Kara Swisher Is Trying To Live Forever

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1:35Kara Swisher:Try seven days free and use my code VALLEY for 20 % off. Hey, this is Adriana, one of the producers of Uncanny Valley. We're preparing something special and a little different that we will share with you on the feed later this week. But today, we're bringing you a conversation between Wired's global editorial director, Katie Drummond, and longtime tech journalist and friend of the pod, Kara Swisher. They recently sat down to talk about Silicon Valley's obsession with living forever. Kara decided to look into it in depth for her new CNN series, Kara Swisher Wants to Live Forever. And through her reporting, she found a booming industry with more than a few surprises along the way.

2:18Here's our conversation.

2:25This is Katie Drummond, Wired's Global Editorial Director. Today, I'm joined by journalist and podcast host, Kara Swisher, who's embarking on a new venture, a six-part docuseries on longevity that aims to parse rumors from reality. Kara Swisher Wants to Live Forever is a six-part CNN original series that airs on Saturdays. The first episode is already out on streaming, and Kara's here now to tell us more. Welcome back, Kara. Thank you, Katie. It's good to see you. Great to see you, too. So I want to start at the beginning. I just watched the first episode. And I understand that the series in many ways was born out of one of our favorite topics here at Wired.

3:02And that is, of course, Silicon Valley and the moguls who run it. You've been covering those moguls for decades. And you were covering them as they became the billionaires and the moguls.

3:11Kara Swisher:I was the before times. Now you have to deal with them now. Well, I'm pretty sure you're still dealing with them. Sadly, I raised them badly. And now you have to deal with them. But part of the raising badly that you did is that so many of these guys have now become obsessed with longevity. They become obsessed with sort of physical optimization or maybe however they see that. Body hacking, whatever they call it. I don't know that I would consider Jeff's physique my ideal physique, but he is clearly in some sort of— Oh, Lauren seems to like it, so let's just leave it at that. Lauren seems to like it just fine and good for her.

3:42but how did you watch that relationship that some of them had to health and longevity evolve

3:48Kara Swisher:well you know you talk about just body you know we're not supposed to talk about people's physical looks but wow he's different like he's different all i'm saying is he's not my type right no but i could have thrown across the room years ago when i first met him and maybe i did but the thing that's interesting to me it's not just that it's the investments it's the massive investments whether it's larry ellison who's created an entire institute for this musk has been involved bezos of of course, has talked about it and made investments, Altman, and many more. There's lots. And of course, a lot of it was also around psychedelics and ketamine.

4:19Kara Swisher:They were the first to sort of make significant investments in that area. Sometimes good, sometimes bad. Like, it's interesting. And I think it was born out of this idea is like, they've always been trying to hack health in some way and never were very successful. And so it always interested them. And now that they have time and money, they're older and they suddenly realize their little meat sacks are going to not last for that long. And so how do we get to that spot of, you know, the singularity, which was, you know, Ray Kurzweil, that idea that we're going to merge with the machine. And then there's a dollop of science fiction that they all grew up on.

4:54Kara Swisher:I know Musk certainly was enamored with certain science fiction around that idea, space travel, not just space travel, space travel, longevity, et cetera. And so that's sort of what it's part of. And then there's a whole aspect of it of what happens to your brain? Can you preserve your brain? And not cryogenics, because I didn't do any of that because I think that's such nonsense. Why waste my time? But one of the things was what happens now that they have AI that become you, could you preserve yourself in some other way and put yourself into another being? And I want to ask you about your experience with that.

5:28But for these guys, I mean, there's the ego and the power of it too, right? I mean, this sort of like the ultimate conquest, the ultimate exercising of power would be able to, would mean being able to defeat death, right?

5:43Kara Swisher:Defeat death or at least extend it to the point, you know, Musk talks about it like, it's just a programming problem, but it's not just a program. Of course it's not. They like to reduce the brain to a computer. The computer wishes it were like a brain. The brain is amazing. But I think it's the idea that if everything else can be hacked, why can't this, right? And to a certain extent, there are things you can do and like robotics and exoskeletons and AI for cancer, which I also looked into. This was, I wanted to look at the real stuff, GLP-1s, mRNA technology, the uses of AI and drug discovery, all manner of things can extend life and rid ourselves of certain diseases.

6:21Kara Swisher:That's a laudable goal. But instead of just saying, okay, we're going to try to figure out a way to talk about this single cancer, instead, because they're doing PR for themselves or they're stealing all our information, we're going to cure all diseases. Right. All of them. All of them. All of them. I was like, all? Like, I'm not so sure that's possible. But I get a goal. I get a goal. Like, that's a nice goal. Yeah. But what they're really doing is other things, right? They're really doing is creating all manner of danger. And that's not their main goal is to help humanity. They're there to help themselves.

6:53Kara Swisher:They're there to get richer. And they're there to extend their power across the rest of us without any accountability. That brings me to actually Brian Johnson, who is featured in the first episode of the series, who I also interviewed, and we talked very briefly before you went and interviewed him many months back. You know, he's one of the Internet's favorite longevity influencers, if not the Internet's favorite. He's very— He doesn't like calling himself an influencer, by the way. He got very offended. Well, I mean, he is a YouTuber. I mean, he is prolific. He's an influencer. He's across all these platforms.

7:26He has millions of followers. He is very, very wealthy by way of tech money. And he has devoted himself essentially to becoming a one-man longevity optimization experiment. Which helps none of us. Which helps none of us. And I wanted to ask, you know, I interviewed him. I have my impressions.

7:44Kara Swisher:Tell me about yours. Well, it's interesting because I had forgotten, but as I went back, he came to Code in 2017, my conference. And the clips from that are, I must say, are wonderful. But he looks, again, sorry to keep commenting on people's appearances. vastly different than he does today. He looks normal is what he looks like. He does look normal. He was coming because he was talking about, and I thought it was really interesting, and the reason I had him was because he was talking about brain science and what we can do around depression because he himself suffered it and some of the uses of AI.

8:15Kara Swisher:He was one of the first people to talk about where are we going to go with this and very thoughtful. And, you know, he had sold this company for$800 million, I can't remember. And obviously he had also personal issues around Mormonism and everything else. And so he was a really interesting character to me. And then it morphed into this. And then he's doing all this like chest showing off. Nudity. Blood training, nudity, like look at me. Plasma transfers with his son or his father. Trying anything and everything. Yeah. And he became a circus act. And I was like, wow, that was what happened, like kind of stuff.

8:47Kara Swisher:And so I had somewhat, I wouldn't say affection, but I had empathy for what he was talking about during that talk, which is why I had him. and it was also of interest because it really was god what can we do with ai and brains and etc and and it's an interesting area of of things to discuss and entertain and then it was about a narcissistic pursuit of i don't even know what because it's not like and i i did put it to him in this interview it's like your experiences are only the experiences of brian johnson if you have all this money all of you why don't you pay for gold standard testing well how many can i pay for I'm like a fucking buttload, my friend.

9:26Kara Swisher:Yeah. Right? Why don't you help more people than less? And that's, it's just him. It's just him. And what is going to become of this information? Almost nothing. Like maybe one or two small insights that people might take. Maybe. Getting enough sleep is good. We know this already. He has helped us establish this. Yes, but he has not. No, no, I know. I'm being sarcastic. He has not at all. My grandma knew that. Yeah, there's a great clip. I think I saw it on CNN's social accounts of this interview where he says something like, you know, getting enough sleep. Anyone can get enough sleep. And immediately in my head, and then you said, no, they can't.

10:03Right. There are so many people.

10:05Kara Swisher:If you're poor, you know, if you do food and you get enough sleep, and maybe if they get enough sleep, I go, maybe they can't. They cannot. It didn't even occur to him that they might have two jobs. They have homeless issues. They have, you know, financial issues. They've got health issues that they can't pay for. It doesn't even occur to these people that if you spend$2 million on your health, you'll be good. You're good, sir. And so what is the point of that money when he could be doing like—and just interestingly, ironically, this week, Mackenzie Scott gave$70 million to Meals on Wheels. Guess who's going to help the outcomes of his longevity more, her or him?

10:40Her. So why do you think he's doing it? Because this is— Hint's case? This is the question. An empty hole.

10:46Kara Swisher:Yeah. You know, I don't know. I think there is scientific interest. Like, you know, look, Frankenstein, Dr. Frankenstein, you know, everyone who does experiments, lots of both nefarious like Hitler and Dr. Mengele, they did those experiments. And there's all kinds of people. The guy who, you know, when they were doing CRISPR tried to use it for cloning when they decided to go into cloning. He did it. He shouldn't have. This is something that's always happened. And if you're not doing it for the benefit of lots and lots of people, what are you doing it for? And then I said, and he's sort of aware of it.

11:21Kara Swisher:He goes, I know people think I'm this like narcissistic Patrick Bateman adjacent motherfucker. And I was like, yes. And then he's like, he wanted me to say no, no, no. But I was like, exactly. And I said, and he's like, well, you know, it's easy to mock me. I go, no, no, you put yourself, you make, you know what you're doing. You're very aware of, you know, when you have a picture of you with a little blood thing and you do with your son, that everyone's going to look. You have to be. Don't play innocent with me. At the same time, I find to be a rather poignant figure. Like, what are you looking for?

11:57Kara Swisher:Is this the way you want to spend your life? Measuring your erections and, you know, analyzing your poop and constantly being, why? Why? There was something. I found him to be, I mean, all the things that you just said. on a surface level as a human, a lovely person. Yes, quite. Generous with his time, kind, thoughtful, considerate. Yes, very much so. Something sad. Something sad. Something sad. Like the other day, he just, you know, and I like him, but he's like just had sex with Kate. It was good. No. On the internet he said that? Yeah, he did on Twitter. Don't do that. I know. And I was like, what are you doing, sir?

12:33Kara Swisher:It was good. Did he say it was good? Something like that. And everyone was like, go, man. And I was like, and then she responded, yeah, it was good. And I was like, oh, my God, you people. It wasn't great. You know, it would be great if she did that, but she didn't. She liked it apparently, which is great. I'm glad. Good for you. Happy for them. Happy for you. But it's sort of this weird, it's narcissism is what it is, right? And that's what you have to look at. And one of the things that I think is a real disease of these people right now is they can't stop talking. Like, we can't stop talking, but that's our job, right?

13:03Kara Swisher:But they really have to weigh in on all manner of, whether it's Marc Andreessen talking about introspection, which is, to me, I was like, oh, I see. Then you're deeply troubled. Like, everything they try to say, like, I don't care about anything. I'm like, oh, you care about everything. You care so much. So much. And so it's really interesting. Like, why are we talking to Mark interested about philosophy precisely? Like, I don't know. I'm happy to talk to him about browsers or whatever. And so that's the kind of stuff. And so to me, it's out of boredom, out of I can talk about anything. I'm an expert in anything.

13:37Kara Swisher:And when you come to health care, who are we helping? And what really kills me is, well, obviously there's the misinformation and the grifterness around so much of this stuff. And that's, you know, it's the same thing part and parcel with the political misinformation that happens. It's down the same alley. But one of the things that sort of kills me is that there's so much amazing innovation happening. Yeah. Real innovation. And that was a question I had for you, which is sort of how much do you think all of this noise of the Silicon Valleys, the curing all diseases, the Brian Johnsons, the misinformation, like all of this noise, you have that over here.

14:14Over here, you have a very broken American health care system. Very much. Massive inequity in access to care.

14:22Kara Swisher:Double the cost of other peer nations and worse outcomes. You have real science happening. So how much do you think we're all getting distracted looking over here and not sort of addressing what's going on? A lot. Because a lot of this, there isn't a business in it. There isn't a business in doing preventative health care. There's a little bit of it, but the costs, the cost savings are enormous. And what we do is we backload everything. The money is spent when you're sick. And we're good at sick. We're not good at health. And so I went to Korea, which is better at health than they are at sick.

14:53Kara Swisher:Yeah, tell me about that. I've never been. You know, it's not a perfect nation, let's be clear. I wasn't trying to say they're the best, but they do have the longest longevity right now. And there's a lot of reasons. One is diet. I went to a school. If you saw what those kids ate, it's really astonishing. Very healthy foods, you know, fermented foods, vegetables, whole fruits, everything else. And they have a nutritionist in every school. Wow. Why don't we have a nutritionist in every school? And then it's not like they don't eat snacks. Everyone's seen K-pop Demon Hunters. They love a snack, right?

15:20Kara Swisher:but what happens is these kids get a base of food knowledge that they get used to and start eating and that's really important and you don't see it today but later in your life it matters. Same thing with doing strength training when you're younger. It's like putting money in the bank. All of a sudden you have a million dollars later so you don't fall over and or you do interval training to get your heart more efficient and your muscles. Like, that's something that pays off much later and is not so flashy. Like, put on a red light. It all just sounds very boring. It does. And it is very boring.

15:58Compared to Brian Johnson having good sex.

16:00Kara Swisher:Right, exactly. And so, although sex is probably good for your health.

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16:57Why is health care more expensive in the U.S. than any other country? We answer those questions and more on Control F, a new podcast that uses data to reveal the hidden stories in our daily lives. Every episode, we tell you about the data that companies and the government track about us and how that data shapes our reality. Join the search. Listen to Control F from KUOW in Seattle, wherever you get your podcasts.

17:30Kara Swisher:One of the things that's important to keep in mind is what can we do as a nation to try to make ourselves healthier rather than, you know, I'll tell you one thing in Korea, universal health care. Oh, well, sure. Universal health care is the way you have a healthier society. End of story. Period. End of story. Having grown up in Canada, agree. And, you know, when the rich people, oh, they don't have as good a system. I'm like, you know what? Buy more. You're rich. Buy more. Yeah, buy more. Buy more, which they do. And by the way, the rich have a different medical system than everybody else. They have these—and I went to a concierge doctor.

18:00Kara Swisher:You went to one, yeah. And, you know, some of it is silly, like the red light, Matt, whatever, if you want to—they don't really—my science is pretty weak around those things. Or hyperbaric—they have something new and flashy. Brian has his own hyperbaric chamber. But, you know, it's sort of the idea is if a little oxygen is good, three times is better, which is not true. You know, and these promises of instant— And again, this isn't new in our history or the world's history, that you take a pill and then you're suddenly young again. I mean, even Greek mythology is like that. Vampire stories, Frankenstein.