We spoke to Bryan Johnson on Moneywise.

Bryan started and sold Braintree, personally netting around $300m. 

Like all Moneywise episodes, Bryan breaks down his net worth, income, portfolio, and monthly expenses and then I, your humble host, pick it all apart.

We also went deep on his mission to earn the respect of the 25th century and why he believes his "Don't Die" ideology will rank among humanity's most important developments.

Below you'll find my summary of the episode along with the entire transcript. 

And by the way...this podcast, the concept of it came from Hampton.

Hampton members meet with their Core group each month. And one exercise they often do is called the Net Worth Reveal, which is when a member dives deep on their net worth, asset allocation and other parts of their person financials.

The goal? Get feedback from your tight knit peer group and be forced to defend your thinking (and potentially change).

If you're a founder that does at least $3 million in revenue per year, check out Hampton.

And if you just wanna be a little voyeuristic...don't worry, we've got you covered. New Moneywise episodes come out weekly

Now, below are the notes and the full transcript.

The numbers

Numbers from Bryan Johnson’s Moneywise Episode

• Current Net Worth: ~$200 million
• Total Earnings from Braintree Sale: $300 million (after-tax take)
• Time Spent Bootstrapping Braintree: 4–5 years (before raising outside capital)
• Years Running Braintree: 7 years (founded at 27, sold at 34)
• Personal Income During Braintree's Early Years: a couple tens of thousands
• First-Year Earnings as a Door-to-Door Credit Card Salesman: $180,000
• Personal Monthly Burn Rate (Ages 34–44): ~$10K–$20K. Rent back then: $5,000/month
• Investment Breakdown After Exit:
  • $100 million venture fund in deep tech
  • $64 million invested in Kernel (brain interface company)
  • $20–$30 million into Blueprint (longevity-focused nutrition and lifestyle business)
• Liquid vs. Illiquid Net Worth:
  • 60–70% of Net Worth is illiquid (mostly in startups and investments)
• Major Personal Purchases:
  • Private jet (later sold during COVID)
  • Adventure experiences: dog sledding in the Arctic, visiting an active volcano in Iceland
• Future Liquidity Events: Several startup investments are expected to IPO or be acquired soon

Building Wealth with Purpose

At 21, Bryan decided he wanted to "change the course of humanity." This wasn't just ambitious dreaming—it was strategic planning. He calculated exactly what he'd need:

• $7 million baseline to buy freedom and time (calculated in 2002)
• He made different tiers of capital needed: $50M, $250M, $1B, and several billion
• Each tier would unlock different possibilities for impact
• Ultimate goal: create something that would matter in the 25th century

"I bootstrapped Braintree, so for the first 4 or 5 years I took no outside capital," Bryan explains. "By year four we were around like 4 to 6 million thereabouts. But we were growing so fast and we had some of the fastest growing companies in the world as customers."

Strategic Investment After Exit

After selling Braintree for $300 million, Bryan deployed his capital:

• Created a $100 million venture fund focused on deep tech
• Invested $64 million in Kernel, a brain interface company
• Maintained surprisingly modest personal spending of $10-20k monthly
• Kept his housing costs low, renting a $5,000/month home
• Only major luxury purchase: a private jet (sold during Covid)

The Mission Over Money

Bryan's financial decisions are driven by his mission. He estimates he could have turned his exit money into $10 billion through conventional business ventures, but chose not to because "from the 25th century perspective, who cares?"

His current focus and capital allocation:

• Blueprint, his ecommerce and media company: $20-30 million invested in health optimization
• Don't Die: Building a global movement
• 60-70% of remaining wealth in illiquid investments, mostly startup investments.
• Current estimated net worth: "a couple hundred million"

A Different Measure of Success

"Most people's lives are compressed into one, maybe two sentences," Bryan reflects, citing a Wall Street Journal op-ed that shaped his thinking. "When you look through the lens of the 25th century, our time and place will be compressed into 2 or 3 things."

His criteria for success isn't measured in dollars but in lasting impact. He ranks his work alongside historical milestones:

"The printing press, enlightenment, industrial revolution, flight, personal computer, moon landing, internet, artificial intelligence, don't die. I really believe that don't die is on that scale."

Other Key Quotes

• "I could have taken that capital. I could have made it worth like 10 billion by now, by doing something that is boring and easy."
• "I am at peace knowing that I'm going to die in the most ironic way possible."
• "Cash is king. Never, ever make your money illiquid... That's the only tension."

Links You Might Like

• Blueprint - Bryan's health optimization protocol
• Don't Die - Bryan's movement and mission
• Bryan Johnson's Twitter
• Netflix Documentary featuring Bryan Johnson

FULL TRANSCRIPT

[00:00:02] Bryan Johnson: The printing press. Enlightenment, industrial revolution, flight, personal computer, moon landing, internet, artificial intelligence don't die.

[00:00:10] Sam Parr: You guys know Brian Johnson and his seemingly crazy project Don't Die. He's the guy who supposedly wants to live for forever. Well, that's kind of true, but it's missing the bigger point. A lot of people, they want to distill them down into a multi-millionaire who simply afraid of death. And by the way, he's not.

[00:00:28] Bryan Johnson: I am at peace knowing that I'm going to die in the most ironic way possible.

[00:00:33] Sam Parr: The thing is, Brian isn't just doing this because he has money. He has money because he's doing this, and that makes all the difference. Brian told me that his goal is to create something, so he's remembered for hundreds of years. And the thing that he wants to create is a way to, well, not die. And he got into this because he started a company and sold it for hundreds of millions of dollars. But he didn't get into this because he had all this money. He was looking for something to do. No. In fact, he started his company and sold it and made a lot of money because he needed a way to way to fund this. And so in this episode of Money Wise, we're going to talk to Brian in a way that nobody has talked to him before. We're going to talk about Brian, about how much money he made after selling his company, how much money he's currently spending now, how much he's worth right now, and how money is nothing more than a tool. And why making money for the sake of just making more money was always sort of a fruitless effort to him.

[00:01:20] Bryan Johnson: I could have taken that capital. I could have made it worth like 10 billion by now, by doing something that is boring and easy.

[00:01:27] Sam Parr: Hello, I am Sam Parr and this is money wise. Look, you can scroll through Instagram in just 10s. You're going to see content on how to get rich, but there's not a lot of content out there that teaches you how to handle life after you've already become rich. No one really talks about this category of people, people who are young and they've made a lot of money and what it feels like afterwards. The decisions, the pitfalls, and frankly, all the weird stuff that comes with being wealthy. And so that's what this podcast, money wise, is all about. I talked to people who have made a lot of money and they're radically transparent about it, meaning their numbers. So their portfolios, their net worth, their monthly expenses, their income, but also all the personal challenges that no one really warns you about after you've gotten a lot of money. Oh, and by the way, if you're listening or watching this and you are a CEO or a founder, check out my community. It's called join. Com it's where conversations like we're having now. They happen all of the time. All right. Now let's get to it. All right. So right now Brian Johnson is worth, if you had to guess.

[00:02:23] Bryan Johnson: Maybe a couple of hundred million.

[00:02:24] Sam Parr: That's less than what he sold his company Braintree for a while back.

[00:02:28] Bryan Johnson: Uh, 300 million was my take.

[00:02:30] Sam Parr: Like I said in the intro, Brian's goal for making money wasn't just to get rich. It was to support this huge mission he had. And right now, with $200 million, he thinks he has enough to make it happen. Now, this is money wise, which means we're obviously going to get deep into his financials. We're going to ask him all about his numbers and what his portfolio looks like, how he invests, how he allocates his money and how he spends his money. But first, let's figure out why does Brian need all this money, what's his mission, and what's he going to spend the money on?

[00:02:54] Bryan Johnson: It was at 21 where I feel like I finally came alive a little bit, and it was like, you know you know what? I really want to spend my life doing something that's going to change the course of humanity. Like, that's the only game I care about playing. And that was after living in extreme poverty for two years. And so it was just like that became my singular focus of existence is earn the respect of the 25th century.

[00:03:14] Sam Parr: So earn the respect of people who are years in advance. So looking back at what your life would be like, he did great. Now was it was the game like, so you launched or you started Braintree. It was the game or the mission. I'm going to make Braintree a huge success and I'm going to get incredibly wealthy. I'm going to use my wealth to do something interesting. Or was it like, I'm going to change payments or something like that?

[00:03:35] Bryan Johnson: No, it was entirely I'm going to make money and then change the course of humanity because like specifically, you know, I've read a lot of history and what you learn is that the greatest contributions were rarely really appreciated in their time. Like most of the time, they bump up against the status quo. They get the predictable hate, and then it takes a couple of decades or centuries for us to sort this out and be like, you know what? They were actually right. And so a like a really high level contribution isn't fully appreciated until at least some time in the future. And that's why I almost don't care. And I don't I don't want to care about what anyone thinks about me in this given moment.

[00:04:14] Sam Parr: But why do you care what they think about you in 2000 or in the 25th century? Because it's also like you're gone for hundreds of years. Who cares?

[00:04:22] Bryan Johnson: That's the standard of excellence, is that if if you're revered a few hundred years from now, you and your time and place did the most epic thing imaginable. So to me, it's like, that's like the ultimate manifestation. So even though I'm not present to appreciate that, I still acknowledge that as the most epic thing I could strive for as an intelligent being.

[00:04:42] Sam Parr: And by the way, keep in mind that at this point in Brian's story, he really didn't have an idea as to what that big monumental thing, what that actually was going to be, which meant that it was a little bit difficult to figure out how much money he had to have as his goal, or to set his sights on.

[00:04:58] Bryan Johnson: So there was like a lower level. There was 7 million on my lower level, and I just did some basic calculations of like, what is interest rate earning on 7% and what is inflation? And then what would sustain me? Like, what if I just need to buy my time at a I was in rural Utah. So like, you know how a house have like basics covered and then have time to do it and then you scale up to say, if I want resources to do a given thing, how much resources do I need? And so 7 million is a baseline to just buy myself free time.

[00:05:25] Sam Parr: But that was 7 million in what year?

[00:05:28] Bryan Johnson: Uh, so I did the calculation in, um, it was like 2002 thereabouts.

[00:05:33] Sam Parr: So that's like, I don't know, 15 million or something today. Then what was the upper end of that threshold where you're like, all right, I need 7 million just to hit the baseline. How much money do I need to, like, really get after it?

[00:05:44] Bryan Johnson: Yeah. I mean, there were like different tiers. So there's like, you can do with like a million. There's a different tier of like 50 million. There's a different of 250, then a billion and then a few billion. And each one of one of those tears enables a different gameplay. And so if you want to go after a big endeavor where you have to fund something for some long duration of time, but they're just different unlocks for different things. But then it depends on the vector. Like if you're trying to do something politically or artistically or scientifically or like you have to just look at the different vectors. That was the game I was trying to assess, like, okay, so if you're trying to change the future of humanity, there's a whole bunch of different vectors to contemplate. And you have to kind of piece the puzzle together, like where what's happening in this moment, what's happening in the coming moments, like what is the entry point to do it? And that that is a really hard thing to solve. Like, look, back in 1522, it was Magellan, like, you know, asking the craziest question in existence. Can can someone sail around the world? Is the world round or flat? And you walk through the time and place. People ask the craziest question that Eric can ask. And so trying to put your finger on that is really hard.

[00:06:48] Sam Parr: Bryan's big exit was from his company, Braintree. Braintree was a payments company. They owned an app called Venmo, which a lot of people know about. But like a lot of things on this podcast, I'm money wise. That success, it didn't come right away. In fact, it took him almost ten years of dedicating himself every single day on the business in order to make it have this big payday.

[00:07:06] Bryan Johnson: I started it when I was 27, sold it when I was 34.

[00:07:09] Sam Parr: So that was seven years in. Had you paid yourself any money?

[00:07:14] Bryan Johnson: No. I mean, I think actually probably no more than maybe a couple tens of thousands, like if that.

[00:07:23] Sam Parr: So then you probably had single digit thousands in your bank account, like, you know, not a lot at all.

[00:07:29] Bryan Johnson: I was poor for the first 3 or 4 years of life. Yes.

[00:07:32] Sam Parr: When you were doing Braintree, do you remember the annual revenue of the business as it was going and how that impacted your net worth? And if it was like, were you like counting off the days? You're like, all right, I just got to the 1 million threshold now. Like, if we get to like this much revenue, my stake is going to be in the 50 million, the next threshold.

[00:07:49] Bryan Johnson: Yeah. I mean, I bootstrapped Braintree, so for the first 4 or 5 years I took no outside capital. And so we were profitable from day one. And we I think by year four we were around like 4 to 6 million thereabouts. But we were growing so fast and we had some of the fastest growing companies in the world as customers like Airbnb, GitHub, Airbnb, um, and so I knew at that point, like it was going to be a runaway success, like we were right place, right time, right thing. And so I knew we'd either get acquired for a big dollar amount or IPO. So it was clear we had nailed it. I just didn't know, like to what degree we had nailed it.

[00:08:23] Sam Parr: What were you when you sold it?

[00:08:26] Bryan Johnson: Uh, 300 million was my take after tax. Before tax.

[00:08:31] Sam Parr: And so you made it almost into that 250, or you were pretty close at 250 category. Is that was that a base hit for you in your brain or was that a double a home run?

[00:08:42] Bryan Johnson: It was good enough to answer the question and have some courage to say, I can go after some interesting things, you know, like when you're just when you have your basic needs are met and you're more left to your intellectual ability to build something without capital, it's one game when you have a whole bunch of capital to play with. Different game. So yeah, it was enough to, like, make some meaningful bets.

[00:09:07] Sam Parr: What do you think with the percentage of that was luck or or or are you being brilliant?

[00:09:11] Bryan Johnson: Oh and luck. Like I, I did not, uh, survey the world and say, where are the gaps? You know, like, I, I was pursuing another entrepreneurial venture. Uh, I was dead broke. I needed money to pay my bills and to pay my mortgage. I had no income. I tried to get a job. No one wanted to hire me. So I found this job posting on Monster.com, which was like, sell credit card processing door to door. And I was like, fuck it, okay, I guess. And so it was only only doing that where I made 180 grand. My first year, I became the company's number one salesperson, just trying to pay my bills as I had this other company. And then I was like, oh damn, there's like actually a really good opportunity in payments. So it was accidentally. It was. I stumbled upon it by accident trying to actually build another company. So it was not like a case. I was surveying the world like, ah, I'm going to pluck this thing out of the air.

[00:10:02] Sam Parr: Now because of his big objective. Brian didn't feel at a loss of what to do with his money or his time, nor did he go on this huge spending spree. Well, with the exception of one big item.

[00:10:12] Bryan Johnson: The only thing I did is I bought a jet. I learned how to fly an airplane. Um, in the preceding years. I had a little prop plane that I had, a little small jet, so I bought a jet.

[00:10:21] Sam Parr: I mean, that's a great purchase. And do you still fly that?

[00:10:23] Bryan Johnson: I sold it during Covid.

[00:10:25] Sam Parr: But that was how you got around for a while. I mean, that's like, I think the number one thing, anyone who crosses nine figures in net worth, they go, I would love to fly private. And so you were able to do that? I mean, you're flying yourself private, but that's pretty cool.

[00:10:37] Bryan Johnson: Yeah. Yeah, that's the only thing. Otherwise, everything was pretty normal.

[00:10:40] Sam Parr: So how old are you now?

[00:10:41] Bryan Johnson: I'm 47.

[00:10:42] Sam Parr: So between 40, 34 and 44. What do you think? Like the average monthly burn for your personal life was.

[00:10:50] Bryan Johnson: Um. Ballpark on my personal front. I mean, honestly, it was something like. Maybe 10 to 20,000 a month.

[00:11:01] Sam Parr: No way. Yeah. No. That's it. Yeah. Do you have a family? Right? Yeah. No way. You. You spent 20. Only 20,000. Did you own your home outright?

[00:11:12] Bryan Johnson: Uh, we were, um, at that time, we were renting. We were renting a home.

[00:11:20] Sam Parr: And so then if I had to do the math, your rent was probably between 5 and $10,000 a month.

[00:11:24] Bryan Johnson: Yeah, I think five grand a month. Yeah.

[00:11:25] Sam Parr: So you're telling me at when you were worth 200 plus 200, $300 million, you were renting a $5,000 a month place, spending 20 grand. That's wild. Right? And you had no ego to go out and acquire things or experiences.

[00:11:40] Bryan Johnson: No. I mean, I did a few adventure trips, like, I, I drove a dog sled across the Arctic. I did, um, sweet. In Sweden, I, um, went to an active volcano in Iceland. But outside of a few adventure things I'd always wanted to do. No, it was entirely focusing on the 25th century. It just it didn't appeal to me to do other stuff.

[00:12:00] Sam Parr: Did you? With your money, what did you do with it? How did you invest it? Did you just do the boring 8020 index bonds? Did you have a plan? What did you do?

[00:12:07] Bryan Johnson: Yeah. The first thing I did was I created a $100 million venture fund, and I invested it in deep tech. So I did synthetic biology, genomics, computational therapeutics, nanotech. And so I was beginning to work out my thesis of like, what I'm trying to figure out, like, how do you understand reality in this moment and how the 21st century see this reality? And I thought, okay, the most interesting thing in the world right now is that we can predictably engineer atoms and molecules and organisms, and you can literally take an E coli program. It you can start looking at the genome, you can start programming that. And so with that ability we have root admin access to reality at all levels. And so I wanted to be in the trenches with entrepreneur scientists building this. So I So I really wanted this to be part of my education and just learn exactly what was happening. So I did that and then I started kernel, which was the brain interface company trying to basically my first two thesis.

[00:12:59] Sam Parr: Was that out of the same 100.

[00:13:00] Bryan Johnson: Oh no, that was another 60. Oh my God. I invested 64,000,000in kernel, 100,000,000in venture fund.

[00:13:06] Sam Parr: Now, armed with a few hundred million dollars, Brian had the means to do something pretty big. He just had to figure out what that thing was going to be. Here's how he went about figuring it out.

[00:13:16] Bryan Johnson: First, um, I held about 12 dinners across the US with some of my closest friends and my smartest people I knew, and we got together and I'd say, okay, this conversation for dinner is going to be about, um, the future. And I would say, let's imagine this is in 2016, 2017. Let's imagine we are in 2050 and we are celebrating because existence is just miraculous. Like, so marvelous. We can't even believe how cool it is. What did we focus on in 2016 to make it possible? Did I listen to everyone's thoughts? And at the time, people were talking about whatever's in the zeitgeist, like Typically, there are a certain set of technological topics that are on people's minds that are commonly discussed. And after the third dinner, I realized that the.

[00:13:55] Sam Parr: 2016 that was like crypto probably.

[00:13:58] Bryan Johnson: Ish. Yeah, like.

[00:14:00] Sam Parr: Sharing economy or maybe I don't know.

[00:14:02] Bryan Johnson: Exactly. So there's like by the third dinner, like all the same patterns started to emerge and I realized that every conversation was basically identical. Like, everyone was parroting the same ideas that just they kind of heard. And so I thought, okay, this is interesting. I'm going to write down all these ideas. I'm going to draw a box around it, and I'm going to say, in this box, I can't do any of these ideas. Like I can't do anything that anybody's thinking about because that's not interesting. Like the most interesting thing is what no one has identified. And so after 12 dinners, I was like, okay, now I have my map of what not to do. Now I need to map of what to do. And so that was my starting point. And so like the venture fund was like an exploration space of like, where can I learn the nuances and specifics of our ability to engineer reality. And then, Colonel, was this idea that AI is the most defining development in human history, and we're best served by pairing our minds with AI. Like, we need AI and humans to have this tighter integration. And so as to build a brain interface. And so we went through this, this two year exploration. Do we do an implantable. Do we do noninvasive. And so then we built a team. And we actually succeeded in building one of the world's best world's best brain interfaces. And then while I was doing that, that's when I started working on Blueprint and Don't Die. So it's kind of been like this serpentine evolutionary path, like how to find it. And I think that don't die is probably the best move.

[00:15:26] Sam Parr: So but I mean, these numbers are pretty big because, you know, a person will say, well, you sold it and you made something like $300 million and you paid taxes. I don't know what you had, but let's just say it's around 250 or something like that or 200. Um, you just took $164 million and put it into a privately held thing, which is inherently incredibly risky. Yeah. Like so you have, uh, what's that, 36 million or you have, I don't know, 30 to $70 million left. That's more than enough money. But that's like a huge percentage of your net worth that you put into these private stuffs. What was your math and calculus? Were you like, whatever I'm setting aside, first of all, what did you do with the stuff that you had left over? Was that the boring stuff, or did you also were you were you risk on with that? And what was the calculus between deciding how much to deploy wherever you deployed it?

[00:16:15] Bryan Johnson: Yeah, I mean, the calculus is that, you know, um, your prime years of trying to do epic things are, you know, typically between like 20 and 60 thereabouts, you know, post 60, it just becomes pretty hard. And so what I was identifying is I started this at 34. I assumed it was going to take me ten years to find my thing, like something that would be respected by the 25th century. You're not going to find it immediately. It's going to take some serpentine path. So that's why I wanted.

[00:16:43] Sam Parr: When you say fine, you mean deciding on what the thing that you're going to pursue is not even finding. You're not talking about the pursuit. You're saying this is what it's going to take just to get to the starting line of the race.

[00:16:53] Bryan Johnson: Exactly. Just like just because like if if you say there's been like, you know, ten major things that have happened to humanity over the past 700 years ish to try to find the next one, right? One. The statistical likelihood is very low at two, that you could pull it off is like equally statistically low. And so I knew that selling Braintree, I had to sell Braintree and get the cash at 34 because I had to start at 34 if I'm going to arrive at the idea by 44. And if I had the idea by 44, you need 15 years to build anything interesting. Like anything less than 15 years, you're never going to succeed. And so I thought, like, I have to have some kind of window to get it done. And so that's why I went in so hard and fast is like, you have to find your thing quickly, otherwise the game is going to be out of reach. And so it didn't make any sense to me to be conservative on because like, what am I going to do with a whole bunch of money anyways. You know, like, what can you like? It doesn't really buy happiness. Like. Not like I had enough money to take care of the basic needs. So it was really just like, let's just go all in for the. Yeah. Like the imagined goal of doing something that really is relevant a few hundred years from now.

[00:18:00] Sam Parr: What did you do? The rest of the money, then? The leftover? Like, did you set it into index funds in order to live off of.

[00:18:04] Bryan Johnson: Yeah, just a conservative investments. Yeah. Just like to hold on to the capital.

[00:18:08] Sam Parr: And that I imagine you haven't had significant income in the last, uh, 15 years or so. Like, do you just live off that?

[00:18:15] Bryan Johnson: Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. And then companies that have been acquired and investments I've made that the companies have been acquired. So there's been some payback on the investments.

[00:18:23] Sam Parr: Money is obviously not an insignificant part of Brian's life or his story, but it is refreshing to hear an exit story where wealth wasn't followed by a panic or purposelessness or a rush to recreate the past, which happens a ton in this podcast. We talked to a lot of people who make a lot of money, and they're kind of lost afterwards for him. Numbers in a bank account are purely functional, a means to support his mission, and beyond that, they don't really hold much meaning. Instead, he's got some more, bigger, more existential metrics for himself. And by the way, this part inspired me a ton.

[00:18:55] Bryan Johnson: I'm really compelled by this. Um, I read this Wall Street Journal op ed like 15 years ago, and this writer, Peggy Noonan, said that most people's lives. She said, you're lucky if your life is compressed into one, maybe two sentences. That over time, history compresses time, right? We look back at the third century and we say like 2 or 3, 2 or 3 things happened in the entire century. When you look through the lens of the 25th century, our time and place will be compressed into 2 or 3 things. So as rich as our lives are about, you know, doing all the wonderful things we're doing with our lives and going on vacations and like this technological advance or whatever, it's going to be compressed into this very small thing. And so over a long time horizon, compression happens. And so in this the apprenticeship model, what I was trying to say is, um, I don't care to play any game that's not going to survive compression, you know, like making more money. Who cares? You know, having $2 billion, who cares? Like totally insignificant game to play. Like, just not even worthwhile. The intellectual effort. And so yeah, it just the and also at 34, like I, I have been raised in a mormon religion, like I was in a deeply religious community and I needed I was just emerging from that community. I was also getting a divorce. I was also coming out of my decade long depression. So I had to, like, rebuild myself from scratch. Not just like physiologically, but ideologically. I had to understand, like, what do I believe and how do I think like the Mormonism had like, so, uh, so compressed my reality. And so I just like, needed to, to give birth to myself at age 34. And I knew that was going to take time. So I and it worked in terms of terms of like the ten year time period, allowed me to remake myself in really fundamental ways and try to get a clear head about myself.

[00:20:48] Sam Parr: I recently I, the president is one of my favorite topic American presidents, and I recently read this book that did like a 30 page biography on each president and then like gave like a synopsis of like was their actions good or bad and like it kind of whatever. You know, what's funny is you think the American president for the last 50 years, maybe the last 70 years, is arguably the most powerful, famous person on earth, right? Um, and there's presidents that I was reading about, and I'm like, I have no idea who Zachary Tyler is or Taylor, like, I have no idea what this person did. Like, you know, you could name like, ten presidents, but, like, can anyone, you know, most everyone listening to this won't know what Grover Cleveland did. Uh, like, it's just, you know what I mean? And I thought it was, I was it was actually like. It felt funny. I'm like the president of America. Uh, like, I don't. And that was only 80 years ago. I don't know who this person is, let alone all of the other Julius Caesar's. And so it's like it's kind of I actually kind of freaked me out where I'm like, nothing I can do will ever be remembered if I can't even remember this. And I basically most people can probably only remember roughly 500 people of the 10 billion people that have ever existed before the 1900. You know what I mean? It's like it feels weird. And that's so weird that or interesting that you were motivated by that because it seems like a daunting task.

[00:22:08] Bryan Johnson: Yeah, you're exactly right. It's like history vaporizes things and so you have to. It really is such a fun exercise. What survives the test of time? You're trying to find something that will fossilize. That is a structural component of intelligent existence. This is what I was trying to say is like, if you just zoom out on in this part of the galaxy, like what actually matters in this part of the galaxy, and then you're trying to sift away everything that doesn't. And you have to just like, keep on moving out and you realize Eyes like almost nothing matters. Like all the stuff we talk about every day and all the drama and politics and whatever. Like it doesn't matter. Like, clearly like it does contribute to this overall system. But yeah, that's that was the game I was trying to play. And I think a lot of people find it to be very foreign. But to me, this is like the coolest and most engaging game humans can play.

[00:23:01] Sam Parr: Which is the game of what? Legacy creation.

[00:23:04] Bryan Johnson: It's not even legacy. John Adams has this famous quote, right, where he focuses on war and politics so that next generations may focus on philosophy, etc. like you're trying to scaffold society and we live on top of the shoulders of those who made contributions in our past. So you're trying to make meaningful building block contributions to the future of intelligent existence. And the fortunate thing right now is it just so happens that this moment we actually can can pose the question. We may not just be building blocks, we may be around, which is the most insane thing any humans ever contemplated. And that's why I'm saying, like, don't die. It's not a cute catchphrase. It's not like, um, an attempt at being viral or popular or famous. It is legit. Trying to address the most interesting question in this part of the galaxy, and that is that we may be the first generation to not die. And if we take that seriously, so don't die. Like, what I'm trying to do is I'm trying to answer the most interesting and relevant question on planet Earth. And that is existence. Like nothing matters more than existence. And so if you if you piece together what giving birth to artificial intelligence, like we're giving birth to superintelligence, what does an intelligent species do? It secures its own existence.

[00:24:23] Sam Parr: Yeah. They, they they are around.

[00:24:26] Bryan Johnson: Yeah. So like like that fundamental insight. So Don't Die is the most played game by every human on the planet. Every second of every day. Don't die is played more than capitalism. Don't die has played more than any religion. Like Don't die is the interlocking locking theses and so don't die individually. Don't kill each other. Don't destroy the planet and align AI with don't die like it is the fundamental ideology political, moral, ethical, social, economic framework of our reality. It is the theory of everything that brings all of it together in this moment.

[00:24:52] Sam Parr: You. I would imagine you have some really interesting, um, if I had to guess, I'm projecting because I'm a little bit like this. But you seem more extreme than me, even on this. But do you give yourself, like, daily or weekly or monthly or annually odds on hitting your goals? So, for example, you said you wanted to be. You said there's ten people in the last 700 years. Do you remember what what are the odds that you're going to be the 11th as of today?

[00:25:18] Bryan Johnson: Yeah, I think the thesis is correct. I think that, um, it is don't Die is the most correct and practical memetic in existence. To address this moment that we give birth to superintelligence is the is the most correct memetic if you zoom out on this part of the galaxy, like what happens on this little ball in space that is giving birth to intelligence? And so I you know, I think it's correct. Like spot on bull's eye.

[00:25:50] Sam Parr: Being one of the ten or so people remembered a few hundred years from now. That's an intense goal. And it's not going to happen by being worth any specific amount of money. And I love that. That's a refreshing goal, if you ask me. And this is why growing his net worth is of no interest to him. First of all, you said something interesting where you're like, when you think about 500 years from now, like how much money you had, that's not really relevant, although it is a very useful tool. Although I have no idea if Magellan was wealthy or not, but I know that somebody funded Columbus and funded these guys. Um, do you care about making any more money now?

[00:26:26] Bryan Johnson: No, I sincerely don't.

[00:26:30] Sam Parr: Like, are you, like, again? Like, are you like, I'm not going to think about anything related to money. Like, will you even make an angel investment anymore. Or like when you're buying a home or you're like, um, let's think about like, does this fit within the budget? Can I, can I like, does any of that come into play?

[00:26:45] Bryan Johnson: I make every decision based upon do I have sufficient resources for the mission? So that's entirely my objective. And I don't spend any money frivolously. I'm very frugal and I don't make any angel investments because I put all my capital in blueprint and don't die. And so, I mean, of course, money is always useful and I would always say yes to a money making opportunity, but only is it is consistent with this, with this objective.

[00:27:12] Sam Parr: You said you put all of your money in. Don't die. What does that mean? How much money did you have to put in there? And when you say put in, what does that exactly mean?

[00:27:19] Bryan Johnson: So there's two things. One is I built a blueprint. So when blueprint went viral, people were like, amazing, I want to do this, but it's so damn hard. And I was like, okay, so like, I'll do you a solid and I'll make it so.

[00:27:29] Sam Parr: And The blueprint was basically a blog where you talked about every month you gave an update on the strange and wild experiments that you're doing on your body, starting with the simple stuff of working out. Then it scaled up to, like, all these crazy blood tests to measuring different parts of your body.

[00:27:43] Bryan Johnson: Right? Yeah, exactly. So last month, we shared this. I have the best biomarkers of anybody on planet Earth. I'm the healthiest person out of a billion people. And so we've succeeded. Like we actually we employed a scientific method. We shared all of our data. It's all according to scientists to accept the science. And so we achieved like we're the gold medal champion. We're number one in the entire world for health. And so we achieved something remarkable. Now in doing this, um, the world is like people are like, great, I want to do this too, but it's way too complicated. So like, okay, we'll do a solid. So over the past year, we have built everything I've done personally. All my foods, all my supplements, all my therapies. We've made it mass market consumable. And so it's a shit business. Like it's awful. Like, you know, finding foods and manufacturing foods is awful. It has so many problems. Its low margin. But I'm legit. Like most tech people focus on tech, which makes sense. No one focuses on boring food, but at the same time, it's why most of our food is toxic and why it's shit. And so we tried to basically bring excellence to food, which we've done. So now I think it's the best food protocol in the entire world. It's the cleanest. It has all third party lab results. So building that I've invested like, I don't know, I don't know if the accounting is maybe 20 or $30 million building that it's currently breakeven and then don't die. Is this effort of trying to build a global movement that's like global global ideology? And then I'm a content creator full time, and, um, that I still have my investments where I kind of hang out and spend some time with the science. But yeah, so that's really where my capital is at now. And so now the question is how to deploy my capital to make don't die a dominant global ideology.

[00:29:30] Sam Parr: How much money do you have left.

[00:29:32] Bryan Johnson: Oh I don't know. No like on liquid or liquid. Depends on how you value it. Maybe a couple hundred million.

[00:29:39] Sam Parr: And so do you think that you're going to run out doing this?

[00:29:42] Bryan Johnson: No.

[00:29:43] Sam Parr: Do you think you're good?

[00:29:44] Bryan Johnson: Yeah, I think I'm good. Yeah. The only problem I have is I have illiquid investments. Right. Like, if I could have gone back in time, the only counterargument I would have made to myself is, Brian, you're an entrepreneur. You're always going to be an entrepreneur. Cash is king. Never, ever make your money illiquid. Now that conflicts with this idea of like going into the deep science and the trenches and learning this stuff. So I benefit from benefited from doing that. But now like anything that's not liquid is not useful to me. And so that's the only tension.

[00:30:14] Sam Parr: I mean, but what percentage of that money left is illiquid.

[00:30:18] Bryan Johnson: I don't know. Probably like 60 to 70%.

[00:30:21] Sam Parr: That's a lot.

[00:30:22] Bryan Johnson: It's a lot. It's a lot. And like and right now I can't do anything with it. So it really sucks.

[00:30:26] Sam Parr: Can any of them pay off? Like I'm assuming you're talking about equity investments into startups.

[00:30:31] Bryan Johnson: Exactly. And there's several of these companies that are about to IPO or get acquired. So I've got some good cash coming. But like, um, if I had to do it again, I would, um, like, I would pare down the investments a little bit. I'd still do the scientific investments through the deep trench training because that was necessary for where I've been. Um, but I would definitely narrow it in a little bit. And just to just to say, like, Brian, like you're going to want accessibility to cash at any moment in time. Because the question like, during this ten year time period, I was like, what am I going to do in like ten years? Is a long enough time horizon for these investments to happen and for them to pay back. But ten years is not enough. Not enough time. It's like a much longer time span. But the thing is, I could have in that time span, I could have taken that capital. I could have made it worth like 10 billion by now, by doing something that is boring and easy. Like if you just apply that.

[00:31:21] Sam Parr: And you think, wait, walk me through this math. So let's say you had $250 million for numbers sake. You think that that $250 million in 2016, I think. So let's say let's just for round numbers. Ten years ago. You think you're 250 or 300 would be worth 10 billion now.

[00:31:38] Bryan Johnson: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think so. Like, just take a I could have applied it to a business and industry where competence creates value. Right. Like like there's, there's oh like even the most basic things like, um, like a mortgage business. Right. Like just like simple mortgage generation of homes where you come in and or you're doing basic competence stuff of like good customer service, clean rates, like, you know.

[00:32:09] Sam Parr: Yelp reviews.

[00:32:10] Bryan Johnson: Like whatever.

[00:32:11] Sam Parr: Like, like.

[00:32:12] Bryan Johnson: Super simple, basic blocking, tackling businesses of America that just like you take competence in an industry and you just clean up.

[00:32:21] Sam Parr: Wait. So wait, so do I understand this correctly? You're saying you wish you would have done that?

[00:32:26] Bryan Johnson: No, I'm saying you can, but I'm saying I didn't because it doesn't matter. Like from the 25th century perspective, who cares? It's it's forgotten all the time. It's like, why do it? I mean, this is my objective. Like, why do it?

[00:32:42] Sam Parr: I know what a lot of you are thinking right now. And that's why does any of this matter. And it's a fair question. Why should anyone care about being remembered hundreds or even thousands of years from now? Why not use all of that money that you have? Why don't you just use it to live an amazing life today for his family right now and just go wild? I don't think you're wrong for asking that question, but Brian's not wrong either. Think about this. What makes humanity move forward? What fuels all the leaps or the discoveries and the progress that we've made over the past few hundred years? It's people like Brian, people who are wired in these strange and insane ways, and people who can't imagine doing anything less than extraordinary stuff. But Brian knows not everyone is like that, and he doesn't advise that we all should be like that.

[00:33:27] Bryan Johnson: Everyone is decoding existence the best they can, and they're doing things that they care about and think are relevant. And there's no moral system that is superior to any other moral system. So like, whatever people are doing, it's great. And so I would not suggest their superiority at all. I would just simply say we are all choosing games to play with our precious consciousness. And I think this is an interesting one. And I do think that, um, I've, I've never known anyone who, uh, who pattern matches with me on trying to earn the respect of the 20th century. Everyone I know tries to earn the respect of their peers now, here and now. And I just think it's the wrong metric because it really limits the the human imagination and capability.

[00:34:21] Sam Parr: And that's rooted in what feeling in you of like that that 20 like what happened in your childhood or what book did you read where you said, it's important that people 400 years from now, or even ten years after I die, care about me. A lot of people, it's their children. They have a kid and they're like, oh my gosh, I never cared about this. Now I have a kid and like, I love you so much. I want to leave you a great life. What was it for the year 2500?

[00:34:47] Bryan Johnson: Yeah, it's, uh, it kind of is this deep rooted philosophical question of, um, what is the beauty of existence? You know, we find ourselves conscious on this planet. What is beauty? And to me, it's a it's a maximal expression of gratitude that, uh, a gratitude that I exist and it's attempting to give back to existence the full capacity of my intelligence.

[00:35:28] Sam Parr: That's so cool. That's so cool. It's a very emotional feeling. Kind of. It's, um. It's this weird mixture of, like, art and thankfulness and business. I mean, it's that's a that's a very strange feeling that I really like. What was there one thing that you read or consumed or happened to you that made you that gave you that Intel?

[00:35:46] Bryan Johnson: I think it's all my reading of biographies where I'd say my closest friends are historical figures that I've read about. I've read who are.

[00:35:56] Sam Parr: The top 3 or 4?

[00:35:58] Bryan Johnson: I mean, they're all so interwoven into my brain that I've read so much, and I've reread the books so many times that I can just have conversations with them and, like, understand their models of thinking. Um, I really do appreciate people in their time and place who endeavored really hard things, and they sifted through reality. Sometimes they were lucky, sometimes they were. They had a lot of forethought. And, you know, I have many close personal friendships where we resonate with these kinds of things. But it is a hard thing to find a friendship that the status quo. The now is so intoxicating.

[00:36:37] Sam Parr: I, um, I think it was FDR, um, who or sorry, JFK. He had a photo of Abraham Lincoln in the in the Oval Office, and he said, he goes, you know, I have that photo there because a lot of times I'll walk up to him and I'll just say, Abe, please give me some inspiration. Tell me how you would solve this problem. Like, how would you do, how would you do this? Who would be on your wall?

[00:37:01] Bryan Johnson: Um, you know, I think about the like the world is run by like a really small number of ideologies. So if you think like, just like, let's just pepper them. A few of them, like Confucius built up a lot of the eastern thought on the familial relationships Buddha was attempting to solve, like ego, death and planes of existence and reincarnation. Like he was like trying to solve, like, what do you do you do with existence and how do you deal with these emotions? We have, Muhammad said. Submit to God. Jesus said, I am the Son of God. Um, Adam Smith said, there's this invisible hand. America. America said, we the people. Marx said, class warfare. Um, you know, like, there's just like a very small number of ideas that run reality, and they just kind of sit at the base level of operating systems. And so I'd say those people are the ones I look to as like, how do you create the basis of conscious existence? The OS layer of how we build the scaffolding of our world. They would be my wall.

[00:38:06] Sam Parr: Most of the pressure that we talk on the show, the the pressure that people feel, that makes them want to make a lot of money. It's because they want to provide for their family. It's because they want to prove themselves to people around them. It's the pressure to succeed in business or or to be smart with their investments. What Brian wants to achieve with his life, which is to be remembered in 500 years. That's a whole other layer of pressure. But he doesn't feel it. Or at least he doesn't say he does.

[00:38:33] Bryan Johnson: I genuinely believe Don't Die is like, okay, let me read this off. So I wrote in sequence the printing press, enlightenment, industrial revolution, flight, personal computer, moon landing, internet, artificial intelligence. Don't die. I really believe that don't die is on that scale of.

[00:38:54] Sam Parr: Are those your ten inventions in the last 700 years?

[00:38:57] Bryan Johnson: Yeah. Like, you know, like there are others, but like, generally speaking, things that. Yeah, things that change the course of humanity. And I do that don't die. Yeah. Is like basically is a peer to those.

[00:39:10] Sam Parr: That's kind of, um, like when I hear you. Okay. So you said that you put all of your money into don't die. That's sort of like how Elon Musk has kind of phrased, um, SpaceX and Tesla and these things where he's like, what's what's more important than this? And when I hear you say it, it's sort of like when I watch a James Bond movie where I'm like, this is badass. It's a guy saving the world, getting the girl, living the life of adventure. It's awesome because I know it ends well. Uh, and I'm like, I want to do that. And then when it comes down to it, you kind of get fearful. You get a little nervous, you know, like, you're like, what if this fails? Or what if I have nothing or I got to work really hard? Does do you get fearful of losing all your money and like, going into obscurity and not having any type of legacy or impact?

[00:39:59] Bryan Johnson: No. I mean, um, I guess the interesting thing is I'm entirely at peace with existence. I'm at peace with death. I am at peace knowing that I'm going to die in the most ironic way possible.

[00:40:15] Sam Parr: Yeah. Getting hit by a bus or something?

[00:40:17] Bryan Johnson: Yes.

[00:40:17] Sam Parr: Falling down a set of stairs.

[00:40:19] Bryan Johnson: Like there's no truer truth than irony. And so I'm totally reconciled, and I honestly feel like at this point in time, I've done my deed like I found it. I did it, I birthed it. Now every day that passes by, it's going to be stronger. And I do want to build Don't Die into the fastest growing ideology in the history of the human race. In the coming years, I want this to be like the way the species understands itself. But now, having said that, I think that the foundation is laid and I feel like it's been achieved that others will pick this thing up. So yeah, I really am reconciled with existence.

[00:41:01] Sam Parr: Now, before we get to some final advice, I want to really stress that this isn't like a project that Brian has on the side while he's investing his money, or like managing his money or doing whatever. A lot of people think that, like really wealthy people do, which is mostly correct. They are managing their money. That's not the case with Brian. Brian's entire life, all of his wealth, all of his time. It's entirely dedicated to this singular mission, and I think that's awesome. I think the world needs people like that. It's okay if you aren't like that. It's okay if I'm not like that. And it's awesome that people like Brian are like that. His family office, so his accountants, his financial advisors, they've all been directed to make this project the number one sole priority.

[00:41:41] Bryan Johnson: I've been very, very clear. The goal is the 25th centuries. Respect. That's it. Everything we do has to have a checkbox by their approval system, like how we're going to be viewed a few hundred years from the future. And that is the horizon. And that's what we're pegged to. And once we have that, it's very easy to not deviate because there's so many ways to slip into the ephemeral and the now. But I'd say we're aligned. And now that we've got a clear direction, I think it's just much easier. Whereas before, when we were playing with various paths, it was harder to make that discussion. But now we're there. It's much easier.

[00:42:21] Sam Parr: Do you think this is like a, I don't know, like, do you even think this? Like, I think when I die, this is what I want to leave for my children. Now, if you think you're not going to die, do you even have that conversation? And if you do, do you even think of like, this is like, do you or are you on the boat of you guys are on your own and I, you know, and the greater gift that I'm giving is that I have created this thing.

[00:42:43] Bryan Johnson: Yeah. I mean, for better or for worse, I, I view humanity as the beneficiaries. You know, I certainly love my children. I do my very best to be a fantastic father. Um, but they do not receive disproportional, um, financial resources. I, I view the species as the beneficiaries.

[00:43:08] Speaker3: Of the gold I've been running for on it. Like I woke up in one the top brow.

[00:43:15] Sam Parr: Brian's a very cool guy. If you want to learn more about the specifics of his project, there's actually a documentary on Netflix about him that just came out. I first interviewed Bryan, I think like three years ago on my other podcast, MFM. And I think we were the first interview that he ever did. And apparently that interview is in the Netflix show. So if you watch it and you see it, let me know. Now, in terms of what we can learn from Bryan in this episode, the lesson here isn't you should be trying to change the world and be remembered forever. I don't think that's the lesson. I think the takeaway here is that money should not be the main goal. I think it could be part of the main goal, but I think that once you have a certain amount, once you can pay rent easily or repeatedly. Once you can pay your mortgage, you have a little bit of breathing room. I think that your goals should be beyond money. I think that can be one of the goals. But I think when you dedicate your life to chasing a number, I think it's empty feeling. I also think it's boring. Bryan said something amazing. He said, I want to dedicate my life to being remembered in the year 2500.

[00:44:12] Sam Parr: I personally find that to be incredibly intimidating but incredibly exciting, and if I have a goal like that for myself, which this podcast that we did, it made me want to create a goal like that. It makes it a lot more exciting to wake up in the morning and to get after it during the day. It also makes it way easier to overcome a bunch of adversity when you have some big goal like that, I love that. I also love how he goes all in. If you look Brian up on Twitter, on YouTube, Brian gets tons of hate. But he's doing this because I think he genuinely feels it's a good thing to do. And I also think it just makes him happy. And I love people that are unapologetically themselves, and they go all in on what that means. And there's gonna be a lot of people, by the way, who make fun of Brian on this podcast, and I think you should just give them a lot of credit for being himself, even if that self isn't something that you're into. And so I appreciate people like Brian. Oh, and by the way, if you're the CEO, owner, founder of a startup, you have to check out my company Hampton. It's join Hampton.

[00:45:08] Sam Parr: Com I made this podcast money wise because I own Hampton. Hampton is an online and in real life community where we have thousands of CEOs of startups. So our average company does something like 25, 2530 million in revenue, but they range all the way from 3 million in revenue to much bigger, like publicly traded multi-billion dollar companies. And I'm able to see all types of conversations about money, about success, about being nervous, about failure. I see all these conversations and I thought, you know, I think a lot of these need to happen publicly, and that's this podcast. But if you want to have conversations like this all of the time, please check it out. Join hampton.com. We host hundreds of in real life events throughout the country throughout America. And so if you want to connect with other founders I'm telling you this thing is game changing. So join hampton.com. And finally this podcast. It was made by a company called Lower Street Lower Street Moneywise. If you want to make a podcast like this. So if you like money wise and you own a business and you think I would like to get new customers, I would like to do it via content, well check out lower street, lower street slash money wise. All right. Peace.