The Silicon Valley billionaires' obsession with immortality: Let AI take over the body, and even sex needs to be booked in advance | In - Depth Analysis

Text | Hai Ruojing

Editor | Yang Xuan

Immortality, but Puzzling to Many

A few days before Christmas last year, Shanghai was as cold and damp as ever in winter. However, in the hotel room where Bryan Johnson stayed, two mobile air - conditioners were humming, releasing cold air, and the bathtub was filled with ice. The cold air below room temperature was floating like a thin mist.

This American Silicon Valley billionaire who made his fortune in the Internet era has been obsessed with anti - aging black technology in recent years. He spends $2 million a year and hires a team of more than 30 doctors to draw up his "immortality blueprint". According to him, at the age of 47, he has reversed his physiological age by 5.1 years, and his aging rate has been updated to 0.48, which means he only ages one year in two years.

Filling the bathtub with ice is not some secret anti - aging technique. It's just that the billionaire strongly requested that the temperature of the hotel room, which was originally blowing hot air, be lowered to 22 degrees. His daily body temperature is maintained at 34.5 degrees Celsius, just like a cold - blooded and long - lived lizard. The coolness can slow down his metabolism and reduce his resting heart rate before sleep to 44 beats per minute.

47 - year - old Bryan Johnson

The hotel staff were shocked and at a loss because the temperature control system of the whole building operated together and couldn't be adjusted. In the end, they could only carry bucket after bucket of ice and pour it into three bathtubs. Besides Bryan, his son Talmage Johnson and marketing officer Kate Tolo, who were also following his anti - aging "blueprint plan", made the same request.

Putting ice - filled bathtubs in winter is not the only strange request made by this "anti - aging geek". As soon as he entered the hotel, he asked the staff if they had purified water in glass bottles. He firmly refused to drink water in plastic bottles, no matter how high - end the brand was, because the microplastics that might be dissolved in the water could cause Alzheimer's disease and hardening of the arteries.

Bryan and his son Talmage also carried an air quality detector with them. When the detector alarmed about the poor air quality on the streets of Chengdu, China, Bryan reminded the whole team to wear masks. Without masks, they immediately placed a flash delivery order for a batch.

Previously, when he was in India, wearing an N95 mask and carrying an air purifier, he still couldn't stand the air pollution and ended a podcast recording ahead of schedule. Even though this podcast had interviewed Indian Prime Minister Modi and Bill Gates, which could greatly help him spread his longevity philosophy "Don’t Die".

Now, he is going to Beijing and Chongqing in China to cooperate in opening a longevity clinic. When fans who came to Bryan's "China tour" sharing event interacted with his 19 - year - old son Talmage, they would praise his uprightness and kindness, but couldn't help adding behind his back: It's because of his kindness that he became his father's "big blood donor". This not - so - enviable second - generation rich once donated his young plasma to be transfused into his father's body. His father was not terminally ill; he just wanted to see if his son's plasma could make him younger.

The answer was no. He has stopped transfusing young people's plasma and switched to whole - plasma replacement.

Bryan replaces plasma with 5% albumin and intravenous immunoglobulin; Source: X

For Talmage, donating blood was just the first step in following his father. A typical 19 - year - old American college student would usually have social parties, dating, clubbing, and gaming. But Talmage goes to bed at 8:30 p.m. just like his father in his forties or fifties. He eats similar food to his father: broccoli, carrots, avocados, berries, and various supplements. Occasionally having the thought of "eating a pizza" would make this young man feel painful. If a girl dates Talmage, he would probably bring his own vegetable bowl and go home at dusk to prepare for sleep. At this time, the nightlife of ordinary people is just beginning.

As a man, his father is also keen on comparing their "night - time erection duration": Bryan has an average of 3 hours and 2 minutes per night, which is 2 minutes shorter than his just - adult son. Even though there is male competition between normal fathers and sons, competing in "sexual function" is not common. When Bryan publicly showed their private erection data on social media, his son commented, "I'm grateful for the way my father raised me."

In Bryan's "organ age system", night - time erection duration is an important indicator of male health. He uses a ring - like sensor device every night to monitor the state of his penis. However, this 47 - year - old anti - aging expert never has sex at night because dopamine can affect sleep. Therefore, to be his partner, having sex needs to be scheduled in advance and written into the schedule (Scheduled sex) of this billionaire who is also the CEO of four companies; and pillow talk before sleep is not allowed either.

He goes to bed at 8:30 p.m. and gets up at around 4 a.m. A perfect sleep is the top priority in Bryan's "longevity blueprint". His life system is built around these golden eight hours, and everything has to give way to it.

To reduce his resting heart rate before sleep as much as possible, he stops eating at 11:30 a.m. every day, and his daily calorie intake does not exceed 2000 kcal. In his anti - aging blueprint plan, he drinks the "Hulk" drink mixed with chlorella powder, spermidine, amino complexes and other powders every day, eats a vegetarian bowl composed of a large amount of vegetables, beans, plant proteins, etc., and swallows a few spoons of olive oil raw.

All of Bryan's food for four days

This billionaire with $300 million once loved drinking red wine, especially Pinot Noir. He would pour himself three ounces of red wine every morning to start his day with the mellow aroma. But as the calorie restriction became stricter, there was no room for the 72 kcal of red wine, and this hobby was soon sacrificed.

Like many people on a diet, he is always hungry. "The saddest moment of the day is when I finish the last bite of lunch." Although this diet is monotonous and boring, it seems to purify the body and mind. On the contrary, junk food brings him a huge psychological burden. "At the urging of my friends, I ate a potato chip, and it tasted like gasoline."

For the sake of "immortality", his determination and willpower influence his body's perception of food. Connie, a team member who had lunch with him, told us: "I would hide my small cake because he was sitting right across from me. Eating unhealthily seemed a bit wrong."

It took humans thousands of years to reach the top of the food chain and experience the diversity and abundance of food, but Bryan chose to give it up. After starting the blueprint plan, he became a vegetarian. His close - knit brother Jason Johnson told us: Bryan believes that the way we treat animals reflects the way we hope future AI will treat humans. He wants to preserve some mercy for the future.

Why does a middle - aged billionaire with billions of wealth, who could have enjoyed a life of luxury, choose such an extreme, self - disciplined and almost self - abusive path of life? Is it worth giving up the desires and authenticity of being human for the sake of "immortality"?

The Madness of Fearless of Death

Although Bryan repeatedly emphasizes that most of the anti - aging results can be achieved by basic actions that don't cost money, such as eating well, sleeping well, exercising, and quitting smoking and drinking. But what he himself does is far more than that.

In his villa on the Venice coast in California, Bryan has a "small pharmacy". The bottles and jars of various health products and medicines fill an entire wall. At first, he had to take 110 pills and health products every day. Those large, colorful pills were like the elixirs that ancient emperors took in pursuit of immortality. Thousands of years ago, the "elixirs" refined by alchemists not only failed to make the monarchs immortal but also accelerated their decline due to the deposition of heavy metals in their bodies.

The biggest "setback" in Bryan's anti - aging blueprint also came from taking these pills.

When everything was going according to the "blueprint plan" given by the doctors, Bryan's body inexplicably had some adverse reactions: intermittent soft - tissue infections, abnormal blood lipids and blood sugar, increased resting heart rate, etc. These abnormalities counteracted all his efforts for anti - aging. Doctors couldn't find any other potential causes except a drug that was very popular in the longevity community but had never been approved for anti - aging: rapamycin.

This is a magical molecule found in the soil bacteria of Easter Island. It has significantly extended the lifespan of mice and fruit flies. Although it has the risk of causing bacterial infections in humans, Bryan and his doctors didn't want to miss this potential longevity wonder - drug. For nearly five years, he took rapamycin every week, and doctors drew tube after tube of his blood to monitor the blood drug concentration and adjust the dosage and frequency. But the result was still not satisfactory.

"I'm a person who doesn't want to die, but I did something that accelerated my own aging. It's both interesting and ironic." Bryan told 36Kr that this was the biggest accident he had ever experienced.

In fact, the "baby - face" incident caused by his injection of allogeneic fat on his face was even more eye - catching. In 2023, when the blueprint plan was still in the exploratory stage, Bryan reduced his body fat to only 3%, which seemed a bit over - the - top. The loss of facial fat made his face look gaunt and haggard, and the orange - yellow skin caused by eating too many carrots exacerbated this middle - aged man's exhaustion. Many people thought he looked much older than his actual age.

The change in Bryan's appearance

Facing these comments, Bryan was very frustrated. He had such advanced biomarker data but was not recognized. People only believed what they saw with their own eyes. Therefore, he and his team decided to have facial medical aesthetics and injected a fat - derived extracellular matrix to make his skin look plump. However, this filling caused a severe allergic reaction. His face swelled up like a big lump, his eyes could hardly open, and he even had temporary blindness.

Fortunately, this rejection reaction that made him unrecognizable only lasted for seven days. Otherwise, it would have directly declared the failure of the "blueprint plan". Such a major accident didn't stop his exploration in anti - aging technology. He became more and more courageous and iterated the plan: stabilizing his body fat at 6%, which could keep his facial contour sharp and smooth. In addition, he also spared no effort in facial skin monitoring, laser treatment, etc.

There are also some unproven speculations. Many netizens commented that Bryan has become "more like an aunt", and even jokingly called him an "aunt - like vampire" or an "old sister - in - law". We don't know if this change is related to the estrogen 17α - E2 he often injects. Although this estrogen can extend the lifespan of male mice without feminizing them, there is very little human trial data.

Bryan's obsession with "immortality" would be considered extremely rational and progressive if it were applied to the business world or technological improvement. But when it comes to his own body, it inevitably makes people think it's a crazy act against nature. Netizens who have been following his anti - aging experiments are keen on predicting how he will die: "If he dies of cancer, it will be a spectacle", "One day, he will be choked to death by broccoli."

He himself also generously admitted that he might die in a ridiculous and humorous way. He actively posted a video of himself being "killed" by a car on April Fool's Day, not feeling any sense of bad luck at all.

His brother Jason believes that Bryan doesn't do these radical anti - aging experiments because he is afraid of death. On the contrary, it's his courage that drives him so far.

"If you ask me about his idols, Ernest Shackleton, the hero of Antarctic exploration, must be one of them. I can't remember how many times he told me how brave Shackleton was, willing to take risks with his life to do things important to humanity. So he is not afraid of death. What he is afraid of is failing to fulfill his mission."

Now, the "blueprint plan" to slow down human aging and the belief in "Don’t Die" are his missions.

In Jason's memory, young Bryan was just an ordinary naughty boy. Although he showed some leadership skills, he was actually not much different from other boys in the neighborhood. The first turning point in his brother's life came when he was 19.

In 1990, like many young Mormons, he was sent abroad as a missionary. Bryan went to Ecuador.

The poverty there reconstructed his perception of the world. Tap water and electricity were luxuries. Children played in the garbage dumps; housing was extremely crowded, and his skin was frequently allergic. He spent a lot of time looking for food with the locals. The lack and uncleanness of food made him endure hunger and diarrhea all the time. Two years later, he became very thin, and his teenage face was covered with almost disfiguring acne.

When he returned to the United States after his ascetic missionary life, it was like stepping into a beautiful new world. When he got home and opened his mother's refrigerator, he couldn't help exclaiming: "Mom! There is so much food in your refrigerator!" The ordinary life of an American family was an unimaginable abundance and prosperity four thousand miles away in Ecuador.

Bryan as a missionary in Ecuador

The missionary career doesn't change the missions of all young Mormons profoundly. Many of them can't wait to go home, and many continue their previous lives after completing their routine tasks. But Bryan, who persevered for two years, changed completely. Bryan had a grand vision: He wanted to do something meaningful in his life to change the world.

This poor student was full of motivation and decided to become a wealthy entrepreneur in ten years.

In Mormon doctrine, "