New York, October 10: Are tech titans preparing for doomsday or just playing it safe in case of doomsday? What do Silicon Valley’s richest minds know that the rest of us don’t? Why are some of the world’s most powerful tech executives building underground shelters, buying remote land, and preparing for worst-case scenarios?

A BBC report has shed light on public fascination with the secretive survival strategies of tech billionaires, and raised uncomfortable questions about their faith in the future they’re helping to shape. The report stated that Mark Zuckerberg, whose sprawling 1,400-acre Koʻolau Ranch on the Hawaiian island of Kauai is reportedly being outfitted with a massive underground shelter, roughly 5,000 square feet in size, complete with its own power and food supplies. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman Predicts AI Could Surpass Human Intelligence by 2030, Replace 40% of Jobs Soon.

According to the report, a six-foot wall now surrounds parts of the compound, and workers are reportedly bound by strict non-disclosure agreements. When asked last year if he was building a “doomsday bunker,” the Meta founder offered a flat “no”, calling it “just like a little shelter, it’s like a basement.”

Zuckerberg isn’t alone in prepping for disaster. LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman has coined the term “apocalypse insurance” to describe the contingency plans many ultra-wealthy individuals maintain, including luxury bunkers, escape homes in remote countries like New Zealand, and self-sufficient compounds far from urban centers. According to Hoffman, up to half of Silicon Valley’s super-rich have such plans in place. AI Can Create Miracles if Used Judiciously, but Misuse Risks Rise of Deepfakes and Misinformation, Says Union Minister Dr Jitendra Singh.

Similarly, OpenAI’s co-founder and chief scientist, Ilya Sutskever, who, according to journalist Karen Hao, once suggested that the company should build a bunker for its top researchers before releasing artificial general intelligence (AGI) into the world. “We’re definitely going to build a bunker before we release AGI,” Sutskever is reported to have said during internal discussions in 2023.

In December 2024, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman predicted that AGI, a level of machine intelligence on par with or beyond human cognition, would arrive “sooner than most people in the world think.” Supporters of AGI argue it could be transformative: from curing diseases and solving climate change to providing unlimited clean energy. Elon Musk, for instance, has floated the idea of a future where every person has their own personal “R2-D2 or C-3PO”, and AI-generated wealth creates a world of “universal high income.”

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(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Oct 10, 2025 12:00 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).