Silicon Valley at Sea

The tech industry is navigating uncharted waters. As anxiety sinks in, Bitcoin billionaires look for their next life raft.

- MARY CHILDS

World domination was not on the menu at this year's Summit at Sea, an invite-only cruise that convenes a "global community of entrepreneurs, academics, athletes, artists, astronauts, and beyond.

Relative to its past self, the vibe at the once ambitious floating Davos for millennial technocrats was muted against a backdrop of broader anxiety gripping Silicon Valley as it navigates uncertain waters. Even for a gathering long interested in wellness, there was a telling number of powdered elixirs in Summit's swag bags, as well as an awful lot of seminars focusing on mental health, spirituality, and psychedelics-and in Palo Alto demand for hallucinogenic mushrooms, ketamine, and LSD is running high, as the likes of Sergey Brin and Elon Musk evangelize about their healing qualities.

"People are not feeling as bullish," says one regular, who described attendees as seeking a break from reality, not a platform to "accelerate their supercharged rocket startup." Supercharging is less important right now than stress management through breath work.

Beyond the comforts of Richard Branson's Virgin Voyages Scarlet Lady, where Summit took place en route to the Bahamas, high and rising interest rates have battered the sector's stocks and wiped out multiple lenders, such as Silicon Valley Bank. Venture funds are raising a fraction of what they previously raked in, so the startups they bankroll have gone from being awash in cash to having to hunt for it.