Johnson, who has been described as a “serial tech entrepreneur,” launched three startups, whilst at university, between 1999 and 2003. The first, which sold cell phones, helped pay his way through Brigham Young University. In that business, Johnson hired other college students to sell service plans along with cell phones; Johnson earned about a $300 commission on each sale. Johnson also started two other businesses. Inquist, a VOIP company Johnson co-founded with three other partners, with combined features of Vonage and Skype. It ended operations in 2001. After that, he joined his brother and another partner on a $70 million real estate project later in 2001. The project did not achieve sales goals.
Braintree
Johnson formed the idea for Braintree while he was working at a part-time job selling credit card processing services to businesses. The firm's rapid growth was spurred by clients in the technology industry including OpenTable, Uber, Shopify, Airbnb, and others. The company was 47th on Inc. magazine’s 2011 list of the 500 fastest-growing companies and 415th in 2012. That year, Braintree purchased Venmo, a startup --now owned by PayPal--that lets users send and receive money from each other electronically, for $26.2 million. By September 2013, the company announced it was processing $12 billion in payments annually, with $4 billion of that on mobile. Shortly afterward, on Sept. 26, 2013, the company was acquired by eBay for $800 million.
OS Fund
In October 2014, at 37, Johnson announced his creation of OS Fund, which he backed with $100 million of his personal capital. The venture capital firm invests in early-stage science and technology companies led by "inventors and scientists who aim to benefit humanity through quantum leap discoveries at the operating system, or OS, level,” Johnson said. In 2016 he launched an online video series, “Explorations,” featuring interviews with leaders of some of the companies backed by OS Fund.
Kernel
Johnson started Kernel in 2016, making a personal investment of $100 million. The company's goal is to build an implantable device to improve brain function in humans, such as memory, while interfacing with artificial intelligence. . May 5, 2020, Ashlee Vance published an article in Bloomberg BusinessWeek, stating that Kernel has found a way to shrink machines previously used by researchers to measure our brains electrical signals. This will more easily analyze neurons via a helmet like device. Bryan Johnson, via Twitter, has noted that Mainframes turned into PCs, Billion dollar sequenced genomes turned into thousand dollar sequenced genomes, and brains will be the next to follow the drastic price/performance increase. This device may allow for breakthroughs including being able to see what fully paralyzed people are thinking, novel therapies for anxiety, better ways to measure impacts of clinical studies, and in general create a lot stronger feedback loops than previously used. This device will be revealed later in 2020 and plans to be for commercial application.
Personal life
Johnson has three children. Johnson was raised in the Mormon faith, but has said he left the LDS Church when he was 34. He is an experienced outdoor enthusiast: Johnson has climbed Mount Kilimanjaro, the highest mountain in Africa, as well as Toubkal, the highest peak of North Africa. He is also a pilot and has written a children’s book, Code 7. On March 17, 2018, he became engaged to his girlfriend, artist and producer Taryn Southern.
Books
Johnson contributed one chapter to the 2018 book Architects of Intelligence: The Truth About AI from the People Building it by the American futurist Martin Ford.
