#435 – Andrew Huberman: Focus, Controversy, Politics, and Relationships

Andrew Huberman is a neuroscientist at Stanford and host of the Huberman Lab Podcast. Please support this podcast by checking out our sponsors: – Eight Sleep: https://eightsleep.com/lex to get $350 off – LMNT: https://drinkLMNT.com/lex to get free sample pack – AG1: https://drinkag1.com/lex to get 1 month supply of fish oil – Shopify: https://shopify.com/lex to get $1 per month trial – NetSuite: http://netsuite.com/lex to get free product tour – BetterHelp: https://betterhelp.com/lex to get 10% off Transcript: https://lexfridman.com/andrew-huberman-5-transcript EPISODE LINKS: Andrew’s YouTube: https://youtube.com/AndrewHubermanLab Andrew’s Instagram: https://instagram.com/hubermanlab Andrew’s Website: https://hubermanlab.com Andrew’s X: https://x.com/hubermanlab Andrew’s book on Amazon: https://amzn.to/3RNSIQN Andrew’s book: https://hubermanlab.com/protocols-book PODCAST INFO: Podcast website: https://lexfridman.com/podcast Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/2lwqZIr Spotify: https://spoti.fi/2nEwCF8 RSS: https://lexfridman.com/feed/podcast/ YouTube Full Episodes: https://youtube.com/lexfridman YouTube Clips: https://youtube.com/lexclips SUPPORT & CONNECT: – Check out the sponsors above, it’s the best way to support this podcast – Support on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/lexfridman – Twitter: https://twitter.com/lexfridman – Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lexfridman – LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lexfridman – Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lexfridman – Medium: https://medium.com/@lexfridman OUTLINE: Here’s the timestamps for the episode. On some podcast players you should be able to click the timestamp to jump to that time. (00:00) – Introduction (10:24) – Quitting and evolving (17:22) – How to focus and think deeply (19:56) – Cannabis drama (30:08) – Jungian shadow (40:35) – Supplements (43:38) – Nicotine (48:01) – Caffeine (49:48) – Math gaffe (1:06:50) – 2024 presidential elections (1:13:47) – Great white sharks (1:22:32) – Ayahuasca & psychedelics (1:37:33) – Relationships (1:45:08) – Productivity (1:53:58) – Friendship

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Lex Fridman?

  The following is a conversation with Andrew Huberman, his fifth time on the podcast. He is the host of the Huberman Lab podcast and is an amazing scientist, teacher, human being, and someone I'm grateful to be able to call a close friend. Also, he has a book coming out next year that you should preorder now called Protocols, An Operating Manual for the Human Body.

• 0:28Lex Fridman?

  And now, a quick few second mention of his sponsor. Check them out in the description. It's the best way to support this podcast. We've got Asleep for naps, Element for electrolytes, AG1 for nutrition, Shopify for e-commerce, NetSuite for business management software, and BetterHelp for mental health. Choose wisely, my friends. Also, if you want to work with our amazing team or just want to get in touch with me, go to alexfreeman.com/contact. And now, on to the full lot of reads. As always, no ads in the middle. I try to make these interesting, but if you must skip them, please still check out our sponsors. I enjoy their stuff. Maybe you will too. This episode is brought to you by Asleep and its Pod 4 Ultra.

• 1:12Lex Fridman?

  First of all, Pod 4 is an improvement over the Pod 3, which was already awesome. 2X the cooling power. I always love it when stuff is just improving. When smartphones are improving, LLMs are improving. Like, jump to Claw 3.5. It's just great. And GPT-5 might be coming out soon. It's just great. It's great to see improvement. But also, there's the Ultra part, which is an extra layer that adds the base that goes between the mattress and the bed frame. And the base can control the physical position of the actual mattress. So basically, you can sleep in your bed and you can also read in your bed, which is a thing that I think a lot of people like doing.

• 1:57Lex Fridman?

  I have trouble reading too much in my bed because I fall asleep.

• 2:02Lex Fridman?

  The bed is just too nice. Anyway, go to 8sleeve.com/lex and use code Lex to get 350 bucks off the Pod4Ultra. This episode is also brought to you by Element, the drink that Andrew and I consume a lot of during the episode. I drink a lot of Element, almost, not almost, on every single podcast episode. That's just what I drink. I put Element in the water. I take, I have one next to me right now, a Power Rated Zero bottle with 28 fluid ounces. Fill it up with water, put one packet of Element in there, usually watermelon and salt. Mix it all up, put in the fridge and about 30 minutes later, there's cold, refreshing deliciousness.

• 2:46Lex Fridman?

  But yeah, in the Texas heat, when I'm doing the long runs or hard training sessions, like I just did 10 rounds the other day in grappling, no drinks. I usually don't like to drink during training. So afterwards, your just your body is completely dehydrated and that's such an amazing feeling to replenish it with all the electrolytes you need. So especially when it's cold and delicious. I love it. Get a sample pack for free with any purchase. Try it at drinkelement.com/lex. This episode is also brought to you by AG1, an all-in-one daily drink to support better health and peak performance.

• 3:26Lex Fridman?

  It's kind of hilarious how when Andrew and I hang out, how the supplementation and the diet and just our way of being is on a point. There's a lot of AG1 consumed. There's a lot of Element consumed. And there's a lot of ground beef or steak consumed on a regular basis. We've been planning to run together more, but we haven't quite done that. It's mostly my fault because running has just been such a solo thing for me. I really don't remember the last time I've ever run with anybody. I get so much into my head that I just feel like I'm even more introverted. That I usually am like I lose myself inside my mind.

• 4:08Lex Fridman?

  It's become such a meditative process that to do running with another person, it just feels a little bit weird. I feel like I wouldn't be able to sort of contribute to the conversation if there's a conversation. And also like pacing wise, there's a certain pace where conversation is still possible, but it's a little uncomfortable. So, and I can't really think at that pace that well and talk. I already struggle talking, so I don't know. We'll have to figure it out, but he's just such a great person to work out with and a great person to talk to that we'll have to figure it out. Anyway, AG1 is always part of the picture and I drink it twice a day. It's the foundation of my nutrition.

• 4:48Lex Fridman?

  It's the thing when I consume it, I feel like I've got all my bases covered, no matter the crazy mental or the physical stuff that I'm going to do. They'll give you a one month supply of fish oil when you sign up at drinkag1.com/lex. This episode is also brought to you by Shopify, a platform designed for anyone to sell stuff anywhere with a great looking online store. It took me a really short time to set everything up. lexfridman.com/store. There's a few shirts on there. I actually got a Lynyrd Skynyrd shirt via Shopify recently and I love it. I need to get more rock music, like classic rock shirts.

• 5:33Lex Fridman?

  They've brought so much joy to me. I just want to celebrate it. I don't know why, but that seems like a cool way to celebrate it, especially if it's like a nice Lynyrd Skynyrd or Led Zeppelin or Pink Floyd shirt. You know, a shirt I haven't quite found that's the go to night sure one exists is SRV Steve Ray Vaughan. I just don't want a generic one. I want a super cool one. Him and Jimi Hendrix have a certain way about them that requires a super cool shirt, not just a generic one. Anyway, you can sign up for a $1 per month trial period at Shopify.com/lex. That's all lowercase. Go to Shopify.com/lex to take your business to the next level today.

• 6:14Lex Fridman?

  This episode is also brought to you by NetSuite, an all in one cloud business management system. It is the machine inside the machine where the company is the meta machine and society is the meta meta machine. This is a collection of groups and companies. It's also a collection of nations in a constant state of anarchy against each other with no centralized control. The centralized control comes from the government that does the regulation on the on the machine of capitalism. But within capitalism, there's a certain degree of freedom that allows you to build epic shit, to build epic stuff. And that's where NetSuite can be the thing that helps you build the epic stuff by taking

• 6:59Lex Fridman?

  care of all the messy things like financials, HR, inventory supply, e-commerce, if that's the thing you do, and much more business related stuff. Over 37,000 companies have upgraded to NetSuite by Oracle. I wonder how many companies there are in the world. It's kind of cool to think that there's 37,000 companies, each one with a person who founded or a collection of people founded that had a dream and that are working hard to bring that dream into a reality, trying to survive, trying to thrive, trying to make money, trying to put food on the table of all the families involved, all the responsibility of that. I don't know. Those are all little puzzles, little battles, sometimes big battles fought.

• 7:44Lex Fridman?

  It's cool. I love humans. This is one of the ways that humans are awesome. Take advantage of NetSuite's flexible financing plan at netsuite.com/lex. That's netsuite.com/lex. This episode is brought to you by BetterHelp, spelled H E L P, Help. They figure out what you need and match you with a licensed therapist in under 48 hours. It's kind of incredible, the power of language, the power of spoken language to explore the human mind. Because in order to generate speech, you have to take an idea that's in your head, you have to compress that idea.

• 8:25Lex Fridman?

  Into something that could be represented in comprehensible sequence of words. And you have to speak it within the full context of everything that's been spoken previously and everything that's been going on around. And then there's another human being on the other side that hears it. First of all, they have to hear it correctly. You know, if it's noisy or whatever, or maybe their whole mind is focused on some aspect of the scene that prevents them from being able to really hear what's being said. But once they do, they have to then interpret it and decode, decompress the thing that

• 9:03Lex Fridman?

  was represented in language into an idea and visualize it, integrate it, load it in to the brain and make sense of that idea, again, in the full context of everything that's happened before. And in that way, back and forth, humans talk and make sense of the world together and make sense of their own mind together. It's just cool. It's cool that that's even possible. And it's cool that that's actually a powerful way to understand yourself and to understand the world. So yeah, I'm a big fan of talking, of rigorous, deep conversation. And certainly, talk therapy is rigorous and deep when done well.

• 9:45Lex Fridman?

  So if that's something that you're interested in trying, you should try BetterHelp because it's super easy. Check them out at betterhelp.com/lex and save on your first month. That's betterhelp.com/lex. This is the Lex Fridman Podcast. To support it, please check out our sponsors in the description. And now, dear friends, here's Andrew Huberman.

• 10:24Lex Fridman?

  You think there's ever going to be a day when you walk away from podcasting?

• 10:27Speaker 02

  Definitely. I mean, I came up within and then on the periphery of skateboard culture. And for the record, I was not a great skateboarder. I always have to say that because skateboarders are relentless. If you call something you didn't do or whatever. I mean, I could do a few things and I loved the community. And I still have a lot of friends in that community. Jim Feebo at Deluxe, you can look him up. He's kind of the man behind the whole scene. I know Tony Hawk, Danny Way, all these guys, I got to see them come up and get big and stay big in many cases. Start huge companies like Danny and Call Him The Case or DC.

• 11:07Speaker 02

  Some people have a long life in something, some don't. But one thing I observed and learned a lot from in skateboarding. At the level of observing the skateboarders and then the ones that started companies. And then what I also observed in science and still observe is you do it for a while. You do it at the highest possible level for you. And then at some point you pivot and you start supporting the young talent coming in. In fact, the greatest scientists, people like Richard Axel, Catherine Dulaq, there are many other labs in neuroscience. Carl Deisteroff, they're not just known for doing great science, they're known for mentoring some of the best scientists that then go on to start their own labs.

• 11:53Speaker 02

  And I think in podcasting, I am very fortunate. I got in in a fairly early wave, not the earliest wave. But thanks to your suggestion of doing a podcast, fairly early wave. And I'll continue to go as long as it feels right. And I feel like I'm doing good in the world and providing good. But I'm already starting to scout talent. My company that I started with Rob Moore, SciCom Media, a couple of other guys in there too. Mike Playback, our photographer Ian Mackey, Chris Ray, Martin Phobes.

• 12:22Speaker 02

  We are a company that produces podcasts. Right now, that's Huberman Lab Podcast, but we're launching a new podcast, Perform, with Dr. Andy Galpin.

• 12:30Lex Fridman?

  Nice.

• 12:31Speaker 02

  And we want to do more of that kind of thing, finding a really great talent, highly qualified people, credentialed people. And I've got a new kind of obsession with scouring the internet, looking for the young talent in science, in health, and related fields. And so will there be a final episode of the HLP? Yeah, I mean, Bullet Bussler cancer aside, you know, someday they'll be the very last, and thank you for your interest in science, and I'll clip out.

• 13:00Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, I love the idea of walking away and not be dramatic about it.

• 13:05Speaker 02

  Right.

• 13:05Lex Fridman?

  When it feels right, you can leave and you can come back whenever the fuck you want.

• 13:09Speaker 02

  Right.

• 13:10Lex Fridman?

  Jon Stewart did this well with The Daily Show. I think that was during the 2016 election, when everybody wanted him to stay on, and he just walked away. Dave Chappelle, for different reasons, walked away.

• 13:22Speaker 02

  Disappeared, came back.

• 13:23Lex Fridman?

  Gave away so much money, didn't care. And then came back and was doing like, stand up in the park in the middle of nowhere. Genius. You have Habib, who undefeated, walks away at the very top of a sport.

• 13:37Speaker 02

  Is he coming back?

• 13:38Lex Fridman?

  No.

• 13:39Speaker 02

  At least we don't know.

• 13:41Lex Fridman?

  Yeah. Right. You don't know. I don't know.

• 13:42Speaker 02

  Bears everywhere are worried.

• 13:46Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think, you know, it's always a call, you know, the last few years have been tremendous growth. We launched in January 2021, and even this last year, 2024, has been huge growth, you know, in all sorts of ways. It's been wild. And we have some short form content planned, 30 minute shorter episodes that really distill down the critical elements. We're also thinking about moving to other venues besides podcasting. So there's always the thought and the discussion. But when it comes to like, when to hang up your cleats, you know, it's like, There just comes a natural time where you can do more to mentor the next generation coming in than focusing on self. And so there will come a time for that.

• 14:29Speaker 02

  And I think it's critical. I mean, again, I saw this in skateboarding, like Danny and Colin and Danny's brother Damon started DC with Ken Block, the driver who unfortunately passed away a little while ago, rally car driver. And they eventually sold it, I think to Quicksilver or something like that. But they're all phenomenal talents in their respective areas. But they brought in the next, you know, the next line of amazing riders, the Plan B thing, you know, Paul Rodriguez for skateboarders, they know who this is. Now in science, there are scientists like Feynman, for instance, I don't know if anyone can name one of his mentor offspring. So there are scientists who are phenomenal, like beyond

• 15:11Speaker 02

  world class, right? Multi generational world class who don't make good mentors. I'm not saying he wasn't good mentor, but that's not what he's known for. And then there are scientists who are known for being excellent scientists and, and great mentors. And I think there's no higher celebration to be had at the end of one's career. If you can look back and like, hey, I put some really important knowledge into the world. People made use of that knowledge. And guess what? You spawned all these other scientific offspring, or sport offspring, or podcast offspring. I mean, in some ways, we look to Rogan and to some of the other earlier podcasts, like they, you know, they paved the way. Rhonda

• 15:53Speaker 02

  Patrick, first science podcast out there. So, you know, it eventually, the baton passes. But fortunately, right now, everybody's active and it, and it feels really good.

• 16:05Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, well, you're talking about the healthy way to do it. But there's also

• 16:10Lex Fridman?

  a different kind of way where you have somebody like Grisha Grigori Perlman, the mathematician who refused to accept the Fields Medal. So he's one of the greatest living mathematicians and he just walked away from mathematics and rejected the Fields Medal.

• 16:24Speaker 02

  What did he do after he left mathematics?

• 16:26Lex Fridman?

  Life. Private. 100%.

• 16:29Speaker 02

  I respect that.

• 16:30Lex Fridman?

  He's become essentially a recluse is these photos of him looking very broke, like he could use the money. He, he turned away the money. He turned away everything. You know, there's, there's. You just have to listen to the inner voice. You have to listen to yourself and make the decisions that don't make any sense for the rest of the world and makes sense to you.

• 16:50Speaker 02

  And Bob Dylan didn't show up to pick up his Nobel Peace Prize.

• 16:53Lex Fridman?

  That's punk.

• 16:54Speaker 02

  Yeah. Yeah. He probably grew in notoriety for that. Maybe he just doesn't like going to Sweden, but it seemed like it would be a fun trip. I think they do it in a nice time of year. But hey, that's his right. He earned that right.

• 17:07Lex Fridman?

  I think the best artists aren't doing it for the prize. They aren't doing it for the fame or the money. They're doing it because they love the art.

• 17:13Speaker 02

  That's the Rick Rubin thing. You gotta verbiage through. Download your inner thing. I don't think we've talked about this, that this obsession that I have about how Rick has this way of being very, very still in his body, but keeping his mind very active as a practice. Went and spent some time with him in Italy last June and we would tread water in his pool in the morning and listen to History of Rock and Roll and Hundred Songs. Amazing podcast, by the way.

• 17:48Lex Fridman?

  It is.

• 17:48Speaker 02

  Yeah. And then he would spend a fair amount of time during the day, you know, in this kind of meditative state where his mind is very active, body very still. And then Carl Deisteroth, when he came on my podcast, talked about how he forces himself to sit still and think in complete sentences late at night after his kids go to sleep. And, you know, there's a state of mind, rapid eye movement sleep, where your body is completely paralyzed and the mind is extremely active. And people credit rapid eye movement sleep with some of the more elaborate emotion-filled dreams and the source of many ideas. And there are other examples. Einstein, people described him as taking walks around the Princeton

• 18:28Speaker 02

  campus, then pausing and would ask him what was going on. And the idea that his mind was continuing to churn forward at a high rate.

• 18:40Speaker 02

  So you know, this is far from controlled studies, but we're talking about some incredible minds and creatives who have a practice of stilling the body while keeping the mind deliberately very active, very similar to rapid eye movement sleep. And then there are a lot of people who also report, you know, great ideas coming to them in the shower, while running. So it can be the opposite as well, where the body is very active and the, and the mind is perhaps more on kind of like a default mode network, not really focusing on any one specific thing.

• 19:10Lex Fridman?

  You know, interesting, there's a, there's a bunch of physicists and mathematicians I've talked to, they talk about sleep deprivation and going crazy hours through the night obsessively pursuing a thing. And then the solution to the problem comes when they finally get rest.

• 19:26Speaker 02

  Right. And, and we know, we just did this six episode special series on sleep with Matt Walker. We know that when you deprive yourself of sleep and then you get sleep, you get a rebound in rapid eye movement sleep, you get a higher percentage of rapid eye movement sleep. And Matt talks about this in the podcast and he did an episode on sleep and creativity, sleep and memory and rapid eye movement sleep comes up multiple times in that series. There's also some very interesting stuff about cannabis withdrawal and rapid eye movement sleep. People are coming off cannabis off and will suffer from insomnia, but when they finally do start sleeping, they like dream like crazy. Cannabis is a very controversial topic right now.

• 20:10Lex Fridman?

  Oh yeah, I saw that. What happened? There's a bunch of drama around the episode you did on cannabis.

• 20:16Speaker 02

  Yeah, we did an episode about cannabis, talked about the health benefits and the potential risks, right? It's, it's neither here nor there. Depends on the person, depends on the age, depends on genetic background, a number of other things. We

• 20:33Speaker 02

  Published that episode well over a year ago and it had no issues online, so to speak. And then a clip of it was put to X where, you know, the real action occurs, as you know, your favorite spot.

• 20:47Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 20:48Speaker 02

  Yeah, the, the, the four ounce gloves as opposed to the 16 ounce gloves. That is X versus Instagram or YouTube. There was kind of an immediate dogpile from a few people in the cannabis research field.

• 21:04Lex Fridman?

  So PhDs and MDs, yeah.

• 21:06Speaker 02

  There were people on our side, there were people not on our side. I mean, you know, the, the statement that got things riled up the most was this notion that for certain individuals, there's a high potential for inducing psychosis with high THC containing cannabis for certain individuals, not all. That sparked some issues. There was really a split, you know, you see this in different fields. There was one person in particular who came out swinging with language that in my opinion is not like of the sort that you would use at a university venue, especially among colleagues.

• 21:50Speaker 02

  But that's fine, you know, we're all grownups.

• 21:52Lex Fridman?

  Well, for me, from my perspective, it was strangely rude and it had an air of like elitism that to me was at the source of the problem during COVID that led to the distrust of science and the, the popularization of disrespecting science because so many scientists spoke with an arrogance and a douchebaggery that I wish we would have a little bit less of.

• 22:21Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's tough because most academics don't understand that people outside the university system. Are they don't they're not familiar with like the inner workings of science and and the culture. And so you have to be very careful how you present when you're a university professor. And when, yeah, so, you know, he came out swinging and some, you know, four letter word type language and he was obviously upset about. So I simply said what I would say anywhere, which was, hey, look, come on the podcast, let's chat. And when you give your, tell me where I'm wrong and let's discuss. And, and fortunately, he agreed. And initially, he said, Well, no, how can I be sure you're not going to misrepresent me? And so I said,

• 23:06Speaker 02

  we got on a DM, then an email, then eventually phone call and just said, Hey, listen, like, you're welcome to record the whole conversation. We've never done a gotcha on my podcast. And just get to the heart of the matter. I think this, this little controversy is perfect kindling for, for a really great discussion. And, and he had some other conditions that we worked out. And, and I, and I felt like, cool, like, he's really interested. You get a very different person on the phone than you do on Twitter. I will say he's been very collegial, and that conversation is on the schedule. I said, We'll fly you out, we'll put you up. He said, No, he wants to fly himself. He really wants to make sure that there's like, kind of a space between, I think some of the perception of science and health podcasts in the academic

• 23:48Speaker 02

  community is that it's all designed to sell something. No, we run ads so it can be free to everyone else. But I think, look, in the end, he agreed, and I'm excited for the conversation. It was interesting, because in the wake of that little exchange, there's been a bunch of press from traditional press about cannabis has now surpassed alcohol in many, in many cultures as within the United States as, when I say cultures, I mean, demographics, the United States as the, as the drug of choice. There have been people highlighting the issues of potential psychosis and high THC containing. And so it's

• 24:29Speaker 02

  Kind of interesting to see how traditional media is sort of onboard certain elements that, you know, I put forward. And I think there's some controversy as to whether or not the different strains, the indicas and sativas are biologically different, et cetera. So we'll get down into the weeds, pun intended, during that one. And I'm excited. It's the first time that we've responded to a direct criticism online about scientific content in a way that really promoted like, oh, here, the idea of inviting a particular guest. And so it's great. Let's get a guest who is expert in cannabis. I believe, I could be wrong about this, that he's a behavioral neuroscientist, has slightly different training. But look, he seems highly credentialed. It'll be fun. And we, you know, we welcome that kind of exchange.

• 25:13Lex Fridman?

  I deeply-

• 25:14Speaker 02

  And I'm not being diplomatic. I'm just saying like, it's cool. Like, he's coming on.

• 25:16Lex Fridman?

  No, you-

• 25:17Speaker 02

  You know, and he was friendly on the phone, right? Like, he literally came out online and was like, basically like, kind of like, F you. Like, F this and F you. But you get someone on the phone, and it's like, hey, how's it going? And they're like, oh, yeah, well, you know, I took- There was an immediate apology of like, hey, listen, I came out, normally I'm like, not like that, but online, you know?

• 25:34Lex Fridman?

  Oh, yeah?

• 25:35Speaker 02

  You got a different-

• 25:35Lex Fridman?

  Oh, yeah? Okay, listen.

• 25:36Speaker 02

  So it's a little bit like, it's a little bit like jujitsu, right? People say all sorts of things, I guess. But if they, if you're like, all right, well, let's go, then it's probably a different story, you know?

• 25:44Lex Fridman?

  It's not like jujitsu, because in jujitsu, people don't talk shit, because they know what the consequences are. Let me, let me just say, on mic and off mic, you have been very respectful towards this person. And I look up to you and respect you and admire the fact that you have been. That said, to me, that guy was being a dick. And when you graciously, politely invited him on the podcast, he was still talking down to you the whole time. So I really admire and look forward to listening to you talk to him. But I hope others don't do that. Like, you are a positive, humble voice, exploring all the interesting aspects of science. Like, you want to learn. If there, you've got anything wrong- You want to learn about it.

• 26:29Lex Fridman?

  The way he was being a dick, I was just hurt a little bit, not because of him, but because like there's some people I really, really admire, brilliant scientists that are not their best selves on Twitter, on X.

• 26:44Speaker 02

  Definitely.

• 26:44Lex Fridman?

  I don't understand what happens to their brain.

• 26:47Speaker 02

  Well, they regress. They regress and they also are protected. You know, when you remove the, I mean, no scientific argument should ever come to physical blows, right? But when you remove the real world thing of being right in front of somebody.

• 27:02Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 27:03Speaker 02

  People will throw all sorts of stones at a distance, you know, and over a wall. And they've got their, their wife or their husband or their boyfriend or their dog or their cat to go cuddle with them afterwards. But you get in a room and it's like, you know, confrontational people in real life are, are pretty rare, but hopefully if they do it, they're like willing to back it up with knowledge in this case, right? We're not talking about physical altercation. Yeah, he, he kept coming and he kept putting on conditions. How do I know you want this? And I was like, well, you can record the conversation. How do I know you want that? Listen, we'll pay for you to come out. How do you know? And eventually he just kind of relented and, and to his credit, you know, he's agreed to come on. I mean, he still has to show up, but once he does, you know, we'll treat him right like

• 27:48Speaker 02

  we would any other guest.

• 27:49Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, you treat people really well and I, I just hope that people are a little bit nicer on the internet.

• 27:54Speaker 02

  Yeah, well, you know, X is an interesting one because you, it thickens your skin, you know, to just to go on there. I mean, you have to be ready to deal with.

• 28:03Lex Fridman?

  Sure, but I can still criticize people for, for being douchebags.

• 28:07Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 28:07Lex Fridman?

  Because like, that's still not good, inspiring behavior, like especially for scientists that should be sort of symbols of scientific thinking, which requires intellectual humility. Humility is a big part of that and Twitter is a good place to illustrate that.

• 28:25Speaker 02

  Yeah, years ago, I used to, I was a student in TA, then instructor, and then directed a Cold Spring Harbor course on visual neuroscience. These are summer courses that explore different topics. And at night, we would host what we hoped were battles in front of the students, where you'd get two people on it, you know, would it be neural prosthetics or molecular tools that would first, you know, restore vision to the blind kind of arguments? You kind of like, it's kind of a silly argument because it can be a combination of both, right? But you'd get these great arguments, but the arguments were always couched in data. And occasionally, you'd get, somebody would go like, or would curse or something,

• 29:06Speaker 02

  but it was the rare, very, very well placed, you know, insult. It wasn't, you know, coming out swinging. I think ultimately, you know, Twitter's a record of people's behavior, that the internet is a record of people's behavior. And here, I'm not talking about news reports about people's behavior. I'm talking about how people show up online is really important. You've always carried yourself with a ton of composure and respect. And, you know, you just, you would hope that people would grow from that example. Well, I'll tell you that the podcasters that I'm scouting, it's their energy, but it's also how they treat other people, how they respond to comments. And, you know, we're blessed to have pretty significant reach. When we put out a podcast, like of someone else's podcast,

• 29:49Speaker 02

  it goes far and wide. So like a skateboard team, like a laboratory where you're selecting people to be in your lab, you're, you want to pick people that you would enjoy working with and are collegial. Etiquette and etiquette is lacking nowadays. But you're in the suit and tie, bringing it back.

• 30:07Lex Fridman?

  Bringing it back. You said that your conversation with James Hollis, a young psychoanalyst, had a big impact on you. What do you mean?

• 30:16Speaker 02

  James Hollis is an 84-year-old Jungian psychoanalyst who's written 17 books, including "Under Saturn Shadow," which is on the healing and trauma of men, the Eden Project, which is about relationships and creating a life. I discovered James Hollis in an online lecture that was recorded, I think, in San Diego. It's on YouTube. The audio is terrible, called "Creating a Life." And this was somewhere in the 2011 to 2015 span, I can't remember. And I was on my way to Europe and I called my girlfriend at the time. I was like, "I just found the most incredible lecture I've ever heard." And he talks about the shadow. He talks about your developmental upbringing and how you either align with

• 31:01Speaker 02

  or go 180 degrees off your parents' tendencies and values in certain areas. He talked about the specific questions to ask of oneself at different stages of life, to live a full life. So it's always been a dream of mine to meet him and to record a podcast. And he wasn't able to travel, so our team went out to DC and sat down with him. We rarely do that nowadays, people come to our studio. And he came in, he had had surgeries recently and he kind of came in with some assistance from a cane and then sat down and just blew my mind from start to finish. He didn't miss a syllable.

• 31:41Speaker 02

  And every sentence that he spoke was like a quotable sentence with real potency and actionable items. I think one of the things that was most striking to me was how he said, "When we take ourselves out of stimulus and response, and we just force ourselves to spend some time in the quiet of our thoughts, while walking, or while seated, or while lying down," doesn't have to be meditation, but it could be, "that..." We access our unconscious mind in ways that reveals to us who we really are and what we really want. And that if we do that practice repeatedly, 10 minutes a day here, 15 minutes

• 32:21Speaker 02

  a day there, that we start to really touch into our unique gifts and the things that make us each us and the directions we need to take. But that so often, we just stay in stimulus response. We just do, do, do, do, do, which is great. We have to be productive. But we miss those important messages. And interestingly, he also put forward this idea of what is it? It's like, get up, shut up, suit up. Yeah, something like that, like, get out of bed, suit up, and shut up and get to work. He also has that in him, kind of a Goggins-type mindset.

• 32:59Lex Fridman?

  So be able to turn off all this self-reflection and self-analysis and just get shit done?

• 33:04Speaker 02

  Get shit done, but then also take dedicated time and stop and just let stuff geyser to the surface from the unconscious mind. And he quotes Shakespeare, and he quotes Jung, and he quotes everybody through history with incredible accuracy and in exactly the way needed to drive home a point. But that conversation to me was one that I really felt like, okay, you know, if I don't wake up tomorrow, for whatever reason, that one's in the can and I feel really great about it. It's, to me, it's the most important guest recording we've ever done. In particular, because he has wisdom. And while I hope he lives to be 204,

• 33:49Speaker 02

  chances are, he's got another, what, 20, 30 years with us, hopefully more. But I really, really wanted to capture that information and get it out there. So I'm very, very proud of that one. And he's the kind of guy that anyone listens to him, young, old, male, female, whatever, and you're going to get something of value.

• 34:09Lex Fridman?

  What do you think about this idea?

• 34:12Lex Fridman?

  Of the shadow, that the good and the bad that we repress, that hides from plain sight when we analyze ourselves, that's there. You think there's like a ocean that we don't have direct access to?

• 34:26Speaker 02

  Yes. Yeah. Jung said it, we have all things inside of us and we do. And some people are more in touch with those than others. And some people it's repressed. I mean, does that mean that we could all be, you know, horrible people or marvelous people, benevolent people? Perhaps. I think that thankfully, more often than not, people lean away from the like violent and harmful parts of their their shadow. But I think spending time thinking about, you know, one's shadow, shadows is super important. How else are we going to grow?

• 35:06Speaker 02

  Otherwise, you know, we have these unconscious blind spots of denial or repression or whatever, you know, the psychiatrists tell us. But yeah, it clearly exists within all of us. I mean, we have neural circuits for rage. We all do. We have neural circuits for altruism. And no one's born without these things. And some people they're atrophied and some people they're hypertrophied. But looking inward and recognizing what's there is key.

• 35:35Lex Fridman?

  Or positive things like creativity. Maybe that's what Rick Rubin is accessing when he goes silent, silent body, active mind. That's interesting. What is it for you?

• 35:46Lex Fridman?

  What place do you go to that generates ideas? That helps you generate ideas?

• 35:51Speaker 02

  I have a lot of new practices around this. I mean, I'm always exploring for protocols. I have to. It's like in my nature. When I went and spent time with Rick, I tried to adopt his practice of staying very still and just letting stuff, you know, come to the surface or the Dyserothian way of formulating complete sentences while being still in the body. What I have found works better is what my good friend, Tim Armstrong, does to write music. He writes music every day. He's a music producer. He's obviously a singer guitar player for Rancid. And he's helped dozens and dozens and dozens of female pop artists and punk rock artists write great songs.

• 36:35Speaker 02

  And many of the famous songs that you've heard from other artists, Tim helped them write.

• 36:42Speaker 02

  Tim wakes up sometimes in the middle of the night and what he does is he'll start drawing or painting. So what he's done, and Joni Mitchell talks about this too, you find some creative outlet that's like 15 degrees off center from your main creative outlet and you do that thing. So for me, that's drawing. I like doing anatomical drawings, neuroscience based drawing, drawing neurons, that kind of thing. And if I do that for a little while, my mind starts churning on the nervous system and biology. And then I come up with areas I'd like to explore for the podcast, ways I'd like to address certain topics. Right now, I'm very interested in autonomic control. A beautiful paper came

• 37:24Speaker 02

  out that shows that anyone can learn to control their pupil sizes without changing luminance through a biofeedback mechanism. And that gives them auto control over their so-called automatic autonomic nervous system. And I've been looking at what the circuitry is and it's, it's beautiful. So I'll draw the circuitry that we know underlies autonomic function. And as I'm doing that, I'm thinking, oh, like, what about autonomic control and those people that supposedly can control their pupil size? Then you go in and there's a paper published in Nature Press, one of the nature journals, and there's a recent paper on this, like, oh, cool. And then we talk about this. And then how could this be put into a kind of a post? Or how could this, you know, so doing things that are about 15 degrees off center from your main thing is a great way to access, I believe,

• 38:06Speaker 02

  the circuits for, in Tim's case, painting goes to songwriting. I think for Joni Mitchell, that was also the case, right? I think it was drawing and painting to singing and songwriting. For Rick, I don't know what it is. Maybe it's listening to podcasts. I don't know. That's his business. Do you have anything that you like to focus on that allows you then an easier transition into your main creative work?

• 38:30Lex Fridman?

  No, I really like to focus on emptiness and silence. So I pick the dragon I have to slay. So whatever the problem I have to work on, and I just sit there. And stare at it.

• 38:42Speaker 02

  I love how fucking linear you are.

• 38:45Lex Fridman?

  And it just, and if there's no, if you're tired, I'll just sit. I believe in the, in the power of just waiting. And usually I'll stop being tired. Or their energy rises from somewhere or an idea pops from somewhere, but there needs to be a silence and emptiness. It's an empty room, just me and the dragon and we wait. That's it. Like if it's a, usually with programming, you're thinking about a particular design, like how do I design this thing?

• 39:13Lex Fridman?

  To solve this problem.

• 39:15Speaker 02

  Any cognitive enhancers? I've got quite the gallery in front of me.

• 39:18Lex Fridman?

  Oh, that's right. Yeah.

• 39:19Speaker 02

  Should we walk through this?

• 39:20Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 39:21Speaker 02

  This is not, this is not a, a sales thing. It's just, um, I tend to do this bounce back and forth. Your refrigerator just happened to have a lot of different choices. So water.

• 39:30Lex Fridman?

  All of my refrigerator.

• 39:31Speaker 02

  I know, right? There's no food in there. There's water. There's Element, which they now have canned.

• 39:37Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 39:37Speaker 02

  And yes, they're a podcast sponsor for both of us, but that's not why I cracked one of these open. I like them provided they're, they're cold.

• 39:42Lex Fridman?

  And that's by the way, my least favorite flavors. I was saying that's, that's the reason it's still left in the fridge.

• 39:47Speaker 02

  The cherry one is really good.

• 39:49Lex Fridman?

  The black cherry. There's a orange one.

• 39:52Speaker 02

  Yeah. I pushed the, um, sled this morning and pulled the sled for my workout at the gym and, and it was hot today here in Austin. So, um, some salt is good. And then Matina Yerba Mate, zero sugar. Full confession, I helped develop this. I'm a partial owner, but I love Yerba Mate. Half Argentine, been drinking mate since I was a little kid. There's actually a photo somewhere on the internet when I'm like three, sitting on my grandfather's lap, sipping mate out the gourd. And then this, my fun, interesting, this is just a little bit of coffee. With a scoop of Brian Johnson gave me cocoa, just like pure unsweetened cocoa. So I put that in chocolate and I like it.

• 40:28Lex Fridman?

  Just for the taste.

• 40:29Speaker 02

  Well, actually nukes my appetite. And since I'm, we're not going out to dinner tonight until later, I figure that's good. Yeah. Brian's an interesting one, right? He's really pushing this, this thing.

• 40:38Lex Fridman?

  The optimization of everything.

• 40:40Speaker 02

  Although he just hurt his ankle. He posted a photo. They hurt his ankle. So now he's injecting BPC body protection compound 157, which many, many people are taking, by the way. I did an episode on peptides. I should just say, you know, BPC 157, one of the known effects in animal models is angiogenesis, like development of new vasculature, which can be great in some contexts, but also if you have a tumor, you don't really want to vascularize that tumor anymore. So I worry about people taking BPC 157 continually. But, um, And there's very little human data. I think there's like one study and it's a lousy one. So a lot of animal data. Some of the peptides are interesting, however, there's

• 41:20Speaker 02

  one that I've experimented with a little bit called pinealine, which I find even if I've just taken it twice a week before sleep, then it times, it seems to do something to the circadian timekeeping mechanism because then on other days, when I don't take it, I get unbelievably tired at that time that normally I would do the ingestion. These are things that I'll experiment with for a couple of weeks and then typically stop, maybe try something else. But I stay out of things that really stimulate any of like a major hormone pathways when it comes to peptides.

• 41:52Lex Fridman?

  That's actually a really good question of how do you experiment? Like, how long do you try a thing to figure out if it works for you?

• 41:58Speaker 02

  Well, I'm very sensitive to these things. So I, and I have been doing a lot of things for a long time. So if I add something in, it's always one thing at a time. And I notice right away if it does not make me feel good. Like, there's a lot of excitement about some of the so-called growth hormone secretagogues, ipramorin, testomorin, sermorin. I've experimented a little bit with those in the past and they've nuked my rapid eye movement sleep, but given me a lot of deep sleep, which doesn't feel good to me, but other people like them. I also just generally try and avoid taking peptides that tap into these hormone pathways because you can run into all sorts of issues, but some people take them safely. But usually after about four or five days, I know if I like something or I don't, and then I move

• 42:40Speaker 02

  on. But I am not super adventurous with these things. I know people that will take cocktails of peptides with multiple things. They'll try anything. That's not me. And I do blood work. But also, I'm, you know, I'm mainly reading papers and podcasting and I'm teaching a course next spring at Stanford. I'm going to do a big undergraduate course. So I'm trying to develop that course and things like that. So I don't need to lift more weight or run further than I already do, which is not that much weight or far as it is.

• 43:14Lex Fridman?

  All right. You're not going to the Olympics. You're not trying to truly maximize some aspect of your performance?

• 43:19Speaker 02

  No, and I'm not, and I'm not trying to get down below whatever, you know, 7% body fat or something. I don't have those kinds of goals. So hydration, electrolytes, caffeine in the form of mate, and then this coffee thing. And then, and then here's one that I think I brought out for discussion, which is a piece of Nicorette, they're not a sponsor. Nicotine is an interesting compound. It will raise blood pressure and it is probably not safe for everybody, but you know, nicotine is gaining in popularity like crazy, mainly these pouches that people put in the lip, not, we're not talking about I'm smoking, vaping, dipping or nothing. You know, my interest in nicotine started, this was in 2010, I was visiting Columbia

• 44:03Speaker 02

  Medical School and I was in the office of the great neurobiologist, Richard Axel, won the Nobel Prize, co-recipient with Linda Buck for the discovery of the molecular basis of olfaction. Brilliant guy, he's probably in his late 70s now, probably, yeah. And he kept popping Nicorette in his mouth and I was like, what's this about? And he said, oh, well, this was just anecdote, right? But he said, but he said this, he said, oh, you know, it protects against Parkinson's and Alzheimer's. I said, it does? And he goes, yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't know if he was kidding or not, he's known for making jokes. And then he said that when he used to smoke, it really helped his focus and creativity, but then he quit smoking because he went lung cancer and he found that he couldn't focus as well, so he would choose Nicorette. So occasionally, like right now, we'll each, I do a half a piece, but I'm not Russian.

• 44:48Speaker 02

  So I'm a little, you know, did you just pop the whole thing in your mouth? So I'll do a couple milligrams every now and again, and it definitely sharpens the mind on an empty stomach in particular, but you fast all day, you're still doing one meal a day? One meal a day. Yeah. Yeah, I did a nicotine pouch with Rogan at dinner and I got high. Yeah, that's a lot. That's like usually six or eight milligrams. I know people that get a canister of Zin, take one a day, pretty soon they're taking a canister a day. So you have to be very careful. I will only allow myself two pieces of Nicorette total per week. And you will notice that, you know, in the day after you use it, you know, sometimes your throat will feel a little bit like, like a little spasmy, like you might want to cough

• 45:33Speaker 02

  once or twice. And so, you know, if you're a singer or you're a podcaster or something, you have to do long podcasts, you want to just be mindful of it. But yeah, you're supposed to kind of like keep it in your cheek and here we go. But it did make me.

• 45:46Lex Fridman?

  Intensely focused in a way that was a little bit scary.

• 45:49Speaker 02

  Well, the nucleus basalis is, you know, basal forebrain nucleus has cholinergic neurons that radiate out axons, little wires that release acetylcholine into the neocortex and elsewhere. And when you focus on one particular topic matter, or one particular area of your visual field, or listening to something and focusing visually, we know that there's an elaboration of the amount of acetylcholine released there, and it binds to nicotinic acetylcholine receptor sites there. So it's a kind of an attentional modulation by acetylcholine. So you're getting with nicotine, you're getting a exogenous or artificial heightening of that circuitry.

• 46:32Lex Fridman?

  And the time I had Tucker Carlson on the podcast, he told me that apparently it helps him, as he said publicly, keep his love life vibrant.

• 46:44Speaker 02

  Really? It causes vasodystasis.

• 46:46Lex Fridman?

  Like he literally said, it makes his dick very hard. He said that publicly also.

• 46:50Speaker 02

  Okay, well, as little as I want to think about Tucker Carlson's sex life, no disrespect. The major effect of nicotine on the vasculature, my understanding is that it causes vasodystasis, not vasodilation. Drugs like Cialis, didalphil, Viagra, et cetera, are vasodilators. They allow more blood flow. Nicotine does the opposite, less blood flow to the periphery, but provided dosages are kept low. And I don't recommend people use it frequently or at all. And I don't recommend young people use it, you know, 25 and younger, brain's very plastic at that time.

• 47:32Speaker 02

  And certainly, smoking, dipping, vaping, and snuffing aren't good because you're going to run into trouble for other reasons. But in any case, well, and even there, vaping is a controversial topic. Probably safer than smoking, but has its own issues. And I said something like that, and boy, did I catch a lot of heat for that. You can't say anything as a health science educator and not piss somebody off. It just depends on where the center of mass is and how far outside that you are.

• 48:01Lex Fridman?

  For me, the caffeine is the main thing. And actually, it's a really big part of my life. And one of the things you recommend that people wait a bit in the morning.

• 48:11Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 48:11Lex Fridman?

  To consume caffeine.

• 48:12Speaker 02

  If they experience a crash in the afternoon. This is one of the misconceptions I regret. Maybe even discussing it for people that crash in the afternoon.

• 48:28Speaker 02

  Oftentimes, if they delay their caffeine by 60 and 90 minutes in the morning, they will offset some of that. But if you eat a lunch that's too big, or you didn't sleep well the night before, you're not going to avoid that afternoon crash. But I'll wake up sometimes and go straight to hydration caffeine, especially if I'm going to work out. Here's a weird one.

• 48:45Speaker 02

  If I exercise before 8:30 a.m., especially if I start exercising when I'm a little bit tired, I get energy that lasts all day. If I wait until my peak of energy, which is mid morning, 10 a.m., 11 a.m., and I start exercising then, I'm basically exhausted all afternoon. And I don't understand why. I mean, it depends on the intensity of the workout. But so I like to be done, showered, and heading into work by 9 a.m., but I don't always meet that mark.

• 49:15Lex Fridman?

  So you're saying it doesn't affect your energy if you start out with exercising?

• 49:19Speaker 02

  I think you can get energy and wake yourself up with exercise if you start early. And then that fuels you all day long. I think that if you wait until you're feeling at your best to train, sometimes that's detrimental because then in the afternoon, when you're doing like the work we get paid for, like research, podcasting, et cetera, then oftentimes, you know, your, your brain isn't firing as well.

• 49:42Lex Fridman?

  That's interesting. I haven't really rigorously tried that. Wake up and just start running or lifting.

• 49:47Speaker 02

  This is the Jaco thing. And then there's this phenomenon called entrainment, where if you force yourself to exercise, or eat, or socialize, or view bright light at a certain time of day for three to seven days in a row, pretty soon there's an anticipatory circuit that gets generated. This is why anyone in theory can become a morning person to some degree or another. And this is also a beautiful example of why you wake up before your alarm clock goes off. You know, people wake up and all of a sudden it goes off. It wasn't because it clicked. It's because you have this incredible timekeeping mechanism that exists in sleep. And there are some papers that have been published in the last couple of years, Nature Neuroscience and elsewhere, showing that people can answer math problems in their sleep. Simple math problems, but math problems nonetheless.

• 50:35Speaker 02

  This does not mean that if you ask your partner a question in sleep that they're going to answer accurately.

• 50:40Lex Fridman?

  Like they might screw up the whole cumulative probability of 20% across multiple months.

• 50:47Speaker 02

  All right, listen.

• 50:48Lex Fridman?

  What happened?

• 50:49Speaker 02

  What happened? Here's the deal. A few years back, I did a four and a half hour, after editing, four and a half hour episode on male and female fertility.

• 50:59Speaker 02

  The entire recording took 11 hours. And at one point during the, and by the way, I'm very proud of that episode. There's many couples have written to me and said they now have children as a consequence of that episode. And my first question is, what were you doing during the episode? But in all seriousness.

• 51:17Lex Fridman?

  We should say that it's four and a half hours.

• 51:20Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 51:21Lex Fridman?

  And for people, and they should, listen to the episode, you're, it's extremely technical episode. Like you're nonstop dropping facts and, and referencing huge number of papers. It must be exhausting. I don't understand how you could possibly.

• 51:34Speaker 02

  It talks about sperm health, spermatogenesis. It talks about the ovulatory cycle. It talks about things people can do that are, that are considered absolutely supported by science. It talks about some of the things kind of out on the edge a little bit that are a little bit more experimental. It talks about IVF. It talks about ICSI. It talks about all of that. It talks about frequency of pregnancy as a function of age, et cetera. But there's this one portion there in the podcast where I'm talking about the probability of a successful pregnancy as a function of age. And so there was a clip that was cut in which I was describing cumulative probability. And by the way, we've published cumulative probability histograms in many of my laboratories

• 52:19Speaker 02

  papers, including one that was a Nature article in 2018. So we run these all the time. And yes, I know the difference between independent and cumulative probability. That's like, I do.

• 52:29Speaker 02

  The way the clip was cut. And what I stated unfortunately combined to like a pretty great gaffe where I say you're just adding percent, I said you're just adding percentages 20 to 20 to 120% and then I made this kind of unfortunately my humor isn't always so good and I made a joke I said 120% but that's a different thing altogether. What I should have said was that's impossible, you know, and here's how it actually works. But then it continues where I then described the cumulative probability histogram for successful pregnancy. But somewhere in the early portion, I misstated something, right? I made a math error, which implied I didn't

• 53:14Speaker 02

  understand the difference between independent and cumulative probability, which I do. And it got picked up and run and people had a really good laugh with that one at my expense. And so what I did in response to it was rather than just say everything I just said now, I said, I just came out online and said, hey, folks, in an episode dated this on fertility, I made a math error. Here is the formula for cumulative probability, successful pregnancy at that age. Here's the graph. Here's the, you know, and I offered it as a teaching moment in two ways. One, for people to understand cumulative probability. It was sort of interesting to a number of people that had come out critiquing the gaffe. Also, like Balaji and folks came

• 53:58Speaker 02

  out pointing out that they didn't understand cumulative probability. So there was a lot of posturing, you know, the dog pile oftentimes people are quick to dog pile. They didn't understand, but a lot of people did understand. Some smart people out there, obviously. I called my dad and he was just laughing. He goes, oh, this is good. This is like the old school way of hammering academics. But the point being, there's a teaching moment. Gave me an opportunity to say, hey, I made a mistake. I also made a mistake in another podcast where I did a micron to millimeter conversion and or centimeter conversion. And we always correct these in the show note captions. We correct them in the audio now. Unfortunately, on YouTube, it's harder to correct. You can't go and edit in segments. We put in the captions, but.

• 54:40Speaker 02

  That was the one teaching moment. If you make a mistake, it's substantive and relate to data. You apologize and correct the mistake. Use it as a teaching moment. The other one was to say, hey, you know, in all the thousands of hours of content we've put out, I'm sure I've made some small errors. I think I once said serotonin when I meant dopamine and you know, you're going, you're riffing. And it's a reminder to be careful to edit, double check. But the internet usually edits for us. And then we go make corrections. But it didn't feel good at first, but ultimately, you know, I can laugh at myself about it. Long ago at Berkeley, when I was TAing my first class, it was a biopsychology class,

• 55:19Speaker 02

  it's been 1998 or 1999, I was drawing the pituitary gland, which is, you know, it has an anterior and a posterior lobe, actually it's a medial lobe too. I had probably five, 600 students in that lecture hall. And I drew, it was chalkboard, and I drew the two lobes of the pituitary. And I said, my back was to the audience, I said, you know, and so they just sort of hang there. And everyone just erupted in laughter because it looked like a scrotum with two testicles. And I remember thinking like, oh, my God, like, I don't think I can turn around, like, and face this, you know. And like, oh, I gotta turn around sooner or later. So I turned around, and we just all had a big laugh together. It was embarrassing. I'll tell you one thing, though, they never forgot about the two lobes of the pituitary.

• 56:03Speaker 02

  Yeah. And you haven't forgotten about that either. Right. There's a high salience for these kinds of things. And it also was kind of fun to see how excited people get to see people trip. It's like an elite sprinter trips and does something stupid, like, you know, runs the opposite direction out of the blocks or something like that. And, or, you know, I recall at one World Cup match years ago, a guy scored against his own team. I think they killed the guy. Do you remember that? Some South American or Central American team. Yeah. And they killed the guy. But yeah, let's, let's look it up. I just said, World Cup. Yeah, he was gunned down.

• 56:44Lex Fridman?

  Andres Escobar.

• 56:46Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 56:47Lex Fridman?

  Scored against his own team in 1994 World Cup in the United States. Just 27 years old, playing for the Colombia national team.

• 56:56Speaker 02

  Yeah, last name Escobar.

• 56:58Lex Fridman?

  It's a good name. I think it would protect you.

• 57:01Speaker 02

  Listen, you know, so there are some gaffes that get people killed, right? So, you know, how forgiving are we for online mistakes? You know, it's the nature of the mistakes. People were quite gracious about the gaffe and some weren't. And, you know, it's interesting that we, as, you know, public health science educators, you know, we'll do long podcasts sometimes and you need to be really careful. What's great is AI allows you to check these things now more readily. So that's cool.

• 57:43Speaker 02

  And there are ways that it's now going to be more self correcting. I mean, you know, I think there's a lot of errors out there on the internet and people are finding them and it's cool. Like, things are getting cleaned up.

• 57:55Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, but mistakes nevertheless will happen. Are you, do you feel the pressure of not making mistakes?

• 58:03Speaker 02

  Sure. I mean, you know, I try and get things right to the best, you know, to the best of my ability. I check with experts. It's kind of interesting when people really don't like something that was said in a podcast. A lot of times I chuckle because I'm, you know, at Stanford, we have some amazing scientists, but I talk to them else, people elsewhere. And it's always interesting to me how, you know, I'll get divergent information and then I'll find the overlap in the Venn diagram. And I have this like question, do I just stay with the overlap in the Venn diagram? Like, I did an episode on oral health. I didn't know this until I researched that episode,

• 58:47Speaker 02

  but oral health is critically related to heart health and brain health. There's a bacteria that causes cavities, streptococcus, you know? That can make its way into other parts of the body through the mouth that can cause serious issues. There's the idea that some forms of dementia, some forms of heart disease are start in the mouth, basically. I talked to no fewer than four dentists, dental experts, and there was a lot of convergence. I also learned that teeth can demineralize, that's the formation of cavities. They can also remineralize. As long as the cavity isn't too deep, it can actually fill itself back in, especially if you provide the right substrates for it. That saliva is this incredible fluid that has all this capacity to remineralize

• 59:31Speaker 02

  teeth, provided the milieu is right. Things like alcohol-based mouthwashes, killing off some of the critical things you need. It's fascinating. And I put out that episode thinking, oh, I'm not a dentist, I'm not an oral health episode, but I talked to a pediatric dentist. There's a terrific one, Dr. Staci on Instagram, does great content. Talked to some others. And then I just waited for the attack. I was like, here we go. And it didn't come. And dentists were thanking me. I was like, whoa, you know, that's a rare thing. More often than not, if I do an episode about, say, psilocybin or MDMA, you get some people liking it, or ADHD and the drugs for ADHD. We did a whole episode on the Ritalin, Vivance, Adderall

• 1:00:14Speaker 02

  stuff. You get people saying, thank you. You know, I prescribed this to my kid and it really helps. And this, but they're private about the fact that they do it because they get so much attack from other people. So I like to find the center of mass, report that, try and make it as clear as possible. And then I know that there's some stuff where I'm going to catch shit. What's frustrating for me is when, like, I see claims that I'm like against fluoridization of water, which I'm not, right? Like, we talked about the benefits of fluoride. It builds hyper-strong bonds within the teeth. I went and looked at some of the, literally the crystal structure, not, excuse me, not the crystal structure,

• 1:00:55Speaker 02

  but the, essentially the, like, micron and submicron structure of teeth is incredible. And where fluoride can get in there and form these super-strong bonds. And you can also form them with things like hydroxyapatite. And why is there fluoride in water? Well, it's the best. Okay. You get, you say some things that are interesting, but then somehow it gets turned into like you're against fluoridization, which I'm not. Or I've been accused of being against sunscreen. I wear mineral based sunscreen on my face. I don't want to get skin cancer. Or I use a physical barrier. There is a cohort of people out there that think that all sunscreens are bad. I'm not one of them. I'm not what's called a sunscreen truther. But then you get attacked for like, so we're talking about there are certain sunscreens that are problematic.

• 1:01:37Speaker 02

  So what, and Rhonda Patrick's now starting to get vocal about this. And so there are certain topics, it's interesting for which

• 1:01:45Speaker 02

  you have to listen carefully to what somebody is saying, but there's a lumper or lumping as opposed to splitting of, of, of what health educators say. And so it just seems like, like with politics, there's this like urgency to just put people into a camp of expert versus like renegade or something. And it's not like that. It's just not like that. So I, the short answer is I really strive, really strive to get things right. But I know that I'm going to piss certain people off and you've taught me. And Joe's taught me and other podcasters have taught me that like, if you worry too much about it, um, then you aren't going to get the newest information out there.

• 1:02:28Speaker 02

  Like peptides, there's very little human data unless you're talking about Valisi or the Melan- you know, the stuff in the alpha melanocyte stimulating hormone stuff, which are prescribed for female libido to enhance female libido or cermarolin, which is for certain growth hormone deficiencies. With, with rare exception, there's very little human data. But people are still super interested and a lot of people are taking and doing these things. So you, you want to get the information out.

• 1:02:51Lex Fridman?

  Do you try to not just look at the science, but research what the communities are talking, what the various communities are talking about? Like maybe research what the conspiracy theorists are talking about, just so you know all the armies that are going to be attacking your castle?

• 1:03:08Speaker 02

  Yes. So like, for instance, there is a community of people online that believe that like, if you consume seed oils or something that like you're setting up your skin for sunburn. And if you don't, you know, like, there's all these like theories, but I like to, so I like to know what the theories are. I like to know what the extremes are, but I also like to know what the standard conversation is. But there's generally more agreement than disagreement. I think where, um, You know, I've been kind of bullish, actually, is, you know, like supplements. Like people go, oh, supplements. Well, there's food supplements, like a protein powder, just different than a vitamin. And then they are compounds. There are compounds that have real benefit, but people get very nervous about the fact that they're not regulated.

• 1:03:49Speaker 02

  But some of them are are vetted with for potency and for safety with with more rigor than others, you know? And it's interesting to see how people who take care of themselves and put a lot of work into that are often attacked. That's been interesting. Also, one of the most controversial topics nowadays is Ozempic monjaro. I'm very middle of the road on this. I don't understand why the quote unquote health wellness community is so against these things. I also don't understand why they have to be looked at as the only route. For some people, they've really helped them lose weight. And yes, there can be some muscle loss and other lean lean body loss, but that can be offset with resistance training. They've helped a lot of people.

• 1:04:33Speaker 02

  And other people are like, no, this stuff is terrible. I think the most interesting thing about Ozempic monjaro is that they are GLP one. They're in the GLP one pathway glucagon like peptide one. And it was discovered in Gila monsters, which is a lizard, basically. And someone, now the now the entomologist will dive on me. It's a big, big lizard looking thing that doesn't eat very often. And they figured out that there's this peptide that allows it to curb its own appetite at the level of the brain and the gut. And it has a lot of homology to sequence homology to what we now call GLP one. So I love anytime there's animal biology links to cool human biology links to a drug

• 1:05:15Speaker 02

  that's powerful that can help people with obesity and type two diabetes. And there's evidence that can even curb some addictions. Those are newer data. But I don't see as it either or. In fact, I've been a little bit disappointed at the way that the, whatever you want to call it, health wellness biohacking community has like slammed on Ozempic monjaro. It's like they're like, just get out and run and do. Listen, there are people who are carrying substantial amounts of weight that running could injure them. They get on these drugs and they can improve. And then hopefully they're also doing resistance training and eating better. And then, you know, you're bringing all the elements together.

• 1:05:48Lex Fridman?

  Well, why do you think the criticism is happening? Is it that Ozempic became super popular, so people are misusing it or that kind of thing?

• 1:05:54Speaker 02

  No, I think what it is, is that people. Think if it's a pharmaceutical, it's bad.

• 1:06:01Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:01Speaker 02

  And then, or if it's a supplement, it's bad, depending on which camp they're in. And, and wouldn't it be wonderful to kind of like fill in the gap between this divide? You know, um, what I would like to see in politics and in health is um, neither right nor left, but what we can just call a league of reasonable people that looks at things on an issue by issue basis and fills in the center. Cause I think most people are in the, are, I don't want to say center in a political way, but I think most people are reasonable. They want to be reasonable, but that's not what sells clicks. That's not what, that's not what drives interest. Um, but I'm a very like, like I look at issue by issue, person by person. I don't like in group, out group stuff. I never have. I've got friends from all walks of life. I said this on another podcast and it always sounds like a, like a political statement,

• 1:06:46Speaker 02

  but like the, the, the push towards like, you know, polarization is, it's so frustrating. If there's one thing that's discouraging to me as, as I get older each year, I'm like, wow, are we ever going to get out of this like polarization? Speaking of which, how are you going to vote for the presidential election?

• 1:07:07Lex Fridman?

  Uh, I'm, I'm still trying to figure out how to interview the people involved and do it well.

• 1:07:11Speaker 02

  What do you think the role of podcasts is going to be in this year's election?

• 1:07:16Lex Fridman?

  I would love, uh, long form conversations to happen with the, um, with the candidates. I think it's going to be huge. I would love Trump to go on Rogan. I would, I'm embarrassed to say this, but I would love to, honestly, would love to see Joe Biden go on Joe Rogan also.

• 1:07:34Speaker 02

  I would imagine that both would go on, but separately.

• 1:07:37Lex Fridman?

  Separately, I think is, I think a debate, Joe does debates, but I think Joe at his best is one-on-one conversation, really intimate. Um, I, I just wish that Joe Biden would actually do long form conversations.

• 1:07:51Speaker 02

  I thought he had done a, it wasn't me, I think it was on Jay Shetty's podcast.

• 1:07:55Lex Fridman?

  He did Jay Shetty, he did, he did a few, but when I mean long form, I mean, um, really long form, like two, three hours and more relaxed. It was much more orchestrated because what happens when it's, the interview is a little bit too short, it becomes into this generic, uh,

• 1:08:12Lex Fridman?

  Political type of NBC CNN type of interview. You get a set of questions and you don't get to really feel the human. Expose the human to the light in it, the full. We talked about the shadow, the good, the bad and the ugly. So I think there's something magical about two, three, four hours. But it doesn't have to be that long, but it has to have that feeling to it. Where there's not people standing around and everybody's nervous and you're going to be strictly sticking to the question, answer type of feel, but just shooting shit, which Rogan is the best by far in the world at that.

• 1:08:50Speaker 02

  I don't think people really appreciate how skilled he is at what he does. And the number, I mean, the three or four podcasts per week, plus the UFC announcing, plus comedy tours in stadiums, plus, you know, doing comedy shows in the middle of the week, plus, you know, a husband and a father and a friend and jujitsu. The guy's got these superhuman levels of output. I, I agree that long form conversation is a whole other business. And I think that people want and deserve to know the people that are running for office at a, in a different way and to really get to know them.

• 1:09:35Speaker 02

  Well, listen, you know, I guess you, I mean, is it clear that he's going to do jail time? Or maybe he gets away with it.

• 1:09:41Lex Fridman?

  No, I don't think.

• 1:09:42Speaker 02

  Because I was gonna say, I mean, does that mean you're gonna be podcasting from?

• 1:09:45Lex Fridman?

  In prison, yeah, we're going to, in fact, I'm going to figure out how to commit a crime so I can get in prison.

• 1:09:51Speaker 02

  Please don't, please don't. Well, that's, I'm sure they have visitors.

• 1:09:55Lex Fridman?

  Right, that just doesn't feel an authentic way to get the interview. But yeah, I understand.

• 1:10:00Speaker 02

  You wouldn't be able to wear that suit. You'd be wearing a different suit.

• 1:10:03Lex Fridman?

  That's true.

• 1:10:04Speaker 02

  Yeah. It's gonna be interesting and you do, I'm not just saying this because you're my friend, but you would do a marvelous job. I think you should sit down with all of them separately to keep it civil and, and see what, what happens.

• 1:10:19Speaker 02

  Here's one thing that I found really interesting in this whole political landscape. When I'm in Los Angeles, I often get invited to these like, they're not dinners, but gatherings where, you know, a local, um, you know, bunch of podcasters will come together, but a lot of people from the entertainment industry, big agencies, big tech, like big, big tech. Many of the people have been on this podcast and they'll host a discussion or a debate. And what you find, if you look around the room and you talk to people, is that about half the people in the room are very left leaning and very outspoken about that. And they'll tell you exactly who they want to see in the, win the presidential race. And the other half will tell you that they're for the other side.

• 1:11:02Speaker 02

  A lot of people that people assume are on one side of the aisle or the other are in the exact opposite side. Now, some people are very open about who they're for, but it's been very interesting to see how, um, when you get people one-on-one, they're like telling you they want X candidate to win or Y candidate to win. And sometimes I'm like, really? I can't believe it. Like you? Like, yep. And so it's what people think about, um, people's political lean is often exactly wrong. And, and that's been eye-opening for me. And I've seen that in university campuses too. And, and so it's going to be really, really interesting to see what happens in, in November.

• 1:11:47Lex Fridman?

  In addition to that, as you said, most people are close to the center, despite what Twitter makes it seem like. Most people, whether they're center left or center right, they're kind of close to the center.

• 1:11:57Speaker 02

  Yeah. I mean, here's the, to me, the most interesting question. Who is going to be the next big candidate in years to come? Like, who's that going to be? Right now, I don't, I don't, I don't see or know of that person. Who's it going to be?

• 1:12:10Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, the young, promising candidates, we're not seeing them. We're not seeing like who, another way to ask that question, who would want to be?

• 1:12:19Speaker 02

  Well, that's the issue, right? You know, it, who wants to live in this 12-hour news cycle where you're just trying to, you know, dunk on the other team so that nobody notices like that you're, the shit that you fucked up, you know? Like that, that's not like, that's not only not fun or interesting, it also is just like, it's got to be psychosis inducing at some point. And I think that.

• 1:12:44Speaker 02

  You know, God willing, we're gonna, you know, some young guy or woman is like on this and refuses to to back down. And was just like determined to be president and will make it happen. But like, I don't even know who the viable candidates are. Maybe you, Lex, you know? We should ask Sagar. Sagar would know.

• 1:13:08Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:09Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:13:10Lex Fridman?

  Maybe Sagar himself.

• 1:13:12Speaker 02

  Sagar's show is awesome.

• 1:13:14Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:14Speaker 02

  He and Crystal do a great thing.

• 1:13:15Lex Fridman?

  He's incredible.

• 1:13:16Speaker 02

  Especially since they have somewhat divergent opinions on things.

• 1:13:18Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:19Speaker 02

  That's what makes it so cool.

• 1:13:20Lex Fridman?

  He's great. He looks great in a suit, looks real sexy.

• 1:13:22Speaker 02

  He's taking real good care of himself. I think he's getting married soon. Congratulations, Sagar. Forgive me for not remembering your wife, uh, future wife's name.

• 1:13:29Lex Fridman?

  He, uh, he won my heart by giving me, uh, a biography of Hitler as a president.

• 1:13:35Speaker 02

  That's what he gave you?

• 1:13:36Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:36Speaker 02

  I gave you a hatchet with a poem inscribed.

• 1:13:40Lex Fridman?

  That just shows the fundamental difference.

• 1:13:42Speaker 02

  With a, with a poem inscribed in it.

• 1:13:45Lex Fridman?

  Which was pretty damn good.

• 1:13:47Speaker 02

  I realize everything we bring up on the screen is like really depressing, like the soccer player getting killed. Can we bring up something happy?

• 1:13:57Lex Fridman?

  Uh, sure. Let's go to nature is metal Instagram.

• 1:14:00Speaker 02

  Those are pretty intense. We actually did a collaborative post on a, on a shark thing.

• 1:14:05Lex Fridman?

  Really?

• 1:14:06Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:14:06Lex Fridman?

  What kind of shark thing?

• 1:14:07Speaker 02

  So to generate the fear VR stimulus for my lab in 20,

• 1:14:14Speaker 02

  was it, yeah, 2016, we went down to Guadalupe Island off the coast of Mexico. Me and a guy named Michael Muller, who's a very famous portrait photographer, but also takes photos of sharks. And we used 360 video to build VR of great white sharks. Brought it back to the lab. We published that study in Current Biology. In 2017, went back down there.

• 1:14:40Speaker 02

  And that was the year that I exited the cage. You lower the cage with a crane and that year I exited the cage. I had a whole mess with a air failure the day before. I was breathing from a hookah line while in the cage. I had no scuba on, divers were out. The thing got boa constrictor up and I had an air failure and I had to actually share air. And it was a whole mess. Story for another time. But the next day, because I didn't want to get PTSD and it was pretty scary. The next day I cage exited with some other divers. And it turns out with these great white sharks, in Guadalupe, the water's very clear and you can swim toward them. And then they'll, they'll veer off you if you swim toward them. Otherwise they see you as prey. Well, in the evening, you've brought all the cages up and you're hopefully all alive.

• 1:15:24Speaker 02

  And we were hanging out fishing for tuna. We had, one of the, the crew on board had a line in the water and was fishing for tuna for dinner. And a shark took the tuna off the line. And it's a, it's a very dramatic take. And you can see the, the just absolute size of these great white sharks. The waters there are filled with them. That's the one. But so this video, just the Neuralink link, was shot by Matt McDougall, who is the head neurosurgeon at Neuralink. There it is, takes it. Now, believe it or not, it looks like it missed, like it didn't get the fish. It actually just cut that thing like a bandsaw. So I'm up on the deck with Matt. Yeah.

• 1:16:07Speaker 02

  And so when you look at it from the side, you, you really get a sense of this, of the, the girth of this friggin' thing. So as it comes up, if you look at the size of that thing. And they move through the water with such speed. Just a couple, see, when you're in the cage and the cage is lowered down below the surface, they're, they're going around, you're not allowed to chum the water there. Some people do it. But, and then when you cage exit, they're like, well, what are you doing out here? And then, you know, they, you swim toward them, they veer off. But what's interesting is that if you look at how they move through the water, all it takes for one of these great white sharks, when it sees a tuna or something it wants to eat, is like two flicks of the tail. And it becomes like a missile.

• 1:16:50Speaker 02

  It's just unbelievable economy of effort. And Ocean Ramsey, who is, in my opinion, the greatest of all cage exit shark divers, this woman who dove with enormous great white sharks. She really understands their behavior when they're aggressive, when they're not going to be aggressive. She and her husband Juan, I believe his name is, do they understand how the tiger sharks differ from the great white sharks? We were down there basically like not understanding any of this. We never should have been there. And actually, the air failure the day before, plus cage exiting the next day, I told myself after coming up from the cage, that's it. I'm no longer taking risks with my life. I want to live. Got back across the border. A couple of days later, I was like, that's it. I don't take risks with my life any longer. But yeah, McDougal,

• 1:17:33Speaker 02

  Matt McDougal shot that video. And then it went quote unquote viral through Nature's Metal. We passed them that video.

• 1:17:41Lex Fridman?

  Actually, I saw a video where an instructor was explaining how to behave with a shark in the water. And that you don't want to be swimming away, because then you're acting like a prey.

• 1:17:52Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 1:17:52Lex Fridman?

  And then you want to be acting like a predator by looking at it and swimming towards it.

• 1:17:56Speaker 02

  Right towards them and they'll bank off. Now, if you don't see them, they're ambush predators. You know, you're swimming in the surface.

• 1:18:01Lex Fridman?

  And apparently, if they get close, you should just like guide them away by like grabbing them and moving them away.

• 1:18:06Speaker 02

  Some people will actually roll them. But if they're coming in full speed, you're not going to roll the shark. But here we are, back to dark stuff again. I like the Shark Attack Map. And the Shark Attack Map shows that, you know, Northern California, there were a couple, actually, a guy's head got taken off. He was swimming north of San Francisco. There's been a couple in Northern California. That was really tragic. But most of them are in Florida and Australia.

• 1:18:30Lex Fridman?

  Florida.

• 1:18:31Speaker 02

  So the Surf Rider Foundation Shark Attack Map, there it is. They have a great map.

• 1:18:36Lex Fridman?

  There you go.

• 1:18:37Speaker 02

  So they look like, they have all the scars on them. So if you if you zoom in on, I mean, look at this. If you go to North America.

• 1:18:45Lex Fridman?

  Look at skulls. There's a.

• 1:18:47Speaker 02

  Yeah, where they're where they're deadly attacks. But in, yeah, Northern California, sadly, this is really tragic. If you zoom in on this one, I read about this. This guy, if you click the link, 50 year old male, he was in chest high water. This is just tragic. I feel so sad for him and his family. You know, he's just. Three members of the party chose to go in. He was, you know, nine, was in his chest high water, twenty-five to fifty yards from shore. Great breach of water seized his head and that was it. You know, so it does happen. It's very infrequent. If you don't go in the ocean, it's a very, very, very low probability. But.

• 1:19:29Lex Fridman?

  But if it doesn't happen six times in a row.

• 1:19:33Speaker 02

  A hundred and twenty percent chance?

• 1:19:35Lex Fridman?

  Yeah. Who do you think wins? Saltwater crocodile or a shark?

• 1:19:39Speaker 02

  Okay, I do not like saltwater crocodiles. They scare me to no end. Mueller, Michael Mueller, who dove all over the world, he sent me a picture of him diving with salties, saltwater crocs in Cuba. It was a smaller one, but goodness gracious, have you seen the size of some of those saltwater crocs? Yeah, I'm thinking, I'm thinking the sharks are so agile. They're amazing. They've head cammed one or body cammed one, moving through the kelp bed. And you look and it's just, they're so agile, moving through the water and it's looking up at the surface, like the cameras looking at the surface and you just realize if you're out there, you're not. And you're swimming and you get hit by a shark, you're not.

• 1:20:20Lex Fridman?

  I was gonna talk shit and say that a salty has way more bite force, but according to the internet, recently data indicates that the shark has a stronger bite. So I was, I was assuming that a crocodile would have a stronger bite force and therefore agility doesn't matter. But apparently a shark.

• 1:20:38Speaker 02

  Yeah, and turning one of those big salties is, is probably not that, you know, turning around, it's like a battleship. I mean, those sharks are unbelievable. They hit from all sorts. Oh, and they, they do this thing, we saw this, you're out of the cage or in the cage and you'll look at one and you'll see its eye, kind of like looking at you. They can't really fovee it, but they'll look at you and you're tracking it. And then you'll look down and you'll realize that one's coming at you. They're ambush predators. They're working together. It's fascinating.

• 1:21:06Lex Fridman?

  I like, I like how you know that they can't fovee it. You're already considering the vision system there. It's a very primitive.

• 1:21:13Speaker 02

  Very primitive, eyes on the side of the head. Their vision is decent enough. They're mostly obviously sensing things with their electro sensing in the water, but also olfaction.

• 1:21:25Speaker 02

  Yeah, I spend far too much time thinking about and learning about the visual systems of different animals. If you get me going on this, like, we'll be here all night.

• 1:21:32Lex Fridman?

  See, this is why I have the smuggling out to, I saw this in a store and I got it. Because this is from a shark.

• 1:21:39Speaker 02

  Goodness. Yeah, I can't say I ever saw one with teeth this big, but it's beautiful. Yeah, it's probably, you know, probably your blood pressure just goes and you don't feel feel a thing.

• 1:21:50Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 1:21:51Speaker 02

  Before we went down for the KJ exit, a guy in our crew, Pat Dosus, very experienced diver, asked one of the South African divers that, so what, you know, like, what's the contingency plan? If like, somebody catches a bite and they were like, he was like every man for himself and they're like, basically saying like, if somebody catches a bite, like, that's it. You know, anyway, I thought we were going to bring up something happy.

• 1:22:17Lex Fridman?

  Oh, that is happy.

• 1:22:19Speaker 02

  Well, we

• 1:22:19Lex Fridman?

  Nature is beautiful.

• 1:22:20Speaker 02

  Yeah, well, nature is beautiful. We lived.

• 1:22:24Speaker 02

  But, you know, there are, there are happy things. You brought up nature is metal. This, see, this is the difference between Russian Yeah. Americans and Americans. It's like, maybe this is actually a good time to bring up your ayahuasca journey. I've never done ayahuasca.

• 1:22:39Speaker 02

  But I'm curious about it. I'm also curious about Ibogaine, Iboga. But you told me that you did ayahuasca and that for you, it wasn't the dark, scary ride that it is for everybody else.

• 1:22:53Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, it was an incredible experience for me. I did it twice, actually.

• 1:22:56Speaker 02

  And have you done high dose psilocybin?

• 1:22:58Lex Fridman?

  Never, no. I just did small dose psilocybin a couple of times. So I was, you know, nervous about it. I was very

• 1:23:05Speaker 02

  Yeah, understandably so. I've done high dose psilocybin. It's terrifying, but I've always gotten something very useful out of it.

• 1:23:11Lex Fridman?

  So, I mean, I was nervous about like, whatever demons might hide in the shadow, in the Jungian shadow. Like, I was, I was nervous. But I think it turns out, I don't know what the lesson is to draw from that, but my experience

• 1:23:24Speaker 02

  Be born Russian.

• 1:23:26Lex Fridman?

  It must, must be the Russian thing. I mean, there's also something to the jungle. There, it strips away all the bullshit of life and you're just there.

• 1:23:36Lex Fridman?

  I forgot the outside civilization exists. I forgot time because like when you don't have your phone, you don't have meetings or calls or whatever. You lose the sense of time. The sun comes up, the sun comes down.

• 1:23:48Speaker 02

  That's the fundamental biological timer. You know, every mammalian species has a short wavelength. So you think like blue UV type, but like absorbing cone and a longer wavelength absorbing cone. And it does this interesting subtraction to designate when it's morning and evening, because when the sun is low in the sky, you've got short wavelength and long wavelength light, like where you look at a sunrise. It's got blues and yellows, orange and yellows. You look in the evening, reds, orange and blues. And in the middle of the day, it's like full spectrum light. Now, it's always full spectrum light, but because of some atmospheric elements and because of the low solar angle, like that difference between the different wavelengths of light is the fundamental signal that the neurons in your eye pay attention to and signal to your circadian

• 1:24:33Speaker 02

  timekeeping mechanism like we are, that the core of our brain and the superchaosmatic nucleus, we are, we are like wired to be entrained to the rising and setting of the sun. Like that's the biological timer, which makes perfect sense because, you know, obviously as the planets, as the planets spin and revolve.

• 1:24:52Lex Fridman?

  I also wonder like how that is affected by, you know, in the rainforest, the sun is not visible often. So you're under the cover of the trees. So maybe that affects.

• 1:25:02Speaker 02

  Well, there are social rhythms, there are feeding rhythms. Sometimes in terms of some species will signal the timing of activity of other species. And but yeah, getting out from the canopy is critical. Of course, even under the canopy during the daytime, there's far more photons than at night. You know, this is always when I'm telling people to get sunlight in their eyes in the morning and in the evening. People say, there's no light, no sunlight this time here. I'm like, go outside on a really overcast day. It's far brighter than it is at night. Right. So there's still lots of sunlight, even if you can't see the sun as an object. But I love.

• 1:25:38Speaker 02

  Time perception shifts. And you mentioned that in the jungle, it's linked to the rising and setting of the sun. You also mentioned that on ayahuasca, you zoomed out from, from the earth. These are like, to me, the most interesting aspects of having a human brain as opposed to another brain. Of course, if only you ever had a human brain, but, which is that you can consciously set your time domain window, like you can, we can be focused here, we can be focused on all of Austin, or we can be focused on the entire planet. You can make those choices consciously, but in the time domain, it's, it's hard. Like different activities bring us into fine slicing or more, or more broadening of time, depending on what we're doing, programming, or exercising, or researching, or podcasting.

• 1:26:21Speaker 02

  But just how unbelievably fluid the human brain is in terms of its, the aperture of, of the time-space window of our cognition and of our experience. And I, I feel like this is perhaps one of the more valuable tools that we have access to that we don't really leverage as much as we should, which is when things are really hard, you need to zoom out and see it as one element within your whole lifespan and that there's more to come.

• 1:26:52Speaker 02

  You know, I mean, people commit suicide because they can't see beyond the time domain they're in, or they think it's going to go on forever. When we're happy, we rarely think this is going to last forever, but, which is an interesting contrast in its own right. But I think that psychedelics, while I have very little experience with them, I have some, and it sounds like they're just a very interesting window into the, the different apertures.

• 1:27:17Lex Fridman?

  Well, how to surf that wave is probably a skill. One of the things I was prepared for, and I think is important, is not to resist. I think, I understand what it means to resist the thing, a powerful wave, and it's not going to be good, so you have to be able to surf it. So I was ready for that, to relax through it. And maybe because I'm quite good at that from.

• 1:27:41Lex Fridman?

  Knowing how to relax in all kinds of disciplines, playing piano and guitar when I was super young, and then through jujitsu, knowing the value of relaxation, and through all kinds of sports, should be able to relax the body fully, just accept whatever happens to you. That process is probably why it was a very positive experience for me.

• 1:27:59Speaker 02

  Do you have any interest in iboga? I'm very interested in ibogaine, iboga. There's a colleague of mine and researcher at Stanford, Nolan Williams, who's been doing some transcranial magnetic stimulation and brain imaging on people who have taken the ibogaine. Ibogaine, as I understand it, gives a 22-hour psychedelic journey where no hallucinations with eyes open, but you close your eyes and you get a very high-resolution image of actual events that happened in your life, but then you have agency within those movies. I think you have to be of healthy heart to be able to do it. I think you have to be on a heart rate monitor. It's not trivial. It's not like these other psychedelics. But there's

• 1:28:37Speaker 02

  a wonderful group called Veterans Solutions that has used iboga combined with some other psychedelics in the veterans community to great success for things like PTSD. And it's a group I've really tried to support in any way that I can, mainly by being vocal about the great work they're doing. But you hear incredible stories of people who are just like, like near-cratered in their life or zombied by PTSD and other things post-war, get back a lightness or achieve a lightness and a clarity that they didn't feel they had. So I'm very curious about these compounds. The state of Kentucky, we should check this,

• 1:29:22Speaker 02

  but I believe it's taken money from the opioid crisis settlement for ibogaine research. I mean, so this is like no longer, yes, if you look here, let's see, did they do it? Oh, no. Oh, no. They backed away.

• 1:29:37Lex Fridman?

  Kentucky backs away from the plan to fund opioid treatment research.

• 1:29:40Speaker 02

  They were going to use the money to treat opioid. Now officials are backing off. 50 billion, what, is on its way over the coming years. 50 billion dollars.

• 1:29:49Lex Fridman?

  50 billion dollars is on its way to state and local government over the coming years. The pool of funding comes from multiple legal statements with pharmaceutical companies that profited from manufacturing or selling opioid painkillers.

• 1:30:01Speaker 02

  Kentucky has some of the highest number of deaths from the opioid. So they were going to do psychedelic research with ibogaine.

• 1:30:09Speaker 02

  Supporting research on illegal, illegal folks psychedelic drug called Abigan. Well, I guess they backed away from it. Well,

• 1:30:17Speaker 02

  sooner or later, we'll get some happy news up on the internet during this episode.

• 1:30:22Lex Fridman?

  Talk about the shark and the crocodile fighting.

• 1:30:25Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, that's true. That's true. And you survived the jungle.

• 1:30:28Lex Fridman?

  Well, that's the thing.

• 1:30:29Speaker 02

  I was, I was, I was writing to you on WhatsApp multiple times because I was going to put on the internet. Are you okay? And if you're like alive, and then I was going to just like put it to Twitter, just like he's alive. But then, of course, you're far too classy for that. So you just came back alive.

• 1:30:44Lex Fridman?

  Well, jungle or not, one of the lessons is also, you know, when you hear the call for adventure,

• 1:30:53Lex Fridman?

  just fucking do it.

• 1:30:55Speaker 02

  I was gonna ask you, it's kind of silly question, but like, give me a small fraction of things on your bucket list.

• 1:31:02Lex Fridman?

  Bucket list?

• 1:31:02Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:31:05Lex Fridman?

  Go to Mars.

• 1:31:07Speaker 02

  Yeah, what's, what's the status of that?

• 1:31:10Lex Fridman?

  I don't know. I'm being patient about the whole thing.

• 1:31:12Speaker 02

  Red Planet ran that cartoon of you guys. That was pretty funny.

• 1:31:16Lex Fridman?

  That's true.

• 1:31:17Speaker 02

  Actually, that was pretty funny. One where Goggins is already up there.

• 1:31:20Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 1:31:20Speaker 02

  That's a great, that's a funny one.

• 1:31:22Lex Fridman?

  Probably also true. I would love, I would love to die on Mars.

• 1:31:29Lex Fridman?

  But I just love humanity, reaching onto the stars and doing this bold adventure and taking big risks and exploring. I love exploration.

• 1:31:39Speaker 02

  What about seeing different animal species? I'm a huge fan of this guy Joel Sartori, where he has this photo arc project where he takes portraits of all these different animals. If people aren't already following him on Instagram, he's doing some really important work.

• 1:31:55Speaker 02

  This guy's Instagram is amazing.

• 1:31:59Lex Fridman?

  Portraits of animals.

• 1:32:00Speaker 02

  Well, look at it. Look at these portraits. The amount of, I must say, personality, because we don't want to project anything onto them. But the, like, the eyes, and he occasionally put him moving like this little owl. I delight in things like this. I've got some content coming on animals and animal neuroscience and eyes.

• 1:32:20Lex Fridman?

  And dogs or all kinds of?

• 1:32:22Speaker 02

  All animals. And I'm very interested in.

• 1:32:28Speaker 02

  Kids content that incorporates animals. So we have some things brewing there. Like I could look at this kind of stuff all day long. Look at that bat. Like bats, people thinking about bats is kind of like little flickering, little annoying, disease carrying things. But look how beautiful that little sucker is.

• 1:32:41Lex Fridman?

  How's your podcast with the Cookie Monster coming?

• 1:32:44Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah. We've been in discussions with Cookie. The, um, it's, uh, can't say too much about that, but Cookie Monster embodies dopamine, right? Cookie Monster wants Cookie, right? Wants Cookie right now, you know? Like it was that, it was that one tweet, Cookie Monster, I bounce because Cookies come from all directions. You know, it's like, it's just embodying the, the desire for, for something and, and which is an incredible aspect of ourselves. The other one is, you remember a little while ago, Elmo put out a tweet, hey, how's everyone doing out there? And it went viral. And, you know, the Surgeon General of the United States had been talking about the loneliness crisis. He came on the podcast and, you know, a lot of people have been talking about problems with loneliness, mental health issues with loneliness. Elmo

• 1:33:28Speaker 02

  puts out a tweet, hey, how's everyone doing out there? And everyone gravitates toward it, you know? So the, the different Sesame Street characters really embody the different, that kind of aspects of self through very like narrow neural circuit perspective. Um, you know, Snuffleufagus is shy and Oscar the Grouch, grouchy, right? And the Count, one, a two.

• 1:33:49Lex Fridman?

  The archetypes of, yeah.

• 1:33:51Speaker 02

  The archetypes.

• 1:33:51Lex Fridman?

  This is very Jungian once again.

• 1:33:53Speaker 02

  Yeah. And I think that, um, you know, the creators of Sesame Street clearly either understand that or it's an unconscious genius to that. So, yeah, there are some things brewing on, on conversations with Sesame Street characters. It's not, I know you'd like to talk to Vladimir Putin. I'd like to talk to Cookie Monster. It illustrates the differences in our like sophistication or something.

• 1:34:14Lex Fridman?

  Well, that's.

• 1:34:15Speaker 02

  It illustrates a lot. Yeah.

• 1:34:17Lex Fridman?

  Those are a lot of buckles.

• 1:34:18Speaker 02

  But yeah, I also, I love animation. So I'm not anime. That's not my thing, but animation. So I'm very interested in the use of animation to get, uh, science content across. So there are a bunch of things brewing, but, um, but anyway, I delight in Star Tori's work and, and, and it's, there's a conservation aspect to it as well. But I think that, um, mostly want to thank you for finally putting up something that like where something is not being killed or like let some sad, sad outcome.

• 1:34:45Lex Fridman?

  These are all really positive.

• 1:34:46Speaker 02

  They're really cool. They're really cool. And every once in a while, I'll look at, look at that, uh, mountain lion. But I also like to look at these and and some of them remind me of certain people. Right? So let's just scroll through like, for instance, I think when we don't try and process it too much. So like, like, okay, look at this cat, this amazing like, I feel like that's somebody I feel like this is like a like someone I met once.

• 1:35:10Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, there's a curiosity.

• 1:35:12Speaker 02

  Curiosity and a playfulness.

• 1:35:14Lex Fridman?

  Carnivore.

• 1:35:15Speaker 02

  Carnivore, frontalized eyes.

• 1:35:17Lex Fridman?

  Found in forested areas.

• 1:35:19Speaker 02

  Right. So then you go down, you know, it's like this beautiful fish.

• 1:35:25Lex Fridman?

  Neon pink.

• 1:35:26Speaker 02

  Right. It reminds you of some of the like the influencers you see on Instagram, right? Except this one's natural. Just kidding.

• 1:35:34Speaker 02

  Let's see, no filter.

• 1:35:38Speaker 02

  Let's see, like, I feel like.

• 1:35:40Lex Fridman?

  Bears. I'm a big fan of bears.

• 1:35:42Speaker 02

  Yeah, bears are beautiful. This one kind of reminds me of you a little bit. There's like a stoic nature to it, a curiosity. So you can kind of feel like the essence of animals. You don't even have to do psychedelics to get there.

• 1:35:52Lex Fridman?

  Oh, look at that. He's like the behind the scenes of how it's actually.

• 1:35:55Speaker 02

  Yeah. And then there's.

• 1:35:59Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:36:01Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, the in the jungle, the diversity of life was also stark. From a scientific perspective, just the fact that most of those species are not identified was fascinating.

• 1:36:10Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:36:11Lex Fridman?

  It was like a little, every little, every little insect is a kind of discovery.

• 1:36:16Speaker 02

  Right. I mean, one of the reasons I love New York City so much, despite its problems at times, is that everywhere you look, there's life. It's like a tropical reef. If you've ever done scuba diving or snorkeling, you look on a tropical reef and it's like there's some little crab working on something and like everywhere you look, there's life. You know, the Bay Area, if you go scuba diving or snorkeling, it's like a kelp bed, you know, the bay area is like a kelp bed. Every once in a while, some big fish goes by. It's like a big IPO. But like, most of the time, not a whole lot happens. Actually, the Bay Area, it's interesting, as I've been going back there more and more recently. There are really cool little subcultures starting to pop up again.

• 1:36:53Lex Fridman?

  Nice.

• 1:36:55Speaker 02

  There's incredible skateboarding. The GX1000 guys are these guys that that bomb down hills. They're nuts. Like, they're just going like.

• 1:37:03Lex Fridman?

  So it's just speed, not tricks.

• 1:37:05Speaker 02

  You gotta see GX1000, these guys going down hills in San Francisco. They are wild. And occasionally, unfortunately, occasionally someone will get hit by a car, but GX1000. Look into intersections. They have spotters. You can see someone there.

• 1:37:19Lex Fridman?

  Oh, I see. There's a

• 1:37:21Speaker 02

  Into traffic. Yeah, into traffic. So

• 1:37:24Lex Fridman?

  In San Francisco.

• 1:37:24Speaker 02

  Yeah, this is crazy. Like, this is unbelievable. And and they're they're just wild. But in any case.

• 1:37:33Lex Fridman?

  What's on your bucket list that you haven't done?

• 1:37:35Speaker 02

  Well, I'm working on a book, so I'm actually going to head to a cabin for a couple of weeks and write, which I've never done. People talk about doing this, but I'm going to do that. That's I'm excited for that. Just the mental space of really dropping into writing.

• 1:37:49Lex Fridman?

  Like Jack Nicholson in The Shining cabin?

• 1:37:51Speaker 02

  Let's hope not. Okay, let's hope not. You know, before. I mean, I only started doing public facing anything for posting on Instagram in 2019, but I used to head up to Wallala on the northern coast of California. Sometimes by myself. To a little cabin there and spend a weekend by myself and just read and write papers and things like that. I used to do that all the time. I I I miss that. So some of that. I'm trying to spend a bit more time with my relatives in Argentina, relatives in on the east coast. See my parents more. They're in good health, thankfully. I want to get married and have a family. That's an important priority. I'm putting a lot of lot of work in there.

• 1:38:30Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, that's a big one.

• 1:38:31Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Putting a lot of work into the the runway on that.

• 1:38:37Lex Fridman?

  What's your advice? For people about? That or give advice to yourself about how to find love in this world? How to find how to build a family? Get there.

• 1:38:48Speaker 02

  And then I'll listen to it someday and see if I hit the marks.

• 1:38:52Speaker 02

  Yeah, well, obviously, pick the right partner, but also like do the work on yourself. Know know yourself. That the Oracle know thyself. And I think. Listen. I have a friend. He's a new friend, but he's a friend who I met for a meal. He's a very, very well known actor overseas. And his stuff has made it over here and we become friends and we went to lunch. And we were talking about work and being public facing and all this kind of thing. And and then I said, you have kids, right? And he says, he has four kids. I was like, oh, yeah, you know, I see your post with the kids. You seem really happy. And he said, he just looked at me, leaned in and he said, It's the best gift you'll ever give yourself.

• 1:39:36Speaker 02

  And he also said, and pick your partner, the mother of your kids very carefully. So, you know, that's good advice coming from excellent advice coming from somebody who's, you know, very successful in work and family. So that's the only thing I can pass along. We hear this from friends of ours as well, but kids are amazing and family's amazing. And, um, you know, that's the different people, all these people who want to like be immortal and like live to be 200 or something, you know? There's also the, the old fashioned way of, you know, having children that live on and evolve a new legacy, but they have, you know, half your DNA. So that's exciting.

• 1:40:17Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, I think you would make an amazing dad.

• 1:40:19Speaker 02

  Thank you.

• 1:40:20Lex Fridman?

  It seems like a fun thing. And, you know, I've also gotten advice from friends who are

• 1:40:26Lex Fridman?

  super high performing and have a lot of kids. They'll say, just don't overthink it.

• 1:40:31Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:40:32Lex Fridman?

  Start having kids.

• 1:40:33Speaker 02

  Let's go. Right. Well, the chaos of kids is kind of the, like, it can either bury you or it can, or it can give you energy. But I grew up in a big pack of boys, always doing like wild and crazy things. And so that kind of energy is great. And, and if it's not a big pack of wild boys, it's, you know, you have daughters and they can be, you know, different form of chaos, sometimes same form of chaos.

• 1:40:55Lex Fridman?

  How many kids do you think you want?

• 1:40:56Speaker 02

  Hmm. You know, it's either two or five.

• 1:41:02Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 1:41:03Speaker 02

  Very different dynamics. You're one of two, right? Your brother? Yeah. Um, I mean, I'm very close with my sister. I couldn't imagine having another sibling because it, there's so much richness there. We, we talk almost every day. Very, you know, three, four times a week, you know? Sometimes just briefly, but we're, we're tight, you know, we're really look out for one another.

• 1:41:24Speaker 02

  She's an amazing person, like truly an amazing person and has like raised her daughter in an amazing way. She's like, you know, my niece is like, kind of had to college in a year or two. And like my sister's done an amazing job and her dad's done a great job too. They, they both really put a lot into, um, the family aspect.

• 1:41:44Lex Fridman?

  And she has to spend time with a really amazing person in the, in Peru, in the Amazon jungle. And he is one of 20 kids.

• 1:41:52Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 1:41:53Lex Fridman?

  So he's got, it's mostly guys. So it's just a lot of brothers and I think two sisters.

• 1:41:59Speaker 02

  I just had Jonathan Haidt on the podcast, the guy who's talking about the anxious generation calling in the American mind. He's great. But he was saying that, you know, in order to keep kids healthy, they need to not be on social media or have smartphones until they're 16. I've actually been thinking a lot about getting a bunch of friends onto neighboring properties. You know, everyone talks about this, not creating a commune or anything like that. But I think he, I think Jonathan's right. We were more or less, our brain wiring does best when we were raised in small village type environments where kids can forage, the whole free range kids idea. And I grew up skateboarding and building forts and dirt clod wars and all that stuff. It would be so strange to have a childhood without that.

• 1:42:42Lex Fridman?

  Yeah. And I think more and more, as we wake up to the negative aspects of digital interaction, we'll put more and more value to in-person interaction. So.

• 1:42:52Speaker 02

  I mean, it's cool to see, for instance, kids in New York City, just kind of moving around the city with so much sense of agency. It's really, really cool. The suburbs, like where I grew up, like as soon as we could get out, take the 7F bus up to San Francisco and hang out with, you know, wild ones like, you know, while there were dangers, I mean, we couldn't wait to get out of the suburbs. The moment that, you know, forts and dirt clod wars and stuff didn't, didn't cut it, we just like wanted into the city. So I, bucket list, I will probably move to a major city, not Los Angeles or San Francisco, in the next few years. New York City, potentially.

• 1:43:30Lex Fridman?

  Those are all such different flavors of experiences.

• 1:43:32Speaker 02

  Yeah. So I'd love to live in New York City for a while. I've always wanted to do that and I, and I will do that. I've always wanted to also have a place in a very rural some area. So Colorado, Montana are high on my list right now. And to be able to pivot back and forth between the two would be great, just for such different experiences. I, and also I like a very physical life. So the idea of getting up in the sun, with the sun in the Montana or Colorado type environment. And I've been doing some, putting some effort towards finding a spot for that. And New York City, to me, I know it's got its issues and people say, it wasn't what it was. Okay, I get it. But listen, I've never lived there. So for me, it would be entirely new. And um. You know, Schulz seems full of life.

• 1:44:18Lex Fridman?

  There is an energy to that city and he represents that. I mean, there's

• 1:44:21Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:44:22Lex Fridman?

  And, and the full diversity of weird that is represented in New York City is great.

• 1:44:27Speaker 02

  Yeah, you walk down the street, there's like a person with like a cat on their head and no one gives a shit.

• 1:44:30Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, it's great.

• 1:44:32Speaker 02

  All right. San Francisco used to be like that. The joke was like, you have to be naked and on the fire in San Francisco before Solentase. But now it's changed. But again, recently I've noticed that San Francisco, it's not just about the skateboarders. It's there's some community houses of people in tech that are super interesting. There's some community housing of people not in tech that I've learned about and been known people have lived there. And it's, it's cool. Like there's stuff happening in these cities that's new and different. I mean, that's what youth is for. They're supposed to evolve, evolve things out.

• 1:45:08Lex Fridman?

  So amidst all that, you still have to get shit done. I've been really obsessed with tracking time recently. Like making sure I have daily activities, have habits that I'm maintaining. And I'm very religious about making sure I get shit done.

• 1:45:25Speaker 02

  Do you use an app or something like that?

• 1:45:26Lex Fridman?

  No, just Google Sheets. So basically that spreadsheet and I'm tracking daily. And I write scripts that, that whenever I achieve a goal, it glows green.

• 1:45:37Speaker 02

  Yeah. Do you track your workouts and all that kind of stuff too?

• 1:45:40Lex Fridman?

  No, just the fact that I got the workout done.

• 1:45:43Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:45:44Lex Fridman?

  So I just, it's a checkmark thing. So I'm really, really big on making sure I do a thing. It doesn't matter how long it is. So I have a rule for myself that I do a set of tasks for at least five minutes every day.

• 1:46:00Lex Fridman?

  And it turns out that many of them I do way longer, but just even just doing it. I have to do it every day and there's currently 11 of them. And it's just a thing, like one of them is playing guitar, for example. So do you do that kind of stuff? Do you do like daily habits?

• 1:46:17Speaker 02

  Yeah, I do. My, um, I wake up if I don't feel I slept enough.

• 1:46:24Speaker 02

  I do this non-sleep, deep rest yoga nidra thing that I've talked about a bunch. We actually released a few of those tracks as audio tracks on Spotify. 10 minute, 20 minute ones puts me back into a state that feels like sleep and I feel very rested. Actually, Matt Walker and I are going to run a study. He just submitted the IRB to run a study on NSDR and what it's actually doing to the brain. There's some evidence of increases in dopamine, et cetera, but those are older studies, still cool studies. But so I'll do that, get up, hydrate. And if I've got my act together, I punch some caffeine down, like some matina, some coffee, maybe another matina. And resistance train three days a week, run three days a week and then take one day off. And like to be done by eight 39 and then I want to get into some real work.

• 1:47:09Speaker 02

  I actually have a sticky note on my computer. It's like, just like reminding me how good it feels to accomplish some real work. And then I go into it right now. It's the book writing, researching a podcast and just fight tooth and nail to stay off. Social media, text message, WhatsApp, YouTube, all that, get something done.

• 1:47:29Lex Fridman?

  How long can you go? Can you go like three hours, just deep focus?

• 1:47:35Speaker 02

  If I hit a groove, yeah, 90 minutes to three hours. If I'm really in a groove.

• 1:47:41Lex Fridman?

  That's for me, I start the day, actually. That's why I'm afraid I'd really prize that those morning hours I start with the work.

• 1:47:49Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:47:49Lex Fridman?

  And it's, it's, it's a, I'm trying to hit the four hour mark of deep focus.

• 1:47:56Speaker 02

  Great. I love it.

• 1:47:57Lex Fridman?

  Then often can't. Yeah, I'm really, really deeply.

• 1:48:01Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:48:02Lex Fridman?

  It's, it's often torture, actually. It's really, really difficult.

• 1:48:05Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah. The agitation, but I've sat across the table from you a couple of years ago when I was out here in Austin, doing some work and I was working on stuff you were, and I noticed you just like stare at your notebook sometimes, just like pen at the. Same position and then you'll get back into it like there are those building that hydraulic pressure and then go. Yeah, I try and get something done of value, then it, the communications start. And talking to my podcast producer, my team is everything. I mean, like the, the magic potion in the podcast is Rob Moore, right? Who's in the, has been in the room with me every single solo. Costello used to be in there with us because that's it. People have asked, journalists have asked, can they sit in? Friends have asked, nope, just Rob.

• 1:48:50Speaker 02

  And for guest interviews, he's there as well. And I talk to Rob all the time, all, all the time. We talk multiple times per day. And, um, you know, in life, I've, I've made some errors in certain relationship domains in my life in terms of partner choice and things like that. And certainly don't blame all of it on them, but you know, I've played my role. But, but in terms of picking business partners and friends, like, you know, to work with, I mean, Rob's just, it's been bullseyes and it's just Rob has been amazing. Mike Blayback, our photographer and the guys I mentioned earlier, like we just communicate as much as we need to. And we pour over every decision like near neuroticism before we make, we put anything out there and.

• 1:49:34Lex Fridman?

  So you included like even creative decisions of like topics to cover all of that.

• 1:49:37Speaker 02

  Yeah, like, like a photo for the book jacket the other day, Mike shoots photos then. And then we look at them, we pour over them together. Logo for the perform podcast with Andy Galpin that we're launching, like, is that the right contour? Mike's the real, he's got the aesthetic thing because he was at DC so long as a portrait photographer. And he's cute, was close friends with Ken Block, who did Jim Connor, like all the car jumping in the city stuff. Like, I mean, Mike is a mass, he's a, he's a true master of that stuff. And, um, and we just pour over every little decision, but even which sponsors, you know, there are dozens of ads now. By the way, that, that whole jawser sizer thing of me saying, oh, a guy went from a two to a seven. I never said that, that's AI. Like, I would never call it number off somebody, a two to a seven. Are you kidding me?

• 1:50:21Speaker 02

  It's crazy. So is AI, if you bought the thing, I'm sorry. But like our sponsors, we list the sponsors that we have and why on our website. And like the decision, do we work with this person or not? Do we still like the product? And we've, we've got ways with sponsors because of like changes in the product or change, you know? Most of the time it's amicable, all good, but you know, like just every detail and that just takes a ton of time and energy. But I try and work mostly on content and my team's constantly trying to keep me out of the other discussions. But I, because I obsess, but yeah, you have to, you have to have a team of some sort, someone that you can run things by.

• 1:50:59Lex Fridman?

  For sure. But one of the challenges, the larger the team is, and I'd like to be involved in a lot of different kinds of stuff, including engineer stuff, robotics work, research.

• 1:51:10Lex Fridman?

  All of those interactions, at least for me, take away from the deep work, the deep focus. Unfortunately, I get drained by social interaction, even with the people I love and really respect and all that kind of stuff.

• 1:51:22Speaker 02

  You're an introvert.

• 1:51:23Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, like fundamentally an introvert. So to me, it's a trade off getting shit done versus collaborating. And I have to choose wisely because without collaboration, without a great team, which I'm fortunate enough to be a part of, like you wouldn't get anything really done. But as an individual contributor, to get stuff done, like to do the hard work of researching or programming, all that kind of stuff, you need the hours of deep work.

• 1:51:48Speaker 02

  I used to spend a lot more time alone. That's, that's on my bucket list. Spend a bit more time dropped into work alone. It, I think social media like causes our brain to go the other direction. I try and answer some comments and then, and then get back to work.

• 1:52:03Lex Fridman?

  I'm really, after going to the jungle, I appreciate not using the device. I've played with the idea of like spending certainly maybe like one week a month not using social media at all.

• 1:52:18Speaker 02

  I used it. So after that morning block, I'll eat some lunch and I'll usually do something while I'm doing lunch or something. And then a bit more work and that real work, deep work. And then around 2:30, I do a non-sleep deep rest, take a short nap, wake up, boom, maybe a little more caffeine and then lean into it again. And then you know, if you, I find if you've really put in the deep work, two or three bouts per day by about five or six PM, it's over. I was down at Jaco's place not that long ago and in the evening did a sauna session with him and some family members of his and some of their friends. And it's really cool. Like they'll all work all day and train all day. And then in the evening they get together and they, they sauna and cold plunge. I'm really into this whole thing

• 1:53:03Speaker 02

  Gathering with other people at a specific time of day. I have a gym at my house and I, you know, Tim will come over and train or, you know, that we've kind of slowed that down in recent months. But I think gathering in groups once a day, being alone for part of the day. It's like very fundamental stuff. We're not saying anything that hasn't been said millions of times before. But how often do people actually do that? And, and, and call the party, you know, like be the person to like bring people together if it's not happening. That's something I've really had to learn, even though I'm an introvert. Like, hey, I'm like, gather people together. You came through town the, the other day and a lot of people at the house. It was rad. Actually, it was funny because I was getting a massage when you walked in. I don't sit around getting massages very often, but I was getting one that day.

• 1:53:47Speaker 02

  And then everyone came in and the dog came in and like everyone was piled in. It was, it was very sweet.

• 1:53:52Lex Fridman?

  Again, no devices, but choose wisely the people you gather with.

• 1:53:57Speaker 02

  Right, right. And I was close.

• 1:54:00Lex Fridman?

  Thank you for clarifying. I wasn't, which is very weird. Yeah, yeah. The, the, the friends you surround yourself with, that, that's another thing. It's like, I understood that from my waska and from just the experience in the jungle is like, just select the people. Just be careful how you allocate your time. I just saw on, um, somewhere Conor McGregor has this good line. I wrote it down about loyalty. He said, don't eat with people you wouldn't starve with.

• 1:54:32Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 1:54:33Lex Fridman?

  That guy's, I mean, he's big on loyalty. All the shit talk, all of that, set that aside. To me, like loyalty is really big. Cause then if you invest in certain people in your life and they stick by you and you stick by them and what the, what else is life about?

• 1:54:48Speaker 02

  Yeah, well hardship will show you who your real friends are. That's for sure. And, um, you know, we're fortunate to have a lot of them. It'll also show you who, you know, who really like has put in the time to try and understand you and, and understand people, like people are complicated. I love that. So can you read the quote once more?

• 1:55:09Lex Fridman?

  Don't eat with people you wouldn't starve with. Yeah. So in, in that way, a hardship is a gift.

• 1:55:21Lex Fridman?

  It shows you.

• 1:55:22Speaker 02

  Definitely. And it makes you stronger. It definitely makes you stronger.

• 1:55:27Lex Fridman?

  Let's go get some food.

• 1:55:29Speaker 02

  Yeah, you're a one meal a day guy.

• 1:55:31Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 1:55:31Speaker 02

  I actually ate something earlier, but it was like a protein shake and a couple pieces of biltong. I hope we're eating a steak.

• 1:55:37Lex Fridman?

  I hope so, too. I'm full of nicotine and caffeine.

• 1:55:40Speaker 02

  Yeah. What do you think? How you feel?

• 1:55:42Lex Fridman?

  I feel good.

• 1:55:43Speaker 02

  Yeah. I was, I was thinking you'd probably like, I only did a half a piece and I won't have more for, for a little while, but.

• 1:55:49Lex Fridman?

  A little too good.

• 1:55:50Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:55:53Lex Fridman?

  Thank you for talking once again, brother.

• 1:55:54Speaker 02

  Yeah, thanks so much, Lex. It's been a great ride, this podcast thing, and you're the reason I started the podcast. You inspired me to do it. You told me to do it, did it. And you've also been an amazing friend. You showed up in some, some very challenging times and you've shown up for me publicly. You've shown up for me in my home, in my life and, you know, it's an honor to have you as a friend. Thank you.

• 1:56:21Lex Fridman?

  I love you, brother.

• 1:56:21Speaker 02

  Love you, too.

• 1:56:24Lex Fridman?

  Thanks for listening to this conversation with Andrew Huberman. To support this podcast, please check out our sponsors in the description. And now let me leave you with some words from Carl Jung. Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.

• 1:56:41Lex Fridman?

  Thank you for listening and hope to see you next time.