On Living to 100, Investing in AgeTech, and The Staggering Implications of Living Longer
We've decided to try something new: ✨
Every Thursday, we'll give you the 3 best ideas, questions, and bits of wisdom from our podcast episodes that week—from guests like Scott Belsky, Brian Scudamore, Kevin Kelly, Sir Ronald Cohen, and Erling Kagge. It’s our way of compressing hours of content into just 5 minutes of reading.
We call it Cheat Sheet, and it won’t cost you a dime. You're welcome. 😁
Subscribe to get the newsletter every week👇
This week, we profiled Abby Miller Levy and Primetime Partners, the venture capital firm Abby co-founded with venture legend Alan Patricof of Greycroft and Apax Partners fame.
What’s fascinating about Primetime Partners is that they’re completely focused on aging as a problem space—or what they call AgeTech. They’re investing in companies that can help us all live longer, healthier, richer lives for longer. Surprisingly, there are very few venture firms investing in it, especially given the overwhelming data around the size, growth, and value of this market segment.
Here are the 3 big ideas in this week’s Cheat Sheet:
What changes when 50% of the U.S. population lives to be at least 100?
What kinds of investment opportunities does this create?
How should this all change the way we think about and approach our lives?
QUOTE
“Live your life in such a way that if you die at 99 it’s still too soon.” ― Betty White
DATA
Primetime Partners investment thesis revolves around this big question:
What changes when 50% of the U.S. population lives to be at least 100?
While that may seem like a distant reality, it’s barreling at us much faster than you might think. Here’s an excerpt from How Work Will Change When Most of Us Live to 100 which was published in the Harvard Business Review:
Today in the United States there are 72,000 centenarians. Worldwide, probably 450,000. If current trends continue, then by 2050 there will be more than a million in the US alone. According to the work of demographer Professor James Vaupel and his co-researchers, 50% of babies born in the US in 2007 have a life expectancy of 104 or more. Broadly the same holds for the UK, Germany, France, Italy and Canada and for Japan 50% of 2007 babies can expect to live to a staggering 107.
That means by 2050, there will be more than 1 million people over age 100 in the U.S. alone.
That’s more than a 10x order of magnitude increase in less than 35 years.
But there’s a subtler point here…
Fifty percent of all babies born in the U.S. after 2007 are expected to live to be 104 or older. This isn’t a one-time blip; it’s a tectonic shift in demographics that’s happening across the developed world.
And there’s more, as the global population aged 60+ will more than double to 2.1 billion by 2050.
OPPORTUNITIES
What kinds of investment opportunities does this create?
According to The Longevity Economy published in The Lancet by Prof. Andrew J. Scott, the estimated economic value of a 2.2-year increase in life expectancy for Americans aged 50 years or older is $7.1 trillion. With the average life expectancy in the U.S. at around 79 years today, an extra 21 years amounts to nearly $71 trillion dollars of new economic activity. Which is a staggering figure.
Primetime Partners is focused on investing in companies that will benefit from this $71 trillion dollar economic tailwind. Here’s how they describe their investment focus:
Older adults control 60% of the U.S. net worth, not to mention the trillions that health plans and our government spends on this segment. As an investment platform, Primetime Partners identifies and builds businesses that provide the products, services, and experiences to satisfactorily address the needs for this 25% of population. We support transformational companies that bring joy, purpose, and dignity to the next chapter of our lives.
What sorts of transformational companies could bring joy, purpose, and dignity to the chapter of our lives?
As it turns out, there’s no shortage of wicked problems that need to be solved as we begin to spend as much time after the age of 50 as we do before it. Here are just a few:
Saving for Retirement: As we live longer, we’ll need to find ways to grow our retirement savings at a faster rate to make sure we have enough money to live comfortably for longer. Today it’s estimated that 50% of retirees run out of money within their lifetime—which will get worse as our lifetimes increase. Potential Solution: IRAs that allow you to invest in alternative assets, including venture capital and real estate. (Example: AltoIRA and Retirable)
Borrowing Money: Our credit scores are dictated by a mix of debt capacity, debt balances, and income. Living longer without income, but with plenty of assets, means new credit models need to be created that de-prioritize income in favor of net worth. Potential Solution: A credit card or line of credit that’s based off of assets first and income second, available for anyone. (Example: Sagewell)
Finding Employment: By 2024, workers aged 55+ will represent 25% of the U.S. workforce with the fastest annual growth among people aged 65+. Yet AARP reports that 3 in 5 older workers have seen or experienced age discrimination. Potential Solution: Gig economy businesses and part-time employment opportunities for older adults. (Example: GetSetUp)
This list just scratches the surface as it appears everything from housing to insurance to long-term care needs to be rethought and rebuilt to better serve those 50+. As well as those that will live to be over 100.
WORTH PONDERING
Which brings us to a fascinating philosophical question:
How should this all change the way we think about and approach our lives?
That was a question I hadn’t even pondered until it came up in Abby Miller Levy’s 20 Minute Playbook interview. As someone who has spent an enormous amount of time thinking about aging, what’s broken and what needs to be built, Abby began to ponder what living longer might mean for all of us. Her answer blew me away:
I think it just means there's different chapters. There's different chapters to your own personal development, your professional development, to your relationships, to your marriage, to just how you pace yourself.
As we all live longer, we will be faced with the challenge of what to do with that extra time. Said differently, we’ll be faced not just with what to do with that extra time but how to make it meaningful.
One of Abby’s favorite books on this topic is Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End by Atul Gawande. To which, I would add Clayton Christensen’s meditation on how to live a meaning life, How Will Your Measure Your Life?, which I consider required reading. Clayton Christensen’s book was adapted from a speech he gave to the graduating class at Harvard Business School in 2010.
Here’s a final question from Abby Miller Levy worth pondering this weekend:
If you knew you were going to run a marathon versus a sprint, what would you do differently?
Until next week,
Daniel Scrivner
Creator of Outlier Academy
Listen, watch, or explore more of this week’s Outlier Academy episodes:
20 MINUTE PLAYBOOK
#135 Abby Miller Levy, Co-Founder of Primetime Partners and Thrive Global | On Living to 100, Getting to the Key Issue, and Choosing What to Major and Minor In
Listen Now | Watch Now | Episode Guide | Transcript
INFINITE GAMES
#136 Primetime Partners: AgeTech, The Ripple Effects of Living Longer, and Investing in the Future of How We Age | Abby Miller Levy, Co-Founder & Managing Partner