This is a collection of pet projects by folks who are not distinguished biologists. Interesting, maybe, but not to be placed on the same pedestal as the mathematics Millenium Prize of a similar name.

Arguably, the origin of life is a question for all time -- no way that a VC webpage is going to change whether someone takes that problem on, and it will be commercialized with big-name capitalists instead of 'FutureHouse' should it ever be developed in the lab.

This. Part of the allure of the Clay Millenium prizes is that some of the best minds in the field came up with them. Let’s hear what Eric Lander, Jennifer Doudna, Aviv Regev, Feng Zhang, David Baker, Robert Weinberg, George Church, Bert Vogelstein, etc have to say.