Jeff Bezos Building 10000 Year Clock in West Texas Mountain

What do billionaire tech CEOs do in their free time? People are welcome to visit the clock once it is built, but it is a several-hour drive from the closest airport and then a hiking trail that rises to 2,000ft above the valley. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos is putting up the $42 million necessary to complete the project, writing that "it's a special Clock, created to be a symbol, an icon for long-term thinking". But to Bezos, the elaborate timepiece is meant to convey a message: the idea of long-term responsibility. "We're likely to need more long-term thinking".

In fact, the project was initially conceptualized by Danny Hillis (the founder of Thinking Machines Corporation) in 1989, almost three decades ago. It came from Hillis' concern that society had a "mental barrier" of looking at the year 2000 as the limit of the future.

It wasn't until 2011 when Bezos' interest in the project also emerged.

Today Bezos posted a time-lapse video to Twitter and Instagram showing workers setting up steampunk-style assemblies of gears and sprockets deep inside a mountain in West Texas. It's powered by a combination of solar energy and occasional windings by any intrepid visitors who stray into the limestone cliffs of Texas' Sierra Diablo mountain range sometime over the next 10 millennia. Bezos has been helping Danny with the project for the last six years.

"The biggest problem for the beating clock will be the effects of its human visitors", the Long Now website said.

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As you can see in the video Bezos posted, the clock's construction is well underway.

Tuesday, Bezo tweeted that installation of the clock has begun.

Bezos was taken with the idea, and agreed to fund the project and provide the land. Amazon Go, the grocery store without checkouts opened to the public earlier this year.

Those who make the trip are in for a trek. The nearest airport is several hours away by auto, and the rugged walking trail rises nearly 2,000 feet about the valley floor.

Swaggart Brothers, Inc., of Hermiston, Ore., has been completing the construction aspects of the project; Seattle Solstice of Seattle have created a special saw that will cut a spiral staircase from stone inside the clock's chamber; and Penguin Automated Systems, Inc., of Ontario, Canada, has helped with the underground site development.