This Nearly Destroyed My Reputation
Bryan Johnson discusses the backlash from a negative New York Times piece about his Blueprint longevity program, which uses data to guide health choices. One participant lost weight and gained mental clarity after 75 days on the Blueprint diet, while critics challenge the scientific basis of his claims. Johnson frames his mission as helping humanity achieve better health.
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There is no real scientific basis for Johnson's lifestyle.
It actually may be actively bad for.
His health and it sounds absolutely miserable.
Brian Johnson, another tech millionaire with lots.
To say but nothing to show for it.
Brian never claims that the blueprint diet is the one true diet. In fact, he's repeatedly said he is.
Stuck on this egocentric desire to extend his own life as an increasingly ludicrous business. Big swings that rarely turn out to be anything positive.
It's the hit and run accusation economy. I don't blame them. Don't Die is a very complicated topic. So any idea like this is going to be misunderstood and I'll probably be misunderstood for all of time.
What brings you to town? What brings you here?
We have a Don't Die summit tomorrow. Yeah, our third. This will be sold out 1400 people.
And what goes into that? What's a day at the Don't Die summit?
We have a longevity park where you try a bunch of therapies. Then we teach people for four hours on how to measure biomarkers and achieve better health. We want it to be the best time anyone's ever invested on how to actually improve health measurably. Mental health, physical health, all the above. You're Ryan Johnson, right? Yeah. Right on, man. Thank you, man. New York is home to my rebirth. The most distinct thing was the first rave I had in Brooklyn. These warehouse parties where the dance party begins at midnight. That was what I discovered, my love of dancing. Growing up, we never even danced. And so, yeah, probably the most exciting moment of my life, just like transported into a new reality. Purple cabbage. The cilantro. Let's do that. Sweet potato. Yeah. My previous version of life was just in shambles. Everything kind of fell apart. Came to New York and experienced things brand new in life. And so yeah, New York has a soft place in my heart. It's really great to be.
Oh my God. What if there's. It's actually insane how non factual things are.
Exactly.
The New York Times just ran a negative piece about Brian. People then saw that as an authority source. So even if the details weren't believable or interesting or dramatic, all of a sudden people started popping up independent. People started seeing that opportunity and saying, perfect, like this is my time to talk about BR Johnson because I hate him for XY reason. Nobody cares, man. We're not as rich as you to live forever.
People want to be able to see a doctor.
People want to survive when they get diagnosis.
People want to get access to meds and not go baby. Other people Take the baton and start running with the insults. And so we've just had this colossal amount of hate, like, very pointed hate. And it's not justifiable, it is not ethical, it is not moral. And so it is just such a unreputable practice.
That's crazy. What, that of like, speaking to 30 people and literally spending a year of the New York Times money on this? That that's what they can come up with.
Yeah.
He is incentivized to exaggerate the benefits. He is incentivized to say, yeah, yeah, yeah, the basics. But also, this is the 20% of the work that's giving you 80% of the benefits.
What? The latest scammer. It's Brian Johnson. I hope he gets hit by a bus or something. I'm like, yeah, no, that's horrible. Yeah. So I did Blueprint for a couple of years and no one paid attention. And then there was a tweet thread that got, I think, like, 50 million views. And I woke up one morning, it was just like this onslaught, a tsunami of vitriol. Blueprint was less interesting to them, and they were more interested in how I was responding to people. It's not about health, guys. It's about attention. He turned himself into a brand, and product is his obsession. I think the media views themselves as holy warriors to some extent of truth. They can defame you in ways you.
Can'T recover from as a consumer. Kind of don't trust anything he says. Right.
Brian's sleep score is totally fake. Who would honestly believe he had eight months of perfect sleep? You can't say anything in response. You can't defend yourself. You can't dispute it. You can't dig out.
Right.
You can't. That's why I feel so vulnerable. Forlorn and lugubrious is it just creates paralysis. Like, why do anything? You know? When I was building Braintree, I was so depressed and so beaten down that I thought, if I don't make it on this one, I'm smoked. You know, starting something going from zero to one is just like nothing else. It is so hard. The problem is I never quit. Like, ultimately, I know I would get back up. Like, I know that's the case. And we have to stand up a few more. Zero to ones. The future is not going to work unless we stand up. Zero to ones. Health is a universal desire. It transcends borders, it transcends ethnicities. It transcends ideologies. It is the one thing we all share in common. And so if I can help my fellow humans be healthy in any part of the world, I'm eagerly willing to do so.
For 75 days, I ate the exact same diet as Brian Johnson. The best part about this is how good you feel all the time. For me, mental clarity and ability to focus went way up. My body weight dropped from 192 to 164 pounds.
This is five pounds of body fats. And according to Dexa, I lost 60% of this total mass in one week.
If he's going to be a guinea pig, put himself through hell and then give us some tips so we don't have to and then we're all just reminded like, oh yeah, just sleep eight hours. I'm like, I'm kind of here for it cuz I don't want to live like that. But he can live like that and just tell us what actually works.
We're all after the same thing. And what I'm interested in is the overlap in the Venn diagrams. So I'm glad that Brian came up because I think he represents one spoke on the wheel and it's, and it's an important one in the, in his absence, I think the field will progress less quickly. Blueprint is not about the exact diet. It's not about the exact exercise protocol. It's not about red light therapy or a bedtime routine, or about skincare. At its core, Project Blueprint is about using measurement and data to back up health choices.
What's up, man? How you doing? Good to see you. How's it going? Yeah, good. I'm a big fan.
I keep seeing your videos on my for YouTube.
Is it working? Are you going to bed on time? Hopefully soon. I don't know what to make of all this. Right like, but it does. Intuitively it feels to me that my role in this tapestry of existence is to try to Sherpa the human race in a positive way to this new thing which sits on the other side of all of our current ideas about what reality is.
Sam.
