Olivier Roland
Olivier Roland is an entrepreneur at heart — he created his first
company at the age of 19 — with a passion for sciences and science
fiction. He is French, and lives now in Lille, a French city located
200km north of Paris.
He recently created the French blog
Des Livres Pour Changer de Vie which is dedicated to
rare and demanding books that can change one’s life, covering topics as
diverse as productivity, creativity, management, marketing,
entrepreneurship, finance, and also meditation, happiness, and health.
His blog has become very popular; it today has more than 14,000
subscribers and generates around €10,000 in monthly
sales.
Olivier’s goal is now to live exclusively off his Internet income, which
has been systemized at full capacity, and to be able to dedicate his
life to travels and his many others passions. Among those, he
particularly enjoys reading and writing science fiction, learning more
about health, biology, and medicine, and meeting open-minded and
passionate people.
He considers himself a transhumanist and thinks that death and
illnesses are scourges that can and will be eradicated by technology.
He is one of the 300 members of the Methuselah Foundation and supports
entirely Aubrey de Grey’s program, “SENS”.
Here is what he wrote when he joined the 300 members:
“Tears came to him. He wept quietly, holding nothing back. He mourned mankind, and the blindness of men, who thought that Kosmos had rules and limits that would shelter them from their own freedom. There were no shelters. There were no final purposes. Futility, and freedom, were Absolute.”
I love these words from the book “Schismatrix”, written by Bruce Sterling. They resonate so well with my philosophy. I think that humans have the right and the liberty to create their own reality, and that nothing, even something as old as death, have to be considered as “normal” and “inevitable”. I read the book “Fantastic Voyage: Live Long Enough to Live Forever” by Ray Kurzweil and Terry Grossman, and it opened my eyes on a lot of thoughts about my health, and about what can be done in the future to have better and long lives with technology.
As an entrepreneur and amateur French science-fiction writer, I believe that humans can take charge of their own destiny, and that killing death will be, one day or another, possible. If it’s not possible during my lifetime, I will have a cryopreservation with Alcor! But I want to help as much as I can to see this happen during my lifetime, not only for me, but also for the all the open minded humans that will want to do this. It is why I’m proud today to be part of the 300 and to support the extraordinary work of Aubrey de Grey and the Methuselah Foundation :) .
I’m with you guys! (I’m French so sorry for my English mistakes! ) )
Accomplishments:
- 2000: At the age of 19, creation of his first company, ORinformatic, specialized in IT services for professionals, and in the conception of software for Internet professionals.
- 2004 to 2006: Participation in 2 archeological sites.
- Excavation of a Visigoth and Merovingian necropolis (4th to 6th centuries A.D.)
- Excavation of a Neolithic site (8000 to 4000 B.C.)
- In 2006: Publication of one of his short stories, “La salope de Pavonis”, in the collection, “Nouvelles du Futur, le pire est à venir”, published at the renowned éditions l´Harmattan.
- In 2007: Participation as a photographer to a collective exhibition “Oz´Arts, Oz´ons Mélanger” with 8 other artists from very diverse walks of life.
- In 2008: Creation of the blog “Des Livres Pour Changer de Vie”, which quickly becomes one of the most popular blogs dedicated to entrepreneurship and self-help in France.
- In 2010: Creation of his second company, Les Editions Roland, an online publishing firm.
- In 2010: Launched Agir&Réussir, an online training program conceived to help young entrepreneurs overcome procrastination. This program was hugely successful and created an unprecedented buzz in the French blogosphere.
- Became a member of the Methuselah Foundation in June 2010.
- Joined Lifeboat Foundation’s Advisory Board in July 2010, at the request of president and founder, Eric Klien.
