#31 — Paul Austin — Psychenaut

"The most exciting new podcast in the startup world.” - Eric Ries, Founder and NYTimes bestselling author

Today's episode is with Paul Austin, a social entrepreneur in a very unique space, the psychedelic space. He has been featured in Rolling Stone, The New York Times, The Economist, Forbes, and others for his pioneering work regarding microdosing, and his work with a psilocybin retreat center that he co-founded in the Netherlands last year, called Synthesis.

I want to point out up front that I don't microdose. I never have and I'm not advocating psychedelic usage. But what interests me about this space, similar to what interests a lot of people when it comes to mental health about the space, is that we've had about 20-25 years of stagnation in treatments for mental health.

A sibling of mine has tried basically every treatment there is over the last 20 years with very minimal results and psychedelic therapy is perhaps the most scientifically and effectively interesting approach that we've seen in these last two decades around new discoveries for the treatment of mental illnesses like PTSD or major depression. Therefore, it made complete sense to me to want to follow this space closely.

Paul, who is a friend, is one of the earliest educators on the space starting, perhaps the most widely used and most responsible educational courses on microdosing called The Third Wave.

It's also an interesting conversation with the founder that has had to blaze a trail in a highly controversial, highly stigmatized, and poorly understood space. He also talks about how this has affected him over the years... I think you’ll enjoy this conversation with Paul Austin.

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