Bryan Johnson Latest News: Major Shift from Business to Philosophy as Longevity Pioneer Considers Shutting Down Blueprint Company

 

Bryan John­son, the 47-year-old biotech entre­pre­neur known for his extra­or­di­nary $2 mil­lion annu­al quest to defeat aging and death, has made head­lines in July 2025 with a sig­nif­i­cant announce­ment that marks a piv­otal moment in his con­tro­ver­sial career. The man who has become syn­ony­mous with extreme anti-aging pro­to­cols and the pur­suit of immor­tal­i­ty now faces a cross­roads between com­mer­cial suc­cess and philo­soph­i­cal mis­sion, ulti­mate­ly choos­ing the lat­ter in what could be his most impor­tant deci­sion yet.

Blueprint Company on the Chopping Block

In a can­did inter­view with Wired pub­lished on July 22, 2025, John­son revealed his inten­tion to either shut down or sell his longevi­ty com­pa­ny Blue­print, describ­ing it blunt­ly as a “pain-in-the-ass com­pa­ny”. This shock­ing announce­ment rep­re­sents a dra­mat­ic shift for the entre­pre­neur who has spent years build­ing both his per­son­al anti-aging pro­to­col and the com­mer­cial ven­ture that emerged from it.

“Hon­est­ly, I am so close to either shut­ting it down or sell­ing it,” John­son told Wired’s Katie Drum­mond. “I don’t need the mon­ey, and it’s a pain-in-the-ass com­pa­ny.” The state­ment under­scores John­son’s evolv­ing pri­or­i­ties as he increas­ing­ly focus­es on what he con­sid­ers more mean­ing­ful philo­soph­i­cal work rather than com­mer­cial ven­tures.

Blue­print, John­son’s Los Ange­les-based start­up, has been sell­ing a range of well­ness prod­ucts designed to help cus­tomers slow their aging process. The com­pa­ny’s offer­ings include a $55 “longevi­ty mix” drink and a $42 mush­room-based cof­fee alter­na­tive called “Super Shrooms”. These prod­ucts emerged from John­son’s per­son­al health reg­i­men, which has gar­nered inter­na­tion­al atten­tion for its extreme and com­pre­hen­sive approach to bio­log­i­cal opti­miza­tion.

John­son explained that he ini­tial­ly start­ed the busi­ness because friends kept ask­ing for his health sup­ple­ments. “It evolved in a way where I was try­ing to do peo­ple a sol­id,” he said. How­ev­er, he now believes that his com­mer­cial activ­i­ties are under­min­ing his cred­i­bil­i­ty in the philo­soph­i­cal space. “Peo­ple see the busi­ness and give me less cred­i­bil­i­ty on the phi­los­o­phy side,” John­son explained. “I will not make that trade-off. It is not worth it to me. So yeah, I don’t want it”.

Financial Challenges and Media Scrutiny

The deci­sion to poten­tial­ly close Blue­print comes amid reports of finan­cial dif­fi­cul­ties for the com­pa­ny. Ear­li­er in 2025, The New York Times report­ed that Blue­print was miss­ing its break-even point by at least $1 mil­lion month­ly, cit­ing inter­nal records, court fil­ings, and employ­ee inter­views. The report sug­gest­ed that John­son, who had invest­ed $25 mil­lion as Blue­print­’s sole investor, had warned exec­u­tives that the com­pa­ny was run­ning out of mon­ey.

How­ev­er, John­son has dis­put­ed these finan­cial claims, telling Wired that Blue­print is not in “some kind of emer­gency finan­cial sit­u­a­tion”. “We are break-even, and I’ve said that pub­licly many times. We’ve had prof­itable months, we’ve had loss months,” he assert­ed. Despite these denials, the poten­tial sale or clo­sure of the com­pa­ny sug­gests that finan­cial pres­sures may indeed be play­ing a role in his deci­sion-mak­ing process.

John­son was emphat­ic that his deci­sion was not dri­ven by The New York Times report. “It has noth­ing to do with The New York Times. I am not hid­ing from the New York Times arti­cle. I’m hap­py to take, head-on, every sin­gle alle­ga­tion they made,” he said. Instead, he framed his deci­sion as a strate­gic choice to focus on what he con­sid­ers more impor­tant work.

The “Don’t Die” Religion: A New Chapter

John­son’s shift away from Blue­print is close­ly tied to his grow­ing focus on his new­ly found­ed reli­gion called “Don’t Die,” which he announced in March 2025. This move­ment rep­re­sents John­son’s attempt to cre­ate what he calls “the grand uni­fy­ing the­o­ry of exis­tence,” designed to address fun­da­men­tal chal­lenges fac­ing human­i­ty in the age of arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence.

The “Don’t Die” reli­gion is struc­tured around the core belief that the body is sacred and that exis­tence itself is the pri­ma­ry virtue and objec­tive. John­son has described it as a com­pre­hen­sive frame­work for liv­ing that tran­scends tra­di­tion­al reli­gious, polit­i­cal, and eco­nom­ic sys­tems. The move­ment includes small group meet­ings pat­terned after sup­port groups like Alco­holics Anony­mous, where par­tic­i­pants engage in open­ing rit­u­als, mantras, and ses­sions where they apol­o­gize to their bod­ies for inflict­ing harm upon them­selves.

In his vision for the future, John­son believes that “Don’t Die” will become “his­to­ry’s fastest-grow­ing ide­ol­o­gy” and will play a cru­cial role in help­ing human­i­ty tran­si­tion into the AI era. He argues that the world is expe­ri­enc­ing four fun­da­men­tal shifts that neces­si­tate this new frame­work: the emer­gence of AI-dri­ven super­in­tel­li­gence, the lack of exist­ing ide­olo­gies that address AI align­ment, the uncer­tain­ty of human­i­ty’s sur­vival in the AI era, and the pos­si­bil­i­ty of over­com­ing bio­log­i­cal death.

John­son’s approach to this reli­gion reflects his engi­neer­ing back­ground and data-dri­ven method­ol­o­gy. “On a per­son­al lev­el, for years I’ve tried to eat, sleep and breathe ‘Don’t Die,’ lit­er­al­ly,” he wrote on social media. “To embody it in every one of my 35 tril­lion cells. Prac­ti­cal­ly this means: going to bed on time, exer­cis­ing dai­ly, and eat­ing nutri­tious­ly, mea­sur­ing and improv­ing every organ in my body, elim­i­nat­ing tox­ins, low­er­ing stress, being with fam­i­ly and friends”.

Project Blueprint: The Foundation of His Philosophy

John­son’s com­mer­cial and philo­soph­i­cal work both stem from his per­son­al Project Blue­print, an extra­or­di­nar­i­ly com­pre­hen­sive anti-aging pro­gram that he launched in 2021. This project involves John­son spend­ing $2 mil­lion annu­al­ly on med­ical diag­nos­tics, treat­ments, and lifestyle opti­miza­tion in an attempt to slow and poten­tial­ly reverse the aging process.

The scope of Project Blue­print is unprece­dent­ed in its thor­ough­ness and sci­en­tif­ic rig­or. John­son under­goes dozens of diag­nos­tic tests reg­u­lar­ly, cre­at­ing a com­pre­hen­sive data­base of his bio­log­i­cal func­tions that informs every deci­sion about his diet, exer­cise, sleep, sup­ple­ments, and med­ical inter­ven­tions. His dai­ly rou­tine is algo­rith­mi­cal­ly designed and strict­ly reg­i­ment­ed: he wakes at 4:30 AM, con­sumes all his meals before 11:00 AM, takes over 100 pills con­tain­ing var­i­ous sup­ple­ments, exer­cis­es inten­sive­ly, and goes to bed at 8:30 PM.

John­son’s sup­ple­ment reg­i­men alone demon­strates the extreme nature of his approach to health opti­miza­tion. His dai­ly pro­to­col includes col­la­gen pro­tein, cre­a­tine, pre­bi­ot­ic galac­tooligosac­cha­rides, var­i­ous vit­a­mins and min­er­als, and spe­cial­ized com­pounds like nicoti­namide ribo­side and N‑acetyl-L-cys­teine. Each sup­ple­ment is care­ful­ly select­ed based on his ongo­ing health data, and the reg­i­men is con­tin­u­ous­ly adjust­ed to opti­mize his bio­log­i­cal mark­ers.

The entre­pre­neur has described him­self as “the most mea­sured per­son in his­to­ry,” refer­ring to the exten­sive data col­lec­tion that informs every aspect of his health pro­to­col. His team of over 30 doc­tors and health experts tracks every­thing from his organ func­tion to his bio­log­i­cal age mark­ers, cre­at­ing what he claims is the most com­pre­hen­sive health opti­miza­tion pro­gram ever under­tak­en by an indi­vid­ual.

Controversial Experiments and Public Attention

John­son’s quest for longevi­ty has includ­ed sev­er­al con­tro­ver­sial and high­ly pub­li­cized exper­i­ments that have gar­nered both fas­ci­na­tion and crit­i­cism from the pub­lic and med­ical com­mu­ni­ty. One of the most notable was his blood trans­fu­sion exper­i­ments, which involved receiv­ing plas­ma from younger donors, includ­ing his teenage son Tal­mage.

In April 2023, John­son under­took what he called “the world’s first multi­gen­er­a­tional plas­ma exchange,” where he, his 17-year-old son, and his 70-year-old father par­tic­i­pat­ed in a blood plas­ma swap. Tal­mage donat­ed a liter of blood that was sep­a­rat­ed into plas­ma and oth­er com­po­nents, with the plas­ma being trans­fused into John­son. John­son then donat­ed his plas­ma to his father.

How­ev­er, after six months of young plas­ma exchanges, John­son announced in July 2023 that he was dis­con­tin­u­ing the treat­ment. “Eval­u­at­ed bio­mark­ers from bioflu­ids, devices and imag­ing, no ben­e­fits detect­ed,” John­son report­ed. “Young plas­ma exchange may be ben­e­fi­cial for bio­log­i­cal­ly old­er pop­u­la­tions or cer­tain con­di­tions. Does not in my case stack ben­e­fit on top of my exist­ing inter­ven­tions”.

More recent­ly, in 2025, John­son under­went anoth­er con­tro­ver­sial pro­ce­dure he called “V2” – a com­plete plas­ma replace­ment where all his plas­ma was removed and replaced with albu­min, the main pro­tein com­po­nent of plas­ma. “I removed all the plas­ma from my body,” John­son announced on Insta­gram, “and the doc­tor said it’s the clean­est she’s ever seen”.

International Incidents and Public Relations Challenges

John­son’s extreme health con­scious­ness has also led to some unusu­al pub­lic inci­dents that have brought addi­tion­al atten­tion to his meth­ods and phi­los­o­phy. Dur­ing a vis­it to India in ear­ly 2025, John­son made head­lines when he walked out of a pod­cast record­ing with Zerod­ha co-founder Nikhil Kamath, cit­ing con­cerns about air qual­i­ty.

Accord­ing to John­son, the air qual­i­ty index in the record­ing space reached 130, with PM2.5 lev­els at 75 µg/m³ – “equiv­a­lent to smok­ing 3.4 cig­a­rettes for 24 hours of expo­sure”. The poor air qual­i­ty, he said, caused skin irri­ta­tion, burn­ing eyes, and a sore throat. “This was my third day in India, and the air pol­lu­tion had made my skin break out in a rash and my eyes and throat burn,” he stat­ed.

John­son’s reac­tion to Indi­a’s air pol­lu­tion sparked con­sid­er­able dis­cus­sion on social media, with some view­ing his response as extreme while oth­ers saw it as high­light­ing a legit­i­mate health con­cern. He expressed sur­prise at how nor­mal­ized air pol­lu­tion had become in India, not­ing that “peo­ple would be out­side run­ning. Babies and small chil­dren exposed from birth. No one wore a mask, which can sig­nif­i­cant­ly decrease expo­sure”.

The inci­dent illus­trat­ed the extent to which John­son’s health opti­miza­tion pro­to­cols have shaped his dai­ly life and deci­sion-mak­ing process­es. His will­ing­ness to leave a high-pro­file pod­cast record­ing demon­strates his com­mit­ment to main­tain­ing the strict envi­ron­men­tal and health stan­dards that are cen­tral to his Project Blue­print pro­gram.

Financial Resources and Investment Philosophy

John­son’s abil­i­ty to pur­sue such expen­sive longevi­ty exper­i­ments stems from his suc­cess­ful exit from the pay­ments com­pa­ny Brain­tree, which he found­ed in 2007. Pay­Pal acquired Brain­tree for $800 mil­lion in 2013, pro­vid­ing John­son with the finan­cial resources that have enabled his ambi­tious health and sci­ence projects.

Cur­rent esti­mates place John­son’s net worth at approx­i­mate­ly $400 mil­lion as of 2025. This wealth has been strate­gi­cal­ly deployed across mul­ti­ple ven­tures: $100 mil­lion for OS Fund, his ven­ture cap­i­tal firm invest­ing in ear­ly-stage sci­ence and tech­nol­o­gy com­pa­nies; $54 mil­lion for Ker­nel, his neu­rotech­nol­o­gy com­pa­ny devel­op­ing brain-com­put­er inter­faces; and $2 mil­lion annu­al­ly for his per­son­al Project Blue­print exper­i­ments.

John­son’s invest­ment phi­los­o­phy through OS Fund demon­strates his com­mit­ment to address­ing fun­da­men­tal chal­lenges fac­ing human­i­ty through sci­en­tif­ic break­throughs. The fund focus­es on genomics, syn­thet­ic biol­o­gy, advanced mate­ri­als, and arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence, reflect­ing his belief that solu­tions to major human prob­lems will come from foun­da­tion­al sci­en­tif­ic dis­cov­er­ies rather than incre­men­tal improve­ments.

The scale of John­son’s per­son­al spend­ing on health opti­miza­tion is remark­able when viewed in con­text. While the aver­age Amer­i­can spends approx­i­mate­ly $12,000 annu­al­ly on health­care, John­son’s $2 mil­lion year­ly invest­ment rep­re­sents more than 160 times the nation­al aver­age. This dis­par­i­ty high­lights both the exper­i­men­tal nature of his approach and the resources required to pur­sue such com­pre­hen­sive health opti­miza­tion.

Recent Health Protocol Updates and Developments

John­son’s health pro­to­col con­tin­ues to evolve based on ongo­ing research and per­son­al exper­i­men­ta­tion. Recent updates to his Blue­print pro­to­col in 2025 include sev­er­al sig­nif­i­cant changes that reflect his com­mit­ment to evi­dence-based opti­miza­tion.

In Jan­u­ary 2025, John­son paused his use of Cere­brolysin, a neu­ro­log­i­cal treat­ment he had been tak­ing since Sep­tem­ber 2024. He also began hyper­bar­ic oxy­gen ther­a­py (HBOT) in Novem­ber 2024, tar­get­ing 60 ses­sions at 2 ATA with 20 min­utes of 100% oxy­gen and 5‑minute breaks. Addi­tion­al­ly, he adjust­ed his Met­formin dosage from 1,500 mg to 1,000 mg dai­ly in May 2024.

One notable addi­tion to his pro­to­col was oral minox­i­dil, which he began tak­ing in Jan­u­ary 2024 at 2.5 mg dai­ly, lat­er increas­ing to 3.75 mg dai­ly by Feb­ru­ary 2024. This med­ica­tion, typ­i­cal­ly used for hair growth, rep­re­sents John­son’s will­ing­ness to explore phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal inter­ven­tions for aes­thet­ic and health opti­miza­tion.

John­son’s sup­ple­ment reg­i­men has also been stream­lined some­what in 2025, with the devel­op­ment of pro­pri­etary mul­ti­vi­t­a­min for­mu­la­tions that have reduced the need for indi­vid­ual pills. His cur­rent pro­to­col includes Blue­print Essen­tials Cap­sules con­tain­ing 24 com­pounds for stress, mus­cle recov­ery, and cog­ni­tion, and Blue­print Soft Gel con­tain­ing sev­en com­pounds for vision and eye health.

The Future of Longevity Research and Human Enhancement

John­son’s work, while con­tro­ver­sial, has con­tributed to broad­er con­ver­sa­tions about the future of human longevi­ty and the role of tech­nol­o­gy in life exten­sion. His “Don’t Die” move­ment rep­re­sents an attempt to cre­ate a philo­soph­i­cal frame­work for nav­i­gat­ing the inter­sec­tion of human enhance­ment, arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence, and exis­ten­tial risk.

The entre­pre­neur’s belief that death can become option­al reflects a grow­ing move­ment with­in Sil­i­con Val­ley and the broad­er tech com­mu­ni­ty that views aging as a prob­lem to be solved rather than a nat­ur­al process to be accept­ed. His will­ing­ness to invest mil­lions of dol­lars in per­son­al exper­i­men­ta­tion has gen­er­at­ed valu­able data about the prac­ti­cal chal­lenges and poten­tial ben­e­fits of com­pre­hen­sive health opti­miza­tion.

John­son’s tran­si­tion away from com­mer­cial activ­i­ties toward philo­soph­i­cal work sug­gests a recog­ni­tion that the most impor­tant ques­tions raised by his exper­i­ments may not be sci­en­tif­ic or med­ical, but rather eth­i­cal and exis­ten­tial. His “Don’t Die” reli­gion attempts to address these deep­er ques­tions about human pur­pose, mean­ing, and respon­si­bil­i­ty in an age of rapid­ly advanc­ing tech­nol­o­gy.

Implications for the Longevity Industry

John­son’s deci­sion to poten­tial­ly shut down Blue­print has impli­ca­tions for the broad­er longevi­ty indus­try, which has grown rapid­ly in recent years. His com­pa­ny rep­re­sent­ed one of the most high-pro­file attempts to com­mer­cial­ize cut­ting-edge anti-aging research and trans­late per­son­al exper­i­men­ta­tion into con­sumer prod­ucts.

The finan­cial chal­lenges faced by Blue­print, despite John­son’s sig­nif­i­cant per­son­al invest­ment and pub­lic pro­file, high­light the dif­fi­cul­ties inher­ent in build­ing sus­tain­able busi­ness­es around longevi­ty prod­ucts. The mar­ket for such prod­ucts remains rel­a­tive­ly niche, and reg­u­la­to­ry chal­lenges con­tin­ue to lim­it the claims that com­pa­nies can make about anti-aging ben­e­fits.

John­son’s shift toward a philo­soph­i­cal approach may sig­nal a recog­ni­tion that the most valu­able con­tri­bu­tions to human longevi­ty may come not from com­mer­cial prod­ucts but from advanc­ing sci­en­tif­ic under­stand­ing and chang­ing cul­tur­al atti­tudes toward aging and death. His “Don’t Die” move­ment rep­re­sents an attempt to cre­ate a broad­er social trans­for­ma­tion that could sup­port more exten­sive invest­ment in longevi­ty research.

Looking Forward: The Legacy Question

As John­son con­tem­plates the future direc­tion of his work, he faces fun­da­men­tal ques­tions about lega­cy and impact that extend far beyond his per­son­al quest for longevi­ty. His cur­rent tran­si­tion rep­re­sents a choice between build­ing a prof­itable busi­ness and advanc­ing what he sees as a more impor­tant mis­sion to trans­form human civ­i­liza­tion’s approach to mor­tal­i­ty.

The suc­cess or fail­ure of John­son’s “Don’t Die” move­ment will ulti­mate­ly be mea­sured not in finan­cial returns but in its abil­i­ty to influ­ence how human­i­ty thinks about aging, death, and the opti­miza­tion of human poten­tial. His will­ing­ness to sac­ri­fice com­mer­cial oppor­tu­ni­ties for philo­soph­i­cal pur­suits sug­gests a man grap­pling with ques­tions of pur­pose that extend well beyond per­son­al health opti­miza­tion.

John­son’s jour­ney from suc­cess­ful entre­pre­neur to longevi­ty extrem­ist to philo­soph­i­cal leader rep­re­sents a unique case study in how extra­or­di­nary wealth can pro­vide the free­dom to pur­sue increas­ing­ly uncon­ven­tion­al goals. Whether his vision of mak­ing death option­al can gain trac­tion beyond Sil­i­con Val­ley spec­u­la­tion and into main­stream accep­tance remains to be seen.

The com­ing months and years will reveal whether John­son’s lat­est piv­ot rep­re­sents a tem­po­rary set­back or a strate­gic repo­si­tion­ing that allows him to have a more pro­found impact on human­i­ty’s rela­tion­ship with mor­tal­i­ty. His will­ing­ness to aban­don a prof­itable busi­ness for the sake of philo­soph­i­cal cred­i­bil­i­ty demon­strates a lev­el of com­mit­ment to his mis­sion that sug­gests this tran­si­tion is like­ly per­ma­nent.

As Bryan John­son con­tin­ues to evolve from entre­pre­neur to philoso­pher to poten­tial reli­gious leader, his sto­ry serves as a fas­ci­nat­ing win­dow into the inter­sec­tion of tech­nol­o­gy, wealth, and human ambi­tion in the 21st cen­tu­ry. His lat­est news may mark not the end of his pub­lic influ­ence, but rather the begin­ning of his most impor­tant chap­ter yet.