It’s an unseasonably warm November afternoon in California’s Central Valley, and Michael B. Schwab snaps his surfboard through rhythmic turns on a turquoise wall of water that glows electric in the sunlight. He disappears, for what seems like an eternity, engulfed by a hollow six-foot barrel before being spit out into a glistening spray. He throws his arms up triumphantly, then paddles toward a Jet Ski and gets towed out for another ride.

We are more than 100 miles from the coast, surrounded by the cotton fields and horse ranches of Lemoore, a sleepy farm town about a half hour’s drive south of Fresno. It’s an unlikely setting for “the perfect wave,” as it has been called. But in 2015, after a decade of R&D, Kelly Slater—surfing’s GOAT and 11-time world champion—debuted his dream wave machine here. A 2,300-foot wave basin that pumps out minute-long rides is the heart of Surf Ranch, a private, gated surf park with a clubhouse, a bar and restaurant, a massage room, hot tubs and cold plunges, and a board room stocked with every imaginable type of wave-riding craft.

Schwab, the surf-obsessed son of investment-firm founder Charles Schwab, was an early backer of the Kelly Slater Wave Co technology used to create this game-changing venue. He’s also Surf Ranch’s top client, logging 12 days a year here, which is how I snagged a coveted invite to ride one of the most exclusive—not to mention priciest—waves on the planet: A buyout can reportedly cost upwards of $85,000.

By the time Schwab ends his session, the sun has started to set and the temperatures have plummeted. I’m wrapped in a colorful serape blanket, sitting in an Adirondack chair by a firepit at pool’s edge, when he joins me. He has changed into Vuori shorts and an Outerknown flannel, but the faint smell of wet suit neoprene still lingers.

At 50, Schwab is a poster child for longevity. He may have lost his hair (in fairness, so has Slater), but his body is trim and taut with the chiseled shoulders and biceps of a die-hard surfer. In recent years, he has jumped on the biohacking bandwagon. Fresh off his first-ever water fast, the whites of his eyes gleam like pearls. “I think fasting is the ultimate biohack,” he says excitedly. “The first and second days are hard, but by day three you feel like Superman. Your brain comes alive. I’m going to do it twice a year for the rest of my life.” He hopes fasting, as well as his routine cold plunging and Wim Hof breathing, will allow him to surf until he’s 100, he tells me.

According to research on the so-called Blue Zones, places where people are shown to live longer, healthier lives, purpose is paramount for longevity. For Schwab, that purpose is surfing. It fuels his lifestyle as well as his investments through his venture-capital firm, Big Sky Partners, and private real-estate firm, Meriwether Companies. He refers to himself as an “adventure capitalist,” a nod to a portfolio centered on action sports: Cabo Real Surf Club and Coral Mountain Desert Club, wave-pool-focused resort communities in Los Cabos, Mexico, and La Quinta, Calif., respectively; Beran Island Resort, a mythic surf destination deep in the Marshall Islands; and the Natural Selection Tour (NST), a global competition circuit spanning surfing, snowboarding, skiing, and freeride mountain biking, all aimed at progressing performance.

People understand how a golf course works. A wave basin is unknown. 

“Michael is curious, and that curiosity has put him in a number of incredible investing ventures,” says Travis Rice, the famed snowboarder who founded NST. “It takes a bold and imaginative individual to be willing to invest early and to trust in a shared long-term vision. We wouldn’t have been able to achieve what we’ve done without his support.”

That support is more than financial. Schwab’s curiosity drives him to be part of the action, whether that’s watching last year’s NST skiing finals from a knife ridge in Alaska or scouting untouched waves with Rice in Micronesia for the inaugural NST surf competition. “The athletes in Natural Selection inspire what I do,” Schwab explains. “They are paid shit and can get permanently fucked up for life doing what they do. I want to support them and get their prize purses up to real numbers.”

Schwab credits his father with steering him down this unconventional investment path. “I always advised people who want to invest in their future to invest in their passions,” Charles Schwab says in an email. “That’s something they can get fully engaged in without any interruptions. Michael is clearly a water aficionado. He also has a similar passion for new ideas, new companies, and investing in the future. I think [his] dad must have had an influence.”

Schwab Sr.’s penchant for making money began at age 9 when he started collecting and returning Coke bottles for 5 cents each. By 11, he’d started a fully integrated business selling eggs, fertilizer, and chickens. He went on to earn billions by transforming the brokerage industry. His son, one of the biggest backers of the wave-pool boom, is on a trajectory to disrupt the surf industry.

The younger Schwab’s Cabo Real Surf Club development in Mexico, slated to open in late 2026, will be a 3,000-acre master-planned community centered on North America’s first private wave basin powered by Canadian wave-technology company Endless Surf. The four-acre 800-foot-long pool will be capable of delivering up to 420 customizable waves an hour, ranging from mellow rollers to serious barrels up to seven feet. A wellness and recovery center, a racquet-sports center, a Robert Trent Jones II golf course, and a beach club round out the amenities.

To date, more than $200 million—or 50 percent—of the club’s real-estate offerings have been sold. Land lots start at $1.4 million, with custom homes costing up to $8 million. Schwab purchased one of the boardwalk homes along the wave basin priced between $4 million and $5 million.

Coral Mountain Desert Club, a 400-acre sports-and-wellness resort community in La Quinta, Calif., is scheduled to open in 2028, with up to 325 homes starting at $1.375 million. Members will have access to a recreational lake for fishing and paddle sports, an 18-hole David McLay Kidd–designed golf course, a fitness center with a biohacking facility, and—most notably—the largest pneumatic wave basin in the U.S.

“These types of developments are not easy,” Schwab says. “People understand how a golf course works. A wave basin is unknown. No banks or private equity would touch this. We really had to think through how you divide up the day so we could tell prospects they’d get X number of hours of surf time a year if they buy a property.” 

Unlike his father, Schwab didn’t discover his passion until later in life. As an adolescent, he was diagnosed with dyslexia and struggled through school. He studied political science at the University of Southern California but dropped out after two and a half years. Eventually, he got into tech investing and was drawn to moon-shot startups like TAE Technologies, a private fusion-energy company that he backed in 2002 and whose board he now sits on. “Michael is a unique category of investor who came in for the environmental and human reasons, not because he was going to make a big return after 25 years,” says Jim McNiel, chief growth officer at TAE Technologies. That confidence to take risks and be patient has also served him well in surfing.

Schwab grew up in the Bay Area and dabbled in surfing as a teenager, but in his 20s he abandoned it for golf. As a 30-something, he got the itch to get back in the ocean. In 2006, a surf trip to Rote, a wave-blessed island in Indonesia’s East Nusa Tenggara province, both humbled and hooked him. “My surfing on that trip was, well, dog shit,” he says with a laugh. “But I was committed. I’d come home from these trips cut up and bloody from hitting the reef, but I’d have one or two waves that would just blow my mind and keep me coming back.” I point out the scars still healing on his tanned shins. “I’m repairing from my last trip,” he adds with a grin.

If you didn’t grow up surfing, the learning curve is steep. Not only is the sport physically grueling, but it also requires you to navigate nature’s whims—tides, wind, reef, rocks—and, in most places, crowds. “It’s so hard to catch a good wave and repeat it in the ocean because so many conditions have to align,” Schwab says. He was a decade into his obsession when the Surf Ranch opened, and he immediately saw its potential to help surfers create muscle memory that translates to the ocean. “The whole reason I invested with Kelly was because I figured if I had a place with a repeatable platform, I could get better at surfing, even at an older age,” he admits. “This place right here has completely propelled my real-world surfing.”

Last April, he posted an Instagram reel of himself surfing what he claimed to be “the longest barrel of my life” in Fiji. Getting “barreled”—the holy grail of surfing—involves riding inside the hollow, tunnellike section of a breaking wave and demands precise timing, positioning, and control. The video garnered over 15,000 likes and many comments including one from professional surfer Anthony Walsh that teased: “Longest real wave Barrell [sic] seen you get longer at the pool.” Schwab conceded that it was the longest ride he’d gotten in the wild. At Surf Ranch, he can ride barrels repeatedly. Between his two sessions today, I watched him enter the green room more than a half a dozen times.

Greg Sarkissian, Schwab’s U.S.C. fraternity brother, is an avid surfer who has lived in Hawaii and now calls Indonesia home. “I’ve surfed much longer than Michael, and he’s much better than me,” he says in a text message. “I chuckled the first time I saw a social-media post of his surfing GoPro footage. I just never pictured him as a surfer. But never underestimate Michael. He takes a methodical and disciplined approach to all things in life.”

Schwab is the first to acknowledge that access to a wave pool has fast-tracked his surfing, but over the years he has also fully devoted himself to the art of wave riding. He hired former pro-turned–technical-coaching guru Brad Gerlach and works out with a trainer specializing in functional range-conditioning exercises for joint health five days a week. He and his fiancé, Dylan Fitzpatrick, both have a dedicated personal surf coach who accompanies them on trips.

He is a walking advertisement for the wave-pool communities he is building, Sarkissian says. “There are so many wealthy tech tycoons with the money to spend on a boat trip to uncrowded waves in Indo or the Maldives, but they don’t have the skill,” he explains. “Wave pools literally allow them to practice ahead of a trip, re-creating whatever type of waves they will be riding.”

Sarkissian and Schwab have been traveling to surf the dream right-hander off Rote Island’s Bo’a Beach for over a decade. After leasing the beachfront land from the government in 2010, they partnered with James McBride, who developed Nihi Sumba, the acclaimed barefoot-luxury hotel. Their venture, Nihi Rote & Hospitality Academy, was set to open this month, as of press time. And while the pristine waves may be the initial draw, Schwab is most proud of the training program built into the 21-villa property. “It’s the ultimate give-back to the community,” he says. “We’re teaching local people skills… so they’ll have real credibility and could get jobs where they couldn’t have before.”

“Dad, dad. Choo choo.” Schwab’s two-and-a-half-year-old son has wandered over and is pointing toward the Mad Max–worthy device whizzing back and forth on a raised track. It is about the size of three train cars and pulls a gigantic foil through the water to create those flawless waves. A night session is about to begin.

Schwab scoops up his son and invites me to join him, Dylan, and his dozen or so friends—including NASA rocket scientists and a Hollywood screenwriter—for a dinner of Snake River Farms Wagyu steak and grilled vegetables sourced from nearby Mao’s Farms. Gatherings like this, and the chance to share his love of surfing with others, also fuel Schwab’s purpose.

I figured if I had a place with a repeatable platform, I could get better at surfing, even at an older age. 

Like many sons, Schwab felt pressure to prove himself, Sarkissian tells me. “That’s a lot harder given his dad’s great success,” he says. “But his parents empowered him and his sister [Katie] to stay humble and maintain a normal outlook on life. I think that brought [out] the best in him. No matter how much he’s surrounded by luxury and wealth, family and friends remain most important to him.”

At the end of the meal, staff come over to present the “wave of the day” award, a Surf Ranch tradition. When Schwab’s name is called, he covers his face with his hands to hide the blush that has risen on his cheeks, then stands to accept the massive trophy cup and T-shirt to loud whistles and applause. His smile says it all. He knows he earned this.

Top: Michael B. Schwab, founder of early-stage venture-capital firm Big Sky Partners, duck dives under a wave in the Marshall Islands.