BRAND ANALYSIS: D IS FOR DON'T DIE

Don’t Die is a movement-initiative-community started by Bryan Johnson, the serial entrepreneur and VC best known in his previous life for founding Braintree, a mobile payments company that acquired Venmo, which he sold to eBay in 2013. Following the exit, Johnson shifted his focus towards human health and longevity through a new venture, Kernel (an outfit that intends to develop advanced brain-computer interface technology) and launched OS Fund in 2014, which invests in early-stage science and technology companies that aim to radically improve quality of life.

One of the first viral images of Bryan Johson from the early days of Project Blueprint, wearing a Kernel headset (Bloomberg)

But what made Johnson famous to the masses is Project Blueprint, a comprehensive anti-aging and health optimization program, initiated around 2021. The project employs a team of over 30 medical professionals and aims to reverse Johnson’s biological age and enhance his physical and cognitive performance. His regimen includes extensive daily monitoring and a range of interventions, from diet and exercise to experimental therapies. It has since been compiled into a periodically updated freely available health and longevity regimen, named the Blueprint Protocol. At this point it’s unlikely you wouldn’t have encountered one of the numerous “This CEO Spends 2 Million Dollars a Year to Live Forever” articles published about him and Project Blueprint.

What’s ultimately at stake for him – and Don’t Die – is hitting escape velocity in reversing biological aging so that yet-to-be-discovered therapies and interventions, brought upon by the advent of AI, will be able to prolong life indefinitely.

The visual branding of Blueprint is quite unremarkable

Since the inception of Project Blueprint, BJ has been very active on social media, anointing himself as one of the world’s leading health influencers (he’s good on Twitter). With ambitions arguably well beyond the average supplement grifter, he’s nevertheless followed the standard health-influencer-to-supplement-entrepreneur pipeline. In 2023 he launched Blueprint the supplement brand, packaging the essential chemical components of his protocol into a relatively accessibly-priced supplement stack. The launch of his supplement brand was telegraphed in advance through a tactical FUD campaign aimed at his to-be competitor AG1 (which, to be fair, is a borderline scam). The Blueprint offering has since been expanded to include extra virgin olive oil (branded Snake Oil as an act of self-awareness) and other protocol essentials beyond mere supplements.

Don’t Die was launched in 2023. The specific nature of Don’t Die is somewhat ambiguous (an app, podcast and events are coming), but broadly speaking it’s a movement or community – a “philosophy” – for people who are obsessed with deferring death using science and technology. In fact, it has all of the essential building blocks of a neo-religion, but more about that later.

So, to recap the universe of Bryan Johnson’s overlapping brands, there’s:

• Bryan Johnson, the founder / test subject / influencer himself

• Blueprint Protocol, the open-source longevity protocol

• Blueprint, the supplement brand

• Don’t Die, the movement

Talmage Johnson modeling a Don’t Die hoodie in a Blueprint supplement pantry

Longevity Industrial Complex

Of course the rise of Bryan Johson and the appeal of his offerings isn’t happening in a vacuum. The relative importance of youth and youth culture (itself a product of post-war demographics) to marketers is in decline. Young people today have less to spend, and there are simply fewer of them to buy whatever it is you’re selling. At the same time, youth culture is losing its appeal to older generations; culture isn’t trickling up the age pyramid like it used to. Older people want the health that comes with youth, but not the skibidi.