Christian Angermayer is seemingly behind every flashy investment of the last decade. With boundless bravado and a roster of famous friends—including Peter Thiel, Uma Thurman, and the president of Rwanda—the German billionaire is getting ready to launch the Enhanced Games, a 21st-century Olympics on steroids—literally.
When Angermayer’s friend Aron D’Souza, an entrepreneur and the lawyer who worked with Peter Thiel to take down Gawker Media, mentioned he wanted to disrupt the Olympics by launching a major sporting event that allows athletes to dope with performance-enhancing drugs (under a doctor’s supervision), Angermayer thought the idea was brilliant.
In 2018, Angermayer started his own psychedelics firm, ATAI Life Sciences, which he took public on the Nasdaq in 2021. ATAI is conducting clinical trials on a suite of psychedelics, from DMT to ibogaine to MDMA. Somewhere along the line, he also got into Bitcoin. He still owns about 1,000 of them, worth about $58 million at the current price of $58,000. He’s a true believer who thinks a single Bitcoin will eventually be worth $1 million.
He also believes that science will eventually be able to keep humans from aging, predicting that living to 100 will one day be common. To that end, he cofounded two longevity companies, Zurich-based Rejuveron and Cambrian Bio in New York. Both are developing FDA- approved medications to help people delay aging.
Read the full story on Forbes:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/willyakowicz/2024/07/31/billionaire-christian-angermayer-enhanced-games-steroid-olympics-cryptocurrency-biohacking-psychedelics/
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When Angermayer’s friend Aron D’Souza, an entrepreneur and the lawyer who worked with Peter Thiel to take down Gawker Media, mentioned he wanted to disrupt the Olympics by launching a major sporting event that allows athletes to dope with performance-enhancing drugs (under a doctor’s supervision), Angermayer thought the idea was brilliant.
In 2018, Angermayer started his own psychedelics firm, ATAI Life Sciences, which he took public on the Nasdaq in 2021. ATAI is conducting clinical trials on a suite of psychedelics, from DMT to ibogaine to MDMA. Somewhere along the line, he also got into Bitcoin. He still owns about 1,000 of them, worth about $58 million at the current price of $58,000. He’s a true believer who thinks a single Bitcoin will eventually be worth $1 million.
He also believes that science will eventually be able to keep humans from aging, predicting that living to 100 will one day be common. To that end, he cofounded two longevity companies, Zurich-based Rejuveron and Cambrian Bio in New York. Both are developing FDA- approved medications to help people delay aging.
Read the full story on Forbes:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/willyakowicz/2024/07/31/billionaire-christian-angermayer-enhanced-games-steroid-olympics-cryptocurrency-biohacking-psychedelics/
Subscribe to FORBES: https://www.youtube.com/user/Forbes?sub_confirmation=1
Fuel your success with Forbes. Gain unlimited access to premium journalism, including breaking news, groundbreaking in-depth reported stories, daily digests and more. Plus, members get a front-row seat at members-only events with leading thinkers and doers, access to premium video that can help you get ahead, an ad-light experience, early access to select products including NFT drops and more:
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LifestyleTranscript
00:00Hi, I'm Will Jakiewicz. I'm a senior writer here at Forbes magazine. I'm with Christian Angermeyer who runs a Pyron investment group.
00:07Christian, great to see you. Thanks for having me. A pleasure. Absolutely. So I want to start with enhanced games.
00:13It's a fascinating concept and I know you and Aaron D'Souza
00:19co-founded it and yeah, you can kind of just tell us what it is.
00:23Well, you almost said it like winning. It's a modern take on the Olympics, which we all know which just happened.
00:30But the big difference is that performance enhancing drugs, colloquially called doping, is kind of not just allowed but also endorsed.
00:38So we want to showcase
00:40what the human body can do with the scientific help of
00:46medically approved performance enhancing drugs. And what is the, I guess why, simply, why
00:52should enhanced games exist and what are you guys trying to achieve?
00:56Many reasons. First of all, I love sports like many people do. So in general, I would say
01:01creating a new sports franchise was always one of my dreams on the bucket list. Second reason is if you look at the Olympics,
01:10it's actually highly
01:13unfair what's happening because people do dope. And in the Olympics, obviously, that is kind of cheating because they do it
01:21in the darks. They do it, yeah, not officially.
01:25The crazy number, by the way, not from us, but from WADA, sort of the
01:31anti-doping agency, is that round about
01:3544, I think is the number,
01:37percentage of track and field athletes at a certain point in their career use performance enhancing drugs.
01:43Wow.
01:43So a good portion of the people in the Olympics have either used it before to prepare or
01:51maybe even used it during the Olympics. And that is highly unfair. So the third point is the Olympics are
02:00extremely
02:01unfair when it comes to pay. So they make billions
02:05every event and they give practically zero to the athletes.
02:10I'm not just talking that they give them zero money. Even if you go into the headlines some weeks ago, the whole
02:17sort of the living, what they provide, the food. It's like these athletes are your
02:24asset. They are the most important people. By the way, in many other sports franchises, it is positively
02:31done the right way. Like if you look at soccer, if you look at
02:34any form of sports, the top athletes are paid really well because they are the main guys.
02:40So we want to create a track and field
02:43Olympic-style sports event where the athletes are in the center, not just of attention,
02:49but also really get the financial reward
02:53they deserve. So many reasons to do it, but short version, it's going to be fucking cool.
02:59Yeah, absolutely. And you know, speaking of money, how much are these athletes going to make or what's the potential?
03:06So we're just designing the details. So the first event is going to be end of next year.
03:11We already said that we want to give a price money per category and we want to start with 10
03:17categories of $1 million for breaking a world record.
03:22Then we will have a lower price money for winning gold. And we also think about
03:27taking a certain part of our revenues and attaching it to the social media engagement of every athlete.
03:33So that practically even if you're not winning gold, but if you're one of the fan favorites and if you are driving
03:39engagement and attention to the enhanced games, yeah, you should also be rewarded.
03:43So we're just coming up with the details, but these are going to be the three pillars.
03:45They're going to be a high reward money, price money for breaking a world record. They're going to be
03:52another pot of money for gold, silver, bronze, and then they're going to be a social media kind of engagement reward.
03:58Right. Wow. So yeah, a million bucks for breaking a world record. And what sports are you starting with?
04:05We're starting with a lot of, again, we have still two, three sort of categories we want to finalize
04:12because we're just going actually through the application process.
04:16We have more than 1,000 professional athletes, I think it's even 1,500 who have applied.
04:22By the way, some of them, actually not little, were in the summer games.
04:26Doesn't mean they were doing doping in the summer games, but at least they're willing from now on
04:31to use performance enhancing drugs. So it's going to be like swimming, running, all the track and field,
04:39all the very obvious ones where we're not going to do archery, so stuff like that.
04:43Nice. And, you know, obviously steroids and other performance enhancing drugs are foreboding in the sports world.
04:51So we do have rules. First of all, by the way, when people ask me, oh, isn't that illegal?
04:55I want to clarify the terms. Yeah. So at the moment, performance enhancing drugs,
05:01chronocorticoid doping in the Olympics are excluded by the Olympics as a private organization.
05:08Right. So they, it's literally like you and I start a club and we're like, we don't like diet coke in the club.
05:15We can make rules because it's our own event, but that does not mean people always use that.
05:22It's performance enhancing drugs. At least most of them are not illegal as long as they medically approve products.
05:29So what we are doing, we have actually three rules. Rule number one, most important one, medically approved drugs only.
05:37We at Epiron, one of our core sort of pillars or core investment themes is biotech.
05:42Yeah. And I just believe in science.
05:44And FDA approved drug is sort of the gold standard globally for how you prove something is both,
05:53something both works and has sort of little enough, because anything has side effects,
05:58but actually has hopefully little side effects, but we also know all the side effects.
06:01So an FDA approved drug, we have all the transparency we need.
06:05So that is one rule, medically approved medications, drugs only.
06:11Second, which obviously goes hand in hand, you have to have a doctor who's prescribing it to you.
06:18So we want somebody who publicly says, I'm the doctor for this person.
06:21Yeah. I'm responsible means also I'm responsible that this is done responsibly.
06:27Right. So you have to have a doctor who sort of takes the responsibility most likely even publicly.
06:33And third one, which is maybe the most important one, we're going to do a health screening before every single event.
06:41And we do not allow any side effects, which are dangerous.
06:46So most performance enhancing drugs, if you look at the hard science, are very low risk.
06:54People throw out the word risk, but nobody defines it.
06:58Yeah. And a good friend of mine, who is one of the most genius neuroscientists of our time,
07:03Professor David Knott, he like, I think it's 10 years ago, even longer.
07:07He defined for the first time, what is the risk of taking a drug?
07:13And he looked at all the both medically approved drugs and illegal drugs and non classified like alcohol.
07:21Yeah. And he made a very, very comprehensive risk score.
07:25Practically, can you die when you take it?
07:27Can you have damage? Is the damage irreversibly? And so on.
07:31I think it's like, you know, 15 or whatever of certain parameters.
07:37And then he created a risk score.
07:39And then why this is so important is practically that can guide a lot of discussions we're going to have today about drugs,
07:46medical drugs, recreational drugs, hopefully recreational drugs, which soon become medical use, whatever.
07:51Because if you look at performance enhancing drugs, steroids, one of them, there's some other categories.
07:59They are, if taken properly with medical guidance, they are at very low risk.
08:06Infinitive less risk than alcohol or anything we all do the whole day, if properly taken.
08:12We're going to tell our athletes and their doctors, do it responsibly, do it in the medical framework.
08:18Yeah. Then they have very low risk.
08:21But if you exaggerate, if you take too much, whatever, we're going to see it because the side effects and mostly for steroids, for example,
08:29the side effects are around the heart and they're visible.
08:32So we tell everybody, if you prepare for a year and then show up and have a heart damage, you're not going to start.
08:38So we're going to be, and that is maybe another point where athletes love us.
08:42We're going to be the most healthy and safe because there's, by the way, the Olympics did crazy statements,
08:49which, by the way, shows, there I'm a little bit critical, that they know nothing about science.
08:53Oh, some of the Olympics commissioners, I think Lord Coe or how we spell his name, big shout out because I really think he's an idiot.
09:00I have to say, because like, it's so unscientific.
09:02Somebody's going to die.
09:03I was like, no, we're going to be much safer than the Olympics because if we test everybody, yeah, they will put a limit on what they're doing.
09:13But also like if they did it, if the Olympics did test everybody, they would have less incidents.
09:19So the question is, by the way, why are they not doing it?
09:22Yeah. Yeah.
09:23And do you know the answer?
09:24Well, I think because they're very thrifty, they don't spend, it's going to be expensive.
09:27Like, yeah, we're going to have a full team of doctors with the best equipment, whatever, to make a health check.
09:34You could do it. It's just expensive.
09:36But again, I think the athletes are totally worth it.
09:39They are our sort of main partners in it.
09:41But then second, I believe the Olympics are terribly afraid of showing that most of them, yeah, or at least some of them do something.
09:50And so I think they don't want to look at it.
09:53And why do they do that?
09:54I think, A, because they don't want to lose their narrative of we are the clean ones.
09:58But also, by the way, against the Olympics in France were like a gift for us.
10:03Like so many things went wrong and there were so many discussions about China, whatever.
10:08There were so many. It's such a political thing and we don't want to be political.
10:11It's like it's very simple.
10:12These are the rules. We're going to test it.
10:14Everybody's tested the same way.
10:15There's no like gray zones, no leeways and whatever.
10:19Right. And speaking of kind of politics and countries,
10:23like it's not going to be nationalistic, right?
10:25It's just like the best athletes will stop.
10:27Right. And one more question before we move on.
10:29But, you know, obviously you're an investor and this is a venture backed business.
10:36You know, can you kind of talk about the economics?
10:39Like, what do you see as the return?
10:41Like, is this going to be ticket sales?
10:43Are you selling? Is this going to be like a live Netflix thing?
10:47Yeah. So the ticket sales, even in the sort of other sports, is not the biggest driver.
10:51So in the core, we are a sports franchise like any other,
10:55where the two main drivers are sponsoring and a TV rights, a general media rights.
11:04We were completely blown away from the response from these two groups,
11:11both from sponsors and from media outlets.
11:16But if you had asked me like a year ago when we started planning it,
11:21I would have said I'm prepared to have three like years of uphill battle
11:27where we're doing great events, but maybe the big brands are not going to sponsor us.
11:33Yeah, not going to be with us.
11:34The Nikes of the world and the big media outlets are not going to touch us
11:40because it's going to be controversial.
11:43But it went way quicker than I thought.
11:45Hey, really, like you tell me and like obviously everybody can judge for themselves.
11:49But like my feeling is that this was way less of an uphill battle in the public perception.
11:54Some people are critical.
11:55And I like it when people are critical because they want to be controversial
11:58because being controversial is actually driving engagement.
12:01Yeah, but like it's way less than I thought.
12:04And sometimes I assumedly or funnily say, I'm almost worried
12:07that it's already too much of side guys.
12:10Then we're missing a little bit the public debate around it because I want it.
12:15But also we got contacted by every single big media outlet, TV stations, streamers, online stuff.
12:25We got contacted by many big brands who want to be partners.
12:28But the second part is we're going to ask our athletes to share their bio data with us.
12:36Yeah, and because obviously it's transparent, they have no reason not.
12:39Like this goes from wearables they can wear to blood tests, whatever.
12:43And obviously tell us what they own, what they're on because they have no reason to be afraid.
12:50That will give us over time the biggest database for performance enhancing drugs,
12:58which is incredibly valuable for any form of new drug development and any form of science.
13:04So actually, aside of the sports company, we're also going to be a big science company in partnership.
13:12And we're going to announce the first partnership soon in partnerships with biotech pharma companies
13:17to develop new performance enhancing drugs.
13:20And this is not just relevant for sports because talking about one of my other big passions,
13:26longevity or in generally combating sort of aging is very close to performance enhancing.
13:33So in terms of science, in terms of medications you're taking.
13:36So it's not just about finding new medications and performance enhancers for sports guys.
13:42It's going to be stuff which is going to profit really everybody in the world
13:46because obviously aging is a problem for all of us.
13:51I do want to talk about psychedelics and your company Atai and how you invested in Compass.
13:57So you're kind of a self-described teetotaler, like you are a big drinker or smoker or doing psychedelics.
14:06How did you get into psychedelics and how did a kid from a German village start a psychedelics company?
14:13I realized fairly early, like in my teens, that I'm always fairly happy.
14:18It doesn't mean by the way, people, they obviously have bad days, like everybody has.
14:24But overall, I have like, I think life is awesome.
14:29I'm happy with myself, like I have.
14:32And at the same time, I think I'm not dumb.
14:34So I always said, like, something in my brain is right.
14:37Both from a happiness perspective and from an intellectual perspective, so I don't want to jinx it.
14:42So that was my complete mantra my whole life and still is.
14:45Like, let's not put anything in my body which sort of can ruin that good thing.
14:53So that's why I never drank alcohol, that's why I never tried cannabis, I never tried cocaine, I never did anything.
14:59And then actually multiple story comes together and I do believe a little bit.
15:04I'm very spiritual, like I believe in fate, so to say.
15:07Like, I think something was pushing me towards psychedelics.
15:11First of all, there were two very good friends who told me two, three years already about it.
15:15They're kind of hippie, so they did it regularly.
15:18And they sort of started telling me, by the way, we're talking now about 2014.
15:23So a time when psychedelics were not a part of the public conversation at all.
15:29Full stop, like it was not there.
15:31So they told me about psychedelics, I was always saying, no, thank you, no, I'm not doing that.
15:34But I was interested.
15:36Then I met a scientist at a dinner, actually not just a scientist, like one of the most famous neuroscientists in Germany.
15:43And he told me about psychedelics and that he's still working with them, which by the way never stopped.
15:49So the science around psychedelics was never stopping.
15:53It was just a career killer, so not a lot of people did it.
15:56Yeah, but now it's a career booster.
15:57And then I was in this one moment in the Caribbean with these two friends.
16:02They said, again, they're doing a mushroom trip.
16:04It was 2014.
16:06And I was like, you know what, I want to try it.
16:08So, and by the way, that was before I ever zipped on alcohol.
16:12Technically, it was the first ever substance I've ever done.
16:18And I could talk hours about that alone.
16:21But the short version is, it was hands down the single most meaningful, deep, important thing,
16:31adding even to my already existing level of happiness, I've ever done in my whole life.
16:37And because we're in biotech, I came out of that trip, the next day I was thinking about it was like, holy shit.
16:44If it's doing this amount of positivity to me as a happy, healthy person,
16:51I can totally see how it can do actually, which was completely forgotten,
16:56but which we had actually scientifically proven in the 50s and 60s,
17:01how these substances can actually maybe even cure,
17:05but at least dramatically improve mental health issues like depression, anxiety, addiction and whatsoever.
17:12And it was the moment when I emotionally decided, I want to bring these substances back.
17:19And I'm very proud because like, nobody again, this was not like a trend or whatever it was like,
17:23there was actually for three years then, from 2014 to 2016, 17,
17:29every single person I told about that idea said, you're completely insane.
17:35By the way, I did some daring things in my life.
17:38Yeah, even now in Hansken, but the sort of amount of advice not to do it,
17:44I got for psychedelics was insane.
17:46From head of states who said no, you're our advisor, no,
17:52to fellow investors who said, okay, people will not, whatever, trust you anymore,
17:57to journalists, lawyers, to like my colleagues, like everybody said, it's a very bad idea.
18:04But I believe and believe obviously so much in these substances that I was really following it.
18:09And now comes the point, like a little bit of an emotional story,
18:13and maybe also a little bit of a spiritual one.
18:16Because I had a trip like at the end of 2016, in a holiday in a country where it's legal,
18:23literally two days before New Year's Eve.
18:26And for the ones who haven't read about psychedelics, whatever,
18:32like the short version is you gain insight.
18:34So if anything is too neutral, we can talk about it.
18:37And by the way, in a mental health context, if people have depression, anxiety, whatever,
18:41it helps them to rearrange their view on them because they gain insights how to deal with them.
18:47So, but in my case, that message, if you want to call it like that,
18:51in this trip was, you know that these are good substances,
18:56just go out and talk about it to people on TV, wherever you can.
19:02So literally the mission was, and I'm very proud, it was 2016,
19:06I have done it since then every single time, in every meeting, I always bring it up.
19:11There's not a single meeting, whatever the meeting is about, with whomever it is,
19:15at least I run a Manchester Psychedelics.
19:17And the message was, it's just going to be good for you.
19:20And I flew from that holiday trip to New York, early 2000, January 2017.
19:26And the first meeting of the year I had, I had with Mike Neubergratz, big shout out.
19:31And I went into his office, and I will never forget that because I was like kind of nervous,
19:35although Mike is a good friend, because in my head I had, I need to now do that,
19:39like from now on, in every meeting again.
19:41And I cannot emphasize it long enough already, how different the timing was,
19:46because now like, there's not a single dinner I'm not going where people anyway,
19:49even if they don't know me, talk about psychedelics.
19:51Yeah, it's a mainstream topic now.
19:53But back then, no, zero.
19:55And I go into Mike's office, was a little bit nervous.
19:58And he was like, hey, what's up?
19:59Like, I was like, let's talk about psychedelic.
20:02Yeah, I just had a trip, Mike was fascinated and had never,
20:05I think he said he'd done it like 20 years ago in college.
20:08Yeah, but like, he was like, no, nothing about it.
20:11Tell me about it.
20:12And then I leave his office, and the next morning he calls me.
20:15And he started the call with, this cannot be a coincidence.
20:18He said he hadn't talked about psychedelics literally for 20 years.
20:23And he said, use it in my office yesterday and bring up this strange topic.
20:27And the next morning, his sister who runs TED conference called him.
20:31She was on a yoga retreat in Bali.
20:33And there was a couple in the yoga retreat
20:36who told her that they're working on bringing psilocybin,
20:39one psychedelic, the active ingredient in magic mushrooms,
20:42back for the treatment of mental health issues.
20:45But nobody wants to fund them because everybody thinks they're crazy.
20:48And Mike was like, they live in London, you two should meet.
20:50I was like, sure.
20:51I met them in February 2017.
20:53The meeting took an hour.
20:54I said, look, I'm your financial backer.
20:56Yeah, and we started Compass Pathways together,
20:58which is now a listed company and is focusing on psilocybin,
21:02which is what I have on my arm here, the active ingredient in magic mushrooms.
21:08And then I discovered, I thought about it,
21:09like there are more psychedelics like DMT, 5-MeO-DMT, Ibogaine.
21:15Some would say ketamine and MDMA are psychedelics.
21:17They're not, but they're adjacent to that world.
21:23And Compass always wanted to focus on psilocybin only.
21:26So I started a second company called Atai, also stock market listed now,
21:31which is doing literally all the other psychedelics
21:33and owns my stake in Compass Pathways, where we're still the largest investor.
21:38Yeah, cool.
21:38And you helped Compass raise funds for you, Mike, and Peter Thiel.
21:43That was the first round.
21:44Yeah, obviously, I took Mike in because he made me the intro.
21:47Yeah, I had talked to Peter about psychedelics.
21:50He was intrigued.
21:51So these were my two sort of co-investors in the first round.
21:54Yeah, right.
21:54And obviously, speaking of psychedelics and drugs related to MDMA,
22:00obviously got a recent big blow from the FDA.
22:03They rejected their application and said,
22:07how do you think that'll affect the world of psychedelics in the future of
22:12potential turning these molecules into potential medicines?
22:16It's sad because it delays MDMA.
22:19But I want to make clear because I know, again, the media shortened it
22:23and was like, oh, it's a blow for psychedelics.
22:25It's not.
22:26Like, unfortunately, the company who did the trials did it in kind of a messy way.
22:33I know it's like, I really feel sorry for them.
22:36Yeah.
22:37So I don't want to criticize too much.
22:38But like, if you look at them, just one fact, like their phase three,
22:42you know, in biotech, you have phase one, phase two.
22:45They normally have two phase three.
22:46And then hopefully, if it holds what you assume, then you have approval.
22:52Their phase three trial was roundabout as big as our psilocybin phase two trial.
23:01So they really did the minimal version because they didn't have a lot of money.
23:05And while it's sad, but I always acknowledged when we started Compass and Attai
23:10that it is a controversial topic.
23:12I think for no reason, I think it shouldn't be controversial,
23:14but I need to accept where we are.
23:16Yeah, they're currently illegal drugs.
23:19Yeah.
23:20So my message to my colleagues, which both Attai and Compass did wonderfully,
23:23it was like, as little as I like spending too much money.
23:27Yeah, I'm very like Google.
23:30But in this case, we cannot save like in the wrong place.
23:34Like, we will be up for critique.
23:37Yeah, there will be people who, for whatever reason, will poke into our trials.
23:42Like, so we need to be gold standard in any form, like in the size,
23:46like size means how many patients you include, how you design it,
23:50how you think about it in everything.
23:52Like, unfortunately, the company who did MDMA did the opposite.
23:56They did the smallest possible legally trial.
23:59Yeah.
23:59And then I don't want to go into details.
24:01It's all online from mistakes to I think a little bit like fake data.
24:06And so what I want to say is because it's important, like the FDA had to reject it.
24:12Yeah.
24:13And not because MDMA is bad.
24:14But if you have a bad data set for a good drug, a bad executed data set,
24:21they cannot say, oh, because we think it's a good drug, we give you a pass.
24:25Like, that is unfortunately, unfortunately, it's not how it works in science.
24:29Like, you need to do your work.
24:30Yeah.
24:31So, yeah.
24:32So, but it has nothing, if at all, it's showing that our approach,
24:38which was always gold standard, raising a lot of money, doing it for profit, by the way,
24:42like, yeah, having stock market listed companies, whatever, is the right approach.
24:46Second, a little bit like the silver lining, like, because I unfortunately think the
24:51culture set, it's called original, it's called racemic MDMA,
24:55will never see the approval now, because they now, they lost years,
24:59and they need to raise so much money.
25:01And then also the company who did it was very anti-capitalistic,
25:05which I always thought was stupid, because I think, I mean, don't get into that Forbes,
25:08but like, capitalism is the way to go.
25:10You raise money like that.
25:12So, they never did patents.
25:13So, they always believed in no patents, whatever.
25:16So, it's going to be very hard, I think, to bring MDMA racemic back,
25:20but we have a novel version of MDMA in the Atai portfolio.
25:24It's called RMDA, RMDMA.
25:26It's like Arketamine, where it's...
25:27Exactly.
25:28It's a different isomer.
25:30So, we have full patent protection on it.
25:32We have great data.
25:34We now decided, because I think patients deserve it, MDMA is a valuable,
25:40potential valuable treatment for, especially post-traumatic stress disorder,
25:43which a lot of veterans have, whatever,
25:45we decided to really fast-trick our MDMA,
25:48so that hopefully we're going to succeed too.
25:51Right.
25:51And, you know, looking at a future where these medications might be FDA approved,
25:56like what kind of future are we looking at?
25:59Do you go to the pharmacy to get these drugs, or are they like therapists?
26:04Very good point.
26:05Yeah.
26:05So, I believe these drugs are extremely valuable.
26:08I believe they shouldn't be legal.
26:10I believe they should be available, but in a guided context.
26:14Yeah.
26:15What does it mean?
26:16Like, not just medically approved, that's the baseline,
26:20but we're actually applying for the category where you cannot take it alone,
26:25because they're very strong and you go on a very deep experience,
26:29which I would say, again, I'm always careful,
26:32because we're in the approval process.
26:33Hopefully, yeah, we finish it soon.
26:35But, like, it always at least helps people,
26:40but especially when you do it for a medical reason, depression, for example,
26:45the trip or the experience in itself can be rocky.
26:48Oh, very.
26:49And you need to have somebody next to you who gives you guidance,
26:54makes sense, and really literally guides you through the experience.
26:57So, we don't want to make it prescription drugs, which you can take home,
27:02but we want people to be at the doctor, do it with them, and then go home.
27:08So, but it's not an overnight stay.
27:09It's just, how you call it, inpatient, like two hours, whatever.
27:13Right, yeah.
27:14By the way, to take one question already,
27:18so a lot of people over the last years,
27:19and hopefully now finally with MDMA that showed that I really like,
27:24not just the right, but also have the right intention,
27:27said, oh, Christian is saying all of that,
27:29because there were people said, oh, if you are doing it in your holiday,
27:32which is true, by the way.
27:33So, I want to address it openly that obviously I'm doing it.
27:36There are countries in the world, they just don't classify it.
27:39So, it's neither actively legal or not legal.
27:41It's just not classified, yeah.
27:43So, but people was like, if you do it in your holiday and enjoy it so much,
27:47and it gives you so much, why are you not advocating globally
27:51that it should be like cannabis sold everywhere, available everywhere?
27:55I said, there's many reasons.
27:56The one is like, because I don't do it alone.
27:59I do it with friends, but friends who are educated,
28:02who know what they're doing.
28:04One is actually a therapist.
28:06I do it in a proper setting.
28:07I have people minding me.
28:08Second, I'm not doing it for a medical reason.
28:11So, I totally acknowledge that people who do it for medical reasons
28:15might have much more rocky trips.
28:17Good ones at the end, but needed.
28:20But third, super important, that somebody needs to pay all of that.
28:25I can afford going to a nice place, have friends with me,
28:29but there are so many people, they want a therapy obviously to be paid
28:35and not going to go to a coffee shop or a cannabis shop and whatever, do it alone.
28:40And they can't afford to pay privately for somebody sitting with them.
28:45But third, these therapies are incredibly strong.
28:51And that's why they're so beautiful.
28:52That's why they can make such a difference.
28:54By the way, we have nothing else in mental health.
28:56Mental health has become the number one problem of our time.
29:00If you look at number of patients, more than 1 billion people
29:04actually are in the statistics with a mental health issue.
29:08But because it's still a stigmatized disease,
29:11we're very sure there are much more people suffering from it than the numbers.
29:16Then the cost and whatever.
29:17So, because it's such an important thing and nothing else helps,
29:21psychedelics are great, but they're great because they're strong.
29:25And I looked in the history of psychedelics,
29:28because people were like, oh, look at the 60s.
29:30They gave it out like smart keys.
29:31I was like, that's the problem.
29:32The 60s were not a role model.
29:36And I was hated for that sentence, but I said over and over again,
29:39the 60s were not a role model.
29:41Timothy Leary, created by his loose way and his non-diligent way,
29:49like at his level, give it to everybody.
29:51He created the backslash.
29:52He's one of the reasons why it's illegal.
29:55Yeah, all the other 10,000 years of recorded history of psychedelic use
30:00and a lot of religions, a lot of practices are built on psychedelics.
30:06They did it extremely regulated.
30:08So, my favorite example is always there is this Greek cult
30:11or has been the Eleusinian Mysteries.
30:15The longest lasting, more than 2000 years,
30:18religion centered around psychedelics.
30:20And they did it super regulated.
30:21They were like twice a year with a priest together,
30:25forbidden by death, harder than the FDA,
30:28that you do it outside that framework.
30:31And I always said, I want to bring psychedelics actually back into society,
30:37but in a way how they have been treated over 10,000 years with care,
30:42with high sort of also respect for the power of psychedelics.
30:47But if done properly in our case,
30:49because who are the shamans of our times,
30:51the doctors, the therapists,
30:53if done in a medical context,
30:55I think they have the power to change the world.
30:57Through Epiron, you invest in a range of,
30:59you know, from psychedelics to Bitcoin,
31:01to space lasers and longevity,
31:04which is, well, communication lasers,
31:07but it's better to say space lasers, right?
31:10But yeah, I just kind of wanted to touch on your investment thesis,
31:14like how are all these things connected in your mind?
31:17So at a very high level,
31:20I believe we live in the most interesting time.
31:23Like I couldn't dream up a more exciting time to be alive
31:29and hopefully alive for long.
31:30And I think in the next 20 years,
31:33we're going to change with technological and medical innovation,
31:38both the world around us, the physical world, whatever,
31:41but also the world inside us, our body,
31:44how we age, hopefully not age,
31:46how long we live, how happy we are.
31:48Most likely we're going to be smarter,
31:49but we change everything inside and outside us.
31:52And I know there are people who are afraid of,
31:55and I think things can go wrong,
31:56but I'm an eternal optimist.
31:58I can see a future which is really great for all of us,
32:02where we're happier, healthier, live longer,
32:04can really follow our passion, whatever.
32:06And I want to be a small, small part
32:09in sort of creating that future.
32:11So that's sort of the overarching headline.
32:15We have four pillars.
32:16Biotech is still the biggest one,
32:18which is where I come from.
32:21I think biotech has just had a hard time
32:23the last three years.
32:24Also, if you look at the Atai share price,
32:26meaning biotech as a sector,
32:28proliferated because interest rates up,
32:30long dated cash flows, whatever.
32:31But biotech is going to come back
32:33because it's such a valuable industry.
32:35And it's also such a fulfilling industry
32:40because every time you succeed with small stuff,
32:42big stuff in biotech,
32:43you do help people with mental health,
32:44with cancer, whatever you work on.
32:46So I think biotech is just like,
32:48is an obvious thing where you create the future.
32:50We focus within biotech on mental health
32:54and on longevity.
32:55Why? I think you wrote it in the article.
32:58I think it's just like the total addressable market
33:00is a hundred percent.
33:01Like which person would you meet
33:03which doesn't live longer and healthier,
33:06not just longer and healthier
33:08and doesn't want to be happier.
33:09Like these are the true big sort of dreams demands.
33:14I recall it like every human being.
33:16Yeah. Yeah.
33:17Yeah. Everyone wants that to be happy and healthy.
33:19So then we have a pillar,
33:21which is very simple,
33:22obvious crypto and any crypto related companies.
33:25I just believe in Bitcoin.
33:29There's almost nothing else.
33:30I think it's very obvious.
33:31Like I think the world needs always a store of value,
33:37which protects the wealth of any individual
33:40of the greedy hands of politicians.
33:41If you look at the track record,
33:44every single government in the history of humanity,
33:47there's not a single exemption,
33:49has not ruined their currency.
33:51There's not a single currency where politicians,
33:54leaders, head of states over time,
33:56over the last 10,000 years were proven wrong.
33:58Yeah. Every empire,
33:59every race was often connected with ruining the currency.
34:02So this is why people instinctively,
34:05since humans are around,
34:07we're looking for stores of value.
34:09Yeah. And we have some,
34:10which vanished again from cows to,
34:13I don't know, pearls, whatever, seashells.
34:15But like gold is the sort of the winner in that.
34:20But honestly, gold has no other value, more or less.
34:23It's a little bit of like-
34:24Luxury.
34:24Yeah. Luxury, whatever.
34:25Like the core value of gold is a store of value.
34:27By the way, what I just learned,
34:28maybe I say something, you know,
34:29but like, why?
34:31Because gold cannot be produced on earth.
34:33So all the gold on earth,
34:35and people seem to have known that instinctively.
34:37Right.
34:38Gold is just being produced in a dying star.
34:41Yeah.
34:41So all the gold on earth has been seeded with comets somewhere,
34:45but it can't be made here.
34:46Never.
34:47We don't have the power to make it.
34:50The alchemist tried that.
34:52So it's really immutable.
34:54And Bitcoin is just beautifully
34:57both built on the reason why gold became the store of value
35:01and just improved it
35:02because it makes it easy to transport it.
35:05Yeah, you don't have the whole nature devastation
35:08by harvesting gold whatsoever.
35:09So, and I just believe we need it.
35:11Yeah.
35:12And by the way, people are always like,
35:13oh yeah, but what's other use cases?
35:14There will be other use cases.
35:15We're actually working on one big use case,
35:18how we hopefully can improve the Bitcoin or improve,
35:20how can we add on the Bitcoin network
35:22that it also can be used more efficiently
35:25for applications, whatever.
35:27But in the core,
35:28I think it's almost enough to be the store of value.
35:31And Bitcoin still is just,
35:33I haven't looked it up today,
35:34but like it's round about one tenths of gold.
35:37So if Bitcoin just goes par with gold,
35:39I think it will exceed it.
35:40I have a 10X with Bitcoin.
35:42That's my sort of long answer why I love Bitcoin.
35:45And once you love Bitcoin,
35:46there is many sort of investments around it
35:49from exchanges to data center companies,
35:52Bitcoin mining,
35:53and a lot of them morphed then into AI companies as well.
35:55So that's sort of that pillar.
35:57Then we have a little bit of a catch all future tech,
35:59from space tech to,
36:01I'm very passionate about novel foods
36:03because I think a lot of the problems of the world,
36:06when we have a lot of them,
36:07because people sometimes hear me talking and say,
36:09oh, Christians, the things, everything is rosy, whatever.
36:11No, there are a lot of problems,
36:12but I think technology will solve them,
36:14not like make them worse.
36:15So I think one is like from,
36:20I don't think there's overpopulation,
36:21but we need to think about
36:22how we can sustainably feed people, whatever.
36:25So I believe very much in lab grown meat, fish,
36:28and all of that.
36:28So we have a lot of investments there,
36:30but it's this whole pocket future tech.
36:32And then we have one,
36:33a little bit of an antidote to these three,
36:35let's say tech and biotech businesses,
36:38which we call happiness, leisure, and hospitality.
36:41The thesis behind is that I believe
36:43over the next 10 years already,
36:45very sooner than we think,
36:47the combination of AI and robotics
36:49will give every human being much more free time.
36:55And so we think,
36:55and by the way,
36:57I believe equal or the same pay
37:00in terms of you get the same value in money,
37:03because I think otherwise
37:04we're going to have a revolution.
37:06So governments will either actively force companies
37:10to pay the same for much less work,
37:12or companies, by the way,
37:13doing it kind of already now,
37:15like Jamie Dillon said,
37:16he might allow people like just to work three days
37:19and from at home and whatever,
37:20because they don't need that people,
37:22but companies feel instinctively.
37:24And even if we could fire more,
37:26we shouldn't because someone that's going to blow up.
37:29But long story short,
37:30I believe people will have much more free time
37:32with the same amount of precision power.
37:35And that's why we invest a lot in companies
37:38which will help people make the most out of the time
37:42from hotels, brands, and real estate
37:46to life entertainment, to content production.
37:49Yeah, that's interesting.
37:51And one thing I wanted to touch on before we let you go
37:54is you've said in an investment memo
37:57that sports is kind of the new,
37:59sports and celebrity is like the new cult,
38:01the new religion.
38:03I was wondering if you could kind of dive into that.
38:05Well, it's one what I just said
38:06is before the cult comes like,
38:09it's like people will have a bigger share of wallet
38:12which they attach or which they give
38:16to how to spend their free time.
38:18So anything, what is already there,
38:20like sports, celebrities, whatever,
38:23which is kind of helping people to enjoy their life,
38:25just gonna become bigger.
38:27So I told you, like, if I could buy an index
38:30over the top 20 celebrities,
38:32I would buy it because I think their value is gonna go up
38:35because people are gonna spend
38:36more share of wallet on them.
38:38At the same time, a little bit philosophical,
38:41I think we're kind of dissolving
38:45some of the original like ties
38:53of society, like religion, families, whatever.
38:56And we're kind of in a transition period
38:58where we're like, and it happened before,
39:00like we're replacing certain values with new values.
39:04And I think people need that feeling of belonging,
39:08like sort of religion has actually,
39:10I think two components
39:11or even just any kind of community you have
39:13in the religion case,
39:14you have the supernatural or the spiritual part.
39:18But if you leave that even out,
39:20like all of us will say,
39:21not every person who goes to the church
39:23is very spiritual.
39:25A lot of them just like the community as well.
39:27So religions have also just provided
39:30for community sticking together, whatever.
39:33And a soccer club at least fulfills that part.
39:36I deeply believe Taylor Swift, God forbid,
39:39no, I think she's a great artist.
39:41Like, it's all right.
39:44No, but I think she's a great artist,
39:45but I think that she's that popular,
39:47can't explain alone with the quality of her music.
39:51I think this became a movement as people,
39:53like they call themselves Swifties.
39:55It's a feeling, it's like a community, it's an identity.
39:58And we dissolve so many other identities
40:01that I think sports celebrities would ever replacing that.
40:04Related to that, I've heard you say something
40:07about immune system related to mental health.
40:10I was wondering if you could kind of expand on that.
40:12Yeah, so talking about Taylor Swift
40:14as a very positive example,
40:16like I was thinking a lot in the whole journey
40:19when we were working on psychedelics,
40:22like one of the underexplored areas of research
40:26is why do people get a mental health issue
40:30in the first place?
40:31And especially why do people,
40:34there are certain elements of the human nature
40:37we all have to go through.
40:39Nobody can prevent it.
40:40Like if life goes normal,
40:43your parents gonna die before you.
40:45Yeah, even if you're the best,
40:48were hardest working person in the world,
40:50you're gonna have a hard time in the job somewhere.
40:53Yeah, you're someone gonna be dumped
40:56by your boyfriend, girlfriend or whatever.
40:58They're gonna be these hard times.
40:59And while it's hard for all of us,
41:01some people go through it
41:02and just then someone come out of it.
41:04But some people slide into a mental health issue.
41:07That is at least one of the starting points
41:09of mental health issues.
41:10And the whole area is called resilience research.
41:12So I looked a lot into it
41:14and my personal takeaway,
41:16it's not fully scientifically proven at all.
41:20That's a disclaimer.
41:21But I think it's a good point
41:22because that everybody can take it away
41:25for their own sort of daily life.
41:29And a lot of scientists I talk to say,
41:30you might be onto something,
41:32at least in the way I put it.
41:33And I wanna put more research is like,
41:34I believe deeply that we have
41:36a mental health immune system
41:38as we have an immune system in our body,
41:41which is fighting diseases or whatever.
41:43We have a mental health immune system,
41:45which is when we experience these hard times,
41:47making sure we go through it.
41:49And I believe it consists of three things.
41:51It consists of faith, purpose, and love community.
41:55Let me explain.
41:56Faith is like, I think,
41:59even if we don't like to admit it,
42:02we need something transcendental bigger in our life.
42:07And I've mentioned it before,
42:08but I think it's important.
42:09I'm very spiritual and I think it's very,
42:11I always say, I don't know.
42:13I cannot prove if God exists,
42:15but I think believing in a higher being
42:18makes you a happier person.
42:19Yeah, so it's just a win-win.
42:20If God exists, you made it right.
42:22If not, you at least had a better life.
42:24But I thought, why is that?
42:26And take you, you told me you have two children.
42:28Instinctively, and it's almost sad
42:30that we're not talking about it more in society
42:32because that is pushing it
42:34sort of in your subconscious net.
42:36You are worried about them every day.
42:38If your daughter is on camp,
42:39you're like, hopefully she's fine.
42:41Hopefully nothing is happening.
42:43And that constant nagging pain almost or worry
42:48is a risk and is weakening your immune system.
42:51While if you are believing in something higher,
42:55it's telling you, you're going to be all right.
42:57And even God forbid,
42:58something is happening to the lost ones, whatever,
43:00you're going to see them again somewhere
43:02because there is a bigger reason for everything.
43:04And people, I think, again,
43:05I don't want to claim a higher being exists,
43:08but I think we need to be, or need to be,
43:11we're wired to be religious and it's good for us.
43:13Second, people need purpose.
43:15We all want to wake up and want to be part of society
43:19and want to have some passion for something.
43:24And third, the most important one,
43:26we are wired to be social animals.
43:28We want to have community, close family.
43:32So unfortunately, if I look at our societies,
43:35especially in the West,
43:36all these three things,
43:38faith, purpose, and love are actually on the decline.
43:42Yeah, faith is obviously on the decline,
43:44but I think it's making us miserable.
43:47Then AI and robotics instinctively tells people,
43:51and even if they don't fully know what it is,
43:53they kind of, the bus driver knows that most likely
43:56they're not going to drive the bus in 10 years
43:58because AI is going to drive the bus.
43:59So I think we see an erosion of purpose
44:02where people are deeply terrified
44:05because they think there is no place for them.
44:07I do believe there is a place,
44:08but we need sort of always in periods of change,
44:11it's very sort of emotionally challenging.
44:15And third, I don't want to make a political statement,
44:18but I think we're too much a society
44:21erode traditional family models.
44:25We don't have intergenerational families anymore,
44:28not a lot.
44:29Also, if I think I grew up,
44:31I had so many camps, community groups, whatever.
44:34So it's all a little bit eroding.
44:36And again, at the end,
44:38that's my personal explanation as well.
44:41While if we look at the hard numbers,
44:43mental health issues are incredibly on the rise.
44:47And it doesn't make sense.
44:48If I look at the charts of depression, anxiety, whatever,
44:51and I wouldn't say what it is,
44:53and I would show you the chart,
44:54you would say that's an infectious disease.
44:56It's kind of, it doesn't make sense.
44:59And I think the reason, the underlying reason
45:01is that our immune system is weakening.
45:03I think we're a little bit like
45:04instinctively holding on to things,
45:06like the Swifties,
45:07like we're holding on to communities we can find,
45:11like, or you think like older people,
45:13they might go to church,
45:14like more when they lost all of their family, whatever.
45:17So, but I think one of the messages I want to tell you,
45:20like, if you think about these three things,
45:22I think you can do things every day,
45:25which a little bit like sort of help you keeping that.
45:28And then hopefully people that don't get
45:31mental health issues in the first place,
45:32when they do, I hope we,
45:33someone soon going to have psychedelics.
45:35Because by the way, last sentence,
45:37if you look at what psychedelics truly do,
45:39if I would describe in a non-medical, non-scientific way,
45:44then they help you discover exactly these three things.
45:48Almost every person who does psychedelics
45:50comes out of a trip
45:52and has some sort of spiritual idea.
45:58They all learn more about themselves,
46:01and it helps them re-find their purpose in life
46:03if they've lost it.
46:05And every single person,
46:06there's literally, and we've treated thousands of people,
46:09comes out and says the cheesiest sentence,
46:11at the end, it's all about love.
46:12Yeah.
46:13And that's why I think psychedelics are so powerful
46:16to help mental health issues.
46:18Yeah, yeah.
46:18Well, great.
46:19Christian, thank you so much for your time.
46:21It was a great pleasure.
46:22Yes, absolutely.