Ryan Knudson

If people don't have more children, civilization is going to crumble.

Mark my words.

That's Elon Musk at a Wall Street Journal event a few years ago.

I'm trying to set a good example.

— Nathan told me about this one time, when a single Chinese businessman reached out to him.

— I do have a potential client.

They want 200 kids.

You had a client who said they wanted 200 kids?

Yeah.

How did you react when they requested that?

Nathan didn't take the man as a client.

And after that, he says he instituted a new policy.

What Nathan experienced with that potential client isn't an isolated case.

When my colleague Catherine Long started calling people in the industry, she heard a few different stories like this.

A single person had 100 children through surrogacy?

Despite the fact that surrogacy is a multi-billion dollar industry, there are no federal laws regulating it.

And that's created a thriving cottage industry, catering to almost any desire a wealthy parent could have.

It means that nowadays, if you've got the money and you want a bunch of babies born all at once, you can get that in the U.S., and you don't even have to be here to do it.

Here's how it works.

It all starts, of course, with sperm and an egg.