Johnson dreamed up his current career path at the age of 21, after returning from a two-year mission trip to Ecuador. "I came back to the US with this burning desire to improve the lives of others," he said, arriving at the field of human intelligence because he believes it to be "the most precious and powerful resource in existence." "If I survey the world around me, and I include in the calculation the scarcity of time and resources, what is the most audacious goal I can imagine to pursue?" he asked. "That's my orientation." Kernel is a direct product of these two prime directives: Work on something bold and do something to improve human intelligence.

Both Johnson and Ramirez spoke about who should get memory-enhancing or editing technology, but they didn't see eye-to-eye. "If this ever becomes a thing," said Ramirez, "ideally we'll keep it in the realm of medicine, in the context of disorders of the brain. If you're a good psychiatrist, you don't give Prozac to the entire population of Massachusetts—you give Prozac to the people who are actually riddled with depression." The same logic ought to hold, he believes, for any memory-editing technologies that his research might lead to. While they might be appropriate for those suffering from PTSD or certain psychological disorders, "you don't give it to [some guy] who can't get over a breakup."

Johnson arrived at a different conclusion. Although he knows the tech will necessarily start out as therapeutic remedies for people with cognitive deficits, he hopes it will eventually grow beyond that. Far beyond. "My objective with Kernel is to provide this to billions of people," he says. Ultimately, he hopes that devices like the memory prosthetic that Berger is developing will be available for anyone who would like to be mentally enhanced. Though his goal is a moonshot—the idea of bringing such a device to market even in ten years seems optimistic at best—his demeanor is anything but moony. Johnson expresses his plans and ideas with rigorously analytical precision. "There are already low-resolution forms of cognitive enhancement," he points out. "If somebody puts their child into private school over a poorly funded school system, that's a form of cognitive enhancement. A private tutor is a form of cognitive enhancement." To Johnson, improving one's mind by use of technology rather than education is a difference of degree and not of type.