Photographer: Ian Loring Shiver for Bloomberg Businessweek; set design: Kelsi Windmiller
Silicon Valley’s Quest to Live Forever Has Many Warring Factions
Tech titans, venture capitalists, crypto enthusiasts and AI researchers have turned longevity research into something between the hottest science and a tragic comedy.
When a chipper person with a clipboard approaches you on the street in San Francisco, you can usually expect the inquiry to be about one of a few public-policy goals. Do you have time to talk about abortion rights? Housing? Online gambling ballot initiatives? These days, though, you might also hear a question that’s both more grandiose and more personal, the kind of thing you wouldn’t expect to hear from someone who looks like they want your signature. The question: How long do you want to live?
One Saturday in August, Anastasia Egorova, the 37-year‑old chief executive officer of a longevity research nonprofit, organized two dozen volunteers in San Francisco and 10 other cities to collectively get answers from almost 200 passersby. Many respondents pegged their desired life span at somewhere from 80 years (roughly the US average) to 120 years (close to the global record). Egorova’s clipboard-toting volunteers in São Paulo and Toronto heard much the same that day, as did volunteers in Haifa, Israel, and Malmö, Sweden. Few people rose to the challenge posed by the merch many of the clipboarders were wearing. All of the hats, T-shirts and stickers read, “Say Forever!”