#2166 - Enhanced Games
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Joe Rogan Podcast, check it out! The Joe Rogan Experience. Train by day, Joe Rogan Podcast! Gentlemen, good to see you. Good to see you. Please introduce yourselves. I'm Dr. Aaron D'Souza, president of the Enhanced Games. And I'm Christian Angermeyer, co-founder of the Enhanced Games. And this is a very exciting idea. And how did this come about? What was the impetus behind this?

I've been studying the Olympics and the Olympic movement my entire life. You know, I'm 39 years old when I was a undergraduate at university. It was just after the Sydney Olympics. And, you know, it was always something that inspired me. And I thought to myself, you know, I learned some key statistics. 44% of Olympians admit to using banned performance-enhancing drugs within the last year, according to research commissioned by the World Antidepressants. 44%? 44%. And the other...

You know, probably lying. Or losing. Exactly. And so, you know, and then I learned that the average American Olympian only earns $30,000 a year. And I thought to myself, there's something really wrong in the system. And instead of, you know, trying to reform it, let's take a blank slate of paper and invent the third Olympiad from scratch. Well, the Olympics is kind of a scam.

Because it generates billions of dollars in revenue, and the people that are there to perform make almost none of that. That's correct. Actually, the International Olympic Committee doesn't pay any of the athletes. Incidentally, they may get some money in sponsorship.

or from their national Olympic committee. But ultimately, the billions of dollars in revenue come into the Olympics, and none of that goes to the athletes. It gets wasted building stadiums. It gets wasted paying officials. And we thought there was a way to do a better, more honest model that inspires us to believe in the future of science and technology in the 21st century. And you could do it apolitically, too, if you chose to.

Are you guys doing it by nation or are you doing it just like human beings? Human beings. Better. Yeah, I think the era of nationalism is over. Look at the Eurovision Song Competition recently. What is that? Oh, it was when Israel was performing and there were huge protests out front of the competition. It's a very European thing. It's called European Song Contest. I mean...

Song? Contest. A song contest. Yes, it's every country, every year makes a very cheesy song. Oh, God. I actually like it. Let's not go there. I'm kind of a fan being German. It's a big thing in Europe. But unfortunately, it was super fun and campy. There's actually a Netflix movie called

about it like not a documentary but a fun movie about it is this a radio jammy well that is one of the recent winners of the year last year she's amazing she's amazing it's laureen she's amazing okay it's very catchy songs I don't know what your song she's crawling around with her butt up in the air well it's very campy I guess but

But there is even a cool Netflix movie about it. But long story short, unfortunately, this was the first year where it became really political, which I think music shouldn't be. Yeah. And which was sad. Yeah. But we will not be political. That's the short version. We're not going to go per country. Yeah. It's the best human being, the fastest one, highest jumper, whatever. Yeah. Yeah. It's just so many countries use it as a political tool.

And they cheat. I'm sure you guys have seen Icarus, right? Yeah, I was with Brian Fogle a couple of days ago. He's great. And that documentary is amazing. What incredible circumstances, the way it all played out, where he's in the middle of doing this documentary about doing a race naturally and then doing a race enhanced.

And the guy he contacts in the middle of all the Sochi Olympics crap, that guy winds up fleeing the country, spilling the beans, and now he's hiding. He's a witness protection. Yeah, still in this country hiding from Russian killers. Yeah, and that's right. And I think the reality is that performance enhancements are everywhere. 6.3% of men in the Western world have used anabolic steroids at some point in their life.

75% of men who regularly go to the gym are interested in using steroids. And so instead of doing it underground, in secret, let's do it out in the open with clinical supervision and

And safety. But what is what are the legal ramifications of this? Because we were talking about this in the pot. We were talking about the different drug schedules on the podcast yesterday. And steroids are scheduled. Right. It's like schedule three. Yeah, it's a schedule three substance in the United States. There are 23 countries where steroids, anabolics are legal, including in the United Kingdom for personal use.

And so let's first distinguish between what is legal and what is banned. So in Olympic competition, they always say, oh, these drugs are illegal. But actually, they're banned in Olympic competition. Because there's a lot of things that are, you know, like peptides and things along those lines that are illegal in the Olympics. That are banned in the Olympics, but they're not. Yeah, banned. Because that means the Olympics decided as a...

As a sort of private organization, we don't want that, but you can take it. Right. So legally you can take it. So like TRT, for example, is a perfectly legal substance. It's FDA approved. It's delivered under clinical supervision. But if you used it, you would be banned from Olympic competition. Right. So the vast majority of compounds that are banned by the World Anti-Doping Agency are actually perfectly legal.

You know, the UFC had a guy that accidentally took something that had DHEA in it. A real high-level guy, Khalil Roundtree. And he was supposed to be fighting Jamal Hill in three weeks.

And he found out that there was DHEA in it. He informed the UFC, told them. And DHEA isn't even performance enhancing. And they banned him for two months. So he got a two-month. So he missed out on the biggest opportunity of his career. So if you go into your local GNC,

25% of the goods will contain substances that are banned by the World Anti-Doping Agency. 25%. Yeah, so these are just off the shelf. This is not black market. This is what you can buy in your local shopping mall. And then, of course, there's tainted supplements, which is a real problem because a lot of these supplements they use...

another party that puts them together for them generally in other countries and a lot of them in China and these people are also making different things with these vats they don't clean them properly and then they mix the new stuff in it and you easily get contamination happens all the time. Exactly and well that's the excuse that the Chinese government used about the 23 swimmers are you aware of this situation? Which what's this? So 23 Chinese swimmers tested positive TMZ which is a heart medication

And they claimed that this was because of a... When was this? How long ago? Oh, just six weeks ago. Oh, really? It came out six weeks ago. Oh. The incident was earlier. Yeah, so 2021. But yeah, the New York Times reported it. Received no sanctions. 13 of these athletes won all the Olympic Games in Tokyo, won six medals, three of them gold.

Well, they definitely did something during Beijing, too. Yeah. Well, the Chinese clearly were doing this intentionally. And the World Anti-Doping Authority, because of pressure from the Chinese state, covered it all up. And that's not my accusation. That's the accusation made by Travis Tigard, who's the CEO of the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency.

Okay, so the premise is let's cut the shit. Yeah. You guys are – there's been people that do – it's like the argument for Tour de France, right? Like Tour de France, when they stripped Lance Armstrong, the next person that had not ever tested positive was 18th place. And if you look at the 100-meter time, it's the fastest man in the world. Seven of the top 10 fastest 100-meter runners in history have had a doping violation. Yeah.

And the only one that's not in the top five is Usain Bolt.

Wow. So it's just a scam. It's a scam, yeah. And we've been hearing that for years about sprinters, particularly sprinters in other countries, that they're enhanced. And especially if you're like your national pride is involved and they know that there's ways that you can kind of finagle things and get around them and you hire doctors to test people and use masking agents or whatever the hell you do. In the UFC, they don't even let them rehydrate with IVs anymore.

Yeah, same thing in cycling. So if you take more than 100 milliliters of IV within 12 hours, that's considered a banned substance. Well, you can't do any IVs in the UFC. Yeah, they won't let you because just because of the fear of masking performance-enhancing drugs because you could flush your system. Mm-hmm.

But the problem with that is like IVs are good for you. Like this is really stupid. Like if you can make sure that a person is just doing IV vitamins, I mean if your random testing is effective, you should just do that. Like don't stop someone from doing something that's going to make them healthier while they're in a business that's about as dangerous as you can get without people shooting at you. Yeah. And so the solution is not to do drug testing. It's to do health testing. Right.

Like, we want to make sure that our athletes are healthy and safe to compete. So we do cardiac screenings, MRIs, blood work.

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And that's the core difference, right? The drug testing apparatus at the Olympics is about

fairness and competition, it's not about the health and safety of athletes. Here's the question. If you open up the gates and say you're allowed to take whatever substances you want at whatever levels you want in order to compete at your very best, how close to redlining does a person get? Especially if you're involved in something that requires strength and explosive energy like

We've had one of the things the UFC at one point in time had testosterone use exemptions and you were allowed to get those if your testosterone was at a low enough level. The problem with that was that was not thought out at all.

You can be that test in a heartbeat. Just stay up all night. Stay up all night, eat 15 cheeseburgers, and jerk off three times, and you're good. You're going to be at like 200. You're going to be like, oh my god, you're sick, Bob. But it's...

Also, there's another problem, is that people that have a history of anabolic steroid use, generally they've wrecked their endocrine system. And particularly back in the day, the early days of MMA was all enhanced. And if you go and watch Pride, for instance...

Like Pride, which was the big show in Japan. It was this enormous organization in Japan that kind of fell apart because the Yakuza was involved with it and they went bankrupt. There's a lot of craziness involved. But at one point in time, they were selling out like these 90,000 seat arenas in Tokyo. It was nuts. And everybody looked like a superhero. Yeah.

I mean, just fucking jacked, just giant jacked guys beating the shit out of each other. And everybody who went over there will tell you, like, the contract literally specifically stated in capital letters, we do not test for steroids.

They will encourage you to do steroids over there. They want you to look good. They want you to fight at your best. They're like, we don't care what you take. Just go over there and go ham. But it comes down to a fundamental philosophical question. Shouldn't an individual with free and informed consent, an adult, be able to make choices about their own body? They should. But the question is, when is it not fair? It's the epitome of fairness now.

If it's very transparent. What is unfair, think about it like you winning silver in the current Olympics. And I talk to so many athletes. They kind of know who is cheating or not. Because if you are very into sports, you know what is kind of, let's call it, unnatural or enhanced. Right. But they cannot say it. There is a lot of politics, as you say, whatever. So you win silver. You stand next to the person who won gold. And you have a deep hunch that this person is enhanced. Right. That is...

the worst because you're betrayed of your performance because the people on the screen cannot contextualize it. What we are saying is like, by the way, we're also not anti-Olympics. We're like, the Olympics should be really clean. Then it's interesting because then I have a framework I can judge performance. But in our case...

people will know that people take enhancements. We actually will endorse people to even say what they're doing because it's completely open. And then again, you can contextualize. So both is about either zero or completely free slate in the medical framework is the real definition of fairness. And from 1896 until 1992, the Olympics banned professional athletes from competing. And so the Olympics were amateur and there were professional sports leagues elsewhere.

And I think the same thing is going to happen in the 21st century. The Olympics are going to be the natural sports competition where we're going to see what the best of a human 1.0 can do. And at the enhanced games, there will be what the best unleashed human, superhuman can do. But here's the question. If you guys are successful...

What athlete would want – if you guys are successful and it becomes a huge household name and people watch it and it becomes exciting and you make money, what athletes are going to want to do the Olympics for free and get a microscope up your ass and people constantly testing you for this and that and knowing that other countries are probably pulling off some shenanigans like China allegedly did?

Not our problem, but I agree with you. By the way, the same question is... It's a good answer. Not our problem. Not our problem, but I don't want to not wish them well. It's just like, I think we're going to do better. And the other thing is, by the way, what I deeply believe, humans are wired, we want the best, and we want to also watch the best.

Yes. You're not going to watch something where the best natural player. No, you want to see the best absolute player, even if this player or person is enhanced. But again, the future will tell and the consumer will tell, but we are super confident. But it's like the rise of the UFC. So the UFC was unbridled by the traditional rules of boxing and other combat sports. And the simple premise that Rory on Gracie had was, how do we find the very best fighter? Right? Mm-hmm.

And that's just a very simple question. And at the Enhanced Games, it's how can we find the fastest human being? Or what is the total potentiality of the human spirit and all of humanity?

So how do you get – there's a lot of factors, right? You need people that have already competed. You don't want to get someone who's just starting out at a sport, right? So you have people that have a deep history in the sport where they want to and they can, they're capable of competing at an elite level. And then if they're going to do your games, they have to kind of make this decision, right?

Because they're never going to be able in the Olympics again after that, right? Well, they actually could go back to the Olympic system. But they would get so tested. And if they do start taking testosterone, do start taking a bunch of other things, it's going to inhibit their natural ability to produce hormones.

Technically, most likely it comes back, but I would say it's a decision of the Olympics and other sports leagues how they want to handle athletes who also at a certain time have participated in our games. Maybe they say there is a cooling off period. So it's not that we will exclude them going back. It might be that other sports leagues say, look, once if you're in the enhanced games, you can't come back to us. And it's fundamentally an economic question too. So your average Olympian is earning $30,000 a year.

You know, the best performing track and field athletes might be making a couple hundred thousand bucks a year.

And, you know, we're offering a million dollar prize for it to break significant world records. So it's a million dollars just to break the world record? Yes, a million bucks to break the 100 meter world record on the track, a million bucks to break the 50 meter freestyle world record in the pool. So the question is, like, how can you ensure that you're going to get elite level athletes that are capable of performing at like an Olympic level level?

And they're going to they'll be risking. It's a big it's a significant risk to them because they'll be openly admitting they're a part of the enhanced games. They're openly admitting that they're taking these substances in order to compete at this level.

And they don't know if you guys are going to be around. Well, so number one, you don't have to take enhancements to be at the enhanced game. You can just be a regular person with awesome genes. Yeah, you can say, hey, I won the genetic lottery, right? And I think I can beat all the enhanced athletes that make great television. Yeah, that's fun too, right? Yeah, and so if you believe you've won the genetic lottery and you think you can show up and break a world record and get a million bucks, they'll come and do it, right? And do it naturally. Right.

And then some athletes say, you know, I did not win the genetic lottery, and I want the chance to be the Neil Armstrong of our generation. But this is how I think of it. I think we're building the Apollo mission for the 21st century. What did the Apollo mission do? It showed us that we were so much more capable as a human species, right? We hit a new threshold going to the moon, using science and technology to overcome our limits. This is exactly what the Enhanced Games is about.

You're not going to the moon. Let's be serious. It's going to be cool. You're just getting a bunch of guys juiced up running really fast. Big difference. But still interesting. I would say breaking a world record is a thing. Maybe not going to the moon, but it's something people aspire to do. Well, it's also we'll know for sure that these people are doing something, whereas before we just suspect it.

You know, I remember when Ben Johnson got popped and everybody's like, oh, I can't believe he cheated. But then you find out that Carl Lewis was taking stuff too. I think everyone on the starting line in the 1988 100-meter final was eventually accused. They probably all were. You know, Bruce Jenner took them famous. I mean, he talked about it, like taking them when he won the decathlon. And by the way, one thing is that we don't even need to speculate if athletes want to do it because we did a so-called casting call. So we're doing a documentary episode.

about the way to the enhanced games together with Ridley Scott. So we made a big casting call and we have more than 1,000 professional athletes, many of them who are in the Summer Olympics, who applied to be in that documentary and hence in the enhanced games. So the question, if this is an appealing proposition, is answered.

More than 1,000. What about the pressure from countries, like different countries that have elite athletes that compete and sprinting and whatever, boxing? I spoke to two head of states about it. One is a very close friend, and he texted me every week. He's like, I can't wait for this to happen. He's one of our early fans. So they're in too? Well, at least the ones I spoke to. I don't think there will be...

A lot of pressure because, again, what do countries want? Sports for them is a way to show their national pride. And if you have national pride, you want your person to be the fastest person in the world. Right. If that's with enhancements, like, so be it. And it's also a point of national pride. It will be a point of national pride to be the most technologically and scientifically advanced society. Yes. That has the...

engineering and intellectual capability to develop and manufacture and clinically supervise these products. It's actually what is interesting, like when we teamed up, Aaron had the idea, we talked early, I have my own investment firm, so I'm both the investor and his co-founder. We both were actually calculating with much more negativity.

In actually a good way because it's driving our recognition. But I'm always jokingly saying it's almost going too smooth because people love it. The only people who don't love it is the Olympics. But the feedback we're getting from my 14-year-old godson to a head of state is like, that's fucking awesome. Well, it's also everybody knows that...

Athletes are taking things. They've been doing it forever. Before USADA came into the UFC, a lot of people studied the difference between certain fighters that were competing at an incredibly high level before USADA came. And then their physiques melted. I mean, you could see the difference. It's a giant difference. But they were all passing drug tests.

But they're passing drug tests by the athletic commissions on the day of the fight, which by all accounts is an intelligence test. It's just whether or not you're taking the proper steps to cover your tracks. Yeah, you just got to know the half-lives of the products that you're taking. And everybody knew that that was the case. Yeah. And so instead of going your way, they went the way of just crawling up everybody's ass with a microscope. And they do it...

USADA was doing it in a very intrusive way where they were waking up fighters on the day of a weigh-in early in the morning because they'll show up at 6 o'clock in the morning. And it's because USADA is not accountable to anyone. The International Olympic Committee is not accountable to anyone. It's a really important question about how the structure of sports internationally works. Do you know who appoints the members of the International Olympic Committee? No. Right, so logically it should be like

member countries like the UN or maybe the athletes should elect members of the IOC. No, the IOC is a club of European aristocrats that was formed in 1896 that just elects itself. And so it has no external accountability. It's not regulated by anyone. It's not accountable to any governments. And so that means that they can just set the rules however they want. And this is how they've gotten away with not paying athletes for over 100 years. Yeah, that makes sense.

What are the sports that you guys are going to showcase? And will you have combat sports? Yeah, so there are five key sports. Track, swimming, combat, gymnastics, and strength. And for combat sports, you're going to have boxing, wrestling. What are you going to have? So boxing and MMA are definitely in. MMA? Yeah. Really? Yeah. Hmm, that's interesting. So MMA, um...

If you're going to have people being enhanced in MMA, that will severely limit their ability to compete in other organizations. So how are you going to get high-level fighters that are not going to compete in Bellator or not going to compete in the UFC? How are you going to do that? Well, I think the entire MMA community is clearly moving away from the traditional drug-tasting apparatus. Look at what UFC has done moving away from Misalda. No, they just moved to drug-free sport.

which is just a better organization does the exact same thing. They're doing the exact same things. The exact same things are banned, including peptides like BPC-157, which people argued, like, this is ridiculous. This shouldn't be illegal. But what they said is the problem is state athletic commissions test for BPC-157. And as long as they test, some of them do at least, as long as they deem it illegal, we have to make it illegal. Even though, yeah, I mean, soft tissue injuries, it's really great for recovery.

Yeah. And so, you know, in terms of athlete recruitment, there's such a wide pipeline. You know, the difference in terms of with MMA and combat sports is there's no objective world records. So, you know, it's solving for a fame question, not a performance question. Right. It's to be one of the people that does it. So have you talked to athletes about that, combat sports athletes? We've had in the casting call that we did, we had maybe about 15% of the athletes were in the

Really? Including ex-UFC athletes, yeah. Ex-UFC athletes. So guys at the end of their run? Yeah, you know, that's where performance-enhancing drugs are very appealing, right? Sure. You've been in your career...

You're sort of 30, 35 years old and people say, you're out of it, you should be retired. And they're saying this isn't now with the emotional maturity that you have in your 30s to regain the body in your 20s and to come back to compete at a high level. It's also the wisdom. It's not just emotional maturity. It's like accumulated time sparring, accumulated time in different scenarios where you know what's coming next. You don't have to think about it. It's programmed into your system. Yeah.

So they're all kind of – that is interesting because like I don't know how much you guys follow MMA, but one of the great eras of MMA was Vitor Belfort when they let him take testosterone. So do you know about this? Okay. It's legendary in MMA because he is the best example of a veteran, a guy who was an older guy, first fought in the UFC at 19 years old in 1997. Wow.

And in the 2000s, this was like 2004 or 2005, that's when they allowed the testosterone use exemptions. And Vitor looked like an alien. Luke Rockhold saw him at the weigh-ins and he was like, my first thought was, what the fuck is this guy on? Because he had a mohawk and he just looked insanely jacked. And he was knocking everybody out. I mean, fearless. But...

And because of the testosterone use exemptions and then there was some controversy about it, they had tested him one time when he was – he lives in Brazil. And they had tested him one time when he was in the United States and he was off the charts. Like you're not supposed to have that much testosterone in your system. This is fucking insane. And so then it started this controversy and then ultimately they got rid of testosterone use exemptions.

But he was the perfect example of a really elite fighter who, you know, is getting older. His body was kind of failing him and just he did a lot of steroids when he was younger, allegedly. And so his physique looked kind of soft and.

And then all of a sudden he looked like a fucking freak, just a real freak. And he was just wheel kicking people and knocking everybody out. And it was like he went on a run for a few years where he was just unstoppable. It was terrifying. And everybody knew he was enhanced. You'd look at him and you're just like, good Lord. So then he gets off of it. 2017 is him off of it. So 2012 is Vitor high on the sauce. I mean, look at him.

And then 2017- It doesn't even look like the same person. It doesn't. All of his muscle went away and all of his endurance went away. His endocrine system was shot from years of doing TRT and just whatever else he was doing. And what I would caution about that is having the highest quality clinical and scientific supervision. So the problem about the current environment is that-

It's largely done underground. Very few athletes have access to high-quality doctors. Most of the information is what I call bro science on bodybuilding.com forums. Or gym guys that tell you, I got you, bro. Yeah, someone on Instagram. So what we're trying to do is a very rigorous scientific and medical process to ensure that we gather high-quality clinical data and we share it. And we're going to publish it in the top journals. Yeah.

And we have a scientific advisory board. We have doctors from, you know, previously at FIFA, you know, the chairman of genetics at Harvard, Professor George Church is on our advisory board. And we've really built up a serious scientific and medical establishment to make the enhanced games a very serious endeavor. And when you do this, so you're going to have combat sports, so you'll have MMA, you'll have wrestling.

Not sure? Not sure about wrestling. We're still open to ideas in terms of the pool of athletes that we can recruit. Wrestling is...

increasingly a niche sport. The participation numbers are down, the television numbers are down. So it's an economic decision because one of the core challenges of the Olympic Games is they've expanded to so many sports. It's so much content, so expensive to run. And so in our analysis of sports, it's always what can be delivered with the highest television and social media impact with the lowest infrastructural cost. Hmm.

But you're having sprinting and all these other games too, right? Don't you think that wrestling is like a – I mean, wasn't it the original game in the Olympic Games? It was the original sport? Yeah, but, you know, we are inspired in some ways by the Olympic Games, but we don't want to be held back in history like the IOC is, right? They're like, oh, it must be every four years, right? We must have these certain sports in. Our games are going to be every year.

because that gives an athlete a greater opportunities to monetize and engage with their fans. And we believe that we are the Olympics, not of reinventing ancient Greece, but of the future. So you'll have... This episode is brought to you by Bowl & Branch Sheets. They're

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O-L-L-A-N-D branch.com slash J-R-E for 20% off. Exclusions apply. See site for details. Of boxing? Boxing, certainly. The only worry that I think people would have is that giving someone substances would allow them to hurt someone more. It's different. And I know what you're saying, like the other person gets them too.

But it's a discussion, right? If someone runs faster because you gave them something, no one's getting hurt there. Maybe reputation's getting hurt, whatever. But if you give someone something and allow someone to beat someone more... But isn't that the wrong moral discussion? Because then we shouldn't... Pull up to that mic. Isn't that the wrong...

because we shouldn't then do boxing if we don't want to allow people to hurt other people. Well, ultimately, that's the real discussion, right? Exactly. But I think a lot of discussions are always pseudo-discussions where we can have a real discussion, should we have boxing, but it's the same ethical power slap. Don't get me started. Oh, my God. But the other one is that maybe it's actually safer for the athletes, right?

If they're enhanced. Because maybe they can recover better. Maybe they can take more punishment. You know, maybe if, you know, they do get hurt in a fight, they'll recover better from the fight than they would naturally. There's a good argument there as well. Yeah, certainly what is appealing, particularly to older athletes, is reducing recovery time.

Yes. Oh, yeah. I mean, it's a significant thing for guys just as they get into their 30s, if they're still competing as a professional, they realize like, I don't recover as well at 34, even though I'm still in my athletic prime in terms of ability to perform, their ability to put in work in the gym is not quite the same. And the way they feel the next day is not quite the same. I can tell you, I started the whole process. I always when I start a company, I want to

feel it myself what is really what I'm talking about it's not just like so I'm going through the enhancement process of an athlete myself and it's unbelievable like you feel 20 years younger in like recovery I can train every day

I wake up in the morning and don't feel stiff anymore. I'm like, oh, shit, this is how it felt when I was in my 20s. Yeah, it's really strange that that's looked down upon. Yeah, I can't really understand it. No, I can't really understand it. It's like, I think it's a natural right. Like, you want to be at your best at any time in your life. And it should be your decision, by the way. What is your best? I'm not saying that people should be jacked, that this is...

It should be every single person's decision. Yes. What makes you happy? What is aspirational for you? But whatever you define, you should be allowed to do if you're a grown up. And if you do it, that is always my sort of not limiting factor, but I'm really adamant. I also don't know if you know where I'm also working on bringing psychedelics back. That's the same sort of discussion into the medical world. It's always you have to do it with a doctor.

in a sort of informed environment, but then it should be up to you. The same with performance enhancement. Yeah, I couldn't agree more. And I think another aspect of this whole thing is what you said initially. We all know that the Olympics are dirty. We all know that we, anyone who's seen Icarus, and if you haven't seen it, I really recommend it. It's amazing.

These state-funded, state-sponsored programs have existed forever, and they've just been doing weaselly things to try to avoid detection, and they get caught all the time.

And it's not as simple as like everyone just really wants to find out who the best is and they're on the honor system and everybody is honorable. No, it's like they're taking things. Everyone's taking things. They're all hiding things. But imagine the scientific potential of all of that research if it came out into the open in terms of anti-aging in particular. The same compounds that allow –

individual athletes to run faster and jump higher are the ones that will allow us to be younger, faster, and stronger for longer. And, you know, I think that's a very admirable aspiration. You know, look at Robert F. Kennedy Jr. You know, he's doing pull-ups when Joe Biden and Donald Trump can hardly walk up a flight of stairs. Yeah. And he's very openly enhanced. Yeah, openly enhanced and works out with jeans on, which is odd, right? The jeans thing is so weird. Like, what are you doing, man? Yeah.

But also, by the way, it's an important point. I think a lot of people always put enhancements into just the vanity pocket, which is, by the way, and I think it's a very legit pocket because, for example, I'm doing it more for vanity. But if you look at older people, like sarcopenia, like a rapid muscle loss, whatever, is a problem for many people. And we take it as normal. We're like, oh, it is normal that you're losing muscle mass. And I was like, no, we can do something. And the life of a 70, 80-year-old

would be completely changed if they have a functioning muscle system again, which is, by the way, easy to produce. But we're shying away because it all got co-mingled in that 80s, 90s doping debate. There are extremely good...

Anabolic steroids with a very good medical use case, take Anavar or these kind of compounds. They are very good for older people with muscle loss, with osteoporosis, but we don't give it to them. So I spoke to so many doctors. They still dare, but the doctor's like, oh, like...

I have these reputational risks giving an 80-year-old an anabolic steroid because the word became so bad. Despite, they all agree, this would make the life of millions of older people much more livable. By the way, small doses. So I'm very passionate not just about enhanced games, we hope will be a crystallization factor for

for a whole societal change on how we look at body autonomy, how we give the decision back to people, again, what they want to be with their body, with their mind.

and all of that and with the current state-of-the-art science too it's like what is the point of having all this knowledge and functional ways there's there's absolute ways to enhance the way your mind performs your body performs and to chalk it off to vanity is so crazy like well what about fashion should we get rid of that too exactly yeah yeah that's vanity do you know what the legal definition of medicine is

No, I do not. So it's a fascinating thing. I only learned it a couple weeks ago. So in the 1920s, the Carnegie Foundation commissioned a sociologist from Johns Hopkins University, Professor Albert Flexner, to go and study medical education. And so it used to be back then that anyone could call themselves a doctor. Really? Yeah. Damn, I missed the boat. Yeah, anyone could just read some books and call yourself a doctor. And after the Flexner report,

It was decided by state legislatures that we had to regulate what it meant to be a doctor and what medical education was required. And the definition of medicine as a result of that is that medicine is about the treatment and cure of disease. It's making sick people less sick. Right. And if you walk into your doctor and you say, I'm a healthy 39-year-old, but I'd like to be extraordinary, he would say, I'm sorry?

Medicine legally cannot help you. Well, wasn't this the reason why ProVigil and NuVigil, when they first came up with those, I believe they came up with them with the idea of them being a performance-enhancing substance. But then they didn't have a way to prescribe them, so they used narcolepsy. You mean Modafinil? Modafinil, yeah. I love it. Yeah, it's interesting stuff, right? Because...

It doesn't make you speedy. No, it's like... I think it's like, by the way, I always tell that at universities when I give a speak, that's the real mind or intellectual enhancement drugs because it doesn't make you chittery, whatever. Do you stack it? With... Nootropics? Yes. I do a lot of things. Yes. He's the one that's more enhanced. Ask him how to stack. But I think, again, but it's a good example. Like, why do we say...

for students or whatever, oh, it's bad if you try to be the best. Like, and why is a substance, modafinil, which is, by the way, wildly studied, which is there since decades, every single neuroscientist in my team, in my biotech sector, I talk to is like, this can be taken safely in moderate amounts. Like, and all of that, why are we like shying away to discussing that modafinil

this is a good thing. Like, I don't even understand it. Is there a large body of research on long-term use of modafinil? Yeah.

It's enormous. Trust me, because I take it. I looked at it. Are you on it right now? Yes. How do you feel? Great. But really, because we have this whole... The lucky thing in my life is I have these resources. We're the largest investor in neuroscience globally. So I have all these colleagues at hand.

And I went to everybody because people always mix it up. They're like, when they hear me talking, like, oh my God, Christian is so adventurous. Like, I'm actually a huge hypochondriac and I'm always worried I do the wrong thing. So meaning I put in a lot of effort before I take something. So I went to some of the biggest neuroscientists in the world and

and discussed modafinil and everybody just had good things to say. I really mean it. And not only modafinil, I'm not doing a marketing session about it, but it's a good example where I really don't understand how we could not...

At least give people the choice. Again, some people might not want to do it. Right. They should have the choice. Just like they have the choice to drink alcohol and smoke cigarettes. By the way, which is way worse. He might have even been on the show. A good friend is Professor David Nutt. Do you know the name? Where's he from? From the UK. Imperial College. If we can pull it up. He wrote a whole book that's my favorite sort of...

take on how fucked up our society is in terms of drugs. He wrote a whole book about the risk of drugs.

Because the interesting thing is we're all throwing around the word risk without definition. When I sit at dinner and talk with people about modafinib, for example, or psychedelics, then they're zipping a glass of wine, look at me and like, oh, this is very risky. And then like, tell me, what do you mean? What is risk? And people don't have an answer for that. So what David did, he defined what actually risk is. He made a real risk score. Simplified said, can you die when you take it? Can you die when you take too much?

Can you become disabled? Can you have long-term damages? Can you become addicted? All of that. So he, for the very first time, defined a proper, by the way, never tested, undisputed risk score for substances you can take. And then he applied this risk score

to most, he forgot sugar, but like most legal and illegal drugs. From alcohol to heroin to psychedelics. So the outcome is that in a comprehensive risk assessment, the most risky, riskful drug of all, the number one is alcohol. Full stop. And by the way, it was never sort of disputed. The number two is heroin.

And then comes everything else. That's per user? On a total societal risk analysis. So the paper is published in The Lancet, which is the top medical journal. And if, Jamie, you want to pull it up, it's called Drug Harm in the UK, a Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis, published in The Lancet in 2010 by Professor David Nutt. And it has this amazing chart, which I'm looking at on. By the way, I like your little logo. It's pretty dope. Thank you.

And yes, on the one side, on the most extreme,

The highest individual and social risk is alcohol and heroin. And on the other side? Psychedelics. So, by the way, I urge every listener, because that's a little bit my passion, is like to make people at least aware. And then you can decide, by the way, that you drink alcohol. I'm not saying I would ban alcohol. But I think people should be aware. Isn't it crazy? What they're doing. Yeah. Totally. It's all about education and awareness. Look at the drop between alcohol and heroin. Yeah.

Heroin's way less bad for you than alcohol. So, by the way, but I want to be careful because that actually would got him in political trouble because one magazine wrote, which is, by the way, the wrong takeaway, said, oh, the drug advisor of the UK government said heroin, take heroin on alcohol, whatever. Heroin is the second worst. So mushrooms? So, and...

And by the way, that chart has a very emotional thing for me because I was presented that chart in 2013. And guess it or not, I have never drank alcohol in my whole life. Really? I'm from Bavaria and I decided when I was 14, I'm never going to touch it ever. Wow. For societal reasons because I was gay in a village where it was not cool to be gay. And I was like, if I get drunk, I'm going to spill it and my life is ruined. Right, right, right. And then I stayed on that track. But like, so Friends in 2013 showed me that chart. Wow.

And we talked a lot about it. And the outcome of it was like, you should try mushrooms. And I was like, you're completely insane. Like it's a Schedule 1 drug, whatever. And then it took me a year when I was reading up. And by the way, this was a different time. Like people didn't talk about psychedelics and all of that. So I was reading up all about psychedelics from 2013 to 2014 and then had my first psychedelic trip ever.

in 2014, which was hands down the single most meaningful and important thing I've ever done in my whole life. Nothing comes close. And I was always a very happy person.

happy, lucky person, so I didn't think it's doing that much to me. So I came out of this trip, and there was the point when I decided that psychedelics in general should be medically available again, and then sort of restarted the whole psychedelic renaissance. Well, I'm glad that that's something that we've been discussing forever. I mean, it's something that got squashed in 1970 by the sweeping Psychedelics Act, and it didn't make any sense. I think it was the biggest crime worldwide.

one of the biggest crime that government back then did. Because if you think about it, like all the data we're producing, it has the potential to heal, really I'm using the word healing deliberately, to heal mental health issues like depression, anxiety, addiction. So if you think about it, that a government scam in 1970, which was a pure political scam to discredit the hippie community because they were going against the Vietnam War,

that that took away one of the most potent groups of drugs, medical drugs, for mental health issues. And if you look at our time, how prevalent mental health issues are, they are actually as a whole, you could say the number one problem we have from opioid addiction to depression to youth suicidality. And it all was taken away for no reason. These drugs, as you saw on the chart, and by the way, what we're showing with my two companies, Compass and Atai,

They don't have a little downside, meaning everything has a downside, but like there is no big downside if taken properly with a therapist together. But the data we're producing shows an enormous upside, again, to cure and alleviate mental health issues. And I think one of the best paths that MAPS has put forth is helping soldiers, health care workers.

helping soldiers with PTSD, and that's been a great way to get through the door because the veteran community has been dealing with it for a long time. And I think it's shifted the perspective from a lot of these people that are more conservative, that would normally think of drugs as being for losers and bad for society, and they have a different perspective on it now. You're calling it drugs now.

It's the wrong word. No, it's a medication. Yeah. Well, it's really entheogens. Yes. You know, what they are is when you experience it, anybody who experiences it would not want it to be illegal. The problem is the people that are adamant about it being illegal are the ones who aren't experiencing it.

It's really ridiculous. I agree. And you might have seen that it was one of the problem of the advisory board meeting of the FDA some days ago when MAPS presented their data. I don't know if you followed it. I did not. Unfortunately, it was a very sad moment. It's not a decision yet because the FDA is going to decide on August 11th on MDMA. But the advisory committee hearing, which was public, recommended not to approve MAPS.

for post-traumatic stress disorder. It was a big outcry. But the reason is also, I want to be a little bit self-critic like for the psychedelic industry because I'm a huge believer. Like you're sitting next to maybe the biggest believer in psychedelics, but I also realize that 95%, I would guess,

Because we live in our bubble. You have met a lot of people who take psychedelics. I'm always very open, like, in a country where it's legal, I do my psychedelic therapy sort of life-enhancing thing twice a year. Like, I'm very open with that. But, like, I also realized we are a bubble. Like, 95% or whatever, like, a vast majority of people have not done psychedelics yet and are unfortunately, we can like it or not, and we can blame the Nixon government or not, but, like, are stuck in

in this misinformation. So the only way to, this was sort of what some people say I'm too conservative because they're like, oh my God, you taking it like you should like be more like be liberal, whatever. But my decision was the only way to move psychedelics back into the medical world

is to do it like I would do it, and we have a biotech portfolio, 50 biotech companies, like I do it with every other medical substance. I'm producing clinical data in a very rigorous, very scientific way to show and prove it what I personally believe, but we have to prove it. And that was a little bit the weakness of the MAPS data because, you know, MAPS was...

a nonprofit, so they never had a huge funding. So all the data was actually always done with the minimum effort, not because they wanted it, but like it was kind of limited in terms of funding. Give you an example, like MAPS did 200 people in the phase three PDST study. In our treatment resistant depression study with psilocybin, the active ingredient in magic mushrooms, we treated around 800 people.

why people said at the beginning, oh, it's a lot, you need to spend all that money, because it costs hundreds of millions. But I was like, people will try to poke holes in it because it's magic mushrooms. So because I'm dealing with psychedelics, and because I have this personal conviction, but I cannot take my personal conviction and say, oh, everybody should just follow me, because I need to be especially rigorous and need to do it very scientific, very broad. So, yeah, long story short,

I think psychedelics are coming back. Yeah, I think we're going to deliver really good data over the next years. And I also think I still hope that the FDA will actually still approve MDMA because they can. So they don't need to follow that advisory board recommendation. And I think the political pressure of the veterans is there. So I really hope. But if not, it's also not lost because the advisory board didn't.

push back on MDMA per se. They push back on that specific data set and said, okay, there are

holes we can poke into it. So yeah, nothing lost. Nothing lost. What's going on with marijuana is interesting in this country because at this point, 24 states, is it 24? 24 states? We talked about it yesterday. 24 states have it legal for recreational use. That's literally half the country. And then you have more that have it available for medical use, yet the government still has it as a Schedule 1. They've made moves to turn it to a Schedule 3, but as of this

It's a Schedule I drug, which is you have half the country, literally, in states that are saying, you can take it here, you can buy it here, you can sell it here. We'll tax it. And the federal government is still not on board with that. And then-

The move next would be psilocybin. So some states have decriminalized that, right? Like Portland kind of Portland or Oregon, I think has done a reverse. They've made like, I think they've hit the brakes. I want to make a big sort of,

plea that psilocybin or in general psychedelics and cannabis should not be mixed together. People instinctively do that because it's kind of the same history. It's so-called illegal drugs which now becoming in one way or the other legal. But if I look at it, I have a very sort of strong opinion. Psychedelics are very strong substances in a very good way. So they have a very good outcome. But

But if I look at human history, and you had Brian here, Murarescu, who I love. So if you look at Brian's work, he has shown that over 10,000 years, humans have used psychedelics in a very actually rigid setting. If you think about the cult of Demeter, the Eleusinian Mysteries, or the cult of Osiris, all of these psychedelic cults, they all actually said you can just do psychedelics once or twice a year.

With a shaman together, it was actually forbidden by death to take the kykyon, the drink which we believe was ergot, the natural version of LSD, in the Elysianian Mysteries outside of the very strong framework of the Elysianian Mysteries. So psychedelics were never...

consumer drugs. They were always there for enlightenment and for becoming a better human being, but the people understood that it has to be done in a certain framework to really unfold their power. So that's what I wanted. So that's why I really have, I mean, my personal opinion is so psychedelics should be medically used, but they should be limited. It's not consumer drugs. They should be limited to be used with a therapist together who also sort of

gives you a sort of a full sort of therapy session around it. And that's how they can unfold. I understand. I understand where you're coming from, but here's where I would say about that. First of all, two things. One,

You can take psychedelics in micro doses and it's very effective. It's very helpful. And to limit people from having the ability to do that, I don't think makes any sense. There's great benefits to micro dosing psilocybin. A lot of people have had great benefits micro dosing LSD, like tremendous benefits. And they talk about it very openly. And I think if we are going to act under the idea of body autonomy, that falls under that. Also,

To say that marijuana is not a psychedelic, all that would say to me is you haven't taken enough or you haven't taken edibles. Because are you aware of the process of what happens when you eat cannabis? You know the difference?

What do you mean? Compared to psychedelics? No, the difference between THC and 11-hydroxymetabolite. No. Okay. When you eat marijuana, it produces a completely different chemical when it gets processed by your liver, and it's called 11-hydroxymetabolite. 11-hydroxymetabolite is five times more psychoactive than THC. And I used to do a joke about it where I said, and it lets you talk to dolphins. Because it's very psychedelic. Edible...

Pot, like in high doses, is extremely psychedelic, especially if you close your eyes. Like if you lie somewhere in silent darkness and close your eyes on edible marijuana, it rivals a lot of different drugs. It rivals psilocybin, a lot of them, especially in the tank that I showed you guys. Psychedelic drugs, you know, mushrooms. Like there's a great history of people using them in those tanks. We talked about John Lilly who would take ketamine.

But I know a lot of people who do high levels of edibles and they get in the tank and they have crazy psychedelic experiences. I don't think it's that. I think that's also part of the problem with people recreationally taking edibles is you really probably shouldn't do that all the time, especially at high doses, because I think it causes schizophrenia. And I think it has in some people. I think it causes fragile minds to shatter.

And especially if you have some underlying conditions or propensity or family history of schizophrenia, it's probably not a good idea for you. But I don't think we should just dismiss marijuana as being different than the other drugs. It's just a drug that is more likely to be consumed micro-dosed.

Okay, so I just want to be mindful that we're not mixing things. I didn't want to oppose Mariana. No, no, no. I didn't think you were. It's something just different. But you were talking about it the same way. You were opposed to talking about it the way you talk about mushrooms. Because mushrooms are, I mean, it's technically a different mechanism of action. Yes. So it might have the same or similar feelings.

But I think it's a different mechanism of action. If you, by the way, pull up the chart again of David Nutt. So the amazing thing with mushrooms is that the only risk which you saw with the small pinkish sort of thing is that you fall down the stairs and hurt yourself while you take it. Otherwise, psilocybin has no toxicity. Cannabis has. As you said, like it could trigger. Yeah, but that's...

Cannabis is way less than alcohol. I just want to say it's just... But I know people that have blown their brains out with psilocybin and with LSD as well. I cannot imagine. We have a whole team which is following up that sentence if somebody says that. And literally for like... Since when are we doing that? Since 2018. Every single person we could find online in chat boards or whatever whom we contacted who said, oh, I have any side effects. Our first question is always...

What have you taken? And 100% of the people who had negative things said, oh, I've taken mushrooms and I drank a lot of alcohol and I took a lot of cocaine. Can already stop there. Never mix these things because we don't know. What I'm arguing for, by the way, the same going back to microdosing, we need to find or we need to create a scientific basis for all of that.

There will never be a scientific study which tells you you can happily mix alcohol, psilocybin, and cannabis. I really don't know what's happening in your brain. So don't do it. But I can give you a lot of studies, what is happening standalone when you take psilocybin. I can give you a lot of studies, what is happening when you take cannabis.

So I always tell people, why mix? That is one of my first recommendations because I'm a – remember, I'm a hypochondriac. I just want to do things where I really know what's happening in my body because life is awesome. I think I'm very okay up there. I'm happy. Why should I risk it? Right.

Microdosing is my favorite example to push back a bit because you said it actually. You said there are people who say they were helped by microdosing. That is not how science works because like I can give you a lot of people who have one experience, but like science is take thousands of them and see if there is a real statistic significance in whatever we want to prove.

There are, not from us, because I think microdosing will always be not a commercial endeavor, but there are a few really good studies from, I don't want to say, I think it was the University of Chicago, but I don't know, about microdosing. And they could not reproduce the positive factors individual people were saying on a large scale. Second, the- What positive factors were they searching for?

Increasing concentration, increasing creativity, like all sort of the anecdotal evidence. Did they try skills games? Study of LSD microdosing doesn't show a therapeutic effect. Yeah, but who wrote... But look... How is this performed?

What I'm saying is like we need more work. I'm just saying microdosing. I want to hang out with these people. But I give you the positive. I give you the positive ending you're going to like. But like what I'm saying is like, by the way, think about again Brian's work. People never microdose psychedelics. People macrodose psychedelics.

Right, but it doesn't mean that there's not a benefit to microdosing. Yeah, but I would say microdose, do your one trip a year. You get all the benefits, by the way, because there we know you get neuroplasticity. There we know you get all the positive effects of it. But second, what you need to be just mindful is like there was a study some days ago, if we can pull it up, if you look microdosing and heart. So all these psychedelic stocks

at the 5-H2A receptor, but also have an effect on your heart. So hopefully I'm not using the technically right terms, but I always describe it to my friends. It's like psychedelics are a little bit poking your heart. So if you do that once a year, we've shown it zero problem, zero.

We don't know what psychedelics microdosing does to your heart. Right, but isn't the poking the heart effect due to the large doses of stunning experiences that you're having when you're really tripping on like seven grams? The answer is we don't know. We don't know. So we don't have the data. And the only thing I'm putting out there is that everything I'm saying is like what is really important. And I'm saying that as really like one of the most passionate people about psychedelics.

that we cannot or we shouldn't abandon the... Microdose in chocolate bars. No, stop. I know that study. That study is about a polluted chocolate bar, which is another thing. There was a brand which put in stuff which is not what they say it is. How do you microdose a chocolate bar? Which is also a really important point about all drug use, right?

It's a wonderful book by Professor Carl Hart from Columbia University, Drug Use for Grownups. Yeah, we were talking about him yesterday. Yeah, and it's like, you know, America's drug problem is a dosage and an adulteration problem, right? And so we want to think about the issues that we have at hand in our society. It is almost always about adulteration. Like, no one goes out to seek out fentanyl, right? Right. It's adulterated into other products. And in the correct dosage and with high-quality products...

In most circumstances, most products can be used safely.

I swear there was something about psilocybin microdosing and skills. This is the LSD thing. It says that they were not told what drug they were on, and then here's the results. It said no performance on cognitive tests. It's known for microdosing, yeah. This is the microdosing, either during drug sessions or... Did they use some sort of IQ test, puzzles? What did they do? It says cognitive tests. Yeah, I'm just wondering what they did for cognitive tests.

There were also some neurobiological reasons to expect LSD might improve mood because LSD acts through serotonin receptors where traditional antidepressants are known to act. Okay.

The main thing I'm saying is about... So microdosing could be... The only plea I make is, like, let's treat psychedelics with the same sort of rigorous scientific lens. Like, we treat anything else. By the way, that's my whole, like, how I marry my libertarian view and sort of my scientific view is let's just prove things...

Science is awesome. Like we have learned over the last hundreds of years how to prove things or dismiss things. Let's prove it. And that's, by the way, how we – we, I mean, here in the room because we all love psychedelics, like how we convince the 95 percent, how we convince those people who were sitting on the advisory panel and said no to MDMA. It was very clear when they were talking that none of them had tried it. Right. So but the answer can't be –

come on, try MDMA and then please approve it. The answer must be, I put in front of you a data set where it doesn't matter that it's called MDMA and it doesn't matter that it has a history because the data speaks for itself. Right. Yeah.

Yeah, it's just body autonomy is what we're really talking about. Once we have proven it, exactly. But you want body autonomy. Yes. You want to have people that data to decide on body autonomy. Sure. So I always make the point that individuals with free and informed consent, adults, should be able to make decisions for themselves. But that free and informed consent comes from data. And like a good example, I assume you've used creatine at some point in your life, just like virtually all athletes have.

When creatine first came out on the scene after the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, you should read the headlines. It was like, new super steroid infecting our sports, headline from the independent newspaper. Creatine is cheating no matter how you look at it. What year was this? 1992. Wow.

Right? Now we take it all. Yeah, I take gummies. I take creatine gummies every day. Yeah, and it was banned in the Irish and French rugby federations. It was seen as...

Cheating. It was worse than cheating. It was morally reprehensible. Like, think of the children. You might encourage children to use creatine. Wow. And the headlines were just unbelievable. That's crazy. That was just 30 plus years ago. Yeah. Nuts. And thankfully, creatine didn't fall into...

the black zone, like steroids or psychedelics, right? Where moralizing got in the way of scientific data. Now, let's talk about the enhanced games in terms of long-term plans. Like, how are you guys funded and how long can you stay open? Like, do you have a long-term strategy? Yes. We've raised millions of dollars in the world's top venture capitalists, Christian included, Peter Thiel, Balaji Srinivasan. And

So we're reinventing the Olympic Games, not just in terms of adding performance enhancements, adding payments to athletes, but we're also removing the core waste. So the core problem of the Olympics is that they build a dozen stadiums and then they throw them away after two weeks. It is literally the most financially wasteful exercise in human history, you know, ever.

you know, between 30 and a hundred billion dollars of costs to put on an Olympic games. And it is just disastrous for the host city. So by reducing the number of sports and focusing on the ones that have the highest television and social media impact, we can have the very, very low infrastructural costs and operate the whole thing profitably. Right. But how do you have a plan as to like how long to do it? Oh, this is a century long project for us. So, so,

It's not a pop-up event. It's going to be forever. I understand. But what if it's not successful? What if the first one comes out of the gate? How are you going to make the money? Are you going to use sponsorships? Are you going to charge pay-per-view? How are you going to do it? Are you going to sell it to a network? So, number one, we will raise enough equity capital so that we can run the games for at least three years without any media rights, corporate sponsorship, or ticket sales. Of course, we will...

grab all those revenue drivers and that will make us a profitable endeavor.

But fundamentally, we have enough equity capital to make sure this thing really works and is delivered for a long period of time. So for three years, you just run it till the brakes fall off. Even if we don't. But what I can tell you, what I was actually a little bit surprised positively is like we got inbounded by big brands. We were actually calculating in the early days. We said, ah, it's going to be controversial. We don't think a big, whatever brand.

outdoor brand or whatever, a big sportswear brand, we'll sponsor it in the first year. So we really, as Aaron said, we planned, we are venture funded and we can do it three years without those major revenues, which we obviously somewhat want to have. But then surprisingly, major brands inbounded us and said, can we

work with you early, which again showed us like we sort of hit the zeitgeist a bit with the thing. Yeah. And so in terms of brand sponsorship, so Nike, their core mythology is that the fastest people in the world wear their shoes. I like how you say their core mythology. Yeah. The core mythology. Right. And then this is very simple. Eventually the fastest people in the world will be at the Enhanced Games.

And if they're not wearing Nike shoes, that can undermine that $100 billion brand. And so if you're a challenger shoe company out there, you say, ooh, I'm going to sponsor this Enhanced Games thing. We can capture Nike's core moat. A brand is just a myth. It's an interesting way to phrase it, a core mythology. Now, when is going to be the first Enhanced Games? Yeah.

At the – we're targeting for the end of 2025. And do you know where you're going to do it? So this is a question journalists always ask me. You need to do it at the Sphere. The Sphere is – Come on. Come on. Yeah. Not an uneducated guess. Not an uneducated guess. Oh, really? Hey, I like it. So the journalists always ask, well, where is the Enhanced Games going to be? Because they think of it like the Olympic Games. They think, oh, you need a host city.

where you have 12 stadiums and there are very few cities like that. But we live in the era of television and social media. We don't need all of our infrastructure in the same place. The swimming could be in Sydney, the track and field could be in Los Angeles, the weightlifting could be in Las Vegas, right? Interesting. And all united through the magic of television. Therefore, we are not dependent on infrastructure in one city. We're not dependent on having 10,000 hotel rooms available.

And this is really the technological innovation that we're bringing to the design of the Olympic Games. It's like, why do the Olympics need to be in one city? Why does the Paris metro system need to be upgraded for just two weeks at the cost of billions and billions of dollars? No. We live in a world where 99.9% of sports is consumed online.

either on television or on our phones. Has the Olympics, have they responded to you guys? Yes. What did they say? I can't wait to hear this. So, you know, it's interesting. So publicly, they don't like us, obviously. But the fact that we are paying the athletes has really changed the dynamics of Olympic sports. So Lord Sebastian Coe, who is the president of World Athletics, came out and said that athletics will pay $50,000 to

for a gold medal at the Paris Olympics and read the coverage. Journalists all attribute this because of the pressure we put on because we're offering payment for athletes. Obviously, we're offering a million for a gold medal. They're offering 50 grand. So gold medals in the enhanced games are a million. Breaking a world record is an additional million? No, no, no. The world records are a million.

you know, there'll be base compensation negotiated with each athlete, probably around a hundred grand. But you just said gold medals of million. No, no, no. Award record is a million at the enhanced games. A gold medal in track and field at the Olympics is 50,000. Right. You, I think, I think pretty sure you said, I think you just scrambled it. So, so what is first place in like boxing?

To be determined. To be determined? Yes. So you're going to negotiate it with different athletes? Yeah, it depends. If someone has a big social media following, someone's famous. Yeah, yeah. If LeBron wants to play basketball for you guys. Exactly, exactly. And some sports are more compelling because of larger viewership or that they have—

You know multiple disciplines. So are you planning? Do you have a plan as to how to stream it? Are you guys gonna do YouTube? Are you gonna have your own platform? So we have been approached by every major broadcaster in the world and

And the overarching message is they're like, this is going to be exciting television. So the three most watched sports event in the world, number one is the FIFA World Cup final. Number two is the UEFA Champions League final. And number three is the Olympic 100 meter final. And if you think about it, the first enhanced games should be a lot more interesting than an Olympic 100 meter final. Right. Right.

Well, it's definitely, I mean, if you guys can really come out of the gate guns blazing and put on a tremendous show and captivate people, I think you're in. Yeah. And, you know, that's why we've raised millions and millions of dollars from the world's top venture capital funds so we can deliver an amazing broadcast experience.

the best athletes and ensure that, you know, we make a television package that's really, really compelling. And for the networks, they want to buy a five, 10-year deal because they're effectively taking a bet. The Olympic television rights are worth $4 billion per games. Wow. And we live in the era of peak television rights right now, you know, like...

Amazon, ABC, D&D, they're all bidding for the NBA rights. Two NBA games on Christmas Day are worth a billion dollars. And this is an absolute sweet spot. And you see this with college football and college basketball. The NIL rights, 18-year-olds in college are now driving Lamborghinis.

Yet Olympic athletes have been so screwed financially. Yeah. And that we're just going to deliver a better economic system that is a more compelling television package because of enhancements. And then ultimately, television rights are about what commercials can be sold. And traditional sports markets three things, processed food, alcohol, and gambling. Yet the enhanced games opens up

partnerships, commercial sponsorships in a whole new way. Because we present a scientifically and technologically optimistic view of the world. We believe that science helps us overcome our limits. And what pharma company wouldn't want to be putting ads against that? It's good. Well, I mean, it's really interesting because

If it does take off, it might legitimately change the way pharma companies interface with these particular substances if they realize they're going to be extremely popular once they see how well people do, especially if you get athletes that are in their 30s that may be washed out of MMA organizations and they start competing at an elite level again. If you start seeing people breaking the world records in sprinting,

they might go, "Hey, we should revisit this." Yeah. And think about it like the whole world is abuzz talking about artificial intelligence. The total value of all the generative AI startups, including OpenAI, is $200 billion.

Ozempic and the GLP-1 drugs have added $1 trillion to the market capitalization of Nova Nordisk and Eli Lilly. So one enhancement drug is worth 5x all of artificial intelligence. And it's a dumb one. Yes, but it's a progress. By the way, I use that always as the same example. I think Pharma, and that's my core industry, biotech and Pharma, is going through a fundamental change because of GLP-1s. Because they realized that...

They're not using that word, but they're all thinking about it. Because if you look, by the way, at the data, so you know like Teco Zempeg or Monjaro, they are technically not... I'm taking it. Are you really? Yeah. Why are you taking it? Because it's outsourced discipline. That's it. It's like I'm eating a little bit less. I don't need to think about it that much because of all the other stuff. But the consequences, the negative side effects. I've had...

good friends that have had very bad side effects, gastrointestinal issues. I don't have it. By the way, that is again, my answer is always like everything has side effects. The coffee you just gave me has side effects. The Diet Coke, the

whatever, actually, always come back, psychedelics have made the least, like, but like, we need, it's all about an educated guess. I can look at Ozempic, yeah, there is a whole list of side effects, and I can look at myself, by the way, I'm also, it's very important to measure yourself, like, from the basic stuff, like, have an Oura ring, whatever, that's already more complicated, but like, or more advanced, but like, take an Oura ring, like, I do a blood test every two weeks, because I'm obviously at the moment going through an enhancement process, and

Because people react different on different stuff. Like there might be people who say, look, I don't like Ozambic. They don't take it or like it. But like it worked for me, which is great. So but it's outsource discipline, but I'm not the person with...

which it was made for because it was obviously originally made for diabetes and then for clinically obese people. And you know that Ozempic and the GLP-1s are prescribed in the United States off-label 83% of the time. Yeah. So 83% of all people don't take it for the original use. They take it for vanity whatsoever. And that really changed the way pharmaceuticals are looking at medications. It's exactly coming back to what Aaron said about

We are in this zeitgeist shift where suddenly the whole industry looks at health

By the way, I think looks at health how we should look at health, not like how we just give people something once the damage is there, but how we can keep people more healthy for longer and help them to enhance themselves if they want to. Yeah, so I couldn't agree more. Yeah, and I come from the view that aging is a disease that we should be able to treat, cure, and eventually solve, but that's not what medicine is about. So legally, aging is not a disease.

So a doctor cannot prescribe you medication against the clinical indicator of aging. Aging is a normal biological process and is just accepted by the field of medicine. And it wasn't until 1997 that osteoporosis was considered a disease. It was prior to that just considered a natural part of the aging process. And so I think we need a revolution here.

where we say medicine is not about making just the sick people less sick. It's about fundamentally improving the quality of all human life so that we can become superhuman. And at the time in which we live, an era of artificial intelligence where the machines are upgrading, we need to upgrade our own biology to be competitive.

Well, I think in that case, especially looking at Ozempic and these drugs that are used off-label, the fact that they're incredibly profitable and the fact that they are being used mostly for people that just want to lose some weight and look better, that's really probably a good sign for the future of how these substances are at least allowed to be used. And at the first Enhanced Games.

will break world records. You think so? I think so. And I'll park that up for a second. But when that happens, everyone's going to say, what is he on and how do I get it? Yeah. Because it's no longer going to be scary. It's no longer going to be unknown. Right. It's like if Lance Armstrong, after coming back from cancer and winning the Tour de France, went out and said, you know what? I'd like to thank my sponsor, EPO.

EPO made it possible for me to go from being a cancer patient to the best cyclist in the world. Everyone in the world would go talk to their doctor about EPO. Yeah. Right? But he didn't do that. No, he didn't. No. Also, everybody shouldn't be on EPO. No, not everyone. That's a dangerous one. No, but talk to your doctor about it. Talk to your doctor. And so why will world records get broken at the enhanced games? It's actually pretty simple. Okay. Yeah.

According to my scientific team, they believe that enhancements will add about 5% to the performance of any athlete. However, most of the existing world records are enhanced in some way or another. The same Boaz world record, et cetera, might be. And so it's actually kind of hard, but actually doing a full open enhancement that's not trying to beat the drug test probably adds about 5%.

But it also goes back to the economics of being an Olympic athlete. Most Olympians are stacking boxes at Home Depot or flipping burgers at McDonald's. So by being able to pay the athletes and create a fair economic arrangement allows them to focus on their training, right? And then a third dimension is actually a really simple one. Have you ever been to the Olympics? No. Okay. Go to the athlete's village. It's a dump, right? They had these like cardboard beds, these paper thin walls. It's noisy. Everyone's having sex all the time.

If you just put up the athletes at the Four Seasons, give them a nice bed to sleep in, they'll be more focused. They'll have a good night's sleep before the big race, and they'll perform better. Interesting. So I didn't know that. So they make the athletes stay at the Athletes' Village, and it's just real loud and crazy, and they're partying? Yeah, that's right, because the vast majority of athletes who go to the Olympics have no chance of meddling.

They're just there for the party. They're just there for the party. And you have all these beautiful young people. What do you think is going to happen? Right. And they're all athletes. They're all horny as hell. They did literally a press release some days ago where they said they're just going to do single beds in order to avoid people having sex. It was like whenever in university life has a single bed avoided that people have sex. It was one of the most dumbest ideas. That's hilarious. That's like just say no.

That's such a dumb idea. People have sex in the woods. What the fuck are you talking about? Paris Olympics lifts intimacy ban for athletes and is stocking up on 300,000 condoms. They went the other way. There was then two conflicting views. The other one was more hilarious with the single bed. Yeah, you just realize it's a stupid idea. And then there were all these headlines I saw some days ago that a blowjob before sports is actually increasing your testosterone.

Really? So, yes. Google it. Why specifically a blowjob? I don't know, but I was like, I take it. I take it. It's good. Wait a minute. Giving or getting? Getting. Okay. But why would that – I don't understand why that particular kind of sex would do it. I ran with it. I was like, I like the headline. I shut the laptop when I read a good headline. Exactly. I take it. Let's not be too scientific on that one.

Yeah, why fuck around? Made a screenshot using it in every day. Yeah, that's it. Start arguing. So now we have how many sports? So five sports. Five sports. So track, swimming, combat, weightlifting, gymnastics. Those are the five core sports that we've identified that have the highest television and social media impact with the lowest infrastructural cost. We don't need to build a specialist stadium. So, you know, like I love velodrome cycling.

It's a sport that I did myself. You need to build a $300 million facility for it. What is velodrome cycling? Track cycling. Oh, it's like around the loop? Yeah, that like, you know, a few thousand people in the whole world participate in. It's a pretty niche sport. Most sports at the Olympic Games, the total number of professional or semi-professional participants is very small. So, you know, things like rock climbing, skateboard, you know, there aren't huge participation numbers for these things. Hmm.

So people are going to be heartbroken that synchronized swimming is out. Yeah, curling, bobsleigh, archery. Curling is one of the silliest ones of all time. Yeah, and curling has participated in less than 1,000 people worldwide. The interesting question, though, would be if...

If people on psychedelics would be better at synchronized swimming because it's like bringing you in. Yeah, interesting. But we save that for later. Are you familiar with beta blockers? Yes. So do you know that classical musicians use beta blockers? About 75% of professional orchestral musicians have used beta blockers. No. Right? So beta blockers are a banned substance under the World Anti-Doping Code.

they would not be allowed to compete at the Olympic Games. But it's used en masse by professional orchestral musicians. That's interesting. I wonder why professional orchestra musicians would find that helpful. It allows them to focus. I think the hand gets more stable. It's my guess I'm not a musician. Interesting. Because I wouldn't think that they would be, especially in a large group of them, they've been working together, they practice. I wouldn't think they'd be that anxious.

I don't know. Have you ever performed on stage at Carnegie Hall? I performed on stage at Madison Square Garden. Yeah. I mean, once you're out there, you're out there. Musicians use beta blockers as performance enabling drugs. Video game players also. Oh, that makes sense. Calm the fuck down in a stressful situation. Yeah.

Yeah, interesting. I know they're illegal in archery events. Yeah. They test for them in archery events. And here we go. There's the concert master of the Chattanooga Symphony Orchestra right there. She's openly talking about using a band performance-enhancing drug. I want to try them.

That's how it works. That's how it works. You read an article, you're like, hmm, what's the side effect of beta blockers? After consultation with your doctor. Yeah, I want to talk to my doctor. Doctor feel good. Hey, buddy. Hook me up with some beta blockers. I'm going to go do something dangerous and see how I feel. And have an unadulterated supply. You need good quality manufacturing. From the pharmacy because that's what when you take medical drugs. Well, that's how all drugs, I mean, this is the conversation that I had yesterday. I had reverberations.

Freeway Ricky Ross on the podcast yesterday. I don't know if you know who he is, but he was a drug dealer that was illiterate that was at one point in time selling as much as $3 million worth of cocaine in a day.

And he was supplying, it was all done through the CIA, allegedly, to supply the Contras versus the Sandinistas in Nicaragua in the 1980s. He went to jail for it, learned how to read in jail, became a lawyer, figured out his case was tried and prosecuted wrong, got off. Wow. Yeah. Incredible guy. And, you know, we talked about...

The problem is you're never going to get away from the demand. The demand in the United States is immense. So you're fueling drug empires in Mexico. So you're fueling illegal organized crime because you won't come to terms with the fact that body autonomy and –

rights of an individual to choose to do whatever they want, especially in light of what is legal that is incredibly damaging, like alcohol. And that if you just made it legal, I mean, you would have a real problem. You would have a lot of people getting addicted. You have a lot of people trying it that wouldn't try it. But eventually the dust would settle. And the

The concept would be you would have to mitigate all these potential future problems with counseling, with treatment, and with education, but you would severely limit the amount of adulterated drugs. You would change a lot of that. If you...

made sure that the supply was clean and you're getting it from pharmaceutical drug companies and pharmaceutical drug companies could profit off of it and you would just have a percentage of that profit that would be taxed. Yes. And tax the externality. Exactly. And in that discussion of

about the social externality and addictive substances, you know, we never talk about the two most addictive substances, processed food and sugar, which have done so much damage to our society. And do you know who Team USA's top Olympic sponsors are? Kellogg's? McDonald's and Coca-Cola. Oh, okay. I thought it was Wheaties. Yeah. Read the social history of

of the Olympic movement and of McDonald's and Coca-Cola, both of them built their brands on sports marketing. Selling... So ironic. The most dangerous, most addictive, most damaging drug ever developed to children.

It's funny that we don't look at it that way, isn't it? Also, I always say, like, when you remember the chart we looked at where alcohol is worse than heroin, next time you go to an airport and you see all these shops which say alcohol and tobacco, whatever, just think for a second it would say heroin. How messed up is that? And, like...

And it's not just for adults. It's also children. We're just bringing them up in a world where the most dangerous substances are stuffed into them and marketed to them and whatever. I think it's really fucked up. It is fucked up. Yeah, we're very silly.

There's a lot of things that we've got wrong. And there's a lot of perceptions that people have that are just locked into their minds. And they don't want to move on these ideas at all. They don't want to readjust with new data. They don't want to change their feelings about things. How do you think –

is the best way to change perceptions? Conversations over long periods of time. It's not a quick fix. Nothing's going to fix. Nothing's going to change things. But young people coming up, and I think a lot of podcasts are doing that because these conversations are available for the first time, and not just available, but

but available to millions and millions of people in a way that, you know, it used to be mainstream media was. And these conversations get shared and then people, they put clips on Instagram and YouTube and they start passing them around and people...

listen more and then they, you know, I used to think this, but now that. And the more conversations you have with intelligent, educated people that really understand what's going on and can give you the data and give it and explain it in a logical way where you realize, well, this is an intelligent person that has an informed perspective on this. And it'll allow people to just sort of reevaluate. And I think,

Faith in institutions is at an all-time low. And faith in institutions that give out health advice is at an all-time low. Because we now know about the sugar industry that bribed scientists in order to lie about the dangers of saturated fat. We know about drug companies that lie about the side effects of their drugs and high data. We know about all that now. So we're a little less aware.

to believe the mainstream narrative on a lot of things that we just accepted as fact. That's right. And I think we live in this era of disruption and social media is such a powerful force in both positive and negative ways. And two years ago, it was basically impossible for athletes to talk about performance enhancing drugs. Yeah. Like you would just be canceled immediately. And, you know, we launched and, you know, started to have a conversation and pulled the Overton window open and

And now so many eminent scientists and doctors come and say, you know, if you actually look at the data, look at Professor Nutt's study, it's not that dangerous. It's worth having a conversation about how will this affect our society? How will this...

you know build a better future right and this is only possible because of the era of information distribution which we have which is not guarded by traditional media institutions right by the way you might have missed it but like uh anabolic steroids were also on the chart yeah and it's almost where psychedelics are like very low risk yeah it's like can you put that chart up again jamming please the one of the things that was interesting in that chart is just like the

I would like to know like percentage of people who use these things. Like what kind of data? Scroll up right there. First of all, what is that one at the bottom? Buprenorphine? I always want to look it up. What is that? How many people are using that? We can look it up together. What is that stuff? There it is. Synthetic opioid. Oh, interesting.

Used to treat pain and opioid use disorders. Okay, so is it... Oh, from the poppy flower, yeah, okay. Interesting. Okay. So an FDA-approved substance by that. I also saw methadone was on that, which I thought was interesting. Oh, equally as effective as moderate doses of methadone. However, because buprenorphine is unlikely to be as effective as more optimal dose methadone, it may not...

be the treatment of choice for patients with high levels of physical dependency. Okay, so it's to treat people that are physically dependent. Was Kratom on that list? No. Interesting. We did a lot of research on Kratom. Yeah? Butane. Butane, like lighters? People are sniffing lighters? Cannabis is in there. Jesus Christ, cannabis is really high.

It's not without risk. Yeah. But lower than tobacco. What kind of risk you got in there? Here's the risk, and then they're weighted based off of, I'm guessing... Drug-specific mortality. Let me scroll up again so I can see what it says for drugs. Is there anything in cannabis? You have to go by the color and then the size of the thing. There's no drug-specific mortality. Okay. Okay.

International damage. I like how it's all color coded. Yeah. So the way the survey works is that it looks at the overall harm and it's broken up into two sections. One to the user and that's physical, psychological and social. And to others, the user

physical and psychological and the social damage caused. So drug-related mortality, drug-specific damage, they're all color-coded. Injury, crime. I like to see crime and weed. Oh, that's connected.

Is that just people that are high that do things? It's that gray box right here. Yeah, but what does that mean? Did you test them? Were they high when they committed the crime? Or are they just testing positive for marijuana, which stays in your systems for weeks? No, no, no, no. It's really like, do you commit a crime, I guess, to get it? Or is it some crime associated with taking it?

Oh, I thought that meant are you doing crimes while you're on it? No, no, no. It's like are you robbing a gas station to pay for your cannabis addiction? Clearly no one is robbing a gas station to pay for their anabox drugs. Right, but a lot of criminals take marijuana. It's funny. I don't know if you could put that in that same thing. It's interesting. Cocaine and tobacco are like neck and neck, and then amphetamines are below that.

Which is interesting. Not a lot below, but yes. It's below tobacco by three points. But cannabis is only below amphetamines by three points. And it's emphasized that this is a really high-quality, credible study published in The Lancet, which is one of the top medical journals in the entire world. Very, very interesting study.

We need more of that. You know, I mean, we need to be informed and we need data. And I firmly believe in personal autonomy. And I just think, again, I just don't think adults should be able to tell other adults what to do and not to do. If they're informed, if they're educated, they know what they're doing. You should be able to do whatever you want to do, just like you can go bull riding. I don't encourage you to go bull riding. But if you want to go bull riding, you're allowed to go bull riding.

So tell me why you can go bill riding, but you can't smoke a joint. It makes zero sense Well, I think about this in the context of space exploration Right going into space has a 1 in a 19 chance of fatality But fuck that what in 19 1 in 19 yeah, yeah but but

Does that mean we shouldn't- We have a 10% chance of going to space if we don't. Yeah. But think about the Apollo program. Apollo 1 burnt down on the launch pad, killed three astronauts. Did we stop the Apollo program? Should we have not gone to the moon?

Right. And what we have lost in our contemporary society in so many ways is the propensity to take risk, thoughtful, intelligent, positive risk. And this has always been something that I've been so deeply passionate about is the people who succeed in life, the people who push society to a new level, the people who improve themselves and their families and their communities are willing to take positive risk.

Yet our society is so dominated by a safetyism and a safetyist culture that we're increasingly unwilling to take any risk. Well, also, as we've highlighted, our...

desire for safety is not... It's not accurate. We're not, like, really targeting the things that are actually dangerous for us. We're not being honest about it, about what we know about food and what we know about certain substances that people are using and taking in their food and just the... What happens when you have a bad diet? It's one of the primary factors for all-cause mortality is a shitty diet. Yeah, absolutely. Arguably the number one factor with diet and exercise, right? And...

And I live in London, and just coming here to the United States and just consuming the available food makes me feel ill. What are you consuming? You can eat good here too, dude. You can eat good here. I don't think you can blame it on America that you came over here and ate McDonald's. Oh, well, just the prevalence of sugar in American food. You look at like a Chobani yogurt. You can just buy it in the grocery store and Whole Foods in London versus in New York.

The one in New York has more sugar in it. Because we want it to be delicious. Yeah. Just don't eat it every day, man. The idea is, look, I'm all for all those things existing. I don't like the marketing. I don't like the marketing for kids. The thing that drives me crazy is sugary cereals.

which when I was a child, we just thought gave you cavities. We didn't know it was going to fuck up your health. No one knew that sugary cereals were actually really bad for you. But I like them. I don't take them. I don't eat them. But if, you know, I don't think you should stop someone from having Captain Crunch. No, I don't think delicious. I don't think we should stop anyone. Just like I don't think you should stop someone from having tiramisu at a restaurant. Yeah. But I think it's about accurate disclosure. Yes. Right. Yeah. And

And informed disclosure, like the food pyramid, right? Clearly written by special interest. Yeah. Right? And guided, you know, dietary decisions for Americans for 50 years in completely the wrong direction. Yes. And to many people to this day, it's still gospel. It's really crazy.

It's very bizarre how few people actually know how you should really eat and what is actually bad for you. And just the ubiquitous use of seed oils. Like seed oils are fucking crazy. The fact that that's not something that someone's clamoring to get off the shelves. You know, they don't put the brakes on that industry. Well, you know, my theory of social change is very simple. Change only happens when someone puts a suit on and goes to work every day trying to solve a problem.

Until I decided to rent a little office in West London, hire a few people, and say, you know, we're going to normalize performance enhancements. We're going to celebrate performance enhancements. There was no one dedicated full-time to doing it. I doubt that there's anyone dedicated full-time in a really professional manner to stopping seed oils. Well, there's a giant industry that's profiting off of them that would get in the way of that, I'm sure.

that I'm sure but now we would need a business model I think that's the power of capitalism we're not doing it as an activist like we're doing it because we believe we're going to build a multi-billion dollar sports franchise with the enhanced games but additionally I think we're going to positively influence society so we would need to find a business model where a team could say buy a

whatever, educating about seadolls, like people will make money. That's always the hard thing. I deeply believe like capitalism and for-profit models are the best driver for positive change.

Or neutrally said they're the best way for change. Unfortunately, sometimes other corporations did negative change. We can combat it with positive change also. As long as people have access to accurate information. The problem is when capitalism also works to try to subvert accurate information and try to distort things in order to increase their profits, which is also...

It's a giant issue. But today I think that's more difficult to do than ever before just because of new media and just because people have the internet. They have access to information as long as that information is not being curated, which is also a problem. It's a problem what is allowed and not allowed to be distributed. And I think that's why the podcasting industry is actually so powerful as compared to consuming written content, which is so easily manipulatable and –

and doesn't have that trust dimension. As I read the New York Times, I don't actually think about the person who wrote the article versus I listen to a podcast and say, oh, I know Joe, I listen to him every day, I've built an emotional relationship with the presenter, and if they do something to break that trust,

I'm not going to tune in again. Right. Versus the New York Times can... They lie all the time. They can lie. And you still go, well, what the fuck is going on in the world? The New York Times will sort of tell me. Yeah. With a twist. And you just come back time and time again. But some money won't come back. That's the world. I think it's changing. Are you guys... How are you going to deal with transgender athletes? Great question. I think that the reality is that there are... I have not yet...

engaged with a transgender athlete who has the potential to break a world record. In a female sport? In a female sport. And if there is such a person who wishes to compete at the Enhanced Games, please write to me and I'm going to set up a meeting with every athlete you propose to compete against and create a fair and balanced framework.

But is it fair and balanced if you're allowing a biological male ever to compete with biological females, especially in light of the enhanced games proposal of allowing people to take performance enhancing drugs? Because you'd have to make a very clear definition of.

of like what is a transitioned athlete? Like how long would you have to wait and what are they allowed to take? If you're going to limit a biological male's ability to take testosterone or force them to take some sort of an

a testosterone blocker in order to achieve a certain requirement, that kind of goes against the ethics or the ethos of this enhanced games in the first place. So I think you're actually viewing it in the inverse way that I would. Because the actual question to ask is so, and I'm gay myself, so let me use my language very precisely here because I know it really matters to a member of the transgender community. The standard argument is that a

A person born a man who transitions to being a woman, particularly after puberty, has an insurmountable biological advantage over a natural-born woman. And I accept that argument. In sports, you mean? In sports, yeah. And what has yet to be proven is, does an enhanced woman have an ability to compete on a level playing field? With a biological male? Yeah. That is also allowed to enhance themselves? A biological male that's transgender...

So you're taking a biological male, for lack of a better term, lack of being politically correct, and you're allowing them to compete with biological women, and you're allowing them to take performance-enhancing drugs. Then you're allowing a man to compete against a woman. Like, full stop. That's what it is then. Why not just say you have to be biologically female to compete in the female division, biologically male to compete in the male division? Yeah, so one version that one of our investors has proposed to us is that we have a –

XX and an XY category, right? And say, because the reality about gender transition at the moment, it's still very, not even beta stage technology, it's alpha stage technology. It doesn't really change anyone on a chromosomal level. It changes people on a surface level.

And so let's assign athletes based on chromosomal status without having the labels of male and female, which are very precious to some people, or man and woman. And that language has been manipulated by both sides politically. And just say it's actually a scientific question. Are you XX or are you XY? Right. Well, that would work. I mean, you could do that with everything. No, I think it's like... But one other... I also think that's a good idea. Like,

But also, like, it's interesting. I think the point Aaron wanted to make earlier is that in all the more than 1,000 people we had, there was no person identifying as transgender. So I also think...

that it might be a little bit the whole headlines blown out of proportion on a very professional level. Yes, there are some activists on both sides who I think try to make a point almost in sports, but these are not the people who compete on an Olympic level. So we also think for us it might not even be a big issue. That's why Aaron was saying like we really welcome a discussion and that's the great thing of inventing a new sport so we can think about things with a very clean slate,

without any prejudice in one or the other direction. Yeah, so that's why if somebody is really feeling or if somebody is transgender and really is on a level though, they can...

compete in the enhanced game, which is an Olympic level, talk to us. And we want to hear that perspective and we want to sort of, but like hasn't happened yet. Yeah. And then we're already thinking about. You're still dealing with a biological male that you're allowing to enhance themselves so that they can perform to the highest level of their ability physically. So if you're taking a biological male who's transitioned to being a woman, but now you're allowing them to take EPO, testosterone,

fill in the blanks, IGF-1, whatever you're going to give them. You're not, that's a biological male full stop. The only thing I'm saying is how many of those descriptions you just had are in the really high-level Olympian community. I'm just thinking it's much less of a thing.

Does it have Leah Thomas in world record contention? I don't believe so. Well, as a woman. And I don't think as a man. No, as a woman. As a woman or as a man. Not a man. Not even close as a man. But as a woman, yes. Was the number one in the country. Jamie, do you want to pull up Leah Thomas's? At one point in time, has won major events. I don't believe Leah Thomas is close to world record contention. Okay.

Correct me if I'm wrong, James. College athlete, NCAA. NCAA Division I. Has won women's events. Has won women's events. Right. Now, I want you to imagine Leah Thomas on testosterone, EPO, all sorts of performance-enhancing substances, peptides, and then allowing this person to compete as a woman. Yeah, and so does her competition. Yeah, but it's not a biological man. The competitions are biological females. Right.

And you would have to change the structure of their body, the hip structure. You'd have to change the size of their lungs, the size of their heart, different cardiovascular capacity. Everything is different. And especially if you're allowing leotomy. The whole idea about a transgender athlete competing with biological females is that they're supposed to be –

It's supposed to be even because this person is on testosterone blockers and on estrogen and they've lost all their muscle mass and they're basically a woman. This is the argument that the activists use. But the problem with that is the structure of the body is different. Reaction time is different. Lung capacity is different. Heart size is different. There's a giant difference between males to females when it comes to athletic performance. And I think that's why the XXXY categorization makes it a lot simpler. Yes.

and is a resolution to the issue. But this is where the entire global sports apparatus is unable to adjust to scientific change. And this is just the beginning, right? So we're talking about things like CRISPR gene editing is going to be on the cards, right? So think of this from an intellectual mindfuck, right? There are children who are being born today who are being CRISPR edited by their parents, right?

So it is a one-way street. They can never reverse it. They never consented to this procedure. And they are very enhanced human beings. And there's no way they can stop it. They've never consented to it. Right. Should that person be banned from the Olympics? Well, it's a good question. Yeah. I don't think they should. But I think that that's going to be the likelihood.

in the future is that most children, at least in like first world countries, are going to be edited. Yeah. And so then, you know. And then you're going to get Giga Chad. Yeah, you're going to get Giga Chad. I mean, that's what it is. Yeah. I mean, when they can do that to fully grown adults, it's going to be very strange. Yeah. And then if we think about like where Olympic competition goes, where in the rich countries,

The rich people are enhancing themselves, their children from birth. Take a look at that. That's the future, bro. Yeah. Yeah. And the transgenderism issue is actually just the vanguard of this whole transhumanism issue.

Right. Where eventually we're going to have BCI implants in our brain. We're going to have gene editing. We're going to have the most amazing technology. Right. And, you know, if the Olympics are stuck in this ancient Greek Corinthian values modality.

then they're not going to adjust to modern technological and social changes. So we want to be like, that's actually the vision beyond just what we're thinking now about performance enhancements, is that we're going to be the continuous role model or the continuous showcase where human enhancement can go over the next 20 years. And we're talking now about performance enhancing medications, but maybe in 10 years we're going to have the first people with a chip in their brain. Maybe it's going to be...

There is going to be a continuous sort of pushing the boundaries in a good way where we want to showcase what science can really do positively for humans. By the way, fun fact, because we always reference back to the ancient Olympics, they did allow performance enhancements very openly. You can go to all the ancient documents. What did they have back then? So they didn't have a lot. That's the point. They actually did a lot of stuff which was pain numbing so that they could sort of run harder.

and whatever, because pain was a big thing. They actually believed interest in eating bull testicles. -Taurine. -Weirdly, exactly. So weirdly, there are some documents who mention psychedelics, which I'm not fully sure why it would be performance. I don't know if they mention it, like sort of if you go into all these documents, like, and potions, and again, it was very, very archaic. But like the notion was, do everything is possible to win.

And actually, the transgender issue goes back to the ancient Olympics. Really? Yeah. You said hermaphrodites. Well, and so do you know why they competed naked? So you could know. You could know. Yeah. Aha. And so there's a kid. So, you know, a historian told me, and you need to verify it independently, that there

They originally wore clothes. And then, you know, a woman pretended to be a man to compete at the Olympic Games. And then this was found out. So then they just made it all naked. Interesting that it was a woman. Well, it was not because she thought she could win. It was more like because it was for men. And it was the stories. It was a revolutionary point. Ah, I see. Like women voting. Yeah. Interesting. Yeah.

Another problem would be when you add testosterone to females, you fundamentally change them. So you don't just change their ability to perform. You change the way their voice sounds. You change that you could make them sterile. When you're adding exogenous testosterone to women at a very high level, it has pretty profound permanent changes.

As adding testosterone to men do, right? Sort of, but they're still men. Yeah. Right? And it's thought of as being a positive thing. You know, I'm sure you're aware of the Eastern Bloc women in, I mean, some of their records still to this day haven't been broken. And these women were just Jews to the tits, no pun intended, because they were trying to win. And so they, you know, when you've, there's been some interviews of these women that were forced to do this in these communist countries. And

you know, devastated them. They became infertile, they, you know, developed all sorts of problems, ovarian cysts and all sorts of things that were connected to the use of exogenous testosterone at very high levels. Yeah, and one of which is a lack of proper scientific research to develop compounds that are performance enhancing specifically for women. Right, but you wouldn't stop them from taking testosterone, right?

Well, there is... Right. So let's talk about combat sports athletes, for example. If you had a female combat sports athlete and you allowed that female to compete with other women, but allowed that person to get juiced to the hilt and go in there with a fucking crazy voice and looking like Vandelay Silva in those pictures, or rather, Vitor Belfort in those pictures that we saw, I mean, that's, you know...

Then you're saying to these women, in order to compete, you have to stop being a woman. You have to essentially transition, which is what happens to trans men. When you take a woman and you give them a shit-toe to testosterone, they start growing beards, they become trans men, right? That's part of the process. That's what's happening. That's not reversible. And when you do that to women competing with women...

Those women are going to be more effective. They're going to be stronger in weightlifting competition. There's going to be no comparison. If you have combat sports, you're going to have much more power, much more speed, more violence. It's just you're adding – you're turning them into men essentially. You're turning them into trans men and just to compete. It's a little bit different, right? Because we look – I mean maybe it's a society standard. Maybe it's not though.

If you look at it in terms of like when someone looks at like GigaChad, you know, guys look at that. Guys who like to work out like, wow, I'd like to be built like that guy. No – very few women look at like a female bodybuilder who's got a 5 o'clock shadow and say that's the ideal physique. But isn't that an individual choice? It is an individual choice. But all women in the enhanced games will have to make that choice then to become men. I actually think there's also an economic rationale here, right? So if you're –

an athlete, particularly in the era of NIL rights and in the era of name image license, what's happened in the NCAA, right? Selling your brand, right? For an athlete, male or female, their physique and their brand are attached to each other. And so if a female athlete says, you know what, I'm going to take tons and tons of testosterone, she may also be compromising her, her economic ability to earn, um,

by not building a visual brand that is amenable to the market. But even easier, like we forgot to mention one thing at the beginning. So we have actually three, and by the way, we're still mapping out and sort of phrasing the details, but we have three essential rules. Rule number one, which we said at the beginning, it has to be FDA or any other agency globally approved medications. Because again, we discussed it at length. It's all about data, knowing what you take, what's the risk for whatever. Second,

You have to have a doctor, which we will require to be public who is your doctor. Think about a Formula One team where you say, who's my chief engineer? Right. So this doctor will have a public pressure to not go too far because people will know you're the doctor of that person. Right. But we're talking about percentage points in order to win. You just have to go a little bit further than everybody else and you have an advantage. Right.

Wait, third one. But it's still a limiting factor. You need to find a doctor who's publicly your doctor, who's not hiding in the shadows and who's like, I'm responsible for whatever this athlete is taking. It's just thinking through safety measures or how do we sort of make it in a way that people are sort of doing rational decisions. But the third one is important.

Anything, by the way, in life which you take too much of has side effects and has bad ones. If you take 20 vodka shots, you're going to be dead most likely or 30. There's a number of alcohol. If you take it, you're dead. So alcohol has a lethal toxicity at a certain amount. So what we're going to do, the same is like for many of the things we're just discussing, is like if you take too much of it,

Even if you think you get one point more out of it, you're going to put damage on your body. There is always for anything, for testosterone, for human growth hormones, for anabolic steroids. How we regulate it is we're going to do a full health check, which the Olympics don't. It's very simple. You should do it. We do it on site with our own doctors so that you can't cheat.

One of the most important thing is an MRI of the heart because, for example, a lot of anabolic steroid, if you abuse them, so if you take too much to squeeze out the last point, you're going to have a heart damage somewhere and then you're going to get disqualified. We will not let any person on the field who has a health damage. That's going to be interesting data. And that is the limiting factor. So if you're a woman...

And everything you described, I hear you, but I can tell you, I'm not a doctor now and can tell you the exact answer, but if you describe me a woman is taking that much testosterone that she grows a beard and whatever, she's going to have damage to her body and her heart. And she's not going to, and that is then, they don't do it because then they would do it for nothing. Can I ask? They would arrive and would be disqualified. What's the testing involved in the CrossFit Games?

I believe the CrossFit Games does not have any testing. That makes sense. Because you've seen some of them gals? Yeah, and some of those guys do. Yeah, but some of the gals are like giant six-packs and fucking huge shoulders. The vast majority of bodybuilding comps don't have any drug testing. They can't. Yeah. They really can't. It's not even possible without it. All athletes registered in any CrossFit Games competition are subject to drug testing at any time during the year. But we don't do it. I'm just saying.

Including directed, unannounced, out-of-competition testing for any reason. CrossFit Games drug testing policy aims to prevent the use of... 2002. Look at it. Ask the question before 2002. That's 22. Yeah, 2022, yeah. That's just two years ago. Yeah. What drugs are banned? Stimulants, anabolic agents, beta blockers, in competitions, treat drugs, diuretics, peptides. Peptides. Interesting. Anti-estrogens, beta-2 agonists. Interesting.

Wait, we don't. Hold on. Permitted with prescription use and therapeutic use exemption through inhalation only. Oh, we haven't talked about TUEs. Yeah. Oh, we need to talk about TUEs. Okay. So this is the primary abuse that's going on in the Olympic system. Therapeutic use exemptions. Yeah, so this is... We're going to get all lawyerly and technical for a minute here. And double check my statistics, Jamie. I believe 2% of all people are asthmatic.

No, no. Double digit of all swimmers are asthmatic. It's insane. Sorry, sorry. 2% in real life. 2% of the population is asthmatic, but double digits, maybe a third of all swimmers claim to be asthmatic so that they can use high powered steroidal inhalers. So is there an epidemic of asthma among swimmers or are they faking asthma?

They're faking asthma. Yeah, yeah. If I had to guess. Yeah, and these therapeutic use exemptions are just abused left, right, and center. Look up the case of Bradley Wiggins, the British cyclist, I believe, had a therapeutic use exemption for asthma and then forever hid this from even his own teammates. Ah. Yeah. Okay. So how do they diagnose asthma? That's a great question. I'm not a physician. My guess is that it...

Well, you mean in real life or like the doctor just says you have asthma? Like I think they just find a doctor who's... Yeah, I think their team doctor just says they have asthma. Oh, so they just say...

Was athletes with asthma required to show proof of airway obstruction with a clinical test? Yeah, 25% of all sororities. And use their inhaled medications, which are otherwise prohibited during competition. Is there anything that they can take to obstruct their airway? Or can they just... What does that mean? Is it like how you blow on things? Could you like fake it? I think it's quite easy to fake. I think what is generally happening with a lot of our new colleagues is that we hired the chief cardiologist of...

FIFA, right? Yeah. And colleagues at it. It's like one of the ways to cheat in the Olympics is that they let people do tests, these kind of stuff, in their home country. Well, also, look at how it's described here. A long-term study would help distinguish, in quotes, between athletes with asthma who self-select to swimming and those who have asthma as a result of exposure to endurance training practices. Right.

That's interesting. So the idea is that you could limit your cardiovascular system from extreme training? Intensity of swimmer training, long hours spent in water may expose swimmers to more chlorine byproducts.

Whoa. Yeah, so one is... Compared to divers or other animals who spend less time breathing. Oh, so that can cause asthma. So it could also... It could be that swimmers really have more asthma because, like, their sort of training environment or living environment is fostering it, but it also could be that they sort of... Most likely it's both. Well, that is one thing that I did consider because, like, chlorine's bad for you. Yeah. And you're probably getting a bunch of it in your mouth, you know? And if you're... Yeah, and if you're swimming in it, you're also absorbing it through your skin.

Like, I always think that when I get out of a pool. Like, this can't be good. You know, it's what came first, the chicken or the egg. Right, right. Well, listen, gentlemen, this is all very, very exciting. And I love the idea of it. I love the potential. And I think...

It really is going to change the conversation about what these substances are and what the benefits of them are. And you're frankly exposing the lid on so-called amateur athletics and what the real big scam is with the Olympic system. It's just like a giant money grab, and these poor athletes aren't getting any of it. And they're dedicating their entire life hoping that they become famous.

Meanwhile, NBC makes how much? Billions. Yeah, and the IOC makes how much? The whole thing is it's not a good system, and I think your system is far better. And I really, really hope this works. Thank you. I really hope you succeed. When it comes out, I'll tweet about it. I'll tell people. I still say tweet. I'm not going. I don't even know how to say it. I think we all say tweet. Yeah, you have to say tweet. Yeah, I think Elon probably even says it.

But best of luck. I'm really excited. And let me know when it happens. Come back on again right before it happens. We'll talk some more and we'll find out where you went with all these ideas. Cool. I'd love to. Thank you very much. Thank you. Appreciate it. All right. Oh, if anybody wants to know more, where should they go? What's the best place to...

Enhance.org or Enhance Games on Instagram. Okay. Beautiful. Or I'm on Instagram. I'm on Twitter. So find us. Okay. So tell everybody your handle if they want to follow you. C for Christian underscore Angermeyer, my last name, A-N-G-E-R-M-A-Y-E-R. And you? I'm not on Twitter. Good for you. Good for you. Follow me on Instagram. Okay. What's your Instagram? Aaron Ping D'Souza. Okay. Beautiful. All right. Thank you, guys. Bye. Thank you. Bye, everybody. Bye.

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