Victor Vescovo

71% of the Earth is ocean, and of that, 75% is completely unexplored.

It's extraordinary.

Deep ocean in the middle of the Pacific is completely unknown.

We just don't go there, and it's hard to go there.

And many of the places in the ocean are really rough.

And because it's so harsh, that's why it's really hard and really expensive to explore the ocean.

I think I'm cursed with just an insatiable curiosity, which I'm probably most known for is diving to the bottom of all five of the world's oceans.

If I'm going to spend money, I'm not going to spend it on a $10 million birthday party.

I'm going to spend it funding some people that are trying to move the needle forward on technology.

It was kind of like Ocean's Eleven, where I basically got to go around the world and say, who is the best person for expedition management?

Who would be the best ship captain?

And because this was such an ambitious undertaking, they wanted to do it.

That, I think, is the way to spend wealth.

I enjoy exploration.

I enjoy pushing technological boundaries.

But I like putting myself on the pointy end of the spear, and I don't leave it to other people.

I want to be at the control.

When I went down for the first time in the fully assembled sub, any number of things could have gone wrong because we had never put all the pieces together.

Mine was designed and tested to a crush depth of 15,000 meters.

That thing was a tank.