Bryan JohnsonFounder of Blueprint and Don't Die

We are athletes of the mind

13 Sept 2023 · 1 min

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In this interview segment, Bryan Johnson reflects on the early 2010s startup culture he experienced while building Braintree and Venmo, where chronic sleep deprivation and working under the desk were glorified as badges of honor. He critiques this mythologizing of overwork, arguing that entrepreneurs should view themselves as "athletes of the mind" and therefore treat their bodies and health with the same discipline they apply to mental work. Impairing oneself through extreme, self‑destructive habits is presented as foolish and counterproductive.

Chapters

If you take a second just to think about being an entrepreneur and you know, your amazing journey as an entrepreneur, at any point in that process, did you feel like you were out of shape, you were stressed, you were, you know, not prioritizing health, or have you always felt like you've had health first.
In building Braintree Venmo, that was in around 2010. The culture then was if you were ragged and were sleeping under your desk and would go nights without sleeping, it was a badge of honor, a source of mythology. And so in the entrepreneurial community, you would be rewarded socially by those kinds of behaviors. And it always struck me as odd that as an entrepreneur, you're an athlete of the mind. I mean, really, in anything you do in life, you're an athlete to the mind. And so to impair yourself in such severe ways by doing the self destructive behavior just seemed foolish.