Yahoo Finance Investment company offers to cryogenically freeze employees in bizarre job ad
Staff perks can make the difference between and good job and a great one, and one firm is stretching the idea to the limit.
A US investment firm is offering cryogenic freezing in its latest job ad, so that the lucky employee can have their body preserved for possible reanimation in future.
In the unusual job ad from Numerai – a hedge fund founded by data scientists – the company says that it “cares about its employees beyond their legal deaths”.
While the idea of offering potentially eternal life to a new recruit started out as a joke, Numerai founder Richard Craib hopes that it will attract “interesting people” to the position, reports The Sun.
In the slightly sinister advert for a software engineer, the firm offers “whole-body preservation cryonics through Alcor”.
Arizona-based Alcor was founded in 1972 and claims to have nearly 150 people currently cryogenically frozen, either as whole bodies or brains.
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The idea is that those frozen could be restored to full health using entirely hypothetical technology from the future.
Among the ‘desired personal qualities’ for the successful applicant, Numerai lists ‘optimistic’, which be useful if they hope to be thawed out and reanimated.
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The controversial subject of cryogenics made headlines last year when a High Court judge ruled that a terminally ill 14-year-old British girl could be frozen following her death after her separated parents clashed over the matter.
The teenager’s mother supported her decision to be frozen, while the girl’s estranged father was opposed to the idea.
The girl’s body has since been frozen and transported from London to a facility in the U.S. where it will be stored “in perpetuity”.
