Business Billionaires

Tycoons Still Working It Past 90

Sara Peck, 08.05.10, 03:00 PM EDT

Was Sidney Harman crazy to buy ''Newsweek''? A

surprising number of moguls in their 90s keep going and
going.

In Pictures: Billionaires In Their 90s And Still Going

Why on earth would Sidney Harman, who just turned 92, try to revive the all-but-dead
Newsweek? Because, he deadpanned, "I should stop misspending my youth." The stereo
equipment magnate went on to add, "I look forward to this great journalistic, business and
technological challenge." Challenge indeed: The buck he paid the Washington Post Co. buys
him close to $70 million in debt and a nearly insoluble problem of how to reposition the once
thriving newsweekly.

Harman, who only relinquished his role as chief executive of Harman International Industries
( HAR - news - people ) four years ago, may be crazy for taking on a lost cause. But he certainly
isn't gaga. People are living longer and keeping more active lives, mentally as well as physically.
Seventeen members of the Forbes Billionaires List are 90 and older, and many still play hands-
on roles in their businesses and investments, including casino mogul Kirk Kerkorian, oil and gas
driller Bill "Tex" Moncrief Jr. and Topa Equities' John Anderson.
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In Pictures: Billionaires In Their 90s And Still Going

Key, of course: Staying fit and healthy. A study last year by the Technological Institute of
Athens suggests that people who are adaptable and responsive to change throughout their lives--
read: risk-takers and entrepreneurs--tend to live longer. A study released this week from the
University of Milano-Bicocca in Milan, Italy, finds that people who continue to use cognitive
strategies--such as reading literature, doing crossword puzzles, learning a new language,
traveling to a foreign destination, varying social routines--can lead productive lives into their
100s.

"I think these unique individuals either have genetic profiles that are exceptionally well suited
for long-term avoidance of chronic, age-related problems, or have been raised and lived in
conditions offered by the upper class, including optimal childhood nutrition and, subsequently,
physical development, followed by optimal conditions for health promotion and maintenance,
including opportunities for intellectual engagement," opines Ross Andel, an associate professor
in the School of Aging Studies at the University of South Florida.

For those born without gold-plated genes or privileges of wealth, there's always physical rigor.
John Walsh, a professor of gerontology at USC, studies the effect of intense exercise on brain
development. At a certain sustained heart rate, he says, the brain releases a growth hormone that
repairs and stimulates cerebral health. In one experiment Walsh and his team injected mice with
a toxin, called MPTP, that induces Parkinson's disease by killing off dopaminergic neurons.
When those mice ran five miles a day, the exercise slowed the progression of Parkinson's. Walsh
also says that the "rush" from learning a new activity or taking a risk "does wonders for the
brain." Something, perhaps, akin to buying Newsweek.

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"I've been in some things 10 years before they flourish commercially," John Kluge, the soon-
to-be-96-year-old Metromedia pioneer, told the Washington Post in 2001. When an investment
pays off, he added, "I'm not interested anymore; there's no longer the challenge."

John Sperling, a mere 89 years old, is doing what he can to make it into the healthy nonagenarian
club. Since 1998 the guy who is widely credited with founding the for-profit education
movement with Apollo Group ( APOL - news - people )-owned University of Phoenix, has
poured more than $45 million into anti-aging research, some of it through his Scottsdale, Ariz.,
clinic Kronos. (For those who may not remember their Greek mythology, Kronos was the titan
who overthrew his father and ate his own children.) Patients there pay $4,500 for 150 tests that
give them a full assessment of their health--and a costly regimen of drugs, supplements, meal
plans and exercise to live well as long as they can.

Sperling himself acts like a much younger man--he rises at 5:30 a.m. daily to lift weights, hike
and jog. "People who live to be really old age uniformly, and then at some point their whole
system shuts down and they die," Sperling told a reporter in 2002. "But that's not the case with
most of us."

Nor is it for a surprising number of rich folks.