The Dark Story Behind Ozempic’s $500B Business Empire

0:00:02 Kelly, what’s the problem with ozempic?
0:00:06 Drugs like ozempic and ozempic, drug ozempic.
0:00:09 The topic ozempic, what exactly is ozempic?
0:00:13 Ozempic actually represents, to me, the biggest issue in the country,
0:00:17 which is that we’re basically being poisoned and then drugged for profit.
0:00:20 Can you explain how ozempic actually works?
0:00:23 Essentially, it is liquefied anorexia.
0:00:27 And the problem with recommending it for a long term is that…
0:00:30 Do doctors even have to go to a nutrition class?
0:00:34 The first day of Stanford Med School, my sister brought up that somebody with migraines
0:00:37 might need to have a dietary intervention, her attending surgeon said,
0:00:40 “Stop being a pussy.” We didn’t go to nutrition school.
0:00:43 Is this going to be the most lucrative drug ever made?
0:00:46 It’s the 12th most valuable company in the world.
0:00:49 This Danish company, they are the largest funder of politicians,
0:00:50 five times more than the oil industry.
0:00:55 They’re 50% of TV news spending, so they’re not only able to influence us,
0:00:57 they’re actually able to buy the news itself.
0:01:03 When I hear “Stanford Med School Professor” or “The Dean of Harvard Med School,”
0:01:06 are those people that you trust?
0:01:07 Absolutely not.
0:01:09 The problem is that we’re listening to experts.
0:01:12 Remember the food pyramid? Let’s eat our cereals.
0:01:15 It’s the base. It’s the foundation of your food.
0:01:19 At my house, I think goger was the biggest part of the pyramid.
0:01:21 If you don’t eat your goger, you’re not going to get to go play.
0:01:24 The food pyramid was propped by the Sugar Research Council,
0:01:25 still owned by a cigarette company.
0:01:28 We don’t even realize this craft is still owned by Philip Morris.
0:01:29 We are poising our population.
0:01:34 I just want to do the 80/20, so I feel good and my family is safe and feels good.
0:01:35 It’s like, “What can I do?”
0:01:39 The biggest lie in healthcare is that the reasons we’re getting sick are complicated,
0:01:43 and the second biggest lie is that these things can’t be changed quickly. They can.
0:01:54 Alright, let’s rock.
0:01:57 Kelly, what’s the problem with Osempic?
0:01:59 Starting out firing, I like it.
0:02:01 I came on to talk to Sam about this.
0:02:04 I’ve got some bones to pick with some of his takes here.
0:02:07 There’s really, I think there’s a huge problem with Osempic,
0:02:11 which is that there’s a shortage and they’re not making enough of it.
0:02:14 Alright, well, I’m glad we’re getting right out of the gates here, guys.
0:02:17 So here’s the fundamental point.
0:02:21 I’m not concerned with the 350-pound obese diabetic person.
0:02:24 Like, that’s between them and their doctor.
0:02:29 Osempic actually represents, to me, the biggest issue in the country,
0:02:33 which is that we’re basically being poisoned and then drugged for profit,
0:02:36 the largest and fastest growing industry in the country.
0:02:40 And again, largest and fastest growing is the healthcare industry,
0:02:45 and 95% of those dollars are around drugging
0:02:48 and managing disease of people that are already sick.
0:02:52 So we’ve had this explosion of chronic disease, kind of siloed treatments,
0:02:55 and every single one of them relates to more of the disease.
0:02:57 So Stan’s more heart disease.
0:03:01 Metformin, which 30% of people over 40 are on.
0:03:04 I mean, it’s one of the most widely prescribed drugs, right?
0:03:08 Diabetes goes up. SSRIs, now 25% of women are in SSRIs.
0:03:09 Depression and suicide,
0:03:11 a skyrocketing as more SSRIs are prescribed.
0:03:14 Literally every single drug, you go on the list of every chronic addition,
0:03:16 the more prescribed, the more it goes up.
0:03:18 So the biggest of them all, obesity.
0:03:19 And you can’t even wrap your head around this.
0:03:23 It’s a unique problem in America, but 50% of teens overweight or obese.
0:03:25 I mean, that’s a moral stain on our country.
0:03:28 The childhood obesity rate in Japan is 3%.
0:03:31 So we have something unique going on where 50% of teens are overweight or obese
0:03:33 and then 80% of American adults are overweight or obese.
0:03:38 All right, let’s take a quick break to talk about our sponsor today, HubSpot.
0:03:40 With smaller budgets and sky high expectations,
0:03:42 growth is feeling pretty painful right now.
0:03:45 But HubSpot just announced more than 200 product updates
0:03:48 to make impossible growth feel impossibly easy.
0:03:50 Like Breeze, it’s a new suite of AI tools
0:03:53 that will help you say goodbye to your busy work and hello to better work.
0:03:56 Breeze Intelligence, which will give you the richest, most comprehensive picture
0:03:58 of your prospects and customers.
0:04:01 And reimagine marketing and content hubs to attract and convert more leads
0:04:03 and send your revenue soaring.
0:04:06 Visit HubSpot.com/spotlight to learn more.
0:04:09 What’s the definition of obese?
0:04:12 Is there like a celebrity that you can name that like is like,
0:04:15 that’s like, that’s like the threshold?
0:04:17 Do I need to stand up and take my shirt off?
0:04:20 And then we just let you establish some sort of benchmark here?
0:04:23 Like is Andy Dwyer in Parks and Rec?
0:04:25 Is that considered obese?
0:04:28 Sometimes it’s actually based on a lot of your
0:04:29 is what my sister and I talk a lot about.
0:04:31 It’s based on your personalized biomarkers.
0:04:36 I mean, oftentimes you can be obese and not particularly look that fat.
0:04:41 A lot of us have brewing metabolic dysfunction, 94 percent of us.
0:04:46 And the actual definition of obesity isn’t even entirely tied to how we look.
0:04:52 The general definition of which goes into metabolic dysfunction
0:04:55 of something you should be worried about is 35 inch waste
0:04:58 for women and 40 inch waste for men, though. All right.
0:05:04 So on Ozympic, fundamentally, we’ve got this dirty fish tank.
0:05:07 We’ve got 80 percent of American adults, right?
0:05:10 You look at those pictures for the 1960s and look at the pictures.
0:05:11 They go to a public space.
0:05:15 There’s clearly something happening and it’s uniquely happening in America.
0:05:20 So my my bone to pick with Ozympic is in the midst of this catastrophe, right?
0:05:23 And it’s missed clearly something happening with our food.
0:05:25 And I think it really relates to the fact that 70 percent
0:05:28 of our diet is ultra processed food in Europe and Japan and other countries.
0:05:29 That’s not the case.
0:05:31 We’re clearly doing something.
0:05:34 And then this system is telling us that the answer to that,
0:05:39 instead of fixing the root cause, is a weekly jab for a wife.
0:05:41 And the instructions for Ozympic is a lifetime drug.
0:05:46 And the most alarming part about it is the American Academy of Pediatrics
0:05:50 recently said this is a fully funded subsidiary of Pharma.
0:05:54 They said that a 12 year old, if you’re a 12 year old, is not only obese,
0:05:58 but a little bit overweight, that Ozympic should be the first line defense.
0:06:03 So this is just a representation of, I think, the biggest issue in the country,
0:06:06 which is that we have this explosion of chronic conditions
0:06:10 all basically tied to the same thing, which is simple diet or lifestyle things.
0:06:15 And we keep lunging for an injection, keep lunging for a pill.
0:06:18 And my point just decidedly, I actually think it’s a big economic opportunity.
0:06:20 It’s like we are on an unsustainable trajectory.
0:06:25 Like, like it’s going to be 40 percent of a GDP health care costs in the next 20 years.
0:06:30 We’re becoming truly like a fat and fertile, sick, depressed population.
0:06:32 We’re destroying our human capital.
0:06:36 So if we’re not going to take the obesity crisis, the fact that you go into a classroom,
0:06:39 I’ve got a almost three year old, you go into a daycare
0:06:41 and most kids are clearly having big issues.
0:06:44 If we’re not going to take this moment with obesity, actually ask, what’s the root cause?
0:06:46 That’s a huge problem.
0:06:50 And I think the economic opportunity and I think the one one thing
0:06:55 investors and entrepreneurs don’t quite see is that if this is an unsustainable situation,
0:06:59 we’re going to have to shift more that $4.5 trillion to we can we can fix our food system.
0:07:02 We can incentivize pay, lower income people to exercise.
0:07:05 We can actually do things that incentivize the right things.
0:07:08 I don’t think American the American people are trying to be fat.
0:07:09 They’re not trying to be depressed.
0:07:10 They’re not trying to be unhealthy.
0:07:14 We actually incentivize them to be and can change those incentives
0:07:15 instead of jabbing them with those epic.
0:07:18 So that’s why I think this heavy tried it.
0:07:20 No, I have not tried it.
0:07:23 So so let’s let’s let’s unpack that.
0:07:26 So you basically gave us a gift basket of hot takes there.
0:07:30 And I just want to open up the ribbon and say, oh, chocolate cover pretzels.
0:07:33 Wonderful. OK, so so let’s unpack those one by one.
0:07:38 You said something just now you said the fish tank.
0:07:40 My understanding is you have this analogy where you have a fish tank
0:07:45 and the fish are getting sick, but you can see that the water is dirty.
0:07:46 The fish tank is not clean.
0:07:50 And I think your point is we should clean the tank, not drug the fish.
0:07:54 Is that the is that the core analogy that you like to use with this?
0:07:58 Yeah, I mean, let’s just go over the stats of that tank.
0:08:03 Right. And I go to kids because I’m a personal responsibility guy.
0:08:06 I’m really resonant with those arguments that it’s it’s people’s choice.
0:08:09 But it’s not personal responsibility for kids.
0:08:10 So something’s happening.
0:08:13 And thirty three percent of young adults have prediabetes right now.
0:08:17 Twenty percent of young adults have fatty liver disease, right?
0:08:21 Forty percent of high schoolers qualified as having a mental health disorder.
0:08:24 Like a doctor 40 years ago,
0:08:27 would would would kids have prediabetes and fatty liver?
0:08:31 A doctor would not see one case of a child having diabetes 40 years ago.
0:08:35 It is it is order of magnitude increase.
0:08:39 This is an absolute unprecedented step function increase
0:08:43 in metabolic health disorders among children.
0:08:45 A hundred years ago, my sister said it’s a hundred years ago.
0:08:50 If you were obese, if you were visibly very fat, you were in the circus.
0:08:52 Then there’s literally in a textbook.
0:08:54 It was so rare for an American.
0:08:55 They’re not that big either.
0:08:59 Yeah, like the the the fat man in the in the free shows.
0:09:02 They’re not they’re not that fat compared to what I what you see on a regular basis.
0:09:06 Right. So literally, it was so rare for an adult to be obese.
0:09:10 A hundred years ago, they literally their job then was to be in a circus.
0:09:12 The explosion.
0:09:16 Dr. Robert Lustig is one of my heroes who led hormone issues
0:09:18 and diabetes research at UCSF.
0:09:22 He said early in his career, you know, 30, 40 years ago, didn’t see one child.
0:09:25 One child walk in with diabetes.
0:09:29 Again, right now, it’s thirty three percent of young adults have prediabetes.
0:09:31 So we’ve we’ve done something to ourselves, right?
0:09:36 And what’s happened there is my sister graduating from Stanford Med School,
0:09:39 you choose between forty two specialties, like every doctor.
0:09:43 She did head and neck, and then you do a fellowship, focus even more in that space.
0:09:46 You know, there’s cardiology, neurology.
0:09:48 We segmented the body.
0:09:51 That’s very profitable because I’m kid, right?
0:09:56 I kid with prediabetes when we segment it, when we say, oh, that’s a metformin.
0:09:58 Right. Then they never really have high cholesterol.
0:10:00 It’s a separate doctor, the cardiologist.
0:10:03 That’s a statin. They never really have some mental health issues, SSRI.
0:10:05 They have high blood pressure, ACE inhibitor.
0:10:07 They have fertility issues inevitably,
0:10:10 shove them into IVF and invasive procedures, infertility, skyrocketing,
0:10:12 which is highly related to this.
0:10:17 So they go in this treadmill and they’ve been lied to that everything segmented.
0:10:21 The biggest mistake we’ve made since World War Two
0:10:25 is that we’ve segmented these chronic lifestyle conditions when they’re really
0:10:27 the same thing.
0:10:29 Didn’t that segmentation come from Rockefeller?
0:10:32 Yeah. Isn’t that one of your one of your research points?
0:10:37 Yeah. So in this gets to like kind of the business angle is that all of these things
0:10:41 were in this game when it comes to our health, which is highly meditated.
0:10:45 The way medicine exists today,
0:10:49 the guiding law in Congress is called the Flexner Report,
0:10:53 which actually mandates that we can’t look at disease holistically.
0:10:56 We have to look at things in silos, evidence-based.
0:11:00 We need to name a condition and then treat it with either a surgery or a pill.
0:11:01 This is enshrined in law.
0:11:03 What was there?
0:11:05 I mean, maybe there was a good reason why they did that.
0:11:08 Like if you had to make the argument for why that was a good reason,
0:11:10 if you if you could, what was their reason?
0:11:14 Well, Flexner, who wrote that report in 1909,
0:11:19 so it’s still the guiding law today, was a paid lawyer of Rockefeller,
0:11:24 who invented the pharmaceutical industry as byproducts of oil production.
0:11:27 He figured he could make them into certain pharmaceutical cures.
0:11:30 So he is the father of the modern pharmaceutical industry
0:11:34 and the funder of our top med schools like Johns Hopkins.
0:11:37 And he did see economic opportunity
0:11:42 in basically professionalizing medicine, siloing conditions
0:11:45 and making money by by treating.
0:11:48 I think there’s a way you could spend that in a positive way.
0:11:52 I mean, it was the Wild West and a lot of which doctors out there.
0:11:54 And I think in their minds, they were trying to make it more professionalized.
0:12:01 But there was a clear economic opportunity to name and silo conditions
0:12:06 and then profit from the intervention, not from making people healthy.
0:12:11 And there was a very clear, you know, you look at Johns Hopkins,
0:12:14 the guy that started that school, William Halstead.
0:12:18 He denigrated nutrition, denigrated any type of holistic thinking
0:12:22 to this day in medical education when my sister brought up
0:12:25 that somebody with migraines might need to have a dietary intervention.
0:12:27 Her attending surgeon said, stop being a pussy.
0:12:29 We didn’t go to nutrition school.
0:12:33 This kind of idea of delegitimizing any exploration.
0:12:39 First day of Stanford med school, Casey was told by her professors
0:12:43 that the American patients are not going to stop eating their Big Macs.
0:12:45 They’re that they’re going to be sedentary
0:12:49 and that the best thing we can do is stand with serious medicine,
0:12:51 with the prescription pad, you know, with the scalpel
0:12:55 and treat these conditions as they pop up.
0:13:00 That is like so viscerally ingrained into the medical system.
0:13:01 And and that’s a lie.
0:13:04 Do doctors even have to get go to a nutrition class?
0:13:08 Like, isn’t it isn’t it like like they studied that very minimally?
0:13:10 90 percent of medical 90 percent of doctors graduate
0:13:13 without taking one nutrition class to this this day.
0:13:18 I was pre-med for four years of pre-med zero nutrition, zero in exercise.
0:13:21 And I remember asking my teacher, because I was like, this is a little strange.
0:13:24 Like, we took an anatomy class, right?
0:13:26 You take a ton of chemistry, organic chemistry, all this stuff,
0:13:30 but you never take anything on nutrition or exercise.
0:13:32 And I remember asking about that.
0:13:34 And I was like, does this happen later?
0:13:35 Like, did I miss it?
0:13:37 Well, what’s going on here?
0:13:39 And they were like, no, it’s just not part of the curriculum.
0:13:41 And your teacher was also like, don’t be a pussy, Sean.
0:13:46 Yeah, that’s just like you gave me the look.
0:13:48 He’s like, this is your pre-med and not med.
0:13:52 All right. So I just want to read some of these these stories
0:13:53 I pulled from your your blog here.
0:13:57 So it said that in 19 and 1909, this is what you’re talking about.
0:13:58 Medicine was the wild wild west.
0:14:02 At the time, the fourth most prescribed drug in the country was.
0:14:08 Probably heroin, right? Or cocaine, heroin, heroin.
0:14:10 It was it was made by Bayer or Bayer.
0:14:11 I don’t know how you say it.
0:14:15 And it was it was a cure for finicky behavior in infants.
0:14:16 So that’s good.
0:14:18 Then it says that Rockefeller helped start
0:14:20 the modern pharmaceutical industry by using oil byproducts.
0:14:23 So John D Rockefeller, obviously oil in a magnet.
0:14:26 He then needed a byproduct for his oil
0:14:30 and said, OK, how are we going to sell pharmaceuticals?
0:14:32 Well, if we fund modern, modern educational systems,
0:14:35 I didn’t realize that John Johns Hopkins is named after him.
0:14:38 Yeah, he used a father of modern medicine education. Yeah.
0:14:42 Yeah, he also founded the University of Chicago.
0:14:43 That’s right.
0:14:47 And so it was a radical concept at the time to silo different diseases
0:14:50 into different categories that the doctors could prescribe drugs for each of those
0:14:53 those diseases.
0:14:57 And is it true that seed oils were also from from Rockefeller?
0:15:01 Yeah, I mean, you really these these systems is by design.
0:15:05 And another thing he did is he had this
0:15:08 basically oil lubricant, you know, cheaply made from
0:15:10 from byproducts of seeds.
0:15:14 And he saw that he could actually lobby the USDA
0:15:16 and get those approved for human consumption.
0:15:20 They’re much cheaper than the natural fats that we’re,
0:15:22 you know, genetically biologically made to eat.
0:15:26 And now by basically rigging the regulatory system,
0:15:29 having his lawyers literally on the regulatory panels,
0:15:32 it’s the top source of American calories is is literally
0:15:37 it’s just as a statement of fact, a byproduct of oil production, these these seed oils.
0:15:40 And we’re wondering what’s going on to our health.
0:15:43 The three key pillars of the American diet
0:15:47 were foods that didn’t exist 120 years ago.
0:15:50 You know, processed sugar, refined sugar, wasn’t really a thing
0:15:54 that really came out of the scene about 100 years ago.
0:15:57 We now eat 100 times more sugar than we did 100 years ago.
0:16:00 It’s truly weaponized our food.
0:16:04 Seed oils, the top source of American calories were a byproduct
0:16:07 from John D Rockefeller, new invention and then processed grains.
0:16:09 The processing really took off after World War Two
0:16:11 to make the grain shelf stable.
0:16:16 But the processing, taking that fiber off makes most of the grains we eat, right?
0:16:19 It’s basically a hidden sugar.
0:16:21 It’s very little nutritional value, which the fiber has,
0:16:24 and actually turns into sugar in our bloodstream, makes it more addictive.
0:16:27 Those are the pillars of the American diet
0:16:31 that were just fundamentally aren’t biologically made to eat.
0:16:34 And you know, one thing to add to the conspiracy had to the story,
0:16:38 but it’s true is cigarette companies invented the processed food industry.
0:16:41 So you have John D Rockefeller kind of starting it.
0:16:45 But then in the 1980s, the cigarette smoking started going down.
0:16:48 Philip Morris and R.J. Reynolds became the two largest food companies
0:16:49 in the United States.
0:16:53 And in 1990, two of the three largest M&A deals in American history
0:16:55 were cigarette companies buying food companies.
0:16:59 So every single processed food companies we can actually point to
0:17:01 is either still owned by a cigarette company.
0:17:04 We don’t even realize this craft is still owned by Philip Morris.
0:17:08 So these cigarette companies actually still own or has been spot off
0:17:12 once the doctors and the scientists from the cigarette companies
0:17:15 went to the food companies and actually use these ingredients,
0:17:18 use the rig system to actually make our food more addictive.
0:17:20 So this isn’t just an accident that we’re getting sick.
0:17:23 And and Sam, you know, maybe we’re talking at different levels
0:17:26 because, you know, on the micro level, you know, Ozympic,
0:17:27 there’s there’s good stories and bad stories.
0:17:32 But on the high level, and we’re we’re really, you know,
0:17:36 kind of the purpose of my life is to argue this is we have
0:17:41 $1800 per month that taxpayers are going to pay for Ozympic
0:17:43 for an 80 percent of U.S. adult target market.
0:17:46 What if we actually just took the issue of obesity
0:17:52 and just from first principles asked, how do we actually solve that problem?
0:17:55 You’d never say, wait for people to get sick
0:17:57 and then jab 80 percent of the American people.
0:18:01 We were so in this box of just as an inevitability
0:18:03 that we’re going to get sick, even though we get much sicker
0:18:06 than other countries and then drug people were so in that box.
0:18:10 It’s like heuristic even question that we’re going to do that.
0:18:14 And we should give the listener and Sean background.
0:18:18 Basically, we had a discussion on Twitter, Callie and I about Ozympic.
0:18:22 I actually don’t remember what I said, but I think how convenient.
0:18:26 Well, it was something I was like pro Ozympic.
0:18:30 But for people who were incredibly obese
0:18:34 because I think that like I just think that when people say
0:18:37 that something is always bad, I’m like, well, that’s not true.
0:18:39 Like it could be good in some cases.
0:18:45 Now, I think that drugs are mostly not the answer, but occasionally are.
0:18:50 I tested Ozympic because I’m a guinea pig and I love testing weird things.
0:18:54 I think that like some of the things for morbidly obese people is interesting.
0:18:56 I think it’s particularly interesting for alcoholics.
0:18:59 But for the average Joe, no, I think it’s silly.
0:19:02 And I imagine you and I are in huge agreement on that.
0:19:04 How long did you take it for, Sam?
0:19:07 I took it. I tested it for three months.
0:19:10 When it was like like when I saw that it was like the coolest
0:19:13 when I saw that I read an article saying like everyone in the Hamptons
0:19:14 or the rich and famous are taking this.
0:19:16 I think I told you about it, Sean, in 2021.
0:19:18 And I was like, what is this drug?
0:19:20 It limits like your blood glucose stuff.
0:19:21 Like that’s interesting.
0:19:25 So I tried it and it was it kind of makes you sick at first.
0:19:27 But it’s a spectacular drug.
0:19:28 But if you don’t need it,
0:19:31 it’s definitely not something that you should take a diet and exercise is way better.
0:19:33 Can you explain? I don’t know how much you know.
0:19:36 But can you explain how Ozympic actually works?
0:19:39 What does it do that lets you that that causes the weight loss?
0:19:41 What is the function?
0:19:43 What is like the pathway that it uses?
0:19:48 Yeah, I mean, so the truth is we don’t fully actually know all the mechanisms.
0:19:54 But GLP one is a our body actually produces it and it gives us the feeling of satiety.
0:19:57 So it actually is basically just a supplement
0:20:00 that’s jamming our body with more of this peptide.
0:20:04 It’s like taking a bunch of vitamin D or taking another supplement.
0:20:06 You’re basically taking a supplement of a peptide
0:20:11 that our body naturally produces to trick our body into feeling full.
0:20:17 So, you know, again, that that’s not really solving the root cause.
0:20:19 A couple quick points to what Sam says.
0:20:20 I think we’re in full agreement.
0:20:22 I think the drug should be available.
0:20:25 I think people should be able to hack with it.
0:20:27 You know, but Scott Galloway was recently talking to you guys.
0:20:28 I think I think you mentioned this.
0:20:32 He said this is the biggest a bigger economic opportunity for the country than AI.
0:20:34 He said that the vast majority of the American people should be on this.
0:20:36 That’s the stance of the medical community.
0:20:41 The stance of the various medical associations and the FDA is that this drug
0:20:44 should be prescribed to the median American.
0:20:48 Basically, that it’s so hopeless that we’re so addicted to ultra process food
0:20:51 that we need to stimulate ourselves with the peptide in order to trick ourselves
0:20:53 into feeling full.
0:20:56 Essentially, it is liquefied anorexia.
0:20:58 I mean, truly, truly, that’s what it is.
0:21:01 It’s it’s it’s making you not want to eat.
0:21:02 It’s a crash diet.
0:21:07 And the problem with recommending it for a long term is that if you if you could
0:21:11 prove perfectly that this thing works, the rest of your life with zero side effects
0:21:14 is totally OK for every American to take for the rest of their lives.
0:21:17 Maybe there’d be a conversation, but that’s actually not true.
0:21:20 People are getting off this at high rates because the side effects
0:21:22 there’s very little long term information.
0:21:26 There was a 68 week study to approve it for kids for life, actually.
0:21:27 But we don’t know the long term effects.
0:21:31 You mentioned not wanting to drink, Sam.
0:21:34 I mean, there is increasing information coming out.
0:21:38 And this is a key point writ large with the health care system is that,
0:21:42 you know, why is it not making people want to do anything they enjoy doing?
0:21:45 It’s if they say it’s actually making people not want to have sex,
0:21:47 not want to gamble, not want to drink.
0:21:51 Obviously, this drug affects your dopamine and serotonin pathways.
0:21:56 And it’s actually increasingly showing that it’s highly tied to
0:21:58 suicidalization and depression.
0:22:01 What are the problems with the siloing of health care?
0:22:05 This again, I want to be really clear with chronic conditions.
0:22:10 The acute innovations of the medical system, if we have an infection,
0:22:13 gunshot wound, burst appendix, complicate childbirth, that’s great.
0:22:16 But that’s five to seven percent of overall spending.
0:22:19 The vast majority of the medical system is basically
0:22:23 peeling and putting band-aids on chronic conditions.
0:22:26 And people should be able to hack this.
0:22:27 I think it’s great.
0:22:29 Sam took a lot of my friends are taking it.
0:22:31 But the problem is it’s going to be
0:22:36 $1,800 of government funding per person per month.
0:22:39 That’s rigged to the $1,800.
0:22:41 It’s 15 times cheaper in Europe.
0:22:46 The drug is 15 times cheaper in its home country and throughout Europe.
0:22:49 Through totally dysfunctional rigged policies,
0:22:54 we’re actually literally paying 15 times more as taxpayers for that drug.
0:22:56 So so that’s why I think it’s kind of the Rosetta Stone
0:22:59 understanding why we’re kind of losing our way.
0:23:01 Sam, have you ever done the napkin math on this drug?
0:23:04 So I kind of was doing this this morning about this $1,800 a month.
0:23:06 Well, do you know how you know how much it cost, Sean?
0:23:08 Like when I bought it just like for fun.
0:23:10 Yeah, I did it for fun.
0:23:14 It was like 800 bucks a month, I think.
0:23:17 Just real quick on that, they give rebates to individuals.
0:23:20 But the system is so rigged that the sticker price is 16 to 1800,
0:23:23 which Medicare and Medicaid will pay.
0:23:25 So the government’s actually going to pay a lot more.
0:23:26 Taxpayers are actually pay a lot more.
0:23:29 And then they give rebates to individuals paying out of pocket.
0:23:35 But so if you just use 20,000 a year as the the cost to take this thing,
0:23:37 because it’s a long term drug, you’re supposed to take it continuously.
0:23:41 And then it’s 80 percent, I believe of adults are,
0:23:46 you know, in that sort of like qualified, you know, that’s the term basically for this.
0:23:49 So you take, you know, you take the U.S.
0:23:52 population times 80 percent times 20 grand a year.
0:23:55 And then you’re like, well, you’re supposed to continue to take this thing.
0:23:57 So even if you do like, you know, so just that alone
0:24:00 is something like two or three trillion dollars a year.
0:24:01 It’s the same.
0:24:02 And then then you say, great.
0:24:05 And then they’re going to take this for 20, 30 years.
0:24:06 Oh, interesting.
0:24:09 So this is a 50 trillion dollar drug.
0:24:13 A Cali, is this going to be the most lucrative drug ever made?
0:24:15 Well, right now that’s priced into the stock.
0:24:18 So I think it’s the the 12th most valuable company in the world.
0:24:22 And Nova Nordic is the company that makes it just past LVMH,
0:24:25 you know, the iconic fashion designer as the most valuable company in Europe.
0:24:29 You know how like Safeway or Kroger has like a CVS where you can get your
0:24:31 your drugs in the in the grocery store?
0:24:35 That’s kind of like what Louis Vuitton does now, I think, like at the front desk,
0:24:36 they like upsell you on like a shot.
0:24:38 Exactly. They’re tied together.
0:24:42 But but yeah, shot, it’s certainly priced in with the stock.
0:24:44 I mean, this thing is a phenomenon.
0:24:46 It’s one of the most valuable companies in the world.
0:24:50 What’s interesting when you look into the I’ve actually dug into the J.P.
0:24:55 Morgan analyst reports that actually underlie the assumptions for why the stock is so valuable.
0:25:01 About 80 to 90 percent of the profits expected are not from its home continent, Europe.
0:25:04 It’s it’s almost all from the United States.
0:25:09 So this is not the standard of care in Europe.
0:25:12 If you’re a pre-iobetic and in Denmark where this drug is made,
0:25:14 they actually prescribe a keto diet.
0:25:18 They actually pay you to exercise, which makes sense.
0:25:23 This isn’t just gold out like candy from the medical system in Europe.
0:25:25 People can pay out of pocket.
0:25:29 So all the profit expectations are coming from the United States.
0:25:32 This Danish company is one of the 10 largest
0:25:39 lobbyists of U.S. politicians and one of the 10 largest spenders on TV news.
0:25:44 So literally what you have is pharma companies, just as a statement of fact,
0:25:47 not conspiratorial, they are the largest funder of politicians.
0:25:50 They fund politicians directly five times more than the oil industry.
0:25:53 They’re 50 percent of TV news spending.
0:25:57 So they’re not only able to influence us, they’re actually able to buy the news itself.
0:26:00 They’re actually able to dictate what we hear on the news, which is why 60 minutes
0:26:04 literally ran a segment saying obesity is a genetic condition
0:26:07 that is not tied to eating or not tied to exercise
0:26:11 and that it’s an urgent priority to jab a bunch of kids.
0:26:14 That’s literally what 60 Minutes said, relatively unquestioned.
0:26:17 And they’re the largest funder of med schools and academic research.
0:26:20 I mean, getting back to the nutrition point in med schools,
0:26:22 Casey kind of unwound why that was.
0:26:24 Stanford Med School, 50 percent of our budget touches pharma.
0:26:27 Pharma is the number one funder of research.
0:26:31 Pharma is the number one funder of the actual regulatory agencies.
0:26:35 50, excuse me, 75 percent of the FDA is actually not funded by taxpayers.
0:26:38 It’s funded by pharma itself and bureaucracies are built to grow.
0:26:43 It’s a revolving toward when I hear Stanford Med School professor
0:26:46 or the Dean of Harvard Med School.
0:26:50 That just feels like trustworthy to me.
0:26:54 Just me as a layman person, I feel like, well, who else am I going to trust?
0:26:58 If not the Dean of Harvard Med or this Stanford professor,
0:27:00 are those people that you trust?
0:27:01 Absolutely not.
0:27:04 I think around the country in various levels,
0:27:08 we’re all losing trust or institutions in various ways.
0:27:11 The military education, health care, I think is number one.
0:27:14 And I think this is a really positive thing,
0:27:17 because we’re the only animals with experts telling us what to eat
0:27:19 and how to manage chronic conditions.
0:27:21 We’re the only animals that have rampant levels
0:27:23 of metabolic dysfunction, obesity, diabetes.
0:27:24 You don’t have those among giraffes.
0:27:26 Like the problem is that we’re listening to experts.
0:27:30 So let me just let me just take it really specific on Stanford Med School Dean.
0:27:31 You’re right.
0:27:34 Nobody more trusted in the country
0:27:38 and working for the pharmaceutical industry in 2009, 2010.
0:27:39 We knew that.
0:27:40 Well, can you just explain that?
0:27:42 You were you were a consultant, right?
0:27:45 You you went to Stanford, then you became a consultant and you consulted for companies.
0:27:47 Can you just explain that background?
0:27:48 I went to Stanford.
0:27:49 My sister was my best friend.
0:27:49 She was much smarter.
0:27:52 She was pre-med at the top of her Stanford Med School class.
0:27:54 I did economics and got into politics.
0:27:56 And then right after doing some campaigns,
0:27:59 realized, you know, everyone that after the campaign works,
0:28:02 the two largest spenders in DC, the food industry and the pharma industry,
0:28:05 worked for them and did consulting for a couple of years.
0:28:07 Didn’t like it.
0:28:09 Got went to business school and then starting companies for the past 10 years.
0:28:11 Did you know getting into it?
0:28:13 Were you like, this is slimy.
0:28:16 So I grew up in Washington, DC, good young conservative, you know,
0:28:18 entered at the White House, entered at the Heritage Foundation.
0:28:21 I was the annoying conservative guy in class at Stanford,
0:28:25 pissing it off and, you know, really considered myself ideological.
0:28:28 And I considered being conservative, supporting American industry.
0:28:33 So I worked on some campaigns and then I was very proud to be working
0:28:35 for the pharmaceutical industry and working for the food industry.
0:28:37 These industries leading the country.
0:28:41 And the issue in front of us was which ties the Stanford Med School dean was opioids.
0:28:43 So you get in a room.
0:28:49 I’m a junior employee and it’s like there’s unnecessary regulation on opioids.
0:28:53 These incredible innovations that are solving this scourge of the American
0:28:54 people, which is pain.
0:28:56 And we have to fight back against this.
0:28:57 What are we going to do?
0:29:00 And I had a list of doctors in front of me.
0:29:02 And we’re like, how do we get these doctors money?
0:29:03 Let’s get them some research grants.
0:29:08 So we reached out to the dean of Stanford Med School, who is a pain specialist.
0:29:14 And we funded him directly with consulting payments and then made a donation
0:29:17 to Stanford, to his lab for four million dollars from opioid companies
0:29:20 to study ethics and pain management.
0:29:26 Then we worked with our allies at the NIH, which is totally just a swamp
0:29:28 with pharmaceutical interests funded by Farm.
0:29:29 It’s a total roving door.
0:29:31 And we helped set up a panel.
0:29:35 So the NIH in 2011 did a panel to make recommendations on opioids.
0:29:38 Who’s the most trusted person you could possibly have in a panel
0:29:39 to make a medical recommendation?
0:29:40 The dean of Stanford Med School.
0:29:43 So the dean of Stanford Med School, who just took a bunch of money
0:29:47 from opioid companies was appointed in 2011 to the blue ribbon panel
0:29:49 on opioid recommendations.
0:29:52 He shows 19 other elite academics.
0:29:57 15 of the 19 had direct payments from opioid companies that we very
0:29:58 strategically steered to them.
0:30:03 And that panel in 2000, I believe it’s 2011, recommended basically
0:30:05 that this was overblown about the addiction.
0:30:08 They basically said, you know, stayed a course, pain is a huge problem.
0:30:11 And then opioid prescriptions continued to go up.
0:30:13 That’s how it works.
0:30:16 And I could just tell you, I think this is something people are waking up to.
0:30:19 I think you see this in the political climate right now where there’s, I think
0:30:22 the defining issue of our time is distrust of our institutions.
0:30:28 These lobbyists, these consultants, they know how to rig the debate, right?
0:30:30 They know people trust a study from Stanford.
0:30:33 They know people trust, you know, what civil rights groups say that if you
0:30:35 call someone racist, that’s going to shut down the debate.
0:30:38 So that’s why corporations that are basically poisoning the American
0:30:40 people are the biggest funder of civil rights organizations.
0:30:44 It’s just look who people trust and funnel the money to.
0:30:49 So let me ask you, when you when you funded the research for, let’s say
0:30:54 that Stanford professor or dean or whatever it was, and then they
0:30:56 and you funded 15 of the 19 people that were on that panel.
0:31:00 Now, I want to get really specific.
0:31:01 Do you think what do you believe?
0:31:06 Do you believe that they genuinely believed the opioid like that?
0:31:07 That was their conclusion.
0:31:10 There were genuine conclusion after doing the research in the study was
0:31:14 that the opioid thing is overblown and we should pay more opiates for Americans,
0:31:17 right? Do you believe that they felt like a little conflicted?
0:31:19 Like, hey, my gravy train shuts off if this goes down.
0:31:21 So let’s find some middle ground.
0:31:26 Do you feel like they are intentionally misleading or that that’s genuinely
0:31:28 what they believe? Very, very good question.
0:31:32 I think the reason maybe a lot of listeners and I used to have trouble
0:31:34 believing this is because how can this be so evil?
0:31:37 So let me break this down.
0:31:42 The genius of the health care system is that it takes very good people
0:31:45 and puts them into a system with plausible deniability.
0:31:49 So the problem is that nobody actually has full responsibility for why
0:31:52 the outcome that the health care system should be solving for,
0:31:55 which is people getting sick, why that’s exploding as everyone’s making money.
0:31:58 You know, the doctors can say it’s the food company’s fault.
0:32:00 The food companies can say it’s personal responsibility.
0:32:03 The med schools can say we can’t control what Americans do.
0:32:05 We’re just going to keep growing and making money.
0:32:07 The pharma companies, you know, rally about, you know,
0:32:10 making stands and curing the sick patients in front of them.
0:32:15 So everyone, the systemic design of the health care industry is actually genius
0:32:19 because it can allow people actually almost a virtue signal
0:32:23 about doing the right thing while producing not necessarily evil.
0:32:26 It’s evil, but it’s producing what the system is designed to do, which is growth.
0:32:29 So that’s one dynamic with the health care system.
0:32:31 If you go down to your question, Sean,
0:32:33 and I’ve really, Casey’s been exploring this.
0:32:35 We talk about this in our book.
0:32:38 I have to put some culpability on people in the system.
0:32:42 And I think it’s breaking through one statistic that’s alarming.
0:32:46 Doctors have the highest suicide rate and highest rate of burnout of any profession in America.
0:32:49 I think what’s happening is you get a lot of well-meaning people.
0:32:53 There’s easier ways to make a buck, you know, than the nine years of training you have to do.
0:32:55 You know, people, we actually are a magnet
0:32:57 for the best and brightest end of the medical system.
0:33:00 And then they eventually realize, and if they’re not,
0:33:02 they don’t realize this, they’re just not paying attention
0:33:06 that they’re complicit in a system that is profiting from people being sick
0:33:07 and they’re not making people better.
0:33:10 So you actually have a dynamic where a lot of people feel trapped.
0:33:14 My sister, after leaving, kind of bravely leaving the medical system
0:33:19 after a decade of training, got people senior at Stanford, senior at Harvard.
0:33:22 See your medical leaders kind of talking to her off the record,
0:33:23 saying you are much braver than me.
0:33:27 Everyone knows the system is going to run the country off a cliff.
0:33:28 So there is a knowledge.
0:33:33 And I think what leads to this depression, suicide, burnout among doctors is
0:33:35 they don’t quite know what to do.
0:33:40 They feel really trapped in this system with really perverse incentives.
0:33:43 But we all know people that work at Pharma, that are doctors.
0:33:44 You know, a lot of my friends from Harvard Business School,
0:33:48 like they go into work at Pepsi, work at Pharma, work at these companies.
0:33:50 It takes good people.
0:33:55 But more and more, I do, you know, think we need the kind of Elon Musk energy.
0:33:58 You know, he said, fuck it, I don’t care if I lose money,
0:33:59 I’m going to do what’s right.
0:34:01 We need more that leadership from the health care system
0:34:05 because we’re truly creating and I’m not even joking, right?
0:34:07 A fat, depressed, infertile population.
0:34:10 I mean, infertility is skyrocketing right now.
0:34:13 There’s our bodies are screaming out for help. Right.
0:34:17 Well, before we go to infertility, I want to just tie back to the history thing.
0:34:20 So you had said something, I think, in one of your blog posts that the first
0:34:23 chronic condition that pharmaceutical ever that became a pharmaceutical
0:34:25 product was birth control.
0:34:27 I think this is in the 1950s.
0:34:30 And you said this is the first pill in American history that people just didn’t
0:34:31 stop taking. Right.
0:34:35 And, you know, if you’re a company and you see this is a beautiful business model.
0:34:37 Here’s a pill they’re going to take every single month,
0:34:39 you know, on an ongoing basis.
0:34:41 And it’s not, you know, it’s not a cure.
0:34:43 It’s a treatment.
0:34:45 It’s a chronic thing that you’re going to continue to do.
0:34:49 And I think there’s some documentaries now on the Sackler family and all this.
0:34:52 But, you know, basically they work for Pfizer.
0:34:55 They started thinking, you know, how can we create more chronic issues?
0:34:58 And is it true that they also owned the medical journals at the time?
0:34:59 Yes.
0:35:02 So let me, yeah, let me try to take that to today
0:35:04 and what kind of the business problem and the business opportunity is.
0:35:07 So you’re right.
0:35:12 The medical system was at its height of trust after World War Two.
0:35:17 The invention of antibiotics was credited as a chief reason we won the war.
0:35:20 You know, but the antibiotics were founded by, you know,
0:35:24 basically somebody digging in dirt and doing some like very rudimentary
0:35:26 experiments that cost no money.
0:35:29 Right. It’s like, this wasn’t actually a huge industry.
0:35:35 And literally the Sackler family, they said, OK, this is very strategic.
0:35:38 Let’s take the trust engendered post World War Two.
0:35:41 Let’s learn the lesson from the birth control pill
0:35:45 and let’s get Americans on more and more pills.
0:35:48 So they actually, with owning the medical journals,
0:35:52 they actually created new diagnosis codes and created this idea of anxiety
0:35:55 and created new mental health code categories.
0:36:00 And their first big blockbuster, one of them was Valium, a benzos,
0:36:02 very addictive, very harmful.
0:36:07 And the time magazine cover, you know, late 1960s, early 1970s was Valium Nation.
0:36:10 Thirty percent of women were on this drug, very addictive.
0:36:14 They were called Mommy’s Little Helper, and that was their advertising.
0:36:16 And then you just go down the list.
0:36:22 The entire thrust of medicine has then been to take that flexor report,
0:36:26 take what Rockefeller set up and put on hyperdrive, segment the body,
0:36:29 segment medical specialties deeper, deeper, deeper.
0:36:34 And then create pills just for biomarkers, right?
0:36:36 Stand for cholesterol, right?
0:36:38 The metformin for blood sugar.
0:36:42 We’ve been we’ve been pilling ourselves on all these little biomarkers
0:36:46 that we can kind of manipulate with one pill, completely ignoring
0:36:49 that everyone’s getting sick or at the same time.
0:36:52 That is by the design, right?
0:36:56 It’s very profitable, you know, I think we talked about this on Twitter.
0:37:00 Just as a statement of economic fact, there’s nothing more profitable
0:37:03 than a child that gets sick early and gets on these drugs
0:37:08 and doesn’t learn metabolically healthy habits, doesn’t learn the basics
0:37:11 of why their blood sugar is high, why their cholesterol is high.
0:37:14 They’re told to save you a pill and they’re inevitably going to get
0:37:16 more and more and more and more comorbidities.
0:37:20 The genius of chronic disease, which the sacroids understood,
0:37:23 is that those patients suffer, those kids suffer, right?
0:37:26 You’re four times more likely to be suicidal
0:37:29 or depressive if you have diabetes as a kid, right?
0:37:32 You’re going to have a lot more issues like infertility,
0:37:34 but you don’t die right away.
0:37:38 You’re a patient who goes in the system, often paid for by taxpayers.
0:37:40 So this was understood.
0:37:44 This is directly understood when the Sacklers
0:37:46 and another ally saw the birth control pill.
0:37:52 And that takes us to the day where I’ll call out, you know,
0:37:56 even the entrepreneurial community and venture capitalist, right?
0:38:01 Investment and good business opportunities in the system
0:38:04 still are predicated on this existing model.
0:38:07 You know, I talked to a lot of esteemed health care VCs
0:38:11 and they think innovation is putting a millennial pink package on Viagra
0:38:14 and shipping it to people more conveniently.
0:38:18 They think that innovation is like better UX on medical records.
0:38:21 You know, you look down the list on these thought leaders of visual capital
0:38:24 talking about, you know, medical innovation.
0:38:27 It’s all just better wrappers on the same existing system.
0:38:29 There’s very little disruption.
0:38:32 Now, that’s a moral problem, but I actually think it’s an economic problem
0:38:34 because I don’t think people fully understand.
0:38:39 I’ve talked to a lot of the wise people in the health space.
0:38:43 If we have an unsustainable situation, if we truly do believe that,
0:38:47 if we truly do believe we’re on a bad path with our mental health,
0:38:50 with our physical health, with our BC rates, we’re not going to drug
0:38:51 our way out of that problem.
0:38:54 Like we’re not going to be doing more and more the same to solve that problem.
0:38:55 I think that’s self-evident.
0:38:58 And I think there’s an economic opportunity there for people who realize it
0:39:01 because we’re going to have to to shift the incentives of the system.
0:39:06 Hey, so I don’t I don’t want to change the world when it comes to food.
0:39:08 That’s up to you guys like you.
0:39:12 I just want to do like the 80, 20, where I mostly do things great.
0:39:15 So I feel good and I look good and my family is safe and feels good as well.
0:39:22 Can you tell me what you eat and where you get your food on a daily basis?
0:39:25 And just what that 80, 20 is like, what can I do?
0:39:27 What can our listeners do?
0:39:30 What can Sean do to just be mostly great?
0:39:34 Yeah, the core thesis of this book I wrote with my sister
0:39:37 is that things are more complicated by design.
0:39:41 The biggest lie in health care is that the reasons
0:39:42 we’re getting sick are complicated.
0:39:45 And the second biggest lie is that these things can’t be changed quickly.
0:39:50 They can. So when it comes to food, I believe we should fire
0:39:54 every single person in the government and academia who works in nutrition.
0:39:57 We should replace it with this one rule, which is which answers your question.
0:40:01 And one principle, reduce ultra process food consumption.
0:40:03 We are 70 percent.
0:40:08 If you look at what your kids are eating or what we’re eating, it’s ultra process food.
0:40:12 So what did you what did you eat for breakfast and what are you going to eat for lunch?
0:40:15 No matter what dietary philosophy you are, I try to eat whole foods.
0:40:16 I had eggs, right?
0:40:18 Pasture raised to look at look into the quality.
0:40:21 And so the first step is to reduce ultra food consumption.
0:40:24 That’s the thing I’d say first and foremost, that is what most people are not doing.
0:40:28 Even if you don’t get into the type of types of food you’re eating, that’s the first step.
0:40:32 I guarantee you, if you are on the hunt to rid your
0:40:37 fridge of ultra process food, being on the hunt for those three,
0:40:41 those unholy trinity of three ingredients, added sugar, processed grains and seed oils,
0:40:43 you’re going to get to the next level of the quality of the food.
0:40:46 The first thing to do is all to process food.
0:40:54 So which basically just means mostly plants and animals that are not processed a ton.
0:40:57 If we simply made that our nutrition policy, we’d be a transformed human capital.
0:41:01 The second thing is, as you alluded to, is if you get there and most people are
0:41:05 not there is to get into the quality of food to really understand and be curious
0:41:08 and be in that path of what’s being done to our food.
0:41:14 The genetic makeup of a grass fed cow versus a grain fed cow is entirely different.
0:41:17 It’s a reversed ratio of omega three or omega six.
0:41:21 The grain fed, which cows are not made to eat, which is totally a new phenomenon,
0:41:25 are predominantly omega six fatty acids, which are inflammatory,
0:41:27 which which which causes inflammation or body.
0:41:30 A grass fed cow, which is how they’ve been raised forever,
0:41:34 which is now a luxury, is omega three anti-inflammatory.
0:41:37 So if you just hunt for animals,
0:41:42 hunt for vegetables that were made in the way
0:41:46 we’re biologically made to eat them, that’s that’s the second bar.
0:41:48 Well, all right, so I’m hungry.
0:41:53 Do you go to like a chain grocery store ever or do you only go to butchers?
0:41:55 Where do you shop for groceries?
0:41:56 I go to Sprouts.
0:41:59 I go to Whole Foods.
0:42:05 I look for deliveries of meat that’s pasture raised of farmers that I trust.
0:42:11 But truly, just going to your supermarket
0:42:15 and not getting older processed food and looking with the eggs,
0:42:19 pasture raised with the meat, ideally grass fed, pasture raised
0:42:23 with the vegetables organic, not spray with a bunch of glyphosate and pesticides.
0:42:26 Like it’s simple. It’s the things we all talk about.
0:42:31 But if you truly just follow that and we incentivize that as a country more,
0:42:34 we’ll be on a much better path.
0:42:35 What are your vices?
0:42:37 When’s the last time you had a Dorito?
0:42:41 Yeah, or like just like, like, do you have a bowl of ice cream once a week?
0:42:44 I got I am like everyone that knows me.
0:42:49 I am like I’ve been on a journey here, guys, like, you know, two years ago.
0:42:52 I mean, I was running a wedding dress company with my wife,
0:42:54 a direct consumer wedding dress company during covid.
0:42:56 We we raised venture money.
0:42:58 We had a large team and struggled a bit during covid.
0:43:00 It’s called anomaly.
0:43:01 So we make custom dresses.
0:43:03 We had a really innovative supply chain.
0:43:07 But, you know, I’ve been running, you know, startups, direct consumer companies,
0:43:10 you know, for the past decade.
0:43:13 And I wasn’t the earliest person.
0:43:17 And during covid, a couple of things happened.
0:43:19 One is my sister, Casey, means who I wrote the book with.
0:43:22 As I mentioned a bunch, she started Levels Health.
0:43:23 She left the medical system.
0:43:25 She’s become a big advocate.
0:43:28 I thought she was an idiot when she left medical school or left residency.
0:43:34 I’m I, you know, as I said, grew up trusting the medical system thinking
0:43:38 it was just crazy that she would leave this path she’s on of all these credentials.
0:43:40 Right. That’s how we were raised.
0:43:43 It’s like, get the best schools, get go up the traditional systems.
0:43:48 So I thought she was crazy, but she really radicalized me with these ideas
0:43:51 that the answers are much simpler than they seem.
0:43:55 In twenty twenty one, as we were selling our direct consumer company,
0:44:01 my mom had a pain in her stomach and and went into get a scan
0:44:03 at Stanford Hospital.
0:44:05 And she was perfectly healthy, we thought.
0:44:07 But they told her it was stage four, pancreatic cancer.
0:44:11 And she called us, said it was going to she’s going to die
0:44:13 in a couple of weeks and we rushed to her side.
0:44:16 With that experience for me, so this is relatively new.
0:44:17 This is twenty twenty one.
0:44:22 What that experience to me showed is really a microcosm of how the system is broken,
0:44:25 because my mom was on five medications over 40 years.
0:44:29 She, you know, 30 years ago had high cholesterol, statin, that’s normal.
0:44:32 High blood sugar met form and that’s normal.
0:44:34 So she was the typical American patient.
0:44:37 She was 70 and actually told by our doctor a couple weeks before
0:44:40 that she was actually healthy because she was on less medications than an average
0:44:44 70 year old because those issues that most Americans deal with
0:44:48 weren’t identified as a core, you know, metabolic issue.
0:44:49 Just take a pill.
0:44:54 She wasn’t set on that path of exploring her food of understanding
0:44:56 how sedentary life can can eventually give you cancer down the road.
0:45:00 That led to her getting cancer this year.
0:45:01 Cancer rates are at an all time high.
0:45:03 They’re particularly at an all time higher around kids.
0:45:07 Every single chronic disease you can name is at an all time high this year.
0:45:10 It’s because we’re ignoring the warning signs.
0:45:12 We ignored those with my mom.
0:45:17 So she abruptly died and that kind of radicalized
0:45:21 me to my previous experience working for the food and farm industry.
0:45:24 Right around that time, I took a blood test and the doctor said,
0:45:26 oh, your blood is fine, you know, you’re fine.
0:45:30 I showed my sister, she’s like, no, no, this is this represents metabolic dysfunction.
0:45:32 I asked the doctor again, what happened?
0:45:33 They’re like, no, no, no, you’re not treatable yet.
0:45:35 You’re not quite at the standard rate.
0:45:36 But yeah, yeah, that’s it’s not good.
0:45:38 But, you know, we don’t have anything to do for you yet.
0:45:43 So that’s that kind of these experiences.
0:45:46 It doesn’t come from a passion for nutrition.
0:45:49 It comes from a passion really for American competitors.
0:45:55 We are poising our population and the average American is on a path like by mom,
0:45:58 kind of the system hand waving these small things.
0:46:00 And then they eventually lead to a big thing.
0:46:04 So that led me, I mean, I’m not a model in any way.
0:46:07 And frankly, I don’t have any interest in lecturing anyone listening.
0:46:11 I think we a lot of people listening are on probably a path right now.
0:46:15 My main passion and what Justin and I are really working on,
0:46:21 Justin Mears, my partner at TrueMab, is I think I think a lot of your
0:46:22 listeners are on this path.
0:46:24 I think they’re like looking at past race beef.
0:46:25 I think they’re trying.
0:46:29 What I’m saying and where my experience comes in from working for these industries
0:46:32 is that we can’t lie to ourselves, though.
0:46:35 We are not going to get out of this if the largest industry in the country
0:46:37 is incentivized for us to be sick.
0:46:42 And I think startups, companies, very other people, we need to actually talk
0:46:43 about the top down incentives too.
0:46:46 So, you know, I’m absolutely on a path.
0:46:48 We’ve written about tactical tips in our book.
0:46:51 But where I’m spending most of my time is like, how do we change the incentives?
0:46:57 Because I don’t think the Japanese kids are, you know, just much less lazy
0:46:59 and less suicidal than Americans at a 3 percent.
0:47:00 You know, they have a 3 percent obesity rate.
0:47:03 We have a kid titled an obesity rate like 25 percent.
0:47:05 There’s something happening with the incentives.
0:47:07 What is the answer there?
0:47:12 What is the leading theory on why in Japan, you look at this chart, we’re at 40 percent.
0:47:15 Yeah, America, we’re number one, 40 percent obesity rate.
0:47:18 And then Japan’s at the bottom, 4 percent.
0:47:19 Well, what are they doing differently?
0:47:22 What is it? You know, genetic might be a hypothesis.
0:47:23 What are the real hypothesis?
0:47:27 No, did anyone that said genetics, they say our obesity crisis is genetics
0:47:30 when it’s just exploded in the past 40 years and was not an issue at all.
0:47:36 They say they say that diabetes is genetics when you didn’t have kids as diabetic 40 years ago.
0:47:38 Sean, it is so simple.
0:47:40 It is follow the money.
0:47:41 It is that simple.
0:47:43 It is I’m just going to say this again.
0:47:48 Our most prominent industry makes money when we’re sick and loses money when we’re healthy.
0:47:49 What does Japan do?
0:47:53 Yeah, so they spend three times less per capita on health care
0:47:57 and double the amount mostly on food.
0:48:00 So per capita.
0:48:04 So so they actually put food into their health care budget.
0:48:07 So I’ll say that again, they spend two times work of capital on food.
0:48:12 We spend almost like on all developed countries per capita.
0:48:15 We spend the least amount on food and three times more than the average.
0:48:18 Are you saying the government spends two times more as a country and a lot
0:48:22 of the health care budget actually goes to incentivizing the food system and food interventions.
0:48:26 Nine out of ten killers of Americans are foodborne illnesses.
0:48:27 I mean, we can dance around.
0:48:29 It’s just that simple.
0:48:32 Like you would wipe out heart disease, diabetes, kidney disease,
0:48:35 respiratory illness, COVID deaths, even if you got our country
0:48:39 metabolically more healthy, which is many factors, but food is the number one.
0:48:43 Other countries understand that and they dramatically reign in the
0:48:48 Senate incentives that pay doctors more when you get sicker for a longer period of time.
0:48:49 Fundamentally, the structure.
0:48:52 Now, a lot of these countries, I don’t even have systems we fully agree with.
0:48:55 But you know, socialism would whatever have you in the U.S.
0:48:57 We have much worse than socialism.
0:49:02 We have a kleptocracy where the system has just totally been rigged at every
0:49:07 single impulse is for people to get sick, be fed into the system and then stay sick to be treated.
0:49:09 That’s every single impulse in the system.
0:49:15 Sean, have you have you ever you I don’t think you’ve been to Europe recently.
0:49:17 But when you go to Europe, it’s pretty crazy.
0:49:23 I you like I went down this little path where I remember going to Europe
0:49:26 and I felt like I ate poorly, like I was on vacation.
0:49:30 And I pretty bad, but I was walking a lot, but I felt awesome.
0:49:34 And I went to the store and I bought a pack of Skittles.
0:49:36 And just I wanted to look at the ingredients.
0:49:41 And then when you compare the amount of ingredients that are in a Skittle or a Kit Kat
0:49:46 or like normal junk food compared to American food, it’s like the list of ingredients.
0:49:48 It’s like two or three times as long.
0:49:51 I’ve seen Twitter, right? Same brand of bread or whatever it is.
0:49:53 Same brand of cracker.
0:49:55 But then in Europe, there’s three ingredients and in the US,
0:49:57 there’s 17 ingredients that you don’t recognize the names.
0:49:58 That’s what you’re talking about.
0:50:01 Yeah. And there’s this other thing where if you look at McDonald’s,
0:50:06 so McDonald’s up until like 1985 or 1990, they used beef fat, I believe.
0:50:08 How old to be tall, yeah, tallow.
0:50:12 And it was I think it was just salt and a potato for a long time.
0:50:16 Now, if you look at the ingredients of a French fry, it’s a McDonald’s French fry.
0:50:18 It’s it’s got like 10 other things.
0:50:23 Is there and I think that someone said said it best where they said in Europe,
0:50:29 the rules around food are it’s a default to we say no to everything.
0:50:33 Here’s the ingredients we allow you to put in, whereas in America, it was like,
0:50:35 here’s the here’s the handful of things we don’t allow.
0:50:37 Callie, you’re rolling your eyes.
0:50:38 Is that an act to look at it?
0:50:42 Because I’ve noticed that when I go overseas, I often times I feel better,
0:50:43 but I don’t think I’m eating better.
0:50:45 No, no, I think you’re hitting it on this test, Sam.
0:50:48 I’m just anticipating what I would be thinking a couple of years ago,
0:50:51 what some people might be thinking is there’s this argument when you talk
0:50:53 about this in the US, that it’s overregulation.
0:50:55 And again, I’m like a free market guy.
0:50:56 I don’t like regulation.
0:51:00 And as a working for these companies, whenever anyone mentioned
0:51:03 about changing food degrees to the US, it’s like the US food system is great.
0:51:05 Let’s not have the nanny state.
0:51:10 The problem is that the nanny state is the fact that food companies have lobbied
0:51:14 and rigged the system to have thousands, we literally thousands of ingredients
0:51:17 that aren’t legal in Europe are allowed in the United States.
0:51:21 The USD Nutrition Guidelines Committee, which basically approves and recommends
0:51:28 various foods, 95 percent of it is funded by 95 percent of the panels
0:51:31 are directly funded by food companies or farmer companies.
0:51:37 So this idea that we allow these ingredients isn’t under regulation.
0:51:40 It’s actually completely and utterly rigged.
0:51:45 You know, Justin Mears and I, we have a company that is trying to change
0:51:48 these incentives, but because we’ve been pounding this mission,
0:51:50 we’ve been looped into a number of advocacy efforts.
0:51:53 One thing we’re doing, we’re working with a guy named Jason Karp
0:51:56 and a bunch of health leaders.
0:52:00 We’ve done a legal action against Kellogg’s, you know, Kellogg’s is a stark example.
0:52:04 But their ingredient list, they change completely
0:52:07 for the American kids versus just across the border in Canada.
0:52:11 It has addictive ingredients.
0:52:14 It has the colorings that make it really bright, that are linked to ADHD.
0:52:20 And other developmental issues, we’re literally through a rigged system.
0:52:25 You know, our free formulating ingredients for American kids.
0:52:27 That’s what Europe, frankly, realizes more.
0:52:30 I mean, what Europe and other countries are doing is it’s not really
0:52:32 even health care policy.
0:52:35 It’s let’s not poison our population as much policy.
0:52:39 All right, if you’re listening to this pod, I already know something about you.
0:52:42 You, my friend, are nosy.
0:52:45 You want to know the numbers behind all of these things that we’re talking about.
0:52:49 How much money people make, how much money people spend, how much money
0:52:52 businesses make, you want to know all of this people’s net worth, all of it.
0:52:54 Well, I’ve got good news for you.
0:52:57 So my company, Hampton, we’re a private community for CEOs.
0:53:00 We do this thing where we survey our members and we ask them all types of
0:53:04 information, like how much money they’re paying themselves, how much money
0:53:07 they’re paying a lot of their employees, what their team, my bonuses are,
0:53:09 what their net worth is, what their portfolio looks like.
0:53:12 We ask all these questions, but we do it anonymously.
0:53:15 And so people are willing to reveal all types of amazing information.
0:53:17 So if you really cannot Google, you can’t find anywhere else.
0:53:20 And you could check it out at joinhampton.com.
0:53:22 Click the report section on the menu.
0:53:24 Click the salary and compensation report.
0:53:25 It’s going to blow your mind.
0:53:26 You’re going to love this stuff.
0:53:28 Check it out. Now back to the pod.
0:53:31 Kelly, I want to shift gears real quick.
0:53:35 You we ask people before they come on the pod, we say, you know, what were some
0:53:40 of the big, you know, either philosophies, turning points in your life.
0:53:44 Things that really shaped you and shaped the way you think about the world.
0:53:48 You said something that the most formative experience was a HBS class.
0:53:51 So Harvard Business School class where a professor said that the most
0:53:56 depressed group of people he ever studied was HBS people 10 years after graduation.
0:54:01 What is that story and why would Harvard Business School grads 10 years
0:54:03 later be the most depressed group of people?
0:54:06 Yeah, it kind of made me think about the Scott Galloway interview you guys did
0:54:08 where he’s like, you know, don’t chase your passions.
0:54:11 I just I really don’t think that’s the right advice.
0:54:14 I don’t think we have an epidemic of people, you know, not, you know,
0:54:17 fully I don’t think we have an epidemic of people chasing their passions too much.
0:54:24 You know, what I’ve generally seen is a lot of our trauma and expectations
0:54:29 for society, you know, throwing really good human capital into suboptimal roads.
0:54:35 And yeah, so the HBS and it’s just one microcosm, you know, but just something
0:54:40 I saw everyone writes their application essay about, you know, transforming
0:54:44 and disrupting the world, disrupting health care, disrupting, you know,
0:54:46 energy, big industries, having a big impact.
0:54:51 And then like many things, you get into that room of, you know, of a thousand
0:54:56 people of kind of a type people and it’s a conformity factory.
0:55:02 So 85 to 90 percent of people by the end of the two years end up going
0:55:05 into traditional industries into finance and energy.
0:55:08 You know, my friend personally wrote an essay about transforming
0:55:11 health care went to McKinsey and, you know, I was on the team
0:55:15 that helped prescribe more opioids on their side that recently had to settle
0:55:17 lost it. So so you have this dynamic.
0:55:21 I think this happens at many layers throughout the country where based
0:55:25 on, you know, various fears that are ingrained in us by society, I think,
0:55:29 frankly, the gears of one of the negative gears of capitalism to just kind
0:55:32 of, you know, as John D. Rockefeller said, we need workers.
0:55:37 We don’t need thinkers, you know, that’s what a lot of our institutions do.
0:55:44 And this study, this professor, he surveyed white blue collar workers,
0:55:48 different socioeconomic classes, you know, every different professions,
0:55:51 you know, like like 30 different cohorts.
0:55:54 The most depressed group was these graduates 10 years out.
0:55:57 And again, the reason is because they go in with dreams.
0:56:00 They end up conforming and settling.
0:56:03 Their lifestyle gets to the point where they don’t have really flexibility
0:56:06 to take that stab, to take that dream.
0:56:09 They feel professionally unfulfilled, but trapped.
0:56:12 And then, you know, 10 years out, they really have a lot of regrets,
0:56:16 at least professionally, but that maybe bleeds into other areas.
0:56:22 And, you know, I generally feel like like grateful, honestly.
0:56:25 Like, like, in a weird way, my mom’s death was always what I’d feared
0:56:29 most in life, that happening, and in a way kind of cementing
0:56:34 the finiteness of life and and a mission into my head.
0:56:36 I feel really like grateful for.
0:56:40 And yeah, I think people not chasing their passions,
0:56:43 not fully self-actualizing themselves is a much bigger problem
0:56:46 than than too many people fall in their passions.
0:56:51 You also said that taking mushrooms was like one of the most impactful things.
0:56:54 Did you tell Cali your almost mushrooms story?
0:56:57 Yeah, listen to this.
0:57:01 So, you know, I have issues that I’m always working out.
0:57:02 I had some I had some trauma.
0:57:05 I was working out and I and I went to this.
0:57:10 I went to this meeting of this woman who she called herself a shaman,
0:57:14 was going to lead me along with my wife through a MDMA
0:57:17 or something like that therapy session.
0:57:20 I go to the dinner and the meet and greet and she starts saying things
0:57:23 like we need to give this medicine for free to everyone.
0:57:25 And I was like, yeah, but I’m paying like five grand to do this.
0:57:27 Can I have it for free?
0:57:28 She didn’t like that.
0:57:30 And then she was like she asked where I was from.
0:57:31 I said, Missouri.
0:57:34 And she goes, oh, fly over country.
0:57:37 And I was like, all right, that’s strike two.
0:57:40 And then I start asking her a little bit more.
0:57:41 And she starts talking about capitalism
0:57:45 and how it’s ruined medicine and capitalism is horrible and all this stuff.
0:57:47 I’m like, well, lady, again, I’m paying you five grand to be here.
0:57:50 And I was like, so what were you doing before this?
0:57:52 She goes, I used to work at Lehman Brothers.
0:57:55 And when it collapsed, I left and started doing this.
0:57:57 And I was like, I’m out, lady, I’m out.
0:57:59 And she and she texted me.
0:58:02 She texted me and she was like, I don’t think this is a good fit.
0:58:03 And I was like, I agree.
0:58:07 This is this is a round pig at a square hole.
0:58:08 This is not a good fit.
0:58:10 Didn’t you tell her you’re like, I can’t do drugs with you?
0:58:14 Yeah, I was like, look, I was already on the on the fence about taking drugs.
0:58:16 And if I’m going to take drugs and it could be with you.
0:58:20 And you said that taking psilocybin was was awesome.
0:58:22 Sean, have you ever done this stuff, by the way?
0:58:22 And would you ever do it?
0:58:25 I’ve only done it like recreationally, like 15 years ago.
0:58:27 I have never done it.
0:58:30 I don’t want to say I would never do it, but it’s never been something that’s called me.
0:58:33 But, you know, I hear these stories and I want to hear your story, Kelly,
0:58:38 because the people who advocate for are people I like for people I respect.
0:58:41 And there are people who they advocate for in such a strong way
0:58:46 that it does make me curious, like, wow, what a one of the things I’ve learned
0:58:48 in life is that some of the most valuable things are the things
0:58:51 you don’t know how to value, meaning you’ve never traveled.
0:58:53 So you don’t get the big deal about travel.
0:58:54 You’ve never done this.
0:58:56 You don’t understand what you’re missing out on.
0:58:58 And those are some of the most valuable things.
0:59:01 And when somebody is is stuck in all those mindsets, you just want to shake them.
0:59:04 And like, dude, you don’t know, trust me, like, whatever.
0:59:06 I don’t know if this is one of those things, but I’ve heard about it enough
0:59:08 where it’s made me curious.
0:59:09 Yeah, yeah.
0:59:11 So first, Sam, I think you made the right decision.
0:59:13 Set and setting is very important.
0:59:21 I think that encouragement of therapeutic psilocybin use
0:59:25 for anyone that feels called, Sean, I think you make a great for anyone
0:59:30 that feels called is the most important single thing we can do in America.
0:59:33 Period. I actually believe that.
0:59:37 I think we are truly losing our minds a bit in the country
0:59:40 through the all this change that’s happening.
0:59:44 The highest leverage area we can do work on is our brains.
0:59:48 And this isn’t everything,
0:59:54 but it is a blunt force, extremely powerful tool to help rewire our brains.
0:59:56 Yeah, let me let me let me give my experience.
0:59:58 So my mom dies.
1:00:01 I’m kind of at an existential moment on kind of thinking about, you know,
1:00:02 what I want to do.
1:00:04 Our company was cranking before COVID.
1:00:08 You had 100 employees was with struggling because the whole market was cut off.
1:00:12 And I, again, a conservative guy, never super stigmatized
1:00:15 if you never thought about these things.
1:00:17 Yeah, can you imagine you know, like 12 year old
1:00:20 you were in your Brooks Brothers case being like one day
1:00:21 you’re going to be advocating for psychedelics.
1:00:23 I still got the Brooks. No, I could have never.
1:00:25 I still got the sports coach, still got the Brooks Brothers.
1:00:28 I try to wear that when I talk about this,
1:00:30 because I think it’s a very important thing actually across the aisle.
1:00:31 Everyone needs to wake up to.
1:00:34 But and I do talk to a lot of Republicans about this or waking up.
1:00:39 But yeah, so a friend who is a scientist said,
1:00:45 let’s do this therapeutic session, blindfold, high dose music,
1:00:48 four hours, introspective alone.
1:00:53 And I’ll give a couple examples of what I saw.
1:00:55 So it’s really hard to describe, but I was working with my wife.
1:00:59 And, you know, we were running a startup stressful.
1:01:01 You know, we would quibble a lot.
1:01:04 And I saw myself kind of getting angry at her.
1:01:09 And then my brain like zoomed up and I saw the expanse of the whole like world.
1:01:10 Like it like zoomed out of the whole galaxy.
1:01:14 And I’m like, it just put this simple inside of my head.
1:01:19 Like, I’m so fucking stupid to get mad at my amazing wife about these stupid things
1:01:21 in the expanse of like how lucky I am.
1:01:22 It’s a simple insight.
1:01:25 We can all say that, like to be grateful that you shouldn’t throw at the small stuff.
1:01:30 I’ve I’m not perfect by any means, but I think about that like every hour,
1:01:34 like with her, like it’s totally it’s like a car crash,
1:01:37 like submitted to my head of how grateful and lucky I am with her.
1:01:40 How stupid it is to get like angry over small things.
1:01:43 Completely transformed my thought on that.
1:01:47 I saw my mom and she gave me a hug.
1:01:50 And I like had this idea that she still lived within me and that I could carry
1:01:54 her legacy forward by like working with my sister on the book and various,
1:01:59 you know, this mission to kind of try to carry her story forward.
1:02:02 I truly like have that imprinted in my head.
1:02:03 I’ve never been upset about my mom dying.
1:02:07 And I truly feel like viscerally that she lives inside us and lives inside this
1:02:10 mission and lives inside the book we wrote. Again, it’s a simple.
1:02:12 The best way to describe it is the neuroplasticity.
1:02:15 You can talk about a car crash or you can get in a car crash.
1:02:18 And it’s like when something really traumatic happens,
1:02:21 your brain like wires and it’s like deep rooted in your brain.
1:02:25 What it does is it it helps you kind of get out of the
1:02:30 trauma and thought processes and fears that we’re inevitably ingrained with
1:02:35 and helps cement in a really solid way.
1:02:40 Some of these potentially new frameworks that that sound
1:02:45 right, but are like have the seriousness of a long term thing.
1:02:47 And then the other thing I’d say, and I think a lot of people talk about this.
1:02:50 And again, Sean, it’s only I just share my story.
1:02:54 It’s only, you know, as you’re called, I think it is important to hear these stories.
1:02:58 I think it’s really dumb and kind of not correct to talk about as some kind of
1:03:03 like corporate or executive hack, because it’s much deeper than that.
1:03:07 But for me, it’s the most profound and important professional thing I’ve ever done.
1:03:11 I mean, like the whole kind of growing up at DC, trying to chase up the ladder,
1:03:15 go to the good schools, the HBS, you know, conformity, it definitely is like,
1:03:18 you know, definitely, I think consistently gives you this kind of like,
1:03:22 you know, idea of how these stupid games are playing just don’t matter.
1:03:27 And definitely solidified in my head, like hopefully some fearlessness
1:03:33 on like pushing, you know, a mission forward and it led to what I’m doing now.
1:03:36 And, you know, I’d like to think that’s ingrained in the company.
1:03:40 I, you know, from my perspective, having a mission that’s sincere,
1:03:44 that Justin and I have, and it’s been a differentiator in recruiting like-minded
1:03:46 people and customers and merchants.
1:03:48 It’s not a panacea for everything.
1:03:52 I think a lot of people get to this place through prayer, through meditation,
1:03:52 through other routes.
1:03:57 It’s not like a shortcut, but it definitely is a way brute force to get out
1:04:00 of your traps that are holding you back.
1:04:02 That’s pretty damn convincing, Sean.
1:04:06 Yeah, I think you, like to make an appointment.
1:04:09 Yeah, I think you’re going to have your busy next weekend.
1:04:11 I think you’re going to have to mark some time off, I don’t know, man.
1:04:15 That sounds, when I hear that, I think blindfolded with headphones on.
1:04:17 I find that to be incredibly intimidating.
1:04:20 I find I want the, I want the result.
1:04:21 I don’t know if I can go through that.
1:04:23 Did you do it one time or have you done it more since?
1:04:25 Is it like a regular thing?
1:04:29 Yeah, I think it’s like giving childbirth that, you know, it was a
1:04:31 profound experience, so I want to do right away again.
1:04:35 It’s a really, but I’ve done it a couple more times.
1:04:41 I mean, to be totally honest, Sam, it’s all about, I will promise you this.
1:04:46 And frankly, this is my perspective, but if anyone feels called, if you are
1:04:50 called and you’re doing it in a good setting without, you know,
1:04:54 somebody ranting about politics to you before and where you feel safe and you
1:04:58 walk towards the, and this is what the clinical research says, quite frankly,
1:05:02 but if you walk towards your fears, if you go into it a way to explore and
1:05:07 walk towards, you know, your, your, your issues, whatever that means to you.
1:05:11 It’s going to be, I’ve never personally met someone that’s done it in a
1:05:13 responsible therapeutic way, who hasn’t said it’s been the most impactful
1:05:14 experience of their lives.
1:05:17 I actually don’t know anyone that hasn’t said that.
1:05:20 It’s not like a club or anything, but it truly is.
1:05:21 If you’re called to do it.
1:05:23 I would say this to people.
1:05:26 If this resonates, I would try to do it like urgently.
1:05:31 Like, like, I think your life is really like many people I know.
1:05:33 And for me, it’s like kind of before and after.
1:05:36 Is this legal?
1:05:39 Like, can you Google like, like Silicillum Retreat near me?
1:05:40 Yeah, yeah.
1:05:46 So I, I, I did it in a, this legal in some countries.
1:05:52 There’s a phase three FDA approval in the United States to make it legal,
1:05:54 which we’re just, I’m actually advocating a lot on too.
1:05:56 I think it fits into the whole root cause health thing that we’re trying to
1:05:59 push forward their surreligious exemptions.
1:06:03 There’s a state by state, um, a decriminalization.
1:06:04 So I’m not going to give legal advice.
1:06:11 I would, I would urge people to find a responsible legal, uh, way, uh, to do it
1:06:14 therapeutically in a, in a trusted safe setting.
1:06:21 Um, and, um, yeah, in Sam, it’s, it’s just, it’s just about what, when
1:06:25 ever you, you feel called, but, uh, but it’s four hours.
1:06:29 It’s exploring your, you know, your, uh, it was holding us all back.
1:06:29 Right.
1:06:31 There’s different narratives and stuff.
1:06:33 I mean, I think you guys are amazing how openly you can talk about
1:06:35 kind of your mental models and stuff.
1:06:37 It’s just a way to like zoom out and re-explore those.
1:06:39 Yeah.
1:06:40 I think it’s awesome.
1:06:41 I’m totally in favor of it.
1:06:44 I just, it’s not, I’m, I’m a little intimidated still.
1:06:48 Well, one of my favorite phrases is, uh, when the student is ready, the
1:06:50 teacher appears and I think, you know, you’re saying when you’re called to
1:06:54 something, I’ve always felt this way, which is that, um, things happen
1:06:58 at the right time and you, you know, intuitively you’ll, you’ll know when
1:07:01 the right time is for certain things or if it’s for you, there’s a great
1:07:05 YouTube video I watched of Tim Ferriss talking about, um, psychedelics.
1:07:08 Tim Ferriss is a big advocate for psychedelics.
1:07:11 I think he has a nonprofit that he started that’s funding research.
1:07:15 But what I liked about his video was that he wasn’t trying to convince you
1:07:15 at all to do it.
1:07:18 In fact, he started by essentially convincing you all the reasons you
1:07:24 shouldn’t do it, um, and was very measured and responsible in the way
1:07:24 that he talked about it.
1:07:28 So if anybody’s curious, if this made you curious, I would watch that video
1:07:30 because I thought that was very helpful in framing it.
1:07:32 I won’t try to summarize his points because I thought he did a good job,
1:07:35 but just try to Google or YouTube for, uh, for Tim Ferriss talking about it.
1:07:36 It’s like a five minute clip or something.
1:07:38 I completely agree with that.
1:07:41 It’s not like an endorsement, but it is criminal.
1:07:44 And I think one of the biggest issues in the country that we don’t make
1:07:45 this tool available.
1:07:49 Just last week, uh, the FDA actually threw a wrench into the
1:07:51 approval process for MDMA.
1:07:55 Um, again, like Justin and I see Trumette as an advocacy organization.
1:07:58 We’re, we’re lobbying and recover relationships with a hundred members of
1:07:59 Congress, both sides of the aisle.
1:08:02 We’re actually working with presidential candidates too.
1:08:05 And, and, and, uh, members of Congress to brief them about this issue.
1:08:11 The FDA does not like these treatments because instead of long term kind
1:08:15 of numbing your symptoms, it actually does help you get into, you know,
1:08:18 the cause and unpacking the trauma that we all have and the mental
1:08:19 models that we all have.
1:08:22 So actually, like, you know, this gets into what we were talking about earlier.
1:08:25 Like these type of, I consider this a root cause treatment, right?
1:08:29 Anything that gets to the root with mental health, it’s obviously the,
1:08:32 the mental models holding us back with metabolic conditions.
1:08:34 It’s, it’s food and lifestyle habits.
1:08:37 What’s interesting is, is, you know, when you first started talking about this,
1:08:40 I was almost chuckling a little bit to myself, like, oh, uh, you know,
1:08:43 first he was kind of railing against prescribing a drug to solve the problem.
1:08:45 And then here he’s saying the drug solves the problem for me.
1:08:47 Or it, it was a great intervention.
1:08:50 But what actually what you’re saying is that in both cases,
1:08:51 it’s the cleaning of the fish tank.
1:08:54 So in the first case that the cleaning, the thing that was making
1:08:55 you sick was the food.
1:08:57 And the second case, the thing that was making you sick in the head was
1:09:00 your own story and perspective on things.
1:09:04 And this was a way to change the narrative in your head, the perspective
1:09:05 in the story that you were telling yourself every day.
1:09:08 So I think in both cases, you’re actually advocating for cleaning the tank.
1:09:09 Yeah.
1:09:12 It is my wife and Justin and people that know me will tell you, I have a long,
1:09:14 I have a long way to go.
1:09:16 Am I the biggest room in my house is the room for improvement.
1:09:20 But like, for me, this, you know, what I did, what a bumper.
1:09:21 I love that.
1:09:24 What I did this a couple of times and I haven’t done it a long time,
1:09:30 Sean, because it just, it jams for me of like, it’s the basics.
1:09:35 It’s like, be a good person, try to exercise, eat healthy, meditate, you know,
1:09:38 like, like, like the key to life is that like, that was a big thing for me.
1:09:43 It’s just like having the Nirvana experience of what the world is with this is one thing.
1:09:48 But like the implementation for me is like, so that was my message from it.
1:09:50 And I think it’s like, it was a good message for me.
1:09:53 It’s like, I think that’s what most people that do this in a therapeutic way get.
1:09:55 It’s like, I need to be a better person.
1:09:56 Things are connected.
1:10:00 So yeah, it’s not like, like you take it and it’s a panacea.
1:10:01 It’s like, it’s like a tool.
1:10:07 It is a like nuclear weapon, like blood force instrument to like jam some truths.
1:10:12 And it is, you know, not to get too trippy, but it is a natural substance.
1:10:17 You know, the oldest living organism that we basically derived from this fungus.
1:10:20 So, you know, yeah, that’s a good question.
1:10:26 But it’s not to me, it’s not anti pharma, pro pharma.
1:10:29 It’s what is a root cause cure?
1:10:34 What actually helps us, you know, get to the get to the problem.
1:10:41 And I think most modalities that help us actually cure things are are pushed back
1:10:47 against and and drugs that are basically help numb and are recurring are incentivized.
1:10:53 Do you ever take it like just have fun, like recreationally or only medicinally?
1:10:55 I mean, I’ve taken it recreationally.
1:10:56 I thought it was awesome.
1:10:58 Yeah, I didn’t high, high level.
1:11:02 I’d say like it’s impossible to even like articulate.
1:11:07 And like, I don’t have the English words to articulate how different like a like taking
1:11:10 something at a concert is versus the therapeutic experience.
1:11:11 It’s like it’s like a different stratosphere.
1:11:15 Like I truly think if people are called for and do it a therapeutic high dose way,
1:11:19 it’s going to be one of the most impactful experiences of their lives.
1:11:24 So it’s I just say it’s very, very, very different, the set and setting and dose.
1:11:31 But high level, I think when you just compare the science on things like alcohol
1:11:35 and other drugs that we take versus versus what these drugs do,
1:11:38 which are actually brain regenerative in many ways and very low side effects.
1:11:43 I think even how we think about recreational drug use is, you know, our government,
1:11:47 you know, we prescribe 15 percent of high schoolers, basically meth, you know,
1:11:50 Adderall, which is which is literally like one molecule away from meth.
1:11:54 We, you know, caffeine is pretty powerful, alcohol is very harmful.
1:11:58 You know, I think we totally have a backwards on what’s appropriate
1:12:00 for recreational use and I think it’s I think it’s just fine.
1:12:03 Personally, just from a medical perspective,
1:12:06 from a scientific leadership perspective, even from like a spiritual perspective,
1:12:10 it’s like, you know, people taking low doses of psychedelics and talking about
1:12:11 their feelings, talking about their lives, getting deep.
1:12:16 I mean, it’s kind of like, where did this like deep?
1:12:19 Where did like I was watching this thing from the 80s
1:12:22 where they were talking about MDMA and it’s like, too many people are going
1:12:25 dancing and feeling together and loving to each other.
1:12:29 It’s like, it’s like, it’s like, it’s like, watch like that fear.
1:12:32 My brain gets like, is that a bad thing?
1:12:34 Like, and then there’s like very little side effects.
1:12:37 So on the end, you make frog commercials.
1:12:40 This is like, this is your brain on drugs and it’s just a flower.
1:12:41 It’s nice.
1:12:43 It’s there’s no problem with it.
1:12:45 You know, I wanted to say thank you for coming on.
1:12:49 I appreciate your kind of your openness and I don’t know,
1:12:51 your contrarian opinions, because I’ll be honest with you.
1:12:54 A lot of times when you were talking, I was thinking,
1:12:58 is this a conspiracy theory or is this a fact?
1:13:01 At the same time, I was thinking, he sounds crazy,
1:13:05 but my eyes verify what he’s saying.
1:13:09 Meaning I look at the food where we eat and we’re sold.
1:13:11 I look at the people around me.
1:13:15 I look at the health conditions and you’re not wrong about that.
1:13:17 And so I thought this is one of the more interesting episodes.
1:13:21 It’s one of the few episodes I would say is an important episode.
1:13:24 Like we do a lot of fun episodes, interesting episodes,
1:13:26 but this is one of the few that I could say is important.
1:13:29 And yeah, I just appreciate you coming on, man.
1:13:30 This is this is a good time.
1:13:31 I appreciate you guys so much.
1:13:34 And my big pitch in anyone listening that resonates,
1:13:36 there’s a lot of economic opportunity
1:13:38 if you agree with this thesis, because it has to change.
1:13:40 And we need more entrepreneurs,
1:13:42 need more people thinking about changing health perspectives,
1:13:44 because it has to move in that direction.
1:13:46 I appreciate you guys so much.
1:13:50 List of the podcast every episode and just awesome to talk shop with you guys.
1:13:52 You’re the man. We appreciate you. Thank you.
1:13:53 All right. That’s the pod.
1:13:56 I feel like I can rule the world.
1:14:02 I know I could be what I want to put my all in it like the days on the road.
1:14:04 Let’s travel never looking back.
1:14:05 – Bye.