Bryan Johnson: “The Biggest Lie In Hustle Culture” - How Phones Are Quietly Aging You!

0:00We may be the first generation who won't die. And if that's the case, how do you behave? Like, what do you do? We went through all the longevity research and we said, what does the evidence say? Then we measured the age of my body, every organ. So right now I'm 47, but my organs are different ages. So I basically tried to become the healthiest person on planet Earth. I was measuring everything going inside of my body. We started testing all foods and we found out that the food system is very dirty. It's very toxic. And so it just leads to all these other problems. when you don't sleep well, it leads to mood disorders, anxiety, depression, like your body's not getting what it needs.

0:34It just creates this really negative loop. Culture is killing us. My name is Brian Johnson, and this is The Burnouts. So we wanted to ask you about your first experiences starting your tech company and what it actually ended up teaching you about health. I mean, first, there's always a cultural lie in any given time period. For example, in 1870, there was a new idea that these microscopic objects called bacteria cause infection. At the time, that was a pretty insane idea. And if you didn't believe in that theory, you weren't a gentleman. You couldn't practice medicine. And so they would ostracize you if you weren't part of the club on believing there was actually evil, bad spirits or something.

1:11Turns out that there are microscopic objects. Turns out bacteria can lead to infection. And so in any given area, there's new ideas that challenge the norms. And then society ostracizes people who don't believe those things. So in the case of being a founder, like what is the idea that would be maybe out of sync with the future? It's that your willingness to sacrifice health for financial success is a trade you want to do. And so I sadly bought that narrative. I worked really hard. I didn't sleep. I didn't exercise. I didn't eat well. I really sacrificed my well-being so I could achieve financial success.

1:46And that was a big mistake. So if you were to go back, would you do that again? Definitely not. And this is why people say like, oh, Brian, you say this now after you sold your company. That's not fair because you have to grind in order to do it. But I really think that's I think that's wrong. I think if you make health your number one priority, you are a better entrepreneur. You're a better person. You're a better partner. You're a better human. There's just no virtue in grinding yourself to a state of bad health. I feel like you've you've gone through both extremes, right? Because you talk about this decade of your life where you were unhealthy.

2:18And then now you talk about, you know, never wanting to die. Do you think that there's like a personal motivation behind that? And what does that look like? What I've been trying to do with Don't Die is in any given moment, there's a question I think that's really interesting is what is possible with existence? Now, if you live in the year like the 13th century, you could write great poetry or a book. You could try to start a religion. You could be a political person, but you couldn't build a computer like that. wasn't a part of like the aspiration state or you couldn't build a vaccine that's also going to be pretty difficult and so in any given time if you say what is the greatest aspiration of our generation i think it's don't die like that is the thing and so for me it's not so much that i've shifted to that i've just said as a species this is the first time we could legitimately say we may be the first generation who won't die and so it sounds again it sounds crazy but that wasn't when I started building in 2003, roughly, that wasn't a possibility set.

3:20So it was more like grind really hard, make a whole bunch of money, and then try to do good things in the world. So I'm saying as time passes, new, new things emerge that change the way you understand yourself and your ambitions. And for those of us who may not be familiar with your journey, can you take us back to when you were a tech founder? What were you working on? Why did you sell your company? And then what happened next? I built Braintree Venmo. We sold it for$800 million. And then after that, I started an investment fund. I started investing in synthetic biology and genomics, precision chemistry, nanotechnology.

3:53I wanted to be deep in the weeds of science. And then I started Kernel, which is a brain interface company. It's the world's first mass market brain device where you put on your head and measure your brain. Measuring the brain is really hard, but really important. And then I started Blueprint and Don't Die. And for those who haven't heard of Blueprint, Project Blueprint, how would you explain it? I asked this question if we are the first generation who won't die. And if that's the case, how do you behave? Like, what do you do? And so if you look at current cultural norms, it's like live fast, die young, burn bright for a little bit, not a long bit.

4:27Or it's like, it's okay to occasionally pull an all-nighter or it's okay to drink a little bit. And so people have these ways to model out the world. And I was saying actually as we're giving birth to super intelligence the only thing that matters is that we survive as a species like this whole idea that we have now of the unrelenting pursuit of power status wealth that's a game we played before not in the context on the eve of giving birth to super intelligence and so i i've always i guess i sold my company because my goal at 21 was i wanted to do something meaningful in the world that will be relevant 500 years from now.

5:05And that's a big challenge because when you look back through time, like how many things are actually remembered with 500 years passing? Very few. So you have to really stretch and say like, how can it be significant? Because otherwise, like most of the things we talk about and work on on a daily basis, they're going to be washed out in time. And so that was my goal in life is like, how do you do something that's relevant 500 years from now? And so I sold my company because payments, while it's great. It doesn't matter. Like over the long time horizon, it's not going to move the needle as a species.

5:36It's a good business. It makes a lot of money, but I wanted to try to do it. And I knew it would take me about 10 years to find. So I tried to get on that path as soon as I could. And then I found Don't Die. And then after that, so you started spending upwards of$2 million a year on your health. Where did that money go to? When you think about health, there's so much disagreement. Do you cold plunge? Do you do drips? Do you like what kind of protein you eat? there's infinite questions and we said can we actually answer these questions scientifically and robustly and so i hired a team we went through all the longevity research and we said what does the evidence say what is good what is not what is evidence what doesn't and then we just systematically prioritize so then we measured the age of my body every organ so right now i'm 47 but my organs are different ages like for example my dna and my telomeres are age 10 It's not 47.

6:23And my cardiovascular ability is around age 20. And so your body has different ages according to the organs. And so we measured all my ages and then we put all the protocols into my body. So I basically tried to become the healthiest person on planet Earth because there's a richest person in the world. There is a fastest person in the world. But up until now, there wasn't a healthiest person in the world. We didn't know how to articulate what is health. And so we tried to quantify it through a scientific method. And that's what I've been doing at Blueprint is a scientific approach on how to be healthy and that I share everything with everyone for free.

6:56I'm curious how you think about like there's this approach of like, OK, we let's push science and see who can be the healthiest man ever. But holistically, as we think about the world being healthy, how do you think about investing that two million dollars a year in your own health versus like providing for, you know, that could save many, many lives and have them don't die? Yeah, exactly. These are all like layers. So those are things like the mosquito nets, of course, is like a societal learning that mosquito nets are a good practice to prevent this death. Right. And this is true for vaccines.

7:28It's true for all kinds of global health measures. So within health, you have other things as well, like what kind of food should we eat and does food have toxins? And so, for example, like when we're asking that food, I was measuring everything going inside of my body. so we start testing all foods for heavy metals and glyphosate and other contaminants and we found out that the food system is very dirty it's very toxic and of course that's going into our bodies all day long so it's like mosquito nets in that you're trying to find sources that cause death and that affect a lot of people and so every day in america we willingly eat poison sometimes when we eat fast food and then on top of that of just the ingredients being bad there's also toxins on over and above that.

8:11And so we're basically on a global scale. I'm trying to assess what things cause all of us to die. So it's less about me and it's more about the global environment of health. For example, like I went to India and we were measuring air quality. They have among the worst air quality in the whole world. They as a country would do better by addressing air quality than curing cancer. That's how big of a difference it would make. And so I made that a public issue in India. And so I showed people, like, how do you measure air quality? What is good air quality? How do you look at the numbers? So really, it's very similar in that I'm trying to find sources of death for the entire world.

8:51And tell us about what does a blueprint day look like? What kind of food are you eating? Supplements? All of that. My daily routine is six hours now, which is kind of ridiculous. And so I wake up around 4.30 or 5 and I go through an entire morning routine where I do lighten the eyes when I first get up. I take my inner air temperature because body temperature matters a lot. Over the past couple of years, my body temperature has dropped almost five degrees Fahrenheit. So my body's gotten a lot cooler, just metabolically more efficient. And then I work out for an hour. I do strength, cardio, flexibility, balance.

9:22I'll then do sauna for 20 minutes. I'll do red light therapy. Then I do altitude training and then hyperbaric oxygen therapy. And so it's built to basically ladder upon itself. And so it's kind of like a if you ask, what does LeBron James do on a daily basis? He has a pretty similar program of eating well, exercising, sleeping well. I'm like an athlete for longevity. So is how I think about it. Let's say I don't have six hours. I don't need to be the healthiest person in the world. What would you push people to incorporate into their morning routines to be more healthy? So actually, I have a really good one for you is if you take everything I do and you press it into the simplistic protocol possible, it's lower your resting heart rate before bed.

10:02And so before you go to bed tonight, lay down on your pillow. If you have a wearable, just pull up your wearable and see your resting heart rate. If not, take a few deep breaths, calm yourself down, and then fill the side of your neck and take your resting heart rate. So let's say tonight your heart rate is 60 beats per minute. Now your goal in life is to lower your heart rate by say 10 % to 54 to 55. And you'll learn that there's a few big ones that help you. One, if your bedtime's at 10 p.m., have your final meal of the day around 6 p.m. Because if you eat close to bedtime, you know what it feels like.

10:33Your heart pounds, you feel hot. So eating earlier and lighter foods helps you lower your heart rate. Two is rumination really elevates the heart rate. So if you're worried about something or mad or anxious and you're skipping through thoughts, that also can elevate your heart rate by 5 to 25 beats per minute. So the way to offset that is if your bedtime's at 10 by 9 p.m., turn off your screen. and have one hour. Was that like it's a little hard as a founder to do that. But definitely, exactly. Let's hang on there. I saw your response. That's great. So this is the thing is like, we are all hopelessly addicted to our phones.

11:11Fair. Yes, definitely. So if we acknowledge that, and the phone is not a peaceful device. It has all kinds of arousing emotions. Like sometimes Sometimes it's anger. Sometimes it's jealousy. Sometimes it's stress. Sometimes it's worry. There's all kinds of things. And so that 30 to 60 minutes before bed is such an important time to allow your body to wind down. Because if you don't, if you're on your phone scrolling or messaging or working until you go to bed, then your heart rate is going to be up. If your heart rate is up, your sleep goes down. And so the reason why I talk about this is sleep is by far and away the best performance enhancing drug in the entire world.

11:48like take away all the longevity therapies i'll take sleep alone as the only thing i do that's why i talk about resting heart rate because when you lower your heart rate your sleep improves when your sleep improves you're going to exercise or be more likely to exercise and then also eat well so it triggers this positive cascade of behaviors whereas if your heart rate is up your sleep is down and your willpower goes down by like 60 to 90 percent so the next day when you're like should i exercise, you're like, you know what? We deserve a break. Like today, let's not do it. Or when there's a croissant for breakfast, you're like, it's one.

12:22So you're more likely to make bad decisions. So I would say, yeah, people hear me talk like Brian, you're way too extreme. I can't do it. Totally get it. So just focus on your resting heart rate, make sleep your top priority. And then other things just kind of naturally fall in the case. So it is doable. It's free. So much of what I do is, is, is, is within the power of each person.

12:54it's so interesting because I remember I discovered the protocol a couple years ago and my mom thought I had gone nuts because I was saying oh I want to try all these different things I want to wake up earlier I want to make this type of food and I understand part of what she was saying obviously there's a lot that you do every single day if you were to boil down into some of these essentials for example for food what would your recommendations be for a healthier lifestyle yeah so i built a don't die food guide i'll share with you so we went through the scientific evidence we just made a meal like a plate and we put the best foods on there so just eat from that plate and so like i eat a lot of um a lot of legumes like lentils edamame beans berries nuts seeds extra virgin olive oil and collagen peptides i don't eat meat but other you You can eat meat if you'd like.

13:43So do your thing. The thing I tell people is just measure. Make sure your biomarkers are good. But yeah, we just followed the scientific evidence. We just said what foods produce the best health. And this is why I'm trying to showcase. I share my biomarkers publicly. Because I say I'm the healthiest person in the world. And here's all my data. And that's the way. Because otherwise, when you enter the world of diet, everybody has their own opinion. And then you're like, what do I do? This person says this. This person says that. And I just say, whatever you do, just measure yourself. And so that's what I try to do is cut through the noise and say, you can scientifically measure what you do and see if it's right or wrong.

14:22And walk us through what are your stances towards stuff like the amount of protein intake you should be getting and then also the number of calories you should be consuming. So on those things, I do very different than most cultural norms. So my caloric intake is 2 ,250, which is low for a male with my level of activity. so I'm at a 10 % caloric restriction and so a lot of people hear that and they're like well wouldn't you just waste away eventually but my body has adapted which is one of the reasons why potentially my temperature my body's gone down but I'm in the 99th percentile for muscle mass I'm in the top 1 percentile for body fat in terms of optimal so it's right on point same is true with my vascular fitness and so my pretty consumption is 130 grams a day so I'm 175 pounds So generally speaking, like, you know, 1.2 to 2 grams of protein per kilogram is a rough target for people.

15:16But again, like measurement. And something a little, you know, off the beaten path that you've done is the experiments with blood plasma transfusions with your son. What kind of results did you see? And would you say there were any learnings from the public feedback around that? Yes. So I did that for my dad because my dad started showing cognitive decline. And we were doing some research on that topic. And we found that people were doing studies with plasma transfers for cognitive decline. So my dad approached me. He's like, I'm in a bad spot. And I said, dad, we're doing this research. If you want to do this, I'm happy to be your donor.

15:46And so it just so happened that my son heard that conversation. He's like, I'm in too. So it was more like a family thing, but it was really for me doing it for my dad. And so in doing it for my father, his speed of aging slowed by the equivalent of 25 years. So it had a dramatic impact in his body. So for me, I saw no change, but it's probably because my biomarkers are pretty similar to my son's, whereas my dad and I are very different in our health. So I think my dad had a huge benefit actually on par with the animal studies. So it was actually hugely helpful for him. Obviously, that's a very extreme example of something that someone could do.

16:22I wanted to talk about this idea of obviously people on the internet have a lot of opinions about what you're doing. And very similarly, when people might go out with their friends, if you choose, maybe I don't want to drink tonight or I don't want to eat the fast food. How would you what advice would you give to people who have to deal with peer pressure when they're trying to make healthier decisions? Yeah, it's tough. It gets very, very hard. The hardest part is just doing it for the first time. And once you establish that norm, like I don't drink and then everyone knows that you don't drink.

16:51And so when you go to a social setting and someone tries to give you a drink, your friend might even help you out and be like, she doesn't drink. and so it's just like setting that boundary condition I don't eat fast food I don't drink so this is why I like the idea that none is better than some because when you do some you always have this burden of deciding when how where with whom and sometimes your friends are like are you drinking tonight or not whereas if you just make it a clean cut no fast food no alcohol it's so much easier for you and for them and then in time like your friends they know right they know they feel bad when they drink.

17:25They know they feel bad when they fast food. We all know it's bad for us. And so it's not like it's really a defensible position. Just let them do their thing. It's cool and fine. We're all fine at our different times in life. But I think it's easier to just be that thing and let them evolve around you. And walk us through what are the impacts of things like caffeine and alcohol on the body? This is the thing is like we have this intuition about when you have$1 ,000 in your bank account, that's all the money you have. If you spend$100, you know you have 900 left. And when you have zero, you have no money.

17:55But the thing is, when we talk about our life, our life points, we have no accounting mechanism. So if you go out and drink heavily one night, you may feel hung over the next day, but you don't have an account that says you've lost blank life and increased blank likelihood of disease by this. Like we don't have a counter. So therefore, because we can't see it, we're like, I'm fine. Not a big deal. Like my skin looks the same and like you don't feel any different longer term so it's that we can't actually see the accounting that's but really it's very very bad for you like for example i'll give you data on sleep like one night of bad sleep for four hours uh your body stops looking for cancer in your body by 72 so one night a four night great that's a great response i love it so one night four hours of sleep, your NK killer cell, this cancer-servative cells, they become 72 % less active.

18:55So your body's like, look, I got so much going on right now because I didn't get enough sleep. I'm going to stop looking for cancer. So that's like one bad night. And so it really is a big deal. And right now, people are very flippant, like, not a big deal. Don't worry about it. One, I'm going to catch up on the weekend. That's not how the body works. I always find it funny when people talk about the alcohol stuff because I'm like, it's not really that shocking. It's literally ethanol. Like we know what it is. Like you're literally drinking ethanol. But I am curious, like, how do you think about the role of social media and health?

19:23Because I think one thing that I see consistently is like questioning vaccines or people, you know, you get a lot of people saying, oh, this is my health routine. And there's things like this, you know, sleep. That's very, very proven. But how do you think the role of social media has had an impact on health? Do you think it's positive or negative as people share their findings. I mean, humans are humans. And like, there's just no, it's the core to public opinion is not a scientific experiment. And so people are doing their thing. They're trying their best. That's fine. And that's what I've been trying to do with my project is we say, take a given therapy like, is, I've done sauna.

19:57So is sauna good for you? Now there's a bunch of observational data, but there's no one who just said, I'm going to start a sauna therapy and I'm going to measure for 60 sessions and share all my biomarkers. So I try to do that and say, quantitatively, this is what sauna did to my body. And I measure, you know, like 50 biomarkers. And so I try to bring this rigor to the conversation versus most people, they talk about things and they say blank because I feel good or because it seems cool or because it seems interesting. It's not based upon any evidence or any kind of measurement. And so I think there's no stopping how people are going to do their thing.

20:31People want to flex their stuff. They want to do interesting stuff. It's fine. So I just think there's a way if somebody is serious about this, you can actually approach it in a scientific way and learn what is better than other things. Very noted that sleep is extremely important. Definitely something we and Phoebe need to work on. In that same vein, for people who love drinking caffeine, like us, things like drinking coffee, where does that fall on the health spectrum? So let me ask you guys a question in reverse. So you're hearing me talk. I'm here talking, right? What are you thinking about this?

20:59I think your reaction was like, look, we're founders. We're building stuff. We are stressed. We have a lot going on. You obviously feel the pinch on your sleep. So you hear me talk like, what are you guys thinking? What are you going to do in your lives? I don't think I can adapt the sleep thing. I think the sleep thing is just going to have to happen. And that's a sacrifice of I love what we're building. I think the having parameters around the no phone. I'm definitely not drinking for a month after hearing this. So on the sleep thing, what would you what would get you to actually prioritize sleep?

21:27Because because you're basically your underlying premise is that you hear me say this stuff. and somehow in your mind, it doesn't connect that it applies to you. No, it does apply that it connects to me. I'm just making that active decision to prioritize the company over my own well-being because, like, to be honest, we launched four months ago, right? And so there's consistently, like, we're now building because the company scaled so fast, and that's great, like, we have 400 ,000 users, but there are operational systems that need to be put in place that are like, okay, we need someone, you know, checking every day, are all of our affiliates working, are all those links working?

21:58Like there's different systems that need to be put in place. So, yes, like six months out from launch, seven months out from launch, I better be getting at least seven hours of sleep a night. Like but right now it's OK for me to sacrifice some if I can, you know, spend, you know, truly like Saturday on a weekend relaxing. I'm willing to have these couple of months be really tough, even though I know it's going to bite me in the butt later. Do you think it's possible that you would actually be better at these objectives if you slept a full seven, eight hours? Yes. That actually like you would actually do a better job at life.

22:30You would actually accomplish more and address your needs more thoroughly if you got seven to eight hours. I think it's kind of what you were saying around. It's really about breaking it like a bad habit. Ultimately, bad sleep habits are bad sleep habits. And so the longer you delay and say it's OK if I get four hours of sleep one night, the more you continue to make justifications that make it really hard to break the cycle. whereas if every single day you say it is a non-negotiable i need to get eight hours of sleep it would be really different and it's just something we definitely need to learn and i think people generally need to become better at it's like a muscle you need to build it and you need to be better at practicing this although you are 100 right and i actually wanted to ask you about this because i was talking to two of my friends who love the work that you do and both of them were recently diagnosed with sleep apnea and i definitely think that there's under reporting and it's a huge issue what do you think about that they were specifically talking about the device that you wear when you sleep but generally like i'd love your thoughts on how sleep habits are impacting young people and sleep apnea at large yeah i mean so here's on this whole sleep thing i really am empathetic i hear you guys are ambitious you've got a good thing going you don't want to miss it uh it's exciting and if i could travel back in time i would plead with my former self like i would get down on my knees and plead do not listen to the cultural norm that's telling you to make this trade-off it is wrong it is wrong scientifically it is wrong biologically it is just, it's like, there is no virtue in this, that you're literally, you, you are lessening your quality as a human when you do this.

24:16You're not increasing it. Like people think it's an increase. Like they, they imagine it's a better investment of, of their energy. It's not, but it's so deeply embedded in our culture and everybody's doing it. So the pressure feels so intense. You have this FOMO and it's like, it's everything builds up. I just want to try to like land one more time. It really if you if you actually invest in at least just seven hours of sleep and make it a non negotiable, do it for a week, I think it will change your opinion, you can achieve everything you want to achieve without that sacrifice, you don't need to sacrifice that three hours a day, you can actually get it.

24:52And so it just leads to all these other problems when you don't sleep well, it leads to mood disorders, anxiety, depression, like your body's not getting what needs. And so you're more likely to fall into those bad states. When you do that, you're more likely to eat poorly. You're more likely to just like, it just creates this really negative loop. And so it just like I culture is killing us. We just have the wrong culture. And this I'm saying at any moment in time, how was culture killing a society in 1870? They didn't wash their hands between surgeries in 2025. How's culture killing us? It's telling us that sleep deprivation is okay for short durations of time or during certain periods of our life.