The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett - A Billionaire’s Guide To Healing Your Mind And Extending Your Life - Christian Angermayer

Episode Date: March 15, 2021

My guest this week is Christian Angermayer. Christian is a friend and definitely the most interesting person I know. He has founded and invested in businesses in some of the most fascinating and mind-blowing areas from space tech to fintech to biotech, crypto - you name it he’s in there. He has become one of the largest investors in the psychedelic space and is on a mission to cure mental health disorders and addiction. Christian is the founder of Apeiron Investment Group (www.apeiron-investments.com). Apeiron focuses on BioTech, FinTech & Crypto and DeepTech investments. Christian has (executive) produced more than 20 feature films including critically acclaimed movies like Filth, Aspern Papers and Hector and the Search for Happiness. He is the largest shareholder of DEAG, one of the largest live entertainment companies in Europe, producing over 4.500 shows per year. Christian has created, co-founded and invested in numerous successful companies, has raised approx. USD 2.5bn for his portfolio companies and has been involved in more than 50 successful IPO- and M&A-transactions either as an entrepreneur, investor or banker/advisor. Christian reported to be among the 1,000 richest people living in the United Kingdom with an estimated net worth of more than 1 bUSD. With his biotech company ATAI Life Sciences (www.atai.life), Christian has the ambitious goal to enable people to live healthier and happier lives. ATAI’s focus is on developing solutions for the hundreds of million people who suffer from depression, anxiety, and addiction, especially by bringing back formerly vilified drugs like psychedelics into the legal realm. Follow Christian: LinkedIn - https://uk.linkedin.com/in/christian-angermayer Twitter - https://twitter.com/C_Angermayer

Quick one. Just wanted to say a big thank you to three people very quickly. First people I want to say thank you to is all of you that listen to the show. Never in my wildest dreams is all I can say. Never in my wildest dreams did I think I'd start a podcast in my kitchen and that it would expand all over the world as it has done. And we've now opened our first studio in America, thanks to my very helpful team led by Jack on the production side of things. So thank you to Jack and the team for building out the new American studio. And thirdly to to amazon music who when they heard that we were expanding to the united states and i'd be recording a lot more over in the states they put a massive billboard in time square um for the show so thank you so much amazon music um thank you to our team and thank you to all of you

that listen to this show let's continue but i do personally think it's the best thing i've ever done in my whole life full stop and i was I was like, look, you're clearly insane. Like, I've never drank alcohol. And I'm not going to touch an illegal drug. But the biggest interference is death. It's not my, I don't choose the time. I don't choose like, and we need to change that. My guest today is a friend, but he's also most definitely the most interesting human being I have

ever encountered in my life. He's an entrepreneur, he's an investor, but he's also just a really nice guy. And he's invested and started companies in some of the most fascinating industries from psychedelics to space tech to artificial intelligence to cryptocurrencies to fintech. You name it, he's in there. In fact, he's the single biggest investor slash driving force behind the whole psychedelics industry,

which is currently trying to cure mental health disorders. This is undoubtedly the most interesting person I know. And I think this is the type of podcast where you're going to demand a part two, because we spoke for two hours and even I was left feeling that I was only scratching the surface and that I wanted to know more. The man I'm talking about is Christian Angermeyer. And I genuinely believe he's going to become, if he isn't already,

one of Europe's most important investors and entrepreneurs, in the same way that people praise Elon Musk for all the work he's done in the US, I think he's Europe's answer to Elon Musk. Without further ado, I'm Stephen Bartlett, and this is The Diary of a CEO. I hope nobody's listening, but if you are, you and the work you do. I know you're, you know, I've observed your behaviour in person over the last, you know, six to 12 months. Deeply, deeply fascinating. But the part of you that I know very, very little about

is your early years, your upbringing, your childhood. Cute child. Really? I've been fascinated by... years your upbringing your childhood cute child really I've been fascinated by it was a cute child I've only had slithers of that part of your life so could you tell me a little bit more about the childhood that made the man the main point I'm always making which I'm really sort of literally happy about is that I was a very very happy child meaning I'm still a very happy person but i think the reason why i'm groundedly happy is because i had a great like how you say um childlike upbringing like i was growing up in a 90 people village um so bavaria in bavaria i literally knew everybody and there

were a lot of other children so i'm an only child but like i had a lot of children sort of same age plus minus four years to to grow up with um and we were literally like in the tv series we were out all day like in summer in winter like it was very much like you would picture like what is these american tv series where they might they on a farm or whatever like it was like that like sort of um idyllic childhood yes really idyllic like yeah no crime like no risk like it was literally my mom sent me out in the morning uh in summer winter and i came back in the evening since i'm like five like i was because there was no risk for anything like um yeah so that was sort of the very very very, this was till I'm nine. And then we moved to a town, many concert city town with like 2000 people. So it's nearby, like a kilometer apart.

So it was all very, very rural, very, which I liked. So I'm actually was thinking about if I have children, when I have children, then how to recreate that, which I think won't work. So, but like, I think it's great to have nature which is also by the way i mean already jumping but like yeah because you know that that would i do a lot in in mental health work like and one thing which is really healthy very very simple for your mental health is nature yeah like there is even in japan they prescribe like a walk in the forest as a as a treatment for depression so, so I grew up in these super nice childhood. I always was funnily very entrepreneurial. Yeah.

And nobody else is. So not in my family, not in this village. Like, so that was always literally like with six. My mom still has the, so the first thing which I did when I learned writing was writing invoices. Like some tiny bills. Like, oh, give me five, give me five cents for, for salads. So I was actually had a very flourishing gardening business. So since I'm four, like five.

How's it going? Sorry, wrong English term. Psychedelics. No, I stopped it later on when I was 12. Like, no, this is how I started my first business. But my mom still remembers that the first thing I did with my writing skills was writing her an invoice for a salad and everything. And then I was literally like in a movie, it's very stereotyped,

but I was selling like in a movie it's very stereotyped but I was selling um lemonade to neighbors then I was selling lollipops in school I was selling literally everything like I made a business out of everything so I remember when I went to the my first cinema um ever I think it was like seven um then I was so fascinated that people are buying for something, which is apparently also on TV. They didn't get the difference. So then I started charging my parents at home

when they wanted to switch on the TV because I was pretending I was running a cinema. So, yeah. So literally everything I was doing, I saw through the lens of a business. And when you look at your childhood... My parents were deeply worried in a nice way, but they were worried. They always tend to be with kids that are slightly different.

Exactly. Yeah, so I look like them. So the discussion, if they're maybe not my parents, was early off the table. Yeah, but like sort of from the way how I see the world, and I'm very different. What were the factors, the sort of macro factors at play that were making you into this entrepreneur at that age, but also the entrepreneur you came to become? It was always there. Sometimes I think for myself, I think because my parents were never around, they create this big sort of void of freedom and independence, which I thought made this connection in my mind that if I was going to get something, it came from my behavior. I'm

thinking about those factors that, you know, freedom, you said, you know, I've heard you say that your parents were very keen for you just to be happy. Yeah, exactly. Like they were always like, I can be whatever I want. So, but it was not that, I don't, I don't know if that automatically leads to entrepreneurship. It could also have led to me being an artist or whatever.

Like, I don't think there is a connection between freedom. It's actually the freedom to be whatever you want. And then I think maybe you, maybe it's genetic. Maybe it's like, I don't think there is a connection between freedom it's actually the freedom to be whatever you want and then i think maybe you maybe it's genetic maybe it's like i don't know like um this is the point meaning it was always there there is not there is not a moment i can think of where i sort of changed but it was literally since i can think since i'm four five six like very very early it was always there to make a business out of everything in a nice way, hopefully. That coupled with some kind of innate curiosity,

which is, Peter Thiel said, when he did a quote about you in Sifted, he said that curiosity is one of your real sort of... Yeah, but I don't, I'm just thinking if that was that early visible. I loved school, which I think I was a very nerdy child as well. So I, yeah, I loved, actually, I did love school for,

and meaning now more talking than later high school, for the one reason. And even if I look back now, I really miss it a bit because it was the only time in life where you do something for the pure reason of learning something with no material sort of meaning i turned that then also in a business because i started my my this was my first real business was when i started a tutoring business when i was 14 um and then i um what was that business tell me

tutoring like like giving sort of other kids yeah because i was extremely good in school so i was always the best one in my school but it was practically always the best one in like the bavaria whatever like top 10 yeah and there was always i like to explain stuff so so i think i think that still helps me now because it's part of fundraising to explain complex sort of things to people anyway so i liked i did like to explain stuff and i did like to um and i was good in the matter so so i started tutoring then there was this tiny thing i i think a bit that because the teachers very much liked me because i was always like uh the good child like everybody who came to me automatically became a little bit better because teachers were treating

these children more nicer because they were coming to me so became a little bit better because teachers were treating these children more nicer because they weren't coming to me. So it became this sort of positive virtuous circle that more and more parents were like, oh God, we have to send our children to Christian because it really works. And I think... And what were you doing for these kids?

Well, tutoring, like how... Teaching them the same thing. Teaching them the same thing because they were, these were the ones who didn't perform well. How do you call it in English? Tutoring, right? Yeah, yeah, tutoring. And they were your peers. They were the same age. The same age or younger same thing, because they were the ones who didn't perform well. How do you call it in English? Tutoring, right? Yeah, yeah, tutoring. And they were your peers. They were the same age.

The same age or younger? No, all younger. Like, it was mainly, like, a little bit younger, like, one or two years, but not a lot younger. So anyway, and then I was, like, after half a year, I was so, like, full. Like, I think I worked, like, 10, 15 hours a week, practically all the time, like, I was tutoring. And then I was, like, then i was like how do i really scaled it up and it sounds not very um i don't know very banal yeah but for me this was

like the first time i really thought about business like in an entrepreneurial way how do you scale it up and practically i realized i have the brand because parents want to send their children to me um so i was employing other pupils my same age or even a little bit older and said, you can teach under my brand and you get half of it and I get half of it. So 50% margin. And I started employing and I continuously

till my final grade had like 10 people, like always employed, who were tutoring other children yeah so it was a very lucrative business meaning for for a child like but like crazy it's absolutely crazy yeah and then so you get to 16 you get to 18 in that period of your life i hear that in bavaria they have this like public service you've got to do for a year i just was thinking like how compliant do i have to be because then it's all i think what is it called when it's out of time is back? Like nobody can claw it back. Like, because what happened is like, I was always extremely libertarian.

And we had back then, it changed in Germany, but we had back then, like the Israelis have still, you had to go to the military for a year. And I think in general, this is wrong. Not because I'm against the military, but I think you can employ people. This is a job, like people should want to be a soldier or should want to be something else. But I think as a government, meaning in general, you think the less government, the better. So I was thinking, hopefully this comes across charming, but because I was thinking all the time how to avoid it unfortunately I was not daring enough back then there were tricks to do it like you could have had said you're sort of mentally ill

or whatever like I was not brave enough to go on with that so I decided to do you can you could also opt to do civil servant I started in civil servant, like go to a hospital or whatever. And I tried to be really nice. So I picked a job which I knew it didn't really require me. It was more like, okay, you had to put these children who didn't want to go to the military, you could say you're a pacifist, you had to put them somewhere. It was not that somebody was dependent on me. So I was sitting in that hospital and my only job was to bring stuff from a to b like whatever so then i made an i remember that i made a um how you say a proposal that if we reorganize everything in the hospital i could do my job in an hour and then go home yeah so this was i was 18 and then they were like okay this is crazy like it was not really really uh popular

um so and then i made a decision that i'm not really gonna show up anymore um and the only way to do that was to um to get always like doctors to give me like a letter a letter and so now comes but the important, because like till that time, I was extremely like, I loved learning. So I was actually thinking I'm gonna, if I would have gone, and I think this is sometimes how crazy stuff happens and then it changes sort of the whole course

of your whole life practically. So I think if I would have gone from high school to university i i would would have just been in that sort of mode like of learning being extremely good so i guess i would have just went on with what i was doing like meaning producing great academic outcome so to say so then came this one year which i was completely bored so I I got these doctors um writing me letters they didn't need to show up but in return I started managing money for them because I was already speculating on the stock market since I was like 15 16 and I was not bad in it so I became

friends with all of these doctors even in the hospital I was working and they were all like well we help you if you help us because this was the early days of the, or not, you know, like this was 1998, 1999. Like this was the stock market boom, whatever.

So everybody wanted to be in it. So this was sort of my trade off for these letters. And so, and I can't be, I'm easily bored. So I always want to do something. So practically because, so I was not the type of person who was okay I have a free year now and I'm going just partying like I was like I have a free year now I'm gonna do more tutoring yeah and I'm gonna do managing money

for these doctors yeah and sort of that completely switched my I say course like so I wasn't these I actually wrote the book yeah and tried to sell that this didn't work out but I did a lot of entrepreneurial stuff just because I had time yeah and then when I practically went to uni then a year later I was sort of mentally not anymore in that sort of learning world I was in the okay I want to be an entrepreneur world and then I was in this sort of when I met remet actually two guys who finally were my tutors in a scholarship I had had during high school already like for sounds awkward but for highly gifted children yeah so I was sort of in summer summer school that was university this where I knew them from we remet kind of and they were

telling me about this idea and it just sounded great and they were like my tutors in terms of i was like okay these guys are the pinnacle of biotech um and then i was the one let's do a company together and uh we did and this worked out really well and then i dropped out of uni so i think this how was this is how i think this how was this sort of i think without this one year in hospital or sort of one year in hospital not in hospital yeah i would have stayed in a completely different path i hear you talk a lot about you believe in like the serendipity of moments and spirituality yeah which almost seems surprising because you're such a like a scientific led person whereas you do you do believe that things happen at the right totally totally

actually i'm actually very extreme with that so i everything which has happening literally everything this conversation today well this conversation happens because we planned it yeah but like the fact for example that we met originally yeah yeah while i'm your friend whatever so i'm always everything which is happening to me, which I didn't actively say, hey, I need to have a meeting, which is not in my usual rhythm. I always think, A, it's happening for a reason.

And also it's happening for a good reason. Even bad stuff. I believe in this power of positive thinking, but like more like people always then say, ah, this means like if you wake up in the morning, you're, if you feel great, it's going to be a great day. I believe in this power of positive thinking but like more like people always then say ah this means like if you wake up in the morning you're if you feel great it's gonna be a great day I think it's more deeper I believe in this what there is this great book law of attraction like whatever you sort of think and rather how you think not just meaning sort of the essence what

you think not like the detail partly but more the essence and if you expect sort of good stuff to happen you're sort of attracting that yeah you think there's a do you think there's a spiritual force that attracts or do you think your intention moves you in that direction so look i'm very pragmatic meaning i mean first of all i dare to talk about this stuff because i'm very also scientific so i'm like look nobody will think i'm crazy yeah uh maybe a bit no no joking like so but the other thing is like, there are multiple explanations and I don't really care about the explanation. You can have a very spiritual explanation.

Yeah, it's the force of the universe. Yeah. And then you can have a very pragmatic explanation that if you continuously expect positive stuff, then you look out for that stuff. And then it's more like a numbers game or like uh yeah but and i don't care like it it works tremendously well for me since i'm 16 yeah and i had these i had some very crazy things which go borderline which you could explain like sort of with statistics or

whatever yeah um so maybe too crazy for that but but like but there were some there were some things where i tend to believe in the spiritual explanation yeah because they were yeah i think harder to explain or you can always explain them with statistics like you know what i mean like but i don't care like it does work tremendously well for me okay so going back to this company you founded with these two your two sort of like university mentors this company went on to be really successful i think you said it's worth probably about 15 billion at last check market cap today but like i sold very early but very early i sold when we went public for a billion so it was it was one it was actually pardon do

you regret selling well there's there is a short and long answer. No, because like the short answer is no, because like A, that money was the basis for the rest. Yeah. B, also people always mix up market cap and share price. So meaning I sold at the lower share price that it's today, but the share price is not 15x because they did capital increases.

There was dilutive stuff. Like, so anyway, long story. it was an amazing start yeah so um yeah it was actually the quickest biotech IPO I think in Germany ever uh we IPO'd three years three and a half years later after foundation and for a billion so it was was everything um and it was sort of I dropped out of university before but it like was the sort was sort of, I dropped out of university before, but it like was the sort of catalyst, I would say. Yeah. So I don't regret that.

And since then, sort of I'm investing and being an entrepreneur, I'm somewhat in between, I would say. I actually, sorry, when I'm jumping, I had this one story again, by the way, which is completely, you can... Serendipitous. Serendipitous and like even a bit more.

So I remember it exactly. I was 14 years old and I was with my best friends back then in Munich, which is far away. I mean, for me, this was like going to the big city. And we spent the weekend with family members. I remember every single detail of the weekend, like what we did and like where. And we went to a bookstore, which is for Germans who listen,

Hugen Duble is a, back then was like sort of like a, I don't know, iconic bookstore, a hundred years old in Munich. I think it's still even there, although books are dying out. Smaller.

So it's in the prime location of munich and so i remember it so i go into the bookstore and there was these whole i would say promotion wall right yeah with just one book which uh which which is uh the american think and grow rich from napoleon hill and know, like when in movies, like the 14 year old boy goes in and then the light is coming down and then the hallelujah is coming. Sort of that, meaning there was no music,

there was no light. I was like, that's it. Think and Grow Rich. I need to have that book. So I bought the book and it was practically my first kind of, Napoleon Hill is not as spiritual as some others yeah but like that was my journey into that world of let's say spiritual infused success books how do you define spiritual

well there is like napoleon hill is sort of and i love it by the way because they're all so old like they're all out of the 1920s so they they don't have the zeitgeist which i think in terms of success is rather negative like so it's sort of like raw american only principles yes uh exactly like uh and napoleon hill has this why it was a great entry into that thing because his view was if you read many of the bookstarts that he says he got commissioned by um andrew carnegie who was the steel magnet to find out and do interviews which i think by the way you are doing in a certain way yeah with successful people um and find out if their common traits uh you say traits are common denominators which make them successful and he did that with all the famous people of his time,

from Andrew Carnegie himself to a lot of other famous people. And then he made that into the book. And he's actually saying that the question, he doesn't answer the question why these rules, so to say, work. He's more a neutral observer. And then the next one is actually, there's a guy called Dr. Joseph Murphy who wrote similar books, books but more like with the spiritual undertone why these rules work same rules sort of more explanation why they work which went more into the religious world and then you

have all the other book and law of attraction is nothing else which is sort of the modern version and the key which is a sort of a simplified version of an anyway simplified version yeah of this stuff like but it's at the end it's always the same rules some which think it's they are god-given some which say look again this is statistics whatever but they do work i deeply believe and these things do work yeah um which is like visualization the the way you think it's visualization is that the main thing i think is two things is visualization so i meditate in the morning and evening but it's not real meditation it's more like visualization so i i always have a plan for the week for the months

for the year for my life yeah and everything kind of did come true so far so i'm always thinking what could i add like a wish list yeah and now again you can say if you add something and then you you focused on it it might come true because you focused on it there could be a very banal explanation that it's relentless execution and nothing magic and again i don't care it's like i'm like well like yeah it does work so and the visual i think it's two things visualization and it it's also that you have, for example, I'm not, it sounds very crazy, but I'm trying to not have negative thoughts. So and then there is a number of negative thoughts you're going to have anyway, because you have to deal with stuff when you run a business. But for example, I've never watched a horror movie since 20 years, at least, because it gives me negativity.

So I and I go the extra mile so i told for example friends when they are too much complaining meaning i'm the first one friends can call for a problem but then i'm like let's go through the problem that's the solution that's what you're gonna do but if they would repeatedly because some people want to not solve the problem they want to repeat the problem then i'm like you can't call me again on that topic because no negativity yeah so i really have a rule yeah so no negative movies i never watch a movie with has no happy ending so i have people check or i check yeah before does it have a happy ending no bad endings nothing which makes me sad nothing which makes me negative because i'm not i'm not allowed in my own religious philosophy

to have negative thoughts and feelings. Feelings are even more important than thoughts because I think they are the underlying driver. And it sounds now maybe cheesy and simplified, but I think this is what I'm doing since I'm 14. And if you train yourself not, and again, you will always have an amount because sometimes hard things happen yeah

and i don't want to pretend as if my life was easy because i did have very hard times in business but even in those times i was lying in my bed literally and was like okay this is not fun what's happening right now but it must happen for a very very reason, because this is how your world works. And funnily, it always, the worst things in my life turned into the best ones. Yeah. So because I, again, and you can say that maybe somebody would say, well, because he was persistent and he didn't fall. Okay. Then this is the explanation. Maybe there's a deeper one. I don't care. I can always come to the back. But I would tell everybody the two things emotionally is like don't have negative thoughts just focus on positive sort of thoughts visualize these are the key things be happy so many things that you know dare to be happy because most people are again don't allow themselves to be happy and even think

it's a little bit negative toxic so there's this whole thing happening on Instagram that I want to come back to this point about this movies and because I think it's very much linked to your whole thing about alcohol and stuff. This happiness equilibrium you talk about, but just quickly on that point of being really positive and unapologetically positive and saying, listen, don't call me with the same problem twice. Don't interrupt my positivity.

There's this whole movement happening on Instagram at the moment where there's such a thing as being toxic positive it's called it's bullshit like no and i like getting on this point like because that's one thing i think i mean again maybe so i have to so maybe i'm sitting there i'm already so old that there is another generation i'm thinking about the other generation and because i'm reading a lot, like, very old stuff, and you find Socrates complaining about the youth. So maybe that's a recurring thing, yeah? But I really think part of the millennial culture,

of this victimization and always like, blah, is this is so wrong. This is so wrong, yeah? So to pre-take a question, because they normally say, well, you saying that because they normally say well you saying that because you're rich you're white yeah so i was like okay this is maybe a point let's go back because i didn't talk a lot about it but i'm happy to sorry like i grew up in this 90 people village yeah i'm gay i'm actually happily gay but i look meaning i know i'm gay i'm gay since i'm 11

ish roundabout so and i was looking at sort of that world I was growing up in and I was like, that's not going to resonate here. So seriously, like, and that's very, very, very positive phrase. So in my school, people were saying, let's beat up gay people. And I was like, that's not going to end well. But I didn't think that is anything bad, by the way. I didn't even think these people were sort of wrong. Obviously they were wrong, but I was like, they don't know better.

I'm not like, ah, these are bad people. I was just like, be pragmatic. Sometimes life is not fair. Sometimes life is not nice, but you can decide if you react on it. That's one of the other points I really believe in, that you have these tiny millisecond in life on everything. If somebody is sort of rude to you, if somebody says something very bad and you can decide if you're hurt or not,

it's your decision, by the way, nothing's going to hurt you. If you decide you're not going to be hurt. Yeah. So, and I was like, they don't know better.

And I can't, by the way, by the way, gay is not what defines me. So I was like, well, then I'm, I'm not gay for a while till I'm out of here.

Yeah. I can't have, because there are other things which define me like friends like you know like you know what i mean like it's not that i reduced myself to this one thing and was like and now i need to shout it out to the world and in return would have get beaten up like i was like just like just don't do it like but don't blame the others yeah and then move away somewhere also i i mean he's all like don't blame the others, yeah? And then move away somewhere. Also, I mean, he's all like, don't try to change everybody else. Work on yourself and like,

and your environment, what you can change. Like, I could have started like, oh my God, my life is miserable and I'm growing up in this village and blah, blah, blah. And actually, talk about serendipity. I'm honestly, but again, I'm trained to see the positive stuff. If I look back, if I would have been straight, I wouldn't sit here for a very simple reason,

because I would have dated every single free minute I would have had. Yeah. And would have enjoyed that. Yeah. So, but I couldn't. So, what did I do? I was working my ass off and learning all the time. So, and if I hadn't had

the grades I had, I would have, and the first money I had, I would have never met these guys with whom I started a biotech company. Yeah.

Nothing would have happened. I would have been an ordinary straight boy. Most likely smart. Yeah. But not uber smart because sometimes it's smart and hard work

to get grades. Yeah. It's not all false and found. So, so, so the practically the, if you say like the,

the, you say adversary or the negative thing being gay in a very hostile environment and not talking about it and focusing on other stuff completely made my life. Yeah. In a very positive way. I, I wouldn't, I mean,

yeah, I, I'm so happy that this was the case. Yeah. And again, and everybody should look, everybody has, um, uh, positive way i i wouldn't i mean yeah i i'm so happy that this was the case yeah and again and everybody should look everybody has um uh limitations and negative stuff but you should look at it and say they are there for a very positive reason and something amazing will come out of it i just need to have this continuous sort of expectation and optimism and yeah and you have a real sense of like personal responsibility

that comes across. Like you'll take responsibility for yourself and your actions. But who else? But it's like, who else should be like? The government or, you know, someone else. You know what I mean? We see that with the vaccine. Give the government a little bit of responsibility

and it goes totally wrong. You don't want anybody be responsible for you than yourself. So going to this point about the horror films, which I thought was somewhat connected to what I've heard about your rule with alcohol and cigarettes you i hear you've never drunk before ever you've never had a drink exactly so there were two reasons for it they were connected the one again by the way the one reason was because i was actually thinking like if i'm gonna be drunk 14 15 i'm to spill out I'm gay. And then it's over. So my social life of being the darling of the school.

Imagine that day. Yeah, exactly. And I was also like, I was very nerdy. So teachers loved me, but I was also, how do you say, school speaker, speaker of the school, whatever. So I socially had a great life. So I was like, no, let's not risk that. No alcohol. You could say the wrong stuff.

Yeah. So that was the one thing and the other thing was that I always sort of because you do that as a child and in general and I think it's a good thing like if you have one weakness in my case the weakness for the time was being gay the others you build on your strengths which was like okay I think I'm kind of smart and also like smart in terms of learning smart I learned very easy easy. I always had the best grades. Yeah. So I was, I was sort of focusing on that. So I was also like, okay, alcohol could take that away from me because I thought it makes me dumb, which by the way, it does. Yeah. In a lot of amounts, I still wouldn't drink. But so these are what my childish reasons not to drink. And then

I just decided, okay, I think I have the perfect equilibrium like uh being always happy having very good grades everything was perfect so i was like i'm not gonna touch any drug ever and you still haven't touched alcohol cigarettes so i haven't i haven't drank alcohol i haven't smoked a cigarette ever i haven't smoked a joint ever i have no i take cocaine i've done anything like no comment i did i did actually drink alcohol the first time when i was sorry coffee uh the first time when i was 28 so you avoided coffee as well i was even avoiding coffee and tea yeah because it was a drug it was almost like the very religious people so i would have been a good mormon um so um but then coffee i started drinking when i was 28 there's something crazy here where you think okay so the guy that doesn't want to upset his equilibrium

goes on to be the biggest psychedelics investor in the world, which is all about. I think there was a very good ground because what happened is, so I had a discussion or dinner. It wasn't a discussion. It was like a dinner discussion, like where somebody sat us next to each other with finally the joke and said, oh, you, the guy was a very or is a very famous um drug researcher like he's the david not of germany like the a drug uh yeah uh advisor to the government yeah a neuroscientist and somebody said oh you should you should sit next to each other because maybe you can loosen christian up a bit and he could drink a little bit of alcohol so So this is how I met Reiner's name. It's your deputy again. No, but like, exactly.

Like, again, everybody else would have said, I remember that I was like, oh my God, that's awesome. Like, and everybody else would have said, well, again, every single thing happening, I see it's good for me. Yeah. So anyway, so we had this discussion and the short version is he was like, look, everything you think is bad is bad. Like, don't touch it.

Exactly. He actually showed me these and whoever is watching, I maybe, I don't know if you can put it into the... It's this very famous, but it's so to the point. David Nutt in the UK wrote a whole book about the misperception of drugs but this one like he had this one chart which david not made and reiner pulled it uh pulled it off in the internet where you can see sort of the harm um of each drug yeah so how much harm there was this harm scale and practically on number one is alcohol but even in a in a holistic approach alcohol is the worst and then closely followed by heroin which by the way the media used a little

bit against david not which was highly unfair because the headline i remember i think in the sun or whatever was like oh guy says heroin is better than alcohol no the thing is like they're both very very bad like but alcohol is as well we have these and this is the chart that says the harm to you and harm to others both it's it's in one exactly yeah so yeah a chart that shows the harm that these different drugs have on you and others and alcohol is the worst exactly i was the worst but closely followed by heroin yeah and closely followed by um crystal meth or whatever like everything is bad and i really like if there is one positive outcome of people watching that, don't do it. But don't do alcohol, don't do heroin, don't do crystal meth, don't, nothing, no.

There is no, by the way, and I'm the most, again, pragmatic person because what I was talking with him was like, is there any drug, there could be a drug where you say, oh, it has a little bit of downside, but it has enormous upside. And then you can think for yourself again you are responsible i don't think the government should be responsible to think for myself is there

any upside of me taking that risk because if i go in a car i came to you in a car so i took a risk of dying meaning very low but there was a risk but i was it's worth to sit with steven and do their podcast like no but everything we do in life by the way people should look at is like risk return yeah so maybe somebody says oh if i smoke a joint once in a while it makes me so relaxed anyway but you should be aware of the risks and i think people aren't especially not with alcohol yeah and if you then still decide actively i'm going to enjoy my glass of wine then i think it's great but you should know it anyway so but at the end of that scale it said um um probably at the very end is mushrooms magic mushrooms and before the very end is the second sort of easiest or second lowest

risk is lsd practically the psychedelic group of uh of drug and he was like christian like i can't tell you what my host told me to tell you that you should try alcohol. Don't. Meaning I can also tell you you're not going to die, but don't do it. But you should do actually magic mushrooms. And I was like, look, you're clearly insane.

I've never drank alcohol. And I'm not going to touch an illegal drug. And he was very, very persuasive. Because he was very very uh persuasive because he was like look first of all you do biotech you started your career in biotech like I send you um I send you all the research I did or I do but also which was very cool hindsight I didn't even value it back then he was like I did my PhD with famous Hoffmanffman who invented lsd so so reinhardt was replucked into like the old guard of psychedelic luminaries and he was like i sent you all what

what he did like read it because there were all these studies it's not like a crazy idea meaning again actually magic mushrooms or the ingredient psilocybin was used as an approved medical drug in the 50s by sandals actually very uh at least in germany famous um brand um for for depression he was like look it was medical it has no risk as you can see i tell you i send you all the studies at least read it and again i'm very curious i was like well send me i'm so there was actually again serendipity and so and now comes the biggest serendipity because like so for one year i was just like not meaning it's not that i had it on my mind every day i was it was

there like i read a little bit here and by the way again i know a lot there's even a book about that which says what some people believe is destiny is just like, if you're aware of a theme, yeah, it's a little bit like when I tell you, don't think of the blue elephant or whatever, you think of it. So there is this one book, I can't remember the name, which again would be fine for me, because again, it works, was like, if you are aware of a thing, of a theme, then it pops up everywhere. You'll see yeah so over a year there were not a lot because it was completely not in the public domain but like they were once here and there i was like okay read something again whatever and then more or less exactly one year later i was with my best friends who actually have a stake in a tie so they happy with my best friends in the caribbean uh so disclaimer it was a place uh where where it's legal um and they had magic mushrooms and they

had it like it looked like mushrooms like this was good because i i'm so hypochondriac and frightened of everything so i would never have taken anything which didn't look like mushrooms so these were dried mushrooms like so I was like see that from the ground I was like okay that looks real like and they were like and I trust them they're my best friends yeah so big shout out to Landon and Julian yeah so I trust them anyway they were like we grew it ourselves so like safe we know what we're doing yeah um and I was like actually calling Re now and the guy you'd met in germany yes so i'm not mentioning his last name because i don't know if he works still in a very famous job

uh and he was actually saying the sentence look as your doctor friend do it it's the best place best people you know it's real it's set in setting everything is perfect do it so so i took all my courage ahead um i was really like and it's it sounds now i can't say how nervous i was in sort of both anxious and positive like it was like really not maybe people say oh he's talking about magic monster all the time it must have been an easy decision it was not yeah for days and i was like okay let's do it i still know exactly the point on the beach yeah uh because we're going there every easter and somewhere i'm gonna put a big magic mushroom statue here uh i really will i really will i know the guys who own the island so

i yeah they already know of it actually the guy who owns the island is now a shareholder in a tie as well everybody is literally everybody's so um so i did it and it was the single most meaningful thing full stop and by the way it confirmed everything i just said so because what a lot of people report is that um that um you it's a very spiritual experience and And in that case, it was not just a spiritual experience, but it really confirmed 100% my view on life. Which is, by the way, interesting, because if we look now at people, because a lot of people ask me, especially successful people,

they are like, oh, I've read somebody takes it and then he's gonna be a farmer in Brazil. By the way, which was my biggest fear. My biggest fear was like, I'm gonna come out of that and I'm gonna change my whole life because i realize that i don't know i want to do something else hindsight i tell everybody that look at me and look at others we have both we have people like me who come out are very even more happy but it for me it was a very big confirmation of what I'm doing. Because, yeah, I don't mean because like it was a confirmation, like, okay, you see the world in the right way.

Everything, what you do, how you do, you can work on it. So I got a lot of ideas how to make it better. But like sort of the message was you're on the right path. So some other people come out and the message is, look, to do something completely else what is why is it different it's actually the same what it does i think one sort of how you say one description of psychedelics is in general they you realize or you um you recognize yourself and all your sort of positive all your dreams all your trauma and everybody has a bit of trauma must not be a real so everything and then and some people and then i was always hindsight i can say now i was right like i or i was right i

i i was good in it i was always living a very honest life to myself. Again, it doesn't mean that I say, hey, I decided, for example, not to tell anybody I'm gay. But that's not, from my point of view, this was not a lie because it's my decision. But it was not a lie to myself. It was an active decision to just make my life a living. It was not suppressing it.

That was just like pragmatically. By the way, this was also very simple. There was also nobody to date. I was very simple. It was risk. Risk mitigation. Exactly, risk risk return there was no upside because there was nobody who would have appreciated that yeah and if there would have been a hot guy and i was like he's gay i'm gay i was like hey immediately like but there was no upside but a lot of downside anyway but what i'm saying is like i always lived a very honest life um to myself yeah again this doesn't mean you have to shout

everything out and this was confirmed so other people who don't live an honest life to themselves and lie to themselves and maybe tell themselves that they are happy with xyz they might realize on a magic motion trip that they're not like they need and this is the other people who change yeah but so it's very dependent on yeah but it was just one aspect of so many positive aspects and then sort of I immediately after the trip had sort of the idea okay this should be actually legal I was actually not even the first impetus was not that I should make a company because I was very sure people must work on that stuff because it's so powerful and when i then found out actually took me two years i was looking around like that there was none then we did it

ourselves just to go back to that point though you you categorize that moment your first trip as the single most meaningful experience of your life yeah today full stop. Nothing comes close. And maybe I would add plus the follow on trips over the last year. So it's not just this one trip, I would say, as well, but I would summarize my psychedelic experience. And I still like try to do a trip once or twice a year in a country where it's legal yeah i would summarize as the most meaningful sort of holistic experience i've had in my life false yes for sure like you do this trip um on the beach with your friends you think to yourself you know this must be legal fast forward you get a call from one of your friends called mike no it's like it's way crazier it's way crazier again super serendipity so fast forward for two years i was very very carefully looking around and actually not telling a lot of people about it which was wrong and if i would have gone on like that i wouldn't sit here again meaning at least not now i would sit here maybe maybe but like not talking about mushrooms or psychedelics

so for two years i was kind of extremely holding back. So I told my closest friends, actually the ones who knew me very well, saw that a positive, like my parents were like, hey, you became an even nicer child. We have an amazing relationship, but it became even better. So my mom was very quickly saying something happened in your holiday. Yeah. So, so, so the ones who knew me well but like

i didn't shout it out and i was actually very very careful and shy because it's like technically yeah and back then by the way let's not forget like we're talking about it also now so easily because all the books came out we have the success like compasses listed like now is completely different than so anyway so for two years i was very like low-key yeah and then i had and again this is like maybe the biggest financial serendipity uh or is it like message of the universe if you want to see it like that because for two years i was sort of like just telling friends, very close friends. And then I had one other trip within a holiday trip. The main message on that trip was, Christian, this makes you so happy. You have to talk to other people about it.

Don't be shy. Just good things will come out if you talk about it. So I had a real mission. So I got this real mission on that trip to sort of be open about it. And then actually from that holiday, I was flying literally the week after I met a very close friend and business partner of mine, Mike Novogratz, who's big in finance. He's huge. But what I want to say, he's not the guy who would talk about mushrooms normally. And I wouldn't have had.

But he was my test case because I had the mission. The mission was, don't be afraid to talk about mushrooms because it's going to be good for you. And it will. So I met Mike. And he literally, Mike, he's always like that. What's up? Because I think I do cool stuff like from a lot of stuff. So a lot of friends are always like, hey, what's new?

What's up? What are you investing in? I was like, Mike, you won't believe it. I just had a mushroom trip and this was amazing. And I want to tell you about it. And he was like, whoa, mushroom. I remember Mike said the sentence like,

he hasn't talked about it, hadn't back then for like 20 years. Because especially in the US, a lot of people, it's like a college thing. Like party journey. He was like, 20 years, never heard the US a lot of people it's like a college thing like party yeah he was like 20 years never heard about it again since college so I told him all of my experience on that trip um and in general or on the trip so and he was like very interested yeah and so the next day literally the next day my phone rings mike is on and actually he said it yeah he said look Christian this is the weirdest coincidence.

So since 20 years, or I haven't talked about psychedelics for 20 years. Yesterday, you were in my office talking about nothing else than psychedelics. And this morning, my sister or sister, her sister called him. So my sister called me and she's on Bali with these crazy couple from London who told her they want to start a company which is working on bringing magic mushrooms back in the legal realm and they need somebody who's financing them and nobody wants to touch it.

And I was like, this is such a coincidence. You in London, they in London. Like, yeah. And these are George and Katja, the founders of Compass. Yeah. And I was like, connect me immediately. And I remember this was January. And then we met when I was back.

And they were back from Bali in February 2017. And they tell me, if we talk about it, within the meeting, I was like, okay, we're going to do that together. That's what I've waited for since two years. And again, if I hadn't taken the decision to openly talk about it, I wouldn't have told Mike, I wouldn't have met George and Katja, we wouldn't sit here, at least not sit here, talking about this one.

And the magic mushrooms were the thing that told you to talk about it. Exactly, the trip. And you end up being, you know, the single biggest investor in the space, a space which is now really sort of main, becoming more mainstream at an alarming rate a sort of a category that's exploded from a financial perspective um and you've you've you've co-founded and invested into the two biggest sort of companies

in this area a tie and compass pathways exactly so practically i'm co-founded both in compass i was more the seed investor because it was George's and Katja's idea and I added actually a very close friend of mine Lars as the third co-founder and I was the seed investor but sort of I was there even before the company existed we were sitting in my in my living room and planning it and then when I realized how positive or it was actually easier is the wrong word but it was sort of i had i had expected more hurdles yeah and it's maybe sadly actually the time which is helping us because there are so many people suffering and it becomes sort of also financially sometimes life is very the world functions very pragmatic like in the in the

moment something becomes a big crisis also financially yeah the yeah and it creates opportunity so anyway whatever it was it was the right time so compass quickly actually got fda fast track designation which was a big thing stuff like that so and then i actually realized oh there are more psychedelics out there. Meaning everybody's always almost using magic mushrooms and psychedelics as the same, but like we have the headline psychedelics, a group of drugs and psilocybin,

the active ingredient in magic mushrooms is one of them. So there are more of them from MDMA to LSD, ketamine, ibogaine, whatever. And Compass wanted always to focus on psilocybin. So I was like, okay, then I'm starting a tie as sort of a platform where we actually bring on more of these compounds to explore them for mental health issues.

Of all the compounds in a tie, and I know there's a lot of them, right? I think you've got over 13 compounds, different psychedel the compounds in a tie and i know there's a lot of them right i think you've got over 13 compounds different psychedelic compounds within a tie um we've talked a lot about magic mushrooms and that the active compound in magic mushrooms for anybody that doesn't know is psilocybin which is what compass pathway does of all the others and i know this is like i've heard you say before this is like choosing your favorite child which ones of the psychedelic compounds is incredibly compelling to you and

really stands out is being able to have a really significant impact that's really hard to say every minute because like it really meaning because they all have all all compounds we work on have a sort of reason to exist or positive like have a have a place in treating mental health issues hopefully tell me about ibogaine then yeah so so then now what i was like i was the question is what is your what does somebody sees as the biggest problems or name me the problem you think is the worst and then i tell you sort of which drug is the best like kind of so so so i think ibogaine is this is interesting because also because ibogaine goes against addiction and there is actually almost nothing else which works for

addiction so addiction and we talk about here severe addiction like especially to opioids and heroin is sort of i don't know if you can say it on english podcast like you're fucked up like it's like that's one of the really severe mental stuff like where most people have a how you call it like relapse and then it's also one of these sort of things if you look at

I don't know families and friends where somebody is addicted sort of it's very like it's like cancer in the social environment so it's sort of it's but I it's like cancer in in in the social environment so it's sort of it's it's but age by the way or i would even say any mental health is like it's always affecting others as well but i think addiction sort of stands out in a certain way and ibogaine is the only drug we know which potentially i always have to say with all these drugs potentially because we are about to prove it once and for all with scientific terms or scientific framework fda sort of compliant

but ibogaine has the potential to really cure addiction with one trip yeah and there will be a massive game changer for the whole opiate crisis but even alcohol addiction like it's not just like yeah and yeah you know you're trying to you're trying to make people's lives better right you're trying to get them it almost seems like you know because you know you're trying to you're trying to make people's lives better right you're trying to get them it almost seems like you know because you've you've been gifted enough to be happy your whole life you you're doing a lot to make sure other people can be happy on one end but the other thing that you're doing which also kind of blew my mind when i met you is trying to extend life you know you've got elon who's like trying to save life on earth but also take us to

a new one and it seems like you know a pyron your investment company is trying to make the life we live more joyous and fulfilled but also trying to extend it and the work you're doing with life longevity i actually find maybe even more bonkers like when i first heard about psychedelics i was like really and then i spent six months nine months learning and i was like oh my god like then I spent six months, nine months learning. And I was like, oh my God, like, I get it. But life longevity for me is like, really? We can really extend our lives? And you've got companies which are working on that challenge. So tell me about life longevity.

Is it possible? Well, okay, let's, so let's phrase it correctly. Like, because even I, if I want to say something very pokey, I'm like, oh, we're going to live forever. That's not going to happen for an accident reason. Meaning, yes, you could say maybe we'll live forever if we really upload our brain to our computer. But not that I think that's completely impossible,

but I think then we're not human anymore. That's a different discussion. Like, so, but I would say as long as we stay fairly human, meaning having a body, having sort of the human setup we have, yeah, there will always be an end. Let's start there. Because the worst case, if you live hundreds of years,

you're going to have an accident somewhere and somebody blows you up. By the way, as a side note, I think it's going to change once we get older and older. It's going to change the way how we look at risk. Because I already start avoiding crazy stuff because I'm like, it's not worth it. Again, risk return.

Like I have this one colleague, I always try to convince he's 50 and he drives a motorbike and i'm like you shouldn't do it like the sort of statistical risk is so big of driving a motorbike and his answer is well because he's still thinking his life expectancy is 70 he's like well but i'm exchanging 20 years if it happens against my biggest passion and this is a trade of worth it and i was like well hey it's already stupid but if you if you it's okay if this is your opinion 20 years against the risk of losing it but i tell you like it's not 20 you already if you're 50 i'm gonna get you up or we're gonna

get you up with longevity science to maybe 90 or 100 by the way in a good way so would you exchange 50 and then suddenly you see okay then he starts thinking because so and now think it a little bit further like if you say hey our natural life experience someone will be 200 maybe we stop doing stuff we're doing now because it could sort of yeah so but back to your question like longevity never means immortality because again as long as we stay kind of human because there's an accident risk yeah By the way, I also believe spiritually, again, that we don't want to live forever. I think part of being human, again, as long as we stay that, and we can talk about that as well, because it's another thing I'm thinking a lot. Maybe we don't stay human in our current form. But as long, so I think two part of being human is having an end because that makes everything we do

so i just don't want it now like i want to have more of it but i think the sort of the limit that there is a time limit on being human is actually which makes us thrive yeah and which makes us everything special everything special so i don't think i want to take that away i just want to extend the joy yeah doesn't it just become relative again then so if you live to 150 but wait so so what i really believe what we get in the next maybe like 30 20 to 30 to come it's i think it's going to come way quicker than people think is that we're going to get life expectancy up to to a time or to a to a to a size to magnitude where we want to die and i think it's even like this will be a range and some people might already say we found it i had it all i had enough birthdays

enough um christmases and so some people want to maybe live to 300. But I think we're going to give people that optionality sooner than we think. And then I think dying will be like, this is my vision. Like it's a celebration. I would someone say, look, guys, I had it all. I love you, love life. But I really think I'm ready for whatever comes. Maybe comes nothing.

I don't know. But like I have an expectation. But like, yeah, but whatever it is, I'm going to'm gonna finish it now throw a big party say goodbye to everybody and then go out on my own terms on my own time i think that's gonna be sooner than we think you whispered that i have an expectation well i think there is another life like i think it's a continuous uh cycle but that's not a spiritual question. But like, I very much believe we have an eternal soul. Yeah, I don't even think there is a number. But first of all, again, I come back, which gives me a lot of, I don't believe in the

Christian thing that we have anything to prove. That already starts because it means you're not worthy and you have to prove yourself worthy. It's like you, I think everybody should be deeply happy and do exactly what he or she feels is the right thing to do now. By the way, again, this is, I think, what people realize on the psychedelics. I always like to say, which is maybe a good way to describe a psychedelic trip, since we're young, and again, maybe my parents were better than other parents in avoiding that but since we're a baby people start telling us what we should do what we should not do how we should be how we should think

how we should and i always say like there is your soul somewhere like what form of your soul is like but there is somewhere the level of you use and again the problem is when we have this discussion what i want to avoid why i'm sometimes so blurry is that if you start using religious terms then some people might be set off yeah or pushed away because if i use the word soul or god then a christian person might have a different reaction than a muslim person than a um than a hindu person yeah interestingly a lot of people who went through psychedelics have sort of the same description because so so anyways this is why trying to use as neutral words as possible so let's call it soul or inner you or whatever and then you have all these sort of external

sort of garbage almost what other people put on you yeah and and i think some people literally lose sight what they really are and want so and i think it was always very good so what i realized under my trip that sort of so what happens under a trip sort of all this garbage is taken away so you really look at you but you you and your real naked sort of form. Like form, I mean, like you recognize yourself, all your fears, all your wishes, all your whatever. Yeah. And interestingly, it was for me, it was still a great experience, but it was not so different. So which told me, okay, I did a good job before psychedelics to sort of be again

true to myself and i don't believe in what what some faiths uh say that that oh you have to be worthy because you are worthy yeah and you are great you just should live the life as sort of it is fit for you and again this is for it's different, but you need to know it. Yeah. So, so, but to compare, so this is my belief. And then, so, and so, so there is no, okay, I have, it's not like a computer game

where you have to reach a level and do certain things and then come to the next one. I just think it's like an endless positive sort of cycle of experiences. Yeah. So, and I'm definitely know

that somewhere and I'm going to want to go to the next level, it's want to go to to the next level is the wrong word to the next experience yeah um but for now i want to actually extend this one a lot of people don't get to live and this is what i was thinking is like this this idea that people will get to a point in their life where they say do you know i've had enough this has been great i would you do you genuinely believe you'll get to a point where maybe 150 whatever what do

you think i think someone it's gonna happen like i maybe it's very late meaning i hope but again i think this is the ultimate meaning i'm already pissed about the government interfering in my stuff in any way but the biggest interference is death it's not my i don't choose the time i don't choose like and we need to change that. So I think the biggest sort of liberty everybody has will be choosing his or her own death. But you'll always be curious. The world will always be changing.

It'll always be something. Then I go on like a long time. I'm trying to understand if I genuinely believe that Christian Angermeyer will ever get to a point where he's bored because you're such a curious...

But it's great if that is the case. I really don't know. Like, but I'm just saying, I believe i believe like again i think there is a moment everybody will come to that maybe it's very very great like i'm working on it like and you don't think death is a nut is a especially that age is like a natural thing i hear you talking about it as a as a bug or as a disease or something but that's I would say definitely aging is a disease. Something is wrong. So something is... I know how the 20-year-old Christian looked and was and felt. And by the way, my DNA is the same like it was when I was born, like it was when I was 20, like it's now. But something of the same DNA.

It's like a little bit, we know how the house, it's the construction plan of the house. It's the same. And some why the sort of minions who translate the construction plan into the building change it and not to the better from age 20 on. Like I get gray hair, whatever. But we know still it is there. The original source of information is there, our DNA. So we just need to find out, it's super simplified, what changes the translation of our DNA into

mistakes and into what we call aging. That's a very simplified view, but it shows you that it's not so natural. Because it's not that your DNA is, if it would be natural, maybe your DNA would change. We'd say we can't change that. But it's not, like your DNA is the same until you die. So we just need to make sure that the translation happens like when you were 20.

So by the way, I deeply believe not just that we can slow down and stop aging, we can reverse it. Because again, I know again i know how steven many you are still obviously at your prime yeah um but i know how christian in his primes looked like and yeah you know what i mean yeah and we can't bring it back so some so yeah excuse me some animals live for a couple of days though so i take like i look at take an evolutionary perspective on this and think like you know there's some like flies that live like four days but it's enough maybe we are there at the moment to escape the evolutionary velocity maybe that's the pinnacle where we sort of start becoming and i know because i don't mean it like in a blasphemic way i think we're meant to be like

gods in our own way yeah and we start now to go to the sort of source and construction of life ourselves. And I think that's an enormously curious thing. And like, yeah, maybe that's what we're meant to be. I'm rather on the positive side. This is not blasphemy or whatever, but this is like what God set us up for, so to say. By the way, every single religion, it's a very fun, nobody ever, I don't say, I love, by the way, and you know, we can't say today that there is a big thing coming out about religion and science of religion but I always loved that I'm always was finally drawn to

the mystical side and uh religious side and aside of what we discussed on that's what I call spiritual side I was always always very interested in the history of religions um and interestingly a one sad actually happy and sad observation is that in the very core religions are the same they all preach the same good stuff be nice be nice to others and then once they become an organization the shit starts yeah so and and also one what most religions have just going through but yeah literally most religions have, just going through, but yeah, literally most religions have, the big ones, is that they at the very beginning say that we are a part and a mirror, or what's the English term, that we are an image of God. And we don't talk about that because now everybody's like, oh, if you want to live forever, well, a lot of people, again, if you want to def aging, and there are a lot of people that, oh, you want to play God. Yeah, this is a lot of the rebuttals.

And I was like, but maybe that's what we're meant to be, because if I go to the Bible, it says we are the image of God. So maybe we are meant to play God, because that's what we are, in a philosophical way. So I don't think it's not ethical at all. I think it's the ultimate, actually, challenge we have to solve. The other rebuttal I thought

the first time I heard about the possibility of extending life was that we'd have a really aging population where we'd all be... So it's interesting you talk about reversing aging, but we'd all be 170 and slightly slow and unproductive. It doesn't make medically sense. We won't be 150 and super old slow it doesn't make any it doesn't make medically or sense we won't be 150 and super old it doesn't make sense you can't extend lifespan that much without

rejuvenation it comes at this thanks god and nobody wants to be like because by the way that's what most people fear though why they it's interesting how many people reject the idea of living very long. I don't know if I've ever lived very long. But one of the very banal reasons is that they automatically think, okay, if Christian would succeed in making us live to 150, they take, okay, I know a 90-year-old granny of mine, and she's not in good shape, and now they add another 60 years. And they're like, no, that's not what I that's exactly that's not what's going to happen in the moment we can push life

expectancy way further than 90 it it goes hand in hand with rejuvenation and then more people want it and what time frame do you expect i think we're gonna to see really, really tangible steps forward the next 20 years. And then, let's say, 20 to 40 later. By the way, which is not that far. And also, this is going to change society. I mean, everything. And interestingly, every politician I talked to thinks like well that's far away and i was like no it's not it's not that so far away than you think and like it's gonna

affect us sooner and we need to talk about it about about social systems about anything yeah this is gonna be one of the massive black but not a negative way by the way i think it's gonna be good but like i'm an eternal optimist like um, you know, it will be a massive change for the world. Why would let me drink this delicious drink? What's it called? I put it like in a commercial and we should like leave that in. It's like hopefully it's better. Hul?

Hul, yeah. Yeah. Human fuel. Human fuel. Okay. It's a very good name. Yeah, it's a very good name yeah who came up with that name julian han oh yeah um so switching because in fact the topic the topics of conversation we've discussed are super interesting but personally the things that i find most fascinating about you are you're just like ridiculous ridiculous work ethic and i've talked to some of your friends i spoke to aaron i spoke to people around you just to confirm what i thought

and the intensity and the amount you work i think is just like staggering i think i'm really hard working i've seen you in action around the clock over the weekend the fact that we're doing this on a saturday i don't normally record the podcast but it's a hobby it's like it's like having fun it's not like work but okay i know it yeah my point is about you know in culture people talk about this term work-life balance and i think you've kind of responded to it there very easy there shouldn't be a work-life balance there should just be one continuous hobby that's my few minutes people should love what they do in a way obviously you do different things and i love more things so but like i i always said since i'm 16 or actually 14 since i have my tutoring if i would

call it work life balance then i have a shitty life because it's just work but my work is my life and i love it and it's integrated and most of my friends i work with and like even like friends who didn't this how I came to the movie business because just like I had friends who were actors and were in a movie business and then I was like maybe we should work together maybe we should finance a movie like it's like yeah I don't want to see it as a separation separation let's talk about more personal things so relationships how does someone who works as hard as you find any i'm presuming you value what relationships can bring you well complicated topic it's work in progress welcome to the podcast now it's like uh no that that's work in progress so that's like uh because obviously like i'm so

much in love with my work that um that it, it's hard, I think, for another person. Although I think I can try to be very uplifting because I would try and say the same. What I told you is like, I would tell every partner, like, you have to find, you can't expect from me to give you meaning. You need to give yourself meaning and then we can be happy together. Yeah, but this is unfortunately not how a lot of people work like so it's very easy that sort of i have a quote on instagram my best performing quote ever it says um if we're dating i want to be your second priority i want your first priority to be you your passions your future if we're happy alone we'll be happier together yeah that's a lot of me so yeah and i'm happy alone by the way yeah i'm also like an

introvert extrovert so people think i'm very extrovert and i can be and i want to be like i like to host parties and dinners and do things like that but then i want to be alone actually a lot so do you value and tell me the value of a relationship in your view of like a really good committed relationship do you value it that's a complicated right so um because because if i say no it sounds brutal and i don't no no and i don't mean it like i i think it's more the answer is more complicated so i built myself that i that I'm sort of very like independently. So I value relationships a lot. So that's the real answer. But I'm not in the concept that one should stand out.

So I rather have groups. So I believe that, or I believe, like I do have like 10, but not one, like 10 very, very close friends. Most of them I have since a very long time. I actually extremely value relations, but I'm not saying, okay, there is this one relation in my life which will completely stand out from the rest, which is maybe a complicated thing for relationships. I do think though this will change once you get children yeah so which i want so that's sort of the yeah um and by the way i also do think people change like and um and i don't think the core of you changes and

like the core but like you can make adjustments so i know for example that when I want children or once I have children that I have to make adjustments because I just want children if they have the same happy childhood that I had so I want to be either no dad or a great dad yeah so and then I know I need to make adjustments so but then it's worth it and then it's my active decision to take it how is it you are the busiest person i know i was just thinking then i was thinking is this the busiest person i know you probably you're the busiest person i know i'd say have you struggled to have romantic relationships because of that busyness i feel like you know like a interrogation of kurt what did you think was gonna happen here yes this is what it's this is

these are the things no one talks about right and I sit here single struggling so I'm like I'll ask Christian because he's way busier

and I'm struggling so is there any hope for Steve yeah totally there's hope for all of us be positive it's funny this feels like a

bit more of an uncomfortable topic for you for some reason no it's just very private it's not uncomfortable I will tell you my views in private easier okay because um there's a hundred thousand people watching exactly hundred thousand people now it's getting really like cringy um no it is definitely a problem

full stop like yeah and you realize that you're gonna have to adjust yeah and then you always say like okay you do that the issue is to have to adjust if i yeah if you want to yeah yeah and then you always say like okay you do that the issue is like what i'm thinking a lot how do you know when to adjust like in terms of because you would say romantically you would say you adjust when the right one comes how do you know that the right one comes if you don't have time to figure out to the right there is a little bit and i haven't figured that fully out you're someone looking at the past 40 years of your life that does whatever haven't figured that fully out you're someone looking at the past 40 years of your life that does whatever he wants to do and isn't actually very good at adjusting

unwillingly you've never been good in your life story at doing something unwillingly exactly you go the way christian wants to go and i just i wonder i'm like when will what will be the catalyst you said kids may be there but what will be the catalyst that makes christian adjust but maybe it's a romantic thing you really like love at first sight i mean again the good thing is that i i deeply believe that makes me very calm in that coming back to what we had this i i deeply believe it's gonna come at the right time and i know that i'm sort of enough open for it because it's the same like with business ideas or the same with other stuff in my life. Again, if you're open, open heart, open mind,

you're going to see it when it comes. So it's not, it's a little bit like with anything else, like you don't have negative thoughts. Don't think, oh, I need it now. Like, yeah, so it comes when it comes. Like, because everything in my life came at the right time. Why not this one? So I'm very, that's comes when it comes. Because everything in my life came at the right time. Why not this one? So I'm very...

That's how I see it. I guess at the macro level... In the moment things came, I can just say now business stuff, but like, again, business is my life. When psychedelics came, and then the business, meaning that's sort of very...

A big part of my time allocation over the last like four or five years was in the into the psychedelic business i made space for it and so i'm always like it's not again when things comes you realize that you you realize the message and then you make space for it but there's a chance you said that you might be obstructing it from coming and happening because you're so preoccupied with no i'm thinking about that but then my conclusion is then usually that or is because again like i'm because romance is maybe but it's not maybe it's maybe not like finding a good company maybe that sounds not very um very non-romantic but i don't mean it's romantic because i also think finding companies very romantic or very very uh emotional yeah uh if I look for example at the psychedelic business I think that but I do

actively again it's not that I'm ignoring it's what I said before my my philosophy of not having negative thoughts doesn't mean that you cannot analyze sort of stuff and sort of look on the risky side so i do think about it is my life how i lead it maybe preventing to have sort of the one and only romantic um experience yeah my conclusion is then mostly that i'm like okay no because like it will come at the right time and then you're gonna realize it and then you're gonna make space like you make like i make space for everything else it's so funny because you because you're such an eternal optimist i almost can't get you to but that's how it worked bad things happen to me as well bad things are there but my mind twists it around or twists like this is what i'm really training since i'm 14 since i bought the book in Munich like every throw it to me and throw it to me a negative thing and I'm I may be a little bit puzzled for a second or for example yeah even

this is how it works like things even if things in our portfolio don't go well I'm like a little bit like shaken for a moment and I'm like where's the good thing and how can I turn that in my mind how can I see the upside yeah it's fascinating because i was yeah i'm trying to get you to you know the reason why i started this podcast is because i sometimes i want to highlight that for all the great things people see that you know people watching you thinking i would want to be you have all these companies and manage two billion of assets and all these things but there's always a there's always some kind of down not not downside, but sacrifice, we could say, that's happening. And I'm trying to get at where that sacrifice is.

And the problem is you are happy. So, and you're pursuing yourself. So it's hard to identify a sacrifice when you're that optimistic. I know what you mean. I just try also as a message not to see it. I think people shouldn't see it because that's the negative story about success. The negative story of success is that people see people and say, oh, I want to be like them.

Yeah, I would like to have the wealth. I would like to have X, Y, Z. Then they can't immediately have it because by the way, it's a long process and you need to work harder. But, and then they tell you, oh, they must have gone through a lot of sacrifice. And then this is a little bit what calms them down.

They have a lot of bad stuff coming with it. I think that's the wrong way to look at it for both sides. I think the right way to look at it, do I really want that? Is this really what makes me happy? And then it's, by the the way not that easy to meaning everybody would say like oh yeah it's like simplified money makes me happy but then again do you makes it happy what comes with it but i don't want to call it a sacrifice because i wouldn't do it if i would

have to sacrifice stuff in order to get money because it's not about money anyway by the way money from a certain moment on is not really the driving force there is there is a there is a meaning there is great research it's not my it's like that for from practically zero to x money gives you happiness because it makes your life easier so but then someone you're not gonna spend it because someone it becomes a figure yeah and then it's about do you love what you do yeah so latest then. But like, so I don't, people should see not this, you can't see, I don't know, wealth or anything separated

from the process of how you got there. And then it's not about saying, oh, the process was hard and sacrifice. It's like, is the whole process what I love doing? Then you should throw, you sort of, or is it whole process what i love doing then you should throw you sort of or is it something else what i love and then you should not though envy other people because that makes you miserable as well you should always embrace what the problem is people often don't know what they really want yeah and then again psychedelics give you like but like in the moment

you embrace what you really want and maybe like a housewife maybe really loves it. It's not something where she should say, oh, I'm just a housewife and somebody else is a big entrepreneur. Maybe that's what she really wants in this life. She maybe wants to have children, take care of them and take care of them in exactly the way. But it's about knowing that actively, not letting other people put you in that position or let circumstances put you in that position but like actively know yourself is that what makes you happy yeah i've written about this at length in the book this idea that like um but obviously the huge force in our lives at the moment which whispers in our ear that we want to

be something else is like social media and society to say you've got to be a doctor your mom might say or instagram will say you've got to be a billionaire and really you just want to be something else is like social media and society to say you've got to be a doctor your mom might say or instagram will say you've got to be a billionaire and really you just want to be an artist that dances in croatia you know what i mean exactly embrace it but again you need to know it like by the way i think as much as i love tech that's one of the other topics which which really like sort of how you say keep me away yeah but keep me away at night is something in the world we live in or actually something in the world we are building because we we reconstructing the world in any form and people i think have no no real glimpse yet how crazy this will be yeah we're going now people think we were in like a 20 year of tech boom which is true on the one

side but if you're really honest and there's this famous quote which i love to use from peter teal who said we wanted flying cars and we got 140 characters on twitter yeah which says practically if you look at the last 20 years yes we had a tech boom but more or less i'm simplifying yeah what changed is the distribution of goods amazon now we're not shopping anymore we're getting it delivered but it's still the same goods yeah um and um social media changed communication changed but we didn't go to the fabric of society, industry, and ourselves. So now we're starting going to reformulate and rechange the fabric of ourselves, longevity. We're going to really make, not just five years again, maybe we'll have 100, we should

change everything. We change, and this is all interdependent. In a moment, we change the fabric of our body. Or then we change the fabric of society because society is very much linked to an 80-year life expectancy. Flying cars are now really coming. Literally, we have flying cars now. We're going to go to Mars somewhere.

And it's going to happen. Maybe 20, maybe it's going to happen. So the world is going to change like we have never seen it before. And I love it. And you love it. And maybe even the world is gonna change like we have never seen it before so and i love it yeah and you love it and maybe even the people who watch that love it because otherwise they maybe wouldn't watch it but like the majority of people doesn't yeah so and i think that's one of the underlying reasons which makes the society more and more depressive or mental health, because like, I think there is this enormous fear.

And people often have like, I think it's another word for gut feeling. Like you have, you can't really explain it, what makes you nervous, but it makes you nervous. And I think that's what's happening. So I think that sort of the world as a whole, except of some internal optimists and some techies, yeah, are like, yeah, maybe I like a single piece. I like my iPhone. I like that. But as an entirety, that makes me deeply uncomfortable. The rates have changed around you.

Exactly. Yeah. So, and even if they don't know it, the bus driver maybe can't fully explain how a self-driving bus will work, but somewhere he feels that in 10 years, it's not going to be his job anymore. And I think that creates a lot of risk because the last time that happened,

that was when we changed from the agricultural society to the industrial society. And you can say now we changed from the industrial society to let's call it data society. We need a word for it, but we're changing and changing in a massive way so and then so there are a lot of parallels of the time between 1875 and 1920 the people were there was this elite technically who said everything is possible you had um it was i think it was in 1870 but i don't know somewhere when the Eiffel Tower was built,

there was these, what is it called? World exhibition. And people were like, oh my God. I mean, there was Jules Verne, but it was also around the time, and hopefully I spell him right in English. Like he wrote all these books, like the sci-fi books. So the world was already there once.

Unfortunately, we had then two world wars. And you can look at a lot of reasons why World War I and II happened. And there is a lot of different layers of reasons. But I believe that the main reason is this sort of disenfranchisement of the agricultural society who were deeply panicky, like what's happening to the world. Because the world the farmer in the 19th century knew was disappearing in in front of his eyes yeah and it's exactly happening the same again so couldn't that could there not be another reason linked to that why people are becoming depressed in the technological evolution because

you know at the start of this podcast you said about the importance of nature and i've read studies about you know prisoners who face who face nature versus a brick wall are 30% less likely to be depressed. And the sort of very human prehistoric origin of the human being is one that's in nature. It's one that's in a tribe. It has meaningful connections. And the technological revolution is really, you know, I now live between four white walls alone in a big grey city. Could that also not be part of the reason why people are we're getting less human than ever and in fact what i what i like about you know when i read about some of the social reasons why people are getting more depressed it's because we're getting further and further away from

being human this is maybe a little bit more philosophical but like if you look at like the things that help with mental health some typically it's it's meaningful connection it's nature it's good diet no more junk. And these are all things that humans did 10,000 years ago. It's like we have to go back to find ourselves again. Or we have to find our human place in a world which is changing. So yes, I do think a lot, how can we stay human in a world which is changing that crazily as it does?

Which wants robots. It's like this world now would appreciate if i was a robot more productive no i think we can adjust and by the way and i know what it's like and i'm saying that with all the disclaimers it's not legal right now and i'm always coming back to that but i do think someone psychedelics will be will be the medication for that. Because it keeps us in a certain way very human, but at the same time makes us very adaptive in our environment. So I give you more or less the same what you said. So how I see what do humans need to be happy? I think it's three things.

It's some form of faith, i explain it a second so it's faith it's purpose and it's love it's super cheesy what i'm saying now but like these are the three things which i i think make us as a as as a the combination of these three things make make us happily then i think let's go go it. So faith means any form of higher meaning. Or the other way around, I think being atheist or believing literally in a materialistic world where if you die, you're dead, and then you rot, makes people very unhappy. This is not, again, meaning I made, I think, the case that i believe in in more but like let's it's not even a case it's just like saying like factually i think people need that we need this

why every society ever developed the religion like i think we need it why because we terrorized of dying we don't admit it i admit it i don't want to age aging sucks dying sucks and even worse by the way dying of people i love sucks so and we don't talk about it we completely pushed it away from us yeah and i believe religion always gave people that sort of calmness or a little bit of a calmness that as death is not the end you're going to see people again people you love whatever so and i think it's important because otherwise you have this permanent terror of death in your head and you think it's important because otherwise you have this permanent terror of death in your head.

And you might not have been there, but you have. Second point is purpose. What I say with a bus driver, people need a purpose. And they need to know why they wake up in the morning and what they're doing. So having said that, in front of our very eyes at the moment, these things are dissolving, the purposes. So we need to find new ones.

And the most important is we need love. And in a cheesy way, it must not be a one-on-one relationship, but it could be a one-on-one relationship, it could be a family, it could be a close friend, it could be a community. So love on various levels. Actually, the bad thing is, if you look at where the world is going at the moment,

all these three things are dissolved. So face is on a super decline. Then purpose is on a decline because we're changing the world. And most people don't find their purpose immediately there. And then unfortunately, also communities are on decline. Traditional family structures, but also communities. I mean, if I remember, if I grew up, I had like, what do you call it in English when you go to like a theater group and I had 10 groups, like it was all like,

it was the sort of the pinnacle of a community. We were so, and it was great. Yeah, and I don't think if you have that anymore in that way, or at least it's sort of vanishing. It's statistically accurate. There's a study in the US which says 15 years ago, people would respond to the question how many people can you turn to in time of crisis the medium answer was three it's now zero crazy like

i had 10 when i was young and psychedelics are giving you that all of that they're giving you faith spirituality they're giving you purpose because you you realize that the purpose lies within you and you can reinvent yourself and they're giving you love because you realize the value of connections whatever i read tons of things and this is a bit of a sideway but i read it great no it's really great like what is great i love it right he's talking about the huel he's drinking it's good i will send you a big box of it there's different flavors this one's berry so we'll send you this flavor as well but it's also really good for you it's the reason i'm in the best shape of my life. I read something really interesting,

which again goes against a couple of narratives I would expect from you. You said you have 42 pills a day. Roundabout. This is someone that doesn't want to mess with their equilibrium. It's having 42 different pills a day. Well, yeah, but it's not a-

Cocaine, I'm joking. No, no, it's like, is someone going to put it online? Because so many people ask. so i um first of all i think everything we take we eat is an active decision so i like so if you remember like before the the the podcast the podcast i was looking at it because i wanted to know what is in it like and there is seems to be a lot of good stuff in it yeah so so i don't i'm not in a camp where people say oh vitamins or any form of of added stuff is bad because i'm like everything i eat is something external going in my body yeah so and then my view on on aging at the moment is at the moment there is unfortunately we're working on it hard. Yeah. But there is nothing which really slows down aging dramatically.

Yeah. Dramatically. And or even reverses it. However, there are things which give you a little bit of an edge. Yeah. And the edge is not big. Yeah. But unfortunately, I'm not 20 anymore.

If I would be 20, which then I would say, hey, no, then the optionality would be super easy if I would be 20 now and I tell that my godchildren I don't believe it at 10 I'm like you're gonna live for hundreds of years yeah so I'm unfortunately fortunately because I still have the opportunity and again my decision was like I want to work on it because I think I do it better than others yeah and then while I trust myself and waiting and then others doing it. Seriously, like, but like, I'm like, okay, but I'm at the borderline, like, because I need to hurry up. So, so even if I do something now at the moment, which gives me statistically two more years, that's two more years, like, yeah, in a, in a race.

Yeah. Tell me what these things are. Well, I think the easiest- Because I'm 20, so I'd like to- Yes. So I think there are some, some easy things to do, Well, I think the easiest... Because I'm 20, so I'd like to... Yes. So I think there are some easy things to do. Like, for example, sleep is super important. Yeah.

Then... Why? Why is sleep important? You should do. I told you, you should do a podcast just about sleep. Yeah, Sleep Expo. Two weeks ago. Yeah.

Oh, you had had so it's perfect there's so many reasons but sleep is one of the core things we don't fully understand it yet but like who has practically if you i don't know the exact number but read why we sleep from matthew walker like i think if you if you sleep two three hours less than you should for some days your immune system is collapsing if your immune system collapsing, your probability of cancer goes up. And I mean, sleep has so many... Good sleep is so good for you and too little sleep

has so many negative consequences. So sleep is super important. So I try to sleep enough. For example, I try, that's one of the luxury things, which I can do because I work for myself, that I don't have early morning meetings. And I have always something to do, like emails, whatever. But I try that I can do because I work for myself, that I don't have early morning meetings. So, and I have always something to do,

like emails, whatever. But I try that I can wake up naturally. So I never wake up with an alarm clock unless I need to fly or whatever. Yeah. So that's one thing. Then obviously no alcohol. Alcohol is toxic, like full stop.

Cigarettes, all drugs except of psychedelics are toxic. Yeah. So don't do them yeah very bad for aging yeah you see that by the way when people like yeah um i don't wanna say now that i aged well but like if i go to a class reunion or whatever like some people who drank very a lot of alcohol and eat shit yeah they look older like yeah it's like so so they say is their food like intake be healthy don't carbs like sugar is super bad like i think so so i don't want to go yes i do 42 pills or

whatever it is yeah and meaning is i mean the list would be long and maybe again maybe i put it somewhere online but i think the message is because if people jump from zero to 42 pills they won't do it anyway so whoever listens now i, I would say, if you do the three, four, five things, which sort of, it's these 80-20 rules. I'm trying to carve out the last 20%, but go for the sort of the easy, hard and easy first. Sleep, healthy food, exercise is super important. Must not be super hard exercise, like every day like 20 30 minutes of mild to medium exercise as i said no drugs no alcohol whatever um these are the main ones you're gonna be significantly healthier i heard you talk about intermittent fasting yes oh sorry intermittent fasting is one yes so i try not to eat for 16 18 hours a day every day and once you start doing it

you you sort of you why why do you do that why do you wait intermittently fast i've always been curious about i've never done it uh because it's very healthy i mean there are enough a lot of health benefits your your blood sugar level sort of normalizes which has then sort of a lot of um follow-on effects yeah it's also you you lose weight it's very simple. Like, yeah. I am, I actually only have one other thing that I wanted to ask you about. I mean, I don't, I have a million things, but in the interest of time, it was about Bitcoin. Yep. You've been a big investor in Bitcoin, and the future of Bitcoin, you're bullish?

Super bullish. Because what I think is like, all politicians from left and right, from any part of the spectrum. And by the way, I think about it a lot. I think maybe it's not even a stupid decision what they took, but like all politicians decided that money printing is the thing to go. Yeah. So we're going to see these massive devaluation of fiat money. And never before, again, I really love history. And normally this happened to one currency or one country or whatever.

At the moment, it's happening to all the major currencies in the world. Euro, renminbi, like US dollar, everything is sort of devaluated at the same time. So because everything is relative to each other, obviously, by the way, it's not just Bitcoin, but assets go up. This is why I'm on a 10-year horizon. I'm extremely bullish on, in general, quality assets, stocks, Bitcoin, anything which is not cash. I think the most dangerous asset class for 10 years is cash. Doesn't mean, by the way, there can't be stock market crash, whatever,

in between where you want to have cash to buy. Yeah, so you should have like, how do you say in mean, by the way, there can't be stock market crash, whatever in between, where you want to have cash to buy. Yeah, so you should have like, how do you say in English, tactically cash, but not like strategically cash. So, but Bitcoin, and so Bitcoin is one of these assets first. And then second,

the world always needs a store of value. So for thousands of years, gold was the store of value of choice. I mean, think about it. How many currencies were there? I mean, thousands. Because by the way, always politicians mess it up.

Always. Like politicians can't be entrusted with currencies. Full stop. It's always a bad idea. Always, 100%. And so people always had gold. But gold is also people then say, oh,

Bitcoin has no value. Gold has no value. You can't eat it. It's actually one of these things that you can't eat it. It's maybe nice to look at, but like, it's just a convention. It's just an agreement humanity has. And I will go further. It's embedded in our cultural system. There are so many fairy tales and things about gold. But if you ask a 10-year-old, for him, it's Bitcoin. Bitcoin is his pop culture store of value. And that's exactly like gold. So I think that shift has happened, or is about to happen, that Bitcoin is at least additionally to gold,

and someone will completely make gold redundant, is the new store of value. And it's just, you can argue now, what's the value of Bitcoin? Because it's a convention. It's a deal society made that we accept that. That's the value. There is nothing more. I mean, you can add that and say,

oh, maybe Bitcoin is disrupting the financial system, but it's all secondary. The main thing is, is it a store of value or not? And for me, it is a store of value. That's sort of the main driver of Bitcoin is the new gold. That's enough, by the way, to make it still go up dramatically compared to gold you could talk about this forever but um my last question and this is definitely my last question is as you think forward you know in your

future you said at the start of this podcast about visualizing every morning you visualize and you think about the things that you want your future to hold i know know if I said to you, like, what's the end? There is no end. I get that because I understand your thinking. This is a continuous pursuit of your own hobbies and interests. But when you visualize what you want Christian's future to look like, say in, you know, a couple of decades from now, what are the, like, the principles of that future?

What are the characteristics of it? I still want to look like today. You want to look super sexy and young? Yes. You want to look 20 years old? We're going to make that. We can do that on Photoshop. No, not on Photoshop. We're going to make that in real life. Because I value human connection.

Photoshop doesn't work because you want to meet people. We're all going to be cyborgs anyway, so, in virtual worlds. Well, I think we're going to be cyborgs. I think we're going to... That's one of the drivers which I think is still human. We're going to merge with technology. We already are, I mean, what is it called? Like, what you put on your heart, like a stent or like whatever. Yeah, yeah. It's already like a cyborg. It's just like very early.

Exactly. It's very, so, but that's the whole point. I, there is no end game because that would be kind of sad. It's this, what, it's the same, like with work-life balance to say, if I would just work, because then you back at these famous sort of, what was it? sad it's this what it's the same like with work life balance to say if i would just work because then you back at these famous sort of what was it a novel from who was it like they're already this old tale where the fisher is on the the guys on the beach and meets the guy yeah another story yeah so you know which one i mean yeah so where then it comes out oh he works his ass off just

to lie on the beach and then the poor guy is saying why you could lie on the beach now yeah that's the whole point it's about the journey it's not about an end point so i don't have an end point and i never had i just like try to keep my again it's all about keeping my life exciting because if it wouldn't then i would want to die so keep my life cool and this by the way this can change when maybe in 40 years it's not i'm not a robot like this is not gonna i'm not gonna be i'm maturing like i'm maturing like i'm changing in a positive way like uh maybe in 40 years i decide that i don't think so but i don't know like and it's like the good thing is that i'm open for it i don't want to be already maybe in 40 years i look i had now everything i had on a in entrepreneurship maybe i want to you you feel yourself changing

and maturing and you're yeah but maturing is i want you don't yet changing but in a good way that again i'm trying to continuously analyze what now we're back at the word soul or whatever you would call it your inner voice is telling you what is good for me now and it might be that this is changing over time so for example i decided decided it's the wrong word like i feel that it's getting time somewhere not urgently to getting children like if you would have asked me 20 years ago i would have said no i don't want children like yeah so but it's like open being open for that and maybe in 40 years I'm just making it up now as an example not that I feel you're like maybe I say look I want to be a singer now god beware and the world is like no no no because I really

but like maybe I have some new ideas which really like are different what I'm doing now but like it's important to stay open for that inner voice because it might change. And just because again, so far continuously, I love doing what I do and exploring that. But like, you know what I mean? Like, yeah. So don't put an end point. There is not this one thing, because that would be sad. Like if a-

Most depressive day ever, isn't it? Exactly. The day you lose all meaning seemingly. Yeah. Well, listen, thank you so much for agreeing to do this. You are honestly one of the most fascinating people

I've ever met and I'm not just saying this to your face I want to win an Oscar I'm sure you do no no I want to be doing something creative

like I something artistic artistic yeah so I've gone through the same thing since leaving social chain I was like

I'm going to DJ I've done a big by the way I thought it was very cool when you told me that I was like that's a cool thing i've got i've directed a theatrical show with the associate director of hamilton it's it's theater it's called the diary of a ceo live it's the theatrical version of my life there's a 50 person choir sold out already and i said to myself

that i didn't want to be a label so i don't want to be a social media ceo i'm a guy that has a bunch of perspective and that perspective can be applied to be a label. So I don't want to be a social media CEO. I'm a guy that has a bunch of perspective and that perspective can be applied to art, my book, which I wrote myself, the show, creating music. I've got my first DJ performance at a festival this year. And I just thought,

what if you detached yourself from your labels? What kind of person would you become? You'd become artistic. You'd become health centric. You'd start businesses, you know? For example, I always think I should write the script because I can't act when I'm not good at it like also you should be always self-aware when it's not worth pursuing but like i always really maybe you should write a script

i was like because i love movies i produce movies so so i so i was like maybe i should but again it's always listening to yourself what you're so in a voice however you're going to call it not society exactly not outside world is telling you you are the probably the most interesting person i know in in a really compelling way sometimes i know people and they're like successful and i think oh god i hate to be that person but you are in like a really compelling unique way because of your work you do but because of your philosophy for life because of this sort of this i guess like almost i don't know how they refer to it but this like how your how your scientific view can can merge with a spiritual one and a religious one i find super fascinating i think it's those sort of intersections that create really interesting ideas um you're also

the most hard-working person i know um but you're also a really nice guy oh thank you you know really like nice guy behind the scenes as well and so thank you for coming on the podcast i think you know i think your future is gonna be staggering i talk about you all the time to my team all the time i'm like you know because you are very very compelling in a number of really positive ways uh i think i think uh the work you're doing with a tie compass and all of your other companies are staggering and i think you're actually going to be one of the most important entrepreneurs, creators of our time.

I think the world is- Okay, now he's like, Germans are very bad with energy. I don't care. We don't have these like- I genuinely was like, I know Christian coming on my podcast now. I know in 10 years time,

this is probably going to be one of my most viewed podcasts ever because of the trajectory you're on and the way you think. It's my prediction. I'm very rarely wrong. But you don't going to be one of my most few podcasts ever because of the trajectory you're on and the way you think it's my my prediction i'm very rarely wrong but thank you you don't have to be like oh you're so right so you're gonna be too honest don't know what to say in there but i mean it i do mean it um and it's been a privilege to work with you over the last couple of months and understand that because it's been inspiring for me um thank you for doing this today i hope you've enjoyed it yeah i did i did very much amazing thank you thank you