Jeff Bezos Builds Clock for Centuries to Come

As the saying goes “time and tide, wait for none”, but Jeff Bozes is building a clock that is going to wait and stay for centuries, though the time will pass by. The Founder and CEO of Amazon, Jeff Bezos has made the announcement of this 500 ft. tall clock on his Twitter page.

The clock is built with the investment of 42 million dollars, by 48-year-old, Jeff Bezos, whose net worth is estimated at $20 billion. He has named the clock as “The 10,000 Year Clock”. The idea behind the mechanical clock is that once complete, it will run for 10,000 years. He hopes that the clock could even outlast humans in the US.

The clock is powered by day and night thermal cycles. It will be synchronized at solar noon and the goal behind its creation is to promote long-term thinking. The interesting aspect of this clock is that it has a ‘century hand’ that moves once in every 100 years. The clock is built with durable materials and is powered by a heavy weight hanging on a gear.

It is like a grandfather clock on a grander scale, Bezos said. When the installation is finished, it will play an elaborate cuckoo like sequence for the anniversary of every year, decade, century, millennium and 10 millennia. People who will visit the clock will also be treated to a daily chime sequence that has been choreographed by musician Brian Eno, who serves on the project's board.

Jeff Bezos describes the desire for having this clock, “is a symbol of long-term thinking and the idea of long-term responsibility, we humans have become so technologically sophisticated that in certain ways we are dangerous to ourselves. It is going to be increasingly important over time for humanity to take a longer-term view of its future”.

Though Bezos has put in huge amounts of funding for the clock, Danny Hillis, founder of The Long Now foundation, first envisioned it in the year 1995. Danny Hills, who is also the founder of Thinking Machine Corporation is the creative person behind the development and deployment of the gigantic clock. The last few years have been spent matching parts and drilling into the mountain and now the installation have begun.

Bezos once said about the clock, “Over the lifetime of this clock, the United States won’t exist. Whole civilizations will rise and fall. New systems of government will be invented. You can’t imagine the world no one can that we are trying to get this clock to pass through.”

Some of history's greatest innovators have been among its most idiosyncratic, and Bezos is no doubt one of them. He is the latest businessman to use his fortune to fund ambitious and what some might consider far-fetched plans.

Howard Hughes, after making his name making movies in the 1920s and 1930s, devoted himself to developing and personally testing the world's fastest planes. Virgin Group founder Richard Branson has attempted to set speed records on sea and in air. Oracle Corp. founder Larry Ellison has competed for the America's Cup sailing team he backs himself.

Jeff Bezos has changed the way we shop, with Amazon.com Inc. He transformed how many of us read with his Kindle e-reader. He has a few other potentially life-changing ideas, too. In a patent application made public in August 2011, for example, Mr. Bezos is listed as one of two inventors of a "system and method for protecting devices from impact damage. “In other words: an air bag for cellphones.

David Risher, a former Amazon executive, said his former boss “thinks in decades and centuries, unlike most of us, he is hard-wired for the very long term.”

Jeff Bezos's biggest ambitions are astronomical. Last year, he hired undersea experts to scan the ocean floor to find the massive engines that propelled the Apollo 11's space capsule from Earth to outer space. In March, he wrote on his website that the team had been successful.

At least one of Bezos's shoot-for-the-stars projects has fallen short. Bezos has already gained fame with his Blue Origin space-travel project. Blue Origin, is working on a vehicle that would transport astronauts to the international space station. But he is quietly putting time and money into some other less-public side projects that have little or nothing to do with online shopping.

Not all of Bezos's interests outside Amazon have to do with technology. Four years ago, he invested in a company called Glassy baby that blows handmade glass cups to hold votive candles.

Glassy baby’s owner, Lee Rhodes, said “Mr. Bezos's assistant unexpectedly called her one-day to request a meeting. She said he showed up at her Seattle-area store and gushed about how much he loved her brand”.

At a subsequent meeting, Bezos gave some advice. “He really wants us to go big" Ms. Rhodes said. “We were trying to figure out where to open another shop, and he said, 'Go to Africa. Use the sand on the beach. Employ people.”

Now that the installation of the clock has finally begun and visitors will be able to view the finished timepiece sooner or later. The site, where the clock is built is now a difficult place to reach. But, if the clock runs for as long as it claims, one have plenty of time to plan your trip.