This is what's known as the Svalbard Stroll.
It's a brisk, hands-in-pockets type of affair
because you're at the end of the Earth
and it's really, freaking cold.
So this is the first time you've ever seen this place?
I've never been here before.
No, I never even thought I would ever be in Svalbard.
My arctic companion is Nat Friedman,
CEO of the software platform GitHub.
He usually lives in San Francisco,
but he's traveled to the ends of the Earth
to do something peculiar.
So, we're here in Svalbard, at 78 degrees north latitude,
at the site of the future GitHub Arctic Code Vault.
He's depositing 6,000 of the most popular
open-source projects in an archive inside this mountain.
Open the vault!
Nat's goal here is one,
to protect the world's software from the apocalypse,
and two, preserve our modern way of life.
The man is ambitious.
How much of this is an existential risk type thing?
Most of the time when you build a product
you build it hoping that lots of people use it all the time,
and this is probably a case where we're building a product,
kind of hoping that it never gets used,
in a way.
Fingers crossed Nat
fingers crossed.
For those of you who haven't wintered in Svalbard,
it's located way up here.
A frigid, barren wasteland, void of trees
or any meaningful vegetation.
The last spot humans can tolerate
before the Arctic proves too much.
Getting here requires much planning and deep resolve
to face Mother Nature at her worst.
Or, you know, a private jet.
And the courage gained by downing bubbly by the gallon,
and embracing your inner playboy.
Hello, Svalbard.
Coal mining used to be the main game in Svalbard
but since that's not cool anymore,
people here have had to find some other uses
for all their permafrost,
which brings us back to our coal mine, and our code cave.
Is this is what you expected the entrance
to your seed vault to look like?
It legitimately looks like the entrance to a mine.
So, I believe,
we are going deep inside a mountain.
This is a old coal mine.
Nat and I were joined by some proper mine men,
who taught us the ways of the mine.
And here you have some instrument?
Oh, okay.
Oh, to check the methane.
And who were also helpful
in firming up the concept of existential risk.
And when you product coal,
there will come a little bit of gas.
You don't feel it, you die.
But you have apoxia.
You die.
Yeah, that sounds dangerous.
With the safety brief down,
it's time to get on to the real business
of protecting the world's code.
This is how it works,
the data is stored on a reel of film,
coated with iron-oxide powder.
The information can still be read by a computer,
or if need be, by a human with a magnifying glass.
How long will this last?
We are confident for 1,000
and we're aiming now to do research project
to document 2,000 years.
2,000 years?
You think this could last up to 2,000 years?
We collected the film,
which is spooled inside these white plastic cases,
and headed into the darkness.
I mean, usually I have the hard hats,
and I feel like it's for show.
Yeah, this is not for show.
As we venture further into the abyss,
let me catch you up on who Nat is.
Nat's company GitHub is the main place people go
to write open source code.
Tens of millions of people hop on GitHub
and create the applications that make the world tick.
Which is why Nat wants to protect it
from terrorist hackers, electromagnetic pulses,
and other unforeseen disasters.
Where are we going?
And where we were going,
was not good.
Okay.
Let's get the hell out.
But like all intrepid explorers,
we would not let something like a lack of oxygen stop us.
And thank god for that, because I now present to you
the most futuristic, ultra secure,
sci-fi inspired code vault you will ever see.
Okay, it's basically a tool shed, but it's still cool.
Wow. Into the data vault.
I mean, this is reel one, of the GitHub Arctic Code Vault
and we're gonna put it here, in Svalbard, under the ice,
for the next 2,000 years.
Here we go.
Thank you.
Like, I think, 20 years ago,
if you'd told someone that
20 years in the future, in the year 2020,
all of human civilization will depend on and run on
open source code, written for free,
and put into almost every product in the world,
I think people would say, like, that's crazy,
like, that's never gonna happen.
You know software's written
by big professional companies, and yet, here we are.
Yeah, and so how much of this
is just making sure we can restore our way of life?
I'm overall pretty optimistic about civilization,
like, I think we can bet that, you know,
humans will be thriving for a long time on planet Earth.
And so, another way to think about this,
is it's just like a time capsule.
Like there's this amazing moment in history where
the whole world is starting to run on software,
and that software is made out of open source
and open source is sort of in everything.
20 years ago,
open source software was seen as a fringe idea.
The big companies kept their codes secret.
Only weird hippie types shared code
and gave it away for free.
Fast forward to 2019, and about 40 million people
and 2 million companies and organizations use GitHub.
That's why Microsoft paid a stunning $7.5 billion
to acquire the company last year.
I'll just leave it like this.
Safe in
the knowledge that open-source code
will be secure, it was time for me to explore Svalbard.
Nat and I returned to our nerd pursuits.
This time we were checking out
the northernmost GitHub users
who work at an observatory
dedicated to researching the Northern Lights.
It was lunchtime, and we needed to get there quick,
before it got dark.
1:20 p.m. sun is setting.
It never really rose, actually, we didn't see it all day.
Here in this observatory
perched on a snowy mountain,
work some seriously hardy scientists.
So, during the daytime, for three and a half months,
over the winter, it is completely dark.
And so, we can make 24 hour observations of the Aurora.
And why would somebody want to study the Aurora?
The Aurora is important for understanding
the whole process of the connection between
the sun and the Earth's magnetic field,
and then the ultimate impact on the atmosphere.
So, this is what we call space weather.
This arctic island
is full of surprises.
I have to do a photo, man, this is crazy.
There are a lot of white mountains,
some more white mountains, and these white mountains,
which host one of the world's
biggest satellite ground stations.
Our modern infrastructure relies
on the messages sent from here.
But if you need a break from nerding out,
the real action takes place in the town of Longyearbyen.
Which is clearly named after a very lonely coal miner,
who'd had enough.
As dumb luck would have it,
I was in town during the island's blues festival.
An annual event that brings in serious musicians
and serves as one last drunken hooray
before months of darkness set in.
I mean,
it's not so much the alcohol, as it is the cold, that's...
So I got drunk, and hoorahed.
Then I got a truly horrible hangover.
Had a rough night at the Blues Festival.
Today I will feel better by going dog sledding.
You got the gun, for the, uh, polar bear situation?
Polar protection, yeah, we have dogs with us, so,
they're better protection probably than a gun.
Okay, okay.
It's not quite the private jet but,
it's my preferred way of getting around Svalbard.
As the trip neared it's end,
we went to Svalbard's bizarrely amazing
fine dining establishment to celebrate.
Fried cod skin filled with the Norwegian king crab.
Things were going fine for a while.
Fancy food, fancy booze,
and the theme of our journey got very real.
Holy shit. Wow, that's so crazy.
It turns out,
that about 4,000 miles away in Sonoma California,
Nat's house had been destroyed by the fires
raging through the state.
It's super apropos to what we're doing right now, right?
So wait,
so somebody posted that on Twitter?
He had the gross modern experience
of seeing the remains of his house end up on social media.
Oh my gosh that's super devastating.
So there we were,
with parts of California burning,
and Silicon Valley going through rolling blackouts.
The epicenter of technology feeling very fragile,
amid signs that the world is not quite right.
In that moment, the idea of a remote code cave
made all too much sense.