Death used to be the great equalizer. It didn't matter if you were a peasant in the middle ages or a king with a gold crown; eventually, the clock ran out. But lately, that's changing. Or at least, some very wealthy people are betting everything they have that it can change. When you hear about a billionaire that wants to live forever, your mind probably jumps to sci-fi movies or maybe those weird rumors about Walt Disney’s head in a freezer.
The reality is way weirder. And it's much more expensive.
We aren't talking about just eating more kale or hitting the treadmill for an extra twenty minutes. We’re talking about "biohacking" on a cellular level. People like Bryan Johnson, Jeff Bezos, and Peter Thiel aren't just looking to reach 100. They want to "solve" death like it's a bug in a software program.
The blueprint of a billionaire that wants to live forever
Bryan Johnson is perhaps the most famous example of this right now. He’s the guy who sold his payment processing company, Braintree, to PayPal for $800 million. Since then, he’s spent millions of dollars a year on a project he calls "Project Blueprint." He isn't just taking vitamins. He has a team of over 30 doctors monitoring his every bodily function.
He eats exactly 1,977 calories a day. Not 1,978. Not 1,976.
He takes over 100 supplements. He blasts his skin with lasers to reverse sun damage. He even famously engaged in "intergenerational blood swapping," where he took blood plasma from his teenage son and gave his own plasma to his father. He eventually stopped because he said he didn't see a "detectable benefit," but the fact that he tried it tells you everything you need to know about the desperation and the capital involved in this movement.
It sounds crazy. Honestly, it kind of is. But to a billionaire that wants to live forever, the logic is simple: if the body is a machine, and machines can be repaired, why should we ever stop?
Why the rich are obsessed with "Escape Velocity"
There is this concept in the longevity community called "Longevity Escape Velocity." The idea is that for every year you live, science advances enough to add more than one year to your life expectancy. If we hit that point, death basically becomes optional.
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Ray Kurzweil, a futurist and high-level engineer at Google, has been talking about this for decades. He thinks we’re only a few years away from the "Singularity," where nanobots in our bloodstream will repair our organs from the inside out. It's easy to dismiss this as billionaire fan-fiction, but when you look at the money flowing into companies like Altos Labs—which reportedly has backing from Jeff Bezos and Yuri Milner—you realize this isn't a hobby. It's an industry.
Altos Labs is focusing on cellular rejuvenation programming. They aren't trying to make better medicine; they are trying to "reprogram" cells back to a younger state. Imagine taking a cell from a 70-year-old and turning it back into a stem cell. That’s the goal. It’s Nobel Prize-level science being funded by private wallets that never seem to empty.
The controversy of the "Immortal Class"
It’s not all just lab coats and green juices. There’s a massive ethical elephant in the room. If a billionaire that wants to live forever actually succeeds, what does that do to the rest of us?
Critics like bioethicists often point out that this could create a literal biological divide between the "haves" and the "have-nots." In the past, the rich lived longer because they had better food and didn't have to work in coal mines. In the future, the rich might live longer because they literally have different biology.
Then there's the Sam Altman angle. The CEO of OpenAI has reportedly invested $180 million into Retro Biosciences. Their mission? To add ten years to the healthy human lifespan. Altman is known for his "prepper" tendencies, famously having a stash of gold, guns, and gas masks. For him, longevity is just another form of survival insurance.
But science is messy.
Take Metformin, for example. It’s a cheap diabetes drug that some longevity enthusiasts take because they believe it mimics the effects of fasting and slows aging. Or Rapamycin, an immunosuppressant used in organ transplants. People are taking these drugs off-label in hopes of staying young. The problem? We don't actually have the long-term data to prove it works in healthy humans. We have data on mice. And fruit flies.
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You aren't a fruit fly.
The specific tech being tested right now
If you peek inside these longevity clinics, it looks less like a hospital and more like a space station. They use things like:
- Hyperbaric Oxygen Chambers: Spending hours in a pressurized tube to flood tissues with oxygen.
- Senolytics: Drugs designed to kill "zombie cells"—old cells that stop dividing but don't die, instead lingering and causing inflammation.
- NAD+ Infusions: IV drips intended to boost a coenzyme that helps with DNA repair and energy metabolism.
- CRISPR: Gene editing that could, theoretically, snip out the parts of our DNA that make us prone to cancer or Alzheimer's.
It's a shotgun approach. They're throwing everything at the wall to see what sticks. Peter Thiel, the co-founder of PayPal and Palantir, has been very vocal about his disdain for the "complacency" of death. He’s famously donated to the SENS Research Foundation, led by Aubrey de Grey, who famously claimed the first person to live to 1,000 is already alive today.
Is it true? Probably not. But when you have billions, "probably not" is still worth a $100 million bet.
Is this actually healthy or just a midlife crisis?
There is a fine line between health and obsession. Some doctors worry that the billionaire that wants to live forever is actually doing more harm than good. Constantly stressing the body with extreme diets, hundreds of supplements, and unproven treatments can cause liver strain or hormonal imbalances.
Even Bryan Johnson admits his life is a bit of a prison. He goes to sleep at 8:30 PM. He doesn't drink. He doesn't eat "fun" food. He is a slave to his data. If his biometrics say he needs more of a certain micronutrient, he eats it. He has outsourced his free will to an algorithm in exchange for the hope of eternal youth.
Most of us wouldn't make that trade. But then again, most of us don't have a legacy we're trying to protect for the next three centuries.
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The most realistic ways to live longer (for the rest of us)
The funny thing is, while the billionaires are chasing "young blood" and "gene hacking," the most proven ways to extend your life are actually pretty boring. Valter Longo, a researcher at USC, has spent years studying "Blue Zones"—places where people naturally live to be over 100.
They don't have cryotherapy tanks. They have:
- Strong social networks (friends and family).
- Diets heavy in legumes and low in refined sugar.
- Consistent, low-intensity movement (walking, gardening).
- A sense of purpose or "Ikigai."
You can spend $2 million a year like Bryan Johnson, or you can go for a walk with your neighbor and eat a bowl of lentils. Currently, the lentils have a better track record.
Moving toward a longer future
The quest of the billionaire that wants to live forever is basically a high-stakes R&D project for the rest of humanity. Eventually, the tech they are funding will trickle down. The heart monitors that used to cost thousands are now on your Apple Watch. The gene therapies being developed for the ultra-rich will eventually become the standard of care for genetic diseases.
We might never be immortal. Biology has limits. Entropy is a real thing. But we are definitely moving toward a world where "old age" looks very different than it did for our grandparents.
If you want to take a page out of the billionaire playbook without spending a fortune, focus on the basics that actually have data behind them.
- Prioritize Sleep: This is the one thing almost every longevity expert agrees on. Your brain literally "washes" itself of toxins while you sleep.
- Regular Blood Work: You don't need a 30-person medical team. Getting a standard blood panel once a year can catch inflammation or nutrient deficiencies before they become "aging" problems.
- Resistance Training: Muscle mass is one of the biggest predictors of longevity. As you age, falling is a major risk. Strong muscles protect your bones.
- Intermittent Fasting (with caution): There is some evidence that giving your digestive system a break triggers "autophagy," which is basically your cells' way of taking out the trash.
- Limit Alcohol: Sorry, but there’s no real "longevity" amount of booze. Even the "red wine is good for your heart" myth has been largely debunked when you look at the actual math of resveratrol.
The chase for eternal life is ultimately a chase for more time with the people we love. Whether you're doing it with a billion dollars or a pair of running shoes, the goal is the same. Just don't forget to actually live while you're busy trying not to die.