Paul Allen helped build Microsoft and is worth more than $17 billion. Some entrepreneurs in similar positions focus on getting us to Mars or putting an end to death. Allen has taken on a similarly monumental task. He wants to decode the human brain and build a new one. According to WaPo’s Ariana Eunjung Cha: “The first project is to build an artificial brain from scratch that can pass a high school science test. It sounds simple enough, but trying to teach a machine not only to respond but also to reason is one of the hardest software engineering endeavors attempted.” (I spent four years trying to train an underdeveloped brain to pass high school science. In my experience, it can’t be done.)