Investing in the Next Human Agenda

[Music] good afternoon everybody good afternoon everybody everyone's got the post lunch Blues that's fine we're going to get through this together so always one to never disappoint on the agenda for today we're here to talk about the next human agenda a topic which I didn't fully hear about before until I started investigating about this panel when I of course Googled my co-star here today to understand everything he's about in your own words the next human agenda is a future in which technology empowers people to live longer healthier and happier lives maybe we should start there dive into that for me cool um thanks everybody our job is now to cheer you up after a lot of delays and and the food uh getting digested in parallel um yes so at my family office of Pyon uh meaning simplify said we focus on Tech and biotech but sort of the unifying framework is that we believe over there the next 10 20 years if you take the zoom out look the world will change in a in a magnitude I think we all haven't fully started to grasp yet maybe we do a tiny bit if people look at AI but even then I think it's very hard for humans to fully understand the magnitude of exponential growth and I think it's just starting because of things like Ai and other stuff so the world is going to change rapidly and sort of we want to invest in Technologies from Life Sciences to brain computer interfaces which sort of a little bit help shaping that future in a very positive way right we're going to break into each of these individually but there has been a lot of conversation around artificial intelligence today and in general so it does make the most sense to start there two two part are here artificial intelligence what is its impact going to look like on other sectors and secondly how do we prepare to to empower artificial intelligence in the future what kind of sectors and Technologies are needed to make artificial intelligence work across the board like super broad question I'm looking at the time but I would say one thing is like it's going to be like the internet on steroids it's it's not going to be just one or two sectors it's going to be like every single industry and by the way even or especially maybe even very boring ones which where you don't think immediately oh that's going to be an my topic uh will be heavily affected changed and disrupted by AI so the same like when you look back like in the very early days we said oh there is an internet company you wouldn't say now there is an internet company because you use emails every company uses the internet and and every industry has been changed by that from our point of view I think the most important if we zoom out and don't become too granular the most important change will be that over the next 10 to 20 years years humans most likely will not really have to work anymore because we don't need to human labor so maybe we're going to have a job and show up once a week like yeah but like our sort of view is that humans will at least work way less than they used to but will have the same purchasing power because companies will have to share the sort of Rise of profits they have because of AI with sort of society otherwise societies will explode so we think a lot like what will humans do with their free time so and so we invest actually a lot aside of tech and biotech in N disruptable experiences from hotels travel we own the largest life entertainment business in Europe um but we also do gaming like because there will be obviously people will do sort of worldly stuff like or in the real world but more and more people also going to move to Virtual Worlds to spend their time so that's going to be I think one big change of society yeah there's huge amount to unpack there to begin with what you started talking about I think is preparing workers for the future whereby they could be working less but also I suppose they're being augmented by these Technologies such as artificial intelligence how do we prepare uh workers and talent of today for that future not just from a skills level but also mentally as well well it's like I think that people start just thinking about it my but that's again I'm looking at that but like my sort of and I need to go as tiny bit back because it's a very controversial answer um so my view is that the short version is the solution to prepare there is nothing you can prepare you just you just can continuously sort of update the workforce let's start there the problem is though if I look at your brain how old are you uh no you're not a woman come on like you can say it 35 35 so with round about 30 and I guess most people here in the audience are older than 30 yeah your brain starts to age so the very bad thing of brain aging Alzheimer and dementia comes luckily very late but with 30 roundabout your brain starts to get more rigid every year so in like figuratively speaking your brain is thinking in the same Pathways all the time which makes it incredibly harder year by year to learn new things it sounds like you're telling me I'm stuck in my ways well but I have a solution but like just like it's harder to learn a language think about it young people learn languag is way easier than older one think about it when you make your best friend most people will make their best friends in their teens or in their 20 anything which has to do with novelty learning being open for new things is heavily degreasing starting from the age of 30 so there is one group of medications which I'm very very proud of that one of the companies I founded myself is bringing back into the medical Realm not recreational to the medical realm which was used in the 50s and 60s exactly for that are so-called psychedelics so I don't know if everybody's familiar with it but these are things like magic mushrooms K I think we'd probably be focusing more on uh the because they on it's very medically they have a very good side effect because they refresh your brain yeah and your brain I wouldn't I wouldn't know which you would need because you're older than 35 or 30 so and bring them back into a youthful state which allows you by let's say serious they allow you to to process novelty so one of my big bets in our portfolio is that in like 10 years from now not just for treating mental health issues this is what we're bringing these substances back into the medical world because they cure depression anxiety addiction and all of that but like in order to make people exactly what you ask able to learn a new job maybe every some years because like the the problem with AI is to come back to AI that it's It's A disruption machine so even if we're inventing new jobs those jobs will be disrupted two or three years later so we really need to think how can you make a 50 60 70 year old able to learn a new job every 3 years and the only way to do that medically is to create neuroplasticity in your brain and the only way to create neur plasticity uh are psychedelics and now add one more thing I deeply believe which is the other big thing we're doing in biotech that we're going to live longer and longer in a very healthy state so in the future it's not just that we need to think about what do we do with the people who are 50 or 60 we need to think about what are we doing positively how do we include people who are 80 90 and 100 and are very healthy and very productive so and it's one is the economic question but the other one is the societal questions that humans want to be part of society so it's not just that we want them to work because we need their or want them to because we need their Workforce because that actually we don't need anymore but we want to give humans every human being want purpose yeah and I think the biggest number one problem and challenge for governments all around the world will be to ensure that all of their citizens have a purpose if they don't and I think that is my personal theory if you look around the world you always read the headlines why are people getting crazy on the far left on the far light why feels the world so unstable yeah and I think a deeper answer is that people lose more and more purpose in their life yeah uh by the way combined with that is my personal view people lose more and more faith in some in in religion in their life and this is terrifying them and sort of it it's it's creating that Mental Health crisis which then has very tangible effects you can just look at the number of people with depression or whatever but it also has a societal effect because most negative events in history have been created when big parts of society overnight like for example in the industrial revolution lost the purpose if you go back to one fascinating oh no I it's not that I mean I know I'd love to hear it all but we have big numbers in front of us that get smaller and smaller so we we got to make sure we get through every topic here so not to interject too much but you did mention earlier on that it's not just about what people are working and about how they're working as well but also what they're doing in their free time and you mentioned in particular V the impact of virtual worlds and virtual experiences as well maybe we could dive into a little bit there as well from the technology aspect not just about the workplace um well so where do I start like me I believe that in round about 10 to 15 years from now we should be able to create with brain computer interfaces so chips in your brain hyper realistic virtual world so practically everything we know now or we we look at computer games which is already pretty cool but like people still sit there and play around and in the best case they have whatever glasses but at the very end if I pick you here why why do you think you're sitting here and having a conversation with me the reason why you think that is because all your senses are telling you that you look at me your bum feels the chair yeah maybe you feel the air conditioning on your skin so every reason why you all believe you sit here which might be an Illusion by the way is your sensoric input which your brain is processing and is creating the sense of reality around you so one of my most favorite portfolio companies we have black rock Neuroscience is the number one by far brain computer interface company in the world we already have more than 40 human beings Elon Musk has known yet uh with a a chip a computer chip in their brains which allows them to do things which we would colloquially call as either magic or sci-fi because for example we have an alss patient which is a disease where you get locked in your body um he can't communicate anymore because his entire muscle system is gone and he's and you can go on our website so I'm not exaggerating he's thinking and the brain chip is reading out his thoughts and transferring his thoughts to a computer and the computer is speaking for him or another patient we have who's quadr he can com he has a chip in the brain and can command things around him like robots or he can even drive his car with his thoughts and fun fact he's driving better than most people because it's quicker to send a thought to the car then the ancient way to give it to your arm who's then turning the wheel so but at the but as we can read out information in the brain in 5 to 15 years we're going to get better and better we already have the very first small stuff we can send information back into the brain and in the moment we're able to do that in the moment we are able to completely simulate your sensoric input I could switch now and simulate that we're sitting on a beach on the maldiv so whatever and it would feel 100% real because we would just simulate or stimulate the same sensoric input which is giving you now the illusion that you're in Abu Dhabi sitting on stage and talking to me so and once we can do that yeah we can make computer games or any other form yeah of entertainment or whatever you want to use it for hyper realistic yeah and whoever hasn't seen it it has like Hollywood always takes a little bit the negative view in it but like the core of it is what it's going to be is if you watch Ready Player one amazing movie um and sort of what we're trying to create is practically Oasis the hyper realistic virtual world all right so let's let's round this all up for one final question here 10 to 20 years time I'm going to be living longer working less uh traveling wherever I want inside my brain essentially or outside or outside experiences across the way the future in 10 to 20 years sounds very very exciting uh however are you excited for the now are we living in an exciting period now before all of these future Technologies are in place are you excited starting it's not like it's not going to be binary that we wake up if I take our our other topic longevity it's not someone we're going to live to some 100 and I think everybody who's like not older than 50ish has the opportunity to live some hundred years but it's not going to be that you wake up and say oh my God now Christian made it and we're going to live to some 100 it's always a gradual incremental change every year so why I'm excited about the now is and this is really important because some of you might say now and we had to sort of push it into 50 minutes it's okay maybe he's a little bit outlandish and crazy but everything I just told you as I said we have a a BCI patient who cannot talk who cannot communicate and who's communicating with telepathy with the people around him we have a person who has a chip in his brain who's driving a car with his thoughts this is not the future this is what we're doing right now yeah we have people recuring with psychedelics with a 60 70% success rate with depression yeah we making actually already in animal models you can extend life but in in in in Apes so not in in in in in lower any like you can extend life expectancy for a third yeah and stuff like that so that is all happening now so everything I said now or my sort of my 102 year VI is grounded in that sort of all these Technologies are starting to happen and it's going to be a gradual sort of positive move forward well that sounds incredibly exciting and I can't wait to see it Christian thank you very much for joining me everyone please thank me for Christian's time you