You’ve got the billions, you’ve got the global brand domination – what comes next? An extreme fitness regime, of course.
Mark Zuckerberg has raised internet eyebrows after revealing he has taken part in an intensive challenge in which he ran a mile, completed 100 pull-ups, 200 press-ups and 300 squats, before running a further mile, all while wearing a 9kg weighted vest.
The Facebook founder, in a post on his own page, said he had completed the “Murph challenge” in 39 minutes 58 seconds, a time that one user said would put him in the top 1% of those who completed the event, which is named in memory of a US navy seal who was killed in Afghanistan. Complimented on his pull-ups, the multi-billionaire (£93bn or so at present), said: “The last mile run when your legs are torched from the squats and your heart rate is pegged is pretty brutal too.”
It’s not the first time Zuckerberg, 39, has boasted of his athletic achievements; recent posts celebrated the medals he won in his first jiu jitsu tournament (gold and silver) and a sub-20 minute 5K. (“I actually stopped running for a while and got stronger from [mixed martial arts]. Then I ran for about a month before this race and realised I was faster than before,” Zuckerberg told an impressed commenter.)
Gone are the days when tech bros were characterised by shapeless T-shirts, junk food physiques and the pallor of too many hours spent behind a screen. As demonstrated by Jeff Bezos’s physical transformation several years ago, from nondescript balding books bloke to ultra-hench Vin Diesel parody, billionaires these days are buff.
The Amazon founder, now 59, enlisted Tom Cruise’s trainer to transform his physique, reportedly working out daily with low-impact, high-resistance exercises such as rowing and weight training. Having admitted in 2017 to never having read a nutrition label in his life, he is now said to favour an ultra-low-carb diet (Bezos liked Whole Foods so much, he bought the company in 2021).
None of this is terribly outre by Silicon Valley standards these days. Bill Gates may have taken to the treadmill every morning but that’s nothing compared with the “biohacking” standards of today’s tech tycoons.
One, Bryan Johnson, says he spends $2m a year to stay youthful, including having transfusions of his own son’s blood. Jack Dorsey, the former Twitter chief executive, has said he eats one meal a day; for breakfast he has water with salt.
Another tech exec, Serge Faguet, went viral after revealing he avoids all sugar and processed foods, fasts and exercises rigidly, has an implanted glucose monitor and wears a $6,000 hearing aid despite having perfect hearing. “People here [in Silicon Valley] have a technical mindset, so they think of everything as an engineering problem,” he told the Guardian.
It’s an approach that is familiar to Livvy Probert, a personal trainer who frequently works with high net worth, highly demanding business leaders in west London and the City. “Now they’ve succeeded at business, they’re looking at their next challenge,” she says.
This type of client loves knowing about their performance in minute detail, measuring biometrics such as body fat, waist circumference, blood pressure and sleep patterns, says Probert, who is a co-founder of the personal and corporate wellbeing firm Hawq.
“They love it because the more they can track, the more they can improve. And they want to know not only how they can improve themselves – generally they want to be better than other people as well.
“One of the things that I particularly get asked is: ‘Where does that put me on the ratio of other people? I want to make sure that I’m at the top.’”
Not everyone in the tech world takes the same approach, however. “To be totally frank, I wouldn’t exercise at all if I could,” Elon Musk has said, telling an interviewer in 2020 that while he ha a personal trainer, it had been “a while” since he saw him.
As for nutrition, said the world’s richest man, “I’d rather eat tasty food and live a shorter life.”
