a16z Podcast | Nootropics and the Best Version of Your Brain, Yourself

Key Takeaways

hi everyone welcome to the a 6 & Z podcast today we're talking about a really interesting trend nootropics it's basically supplements that people can take to enhance your cognitive performance and we're talking about the broader trend as well as how it connects to other movements like the quantified self biohacking whether an argument can be made that we can compare what's happening now to what happened with the early days of personal computing at the homebrew club and whether the same thing will happen here to host this conversation we brought the founders of nutri box which develops manufactures and distributes prepackaged nootropics which are currently in the form of pills for baseline cognition staying awake and sleeping ok and moderating this discussion today will be a 16 Z's Kyle Russell hi everyone I'm Carl Russell I'm a partner in the deal and research team here at a 16 Z where I focus on virtual reality augmented reality and drones crypto in other categories that my colleagues roll up into something we call the weird stuff I'm also joined by my colleague saku who also works on a lot of the same topics here at a 16 Z as well as Jeff woo and Michael Brandt the cofounders of neutral box just so that our listeners can attach a voice to name which guys like to introduce yourselves and get started thanks Kyle I'm Jeffrey Wu co-founder and CEO of neutral box I'm Michael Brandt I'm co-founder on neutral box hi I'm second thoughts about now I'm a partner here at a 16 Z so you guys are working on a problem that I think a lot of people relate to which is trying to get a little bit more productivity out of your brain I think all of us have had two days where we're going I'm just not able to get through this work or you know I wish I could have just gotten through this project a little bit faster so I could have gotten started on this next thing and had more time free on my weekend when it comes to doing that I think a lot of times the off-the-shelf thing that everyone goes for is coffee like gotta get more work done let's let me drink some coffee does it like am I in the zone now I'm drinking coffee and and basically the entire notion of new Shabaks is predicated on the idea of like hey is there something better than coffee that like everyone should be having access to I anticipate so what's better than my daily cup of joe there's a lot of things that are better than your daily cup of jelly I mean with coffee in particular a lot of times people find that it can make them overly active or have a hard time focusing on things that maybe when it comes to purely stimulating your cognition that just like a jolt of energy isn't necessary the be-all-end-all there's other things that they can be better for instance maybe be more relaxed or less stressed or having better short-term working memory these are all other aspects of cognition besides just you know the pure energy of a cup of coffee so the broader category is nootropics sort of the colloquial term for cognitive enhancers or I guess a more scientific term for cognitive enhancers and this is it covers a broad spectrum of different compounds ranging from things that are considered dietary supplements to things that are considered pharmaceuticals the things that are considered research chemicals and broadly speaking nootropics work in three sort of main pathways one main pathway sort of increasing the different neurotransmitters levels in your brain and these can be sort of acetylcholine or dopamine things are associated with learning and memory another main pathway is increasing blood flow to the brain you know your brain runs on glucose and oxygen so increasing the the carriers of those compounds a.k blood to brain increases the capacity so the horsepower available for the brain in the last main pathway that nootropics work is sort of anti sort of neuro protective effects there are different therapeutics for Alzheimer's different sort of cognitive impairments you know when you're looking at these things besides maybe you'll say pharmaceuticals which go through like the kind of complex FDA approval process and all the tears and tears of scientific work that has to go into proving a single drug in years of repeated studies for those the other you know kind of avenues to improving cognitive performance how do we know they work our process has been sort of driven from multiple different levels one just seeing what the hobbyist community really have sort of battle tested on N equals one sample size like personal trials and in reading those stories and in talking to those hobbyist hackers and experimenting with with them ourselves to actually looking at the Western clinical randomized sort of gold standard trials in the space I think the biggest concern in the whole nootropic space is is this you know too good to be true is this placebo is a snake oil that was sort of our immediate concern as entrepreneurs looking at the space hey like this seems really cool we like the effects that we see on ourselves but you know is there actual a large body of rigorous science around this and in fact there is a lot of science around certain compounds that's the stuff that we at nature box focus on there's a whole universe of different things that people from different your take sort of Hindu medicine traditions from Chinese Tibetan medicines we focus on compounds that have been studied in sort of the pharmaceutical regimen actually so double-blind randomized controlled trials if you do the research you actually could be surprised with you know how rigorous and how statistically significant some of these results are and and those are the compounds that we work with at neutral box but that raises the question if these supplements are actually so effective how come they're not prescribed by doctors the pharmaceutical industry is a very interesting one where their business model is predicated on the government giving the company you know a 20-year monopoly on different compounds therefore there is an economic incentive for pharmaceutical companies to now put hundreds of millions - a billion dollars into Rd to bring new compounds to market so the thing with nootropics is that a lot of nootropic compounds fall under open domain or are well understood thank generic supplements aka generic supplements exactly so they cannot be patented therefore there's not a monopolistic sort of end goal for companies pharmaceutical eyes if I just invented a word these these supplements see through the sales process at a regular drug would go through correct at neutral box we have a couple MD PhDs on our team we're learning our own clinical trials on on on these compounds and we see long-term that we're not only increasing the science and pushing forward our understanding nootropics but also being the most legitimate welcome mat for people interested in generics to also answer your question Saku about why our if these things work why are they not pharmaceuticals I think a big part of the supplements industry in general is predicated on the notion that people should just have basic access to like fundamental nutrition or fundamental compound that exist out there that those things rather than being pharmaceuticals by default they should just be available so there's there's supplements that are just available you should be able to buy gins and you should be able to buy protein powder that shouldn't be a pharmaceutical and that there's basically increasing research done on that class of compounds that are regarded as supplements and generally regarded as safe there's increasing research on how those things actually can drive cognitive improvement but there's they're not pharmaceuticals it's publicly available and it's interesting you say that because the actual supplements industry doesn't have that kind of transparency all the time the things that are sold as supplements are mixture compounds like proprietary burns and things like that and even they don't have data to back up what they're doing and they're not required to submit it right yeah so Michael and I have literally visited and dozens of contract manufacturers basically people who are manufacturing supplements for in your big-box retailers we've seen people that manufacture soft gels for your visors and mercs of the world so we've become experts and production and how business is done as usual in supplements industry as it currently exists and the proprietary blend moniker as you mentioned Saku is essentially a code word for industry that whatever's on our shelf at the time we can just dump in into your capsules and usually if you look at the proprietary blend list it's just like 17 different compounds and as long as there is some minut trace of you know something in there then they can put it as a proprietary blend and it you know I think from a marketing standpoint the business might you know claim but hey this is a special ratio of compounds that's really off you skating it's not going to be a consistent blend necessarily that you take every single time and I think we are super keen on the fact that our formulas are open source you should know what you're taking into your body we think that's just critical to your health decision-making so soccer here inside a 16 see you surfaced the nootropic community to ask me this all aware of you know what they were all up to where are those discussions happening and what are they doing with these compounds the big community of new traffic ceases the reddit the subreddit all new topics it's probably going about 60,000 subscribers at the moment which is it's gonna grow very fast they have this whole wiki full of stacks which is combinations of new topics that they think work really well together so what's your stack is like you know what are you what are you having today what's your mixture what are you going for it's just like this folk dollars just developed and share their results with other people in the forum which is how you get the accumulated knowledge it's it kind of reminds me of people building their own gaming PC's on the gaming subreddit right so it's you know hey here's the parts I was using I got these results but the thing is like this folk knowledge it's not properly quantified and it's not very transparent even though there is something there I think what nature box of data is like but somehow science and data to it to kind of bring that out of the duck I love the analogy to the gaming rigs we recently published a byline on TechCrunch comparing the biohackers of the debt of today to the homebrew club of 70s and 80s where a bunch of hobbyists were figuring out hey we have these computer parts we have monitors we have these teletype terminals how do we put them together what can we even do with these things right some of the most early programs were making beeping music I don't know there atari is right like these were super raw components and we see that similar behavior in the biohacking community today when we see all this excitement going around in nootropics and it reminds us that maybe just like with computers maybe nootropics and biohacking actually makes sense for everyone that in one lens you look at it and it's 60,000 people nerding out on reddit about their personalized stacks but on another hand it's like hey maybe this is the tip of an iceberg for something really big and that we're seeing a larger trend around human enhancement that there's gonna be multiple billion-dollar companies in the space that there's gonna be real really interesting stuff really novel new science ways of understanding our body and ways of affecting it to further the analogy to hardware it's like you think of a typical computer system and there's usually a way to read from in a way to write from it or you can read data you can you can save a file you can write to it what if the analogy carries to the human body where you're able to read from your body read signals and then intelligently affect them affect you're able to write to your body essentially and make changes lower your level of stress increase your level of vitamin D understand your level of sensitivity to caffeine be aware of your predisposition to something and when you think about it that way it's like wow that that should be for everyone that's not just sixty thousand people on a subreddit everyone can benefit from that coming out of those home group clubs was the Apple one which kind of crystallized the idea that it's computers aren't just going to be these things where it's either these big giant machines that companies buy or these little machines where you just kind of tinker but there will be a mainstream version that is more broadly useful can be abused for work but also for entertainment you know what what it makes the jump from people hacking around with different stacks to something that could improve the lives of many many more people who don't necessarily want to experiment with their bodies but just want something that they know like input one pill output like this much more work what I think Apple did very well was bundling into a very seamless convenient experience where a lot of the friction of acquiring 17 different computer parts or abstracted away I think that's the big problem we're solving not only just developing and creating the best you know understood nootropics out there but also can you know putting that together in a convenient easy to use easy to access package where you know you can actually trust that we're sourcing the highest quality raw ingredients going through all the heavy metal sort of adulterant testing and having that reliably mail to your door every single month things that don't require your doctor's prescription I mean regarded is that by the FDA is as safe and and sellable as supplements you can pick it up at 7-eleven you can sell it online you can just buy it so if these pills are kind of you know the approximate Apple one of nutrifix the ones that you're making and you know letting people subscribe to what's the Apple - is it different com or is it making it even more accessible like what does that look like one there is a bunch of super super exciting compounds out there too it's playing with different form factors one form factor we're super excited about is our go cubes our chewable coffee cubes that has done sort of 150 percent of its prief crowdfunding goal on IndieGoGo so I think unique form factors interesting form factors is another way we look at sort of our Apple 2 and then also just developing and figuring out ways to actually be quantitative with with with the whole space the biggest criticism that you can level at the space is that one it's very self-reported it's very sort of subjective and how can we bring actual objective metrics to this space so you can actually measure improvements and measure the difference so one area that we are pretty interested in is the idea of leveraging the computer that everyone has in their pocket to collect more data about themselves and then get more output here's what you should be doing based on you know how you're living so how are you thinking about incorporating like that kind of thinking into you know people's improving people's cognitive performance I think this the notion that hey there's going to be a ton of sensors that are gonna be constantly on you super exciting from a quantified self health perspective this is sort of unprecedented in terms of the amount of access now that we can collect on anyone's daily routines as Jeff mentioned there's this wealth of data that we're able to access that individuals are able to access due to just the devices in their pocket or ancillary devices to that that can measure your posture your breathing your foot steps per day your heart rate and one of the other really interesting areas is just mental state so there's hobbyists there's this notion of the quantified self movement where people track in very scrupulous detail what's going on with them every step of the day we've seen this happen in the fitness health dieting space but people are also hobbyists again are getting a lot of value out of tracking their mental state productive of my feeling today what's my mood today so that's something that we're interested in unlocking as well helping people track that in a in an objective reliable routinely routine type of way it's also creating real actual data or recommendations on top of this data you know how I see it is that sure we have a lot of data and I like to call a ton of data data porn like it's it's cool to see but what are we actually doing about it how do we process massive amounts of data and produce interesting signals interesting correlations on top of that data in ways that actually can recommend actions and change the decisions that you make in your daily routines yeah sometimes supplements may work for some people but no others but we at the moment have a way of telling what supplement will be right for you and with data you can change that yeah I think yeah there's the post facto data which is sort of running N equals one experiments on yourself and another's realm of data that hasn't been tapped into from the supplement sort of health regimen perspective is a priori data and that data we consider your genomic data your biome data and sort of going back to our human as the next platform human as a hardware analogy here you have companies like 23andme and you biome essentially serving as api's now that open up capability of reading what your genome is reading what your biome is and we're super interested in capturing and informing our stacks with your post facto data as well as your a priority data so given you know let's say the five-year vision of there's going to be more data about ourselves our bodies how we're feeling do you think that over time maybe you like why not best with what you in particular need not necessarily just a generic option so absolutely personalization will happen across all segments of the economy right there's already personalization for your financial advice or just personalization on what things you want to buy from Amazon and it stands to reason that the way personalization for things you consume and things that optimize your productivity and performance so I think that's a larger opportunity that people are just sewing away - with the quantified self in nootropics i think that when a lot of people think of the idea of a cognitive enhancer or smart drug however you want to refer to it cochlea colloquially people tend to think of you know like limitless of this drug that maybe it's is it that like adderall I don't know I've never taken it so but it makes you look smarter and you're able to process more information and all that what is the experience like when you consume one of these is it you know you're up and at them you're really intensely focused on something what it was it feel like there's a lot of different ways of thinking about cognitive enhancement because there's a lot of different ways our brains work right so you can think of enhancing your cognition with respect to creativity or worth respect to focus I mean those might be two different things actually they might be competitive enhancing one might decrease the other you know for an afternoon one way we think about is you think of the Red Bulls and the energy drinks and and things like that is like you know it's snowboarder racing down a mount and jumping off of half pipes but when you think of hitting flow state with your mental output it looks more like a surgeon or a chess master so there's a sense of alertness but it's not a overly stimulated sense of alertness it's a calm cool and collective sense of alertness so what's the value of being incredibly pumped and you know feel like your heart is racing if what you're trying to do is sit at your desk and crank through writing a document or preparing a presentation yeah and hey it might be great for brainstorm if you yeah go go chug - Red Bulls it might be good for certain types of things but I think in general when we're thinking about cognition you're spending several hours you're writing something you're reading something you're coding something you're designing something and there's this high-level thought going into it and it helps to be able to be alert but not overly active there is a sense like this is a well-documented psychological phenomenon it's called the York's Dodson curve where if you're if you're - activated you actually your performance on mental tasks decreases if you're if you're overly alert you do worse I think I think one thing - that is good to think about is like imagine you on your best day or imagine you when you're like really prepared for the exam you're sitting there take exam you're really crushing it what if you could have access to that mental state like every afternoon reliably that's really interesting so do does it make so you can learn Mandarin in a day like in limitless no not not necessarily but it what it does allow you to do is access a like a best version of yourself and I think one thing that's also really interesting when you mention limitless is limitless is the movie is this movie about one guy who gets super smart and takes over the world but in reality it might be interesting to imagine a world where it's not one guy who's massively smarter than everyone what if across all of society everyone is a little bit higher functioning you know that that raises an interesting possibility which is you know products aren't necessarily distributed evenly among the society so is there an issue with you know some people have access to something that improves cognitive performance while others are left behind maybe I saw recently there's a Android phone available for $10 and you can you can buy it and have access to a smartphone the internet Google at your fingertips and that sounds to me like complete democratization of technology so I think that in general for new trends you will see an early adopter curve where new technologies will be more expensive and available to an elite group of people but I think that over time what you see is if these things are legitimately useful then they end up spreading and becoming accessible to all levels of society and to riff on that I think one interesting other interesting computer analogies Metcalfe's law the the value of a network exponentially increases by the number of sort of note valuable nodes in a network right and this is this is the description of what happened when they you know brought about Ethernet and you know a couple of people idea that cards not that useful if iPhone not in the office is a connected computer suddenly everyone's it's facilitating a lot more communication if everyone in the building has it if everyone in your industry has it what does that mean this is like in complete contrast to doping in sports where if someone takes a you know your disadvantage in everyone else but in this case if you make if you make yourself a little bit smart so you're actually just helping the people around you yeah basically we see human knowledge as and it's not it's not a non zero or a zero-sum game we think that if Michael you're smarter of Saku in count and everyone you know in this building and in the world was a little bit smarter the whole world has is you know stands to benefit for example like wearing glasses you're boosting your personal effectiveness in some way but do I consider that you know crowding out my ability to compete with you know it's I think it's like you're going to your full potential and you're adding your own knowledge and insights back into the world back into the system this was a great discussion guys thank you for your time and thanks for coming in