He's also had problems with energy and fatigue then came across this guy named Dave Asprey as a budding entrepreneur, but didn't buy into the low-carb scene until he heard Gary Taubes speak. And then all of a sudden he became a fan of low-carb.
So what I loved talking to Dan about was not only his personal journey but then how he transitioned as to an investor in Bulletproof, which has its positives and negatives and we talk about both sides of the company but also what that means in terms of his vision for what Silicon Valley's role is in health investment, what their role is in trying to find the next big thing.
So we talk about lab grown meat, we talk about hydroponic vegetables, we talk about trying to make agriculture more productive and more efficient and we try and tie it all in to get his perspective on just what his role is, what Silicon Valley's role is and what we as the general population can hope to get out of Silicon Valley and health in the future.
So I hope you find this an interesting and a little bit different interview that you still come away with some great little pearls to learn and kind of help you understand this world a bit better. So enjoy this interview with Dan Scholnick from Trinity Ventures.
Dan Skolnick, welcome to the DietDoctor podcast and thanks for joining me today.
But it goes even deeper than that; you've got familial hypercholesterolemia, you're a hyper-responder... these are hot, hot topics. So I look forward to discussing all this with you today. So if you could start give us a little background on your first experiences with low carb, and maybe how that transitioned into an investment strategy.
Dan: It's started... in 2010. I mean actually, the story goes back to when I was 10 years old. I mean that's when it really started. And that was when... It was probably around that time, so this is in 80's, that... Me and my younger sister were diagnosed with high cholesterol which ran in the family. And, I was told... And this is important context... We were put on drugs, cholesterol lowering medication back then. You're giving me a surprised look, but yes, yes. And I think back to that, "Oh, my God what were we?"
Dan: It wasn't the statin, we were taking... Questran.
Bret:Oh, wow! Dan: Which like, getting like a 10 or 12 year old to put that powder in your- Thick, it has this tick... We mixed it in orange juice.
Bret: You mixed it up and drink it.
They hang with us for a while, while we helped them find the next thing they're going to do. And that guy was Dave Asprey. Dave would walk around our office, with plates... Like a plate of food that would have a stick of butter, a pile of smoked salmon, and like an avocado. And when we were all eating our sandwiches for lunch Dave would be sitting there like chowing down on a stick of butter.
And like "Why you're walking around with the stick of butter all the time?" That was my first introduction to low-carb; We actually set in the conference room and he walked me through all of it. And my respond was "This is insanity." And I mean, you can understand this because...
And I started thinking what if everything that I was told about what was good for me to eat and bad for me to eat and what was going on with my cholesterol was based on faulty science? And I've been taking these drugs for decades. Could this be doing damage to me?
And I read China study, and I read all rebuttals to the China story. So, I went... My point is I went deep. And after doing a lot of research I came to conclusion that... And this is 8 years ago. But, like that there were still lot that we didn't know. That ideas in the science that Gary and Dave and other folks in the community were talking about was on the right side of the history.
You know, and what I became convinced after I did all this research was that we do have a lot of tools available to us to change the way that we're feeling and different attributes of our lives. Some of the science is still pretty early... So, you have to experiment. Because there's not necessarily one-size-fits-all. So, what Dave convinced me to do was start experimenting. So, the first thing I've experimented was like what happens If I just cut out carbs all together?
And yes it was... Like, for the first month when I sat there, like looking at the plate of eggs and bacon and, you know, a cup of coffee with butter in it... Every time I went to eat that stuff, I just had this feeling like I am killing myself right now. And that's why I totally empathize with people who are trying to change their diet and lifestyle in any way. Because that conditioning is so ingrained, that's very hard to change.
Pulled me aside and said, "You know Dan you seem tired all the time." Like "What's up with that? Maybe you should try exercising." You know, I don't want to say that it was the low-carb diet by itself that helped me feel a lot better from an energy perspective and helped kind of reduce the amount of fatigue that I feel every day. It's still something I struggle with today, but it's a lot better than it used to be.
But it was that concept that Dave introduced to me, of bio hacking and experimenting. And that sent me down. You know, I started with this path of trying low-carb, and trying to figure out what that would do to my cholesterol, my lipid profile. And then I started to think what else could I start to experiment around?
That became an energy issue; I noticed how low-carb was helping energy, I've started introducing supplements. I started making other life style modifications. You know, at that time I was using a Zeo, which was a sleep monitor that was the very best on the market, at that time. So, I could see what was happening during my sleep cycle, I was experimenting with energy, I was keeping detailed logs of everything about how I felt.
I mean, it was a lot of work, I don't want to lie about that. What came out the other end was transformational. For the first time in my life I had days where I didn't feel any fatigue at all. That alters your reality in a really profound way. And you know, it was very emotional. I even get emotional right now, like just thinking about what that transformation was like, because it really changes you.
If you felt awful doing it, or you didn't feel any better doing it, it would be a non-issue. But it's because people feel so good with this life style and they see so many other benefits that makes it hard to want to change. So, I guess that's where I was going with you, if that impacted your psychology of looking at eggs, and bacon and your butter in your coffee. But now it sounds like that wasn't a long term solution for you.
Dan: Well, yes. By the way, I think there is maybe left out the context from our offline discussion which was that I am a hyper responder. Which means that when I go on a high fat diet, my LDL-C and my LDL-P rise substantially. And it's not clear and I am happy to get into the details of this, but my case is not clear whether that's good or bad.
I will say that... What makes it difficult is that- What makes this whole thing challenging for me in figuring out what's the right thing for me to do is that I do feel better on the low-carb diet. But it's unclear what the impact on the lipid side of this is in terms of whether it's good or bad.
And am I doing more harm or less harm? So, what I'm doing now is experimenting with different diets to see what kind of tradeoffs I can make in terms of what's happening in my lipid profile versus how I'm feeling.
And he and Lana, his wife, were publishing The Better Baby Book. And then he started blogging about his biohacking journey at bulletproofexact.com, and by that time Dave had really become my health and wellness Guru, or mentor. And I started becoming a bit of a business coach to Dave, because what was happening is the traffic to his website was building.
And Bulletproof is an amazing story because it just kind of grew organically from that. You know, he was working another job at the time, and... But more and more people were coming to the website and they started asking him from products. And so he started referring them to other companies to buy things. He started making some money off of affiliate sales, and then he started thinking, you know, "I could make better products than what I'm referring people to."
And so he started making his own products. So this whole time over the course of years, you know, it was like the snowball rolling down the hill getting bigger and bigger. It got to a point where Bulletproof has become a substantial company, and Dave decided to quit his job and focus on it full time. And also decided that he needed to raise capital to facilitate expenditure of the business and obviously I had watched.
I have seen that he was doing all of that because of our relationship. So it was very natural- Even though this is not what I typically invest in, we're talking earlier about how I mostly invest in deep technologies like club computing and other infrastructure software that's probably not interesting to your audience. You know, we felt compelled to invest in Bulletproof.
Especially something like Bulletproof or like we were talking about something like a fasting mimicking diet, or basically things that people can do on their own. They don't require a product to do it. But yet in some cases it seems a worthy investment to invest in a company, just to do it a little bit better or a little bit more convenient for something that's a hot topic.
And obviously as you said, you thought it was on the right side of history, so you expected this to just take off, both as a low-carb community, low-carb trend, low-carb movement, and this specific product. But was there a little bit of concern that like anybody can put a slab of butter in their coffee? Why do I want to invest in a company that's promoting something that's so simple to do?
Like "We don't know what they're doing." Because, you know even this was I think in 2014 that we first invested and the world has changed a lot even since 2014, right? This was leading edge stuff, and kind of crazy stuff four years ago. You know, people are not surprised anymore when you start talking about low-carb. It's much bigger than it was.
Even though I personally haven't invested in a lot of consumer retail companies, Trinity has a long history of doing it. And we were first investors in Starbucks, for example. And you could say the exact same thing about Starbucks. It's... They're just selling coffee. I mean, anybody else can make coffee. Bulletproof is selling coffee with some butter and some oil, anybody can do that. Why invest in Bulletproof? Ultimately, this is going to maybe sound like a weird answer to you and maybe you'll find it unsatisfying I don't know, but...
With lot of these companies it's not what we're not investing... We're not investing in the product, we're investing in the brand. Which is really about the trust that the company has built with its consumer audience. People went and go to Starbucks, because they trust that when they go to Starbucks they're going to have a certain experience and get a certain quality coffee. And in the space that the market that Bulletproof is in, which is in this kind of leading edge health and wellness area. There is a lot of FUD out there, there are lot of snake oil salesmen...
And so when you look at Bulletproof you can trust, and our consumers trust that the coffee that they're getting from us for example, that coffee beans are high quality. And that the oils are what we say they are. And they differentiate it, and they're also looking for the advice on how do I just make sense of all of these complexities? What should I do? So that's the brand experience that we're investing in. It's not about- because you're right... You could go out tomorrow, and start a coffee company. That's not hard. But, you know, why-?
Bret: What's going to differentiate you from all the others?
I mean there is a... There is a point where you can't get across the line, as you said there is a lot of snake oil out there, and even if it's a good product, you can over promote it to a degree. Maybe a tough question for you to answer but is there any concern about crossing that line with the company?
You know based on the best available information that was out there. And the products really were, you know, what the company says they are. I don't want to give a compound answer but some of this is hard. Because you're trying to change the world, like there is really, you know a mission, I think behind Bulletproof and even what you're doing right? Even with this podcast and Diet Doctor and whatnot, we're trying to help people get healthier.
You know, there is a profit motive too, but it's almost secondary to the greater mission. And if you want to reach the most people possible, you want to do it in like easiest language, with the clearest communication that they can understand, something that Dave is really good at. And I love Gary Taubes for example. But normal human beings can- Aren't going to consume the book Good Calories-Bad Calories, right?
Bret: It's a joke... how thick it is!
And then frankly, I mean if I'm just being honest, you know the early days of company was a little bit of the wild west, right? It wasn't built intentionally with the business in mind. It was this thing that kind of built up organically. And there was this team of people spread out all over the country that were working on with Dave right? So, I think if you look at the company, it's much more professionalized today. And that's part of what I came with our investment in the company. And so that's part of what we're trying to do.
And you know frequently when someone comes with a high cholesterol, or they're not losing weight on a low-carb diet, the first thing you have to do is to take them off that Bulletproof coffee. So it's not all roses, but it's got its place... And I guess the point is that the marketing sometimes can confuse that. But that's business right?
And so you know, I guess another way of looking at it is, let's say somebody is drinking Bulletproof coffee, but they still eat lots of carbs and they're not losing weight. But let's say that Bulletproof coffee is making them feel like a million bucks in the morning, and they didn't feel like a million bucks before. That's... It's a win.
And if nothing else maybe it's starting to get them down this journey, this path of realizing that the food they eat, the lifestyle they live actually does have an impact on how they feel. And maybe some of them then want more of that. And they're willing to go work with folks like you. And look like, we'll take that win. Right?
You can take whatever supplements you want, if you're not doing those things, it's not going make a difference. But, what do you see as the next thing on the horizon for health related VC investments we're going to be talking about in 6 months from now?
I think people like you and me spend a lot of time talking about the science and the drugs and the supplements and the diets and all those kinds of things, but there is a mental health aspect of this too that is also related to diet, and supplements and drugs and all of those kinds of things but it's also something that can be worked on independently. And I think that startups that are working in those areas are seeing tremendous demand.
There is still stigmas attached to... Thinking, you know, doing things about mental health, going see therapist, meditating things like that. And a fact that now you can do these things on your mobile phone, in the privacy of your own home, it kind of changes the game. You know I know fasting is something that you've brought up...
You know a lot of the communities are interested in that, it definitely seems, from what I understand of the science, which is still pretty rudimentary, but there is some strong evidence that there is health benefits to fasting so we funded a very early stage company that helps folks with fasting programs. So there is a types of things, you know, those are certainly the types of things that are coming up.
And Merck, the drug company Merck, led an $8.8 million round for Mosa Meat, which is now a Pharma backed lab cultured meat and Bill Gates, and Richard Branson are all getting on board. Although at the present moment a pound of self-cultured meat takes 24.000 dollars to make basically. Oh, man, this subject has so many different things.
One: the cost endpoint. Two: what are we actually eating, what's actually in it? And three: this is based on the fact that you know, concept that meat is bad and horrible for the environment which is a very sort of kind of dumb down argument without a lot of nuance. But then it seems to be hot, and people are investing in it.
So, how do you kind of incorporate all that and say as an investor, is this something that is going to take off, and something where you'd want to back?
And I hear you that it's nuanced and whatnot, but as more of the world gets lifted out of poverty and more people start eating meat and then more people start demanding high quality, healthy, clean meat, we'll have to find new ways to support that kind of infrastructure, because the type of farming that's being done today is not sustainable.
And so I think that the investors looking at this, the entrepreneurs starting these companies are... You know that's what they're going after. This is a big idea, because this is a huge challenge that the world is facing and whoever can solve this problem, could stand to both...
You know, do a lot of good in the world and make a lot of money at the same time, and who wouldn't want to do that, right? I think that there would be a lot of consensus that if you could build a company that could make grown meat in a low cost, sustainable way, that company would be very valuable. So, we all agree that would be... If I could put a dollar in that today, some day in a future I might get millions of dollars out.
That's very exciting. It's just a question of when. Is that two years from now? Or is that 10 or 15, or 20 years from now? And this is where you're getting to some of the art of investing and not the science, because nobody has that perfect crystal ball to say these things will work in two years. You know our best guess right now is that it is further out on the time scale, you know in the 5 to 10 year type of time frame not the, you know zero to five type of year time frame.
But until these things become really commercially available at the price point and a quality level, that is going to make you buy XYZ lab grown meat instead of, you know the grass fed rib-eye from your local sustainable farm. So, you know we think it's further out. So, when we make that assessment we'll wait. So we haven't made an investment in that area.
But that's sort of harder sell because that's not technology, that's not as easily scalable, that's not as change the world type of mentality I think. And that's where why I think Silicon Valley focuses more on the lab culture meats maybe and less on the sort of the real meat.
They will get it from other places just not Silicon Valley. It's not our job in the world. And I think that's okay. There is a lot of criticism in Silicon Valley, and you know, I get why, but it's we are not the only source of funding in the world. We are a specific source of funding for specific type of company and idea, and it's a big world that's in Washington capital.
And so there are other ways to get the kind of sustainable farming that we've funded. It's not what Silicon Valley is built to do.
Dan: And what we know it's tech, right? We don't know farming but there are lots of people out there that really know farming.
I think that's going to be something that can really impact whether investors see return on their capital or not, depending on how this is regulated and who regulates it. And if you have any insight of that, is not really...
You know when we're making investments like this, we list all the risks, and then we look at what the reward could be if it works, right? And then everyone has to make their own judgment does that risk- sorry does that reward justify all the risks you're taking? I mean everything you're saying is legitimated.
And just resource intensity of the current agricultural system is huge. I forget what percentage of the world's land is dedicated to agriculture, but it's huge. I mean it's price something like, I'm making up numbers now, but I mean it's probably something like 60-70% or something like that. Maybe if the places that have been like habitable land or something like that. And even if it's 20% or 30%, it's huge.
And then part of that is because soil depletion and you have to move crops around and things like that, so you can only use sections over the time. And then they can do it here around 24/7 and you can stack these things vertically. So I think that there are some really cool ideas there.
I think whether their work is businesses, is hard to say, but I'm glad people are taking those risks, making those bets.
Bret:And to evaporate as much. Dan:Exactly. Bret: And by the way I feel awful that I called Kimbal Musk Elon Musk's brother, I have to crack myself. He's got a name he's got his own thing, he stands on his own two feet. That was not respectful of me to say, but anyway... All right, now I've got to ask you about something. I've read that you've started a bagel company called Schmendricks is that right?
There was nothing special about New York, and so we actually manage to reverse engineer our favorite New York bagel and sell it very successfully here in San Francisco. And the business was thriving. My wife who was primarily running it because I'm otherwise employed as venture capitalist shut it down for really two reasons. I mean, one it was during this period that we met Dave, we started to experiment with low-carb lifestyle and the low-carb diet.
And you know we did start to have some serious concerns that the products we were selling even though they were really delicious, were not healthy for folks. More importantly, my wife discovered- see this is interesting... she discovered she had a gluten allergy.
But it's like until you start learning about all these stuff, you don't really know. It was just something that she- Like my fatigue was part of my life... I didn't know any other reality. She didn't know any other reality except feeling some like GI distress when she ate. It's just for her was eating, just for me like existing was being tired.
And so Dave and low-carb and all this opened up our eyes to this idea that, you know, what you put in your body really matters. And it's complex, and we should experiment. So we discovered this thing. So that's ultimately why we ended up. She decided to shut the business down.
Bret:Well now can you produce a New York quality keto bagel? That would be the question. Dan: We have talked about that. We can't imagine how that would be possible.
And you know I think the only thought I'd leave is just going back to something we talked earlier, which is that... You know, what I've learned to all of this is you can really... This stuff is important, low-carb is important, but more importantly is this concept that we can actually use diet and other lifestyle modifications to improve the way we feel, improve our health, improve our longevity. It's very real.
And I would encourage anyone who has interest in it and going down the journey, and viewing it as a journey of exploration and learning.
But yet, if you look a little more individually say, well maybe there is something that you can get out of this that will make it worth it for you. And you're not going to get that from a text book, you're not going to get that from a doctor who doesn't see people as an individual. I think you're perfect example for that. Thank you for sharing your story and for sharing all your knowledge with us today.
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