Beyond Highlights: Superpower’s Founder on Biotech, Burnout & the Future of Health - Max Marchione

Welcome to Beyond Highlights, 10-minute segments from recent episodes that we believe will have a significant impact on your life today and beyond tomorrow.

For 50 years in the US, obesity has gone up and to the right. Last year, for the first time, it started going backwards because of a pharmacological innovation or invention, which is GLP-1s. Now, there's other problems with GLP-1s, But I think what they are is a harbinger of where the world is going, which is a world we have increasingly potent biotech interventions which can drive really powerful outcomes. And we kind of intuitively know this is true. If I said to someone 1,000 years from now, let's take the extreme. If I said to someone 1,000 years from now, are people just like really disciplined and not touching any unhealthy food? Are people just taking the magic pill? 1,000 years from now, people are taking the magic pill. We kind of know that's true in 1,000 years. Well, what happens if that doesn't happen in 1,000 years? What happens if that happens in 20 years or 10 years? And I think that's more what the future of healthcare looks like than all of a sudden human psychology changes and people have perfect self-discipline.

That's like a radical change. Let's look a bit, bit into the future. So GLP-1s, as you say, the harbinger, that this is just the start, right? What do— what can we expect in the next 3 to 5 years? Any cool innovations that you're excited about, that you're hearing about in, in SF and in the tech space?

I think there's like a surprisingly high probability that just about everyone is going to be on a GLP-1-like drug. And I think that what's required is the cost to come down. Which is happening, uh, the delivery mechanism to become more frictionless, i.e., swallow a pill rather than stab yourself with a needle, um, and the risk profile to be proven out, i.e., the downside risks are low, the side effect profile is, is negligible, and the upside risk is high. And I think all of those things in the context of peptides such as GLP-1 receptor agonists are going to play out in the next 5 to 10 years.

Are you bullish about psychedelics being— again, with, with RFK, he's talked about peptides, talked about hyperbaric chambers and psychedelics, but are you bullish on them becoming more mainstream and legal to administer within the next 3 to 5 years?

Yes, in controlled facilitated settings with a therapeutic rather than recreational use case.

What about um, hyperbaric chambers. Do you see the benefit in them?

I haven't gone deep enough, but I know a lot of people who swear by them. There is some research on them as well. I think that research on these things tends to be early, and the absence of evidence is not the lack of evidence. Um, uh, before there's evidence, there's always no evidence. That's just like the nature of things, right? It's the nature of science. So So from the outcomes I've heard anecdotally and from the data set that exists in the brains of the 10x doctors who are using them often, if I was making a, a bet, I would bet on hyperbaric oxygen chambers increasing in prevalence, and I would bet on, um, research being done that continues to prove their efficacy.

Max, do you ever think, you know, I could be on a beach in Sydney just having a great life, uh, not here in SF working you know, your ass off building this thing out, do you ever think, you know what, I'd be happier just doing something a bit more simple?

I think happiness is independent of any of that. Like, I think happiness is just what we choose.

Yeah.

Um, I think that happiness is downstream of authenticity, and I think that, um, authenticity is not doing the mainstream thing which is thought of as happiness maximizing, but instead it's doing the thing which works for a specific person. In my case, I don't think about what I'm doing as like working my ass off. I think of what I'm doing as having fun and enjoying myself and doing what is like authentic and true and energizing. There's this saying in Italian, dolce far niente, which means the sweetness of doing nothing. For me, I couldn't imagine anything worse.

I love that. It's like sweet. Is that sweet fuck all? Yeah, yeah. Something like that. Okay, that's really interesting. And you said that you were able to tap into your happiness through reading Untethered Soul by Michael Singer, which is one of my favorite books. Like, what, what, what did that book teach you, um, and how are you implementing that kind of simplicity and surrendering into the work you're doing at Superpower?

The way I used to go through life is trying to force things into place. It's like, well, if I force things, if I overthink things, if I agonize over things, stuff will work out. And I think an equally true version of the world is actually, um, one where you let things fall into place, right? Where you focus on, rather than forcing yourself to be happy, just letting yourself be happy, or choosing to be happy. Rather than forcing the world to do a certain thing, instead assuming the world is going to do that thing, living as if it's already true, and, and then waiting for it to happen. So I think that um, the, the, um, being view of the world, or the surrender view of the world, or the, um, a belief view of the world, uh, which is captured in Untethered Soul, is a potentially more accurate view of how things work than the I need to micromanage and force everything into place view of the world, which is I think where I was trapped, um, several years ago.

I'm going to push you a bit back on the happiness is a choice statement just because Again, I'm sure some of our listeners are going to be very healthy and be eating the right things and sleeping well and exercising. But hey, I'm going to speak personally. When I haven't had a good night's sleep, when I'm eating shit food, as happens more and more in the States than elsewhere, and when I haven't exercised for a few days, it becomes incredibly hard for me to be happy. Have you been able to just optimise a way of just like, yeah, making your brain—

I'll rephrase it. Happiness is a choice given the foundations are set up correctly. Okay, so I do think the foundations are essential. If your gut health is a mess, if your metabolic health is a mess, if your sleep is a mess, if your light viewing behaviors are a mess, I think it's basically impossible to be happy.

So what would be your blueprint for being healthy? Uh, just maybe let's, let's point out 3.

I think that it starts by— a lot of people will say, well, I have this biomarker problem, therefore let me optimize that biomarker. But I think the way to target every system systemically is to start by optimizing the foundations. Yeah, right. So make sure your metabolic health is good. Are you good at burning carbs? Now, are you good at burning fat? And, uh, I— are you sensitive to insulin? Let's make sure that system's good. Let's make sure inflammation is low, right? Let's make sure cellular efficiency and mitochondrial health is high. Let's make sure your mineral balance is correct. A lot of people's mineral balance is out of whack because the soil and water is depleted of minerals, particularly in the US. Let's make sure your micronutrients are balanced, right? Again, similar story to the mineral balance problem. Let's make sure your, your hormones are functioning correctly. Um, let's make sure your gut health is good. If your gut is an absolute mess, well, that's going to have impacts on mental health, on focus, on sleep, on skin aging, on happiness. So I think that rather than someone trying to, uh, hack their way to a specific outcome, the more systematic or systemic way of thinking about things is to get all the foundations right. And once all those foundations are right, typically every outcome starts to happen in concert, right? You start to look younger, feel younger, be more energetic, be happier, sleep better, um, all in concert.

Very interesting. So what would be your magic pill for 2025?

My magic— like tackling—

so I'm going to, I'm going to give you an opportunity to put maybe 3 things in this magic pill that one of your Superpower members can take. Gosh, just 3 things. Okay.

That is really hard. My sense is this is a hack, but this is a cheat. But I would literally say a multivitamin goes a long way for a lot of people. And I think the reason why is that good high-quality multivitamins are stacked with the right kinds of minerals and micronutrients that people are missing out on. If I look at the things that tend to be stacked in a high-quality multivitamin is vitamin D. So very hard to get too much vitamin D, and just about everyone I've seen is deficient in vitamin D. So having 2,000 to 3,000 IUs in a multivitamin goes a long way. the right multivitamins will stack that with vitamin K, right, which is important for the absorption of vitamin D. The second thing I'd say is, is magnesium. A similar story to vitamin D— a very low risk, reasonably high reward. A lot of people are deficient. If you take too much, it's not, it's not harmful, obviously within reason. Um, and I think the other thing that is stacked in a multivitamin tends to be the right balance of B vitamins, um, B2, B6, B9, so methylated folate, um, B12, um, uh, and, uh, that go a long way. A lot of people have a gene mutation called MTHFR, which means that, um, they're not methylating correctly. And one way to support the methylation system is through these B vitamins. So I would say that, um, you can go a long way with the right multivitamin, um, particularly looking out for the quantity of magnesium, which you might have to supplement separately, and the quantity of vitamin, vitamin D. I'm at the level of supplements. Um, my sense is that supplements though aren't, aren't like first line intervention, right? They're like a tool you use, um, afterwards.

Thank you so much for tuning in to the episode. I hope you enjoyed it. We'll see you next time.