Bryan Johnson, Founder and CEO, Blueprint, Kernel, and OS Fund (appearing virtually)
In conversation with: Alyson Shontell, FORTUNE 

Brainstorm Tech 2023: Forever Young

Conferences

Yeah, I'm good. I started Braintree when I was 27 years old. I bootstrapped the company for the first four years and we were profitable every month and then I raised money and we sold it for 800 million and then I made 300 million at the age of 34. I thought it's time to try to do something meaningful on that kind of multi decade time scale. My objective of blueprint is to demonstrate aging escape velocity using the best science trying to do all the appropriate intervention to neutralize my aging process 1.8. So even better than last time. So I think my first one is 3.4 a few things have distinguished what I've done to date. As far as I know, I'm the only person that has publicly posted my data. So I'm not saying here's my protocol and believe me, I'm saying here's my protocol, here's all my data and here's what I'm experimenting with next. And here's where I've made mistakes and here's why I'm trying to fix it. It's really a stacked process of maybe 100 different things I do because you have to think about the the body in its entirety, 118. Is that right? How the heart ages is different than how the lungs age and how the lungs age is different than how the brain ages. You have to really think about it from a holistic perspective. So it's the common things like diet and exercise, but it's also a much broader consideration. So I have a team of doctors that I work with and we just go through this rigorous process of measurement. Gold standard science implementation measurement is produced near perfect health for me. No matter how extreme I've had to be, no matter how eccentric people perceive me to be because I'm outside the norms, demonstrating that age can be arrested would change everything. All right, Brian, we have so much to talk about. You have had a busy two years. And as you mentioned in the video, first off, thank you for being with us today. But as you mentioned in the video, we just shared with our audience here at Brainstorm Tech. You co founded, you founded Braintree, sold it for a ton of money and now you are spending a lot of money trying to figure out how to be 18 in full body and mind. Take us from that moment to now when you left brain tree's exit, you came out, self described as depressed, overweight and borderline suicidal. How did you go through this mental transformation and full body transformation? Yeah, I think the key innovation for blueprint is that previously my mind was, was in charge of me. It would decide what I wanted to eat. I could decide what I want to eat from a menu or go to the grocery store and shop and it wasn't a reliable form of authority. My mind was always a rascal in doing things that was self destructive in nature. I flipped it and I said, I'm going to put my body in charge of me, my liver and my heart and lungs and pancreas. I'm going to inquire what they think and give them decision, authority to manage me. And so I think that the really the most important thing that blueprint has accomplished is we built an algorithm that takes better care of me than I can myself. Hm. And you know, one of the things he references this evening, Brian character who would be really hungry late at night, make really bad decisions and you just one day were like enough evening, Brian, I'm going to master you. I'm going to have this routine. So take me through your day in the life of being Brian Johnson. From the moment you wake up, what do you eat? Show me everything. It's about 100 or so protocols at any given day that I complete. So I wake up around five or six in the morning. Really, the day begins when I go to bed at 8 30 the night before I have structured my entire life around sleep. There's nothing I do in my life that influences my conscious existence more than my sleep. And so everything is built around that. But then in the morning I'll, I'll wake up to a few therapies, I'll take 100 pills. I 60 61 pills work out for an hour. I eat some vegetables for breakfast, £70 per month. I'll, I'll get to work and I'll do some protocol in the afternoon. But my entire life is basically structured with, uh, we've referenced over 2000 scientific publications and over 100 protocols. It's entirely based upon evidence and data. Hm. Um, is it, is it fun? It doesn't look fun. It doesn't sound fun. I don't think I could do. It. Definitely could not do it. Can you travel? Do you get a cheat day? Any of that? Yeah. It's funny when people look at blueprint, their immediate reactions like they, um, I've had this conversation so many times now. I know almost 99% accuracy what people are gonna say and typically the same things every time. And excuse me, everyone assumes I'm miserable. They assume that this must be some sort of prison. They come up with a line of like we're gonna hit, hit by a bus. So it's like all these same things again and again. And I would say this, I have never in my entire life, been happier, more fulfilled. Or had a more expanded consciousness. I pity the previous version of me that was on this roller coaster, searching for his next hit all the time. So, your Doctor Dr Zollman is 29 years old. He studied Cambridge. How did you pick him? And how are you guys deciding what to try what to do next? That that's, I guess maybe it's worth reflecting that if you were to take five anti-aging scientists and give them the same papers and then ask them to design you a anti-aging protocol, you would get five different protocols. And that's just the state of where the science is. And so we said health and wellness is a lot like religion currently where you know the King James version of the Bible supports 100 denominations that all claim their gods weren't true. And so the same thing is true with health and wellness with charismatic leaders claiming there are certain things and we said we're going to punch through the noise, we're going to look at data only. And that's when we started trying to measure every organ in my body publishing the data publicly and going forward the scientific protocol. And so what we're trying to do is I say tongue in cheek blueprint is the best health protocol developed in history. Prove me wrong with your data. I mean some of health and longevity cannot be measured with data. I mean, you know this right, like stress health of our relationships that all has an impact on our genetics. Even how are you taking into account the things that you cannot measure? I mean, we, we can measure some pretty amazing things from gravitational waves to metabolic processes. And I would say, I don't know if there's many things about the human condition that we cannot measure uh including our relationships, including stress responses and, you know, epigenetics and gene gene expression. So I'd say that measurement is really the thing that is I think most revolutionary about blueprint is if I love history, I love reading biographies. And I look back through time, I really admire people who in their time and place were able to see and do something impossibly hard, something invisible. And if we were to say, what is that moment right now, I'd say through history, the human mind has been the best technology in existence to achieve objectives that just changed. Artificial intelligence is now the superior technology, emergent technology in achieving these objectives. And so uh if we are wise as a species, we will decide where our storytelling minds excel. And when these other algorithmic data approaches are going to excel. And what I'm suggesting here blueprint is as it relates to my health and wellness. An algorithm is better at doing that than I can. I mean, what is the deal with project blueprint? Are you monetizing? This is this a business for you? I mean, there's a lot I was you have a rabid twitter following, I would say, and his following in general and they're eating up what you're saying and what you're selling. So, you know, that comes with a lot of responsibility and the objective of blueprint was to, I mean, I, I thought about this for a decade. I mean, I really started this when I was 21 years old. I thought I want to spend my life trying to do something useful for the human race. And I went out to try to make money to enable myself to doing this. And after thinking about this for all the time, all the time, it was in 2023. What is the most sober assessment we could muster? And I'd say there's four things don't die, don't kill each other, don't destroy the planet and don't underestimate aligning with A I. That is the only thing on our to do list nothing else matters. After 13 billion years in the universe and 4 billion years on evolutionary history on the planet, we are steps away from super intelligence and I want to take it to the future. How does A I relate to this? Like when, when you talk about super intelligence and A I and your mission, how do you see that all playing hand in hand? Yeah, it's, this is what I call zero principle thinking. We are accustomed to first principle thinking where you assume the fewest number of things in a certain time frame, zero principle thinking is thinking from another dimension. So another way of saying it uh talent hits the target. No one else can, genius hits the target. No one else can see when A I has been applied to human problems, whether it be the game go or whether it be uh protein folding. It has been able to introduce genius level advancement as we apply A I to every domain of society. We're going to see a number of zero principle like ideas at a rate faster than we ever had before. And it's going to create a, it's going to bend our reality just like special relativity did and germ theory did. These ideas zero typically came along once every couple of centuries and now they're gonna start landing at a much faster pace. So let's talk about the results. Is this actually working? It seems to me like uh some people have achieved better results doing much less. Um We recently interviewed a Harvard professor who said he cut his biological age by 10 years by like cutting alcohol and exercising. Um So your own doctor has also told Bloomberg, we haven't achieved any remarkable results. And what you're seeing is to be expected. Yeah, I think what's interesting about blueprint is the extensiveness of the measurement. So if you're looking at, I'll give you a few markers that are interesting one, we've slowed my speed of aging by the equivalent of 31 years. That means I now accumulate aging damage, lower than the average 10 year old. That's how fast damage my body is accumulating. Um I have a vo two max, my body's ability to use oxygen on the par and top 1.5% of 18 year olds. And so if you look at 50 perfect clinical biomarkers and I have, you know, dozens of these measurements. So no matter what you look at the data, all says the same thing I'm in pretty good health. And so when someone makes a comment about, you know, they reduce their health by blank, by doing blank, they're looking at one marker. What you have with me is you've got thousands of markers that use M and ultrasound and blood and so and saliva and devices and fitness tests. I'm the most measured person in human history. And so when you, when you can take anyone marker and discount it or emphasize it, but you take it as the entirety. Uh It's a pretty interesting story to say, can you do something today to meaningfully change the speed someone's aging? I think the answer is yes, I think we've proved that. So Brian, you know, do you view this as a selfless act for humanity? Where does it go too far? I think a lot of people look at the multigenerational blood plasma transfusion you did with your father and your son as a, what the fuck. I'm sorry to say that like that. But, you know, I mean, you took your minor child and had him give you his own blood for no real results, as you said, recently on Twitter. So like that's not too far, you know, it's really funny you and I live in a previous generations crazy. And every generation falls for the same trap, we create these boundary conditions and we label things as normal and we label other things as crazy. And we try to create these sacred spaces where things can't be touched, but it's a trap in time and place. And so it's really when we use these words to try to label certain things, we're just showing a mirror to ourselves of what status quo is and society has never thrived on status quo, it's always gone forward, blazing new trails and if this triggers a non normal, so be it. But that's the entirety of this project and the human race is not going to move forward comfortably sitting in the status quo. We all know this, we revere people in history who broke that. But it's one thing for you to decide to be a guinea pig, for yourself, for science, but to bring other people into it. I mean, did ma's mom have an opinion on the blood transfusion? I mean, if you, if you're talking about social and moral ethics about this thing, it just started my father who's 70 years old, started reporting to me, his cognitive decline. And he's, he's a lawyer. He would do anything to keep his mental acuity. And so we put him on blueprint and he came back and said, you know, Brian, I have to tell you when you start losing your mind, you don't know, like when you come, when it comes back that you become aware of what you've lost. And I said, Dad, I'll do anything to help you keep your mind. Like I understand you're losing your existence. And in that moment, I said, if, if these plasma fusions are potentially a helpful thing for you, I'd be more than willing to do it. And my son overheard my father and talking, he's like dad, I'll do it too. I'm in, he's fully on blueprint. He's been on blueprint for multiple years. His friends are on blueprint, they get it, they want it. Uh So uh people Presuppose so many things about blueprint, they assume uh so many things about catching themselves that these are ideas they have in their mind and zero knowledge of anything going on inside my world. And so it just, it's a good reminder that we have these false thought prophecies, but they really paint a picture different than reality. So, what's your end goal here? And will you ever stop? Is this going to be the rest of your life for being surrounded by 30 doctors? 2 million, spent a year traing the body of an 18 year old in all ways or, you know, do you at some point plan to like, go off into the sunset and, and eat a burger? I mean, no, I don't desire cheat days. This is the thing everyone pizza poses to that. I, I somehow desire a pizza or donut. I don't, it makes me sick to think about it. But I'd say the, if this is the question of like, what is the meaning of life? Like is the meaning of life, cheat and get these cheap thrills of donuts. Uh To me, lucky us, we exist. Everything we do on top of that is a benefit. And this is why I go back on the humanity to do list. Don't die, don't kill each other, don't destroy the earth and align with A I. We have a specific set of objectives to achieve right now. And if we squander this opportunity, it could be, we have the potential of existing in the most extraordinary existence in the history of the galaxy, potentially. If we sober up and see this moment of what it is, we may behave very differently. Ryan, thank you so much for sharing your plan with us. Um Your insights with us. We appreciate your time here today. Thank you.