Why are CEOs so obsessed with consciousness?
The rise of the enlightened corporate bro, psychedelic retreats, and transformative hospitality.
Third eyes seem to be opening in the upper echelons of corporate power.
Marc Benioff, the CEO of Salesforce (valued at $97 billion), meditates with spiritual gurus in India and has installed meditation rooms across every Salesforce office, and Jack Dorsey, co-founder of Twitter, is into long, silent, and ascetic Vipassana retreats where he eats like a bird and talks to no one.
Silicon Valley fixture Tim Ferriss’ thing is shamanic ceremonies and ayahuasca, and Reid Hoffman, the co-founder of LinkedIn, is also touting the benefits of both meditation retreats and psychedelic ceremonies.
The tech bros, now infamously speaking against introspection, are quite paradoxically all aboard the hallucinogen train. A Google search for “psychedelic-assisted leadership training” returns over a million results.
Welcome to the consciousness revolution (corporate edition).
The infrastructure of the awakened CEO
The tech bros themselves saw their growing interest in borderline spiritual leadership training as a market gap, which birthed the Costa Rica -based 1heart. This eco-luxury retreat center has hosted over 500 business leaders who are giving raving testimonials, all accompanied by a picture of a C-suite person exuding love for the world.
Alumni include billionaires, World Economic Forum delegates, TED speakers, and NGO founders, with 70% of participants are first timers with ayahuasca, and 80% come via referral from other executives.
Testimonials include:
“It fundamentally transformed how I related to others nearly overnight.”
“I felt this oneness. I felt connected to everyone and everything. I felt a lot of love for all the people in my life.”
"You don't need to be that Goldman Sachs guy who just plays with ones and zeroes. You can be that and, at the same time, have a super expressive, artistic mind."
Congratulations for discovering empathy
Essentially, if you strip away the hallucinogens and shamanic chanting, these retreats touch on the very basic human needs of presence, human connection, and shedding the impossibly heavy armor of professional identity. The attendees are on the very top of the corporate food chain, and on paper, have all the influence and material security in the world to feel fulfilled.
Yet, they still felt the call of the jungle. Why is that?
We’re transcending the ego, boys
Philosophers have over millennia written about a certain hollowness that seems to be inherent to human life, and different possible cures for it. In the light of these ideas, CEOs being obsessed with unlocking the next realm seems almost consequential.
The traditional view of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs has food and shelter at the bottom of the pyramid, with self-actualization as the very last tier to check off.
However, Maslow himself was dissatisfied with his own creation, and before his passing, added another layer: self-transcendence.
Maslow defined self-transcendence as:
The very highest and most inclusive or holistic levels of human consciousness, behaving and relating, as ends rather than means, to oneself, to significant others, to human beings in general, to other species, to nature, and to the cosmos.
In other words, the ultimate goal is to transcend the self through understanding our interconnectedness with others (groundbreaking, I know, especially considering Eastern traditions had been saying this from the beginning of time).
I think this is what the tech bros are chasing at these ayahuasca retreats. They have self-actualized, every lower rung of the hierarchy has been crushed, checks on all boxes from safety to achievement. But it’s not enough, is it.
Only through encountering the face of the other, as Emmanuel Levinas would say, facilitated by a total change of environment and identity (and yes, probably a shaman) did they stop seeing their fellow human beings as resources or metrics to optimize.
Transformative hospitality
Transformative hospitality, where people enter as one person and leave as another, is on the rise.
The options for experiencing corporate enlightenment are only proliferating, with the spiritual wellness segment currently valued at $190 billion, and wellness tourism as a broader category projected to reach $2.4 trillion by 2035.
It’s important to note that in order to be transformative, psychedelics or tantric rituals need not be involved. The truly transformational ingredients, at the end of the day, are immersion and connection.
Here are some properties to earmark to experience transformation (maybe try this before cutting your own bangs!), curated by Michaela Carpenter.
1. Soltara Healing Center, Costa Rica
This one is included in the enlightened-CEO starter pack. Ayahuasca, ocean air, and just enough infrastructure to make ego dissolution feel like a well-run program. You arrive as a founder, you leave texting your team about “heart-led leadership.”
2. Esalen Institute, Monterey, CA
The original California consciousness lab. Hot springs overlooking the Pacific, somatic workshops, and a lineage of people who have been trying to feel their feelings since the 1960s.
3. SHA Wellness Clinic, Mexico
Where biohacking meets linen robes. Blood panels, macrobiotic cuisine, and bowing down to the gods of optimization. In addition to the Riviera Maya property, the longevity galore is also available in Spain. The staff includes an impressive number of doctors and other specialists to give you the best detox of your life.
4. The Ranch, Malibu, CA
You hike, you sweat, you don’t eat very much, and somewhere around day four it starts feeling like clarity. Obviously the property has an infrared sauna, a regenerative garden, a cold plunge, a body composition analysis device, something called a ‘massage village’, and a ginormous gym.
5. Amanpuri, Thailand
Not explicitly “transformational,” but there is space and service so precise it can reorganize your entire nervous system. One of their signature holistic wellness journeys is called ‘Amanpuri Awakening’, which is so enlightened CEO core.
6. Six Senses Douro Valley, Portugal
Wine country meets wellness narrative (red wine is good for your heart I hear…). Forest bathing, spa rituals, etc. for hardcore dnd. The property’s vegetables are home grown and there’s even a pickle workshop.
7. Sensei Lanai, A Four Seasons Resort, Lanai, Hawaii
Larry Ellison’s version of inner peace with data-driven wellness. You stretch, you sip something herbal, you can do aerial yoga and guided garden walks… probably at some point your body is tricked into behaving differently.
8. Azuma Farm Koiwai, Japan
A slow-living cosplay property in rural Japan, by non other than Adrian Zecha, the founder of Aman. Guests are invtited to step into what could even be described as an ascetic rhythm of land, craft, and stillness, where the primary activity is simply being (but obviously expensively). It also happens to be brand spanking new, officially open in April 2026.
A higher realm of hospitality?
It is rare to find a (luxury) property nowadays without some sort of wellness offering. In fact, it would be an almost outrageous thought for a property to not adress well-being in some sort of way.
But looking at these signals (the enlightened CEOs, the democratization of biohacking and longevity practices with the proliferation of wearable tech and the mainstreamification of health optimization), hospitality is reponisitioning itself towards this demand by offering transformation as opposed to just experience to meet the evolving demands.
And it is, indeed, a repositioning and not a reinvention, as great hotels already are places where strangers attend to you with care and where you are temporarily freed from the machinery of your own life.
🔑 With shamanic greetings,
Emma and Michaela
 | A guest post by
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This reads like Season 3 of White Lotus
They should have us design bathhouses on every campus