Bryan Johnson On What's Next After Blueprint

SUMMARY

Bryan Johnson, interviewed by Ashlee Vance on the Core Memory podcast, reflects on stepping away from Blueprint, his personal reinvention from Mormon roots, handling fame's scrutiny, and evolving "Don't Die" philosophy amid AI's existential threats.

STATEMENTS

Bryan Johnson initially felt trepidation about publicizing personal health metrics like erection monitoring but quickly embraced the feedback to engage audiences on vital topics like sleep.
Early interviews with Ashlee Vance marked a turning point where Johnson tested boundaries on sharing experimental treatments, leading to viral attention and normalized openness.
Johnson recalls his face being swollen from procedures during Vance's first visit, highlighting the experimental nature of his early rejuvenation efforts without clear intuitions on public reaction.
The erection monitoring story in Vance's article shifted Johnson's approach, using provocative health facts to draw people into discussions on foundational habits like sleep.
Before Blueprint, Johnson was sensitive to media critiques, such as an MIT article mocking his appearance, which deeply affected him emotionally.
Johnson has transformed from sensitivity to thriving on negativity, viewing it as an energy source in contrast to other creators who avoid or mitigate criticism.
Johnson's early health experiments included intranasal PRP stem cell treatments in Colorado, which he later deemed insufficiently evidence-based for his rigorous standards.
The 5-MeO DMT experience from the Sonoran toad provided Johnson his most expansive consciousness exploration, tattooed as a memento, but he stopped after mapping that state.
Johnson sought toad shamans to probe consciousness limits in the context of Kernel's brain-AI interfaces, aiming to expand human potential beyond emotional baselines.
Johnson's post-Mormon reinvention began with New York warehouse raves, introducing MDMA and shedding prior norms for total self-remaking at age 34.
Marriage young and building Braintree left little room for dating or skill-building, creating deficits when transitioning to tech entrepreneurship.
Johnson now feels compelled to rebuild himself again after completing the rejuvenation athlete phase, sensing an internal notification of a finished cycle.
Stepping away from full-time Blueprint management prioritizes "Don't Die" over potential billions, as business demands consume energy without aligned purpose.
Blueprint's protocols support users deeply, creating loyalty that necessitates either selling or professionalizing operations to sustain without Johnson's direct involvement.
Johnson's notoriety survival through media attacks like Vanity Fair and New York Times pieces has stabilized his public position, reducing fear of future blows.
Fame amplifies isolation, complicating social interactions and requiring a trusted tribe, more challenging than wealth alone.
Private creator groups reveal shared strategies for handling hate, but Johnson uniquely derives joy and power from it.
Johnson's Silicon Valley outsider status from Chicago roots and non-technical background initially hindered funding for Kernel.
Blueprint's success bridged Johnson into deep tech circles he admired, allowing collaboration in biotech and AI.
Growing up in rural Provo, Utah, immersed in Mormonism, provided no transferable skills to secular tech worlds, demanding full mental model rebuilds.
Johnson's mother struggles with his church departure despite pride, illustrating familial emotional conflicts.
"Don't Die" reframes existence without inevitable death, invalidating prior religious or philosophical explanations.
Johnson's all-in commitment pattern stems from contemplating existence's purpose, explored through Kernel, OS Fund, and now Don't Die.
Early AI fears centered on corporate misuse for addiction, not rogue AI, predicting mental health crises now evident in youth.
Don't Die anticipates AI-induced societal dislocations, positioning it as a unifying ideology beyond capitalism or traditional religions.
COVID demonstrated rapid global ideology shifts; AI could similarly bifurcate views on progress versus safety.
Power for Don't Die may lie in influencing corporations or funds rather than mass meetups, to affect survival probabilities.

IDEAS

Public vulnerability on taboo health metrics like erections can disarm skepticism and open dialogues on evidence-based longevity.
Media sensationalism, like New York Post headlines, amplifies core messages unexpectedly, turning potential embarrassment into engagement tools.
Early experimental therapies reveal the evolution from solo biohacking to team-driven, rigorous protocols.
Psychedelics like 5-MeO DMT map uncharted consciousness, challenging assumptions about human potential in AI-brain pairings.
Reinvention at midlife requires shedding all norms, akin to choosing the red pill, to access new realities.
Notoriety demands embracing hate as fuel, inverting typical creator avoidance for personal empowerment.
Fame's double-whammy with wealth erodes relationships, pushing toward isolated tribes of trust.
Private elite networks operate as shadow worlds, detached from public discourse, shaping real power dynamics.
Rural Mormon upbringing creates profound skill deficits in tech, necessitating total cognitive overhauls.
Ideologies must adapt to death's potential optionality, rendering old frameworks obsolete.
AI's inevitability demands neutral navigation, focusing on human alignment over optimism or pessimism.
Societal dislocations from AI will crave new fabrics for cohesion, beyond existing systems.
"Don't Die" dinners foster collective thought experiments, hardening perspectives through group problem-solving.
Global crises like COVID prove ideologies can scale virally, overriding prior impossibilities.
Individual power may cede to corporate or fund-level influence for species-level impact.
Solipsism in self-optimization risks missing communal survival needs in AI eras.
Underestimating AI's speed mirrors Homo erectus ignorance of modern tech, urging humility.
Darkness retreats offer unplugged resets, countering device-driven NPC scripting.
Existence's infinite paths converge on conscious exploration as humanity's gold mine.
Blueprint's virality was organic, not premeditated, debunking commercialization conspiracies.
Performance art in rejuvenation quantifies health, bridging subjective wellness to metrics.
Sensitivity to critique evolves into radical openness through repeated exposure.
Consciousness expansion ambitions lag behind space or AI pursuits, an overlooked frontier.
FOMO and constant connectivity trap modern life in scripted societal games.
Rejuvenation phases end intuitively, signaling readiness for bold pivots.

INSIGHTS

Vulnerability accelerates public buy-in by linking abstract health advice to relatable bodily impacts.
Transformation from sensitivity to resilience stems from modeling and surviving public backlash iteratively.
Experimental failures refine protocols, turning personal quests into scalable, evidence-based systems.
Psychedelic mapping expands self-knowledge, informing tech like brain-AI for deeper human evolution.
Midlife reinvention thrives on total norm-shedding, freeing space for authentic purpose alignment.
Hate as energy source inverts victimhood, reclaiming narrative control in fame's arena.
Wealth-fame isolation necessitates curated tribes to preserve genuine connections.
Elite backchannels reveal power's true loci, far from public noise.
Religious upbringings impose rebuild costs, but fuel obsessive commitments to new ideologies.
Death's contestability upends existential frameworks, demanding philosophies for indefinite futures.
AI neutrality emphasizes methodical human stewardship over runaway acceleration.
Dislocation ideologies must weave safety nets, transcending siloed systems like religion or economy.
Group rituals build emotional bonds, simulating AA for modern existential anxieties.
Viral ideologies emerge from crises, not gradualism, mirroring COVID's speed.
Survival leverage shifts to institutional capital, beyond individual or mass efforts.
Self-focus in longevity risks echo chambers; communal layers ensure broader resilience.
Humility in uncertainty—treating ourselves as primitives—fosters adaptive sobriety.
Device addiction scripts lives; unplugged voids enable original thought emergence.

QUOTES

"When you don't sleep your dick is broken, but they listen. Oh, tell me more."
"I've become so normalized to this now. But you're right. When we first started talking, I was so nervous for our interview."
"If someone were to try to take me down on that kind of front, it would just be wonderful."
"I got the map. I got what I went there for."
"It's kind of like the gold mine of our very existence."
"No amount of money is worth it. And right now it's when you're building any kind of company, it's a black hole."
"You really want to embrace it and find uh energy from it. Right? For me it's a power source."
"We may be homo erectus. And if that is the case, the single best move we can have as a species is to be humble."
"I don't care what games society is telling me to play, power, wealth, status. Like, I just I think they're all going to be washed away."
"Don't die is really is the most humble observation one can make about existence. We don't know."
"This is the most consequential moment in the history of our species. And none of us know where it's going."
"By you know 2030 there could be a billion people in the world who self-identify with don't die."
"You're always going to be running their scripts in your mind versus your scripts of moving forward."
"It's a mental it's a flip in your head, right? Where it's um Yeah. I just I don't think people I mean, it's a it's a philosophy."
"I I grew up not having a computer. I grew up uh only knowing blue car workers."

HABITS

Monitoring sleep rigorously, emphasizing its foundational role in health via provocative analogies.
Training six hours daily on rejuvenation protocols, treating it as a full-time athletic commitment.
Posting openly about personal metrics, including erection quality, to normalize and educate.
Apologizing to one's body weekly in group rituals for past harms, fostering accountability.
Starting days with olive oil shots as communal bonding rituals in Don't Die events.
Sharing weekly personal reflections in confidential circles to build emotional intimacy.
Embracing negativity from comments as a daily energy source rather than avoidance.
Pulling back from 99% optimization to 80% post-phase completion for new focuses.
Experimenting with consciousness states via substances or retreats to map existence.
Maintaining evidence-based rigor, rejecting unproven therapies like early stem cells.
Building trusted tribes for unfiltered interactions amid fame's isolation.
Contemplating existence's purpose daily, iterating on one all-in commitment.
Using thought experiments in dinners to refine perspectives collaboratively.
Shedding societal scripts through periodic self-rebuilds, ignoring status games.

FACTS

Johnson's Blueprint went viral post-Vance's 5,000-word story, causing Amazon sell-outs without prior massive media ops.
Early PRP stem cell treatment involved drawing blood, centrifuging for growth factors, and intranasal injection at a Colorado clinic.
5-MeO DMT from Sonoran toad secretions is smoked for intense, life-altering consciousness expansion.
Johnson married young in Mormonism, had kids early, and barely dated, limiting skill-building time.
Braintree, sold to PayPal, was built as a non-technical founder without coding knowledge.
Kernel aimed to pair brains with AI, but Silicon Valley shunned funding due to Johnson's outsider status.
Private creator groups with 100 members discuss negativity strategies; Johnson uniquely loves it.
COVID bifurcated global opinions into simple camps like lockdowns or vaccines, halting all plans.
AI progression could hit ASI by 2028-2035, causing job losses and institutional shifts.
Don't Die summits gathered 1,500 people for physical community building.
Johnson grew up in rural Provo, Utah, without computers, around auto workers in a storytelling religion.
Fame stops Johnson dozens of times publicly, complicating every interaction.
Most know people working seven days a week, trapped in device FOMO without 9-5 norms.
Darkness retreats in Poland involve 3-7 days total dark, with rounded hobbit-like rooms for safety.
Johnson has one tattoo from his toad experience, marking it as profound.

REFERENCES

Ashlee Vance's "Don't Die" Netflix documentary with director Chris Smith and team member Kate Tolo.
Vance's initial 5,000-word story in Bloomberg on Johnson's health experiments.
New York Post's headline "millionaire monitors erection" mining Vance's article.
MIT Technology Review article by Antonio Regalado critiquing Johnson's Kernel talk and appearance.
Wired magazine's recent interview with Johnson, seen as uninnovative.
Vanity Fair and New York Times pieces attempting to undermine Johnson's Blueprint.
Braintree payments company, sold to PayPal after acquiring Venmo.
Kernel brain-computer interface project for AI-brain merging.
OS Fund investments in deep tech like synthetic biology, genomics, computational therapeutics.
5-MeO DMT from Sonoran toad, sourced via shamans for consciousness exploration.
PRP intranasal stem cell therapy from a Spanish lab technique in Colorado clinic.
Brooklyn warehouse raves introducing MDMA post-Mormonism.
Don't Die Substack piece on AI and philosophy.
Ray Kurzweil's singularity books and talks as prior intellectual framework.
COVID as global ideology shifter example.
Louis Theroux podcast where Johnson discusses unpredictable AI futures.
Wim Hof breathwork methods influencing retreat creator.
AA (Alcoholics Anonymous) and YPO formats for Don't Die group rituals.
E1 Ventures VC firm sponsoring the podcast.
Brex finance platform as podcast sponsor.

HOW TO APPLY

Start by tracking personal health metrics vulnerably, using relatable hooks like sleep's impact on vitality to engage others.
Experiment with unproven therapies solo initially, then evolve to team-rigorous standards for sustainability.
Map consciousness through substances or meditation, tattooing key insights as permanent reminders.
Shed all prior norms at life transitions, embracing red-pill risks for authentic remakes.
Embrace incoming hate as power fuel, reframing scripts to own your narrative forward.
Curate a small trusted tribe for unfiltered social relief amid growing isolation.
Monitor elite backchannels via trusted networks to discern real power dynamics.
Rebuild mental models completely when shifting worlds, accepting skill deficits as growth fuel.
Question existence daily, populating options until aligning on one death-optional path.
Neutralize AI fears by focusing on human alignment, writing publicly on threats like addiction.
Host intimate dinners with thought experiments to collectively harden Don't Die perspectives.
Anticipate crises by betting on viral ideologies, mirroring COVID's rapid bifurcation.
Pivot power pursuits to corporate funds or allocations for species-level influence.
Layer self-optimization with communal mechanics to avoid solipsistic traps.
Cultivate humility by analogizing to Homo erectus, sobering predictions with unknowns.
Unplug via retreats to shed NPC scripts, resetting for original aspirations.
Scale ideology through rituals like body apologies and olive oil shots for bonding.
Signal phase completions intuitively, redirecting 80% energy to new existential quests.

ONE-SENTENCE TAKEAWAY

Embrace humble reinvention and Don't Die to humbly navigate AI's unknown existential shifts.

RECOMMENDATIONS

Publicize personal vulnerabilities to hook audiences on foundational health truths.
Evolve from solo experiments to evidence-based teams for long-term efficacy.
Explore psychedelics once for consciousness mapping, then integrate insights permanently.
Reinvent radically at forks, shedding norms without inhibition for rebirth.
Leverage hate as motivational energy, avoiding defensive hiding.
Build isolated tribes of trust to counter fame's relational erosions.
Infiltrate private networks to access shadow power structures.
Overhaul mental models fully when exiting rigid upbringings.
Reframe existence around death's optionality, discarding obsolete philosophies.
Treat AI as inevitable force, prioritizing ethical human navigation.
Facilitate group thought experiments to refine collective ideologies.
Prepare for AI dislocations by forging unifying nets beyond old systems.
Focus efforts on corporate capital influence for meaningful survival impact.
Balance individualism with communal layers in longevity pursuits.
Adopt prehistoric humility to temper overconfident future predictions.
Use darkness retreats to reset from device-scripted lives.
Ritualize apologies and shares in groups for emotional connectivity.
Intuitively end optimization phases, pivoting to aligned urgencies.
Scale ideologies virally, expecting crisis accelerations like COVID.
Measure everything in experiments, from rejuvenation to consciousness voids.

MEMO

Bryan Johnson, the tech entrepreneur turned biohacker, sat down with longtime chronicler Ashlee Vance on the Core Memory podcast to unpack his whirlwind journey from Mormon roots in rural Utah to Silicon Valley provocateur. Once a devout follower who dressed as Joseph Smith in childhood plays, Johnson married young, built and sold Braintree for a fortune, then shattered his old life amid mental health struggles. His reinvention began with New York raves introducing MDMA, a stark pivot from sobriety, and escalated through wild experiments like snorting PRP stem cells in Colorado and smoking 5-MeO DMT from Sonoran toads with shamans. These weren't mere indulgences but quests to map consciousness, tattooing the toad's profound expansion as his sole inked memento. Vance, who first profiled Johnson during his Kernel brain-AI days, notes the outsider stigma from his Chicago origins and non-technical background, which once shut funding doors despite his successes.

The conversation turns introspective on Blueprint, Johnson's longevity protocol that exploded after Vance's 2019 story, selling out supplements overnight without a grand commercialization scheme. Critics accused profiteering, but Johnson insists it solved his health woes organically, now a black hole consuming his time. He's plotting an exit, handing reins to managers to build a comprehensive health empire covering 80% of needs, freeing him for "Don't Die"—his burgeoning philosophy. This ideology grapples with AI's inexorable march, evolving from Johnson's 2016 warnings of corporate addiction tools eroding mental well-being to a neutral stance on its inevitability. By 2030, he envisions a billion adherents, from casual "hot" seekers to deep existentialists, unified against death's finality.

Fame's double-edged sword emerges vividly: Johnson, once hypersensitive to MIT critiques mocking his holey sweaters, now thrives on vitriol, joining creator chats where he alone revels in negativity as power. Wealth-fame isolation complicates every outing—dozens of stops demanding kindness—pushing him toward trusted tribes amid elite retreats where billionaires once ignored him but now flock. His mother's tears over his church break underscore familial rifts, yet pride endures. Blueprint's performance art quantified health, pushing boundaries with six-hour daily regimens, but Johnson's internal clock signals completion, urging an 80% pullback for fresh pursuits.

"Don't Die" transcends rejuvenation, positing a humble ideology for AI's dislocations—job losses, institutional upheavals—without capitalism or religion's silos. Drawing from COVID's viral opinion splits, Johnson bets on bifurcation into accelerationists versus cautious stewards, urging methodical preservation. Group rituals like olive oil shots and body apologies mimic AA for bonding, while dinners unpack thought experiments hardening views. Yet he questions mass meetups' power, eyeing corporate funds or trillion-dollar sovereign vehicles to sway capital toward survival.

Vance probes solipsism in self-obsession, but Johnson layers communal mechanics, warning underestimation of AI's madness—like Homo erectus blind to quantum leaps. Humility reigns: "We don't know," a monastic sobriety amid noise. His early AI fears of soul-sucking algorithms persist, but alignment trumps rogue doomsday. From blue-collar upbringing sans computers to deep-tech investor via OS Fund, Johnson's bridged worlds he craved, now inviting collaboration.

The podcast closes on modern malaise—seven-day workweeks, FOMO-trapped phones turning strangers into isolates at weddings. Johnson yearns to shed societal scripts of power and status, washed away by coming tides. Vance pitches a Polish darkness retreat, hobbit-holes enforcing unplugged voids for reset; Johnson, ever the experimenter, eyes metrics on its rejuvenative potential, infrared cameras capturing invisible depths.

This dialogue reveals Johnson's arc: from sensitive innovator to unapologetic sage, Don't Die not woo-woo but practical scaffolding for sci-fi realities. As AI accelerates, his call for clear-eyed navigation resonates, a philosophy born of personal voids now aiming species-wide.