Dr. J

The data on neurodivergent workers is so lopsided it looks like a typo. JPMorgan Chase ran an Autism at Work program and found participants were 90% to 140% more productive than neurotypical employees. With fewer errors. UiPath partnered with AutonomyWorks on AI data labeling and reported neurodivergent associates were 150% more productive than non-neurodiverse talent. Hewlett-Packard integrated neurodivergent professionals into software testing teams and measured a 30% productivity gain. EY reported neurodiverse teams were 1.2 to 1.4x more productive and more accurate than comparable groups. At SAP, a single neurodivergent employee’s solution saved the company $40 million. Now zoom out. 15 to 20% of the global population is neurodivergent. One in five adults. Yet only 22% of autistic adults in the UK are employed. And 73% of neurodivergent people don’t disclose during hiring because they’re afraid of being discriminated against. That means the most productive talent pool in the workforce is also the most underemployed and the most hidden. Karp sees this and is building a pipeline to capture it. Palantir’s Neurodivergent Fellowship pays $110,000 to $200,000 a year. The job posting says outright that neurodivergent individuals will “disproportionately shape the future of America and the West.” A Gartner study projects that one in five Fortune 500 sales organizations will actively recruit neurodivergent talent by 2027. Palantir is two years ahead of that curve. The roster of neurodivergent founders reads like a hall of fame. Branson built Virgin with ADHD and dyslexia. Kamprad founded IKEA and invented the naming system because he couldn’t remember product codes. Musk disclosed Asperger’s on live television. Steve Jobs was dyslexic and dropped out. 40% of self-made millionaires in the UK are dyslexic. People with ADHD are estimated to be up to 500% more likely to become entrepreneurs. Karp himself is dyslexic. He built a $370 billion company. And he’s saying the system that filtered him out, the standardized tests, the credential pipelines, the interview formats designed for neurotypical candidates, is about to become even more obsolete as AI eats every routine cognitive task those systems were built to evaluate. The bet is simple: AI commoditizes average. The people who see patterns no one else sees, who obsess for 14 hours on a problem everyone else quit after 2, who build IKEA’s naming system because the “normal” approach didn’t work for their brain, those are the ones who can’t be replaced by a model. Karp is recruiting them while everyone else is still writing job descriptions that screen them out.

Fight Club was booed when it premiered at the Venice Film Festival (1999) Edward Norton remembers it “got booed hard.” and organizers walked out. During the backlash, Brad Pitt turned to Norton and said: “That’s the best movie I’m ever going to be in.”

Has anyone ever come out of these “profound” psychedelic trips with a verifiable scientific insight or breakthrough in physics or psychology or something? Can you fix Africa now? Why do these trip reports just read like Eckhart Tolle Burning man Deepak Chopramaxxed guruslop

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Your brain peaked musically somewhere around age 16. Everything since then has been a dopamine echo. Between the ages of 12 and 22, the mesolimbic dopamine pathway, the same circuit that processes cocaine and sex, fires at levels in response to sound that it will never reach again for the rest of your life. A 2011 McGill study used PET scans and fMRI simultaneously and found that music triggers dopamine release in the striatum at peak emotional arousal. The caudate nucleus lights up during anticipation of the good part. The nucleus accumbens lights up when it hits. Your brain is treating a guitar riff with the same reward architecture it uses for food-seeking and pair bonding. During adolescence, that response is dramatically amplified. Pubertal hormones are flooding the system. The prefrontal cortex is still wiring itself. Memories formed during this window get encoded with a density of emotional tagging that nothing in your 30s or 40s can replicate. Researchers at the University of Leeds identified this as the “reminiscence bump”: the period when your sense of self is forming, and the music playing during that formation becomes structurally integrated into your identity. A 2025 longitudinal study from the University of Gothenburg analyzed 40,000 users’ streaming data across 15 years. Younger listeners explored broadly across genres. Older listeners collapsed into increasingly narrow loops, almost entirely anchored to music from their teens and early twenties. Your brain stopped losing interest in new music years ago. It’s running a cost-benefit analysis. Familiar songs deliver guaranteed dopamine with zero processing cost. New songs require pattern recognition, expectation-building, and repeated exposure before the reward circuit kicks in. Past 25, most people stop paying that tax. The one variable that predicts whether someone keeps exploring: the personality trait “openness to experience.” Score high, you keep seeking. Score average, you default to the familiar forever. The fix, if you want one: deliberate exposure. Three listens minimum before your auditory cortex builds enough predictive models to generate a reward response. One passive listen on a playlist will never get there. Your brain needs repetition to find the pattern, and it needs the pattern to release dopamine.

I'm 74. How do I survive 2 quarts of whiskey and 3 packs of unfiltered cigarettes every day? Because I also take 3,000 mg of N-Acetyl-L-Cysteine, inject 5,000 mcg. of Cyanicobalamin and take massive amounts of milk thistle extract, magnesium, calcium and thiamine daily. Simple.

Me after 9 overpriced Guinness at the local Irish pub

My personal prescription for depression: Take 20 micrograms of LSD and go for a hike. 1-2x per week, ideally when it's sunny outside. I posted this on X a few days ago, and it struck a nerve. Some people loved it, some thought I was reckless, & many were simply curious. So let me explain the science. A new paper just dropped in Discover Mental Health from Nicholas Fabiano, Robin Carhart-Harris, and colleagues. It's the first formal commentary arguing that exercise and psychedelics should be studied together for major depression. Up to 50% of people don't respond to antidepressants or therapy. Exercise works for roughly 1 in every 2 people with depression, a stronger hit rate than most antidepressants. Psychedelics show effects comparable to antidepressants that persist after the drug leaves your system. Both are powerful alone. But the real story is what happens when you layer them. The paper (linked below) maps out complementary mechanisms. Psychedelics spike cortical neuroplasticity through direct TrkB receptor binding, producing rapid spinogenesis within hours. Exercise drives hippocampal neurogenesis and sustained elevation of BDNF over time. Psychedelics temporarily disrupt default mode network connectivity, breaking rigid thought patterns. Exercise normalizes that connectivity, locking in the gains. They also converge on shared pathways: serotonin, glutamate/LTP, and dopamine signaling. Different entry points, but basically the same downstream effect: a more plastic, resilient brain. The behavioral data is just as compelling. In psilocybin therapy trials, up to half of the participants spontaneously reported improvements in diet and exercise. Ayahuasca users are consistently more physically active. People with lifetime psychedelic use show lower rates of heart disease, obesity, and diabetes. Psychedelics don't just change your brain chemistry. They actually change what you do with your body. This is why I coined the term "hikrodosing." It's not just a cute portmanteau. It's a protocol built on the convergence of these mechanisms. A sub-intoxicating dose of LSD paired with aerobic exercise in nature combines psychedelic neuroplasticity with exercise-driven BDNF, serotonin release, and hippocampal stimulation. Sunlight adds vitamin D and circadian regulation. The hike provides cardiovascular load. The microdose opens the plasticity window. No clinic, no 6-week waiting period, & no sexual side effects (I'm looking at you, SSRIs). The paper calls for formal research. I agree. But practitioners don't need to wait for an RCT to start moving their bodies on the days they microdose. Hikrodosing. Look it up. Or better yet, try it.

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The world's most potent psychedelic, 5-MeO-DMT—nicknamed the "God Molecule" and sourced from the venom of the Sonoran Desert toad (Incilius alvarius, also known as the Colorado River toad)—is showing promising potential as a rapid-acting treatment for depression, anxiety, and addiction. This powerful tryptamine compound, which acts primarily as a potent agonist at serotonin receptors (with affinity up to 20 times greater than classic DMT at certain sites), triggers an extraordinarily intense, short-lived "whiteout" or ego-dissolving experience lasting just 15–20 minutes when inhaled or vaporized. Emerging clinical evidence and observational data indicate it can produce swift reductions in depressive symptoms, anxiety, and substance cravings, often with effects noticeable within 24 hours and persisting for days to weeks. Small-scale clinical trials and prospective studies have demonstrated that 5-MeO-DMT (synthetic or toad-derived) is generally well-tolerated in controlled settings, leading to marked improvements in treatment-resistant depression (TRD). For instance, inhaled formulations have achieved rapid antidepressant responses, with some participants reaching remission shortly after administration. Surveys of naturalistic users also report significant decreases in depression, anxiety, and addiction-related issues, alongside enhanced life satisfaction and mindfulness. However, experts stress that 5-MeO-DMT is not a standalone "cure"—its benefits appear to stem from catalyzing profound psychological shifts that must be integrated through therapy. Risks remain substantial: unsupervised use can trigger acute panic, persistent perceptual changes (e.g., hallucinogen persisting perception disorder, or HPPD), or rare psychotic episodes. Legally, it is classified as a Schedule I substance in the U.S., with severe penalties for possession or distribution. Additionally, the rising demand for "toad medicine" has raised serious conservation concerns, as harvesting venom from wild Sonoran Desert toads threatens local populations. Sustainable, synthetic versions are being prioritized in ongoing research to avoid ecological harm. Responsible advancement requires rigorous clinical trials, professional supervision, and ethical sourcing—shifting focus from sensational online trends to evidence-based psychedelic medicine. [Journal of Health Economics and Outcomes Research. (2023). Key Findings on 5-MeO-DMT and Addiction Treatment]