Founder Stories: Christian Angermayer, Founder of Atai Life Sciences

Our next speaker is Christian Ungermeier, and it's a Pioneers Fireside. We're going to be hearing from a leading mind who's trailblazing a path for both prosperity, but genuinely the future of society. Please welcome Christian Ungermeier. Your background is pretty profound in that I think you've raised about €1.5 billion for your companies. You've been involved in various ways in 40 IPOs.

Yeah, well, since a long time, yeah.

Yeah, over a time, which is— and that's great, OK? Can we just leave that aside and ask you about why crypto? Why are you interested in crypto? What is your involvement in crypto and why?

The real why— I mean, a very funny story is this is all about Mike Novogratz, like, was pushing me since 2010. 2014, and I didn't listen. And then in 2016, he finally sort of succeeded, and I sort of—

wow, okay, so you didn't rush.

It's, it's— I, I owe it all to Mike in the crypto space.

Can you imagine if you'd listened earlier?

And, and then it's this famous soundbite which was online, but it's actually true. So after Mike had told me a lot continuously about about crypto and Bitcoin, whatever, I did have actually a psychedelic trip, a mushroom trip, and was thinking about it. And I was like, okay, now I do get it. Like, so that was sort of the defining moment.

I mean, just between us, right? Nobody else here, right? We're in the pub having a chat. Exactly.

I have no filter anyway.

So where did you— where do you have an experience like that? Where is it legal to do that?

So psychedelics, if we jump to that. Are not classified in most parts of South America or Middle America, like Caribbean, whatever. So they're not neither legal or illegal. They are like whatever fruits. Yeah. And they— but they are in Europe, the only country where they're legal so far because we're working on with a company to making psychedelics available medically. But at the moment it's the Netherlands actually. So there are two great for the ones who want to tiptoe in it with a doctor together. There are two clinics in In the Netherlands, you can do it really legally with a guy together.

I'm sorry, we did jump a little bit.

We got ahead.

Yeah, yeah, let's stay with crypto for a second. What is your main activity in crypto?

So we have a pretty big, actually on the way to, uh, to become the, the largest miner globally. It's called Northern Data, which is doing both Bitcoin mining and Ethereum mining, but also as a service provider, so on own account and, um, and for others. So kind of a data center operator with own balance sheet and service. So we have a stake in Block.one, which is a holding in itself. The main actually public service now is a public product. This now is a crypto exchange called Bullish, which went online in November and is growing rapidly because we found a new way to, to find liquidity and pricing. I have several investments in because I like the infrastructure part of it. So we do own coins, tokens, however you want to call it, as well. But like, meaning I partly feel old when I look at sort of the broad range of stuff. So I have some sort of concentrated stuff in Bitcoin, Ethereum. But then I like the service provider infrastructure play, like Northern Data, like Bullish, crypto broker called Naga, like sort of— yeah.

I was looking at Naga. They're doing very well as well. So it's very interesting. The question I have is, what's your feeling about regulation and crypto? Because I sense from some of the things that you do and some of the things that I've heard you speak about and read that you have the heart of a libertarian there. And what do you hope for cryptocurrency, for society?

Well, this works two ways. So on the regulations, I'm sort of in the middle, I think. A certain amount of regulation is good because it's the basis that big institutions, no matter if you like regulation or not, but the fact is it's a little bit like in biotech, I have to deal with the FDA. So here you have to deal with regulators. And if we want as a crypto industry, the big flows of money, which will be the next sort of driver of the industry, you have to have sort of, we have to play a little bit. With, or—

so you're not a full decentralist in that, that sense?

If I could pick, but I also like, I'm always like, what do I ideally want and what is the— I'm also pragmatist. Like, how can you— what's the world like and how, how do we have to adapt to it? Like, um, but in generally, I obviously think like the less government, um, uh, the better. And, uh, and you see that, meaning the whole crypto world is way more innovative because it's in certain ways unbound. Yeah, and then you also have a lot of bullshit, but like, that is sort of normally the better price to pay in order to get quick innovation.

And I've noticed some of your businesses that you've created and invested in, you do care about regulation, right? So which is cool. And I think that's a nice point to ask you to tell us a little bit about Atai.

And, uh, well, that's the psychedelics company, which is my favorite topic aside of crypto. Well, it's like It— because it's given me so much also personally. So it actually started with a personal revelation or personal, how you say, experience, which I didn't want to have in terms of— I've never taken— this one was so easy to talk about. I've never taken any other drug, including alcohol. I've never tried alcohol because I didn't think it's a good thing to do. I never smoked a cigarette, never took cocaine, because I was always actually very happy. And I don't think I'm dumb. So I was like, okay, I think I have the genetic jackpot with my brain. Yeah. So why jinx it? That was sort of my— so then I met a scientist and I'm telling the long story because I know normally, especially when you do it in Europe, actually in America, the whole theme of psychedelics already took off. But like, so a lot of people are like, okay, why? What? So, so I met a scientist in 2013 at a dinner and friends made the joke, hey, this is a very famous neuroscientist and Christian, he could loosen you up a bit and you could drink a glass of wine with us. And I was like, look, it's not about that. I know one glass of wine wouldn't kill me, but anyway. So, but I was super interested in talking to that guy. So we had a fascinating chat. He's like the drug czar of Germany, like does all the regulation. And he pulled up a chart, which you all should Google because most of you drink alcohol, I guess. If you Google David Nutt chart, David Nutt is the most famous neuroscientist in UK, and he did like 10 years ago on behalf of the British government. So this is not a company study of mine. This is a very serious government-paid study. He looked at all legal and illegal drugs out there from alcohol to heroin and made a very scientific approach to risk. So what is the risk? Because it's multifold. It's like, can you die when you take it? Can you get disabled? Body disabled, mind disabled, do you hurt others, which is very bad for alcohol, and so on. So he had like 10 or 12 things which are defining risk. And when you look through that chart, you're going to see that in a comprehensive risk assessment, the most and worst, the most dangerous drug is alcohol, actually before heroin. Heroin is the number 2. So I'm not saying take heroin, so it's both bad. Yeah, then comes everything else you think is bad. And at the very end of the chart, with practically zero risk, the only risk of psychedelics is that you hurt yourself because you fall down when you're tripping. But there is zero toxicity in psychedelics. So that was his pitch. And I was not convinced because I'm so, so anxious. But he started sending me the research. He actually, for the Swiss people here. So this guy, Rainer, did his PhD with Albert Hofmann. Yeah, the famous Swiss inventor of LSD. And one fun fact is that in Switzerland, magic mushrooms were an approved medical product in the '50s and '60s for depression. But I was like, look, I don't have depression. I'm happy. I don't need it. He started sending me the research. One year I read a lot about it. One year later, I was in the Caribbean, 2014, great holiday, and friends had mushrooms and I was like, look, this looks like a mushroom. Yeah. So I read so much about it and I was like, okay, let's try it. So it was literally the first thing which you would classify as a drug if you leave sugar out I ever tried in coffee. And it was hands down the single most meaningful, important thing I've ever done in my whole life, full stop. So nothing came close to it. And then actually already then it took me then 3 years to really start a business, but I was like, okay, holy shit, if it's doing this amount of positivity and add on to my life, to me as a happy, healthy person, I can totally see why some of these drugs had been used in the last century to cure mental health issues like depression, anxiety, addiction, all of that. So that was sort of my start into it. And one more thing, because like you might say, first of all, by the way, mental health issues are the number one disease in our time, and statistically, like, 20% here in the room do have an issue. But unfortunately, it's still a stigmatized disease, which is changing. Yeah, but that's the group we want to help with Atai. So the company I then started is Atai Life Sciences. We recreated or bought all the IP around these psychedelics, from magic mushrooms to ketamine to ibogaine to to DMT, and developing those compounds as medical treatments. So we don't want to legalize it. We want to have it medically available again, what they used to be in the last century, so that you can go in the future to your doctor, therapist, and trip and really use it as part of your therapy. You might say now, well, I don't have an issue like I had. Yeah, what is the interesting part? This is why I mentioned it with Bitcoin. So who's older than 30? Okay, the majority. So the, the problem we all have— I'm 43— is from the age of 30 on, roundabout, your brain starts aging in terms of creativity. So the degenerative side, Alzheimer's and dementia, thanks God, comes very late, but we are actually used to it, so we don't see it as a disease that from the age of 30 on your brain starts declining in terms of innovation, creativity. One good example is there is a— the Nobel Prize for math is the Fields Medal, and none of the winners of the— I think two exceptions, but most of the winners of the Fields Medal, Nobel Prize for math, have been younger than 30 when they wrote the paper for which they won the award. And if you talk to math guys, professors, whatever, they're like, yes, it's sort of a known fact that if you're Older than 30, you might be a very good math guy, but you don't have sort of this innovation power anymore. So interestingly, this is also— this is kind of a side effect of psychedelics, but they reverse this aging process in terms of creativity. Your brain literally starts growing after a mushroom or psychedelic trip. It's called neuroplasticity. So it starts both— it starts building, really growing. So you have more brain size a bit, but also especially it starts connecting again. And this is what makes creativity, like different parts of your brain working together, producing new ideas. And what do we all want? Yeah, we want to be— I don't want to be 20 anymore in terms of knowledge because I learned so much throughout my career, but I want to have that innovation power I had. So ideally, you want to have the experience of a 50-year-old combined with the innovation power of a 20-year-old. And that's sort of a— it's quite a side effect which psychedelics sort of give you. And this is why indeed I use it actually regularly in a country where it's legal for thinking about ideas like just, okay, like, and crypto I think is in generally such a radically new idea that, that I think if you get older, you might have problems sort sort of getting into it, yeah, and that was for me the defining moment.

Well, it was hard for me to accept some of the things in Alkohol, but I went more—

and then you took mushrooms and then you took—

No, I mean, I haven't been to any countries where it's legal, but it certainly made me think about it, and actually for a different reason. I'll be completely candid. I mean, I have family members with untreatable mental illness, right, or have had in the past, right, and so if there's some hope for that, then I'm interested. I understand that you've gone all the way through to get FDA approval for some—

We're on the way, but we had very good readouts last year. I mean, we are on an extremely good way. And both politics, but more important, the regulators, both in Europe, by the way, and the FDA are extremely positive for two reasons. A, the problem is so big. So mental health is financially from a human perspective, and by the way, also from a political perspective, because I think a lot of A lot of the problems we see in the world, the divisiveness around this, which is even crazy in America, but like a lot of things I think is deeply rooted in a fear all of us have. Meaning we here might say, oh wow, the future is bright and we're investing in technology, but 99% of the people are deeply afraid of the world we're building. And I think if we don't, so there is more actually, so my theory is that we have these sort of, It's called classified mental health issues. We know we call it depression, anxiety, addiction is at the end a mental health issue. But I think there are way more problems our society has, which are mainly introduced, induced by the, both by the speed of technological change and by the world we're building. Social media, for example, if you have children, is literally as toxic as cocaine to your brain. So if you get likes, so for example, one of the biggest group of people who have depression are actually athletes and celebrities. Why? Because outside validation and social media is sort of the extreme version of it with the likes, whatever, is as addictive and toxic to your brain like cocaine. And this is what all the children have. So we're going into these massive mental health crisis beyond the sort of defined diseases, which has then a lot of spillover effects on politics, on how we act together as humans. So, and regulators realize the only thing, or the most potential hope, are actually psychedelics.

I mean, that's a pretty awesome regulator that does realize that, which is—

they were all there in the '60s. They all—

what happened to demonize these kind of things in the '60s? Why have opioids that is the weapon of choice in treating most of these maladies. Why did these kind of things, if they were there in the '60s, why would they then—

Well, opioids are bad, like— Yeah, but why did opioids become legal?

They became legal, yeah.

Well, I think it's— so why did psychedelics become illegal? Psychedelics became illegal, which was a pure political— two things. The one is like the '60s were an exemption, actually, and this is why actually some people criticize me in the psychedelic world that I'm too conservative. Because yes, I want to make it available again, but as a strictly medical product, because— so by the way, if you get excited what I'm saying, these are not things you do at a party at home like these are for humans have used psychedelics for thousands of years, but always in a strictly organized, often very religious. So most religions, including Christianity, are provenly based on psychedelic consumption. But they were always kind of regulated by the ruling religious caste. You did it once or twice a year with a shaman together. So that's the right thing. And I want to recreate that for our— today's world, which are the therapists. The '60s were this exemption where Timothy Leary went wild, and I think it was a mistake and said, hey, everybody should do it every day and let's go crazy. And I give it to all my students. And that practically came together with the Vietnam War so that politicians were like, okay, sort of that student group, which was very leaning into psychedelics, they're going now against the Vietnam War. How can we demonize them? And literally, we produced a documentary which is coming out with a lot of original material where we found many— and people are willing now to talk about it— from the Nixon administration, where they were like literally faking studies in order to say, look at those hippies, LSD makes you crazy because you must be crazy if you go against the Vietnam War. So it was a completely fake agenda, to be fair, provoked by a true loose—

When's the documentary coming?

Uh, mid of the year.

Oh, awesome. I would look forward to that one. I want to ask you about politics and conflict.

Yeah.

You are funding a very interesting experiment at Imperial College. Please tell us about that.

So also in the historic use of psychedelics, And this is why I already said, like, I think we have way more problems than we see at the surface. And because of the society becoming so, yeah, leaning into mental health issues. But one big use is like in generally conflict resolution on any level. So in the past, leaders were tripping together. They actually yesterday came out a great article about South American tribes not going to war because the leaders were tripping together. Meaning hundreds of years ago, by the way, till marriage counseling. So the best tip I can give you, because like normally you're all here to make money, but the biggest cut is normally when you get divorced. Yeah. So, and the best thing before you get divorced, if you want to really see if there is still love or not, I'm not joking, is like MDMA and psychedelics combined. This was the sort of marriage therapy in the '60s. You definitely know at the end if there is still something there and then it's going to reignite it, or if it's over, yeah, but then you might have a more amicable—

Best economic advice you're going to get.

Yes.

But tell us about the experiment.

So, and we, so I'm funding the Imperial College studies on, so we're getting sort of very conservative Israeli settlers from, what is the West Bank, and like, and Hezbollah fighters, so really like on the opposite spectrum. To trip together and come up with a peace plan. So you might laugh, but like, for me, that is the pinnacle, like all these frozen conflicts, like you have, meaning they were, politicians were not able to solve it for hundreds of years. By the way, for the same reason why some marriages are not able to be solved, is if you're in a fight long enough, you just focus on the negative things. That is another form of depression. People who are depressive are They're smart, they know, meaning they understand what's happening to them, but their mind can't focus on the beauty of life anymore, although they might have a great life because it's focused, it's sort of starting and spiraling into one negative thing. And that's happening when the Prime Minister of Israel meets Hezbollah, if he ever meets them, yeah, there is all this bad history and the meeting is doomed to fail from the beginning. So what psychedelics do, they give you a clean slate, they create empathy for the other person, which is a thing we deeply need in our society, yeah, and at least it's an option, and we're doing it very scientific, so it's very sort of with Imperial College, and I hope that this small study, we want to do more, is sort of fostering the use in politics as well.

Honestly, I'm so pleased you're trying. I have no idea if it's going to work, but what an awesome thing to try.

It's always worth looking.

Right?

Yeah.

I told you your minds would be opened by this. It's pretty interesting, right? Okay, you've— one thing I found very hard to accept, I just struggled with, you've called aging a disease. Okay, that's hard, right, to accept.

But it is because very simple, like, we know how your DNA is and we know how your 20-year-old you looks, and now you have gray hair. And I don't want to be rude, but like, that is not— that is not naturally. We think it's naturally, but something is changing. You have the DNA, which is always the same from the day you're born to the day you die. Yeah, but there is— so the translation somehow, it's a little bit like a great melody. You have a great song. Yeah. And the person, as a picture, like who plays the melody, makes more and more mistakes because your hair should be brown or whatever. Yeah. So, so it is a disease. It's just like that for thousands of years as humans, we have witnessed people aging and dying. And in order to cope with it, by the way, the biggest power of humans is storytelling. Yeah, we told ourselves that story that it's natural, it's going to happen to all of us. Yeah, but we are about to understand, or actually we do understand already pretty well what is going wrong. And humans have one great track record. Always when we understand what the problem is, someone, we're going to solve it. Yeah. And I have two big companies in that field. There are others like we do understand and we start really solving. And first we're going to slow aging down, then we're going to stop it, and we're going to reverse it. So that's definitely happening in our lifetime.

And I thought the metaverse was the only place that I would be immortal, uh, with dark hair of my— or hair, whatever I identify.

But that is, that is, that is, you know, you have two— so there are two ways. I mean, by the way, let's start with that, because like, first of all, two things. When I normally say we're gonna live for a very long time, people are like, oh, I don't want that, which is weird. Yeah, but because we still— because they still think, okay, I'm going to just be like I'm 90 and then I'm extending that. So the fact is like there will be no significant life extension or life expectancy extension without reversing aging. And if I ask you, do you want to live 200 years in your 30s, you're all going to say yes.

Yeah.

And by the way, so I don't believe we will, because statistically you're going to have an accident somewhere. Yeah. But also I don't think we want to live forever. But coming to the libertarian view, I think it's the biggest sort of liberation for humanity that we pick the time of our own death. And some people might say, I'm going to die after 100 years because I've seen it all. Some people might, by the way, psychedelics maybe, because they keep you mentally young and interested in the world, might go on for hundreds of years. But I think someone always comes to a point where we're going to say, that's it, had it all. Having said that, that's the case if we stay human. Because the other way, so there's two ways to extend life and we're working on both. Like the one is, which I think is the more realistic, at least in the next 20, 30 years, is that we sort of again reverse aging in our body. So the problems and solve them. So the other idea is, which is a little bit more crazy, is like, do we need the body at all? Like what is the mind and can we transform or transport the mind at the end into a computer? So I think that is, potentially possible. I think it takes longer than 20, 30 years. So we need to extend the body first in order to come to the technology we can do that. But we have early, early— so I'm invested in the number one brain-computer interface company in the world. We already— it's the only one which has already FDA approval for the patients. They can do shit like you wouldn't— you would think it's a sci-fi movie. We have in end of January, we have a guy who's completely disabled. From like paralyzed from here, and he has a chip in his brain and he's going to drive a car just by thinking what the car shall do with Ford together. So, and if you think that ahead 10, 20 years, so we already merging with machines, that might be a different path, but that might also change the way we think because obviously everything we do at the moment to predict the future sort of depends or has the assumption that we have the human sort of framework we're living in. So if we change that completely, then sort of all bets are open anyway.

The problem with this conversation is it's way too short. But I just wanted to say thank you so much. It's exactly what we wanted, which is to share these ideas and start thinking about things that actually, you know, were quite difficult for us to think about, probably because of our biases. Thank you so much for sharing. Please put your hands together for Christian Angermayer.