Kara Swisher Wants to Live Forever is award-winning journalist Kara Swisher’s new television show airing Saturdays on CNN. And while the title may be pithy, it may also be true. The former technology reporter for The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal, turned conference impresario and celebrity podcaster, has racked up a serious “to do” list.
On top of her current workload (two bi-weekly podcasts, On with Kara Swisher and Pivot with Scott Galloway, plus regular segments as a CNN contributor), she also wants to democratize the longevity space for regular folk. She wants to persuade governments to legislate guardrails on AI development. She wants to protect children – well, all of us – from the corrosive dangers of social media. She wants to buy The Washington Post from Jeff Bezos, refund and recapitalize it as a collective, and launch a Legal and Liability Defense Fund in the name of the late Katharine Graham, scion and champion of the Post. Someday, she wants to run for mayor – ideally, of San Francisco. And the most pressing reason she needs to live forever? She has four children, two of whom aren’t even close to graduating from primary school (they’re six and three). No wonder she’s trying to get the inside scoop on life extension. She’ll need all the time she can get on this mortal coil.
The show is billed as a six-part documentary series in which Swisher examines longevity, both as an industry and a growing cultural obsession. In each hour-long episode, Swisher, who also executive produced the show, acts as both host and subject. Her mission: to report on how and why life extension has become the domain of “rich tech bros, jacked dude influencers and nonsense sellers of useless supplements.” Or “wellness grifters” as she called them in conversation with Tina Brown, editor extraordinaire, on Fresh Hell, Brown’s Substack.
In the course of their discussion, Swisher and Brown touched on enough salient and juicy bits from the show to make it unmissable for me, but I’m a superfan. Having interviewed the sardonic queen supreme of the bon mots a couple of years ago, I can’t wait to watch her eviscerate the gazillionaire longevity zealots. Highlights include how real-life interactions with friends and family vs. synthetic relationships – online, AI-generated – are life extenders; why “biohacking” for men would be labeled eating disorders for women; and her number one best bio-hack: “Don’t be Poor!”
Even if you’re an unrepentant meat eater, lie to your doctor about your drinking, and don’t know who the vampiric Bryan Johnson or the disgraced influencer Dr. Peter Attia (author of Outlive: The Science and Art of Longevity) is, I’d encourage you to watch this show, and not only for rehabilitation purposes. Yes, it promises to be grounded in science and cover the best and most affordable ways to stay healthy and happy for a long life, but I have no doubt it will also be long, very long, on entertainment value.
Kara Swisher Wants to Live Forever premieres airs Saturdays at 9 p.m. EST on CNN and streams on CCN.com.
