The spectacle of Bryan Johnson and his livestreamed shrooms trip

When I was 18, I bought a cheap ticket from my college Facebook group to see Grimes at a nearby music festival. In the middle of the crowd, a clearly intoxicated man kept attempting to climb a thin young tree to get a better view. He slipped down repeatedly — the tree couldn't support him — yet I watched, half-horrified and half-mesmerized, as he obsessively tried to achieve something physically impossible.

More than a decade later, I found myself in an unsettlingly similar situation. Once again, I watched Grimes perform. And once again, a drug-addled man dominated the scene. Except this time, it was Bryan Johnson, livestreaming his consumption of 5.24 grams of psilocybin mushrooms as part of a public experiment to see whether psychedelics could support his lifelong quest to defeat ageing.

Johnson, who made his fortune by selling his fintech startup, Braintree, has become known for his extreme efforts to extend his lifespan. He documents everything publicly: plasma transfusions from his son, a regimen of more than 100 pills a day, and even Botox injections into his genitals. Along the way, his anti-ageing crusade doubles as a promotional campaign for his companies, including Kernel, which develops neurotechnology, and Blueprint, which sells supplements and food products.

Image Credits: Byran Johnson's livestream on X

He billed his psychedelic trip as a livestream "event," complete with graphics inspired by a Windows XP desktop. Before the session began, Johnson and Blueprintco-founder Tolo joked that the stream could be monetized like the Super Bowl. What many associate with college experimentation — listening to music and getting too high — was repackaged as a strangely sterile, attention-seeking demonstration of pushing human limits.

More than a million people viewed the broadcast on X, either live or on demand. As Johnson consumed the mushrooms and monitored his brain activity using Kernel's large black helmet, a collection of wealthy and influential commentators joined the stream, praising him as a pioneer.

While some observers view Johnson's exploits as bizarre performance art, many in Silicon Valley insist he is a visionary.

Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff compared Johnson to the biblical Jacob.

"My Bible study was on Jacob's Ladder… this incredible experience of talking to God," Benioff said. "We're still trying to find those bridges, and I think that's what Bryan's trying to do… He's not doing this recreationally."

Image Credits: Byran Johnson's livestream on X

Investor and AngelList founder Naval Rcriticizingcribed Johnson as a "one-man FDA," criticizing the pace of scientific progress and praising Johnson for acting independently of regulations and ethics committees.

"Bryapopularizelly saying, I'll do it myself, I'll popularize it, I'll experiment with it," Ravikant said. "We need thousands of Bryans out there. I hope he survives long enough to give us the cheat codes."

But Johnson didn't hear any of this praise — he had already put on an eye mask, wrapped himself in a weighted blanket, and withdrew from the five-hour broadcast he had organized.

"It was probably a burden to hold a microphone and focus on what he wanted to say," explained journalist Ashlee Vance, who has been following Johnson's pursuit of longevity.

The stated goal of Johnson's controlled psychedelic session is to investigate whether psilocybin could contribute to slowing ageing — a concept scientists are already exploring in academic research. He is hardly the first to approach psychedelics as therapeutic.

In the 1960s, Harvard psychologist Timothy Leary helped popularise psychedelics as tools for expanding consciousness — overlapping with topics that fascinate today's tech elite, such as life extension and space migration. He maintained relationships with cultural figures like Allen Ginsberg, Ken Kesey, and the Grateful Dead. Kesey, who participated in government psychedelic experiments, became a central figure in that era's counterculture. John Lennon even wrote "Come Together" for Leary's political ambitions.

Two generations later, Bryan Johnson is livestreaming a psilocybin trip as he promotes "longevity escape velocity," his term for the point at which humans stop ageing biologically.

"Time passes, but your body stays the same age," he said. "That would be the most significant achievement for humans."

"Basically, we're trying to make Bryan Johnson immortal — hopefully by 2039," Tolo explained during the stream.

"We're sharing this protocol with all of you, for free," Johnson added. "Psilocybin is one part of discovering what therapies could help us slow aging or reverse damage."

The staging of this supposedly groundbreaking experiment is strikingly mundane. Rather than a psychedelic-themed environment or clinical lab, the livestream resembled a corporate Zoom meeting — except with Johnson bundled in a blanket, wearing an eye mask, while billionaires looked on. At one point, Benioff joked that the stream missed an opportunity to sponsor a sleep mask.

Image Credits: Byran Johnson's livestream on X

Later, Tolo struggled to collect saliva samples from Johnson, then placed the heavy Kernel helmet on his head. At the same time, he quietly stared at a wall as the device monitored his brain activity.

This is Bryan Johnson's self-proclaimed longevity revolution — unfolding in a beige room filled with computers and biometric tools, as some of the wealthiest figures in tech observe and cheer him on.