Seeing Silicon | Immortality moonshot: A quest of the rich for eternal life (and anti-ageing creams)

Immortality. The quest to never die. For humanity that doesn’t live longer than 80-120 years, it’s the mecca, the singularity of human evolution. With advances in science and technology, some feel a Human 2.0 is attainable. It’s the science fiction of our dreams (or a nightmare, depending on how you see it).

Perhaps that’s why it is a quest that fits right into the tech-optimistic, capitalism-driven, market-oriented desires of Silicon Valley entrepreneurs. It’s a moonshot, it’s dramatic, it’s optimistically ambitious, and it is also something that can only be accessed through the tall gates of capitalism – it needs money to research and money to access.

It’s a new yacht, a new sports car, or a membership to an exclusive club. And all billionaires want a pie.

A report by P&S Intelligence says that the global anti-ageing market is predicted to head from $191.5 billion currently to $421.4 billion by 2030. That’s also a big pie.

In the last few years, entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, and company founders have taken up media and public imagination with biohacking their way to a longer life. Some of these are immediately attainable and market-ready startups. Like those selling AI-based diagnostics, wearables and caregiving robots, clinics and supplements. But some are moonshots — research-oriented biotech companies that strive for successful clinical trials in cellular reprogramming, work in 3D printing of organs (biofabrication), perform mitochondrial dysfunction gene therapy or work in neuro pharma.

It’s this latter, more ambitious sort of research that attracts more individual investors. Altos Lab, a biotechnology company developing cellular rejuvenation, for example, has been funded by Jeff Bezos among others. Cellular Longevity, a San Francisco-based company that aims to extend the lifespan of dogs has secured $45 million in equity from venture capital funds. Unity Biotechnology which is pursuing therapies to reverse symptoms of ageing has attracted investments from Bezos, venture capitalist Robert Nelson and billionaire PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel. OpenAI founder Sam Altman has invested $180 million in Retro Biosciences with a focused goal of adding 10 years to the human lifespan.

The question that comes to me, as I read about these investments, again and again, is why? Why are billionaires so interested in elongating life (versus many other health sciences startups that they could be investing in)? One possible reason is something that Nobel laureate Venki Ramakrishnan recently mentioned in an interview. They’re worried about ageing and dying themselves, hence the investment in antiaging. However, he did warn that their investment and perhaps expectations are “distorting the field and leading to wild claims.”

For Vitalism, a nonprofit founded by an entrepreneur and a venture capitalist to lobby against death and biological decline (or ageing), so far “humanity has surrendered to the horrors of ageing and death as unavoidable certainties.” Their whitepaper, written in March 2023 continues to state that “we need to make freedom from ageing and death humanity’s #1 priority". It goes on to talk about reallocating 1% of global GDP to increase research and technology development and promote an economic ecosystem that offers goods and services in health, wellness and longevity.

This worry, this concern with mortality has pushed the rich and the wealthy into a hypercompetitive race to reverse ageing and grow their personal lifespan. No one perhaps has taken this more literally on a public stage than California-based Bryan Johnson. After making $800 million in 2013 from selling his startup to PayPal, Johnson started investing in health tech.

In the last few years, the 46-year-old has spent around $2 million annually on reverse ageing on his own body. He has tried everything from pills, injections, and gene therapies to blood transfusions from his son and cutting-edge experiments all with one single relentless goal of ‘Don’t Die’. As the face and body of antiageing, Johnson has also become an online influencer through his videos, podcasts and books and sells some of the supplements he takes through his startup Blueprint – including a recently launched oil, which sparked controversy as it was nothing but olive oil.

“Hundreds of my body’s biological processes are measured and an algorithm determines what and when I eat, when I go to bed,” he writes in his book ‘Zeroism’, adding that humans need to be run by algorithms and superintelligence.

Another startup which Johnson started, Rejuvenation Olympics, turns this hyper-competition, ambition and man-as-a-machine concept into an online game. The startup has made a competitive Score Board for people like him who want to compete on specific biomarkers on how successfully they have reversed ageing and mention the clinics who manage them. To participate in the Score Board, you need to buy a TruAge bundle that comes with multiple test kits and costs $795. It tracks your biomarkers and puts you on the scoreboard. (Johnson’s currently at number 5 in about 1500 people across the world).

Somewhere Johnson gets the pulse of tech entrepreneurs. In the competitive world of over-ambitious entrepreneurs, their bodies have become the new racing car, the new toy they need to tweak and get performance out of.

In another way, it’s nothing new really. One of the most interesting characters I wrote in my fantasy series Anantya Tantrist Mystery was a group of humans who desperately searched for an immortal’s blood to become immortal themselves. This was juxtaposed with a group of immortals in the book, who desired to find a way to die.

Immortality, the idea of living on and on without death, has always fascinated humans. And if you have the money, you will try and find a way to elongate your life. You will try everything new and shiny — IV drips, hyperbaric oxygen therapy, implanting devices in your body, injecting yourself with young blood (called parabiosis), and even organ regeneration and gene editing. Anything that’s fashionable, cutting edge and will increase your lifespan.

Perhaps it’s the new snake oil. Or perhaps with breakthroughs in biotechnology and AI, we’re finally at a cusp of new human lifespans. Only time — and living through it for a long time — will tell.

Shweta Taneja is an author and journalist based in the Bay Area. Her fortnightly column will reflect on how emerging tech and science is reshaping society in Silicon Valley and beyond. Find her online with @shwetawrites. The views expressed are personal.