Almost every sector of the technology industry struggled in the fourth quarter of 2022. Cryptocurrency crashed; startups dematerialized; funding evaporated; stocks plummeted; even FAANG companies, which once could be relied on for their job security, experienced massive layoffs and hiring freezes. But amid the chaos, one of the big exceptions was “femtech,” a subset of the health technology field. Bea and millions of other women are embracing body optimization lifestyles in pursuit of a fully “quantified self”—the nearly decade-old buzzword yuppies and tech companies use to describe the datafication of one’s health. These self-optimizing women are also a multibillion-dollar growth industry.

Health tech drives the consumerization of health care by producing the things that make it easier for people like Bea to install surveillance systems on their bodies. Services like Circle Medical or Ever/body make scheduling annual checkups or even cosmetic procedures a click away, and prescriptions for Adderall or hormone replacement therapies orderable via apps on your phone.