Inside San Francisco's hottest peptide club
· Business Insider
Getty Images; Tyler Le/BI
The AGI House, in San Francisco's hilly Twin Peaks neighborhood, is a mansion with an expansive view of the Golden Gate Bridge and the hills of Marin, seven bedrooms, and a toilet on the main floor so modern that it includes written instructions on how to operate. It houses technologists working to accelerate artificial general intelligence, and hosts events that bring together people working toward this mission. But on April 12, the house was reserved for another potentially world-altering development: peptides.
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More than 100 people arrived for the California Peptide Club, an invite-only gathering to discuss the substances that have become synonymous with self-optimization. Attendees included several clinicians who prescribe peptides, a peptide manufacturer, the founder of a longevity DAO, a Stanford researcher, and dozens of people who identified as "peptide curious," searching for either the resources or confidence to build their own "stacks." Another 300 had been waitlisted. "Creating the allure of getting invited to the house is actually one of the priorities," says Julius Ritter, the event's organizer and the president of the AGI House.
Interest around peptides has been surging. In April, Google searches for the word "peptide" overtook "pickleball." Joe Rogan takes peptides; so does Jennifer Aniston. The phrase "Chinese peptide dealer" has become a meme, creating a sense of superiority among those who are pepped-up. For those who are not, it can feel like being locked out of the world's greatest party, where everyone is getting hotter, smarter, and better.
Ritter, 24, started the California Peptide Club to widen this circle. His peptide journey began several years ago, when blood tests revealed that his testosterone levels were "in the bottom one percent of men my age," he says. Medication helped somewhat, but not completely. Then he learned about peptides and decided to experiment with CJC-1295 and Ipamorelin, a combination used to stimulate growth hormone production. "I was the only one in my friend group doing it," he says. "My roommates made fun of me. They were like, 'Julius, join the guys in the Tenderloin, injecting yourself in the butt.'"
His results were underwhelming, but a different stack — BPC-157, SS31, Ipamorelin, Tesamorelin, and IGF-1 LR3 — made him feel great. Still, information about peptides was scattered; anyone starting a protocol had to be comfortable with a fair amount of risk and self-experimentation without complete data. A community of people could make it easier to compare notes.