NEED TO KNOW
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Bryan Johnson, the 48-year-old tech executive who wants to live forever, announced that he’s been dating his 30-year-old co-founder, Kate Tolo, for three years
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Together, they launched the longevity startup Blueprint in 2021
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Johnson calls Tolo his “favorite person”
Bryan Johnson, a tech entrepreneur who wants to live forever, just shared the name of the woman he plans on spending that extended time with: his co-founder.
On Tuesday, Dec. 2, the 48-year-old millionaire announced in a lengthy post on social media that he’s been dating Kate Tolo, the co-founder of his longevity startup Blueprint, for three years.
“At this point, Kate and I have nearly become one person. We have entire conversations with a single look, sound, gesture or image,” Johnson wrote of his 30-year-old partner, whom he described as his “favorite person.” He added, “I’ve wanted this my entire life and impatiently waited 25 years for it to arrive. It’s better than anything I imagined.”
Johnson — who was the focus of the Netflix documentary Don’t Die: The Man Who Wants to Live Forever — spends millions of dollars annually to lengthen his lifespan, sometimes through controversial methods.
He was born in Utah, where he was raised a Mormon, later marrying and having three children, according to The New York Times. In the early 2000s, his company Braintree acquired Venmo, before his own business was acquired for $800 million by eBay in 2013. By the next year, he’d left the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and divorced his wife, the paper reported. In 2020, his breakup with musician Taryn Southern resulted in a contentious lawsuit, according to a separate Times report.
The following year, Johnson launched Blueprint, which has created a cult-like frenzy amongst people hoping to extend their lives and the tech industry, the Times reported.
In his post on Tuesday, Johnson credited Tolo for bringing his “anti-aging project” into the spotlight.
“Kate is the unsung hero,” Johnson wrote of Tolo’s work at the company. “She’s proven an exceptional executor and despite her unconventional background, intuitively knows things. … Our minds have become so intertwined that life feels naked without her.”
The couple first met while working together at his “brain interface company,” Kernel, and the connection was “immediate,” he said. Despite the attraction, Johnson said their relationship remained professional until they realized the feeling was mutual. They held off on announcing their romantic connection for three years.
“We needed time to stabilize, mature and assess whether this was short or long term,” Johnson wrote on X and Instagram. “I’m a 48 year old American, raised Mormon, with three children. She’s a 30 year old Bosnian-Australian-American. It took time to bridge our worlds.”
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Tolo had her own response following the now-viral announcement. “I love you so much,” Tolo wrote in a comment on Instagram, “so glad you didn’t give up.”
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