Zoltan Istvan began a solo, multi-year sailing journey around the world at the age of 21. His main cargo was 500 handpicked books, mostly classics. He’s explored over 100 countries–many as a journalist for the National Geographic Channel–writing, filming, and appearing in dozens of television stories, articles, and webcasts.
His work has also been featured by The New York Times, Outside, San Francisco Chronicle, Slate, Wired UK, Vice, BBC Radio, CBS, Fox News, CNN, RT, the Travel Channel, and much other media. In addition to his award-winning coverage of the war in Kashmir, he gained worldwide attention for pioneering and popularizing the extreme sport of volcano boarding.
Zoltan later became a Director for the international conservation group WildAid, leading armed patrol units to stop the billion-dollar illegal wildlife trade in Southeast Asia.
Back in America, he started various successful businesses, from real estate development to filmmaking to viticulture, joining them under ZI Ventures.
He is a philosophy and religious studies graduate of Columbia University and resides in San Francisco with his daughters and physician wife.
Zoltan recently published “The Transhumanist Wager,” a fictional thriller describing philosopher Jethro Knights and his unwavering quest for immortality via science and technology. His second book, The Futuresist Cure: Notes from the Front Lines of Transhumanism is a collection of his best essays.
His latest book is Upgrading America: The Political Writings of Zoltan Istvan. It was a #1 bestseller in Politics on Amazon.
Zoltan writes opinion articles regularly for mainstream media, including The New York Times, Vice, Quartz Business Insider and other places.
He was a 2020 US Presidential candidate.
