I went to a longevity conference for super rich people. Here’s how they plan to cheat death.

• Long-term investors and entrepreneurs recently gathered in Switzerland for the annual meeting of the elite.
• Business Insider was given a rare look inside.
• We’ve seen investments in supplements, skincare, and technology continue to increase.

The small Swiss town of Gstaad, nestled in the Bernese Alps, looks like the perfect setting for a fairytale inspired by The Sound of Music. Surrounded by green hills and snow-capped mountain peaks, it has beautifully designed wooden cottages dripping with pink geraniums.

I arrive by train in late September, after the tennis and polo players have left for the summer, but before there’s enough powder for skiers to hit the slopes. It’s a relatively quiet time of year in this luxurious resort town. A moment of solitude along the Saane river is as likely to be interrupted by cowbells as by a private plane gliding down the canyon.

This is where people looking for longevity come every time for an intimate meeting that connects investors with entrepreneurs and scientists. Some try red light therapy, while others slip Blueprint macadamia paste into their pockets as a pre-lunch snack.

Others wear continuous glucose monitors (CGMs) to monitor ketosis, or avoid potatoes at dinner in hopes of keeping blood sugar levels stable.

Organized by the Swiss long-term investment firm Maximon for the past five years, the Long-Term Investors Conference in Gstaad caters to a small group of investors, people focused on improving aging or pursuing don’t die.

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“We don’t share names, but we already had a couple of million and three million people in St. Moritz going to our events,” the conference co-founder Marc Bernegger told Longevity.Technology in 2020, before the first LIC.

Doctors from the most influential clinics around the world, from Singapore to Tel Aviv, are there. There are scientists who have spent their entire careers tending to this relatively back corner of biology. And then there’s well-known tech biohacker Bryan Johnson, who makes a short video appearance.

People are here to chat and connect more than anything else. The meetings are short, and most of the panels and presentations do not exceed 20 minutes. Additional time at the meeting is dedicated to exchanging ideas and getting to know all 130 investors, founders and researchers who attended the event, which is a two-day affair and half where ticket prices start above $4,000.

Investments are flowing into long-term companies that bring experiments and products to market.

The telomere measurement company Beyond Genomix, which sets the standard for longevity and reproductive health measurements, was here last year in its infancy. It’s back as a sponsor. So is Luminousred – a red light company that installs bright, warm lights in the bathrooms and bedrooms of longevity seekers hoping to rejuvenate their skin. and thick, reduce inflammation, or improve the health of their cells.

There are financiers and entrepreneurs here chasing long-term investments. Alex Colville of long-time pioneering firm Age1 in San Francisco says he won’t rule out funding a brainstorming startup, as long as he can get it. Tomorrow.Bio founder Emil Kendziorra tells the crowd about his new cryopreservation company (it’s not cryopreservation, he insists. vitrification.)

But overall, there’s a lot of excitement for the “easy” longevity stuff that’s been put into investors here from clinics, testers, supplement designers, and skincare brands, as opposed to technology. biotech will take years of clinical development.

L’Oréal’s Bold business is talking about investments in new ingredients for skin aging. The founder of the meeting Tobias Reichmuth (environmental investor and cryptocurrency as well as one of the first hosts of the Swiss version of “Shark Tank”) announced his life-long “Blue Cruise” icebreaker that will start sailing from January 2025.

The boat is equipped with a Starlink satellite network, designed for “floating collaboration.” It has a Michelin-starred chef and will travel to the far reaches of the world including Easter Island (where rapamycin was discovered) and Antarctica, as well as long-time “Blue Zones” such as Sardinia, Italy and Okinawa, Japan.

Being here in the comfort of a question and conversation session, I was surprised to find myself more willing than usual to suggest longevity. Before dinner the other night, I tried a supplement that included berberine, a plant compound that many TikTokers call natural Ozempic (it’s not exactly the same as Ozempic, but it seems to help stabilize blood sugar of blood when taken before meals.) ‘Why,’ I thought, as my colleagues took out a few capsules.

When I got home, I sampled the chalky collagen supplement for the first time. (Verdict: Yuck. No thanks).

Long-term investments may not have the same returns as Nvidia stock these days, but Reichmuth says his Maximon Longevity fund still expects, on average, an 8% return in general.

A small investment in ideas like skin rejuvenation today can reveal a new path to post-aging elsewhere in the body tomorrow. Another example of this: Immunologist and AI expert David Furman here talks about his “Healthy Selfie” which works with a smartphone designed to measure how old your organs are by looking at your face . It could be a reality from 2025.

After the conference, as I boarded the train to Zurich, watching the world go by through the large picture window next to the few VC investors in attendance, it felt like a three-hour journey to back to the real world. . Far from the lavish retreats of Julie Andrews, Madonna, and Valentino, there were no longer private garages built into the hills, so sturdy they led down to multi-story caves with spas and ballrooms. entertainment.

I felt like I was brought back to real life. In the swirling crowd of pilgrims running to their various destinations, I felt dead again.