The Diary of a CEOThe Man Thats Ageing Backwards: “I Was 45, I’m Now 18!” - Bryan Johnson
EVERY SPOKEN WORD
150 min read · 30,394 words- 0:00 – 2:08
Intro
- SBSteven Bartlett
Those are all the pills you take in one day.
- BJBryan Johnson
One hundred and eleven, because that's where the data led me. This is how you don't die. Brian Johnson. The man who spends two million dollars a year to slow down his age.
- SBSteven Bartlett
He's managed to reverse his biological age already.
- BJBryan Johnson
To an 18-year-old. Projected to live to 200. The only objective we have is don't die. I've opted into an algorithm that takes better care of me than I can myself. It sounds overwhelming in the beginning, but trust me on this. So, my bedtime is at 8:30.
- SBSteven Bartlett
And you had 100% sleep?
- BJBryan Johnson
Four months straight now.
- SBSteven Bartlett
What about hanky panky?
- BJBryan Johnson
Not after 8:30.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Alcohol?
- BJBryan Johnson
Three ounces every morning with breakfast.
- SBSteven Bartlett
For breakfast?
- BJBryan Johnson
For breakfast. My last meal of the day is at 11:00 a.m., and every calorie has to fight for its life.
- SBSteven Bartlett
You were very kind in bringing me some food. Presumably, this is what you eat.
- BJBryan Johnson
That's right. If you ask the body, "What do you want to eat to be in ideal health?" This is the answer that it generated.
- SBSteven Bartlett
That is a mushroom covered in chocolate.
- BJBryan Johnson
How fun.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Why is Brian doing this? I was thinking about what your father went through, and I was wondering if there's some kind of link there.
- BJBryan Johnson
Hmm, it was always on my mind. I mean, he's in pain and he's stuck and he can't overcome this terrible thing that's ruining his life, you know? Just maybe I've always felt like a protector of my dad maybe.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Are you trying to keep him alive?
- BJBryan Johnson
I am.
- SBSteven Bartlett
You're very, very clearly mission-driven. The ultimate question becomes, are you happy?
- BJBryan Johnson
Um...
- SBSteven Bartlett
Before this episode starts, I have a small favor to ask from you. Two months ago, 74% of people that watched this channel didn't subscribe. We're now down to 69%. My goal is 50%. So if you've ever liked any of the videos we've posted, if you like this channel, can you do me a quick favor and hit the subscribe button? It helps this channel more than you know, and the bigger the channel gets, as you've seen, the bigger the guests get. Thank you and enjoy this episode. Brian,
- 2:08 – 4:20
What's your mission
- SBSteven Bartlett
what mission are you on and why does that mission matter to you, but also to everybody else listening to this right now?
- BJBryan Johnson
My mission is for the human race to survive and thrive, and it's figuring out what we do that creates the highest probability of that being possible.
- SBSteven Bartlett
And why specifically have you taken on that mission versus any other mission you could have committed your life and time to? Why you?
- BJBryan Johnson
(laughs) Hmm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
And I want the long answer to this.
- BJBryan Johnson
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
The con- all the context going right back-
- BJBryan Johnson
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... to the beginning.
- BJBryan Johnson
Um, I had this transformative experience when I was 19 years old. I went to Ecuador and I was a missionary, and I lived among extreme poverty, dirt floors, mud huts, people not knowing how they're going to make ends meet day-to-day. And I came back to the United States and my family was poor growing up, but it was opulent compared to Ecuador. I couldn't believe that I had lived in a bubble my entire life, unaware of circumstances of other realities like where I was at in Ecuador. And I was facing decisions in college, what to study, what to become, who I was going to be. You start creating these identities. All I could identify was this fire that had lit within me, that I wanted to spend my life trying to improving the human race at a global scale. I don't know where it came from, but it just... Coming back from Ecuador, it seemed like that was what I wanted to spend my life on. I didn't know what to do. I was 21 years old. I didn't have any ideas, and so I thought I would become an entrepreneur, make a whole bunch of money by the age of 30, and then with that money, try to figure out a plan to do it. And so, lucky me, I sold Braintree Venmo at 34 and made a few hundred million dollars.
- SBSteven Bartlett
You sold $300 million, right?
- BJBryan Johnson
Mm-hmm. And then I set my mind to this question of what one thing in existence could I do that would be relevant in the 25th century? I grew up on biographies, and so I'm accustomed to thinking about things on a century's timescale. So doing things that, not that matter in the news cycle tomorrow, but that intelligence in the 25th century would say, "You know what? We appreciate what happened in the early 21st century."
- SBSteven Bartlett
Take me a couple years further backwards in the,
- 4:20 – 7:38
Early context
- SBSteven Bartlett
the timeline. I want to understand before the age of 16-
- BJBryan Johnson
Mm-hmm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... how would you describe the personality of that young man? If I, if I, if you walked in here now and you sat down, wha- how would you, like, characterize that young man?
- BJBryan Johnson
Friendly and fun. So I think the, the event, that activity maybe that defines me the best is I was in 7th grade going into 8th grade and there was... The kids started breaking out into different groups of identities, stoners, jocks, you know, nerds. And it saddened me because I wanted to be friends with everybody and people started creating these groups and there was this conflict between which groups can hang out with which groups. And so I made a, a map of the social structure of the entire school, of what people were in what groups and then where they're at within that group. So were they the, the alpha in the group? And then you had the second tiers and third tiers. And then I systematically went about and I became friends with everyone in the entire school, every single group. And it didn't matter who you were, uh, I wa- I was friends with you. And so I really enjoyed connecting with people, I enjoyed the friendships, I enjoyed the interactions, I enjoyed different people for different reasons. And, uh, I guess that's kind of stuck with me, where I... The idea of group structure and the hindering, it's the same with ideas. Like if you're into a certain idea and you can't bridge to another idea.
- SBSteven Bartlett
The outcome wasn't the most telling part of that story. The most telling part of that story was the process.
- BJBryan Johnson
(laughs)
- SBSteven Bartlett
The process of you made a physical, like a, a physical diagram-
- BJBryan Johnson
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... at school.
- BJBryan Johnson
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
You didn't just do it in your head. You, you went home as, how, a 16-year-old or something? Or younger?
- BJBryan Johnson
Yeah. Uh, uh, yeah. So I was, um, like 13. 12 or 13, yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
You must be able to say objectively that that's unusual behavior for a 12-year-old to be that analytical about problem-solving.
- BJBryan Johnson
... uh-
- SBSteven Bartlett
For a 12-year-old, that's not what I was doing when I was 12.
- BJBryan Johnson
(laughs)
- SBSteven Bartlett
I was kicking, kicking a plastic ball against a fence.
- BJBryan Johnson
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
And you're dissecting the social structure of the school and then manipulating it to make friends with everybody.
- BJBryan Johnson
Yeah, that's how information presents itself. Like, when I meet somebody, uh, like in the movie A Beautiful Mind with John Nash, uh, who, who did, uh, Equilibrium, uh, Nash Equilibrium, uh, there's a scene where you go into his garage and he has this big wall and it has, like, pictures and then it has pins and it has threads, you know, everything connected, and it's like this madman's wall. That's how my, my mind understands information, is when I meet somebody or, or look at a given problem, I instantaneously go to creating a map of all information. Uh, like, what are the centerpieces? What's connecting to what? How is it structured? What's the dimensions of it? And so even if I meet someone new and they tell me a story, like, you know, "I was at the coffee shop and..." You know, like, what details do they include in this conversation? Uh, what is their assessment of the person they're telling me about? What about the reaction of other people or what elements do they identify? And that then enables me to create the structure of their mind and how they package information. And so I, yeah, in my mind, just naturally, uh, hangs onto every single word and creates a scaffolding of how the person understands reality.
- SBSteven Bartlett
That sounds exhausting to someone whose mind-
- BJBryan Johnson
(laughs)
- SBSteven Bartlett
... does not work in that way.
- BJBryan Johnson
(laughs) It's, it's exhilarating.
- SBSteven Bartlett
So at 19 years old, you go off on this, this Mormon mission to Ecuador. This ultimately culminates in it ques- ch- challenging your faith. Um, happened to be at the same age, in fact.
- BJBryan Johnson
Uh-huh. Mm-hmm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
I was very religious when I was younger, and then 18, 19 years old, that's... All starts to fall
- 7:38 – 9:56
Your faith starting to fall apart
- SBSteven Bartlett
apart. What was your process like?
- BJBryan Johnson
Uh, it was torture. And I think... I'm not sure what religion you were in.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Christianity or whatever, you know.
- BJBryan Johnson
Yeah. (laughs)
- SBSteven Bartlett
(laughs)
- BJBryan Johnson
Okay, yeah. Yeah. This was not a whatever thing for me, right? (laughs)
- SBSteven Bartlett
Yeah. Yeah. (laughs)
- BJBryan Johnson
When you- when you're a raised Mormon, like, it is your singular reality and identity of existence. It's not like you're casually involved.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm.
- BJBryan Johnson
It's everything you are as a human. And so when you are... like when you're born into it and then force-fed that and your entire community is built upon that, it creates structures in your mind that you're not even aware of. And so as I began breaking from it, I would rationally be able to walk to the conclusion and say, "Logically, I don't understand the situation," but then emotionally, the brain was like, "Hold tight," you know, like, "We feel the following things. We can't quite structure in a logical format," and it creates this bizarre conundrum in the brain. And so I had that difficulty. Then that got caught up in my depression, where, uh, in my early 20s, I, my brain... I got into this chronic depression where the brain was like, "Life is awful." You know, "Everything is hopeless. Life is not worth living. You should kill yourself." And so in that moment, I learned that I could observe my brain dropping these thoughts on me and that I wasn't my thoughts. The depression was s-... The depression was speaking, but it wasn't me. And when I learned that, I thought, "Wait a second. If I am observing depression in action here, what can I trust from my brain in the first place?" So when a thought drops in my, my awareness, where did that come from, and could I trust it? Under what circumstances? And then I realized if my brain is doing this to me, other brains are doing this to other people. How can I trust their brains? And so, uh, it... It's like this authority collapse, where in religion all the people who I trusted to tell me... to give me w- wise advice about life, that fell apart. My brain fell apart. Other people's brains fell apart. And I began arriving to s- this observation, who in reality could I trust and under what circumstances? And that really started... that kickstarted the process of me trying to reconstruct my reality in a way that I felt was stable versus, like, ping-ponging around to, like, this wild emotion and this random thought from my brain.
- 9:56 – 15:02
Your depression
- BJBryan Johnson
- SBSteven Bartlett
How long did your depression last, and when did it start?
- BJBryan Johnson
Uh, age 24. I remember I was in the, uh, parking lot one day with my brother. We were working on a startup. And something just broke in my brain. I remember telling him, like, "Hey," like, "something just happened. I feel it. It's weird." And he was like, "Just power through it," and I'm like, "Okay." But I, I physically felt something happen one day, and then I just got in this funk for 10 years and I couldn't get out of it.
- SBSteven Bartlett
10 years?
- BJBryan Johnson
Mm-hmm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
And what did that funk look like practically day to day or week by week?
- BJBryan Johnson
It, it was, uh... There was, like, all these different layers of problems, so I, I was married. We had a f- uh, we had our first baby at the age of 25, so I've got a baby at home. I'm not sleeping. We're taking care of the first one. Then I'm building startups on top of that, and then I'm work- also working my way out of Mormonism, but then that's a conflict because my wife is, you know, also Mormonism and then the kid... Like, the communities around us and all my entire world is this community. And so then we don't have any money to pay our bills 'cause I'm in a startup. I'm trying to figure out how to deal with the religion thing, trying to keep my marriage together. It just creates this disaster of a circumstance where I just, I'm paralyzed and stuck in the depression, in the relationship, in the religion, not sleeping, depressed, trying to survive in the startup world. And it, it was a- that was kind of my state for about 10 years, trying to navigate all those competing complexities.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Wh- i- when you look back and try... you diagnose the factors that caused that depression, is it that, that pressure from all different sides that you think caused the depression?
- BJBryan Johnson
I do. And so during that 10 years, I, I pursued solving my depression with equal rigor as I have anything else. I tried everything known to humans to solve depression, nothing worked. The thing that worked is my relationship ended, and I left the Mormon church. And it just lifted. And that was the most remarkable experience in my life. I just thought it was, like, this permanent state I couldn't exit. But, uh, those two modifications just lifted the cloud.
- SBSteven Bartlett
And what did that teach you about the nature of your depression?
- BJBryan Johnson
Uh, I was paralyzed.And those decisions felt unthinkable to me. Even though I could logically conclude this religion was not something I was going to follow and the relationship wasn't working out, the idea of becoming a divorced father and being in that circumstance, the idea of leaving my entire community, of going out and staking out a new existential reality, it paralyzed me. And I couldn't get over the idea that it would be better on the other side, and once I, once I got myself there, that it's actually better for the kids, that was the key thing for me, is there was one experience, I was in Turkey with some friends late at night, and it snapped in my brain, "The kids are better off with these decisions." And that's all I needed, and then the next day I put everything into motion.
- SBSteven Bartlett
And why, why did that matter to you so much, do you think?
- BJBryan Johnson
I suppose that, uh, for whatever reason, I have been an intensely devoted father. Like, I care deeply about being there for my children.
- SBSteven Bartlett
For whatever reason?
- BJBryan Johnson
Yeah, I mean, I don't know why. You know, like it's just, it's, maybe it's part of my identity, maybe I'm trying to compensate for something, I don't know, but I, I invested very, very heavily into my children. And the idea of being a divorced father, you know, with like some kind of split custody situation, with some kind of weird thing between Mom and me, and like, you know, that whole thing, I just, I couldn't, I couldn't sign up for it. And so I ke- I stayed in the bad relationship, I stayed in the religion trying to, thinking that it was my kids were better off because of it, and I, really, they weren't.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Somewhat links to your own childhood, doesn't it, where your parents separated when you were super young?
- BJBryan Johnson
Yeah, like, so much was going on in my mind when I'm three years old and my dad is no longer present, and then my mom remarried at eight, my father goes through a bunch of problems, and... Like, I remember, my father, uh, I give credit to my father for owning up to his life. I remember I, I knew my father was on drugs at the age of seven or eight, and I would call him when I knew he was high. I'd say, "Hey Dad," like, "How's it going?" And, you know, like, um, I just knew it. I'd write him letters and, like, he, you know, um... Yeah, we just worked through it together, but, uh, it was always on my mind.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Makes you visibly emotional to say that.
- BJBryan Johnson
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Why?
- BJBryan Johnson
I mean, he's in pain, and he's stuck, and he can't overcome this terrible thing that's ruining his life, and he's not a father to me, and, you know, he, he, uh, he can't pick me up when he says he's gonna pick me up, and he can't do the things he wants to do. So it just, it, uh, it depr- it, uh, it steals life from him and it steals life from me, and it's something that, uh, you know, dominated his life for a long time.
- SBSteven Bartlett
You make that decision
- 15:02 – 19:23
Life after your religion
- SBSteven Bartlett
to separate and to leave the community of Mormonism. What's life like from then onwards?
- BJBryan Johnson
Uh, I mean, so it was... I, I sold Braintree.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Yeah.
- BJBryan Johnson
And so within one year's time, I sold Braintree, got a divorce, left the church, and, um, overcame my depression.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Wow.
- BJBryan Johnson
And-
- SBSteven Bartlett
What a year. (laughs)
- BJBryan Johnson
(laughs) What a year. And I think maybe the moment it captures it the most is I was, I was in Virginia at the time, and I was looking at where I was going to live next, and so I spent some time in New York, and for the first time, I went to a party in, uh, Brooklyn, uh, a warehouse party, where they'd be- they start like at midnight or 1:00, and I'd go there with some friends and I would dance for six, seven hours. And it was, I think, one of the most joyful experiences of my entire life. I had never danced before, but for some reason, this moment of eliminating all this weight that had been on me for all this time, I just felt free and I could move my body, uh, like I never had before. My friends would, uh, they would be, they were in disbelief that after five, six, seven hours, I'm like, "Let's go." (laughs) "I'm, uh, let's find something else." But it was, uh, I think it was probably an outpouring of, um, desire that I'd had for all these years that just was bottled up. And it was also at the time that I, I was starting to reconstruct. I mean, I had the money. I didn't care about spending the money on anything. Like, I didn't... Like, money has no value to me outside of the objective to do something meaningful for the world, and so I really started spending an enormous amount of time thinking about through this question: if, if you apply this filter, what matters in the 25th century? Like, you go back and look at what matters in the 15th century and 16th and 17th, and you find that 99% of all things that happen, I'm making up a number, is gone, and we're left with these teeny little nuggets of information. Now, there's more 'cause we're capturing more than we ever had before, but time has a way to filter out non-essential relevance. And so if you say that now, if we say what we're doing in 2023 and you look at your life and you map out what's gonna be left of your existence in 10 years, 100 years, 200 years, 300 years, and that's what I wanna focus on, is only those things. Everything else is, to me, it might... It's not for everyone. For me, it's a waste of my capacity as a person.
- SBSteven Bartlett
When you describe dancing in Brooklyn, I mean, I've, I lived in Brooklyn for three years, so I-
- BJBryan Johnson
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
...I know the warehouse parties, I know the vibe, the very low, unsuperficial nature of the place and the energy. You, you, you describe it almost therapeutically as being able to kind of shake out- (laughs)
- BJBryan Johnson
Yeah. (laughs)
- SBSteven Bartlett
... weight that you were holding.
- BJBryan Johnson
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Specifically, what is that weight you were holding? You sold Braintree.You're- you're dancing in Brooklyn. What is the weight you're- you're shaking out?
- BJBryan Johnson
My entire life, I have been told by authority structures, whether it be a religion or society or a relationship or a community, you can do these things, you can think these things, you can say these things, and you can become these things. Everyone wanted l- to put limiters. And after that, none. It was no longer a game of what you can't do, it was a game of what I can do, and it just exploded. And now my entire life is what I can do.
- SBSteven Bartlett
The potential is terrifying.
- BJBryan Johnson
And I can f- I... The moment somebody starts creeping on that, that they want to superimpose a label on me or superimpose a norm or superimpose any tool humans have to say, "Oh, you stepped out of line, you need to be punished," I can feel it. Like, I know where people try to create those guardrails and everyone does it because it's like, "Oh, if you're doing something that's not normal, I feel uncomfortable. I wanna bring you back into the herd because that's gonna f- make me feel a lot better." And so I'm attuned to
- 19:23 – 24:11
Moving away from social norms
- BJBryan Johnson
the constant attempts at people trying to normalize everyone else.
- SBSteven Bartlett
We do that in language, right? We say someone is weird.
- BJBryan Johnson
Mm-hmm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
And, uh, you know, I think of moments where I broke out of my, my community. When I say my community, I mean, like, you know, you have a group of friends and, and then you say, "I'm gonna start a business, I'm gonna be this guy, and da da da da." And the- they use words to pull you back in-
- BJBryan Johnson
It does.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... these facial expressions. Little subtle, (laughs) you know?
- BJBryan Johnson
Exactly.
- SBSteven Bartlett
The little... You're... They're telling you you're weird and stupid and ridiculous without saying it with words. Um, people think you're weird, don't they?
- BJBryan Johnson
(laughs) Uh-
- SBSteven Bartlett
They do, don't they?
- BJBryan Johnson
... that's one word they use, yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Yeah. Now it makes sense to me. Now it, now it makes sense to me. With the context of your religion and how imprisoned you, you say you felt in the context of that religion, I can now understand your resilience and your resistance to falling in line.
- BJBryan Johnson
Yeah. And not only that, it's- it's play now for me, right? It's like a mousetrap. It... Um, I wanna push the part of the mousetrap that makes it snap and pull my finger out-
- SBSteven Bartlett
(laughs)
- BJBryan Johnson
... before my finger gets trapped. And it's just, like, this whole little thing is a set of mousetraps, so I'm like, "This one today." (laughs) And then-
- SBSteven Bartlett
Yeah.
- BJBryan Johnson
... like, by doing that, you f- really f- get a feel for these, all these invisible layers we have in society. So what you just said is it's so... You're... I loved your comment. It's just like, like the smallest facial feature and, uh, audio captures the whole thing, right? Like, "I disapprove of your behavior, of your thought process. If you do this, I'm going to penalize you by not offering you my friendship and approval." And you're put in the penalty box. And it's, like, half of a second of a gesture, but it collapses the entirety on your shoulders where you're like, "Oh man, I don't wanna be part of the out group. I wanna be part of the group."
- SBSteven Bartlett
I wonder how much potential is trapped behind those little facial expressions-
- BJBryan Johnson
Mm-hmm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... and that little social conformity pressure.
- BJBryan Johnson
Mm-hmm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
You know, like human potential of creativity and ingenuity and thinking for yourself and, you know... Must be a... Jesus Christ, most of human potential must be trapped behind that.
- BJBryan Johnson
Yeah. So this is the thing. This is what I'm saying. When you build this wall and you have images and you have strings attached to each one, you're trying to scaffold, like, w- how is information scaffolded? You can use this... You can poke a system and get the response back and then get... Fill in the contours. Like, "Oh, like this is what people think and feel in this moment of what the norms are," because otherwise they're invisible. So that's why when someone tells you a story about their behavior at the coffee shop and how some person was rude to someone or whatever, they're revealing to them, the, to everyone else in the conversation all the norm structures they have.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm.
- BJBryan Johnson
And so if you listen carefully, it's you understand how they have scaffolded information, what norms they've accepted, which things they're rejecting, and where they play in that hierarchy.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Are there any c- correlations between the most successful people you've met or happy people you've me- you've met and their ability to embody and take on these social constructs? Do you know, see what I'm saying?
- BJBryan Johnson
Yeah. You know, my mother is one of the happiest people I've ever met in my life, and she plays exactly in the norm structure of the religion. She's deeply religious. She's still Mormon. She thrives in the Mormon community. Everyone loves her. She's delightfully happy. And so my mother does not need to push boundaries, she doesn't need to explore other possibilities. She- she has a singular reality. It works for her. She's happy, she's joyful, she's a, a fantastic mother. So I guess there's, like, all these different archetypes of people who play in different spaces. For me, that wasn't where I thrive.
- SBSteven Bartlett
You thrive.
- BJBryan Johnson
(laughs) My education has come from biographies, and I've read, I don't know, over a hundred all throughout history. And I love learning about people in their time and place who identify something impossibly hard to see and do, and they did both. And when you do that, it... The algorithm of human behavior is so predictable, of defiance and hate and vitriol. Like, it just goes through the same cycle every single time. And so I have all these models in my mind of people who've done these things, and so I know when I do this myself, I know what models to anticipate. I know how that naturally winds its way through society, and also how to fingerprint what things are inevitable. So you find a given thing, you say, "What are the characteristics around this idea or invention or whatever?" And then, uh, once you have it, you know its societal adoption is inevitable. It does not matter what humans say. Doesn't matter if they revolt, doesn't matter if they bring the pitchforks out, doesn't matter. It's gonna find its way through, push all the way through humanity. And that's the thing, is the what are the ideas you can't see, what characteristics do they have, and when do they become inevitable?
- SBSteven Bartlett
And
- 24:11 – 26:35
Introducing the new idea of "don't die"
- SBSteven Bartlett
do you consider yourself to be an instigator of new ideas?
- BJBryan Johnson
If I were to make a whimsical and flimsy statement, I would say I was born to introduce these new ideas into society.
- SBSteven Bartlett
And what is that new idea?
- BJBryan Johnson
Uh, it's that in the 21st century, the only objective we have is don't die.
- SBSteven Bartlett
(laughs) Don't die.
- BJBryan Johnson
It's that simple.
- SBSteven Bartlett
But we're gonna... We all, we're all gonna die, no? You don't think so?
- BJBryan Johnson
This is the thing. So this is why it sounds silly.
- SBSteven Bartlett
'Cause I was told everybody dies, the only thing inevitable in life is death. Uh, we were driving past a graveyard the other day, and I pointed and said, "Great business, that." (laughs)
- BJBryan Johnson
(laughs)
- SBSteven Bartlett
Because-
- BJBryan Johnson
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... because you know... (laughs) I think it was like a, it was like a, it wasn't a graveyard, it was a, um, like a funeral home, and I was like, "Great business."
- BJBryan Johnson
Yeah. Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
That they'll never, they'll never have a customer shortage.
- BJBryan Johnson
Yeah. Yeah. Okay, so if you... L- let's think about the structure of why that statement may be the rallying cry of the 21st century, those two words. So we may think, like... Uh, we're, we're inclined to think that, uh, genius, or sophistication, or whatever is in this much broader complexity of statement. It may be two words, "Don't die." So galaxy's 13.8 years old, Earth is 4.5, right? Something like that. We're baby steps away from creating super intelligence. We cannot, we cannot model out what the future is going to be like in any way, shape, or form. We do not have the intellectual capacity to predict, to model, to anticipate. We're blind. It's an intelligence far superior than us. In that situation, the only thing we can play is don't die, don't kill each other, don't ruin our biosphere, don't ruin planet Earth, and don't underestimate aligning with AI. The only objective of the future of our existence, we have to figure out how all intelligence on this planet cooperates, humans and the planet, artificial intelligence. It's this big tapestry of goal alignment, of cooperation. That is the only task humanity has ahead of us.
- 26:35 – 29:04
What was your health like before you started this mission?
- BJBryan Johnson
- SBSteven Bartlett
Okay.
- BJBryan Johnson
It-
- SBSteven Bartlett
Let's start with number one then.
- BJBryan Johnson
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
So the first one is, "Don't die." So I guess, yes or no question, do you think it's possible for us in the, in the short future to live forever?
- BJBryan Johnson
Yes.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Okay. Right. I'm gonna go one, one step further back. Your health journey before you came to that realization, what did that look like in terms of... Were you a, a healthy young man? Were you... d- were you drinking alcohol?
- BJBryan Johnson
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
You know?
- BJBryan Johnson
I mean, as a, as a kid, my mother did her, did the best she could under the circumstances. We were pretty poor. She ground wheat, she made bread for us. We also ate sugar cereal. We put sugar on our suga- sugar cereal. We were in the sun constantly with no sunscreens. We had excessive skin, uh, sun exposure. Um, you know, we ate processed foods. Like it was just, it was uni- the United States cultural environment in the 1980s, like we just were cemented in that cultural norm. So I'd say, you know, not terribly healthy. Uh, then 20 years of entrepreneurship, depression, bad relationship, trying to leave within, I kind of destroyed myself, body and mind, for 20 years.
- SBSteven Bartlett
And how do you feel about that now? Because I, I remember reading a quote where you said, "It pains me to think about the damage you've done to your body up until that, u- up until now."
- BJBryan Johnson
It pains me.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Really?
- BJBryan Johnson
It pains me to see all the damage I did to myself.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Really? Pains you?
- BJBryan Johnson
It does.
- SBSteven Bartlett
D- d- when I... You know, pe- th- that's a phrase, right? But is there reality to that pain?
- BJBryan Johnson
I, I feel like I have a relationship to my former self as though my former self were present. I don't view it as a, uh, it's gone by because in many ways, when I'm reversing my aging, when I'm ch- when I'm becoming more healthy, I'm moving back in time, I'm moving back to a, a younger biological state. So I'm occupying the person that formerly occupied me. And so I, I have this relationship with time that is atypical. Where typically, I would normally say like, "Well, that's just happened and now I just have to go forward." But given where the science and technology is at, I do believe we can travel back in time. Uh, now it's, you know, we're... Blueprint is showing the possibilities, we're not there yet on doing these, these dramatic things, but I think it's coming. And so, yeah, I, I literally feel pain because I'm moving into that space.
- SBSteven Bartlett
You feel pain because you're moving into that space? Okay, yeah, that, that is, yeah. Most of us consider the past to be gone.
- BJBryan Johnson
Exactly. I don't. I've, I feel like, I feel like it's recoverable and that I experience it.
- 29:04 – 32:35
When did your perspective change?
- SBSteven Bartlett
So take me forward from that point then. I wanna know when things started to change in terms of your health perspective-
- BJBryan Johnson
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... and this do not die.
- BJBryan Johnson
Yeah. Well, I, I started taking care of myself after I sold Braintree and the divorce and all that kind of stuff. I started paying attention to my health more so than I ever had in my entire life. And it came back to this question, you know, what one thing do I do in existence that would be meaningful? Not five things or six things, like, one thing that matters in the 21st century. And I worked on... I came up with this idea that basically the core of it is I can't trust myself to act, act in my best interest. And it stemmed from depression. I knew my mind, my mind was encouraging me to commit suicide on a non-stop basis. And I wo-
- SBSteven Bartlett
Really?
- BJBryan Johnson
Yes. Yeah. (laughs) That's what chronic depression feels like, is you desperately want to commit suicide every moment of every day. You just want relief from the awfulness, and you can't, you cannot imagine feeling not depressed. And so I, I knew that I couldn't trust my mind, uh, when it was doing these things. And so then also I had this problem with food where I would feel so depressed and I would feel stressed from the day, from work, with my kids. And so it was my inability to stop myself...... from overeating every single night and walking myself into an early grave. So then I paired those things, two things together and I go, "Okay. First of all, my brain's like, 'Hey, why don't you commit suicide?' And two, my body's like, 'Why don't you just eat yourself into oblivion?'" And I couldn't stop myself. And I thought, "This is really weird that we humans are the most intelligent species on the planet, yet I'm doing these behaviors that are not in my best interest. This is really weird and I can't stop, but I'm totally helpless in doing it." And I started piecing together this philosophy of like, "Okay, this is interesting. We kind of treat planet Earth like we treat our bodies. My behavior's not too dissimilar from what society's doing." And I thought, "What is the larger implication of the situation? We humans have a problem of acting in our best interest. Is there an alternative structure of authority that could do a better job?" And that's when I really came up with the core of what Blueprint is, which is I said, "Okay, instead of my mind doing this on a regular basis, I'm going to measure every organ of my body. I'm gonna ask it what it needs to be in its best space." So my kidney and liver and heart and lungs. Gonna take the data, look at scientific evidence, and then create an algorithm, and then I'm going to follow that algorithm, uh, perfectly. And so my body is gonna call the shots, not my mind. And that was when it all kinda came together, uh, with trying to piece together AI of maybe the revolution is we humans have done a wonderful job to arrive at this point. Maybe it's time for us to pass the reins to other control systems that manage our long-term interests better.
- SBSteven Bartlett
And what are those long-term control systems that you believe can manage our, our interests better?
- BJBryan Johnson
I mean, for example now, like my, my mind is not authorized to look at a menu and order. It's not authorized to have a pizza party. It's not authorized to just on the whim decide I want to have a cookie. My body is in charge. My body reports this data, it looks at scientific evidence, an algorithm runs. So I have opted into an algorithm that takes better care of me than I can myself. My mind can chirp and can heckle from the bleachers, but it does not have the authority to make the decision.
- 32:35 – 38:13
Why we should let our bodies run the show
- BJBryan Johnson
- SBSteven Bartlett
But you must understand, the mind is doing that for a reason. The mind is also concerned with survival. It's not there to, um, cause harm to, to you. That's not its objective. You know, it wasn't, that makes no sense from a survival perspective that you'd have this enemy in your head. So how do you reason why the mind is telling you to do these things?
- BJBryan Johnson
If we just let the data speak. So let's just say, uh, we're looking at DNA methylation patterns, and it's, uh, these are, this is data that shows how fast the body's aging, shows your speed of aging. So I take my former self and say, "What does the data show? How fast am I aging and how fast is d- disease progressing and what's my, what's my likelihood of dying then and now?" And you compare the two, there's no comparison. The system that's running me now so far outcompetes the other version, it's ridiculous. And so just from a, from a, so let's just, um, I'll go one layer deeper on this. What I did is I, I asked this broader question. So we have AI, we have super intelligence being created. We have to figure out alignment. How do we use AI so that we humans continue to exist, so we don't kill each other, so that AI doesn't destroy everything? Like so we're just trying to survive, right, society to survive. How would you possibly go about doing that problem? And so I started thinking about this alignment problem within me. So I'm 35 trillion cells, thereabouts, maybe more. How could I, as an entity, align my 35 trillion cells to cooperate? And we're trying to do that with, with society, right? You're trying to get this huge number of things to cooperate. And then I wanted to measure it and say, "Okay, what is perfect cooperation on the objective of me slowing my speed of aging?" And then I did hundreds of measurements and we said, "Okay, here's actually what science can do in this moment with everything, with diet and sleep and exercise all being perfect. Here's the maximum amount of slowing speed of aging for my 35 trillion cells to do." Anything above that, I consider to be an act of violence. Now we use violence in a, in society to, we typically associate people beating each other, like physical acts of violence. I expanded the term to capture my own behavior. So if I did, if I ate something or did something that would increase my speed of aging, that was an act of violence against self. Because if my 35 trillion cells were no longer aligned, it was like this one aberration to be like, "Hey, I wanna do this thing," but it ruins 35 trillion cells.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm.
- BJBryan Johnson
Like, I wanted to pose the question, we as a species are trying to figure out how to cooperate. Can I do that with me as a single entity? And that's what I've been trying to do. Goal alignment within Bryan Johnson, 35 trillion cells, to a single objective exists.
- SBSteven Bartlett
So why is the brain our adversary? Why is it being uncooperative with the longevity of the 35 million cells?
- BJBryan Johnson
I mean, let's just say, like let's just remove all story. Let's just say if we categorized as violence anything we did as a species that brought death closer to us, whether it be our personal death or whether it be the Earth's death, and we quantified that and we said, "How much violence do we s- do we do in a self-destructive way?" What is that number?
- SBSteven Bartlett
Huge.
- BJBryan Johnson
So when you, when you look at that frame, we are a self-destructive species. Now it goes back to this idea that of death, of like if you say death is inevitable for everybody, it doesn't matter if I commit these self-destructive acts. Like I'm gonna die anyway, so like why do I care if it's 10 years earlier than normal? Whatever. I'm 35 now and I've, when I'm 70, I don't care if I live to 80. Like that's how you think. So that's why this, this whole death idea feeds the self-destruction because no one cares.... if death is not inevitable, you immediately come back to the thing that threatens the thing you care about the very most, which is anything that threatens existence. And so, the society we have right now, the majority of the philosophies say, "Be, you know, play by these rules and you get this afterlife." Right? They said death is inevitable, but we're all playing for this later game, and so everyone feels fine in this colossal self-destruction. If you take that away, and then you say, "You can live in this life," it's an entirely different game. And that's why the 21st century, the singular rev- revolution could be, "Don't die." Because it, it flips the philosophical structure of society on its head.
- SBSteven Bartlett
And this all led you to Project Blueprint, which is what?
- BJBryan Johnson
Uh, Project Blueprint is an attempt at don't die (laughs) at every layer of society, individually, collectively, with AI and the planet.
- SBSteven Bartlett
So, are you trying to reverse your, your age or are you trying not to die, or are you trying both?
- BJBryan Johnson
Both. And so the same thing is true, like, just like I've done Blueprint with me, Planet Earth is the body. So you'd approach the same problem. You would measure Earth with millions of measurements at some interval. You'd use scientific evidence to say what is the appropriate sustainable biosphere of coral reef, of ocean, you know, of temperature in, in the world, of ocean acidity, of all the different parts of our biosphere? And you apply the scientific evidence, and that creates the closed loop system to say, "This is how you don't die."
- SBSteven Bartlett
Okay, so let's focusing again on do not die, which was actually the one of the, the only rule at my first company. Now, it feels like it has new meaning.
- BJBryan Johnson
(laughs)
- SBSteven Bartlett
We wrote it on the wall at, when we first moved into the office. We just wrote one rule here, and we just wrote, "Do not die."
- BJBryan Johnson
That's great.
- SBSteven Bartlett
We said it as a joke, but, you know, maybe-
- BJBryan Johnson
You were onto something.
- SBSteven Bartlett
(laughs)
- 38:13 – 41:54
What stands the greatest chance of killing us?
- SBSteven Bartlett
Yeah. I was ahead of my time.
- BJBryan Johnson
You were vision-... Yeah. (laughs)
- SBSteven Bartlett
(laughs) When, when you think about do not die, what are the things that stand the greatest chance of killing us in order of priority?
- BJBryan Johnson
Like, there's basic things on a day-to-day basis, uh, like driving is among the highest risk factors we do. All of us do it on a daily basis. So, every time I get into a car, I have a ritual where I say, "Driving..." I say it out loud, "Driving is the most dangerous thing I do." As a reminder, every time I get in the car, don't text, don't be on your phone, like, pay attention to drive-... to the road 'cause like you, you forget. Every time you jump in the car, you're so tempted to, like, do all these things that imperil your life.
- SBSteven Bartlett
So, you say that out loud?
- BJBryan Johnson
Every time.
- SBSteven Bartlett
I'd love to watch you drive.
- BJBryan Johnson
(laughs)
- SBSteven Bartlett
I mean, you can drive me whenever as well 'cause I f-... I feel like I trust you to-
- BJBryan Johnson
(laughs)
- SBSteven Bartlett
... focus (laughs) on the road. So, driving is number one of things that pose a really statistically high threat of mortality. What else?
- BJBryan Johnson
I mean, there are... So people have built nice statistical models that, that, uh, show, like, risk of death.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm.
- BJBryan Johnson
Like insurance companies, of course, like, they do that.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm.
- BJBryan Johnson
Um, I'm really after the cultural norms-
- SBSteven Bartlett
Yeah.
- BJBryan Johnson
... that we have built a, a society addicted to addiction. We're all addicted. So you, you just think about this from a 21st century perspective. You put a human like us in an environment, and you encircle them with dozens of fast food chains, dozens of, uh, group, uh, stores selling sugary drinks, of junk food, of porn, of infinite scroll, of Netflix binging, uh, alcohol, smoking-
- SBSteven Bartlett
Gambling.
- BJBryan Johnson
... nicotine, right? Like, you, like, you-
- SBSteven Bartlett
Masturbation.
- BJBryan Johnson
And I... Yeah. Like, there you go. Like, your list is... And then you say like, "Okay, human, on your own, with your own willpower, resist this." And then around them, you've got the power of our godlike powers pointing at the individual with the only objective is to getting the person addicted to their thing, their app, their food, their show, their whatever. Everything's pointed at the individual. Then the individual's like, "I'm overwhelmed."
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm.
- BJBryan Johnson
"I can't sleep." You know, like, "I don't feel well. I, I can't exercise. I don't have any time." We, we're just sick as a society, and it's because we've structurally built this around this... yeah, I mean, it-... it's a, it's kind of a disaster for us in the moment, where we're trying to muster up soberness of thought of how do we navigate these simultaneous existential risks we face? How do we not destroy our biosphere? How do we align with AI? How do we as humans not engage in nuclear war or bio-warfare or whatever? It... um, we're just... we have really serious challenges to solve, and we're all, uh, impaired.
- SBSteven Bartlett
It makes you have a great deal of empathy for the human experience when you, you frame it as, we've taken a human being, you know, baby is born, and then we surround them with fast food chains and sugar-
- BJBryan Johnson
Mm-hmm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... and all of these things that are highly, highly addictive. And then we say to them, "Be healthy, do your best."
- BJBryan Johnson
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
You know, "Don't, don't kill yourself," and, you know?
- BJBryan Johnson
Yeah.
- 41:54 – 57:13
How to achieve perfect sleep
- SBSteven Bartlett
other things.
- BJBryan Johnson
That's right.
- SBSteven Bartlett
You mentioned sleep, and you pointed this as being really foundational to health.
- BJBryan Johnson
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
When I sit here with these, you know, psychologists and health experts and doctors and heart surgeons and brain surgeons, they always point at sleep as-
- BJBryan Johnson
Mm-hmm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
They all point at sleep as being foundational.
- BJBryan Johnson
Mm-hmm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
The other day, you did a tweet-
- BJBryan Johnson
Mm-hmm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... about your sleep. Do you know which one I'm talking about? Screenshot.
- BJBryan Johnson
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Of, I think it was Whoop, right?
- BJBryan Johnson
Yeah. That's right.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... and it showed that you'd had 100% sleep for six months straight.
- BJBryan Johnson
Four months straight now.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Four months straight now?
- BJBryan Johnson
So 99%. So, yes, 100% for four months, 99% for the other two months. I'm going for a six-month, 100% streak.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Why is sleep so important? 'Cause you, you cite it in your work as being one of the m- the most foundational things.
- BJBryan Johnson
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
I think you actually called it the most important in one, one interview.
- BJBryan Johnson
Yeah. I mean, if, if you and I were going to make a list of, like, the things that are most influential in our lives, in how we think about and feel about life, I would put number one as sleep. Nothing changes my conscious existence more than a poor night's sleep or a bad n- or their good night's sleep.
- SBSteven Bartlett
I agree. I've become incredibly obsessed with my sleep. Some people's obsessions, they become a little bit unhealthy.
- BJBryan Johnson
(laughs)
- SBSteven Bartlett
But mine, I think, is healthy because it certainly moved my life forward in e- every metrical area that I care about. Um, let's go on and go in on sleep then. So, what do you do to achieve this month-over-month perfect sleep? Because when I saw that-
- BJBryan Johnson
Mm-hmm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... I thought, "Oh my fucking God." Like-
- BJBryan Johnson
Mm-hmm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... I use Whoop as well, as you can see, and-
- BJBryan Johnson
Yeah.
- 57:13 – 1:01:54
The importance of heart rate variability
- SBSteven Bartlett
HRV, you mentioned there. Why is that important, and what did it, what- what is it?
- BJBryan Johnson
Yeah, it's a heart rate variability, and it's a representation of your nervous system. There's two parts, your parasynthetic nervous system, and your, uh, so your autonomic nervous system, a- and you're trying to basically tether between being chill and being in fight or flight. And so when you're stressed, your body's like, "All right. Like, we're ram- we're amped up. We've called all the resources to do this job," but you can't be in that high state long. You need to be in a relaxed state as well. So, you're trying to bring the parasynthetic nervous system on in time, uh, and to relax the sympathetic nervous system. And so the HRV is a representation of, are you chill or are you stressed? Having a high HRV is better than having a low HRV. I worked very hard at it. It's been one of the hardest markers we've had to move. I- I had a meaningful increase in my HRV over the past 500 days. Uh, I was, I started, I was, believe in the ear- like, the mid-30s range, and I'm now up in the low 60s on average. So, uh, good gains, but still not anywhere close where I wanna be, uh, I th- where I thought we'd be at this point. It's been really, really hard to move.
- SBSteven Bartlett
And you, it, hate, heart rate var- variability, right?
- BJBryan Johnson
Yes.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Is- is that what it's called? And what is that? As in-
- BJBryan Johnson
Uh-
- SBSteven Bartlett
... w- it's the gaps between your heartbeats or something.
- BJBryan Johnson
Exactly, yeah, it's the interval between, yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
So, it measures the interval between your heart bit- beats, and how much that varies, or...?
- BJBryan Johnson
That's right.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Okay. So, you want high, you want... So, if, so, if my heart rate variability is like 120, I think.
- BJBryan Johnson
Great.
- SBSteven Bartlett
It's definitely above 100, depending on, you know, when I've done that day.
- BJBryan Johnson
I'm jealous.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Well, yeah. So, maybe that's one thing I can teach you about.
- BJBryan Johnson
(laughs)
- SBSteven Bartlett
(laughs) But- but what is that? 120 what? I've always wondered. I see it, and I know that high is better.
- BJBryan Johnson
Milliseconds.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Oh, milliseconds.
- BJBryan Johnson
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
So, 120 milliseconds variance between the heartbeats.
- BJBryan Johnson
And there's a whole bunch of ways, if you get into the actual math, you can measure them. You can actually do this calculation a number of different ways. It gets really technical and sophisticated. But the general understanding is you want a higher number. You want a bigger number.
- SBSteven Bartlett
You do, you do some things before bedtime to improve your heart rate variability?
- BJBryan Johnson
Uh, I do. I've tried several devices. I've used Sensate, which is a vibrational thing on the chest. I've used Pulsetto, which is a vibration on the vagus nerve here. I've used, uh, Neurostim, which is on the left tragus, uh, here. But-
- SBSteven Bartlett
Anything, any of them work?
- BJBryan Johnson
A little bit here and there. None sustained. I mean, I, given the amount of effort I put into my health and wellness, I shou- I would like to think I'd be over 100 in my HRV. I can't. It doesn't move. It's just a really hard marker. I wonder if all the decades where I was depressed out of my mind and really stressed out over everything, if I just ruined myself to degrees that are hard to come back from. So, we've been trying to find something more advanced that would do something outside of diet and exercise and routine and sleep. We haven't found it yet.
- SBSteven Bartlett
It's crazy that one of the most pivotal moments in my life was when I put my Whoop on, and the founder told me about this, how important that HRV, um, marker is.
- BJBryan Johnson
Mm-hmm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... how much of an indicator it is of overall health. You know, crack on with my life, had a glass of wine one day. I wake up the next morning-
- BJBryan Johnson
Oh, no.
- 1:01:54 – 1:06:44
Are you happy?
- SBSteven Bartlett
only really been, been following this protocol for a couple of years now, right?
- BJBryan Johnson
Yeah. I mean, my, I guess, I, I really do understand myself as on a singular mission for intelligent existence to thrive. Like, that is what I am, that is what I'm doing, that's what I'm pursuing. Nothing else matters to me.
- SBSteven Bartlett
The question, the ultimate question, I think, in, you know, you just said, "Oh, these people are gonna say I'm weird," or whatever else, there's this ultimate question, because you're very, very clearly mission-driven, and there's always a cost.
- BJBryan Johnson
Mm-hmm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Much of what I do here, when I meet extraordinary people, is to understand the cost.
- BJBryan Johnson
Mm-hmm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
In fact, the reason I started this podcast-
- BJBryan Johnson
Hmm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... is because we, we, and it's called the Diary of a CEO, is 'cause we see the CEO stuff, but we don't see the diary.
- BJBryan Johnson
Hmm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
That's why it's called what it is, and it started as me just sharing my diary, and I shared everything, from masturbation, my mental struggles, everything, my-
- BJBryan Johnson
Hmm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... issues with my family. I shared it all to, to put the cost out there to the world, cost of my mission, my calling, my pursuit, the thing that was dragging me. Um, the ultimate question becomes, are you happy?
- BJBryan Johnson
Never more so in my entire life. Unquestionably.
- SBSteven Bartlett
And what does that mean?
- BJBryan Johnson
I've never felt more fulfilled. I've never felt more stable. I've never felt a more expansive consciousness. I've never felt more free. I've never felt more bold. I've never, in my entire life, been this alive.
- SBSteven Bartlett
And you, you experienced the antithesis of happiness, right? You experienced, I mean, maybe some people would argue that it's something else, but you experienced the bottom of the, the crevice of depression.
- BJBryan Johnson
Mm-hmm. Yes.
- SBSteven Bartlett
You know what that felt like?
- BJBryan Johnson
I do.
- SBSteven Bartlett
The voices in your head that were telling you to do things-
- BJBryan Johnson
Mm-hmm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... the unthinkable actions of suicide. What, what goes on in your head now? What are the, the same voices saying?
- BJBryan Johnson
It's all play. I'm, I've never had more fun. Mo- most of my life has just been a grind. It's like doing the things to achieve the objective because that's what the societal role play says to do. And that, what I'm doing now, I'm not doing this for anyone's expectations. I'm not doing this to achieve anyone's acceptance. This is the game I've selected to play. I don't care what anyone says about it, sincerely. I just feel free.
- SBSteven Bartlett
When was your last dark day?
- BJBryan Johnson
Hmm. It was about something I can't yet talk about. I wish I could. Uh, I will be able to soon.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Okay. I respect that.
- BJBryan Johnson
Yeah, yeah, but like, I guess it's, uh, it's, like I, my, my answer is, like, genuine. Uh, in time, this will be a good story.
- SBSteven Bartlett
But outside of that-
- BJBryan Johnson
Yeah.
- 1:06:44 – 1:12:52
Using my sons blood to reverse ageing
- SBSteven Bartlett
You talked about plasma. I, I, I saw the image on your Instagram. When I was waiting for you in there, I was going through your Instagram and looking at all the captions on your posts-
- BJBryan Johnson
Oh.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... and stuff and looking. And there was that photo of you, your son, who looks very much like you by the way, and your father. Beautiful photo of you, all of you wearing vests. And this was one of the- the sort of experiments you did.
- BJBryan Johnson
Mm-hmm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
You had a hypothesis. The hypothesis was...
- BJBryan Johnson
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
I don't know. What, what was the hypothesis? (laughs)
- BJBryan Johnson
(laughs) Yeah, we, as a team, we have, uh, scoured every scientific study ever done on longevity and lifespan, and we've ranked, prioritized all of them. And we filtered out, like which one, you know, animal models, human models, and we tried to decide which things to do and why. And plasma exchanges surfaced as a potential option, and people were doing it for cognitive decline. And so, it came up where I was talking to my dad and he said, "Hey Brian, I ne- I want you to know something, that when you begin experiencing cognitive decline, which I have, you don't know." He said, "I always thought that if I'm starting to lose my mind, I'm gonna pick it up and be like 'Oh, I'm not as sharp as I used to be', but you don't know. It's invisible to you," which makes sense. And so, he said, "I've been on Blueprint for a couple of months. It's come back so I'm aware of how fast I was losing my mental acuity. I'm back." So in that conversation I said, "Dad, you know, I've been looking at these plasma exchanges and there's some interesting studies going on right now with cognitive decline, Alzheimer's and the things like that, that are showing interesting results. Now the science is still emergent. We're not sure it's gonna work, but if you were interested in doing this, I'd be more than happy to donate my plasma to you." That's how it happened. And so then, I tell my-
- SBSteven Bartlett
Plasma is?
- BJBryan Johnson
Oh yeah, so you, we have blood in our body and plasma. So you take the blood out... Uh, we're- we're half blood, half plasma.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm.
- BJBryan Johnson
So you take blood out, you spin it up, it separates into yellow stuff, which is plasma, and then red stuff, which is blood. And so, there are just different things in the plasma. So it's basically taking plasma from the body and... So I gave my father a liter of my plasma, but I was talking to my, about this to my son. I was like, "Hey, I may give a- a liter of plasma to my dad." And so my son is like, "Cool. Can I be involved?" (laughs)
- SBSteven Bartlett
(laughs)
- BJBryan Johnson
It's like, "All right." So it was like this really organic thing around my father. And so it was, uh... A lo- a lot of people learn about this and then they, they immediately imagine like I'm in a dungeon, drinking my son's blood and I'm like harvesting his organs and... The reality was, it was a very, it was a whimsical, fun, you know, heartwarming thing that our family was- was discussing. And so we did it.
- SBSteven Bartlett
And there was some- some sort of efficacy shown in mice or something, wasn't there?
- BJBryan Johnson
Yeah. Yeah, there's, there's... So this, the evidence is like not bad. It's not terribly persuasive, it's emergent. So it's not like we were going in there or realized, thinking that we had a slam dunk. It was like, "It's interesting, it's safe, so we- let's give it a shot."
- SBSteven Bartlett
And it didn't really work, so you've-
- BJBryan Johnson
On me.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... on you.
- BJBryan Johnson
Yeah, which makes sense. I mean, all right, so I'm chronologically 45. Many of my phenotypic markers are in their 20s.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Right, of course.
- BJBryan Johnson
So my donor was 19. And so it makes sense, the age differential, given I'm so tuned, it would make sense that you wouldn't see a big change. But for my father, maybe, 'cause there's a much bigger difference between his health status and my status and a different age range too.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Did... Was there a difference in your father or did you not measure?
- BJBryan Johnson
Uh, we're still waiting for the results.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Oh, okay.
- BJBryan Johnson
Yeah. His- his subjective reporting was that he felt, uh, phenomenal. But we really wanna see the data. And you also, you need to probably do more of these, right? One is, is not enough.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Okay.
- BJBryan Johnson
You probably need to do it successively. So it was... It ended up being, even though we approached it as my father's cognitive decline and we were looking at it through a medical perspective, it ended up being a family bonding experience-
- SBSteven Bartlett
Hmm.
- BJBryan Johnson
... where we... My father left the Church when I was young, he was ostracized. I left the Church, I was ostracized by my children and- and their family. So, in my estimation it was, we are divided by the mind, united by biology. This goes back to, uh, Blueprint which is, are there control systems that help us cooperate? Not the mind. Now our mind, we want to create tribes, we wanna fight with each other, and we wanna find good and evil and all that sort of thing. Biology doesn't... I mean, biology maybe is a different control system. And so we were just trying to optimize health. And so you go back to that system, what are the control systems running humanity, running our families, running you and me, running society? I thought it was beautiful because it was, uh, an experience my father and son and I never would have imagined we'd have in our entire lives. And it ended up being a spectacular experience for the family that we really appreciated.
- 1:12:52 – 1:19:20
What do you eat in a day?
- SBSteven Bartlett
I, I noticed there's something on the chair over there. Um-
- BJBryan Johnson
(laughs)
- SBSteven Bartlett
And I'm, I'm actually starving. It's, it's, uh, just gone 4:00 and I haven't eaten today. But you were very kind in bringing me some food. So I wanna talk about, I wanna talk about food. Um, Jack, could you bring me the food please? And you can tell me what you've brought me to eat. Presumably this is what you eat.
- BJBryan Johnson
That's right.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Good. Thank you. Okay, so you've, you've brought me a meal today.
- BJBryan Johnson
I did.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Just for anyone that's looking, I'll try and tilt it up so people can see. Um, if anyone's watching on YouTube or Spotify where you can get the video, you can see what's in these bowls. And you've brought me two little buckets of pills-
- BJBryan Johnson
(laughs)
- SBSteven Bartlett
... here, and there's a drink here. What is, what is this food?
- BJBryan Johnson
This is, this is the answer if you ask the body, "What do you want to eat to be in ideal health?" This is the answer that it generated. So this is not to say that it is the only food you could eat. It is a version of what you could eat. And so the, my daily caloric intake is, uh, 2,250 calories a day.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm.
- BJBryan Johnson
Every calorie has to fight for its life. There's not a single calorie in my entire life protocol that exists for any reason other than serving an objective in the body. So dish number one is called super veggie. It's broccoli, cauliflower, black lentils, garlic, ginger, hemp seeds. And over a month, if you, if you were to do this with me, you would eat around 70 pounds of vegetables per month.
- SBSteven Bartlett
70 pounds of vegetables per month? Wow. Wow.
- BJBryan Johnson
And I think we also have in there extra virgin olive oil and chocolate.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Yeah, I can taste like cacao, like dark chocolate.
- BJBryan Johnson
Yeah. So we, I paired the chocolate in here. It's an unexpected pairing. The way we think about this is, you could say chocolate is good for you, which might lead you to eat a Snickers bar. The more precise way of thinking about it is you want dark chocolate, un-Dutched, tests for heavy metals and has a high polyphenol count. If you don't do all five layers to qualify the value of the chocolate, you have an inferior chocolate nutritional value for your body. So everything we do at Blueprint uses that frame of reference of understanding everything a full stack way of how do you serve the body's objectives in the maximal way?
- SBSteven Bartlett
That is a mushroom covered in chocolate.
- BJBryan Johnson
How fun.
- SBSteven Bartlett
So interesting. (chocolate crunching)
- BJBryan Johnson
Yeah, those, oh, those were shiitake mushrooms.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Shiitake mushrooms. This is a normal broccoli, isn't it?
- BJBryan Johnson
That's right.
- SBSteven Bartlett
You didn't put anything on it?
- BJBryan Johnson
No.
- SBSteven Bartlett
No salt?
- BJBryan Johnson
I used potassium chloride, uh, new salt.
- SBSteven Bartlett
And we got some broccoli in there. So is that, is that that dish explained?
- BJBryan Johnson
That's explained.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Okay, and then this is, looks like dessert to me.
- BJBryan Johnson
Nutty pudding. It is, many people consider it to be a dessert. It's macadamia nuts, walnuts, flaxseed, sunflower latke, pomegranate juice, berries, and pea protein.
- 1:19:20 – 1:21:36
The number of pills you take
- BJBryan Johnson
eat blank because of whatever.
Episode duration: 2:03:19
Install uListen for AI-powered chat & search across the full episode — Get Full Transcript
Transcript of episode 1yfoonW1InE
Get more out of YouTube videos.
High quality summaries for YouTube videos. Accurate transcripts to search & find moments. Powered by ChatGPT & Claude AI.
Add to Chrome