Why This Billionaire is All In on Crypto, AI & Psychedelics | Christian Angermayer

Transcript

I think we're living in the most amazing and at the same time most crazy complex time ever. AI is the final game and whoever wins that will stay on top for good because AI is kind of that disruption machine in itself if that makes sense. So, and I think that is what Europe didn't understand that they losing out but they're losing out for good. This episode is brought to you by Block Damon. You'll hear more about them later in today's episode. The digital asset summit, our premier institutional conference, is right around the corner.

In London, from the 13th to the 15th, we'll be at the old Billingsgate with some of the largest banks, funds, and allocators as they explore how to gain exposure to crypto. We'll have a ton of great speakers, including Dan Moorehead, Joe Luben, Guy Young, and a bunch of amazing side events so you can meet some of the largest names in the industry. So follow the link in the show notes to find out more and use code Empire 200 for £200 off your ticket. Nothing said on Empire is a recommendation to buy or sell any investments or products. This podcast is forformational purposes only and the views expressed by anyone on the show are solely their opinions, not financial advice or necessarily the views of Blockworks. Our hosts, guests,

and the Block Works team may hold positions in the company's funds or projects discussed. All right, everyone. Welcome back to Empire. Very excited about this. We have my dear friend Christian Angermier who runs his family office, a Pyron. Uh you may remember came on Empire back in 2021, was talking Bitcoin, psychedelics. We are going to talk about that and a whole host of other things. So Christian, welcome back. Thanks for having me again. Great pleasure. Life is good. Life is good. Bidding Bitcoin is good. like markets are great. So yes, life is always good with you. I feel I try to be always happy. I think that's like the the one and only reason why we're here to be happy. So it's not meaning that I'm happy every day, but I

it's kind of the thing which I strive for. And at the end, I think it's very simple as well. Just do what you want to do in a nice way. Like not egoistic, but like just like live your life how you want to live it and try to not surround yourself with Yeah, that's actually a simple but like that is actually what I when I sold my first company or the stakes in my first company that's what I was thinking. I was like okay I always wanted to be an entrepreneur but I never had sort of planned it or thought it through in terms of financial gains or return. So when I sat there and had more I come from a very basic like family in like a farm village. So like in 200 what are we talking about 2004?

Yeah. I was sitting there I was like I had more money than I ever thought and I was like what how do I actually want to structure my life so that it makes me happy and then the two things which came up were like oh yeah first of all uh don't surround yourself with so I just want to work with people who I genuinely like and want to be friends with yeah you make mistakes but I try to sort of have that and the second one was like I only want to invest in and start companies about topics which truly excite me. So I don't want to do something only for making money. Uh so and these two things serve me well.

Yeah. So okay. So I was I listened back to our conversation last time. I realized there's kind of a missing part of your story that I don't know too much about. So I know the beginning of your story, small town, become a very successful biotech entrepreneur, make millions early on in your life and and that's have some great success. Then there's this missing window and then I know about the later part which is very successful entrepreneur and backer of many great founders and crypto and um compass and we can we can get into that in a little bit but the middle part is missing. So my question for you is like when did you become go from this kind of successful biotech entrepreneur to like the Christian Angermire that we know the billionaire funer of all these massive things and you put on the global map and

people want to get in touch with you and kind of the the person that you are today. Well I I think meaning I would see it like as a as a line with sort of ups and downs but like with it's a continuous thing. It's not that I woke up one day and was like oh my god my life has changed or whatever. It's kind of these constant sort of hustle and growing like sort of for example like so I started in biotech but then I had sort of this detour uh like between we're talking now 2005 till 2012 where I did a lot of actually financial traditional financial services. So I used to own the largest um which is called an IFA uh network in Germany. So I had a I build up a company it was an buy and build strategy. or we

bought up uh sort of smaller players and and built the number one IFA network with like 18,000 independent financial advisors sort of working for us and and distributing products or also we just said it when we talked before like and by the way I ran I have to say I ran in a lot of things sort of kind of accidentially but in a planned way meaning like how I also see my life is like I think you need to be sort of or I believe in positive thinking and sort of if you believe if you go through life and sort of you just expect the best but I truly believe that I think like everything which is happening to me is a happening for a reason and b it's

ultimatatively good for me that can be even something negative and I know I always have to give this disclaimer it sounds easier when we're sitting here in New York and we're all doing fine and then like people like yeah but like what is I'm like going through these hard time but I can tell you that I had very very hard times like both business in private and when you're in it like they suck like it's not I don't want to sugarcoat it but I always try to remember myself especially in the hard times they happening for very positive reasons and if I look back now on the last 27 years since I started being an entrepreneur I would say it always turned out then true that with a little bit of distance sometimes I was like realizing oh wow this is why ABC or

whatever happened to me and for example like so this is also I I see like how I or I how I try to approach new topics like I just let let them come to me so to say like sort of an indies detour or to finish I did I did a lot of financial services in Germany but then via mutual friend long story like uh who happens to be the president uh of Rwanda so he convinced me like of Rwanda Africa so I bought a small bank in in Rwanda then I needed to hire a CEO and the CEO was like I don't want to run a small bank in Rwanda but if we have a bigger vision I'm going to come and sort of ultimately like out of that sort of puzzle things like we have built up uh was between 2007 and 2012

um the the third largest commercial banking group in Africa which I then sold in 2013. Um so yeah so that's sort of in the middle and then I sort of came back so after these detour to financial services and I would call it like the early days of fintech which didn't have the name fintech sort of in 20134 I moved back more into tech and biotech and that's sort of continuously what we're doing since then as a pyron can you I don't know if you're able to publicly talk about some of the work that you did with uh just the the the euro crisis and the like 2010s and kind of when you become This is when I think of you getting on the global map with the kind of the the big hedge fun crowd

basically. I don't know if you can publicly talk about those days a little bit like like sort of I mean I love politics. I think people know that like I'm I'm the economic adviser for the president of Rwanda. Uh, and I always say like it happened actually between it happened because like in 200 three four when I had my first exit. Um, I I I think I was very cocky and maybe a little bit of arrogant like you know when you're a young founder and you're like okay I just made it and like and then I I I said things like oh I I definitely would run Germany better than the guy who was doing it back then whatever.

As every entrepreneur thinks they can do better than the government. Yeah. And I tell that every entrepreneur because a very wise friend uh said look you don't understand politics. It's a it's very complicated. Even like people like Elon had to see like it's not like an easy easy feat like we can debate if this is is good or bad or whatever but like it's a fact. So and uh and this person back then we're talking now about 200 yeah 3 4 introduced me to Angela Merkel who now people were like oh my god Angela Merkel but this was like she wasn't the Angela Merkel. Yeah I actually met her the first time she was still in opposition but she was already very impressive and that's was sort of my first like oh wow

this is a world like where which has its own like rules and complications but I wanted to learn more. But I also realized that I could never be a politician. Um because again talking about happiness and my mental health is like I want to be liked like I I can't deal with sort of negativity. Yeah. It would make me really miserable and unfortunately meaning look at the US now. Yeah. The whole political game is really one of kind of like at least half of the country doesn't like you.

It's a very negative game. Yeah. It's a very negative game and I couldn't really live with that. So, so I decided very early on, okay, I will never be a politician. However, I really really appreciate politicians because I think it's the they are these under underappreciated job. We all make fun of them. We all think ah but like if you really look behind the curtain, how complicated is. And let's take Angela Merkel like Yeah. So, and then the Euro crisis like how she held Europe together and like so I was a little bit involved like all the smart hedge fun people in the world were calling me every day like a George Soros whatever you need to do this you need to do that but they didn't understand in

full how complex that crisis really was because like yes you had a financial layer which told you like Europe is kind of or at least some countries in Europe were kind of bankrupt but then there's also there is a historic uh dimension, there is like a social one, there is a political one. Like this is like multi multi-dimensional chess because the chancellor because everybody was like ah the chancellor of Germany should just pay things off but like she had a coalition in Germany so she already had a coalition partner to deal with then you had 26 other head of states in Europe who had to agree on everything whatever and I looked at her doing all of that and maneuvering Europe really through it and uh meaning you can criticize her for other stuff because

like I didn't agree with Germany going out of nuclear and and with the way we handle the immigration stuff, but like I can tell everybody Europe or the Euro and the Euro zone would not exist anymore without Angela Merkel. So I think that is her really really if you believe in Europe which I do uh as a as a construct that is her really sort of big uh legacy. Yeah. But yes, so I spent a lot of time in the Euro crisis on sort of like bridging that understanding gap between international investors who only saw Europe as a balance sheet. Yeah. And sort of German and European politicians and that was definitely one kind of

hindsight for me like I want to say breakout but like I met a lot of really cool people. Uh we just talked that Mike Novagratz is is coming later on the podcast like I met Mike with via that and many other I met Peter Teal via sort of that political work. Uh and that definitely was sort of uh so the political work is how you started to get in with the Soroses and Novages and Got it because they were sitting sort of at the Yeah. at the epicenter of the biggest trade for two three years was like European uh European sovereign debt.

Yeah. Um, let's talk Europe for a sec. So, I I have your uh your note here. I try still to be uplifting, but it's even with my with my optimism. Let me read the line that you emailed. So, you I'm lucky enough to be on your your email newsletter and I like it because you don't hold any takes back and hopefully I can share this publicly. Uh, you said in uh I pulled up I was just reading your old emails to me over the years and you said in September 2023 you said broadly speaking the European project is finished kind of.

Yeah. It's sad because like we fought so much for it during the Euro crisis but like sort of we're dying in complacency but it's also like and it's worse now. By the way, I wrote this one uh in September 2023 and especially because of the election of Donald Trump, who I know it's a very very contentious topic, but as a foreigner or as a European looking at America and spending a lot of time here, I would say we can all debate a lot of things about Donald Trump, but if I boil it down what he's doing for the economy and especially for the the leadership of the US in tech and especially in AI.

It's unprecedented. And I think he's cementing the US dominance over the rest of the world for the next decades to come. I I'm I'm very sure and I know it's a very controversial thing I'm saying now, but I'm very sure if we're looking back in 2030 years because history judges people differently and and also like in in a historic view, it often comes down to the to the very few but very important decisions people make. Yeah. So, and I think in 30, 40 years from now, if people look back, they're going to see Donald Trump as one of the best presidents of the newer time for America because he did all the right things in terms of economy and

especially AI. And that alone is like and and if I look now at Europe, we are the big losers because China is kind of trying at least to keep up keep up. I think America will be the winner in the AI race, but Europe is not even trying. It's not even there on the map. So, and I think we in Europe, again, I see myself half as an American, but like the Europeans have not fully understood how consequential and negatively consequential sort of that inaction and inactivity is. Because my I think what the Europeans are secretly thinking if you look back over the last literally hundreds of years like the worlds and nations have moved in cycles

and yes at certain times certain nations were like ahead of others in terms of technological innovation whatever but it kind of always leveled out and then other nations rose whatever. My worry or hope for America is that kind of AI is the final game and whoever wins that will stay on top for good because AI is kind of that disruption machine in itself if that makes sense. Compounds. So once you figured out AI, it compounds so strongly that I think you will practically you this country and I think it's going to be America will be the dominant force for

practically forever meaning like well let's see what in 100 years is but like so and I think that is what Europe didn't understand that they losing out but they're losing out for good and I think at the end Europe will just be like a a vessel state of the United States. So okay let me there like these two truths that I kind of hold in my head and I I want to get your opinion on. So on one hand I agree with you right when it comes to just like fundamental substance and innovation the US is the leader right all of the most of the great AI uh both actually both hardware and software things in in AI and robotics are coming out of the US today and and that's fantastic and I think we're you and I are both very long the US um and we can talk about your US

dollar thesis and all that kind of stuff. Uh on the other hand, um the US feels more polarized than ever. And at a societal level, it feels like I'm not I'm not saying we're crumbling, but like we feel um uh maybe we're descending more into civil war like arena than ever before. Not saying we're, you know, a civil war is kicking off anytime soon, but like it does feel like we're going down that path a little more than ever before. I'm very curious to get your take on just like how you see society in the US today in light of the your Yeah. comments before.

Well, it is it is I think how you describe it. The only thing I would say I believe that sort of AI hegimony and economic hegeimony because of AI hegimony is is is kind of trumping everything else for now like so yes I think so you can have all these problems but if you're winning at AI solve it so I think and if you that's like if I for one second like just how I see companies and by the way it's so true also for governments they just completely not understand Yeah, I think Trump does is like how I look at companies and every founder who I ever invested in will know that is like I believe every company take a a startup

which just literally started or take Goldman Sachs or any any company in the world at any stage has roundabout one two or three not more we call it trigger factors call it catalysts whatever so and my thesis is that only those one two or three things really matter If you reach them successfully, you're gonna go on the next level. And by the way, then you have new ones. It's a never- ending hustle as an entrepreneur. But like what I tell entrepreneurs really really a obviously know sometimes I meet people who don't even know what these one two or three and sometimes it's really just one sort of thing is what it is and then focus on that. And yes, if you wake up

as a CEO and a founder, you have hundreds of things and emails and WhatsApp and you need to also juggle a lot of other things, but you need to always make sure that you spend enough time and focus on really like do I get these one or two three things right? Yeah. Because when I get them right, that's the only if if you miss them, the rest of your 100 200 things on your task list are are irrelevant. And I think it's the same for politics. Yes. I don't want to sort of diminish or like neglect all the problems a America has and maybe even sometimes the current government is even sort of making worse. But if I look what I believe look it's very

subjective. Yeah. But what I believe what really truly matters and number one is AI and you could add robotics uh hegimony they're doing everything right and then even like on other things like how they for example push Bitcoin and crypto like you could say oh he's saying that because he owns a lot of it no because like there is a real strategy behind also what I again I just want to mention it because there is so much divisiveness here if I look as a European as as a German on the current American government. It's a super competent one.

That whole thing, oh these like Yeah. these whole what the half of the country is saying about Yeah. You have to admit like people like Scott Besson by the way whom I still know because he was working in the hedge fund industry and was my counterpart and I uh I just told him actually when we saw him once like isn't it funny how the how the tables have turned because in the Euro crisis he was he was shouting he was shouting at me and was like oh you Germans like you're doing this wrong and this wrong. It's like now people tell you what to do, but I think he's doing everything right. Like I think Scott is one of the most competent and and best uh hedge fund managers, but also now as a secretary of the treasury.

He's amazing like and you can go through Howard Lutnik like like amazing like successful banker like they all know their so to say. Yeah. I wish for example other governments had the same depth and quality. Again, you can disagree. I always tell my Europeans when they're like, "Ah, but they're doing this." And I was like, "Look, we can we can disagree on on on actions, but I I I think we have to acknowledge that Trump really assembled an amazingly uh competent team." Yeah. And that's I think why they thinking and by the way all the the the the connecting threat I think of the current government in the US is most of them are entrepreneurs.

Trump is an entrepreneur kind of Scott is like hedge fund manager entrepreneur like Howard Lutnik is is an amazing entrepreneur. build up canour like and they thinking about the government. I think how an entrepreneur should think about uh about their company and I think that's a good thing. So I think that's why they really getting so many things done across 30 plus networks and 180 endpoints. Block Damon Earnstack unites staking and DeFi into a single institutional toolkit for crypto rewards with multi-layered security, full asset control and 247 support. Block Damon Earnstack is built for scale and regulatory clarity. Non-custodial

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That's paq.xyz. XYZ to find out how you can benefit from the age of automation or click the link in the show notes to find out more. As always, investments in blockchain technology involve risk terms and conditions apply. Yeah, maybe let's get into your AI the you mentioned this AI thesis a couple times. I'm curious to just get your view on the next how almost how the future unfolds over the next decade or two with respect and and then maybe there's a second question there but we can tie it into one which is like and what should we be doing about that both from the investor and the entrepreneur is shoes.

Okay, by the way complicated because I I don't even I don't have an answer at all like I I just can't give you my thoughts. I think we're living in the most amazing and at the same time most crazy complex time ever like and I don't even know if we fully I don't know appreciate that in in in how crazy and interesting and sort of transformative that time is like no human being has ever lived in I was listening to an I don't know if you know the podcast called acquired but it was a yeah with um Toby from Shopify was on it and I listened a great episode the the other day and he said I think we will look back in you know maybe it's 50 years or 500 years and we will read

about this period of time 2025 like we read about the fall of the Roman Empire 100%. Yeah. or any other like exactly like the very like and more like it's even crazier like that I think and meaning my my my base theory is like first of all I'd already told you like the one country which will sort of which will gain the lead in AI and again I think it's already decided yeah if at all then it's a a race between China and and the US the one country which which wins the AI race will be the dominant superpower forever because then AI we can go into defense into everything is will will reshape uh the world. The second one is like I truly believe that

humans will more or less stop working over the next 10 years. Maybe it's 12, maybe it's eight. 10 10 years. Yes. I think it's going to go much quicker. I I just checked it like what was the number like I think it was I don't want to say the wrong number now ask GBT but like it was more than 20% or something of the jobs in America an insanely high number are related to driving a vehicle gone. Yeah. Then another insane number was like 15% or something like that. Also insane is related still for human labor to putting a parcel from A to B in a warehouse like gone.

So it's 25% of the job force is either driving or moving a thing to B. So then you have most of the lawyers, low-level lawyers gone, most of the auditors gone, most of the bankers gone. I mean we can go through everything. I think maybe the even doctors like I think in every job we're going to have a a small amount of very specialists and then there are jobs who require more of a human touch because we we want it not maybe because they require it maybe just because the customer wants it like a doctor or a nurse or whatever but overall especially when you're not only talking about AI but the true merge between AI uh and robotics yeah because still at

the moment robotics ICS it's kind of brute force they like they not really understanding the room like they see something and they know I can move it from A to B. Yeah. But once we we we move from um I think hopefully I'm not the specialist but like uh the from more like large language models to large geometric models. to really truly un helping AI and by that robots to truly understand the world like I think I can't see anything else like nobody can tell me like what should we then do as humans that most of the jobs will be gone and not being replaced I think so these old idea of yeah but when the car came yes the horse carriages were replaced but like I don't think this is

happening this time because even if there is for a brief amount of time a new job this new job is going to be disrupted very quickly by AI again because that's what AI is a disruption machine. Um so but that doesn't need to be bad. So that's first of all I think that's going to really mess a lot of things up not because it's bad. So what I also believe I believe at the same time AI and robotics together will create so many efficiency gains that society as a whole can afford giving people let's call it universal basic income. Yeah. So it can be other forms by the way but in Germany already we have something called burger guild which

means like uh citizen money which is UBI. Yeah. I'm not a fan because it's too high because like actually the UBI in Germany is so high that it doesn't make sense for low-level people to work anymore. So they just say like I get more money if I get UBI than this is already how it exists. This is already how it exists. So and more than 10% of the German workforce are already on UBI. Um so and we can afford it. So, so, so I think society will be able to afford giving those people who have no job anymore. Uh, and by the way, maybe it's also like I don't want to make it that black and white. Maybe people have a job still because like we want to feel like we have a job, but it's only required to

show up one day a week and you kind of do a little bit and move a pen from left to right and then you go home. Like it it can be like it doesn't need to be that 90% have no job or 80%. they might just have a job which requires less and less time. So, and I also think it's going to be gradually. So, so we're going to look back in 1015 years and realize okay wow that's what we've done. Yeah. But anyway, long story short, I deeply believe that more or less people will stop working but also that we will be able as society as governments to give them more or less the same purchasing power. So, and now my good sort of positive view is that could allow us to be truly human again because

like if you look at human development, the fact that we working 10 hours a day, 5 days a week is very unnatural. So if you go back pre the invention of agriculture when we were hunter gatherers and by the way they are still you rest all day and then maybe you do a big sprint to Yes. And so the average time work time like for making a living a hunter gatherer societies deploys is around about two hours a day to make a living.

So the rest of the day hunter gatherer societies what did they do? Three things. They slept and rested. They had sex uh and they sat around the campfire and told each other stories. That's by the way why we having a podcast. Like why we talking? That's why when you meet somebody new most likely you try to find out whom have you in common? Oh and have you heard? He has a divorce. D. Yeah. So these kind of gossipy nature we have is part of our evolution because that helped us sitting around the campfire and sort of bonding uh as a larger group of of of humans. So and I I personally think that was a better life.

Yeah. Than what we have now. So then we invented agriculture. Agriculture forced us to be sort of um cesar what is it called English to be to stay at one place. Yeah. And it allowed us to scale as a society. So agriculture and changing our lifestyle was a success for our species but was actually very bad for the individual person because all the big problems from nutrition to like living densely together which allows uh bad um bad diseases to break out to working much more than we did before. So I actually also believe that the the storyline a lot of religions developed

about the paradise we got kicked out describes actually the invention of agriculture. So meaning oh there was a time way back where humans had a better life and then we kind of got enslaved. That's actually how the bible starts. We got enslaved to agriculture. Yeah. And and and everything like that. So and I think we have so that is sort of my very optimistic view. So you think we are going from we're going back to paradise back to paradise in 10 years around maybe 15 whatever what does that do for okay good side is paradise bad side in my the thing where my head goes is uh work gives people meaning and um there's there's an ego

that you get and when you're successful at work you have you feel good about yourself and you meaning and yeah what what happens with that well that is ex I think the problem is not the end state again the end state I think can be truly paradise. The problem is the transition. Yes. Uh and exactly what you said, a we attach meaning to our jobs. Um but then b we also like every time something changes and by the way I spend a lot of time because I'm really worried about that part uh about going back and looking at other big technological revolutions or in general big societal changes. Yeah. over the last hundreds and thousands of years. Unfortunately,

it always ended in an interim disaster and only then after that disaster, the end state was actually an improvement for humanity. And I think we're at least I would say some people positively meaning we we do think about the end state or we start as a society thinking about what could be the end state of AI and robotics. But I think way too little are politicians and entrepreneurs and whatever who all the stakeholders thinking more about the transition because like again I just want to repeat it like what went wrong in the past was never actually the the technological improvement but was always

the transition to it. Yeah. Yeah. You need almost mass destruction and then the rebirth comes. Exactly. So and and that and the problem is though even if we did accept it which we we shouldn't like that there is a sort of mass destruction whatever we're now living the first time in an age where mass destruction would really mean ma meaning you can say that the first and second world war were obviously already horrible and I think the total amount of death over the two world wars is more than 100 million people if I remember it right and we didn't have weapons of mass destruction especially nuclear weapons which we have now. to think about the same sort of insanity

just now. I think we cannot for many reasons we shouldn't even accept it to think about it at all but like I think now that would be even worse than any other time before. Yeah. And uh and let me give you before I come to the Have you read the fourth turning by the way? No, but I know about it. It basically posits that um history unfolds in these like 80 to 100 year cycles. Yeah. And so if you track that back, so okay, 17, let's go 1780 was like French Revolution, American Revolution, 80 years after that, Civil War in in America. 80 years after that is World War II, 80 years after that is 2020, which is where we're we are today.

And you basically go through these uh periods of massive societal upheaval and inhital change and it gets very destructive and then and then there's rebirth. But I already believe it only for one thing is because why 80 years because then always the generation that's right it's roughly the length of the human lifespan. Yes. And who who experience like and by the way sorry another topic who discussed like where I think this is happening is like how stupid can people be in America going back the socialistic route or at least even considering it.

Yeah. And by the way, every person you ever talk to, in Europe, we have more of that. America, I mean, you have the the Cuban uh community, whatever. But like in in Europe, like Eastern Europe was communist, like and they don't want to go back because they still lived it. And like I feel like it's so sad. I meet young people and they're like, "No, why not try it?" I was like, "Because it failed every single time." Yeah. And not just failed, it spectacularly failed and it cost hundreds of millions of lives, but they don't remember. And they're like, "No, we can do it." Like, no. like anyway. So, so that is I think that sort of the memories fading how bad things were and so but going back to um to to AI like sort of one first one just very um tangible and very sort of the last uh

innovation cycle how it failed and then I have at least one idea what we could do better but like so what I think is very interesting because everybody can do it if you go online and look up the newspapers between kind of 1850, 1870 and 1910. So why I'm picking that time frame and by the way a big shout out on the positive side to Kathy Wood because she told me that actually years ago round about when I was on your podcast and I met her for the first time. She was looking at stock market valuations in the time like 1850 to 1910 which were very high but for a reason because at that time we as humanity invented three groundbreaking technologies what we in

our modern terms would call platform technologies. We invented the car, electricity and the phone. And by the way these were groundbreaking innovations for an agriculture society. And if you go back in the newspapers and I think newspapers are great because you feel like the the zeitgeist the sentiment of the time is like it was super optimistic. So the elites in Berlin, London, Paris back then they were like we gonna change the world because of these three things like there was a guy Jul like some might know him the author like in he wrote a book in 80 days around the world and about flying to the moon and like by the way everything we now we got later like and he even was talking about sort of uh

rockets who come back and whatever reusable spaceships and whatever. So the the the time was full of like a a brimming optimism but what they forgot like I would say the elite is they were 90% of at the time were farmers and they didn't see a future for themselves in it. So, and again, by the way, positively there was a later future, but like they didn't see it. And and what I also believe with all the work we're doing in mental health, the number one bad emotions in humans is fear because fear really reduces us to our primal instinct. And literally fear brings out the worst in us. And all these people

had fear because they were looking at a future and they didn't understand what's happening. They didn't see a place for them. And out of that fear, that's my personal theory, is like they resorted to two very very toxic but in the first instance very soothing and simple ideologies which was communism and national socialism. Because what these two ideologies did, they took that fear of the people and turned it into hate for others. Like the communists were like, "It's all about the rich people. Let's kill them." Yeah.

and the national social is all about foreigners and especially about the Jews. Let's kill them. Yeah. And I don't want to sound oversimplified because this was a very complex time but I think that was I deeply believe one of really the underlying trends for all than the atrocities which came. So I believe that sort of fear of technological change uh resulted in uh in in in these in these uh national social and communism which ultimately resulted in two world wars. Yeah. And only after if you then look at the 50s and 60s, we truly got the world like we were flying to the moon. Yeah.

We got all of that what the people were dreaming but at the cost of 100 million dead people. Yeah. And that I think is like should be and I think it's not but should be our number one thought is like I do think actually the future with AI and robotics will be awesome. So, it's not the end state, but it's the transition. And again, K can repeat it. This time, we're dealing with a world with even more people and with even more dangerous weapons. But I think we're dealing with the same psychological reactions. And you already see it. I think the whole divisiveness you were mentioning like all what we're seeing like the res by the way going back to political violence as kind of a a normal thing. All of that is I think

not even the early days. I think we're in the middle of the same process which happened 1850 to 1910 and I think that's really really bad and I think as a society we have to think about how can we manage transition better. Yeah. It feels like this is a decade long trend. 2020 to 2030 is the transition years. Yeah. Maybe another five years. Yes. Yeah. But like we just started and I think we all feel uncomfortable. Yeah. And it's just going to get worse. Across 30 plus networks and 180 endpoints, Block Damon Earnstack unites staking and DeFi into a single institutional toolkit for crypto rewards with multi-layered security, full asset

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That's paq.xyz. XYZ to find out how you can benefit from the age of automation or click the link in the show notes to find out more. As always, investments in blockchain technology involve risk, terms, and conditions apply. You know, there's this feeling amongst um investors and founders, I think, right now, which is almost uh like angst, which is you you kind of feel this world accelerating. Um, and when you talk to a lot of people, I'm sure you talked to the, you know, sim similar groups of folks, there's this feeling that like you need to win right now. Like right now, right? Like right now there, it's not tomorrow. It's not next year. It's right now. You need to make money right now. You need to go public right now.

You need to raise your capital right now. You need to figure out the new AI breakthrough right now. Do you do you get that feeling? 100%. I have it as well. So I I and I think about it a lot. And I think it's very simple why. And again, sometimes you have feelings and then people start acting on that and you never think about why do I have these feelings? And I I had that with a lot of investors and when I then asked them if they feel the same, they were all like yes, exactly. But like just didn't know how to describe it is like nobody knows how the world will look like in more than 5 years from now. I think that's the maximum window. I realized all of that and coming back on the on the professional side, but I realized all

what you just said when my 15year-old godson asked me what he should study and what he should become. Yeah. And I was like I don't know and I I think like I should know maybe more than some others like I think I should have. So I did not like I did so so I more talked with him then and said because I don't know sort of try to be agile like like like so I resorted in those things but I don't know how the I I have I have that is pathy like learn how to learn and yeah I have I have ideas how the world I told you like again one big idea I have is like we're not working at all. So, so but like but like it's it's becoming very blurry. Everything post 5 years I

think is becoming very blurry for every investor, every entrepreneur. And I think that sort of gut feeling of not knowing how the world looks in 10 years is kind of reducing everything to now because you don't even dare to make long-term bets anymore. you want to make a bet which pays off in two years because that's kind of the time you still can sort of judge like you exactly what you said is I think is the is the consequence of even the smartest people in our industry don't really know how the world looks like in 5 years plus and that's why I think we need to start I think what what I think what we need more is like real philosophers if you look at other times where the same amount of change happened like the

French revolution like again this 1850 910 whatever You had philosophers, not only investors, not only entrepreneurs, not only politicians who really talked about what does it mean to be human. Rouso and Voltater and you have that. Yeah. And uh and because let me like because I'm an uber optimist and I I don't want to sort of stay on this low note because I think and that's coming to my favorite topic, but I truly believe it. But I'm not just saying it because it's my favorite topic is like I truly believe like this time we have one sort of solution. And I don't want to call it weapon because that's so negative but like one tool that's the right word to really make it better this

time and this is psychedelics because psychedelics what do they really do for we can talk about the medical side and we can talk about what we're doing with a tai but if I really reduce it and try to describe what do psychedelics why do they help people a they help you to truly realize who you are which is by the way already said I I know so many people who before they did psychedelics and they were depressed and when when they came out of it they were like oh my god I realize now I should spend more time with my children and this is so simple like that's what if if people ask me about my own psychedelic trips and what I learned and when I tell it to them then they're like ah Christian you and your psychedelics because like I could

have told you that and it's true by the way read a lot of religious books of any religion yeah read a lot of books from from deep chopra to Tony Robinson they all tell you the same. Be a good human being. Spend more time with the people you love and all of that. And then it goes more details. But it's so hard to listen to that or understand it when you read it. While psychedelics on a very very hard to describe level sort of allow you to realize who you really are, what it is, what you want in life, and what are the key decisions, the one or two trigger factors you need to change in your life to become happy. And then but they also help people to really reinvent themselves like okay so they

and by the way it's not only the spiritual trip but also there is a side effect of psychedelics we don't talk a lot at the moment because like everybody's focused on the the spectacular psychedelic trip so to say but there is a a post effect like the days and weeks after people take psychedelics their brain is literally a little bit I say it very simplified so hopefully nobody freaks out on social media because it's much more complicated But I would always say your brain is growing. You're building new connection. It's called neuroplasticity. And really the brains of people post psychedelics look like brains of younger people.

Younger people are easier able to reinvent themselves and kind of smooth themselves into a new sort of new world. So I truly believe that sort of again because I always come back because the end state will be great and we just need to help people doing that transition without fear and that's another point about psychedelics reduce fear. The first big study we did for for psilocybin was one of the strongest and and most painful fears is actually fear of death. So we did a study which practically brought us on the map in 2018 I think released that about people who were uh terminal ill were about to die and didn't had hadn't made peace

with it and were like really like having panic attacks and and depression and anxiety whatever and we show that psychedelics can even dramatically reduce or even eliminate that kind of fear of dying. Yeah. So long story short, everything I just described which is going wrong in our brains at the moment, fear of the unknown, not knowing where our place is in that world, whatever, I think psychedelics can help us sort of transitioning. Uh so and it's I think it's the first time humanity has a tool which can avoid the usual sort of say catastrophe and that is truly psychedelics.

Yeah. What can you um so you you backed I think it was compass in 2017 so I co-ounded compass and yeah so so compass was kind of a technique came first but it was kind of a spin out of the idea I had to really build sort of the psychedelic mothership and like in a in a technical term I founded a Thai some months after compass but yes so a Tai is sort of my psychedelic mothership so which owns still a stake in Compass which we span out uh just for financing reasons The last four years in biotech were very exhausting to say the least.

Um and then a Thai owns all the other from our point of view commercially relevant psychedelics. So 5me DMT DMT a new version of MDMA I and I gain and then we also have a great discovery program for the future to really find uh new psychedelic drugs. Oh wow. AIA is up 250% in 6 months. It's finally fi people are starting to realize both like I think the one thing which I said the last half hour I truly believe psychedelics are kind of the kind of the not the other flip side of the coin but you know I mean kind of the twin brother

of AI and I really mean it because we need to talk about how to manage transition and I think the only way I at least know maybe other people have other ideas but like the one idea at scale how to manage the transition into a new era are psychedelics. So it's kind of already dead but that's sort of and if by the way if you believe that which I do then I believe like give it 5 years after psychedelics are approved and they not only going to be used for depression anxiety addiction which is the current medical use case but people will realize and governments and and doctors oh we can use it for so much more and by the way there is even we don't even need new words there is a word in psychology which called adjustment disorder which

is when something very bad happens to you and you sort of can't cope with it. Usually at the moment adjustment disorder is used for or the term is used for when people get very uh very ill very suddenly or if somebody passes away whatever but I think we're going to take this term adjustment disorder and just realize that we all are suffering from adjustment disorder because in our in front of our very eyes the world is kind of falling apart and is being rebuilt. But then on the on the shorter end, why the stock went up is like we have the true potential to cure or at least for some people cure and for others make it significantly better the existing mental health issues which is addiction,

anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder, depression and all of that which already today and again I think it's already the sign of the times are this group of of of of issues are the number one problem for the healthcare And to get more concrete that means like we try to solve those in certain ways therapy SSRI different things and you believe that and it didn't work by the way but so so two things you can factually say is like first of all the number of patients in mental health is going through the roof if I would show you a chart of any mental health issue the number of patients over the last 20 years and I would not tell you what it is you would always say it's an infectious disease if

I if I eliminate the timelines and the whatever just look at this chart in medicine. What is it? You would always say it's an infectious disease. So something clearly it's so obvious to me that we're not talking more about it is already there. It's not even like in the future the world we're building and I love it what we're building. Look and I'm part of it like I'm kind of complicit but like I also have to acknowledge the world we're building is very bad for our brain already and as I said before it's just going to get worse. Yeah. So, so that is and and and then additionally all the tools we had so far therapy not so good drugs like benzo or SSRIs whatever are at best I don't want to talk down on them because they were the

best we had. So it's like something and nothing but they were clearly not really working and at least the SSRIs and benzos have terrible side effects. Yeah. So, and here we are and like meaning at least when we record that I know the podcast is coming out just in two weeks but like today when we record this like we had another amazing data set for a Thai Yeah. with uh with a psychedelic drug called 5 MOD DMT where we've shown that we have a phenomenal success in treating treatment resistant depression. So the worst kind of depression by the way with zero severe Yeah. super bad side effects like just like moderate and mild ones like Yeah. And so and that's people are seeing several things. The

one is like how bad the mental health crisis is. Second that really like psychedelics are the future also thanks to the current government sort of mentioning that and being very supportive. By the way so had been the last one. I I was say like this is not a political issue. The only thing is this government is more uh open about it and more talking about it. But we always had a great support of any government and of the FDA whatever. Yeah. Um and now they also realizing coming to a tie and I'm very happy that the stock finally gets the attention.

But I I we have way to go like no I think I I do think like and I know I'm the founder. It's my company. I'm obviously biased but like I do think if I look at the magnitude of the problem mental health and how well positioned we are literally owning that sector because like we own most of the intellectual property around these psychedelic drugs and that is what people for a long time didn't understand because they were like oh yeah but like mushrooms grow yes but that's not the medical product at the end it's a synthetic version of it whatever so so we were always really strong in intellectual property and IP because that's the only way that we invest billions of dollars in clinical trials is that we own that sector and these drugs then so but altogether

people realizing now and I do think legit can be a 2030 billion company in the next years because we have the solution for the biggest problem in healthcare and then comes all the political stuff and sort of the even bigger demand for psychedelics which I just said which is more like out there but very concrete as of now mental health is the number one problem and we have a solution at least for a good portion of people. Yeah. Have you spent time with this current administration talking about Tai and psychedelics and RFK and do you think do you think that there do you think do you think that society we are at the place where this can go mainstream?

Yes 100%. and and and for many reasons and and by the way I would say and and I I don't uh I don't expect to die very soon because I think we're also going to live hundreds of years but if I somewhat die at the moment I would say the work we've done in psychedelics is the one thing I'm most proud of. So I think the reason why we and you said it in in our prep before like you were like hey like four years ago you weren't comfortable talking about your own psychedelic uh experiences and now you are because by the way the world has changed positively and I do think it has changed among many reasons also because of our work because we give the people the scientific basis like that this is all really good very

little side effects whatever which we hadn't before but then there are other great people like um Michael Pollen who wrote the book How to Change Your Mind and many other books then then later who's an amazing writer who I credit a lot with the whole zit guys shift but there are TV shows about it there's the great Netflix show on yeah it's sort of somewhere but I think we were a part of it we gave people the underpinning sort of the intellectual um data stuff uh and I think we're there meaning I by the way compass uh is like is very close to approval they had their phase three data which is sort of the final one which was great.

Yeah. All the other psychedelics that Tai is doing are coming shortly after. So over the next 3 to 5 years they're going to be several psychedelic drugs approved and I think it's going to be like very simplified like it's always a medicine at the beginning people are using it for the very narrow use case like for example all the studies at the moment which we are doing uh are done mo most of them for treatment resistant depression. Why are we doing that is because it's the worst form of depression. treatment resistant depression means people tried everything, nothing helps, they really in a bad state. Yeah. And so I don't want to sound cynical, I want to sound positive, but like we've shown that even with this sort of worstc case um group

of people, psychedelics help a lot. But like once they're then approved for treatment resistant depression, doctors will say, you know what, why would I try two or three shitty things like again SSRIs or whatever which have much more side effects? Why should I only use psychedelics for last in line treatment and I'm very sure like very quickly yeah psychedelics will move to a first line treatment. By the way, if we talk about the stock, not at all included in any research estimate. All the people who are looking at us at the moment, the researchers, the biotech investors are very narrowly like, okay, you're doing treatment resistant depression. How many people have? And they always assuming we only focusing on treatment, for example,

treatment resistant depression, and then we're going to have a 10% market share. My very very very positive belief is once psychedelics are approved, it's going to be a firstline treatment and we're going to be have more or less like I don't want to say 100% market share because nothing is 100% but we're going to have a lot of market share because why would people try stuff which is obviously worse like I don't even understand it like it's like sort of but investors cannot wrap their head around that new paradigm. I think actually by the way in biotech I looked a lot but it's like in other industries investors and researchers have a real issue with paradigm shifting sort of drugs they just take and it's like so but hey I take it because they're already saying in the very like

conservative old school sort of world everybody is predicting a tai is like a 5 to10 billion company and I'm like well but we should be much more because the market is bigger but like hey one step after Yeah, you get there. Yeah. Shout out to today's sponsor, Katana. Katana is a DeFi first chain built for deep liquidity and high yield. No empty emissions, just real yield and sequencer fees routed back to DeFi users. Incubated by Polygon Labs and GSR, Katana is launching with notable ecosystem of primitives, assets, and partners like Morpho, Chain Link, and more. Katana's 1 billion CAT campaign is live. Bridge and deposit directly into

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So if I um exactly what we just said so far about AI and how the world is changing. So I have five sort of let's call it sectors or topics like biotech as a whole because I also think at the end when you have all the money in the world meaning as humanity not just as an individual um we're going to resort at the end to to both physical and mental well-being. Yeah, that's what if I would ask you or if if we would ask every single human being on the planet, what do you want? Then normally people say first something financial whatever.

But if you like why do you want a car? Why do you want a job? Why do you want money? Like why? If you if you do that at the next dinner and you always come to say if you press people with the question, what do you want in life with why do you want that? Why? At the very end they all going to say because they want to be happy. The number one thing every human being at the end strives to be with different then sort of conclusions is to be happy. And that's what we're doing in biotech. We investing practically in physical but especially in mental well-being. So mental health, neuro uh degenerative diseases or prevention of them whatsoever. So biotech is one thing.

Then the other big thing is is crypto. Um it's literally biotech and crypto are two biggest uh sectors and in crypto it's both like a very long uh position on Bitcoin. I'm I'm not a Bitcoin maxi but I I believe Bitcoin is sort of a class of its own and then we're building selectively company in the ecos companies in the ecosystem. So we help building as a founding investor plasma for example uh which is a new blockchain focused on stable coins and stuff like that. Then we have one a little bit catch all pocket because at the end said at the beginning of the podcast I I like to do things which excite me which is called deep tech. Yeah. Which is mostly space tech uh and AI. Um and then very

important we have two bricks and mortar topics and sectors. The one is actually hospitality, sport and entertainment because I believe humans will stop working and if we get it right and if humans enjoy it, we still need to talk about what are they doing the whole day and I believe we're going to yeah we're going to be much more human. We're going to have much more social life but that we need to go somewhere. I think I mean to a certain extent I think that we'll move online. So I think virtual stuff, gaming, whatever is going to be is growing. But but I also believe like the more our world is is digitized, the more we want the human touch. Like

we want to be with other real humans, not robots, in nice places. So we have a big hospitality business which we started where we own both the brands and the the real estate for hotels. We own the largest life entertainment business in Europe doing 6,000 concerts a year from rock and pop to fork or whatever. Uh and we have enhanced games which is a big sports thing. Yeah. Because I also think people will be even more passionate about any form of sports because what again sorry I'm jumping but what we haven't even touched let's assume we can make the shift people need belonging like and they need so I think they're going to be a uh actually uh a renaissance of religion which you see at

the starting and I think it's important I I'm personally very spiritual and religious. I believe in God. Are you religious like Catholic or Jewish or in the tradition? I brought up Catholic so I definitely have Catholic elements because it's always how you brought up. I do believe a tiny bit that if I look at every religion in the core it's a good one. Yeah. By the way that is I think is an important thing to realize. If you go and in the core I mean if you try to really go again it's my assumption plus a little bit of science like uh because as you know all the religions or at least

people strive to know what is really the original message from the founder and what is then the layers and layers and layers like people after put on it and my feeling is the core message of religions is always a good one is like be a good human being don't be a dick. Love other people like Jesus said like you love like you want to be loved yourself and whatever and that so and that is great. Yeah. And then I think the bad part of religion or the the problematic part to say always came when religions tried to become uh an institution because that goes then along with how do we control people? You control people with fear and all of that. So so that is where Christianity

really took a wrong turn in the medieval ages. I think there is where Islam is taking a really really wrong turn now. But it's how people abuse it, not I think what the founders truly wanted to tell us. By the way, side note again I'm coming back to my favorite topics but like there is great research done. There is one book out which is called the immortality key and there is another book of different scientists coming soon which is proving that most religions are actually based on psychedelic consumptions. And that was my one of my main things. I was always very interested in the history of any religion and in religious texts because I always felt that again I believe in God. Let's call it more the divine because we also I told always friends

like when they're like oh how can you be a Christian and then people say like they don't like gay people or whatever. I say it's all because like that is the organizational part like because if you truly believe in a divine being that being cannot care about what we eat or whom we sleep with or whatever because like that is kind of I think if anybody tells me oh I believe God is regulating your sex life or God is regulating your diary sorry your dietary restrictions whatever I was like this is such a big insult because think about it I was like I'm busy like I don't want my friends to call me and say what shall I eat? I would say go you like but it doesn't matter like let's talk about the important things in life and I think we kind of diminish God

and the divine in a in a in a very like rude way to think that a divine omnipotent being is caring with whom we sleep like so that being is hopefully caring whom we love how we behave as a person whatever but uh so but I think what I say where I can say is like in all the work with psychedelics again I would my personal to say my colleagues are always a little bit nervous when I but I make very clear I can speak as the chairman of a Thai about our science and I can speak as Christian Angaya about my personal beliefs I do think psychedelics do open up a channel to the divine that is where the real healing comes from but what I can definitely say from all of our work

we seem to need it I cannot tell you that psychedelics prove that God exists we're going to know that when we pass on the real proof but what I can tell you in all the work I've done with psychedelics and mental health, humans need something, some spirituality, some belief in in the bigger whatever. And that's why I think coming back to where the world is going, we're going to a we're going to there's a renaissance of existing religions, but they're also going to be new religions. And new religions can be not even where people realize that they're following a religion. It can be like sports, like you you're part of something, you're you want to be a part of a group, like you want to be long, whatever. So long story short, that's why we're investing so

much in hospitality, sports and and entertainment. And then the fifth one to finish the overview of what we're doing, sorry I'm always diverting, um is uh is natural resources because like what I also think what AI and robotics will do, it will lead to a really a renaissance of an industrial civilization. Uh so we need more energy. By the way, all the AI calculations only work if we if we have much more energy supply, which leads to nuclear and other forms of energy. So, we're investing in uranium. We're investing in copper.

Sounds basic, but it's the building material for data centers and all of that. Yeah. And we're investing in gold because I also think Oh, I saw you did um we share an investment with um the uranium digital. Yes. great company like they kind of digitalizing the the the very still old-fashioned uranium uh trading. Uh yeah, and I think fiat currencies are going to So that's why investing in Bitcoin and gold. Yeah, that's our universe. Back back to the religion for a second. Um it's a it's a theme that I've started to see pop up more and more the last couple years. And I think uh people look at folks like Peter Teal as being kind of the one of the driving forces here is with uh I'm just curious to get your take on like

what are you seeing on the ground with relig like what what maybe what's your prediction for what happens with just religion tying back into society because we've become such a uh religion has been my whole life remove every year that my life goes on religion gets more and more removed from society it feels like and now that's starting to change. So yes, so we we removed religion way too much and I think there are other forms of religion for me like Bitcoin and uh the Red Sox and things like that. No, but that's what I said. Like I think because we removed let's call it the the the real religions, we're kind of resorting back to to pseudo religions which I don't want to even say is negative. It's just like again people need community religions aside of God by

the way serve very practical. I think human civilizations through all the times realized um that they need all of that. Again, even if you take God out of the equation for a second, still religions are important because they give us a lot of things humans crave for community, belonging, explanations like in a crazy world and and all of that. But now, so I think we had a time and I think this is still going on where the where the the traditional sorry the the the the replacement religions were going up like sports and whatever. But now I think that the world is becoming so complicated and so we don't understand it like we really

resorting to the true religions which means the spiritual the spiritual form of it. So um by the way the media is like take even the Catholic church like and by the way what what I think what religions did wrong again because they wanted so desperately to become organizations they kind of killed the spirituality and that what was haunting them the last 100 years because like they kind of eliminated the part it's almost like if you're a brand and like you were a big brand at a certain time because you really had a product which people wanted and needed. And then over time you kind of increase the prices and whatever but the quality of the product went down. Yeah. And that's what I think

happened with most standard religions. The quality of the product meaning delivering real spiritual soothing to people went down and all the went up. And I think some religions are now oh we need to really turn back. I mean they're like tankers. But what I want to say is like the Catholic Church has a kind of part. You could call it a sect, but I think it's fairly acknowledged by the Catholic Church, which is Santo Dimemer, which is in Brazil, is a part of the Catholic Church or a group subgroup, and they using psychedelics, by the way, as provenly the early Christians did. Um, and I think that was one of the reasons why Christianity was really spreading so

quickly because if you do psychedelics, it's obviously turbocharging spirituality for your for your community. And there is actually there are very interesting documents. I don't want to say the wrong year. It's like the consilium of Nika like there there was a gathering I think it was and I just need to take off the jacket because it's getting really hot. Yeah, it's hot. What is it? Consilium of Nia which is a town in Turkey now like I think it was 300ish 303 or something.

Yeah. 325. Yeah. Okay. So and at these council of Na it was the first gathering before Christianity was kind of a loose thing like loose in terms of there were different sects and different they didn't even call it sect just different different movements whatever so and and they came together and sort of tried to unify the church and um but that also meant they wanted control and in the documents of these consilium like you find sentences which clearly refer to psychedelics where they like only the top people should do it because if you have an organization where every member is can communicate to God via

psychedelics it's very hard to say look this is what you have to do because then people were saying no but we had our own experience and our own which by the way how it should be I think religion should be very very personal between between yourself and God yeah and they kind of eliminated that personal element and that conceal when we're like no you have to go through your priest and to your bishop whatever because that's how we going to control you in the future uh and it is sad and I think that was the beginning sort of of the end because um they they uh again over then a long time they kind of reduced that spirituality what people came to in this case Christianity in the first place and I think now the

need is so big that people going back and religions are realizing that and the Catholic church is like as I said at least turning a blind eye on maybe endorsing even Santo dime and maybe like we see in 10 years that we can go to a Sunday mass and uh yeah it's I mean it sounds crazy but I have friends who now friends who are very against psychedelics I know ketamine is not really a psychedelic but it's a semis psychedelic drug it's a I could maybe bucket it in this conversation and you know 5 years ago ketamine was seen as the party drug and now 5 years later today I have friends who are in therapy with and their therapist gives them a little bit of ketamine and I'm on the subway coming to work today and there's therapy uh yeah because it works promoted by New

York City but it works because it's a good thing like and and by the way again just like jumping from to use a tai again like why is the stock is going up is one other simple thing so you have so there is one approved drug which is called spravato by Johnson Johnson which is ketamine uh I always would say ketamine is a semischy or a psychedelic light experience and it's also not if somebody has a true problem I would always say ketamine is stabilizing you it's kind of a band-aid the real psychedelics are are fixing you but it's great like because first of all it's the one thing which is there and it does help a lot of people but it has to be taken eight times if you do the full

sort of how it's sort of recommended you do it twice a week for like four weeks so around about eight sessions to get the same effect which We have proven today again and the first time in July with 5 MODMT in one session only. Yeah. Um so that's why people are getting so excited about that type. Um how long do you think that you will live? I think I will live that long that I want to die. I really I think I I'm gonna live very long like I think some hundred years at least I have the potential and I think as long as we stay human I because like it could be that we

modify ourselves so much that everything I'm saying now does is meaningless because like everything I'm saying now about myself and my expectation is obviously based on my current emotions or my me being me like me being Christian and me being a human. Yeah. In the moment we start talking about brain computer interfaces and that stuff, I could see that we just changing and then every bet is off anyway. But if we stay in the current not not just form but like also physical and and sorry mental form I think part of being human is that you somewhat want to know what's next. I think we all even if we don't admit that have that curiosity in us. So I think

again if I'm staying human then I think I can live some hundred years easily but I will come to a point where I'm like I had enough. M uh I think this point can be far out and again by the way I think psychedelics can help people staying curious meaning I'm now already 47 not old but like I I feel positively like I'm still in my 20s because like and I think psychedelics definitely help me with that because I I I'm I'm want to say I have a job because I'm really it's my hobby but like the work I'm doing my daily sort of pastime yeah running a pyron and and uh and and investing um is um is literally like I need to deal with novelty all the time. Yeah. And I think

people normally grow exhausted of that and the thing the fa the fact that I didn't I believe I would at least partially credit psychedelics which keep me mentally young and open for change and all of that. Uh but again somewhat I think to answer your question I'm just going to say like let's see what's next. Let's see what's next. Do you think there are people living right now who will live to be 150 or like me like us? Like so you think you could you think I could be 150 or 200? Yeah. Easy. And by the way, let me explain for a second before people say, "Oh, he's crazy." Uh like because people think, "Oh, how do we get from the 85 years now to let's say 150. So it's not going to happen overnight. It's not that they're going to be one day where we wake up and

we're like, "Oh, now we're living till 150." What's going to happen though over the next 10 20 years? And we again we're already in the middle we're already in it in this process is that because of scientific progress which going to be in science incredibly accelerated the next 1015 years by AI um we going to push life expectancy gradually and I already expect that in the next 10 years from now somewhere we going to have this one magic year where we're losing one calendar year of life expectancy but we're winning more than one year of of gain and from then on practically that game can go on very long. Hm.

Yeah, you already start to see it a little bit. And I use this app called Function Health and they tell you, you know, your your life's they tell you, you know, I'm I'm 30 years old, but that, you know, you are technically 22 years old and you if you do these things, you could be 19 years old. So, you're starting to see glimpses of it and it's like, and this going to accelerate dramatically over the next uh 10 years again with AI and all of that. Yeah. Tell me about the um enhanced games. Enhanced games. Yeah. Uh well, one of the coolest things meaning the two things like um this is the thing you've done by the way that has gotten the most conversation in my personal group texts with high school and college friends who are none of them are in crypto. None of them are uh the

most um what's the right word? Honestly, anger might be the anger. Anger and uh like this this is a scam. This is a this should not exist. The most um emotion actually is the right word. And it was very interest. And I was like that is why it's going to be successful. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. I'm very like people sometimes asking me like oh like when I should pull up these tweets. Yeah. Like when people like oh are you bothered? I was like no I love them because like what if you create a new sport events the one thing you want is emotions.

Anger, passion, whatever but I want emotion. The worst thing is no interest. Yeah. And what we found with the enhanced games is at least the one and only company I have ever started so far with the craziest virality and with by the way no marketing budget. We're just executing. We haven't done anything. The first games are going to be Memorial Day 2026 market in your calendar. Sunday 24th first enhanced games in Las Vegas but globally distributed.

You're going to be there. you're going to hopefully stream and like uh do podcasts, whatever. Um but like I have we haven't done anything. We did some side events, whatever, but like the mind share we occupying is amazing. Like and I always compare it. We like invested maybe a million dollar in marketing. Yeah. And there is a company called Live Golf which the Saudis are doing and you nobody knows it. Go to a restaurant with me but it's exactly what you say. If we go to a restaurant in New York and ask people, do you know Lift Golf? I think nobody does. Do you know Enhanced Games? 70 or 80% like yeah heard of it and then some will say it's crazy some will say I hate it some will say I love it I can't wait to see it like but the attention and the emotion

and the enhanced games for people who who haven't seen this is uh it's the first sporting event where performance-enhancing drugs are not only permitted but they're actually actively encouraged yes we want people to show us what the human body can do with the work of science it's by the way fits perfectly by worldview by the way what I also believe like bigger picture is we going again because we have the time and I think it's going to be practically one of our almost occupations is to to to make ourselves the best version of us. So if you look at like the last 100 years medicine was only focused on healing the sick and even the term sick is not so easy to define. I

mean there is things like oh you have COVID okay we know this is not good you need to get rid of it if you have cancer we know not good you should get rid of it but for example the original definition of medicine and illness was that an illness is a negative deviation from the norm and a medicine is which which brings you back to normal which is a very slippery slope because for a long time people were like being gay is a negative deviation from the norm which made it an illness. Yeah. And obviously they thought they can find medications to bring it back to the norm which is obviously not the case. So already there like I think the norm is a very slippery thing. So how I see the future evolving for all of us is that it's going to become very in a good way subjective and

we can define what we want to be. That is I think what science like both AI and all of that combined with with um with biotech will truly give us will allow us to sit there and say who do I want to be physically and intellectually by the way we will going to see drugs in the next 10 years which make us smarter meaning there are already some on the market like but like they're going to be much better ones like we will see drugs by the way which is the bestselling drug group at the moment GLP P1s, the ones which make you lose weight. And I think the number was 70 or 80% of the people who take GLP1s or Zein, Munjara, whatever, are not taking it because

they're clinically obese. They just want to be slimmer. And it's fine. It's great. I think we should celebrate that we have now medications. Yeah. Which can help people to become what they truly want to be. You want to be slimmer, here's some support. You want to be smarter, we should help people. Why should we condemn people to be just what intelligence wise what they are? And you want to look better. You want to perform better. Yeah. And by the way, perform, what is performance? Performance on the track and field and swimming or performance in bed? Like you want to have longer sex? Like all of that I think we going to allow humans to do.

Which is by the way weird that I have to say it because like that's what I always looked at medicine like it should be. But that is so not the current state of both regulation, but even like people like they're like, "No, you should just take medication when you're sick." I was like, "Why?" Like I don't even understand it. I can't why? Like again, I never thought about it like that. You have a baseline and we now treat medicine as when you fall below your baseline, get back to it. And I was like, who defines the baseline? And by the way, the one thing I want to say and it is very like because like I'm I people know I think I'm more in a conservative camp but the one thing actually to a certain extent the the the leftwing side if you want to

say like that of politics gave us is like the whole trans movement. I think it had some excesses but what it ultimately said and that I support is that you can be who you want to be. Like the only thing I disagree is when it then became like oh you have to I don't know call me with a certain pronoun. I'm like I'm gonna do it because I'm a nice human being and if you want to be called like I think a decent but like I don't want to be forced legally whatever but that's another discussion. But the thing of the trans movement is a very very positive one that every human being should have the right to define themselves. Yeah. And we only at the moment the whole political and societal

discussion was about sex and gender. But I think they opened up the door positively to a much broader discussion. What is the baseline? What do I want to be? And that I'm very much looking forward. I think it's going to be actually I think the best and favorite pastimes of humans over the next decades is to literally reinvent themselves physically, mentally uh all the time. And enhanced games is kind of the the front the the the consumerf facing product because it's going to show people what science can already do today. And think about it like what people how they will react positively if they see a 37y old break world records like like oh my god that's what I want

to be like in in a year or two from now we maybe want to have an over 60 category to show like what how fit can you be when you're 60 plus and I think we're going to give people at the moment I by the way as I said I'm very happy with all the anger if there is like it is yeah but I think in once we've done the first game that anger will actually fully morph into amazement and like wow that's what we we are capable of as as a human race. So for your own personal life and this you can skip this question if it's too personal but where do you draw the line?

So maybe um if you're thinking about someone's listening to this they're like I kind of agree with that. I want to actually start improving. So maybe phase one is you start taking some vitamins, vitamin B, some calcium and vitamin C or something. All right. Maybe like I want to push it even more. You start taking creatine or something like that. Like, all right, I want to push it even more. I start taking uh aderall or medafanil or something to to focus more and be more productive. Then you push it even more. You start taking testosterone replacement therapy, TRT. Where do you in your personal life are you is your mentality like let me just experiment and push it as far as possible or how do you That's a very short version before I go there. one and I I made a if anybody wants to read it because I poured a lot

of heart into it like on my Substack actually the oldest post is like it's like the future is enhanced and it's about this topic but there is one important not disclaimer just like I have these kind of again actually I don't like like left and right wing that thing whatever like I think a lot of things in like the president of Rwanda I don't even know if if he listens to it if he remembers that but he gave me the one sentence which I think is so true politics should be about because I asked him so I'm the wording now again but I think I was like he he he reconciled his country with a genocide and many much more problems than we ever had like and he did it so phenomenally well and I said like and we talked about leftwing rightwing was he said actually

running a country is not as is not as complicated as you think Christian he's like you need to use your brain 70% and your heart 30% and then for most of the things there are very rational solutions and only when we overpoliticize them and again trying to pit people against each each other we end up in the mess we are yeah and the same if I come because people sometimes say oh Christian is say is saying on podcasts that he's doing psychedelics but then in a country where it's legal I have to add disclaimer but like but then on the other side he's like oh they should just be medically allowed isn't that a hypocrite and I'm like no like I I think we can merge all of that it's not always like oh you

either are very leftwing and rightwing and if you're leftwing you're for let's do it all and so and one of the merge I want to say is like for for all of these body enhancement and it's a big disclaimer but I really believe in it is first of all you need to do it informed because it's complicated and by the way your body is a very complicated system yeah and so in at the enhanced games for example it's not an everything goes we have three major rules the one rule is only FDA approved drugs because only when you know when you gone through and you can say a lot and I'm the first one who will raise my hand that we can do better in terms of how long the FDA process takes but it is a gold standard sort of framework and once

you've done all your trials yeah as painful as sometimes I think as an entrepreneur because you have to spend a lot of money we know the downsides we know the upsides we know a lot about these drugs so we only allow at the enhanced games medically approved drugs so you can't take cocaine you can't take crystal mass and all of that. Second, you must have a doctor who is prescribing you these drugs and looking at what your body needs and how the body reacts on it. And third rule, by the way, is you cannot have a negative sort of consequence because we do a full health check. We don't care what you take as long as it's medical, but like if you did so much of something that you had a problem in your body, we disqualify you. You need to be perfectly

healthy to start at the enhance games. So reflecting that on my own journey or everybody who's listening, I would say the first is like you need a doctor doing that with you at least if you go to a certain level because you need to get your blood work done whatever you're like. Yeah. You said you're at it called the health function function health. Yeah. Um and like so learn about your body because also people react differently uh on different drugs. Yeah. So, and then the second big thing is like sometimes in life by the way like everything like investing is like an upside downside like what do you I come back what I said in the first minute is like in order to be happy you need to know what you really want in life and if

you really want a and a can be solved with drug with the with a certain drug and the drug has a little bit of downsides you might very happily take it because A is your full desire and it makes you happy like other people might say I'm not going to take that right like yeah so again I really really think it's the autonomy of people but combined with a regulatory framework and doctors and approved drugs and the last point is and I don't know what your demographics is maybe some are like no he's such a party pooper but like I think no drug should be taken before you're 21 because especially your brain is really and 21 is still a very a very aggressive Like I

would rather say 25 but people are like not going to buy that like sort of like but 21 like the brain is aging actually or is is is being fully developed somewhere in your early 20s and if you do any drug before especially any drug which goes in your brain it can have very negative consequences. But my number one point is like don't do alcohol. By the way that's one of my other big missions in life. Alcohol should be not banned by the way it's there. But people should understand how bad of a substance. Anything else if anybody tells me look at the menu psychedelics or whatever. I'm like look at the science science only. There's this great chart. Maybe if you take one thing away

of this podcast like with all the crazy stuff we talked Google that chart. It's uh the guy who wrote the book is called David and then not nu t and then the word chart that graphically shows you the harm potential of recreational drugs. Um and the number one bad drug really like number one by far is alcohol. So alcohol then heroin, crack, meth, cocaine. Yes. The list goes on. Yeah. And then on the very other side the very bottom is mushrooms.

Exactly. because they only only risk is you have an accident while you're doing it. But like but uh anyway, so but like coming back to me like I'm doing it very scientifically. I'm um I'm always thinking like by the way and I'm trying things. I'm like hey can I work more? Yes, you take or whatever but then you need to think about like yeah what what else again? Life is also a compromise because especially in my case because like I really really I have ADHD and I love it. Like I think it's a superpower. Like I want to do a lot of things in my life.

Like I want to be we discussed I want to be a little bit dabbling in politics. Don't want to be a politician myself but I love the world. Yeah. I obviously have my investment portfolio and we're already very broad from biotech as I said to hospitality and sports but then I want to have time with my friends and my family and my relationship and like so um so I'm always like but then you realize oh if I do too much of I can have a lot of more work time. But someone uh my sport is like uh is not doing well because like I yeah it's always a balance and you always need to decide what is at the moment important for you and that can change over time but yes I'm very very sort of libertarian that's maybe the right word when it comes to the use of medical

drugs for whatever pleases you. Yeah the um maybe the last thing on my mind here Christian is I I sent some texts to some folks saying Christian is coming on the podcast. What do you want to know? And many of them said something along the lines of, "I want to know how he builds his network and how he thinks about partnering with people and building those relationships." And I think the question that comment comes because you you surround yourself with this amazing group of people, the Brendan Bloomers of the world and Mike Novagrretzes and Paulo's and Angela Merkel and these big hedge fund managers. I'm curious how you think about building these relationships and networking and I don't Yeah, the word networking has a negative connotation.

Exactly. That's the point. And I think the point is that a lot of people who are asking that are mostly thinking about it because they think it's a personal gain for them. Yeah. And that makes them very inauthentic. So I know ex if if you do it in this order and you're like ah then people think oh maybe Christian is also having all these cool friends because like it's helping him in ABC and it doesn't it or it does but it's the consequence but not the reason. So first of all there is many friends I have people have heard of because they're my personal friends and they're not famous. Yeah. Um but all of them have one thing in common. They are amazing human beings

and have a passion for something. So that is what I'm drawn to. By the way, again, that's very subjective. Other people might be drawn to other stuff, but I'm drawn to that. I want to surround myself what I said before the first minute, like no like good human beings who have a passion for something because I think passion is what makes that lifeable. But that can be a friend who has a passion for the for his family. That can be a musician. That can be an actor. That can be a politician. Like you know what I mean? Like but like all of my friends have in common that they really are have a passion for and and once you have a passion for like often you excel

in something and then I'm genuinely interested in them and they are my friends because they're my friends. Yeah. And then once you are friends with people who have passion for something then I think often it results in doing something together. You know what I mean? But it's the consequence. It can't be the original reason. I I think I feel it even now when people want to befriend me. I think I feel it hopefully yeah very well if people really do it because they really have something they want from me or are they genuinely interested in me as a human being and what I'm doing and obviously if you're interested in in me and psychedelics it might end

up you know but like it's really the order is it is what is the reason and what is the what is the consequence and by the way many of these people you just mentioned have been friends for years and years and years and I didn't do anything with them in business, whatever. They were just friends and then things happened like um like the Euro crisis came in 2010. I met Angela Merkel the first time in 2002. Yeah. Um things like that like I know the founders of Tether, Paulo and Shankalo since a long time and Tether just became a thing in 2020 and they were but I always admired how they were looking at the world and yeah since 2016. Yeah. And uh and I think that's the healthy way to

develop relationships and that's also then the these are the really stable relationships. Yeah. Christian, amazing conversation, man. Anything that we can do to help you? I'm very happy, but like we're going to find things to do. I'm going to come to your uh to your uh Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. London event. Yeah. So, very excited. You guys should come to the London event. Christian, thank you, my friend. Thank you. Thanks for having me. Yeah. [Music]