An Interview With Max More, New CEO of Alcor
From KurzweilAI.net, a friendly interview with Max More, who was recently hired as CEO of cryonics provider Alcor: "I spent the last 10 or 11 years learning about business processes and culture, and have run some nonprofits before, but I'm looking forward to tackling the challenges. Fortunately, I'm far from alone in this responsibility. In addition to Alcor's highly experienced board of directors, my first week on the job demonstrated the dedication, skill, and helpfulness of Alcor's staff. While it takes a while to get up to speed on all the operational details of an organization like Alcor, I'm looking forward to working with the board to develop a renewed and refined strategic plan that will help us realize Alcor's huge potential to help far more people have a chance at renewed life in the future. ... My goal is really to maintain the traditions of Alcor, to protect its patients, but also to stimulate new growth, to improve the way everything functions, and to change the whole public perception to a much more positive view. Alcor is the most technologically advanced cryonics organization. We are on a path to continue improving our capabilities while doing our utmost to protect and preserve our existing cryopreserved members. ... the most important thing to me is making sure the organization is stable and will not get knocked out by financial or legal attacks or other issues. One of my top priorities is to make sure that we're stable for the long-term by either increasing income or reducing costs. ... Another priority is to restart growth. When I signed up as an Alcor member [for cryopreservation] in 1986 I was the 67th member. Since then, Alcor has grown to about 930 right now, and the number of cryopreserved people has gone from six to 102. At the Extropy Institute Extro conferences, if asked who were members, out of few hundred people, a majority would put up their hands, showing off their bracelets. Today, you don't get the same response - the recent growth has really slowed down. It seems ridiculous to me that in a world population of close to 7 billion, we only have 1000+ members signed up. I think we can do much better, starting with the most promising groups, such as transhumanists."
Link: http://www.kurzweilai.net/alcor-update-from-max-more-new-ceo