Silicon Valley Takes on Death
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 cool shit for my own good.”
Asprey is strolling across his lush property in British Columbia, holding up his phone and pointing out the specimens in this year’s garden as we chat over Zoom in the midst of the global pandemic. He’s protecting his skin from the sun with a goofy Outdoor Research hat and wearing a long string of beads that he says are each over a hundred years old, from cultures around the world.
IF THE LIFE EXTENSIONISTS ARE RIGHT, A PERSON WHO’S 40 TODAY MIGHT STILL BE DOWNHILL SKIING, RUNNING A 10K OR PLAYING TENNIS AT 100.
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 tech elite who have begun directing their attention—and truckloads of money—toward the problem of life extension. Jeff Bezos, Peter Thiel, Sergey Brin, Larry Ellison—name a Silicon Valley A-lister and
