{"id":398500,"date":"2026-04-18T10:06:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-18T10:06:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/398500\/"},"modified":"2026-04-18T10:06:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-18T10:06:08","slug":"i-visited-an-sf-biohacking-event-it-wasnt-what-i-expected","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/398500\/","title":{"rendered":"I Visited an SF Biohacking Event. It Wasn’t What I Expected."},"content":{"rendered":"

I first heard about biohacking on social media about a year ago, after coming across Bryan Johnson, a famous biohacker who spends $2 million a year<\/a> to stay alive as long as possible. His Instagram bio ambitiously reads, “We may be the first generation who won’t die.”<\/p>\n

It’s fair to say I was intrigued.<\/p>\n

Biohackers optimize their bodies and minds to live longer and better. So, when I walked into Shack15, a members-only social club<\/a> in San Francisco, for a biohacking event, I expected to see a bunch of Bryan Johnson<\/a> dopplegangers \u2014 people in matching smartwatches, obsessively tracking their bodies and chasing immortality. Instead, I found something much more typical.<\/p>\n

Despite biohacking often being framed as a way to live longer<\/a>, at this event, most people weren’t chasing immortality. They just wanted to feel better now, whether they live long or not.<\/p>\n

I attended the event to understand how Silicon Valley’s wellness, work, and tech cultures collide, and to hopefully steal some tips ultra-productive founders use to feel their best. But while the technology was innovative, the biggest biohacks were much less extreme than I expected and cost nothing.<\/p>\n

Tickets ranged from $79 to $229<\/p>\n

\"attendants<\/p>\n

I showed up right at 10 am to a line of people waiting to get into the event.<\/p>\n

Tess Martinelli <\/p>\n

One ticket cost $79 for general admission, though I was granted free access with a media pass. The most expensive tickets were $229.<\/p>\n

The five-hour event, a partnership between wellness event brands BayDreaming and Biohack Miami, featured a full calendar across multiple rooms, including yoga, DJ sets, brunch, and speakers on longevity.<\/p>\n

There was always something to be doing, but my interest was drawn to the main hub where wellness companies promoted their products or services, often offering free trials.<\/p>\n

Call me a guinea pig, because if it’s a free trial, I’ll try anything.<\/p>\n

I tried out B12 shots, audio tactile beds, and red light therapy<\/p>\n

\"Tess<\/p>\n

This brain-mapping remedy played soothing music into my headphones for 30 minutes.<\/p>\n

Tess Martinelli <\/p>\n

I signed my life away on a waiver before jumping right in with a B12 injection<\/a>, which the doctor told me would give me an energy boost. I took the shot in my right arm, but throughout the day, I didn’t notice any change.<\/p>\n

Then, I tested out an audio-tactile bed that vibrates to music \u2014 and I swear it felt like my body was sinking into the ground in the most relaxing way.<\/p>\n

A red-light vest<\/a> was less convincing. It’s supposed to reduce pain and inflammation wherever the light touches, but the vendor told me it likely wouldn’t work well through my clothes. This ruined any hope of the placebo effect, since I had to keep our clothes on.<\/p>\n

Some other treatments I didn’t get an opportunity to try were hydrogen therapy and an IV drip.<\/p>\n

Some treatments cost thousands of dollars<\/p>\n

\"Petal<\/p>\n

Wearable health trackers like the Petal bra insert are growing in popularity in the wellness space.<\/p>\n

Tess Martinelli <\/p>\n

While testing the products was free, most companies were selling products or services that cost hundreds or even thousands of dollars.<\/p>\n

The audio-tactile bed for relaxation starts at $2,600, and a wearable bra insert designed to track women’s health data<\/a> costs $200.<\/p>\n

Maybe I’m just salty because these items are out of my budget, but the prices made me question, “Are the health benefits really worth the cost?”<\/p>\n

There was a surprisingly diverse population<\/p>\n

\"people<\/p>\n

I felt like I fit right in among the eclectic group of wellness enthusiasts.<\/p>\n

Tess Martinelli <\/p>\n

I expected a room full of wealthy founders in luxury gear. When I scanned the space for expensive sneakers or watches, I only found myself burning holes into people’s generic-brand workout clothes with my gaze. I looked down at my Target leggings and beat-up running shoes with a sigh of relief.<\/p>\n

Surprisingly, I even noticed age and body diversity among the people there.<\/p>\n

I naively expected anyone who’d adorn the title “biohacker” to be a young person harrowingly obsessed with physical appearance, with little to no room for diversity, but I was happily wrong.<\/p>\n

People were skeptical of the technology<\/p>\n

\"person<\/p>\n

It was refreshing to see other people also seem hesitant to try certain technologies.<\/p>\n

Tess Martinelli <\/p>\n

When I talked to some of the patrons, a lot of them were hesitant to try the technologies. They wondered about the potential side effects of an IV drip or questioned the efficacy of some of the sound therapies<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“I don’t really believe in that,” 26-year-old startup founder, Pouya Rezvani, said about brain-mapping.<\/p>\n

While these patrons paid money to attend the event, it seems they have their hesitancies when it comes to using new technology that hasn’t been proven or regulated.<\/p>\n

Even though the biohacking community is “living in the future” in some regard, it appeared to me that human skepticism has yet to catch up.<\/p>\n

Many of the wellness remedies offered were expensive and pretty big-time commitments<\/p>\n

\"people<\/p>\n

There were long lines to test out some of the most time-consuming products.<\/p>\n

Tess Martinelli <\/p>\n

I was surprised to see that many of the people I spoke with didn’t find expensive and time-consuming remedies worth it.<\/p>\n

Aleks Chojnacki, a 31-year-old head of partnerships in AI technology, says, “I’m rushing from thing to thing. So if it’s too much of an additional weight into my day and my schedule, I know I’m probably not going to maintain it.”<\/p>\n

Thirty-two-year-old founder of Etho wellness club, Mikey Margolin, agrees. “I come from a mindset that wellness does not have to be expensive. I think that this culture of biohacking<\/a> and wellness is amazing in the sense of optimizing you as a human being, but we are given all those tools on this planet to optimize ourselves without having to spend any money. And that can be as simple as getting sunlight.”<\/p>\n

Most wellness participants just wanted to focus on the basics: food, sleep, and friends<\/p>\n

\"people<\/p>\n

The simple yoga and breathwork classes appeared to be some of the most popular events offered.<\/p>\n

Tess Martinelli <\/p>\n

When I asked people about their longevity routines, almost no one mentioned high-tech treatments. Instead, they kept coming back to the basics.<\/p>\n

Barry McCabe, a 34-year-old who runs a sports performance technology company, told me, “It’s cool to see all the new ideas and new innovation and new waves of trends coming on the market. But for me, it’s the basics: sleep, mental well-being, and good food.”<\/p>\n

Many of the day’s activities, from yoga to guided breathwork<\/a>, were just about reducing stress and boosting well-being. Project manager, Maike Kleier, says, “I just want to feel good now, and if that increases my lifetime, that’s great.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I first heard about biohacking on social media about a year ago, after coming across Bryan Johnson, a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":398501,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[33109,28779,188980,6764,188977,85,57635,46,188979,1266,4674,188978,188981,6593,125,558,1264,1661],"class_list":{"0":"post-398500","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-technology","8":"tag-body","9":"tag-bryan-johnson","10":"tag-bunch","11":"tag-event","12":"tag-famous-biohacker","13":"tag-il","14":"tag-immortality","15":"tag-israel","16":"tag-members-only-social-club","17":"tag-people","18":"tag-san-francisco","19":"tag-sf-biohacking-event","20":"tag-shack15","21":"tag-silicon-valley","22":"tag-technology","23":"tag-wellness","24":"tag-work","25":"tag-year"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/398500","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=398500"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/398500\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/398501"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=398500"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=398500"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=398500"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}