If I have to live with these people forever, I’d rather die of old age 💁♀️
Hello dear MYKIGAI subscribers,
I had some very great reviews on the newsletter lately, new friends in the industry, people telling me they loved reading it. (Shout out to Simon from Jung+ Longevity). It is terrible on my part to have left it lingering for so long but working on AthenaDAO to get funding for women’s health takes an Olympic-level effort.
So, how is longevity actually going? Has science advanced? Are we closer to living longer?
I would say it is going as as good as funding women (women-led companies, women’s health research, women anything). Very small strides, still a huge mountain to climb. Lots of hype when one drop of rain falls on the ocean.
But you would think that by all you hear it is that we are getting closer.
Four years later and not much has changed. Names are different, BJ is the new Aubrey, and everyone is still fighting over what longevity means. Immortalists against healthspanners, against biohackers against…so on and so forth.
What remains a problem is the messaging.
Everyone is so over the moon lately that BJ is making people get into longevity. I think BJ is only making people get into him. He is going to shill us supplements, Snake Oil (he has rightly adopted the moniker for his olive oil), summits, pudding, and anything that will still make you your same age but appear Immortal because you will look like you are ready to do a Twilight remake.
“BJ is the goop of men for the tech industry.” (You are free to quote me)
Anyway, I always say people should do what they want with their wealth. The fact that he chose to buy himself such amazing marketing means he knows how to make money. That he has replaced his addiction to alcohol and partying with his addiction to attention is not our problem. He could have quietly funded 2 million dollars of research yearly but may the longevity gods bless him for sacrificing privacy to take on being CPG for the startup (mostly male) class.
You know that I talked at length about messaging being a problem in longevity, but lately, I think I know a new problem. Are people maybe not buying the message because of who is selling it?
Party of a lifetime (and eternity) 🪩
What is a good party? A good party is something everyone wants to go to or be a part of or invited to. Years ago when I lived in Monaco there was a party everyone who had lived there for a long time secretly loved but publicly pretended they hated to go, and everyone who did not live there were paying dearly to go. It was the “Bal de la Rose”, an annual charity gala, where kings, celebrities, and guests of guests (me) had a blast to the theme and a musical act.
Here below in this photo is Mark Ronson, a princess, a prince, some oligarch, a famous 90’s model and me. Not seen Karl Lagerfeld, Brendan Fallis (Hannah Bronfman’s Husband), Cara Delevingne, and other Euro celebrities and socialites it would be pointless to name.
That year was particularly epic, Ronson DJing brought the cool kids. My point is that if living forever was a party, this would be getting the RSVPs because of the perception of what happens there.
Let’s set the party analogy aside, Madonna for years sold a lifestyle she did not live to sell records and capture the imagination of the party people and the gays. (I am sorry if that is not allowed anymore but that is what was then).
She looked like she was having a hoot, and her music brought on the party, and yet she was a machine; her life was taking care of business and her body with discipline. She did not drink, or party, she lived the opposite of being at Les Bain-Douches at 4 am looking for the after-party (wink wink Stephen).
I am pretty sure Madonna is a bit wacky now because she is living life in reverse as she is finally doing what she did not do (the partying) when she sold a lifestyle she did not have (still the partying). The thing is people buying that lifestyle is what made her one of the top pop music artists of all time.
I mean, when “Confessions on a Dance Floor” came out it was a cultural phenomenon and her age was not the main topic. Madonna was 47 then, one year older than BJ’s 46.
The irony here is while Madonna was busy being cool at 47 and making people feel young and alive; BJ’s very public obsession about not aging is making an entire generation of young people feel old at 30.
Sorry but I choose the Madonna party. (Side goal is being as kick-ass as she was at 47).
So back to parties. Has the longevity crowd wondered if when people hear them speak about “living forever”, or how this is “the most important problem in the world” and so on and so forth. Maybe people think that’s a party I do not want to attend?
Women and Longevity
Congrats to my friend Nikolina Lauc and to fellow Canadian Kristen Fortney. One finished raising her $4.2 million seed round for GlycanAge who we have featured many times here, and Fortney completed a series D $170 million dollar round for BioAge.
Knowing what I know about funding, raising capital, startup culture, science, biotech, pharma - a big toast to them. My kind of party! 🍾
More on women and longevity soon.