The business of living better for longer is booming and billionaires are optimizing for immortality. In a new CNN series, tech journalist Kara Swisher sets out to optimize for truth
Kara Swisher has taken on big tech, wrangles with “Pivot” co-host Scott Galloway weekly, and does it all without seemingly ever needing to adjust her signature Ray-Ban aviator sunglasses.
And if anyone can cut through the noise and give the longevity movement the critical examination it deserves, it’s likely the same journalist who put Silicon Valley on notice.
Swisher, host of the podcast “On With Kara Swisher” and co-host of “Pivot,” is turning her lens on the longevity movement this month with “Kara Swisher Wants to Live Forever,” a new CNN Original Series produced by EverWonder Studio.
The six-episode series premieres April 11 at 9 p.m. ET/PT on CNN.
There’s a parallel to the tech industry the “Burn Book” author has spent years covering. Much like Silicon Valley, the longevity space has been “held captive by rich tech bros,” Swisher said, along with “jacked dude influencers, nonsense sellers of useless supplements and some lady who sells candles that are named after her private parts,” a pointed reference to Goop founder Gwyneth Paltrow.
There’s a personal hook, too. Swisher’s father died of an aneurysm at 34 when she was just five years old, a loss she said has shaped how she thinks about death.
“As titans who have profoundly impacted our world, they’ve become interested in applying their vast fortunes and often god-like know-how to longevity, dreaming they might even be able to hack death itself,” she said. “Can they? Is that a good thing? What is actual breakthrough science and what is the same old snake oil? Will that effort help all of humanity or just themselves? My goal is the same as it always has been: To find out.”
A trailer shows Swisher sitting down with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, pressing him on his assertion that AI will be able to cure most diseases by 2035. She skeptically eyes a hyperbaric chamber with Blueprint founder Bryan Johnson of “Don’t Die” fame, undergoes red light therapy and straps into an exoskeleton, a wearable robotic device that can help people with mobility issues.
She also explores GLP-1s, the underrated role of human connection in longevity and speaks to venture capitalist Reed Jobs, CRISPR pioneer Jennifer Doudna and Galloway. There’s also a trip to South Korea to explore the country’s impressive life expectancy — and yes, she even takes ketamine, “so you don’t have to,” she said.
The timing of the series is poignant.
AI is becoming increasingly embedded in fitness apps and equipment, body composition scanners, wearables and nutrition platforms. The supplement space is booming, peptides are everywhere, and even skincare giants are promising to turn back the clock. It’s also big business, according to UBS analysts, who rank longevity among the most powerful investment themes of the next decade.
But it’s also a noisy one. A recent public feud between Johnson and green drink giant AG1 laid bare an industry where brands are investing heavily in scientific credibility while consumers are too fatigued by competing claims to know who — or what — to trust.
Whether it’s overdue or right on time, Swisher is setting out to ask the questions some in the industry have been dodging or hoping weren’t asked in the first place.
