CNBC reports that a "mystery tech billionaire" purchased a life insurance policy worth $201 million. That beats out the previous Guinness World Record, a $100 million policy for "an unnamed American entertainer."

Earlier this month Andreessen Horowitz hired the secessionist, Balaji Srinivasan. The academic and entrepreneur infamous for suggesting that techies build their own society "outside the U.S." scratches off the secessionist label with one hand, even as he writes dreamy odes to "a cloud country of our own" for Wired. Now, Srinivasan is aiming his science fictional phasers at death.

Time magazine's new cover story is the about the ultimate tech company cage match: GOOGLE VS. DEATH. In Silicon Valley parlance, this mortal coil is a bug, not a feature, and Time gives GOOG pretty generous odds.

Like space travel and imaginary tubes, the extension of the human life span is being financed by the private interests of tech billionaires.