THE TECH FINANCIER AND INTELLECTUAL PROVOCATEUR HAS SOME IDEAS THAT MAY TURN YOU OFF BUT THERE'S NO ARGUING WITH HIS COMMERCIAL ACHIEVEMENTS. THAT'S WHY SILICON VALLEY HANGS ON HIS WORDS. "IT'S PRETTY AMAZING to hold leather that no pig or cow died for," says Lindy Fishburne, an officer of the Thiel Foundation. She is describing a slightly creepy "biofabricated" product made by a startup the foundation funded with a $350,000 donation. The company, named Modern Meadow, makes leather and, indeed, meat by taking skin or muscle samples from animals via biopsy and then growing them in vitro.
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