Code Storage

When Civilization Collapses, At Least Our Software Will Be Backed Up

- Ashlee Vance

1. THE LAST STOP FOR CIVILIZATION BEFORE THE NORTH POLE IS SVALBARD, AN ARCHIPELAGO NORTH OF MAINLAND NORWAY ALONG THE 80TH PARALLEL.

Most of Svalbard’s old Norwegian and Russian coal mines have shut down, so locals have rebranded their vast acres of permafrost as an attraction to scientists, doomsday preppers, and scientist doomsday preppers. Around Svalbard, things can be hidden from the stresses of the outside world. There’s a treaty in place to keep it neutral in times of war. In other words, it’s an ideal spot for a big global reset button or two.

Pride of place belongs to the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, where seeds for a wide range of plants, including the crops most valuable to humans, are preserved in case of some famine- inducing pandemic or nuclear apocalypse. The seed vault looks like something out of a movie, its entrance a triangular obelisk jutting high out of a blinding white expanse. It sparkles with glowing green lights.

Nat Friedman, however, hasn’t come for the beat-the apocalypse aesthetics. On Oct. 24, the tall, thin, 42-yearold chief executive officer of GitHub Inc., Microsoft’s world-leading code bank, hops in a van and drives about 15 minutes from his hotel to an abandoned coal mine, where he puts on a miner’s helmet and headlamp. Deep inside one of the mine’s frigid, eerily quiet arteries, Friedman comes to what looks like a metal tool shed. “It’s more mine-y and rustic and raw-hole-in-the-rock than I thought it would be,” he says.