Latest / Core Memory / Life Beyond Blueprint - EP 30 Bryan Johnson

Transcript

Life Beyond Blueprint - EP 30 Bryan Johnson · Core Memory

• 0:00
  I'm breaking my rule because lots of people want to talk about
• 0:03
  your penis.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_03: No, they don't.
• 0:07
  I'm starting with the penis,
• 0:09
  but I think I'm starting with it in a different way.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I feel like you need no introduction.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_01: We're here with Brian Johnson.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_01: If anyone is,
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_01: especially my audience,
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_01: and then anyone on the internet,
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_01: I suspect has heard of you.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: You created this problem.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_01: No, no.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_01: Well, we teamed up, but you did by far the live share.
• 0:46
  If you have too much Brian Johnson in your life,
• 0:49
  Ashley Vance is to blame.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_00: I'm sorry.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_01: I'm okay with that.
• 0:53
  But that's kind of where I thought we'd get into a little bit
• 0:56
  on the show today,
• 0:57
  because...
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_01: I feel like you've... I don't say this in, like, a horrible way.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_01: I mean,
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_01: it's the interviewer's thing,
• 1:04
  but I feel like you've done the same interview a thousand times
• 1:08
  because everybody
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_01: always comes in and they're like,
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_01: what's still a guy?
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, my God, you want to reverse your age?
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_01: What are you, a freak?
• 1:15
  And then it goes on the sort of similar trajectory in that
• 1:18
  we've had this...
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_01: We've had probably the most unique relationship,
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_01: I think,
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_01: of all the reporters who've written on you,
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_01: so I thought that's kind of where we'd...
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_01: hang out today.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_01: I think some of it,
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_01: if I'm getting anywhere too touchy,
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_01: let me know,
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_01: just because I know your family and,
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_01: like,
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_01: I've been where you grew up.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_00: We, Ashley, you and I have gone everywhere.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: I'd say it's all on.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: Like, don't hesitate.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: Let's do it all.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_01: All right.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_01: Well, we'll jump in.
• 1:45
  I'm breaking my rule because lots of people want to talk about
• 1:48
  your penis.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_03: No, they don't.
• 1:50
  I'm starting with the penis,
• 1:54
  but I think I'm starting with it in a different way.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_01: Which is,
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_01: okay,
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_01: so we made a...
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_01: I mean,
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_01: you were the star of this film,
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_01: Don't Die,
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_01: that I...
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_01: made with the director,
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_01: Chris Smith,
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_01: who's amazing,
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_01: and obviously you,
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_01: and Kate Tolo,
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_01: who's here,
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_01: your team.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_01: But there's a moment in this movie, right, where you talk about
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_01: Right before I wrote this one big story about you,
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_01: I was doing some fact-checking,
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_01: and one of the fact-checking items was this erection monitoring device,
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_01: and then I remember,
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_01: you were like,
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_01: are you gonna put that in the story?
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, yeah, of course I'm gonna put that in the story.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not even sure that's, like, the most outrageous thing of the story.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_01: And,
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_01: you'd always been pretty open,
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_01: but I feel like there was this,
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_01: I could sense there was a little trepidation.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_01: You'd been doing this Blueprint program, um,
• 2:49
  And this was like the first time you'd really sort of like just
• 2:51
  let all your cards
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_01: on the table about everything you did.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_01: And so I could sense there was like a little,
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think it was like,
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know,
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_01: I would be in the same position.
• 2:59
  It's like,
• 3:00
  I just told this reporter all this stuff,
• 3:01
  God knows what comes out on the other end.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_01: And in the movie, we talk about this a little bit.
• 3:06
  I don't know that we got in,
• 3:08
  I don't think the movie gets into the penis of it all.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_01: I think it was more just that the story was coming out.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_01: But, okay, so here's my question.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_03: I can't wait.
• 3:19
  So you had this trepidation about me mentioning this erection
• 3:24
  monitoring device,
• 3:25
  and then the next day it was like you kind of saw how people
• 3:29
  reacted to it,
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_01: and then I was actually blown away,
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_01: which was that you embraced this,
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_01: and now it's what,
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_01: like two or three years since then?
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 3:39
  And people bring it up all the time,
• 3:41
  but you also post about all these different things you do.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_01: So what flipped in your...
• 3:45
  How did you make that flip so quickly that I'm gonna go from
• 3:51
  being a little nervous
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_01: about...
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_01: I was just in shock that you just,
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_01: right away,
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_01: you 180'd it.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: What an interesting perspective to hear you tell this.
• 4:04
  It takes me back because I've become so normalized to this now,
• 4:08
  but you're right.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_00: When we first started talking, I was so nervous for our interview.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_00: I mean,
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_00: when you came to the house,
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: my face,
• 4:18
  now the photo people use of me to dunk on me when I'm blown up
• 4:21
  like a marshmallow.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_01: Your face was swollen from a procedure.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that was my face when you showed up.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_00: And so I was...
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_00: We were doing wacky things and we were trying to push the boundaries.
• 4:33
  And I didn't at that moment have intuition on what I could say
• 4:37
  or couldn't say.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: And I had social circles in tech and in other places in my life.
• 4:43
  And I knew I'd get penalized if I talked about certain things
• 4:45
  in certain ways.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_00: And there was a question,
• 4:48
  would it be so bad that I would be canceled or that I would be
• 4:51
  discredited or that?
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't know the cost of talking about a given thing.
• 4:57
  think when we were going through this i was trying to model out
• 4:59
  my mind what
• 5:00
  happens when yeah and is it something that i can't recover from
• 5:03
  or you know so i
• 5:04
  just had no intuitions whatsoever and then i started when this
• 5:08
  went viral because
• 5:09
  of your piece it allowed me to start really putting sensors out
• 5:14
  in the world like
• 5:15
  how does the world feel what gets people excited what makes
• 5:19
  them you know curl like
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: and so the thing on the erections
• 5:25
  is when I tell somebody sleep is important,
• 5:30
  and of all the benefits,
• 5:31
  they roll their eyes.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: And when I say,
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_00: when you don't sleep, your dick is broken.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_00: But they listen.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, tell me more.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_00: So it's really,
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_00: it's when the person connects that something breaks their dick,
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_00: that's when they listen.
• 5:48
  And then once they listen to that,
• 5:50
  they listen to the second and third and fourth thing.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_00: But in their minds,
• 5:53
  they have this belief that it doesn't really matter and they
• 5:57
  can still push through
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_00: and it's like sleep is a luxury.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, I really figured out that that was an entry point
• 6:04
  that would allow the conversation to happen and emerge in a way
• 6:07
  that you just can't
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  SPEAKER_00: any other way.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah,
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_01: I mean,
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  SPEAKER_01: I think I'd spent months,
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_01: well,
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_01: kind of like years following you,
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_01: but for that particular story,
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_01: we'd talked for a long time,
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_01: and I wrote like a 5,000-word story,
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  SPEAKER_01: and then I think the New York Post the next day was just like,
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_01: millionaire monitors erection in like,
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  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_01: whatever they write,
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_01: like a 500-word...
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  SPEAKER_00: The New York Post,
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: they just...
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_00: Whatever you write, they mine off of.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_01: Brief pod pause for some very big news.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_01: Core Memory and Brex have teamed up.
• 6:42
  Brex is going to be the official premiere sponsor for the
• 6:46
  podcast moving forward
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_01: and for our video series on YouTube.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_01: We couldn't be happier.
• 6:52
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• 6:54
  SPEAKER_01: provide the financial backbone for tons of very innovative,
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_01: forward-thinking companies,
• 7:01
  the type of companies that we tend to write about and profile
• 7:06
  on our shows.
• 7:08
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• 7:12
  SPEAKER_01: so this partnership makes all the sense in the world.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_01: Go to brex.com slash core memory to learn more.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_01: And thank you to Brex for...
• 7:23
  believing in our show and our company and helping making all
• 7:28
  this stuff possible.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_01: Before all of this happened, I was coming down to interview you.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_01: You were running Kernel,
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_01: which is making this brain computing interface devices,
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_01: and that was kind of where I was interested at the moment.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_01: And I was working on a payments story.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_01: And you had obviously started
• 7:48
  and sold braintree which was a payments company um that paypal
• 7:52
  ended up buying and
• 7:53
  so i was like i gotta talk to this brian johnson guy he's in
• 7:55
  all this kind of stuff
• 7:56
  that i'm into i don't think you know this but on my way there
• 7:59
  you know one of um i
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_01: think
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_01: I don't want to get anyone in trouble,
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_01: but I think it was like one of your PR people at the time was like,
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_01: look,
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_01: he's just,
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_01: he's like a little sensitive about some stuff.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_01: Like Wired had done this story.
• 8:11
  They talked about like his shirt being,
• 8:14
  like having holes in it or something like that.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_01: And just, and so I was like, oh God, okay.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_01: You know,
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_01: and then,
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know,
• 8:21
  we had this great conversation and you were always very open
• 8:25
  about everything.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_01: But so same sort of thing was, do you feel like you've gone on
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_01: Like you're so open about everything you do.
• 8:32
  And I know some of it's like in the cause of trying to get
• 8:34
  people interested in
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_01: what you're doing.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_01: But I also feel like you must have...
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_01: Most people in their 40s,
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_01: I do not think,
• 8:41
  have a big personality shift where they go from being what was
• 8:45
  presented to me as
• 8:46
  like a very sensitive guy to being so open and upfront about
• 8:52
  all this stuff.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_01: I mean,
• 8:52
  do you feel like you do this because it helps the cause or
• 8:56
  you've just flipped some
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_01: switch?
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it was an article written by MIT on Antonio
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_01: Antonio Regalado.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 9:05
  So I gave a talk at a conference about kernel and BCIs and
• 9:12
  merging our brains with
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_00: AI of how pairing these technologies might be helpful for our evolution.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_00: And
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_00: He wrote this article.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_00: He gave two or three sentences to the ideas and then just bashed me.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_00: You know, how my hair was looked.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_00: I had a shirt that I had purchased.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_00: I was trying to evolve my appearance and my dress.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_00: I had a sweater on, so I was really trying to experiment.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_00: How do you find a new way of being?
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_00: And he did this critique and I was so sensitive.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, my feelings were hurt.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_00: And I guess that's a really good reminder.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_00: I haven't thought about that for years now.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_00: Whereas now,
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I love it.
• 9:59
  Like if someone were to try to take me down on that kind of
• 10:01
  front,
• 10:01
  it'd just be wonderful.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, it's been a pretty radical transformation.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_00: If I'm making the juxtaposition,
• 10:07
  the contrast between how I felt in that moment of being that
• 10:09
  sensitive and now,
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_00: but I guess this kind of makes sense.
• 10:13
  When I talk to my other friends who are creators and get a lot
• 10:15
  of social commentary,
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_00: there is an incredible sensitivity to commentary.
• 10:21
  And in fact,
• 10:22
  I'm in this large group with like 100 of the world's biggest
• 10:25
  creators.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_00: And the topic came up about how people feel about negative comments.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_00: And people were listing out all of their strategies.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_00: Like, here's what I do.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_00: And my team only does this and that.
• 10:33
  And I was like,
• 10:34
  wait,
• 10:35
  am I the only one here who absolutely loves the negativity?
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I just get so much joy out of it.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, so interesting.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_00: You really, I appreciate this a lot, actually.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_00: Like, this is really good contrast.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_01: I've really forgotten about this.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_01: I've thought about this a lot.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_01: So,
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_01: but you may,
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_01: I mean,
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_01: from where I was sitting,
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_01: this must have been a conscious decision,
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_01: but for you,
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_01: maybe it was different.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, maybe you were just rolling with what was happening.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_00: I think so.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 11:04
  So when we first met,
• 11:06
  it was in your office in Venice,
• 11:09
  and you were doing Colonel,
• 11:11
  and then...
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_01: I was there to talk to you about payments of the brain stuff.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_01: And you're like, oh, also, I do all this stuff with my body.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_01: I'm going to Colorado to like snort some stem cells.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_01: And I also like, you know, have these toads.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_01: in Mexico,
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_01: and a shaman,
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_01: would you like...
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_01: I think you just mentioned it,
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_01: and then moments after the interview ended,
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_01: I think I was texting anyone,
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_01: you,
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like,
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_01: oh,
• 11:42
  I would like to see what it's like to snort stem cells and to
• 11:46
  sample a toad in
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_01: Mexico.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_01: And, like, in those days, I mean, you were still on this...
• 11:52
  health journey because you'd been going through all these
• 11:56
  mental health issues.
• 11:58
  But that felt like it was like kind of the beginning of doing
• 12:02
  this experimentation.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_01: And then you were also doing,
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_01: you're open about this,
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_01: so I feel like you're talking like ketamine and these things.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_01: I've always been curious.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_01: We've only like barely talked about this, so I've always been curious.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_01: You were pretty into the toads.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_01: I have two questions.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_01: How does a wealthy person acquire a toad shaman?
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_01: What is the process to find that person?
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah,
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_00: I mean,
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_00: so what I was doing is basically the first,
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_00: the stem cell thing,
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_00: is basically PRP,
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_00: intranasally.
• 12:35
  So it was this experimental treatment that was being used for
• 12:39
  traumatic brain injury.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_01: So platelet-rich plasma.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 12:42
  So you draw the blood out,
• 12:44
  you spin it up,
• 12:44
  you pull out the growth factors out of the plasma.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_00: And so then intranasal injection.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_00: So it was like, we did this therapy trying to... And this was early on.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_00: This wouldn't have passed my blueprint standards.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_00: This is me before having a team doing things on my own.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, 100%.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_01: It was wild, too.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_00: It was wild.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I sat with Brian.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_01: He had all this blood drawn out of it.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_01: I told him.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_01: I'm, like, queasy with blood.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_01: And we were... We came into this clinic early in the morning.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_01: You drew all this blood.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_01: You're, like, just unfazed at all.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_01: And then they went in some back room,
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_01: and they're like,
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_01: now we're going to centrifuge it and turn it into stem cells.
• 13:19
  And there was some sort of,
• 13:20
  like,
• 13:21
  magic from some Spanish lab that had sent them this technique.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_01: And while we waited,
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_01: you and I went,
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_01: and we got our veins lasered with different wavelengths of light.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_01: And then...
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_01: Then the doctor put you down on this table,
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_01: and,
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_01: like,
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_01: it's kind of like a normal table you would find in a medical office,
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_01: except the head end tilted down really far so they could get...
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_01: And then the syringe was this incredibly long,
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_01: like a proboscis,
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_01: you know?
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_01: And then, yeah, you did it.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_01: You just snorted that right off.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_01: You know, kudos to you for saying yes.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_01: You just, you've been along with me.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_01: I did not give the blood.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_01: I did do the lasers and everything.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_01: Okay,
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_01: and so that doesn't,
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_01: you stopped doing that because,
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_01: so it doesn't pass the test because it's not clinically proven out?
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah,
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_00: I would say there,
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_00: I haven't gone back and looked at the evidence,
• 14:19
  but I would say there's probably not enough evidence that it
• 14:23
  would pass our
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_00: are checks of like, is it worth doing?
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_00: Is it worth any risk?
• 14:29
  Now,
• 14:29
  it's PRP,
• 14:30
  so it wasn't like I was putting some other stem cells in my
• 14:32
  body.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_00: But still, I think that we have a much more rigorous process now.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_00: So that was like my earliest of days of like, what can you do?
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_00: And what is worth doing?
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_00: And it's actually a really hard process of developing intuitions.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_00: What is worth doing?
• 14:46
  And then the toad,
• 14:46
  I mean,
• 14:47
  this is well known,
• 14:49
  has these DMT-like,
• 14:52
  what is it called?
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_01: Is it the buffalo?
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, 5-MeO-DMT from the Cenorian Toad.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_01: Cenorian Toad.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_01: And you're supposed to lick it?
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_01: You can smoke it.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_01: You can smoke it.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_01: So they take the secretion and they crystallize it,
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_01: or they dehydrate the secretion,
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_01: I guess,
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_01: and then you smoke it.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_01: And I mean, people can watch videos on the internet.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_01: This looks intense.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_01: And you've talked about it before as this life-altering experience.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_01: So why did you...
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_01: Why did you stop doing things like that?
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_01: Because you were pretty into it.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_01: And you say it's like one of your most profound...
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_01: I think you've said it's your most profound moment.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_00: Unquestionably.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_00: It's tattooed on my body.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_00: It's the only tattoo I have.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 15:34
  So why did you pull away from...
• 15:36
  It was just those few times where...
• 15:38
  Okay.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_01: No, wait.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_01: First, you have to tell me how you found your shaman.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_01: I was...
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_01: without getting somebody arrested.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, exactly.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_00: I was posing this question, how big is consciousness?
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so you want to go find out.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah,
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_00: so I mean,
• 16:01
  I know what it feels like to fall in love and to feel sad and
• 16:04
  to feel envy and to
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_00: feel joy and to feel accomplishment and to feel shame.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_00: So I have this mapping of various emotional states that I can experience.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_00: I know what it feels like to be sleep-deprived and well-slept.
• 16:16
  And then I wanted to say,
• 16:18
  okay,
• 16:18
  now I understand this play space,
• 16:20
  but what else?
• 16:22
  And when you drink alcohol,
• 16:23
  you can say that's some kind of different state.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_00: And then marijuana offers a different state.
• 16:28
  And so I was just trying to create a general map because I was
• 16:31
  asking the question
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_00: in the context of kernel,
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_00: if you can in fact pair the brain with AI,
• 16:39
  what could ai do with you in terms of exploring consciousness
• 16:44
  and then if you had
• 16:45
  an additional layer of molecular manipulation if you could take
• 16:50
  certain substances
• 16:51
  in addition to those things what really could you explore
• 16:54
  because we've have we
• 16:55
  have these ambitions as a species we say um we want to create
• 16:59
  asi or we want to go
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_00: to mars or i thought why is not why
• 17:08
  Why is it the case that we don't equally want to try to expand
• 17:13
  or explore our
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_00: consciousness with as much excitement as anything in existence?
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_00: Because what else do we have except for our consciousness?
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_00: It's kind of like the gold mine of our very existence.
• 17:22
  And so I was asking that question and 5-MeO gave me the most
• 17:27
  expansive map.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_00: I never...
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_00: Before I did it,
• 17:31
  if I would have sat in a room by myself for 100 years trying to
• 17:36
  imagine what that
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_00: state would be like,
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_00: I could never have even approximately got close.
• 17:42
  It's just so mind-bendingly different than my conscious state
• 17:45
  in any normal condition.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_00: So it was.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_00: It was the most expansive, coolest experience of my entire life.
• 17:52
  And you just feel like you've felt that,
• 17:55
  been there,
• 17:55
  done that,
• 17:56
  and don't need to do it again.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_00: I got the map.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_00: I got what I went there for.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_01: And we can't talk about the shaman.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_01: I'm getting the sense.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_03: That's maybe sensitive.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_03: Probably.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_01: And then, okay, at this stage where I met you,
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_01: For people who don't know,
• 18:15
  you were your family and you were quite a devout member of the
• 18:20
  Church of Latter-day
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_01: Saints,
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_01: Mormonism,
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_01: and then you...
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_01: You'd had this moment where you'd gotten married quite young,
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_01: you'd had a family,
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_01: you'd built this multi,
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_01: this billion dollar business,
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_01: and then you have this period where you get divorced,
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_01: break from the church,
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_01: sell the company,
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_01: move to Los Angeles,
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_01: and you're going through these mental health struggles,
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_01: trying to fix that.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_01: Where was the line between
• 18:50
  Dude got married so young,
• 18:52
  never even really got to date,
• 18:55
  you know,
• 18:55
  and now is like in L.A.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_01: with some money, out of the church, out of the family.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_01: You know,
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_01: where was the line between things like,
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_01: and I don't know if all this falls in,
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_01: but all this experimentation,
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_01: sort of dude sowing his wild oats versus dude on a health quest.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_00: It's hard to know which one is which.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it started in New York when I found the Brooklyn Warehouse
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_00: the raves,
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_00: where dancing begins at midnight or one,
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_00: and you dance until six or seven in the morning.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_00: That's where it really started.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_00: That was the beginning of the entire journey.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_01: So for people to know, I mean, you were quite devout to the church.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_01: I mean,
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_01: so you had,
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_01: I think we had talked about before,
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_01: you'd maybe had like a couple sips of beer or something like that,
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_01: but you didn't drink,
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_01: you didn't smoke,
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_01: you didn't do drugs.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm imagining this New York part,
• 19:51
  that's the first time something like an MDMA finds its way into
• 19:56
  your body.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_00: I mean,
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_00: that four years after that,
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_00: it was a rebirth moment where I was willing to shed all beliefs,
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_00: all customs,
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_00: all norms,
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_00: and just say,
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_00: I want to remake myself.
• 20:11
  And I really was eagerly trying to shed everything that I was
• 20:19
  and try to become
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_00: something entirely new.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_01: I feel like that would be daunting to not have...
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_01: Some people have,
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_01: like,
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_01: a gradual...
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_01: They always talk about pot as,
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_01: like,
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_01: a gateway drug.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, there is this, like, stepping stone.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_01: I feel like going from sober life to one day putting,
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_01: like,
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_01: an ecstasy pill in my mouth,
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_01: I feel like that would be scary.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you're doing the matrix.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_01: You take, you know, you're picking the pill, right?
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_01: And a new reality.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe I should have more inhibition.
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe that's the lesson.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_01: Did you think about it like that?
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_01: Not at all.
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_00: No, you were just going.
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean, there's a calculated risk on all these things, and
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, see, I guess I was 34, 35 at that time.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_00: It's getting to be pretty hard at that age to remake yourself.
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_00: But I so badly wanted it.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_00: And even now,
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_00: I mean,
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_00: in this moment,
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_00: as I was coming here to talk to you today,
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_00: I feel a similar urge right now that I've just completed a phase.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_00: And as of right now, I'm like...
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_00: I think I need to rebuild myself again.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_00: It feels like this is done, and I need something new is here.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't know what it is.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_00: It just feels like it happens inside of me,
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_00: and I get notified that it's done,
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_00: and now I'm just waiting for the next thing.
• 21:43
  But for some reason,
• 21:45
  just these past couple days,
• 21:46
  it's just like,
• 21:47
  phase finished?
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_00: Let's go.
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_01: I had questions along those lines.
• 21:52
  Maybe I'll go to them and then come back to some of this other
• 21:54
  stuff I was going to
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_01: ask since you went there.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I saw...
• 21:58
  Again,
• 21:58
  I feel like you've had to do the same interview hundreds of
• 22:01
  times.
• 22:01
  Wired recently did an interview with you where there was not a
• 22:04
  lot of new ground broken.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_01: I was actually kind of let down by that interview.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_01: However,
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_01: there was this news item that you're looking to sell Blu...
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_01: You want to get out of the Blu...
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_01: You having to deal with the Blueprint business personally.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_01: Is that kind of what you're talking about?
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_01: Which is...
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_01: So,
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_01: Colonel,
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_01: you stepped away from,
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_01: and other people are running that now,
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_01: and it sounds like,
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_01: if I read the story right,
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_01: and I've seen you talk about it,
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_01: it sounds like you want to do something similar with Blueprint.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_01: So,
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_01: Blueprint will live on,
• 22:34
  but somebody else will focus on the supplements and the meal
• 22:39
  plans and things like
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_00: that?
• 22:40
  Yeah,
• 22:40
  I think...
• 22:41
  So,
• 22:41
  I'm at this fork where either...
• 22:43
  I don't think it's...
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_00: It's not worth my time.
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_00: Even if I can make a billion dollars in the next three years,
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_00: it's not worth my time to work for the billion dollars.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_00: It's worth my time to do something on Don't Die.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_00: No amount of money is worth it.
• 23:06
  And right now,
• 23:07
  when you're building any kind of company,
• 23:09
  it's a black hole.
• 23:11
  it consumes you you can't you can't leave its force yeah and
• 23:17
  right now i'm stuck in
• 23:18
  a black hole and uh the the motivation so i guess part of me
• 23:24
  people really depend
• 23:25
  upon the you know the protocols we put out the foods we make
• 23:31
  the the the testing we
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_00: make available they really do depend upon it so i feel
• 23:35
  a loyalty to them because I feel like we are in partnership on
• 23:38
  this journey.
• 23:39
  And so I either have to sell the company or I have to bring
• 23:42
  people in to run it.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_00: But there's no middle ground where I keep on running it.
• 23:46
  So we're actually very close right now to raising the money and
• 23:49
  bringing a
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_00: management company in.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_00: If we do that, it's not done yet.
• 23:53
  If we do,
• 23:54
  then the goal would become try to build the world's most useful
• 24:00
  health company.
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_00: So practically, if someone says, I want to be healthy to...
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_00: to help them in ways that no other company in the world can do it,
• 24:09
  but try to do it in a way where you handle 80% of their needs
• 24:13
  versus like one
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_00: narrow thing,
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_00: like drink this one thing or do this one test,
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_00: like a comprehensive approach.
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_00: So it'd be like an all-in effort to try to do that, but then
• 24:23
  Yeah,
• 24:23
  my goal is to allow my focus and attention to be on a different
• 24:27
  path.
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_00: But the remake is,
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_00: so I've been for the past couple of years,
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_00: I guess since 2022,
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_00: I've tried to become the world's best rejuvenation athlete.
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_00: And part of it is real, part of it's performance art.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_00: And because when someone says health,
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_00: If two people are talking about it,
• 24:49
  no one knows what the difference means between one person's
• 24:52
  health regimen and
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_00: another person's health regimen.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_00: And I've wanted to just make the basic point.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_00: You can measure health.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_00: But I think I've done that.
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_00: And right now, I train six hours a day on my rejuvenation protocols.
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_00: And it's a full-time job.
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_00: And that, in addition to doctor's appointments and everything else,
• 25:11
  And so I've kind of pushed the boundaries on what's available
• 25:13
  for today's science.
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_00: And so I think I might be done with this phase,
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_00: pull back to an 80% optimization versus 99,
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_00: and then redirect my energies towards a new thing.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, okay.
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, I still have questions along those lines.
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_01: I do want to say for the record, and this is...
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_01: This is no BS.
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_01: This is not because you're sitting in the room.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_01: People are just gonna have to either accept that or not.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_01: There's people on the internet who have given you endless shit for,
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_01: uh,
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_01: oh,
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_01: this was all to sell stuff,
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_01: supplements all along.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_01: All I can tell these people is that,
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_01: when I first wrote this story on you,
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_01: I mean,
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_01: you've been doing Blueprint on your own for 18 months,
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_01: maybe,
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_01: and...
• 25:54
  And I think it's fair to say I had not got the attention that
• 25:56
  you wanted it to,
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_01: and you were doing this thing,
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_01: and then I wrote this story,
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_01: and it blew up,
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_01: and,
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_01: like,
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_01: the next day,
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_01: everybody's hunting on Amazon to try to buy whatever you were doing.
• 26:09
  Everything's sold out,
• 26:10
  and then everyone thinks you had this massive media...
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I was with you for months and years.
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_01: It was you and this lovely woman, Kate Tolo.
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you guys are doing all the social stuff.
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_01: Anyway, there's especially this guy, Andrew, or something.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_01: There's a few people on the internet who really hung up on this, but...
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_01: you know, at least from where I stood, there was no master plan.
• 26:36
  I mean,
• 26:37
  after my story went out,
• 26:38
  I had all these people asking me,
• 26:40
  how do you buy this stuff?
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_01: I mean,
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_01: it was like you sort of either had a choice of,
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_01: like,
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_01: you sell it or you have to personally answer,
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_01: a million emails.
• 26:49
  And it was not like you had all this stuff in the closet,
• 26:52
  you know,
• 26:53
  ready to sell everybody.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_01: Then you spent, like, the next year, year and a half, like, having a...
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_01: go find all this stuff, package it, test it, everything.
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_01: So anyway, I'm just putting that out there for the record.
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks.
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, for people who say that, they don't, and then it's fine.
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_00: It's really cool.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_00: They don't understand the economics of this business.
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_00: If you understand it, you know I'm telling the truth.
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_00: OK, it's rough.
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_00: It's a shit business, right?
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_00: Like, you don't start money.
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_00: You don't start in a supplements food business to make money.
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_00: It's just, it's not there.
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_00: So,
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_00: like,
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_00: it genuinely was a...
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_00: I was trying to solve my own problem,
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_00: and I was trying to be helpful to other people.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_00: So, it was never, ever about the money.
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_01: There's another funny thing, which is...
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_01: Watching how all this has evolved,
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_01: there's been times when I thought,
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_01: like,
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_01: you're going to run out of steam.
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_01: People are going to get tired of this.
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_01: Obviously,
• 27:47
  there were a couple stories in Vanity Fair and the New York
• 27:50
  Times that they tried
• 27:52
  SPEAKER_01: to end you.
• 27:52
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I kind of thought this thing might blow up.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_01: It's had, like, way more legs than maybe I anticipated going in.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_01: And then I do, I start to, like, I feel like
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_01: Anyone who's running a business,
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_01: anyone who's doing anything they care about,
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_01: even if I'm trying to sell a documentary,
• 28:11
  SPEAKER_01: I mean,
• 28:11
  SPEAKER_01: you have to pitch it so many times.
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_01: It's just part of the thing.
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_01: You have to say the same thing over and over and over again for years.
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_01: So I don't, like, fully pity you in that.
• 28:19
  It's like,
• 28:20
  lots of people have to do this if they're doing something they
• 28:22
  care about.
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_01: But to this point that you're making about switching,
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_01: you've been pretty upfront that this is a religion,
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_01: it's a cult,
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_01: these kinds of things.
• 28:33
  SPEAKER_01: What usually ends up happening in a cult is like,
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_01: in order for it to be the best cult or the best religion,
• 28:39
  you have to be almost perfect and you have to be better than
• 28:41
  all the other types of
• 28:43
  SPEAKER_01: people.
• 28:43
  SPEAKER_01: It's very isolating.
• 28:45
  It doesn't usually end well for the cult leader because you end
• 28:49
  up in this strange place.
• 28:52
  where you're,
• 28:52
  yeah,
• 28:52
  you're kind of like off on your own and you have to be a little
• 28:55
  more rare.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_01: And yeah, so this is what I was wondering.
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, are you, is this part of what you're talking about?
• 29:02
  SPEAKER_01: Are you tired of having to go around like that?
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_01: Or am I, when you talk about
• 29:11
  SPEAKER_01: taking this shift, am I going at this the wrong way?
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_01: Like you're still full in, don't die.
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, all in, don't die.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_00: And I guess your comment,
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_00: man,
• 29:21
  it's really therapeutic to talk to you because I feel like you
• 29:24
  make such good
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_00: observations that I've
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_00: I'm so far removed from myself that I don't remember these.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_00: But if I now can look back,
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_00: yeah,
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_00: once I started in 2022,
• 29:37
  there's a natural process for somebody that achieves notoriety
• 29:42
  in society.
• 29:43
  And this inevitably,
• 29:45
  you're going to get attacked from all kinds of forces in
• 29:50
  society.
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_00: And most people do get buried in those moments.
• 29:54
  and whether it's too severe for them to bounce back or whether
• 29:58
  they themselves give up.
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_00: But it does feel like that I've made it through.
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_00: the majority of the major first blows.
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_00: 100%.
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_00: That come, and I've survived them.
• 30:09
  And now I'm stable,
• 30:12
  that now when people come at me,
• 30:14
  they've given their best swings already.
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_00: And it feels like,
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_00: so it does personally feel,
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_00: I feel very stable in my place in society,
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_00: that I don't feel like I'm gonna get blindsided by this or that.
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_00: And that I don't feel like,
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_00: even when the New York Times tried to take their big swing at me,
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_00: whatever,
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_00: it just didn't have an impact.
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_00: So I guess I'm happy that I guess I didn't know that was coming my way,
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_00: but now I haven't gone through that.
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_00: Almost like when I made money for the first time.
• 30:41
  SPEAKER_00: You know,
• 30:41
  SPEAKER_00: I wish somebody would have pulled up and said,
• 30:43
  SPEAKER_00: let me share with you five life principles that you'll need to know.
• 30:47
  SPEAKER_00: The same thing would have been,
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_00: like,
• 30:49
  SPEAKER_00: if you have any kind of notoriety or fame,
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_00: here's what's gonna happen to you.
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_00: And just expect it.
• 30:54
  SPEAKER_01: Do you have,
• 30:54
  SPEAKER_01: I know I'm making you do it off the top of your head,
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_01: but do you have five for somebody who goes through that experience?
• 30:59
  SPEAKER_00: I'll make them up right now.
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_00: I don't have them written down.
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_00: I'll just generally is the... Number one is hate.
• 31:05
  SPEAKER_00: Is that...
• 31:07
  Hate really messes with people's minds because it undermines
• 31:13
  their idea of respect
• 31:15
  SPEAKER_00: and status and,
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 31:17
  SPEAKER_00: their relationship with the world.
• 31:19
  And I know in being in these private chat groups with a bunch
• 31:22
  of people who are
• 31:23
  SPEAKER_00: famous,
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_00: that they really are really bothered by it.
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_00: The hate that they receive.
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 31:29
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_00: And so one is you, I think that you,
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_00: it's not good enough to just even become neutralized with it, right?
• 31:40
  SPEAKER_00: I think you really want to embrace it and find energy from it, right?
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_00: For me, it's a power source.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_00: It's an energy source.
• 31:49
  And so I'd say first is you have to really reconcile like,
• 31:52
  what is that hate?
• 31:53
  SPEAKER_00: What does it mean to you?
• 31:54
  How do you leverage it and turn it to power versus how do you
• 31:56
  hide from it?
• 31:56
  SPEAKER_00: Because if you hide from it,
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_00: it's going to make you a weak person.
• 32:00
  You're always going to be running their scripts in your mind
• 32:03
  versus your scripts of
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_00: moving forward.
• 32:05
  SPEAKER_00: And so you become owned by them.
• 32:07
  SPEAKER_00: Then two,
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_00: I'd say that when I made money at age 34,
• 32:13
  SPEAKER_00: one of the lessons that I wish I would have learned,
• 32:15
  SPEAKER_00: and this would apply to what I've learned now again,
• 32:17
  SPEAKER_00: is when there's a power differential with money,
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_00: everyone around you now wants that money.
• 32:25
  SPEAKER_00: And it just is.
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't matter.
• 32:28
  even if their intentions are good the money changes your
• 32:31
  relationship with the
• 32:32
  world everybody around you friends family loved ones everybody
• 32:36
  and so you just have
• 32:37
  to be aware that that's changed and that over time even your
• 32:42
  best relationships may
• 32:43
  go sour because that is now a complication even with yourself
• 32:47
  it changes so that is
• 32:49
  SPEAKER_00: amplified dramatically with fame so now i have wealth and i have fame
• 32:54
  SPEAKER_00: And so it's a double whammy.
• 32:56
  And so it's almost amplified where it's become so challenging
• 33:01
  for me to be in
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_00: social environments.
• 33:04
  SPEAKER_00: that the smallest of things get me in trouble.
• 33:07
  SPEAKER_00: Like the things I make,
• 33:08
  SPEAKER_00: the comments I make,
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_00: that are trying to be like messing around,
• 33:11
  SPEAKER_00: having fun,
• 33:12
  SPEAKER_00: they blow back on me in some way.
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_00: So it really is isolating.
• 33:15
  So in that isolation,
• 33:17
  you need to find a tribe that you can be yourself,
• 33:20
  be calm,
• 33:21
  like be open.
• 33:21
  SPEAKER_00: But I understand why...
• 33:25
  SPEAKER_00: wealth and power and fame puts you in these clusters.
• 33:29
  SPEAKER_00: It's just very, very hard.
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_00: It's honestly sucks, right?
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_00: Because I don't want that to be the case.
• 33:35
  SPEAKER_00: But even,
• 33:35
  SPEAKER_00: yeah,
• 33:37
  SPEAKER_00: being out and about now in the public,
• 33:38
  SPEAKER_00: like,
• 33:39
  SPEAKER_00: I just can't go anywhere without being stopped dozens of times.
• 33:44
  SPEAKER_00: And of course,
• 33:44
  SPEAKER_00: on every interaction,
• 33:45
  I want to be kind and I want to be thoughtful and I want to
• 33:47
  make eye contact and
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_00: say,
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_00: how are you?
• 33:49
  SPEAKER_00: What's happening?
• 33:50
  SPEAKER_00: Or whatever.
• 33:51
  SPEAKER_00: But it's just, it gets really complicated really fast.
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_00: So those would be two.
• 33:54
  SPEAKER_00: It's just like understand that complication.
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_00: Two, have a powerful relationship with hate, like make it.
• 33:59
  But three is understand that fame is,
• 34:02
  I would rather have fame than wealth.
• 34:05
  SPEAKER_01: Okay,
• 34:05
  SPEAKER_01: since day one,
• 34:06
  the Core Memory podcast has been supported by the fine people
• 34:10
  at E1 Ventures.
• 34:11
  SPEAKER_01: They are a young and ambitious VC firm in Silicon Valley,
• 34:15
  SPEAKER_01: investing in young and ambitious companies and people.
• 34:19
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much to E1 Ventures for all your support.
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_01: So you're in a influencer WhatsApp group?
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_01: or some kind of group?
• 34:27
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean, so this is the thing.
• 34:29
  SPEAKER_00: I just, these private groups are where everything happens.
• 34:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, where like, what do you mean everything happens?
• 34:39
  SPEAKER_01: What is everything?
• 34:40
  SPEAKER_00: I mean everything.
• 34:42
  SPEAKER_01: Like business deals,
• 34:45
  SPEAKER_01: relationships,
• 34:46
  SPEAKER_01: those kinds of things,
• 34:46
  SPEAKER_01: or where you guys are,
• 34:48
  SPEAKER_01: you're hashing out these more?
• 34:51
  SPEAKER_01: Everything.
• 34:51
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, okay.
• 34:52
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 34:52
  SPEAKER_01: Just texting away.
• 34:54
  Yeah,
• 34:56
  the best ones are where you're in a group where everyone's
• 35:01
  trusting of each other.
• 35:02
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, don't you guys freak?
• 35:03
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you must be freaked out.
• 35:05
  SPEAKER_01: Who's screenshotting all these messages?
• 35:07
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's the thing.
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so some of my friends are really good curators of humans.
• 35:13
  And there's just a certain level of trust over a certain
• 35:15
  duration of time,
• 35:16
  SPEAKER_00: and they bring in really great people.
• 35:18
  SPEAKER_00: But otherwise, it's...
• 35:21
  I remember when I was an intern for the Utah legislature when I
• 35:23
  was 21 years old,
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_00: I was an intern for the Senate Majority Leader.
• 35:33
  I would listen to the radio going into work of what the public
• 35:37
  was discussing and
• 35:37
  SPEAKER_00: what they were up in arms about and how they hated everything going on.
• 35:41
  SPEAKER_00: And then I would sit in a meeting with the governor,
• 35:44
  SPEAKER_00: the house majority leader,
• 35:45
  SPEAKER_00: and the Senate majority leader,
• 35:46
  SPEAKER_00: and I'd hear them do business.
• 35:47
  And that world relative to what was being discussed in the
• 35:50
  press were two different worlds.
• 35:53
  SPEAKER_00: And I thought, this is crazy.
• 35:55
  Like the world I thought I was living in is not the world that
• 35:58
  really runs the world.
• 35:59
  SPEAKER_00: And so it just, most things happen behind the scenes.
• 36:03
  SPEAKER_01: All right, I have a question along those lines.
• 36:05
  SPEAKER_01: So when I,
• 36:06
  SPEAKER_01: before Blueprint,
• 36:08
  SPEAKER_01: before Don't Die,
• 36:08
  SPEAKER_01: I was covering you and Colonel,
• 36:11
  SPEAKER_01: and then I started dabbling with some of the health stuff you were doing.
• 36:15
  SPEAKER_01: And then I would get grief from Bloomberg,
• 36:18
  SPEAKER_01: like,
• 36:18
  SPEAKER_01: oh,
• 36:18
  SPEAKER_01: you're writing about Brian Johnson again and,
• 36:20
  SPEAKER_01: you know.
• 36:21
  SPEAKER_01: It's like, this guy's crazy.
• 36:22
  SPEAKER_01: And then,
• 36:23
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 36:23
  SPEAKER_01: it's so funny now,
• 36:24
  SPEAKER_01: because,
• 36:24
  SPEAKER_01: like,
• 36:24
  SPEAKER_01: everyone on Earth is clamoring to write stories about you.
• 36:29
  And then you were in a different place where,
• 36:31
  like,
• 36:31
  you'd been trying to raise money for Kernel.
• 36:33
  SPEAKER_01: Nobody in Silicon Valley would listen to you.
• 36:35
  SPEAKER_01: You had made it as an entrepreneur, but you were somehow kind of other.
• 36:39
  SPEAKER_01: You weren't in the...
• 36:41
  SPEAKER_01: You had done it in Chicago.
• 36:42
  SPEAKER_01: You were living in LA.
• 36:43
  SPEAKER_01: You were not part of the Silicon Valley in crowd.
• 36:46
  SPEAKER_01: I know that always kind of bothered you on some level.
• 36:49
  SPEAKER_01: I think my... You could put it in your own words.
• 36:52
  SPEAKER_01: My sense was that they didn't take you seriously on some level.
• 36:57
  SPEAKER_01: And then now, you know, here you are in these groups.
• 37:00
  SPEAKER_01: I remember...
• 37:02
  SPEAKER_01: You'd been at Blueprint and Don't Die for a while.
• 37:05
  I just remember you and I were both at one of these Masters of
• 37:08
  the Universe weekend
• 37:09
  SPEAKER_01: retreats,
• 37:10
  SPEAKER_01: and I remember watching...
• 37:13
  SPEAKER_01: There was a big dinner,
• 37:14
  SPEAKER_01: everybody's in a tent,
• 37:15
  SPEAKER_01: there's all these tables full of...
• 37:18
  SPEAKER_01: billionaires,
• 37:19
  SPEAKER_01: scientists,
• 37:21
  SPEAKER_01: celebrities,
• 37:21
  SPEAKER_01: intellectuals,
• 37:22
  SPEAKER_01: and I remember you walking in,
• 37:24
  SPEAKER_01: and it was like,
• 37:25
  SPEAKER_01: everybody wanted to talk to you,
• 37:27
  SPEAKER_01: and I was like,
• 37:28
  SPEAKER_01: man,
• 37:28
  SPEAKER_01: things have...
• 37:30
  SPEAKER_01: how far things have come.
• 37:32
  SPEAKER_01: Um,
• 37:33
  SPEAKER_01: so,
• 37:33
  SPEAKER_01: I mean,
• 37:33
  SPEAKER_01: that must be,
• 37:34
  SPEAKER_01: like,
• 37:35
  SPEAKER_01: uh,
• 37:35
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know,
• 37:36
  SPEAKER_01: it sounds like it's satisfying and not,
• 37:38
  SPEAKER_01: because all the other baggage that comes with it,
• 37:41
  SPEAKER_01: but,
• 37:42
  SPEAKER_01: um...
• 37:44
  Do you not harbor a little resentment now that all these people
• 37:48
  want you at the
• 37:48
  SPEAKER_01: thing,
• 37:49
  SPEAKER_01: they all want to talk to you,
• 37:50
  SPEAKER_01: and they didn't want to before?
• 37:52
  SPEAKER_01: Or how do you process that?
• 37:54
  SPEAKER_00: I love every second of it.
• 37:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I'm so grateful.
• 37:57
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I...
• 37:59
  SPEAKER_00: I grew up not having a computer.
• 38:02
  SPEAKER_00: I grew up only knowing blue car workers.
• 38:05
  SPEAKER_00: I grew up in a religion that taught me to understand the world through
• 38:07
  SPEAKER_00: storytelling,
• 38:08
  SPEAKER_00: not through numbers.
• 38:09
  SPEAKER_00: So I grew up disadvantaged in,
• 38:14
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like I'm an engineer at heart,
• 38:17
  that I really would have taken to that path had it been
• 38:21
  presented to me early on.
• 38:23
  SPEAKER_00: And in growing, I started multiple companies before I started Braintree.
• 38:27
  SPEAKER_00: But in building Braintree, I wasn't a software engineer.
• 38:29
  SPEAKER_00: I was a non-technical founder.
• 38:32
  SPEAKER_00: And we built a really good business.
• 38:34
  SPEAKER_00: We sold it.
• 38:35
  SPEAKER_00: We acquired Venmo.
• 38:36
  SPEAKER_00: We had a good outcome.
• 38:37
  SPEAKER_00: I then built Kernel.
• 38:38
  SPEAKER_00: We were doing something very technical.
• 38:39
  But I've always had these real limitations in my own abilities
• 38:45
  that I don't know how to code.
• 38:46
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't study mechanical engineering or physics in school.
• 38:51
  SPEAKER_00: And so I had this really serious deficiency as an entrepreneur.
• 38:54
  SPEAKER_00: And I've tried to figure out how I compensate for that deficiency.
• 39:00
  And it just so happened that Blueprint gave me a path to have
• 39:05
  enough value in the
• 39:06
  world where I could create value for others in areas that they
• 39:10
  may not have the
• 39:10
  SPEAKER_00: same expertise.
• 39:12
  So I really admire people who build in technology,
• 39:16
  in deep tech,
• 39:17
  biotech,
• 39:19
  software.
• 39:22
  SPEAKER_00: hardware,
• 39:23
  SPEAKER_00: and I've always wanted to build with them,
• 39:26
  SPEAKER_00: which is one of the reasons why I started OS fund.
• 39:27
  SPEAKER_00: I started investing in deep tech entrepreneurs,
• 39:29
  SPEAKER_00: doing synthetic biology and genomics,
• 39:31
  SPEAKER_00: computational therapeutics.
• 39:33
  So yeah,
• 39:33
  I guess it's really allowed me to bridge into the worlds that I
• 39:36
  care about the most.
• 39:37
  SPEAKER_00: and to be involved in those activities.
• 39:39
  SPEAKER_00: I just feel really fortunate.
• 39:41
  SPEAKER_00: It's where I want to be,
• 39:42
  SPEAKER_00: it's where I want to hang out,
• 39:44
  SPEAKER_00: and so I'm grateful that I get to be invited to those things.
• 39:46
  It's funny,
• 39:46
  because it kind of went from...
• 39:48
  it went from weirdo to...
• 39:50
  it's like...
• 39:54
  SPEAKER_01: huge chunk of those people I know are,
• 39:56
  SPEAKER_01: like,
• 39:56
  SPEAKER_01: on Blueprint and,
• 39:59
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 40:00
  SPEAKER_01: and then,
• 40:01
  SPEAKER_01: yeah,
• 40:01
  SPEAKER_01: when you walked through,
• 40:02
  SPEAKER_01: like,
• 40:03
  SPEAKER_01: it wasn't even,
• 40:03
  SPEAKER_01: it wasn't like,
• 40:04
  SPEAKER_01: oh,
• 40:04
  SPEAKER_01: I want to go talk to the weird guy.
• 40:05
  SPEAKER_01: It was like, it was like, oh, Brian's here.
• 40:08
  Like,
• 40:08
  I mean,
• 40:09
  it was fascinating to see from my vantage point how far things
• 40:16
  had changed.
• 40:17
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 40:19
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 40:19
  SPEAKER_01: People...
• 40:20
  SPEAKER_01: So when we were shooting Don't Die,
• 40:22
  SPEAKER_01: the documentary,
• 40:23
  SPEAKER_01: I mean,
• 40:23
  SPEAKER_01: I got to go to Utah where you grew up.
• 40:25
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
• 40:26
  SPEAKER_01: You talk about it sometimes, but I don't think people fully realize.
• 40:29
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you know, your mother is this wonderful woman.
• 40:32
  SPEAKER_01: There's a couple things that really struck me.
• 40:34
  SPEAKER_01: I mean...
• 40:35
  SPEAKER_01: You grew up at what was the time, it was quite almost rural.
• 40:39
  SPEAKER_01: It was the small town.
• 40:41
  We went to like your grandfather's kind of like farm and talked
• 40:47
  to like some kids
• 40:48
  SPEAKER_01: that you grew up with.
• 40:51
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it was just out of like this very small, tight-knit community.
• 40:56
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it was like...
• 40:58
  Lots of people in Silicon Valley sort of come from somewhere
• 41:01
  else and end up in
• 41:01
  SPEAKER_01: this,
• 41:02
  SPEAKER_01: but I've always thought your journey is insane because you're,
• 41:05
  SPEAKER_01: like,
• 41:05
  SPEAKER_01: man of the future living on the edge,
• 41:08
  SPEAKER_01: and where you grew up was quite opposite of that.
• 41:11
  SPEAKER_01: And I don't know if people fully know,
• 41:13
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 41:14
  SPEAKER_01: your mother clearly,
• 41:15
  SPEAKER_01: I mean,
• 41:16
  SPEAKER_01: loves you,
• 41:16
  SPEAKER_01: obviously,
• 41:17
  SPEAKER_01: and,
• 41:17
  SPEAKER_01: like,
• 41:17
  SPEAKER_01: deeply,
• 41:18
  SPEAKER_01: but,
• 41:19
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 41:19
  SPEAKER_01: when you broke with the church,
• 41:20
  SPEAKER_01: I mean,
• 41:20
  SPEAKER_01: even now,
• 41:21
  SPEAKER_01: when I saw her a couple years ago,
• 41:24
  SPEAKER_01: you know, she was still like, it is still hard for me.
• 41:26
  SPEAKER_01: And she broke into tears,
• 41:28
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 41:28
  SPEAKER_01: to like deal with what he's done,
• 41:31
  SPEAKER_01: even though she was clearly so proud of you and loved you.
• 41:34
  SPEAKER_01: And she was kind of like in tears.
• 41:36
  SPEAKER_01: It was like this battle within herself.
• 41:40
  I don't think people fully...
• 41:41
  I didn't realize because I grew up like in an atheist family.
• 41:44
  SPEAKER_01: But when I went to visit where you grew up,
• 41:46
  SPEAKER_01: I mean,
• 41:47
  SPEAKER_01: it's just the whole town revolves around that.
• 41:49
  SPEAKER_01: You and your dad told me, I mean, not only were you
• 41:54
  SPEAKER_01: but you used to want to be Joseph Smith,
• 41:57
  SPEAKER_01: or you would dress up like...
• 41:59
  SPEAKER_01: I mean,
• 42:00
  SPEAKER_01: you were pretty into it.
• 42:02
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean, yeah, we... Yeah, you're right.
• 42:07
  SPEAKER_00: I think, Ashley, you articulate my life better than I do.
• 42:11
  SPEAKER_00: No, I'm serious.
• 42:12
  It's really hard to convey this,
• 42:14
  of just how deep I was in that world,
• 42:17
  and...
• 42:18
  SPEAKER_00: What a deficit that is when you bridge to the other worlds.
• 42:23
  SPEAKER_00: And you just have to rebuild all of your mental models.
• 42:27
  SPEAKER_00: You have no skill sets.
• 42:28
  SPEAKER_00: They're transferable.
• 42:29
  SPEAKER_00: It's a very hard place.
• 42:30
  SPEAKER_00: Then I got married young, and I had a bunch of kids.
• 42:32
  And when you're doing that,
• 42:33
  like,
• 42:34
  you don't have time to build skill sets.
• 42:36
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I don't think you ever went on a date, really.
• 42:39
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, barely, right?
• 42:40
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, barely.
• 42:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 42:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 42:43
  SPEAKER_00: So, yeah, it's very fresh insights.
• 42:46
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 42:46
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 42:46
  SPEAKER_01: But then...
• 42:48
  SPEAKER_01: And I am,
• 42:50
  SPEAKER_01: I think,
• 42:50
  trying to ask this question in a different way because lots of
• 42:53
  people will say,
• 42:54
  SPEAKER_01: oh,
• 42:54
  SPEAKER_01: okay,
• 42:54
  SPEAKER_01: well,
• 42:54
  SPEAKER_01: now you're building a religion.
• 42:57
  SPEAKER_01: Aren't you just replacing your Mormonism, et cetera?
• 43:00
  SPEAKER_01: So people have asked you that before.
• 43:02
  But I feel like I do have a little bit more of this insight
• 43:04
  that everything you do
• 43:07
  SPEAKER_01: you go like all in, you know?
• 43:10
  SPEAKER_01: So even though my question sounds sort of the same,
• 43:14
  SPEAKER_01: I think I'm coming at this from a slightly different place where,
• 43:17
  SPEAKER_01: um,
• 43:19
  don't you just think you're replacing that whole of the thing
• 43:23
  that you used to be
• 43:24
  SPEAKER_01: so committed to with something new?
• 43:27
  SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
• 43:28
  Like you seem to have a part of you that always needs to have
• 43:32
  something to be thrown all into.
• 43:34
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 43:36
  SPEAKER_00: all right, I'll have a go at this.
• 43:39
  SPEAKER_00: You tell me what you think.
• 43:42
  So one of the cool things that Mormonism does is it asks you to
• 43:48
  contemplate what do
• 43:51
  SPEAKER_00: you do with existence?
• 43:54
  SPEAKER_00: And I think all religions, they're actually posing the same question.
• 43:57
  And then if you grew up in an atheist household,
• 43:59
  I mean,
• 44:00
  what was your answer?
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_00: What did your parents take?
• 44:01
  SPEAKER_00: What was your answer?
• 44:03
  SPEAKER_00: What do you do with existence?
• 44:07
  SPEAKER_01: When I was growing up,
• 44:07
  I think I hunted around for that a bit because I started
• 44:10
  reading all these
• 44:11
  SPEAKER_01: religious texts.
• 44:12
  SPEAKER_01: I never went to church.
• 44:13
  SPEAKER_01: I had nothing, you know?
• 44:14
  SPEAKER_01: And I grew up in Texas,
• 44:16
  SPEAKER_01: and everybody was going to church on Sunday,
• 44:17
  SPEAKER_01: and I just didn't know what that was about.
• 44:20
  SPEAKER_01: So then,
• 44:20
  SPEAKER_01: yeah,
• 44:21
  SPEAKER_01: like any...
• 44:22
  SPEAKER_01: Not like any teenager,
• 44:23
  SPEAKER_01: but I started reading all the philosophers,
• 44:25
  SPEAKER_01: I started reading...
• 44:28
  SPEAKER_01: Buddhism, Taoist texts, everything.
• 44:30
  SPEAKER_01: I was hunting for some kind of spirituality.
• 44:33
  SPEAKER_01: I mean,
• 44:33
  SPEAKER_01: I would say from what I was taught from my parents,
• 44:37
  SPEAKER_01: what to do with existence,
• 44:38
  SPEAKER_01: it was really just to live like kind of an honest,
• 44:43
  SPEAKER_01: just an honest,
• 44:45
  SPEAKER_01: productive life,
• 44:46
  SPEAKER_01: I think.
• 44:46
  SPEAKER_01: And that's what I was always taught.
• 44:49
  SPEAKER_01: And I don't know that I leapt much farther than that.
• 44:52
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 44:52
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 44:53
  SPEAKER_00: So when I went through that process,
• 44:55
  SPEAKER_00: so at 34,
• 44:56
  SPEAKER_00: when I decided to transition from a previous world to a new world,
• 45:01
  SPEAKER_00: I was asking that question,
• 45:03
  SPEAKER_00: what do you do with existence?
• 45:04
  SPEAKER_00: And I was trying to populate my mind with new
• 45:09
  SPEAKER_00: possibilities.
• 45:10
  So that's when I went into deep tech and spent all the time
• 45:12
  doing science.
• 45:13
  SPEAKER_00: And that's why when I built Kernel to say,
• 45:15
  SPEAKER_00: how do you pair the human brain with AI to explore conscious existence?
• 45:19
  SPEAKER_00: And it took me,
• 45:20
  SPEAKER_00: I mean,
• 45:20
  I sold Braintree really mostly because I knew I wanted to
• 45:25
  dedicate my life to one
• 45:27
  SPEAKER_00: thing.
• 45:29
  SPEAKER_00: I wanted to do something because doing many things is very hard.
• 45:33
  SPEAKER_00: One thing is, yeah, I wanted to do that.
• 45:35
  And I thought it would take me 10 years to find that thing once
• 45:38
  I got free from doing that.
• 45:41
  SPEAKER_00: And it was about right.
• 45:42
  SPEAKER_00: I found Don't Die roughly 10 years after that.
• 45:46
  And throughout this entire process,
• 45:49
  I still have been asking that same question.
• 45:52
  SPEAKER_00: I find myself conscious.
• 45:54
  SPEAKER_00: What do I do with my conscious existence?
• 45:58
  SPEAKER_00: And to me,
• 45:59
  I find it to be the most beautiful question because there's an
• 46:03
  infinite number of
• 46:03
  SPEAKER_00: things you can do.
• 46:05
  SPEAKER_00: You can pursue wealth.
• 46:06
  SPEAKER_00: You can write poetry.
• 46:07
  SPEAKER_00: You can become a monk.
• 46:08
  SPEAKER_00: You can become a fighter.
• 46:10
  SPEAKER_00: You have all these infinite paths.
• 46:12
  SPEAKER_00: And the difference right now is what I think is,
• 46:16
  I think all the options that humans have had up until this
• 46:20
  point have been
• 46:22
  SPEAKER_00: conditioned upon death being inevitable.
• 46:26
  SPEAKER_00: And when that comes into question,
• 46:28
  SPEAKER_00: when we may be the first generation who won't die,
• 46:32
  SPEAKER_00: I'm willing to accept that none of those explanations make sense anymore.
• 46:39
  SPEAKER_00: None.
• 46:40
  That's the fundamental thing I'm trying to convey in everything
• 46:43
  I'm doing.
• 46:43
  SPEAKER_00: And that's where I want,
• 46:44
  that's where I feel like this transition for me is coming where
• 46:47
  I've done this
• 46:48
  SPEAKER_00: basic demonstration of this new philosophy.
• 46:52
  SPEAKER_00: Now I need to go out and just build it with every single thing I have.
• 46:56
  SPEAKER_00: That's what I feel internally is the move right now.
• 47:00
  SPEAKER_01: So I want to come back to that because I think it's important.
• 47:03
  SPEAKER_01: But,
• 47:03
  SPEAKER_01: okay,
• 47:04
  SPEAKER_01: and maybe this matters or not,
• 47:05
  SPEAKER_01: but this compulsion,
• 47:06
  SPEAKER_01: this chasing,
• 47:07
  SPEAKER_01: this I'm all in on this one thing.
• 47:09
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, do you think that's a...
• 47:12
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know if character flaw is the right word,
• 47:15
  SPEAKER_01: or...
• 47:15
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah,
• 47:16
  SPEAKER_01: I mean,
• 47:16
  SPEAKER_01: it just...
• 47:18
  SPEAKER_01: Do you think you're just always filling some void,
• 47:21
  and does that somehow take away from some of the authenticity
• 47:26
  of all this or
• 47:27
  SPEAKER_00: something?
• 47:27
  SPEAKER_01: Like, you are just compelled to do this.
• 47:29
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
• 47:29
  SPEAKER_01: I don't even know if it's a fair question.
• 47:31
  SPEAKER_01: Do you kind of get where I'm... I do.
• 47:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean, I think the least qualified person
• 47:40
  SPEAKER_00: comment on my psychological state is me.
• 47:44
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I don't know if I can offer any insight of myself.
• 47:46
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, there's a touch times where
• 47:52
  SPEAKER_00: where I'll have enough self-awareness that I'll say, man, I'm weird.
• 47:56
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I'm really weird.
• 47:59
  SPEAKER_00: But a lot of the times, that escapes me.
• 48:01
  SPEAKER_00: When I interact with somebody, I perceive it to be a normal interaction.
• 48:05
  SPEAKER_00: We're conversing in normal things.
• 48:07
  SPEAKER_00: I'm displaying normal human characteristics of laughter and intrigue.
• 48:13
  But then there are moments I catch myself where I say,
• 48:15
  no,
• 48:16
  I really am very eccentric.
• 48:17
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm open to this idea that I just have this
• 48:21
  gap of self lack of self-awareness that i can't see myself in
• 48:24
  these contexts
• 48:25
  because some of the when we first started at kernel you were
• 48:28
  very into the idea
• 48:29
  we're going to make this machine that um is a truth machine
• 48:34
  it's like we won't be
• 48:34
  able to lie to each other yes we'll be able to read each
• 48:37
  other's minds you were you
• 48:38
  were quite afraid of artificial intelligence or at least the
• 48:41
  brand um really at
• 48:45
  that moment in time that was most prevalent was was the idea of
• 48:48
  companies like
• 48:48
  SPEAKER_01: facebook and google
• 48:51
  this algorithm that is just out to distract you and tempt you
• 48:55
  all the time.
• 48:56
  And I remember you wanting to fight against where AI was
• 48:59
  heading in the sense of,
• 49:01
  SPEAKER_01: it is going to outwit us and sort of suck our soul down.
• 49:05
  And then now,
• 49:06
  I imagine you're still kind of probably against a lot of that,
• 49:10
  but...
• 49:12
  It's flipped a little bit where you're almost aligned with AI
• 49:15
  to some degree
• 49:16
  because it is this powerful force of technology that you're
• 49:20
  pursuing at the same
• 49:21
  SPEAKER_01: time as this powerful biotech.
• 49:24
  SPEAKER_01: Is that fair?
• 49:26
  SPEAKER_01: How is your, I feel like that's like roughly 2016 to now.
• 49:32
  SPEAKER_01: So how has your, did I characterize that right?
• 49:35
  Has your view on AI changed or this is all part and parcel of
• 49:39
  the same thing?
• 49:41
  SPEAKER_00: You nailed it again.
• 49:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 49:42
  So 2016 was when I first started writing about this and talking
• 49:45
  about it publicly,
• 49:46
  SPEAKER_00: where I said,
• 49:48
  SPEAKER_00: AI is an existential threat,
• 49:52
  SPEAKER_00: not because AI is inevitably going to become rogue,
• 49:57
  SPEAKER_00: but because of the possibility of humans using AI for their means,
• 50:04
  SPEAKER_00: which are not aligned with humanity's best interests.
• 50:07
  SPEAKER_00: And at that time,
• 50:09
  it was companies using the power of technology to get humans to
• 50:13
  be addicted to
• 50:13
  SPEAKER_00: their technologies and lessen the quality of their health,
• 50:17
  SPEAKER_00: which we've seen play out the past years.
• 50:18
  SPEAKER_00: I think that for as many virtues that social media has offered,
• 50:23
  SPEAKER_00: it's created catastrophic effects for our mental well-being,
• 50:26
  SPEAKER_00: societal implications,
• 50:28
  SPEAKER_00: like even when you look at data on how young kids are now.
• 50:32
  and i still think the premise is correct and i would say i'm
• 50:36
  neither optimistic or
• 50:38
  pessimistic about ai it's just a thing it seems to me it's
• 50:44
  inevitable the race
• 50:45
  dynamics are way too intense to stop so the idea that we're
• 50:49
  going to somehow not
• 50:51
  move forward with ai at a certain speed seems pretty
• 50:54
  impractical to me and so this
• 50:56
  SPEAKER_00: is what don't die is about it's it's making the observation
• 51:01
  SPEAKER_00: This is the most consequential moment in the history of our species.
• 51:08
  SPEAKER_00: And none of us know where it's going,
• 51:12
  SPEAKER_00: and it's probably worth deep,
• 51:15
  SPEAKER_00: careful thought about how we step into the situation.
• 51:19
  SPEAKER_00: That's the entire premise.
• 51:21
  SPEAKER_01: I wrote a piece about this on our Substack.
• 51:23
  I don't know if I'm gonna be that articulate on it as I try to
• 51:27
  express it here.
• 51:29
  And I don't want this to come off as me sort of,
• 51:32
  I guess,
• 51:34
  gushing about you in some way.
• 51:37
  SPEAKER_01: So that's my preamble.
• 51:40
  SPEAKER_01: You know,
• 51:41
  SPEAKER_01: I think when people...
• 51:42
  I think when some people hear about Don't Die and you talk
• 51:45
  about it as a cult or
• 51:46
  SPEAKER_01: religion,
• 51:47
  SPEAKER_01: I think they are like kind of...
• 51:50
  SPEAKER_01: in my estimation, underestimating sort of this moment in some ways.
• 51:54
  So we had the singularity has been this idea that has been
• 52:00
  floating around for
• 52:02
  SPEAKER_01: many,
• 52:02
  SPEAKER_01: many years,
• 52:02
  SPEAKER_01: but really embraced by Silicon Valley.
• 52:05
  SPEAKER_01: And Silicon Valley tends to be
• 52:09
  SPEAKER_01: just to make a broad sweeping generalization.
• 52:11
  SPEAKER_01: Not a terribly religious place.
• 52:13
  SPEAKER_01: It's full of engineers, tends to run along the atheist lines.
• 52:17
  And I always thought of the singularity,
• 52:19
  if we had a religion,
• 52:20
  that was kind of it.
• 52:21
  SPEAKER_01: And it... And people wanted to kind of push us towards that.
• 52:27
  SPEAKER_01: You could say Ray Kurzweil was maybe the...
• 52:32
  SPEAKER_01: kind of like a prophet of all that.
• 52:33
  SPEAKER_01: I mean,
• 52:34
  he codified some of this in his books and would speak about
• 52:38
  this and was that kind
• 52:39
  SPEAKER_01: of figure.
• 52:39
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think he was,
• 52:40
  SPEAKER_01: like,
• 52:42
  SPEAKER_01: charismatic enough or kind of full,
• 52:45
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 52:46
  SPEAKER_01: is a bit of a...
• 52:47
  SPEAKER_01: Anyway,
• 52:48
  SPEAKER_00: he was,
• 52:48
  SPEAKER_01: like,
• 52:48
  SPEAKER_01: doing a bit of it,
• 52:49
  SPEAKER_01: but not,
• 52:49
  SPEAKER_01: like,
• 52:50
  SPEAKER_01: full in.
• 52:50
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, I think you represent the first person to...
• 52:59
  SPEAKER_01: And this is not me over here saying, like, oh, don't die.
• 53:02
  SPEAKER_01: It's the perfect religion.
• 53:02
  SPEAKER_01: Everybody get on.
• 53:03
  What I'm trying to articulate is I think you're the first
• 53:06
  person to start putting
• 53:08
  SPEAKER_01: some kind of structure,
• 53:09
  SPEAKER_01: some kind of thought system around this very weird moment in time.
• 53:14
  SPEAKER_01: And I think when you say some stuff like that,
• 53:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah,
• 53:19
  SPEAKER_01: I think they gotta misinterpret this a little bit,
• 53:21
  SPEAKER_01: or...
• 53:22
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think they get how serious some of this is.
• 53:24
  SPEAKER_01: So I think you're building,
• 53:26
  SPEAKER_01: like,
• 53:26
  SPEAKER_01: the first...
• 53:27
  SPEAKER_01: You're taking the first stab at putting this intellectual,
• 53:31
  SPEAKER_01: um,
• 53:31
  SPEAKER_01: wrapper around what I think is,
• 53:34
  SPEAKER_01: like,
• 53:34
  we're living in the midst of science fiction becoming real and
• 53:40
  the world altering
• 53:41
  SPEAKER_01: in...
• 53:42
  such dramatic ways that whatever belief systems we had before
• 53:47
  are not really up to the task.
• 53:48
  SPEAKER_01: And so, um...
• 53:51
  SPEAKER_01: So I take this all quite seriously.
• 53:53
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 53:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 53:54
  Man,
• 53:54
  actually,
• 53:55
  that is so articulate,
• 53:57
  and I appreciate you so much for articulating that.
• 54:01
  SPEAKER_00: I really sincerely appreciate you.
• 54:03
  SPEAKER_01: You're much more articulate than I am.
• 54:05
  SPEAKER_01: But I do.
• 54:06
  SPEAKER_01: I do, actually.
• 54:07
  I think people...
• 54:09
  It's weird,
• 54:10
  because in some way,
• 54:11
  you're not underestimated at all.
• 54:13
  SPEAKER_01: You get tons of attention.
• 54:15
  SPEAKER_01: People are very into what you're doing.
• 54:18
  SPEAKER_01: And then...
• 54:20
  SPEAKER_01: I think there's probably some people that get all this,
• 54:21
  but then I think there's a large part of the world that's still
• 54:24
  kind of views you
• 54:25
  SPEAKER_01: through some sort of lens.
• 54:27
  And I guess what I'm saying is whether people like you or not,
• 54:30
  or they think...
• 54:33
  SPEAKER_01: when they hear,
• 54:34
  SPEAKER_01: oh,
• 54:34
  SPEAKER_01: you want to reverse your age,
• 54:35
  SPEAKER_01: they think,
• 54:35
  SPEAKER_01: oh,
• 54:36
  SPEAKER_01: this is just crazy,
• 54:37
  SPEAKER_01: or this is just some rich dude running muck.
• 54:39
  SPEAKER_01: It's kind of like doesn't matter to me.
• 54:40
  I think the intellectual frame that you're building is maybe
• 54:46
  like what people
• 54:46
  SPEAKER_01: should pay attention to.
• 54:47
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 54:48
  SPEAKER_00: I mean,
• 54:49
  SPEAKER_00: to add to yes and what you said,
• 54:52
  SPEAKER_00: the primary hypothesis is that AI is going to progress at some speed.
• 54:59
  SPEAKER_00: And in the coming years,
• 55:02
  I personally don't care whether people think ASI is going to
• 55:05
  happen in 2028 or
• 55:06
  SPEAKER_00: 2035.
• 55:06
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't matter to me.
• 55:07
  SPEAKER_00: It's all the same time frame to me.
• 55:10
  As AI progresses and it will create dislocations in society,
• 55:17
  people will lose their jobs.
• 55:18
  SPEAKER_00: We will do things differently.
• 55:21
  SPEAKER_00: The government may do things differently.
• 55:23
  SPEAKER_00: We may trust the government more or less.
• 55:25
  SPEAKER_00: Institutions are going to change.
• 55:27
  SPEAKER_00: Society is going to change in ways which we can't comprehend.
• 55:31
  And when that happens,
• 55:33
  humans are going to say,
• 55:34
  how do I feel safe and secure?
• 55:37
  SPEAKER_00: How do I understand the world?
• 55:39
  And what is the fabric and the tapestry that keeps us glued
• 55:42
  together so we don't
• 55:44
  SPEAKER_00: lose our shit in some kind of mayhem or chaos?
• 55:48
  SPEAKER_00: And so what I'm betting on right now is that dislocation is coming.
• 55:52
  SPEAKER_00: It's going to come very hard and very fast.
• 55:55
  SPEAKER_00: We currently don't have a net to capture it.
• 55:59
  And I don't think that capitalism itself or democracy itself or
• 56:03
  socialism itself or
• 56:05
  even religions on their own is sufficient to tie us together
• 56:08
  and say we can
• 56:12
  uh successfully wrestle this moment even when it's moving very
• 56:17
  fast and so i think
• 56:19
  from right now's perspective you could look at don't die and
• 56:21
  say that's kind of
• 56:22
  weird i don't really get it but it's in the moment when the
• 56:26
  crises start happening
• 56:27
  of you know individual or collective where that opening is
• 56:30
  going to come so i'm
• 56:31
  really just saying that it's coming there's going to be
• 56:34
  dislocation we need
• 56:35
  SPEAKER_00: something to capture that
• 56:37
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's what I think people don't get.
• 56:39
  SPEAKER_01: You say don't die, and yes, okay, there is part of this.
• 56:41
  SPEAKER_01: Yes,
• 56:41
  SPEAKER_01: you're trying to rejuvenate your body and to live longer,
• 56:46
  SPEAKER_01: but it's like it's a mental...
• 56:48
  SPEAKER_01: It's a flip in your head,
• 56:49
  SPEAKER_01: right?
• 56:50
  SPEAKER_01: Where it's... Yeah, I just... I don't think people...
• 56:55
  SPEAKER_01: I mean,
• 56:58
  it's a philosophy that's like acknowledging this sort of sci-fi
• 57:02
  future and making
• 57:03
  SPEAKER_01: you kind of think about it,
• 57:04
  SPEAKER_01: right?
• 57:04
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, that's sort of the... Exactly.
• 57:06
  And it also gets at these,
• 57:07
  like,
• 57:07
  so actually,
• 57:08
  actually,
• 57:08
  I was thinking about this the other day.
• 57:09
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think you've been to one of my Don't Die dinners.
• 57:12
  SPEAKER_00: I haven't, which is crazy.
• 57:13
  SPEAKER_01: And you've invited, yes, this is terrible.
• 57:17
  SPEAKER_00: It's terrible, yeah.
• 57:19
  This really comes through,
• 57:20
  but you need to sit in this for about 90 minutes.
• 57:23
  SPEAKER_00: and with about 10 to 15 other people.
• 57:26
  So I share these five thought experiments,
• 57:28
  and then we roll through them as a group.
• 57:32
  SPEAKER_00: And in doing that process,
• 57:34
  you're able to harden your own perspectives by hearing other
• 57:37
  people's perspectives
• 57:39
  SPEAKER_00: as you collectively try to solve the puzzles.
• 57:42
  and i think when you land there on the other side but the
• 57:44
  challenge of course is
• 57:45
  you can't get everyone together for 90 minutes to go through
• 57:47
  these things i started
• 57:48
  training people up to do this but it's quite hard but yeah i
• 57:51
  would love to have you
• 57:52
  there because once you understand the nuances and you arrive at
• 57:55
  the end you're like
• 57:55
  honestly this makes a lot of sense very it's practical it's not
• 58:00
  woo it's that you
• 58:00
  have to make a big jump it's just like very very reasonable
• 58:03
  very practical but yeah
• 58:05
  the i when so in this like tying this back together this
• 58:09
  transition i'm feeling
• 58:10
  SPEAKER_00: right now is
• 58:11
  SPEAKER_00: I really want to spend every single second every day building Don't Die,
• 58:16
  SPEAKER_00: because I think there's a possibility that by 2030,
• 58:20
  there could be a billion people in the world who self-identify
• 58:23
  with Don't Die.
• 58:25
  SPEAKER_00: And maybe the identification is something like,
• 58:27
  SPEAKER_00: I want to be hot,
• 58:28
  SPEAKER_00: that's Don't Die,
• 58:29
  SPEAKER_00: whereas someone else maybe say,
• 58:30
  SPEAKER_00: I believe this is the new ideology of our existence.
• 58:34
  SPEAKER_00: anywhere along that spectrum.
• 58:36
  SPEAKER_00: But a lot of people say that's crazy and that's not possible.
• 58:39
  SPEAKER_00: If you think about COVID though,
• 58:40
  SPEAKER_00: for example,
• 58:42
  SPEAKER_00: COVID did something to the world nobody thought was possible.
• 58:46
  SPEAKER_00: Everybody's plans got put on hold.
• 58:48
  It didn't matter who you are,
• 58:49
  no matter how much power you had,
• 58:51
  your plans were put on hold.
• 58:53
  SPEAKER_00: And then the world kind of bifurcated into a few simple opinions.
• 58:58
  SPEAKER_00: Do you support lockdowns or not?
• 59:01
  SPEAKER_00: Do you support masks or not?
• 59:03
  SPEAKER_00: Do you support vaccines or not?
• 59:05
  SPEAKER_00: And we kind of had like six different opinions in the entire world.
• 59:09
  And I think that AI may present a similar bifurcation where do
• 59:15
  you race or are you
• 59:17
  SPEAKER_00: trying to do something safe?
• 59:20
  SPEAKER_00: And I think people have...
• 59:22
  Trying to take these sides with the accelerationist and non,
• 59:25
  I don't think it's about speed.
• 59:26
  SPEAKER_00: It's just about the methodical way we approach it.
• 59:29
  It's just doing things to the best of our ability to try to
• 59:33
  preserve our existence.
• 59:35
  SPEAKER_00: And of course you branch off into different complexities,
• 59:37
  but that's why I think this really can become the world's
• 59:40
  fastest growing ideology.
• 59:42
  SPEAKER_00: It can happen in the next few years time.
• 59:44
  SPEAKER_00: and it can overcome the impossibilities that people imagine.
• 59:47
  And so I do think it's worth every single moment I have in my
• 59:51
  existence to go after this.
• 59:53
  SPEAKER_01: When you say you're making this shift,
• 59:54
  SPEAKER_01: I mean,
• 59:55
  SPEAKER_01: we talked about moving away from the business side,
• 59:59
  but then you said you've been thinking about this the last
• 1:00:01
  couple days as well.
• 1:00:02
  I mean,
• 1:00:04
  are you thinking through what this shift is,
• 1:00:07
  or the shift is what you're outlining?
• 1:00:09
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's what I'm outlining.
• 1:00:11
  SPEAKER_00: So we've been trialing a few different approaches on Don't Die.
• 1:00:14
  SPEAKER_00: For example, we did summits.
• 1:00:16
  SPEAKER_00: We brought 1,500 people together.
• 1:00:18
  SPEAKER_00: We spent a whole day together building physical community.
• 1:00:22
  SPEAKER_00: We started Don't Die events around the world.
• 1:00:26
  SPEAKER_00: We did a version where we were doing Don't Die Fam,
• 1:00:29
  SPEAKER_00: where every week I actually built a Don't Die Fam in Los Angeles,
• 1:00:32
  SPEAKER_00: where we get together and we do these rituals
• 1:00:35
  we would start by doing a shot of olive oil it's like a ritual
• 1:00:39
  and then we would uh
• 1:00:40
  go around in the circle and apologize to our bodies for
• 1:00:43
  something we did that hurt
• 1:00:44
  it and then we would go around and share something that was you
• 1:00:48
  know on the on our
• 1:00:48
  minds for that week so it's more like a combination of
• 1:00:51
  Alcoholics Anonymous or YPO
• 1:00:53
  or like some event where you get together you bond emotionally
• 1:00:57
  you are honest and
• 1:00:58
  open it's all confidential so we try to play the formats like
• 1:01:01
  that like can you
• 1:01:01
  SPEAKER_00: spin up
• 1:01:02
  SPEAKER_00: these intimate gatherings of high touch,
• 1:01:06
  SPEAKER_00: high connectivity friendships,
• 1:01:07
  SPEAKER_00: more than just a passing superficial thing.
• 1:01:10
  SPEAKER_00: And so now I'm trying to figure out, do those things matter?
• 1:01:15
  SPEAKER_00: So in the next four years,
• 1:01:17
  does it even matter if we had 50 million people meet up on a
• 1:01:21
  weekly basis?
• 1:01:22
  Or is that irrelevant relative to a small number of companies
• 1:01:27
  building the technology stack?
• 1:01:29
  So really the question is,
• 1:01:31
  where is the epicenter of power and how do you influence that?
• 1:01:37
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm not sure how to do it.
• 1:01:39
  SPEAKER_00: It may be the case that humans don't, individuals don't matter anymore.
• 1:01:43
  SPEAKER_00: Like you can't acquire that power through individuals and it's more,
• 1:01:47
  SPEAKER_00: you need to go to corporations and say,
• 1:01:49
  SPEAKER_00: corporations,
• 1:01:50
  We need to create a way for companies to allocate capital
• 1:01:53
  towards Don't Die.
• 1:01:54
  Or maybe we need to start a sovereign fund and try to raise a
• 1:01:57
  trillion dollars
• 1:01:58
  SPEAKER_00: where that money is invested in Don't Die.
• 1:02:00
  SPEAKER_00: So maybe we go after the allocation of money.
• 1:02:03
  So I'm trying to figure out where to put the effort because I
• 1:02:06
  don't want to miss,
• 1:02:06
  because I could spend years building up a hundred million
• 1:02:11
  people or 500 million
• 1:02:12
  people have made up on a regular basis and it has no power that
• 1:02:14
  really matters.
• 1:02:15
  SPEAKER_00: So the question is how to effectively realize power that
• 1:02:19
  would meaningfully influence the probability that we survive as
• 1:02:26
  a species and can
• 1:02:27
  SPEAKER_00: move on into this new expanded possibilities as humans.
• 1:02:32
  SPEAKER_01: OK.
• 1:02:32
  I want to be mindful of your time because I know you're running
• 1:02:35
  around today.
• 1:02:37
  SPEAKER_01: I feel like you just presented a lot of stuff.
• 1:02:44
  The biggest part of Don't Die that I identified with and I was
• 1:02:49
  trying to articulate
• 1:02:50
  before is this creation of a sort of religion and ideology for
• 1:02:56
  our time that is
• 1:02:57
  SPEAKER_01: different than what has come before.
• 1:03:00
  SPEAKER_01: There are bits of it as I understand it.
• 1:03:02
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I understand the...
• 1:03:06
  SPEAKER_01: wanting to kind of take some,
• 1:03:07
  SPEAKER_01: okay,
• 1:03:08
  SPEAKER_01: the world is kind of spinning out of control,
• 1:03:10
  so you're gonna take control of your life and you're gonna try
• 1:03:17
  to kind of keep up
• 1:03:18
  SPEAKER_01: with and adjust to this ever-changing world and embrace parts of it.
• 1:03:24
  SPEAKER_01: All that stuff I get.
• 1:03:25
  SPEAKER_01: I do, there are times when I'm like, oh, this all feels very solipsistic.
• 1:03:29
  SPEAKER_01: You're just,
• 1:03:29
  SPEAKER_01: you're kind of,
• 1:03:30
  you end up in this place where you're just thinking about
• 1:03:31
  yourself all the time and
• 1:03:34
  SPEAKER_01: just because you have
• 1:03:35
  100 million,
• 1:03:36
  a billion people thinking about themselves together all the
• 1:03:39
  time.
• 1:03:39
  SPEAKER_01: Like, where does that sort of end up?
• 1:03:42
  SPEAKER_01: I mean,
• 1:03:42
  SPEAKER_01: it sounds like you're...
• 1:03:46
  you're thinking through putting these other layers and
• 1:03:51
  mechanics on this thing,
• 1:03:52
  SPEAKER_01: if I'm interpreting things right.
• 1:03:54
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly right.
• 1:03:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:03:55
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's...
• 1:04:00
  SPEAKER_00: I think even those that have the most bullish imaginations of AI,
• 1:04:08
  SPEAKER_00: positively or negatively,
• 1:04:09
  I still think we are all underestimating what's going to happen
• 1:04:15
  in whether five
• 1:04:19
  SPEAKER_00: years,
• 1:04:19
  SPEAKER_00: 10 years,
• 1:04:20
  SPEAKER_00: 15 years,
• 1:04:21
  SPEAKER_00: whatever.
• 1:04:21
  SPEAKER_00: I think we really have underestimated it.
• 1:04:24
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah,
• 1:04:24
  SPEAKER_01: I heard you on the Louis Theroux podcast,
• 1:04:26
  SPEAKER_01: and he's like,
• 1:04:26
  SPEAKER_01: tell me what the future's gonna be like.
• 1:04:28
  SPEAKER_01: You're like, I don't think anyone can do that.
• 1:04:29
  SPEAKER_01: He's like, come on, tell me.
• 1:04:31
  SPEAKER_01: Tell me, like, what your cell phone's gonna look like.
• 1:04:33
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, I don't think you'd get... Yeah, yeah.
• 1:04:35
  SPEAKER_01: Because I agree with you.
• 1:04:37
  I think even though we've written decades upon decades of
• 1:04:40
  science fiction with
• 1:04:41
  brilliant people who have proven themselves of being able to
• 1:04:44
  predict the future
• 1:04:45
  SPEAKER_01: quite well,
• 1:04:45
  SPEAKER_01: I mean,
• 1:04:46
  SPEAKER_01: if,
• 1:04:46
  SPEAKER_01: if,
• 1:04:47
  SPEAKER_01: I'm still not fully convinced,
• 1:04:48
  SPEAKER_01: partially convinced,
• 1:04:49
  SPEAKER_01: if,
• 1:04:50
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 1:04:50
  SPEAKER_01: the say-I thing,
• 1:04:53
  SPEAKER_01: I'm sitting here in AI land talking to all the world's best people.
• 1:04:59
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I'm kind of with you.
• 1:05:00
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think anybody...
• 1:05:01
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like,
• 1:05:02
  SPEAKER_01: if this is really what you guys are saying,
• 1:05:04
  SPEAKER_01: then nobody has any idea what this is gonna look like,
• 1:05:07
  because what you guys are talking about is madness being
• 1:05:11
  unleashed on the world,
• 1:05:12
  SPEAKER_01: you know?
• 1:05:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:05:14
  SPEAKER_00: I mean,
• 1:05:14
  the thought experiment that really helps clarify this for me
• 1:05:16
  the most is I imagine
• 1:05:18
  SPEAKER_00: being with Homo erectus a million years ago.
• 1:05:22
  SPEAKER_00: And if I could have a dialogue with them and I could say,
• 1:05:25
  SPEAKER_00: I'm really interested in the future of the species.
• 1:05:29
  SPEAKER_00: Tell me what the future holds.
• 1:05:31
  SPEAKER_00: Tell me why I can be excited about the world.
• 1:05:34
  SPEAKER_00: They would deploy their mental models and say,
• 1:05:36
  SPEAKER_00: you're going to forage over there and you're going to do this and that.
• 1:05:40
  SPEAKER_00: They would not have mental models of quantum mechanics,
• 1:05:45
  SPEAKER_00: of the smartphone,
• 1:05:47
  SPEAKER_00: of the internet,
• 1:05:48
  SPEAKER_00: of antibiotics.
• 1:05:50
  And almost like my singular insight that I want to try to put
• 1:05:55
  forward is we may be Homo erectus.
• 1:05:59
  And if that is the case,
• 1:06:01
  the single best move we can have as a species is to be humble.
• 1:06:05
  SPEAKER_00: And right now, we're at the apex of intelligence.
• 1:06:07
  SPEAKER_00: It's very hard for us to be humble.
• 1:06:08
  SPEAKER_00: We know everything.
• 1:06:09
  SPEAKER_00: We want to prognosticate and model out and predict everything.
• 1:06:13
  And so Don't Die is really the most humble observation one can
• 1:06:19
  make about existence.
• 1:06:20
  SPEAKER_00: We don't know.
• 1:06:21
  SPEAKER_00: We just do not know what's going to come next.
• 1:06:24
  SPEAKER_00: And the only thing we do know is I don't want to die right now.
• 1:06:26
  And so it's trying to be as sober and as clear-minded as
• 1:06:31
  humanly possible in this moment.
• 1:06:32
  Like,
• 1:06:32
  can I just quiet all the noise and just see this with
• 1:06:38
  funeral-like sobriety?
• 1:06:39
  Can I just really feel it,
• 1:06:41
  the most sober sense possible,
• 1:06:44
  what is happening in this moment?
• 1:06:46
  SPEAKER_01: So it's like this monastic almost, you just, uh,
• 1:06:52
  It's just giving you this one,
• 1:06:53
  almost like a meditative one thing to think about,
• 1:06:56
  to focus on.
• 1:06:57
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:06:57
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 1:06:58
  SPEAKER_01: All right.
• 1:06:59
  SPEAKER_01: All right.
• 1:06:59
  SPEAKER_01: I know you have to get somewhere, so I'm gonna let you go.
• 1:07:01
  SPEAKER_01: I am going to try,
• 1:07:02
  SPEAKER_01: I've already texted you about this,
• 1:07:04
  SPEAKER_01: but I have found this darkness retreat in Poland.
• 1:07:08
  which I want to get your take on,
• 1:07:11
  and I'm determined to get you to pull in.
• 1:07:13
  SPEAKER_01: This is three or seven days of darkness?
• 1:07:15
  SPEAKER_01: So you have options.
• 1:07:17
  SPEAKER_01: There's this gentleman who's built these, they're like hobbit holes.
• 1:07:23
  SPEAKER_01: Quite fancy hobbit holes.
• 1:07:25
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah,
• 1:07:25
  SPEAKER_01: so I think he does like a week-long retreat,
• 1:07:27
  SPEAKER_01: but you're not in the darkness the whole time.
• 1:07:29
  SPEAKER_01: The first time you go,
• 1:07:29
  SPEAKER_01: you sort of meet everybody,
• 1:07:32
  SPEAKER_01: you have dinner,
• 1:07:32
  SPEAKER_01: you go in for like an afternoon,
• 1:07:34
  SPEAKER_01: you come out,
• 1:07:34
  SPEAKER_01: you meditate,
• 1:07:35
  SPEAKER_01: then the next day,
• 1:07:36
  SPEAKER_01: I think you do like a whole...
• 1:07:38
  SPEAKER_01: all on your own,
• 1:07:39
  SPEAKER_01: and then you do this three-day stretch in the total darkness,
• 1:07:42
  SPEAKER_01: um,
• 1:07:43
  SPEAKER_01: and they bring food to your thing through these,
• 1:07:45
  SPEAKER_01: like,
• 1:07:46
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 1:07:46
  SPEAKER_01: slats,
• 1:07:48
  SPEAKER_01: so no light ever gets in when they're bringing the food.
• 1:07:50
  SPEAKER_01: But then, you know, there's people who have done this before.
• 1:07:52
  SPEAKER_01: When I was there, there was a guy doing 49 days in total.
• 1:07:56
  SPEAKER_01: We won't... I won't force you to do that.
• 1:08:00
  SPEAKER_01: But, um, I don't even know if I could do this.
• 1:08:03
  SPEAKER_01: It was like, I did, like, a ten-minute run, and it was already, uh...
• 1:08:07
  SPEAKER_01: It's already a little stressful.
• 1:08:09
  SPEAKER_01: Do you think you could do three days in the dark?
• 1:08:12
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, first, I'm drawn to it as an experiment.
• 1:08:16
  SPEAKER_00: I would love to measure everything.
• 1:08:19
  SPEAKER_00: What happens when?
• 1:08:19
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, right, right, right.
• 1:08:22
  SPEAKER_00: What a cool experiment.
• 1:08:23
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, what's their pitch?
• 1:08:24
  Is it like they're advertising a meditative-like experience,
• 1:08:27
  a reset,
• 1:08:28
  or is it something else?
• 1:08:29
  SPEAKER_01: It's kind of like...
• 1:08:30
  SPEAKER_01: not meditate in some ways because you're meant to,
• 1:08:32
  SPEAKER_01: like,
• 1:08:33
  SPEAKER_01: really,
• 1:08:34
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 1:08:34
  SPEAKER_01: sometimes,
• 1:08:34
  SPEAKER_01: well,
• 1:08:34
  SPEAKER_01: there's different forms of meditation,
• 1:08:36
  SPEAKER_01: but the guy who started it,
• 1:08:37
  SPEAKER_01: um,
• 1:08:38
  SPEAKER_01: he's this really cool kind of eccentric Polish dude,
• 1:08:41
  SPEAKER_01: um,
• 1:08:42
  SPEAKER_01: he had done tons of meditation,
• 1:08:44
  SPEAKER_01: he'd done,
• 1:08:45
  SPEAKER_01: he's friends with Wim Hof,
• 1:08:46
  SPEAKER_01: he'd done tons of breath work,
• 1:08:47
  SPEAKER_01: all this stuff,
• 1:08:48
  SPEAKER_01: and then,
• 1:08:49
  SPEAKER_01: um,
• 1:08:50
  SPEAKER_01: ended up settling on this where you're not,
• 1:08:52
  SPEAKER_01: you're not,
• 1:08:53
  SPEAKER_01: um,
• 1:08:53
  SPEAKER_01: even trying to clear your mind,
• 1:08:56
  SPEAKER_01: it's just...
• 1:08:57
  SPEAKER_01: You're not like fixating on anything.
• 1:08:59
  SPEAKER_01: Sort of like when you meditate,
• 1:09:00
  SPEAKER_01: even when you're trying to clear your mind,
• 1:09:01
  SPEAKER_01: you're kind of,
• 1:09:02
  SPEAKER_01: you're going through this process.
• 1:09:03
  SPEAKER_01: This is more,
• 1:09:04
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 1:09:06
  SPEAKER_01: what you feel very quickly,
• 1:09:08
  SPEAKER_01: as anyone will know,
• 1:09:09
  SPEAKER_01: is like you've been separated from your device.
• 1:09:12
  SPEAKER_01: Even if you have things to do, you can't do them.
• 1:09:15
  So it's like,
• 1:09:16
  it's sort of the absence of being able to have any effect on
• 1:09:20
  anything,
• 1:09:20
  you know?
• 1:09:21
  SPEAKER_00: It's almost like a deprivation tank, but for multiple days.
• 1:09:23
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 1:09:24
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 1:09:25
  SPEAKER_01: And then he's made these rooms.
• 1:09:27
  SPEAKER_01: They're so nice.
• 1:09:28
  SPEAKER_01: They're like,
• 1:09:29
  SPEAKER_01: it's all round,
• 1:09:29
  SPEAKER_01: everything's rounded,
• 1:09:30
  and so you can't hurt yourself while you're kind of lurching
• 1:09:34
  around trying to find
• 1:09:35
  SPEAKER_01: the toilet or anything like that.
• 1:09:37
  SPEAKER_01: And then they have these, it's in this Polish countryside, and they have
• 1:09:41
  sessions to talk you through things after but yeah so this this
• 1:09:44
  dude aj he um i
• 1:09:48
  guess he tried all these things and now he's he says the
• 1:09:50
  darkness is the only way
• 1:09:52
  SPEAKER_00: yeah that's i wonder if
• 1:09:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's a new form of rejuvenation.
• 1:10:02
  SPEAKER_01: I started looking it up.
• 1:10:04
  SPEAKER_01: So there are, I had not actually heard of this a lot.
• 1:10:07
  And then now there seem to be,
• 1:10:08
  I think it's a reaction to like our devices.
• 1:10:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, exactly.
• 1:10:11
  SPEAKER_01: In the modern world.
• 1:10:12
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:10:13
  SPEAKER_01: So it's just like you are, you're hardcore unplugged.
• 1:10:16
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:10:17
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it is true.
• 1:10:18
  SPEAKER_00: I think, I mean, most people I know, I don't know about you,
• 1:10:21
  SPEAKER_00: most people I know are pretty miserable.
• 1:10:23
  SPEAKER_00: They feel pretty trapped to their devices in constant work,
• 1:10:29
  SPEAKER_00: in never-ending messages,
• 1:10:30
  SPEAKER_00: in never-ending work,
• 1:10:32
  SPEAKER_00: no time to relax.
• 1:10:33
  SPEAKER_00: You can never take off.
• 1:10:34
  SPEAKER_00: You always have a fear of missing out.
• 1:10:37
  It's so insanely escalated that most everyone I know feels
• 1:10:42
  pretty wound up about the situation.
• 1:10:44
  SPEAKER_01: Everyone I know is working like seven days a week.
• 1:10:46
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, exactly.
• 1:10:46
  Like these,
• 1:10:47
  whatever norms used to exist is vague,
• 1:10:49
  like nine to five days.
• 1:10:50
  Like the second I wake up in the morning,
• 1:10:52
  I'm getting notes from all over the world.
• 1:10:54
  SPEAKER_01: You got to focus on this, focus on that.
• 1:10:57
  SPEAKER_01: And then, I mean, not breaking new ground here.
• 1:11:00
  SPEAKER_01: You know,
• 1:11:00
  I was just at a wedding sitting at the bar and it's like five
• 1:11:05
  strangers and
• 1:11:05
  SPEAKER_01: everybody's just sitting on their phone.
• 1:11:07
  SPEAKER_01: And like, you know, it wasn't that long ago.
• 1:11:10
  people would be talking to each other yeah you know like
• 1:11:13
  anytime we're anywhere now
• 1:11:14
  you're just it's like it's nicer just to be on your phone than
• 1:11:17
  to like engage with
• 1:11:18
  somebody um because you know what you're going to find on the
• 1:11:21
  other end yeah i mean
• 1:11:22
  SPEAKER_00: this can't again this is why i think it's an interesting question
• 1:11:27
  if each one of us individually can spot where we are each an
• 1:11:33
  NPC and where we are original.
• 1:11:36
  SPEAKER_00: From the moment you wake up,
• 1:11:37
  SPEAKER_00: even in your dreams,
• 1:11:39
  how much are you basically just playing out the scripts society
• 1:11:42
  has told you to
• 1:11:43
  SPEAKER_00: play in what you write,
• 1:11:44
  SPEAKER_00: what you do,
• 1:11:45
  SPEAKER_00: how you think,
• 1:11:46
  SPEAKER_00: what you aspire to?
• 1:11:48
  And I guess almost like it's 34,
• 1:11:49
  I guess I feel like I'm going to that same spot again.
• 1:11:52
  SPEAKER_00: I want to separate myself and shed the skin of all these things.
• 1:11:57
  SPEAKER_00: Like,
• 1:11:57
  SPEAKER_00: I don't care what games society is telling me to play,
• 1:12:01
  SPEAKER_00: power wealth status,
• 1:12:02
  SPEAKER_00: like,
• 1:12:03
  SPEAKER_00: I just,
• 1:12:03
  SPEAKER_00: I think they're all gonna be washed away.
• 1:12:05
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:12:06
  SPEAKER_00: And so the darkness retreat kind of sounds like a,
• 1:12:11
  almost like an original approach of how you reset yourself to
• 1:12:15
  give yourself even a,
• 1:12:18
  SPEAKER_00: a small hope of having clarity of thought just for a moment.
• 1:12:22
  SPEAKER_01: That's the idea.
• 1:12:23
  SPEAKER_01: All right.
• 1:12:24
  I have no idea how we're going to film this since it's totally
• 1:12:26
  in the dark.
• 1:12:27
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that'd be fun.
• 1:12:29
  SPEAKER_01: But if you're up for it, we'll try.
• 1:12:31
  SPEAKER_00: We can put some infrared cameras in there so we wouldn't see the light.
• 1:12:34
  SPEAKER_01: That's what I was thinking.
• 1:12:36
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:12:37
  SPEAKER_01: All right.
• 1:12:37
  SPEAKER_01: Well, we're going to pursue this.
• 1:12:39
  SPEAKER_01: We'll pursue this.
• 1:12:40
  SPEAKER_01: Brian Johnson, thank you so much for coming in.
• 1:12:42
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks for having me.
• 1:12:46
  SPEAKER_01: The Core Memory Podcast is hosted by me, Ashley Vance.
• 1:12:50
  SPEAKER_01: It is produced by David Nicholson and me.
• 1:12:54
  SPEAKER_01: Our theme song is by James Mercer and John Sortland.
• 1:12:59
  SPEAKER_01: And the show is edited by the John Sortland.
• 1:13:05
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks, as always, to Brex and E1 Ventures for making this possible.
• 1:13:11
  Please visit our Substack YouTube and podcast channels to get
• 1:13:16
  more of what Core Memory makes.
• 1:13:18
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks, y'all.