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Keto is really interesting for the brain. A big part of why you already make ketones is because your brain uses a ton of ketones. When you have a concussion, you get hit in the head, you interfere with your brain's ability to do metabolism, to basically generate oxygen because you have broken blood vessels and stuff. Energy can't get in. But ketones rescue a lot of what would otherwise be an energy deficit. They just get in your brain really easily. People have been trying different ketogenic diet, or what if I have a bunch of MCT oil that your body convert MCT oil into ketones. People have tried a lot of stuff in and around what we're doing with Ketone IQ. If we do our jobs right, then every single one of those blue tents on the side of NFL sidelines will be pouring out ketones every time someone gets hit. I Wow. Brain health is, I think, going to be the next frontier for just everyone in the next five years. Yeah.

All right, guys, we got Michael from Ketone here today. Cheers, brother. Cheers, bro. Tastes good, man. What did we just take? Can you explain what's going on here?

We just took a shot of pure ketones. Ketones are something your body already makes. A lot of people know about the ketogenic diet, where if you don't eat any carbs, you force your body to make a lot of ketones. The truth is, we all already have ketones flowing around our body, and they're just really powerful metabolic source of fuel that your brain especially loves. We were the first ever to figure out how to make it in a shot. We ferment it, make it in a shot, and it's just super fuel.

It's high performance energy. Yeah. You're going to disrupt the space because a lot of energy shots and drinks don't use the highest quality ingredients, right?

Yeah, they don't. A lot of it just caffeine plus sucralose or sugar, just photocopy. Then to that point, a lot of times it's got a lot of other weird stuff that gets you cracked out. I'm a marathon runner. I run 10 miles a day. I care a lot about high performance, and so I wanted to make the best, healthiest energy. Yeah.

I don't know what it is with coffee, but sometimes I get anxiety on it. It's weird. My heart will start racing.

Yeah, I think caffeine is going through a moment right now, a negative moment, where people are realizing it's not just this wonder drug. You can't just have more and more and more and more caffeine. For a lot of people, it actually has some drawbacks. It can be anxiety-inducing. It interferes with your sleep. A lot of people are wearing... 50 million Americans have a Aura or a Whoop or a Apple Watch. Dam, 50 million? 50 million. They're measuring their sleep score and they're saying, Hey, caffeine messes me up. I think caffeine got this pass, basically, for the last... Caffeine has been around for all of human history. It's gotten this pass of like, Okay, well, it's the go-to thing to keep you focused and dial. But a lot of people want a better boost, smarter form of energy. They're turning to different kinds of mushrooms. Obviously, what we're doing with Keto and IQ, different ways to get a better boost that are maybe more better for your long term energy optimization than caffeine.

Yeah, so no caffeine in the shot, right?

No caffeine in the shot. We have a version where we stack ketones and caffeine. If you want a little bit of caffeine, it's not too cracked out. It's just 100 milligrams of caffeine on top of the ketones. But our biggest seller is honestly just the straight ketone.

It's so easy, too. Just take a shot and you're good for how long on average.

Yeah, a few hours. If you're doing something active, you're running, you're going to burn it off sooner. A lot of people have it just at their desk in the last few hours.

I'm big on mental performance, so I'll take this before I film, and I notice it. I don't know if it's placebo or not, but I definitely feel like there's something.

It's got this nice dial-in feel. People have done intermittent fasting or a keto diet. You get this mental sharpness, and it's a nice feeling.

For me as a podcaster, that's important. You want to be on top of your game. You don't want to be feeling like shit when you're going into an episode.

There's a ton of people who see their body that way, like mental athletes, people that see their body as an asset to optimize. That's our people.

I mean, yeah, I played chess, too, and something like this could give you that little 1% edge.

Did you see the Magnus interview? Oh, I love that one.

I was nerding out on that one on Rogan because he doesn't do pods. No. That was his first big podcast.

Yeah, super interesting because people think of him as... He said about himself that he has a reputation for being quote-unquote lazy, but he's the goat. I know. It's nuts. It's actually really inspiring. I think the biggest takeaway for me from that one was that obsession beats discipline because he talked about all these other people that were more disciplined than he was, but he was just obsessed. He didn't need to be told to do his homework or whatever to check his chest. He's just thinking, He's like, Joe, as I'm talking to you right now, I'm playing out chest moves in my head. He's just obsessed. Obsession, I think eats discipline for lunch any day.

Yeah, that one felt like a throwback road in episode to me. Classic. Instant classic. Yeah, instant classic. Shout out to Magnus, man. He is the best player in the world at for people that don't know. Do you play any chess?

I'm not that good. To me, it's one of those things where it's like, slippery slope. I start getting into it, like chess. Com, and then I'm just not doing my job job. I played a lot of games as a kid. It's like tons of Starcraft, Civilization, Counter-Strike, all that stuff. Then once I started becoming an adult, to me, my Shopify store is my video game. I love that. Because I'm just trying to click on stuff and make the number go up. Every time I start getting in a chess or any other game, it's like- This is an ad by Betterhelp.

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It starts peeling my attention away. Distraction. If I were, whenever, get FU money and retire and all that, maybe I'll get into chest. But for me right now, I just turned all my calories into the main video game, which is shop at my store.

All right. Shout out to today's sponsor, Ketone IQ. Ketone IQ is a clean energy shot that boosts mental and physical performance. It helps your body access ketones without needing a strict keto diet. There's no sugar, no caffeine, no crashes or jitters, and it supports recovery. It aids in reducing inflammation and accelerating muscle recovery after workouts, which is great for me as a basketball player. Also, it keeps me mentally sharp. I feel energized with no crash when I take this. I take this when I'm filming podcasts. As you guys know, I film a ton of podcasts back to back. This product is an absolute game changer, and I love that. It's all natural. Shout out to Ketone IQ. I actually had to delete the chest. Com app a few days ago because like you, I'm too addicted, dude. Because the thing is, if you lose, you don't want to end on a loss. So you got to keep playing till you win. And sometimes you lose seven straight. That's how chess is. It's a brutal sport. It's so funny.

It's like a mind fire.

And it takes years to actually get good at it. I'm two years in, and I'm only like a 1400, which is still pretty bad. Magnus is like 2800. Crazy, dude. You mentioned fasting earlier. So you did a seven-day fast, which is the longest I've heard in a while.

Yeah, I did a seven-day fast. Early on when I was starting the company, I've always been really interested in performance optimization. I'm an engineer, studied engineering at Stanford. When I got out, I was just really curious about the human body as a platform. We got all these devices and sensors that are more accessible than ever before. We're able to actually see what's going on in our body. I just started trying out a lot of stuff. Okay, what happens if you go and run 10 miles a day? What happens if you fast for seven days? What happens if you take this new tropic, that thing? I just started looking at myself as an end-of-one biohacker tester, trying these different things out. Fast Running for seven days was... Honestly, it was one of those things, it was hard, but it didn't get harder. You hit this wall at day two.

Was day two the hardest?

It was the hardest. Then you just... If you've ever been on a long hike where you get tired, but then you still got to keep hiking, but it doesn't necessarily get harder. It just stays at a seven out of 10. There's no point where I was like, Oh, my God, shoot me.

You were on autopilot.

Yeah, I got seven. Sometimes it was swing. Actually, you just felt completely fine, zero pain. You You just feel based. You just feel like... I kept thinking about how Plato would have his students fast because it made them mentally sharper and they could memorize more of the scripts and stuff they were working on. I felt like this really based, level focus mode when I was fasting. That was part of what actually inspired the idea of making a pure ketone because one of the things that happens when you fast is that your body starts making a lot of ketones. I started saying, Okay, well, what if you could get access to this magical molecule without having to fast for seven days or do a keto diet or put butter in your coffee and hope that that turns into ketones. It was really informative to me just as an entrepreneur. Right now, it's all obvious in hindsight, but early days, I was just trying stuff out and was like, Okay, what could be interesting here? Then Then now it's like...

Well, you solved a major problem because you said no one was able to get it in liquid form before, right?

Yeah, no one had done this, this level, like purity at this cost, the ability to just directly... You drink this, you're in ketosis in 15 minutes. Wow, it's that quick.

Yeah. Holy Because if you fast, how long would that take to get to ketosis? Like two, three days. Wow. That's the reason people fast, basically, is to get to that point.

Yeah, to get the ketones flowing and you just feel really locked in. It's cool. The energy drink market is huge. It's like an $85 billion market. I don't know if you saw, Alani Nu just got bought by Celsius for $1. 8 billion.

Ghost got bought in Vegas.

Yeah, Ghost got bought by Keurig Dr. Pepper, bought them off for another-400, right? Or was it more? I think they bought a chunk of the company for like 400 or 600 mil, but the implied value of the whole company was billions. Damn. It's a beefy market. Everyone wants energy. It's the most important problem on the face of the planet because if you can help people with better energy, you help them solve all the other problems in their life.

100%. Most people wake up feeling terrible, right?

Oh, yeah. Most people don't feel good. We're all trying to optimize our energy because once you can optimize your energy, it's like, oh, you can be better at your job. You can be a better parent. You can be a better at this, that, better grades. Energy is the most important thing. It's a massive super lucrative market, and it's growing. And I'm just We're here bringing something to the market. I'm just as an entrepreneur, I'm fired up. There's a lot of ways to make money as an entrepreneur. Some people make the Jonas Brothers popcorn flavor. I don't want to knock anyone. There's a lot of ways to make money in the world. But for me, it was really important to really invent something. I think America needs more actual inventors, making a new thing that didn't already exist, not just a different flavor of what already did exist. To me, I've just been stoked. It's really hard in the early days because in the early, early days, no one knew what a ketone was. Now we're working with John Jones, we're working with the US military, we're working with some big names. Crazy. It's interesting because I spent a few years, honestly, dude, this felt like a science fair project.

Damn. I was just in the dark, just me and my cofounders, grind, grind, grind. Now it's cool. Now it's like, yo, I got flown off to France last year. I was at the Tour de France because a lot of the... One of the best teams in the Tour de France is big into ketone IQ. It's gotten really fun. If I had any message to share with entrepreneurs out there, it's like, if you're in the dark for several years, you might actually be on the right track. You just got to really believe in what you're doing. Then at some point, you see it flip over, and then it's like, Oh, wow, you're that person that invented that thing?

Yeah, the education caught up. I feel like that's with mushrooms. That's going to be the next thing once that's legal. If you were there for years before, you're... Same with AI, right? People that were doing AI for years.

Dude, people bought Nvidia five years ago. Look mad smart right now.

Yeah, they're geniuses. This thing didn't take off right away.

Yeah, a few things do, right? You always hear that seven-year overnight success. Some things do, for sure. Some things you just hit in a pan and boom, go. But yeah, we've been working on this in just the early days. In 2019, the way I really knew that we were on to something was in 2019, we got a $6 million contract with the Department of Defense to do the biggest ever R&D on ketones as high performance energy for special operators. We had to go and actually spend that money on R&D. It wasn't like I went and bought a freaking Porsche. We got the money and it was like, all right, now you got to do $6 million with the research. We did all this stuff with Hypoxia, which is like in Batman Bane, like that mask. You see people exercising with those. We did a ton of research on that and like low oxygen in, measuring different biomarkers, seeing how people perform at stress, and then, okay, what if you give them ketones versus what if you give them a placebo? We were able to really see some amazing results, and that was what kicked this all off.

It was still a lot of grinding for several years and then really brought the technology out in 2022. For a little while, it was really this research hypothesis and early signals. It's always really good as an entrepreneur, if special forces are buying At the time, it costs $30. You got special forces buying your stuff for $30, you might be on to something.

Damn, one shot was $30?

One shot was $30. You got to figure it out. It's probably not going to go mainstream if it's $30 a shot. But if you can get it going, it's always just get it going. The first computer was the size of... You've seen those photos? Yeah, it's the size of a room. Yeah, it's the size of a room, it's the size of a U-haul. And then now you got that much in your pocket. So early innovations often start too big, too expensive, too hard to use, all that stuff. But if you can find a market for that and then slowly stand down the friction on it, then you will probably have something that's going to be really good and broader means to your-100 %.

I love that. How did you get that contract? Was it luck or did you really pursue that?

I mean, It is a lot of hard work. It's like... Everything, right? I think the harder you work in life, the more lotto tickets you get. You can't determine your success on any one lotto ticket. But if you work hard and get more lotto tickets, it's bound to click. We had Andreessen Horrorways. Mark Andreessen, he's one of the smartest guys in Silicon Valley. He was one of our early investors. He had some connectivity into Department of Defense. We had just a few different lines in through our networks and through some investors.

You got some interesting investors I saw on the site, Jake Paul, right? Joe Montana.

Joe Montana is an investor. Got some really cool people on the table.

That's smart that you just didn't take money. You took strategic money.

Yeah. It sounds crazy to say because a lot of people are tight for cash, but there's actually a lot of money in the world. There's a lot of capital out there. There's a lot of rich people who want to put their money into something that's going to multiply. What's actually rare in the world is good businesses, good assets that you can put a million dollars into and see it return as 2 million or put 100 mil and see it come out as too much. Super rare. Yeah. I would say for any entrepreneurs out there, if you actually have a good idea, there's actually a lot of capital out there. If you have something real, meaningful, legit. Then if you're really good as an entrepreneur, you should be choosy about who you bring in Because any old person can write a big check, but you want people that are actually into your brand who aren't just looking at you as an asset that's going to double their money, but someone who can be actually helping to popularize it. It's a cool stamp of approval, intros to other cool people, intros to retailers. You want someone who can actually help carry the water with you.

Absolutely. I heard the VC space is struggling right now, actually.

Yeah, it's a tough market. It's tough to find good companies. A lot of people got burned because there was that big bubble in the middle of COVID. Everyone was like-The tech bubble, right?

Yeah.

Crypto and all these crypto enablement platforms.

Web3 flopped.

Yeah. A lot of people, they raised a whole ass fund, invested in a bunch of Web3 stuff at peak. It all cratered And now a lot of those people are like...

Wrecked. Opensea got like a five billion valuation or something crazy.

Yeah, and I don't think they're back anywhere near that. No.

Nft is tanked. Yeah, and crypto is down bad right now. Crypto is so volatile, though.

Yeah. Cardio has been a head scratcher for me because it's like, I own some. I think most people...

At this point, too.

It's been weird to me because I thought it was supposed to be more of a hedge against the economy, but it really seems like it goes up and down. The economy is like, what's the point? But I'll still hold, but it's like...

If you're looking at it daily, it's not a fun thing to hold. No. How important is cardio?

Dude, cardio is so important. Cardio is the longevity drug. I think anyone who's not doing cardio is honestly just coping. Cardio is so freaking important. There's this study published in the New England Journal of Medicine where they showed that they measured VO₂ max, which is the measure of basically how good your cardio is. It's like how much oxygen you can take at your maximum, which is a mark for how healthy is your heart, how healthy is your lungs, how healthy are your blood vessels. Basically, they said in the top third of cardio fitness people versus the bottom third, you're 45% less likely to die from all cause mortality if you're in the top third of VO₂ max. Damn. And so literally, cardio is the longevity drug. It's really funny, Sean, because you see a lot of different influencer types out there that are doing like, Oh, I'm measuring my nighttime boners, a biomarker. It's like you're just inventing something. Like, VO2 max is what scientists have been looking at for 50 plus years as the marker for cardiovascular health. That's the thing to actually optimize for. You can optimize that. That is the longevity drug.

All these other things. It's like, dude, okay, you can measure your overnight boners and then take some Cialis to optimize your nighttime boners. It's like you're optimizing the wrong thing. Having Having a better nighttime boner isn't what makes you live longer. It correlates because if you have better blood flow and better functioning overall body system, you're going to have better nighttime boners. But you can't optimize for… It's like you see a bunch of fast cars and they're all red, and then you go paint your car red. That's not what actually makes your car red. I think there's been this interesting, I think, pendulum swing away from cardio. It's the obvious longevity drug. I think literally the reason more people If you don't do more cardio is just hard.

Yeah, people are lazy. People want to pill. People want to just maybe lift and then go in the sauna. But yeah, cardio is huge, man. I took a VO2 max test, and my results were terrible. Oh, yeah? Yeah. My chronological age was higher than my biological age. So I was like, damn.

Do you run at all?

I started running more, playing basketball more and saunaing more. But yeah, I've heard from reputable people that VO2 max test is one of the most important metrics for health.

Yeah, it's how much oxygen can your body take in at its maximum level of exertion. It just means how healthy is your whole system, your heart, your lungs, your blood vessels, all that stuff. That correlates with overall just whole body health.

Now, you're all here running marathons, though. You're taking it extreme.

Yeah, I run 10 miles a day. I try to run fast for a marathon, too. I'm not just trying to finish it.

Yeah, 240 is really fast.

Yeah, it's like 6: 00 something per mile, still 8. That's crazy. I'm trying to get under 6. I'm trying to really get even faster. Yeah, it's fun. I I don't think you got to do my level of cardio to be a normal fit person, but I just really love it. It's a fun game for me. I'm addicted to it. It's really fun. But I do think in general, a lot of people overlook cardio. A lot of people, when we think about fitness, it's like, Okay, you want to be really jacked. But honestly, I think a couple of things on that. I think longevity is not the same as being jacked. I also think a lot of guys are getting super jacked. A lot of times, it ends up being for the dude. You talk to most women, they care about fitness up to a point, but once you're Chris Bumstead level, super swole-Women don't like that. That's for the dudes. I know a lot of these guys, I'll ask, What's the craziest DM you've gotten from a chick? They're like, Bro, it's 90% dudes. It's always dudes. No, it's all love. If you're into that, by all means, get into that.

But I would say for just general fitness and just being... Who's the hottest guy in America right now? It's like, Timothée Chalame.

Chalame, yeah. We love them.

Yeah, ladies love them. I I would say, don't put so much pressure on yourself to have to be super jacked, and that's what it takes to be attractive. Get some cardio in there, too. It's going to help you live longer. You'll feel amazing. Yeah, I think there's... Let's make running cool again.

Absolutely. Is it true 88% of Americans are unhealthy? Yes.

Yeah, Americans are massively, metabolically unhealthy. Combination of stagnance, we don't move around enough, and we just eat a lot of the wrong stuff. We hyper-process stuff. The more really processed food, especially processed carbohydrates that you eat, you're just spiking your blood glucose all day long. If you're not moving, if you combine that factor with not moving, then what your body does when you have a lot of sugar in your system is you release a lot of insulin, and then you need insulin to process the sugar. The insulin stops working. If you keep spiking it again, again, again, you keep eating sugar, you go get a slurpy, don't exercise, go get a KitKat bar, don't exercise. You keep doing that. Your insulin just stops working. Then you just get fat and you have low energy, and you're just considered a metabolic You're considered metabolically unhealthy at that point. There's an epidemic. 88% of people in America are metabolically unhealthy, meaning they're diabetic or prediabetic. Just to connect the concepts there, once your insulin stops working, that's just diabetes.

That's insane.

That's what diabetes is. Wow.

That's so crazy, man. 88%, that's so high.

It's crazy. You ever see those videos from the '40s, '50s where everyone was super jack? Yeah, on the beach.

Yeah.

I saw some video of when we went to space and it was a video of the people watching the spaceship. It's just like normal people having a picnic out in Fort Lauderdale or whatever, watching the spaceship, and everyone just looks healthy. Why? We lost something. We lost some sense of pride or just the way that our society is or something where we're not in shape. I think that's why a lot of people like RFK, whether they love his policies or pro-vax, anti-vax, whatever. I think you look at RFK and you're like, Okay, that guy is fit. He actually just cares about his body in a way that a lot of Americans used to. I'm more inclined to listen to that person than a totally out of shape doctor lady. I don't know. Could you go to a doctor that was obese? No.

I remember having gym teachers in school that were fat. What is that? Why are you teaching gym?

Do as I say, not as I do.

Yeah. There should be a weight requirement for gym teachers. We got to make that a thing, RFK. I'm sure he's...

I mean, That's the thing. He's a little crazy. I don't agree with him on 100% stuff, but I think directionally, he's trying to say, Yo, let's just be healthier, move around more, eat better. Let's not just throw pharmaceuticals down everyone's throat all the time. For real?

Are you on the Methylene blue wave?

I'm not on it personally. I think Methylene Blue is probably reasonable. I think it's like... Yeah. Have you tried it?

I tried it once because I was flying. He said it would help because I get sick when I fly sometimes. So I took it and I didn't get sick. Cool. Only one experience. I don't know if that's a judge all be all, but he's drinking it every day. Biohacking is like, you could take it extreme. For sure. You could take 100 supplements a day, and I think that's pretty crazy.

Yeah. There's diminishing returns for most people. Most people don't want to take more than five.

Five, yeah. 5, 10 max.

Take some omega-3, take some magnesium for sleep. Vitamin D3. Yeah, take a few things. I think most people don't want to be tracking a bunch of stuff. It just gets complicated. At a certain point, all the metrics and marker and blood tests. It's just data porn. You're just getting info, but for the sake of info, what are you actually doing? I think it's been cool to see the evolving user experience around the wearables where people are really honing in on a few things, like sleep score is important.

Yeah, I have eight sleep.

Yeah,yeah, and that tells you your-Your sleep score and your HRV. Yeah, dude, Mateo there is a genius. He's actually an investor, am I telling you? Oh, Small World. Yeah, Mateo is their CEO founder guy. He's super sharp. They sent over a bunch of mattresses to Doge. Oh, really? Apparently, the whole You know what I mean with the Doge. They got to sleep, right? Yeah, the three-year-old's not sleeping.

I heard there's a teenager now that's reviewing the financial information.

Yeah, it's funny.

Elon's good at finding these young geniuses. Yeah, he finds young-And people were being ageist towards these guys, I saw.

Yeah, a lot of people are like, Oh, man, they're young whiz kids, what do they know? That's not a good reason, in my opinion. I think it's ageist or ad hominem just to attack someone strictly on age.

Yeah, because you and I are young founders. Yeah.

A lot of what they're doing is database work. It's like you have a bunch of crazy unstructured, messy data that no one's ever... When was the last time you had best in class computer science people crunching through the numbers?

Yeah, it's a younger job for sure.

Yeah. I don't know. I I think people want to conflate a lot. I think there are serious policy questions. I'm not saying I agree with everything going on. I think there's a lot of stuff that... I think just personal politics. I think foreign aid is a good idea. I think that if you invest more in books versus to spread American influence in the world, that's probably a good thing. I don't necessarily agree that. I think we overcut on some of the aid, just my personal belief on things. But in general, it's a good idea to have smart, number munching type people running the actual database work so that we even know what's going on so that the people in charge of policy have an informed way of looking at what's going on. And then just the transparency, the ability to just see. I think we all viscerally know when you go to the post office or the DMV, that shit sucks. Yes, it's ass. You know that that probably extends to other parts of the government. So sunlight is the best disinfectant. I'm a believer in I do think that government has a role. Good government is good.

I'm not a guy that says, okay, compress it all down, burn it all down. Really tiny government is the way. That's not what I believe. But I do think you need an effective government. There needs to be accountability. I'm supportive of trimming all the fat, all the weird waste. I don't think we need to be putting on like, yeah, random. I don't know. It's just some crazy stuff that the doge has surface that we were putting our money towards.

The transparency has been awesome because we've never seen where the money goes ever.

I think it's so American that we just want to know what's our tax dollars going. It's a Boston tea party, right? Where's our taxes going?

Yeah. I mean, we're spending a lot of money on taxes. 40 %. Your state's 50 %, right?

California is nuts.

52 %. So you're spending more than you make on taxes.

Yeah. People got to be, I think, stomping their feet on what's it going to be. Again, I think taxes that make society better are good. I think something like public schools, that whether you have a kid or not a kid, a better public school system, probably better for society is my personal belief. I do think taxes are helpful to a degree to help society, and then we all win. Better schools, okay. Better, smarter workforce, better GDP. China doesn't peel out ahead. Good thing to do there. But let's make sure it's actually going where we think it's even going. Facts. Even if you are a pro Common good, pro-government should do stuff person. You should still want accountability. Yeah.

I'm not opposed to taxes if it was being used correctly, which it hasn't been. That's why people hate taxes. But I wouldn't mind if it was going towards great things. I want good schools.

I think we want American exceptionalism. We want American industry to thrive. We want to be leaders in the world. I think it was on a scary course where if things are plateauing and then we're just racking up debt and it's not clear where that stuff's going.

I'd love to see how Cali spends their money. The homelessness budget didn't do much. Yeah, dude.

I don't know. I look at it honestly as a California... I think the nicest place to live. Coastal California is super good.

It's by far the nicest weather-wise.

Yeah, perfect weather, year-round, super nice. It's just a good place.

And the networking is great. It's good for business.

Yeah, it's huge. I lived in Silicon Valley for a while, and now I live in LA. I got no complaints on lifestyle. This is awesome. I My co founder lives in Miami. It's plus or minus. I don't know.

You got some crazy-I got Miami over LA.

Well, I don't know. I like not having to evacuate for hurricanes. Miami is just crazy. You just see some... Florida in general, you'll just see an alligator. You just got some crazy bugs, some crazy mosquitoes, crazy humidity. You can't just walk around the block and get sweaty. I'm not trying to yuck. My mind is, it's all good. I just think California is on its own a really special place, and I think that they I think they take advantage of that because they know that because a lot of people consider it the best place to live, that they're willing to pay more taxes. But I think a lot of people are upset now because I think we just had these fires. Half of my daughters, I got a daughter, my half my daughter's school burned down. Holy crap. In the wildfire. A lot of people were displaced. I had another friend who he owned his house outright. Then the insurance company in September just pulled his coverage. They're like, Yo, it's too high risk. The state won't let us raise your insurance rate, so we got to be out. He probably would have said yes to a little bit more expensive insurance, but the state has some rules where the insurance company can't raise.

It's supposed to protect consumers, but it has the opposite effect. But he had no insurance? He had no insurance. He owned his house outright. It's a real problem. Real people got affected, and I think there's going to be a reckoning.

There has to be because that's millions of dollars. There's probably hundreds of families that happen to it, too.

Yeah, it's bad. That's messed up. Hopefully, it corrects out in California Virginia because it is an awesome place. I know it's got its haters, this is that, but it's beautiful. I hope it-I mean, I'm there once a month because it's so good for business.

The food's amazing.

The food's good, the weather's good, the scene's good.

Just living there, though, with the politics for me is tough.

Yeah, it's definitely a different place.

Yeah, it's different. What's next for Q2RQ? Anything fun planned?

Yeah, we got some big launches. We just launched Nationwide into a vitamin shop. That's a big one. We're working on a couple of other ones.

Let's get you in Costco.

Yeah, that'd be huge. That'd be huge. Yeah, I love Costco.

I'll hit up the big justice guy. You've seen that? Yeah, he's coming on the podcast. Okay, cool. I feel like they have some pull at Costco these days. They blew them up, right?

Yeah, we love to connect. Okay. Yeah, we're working on some big retailers. We've been doing a lot of work with John Jones. Yeah, I saw that. He's a C-champ.

So he takes us before fights? Yeah. Wow.

He's cool.

That's the goat right there.

Yeah. No, truly. He's awesome. He's got to spend some good time together. He He's a total gentle giant.

He's one of the most misunderstood athletes of all time.

Once you're around him, he's just so based. He's actually just very wise and mission-driven and kind. I think he's been through some ups and downs. No doubt he's been through some of it. I think if you were 19 years old and goat at anything, he was actually the UFC heavyweight champ at age 19. Which is crazy. Yeah, it's crazy. He's held on to that for... He's in his 30s.

Twenty years, right?

Yeah. And I don't think you get good at fighting by having a normal upbringing, too, by the way. I think that you go through some shit, and that's why you got that dog in you. You need an edge. You need an edge. But net of all of that, I think at this point, he's very self-aware of who he is, what he's been through, and what his mission is, very God-oriented, very there for his kids, very much just thinking about... He's still fighting. He still has fights left in him, and he's also thinking about what's next. Because you look at people like Shaq or Martha Stewart, or these people that have They had a second, third act in their life. He's, I think, really smartly thinking ahead. He doesn't just want to be one of those former athlete, washed up people. He's already shooting some movies. We're doing a lot of stuff together. He's really thinking seriously about his business career. It's really cool to see him morphing his goat energy inside the octagon into broader everyday life. I also don't think he's done with the octagon.

I think he'll have a couple more, and I think he'll probably end up making more money outside of the ring. Yes. I think he'll invest in the right things I think he plays his cards right.

He'll be doing that. We're doing a lot together. We have a bunch of research going on. We just submitted a big contract, another one with the Department of Defense with the Navy Health Research Center for ketones and traumatic brain injuries. Keto is really interesting for the brain. A big part of why you already make ketones is because your brain uses a ton of ketones. When you have a concussion, when you get hit in the head, you interfere with your brain's ability to to do metabolism, to basically generate oxygen because you have broken blood vessels and stuff. Energy can't get in. But ketones rescue a lot of what would otherwise be an energy deficit. They just get in your brain really easily. People have been trying different ketogenic diet, or what if I have a bunch of MCT oil that your body can convert MCT oil into ketones? People have tried a lot of stuff in and around what we're doing with ketone IQ. We're really excited to be doing actual ketone IQ after a concussion, after TBI and seeing some of the results there, not just for one time, but also for people who've had chronic TBI, seeing how ketones can help there.

It's an exciting time for sure.

That's really exciting. These veterans need something like that, man.

Yeah, I'm big on brain health. I If we do our jobs right, then every single one of those blue tents on the side of NFL sidelines will be pouring out ketones every time someone gets hit. I think brain health is, I think, going to be the next frontier for just everyone in the next five years.

It's exciting now because I think growing up, we thought once you had concussions, it was permanent, and you couldn't fix it. But now there's some new stuff coming, right? Yeah.

That different ketones are helpful. People are seeing different things with different-Oxygen. Oxygen, yeah. Hyperbaric oxygen therapy People have seen different things with different types of mushrooms that you're able to basically stimulate neural activity and redevelop different pathways that previously people thought were compromised.

It's exciting. Yeah, man, because some of these fighters seeing them get older, oh, it's tough.

It's tough. I think especially in a world where AI is coming up and all that, you got to have an edge. You got to be able to connect the dots because a lot of the basic level stuff is going to get taken over by a robot.

A hundred %. It already started.

It's already, yeah. I use AI for a ton of stuff.

I use it daily. Yeah, constantly. Whenever I travel, I use it for restaurants.

Yeah, dude, I have ChatGPT on my bottom, on my dock.

Oh, you could do that? You got to show me to do that. You could just search on your homepage?

Yeah, on the on the bottom. Wow. I just use it that much.

Oh, on the bottom.

Okay. Yeah. It's just...

So it's one of your four?

Code, text, notes, check. It's one of my top four. It's my starting lineup.

What do you use it mainly for?

I use it for everything. I'll use it for... If I want to read something really quickly, I'll just load it in the ChatGPT and be like, Yo, give me the five points.

Damn.

I'll use it for making little scripts, little Twitter threads, this and that, social media scripts. I'll use it for job interviews. I I want to assess this candidate. Here's their LinkedIn. Here's what I need to assess them for. I'll upload their LinkedIn and the job description and be like, Okay, give me some questions. It's never going to do the perfect full job, but it gets you 70% there. The biggest thing for me is it solves that blank page thing. You don't have that writer's block of like, Oh, gosh, where did I say? You get something decent, then you can immediately... For me, I just immediately am in there, Oh, number three out of four, not that good. Let me brush it up. It gets the ball rolling in a really positive way. I got an AI thing. It looks at my... You know that thing in Doge? Elon Musk sent that email, What are the five things you did this week? Yeah. I've been doing that at my company for five years. Oh, really? Yeah. Where every Friday we have our all hands, and we open up a Notion doc and everyone has their name there and they got to write in, What did you do this week?

This wasn't controversial at all. We've been doing it forever. We're a fully remote culture. We're not all in the office together. So just every Friday we get together, everyone writes in what are the top three, four, five things you did this week. I actually made a little AI script that does that. There's this little tool called Lindy, where basically it pulls from my emails, pulls from my calendars, and writes my top things I did this week. No way. Again, it's not all the way 100% perfect, but it's like, I did today, it was like four out of five. Wow. Good. I just brushed up the other one. I'm starting to see all these areas that it's like, I want everyone on my team, instead of their next hire, the next hire, I wanted them to think about what AI you could use instead. How do you take whatever problem you're trying to solve and use AI for it? I don't think that people are going to get replaced by AI, but I think people are going to get replaced by people that can use AI. I see that, yeah. I think there's job security as long as you're on top of it.

If the Internet comes and there's email and Excel files and all that, the past generation, whatever happened 20, 30 years ago, if that happened, you were just stuck on fax machines and handwritten notes, you're gone, you're dead. There's no job. But if you're going to adopt the new tools, I think there is job security. You just got to be plastic with it. You got to be able to morph around the tools, be able to use the tools. There's, I think, always going to be the need for that human operator to stitch things together, but you got to be active in that spot. Agreed.

Yeah, you got to embrace it. I know a lot of people are opposed, but you should at least learn how to use it.

I don't even get that point. How do you be opposed? It's like being opposed to the rising tide in the ocean. There's some things that are just inevitable. It doesn't matter your opinion about it. The tide is going to rise. Clearly, AI is having a moment. It's one of those things I think... I just wonder, it's not productive to have an opinion. It's like when it's raining out. I don't feel mad or sad or happy or anything. It just is. Wear an umbrella, dance in a puddle, enjoy it. You might as well enjoy. You might as well take advantage of what objective reality actually is. If you see it right, go buy some NVIDIA and go learn some tools.

That's the entrepreneur you.

Yeah, it's not productive to have a strong opinion about it. It's just see that it's happening and do something about it, or don't, or sit it out. But being anti... The universe doesn't care if you don't like AI. It's going to clearly... It's like saying that you don't like freaking Microsoft Excel. Okay, you want to go back to graph paper and paper?

It's inevitable. There's going to be AI girlfriends. Have you seen that? The robots? Yeah. So they're saying 30 to 40% of the market will be dating those in 20 years.

Yeah, like that movie Her.

Yeah, that was a good one. That was the Megan Fox one, right?

Scarlett Johansson.

Oh, was it Scarlett? Okay, I might be thinking of something else.

She never comes on screen. It's always just her voice, and then it's Yokey I can never say his name. Yo'kym Phoenix? Yo'kym Phoenix is on... And he falls in love with her. It's voiced by Scarlett Johansson, but you never see her face because it's a computer. Interesting. Yeah, that's going to be crazy. What do you think of that?

That's some black mirror shit, bro. That shit scares me.

I think what's going to happen is across the board, the premium thing is always going to be the human-to-human connection. You'd have a robot make your sushi, or you could go to the five-star restaurant and have an actual inventive human person doing it. I think the same thing with girlfriends, the same thing with everything. You can get the robot version that's probably like 80, 20. It's probably almost as good and way cheaper. But I think you're always going to have... I think what's going to happen is the human to human stuff is always going to be the premium and the stuff that people really, really want. I think you're going to be able to go and get a really nice steak, really nice sushi, really nice whatever you want made by a robot in a few years, maybe sooner than we even think. But I think that the ultra high, and I think if you're going to go pay $500 for a meal, that's going to be human, and that's going to be part of the premium aspect of it. I can see it all. The premium aspect of it. I think just across the whole board, I think people are still going to want to watch sports.

I actually think you're still going to want to watch... If we're surrounded by robots all day, the robots doing all your shit. It's going to be such a breath of fresh air to go to an NBA game and see human to human doing stuff. Do you think people would want to watch robot teams playing basketball?

Not yet. Not yet. Maybe way in the future.

Yeah, and at that point, it's just like, I guess you're watching, you're a fan of the programmer of the robot.

There are battle bots out here. Have you seen that? That's true. Yeah, they battle each other. It is cool. That's cool. Yeah, it was cool.

Because you get to see the inventiveness. But it's this own separate thing. I don't think that it's taking market share No.

And humans are inventing those, too.

Yeah, it has that human feel to it. I think the human-to-human stuff is always going to be there as the premium-I agree. The nicest stuff, the most expensive stuff is going to be the human touch.

Yeah. For food, I prefer human, I think, because I think there's a spiritual component to making food. Interesting. I think there's an energy component. I don't know if you're spiritual at all, but when someone you love makes the food, it just tastes better, dude. You know what I mean?

Yeah. There's always something that feels like the vibes aren't totally there when you get takeout. Yeah, no. It's not. It's yummy, but it's like...

It doesn't taste as good as when you sit in the same restaurant, right? Yeah. Because they're making it to go. There's something to that.

Apparently, there's like, even just right after you cook food, if you eat it immediately, you get more of the nutrients from it. Really? Yeah. I forget what it's called, this Japanese stone grill thing where you grill it right there and you eat it. Apparently, it's way better for you. And cavemen used to always just like, you grill it at the fire and you eat it It wasn't like sitting in some Uber for 45 minutes.

Yeah, some star phone box.

Yeah. I believe it. I think having that time with someone that you love and making a meal together, I agree. I think that's still going to be pretty. I don't think you're going to be able to replace it. I think it'll be to replace the... Remember Soylent? Like the meal in a bottle. Yeah, Soylent. I feel like that will get better. I think the cheap robot meal will get better and better. But I think the premium best in class experience is always going to be like handmade stuff with people that you have kinship with. Agreed.

100 %. Michael, it's been awesome, man. Where can people find Ketone and keep up with you?

Yeah, so you can check us out. We're on Instagram at Ketone. I'm at Michael D. Brandt. I love hearing from people where they're entrepreneurs athletes, just curious people. I love hearing from people. So yeah, definitely say it.

And check out the pod, too.

Oh, yeah. I got a podcast. It's called Fast Ones. Yeah. My first guest on that was Jon Jones. I got Steve-O was on there, Riley Reid, Adult Entertainment was on there. We've had some really fun guests on there. We We got a bunch of episodes coming out, too. It's called Fast Ones. It's a show where we ask 10 questions in 10 minutes, and we do it on a treadmill. Every minute, it goes up by one mile an hour. We start at one, we're just walking, and every minute, it goes up by one. By the end of 10 minutes, we're doing a 10 miles an hour, which is a six-minute mile. We're cooking by the end of it. Shon, you got to come out. I'll come out. I'll try not to throw up like Steve-O. Yeah, dude, he was probably the closest to puking out.

I love it, man. We'll check it out. We'll link the pod below. Thanks for watching, guys..