Who Is Bryan Johnson – And Why Is The Man Trying Not To Die Now Killing His Own Anti-Ageing Company?
Once hailed as the man “who spends $2 million a year not to die,” Bryan Johnson, tech entrepreneur turned biohacker turned philosopher, is preparing to walk away from the very company built on his age-reversal obsession.
His startup Blueprint, which attempted to commercialise elements of his hyper-regimented anti-ageing protocol, is reportedly on the verge of being sold or shut down entirely due to mounting financial losses, and Johnson’s growing belief that business and immortality don’t mix.
It’s a dramatic pivot for someone who turned his body into a 24/7 science experiment to slow down ageing, even undergoing plasma transfusions from his teenage son and consuming over 100 supplements a day.
But now, Johnson says his mission has outgrown business. He’s not chasing dollars anymore. he’s chasing something far more abstract: the abolition of death itself.
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Born in 1977 in Provo, Utah, and raised on a farm in Springville, Johnson’s early life was far from biotech labs and AI philosophy. One of five siblings, he grew up baling alfalfa and harvesting corn.
After his parents divorced, he was raised by his mother and stepfather, later spending two years in Ecuador as a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
He graduated in International Studies from Brigham Young University in 2003 and earned an MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business in 2007.
That same year, he founded Braintree, a mobile payment startup that would quietly transform digital commerce. Braintree eventually acquired Venmo and served giants like Uber, Airbnb, and GitHub before being sold to PayPal for $800 million in 2013.
Johnson walked away with around $300 million—and a burning question: what next?
Project Blueprint
Rather than retire or cycle through tech startups, Johnson chose to reinvent himself. literally. In 2021, he launched Project Blueprint, a personal experiment that would become the cornerstone of his public identity. Spending over $2 million annually,
these three power laws are the cornerstone of my Blueprint protocol pic.twitter.com/zhrw0byirB
— Bryan Johnson (@bryan_johnson) November 29, 2024
Bryan Johnson submitted himself to a gruelling routine: strict veganism, daily exercise, relentless sleep optimisation, and constant biometric monitoring. His daily life included MRI scans, ultrasound tests, colonoscopies, and even electromagnetic pulse therapy.
By 2025, Johnson claimed to have the biological profile of an 18-year-old, despite being in his late 40s. His skin, organ function, and inflammation markers were said to reflect a significantly younger body. For a time, he dubbed himself the world’s first professional rejuvenation athlete.
This obsession with bodily perfection became a public brand—and eventually, a business. Blueprint, the company, was formed to package parts of his regimen into products and supplements for mass consumption. But the public wasn’t buying at scale. Behind the polished image, the company struggled financially.
In Johnson’s own words, running Blueprint became a “pain-in-the-ass” venture that diluted his message. Commercialising his deeply personal mission, he says, cheapened it.
As he told followers, selling products made him seem like a wellness grifter, when in fact, he sees himself as something else entirely: a philosophical pioneer challenging the inevitability of death.
Now, Johnson has shifted focus to something even more radical: a movement he calls “Don’t Die.” Launched in early 2025, Don’t Die isn’t a brand. It’s an emerging philosophy—possibly even a proto-religion—that views human existence as sacred and technological advancement as a path toward defeating mortality.
On @netflix Jan 1
2025 is the year of don’t die pic.twitter.com/RJosMclnJb
— Bryan Johnson (@bryan_johnson) December 11, 2024
Don’t Die is Johnson’s attempt to reframe longevity not as a health trend but as a moral imperative. “Existence is the highest virtue,” he has said, proposing that in an age of artificial intelligence and regenerative medicine, humanity must aim higher than survival—it must pursue immortality.
He sees himself not just as a scientist or an entrepreneur anymore, but as a messenger of a post-death worldview—a spiritual architect of a civilisation that refuses to go quietly.
What does that mean in practice? It could mean philosophical frameworks, digital communities, or even new institutions that redefine how society approaches ageing, mortality, and what it means to be alive. But for now, it means saying goodbye to Blueprint, the company that put Johnson’s routine into a bottle.
