EP #21 The Vaccine That Will Cure Chronic Diseases w/ Lou Reese

I'm 32, juggling family, working full time and earning a bachelor's degree at University of Phoenix. I earn career relevant skills with every five week course.

Skills I can use now, not just after graduation. Earn skills in weeks, not years. Visit Phoenix Edu Some people think nature is like this, but actually it's like this.

That's why Columbia engineers everything we make.

For anything nature can throw at you.

Columbia engineered for whatever. I think that if you don't have to face hardship, you'll never know what you'll do when it's hard. So this is how you test your mettle in a certain sense, right? So I don't wish hardship upon anyone, but I think that hardship spares no one.

And a massive transformative purpose is what you're telling the world.

It's like, this is who I am.

This is what I'm going to do. This is the dent I'm going to make in the universe. Everybody, welcome to Moonshots and Mindsets. I am here with, officially my best friend on the planet, one of the most brilliant thinkers that I know, the deputy dad to my two boys and I, the deputy dad to his three kids, Lou Reese. Lou's also the co founder and executive chairman of Vaccinity, which we'll talk about. A company that's transforming the treatment of chronic disease by like eliminating it. And huge moonshots there, Lou. How you doing brother?

You know, I can't complain. Everything is amazing. I'm not sure I can deliver on brilliance today, but I'm going to do my best.

I have every confidence that you will. Every confidence that you will.

It's good to see you. How are you hanging in? I'm doing all right.

Going 28 hours a day as normal. I just realized I'm my worst enemy on this stuff. It's like, who the hell starts meetings at 6am and goes till 10pm? It's like, who allows this stuff? I blame Esther all the time, but.

It turns out that when it's self motivated, there's no one to blame. But that's why I took down all the mirrors in my house. I got tired of yelling at that guy, you know, that's what I tell.

Tony Robbins when Tony's like, I'm exhausted. It's been five days on stage. Who set that schedule? Tony?

It's part of the deal, you know, I mean, I was having a discussion this morning actually with some of the people that work for us down here and I was explaining in my broken Spanish that it's not about life. Work balance. It's actually about life, work integration. And it led me to this thing I've been telling the kids every day now, which is. And maybe to my wife as well. But sometimes I try to be softer with the messaging. But if you don't enjoy walking to the place that you're going, if you don't enjoy getting to the there, and if you don't enjoy the meals that you eat, suddenly you realize that more than 70 or 80% of your time that you're awake is wasted. And so there's almost an obligation to enjoy the journey as much as the end destination. Which is not easy for me, but it's very easy for me to say.

Yeah, I had that moment in time, that realization. And I remember it vividly when it was the winning of the X prize. It was October 4th, it was probably around 8am in the morning. SpaceShipOne had just made, crested over 100km and was on the way down to win. And I was like, holy shit, it's over, it's done, the prize is about to be awarded. And I remember having this mental image that I had crested the mountain peak, I had been at the top of the mountain, I had achieved that journey. And then when I looked around me, all I ever saw, all I saw was more mountain peaks. And it really is the enjoy, enjoy the journey. Because that is, that's, that's life. And it comes back to, are you living your massive transformative purpose? Right? So even if you fail, even if you don't pull off what your crazy moonshot is like, for me, when I, you know, I failed at the asteroid mining company, but I will take another shot at that eventually. The journey was still amazing in that regard. Now you've never failed, You've never failed, so you don't have to worry about that.

Oh, no. I mean, I think life is a series of little successes or big successes and little failures or big failures. You know, I think it's something that I think I'm obviously still working on, not just seeing the future kind of goals and the future aspirations and the future impact and the ideas that swarm.

Right.

Part of it is being able to, and it sounds a little corny, but it's an exercise in being in the present and enjoying it really at all moments. And, you know, I remember being sick with COVID in October of 2020 and I was, and I was, you know, not horribly ill, but definitely not well. And I was laughing hysterically in bed and I thought to myself, it's like, you know, if I can't enjoy the aches and pains and kind of the symbols of life that this exists.

Reminders that you're alive, right?

Yeah, exactly. It's one of those kind of the ultimate make lemonade moment. But I was laughing hysterically. So much so that Mei Mei and the kids would come in and be like, are you okay? And I'm like, no, I'm fantastic. Everything is amazing.

I have laughing disease. So of everybody I know, you have the most extraordinary mindset about life. And you are the most present person I know throughout the journey of life. And I mean that with all the love that that comes along with it.

How do you.

How do you do it? So listen, you're executive chairman of a company, a public company, Vaccinity. We'll talk about what it does in a little bit. You've got three kids. You're married to your partner Mei Mei, who's the CEO of the company, which cannot be easy. Right? I mean, and, and then how you live in Montana, Telluride, Costa Rica, and on an airplane, there's probably in Dallas. You have a home in Dallas as well. Where are you right now, by the way?

I am in Santa Teresa, Costa Rica at the moment.

Yeah. Which is why the Internet's so good.

Yeah, exactly. We had to, you know, it's. I know this is our second attempt at doing this podcast and the United States did not have the bandwidth Internet wise for it to work, so I had to wait until I was in Costa Rica. Yeah. One of the benefits, actually. This is a mindset leapfrog example. Same with Kenya and other parts of Africa. You notice that they've leapfrogged entire sections of technology. And here they basically went from the coconut wireless, which is people making things up and telling other people in the town to. To high speed fiber Internet. And it happened overnight.

So it helps to have a few billionaires as neighbors who demand fiber optic cable at every corner.

Yeah, I mean, I think the word on the street here is that that was Jack Dorsey's favor to the community because in order for him to be down here as frequently as he is, he basically dug up the road and threw in fiber immediately. So, yeah, it's good to have great neighbors.

I want to come back to Costa Rica in a minute, but let's talk about being present. How do you handle that? Work life integration, as you said, and being present with my deputy, children.

You know, it's not. I would say that no one, including me, is perfect at presence. And the people that say they are lying, it's kind of like, it's like work, right? It's practice. And practice is a discipline. A great friend of mine and yours actually once said that self love begins with self discipline. And I add, not self flagellation. So the answer is that I'm constantly readjusting and making mistakes and looking at them as neutrally as I can, not to punish myself for falling short, but to continue to kind of train to be better at that. And I think that fundamentally presence and being present is the best gift we can give to those that we love and those around us and ultimately our impact, our journey and the world.

Right.

And so it's a constant struggle, right. And there's constant realignment there. But my guiding principle is that I don't think there's anything that I can think of that's more important.

And does that go roll back into you being a dad? I mean, one of the things, I see you as an incredible dad and with incredible kids. What do you think is the most important thing as an entrepreneur, as an executive, as someone who's really making a dent in the universe and also being a father of 11 year old.

8.

Year old and a now 2 year old. Right. One year old, one year old, one year old.

And Ryan actually just turned 9. It's amazingly fast. I mean, if we asked Bear, my eldest, he's 11, he would tell you that I get dumber every day. And so I think part of it.

Is my mind tells me I was born in the Triassic period.

So I do think that all of these things go through normal life fluctuation.

Right.

But really I try to carve out individual time for them where there's nothing else that's in the way. And it doesn't have to be very much time, but I do try to carve it out where it's just them.

Right.

So as you know, as my best friend, I very rarely have my phone tethered in the way that is the.

Standard the rest of everybody. So for those who want to appreciate Lou, Lou doesn't use email and he occasionally uses text message and I use smoke signals most of the time to reach out to you.

Well, you know, the thing is that it's almost impossible. I mean, think of all of the forces that are conspiring against all of us to be present with our family, with our loved ones, with the people that we're working with. All of it is actually a giant game trying to pull your attention away.

Right.

If you think of the purpose of pop up ads, if you think of the purpose of cell Tone rings that get your attention or alarms or all of these things are really just glorified distractions. And if you focus, I tell the kids all the time that if I get two or three big thing done, big things done a day, you can look back in a decade and you do an unprecedented amount of work. If you do 50 things, you'll look back and realize that you checked a lot of boxes to nowhere. So I do my best to avoid checking the boxes that I don't really believe are important. And it's funny, when I stopped doing email almost a decade ago, everybody was kind of thought it was a little extreme and people tried to push me into doing it. And there's a lot of feedback around it. And now there's this growing movement because we have our text messages, our WhatsApps, our Wechats, our signals, our phone calls, our scheduled calls, our zoom meetings, our in person meetings, our Slack channel for company stuff and emails. And it's like, it seems a little excessive. And I only have one mouth and two eyes and two ears, right? So I feel like a lot of times we end up. A teacher of mine once told me that we're deluged with data, but we have very little information.

I like that that is true. And it really is an intention or attention deficit economy out there. It's just a battle, you know, I can't wait for my AI to like just triage everything coming my way and either handle it or like bring to my attention, like the number one thing. I mean, that's what a good executive assistant does in some sense, if you let him or her, you know, sort of be traffic cop for what's coming at you.

Yeah, it's a good. It's a good blocker ultimately.

Right.

And I think that it's hard because sometimes you miss stuff, sometimes you miss things and you say, man, I really wish I had done that also. But the truth is, with the amount of things, my grandfather used to say, don't worry about missing a deal because deals are like streetcars. They come along every 15 minutes. Now we don't have streetcars, but the same is true for commerce and maybe even more so. So I think that the critical moments, the things that are the most important to me are when we wake up in the morning and I've got the kids and we go to get breakfast all together. And I schedule around that so that they know that it's quiet and it's just us. And they can kind of explain their dreams and their fears and what they're gonna do for the day. And I think that those moments are. Are truly priceless. And I think they also have an impact. You know, I think that they show that your intention is to prioritize the kids. And I think that the other thing that we don't do as a culture, really, anywhere in the world that I've been, is express that.

Right.

And express that in the form of both sacrifice and gratitude.

Right.

So I think that one of the greatest blessings of my life is that when people that have never met my family or my kids say, what does your dad do for work? And they say he helps people. And they don't say he's out there trying to make a buck or he runs around and screams at his computer or any of the other things that other kids that I've asked the same question might answer. And so I think it's about clear communication of your intention and your purpose.

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Let's switch to some fun current topics that I always love getting your take on. You know, Sam Bankman fried got arrested yesterday. And you know, I, you and I were talking about the fact that I had dinner with him in September and I, you know, just insanity about if I looked across the table to him and said, listen, in a couple of months you're going to be in federal custody. I wonder if he would have what he would have thought. I mean, what's your reflection on that insanity, you know.

Okay, so I think it's funny that he's not a billionaire and that he was arrested and I think that was probably the right thing to do.

Is it funny or is it strange?

Well, no, the part that's funny is that as soon as he got arrested and was no longer a billionaire, everybody took away his three letter acronym. That's the only part that's funny.

And it no longer became sbf.

Yeah, exactly. Now everybody calls him Sam Bankman was freed and, and I think that when you have an unprecedented creation of wealth without commensurate value, it's always risky.

Right.

I think that anybody who thinks that he mastermind this entire thing is out to lunch.

Right.

I think that when you grow from 0 to 100, you miss a lot of stop signs. So ultimately I think that, you know, it's a, it's a very challenging situation because the, the reality there is that I don't think he would have seen it coming if you had told him that at dinner. And I don't think he would have been lying to you when he said, you know, whatever his response would have been.

Right.

I think he, I don't, I don't feel like there was a, there was an outright goal and desire to swindle billions of dollars from, from his investors and from the public. But I do think that, that when you have, you know, 140 plus companies were filed in that bankruptcy to pretend like any person, even with what we do in a very small level, keeping track of everything is hard.

Right.

And it takes a lot of work and a lot of systems and a lot of other people on the team that are, you know, more competent than me at many things, including checking email and the testimony yesterday. One of the funniest statements I think that came out of it was that the entire company, all of Their accounting was on QuickBooks and Slack.

Right.

And running a $45 billion empire on QuickBooks and Slack alone is highly unrecognized. Like, not recommended.

Right.

It's not. Not part of the deal. QuickBooks is for. Is for a different level of operation in terms of the scope and scale. And so just that, just that oversight alone.

And I agree with you. I don't think. I don't think it was he. I think he was naive and I think he was just running as fast as he could and wasn't looking at how to make, you know, he didn't have the experience for the checks and balances. I mean, I think in my experience of him, I didn't see anything that made me feel he was anything other than, you know, to some degree full of himself and super confident and therefore running as fast as he could based on that confidence. Interesting, right? If you see something go from zero to tens of billion dollars overnight, I guess that's a warning sign that maybe that just doesn't happen very rarely. I'm not sure. I can't necessarily point at anything else that's done it that fast.

Yeah, I mean, it's like you always say, right? It's a great success that took over a decade. Overnight success that took over a decade. And I think that's a decent. Yeah, it's like, I think that's true. And in this instance, you know, it's a warning sign because A, when you're that overconfident, I think my dad would call it hubris. And the other thing is that B, when you're in an unregulated business, Right. Or a newly regulated business in this instance was unregulated in the way that he was performing most of his tasks. It doesn't mean that it won't be regulated.

Right.

So one of the biggest.

One of the biggest will be now.

Right, Exactly. And one of the biggest problems that entrepreneurs face, I think, is actually getting stuck in the moment and thinking that that moment will last forever. You know, look at the blow up of venture capital funding in the last 18 months, where it went from the largest amounts ever to a trickle. And most of that is growth or follow on funding that was pre committed before the trickle started. So the macroeconomic situation and reality is something that it will change.

Right.

And the one thing, as Bear would say, the one thing that we know is constant is change.

Yep, for sure. And it's too easy to be looking back and criticize Sam Bankman Fried. Now, in retrospect, a lot of People are jealous. A lot of people are throwing rocks his way. You know, if he had been more careful, maybe he would have made that same amount of capital over time. I don't know his business model. I think one of the smartest things that people who did not invest in him said, whereas I could not understand what he was doing and therefore I didn't invest. And then what you had is just this lemming mindset of people throwing money at him and FTX because everybody else was throwing money at him and ftx. And that's a fascinating mindset where large venture funds, shall we say, very famous quarterbacks and wealthy individuals start throwing money at something because everybody else does. Maybe it's a Madoff moment, who knows? But what do you think about that? Because, I mean, it's also been true in so many other financial scandals and areas where people blindly put money in just because everybody else is.

You know, I think that in psychology, very early on, they teach you that chickens will eat until they're dead. If you put them in a room by themselves and you feed them, they'll eat until they're saturated and they're full, satiated and full. But if you then immediately take those full chickens and put them in another room and 90% of the chickens in that room are starving and eating rapidly, they'll start eating rapidly. So I think that ultimately it's an elaborate example, but I think humans function much the same way, right? And there's this fear of missing out this FOMO that drives a lot of those decisions. I also think that it's a little bit hubristic, right? It goes back to this concept of hubris, but on the quarterback side. And so I think that at some stage, a lot of these funds, they think that they're so damn smart, they think that they're the smartest guys in the room and that they could never make a mistake. And then when their friends make those bets, they say, well, they couldn't be wrong. These are the smartest guys in the room. And it's a combination of laziness and apathy and hubris that I think drives those smartest guys in the room to choose to do no diligence and to follow the other lemmings off the cliff. So. So, I mean, it's, it's, it's weird, but it's. It's, it's. And it's the same thing. You know, I try to teach the kids. I never pretend like I don't make mistakes, right? I can get swept up in a moment. And get excited about something and, and, you know, and, and lose a game of poker with the kids because I'm excited about something. All of those things are our natural human tendencies. And the discipline, at least in the investment side, the discipline is really slowing down and doing the work internally.

Every time you want to talk about Twitter at all, I'm not sure if you've had any run ins with Dorsey on this or watching. You know, Elon is so incredibly amazing in everything he does. And the question becomes, how many things can he be amazing at doing? Any thoughts? You know, what's the buzz?

I think it's a complicated reality. I think it's easy to throw stones at Dorsey and at Jack now that he's out and now that this transition has happened. I agree with you. I think Elon is an amazing entrepreneur and has really had an ability to go after a lot of things, more things than anybody else would think he could. So as a betting person, based on track record and management, I would say you can't bet against this.

I agree with that, by the way, and I don't.

I do think that, you know, it's. He's. He's going to be facing a lot of headwinds that have nothing to do with what he's doing. And he had. There were a couple of tweets over the last few days that point to that where, you know, you have Tesla's market cap down by 50 or 60%. And the reality is. And he responded, he's like, well, I can't control all macroeconomic trends. Right. Yeah. No matter how much we want to, we can't. And so I don't. I think that a lot of the people throwing stones are doing it from a position of ignorance and jealousy. And it comes to the verse like schadenfreude versus Freudenfreude, which is, you know, schadenfreude is taking enjoyment at the failures of others, and Freudenfreude is taking. Taking enjoyment from the success of others.

Right.

And it's. I think this is, you know, this is from my lips to God's ears.

Right?

Because who, who's going to be able to do that? Because it's such a natural tendency of humanity to have schadenfreude. But I think that being able to celebrate the tremendous successes of others, including Elon, are where I think our focus is better spent. The one thing I would love your opinion on, that I have no idea how it's going to work out, but it seems to me that Elon is getting a lot of, he's being targeted very heavily. Biden came out today and said that his connections with South Africa, China, Russia are things that are warranting additional exploration. The, you know, the FDA is jumping on him for the animal studies, for Neuralink. To me there is something, I don't believe in conspiracy theory, but I also don't believe in multiple coincidences occurring simultaneously. So I worry about the future of those other businesses and the impact that that might have on them. Not again, not because of something that Elon does, but because of macro factors that are difficult for one person to control.

No, I mean I've seen the same currents, if you would, headwind currents. I mean the, the challenge is Elon has won on so many counts, right? He reinvented the space industry. The entire US space program arguably is dependent upon Space X. And you know, we just saw the Orion mission to the moon which was nice, but Starship is going to blow that out of the water, figuratively, literally, when it starts flying. Right. The next Orion mission isn't going to be for another two years because take that long to get the parts for the second mission. And even that once the vehicle goes there, it's not a lunar lander, it's, you know, it's basically propulsion to get to the moon. Starship is going to get to the moon, land on the moon, carry, you know, dozens of people, come on back, be able to go to Mars. It's an extraordinary vehicle. And again, like you said earlier, I wouldn't, I wouldn't bet against Elon being able to pull it off. In fact, I have every faith that he will make it happen, period. And then Tesla won as well, right? Tesla tipped the point and has won the race domestically, I think globally, on EVs and they driven everybody else to have to invest heavily and catch up. So even if he never, if Tesla goes out of business, it has done what Elon's originally intention was. And I remember back in 2001, meeting with him, it was like I have two purposes. One, I want to get humanity off the planet and I want to move us to an all electric economy. And those MTPs and those moonshots have played out beautifully. And he succeeded and will be forever in history as the fuse that lit those two transition points. So neuralink, I think I was just with the CEO of one of the top BCI companies called BlackRock. I don't like the name of the company, but it's called Blackrock and it's got the longest standing deep and surface Electrodes in human patients and it's the most advanced out there. They see Neuralink as having elevated the field, but. But still more showmanship than reality. So we'll see who plays it out. But fda, they're going to play in the FDA world there. And obviously everything Elon is doing is a global game. So I have no comments on China or South Africa. I don't think. I mean, Starlink is a global e ecosystem of comms. Anyway, like you said, I wouldn't bet against him. What else are you seeing out there in the global economic trends or anything else that's capturing your attention? What's going on right now that you're highly opinionated about and want to educate me on?

Well, I mean, I think that if SBF is going to be put in prison or be kind of hung out to dry, I think that somebody really needs to go after short hedge funds because I think that that's a criminal destruction of value on a macroeconomic basis.

Yeah, it's like a thug on the Wall street sidewalks. I'm going to hold you up. It's crazy.

So I find that entertaining. But yeah, I mean, in general I feel like, you know, we're seeing, I think inflation is probably going to cool off just like everybody. I'm afraid of, not afraid. I'm aware and paying attention to the macroeconomic trends that we're being faced with as a country, but mainly as a planet. I can tell you that it's China's reopened and I think that that's to going. Going to be a really interesting touch point as more data comes out, both in terms of illness and continued spread of COVID But more importantly than that, in terms of adding another economic engine to the global economy and kind of seeing where that goes and how that impacts the rest of the world. So I think that's gonna be something that I'm eagerly following. But yeah, besides that, just keeping my head down, doing the family stuff and we're working a lot. So it's, you know.

Let'S jump into the working a lot because you've got a moonshot that I want the world to learn about. And full disclosure, I'm a co founder and vice chairman of Vaccinity along with Lu, who's executive chairman and Mei Mei who's the CEO. I want to understand what you see, the moonshot and the MTP of Vaccinity. Educate for folks what you're doing and why you're doing it.

Yeah, so right now the most expensive drugs on the planet by volume are, are Biologics, also called monoclonal antibodies. And last year they accounted for over $220 billion worth of sales globally.

So what is a monoclonal antibody?

Basically, we all know about antibodies after Covid and the idea that your body generates responses to specific external targets, usually infectious disease. So think of the flu shot or your COVID vaccine, or a vaccine against tetanus or mumps, right? What we do and what monoclonal antibodies are, are they're targets against internal targets that your body makes that are toxic in one way or another. So examples of those would be Rituxan and Humira. And seven of the top 10 selling drugs in the United States would qualify as monoclonal antibodies. And basically what we're doing there is we're making the antibodies that your body can't make, and we're making those in these giant bioreactors to make a million doses a year. The factories cost over a billion dollars to build. And the problem with them is that they're extremely effective against certain chronic illnesses. But they're difficult to make, difficult to take. They involve either a weekly or a bi weekly self injection, or as much as twice a month infusions, which take about three hours and require an infusion clinic or hospital. And they're extremely expensive. So the average cost of a new monoclonal antibody is over $100,000 per patient per year. So these are things that are bankrupting the OECD healthcare system. And the thing that I see here as the biggest goal is that they currently are available to less than 1% of the world.

What's a typical monoclonal cost? People?

So the average price is over $100,000 a year, year per patient.

Okay, so this is for the wealthiest people. So I take a monoclonal antibody, just to use an example. It's called Repatha and it's a antibody that's made in a vat. I'm not sure where they produce it. Let's call it New York for the moment. And these B cells are producing this one exact antibody, which is a protein, but that goes attaches to a target in the liver called PCSK9. And PCSK9 in the liver generates low density lipoproteins, LDLs, which are the bad cholesterol in your bloodstream. And I take. So this company produces this monoclonal antibody in these vats in New York. They put them into 5 milliliter injectors and they ship them out. And I inject it into my thigh every two weeks and it lowers my LDL, 50%. Now, mine is cheaper and mine's just $10,000 a year, so I'm lucky. But there's. And it works amazingly well. Right. Knocks my, you know, puts my little numbers in the green zone, makes it really good. I feel good about that. I'm not gonna get, you know, heart disease or heart attack, but it's expensive and it's a pain in the ass to inject it every two weeks. It's like the first and the second Monday or the first and the third Monday of the month.

Yeah. And when you're traveling, it's hard when you're.

You have to be refrigerated.

Yeah, exactly. They have to be refrigerated. If you're traveling, it's challenging. If you're, you know, have an extremely busy schedule like you do, it's. It's something else to remember. You know, there's, there's a lot of, A lot of problems with it. And the other thing is that it's not widely reimbursed by insurance because of that cost. So in the example of Repatha, that's $10,000 or $12,000 or $15,000, depending on who you are. And that's something that you're not reimbursed for for most people. So there's a huge opportunity there to basically not create something for the 1%. So what are we doing? What we're doing is we have the ability to lower the cost of these by approximately a thousand fold by having your body generate that exact same antibody that you're injecting. And instead of injecting it every two weeks, this is something that you could be injecting every six months or once a year. So these are things that could be a part of a regular chronic disease maintenance system with existing infrastructure that exists all the way from sub Saharan Africa to Geneva to Santa Monica to New York, and has an opportunity to really transform both access and cost with the ultimate goal of eliminating unnecessary suffering.

Right.

And you know, the way I explain it to people, when they, once they know what a biologic is, once they're aware that it's the largest category of drug in the world and it's available to less than 1% of the world, I say let's look back in history and see where this happened before. And the best example is if we were having the same conversation in person 700 years ago, the most expensive thing on the planet by weight wouldn't be salt or gold or any of the things you would expect. It would be books and they were available to less than the 1% because us same guys had to write them by hand. So you never, you couldn't call me and say, hey, Lou, could you loan me the book you wrote by hand? Of course not. It's not part of the deal. It's the most expensive thing in the world. And so ultimately, a very simple, elegant invention, a piece of technology, solved that. And overnight, the printing press lowered the cost of books by 5000 fold. And within a generation, it put books on everybody's bookshelf. And so, in effect, that democratized and demonetized books. We have, with our technology platform, the printing press of biologic drugs. So we have the opportunity to take something available to less than the 1%, most expensive, largest volume of sales of any drug category, available to less than the 1%, and give it to everybody because of a technology that I believe is a revolution. And I tell people it's an expansive disruption model. So we don't just want to take the monoclonal market or take the biologic market. We actually want to expand it to everybody that's suffering from these chronic diseases unnecessarily and eliminate that suffering.

Right?

And if you look at it now in the world for the first time in history, in the last three to four years, we cross the line where the things that are external are no longer killing us the most. It's not bacterial infections and infectious diseases, viral infections.

Right.

And crazy wars and all of these things. It's actually the vast majority of people right now are killed by crime, chronic diseases. They die because of chronic diseases. And the number one killer on the planet, as you mentioned, with heart disease and stroke, it's heart disease and stroke. And it has been the number one killer on the planet since human beings started keeping track.

And I don't think people realize that. Right. Cancer has got such a bigger name and Covid's had such a bigger name and wars in your face. But you're right, cardiac disease in women, for example, kills 40% more women than breast cancer does. And I don't think people realize that. And the thing that's scary, and I learned this during my longevity platinum trip this past summer, is 70% of all heart attacks, or I guess heart related deaths have no antecedents. Meaning it comes out of the blue. It's like, didn't have pain, didn't have shortness of breath, didn't have anything on their physical. It's like, didn't wake up. Yeah, that's insane.

It's the great calendar. Clearer.

You don't have to worry about any of your email anymore.

But yeah, I mean, it's extremely scary and it is no doubt the epidemic of our time.

Right.

We have statins which are great. We've got monoclonal antibodies which are great. Monoclonal antibodies are too expensive for the world. And the production for the amount of people that are in need. Do you realize 2.2 billion people right now are at risk of high cholesterol around the world? 2.2 billion people, right. The total amount of people on statins are about 450 million. The number on PCSK9, less than a million. The real.

Slow down one second. It's 450 million are on statins.

Yeah.

And you said under a million are on a PCSK9 inhibitor, which is the. Yeah.

And the reality is that if, let's say you have a heart attack and you're one of those lucky people that survived the heart attack, and afterward you're prescribed statins. If you follow those patients for one year, over 50%, it's actually just over 60% of those patients are not taking the statin effectively after one year. And these are people that already had a heart attack.

Right.

The reality is that taking a pill a day is extremely, extremely difficult, which is why we didn't have population collapse when we had pill a day birth control. It turns out that people still get pregnant, people still have heart attacks. And so ultimately, that's an unbelievable reality. And if you look at people that have not had a heart attack, that just have high cholesterol and that are prescribed statins, about 50% of them refuse the prescription because they feel fine, like you said. And of that 50% that get the prescription, if you follow those people for one year, just one year, 75% of them are not taking the statin in an effective manner.

Statin is meaning they're sticking it in their ear or up their nose, meaning.

That they're not taking it every day. And it's one of those medicines where in order for it to be ultimately effective, you've got to stick to the one pill a day, approximately the same, same time, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, for it to work. And the compliance rates, that's what that's called. How well patients do what they're supposed to do are extremely low, like abysmally low, like failing in any school system in the world low. And so we need to make the right thing easy and the wrong thing hard. And what we often do is make the right thing thing hard and the wrong thing. Easy. So that's one of the reasons why we're so excited about the vaccine platform and our moonshot here of really democratizing health by allowing the benefit of biologic drugs for everyone, by fundamentally disrupting the convenience factor and the compliance factor and the cost factor.

So to frame it for folks again, we talked about that giant vat in New York producing massive amount of these antibodies against this protein PCSK9. And the company creates these self injectors with 5 MLS and they ship it to you and you inject every two weeks and those antibodies enter your bloodstream and go to the liver and block the PCSK9 enzyme. And that's the $10,000 a year. The alternative is instead of doing that, you vaccinate yourself. And the vaccine, as we all have learned from COVID gets your immune system to create antibodies. And the right designed vaccine can get your internal immune system factory to generate antibodies against the PCSK9 for free.

Yep. So instead of having that large, relatively large amount of drug that you have to take every two weeks over the course of a year, 26 injections, with one or two injections a year, with a very small amount of the vaccine, and very infrequently, your body can then generate that same amount or more antibodies itself.

So what's the cost compared to a $10,000, $15,000 a year PCSK9 Repatha, what do you expect the vaccine equivalent to cost a patient?

I mean our cost of goods, typically we publicly list are between around a thousandth of the cost of goods of monoclonals. What they'll cost in the marketplace, I actually don't know. But we're talking about something that's accessible around the world.

So tens of dollars hopefully.

Yeah, exactly. I think at scale you're talking about something that's tens of dollars dollars. And can, I mean I tell people that my goal is very simple. I'd like to vaccinate from sub Saharan Africa to Geneva to Santa Monica to New York at the same time. And that's never been done with the best in class drug. The typical thing that happens and is happening now and happened during COVID actually is, you know, the richer and the more guns your country had, the sooner and the better your drugs were. And quite frankly that happened within the United States and on a global scale. And one of the things that I feel strongly about is that, you know, suffering and disease don't care how much money you make. And they don't care who your dad was and they don't care you know, what political party you contribute to. Suffering is suffering for the individuals and for their families. And I think that everyone has a right and we have an obligation to serve as much of that population as humanly possible.

So, you know, I gotta be careful because you and I are on the board of this public company. So I don't know everything that can and cannot be said. But where is vaccinity in the testing process for this vaccine?

So that's going to be going into humans early next year. We're actually doing that, the first trial in Australia. Something that's really interesting to Note is that PCSK9 is highly conserved across species. So so far there have never been. What you see in animals is what you see in humans by and large with this, with this target. So it's a heavily de risk target. And something that, you know, the non human primate models, which we had very.

Positive data in non human primate, just to translate is like monkeys.

Yeah, like monkeys.

Fancy word for monkeys.

My wife was say or Lou. But yeah, it's what one would consider a highly de risked, understood, validated target with millions of years of patient safety data now from the people that are on it on monoclonal antibodies. So it's a safe target and it's well understood.

So one of the things I've heard you say that I think find fascinating, I mean, is first of all people, we think about that we're developing heart disease and the precursors of stroke when you're in your 50s, 60s and 70s, but that's not true, is it? It happens a lot younger and one of the things that a platform like this can do is actually to not be reactive after, but preventative. Can you speak to that vision?

Yeah, absolutely. I mean the. Let me give you a different example than heart disease. Our Alzheimer's vaccine, which is going into its registrational trial, so it's gone through four separate human trials and we generate very similar antibodies to a drug that's been in the press a lot recently, Leucaneumab. And the idea there is, by the.

Way, which is a much better name than Aducanumab. I mean these names are like ridiculous. It's like, what the hell? Can you memoramab?

Yeah, it's unbelievable. The naming process for drugs is something that probably needs a different set of regulations as well. But yeah, so it's interesting because if you think about those products, everyone always talks about treatment of people with Alzheimer's. Maybe it's mild Alzheimer's, maybe it's early Alzheimer's, whatever the current Phraseology happens to be. But ultimately, wouldn't you like to be treated and not have Alzheimer's? Wouldn't you rather prevent getting Alzheimer's? And a low cost, highly convenient and effective vaccine is in our opinion, the path to achieving that. So imagine if instead of waiting until you were 65 or 70 and got diagnosed with mild Alzheimer's, you could actually at 40 or at 30, be taking this annual vaccine to prevent the onset or delay the onset of Alzheimer's in the first place. So it's the idea of extending health span and not just lifespan.

Right.

It's healthy, productive years. And that's really the promise of these technologies. Now if you go back to heart disease and you think about it, it's the idea of instead of waiting until you have extremely high cholesterol and partially clogged arteries, it's the idea that at whatever age is necessary for your physiology, at 30, at 40, you could be vaccinated against LDL C cholesterol and you could eliminate the growth curve of that cholesterol. Right. So these are things that can prevent, prevent in the optimal use cases, they can prevent the onset of these chronic illnesses, whether it's Alzheimer's or Parkinson's, whether it's migraine or hypercholesterolemia, high cholesterol, this gives you a path to treat that as something that you don't treat as an illness that you have you treat to prevent the illness in the first place.

Yep. Agreed. Just to iterate off the cuff because it's fascinating the targets, and you said this earlier, any place that there is a potential that there's an approved, FDA approved monoclonal antibody, the science team at Vaccinity is looking at creating a vaccine to generate those same antibodies, but just 1000 times cheaper. So what are some of the programs currently that we've created? You're targeting. So you've mentioned heart disease and stroke with hypercholesteremia, basically you've mentioned Alzheimer's. What else is going on?

We have a Parkinson's trial. We just finished our second human trial in Parkinson's and that'll be read out in 2023 as well. And then we have a suite of, well, we have a universal Covid booster or a pan Covid booster as well that we've announced some data on and are phase three recently.

Yeah, I'll mention that because I'm very proud of it. The COVID booster, which is the only infectious disease, everything else is vaccinated suite is targeted towards human disease. But back in 2020, we sort of had an emergency jacuzzi meeting. No, I'm just kidding. Emergency meeting. And decided to stand up a Covid booster. And the results were of that vaccine against Covid were significantly better than a number of other vaccines out there. Could you. Would you want to mention what that was? Are you able to.

Yeah. So we were the first company that tested and completed a phase three trial against boosting against the three main kind of forms.

Right.

The three main platforms mRNA we boosted against Pfizer and adenovirus, we boosted against AstraZeneca and live attenuated, we boosted against Sinovac and Sinopharm and we beat. We have statistically significant results showing that we were better than Sinopharm and AZ by multiple and numerically we're higher than Pfizer, but the technical term is that we showed comparability. So we're as good as Pfizer. And our safety profile so far haven't released the entire results of that. But in terms of adverse events, our safety profile is better than all of them.

Yeah, I like to see, say it's the COVID booster you'd give your kids.

Yeah, absolutely. And I mean, I think that there's a huge need for something safe, effective and that doesn't require negative 80 degree Celsius cold chain storage to get it around. So something that is actually accessible around the world. So that's the goal.

Anything that can refrigerate beer or Coca Cola is good for this.

Yeah. So it's a huge milestone. It'll be our first phase three as a company and we did that in the UK and in Australia and we're, you know, we're excited about it. And most importantly, you know, I'm really proud of the team.

Right.

It takes, as my wife Mei Mae would say, it takes a village to raise a loo. And what I tell everybody is that, you know, me alone on the street, street corner, I'm just another crazy homeless guy in San Francisco screaming about big ideas. But when you have a team behind you, it's amazing what can be done. So I really couldn't be prouder of the team and all of the sleepless nights and countless hours that were put into making all of this happen, I.

Have to tell a story. The company I first joined, Lu and meimei, when their company was called United Neuroscience. And while they were working on Parkinson's and Alzheimer's, it was like the real most interesting stuff was preventing against hypercholesteremia and bone loss and muscle loss and other areas. I was like, we need to get Away from just the only focus on neuro. And you and Mei Mei and Kristen and I were in a Jacuzzi in Hawaii and we're playing with what's a better name? What's a better name? And it was like, well, we had singularity and cellularity. And I think we came up with vaccinity after a margarita or two. And then we added, we spelled it with two X's V, A, X, X, I, N, I, T, Y in homage to Mei Mei as a woman being the CEO and sort of the decade of women coming. But that was a fun memory.

Yeah, it was amazing. I'm gonna give you credit for coming up with the name ultimately and us being. And us agreeing with you. But yeah, I mean, I think. And you mentioned something that's actually really interesting that is often overlooked. So a monoclonal by definition is one antibody at a time. And one of the benefits of vaccines is that you can actually have multiple targets in the same vaccine. So you can make your body generate multiple antibodies at the same time against a variety of targets. So in the case of muscle loss or bone loss. Right, really. And I'm thinking of this from a going back to the Elon conversation. This is a get us to Mars, get us to the moon and have us retain our muscle density and our bone density as best as possible and as well as another variety of other applications. But that's something I'm very excited about. And those are vaccines that are in earlier stages of development right now with us, but that are moving rapidly towards the clinic. And both of those targets, it so happens, will necessitate multiple targets in the vaccine or will be optimal with multiple targets in the vaccine. So it's something that, you know, you can't. So it's boldly go where monoclonal antibodies have gone before and other places that they can't go.

Yeah, it's funny, you call these space vaccines, right? And as you go into space, you don't stress the muscles and the bones. You have osteopenia, which is a weak breaking down of the bone tissue, and sarcopenia, which is your muscle wasting, which you have to prevent. And you can block them with these. It also happens to be one of the major issues with growing older. While Lou, you've built out part of vaccinity at the Kennedy Space center, which is so cool. And we can talk about that. The big opportunity for this is going to be vaccinating all 70, 80 and 90 year olds to maintain their muscle mass and bone loss, because that's Another major killer. People fall, they break their hip or their pelvis, and then they end up in the hospital. They fall because they don't have the muscle tissue to prevent when they trip, and then their bones are weak, and then you're in a hospital, laid up in bed, and you develop pneumonia. And it's a spiral, and it's like a very slippery slope down to last exhalation.

Yeah. So the way that I conceptualize sarcopenia and osteoporosis ultimately is I think of it as these are the number one leading causes of lack of health span. They're not the number one killers themselves, but they take you from living independently and being a productive person to putting you into the hospital and this downward spiral that so many of us have seen. You know, my grandfather on my father's side, he had sarcopenia, he fell, he broke his hip, and he never recovered.

Right.

It was a very slow, very expensive, very, very like, high rate of suffering. Way to go. But that was the beginning of the end of a healthy lifespan. So when we think about solving heart disease and solving Alzheimer's and Parkinson's and all of these things that will increase our function and ultimately our lifespan, part of it is we want to make sure that those are healthy and productive years and that we. That the other kind of ailments that come along with that, including the loss of muscle, loss of bone, or decrease in bone density, that those actually, those are addressed at the same time, you know. So, absolutely, that's something on my mind and one of the goals and targets here.

So let's talk about Costa Rica. When did you go down and why are you in Costa Rica? You're a huge Costa Rica fan. Why not Mexico or Panama or other parts of south and Central America? You love Costa Rica, pal, And a lot of other individuals do, too.

Yeah, I love surfing and there's great surf, but there's a lot of places with great surface. The climate's amazing, but there's a lot of places with a great climate. Ultimately, this is a decision driven heavily by what I think are important values for the family, and that really means the kids. So, you know, Costa Rica has the highest amount of biodiversity per foot of.

Any place on the planet, some of which is poisonous.

A lot of which is poisonous.

Right.

But ultimately, it provides the best example for preservation and regeneration and actually cataloging of almost any place on the planet. You know, our kids went out and tagged with satellite tags, the first giant manta rays ever tagged in satellite tags in the history of Costa Rica. And we followed those, and we found out where their migratory paths were because they're only in one place for about six months a year, and no one knew where they were the rest of the time. These are global unknowns that we had no data, no information on, and really no ability to direct the appropriate resources to protect those corridors. Right. Because we didn't even know they existed. So people didn't know if they went and slept on the bottom of the ocean in a deep trench. People didn't know if they resurfaced in the interim. You know, there were literally no knowledge of what happened. And I like to tell people that they've probably done more than. Than a person getting a PhD from Stanford Marine Biology School in terms of actually solving a problem and understanding it to its conclusion and having real information from a collection of the data. So there'll be a paper published likely this year around some of the findings of those satellite tags. And so we're excited to be able to do that. But really it's about showing and gaining an appreciation for the world around you and for all that exists. Right. And I think that there are very few places that I could imagine that offer that. The other thing that I like about it is that a friend of mine once said that the greatest of gift you could provide your children were obstacles that they themselves could overcome. And I've added or failed to overcome to that. But the idea is that, you know, give them things that they want to go and try to do and let them try to do it. Like don't. Don't help them. Don't provide guidance, don't give them an insight. Just let them go and try to do it. And the experience that they gain from that is really of the utmost value in their future and in their lives. So an example of that would be something as simple as we have a gate to the property. When we drive off of the main road, road, which is dirt and sometimes it's raining a lot, and there's a lot of mud and there's a lot of. There's like a little river that's running down the middle of the kind of de facto driveway. And we could easily make that gate automated.

Right.

There's solar panels that we can put on the gate that would make it easy to open. That would open itself. All of these things.

Goats you could attach to it.

Yeah, There are coats that we can attach to a poisonous snake. But the idea is that they get to get out every day, every time, and open and close the gate. And the reason is that there are certain values that you can't teach without letting them do them themselves. And that's a very small example of a very minor obstacle. But the amount of appreciation that that generates for them every day when we go on our way to breakfast every day when we come back is tremendous.

Right.

And I think that Costa Rica is full of those opportunities. You know, when you and Kristen and the boys were down, my deputy boys were down here. We, we got everyone certified to scuba dive at the earliest age possible.

That was amazing. It's like that was such an extraordinary success for the three boys to be certified at age 11.

Yeah. I mean, these are things that are. And again, we couldn't interfere because we weren't the instructors.

We weren't invited.

Yeah, we weren't invited. Yeah. And we were doing other things. But ultimately that was an obstacle they were provided where the vast majority of 11 year olds in that same setting fail and are removed from those classes because they panic or they can't handle it or whatever. They're confronting a lot of fears. There's mass clearing underwater, all these different things. But ultimately they all succeeded. And they did that because of who they were, not because of assistance from anyone else. And those are values that they exist everywhere, but they're much harder to find in certain places and locations. So it's a long winded way of saying why I like Costa Rica. But it's an amazing place and the people are amazing and they have a saying here that's pura vida and that means pure life.

Right.

And that concept ties back into what we talked about at the beginning, about being present. Right.

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Lou, do you want to Are you willing to share some of the formative moments of your life? And I mean you're one of the most extraordinary thinkers. And I remember being at the top of the mountain with you and both families one time having a beautiful bottle of, of wine, probably an amaroni, and just having this experience of you saying to myself, listen, if I should ever perish, and I'm not planning to for some hundreds of years or so, but if I ever did, I would want the family in your hands that you know, I would trust you over anybody to deal with any emergency, any situation. And I think that was the birth of our deputy family situation and saying this is more than a godfather, more than an uncle. This is your deputy dad and he'll be there. What shaped you to be who you are? Man, you know, there's so much I know.

Well, first of all, I really appreciate that and you know, the feeling is mutual and I respect you and I love you and I just couldn't have a better time with you. And I love that we get to think about the biggest problems facing the world together and tackle some of them, which is really such a blessing. And Kristen and the boys, obviously I love them like they're my own and I can't, nobody can ever be capable of responding correctly in every situation. But I'll promise I'll do my best.

And there are many situations in which you have.

So I think that things that are hard ultimately have significantly influenced me.

Right.

So I think of two big obstacles that I had to overcome. The first is When I was 10, my dad went to prison for almost five years. And you know, that's A formidable time in a young man's life and in any child's life. I had my two sisters and my mom and I had a lot of responsibilities and clarity around those responsibilities thrust upon me. I remember waking up at one in the morning so that I could clean the kitchen. Kitchen before my mom would wake up so that she would have, you know, one less thing to worry about when she was awake. I remember my dad was stationed in Yankton, South Dakota for a lot of this. It's a very cold, inclement location.

This was around real estate collapse back then.

Yeah, it was part of the savings and loans debacle that occurred in the late 80s and was prosecuted in the early 90s and 6,000 people in Texas went to prison for it, including every savings and loan owner in the state. So it was a wide net. And my dad was an amazing man and I look up to him. He's unfortunately passed away, but I love him and respect him and I think that he got caught up in a big net. But it was remarkable because we visited in Yankton, South Dakota, and I remember being at a truck stop and having an ice cream scooper of mashed potatoes, potatoes with turkey that was indiscriminately tied to dog food and in one of those trays like you were in school. And I remember the next day having to go through the church and smuggle in warmer hats and gloves and things that the prison would. Wouldn't let them have, but that were desperately needed for him and his friends. You know, B vitamins because they had no sun exposure during the cold, long winters in South Dakota. You know, and the consequences for failure would have been, you know, getting caught under those Circumstances as a 10 and 11 year old would have meant that my dad would be prison for another 20 years. So the consequences were high and it was hard, right? And then when he got out of prison, we had just over a decade with him before he passed. And I was actually attending Columbia Business School at the time. I did not graduate. I dropped out, Full disclosure. And I was with him in Montana. We were fishing and we were side by side in this river, this big raging river called the Madison river outside of Yellowstone National Park. And he looked at me and he said, you know, I'm going to take a seat. I'm feeling a little tired. And he just fell over in the water and started floating downstream. And I remember throwing my rod down and jumping ahead and I'm in these big waders and they're getting filled with water and I'm swimming down the river. And I ultimately dragged him out. He was a big guy and I propped him up on a rock and tore down a fence and got the car there and drove him to the closest emergency center, which was an hour away in Ennis, Montana, where he was incorrectly dosed as having had diagnosed as having had a heart attack. And you know, he ultimately, after ambulances and driving and ripping down fences and swimming in rivers, care flights, doctors and surgeries, he ultimately died of an ascending aortic dissection. And there was a lot of moments that day, but, but ultimately you realize that there's not very much time and you realize that every moment that can be spent and invested in impact and in my personal mission, I tell people, a lot of people wake up. 95% of the world wakes up every day. They brush their teeth and they put on their shoes, they feed their kids or they do what they're supposed to do, do. But they're lacking a fundamental sense of purpose. Which is why if you've got friends that work at a big white shoe law firm, they tell you that they're waiting to retire until they're 65. And they count the minutes. Not all of them, but most of them. And the reality is that that's living a life that I feel bad about because it's devoid of purpose. And for better or for worse, every day I wake up at 4, 4:30 in the morning and I never have that moment. I know that I'm here and I'm here for one reason and that's to eliminate unnecessary suffering. And all of my good fortune and all of my skills and all of my energy is dedicated to ultimately to that purpose. And as a consequence, it doesn't mean that there aren't hard days and easy days and better days and medium days and whatever else you want to say, there's all sorts of days. But as long as you can look to that as a guiding principle and as a North Star and as a mission, I feel like you can really accomplish anything. And that's the goal. You know, another people say, you know.

And by the way, let me just pause there and say that is. That is beautiful. Thank you for sharing that. And it's, and it's the real, you know, I think, brother, that, you know, it's those moments that shape the human being, right? And we all strive to have our kids have the most comfortable, easy life they have. But sometimes it's those levels of stressors and soul shaping moments that really, really shape you and elevate you to be who you can be. You know, I am curious, and your dad would be so extraordinarily proud of you. And I hope you know that in your heart and soul. What do you think about the need for kids? I mean, you said when Bear and Ryan hop out of the car and go through the rain and open the gate and you don't. I love that the gift that you give them is giving them a challenge and allowing them to face the challenge themselves. But hardship in a child's life to shape them, because human nature for most people is to, you know, to meet your kids needs to not let them suffer, to give them the best life that they can. Have thoughts about that.

I think that if you don't have to face hardship, you'll never know what you'll do when it's hard. So this is how you test your mettle in a certain sense. Right. So I don't wish hardship upon anyone, but I think that hardship spares no one. So a brilliant person once told me that we have to walk, walk softly because everyone is facing their own tremendous battles.

Which we don't actually know.

Yeah. And they're invisible, right. They're often invisible and often more often unspoken. And so be kind, right? Be kind, but know that your time is coming or you're in it.

Right.

And. And that's important. And it's important because it provides a sense of empathy, provides gratitude for the moments when you don't feel that you're facing a tremendous battle. But yeah, I think that ultimately kids need. They benefit from hardship. And I don't think that everyone benefits in the same way.

So.

You know, people say. Some people say entrepreneurs are born, not made. I think there's a comment, a part of that that's true, you know, but I also think that. That the people who really change and shape the world and do the biggest things are accustomed to the biggest obstacles, setbacks, humiliations, challenges, fears. All of those things that everyone faces. They're not immune to them. It's just their reaction to those that's so different, is what yields different levels of impact and outcome. So I have a lot of friends that when they got Covid, were crying and saying, poor me. I was laughing and thinking hysterically that it was. That this was an example of life and the forces and our immune systems and all of these components that make it amazing. I'm not a model for anybody, but that's the way that I try to confront my individual challenges. Now I'll tell you a story about entrepreneurship. I've got two Origin stories around that that people always find hilarious. But now that's setting a high bar. So they'll be boring, I'm sure.

Anyway, I'll just make fun of them. So I'll make them.

So I remember I got a phone call at my house. I was 8 years old. And a friend of mine, Philip Dunnett, who everyone jokingly called his mom, Sergeant Dunnett, she was very strict, called and asked me to come over because he had a lawn mower and we were going to mow his neighbor's lawn and they had agreed to pay us. So I said okay. We went over and it was 110 degrees in Texas during, during the summer. And we're pushing this manual lawnmower and it took both of us to push it cause there was no motor on it. So it's like, you know, you're really just cranking through it. And we did the edges and the hedges and the lawn and all this stuff. And in the middle of the day she came out and this blue haired old lady gave us a glass of lemonade. And then when we got done, she gave us each quart. And I'm old, but I'm not that old. And I was, I was just short, right? I was absolutely distraught. And I went back to the house and I called my mom and I said, mom, come pick me. And they had one of those old phones with a long cord with the rotary dials on it stuck to the kitchen wall. And I remember walking and calling her and I said, mom, come pick me up. And she said, what happened? I said, I don't want to talk about it, just pick me up. I'm distraught. So she picks me up and I go home and I'm sitting there and I'm awake all night in my bed, tossing and turning, thinking about this stuff. And I walked downstairs the next morning and my older sister was doing some arts and crafts with leather with a group of friends and a thing that very not politically correct used to be called Indian Princess. And she was cutting up pieces of leather and they were gluing them to make vests and things for this powwow. And I remember picking up all the trash, all the leather that was trash that was discarded and I grabbed it and I remember walking around outside and I found this dead turtle and I put it into bleach and I took a screwdriver and I dug out all the guts and all the stuff and all the gore and I broke the turtle shell up and I tied it around these pieces of leather and I made Little bolo ties and necklaces and all sorts of crap. And my parents were having dinner in an entertainment area called Deep Ellum. While they had dinner, I went outside and I roamed the streets, and I knew most of the people on the streets there, and I roamed. So not a safe environment that you would recommend other people to do, but my parents were cool with it. I came back in about an hour, hour and a half later, and my dad said, oh my God, what happened? Did you get robbed? And I said, no, I sold all the necklaces. And he said, okay, well, how much money did you make selling the necklaces? I said, you know, I think about $800. And I pulled out all this money from my pockets. And he said, did you rob somebody? And I said, no, no, no, I just sold all the necklaces. Well, how much you sell them for? And I said, well, it entirely depended on what the person was wearing and if they had a date. And I'd walk up and I'd pick the right people. And it ranged between a dollar and thirty dollars for the the same product. And I ended up realizing that I could make a jewelry business at the age of eight. And I started pedaling jewelry on the streets after that on the weekends as a side business. So that was the first one when my dad said, we're not going to have to worry about you.

Can I tell you my equivalent of your first lawnmower story? So I'm about 11, about our boy's age, and my best friend Billy Greenberg and I were. I'm living in Great Neck, New York, and we lived about a mile apart, and we decided we were going to do a snow removal service. Now I had lived through one winter there, and it snowed a few times and averaged like an inch or 3 inches or 4, 4 inches or something like that. And so we went, we walked between my house and his house and we sold snow removal service for the winter for 20 bucks. And we signed up, I remember about 20 houses and we got 400 bucks and we used 200 of it to buy a gas, one of those pusher ones that has little blades and so forth. And it could clear up to 12 inches. Well, the next week we have a three foot record snowfall. And everyone on our route is like calling up saying, where are you? We paid for you to be able to remove our snow whenever it snowed. And I was like, just, I was decimated. My dad, God bless him, calls up his friend who cleared our things. We had a snowplow and he paid him to Go and clear all of them. And then I just canceled all the services after that. But it was definitely bad luck. Oh, man. What was your next one?

That's amazing. I love that. You know, my next one was. I was 10 and my dad was just about to. To jail. So it was tough times at the house. And I had gotten into this great school in Dallas called St. Mark's School of Texas, which is all boys school, which I also didn't graduate from. Why?

Break a record?

Yeah, exactly. You know, it's like. And so I'm sitting there, and I remember I get called into the principal Warren Foxworth's office. Warren foxworth. He's sitting there and he's telling me that he's got to call my mom and my dad. And I'm thinking, this is the worst timing ever. You know, my mom is distraught, my dad is about to go to prison. Like, this is. This sucks. And interestingly, Warren had been a neighbor of my dad when they were kids, little kids. And so my dad comes in and I mean, he just lays into me in this office. He's screaming. He's telling me I'm too stupid to breathe. All this stuff is going on. It's just unbelievable. And my mom is sitting there and she's equally upset and less vocal. And Warren is sitting there and he goes, my dad's name was Lou also. And he's like, lou, calm down. Calm down, Susan. What are you. My mom's name is Susan. He says, calm down, Susan. Lou, what are you doing? I don't understand. And my dad goes, what do you mean you don't understand? My kid went and spent $4,000, $3,800 at the school bookstore. On what? On a bunch of pens and pencils and jackets. Like, what are you talking about? And Warren said, lou, I don't think you understand. And my dad said, what do you mean I don't understand? Warren, you idiot. And Warren goes, well, maybe I'm the idiot, but I thought you'd be really happy about it. My dad just loses. Why would I be happy about it? He goes, he didn't spend $3,800, Lou. He made $3,800. We've never had this problem before. And my dad said, how did he make $3,800 in bookstore credits? And I was trading pins. I was trading pins that didn't exist at the bookstore with these other kids who were getting them for free by charging them to their parents at the bookstore. And I would trade these pens that I was buying for a dollar or 50 cents apiece for a $15 pen from the bookstore and then return it to the bookstore. So I had this amazing credit. I was going to pay for all of my tuition in like a few months. And I told my dad, he said, why were you doing this? I said, well, I figured that they'd credit it to my tuition, I wouldn't have a tuition to pay. And. And I remember the look on his face and he was really so confused, right, by the entire thing. And I remember feeling this sense of shame and pride at the same time. And it was shame at the beginning because I thought I had done something wrong, even though I thought I was doing something right. But by the end of it was was pride because ultimately if other kids had figured out what I was doing at the school and done the same thing, it would have bankrupted the bookstore. Warren said that I wasn't allowed to engage in any on campus commerce from then on because of the consequences to the bookstore. But yeah, it was amazing. It was just simple arbitrage. But I had something that everybody wanted and their cost of goods was free in their minds. And my cost of goods was very low. And the arbitrage was 1 to 10, 1 to 15, so 90% return.

Have I ever told you my fetal pig story how I was almost thrown out of school and would not be having this conversation with you or anybody? Had the turn of events gone slightly different?

Yeah, tell me. Shoot.

So my freshman year I was at a place called Hamilton College before I transferred to MIT for my undergrad. And Hamilton College has a very strict honor code, right? Can't do. You know, it's like, really, you sign this honor code and it's like, you know, it's the gospel. And expulsion is the result of anything that's verboten. And my freshman year, I'm in freshman biology, I'm pre meditation, make my parents happy. And in freshman biology, half of your grade for the year is your fetal pig lab dissection. Never forget this. About two months into the semester, about two weeks before the fetal pig lab half of my grade, I come down with chickenpox. I'm in Hamilton's infirmary with chickenpox. My parents come up from Great Neck and they visit me and I'm just out of it. And as I'm starting to recover and I'm getting better, I'm freaking out about this fetal pig. And so I go into the last few days of the lab work and we were not allowed to take the fetal pig out of the lab. Very strict Rules posted on the walls. The fetal pig must stay in there. Your time with the fetal pig is limited, et cetera, et cetera. And so I'm freaking out. And I hatch the plan with my lab mate Philip to steal the fetal pig. And I'm going to steal the fetal pig and bring it back to my dorm room and study it at night over the weekend before the exam. And so this is a Thursday. I open my book bag, or Philip does. I push the fetal pig in. This is a formaldehyde, stinky fetal pig in my book bag, bring it back to the dorm room, stick it in the refrigerator. And the next day, I'll never forget, Professor Frank Price stands up in front of the classroom and goes, ladies and gentlemen, I have something very serious to talk to you about. One of the fetal pigs has been stolen, and I want whoever's responsible to turn themselves in that same day. No shit. There's an article in the school newspaper about a fetal pig being stolen. And I'm like. Philip and I are looking at each other across the room, squirming, and like, what do we do? Oh, my God. So the fetal pig is in the refrigerator. And this is a refrigerator shared by a few different dorm rooms. And one of the seniors sees it in there and says, I'm going to turn you in if you don't turn yourself in. Now, at this point, I'm a freshman, pre med. My entire life is crumbling before my eyes. Philip and I have the crazy idea that we have to get rid of the evidence. So we take the fetal pig and we go into the forest and we bury the body. Kid, you not. We bury the body in the forest and we're coming back. And I'm like, what are we going to do? This is insane. It's like everything's over. So it's about 5 o' clock on this Friday, and the exam's on Monday, and I'm breaking down. I call my dad and I'm, like, in tears, and I fess up to him. I said, dad, this is what happened. I'm sorry. I don't know what to do. And it's one of those moments in time where I'm so thankful I trusted my dad well enough to have that conversation with him. And he said, son, you need to turn yourself in. You just need to go and talk to your professor and tell him what you did and why you did it. And he said, So I went and saw Philip and said, I'm going to turn myself in. And he's like, no, no, you can't do that. I said, listen, you had nothing to do with it. So I went. I exhumed the body from the forest. I went and went to go see Professor Price. So it turns out my dad had called the physician at the infirmary at Hamilton and had him talk to Professor Price and so forth and say he was out. Anyway, I get. And as I'm walking to go to class, one of my other roommates who found out about the fetal pig debacle says, I'm going to turn you in. And I was like, enough, enough. I'm turning myself in. And so I went, and I saw Professor Price. He was tutoring students, and he said, please wait there. And so, finally, tearful, mournful, with the dead body in my hands, I walk over to him and I say, it was me. I stole the fetal pig. And I'll never forget, he looked at me and paused, and he goes, peter, have you learned your lesson? I was like, yes, yes, yes, I'm sorry. And he said, good luck on the exam on Monday. And that was it. And it's just this forgiveness. My life would have been completely. If I'd been thrown out of my freshman year of college. It'd be. Maybe I'd be a tech billionaire as a result of that, I don't know. But it was. I'll never forget this moment of kindness from Professor Frank Price that allowed me to continue on and go on to what I've done.

The great pig heist.

Yeah, the great pig. Yeah, the fetal pig story. I was just telling that to Dax and Jett over s' mores the other night and remind me of it. Yeah.

Isn't it amazing to think through all of the. And I try to do this. I don't do it enough, to be honest, but I do try to do it all the time. But think of all of the. I call them the but for people, right? And it's. But for this person, this would not have happened, or that would not have happened, or I wouldn't be here or whatever that is. And, you know, one of the things that I'm real proud about with Baron Ryan is I try my best. And Jet and Dax as well, actually. But I try my best to show them that every interaction that we have is an opportunity to make the other person's day better. Now, you don't do that for you, and you don't just do it for them, Right? They're going to interact with other people that day, and those people are going to interact with other people that day. So just a Little bit of positivity can fundamentally change outcomes from other people.

Yes.

And going back to that idea of, you know, you don't know what the tremendous burden the other person is carrying. You know, how many times have you witnessed kindness that was given at exactly the right moment, either for you, in the case of Dr. Price, or for, you know, anyone that you're interacting with in that moment?

Right.

And the truth is that we don't even. We have no idea, but you know it when you see it, and it's really an amazing gift.

Right.

And the reason that I'm so positive that my transformative, My real purpose is to eliminate unnecessary suffering is that for every one person that you. You help or heal or touch or save or eliminate that little bit of suffering in their day, you know, that you're doing good, that is beyond anything that has to do with you.

Right.

And so it. It really takes you out of the equation and becomes all about the other.

Right.

And I've been saying, and you've heard me say for several years now, that one of the mantras I practice is that I am we and we are. And ultimately, it means that you transform from the ego, from the individual, to being a part of we. And then ultimately you realize that we are and you're a part of everything simultaneously. And that means that you look at every object in every moment with a different level of clarity because you are. You know, most religions say it in one way or another, but you are you. You are a piece of everything, and everything is a piece of you. And there's something that really ties us all together when you think about it that way. And it's a goal to be able to live by it.

There's an idea I want to close us out on that you share. And I was just grabbing it here from a text we had a while ago. The idea of truth versus politeness and vulnerability versus small talk. I found those really important distinctions, and I think they're a good closeout for us. Vulnerability versus the value of small talk. Thoughts?

I think being authentic is a superpower. I think that when you're authentic to yourself and authentic with others, you can touch each other in ways that are just much deeper and more significant than Argentina beating Croatia in the semifinals of the World Cup.

Right.

Not that that doesn't matter. It matters. But that there's a fundamental authenticity to depth and vulnerability and being open and honest with what you're accomplishing, not accomplishing failures, successes, fears, and joys. Right. And being able to go to that as quickly as possible, eliminates tremendous amounts of wasted time. And it doesn't mean that everyone likes authenticity. It doesn't mean that it's a crowd pleaser, because a lot of times it's not right. But it's an opportunity to. To transcend the blase and get into what really matters.

Right.

And what really drives us and what our true feelings and ambitions are. And to me, that's something that's worthwhile.

Yeah, I always know when I have a challenge or an issue or need advice. There's no bullshit from you. It's double barreled truth, whether I like it or not. You do it beautifully. And that's what you want from your best friend. You want your best friend to give you a real mirror. If I tell you I need a hug or I need some support, you're there for that too. But it's another interesting point before I get to the last point, which is I asked this of my closest friends, you and Keith Ferrazi and Eric Poulier and others. Is there somebody who knows everything about you? I mean, where you're not hiding anything. Do you have someone in your life that knows you so authentically, so deeply that there are no secrets? And it's a beautiful thing to have. You ideally want that in your spouse, in your partner, where you can be truthfully you without feeling criticized and so forth. And I measure success in my life. And there are a few people where there's nothing hiding, there's nothing I can feel ashamed of or guilty of or what they know they know it. Thoughts about that.

I mean, I would be hesitant to say that I am an open book in general, but I don't shy away from my shortcomings. Right. I think that I embrace them as opportunities for. For growth. So I would say that I do my best to provide that authenticity to you. And I would say that I have a few friends that can understand that. And yeah, there could be criticisms too.

Right.

Because it doesn't mean that you agree with all of the choices. Right. Like you've done dumb things, I've done dumb things. I plan on continuing to do some dumb things. Right. I mean, it's part of life. And in terms of. Yeah. I mean, my partner is amazing. Mei Mei is amazing. And I definitely think that she knows me extremely well. And I don't think I hide purposefully really anything from her. And I don't think I could if I wanted to, which is a big part of it. I think that once you have a certain authentic approach to a friendship or to a relationship. It's very easy for those people to tell when you're not in authenticity. And so they might not be able to tell you exactly what you're thinking or why you're thinking that or where the shame or the fear comes from and being authentic in that moment, but they know it. And to me, those are. All of that is really the highest value in a relationship. It's the ability to trust someone that you love or people that you love more than you trust yourself. It's when you're looking outward in that moment, what's better than being taught a lesson about you by someone that loves you?

Right.

Well, you and I are such easy people to live with. Yeah. Kristen and Maimay have an easy time of it.

Oh, my God. I can't imagine anyone more difficult to live with than me. Except for maybe you. Yeah, exactly.

And politeness versus truth. You know, I can't. You know those conversations that are all about bullshit politeness, that are like, okay, can I extract myself from this conversation? But you don't tolerate those very, very well. You love dropping bombs in the middle of them, I think.

Yeah. I mean, I think sometimes one of the things, like, as an example, something that I could definitely work on is sometimes in those types of settings, I just want to disrupt it. You know, it's like. It's like, have you ever seen the monks pouring the sand that you know they're going to scrape away right after they're done making this beautiful mandala? Sometimes I feel like just jumping in the middle of that shit while it's being done, you know, because it's just like, well, it's going to happen anyway. Like, why are we. Why are we going through this exercise? And I feel like sometimes overly polite conversations are like that, too. You know, where you have this. You have this dance that's being played out in slow motion.

It's so painful for no reason.

Ultimately.

I wish I had a button that could rewind the conversation three seconds. So it's like in the middle of conversation now, Are you wearing that dress because you want to go to bed with someone tonight? I mean, it's like, what is it? Or is that the stupidest thing you could possibly say right now? I mean, honestly, it would make life more interesting.

I mean, I'll give you a great example. So we were sitting here, and we're watching an amazing documentary about the Bacheros. And the Bacheros are the Nicaraguan migrant workers that come over and build things in Costa Rica in search of a better life and leaving Persecution in Nicaragua, et cetera. And these are basically all men. And they. It told the untold story of the Bacheros, right? And a good friend of mine, Roberto, he made it and produced it and directed it, and it's a remarkable film. Okay. And afterward, this is the screening, and this beautiful beach woman at the time when we're supposed to ask questions says, it's a 32 minute documentary. Okay. And her question is, well, I think you should make one about the women. When are you going to make the documentary about the women? Now, I love the idea of making a documentary about the women, but the Pacheros aren't women, they're men. And in the documentary, their families and wives and children, men, women and otherwise, were included and touched upon. But ultimately, the people that are enduring the labor conditions that are the unseen population of the other country that are crossing the borders and getting caught and returned, and all of this, all of that is happening to the men, right? And so it wasn't that there was a sexism moment, none of that. It. It was that she had to ask that question because it felt like the polite, appropriate question to ask. And it showed that she had not watched or understood the film in any capacity. So that's an example of sometimes where I see these things where it's like, I understand that it feels like that's the right question to ask, but ultimately it's being polite and it's being politically correct and it's going in no direction at all. And instead, what would have been fascinating is to say, has anyone done a documentary on the wives and children they left at home? And, you know, if there are any, you know, dramatic affairs with siblings of the men that went to work that happened while they were gone. Right. Is there a drama there that was different than everyday life before? And that might be interesting, that's a great point. But to me, the authenticity of that moment was shedding a light on people that never see the light. And it was very powerful. And a question that tried to dim that light in any way was a damn question.

I'm going to end on a joke. So Professor Heisenberg is in his car traveling down the highway, the Autobahn, since he's German, and a cop pulls him over and says, professor Heisenberg, I clocked you at 75 miles per hour. And he goes, oh, my God, now I have no idea where I am. For those of you wondering, it's the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. You can't actually know the velocity and your location at the same time. It's a geek joke. I know.

I love it. Well, I mean, look, you got to do what you're good at.

I'm obviously not good at delivering jokes, brother. I love you. I love you in my life. Thank you. Thank you for all. Thanks for a fun conversation.

Thank you. Peter, it's great to see you. And I hope we get to give.

You a big happy birthday. Happy birthday. Coming up very shortly.

Despite all odds, I made it past 40.

That's amazing. Amazing. Well, you know, I'm working on another century for you, so.

Yeah, well, we'll make sure we use it well.

Yeah. Give my deputy kids a big hug and kiss for me.

All right, you kiss the kids.

Love you, too. Bye. Everyone, this is Peter again.

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