Quitting Time?

An increasingly visible cohort of prominent 60-, 70-, and even 80-somethings are rewriting the rules of retirement-or forgoing it completely.

- Christina Binkley

When media magnate Rupert Murdoch signalled he was ready to retire at 92, observers expressed shock. So soon? A decade younger, 81-year-old Joe Biden was only joking, we assume, when he quipped that he's looking for another job to follow his presidency. After all, his generation is well represented at the White House, which political correspondent Andrea Mitchell is still covering at 77, and on Capitol Hill, where more than a third of the Senate is over 70. Across the Atlantic, Bernard Arnault continues to expand his LVMH luxury goods empire at 75, a working age that is beginning to seem young by comparison.

Spreadsheets, deadlines, shareholder demands: ah, the golden years! Whatever became of golfing, gardening, or kicking back with a juicy le Carré? Does anyone actually retire these days? For many with high-status careers-whether in finance, government, or businesses with their own name on the door-the answer is increasingly "Why should I?"

Take Anthony Fauci, who left his directorship of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases in December 2022, at 82. Don't expect to find him out on the links. He quickly accepted a professorship at Georgetown University and last year published a memoir, On Call: A Doctor's Journey in Public Service.

"I am not retiring," Fauci declared. "After more than 50 years of government service, I plan to pursue the next phase of my career while I still have so much energy and passion for my field."