Episode 53: Christian Angermayer - Founder of Apeiron Investment Group

0:00Christian Angermayer:This week on Generating Alpha, I sat down with Christian Angermayer, German serial entrepreneur, founder of a Payron investment group, and one of the most influential founders and investors of his generation. At 20 years old, just weeks after enrolling in university, Christian dropped out to co-found Reba Pharma. The company merged with Alnilam Pharmaceuticals in 2003 and eventually went public via SPAC, making him a multimillionaire at 25. He channeled that into a Payron, a private investment firm with over$7 billion under management, and went on to found three unicorns and back four more. In 2018, he founded a Thai Life Sciences to bring psychedelic compounds into mainstream psychiatry, taking it public on NASDAQ at a$3.2 billion valuation in 2021.

0:40Christian Angermayer:Just this past Friday, his latest venture made its public market debut, Enhanced Games, a performance-enhancing drug-permitted alternative to the Olympics that doubles as a performance medicine telehealth business, listed on the New York Stock Exchange at an over-billion-dollar market cap. In our conversation, we talked about building and IPO-ing his first company at 25, the psychedelic renaissance in a tie, what Enhanced Games is actually building, and much more. If you enjoyed this episode, please follow the podcast and rate it five stars on Spotify, subscribe on YouTube, and share it to anyone who you think might find it valuable.

1:10Christian Angermayer:I really enjoy this conversation with Christian, and I hope you guys enjoy listening. Thank you. Thank you, Christian, for coming on. I really appreciate it. Thanks for having me. Well, first of all, I want to say congrats for the IPO of Enhanced Games yesterday, and then also, before we talk about that, I want to get started, kind of where I always do, the beginning tell me about growing up in Bavaria what was your life like there what kind of kid were you tell me about all that it's like so long where do we start like I mean yes it was in Bavaria it was in a very uh very rural area like I grew up in a kind of 100 150 uh people village uh then when I was nine I moved to the next bigger town which was like two and a half thousand people so all very very rural very like really like meaning i was what is in america that show like out of the 50s where children live in the countryside like one of these tv things like i was playing outside uh in winter in summer um there was no crying there was no drugs like uh yeah very very sheltered and very i think basic in a good meaning and i love that like i think well my I think it took I actually I really think back a lot of my childhood and I I loved it and I also loved high school and everything because it was so such a how do you say such a yeah sort of small cosmos you knew exactly what's right exactly what's wrong you know when you do this this is actually what I'm missing the most I think I mean that's I think in general the the beauty of going to high school or whatever is or in the time till you're like 18 you kind of have a framework and you more or less maybe you are the exemption because you're already investing whatever but like so it's great what you're doing but also I tell you you're going to look back and say ah like the normal stuff was great because like what I'm missing a bit is like if you're doing the job I'm doing and you started to do is like it's never enough kind of not a bad way but like if you're ambitious like I can always do one more interview I can always do one more investment there's no end there's no end state and in high school you kind of knew you know what in Germany it's in July the year ends if I I was very good so if I have an A plus everywhere that's the end state there is no more and then I'm gonna go for six weeks on summer holiday and like I'm completely off and whatever and i'm even thinking like i had i never had that i think the only thing which comes close to that is when people switch jobs because sometimes they're okay and i tell everybody who's applying or coming to us i was like hey as much as i want you right now maybe go for a month or two just travel the world or whatever because like it's so rare and i never had that that's the one and it's like white girls problems because my life was amazing but like the one thing like i I went out of high school and literally started my first company like a year later.

4:05And since then, I'm like doing what I'm doing. And the only time which comes close is Christmas. I have like a week or so where the world slows down. But I never had that break ever again, what summer holidays in high school give you.

4:19Christian Angermayer:And I'm missing it a bit. And tell me about that first company. Because like, obviously, when starting a company, there is no end state. But what were you running towards with that company? You started, if I'm correct, with like two professors working on R &D interference. Like, what were you running towards with that company? What was the goal? How did you start it? What was the outcome? Just tell me all about that. So, so yes. So first of all, all credits to them. So I was kind of at the right time at the right place. I actually had just started studying economics because I thought I always wanted to be an entrepreneur and there was no role model around where I grew up.

4:51So, but nobody knows actually if you, the lucky thing is I look like my parents a bit. So meaning because people always make the joke, oh, are these really your parents in a nice way? But they are so like sort of different in terms of their jobs, what they had, whatever. So and also about the whole village, the whole family, there was no entrepreneur. So nobody ever knew why I want to be that. But I knew it since I'm literally since I'm six. Like my mom remembers that the first thing I did when I learned writing was writing invoices. So I love to do other things as well. I love actually I love gardening a lot.

5:25I love to whatever but everything I started doing like I then sold to my parents I was not the one who went up to a parent that oh like this is what I did here's a present I was like no here's the invoice and I told it to the neighbors and to the family members so so everything for me was a business and so I thought I should study economics which is wrong choice for being an entrepreneur but anyway so because I had no role model I was like how do I figure it out and then though I had a scholarship for science um and uh and sort of literally in the first session with these guys they i was like hey let's not talk about the how you say the flowers and the bees like tell me what's on your mind like what's what's going to be a product of medication in 20 years from now and luckily they had an idea yeah it didn't even have a name now it's called rnai um and they talked about it and I also want to admit like I understood only vaguely where they want to go but I had a good feeling for oh wow I think I know what you want to do guys and if this is going well if this is working that's a multi-billion dollar business um so I was like hey let's do it together they looked at me like have you done businesses before and I had this tutoring business when I was like I started when I was 14 so I was not lying when I said I had a business before it It was also not like a problem.

6:47It was sort of in between. So anyway, but we did it together and very quickly became very clear that they were onto something huge. There were then some other companies in the same field. And then already four years later, so 2004, we went public in the U.S. by our spec merger. And we kept the name of the spec, which was called Al-Nailam. Yeah, that's still. So I left then around the time. but uh and i was never full-time i was always the guy the founder who took care of fundraising but then then in parallel i had started building up sort of my own mini venture firm and started

7:25Christian Angermayer:investing in other companies and and what spoke to you at that point where you were like building obviously you had conviction enough um on the people or the idea to go and start that was it more the people was it the idea how did you build conviction just to like i assume drop out and go at it was both like first of all that the guys were my tutors and you kind of at this stage at least you look up to you these people like so so they were definitely even in absolute terms some of the smartest people in biology and and science but like they weren't kind of the only one i knew so i had no if you want to be silly i had no reference for me they were obviously raising because they were my tutors yeah and again and they were very smart um and then the idea though also credit to them they were able to tell the idea in a way that i understood it and it became i i think it was a very good pitch so to say because it was simplified said like you look at the human dna of ira rna and you can switch off certain sort of parts we express for example a genetic disease which i was like wow like big market because like there is nothing at the moment which works for genetic diseases, now it is, but like, sorry, back then, was nothing, only things which would sort of try to prevent, for example, the expression, but nothing which kind of sort of solves the root cause of being a genetic issue.

8:47So anyway, so they pitched it well, so it was kind of both like understanding the technology and the potential size of the market and trusting the two guys that they know what I'm talking about.

8:58Christian Angermayer:Yeah, no, it's very interesting. I think there was someone who I know calls it like hyperfluency where I think she used to run the Thiel Fellowship actually where you can like break down a very complicated concept and explain it simply and that's like the real sign of intelligence the real sign of like a great entrepreneur a sales person or whatever um and then like that I do really well I think that is what I I wanted to the only other choice I was ever considering which is very weird because it's on the other end of like but I I I did a lot of tutoring so when I so my first business was a tutoring company and I love to explain so so the only thing I could have imagined would have become a teacher or professor because I I love both I love to explain things I think I'm very good in it so I think I'm good in breaking down so I was really also good in coaching these other kids so they I think an average became really much more successful and I was also uh and I love that I love to also talk about things that's why I'm here yeah which excite me I was always very open and always, yeah.

9:59So that's why teacher, professor was the only other choice I could have seen.

10:03Christian Angermayer:Very interesting. And to the point about you take it public, it's a SPAC, it's called LA &M. And then at 25, you made a bunch of money. You're presumably a millionaire. Some people would have called that the end state, but you keep going. Like what's after that? What's next for you? Well, so first of all, it's very, because like it's especially worse in Europe. So that's by the way, one of the sad things about Europe. It's not, we can talk about like entrepreneurship, whatever not that Europe doesn't have great entrepreneurs but like the bar where people a call you successful and then also though where people are themselves saying oh god this is enough like it's super low there was one of the very first things when I became friends with Peter Thiel what he was like complaining about and he's so right when he was like hey in Europe people make a 50 million exit yeah and they're like wow i made it like i'm i'm gonna retire now yeah and i and this was exactly by the way what everybody told me in my family my friends because like when i went public and became on island in 2004 um i had millions and i had more than anybody ever else in my family and i had also more than i would have expected because i never thought about money per se I thought yeah what I want to do so and yeah everybody said like you need to retire like put the money on the account and like harvest your interest rates and then you have like I don't know 100 ,000 a year maybe I was like what like yeah so I mean I don't even know like it's also not so like even now by the way make me fast forward like now it's even more extreme like yeah obviously I could sell everything and then having now I now I could really have an amazing life without working but it doesn't it's not even i mean i'm not even thinking about it like i'm actually they have i've only have a few days where when i'm super stressed yeah not in a good way like and i'm kind of getting annoyed for a second then i remind myself that everything i'm doing every morning yeah i put it on myself so i could and that gives me by the way a lot of peace like i always tell myself look if you don't like it anymore christian then you could say stop it most likely would take me a year or two or three whatever to wind it down yeah or put people in place and manage whatever the long-term investments and just go on my yacht yeah but uh i really couldn't imagine doing that because i really have fun like also like there was very important like sort of um as you might know like psychedelics is one of my core topics yeah and uh there was also like i just talked about another podcast there was a fun and wrong though thing what mark and recently said publicly because he was like oh he's seeing too many founders who take psychedelics and then don't want to be a founder so in his takeaway which is very wrong was oh psychedelics has the risk of changing people and now apparently real i thought it was a joke but people told me it's real he's putting a non-psychedelic clause in his investment agreements and i i i think it's actually the opposite so i think psychedelics 100 when you consider with all the knowledge like they do not change you but what they do they show you who you really are so and yes there might be some people who are living a lie by the way mostly to themselves yeah and they might realize look i don't want to do what i'm doing so i and i i see that's obviously very bad for the investors but like the better way to put it was like i think every investor should say before anybody starts to company do a psychedelic trip pro psychedelic cause yeah and i and i can't i i really it speaks to me because like this was my one and only worry when i took my i did my first martial trip in 2014 long story behind and like so i didn't actually really want to do it like but it sort of led up to all of that the one worry i had because even back then there were like these urban legends oh psychedelics changing whatever was what the fuck what is when i'm coming out and want to be a farmer in Argentina or in whatever, in Africa.

14:08So I was a tiny bit worried about that. But for me, which I think gave me a lot of kind of satisfaction and also maybe it's always credit to my parents because I went into a psychedelic trip and actually the message was, Christian, you're actually like, you're pretty fine. Like you're doing exactly what you want to do, what you meant to do. And then sort of the message was like a little bit like, oh, like here, like just here, just here a bit. But overall, this is what you want to do in life, sort of go full speed of doing that. And I'm still like thinking that's the right sort of, or I'm sort of set up for the right thing.

14:44But anyway, but like, but while we came to that, sorry, I've diverted, but like, that's what, that's why it never occurred to me or question like, oh, should I have just taken the money, put it on the account and stopped it?

14:55Christian Angermayer:Like, it was like not in the cards. A thousand percent. And you did that first experience with psychedelics in 2014. and you describe it as like those a few experiences like some of the most meaningful experiences of your life. And then ultimately, if I'm correct, you talk about this with Michael Novogratz who then the next day gets a call from his sister who meets two people that want to start a company. It's like, tell me about like the founding of Compass Pathways. But it was even more, if you want the very spiritual story, it was even crazier. And it is like even my, this was very crazy. Like, because I, so I had my first trip in 2014.

15:28Yeah. And it was so positive. I knew a lot about it. By the way, I want to make the disclaimer. It's very important because I guess a lot of younger people listen to your podcast, but any people of any age, what we're doing now with Atai and Compass, but my main holding is Atai stock market listed. What we're doing now is bringing back various psychedelic medicines into the medical world. So I don't want people to try it out recreationally. uh i by the way i think any recreational drug is bad especially though alcohol we should talk about that i think the big blessing in my life was that for various reasons i never tried alcohol because it's it's pure poison yeah and i think it really is very bad for people both physically and spiritually but like but also psychedelics are not meant to be sort of tempered with like we bringing them back mentally hope but medically hopefully already it's going fast now because of a presidential order, let's say later just early next year, the first psychedelic psilocybin will be available to be taken with a clinician on the medical guidance.

16:38And that's how they're meant to be taken. By the way, over 10 ,000 years of history, we always took them very in a controlled, structured way. And that's how they really unfold everything, sort of I'm saying now. It's very important. So don't say, oh, Christian told me on the podcast, mushrooms, and go out this weekend. And by the way, I know I'm a bit of a party pooper, but the other thing which I deeply, deeply believe, if I look at the human brain, it kind of is only fully formed with 21, 22. Like, let's say 21, but it's already on the earlier end. And like, I know I sound super boring, but like, I think the blessing of my life was that I did zero recreational drugs, not just till I was 21, but literally, actually till now, unless you want to cause psychedelics.

17:25than I did the first time in my 30s. But like, don't drink alcohol. By the way, weed makes you dumb. There's actually, and it's not me believing that or it's not a Christian subjective idea. It's the stats. And by the way, I believe, I'm a semi-scientist that dropped out, but like I'm doing a lot of science. Like look up, like for everybody who's more interested, look up the three words, David, and then Nut, N-U-T-T, which is a name. David Nut is a very famous neuroscientist. and then chart because he wrote a whole book about the downside of recreational drugs and how to measure it because it's so like we're talking about that stuff and it's a lot of like blurry blah blah blah and he measured it and the outcome was like the number one risk they all bad yeah except of psychedelics psychedelics literally in his chart is and i'm not saying have almost no downside again still i would not do them early in 21 but like alcohol is worse than heroin then income's heroin, whatever, everything is super bad.

18:23And I think all the, especially young people who are listening to you, because you're ambitious more than the average, but if you want to achieve something in life, I think one of the biggest hacks is not doing recreational drugs as long as you can push it. And especially weed, by the way, because it makes you dumber and slower scientifically. So it's way too, weed is the one, the alcohol as well, but weed is also the one where I think the branding and what people think, oh, it's okay. It's like, it's not. Yeah. And think about it. Like you're like the number one thing is going to be your brain in your life.

18:57You don't want to ruin that early on.

19:00Christian Angermayer:And how did this kind of idea and belief lead the compass in a tie? So, yeah. Okay. That is very, because like, it's kind of counterintuitive. So I always thought I will never, I can touch anything, which is a recreation drug. So now I think psychedelics are not a recreation drug. They're medical. but at the time I tried it, they were recreational. So, and how it came was actually exactly like that. I was like, again, never tried alcohol so far, never tried weed, never tried cocaine, did nothing. The worst to say is coffee. And then I was at dinner in 2013, a birthday dinner, and very rare, like the good thing is, one of the reasons I drink zero alcohol is because people stop bothering you.

19:42Like, yeah, I know like, especially in high school, but still like, so weird if you don't drink alcohol, you just realize how pushy our society is, like on something which is pure poison. So I always thought it was bizarre. But people kind of stopped because even when I did business, like I did one deal in China decades ago, like, or Mongolia, where people really drink hard, yeah? And everybody knows, like, hey, we're not bothering Christian with alcohol, yeah? So, but on this one birthday dinner, and again, I'm personally very spiritual, So I believe things happen for a reason. At this one birthday dinner, the birthday person said, oh, like you should drink a glass of champagne with me like on my birthday.

20:26They're not going to die. Yeah. And but then it was like, hey, here is a here's a very famous neuroscientist at my birthday. And I seated you next to him because maybe he can loosen you up a bit. So I was annoyed at first. But then I sat down and then I was like, ah, take that as an opportunity and talk to this guy. And it was like, hey, why don't we go through all the drugs? Like I wanted to be a little bit punchy. I was like, hey, if you want to talk to me about alcohol, then I also want to learn about everything else. Yeah. And what they do, because I'm an investor and founder, that means I look at anything in life through an upside downside lens.

21:05What does it give me and what do I have to pay for it? and and i was like let's go then through everything to whatever to consider bad stuff as well and then the outcome was like by the way everything which you think is bad is very bad yeah they all have upsides like if you do crystal meth well you can maybe work a little bit harder for a while and then you fuck so so but the worst is alcohol so and at the end of that evening though after we went through everything and i concluded literally that everything is bad or it's not worth the trade That's maybe the right way to put it. It's not worth the trade.

21:39Yeah. At the very end of the evening, he was like, but look, there are psychedelics and they have practically done properly. Zero downside. But they make you happy and they cure mental health issues. And I looked at him. It was quite fascinating. But I am happy. Yeah. Like I nice upside. But that's the one thing I was really always very satisfied with that I kind of my baseline is happy. Yeah. and um and then but he was like ah i send you the research i was there okay look at it and then so then this world opened to me because like sort of for a year actually this guy sent me research i was reading about it because some psychedelics were already a medication in the last century so there was data about it and i was like okay this is very fascinating but still i was like why should i do it like i'm not looking for more happiness and then one year later i was in the caribbean with friends they had homegrown mushrooms and I was like you know what something inside me again I believe in that told me go for it like that's the thing you should try and then I did mushrooms as I said it was super positive very meaningful and but especially also confirmed everything and this was the longest time I came to that and then I came out of it and as an entrepreneur you look at opportunities and I like I really and it's so rare like I had it twice with psychedelics and enhanced games so far where i encounter something where literally 99 of the people very deeply even think the opposite so at the time by the way the world has changed a lot and mostly thanks to the work we're doing because now psychedelics we're discussing it whatever but in 2014 psychedelics were seen as equally bad than heroin which is like i don't even know what to say to that, but it was the general belief.

23:30And I came out of it and was like, holy shit, if this is doing this amount of positivity and add on happiness to me as a very happy person, I can see what the studies of the 60s have shown that psychedelics have the potential to cure various forms of mental health issues. But then actually for two years, I was like thinking and everybody I just brainstormed with even I don't want to call people out but they meant it well like even very close friends who who uh who are very like known for being super contrarian whatever like a little bit too crazy that is like the line like touching but it was a scheduled one drug it still is technically which means worse than heroin yeah So everybody was like, I'm the advisor of the president of Rwanda.

24:21I did a lot with the German government at the time. And everybody was like, no, Christian, like too much. But I was very convinced. But like I was, how do you say, pondering it for a while. So then came the 29th of December 2016. I know the date. I know where it was. Like I know everything. and I was in holiday did again mushrooms and then for the ones like it is actually who don't know it's a very deep spiritual experience and if I want to say it very short but people maybe would use other words so when I say you meet God then some people are like oh my god I don't believe in God but everybody kind of who comes out says okay I met something bigger than me some call it gods, some call it souls, some call it the divine essence of the universe, but there is something spiritual and metaphysical.

25:17And in my, this session was like the whole message and you learn something, a message, but like you just, maybe it's also realization, which is already there in your brain. I don't even want to make it that it's something outside of you. But anyway, the whole realization was, Christian, you have to go out, you have to talk to, by the way, I really mean it. the message was like go out and from now on in every meeting with a new contact new person you have to mention mushrooms it's really like almost like a yeah it's like a mission like and like since the 29th of december 2016 i did that every new person i met in my life yeah uh by the way if it's in head of state or if it's whatever like i'm gonna talk about psychedelics yeah and I had funny anecdotes where I don't know my colleagues were like we go on a road show in Saudi Arabia but you cannot do that I was like hey then I'm not gonna go because that's really I believe as long as I do that I'm I'm it's almost like a lucky charm like and then actually Saudi even they loved it anyway so and but it's getting very funny now because like I flew to New York from from the holiday and the very first meeting luckily of the new year in 2017 I had with Mike Norberg.

26:33So when I go into his office and I was really very nervous because I was like, he's like the first person I need to do that now. And by the way, I was not like, how do you say, I was not used to it like now. So I go into Mike's office and I don't know if you had Mike on it already. Have you? I have not, but I know of him. Yeah. So Mike is very, luckily very like positive and amazing human being so i go into mike's office and and we talk a bit and he's like what's new with you christian i will never forget it and i was like well mike have you ever talked about mushrooms and he was like no i have not like when he's like i've done it in college so he was so so i give him my whole like what i knew back then yeah and he was like oh this is very interesting i was like you should try it like yeah so and then i go out and the next morning he calls me and said christian this is the most bizarre and it's really if you think about it like he was the very first person i talked to he himself had not thought about mushrooms since college and then right after my meeting the next morning with him his sister calls him she was in bali at a yoga retreat and had a yoga session with george and katya who later became with me the founders of Compass.

27:49And they told her about that they thinking about doing a mushroom company, but nobody wants to invest. So she called her brother and her brother was like, wait, Christian was here last night. And so again, you can always say it's coincidences. I don't believe in them. This is a too much of a bizarre coincidence. So this is how I met George and Katya. I was immediately, I give you the money. That's how we started Compass. And then so Compass is solely focused on psilocybin and then there's many other psychedelics so shortly after i started a tie to uh to really do the whole suite of psychedelics and where does a period come together

28:27Christian Angermayer:in this like like where is is this like the holding company for these things like a piron a piron is my is is both so we so it's my family office so a big part of the capital uh we manage my own capital but we also sponsor funds, which we then manage. So we also have outside money. So Apiron is my holding company investment firm. And then, so we do three things with Apiron. By default, we invest in companies. So from very early stage, seed, like Compass was, to very late stage, we actually have a very big sort of public equities book. So the whole sort of life cycle of a company. We then do invest in funds, third-party funds.

29:09which is more for diversification and sort of course quite the passive part but then we still like like we did then with a tie and like we did with enhanced games and we have some other uh big successes over the last years we actually start companies ourselves so because that's what what i really want to be like or what my passion is is being an entrepreneur um so yes we became that big that sort of yeah we we also want to invest but like i spent most of my personal time with a team within a pyron on starting companies ourselves we do have a high bar because they don't want to do just me two companies like the ideal case is that it's a really unique idea yeah so and bringing back psychedelics at the time was a very unique idea like i'm very proud so i was the first one again and george and katya obviously they had it in mind as well but in this century who said, hey, let's get this done.

30:08And the other unique idea is enhanced games, which we can talk about in a second. But then, or at least if it's not a unique idea, then it needs to be something which very, very well fits to us, to our network. So an idea where it makes sense that we are doing it as an entrepreneur and not only as an investor.

30:28Christian Angermayer:And I guess the question I have for you is as an investor, you said, like, obviously, look at a lot of data. And I guess like one could categorize like data or information into two kinds of it, which is one is like statistical information. And the other is like anecdotal, narrative, whatever driven information. Obviously, before you had that like first trip, you probably looked at a bunch of like statistical information about mushrooms. And then you had that experience and that pushed you over the edge. Like, how do you think about the balance and the mix of these two types of information when making any decision, when it's an investment decision, when it's any decision?

30:56I'm actually much more like intuitive, like yes, I'm data. And then especially on data on, let's say, when it's really something kind of scientific, like is alcohol bad or not. But like as an investor, I would say I'm both I'm kind of intuitive, more data backs it up. But like, again, if you want to put in one, are you more data or like a gut feeling driven person or a gut feeling driven person? And also, I'm a kind of go with the flow person in terms of I believe it's very hard, especially when it's about starting companies myself. Like I sometimes meet founders and by the way, it might be the right for them.

31:36And they sit there very analytically and go through, oh, what does the world need? And like, that's not me. Yeah. So I'm really like, I, if you want to say in a funny way, I kind of have fallen into or bumped into all of the biggest opportunities in my life. And none of those opportunities, I think, could have come out from a top down brainstorming. like if you take psychedelics like it was also yes yeah so and so and the same though enhanced games like Aaron who had the main idea just came to me and said I have this crazy idea I was like yeah I love it yeah or I've built up like completely different like before like sort of so in 2008 when I became friends with the president of Rwanda yeah one of my earlier visits to Rwanda I was like oh my god Rwanda is like it's so different to the rest of Africa Like it's like literally the Singapore of Africa.

32:34And my feeling was I like arbitrage. So my feeling was like, wow, your country is amazing. And people think though in average, very bad or low about Africa in terms of business opportunity. I was like, Hey, this is Africa. Like, this is amazing. Like, yeah. Can I invest here? And she just had a bank on privatization, a small one. I literally came home, you know, when you say, funnily people go shopping and they make a compulsive or whatever you call it like a an emotional buy and i came home from rwanda and my emotional buy was i had bought a bank yeah um and my colleagues were like okay great um so and then the president was calling me and i was like hey but i want you to like make something big about that out of this bank i was like fuck now i need to do that like so and then um and i had it i i did have this was a time so in the 2000s like I did more actually financial services than tech and biotech so I did own or had started a fully commercial bank a tech commercial bank in Europe at the time so it's not that I didn't know so I knew something about banks so I literally again with synchronicity I just was about to hire a guy who was running the Boston consulting team for banking as a CEO of this very well running German tech bank so I called him and said hey good news is you have the job but um can we meet up so we met up I was like well but I actually have another one do you want to run a bank in Rwanda the guy actually won in my sort of won't really like because he was like hey you know what like this is especially crazy but like why don't we go to Rwanda together have a look have a look so and then he came back when we came back and said hey super interesting Africa is super interesting but I I don't want to run only a bank in Rwanda, would you be up for a bigger vision?

34:29And then we talked a bit. And then short story, like we were building up the, till we sold it like six years later, the third largest bank in Africa. Like we did a consolidation, they bought like other banks in 11 countries, made practically a pan-African holding. But again, what I want to say, this would have not been on my bingo card literally a week before I bought the bank. Like if you would have asked me. Yeah. So so I really believe in that kind of be chilled. And sort of I would say I go through the world like and it's a huge you said that actually before we started recording the podcast and it was perfect.

35:09Like you said, hey, young people, especially in those days, back then it was a bit harder when I was young, but like they have these USP that they look at the world in a very positive and in a non-limited way. And by the way, that is actually not just saying like that's actually we can talk about it like it's actually you can see it in the brain structure. if I make an MRI of a 20 year old and if I would do an MRI from you now on every year and give you the same problem to solve then if you don't intervene over the decades your brain kind of would close down like become more rigid whatever yeah and so though the good thing is like I think there's three things there's people who are most likely genetic whatever but who are sort of automatically more stay more creative in any way by the way do you think you're one of those people 100 like meaning i was always very like like novelty seeking and curious then i think there are non-medical ways to train that to stay like that but then comes a point psychedelics have a side of the the very spiritual experience have one other big secondary effect which is they create neuroplasticity and that's actually what you're losing over decades so the one sentence i would tell especially the older people listening what you really want if you want to nail it in life constantly is like you want to gain more and more experience that's actually great like sort of the disadvantage of a young person is experience like but at the same time there's also the advantage because i can tell you every single big success i had had i known all the problems which will come my way, I would never have done it.