“Success is a journey—not about an arrival.”
BEYOND BRAINTREE
After selling Braintree for $800 million to PayPal in 2013, founder Bryan Johnson didn’t see the deal merely as an achievement, but as the start of a new adventure.
Ever focused on the future of humanity, Johnson launched OS Fund in support of “the world’s most audacious” scientists and entrepreneurs who are working to rewrite the operating systems of life. He combines business acumen with an insatiable imagination to fuel his endeavors, which also include writing children’s books. His defining belief is that we’re at a uniquely exciting moment in the story of humanity, because we can now literally create any kind of world we can imagine.
HITTING THE RESTART BUTTON AT BOOTH
“I’d started a few companies including one small success and two big failures. I was exhausted and wanted to take a break. I thought business school would be a nice time to collect my thoughts. After visiting several schools, I determined that if I didn’t get accepted at Booth, I just wasn’t going to go.”
At Chicago Booth, Johnson focused on developing as a leader and decision-maker. “As I’ve progressed throughout my career, I’ve spent more and more time working on how I think, particularly on understanding my underlying assumptions and mental models, questioning those, and then going deeper. Booth was a great help in this exploration as I worked to understand the world and dissect my own thinking.”
FUTURE-FOCUSED VISION
“In order for our society to thrive, we are dependent upon scientific breakthroughs to address our needs,” Johnson says. “But funding these scientific endeavors is very challenging, because often they have long runways with a lot of risk.”
The OS Fund’s investments range from companies working on synthetic biology and extending healthy human lifespan, to artificial intelligence, energy storage, and next-gen transportation.
“I invest in future-literate entrepreneurs, which I define as those who create mental models for the emerging future while living experimentally and adventurously.
They’re working on any one of humanity’s most audacious challenges or opportunities, and aiming to improve the lives of billions of people for generations to come.”
To create a more robust ecosystem for investing in such entrepreneurs, OS Fund developed a decision-making model it then open sourced to help others better understand the risks and potential of these promising sci-tech companies.
“Having attended Booth, it was really helpful in understanding how we could frame our thought processes to try and make good decisions about these endeavors that truly could have a very large impact on humanity, but just weren’t receiving the investment capital from the community.”
Johnson stresses that the smallest details make a huge difference in the success or failure of a new business. “Booth provides entrepreneurs basic startup infrastructure assistance but also helps in company strategy formation,” he says. “They close the gap on the difficulty of actually starting a company and help increase the likelihood of success.”
MEASURING SUCCESS
Johnson’s mantra is straightforward. “Success is a journey. It is not about an arrival. I don’t believe success is a fixed point, or somewhere we arrive. It’s the journey, and how we deal with the opportunities and challenges that come our way.”
He says: “There is risk in everything. It is not a question of whether someone is a risk taker. It is a question of what risk are you willing to take in life. To me, the biggest risk was not working on the things I found most meaningful.”
THE REALLY BIG PICTURE
In addition to OS Fund, Johnson is working on an initiative to orient youth around our newly developed and incredibly powerful tools of creation and to embolden them to become changemakers and the creators of humanity’s future.
“There’s a reason why I want to invest in young people. I am a father of three, and I love my children very much. I work incredibly hard to be a good father, but also I see them as humanity’s future creators. They will have the ability to author our world unlike any other generation. I want to invest in them now, so when they are older, they have the aspirations and vision to create something remarkable.”
Bryan Johnson:
Discovering Braintree was an accident. I was broke, up to my eyeballs in debt, and I had no way to make money because nobody would hire me, and so I was out in the street trying to sell credit card processing door to door, and I discovered that it was a broken industry and that there was this great opportunity to build a company. And I started building the foundations and soon we started getting some of the best technology companies in the whole world to become customers, and that's when I knew we really had something.
Waverly Deutsch:
Bryan is a visionary who knows how to execute on vision, and I would put Bryan into the company of people like Richard Branson and Elon Musk, that when Bryan has an idea that he wants to bring to the world, he's going to find a way to do it. Resources aren't going to constrain him, technology isn't going to constrain him, Bryan genuinely wants to change the world and he's one of the few entrepreneurs that I've met who I believe can.
Bryan Johnson:
In order for our society to thrive, we are dependent upon scientific breakthroughs to address our needs, but funding these scientific endeavors is very challenging because oftentimes they have long runways with a lot of risk. And so oftentimes venture capital won't venture into this world, and so we've developed the OS fund, for example, a decision-making model of how to understand these companies and invest wisely in them. And I think that having been to Booth, it was really helpful in understanding how we could frame our thought processes to make good decisions about these endeavors that truly could have a very large impact on humanity, but just weren't receiving the investment capital from the community.
Scott Phoenix:
What really caught my attention about Bryan is his passion for the future and his commitment to being involved in both technology and in social progress toward building a better future.Bryan Johnson:
When I invest in entrepreneurs for the OS fund, I want to find people who are one, future-literate, two, who are working on one of humanity's most audacious challenges or opportunities, and three, if successful, they would improve the lives of billions of people for generations to come. Those are the three criteria I evaluate on every investment.
Cynthea Liu:
He wanted to know how he could help children understand that they have the power to offer their own lives, and that's this huge statement, right? And it's like, well, we have to start somewhere, and that became this book. And then that then became something much larger when he was like no, how do we really—this is just one book, but what can we do on a much larger level?
Bryan Johnson:
The reason why I want to invest in the youth, first, I'm a father of three and I love my children very much, and I work incredibly hard to be a good father to them. But also, I see them as humanity's future creators, that they will arrive in maturity when these powerful tools of creation are at their maturity as well, and they'll have this ability to author our world unlike any other generation. And I want to invest in them now so that when they're at that age, that they have the aspirations and the vision to create something remarkable.
