I went to a private longevity night hosted by Bryan Johnson in San Francisco. I needed a cookie afterward.

The only taxable these days that gets group successful San Francisco to extremity talking astir AI is surviving forever.

When Baseten, an AI startup (what else?), announced a fewer weeks ago, it was hosting a "private evening" pinch tech entrepreneur and longevity evangelist Bryan Johnson and VC Sarah Guo astatine its SF office, complete 3,000 group applied to get successful for conscionable 100 slots.

For the uninitiated, Johnson made hundreds of millions trading his costs startup to PayPal and now spends millions a twelvemonth connected a wellness authorities that he shares pinch his 2.7 cardinal Instagram followers. Johnson has been successful the news a batch this summer, aft he revealed he has autoimmune gastritis, an incurable chronic information of the stomach. Then, past month, he said, "he mightiness have taken 'this full longevity point excessively far."

When I arrived, the registration array was swarmed by group condemned to the waitlist trying to perspective their measurement in.

"Don't bother," said the personification astatine the desk. "It's full."

Once I squeezed past the crowds, I was handed a color-coded schedule pinch 3 stations: Breathwork, Bioage tests, and a Q&A pinch Dr. Carl Seger, Johnson's lead doctor.

"Nothing you measurement coming is simply a verdict," I was told. "It's a baseline, and each 1 of these markers tin beryllium moved."

But first, it was clip for happy hour! No hors d'oeuvres aliases vino here. Instead, tin I liking you successful earthy vegetables and mocktails to return the separator off? I opted for a refreshing "Tumeric Elixir" pinch orangish juice, carrot juice, ginger, and tumeric.

As soon arsenic I walked in, I noticed everyone seemed overwhelmingly youthful. One tech laminitis successful his fifties told maine he felt ancient. So either Johnson's regular is moving wonders aliases this crowd was emblematic of Silicon Valley's "youthquake."

I asked an enthusiastic young instrumentality learning technologist who useful astatine Uber why he was there.

"Bryan Johnson is conscionable truthful cool!" he said.

But capable chitchat. It was clip to get my look scanned to study my "face age." After a fewer minutes, a reference popped up. I was successful the 80th percentile for wrinkles (which is apparently very good), but my "face age" was older than my existent age.

Feeling a small dejected, I walked complete to the bioage stations, wherever participants underwent a bid of tests, specified arsenic grip strength, push-ups, and a one-leg stand, to measurement their biologic age. Johnson, accompanied by his caller defender dog, Katara, strode by, playfully encouraging group to do a fewer much push-ups.

A fewer feet away, engineers were coding connected elephantine screens. We were successful an agency aft all, not a gym, and the activity must spell on.

Before Johnson's interview, it was clip for a meal "guided" by his individual chef, Tara Amanya. There were container meals pinch chickenhearted and vegetables, but I opted for the salmon, which was tasty but near maine a spot hungry.

Anything that gets group to workout much aliases eat healthier should beryllium commended. Still, I was struck by really galore questions passim the nighttime came down to group wanting easy shortcuts to fundamentally hack life, arsenic if it were an algorithm to beryllium exploited.

Again and again, group kept asking: "What is the one thing I tin do to unrecorded longer?"

I kept reasoning astir my grandparents, who ne'er heard of peptides aliases biohacking. They drank vino pinch meal each nighttime and mostly ate immoderate they wanted. They each lived good into their nineties.

Johnson is acold much self-aware than he tin look connected Instagram, and erstwhile he was interviewed by Guo to extremity the evening, he said: "We each cognize I'm going to die, but it's going to beryllium being deed by a autobus aliases choking connected broccoli."

"I springiness you support to revel successful the joyousness of it," he continued. "That is irony, and my eventual foe is irony."

After the talk ended, I walked backmost to my edifice and ordered a cocoa spot cookie.

Do you person a extremity astir life successful Silicon Valley? Contact newsman Ben Bergman securely connected Signal astatine @BenBergman.11