The Dark Story Behind Ozempic’s $500B Business Empire

Shaan Puri

Kelly, what's the problem with Ozempic? Drugs like Ozempic and Ozempic?

Calley Means

**Drug: Ozempic** The topic: Ozempic. What exactly is Ozempic? Ozempic actually represents, to me, the biggest issue in the country, which is that we're basically being poisoned and then drugged for profit.

Shaan Puri

Can you explain how Ozempic actually works?

Calley Means

Essentially, it is liquefied anorexia. The problem with recommending it for long term is that...

Shaan Puri

Do doctors even have to go to a nutrition class?

Calley Means

The first day of Stanford Med School, my sister brought up that somebody with migraines might need to have a dietary intervention. Her attending surgeon said, "Stop being a pussy. We didn't go to nutrition school."

Shaan Puri

Is this going to be the most lucrative drug ever made?

Calley Means

It's the 12th most valuable company in the world. This Danish company is the largest funder of politicians, five times more than the oil industry. They account for 50% of TV news spending. So, they're not only able to influence us; they're actually able to buy the news itself.

Shaan Puri

When I hear "Stanford Med School professor" or "the dean of Harvard Med School," are those people that you trust?

Calley Means

Totally not. The problem is that we're listening to the experts.

Shaan Puri

Remember the food pyramid? Let's eat our cereals. It's the base; it's the foundation of your food.

Sam Parr

At my house, I think Go-Gurt was like the biggest part of the pyramid.

Shaan Puri

If you don't eat your Go-Gurt, you're not going to get to go play.

Calley Means

The food pyramid was promoted by the Sugar Research Council, which is still owned by a cigarette company. We don't even realize this. Kraft is still owned by Philip Morris. We are poisoning our population.

Sam Parr

I just want to do like the 80/20 rule, so I feel good and my family is safe and feels good. It's like, what can I do?

Calley Means

The biggest lie in healthcare is that the reasons we're getting sick are complicated. The second biggest lie is that these things can't be changed quickly. They can.

Shaan Puri

Alright, let's rock. Kelly, what's the problem with Ozempic?

Calley Means

Starting out firing... I like it.

Shaan Puri

I came on.

Calley Means

To talk to Sam about this, I've got some bones to pick with some of his takes here. There's really, I think, there's...

Sam Parr

A huge problem with Ozempic is that there's a shortage, and they're not making enough of it.

Calley Means

Alright, well, I'm glad we're getting right out of the gates here, guys. So, here's the fundamental issue: I'm not concerned with the £350 obese diabetic person; that's between them and their doctor. Ozempic actually represents to me the biggest issue in the country, which is that we're basically being poisoned and then drugged for profit. The largest and fastest growing industry in the country—again, largest and fastest growing—is the healthcare industry. Ninety-five percent of those dollars are around drugging and managing the disease of people that are already sick. We've had this explosion of chronic disease with siloed treatments, and every single one of them relates to more of the disease. For example, heart disease is treated with statins. Metformin, which 30% of people over 40 are on, is one of the most widely prescribed drugs. As diabetes goes up, SSRIs are now prescribed to 25% of women. Depression and suicide are skyrocketing as more SSRIs are prescribed. Literally, every single drug you look at on the list of chronic conditions shows that the more it's prescribed, the more the condition goes up. The biggest issue of them all is obesity. You can't even wrap your head around this; it's a unique problem in America. Fifty percent of teens are overweight or obese. I mean, that's a moral stain on our country. The childhood obesity rate in Japan is 3%. So, we have something unique going on where 50% of teens are overweight or obese, and then 80% of American adults are overweight or obese.

Sam Parr

What's the definition of obese? Is there a celebrity that you can name that is like... that's like the threshold?

Shaan Puri

Do I need to stand up and take my shirt off? No, we need to establish some sort of benchmark here.

Sam Parr

Is Andy Dwyer in *Parks and Recreation* considered obese?

Calley Means

Sometimes it's actually based on a lot of your personalized biomarkers. This is what my sister and I talk a lot about. I mean, oftentimes you can be obese and not particularly look that fat. A lot of us have brewing metabolic dysfunction—94% of us. The actual definition of obesity isn't even entirely tied to how we look. The general definition, which goes into metabolic dysfunction, is something you should be worried about if you have a 35-inch waist for women and a 40-inch waist for men.

Shaan Puri

Alright.

Calley Means

So, on Ozempic, fundamentally, we've got this dirty fish tank. We've got 80% of American adults. If you look at those pictures from the 1960s and compare them to pictures of public spaces today, there's clearly something happening, and it's uniquely happening in America. My bone to pick with Ozempic is that in the midst of this catastrophe, there is clearly something happening with our food. I think it really relates to the fact that 70% of our diet is ultra-processed food. In Europe, Japan, and other countries, that's not the case. We're clearly doing something wrong. Then, this system is telling us that the answer to our problems, instead of fixing the root cause, is a weekly jab for life. The instructions for Ozempic indicate that it is a lifetime drug. The most alarming part about it is that the American Academy of Pediatrics, which is a fully funded subsidiary of pharma, recently stated that if your 12-year-old is not only obese but also a little bit overweight, Ozempic should be the first line of defense. This is just a representation of what I think is the biggest issue in the country: we have this explosion of chronic conditions, all basically tied to the same thing, which is simple diet and lifestyle choices. Yet, we keep lunging for an injection, keep lunging for a pill. My...

Calley Means

Just societally, I actually think it's a big economic opportunity. We are on an unsustainable trajectory. It's going to be 40% of GDP in healthcare costs in the next 20 years. We're becoming truly like a fat, infertile, sick, depressed population. We're destroying our human capital. If we're not going to take the obesity crisis seriously, the fact that you go into a classroom—I've got an almost 3-year-old—and you go into a daycare, and most kids are clearly having big issues. If we're not going to take this moment with obesity and actually ask what's the root cause, that's a huge problem. I think the economic opportunity is significant. One thing investors and entrepreneurs don't quite see is that if this is an unsustainable situation, we're going to have to shift more of that $4.5 trillion. We can fix our food system. We can incentivize and pay lower-income people to exercise. We can actually do things that incentivize the right behaviors. I don't think the American people are trying to be fat, depressed, or unhealthy. We actually incentivize them to be that way, and we can change those incentives instead of just jabbing them with those ethics. So that's why I think this...

Sam Parr

Have you tried it?

Calley Means

No, I have not tried it.

Shaan Puri

So, let's unpack that. You basically gave us a gift basket of hot takes, and I just want to open up the ribbon and say, "Oh, chocolate-covered pretzels! Wonderful!" Okay, so let's unpack those one by one. You said something just now about the fish tank. My understanding is you have this analogy where you have a fish tank, and the fish are getting sick, but you can see that the water is dirty. The fish tank is not clean. I think your point is that we should clean the tank, not drug the fish. Is that the core analogy that you like to use with this?

Calley Means

Yeah, I mean, let's just go over the stats of that tank. And I go to kids because I'm a, you know, personal responsibility guy. I'm really resonant with those arguments that it's people's choice, but it's not personal responsibility for kids. It's not... something's happening, and: - 33% of young adults have prediabetes right now - 20% of young adults have fatty liver disease - 40% of high schoolers qualify as having a mental health disorder Is that new? Like a doctor...

Shaan Puri

40 years ago, would kids have had prediabetes and fatty liver?

Calley Means

A doctor would not see one case of a child having diabetes 40 years ago. It is an order of magnitude increase. This is an absolute, unprecedented step function increase in metabolic health disorders among children. A hundred years ago, my sister Risley said this: a hundred years ago, if you were obese, if you were visibly very fat, you were in the circus. It was literally in a textbook; it was so rare for an American.

Sam Parr

They're not that big either. Yeah, like the fat man in the freak shows. They're not that fat compared to what you see on a regular basis.

Calley Means

Right, so literally, it was so rare for an adult to be obese a hundred years ago. Their job then was to be in a circus. The explosion of obesity is highlighted by Dr. Robert Lustig, one of my heroes, who led hormone issues and diabetes research at UCSF. He said early in his career, you know, 30 or 40 years ago, he didn't see one child walk in with diabetes. Now, it's reported that 33% of young adults have prediabetes. So, we've done something to ourselves. What's happened is my sister graduated from Stanford Medical School. You choose between 42 specialties, like every doctor. She did head and neck, and then you do a fellowship to focus even more in that space. There’s cardiology, neurology... we've segmented the body. That's very profitable because, in kids, right? A kid with prediabetes, when we segment it and say, "Oh, that's a metformin," they inevitably have high cholesterol, which is a separate doctor—the cardiologist—who prescribes a statin. They inevitably have some mental health issues, so they get an SSRI. They have high blood pressure, so they get an ACE inhibitor. They have fertility issues, and inevitably, they are shoved into IVF and invasive procedures. Infertility is skyrocketing, which is highly related to this. So, they go on this treadmill and they've been lied to that everything's segmented. The biggest mistake we've made since World War II is that we've segmented these chronic lifestyle conditions when they're really the same thing.

Shaan Puri

Alright, look. The question that Sean and I get asked constantly is, "What skill set did we develop early on in our careers that kind of changed our business career?" And that's an easy answer: it's **copywriting**. We've talked about copywriting and how it's changed our lives constantly on this podcast. We give a ton of tips, a ton of techniques, and a ton of frameworks throughout all the episodes. Well, we decided to aggregate all of that into one simple document. So you can read all of it. You can see how we've learned copywriting, the resources that we turn to on a daily basis, and the frameworks and techniques we use. It's all in a simple document you can check out.

Sam Parr

Alright, now back to the show. You can find the link below.

Shaan Puri

Didn't that segmentation come from Rockefeller? Yeah, isn't that one of your research points?

Calley Means

Yeah, so this gets to the business angle. All of these things were in this game when it comes to our health, which is highly mediated. The way medicine exists today, the guiding law in Congress is called the Flexner Report. This report actually mandates that we can't look at disease holistically; we have to look at things in silos. It's evidence-based: we need to name a condition and then treat it with either a surgery or a pill. This is enshrined in law.

Sam Parr

What was their reasoning? I mean, maybe there was a good reason why they did that. If you had to make the argument for why that was a good reason, what would it be?

Calley Means

Well, Flexner, who wrote that report in 1909, is still the guiding law today. He was a paid lawyer of Rockefeller, who invented the pharmaceutical industry as byproducts of oil production. He figured he could make them into certain pharmaceutical cures. So, he is the father of the modern pharmaceutical industry and the funder of our top medical schools, like Johns Hopkins. He did see economic opportunity in basically professionalizing medicine, siloing conditions, and making money by treating. I think there's a way you could spin that in a positive way. I mean, it was the Wild West with a lot of witch doctors out there. In their minds, they were trying to make it more professionalized, but there was a clear economic opportunity to name and silo conditions and then profit from the intervention—not from making people healthy. There was a very clear... you look at Johns Hopkins, the guy that started that school, William Halstead, who denigrated nutrition and any type of holistic thinking. To this day, in medical education, when my sister brought up that somebody with migraines might need to have a dietary intervention, her attending surgeon said, "Stop being a pussy. We didn't go to nutrition school." This kind of idea of delegitimizing any exploration... On the first day at Stanford Medical School, Casey was told by her professors that American patients are not going to stop eating their Big Macs, that they're going to be sedentary, and that the best thing we can do is stand with serious medicine—with the prescription pad, you know, with the scalpel—and treat these conditions as they pop up. That is so viscerally ingrained into the medical system, and that's a lie.

Shaan Puri

Do doctors even have to go to a nutrition class?

Sam Parr

Isn't it like... they study that very minimally?

Calley Means

90% of doctors graduate without taking one nutrition class to this day.

Shaan Puri

I was premed for four years. Zero nutrition, zero in exercise. I remember asking my teacher because I thought it was a little strange. We took a ton of chemistry, organic chemistry, all this stuff, but we never took anything on nutrition or exercise. I remember asking about that and I said, "Does this happen later? Did I miss it? What's going on here?" They were like, "No, it's just not part of the curriculum."

Sam Parr

Your teacher was also like, "Don't be a pussy, Sean." Yeah, that's just like, that's the look.

Shaan Puri

He's like, "There's a reason you're pre-med and not med." Alright, so I just want to read some of these stories I pulled from your blog here. So you said that in 1919, this is what you're talking about... medicine was the wild, wild west at the time. The 4th most prescribed drug in the country was...

Calley Means

Probably heroin, right? Or cocaine? Heroin.

Shaan Puri

Heroin was made by Bayer. I don't know how you say it, but it was a cure for finicky behavior in infants. So that's good. Then it says that Rockefeller helped start the modern pharmaceutical industry by using oil byproducts. John D. Rockefeller, obviously an oil magnate, needed a byproduct for his oil and said, "Okay, how are we gonna sell pharmaceuticals?" Well, if we fund modern educational systems... I didn't realize that Johns Hopkins is named after him.

Calley Means

Yeah, he used a father of modern medicine education.

Sam Parr

He also founded the University of Chicago.

Calley Means

That's right.

Shaan Puri

And so, it was a radical concept at the time to silo different diseases into different categories so that doctors could prescribe drugs for each of those diseases. Is it true that seed oils were also from Rockefeller?

Calley Means

Yeah, I mean, this system is by design. Another thing he did is he had this basically oil lubricant, you know, cheaply made from byproducts of seeds. He saw that he could actually lobby the USDA and get those approved for human consumption. They're much cheaper than the natural fats that we're, you know, genetically and biologically made to eat. Now, by basically rigging the regulatory system and having his lawyers literally on the regulatory panels, it's the top source of American calories. It's literally, as a statement of fact, a byproduct of oil production—these seed oils. And we're wondering what's going on with our health. The three key pillars of the American diet were foods that didn't exist 120 years ago. You know, processed sugar—refined sugar—wasn't really a thing. That really came onto the scene about 100 years ago. We now eat 100 times more sugar than we did 100 years ago. It's truly weaponized in our food. Seed oils, the top source of American calories, were a byproduct of John D. Rockefeller's new invention. Then, processed grains—the processing really took off after World War II to make the grain shelf-stable. But the processing, taking that fiber off, makes most of the grains we eat, right? It's basically a hidden sugar with very little nutritional value, which the fiber has, and actually turns into sugar in our bloodstream, making it more addictive. Those are the pillars of the American diet that we just fundamentally aren't biologically made to eat. The one thing to add to the conspiracy, to add to the story—but it's true—is that cigarette companies invented the processed food industry. So you have John D. Rockefeller kind of starting it, but then in the 1980s, as cigarette smoking started going down, Philip Morris and RJ Reynolds became the two largest food companies in the United States. In 1990, two of the three largest M&A deals in American history were cigarette companies buying food companies. So every single processed food company, we can actually...

Calley Means

To is either still owned by a cigarette company, and we don't even realize this. Kraft is still owned by Philip Morris. So, these sugar companies are actually still owned or have been spun off. Once the doctors and the scientists from the cigarette companies went to the food companies, they actually used these ingredients and the rig system to make our food more addictive. So, this isn't just an accident that we're getting sick. And Sam, you know, maybe we're talking different levels because, on the micro level, you know, Ozempic has good stories and bad stories. But on the high level, where we're really... you know, the kind of purpose of my life is to argue this: we have $1,800 per month that taxpayers are going to pay for Ozempic for 80% of the U.S. adult target market. What if we actually just took the issue of obesity and, from first principles, asked how do we actually solve that problem? You'd never say, "Wait for people to get sick and then jab 80% of American people." We're so in this box of just as an inevitability that we're going to get sick, even though we get much sicker than other countries, and then drug people. We're so in that box; it's like heresy to even question that we're going to do that.

Sam Parr

And we should give the listener and Sean some background. Basically, we had a discussion on Twitter, Cali and I, about Ozempic. I actually don't remember what I said, but I think...

Shaan Puri

How convenient.

Sam Parr

Well, I was pro-Ozempic, but for people who are incredibly obese. I think that when people say something is always bad, I'm like, "Well, that's not true." It could be good in some cases. Now, I think that drugs are mostly not the answer, but occasionally they are. I tested Ozempic because I'm a guinea pig and I love testing weird things. I think that some of the things that are for morbidly obese people are interesting. I think it's particularly interesting for alcoholics. But for the average Joe? No, I think it's silly. I imagine you and I are in huge agreement on that.

Shaan Puri

How long did you take it for, Sam?

Sam Parr

I took it... I tested it for 3 months when I saw that it was the coolest, or when I read an article saying like, "Everyone in the Hamptons or the rich and famous are taking this." I think I told you about it, Sean, in 2021, and I was like, "What is this drug? It limits your blood glucose?" Stuff like that's interesting. So I tried it, and it kinda makes you sick at first, but it's a spectacular drug. However, if you don't need it, it's definitely not something that you should take. Diet and exercise is way better.

Shaan Puri

Can you explain, I don't know how much you know, but can you explain how Ozempic actually works? What does it do that lets you... that causes the weight loss? What is the function? What is like the pathway that it uses?

Calley Means

Yeah, I mean, so the truth is we don't fully know all the mechanisms, but GLP-1 is a peptide that our body actually produces. It gives us the feeling of satiety. So, it is basically just a supplement that's jamming our body with more of this peptide. It's like taking a bunch of vitamin D or another supplement. You're essentially taking a supplement of a peptide that our body naturally produces to trick our body into feeling full. So, you know, again, that's not really solving the root cause. A couple of quick points to what Sam says: I think we're in full agreement. I think the drug should be available. I think people should be able to hack with it. You know, Scott Galloway was recently talking to you guys, and I think he mentioned this. He said this is a bigger economic opportunity for the country than AI. He said that the vast majority of the American people should be on this. That's the stance of the medical community, the stance of the various medical associations, and the FDA is that this drug should be prescribed to the median American. Basically, it's so hopeless that we're so addicted to ultra-processed food that we need to stimulate ourselves with a peptide in order to trick ourselves into feeling full. Essentially, it is liquefied anorexia. I mean, truly, that's what it is. It's making you not want to eat. It's a crash diet. The problem with recommending it for long term is that if you could prove perfectly that this thing works for the rest of your life with zero side effects, it would be totally okay for every American to take for the rest of their lives. Maybe there'd be a conversation, but that's actually not true. People are getting off this at high rates because of the side effects. There's very little long-term information. There was a 68-week study to approve it for kids for life, but we don't know the long-term effects. You mentioned not wanting to drink, Sam. I mean, there is increasing information coming out, and this is a key point.

Calley Means

Writ large, the issue with the healthcare system is that it doesn't encourage people to engage in activities they enjoy. In fact, it seems to be making people less interested in having sex, gambling, or drinking. Obviously, this drug affects your dopamine and serotonin pathways, and it's increasingly showing a strong connection to suicidal thoughts and depression. One of the problems with the siloing of healthcare is that, while the acute innovations of the medical system are effective for conditions like infections, gunshot wounds, burst appendices, and complicated childbirth, these cases only account for about 5 to 7% of overall spending. The vast majority of the medical system is focused on managing chronic conditions, often just prescribing pills and putting band-aids on the issues. People should be able to "hack" this system. I think it's great that Sam took a lot of my friends who are using it, but the problem is that it will cost $1,800 of government funding per person, per month. This cost is rigged; the drug is 15 times cheaper in Europe and its home country. Due to totally dysfunctional and rigged policies, we are literally paying 15 times more as taxpayers for that drug. That's why I believe this situation is kind of the Rosetta Stone for understanding why we're losing our way.

Shaan Puri

Sam, have you ever done the napkin math on this drug? I was kind of doing this this morning about this $1,800 a month.

Calley Means

Well, do you?

Sam Parr

Know how much it cost, Sean? Like, when I bought it, just for fun. Yeah, I did it for fun. It was like **$800 a month**, I think.

Calley Means

Just real quick on that: they give rebates to individuals, but the system is so rigged that the sticker price is $60 to $1,800, which Medicare and Medicaid will pay. So the government's actually going to pay a lot more, and then they give rebates to individuals paying out of pocket. So if you just use $20,000 a year as the cost to take this thing because...

Shaan Puri

It's a long-term drug. You're supposed to take it continuously, and then it's about 80% of adults who are, you know, in the sort of qualified category. That's the target population for this. So, you take the U.S. population, multiply it by 80%, and then multiply that by $20,000 a year. You're supposed to continue taking this medication. So, even if you do the math, that alone is something like $2 to $3 trillion a year.

Sam Parr

It's the same.

Shaan Puri

And then you say, "Great." Then they're going to take this for 20 to 30 years. Oh, interesting! So this is a $50 billion drug, Cali. Is this going to be the most lucrative drug ever made?

Calley Means

Well, right now that's priced into the stock. I think it's the 12th most valuable company in the world, and Novo Nordisk, the company that makes it, just passed LVMH (you know, the iconic fashion designer) as the most valuable company in Europe.

Sam Parr

You know how like Safeway or Kroger has a CVS where you can get your drugs in the grocery store? That's kind of like what Louis Vuitton does now. I think at the front desk, they upsell you on the...

Shaan Puri

To get those out.

Calley Means

Exactly, they're tied together. But, yeah, Sean, it's certainly priced in with the stock. I mean, this thing is a phenomenon. It's one of the most valuable companies in the world. What's interesting is when you look into the analyst reports that actually underlie the assumptions for why the stock is so valuable. About 80 to 90% of the profits expected are not from its home continent, Europe. It's almost all from the United States. So, this is not the standard of care in Europe. If you're pre-diabetic in Denmark, where this drug is made, they actually prescribe a keto diet. They even pay you to exercise, which makes sense. This isn't just sold out like candy from the medical system in Europe; people can pay out of pocket. All the profit expectations are coming from the United States. This Danish company is one of the 10 largest lobbyists of U.S. politicians and one of the 10 largest spenders on TV news. So, literally, what you have is pharma companies—just as a statement of fact, not conspiratorial—they are the largest funders of politicians. They fund their politicians directly five times more than the oil industry. They're 50% of TV news spending. So, they're not only able to influence us; they're actually able to buy the news itself. They're able to dictate what we hear on the news, which is why "60 Minutes" literally ran a segment saying obesity is a genetic condition that it's not tied to eating or exercise. They stated that it's an urgent priority to jab a bunch of kids. That's literally what "60 Minutes" said, relatively unquestioned. Then, they're the largest funders of med schools and academic research. I mean, getting back to the nutrition...

Calley Means

In med schools, K.C. kind of unwound why that was. At Stanford Med School, 50% of our budget touches pharma. Pharma is the number one funder of research. Pharma is also the number one funder of the actual regulatory agencies. Excuse me, 75% of the FDA is actually not funded by taxpayers; it's funded by pharma itself. Bureaucracies are built to grow. It's a revolving door.

Shaan Puri

When I hear "Stanford Med School professor" or "the Dean of Harvard Med School," that just feels trustworthy to me. Just as a layman, I feel like, well, who else am I going to trust if not the Dean of Harvard Med or the Stanford professor? Are those people that you trust?

Calley Means

Absolutely not. I think around the country, at various levels, we're all losing trust in our institutions in different ways: the military, education, and health care. I think health care is number one. I believe this is a really positive thing because we're the only animals with experts telling us what to eat and how to manage chronic conditions. We're the only animals that have rampant levels of metabolic dysfunction, obesity, and diabetes. You don't have those issues among giraffes. The problem is that we're... let's see, the experts. So let me just take it really specific on Stanford Medical School. You're right, nobody is more trusted in the country than those working for the pharmaceutical industry. In 2009 and 2010, we knew that...

Shaan Puri

Well, can you just explain that? You were a consultant, right? You went to Stanford, then you became a consultant and you consulted for companies. Can you just explain that background?

Calley Means

I went to Stanford. My sister was my best friend; she was much smarter. She was pre-med, you know, at the top of her Stanford med school class. I did economics and got into politics. Then, right after doing some campaigns, I realized that everyone after the campaign works for the two largest spenders in D.C.: the food industry and the pharma industry. I worked for them and did consulting for a couple of years. I didn't like it, so I went to business school and have been starting companies for the past 10 years.

Sam Parr

Did you know getting into it, were you like, "This is slimy?"

Calley Means

So, I grew up in Washington, D.C. I was a good young conservative, you know, interning at the White House and at the Heritage Foundation. I was the annoying conservative guy in class at Stanford, pissing people off. I really considered myself ideological, and I believed that being conservative meant supporting American industry. I worked on some campaigns and was very proud to be working for the pharmaceutical industry and the food industry—these industries leading the country. The issue in front of us, which ties to the Stanford Med School dean, was opioids. So, I get into a room as a junior employee, and it's like, "There's unnecessary regulation on opioids. These incredible innovations are solving this scourge of the American people, which is pain, and we have to fight back against this. What are we going to do?" I had a list of doctors in front of me, and we thought, "How do we get these doctors money? Let's get them some research grants." We reached out to the dean of Stanford Med School, who was a pain specialist, and we funded him directly with consulting payments. Then, we made a donation to Stanford for his lab for $4,000,000 from opioid companies to study ethics and pain management. Next, we worked with our allies at the NIH, which is totally just a swamp with pharmaceutical interests. It's funded by pharma; it's a total revolving door. We helped set up a panel. In 2011, the NIH did a panel to make recommendations on opioids. Who's the most trusted person you could possibly have on a panel to make a medical recommendation? The dean of Stanford Med School. So, the dean, who just took a bunch of money from opioid companies, was appointed in 2011 to the blue ribbon panel on opioid recommendations. He chose 19 other elite academics, and 15 of the 19 had direct payments from opioid companies that we very strategically steered to them. That panel, in 2011, recommended that the issue of addiction was overblown. They basically said, "Stay the course; pain is a huge problem," and then opioid prescriptions continued to go up. That's how it works. I can just tell you that I think this is something people are waking up to. You see this in the political climate right now, where I think the defining issue of our time is distrust of our institutions. These lobbyists and consultants know how to rig the debate. They know people trust a study from Stanford. They know that if you call someone racist, that's going to shut down the debate. That's why corporations that are basically poisoning the American people are the biggest funders of civil rights organizations. You know, it's just about looking at who people trust and funneling the money to them.

Shaan Puri

So, let me ask you: when you funded the research for, let's say, that Stanford professor or dean or whatever it was, and you funded 15 of the 19 people that are on that panel, now I want to get really specific. Do you think—what do you believe? Do you believe that they genuinely believed the opioid crisis was overblown? That their genuine conclusion after doing the research and the study was that we should prescribe more opioids for Americans? Do you believe they felt a little conflicted, like, "Hey, my gravy train shuts off if this goes down," so let's find some middle ground? Do you feel like they are intentionally misleading, or that this is genuinely what they believe?

Calley Means

Very, very good question. I think the reason maybe a lot of listeners—and I used to have trouble believing this—is because how can this be so evil? Let me break this down. The genius of the healthcare system is that it takes very good people and puts them into a system with plausible deniability. The problem is that nobody actually has full responsibility for why the outcome that the healthcare system should be solving for—people getting sick—is exploding while everyone is making money. You know, the doctors can say it's the food companies' fault. The food companies can say it's personal responsibility. The med schools can say, "We can't control what Americans do; we're just going to keep growing and making money." The pharma companies rally about making strides and curing the sick patients in front of them. So, the systemic design of the healthcare industry is actually genius because it allows people to almost virtue signal about doing the right thing while producing... well, not necessarily evil. It's evil, but it's producing what the system desires to do, which is growth. So that's one dynamic with the healthcare system. If you go down to your question, Sean, and I've really... Casey's been exploring this. We talk about this in our book. I have to put some culpability on people in the system, and I think it's breaking through. One statistic that's alarming: doctors have the highest suicide rate and the highest rate of burnout of any profession in America. I think what's happening is you get a lot of well-meaning people. There are easier ways to make a buck than the nine years of training you have to do. We actually are a magnet for the best and brightest in the medical system, and then they eventually realize—or if they're not, they don't realize this; they're just not paying attention—that they're complicit in a system that is profiting from people being sick, and they're not making people better. So you actually have a dynamic where a lot of people feel trapped. My sister, after bravely leaving the medical system after a decade of training, got people—senior at Stanford, senior at Harvard, senior medical leaders—kind of talking to her off the record, saying, "You are much braver than me." Everyone knows the system is going to run the country off a cliff. So there is a knowledge, and I think what leads to this depression, suicide, and burnout among doctors is they don't quite know what to do. They feel really trapped in this system with really perverse incentives. But we all know people that work at pharma, that are doctors. You know, a lot of my friends from Harvard Business School, like, they go into work at Pepsi, work at pharma, work at these companies. It takes good people, but I more and more think we need the kind of Elon Musk energy. You know, when he said, "Fuck it, I don't care if I lose money; I'm going to do what's right." We need more of that leadership from the healthcare system because we're truly creating a—and I'm not even joking—right, a fat, depressed, infertile population. I mean, infertility is skyrocketing right now. Our bodies are screaming out for help.

Shaan Puri

Right, well before we go to infertility, I want to just tie back to the history thing. So, you had said something, I think on one of your blog posts, that the first chronic condition that became a pharmaceutical product was birth control. I think this was in the 1950s. You said this is the first pill in American history that people just didn't stop taking. If you're a company and you see this, this is a beautiful business model. Here's a pill they're going to take every single month, you know, on an ongoing basis. It's not a cure; it's a treatment. It's a chronic thing that you're going to continue to do. I think there are some documentaries now on the Sackler family and all this, but you know, basically they worked for Pfizer. They started thinking, "How can we create more chronic issues?" Is it true that they also owned the medical journals at the time?

Calley Means

Yes, so let me try to take that to today and discuss the business problem and the business opportunity. You're right; the medical system was at its height of trust after World War II. The invention of antibiotics was credited as a chief reason we won the war. However, the antibiotics were discovered by someone digging in dirt and conducting very rudimentary experiments that cost no money. This wasn't actually a huge industry. Then, the Sackler family said, "Okay, this is very strategic. Let's take the trust engendered post-World War II, learn the lesson from the birth control pill, and get Americans on more and more pills." They owned the medical journals and created new diagnosis codes, introducing the idea of anxiety and new mental health code categories. Their first big blockbuster was Valium, a benzodiazepine that is very addictive and harmful. The Time magazine cover in the late 1960s to early 1970s was "Valium Nation." At that time, 30% of women were on this drug, which was marketed as "Mommy's Little Helper." From there, the entire thrust of medicine has been to take that flex report, build on what Rockefeller set up, and put it on hyperdrive. They segmented the body and medical specialties deeper and deeper, creating pills just for biomarkers. For example, statins for cholesterol and metformin for blood sugar. We've been "pilling" ourselves on all these little biomarkers that we can manipulate with one pill, completely ignoring that everyone is getting sicker at the same time. This is by design; it's very profitable. I think we talked about this on Twitter as a statement of economic fact: there's nothing more profitable than a child who gets sick early and gets on these drugs without learning metabolically healthy habits. They don't understand the basics of why their blood sugar is high or why their cholesterol is high. They're told to solve it with a pill, and inevitably, they will develop more and more comorbidities. The genius of chronic disease, which the Sacklers understood, is that those patients suffer. For instance, you're four times more likely to be suicidal or depressed if you have diabetes as a child. You're going to have many more issues, like infertility, but you don't die right away. You're a patient who goes into the system, often paid for by taxpayers. This was directly understood when the Sacklers and their allies observed the birth control pill. This brings us to today, where I’ll call out the entrepreneurial community and venture capitalists. Investment and good business opportunities in the system are still predicated on this existing model. I talk to many esteemed healthcare VCs, and they think innovation is simply putting a millennial pink package on Viagra and shipping it to people more conveniently. They believe that innovation is better UX on medical records. If you look down the list of these thought leaders in venture capital discussing medical innovation, it's all just better wrappers on the same existing system. There is very little disruption. Now, that's a moral problem, but I actually think it's an economic problem because I don't think people fully understand. I've spoken to many wise individuals in the health space, and if we have an unsustainable situation, we truly believe we're on a bad path with our mental health, physical health, and obesity rates. We're not going to drug our way out of that problem. We can't keep doing more of the same to solve that issue. I think that's self-evident, and I believe there's an economic opportunity for those who realize it because we will have to shift the incentives of the system.

Sam Parr

Hey, so I don't want to change the world when it comes to food. That's up to guys like you. I just want to do like the 80/20, where I mostly do things great so I feel good and I look good, and my family is safe and feels good as well. Can you tell me: 1. What you eat 2. Where you get your food on a daily basis 3. What that 80/20 is like What can I do, what can our listeners do, what can Sean do to just be *mostly* great?

Calley Means

Yeah, the core thesis of the book I wrote with my sister is that things are more complicated by design. The biggest lie in healthcare is that the reasons we're getting sick are complicated. The second biggest lie is that these things can't be changed quickly. They can. So, when it comes to food, I believe we should fire every single person in the government and academia who works in nutrition. We should replace it with this one rule, which answers your question: one principle—reduce ultra-processed food consumption. If you look at what your kids are eating or what we're eating, it's 70% ultra-processed food.

Sam Parr

So, what did you eat for breakfast, and what are you going to eat for lunch?

Calley Means

No matter what dietary philosophy you follow, I try to eat whole foods. I had eggs, right? Pasture-raised. So, look into the quality. The first step is to reduce ultra-processed food consumption. That's the thing I’d say first and foremost. That is what most people are not doing. Even if you don't get into the types of food you're eating, that's the first step. I guarantee you, if you are on the hunt to rid your fridge of ultra-processed food, being on the lookout for those three unholy ingredients—added sugar, processed grains, and seed oils—you’re going to elevate the quality of the food you consume. The first thing to do is eliminate processed food.

Sam Parr

So, which basically just means mostly plants and animals that are not processed a ton.

Calley Means

Right, if we simply made that our nutrition policy, we'd be transformed human capital. The second thing is, as you alluded to, if you get there—and most people are not there—it's to get into the quality of food. We need to really understand, be curious, and be on that path of what's being done to our food. The genetic makeup of a grass-fed cow versus a grain-fed cow is entirely different. It's a reversed ratio of omega-3 to omega-6. Grain-fed cows, which are not made to eat grain—this is a totally new phenomenon—are predominantly omega-6 fatty acids, which are inflammatory and cause inflammation in our body. On the other hand, a grass-fed cow, which is how they've been raised forever and is now considered a luxury, has omega-3 fatty acids that are anti-inflammatory. So, if you just hunt for animals and hunt for vegetables that were made in the way we're biologically designed to eat them, that's the second bar.

Sam Parr

But alright, so I'm hungry. Do you go to a chain grocery store ever, or do you only go to butchers?

Shaan Puri

Where do you shop for groceries?

Calley Means

I go to Sprouts. I go to Whole Foods. I look for deliveries of meat that's pasture-raised from farmers that I trust. But truly, just going to your supermarket and not getting ultra-processed food is key. Look for eggs that are pasture-raised, and for meat, ideally grass-fed and pasture-raised. For vegetables, choose organic ones that are not sprayed with a bunch of glyphosate and pesticides. It's simple. These are the things we all talk about. But if you truly just follow that, and we incentivize that as a country more, we'll be on a much better path.

Sam Parr

What are your vices?

Shaan Puri

When's the last time you had a Dorito?

Sam Parr

Do you have a bowl of ice cream once a week?

Calley Means

I got... I am like everyone that knows me. I've been on a journey here, guys. You know, two years ago, I was running a wedding dress company with my wife, a direct-to-consumer wedding dress company. During COVID, we raised venture money and had a large team, but we struggled a bit during that time. It's called Anomaly. We made custom dresses and had a really innovative supply chain. I've been running startups and direct-to-consumer companies for the past decade, and I wasn't the healthiest person. During COVID, a couple of things happened. One is my sister, Casey Means, who I wrote the book with, as I mentioned a bunch. She started Levels Health. She left the medical system and became a big advocate. I thought she was an idiot when she left medical school or residency. I grew up trusting the medical system, thinking it was just crazy that she would leave this path she was on with all these credentials. That's how we were raised: get the best schools, grow up in the traditional systems. So, I thought she was crazy. But she really radicalized me with these ideas that the answers are much simpler than they seem. In 2021, as we were selling our direct-to-consumer company, my mom had a pain in her stomach and went in to get a scan at Stanford Hospital. We thought she was perfectly healthy, but they told her it was stage 4 pancreatic cancer. She called us and said she was going to die in a couple of weeks, and we rushed to her side. What that experience showed me is really a microcosm of how the system is broken. My mom was on five medications for over 40 years. Thirty years ago, she had high cholesterol and was put on a statin—that's normal. High blood sugar? Metformin—that's normal too. She was the typical American patient. At 70, she was actually told by our doctor a couple of weeks before that she was healthy because she was on fewer medications than the average 70-year-old. Those issues that most Americans deal with weren't identified as a core metabolic issue. It was just "take a pill." She wasn't set on the path of exploring her food or understanding how a sedentary life can eventually lead to cancer down the road. That led to her getting cancer. This year, cancer rates are at an all-time high, particularly among kids. Every single chronic disease you can name is at an all-time high this year. It's because we're ignoring the warning signs. We ignored those with my mom, and she abruptly died. That kind of radicalized me to my previous experience working in the food and pharma industry. Right around that time, I took a blood test, and the doctor said, "Oh, your blood is fine. You're fine." I showed my sister, and she said, "No, no, no. This represents metabolic dysfunction." I asked the doctor again what happened, and they said, "No, no, no. You're not treatable yet. You're not quite at the standard rate, but yeah, it's not good. We don't have anything to do for you yet." These experiences don't come from a passion for nutrition; they come from a passion for American competitors. We are poisoning our population, and the average American is on a path like my mom. The system is hand-waving these small things, and they eventually lead to a big thing. That led me... I mean, I'm not a model in any way, and frankly, I don't have any interest in lecturing anyone listening. I think a lot of people listening are probably on a path right now. My main passion, and what Justin and I are really working on—Justin Mears, my partner at TrumeB—is that I think a lot of your listeners are on this path. I think they're looking at pasteurized beef. I think they're trying what I'm saying. Where my experience comes in from working for these industries is that we can't lie to ourselves. We are not going to get out of this if the largest industry in the country is incentivized for us to be sick. I think startups and companies, and other people, we need to actually talk about the top-down incentives too. You know, I'm absolutely on a path. We've written about tactical tips in our book, but where I'm spending most of my time is figuring out how to change the incentives. I don't think the Japanese kids are just much less lazy and less suicidal than Americans. They have a 3% obesity rate, while we have a childhood obesity rate of about 25%. There's something happening with the incentives.

Shaan Puri

What is the answer there? What is the leading theory on why in Japan they're... You know, look at this chart: we're at 40%. Yeah, America, we're number 1 - 40% obesity rate. And then Japan's at the bottom, 4%. What are they doing differently? What do you... Is it, you know, genetic? That might be a hypothesis. What are the real hypotheses?

Calley Means

No. Did anyone that says genetics... They say the obesity crisis is genetics when it's just exploded in the past 40 years and was not an issue at all. They say that diabetes is genetics when you didn't have kids as diabetic 40 years ago, Sean. It is so simple. It is follow the money. It is that simple. I'm just gonna say this again: **our most prominent industry makes money when we're sick and loses money when we're healthy**.

Sam Parr

What does Japan do?

Calley Means

Yeah, so they spend 3 times less per capita on healthcare and double the amount mostly on food. So, per capita, they actually put food into their healthcare budget. I'll say that again: - They spend 2 times more per capita on food - We [in the U.S.] spend almost... like, of all developed countries, per capita we spend the least amount on food and 3 times more than the average [on healthcare]

Shaan Puri

The government spends **twice** as much.

Calley Means

As a country, a lot of the healthcare budget actually goes to incentivizing the food system and food interventions. Nine out of ten killers of Americans are foodborne illnesses. I mean, we can dance around it; it's just that simple. You would wipe out heart disease, diabetes, kidney disease, respiratory illness, and COVID deaths even if you got our country metabolically more healthy. There are many factors, but food is the number one. Other countries understand that and they dramatically rein in the incentives that pay doctors more when you get sicker for a longer period of time. Fundamentally, the structure now... a lot of these countries, I don't think you would have systems we fully agree with, like socialism or whatever. In the U.S., we have much worse than socialism; we have a kleptocracy where the system's just totally been rigged. Every single impulse is for people to get sick, be fed into the system, and then stay sick to be treated. That's every single impulse in the system.

Sam Parr

Sean, have you ever... I don't think you've been to Europe recently, but when you go to Europe, it's pretty crazy. I remember going down this little path and feeling like I ate poorly. I was on vacation and I ate pretty badly, but I was walking a lot, so I felt awesome. I went to the store and bought a pack of Skittles. I just wanted to look at the ingredients. When you compare the amount of ingredients in a Skittle or a Kit Kat, or like normal junk food, to American food, the list of ingredients is like 2 or 3 times as long.

Shaan Puri

I've seen this on Twitter, right? Same brand of bread or whatever it is, same brand of cracker, but then in Europe there's 3 ingredients and in the US there's 17 ingredients that you don't recognize the names of. That's what you're talking about.

Sam Parr

Yeah, and there's this other thing where if you look at McDonald's... So, McDonald's, up until like 1985 or 1990, they used beef fat, I believe, for their fries. It was just salt and a potato for a long time. Now, if you look at the ingredients of a McDonald's French fry, it's got like 10 other things in there. I think someone said it best when they said, "In Europe, the rules around food are a default to say no to everything. Here's the ingredients we allow you to put in." Whereas in America, it was like, "Here's the handful of things we don't allow." Cali, you're rolling your eyes. Is that inaccurate to look at it? Because I've noticed that when I go overseas, I oftentimes feel better, but I don't think I'm eating better.

Calley Means

No, no, I think you're hitting it on this, Ted. Sam, I'm just anticipating what I would be thinking a couple of years ago and what some people might be thinking. There's this argument when you talk about this in the U.S. that it's overregulation. Again, I'm like a free market guy; I don't like regulation. As someone working for these companies, whenever anyone mentioned changing food degrees in the U.S., it's like, "The U.S. food system is great. Let's not have the nanny state." The problem is that the nanny state is the fact that food companies have lobbied and rigged the system. We have literally thousands of ingredients that aren't legal in Europe but are allowed in the United States. The USDA Nutrition Guidelines Committee, which basically approves and recommends various foods, is funded by food companies or farmer companies. In fact, 95% of the panels are directly funded by these companies. So this idea that we allow these ingredients isn't under regulation; it's actually completely and utterly rigged. Justin Mayers and I have a company that is trying to change these incentives. Because we've been pounding this mission, we've been looped into a number of advocacy efforts. One thing we're doing is working with a guy named Jason Karp and a bunch of health leaders. We've done legal action against Kellogg's. You know, Kellogg's is a stark example. Their ingredient list changes completely for American kids versus just across the border in Canada. It has addictive ingredients and colorings that make it really bright, which are linked to ADHD and other developmental issues. We're literally going through a rigged system. We're formulating ingredients for American kids. That's what Europe frankly realizes more. I mean, what Europe and other countries are doing is not really even healthcare policy; it's "let's not poison our population as much" policy.

Shaan Puri

Kelly, I want to shift gears real quick. We ask people before they come on the pod, "What were some of the big philosophies or turning points in your life? Things that really shaped you and shaped the way you think about the world." You said something that the most formative experience was an HBS [Harvard Business School] class.

Calley Means

I did.

Shaan Puri

So, there's a Harvard Business School class where a professor said that the most depressed group of people he ever studied was HBS [Harvard Business School] people 10 years after graduation. What is that story, and why would Harvard Business School grads 10 years later be the most depressed group of people?

Calley Means

Yeah, it kind of made me think about the Scott Galloway interview you guys did, where he's like, "You know, don't chase your passions." I just really don't think that's the right advice. I don't think we have an epidemic of people, you know, not fully chasing their passions too much. What I've generally seen is a lot of our trauma and expectations through society, you know, throwing really good human capital into suboptimal roads. At HBS [Harvard Business School], it's just one microcosm, you know, but it's something I saw. Everyone writes their application essay about, you know, transforming and disrupting the world—disrupting healthcare, disrupting energy, big industries, having a big impact. Then, like many things, you get into that room of, you know, a thousand people of a certain type, and it's a conformity factory. So, 85 to 90% of people, by the end of the two years, end up going into traditional industries—into finance, into energy. You know, my friend, a person who wrote an essay about transforming healthcare, went to McKinsey. I was on the team that helped prescribe more opioids on their side that they recently had to settle lawsuits for. So, you have this dynamic. I think this happens at many layers throughout the country, where, based on, you know, various fears that are ingrained in us by society, I think frankly, one of the negative gears of capitalism is to just kind of, you know, as John D. Rockefeller said, "Look, we need workers; we don't need thinkers." You know, that's what a lot of our institutions do. This professor surveyed white and blue-collar workers from different socioeconomic classes, different professions—like 30 different cohorts. The most depressed group was these graduates ten years out. And again, the reason is because they go in with dreams, and they end up conforming and settling. Their lifestyle gets to the...

Calley Means

Where they don't have really flexibility to take that stab, to take that dream, they feel professionally unfulfilled but trapped. Then, you know, ten years out, they really have a lot of regrets, at least professionally. But that maybe bleeds into other areas. I generally feel grateful, honestly. In a weird way, my mom's death was always what I'd feared most in life. That happening, in a way, kind of cemented the finiteness of life and a mission into my head. I feel really grateful for that. Yeah, I think people not chasing their passions and not fully self-actualizing themselves is a much bigger problem than too many people following their passions.

Sam Parr

You also said that taking mushrooms was like one of the most impactful things.

Shaan Puri

Did you tell Cali your "almost mushrooms" story?

Calley Means

One of

Shaan Puri

My favorite stories... listen to this. So you...

Sam Parr

I have issues that I'm always working out. I had some trauma I was dealing with, and I went to this meeting with a woman who called herself a shaman. She was going to lead me, along with my wife, through an MDMA therapy session. I go to the dinner and the meet and greet, and she starts saying things like, "We need to give this medicine for free to everyone." I was like, "Yeah, but I'm paying like $5,000 to do this. Can I have it for free?" She didn't like that. Then she asked where I was from, and I said Missouri. She responded, "Flyover country," and I was like, "Alright, that's strike two." I started asking her a little bit more, and she began talking about capitalism and how it's ruined medicine, saying capitalism is horrible and all this stuff. I thought, "Well, lady, again, I'm paying you $5,000 to be here." So I asked her, "What were you doing before this?" She replied, "I used to work at Lehman Brothers, and when it collapsed, I left and started doing this." At that point, I was like, "I'm out, lady."

Calley Means

I'm out.

Sam Parr

And she texted me. She was like, "I don't think this is a good fit."

Shaan Puri

I agree, this is a round peg in a square hole.

Sam Parr

This is not a good fit.

Shaan Puri

Didn't you tell her, "I can't do drugs with you"?

Sam Parr

Yeah, I was like, "Look, I was already on the fence about taking drugs, and if I'm gonna take drugs, it ain't gonna be with you." So... and you said that taking psilocybin was awesome. Sean, have you ever done this stuff, by the way? And would you ever do it? I've only done it recreationally like 15 years ago.

Shaan Puri

I have never done it. I don't want to say I would never do it, but it's never been something that's called me. But you know, I hear these stories and I... I want to hear your story, Kelly, because the people who advocate for it are people I like. They're people I respect, and they're people who advocate for it in such a strong way that it does make me curious.

Calley Means

Wow, what do you mean?

Sam Parr

Are my things?

Shaan Puri

I've learned in life that some of the most valuable things are the things you don't know how to value. Meaning, you've never traveled so you don't get the big deal about travel. You've never done this, so you don't understand what you're missing out on. And those are some of the most valuable things. When somebody is stuck in one of those mindsets, you just want to shake them and be like, "Dude, you don't know. Trust me!" Like... whatever. I don't know if this is one of those things, but I've heard about it enough where it's made me curious.

Calley Means

Yeah, so for Sam, I think you made the right decision. **Set and setting** is very important. I think that encouragement of therapeutic psilocybin use for anyone that feels called is the most important single thing we can do in America. I actually believe that. I think we are truly losing our minds a bit in this country through all this change that's happening. The highest leverage area we can do work on is our brains. This isn't everything, but it is a blunt force, extremely powerful tool to help rewire our brains. Let me give you my experience. My mom died, and I was kind of at an existential moment. I was thinking about, you know, what I want to do. Our company was cranking before COVID; we had 100 employees, but we were struggling because the whole market was cut off. And I, again, being a conservative guy, never had a super stigmatized view and never thought about these things.

Sam Parr

Yeah, can you imagine? You know, like 12-year-old you wearing your Brooks Brothers khakis, being like, "One day you're gonna be advocating for psychedelics."

Calley Means

No, I still got the Brooks. No, I could've never. I still got the sports coach, still got the Brooks Brothers. I try to wear that when I talk about this because I think it's a very important thing, actually. You cross the aisle; everyone needs to wake up to it. I do talk to a lot of Republicans about this who are waking up. A friend who is a scientist said, "Let's do this therapeutic session: blindfold, high dose music, four hours introspective alone." I'll give a couple of examples of what I saw. It's really hard to describe, but I was working with my wife. We were running a startup, stressful, and we would quibble a lot. I saw myself getting angry at her, and then my brain zoomed up. I saw the expanse of the whole world, like it zoomed out to the whole galaxy. It just put this simple insight inside of my head: I'm so stupid to get mad at my amazing wife about these stupid things in the expanse of how lucky I am. It's a simple insight we can all say, like to be grateful and that you shouldn't throw out the small stuff. I'm not perfect by any means, but I think about that every hour with her. It's totally like a car crash submitted to my head of how grateful and lucky I am with her and how stupid it is to get angry over small things. It completely transformed my thought on that. I saw my mom, and she gave me a hug. I had this idea that she still lived within me and that I could carry her legacy forward by working with my sister on the book and various missions to try to carry her story forward. I truly have that imprinted in my head. I've never been upset about my mom dying, and I truly feel viscerally that she lives inside us and lives inside this mission, lives inside the book we wrote. The best way to describe it is neuroplasticity. You can talk about a car crash, or you can get in a car crash. When something really traumatic happens, your brain wires it; it's deep-rooted in your brain. What it does is help you get out of the trauma and thought processes and fears that we're inevitably ingrained with. It helps cement in a really solid way some of these potentially new frameworks that sound trite but have the seriousness of a long-term thing. The other thing I'd say, and I think a lot of people talk about this, is that it's important to hear these stories. I think it's really dumb and kind of not correct to talk about it as some kind of corporate or executive hack because it's much deeper than that. For me, it's the most profound and important professional thing I've ever done. Growing up in D.C., trying to chase up the ladder, go to the good schools, HBS, you know, conformity, definitely gives you this idea of how these stupid games we're playing just don't matter. It solidified in my head hopefully some fearlessness in pushing a mission forward. It led to what I'm doing now, and I'd like to think that's ingrained in the company. From my perspective, having a mission that's sincere that Justin and I have has been a differentiator in recruiting like-minded people, customers, and merchants. It's not a panacea for everything. I think a lot of people get to this place through prayer, meditation, or other routes. It's not like a shortcut, but it definitely is a way of brute force to get out of the traps that are holding you back.

Sam Parr

That's pretty damn convincing, Sean. Yeah, I think I'd like to make an appointment. I think you're going to have to mark some time off your calendar next weekend because you're busy. I don't know, man. When I hear that, I think of being blindfolded with headphones on. I find that to be incredibly intimidating. I want the result, but I don't know if I can go through it.

Shaan Puri

Did you do it one time, or have you done it more since? Is it like a regular thing?

Calley Means

Or, yeah, no, exactly. I think it seems like giving childbirth. You know, it was a profound experience, so I want to do it right away again. It's really... but I've done it a couple more times. I mean, to be totally honest, Sam, it's all about... I will promise you this, and frankly, this is my perspective. But if anyone feels called, if you are called and you're doing it in a good setting—without, you know, somebody ranting about politics to you beforehand—and where you feel safe, and you walk towards the... and this is what the clinical research says, quite frankly. But if you walk towards your fears, if you go into it as a way to explore and walk towards, you know, your issues, whatever that means to you, it's gonna be... I've never personally met someone that's done it in a responsible therapeutic way who hasn't said it's been the most impactful experience of their lives. I actually don't know anyone that hasn't said that. It's not like a club or anything, but it truly is. If you're called to do it, I would say this to people: if this resonates, I would try to do it urgently. I think your life is really... like many people I know, and for me, it's like kind of before and after.

Sam Parr

Is this legal? Can you Google "psilocybin retreat near me"?

Calley Means

Yeah, like, is this like... yeah, so I did it in a... this is legal in some countries. There's a Phase 3 FDA approval in the United States to make it legal, which Justin and I are actually advocating a lot for too. I think it fits into the whole root cause health thing that we're trying to push forward. There are religious exemptions and state-by-state decriminalization. So, I'm not going to give legal advice. I would urge people to find a responsible legal way to do it therapeutically in a trusted, safe setting. And yeah, Sam, it's just about whenever you feel called. But it's 4 hours of exploring what's holding us all back, right? Just different narratives and stuff. I mean, I think you guys are amazing how openly you talk about your mental models and stuff. It's just a way to zoom out and re-explore those.

Sam Parr

Yeah, I think it's awesome. I'm totally in favor of it. I just... I'm a little intimidated still.

Shaan Puri

Well, one of my favorite phrases is, "When the student is ready, the teacher appears." I think, you know, you're saying when you're called to something. I've always felt this way, which is that things happen at the right time. You intuitively know when the right time is for certain things or if it's for you. There's a great YouTube video I watched of Tim Ferriss talking about psychedelics. Tim Ferriss is a big advocate for psychedelics; I think he has a nonprofit that he started that's funding research. What I liked about his video was that he wasn't trying to convince you at all to do it. In fact, he was very measured and responsible in the way that he talked about it. So, if anybody's curious, if this made you curious, I would watch that video because I thought it was very helpful in framing it. I won't try to summarize his points because I thought he did a good job, but just try to Google or YouTube for Tim Ferriss talking about it. It's like a 5-minute clip or something.

Calley Means

I completely agree with that. It's not like an endorsement, but it is criminal. I think one of the biggest issues in the country is that we don't make this tool available. Just last week, the FDA actually threw a wrench into the approval process for MDMA again. Justin and I see Trumed as an advocacy organization. We're lobbying and we have relationships with 100 members of Congress from both sides of the aisle. We're actually working with presidential candidates and members of Congress to brief them about this issue. The FDA does not like these treatments because, instead of long-term numbing of your symptoms, it actually helps you get into the cause and unpack the trauma that we all have, along with the mental models that we all have. So actually, like, you know, this gets into what we were talking about earlier. I consider this a root cause treatment. Anything that gets to the root of mental health is obviously related to the mental models holding us back. With metabolic conditions, it's food and lifestyle habits.

Shaan Puri

What’s interesting is, you know, when you first start talking about this, I was almost chuckling a little bit to myself. Like, "Oh, you know, first he was kind of railing against prescribing a drug to solve the problem," and then here he’s saying, "The drug solves the problem for me," or "It was a great intervention." But what you’re actually saying is that in both cases, it’s the cleaning of the fish tank. In the first case, the thing that was making you sick was the food. In the second case, the thing that was making you sick in the head was your own story and perspective on things. This was a way to change the narrative in your head—the perspective and the story that you were telling yourself every day. So I think in both cases, you’re actually advocating for cleaning the tank.

Calley Means

Yeah, it is my wife and Justin. People that know me will tell you I have a long way to go. My biggest room in my house is the room for improvement. But like for me, this... you know what I did.

Sam Parr

What a bumper story!

Calley Means

Love that! When I did this a couple of times, and I haven't done it in a long time, Sean, because it just jams for me. It's the basics. It's like, be a good person, try to exercise, eat healthy, meditate... you know? The key to life is that. That was a big thing for me. It's just like having the nirvana experience of what the world is. This is one thing, but the implementation for me is... that was my message from it. I think it was a good message for me. I think that's what most people that do this in a therapeutic way get. It's like, I need to be a better person. Things are connected. So, yeah, it's not like you take it and it's a panacea. It's like a tool. It is like a nuclear weapon, a blunt force instrument to jam some truths. And it is, you know, not to get too trippy, but it is a natural substance. You know, the oldest living organism that we basically derive from this fungus. So, you know, yeah, that's a good question. But to me, it's not anti-pharma or pro-pharma. It's about what is a root cause cure? What actually helps us get to the problem? I think most modalities that help us actually cure things are pushed back against, and drugs that basically help numb and are recurring are incentivized.

Sam Parr

Do you ever take it just for fun, like recreationally, or only medicinally? I mean, I've taken it recreationally. I thought it was awesome, but I didn't...

Calley Means

High level, I'd say it's impossible to even articulate. I don't have the English words to express how different taking something at a concert is versus a therapeutic experience. It's like a different stratosphere. I truly think if people are called to a therapeutic high-dose experience, it's going to be one of the most impactful experiences of their lives. So, I just say it's very, very, very different in terms of set, setting, and dose. But at a high level, when you compare the science on things like alcohol and other drugs we take versus what these drugs do, which are actually brain regenerative in many ways and have very low side effects, I think even how we think about recreational drug use is misguided. Our government prescribes 15% of high schoolers basically meth, you know, Adderall, which is literally one molecule away from meth. Caffeine is pretty powerful, and alcohol is very harmful. I think we totally have it backwards on what's appropriate for recreational use. From a medical perspective, from a scientific literature perspective, and even from a spiritual perspective, I think it's just fine. Personally, I believe that people taking low doses of psychedelics and talking about their feelings, talking about their lives, and getting deep is important. I mean, I was watching something from the eighties where they were talking about MDMA, and it was like, "Too many people are going dancing and feeling together and loving each other." It's like, where did this fear-mongering come from? Is that a bad thing? And then there are very few side effects. So, in the end, you made frogs...

Shaan Puri

They do those commercials, like "This is your brain on drugs," and it's just a flower. It's nice; there's no problem with it. I wanted to say thank you for coming on. I appreciate your openness and your contrarian opinions. I'll be honest with you, a lot of times when you were talking, I was thinking, "Is this a conspiracy theory or is this a fact?" At the same time, I was thinking, "He sounds crazy," but my eyes verify what he's saying. I look at the food we eat and what we're sold. I look at the people around me and the health conditions, and you're not wrong about that. I thought this was one of the more interesting episodes. It's one of the few episodes I would say is important. We do a lot of fun episodes and interesting episodes, but this is one of the few that I could say is important. Yeah, I just appreciate you coming on, man. This was a good time.

Calley Means

I appreciate you guys so much. My big pitch is for anyone listening who resonates with this: there’s a lot of economic opportunity if you agree with this thesis. Because it has to change, and we need more entrepreneurs. We need more people thinking about changing healthcare systems because it has to move in that direction. I appreciate you guys so much. I listen to the podcast every episode, and it’s just awesome to talk shop with you guys.

Sam Parr

You're the man! We appreciate you. Thank you. Alright, that's the pod.