Table of Contents
Two tech entrepreneurs share their latest experiments with sobriety support systems, genomic AI analysis, and cutting-edge health tracking devices.
Key Takeaways
- Sobriety success comes from daily recommitment, not focusing on long-term goals like "90 days without drinking"
- Phone-a-friend networks from 12-step programs work even if you're not technically in recovery
- AI can analyze your full genome to create personalized supplement protocols for stubborn biomarkers
- Modern health anxiety is manageable with scientific literacy and regular baseline testing
- Taiwan might have a narrow window for tourism due to geopolitical tensions, but it's worth visiting now
- Deepfakes are already 90% convincing, creating an urgent need for human authentication systems
- TMS brain stimulation shows promise for treatment-resistant anxiety and OCD symptoms
- Zone 2 cardio tracking is getting more sophisticated with devices like the new Whoop 4.0
- Small group meditation retreats offer better results than massive silent retreats for beginners
- The intersection of AI and life sciences is creating unprecedented opportunities for personalized medicine
Kevin's Sobriety Breakthrough: Why 24 Hours Beats 90 Days
Here's something most people get wrong about quitting drinking: they focus on the destination instead of the daily practice. Kevin Rose learned this the hard way after multiple failed attempts at "90-day challenges" that would collapse after a week.
"I made this very proud statement that I'm going to go 90 days without drinks, and everybody says 90 days is where the magic happens," Kevin explains. "Classic Kevin bullshit where I fail after like a week." But this time was different. He's now 26 days completely sober, and the key insight came from friends who'd been through various 12-step programs.
- The fundamental shift is "not about going 90 days, all it is is about waking up that morning and saying 'Not today. It's about 24 hours'"
- You recommit every single morning: "Hey, I could have a drink tomorrow, just not today"
- Around week one and a half, there's "this kind of itchiness that appears... like a snake shedding its skin"
- The withdrawal isn't physical for many people - it's about "how do I get to a point where I can be comfortable in my own skin?"
What finally made the difference wasn't willpower but infrastructure. Kevin reached out to three friends who'd done different versions of 12-step programs and asked for their tools. "I don't think I can do 90 days by myself. I need some help, I need some support here."
The phone-a-friend system became crucial: "It's not like 'hey talk me off the ledge,' it's just like 'hey help me get through this next half hour and how should I be thinking about this?'" The accountability factor is powerful too - "if you drink, chances are you're going to have to talk to them, and you don't want to be the person who breaks rank."
Kevin's liver enzymes were at 150 when they should be under 20 - "that's like Barry Bonds in his peak level liver enzymes" from consistent drinking rather than binge drinking. After getting sober, his enzymes dropped to the low 30s, his complexion improved, and his energy levels went up dramatically.
AI Meets Genomics: Solving Stubborn Health Problems
While Kevin was tackling his drinking, he was simultaneously working on another health puzzle that had stumped multiple physicians for years. His homocysteine levels - a biomarker correlated with heart disease and cancer - had been stubbornly elevated despite various interventions.
"I took my whole genome, dumped it into AI, and we worked out a playbook together on where we could find methyl donors and which methylated B vitamins I could give to help fix the broken cycle," Kevin reveals. The culprit was the MTHFR genetic mutation, which he describes as "a very fancy way of saying one biomarker completely jacked up."
- Full genome sequencing now costs around $700, down from Craig Venter's estimated $10 million personal genome in 2007
- Kevin used AI to identify the specific supplements needed to work around his genetic limitations
- NAC (N-acetylcysteine) as a methyl donor was the missing piece that finally normalized his levels
- After 8 weeks of the AI-designed protocol, his homocysteine reached normal levels for the first time in years
This wasn't about replacing doctors but augmenting their expertise. "My physician is like 'What the hell did you do?' And I'm like 'Talking to AI.'" The approach represents a new frontier where patients can take more ownership of their health data and work collaboratively with both AI and medical professionals.
Tim points out the broader implications: "If you look at AlphaFold and what AlphaFold has done, we're looking at eclipsing decades of human work in incredibly short periods of time." The intersection of AI and life sciences is creating possibilities that seemed like science fiction just a few years ago.
The Taiwan Window: Why You Should Visit Now
Tim's recent travels offered both inspiration and a sobering geopolitical reality check. After 25 years away, he returned to Taiwan and found it "spectacular" - but with an urgent caveat for potential visitors.
"I think it's inevitable that at some point Taiwan will be reabsorbed by mainland China, and it's going to change really dramatically culturally, linguistically," Tim explains. "Perhaps the ability to travel there will get more complicated. I could see happening within the next few years."
What makes this particularly striking is the local attitude: "Very surprisingly to me, people on the ground, at least the Taiwanese locals I spent time with, they're completely unconcerned. They really don't seem to be thinking much about this type of transition."
- Taiwan preserved much of older Chinese culture that was lost during the Cultural Revolution on the mainland
- The food scene is "outstanding" with warmth and courtesy that feels like a blend of Japanese and Chinese influences
- Mountain hikes outside Taipei offer "rainforests that are denser than the Amazon" with incredible biodiversity
- Tea culture, particularly oolong varieties, represents some of the world's finest examples
For those who can't make it to Taiwan, Tim recommends Red Blossom Tea Company in San Francisco as "the best importer, domestic importer at least in the United States, of high-quality oolong tea." But his advice is clear: "Get there sooner rather than later. You will not be disappointed."
The Deepfake Crisis That's Already Here
While discussing AI applications for health, both Tim and Kevin confronted a darker reality: we're already living in a post-truth digital world, and most people don't realize it yet.
Tim recently started getting messages asking "is this you?" linking to a video of him promoting investment schemes. "The video was like 90% indistinguishable from me. The background, the clothing, facial hair, everything was dialed. There were just a couple of Max Headroom movements that raised questions, but in 12 months, that's not going to be there."
Kevin is working directly on this problem through his rebuilt Digg platform with Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian. Their test case is alarming: "I took a model, I picked a pair of $6 headphones on Amazon, and I said 'Sell this to me as if they will outcompete and outperform a $500 pair of headphones.' And it wrote this really detailed report about the craftsmanship... It was super compelling and convincing."
- Kevin's friend estimates 30% of internet traffic is now bots designed to build long-term relationships before manipulation
- Solutions involve "ZK proofs" (zero-knowledge proofs) that can verify claims without revealing personal data
- Authentication systems need to work for average consumers, not just crypto enthusiasts
- The stakes are enormous: "How are you going to know what's real Kevin versus fake Kevin?"
Tim visited World, Sam Altman's eyeball-scanning identity verification startup, and had his iris scanned to create a "World ID." While the privacy implications are concerning, the alternative - a completely unverifiable digital landscape - may be worse.
Advanced Health Tracking: The New Whoop Generation
Kevin's been testing the latest Whoop device, dubbed "MG" for medical grade, which represents four years of hardware evolution packed into a 12% smaller form factor. The new features go beyond typical fitness tracking into clinical-grade monitoring.
"This one now has blood pressure monitoring as well. So you calibrate it with your cuff, which I did last night, and then it's going to give me insights throughout the week," Kevin explains. The device doesn't provide exact cuff measurements but offers ranges and trend data.
The standout feature is "Whoop Age," which combines multiple metrics - resting heart rate, sleep quality, heart rate variability, stress levels, VO2 max - into a single score indicating whether you're aging faster or slower than average. "Are you at an accelerated aging pace right now? Are you flat? Or do we think you're actually below average and that you're aging slower than most people?"
- The AI agent can answer questions like "How did I do yesterday? Is there anything I should be paying attention to?"
- Zone 2 training guidance has become more sophisticated, though Kevin and Tim both prefer the simple "talk test" for calibration
- The $359 annual subscription includes access to continuously updated algorithms and features
- Users can input their own lab-tested VO2 max results to override the device's estimates
For comparison shopping, Kevin recommends "the quantified scientist" on YouTube, who tests every mainstream wearable against gold-standard laboratory equipment to provide objective accuracy ratings.
TMS Brain Stimulation: Rewiring Anxiety and OCD
Tim's been experimenting with accelerated Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) for treatment-resistant anxiety and OCD symptoms. The protocol involves 50 sessions of 9-minute brain stimulation over 5 days - essentially getting your brain "zapped" every hour for 10 hours daily.
"Different types of brain stimulation, particularly when applied in this condensed format... for an antiemetic target, that just means it's effectively to reduce symptoms of OCD, compulsive rumination," Tim explains. His OCD manifests as repetitive thought loops rather than hand-washing or light-switch behaviors.
The results from his first treatment were remarkable: "For 3 to 4 weeks I had, let's just call it complete remission of symptoms. Like all of that stuff just went away." Nothing else had approached that level of effectiveness, including psychedelic therapies.
- There's typically a two-week delayed onset before effects become apparent
- The treatment feels like "somebody lightly flicking the side of your head" - not painful
- After five days, patients feel like they've "did an all-nighter for the LSATs 10 times"
- Side effects can include temporary sexual dysfunction, though this resolved for Tim
His hypothesis for why the treatment worked so well involves synergy with prior psychedelic exposure: "The improved neuroplasticity and who knows, maybe it's even anti-inflammatory effects could be a million different things from the psychedelic exposure worked synergistically with the 5-day accelerated TMS."
The Meditation Retreat Middle Path
After a traumatic first silent retreat experience that resulted in "complete nervous breakdown," Tim approached meditation differently through a small-group Zen retreat with teacher Henry Shukman in New Mexico.
Instead of the traditional brutal format - "get up at the crack of dawn and you sit and then you sit some more and you do a tiny little walk and then you sit some more" for 5-7 days in complete silence - this retreat offered a gentler reentry.
"We said 'Hey, if we get together a small group of people, we can talk at night, have some dinners, really intimate, call it seven, eight people, small,'" Kevin explains. They started around 9 AM, had proper meals, and could discuss insights in the evenings.
- Small groups eliminate distractions from "somebody coughing or farting or fidgeting" common in large retreats
- Density of practice matters - sitting multiple times daily allows for momentum and course correction
- Tim found it "very warm bath re-entry to meditation retreat" after his previous difficult experience
- The format allows real-time guidance rather than just brief daily check-ins
Since the retreat, Kevin has maintained "close to pretty much 50 minutes a day" of meditation practice. The key insight: "You can't beat yourself up. There'll be days where your mind just goes off the rails and you say 'Hey, that was today, so it goes.'"
Both Tim and Kevin use Henry Shukman's app, The Way, with Tim noting: "99% of the time I just use the app, which should tell you something" about its effectiveness compared to direct access to the teacher.
The conversation reveals two tech entrepreneurs taking radically different but equally thoughtful approaches to optimizing their mental and physical health through a combination of ancient practices, cutting-edge technology, and systematic experimentation. Whether it's Kevin's structured approach to sobriety or Tim's careful calibration of brain stimulation protocols, both demonstrate that sustainable change comes from treating personal development as seriously as any other complex system requiring ongoing optimization.
