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- [00:00]
Chris Cuomo
Brian Johnson, what do you know about him? Oh, that's the Braintree guy. Oh, there's Venmo. He made a lot of money. Heard something about baby's blood and some kind of weird stuff in New York Times. I don't think you know a damn thing. In fact, I believe that he is one of the most popular victims of false recognition. He is onto something that is so fundamental that it is crazy that it has become this kind of point of conflict, this controversy. Brian Johnson is a nontroversy, and that's why I wanted to talk to him. He is a great living example of how obsessed we are with getting things wrong. Brian Johnson, very good to meet you. Thank you for taking the opportunity to be here on the project.
- [01:02]
Brian Johnson
Yeah, happy to be here.
- [01:04]
Chris Cuomo
So there are so many interesting things about you as a character, as a figure in our social commentary, in the wellness space, in our innovators space. How do you see yourself?
- [01:20]
Brian Johnson
I think it'd be from the perspective of those that exist in the year 2500. They would say that was the first human, the first homo sapiens that figured out that they were not going to die.
- [01:32]
Chris Cuomo
And how do you reconcile that with mortality as a precept?
- [01:37]
Brian Johnson
Yeah, I would say that they, looking back, if you travel in time a few hundred years, I think they might look back the early 21st century, our time and place, and say two things of significance happened in that moment. One, that's when humans gave birth to super intelligence. And number two is that's when humans figured out they didn't need to die. And so it was a tremendous change in how we think about. Whereas when life, when death is inevitable, you yolo your way, you pick your game and yolo your way to death. But when you start beginning to expand the horizon of how long and how well you can live and that keeps on extending, we enter into a new phase of being human where we just value life differently than we do now.
- [02:18]
Chris Cuomo
How do you value it?
- [02:21]
Brian Johnson
I think that right now you say the highest values of society are wealth, power and status. I mean, that is like the. The primary mean, the primary objective of how we spend most of our time and efforts today. And I would say the new virtue that's emergent is existence is the highest virtue with no qualifications.
- [02:40]
Chris Cuomo
Meaning just expanding or extending the time that you have.
- [02:46]
Brian Johnson
Yeah, just being alive.
- [02:49]
Chris Cuomo
What do you think is the outer limit of how long you can live?
- [02:54]
Brian Johnson
I don't think anyone knows. I think that if in the coming years, if. If we start showing that we can add a Year of life every year. Then at that point, you know, and then it accelerates. On five years, we're adding two years of life for every year, then three years of life. I think it's a possibility where our imaginations may extend from, you know, 120 to 150 to 180 to 200. And we then begin saying, like, honestly, we're not quite sure where it ends, because we can rejuvenate our body, we can rejuvenate the organs, we can address disease. We might get to a point where we say, honestly, we don't know why outside of an accidental death, we're not quite sure how. We're not able to solve anything that would cause death. Now, this is, of course, I'm imaginative, but I'm also saying that this is not like we're trying to find out a faster way to travel in the speed of light. This is in forms of biology. There are immortal biological species. And so immortality has been solved by biology, just not in humans. But it's not that it's a problem that defies the laws of physics. It can be done.
- [03:55]
Chris Cuomo
What do you think the key is?
- [03:58]
Brian Johnson
More intelligence. So I think that if you look at AI coming on board, it's like, basically bringing on a few billion human geniuses in the coming years that will work on these kind of breakthroughs. So if you look at our health and wellness and how it's improved, there's been a few key insights. For example, discovering that germs, these microscopic objects, are a vector for disease, for infection, that can lead to death. And so we're probably not too far away from just a few discoveries really helping us figure out how we slow down our speed of aging, reverse aging, damage, and then address disease. So I'd say once we get more robust AI systems, we'll probably be on our way.
- [04:40]
Chris Cuomo
So for you, the journey is what is yet to come that will keep you alive because you get all of this attention, slash notoriety for what you've done already. But when I listen to you, it sounds like you don't believe you've scratched the surface. Like, you don't think you've figured it out yet. You believe you will.
- [04:59]
Brian Johnson
Exactly. I don't think that there's currently any technology in the world that can meaningfully extend someone's life past 120. You know, I think that's probably towards the top end of the ability. I think you can extend your healthy life. So if the. If a life expectancy is 79, you may be able to go far above that with healthy choices. But this is not the case where we have solved for 200 year lifespans. And what I'm trying to say, my sole contribution to the species is to say we are at this critical moment as an intelligent species on this planet. We are transitioning from death being inevitable to don't die. That don't die is the new ideology of the world. It's the don't die individually, don't kill each other, care for the planet, and align AI with no die. My endeavor is entirely about AI and the importance of navigating this situation so that we can continue our existence. So really it's not a meta layer of how we're navigating as a species. It's really less about individual health, but individual health is more of a representation of how we as a species value life collectively.
- [06:07]
Chris Cuomo
So if you believe it is still to be achieved and that there is some value missing, understanding that AI will be able to unpack. Why such adherence to different techniques and practices as you are known for.
- [06:22]
Brian Johnson
Now, I'm trying to, I'm trying to, to demonstrate that the way we live our lives now, we, we embrace die. So when, when somebody does something like they smoke or they drink or they consume junk food or they, or they vape something that lessens their life, it's a disrespect for existence. You're committing slow suicide. And even though the person will say that's a trade off, like I want to have pleasure in this moment or I want to be living life, like whatever story they're trying to say, that same kind of thought process is the same way we treat planet Earth. So we treat our bodies the same way we treat planet Earth, and it's the same way we build AI and so these same psychological principles of whether we go to bed on time, whether we exercise, whether we have a good diet or bad diet, whether we do good or bad stuff, is a psychological phenomena that permeates all of society. And what I'm saying is as a species, we, when you're giving birth to super intelligence, death is the only foe. And so to be that, you have to actually have those behaviors in your life. And so what I'm trying to say is it is time for us to adopt a new way of being and the first way of doing like the thing in our power. Like for example, when someone says, I'm worried about the climate because of blank right now, put aside whether you believe it or not, people feel powerless. They'll say, like, what am I supposed to recycle my Amazon boxes, What do I do? And so in this moment of where AI is raising all these really complicated questions about what's going to happen, I'm saying we each have power. And that power is to embrace existence in your personal daily life. And it has this really compound effect where I start doing it and then my friend Chris starts doing it, and then Chris's mom starts doing it. So it's really meant to change society at a cultural level.
- [08:12]
Chris Cuomo
When did you realize that there were things that you could do that would extend your life that you would never imagine doing before?
- [08:22]
Brian Johnson
It was an open question. I mean, I sold my company Braintree, Venmo and made quite a bit of money. And I have this question, what do I do? And I did this, that thought experiment where I imagine being present in the year 2500 and, and they're the ones I've listening to them talking about and they're conversing with themselves and they're saying, what did Homo sapiens do? Those primitive Homo sapiens that lived in the year 2025? And I think they say that's when they realized the pieces of the puzzle were coming together, that they weren't going to die. And so I thought, I need to basically be this new philosophy. And so I hired a team of 30 medical professionals, we looked through all the scientific evidence. I became the most biologically measured person in history. And then we did all the therapies. And so today I have arguably the best biomarkers of anybody on the planet.
- [09:09]
Chris Cuomo
What does that mean?
- [09:10]
Brian Johnson
So if you, if you say, like, how do you determine the health of a person? You can start with basic ones like you say, are they morbidly obese or are they, you know, a healthy bmi? You can say, what is their blood glucose level, what are their cholesterol levels, what is the blood pressure? What is their level? What are their levels of systematic inflammation? So if you look at the six, some of the 60 most powerful markers for longevity, I have the best biomarkers. And this is not just for 47 year olds, this is 20 year olds too. I've posted all my data online and said, hey, I've got the best biomarkers of anybody in the world. If somebody's better than me, share the data. But what I've tried to show is that you can systematically, scientifically go through the evidence, find the therapies at work, measure yourself robustly and then show the data. So I've tried to create this new, almost like competitive sport, you know, where like once you give something numbers and you get rankings. Humans get pretty fired up. And I'm trying to say there's a richest man in the world, there's a fastest person in the world, who's the healthiest person in the world. And I've tried to claim that title.
- [10:10]
Chris Cuomo
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- [12:03]
Brian Johnson
Yeah, 43 years old and I was a mess. I was obese. I had come off a decade of chronic depression. I'd been an entrepreneur for 20 years. Grind my grinding myself to the bone, terrible sleep. I was an absolute mess. And so to turn that around is, I think really hopeful for everybody. That no matter where you're at, your body can bounce back very strongly. And so I think, to me, that's been the most interesting thing. I mean, for example, one marker that's interesting is my speed of Aging. My three best average test average is 0.54, which means at that level, your birthday happens every two years. So you can dramatically slow down how fast your house, how quickly your body ages.
- [12:39]
Chris Cuomo
So, yeah, what worked for you? What are the big three?
- [12:44]
Brian Johnson
Yeah, I would, I would say just one thing, actually. I would compress everything I do into one thing. That is your resting heart rate before sleep. So tonight, before you go to bed, when you're laying down on your pillow, if you have a wearable, pull that up and see your resting heart rate in real time. Or just take a pulse on your neck, but take a few deep breaths and find your baseline resting heart rate. Now let's just say it's 60 beats per minute. Your goal over the next month is to lower it to 55 beats per minute, and then the next month down to 52. And what you're gonna find is the lower your resting heart rate before bed, the, the better your sleep. The better your sleep, the greater the probability you're gonna exercise. The more you exercise, the more likely you're gonna eat well. And so resting heart rate is like the number one marker I track because it's the best predictor of sleep quality and sleep quality predicts all of the things. And so then your life becomes how to manage your resting heart rate. So for example, if your bedtime is 10pm, you want to have your final meal of the day around 6pm After 6pm, no food, so no snacks, no meals. You want to give your body time to digest because then that allows your body to be finished in digestion, your heart rate to be down. Second thing is you want to have a wind down routine before you go to bed. So 10pm happens by 9pm, phones are off, screens are off, and you're reading a book or going for a walk or having, you know, a nice conversation with a friend or meditating. But you need to calm your body and mind down from the day because if you're a stress, your heart rate is up. And so now your life becomes how to manage stress and food and everything. To lower your heart rate, you want to exercise earlier in the day, six hours of, within six hours of your bedtime, your heart rate will be up. So I say heart rate before bed is like the number one marker.
- [14:23]
Chris Cuomo
So why is it that when I google your Name you become known for. Baby's blood and penis extension.
- [14:30]
Brian Johnson
Yeah, because I'll start with the penis one first. Because, you know, I discovered that sleep is the number one best performance enhancing drug in the world. It is by far the number one longevity therapy.
- [14:45]
Chris Cuomo
And you sleep 12 hours a day?
- [14:48]
Brian Johnson
Eight. Seven to eight.
- [14:49]
Chris Cuomo
Oh, eight. Not 12.
- [14:50]
Brian Johnson
Nope. Seven to eight hours is all.
- [14:52]
Chris Cuomo
Because when I was reading 12, I was like, I get that you were very successful with what you did, but 12 hours a day, I mean, that's a, you know, that's a lot of sleep. All right, good. So eight hours. And why is that number the right number? Because it's always been eight. Right. And I always felt that it must have been randomized. But what have you learned about why that's the right number?
- [15:11]
Brian Johnson
Yeah, so actually it's a, it's a U shaped curve. Too little is bad, too much is bad. So 7 to 8 is ideal if you're active. You know, it's 8 on the upper side of 8. But yeah, it's, it's really the, the best performance enhancing drug. And so I would tell people, do one thing, sleep well. And then of course, like, if you sleep well, you do a low resting heart rate. But then people would be like, yeah, yeah, yeah, whatever. And then I learned through a bunch of experiments that if you don't sleep well, your nighttime boners go away.
- [15:43]
Chris Cuomo
So every night, I thought it was just my age.
- [15:47]
Brian Johnson
Yeah. Males and females, every single night, you go through multiple cycles of arousal. So, like, you know this from your life experience that you'll wake up and you'll sometimes be aroused. Right. This is a way for the body to just maintain itself. And so it happens without you knowing. And then as you age, they'll naturally go down. And so men who are not experiencing nighttime tum essence boners have an increased 70% chance of dying prematurity in the next five years. So it's one of the most important biomarkers any man can know. And so what I started telling my friends is I would say, like, look, here's the age chart. If you're age 18, you're not 10 boners, you're going to be somewhere around 2 hours and 45 minutes or so. You, if you're age 70, they're like 55 minutes or dropped off a cliff. And they would message me and be like, I'm not having any that I can detect. And so what I was trying to tell people is when you don't sleep, your body shuts down your penis. That's how bad it is. And then people will be like, oh, now I get it. Sleep is important. And so I try to use language and examples where people are like, I get it, because nobody wants their penis to be broken. So connecting the penis to sleep is a way for people, like, I get it. Now I'm willing to prioritize sleep. So I've really tried to make it understandable. And I want to motivate people to really put in the hard work to prioritize health.
- [17:08]
Chris Cuomo
If you want to motivate them, tell them it makes their penis bigger is what you need to do. Hard penis can just be an inconvenience if you're with somebody you don't want to have sex with. But a big penis is always a plus. So what about supplementation? I read that you take a lot of stuff. Do you believe in hormone growth therapy? Do you believe in augmenting testosterone and other amino chains? What do you think about that stuff?
- [17:35]
Brian Johnson
Yes. On all these questions, I always revert back to measurement. And I just say, the thing that has allowed us to be number one in the world is we measure everything. So if we have a given question, like testosterone replacement therapy or take your given supplement, we say, what is the evidence? Baseline, uh, what did the study say? And then let's put it in me and we'll measure it. And so whatever someone's doing. So we've just simply followed the evidence. And so my. I, currently I'm 47 years old. I do caloric restriction, which means I eat 2,250 calories a day. So I'm 10% below average. Um, my muscle is the top 1%. My fat is the top 1%. Ideal. Um, and I do 130 grams of protein per day, and my testosterone levels are above 700. So naturally, I'm not on testosterone replacement therapy.
- [18:20]
Chris Cuomo
You're above 700 at 47 without any supplementation.
- [18:26]
Brian Johnson
Exactly.
- [18:27]
Chris Cuomo
That's very high. That's very impressive. What is your height and weight?
- [18:33]
Brian Johnson
6 foot and 175.
- [18:35]
Chris Cuomo
So you're lean. So you're, you're good height lean. So you're above average height, below average weight, but you're lean. Your body fat, like the real one on a deca skin is like, what, 12, 13.
- [18:46]
Brian Johnson
Exactly. Yeah. 10, 11. Yep.
- [18:48]
Chris Cuomo
So that's. So you're super fit, but you're not obsessed with fitness. You work out, you believe in hit training, but you're not like, I'm gonna train 20 hours a day. And that is the key. More is always better. You Believe the only more is better is sleep up to a certain point.
- [19:06]
Brian Johnson
Yeah. I've learned this in all things health and wellness. It's all a U shaped curve. Too little is bad, too much is bad. Everything. So yes, you're right. On exercise I try to hit the exact number to not exceed that. So everything is, has to be in a careful balance.
- [19:21]
Chris Cuomo
Now it's interesting, you talk about food and you talk about your calories, but you're not selling something like you got to have ginkgo biloba every day. You have to eat avocados. Here are your superfoods. This is the blue zones. And you know, and this is, I only eat almonds. You know, like all. It seems that people are very drawn to. I guess it's our psychology of a pill for every illness that there's gotta be a shortcut. What have you learned about shortcuts?
- [19:53]
Brian Johnson
Yeah, I mean the thing I've tried to do above all is establish trust. And that's why I don't push certain things. I just say, here's the evidence, here's what I'm doing and here's my data. And that way it allows people to form their own conclusions because the fastest way to get rejected is to tell somebody what they're doing is wrong. You know, like nobody wants to hear it and they have very strong opinions. So just say measure it. Like if, if someone wants to do carnivore, measure it, they want to take a certain supplement, measure it. Just like that's the thing. So it's very hard for people to actually do it, you know, like measurements, hard blood panels are pretty easy. So that's what we've tried to enable. But I, I published everything I do, like on my diet, all the foods I eat, all the pills I take. So I try to make it so if somebody wants to say, if someone says I'm into this, I say, here you go. Like, here's the Brian Johnson protocol. Do this like, you know, go to bed in this way you eat your final meal of the day at this time. Exercise this way. I try to make it very, very easy. So people just say, great, I'm off to a good, a good start.
- [20:46]
Chris Cuomo
Why are you doing it? Is this your next great business idea or is it something else that's motivating you?
- [20:52]
Brian Johnson
No, I think that AI is progressing so fast, it's faster than we can comprehend. I think we're approaching an event horizon where an event horizon is right at the edge of a black hole. You can't see past it. You don't know what happens beyond it. I think we're heading towards an event horizon with AI, we just don't know what's coming our way as a society. It may be great, it may be terrible. Nobody knows. And what I'm saying is, in this moment, we've been. We've been accustomed to playing these games of wealth, power and status. We do our things as humans. A new reality is here that's going to. It's going to bend our reality beyond our ability to comprehend. And I'm saying the only thing we should be focused on is to not die. Literally, the only thing we should be focused on. And so that's what I'm trying to do with my endeavors is it's not about making money. It's not trying to climb power, status, or prestige. It's trying to say in the most sober possible way, this is an absolute epic moment as a species on planet Earth. In this part of the galaxy, super intelligence is being born. It's a game changer across the board. And so I'm trying to say, let's be sober. Let's just acknowledge the one thing we all care about. Nobody wants to die right now. I'm not even talking about immortality. That's not my game. Nobody wants to die right now. That's my whole thing.
- [22:08]
Chris Cuomo
And you're not really selling anything, from what I can see. It's like you're not like, saying here, if you take these supplements, you can be just like me. Here's my before and after. For you, it's more of a methodology and then a huge question mark at the end of it that everything could change when AI tells us what is most dispositive. And you would be super shocked, I assume, if it had nothing to do with resting heart rate. But you're assuming that those known metrics will wind up being augmented by a superior understanding that gives us all new practices 100%.
- [22:44]
Brian Johnson
Yeah. I'm suggesting, like, if you were to. Let's just do a comparison here. Let's imagine we go back in time. We're hanging out with Homo erectus a million years ago. So Homo erectus, the cutting edge technology they have in Axe, and we say, homo erectus, tell us about the future of being human. You know, the Homo erectus would say, well, okay, you're going to forage more over here. You're going to like, fight these people over here. You're going to like, you know, they'll have their models of reality. But Homo erectus is not going to say you're going to discover a microscopic world of atoms and molecules. You're going to discover this, this invisible electromagnetic spectra of radio waves and gamma waves. You're going to discover these glowing objects in your hand where you speak to anybody in the world at any time. Like they don't have those mental models. And so what I'm suggesting is right now we may be Homo erectus, we may be so primitive, our ideas may be so, we may lack the understanding to speak intelligently about the future. And so I'm saying that a lot of people don't constrain themselves to waxing poetic about what's coming. That's fine. They can speculate. What I'm saying is in the most sober way possible, it's most likely nobody knows what's coming and when. And that's like the most sober reality. If that's the case, what we have to lock in on is we say as a species, we just want to play the game a bit longer now. Whatever comes, we'll see. But that's really. I'm just trying to, I'm trying to induce funeral like sobriety that this is our moment, let's not fuck it up.
- [24:11]
Chris Cuomo
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- [26:23]
Brian Johnson
Yeah, it's a, it's a natural arc of understanding. So when I do things that are not understood or not common, the media will grab the most sensational thing and paint that as a headline. It's great, right? You'd much rather have them talking about you than ignoring you. Because once they're talking about you, it gives you an opening to say also. So people, when they hear about the blood transfusion, what they don't understand is I did that for my father. My father's over 70 years old. He started to experience cognitive decline. There's evidence that showed that an old mouse that received young mouse plasma actually rejuvenated. So I did it for my father. And the effects for my father were dramatic. It dramatically slowed down his speed of aging. So it was an act of love for my 70 plus year old dad who was experiencing cognitive decline. Now my son did it with me, so he's like, hey, like let's do this as a family product. It'll be fun. So the media picked up on my son and me, but they failed to mention me and my dad. And so really it was. So when people learned that they're like, oh, okay, like that's cool, like I would love to death my parents as well. And so it's fine, like over a certain period of time, enough people are going to be like, okay, I get it. I thought you were crazy. I thought you were an eccentric. Maybe you're weird, but also you're doing some cool stuff. And so it's over time, it's, it does normalize and people are like, I'm on board. And like in many ways I'm kind of trolling the world right? It's just like, it's this big mimetic play over the long arc. It will be understood in the short term there's a misunderstanding, but that just produces more chatter, which is great.
- [27:49]
Chris Cuomo
I thought it was very interesting that you decided to taunt the New York Times for the audience. I mean, you know, to Google away for you. But NDAs are not unusual. Brian's got more detailed NDAs than you're used to seeing. He says it's a practice of transparency. Here's what happens. If you work for me, if you sign on to this, you've consented. That's what it is. Let's get it out of the way now. The Times used it as basically a freak show. And you then decided to say, thank you, Times. You tried to come after me, but you got nothing. And I will give you this. I don't know of any litigation that you've lost or even had to settle because people came after you was really just about the reporting about it.
- [28:34]
Brian Johnson
Exactly. Right.
- [28:37]
Chris Cuomo
So the decision to go after the Times, you know that they're just waiting now, right? They're waiting for one thing, one person. Yeah. How does that affect you?
- [28:49]
Brian Johnson
It's fine. It's. Again, it's. It's. It's so much better to be talked about than to be ignored. Right. Like, if you have to face those two. And so when you're pursuing this kind of endeavor, it's inevitable, and people are going to attack, and that's just the game. So it's fine. I love it. It's great. I will just say, for those of you who have not been on the receiving end of a hit piece from the New York Times, I will educate you and tell you that they're full of shit. Right. When you. When. And you will know this, like, when you read an article about something you know about, you have firsthand knowledge. You read the article and you say, oh, my God, this is wrong. Like, they got the whole thing wrong. So just understand that when you have that knowledge, you realize it. And then when you read it, something about someone else, you're like, oh, that must be true. Like, they're just full of shit. Like, they really are. And so whatever the people I care about, they know they're full of shit. That's fine.
- [29:44]
Chris Cuomo
What did you take away from it other than that, in terms of like, maybe I shouldn't do this, or maybe this isn't worth it, or maybe this isn't necessary. This is a distraction. What changes?
- [29:55]
Brian Johnson
Nothing.
- [29:58]
Chris Cuomo
You do everything the same way.
- [30:00]
Brian Johnson
Everything. The Same way.
- [30:02]
Chris Cuomo
And have you seen any attrition at the workplace? Did anybody leave because they don't want to be part of this practice, this endeavor?
- [30:10]
Brian Johnson
Not only did people not leave, we got more applications than we ever had before. That's what I'm saying. These people perceive these things to be negative. They're not. People are energized by a whole bunch of reasons. And sometimes people realize that when the pressure is being pointed at someone, there's something good going on. They also realize that these big media companies, they're out to smear, they're not out for truth. And so yeah, it has this really interesting effect where it boosts interest in what you're doing.
- [30:37]
Chris Cuomo
And what do you want to do like in the next five years? You know, that's that stupid framing we always use about your plan. Five years. What is the business idea here? Or do you just see yourself as a manifester of collective conscience and just putting, keep putting out data, keep putting out points of proofs of your own existence? Or is there a business plan here?
- [31:05]
Brian Johnson
Yeah, the goal is for Don't Die to become the world's most influential ideology. And so if you think about this on like a few thousand year timescale, if you think about the ideologies that now run the world, like go back and say Confucianism, Islam, Christianity, Capitalism, Marxism, you know, democracy, the founding fathers, like these are like the big ideologies that kind of run the world. And it makes sense that when there's a lot of technological disruption, old ideologies are no longer good enough to help society understand how to behave in the moment. So while democracy and capitalism are really great today, they may fall short in addressing the needs of society as we give birth to super intelligence. So what I'm saying is Don't Die is a full stack ideology, starting with the base layer of entropy, of physics, all the way up through how we run society, that this is the new way, this is the new way of being. And so the goal is that Don't Die becomes a peer. With Christianity, Islam, Democracy, capitalism, every major ideology in the world, this is the thing that permeates culture, our civic order, of religion. This is the new thing.
- [32:17]
Chris Cuomo
So it's an ethos, it's a philosophy, but it is not higher power oriented. There's nothing that's going to keep you alive other than your practices.
- [32:26]
Brian Johnson
Exactly right. And what I'm saying, I think my personal hypothesis is that human power will no longer be a thing. I think that AI systems will be so powerful as they, as they run the infrastructure of the world and manage things, that human power will lessen, systems will increase, and the delta we have right now between the richest person in the world and the poorest will go down substantially. But I think the age of human power, I think, is probably not going to continue as it is right now.
- [32:57]
Chris Cuomo
You sound like one of the Wachowski brothers. Were they that ahead of the curve with the Matrix?
- [33:04]
Brian Johnson
I mean, like, this is what I'm saying, that I think we really are at an event horizon. I don't think we know what's coming. And, you know, again, like, maybe there's some people out there in the world who are making predictions that are right. But I'm saying that to make the prediction to be wrong is very costly. The better thing is to be extremely humble and just say, let's just make sure we're okay on the safety of our existence, and then we can go to play our games. Let's not gamble with existence. Let's not be stupid. Right now. We've got our fingers on the nukes. We're downing all kinds of bad shit every day. We're not sleeping well. We're. We're. We have. We have metabolic disease. We're. We're gluttonous. Like, let's just say we love being alive and we don't want to die today. So it's really trying to be a sober moment.
- [33:45]
Chris Cuomo
Do we love being alive? And do we as an American society embrace what you're saying or the opposite? When you look at our politics, the dominating vibes and mentalities and practices, we seem to be kind of in the opposite headspace. Leave me alone. I want to do dumb.
- [34:09]
Brian Johnson
Yeah, yeah, exactly. I recently spent some time in India and China with don't die. And when I was there, I found that they. They heard the philosophy. Typically, it takes, like, two. Takes people about two hours to understand these ideas. They're pretty deep. And they would be like, oh, that makes so much sense. I'm in. And then in America, people are, like, off. You know, it's like Americans are just, like, defiant, and, like, we don't want to be told what to do. And we're independent. And so, like, it's just, like, cultural reaction to it. But I think that overall, I would say I don't trust anyone's opinions about themselves. Like, for example, there was a story, just this woman who dealt with ALS patient patients, and she told her family, if I ever get ALS and I get to the end of my life, you know, and I And I'm like, blinking, just pull the plug. And, like, sadly enough, she got als and at the end of her life, when she got to that point, her family said, do you want us to pull the plug? And she said, no. So, like, we. We think we, like, imagine that we can make decisions for our future self. Like, I don't care. I'm gonna give 10 years of my life for this and that. We're not, like, in every moment of every day, nobody wants to die. Now, whether we may be sad or whatever, but this is the thing. Like, you're alive, I'm alive. We haven't killed ourselves, but everybody wants to live right now. And that's what I'm trying to say. That objective.
- [35:20]
Chris Cuomo
Let's just cut through the noise, okay? The economy is up and down. It depends on the day. Banks are having problems, all right? Producers are having problems. Lenders are having problems. Inflation is eating away our savings. Gold and silver. Check the numbers. They've held value not just through this current crisis, but every crisis. But you can't buy the wrong stuff. There's a lot of shiny stuff there that winds up being more gilded than gold, okay? Shiny coins, high fees, low value. All right? Dr. Kirk Elliot is my partner for a reason. Real bullion, no games. Go to kepm.com cuomo and get straight answers. No fee, no commitment. Just you and a skilled consultant who understands precious metals. Answering your questions. Protect what matters before the next shop hits. Now, there is a counterintuitive, which is okay, if you are right about what we don't know, but what we'll ultimately resolve. Why should I put down the Slim Jim and the 32 ounce Coca Cola when they're going to come up with something that's going to fix all this for me anyway?
- [36:50]
Brian Johnson
Yeah, it's really because the way people build AI and the way people regulate AI and the way we citizens use AI are exactly representative of the way we treat our bodies. So people think they can silo and say, I'm going to be debaucherous in my behavior. I'm going to drink and all these bad things, but then I'm also going to try to be a good person. You can't. We're all one thing. And so what I'm saying is that if we want safe AI, if we want a safe existence, you need to represent that in your personal life. You need to be that. If we want to take care of the planet, you can't be a bad person individually, debaucherly, and then also take care of the planet. I'm saying it's all one, all one thing as a species. And that's what people, they isolate their behavior and think they're on their own. But we're a collection of our trillions of decisions on a daily basis.
- [37:42]
Chris Cuomo
Where is the line, can you drink coffee and still be a good person? Yes. At what point does the accumulation of practices become character?
- [37:51]
Brian Johnson
Yeah. So think about this. Here's a thought experiment for you. Imagine there's a thing called the existence machine. Every single day, every human action, corporate action, and nation state action is run through this machine. And it scores it according to whether it increases life or decreases life. And according to that score, your bank account then goes up or down based upon that score. So if you increase life, you're more wealthy. If you decrease life, you're not as wealthy. And that's true for individuals, corporations and nation states. Now if you hear that, you're probably like, that's dystopic. But if you think about it, that's exactly what is happening in the world today. It's just the EM machine is capitalism. Every single day, every person's actions are run through the machine of capitalism. And our power, wealth and status goes up or down based upon its compliance with the rules of capitalism. So we have the system built today. It's just pointed at power, status and wealth. And so what I'm saying is that it's just a, it's a change in direction of. It needs to be pointed at existence, at increasing life and the safety of life.
- [38:53]
Chris Cuomo
So are you anti capitalism?
- [38:55]
Brian Johnson
No, absolutely not. Capitalism. Capitalism itself is just a system. It's pointed at endpoints of wealth, power, status. It can just as easily be pointed at existence. Like for example, if you think about like the don't die economy, like seatbelts are don't die, smoke detectors are don't die, medical interventions, a certain drug. So we build a don't die economy. It's very robust. And I'm guessing that this may just solve itself because people love to do things that increase their life. We also love to do things that increase our death sometimes.
- [39:26]
Chris Cuomo
When my father passed the seatbelt law in New York, they hated him for it. It was seen as a huge freedom inhibitor. And of course the data came out that it did obviously the opposite. It can't hurt you, it can only keep people alive. Same thing with the speed limit. And people were like, there became a reciprocal notion of freedom in America where I would rather have the choice structure than beneficial limitations. So don't make my 32 ounce soda. Illegal. Yeah, I want the option. As if somehow that was more virtuous than the restriction. Even if there were a benefit to it. How do you reconcile that with don't die?
- [40:14]
Brian Johnson
Yeah. So I. First, I don't necessarily advocate the government telling us what to do, but I will say that this is an example where I don't think humans are trustworthy. Like, so, like humans, you know, we kicked and screamed that we didn't like seat belt laws. Well, guess what? They're pretty good idea. And you know, then we said, like, smoking on airplanes is probably not a good idea. Also pretty good one, right? So like we, we kick and scream in the moment and then we normalize. We're like, honestly, pretty good idea. So that's what I'm saying. Like, I don't think our gut reactions to most of these things is accurate. I think we all genuinely want to live. And this is like the thing where it's like nighttime you versus morning you, right? Like nighttime you wants to stay up and watch a movie and chill out. Morning you feels like shit because you stayed up too late. So you have this constant tension between nighttime you and morning you your entire life. So the same thing is true in our minds as well. We're not one consistent being. We're always having these fights. Morning you is like, I'm going to work out and feel great. And the nighttime you is like, God damn, that brownie sundae looks pretty good. And so this is like a constant battle of ourselves to trying to maintain a coherent summary of what reality is. And so I just don't trust people's opinions.
- [41:16]
Chris Cuomo
How do you deal with. With the denial of all the temptations, whether it's coffee, ice cream. I mean, our culture is suffused by bad shit. Like, it's literally all over the place. Every store is probably 10 to 1. Stuff that helps your body versus hurts it.
- [41:40]
Brian Johnson
Exactly. This is why I think the 25th century, those, you know, a few hundred years into the future, they will look back at us and think we are just absolutely out of our minds. Insane. Like just crazy. Corporations made money killing people and we just were like, that's cool. You know, like, do your thing, man. This is like, that's awesome. It's just absolutely nuts. And so this is like, this is the cultural train. I'm trying to say is like, you guys, this moment is crazy. The fact that you willingly kill your existence, shorten your life is absolutely bonkers. Like, I understand it's normalized and that's what people do. And it's like you just kind of sits there but like you take any kind of fresh perspective, it makes no sense. And so I don't do it myself because I mean I used to have an eating disorder like every night when I was stressed, like working all day and I was an entrepreneur, had little babies, like I would overeat. I think it's a way for me to soothe myself. I now have gone through enough of those cycles. That idea makes me sick. Like missing a night's sleep makes me sick. Eating those foods make me sick. I don't want it. It makes me feel so bad I can't even like imagine it.
- [42:41]
Chris Cuomo
So you don't have a specific diet, you're open to all things?
- [42:47]
Brian Johnson
Yeah, I have, well now I have a very specific diet, but I'm generally open to all things. Yes, like over the past couple years I've been open to all foods. We just followed the evidence and said what? So we have an idea of every calorie has to fight for its life. Every single calorie in my body has to have a top notch ranking as a longevity food. And so I've just tried to, to put the most power law foods in my, in my body. So we've just followed the evidence. Then again, we measure my biomarkers, we say what is it doing? Like what is my inflammation levels? What are my blank levels? So yeah, so I have a don't die diet guide now I just share publicly for free.
- [43:22]
Chris Cuomo
Do you take supplements like NAD or anything to lower homocysteine or anything like that?
- [43:28]
Brian Johnson
Yeah, I take, yeah, I take about 43 health actives a day. They include things like, basic things like vitamin C, vitamin D, they glycine, calcium, alpha ketoglutarate, NR, you know like NR or NAD, like creatine. So I take like 43 things like that are basic longevity supplements that are just good for population level people. And then I take a few specific things for myself. But yeah, it's about, it's down to like 30 to 40 pills. About 43 health actives.
- [43:58]
Chris Cuomo
Why do you need so much stuff?
- [44:01]
Brian Johnson
We're trying to be on the absolute outer edge. Like my goal is to be number one in the world. It's just like, you know, if you're, if you're LeBron James or Michael Jordan, like you've got your point system, we've got our point system. Like I want to be number one in the world. The best health markers of anybody, any 20 year olds, I want to be better than. And so we just say if you're going to make that as your goal, then you have to walk back and say what is the scientific methodologies to employ doing this? So I'm trying to do everything according to science and data to be number one.
- [44:27]
Chris Cuomo
So it's wellness, not fitness, meaning you can't do the most pull ups in the world or. But that's not your metric. Metric is about the sustainability of existence of your particular form.
- [44:40]
Brian Johnson
Exactly right. People are like, but Brian, you know, if, if you were dropped on an island and had to like survive for a month and fight wild animals. But I'm like, man, I'm not trying to be dropped on an island to try to fight wild animals for a month, right? I'm trying to show that you, that you cannot die. And so yeah, you're right. My goal is very specific.
- [44:59]
Chris Cuomo
And what do you think are the biggest lessons that you've learned in terms of do's and don'ts?
- [45:07]
Brian Johnson
You can measure die. That's the most important things. If you say your life expectancy is 79 years of age as a male in the United States of America, if you do good things you can extend it. If you do bad things, you shorten it. And so then the question becomes how do you rank the highest order things? And then start working through the ranks. And so instead of like people get into health and they think of like entity drips and like this and that, like they kind of like run to the most familiar thing, cold plunge. And what we said is don't just run off and do what's, what's culturally normalized. Start with the power laws of health. Like the absolute very best things, like number one, don't smoke. That is the worst thing you can do. Number two is exercise, right? That has like almost like a 400 increase in all cause mortality, sleep. So like if you go down the list of these basic things and so that's what we've tried to do is just say like we don't care what's popular, we care what shows in the evidence. And so that's why I talked about the resting heart rate is. That is like the absolute most powerful marker you can measure. Because if your resting heart rate for bed is low, it means your diet is on point, your stress is on point, your cardiovascular fitness is on point, your routines are on point. It basically like that is your accountability partner for life. If you're at night, you're like, you know, I'd like to have a few glasses of wine and maybe a little cookie that's going to jack up your heart rate. That's your accountability partner. So you now know it's like, sorry, man, you messed that up. So that's why I'm saying, like, you're really just trying to keep in balance your bad habits and your resting heart rate keeps you in check, and then that gives you the power. So, for example, if you have a bad night's sleep, these are good data points for you to know. One bad night's sleep of four hours or less per night, your body lowers its capacity by 73% of looking for cancer in your body. Your body stops looking for cancer because it's so burdened from like having to maintain core functions of the body from one night of bad sleep. Now also, you have like a similar brain injury recovery process as a traumatic brain injury. So bad, you know, one night of bad sleep really wrecks you. It's really a bad situation. So, like understanding these things that the body has to respond in full force to take care of itself and shut down all the key functions that really puts us in perspective. Like, yeah, sleep is really important and do it consistently really matters a lot.
- [47:21]
Chris Cuomo
What do you think about napping?
- [47:24]
Brian Johnson
Great. Yeah, like this is a thing like, you know, biphysic sleep, model physics, sleep napping, just measure your data. So like, there's so many ways to achieve good health. There's no one way. So the key thing is just like, find your protocol, be consistent, and measure yourself.
- [47:38]
Chris Cuomo
What about cholesterol?
- [47:40]
Brian Johnson
Yeah, so I mean, there's actually, that's a lot. There's a lot of debate around that. Right. Like you, if you put that out in the world, you're going to have perspectives across so many range, so many ranges. So I guess, like, we have a specific philosophy we've chosen and on what, how we approach it, but I don't think that I could express a strong opinion on this and like win approval by others. We just have a philosophy that we've approached with.
- [48:03]
Chris Cuomo
For you guys who are watching the division, the conflict is this. High cholesterol bad. But cholesterol's use in the body, the more they learn, the better it is and the more your body seems to need it. So now they adjusted it from, we're measuring the wrong things. And you have to look at the hormones that are derivative of the amount of cholesterol, and those are the bad things. Plaque is bad.
- [48:30]
Brian Johnson
That's right.
- [48:31]
Chris Cuomo
Soft plaque is bad. So if you have soft plaque, you have to do whatever you can to make it hard. So you got to, you know, do whatever you have to do and then you get into medication. So everyone I know is on a statin and they take a statin and the numbers drop and then they don't change their diet. So is it that a statin is bad or is it that a statin alone feeds a bad set of instincts?
- [48:59]
Brian Johnson
Yeah, I mean, so you're first. You're exactly right. Your assessment of cholesterol is messy. And that's why like in this conversation I hedge and I say like, it's not a clear yes or no, good or bad. Like it's like nuanced and people have their philosophies and I agree with you. Then in that context you can say, what do we know? Well, we know that plaque is bad, hard and soft, right? So like if that's your marker, don't have plaque, right. So then you can try to back into it. Like how do you reduce plaque or avoid plaque? So I have zero plaque in my arteries. And so then the second question, did.
- [49:28]
Chris Cuomo
You have zero when you started or you just got lucky and didn't have any?
- [49:34]
Brian Johnson
You know what? I don't. That was my first CAC score. So I don't have a baseline.
- [49:38]
Chris Cuomo
Well, I don't know. Your baseline is zero.
- [49:41]
Brian Johnson
Yeah, I'm sorry, I didn't have it. Like I don't know if I, if I improved from having some before. I don't know. So yeah, sadly I. It's my. I have just one measurement, I think.
- [49:50]
Chris Cuomo
Like if, if they came up with a measurement in your body that would benefit from a medicine, would you take the medicine?
- [49:56]
Brian Johnson
Yes. Yeah, I take quite a few pharma drugs. Yeah.
- [49:58]
Chris Cuomo
So you're not anti medicine?
- [50:00]
Brian Johnson
No, no. Like we, we're agnostic to all foods, all medicines, all like eastern, Western. Like it doesn't matter what it is. I'm not a part of any camp. Like if it has evidence, we're in.
- [50:12]
Chris Cuomo
What is the craziest thing you do?
- [50:15]
Brian Johnson
Probably refusal to participate in societal rituals where I kill myself slowly. It just wears people out.
- [50:24]
Chris Cuomo
So you don't party well.
- [50:26]
Brian Johnson
So like I. A friend of mine had a party the night she. She had a DJ set a Grimes at 1 in the morning. And so I went to bed at I think like 7 or 8pm I got two or three hours of sleep, my deep sleep. I woke up, I went to her party, I danced for a couple hours, I came home and I got my rest of my sleep in rem. So I split my sleep out into morning and late and I got 100 sleep score. So it worked. And so I was trying to show like you can be healthy, you just have to be thoughtful about how you do it. So yes, I really have tried to approach life with vivaciousness and also with a mind towards measured health.
- [51:03]
Chris Cuomo
What do you think about the role of psychedelics? I know you've played with this. I used to love booze and it just stopped working for me. And I then turned because I did want something to help me with stress reduction, which is really what the booze was. I wasn't leaning on it like I wasn't drinking in the morning or during the day or anything like that. But so for me I started to play with hemp because the heavier psychedelics, I did some ketamine, IV treatments, you know, macro dosing and to me that was more trippy than it was a sustainable thing. What have you found in terms of that and what is its role and why?
- [51:47]
Brian Johnson
Yeah, yeah, I think psychedelics are our friends. I think they are, I think they're good life friends for us as a species. Like so there's a lot of interesting studies based upon, you know, addressing medical conditions, depression, anxiety, you know, ptsd, et cetera. That's very promising. A lot of people have personally found new pathways and liberation by doing it themselves through various traumas. So I think that it's a very promising path. I'm very happy they're on their way to be normalized in society. I think they've been artificially restricted unnecessarily. And yes, I'm very, I like them a lot. I think they're good for, for society. I hope they become normalized faster.
- [52:27]
Chris Cuomo
Unless you're smoking them, then it falls into the smoke category.
- [52:31]
Brian Johnson
Yeah, I mean if you, if you can limit the damage, the better again anytime you can. Sometimes though there is a trade off. Right. It's not always like a perfectly healthy decision. Sometimes you do need to make trade offs. You're just trying to, you know, evaluate it carefully.
- [52:44]
Chris Cuomo
What are your three things that you still want to try?
- [52:49]
Brian Johnson
So first, I think I'm really interested in not dying. Like I think a lot of people have done that in the past. I think that'd be cool. Two is I, I really curious about. The therapies I've done have been great, but none have been mind blowing. You know, like it's not been the case where I've done something. I'm like oh my God, I now I'm 18. You know, it's like they all have these pretty incremental things. But I think in the coming years we may have some, like, really good therapies, and I think that would be amazing to just like, go from some aged state to young state and just be like night and day difference. So that'd be cool. And then three is. I think it'd be really neat to. To experience more oneness with others. You know, like, maybe brain interfaces or like AI will help us where we feel less individualistic and more collective and. And how that would maybe be soothing in many ways that the burden of the world is not on our shoulders by itself. So it's like kind of evolving into something new, I think would be kind of a cool idea.
- [53:53]
Chris Cuomo
I think what you're doing is fascinating and I appreciate the transparency and the insight and the connection and anything you have that you want to get word out about. I'm happy to be part of the chorus.
- [54:05]
Brian Johnson
Thank you, Chris. Appreciate that. I really enjoyed hanging out with you.
- [54:12]
Chris Cuomo
Now, you can't tell me that you watched this interview and still feel the same way about him that you did coming in. Right? Because a lot of you were probably coming in here to see if I was going to whoop his ass, weren't you? Right? Like, why are you doing this? Why are you doing that? What do you think? Why. Why be in the takedown business when it turns out that not only is it not justified, but that what makes him controversial is actually what makes him interesting in a positive way? You tell me how only in America we can get to a bad place with someone trying to pursue the philosophy of don't die. That's why I wanted to talk to him, to show how there can so commonly be a disconnect between what the New York Times or social media or anyone says is something to beware of versus something to just be aware of. Don't die sounds great. And if he's right, if we develop understandings that give longevity a whole new meaning, how cool would that be? My brothers and sisters, thank you for subscribing and following. Thank you for going down a little bit of a journey. Thank you for checking me out on News Nation, AP and 11p every weekday night. Thank you for wearing your independence and getting your free agent gear so we can give away the money. And if you want conversations where you can weigh in and get feedback from me and my guests, join the substack and you'll get the podcast ad free there as well. The problems are real. The challenges are faced best when we face them together. So let's get after it.