The Alcor Podcast

Making Alcor Europe a Reality

• Episode 2

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In this episode of The Alcor Podcast, I sit down with Alcor's new International Development Coordinator, Jeremy Wiggins, and Alcor CEO, James Arrowood, to discuss the recently announced Alcor Europe. 


Episode Highlights:

  • Why Alcor is expanding into Europe
  • Lessons from Alcor Canada’s success
  • Demand from European members
  • Benefits of dual locations
  • Recruitment and training challenges
  • Why Sweden is the top choice
  • Financial needs and funding goals
  • Timeline tied to fundraising speed
  • How to support making Alcor Europe a reality

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SPEAKER_00:

Okay, welcome to the second episode of the official Alcor podcast. If you hadn't had a chance to check out the first, I would do that. It was very interesting with our first episode and we went over a bunch of the big changes at Alcor. But today we will be going mostly over Alcor Europe. Just quickly, my name is Daniel Walters. I am the Community Outreach Coordinator at Alcor. So today we are joined by Jeremy Wiggins, Alcor's International Development Coordinator, and again, by Alcor's CEO, James Arrowood. And we're going to get in-depth talking about Alcor Europe and the expansion there. So I recently went to Sweden to announce Alcor's expansion into Europe. So for some background, Sweden is one of the countries Alcor is looking at for their European facility. So let's just start from there. So given recent developments, what makes this the right time to expand into Europe?

SPEAKER_01:

Well, to do any of this correctly, you have to have a critical mass of interest and a critical mass of interested potential membership, right? Because you have to fund these things. And, you know, funding comes from dues. It comes from donors. And we've had a great amount of interest, and we know with entities opening in Europe, they've had a great amount of interest. But you need a core group of 300 to 500 people that you can feel comfortable are going to sign up as potential members, right? So that's what's necessary to fund it. Now, 10 years ago, Alcor didn't have indications or didn't have interest to that extent, or we couldn't tell if we did. And we also know that there's a ton of interest in having a closer geographical location, right? Because people want their families to be able to come and visit where they're at and those sorts of things. So in addition to the logistics component, which where time is of the essence, having a facility there would be good, we didn't necessarily have a critical mass of membership there. 10 years ago at Alcor in Europe. So over those 10 years and with recent developments, there's clearly... interest from, you know, my estimation is 300 to 500 people in Europe, whether it's Germany or the Nordic countries we know in England. And so those kind of components have to be in place as an exploratory kind of mission, meaning we need to see those indicators to then say, okay, let's put some resources into traveling to Europe. Now, mind you, going there, even if this didn't work out, meaning if we ultimately decide we don't have the support that we need to open soon or in the near term. There's tremendous benefit and value to Alcor generally and to cryonics because on our trips, for instance, when I've gone over there, I'm doing media with the BBC. I'm doing media with the National Swedish Radio. I'm doing the primary German newspapers. And of course, what this stands to do is it stands to create a foundation and plant seeds so that if it's not ready today in three years, five years, The interest level should be high enough to where Alcor, taking its leading position in cryonics, ought to have the resources then to open up in Europe. And I think that's a benefit to all of our membership. Just like we opened Alcor Canada in the last year, we've already had a tremendous response in Canada. And Jeremy's intimately familiar with that, being on the board there. We're going to try and do the same thing in Europe. And, you know, eventually we'd even look at Asia. I mean, there is a ton of interest there. But as a nonprofit, we really have to have the sponsors. We have to have the donors step up. And that happened in Canada. We had some donors that stepped up and really donated money so that it wasn't being taken from the dues of the U.S. members, for instance. The travel is mutually beneficial. So yeah, some of that cost gets covered there. But frankly, a lot of it gets covered by people who are in those places. So that's what we hope to do in Europe. And we're hoping somebody steps forward. And we need about$3 to$5 million to really build out a headquarters in Europe. and to hire the staff that we need to maintain it. So that's what we're looking for and I'm real hopeful we get that.

SPEAKER_00:

And for that three to$5 million, what kind of timeframe are you thinking about in terms of how soon this could get set up?

SPEAKER_01:

Well, because we've done a lot of foundational work in advance and we've identified a facility partner, We've identified the costs associated with the build-out, for instance. You can't just move in, right? You have a bunch of liquid nitrogen. You have to put in some advanced systems, which are frankly where a lot of the cost goes to in terms of the ventilation and safety. But we've already identified that, and we already have some plans for that. And so with the resources, we could start within three months. We could start building within three months, meaning the facilities are there, but they have to be finished. They have to be completed, tenant improvement kind of stuff. That would probably take six months to actually get the kind of ventilation systems in place and get the contractors in place. We've identified some possible contractors. Of course, you have to do some entity formation work in the parent countries. So if it is in Sweden, you know we need to examine kind of what legal structure we would want to have in sweden there's a couple of options there we've already explored that but then we need to actually file paperwork we know in canada for instance it took nine months to a year just to get the paperwork filed now sweden's a little different it's actually possibly easier than canada strangely enough perhaps but uh so so in total it would probably be about a year So three months to get our team over there, you know, get some contracts lined up. Six months to really do paperwork, do TIs, that sort of thing. And I think we could probably open doors in about a year if we had the money to do it. And of course, you have to hire staff. So it's aggressive, but we move quickly. If anybody's seen anything under my leadership the last two years, it's that, you know, complex programs like DART, which was not easy in the training and everything else, that got set up within months. And so with the team we've assembled, I mean, Daniel, you, Jeremy, I mean, all of you folks, I mean, we can move quickly if we just need resources. It really is one of those things. We just need resources.

SPEAKER_00:

Jeremy, I know you're on the Canada board and you're very familiar with the operations there. What's happened at Alcor Canada that provides useful comparison, insights that can be drawn with Alcor Europe?

SPEAKER_02:

Well, we formed a legal entity in Canada. So right now, the way it's set up, donors can make contributions as far as donations, and they will get a tax receipt that they will be able to use on their income tax at the end of the year. And they will get some of that money back that they invest. So they're able to actually get... almost a rebate on the amount of donations that they do. And that is the one thing that facilitates donors. But for us, what we're trying to do at Alcor Canada is actually use that money and put it into research. So that is the focus of Alcor Canada. As a footprint, we're here to be able to invest in research. So some of the money that we'll be receiving, we'll be going for... Wan Jin and his research that he's doing with Nick. But being in Canada, it permits us to have our own DART team. And so in our office, we occupy space that we use to store equipment, to store M22. And we have also a team. So the Canadian DART team is ready for all the Canadian people members when it's time to be at their standby in case they pass away. So this is kind of like the parallel that we would love to have in Europe. We would love to have teams set up in Europe where they have equipment, like they have the portable ice bath, they have all the surgical equipment, they have the neuroshipper, they have everything that we need, plus M22 located in Europe, plus people who are trained to be able to use that equipment. And it would be faster to deploy to be able to get to European members. So everything that we've reproduced in Canada, we would like to reproduce it in Europe and make it like a very tangible, very functional and quick acting team that would be responding to calls throughout Europe.

SPEAKER_00:

Okay. Well, so speaking of the Dart team and this kind of ability to replicate this elsewhere, I'd like to hear from both you and James on this. What exactly is it about the Dart team model that allows it to be scalable internationally?

SPEAKER_01:

Well, let me just address that real quick because I want to be a little cautious. We want to give... members and interested parties a lot of information. But of course, we do have a little bit of secret sauce involved. I will say with regards to DART, the main accomplishment of DART for folks who didn't know was the model we had used previously was extraordinarily expensive. And it really resulted in case costs that were somewhat unpredictable and very expensive in certain instances. So DART was developed to to try and provide a higher quality of service just by virtue of the number of potential DART people that could be involved anywhere in the country and quickly, but also to keep costs down. So it is strange for people to hear that you're doing something better at a lower cost, right? And they kind of think about that and go, well, how are you doing that? Providers in DART, so the special forces, the medical people and everything else, they're highly incentivized once a case is called. So, you know, their standby to be on the team is fairly de minimis and was equivalent to what we were paying or actually less than what we were paying for some of the labor in the past. And that's just kind of to have them on call. And so it's an on call model when they get called. their compensation increases significantly. But remember, that compensation at that point comes out of the member and then patient's life insurance as part of the planned expense from the life insurance. So what that has the effect of doing is it lowers the operating budget cost. Now, when we established DART, there was There's cost involved in the training and establishing the program. But over time, that gets amortized and ends up actually costing us less money over time. And then, of course, the quality of service. DART has actually set world records by a significant amount in terms of S-Mix times since its creation, meaning the time to temperature and the visual quality. of the body relative to time to temperature. So the results have been excellent. The costs come down with time and they are coming down with time. And then it provides us with a lot of flexibility, meaning instead of having two people that are both in, say, California, for instance, and they're the ones that have to deploy anywhere in the U.S., We can actually afford to have multiple people for the same cost, but geographically located in New York or Florida or Texas or California or for Jeremy in Canada. And so it really has to do with the model structure, but exactly what that structure is in terms of the details, we'll just hold that one close to our best.

SPEAKER_00:

And just for reference, Jeremy, you are on the DART team. So could you quickly let people know Just know a little bit about your experience with the DART team, particularly in Canada.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, so to start off, I was hired with three other healthcare clinicians and Initially, it was just part of one of the donors who wanted his team for himself. And that was during the pandemic when the borders shut down. And we received training initially in-house, but also at Alcor. And we receive cadaver training through Dr. Wovos, who's a surgeon at Alcor. And afterwards, we were permitted to go on cases. And we went on cases in the US. And then we had our first case in Canada and in Toronto. And then afterwards, we kept on having regular training with cadaver training. And we kept on going on cases. So I think between the cadaver training and the actual cases, I've been on maybe 10 deployments. been through like San Francisco, Indianapolis. We've been in, of course, Arizona. And then the DART team has been on a few cases too. We actually have a contractual obligation with them and they, the Canadian DART team, we want them to go on cases. We want to be deployed. So they get experience and they get knowledge and competency with our cryonics protocols.

SPEAKER_00:

Moving to general operational challenges that could be foreseen for Europe. First, I know, James, you have some pretty strong connections in Europe, and I believe you lived there for a while. Could you tell us a little bit about your experience with Europe and your background and how it's relevant to Alcor Europe?

SPEAKER_01:

Sure. For folks who don't know, I studied international law. in Europe and actually lived there, lived in London in particular for a year when I was in law school. And then I was also connected to a family in Europe for a number of years. that I spent considerable time with and ended up traveling and doing those things in Europe. And so I had a great affinity, but more importantly, perhaps for Alcor's purposes, is I worked, I was the first American law student, I guess, to work in the House of Lords, which is their Senate slash Supreme Court in the UK. And of course, with that relationship, I maintained connections to a number of British politicians, as it were, are lords. So it's kind of always funny to say the Lord, have a meeting with the Lord. But in any event, so yes, I've maintained those connections. And then even on my most recent trip out there, I was able to go to Parliament and actually talk in Parliament to some of the lords and what have you. And the reason that's relevant is Alcor, I think for a number of years, was presented as this kind of weird science and wacky fringe thing in terms of cryonics and what it is. But having my own kind of prior history and credibility, with folks, they knew I was an emerging tech person all the way back 25 plus years ago. And so when I'm coming back now, 20 plus years later, and they've kind of followed my history with the big law firms and stuff, there's a credibility where I can sit down with them and they're not looking at it like, oh gosh, this is some weird organization. They're looking at it like, oh, James is here and he's doing something interesting and cool. He's always into something and let's hear what he's up to now. And so what I'm trying to do is I'm trying to demystify and take some of the strangeness in terms of what we're trying to do and change that messaging. And I think that's really important in Europe. Now, Europe culturally is very different and Canada is very different, I think in some ways than the United States. So our US members who don't realize this, those countries tend to have more of what I would call a secular culture. Meaning there are certain cultural and philosophical issues that we encounter in the US that if if you don't have those there's less of a barrier to acceptance so in europe in certain countries i mean certain countries you have the opposite effect in france it's illegal to to do any chronic services okay uh and france has its own culture but then in in the nordic countries, if you present it as a medical kind of option and give them some real factual, credible research behind it, they're much more willing to listen. They'll take the time. But when you present it as this kind of fantastical live forever thing, they don't want to hear it. So my background in Europe was able to get us into things like the BBC and Again, which we did, it's done. And that's obviously a major credible news organization. And those types of relationships have broken through some of the stereotypes I think that cryonics had. And look, it's a slow process. It's going to take years. You have to plant seeds with what I call thought leaders. So you have to engage with thought leaders. And because of my background, I think I'm able to, in fact, I had a pass to Westminster Palace at one point. I could come and go from the palace regularly, and I did as part of what I was doing there. And so, for instance, some of our DART team, they have very deep ties in Europe. They actually help with the training of some of the special forces in Europe. And so, in fact, some of the leaders of that are British. This allows us to have an immediate credibility kind of sidestep, whereas Alcor never had that in the past. That's the value of what we're doing. And then, of course, Jeremy being Canadian, that helps us quite a bit too. They don't just want the crazy Americans coming over. They want people they know and trust, and they want people that have similar cultural kind of ideas as they have. And so that's where the success has come in. That's why we can move so quickly in Europe too, because it's more about picking up the phone and talking to people who already know you than trying to establish from scratch that, hey, we're not kooky. We're actually legitimate science, and we're trying to do good things that can help your people too. And so it's all a question of kind of credibility and presentment.

SPEAKER_00:

For the European DART team members, are there similar special forces that you're looking to find there? And how do you go about doing that?

SPEAKER_01:

We already have that network established and they are special forces. So what would be called, you know, in Europe, Special Boat Service, SBS, or Special Air Service in England. In Germany, it's called, I believe, GSK. In Canada, you have Joint Task Force. But they're all equivalencies to essentially Navy SEALs or Green Berets. Now, in those countries, they have a little bit separate training modules so that you need to find people with a specific medical designation, for instance, a medic. But we already have that. That's the good news. That's why we can set up so quickly is that's just a phone call away for me. And the medical people, we know that folks in Cryonics UK, for instance, are out there already. They've been very helpful. So there's established long-time cryonicists out there that can help run the teams. We have the medical and special forces pros that are already there. In fact, some of the team that we have in Canada goes back and forth to Europe. What we'd like to do is have a permanent presence, meaning one that's not moving around so much. And even Chronix UK is just a couple of people. So I'd like to have, and we have a logistics model for this too. Folks that are members, the good news is you shouldn't have to think too much about this stuff, right? Because if Alcor administration is doing its job, you just can kind of relax hopefully and not worry about it. But part of what we do on the daily is we're literally looking at logistics and flight times and partnering with airlines. And I mean, we have these meetings where we're talking to logistics operators about, hey, how do we get from Frankfurt, Germany to Stockholm, Sweden quickly, right? How do we move a body from London to Stockholm if we're going to be out of the Stockholm area? And so we are conducting all of those meetings and doing all that groundwork right now. And DART, of course, is an integral part of that. But we could have DART Europe set up, meaning active, probably within two months in a variety of countries using special forces and medical people in Europe. And people are surprised by that. But again, that has to do with relationships that are decades old.

SPEAKER_00:

Even with the training? I mean, how would the training go? I mean, would they be trained in Europe, in Scottsdale? Like, how would you get the training in such a short time?

SPEAKER_01:

So the training can be conducted at our headquarters, or we actually, because of some of our relationships in England, we can have folks come out to London where there's space and we can do training. We can set up a robust training program using existing Dart materials within about a month.

SPEAKER_00:

I think most people wouldn't assume it can happen that fast.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, that's just it. The work was fronted. We front-loaded the work, meaning we created the modules, What people didn't see, perhaps, is that when I first started at Alcorp, my first six months were, I mean, heavy hours, huge amount of time with our team establishing the DART protocols and training modules so that moving forward, they could be popped in place and altered as needed very quickly. So we're not reinventing the wheel here. We're taking existing stuff. And we're just really transferring it to a location in London, for instance. And we already have highly trained people. Jeremy's been on 10 deployments. We have people, what we call team leads that have been on multiple deployments. And that's just a matter of literally flying them out there and then conducting the training onsite somewhere, which we can do. We have a space that's available to us in London, just outside of London, actually. And that can be booked within a week.

SPEAKER_00:

From talking to some members of the community, I've gotten the sense that some of them feel like Alcor would be somewhat out of place in Europe, insofar as it's not necessarily their home turf. Are the kinds of interactions, the legal frameworks, the cross border between states, are these applicable to, is that experience applicable to Europe in the same way?

SPEAKER_01:

Well, what people perhaps don't realize is the U.S. is literally United States, right? So every state, we have both a federal government and state government. And so when we operate in different states, we sometimes have to navigate different rules or different even cultures, depending on where folks are at. And so we're kind of used to that. Now, to the point of Canada, Canada had a whole different legal structure. So we set up Canada with a board of Canadians. It's not the Alcor US people that are on the board of Alcor Canada. Yes, it's an Alcor entity, but Canadians who are citizens are helping run that entity. And so in Europe, we would actually establish a board, presumably of Europeans, not just from one country either, not just... If we're in Sweden, it wouldn't just be Swedes on the board. It would be probably somebody from Germany, places where we have a large member presence. We would probably want to identify a board member potential from those places. So certainly England, possibly France, people that can bring something to the table to be on the board. So medical professionals, perhaps, people that have been longtime members. So I've already met with and identified Europeans, people that are in Europe, speak native languages, that are potential board members of an Alcord Europe. Now, when people talk about Alcord US kind of being out of place there, look, to the extent that I've studied European law and live there, that's about as good as you're gonna get in terms of having somebody from a kind of a parent entity that's helping establish that foreign entity. So I think we're doing as best as we can. People always kind of wanna find something, but if we do this right, I'm not giving anybody anything to work with in terms of that because it'll be staffed by Europeans. It's not going to be staffed by U.S. Alcor. We need all of our staff here at headquarters in the United States. Now, the goal, of course, is that we have a ton of collaboration. So I want to have people coming back and forth. I want Alcor and I want Cryonics to be a universal cross-border entity. People should be preserved, whether you're from this country or that country. We're a supranational organization. We're not politically aligned with any particular party or country. Cryonis has come from all over the world and from all walks of life. And I want us to lean into that and embrace that. and really, frankly, take advantage of the people that have things to offer that the US gets so myopic about. We always think that the answers are gonna come from US institutions. I know Jeremy's, for instance, Jeremy's recently talked to some major universities in Canada. Some of the breakthroughs in the science, it might be somebody in Eastern Europe that's working at a tiny lab that just hasn't been recognized yet. And I think we do ourselves a disservice as a group people that want to be involved in this as a group, not to look for resources from all over the world, from all kinds of cultures, from all kinds of different thought processes and brains, because it's about perspective. And people in Europe are going to offer us a perspective that I think will be useful and valuable. And we ought to take advantage of that.

SPEAKER_00:

I want to get into Sweden itself. When I was giving the presentation there, even for them, the first thing they wanted to know, because they didn't expect it, which was why Sweden?

SPEAKER_01:

I'll take a first crack and then Jeremy can talk about his experience with you out there. But the first kind of series of threshold hurdles that we look at in terms of a facility or even just remote storage like we did with Brado is you have to look at geography, seismic activity, geology. Those are things people don't think about. So for instance, California is bad because 4,000 gallons of liquid nitrogen during a 7.0 earthquake could be a bad thing, right? So you want to avoid places that are prone to forest fires, hurricanes, tornadoes, and earthquakes, volcanoes, all that sort of thing. Well, that eliminates a huge amount of geography. So that's like your threshold. That's your starting point. And then part of this has to do, too, with the interest of the country or the facility operators of the area. So let's say you find a geography that works. You want to have a friendly environment to operate in, right? There are still countries like France where the legal hurdles, the geopolitical hurdles, right, they're going to be problematic. Getting into France would take years of legal wrangling, lots of money for lobbying, presumably, and talking to politicians. So that cuts France out immediately. A land war in Europe, well, they tend to happen every 50 to 100 years. Well, you want to be away from places that historically have been targeted in land wars in Europe. So that eliminates most of continental Europe and England, for the most part. That's not to say you can't have offices in Germany. I think we'd have an interest in an office in Germany, more of like an administrative space. But in terms of actual storage in a headquarters with preservation of remains and patients, well, you kind of need a perfect storm of factors. We were approached, and I don't want to get too much into the specifics on this, but let's just say somebody who had a great interest in us, and we reciprocated that interest based on what they had to offer. Folks know that we're talking about a cave, but kind of a mine. But a mine generally doesn't answer or solve anything because most mines have issues with background radiation, so radon radiation. you know, radon gas that can turn into radiation and things that are bad, but also access. Most mines don't provide the kind of access you need to put a 14-foot doer into the mine easily without great expense, right? And if you don't have that, then you need to dig out something that's a secure space or you need to build a secure building and that sort of thing. So there's just a number of barriers to entry issues Sweden is actually working very hard. If you go to Stockholm, you'll notice on the freeway, this is something that visually people can confirm, there are a number of high-tech emerging tech companies that are establishing themselves in Stockholm. You can actually see this on the side of the road with all their signs, any number of these companies you're hearing about. Sweden is putting effort into development, into emerging tech, and welcoming emerging tech. culturally. And, you know, so you want to draw from in-country expertise. You want to have an educated populace that is educated in the hard sciences that we need because you need to find people to work the facility. And it's a very niche and very high-tech kind of space that we want to build. So you have to have population. You also have to have air access. By that, I mean, you need a runway nearby, right? Because you're flying people in from different parts of the world. But where we're looking at has one of the longest runways in Europe. And it's within minutes of where the facility would be. So, I mean, all of these little things kind of add up. And then, again, with geopolitical sorts of things, you know, you want to make sure that the government is going to at least be somewhat supportive or not resistant, right? not resistant. And I think the Swedish culture from what we've seen has been very open. Now, there's a lot of questions. They want to make sure it's not something too wacky or weird, right? But I think that we allay those fears when we start to talk about the hard science that we are doing. And so Sweden just kind of checked all of these boxes all at once. And we're not done with this. I mean, it may not be there ultimately. But right now, it's our first in line and it's our first choice. And if it continues and if we get the resources, then we can do it there very quickly. If we went into some other countries, it might take three years, whereas Sweden, it'll take a year. And so those are all factors in the development of this thing. And frankly, one of the biggest factors is if you look at Europe as a pyramid, Sweden is the tip of the pyramid. Logistically, it's actually easier to get to the location in Sweden from Germany as it is from London. Whereas if you're in London, it gets a little harder to triangulate outward to the Nordic countries than to Germany, just based upon logistics and flights. And so it turns out that getting to Stockholm is no more than about a two and a half hour flight from anywhere in Western Europe. So there's direct flights from Germany, from London, from France, from Portugal, wherever we want to be, you can get to Stockholm. And whereas if you have to connect through on a bunch of other countries, you know, let's say you go to London Heathrow, and you want to go to Frankfurt, you might have to connect somewhere else or what have you. So that's a big factor too. And that's something we consider in looking at this. Jeremy, you went there in person and I think you probably experienced kind of the cultural acceptance or warmth that they've offered so far, the excitement. Talk about that.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, I actually, it felt like I was at home. The place, the people are very friendly, culturally very similar to what I live in Canada. And the actual landscape is almost as similar. You have such a beautiful landscape in Sweden that it actually reminds me a whole lot of home. But to talk about the actual site, I was just... amazed by the actual location and I felt like it was such a fortunate thing that this person reached out to us and really he is really interested in cryonics and would love to host our headquarters there and I felt like it was such a fortunate thing for us that he reached out and we got a chance to visit his place and There's so many things that are groundbreaking that are happening in his location. And to be part of that and to be able to expand there, it would just be so amazing for Alcor and Cryonics. And I know that if our members went and visited, they would agree. They would be completely in agreement to say that this should be the permanent space where we hold our members when they de-animate. It's a place where you feel safe, where you know that your body could be laid there until it's time for revival and you know that it won't be touched. It will be in complete security and I feel like it could be there for hundreds of years and it will never be touched or it will never be at risk. And the person is really hoping that things will work out and we'll be able to create a partnership together.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, well, we're being a little cryptic here. So James, tell me if I'm wrong, but once it's closer and once we're... Once we have the facility more guaranteed, it would be definitely interesting to do a podcast just on the chosen location and Jeremy and my experience there and yours as well.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, let me address that. So in the past, when I first started at Alcor, there was some critiques from people who just didn't understand kind of how I do things, all right? And it just comes from decades of experience that I have in emerging tech in particular, which has to do with the fact that, look, any of these negotiations, because you are talking about there's money involved, you're having to sign contracts with people, you're involving people for long, long-term relationships, right? I mean, you're talking about storage that we hope would be decades long, if not centuries long. And so, What I've learned in the past is sometimes if you tell people too much in their enthusiasm, they might want to get involved or they might want to start pulling levers and switches and talking to people. That can skew deals. That can skew terms of deals because someone somewhere along the way says something that maybe isn't entirely accurate. It's like the telephone game where by the time it's sold five times, it's a totally different story. I like to keep things real clean and crisp. I don't like to give specifics until legal documents have been signed. This is the lawyer background that I have. I found that that serves the organizations really well. It served us really well when we were developing DART. It served us really well when we were the Frozen Dead Guy Festival, which people didn't understand at first, but once they did, it's just been a massive success. But I like to keep those things kind of tight. And in this particular case, we have had instances at Alcor since I've been there in two years where people were really excited about something and maybe they contacted people ahead of time when they probably shouldn't have, frankly. And they got ahead of things. And when you get ahead of things, that can skew deals. And so we don't want to give locations, you know, specific exact locations or name people yet. Now, mind you, if we get this all done and we get it all signed and papered up right, then of course, we're going to have a podcast. We're going to have an open house. You know, I want to have an open house where people in Europe can come visit the facility as it's getting developed and built. I do believe people should see that and we should be open at that time. But when you're talking about complex negotiations for decade-long contracts, you got to keep some things to yourself for a bit. And that's just called being a professional. That's what professionals do. You talk about the SEALs, they're quiet professionals. In fact, I have a heck of a time getting the SEALs on any kind of media because they are trained to just keep their mouth shut and do the job and perform the mission and succeed. And they have, right? But that's a little bit of the ethos I have is I don't want to share too much because I care about it so much that I just don't want anything external having the possibility of changing terms or skewing a deal or rumors getting spread or anything else. So Jeremy's allowed to talk about some things. I'm allowed to talk about some things. And we wanna keep that communication channel tight until we finalize details and hopefully sign some documents. But obviously donors will be involved too. We can share some of those details with donors as they get involved. But go on, Jeremy, what were you gonna say?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, I see the challenge, because we want to share some of the news to be able to attract donors. But at the same time, we want to withhold information to keep it confidential to be successful. But it would be really nice if one day when we open this up, it would be so nice for the donors to be able to come and see and share this experience that all three of us have actually lived and to see in awe of this experience. This place that he offers us, it's something monumental.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, it's something that as a standalone, and I don't think by itself it works. I mean, don't get me wrong, the place is beautiful and amazing and everything else. But I think once it were to be affiliated with Alcor, with our mission... and the facilities were to be built and structured and designed what we envision, how we envision them to be, this will actually be a destination. Like Daniel, I'm telling you, when you think about when, and of course you've been there, Daniel, very few people have seen this space. So again, we're kind of talking in the abstract and I think people have to trust, not me, because I know people think, hey, James is kind of plays it too close to the vest. But Daniel, you've been around a long time in the cryonics. Jeremy's been an operator. I mean, he's been on DART and done recoveries, right? So your credibility is part of this too, in that I see a space where, that people, when they come to Europe and they come to Sweden in particular, this will be on a list of places that you should come see as a tourist or as a visitor to the country. You're going to want to come just like we do at Alcor, where we have hosted tours. And by the way, for folks who don't know, this is an example. We just got done this week today with the innovation space. That has been designed and built at Alcor. The contractor called me this morning. And for all those people who are like, oh, they're spending money and we don't know what's going on, we're going to have an open house in about three weeks. It'll be in the newsletter. I want Alcor members who are around to come and see the space, see what your dues dollars are going to and the high tech equipment where Jacob and Steve can start designing and building at a real high tech level. And the same thing as what I envision, perhaps if it's Sweden, we don't know for sure it'll be Sweden, but if we partner with this group in Sweden, then this will be a space that has a sense of arrival. Meaning when you drive into this town, you're going to see Alcor. You know, it's going to be on, there's a massive building there from World War II. And part of this deal is going to be, this is the European headquarters of Alcor and you're going to know it. People are going to, it's going to be a destination. You'll spend half a day there. touring the facility and hopefully walking away just impressed as Jeremy was, as you were, Dan, as I was, but even more so, like 10 times more so, because we will put in the work and we're actually getting all this at a discount for people. I know people are really sensitive about how money is spent, but this would be dedicated donors. We have talked to some high net worth people in Europe that are interested. And so we're trying to get a group together But it would be money very, very well spent. It would be ultra high tech. It will represent the best of what our members for 50 years have strived for. Super exciting.

SPEAKER_00:

And to add to the tease here, I agree. The location is quite impressive. If anything, and it's something I said to you, James, after I saw it, I said the only downside is that the American Alcor members might feel jealous.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, they're going to be a little jealous. Look, there's not a comparative. You just, you know, the beauty and richness of the countryside in which this is located doesn't have a comparative location, at least here in Arizona or any place in the U.S. where we could really put this thing. Again, you know, another point I didn't I forgot to mention, Daniel, that this is really relevant, too. And one of the reasons we can't go just up in a random mountain in Montana, because we do get people are like, just put us in a cave in Montana. You actually need to have an industrial source of liquid nitrogen nearby. Right. Sweden has a bunch of breweries. Liquid nitrogen is an off-gas of carbonated beverages, for instance. There are industrial facilities within the time range that we need for even an emergency if there was some need for it. You need to have about half an hour to an hour away of industrial infrastructure to support the space. And that's why we can't go in the middle of Texas. For instance, people have offered space in the middle of Texas, but you're hours away from the infrastructure support that you need. So that's a big factor, too. I didn't mention that, but this particular location in Sweden, we can get liquid nitrogen to the facility very quickly if need be. So anyhow... Yeah, man, I'm super excited about it. It's kind of a dream. It's hard to believe that it'll come true because, you know, there's a lot of hurdles and the main one just financial. But if we get there, I mean, like you said, people will be jealous. And I will say this, though, we are actually upgrading Alcor's headquarters here in the U.S. So that is something that I, Daniel, I know you've put some things in the newsletter looking for specific donations and stuff. But I'm not unaware that we want to present as ultra high tech and world class. And Alcor is in need of a kind of a facelift at our headquarters. And so we are actually committing resources to that over the next year or so. And as we do, we're going to have open houses. And then ultimately, I really hope to have a conference at Alcor possibly in, say, 2027 or 2026, if we're lucky, where people get to do a tour of a really upgraded facility. facility at Alcor. And so we're working on that too.

SPEAKER_00:

So I'm going to wrap it up here. I know funding for this, and I guess it can't be stressed enough, like financial support to get Alcor Europe up and running is pretty important. Can you give like just a final pitch to the listeners about how you'd like them to support, who they should contact, and what Just let them know why it's so important.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, with regards to financial support, look, this is a dream right now. It's a vision. We can't fulfill the vision unless and until we get$3 to$5 million. It's a lot of money. I know it's a lot of money to most of us. But I also know that in the past, we have had donors in Alcor's history who that have singularly given$3 million,$5 million when there's a really specific project or need. So if somebody out there wants us in Europe, wants to hear more about the vision, and of course, before they donate, we can actually take them to the space and meet them there and what have you. But if somebody is serious about it, then we will... We'll work with them directly. Contact me. My email is public, james.arrowood, A-R-R-O-W-O-O-D, at alcor.org. You can email me directly, and you'll communicate with me directly, and we'll put you in touch with Jeremy, too. And then I plan on actually going to Europe at least once, if not twice this year, meaning I should say 2025. And so there will be opportunities to talk and meet. You'll have to sign some confidentiality agreements, of course. Uh, but yeah, uh, if, if you can dream big and you have the resources, I, I say that as I'm looking at news reports that, uh, they're thinking Bitcoin's going to go to a million dollars a coin. And I know we have a lot of Bitcoin people out there cause I've heard from y'all. So, you know, if you want to toss a couple of Bitcoin at it, uh, we, we now take cryptocurrency thanks to Daniel. Um, so there's ways to do this and, and, And look, some of this is faith. I get it. You got to believe in your team. But look at what we've done so far in two years. We have just moved the needle dramatically. And if you I don't ask you to do any work. I don't need you to do any phone calls. All I need is the resources. If you know, if we if you give give something and stretch it. We will move mountains. We absolutely will move mountains. That's what we're here to do. So anyhow, that's my pitch on that. And I really, really am hopeful we can get this moving.

SPEAKER_00:

James, Jeremy, we will talk a lot more in the future. I appreciate you coming on today.

SPEAKER_01:

Thank you very much. Thanks, Daniel.