Bryan Johnson wants a million dollars a year to teach you how not to die. The 48-year-old tech entrepreneur-turned-biohacker, who sold his payments company Braintree to PayPal for $800 million in 2013, launched “Immortals” last week. It includes three slots at $1 million each to follow the exact anti-ageing protocol he has tested on himself for five years. Over 1,500 people applied in the first 30 hours, a roster supposedly including entrepreneurs, athletes, politicians, and actors. Johnson says conquering death “will be humanity’s greatest achievement” and that we will be “the first generation who won’t die.”

While I admire Johnson’s efforts to avoid slipping Earth’s surly bonds, colour me sceptical. His protocol has, until now, had a sample size of one: himself. He spends roughly $2 million annually on a regimen that includes over 100 daily supplements, a strict vegan diet, constant biomarker tracking, and experimental treatments. Those range from blood transfusions from his teenage son (since abandoned for lack of results) to unapproved gene therapy in Honduras, and even reportedly include Botox injections in his genitals. He publishes metrics claiming his biological age has reversed by more than five years. But as we all know, a single case study represents the lowest level of scientific evidence. There is no way to determine which of his dozens of interventions, if any, are responsible. A prominent hepatologist called him a “modern-day snake-oil salesman” after Johnson failed to provide clinical proof for his supplement line.

The core of what Johnson does is sensible enough: exercise for an hour a day, sleep well, eat a nutrient-dense diet, and monitor his bloodwork. An independent analysis found this foundation can be replicated for under $2,000 a year. The million-dollar premium buys the experimental fringe: stem cell injections, plasma exchanges, gene therapies, and the round-the-clock services of “BryanAI”, his personal artificial intelligence health coach. The Immortals package also promises “best skin and hair protocols”, but don’t expect any miracle cures. Jeff Bezos, worth $200+ billion and an investor in Altos Labs (a cellular reprogramming startup), remains conspicuously bald. If the combined fortunes of Silicon Valley cannot fix male pattern baldness, a condition affecting roughly half of men by 50, the promise of conquering death warrants at least a raised eyebrow.

Still, the demand is real, and it tells us something about this particular moment. Johnson is not the only wealthy person betting on longevity. Bezos and Peter Thiel have backed Unity Biotechnology, which targets the senescent cells that accumulate as humans age. Sam Altman has put $180 million into Retro Biosciences, which aims to rejuvenate T cells. Over $5 billion has flowed into longevity research since 2000.

Those ventures at least have institutional scientific infrastructure behind them. Johnson, by contrast, is selling a concierge subscription to his personal routine. Immortals is a small, privately-funded clinical trial with no control group, no peer review, and no regulatory oversight. The 1,500 applicants are volunteering to be test subjects in an experiment run by a man who also sells the supplements. Such an arrangement would raise red flags at any university ethics board, but it is happening outside any institutional framework and is funded entirely by the participants themselves.

Indeed, this is the one truly redeeming feature of the entire enterprise. Nobody’s pension contributions are being redirected towards somebody’s genital Botox. If the protocols turn out to contain anything genuinely useful, a better biomarker test, a dietary intervention that replicates well, the data will eventually surface, and the rest of us could benefit from it at a fraction of the cost.

Most likely, the three winners of Johnson’s interview process will pay this tireless supplement marketer a million dollars to learn what the science already says for free: sleep eight hours, eat your veggies, lift weights, and move around. The expensive supplements and experimental therapies layered on top may do something, or they may do nothing. If nothing else, we can take grim comfort in watching the ultra-wealthy fund their own quixotic quest for immortality rather than asking the rest of us suckers to pay for it.

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Oliver Bateman is a historian and journalist based in Pittsburgh. He blogs, vlogs, and podcasts at his Substack, Oliver Bateman Does the Work

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