Tech tycoon uses blood from his son to stay young forever

Meet Bryan Johnson, the health-obsessed tech tycoon trying to reverse his age to 18 again. After selling his payment platform Braintree (plus Venmo) to PayPal for $800 million, he became fabulously rich. On the Lex Fridman podcast, he said his goal was always to make enough money to dedicate his life to something positive for humanity.

Here, he's pictured in 2017, before he embarked on his extreme reverse-aging journey.

Johnson, 45, has risen to prominence recently for announcing Project Blueprint. That’s what he calls his work with a team of doctors and leading researchers to test out anti-aging science at its most extreme level.

Photo: Blueprint/ Bryan Johnson (https://blueprint.bryanjohnson.co)

One of his goals is to reverse his measured biological age by 1.01 years for each year that passes. That, he says in a Medium post, means reaching the first stage of “aging escape velocity.” Besides what seems like an attempt at immortality, he wants to make his body function as it did when he was 18.

Photo: Blueprint / Bryan Johnson (cropped)

As part of his project, he has hired a team of 30 doctors and experts to help reverse the aging process in every single one of his organs. “What I do may sound extreme, but I’m trying to prove that self-harm and decay are not inevitable,” he told Bloomberg.

Image: Bryan Johnson, 'Why I Am Spending Millions To Be 18 Again' / Youtube

Bloomberg reports that he is budgeting to spend at least $2 million in 2023 on his attempt at perfecting his body. However, his website says eating what he eats and taking the same supplements costs $1,684.50 per week in the US.

Photo: Blueprint / Bryan Johnson (cropped)

In Medium, Johnson said that the journey began when he decided to “fire evening Bryan,” who loved late-night binge eating but had terrible effects on the “other Bryans.” It started as tinkering to bring night-time eating under control but turned into a stringent regime that pushes willpower to the max.

Image: Bryan Johnson, 'Why I Am Spending Millions To Be 18 Again' / Youtube

The eccentric millionaire is even getting his family involved. In what he described as "the world's first multi-generational plasma exchange," he was infused with plasma extracted from a liter of blood taken from his son. He also donated plasma to his father. Why? He says, "there is emerging evidence that plasma exchanges may offer various health benefits."

Photo: Bryanjohnson_ / Instagram

In a slickly made Youtube video documenting the whole "epic" journey, Johnson called the whole blood-swapping experience with his son and dad one of the sweetest and most beautiful experiences of his life. "We were divided by the mind, and we were united by biology," he said.

Image: Will My Son’s Blood Make Me Younger? Bryan Johnson/Youtube

Instead of listening to what he wants at any given moment, Johnson says he only listens to what his 70+ organs tell him. Any tweaks to his routine are made in response to data. He uses every analytical test under the sun to consistently measure the health of his bodily functions.

Image: Bryan Johnson, 'Why I Am Spending Millions To Be 18 Again' / Youtube

In early 2023, Johnson is eating precisely 1,977 calories daily and is totally vegan. He eats over 70 pounds of veggies, berries, and nuts per month. His diet, however, is being constantly tweaked according to blood and other tests. For example, back in 2021 (pictured), he only ate one meal per day.

Photo: Bryanjohnson_ / Instagram

Johnson starts every day at around 5 am. According to a video on his website, he weighs himself and meditates. Then, has the same green drink each day made of water, spermidine, amino complex, creatine, collagen peptides, cocoa flavanols, and Ceylon cinnamon, according to his website, which breaks everything down in detail. The drink also helps him swallow around 25 pills.

Image: Bryan Johnson, 'A typical Blueprint morning' / Youtube, November 2021

Supplements and medicines play a big role. Alongside his morning drink, Johnson also takes two dozen pills first thing. “There’s lycopene for artery and skin health; metformin to prevent bowel polyps; turmeric, black pepper, and ginger root for liver enzymes and to reduce inflammation; zinc to supplement his vegan diet; and a microdose of lithium for, he says, brain health,” writes Bloomberg.

Image: Bryan Johnson, 'Why I Am Spending Millions To Be 18 Again' / Youtube

After the drink, he embarks on an hour-long workout that includes 25 different exercises that range from stretching to squats and weights. Three times per week, he does 10 minutes of high-intensity interval training. On the weekends, he goes hiking.

Photo: Blueprint / Bryan Johnson

The skin is just one of the many organs he is obsessed with making happy. The team is trying to formulate the perfect skin cream, though one attempt turned his skin orange. For his hair (judged by greyness and volume), he uses a custom formulation, a laser cap, injections, and micro-needling.

Image: Bryan Johnson, 'A typical Blueprint morning' / Youtube, November 2021

His daily dental protocol isn’t casual, either. It involves brushing, using a waterpik and flossing twice per day, using a tongue scraper, tea tree oil rinse and coq10 gel for his gums. His dentist told him he has the gums of a healthy teenager, according to his website.

Photo: Blueprint / Bryan Johnson

First, he eats breakfast — always a concoction of lentils, broccoli, and other veggies blended to create a greenish pudding. Before noon, he also eats lunch, which seems to vary daily. Examples include a stuffed sweet potato, orange fennel salad, or asparagus almond beet salad.

Image: Bryan Johnson, 'Why I Am Spending Millions To Be 18 Again' / Youtube

In a blog post from 2018, he explained his night-time routine: in bed between 8:45 and 9:30 pm, after a 1-hour wind down from work, a 5-10 minute meditation, and wearing “blue light blocking glasses” from 7 pm. He also uses a deep wave sound machine and a “chilipad” to keep his mattress at the perfect temperature.

Image: Bryan Johnson's past week sleep performance March 20,2023 via @Bryan_Johnson/Twitter

In 2022, he said he reversed his aging biomarkers from 47 to 42.5 in seven months. He says he’s now aging more slowly than the average ten-year-old, has ideal muscle and fat, more than 50 optimal biomarkers and his body runs 3F cooler than it did when he started.

Photo: Blueprint / Bryan Johnson (cropped)

On a parallel track with Elon Musk’s Neuralink is Johnson’s Kernel. It’s a portable hat device (pictured) that measures brain activity. Johnson has suffered from clinical depression and hopes this can help doctors and individuals use real brain data to better personalize mental health protocols too.

Photo: Blueprint / Bryan Johnson