Profile: Brian Johnson
Brian Johnson—you can’t talk about longevity these days without coming across his name (and no, not that Brian Johnson – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Johnson).The 46-year-old tech entrepreneur-turned-longevity guru has become a fixture in the media. He’s extraordinarily wealthy and extraordinarily dedicated to “not dying“. His longevity routines are extreme and embrace every experimental technique out there from blood transfusions and hyperbaric chambers to just about every anti-aging drug and supplement you’ve ever heard of (and many you haven’t). The man is a walking bio-hacking experiment. He’s also one of the founders of the Rejuvenation Olympics and the TrueAge tests that power the contest’s rankings.
Mr. Johnson’s routines are so extensive I’m going to forgo my normal bullet points and just send you to his Blueprint Protocol Don’t Die Website. It’s quite the rabbit hole.
My Take:
I know a lot of people are turned off by him. He’s a polarizing figure. My own two cents is that I appreciate him playing guinea pig so the rest of us don’t have to. If you ignore the sensational news clips and dive into what he actually does you’ll discover he’s actually very data driven and far less of a kook than portrayed. I still wouldn’t hold him up as a model to emulate but rather as an experiment to watch with curiosity and healthy skepticism.
His mantra of “do not die” and his belief in living forever echoes the ideas popularized by Ray Kurzweil two decades ago during the “singularity” movement. I’ve no idea if Mr. Johnson really believes these things are he’s just trying to capitalizing on the burgeoning longevity market to sell health supplement – either way, he’s definitely pushing a conversation that’s very interesting.
Takeaways for You:
A mother’s admonition to her rambunctious kid in an antique shop comes to mind: “Look but don’t touch!”. His routine is so expensive, so extensive, and so ever-changing that I’m not sure there’s much the average person could draw from it quite yet. Sit back and let him do his thing and let’s see what he settles on in five to ten years.