Inside the Mind of The Billionaire Trying to Live Forever | Bryan Johnson

So, Brian, I mean, everyone knows you for Don't Die and I know you from Braintree Venmo fame. But I have to ask you, what are some wild things you've been trying this year with your health, last 12 months?

I did my first gene therapy in October. It was follistatin and so, we've been looking at gene therapy for a couple years. This was the first time we thought it would be safe. And so, we did that and I did mesenchymal stem cells. We've been also wanting to do that for a couple years. So yeah, we achieved 2 of the most advanced therapies just recently after a couple years of doing the research.

Got it. And explain to me like I'm 10 years old, like what type of gene therapy are you doing? What kind of benefits were you expecting? Same with the stem cells.

Yeah, so it's— so if the goal is to keep the body in good health, then there's a few things you can do. One is you can slow down your speed of aging. And so, for example, when you smoke 2 cigarettes, you lose 30 minutes of life. That shortens life. You're wanting to do things that extends life. And so, by slowing your speed of aging, you You can press that lever. And so, for example, eating a healthy meal is better than eating an unhealthy meal, and then exercising is better than not exercising, and you get all these trade-offs, and you— each one has a certain power of effect. Gene therapy and mesenchymal stem cells are some of the more powerful therapies. And so, what we've tried to do is to say, of all the things you can do in life, How do you decide what power laws to focus on in order to get the maximal effect?

And you have what you call the 5 power laws. What are those?

Yeah, and I would say there's one more, add sleep. So, it's don't smoke, 6 hours a week of exercise, a Mediterranean or Blueprint-like diet, a BMI of 18.5 to 22.5, Little to no alcohol and then prioritizing sleep.

Got it. And what are you using? So, I know for sleep, you've talked about measuring your resting heart rate is 47. I want to get into some of the metrics that you're looking at constantly like your VO2 max. Like, what are the core metrics that Bryan Johnson like looks at, I don't know, weekly, monthly, quarterly?

We say on a monthly basis, we probably look at Maybe a few hundred biomarkers and then on an annual basis, you know, a couple thousand.

Wow.

And some are repeat. And so, we do like daily, we're looking at like my body temp when I wake up, body weight, hydration, sleep stats, exercise, and then we look at blood results on a certain interval. So, we have these measurements at certain time points. But we like the— when you get into health and wellness, there is an infinite number of things you can do to improve your health. And you've probably heard this in your own private conversations, everyone's got a thing.

Mm-hmm.

And, you know, sometimes it's cold plunge, sometimes it's their favorite food, sometimes it's some herb, sometimes it's Eastern medicine, sometimes it's whatever. And It's hard to know what thing to do. And so, what we did is we sorted all of the interventions we could by evidence and then prioritize it on a power law basis because otherwise, you're chasing endlessly. Yeah. And then, I know in social conversation, like when you're talking about this, everyone brings their thing to the conversation which is the best thing because they've Had experience with it or whatever the case may be. And then, people start chasing those things and then they don't know how to measure it. And so, it creates kind of a challenging space where you're not quite sure what to do, how to measure, and so, you're in this continual cycle of trying but not getting results necessarily because you're not playing with the power laws and you're not measuring. Got it.

And what would you say your thing is?

Pardon me?

What would you say your thing is? I know high level, umbrella level is don't die, right? But if you had to pick one thing, like for me, I think my focus is more on sleep than anything, but what would you say it is for you?

Yeah, it's a domino. If you— if you get one thing right and then it gives you power to do the next thing, it gives you power to do the next thing. And so, everyone's got a different domino effect equation. Like sometimes exercising enables you to feel good about eating well and then eating well makes you feel well about going to bed on time. Sometimes though, it can have the inverse effect where if you exercise, then it's like, well, I burned the calories, I can afford to eat the cookie.

Right.

So, it's a tricky situation. The same is true when people take supplements. It's like, I know I'm doing these good things for me, therefore, I can do these other things. So, our minds are very quick to rationalize and that's why I try to create this This comprehensive protocol of how do you approach health in the most scientific way and be methodical about it.

Yes, I think we should— that's the Blueprint, correct?

Yes.

So, I think we should talk about that first because I have a bunch of questions that are tied to that. So, what is Blueprint for— the Blueprint for those that don't know?

So, the way to think about this is Put it in context of historical explorers. So Magellan said, hey, can I sail around the world? And Watson and Crick said, can we deconstruct, you know, DNA? So people have dared to aspire, like peak imagination of their time and place. And so my imagination was in 2021, can we escape death. And to do that, that's where the project came alive. And so, I thought, okay, to do that, you basically need to look at all the scientific evidence in existence, need to rank it in terms of power laws, and then you need to apply it systematically and measure everything. It's the only way to go about doing it. Otherwise, you're in a qualitative world and you just can't build.

Right.

Like, science begins with counting. And so, yeah, 3 years in, I'm the most measured person in the world and also, I have the best biomarkers, comprehensive biomarkers of anyone I know.

Uh-huh.

And so, of all the people working really hard to be healthy and do their thing, no one in the world posted better biomarkers across the board than me. Now, if they are, great, like that's wonderful. I'm trying to set a standard to say, If you're endeavoring to do these health and wellness things, it's best to have the biomarkers and the protocols available for analysis for everyone to benefit.

Got it. And what are— so, I remember you sharing some of your biomarkers at that summit that I saw you at and I think your VO2— what is your VO2 max right now?

Yeah, 58.7.

Okay, just for those that— I mean, VO2 is one of the main measures of how healthy you are and 58 is basically elite or close to Olympian level, I believe.

Yeah, it's up there.

Yeah. And so, and I think you said that your VO2 max is like the level of a 28-year-old or something?

It's top 1.5% of 18-year-olds.

Got it.

And so, VO2 max peaks at age 18 and then it goes down from there. That's not to say that you can't get a high as you're older but yeah, peaks at age 18.

I think the higher you are, the lower your all-cause mortality, right?

Yeah. It's a good predictor of— Yeah, longevity.

Got it. Okay, so what goes into the Blueprint right now? Because I think my observation is you spent time building your audience for the last 2 years or so and then just recently you started releasing products. I think the information you give away for free, can you walk us through how I guess maybe the business of that works?

Yeah, this— I started this as a scientific endeavor. It was— my contemplation was Well, it was the thought experiment I did. It was, I imagined being present with the 25th century, and I'm listening to them speak in however they communicate, and they're observing us right now in the early 21st century. And so they're going to compress our entire century into 3 things, even though our lives are rich and full and we have drama and love and—

Mm-hmm.

We have so much going on, 99+% is gonna be forgotten. And the 21st century will remember 3 things. And so I thought, what 3 things will they remember? And it seemed to me possible that they would say, that's when Homo sapiens figured out that death had previously been inevitable, but as a species, they were wise enough to see, like, piece these things together and say, Death may no longer be inevitable and we evolve from a die species to a don't die species, not just individually but collectively. And so, the don't die idea is not to die individually but also not to kill each other, not to kill the planet, and to align artificial intelligence with don't die, that that's what you do When you're baby steps away from superintelligence. And so, I was basically trying to figure out like what is the biggest thing happening on planet Earth right now and can I identify that? And that's when I came up with the project. And so, I wanted to basically be the embodiment of that thing.

Makes sense. And I guess we can go a little bit into the future here but with AI, do you see us merging our consciousness with machines? And like that's something I see Potentially happening and maybe your physical body dies but then you live on forever. How do you see it?

Yeah, I think as a species, we would be a lot better off if we use the words I don't know more often. You know, nobody knows what consciousness is. You know, like there's been feeble attempts at measuring it. We just— we don't know so much stuff. Like, is there a God? We don't know. Like, no one knows. And yet, in our space of not knowing, it doesn't prevent us from speaking and acting as though we know. But if we really truly are sober about what we know, we don't know a lot more than we— actually, we don't know a lot more than we know. Yeah.

You know, there's a certain— looking at some of your other interviews, you You take your time when it comes to answering and you take your time too when it comes to like saying you don't know, right? Where does that come from? Because I'm just looking around your room right now and, you know, there's books on Napoleon, Churchill, Truman, right? I think there's one on Roosevelt too. So, you know, there's one other person I think of that's very thoughtful. But for you, like where does that come from, right? Because a lot of especially entrepreneurs, we're very quick. We talk fast, right? We often don't think before we talk, but I think it's really important to be thoughtful about how you communicate.

Yeah.

And so, I'm just wondering how you worked on it.

It's this embedded assumption that is so deep we don't even realize it. It's that speaking is better than— the assumption is speaking is better than not speaking. Suggesting you know is better than not knowing, you know, admitting you don't know. Uh, filling the word— the air with words is, is like the better way to establish your standing and to create respect. And so it's just culturally built into us that we think that knowing and speaking is better than not, than not knowing and not speaking.

Mm-hmm.

And I'm trying to— I do this with myself all the time. I mean, I distrust everything. I distrust my mind. I just distrust others. I distrust institutions. I distrust history. There's very few things I trust. Gravity is pretty reliable. You know, math is pretty sturdy. But outside of those things, I distrust everything and justifiably so.

Would you say strong views loosely held?

Oh boy, no. I would say lightly held views, eager to be altered.

I like that. Quick message from the Agency Owners Association. So this is the peer group for agency owners that Neil and I both put together. This is for people that are doing 6 figures, 7 figures, 8 figures, even 9 figures as well. And we're all here to help you grow your agency faster. In this group, we share leads. We also, we share learnings with each other. It's a community where people can ask questions, their most burning questions personally, professionally. We'll share templates, reports, things like that. We're constantly adding more value to the group. I will tell you that the price is continuing to increase. The good news is that there's no long-term commitment, so you can just learn more by going to marketingschool.io/agency. Once again, that's Marketingschool.io/agency to learn more and we hope to see you inside. So, I want to come back to the health stuff real quick and then I'm going to jump around with business and marketing just because there's— we can go in all different directions. But the blood transfusion that you did with your father and your son did with you, it's interesting because I was reading a post by another kind of controversial— you're not controversial in my mind but there's a controversial figure on Twitter that talked about blood transfusions with mice and how This transfusions from a younger mouse to an older one led to reverse aging, led to just better health overall, right? So, is there anything you can speak to? I know at the event, it was hard for you to say if there's any results or anything, but have you found out anything else since then? What was the net result of that transfusion with your father and your son?

For me, the results were none, but my father, He had 1 liter of plasma taken out and then my liter of plasma put in and it slowed his speed of aging by 25 years.

Wow.

So, from a 71-year-old to a 46-year-old. And those results have persisted even 6 months post the therapy. Got it.

And that's your biological age, right?

So, it's— Yeah. So, actually no, that's my chronological age.

Got it. Got it. So, you know, people talk about— it's like, okay, people talk about, oh, you know, my age has gone back 20 years, 30 years or whatever, and then you have doctors that are like, that doesn't really mean much. What's your pushback against that?

Doesn't mean anything. Yeah, the epigenetic ages don't mean anything. They are not good enough yet.

It's like cool to talk about.

Yeah, it's— there's many more robust markers and this is why I talk about my biomarkers is If you get one interesting result on your epigenetic age, that's one thing, but you need to show like 100 clinical biomarkers across the body and your cardiovascular ability, your VO2 max, and your total bone mineral density, and your nighttime erections if you're a male.

Yes.

And, you know, there's, there's like 20 or 30 markers that are relevant for whole body health. And so, It's, uh, it, it's not persuasive to suggest that your, your epigenetic age is a marker at all of whole body health. It's when you put the whole thing together and they all are agreed upon, they, they all agree with each other, that's when it's compelling.

Got it. And do you have a list of these top 20 things on the Blueprint somewhere? Yeah.

Okay.

So, they can just go to— is it blueprint.com?

Uh, protocol.blueprint— protocol.bryanjohnson.com.

Got it. Okay. Yeah. And you talked about one thing I wanted to touch upon. So, nighttime boners. Why are nighttime boners important?

They are a bio— they are a biological age marker. As a boy, as a male, you have a lot of nighttime erections when you're a kid. And then, over time, they diminish. And by the time you're, you know, 70, 80, They're almost gone entirely. And so, it's a sign of aging and decline. And so, it's a representation of psychological, cardiovascular, and sexual health. And, it can be measured in terms of duration of erection and also strength or quality of erection.

Got it. And, how many boners should people in their 30s— nighttime erection should people be getting? Is there a number?

There is, yeah. Yeah. So, when I measured mine for a 45-year-old, the normal would be between 3 and 5 per night for a total duration of I think 120 minutes or so, 2 hours.

Got it. Wow. Okay. Well, that's every night?

Yes.

Got it. And, I'm assuming this is while you're sleeping too?

Yeah, that's right. So, a lot— it happens, you know, these nighttime erections happen to most men.

Yup.

And, you're oblivious to most of it because it's happening during your sleep stages.

Got it. What device are you using to measure this?

Adam Health, a company out of the UK, they build a cube. It's about a centimeter squared. It goes on the base of the penis. And, once you put it on, you kind of forget about it.

Got it, got it. And you mentioned also, similar to this, you talked about de-aging your penis too. So, what have you done in that respect?

Yeah, I did. So, we were— so, I chose the penis because it was understandable. Like, we were doing this on my lungs and my heart and my thymus, which is responsible for my immune system. But when you do those things, people are like, yeah, don't really care.

You'll get views for this one.

I was like, yeah, like, Okay, let me demonstrate the process of how this scientific method works on the penis. And so, yeah, we took all these baseline measurements. One day, I was talking to the team, I was like, all right, like, what would it take for me to have the most quantified penis in the whole world? Like, what would we do? Like, what measurements do you do?

Yeah.

And so, then we found every measurement we could do on the penis, we did them all. So, we had a baseline measurement and then we said, okay, now what things can you do to improve the penis? And we found 2 things. One, 2 clinical studies that had the appropriate evidence. And so, we did focused shockwave therapy and then we had Botox. And those 2, and then we redid the measurements and my nighttime erections went from average for a 46-year-old.

Which is how many?

Like roughly, I think my measurement was like 132 minutes was my baseline.

Okay.

And then post-therapies, it was 179.

Wow.

So, it was better than the average 18-year-old.

Wow.

So, yeah, the average 18-year-old I think was around 145.

Yup.

So, far better than the average.

And what is shockwave therapy?

It's a technology that uses acoustics to— it can be used on any joints of the body. A lot of people will use it when they're healing from like an ACL tear. So, you use it in conjunction with the surgery to accelerate healing, but it can also be used on the penis. So, the clinical study we looked at was used for ED. And so, we thought if it's used to restore penis function in ED, could it take a normal penis and could it enhance?

Got it. Okay. The Botox idea is insane. So, by the way, I don't really know how Botox works, right? But, like, you know, You know, a lot of people use it, right? It's to kind of stop the wrinkles, right? So, like, how does it— how did you decide— how did you land on Botox for the penis?

A study. Yeah, Botox, a lot of people will— they realize, they know it's used for wrinkles, but it's also used for hair growth. Like, it's used for so many things. I think there's something like dozens, if not 100 different applications for Botox. It's a widely used drug.

Got it. I didn't know that.

That's fascinating.

Okay, so So, shockwave therapy, and you're doing that here, or do you have to go somewhere to do that?

Yeah, a clinic that has the specific technology.

Got it. And Botox, I'm assuming you just go to like a— someone like a nurse or something?

Yeah, exactly. You went to a doctor that does Botox injections. Like, you, you definitely don't want to get a vial of Botox. Yeah, get a needle ready and like jam it into the penis.

No DIY.

Like, it needs to be like— don't try this at home. The injection needs to be Done with precision and with the right technique. You definitely do not want to be doing this at home in the mirror.

What are some of the things that you do that— and this might be a lot of things, but I'm just wondering if there's like maybe a small list of things that people should definitely not do at home. So, the Botox piece, the shockwave therapy.

Yeah.

Because I know you have a lot of devices here too, right?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Most— yeah. Let me think. Most of the things I do by myself are measurement-based, and then anything that is a therapy is usually from a medical professional. Some of the only things I do without a medical professional would be like red light therapy, breathing, meditation, exercise. But yeah, we, we really do almost everything under medical guidance.

Got it. And I'm sure you've gotten the question, so I mean, I feel like, and you can correct me if I'm wrong, I mean, you running a Braintree, Venmo, you know, as an entrepreneur, you have to quantify a lot of things, right? And I think it certainly helps with quantifying yourself. But then you have people that are like, oh, you know, what about just like living and, you know, not worrying about, not trying to quantify every little thing? I'm sure you've been asked this question a thousand times, but what is your response?

Yeah, so, it's actually really fun because When someone encounters me, it's something like 95% likely they're going to say 1 of 10 things.

Right.

And none of us want to be predictable. Like, we don't want to say things that everyone else says. We want to be original to some degree. And so seeing the predictability of how people respond to me has invited me to be even more self-aware that when I'm introduced to a new concept, to realize that the first 10 thoughts that come to my mind are going to be 95% predictable. And so I try to never say the predictable thing ever. And it really is like a good workout for the mind because The predictable thing is the lazy thing. It's the thing everyone knows. It's the thing everyone's going to say and there's no value to it at all. And so, yeah, so living life is the first thing. But to be clever enough to realize what they're really saying is very hard. Like, so when someone says, okay, he's spending all of his time trying not to die, he's not spending any of his time living, what are they really saying? Like, uh, They probably can't even unpack it. They're just assuming. So, I mean, what's your take? What are they saying?

I think they're looking at you as a reflection of all the work that they're not willing to put in. And so, it's an easy way out for them and they put it back on you.

That's exactly— yeah, that. And also, like, I was teaching my son the other day, like, how to think about Um, actually, I'll take a different path on this. Okay, so, um, the person's assumption is that the, uh, the objective of our time and place is to quote unquote live, and that we should all be doing that.

Mm-hmm.

And that if a person doesn't do that, They're somehow violating a social norm that people consider to be normal or sacred or appropriate or admirable.

Like drinking. Maybe not admirable for drinking, but drinking. Yeah.

And so, to put this in a sharp contrast, time travel to 1870 and say, hey, you may want to pay attention to these new ideas about these microscopic objects called germs that cause infection. Now, I know this idea sounds nuts to you because you are not familiar with the concept of a microscopic world. You think you can see everything. Everything you care about, you can see. And that's how most people in the 1870s thought it. They thought— even a lot of the scientists like that, or doctors— like, that's nuts.

Yeah.

And so, in the moment, What would be wise is for the person to say, okay, I see this person. He's not normal according to 2024 standards. He's not pursuing the objectives that people in 2024 do. Am I missing something in my viewpoint that I could observe that would help me better understand the situation? Instead, They pull out the 2024 arsenal of status quo and they say, let me find every way he mismatches the status quo and I'm going to ding him on those things. But nobody wants to do that because you're going to be washed away in history. That's not interesting. You really want to find the interesting nugget of like, why is this thing unusual to my eyes?

Right.

It's—

I mean, also, like, there's a reason why most people are most people because they just aren't willing to put in the work, right? And so, but like, I guess this will go into Braintree, Venmo a little bit. Have you always been this way where the way you guys handle marketing has always been you zig where other people are zagging? Because like, I just— you have your picture over there with the kettlebell, right? And I'm just like, you're pretty smart about even targeting the penis, right, as a study. Like, you know that's gonna go pretty viral, right? And like, I think there's a joke about like, I guess, you know, for that week, I think people are just like, I guess it's time to inject Botox in my penis, right? Yeah. Did that come from Braintree Memo or where did that come from?

Yeah. It came from this idea that, again, thought experiments are the way I can finesse my way around my own idiocy. By default, I'm an idiot. And I have to try every second to not be an idiot.

Why, why are we by default idiots?

Well, I said I, I am by default an idiot. And so every thought that comes to my mind is a category of idiot. For example, like my mind is repeating everything it knows about cultural norms in 2024, or my mind is generating a default biochemical thought That's not truly me, it's just a representation of my biochemical state. And so, I have to fight through all my thoughts to then find the non-idiotic observation and then try to focus on that.

Hmm.

And so, with Braintree, Venmo, I would say I was pretty trapped in the norms of being an entrepreneur and the way I could communicate with the world. Like for example, I felt I could really— was in a box, and if I stepped outside the box, I would get punished so badly that I would like lose my status or power or ability to execute. And with Blueprint, I just decided that I was going to try to do something that would warrant the respect of the 25th century.

Mm-hmm.

And that meant inherently that I didn't care what anyone in 2021 thinks of me. Like, no one. Like, I, I assumed every perspective of the, of, in, of the 2021 was idiotic relative to 2025 or 2500. Yeah. And so I just had to basically say, I'm gonna follow this path and play in a way that hopefully garners their respect.

Got it. And ignore the noise.

Yeah. Yeah, it is. Yep.

Got it. Yeah, it seems to be catching on. I mean, the summit we're at, I mean, everyone in that group does pretty well for themselves. You know, what's interesting is when— remember my car pulled up next to yours when you were leaving. So, my buddy, he's the one that's like, oh, you gotta get him on the podcast, right? And so, he had a question for you. And this is going back to the health stuff. And so, you talk about— or not you talk about but— People that were at that event, so Dr. Peter Attia, Dr. Mark Hyman, Dr. Steven Gundry, all these people talk about how it's really important to eat meat and eat fish and get sunlight, right? And so, my buddy was wondering, you know, why— what's the disconnect?

Yeah. Who shared their biomarkers at that conference?

You. Only you. Yeah. But I understand the meat and the fish piece more so, but what's wrong with getting out, getting sun?

Who shared their skin biomarkers?

Nobody.

I did.

Yeah. You did?

Yeah.

What are your skin biomarkers? I must have missed that.

Yeah, we use multispectral imaging and we look— the sun is good for you.

Yeah.

But too much sun causes accelerated skin aging and cancer.

Got it. So, how much sun should we ideally be getting per day?

It depends on—

Time.

Well, yeah, it depends on— yep, skin type and all that kind of stuff. Generally speaking, as a rule of thumb, this is what I do. So, the UV index is, you know, something that is measured every day like temperature. So, I am in the sun when the UV index is below 3. So, either in the mornings up until like 8 or 9 AM.

Yup.

And then, the evenings after like 5 or 6 PM.

Yup.

And then, during the day when the UV index is higher, I try to avoid the sun or if I'm in the sun, I'll have an umbrella or, you know, I'll wear sunscreen.

Yup.

But I do get sun exposure, I just avoid the UV. I mean, so, as a kid, I was in the sun Nonstop. Like, I grew up in Utah. We were at Lake Powell all the time. We just got baked.

Yep.

And I'm paying for it. And so skin gets damaged, and then you don't see the damage when you're young, but when you get older, you start— it starts manifesting in wrinkles and in color discoloration, like all kinds of bad stuff. Yeah. So I've been digging out of bad skin for a couple years now. It's a lot of work.

Got it. And I'm assuming you're, you're cranking on the, the vitamin D every day?

Yeah, I do 2,000 IU which is enough to keep me at the right levels.

Got it. That's fascinating. My practitioner, he has me taking 10,000 IUs a day.

Are you measured?

Yeah.

Do you know what's your level?

It was— I don't remember the level but I remember it was pretty— it was like red. It was pretty bad. So, like pretty low.

I see. And since you've been on 10,000 IU, have you measured again?

Yeah, we did measure again. It was going up but it still wasn't at the level that we like. So, we're going to measure again soon. So, it seems like you get your blood drawn every month. I get my blood drawn like every Yeah, great.

Yeah, so good job on measuring.

Yeah, we'll see. I mean, you know, the reason I enjoy— how many supplements do you take? How many pills are you eating per day?

It's like 50 right now.

Okay. So, I eat like 31 a day. But like to me, it's like, well, why do you like doing all this stuff? Why don't you live? It's like, well, because this is fun and it feels like it's a game. Sometimes you don't even know what helps, right? It's like you're just constantly testing. It's like you're A/B testing your body. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, like back to your previous question, like why am I doing this now? When someone says like, he spends all this time trying not to die, why shouldn't he live? I am— I believe we are on the cusp of what is potentially the most exciting existence in the galaxy.

What do you mean by that?

Well, I should say, the most exciting existence in this part of the universe.

For us. Yeah.

I mean, but like, we don't know if other life exists. We've not been able to find it. As far as we know, we're the only form of intelligence in the observable part of the universe we can see. And we're giving birth to superintelligence, which has an ability to improve, you know, theoretically at rates far exceeding our own.

Yeah.

And so I'm wanting to trade off what I think is primitive joy now of, you know, the debauchery of doing things versus what could be this existence. Like, for example, okay, let me say this succinctly. The levels of ambition I think are possible, like level 1 of ambition, start a company. Level 2, start a country. Level 3, start a religion. Level 4, don't die. Level 5, become God. You've— no time in history has someone been able to express an aspiration to become God. You now can and it's not crazy.

Right.

So, yeah, I'd rather go down that path than I would do the debauchery of some momentary pleasure and miss out on this amazing future.

It sounds like a fun game. I mean, just looking at it as a game again. I mean, religion to me, I think what, a third of the people in the world are Christians, right? So, what is that like? Call it 2, 3 billion people? And so, you mentioned this at the summit. It's like, yeah, you're trying to— correct me if I'm wrong here. You're trying to build a religion, right? And that seems like something that's worthwhile and that's something that can live on beyond you, right? And that's going to take the rest of your life to do it. So, why not?

Exactly, yeah. durable form of human organization ever built. And, religion does not need to be in the same format as it has been. It means there's a community of people who share a set of values and beliefs who work together towards a given objective. And, yes, don't die that we are at this moment. So, the more of us that can band together with our evil designs of going to bed on time and exercising and having good biomarkers—

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yep. All right, quick note, this is about my company. It's called Single Grain. And Single Grain is an ad agency where we're focused on driving innovation. And so I want to talk about a couple of new strategies. And if you need help with marketing, great. If not, here are a couple of new strategies that you should try out. One is programmatic CRO. So we are doing programmatic conversion rate optimization on our site. We're building products that will automatically optimize your site to increase conversion rates. We're also auto-optimizing, auto-updating Uh, from, uh, from an SEO standpoint. And we're constantly thinking about what else we can do in terms of enriching the visitors that are hitting your website and also tailoring custom messages for them using AI. And so, there's a handful of things that we're doing from a marketing standpoint. And our mission is just to drive more innovation. So, if you want to learn more, just go to singlegrain.com, grain like rice. So, singlegrain.com to learn more and we'll see you inside. So, what are you personally excited about with in terms of healthcare longevity for the next 10 years? Like, You know, I'm personally excited about the toilets that are going to be able to scan your poop and tell you what's wrong and make recommendations. Yeah, so like, that's just one example, right? What about you?

Yeah, I'm excited about— Alfred North Whitehead is a— was a mathematician, and he made the observation that society advances at the rate at which it automates things. And like, we, we know Moore's Law for computation. And so, I would call this Whitehead's Law of Automation. And so, if we think about like for example, you can walk over to my sink right now and get clean water. Clean water is automated. You and I don't have to walk down to the creek, get water in a bucket and come back up. And so many things in life are just automated for us. And so, what I'm hoping is that we will be able to automate our health. Right now, we have to work very hard. We have to think about what food we eat. We have to— Think about supplements. We have to get measurements all the time. And I think that all could just become invisible, that we all are in perfect health or the best we can be.

Right.

And even down to a molecular level. Now, it will take us some time to get there, but I think that looking at the system laws of society, the automation of health is inevitability. Like, we're just not going to think about it. It's going to become— and so that's hard to imagine right now because we have to work so hard at it. But you take very familiar steps. Uh, like you, you look at the things that are automated now and you just naturally look like, for example, our sleep is a good example. Like you go to bed, my bed is adjusting its algorithm on hot and cold based upon my sleep profile. And so like, why wouldn't I also have other things that are automating my sleep performance?

Did you get the new pod?

Yes.

Yeah, where like if you snore, it moves you up and down?

Yes.

That's so awesome. We had Matteo on the podcast recently from Eight Sleep, so we're talking about that. He's building some crazy concoctions. Okay. So, let me ask you this. I mean, the future is coming. The thing is you built this personal brand now too. I have to assume you as an entrepreneur, you're also opportunistic. You're probably getting good deal flow for a lot of stuff right now. Are you investing in anything? Any bets you're open to share?

I invested in, um, Extropic, which is doing, uh, compute using thermodynamics. I invested in a robotics company building humanoids. I invest in a new ASIC company that's building, um, these chips for, uh, large language models.

So a lot of AI stuff.

Yep, a lot of AI stuff. Yeah, so But I'm really investing most of my money into Blueprint right now.

And that's purely self-funded right now?

Yes.

Got it. Okay, so how much— and I ask this question quite a bit. You've had Codie sitting here before. I've gotten a sense for how much she's spending on her content team, how much on content in general. If you're comfortable sharing, like what does your content team look like right now? How much are you spending per month?

I don't know immediately. The team is like 5 of us. Yeah.

And how much reach are you getting per month right now, kind of aggregate?

Views?

Yeah.

You know, I don't know that number off the top of my head.

I have to assume, I mean, it's got to be in the tens of millions per month. It's right, but it's also hard to track the ROI of this stuff too because you just never know, right?

Yeah, it's very hard to know.

Okay. And I'm gonna jump back to business in a second, but there's a thread about food real quick. What does your current diet look like every day? And then I have another follow-up to that.

Yeah, it's a diet where every calorie fought for its life. for inclusion. So, there's not a single calorie in there which does not have a specific objective in my body.

And I think before— you tell me if this is still your same diet. So, in the morning, I think there's some ginger, there's some broccoli.

Yeah.

What else are you eating?

Yeah, it's vegetables, nuts, berries, seeds, Olive oil.

And yeah, what doesn't bore you at all? Does it make you miss like the fat foods?

No, I love it. Yeah, I, I'm on a caloric restricted diet, so I appreciate every calorie. I've never appreciated food more in my life. And like, I've, I've actually tried in the past few months, like I had, I had a roll one time. It's just like, what would it Like, what would happen if I ate a roll? And I also had some sugar. What did I do? Yeah, I experimented with a few things and I feel sick. It makes me feel sick and I feel awful, so.

And how many calories are you eating per day right now?

2,250.

Okay, wow, it's very specific. And then you had— let's just rephrase this. Why should people eat chocolate every day?

Yeah. I've eaten— what's the number? I've eaten a lot of cocoa over the past 3 years. Yeah, it's 6 grams a day. Yeah, it's high in flavanols and a bunch of other goodies, but—

And this is dark chocolate, right?

100% pure cacao.

And I'm a noob to this. Cacao is dark chocolate?

Oh, just powder. Powder, okay.

Got it.

Yeah. Chocolate, so— When we went through the diet and we said every calorie has to fight for its life, it creates a set of standards that the food has to be a superfood to begin with and then it has to be in the exact proportions and then it's got to be tested for heavy metals, etc. And so, cacao hits that threshold of it's a superfood and 6 grams is about the right dose.

Yeah.

And so, we just did a video on this where We went and bought 10 of the most popular supermarket chocolates and we tested them for heavy metals and also flavonols, the good stuff. So, we said, how much bad stuff is in there? How much good stuff is in there? And I think the results will terrify you.

Can you give us a little preview? Don't share the entire thing, just a little preview.

Well, just that— It's probably not a good idea to buy chocolate at the grocery store.

Yeah. I don't think it's a good idea to buy anything. I don't know if you saw that research recently about I think phosphates in everything, right? And then you have microplastics in everything. Did you see the tweet yesterday about microplastics entering the testes?

Yeah.

Yeah. So, what's your take? Like how do you go about avoiding all that stuff?

Yeah. So we, we just launched a set of food products at Blueprint. We did supplements and food.

Yep.

And it has been shocking to learn how dirty the food supply chain is. And I guess shocking because like every time you peek into an industry, it's expected you're gonna find corruption and like bad behavior. Like that's just, that's humans.

Yep.

But I assumed that food would have some kind of guardrails around it. There's not.

Yup.

So, when we go to our— to many of these food suppliers, we'd say, okay, we're going to take your food, we're going to test it for heavy metals. And they're like, what? No one has ever asked them to test their foods. They have no idea. And so, we get back these samples and they had dangerously level— high levels of like lead or mercury or something like that. We'd be like, what's up? So, like no one's testing. Like, we have had to elbow our way around and test, and we're now setting sights on microplastics. So, it is a big lift. It is a very complicated process because you're trying to bring food to market, but then you're also having to deal with all the food supply providers already in chain. So, it's just— it's a hard problem to solve.

Yup. And so, what's their reaction when you come back to them with that data?

I mean, it's kind of like ignorance is bliss. They kind of don't want to know because now you've burdened them by notifying them that they're selling food that is, you know, has like potentially dangerously high levels of heavy metals.

I think a lot of this stuff is going to get exposed. I think that the marketing genius behind what you're doing is it's going to get exposed anyway, so why not be first? And then, you're going to get that reach compounded. Part of strategy, right?

Yeah. I mean, like, we're going to be exposed too, right? Like, there's just no way that our foods are 100% clean. Like, as, as much as we're doing to test, there are so many contaminants to test for. And by— if we went to certain spec on all contaminants, we probably couldn't bring any food to market, right? Like, I don't know, like, but we're slowly working our way through. But we have to work through, uh, testing providers that can provide us a test, they can do it at a timeframe that actually helps. So like, it's a big lift, it's going to take us time to do it. We're trying to be the best out there in the world, but like, we're, we're not going to be flawless in this. Like, it's going to be a messy process. Hopefully in time we'll solve it. Got it.

Um, I want to come back to a point you made. Um, I just remembered there's, there's a thing you said at the, the Longevity Summit. Um, are you— you're still spending around $2 million a year on your body, right? Give or take.

I mean, that headline, it's like an easy way to summarize it, but no. Okay, it's a lot less.

Got it. Um, I think the number you say— said now is like, it's You know, if you wanted to go all out, it's probably around $150,000 a year or so?

I shared today that somebody could achieve similar results to me at $46 a day.

Wow, okay, great. How did they do that?

Yeah, I just took my power laws— sleep, diet, exercise.

Got it.

So that—

got it.

And I listed out each thing and the cost. So, a lot of people, they see the $2 million and like they then have a certain idea But it's actually, yeah, everybody can do this. Well, not everybody. $46 is affordable by many people.

Yeah. Let's say, I mean, if you wanted to cut that in half like $20 a day.

Well, $35 of that is food.

Uh-huh, okay. It should be affordable by a good chunk of people.

Yeah.

Yeah, that makes sense. Now, coming back to business again. So, what are— I mean, you sold Braintree Venmo for around $800 million or so, is that correct?

Yeah.

So, what are some core lessons you've taken from that journey? And, you know, kind of mirrored them over for Blueprint?

Both. I bootstrapped Braintree and Blueprint.

I didn't know that. I thought you didn't raise eventually for Braintree?

Yeah, in year 5 I did.

Okay, got it. Yeah, makes sense.

Yeah, both companies, we're breakeven with Blueprint right now. So we were breakeven out of the gate with Braintree. Almost immediate breakeven for both businesses.

Got it. And what does that do for you as a founder psychologically?

I mean, it, it really comes back to, as a founder, what are you building for? Are you building for an exit? Are you building, uh, to take over the world? Are you building to make a point? Like, there's so many reasons entrepreneurs have to build.

Hmm.

And the bootstrapping strategy, uh, and also not having external investors, we have a lot of optionality. Whereas when you raise venture capital, you're on a singular path to maximization of profit. And either IPO or get acquired. And you, you, like, if your hands are on the steering wheel, you just can't turn left or right very far, right? And so I don't want to do that. I don't want to be put on that singular-minded path.

Got it. So you wouldn't want to raise from venture this time?

Uh, if we raised, it would be from, uh, wealthy individuals like friends of mine.

Yeah.

Who are interested in this area. And like, they My friends know that going back to levels of ambition— start a company, start a country, start a religion— I'm trying to build a country and a company and a country and a religion and defy death and all of us become God.

Right.

That's the goal. So capitalism is such a limiting thing where it says we just care about this money thing. Now, like, if money includes other things, cool, but it's such a ruthless objective That it eliminates all other possibilities. And so, I'm trying to accomplish the full stack. Now, in 2100, intelligent existence is going to have other aspirations. They'll probably be able to extend past the concept of God. But right now, that's peak ambition that can be expressed in this moment. And so, this entity and this group is working towards that.

Got it. And earlier, you said— you might have just answered the question right here, but earlier, you said you can maximize for like You know, an exit or you can maximize for, I don't know, fulfillment or something like that. It sounds like you're optimizing for you're just gonna build this religion, right? And you're gonna work on this for the rest of your life. Like, what is the goal here?

Yeah, exactly. The 5 levels. It's to get all levels of human aspiration.

Makes sense. One thing I found interesting is you've been going on a terror against— a little bit of a terror against AG1. So, can you explain that?

Yeah, they— anyone who listens to podcasts, by the way, do they sponsor your podcast?

No.

Okay, why haven't you been a sponsor, had them as a sponsor?

Um, I mean, I've used the product. Um, I, I, you know, I have a good friend that works there. Um, but I, I don't know. It's also like mine is a business— I have a business podcast, I have a marketing podcast, so it's not exactly Yeah. Health all the time.

Okay, so we— most of us want to do positive things for our health, and we have a way of trying to decide how to do those things. Now, if you're anywhere around podcasts, you know that a very large number of podcast people are— will advertise the AG1 product, and they read the company script, right? They say what the company wants them to say. And so AG1 has paid people who have trust with others, and this is a tactic used long in marketing And it's omnipresent. And if you look at the AG1 product, they have around 70 ingredients, 46 of which you have no idea the dose you're taking.

Hmm.

On the ingredients that they are disclosing, they skim, which means they're far below clinical-grade doses. And so what you're getting is basically a green salad. If that. Yeah, but the fact that they're not telling you what you're putting into your body is insane. Like, where else would that be okay? And so it's the entire structure that this company is spending tens of millions of dollars to pay people to read their script. Yeah, these people will read the script happily because they're getting paid an enormous amount of money.

I think you said $40 million. A year on podcasts.

Yeah. And so it's— I think it's a, a pretty nice encapsulation of the challenges, uh, in society that well-meaning people are trying to decide what to do for their wellness. And even like— so let me say this differently. We're all trying to dodge The dangers of society. We're trying to avoid microplastics, we're trying to avoid like the bad stuff about junk food, we're trying to avoid addictive algorithms, we're trying to avoid like all these stuff. So, who's got our back? And so, if a company's pulling it to say, I'm going to give you something that's actually good for you, surely they must have our back.

Actually, no.

And so, I'm trying to call attention to like the whole situation is just not good for anyone.

Got it. I like this angle. I like this angle where you're like— you're calling people out, right? On potentially like questionable practices. I like where you're calling out studies and that's— in my opinion, that's a great way to market because you're showing hard data at the end of the day, right? How else are you going to be evolving the— because you've been— you know, you built your YouTube up to about a million subscribers now. You're going to get that gold plaque soon, right? What else are you doing that's— What are some interesting things you're doing with content/marketing that you're comfortable sharing?

We're getting better every week. The last few videos we've shot, I've just messed around. I've been pretty silly.

You did a reaction video with Dana White. I saw that one.

Oh yeah, that was pretty straightforward. Yeah. I guess it's, it's becoming like a lot of play for me where I'm having fun. We have an audience, we have a community, and so it just feels more relaxed.

Yeah.

Uh, we have a lot of— a lot of celebrities have become interested recently. Like, it's crossed the threshold where for some reason a lot of celebrities are leaning in, so I think we'll probably do more of that. Yeah, it just feels like it's, it's compounding. We're going to probably put together like a multi-state Don't Die tour. We'll probably do some Don't Die raves. Uh, we'll probably put together like a Don't Die, uh, summit. Yeah, where we'll invite some heads of state to see if we can get them to come.

Yeah.

But I'm, I'm trying to— I'm playing for Don't Die to become the global operating system.

Right. That to me, religion is an operating system and so, I think both play in well together.

Yeah.

Final thing from my side, I can go on and on but one thing that's interesting to me is I'm looking at your books over there, Don't Die. So, I have the physical copy but you also— you gave away the audio copy for free. I think it's just sitting on YouTube and I think it's gotten a good chunk of views. What was the thinking behind just giving the audiobook version for free?

Yeah, I mean, the most expensive thing you can do is make money.

Explain.

If you need to think carefully about the game you're playing and the assumptions behind that game. And we saw this in the beginning with like software where the freemium model came up where you gave, you know, like some people abused it where like you are the product. Yeah, that didn't work out very well. well. But some companies actually— like, I think Dropbox did this well, where I forget the stats, it was something like 1% of their users paid, and it was more than enough to make the company profitable and grow. And so you could give away 99%, right? And so it works in business. It also works in creating community. Like, if you're, if you're trying to bring everyone in, and like, I, uh, I'm genuinely playing for the future of intelligent existence. That's the only game I care about. I don't care about money. I don't care about anything else. And so, getting the book out to the most people was really my objective. Yeah.

I think that makes the most sense and this is a great place to end because like, you know, building content, a lot of people want to put the content behind a paywall and you're trading the long-term game for short-term. But you're just all long-term because one, you know, you have your nut already but the other piece is like it feels like you're relaxed with this. It feels like Braintree, Venmo was a lot more stressful. Did you say true?

Yes.

Yeah. Cool. Well, Brian, this has been great. What's the best way for people to find you online?

I'm on all social channels, so wherever you're at.

All right. Thanks so much for doing this.

Thanks.