Billionaire Peter Thiel nonetheless plans to be frozen after dying for potential revival: ‘I don’t essentially anticipate it to work’
Billionaire tech investor Peter Thiel confirmed that he’s signed as much as be cryogenically frozen when he dies in order that he can doubtlessly be revived sooner or later – although he’s skeptical that the expertise truly works.
Thiel, who has an estimated web price of $8.13 billion in accordance with the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, spoke candidly in regards to the life-preserving potentialities of so-called “cryonics” throughout an look on journalist Bari Weiss’s podcast on Wednesday.
“Is it true that you simply’re signed as much as be cryonically preserved if you die so that you simply may be introduced again to life sooner or later?” Weiss requested.
“Sure, however I consider it extra as an ideological assertion,” Thiel mentioned.
“So it’s true?” Weiss replied.
“Positive. I don’t essentially anticipate it to work, however I feel it’s the form of factor we’re alleged to attempt to do,” Thiel responded.
Weiss then pressed Thiel on whether or not he has signed up any family members to be frozen.
“I’m not satisfied it really works,” Thiel added. “It’s extra, I feel we must be making an attempt these items. It’s not there but.”
Thiel, 55, constructed his preliminary fortune as a co-founder of PayPal. He was the primary outdoors investor in Fb and an authentic companion within the enterprise capital agency Founders Fund.
He’s additionally a outstanding Republican donor – and expressed in the identical podcast interview with Weiss that he planned to support Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis for the GOP’s 2024 presidential nomination.
Thiel’s curiosity in cryonics and different anti-aging applied sciences has been well-documented. In 2014, the tech billionaire instructed The Telegraph that he had signed as much as be preserved after dying by the biotech agency Alcor.
“In telling you that I’ve signed up for it [cryogenics], there’s all the time this response that it’s actually loopy, it’s disturbing,” Thiel instructed the outlet. “However my tackle it’s it’s solely disturbing as a result of it challenges our complacency.’
Alcor describes its cryonic work because the “apply of preserving life by pausing the dying course of utilizing subfreezing temperatures with the intent of restoring good well being with medical expertise sooner or later.”
Thiel isn’t the one outstanding tech determine spending cash on life extension expertise. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman – whose agency created the ChatGPT chatbot – recently invested $180 million in a agency Retro Biosciences that’s aiming to increase the human lifespan by 10 years, MIT Expertise Assessment reported.
One other Silicon Valley determine, software program developer Bryan Johnson, has gained notoriety for spending tens of millions of {dollars} per 12 months on an “anti-aging protocol.” Johnson, 45, claims his expensive effort has given him the body of an 18-year-old.