The Tim Ferriss Show - #549: The Random Show — Biohacking, Tim’s COVID Experience, Holiday Gift Ideas, Favorite New Apps, Bad Science, Quarantine Delights, and a Small Dose of NFTs and DAOs

Starting point is 00:00:00 Just a few quick disclaimers before we get started. The short one, Kevin and I are not doctors nor therapists, and we don't play them on the internet. We're also not giving investment advice. This episode and blog post are for informational purposes only, and nothing is intended as professional or medical advice in any capacity. Please be smart, not stupid, and be safe and get professional advice on all things we discuss. Here's a slightly longer version. This podcast episode is for general informational purposes only and does not constitute the practice of medicine, nursing, or other professional healthcare services, including the giving of medical advice, and no doctor-patient relationship is formed. The use of information in this podcast episode

Starting point is 00:00:35 or materials linked from Tim.blog is at the user's and listener's own risk. The content of this episode is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Users should not disregard or delay in obtaining medical advice for any medical condition they may have and should seek the assistance of their healthcare professionals for any such conditions. I am not an investment advisor. All opinions are mine alone. There are risks involved in placing any investment in securities or in Bitcoin or in cryptocurrencies or in anything. None of the information presented today, or really anytime since you might be listening to this anytime, is intended to form the basis for any offer or recommendation or have any regard to the

Starting point is 00:01:13 investment objectives, financial situation, or needs of any specific person. That includes you, my dear listener. So everything you're going to hear is for informational entertainment purposes only. And with that said, please enjoy. This podcast episode is brought to you by Helix Sleep. Sleep is super important to me. In the last few years, I've come to conclude it is the end-all be-all, that all good things, good mood, good performance, good everything seem to stem from good sleep. So I've tried a lot to optimize it.

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Starting point is 00:05:35 The Tim Ferriss Show. Hello, boys and girls, ladies and germs, Kevins and toasters. This is Tim Ferriss, and welcome to another episode of The Random Show, episode number 1,374. My guest today, as always, is Kevin Rose. Mr. K. Rose, how are you, sir? Dude, I'm so glad we finally got a chance to hang, you know? Yeah, it is. I'm so glad we finally got a chance to hang, you know, that trip together. It had been so long and we finally, you know, now that we're all vaxxed and whatnot, had a chance to hang out in Marfa, Texas. We could talk about all that stuff later. Well, you should, you should, you're teasing it. So you might as well just describe for folks

Starting point is 00:06:19 what we ended up doing. It was, it was a lot of fun. It was a great time. It was also just fun to crash together, me on the couch. Yeah. You tried to get in the bed. I did. I tried to snuggle into bed. It was freezing. And then, well, we should provide some more context, but I will just say that Kevin's like, you got the couch. I'm like, that's fine. I can crash on the couch. And I was like, where are the blankets? And we found basically like some towels and it got down to like mid forties at night. I was dying. And then the very last day I was like, are you sure you checked everywhere? He's like, yeah, I checked everywhere. And I'm like, what about these drawers? I pulled them out onto the bed. I'm like, you fucker. There are comforters everywhere. So it was, it was good.

Starting point is 00:07:02 Good shared privation. Or I wasn't actually shared. It was isolated Tim privation, but that's okay. Yeah. There must've been some health benefit from doing that cold. It's like a cold plunge at night for you basically is what you're doing. Yeah, it's great. It's great.

Starting point is 00:07:16 Yeah, it was fantastic. But what the hell are we doing in Marfa, Texas? And why is Marfa, Texas noteworthy? I can also chime in. So yeah,

Starting point is 00:07:23 we were out at Marfa, Texas, which for those that of you that don't know, it's kind of in the middle of nowhere. It is quite the trek to get out there. And so we had a little easier time getting out there, but we got out there and it was the Artblocks conference. And so they were doing their first kind of kickoff event. They have a house out there. For those of you that don't know, Artblocks is a NFT generative art platform. So they were the very first generative platform, meaning that artists come in, they write code that creates art. So the code actually, you don't know what you're going to get when you're minting it. So when you come in

Starting point is 00:08:00 to Artblocks and you see a project that looks cool because you've seen a testament, you go ahead and connect your wallet. And when you connect your wallet, you choose make me one of these. And then it's all random and you get some beautiful new kind of creative piece of artwork that is defined by the code that was written by the artist. So generative art has been around for quite some time, but this is the first time we've been able to kind of capture it. It's always been art installations. And now that it's captured in NFTs, this platform really took off. And you and I were like, heck, let's go check out the kickoff event and see what's going on there. And it was awesome. I said, Kevin, heck, let's get out of here. What the heck? This is exciting. Kevin Rose. I'm keeping it pg that was good you're ready to move

Starting point is 00:08:47 to utah we we had fun though dude like there was it felt like early south by didn't it remember you know south by early south by southwest yeah it felt like it felt like south by interactive 2007 to be really specific where you could tell there were the seeds of something that was going to grow to be much larger but it was still being largely as a phenomenon it wasn't even considered a phenomenon it was sort of the the new curiosity that wasn't taken terribly seriously if that makes any sense and then it started to gobble up everything else in terms of interactive. And in the same way that some people think NFTs will be ubiquitous in some respects with the ownership economy. And I should say also for people who are listening to this,

Starting point is 00:09:35 if you're like, good Lord, is this going to be another entire episode on NFTs? We are going to talk about NFTs, but we're going to also touch on many, many other other things including my experience with finally contracting covid we'll talk about that we'll talk about all sorts of tools biohacks many other things largely we've got a full agenda today all kinds of stuff full agenda holiday gift ideas and uh we're we'll cover a lot of ground so nfts will be part of that, but not all of that. And it was great to hang, man. It was so nice to finally be able to spend some time, just the two of us in person.

Starting point is 00:10:13 It's been a very, very long time. When would you say the last time is that we were able to do that? If we think about kind of the old days, right? Just Kev, Kevin, Tim, Tim. My bachelor party, remember that? Yeah, so it's been more than a few years at this point. I do remember that. Oh no, you know what?

Starting point is 00:10:33 We did my 40th birthday in Japan together. That was the last time we got some real good quality time and that was four years ago, which is crazy. Wow. Yeah, so it was great. It was great to actually hang and be stupid and drink lots and lots of so tall oh speaking of which yeah we should talk about what that so tall is because i thought that was a fantastic drink and you ended up being an investor in this

Starting point is 00:10:57 company that was based in marfa which was crazy and then also um we should talk about the old school we're drinking drinks now that we used to on the random show. We used to talk about what we were drinking. Yeah. So let's check off the drinks. I'll describe Sotol first. So Sotol, S-O-T-O-L, is a really fascinating plant that is found in a few different places, certain parts of Texas, like West Texas, and also a few distinct portions of Mexico. And when you create a spirit

Starting point is 00:11:29 from this, and the company in Marfa is Marfa Spirit, so it's easy to find, Marfa Spirit Co., and we had a lot of Sotol when we were there. It is taste-wise somewhere between tequila and mezcal. So the cooking process is actually very similar to mezcal, which has a smoky feel to it. And that's actually what I'll be drinking today is some mezcal. So I'll just show what I'm drinking today. This is Aki no Mas from Oaxaca, which is a artisanal mezcal. And it is dot, dot, dot. We'll find out. This was a gift from a friend because he knows that I like mezcal and he brought this back. So this is what I'll be drinking

Starting point is 00:12:13 today. But what we had were at least two different types of Sotol when we were in Marfa. And we also had Marfa spirits, S so toll that has been aged in i want to say rum barrels which gave it an incredible flavor so that was a blast in marfa but today it is aki nomas from oaxaca what are you drinking i am just having some it's a little earlier where i am versus where you are so i went with some champagne. So I'm doing a be a cart champagne, which for me, just the Rose, I know it sounds, you know, it is what it is. You live in Portland, you have Japanese slash Chinese calligraphy artwork on the, and you have a, you have a designer hypoallergenic dog on a bed behind you. So I think, I think it matches. It works. This is the guest bedroom, but yeah. So, I mean, dude, you know what? I want to just come out and say it. I love champagne. Champagne is good. I'm sorry. It is just a good beverage. It's like,

Starting point is 00:13:16 it doesn't spike my glucose. And I think, I think that be a cart for, for under a hundred dollars, like champagnes can get really expensive, obviously. For under $100, you know, I think it's like 60 bucks or so. It's like the best. It's fantastic. So that's my plug for Beacart. I'm not a sponsor. Although if you want to sponsor me, Beacart. Love that.

Starting point is 00:13:35 I'll give you, actually, I'll give people a two for one because I had two choices. I have more than two choices, but I decided to narrow it down to mezcal and then tequila. And this tequila here, which I'm not having today, but I've had before, I was introduced to a few weeks ago. It's called Lalo. It's made in Mexico, L-A-L-O. And it is 100% agave azul blanco tequila. And it's from Los Altos de Jalisco.

Starting point is 00:14:04 It's delicious it has sort of a vegetal green flavor to it which is for my palate my experience at least pretty unusual with tequila and i was introduced to this at a restaurant called suerte here in austin is that a blanco yeah it is and well it's agave azul blanco so i guess it is a blanco yeah blanco tequila and you know we had marfa we had uh dragonas which we both love casa dragonas that is a fantastic tequila that's also a great tequila so thank you chinati foundation or yes thank you for probably sponsoring the chinati foundation uh, at least that event. So that was a rare opportunity.

Starting point is 00:14:49 They were just serving Cucasa Dragones out of a booth. And to everyone who was there, I was like, you know, even if you don't love tequila, you should go try that because it's like $300 a bottle. And they're just pouring it like it's water. So you should try some. It's funny. You and I showed up this basically, I mean, it was like a buffet, right? Like,

Starting point is 00:15:06 you and I were showing up at this event and it's like a buffet with a bunch of people. And it's in the middle of nowhere, you know, this field and shit with buildings falling down all around. And, and, and we're like,

Starting point is 00:15:14 I'm looking, I'm like, there's dragonas. Holy shit. And like, you and I look at each other and we're like, we need to just go tap into that. That's like free money right there.

Starting point is 00:15:23 Cause that stuff's expensive. You just like started hitting the free dry bonus i was like i'm gonna go see if they can make it neat because remember they were like making mixed drinks i'm like i just want like to pour this on like a little flask and take it home it's a good deal yeah it was the greatest sort of asymmetry between value on your plate for food and value in your drink. It was pretty awesome. Yeah, it was like an old garden salad with like a $300 tequila pairing. Yeah, it was awesome. It was great. Kevin, where should we start? I feel like maybe since we are talking about booze, this leads right into biohacking. But we can start really anywhere you want to start. But why don't you jump into that? Because you've been doing more experimentation, or at least voluntary

Starting point is 00:16:09 experimentation, than I have recently. Yeah, absolutely. And I will say, first and foremost, that you've obviously had Peter T on your show many, many times. When we mention these crazy biohacks, always best to go back to his podcast and refer to these episodes where he talks about these in great detail. Even better to talk to your own doctor. Well, no doubt. None of this constitutes medical advice. But yes, to hear Peter's descriptions in greater length, his podcast will not disappoint on the detail side. Right. Yeah. I'm just a consumer. He's, you know, has real scientists that he interviews and whatnot. So for me, I've been following the news around rapamycin for a while, which is the

Starting point is 00:16:51 potential right now, the drug is used for immune suppression in transplant patients. So if you get a new organ, high dose rapamycin is used to suppress immune system. So your body doesn't reject the organs, but they've shown that in lower doses in all different types of you know mice and rats and now hopefully in dogs here pretty soon through something called the dog aging project.org which i actually helped fund their most recent study out of the university of washington i didn't know you did that as well that's awesome yeah so so essentially there, we're hoping that this will also translate. I mean,

Starting point is 00:17:28 they've already shown improvements in, in dog cardiovascular health and aging dogs. And it looks like it's working in terms of extending life in, in dogs and the hope there. And a teal, we'll talk about this on his podcast. I mean, he's been taking it for a couple of years now,

Starting point is 00:17:42 low dose. The hope there is that it'll actually extend life in humans as well. So I decided to try an eight-week cycle of it. I did it. People vary on what they believe is the correct dosage and the correct duration and whether you should cycle it or not. And there's a bunch of just unknowns right there. So I just wanted to see what it would do if I'd noticed anything different. Like I had some knee joint pain in my right knee that hadn't gone away for a few months that went away, but you know, I stopped it.

Starting point is 00:18:10 And the barnacles on your right testicle, you told me they're gone. They're gone now. Yeah. Clean as a whistle, like a couple of boiled eggs down there. Just beautiful. This is what happens when we introduce champagne.

Starting point is 00:18:28 Be a car champagne people that goes straight to the head i'm sure they want to sponsor the next episode okay so the dog aging project uh you know i figured well mr toast uh who's sitting behind me on the video you know he's looking so alive right now he's like he looks like he's dead looks like a tuna fish laid out on the beach. Yeah, exactly. So yeah, toaster is 11 now and I decided like, let's get him on the dose that they're using in the dog aging project. And I'm not joking, Tim, like there is a absolute difference, absolute difference.

Starting point is 00:18:58 Like Daria and I will tell you that he jumps. So he didn't, you know, he's having some hip issues as he's getting older, like his hips like kind of slip out from underneath him from time to time. It doesn't help that we have concrete floors and it makes it a little more slippery for him, but he's jumping up on people now when they come in the house and, and including us and just the level of excitement and kind of energy and everything else that's come out of him. And he's been on it for about two months now. It is working. So I have no doubt that those early studies around cardiovascular health, and obviously that will extend dog life to a certain extent. So we'll see what it is, whether it's 5% or 10% or 20% or whatever it

Starting point is 00:19:34 may be. I think we powered the study now to what detect up to 20%. Is that right? I had to look and see what, cause that was the original, the additional funds that we recently put in or that I recently put in. I don't know if you were part of the original funding or the add-on. Good question. Yeah, this is all through the foundation. I'd have to go back and look. Yeah. How did you feel?

Starting point is 00:19:52 Did you notice anything subjectively? Obviously, who knows? You're not doing a placebo-controlled trial. The only thing was that my right knee was bugging me in just kind of a dull pain for many months. And that, that went away, but I mean, it's in a one dude that could have gone away for, so other than that, nothing. Yeah. It's so tricky with this stuff, right? Because, and we'll talk about my COVID experience later, but whenever you take something, there's this phenomenon of regression to the mean, right? Which is when you are at your worst,

Starting point is 00:20:26 this is not a perfect example with the knee, but like when you are feeling your worst, you're likely to throw the kitchen sink or everything in the kitchen sink at something. And that is also frequently when you are at the peak after which you begin to regress to the mean, which is kind of your normal baseline. So it's really hard to determine causality,

Starting point is 00:20:46 but great that your knee isn't bothering you. Yeah, yeah. And then I stopped it and four weeks later, I just had a steroid shot in my shoulder today. I think I tore something in my shoulder, but that's just getting old. One thing I will say, and because there's going to be a ton of people

Starting point is 00:21:00 asking this question, I have an older dog. How do I get my dog on this? There is a study. You can go to the dogagingproject.org. You can apply to be a ton of people asking this question. I have an older dog. How do I get my dog on this? There is a study. You can go to the dogagentproject.org. You can apply to be in that study. But the easier way, honestly, is to talk to your vet and have the vet go to the project, go to the site. They have dosing instructions for what they're using in the study. And under a vet supervision, if they're willing to do it and some will, including my vet out here,

Starting point is 00:21:27 once I explained everything, you can prescribe it off label to dogs. And so toaster takes two milligrams a week for his body weight. And you know, that's going to vary for your dog and I'm not a veterinarian, but talk to your vet, show them the project and they might roll the dice with you. But so far, so good with toast.

Starting point is 00:21:43 And, you know, I just love to get an extra three years out of toast. Like that would with toast. And, you know, I just love to get an exit of three years out of toast. Like that would be the most amazing, you know, this is like your family. Yeah. How old is toast right now?

Starting point is 00:21:51 Again, 11, 11. Yeah. Yeah. I feel you, man, Molly seven.

Starting point is 00:21:57 And I would imagine, but I don't know enough about the science to say this with any confidence that like many things, the earlier the intervention, the more likely you are to kind of avert different icebergs. I would have to imagine that's the case, but that's a question for the scientists. Suffice to say, I would love to see Toast around for a much, much longer time. I remember in one of the very first random shows when he was a little pup, he chewed through our microphone cables when we

Starting point is 00:22:26 did it in person in San Francisco. Do you remember that? Yeah. Yeah. Toaster was, Toaster was the king of chewing through cables. He chewed through a power cable that was not plugged in one time. We came home and it was like, he had gone all the way through. I was like, that would have been the end of him. He was at that time, he was like 10 pounds. We'd have come back to just like a fried toast, fried toast. Uh, so what other, what other experiments have you been doing? Oh, so dude, I've got a couple of crazy things. So I've, I've been playing, you know, it's like you, you go through these, these times when you don't do any biohacking stuff and then you go, go deep. And I started a new drug called Ozempic. And the reason I did this is a couple of reasons.

Starting point is 00:23:06 One, I've always had poor glucose control. So when I did a glucose tolerance test, which is basically you go to your doctor, they make you drink 100% glucose, like a pure sugar drink. And then they draw your blood and they check your insulin levels and your glucose levels. And they check it every 30 minutes for like two hours. And they want to see how high does it get and how long does it stay that high and how quickly do you return back to your baseline? And mine, I've always had what's called bad, poor glucose disposal. And Atiyah was the first to detect this in me. And there's a bunch of stuff you can do. You can do zone two cardio, you can

Starting point is 00:23:39 sensitize your muscles. Like you can do a lot of things that will suck up glucose and get you back quicker. But there was this drug that came out called a Zempik and it's been out for a while now that does a few things. One, it helps lower glucose, which is great. It is, is a subcutaneous injection. So it's a little tiny pen that you get, they send it to you, you know, you get it from pharmacy, you push this little pen against your stomach and you don't even feel it because it goes in a quarter of an inch and does this little tiny injection of 0.25 milligrams. But they also showed that it reduced, there was a 39% reduction in non-fatal stroke and a 26% relative risk reduction of a major cardiac event, which on my family side, my dad and my grandfather

Starting point is 00:24:22 both died from heart disease and heart attacks and what was heart attack on my dad and my grandfather both died from heart disease and heart attacks and what was heart attack on my dad and the stroke and my grandpa. And so for me, while I'm not diabetic, it's a no brainer and gets to get this, the number one side effect is weight loss. And so I've had a couple of buddies that I have one, one buddy has been on for seven months, lost 15 pounds of belly fat and looks great. Now, another buddy just started a couple months ago, lost 15 pounds of belly fat and looks great now. Another buddy just started a couple months ago, lost like, has lost five pounds of belly fat. And I like those Portland beers. And I was just like, this is going to be a great little like, you know, nice little trimming, you know, if I can get that benefit as well. So, but I will say there are side effects that

Starting point is 00:25:00 are unpleasant as well. So let me tell you. it's not just like magical bitcoins appear in your wallet and your penis gets larger and you lose belly fat. Sounds great. I mean, if you find that drug, I'm in, but so this one's tricky because a lot of doctors will prescribe it at 0.5 milligrams versus 0.25. And at 0.5, you get some nausea for the first couple days and it's intermittent. So it's not like nonstop nausea, but what some doctors do, including mine is a slow ramp. So I started 0.25 and you do it for about four weeks and then you go up to 0.5 and with the goal of getting to one milligram once a week. And so that's exciting. I'm really excited for Ozempic. That's so a couple other really quick ones. Do you have

Starting point is 00:25:45 any to throw in? Have you been trying anything new? Well, I have been trying things new, but I'm going to save that for the COVID. The category of COVID. Yes. Please continue. All right. So a couple other things. Fantastic article, which we can put in the show notes from The Atlantic, where they found the Prozac of the middle ages is what they called it. And so back in the middle ages, there used to be, they found out there were these nuns that used to get high off of taking saffron. So saffron,

Starting point is 00:26:19 like you have in cooking food is a very potent happy drug. And they used to have these people called these croakers who are these people that they harvest saffron and they would have to take a break when they were packaging the saffron to avoid getting the giggles. Cause they would laugh so much from just packaging and smelling the stuff. And so saffron is super, it's almost like a, yeah, it's almost like a, like a happy drug, like a Prozac. But so I was doing some research and I was like, okay, maybe they'll have it in supplement form. I found some like shady stuff on Amazon.

Starting point is 00:26:52 I was like, I'm not going to do this. But this company, I finally found one that I trust is Olly Brand, O-L-L-Y. You've probably seen it before. You can link it up in your show notes. They call it the happy gummy worms and they offer gummy worms now that are infused with saffron with a good enough dose to get you a little bit of that that happy feeling like this little bit of the croquis a little bit of the croquis a little bit of the croquis so that's fun to play with and then the last one i remember from four hour chef that good saffron really good saffron is very expensive that was yes- Yes, 100%.

Starting point is 00:27:25 By weight, it's more expensive than gold, which is crazy. Do you know Zach Williams at all? Have you ever met Zach? Zach Williams, maybe. Wait a second. I think I have. In the Bay Area? Yeah, Robin Williams' son.

Starting point is 00:27:38 Yeah. I don't know if we've ever met in person, so I shouldn't say, but there's a good chance that we've bumped into each other at some point. Yeah, I mean, he's definitely in some similar friend circles, but Zach's just a fantastic human. And after his father, Robin Williams, passed away, he became obsessed with mental health and trying to figure out things that he could do that could improve people's well-being. And he came out with these Moo mood shoes called Pym, P-Y-M.

Starting point is 00:28:06 They're on Amazon. You can link them in your show notes, but it's actually a really basic, basic thing. It's just GABA, L-theanine, and Rhodiola, which is all these kind of like really stress, like anti-anxiety type mood shoes. And he sent me some and I didn't try them for a while. And then Daria's like, I want to try some of these. And my wife, she got hooked on, she's like, these are amazing. She's like, I don't even, she takes them. And she's like, I don't even want to drink anymore. She's like, once ever, she wants a glass of wine. She's like, just take a couple.

Starting point is 00:28:33 Yeah. And you know, she does. That's wild. The juice. Yeah. Well, she still drinks, but. Not 10 a.m. on Tuesday. Right.

Starting point is 00:28:41 Exactly. So that they're that good 10 a.m. chew. But they're actually, they're awesome. And, you know, I got to give, Zach is like in this for the right reasons. He's not putting any funky, weird ingredients in it. And, you know, he's just such a good human. I wanted to give him a shout out

Starting point is 00:28:54 because they work well. I will say also that I am a big fan of L-theanine for a number of reasons. It's really helpful for, in some respects, taking the edge off of coffee consumption. Oh yeah, I take it with coffee. Well, that's what I mean. So if you have a tendency to perhaps over-caffeinate

Starting point is 00:29:14 and get into the kind of creepy-crawly, train-spotting end of the spectrum, then the L-theanine can help minimize some of that. Rhodiola is very interesting for developing endurance and for endurance output also. That one is interesting on multiple levels. Do you have any idea why it's called PYM? I believe that's his middle name.

Starting point is 00:29:38 Oh, wow. Okay. Yeah. Dig it. So, yeah. We'll link to that in the show notes. PYM, original Mood Chews. You can find them on Amazon.

Starting point is 00:29:46 It was something like, and it was also, you baked it in the supplement. It was something like, something your mood, like prove your mood or improve. I can't remember what it was, but he also put it in the name

Starting point is 00:29:56 of the actual chew itself. He had a double meaning for it. I like simple interventions or simple supplements that have two or three variables because otherwise, if it's just a laundry list of 27 things, especially, and I say this as someone who knows this industry pretty well, if it's a proprietary blend, so you don't know the actual ratios of these ingredients, it's very hard, if not impossible, to determine what is doing what.

Starting point is 00:30:31 Whereas if you have three, at the very least, if you then wanted to try to determine for yourself which of those three was having an impact or not, right? There are ways to actually placebo blind as an N of one, as a single subject. People can just look up quantified self and blinding or placebo control to learn more about that. But you could actually do a deep dive on each of those three and further test to try to determine for yourself, but which is not possible if you're just getting something with 30 or 40 or 50 ingredients, which you do see in some cases. Yeah, the you're right. You'll see these proprietary blends and there's like no clue how much. They don't list any amounts in there. There's just like 30 ingredients.

Starting point is 00:31:11 Yeah, not very helpful. As I've learned, I keep giving these teasers. I will say that when I was diagnosed with COVID, the very first thing I realized is if I were to take the advice of everyone sending me advice right now, I would almost certainly die of several dozen contraindications. What was the, what was the, just give me a little taste before we get into it. What was the weirdest thing someone told you to do?

Starting point is 00:31:39 Not the whale thing that I joked about. Well, we were, I have to, I have to just say that we were joking about whale semen, I think gargling with whale semen or something, or you said that I want to give you proper credit. And then I was joking with another friend of mine who asked me the same question. He's like, what's the, what's the best advice you've received? And I said, well, I think somebody told me to gargle with horse semen. I used horse semen. And he said, you know, actually it'd be great if after you recover, you talk about this seriously as like an April Fool's joke, because people would be jerking off horses around the planet.

Starting point is 00:32:12 It would be the best prank ever. I did not end up deciding that would be a good idea. But I mean, the most harebrained kind of craziness you can imagine. I mean, every alternative remedy possible. So you pick it, there was a recommendation, right? It just, it kind of craziness you can imagine. I mean, every alternative remedy possible. So you pick it, there was a recommendation, right? It just, it kind of doesn't matter. And we can come back to this, but it is interrelated with the problem of determining, not just determining causation, but avoiding contraindications, which is really, really, really important. So we'll come back to that. And part of the reason I keep delaying this, folks, if they're, really, really important. So we'll come back to that. And part of the reason I keep delaying this, folks, if they're just like, why the tease? Why the tease? Because people get crazy on both sides. I've noticed that

Starting point is 00:32:55 the people on far ends of the sort of conspiracy spectrum or on the political spectrum are kind of like a horseshoe when it comes to COVID. They like bend around towards each other and they actually get very, very similar. So there's no way for me not to upset people when I talk about COVID and the various steps that I took and so on. I'm excited to hear this. Yeah, we'll save it. We'll delay it. We'll save it. And it may be a disappointing punchline for folks, but that's why we're pushing off because we have a lot of fun stuff to talk about. I will say, let me throw something in related, which was when I was isolating. So as soon as I

Starting point is 00:33:33 was diagnosed, I ended up isolating about 24 hours or 36 hours later. First sequestered myself upstairs. My girlfriend stayed downstairs and then I ended up isolating myself in a separate location so that my girlfriend wouldn't get sick. And I found comedians in cars getting coffee to be an incredible... Cure my COVID, grandma. No, it's not a cure. I found it to be extremely psychologically helpful and a real gem of a discovery when I was stuck in this apartment by myself for 10 days. And so I would make a habit of watching two or three episodes when I got up and two or three episodes if I got really tired, two or three episodes right before bed.

Starting point is 00:34:25 And it allowed me to, obviously in a synthetic way, but to interact with people and to feel like I was socializing on some level. I loved it. So I really, really, really applaud Jerry Seinfeld for, first and foremost, designing a format for himself that is the most fun and ease he could possibly have in putting together a show. And for people who don't know the format, he basically gets to drive. He likes classic cars and cars in general.

Starting point is 00:34:57 So he gets to drive an incredible classic car, different classic car every episode. And he goes to pick up one of his friends to go get coffee and bullshit and talk about comedy and life and so on. And it gets cut down to 17 minutes. It's just a genius format. After coming out of the show Seinfeld in the 90s, which was, I don't want to say a death march, that's too severe, but it's so much work, right? So much incredible work to put that show together and to sustain it for that long. So to do the opposite and create a format that is really fun, really easy, an excuse to hang

Starting point is 00:35:37 out with your friends, kind of like The Random Show, quite frankly, it was great. So I really recommend people check out Comedians in Cars, Getting Coffee. I watched it on Netflix. Bob Einstein is probably my favorite episode. That's super Dave. Larry David, also amazing. Sarah Silverman, always incredible. Gary Shandling. A lot of old timers, some of which are no longer with us, are kind of captured for posterity. So highly recommend Comedians in Cars getting coffee. Speaking of things that just make you feel good, have you watched Ted Lasso? I have not watched Ted Lasso yet. It's been recommended at least a thousand and one times to me, and I haven't watched it yet. Tim and everyone else that hasn't watched it,

Starting point is 00:36:19 and everyone that has watched it is screaming right now, yes, please, Tim, watch this. You have to see Ted Lasso. It is really, really good. It is on the to-watch list. What my girlfriend and I have been slowly chipping away at when we watch something short together, because we're not always in the mood to watch something that's 90 minutes or two hours long, like a feature film. So we'll watch Schitt's Creek, and we're making our way through all the seasons of Schitt's Creek, which is amazing. But Ted Lasso, I remember polling on social at one point, like what series should I binge watch next? It needs to be of a certain

Starting point is 00:36:56 length and it needs to be first and foremost, feel good, right? Like if you get your face kicked in during the day, this is something you would look forward to watching after such a day. And Ted Lasso was probably the most consistent recommendation. Dude, you have to do this like tonight. Like seriously, it is. It is really, it's funny. Like when you think of like, for me, I'm not like a soccer fan or, you know, football as they call it in some parts of the world.

Starting point is 00:37:26 And football. I'm just not a fan. Not that I couldn't get into it, but it's just like not from, it's not about that. It's about the relationships and it's funny and sweet and it's endearing. Like there's a lot to love. Anyway. I'm into it. I'm into it.

Starting point is 00:37:41 Sweet. Just a quick thanks to one of our sponsors and we'll be right back to the show. This episode is brought to you by LinkedIn Jobs. Today, many small business owners like me are busier than ever. Time spent searching for and interviewing candidates can take time away from managing and most importantly, growing your business. That's why LinkedIn Jobs has made it easier to get to the candidates worth interviewing faster and for free. Create a free job post in minutes on LinkedIn Jobs to reach your network and beyond to the world's largest professional network of more than 770 million people. Focus on candidates with the skills and experience you need and use screening questions to get your role in front of only the most qualified people. Then use the simple tools on LinkedIn Jobs to quickly filter and prioritize who you'd like

Starting point is 00:38:30 to interview and hire. It's why small businesses rate LinkedIn Jobs number one in delivering quality hires over leading competitors. LinkedIn Jobs helps you find the candidates worth interviewing faster. Did you know every week, nearly 40 million job seekers visit LinkedIn. So try to post your job for free at linkedin.com slash Tim, T-I-M. That's linkedin.com slash Tim to post your job for free. Terms and conditions do apply. All right, K-Ross, what other news, what other exciting updates, findings would you like to share? I have one last NFT thing,

Starting point is 00:39:11 and then I promise we won't talk about NFTs because you and I both got the sickness. Oh, no, but you're doing a great job. I feel like I am doing a very junior varsity job. I feel like you have sort of full spectrum expertise. I'm very impressed. You're like a decathlete of NFTs right now. Yeah, you're welcome. You're welcome. Yeah. I've been very impressed with your shot put especially. I think you and I are both kind of, tell me if this is true for you. I think it is. I like to go,

Starting point is 00:39:43 well, it's definitely true for me i like to go light on a lot of different things until i get hooked on something and then i go really really deep if i get the hook yeah yeah yeah that's true yeah so so nfts i got the i got the hook but anyway i guess there's a couple things to mention one people should be aware of just an overarching trend that's happening in nTs that is without a doubt the future. So it's just important that people should know about this. Like Sarah Jessica Parker, just a launch in NFT for her wine. And at first you think everyone that thinks about NFTs, they think about these are just pictures, they're photos, they're JPEGs, they're being

Starting point is 00:40:20 captured in the blockchain, they're people are trying to pretend they're art or whatever, and they're selling them. And they don't necessarily think about actually the technology and how it can be applied to different things. And what they have done with her wine company and what she has done that's really impressive is they've used NFTs as utilities. And so what I mean by that is if you collect one of her wine NFTs, it's not about saying this is a piece of art I'm going to hold in my home. It's about showing ownership over

Starting point is 00:40:53 membership of something. So it's a membership to her wine clubs. You get your wine allocation based on the fact that you actually hold one of these NFTs. So that may sound boring, but if you think about it, it's really interesting in that, now that can be resold to someone else. Let's say I buy an allocation of her wine. That was going to be my main question, not to interrupt, but I will. Wine clubs have existed for a long time, right?

Starting point is 00:41:20 Or you have like Soho House and you have memberships. So people have figured out how to have exclusive memberships. So is the unique aspect of this that the sale of that NFT cannot, or in this case, isn't being constrained? Right. Well, think of it this way. Okay, so let's think about some of the most scarce things in the wine world. And let's talk about Napa Valley for a second. There are two wineries that are far and above the cult hottest wineries in Napa Valley. It's Screaming Eagle and it's Harlan Estate. And I say that with a slight conflict because I'm on the

Starting point is 00:41:56 advisory board of Harlan Estate. But it's fantastic wine. It really is. Everyone would agree with that statement that's in the wine world. It is. Now imagine you don't exclude me just because I'm not in the wine world. I enjoy Harlan Estates. Yeah. You know what, you know, it's usually when I'm just riding on your coattails, but that's okay. But imagine Harlan, you know, let's take Screaming Eagle because I don't want to shill my own stuff here. So Screaming Eagle is, I believe it's around $4,000 a bottle right now, which is just madness, right? But the wait list to get on their actual allocation is something like 20 to 30 years. So that means if you go to their website today and say, I want to sign up for your wine program, it's going to take you 20 to 30 years to even get considered to be offered an allocation.

Starting point is 00:42:43 And that's not just because they're being dicks. It's actually a very small producer, so they don't have a lot of wine to sell. So they have to wait for people to come off of that wait list. Now, in fairness, they could expand production if they wanted, but they know how to constrain supply because it's ultra premium, right? Well, yes and no, but they have this hillside that has very specific climate, very specific soil conditions, like. You can't just grow that without compromising some quality, right? Yeah. So there's other ways you could do a sub brand or something like that. You could expand it. They actually have one called second flight, which is like they're smaller, less expensive, $500 bottle kind of sub brand type thing.

Starting point is 00:43:19 So imagine membership is no longer about someone retiring and the new person coming on, but about it being a liquid environment. So if I had a membership, I'm like, Tim, I want to get rid of my Screaming Eagle membership. I bought it when this NFT was $100 10 years ago. And now what would that cost? I bet you that membership would go for $25,000, $50,000 or more. And so now that can be resold. You're talking about Screaming Eagle? Yes. Or minimum. Are you kidding me? Yes. Exactly. I mean, if the bottle costs four grand,

Starting point is 00:43:49 it's just bragging. I shouldn't say just, but a lot of the value is in bragging rights, right? Just having access. So somebody, there's no ceiling for what someone could spend. Now, here's the crazy thing. When I sell that to like, let's say I sell it to you because of what's written into the code and the smart contract behind the scenes for the NFT, 10% of that sale could go back to the manufacturer, to the producer. So they are in essence, the artist receiving a commission on the resale of their membership.

Starting point is 00:44:21 So this is going, these types of utility NFTs are going to be coming, and it's not just going to apply to wine. It could be applied to individual objects as well. You can imagine no longer waiting in line for some crazy Supreme drop or some Yeezy sneaker drop. You get the NFT instead, and then price discovery happens in the secondary market via NFTs. And then if you decide to destroy the NFT, you'll actually get shipped the actual shoes from the manufacturer, gets rid of fraud at the same time. It's amazing. Now destroy, meaning you're sending it to a wallet that is known to be inaccessible.

Starting point is 00:44:55 Well, what you would do is let's say, for example, that, and this doesn't exist today, but it will in the near future. So this is coming. Let's say you have a limited edition Air Jordan NFT, right? And you're like, I actually want this pair of shoes. You bought it in the secondary market. It started selling. Nike sold it for $250. You bought it for a thousand and you're like, it's going for 2000, but I actually want the pair. So rather than have to go on eBay or any of the secondary marketplaces and figure out, are these legit shoes? I know there's other places that are clearing houses to determine whether or not they're legit, but you could go direct to Nike

Starting point is 00:45:29 and say, Nike, here's my wallet. I'm going to connect my actual cryptocurrency wallet. Here's my NFT. So I proved that I have the rights to one of these pairs of shoes. Now take my NFT and you will destroy it. And in return, you'll present me with a form where I put in my shipping address and you'll actually ship me the physical shoes. It is so cool and it's coming. So anyway, that's a little preamble on what is going on in the industry. So I have a little announcement to make. So I have a podcast called Proof that is all about covering the NFT space. And I've been lucky to have a pretty decent audience. We're up to 250,000 downloads per episode now, which is just crazy for the NFT world.

Starting point is 00:46:11 And I'm going to be offering a utility NFT to these listeners. So I'm going to do 1,000 NFTs in total that are utility, and they will unlock early access to podcasts, a private collectors only discord, and unfortunately a bunch of perks that I have planned, but I can't talk about. I talked to some legal counsel and they always say, don't promise things like over deliver, but don't make any outrageous promises, but rest assured I'm going to do everything in my power to make sure that this membership is just awesome. But Tim, I don't want this to be a commercial. I think this is going to apply to all podcasts, dude. Like I think that there's a world where in my mind, I don't know, you might cut this out. You might cut this out if I say it,

Starting point is 00:46:53 but I'm going to say it anyway. Don't cut it out. You do this every other random show and I usually keep it in. Go ahead. We'll see. I would buy one of yourfts just not to hear your ads dude like if i could if i could get a tim utility nft cut out the ads get access to episodes and behind the scenes like additional extended footage this is where things are going to go like you'll hold something and whoever the creator is is going to provide additional benefits additional things for their audience. I'm telling you, in the next two years, you'll see so many podcasts adopting this type of model. Not just podcasts, but sites in general will be adopting this type of model. So if someone buys Kev Kev NFT... It's called Proof, the Proof NFT. I love that you're trying to rename it Kev Kev. Kev Kev. So when people buy the Proof Kev Kev NFT, they could also flip that and sell that

Starting point is 00:47:50 six months later to give someone else the same access. That's right. You sell the NFT off to someone else, and then they immediately receive all the perks going forward from that point. You're such a crafty little monkey. You really are. Dude, you're going to be doing this. You know this could be applicable to what you're doing. I know it could be. Quite honestly, I feel like I've been thinking and cogitating and meditating on this too long. And honestly, the novelty of all of this will have worn off by the time I do anything. And therefore, I have less interest. But maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I'm wrong. I don't know. I'm curious to hear from you. Why do this? You have a great life, great setup, got plenty of things to keep you busy. Why do this of all things that you could do? What do

Starting point is 00:48:38 you get out of this? I mean, of course, you could get income from the initial sales of the Kev Kev. I'm kidding. The proof NFT, but there has to be other reasons. So why are you doing this? This is at my core. It's one of the, the proof podcast is probably sense dignation. It is in, you know, obviously I show we do. Oh, stinger. Oh, stinger. No, I would say it's the most fun that I've ever had, dude. I think we're both in this boat of being creative people. I love building things. I've been a builder and an entrepreneur for many times over.

Starting point is 00:49:14 Is this a breakup conversation? Is this the song? No, this is not a song. I'm just saying the reason I want to do it is because I want to help these artists get off the ground. And I think that this is the future. I truly believe that in, you know, a hundred years from now, we'll look back on CryptoPunks and these early projects as being a changing of the guard and a brand new shift in a way to capture value. And we're in the very first innings. It's the same excitement level I got in 2004 when I started Digg at the very beginning of

Starting point is 00:49:46 Web 2. Web 3 has that same gut. I wake up at 5 a.m. I can't stop thinking about things. Tim, when you were laying on my couch when we were in Marfa, you said the same thing. You're like, I can't sleep. I know. I know. I couldn't sleep. Because it's so exciting. And when you get that much excitement, I'm like, how can I help make this a reality? And that's what I want to do. You know what? I'm going to share one of those ideas right now, because if he hasn't grabbed it by now, he should have grabbed it. Yes. I know what you're going to say. I love this. So we couldn't sleep. We're thinking of all of these maybe genius, mostly half-assed,

Starting point is 00:50:26 ridiculous ideas. We've got to tell my DAOs first. Yeah. All right. Well, DAO has come up a couple of times on the podcast. Go for it. Give it a quick summary. In the world of Web3 and crypto, there's something called the DAO.

Starting point is 00:50:42 It's a decentralized autonomous organization. It basically means a fancy way of saying a group of people coming together decentralized being like independently to work on something together work on a project together collect nfts together whatever it may be so a dow is a very common it's like saying like a new corporation or a new llc so there's all these dow's just flamingo Flamingo DAO. There's like MetaDAO. Friends with Benefits. There's Neon DAO. Friends with Benefits.

Starting point is 00:51:08 Red DAO. There's so many. A million of them. And there are going to be a billion more of them. Okay. Go ahead. So, and you can use them, or I should say design them

Starting point is 00:51:17 for many, many different purposes. And so for the few days that we're in Marfa, everyone's drinking booze. We're routinely just coming up with more and more ridiculous DAOs that could be. I wanted the Tim Tim DAO. The Tim Tim DAO would be huge. The Tim Tim DAO. And then I thought I was, for whatever reason, thinking of cartoons, because as you mentioned, I used to be an illustrator and paid a lot of my expenses in

Starting point is 00:51:45 college as a graphic illustrator for magazines and so on. And I was thinking of cartoons and then I realized, oh my God, I need to send a text to Scott Adams. So for those who don't know, I'll actually back into it. So the Dow is called Dill Dow, D-I-L-D-A-O. And the Dill Dow would be a Dow for fans of Dilbert and one of the most successful comic strips of all time. And so I texted Scott Adams. You texted him. Yeah, I texted him and I was like, trust me on this. Please just go out and buy dildo.com, dildo.xyz, something like that. And he replied, given that he hasn't heard from me in God knows, you know, three or four years, I think it was a very polite response given the absurdity of my

Starting point is 00:52:38 text. And it was something like, hi, Tim, great to hear from you. I think I need a little more context. So there you have it. Dildow. It may be taken, it may not. So the race goes to the Swift. What the hell were we talking about? Oh, we were talking about Web3 and how excited you are. And I should also say, yes, I'm very excited. I encourage people to listen to my conversation with Chris Dixon and Naval Ravikant that really goes kind of soup to nuts with a lot of this stuff. What I would be interested to know from you is if we look at some of the benefits that you're offering, right? Like you were in a very unique, very, very unique and not accidental position at all. You have navigated the world of Web3 and NFT so brilliantly. I have to give credit where credit is due and i've said this to a number of friends of mine i'm like man it's like this playing field is so perfectly designed for kevin's superpowers they don't apply in all places they don't line up in all places but

Starting point is 00:53:37 like no your weird quirks and nerdiness and superpowers all line up for this fucking weird thing called web three, specifically NFTs. It's hilarious. It's just like every time I get news, and obviously a lot of it is private, and I'm just like, of course, of course this is working. Amazing. So congratulations. And it's fun to watch. But I want to ask you, let's say I did my own NFT or something along these lines. What might some of the benefits be that I would provide that would not be stripping out ads? They could be, but quite frankly, I've tested this before with memberships. Ultimately, it turned out that most of my fans, or I shouldn't say most, but a lot of my fans, recognize the vetting and selection that I do with products. They don't mind it,

Starting point is 00:54:35 and they would rather hear the ads than pay. That just seems to be true for the vast majority of my audience. They can fast forward. They would much prefer to let sponsors shoulder the burden of keeping the podcast going and growing than pay. Even 15 bucks a month. It doesn't matter. They don't want to do it. Now, maybe that changes once they have an asset that could appreciate. Maybe it changes. I don't know if just the economic model has some difference. But what are some other benefits that I might be able to provide that are not going to make me want to smash my head through a car door window because I'm like, why did I ever agree to do all of these things? Yeah. Well, I think on the ads thing, just touching on that briefly, there are going to be, let's just call it 50,000 people or something that would love to

Starting point is 00:55:18 have a no ad version of your show, right? It may not be massive numbers, but there's going to be some subset of that that would be stoked. But I think, Tim, it's more about what do you do early that you don't share with the rest of us? And how can you share that back to your community of insiders? Because when I think about what I do, it's finding these early artists. It's finding these, and how can I tell people about this stuff before it becomes big? And so for you, what is that crazy? I mean, not so much these days, but like in back in the day would have been like,

Starting point is 00:55:48 what's the crazy biohack that you're on? Or maybe what's the new transcript of the, of the book that you're going to publish or an early galley copy that no one gets to see, or they all get to see before everyone else. Yeah. There's things that are exclusively you that you could say, here's my private discord where we do a Q and A,

Starting point is 00:56:06 which is only for members. That's just with you. Cause I'm sure a lot of your listeners have tons of questions you probably get via email and you could do that in a real format where you actually get to interact with the smaller subset. Dude, I could have done 10,000 or 50,000 NFTs for this proof collective, but I wanted to keep it at a thousand because that's a number that if I go to a city and I host a private meetup, it'll be a hundred people or whatever, or 50 people because you know, people will be distributed all over the place and I can manage that number and

Starting point is 00:56:36 I can hang out and we can have conversations. So, you know, Tony Robbins does this. He has like a really high end tier of people that pay a bigger fee. Platinum, I think it is. Exactly. And so this is like access to you, access to pick your brain, your knowledge.

Starting point is 00:56:52 It's a different, it's a deeper connection to you, basically. Yeah. I suppose what I'm trying to figure out, I understand in the case of Proof and Modern Finance, if people, for instance, were able to listen to the podcast a week earlier, and this is not investment advice, I'm not saying this is guaranteed, but there's a possibility those people could do really well from an investment standpoint if they really know what they're doing. There's a lot of incentive in that case. And it's not a very heavy lift for you to provide, say, a separate RSS feed that's available to a smaller subset of people. There's so many things that I could do. For instance, I could have something where it's

Starting point is 00:57:30 like 100 people as members and they have to pay $100,000 a year. I'm sure I could figure out a way to make that work. I could make that valuable enough just by selecting those 100 people properly so there's value in the network. I could make it work. I could make it worth it and worth much more financially. But I'm like, do I want to do that? I remember I thought about doing that. And then one of my friends was like, well, you could just end up babysitting billionaires who think they have 24-7 access to you. That's a problem. Like, do you want that? And I'm like, no, I don't want that. So I decided not to do it. But that's not adding any value back. That's like just rubbing elbows with the people that are

Starting point is 00:58:04 already really wealthy. I think you have to go a little bit wider than that. are ways that I could make that very, very valuable. The question for me is like, what will nourish me and not deplete me? The numbers are fun. The money's fun. Like, let's be honest, right? It's a nice, clean, obvious way of kind of putting points on the scoreboard or having them taken away. So that I think is understandable, right? It's sort of like the gamification of life is this thing called money beyond our kind of subsistence needs. But so what I'm wondering is like, what could I do that would actually nourish me, right? I know what the answer is. 100%. It's really easy. This is what my approach is going to be, and it should be yours as well. When you launch a program like this, it's not about knowing. It's about trying 20 different things, and two or three of those

Starting point is 00:59:08 are going to be really nourishing to you, and you're going to say, this is amazing, and I want to do more of this. And your fans will love it because you'll try a Q&A, you'll try a live event, you'll try an early podcast, you'll try a bunch of different things, and all of a sudden something will click, and it's about the experimentation. That's what web three is right now. I see. So you just have to set the expectation up front, right? Because if you say, Hey, this is an exaggeration, obviously, but if you're like, Hey, I'm going to go ice skating with you at Rockefeller center every winter. Right. And then you're like, wait, I changed my mind after they buy the NFT. You're like, actually, I hate, I can't stand Tony. I don't want to go

Starting point is 00:59:44 ice skating with Tony anymore. So you're going to have to just set the expectation then, I guess, upfront, like, hey, I'm going to try a bunch of stuff. And if I'm only going to keep doing the stuff that's fun, basically. And also they have to know that you're Tim, you have a reputation, you're going to deliver on something that you sell. There's no doubt. You never haven't. And I think that's the unique thing that whether it be a Gary Vaynerchuk or you or me, we care too much about our reputation

Starting point is 01:00:09 to like grab money and run. So we're going to deliver on this in some way. We don't know what it's going to be. I'll try 10, 15 different things. I guarantee you there'll be some things that are going to be, you will find that your fans will love and you'll enjoy doing.

Starting point is 01:00:23 Slip and slide in Manhattan. That should definitely be one. Connect four with Tim. Connect four. Connect four with Tim. That's right. Twister. Twister.

Starting point is 01:00:36 Twister. Twister is the one I was going for. Yeah. So where can people learn more about the Proof NFT? Is there a place to go? I guess they should just go to your Twitter handle. Where would you suggest they go if they're listening to this and they're like, tell me more, Kevin Rose. How do I do this? My main website for it is proof.xyz. And on the top

Starting point is 01:00:55 there, there will be a link for a newsletter. If you subscribe to that newsletter, those will be the first people to know along with Twitter, but Twitter you can miss because it can just go down, you know, stream, but the newsletter folks will get it in their inbox. And then you're in the Kevin Rose flywheel of infinite joy. It's so beautiful. It's so beautiful. I love it. Flywheel. You mean I forget to send a newsletter. I probably only send a newsletter every like three months. Oh, it's great. It's perfect. It's perfect. It's a very slow flywheel, but it's a, that's right. It's like more like a tricy but it's a flywheel. Yeah, that's right. It's more like a tricycle. Yeah, yeah. So a couple of questions. Where did this XYZ thing start? Because that is a thing.

Starting point is 01:01:32 Yeah, the domain handle.xyz was co-opted by just the whole NFT and crypto movement. It just became this thing where all the.coms were taken. It seemed too commercial. It was played out. It was old..so was big for a while, Notion.so and things like that. And for some reason, it was like, if you're Web3, if you're crypto, if you're NFTs, just use.xyz and everyone just latched onto that. So that's been the thing. Was there someone who led that charge? Because it could have been a million other things. Yeah. I don't know. Oh, I'd love to know. I'm so fascinated by how these conventions start. Who was the person who was just like, guys, this is what we're doing. Or just had the reputation that they were the first people to do it. There has to be a.nft coming soon, you would imagine. I mean, that would be a no-brainer i just i wonder

Starting point is 01:02:26 about so many conventions right like back in the day when every startup ended with ly you know what i mean it's like bitly optimizely this ly everything was ly and then there's the you know spotify shopify who's the first person to use the phi right spensify. Well, I have a blockchain slash crypto update. It's not nearly as well formed as yours, but it's my first dip into the pool in a sense because I've always wanted to experiment first with fundraising for scientific research related to so-called intractable psychiatric conditions. So things that are thought to be incurable or almost impossible to treat with current tools. And so, as you know, Kevin, and a lot of people know, SciSafe Foundation, which is my foundation, and it's all my money,

Starting point is 01:03:20 has committed many, many millions of dollars now to psychedelic therapy research and medicine research, helped establish centers, the first in the world at Imperial College London, the first in the US at Johns Hopkins, many studies that have done incredibly well. So in terms of picking bets, we've had now studies that have been in Lancet, in the New England Journal of Medicine, kind of sweeping the Oscars equivalent from a scientific standpoint. And I was introduced, so you mentioned art blocks earlier in this conversation. And sorry, I'm slurring my speech a little bit. It's actually not from the alcohol. We'll talk about that with COVID, but like the losing the words is not from the booze.

Starting point is 01:04:05 The horse semen? It's mostly from the horse semen. It's a little viscous. Taxes your vocal cords. You always take it to the... I just want to dial it. I just want to turn it to 11 for a second. So, God, we took it from Saisei Foundation to Horse Seaman in one second flat.

Starting point is 01:04:33 So, Snowfro, who is the founder of Artblocks, introduced me to a nonprofit called Endowment. This is another great name. So, E-N-D-A-O-M-E-N-T.org, endowment.org. And he introduced me to them because they help nonprofits accept cryptocurrency donations. And it's a very cool, effectively, company, I mean, organization. In this case, they have a nonprofit arm. I believe GivingBlock is a for-profit company that takes a very different approach, but it's complimentary if you're a larger organization, nonprofit, or a 501c3 that wants to accept cryptocurrency, but doesn't really have the knowledge or desire to develop the expertise around crypto. These are two ways to

Starting point is 01:05:22 do it. And so I was introduced to Robbie and Zach at Endowment and they helped get the SciSave Foundation set up on Endowment. So if anybody out there is looking to back a proven player who really picks good shots within the scientific research fields, and that includes many different things, but predominantly focused on psychedelic medicine and addressing things like treatment-resistant depression, opioid use disorder, so different types of addiction,

Starting point is 01:05:57 and many, many other things, then you can go to endowment, that's E-N-D-A-O-M-E-N-T.org slash Saisei, S-A-I-S-E-I. We'll include a link in the show notes at Tim.blog slash podcast. But if you want to type the whole thing out, it's just app, A-P-P dot endowment.org slash Saisei. And Saisei, I'm surprised I probably haven't mentioned this before. The name of the foundation means a whole bunch of things in Japanese. I used to live in Japan, went to a Japanese school. I love Japanese culture and the Japanese language. And that is how many people feel after undergoing properly administered psychedelic therapy or psychedelic assisted therapy. So that's why the name is I say. So people can check it out.

Starting point is 01:06:54 That's so cool. Yeah, it's great. I'm excited about it. And it's also a way for me to feel really good about engaging with it. There's a couple of things, Tim. You were so early on this and nailed it before it was cool. Like, I feel like all the universities these days are like, how do we add psychedelics to our roster? And it's like, you know, it's a snowball that kind of, I feel like in many ways you started,

Starting point is 01:07:13 which is, which is awesome to see. Thanks, man. Thanks. Yeah. It's, uh, it's been really exciting to really, really exciting to see a lot of what has happened in the last handful of years and just to see how far it's come politically also. There's a lot of room left for improvement, but just last week on Veterans Day, that was November 11th, I was in Coronado, which is in San Diego, basically. And I'm pulling up my Twitter profile for a second because I can give you the actual website, which I would like to do. I was there for a benefit for vets on Twitter. It's the handle at vets for vets, but they had a strength in numbers Gala to End Veteran Suicide. And the website for vets is vetsolutions.org. They sponsor psychedelic treatments for veterans and have a particular focus, I believe,

Starting point is 01:08:15 not exclusively, but have worked with many Navy SEALs, therefore the location in Coronado. And the reason I bring it up is that I was on stage with Governor Rick Perry, a former governor, I guess he's the 47th, I want to say, governor of Texas, former Secretary of Energy, Republican. And right next to him was Rick Doblin, founder of maps.org, which is doing incredible work, including phase three trials for MDMA-assisted psychotherapy for PTSD. So they have many veterans involved with this, who is as far left as you can go, sort of hyper, and again, these are maybe exaggerated terms, but kind of like hyper-conservative, hyper-liberal, sitting on the same stage, disagreeing on many things,

Starting point is 01:09:04 but agreeing completely on the value of psychedelic medicine for these conditions like PTSD. So it's really kind of mind-blowing, pun intended, to see how we were in a scientific winter and a policy winter, basically, for 50 or 60 years after the Nixon administration. And in the last 18 months, really, the last two years, perhaps, there's just been this flash boil and so much has happened. So cautiously optimistic. And I do think that I say Foundation will continue to be on the forefront, seeing around corners and looking at things that are not yet on the mainstream radar at all. So that's awesome. It's great that it takes crypto. I see you just connect your wallet, you can donate crypto and it's good to go. Yeah. And I want to give also some credit where credit

Starting point is 01:09:57 is due. I ended up there because I was invited by a friend of mine, former team member named Nick Norris. So I want to thank him for inviting me to participate in the event. And I also want to give thanks to all of the sponsors who supported that event, including Future Ventures. And I'm an LP in Future Ventures, but Steve and Genevieve Jurvetson were there who were kind enough to host me

Starting point is 01:10:23 and allow me to sit at their table. And it was just an incredible event. So I'm super excited about what is to come in 2022. One question I had for you, a friend of mine, she recently did ketamine therapy for depression. And there's actually a startup that I'm not affiliated with at all. I don't even know the founder. It's called Mindbloom. Have you heard of this? Yeah. Okay. So I'm very glad you brought it up. I have thoughts on Mindbloom, so continue. It's interesting because what she did is she signed up for it. And normally people think of ketamine as like an IV treatment that you go into a clinic and all of that. And it's, you know, that's kind of hardcore to get stuck up with an IV. And, you know, you have to be a certain, some people are very not cool with needles, right?

Starting point is 01:11:07 So this is actually a pill that they, pills that they mail to your house. They pair you with a therapist. And she was saying fantastic things about it. It's kind of home therapy, only available in like a dozen or so states right now. But ketamine treatment at home, I just wanted to know what your thoughts were. I started off incredibly skeptical and concerned with telemedicine as applied to psychedelic experiences. And that extended to ketamine. Because I do think that there are, even with some psychedelic compounds, probably with all, but to a lesser extent with some and to a greater extent with others,

Starting point is 01:11:53 the potential for abuse. I had a lot of questions around telemedicine, particularly when you're dealing with remote slash virtual administration of drugs. And ketamine, for those who don't know, it's a dissociative anesthetic. It is generally speaking, extremely safe. It is widely used. I believe it's one of the 100 most essential medicines as defined by the World Health Organization because as an anesthetic, it's, and again, double check everything with your doctor, but my understanding is it's famous for being inexpensive and not suppressing respiration. So it has a great risk profile. And some people will say, oh, that's a horse tranquilizer. That's

Starting point is 01:12:37 not really accurate. It is used in veterinary medicine, but it's very widely used in humans. So many horse drugs these days. A lot of hot horse drugs. A lot of hot horse drugs. A lot of horse therapy out there these days. People need to take a closer look at these horses. These horses got it figured out. They've been COVID. They've done everything. These horses have it all figured out. Oh, God. Yeah. So, you know what? I'm going to share just a quick side note, which you will get, I'm pretty sure, but it's definitely... The reference is going to be lost on a lot of people. I was sent this gif of... It's a drawing of the two arms in Predator with

Starting point is 01:13:19 Arnold Schwarzenegger and Dylan, where he's like, Dylan, you son of a bitch. And they slapped their hands together. And they're basically arm wrestling with their biceps showing. It's one gigantic white arm, which is Arnold Schwarzenegger, and then one gigantic muscular black arm, which Carl Weathers, I believe. I mean, both incredibly jacked. And they're baby oiled up. And it's this extremely long handshake just for the glamour shot. And I set this painting of this. And on one side, it had liberal. And then on the arm, it said ketamine. And then on the other side, it said conservative.

Starting point is 01:13:57 And then on the arm, it said ivermectin. And then below, it's like, at least we can agree on horse drugs. Exactly. So technically not accurate, but it was still pretty funny. I saw that as well. That's great. Yeah. Do you know ivermectin actually is, I believe, used by many people suffering from psoriasis? I want to say it's psoriasis. It might be rosacea. It's either psoriasis or rosacea. And because of all of the buzz around ivermectin, one of the casualties has been that people who

Starting point is 01:14:29 really need it for known indications are having increased trouble procuring it. Kind of wild to think about. In any case, someone will be able to fact check that on the internet. Shall we talk about COVID? What do you think? Yeah, let's do it, dude. Now's the time. Now's the time. All right. So, so wait, wait, wait, I got a text from Tim. It's two COVID tests. It's, it's me. You're texting me in soccer. I think we can say that. And it's two, it's two COVID tests. And it's like, they're both clear redlined. I mean, you didn't say fuck, but you were just like, shit, like this, this happened.

Starting point is 01:15:05 Here we go. What, what was the first, like, walk me through it. Like you just woke up one morning. It was like, I just don't feel right. Or what happened? Yeah, I'll walk you through it. So this is about two and a half weeks ago. Now I want to say something like that. And it was, if I look back, as you know, I've been very, very careful and so careful, began tracking COVID end of January, beginning of February, 2020, put up a blog post, which was very moderate, super moderate. And ultimately, in the subsequent weeks, encouraged South by Southwest to cancel and was kind of dragged over the coals at the time. And then, of course, COVID turned into what COVID turned into. And have been very careful, not because I assume that it is instantaneous death.

Starting point is 01:15:59 That is not what I assume. But because I have pre-existing respiratory issues, very well-established respiratory issues, and there were a lot of unknowns. There continue to be a lot of unknowns related to COVID-19. And I wanted to delay getting it as long as possible. So looking at the lifestyle calculus, it was very easy for me to mitigate risk without making huge sacrifices. I saw a lot of potential upside and very limited downside to taking certain precautions. I ended up going to F1, so Formula One in Austin, where at least in the paddock, everyone had been, I believe, both vaccinated and tested negative

Starting point is 01:16:47 with a PCR test within 48 or 72 hours, where I think I contracted it because there are so few options because I've been so careful. There are so few options where I would have been exposed. What I think happened is I succumbed to social pressure. And the way it happened is I had taken a car by myself to and from Circuit of the Americas, from COTA, each day. And then on the last day getting back, I had made some mistake and there was a snafu with transportation. And so I ended up getting kind of directed to a location to transportation, which I assumed meant I would be able to get a one-on-one ride back to the city since trying to find parking is just impossible. I mean, there were 400,000 people there over three

Starting point is 01:17:38 days. So I end up in a golf cart driven like a half a mile to this point. It's complete pandemonium, right? Like everyone is trying to leave Kota at the same time. And I get directed to this van and it's like, there's your ride. Now I had taken a van to the event that day, but I was one of three people in the van and we spaced out and so on. And I also had a mask. On the way back, I opened the door of the van and it's packed. It's like a 12-seater with 12 people or 11 people so that I could fit in. And they're like, okay, yeah, hop on in. We're headed downtown. And I was like, oh, fuck. I don't want to do this. But at least where I was, everyone was tested. Fuck, fuck, fuck. Whatever. And then I got in. And I sat down and it's like, everyone was tested, fuck, fuck, fuck, whatever. And then I got in and I sat

Starting point is 01:18:26 down and it's like, there was this one model chick vaping in the fucking van. I mean, it was terrible. And I'm just sitting there like reading my Kindle. I'm like, if I'm going to get fucking COVID, it is going to be right now here. And then about five days later, I started feeling very, very congested and began to develop a really severe headache. I attributed it to allergies in Austin because Austin has really, really bad allergies. You have cedar or juniper ash. You have ragweed. You have all sorts of allergens that cause really severe reactions in people. So I just assumed it was allergies. And then I was getting ready to pack, to get on a flight to go to New Orleans for a friend's 50th birthday and Halloween. And we were, by basically my request, everyone was going to be

Starting point is 01:19:21 PCR tested when they landed. And we had, my girlfriend and I, Binax kits at home. So we had Abbott manufactured rapid antigen tests at home. And I was feeling congested. And so she very wisely suggested, well, before we get on the plane and pack and do all this stuff, why don't you take one before we go? And I did just as a formality, right? Kept packing, dah, dah, dah, dah. And I came back and I'm like, oh shit, that looks positive. And I don't know what the, let's just call it accuracy. There are different ways to assess these tests, but let's just say that it's 85% accurate and Peter or Tia could give you a much better description, right?

Starting point is 01:20:06 I think it's one of those things where if it has a positive, it's more likely to be positive, but it could miss. You know what I'm talking about? I do. But also, if you just take two tests or three tests, you can get the likelihood of two false positives down to, say, less than 5%. So let me ask you a question. The one thing I'm always curious about these things, because we've all done these at home, or at least a few of us have,

Starting point is 01:20:28 they're listening. How quickly did that other line show up? I always wonder. Within five minutes, it showed up so quickly. Oh, so it wasn't like, cause I was like,

Starting point is 01:20:36 wait 15 minutes and I'm always waiting. Okay. It popped up really quickly and then did the second test and it popped up really quickly. And I was like, well, this looks like a positive. And then did the second test and it popped up really quickly. And I was like, well, this looks like a positive. And at that point, went immediately into action mode. I didn't panic at that point. I'm very good in crisis, or I should say, and some people listening might say, well, that's not a crisis. Well, if you knew my history and you knew some of the outcomes that I've seen and the doctors I've interacted with, you wouldn't be as cavalier. What is action mode for you? What does that mean,

Starting point is 01:21:14 action mode? Yeah, I'll tell you, but I'll just say in crisis situations, it's like the little paper cuts of life on a daily basis that make me lose my shit. But if there's a car accident or someone is in the hospital or something really bad happens, I'm good in those circumstances. The freeze in Austin and doing disaster response, I'm really good in those circumstances. So what action mode meant for me was number one,

Starting point is 01:21:40 immediately scheduling a PCR test to definitively confirm that I was positive. But you knew, you'd taken like three of these things. No, I'd taken two at that point, but before, and actually this is important. So before considering different types of actions or interventions, I wanted to really, to the extent that I could be close to 100% certain, be 100% certain. Because as one doctor I know well puts it, not Peter, another doctor, he says, drugs are all terrible with a few positive side effects. Meaning you're signing up for a targeted effect that you're hoping will be helpful or beneficial but almost all drugs have known and or unknown side effects it's just part and parcel very few

Starting point is 01:22:36 things are so selective that it's all upside so i want it to be as certain as possible so pcr test and then as soon as I was confirmed, sort of simultaneously scheduling because I could cancel, let me just pause for a second and say, none of this is medical advice. This is very specific to me. It's very specific to conversations with my doctors, but I want to, for educational purposes only, walk through this so that people can, if it's helpful, have some view into my thought process. So I booked IV monoclonal antibodies, which are from Regeneron in this case. Question. Question as this is unfolding, where you're at, where you're based, you were in Austin at the time, is that correct? That's right. Okay. So is that something you could just book? I didn't even know you could just like book,

Starting point is 01:23:27 or do you have to have a doctor go and like, like how hard is it to get that? Yep. So, and you know what I just realized also, I didn't answer your question about Mindbloom and I want to come back to that because this is related. So let me just put a bow in Mindbloom. So Mindbloom, CEO is Dylan. I've met with him. I've had a number of people I know who are extremely seasoned facilitators with psychedelic medicine. The vast majority of those facilitators are charlatans, as you and I know, but there are a handful of folks who are really methodical and expert, in my opinion, and they've gone through the Mind Bloom process and they have said only positive things, which I was dumbfounded to hear. And I've never gone through myself,

Starting point is 01:24:13 but I have through a clinic here in Austin about a year and a half ago, done five or six infusions with IV over the period of two weeks so that I would be able to speak to the effects and side effects of ketamine if people ask me about it, specifically for depression or suicidal ideation. I think ketamine is very interesting. Also for chronic pain, and that relates to NMDA receptors, but we won't get into that. So Mindbloom, very interesting. And I have a very high opinion of both the company and the CEO, Dylan. So that's Mindbloom. I've heard good things as well.

Starting point is 01:24:54 So the reason I tied that in, sorry for forgetting that earlier, is because there is a company called Drip Hydration, driphydration.com. And my girlfriend booked the monoclonal antibodies through Drip Hydration, driphydration.com. And my girlfriend booked the monoclonal antibodies through Drip Hydration. And the way that works is you effectively sign up and then you will be, and I'm probably getting some of the details wrong here, but you will be contacted by a doctor or nurse practitioner who does an intake evaluation. Because there are risks. With almost anything that is an unfamiliar compound, you can experience anaphylactic response, right? You could have anaphylactic shock and you could die. So there

Starting point is 01:25:38 are people who have adverse events with monoclonal antibodies. And as I'm also going into action mode, I'm talking to three different doctors. And it gives me tremendous sympathy every time I have a situation like this or some type of acute medical situation, how challenging it is to navigate medicine and science, even if you are really plugged in. So I was in contact, I'm not going to name names, but I was in touch with three doctors, all very good doctors. One effectively said, do monoclonal antibodies as quickly as you can, because the sooner you do it, the better. My understanding is generally you want to administer within seven days of contracting, but keep in mind, I don't know when I contracted exactly. It was probably five days before I was diagnosed. The second person said, I don't think you fit the risk profile. You are

Starting point is 01:26:31 not immune compromised from sort of a textbook assessment. You're double-vaxxed, right? You're double-vaccinated, in my case with Moderna. There are possible downsides to having the monoclonal antibodies administered. I would advise against taking it, and you should wait and see. And if you develop more severe symptoms, then we can talk. The third doctor gave me the pros and cons, and this is a very common response that you'll get, gave me the pros and cons and said, really, it's up to you. I could justify saying go. I could justify saying don't go. That's a very challenging situation to be in. There is no tiebreaker in this

Starting point is 01:27:19 case. Can I ask you how you got three doctors? Are these like pre-existing doctors that you've worked with in the past? Pre-existing doctors. Okay. I know you know a lot of doctors. I just was wondering, are you calling up people randomly? Right. 1-800-COVID-DOCTORS. I am not calling up people randomly.

Starting point is 01:27:35 I, as you know, Kevin, really believe in redundancy and backup. And I have two backup whole house generators at my house, which meant I was one of two houses in an entire neighborhood with power during the Austin freeze last winter. My feeling, and this is from the military, not that I was in the military, but a lot of my friends who have been in the military will say two is one and one is none. If you have two of something, you're going to lose one of them and then you'll have one. If you have one, just consider it none. Because doctors get sick. Sometimes doctors are unavailable. I'm not in a near fatal car crash. So it may not even qualify as an emergency for some doctors. And for that reason, I want to have multiple people

Starting point is 01:28:20 sort of on contract or multiple people I've already done intake with who I have relationships with who I can contact via cell phone. If I'm going to spend excess money anywhere for redundancy, medical is where to spend it for you and your loved ones. So that's how I had three people. And I was doing this via email and also via cell phone. And I spoke with all of them. And they're all great, but the point is, there was no consensus. I ended up, for psychological reasons, deciding that I wanted to do it because of some of my preexisting conditions,

Starting point is 01:28:57 I did not want to wonder whether or not I was going to develop some type of respiratory distress or collapse. I didn't want to have that on my mind for the next five days. I knew that if I had an anaphylactic response, there are ways to kind of attenuate that response with, say, an EpiPen or intravenous, I think it's diphenhydramine, Benadryl. So there are ways to kind of mitigate the risk. So I decided to do monoclonal antibodies and then also decided through the advice of two out of three doctors in this case to take fluvoxamine. So I started taking something

Starting point is 01:29:39 called fluvoxamine, which is a repurposed antidepressant. This is a very interesting case. So fluvoxamine, and I'm reading here from nature.com, so I would expect it to be credible and fact-checked, but obviously do your own homework and please always speak to any doctor before stopping or starting any medications. So common antidepressant slashes risk of COVID death. So fluvoxamine, not to be confused with Prozac, which is, I think, fluoxetine. It has a very similar name, but it's different. So fluvoxamine is a different antidepressant that is cheap, widely available,

Starting point is 01:30:19 and frequently used for depression and obsessive-compulsive disorder. So also, I was like, you know, I'm kind of curious to see what this will do to me. Win-win. Yeah, yeah, win-win. But I'll just read briefly so that people have an idea of why this has been repurposed. So it is also known to dampen immune responses and temper tissue damage. Researchers credit these properties with its success in a recent trial.

Starting point is 01:30:44 Among study participants who took the drug as directed and did so in the early stages of the disease, COVID-19 related deaths fell by roughly 90% and the need for intensive COVID-19 related medical care fell by roughly 65%. Now, I should, however, also read the quote from a scientist at Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta who says, A, a major victory for drug repurposing, but next, quote, fluvoxamine treatment should be adopted for those at high risk for deterioration who are not vaccinated or cannot receive monoclonal antibodies. So one could make the argument, and one of my doctors did make the argument, that A, you're not at a high risk of deterioration. B, you're vaccinated. C, you're getting monoclonal antibodies. You do not need to take fluvoxamine.

Starting point is 01:31:30 So you took the kitchen sink approach, basically. I didn't, though. I really... You didn't do the horsey, but you went almost horse. I didn't go full horse. I chose two interventions. And then I supplemented with vitamin D and a handful of other supplements that are very low risk. I also supplemented with baby aspirin for any type of thrombosis risk. So one could make the argument that this is complete overkill. But for me in my mind, as I'm tracking outcomes and I've tracked this since February, and I'm not crazy. I don't think I'm crazy. I think I'm actually pretty good.

Starting point is 01:32:11 I think I would have done the exact same thing, by the way, based on everything that I've read. I think my protocol would have been the same. I don't think I've been crazy about this stuff. I think my paying attention to this early allowed me to make some of the best investment decisions of my life. So even if you think I'm a crank when it comes to the science, understanding the societal and supply chain implications of this is useful. So that is what I did. And I'll just add a few things. So what happened? I ended up having, I would say, overall mild symptoms. What was the text you sent me when you said you woke up in the middle of the night with a little bit of a panic? What was going on there with the chest stuff? So there were a number of events that were very disconcerting. But when people asked me, like, zero to 10, how bad was your COVID? And I was like, well, people die from this. So if dying is 10, I'm not a seven. I have to assume that if it's like a seven or above, you're in

Starting point is 01:33:10 the hospital. So four, five, perhaps, I don't know. And so I had mild fever. I had severe, severe headache and very bizarrely, like a localized headache that felt kind of like an ice pick in the side of the head. Ooh, I hate those. Which was unpleasant. I had extreme muscle soreness to the extent that it was hard to move at all. But the most disconcerting, those are all, say, severe flu symptoms, let's call it.

Starting point is 01:33:41 Yeah, it's the lung shit that scares you though, right? It was the respiratory distress and labored breathing, like tightness in the chest and having difficulty breathing. That was the most disconcerting for me by far. That was definitely the scariest. And that was just one night? That was a few different nights. That was a few different nights. And also, it's very difficult to determine causality, what causes what, because so many things are happening simultaneously. So as an example, when I started to wean off of the SSRIs, because I've never been on SSRIs before, and I also spoke to a number of

Starting point is 01:34:23 doctors, a few were like, you don't need to taper off. You can stop cold turkey because it's only 10 days. And then I spoke to a few other psychiatrists who I trust very deeply and they said, absolutely don't stop cold turkey. And I tapered off. So I taper off of the SSRIs. This is maybe five days ago. So let's just call it two weeks post. Although I took the fluvoxamine at full dose for 10 days and then tapered off over say three or four. Talk to your doctor. Don't just do what I did. What I noticed was each night as I started tapering off, I would wake up at between four or five in the morning with really rapid heart rate and sweating profusely. Now it happened once. Who knows what it's from?

Starting point is 01:35:04 That can't be the SSRI though. Well, hold on. So it could be anything or it could be any number of things, but then it happened the next night and then it happened the third night and I'm like, okay, something's happening. But is it from COVID? Is it from the SSRIs in some capacity? There's a chance that that is it. And it might be from the lack of SSRIs, right? Well, that's the other thing. Is it because I'm experiencing a rebound inflammatory response from removing these SSRIs that have an anti-inflammatory effect?

Starting point is 01:35:40 I don't know. So I'm about now two and a half weeks out. I did my first workout last night and have had a splitting headache since. Within a few minutes of starting exercise, my heart rate spiked to 150, 160 beats per minute. Wow. Crazy. One of the most consistent- That's high, dude. It was.

Starting point is 01:36:02 Doing what? Doing nothing. I mean, getting on a stationary bike for five minutes to warm up. I will say the fatigue and extended fatigue and ease of fatigue has been the most noticeable, persistent effect. And I remember also the symptoms coming in waves. Maybe at day five, I really was just going so stir crazy. I wanted to go outside for a walk, you know, mask on away from other people late at night. And I ended up going for my first walk, not that night, but the next kind of late afternoon off hours. And I went for a walk in downtown Austin, not near anybody, way, way outside of any congestion for a half hour,

Starting point is 01:36:47 really slowly flat ground. And I came back and I was so tired that I fell asleep for four hours. Yeah. So I'm glad I took the precautions I did. And I will say this because, and I've probably lost some people already just listening to my recounting of this, but the purpose of the vaccine, I saw a number of comments. When I put up a notice just saying, I've contracted COVID, anyone who's waiting for anything from me, please just be patient because it could be a few weeks. When I put up that note on social, people lost their minds on every side in every direction. It's really disheartening to see. And it's not because I care personally, but it's become such a divisive issue. And what I'll say just for me personally, I never expected the vaccine to prevent me from becoming infected. What I did hope for,

Starting point is 01:37:40 and based on the data believed was likely, is that the vaccinations would, once I got COVID, would reduce the risk of being hospitalized or having the responses I saw were, oh, you think you're so fucking smart. It doesn't seem like your vaccine the data. Forget about the politicians, forget about all the yelling and screaming on YouTube, but just looking at the data we have, which are not all manufactured by big pharma. As someone who funds a lot of science, I just want to say it's not that simple. The conspiracies on one side, which are like all of this is being driven by big pharma, have a grain of truth to them in the sense that big pharma lobbies and has a lot of capital and they can exert influence, but they don't have complete control over something like this. Similarly, on the other end of the spectrum, you have people who are concerned about nanny states or police state and the US government inflicting this and forcing this upon people. I'm not talking

Starting point is 01:39:10 about mandates, by the way, I'm putting that aside. That is just like outside of the purview of this conversation. But if we're talking about my personal reasons, I happen to still believe that good scientists exist and that the scientific method is the best approach we currently have for asking questions of nature and getting back verifiable, repeatable answers. I was vaccinated to keep the symptoms as mild as they happen to be for me. And I'm not convinced that that would have been the case otherwise, given that when things were hitting New York, I was on the phone talking to doctors at Mount Sinai and other places, senior attending physicians who were telling me on the phone, if you hear people telling you that this is just affecting people who are 70 and 80, don't believe them because I am looking in front of me at like two or three

Starting point is 01:40:00 people in their 20s and 30s who are intubated and they have no pre-existing symptoms or comorbidities. None of them smoke. You got to be careful with this stuff. So that is my story. Well, I'm glad you're okay, man. That's the most important piece. I have had some residual cognitive effects though. I was mentioning earlier that the kind of slurring of words and missing words, there do seem to be, I don't think they're going to persist forever necessarily, but there do seem to be some residual effects. And part of the reason that I chose to become vaccinated, part of the reason I chose to take the approach that I took, which

Starting point is 01:40:46 is heavily dependent on your individual doctor input, was not just to lower the risk of severe symptoms in the early stages, but to decrease the likelihood of long-haul symptoms, which are no joke. Yeah, no joke. Yeah. I just got my booster. I actually went with the Pfizer and decided to mix and match. Cause I saw some good, pretty compelling early data around additional coverage with the mixing and matching. I'm sure you probably saw that as well. Yeah. You get your fourth, fourth booster with some horse semen. Yeah. That's the finisher. Yeah. I got the, uh, and for people that are listening, don't freak out. My mom has cancer, so I got the booster so I could be safe around her. I know that's not my time to get the booster,

Starting point is 01:41:30 but you know, I want to see my mom. So that's reason enough right there. Yeah, for sure, man. So that's the COVID story. It's crazy though. It's very, I will say that A, I'm glad that I got it now and not in March or April of 2020. And I'll also say that there is some relief to it because my opinion of COVID is similar. It's developed a bit, but similar to what it was in March of 2020 when I took to social media to encourage the organizers of South by to cancel. And that is, it can't be contained. It just, it can't, this, this is not, it doesn't have the profile of a virus that can be contained. And my expectation is everybody's going to get this

Starting point is 01:42:17 and people are probably going to get it multiple times. And the follow-up question that then or the consideration is how do you minimize the likelihood of having severe symptoms right and so that's that's the lens that i've been using and now that i have it right like tiptoeing around and taking all these precautions like to finally have the thing it was so fucking weird weird, you know, to walk around, you know, when you tell me, yeah, you weren't even taking like Amazon packages and shit in the early days that you wouldn't touch them. Right. Yeah. No, no. Well, early days I was disinfecting everything and we, there were just so many, there were so many unknowns. Like it's not, oh, for sure. I was wiping down my egg cartons and shit. Yeah. It's, you know, I mean, it's,

Starting point is 01:43:02 it's very important, I think, to understand the limits of the known knowns and the known unknowns for that matter in everything, whether that's picking a partner, like girlfriend or a wife or a husband or whatever, or investing or looking at science. Like it's really important to know the limits and to try to make decisions based on the knowns. And I'll also say one more thing, and just because this comes up a lot and people are going to hate me for bringing this up. One of the most common responses slash criticisms that I've heard in the far left kind of conspirituality folks, and also from some folks who wouldn't fit into that demo, but who are

Starting point is 01:43:46 vaccine hesitant. And I understand the concern is we don't know how the vaccine affects fertility or long-term fertility. And they're absolutely right. They're absolutely right. I would agree with that, but disagree that that automatically means one should not be vaccinated. Because if you're going to apply that logic to the vaccine, you should apply that logic elsewhere. And I would just love to see anyone open their cabinet and tell me what the long-term fertility implications are for all of the supplements and medications and Chinese herbs and so on that they have in their cabinet. They can't. That science has not been done. And what I would say is it's a calculus that includes not just looking at the downside of that potential unknown, but looking at the downsides of some

Starting point is 01:44:46 risks where we have more data. So what is the likelihood that COVID or severe COVID improves fertility? I would say pretty low. Is there a possibility that contracting COVID decreases fertility? I don't think it's impossible. I certainly think that's a possibility. And therefore, if the assumption is everyone is going to get COVID, I think what I just mentioned should be part of the conversation. It doesn't mean you automatically get a vaccine. It doesn't mean you automatically don't get a vaccine. But I think it is simplistic and dangerous to say, well, just because you can't prove the long-term implications for fertility, therefore nobody who's thinking about kids should get vaccinated. I think that's... One question for you, and I don't know the answer to this at all, and maybe you don't, but is there any data that suggests it does impact fertility in any way? COVID or vaccine?

Starting point is 01:45:45 Vaccine. I am not aware of any, and I went pretty high up the flagpole with people who I consider highly credible because I'm planning on kids, and I certainly don't want to jeopardize my fertility. I don't want my girlfriend to jeopardize her fertility. I don't want anyone to unnecessarily jeopardize my fertility. I don't want my girlfriend to jeopardize her fertility. I don't want anyone

Starting point is 01:46:05 to unnecessarily jeopardize their fertility. But not getting vaccinated does not mean you automatically have a free pass. A, you're taking lots of things where the long-term implications have not been proven or sort of demonstrated to any significant statistical degree. And next, the effect negative, probably not positive, potentially, that COVID has on fertility is at least an unknown, or I should say, you know, possibly unknown and possibly known. It just seems unlikely unlikely given the mechanisms we understand and the action and effects of this disease that it has a positive impact. Who knows? Maybe. I don't know how one would ever do that study also. As somebody who is very deeply involved

Starting point is 01:46:59 in funding science and fundraising for science, I can tell you science is very, very, very, very expensive and it takes time and it takes ethics boards and it takes all sorts of approvals, IRB approval, and you know, the case of psychedelics, DEA approval and so on and so on. So let me make a recommendation because this can sound really overwhelming to everybody. Two things. One is check out a book called Bad Science by Ben Goldacre. He's a British MD. I took a number of excerpts from that book with his permission, with publisher's permission, and put it into the appendix of the 4-Hour Body. So if you have the 4-Hour Body or you buy the 4-Hour Body, you can also find a very succinct appendix, which helps you to just become more literate and intelligent when reading science. Because everybody and their brother, every media outlet

Starting point is 01:47:54 is going to make mistakes. Just about every single outlet is going to take shortcuts and sensationalize on every point in the political spectrum. And also, they're going to make mistakes in interpreting results. So one of the best things you can do for your life and critical thinking and decision-making with health is to become just a little bit more literate with science and your ability to separate fact from fiction, or at least clear bullshit from something that might be plausibly okay. And you can do that with a few hours of investment. You just need to read, say, Bad Science. I took some of my favorite parts, put it in this appendix in the 4-Hour Body.

Starting point is 01:48:37 And there's also a series of articles by Peter Attia, Dr. Peter Attia called Studying the Studies, I believe it is. Yes, his are great. That's a deeper dive, but really, really worth taking a look at that. It's been incredibly helpful to me. It's enabled me outside of COVID to make some really critical decisions, I think, well, and it doesn't take that much time. If you're willing to invest five hours, you could really change your life or the lives of others by making better decisions later. It's a great investment of time. Awesome. Good recommendations. Let's get to holiday gifts. Yeah, let's do it. And then I have to run in about 10 minutes. So why don't you go first?

Starting point is 01:49:24 Sweet. I've got a bunch. We're getting that time of year where, especially with supply constraints, that it's good to order on the early side for a lot of this stuff. So I don't know when this is planning on dropping, but- These are all for Christmas 2022. Yeah, exactly. So I'll say a couple of things.

Starting point is 01:49:41 One of the things that I have found to be a really fun thing, speaking of like Ted Lasso and other fun things that you can do at night that don't involve drinking or just, you know, some, some fun things to do with your spouse or a significant other Legos for adults, man, some of these Lego projects, they're not for kids. They're like super throwback, super complicated, like crazy Lego sets. I just got Daria. My wife just had a birthday. She's actually her birthday is in three days, but I just got her the Ecto one. Cause she's a huge Ghostbusters fan. Oh, that's awesome. I'm looking at it right now. Yeah. It's super legit. It's not like snap five pieces together. It's like, this is like a thousand piece or whatever it is project. I got the Voltron one, which is awesome. They have a vintage Porsche 911,

Starting point is 01:50:25 and you can link these up, but they're just fun. It's just something to, when you're at home and bust out the Legos and have a good time. I was just going to say, we'll have links to all these in the show notes. So if you're lucky enough to listen to this on the early side, because I'm sure they're all sell out, then just go to Tim.blogs slash podcast and search random show and it'll pop right up. There you go. A couple of quick things from me. Cause I know you're going to bounce. So dude, are you a fan of bitch made knives? I am. Yes. Okay, cool. So I got this new favorite from them. It's the five 37 bailout family of, of knives. Like it's just like a sick little pocket knife. It's an open assist or what is it?

Starting point is 01:51:05 This has the little tiny nodule that you kind of just like flip open. It's not automatic. I do have an automatic that actually, like right here, like check this out. You can only get these in Oregon because they're legal here in Oregon, but like you got the full,

Starting point is 01:51:18 like see, you can watch it on video. Yeah, but that's Oregon only edition. That's Benchmade as well. But Benchmade makes great, great knives. For those of you listening to the audio version, I just pulled out a switchblade on the video. But they're legal in Oregon, so I'm a Boy Scout, so I just always like to have a blade on.

Starting point is 01:51:35 Every Eagle Scout needs a switchblade. Exactly. So anyway, we'll... Yeah, go ahead. I was just going to add another pocket knife that I'm a huge fan of since you mentioned knives is the Kershaw Ken Onion Leak Serrated Folding Knife with Speed Safe.

Starting point is 01:51:53 And it has an open assist that is fantastic. I like Kershaw. Really, really nice. I don't know if you know this, but Benchmade's are actually made about a half hour from my house. I went to their factory. Oh, that's cool.

Starting point is 01:52:04 Yeah, and you can take your knives in and they'll just sharpen them for free. It's really cool. You know, you should actually, now that I totally blanked on this, I think he's in, I think he's still near Portland, but Murray Carter, who is on my podcast. Yes. The knife maker who was trained in Japan is nearby. So also if you want to make your own knife, he could help get you up to speed. Carter Cutlery, right?

Starting point is 01:52:29 Is that right? Yeah. Carter Cutlery. He's amazing. Yeah. Yeah. You can make a neck knife if you really wanted to go full Portland thug. I need to go.

Starting point is 01:52:37 I need to go visit. That's a great, those are great holiday gifts right there. Oh, those knives are one of a kind. Super, super special. Yeah. I can link those up. Yes. We'll link to there. Oh, those knives are one of a kind, super, super special.

Starting point is 01:52:45 Yeah. I can link those up. Yes. We'll link to this. So, or has a new ring out the aura three. It's got real-time heart rate, better sensors, full disclosure.

Starting point is 01:52:53 I'm an investor, but I don't get anything from saying that it's just a cooler ring. The last thing, by the way, I use the aura for, for sleep. So I put on, when I go to bed,

Starting point is 01:53:01 it shows me, I use it for sleep as well. You know, Matt Walker just joined as an advisor and is doing stuff for them and helping on the algorithm side. So that's awesome. Do you know these stone paper notebooks? Did I ever tell you about? I just pulled up the website, but I don't know these guys.

Starting point is 01:53:18 So imagine like we all know like moleskin and, you know, notebooks are always kind of like a fun little gift to give people. These karst notebooks are like the soft softest they're made out of stone. So it's not paper. They're made out of like the stone composite each page. Wait, it's not happy. Just made each page is made out of stone. This is what I was trying to figure out.

Starting point is 01:53:38 So this is like hipster Abe Lincoln. Yes. Yeah. Pretty much. Awesome. But it's like the softest is it's like, it's a velvety type. It's just a dream to write on. Anyway, these cars, cars, notebooks are fantastic. They're not that expensive.

Starting point is 01:53:53 They're better than most skins. Somebody gifted me one and I, when I put like pen to paper, I was like, wow, this feels so good. And then I researched them and realized that they were sustainable and just made from not trees, but from stone. And I was like, I have to. And now I just have them all over the house.

Starting point is 01:54:09 Like I buy them. I've got two on my desk right now. How on earth do you slice stone thinly enough? I think it's a pulverized and they make like a sheet out of it. Yeah, you can click on the about and then click on the materials link there. And it'll show you how they do it.

Starting point is 01:54:25 It's really, really beautiful to write on. You can click on the about and then click on the materials link there and it'll show you how they do it. It's really, really beautiful to write on. Oh, and then also do that. Um, my last gift idea is that venison jerky that you invest in that. Oh,

Starting point is 01:54:36 now we do it on that stuff. That stuff. Yeah. It's so good. I keep ordering right before we record it. Yeah. Yeah. It's the best, like 10 grams of protein,

Starting point is 01:54:44 like, you know, post-workout or whatever, just like the easy and it's tasty. It's really good. It's so it. Yeah. It's the best like 10 grams of protein, like, you know, post-workout or whatever, just like the easiest and it's tasty. It's really good. Yeah. It's so good. So people can, can check that out. Maui, M-A-U-I, Nui, N-U-I, venison. I think it's just Maui, Nui, venison. I get the bars cause they make them in links as well, but I like the bars the best, the pepper bars. Yeah. I love the, I love the bars. I make them in links as well, but I like the bars the best, the pepper bars. Yeah, I love the bars. I actually eat the links more. They have fresh cuts.

Starting point is 01:55:08 They're used in some of the top restaurants in the country. They're fantastic. And they're wild and they're like- Wild harvested. What do they call it? Yeah, wild harvested. So they're not like penning them up or anything. They just do like-

Starting point is 01:55:20 Oh, no, no, no. Yeah. No, no, they're gobbling up the ecosystem in Hawaii, which is why also you're actually improving the ecosystems in Hawaii by eating this deer because the effects are so destructive. It's part of the reason I invested. I mean, there's aerial footage of erosion and runoff damaging and destroying coral reef in Hawaii because the undergrowth has been so decimated by axis deer. Yeah. You sent me the video and there's like thousands of them.

Starting point is 01:55:51 Oh, it's insane. Yeah. It's not like you're like, like some butterfly where you're like making extinct. Like there's no, no, no, no, no. They're, they're everywhere. They are everywhere. And there is just about the most nutrient dense, probably the most nutrient-dense red meat I've ever had in my life. It's fantastic. So Maui Nui, I definitely second that. Dude, we forgot my budgeting finance tools.

Starting point is 01:56:13 I want to mention those real quick. Can I say those real quick one at a time? Yeah, go for it. Go for it. Actually, I'll cheat on my answer on the holiday gifts. Oh, you go first. No, no, no, it'll work out perfectly. You go, and then,

Starting point is 01:56:23 because I do have to run in a couple minutes. So why don't you do your budgeting apps? I will actually, yeah, I'll actually just say, I just put together a 10 of my favorite goodies that make great gifts. And I think, let me just check here. I think it's just tim.blogs slash gift guide.

Starting point is 01:56:44 And that'll take people directly to 10 gifts to make your holidays extra fun, relaxing, and delicious. Yeah. So people can just check that out. Tim.blogs slash gift guide. All right. Budgeting apps. Yeah. So real quick, we're going into a new year. I always try to track finances and all that good stuff. And so I spent a bunch of time going through all the latest and greatest iOS apps and desktop apps and just seeing what is out there, what's new. And so I'll just give you real quick. There's one, Tim, you would love this one. Actually, I'm not joking. It's called Kubera,

Starting point is 01:57:16 K-U-B-E-R-A.com. It is, it's more like spreadsheet style, but it ties in all of your banks and it also ties in all of your cryptocurrency as well. And it's just like, it's like a net worth tracker and it's just, it's very simple, but very powerful. It is beautiful. It's awesome. And that's a cool screenshot on the, on the main website. Yeah.

Starting point is 01:57:40 Yeah. It's, it's like super, super simple. It's just more of like, how am I doing net worth wise across a bunch of different assets? That's cool. On the day-to-day budgeting side, killer iOS app that I just fell in love with is called Copilot. So you can go to copilot.money. Sadly, there's no Android or desktop app yet, but they say that's coming. Then lastly, Mint. Old school Mint. I hated Mint for years and years and years. The reason I hate it is because it's packed with ads all over the place.

Starting point is 01:58:09 My buddy was like, hey, you need to check out Mint again. They need an NFT to offer an ad-free version. Seriously, ad-free. But it's gotten so much better. So if you gave up on Mint a while ago, it's time to go back and take another look because they completely redesigned it, and it's a lot better. But Copilot.money is my favorite on iOS and Kubera for overarching kind of net worth tracking is the go-tos. Now I've tried probably two dozen of them over the

Starting point is 01:58:33 last month or so. Let me ask a silly question. I know you're not scraping by. You're doing pretty well. What do you find? You are more fluent with budgeting apps than anyone I know. Well, what do you consider this then? Is it just so you can swim in your pool of money like Scrooge McDuck and do the backstroke? Or is it like, what is it that helps you about this or that you like about the tracking? Well, I mean, I would say that for most people, it's going to be about the general budgeting for me. I don't want to say this sounds really like bougie or whatever, but like I have someone that does budgeting to make sure we're on track and stuff like, yeah, I just want to know if I'm spending too much money on wine or on travel or on like, you know, at the end of the year, it's always

Starting point is 01:59:28 nice to sit down and be like, okay, here's what we did. Here's how our stocks did. Here's how our crypto did. I just kind of like having that holistic view. And then also how much are we spending on the kind of more stuff that we could dial back on a little bit, like on the crazy wines or the travel or whatever it may be. So that's what it is for me. So it tracks. Now, if we look at say Kubera, Kubera,

Starting point is 01:59:53 that's not going to be your budgeting. That's assets. Yeah. That's assets. It's just like overarching, like all of your different banks, brokerage stocks, currencies.

Starting point is 02:00:04 It's like almost like a spreadsheet, but better. It pulls in all of the data. It has all the right connections. And that is what the go-to dashboard just to see how am I doing across the board? If you're one of these people that has a 401k here and some Robinhood crypto over here and Fidelity here and Wealthfront there, like it'll bring it all together under one roof so you can see everything. Cool. Dig it.

Starting point is 02:00:29 Yeah, it is really cool. It's the best. Just, I want to see how I'm doing. It's cool. You know what? I've also heard great things about also from listeners and full disclosure,

Starting point is 02:00:42 they do sponsor the podcast, but I did a lot of vetting and, and reached out to, you know, Ramit Sethi and reached out to Mr. Money Mustache. If you know who that is and a number of folks. I just had Ramit at my house two days ago, by the way. Oh, no kidding. Yeah. He's in town. He's so fun. He's a great guy. And you need a budget. Y-N-A-B. Oh, YNAB. Yeah. YNAB. Yeah. YNAB is fantastic. Yeah.

Starting point is 02:01:06 I should have included that. It's old school. It's been out for a long time, but YNAB for people that are in, if you're really into budgeting, I'd say YNAB is like for the hardcore, hardcore copilot. I would say does it's not,

Starting point is 02:01:20 they don't have the desktop apps. You can't really get as deep, but it, but it's, it's copilot is more, I think it's a better interface. I don't always the desktop app so you can't really get as deep but it but it's it's copilot is more i think it's a better interface i don't always judge products this way but i look at the level of cult following like how intense is the cult following and why now like people put it on their license plates you know when they buy a car for cash for the first time or pay off a house. It's pretty awesome to see just how loyal and dedicated a lot of these folks are. I will also check out Kubera. That's super interesting. I do

Starting point is 02:01:52 most of the stuff on desktop, so I could use something that would actually tie lots together simply. So I'll take a look at that one as well. And I use things like Copilot and Mint. You say budgeting. You're right. I don't really pay a ton of attention to that. But And I use things like Copilot and Mint. You say budgeting, you're right. I don't really pay a ton of attention to that. But if they do things like big purchase detection, and they'll send you a push notification. So if you do have fraud or something weird going on, you get a push and you're like, oh, wait a second, did I actually buy that? It's always nice to have little things like that. Crazy world out there, Kevin Rose. Anything else you'd like to add?

Starting point is 02:02:27 No, dude, I'm glad you're healthy, man. Yeah, me too. You beat it. Not in four hours, but you beat it. I thought... Yes? There should be a small little drum there. We can add it. Hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on.

Starting point is 02:02:39 Wait, wait. I've never done this before, but... I heard it, I heard it. That's amazing. I've never used that before in my life. Um, incredible. All right, man. Well, it's good to see you, brother. Yeah. Good to see you as well. Thanks for doing this, man. It's always fun. Yeah. I can't wait to see you again in person, man. Give Daria a big hug for me and for everybody listening, Tim.blog slash podcast,

Starting point is 02:03:07 just search Random Show. And we'll link to everything in the show notes. Happy holidays. Happy holidays. Hey guys, this is Tim again. Just one more thing before you take off. And that is Five Bullet Friday. Would you enjoy getting a short email

Starting point is 02:03:25 from me every Friday that provides a little fun before the weekend? Between one and a half and two million people subscribe to my free newsletter, my super short newsletter called five bullet Friday. Easy to sign up, easy to cancel. It is basically a half page that I send out every Friday to share the coolest things I've found or discovered or have started exploring over that week. It's kind of like my diary of cool things. It often includes articles I'm reading, books I'm reading, albums perhaps, gadgets, gizmos, all sorts of tech tricks and so on that get sent to me by my friends, including a lot of podcast guests. And these strange esoteric things end up in my field and then I test them and then I share

Starting point is 02:04:06 them with you. So if that sounds fun, again, it's very short, a little tiny bite of goodness before you head off for the weekend, something to think about. If you'd like to try it out, just go to tim.blog slash friday. Type that into your browser, tim.blog slash friday. Drop in your email and you'll get the very next one. Thanks for listening. This episode is brought to you by Tonal. Imagine having an entire gym's worth of equipment in a device smaller than a flat screen TV. Something that could fit potentially even in a closet. Fits in my closet. By eliminating traditional weights, Tonal can deliver 200 pounds of resistance with a sleek design that can fit nearly anywhere it's like having an entire gym and personal trainer right in

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Starting point is 02:06:24 In the last few years, I've come to conclude it is the end-all be-all. That all good things, good mood, good performance, good everything seem to stem from good sleep. So I've tried a lot to optimize it. I've tried pills and potions, all sorts of different mattresses, you name it. And for the last few years, I've been sleeping on a Helix Midnight Luxe mattress. I also have one in the guest bedroom and feedback from friends has always been fantastic. It's something that they comment on. Helix Sleep has a quiz, takes about two minutes to complete, that matches your body type and sleep preferences to the perfect mattress for you. With Helix,

Starting point is 02:07:00 there's a specific mattress for each and every body. That is your body, also your taste. So let's say you sleep on your side and like a super soft bed. No problem. Or if you're a back sleeper who likes a mattress that's as firm as a rock, they've got a mattress for you too. Helix was selected as the number one best overall mattress pick of 2020 by GQ Magazine, Wired, Apartment Therapy, and many others. Just go to helixsleep.com slash Tim,

Starting point is 02:07:26 take their two-minute sleep quiz, and they'll match you to a customized mattress that will give you the best sleep of your life. They have a 10-year warranty. You get to try it out for 100 nights risk-free. They'll even pick it up from you if you don't love it. And now, my dear listeners, Helix is offering up to $200 off of all mattress orders and two free pillows at helixsleep.com slash Tim. These are not cheap pillows either. So getting two for free is an upgraded deal. So that's up to $200 off and two free pillows at helixsleep.com slash Tim. That's helixs H-E-L-I-X, sleep.com slash Tim for up to $200 off. So check it out one more time. Helix, H-E-L-I-X, sleep.com slash Tim.

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The Tim Ferriss Show - #549: The Random Show — Biohacking, Tim’s COVID Experience, Holiday Gift Ideas, Favorite New Apps, Bad Science, Quarantine Delights, and a Small Dose of NFTs and DAOs

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Pet Camera - EBO Air 2

The Tim Ferriss Show - #549: The Random Show — Biohacking, Tim’s COVID Experience, Holiday Gift Ideas, Favorite New Apps, Bad Science, Quarantine Delights, and a Small Dose of NFTs and DAOs

There aren't comments yet for this episode. Click on any sentence in the transcript to leave a comment.