Billionaire tech investor Peter Thiel has confirmed that he intends to undergo cryogenic freezing when he dies, with the hope of being revived in the future.
He confirmed the move in response to a question in a podcast, where he also stated that he doesn’t expect it to work.
“Is it true that you’re signed up to be cryonically preserved when you die so that you might be brought back to life in the future?” Weiss asked.
“Yes, but I think of it more as an ideological statement,” Thiel said.
“So it’s true?” Weiss replied.
“Sure. I don’t necessarily expect it to work, but I think it’s the sort of thing we’re supposed to try to do,” Thiel responded.
Weiss then pressed Thiel on whether he has signed up any loved ones to be frozen.
“I’m not convinced it works,” Thiel added. “It’s more, I think we need to be trying these things. It’s not there yet.”
According to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, 55-year-old Thiel has an estimated net worth of $8.13 billion. He built his initial fortune as a co-founder of PayPal. He was the first outside investor in Facebook.