Long Now Foundation

The Long Now Foundation is a San Francisco-based nonprofit organization founded in 1996 to promote long-term thinking and responsibility toward future generations. The foundation is best known for designing and building the Clock of the Long Now, a monumental mechanical clock intended to function for 10,000 years, with a prototype installed in the Nevada desert. Beyond the clock, Long Now pursues its mission through multiple programs including the Rosetta Project (preserving human languages), seminars on long-term thinking, and the Long Bets platform for making and tracking long-term predictions. The organization has become a cultural institution and think tank influencing how technologists, policymakers, and intellectuals approach existential timescales and intergenerational responsibility.