Enhanced Games: The mind behind the 'Doped Games'
- Published
Aron D'Souza at the Enhanced Games headquarters in Kensington, London
Move fast and break things.
In the early years of the new millennium, as Mark Zuckerberg was turning Facebook from dorm room hustle into a ground-breaking billion-dollar company, he adopted a motto.
He told colleagues to act first and apologise later. Old orthodoxies should be shattered, rivals dented and establishment egos bruised in pursuit of a project, external that justified it all.
It became the disrupter's mantra, a philosophy that could turn a bright idea into a glittering fortune in a twinkle.
Now, Aron D'Souza is making the same offer to the world's best athletes.
The Enhanced Games has put million-dollar bounties on world records: move fast, break records and you can earn big.
The catch that has hooked headlines around the world is that competitors can use performance-enhancing drugs to do so.
The Enhanced Games, which plans its first edition for 2025, will have no drug testing. It will be a pharmaceutical free-for-all, with participants free to pump, juice and dope however they see fit.
Plenty say it shouldn't happen.
Travis Tygart, the chief executive of the United States Anti-Doping Agency, has called it "a dangerous clown show"., external Two-time Olympic champion Kieran Perkins said it was "borderline criminal"., external World Athletics president Lord Coe was uncharacteristically (and unrepeatably) blunt, external when asked his opinion.
Others say that it won't happen anyway, that the logistics and legalities are insurmountable. They believe the Enhanced Games is a provocation or a publicity stunt, rather than a realistic prospect.
But D'Souza is adamant.
"It will happen," says the Enhanced Games founder.
"I wouldn't dedicate my life, years of my team's lives and millions of dollars from the world's greatest investors unless we truly believe we can deliver the event, break world records and fundamentally change the trajectory of not just sport, but humanity as a whole.
"We are doing something truly extraordinary, something that is shaping the future."
It is an audacious pitch. But it isn't De Souza's first.
Thiel, right, was the first outside investor in social media site Facebook as well as the founder of Paypal
In 2009 the Australian was a 24-year-old law student, newly arrived at Oxford University. He already had a couple of degrees. What Oxford could offer, though, was connections.
"I love Oxford very deeply," says D'Souza. "I met billionaires, CEOs and heads of state there, by the drove."
One of the first, and most significant, was Peter Thiel. The American billionaire and founder of digital payments giant Paypal was visiting Oxford to give a talk. Afterwards Thiel toured the university's colleges and D'Souza ed him.
As their conversation progressed, D'Souza asked Thiel what his greatest current challenge was.
Thiel didn't talk about business, but a more personal concern. Gawker, a website that specialised in celebrity gossip, had written an article outing him, without his consent, as gay.
Thiel explained that he had considered suing, but didn't want to draw more attention to the site and its story.
Another option was to buy Gawker, get rid of the people responsible and change its ethos. However, to do so would reward its owners with a fat pay-off.
D'Souza listened and politely suggest a third option. Could Thiel instead secretly fund someone else's legal case against Gawker?
"I said 'Why don't you have a proxy war"Graphic image of, from left to right, Alex Albon, George Russell, Max Verstappen, Lewis Hamilton, Lando Norris, Fernando Alonso and Oliver Bearman. It is on a blue background with 'Fan Q&A' below the drivers " loading="lazy" src="https://image.staticox.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fichef.bbci.co.uk%2Face%2Fstandard%2F480%2Fsprodpb%2F7ff9%2Flive%2Fd42302e0-34b3-11f0-8519-3b5a01ebe413.jpg" width="385" height="216" class="ssrcss-11yxrdo-Image edrdn950"/>
