Silicon Valley Takes On Death

Technology bigwigs are investing billions in pursuit of longer, disease-free lives. But could there really be a magic pill for immortality?

- Megan Miller

Entrepreneur Dave Asprey’s end-of-life plans are quite simple, really, even if some of his ambitions sound laughably optimistic to most of us. “I want to die at a time and by a method of my own choosing, and keep doing awesome things until that day,” he tells me. “I don’t think it’s outrageous to believe I’ll make it to 180 years old. And if I run out of energy, it’ll just be because I did too much cools**t for my own good.”

Asprey is strolling across his lush property in British Columbia as we chat over Zoom in the midst of the global pandemic. He’s protecting his skin from the sun with an Outdoor Research hat and wearing a long string of beads that he says are each over 100 years old from cultures around the world.

Asprey, 48, is the founder of the Bulletproof wellness empire and a vocal champion of the movement to extend human life expectancy beyond 100 years. He’s made millions by experimenting on his own body and packaging his home-brewed discoveries into books, a podcast, consulting services, and consumer products (you may have even tried his butter-laced coffee). Asprey, who was a web-security executive before he became the Bulletproof Executive, is just one of a cadre of technology elite who have begun directing their attention – and truckloads of money – toward the problem of life extension. JeffBezos, Peter Thiel, Sergey Brin, Larry Ellison – name a Silicon Valley A-lister and he or she is likely funding longevity research, experimenting with anti-aging interventions, or both. These are the masters of the universe who see no reason they can’t take the technology industry’s optimisation obsession and apply it to the ultimate challenge: conquering death itself.