Can Steroids Combat Population Collapse? The Enhanced Games Wants To Find Out.

The Enhanced Games, a caller sporting title explicitly designed to let performance-enhancing drugs, looks for illustration a publicity stunt for nan techno-macho era: Olympic athletes connected steroids competing for million-dollar bounties successful Las Vegas. But co-founder Aron D’Souza has a 90% gross separator telehealth business successful mind, and a transportation to governments struggling pinch aging populations. 

Launching successful May 2026 pinch Peter Thiel’s backing, nan Games committedness $1 cardinal bounties for breaking world records. Former Olympic athletes for illustration sprinter Fred Kerley and swimmer Kristian Gkolomeev have already signed up to compete. The extremity isn’t conscionable to smash world records while fans cheer. It’s to build a trading motor for a longevity manufacture that D’Souza believes will beryllium worthy trillions. 

“We usage sports trading to waste a quality enhancement product,” D’Souza said connected a caller section of Equity. “It’s a telehealth work for illustration Hims aliases Roman, isolated from we [will] person grounds that nan champion and fastest athletes successful nan world usage our protocols.” 

The business exemplary is borrowed from Red Bull – utmost sports arsenic advertisement for nan merchandise – but nan merchandise isn’t an power drink. It’s testosterone, maturation hormone, aliases immoderate other tin support humans competitory pinch machines and productive into their 70s and beyond. 

While nan Games are seen arsenic controversial, D’Souza is betting nan ick facet fades erstwhile group spot athletes successful their 30s and 40s smash world records. He and billionaire co-founder Christian Angermayer person raised “double-digit millions” connected this mentation and poached executives from nan U.S. Olympic Committee, Red Bull, and FIFA to build what D’Souza calls a ngo to “upgrade each of humanity.” 

“I judge that erstwhile Fred [Kerley] breaks [Usain Bolt’s] 100-meter world grounds successful Vegas adjacent year, it will beryllium a watershed infinitesimal to show that enhanced humans are amended than mean humans,” he said.  

Put different way: if Sputnik launched nan abstraction property and ChatGPT launched nan AI boom, D’Souza thinks a juiced sprint could motorboat nan quality enhancement era – and unlock nan aforesaid flood of investment.  

Longevity startups raised $8.5 billion successful 2024 arsenic liking successful lifespan hold moved from fringe obsession to mainstream finance thesis. The entreaty spans from billionaires backing anti-aging investigation to mundane Americans turning to direct-to-consumer wellness search erstwhile accepted healthcare fails them. 

Aron D’Souza, co-founder and president of nan enhanced gamesImage Credits:The Enhanced Games

But D’Souza believes longevity isn’t conscionable a nice-to-have; it’s becoming a need-to-have successful nan look of ever-aging populations and ever-smarter machines.  

In galore parts of nan world, falling commencement rates person put awesome world economies connected nan way toward organization collapse. A caller McKinsey study recovered fertility rates are declining beneath nan replacement complaint beautiful overmuch everyplace isolated from sub-Saharan Africa. Many countries person utilized migration to reside nan challenges of an aging population, since immigrants usually get astatine a younger moving age, capable successful captious labour gaps, and thin to person much children.  

But wide migration has triggered a governmental backlash successful Europe and nan U.S., wherever right-wing parties person gained crushed by stoking fears astir migration and nationalist identity. Immigration has been a cardinal rumor of Donald Trump’s presidency, and D’Souza reckons nan rumor could push far-right leaders successful countries for illustration Germany, France, and nan U.K. into power.  

“If you’re against wide immigration, you extremity up pinch this demographic exemplary that looks for illustration Japan,” D’Souza said, adding that Japan’s mean property (49.8 years old) makes it 1 of nan oldest populations successful nan world.  

“So really do you reconcile nan desire for economical maturation pinch an anti-immigration modality?” he continued. “Well, nan solution has to beryllium longevity and quality enhancement, because there’s nary different way. We request a young, working, tax-paying population, and that doesn’t stack up pinch debased commencement rates.” 

It’s a stark pitch: Rather than clasp migration aliases grow societal information nets that mightiness promote higher commencement rates, conscionable heighten humans to activity longer. D’Souza dismissed nan argumentation alternatives – Europe already tried supporting families, he says, and it grounded to bring commencement rates up.  

Given this backdrop, nan Enhanced Games has immoderate predictable backers, including Thiel and Donald Trump Jr., done his VC patient 1789 Ventures. D’Souza describes some arsenic “obsessive astir nan demographics of nan nation.” Thiel has poured money into longevity startups including Retro Biosciences, Unity Biotechnology, and NewLimit, which he co-founded pinch Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong successful 2021.  

Of course, galore of nan Games’ aforesaid investors are besides betting billions that artificial wide intelligence (AGI) — essentially, AI that tin execute immoderate intelligence task that a quality tin — will soon do astir jobs amended than humans can. Which raises nan question: If AGI is coming, why fuss extending our moving years astatine all?  

“We person nan Sam [Altman] position of nan world, which is that AGI will come, it will switch each nan humans, and past nan humans are fundamentally a second-class type because location will beryllium a superior type successful nan machines,” D’Souza said. “And I deliberation nan inevitable consequence of that, which Sam won’t admit, is that humans [become] irrelevant.” 

The alternate paradigm D’Souza is proposing? A title betwixt humans and machines.  

“The machines are getting amended successful existent time, and because of outdated regulations, peculiarly by nan International Olympic Committee and nan World Anti Doping Agency… quality enhancement is stifled, and truthful we aren’t capable to upgrade accelerated capable to compete pinch nan machines,” he continued. “Now, my extremity is to guarantee that humans tin stay competitory pinch nan machines.” 

The problem pinch this species-level framing, though, is that not each humans will needfully get nan upgrade.  

D’Souza says “technology diffusion” will lead to a benignant of trickle-down enhancement, wherever what’s suitable for champion athletes becomes therapy for group who do things for illustration CrossFit, and past becomes much suitable for much non-athletes. But nan business exemplary – premium telehealth services marketed done elite athletes – points toward a imaginable reality wherever nan able get enhanced, and everyone other gets older.  

When I suggested that enhancement technologies would apt scope nan wealthiest first — and that elites mightiness hoard entree to these capabilities — D’Souza didn’t push back.

“I deliberation that is simply a perchance pernicious consequence of quality enhancement,” he said.