Taryn Southern

@craigclemens You are awesome. And so glad your head is ok now!!!

3 Weird Things I Learned in 2025: 1. How to break an addiction or bad habit
 I’ve struggled with nearly every addiction or bad habit you can imagine. The latest is embarrassing - a few years ago I began getting dandruff spots on my head. I'd scratch the f out of them then they would scab then I’d scratch again - rinse repeat the next day, and because of this manic scratching they would never heal. 2 years would pass and I’d still have the same sores on my head! So I’m in an ayahausca ceremony and I go to scratch one. A phrase comes to me… “What happens if I don’t?” I realized that nothing would happen. Nothing bad, nothing great either. But certainly nothing disastrous - I wouldn’t bleed to death and the spot didn’t actually need a scratch. I realized i had a weird fear that if i didn’t do the action, I’d be missing out on the. oddly satisfying scratching sensation - but also... that the scratch sensation really did nothing for me. So, I didn’t scratch, and sure enough I soon forget about it. Later I get the urge to scratch again, so I ask myself the same, “What happens if I don’t?” “Nothing.” And again I don’t scratch. That was in early 2025 and all the spots on my head are now healed. The next implication was even bigger. Later that same night the ceremony ends, we get our phones back. And now I am so ready to do what all ayahuasca bros long for after being phone-less for 4 hours: I must check the price of bitcoin. But this time I ask, “What happens if I don’t?” Again, nothing would happen. I’d simply find out the price at a later time. What happens if I do check it now? Well if the price is down, it’s not like I’m gonna panic sell @ 3am. And if the price is up, same - maybe I get a little dopamine hit seeing my monies up, but I’m not selling. So again, nothing is going to happen if I check the price. So I don’t. And I sleep much better that night. The next week - I’m on X and going down a rage bait rabbit hole. 2 big influencers who I never liked anyways are in a fight. And one of them has just dropped 15 min vid blasting the other, that the whole timeline says is fire. So I gotta watch it, right? I click, then catch myself… “What happens if I don’t?” Nothing. I don’t miss anything relevant to my life. I don’t actually care about the influencers, let alone their beef. I move on and save myself 15 minutes. This little phrase has now helped me quit excessive snacking, feed scrolling, overly-checking email and texts - the applications are endless. Before you mindlessly take any action, try to stop and ask yourself, “What happens if I don’t? 2. You only get 80% of what you want My wealthiest friend is looking for a new pad in NY. He’s complaining that some are too old, or not great view, or great view but shitty entry, etc. I say, “Bro you are rich af - why not just pay up and buy one that has everything you want?” He says, “You don’t get it - when buying a house, you only get 80% of what you want. This is true no matter what you spend, and at all income levels. The only way it’s not true is if you buy a lot and build your home from scratch, but then you have to wait 4 years and that is never what you want. So you need to pick your 80%." I’ve begun applying this 80% model everywhere, and I’m amazed at how often it fits. Choosing a partner, a city to live in, a place to vacation, a school for your kid - turns out, it's extremely rare in life to get more than 80% of what you want. So your job when making a decision is now simple: Figure out which 80% is a must for you, and focus on getting the best of that. 3. You only get 3 billion prompts There is a house I wish we would have bought in 2019. It was perfect, but we couldn't afford it until our other house sold. Which took too long, so someone else bought the dream house. Now every time I drive by, I find myself going into fantasy land… “Would we have liked the neighborhood? I wonder if the streets are nice for walking. Would we have redone the back yard? What would the kids have done with that big tree?” I have probably driven by this house 20x over the last 6 years and every time I would do this mind larp of “What if we had bought that house?” Then I read somewhere that your brain is like an LLM, and based on time alive for an average human, you only get 3 billion “prompts” of your own brain. You can use them to ponder the future, further enjoy the present, or “what if” about the past. But once they are gone, that is it, and you do not get more. So now, when I find myself bemoaning about a house I didn’t buy, a 100x investment that I failed to make, a 4x investment I failed to take profits on and now it’s worth zero, etc etc - I remind myself that I only get 3 billion prompts, and that I should either use them to focus on the present, or improve my future. I hope these 3 learnings help you prompt your own brain for a better 2026.

Newsflash: if you spend more time chasing attention than building, you’re not building anything worth attention

@etihad I’ve tried working out a matter with your customer service and it’s been challenging. Please DM me.

@friedberg @RoKhanna ‘as soon as the govt creates "taxes on automation", it shackles workers to old jobs.’ What? Why? You’re also assuming the tax is unnuanced and doesn’t take into account the business size/revenue. So many logic leaps being made here.

i strongly disagree. imagine: someone is working for $15/hr in a bicycle shop in san jose. they aspire to one day create their own bicycle company, selling custom bikes to customers. but how? today they don't have the labor pool, startup capital, or capabilities. tomorrow, the miracle of technological progress emerges... 2 robots can be purchased for $20k, setup in this person's garage. and used to build bicycles 24/7 on demand, AI is used to create a website and ordering system. and customers place orders online. now, this worker owns and runs his own highly profitable business. an economic miracle. unleashed by technology. a few years ago, i visited a farm in western australia. this guy used to be a field worker, he saved up and bought some large automated farm equipment and today he singlehandedly owns and farms 10k acres. his quality of life and the prosperity of his family ballooned. an economic miracle. unleashed by technology. today, millions of individuals make a living selling goods online, working their own hours, while feeling more fulfilled. if not for ebay, amazon stores, shopify, etsy, these individuals would not have been able to create their own businesses and improve their own living conditions. an economic miracle. unleashed by technology. taxing and burdening the creation of those online stores would have destroyed that opportunity and all those individuals would be worse off. in the same vein, and to directly address your original example, instead of working for a video game company, AI will now let artists create their own video games and run their own studios. they don't need to be employed by someone else's studio or big company. AI gives them all the tools they need. if a studio "replaces artists" with AI, those artists will now be able to compete with the studio, eroding the studio's profits away, while increasing the quality and quantity of video games in the market. consumers win and artists make more money. these economic miracles play out every day in free markets, unburdened by the government's intervention. as soon as the govt creates "taxes on automation", it shackles workers to old jobs. automation IS opportunity. it is leverage for the individual, not just profiteering for the corporation. at this very moment, i believe elected officials who are looking to get re-elected are finding emotional resonance with voters by proclaiming job loss and doom emergent are due to the AI miracle underway. the reason the message of AI doom and billionaire blame is so resonant is because cost of living has exploded in the United States. ironically, i'd strongly argue, the current high cost of living is due, exclusively, to excess government spending. by creating govt programs to give people "access" to food, housing, education, and healthcare, elected officials have inadvertently inflated the cost of food, housing, education, and healthcare. if there is an obligation to buy, the seller (food company, home builder, education institution, and drug company) will be incentivized to charge ever-higher prices. and here we are with record high prices for everything. i would urge you to make your existing government programs more accountable and eliminate those that aren't meeting their core social objectives, before trying to launch new ones. rightsize spending to ensure govt programs are net deflationary, rather than inflationary. this would actually help people in need. and i will tell you one thing that will certainly be deflationary to the cost of living in the US - automation. let's pls not get in the way.

We need regulations that prevent companies from using AI to eliminate jobs to extract greater profits. Artists at these companies need to have a say in how AI is deployed. They should share in the profits. And there should be a tax on mass displacement.

Every PM, designer and founder needs to see this. Replit just shipped an AI designer that outputs professional-grade work in 2 minutes. Design Mode. Powered by Gemini 3 Pro. Launches today. The quality is unreal 👇

@datingbyblaine Why do I find it gross that a man who is 51 puts an age cap on meeting women who are already two decades younger? In my book, that demonstrates a depravity of values 🤷‍♀️

51-year-old matchmaking client. NYC, never married, no kids, Jewish. Says he regrets failing to commit in his 30s and 40s, and wants to settle down and start a family ASAP. Says he’d prefer matches 26-32 years old 😮‍💨 He’s handsome, he’s cool, and he’s done well. I’ve also worked with enough attractive men ≥50 to know I can’t promise matches I’d be proud of under 33. We agree I can go up to 36. Fast forward a week... My team mentions him in passing to 3 genuinely beautiful women 26-29 we’d first connected with about more age-appropriate guys. All 3 want to meet him. I’ve been in the dating industry for the better part of a decade. Never seen this type of response from women under 30 to a guy over 50 who’s not a celebrity. Did the NYC dating scene suddenly shift post-Mamdani or something?! This is bonkers 🤣

@Simulon Do you offer a trial?

Simulon is here. Studio-quality VFX, end-to-end, in one app for every skill level. Watch Rexy go from 3D to reality in his first short film “Rexy to the Rescue!”   Made with Simulon on iPhone. Available now on the iOS App Store.

This is amazing.

"There's no time you feel more alive than when you are confronted with your mortality." Those of us who know this, know the point isn't to live forever -- but to spend more time living well. @TheAgingDoc @prof_horvath @NirBarzilaiMD @drjuliea @Naveen_Jain_CEO @BuckInstitute

gpt-5 is like that friend who got a promotion and now won’t do anything fun

Why Everything You Think Is “Real” Is Just Made Up (And Why That’s Actually Good News) My recent conversation with friend @DonAllenIII beautifully recapped in his latest substack: open.substack.com/pub/donallenii…

@paoloardoino @BlackrockNeuro_ @luganomycity Can’t wait to see the video!

Yesterday I had a keynote at Franklin University in Lugano regarding Tether Evo, our AI and Brain-Computer-Interfaces strategy. A big thank you goes to @BlackrockNeuro_ and @luganomycity for organizing and hosting this inspiring event 🧠 Tether.io/evo

@j_fishback It is so bizarre to read a post like this when the President you speak of CONSTANTLY and viciously attacks people he doesn’t like with all kinds of baseless accusations and name calling. How do you level with that??

Elon Musk has to apologize to President Trump for two things. First, randomly calling for the impeachment of the duly elected President of the United States over a policy disagreement. That’s not OK. I mean, at least the Democrats had the common courtesy of making up the Ukraine hoax to then go after the President in his first term to impeach him. Elon Musk did so over a simple disagreement on a policy. Second, and it just pains me to bring this up, is the slanderous accusation that somehow the President of the United States was a co-conspirator in a multi-decade sex trafficking ring of minors. President Trump is a father, a husband, and a grandfather. He has no association with Epstein whatsoever. He threw him out of his Mar-a-Lago club because he was a scumbag. And now to have Elon Musk drag him in the mud? It’s not okay. As Americans, we are allowed to disagree on the substance of the issue—but ad hominem attacks have no place in the public square. My interview with @thelauracoates on @elonmusk.

Thank you for bringing much needed attention to what we as employees have faced. Here is just another example of the ongoing threats we face for speaking out truthfully about working conditions, unlawful/one sided agreements, and coercive control. It’s odd that Bryan doesn’t want you posting private messages. He seems perfectly ok with sharing intentionally misleading statements and lies by omission about former employees who cannot defend themselves. nlrbedge.com/p/i-have-filed…

Hello @bryan_johnson, I have posted rational and logical questions regarding your BluePrint which I have gone through, and as clinical doctor and a clinical researcher found it to be a scam. I know exactly what I am talking about and do. I am a Doctor of Medicine. You may check my clinical credentials here: Scholar: scholar.google.com/citations?user… ResearchGate: researchgate.net/profile/Cyriac… You are not a clean guy as you claim to be, but a modern day snake-oil salesman and a medical science illiterate using "science-sounding" words, scamming people. Allow me to explain. I am going to post a long one here, bear with me, because I think I need to spell out a lot of things here for you, because clearly you do not understand science, medicine or health and every gimmick of yours is a fraud, to sell BluePrint. I asked you questions regarding the same as a response to your message (in my DM) asking me if I was angry. I responded saying I was not and I only needed clear evidence from your side to prove your products have actual clinical data and objective evidence for the claims you have made on your website, selling them at a high price. Unlike your employees, I am not under any NDA with you that prevents me from posting messages in MY personal DM. By the way, your NDA with employees to mask your scams was recently reported by the New York Times. You can read it here in case you missed it: How Bryan Johnson Exploited Employees With NDAs nytimes.com/video/business… In case you have forgotten what those questions were, I am happy to refresh your memory below: You claim/ advertised that your so-called longevity mix increase life-expectancy (which is why it was named so, right?). Your website, BluePrint also mentions to consume one level scoop with 6-24 ounces of water in your cup of choice and consume with food. Where did you find this dose to be useful? Is this dose the same for adolescents, adults and elderly? Safe for children and pregnant women? Where are the preclinical studies or at least a pilot trial that clarifies that this mix improved longevity in at least small animals? A study in zebra fish? Because it is the easiest to perform and you have all the money for this research. blueprint.bryanjohnson.com/products/found… What about this supplement you sell on BluePrint? You claim that Ashwagandha and Rhodiola "is an age-defying, nervous system supporting, cognitive function enhancing, immune system harmonizing" formulation without showing any evidence for those claims. And you charge $20 for this garbage. blueprint.bryanjohnson.com/products/ashwa… How did you find the effective dose here? Where is the safety study of this formulation? Did you know that Ashwagandha has severe liver toxicity and is not for everyone. You can read our study on it here: pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37756041/. Next, Rhodiola. There isn't enough reliable information to know if rhodiola is safe to use long-term. Side effects include dizziness, dry mouth, excessive saliva, and in some cases, may worsen autoimmune conditions. Reports have shown that the additional consumption of Rhodiola rosea (golden root or roseroot) was suspected to have caused a herb-herb interaction resulting in the liver injury in patients. You can about it here: wjgnet.com/1948-5182/full… On what basis are you mixing these two herbs and advising people to consume them? And for how long? How did you come to that dosing and duration? Any study to confirm it? Where is the study that shows that the combination is useful and safe? Will you be responsible for the severe side effects? Your other product, called Red Yeast Rice, which you are selling on BluePrint, is claimed to support "health" blueprint.bryanjohnson.com/products/red-y… - in what way? Why are you scamming people with vague claims? In fact, did you know that the presence of citrinin and monacolin K in red yeast rice, which is chemically similar to statins, leading to potential side effects like muscle, kidney, and liver damage in consumers? Your ingredient description on red yeast rice and analysis documents do not mention the level of citrinin or monacolin K in your product. How did you come to the conclusion that this product is useful? Can you guarantee that through clinically relevant evidence, your product is found to be effective and safe? Where is that evidence? Now I have been patient with you and waited for your clear answers, to my questions which you are avoiding like a plague. Instead of acting like a snowflake and giving me character certificates on X, man up and defend yourself and you utter garbage called BluePrint by showing clinically relevant evidence for your products. You cannot slither your way out of this. You had recently criticized India's own national mascot of quackery and scam artist, Baba Ramdev. economictimes.indiatimes.com/magazines/pana… But you and him are the same. He's doing it the primitive way and loud about it, but you have a refined approach to scamming people. Have some shame and come clean. You are nothing but a smooth talking snake-oil peddling version of Baba Ramdev in the USA. I challenge you to prove BluePrint's clinically relevant evidence instead of giving me farts in the wind-tunnel responses.

Sam Altman on the benefits of taking a year off between jobs

9 Things Money Can’t Buy: Inner Peace. Integrity. Love. Character. Class. Patience. Common sense. Dignity. Enduring friendships.