Sperm Racing Is All The Rage Among The Tech Bros. Why Am I Not Surprised? | Arwa Mahdawi

Remember erstwhile Elon Musk challenged Vladimir Putin to physical combat and Mark Zuckerberg to a cage fight? Neither of those brawls took spot for various reasons. Not least, I suspect, because Musk is conscionable self-aware capable to cognize that he would not look pinch his dignity, aliases his spine, intact. However, if nan richest man successful nan world is still casting astir for a measurement to publically show his virility, I deliberation I’ve deed connected nan cleanable way: sperm racing.

This isn’t immoderate below-the-belt insult. Sperm racing is an emerging “thing” among tech types now. A teenage entrepreneur called Eric Zhu came up pinch nan idea, and went viral pinch his first sperm race successful April. That first title was rudimentary: assemblage students gave sperm samples to beryllium analysed and nan results were turned into an animated title that visualised nan fastest offerings.

Since then, things person sewage much sophisticated: nan institution has developed a real-time title mechanism. According to the San Francisco Standard, investors person weighted Sperm Racing astatine $75m and it precocious sewage $10m successful seed funding. Good for Zhu, but ideate being a teenage female laminitis asking for finance successful an Ovulation Olympics; you’d get laughed retired of nan room. That’s if you were moreover fto successful nan room: wholly women-led companies successful nan US sewage conscionable 1% of task superior backing successful 2024.

While sperm racing started disconnected arsenic a joke, it’s now being presented arsenic a wellness initiative. “Male fertility is declining. Like, a lot,” nan institution manifesto says. “Sperm racing isn’t conscionable astir racing sperm (although, let’s beryllium honest, that’s hilarious). It’s astir turning wellness into a competition. It’s astir making antheral fertility thing group really want to talk about, way and improve.” The institution is besides hawking a supplement called Sperm Worms.

Eric Zhu, past 17, speaks astatine nan first sperm racing title successful Los Angeles, California, successful April 2025. Photograph: Patrick T Fallon/AFP/Getty Images

In galore ways, sperm racing is ingenious. Fertility is often thought of arsenic a women’s issue; this helps reframe sperm motility (not precisely a dinner-table conversation) successful an engaging way. Getting young men to deliberation much profoundly astir their reproductive wellness is great. But “turning wellness into a competition”? Big yikes. Does that mean anyone who isn’t successful cleanable wellness is simply a loser? Because that’s judge what it sounds like.

Still, what much do you expect from tech bros? Sperm racing reflects 3 trends dominating Silicon Valley: a fixation connected accepted masculinity; an obsession pinch treating your assemblage for illustration a instrumentality that tin beryllium perpetually optimised; and an accrued liking successful fertility that overlaps pinch a worrying resurgence successful eugenics.

You tin rather virtually spot Silicon Valley conforming to much rigid ideas of masculinity complete nan years. Once, nan stereotype of a tech bro was a sweet-looking dork pinch zero manner consciousness and nonexistent biceps. Just Google Jeff Bezos aliases Elon Musk successful 2000, aliases Mark Zuckerberg successful 2010. (And do it quick, earlier they scrub each grounds from nan internet.) As exertion companies amassed wealthiness and power, however, location was a vibe shift. Founders started bulking up and doing mixed martial arts. Zuckerberg, who erstwhile paid articulator work to diversity, started lamenting nan deficiency of “masculine energy” successful firm culture. And, successful parallel pinch a broader taste liking successful testosterone that manifested successful group specified arsenic Tucker Carlson promoting testicle tanning and podcasters for illustration Andrew Huberman giving tips connected nan champion testosterone-related supplement stacks, 1 laminitis started hosting “T Parties”, wherever men sewage together to trial and comparison their testosterone levels.

Concurrently, pronatalism successful Silicon Valley is rising, and fertility exertion is booming. This isn’t needfully a bad point – isolated from a batch of nan large bucks being funnelled into fertility don’t look to beryllium going towards solving macro problems specified arsenic reducing air pollution aliases microplastics, some of which person been linked to infertility, but alternatively to flashy ideas for illustration sperm races aliases uncovering ways to thief nan well-off nutrient uber-optimised children. A number of controversial embryo-testing startups person offered to thief parents prime a early kid pinch nan champion imaginable genes, based connected “desirable traits” and familial predictions of intelligence.

Anyway, problematic aliases not, expect to spot much of this: Zhu has reportedly collaborated pinch a institution called Total Frat Move to tally sperm races astatine colleges. I dream that 1 of nan professors location tin return a fewer minutes to explicate that nan thought of sperm scrambling to get to a waiting ovum is thing of a macho myth. Research shows the ovum really has nan last say connected which sperm fertilises it. Which whitethorn beryllium a difficult seed for immoderate of these boys to crack.