Jeff Bezos is building a $42 million 10,000-year clock in a Texas mountain

Alan Martin February 21, 2018

What do you buy the man who has everything? When it comes to the world’s richest man, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, that usually rhetorical question now has one fewer answer: he’s in the process of installing a 10,000-year clock. Another thing to cross off his Amazon wish list.

Jeff Bezos is building a $42 million 10,000-year clock in a Texas mountain

This isn’t your average timepiece. For starters, it costs some $41,985,000 more than the most expensive clock you can currently buy on Amazon.

Secondly, it’s 500 feet tall.

Thirdly, it’s less concerned with the minute-to-minute measurement of hours and days, and more interested in the long-haul. Originally conceived in 1986 by computer scientist Daniel Hills, the clock ticks just once per year. It has a century hand which moves once every 100 years and a cuckoo will emerge just once per millennium.

Yeah, it’s not really that useful.

Still, Jeff Bezos clearly thinks it has a purpose. He hopes that it’ll help him think about the long-term future of humanity. Personally I’d just find it annoying knowing that – short of some incredible developments in medical science – I would never see the damned cuckoo pop out.

Right now, construction has just begun – prototypes complete, engineers are currently drilling into the mountains on Bezos’ land in the Sierra Diablo range in West Texas, where the components will eventually be housed.

There’s currently no timescale on completion of the giant clock, but hey – worst case scenario, Bezos will only miss a handful of ticks.