Why Psychedelics Might Be the Breakthrough That PTSD Patients Need (Kevin Ryan, The Godfather of NYC Tech)

Speaker A: Everyone is tempted because if you start a company for very little money, you might own 50% of it, which makes it seem easy. But on the other hand, can you get the right entrepreneur? Can you build it up? Can you build the team? Can you do the right things? Speaker B: You mentioned finding the right entrepreneur. Is that sort of the hardest part of the equation in your experience and where most folks fall foul of it? Speaker A: Look, at the end of the day, a company is very simple.

You need an idea and a great team. It's doing it that's hard. So there aren't that many great ideas. There aren't that many great teams. So you have to get both of them right. Speaker B: What are some of the themes that you are excited about when you look at 2035 that are top of mind for you right now? Speaker A: Clearly, we're not the only people AI ripples through every single thing we do. Even our robotics practice, which felt like a mechanical engineering project 6 years ago, is now largely an AI-driven product.

And so using AI tools correctly, making sure we're doing a good job on sourcing. If AI has an impact on jobs, what does that mean for retraining companies? What is going to be protected? Speaker B: What isn't? Speaker C: Hey, I'm Mario. Speaker B: And this is the Generalist Podcast. As the saying goes, the future is already here. It's just not evenly distributed. Each week I sit down with the founders, investors, and thinkers who are living in the future to help you see what's coming next and capitalize on it. Today I'm speaking with Kevin Ryan, the founder and CEO of AlleyCorp.

Speaker C: Kevin is arguably one of tech's most successful serial entrepreneurs and a legendary figure in the New York venture scene. He famously led DoubleClick to a $3 billion acquisition from Google, co-founded MongoDB, which grew into a $25 billion public company, and has incubated dozens of other ventures from Zola to Business Insider. In our conversation, we explore two surprising pockets of the future that Kevin is betting on: psychedelics for mental health and AI-powered material science. Kevin shares how psychedelics are achieving unprecedented results in treating depression and PTSD. And why AI may discover revolutionary new materials, everything from helicopter blades to smartphone glass, that humans never imagined possible.

We also dive into why e-commerce turned out to be a worse business than physical retail, what it really costs society to imprison someone for a year, and the hard-won lessons of building successful incubations. If you enjoyed today's episode, I hope you'll consider subscribing and joining us for some of the incredible ones we have coming up. Speaker C: Kevin is arguably one of tech's most successful serial entrepreneurs and a legendary figure in the New York venture scene. He famously led DoubleClick to a $3 billion acquisition from Google, co-founded MongoDB, which grew into a $25 billion public company, and has incubated dozens of other ventures from Zola to Business Insider.

In our conversation, we explore two surprising pockets of the future that Kevin is betting on: psychedelics for mental health and AI-powered material science. Kevin shares how psychedelics are achieving unprecedented results in treating depression and PTSD. And why AI may discover revolutionary new materials, everything from helicopter blades to smartphone glass, that humans never imagined possible. We also dive into why e-commerce turned out to be a worse business than physical retail, what it really costs society to imprison someone for a year, and the hard-won lessons of building successful incubations. If you enjoyed today's episode, I hope you'll consider subscribing and joining us for some of the incredible ones we have coming up.

Speaker B: Now, here's my conversation with Kevin. Speaker C: This episode is brought to you by Interpret. Interpret is a customer intelligence platform used by leading CX and product orgs like Canva, Notion, Perplexity, Strava, Hinge, and Linear to leverage the voice of the customer and build best-in-class products. Interpret unifies all customer conversations in real time, from Gong recordings to Zendesk tickets to Twitter threads, and makes it available for your team for analysis and action. What makes Interpret unique is its ability to build and update a customer-specific knowledge graph that provides the most granular and accurate categorization of all customer feedback and connects that customer feedback to critical metrics like revenue and CSAT.

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to/mario. Kevin, I've been super looking forward to this. Speaker B: I started my, uh, tech career in New York Venture, in which you are kind of a mythical creature in many respects. You know, I remember, uh, knowing that you were the, the godfather of this tech ecosystem and have played such a huge part in it. So, Uh, it's really a privilege and a great pleasure to have you. Speaker A: I think it's just that I've been around for a long time. Uh, and so that's, that's a big, a big part of it, but I'm still having fun and it's been extraordinary to see, you know, how much it's developed over 30 years.

Speaker B: I can only imagine. Yes. Well, we're going to jump into all sorts of different topics today, particularly psychedelics and material science, which are two areas that, you know, uh, I think are really interesting pockets of the future that a lot of people are, are not thinking about, but that you have thought about deeply. Uh, but before we jump into those, I wondered if you might, uh, reflect on what your favorite Dilbert comic might be, because I believe you have quite a storied history with that franchise. Speaker A: The classic one is the person who wins first prize was going to be lunch with his boss, and, you know, the second prize was going to be two lunches with his boss.

Um, I think Scott Adams, uh, you know, hit a real moment in time in the '90s. Uh, where, you know, tech workers were just coming out and he was incredibly funny. And what I always appreciate when I was working with him on, on a website is I could send him a paragraph that I had written that was really not very funny. And literally 10 minutes later, he'd send it back and it was hysterical. I mean, just on the spot. Uh, he was, he's very talented. Wow. Speaker B: How, uh, how did that happen?

You were working at United Media, but how did that sort of combo come together? Speaker A: What happened was that we owned the rights. We were a syndicate, which doesn't exist as much anymore, but we owned the rights to all these, um, pieces of content that were sold to newspapers. So crossword puzzles, columns, uh, comic strips, and that was our business. But we launched a website and the website, the most popular by far of all the comic strips, even though we owned Peanuts as well, was Dilbert. And part of it was because tech-oriented people.

Knew Dilbert and they could access things before browsers. And so Dilbert became by far the most successful comic strip out of the 40 we put on the website. And then we created merchandise, we created advertising, all of that in, uh, created in 1995. So it was very early. And that led to me thinking that the internet was going to be a huge thing, which is sort of obvious in retrospect, but at the time wasn't, and that everyone would be buying things, selling things. And that I should devote the next 20 years of my life to working in internet-related things.

Speaker B: Wow. Amazing. Maybe you can tell us how that sort of, you know, bridged the gap from Dilbert to AlleyCorp, so to speak, because there were a lot of chapters in the middle. Speaker A: Yeah. So the quick summary is that the company I was working for wasn't committed to investing in the internet yet in '95, '96. So I decided I was going to go off and start an internet company. I went off. The internet was very, very small at that time. So in New York, there'd be maybe 50 people getting together.

And I ran across two guys who had started DoubleClick. Uh, I contemplated going out to San Francisco because a lot of things, more things were happening there, but I really wanted to stay in New York. I was very bullish on New York. Um, so I ran across these two guys and then they convinced me to join them at DoubleClick where I started as the CFO, became the president, and then became the CEO over time and built that up over 9 years from 10 people to 1,500 people, publicly traded. And then eventually Google bought it for about $3 billion.

Then for the next decade, I started companies and started investing in companies. So I started MongoDB, which became a $25 billion publicly traded company. I started Business Insider, very successful news. I started Zola, a wedding registry company. I started Gilt Group, did about $500 million in e-commerce. So, you know, just evolved into starting and investing in companies, and that was eventually became AlliCorp over the next decade. Speaker B: Yeah, I always think, you know, AlliCorp is one of the few organizations that really seems to understand both how to invest successfully and incubate successfully.

I think you see a lot of firms, hopefully they're good at one, um, but often the folks who are good at the investing side think at some point in their strategy, hey, this is, you know, we should bolt on some incubations and we'll be able to figure this out. And it seems to be much, much harder than than people recognize from the outside. Speaker A: Absolutely. The vast majority end up failing. It takes more patience. It's harder. It's more risk. Everyone is tempted because if you start a company, you know, for very little money, you might own 50% of it, which makes it seem easy.

But on the other hand, can you get the right entrepreneur? Can you build it up? Can you build the team? Can you do the right things? That's a real skill. And not that many people have gotten it right. Speaker B: You know, you mentioned finding the right entrepreneur. Is that sort of the hardest part of, of the equation in your experience and where most folks, you know, maybe fall foul of it? Speaker A: Look, at the end of the day, a, a company's very simple. You need an idea and a great team.

It's doing it that's hard. So there aren't that many great ideas. There aren't that many great teams. So you have to get both of them right. But yeah, both are hard. Yeah, both are hard. But I think any CEO would say finding a great head of sales or a great CFO is also difficult by definition. You know, the, the Brooklyn Nets have trouble finding great, great NBA players. Yeah, they're trying. It's, if it were easy, everyone would do that and they'd all win the championships, but it's hard. Speaker B: To what extent at this point is Alleycorp's approach to incubation like quite systematized or is, you know, so much of this variable depending on the idea, depending on the team that you actually sort of need to be much more fluid with it?

Speaker B: To what extent at this point is Alleycorp's approach to incubation like quite systematized or is, you know, so much of this variable depending on the idea, depending on the team that you actually sort of need to be much more fluid with it? Speaker A: You need to be pretty fluid because one, you, as you know, we do things in very different industries. So, you know, when I started an e-commerce company selling women's fashion at a discount, that's pretty different than a database company. You have different people, different skills, different, going after different, different, uh, investors.

So you have to have the intellectual flexibility to not just have a standard playbook. Are there some things that you share at the end of the day? You need a great team, need to raise money from the right investors. You need to make the right decisions in spending enough money to be successful, but not so much money that you run out. All those things are part of building a business and they're not easy. But, um, no, I think you have to adapt to each business. Speaker B: You mentioned that, you know, MongoDB obviously had this, you know, truly, you know, remarkable outcome.

And there have been, you know, so many other successes when you talk about Zola and, and so on. What was it, do you think, about MongoDB in particular that meant it had maybe an order of magnitude bigger, or, or let's say close to that, than even the other successes? Was it, you know, just that the market was so much more interesting? Was it sort of the team? Maybe both of those two factors? Speaker A: Yeah, first of all, we were going after an incredibly large market. I mean, even though Mongo is a very successful company, think of how big, you know, Oracle still is today.

SAP, you know, think of Snowflake. There's all these different companies that have different database structures. So it just turns out that data became from 2008 till today, so much bigger and more important. You know, when we started, John Deere didn't have databases and now every tractor they sell has to have a database to capture the amount of fertilizer, let's say that they're doing by row. That's something that was just unimaginable, you know, 30 years ago. You know, we have, we have clients that are train companies that puts sensors on every single wheel on a train.

Wow. To know whether it's going to break or not, because sensors are so cheap now. That's something that just didn't occur. So we were right, lucky or smart, seeing that the market we were going into was going to grow dramatically. It's a hard product. Databases are not easy. And so my two co-founders, uh, Elliot Horowitz and Dwight Merriman, you know, were truly technically brilliant. And came up with a great product. We did a lot of great recruiting, built a good team. And so, but it was hard, you know, for 3 and a half years, we had no revenue.

That is not easy to raise, uh, your second or third round of financing. We were giving away the product. It wasn't good enough for primetime in the very beginning to do mission critical functions, but tens of thousands of companies were using it. It was getting better and better. People started paying for it. So it did take time. You know, when we started Mongo, uh, we didn't know that we were going to lose a billion dollars before we had a profitable quarter. And I believe that in 2008, I don't think another company had lost a billion dollars before having a profitable quarter.

So luckily the financial markets saved us and became more open. And Uber probably lost $5 billion during that time. Or they, um, you know, Tesla, other people. And that's what's so remarkable about the, the financial markets pretty much uniquely in the United States is, and, and they're not being dumb. If they can see the numbers are happening, they will fund things and, uh, and create big companies. A billion dollars seems like a lot of money to lose, but you think about it, we created a $25 billion company. Speaker A: Yeah, first of all, we were going after an incredibly large market.

I mean, even though Mongo is a very successful company, think of how big, you know, Oracle still is today. SAP, you know, think of Snowflake. There's all these different companies that have different database structures. So it just turns out that data became from 2008 till today, so much bigger and more important. You know, when we started, John Deere didn't have databases and now every tractor they sell has to have a database to capture the amount of fertilizer, let's say that they're doing by row. That's something that was just unimaginable, you know, 30 years ago.

You know, we have, we have clients that are train companies that puts sensors on every single wheel on a train. Wow. To know whether it's going to break or not, because sensors are so cheap now. That's something that just didn't occur. So we were right, lucky or smart, seeing that the market we were going into was going to grow dramatically. It's a hard product. Databases are not easy. And so my two co-founders, uh, Elliot Horowitz and Dwight Merriman, you know, were truly technically brilliant. And came up with a great product.

We did a lot of great recruiting, built a good team. And so, but it was hard, you know, for 3 and a half years, we had no revenue. That is not easy to raise, uh, your second or third round of financing. We were giving away the product. It wasn't good enough for primetime in the very beginning to do mission critical functions, but tens of thousands of companies were using it. It was getting better and better. People started paying for it. So it did take time. You know, when we started Mongo, uh, we didn't know that we were going to lose a billion dollars before we had a profitable quarter.

And I believe that in 2008, I don't think another company had lost a billion dollars before having a profitable quarter. So luckily the financial markets saved us and became more open. And Uber probably lost $5 billion during that time. Or they, um, you know, Tesla, other people. And that's what's so remarkable about the, the financial markets pretty much uniquely in the United States is, and, and they're not being dumb. If they can see the numbers are happening, they will fund things and, uh, and create big companies. A billion dollars seems like a lot of money to lose, but you think about it, we created a $25 billion company.

Speaker B: Yes. Speaker A: I asked you, would you put in a dollar if you get $25 worth of value? All day long. Speaker B: Of course. You know, the other company that you, or one of the other ones you mentioned there was Gilt, which You know, I think has such an interesting story. I remember being, you know, in New York, in the tech scene at that time, and really feeling like, you know, this was almost the future of e-commerce. And it did have, you know, quite a height and, you know, still achieved great things, but maybe didn't reach the, the pinnacles of what people thought it might.

When you reflect back on that, like what were the pieces of that model or the timing that just like maybe didn't line up in quite the right way? Speaker A: No, I talk about this, this example in business schools because, oh really? Imagine I run into you and it's 2010. So I'm 2 years in. You asked me, hey Kevin, how are your, how are your companies doing? And I say, well, Mongo has zero revenue again this year. And Gilt, just remember this, did $175 million of revenue in year 2. Speaker B: Wow.

Speaker A: I don't believe any company in New York City has ever done that. Speaker B: Yes. Speaker A: Last 25 years. And if you had said to me, which company is getting more valuable? I would have said, I mean, what are you talking about? Obviously Gilt. This is a phenomenon, as you remember, but the industry changed. And so what happened was it in 2010, you couldn't buy Marc Jacobs at 50% off on the Marc Jacobs website because they didn't even have a website. They were a business to business, you know, brand that sold to Bloomingdale's and Saks and people like this.

They didn't have a lot of stores. And then within a couple years you could buy Marc Jacobs at 50% off on Macy's, on Farfetch, uh, on 10 other websites, on Marc Jacobs, on Theory. I mean, there was, I mean, I mean, there were so many brands. So, uh, we didn't have a differentiated enough product and pretty soon, you know, people would just shop the internet and find the right price, which was great for them and it was bad for us. Yes. Speaker B: Okay. Interesting. Speaker A: The competitive dynamics just changed so much, which is why It turned out that most people didn't anticipate that e-commerce for almost everyone is a worse business than running a store.

And the reason is, if you walk into a store today and you see a jacket you like and it's $150, you know, maybe you can get it for $10 less, 10 miles away. You're not gonna go do that. Speaker B: Yes. Speaker A: One, you don't even know. Even if you did know, you're like, ah, I gotta drive 10 miles. I'm not gonna do that. But online, it's one click away. Boom. You're gonna go for the cheaper jacket. And that $10 is the entire margin of the entire business. And so the guy who loses the $10 loses 100% of his profits.

Speaker B: With the benefit of hindsight, were there moves, you know, within the realm of what that business was, you know, not without saying like, actually we would just become Shopify, you know, whatever, you know, we keep the frame roughly the same. That you think would've made a difference, or was this just, hey, you know, we're hitting a new market reality and actually there's sort of not much you can do in that situation? Speaker A: So on the one hand, what I'd say is the fact that there's no successful company doing what we did even today, 15 years later, suggests that it's a hard business model to pull off.

You know, one of the things I look back on, things I did is, you know, did the sector do badly? Or did we do badly compared to someone else? Then you know it's an execution problem. So in this example, no. But if I were doing Guilt again, and I've thought about doing Guilt again, I would make it smaller and more exclusive. I think what we did was a little bit like a nightclub. Let's say you have the coolest nightclub. Every night, 300 people are killing each other to try and get in the door.

Yes. You expand it to 1,000 people. It's no longer cool. Yeah, I don't want to go anymore. And so I should have restrained it more, uh, maybe even charged membership, only had the very best inventory. It would have been a slightly smaller business but maybe more sustainable. Speaker B: You know, it's interesting to hear that you, you know, you revisit these ideas and think about them, you know, years down the line. In, in your sort of day-to-day running Ally Corp, how do you sort of divide your time, get leverage on your time?

Are you spending a lot of times sort of living in the future and thinking up these theses? Is it, you know, more tactical on a day-to-day basis? Speaker A: As an organization, we do spend a lot of time, as you said, living in the future. We actually, in our offsite next week, we will put up the date 2035, just because it's 10 years from now. And we want to think about where is each industry going? What are the trends on the B2B side or B2C side that are happening that we believe are 10-year trends?

You know, which is a different way of thinking about things. And that's important. My day-to-day is threefold. One is I have 7 or 8 boards that I'm on. I'm generally chairing the company. Some of our more valuable companies that I want to, you know, uh, help. And I'm working with the CEOs. So almost every day I'm having 2 CEO conversations. Then there's a big chunk of time where I'm helping the partners, the principals, the associates at Alicor dealing with some tricky issue they haven't dealt with before. Judgment call. Uh, helping them interview someone, introducing to someone that might be helpful.

So just assisting the next most valuable 20 companies in the portfolio. And then the third thing are PR, general things like, you know, I, I bought a commercial real estate building, which will be an Ally Corp headquarters that we're moving into in SoHo in December. I've been, and has its own restaurant, bakery, things like that. I have some time on that, you know, political things. I. I don't know if you remember this summer, I, I, for the tech community, I interviewed Momdani in front of 200 VCs and CEOs. Same thing with Mayor Adams.

This morning I met with a candidate who's running for Congress on the Upper West Side. So things like that, that I can bridge and help the tech community with the business community because I am one of the co-founders of Tech NYC with Fred Wilson. Which is the tech lobby group, and I'm the vice chairman of the New York City partnership along with, you know, Jamie Dimon and the heads of Hearst and, uh, you know, Lazard and places like that. So trying to play a role, and that's something uniquely I can do for AliCorp.

Speaker B: It sounds like your calendar is taking a beating on a, on a very regular basis, but, um, wow, that is a lot to manage. Speaker A: And I have 4 conferences that I own now. So one is in deep tech, one is in longevity, which we was last weekend, and one is uh, Digital Health New York, which was a month ago, 380 people in New York City. And then I have an ideas conference, invitation only, called Odyssey, that occurs, uh, every year. And so I do spend time on that, which is also another way of meeting interesting people in fields that I'm excited about.

Speaker B: Wow, that's amazing. You know, you mentioned that you are on some boards and you chair these boards. Something that I hear from so many investors is what a nightmare so many boards can be and how much, you know, if it is not well managed, it just becomes pure venture posturing from the different folks at the table using it to sort of exert some kind of, uh, authority or power and, and actually ends up being at best sort of neutral for the founder. Um, and so, you know, as someone who's done this for a very long time, how do you make a board really productive?

Like, what are the ways to avoid that set of, circumstances? Speaker A: Yeah, one is choosing the right board members. So, you know, in general, I feel really good about the vast majority of board members I'm on boards with. Um, also, you know, it depends what you like to do. There are people who are VCs who I think are essentially bankers. They don't fundamentally maybe like the operating aspects of a business. I am at my core an operator, a CEO. And so I actually— and that's why I'm still doing this— I enjoy working with the CEO.

Dealing with those problems. You know, my day is mostly operate. It's helping someone figure out who to hire or what to do. And so I just like that. I mean, I feel like if you asked an artist after 20 years, you know, why are you still writing books? And they would look at you and go, this is what I like to do. It's not work. This is what I have to do. This book has to come out. Um, so this is what I like to do is help build businesses. And we truly build businesses.

And, and also when you're chairman and co-founder, it's a different relationship. I often chose the CEO. I want the CEO to succeed. I definitely don't want to do that job. I want them to be remarkably successful. And then I think about all the time, how can I help them? I don't want to use their time and just waste their time. Stay out of the way when you need to stay out of the way, but be available if you can, if you can help. Speaker B: I wonder to what extent working on these incubations has changed the way that you view founders.

Maybe change is not even the right word given that, you know, this has been the way that you've been practicing this for so long. But, uh, yeah, do you, does it make you feel like the founder is even more important than maybe some of your more traditional venture peers? Or, you know, do you actually start to think, hey, it's about putting this whole team together and sort of the obsession about the CEO or the one person is, is maybe overdone. Speaker A: I do think it's extraordinarily important as an investor to also be founding companies, which most people don't.

Why? Because it means you are in the mix all the time. If I'm talking to you as a founder, you know, we are doing the same things and sometimes we get it wrong. We see the challenges. It, you can't just put a spreadsheet together and say, oh, You know, on my spreadsheet, you hired a great head of sales. That means nothing. So we are doing it. We're dealing with these things. We are building products. You know, I, I own a 100-person engineering team that both works as an outsourced engineering company that I created 5 years ago that both works for our portfolio companies when we need engineers, but also works for a lot of other companies.

It means we're in the mix literally every day. On 15 different projects, choosing which, you know, tools to use, which AI tools to use. We're in, in it, doing it all the time. And I think that's very important, and I think it makes us better investors along the way. So I don't think it changes my orientation, uh, to what is important for people. You know, it's also humbling because, you know, these things are hard. There's a reason only 1% of companies become unicorns, you know. It's like, you know, we all played sports in high school and not that many of us ended up playing pro.

There are very, very few spots at the, at the top. It's, and so it's important to be humble. Speaker B: To the extent that you're comfortable, what are some of the themes that you are excited about when you look at, at 2035 and, you know, that are top of mind for you right now? Speaker A: Well, clearly we're not the only people who think this, but AI ripples through every single thing we do. Even our robotics practice, which was, felt like a mechanical engineering project 6 years ago is now largely an AI-driven, um, product.

So that's very important. And so using AI tools correctly, making sure we're doing a good job on sourcing, which is one of the things we're going to talk about. Um, thinking about— we always play and talk about fundamental trends and second-order, you know, things that are going to happen. So, you know, if AI has an impact on jobs, what does that mean? What does that mean for retraining companies? We have a lot of companies in the retraining area. What is going to be protected? What isn't? You know, we have a company called Stepful that trains people to be allied workers.

So these are the workers that this, the MRI technician in a hospital. So the person who's not a doctor, not a nurse, remarkably successful business, one that is definitely going to be protected because, you know, you had MRI so far, you still have to go into the office and get that. And someone needs to do that. So we're just thinking of all those implications over time. So we will brainstorm on that. Part of it is also just reviewing our portfolio. We happen to have a lot of things going very well right now.

The fund is very successful. And so we are staying on top of that. What are the lessons? What's going well and what do we learn from? What's going badly? What are we learning from? So that's important. Speaker B: Fascinating. Well, let's talk about one of these trends that you've been involved in deeply for, for quite a long time, which is, you know, psychedelics. How did this interest arise? Was this, you know, something that, I don't know, maybe you had a transcendent experience yourself or you saw its effect on other people's, uh, you know, own mental issues?

Speaker A: How did they, how did you sort of come to the space? So I, I, I do read a tremendous amount. So I, I, it's an important part of what I do. I'm reading probably easily 2 hours a day and some books, some, a lot of articles, things like that. In 2017, I read the Michael Pollan book, How to Change Your Mind, which was one of the New York Times 10 best books of the year. And I had never been interested in psychedelics before that, never tried it. Um, and I read the book and it actually ironically did change my mind.

I came out thinking, oh my God, these are useful. Some of these substances can be extraordinarily useful. For what's arguably the most important problem of our time, which is the increase in depression, mental health, anxiety, you know, PTSD. And, and the scientific data shows that it works. And so then I was still on the board of Yale at the time, and I didn't even know, but Yale has one of the best practices, academic practices in the world on psychedelics. They did all the original work on ketamine and now in doing for the last 7 years a lot of work in psilocybin.

So I met with a team there. I'm the, probably the leading donor to the Yale Center for Psychedelic Research. Got to know them very well. So learned more, became more persuaded, and became persuaded of something is, you know, if I told you that AI is going to be big, you'd say, thank you, Kevin. I think everyone, including my grandmother, already knows that. You're late to the game. In 2018, 2019, it was not as obvious. Most VC firms couldn't even invest in psychedelics, excluded from it, and thought it was a really bad thing, which of course makes no sense.

You know, how can you not invest in something that Yale, Stanford, and Johns Hopkins are working on in the lab? So anyway, I thought, you know, there's an opportunity here because most people don't touch it, uh, most people don't understand it, and it's gonna be very big. I think it's gonna be a $10 billion industry. So I was active as a nonprofit donor and still am, but I also then in 2020 started a company called Transcend in psychedelics, which so far is looking very, very successful. Speaker B: So interesting. You mentioned, uh, you know, the use of ketamine and psilocybin.

Is there a growing consensus about, you know, when is the right time to use one versus the other, or which is more effective? How is that sort of perceived at the moment? Speaker A: I think it's too early to say there's a consensus. What we're seeing is that, um, these things work. So, you know, if you read through 300 academic studies, you would come back to me and probably conclude the following: that, you know, it looks very definitive that, you know, that psychedelics can work for the things I mentioned— PTSD, depression, uh, anxiety, addiction.

You would probably conclude that it looks very promising in things like traumatic brain injuries, anorexia, uh, OCD. And you would conclude that If someone is bipolar or has psychosis, you should not use psychedelics. As of right now, there are isolated cases where it can make it worse, and we just don't have a good solution. All of these things may evolve over time, but the first 4 categories or 5 categories I mentioned probably hit 80 million people in this country. I mean, it's not solved. I mean, it's one of the most interesting things to think about.

If I asked you what causes depression, you can't even answer. We don't even know that it's really genetic. We, we don't— we know there's an environmental influence, but on the other hand, maybe your brother has, you know, deep depression and you don't. You grew up in the same household, you had the same things. Why is that? You don't know. Depression's been around for 200 years. It's one of the— we just don't understand the brain that well. What we do know is that generally these psychedelics do work, and they, by the way, don't work 100%.

Nothing works 100%. MDMA, in their phase 3 trials, 66% of the people who had treatment-resistant PTSD, which means they'd had it, I think, on average for over 10 and a half years, were cured of PTSD after 6 months. Speaker B: Wow. Speaker A: That is so staggering. We've never had anything that has achieved 30%. And in fact, everyone on this podcast knows that depression is a big issue. Yes. Something that has come through the FDA in the last 20 years that's helpful. Nothing. Speaker B: As I recall, uh, its ability to help treatment-resistant, uh, ailments is, is actually sort of like broader even than the PTSD, right?

Like treatment-resistant addiction. Like it seems like, you know, for these extremely hard cases, it, you know, there's just this different modality almost that is opened by, by this, this path. Speaker A: Oh yeah. I mean, for example, if, if I had a relative who had a severe addiction problem, let's say heroin and I— they don't have a heart issue, I would absolutely recommend that they use ibogaine. Uh, it's a long process. It hasn't been fully, fully, fully tested, but the results that we're seeing in so many cases are amazing. So yeah, very excited.

But your earlier question, do we know what works best for which? We're getting there. We're getting, you know, not fully solved. And some of them work for multiple conditions. I mean, psilocybin It tends to work for almost everything. Ibogaine is a particular, um, use in addiction and traumatic brain injuries. And we're still figuring out why. I mean, we know that, that in general, that psychedelics increase the neuroplasticity in your brain. That we can measure. I could look at your brain before and after psychedelics. And the first looks like a map, an internet map of Africa, meaning that there's some areas that don't have connectivity.

And afterwards, it looks like an internet map of Europe where it's condensed connections everywhere, uh, things have grown. We know that's helpful. That's, that's an important part. Speaker B: For folks to help sort of wrap their minds around this, how is this sort of traditionally administered? You know, is this over a certain— you know, you mentioned certain time frames. Is this, you know, something where you're, you're taking a pill, you're going to a clinic, all those sorts of things. Speaker A: Yeah, almost every case here is someone going to a clinic, or there's a big underground economy right now.

Guides who, you know, they're— today, this weekend, there'll be 100 guides working, uh, in New York City, and you'll do a one-on-one session with them, get a big dose of MDMA or MDMA and mushrooms or something else. There are group ceremonies that occur all the time where there's maybe 30 people in the room. So that's how it's given. You don't generally do it on your own. You do it with a professional. It doesn't have to be a doctor, but it'll be someone who has experience, who's done this many times, because you can have some difficult moments.

You know, you, you may revisit, uh, a challenging bullying incident you had in high school or a sexual abuse case or things like that. And so you, it's helpful to have someone there who can comfort you. Speaker C: This episode is brought to you by Persona. The B2B identity platform helping businesses verify users, fight fraud, and build trust. Fraudsters are already using AI to spoof faces, voices, and documents, so your defenses need to adapt just as fast. Persona helps secure some of the internet's largest and most trusted platforms with identity verification.

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Head to com/generalist and check it out. Speaker B: You, you mentioned, uh, this company Transcend that you founded in this space. Maybe you can tell us a little bit about what it is that Transcend exactly does and, and the progress it's made. Speaker A: Yeah, so Transcend, we worked very closely with some of the Yale faculty to go through the list of 300 psychedelic compounds. All of us know that the 5 that are the most well-known because people take those recreationally, but that doesn't mean that there aren't other ones that have particular properties that haven't been fully researched.

So methalone is one of those. It's basically an MDMA analog. So it's not a hallucinogenic. If I gave it to you right now, you don't see anything different. You feel a little warm. You feel different. You feel better. You feel more open. But, uh, it can be very, very valuable. And so we have a patent for that, for PTSD, for anxiety and depression. We've taken it through Phase 1 and Phase 2 trials. We've spent about $50 million to date. The results have been published in papers. They've been extraordinary. So you have a double-blind study.

So one group doesn't know what they're taking and they're taking placebo. One is taking it. And then you compare the results. And if the results are different, because there's always an important placebo effect. So 20% of the people feel better no matter what they took, even if it was a sugar pill. But if there's a big difference, that means that the drug was working. And so that's what's happening. And then we will start phase 3, uh, in the first half of next year. We will be going out, uh, we need to raise probably $80 or $90 million.

We're going to start that process in the next, uh, 2 weeks. And that's, it's just an exciting biotech company, essentially, which happens to be in this space. Speaker B: What will phase 3 involve? And, and, you know, as you think about the journey of this company, what are the, you know, maybe next 3, 5 years look like, hopefully? Speaker A: So what happens is, um, a couple hundred people will be part of a phase 3. So it'll just be bigger than phase 2. Phase 2 was about 60 people. So we'll really, phase 3 will be very similar to phase 2.

and so we'll give it to a, a larger study. Um, we've run that by the FDA and so gotten comments for the FDA to make sure they are on board. The FDA has a, um, designation. They can take certain, um, projects and call them breakthrough status, breakthrough designation, which is essentially their way of saying, we're super excited about this. Not guaranteeing that we're gonna approve it, but we want this to happen. We want this to move forward. It's very helpful. So we got breakthrough designation, and so this, the phase 3, will take about 2 years.

Um, and then, you know, once it— assuming it does pass and it's going well, it'll be legal to be prescribed by doctors. And then, then there's a rollout, uh, for the whole country. So the goal is that tens and tens of thousands of people will get this and be better off. And we created this as a public benefit corporation, so 10% of the equity will be given as donated to nonprofits that are in the psychedelic space. So I really do hope that this, this company is very, very valuable because it'll have a big impact on the whole industry and on these people.

There's over 10 million people who have PTSD. Most people tend to think of war veterans first, but actually the biggest category are sexual assault victims. Oh, gotcha. Majority are women, obviously you know, super difficult problems. Uh, many people walking around who are friends of yours, you don't even know what happened to them 5 years ago or 25 years ago, but they're still dealing with it, and it's, it's a real challenge. Wow. Speaker B: When you look at the broader psychedelic treatment landscape, are there other approaches that you've started to feel, you know, are, are very promising, maybe just on another avenue?

Uh, and on the other side, where are the spaces that you hope, you know, the next set of great biotech founders and, and founders in general maybe, you know, really devote themselves to? Speaker A: I don't spend a lot of time in biotech outside of this area. Uh, in this area, yeah, we're really trying to just move all of them through. One, the biggest challenge I would say in biotech, but in psychedelics, it's so expensive. You know, our Phase 3 will cost $150 million. Just to put this in front of 300 people.

Speaker B: Okay. Explain that to me. How do, why is that the case? Speaker A: It's the case because recruiting is very difficult. First of all, you want to, you know, make sure that someone has the condition you're talking about, but also doesn't have any, any other condition that could get in the way. So, you, you know, if you have diabetes or you have suicidal thoughts, or all kinds of things, you're probably going to get excluded. So it's the recruitment process is expensive and hard. Some people drop out. They have to be willing to do it.

They have to be willing to do something when there's a 50% chance they're going to spend 4 months and have taken a sugar pill. And so, um, the FDA makes this process very expensive. Now, part of that is good. If I told you, uh, this product was approved by the you know, Somalian FDA, you're like, I'm sorry, that means I'm all set. Yeah, it means nothing to me. Everyone in the world respects something approved by the FDA, but they are very conservative. They make it very expensive. And so very few things go through.

And so the trade-off is, you know, maybe literally tens of thousands of people have committed suicide over the last decade because they didn't get these products that eventually will be approved because it was so expensive. And this is, by the way, one of the reasons that, you know, why do rare disease drugs not get through the process? Because if it's going to cost $300 million, and by the way, there are people who spend $500 million, uh, or a billion to get a product through. If the, if the market's going to be a couple hundred million dollars in revenue, you're like, forget it.

Those people are just going to die. So somewhere there we have the wrong trade-off. I will say that You know, I disagree with a lot of the things that the Trump administration is doing, but on psychedelics, they are really trying to move the ball forward and trying to accelerate it. And, and RFK is really trying to do that. And, and on nuclear as well, I think they're doing a good job in trying to accelerate that. Speaker B: What are they doing on psychedelics that is valuable? Speaker A: You know, it's early because, you know, the team has only been in place really for like 3 months.

I know they're looking at ways. To accelerate the process I just talked about. They're looking to see if there's public-private partnerships that could be put together to get money to move these things forward. They really want to, you know, get the science done and make, make them legal and, and, you know, get the boundaries out of the way. Speaker B: And do you just attribute that to the fact that RFK is sort of so high openness on any alternative? Speaker A: Look, I don't know him personally, but he, he has had personal experience has tried psychedelics, had good experiences, and there's a bunch of people in the administration.

But I would say in general, don't forget that, you know, the United States is in a different place than it was 8 years ago. I'm sure you or anyone you know has many, many, many more friends who have tried psychedelics in the last 3 years than, you know, did 10 years ago. Yeah, it's just become much more mainstream. We see that in the numbers. We see that in all the positive articles in the New York Times and the traditional media. So it's a, just a different time. So I think any administration today would probably be more positive, but they definitely are.

The Biden administration and Biden himself, you know, not particularly passionate about this area, uh, and so could have been more aggressive here. Speaker B: You mentioned sort of earlier that when you were starting to learn about this space, you sort of came up with the, you know, researched it or came to the opinion that this could be a sort of $10 billion industry. Is that sort of roughly the magnitude that you of today? Speaker B: You mentioned sort of earlier that when you were starting to learn about this space, you sort of came up with the, you know, researched it or came to the opinion that this could be a sort of $10 billion industry.

Is that sort of roughly the magnitude that you of today? Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, it just depends on what timeframe. It'll be bigger than that over time. But already ketamine is selling $1 to $2 billion a year. And that's the only one that's legal. And it's also growing at, I think, you know, 40 or 50% a year. 5 years, 10 years from now, ketamine could be there on its own. And I assume that, you know, psilocybin will be approved. Psilocybin is already in phase 3 trials. They're a year to 2 ahead of us.

MDMA might get approved in the next year, uh, and then methylone. Those are probably the leading ones. LSD, um, is in the process as well. It, it's, it's much longer acting, so you have to be with someone for probably 11 hours, and that's, that's a disadvantage. But yeah, and ibogaine is in early stages, so many, many years away from that. But I think a lot of these things will get approved. Speaker B: And do you expect there to be sort of markets and uses for, for each of these, for ketamine and ibogaine?

Or is it the case that, you know, we will eventually see that one or two sort of are, you know, clearly the best choice? Speaker A: Look, I'm hopeful that we have many different compounds for many different conditions approved. Then there'll be a lot more data coming out, and then we'll see, oh, you know, ibogaine is particularly good for this. I think, you know, uh, GLP-1s is a good example. That's been around for 20 years. Yeah. Recently discovered literally in the last 18 months that it's good for mental health and for Alzheimer's.

And we could have found out that it really wasn't and it had a side effects, but it turned out it was the opposite. Um, so yeah, we're still in the early stages of figuring out what works, what works really well. I look here, here's where I think we'll be in 20 years. A person walks in, we take a brain scan. And we say, okay, for your particular brain, I think we need a cocktail of a little bit of compound number 3, you know, psilocybin, and a big dose of compound number 7, and just a touch of compound 13.

Because at that point, we will understand how the brain works, why this is doing it, and we'll be able to fine-tune what we're doing in the same way that we can actually alter your genes today. And we couldn't do that 20 years ago. You know, the brain, we are probably 2 decades behind the body, but I think we're on our way. Speaker A: Look, I'm hopeful that we have many different compounds for many different conditions approved. Then there'll be a lot more data coming out, and then we'll see, oh, you know, ibogaine is particularly good for this.

I think, you know, uh, GLP-1s is a good example. That's been around for 20 years. Yeah. Recently discovered literally in the last 18 months that it's good for mental health and for Alzheimer's. And we could have found out that it really wasn't and it had a side effects, but it turned out it was the opposite. Um, so yeah, we're still in the early stages of figuring out what works, what works really well. I look here, here's where I think we'll be in 20 years. A person walks in, we take a brain scan.

And we say, okay, for your particular brain, I think we need a cocktail of a little bit of compound number 3, you know, psilocybin, and a big dose of compound number 7, and just a touch of compound 13. Because at that point, we will understand how the brain works, why this is doing it, and we'll be able to fine-tune what we're doing in the same way that we can actually alter your genes today. And we couldn't do that 20 years ago. You know, the brain, we are probably 2 decades behind the body, but I think we're on our way.

Speaker B: Yes, we're just sort of scaling the sophistication with which we can sort of understand these things and apply them. Switching gears, material science is, is sort of this other space where you're spending a lot of time. And it's interesting. I feel like from a lot of smart people that I respect, uh, a growing interest or, you know, uh, intrigue in, in what's happening in this space for folks that are you know, brand new to it, maybe you can tell us a little bit about what we mean when we say material science.

Speaker B: Yes, we're just sort of scaling the sophistication with which we can sort of understand these things and apply them. Switching gears, material science is, is sort of this other space where you're spending a lot of time. And it's interesting. I feel like from a lot of smart people that I respect, uh, a growing interest or, you know, uh, intrigue in, in what's happening in this space for folks that are you know, brand new to it, maybe you can tell us a little bit about what we mean when we say material science.

Speaker A: What people don't realize is how impactful material science is on everything. Obviously in aerospace, it's extremely important. You need a new, uh, helicopter blade that has to be made of something. And so is it a combination of aluminum and carbon and this? You actually have like, you know, 50,000 different choices. It has to be very resistant to heat because it goes very fast, cold because it might be high up in the sky, incredible wind pressure. You'd like to not use any, um, you know, expensive items that are controlled by China and need to tie together, and it can't be too difficult, too expensive to manufacture.

That's a complicated model. Today, how many people are actually working on, you know, helicopter blade compounds. Speaker B: Yes. Speaker A: 20. I mean, it's a tiny thing. The odds that they've come up with every combination. And by the way, when you test it, let's say you come up with an idea right now. We have to test it in a wind tunnel. We have to test it in a specific facility that goes to 100 degrees below zero. That in and of itself is expensive. So if AI can come up with recommendations that are much better and save you So that you don't have, get 1 out of every 10 right, but 1 out of every 3 right, saving you millions and millions of dollars and years.

You know, if you, if you asked why do some of our missile systems take 20 years to develop, it's because of this. But that's true on an industrial side. But, you know, your computer, your, your iPhone has a specific type of glass that did not exist 20 years ago. That's incredibly resistant and you can see through and it's really great and touchscreen. That's a material science problem. You know, even my, I have a teacup here that didn't exist 20 years ago when you and I were growing up that, yes, it's hot tea keeps in on the inside, but on the outside is completely cold.

That's a material science. The fact that my shirt does, you know, does not sweat and is now wrinkle resistant is a material science problem. They actually put some substances into the fabric that make it better. You know, my couch, this, this where I'm sitting on right now. Is not flammable. And by the way, you, you— many people don't realize there are so many fewer fires today in New York City than there were 30 years ago because the— it's a material science problem. Every couch now, every, uh, is not flammable. The things on your walls are not flammable, so fires don't spread.

So it's everywhere. This is a trillion-dollar industry, and we need to do it better and faster and cheaper. To move things forward. Speaker B: Is the right way for folks to maybe think about this, you know, when you talk about how AI is impacting this, you know, just in the same way that AI is searching through a million different, you know, proteins for different interventions in the pharmaceutical industry or, you know, whatever that might be, it's sort of searching through all of these different materials to say, hey, like, this combination for this purpose has some promise.

Is that sort of roughly the right heuristic? Speaker A: Absolutely. I mean, you know, the ideal person or AI machine would have read and remembered all 25,000, you know, research papers in detail, which obviously, you know, the human brain can't do that would put things together. You know, there's a very famous example we all cite in when, when the first time DeepMind beat the world champion in Go. And don't forget, there was 500 million people have played Go. 500 books have been written about Go. It is a studied subject. Yet, move 19, the AI chooses something, every world expert says that's insane.

I mean, that's just a terrible move. It has, it's, it's, it's hallucinating. Makes no sense. And 10 moves later, everyone's like, oh my God, that was a brilliant move that no human had come up with. And so the thesis here is if 500 million people had not come up with something, Then what are the odds that those 20 people working on a helicopter blade have come up with every possibility already? Speaker B: Yes. Yes. Speaker A: Or frankly, even just, you know, how many people are working on shirt technology right now?

They have a lot of good things. Have they come up with everything? I'm not sure. And so that's what we're doing. And so the company I started here, Radical, actually had the board meeting yesterday, you know, um, is going after this problem, is creating an autonomous lab. Is, uh, really their goal is to create new compounds, and they're in conversations with, you know, companies in, in many different areas to create those models. And the goal is next year we'll have created some innovative new compounds. And so we started a year ago, we raised $55 million, one of the largest seed rounds in the history of New York City.

Um, we have a fantastic team of 23 people, and we're off to the races. and the CEO who worked at Alicorp before was about 6 months away from his PhD in material science. So he had a perspective on this industry that most of us didn't and came up with the idea. And I'm very, very excited about it. Speaker B: Yes. Yes. Speaker A: Or frankly, even just, you know, how many people are working on shirt technology right now? They have a lot of good things. Have they come up with everything?

I'm not sure. And so that's what we're doing. And so the company I started here, Radical, actually had the board meeting yesterday, you know, um, is going after this problem, is creating an autonomous lab. Is, uh, really their goal is to create new compounds, and they're in conversations with, you know, companies in, in many different areas to create those models. And the goal is next year we'll have created some innovative new compounds. And so we started a year ago, we raised $55 million, one of the largest seed rounds in the history of New York City.

Um, we have a fantastic team of 23 people, and we're off to the races. and the CEO who worked at Alicorp before was about 6 months away from his PhD in material science. So he had a perspective on this industry that most of us didn't and came up with the idea. And I'm very, very excited about it. Speaker B: Really interesting. So that sort of maybe gave a hint of it, but was your intellectual journey essentially, uh, you know, you fell down the rabbit hole because of this person who sort of showed you the opportunity?

Speaker A: Oh, it was, it was his idea. And there were actually 2 people. So he had a material science background. His co-founder Jorge also worked here, has a computer science background. This is essentially material science meets computer science. Yes. And so the two of them, you know, really brought it together and we had the idea and then we normally go out and find a CEO, but it turns out that we said, you know what, you guys are the right people to go do this. And so they spun out of Alicorp and, uh, have been running this company.

And are doing a great job. Speaker B: When you talk about, you know, spinning up this, this lab, you know, going after these, these new materials, are there sort of certain spaces where it makes sense to begin, you know, maybe electronics or defense or whatever it might be? Or is it, you know, actually better to try and cast a very wide net and, and see sort of almost what, what comes up organically is probably not the right word, but, uh, computationally. Speaker A: No, it's, it's important to specialize a little bit because there are learnings.

So that was one of the things in the beginning. Eventually this will be applied to everything. So we have been, you know, we've been contacted by large consumer companies like the Nikes of the world. Speaker B: Yes. Speaker A: Also care about material science for their next shoe. But, you know, right now we are mostly focused on aerospace alloys, uh, you know, semiconductors, uh, places like that, just to, just to focus. You can't do everything. Speaker B: And that's just because the demand's there? Speaker A: Yeah, it's a big space.

Um, we, we also need things that don't take, you know, 10 years to develop. We, we think there's real demand and enormous companies, you know, who have— and so yeah, those are good, good areas for us. Speaker B: And so you mentioned this automated lab. Tangibly, what does that end up looking like? Speaker A: Yeah, it looks like a robot that's making all the decisions, you know, taking the model and actually creating a compound. And so we'll be moving into, uh, Brooklyn on the first part of next year. We're renting a huge space and we'll have a world-class, fascinating laboratory to see there, uh, in the Brooklyn Navy Yards.

Wow. Speaker C: Fascinating. Speaker B: That is really cool. Speaker A: One of the most best parts of my job, and you've just highlighted, is, you know, these are two of the companies I'm involved with, obviously completely different industries, you know, psychedelics and this, uh, you know, I'm also on the board of a, uh, Wallah, which is a mobile bank in Argentina. Which is the most successful probably private company in Latin America. It's worth billions and billions of dollars. Started 7 years ago. I've been involved since day one. Um, so that's what's so fascinating about our business is I'm not necessarily an expert in anything, but diving into these various spaces and helping CEOs build the companies.

Speaker B: Well, obviously, as, as a generalist, that appeals to me hugely. You're just doing it at a, you know, a different, uh, order of magnitude and altitude here, but You know, that, that makes me wonder a little bit. You, you mentioned at the, the start of this conversation how we were talking about Mongo going through this period where it had a, a billion dollars of, of spending before it turned to profit and how that was sort of such a uniquely American asset class in a sense, or, you know, quirk of this asset class.

I know that you're also, you know, a Francophile and have a lot of ties to France. Do you see some of that? Dynamic beginning to appear more in the European ecosystem? Do you, you know, spend much time in, in that, uh, part of the asset class? Speaker A: No, I do spend a lot of time there. Um, you know, I, I spent half of my childhood growing up in Europe and then the business school there. Uh, two of my three kids live in Europe, so lots of ties there. The, the, the, the key number is there are 241 decacorns created in the United States.

Over time, 14 in Europe. So I love being in Europe, but they have been way behind in developing technology. Um, and I— are they doing better? Are they catching up? Are there lots of very smart people there? Absolutely. Do they have the same, you know, risk tolerance at the— in the VC system? Not yet. Everyone in Europe knows, and our companies in Europe know, that when they need to raise $5 million. Yeah, Europe is great when they need to raise $25 or $50 and they are years away from breakeven. That is a tough sell in Europe.

Is the other thing is that we just have a better ecosystem of universities in the research. I mean, we have tens of billions of dollars being spent at our top 30 universities that have real science breakthroughs. You know, AI is great. Where was that discovered? Most of those algorithms were at Dartmouth. In the late '50s. So many things were really— you see every Nobel Prize, vast majority are not necessarily Americans, but they were done at American universities. Yeah. That leads to a venture capital industry that, that the core research— so Oxford and Cambridge are great.

Um, there are a couple places, uh, in the UK that are great. Yeah. But, you know, name discoveries coming out of Germany, Germany at universities. Very few don't have the money. It's a huge advantage that we have. And, and, uh, they also have a more fragmented market. So there are some disadvantages, but I, you know, when I'm over in Europe, a lot of the top entrepreneurs still want to come to the United States. Speaker A: No, I do spend a lot of time there. Um, you know, I, I spent half of my childhood growing up in Europe and then the business school there.

Uh, two of my three kids live in Europe, so lots of ties there. The, the, the, the key number is there are 241 decacorns created in the United States. Over time, 14 in Europe. So I love being in Europe, but they have been way behind in developing technology. Um, and I— are they doing better? Are they catching up? Are there lots of very smart people there? Absolutely. Do they have the same, you know, risk tolerance at the— in the VC system? Not yet. Everyone in Europe knows, and our companies in Europe know, that when they need to raise $5 million.

Yeah, Europe is great when they need to raise $25 or $50 and they are years away from breakeven. That is a tough sell in Europe. Is the other thing is that we just have a better ecosystem of universities in the research. I mean, we have tens of billions of dollars being spent at our top 30 universities that have real science breakthroughs. You know, AI is great. Where was that discovered? Most of those algorithms were at Dartmouth. In the late '50s. So many things were really— you see every Nobel Prize, vast majority are not necessarily Americans, but they were done at American universities.

Yeah. That leads to a venture capital industry that, that the core research— so Oxford and Cambridge are great. Um, there are a couple places, uh, in the UK that are great. Yeah. But, you know, name discoveries coming out of Germany, Germany at universities. Very few don't have the money. It's a huge advantage that we have. And, and, uh, they also have a more fragmented market. So there are some disadvantages, but I, you know, when I'm over in Europe, a lot of the top entrepreneurs still want to come to the United States.

Speaker B: You know, uh, I, I'm sort of maybe a bit like you in that respect, in that I, you know, American or half American parentage, the other half Italian, and grew up in England. So, you know, there's sort of this— I think a lot about Europe. I now live in London. And in many ways, there is certainly, you know, maybe these differences in funding, certainly a much less, uh, mature venture ecosystem once you hit the growth side. But one of the biggest pieces to me feels just like purely cultural almost.

And I wonder to what extent you think like that can change over the next, I don't know, 10, 20 years. Like, do we, you know, there, there's sort of a almost shamefulness about being too ambitious in Europe. Um, I'm at risk of talking about this too much on this podcast and in the Generalist, but it's really like a bit of a bugaboo of mine. Speaker A: Yeah, look, I think there is, there's, there is some of that. Um, you know, we've seen countries over time develop different skills. Like, you know, Copenhagen.

How did Copenhagen become a food capital of the world? They don't have a lot of farming. Speaker B: Yeah. Speaker A: They don't even have a tradition of Danish food. I mean, did you grow up eating Danish food? Speaker B: No. Speaker A: No. Speaker B: No. Speaker A: And yet they had a great restaurant, Noma, that then moved out, you know, people seeded an ecosystem and the ecosystem's incredible. Speaker B: Yeah. Speaker A: So it is hard. I mean, in theory, it's easy to do. It should be anywhere, but it's, it's hard.

And the S. has a lot of those things. And I don't see us losing our, our position right now because, you know, let's do like a Mongo. Mongo, most people hadn't even heard of Mongo. The reason is it's probably tech company number, I don't know, 80 in the United States. 50. And so at $25 billion, France still has never created a company in the last 30 years that's worth half of what Mogo is. Speaker B: Yeah. Speaker A: So it is hard. I mean, in theory, it's easy to do. It should be anywhere, but it's, it's hard.

And the S. has a lot of those things. And I don't see us losing our, our position right now because, you know, let's do like a Mongo. Mongo, most people hadn't even heard of Mongo. The reason is it's probably tech company number, I don't know, 80 in the United States. 50. And so at $25 billion, France still has never created a company in the last 30 years that's worth half of what Mogo is. Speaker B: Oof, that is tough. Speaker A: I don't think Spain has. I don't think Italy has.

Speaker B: Yeah, Italy, no, no doubt. Yes. Speaker A: You know, UK, other than Revolut. Speaker B: Yeah, Revolut is a real outlier. Uh, some of the other neobanks are maybe not that far off. Maybe Monzo is a $10 billion business. Like, yeah, something like that. Speaker A: FinTech has worked outside of that, you know. So little. Speaker B: Yeah. Speaker A: And, and that's— we're still talking about— we just named 200 million people comparable to the United States, a little bit smaller. And, you know, and yet, you know, Mongo, as I said, is number 50 or something.

So there is a big difference. And I mean, I love spending time in Europe, uh, and they do a lot of other things very well. You know, in biotech, they have incredible companies. Switzerland has amazing companies. But in this particular area of real innovation and really taking big risks, Europe is still behind. Speaker B: Yes. Well, I hope the, you know, the gap closes. Uh, I obviously want America to continue to, to thrive and, and be at the forefront of this, but I would love for, for Europe to, you know, do a little bit more itself as well.

Speaker B: Yes. Well, I hope the, you know, the gap closes. Uh, I obviously want America to continue to, to thrive and, and be at the forefront of this, but I would love for, for Europe to, you know, do a little bit more itself as well. Speaker A: Absolutely. Oh, by the way, the talent is incredible. I mean, look, the people are the same. Europeans and Americans are essentially the same people. Just because a couple of people came over 2 generations ago doesn't change genetically. We are the same. Um, so it is about the ecosystem, the incentive structure, the, the most recent history, funding, uh, things like that.

Speaker B: Really interesting. Well, uh, I always like to wrap up with a few more philosophical questions. And so if you'll, you'll indulge me, um, if you had unlimited resources and no operational constraints, what's an experiment that you would like to run? Speaker A: It'd probably have to be something with public policy. So, you know, uh, giving money to people in a better system. We've done some small studies. Sam Altman did some, uh, in, in actually just giving cash out. Uh, I would like to see the results there. I'd like to see what happens if you give, uh, free childcare to people.

It's been proposed in New York City recently. I really want us to measure the cost of putting someone in prison. Here's what I mean by that. You have two twins. Um, we arrest them both. One of them goes to jail for a year. The other one doesn't. We just didn't have the evidence. What happens over the next 30 years? We know that we spent, I don't know, $80,000 putting him in jail, but that's not the cost. Is he going to be able to get a job after that? No. He, no one's going to hire him.

So he's going to make $5,000, $10,000 a year less than his brother for 30 years. Studies show that the odds of his kids going to jail are much higher than his brother because I don't want to be embarrassed about my father. He's a cool guy. He went to jail, whatever. The odds of him being on welfare, on unemployment. I think the cost to the state of putting someone in jail for a year is going to end up being like $500,000. If that's true, then why don't we actually solve his real problem, which is he has an addiction problem, or he didn't have his GED, or he is, uh, really autistic and needs some help, or has a mental health issue.

And so we're not willing to spend $10,000 to help him because we think it's welfare, it's really bad, but we are willing to spend $500,000 to put him in jail. That's a dumb idea. Speaker B: Yeah, I, I can totally appreciate that. Speaker A: And we don't, we don't want to just, we don't have unlimited money to give to everyone, but you know, sometimes we underestimate the long-term implications of things we're doing and we're spending more. I'll give you another micro example. In France, you may notice they don't repair the roads all the time.

In New York City, they're repairing the roads all the time. Why? Two reasons. One, they spend more to build the roads and build it once and spend twice as much. It lasts 5 or 6 years. We have a light coating and it gets destroyed. The second thing is they invested at one point and move things from under the street to under the sidewalk. You never see them digging up water pipes in Paris. Ah, that is an upfront cost, but pays off in the long term. And I think there's a fundamental problem in our government.

That we're just not willing to make some of these long-term investments that will save us money. Speaker B: Hmm, that's really interesting. I never knew that about France. Speaker A: And so those are experiments that I'd like to see done. Speaker C: Those are great ones. Speaker B: Um, I don't think anyone's ever suggested those or anything particularly close to them, so, uh, I appreciate that. What is a tradition or practice from either another culture or another era that you would like us to adopt more widely? Speaker A: Well, actually, I'll give it away.

I do think that The use of psychedelics in Native American tribes, uh, in Latin America and in the S. was actually positive. And we've discovered that through backdoors in the United States, but especially, you know, and I'm not talking about going to a rave. I'm talking about in a ceremony, in connections with family. And so, and you know, everyone I know, including myself, who has let's say, done MDMA with a brother or a parent or a child, you know, or a wife, has had an incredible connection and feels like it was one of the best days of the year for their relationship.

And I think the Native Americans understood this, and, you know, and we lost that over time a little bit. Speaker A: Well, actually, I'll give it away. I do think that The use of psychedelics in Native American tribes, uh, in Latin America and in the S. was actually positive. And we've discovered that through backdoors in the United States, but especially, you know, and I'm not talking about going to a rave. I'm talking about in a ceremony, in connections with family. And so, and you know, everyone I know, including myself, who has let's say, done MDMA with a brother or a parent or a child, you know, or a wife, has had an incredible connection and feels like it was one of the best days of the year for their relationship.

And I think the Native Americans understood this, and, you know, and we lost that over time a little bit. Speaker B: Do you think too many people do ayahuasca in that sort of a setting and too few MDMA? Because in some ways I feel the seriousness with which people approach these different drugs can be super different. Speaker A: Yes. Speaker B: And the intent that people go into an ayahuasca ceremony is definitely not, hey, let's like, you know, be at a rave versus MDMA. But on the other hand, that, from everything I've ever, you know, heard from people who have done it, can be almost so intense that, you know, you, you, you're, you're really maybe taking on a different level of risk or, or, you know, the difficulty level on it is turned up a lot higher.

Speaker A: I'd put it a different way. Just use the word enjoyment. Speaker B: Okay. Speaker A: I'd put it a different way. Just use the word enjoyment. Speaker B: Okay. Speaker A: And I've tried all these things and no one comes out of ayahuasca saying that was really enjoyable, but many times, not always, they come out saying this was very profound. I am so happy I did it. It was one of the most important days of my life. And I think that most people don't realize that MDMA, which can be very fun to take at a club, can be incredibly incredibly deep and introspective to take.

It's an utterly different experience if you do it with music playing, with a guide, with a blindfold. And it's just hard to imagine because if you did that, for example, with alcohol, alcohol can be fun in a party. Speaker C: Yes. Speaker A: If you sat on your couch and got drunk, nothing good happens. You're not having experiences. And so you don't realize how different it is, uh, to, to use MDMA. And how positive it can be in that environment. So it's easier to use in a club. So people do it and you're right.

It self-selects the people who use ayahuasca because they really have to be committed. And I think more people should do MDMA or mushroom ceremonies. Speaker B: Okay. Final question. Uh, if you had the power to assign a book to everyone on earth to read and understand, what would you want to assign to them? Speaker A: We actually have a book club here. And so I read, uh, about 30 books a year or 32 books a year, a combination of fiction, uh, and, uh, nonfiction. So wide variety of things. So we just read Dan Wang's book comparing China and the United States.

Um, but we'll also, you know, read tons of, we went back and read, we'll read a Salman Rushdie book or something else or upcoming fiction. So I don't have any book that's gotten to the level where I think everyone on earth should, should read it. Speaker B: What might be in your favorite books? Let's say, what would you put in your, you know, maybe a couple that you really loved? Speaker A: Well, the ones I've given out the most to people, 50 of them, but they're more practical books. One is the Walker book on why we sleep.

Speaker B: Oh, interesting. I haven't read that. Speaker A: Yeah, you should definitely do that. It'll just, it, it, you know, I think in the last 5 years we've learned how important sleep is and we prided ourselves 20 years ago and I only get 6 hours of sleep and you're like, oh my God, what are you? You're a cool guy. And it turns out that that's just a really bad idea. So I do prioritize sleep a lot more, influenced partly by that book. And How to Change Your Mind is a book I've given out to many people as well over the last, uh, 10 years.

So those are, those are two I've given out the most. By the way, this year, this year, I think the Peter Attia book Outlive, um, uh, is a very good book that reminds you of the current thinking on both The big risks for any one of us, you know, the 3 biggest ones are going to be Alzheimer's, uh, cancer, and, and, uh, heart problems. Speaker B: Oh, interesting. Okay. Uh, since you mentioned that you read a lot of fiction and, uh, I'm sneakily always looking for book recommendations, uh, are there any in, in that camp that you, you know, just always find yourself coming back to or particularly loved?

Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, uh, Burnham Wood. Is a very good book that we read last year that I really, I liked. Um, I reread The Odyssey, which I think everyone should go back and reread. You may have read it in high school. I just reread Invisible Man, Ralph Ellison, uh, which I think is good. I've been reading James Baldwin, uh, which I think is good. Um, I thought on the public policy side, I mean, everyone's reading it, but Abundance was a good book. Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, uh, Burnham Wood.

Is a very good book that we read last year that I really, I liked. Um, I reread The Odyssey, which I think everyone should go back and reread. You may have read it in high school. I just reread Invisible Man, Ralph Ellison, uh, which I think is good. I've been reading James Baldwin, uh, which I think is good. Um, I thought on the public policy side, I mean, everyone's reading it, but Abundance was a good book. Speaker B: Yeah. Speaker A: So I thought that was good. Um, I read The Optimist, which was a book about Sam Altman, which is reminding you of how that process occurred in the, in the beginning.

For those of us that lived in New York 30 years ago, The Gods of New York just came out by Jonathan Mahler, which talks about 1985 to 1990 in New York. It's a reminder to everyone, you know, it's crazy to think that there were 2,200 murders in 1990. And this year will be 275. Speaker B: That is insane. Speaker A: Yeah, 85% drop, and that is just unprecedented. You know, that's, that's a really amazing thing to, to have seen there. So yeah, there's so many, so many good, uh, so many good books out there.

Speaker B: Yeah, no kidding. Uh, well, you've added some, some great ones to my Kindle wishlist, so thank you for that. And, uh, thank you so much for this conversation. I really, really enjoyed it. Speaker A: Yeah, thank you. This is great. I'm glad it worked out. That's it. Speaker C: Thank you for listening to this episode of The Generalist Podcast. Please subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your preferred podcast app. Ratings and reviews help others discover these discussions, so if you enjoyed the conversation, I'd be grateful if you could take a moment to leave one.

For all past episodes and more, visit us at com. See you next time as we continue to explore the future. Speaker A: Yeah, thank you. This is great. I'm glad it worked out. That's it. Speaker C: Thank you for listening to this episode of The Generalist Podcast. Please subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your preferred podcast app. Ratings and reviews help others discover these discussions, so if you enjoyed the conversation, I'd be grateful if you could take a moment to leave one. For all past episodes and more, visit us at

com. See you next time as we continue to explore the future.