Rodrigo capeans
03/04/2021 7:01 AM
Clarín.com
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Updated 03/04/2021 7:01 AM
A giant clock destined to last 10,000 years.
Microchips that extend human capabilities.
Self-driving cars and plans to get to Mars.
Investing by the millions and with confidence, the richest men in the world unleash
projects that challenge the limits of possibility and science fiction
.
The power of those who have the most is no longer reflected in their art collections or designer clothing: halfway between mad scientist and emperor,
today's entrepreneurs seek to reinvent the world
in their eyes.
From Elon Musk's transhumanist projects to Bill Gates' eco-friendly ambitions, the names topping
Forbes
magazine's Biggest Fortune
list
want to make their mark beyond the companies that made them famous.
If successful, human nature itself could change.
An old age that will never come, laboratory meat and air cars.
How much is there of reality and how much of myth?
The most powerful don't just dream of electric sheep: they are willing to make them come true.
Jeff Bezos: space and time
With an estimated fortune of $ 181.5 billion under his belt, Jeff Bezos can breathe easy: He is once again the richest man in the world, according to
Forbes
.
It is a position that until weeks ago Elon Musk occupied, who is on his golden heels in the exclusive competition for the greatest fortune.
But it is not the only thing they have in common: the new space race and
a future colonization of the universe
is another trait that twins and haunts them.
While the South African tycoon is the one who has taken the biggest steps at the moment with his company SpaceX, Bezos does his thing with Blue Origin, a company he founded two years before his rival, in 2000.
Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon, assures that the engines of his company Blue Origin will take the first woman to the Moon.
In the future, the millionaire plans that tourists, scientists and professional astronauts pay for trips in capsules of his production.
And another promise, according to the times: the founder of Amazon
ensures that the engines of Blue Origin will take the first woman to the surface of the Moon
.
But it is not only the ideals of extending the human race throughout the galaxy that motivate Bezos's most futuristic projects:
the conquest of time is another of his obsessions
.
In 2017, news that he and other Silicon Valley heavyweights plan to be young forever was equally shocked and shocked.
A vertical take-off aerial car, developed by Larry Page, creator of Google.
The way?
Million-dollar investments in UnityBiotechnology, a firm that investigates
the extension of life through drugs that delay cellular aging
.
However, the company seems unable to secure its own existence before: failures in its drugs to combat osteoporosis caused its shares to collapse last year.
Time in its symbolic aspect seems to be a more affordable goal for Bezos.
Half art installation, half testament to his egotism, the richest man in the world could live for decades in another way: he has commissioned the construction on a mountain of Texas of
a giant clock destined to last 10,000 years
.
Powered by day and night thermal cycles and an all-weather mechanical structure, it will continue to function for generations, even when its creator is gone.
Elon Musk: cool science.
There are millionaires for all tastes.
Some go for a low profile and secrecy, like Zhong Shanshan, the richest man in China.
But that lifestyle never caught on with Elon Musk, the rock star of the tech world.
With a public and controversial profile, the South African entrepreneur reinvented how to be a billionaire.
Unlike the more geeky Bill Gates style, he has managed to transform science into fun and spectacle thanks to a tone that knows how to appeal to the new generations.
Each new action from Musk becomes an event and invites you to dream.
He promises that by the middle of the decade, his company SpaceX - the only private company to successfully send astronauts to the International Space Station -
will bring the first humans to Mars
.
Although, if their wildest wishes come true, perhaps when we conquer space we will no longer be people: the post-human era is coming.
Elon Musk presents Neuralink, his brain chip project.
Through his Neuralink project, the businessman aspires to
develop cranial implants with artificial intelligence
capable of fixing "what goes wrong in the brain."
Still in the experimental phase, the results would be surprising.
From controlling digital devices with the mind to a new type of communication that would not require the use of the mouth, Musk's dreams would bring us closer to what has been called transhumanism: the belief that
technologies will lead to a radical transformation beyond the human condition
.
Yet everything seems further away than Elon's boundless optimism invites us to believe, and the ethical implications of merging the human with the cyborg deserve a proper debate.
For now, it has concrete success as a promoter of cryptocurrencies - it was enough for him to add "Bitcoin" in his Twitter biography for the value of the currency to skyrocket by $ 5,000 - and transport on Earth.
Tesla, his electric vehicle company, is the undisputed market leader and the main responsible for the popularization of the technology.
Mars may have to wait, but our planet has already begun to feel the Musk effect.
Billionaire entrepreneurs seek, through their companies, to reinvent the world according to their views.
Bill Gates: Save the planet!
From 1995 to 2017, few could compete with Bill Gates: In each of those years except four, he was named the richest man in the world by
Forbes
.
Today, his fortune makes him fluctuate between third and fourth place - disputed with the fashion mogul Bernard Arnault - but, a million more, a million less, his power and cultural impact remain intact.
Further away from Microsoft, where he occupies the role of technology advisor to the current CEO (Satya Nadella), recent times have seen a deepening of his facet as a philanthropist of omnivorous curiosity.
Between predictions of what the post-pandemic world will be like and the operations of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation - the largest private charity in the world - he has known how to become a
guru on what direction humanity should take
.
Gates goal: replace beef with synthetic.
In his new book, entitled
How to Avoid a Climate Disaster
, the computer mogul gives us clues to the changes he sees necessary to curb the greenhouse effect.
The latest proposal to ignite debates?
Replace beef with synthetic meat
, in order to reduce the emission of methane gas produced by livestock.
Unlike Musk and in tune with Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Microsoft considers that, before dreaming of space, our planet must be the priority.
In this sense, it has financed
sustainable and alternative energy
start-ups
with millions of dollars
through Breakthrough Energy, an initiative that it has carried out since 2015.
Among the projects in which it has invested is "nuclear recycling", which involves
the use of reactors not based on enriched uranium but on the waste of current power plants
.
Bill Gates prioritizes improving the planet over the space race.
Discerning what is true in their plays is more complex than in the case of other billionaires.
Bill has long been the target of conspiracy theories and exaggerated headlines.
The most recent indicated a project to cover the sun, closer to the role of a movie supervillain than what actually happens.
In truth, Gates has invested in a Harvard University initiative that simulates computer models to handle solar radiation, with no real practice in sight.
Serge Brin and his application interface glasses.
Larry Page and Sergei Brin: ambitious duo
If, in the last decade, Google has ceased to be just a search engine to become a foot in the entire digital ecosystem, it has been due to the concerns of Larry Page and Sergei Brin.
The co-founders of the multinational - and the eighth and ninth richest man in the world respectively - demonstrate an active interest in various areas, in which they invest regularly.
Some of these projects are done under the umbrella of the company, but others respond to their most personal passions.
Along similar lines to Elon Musk - Larry even invested his good millions in Tesla - Page and Brin prove to have their minds set on the transportation of the future.
Since 2007, and steadily, Google has invested generously in the incentive for electric cars and batteries.
The most recent development has been the debut last year of the Polestar 2 (Volvo),
the first car with a "brain" exclusively native to Android
.
From radio to heating, all operational control goes through the Google assistant.
Larry Page works together with Sergei Brin on the transport of the future.
Page has gone one step further in another area of transportation: air.
It is one of the main investors in Opener Inc., a pioneer in vehicles of this type for personal use.
The fruit of that capital would seem literally to be taking flight: after nine years of development, the Black Fly, the
first ultralight vertical flight aircraft for one person
, would be ready for mass production.
Add to that the advances that both he and Brin hope to see in
smart glasses
- with a camera and an interface for applications included - and the next generation of Bond films already have their gadgets secured.
Another of the most innovative investments of the millionaire duo is the one they have allocated in an area they know very well:
the jobs of the future
.
Both are among the main backers of Singularity University, an
incubator for business and alternative education
that seeks to achieve a “positive impact on a planetary scale” through scientific, technological and economic innovation.
The next leaders might as well come out of this novel school, or so Page and Brin seem to believe.
Look also
Jeff Bezos vs.
Elon Musk: the two richest men and a cold rocket war for the conquest of space
Bill Gates believes that bitcoin is for the rich: "If you have less money than Elon Musk, you should be careful"
