Nathan Stiles

Nathan Stiles (born 1998) is a computer programmer and technologist who is best known for creating the 2014 social networking game MeVirus. Stiles also designed and produced AlphaWorld, a virtual reality environment accessed using a brain-computer interface. Stiles was named TIMENT Man of the Year in 2035.

Stiles was born in Seattle, Washington. His father was an archaeologist and his mother was an international art dealer. He was privately schooled by his parents and their friends until the age of twelve, when he was tested for entry into the school system and found to be the equivalent of a high school sophomore. Stiles graduated from Gates Technical High School in Seattle at the age of 14 and was accepted to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He dropped out during his sophomore year of college, finding MIT “too slow and backward-thinking.” The following year he developed MeVirus, colorful and highly addictive social networking game for portable electronic devices. Stiles sold the game to Sony Entertainment in 2015 for nearly $1 billion.

Stiles founded the AlphaWorld Company in 2015 to finance the expansion of a virtual reality environment he had begun developing in 2014. The AlphaWorld environment would run on mobile devices as well as home internet entertainment systems, allowing users to remain constantly connected. Stiles launched a public beta of AlphaWorld in 2016 and announced am investment partnership with MMI to develop portable brain-computer interfaces that would allow much more intimate interaction with AlphaWorld. In 2018 following the announcement of the second-generation EPOC device, MMI was acquired by UBS for $5.2 billion. UBS also purchased the AlphaWorld program from Stiles. The complete deal resulted in nearly $3 billion cash for the thirty-year old, who subsequently relocated to Hong Kong.

Stiles spent the following year sailing around the world. In 2020 he stunned the business world with his purchase of space technology from the US government. Stiles announced that he planned to begin with commercial flights to the moon within three years. Orion Space Systems completed construction of an orbital station in 2019 and began commercial transport operations to the Moon in 2021. Stiles then partnered with China Space Systems (a division of ChinaCorp) to develop “Moonbase Alpha,” a lunar entertainment and lifestyle destination. Construction of the first stages, which allowed temporary accommodations for up to fifty people, was completed in 2022, with additional construction expanding the capacity to over two thousand long-term and short-term residents as of 2035. Stiles formed International Space Systems in 2028, completing a robotic mission to Mars in 2028 with plans for a manned mission to launch in 2036.