WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.680 Okay, let's unpack this. Welcome back to the 00:00:02.680 --> 00:00:06.179 Deep Dive. Today, we are opening a file that, 00:00:06.259 --> 00:00:09.439 honestly, it creates a bit of a paradox. It really 00:00:09.439 --> 00:00:12.599 does. We're looking at a man who built his entire 00:00:12.599 --> 00:00:15.820 reputation, his entire brand, really, on shortcuts, 00:00:16.039 --> 00:00:18.219 on hacking the system, right? The four -hour 00:00:18.219 --> 00:00:21.239 work week, the minimum effective dose, all that. 00:00:21.320 --> 00:00:23.940 Right, the life hacks. But the file we have on 00:00:23.940 --> 00:00:28.140 him is, well, it's thick. It spans decades of 00:00:28.140 --> 00:00:30.739 meticulous, grinding, sometimes painful self 00:00:30.739 --> 00:00:32.859 -experimentation. It is ironic, isn't it? We're 00:00:32.859 --> 00:00:35.219 talking about Tim Ferriss, and the central tension 00:00:35.219 --> 00:00:37.979 of his life is exactly that. The guy who sold 00:00:37.979 --> 00:00:40.659 the world on efficiency has himself taken the 00:00:40.659 --> 00:00:42.939 long, hard road to find out what actually matters. 00:00:43.179 --> 00:00:44.359 And it's a journey that I think a lot of you 00:00:44.359 --> 00:00:46.000 listening right now might find familiar, maybe 00:00:46.000 --> 00:00:49.240 uncomfortably so. You start out wanting to be 00:00:49.240 --> 00:00:50.740 faster and richer, and you end up just wanting 00:00:50.740 --> 00:00:54.140 to be sane, just functional. That's the arc. 00:00:54.280 --> 00:00:56.079 One hundred percent. We are going to trace Ferris 00:00:56.079 --> 00:00:59.100 from this this human guinea pig persona selling 00:00:59.100 --> 00:01:01.979 brain supplements in the early 2000s through 00:01:01.979 --> 00:01:05.500 his reign as like the Oracle of Silicon Valley. 00:01:05.599 --> 00:01:09.159 And then finally to his current very unexpected 00:01:09.159 --> 00:01:12.879 role as a philanthropic heavyweight in psychedelic 00:01:12.879 --> 00:01:15.180 research. It's a massive pivot. Yeah. A huge 00:01:15.180 --> 00:01:18.340 one. So. Let's get into it. We've got the biography. 00:01:18.500 --> 00:01:20.659 We've got the four -hour bibliography, the investment 00:01:20.659 --> 00:01:23.120 portfolio, the medical research data. It's all 00:01:23.120 --> 00:01:26.859 here. But let's start where, you know, every 00:01:26.859 --> 00:01:29.739 superhero origin story really starts. Where is 00:01:29.739 --> 00:01:31.939 that? Not with the superpower. Yeah. With the 00:01:31.939 --> 00:01:34.379 weakness. Right. Because if you look at Tim Ferriss 00:01:34.379 --> 00:01:37.420 today. You know, muscular, successful, seems 00:01:37.420 --> 00:01:39.879 stoic, interviewing the world's best performers. 00:01:40.480 --> 00:01:42.680 You assume he was born that way. Of course. He's 00:01:42.680 --> 00:01:44.799 assumed he just like came out of the womb optimized. 00:01:45.439 --> 00:01:48.459 But the records from his childhood in East Hampton, 00:01:48.519 --> 00:01:49.980 New York, tell a completely different story. 00:01:50.120 --> 00:01:53.019 Born in 1977. He was not an athlete. He was small. 00:01:53.159 --> 00:01:55.120 He was frequently ill. And bullied, right? And 00:01:55.120 --> 00:01:57.519 he was bullied. Yeah. Which is a classic motivator. 00:01:57.560 --> 00:01:59.560 We see that all the time. But I think for him, 00:01:59.599 --> 00:02:01.599 it wasn't just, I want to get big to beat up 00:02:01.599 --> 00:02:04.709 the bullies. It was something more. Analytical. 00:02:04.829 --> 00:02:07.870 It was survival. He explicitly credits that poor 00:02:07.870 --> 00:02:10.330 health as a child for sparking this obsession 00:02:10.330 --> 00:02:13.330 with self -improvement. He viewed his body not 00:02:13.330 --> 00:02:17.449 as a vessel he was stuck with, but as a machine 00:02:17.449 --> 00:02:20.150 that was malfunctioning. Oh, okay. A machine. 00:02:20.250 --> 00:02:22.069 And if it's a machine, it has an operating manual. 00:02:22.310 --> 00:02:25.129 If it's a system, it can be engineered. He wasn't 00:02:25.129 --> 00:02:26.990 optimizing for vanity, at least not at first. 00:02:27.009 --> 00:02:29.310 He was building himself up out of sheer necessity. 00:02:29.669 --> 00:02:32.379 That engineering mindset. is absolutely crucial 00:02:32.379 --> 00:02:35.400 here. He doesn't just work out. He deconstructs. 00:02:35.400 --> 00:02:38.199 He reverse engineers. And we see that mindset 00:02:38.199 --> 00:02:41.599 really start to solidify when he leaves the bubble 00:02:41.599 --> 00:02:43.819 of Long Island. Yeah. He goes to Japan as an 00:02:43.819 --> 00:02:46.960 exchange student at age 15. 15. Now, just imagine 00:02:46.960 --> 00:02:49.020 a kid from East Hampton dropped into a culture 00:02:49.020 --> 00:02:51.620 that is entirely based on rigid systems, hierarchy 00:02:51.620 --> 00:02:54.580 and extreme efficiency. Japan is a culture of 00:02:54.580 --> 00:02:57.000 refinement, of stripping away everything unnecessary 00:02:57.000 --> 00:02:59.800 to perfect the form. That had to be a massive, 00:02:59.879 --> 00:03:03.310 massive. culture shock huge but it likely influenced 00:03:03.310 --> 00:03:06.349 his later academic path he ends up at st paul's 00:03:06.349 --> 00:03:08.490 school which is a very prestigious prep school 00:03:08.490 --> 00:03:11.270 and then princeton university graduating in 2000 00:03:11.270 --> 00:03:14.689 with a ba in east asian studies so he's not just 00:03:14.689 --> 00:03:18.169 a casual observer he's like academically studying 00:03:18.169 --> 00:03:21.030 these systems. He's grounded in this rigorous 00:03:21.030 --> 00:03:24.430 academic environment, studying systems and cultures 00:03:24.430 --> 00:03:26.229 that are very different from the standard American 00:03:26.229 --> 00:03:28.610 model. But, you know, the key detail from his 00:03:28.610 --> 00:03:31.449 school years isn't actually the classroom. It's 00:03:31.449 --> 00:03:33.409 the wrestling mat. It's the wrestling mat. OK, 00:03:33.469 --> 00:03:36.250 so why wrestling specifically? I mean, plenty 00:03:36.250 --> 00:03:38.889 of people play sports in high school. Why does 00:03:38.889 --> 00:03:42.189 wrestling matter so much to the Tim Ferriss mythology? 00:03:42.810 --> 00:03:45.650 Because wrestling is the sport of leverage. It's 00:03:45.650 --> 00:03:48.189 pure physics. In football, if you're bigger and 00:03:48.189 --> 00:03:50.569 faster, you usually win. Simple as that. But 00:03:50.569 --> 00:03:54.210 in wrestling, there are weight classes. You are 00:03:54.210 --> 00:03:56.469 fighting someone who is almost exactly your size. 00:03:56.590 --> 00:03:58.990 So how do you win? You win by understanding physics. 00:03:59.129 --> 00:04:01.590 You win by understanding where their center of 00:04:01.590 --> 00:04:04.009 gravity is and applying force at just the right 00:04:04.009 --> 00:04:06.370 fulcrum. So you can be technically weaker than 00:04:06.370 --> 00:04:08.469 your opponent. But if you have better leverage, 00:04:08.590 --> 00:04:11.289 if your technique is better, you win. Exactly. 00:04:11.920 --> 00:04:13.840 Ferris learned that you don't have to be the 00:04:13.840 --> 00:04:15.939 strongest if you are the smartest about mechanics. 00:04:16.459 --> 00:04:19.180 He learned to use an opponent's momentum against 00:04:19.180 --> 00:04:21.959 them. That concept leverage is, I mean, it's 00:04:21.959 --> 00:04:24.879 the skeleton key for his entire career. He applies 00:04:24.879 --> 00:04:28.339 wrestling logic to business, to learning languages, 00:04:28.480 --> 00:04:31.000 to everything. It's the original hack. It's the 00:04:31.000 --> 00:04:33.339 original hack. So, OK, let's jump to the year 00:04:33.339 --> 00:04:36.480 2000. He graduates from Princeton. This is right 00:04:36.480 --> 00:04:39.300 at the peak of the dot com. bubble or maybe just 00:04:39.300 --> 00:04:44.019 as it's bursting the job market is chaotic where 00:04:44.019 --> 00:04:47.000 does our future guru land he goes into sales 00:04:47.000 --> 00:04:49.319 at a data storage company it's a total grind 00:04:49.319 --> 00:04:51.740 he's dialing for dollars trying to sell storage 00:04:51.740 --> 00:04:53.560 area networks i mean it is soul crushing work 00:04:53.560 --> 00:04:56.079 by his own account he's miserable but while he's 00:04:56.079 --> 00:04:59.220 there in 2001 he starts tinkering on the side 00:04:59.220 --> 00:05:02.019 he needs a way out he needs leverage he needs 00:05:02.019 --> 00:05:04.240 leverage and this is the birth of the first real 00:05:04.240 --> 00:05:08.759 business brain quicken brain quicken Okay. Even 00:05:08.759 --> 00:05:12.579 the name screams efficiency. It sounds like something 00:05:12.579 --> 00:05:14.600 you'd buy at a gas station at 2 a .m. to stay 00:05:14.600 --> 00:05:16.899 awake for a road trip. It does sound a bit snake 00:05:16.899 --> 00:05:20.160 oil, doesn't it? It was an internet -based nutritional 00:05:20.160 --> 00:05:22.699 supplement business. He was selling products 00:05:22.699 --> 00:05:26.360 designed to ostensibly speed up neural processing 00:05:26.360 --> 00:05:29.060 or physical reaction times. Who was he selling 00:05:29.060 --> 00:05:32.040 to? Mostly students and athletes. He eventually 00:05:32.040 --> 00:05:35.920 rebranded it as Body QQ Week A later on, but 00:05:35.920 --> 00:05:37.879 the product itself, you know, it matters less 00:05:37.879 --> 00:05:39.720 than the situation it created for him. This is 00:05:39.720 --> 00:05:41.620 the crucible. He's working the sales job during 00:05:41.620 --> 00:05:43.600 the day, and he's trying to build this company 00:05:43.600 --> 00:05:45.860 on the side. And he's absolutely drowning. This 00:05:45.860 --> 00:05:48.629 is the part of the story people forget. He didn't 00:05:48.629 --> 00:05:50.350 start with the four -hour work week. He started 00:05:50.350 --> 00:05:53.050 with the 14 -hour work day. Maybe more. Oh, yeah. 00:05:53.170 --> 00:05:55.250 He's the customer service rep. He's the shipping 00:05:55.250 --> 00:05:57.649 coordinator. He's the CEO. He's the janitor. 00:05:57.689 --> 00:06:00.129 He's everything. And he hits a breaking point. 00:06:00.250 --> 00:06:03.290 He realizes that working harder has a ceiling. 00:06:03.629 --> 00:06:06.529 He physically cannot work more hours in the day. 00:06:06.730 --> 00:06:09.310 So he has to apply that wrestling leverage to 00:06:09.310 --> 00:06:12.730 his own life. Precisely. He has stated explicitly 00:06:12.730 --> 00:06:15.910 that the four -hour work week was based on this 00:06:15.910 --> 00:06:19.490 specific miserable period of his life. He wasn't 00:06:19.490 --> 00:06:21.730 writing about theory. He was writing a survival 00:06:21.730 --> 00:06:24.410 manual based on his desperate attempt to automate 00:06:24.410 --> 00:06:27.189 his income so he could just step away. He started 00:06:27.189 --> 00:06:30.529 asking these, like, dangerous questions. Like 00:06:30.529 --> 00:06:34.339 what? Like, what if I just... didn't answer these 00:06:34.339 --> 00:06:36.439 emails. Or what if I hired someone in a different 00:06:36.439 --> 00:06:38.560 time zone to answer them for me while they sleep? 00:06:38.720 --> 00:06:41.819 Exactly. He started automating everything. He 00:06:41.819 --> 00:06:44.579 hired virtual assistants from India and the Philippines. 00:06:44.959 --> 00:06:47.779 He set up fulfillment centers to ship the pills 00:06:47.779 --> 00:06:50.379 so he never had to touch a box. He even fired 00:06:50.379 --> 00:06:52.819 his high -maintenance customers. That's a famous 00:06:52.819 --> 00:06:55.339 Ferris tactic from that era, firing your customers. 00:06:55.360 --> 00:06:57.500 It's a terrifying thing for a new business owner 00:06:57.500 --> 00:07:00.079 to do. He calculated which customers took up 00:07:00.300 --> 00:07:02.500 you know, 80 % of his time, but only provided 00:07:02.500 --> 00:07:04.779 20 % of the profit. The Pareto Principle. The 00:07:04.779 --> 00:07:06.560 Pareto Principles in action. And he literally 00:07:06.560 --> 00:07:09.060 banned them from buying from him. Sent them an 00:07:09.060 --> 00:07:11.500 email saying, we can no longer serve you. Turning 00:07:11.500 --> 00:07:13.699 away money. It's so counterintuitive. But it 00:07:13.699 --> 00:07:16.579 worked. He liberated his time. He proved you 00:07:16.579 --> 00:07:19.399 could decouple time from income, which is the 00:07:19.399 --> 00:07:22.060 core thesis of the book. He eventually sold the 00:07:22.060 --> 00:07:24.660 company, Brain Quicken, or Body Quick as it was 00:07:24.660 --> 00:07:27.540 then, to a London -based private equity firm 00:07:27.540 --> 00:07:30.620 in 2010. 2010. He held onto it for a while, even 00:07:30.620 --> 00:07:32.959 after the book came out. He did. But the lifestyle 00:07:32.959 --> 00:07:35.459 design concepts, the philosophy, all of that 00:07:35.459 --> 00:07:38.079 was being forged in the fire of those early 2000s 00:07:38.079 --> 00:07:40.899 years. That sale in 2010 was the financial exit. 00:07:40.980 --> 00:07:43.399 But the intellectual exit, the escape, happened 00:07:43.399 --> 00:07:45.540 much earlier. Okay, so that leads us directly 00:07:45.540 --> 00:07:48.360 into the four -hour era. This is part two of 00:07:48.360 --> 00:07:51.579 our dive, the book phenomenon. Because when the 00:07:51.579 --> 00:07:54.199 four -hour workweek hit the shelves in 2007, 00:07:54.560 --> 00:07:57.500 I mean. It didn't just sell copies. It broke 00:07:57.500 --> 00:07:59.620 the brain of the American workforce. It was the 00:07:59.620 --> 00:08:02.420 right book at the exact right moment. Think about 00:08:02.420 --> 00:08:05.120 2007. You had BlackBerry's tethering people to 00:08:05.120 --> 00:08:07.540 their desks, 234 .7. The always -on culture was 00:08:07.540 --> 00:08:09.459 just starting to really suffocate people. Crackberry. 00:08:09.639 --> 00:08:11.620 The Crackberry, exactly. And here comes this 00:08:11.620 --> 00:08:14.019 guy saying, the goal isn't to be a millionaire 00:08:14.019 --> 00:08:16.319 when you're 60 and retired. The goal is to live 00:08:16.319 --> 00:08:18.939 like a millionaire now, using time and mobility 00:08:18.939 --> 00:08:22.720 as your currency. The new rich. That phrase was 00:08:22.720 --> 00:08:25.000 everywhere. I remember that. It redefined wealth. 00:08:25.519 --> 00:08:27.779 Ferris argued that if you have a million dollars 00:08:27.779 --> 00:08:29.819 in the bank, but you work 80 hours a week in 00:08:29.819 --> 00:08:31.800 an office you hate and you can't leave your desk, 00:08:32.039 --> 00:08:34.259 you aren't rich. You're a well -paid prisoner. 00:08:34.480 --> 00:08:37.559 Right. But if you make, say, $50 ,000 a year 00:08:37.559 --> 00:08:39.360 and you work four hours a week from a laptop 00:08:39.360 --> 00:08:42.720 in Argentina, you are wealthy. In terms of lifestyle, 00:08:43.080 --> 00:08:45.899 you are rich. And people just ate it up. I mean, 00:08:45.919 --> 00:08:47.620 who doesn't want to hear that the nine to five 00:08:47.620 --> 00:08:49.899 is a scam and there's a secret back door? It 00:08:49.899 --> 00:08:52.799 tapped into this massive, massive vein of dissatisfaction. 00:08:52.799 --> 00:08:55.340 But Ferris didn't stop at work. He applied that 00:08:55.340 --> 00:08:58.299 same hack the system mentality to biology with 00:08:58.299 --> 00:09:01.019 the four hour body in 2010. The spidal hair is 00:09:01.019 --> 00:09:03.779 even more aggressive. An uncommon guide to rapid 00:09:03.779 --> 00:09:07.000 fat loss, incredible sex and becoming superhuman. 00:09:07.279 --> 00:09:09.700 Becoming superhuman. I mean, come on. He wasn't 00:09:09.700 --> 00:09:12.340 promising get fit. He was promising a literal 00:09:12.340 --> 00:09:15.419 upgrade to your human operating system. And again, 00:09:15.460 --> 00:09:17.340 it was all about leverage. What is the minimum 00:09:17.340 --> 00:09:20.059 effective dose of exercise? What are the specific 00:09:20.059 --> 00:09:22.720 chemical reactions of food? He was treating the 00:09:22.720 --> 00:09:24.720 body like a machine that could be debugged and 00:09:24.720 --> 00:09:27.740 optimized. Tracking everything. The data. All 00:09:27.740 --> 00:09:30.340 the data. Blood sugar, sleep cycles, you name 00:09:30.340 --> 00:09:35.159 it. And then came The 4 -Hour Chef in 2012, which... 00:09:35.360 --> 00:09:36.639 Honestly, I think it's the most misunderstood 00:09:36.639 --> 00:09:38.980 book in that whole series. I completely agree. 00:09:39.200 --> 00:09:41.039 On the surface, it looks like a cookbook. The 00:09:41.039 --> 00:09:43.679 cover says, The Simple Path to Cooking Like a 00:09:43.679 --> 00:09:45.919 Pro, but the subtitle gives the whole game away. 00:09:46.100 --> 00:09:48.419 And learning anything. It's a book about meta 00:09:48.419 --> 00:09:49.659 -learning. It's a book about meta -learning, 00:09:49.820 --> 00:09:53.019 yeah. He used cooking as the vehicle to teach 00:09:53.019 --> 00:09:56.509 people how to deconstruct any skill. any skill 00:09:56.509 --> 00:09:59.450 at all, and learn it in record time. He introduced 00:09:59.450 --> 00:10:01.789 concepts like decess deconstruction, selection, 00:10:02.129 --> 00:10:04.909 sequencing, stakes. It was a framework for rapid 00:10:04.909 --> 00:10:07.309 skill acquisition. So the philosophy of this 00:10:07.309 --> 00:10:10.230 whole era was just pure, unadulterated optimization. 00:10:10.690 --> 00:10:13.129 If you could measure it, you could hack it. But 00:10:13.129 --> 00:10:15.549 here's the thing. Anyone can write a book full 00:10:15.549 --> 00:10:18.909 of shortcuts. Ferris needed to prove it. He needed 00:10:18.909 --> 00:10:21.470 receipts. He had to be the living embodiment 00:10:21.470 --> 00:10:23.649 of his philosophy. He had to be the guinea pig. 00:10:23.850 --> 00:10:26.049 And there is one story in the file that I think 00:10:26.049 --> 00:10:28.169 just perfectly encapsulates this hacker mentality 00:10:28.169 --> 00:10:30.409 from that period. It's the story of the Chinese 00:10:30.409 --> 00:10:33.330 kickboxing championship. Oh, the Sanshu incident. 00:10:33.570 --> 00:10:37.169 This is classic Ferris. So in 1999, before the 00:10:37.169 --> 00:10:39.370 books, he decides to enter the National Chinese 00:10:39.370 --> 00:10:42.049 Kickboxing Championship. Now, you have to keep 00:10:42.049 --> 00:10:44.629 in mind, Tim Ferris is not a professional striker. 00:10:45.000 --> 00:10:47.299 He's a wrestler. He doesn't have years of conditioning. 00:10:47.580 --> 00:10:50.019 He isn't spending six hours a day kicking a heavy 00:10:50.019 --> 00:10:52.879 bag. So on paper, he has no business being there. 00:10:53.039 --> 00:10:55.620 How does he expect to survive, let alone win? 00:10:55.860 --> 00:10:58.399 He reads the rulebook. He approaches the sport 00:10:58.399 --> 00:11:01.799 like a lawyer, not like a fighter. He finds two 00:11:01.799 --> 00:11:04.830 critical loopholes. First, the weigh -in. The 00:11:04.830 --> 00:11:06.629 weigh -in happened the day before the fight. 00:11:06.750 --> 00:11:08.590 Which is common in combat sports, right? To give 00:11:08.590 --> 00:11:10.889 fighters time to rehydrate. Right. But he took 00:11:10.889 --> 00:11:13.610 it to an extreme. He used severe dehydration 00:11:13.610 --> 00:11:16.789 techniques. Yeah. Saunas, spitting, diuretics, 00:11:16.789 --> 00:11:19.370 wearing sweatsuits. He basically sucked all the 00:11:19.370 --> 00:11:22.470 water out of his body to weigh in at 165 pounds. 00:11:22.690 --> 00:11:24.990 So he makes weight. He makes weight. But then, 00:11:25.090 --> 00:11:28.139 over the next 24 hours, he hyperhydrated. By 00:11:28.139 --> 00:11:30.179 the time he stepped into the ring, he weighed 00:11:30.179 --> 00:11:33.580 something like 193 pounds. Oh, wow. So he's fighting 00:11:33.580 --> 00:11:35.600 guys who are effectively three weight classes 00:11:35.600 --> 00:11:38.460 below his actual functional size. That's the 00:11:38.460 --> 00:11:41.159 first lever. It's just physics again. Mass times 00:11:41.159 --> 00:11:44.139 acceleration. But the second lever was even smarter. 00:11:44.360 --> 00:11:47.600 It was in the scoring. He noticed a specific 00:11:47.600 --> 00:11:51.500 rule. If you push your opponent off the raised 00:11:51.500 --> 00:11:54.299 platform, it's called a light tie, three times 00:11:54.299 --> 00:11:57.379 in a single round, you win by technical knockout. 00:11:57.679 --> 00:11:59.379 He didn't need to punch them out. He didn't need 00:11:59.379 --> 00:12:01.159 to kick them. He just needed to push them off 00:12:01.159 --> 00:12:03.860 a platform. Precisely. So while the other guys, 00:12:03.919 --> 00:12:06.960 the actual trained kickboxers, were trying to 00:12:06.960 --> 00:12:09.299 land these flashy spinning kicks to his head, 00:12:09.460 --> 00:12:12.379 Ferris would just like cover up, eat the shot, 00:12:12.559 --> 00:12:14.799 clinch them. Use his wrestling base. Use his 00:12:14.799 --> 00:12:16.860 wrestling base and his 30 -pound weight advantage 00:12:16.860 --> 00:12:18.799 and just shove them off the platform. And he 00:12:18.799 --> 00:12:22.080 won. He won the national title by technical knockout. 00:12:22.200 --> 00:12:23.639 Now, there are two ways to look at that story. 00:12:23.840 --> 00:12:26.360 You can say it's brilliant or you can say it's... 00:12:26.620 --> 00:12:29.240 Well, kind of cheap. Not that it's against the 00:12:29.240 --> 00:12:32.120 spirit of the competition. And that is the polarizing 00:12:32.120 --> 00:12:35.440 nature of Tim Ferriss in a nutshell. To a purist, 00:12:35.480 --> 00:12:39.460 he ruined the sport. He bypassed the artistry 00:12:39.460 --> 00:12:41.919 and the years of dedication required for kickboxing. 00:12:42.200 --> 00:12:45.419 But to a hacker, he optimized the game theory. 00:12:45.759 --> 00:12:48.500 He achieved the stated goal winning the gold 00:12:48.500 --> 00:12:52.000 medal with the absolute minimum effective dose 00:12:52.000 --> 00:12:54.429 of combat. He did the same thing with the Tango 00:12:54.429 --> 00:12:56.730 World Record, right? A similar kind of deconstruction. 00:12:56.789 --> 00:13:00.230 Yes. He became the first American to hold a Guinness 00:13:00.230 --> 00:13:03.029 World Record for tango spins. And again, he didn't 00:13:03.029 --> 00:13:06.350 practice for 20 years. He analyzed the biomechanics. 00:13:06.429 --> 00:13:09.710 He broke down video frame by frame. He realized 00:13:09.710 --> 00:13:12.309 the female role in tango spins allowed for certain 00:13:12.309 --> 00:13:15.029 pivots. And he analyzed the male role, found 00:13:15.029 --> 00:13:17.429 the friction points, adjusted the technique, 00:13:17.629 --> 00:13:19.950 and broke the record in a matter of months. It 00:13:19.950 --> 00:13:21.789 was all performance art. It was all performance 00:13:21.789 --> 00:13:23.710 art to demonstrate his thesis. You don't need 00:13:23.710 --> 00:13:25.549 10 ,000 hours if you have the right strategy. 00:13:25.850 --> 00:13:27.629 He even had a TV show about this whole concept, 00:13:27.750 --> 00:13:30.509 right? The Tim Ferriss Experiment. Debut on HLN 00:13:30.509 --> 00:13:33.470 in 2013, the whole premise was life hacking and 00:13:33.470 --> 00:13:36.070 speed learning. Each episode, he'd try to learn 00:13:36.070 --> 00:13:38.629 some incredibly complex skill in a week. Like 00:13:38.629 --> 00:13:40.690 what? Like learning to play drums well enough 00:13:40.690 --> 00:13:43.269 to perform with a major rock band. Or rally car 00:13:43.269 --> 00:13:46.309 racing. Or learning Tagalog in a few days. I 00:13:46.309 --> 00:13:48.129 remember that show had a really weird distribution 00:13:48.129 --> 00:13:51.230 history. It kind of came and went. It did. HLN, 00:13:51.309 --> 00:13:54.049 the network, they basically buried it. They produced 00:13:54.049 --> 00:13:56.110 13 episodes but barely aired them. They didn't 00:13:56.110 --> 00:13:58.990 know how to market it. So in true Ferris fashion, 00:13:59.350 --> 00:14:03.389 he didn't let the content die. In 2015, he acquired 00:14:03.389 --> 00:14:06.470 the full rights to the episodes himself and distributed 00:14:06.470 --> 00:14:09.450 them on iTunes. And of course, they shot to number 00:14:09.450 --> 00:14:12.029 one. They topped the charts. He bypassed the 00:14:12.029 --> 00:14:15.669 gatekeepers. perfectly encapsulated his philosophy. 00:14:15.970 --> 00:14:18.690 If the traditional system like cable TV doesn't 00:14:18.690 --> 00:14:21.590 work for you, find the hack, find the back door. 00:14:21.769 --> 00:14:24.610 In this case, it was digital distribution. So 00:14:24.610 --> 00:14:26.309 up to this point, we have Tim Ferriss, the hacker. 00:14:26.529 --> 00:14:28.490 He's conquered the bestseller list. He's conquered 00:14:28.490 --> 00:14:30.509 his body. He's conquered the weigh -in scales. 00:14:31.210 --> 00:14:33.809 But while all this is happening, while he's writing 00:14:33.809 --> 00:14:36.190 these books, he's also doing something else in 00:14:36.190 --> 00:14:37.809 the background that turns out to be incredibly, 00:14:37.850 --> 00:14:40.549 incredibly lucrative. Oh, yeah. He's becoming 00:14:40.549 --> 00:14:43.429 the Oracle of Silicon Valley. This is part three 00:14:43.429 --> 00:14:45.570 of the story, and honestly, this is probably 00:14:45.570 --> 00:14:48.750 where the real new rich money came from. While 00:14:48.750 --> 00:14:50.809 everyone was reading his books and trying to 00:14:50.809 --> 00:14:53.470 start dropshipping businesses, the tech insider 00:14:53.470 --> 00:14:57.240 saw him as a golden goose. He became a super 00:14:57.240 --> 00:14:59.460 angel investor. He wasn't just writing about 00:14:59.460 --> 00:15:02.419 the new rich. He was literally investing in the 00:15:02.419 --> 00:15:04.419 companies that would build the infrastructure 00:15:04.419 --> 00:15:07.500 for that new rich economy. Precisely. And his 00:15:07.500 --> 00:15:10.419 investment portfolio from this era is staggering. 00:15:10.620 --> 00:15:12.740 I mean, we are talking about getting in on the 00:15:12.740 --> 00:15:15.080 absolute ground floor of companies that became 00:15:15.080 --> 00:15:18.179 verbs. Okay, let's name drop a few. Give us the 00:15:18.179 --> 00:15:21.360 highlights. Uber. Right? He was a pre -seed money 00:15:21.360 --> 00:15:24.330 advisor. Wait, pre -seed? That means before it 00:15:24.330 --> 00:15:26.570 was even a real company with a product. That 00:15:26.570 --> 00:15:29.070 means when it was basically a PowerPoint deck 00:15:29.070 --> 00:15:31.909 and an idea about black cars you could summon 00:15:31.909 --> 00:15:34.570 with your phone. That is the earliest, riskiest 00:15:34.570 --> 00:15:37.029 stage of investing you can possibly get in on. 00:15:37.190 --> 00:15:39.610 But because he got in there, his equity stake. 00:15:39.889 --> 00:15:41.669 Well, the return on that investment would be 00:15:41.669 --> 00:15:44.389 astronomical. Life changing. Who else is in that 00:15:44.389 --> 00:15:46.970 portfolio? He was an early investor in Twitter. 00:15:47.610 --> 00:15:50.730 an early investor in Duolingo. He was an investor 00:15:50.730 --> 00:15:54.009 and an advisor for TaskRabbit. TaskRabbit makes 00:15:54.009 --> 00:15:56.970 so much sense for him. It's literally outsourcing 00:15:56.970 --> 00:15:59.409 for the masses. It's the philosophy of the book. 00:15:59.659 --> 00:16:02.100 It is the four hour work week operationalized 00:16:02.100 --> 00:16:04.700 as an app. I don't want to build my Ikea furniture. 00:16:04.899 --> 00:16:07.679 I'll pay someone else to do it. That is the Ferris 00:16:07.679 --> 00:16:10.500 ethos. He was also heavily involved with Shopify. 00:16:10.700 --> 00:16:13.200 I remember that. He did more than just write 00:16:13.200 --> 00:16:15.320 a check there, didn't he? He was an advisor who 00:16:15.320 --> 00:16:17.480 helped them launch their build a business competition 00:16:17.480 --> 00:16:20.799 back in 2010. And this was just a brilliant piece 00:16:20.799 --> 00:16:23.740 of synergy. Ferris had millions of readers who 00:16:23.740 --> 00:16:26.860 all wanted to start a muse, his term for a low 00:16:26.860 --> 00:16:29.299 maintenance automated business. Right. Shopify 00:16:29.299 --> 00:16:32.059 had a platform to build online stores. So Ferris 00:16:32.059 --> 00:16:34.320 went to his audience and said, use Shopify to 00:16:34.320 --> 00:16:36.240 build your business. And the winner gets $100 00:16:36.240 --> 00:16:39.960 ,000 and direct mentorship from me. So he used 00:16:39.960 --> 00:16:42.799 his massive audience to drive a tidal wave of 00:16:42.799 --> 00:16:45.419 traffic and new users directly to his investment. 00:16:45.679 --> 00:16:49.179 It's the value add that venture capitalists dream 00:16:49.179 --> 00:16:50.960 of. He didn't just bring money to the table. 00:16:51.080 --> 00:16:54.220 He brought an army of motivated users. It just 00:16:54.220 --> 00:16:56.200 seems like he couldn't miss, like he had the 00:16:56.200 --> 00:16:59.299 Midas touch. But surely... In the world of angel 00:16:59.299 --> 00:17:01.059 investing, you have to miss sometimes. It's a 00:17:01.059 --> 00:17:03.200 hits -driven business. You absolutely do. It's 00:17:03.200 --> 00:17:05.660 a power law game. Most of your investments fail. 00:17:05.759 --> 00:17:08.420 They go to zero. And there is a specific case 00:17:08.420 --> 00:17:10.359 study in the file that really highlights the 00:17:10.359 --> 00:17:14.119 risks involved. A company called SHYP. S -H -Y 00:17:14.119 --> 00:17:18.220 -P. SHYP. Okay, tell us about SHYP. In 2013, 00:17:18.660 --> 00:17:21.259 Ferris formed a syndicate on AngelList to invest 00:17:21.259 --> 00:17:24.859 in this company. He raised $250 ,000 personally 00:17:24.859 --> 00:17:27.200 from his followers and helped the company raise 00:17:27.200 --> 00:17:30.519 over $500 ,000 through his network. Ship eventually 00:17:30.519 --> 00:17:33.339 raised a total of $2 .1 million in that round. 00:17:33.480 --> 00:17:35.079 And what was the pitch? What did they do? The 00:17:35.079 --> 00:17:37.599 pitch was Uber for shipping. It was a fantastic 00:17:37.599 --> 00:17:39.640 idea on paper. You take a picture of an item 00:17:39.640 --> 00:17:41.720 you want to send, a toaster, a pair of shoes, 00:17:41.980 --> 00:17:44.279 anything. And a ship courier comes to your house, 00:17:44.359 --> 00:17:46.950 picks it up. boxes it for you and ships it via 00:17:46.950 --> 00:17:49.269 the cheapest carrier. So no going to the post 00:17:49.269 --> 00:17:52.210 office, no finding tape, no printing labels. 00:17:52.289 --> 00:17:54.349 None of it. It sounds like a dream. So why did 00:17:54.349 --> 00:17:56.890 it fail? It sounds brilliant. Because atoms are 00:17:56.890 --> 00:17:59.609 much, much harder than bits. It's easy to scale 00:17:59.609 --> 00:18:02.750 software. It costs almost nothing to add another 00:18:02.750 --> 00:18:06.170 user to Twitter or Facebook. But for ship, every 00:18:06.170 --> 00:18:09.250 single transaction required a van, a driver, 00:18:09.430 --> 00:18:12.369 gas, cardboard, packaging materials, warehouse 00:18:12.369 --> 00:18:16.140 space. The logistics were a nightmare. The unit 00:18:16.140 --> 00:18:18.099 economics must have been brutal. They ate them 00:18:18.099 --> 00:18:20.720 alive, they grew too fast, the margins weren't 00:18:20.720 --> 00:18:22.839 there, and they could never make the model profitable. 00:18:23.119 --> 00:18:26.160 In 2018, ships shut down completely, they laid 00:18:26.160 --> 00:18:28.059 off all their employees. So all that investment 00:18:28.059 --> 00:18:31.339 money was just gone. Gone. Poof. And for Ferris, 00:18:31.400 --> 00:18:33.319 I think this hit differently. It wasn't just 00:18:33.319 --> 00:18:35.319 his money that was lost. It was his fans' money, 00:18:35.440 --> 00:18:38.240 the people from his syndicate. It provided a 00:18:38.240 --> 00:18:41.079 very realistic, very public counterbalance to 00:18:41.079 --> 00:18:43.380 the Uber success stories. It showed everyone 00:18:43.380 --> 00:18:45.779 that high reward investing comes with total loss 00:18:45.779 --> 00:18:48.240 risk. And it seems like this volatility, or maybe 00:18:48.240 --> 00:18:50.720 just the sheer intensity of that world, it started 00:18:50.720 --> 00:18:53.079 to wear on him. Because around 2015, we see a 00:18:53.079 --> 00:18:56.059 really significant pivot. We do. In 2015, Ferris 00:18:56.059 --> 00:18:58.359 declared what he called a long vacation from 00:18:58.359 --> 00:19:00.480 new investing. He just stopped. Cold turkey. 00:19:00.660 --> 00:19:03.759 He stopped the intake of new deals. He cited 00:19:03.759 --> 00:19:06.140 the incredible stress of the work, the constant 00:19:06.140 --> 00:19:08.519 pressure. But he also said something very telling. 00:19:08.759 --> 00:19:12.059 He said he felt his impact was minimal in the 00:19:12.059 --> 00:19:14.299 long run. Minimal in the long run. That is a 00:19:14.299 --> 00:19:17.380 haunting phrase for a guy who is completely obsessed 00:19:17.380 --> 00:19:21.380 with impact and efficiency. Here's a guy who 00:19:21.380 --> 00:19:23.180 has invested in some of the biggest tech companies 00:19:23.180 --> 00:19:26.519 in history. And he's saying, is this actually 00:19:26.519 --> 00:19:29.369 mattering? It marks the first major crack in 00:19:29.369 --> 00:19:32.450 that optimization armor. He realized that financial 00:19:32.450 --> 00:19:35.049 success and efficiency were not enough for personal 00:19:35.049 --> 00:19:37.450 fulfillment. He even moved out of Silicon Valley. 00:19:37.609 --> 00:19:40.190 In 2017, he stated that one of the main reasons 00:19:40.190 --> 00:19:42.869 he left the Bay Area was that after retiring 00:19:42.869 --> 00:19:45.390 from angel investing, he had no professional 00:19:45.390 --> 00:19:47.750 need to be there anymore. He was unplugging from 00:19:47.750 --> 00:19:49.990 the very machine he helped build. He was. And 00:19:49.990 --> 00:19:52.230 this, this disillusionment, it leads us directly 00:19:52.230 --> 00:19:54.730 to part four, the voice of reason. Because as 00:19:54.730 --> 00:19:56.650 he stepped back from investing, he leaned hard 00:19:56.650 --> 00:19:59.990 into a new medium, podcasting. The Tim Ferriss 00:19:59.990 --> 00:20:04.109 Show. It launched in 2014. And it became a juggernaut. 00:20:04.170 --> 00:20:06.670 I mean, the numbers are just insane. We are talking 00:20:06.670 --> 00:20:09.369 over one billion downloads. It's consistently 00:20:09.369 --> 00:20:11.470 ranked as one of the top podcasts in the world. 00:20:11.789 --> 00:20:14.250 But what's really interesting is the format shift. 00:20:14.549 --> 00:20:17.710 How so? In his books, Ferriss was the teacher. 00:20:17.809 --> 00:20:20.569 He was the guru. Here is how you lose fat. Here 00:20:20.569 --> 00:20:22.670 is how you learn French. He had the answers. 00:20:22.890 --> 00:20:25.890 But on the podcast. On the podcast, he's the 00:20:25.890 --> 00:20:28.730 student. The format is almost entirely interview 00:20:28.730 --> 00:20:32.440 centered. He isn't teaching. He is asking. He's 00:20:32.440 --> 00:20:34.400 deconstructing other people's success, not just 00:20:34.400 --> 00:20:36.759 his own. And the list of guests is just absurd. 00:20:36.880 --> 00:20:39.220 It's not just tech CEOs and venture capitalists 00:20:39.220 --> 00:20:41.640 anymore. No, not at all. It's a who's who of 00:20:41.640 --> 00:20:43.720 high performance across every possible domain. 00:20:43.920 --> 00:20:46.279 You have Jamie Foxx giving these incredible insights 00:20:46.279 --> 00:20:48.539 on entertainment and mimicry. You have Arnold 00:20:48.539 --> 00:20:50.380 Schwarzenegger on discipline and psychology. 00:20:50.880 --> 00:20:55.039 LeBron James on physical recovery. Maria Sharapova. 00:20:55.279 --> 00:20:56.900 Matthew McConaughey was a great one. Exactly. 00:20:56.900 --> 00:20:58.700 But then you also have someone like Brene Brown 00:20:58.700 --> 00:21:01.339 discussing vulnerability. That's a key shift. 00:21:01.390 --> 00:21:03.849 He's not just talking to tech bros about conversion 00:21:03.849 --> 00:21:06.509 rates anymore. He's talking to researchers about 00:21:06.509 --> 00:21:09.150 shame and courage. He's looking for the source 00:21:09.150 --> 00:21:10.970 code of these people, the underlying principles. 00:21:11.210 --> 00:21:14.269 He is, and he asks these very specific, almost 00:21:14.269 --> 00:21:16.930 tactical questions. What is the book you've gifted 00:21:16.930 --> 00:21:19.990 the most? How do you handle a failure? What do 00:21:19.990 --> 00:21:22.549 the first 60 minutes of your day look like? He's 00:21:22.549 --> 00:21:24.789 still looking for the hack, but the target has 00:21:24.789 --> 00:21:27.309 changed. He's not hacking the body anymore. He's 00:21:27.309 --> 00:21:29.950 trying to hack the mind and the soul. And he 00:21:29.950 --> 00:21:31.849 also started his own publishing imprint around 00:21:31.849 --> 00:21:34.069 this time, too, right? Yeah, Tim Ferriss Publishing, 00:21:34.190 --> 00:21:37.509 which he launched in November 2013. And again, 00:21:37.630 --> 00:21:39.910 look at the mission, bringing books he loves 00:21:39.910 --> 00:21:43.650 to the world, not just writing his own. He's 00:21:43.650 --> 00:21:46.329 becoming a curator. What were some of the titles 00:21:46.329 --> 00:21:48.299 he put out? Well, the first one was a perfect 00:21:48.299 --> 00:21:50.920 fit, Vagabonding by Rolf Potts, which is kind 00:21:50.920 --> 00:21:53.380 of the Bible of long term travel. But then he 00:21:53.380 --> 00:21:56.259 published Ego is the Enemy and the Obstacle is 00:21:56.259 --> 00:21:58.980 the Way by Ryan Holiday. Those are huge books. 00:21:59.119 --> 00:22:01.180 I mean, those are the books that basically brought 00:22:01.180 --> 00:22:03.839 stoicism back into the mainstream for a whole 00:22:03.839 --> 00:22:06.470 new generation. They are foundational. Before 00:22:06.470 --> 00:22:08.930 Ferris and Holliday, stoicism was something you 00:22:08.930 --> 00:22:11.769 studied in a dusty philosophy class. They made 00:22:11.769 --> 00:22:14.269 it a practical, actionable toolkit for modern 00:22:14.269 --> 00:22:16.470 life. He also published a book called What I 00:22:16.470 --> 00:22:19.109 Learned, Losing a Million Dollars. A book about 00:22:19.109 --> 00:22:22.690 failure. From the guy who everyone thought was 00:22:22.690 --> 00:22:24.910 the king of success. A book about failure. You 00:22:24.910 --> 00:22:27.170 see the pattern, right? He's moving away from 00:22:27.170 --> 00:22:29.710 how to win and he's moving towards how to endure 00:22:29.710 --> 00:22:32.069 and how to think. And his own later books reflect 00:22:32.069 --> 00:22:35.480 this too. Tools of Titans in 2016 and Tribe of 00:22:35.480 --> 00:22:38.579 Mentors in 2017. These aren't really narratives. 00:22:38.599 --> 00:22:41.059 They're compilations. They're collections. They 00:22:41.059 --> 00:22:43.680 are basically encyclopedias of other people's 00:22:43.680 --> 00:22:46.140 wisdom. It's Ferris explicitly saying, look, 00:22:46.240 --> 00:22:48.559 I don't have all the answers, but I have access 00:22:48.559 --> 00:22:51.279 to the people who might. It reinforces that shift 00:22:51.279 --> 00:22:54.839 from guru to guide. So we have the hacker, the 00:22:54.839 --> 00:22:57.099 investor, and now the podcaster and publisher, 00:22:57.299 --> 00:22:59.859 the curator. But beneath the surface of all this 00:22:59.859 --> 00:23:02.279 public success, there was a very serious struggle 00:23:02.279 --> 00:23:04.839 going on. And this brings us to part five, the 00:23:04.839 --> 00:23:07.039 philosophy shift. This is where things get really 00:23:07.039 --> 00:23:09.279 personal. This is the most human part of the 00:23:09.279 --> 00:23:12.480 story. For years, Ferris was the image of the 00:23:12.480 --> 00:23:15.220 optimized male, the guy who had everything figured 00:23:15.220 --> 00:23:18.279 out. But as the podcast went on, he started to 00:23:18.279 --> 00:23:20.500 pull back the curtain on his own mental health. 00:23:20.619 --> 00:23:22.660 He's been very, very public about his struggles 00:23:22.660 --> 00:23:25.079 with bipolar disorder. Yes. He has discussed 00:23:25.079 --> 00:23:27.960 his bipolar disorder openly on his show. He has 00:23:27.960 --> 00:23:30.509 talked about periods of deep. crippling depression 00:23:30.509 --> 00:23:32.470 where he literally couldn't get out of bed for 00:23:32.470 --> 00:23:35.569 days. He credits stoicism and meditation not 00:23:35.569 --> 00:23:38.130 just with, you know, optimizing his mind, but 00:23:38.130 --> 00:23:40.069 with actually helping him manage that disorder 00:23:40.069 --> 00:23:42.470 and stay alive. It's less about crushing it and 00:23:42.470 --> 00:23:45.029 more about surviving it. Exactly. There is a 00:23:45.029 --> 00:23:47.829 famous TED talk he gave in 2017 called Why You 00:23:47.829 --> 00:23:50.029 Should Define Your Fears Instead of Your Goals. 00:23:50.130 --> 00:23:52.529 That title alone is a complete rejection of the 00:23:52.529 --> 00:23:54.849 self -help industry standard. The whole industry 00:23:54.849 --> 00:23:58.859 is built on set goals, crush your goals. He says, 00:23:58.940 --> 00:24:01.799 no, define your fears. He calls it fear setting. 00:24:01.960 --> 00:24:04.839 It's an old stoic exercise. You visualize the 00:24:04.839 --> 00:24:07.619 absolute worst case scenario in agonizing detail. 00:24:08.000 --> 00:24:10.380 If I quit my job, what exactly happened? OK, 00:24:10.519 --> 00:24:12.619 I lose my income. Then what? I miss my rent payment. 00:24:12.900 --> 00:24:15.079 Then what? I have to move in with my parents. 00:24:15.339 --> 00:24:17.599 And usually when you follow that thread all the 00:24:17.599 --> 00:24:20.579 way to the bottom, you realize. OK, it's not 00:24:20.579 --> 00:24:22.960 great, but I'm not going to die. Exactly. You 00:24:22.960 --> 00:24:25.400 realize the worst case scenario is survivable. 00:24:25.519 --> 00:24:28.440 It strips the fear of its paralyzing power. He 00:24:28.440 --> 00:24:31.039 pushes letters from a stoic by Seneca constantly. 00:24:31.380 --> 00:24:34.019 He calls it his favorite writing of all time. 00:24:34.279 --> 00:24:36.559 It's so interesting that a guy who made his name 00:24:36.559 --> 00:24:40.440 on modern tech and biohacking finds his solace 00:24:40.440 --> 00:24:43.789 in a Roman philosopher from 2000 years ago. While 00:24:43.789 --> 00:24:46.170 stoicism is the ultimate operating system for 00:24:46.170 --> 00:24:48.589 high stress environments, it teaches you to focus 00:24:48.589 --> 00:24:51.150 only on what you can control and accept what 00:24:51.150 --> 00:24:53.690 you can't. For a guy who spent years trying to 00:24:53.690 --> 00:24:55.650 control everything, his blood sugar, his sleep 00:24:55.650 --> 00:24:58.450 cycles, his business, his investments, realizing 00:24:58.450 --> 00:25:01.109 what you can't control must have been a profound 00:25:01.109 --> 00:25:03.690 revelation. There was a 2020 interview he did 00:25:03.690 --> 00:25:06.970 with GQ where he really laid this all out. Right. 00:25:07.009 --> 00:25:10.309 Yes. It's a pivotal interview, a real turning 00:25:10.309 --> 00:25:13.190 point. He reevaluated a lot of his earlier ideas, 00:25:13.390 --> 00:25:15.329 and he gave this quote that I think defines his 00:25:15.329 --> 00:25:17.710 current era. He said, not everything that is 00:25:17.710 --> 00:25:20.329 meaningful can be measured. Not everything that 00:25:20.329 --> 00:25:22.730 is meaningful can be measured. I mean, that is 00:25:22.730 --> 00:25:25.230 coming from the guy who tracked his. blood glucose 00:25:25.230 --> 00:25:29.089 and sleep cycles on spreadsheets for years. The 00:25:29.089 --> 00:25:31.750 ultimate quantifier. It's a massive admission. 00:25:31.950 --> 00:25:34.369 It's the data guy admitting that the data has 00:25:34.369 --> 00:25:37.690 limits, that there are things like love and meaning 00:25:37.690 --> 00:25:40.170 and peace of mind that don't fit into a cell 00:25:40.170 --> 00:25:42.509 on a spreadsheet. He started recommending books 00:25:42.509 --> 00:25:45.410 like Radical Acceptance by Tara Brock and Awareness 00:25:45.410 --> 00:25:47.930 by Anthony DeMello. These are spiritual books, 00:25:48.049 --> 00:25:50.670 not business books. So he's moved from the body 00:25:50.670 --> 00:25:53.380 to the mind and then to the spirit. And that 00:25:53.380 --> 00:25:55.640 trajectory leads us to the current frontier, 00:25:55.799 --> 00:25:59.140 part six, psychedelics and philanthropy. This 00:25:59.140 --> 00:26:01.900 is where he is putting his money, where his mouth 00:26:01.900 --> 00:26:03.740 is. And it's not a small amount of money. We're 00:26:03.740 --> 00:26:05.660 talking millions and millions of dollars. When 00:26:05.660 --> 00:26:08.079 we say psychedelics, just to be clear, we are 00:26:08.079 --> 00:26:10.700 not talking about Burning Man recreational use. 00:26:10.799 --> 00:26:14.119 This isn't about that. No, not at all. We are 00:26:14.119 --> 00:26:17.180 talking about rigorous clinical university -backed 00:26:17.180 --> 00:26:20.039 science. The motivation here is deeply personal 00:26:20.039 --> 00:26:23.430 and, frankly, quite dark. Ferris became interested 00:26:23.430 --> 00:26:25.430 in psychedelics because of his own experiences 00:26:25.430 --> 00:26:27.650 with depression and bipolar disorder, as we mentioned. 00:26:27.849 --> 00:26:30.490 But he also specifically cites addiction in his 00:26:30.490 --> 00:26:33.250 family and losing a close friend to a fentanyl 00:26:33.250 --> 00:26:36.250 overdose. So he sees this as a crisis intervention, 00:26:36.630 --> 00:26:40.289 a tool for healing trauma. He sees it as a potential 00:26:40.289 --> 00:26:43.049 cure for trauma in intractable mental illness, 00:26:43.250 --> 00:26:45.650 things like treatment -resistant depression and 00:26:45.650 --> 00:26:49.349 PTSD. The current tools, SSRIs, talk therapy, 00:26:49.509 --> 00:26:51.869 they don't work for everyone. He believes compounds 00:26:51.869 --> 00:26:54.859 like psilocybin and MDMA might be the key. And 00:26:54.859 --> 00:26:56.559 he's treating it like a venture capital investment, 00:26:56.680 --> 00:26:58.819 but for science. OK, so let's follow the money. 00:26:58.920 --> 00:27:00.539 Where is it actually going? It started around 00:27:00.539 --> 00:27:03.400 2015 when he met Roland Griffiths at Johns Hopkins. 00:27:03.819 --> 00:27:05.859 Roland is a legend in this field, one of the 00:27:05.859 --> 00:27:08.119 first to get FDA approval for this kind of research. 00:27:08.400 --> 00:27:11.740 In 2019, Ferris donated over $2 million of his 00:27:11.740 --> 00:27:14.079 own money to help fund the Johns Hopkins Center 00:27:14.079 --> 00:27:16.460 for Psychedelic and Consciousness Research. $2 00:27:16.460 --> 00:27:19.109 million. It's a very serious commitment. But 00:27:19.109 --> 00:27:21.369 he didn't stop there. He used his leverage. He 00:27:21.369 --> 00:27:23.990 organized an additional $8 million in commitments 00:27:23.990 --> 00:27:26.650 from other donors. He basically called up his 00:27:26.650 --> 00:27:28.349 wealthy friends from the tech world and said, 00:27:28.430 --> 00:27:31.190 this is important. This is the future. Put your 00:27:31.190 --> 00:27:34.250 money here. That's huge. Johns Hopkins is a premier 00:27:34.250 --> 00:27:37.440 medical institution. Having a center there, it 00:27:37.440 --> 00:27:40.119 legitimizes the entire field. That's the whole 00:27:40.119 --> 00:27:42.319 goal. He knows that to change the laws and change 00:27:42.319 --> 00:27:44.779 public perception, you need the hard science 00:27:44.779 --> 00:27:47.700 from unimpeachable institutions. He also contributed 00:27:47.700 --> 00:27:50.460 to Imperial College London's Center for Psychedelic 00:27:50.460 --> 00:27:53.960 Research. And then there is MAPS, the Multidisciplinary 00:27:53.960 --> 00:27:56.180 Association for Psychedelic Studies. They're 00:27:56.180 --> 00:27:58.420 the ones working on MDMA for PTSD in veterans, 00:27:58.539 --> 00:28:01.059 right? Correct. Their research is in late -stage 00:28:01.059 --> 00:28:04.400 FDA trials. In 2020, Ferris donated $1 million 00:28:04.400 --> 00:28:07.930 to them. But again, he used leverage. He issued 00:28:07.930 --> 00:28:10.329 a challenge grant. He went on his podcast and 00:28:10.329 --> 00:28:12.250 said, I'll put up this money, but only if my 00:28:12.250 --> 00:28:14.569 audience matches it. Wow. He helped them raise 00:28:14.569 --> 00:28:17.809 a total of $30 million for that research by publicizing 00:28:17.809 --> 00:28:21.490 the challenge. $30 million. That is a game -changing 00:28:21.490 --> 00:28:23.890 amount of money for what was once a very fringe 00:28:23.890 --> 00:28:26.549 field of research. It accelerates the clinical 00:28:26.549 --> 00:28:29.930 trials by years. It literally buys time and could 00:28:29.930 --> 00:28:32.750 save lives. He also donated to the Neuroscape 00:28:32.750 --> 00:28:35.589 Psychedelics Division at UCSF. He's spreading 00:28:35.589 --> 00:28:37.809 the bets. And he set up his own foundation to 00:28:37.809 --> 00:28:40.470 manage all this, too. The SASE Foundation, founded 00:28:40.470 --> 00:28:43.349 in 2018. And through that, he's attacking the 00:28:43.349 --> 00:28:45.309 problem from different angles. It's not just 00:28:45.309 --> 00:28:48.089 the medical research. In 2021, the foundation 00:28:48.089 --> 00:28:52.210 committed $800 ,000 to UC Berkeley. For what? 00:28:52.410 --> 00:28:54.210 What are they doing at Berkeley? For journalism. 00:28:54.349 --> 00:28:57.670 It's for the Ferris UC Berkeley Psychedelic Journalism 00:28:57.670 --> 00:29:00.660 Fellowship. And guess who chairs it? Michael 00:29:00.660 --> 00:29:02.779 Pollan. Michael Pollan, who wrote the book How 00:29:02.779 --> 00:29:04.920 to Change Your Mind, the book that brought this 00:29:04.920 --> 00:29:07.440 whole topic to the mainstream. Exactly. The goal 00:29:07.440 --> 00:29:09.880 of the fellowship is to provide grants to serious 00:29:09.880 --> 00:29:12.859 journalists to cover psychedelics properly, to 00:29:12.859 --> 00:29:15.460 move away from all the old trippy hippie stereotypes 00:29:15.460 --> 00:29:18.380 and report on the science, the policy and the 00:29:18.380 --> 00:29:21.039 business of this new field. So he's funding the 00:29:21.039 --> 00:29:23.339 research and he's funding the storytelling around 00:29:23.339 --> 00:29:25.319 the research. He's trying to change the whole 00:29:25.319 --> 00:29:28.619 narrative. And the law. His foundation co -funded 00:29:28.619 --> 00:29:31.200 a program called POPLAR at Harvard Law School. 00:29:31.579 --> 00:29:34.000 That stands for the Project on Psychedelics Law 00:29:34.000 --> 00:29:37.279 and Regulation. So look at the board. He's funding 00:29:37.279 --> 00:29:39.180 the science at Johns Hopkins, the storytelling 00:29:39.180 --> 00:29:41.759 at Berkeley, and the legal framework at Harvard. 00:29:42.089 --> 00:29:45.150 It is a full -spectrum ecosystem play. Just like 00:29:45.150 --> 00:29:48.109 he optimized his book launches with a multi -pronged 00:29:48.109 --> 00:29:51.150 strategy, he is optimizing the mainstreaming 00:29:51.150 --> 00:29:53.509 of psychedelic medicine. He's building the entire 00:29:53.509 --> 00:29:56.049 infrastructure for a revolution in mental health. 00:29:56.250 --> 00:29:58.549 And it's not just psychedelics. He's done some 00:29:58.549 --> 00:30:00.289 other interesting philanthropy and education 00:30:00.289 --> 00:30:03.029 too, right? This isn't his only focus. No, that's 00:30:03.029 --> 00:30:04.930 right. He's been a member of the National Advisory 00:30:04.930 --> 00:30:07.210 Council of DonorsChoose for a while, and there 00:30:07.210 --> 00:30:10.049 was this incredible moment in 2016 called the 00:30:10.049 --> 00:30:13.069 Flash Fund. What happened there? He just decided 00:30:13.069 --> 00:30:15.450 to clear the board. One day, out of the blue, 00:30:15.589 --> 00:30:18.730 he funded all 145 classroom projects on Long 00:30:18.730 --> 00:30:20.890 Island. Every single teacher who had a request 00:30:20.890 --> 00:30:23.529 on the site for pencils, books, computers, he 00:30:23.529 --> 00:30:25.650 just paid for it. All of it. That's his hometown 00:30:25.650 --> 00:30:28.299 area. Right. But then he also did it for all 00:30:28.299 --> 00:30:30.180 the projects in the entire state of New Hampshire 00:30:30.180 --> 00:30:32.640 and all the projects in Sacramento. It shows 00:30:32.640 --> 00:30:34.920 that while he's thinking about these high level 00:30:34.920 --> 00:30:37.680 complex issues like brain chemistry, he's also 00:30:37.680 --> 00:30:40.000 thinking about, you know, a second grade teacher 00:30:40.000 --> 00:30:42.559 who just needs a new set of notebooks. It's a 00:30:42.559 --> 00:30:44.700 long way from selling brain supplements online 00:30:44.700 --> 00:30:47.359 to optimize reaction time. It is. It's a maturation 00:30:47.359 --> 00:30:50.000 of the soul, really. So we're coming to the end 00:30:50.000 --> 00:30:53.160 of the file here. Just to show that he hasn't 00:30:53.160 --> 00:30:55.900 completely lost his sense of fun in games, I 00:30:55.900 --> 00:30:58.640 saw that in 2025 he released a card game. Yes, 00:30:58.720 --> 00:31:01.740 a game called Coyote. He partnered with the company 00:31:01.740 --> 00:31:04.599 Exploding Kittens to release it. It's a social 00:31:04.599 --> 00:31:06.740 bluffing game. It shows he still likes to play. 00:31:07.079 --> 00:31:09.420 He hasn't become some, you know, monk living 00:31:09.420 --> 00:31:11.619 in a cave. He still enjoys a bit of strategy 00:31:11.619 --> 00:31:15.619 and healthy deception. So let's synthesize this 00:31:15.619 --> 00:31:18.180 entire journey. We started with a 20 -something 00:31:18.180 --> 00:31:21.339 wrestler in a data storage sales job, completely... 00:31:21.390 --> 00:31:23.730 obsessed with efficiency who creates the four 00:31:23.730 --> 00:31:27.430 -hour empire. And we ended up with a 40 -something 00:31:27.430 --> 00:31:30.369 philanthropist who has largely stepped back from 00:31:30.369 --> 00:31:32.950 the relentless pursuit of money and fame to fund 00:31:32.950 --> 00:31:35.650 clinical research into the human mind and to 00:31:35.650 --> 00:31:38.329 study ancient philosophy. It feels like the ultimate 00:31:38.329 --> 00:31:40.450 optimization was realizing that optimization 00:31:40.450 --> 00:31:43.269 itself has a ceiling. Or that the metric was 00:31:43.269 --> 00:31:46.069 wrong all along. He spent the first half of his 00:31:46.069 --> 00:31:49.329 career optimizing for speed and for output. He 00:31:49.329 --> 00:31:51.170 is spending the second half of his career optimizing 00:31:51.170 --> 00:31:54.029 for meaning and for well -being. The takeaway 00:31:54.029 --> 00:31:56.430 for you, for the listener, seems to be that the 00:31:56.430 --> 00:31:58.789 tools of efficiency, the hacks, the leverage, 00:31:58.970 --> 00:32:02.180 the systems, they work. Ferris proved they work, 00:32:02.319 --> 00:32:05.220 but they are just tools. Exactly. A hammer is 00:32:05.220 --> 00:32:07.059 a great tool for building a house, but it's a 00:32:07.059 --> 00:32:08.839 terrible tool for understanding why you need 00:32:08.839 --> 00:32:11.119 shelter in the first place. Ferris represents 00:32:11.119 --> 00:32:13.640 this idea that eventually you have to apply those 00:32:13.640 --> 00:32:15.980 powerful tools to the really hard problems of 00:32:15.980 --> 00:32:19.259 the human condition, to fear, to trauma, to connection, 00:32:19.500 --> 00:32:22.019 to meaning. You can't four -hour your way out 00:32:22.019 --> 00:32:24.859 of being human. No. You can't efficiency hack 00:32:24.859 --> 00:32:26.940 grief. You can't outsource your own peace of 00:32:26.940 --> 00:32:28.980 mind. I want to leave the listener with a final 00:32:28.980 --> 00:32:31.509 thought here. Ferris started his career effectively 00:32:31.509 --> 00:32:34.809 asking the question, how can I do this faster? 00:32:35.549 --> 00:32:38.170 And he seems to have ended up asking a very different 00:32:38.170 --> 00:32:41.029 question. Why am I doing this at all? It's the 00:32:41.029 --> 00:32:43.829 difference between velocity and direction. Velocity 00:32:43.829 --> 00:32:46.849 is just speed. But if you're moving very fast 00:32:46.849 --> 00:32:48.710 in the wrong direction, you're just getting lost 00:32:48.710 --> 00:32:51.970 quicker. So here's the question for you listening 00:32:51.970 --> 00:32:56.089 right now. If the king of productivity. The man 00:32:56.089 --> 00:32:58.369 who literally wrote the book on the four -hour 00:32:58.369 --> 00:33:01.789 life stopped focusing on speed to focus on his 00:33:01.789 --> 00:33:04.769 state of mind. What does that suggest about the 00:33:04.769 --> 00:33:07.250 goals you are currently chasing? Are you sprinting 00:33:07.250 --> 00:33:09.009 toward a finish line that doesn't actually exist? 00:33:09.250 --> 00:33:11.970 Something to mull over. Definitely. That's it 00:33:11.970 --> 00:33:14.109 for this deep dive into the life of Tim Ferriss. 00:33:14.130 --> 00:33:15.710 We'll see you on the next one. Stay curious.