Who is behind this and funding the prize? Quite a significant amount of money for something like this. Curious why it is deemed so valuable, unless it's more a

Who is behind this and funding the prize? Quite a significant amount of money for something like this. Curious why it is deemed so valuable, unless it's more about the side benefits of improving the state of the art. Edit: > Vesuvius Challenge Inc. is a 501c3 non-profit organization that was formed solely to solve the puzzle of the Herculaneum Papyri. It is currently funded by Nat Friedman and Daniel Gross, and by many hours of volunteer contributions. > Nat read 24 Hours in Ancient Rome during the 2020 COVID lockdown. He fell into an internet rabbit hole that ended up with him reaching out to Dr. Seales two years later to see how he could help speed up the reading of the Herculaneum Papyri. They came up with the idea of the Vesuvius Challenge. Daniel was intrigued by this idea and decided to co-sponsor it with Nat. Edit 2: Original recruitment ad is neat https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35176585 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35176585