r-kravis/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Henry R. Kravis</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/nicholas-d-kristof/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Nicholas D. Kristof</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/mike-krzyzewski/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Mike Krzyzewski</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/ray-kurzwell/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ray Kurzweil</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/eric-lander-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Eric S. Lander, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/robert-s-langer-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Robert S. Langer, Sc.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/richard-leakey/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Richard E. Leakey</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/leon-lederman-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Leon Lederman, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/robert-lefkowitz-m-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Robert J. Lefkowitz, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/congressman-john-r-lewis/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Congressman John R. Lewis</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/maya-lin/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Maya Lin</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/george-lucas/"><span class="achiever-list-name">George Lucas</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/paul-b-maccready-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Paul B. MacCready, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/norman-mailer/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Norman Mailer</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/peyton-manning/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Peyton Manning</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/wynton-marsalis/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Wynton Marsalis</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/john-c-mather-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">John C. Mather, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/johnny-mathis/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Johnny Mathis</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/ernst-mayr-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ernst Mayr, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/willie-mays/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Willie Mays</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/frank-mccourt/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Frank McCourt</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/david-mccullough/"><span class="achiever-list-name">David McCullough</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/audra-mcdonald/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Audra McDonald</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/admiral-william-h-mcraven/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Admiral William H. McRaven, USN</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/w-s-merwin/"><span class="achiever-list-name">W. S. Merwin</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/reinhold-messner/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Reinhold Messner</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/james-a-michener/"><span class="achiever-list-name">James A. Michener</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/marvin-minsky-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Marvin Minsky, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/mario-j-molina-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Mario J. Molina, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/n-scott-momaday-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">N. Scott Momaday, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/story-musgrave/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Story Musgrave, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/ralph-nader/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ralph Nader</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/peggy-noonan/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Peggy Noonan</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/jessye-norman/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Jessye Norman</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/tommy-norris/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Lt. Thomas R. Norris, USN</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/lynn-nottage/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Lynn Nottage</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/joyce-carol-oates/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Joyce Carol Oates</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/pierre-omidyar/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Pierre Omidyar</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/jimmy-page/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Jimmy Page</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/larry-page/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Larry Page</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/arnold-palmer/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Arnold Palmer</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/leon-panetta/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Leon Panetta</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/rosa-parks/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Rosa Parks</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/suzan-lori-parks/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Suzan-Lori Parks</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/linus-pauling/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Linus C. Pauling, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/shimon-peres/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Shimon Peres</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/itzhak-perlman/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Itzhak Perlman</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/general-david-petraeus/"><span class="achiever-list-name">General David H. Petraeus, USA</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/sidney-poitier/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sidney Poitier</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/general-colin-l-powell/"><span class="achiever-list-name">General Colin L. Powell, USA</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/harold-prince/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Harold Prince</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/venki-ramakrishnan-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Venki Ramakrishnan, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/lord-martin-rees/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Lord Martin Rees</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/lloyd-richards/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Lloyd Richards</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/sally-ride-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sally K. Ride, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/cal-ripken-jr/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Cal Ripken Jr.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/sonny-rollins/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sonny Rollins</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/anthony-romero/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Anthony D. Romero</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/james-rosenquist/"><span class="achiever-list-name">James Rosenquist</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/martine-rothblatt-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Martine Rothblatt, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/pete-rozelle/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Pete Rozelle</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/bill-russell/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Bill Russell</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/albie-sachs/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Albie Sachs</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/oliver-sacks-m-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Oliver Sacks, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/jonas-salk-m-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Jonas Salk, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/frederick-sanger-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Frederick Sanger, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/george-b-schaller-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">George B. Schaller, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/barry-scheck/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Barry Scheck</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/richard-evans-schultes-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Richard Evans Schultes, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/general-h-norman-schwarzkopf/"><span class="achiever-list-name">General H. Norman Schwarzkopf, USA</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/stephen-schwarzman/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Stephen A. Schwarzman</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/glenn-t-seaborg-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Glenn T. Seaborg, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/neil-sheehan/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Neil Sheehan</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/admiral-alan-shepard-jr/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Admiral Alan B. Shepard, Jr., USN</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/ellen-johnson-sirleaf/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ellen Johnson Sirleaf</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/carlos-slim/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Carlos Slim Helú</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/frederick-w-smith/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Frederick W. Smith</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/stephen-sondheim/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Stephen Sondheim</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/sonia-sotomayor/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sonia Sotomayor</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/wole-soyinka/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Wole Soyinka</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/esperanza-spalding/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Esperanza Spalding</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/martha-stewart/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Martha Stewart</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/admiral-james-b-stockdale/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Admiral James B. Stockdale, USN</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/hilary-swank/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Hilary Swank</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/amy-tan/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Amy Tan</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/dame-kiri-te-kanawa/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Dame Kiri Te Kanawa</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/edward-teller-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Edward Teller, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/twyla-tharp/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Twyla Tharp</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/wayne-thiebaud/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Wayne Thiebaud</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/lt-michael-e-thornton-usn/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Lt. Michael E. Thornton, USN</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/clyde-tombaugh/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Clyde Tombaugh</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/charles-h-townes-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Charles H. Townes, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/david-trimble/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Lord David Trimble</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/ted-turner/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Robert Edward (Ted) Turner</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/desmond-tutu/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Archbishop Desmond Tutu</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/john-updike/"><span class="achiever-list-name">John Updike</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/gore-vidal/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Gore Vidal</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/antonio-villaraigosa/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Antonio Villaraigosa</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/lech-walesa/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Lech Walesa</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/herschel-walker/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Herschel Walker</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/alice-waters/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Alice Waters</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/james-d-watson/"><span class="achiever-list-name">James D. Watson, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/andrew-weil-m-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Andrew Weil, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/leslie-h-wexner/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Leslie H. Wexner</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/elie-wiesel/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Elie Wiesel</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/edward-o-wilson-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Edward O. Wilson, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/oprah-winfrey/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Oprah Winfrey</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/tom-wolfe/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Tom Wolfe</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/john-wooden/"><span class="achiever-list-name">John Wooden</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/bob-woodward/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Bob Woodward</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/shinya-yamanaka-m-d-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Shinya Yamanaka, M.D., Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/general-chuck-yeager/"><span class="achiever-list-name">General Chuck Yeager, USAF</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051741/https://achievement.org/achiever/andrew-young/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Andrew J. 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