Want to Network in Silicon Valley? Bring a Bathing Suit

When tens of thousands of software engineers, tech enthusiasts and salesmen descended on San Francisco for the annual Salesforce megaconference in September, startup founder Jari Salomaa had an idea: What if he rented out a sauna?

Salomaa was looking to pitch his startup Valo, which has built an artificial-intelligence tool that helps users on Salesforce’s platform. But an anti-alcohol movement that’s sweeping through the tech industry is disrupting work gatherings that revolve around drinking or eating. That’s leading Salomaa and others to try “social saunas,” where networking happens inside a steamy 200-degree box. In bathing suits.

The experience can take some getting used to. Bathrobes and bikinis can be distracting. It’s also very sweaty.

But investors and venture capitalists say it’s refreshing to have someplace other than a bar to gather and that business is getting done everywhere from a pop-up sauna in a Napa vineyard, to an 80-person sauna in New York.

Salomaa, 46, grew up in Finland where the sauna was part of everyday life and at his first job for Nokia in Helsinki, saunas were built inside the offices.

“There are more saunas than cars in Finland,” he said. “As many saunas as toilets.”

Still, he worried how Americans would react to hanging out in their bathing suits for a corporate event. “Scandinavians are more at ease with body images than the average American,” he said.

He thought about having one event for women and another for men, but the planning soon got complicated. In the end, Salomaa decided on a sort of social experiment: a coed gathering in San Francisco. He wound up with a wait list of 100 guests.

Salomaa imposed some sauna etiquette—bathing suits required and stay hydrated. And he started the event like any other investor pitch, by giving a PowerPoint presentation to an audience clad in bathrobes.

Attendees shared images of the event on social media, and soon Salomaa was fielding calls from friends in the tech industry, asking how they could do a similar event. He’s eager to help, but maintains some reservation about moving too much work inside the sauna.

“If it’s all talk about work, it kind of kills the vibe,” he said.

New social saunas have popped up in San Francisco, New York and Colorado this year.

They are built with stadium seating to fit more people—usually around 20 to 40 people—and conversation is often encouraged.

At Othership, a new sauna facility that opened in New York City’s Flatiron district in July, the sauna can fit up to 90 people. Lined with ambient lighting that can switch from warm red to neon pink, the sauna looks more like a nightclub than a place of tranquility.

Founder Robbie Bent, 40, said young tech founders make up a large part of his clientele. “They want to be healthier, meet like-minded people, and often don’t want to be out late,” he said.

The company hosts founder nights, as well as events for investors and founders to mingle. Othership says tech companies big and small are considering offering its services as a benefit to employees.

Othership has also offered to organise complimentary “team sweats” as team-building exercises. But according to Bent, they received pushback from human resources at companies across tech and Wall Street. Colleagues congregating in bathing suits wasn’t going to fly.

In response to these critiques, Bent designed a “corporate swimsuit”—basically a full-body rashguard for people to wear in the sauna.

Will Drescher, 29, built a social sauna in Boulder, Colo., after going to one in Minneapolis this year. “Neither me nor my co-founder drink,” said Drescher. “And we just thought, why don’t we have this?”

They built Portal, a “more DIY” option than the saunas popping up in New York and San Francisco, said Drescher.

“We wanted to bridge what’s happening in the coasts with what we’re seeing in the middle of the country,” said Drescher.

Venture investor Helene Servillon, 35, proposed a meeting with a founder of a tech company at Portal.

The meeting lasted an hour, which allowed them to cycle in and out of the sauna for three sessions. After learning more about the startup, Servillon said she plans to invest in it soon.

“VCs socialise a lot. If we only have two options—have a drink or a meal—that can just get really exhausting,” she said. When founders or investors ask to meet for happy hour these days, she will often counter-propose with a sauna or a hike.

Fintech investor Sheel Mohnot, 42, co-hosted an August social sauna event in San Francisco and attended an investor event in Napa, where a mobile sauna was wheeled on to the vineyard.

“The reality is there are always chances for people to feel uncomfortable, and more people are feeling that way about drinking,” Mohnot said. “We just didn’t have great sauna options here before.”

Not all tech workers have bought in. Laila Danielsen, chief executive of an AI software company, was invited to a social sauna event in October. She enjoyed the event and the environment it provided to have conversations, but she didn’t go into the hotbox.

“I don’t know if I’d necessarily put on my bikini to go out and pitch a VC, you know what I mean?” the 55-year-old said. “I’ll consider meeting them at the sauna after we close the deal.”

For all the attention Porsche’s move to electric power has generated, perhaps the most surprising number attached to its latest EV isn’t its range or charging speed.

It’s 1,156.

That is the maximum horsepower available from the new Cayenne Turbo Electric, making a large, five-seat family SUV the most powerful production Porsche ever built.

Not a 911. Not a Taycan. Not one of Stuttgart’s limited-production track specials. A Cayenne.

The new flagship produces up to 850kW, or 1,156PS, and 1,500Nm of torque with Launch Control activated, enough to send it from 0–100km/h in just 2.5 seconds.

Keep the accelerator pinned and 200km/h arrives in 7.4 seconds, before the Cayenne eventually reaches its 260km/h top speed. Those numbers put a vehicle capable of carrying five people and their luggage firmly into supercar territory.

It also represents something of a full-circle moment for the Cayenne.

When Porsche first revealed the original Cayenne more than two decades ago, the idea that the sports car specialist would build an SUV was controversial. It went on to become one of the company’s most important models and helped expand Porsche well beyond the traditional two-door sports car market.

Now the Cayenne is again being used to push Porsche into new territory.

The Cayenne Turbo Electric sits at the top of a growing three-model electric range in Australia, above the Cayenne Electric and Cayenne S Electric. Crucially, Porsche isn’t abandoning combustion power in the process. Petrol and plug-in hybrid versions of the Cayenne continue alongside the new electric generation, giving buyers a choice of powertrains rather than forcing an immediate wholesale transition.

But if the electric Cayenne is supposed to demonstrate what Porsche believes the next generation of its luxury SUV can do, the Turbo is the exclamation point.

In normal driving it produces up to 630kW, or 857PS. A Push-to-Pass function can temporarily add another 130kW for 10 seconds, while the full 850kW is unleashed with Launch Control.

Managing that much performance repeatedly is considerably more complicated than simply fitting powerful electric motors.

Porsche has equipped the rear motor with direct oil cooling, technology derived from motorsport, designed to maintain high continuous power output and efficiency rather than deliver one spectacular acceleration run before heat begins limiting performance.

It is part of the broader engineering challenge facing the new Cayenne.

Porsche hasn’t simply had to make a very fast electric SUV. It has had to make a 1,156PS electric SUV behave like a Porsche.

Adaptive air suspension with Porsche Active Suspension Management is standard, while the Turbo adds Porsche Torque Vectoring Plus. Rear-axle steering, capable of turning the rear wheels by up to five degrees, is optional.

Buyers can also specify Porsche Active Ride, the active suspension technology already seen elsewhere in the Porsche range. The system is designed to almost completely compensate for pitch and roll movements, helping keep the body level under acceleration, braking and cornering. That becomes particularly relevant in a large SUV carrying a substantial battery beneath its floor.

Even braking has been approached differently.

The Cayenne Electric can recover energy at up to 600kW under deceleration, a figure Porsche compares with the recuperation capabilities of its Formula E racing cars. The company says around 97 per cent of everyday braking can consequently be handled by the electric motors without requiring the conventional friction brakes.

For those intending to explore the outer edges of its performance envelope, Porsche Ceramic Composite Brakes remain available on the Turbo.

Then there is the battery.

A 113kWh high-voltage battery sits at the centre of the Cayenne’s new 800-volt electrical architecture. For the Turbo, Porsche quotes a European WLTP range of up to 623 kilometres, although Australian-specific range figures can vary depending on specification and testing.

More impressive is how quickly that battery can theoretically be replenished.

The Cayenne can accept DC charging at up to 390kW under optimal conditions, briefly reaching as much as 400kW under specific circumstances. Porsche says a 10 to 80 per cent charge can take less than 16 minutes when connected to sufficiently powerful infrastructure and with the battery at the appropriate temperature.

That potentially addresses one of the compromises that has traditionally separated a long-distance electric luxury SUV from its petrol equivalent.

Finding a charger capable of delivering anywhere near 400kW is another matter, particularly in Australia, but the car itself has been engineered with considerably more charging capacity than much of today’s infrastructure can provide.

Porsche is going further at home.

The Cayenne Electric is the first Porsche designed to support optional wireless charging. Rather than plugging the car into a wallbox, owners will eventually be able to park above a floor plate capable of inductively charging the battery at up to 11kW.

The system automatically recognises the vehicle and allows it to lower itself into the appropriate position above the plate. Porsche expects the wireless charging system to become available to order in Australia in the fourth quarter of 2026, with Australian Cayenne Electric models pre-wired to allow it to be retrofitted, unless buyers opt out.

For all those numbers, however, the Cayenne still has to fulfil the role that has made it such an important Porsche for more than 20 years. It needs to be useful.

The electric model is 4,985mm long and rides on a 3,023mm wheelbase, almost 13 centimetres longer between the axles than the combustion-engined Cayenne.

Most of that extra space has been used to improve rear passenger accommodation.

The electrically adjustable rear seats can move between comfort and cargo-oriented positions, while luggage capacity ranges from 781 litres to 1,588 litres. Removing an engine from the front also creates a further 90-litre luggage compartment under the bonnet.

Depending on specification, the Cayenne Electric can tow as much as 3.5 tonnes. It is that collision of figures that perhaps best explains the new Turbo.

This is a vehicle capable of reaching 100km/h in 2.5 seconds and producing 1,500Nm of torque, yet it can also carry a family, swallow more than 1,500 litres of luggage with the rear seats configured for cargo and tow a substantial boat or caravan.

Inside, Porsche has similarly moved the Cayenne further into its digital era.

The new Porsche Driver Experience combines a fully digital instrument display with the curved central Flow Display, while a separate passenger display and augmented-reality head-up display are available.

Despite the expansion of screen real estate, Porsche has retained a mixture of digital and physical controls rather than moving every function behind a touchscreen.

Australian Turbo models also receive a generous standard specification, including a panoramic roof, ventilated front seats, four-zone climate control, privacy glass and Porsche’s Parking Entry Package with Surround View and Self-Steering ParkAssist.

And we now know what all of it will cost.

The Cayenne Turbo Electric is priced from $259,900 before on-road costs in Australia, compared with $167,800 for the Cayenne Electric and $193,100 for the Cayenne S Electric.

Orders are already open, with the first Australian deliveries expected from the third quarter of 2026.

There is also a Cayenne Turbo Coupé Electric for buyers wanting the same extraordinary drivetrain beneath a more sporting roofline. It is priced from $272,100 before on-road costs.

Ultimately, however, the significance of the Turbo isn’t simply that Porsche has electrified another model. The company has used electrification to move the performance ceiling of the Cayenne somewhere it has never been before.

Want to Network in Silicon Valley? Bring a Bathing Suit

Instead of bars and restaurants, saunas are the new place for investors and founders to socialise and raise money

Porsche’s Cayenne Turbo Electric produces up to 1,156PS and reaches 100km/h in a claimed 2.5 seconds.