Kernel is trying to hack the human brain -- but neuroscience has a long way to go

For Bryan Johnson, the founder and CEO of neuroscience startup Kernel, the question is when, not if, we all have computer chips inside of our brains. Kernel, founded last fall with more than $100 million of Johnson's own money, is trying to better understand the human brain, so that we may one day program it to improve. The company is focusing first on medical applications, to gain a deeper understanding of the diverse and complex ways the brain can fail. Eventually, Johnson would like to move toward augmenting the organ to make us smarter and healthier and pave the way for interfacing directly with computing devices. Johnson, who made his fortune selling his payments company Braintree to PayPal for $800 million in 2013, doesn't have past experience in neuroscience.