How I Sold My Company To PayPal For $800 Million | Bryan Johnson (#388)

1. 0:00 – 2:41

   Intro

   1. SPSam Parr0:00

      You said earlier, you said, "I wanted to make a certain amount of money by age 30." What was your number? What was your target?

   2. BJBryan Johnson0:06

      On the lower end, it was $7 million. I had built out my spreadsheet model and assumed a certain rate of interest, and basically said, "If I make a certain amount of money, this is an annuity that will be good enough for my entire life," assuming I don't need capital to do anything, like just if it's time, like if I'm writing or something. Uh, then if I do something in the world, I had mapped out something like 150, 300 million as a, a basis that would get me started on that path. [upbeat music]

   3. SPSam Parr0:41

      We're officially live. So, uh, Bryan, I've been messaging you for like six or eight months now. But basically I'll give like a very brief background and, and you can kinda like tell us a little bit more 'cause I inevitably I'll, I'll miss something. But you've started a bunch of stuff. The most, probably the, the biggest thing is Braintree. I think you bootstrapped that, right?

   4. BJBryan Johnson1:00

      I did.

   5. SPSam Parr1:01

      So you bootstrapped that, sold it for like something like $800 million to PayPal. You guys also bought Venmo, which I think is like the greatest acquisition, one of the best acquisitions of all time, 'cause you bought it for kinda nothing compared to what it is now. And then you're n- you've done a bunch of other things. You've done Kernel, which is interesting, but you, and you have this, a fund that's kind of interesting. But the thing that I started reading was your new thing called Blueprint, which the, the kind of the... I'm kind of an idiot, and so the stupid way of describing it is like you have your biological age, and then you have your chronological age. Your chronological, chronological age is just how many years old you are. Uh, and then you have your biological, which is it measures bunch of different things like your organs, your blood, and you're basically trying to reverse your biological age faster than the chronological age goes up, which inevitably means you live forever. I mean, is that, is that basically it? And you're blogging and like sharing everything along the way. Is that right?

   6. BJBryan Johnson1:56

      Great job.

   7. SPSam Parr1:56

      [laughs] So there. All right.

   8. SPShaan Puri1:58

      Bryan, what is your chronological age, and what is your current biological age?

   9. BJBryan Johnson2:02

      I left my mother's womb 45 years ago.

   10. SPShaan Puri2:05

       [laughs]

   11. BJBryan Johnson2:07

       And [laughs] uh, biologically I'm a few hundred different ages. And so you, for example, if you're looking at the age of your heart, you can characterize the age of the heart with a few dozen markers. You can do the same thing with other parts of the body. And so you're actually a collection of some very large number of markers because different parts of the body age at different speeds, and then your life choices and environment also affects that.

   12. SPSam Parr2:37

       So I wanna ask you all about this Blueprint thing 'cause I think it's amazing.

2. 2:41 – 15:28

   Background starting w/Braintree

   1. SPSam Parr2:41

      Uh, but can I ask you a few questions about Braintree first?

   2. BJBryan Johnson2:45

      Please.

   3. SPSam Parr2:46

      So Braintree, I mean like, uh, you know, you guys are owned by PayPal now. Another, uh, com- or a- another competitor of yours I think is, is Stripe, which is, you know, these are like high tech companies, you know, pretty complicated things. How on earth do you bootstrap a business like that? I mean, I think by like year three or year four you were doing like 8 or 9 million in revenue. I mean, you kinda-

   4. BJBryan Johnson3:05

      Mm-hmm

   5. SPSam Parr3:05

      ... you guys kinda took off. So I understand like how you were able to bootstrap it, bootstrap it once you got to maybe 10 million in revenue. But how on earth do you make something like that from scratch?

   6. BJBryan Johnson3:14

      I was, I guess I started when I was 21. Uh, I decided that I, I wanted to try to do something meaningful for humanity. I grew up reading a whole bunch of biographies about people who had done things in their time and place, and I admired people who tried to identify the thing on the horizon that was barely reachable during their lifetimes, and they went after it. And at the age of 21, I didn't know what that was, and I didn't know how I could do it. And so I thought, you know, given my option set, I might as well. I'll become an entrepreneur. I'll make a whole bunch of money by the age of 30, and then at that point I'll try to go after something. And so it was a naive contemplation of how to go about doing things. I'd grown up in a, a small town, like basically, you know, with my grandpa on a farm. I didn't meet, um, my... I didn't meet an engineer until I was 21 or 22 years old. So I was very much a, um, a farm boy, like, uh, raised in a deep re- deeply religious community. And so I did a bunch of startups, and I just accidentally fell into payments, uh, because I, I was building a startup. I was struggling to pay my bills. I had a child at the time, and I would do anything for money. I applied for 60 jobs. Nobody would even contemplate hiring me. And so I found this job to sell credit card processing services door to door, and so I agreed to do it. And it was 100% commission, and I became the company's number one salesperson, uh, in a, in a matter of months doing it part-time while building my startup. And so I just accidentally stumbled into payments and learned there was this big opportunity. PayPal had grown up during the internet, but they had stopped, uh, really innovating for a couple years, and so developers didn't have the tools they liked. And so I started Braintree, and we landed a big deal early on with OpenTable. They were accepting credit cards as a, a f- a form of res- of, to increase the likelihood the person would show up for the reservation, but they didn't wanna store the credit card data because they had compliance issues. And so we built out a custom solution for them that allowed us to store credit card data on our side instead of them, so they didn't have the compliance but still accept credit cards. And so from scratch we built this payment system, uh, first for them, then we expanded out to more general merchants, and we got a few customers like Airbnb, GitHub, uh, Uber. Uh, we helped Uber do their, uh, a, uh, no, like, uh, the payment experience where you get in the car, you arrive at your destination, and you leave the car. No exchange of payment information, no signing of receipts, no printing out receipts. So we started doing a few things like that, and we, um, really made our headway into high tech companies going very quickly. They preferred to use our software.

   7. SPShaan Puri5:48

      You just said a bunch of things that were all super interesting. First of all, you're kinda like Elon Musk without the fame. You know, like you had your kinda payments. He, he had X.com and PayPal. You, you had your payments thing. Now you're doing like a brain interface and stuff like that. He, he, you do these moon shot project trying to live forever, that sorta stuff. So I think you're, you're fascinating. Dude, you said something about door-to-door sales, and on the pod we've talked, uh, about this before, which is, uh, that- Uh, you know, our producer who's not here today 'cause he's having a baby, um, th- you know, he's Mormon, and he did his mission, and we talked about, you know, what that's like. Uh, we've talked about, you know, Cutco and some of these, like, you know, door-to-door textbook companies where it really breeds this, like, amazing entrepreneur, 'cause you have to learn sales, you have to be able to work hard, face rejection all the time, you know, that sort of thing. And it's like this, um, rite of passage where I think if you come out the other side of that and you were successful at door-to-door sales, I, I would bet on you with any role in my company if you're successful at door-to-door sales. Uh, but I've never done it, so I'm just talking out my ass here. Is that accurate in your view? And how, you know, it... I guess, how do you think about door-to-door sales, and how did you become the number one when you don't seem like the most, uh, you know, charismatic, you know-

   8. BJBryan Johnson6:59

      Oh, yeah [laughs]

   9. SPShaan Puri7:00

      ... sales guy.

   10. BJBryan Johnson7:00

       [laughs]

   11. SPShaan Puri7:05

       Yeah. I mean, I don't know if you had the, kinda the same haircut back then, but, like, I don't know. I don't know. Maybe it'll work, it'll do it for you.

   12. BJBryan Johnson7:10

       [laughs] I'll say this. That's funny. I mean, it's, I guess, the, like, the one thought on this. You know, my, my kids are 19, 17, and 13, and they're currently going through these important life decisions on what they study in school and, uh, what they try to do. I'm doing everything I can to help them focus on CS, math, and physics. Like, these are the tools that you... These are the languages you wanna be fluent in to be architects of the future. And in many ways, my choice of doing the door-to-door sales was just a, it was my hacker attempt at paying the bills with a child while I buy time before I start something new. And it was out of desperation. It wasn't like I was seeking it out. And so it was just a... And it was also a case just dealing with the reality of my skills. I had grown up in this farm-like community, people that just didn't have any engineering background. And so the, the thing that I enjoyed the most about the sales was it's not doing high-pressure sales tactics, and it's not trying to manipulate somebody. It's not trying to perfect a skill. It's about getting in and figuring out the system. Like, what is really going on? And if you, if you jump into the world of payments in the year 2007 when I started this, it was defined by deep distrust, that it was a game where credit card payments is really expensive. And when a mer- when a business owner gets their credit card monthly invoice, it's so complicated, they have no idea what's going on, and the providers make it even more complicated in how they report things. And so it creates this opportunity for people to be extremely deceptive and create high commissions. And so in looking at that system, opportunity number one, be honest. Be transparent, be honest, and be trustworthy. And then number two is because there was so much skepticism on this, businesses didn't know how to differentiate, why should I do this, work with this company versus that company, when in reality, most companies were mostly the same. There was... It's very hard to differentiate in payments. And so two is making that known, so again, the, the customer has a very clear understanding. And then three is just being reliable and, and competent, like that, you know, that when the customer interacts with you and your team, they say, "What an amazing experience." And so it was once you figure out how the system worked, it was very easy to solve. And so I would just walk in, and, like, the moment you walk in the store, they can tell you're not a customer by the way you're dressed and maybe the way you're walking, whatever, and they immediately hate you.

   13. SPShaan Puri9:47

       [laughs]

   14. BJBryan Johnson9:48

       And so you have to overcome this animosity from the get-go. And so I would take out a $100 bill and I'd say, "I will, I will, uh, give you this, uh, for one minute of your time, and if you say no to me, you can keep it." And I... They'd be like, "All right. Whatever. [laughs] This sounds fun. What do you got?" And I would just walk them through these basic principles, like, "Here's what's going on. Here's what they're doing. I'm really no different than anyone else. You're just gonna find something clean and transparent and reliable with me." And most people would be like, "Okay. I just like, I just want it to be done. Like, I don't want to deal with any more deception. I don't wanna have to change again. I don't want these machine leases." And so it was, it was really just, again, it's system, uh, deconstruction and reconfiguration, and it was the skill set that I tried to build again and again through every business I built walking into a, a new world and trying to figure out what is really going on and then how to deconstruct it and then maneuver within it.

   15. SPShaan Puri10:45

       Was the early product just, like, an agency where you were getting your friends to help install these credit card processors? Or, you know, what, what was that early V1 of Braintree? Because you said you're not an engineer. What, what did that look like? Because this is pretty complicated stuff, it seems.

   16. BJBryan Johnson10:59

       The first product was for OpenTable. It was just allowing someone to make a reservation, put in their credit card number, and have it stored. So to the user, it appeared as if I was entering my credit card information in the OpenTable system, when in fact, they were entering it into our system behind the scenes. And so OpenTable-

   17. SPShaan Puri11:16

       Who built it?

   18. BJBryan Johnson11:17

       I had a team of, uh, engineers, of software engineers do it.

   19. SPShaan Puri11:19

       And how'd you fund that?

   20. BJBryan Johnson11:20

       Um, I had made enough money from selling the stuff door to door that I could bootstrap it and hire them.

   21. SPShaan Puri11:26

       How, how much did you make roughly? Uh, did you do it for, like, a year or something like that to cover the bills and all that, save, uh, create a stash?

   22. BJBryan Johnson11:33

       11 months, and I remember at, uh, the 11-month mark, my, my portfolio of customers were m- uh, were generating I think it was, like, 59,000 a month of revenue. And I thought, "That's, that's interesting," right? Like, I mean, I'm, I'm coming from this world where my family, we would decide whether to spend our $5 family date budget on going through a car wash or, you know, like, going [laughs] to go and, and get something at a restaurant. Like, I, we grew up in so, in such a frugal, uh, environment, and then seeing that it was, like, $59,000 a month. Now, I'd always been wanting to build... I was, I was not willing to trade my time for money. You know, if someone was willing to say, "I'll pay you $15 an hour to do blank" I didn't wanna make that exchange. I wanted to say, "I am willing to take zero for an indefinite period of time in exchange for the opportunity to make a whole lot more." And that was true, like I didn't make any money till I was really 34 years old. I w- the entire time was working for basically zero. But, uh, that's when I started seeing that what kind of money you could make in payments on this residual revenue basis.

   23. SPShaan Puri12:41

       The 59,000, that was what you were getting as your residual? So that's what the company was giving you from-

   24. BJBryan Johnson12:45

       The company was... And they were giving me a cut, yeah.

   25. SPShaan Puri12:47

       And so you're getting a cut of that, and so you, you're saying these things where you're like, "I knew I didn't wanna trade time for money", or like, "I wanted to like, do the biggest, like, technological breakthrough and I didn't know what that was, so I'd first decided to make some money, and by 30 I'll have that figured out." Um, you're saying these things that as a 21-year-old, most people don't know or have the perspective or wisdo- wisdom to, to think that way.

   26. SPSam Parr13:10

       Yeah, it's pretty profound.

   27. SPShaan Puri13:10

       But you're, and you're also saying you grew up kind of like on a small farm in a deeply religious community, so it's not like you were surrounded by these other, like, you know, by other technologists or, you know, uh, you know, business sort of like mentors. So where is this coming from? Did you re- and even this like $100 bill trick, like, you know, uh, did you read like how to, you know, Think and Grow Rich? Or like, what... Did you, did you read any biographies or books that like changed your way? Or how the heck did you do this as a small farm boy to like, get this type of thinking in your brain?

   28. BJBryan Johnson13:41

       I could probably make up an answer. Uh, it seems to me right now, I have no idea. [laughs]

   29. SPSam Parr13:47

       What books do you... What biographies... You said you read a lot of biographies. What were you reading that changed, uh, your life?

   30. BJBryan Johnson13:53

       I've probably read over 100, maybe even 200 biographies at this point. And, uh, like for example, I would go on deep dives of trying to understand certain world history events, like World War II. And so one interesting biography I read is of a gentleman, uh, Dietrich Bonhoeffer. He was, uh, trying to assassinate Hitler. And so you understand World War II, and he was deeply religious. You understand World War II and Germany and Nazism through the frame of this individual and his plans to go about, and his observations about what other people were doing in the community. And so I found, like these, these biographies provided this backdoor on how to understand events as they were told to me in school. In, in school you have this highly compressed version of history of like, "All right, everybody. Let's get on the same page if we understand these big things that happened." But you really miss out on the nuance, and we all know how flawed historical accounts are, uh, because of just the nature of, of humans and the way people write history. And so these biographies helped me start to piece together an understanding of reality that was much more nuanced, and sometimes contrary to, to primary narratives. And so it, it, um, it invites me to always reject the first narrative that's offered, and understand it not for a factual statement, but for a wishful attempt to be understood, to be accepted.

3. 15:28 – 21:33

   Financial plans and life changes

   1. SPSam Parr15:28

      You said earlier, you said, "I wanted to make a certain amount of money by age 30." What was your number? What was your target?

   2. BJBryan Johnson15:35

      Well, on the, on the lower end it was $7 million. I had built out my spreadsheet model and assumed a certain rate of interest, and basically said, "If I make a certain amount of money, this is an annuity that will be good enough for my entire life", assuming I don't need capital to do anything, like just if it's time, like if I'm writing or something. Uh, then if I do something in the world, I had mapped out something like 150, 300 million as a, a basis that would get me started on that path.

   3. SPSam Parr16:06

      When... You sold when you were 34, right?

   4. BJBryan Johnson16:09

      Yes.

   5. SPSam Parr16:10

      And what did you, uh, what were you able to walk away with? Were you able to hit your, your, your, the north end of your target?

   6. BJBryan Johnson16:16

      Yeah, I hit 300 million.

   7. SPSam Parr16:17

      What is that... You know, you're, you're a religious farm kid who doesn't know much, and, and then in a matter of 11 or 12 years you're able to walk away with, you know, north of $300 million. What does that feel like, and what do you do with that money once it hits your account?

   8. SPShaan Puri16:34

      You don't seem like a victory dance kinda guy.

   9. BJBryan Johnson16:36

      [laughs] Wait a second. Uh...

   10. SPSam Parr16:40

       But true. [laughs]

   11. BJBryan Johnson16:41

       That's true. [laughs] That is true. That is true. That is very true. Um, it's sobering because you know it's bigger than what you realize, but you don't know in what ways. And so it wasn't the case that I had a long list of things I wanted to buy that were just waiting for this cash to come in. I don't think I spent any money for a long time. And I think, you know, looking back now, even my most, uh, aggressive expectations on how life would change weren't even close to how significantly my reality would change over the years with, uh, that event.

   12. SPSam Parr17:29

       Well, what do you mean? What changed?

   13. BJBryan Johnson17:32

       I mean, your, your relationship with the world fundamentally changes. I mean, uh, in any relationship, uh, there's power dynamics of wealth and power and status and, you know, age. There's all sorts of things that, that shape human interactions. And it creates a different entry point for everything. Uh, because now we all know this from our experiences, when you engage with people of different powers, of different levels, it changes the dynamics of your relationship with them. Expectations, interests, rationale, justifications. It just alters everything about... I mean, I remember one of the, one of the first stories that I heard, um- Somebody shared with me is, is Larry Bird, uh, I don't know if it's true, it's second or thirdhand, but Larry had a group of good friends that he, uh, went back and saw, and he had just made money, I think, signing for the NBA. He sat down to have dinner with his friends, and Larry was like, "You know, I got it. Don't worry about it." And his friends are, "Great, great, Larry. It's amazing. Thank you so much. Second time, it happens." And everyone's quiet, assuming Larry's gonna pick up the bill. He does. Third time, it's just like, "Of course, Larry's gonna pick this up, and probably take us somewhere else."

   14. SPSam Parr18:51

       [laughs]

   15. BJBryan Johnson18:52

       And so Larry, from his perspective, was just like it... You know, the fun was removed because now i- instead of me being able to do something, be generous with someone, I'm now in this expectation. And so it deterred him from wanting to interact with these people because there was this expectation on him that anything he did, there would be this expectation. And so it just, it, it is a, um... I think anyone who's experienced fame or anything of the sort, uh, there are these underlying dynamics of human attractions which are just a reality for everybody. And, uh, yeah, it would've been helpful, I think, thinking back, uh, if I could've spoken to somebody, and if they said, "Hey, like, let me just share five really important things with you on what it means to have money and how you can best navigate this", because it- it's taken me some time to learn.

   16. SPSam Parr19:38

       Well, there's probably gonna be, like, 150,000 people that listen to this, and you could be that mentor for them. So what would you say? What are those five things? Or give us three at least.

   17. BJBryan Johnson19:49

       Uh, one is, uh, transparency of intent. You, you know, when, when you're with somebody, it's very important that you establish why you're doing what you're doing and, um, the roles you're gonna play with each other. If it's ambiguous, then it creates complications in your relationship. And so, um, it's, uh, it's unpleasant for anyone to be surprised in a relationship of what somebody really wants in a relationship. So just transparency, like, uh, we're doing this on these conditions. Um, two, I'd say that, um, money is not a, a resource that is valuable for, uh, necessarily for the things it allows you to acquire. It is most valuable for the time it creates, that you can solve problems with money. And, uh, so utilize it wisely, not on acquiring frivolous things, but on solving fundamental problems of time. And, and then three is, um, there's a weird psychological relationship with it where, uh, you're not that and, uh, it is not you, and to have an identity independent of that because it can get very confusing if you don't maintain those clear boundaries.

   18. SPSam Parr21:19

       What did you... So I know that I read that you invested $100 million into your fund, which you guys then have invested in all types of cool stuff, and it seems like you've had some really good outcomes.

   19. BJBryan Johnson21:28

       Mm-hmm.

   20. SPSam Parr21:28

       Um, and then you started a, a company called Kernel that we can talk about a lit- a little bit. What did you do

4. 21:33 – 27:27

   Where do you put your money

   1. SPSam Parr21:33

      with the rest? Did you... This is a good question that Shaan always asks. He goes, "What, what do you do with your money?" You know, like, if you had a pie chart, like, where would it be? Like, just boring index funds and bonds. Uh, it was Shaan for a long time, he was, like, heavy into crypto and, and heavy in cash. What about you?

   2. BJBryan Johnson21:47

      It depends on what your objectives are. I mean, I think good advice for me at that point would've been, you are an entrepreneur, you're always going to be an entrepreneur, cash is king. Like, don't put your money in anything that's gonna be illiquid. Uh, so there's been times over the past couple years where I desperately needed cash, and it was not... I didn't have liquid levels that I wanted. And so, uh, liquidity for entrepreneurs is, uh, really important. Uh, number two is that, um, like the, the inter- the movement into OS Fund was like, okay, wait, I did Braintree, Venmo, primarily a software engineering objective within an established industry of payments. I was moving into science. And the question, uh, I was trying to solve, for, for example, could we build a global biological immune system? So we all know that if a problem in the world arises and that problem can be addressed by software engineers coding in their computers to solve the problem, we're pretty good at that as a species. If a problem arises in the world that requires the engineering of biology, of atoms and molecules and organisms, we're not there yet. We don't have the ability to deploy millions of people who can just engineer biology at a moment's notice and solve problems. Like, is the coral reef dying because the water's too acidic? Uh, we need carbon capture, like we need, you know, whatever the, the problem is. And so I wanted to invest in companies that would basically serve as the foundational building blocks for humanity of building this infrastructure so we could actually engineer with the reliability atoms, molecules, and organisms. So if I wrote this in this blog post, like if, for example, a pandemic happened, it would be amazing if we had these capabilities to build up the biological infrastructure of detection, vaccine creation, you know, remediation, whatnot. And that actually hand- that actually was true. Uh, Ginkgo Bioworks, one of my first investments, uh, ended up working on the mRNA vaccine. Uh, but it was just this idea of like if we've done very well mastering programming bits, we are emerging now powerfully in the engineering of biology. And so some of the companies like we are doing synthetic biology engineering. Uh, one company is doing, they're storing information on D- using DNA. So instead of a hard drive made of the material we're accustomed to, they store it on DNA 'cause that's nature's hard drive. Another company is doing nanotech, building these structures atom by atom, like literally assembling them like Legos. And so the companies... And they've been successful. Like, some of these are breakeven, some of these are po- uh, are, are, uh, profitable. And so, uh, I wanted to do this because Braintree Venmo was, was really nice to teach about software engineering. I wanted to understand, uh, science and engineering of science. And so it was really a great educational experience for me of getting deep in the trenches with a bunch of PhD sci-- uh, entrepreneurs across the range of all these different scientific disciplines.

   3. SPSam Parr24:51

      How much do you think... Uh, I wanna talk about the health stuff in a second, but how much do you think Venmo alone is worth right now? You guys had bought that for $28 million, I think. Like, only five-- only, like, five or six or seven years into Braintree, like, pretty early into Braintree's existence. Did you pay mostly cash for that? I mean, how did you f-finance that deal, and what do you think that, that's worth now? 'Cause you keep saying Braintree Venmo as if, like, Venmo is as powerful or as valuable as Braintree.

   4. BJBryan Johnson25:17

      I don't know the current values. I mean, I, I sold the company, uh, several years ago. Uh, I know it's very valuable, and so is Braintree. And so this was a decision I made when, when I did sell Braintree Venmo for $800 million, it was a decision of, okay, so I'm now 34 years old. I want to move on to this next stage of life. Uh, accumulation of money was not my objective. And I could have stuck with the company, and we could have made more, you know, been more valuable. But it was like, okay, so if I do this, it's $300 million. That's a good enough starting base to go off and do these other things. And because they were going to be in the areas of, you know, deep tech, I knew they would take a decade or so to start. It was just gonna be a long startup process. And so-- and looking at the, you know, prime of my years, I thought, I'll take this. I'll have a go at this and try to do something meaningful there. But it was just a calculation of time and, and re-- and reconfiguring my life towards that.

   5. SPShaan Puri26:16

      And so you've now... Let's say that's 10 years ago, 10, 11 years ago. Um, we're, we're basically 11 years and $100 million in, and you probably at the beginning had a bunch of things that were bets that you thought were interesting, might pan out, predictions maybe of what, what the world might look like in 2022. Um, can you, as best as you can, give us the summary of, like, you know, what were you right about, what were you wrong about, and where do you think the, uh, the big sort of, like, um, promise is now?

   6. BJBryan Johnson26:49

      Uh, the venture fund has been remarkably successful, uh, especially, uh, as a newbie into this indus- to this world. Uh, the number of good investments relative to bad investments is extremely high. So I'd say we've, we've done remarkably well on the deep tech side with synthetic biology, genomics, nanotech. On Kernel, I think we nailed the technology selection. Uh, initially there was... The, the idea was could we make brain measurement ubiquitous in society? And we can pretty-- we can measure almost everything about ourselves in a fairly routine way except for our brains.

5. 27:27 – 34:55

   What does Kernel do

   1. BJBryan Johnson27:27

      We don't have good technology to make-

   2. SPShaan Puri27:28

      And, and explain, explain what Kernel is. People-

   3. BJBryan Johnson27:30

      Yeah

   4. SPShaan Puri27:30

      ... listeners probably don't know what Kernel is. So like, so-

   5. SPSam Parr27:31

      I mean, I've just seen it as, like, a helmet that you put on, and, like, you think something, and you could change, like, something on a computer because of your brainwaves.

   6. BJBryan Johnson27:39

      And so if you think about, uh, like... So wearables are a familiar concept. We put this thing on our fingers or our wrists, and it gives us data like, uh, sleep stats, respiration rate, heart rate, cardiovascular expenditure and exercise. Like, we get these, this set of data, and it's pretty easy to acquire, and then we can use this information to help us understand our health and wellness. We currently can't do that for our brain. So if I have a question, um, am I in the early stages of cognitive decline? Uh, do I have anxiety? If so, what kind of anxiety? Do I have depression, and what kind of depression? Uh, is, is my lifestyle conducive to states of focus or not? What is my emotional reaction to things? Just really basic questions. And the-- most people think that their self-awareness is basically the sensor system that captures their brain. Like, because I'm conscious and because I ha- can feel when I have a headache, it basically is a robust enough sensor system to do it, and that's not correct. Uh, so much happens in our brain that we are unaware of, and there's so much data in our brain that is informative to what we wanna do. And so this-- what we-- at Kernel what we've done is we've built a neural imaging helmet, like you said, Sam. You just put it on your head. It takes one minute to set up. It uses light to measure the brain activity, and these brain activity patterns are extremely informative. So for example, I did-- Uh, I was a pilot participant for a ketamine study. You know, ketamine is, has been used for the treatment of depression. We used it as an off-label study with healthy people. But the question is, what does ketamine do to your brain? And, you know, you of course... Someone can do ketamine, and they can be like, "Hey, Sam, how was ketamine?" Like, I don't know. Like, in a different dimension, and I think I feel better, but I'm not sure. But it's kinda like, you know, "How was your sleep for the past week?" Uh, it's an extremely imprecise answer, and you're going on this subjective self-assessment, and your memory's fade, and you don't really know, and it, like, it's a disaster. And so this, this measurement system is basically meant to standardize the measurement of the brain. And so it, the j- uh, part, a big part of the challenge was building the device, of de- of identifying is there a technology in existence that can be built that makes brain measurement mainstream. So everyone does it for everything. And then second is can we find applications for early markets? And so we've built the tech. We have a few papers coming out, and now we're in the product market fit of finding the first application for the technology.

   7. SPSam Parr30:19

      When you... So for the listeners, uh, if you just Google Bryan Johnson Blueprint, you'll see it. I don't-- What's the URL? Is it just for the blueprint? What is it?

   8. BJBryan Johnson30:27

      Blueprint.bryanjohnson.co. What, uh... Sorry, Sam. One, one final comment on this, just, uh, for, to make this maybe an, an attempt to making this intuitive. When people begin experiencing cognitive decline- Uh, and this may be true what happens with al- with intoxication with alcohol too. We, we just did an alcohol study. When your brain is impaired, like we just saw this with alcohol, uh, with moderate alcohol, your brain, uh, compensates for the deficiency. And so you, you can't pick up the impairment. But you can, you can record it and identify it. But at a certain level of, of intoxication, your brain can no longer make up for that impairment. And so then it reveals itself in impairment in behavior. And so that is true with somebody who may be experiencing cognitive decline. You may be along the path of cognitive decline, and you may say, "I feel great, I seem great, I'm moving great, everything's great", but you just can't pick it up. And so it's the value of like, oh, wouldn't it be amazing if I had the ability to measure my brain on a routine basis that informs me of these things that I myself cannot identify? Now wouldn't it be neat if everyone did it and it was just incorporated into standard of care across all things and how we dealt with our mental health and wellness? You know, all the above.

   9. SPShaan Puri31:45

      Is, is there anything people can do if they're in cognitive decline? Or is it just sort of like, well, I've measured this. Sad news. All right. You know, well, [laughs] I don't, don't have a way to sober up.

   10. SPSam Parr31:55

       Shaan, have, have you guys ever seen on 23andMe or something like that, they u- they used to have like an Alz... So I guess, uh, Alzheimer's is genetic and, like, there's, like, a particular type of gene that you could have that increases the likelihood that you're gonna have it. And 23andMe used to do this thing where they said, uh, "All right, you have it, but before we can even tell you if you have it, you have to sign this paperwork saying you're not gonna assume this is a diagnosis and you can't flip out." Well, I had it, and then, like, I did flip out.

   11. SPShaan Puri32:19

       [laughs]

   12. SPSam Parr32:19

       And then they eventually removed that. I believe, I don't think they have it anymore, 'cause they said people were just flipping out too much. And one of the reasons they removed it is they tell you that that you have this, and they're like, "Good luck." Like, maybe put, like, frames... Like, they were like, there's all these like... I don't know if they said this, but, like, people were like, if you, like, have frames of pictures upside down, and so you have to, like, work harder to, like, figure out who's in the picture, that's gonna, like, help you, like, get a stronger brain. But in general, when I was researching, I was like, "Oh shit, I have this gene. What do I have to do?" People were like, "Uh, good luck. You know? Just, like, I guess, hopefully you'll be all right." But there, there wasn't, like, that many things. So yeah, what, what... Ca- can you actually fix any of these things?

   13. BJBryan Johnson32:58

       Uh, we think about it, uh... So, uh, we are accustomed to the idea of society having engineering standards. So we know that when we buy an appliance, it's going to fit through our front door. We don't have to go measure our front door, look at the dimensions on the website, and be like, "Is this gonna fit or not?" Because we know that the door size is standard, the appliance size is standard, it can be moved into my house. That's true for everything we... You know, so many things we do in life, we just know these standards. When we agree, we build society, and so we have millions of invisible standards. We have very few standards about our brains, because we can't measure it. We know the, the timing that's appropriate for green light, red, a yellow light, and a red light on lights, because we know the reaction time of humans to lights. We know braking power. We know people's stop times. So when we do have data, we can actually determine that. We do not have engineering standards around the brain. Depression, anxiety, cognitive decline, because we have no measurement. And so the... Fundamentally, the way to... How could we actually create a step change function change in the world in how we deal with our minds? You begin with measurement. And once you have numbers, science begins with numbers and counting. And then ecosystems form around that. So genetics, I think, is, is kind of like that. It's not as numerical, uh, as what the, the brain measurement could be. But that was a fundamental thing is if you give everyone the numbers, you give them the opportunity to build, um, solutions around those problems.

   14. SPSpeaker34:31

       [upbeat music] This data is wrong every freaking time. Have you heard of HubSpot? HubSpot is a CRM platform where everything is fully integrated. Whoa, I can see the client's whole history. Calls, support tickets, emails, and here's a task from three days ago I totally missed. HubSpot. Grow better.

   15. SPSam Parr34:54

       So this

6. 34:55 – 1:01:11

   Blueprint blog

   1. SPSam Parr34:55

      blueprint, your, your, your blog, I don't know what you're calling it, your experiment, it's pretty wild because, you know, I saw what you used to look like. You weren't bad looking, but you definitely were thicker than you are now. Like, your jawline is, like, crazy cut right now. And, like, you just look way different than you used to do. I mean, it's pretty fascinating. And, you know, Braint- Braintree's amazing. You've built something amazing. This blueprint thing is, like, way crazier, a- a- and unique and odd, and it's awesome. And, like, I've read it, and you're basically, if I remember correctly, like, I've been following it, uh, for, uh, a bunch of months, and you, you do regular updates. And at first, um, you were... I think you got down to, like, 6% body fat, and you're like, "Okay, I think 6% is a little bit too low. Let's go to 7.5%." Uh, and then you're also, like, eating this, like, nutty pudding, I think you called it. Uh, so you have a vegan diet, and you're, like, just eating, like, nuts and, like, tons of vitamins and, like, what appears to be not tasty, boring food. Like, you've gone all in. And the, the premise behind this is, I think you had this blog post that said, like, "Late night Bryan no longer gets to make decisions" or something like that. Like, you know, you're, you're, you're at home at night and you're hungry, and you used to... would go and snack and eat bad food, and you're like, "I'm no lo- I'm no longer letting that guy, uh, make any decisions. He, he no longer has a say. We're letting experimental Bryan, uh, make the decisions from now on." Um, this thing's crazy, man. What... Why are you doing this, and what have you found to be actually meaningful versus not meaningful? And by the way-

   2. BJBryan Johnson36:20

      Yeah

   3. SPSam Parr36:20

      ... you're doing, you're doing the knees over toes guy, uh, thing, I noticed. You're, like, walking backwards. You're doing the tibialis raises. This guy was onto something. You're doing it, it looked like.

   4. BJBryan Johnson36:30

      I am. Yeah, I mean, so, so blueprint, uh, for me, uh, this goes back to the age of 21. And to me, this is the best answer I've ever come up with in my life. If you ba- if you pose the question How can we imagine the human race and intelligence generally surviving itself and thriving? Like, what is our plan as a species to thrive? Blueprint, to me, is the best idea I've ever come up, come up with, and the most practical idea I've ever come up with to address that. And so from the outside perspective, it appears to be health and wellness and anti-aging and whatnot. That's all true, but really it's a philosophical endeavor for the future of intelligence. And so th- the way this... I would abridge this is this began in, uh... from a pro... Basically, I had a problem of overeating every day. Every night at 7:00 PM, I would overeat. I'd either have a second serving for dinner or a third serving or have desserts or do something that I would consider to be self-harm. Like eating too much food, the wrong food, and it was just causing bad things to me. I couldn't sleep well. It was... I was overweight, like all the above. And so I tried everything to fix it and I couldn't. And so I playfully said, "I'm going to fire evening Bryan" because the Bryan who wakes up in the morning, he exercises, he does really well eating. Same with lunch Bryan. But this 5:00 PM to 10:00 PM Bryan, like boy, is he a rascal. He's always making the wrong choice. Like, I could absolutely rely upon him to make the wrong choice. And he always had an infinite number of reasons on why today was okay to do the thing.

   5. SPSam Parr38:15

      [laughs]

   6. BJBryan Johnson38:15

      And so I was like, "You know what? I've had it. Like, he's done. He's absolutely out." And so I playfully wrote this blog post of like, all Bryans got together, we had a discussion. We're like, "Bryan, evening Bryan, you're making this thing awful." And so I just... I revoked his authority from 5:00 PM to 10:00 PM to eat. And so what started off as like this playful thing now turned into what I'm tr- what I basically have done to my, my entire system is I now only eat what my body asks for according to data and science.

   7. SPSam Parr38:47

      Have you not done that at all? Have you had any splurges since you've started this, and do you in- ever intend to do that?

   8. BJBryan Johnson38:52

      Uh, I have had infractions, yes. Although this is... I think this is [laughs] I think this is the most interesting part of the entire thing. So, um, just to be clear of the starting point, this is a big deviation from how society is structured right now. Uh, right now our minds have unquestioned authority in deciding what we eat. So if you think about your daily life, you go to the store and you walk down aisles. You're like, "Ah, maybe this, maybe that." You decide how much you put on your plate. You decide if you go to a restaurant. You're presented with a menu. You decide if you're going to have a pizza party. You decide if you're going to eat Doritos. Like, you're making these decisions all the time, and it's a combination of how you feel, what you want. Like, uh, you know, if you're trying to be good or whatever, but you're basically giving your mind unquestioned authority to do it. Blueprint flips that, and it says, "My mind has zero authority. My body has 100% authority." So it... the measurement of my heart and liver and lungs and DNA methylation patterns, it directly asks for what it wants via data, and I can never override it. And so in this idea... So the, the thought experiment is if you could achieve perfect health and maintain perfect health, but it'll, but it required you to accept, uh, basically what an algorithm is doing to deliver what you eat and when you eat, would you do it? And then in that thought experiment, Sam, and I've had this conversation hundreds of times now, the reaction people have is almost this fear response.

   9. SPSam Parr40:38

      Right.

   10. BJBryan Johnson40:39

       And their conscious mind panics. And, uh, it's like I, I see it like a computer screen scrolling of like infinite number of questions. But like, what if Cheetos, pizza party, 7:00 to play, like whatever. And then it... like, the mind is panicking for the contemplation of loss of control, that it can't do the things that it thinks. That then the mind says, "The only way I can be happy in existence is if I still get to choose what I do when I do it." And the mind cannot get over it. It cannot just say, "Hold tight." Like, is it po- Like, let me just contemplate. Is it possible that I am a self-harm machine? I cannot stop myself from committing self-harm. I probably will never be able to do it, and if I keep on doing this, it's probably gonna lead to at a predictable outcome. And so it's such an interesting interaction of rolling through this thing of... And I think it's really on par if we say like what are the major things that have impacted humanity of is the earth the center of the universe or, you know, it did... Uh, is there an evolutionary, uh, force creating all things on Earth? I think this one could be on that scale of a societal, uh, understanding that our unquestioned, uh, granting of authority to our conscious minds is at the root of all of our problems in society. And so the contemplation here is if, if I imagine this, um, could I stop self-harm from happening inside of Bryan? Because just like there's wars going on and there's all these tribal factions in the world, the same thing is going on inside of me with, uh, my own body and my cravings and whatever else. I've achieved goal alignment within myself on this program. And so that's, that's really what this whole thing is about, is it's, it's trying to think through how could I achieve goal alignment. And we hear a lot about AI goal alignment with humans and that being an existential threat, that I think the more interesting starting point is not for me to look on the other side of my eyeballs and say, "Let me find everyone else who's got a problem in the world." Let me look at myself and say, "What is my own internal chaos and war, and can I even try to resolve conflict within myself?"

   11. SPShaan Puri42:55

       There's a, there's a part of me that's like, wow, this is, um, this is incredible. I'm going through the Blueprint site. I'm looking at the, the routine. I'm looking at the photo. I mean, you're completely shredded. This is amazing. Um, so there's a part of me that's like, wow, this is incredible. And then there's a part of me that's like, you're doing the thing a little bit where it's like, is this mayo? No, he's calling it aioli. Where it's like, oh wow, this is not only just great for your health, this is transcendence for the race and the society. And I'm like, okay, maybe I could see how that's true, but it, I mean, it does seem like you're not actually... It's not that your body's deciding. Your brain has just decided I'm gonna use data about what my body wants instead of impulse, you know, whatever my impulse driven, you know, brain was trying to do before. Um, but like, I guess regardless, when I look at this, I'm like, this is amazing. But man, uh, you know, this looks like a full-time ph- a full-time effort plus PhD level intelligence, uh, plus a bunch of money to be able to do this. What have you discovered-

   12. SPSam Parr43:52

       I think he said his costs, by the way. His costs, I think, say like three grand a month. Like, it's not like crazy.

   13. SPShaan Puri43:56

       Well, I, I think it's three grand a month, but it's also like the mental energy that you would have to put towards doing this is like, you know, the, the real cost. So w- but, but you did it in service of, of other people too. So like, you know, what is the 80/20? What have you discovered have been the, the highest leverage, uh, you know, changes? I know it's in this, but say it out loud 'cause not everyone's gonna go read the whole thing. So like what are the, the highest leverage changes that you were able to make, um, during this experiment?

   14. BJBryan Johnson44:23

       The first, Shaan, on this, um, maybe just a reflection. Why is it in society do we accept this ferocious system to invite everyone to commit self-harm? Like when you walk into the grocery store, I mean, it is violence, out- outright violence through the representation of advertising and ingredients and sugar, and you're in there and you're supposed to be on, on equal footing with that. Like, no way. We're outmatched. And the same thing when we're sized up against algorithms. It's a totally unfair match. In society, we just gleefully allow the self-harm. And so the individual is pitted against algorithms and capitalism. Like good luck individual on trying to keep your shit together. And so it's just, it's an unfair thing and I think it's a, uh, it's just bad for everyone to be in this game. But then in terms of like w- uh, the basics for people, um, it's really understanding that, um, trying to win this game with willpower is a losing game. If you put yourself in a situation where you have option A and option B, you're probably going to lose 50% of the time or more. And that's the whole thing I've been trying through Blueprint is, yes, it's expensive right now. Yes, like it's difficult. This always happens with innovation. It's always expensive and ex- inaccessible, then in time it gets better. And that's why I openly blog about all the things I'm doing is I'm trying to get this out so others can improve upon it. The, um, I think the most important thing that someone could do to win here would be to accept the basic principle that it's a system that drives what you eat. It's not your decision making.

   15. SPSam Parr46:26

       But, but what about the, the, the, like the specific tru- are there any like truths or any like hypotheses that you believe to be true? Like for, uh, you know, you're like, well, I... Even though you said... You did a great analogy with the door frame, how it's standard and how bodies aren't necessarily like that. But like has going vegan like made a huge difference to you? Is there anything about like, for example, a lot of us sit at chairs, you know, 80 hours a week, uh, staring at screens and we work really hard. Is there any like where you're like, oh, you know, actually 30 hours of-

   16. SPShaan Puri46:54

       Yeah, he's actually, he's in a piston squat right now doing this whole interview.

   17. BJBryan Johnson46:58

       [laughs]

   18. SPSam Parr46:58

       Yeah. Uh, are you like, well, you know, like 30 hours is... I, I think in the, what's the, the Israeli guy, he wrote the book Homo Sapiens. In one of his books, he was like, you know, like hunter and gatherers worked only 30 hours a week and that kind of seems like an ideal number.

   19. SPShaan Puri47:12

       Yeah.

   20. SPSam Parr47:12

       Is there anything like-

   21. SPShaan Puri47:13

       It's just sapiens. No homo, okay?

   22. SPSam Parr47:14

       [laughs] My bad. My bad. This... [laughs] I'm inclusive. Uh, so yeah. Is there any like, is there any truths that, that you've discovered for you that, you know, it maybe is not right for everyone else?

   23. BJBryan Johnson47:26

       I started, I got my pilot's license several years ago, and in doing so, I was assessing the risk of death. And one of the stats that, that, uh, stood out to me was that over 70% of incidents in aviation were attributable to amateur pilots. And so while I went through the certification of every plane I flew, I was type rated in every plane and, you know, whatnot, um, I refused to fly alone because I knew the risk of error was just, uh, the math was there. The stats were there. The same is true with health and wellness. I tried to do this on my own, you know, almost like going around with this little bag, listening to podcasts, reading books, reading literature, and trying to put little gems of insight into my bag and try to piece together my own protocol. It's the same as trying to fly an airplane by myself. Even though I study it, I get typed in it, my error rate's just gonna be very high. And so... And then three is that, um, t- the value here in this conversation would not be somebody feeling motivated in this moment of doing something good, because tomorrow they're going to fail. And it's also the value here is not debating is a vegan diet better than a carnivore diet. To me, the, the real essence of this conversation, the only way this conversation can be of value besides of all the chatter going on in the world of every- and everyone else talking about this is one, is there- ... a engineered solution, uh, that actually solves this from a system perspective. And two, uh, can you do so with data? It doesn't do anyone any good to debate is carnivore better than vegan. It's a meaningless conversation. Data is the only thing that matters. And so that's why I publish all my data, is like, uh, it's... I mean, I'm vegan for ethical and moral reasons, but I'm not vegan, uh, because I think it's, it's, um... You know, I didn't at the, at layer of abstraction, we just look at data. We're agnostic to these inputs. And so that's really what I'm trying to say. This is not a health and wellness gig. This is not a diet trend. This is really trying to get the structural formation of what it means to be human, our relationship with food, our relationship with happiness and, and, you know, like how we structure our lives. And it's also trying to say, let's get past these silly tribal debates at these layers of abstraction which are meaningless, and they just confuse everyone. 'Cause then people immediately say, "First they say eggs are bad for you, then they say they're good for you. No one knows." And they just stop at that point.

   24. SPSam Parr50:08

       Mm-hmm.

   25. BJBryan Johnson50:09

       When in reality there are more right answers than wrong in terms of doing this in a methodical way.

   26. SPSam Parr50:14

       You know, before we started, uh, recording, Shaan was just like gushing about how like jacked and ripped you are, and how he thought you looked great. Is it mostly, uh... Are you getting any more, uh, attention from women, or is it all just guys like Shaan-

   27. BJBryan Johnson50:28

       [laughs]

   28. SPSam Parr50:28

       ... who are just like eyeballing you? [laughs]

   29. BJBryan Johnson50:31

       [laughs]

   30. SPSam Parr50:31

       'Cause whenever I, whenever I get in shape, I'm like, "Oh yeah, my wife's gonna love this." And she's like, "Eh, I guess you look all right." Uh, it's always dudes. It's only men.
7. 1:01:11 – 1:10:08

   Ideas that others could do

   1. SPShaan Puri1:01:11

      Do you have any ideas like that that are like, you know, I think somebody could go do X?

   2. BJBryan Johnson1:01:16

      I do a lot of them, but I would say I'm really obsessed with one. Uh, that's, uh, goal alignment or cooperation. At, at the basis of everything that exists on planet Earth, there's a singular question at play. Can it cooperate? And so this Blueprint thing, this question is, can I bring world peace to Bryan in my body? The answer is yes, I did. Now my mind is, is a whole nother thing, right? The negative self-talk, like all the stuff that goes on in my brain, that's an entirely different project. But Blueprint is applicable to climate change. It's the same thing. If we were to measure the world with millions of data points and let the Earth speak, and then we work within those constraints, that's the solution for how we can coexist with a healthy planet. Versus right now, our minds overrun the planet. We do what we want, when we want, and how we want, and it comes at the expense of our planet. So just like we're committing self-harm to ourselves, we're committing harm to the Earth collectively. It's the same problem. And so if you th- think about goal alignment within ourselves, between each other, with planet Earth, and with AI, it's a gigantic computational goal alignment problem. And so the idea like this AI alignment problem we have, we've talked about now, like between AI and humans, like what? Like we don't have goal alignment within ourselves, let alone between humans and then humans and AI. It's a, it's kind of a crazy notion then, you know, like if you look at the number of disconnects on that entire stream, and the starting point in most people's assumptions is let me start with what I can see and how I can change other people's behavior versus looking in. And so I'd say, yes, I have ideas, but none of them matter because unless we can solve cooperation, what is it that we have to look forward to as a species?

   3. SPShaan Puri1:03:19

      So what's an example of that? So like you, uh, you talked about basically like goal alignment first with your body, right? And you were able to solve that, and Blueprint is a good example. What's another example of how you would take this idea of cooperation or goal alignment and what would be like a more specific like point of attack or, or, or like product or service or whatever that would be created along those lines?

   4. BJBryan Johnson1:03:42

      I mean, the brain. Like so I would love to tackle my brain next, and that's what Kernel is. If I have this device and I can measure my brain, if you think about it i- in like what we eat today as a dietary input to our bodies, and you think about what is my diet for my brain, like the news sources, the social media sources, my friends, my environment. We have no idea what's happening. We don't... We haven't, we don't have it measured. And so is it possible that we basically eat 90% junk food in a given day to our brains because that's just the way society is structured? And so I'd love to address that of getting a baseline of where I at with my brain. And then, uh, more broadly, I've been talking to several people, uh, who are specialists in math and computational methodologies to try to figure out i- are there mathematical approaches in the same way that John Nash came up with, um, you know, uh, game theory, are there mathematical approaches to think about how we might solve this, uh, between humans, between humans and AI, between humans, AI, and the planet? And so like, you know, again, I can do this with my body. It's a, it's a pretty straightforward thing to do now, but it's just gonna get more complicated, uh, the more agents you have in the game.

   5. SPSam Parr1:04:53

      So I've like worked with Tim Ferriss, uh, in the past, and like I remember I would ask... Like we would just, an example is, uh, he-- we'd be walking our dogs together and I'd be like, "Oh, Tim, that's a cool dog leash." And he'd be like, "Oh, this dog leash, you know, the reason it's interesting is it's made of horse's hair, which is good for the dog for this reason and that reason. I found it in Japan." And, uh, then we had like Balaji on the, uh, podcast, you know, and he was like... He would go through these like... We would just ask him like what he had for breakfast, and he would just give us this like complex answer, and it was actually pretty profound. Palmer Luckey was kind of like that too. And you are 100% in that same ballpark where I make a stupid joke and I ask a dumb question, or we ask something that seems straightforward and simple, and you give like a pretty profound answer. And what's interesting is you actually do this thing that Elon does where you ask him a question... And most people don't do this. They pause. They don't... They'll, they'll actually not talk for like 10 seconds, and they just think. And I actually in- I try not to interrupt because most people are uncomfortable with that. One time I, I interrupted you where I, where you got silent. The g- the... By the way, the key to a good interview is you don't interrupt that, so I kinda screwed that up. But you, uh, you like are really thoughtful and like in one way it's exhausting 'cause like everything you say is like profound and I'm like thinking about it and I'm like, "Well, I wanna ask you all these questions about that too now, and this and this." On the other hand, it's, uh, it's refreshing. I mean, it's just enlightening. You're just, you're, you're just an interesting human and you, y- your, your, your intensity is... I can see it being off-putting for some people, but for me, like I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm into it. Uh, you're, you're just a very unique person. I, I think it's like really interesting to hear, uh, your perspective. Even I don't think you've said anything that I agree or, or, uh, that I disagree with, but maybe you have, and it's like well, that's okay, but you're just like an original thinker. I dig it.

   6. BJBryan Johnson1:06:33

      Thank you, Sam. Appreciate that.

   7. SPShaan Puri1:06:35

      What's, uh... Give us, before we go, what's one of these contraptions behind you? Uh, give us what, what is one of these interesting things?

   8. SPSam Parr1:06:40

      That's just a, that's just a curing machine, isn't it?

   9. SPShaan Puri1:06:42

      Yeah, one of them looks like a SodaStream or something. [laughs] The other one looks like a genetic sequencing machine. [laughs]

   10. BJBryan Johnson1:06:48

       That'd be funny. Like got me. Like, you know, Coke and Pepsi and... [laughs]

   11. SPShaan Puri1:06:52

       Yeah. [laughs] Is that a fucking Red Bull behind you? [laughs]

   12. BJBryan Johnson1:06:57

       Yeah. [laughs] Uh, yeah, so we, I, last week, a couple weeks ago, I, we bought a, uh, medical grade, hospital grade ultrasound machine. And so it, part of this has just been buying, uh, the kind of equipment that allows us to do the stuff we're trying to do. And so for example, ultrasound. So if you look at the, the pyramid of measurement- The wearables are like part of the first category, and then you get to bio fluids like blood draws and, and, you know, urine and whatever else. Uh, imaging is an entirely different cl- uh, quality class. And so if you wanna get really good data on, on yourself, it's a ultrasound, an MRI, and, and, um, you know, like stuff we're doing at Kernel. And so, um, we really had to build up this infrastructure. So one of the reasons why this is so expensive is we've basically built out like a, a mini clinic hospital here with all the stuff we have. And such, where a lot of these

   13. SPShaan Puri1:07:49

       Is that just in your house?

   14. BJBryan Johnson1:07:51

       Yeah. Mm-hmm.

   15. SPShaan Puri1:07:52

       And are there like four dudes just kind of like, that are your physicians that are monitoring you at all times? Or what's gonna ha- What's your team? What's your stack for, for people with-

   16. BJBryan Johnson1:08:00

       [laughs] Yeah

   17. SPShaan Puri1:08:01

       ... the body stuff?

   18. BJBryan Johnson1:08:02

       Uh, for the ultrasound we have five sonographers. So one sonographer specializes in, uh, the heart. One does lungs, pancreas, liver, uh, kidney. Another one does, uh, muscle skeletal. Another one does, uh, dop- Doppler for the brain. And so for example, I d- we just did, um... One of the ways to quantify working out is w- we're l- using ultrasound to measure tendons, ligaments, like all the component parts of my joints, ankles, knees, hips, elbows, shoulders. And then we implement this, these exercise regimes, and then we look at the changes. So like are they working? If so, what degree? So everything we do is quantified. And so it's not like, "Oh, this thing makes me feel better." Feelings rarely matter with anything we do. And so yeah, this, the hardware and the, the specific team. And so just like we have five sonographers to run the ultrasound machine, we have specialists in lung, specialists in the heart, specialists in other areas. So the team is like 25 or so maybe now, uh, all together that have different specialties.

   19. SPSam Parr1:09:08

       Man, this is crazy. Shaan's answer to that question is like, "I just got like a poster of dogs playing poker, one shoe-

   20. SPShaan Puri1:09:14

       [laughs]

   21. SPSam Parr1:09:14

       ... three AirPods, and a couple empty Diet Coke cans." Like [laughs] if we ask you it's just like, "Oh, you mean that ultrasound machine?"

   22. SPShaan Puri1:09:22

       I'm j- I say, "I don't need all this measurement. Like if you just export my DoorDash history it'll tell you how I'm aging."

   23. SPSam Parr1:09:28

       [laughs]

   24. BJBryan Johnson1:09:28

       [laughs] Yeah. Yeah.

   25. SPShaan Puri1:09:28

       And I'm aging like a greyhound right now. [laughs]

   26. SPSam Parr1:09:31

       Yeah. Does Chick-fil-A make you older or younger? [laughs]

   27. SPShaan Puri1:09:35

       What are your thoughts on ranch? [laughs]

   28. SPSam Parr1:09:40

       [laughs]

   29. SPShaan Puri1:09:40

       Um, dude, Bryan, this has been awesome. Thanks for, thanks for coming on. We've been... We talked about you way back as like this awesome guy, and it's amazing to, to get to meet you and hear some of the stories and ask, ask our questions firsthand, so appreciate you coming on. [laughs]

   30. BJBryan Johnson1:09:51

       Yeah. Thanks for having me. [outro music]

Episode duration: 1:10:08