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Tech is a young person’s game. In a 2024 talk, Keith Rabois recounted advice his fellow investor Peter Thiel once gave him: “You can’t hire anyone over 30.” It’s unsurprising, then, that men in tech are increasingly spending thousands of dollars on procedures such as “mini face-lifts,” neck lifts and eyelid lifts to beat the signs of aging, according to plastic surgeons. Yes, the latest addition to the tech-bro look is a brand-new face.

“Our society has traditionally put more pressure on women to look young, but now everyone is feeling it—especially in Silicon Valley, where you start to be labeled ‘irrelevant’ if you look old,” said Dr. Timothy Marten, a San Francisco plastic surgeon.

Dr. Ben Talei, a Beverly Hills plastic surgeon (who charges around $125,000-$150,000 for his advanced face- and neck lift), has seen demand from tech guys increase fivefold over the past five years. San Francisco-based plastic surgeon Dr. Andrew Barnett says requests for face-lifts from men in tech have jumped roughly 25% from pre-Covid levels, while eyelid surgeries are up by 50%. He said the most notable increase appears to be among men in VC and private equity. The fact that tech guys have access to funds helps, added Barnett, whose face-lifts cost $40,000-$65,000.

Factors at play: Ozempic, the pandemic and the pressure to remain youthful-looking in a competitive job market. “After Covid, plastic surgery boomed,” said Dr. Cynthia Goodman, a plastic surgeon in Marin County, Calif., referencing the general uptick sparked by people staring at themselves on Zoom. Hybrid working, which Silicon Valley embraced, gave folks “the opportunity to do surgeries that require downtime,” said Dr. Daniel Lévy, a cosmetic dermatologist in Bellevue, Wash.

San Francisco psychoanalyst Dr. Stephen Sabin said his male tech clients express concerns around “aging out.” Several have turned to cosmetic procedures. He said this trend started with Botox and similar nonsurgical treatments, which are now so common in Silicon Valley they’re “almost passé.” He said, “It’s almost a question of: Why aren’t you doing these things that can help you feel better?”

According to Goodman, men in their 30s generally opt for nonsurgical procedures such as Botox and “a little filler.” In their 40s, they start getting more surgical treatments, including so-called “mini face-lifts.” Though not a medical term, said Barnett, this typically refers to a face-lift with fewer incisions and less downtime (one week to 10 days compared to around 2-3 weeks for a full face-lift). It tends to focus on the lower face. “Mini face-lifts are becoming more popular, because nobody wants the ‘swept’ look of old face-lifts,” said Goodman, whose “short-scar face-lift” (her version of a mini face-lift) starts at $15,000.

BEFORE AND AFTER PHOTOS OF AN UNNAMED PATIENT SUPPLIED BY DR. BEN TALEI. THE 65-YEAR-OLD BUSINESS AND WEALTH ADVISOR TO TECH ENTREPRENEURS HAD AN ADVANCED DEEP PLANE FACE-LIFT AND NECK LIFT WITH SMAS OPTIMIZATION.

“Men used to wait until their 60s or 70s, have a face-lift, and then everyone would say, ‘What a fantastic face-lift!’” said Marten. “Now men want to catch the problem in their 40s and 50s. It’s early maintenance rather than late repair.” He charges roughly $75,000-$150,000 for a face- and neck lift, depending on ancillary procedures. He said male patients today tend to want a natural—and discreet—look. “Men definitely seem to be more reticent [than women] to talk about their procedure,” he said.

Another popular procedure, an eyelid lift (or blepharoplasty) fixes puffy under-eye bags and droopy excess skin on the upper eyelid. “Most men in tech are coming in for eyelids,” said Dr. Arman Serebrakian, a Bay Area surgeon who charges roughly $5,000-$7,000 for upper eyelid surgery and around $8,000-$10,000 for lower.

Goodman does “a lot” of eyelid lifts for men in their 50s. “With this short procedure in the office, they can look 10 years younger.” One patient, a senior product manager in the Bay Area for a national insurance company, who declined to be identified, got a blepharoplasty for the “pouches” under his eyes around 10 years ago, in his late 50s. It was done under local anesthetic and he only used over-the-counter painkillers afterward. “It looked pretty gnarly right afterward,” he said, so he worked from home for a week. He said that, once the swelling went down after about three weeks, he felt more confident at work and “loved the new look.”

New drugs have “dramatically reduced bruising and swelling,” and therefore recovery times, said Barnett, while new techniques have improved results. For some face-lift patients, Barnett now reduces the size of the salivary glands, which helps create a “well-defined” jawline. “Recent technology has made the procedure much quicker and much safer.”

Victoria Hitchcock, a Bay Area style consultant with many tech clients, said guys often see their wives undergo procedures, then realize, “Hey, it’s not that bad, you do look better,” and follow suit. That was the experience of one 55-year-old who manages sales for a flooring company that supplies Silicon Valley tech companies. Last November, Dr. Dino Elyassnia gave him a neck lift to fix what the man called his “bullfrog double chin.” His wife had previously undergone procedures, and “I don’t want to look like a troll next to her,” said the patient, who declined to be identified.

BEFORE AND AFTER PHOTOS OF AN UNNAMED PATIENT SUPPLIED BY DR. DINO ELYASSNIA. THE 46-YEAR-OLD TECH EXECUTIVE HAD A SHORT SCAR NECK LIFT.

The general-anesthetic surgery included “cutting down” his salivary glands, as he put it, which led to a longer, more complicated recovery. He found some aspects “disturbing”: drains put into his neck for a few days, and difficulty swallowing, which caused some “panic.” It took around four to six months to get normal feeling back in his lower lip. Still, he said he “would do it again in a second. It’s taken away something that really bothered me.” (Elyassnia said “the experience of recovery is variable” and some people will have a harder time than others, but that most patients will “tolerate it well.”)

The prevalence of GLP-1 weight-loss drugs like Ozempic among tech workers is also driving more to seek out face-lifts, said Goodman, because the rapid weight loss leads to lots of “loose skin.” Marten called this “deflation.”

Over three decades in practice, Marten’s seen the tide shift. “Historically, if men were accomplished, they were respected regardless of what they looked like, whereas a woman, no matter how accomplished, had to look good to be admired,” he said. Now men feel “their accomplishments aren’t enough. They have to look the part too.”

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(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5790829&forum_id=2#49382019)