San Francisco Tech Tycoon Urges Silicon Valley Leaders To Invest In Futuristic Innovation
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- A San Francisco billionaire who co-founded PayPal and gave Facebook its first big investment now wants Silicon Valley to buy into a bigger idea: the future.
Peter Thiel is urging Silicon Valley leaders to change the way they think about charitable giving by funding ventures that sound like science fiction.
Thiel is backing groups that see a future when computers will communicate directly with the human brain. Seafaring pioneers will found new floating nations in the middle of the ocean. Science will conquer aging, and death will become a curable disease.
Some scientists believe fervently in these possibilities, while others dismiss them as sheer fantasy.
Thiel believes the minds and money that have conjured the technological marvels of today have the best chance of transforming these wild dreams into plausible realities.
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