Bryan Johnson (Kernel) & Starr Marcello

Growing up in a small, religious town in Utah, Bryan Johnson felt he existed in a video game where the rules were all mapped out. His favorite part of the day as a kid were the early mornings he spent wandering the fields with his dog, shooting at targets with his BB gun, which gave him a feeling of “endless possibility.”

Now he’s playing in a video game of his own making, as he puts it, that allows him to explore the “infinite expanse” of the brain and how it might be measured and shaped to help humanity thrive.

But before he could found Kernel, a neurotech company building scalable brain-recording devices, Johnson had to sell Braintree – a pioneering mobile payment platform that he took through the New Venture Challenge.
In this podcast episode, Johnson, MBA ’07, speaks with Starr Marcello, deputy dean of MBA programs at Chicago Booth and formerly executive director of the Polsky Center.

In a fascinating, at times mind-bending interview, Johnson discusses how the NVC taught him to communicate his vision for Braintree; why big ecommerce companies trusted his tiny startup with their payment platforms; and how he leads sophisticated engineering companies without being an engineer himself.

Johnson, who sold Braintree to PayPal for $800 million and used the money to start Kernel, also reveals that he rarely spends time in the present anymore as he contemplates what intelligence will look like in the future.

“For some reason, I don’t know why, I feel responsible for the year 2500,” he said.

Listen now on Apple, Spotify, Overcast, or wherever you get your podcasts.