Moonshots with Peter Diamandis - EP #14 Steve Aoki’s AMA: A DJ’s Crazy Schedule, Cryonics to Live Forever, and the Making of Pursuit of Happiness

Episode Date: December 1, 2022

In this “Ask Me Anything” session, Steve answers questions about his passion for performing, the morality of humans, how evolution will make us androids, and more. You will learn about: 00:41 | Steve Aoki answers life’s big questions 10:47 | The next evolutionary step: we become androids 18:14 | Steve's insurance policy: he's going to be frozen. 34:24 | How do you bring balance to your life 46:04 | What questions keep Steve Aoki up at night? Steve Aoki is a world-renowned artist, DJ, producer, and futurist. He is a grammy-nominated label executive known for his high-impact, experiential performances, NFT collections, and love for technology. _____________ Resources Learn about Steve’s Foundation Take a look at Metazoo Listen to Hiroquest Levels: Real-time feedback on how diet impacts your health. levels.link/peter  Consider a journey to optimize your body with LifeForce. Learn more about Abundance360. Read the Tech Blog. Learn more about Moonshots & Mindsets.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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at sunrisechallenge.ca. That's sunrisechallenge.ca. Life is too short. I need to just, I can't drink myself the way that I was doing in my shows every single night but it's like I'm not gonna have a long career and and

my father passing away the year before that a lot of things happened where I started thinking about longevity and health and and And and like, you know, what is what is this like ride that I'm on? Is it supposed to be short and like, you and I'm like no I don't want to end this I love my life and a massive transform to purpose is what you're telling the world it's like this is who I am this is what I'm going to do this is the dent I'm going to make in the universe so I want to go to uh to a conversation you, Steve, on life's big questions with Steve Aoki. So let's talk about some of the big questions. I want to get your thoughts on it, share mine, and have a little fun here.

So the number one big question a lot of people ask is, how do I find happiness? lot of people ask is how do I find happiness? Um, and you know, it's, if you believe that the purpose of life is to be happy, um, and we'll get to that other big question, like what is the purpose of life? Um, how do you find happiness? So what are your thoughts there? Yeah. I mean, I'm my my biggest I'd say my biggest track that I have to date that goes along with what you're saying is a remix I made for my friend back in 2009. And I still close with my close myself with it. It's the name of the song is Pursuit of Happiness. So, you know, I'm like, i'm always living that life on the journey to happiness like i like and and i i find it you know when i look at all the different things that i do i really feel like i am the luckiest man in the world because when i play a show and this is

why i'm so addicted to the stage and addicted to playing and and deal with all this all the stuff we're talking about like the no sleep and all those issues is that when I hit that stage and I'm playing to people and and I see their faces are like they're not just happy they're exploding they're abundant with they're joyful yeah They're abundant with- They're joyful. Yeah, with joy. Abundant with emotions. And they're just like screaming it out. So vulnerable to the world. Like this is the time where they want to be giving their whole selves out. It's like, this is what I do.

I want to bring happiness through music and connect with strangers in this way. And we're connecting at a very intimate level and it's it's like the best the best feeling in the world so what i hear you saying then in how do i find happiness is i and it's interesting right because i do believe it it's you find happiness by giving happiness or supporting happiness in other individuals? Yeah. It's like being, finding a way where you could be of service to people where you make, you, you, you are bringing some level of happiness with your service. I think that's at the end of the day, like my service is music. My, this is the, you know, I always say this is the most natural way for me to be expressive.

I always say this is the most natural way for me to be expressive. So luckily, I'm able to create this music and then deliver it, deploy it to people at scale. And I get to be a part of that delivery. So that's really important to me because I'm not just a producer. I can't just live in a studio. I just can't, I need to be out there connecting with people through that music. And then when I see them happy, it's like when you give a gift to someone at, at, you know, and you watch them, like their face light up or their eyes go bigger and they're just like, Oh my God, you got you.

Like, it's like, you are so. You caught me REM sleep. Oh my God. It's such a self-interest. You know what I it's like that like makes you happy so well i mean it's like the purpose of that the purpose of relationship when you're really in a great relationship is to have someone to give to not to take from yeah so i mean listen why why do concerts or why do shows need to start so late? Why can't they start at noon and end at 6 p.m.? Oh, trust me.

I love the afternoon parties. I do play the pool parties and the festivals. I mean, they just go into the wee hours of the night. And if I'm headlining, I mean, that's how the name of the night, you know, and like, and if I'm headlining, I mean, that's, that's, that's how the name of the game is. Forget about it with Ibiza and in European standards of nightlife, it's like peak hours, 3am. I'm on a 3.30am in Ibiza every, every week. And that's when that's, that's a peak hour. That's like people have dinner at.m and they start going out at 2 a.m and then they you know they're in the club like raging face at 3 30 a.m and i have to go with them till 6 a.m um you know it's uh it's i i peter i wish it was 3 30 a.m yeah i mean p.m p.m you know well you just

have to keep your brain on on las vegas time It would be a lot better. Yeah. So, all right. Second big life question here. One that I think about and I wonder and I'm curious about your answer here. Are humans innately good or bad? You know, one of the questions I have is these exponential technologies that we talk about, we both love and use and promote and so forth, as they become more and more powerful, right, as AI is becoming, you know, the overlord and robotics are becoming extraordinary, you know, people are worried about it and and so but if human nature is good and we're going to use these technologies to make the world a better place then that's great but we all know there's innate evil in the world too so i'm just curious you know what your thought is on this i'm an optimist at heart like i'm a glass half full kind of guy.

Glass overflowing. Abundantly. I'm extremely positive for the future and how technology will help optimize us and create more harmony, happiness, more bonding, more of the reasons why I believe we're human is that we are connected in the good path, in the path of helping each other and doing what we can. And I really sense that when you're with your family. When I'm with my family, the people that I love, you'll do anything for them. You'll take a bullet for them. You'll, you know, you'll help them whatever way they can.

If they're suffering in the pain, you want to support and help them. I think when you see that yourself and you see like the inner workings of your relationships with people you care and love about or love then that's just like that's an innate goodness you know um and that that that translates to people that you don't know you know one by one as long as you like remember like you know where you stand of course you know there are you're right there's like i think a very small percentage of people that that have no empathy and and and are are like they they're disconnected um you know and and they're you know just bad people out there you know whatever whatever reason their brain makeup is whatever however way so this goes to question number three on on life's big questions which is are you hopeful about the future? Given all that's going on in the world,

are you hopeful? Because I am. I'm a card-carrying optimist, and my standpoint comes from the fact that the tools we have to solve problems are getting more and more powerful at the same rate that those tools can cause problems. But I think because they're innately, you know, 10x, 50x,

100x better, good people, more good people than bad, that those people are going to stay ahead and solve problems. And entrepreneurs like you, like me, are folks who find and solve juicy problems. So are you hopeful for the future is that where you come out as well this is why uh i get excited whenever you're doing something that i could be a part of because i'm with you i am like i am like you know i i look at you as one of the leaders and that's in the space of science that are doing amazing things for, you know, for humanity in general, you know, so I love what you're doing. And I'm, I'm like, whenever you're doing something, I'm like, I need to know what Peter's doing, because I'm, I'm part of the

Diamandis camp to really use technology for the betterment of all people and find ways where we can connect better, live our lives with more meaning, more purpose, more love, more happiness. Well, thank you, buddy. Yeah, I really am. I'm grateful for that. And I know you're going to be part of my Abundance 360 show in March, which is cool. Tony Robbins there will have a whole slew but the whole the whole purpose of a360 is to help people realize using ai robotics 3d printing synthetic biology ar vr blockchain all those technologies that they can uplift humanity that

there is no problem we cannot solve that all of us you know if you want to become a billionaire help a billion people the world's biggest problems the world's biggest business opportunities so go for them and and i think people need to be reminded right i mean that's when i'm talking about mindsets and moonshots here it's like your mindset if you believe the world can be made better, then you're going to go for it. And moonshots are what allow us to take on the world's biggest problems. So anyway, so you are hopeful, and I appreciate that. Extremely. Abundantly. Not with purity about us, I've got to say abundantly.

Thank you, brother. So here's a big question, and I'm curious. What do you see as next for humanity? And let's unpack that a little bit because, I mean, humanity is, you know, depending on how you want to define Homo sapiens, right? We've been around for hundreds of thousands of years i mean cavemen uh if you look at when we were cavemen cave humans that was a hundred thousand years ago right we discovered sort of like uh agriculture like ten thousand years ago and i, it's fairly, fairly recent. If you took, if you took people born,

you know, 10,000 years ago and brought them up today, you'd have them going to the best universities, becoming doctors, lawyers. I mean, we haven't genetically changed that much in 10,000 years. So, so, but it's culture changing and technology changing. So what do you, what do you see next? Where, where's humanity going? Well, I think eventually we'll become androids. Okay. All right. Yeah.

I mean, you know, we're, I, I see, I see us as a species using technology or robotics or whatever we can with the technology to take, take out all like the temperamental, uh, you know, the, the problematic, uh, organs or things that end up killing us and replacing that with, uh, things that, that don't wither away or degenerate so, so, uh, quickly as, uh, as some of the things that we have in our body. So I think we will become like half organic, half robotic or half AI or half, uh, technological, you know, whatever that looks like, you know, I don't think it's going to be like what, what you see in like the seventies sci-fi where we're like a bunch of wires inside or 80s sci-fi, you know, a bunch of wires inside us, but-fi you know a bunch of wires inside us but

um maybe it's more organic tissues things like that but i i do i do see that future of of like you know merging with technology literally um you know not having phones but like they're literally just going to be uh of our bodies, you know? So let's go there because, you know, I know you're a friend of Ray Kurzweil as well, and Ray will be with us at Abundance360 this year too. It's going to be a blast. We're going to have a lot of conversations on AI.

We're going to have a lot of conversations on brain-computer interface. I was just doing a podcast with Ray recently. And I, you know, first of all, he's still on schedule for AI reaching human level or greater in 2029. Right. Which is like tomorrow. And then I said, when are you going to have when are we going to see brain computer interface like high bandwidth? Like, you know, my brain is plugged into the cloud and I can, I can feel your music. I can see, I can, I can connect with you and I'm like vibrantly, you know, in, and, and his answer is, is early to mid 2030s. Right. So a decade from now. And that's pretty awesome. You know, when I become a, a cy cyborg in the in the positive sense right of choice absolutely yeah yeah i mean because like we're having conversations four or five years ago

uh neuralink you know like like it's like that conversation's already started in real life that's not science fiction conversation that's that's actually happening now with a guy that has the funding and the financial and infrastructural power to actually move this needle forward faster than we can imagine. in real time um that 2030 mark sounds more realistic because if you don't have the conversation now then like you know because it's happening now it makes me realize okay 2030 does sound like the next you know evolutionary step with you know people that are art that want to do that yeah i mean it's it's it is fascinating i mean it's like it really is just like just around the corner right for i think almost everybody listening here is going to believe that they're going to make it you know the next 10 years hopefully and if you're not then then readdress and commit to getting in the next 10 years i mean it it's a crazy time coming it's going to be extraordinary

i i you know just because you know like i have this foundation that's that's focused on brain research brain science uh and and brain degeneration i i we do tons of just data analysis and trying to figure out like what's out there what's what are the breakthroughs even seven years ago there was already, you know, implants in the brain for people that have that they can't walk and can't move their limbs. Paraplegics that are connected to AI and and they're using AI and not even they don't have to speak it. They think it and they're able to move. be able to move. So the telekinetic kind of response, like what this is like the science fiction idea of what telekinesis is moving with your thoughts that was happening seven years ago because of technology. I mean, imagine like there's someone sitting there and he's like,

move forward. And the chair moves forward, like bring the food, like the arm that has the apple to me. And he's, he's, he. And he's able to eat without having, with just thinking that. That's like, if I was to tell you this 2022, people are like, that's not, that's science fiction, Steve. That doesn't happen. I'm like, it happened seven years ago. It's coming.

I have to share this story. When my favorite images was work done, I think it was at DARPA Labs, which is the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency. And what they did was they took a monkey and they put electrodes and sensors over the motor nor over the motor cortex and the sensory cortex on the on the neocortex and they they took the monkey's hands and they basically strapped them down and then they the monkey learned using the neural implants to control a set of robotic

hands arms right and so it was able to grab for food and feed itself using those robotic hands because its hands were incapacitated and then get this then they released the monkey's hands like a few weeks later and now it had four hands right it had it had the robotic hands it learned to use and its own hands because the brain it's called plasticity as you well know the brain is able to reprogram itself on the fly and is able to uh to you know reassign functionality to different parts of this neocortex so amazing uh so bci is coming uh are you ready for a brain implant not yet not yet okay people most people would be like if anyone's ready steve aoki's ready because i'm so obsessed with like you know i mean i'm i'm

definitely taking measures to uh live to this point where it's very normal to live forever. So I have my insurance policy set up to freeze my brain. Okay, so that's interesting. I was about to go there, which is cryopreservation. I was going to go to uploading, right? to uploading, right? So one of the, you know, as we are, if we're, if your mission is to live as long as possible, uh, which I hope people will desire, desire that to have an increased health span, you can do that with the kind of work that I'm working on with, um, with our rejuvenation XPRIZE or, uh, you know, the work thatid sinclair and george church are doing and just like

i'm going to keep this meat body operating as long as it possibly can in the highest level like yeah it's a meat body for sure and the other option is i'm going to you know i think you said this we're going to uh replace organs replace tissues, you know, basically keep on updating and upgrading. It's like, you know, when you have a car or an airplane, the reason it's able to go way beyond its useful life is you're replacing the, you know, the engine, replacing the wheels, you know, it's your father's old hatchet. It's got, you know, five new handles and four new uh four new heads on this the other option is as you said uh freeze yourself and there are two options there whole body freezing and cephalic just freeze your brain and then the other one is uploading

so let's talk about freezing yourself let's talk about uploading right so i am doing the full body freeze okay um and like you know like when i talk to people about this like hold on a second you're just gonna like one day just freeze your body no it's like i'm dead i'm dead are you wearing a bracelet are you wearing an alcor bracelet uh no i'm not no oh is that like bracelet you need so when you die they know to like yeah so like if you're if you're hit by a car um the there's a bracelet that you get i don't have one i didn't sign up yet you did you should get your bracelet or whatever i know that when you mentioned this that when they when when the when the ambulance the coroner signs up shows up and like we got to pronounce them dead they look at your bracelet and they say oh call this number and like, we've got to pronounce them dead. They look at your bracelet and they say, oh, call this number. And like a SWAT team comes up to find you.

What do they do with you when they find you? Do you know? This is a really important step that I totally missed. You missed this, dude. Because I did, at the very least for just like my own personal, this interview or this talk with you, it's like really, it's the first thing I would do is I'm going to be like, oh, I need need this bracelet i don't want to have to wear this bracelet but um yeah i i guess it's like you know like my in my head i'm like well hopefully i do die of old age in a hospital bed you know you know you're right there's like

that other small percentage of like ways that you you may i might die uh but i just think that at that stage i will wear the bracelet you know but for people just for those who are curious when they when you get frozen um the biggest concern so what you're trying to you're trying to you're you're trying to freeze yourself so you can preserve as much of well well, now this is where the dichotomy comes in. Like, do I freeze the body or do I freeze the brain? It's like in the future, when you're able to unfreeze yourself, hopefully the technology

is far enough along where you can just grow yourself in your body. But your brain with all your memories, all of your ideas, your persona of who you are is going to be kind of hard. If you regrow it, it's like starting with a clean sheet of paper. What you really want to do is be able to map all of the neural interactions, the 100 trillion synaptic connections, which are your memories, and be able to map those and map them onto a fresh fresh brain or bring you bring your brain out but the the problem is when you freeze ice crystallizes and expands and it can rupture cells and so what they want to do at one of the

companies is called alcor there are others what they want to do is basically take out your blood called alcor there are others what they want to do is basically take out your blood exsanguinate you and put in antifreeze that keeps these cells from rupturing so uh and they have to do it in a certain time or uh or the proteins start to degrade that's that's that's the one like kind of uh area that i don't know how long it is because like okay let's say a point of point of death in the hospital they they transport the body into you know because like the way that i when i was at alcor the way they explained to me is that let's say like finally that's it um hospital has deemed you dead they're not going to try to resuscitate you it's over they bring your body into um into

like ice right and then they transport you quickly so you've been prepping for this with your ice with your ice plunges exactly that's so funny huh um and uh yeah i mean that's not gonna that's gonna take a long time i don't understand like the degeneration process well what they're doing is they're slowing down the metabolism the degeneration with the ice bath but it's not freezing you it's bringing you down to just above freezing right and slowing down the uh the protein degradation right and then you know wherever i am in the world they're gonna have to fly me to the facility which is in arizona and uh i think during this transportation, they're going to have to fly me to the facility, which is in Arizona. And I think during this transportation time, it's going to be not ideal. Because when they put me in the Kelvin degree, negative 5,000, whatever it is.

Like negative 70. It's like liquid nitrogen level. Yeah. Once they put you there, then you're good. But on the degeneration process, you know, but like that transportation time has got to be seemingly 24 hours plus, you know. So I don't know how much that really does affect the degradation of your brain, you know, from reanimating it or whatever, you know, however they call it. Yeah. I think now, just to be clear for folks, there've been, I don't know, probably hundreds, maybe thousands of people who have been put into cryopreservation.

And it might be individuals who've got, you know, a really bad cancer or some disease that's uncurable and they pass. And the hope is that, you know, you're going to put money into a bank account that's going to accumulate interest over time. It's going to pay for the cryopreservation storage costs. And then at some point in the future, I don't know if it's a, is it a prize that like whoever brings back Steve Aoki to full functional health will win $10 million, you know, and the money's, the money's sort of like hanging out for the person who says they can, they can bring you back. But hopefully someone brings you back. There is a great science fiction book. I don't know if you get a chance to read science fiction. It's called We Are Bob. And it's about a guy, it's a four book series, and I love it. I'll have to put it in the show notes. I got to read it,

because it's like talking about what, you know, people like myself are going to have to deal with. Well, it's a guy who signs up for Alcor, and he's leaving this science fiction conference, and he gets hit by a car, and he wakes up like 50 years later and he's disembodied and his brain is in an ai and um and his ai his ai brain is being put onto a starship

and he is powering what's called a von neumann machine have you ever heard of a von neumann machine so the idea is uh you're there's a starship that's going out, it's being powered by this AI brain, and its mission is to go out and to replicate itself. And so this starship is able to go to asteroid belts and planets and other star systems, and it's able to replicate itself using all of the planetary materials and nanotechnology and it replicates his brain his name is bob and it creates a second starship and the other one is called bob too so it's like we are bob it's it's there are thousands of bobs out in the store and it's just it's an amazing you'll it's wow yeah a, yeah. Listen to the audio, listen to the audible of it. It's, it's extraordinary. It's a great book.

You love it. Yeah. Actually, you know, on that note, you know, I've been talking to my team about it. Cause like they're, they're, they're just like, whoa, this is the weirdest thing we ever heard. I don't think it's ever really been done, but you know, obviously when, when, when I pass at that time, there's going to be an estate right and then there's going to be like my descendants that will will get it so if let's

say i come back like new technology hits let's say like 100 years from now you know so there's like two descendants past me and they don't know me anymore like they're like you know they they don't care about me you know my son might care about me or my daughter might care about me but not my son's son's son or you know daughter's sons whatever it might be and when they're like oh yeah we have this technology bring back grandpa grandpa sickle grandpa sickle they're like this guy they're like and when he comes back he he's going to take your money because that's the money he made that you're living off of. They'll be like, don't bring him back.

I'm going to keep this for myself. And so that's why we're creating like a separate kind of fund. Yeah, trust. The bring Steve back trust. Yeah, and then that trust is is like not gonna get touched by my descendants so i have to have like a like that way like i come back i'm not broke like i'm like back in this this new world i'm like i have no money because i'm fighting in a lawsuit with my descendants you'll have to go back on tour

i have to go back on tour. I have to go back on tour. Like 300 years old. I'm like, I just hope I'm not like in this like 85 year old body or a hundred year old body where I'm like, it's like barely functioning. And I'm like, I just,

I die again. I come back, you know, but I mean, obviously like, it'll be different like i'm sure you know like you said you regenerate uh or you like you upload your brain into like this new skin or whatever yeah well i mean the other way besides freezing yourself is uploading which is you're

going to map all of your thoughts and your memories and you're going to map you're going to then upload it to a quantum computing, quantum computer. That's what typically the science fiction books do. And yes, I learned everything I learned from science fiction. Well, not really, but a lot. And so here's the question, right? You're sitting there, you put yourself in the machine, the machine maps your brain, just like Dr. did and it's mapping you know 100 billion neurons your 100 trillion synaptic connections all of your thoughts all of your memories get uploaded to this machine and you hear this booming voice that sounds like you and it says steve i have

been uploaded i now have all of your memories all of your thoughts i am you you can kill yourself you can kill yourself now you're immortal with me yeah yeah that's scary i see like it's scary like the idea that you cloned yourself and like now you're competing with your clone you know because like if you give that that clone you know this uh this feeling of like uh you know like self-awareness, then it's, then it's going to be like, yeah, okay. You, you mortal, I'm immortal. So like you, you could just die off and all will just live forever. And, and let the mortal side of me is like, no, I want to, I don't want to die off. I still like, you know, uh, I, I, I need to experience things, you know, like, so you don't want your clone to

live as you, you want you to live as you so it's that's that's in the in the we are in the we are bob scenario there are multiple versions of you but then one of you dies and then the other one goes on anyway okay we're going to change this subject we're going to go to another we're going to go to another of life's big questions so um we talked about what's next for humanity we're we becoming cyborgs. We're becoming, I think, a multi-planetary species, I think is very cool. I think we're going to live in the virtual world. That will be super cool, right? Imagine being able to be connected and digitally living in a fully virtualized world.

I think that will be cool. fully virtualized world. I think that will be cool. So here's my question going back to one of the things we talked about on our last podcast, which is purpose. And my question is, does everyone have a purpose? I can't speak for everyone. I know that for me, I mean, because, you know, everyone's got different brain makeup of what is fulfilling for them, right? So for me, like, that purpose is so important for me to seek out. And, you know, just like I was saying before, like, you know, I found it early on at a very young age. As did I, yeah. on at a very young age this as did as did i yeah like for me my purpose was always like you know first like finding this expression to finding a way to to voice all these angst and feelings and all this you know the teenage turbulence of what you go through being a kid like figuring out life

and i was able to do that through music. So I was lucky because I couldn't figure out how to do that. You know, I was like, hard time to socialize and through the traditional settings of how kids socialize and express themselves through sports and things like that. It was difficult for me to do that there. So I, I found it in music and it like was this like complete explosion of everything coming out and i'm like oh my god this is this is this is what i want to do for the rest of my life you know like that that moment was really that combination of a true passion that gives you joy and the ability to be in service to other individuals at the same time. Yeah. Right.

And something that you feel that you uniquely, uniquely have. So, yeah, I mean, I think everybody should, you know, to answer that question myself,

I do think that everybody can find a purpose and it could be to be a great mom or a great dad, or it can be to, you know, to be in, when you're in service of other people, I think if you're not being in service of other people, it's a little bit of an emptier life. I mean, it doesn't have to be, you know, a purpose that puts a dent in the universe, which I like to ask people to do.

I do like people to dream bigger and think bigger because it makes the world a better place. But I do think everybody can find a, uh, a purpose. And I think, I think I do believe so. I think I really think exactly like along, along what you're talking about, the, the purpose can be something that, that you might not think is a very big thing, but it gives you joy. You know, like it's, you know, like, like when I, just like the idea of what we were talking about before, it's like when you give something to someone and you see their reaction, uh, whatever it might be, it's like, you are, you're, you're creating that, that feeling of that, that, that transaction, whatever it is of like, whatever you're giving them and it's giving

them happiness or giving them joy. That's, that's a small purpose you know what you know even those little moments they all add up so it's like just like what you're saying it's being of service finding that and and whatever it is that of the service that it is however way you deliver it or however way you you you give it out i think that's think that's what people need to find. All right, another big question, pal, for someone like yourself, and me to some degree too, but how do you balance money and fame and happiness? You know, I mean, all of these things are,

they pull at you and they drive us in different ways. Have you thought about this? I mean, and you can even add health onto that, right? Because you're trading health and you're trading, you know, starting family. And I mean, so how do you balance all of these things? mean there's there's money there's health there's family there's uh fame there's you know uh i said money as well i mean how do you how do you think about balancing all these things i realize as i i'd be like i'm extremely like I definitely am like a very alpha alpha human like I I'm out there all the time doing what I need to do like whatever is up that my purpose is or whatever it

is that like my passions are I'm pushing that forward for sure and I think that's a large part of the success that I was able to make up to this point in my life. And that also, it, it shows, it also like has shown me that I'm very extroverted, you know, like I can be in public places and things like that. But as I became more famous, I'm very, very selective of my extrovert nature or my, you know, you know, that, that kind of thing. So I've, I've become kind of like an extrovert introvert in a way. And, um, because of the fame, I think if, you know, obviously when, when, when you're more noticeable, I only want to have like those moments to shine in controlled situations. So I don't just roll around as I used

to. I know that's how I deal with just being more noticed or having this kind of influence. I'm just very selective when it comes to like money. I definitely look at it more like I am now in a position to help others and to be able to afford to do all these interesting things that I can do to biohack to to try out these different like new discoveries of uh in science that I that I have access to because of my influence, right, I'd be able to connect with someone like you, Peter. And, but also test out all these different things. Because if I could test it out, then I could share it with others, you know, if it works for me. And, you know, once I was able to have the influence was I was able to have, you know, some sort of financial infrastructure myself. That's when I created the have, you know, some sort of financial infrastructure myself.

That's when I created the foundation, you know, like that's where I can actually do a lot of work and help there. This is less of a big question in life and more as people get successful in life, things go sideways sometimes for them. They think too much of themselves. They think it's their way or the highway. Some of them just drive at 100 miles an hour into a brick wall, whether it's drugs or relationships or whatever the case might be.

I mean, what's your advice? I mean, one of the best pieces of advice I got in the world of success is be careful who you piss off on the way up because you're going to meet them on the way back down. That's so true. I mean, that's like the reality of any level of success is that in anything in the stock market in uh in your relationships in any level of success it's never just a moonshot up it's not like this life isn't like this it's like life is like this and goes here then it goes down then it goes down again and it goes up and then you know in the end like the in the macro sense you're up farther hopefully than you were you know 10 years ago um but it's like the journey is just like all over the place it's never like it might go like this for a while and you're like holy shit what's going on but be prepared for the down 100 and And I think by the fourth or fifth down,

you just get it. You know, you just have to survive to that point, right? Because on the up, right? That's when like, you're like, whoa, I could do anything. I could do drugs. I could like embellish in this vice. I could do this, this, this, this. And of course, that's when people do what you're talking about.

It's like drive themselves right into a brick wall going 100 miles an hour because they just think that they're invincible. They're invincible, yes. And the answer is they're not. Exactly. I've been lucky where, yeah, I used to drink myself like crazy when I would DJ and it was just part of the show. And I had to make a cold turkey decision that happened to me around that time. And my best friend that's a DJ, he passed away from a drug overdose. And it had nothing to do with alcohol for me. But it was just a wake-up call being like, well, life is too short.

I need to just – I can't drink myself the way that I was doing at my shows every single night. I'm not going to have a long career. And my father passing away the year before that, a lot of things happened where I started thinking about longevity and health and like, you know, what is this like ride that I'm on? Is it supposed to be short and like, you know? And I'm like, no, I don't want to end this. I love my life. Yes, exactly.

Life is amazing living yeah i love living and i'm so lucky to even exist and to do what i was doing like i'm like i won like the greatest tier of a lottery just to be able to do what i'm doing and be alive yeah and be alive i do be alive at this period of time in human history yeah right yeah exactly like when you read the history books of all the other periods like you know just how things were i'm just like god i'm just so lucky so like all these things were happening where i started understanding what gratitude really means and how to deploy deploy that and to to live off that in a way that's meaningful and sustainable yes sustainability like that that understanding of it is so important to realize on like okay so once you understand sustainability

in your life then i think real growth can happen on what you need to to like kick out what you need to focus on i think mainly what you need to kick out you know it's a Martine Rothblatt do you know Martine she's amazing she's built six seven moon shots I have to read this quote she sent me she's one of most brilliant CEOs she cured her daughter's pulmonary hypertension fatal disease by finding a drug, building a $10 billion biotech company. She's 3D printing lungs and turning pig organs into human organs. Wow. Incredible.

Yeah, she is incredible. And you ready for this? And it's about doing less. She says, the difference between successful and very successful people is that the former say no to most things and the latter say no to almost everything. Wow. Powerful, huh? I love that.

I really love that. And you know what's interesting? I am saying no to a lot these days. I used to say yes to everything. Thanks for saying yes to this. Peter, I'm like, the problem is with you. I'll say yes to everything. Thank you.

Because I'm on Team Diamandis. I am Team Diamandis forever. Thank you, buddy. I'm with you. I'm with you. I will be careful with that. I will not abuse that superpower. So there's a couple of, you know, I asked my audience for some questions.

And we have a few minutes for a few AMA questions. And there are a few that I am curious. And so I consider you a fellow futurist, for lack of a better term, singulatarian, someone interested in technology and such. What got you interested in exponential tech and futurism? Ray Kurzweil. Okay, so talk about that. Two words. Yeah, yeah. Ray Kurzweil.

I love those words. Yeah, well, I mean, you know, like after my father passed away in 2008, I went on this, this journey and, you know, kind of understanding what cancer was. And, and that led me down to just, just overall mindfulness, how to be preventative of any, not just any cancer, but like like all disease and and coupling that with the fact that i'm a sci-fi junkie you know um i love science fiction it's my favorite genre and and i i mean i think so i'm gonna send you i'm gonna send you a link to the uh to the uh we are bob book yes please okay i i think the reason why is because it's just humans just thinking of like, what can

we do? You know, what are the things that could possibly happen? And in some of those conversations and stories, there are very inquisitive minds and incredible people like Peter Diamandis and Ray Kurzweil that are like, let's try to do one of these things or two of these things and, and find others that actually can and have the money, have the science backgrounds, have, you know, and have the scalability to, to, to grow these things. It's a real, real life situation. So then obviously I found Ray Kurzweil along this road to learning more about health and,

and, and more of the radical things that are exciting is like, what can we do in science fiction? That's that, that can become a science fact. And I just dove into all his books and I'm like, wow. Yes. Well, I, I want, I want, I'm a team Kurzweil. I actually met him. I flew up to the Bay Area and I hung out with him in his apartment.

We started toying on his Kurzweil keyboard and we talked about the future together. And I create a whole music series called Neon Future. I put him on a song, put Ray Kurz put him on a song put ray kerswell on a song uh so like he he has just like i'm an author and i'm also a musician ray kerswell is also he's an artist he's an artist and peter you know i'm going to do a song with you at some point i'm ready i'm ready for my neon future whenever you're ready for it buddy um yeah all right so next question uh asked what what are you curious about what are you most curious about like what do you find yourself thinking about wondering about right now more than anything else i mean right now the the thing that's on top of

mind is i need to figure out the hack for myself to get more rem sleep that's so i'm trying everything i possibly can so So I'm like, the most inquisitive, most like driven to try all these different techniques, whether I'm talking to Matt Walker, and, and having him having this diagnostic check with him to doing, you know, I do blood work on monthly, and following up on all my blood analysis and taking the right supplements and things like that, just balancing that out. Neurofeedback and just fine-tuning the different parts of my brain that need to get honed in on. Um, and you know, obviously speaking with Dr. Amen, as I, as, as we talked about before, uh, on my brain. Uh, but I just like, just, I just want to hack my brain and, and figure it out in a good way. Yes. You know, in a way to where I want to get normal

amount of REM sleep and then, you know, everything's small, right? It's like, for me, it's like, I want to go in the details. And that's my detail right now is, is, is understanding sleep. This is a man who has I'll sleep when I'm dead on the back of my neck. So I'm like, it's a complete like, change of mind. Last question here, pal. And it's a, it's a deep one. What drives you to create? And we may have discussed this already in one of your answers, but it worth saying again so you're i would say you are driven to create okay yes i think it just like i was saying before with the live shows it's it's my love it's it's like my it's where my heart opens up and connects with so many people. It's like, it's like this incredibly fulfilling feeling that never, ever gets old. It's always new.

It's always fresh. And it gives me so much life. So when I have that, that's always going to be the goal, right? So whenever I make music, it's how do I enrich that? And by the way, you create on many levels, right? It's not just music. You also create on companies.

I mean, that's, if I had to say what my creative area is, it's creating as an entrepreneur, right? And that's also for you too, right? Yeah, so it's interesting because when I'm in these other businesses, as we're talking about outside of music there is a different drive and a different uh reason for my pursuits like uh i'd say you know one thing i could share with you here is that you

know since covid i started a company um it's a trading card game company tell me the name it's called metazoo yes um i'm a co-founder of it i wouldn't i wouldn't say i started i'd say like you're more literally i'm a co-founder there's a uh this guy named mike waddell who actually started the company uh from a seventeen thousand dollar kickstarter project and after he launched it i joined in uh shortly thereafter and because i i'm so into cards i'm like big i was a big pokemon card guy i love sports cards i love collectible culture and uh and i was scanning and i was really as an entrepreneur looking for the next startup company in the space that i could join and help build. And I looked into their IP and I was like, this is a goldmine IP because it takes the idea of cryptids.

Cryptids are like Bigfoot, Locust Monster. So they're well established, but no one owns the IP. Exactly. But we can make our own interpretation of bigfoot and own that the metazoo bigfoot and we own that and we could write a whole story that involves all of them let's give you example there's like 20 million the avengers of uh of those yeah yeah yeah right there's like 20 million people that are obsessed with bigfoot right there's also like maybe 10 million people that are obsessed with chupacabra and then there's, you know, and so forth, you know, and Santa Claus and

whatever. We're going to take all of them, create our interpretation of them and create a whole world and build a entire company around it. And I was like, this one, I really believe will be a billion dollar company because it has the legs to do that because everybody has so much meat on the bone. We started a $17,000 Kickstarter project. That was the start of the company. In 16 months, we've already grossed over $50 million. Whoa. $50 million. That's insane. Cardboard. And the community is so rich. The secondary market is booming. It's like, to give you some crazy numbers, Peter, just because I know as an entrepreneur,

you like to like hear about these numbers and how we sell. Yeah, sure. You know, we started these boxes, right? We sold 20, we made 2, boxes uh at $50 a box we started that out with a $17,000 kickstarter project at the height they went from $50 a box we sold out of those like after like about three months it took us some time at the height of what they were selling in the secondary market they were going going for about $12,000. Whoa. So I don't know what the multiplier is on that,

but it's got to be a $200-something X. Wow. And this was during COVID as well? This is during COVID. Which is everybody's looking for that kind of a, you know, yeah. We're selling out, we did like a $50,000 box drop of like, you know, $50 or $ or 100 i forgot what the price was sold that that sold those boxes out in in in literally 20 seconds 50 000 boxes insane yeah we

just sold um now i've created my own brand called hero quest which is my my next musical project series a neon future for four series this is my new one and we created a whole character set underneath metazoo we just dropped you know these these packs that you can buy online uh we just dropped that uh sold you know over 30 000 of them in 30 minutes you know and i was like just it's just insane to see the numbers and how like how healthy the secondary market is on the products and how – and all the Comic-Cons and all these different conferences where we thrive. The cosplay is incredible. People are getting the tattoos on their bodies. They're like real diehard fans.

And we've been around for 16 months, you know, it's a long road to go. And I really do believe that this company has a strong chance to hit the billion dollar mark that I saw 16 months ago. amazing that that's been an exciting endeavor for sure amazing amazing amazing one more fan question uh that uh i need to ask because i'm curious too uh what's the story behind uh behind pursuit of happiness um well you know like i remember this is 2009 when I did that remix in 2008. I did a tour with my friend A-Track. We did a U.S. tour.

It was a Denmark full school tour. And he brought out a new artist of his that he was supporting on his label. And it was Kid Cudi. And he dropped a song called Day and Night at the time. And this is his first tour. So we were like on this tour together. and they uh he dropped a song called day and night at the time and this is his first tour so we we were like on this tour together and me and scott uh his name is scott um we just became really good friends on the tour and since then we we stayed friends and he's like hey i'm dropping uh an album

and i have this song called pursuit of happiness i'd love for you to remix it. And of course, I'm like, anything for you, Scott. Of course, I want to do anything for him. And he was just on the rise. He was just about to just pop. And I heard this song and MGMT and Rat-A-Tat on there. And I love MGMT. And I love Rat-A-Tat as well. So it's got this indie flair to it already.

It's really, really kind of like, it was a very kind of an emo dark song, but like with this hopeful lyric and musically, it was like, it was just, it was just slowed down. So I'm like, I have to rave this out. So I sped it up, like from, I think the tempo is like a hundred and something BPM. And I, I just punched it up to 128 Bpm which is the the typical uh rave you know yeah rave tempo electro tempo edm tempo it's a tempo that i live in and um and i'm like i'm gonna turn this into a festival banger like that was the goal because the lyrics are so powerful like when you when you hear cuddy sing those

lyrics i i was only imagining the whole crowd singing it which is what happened like everyone knows the lyrics to pursuit of happiness at all my shows around the world literally it's a global phenomenon yeah it's like a it's a cultural song it really is is a cultural song. And, um, and you know, I put on these raves, rave synths on the track. It like, it launches with that. Then it goes into his, his lyrics. Then it goes right into this heavy drop that makes everyone dance. And, and, um, and interestingly enough, um, when we dropped that remix, it didn't really hit. It was like, it was cool, but it was like, yo, this is great. This is really good. We did it, you know, but like, it didn't really break culture until three years later.

There's a movie called Project X that came out and Project X is like the definitive party movie of all time. movie of all time. I literally, the most iconic classic, like high schoolers that, that, that took over a house when the parents were gone, like this scenario that every high school kid dreams about parents are gone. Let's throw the craziest party known to mankind. And actually it was a base on this, uh, these, these kids that did that in Australia. And the whole block went crazy. These cops showed up and everything. Anyways, it's called Project X.

And all these kids threw this party. And at the pinnacle of this movie, they dropped my remix of Pursuit of Happiness. And it turned it into a music video inside the movie of the most important part of like the height of this party scene and after that movie dropped the world her finally heard pursuit of happiness and after that is it was literally a cultural song in the history books it's amazing and it's incredible what tips things, right? It's like, yeah, I mean, that was, I love looking at those tipping moments. It's like, you know, I hate to say it, like COVID tipped Zoom into like a phenomenon

around the world. Yes, absolutely. And I look forward to you and I building a company together. That'll be a fun conversation. We'll continue in the days ahead. Steve, listen, thank you, my friend, for your unbridled enthusiasm and purpose and passion. And excited to be doing things with you.

Excited to have you join us at A360 in March. Excited for helping spread the gospel of brain science and health through your foundation. And excited for the REM sleep I'm going to gift you. Please. Thank you, Peter. I'd love to talk with you. All right, brother. Be well. Have a beautiful day. Thank you.