[music]
Hey, Steve. Uh, welcome to Pale Blue
Nexus. Uh, you're a PhD.
Um, graduated from one of the top
schools.
Tell me a little bit about your project,
Think, and uh welcome to the show.
>> All right. Well, it's great to be with
you, Johan. Uh real a fan of anything
that's entrepreneurial and especially
innovators like you, bringing the
messages to the world that matter most
for the future generations. Uh I wake up
every morning trying to inspire somebody
younger uh to build something new that's
going to make people stand up and feel
that life is better. Uh so yeah my my
background is very eclectic. I was an
academic scientist
uh ended that part of my career about 23
years ago uh as a professor at Harvard
Med. I left because I wasn't making a
big enough difference in the lives of
everyday people. I ran a couple of
companies, ran a venture capital fund
and ran a public company. Got to ring
the NASDAQ bell. And so I've seen every
side imaginable. Uh from the beautiful,
the fantastic, the glorious down to the
the bad and the ugly, unders sides,
underbellies of bankruptcies and
everything else. I've probably been
around 60 companies at some level
firsthand uh in my journey going back to
my academic days. And so uh
fundamentally I care about working with
great people and building good teams and
doing something that's wonderful for the
world.
Yeah, I connected with you on our pre-in
call um because you're developing this
really cool product that uh you know my
kids can use like they it's a it's a
hardware device um it sits on your head
and given your background you know like
you're kind of well positioned to to
develop this product. Tell me a little
bit about it and and what do you expect
to achieve with it?
>> Right. So the the uh the company's name
is Think T H Y N K. Uh I was actually
retired and I came out of retirement
because I'd seen this technology. It was
languishing a bit and so I I took hold
of it and brought it forward into the
markets, refined the the the technology
a bit. And what it is is it's a little
headset that you wear. By you I mean
anybody between the age of five and 95.
Anybody from any walk of life or any
nationality. And using this headset uh
you actually it passively monitors your
brain waves in related to very very
specific functions which again the field
neuroscience has been working on this
for decades. And then your brain waves
are then used to control a video game on
an iPad. It's an adventure game like
Temple Doom or you know Subway Surf or
things that kids can play or adults can
play. Uh but it's not an addictive game.
It's a game that's taught it's to teach
you cognitive skills. Although some kids
in particular get addicted in the sense
that they enjoy winning uh against
themselves, seeing how much they can
achieve on their own. there there is uh
no ultimate goal in that other than
improving your tech brain skills and uh
we're now serving everyday people. We
don't go direct to consumer because
we're a very small team right now. Uh so
we're we started in the first market is
uh public schools mostly in the south
and we'll be moving into sports. And the
best way to think about what we teach is
we all wish we could get into a flow
state every time we're writing uh a
document or driving the car or in a very
challenging moment uh
>> stressful taking an exam.
>> But somehow we get locked into these
little pathways that you know you're
worried about dinner, you're worried
about uh your date tonight or something
else and you're distracted. So, we get
you into that flow state of being
non-distracted while being in a high
pressure situation of having to be part
of a video game. So, imagine it's it's
not like sitting in a cave and
meditating. It's like being at work on a
timeline to deliver something to your
boss. How do I get into this flow state
under pressure? That's what we teach.
>> Get into a flow state under pressure. I
mean, it it's already hard enough to get
into a flow state. Um, and now you're
you're almost saying that you can
bring it on at will, which is like a
superpower these days, especially with
so many distractions out there. It is a
superpower.
Uh, I had a personal beginning in this
field about 10 years ago. I was doing uh
some
uh mindfulness training with the John
Kitt Zen Institute in Massachusetts and
I was failing miserably. I couldn't get
away from my own thoughts. And so I
actually had the pleasure of meeting Dr.
Jud Brewer who uh brought me into his
lab with tens of thousands of dollars of
EEG and other equipment. And I learned
with bio feedback to actually meditate
at a level I know most humans have never
felt. Mhm.
>> But it was the value of the device that
I could actually teach myself, but was
because it was giving me an independent
measure. Imagine trying to lose weight
without having a scale to stand on. Oh,
I feel a lot skinnier today. [laughter]
You really don't know what you're doing
in a flow state. But we all know, we've
all been in that state, getting a lot of
work done or playing music or somewhere
in a sport, you don't even remember
making the shot, but it went in somehow.
>> That's trainable. That's something we've
lost as a modern species because of our
distracted lives.
>> Why doesn't uh a current
publisher like Nintendo or somebody
that's really good at hardware develop a
device like this? Is it just that
they're align their incentives don't
align here?
>> Uh it's there's a few reasons. Um, one
there there's never been a product
that's worked in this space until we
came along. Uh, literally billions have
been thrown, for example, working in
schools primarily right now. Billions
have been thrown with into technology to
help students do better in school.
How has it worked out? Well, we've given
them standardized tests and they're not
doing any better. We can now blame
COVID, but they're still not doing any
better no matter what we throw. When we
do this, kids behavior calms down when
we our self-regulatory pathways in our
brain that we help develop over the
course of just six weeks and their math
and reading scores on standardized tests
go up one grade level playing just an
hour a week. And big companies care
about
selling to everybody.
And in the gaming world, it's very easy
to sell something that's a dopamine
rush.
>> You challenge in a in a co in that kind
of cognitive sense. Our game challenges
you every instant at your own personal
level. It's dynamically adjusting to how
good you are.
>> And so as a result, it's like going to
the gym. Does it feel good to lift
weights every single day? And most
people quit after a month. And so
something is good for you takes some
dedication. And that's what uh the big v
the big companies know that if you're
counting on people to buy something
that's good for them and to get a
subscription that's year after year it's
not going to work. [laughter]
But there is an in between stage. It is
possible to think of video games
controlled by a headset like ours where
there's actually different routes to
take. Okay, I mean this is in the future
where some are the training comp steps
and the others are just the pure fun
steps. So you can begin to integrate
across platforms.
>> So it's a scientific problem and it's
also a understanding your market uh
problem behavior. How do you get people
to change behaviors?
>> They're happy with the results. And
that's why we like to do work in groups
because everybody shows up for their
their group uh tutoring class or they
show up for their senior citizen weekly
reading class or you know book reading
or whatever. If you show up for this
class, you're going to do it the end of
six weeks. You got the benefit.
So, the game's called Skyler's Run, and
um it monitors
uh the users's attention state every 100
milliseconds right?
>> Correct.
>> Um what's kind of like the most
uncomfortable thing you've learned
regarding the human and how the human
behavior is while like I guess looking
at the data at scale? Uh
>> well there's a few things I've been in
uh the field of data generation in
health and wellness for my whole career
uh where you know fundamentally uh we've
actually gotten with wearables in
particular to a point where we can
measure lots and lots of things but
there's very few things that when you're
measuring it that actually teaches you
how to improve it. uh you know if you
wear a heart monitor and says you're
stressed it does that monitor doesn't
give you a training program how to
reduce your stress or your heart rate
variability or anything else that's a
difference we're seeing here so it's it
becomes an approach that people have to
understand it's no different
than going to the gym
>> for your brain 60 years ago who went to
the gym to exercise I guarantee your
great grandmother didn't Oh, if you
asked her, she would have said, "What
are you talking about?" Now, we've given
over our physical uh challenges to
machines and automation and cars and
everything else. We're doing the same
thing with our brain. So, the idea of a
cognitive suite of tools for any age for
a wide range of skills. We teach 13
skills right now. We're envisioning a
map to a 100 skills that is
individualized and it can be in any sort
of game game setting. So the fundamental
difference here is the training aspect
that transfers into the real world. So
if you're better at this game, you're
better at math and reading. You're
better at surgery as opposed to if
you're better at this game, you can
drive Mario Karts anytime you want and
that's all you can do. [snorts]
[laughter]
That's the big difference. All right. I
I I see my son on Mario Kart and and all
of these games and uh yeah, I'm I'm How
much is it, man? I want to buy one.
>> So, uh, right right now we're in schools
where because kids can share the
headsets, we give out the headsets.
They're inexpensive, built by team of
brilliant engineers that have EEG
machines in every major hospital on the
planet. But they're very proud of this
simple device because the signal and
noise is as good as anything they've
ever produced before. And the EEG
experts, the clinicians and the the
psychologists have built something
great. And then we also have a team of
psychologists who are data analytical
people who've gotten their PhDs in
gaming technologies and how games can
actually map to very specific cognitive
skills in the brain.
>> And so when you put that combination
together, you end up with something
that's very compelling. It's the first
of what's going to be hundreds of things
in the space just like apps on the
iPhone. So where we are right now is
we're selling it only to schools because
we don't have a big team to manage the
inbound calls from you know a
grandmother who doesn't know how to use
an iPad or something because we see
these
>> we will go direct to consumers in about
a year. Uh you can write us you can look
for us on think uh it's just about
making sure we can give everybody a
seamless experience. It shows up in the
mail, you put it on and you go. And for
right now, it's uh as I tell people, if
you know Steve, you might be able to get
one. Depends if you're an inves
potential investor. But uh uh we have a
lot of people asking, but we're also in
the schools. We're in Florida, Puerto
Rico, Ohio, Tennessee. We're and we're
in some of the largest school districts
in the entire United States states. So
rather than selling one person at a
time, we can sell one district and they
Puerto Rico for example, we're doing a
pilot there has 250,000 students in one
school system.
>> Wow. Yeah. And even uh through
initiatives like uh podcasts, you can
reach more people. So um tell me about
like cognitive skills and which ones
stand out to you as ones that help
adults the most in today's world. So the
one one we're dealing with is actually
fundamentally a uh there's there's
different levels if you look at it as
sort of pyramid blocks where you build
up to the premium executive uh skills,
executive function skills of deep
reasoning, you know, being able to put
mathematical concepts together,
understanding uh quantum theory. Those
are very high reasoning skills. And it
could even be giving speeches in public
and things like that where all the
skills below it where there's language
or you know uh connecting the dots have
to come into play to build to the top
skill. Well, what we've bypassed with a
lot of our technologies recently or
actually unlearn is when you start doing
multitasking,
you lose the framework required to be uh
in sort of an automated mode and to be
self-regulated where you're not
interrupting people every 3 minutes,
you're not looking at your phone every
two minutes. Those are now reflexes that
are built into our body.
you everybody opens their phone at least
150 times a day and 50% of the time it's
not because it's ringing or you
expecting it's just you it's like a
nervous tw tick I have to do that
>> but when you lose that when you pick up
that ability it's great for the AI world
because you're going to have so many
things streaming at you but you still
need to sit down and take that damn test
again where it no matter what it is or
drive the car under in a snowstorm you
have to be able to get into a state
where you're just excluding everything
that's out there. And so I view it as
we speak English, but we've learned to
speak French with this AI brain now, but
we still need English once in a while.
And coming back to one of your original
questions,
people who play it regularly, and we had
a lot of summer intern engineers playing
a lot who one was a competitive video
gamer, he noticed the scores were going
up. People who play a lot say, "I know
the difference. I know when I'm in the
flow state, I can feel it." We believe
it's possible to push yourself into it,
but we haven't gotten there yet. Okay.
But it's great
>> and I guess it it can help when it uh
with conditions like ADHD and things
like that. Uh or keep somebody focused.
>> Absolutely. Um focus and attention to
the top ones with working memory is
another example. If you can't remember a
phone number, uh that's a problem. And
so imagine how many phone numbers we
used to learn as kids. We had them all
in our brain. Mhm.
>> Now, you ask any of my grandkids, they
couldn't remember anybody's phone
number. It's not a skill that we have
anymore. There's part of the the working
uh memory. So, the uh I forgot what you
asked. I apologize. The
>> even even multiplication tables like we
used to know all our multiplication
tables. We we used to have to to to say
them uh all of them in front of the
class or you know on on demand. And I
ask my daughter that these days and no
clue. It's like that whole era of just
memorizing, working memory is just not
there anymore.
>> And another great analogy, especially
for kids, is you you say, "Here's what
we're going to teach." And I tell them,
"Are you what sport do you play? You're
going to be better at soccer because you
can do you can focus on the penalty
kicks or something." Just have them
write with their natural hand. So their
right hand, write their name in a
sentence. Now do it with your left hand.
Your left hand is physically capable of
doing it, but your brain pathway hasn't
learned to do it yet.
>> And over the course of three or four
weeks, you can train it. And that's
exactly what we're talking about here.
So in in the case of ADHD,
there were actually eight clinical
trials run with this technology before I
acquired it, showing it works as well as
any med
in the metrics you measure when you're
measuring ADHD.
Now, just like obesity or hypertension,
there is no cut off line that says you
have ADHD or you don't. We all have a
elements of it. So that's why it's
useful for everyone. That's why we
haven't we don't need a clinical
designation of any kind. But I will say
of the 19 most commonly
uh diagnosed mental health conditions
including depression and bulimia and
things like that in all but two uh
attention issues rank as one of the
biggest symptoms they have.
And it's not it's even worse in some
than it is in ADHD itself. H
That's amazing.
>> Underlies everything.
>> I mean, there's there's one thing and
one word that uh I think is important
these days and it's focus. We just have
so much noise everywhere. It's the the I
am constantly as as a CEO myself, I'm
constantly looking at my to-do list and
having to say, what is it that I'm
taking out of this? Like what can I
remove? And I think it's like uh there's
just so many things that that that you
can focus on, but you just have to be
choosy about that.
>> You know, we've done a pilot study that
was quite successful with a company
called Mentabi Health, MABI, that does
telemental health. They provide adults
with counseling and med medications and
you know a therapist.
And so the people who came into that
were between early 20s and mid-40s. Uh
and we sent them a headset at home. They
had they had a trainer who was part of
Mntavi. Uh and only about half the
people finished the program because
we're all busy. And now we're talking
about people who have you know anxieties
or whatever. Every single person who
completed the program
raved about how it was life-changing on
top of what they were already doing. The
number one thing they said, which
relates to what you just said, is I now
get my work done by the end of the day.
[snorts]
>> That's why they go home. And the other
thing that the other comment I love was
I no longer interrupt my co-workers.
>> Interesting.
>> Impatience. Yeah.
>> Yep. Impatience. Um, talk to me about
like your journey
from being a 18-year career at Harvard
Medical to becoming a CEO. I I I think
like not many people understand how
difficult that could be, you know, being
in such a academic sort of mindset now
to becoming a CEO and a man a people
manager and all the other business owner
and all those different things.
>> Yeah. Although I'm not that good at the
finances, but I was [laughter]
I skipped that class. Um, but I can read
a cap table and a piano. The uh the
journey was totally unexpected. You
know, I was a basic scientist studying
very basic research problems. Uh, and in
the mid 90s, my father got Parkinson's
and my cousin got ALS. I wasn't working
in neuroscience at the time, but I
switched over. said and I was impatient
because I wanted something that would
help them in particular. So I formed
alliances with some of the nonprofit
groups to say let's try to do something
different. Let's not go figure out the
basic science suddenly. Let's see if we
can find some diagnostics or
therapeutics in their nearer term turn
out to be unfundable by the NIH.
Uh I examples are I made the first
library ever of all existing drugs in
the pharmacy by asking bought and last
and Latin high school kids to come into
my lab across the street and grind up
pills
not fundable by the NIH because what's
your hypothesis that it might work in
some disease you know we could do these
in petri dishes or animals uh I
sequenced the first cancer uh tumor with
a team we put together got the
informatics done in Malaysia. This is a
little over 20 years ago because there
was no AI platform that was strong
enough here at that time. And uh again,
what what's your hypothesis when you
sequence it to well now we have this
field called translational medicine
where everything's come forward. It was
out of my frustration of trying to get
being a good hum human humanitarian by
offering up these technologies because I
was getting access to them high
throughput screening all these things to
the academic groups and finding nothing
they were interested but nobody wanted
to give me money to do it actually
Michael J. Fox wrote me one of his first
grants to look for biomarkers
>> in the blood for Parkinson's. It's now
coming to fruition 25 years later, but
it was literally no neurologist believed
there was a signature in your blood for
something that goes on in your brain.
Now they're getting approved for
Alzheimer's at this moment.
>> Wow.
>> And so my funding was all coming from
Hollywood and Wall Street fundraisers.
And eventually I just said I just got to
push out. I got I was I was working with
a lot of VCs just helping them look at
technologies. And that's really how I
got involved in the
um the business world is I worked with
small companies and I worked with VCs
and I gave away free time when I when I
to be sure I could be in I I was get
paid for a lot of the consulting but I
would give away free time to stay in the
business conversations what is this
technology works perfectly why is it not
getting funded and that's when I learned
you know the market fit the timing you
know the money the team All of these
things became critically
important. I built a couple of teams
myself and then I put a venture capital
fund together with my very close friend
Juan Enriquez. Um, which was great. We
had over 200 million and we invested it
over 10 10 years or 12 years I guess.
Uh, I enjoyed that a lot but at the same
time I have more of an operating
personality.
um you going you know to a board meeting
quarterly and just hearing an update is
not as enjoyable as being part of a team
and building it and that's uh
>> I was going to ask you why don't you
just advise instead of uh operating or
building but uh it is nothing like
building right so
>> no it's about the team yeah and and and
now so then I I ran a public company
because one of my portfolio companies
needed a new CEO and uh there was uh it
was just a way for me to move outside
the fund. And the fund was going great,
but I didn't want to sign another
contract for 10 years because that's
really what you'd have to do. And uh so
I said, well, let me try this public
gig, which we had an FDA event that hurt
us significantly. But then I retired and
I came out of retirement when uh after
seeing my grandkids who were living with
us because they had no daycare in
California. Um one of them struggling to
learn how to read through a iPad screen.
Yeah, the teacher was wonderful.
Practically standing at her head to keep
him entertained, but the human mind
needs some help.
>> I love that. It's like I'm not done yet,
you know? I've got a I've got a I'm I'm
well positioned to to deliver this and
you are. So, it's it's amazing and I
think I hope um it comes to market to to
the point where people can uh benefit
from it. Uh, I I think it's a great
>> idea for a product
>> and we'd like to get to market quickly.
The biggest struggle right now is we're
finding since nothing like this has ever
existed that worked, we're having to
prove it one case at a time. So, for
example, we're going into elite
sportsmies now to chat because there's
these kids pay 50 grand a year to go to
these sportsmies. to try to get D1
scholarships
>> where they're now getting paid a million
dollars to play basketball
and they're missing it brain cognitive
training when the big, you know, when
you're at the free throw line in the
finals, you got to make that shot.
>> This I I attended a a performance
workshop at IMG Academy down in Florida
there. And uh
>> yeah, they talk a lot about this type of
stuff. you you might uh you might run
some tests over there if you if you
connect with them
>> which is and we have entre we're talking
with a former NHL goalie right now and
some others in New England. Uh it's
really about finding the right coach or
guide to help someone through it. We
can't just give it to someone and expect
them to succeed because we don't have
the proof of what it improves in sports.
And that's frankly what I'm looking for
is people to tell me what would you
measure? I we're not going to go a whole
season looking at free throw
percentages. Okay, let's measure.
>> And because there is no existing
cognitive training, they don't have lots
of measures.
>> All right. I I I bet you are met with a
lot of like
I guess
uh reluctance and and and maybe critics
that say you know the this neuro uh
feedback sort of field has gone through
a tried product market fit scenario
before but you know what you're talking
about here is actual measurement and
actual uh science.
>> Yeah. And and so we in the schools for
example in every case we just say what
is it you want to get better at
>> and behavior comes number one for the
teachers. So how do you measure
behavior? Well here's a survey we use
great but one of the behavior things we
didn't even think about but it's come
through in our most recent work is
there's something called referrals. When
a child is really disruptive they get
written up in an official referral and
three referrals and you're out. And the
number of referrals is down. And that's
something that translates to every
teacher in America, that one statement.
>> Yeah.
>> And there's an example. And for the
superintendants, they love the math and
reading scores because that's what's the
front page of the paper when the annual
numbers come out.
>> Yep. Tell me about the term
neurodeivergent.
It's come up recently and I think you
would be great to explain what this is
and how you how uh what you think about
uh people who have this sort of trait.
>> Um yeah, let me explain it from uh from
my own background which uh starts uh in
this case in the field of cancer. I I
actually have a lot of expertise and
background in cancer particularly
genomics. I'm helping people work on
vaccines right now independently
uh that will come forward very quickly.
Uh and what you discover there is when I
first doing started doing genetic
analysis as an academic in the cancer
field is the pathologists had already
declared how many different types of
cancer there were and there were no
more. That was it. If you go back 70
years to the WH I guess their blue book
uh states there were 50 years ago there
was only 50 types of cancer only one
type of breast cancer now we have a
triple negative her two positive blah
blah blah everything so there's over
there's hundreds of different cancers in
fact there's 20 major types of breast
cancer and 18 subtypes now just that
H
>> and so we're going to see the same thing
happen with the brain. There's only two
m there's only two codes for depression.
It's basically major and minor. Okay.
But everything is a spectrum about human
biology. Everything I've ever looked at
and you know we can find ways to
redefine. For example, diabetes is now a
higher A1C than it was 20 years ago
because nobody could get to the one we
used to have. It's [laughter] normal.
We're now now the index for BMI and
obesity is higher than it used to be.
So, we just change the guidepost like we
do with everything else. In mental
health, there is no cut off. Uh they say
20% of people have mental health issues.
In fact, it's a 100% of people over the
course of their lifetime.
There's no one who doesn't go through a
point of some depression or some anxiety
or something else. It's just we said you
got to have a diagnosis in order to get
some treatment and the treatment's very
expensive. You know, it requires if
you're going to see a therapist 1 hour.
You can't do 20 minutes. So, that might
work just fine, especially with AI. So
what I'm saying is 20 years from now
with these devices like we have, we're
going to start to see all the subtypes
of brain ability of cognitive behavior,
your actual behavior, and we'll say, you
know what, there's 18 types of
Parkinson's we see in just the data. We
now know for sure which ones are going
to respond to which drug regimens,
>> right? And we're going to see the same
thing for nerds. The neurodiversity is
just a wide variety of metrics you care
about. Some are manifest in behaviors we
find a little troublesome because maybe
you're always late or maybe who knows
what, you know, but if they're not
troublesome, but that doesn't mean you
can't improve. That's comes back to this
idea. It's have a mental gym that I can
improve. I can learn a language in six
months with some mental help.
>> That's interesting. Um
what does the FDA say about your device?
Like um is it it's there's there's two
there's several stakeholders. One is the
user, one is the clinician if you're
going to go the clinical route. The
other is the FDA and then finally the
insurance companies which generally
comes down to Medicare or Medicaid
because they're the largest insurer
company. Uh the uh the FDA cares about
the claims you make. So when I talk to
people, I've talked to scientists about
their neurochnology. It could be like a
a music app that entrains the mind in a
certain frequency. They say, "Well,
we're going after Parkinson's." I said,
"Why? Everybody likes music. Everybody
wants to have a better be a better
dancer. Why would you confine yourself
to have to get a diagnosis?" And in this
digital health space, you can't change.
We couldn't change our game if we got it
approved. Imagine
in this world of AI not being able to
change it. So it goes from Skyler to
Johan's journey,
>> you know, and all of these things have
to go through one more reg and there's
nothing. It's 100% safe. These
technologies are out there. So when it
comes to the FDA, they are compliant and
they're willing to do this, but it comes
down to what's the claim you're making,
>> right? And the other the insurance
companies want to get return on their
investment.
So that's why that's why I want to make
this dirt cheap.
>> Yeah.
>> If if this comes out as a clinical
product, it's going to be several
thousand required prescription from your
doctor.
>> It doesn't need to be. It's for kids in
school.
>> And then you have so we're there's an in
between space. There's the FDA and then
there's I'll call it loosely the
neutrauticals where there's broad claims
and no meaningful data. There's an in
between space that we're blazing and I'm
really procilitizing all the
neuroscientists I know. Publish the
data. We're not going to work on
everything.
>> Mhm.
>> But publish the data and then I'm also
and [clears throat] then people can make
their own decision because it's safe
whether they want to do it or not. It's
like plastic surgery or Botox. It's
safe. You decide whether you want to do
it.
>> Are something called peptides safe?
>> Yes, they well there you can make bad
peptides. Okay. And it's a vir viral or
bacterial po uh toxins are often
peptides
for example. Uh peptides
um it's uh how would I want to approach
that? Uh peptides are nothing different
than small proteins. Insulin is a
peptide. I see
>> look how many people take insulin in
this world and it was we als we have
other peptides GLP-1's a peptide
>> why why are they making such a a
comeback within uh I guess the youth of
today
>> it's they've been targeting uh high
performance athletes when I talk about
I've taught bioeththics when I talk
about adoption of new uh technologies it
always starts the same with a with an
orphan rare childhood disease because
nobody's going to argue about the cost
or the need to do it and then over the
course of time as it the safety profile
shows it's perfectly safe like a peptide
in some cases or even in the case of the
training for the tour to France in the
old days um then the price comes down it
ends up going into high performance and
beauty beauty or aging you know Botox
toxic H human growth hormone Barry Bonds
and all these baseball players they were
taking doses that were so high it was
stupid.
>> Mhm.
>> But if now we're talking about with GLP1
in this peptide universe it's you have
to inject it. You can't swallow them
right now. Something is 100% natural is
what your body already uses.
And that's the beauty of it. Unlike
pills that you swallow, the body doesn't
make any of those compounds, right? Some
come from nature, many, but these are
actual natural uh components of your own
body. And so what I do is I measure and
adjust.
Measure what's going on and make sure
you're adjusting properly to get into
the right range. And so in the case of
the peptides, that step is missing. What
are you measuring and adjusting to?
If I'm just taking it like I take a
supplement and I know I know people who
take 40 supplements and I'll say, "Well,
what's that one for?" And they'll for my
immune system. What on earth does that
mean? Show me what the purpose is. And
so the at normal levels levels,
especially as you get older, all of
these hormone systems
begin to fall apart. That's why we get
cancer. That's why we get diabetes.
That's why our muscles weaken. That's
why we lose our memory because they're
all on a decline. If we just brought
them back into the natural range, it
would be great. In fact, I've given many
lectures saying, "I'd like to make an
organ that makes about 50 of those
things just naturally at the same level
I was at it when I was 50. I did one at
the science museum. It's two little old
ladies came running up to me. They're
not so old." Uh, and said, "Where do I
get this organ? I want it right away."
Oh, man. that that that would uh that
would do well I guess. Uh that's that's
interesting. So So GLP1 is the chemical
compound or is that that's the peptide
name?
>> That that's the name of the GLP1 that is
gluc glucanol like peptide one. Yes,
that's the one that's goi and mont all
the weight loss drugs that are globally.
>> I see. Interesting.
>> The toxicity of those has been a little
nause. That's one of the purposes of
GLP-1 is when you've eaten too much like
at Thanksgiving, GLP1 makes you feel
nauseous.
>> Interesting.
>> Okay. Um,
what do you think about
uh your products pollination or
cross-pollination with AI? There's a lot
that you can that you can do with the
data. Um,
>> yeah. Uh, I have a few thoughts about
that. first just to speak about data se
privacy and and safety. Uh you know we
got social media a bit wrong in terms of
where the the guidelines are and and the
[snorts] borders uh and we're trying to
correct that now. I think we grossly
underestimated as a society what the
implications were for a lot of the
social media devices in the neuro techch
field the the whole everybody's trying
to get out in front not everybody people
like me and others trying to get out in
front of it. There's actually four
groups now that are nonprofits that are
that are working on neuroche uh neur
neuro your neurorites. There's a
neurorites foundation. I spoke I spoke
the other day to Stephen uh who runs the
organization about aligning ourselves
because the only thing I really worry
about I in terms of safety and security
and privacy we have the HIPPO
regulations to follow as a guideline
and in schools in particular
uh privacy is enormously important and
>> being in there even near their computer
systems is a problem in all of this
Right.
>> So, we're good citizens on that front,
but we have to extend it to into the
video gaming universe and everywhere
else. What is Don't take people's data.
I mean, it's from their without telling
them. Don't infuse information into
their brains without telling them. Those
are the obvious things.
>> But right now, we're trying to figure
out where do we draw draw the
guidelines. And what I'm what I'm
recommending to all of these groups is
we don't know what we don't know yet.
Because that was absolutely true. We
can't envision what technology is going
to exist
>> and so let's not make the rules are so
hard and fast that nothing new can
happen. And I said, "The only thing I
really care about
for me, because we're a good actor, is
that people don't come along and ruin
the field for us by making claims that
are unfounded
>> or doing something that makes no sense
or doing a knockoff of ours and saying
it's just as good without any credible
evidence." And so that's the idea is
let's build a standard. Uh they're
actually
>> yeah that might work.
>> The the data is going to be incredibly
valuable. Um but you're right there
there needs to be privacy here and in
Canada like we have this I'm consulting
somebody about um
>> Mhm.
>> this similar type of thing that they're
collecting health data and it it can't
go to the cloud and into somebody's
model. Yeah.
>> Um, it has to stay local. Uh, which is,
uh, one of the things that my company
does for
>> for clients is just to to keep their
data safe, right? Uh, so I guess you
have a similar challenge about how
you're collecting this data and where
it's stored.
>> We do. Uh right now when we're in the
real world and we with a paying
customer, we do we leave all the data on
the headset except a single number
that's derived from it
>> that controls a video game. And so we do
collect the game performance metrics
because that allows us to go across the
13 categories and tell how well you're
doing in each skill or whether you're
improving.
>> That but again that's within the
confidentiality of the system we're
living within. But there are other
companies and we can obviously open ours
up and we will under IRB when we want to
go after another field. Imagine we
wanted to work with drug addiction for
example or something. We might want to
see a signal in there that's we're not
picking up now because it's a different
situation.
>> Uh so but there are companies right now
that are putting all the data in the
cloud.
The real value becomes when you have the
outcome data linked to it. No different
than in any of the other clinical
settings. So the outcome is did the
student do better better or worse on the
test.
>> Yeah.
>> Did the athlete hit a home run or strike
out? Those kinds of things. If they're
not there, you can't sub. You'll see
subgroups like I did when the original
days were looking at cancer genomics.
Look at all these different subtypes,
but we didn't have any idea how to treat
them or what and we had no difference in
the outcomes. They just existed as
different.
That's interesting. So that's all the
the the valuable data is whether or not
it caused a noticeable improvement in
there.
>> Yeah, it's some outcome event that you
can track and say it could even be on
entry. Here's the data that coming in.
These are the kids who are the most
successful. We could see that before
they did the first mission even.
>> Interesting.
What is your advice to
startups and entrepreneurs these days
that you you sit on a lot of boards and
you you you're
>> um you see the startup ecosystem for
what it is. Uh and and what is a a
couple pieces of advice that you would
give to a startup in like the seed to to
series 8 sort of range?
>> Uh a few things. Uh the CEO's only job
is raising money. Let me repeat that.
the CEO shop host job is raising money
as a VC they all they would do is talk
technology and they had no idea what I
was interested in which is the other
thing is before you meet with anybody
doesn't matter if it's a customer
potential collaborator potential
investor think about what it is that
they care most about 99% of
entrepreneurs only talk about what they
know and what they care the most about
>> that's interesting. Um what you're
saying is like some CEOs they are maybe
too involved in product and design and
not enough on just focusing on finances
and and raising.
>> Yeah. I mean a simpler question when I
was a VCA used say let's assume your
technology works is perfect. Uh all
right um who [snorts] you going to sell
it to? and they'll say, you know,
they'll say, uh, uh, well, there's,
imagine it's a cancer diagnostic and do
something about that. Well, there's
there's all these diagnostic labs out
there that I'm sure they'll want it.
Well, could you tell me the name of one
that you've talked to and how much they
would pay for it? [laughter]
I even had one person say, "Well, that's
your job."
[laughter]
No, if you don't if you've never talked
to a customer,
how do you have any idea what you're
talking? So, that's what an investor
wants to know. Who's going to buy this?
As I said, assume it works perfectly.
Who's going to buy it?
>> That was on my mind.
>> And and that's just such a such great
advice because the customer is always
right in this regard. Like you can't
>> you you you that when somebody throws
their money down to buy a product from
you that's everything that you need as a
founder right like that's everything
>> and what will they pay for it I mean you
asked me earlier you know can I buy it
directly and as consumer we know we
could charge a lot of money for it but
we know a lot of people would fail
>> if they didn't have the right uh
guidance from us going into the the
experience. So that's why we cut our
figure we figure it out with kids to
start with because they're kind and we
just keep moving on.
>> Yeah. At the end of the day, you you
need the the case studies, right? So
>> yeah, absolutely. And the proof points
that shows it and and those and so as
for an entrepreneur, you stop building
the technology at the expense of testing
it. All right. I'm using it with
someone.
>> On that not though, like if you if you
could put the think set headset on
anybody you wanted to, who would you put
it on?
>> Uh I would like uh to see it on uh Lo
Messi. I'd like to see him actually
perform on this.
>> Wow. Are you uh for this World Cup, man?
That would be some interesting
>> Absolutely. I mean, if he if he did it
before, I'd like to see how how well he
can pop cuz elite athletes can jump
right into this space until they hit a
skill when they fail because they all do
like mission four, five or six, then
they have a complete meltdown.
>> Yeah.
>> But there some people like, you know,
Michael Jordan and others, they blow
right through it.
>> Yeah. Interesting. because that's a
natural skill they have that they
learned on their own and were born with
that differentiates them so much
>> that that's where the term you're a
natural comes from, right? Uh
>> and every single athlete says there was
someone more skilled than I was in when
I was in school, but I had the ability
to win.
>> Yeah, that's interesting. Um and and on
that note, I'll wrap it up with this.
like you you've been around in the field
for some time. What's one thing about
the brain that in 20 years uh will
surprise everybody, but you kind of see
it going that way?
>> I what I see is PE again just think
about going from 16 apps to 1.9 million
on the iPhone. I see there being so many
technologies that will enable us to
accelerate the way we learn and the
skills we have. So imagine me expanding
beyond five senses to having, you know,
infrared or whatever, being able to be a
tactile sense or something else that
your brain can train because our brain
has such plasticity. If you lose a limb,
you can figure out how to how to, you
know, write with your feet or whatever.
We have so much opportunity that people
are going to find, you know, I don't
know how to play music. Well, let's put
together a music thing. So, it's good to
be an enjoyable training of doing music
lessons. [laughter]
>> I remember trying to learn the piano
when I was a kid and was such a pain.
But I I see what you're saying like if
you can diagnose it, if you can label it
and you can have a customized learning
plan to learn that piano
>> going as you're going, it's it's
teaching you the rhythm just and you're
keeping up with it and it's just pushing
you just a touch every step of the way.
>> Yeah. Yeah.
>> And maybe there's a tactile sense cuz
you have poor sense of beat in your own
brain that's just going against your
hand with a little uh that gets you at
the right beat at the same time is
training that part of your brain.
>> Yeah, I am not coordinated in that
regard and I think that's something that
would help me. Thanks, Steve. This has
been an amazing conversation. I think
it's going to do uh it's going to help a
lot of people in my audience. Thank you
for coming. Let's stay in touch. All
right. Thanks, Johan. A lot of fun.