Silicon Valley is flirting with a very stupid new way to die

I apologize in advance for invoking Voltaire in an article on peptides, but in chapter 22 of Candid there’s this part where Candide comes to Paris and, because that’s where Voltaire lived – surrounded by the annoying Parisians who inspired his work – instantly encounters morons so stupid that it puts his life in danger. They see the huge diamond on Candide’s ring and his expensive luggage, and notice that he isn’t feeling well, so they spring into action by trying to sell him some cures which, of course, almost kill him.

As Candide recovers from the death, his more intelligent friend Martin says: “I also remember being sick in Paris on my first trip; I was very poor, so I had no friends, no followers, no doctors, and I recovered. »

That’s how it is in Silicon Valley right now (not for the first time, I’m sure). The rich and their loved ones find themselves in a form of peril indirectly caused by the monetary miasmas that permeate their region.

A New York Times article from this weekend is about technicians buying vials of powdered amino acids made in China, repairing syringes with them, and injecting them into their bodies, all because they’ve heard vague promises from podcasters and chatbots that, Finally, you can hack your blood vibrations and achieve optimal efficiency in your body code base. Health claims about peptides run the gamut from reasonable, such as weight loss, to fantastical, such as that they fix autism.

All you really need to understand what’s going on is a photo from Jason Henry’s article. This is a photo taken at a “peptide rave” in San Francisco, showing a guy in a white coat and black boots, with a familiar orange and white syringe in his hand, demonstrating the process, familiar to all heroin addicts, of turning a powder into an injectable liquid. His audience is a small crowd of fuzzy people with White Claw cans in their hands. There’s a piece of printer paper on a table at his demo station with a QR code on it and the word “WAIVER.”

If anyone died recently because of this, it’s not in the article, but the fad is apparently still on the rise. “According to U.S. customs data,” notes Jasmine Sun, the author of the article, “imports of hormone and peptide compounds from China roughly doubled to $328 million in the first three quarters of 2025, compared to $164 million in the same period of 2024.”

Peptides are not that expensive on their own. The article refers to an off-brand form of Ozempic, which is an example of a peptide, costing around $200 per month. But the kind of peptide habit described by tech founder and influencer Sun isn’t just about getting the powder, reconstituting it, and shooting it.

For example, one of the co-founders of a dark-sounding B2B AI startup started her peptide habit by “microdosing semaglutide,” then added five additional peptides: “MOTS-c, epitalon, GHK-Cu, Ipamorelin, and Kisspeptin-10.” She then pays an additional $250 per peptide to send her powders to a purity testing lab in the Czech Republic.

Another apparent business leader — the CEO of a sort of rationalist version of Burning Man called “Vibecamp” — takes BPC-157, TB-500, and retatrutide, but at one point she accidentally took too much of the latter and had a heartbeat that sped up and her hair started falling out. She uses an app, monitors her vital signs while she sleeps and has regular blood tests.

Are you guessing that Bryan Johnson – this guy who is famous for being very open about the fact that he, like everyone else, doesn’t want to die, but reacted to this universal experience by turning himself into a media circus of his own and posting lots of weird photos of himself on social media where his translucent skin looks wet and thin, as if blowing on him from across a room would cause him pain – is in the peptide tank?

You would be sort of right, but I think the fact that he has preached caution when asked about themsaying he loves them for their hair and skin, but there’s “Research is limited on many peptides, so it’s difficult to make a general statement about them other than to do your research, measure, and use a reputable supplier.

Of course, you could say he’s saying this because he doesn’t want to be sued (more than he already has). But again he doesn’t want to diepeople.