Andrew Huberman | Club Random with Bill Maher

Summary

Club Random with Bill Maher

Guest: Andrew Huberman
Date: March 23, 2026

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Episode Overview

In this episode of Club Random, Bill Maher welcomes neuroscientist and podcast superstar Andrew Huberman for an uninhibited, wide-ranging conversation. The discussion covers everything from AI and sex robots to modern medicine, the impact of technology on mental and physical health, the COVID era, CRISPR and gene editing, scientific funding, and a hard look at the Epstein scandal's intersection with academia. In classic Club Random fashion, the tone is unfiltered, candid, and blends humor with genuine curiosity and insight.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Uncanny Advance of AI & Sex Robots

[03:05 – 07:42]

• Bill Maher and Andrew Huberman riff on Maher’s “Whitney Cummings doll” and the realism of advanced sex robots.
• Discussion of the 2020s trend toward AI relationships, referencing movies like Companion and Her.
• Quote [04:55]:
  Maher: “This assumes that no one will have a male sex robot.”
  Huberman: “There are going to be guys out there who are going to pay for the robot that insults them... seems like an entirely different doing.”
• Commentary on shifting sexual norms and increasing prevalence of “kinky” attitudes.
  Maher: “Doesn’t anybody just fuck anymore?... I feel like I’m the last member of the land that time forgot.”

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2. Generational Impact of Technology

[07:42 – 10:45]

• Analysis of social media’s effect on interpersonal relationships, especially younger generations.
• Huberman notes the experimental nature of Gen Z’s upbringings in a hyper-digital world.
• Eye contact, conversation skills, and genuine connection are deteriorating due to ubiquitous screens.
• Quote [10:04]:
  Maher (to Huberman): “You’re here as the expert. What are you asking me for?”
• Huberman describes research showing even a powered-off phone on the table impacts cognitive performance, demanding more mental energy to focus.
• Huberman [10:46]: “Just putting your phone away gives you what looks like a cognitive boost, but it just puts you on par with all generations before you that didn’t have phones in the room.”

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3. Why Do Certain Voices Rise in Crowded Fields?

[11:47 – 17:27]

• Maher quizzes Huberman on why his podcast became such a sensation amidst a crowded health and wellness space.
• Huberman traces success to launching during the pandemic, strict Stanford guidelines preventing COVID-vaccine commentary, and a focus on universal advice (sleep, anxiety, exercise).
• Huberman credits not selling anything and simply offering accessible science; also draws parallels to other credentialed podcasters who, like Maher and Rogan, “did something else very well first.”
• Memorable exchange [13:26–13:42]:
  Maher and Huberman joke about wellness fads (“taint tanning”) and credulity in wellness trends.

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4. The Biology of Health, Sleep, Light, and Modern Maladies

[17:27 – 33:03]

• Maher gives his theory that most diseases boil down to “cellular destruction”—nutrient deficiency or toxicity.
• Huberman supports that core idea, elaborates on the role of circadian rhythms, nutrient-rich diets, and modern pitfalls like processed foods.
• Sleep advice: Bright morning light boosts healthy cortisol; dim evenings safeguard sleep and metabolic health.
• Quote [21:27]:
  Maher: “I'm so glad to hear you say [that night owls can be healthy]. There are some hard, hardcore people who insist healing only happens between 10pm and 2am.”
  Huberman: “No, that's nonsense... There are what we call chronotypes.”
• New research: Sunlight exposure, even through a window, improves physical health; LED lights may be problematic for mitochondria and metabolism.
• “Incandescents are healthier, LEDs might be harming us”—a claim once seen as fringe but now supported by laboratory findings.

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5. Attention Spans and Media

[33:17 – 36:11]

• Maher marvels at the paradox of collective attention: Americans want either 8-second TikToks or 90-minute podcasts.
• Huberman speculates this is due to differences in the way our brains process visual (rapidly refreshed) versus auditory (slower, more immersive) content.
• Cultural critique: The shrinking attention span, quick-cutting visuals, and rise of “chemtrail-level conspiracy theories” undermine public discourse and science.

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6. Scientific Truth, Medicine, and the Problem with Extremes

[36:11 – 41:19]

• Balanced perspective on “expert culture” in wellness: Most influencers overstate one factor (light, food, toxins) as the sole cause of disease; reality is more multifaceted.
• Update on mRNA vaccine research: NIH is not cutting funding for mRNA oncology (cancer) vaccines; the controversy was over respiratory vaccine funding.
  Huberman [37:49]: “To cancel the research for mRNA vaccines for cancer would be utterly foolish.”

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7. CRISPR and the Future of Gene Editing

[41:10 – 46:08]

• Maher and Huberman dive into CRISPR: its Nobel Prize origins, stories of its controversial application (CRISPR-edited babies in China).
• Ethical lines blur as gene editing moves from mice, to monkeys, and humans.
• U.S. regulatory bodies slow to approve certain therapies—patients often go abroad for treatments like stem cell therapy.
• Contrasts U.S., Mexico, and Europe’s approaches to health innovation, stringency, and the “inverse stringency” on food additives, drugs, and procedures.

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8. Peptides, Weight Loss Drugs, and the Medical Marketplace

[48:35 – 53:55]

• Huberman unpacks the “peptide” boom: What are peptides, why are weight loss drugs like retatrutide the next trillion-dollar industry, and how are compounding pharmacies disrupting Big Pharma’s control.
• Explains the gray/black market for medical advancements, financial incentives driving both innovation and suppression.
• Huberman [53:39]: “The root of all of this is control of the patent and financial pipeline.”

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9. Distribution of Scientific Funding and Institutional Critique

[54:09 – 61:29]

• Stanford’s reputation: merits and criticisms of elite research institutions, “wokeness,” and the ballooning non-academic bureaucracy.
• Huberman praises Stanford’s rigor, resources, and especially its students, but concedes that more equitable federal funding would help research “across the country”—not just a handful of elite schools.
• Maher [59:30]: “A lot of the country feels left out... They kind of look down on us. And we're not all hicks out here, you know.”

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10. China’s Lead in Neuroscience & the Ethics of Animal Research

[62:46 – 69:41]

• China surges ahead in controversial areas: brain-machine interfaces, non-human primate experimentation.
• Huberman: such research carries serious ethical burdens—painful, dangerous, but often pivotal for scientific progress; U.S. regulates much more stringently.
• Maher and Huberman agree on the need to minimize animal suffering and look forward to AI and alternative models, but acknowledge progress often comes from these intermediate research steps.

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11. Epstein, Academia, and Power

[69:41 – 84:12]

• Provocative, candid discussion on Epstein’s entanglement with scientific and academic elites.
• Both express disgust and disbelief at how many renowned figures continued to associate with Epstein post-conviction.
• Quotes:
  Huberman [74:31]: “He had deep pause in the scientific community... I’m very happy to know no one at Stanford was taking money from him.” Maher [76:56]: “He’s a pimp... There are people in this world, a lot of them... who have zero clue how to get a female human into bed.” Huberman: “So you think these guys were just too TV [dweeby] to get laid?”
• Discussion about the psychology behind bad moral decision-making, the allure of money, and how otherwise intelligent people rationalize repugnant behavior.
• Speculations on blackmail, coercion, and the distinction between knowledge and complicity.

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12. Closing Reflections: Happiness, Rage, and the Modern Mind

[72:36 – 88:19]

• Maher observes awkward cognitive dissonance between "top half" and "bottom half" of America.
• Both warn of the intoxicating “rage” offered by the internet’s algorithm.
• Brief, light debate on cannabis safety—Huberman: fine for most unless there's a predisposition to psychosis; Maher: “I’ve been exploring it for 45 years… it’s fantastic.”
• Huberman [88:34]: “Oh man, I got an education there.”
• Maher [88:38]: “I’m going to loosen you up, Andrew, over the years. It’s Club Random.”
• The camaraderie is clear; Huberman invited back any time.

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• On why some wellness media wins:
  "It wasn't like, I want to be a podcaster. It was, I love science, I love learning and teaching. I have an interest in health, I have a long-standing interest in health and fitness in addition to my neuroscience background. So I'm going to talk about all of that."
  — Huberman [14:07]
• On technology and cognitive health:
  "Just putting your phone away gives you what looks like a cognitive boost, but it just puts you on par with all generations before you that didn't have phones in the room."
  — Huberman [10:46]
• On power and moral compromise:
  "If you're in touch with your gut sense, if you're around a guy like Epstein, you should want to get out of there."
  — Huberman [76:15]
• On attention spans:
  "Their attention span seems to be eight seconds or three hours. If I do a podcast that's less than 90 minutes, they feel very cheated."
  — Maher [33:54]
• On light, LEDs, and modern malaises:
  "It's short wavelength light in the absence of long wavelength light... We're having darker mornings, people straight onto the phone. In the evening, it's too bright."
  — Huberman [31:52]
• On happiness:
  "If you think you're happy, you're happy. Are you happy? I am happy right now."
  — Maher [72:36]
• On the paradox of expertise:
  "Whatever expert is speaking to us seems to think that the things they're talking about are the only things that are important... Light is foundational. Circadian biology is foundational. Cortisol rhythms are foundational. Nutrients and food, not excess calories, getting enough micronutrients."
  — Huberman [36:29]

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Important Timestamps

• 03:05–07:42 — Sex robots, AI relationships, and the evolution of sexual norms
• 10:09–10:46 — Phones and cognitive performance: research insights
• 14:07–17:27 — Huberman's rise in the podcast world and what drives legitimacy in health media
• 21:23–21:39 — Night owls, chronotypes, and how sleep isn’t one-size-fits-all
• 25:16–27:14 — Light, cortisol rhythms, and the surprisingly large impact of LEDs vs incandescents
• 41:10–46:08 — CRISPR, ethical boundaries, and regulatory contrasts between the US and abroad
• 48:54–53:55 — The peptide boom, pharma, compounding, and the gray market
• 62:46–69:41 — China’s neuroscience boom, animal research, and ethical dilemmas
• 69:41–84:12 — The Jeffrey Epstein scandal: academia’s complicity and psychological analysis
• 87:34–88:19 — Closing banter, cannabis, and future collaborations

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Summary & Takeaways

This episode exemplifies Club Random’s best: a boundary-pushing, unscripted conversation that exposes the idiosyncrasies, perils, and wonders of modern science, wellness, and society. Huberman brings rigor and humility, Maher brings wit and skepticism, and together they dissect the zeitgeist: from the affective reach of AI, the warping effect of our phones and lights, to the insidious ways power shelters bad actors. There is no fake civility, but real respect and a sense—rare in media and medicine—of two sharp minds wrestling honestly with messy truth.

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For more Club Random episodes, visit clubrandom.com.

Transcript

[Bill Burr]

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[Angie.com Advertiser 1]

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[Andrew Huberman]

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[Angie.com Advertiser 2]

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[Bill Burr]

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[Andrew Huberman]

I mean, Clinton supposedly spent time with him.

[Bill Burr]

You've got to be kidding.

[Andrew Huberman]

I supposedly spent time with him. Right, Whatever.

[Bill Burr]

Think of him as a club.

[Andrew Huberman]

Random would want to invest in doing that kind of work.

[Bill Burr]

What are we gonna get out of it?

[Andrew Huberman]

Okay, well, you're asking me to justify something for which I'm open.

[Bill Burr]

No, no, I'm not asking Random. Thanks for coming by.

[Andrew Huberman]

Yeah, thanks for having me. Beautiful place you have here. It Is.

[Bill Burr]

Well, it's not serious. Let's be real about it. And to me, that's what's great about it. I mean, this place was like a mess when I bought the house. And I was like, everybody said, tear it down. I was like, no, there's something about this place. Just the crooked door. Look at that. You know?

[Andrew Huberman]

Yeah.

[Bill Burr]

How could you tear that down?

[Andrew Huberman]

Right?

[Bill Burr]

And I don't know.

[Andrew Huberman]

Are we allowed to say that there's a body in the bathtub?

[Bill Burr]

That is not a body, Mr. Huberman. That is Whitney Cummings.

[Andrew Huberman]

That's right. I recognize her.

[Bill Burr]

That is. She's got quite a body. But, yeah, that's a very expensive. She gifted that to me. I'm very grateful. It's, you know, a couple hundred thousand dollars to make that a doll, you know, they can make. She did it for a special A, like, auto. Electronic. What's the word? Version of her. I remember going to the World's Fair and they had the press, you know, back in the day. Lincoln, hello. You know, it was. It was kind of like that. But this is much more realistic.

[Andrew Huberman]

It's very realistic. I'm friends with Whitney and.

[Bill Burr]

Oh, wow.

[Andrew Huberman]

I walked in and there was Whitney in the. This Whitney. The Whitney?

[Bill Burr]

Yeah, we put her in the bathtub. We had her sitting over there. But every time I walked in the room, I was like, oh, fuck. What? As a person, it is a little

[Andrew Huberman]

shocking because it's so accurate.

[Bill Burr]

Minus the hair.

[Andrew Huberman]

There's no hair on it.

[Bill Burr]

Well, I mean, we're close to having sex robots, aren't we? I mean, I'm not making that. There's a movie I just saw, it's pretty good, called Companion.

[Andrew Huberman]

Okay.

[Bill Burr]

Have you seen it?

[Andrew Huberman]

No, I haven't seen it.

[Bill Burr]

It's interesting. And Megan Fox did one about sex robots. There's gonna be a lot of sex. Trust me. Sydney Sweeney is gonna be playing a sex robot at some point. I just think that's inevitable. But, you know, and in the movies, this is, of course, a little bit in the future, at least, you know, the robot is indistinguishable physically from a real human. And it's just someone who is programmed to adore the person who bought her.

[Andrew Huberman]

I know she said her. So this assumes that no one will have a male sex robot.

[Bill Burr]

I think it's different in the woman's brain. I think that's why men want, you know, the male fragile ego and everything. Probably wants, you know, someone who adores them, who doesn't really want to be adored.

[Andrew Huberman]

I'm sure there are going to be guys out there that are going to be paid for the robot that insults them and all sorts of things, but that seems like an entirely different doing.

[Bill Burr]

Yeah, those are the guys who now are having pay someone to dig their high heel into them.

[Andrew Huberman]

Isn't that bizarre how some of like when those cases have been unearthed, I don't know, something about ultra powerful people. Maybe they have never been told no and they crave that. Odd. Well, I. I don't know.

[Bill Burr]

I don't know.

[Andrew Huberman]

We're speculating here.

[Bill Burr]

Well, on that score of people who. Men who like it in, shall we say the reverse. Somebody once told me a story, probably was a stripper in a club about this guy who had a really small dick. So he like, his way to deal with it was he wanted the women to humiliate him. And apparently that's like a thing sometimes. Whoa. You know, well, it's like making a virtue out of it. Like, at least it's getting attention.

[Andrew Huberman]

Whoa. Yeah. The AI relationships thing, maybe not is not as, you know, as edgy as what we're talking about now, but it does seem like it's already happening. People are having relationships with AI.

[Bill Burr]

Exactly.

[Andrew Huberman]

But it's not physical yet, as far as I know.

[Bill Burr]

I'm just hearing, well, it can't be. We don't have it yet.

[Andrew Huberman]

Right. I'm guessing if it's physical, it's unilaterally physical. The. Yeah, it seems that you're in love with your phone.

[Bill Burr]

I mean, they've been doing this in Japan and the movie her was like almost 15 years ago. That's like a crystal ball.

[Andrew Huberman]

Yeah, it's amazing.

[Bill Burr]

I mean, that's where it was going. But there was no. Remember in the movie, he like hires a surrogate, like an actual woman while he's on the phone with the thing. So we can like feel like he's really having sex with the phone that he's in love with.

[Andrew Huberman]

It's like taking all the functions of the human brain and compartmentalizing them into different actions and trying to interleave them. It's so bizarre.

[Bill Burr]

I used to ask this in my act. Doesn't anybody just fuck anymore? I mean, is it really. Are we that jaded that this. You know, it just seems like people do. Everybody has some crazy kink. I feel like I'm the last member of the land that time forgot. I don't do anything. Never. I don't even fantasize about kinky shit. I don't. You know, it's not like, ooh, I'M not fucking anybody in the ass, but I'm thinking about it. I'm not thinking about it.

[Andrew Huberman]

What used to be vanilla is now, you know, is not. Not even on the, on the page for. It seems, you know, one thing, it seems like with these different generations, you know, we hear like, I'm Gen x, right. I'm 50. So we hear like Gen X, Gen Z, millennials and this sort of thing. But it does seem that there was an entire generation that was raised so deeply in these short video social media landscapes that they're almost like an experimental group, right? Correct. I mean, inadvertently, they're the experimental group. And nobody knows how this is going. I did hear that there are data that, you know, people won't hire kids of certain generations because their inability to have eye, you know, generate eye contact, have a conversation because they're just so used to staring in a little box all the time. It's wild.

[Bill Burr]

And, and, yeah, and I mean, we know how much this affects their sex life. They, they don't relate on a one to one basis. You know, they. You see video people, or you could go to a bar and they're all looking at their phone in the bar, even though the person is sitting right across from them.

[Andrew Huberman]

Even people out on dates.

[Bill Burr]

Yeah, it's wild. Yeah, that's. That's, that's common sense that that's. We've now. Could it in the future turn out. I mean, anything's possible that. That isn't so deleterious. I don't think so. But what we do know is it's different. You can't deny that, that this is a. A difference, not just in degree, but in kind of something that we never saw before, where we're not relating directly, where we're putting some filter between everything. Look at a concert, you know, I watched as much as I could of the Taylor Swift concert because Nikki Glaser made me. And Nikki Glaser, she did well, she's a giant Taylor Swift fan. And like everybody throughout the whole concert, anytime they cut to the crowd, they're all watching through their phones, wild. I mean, everybody is like this.

[Andrew Huberman]

What is that about? Because, I mean, that image can be, you know, they could get that image after the show. Exactly. I don't know what that is. I guess it's to project oneself into the onstage experience somehow. But it's very.

[Bill Burr]

What do you mean? You're here as the expert. What are you asking me for? I don't want to tell you. This is what I want to know

[Andrew Huberman]

from you well, there are some interesting studies. I think the one that's probably most relevant to everyone is this study that looked at people's ability to focus when their phone is off and turned over in front of them versus in their bag, turned off underneath or behind their chair, versus in another room, separate room. And the interesting thing is that the ability to focus was the same essentially across those groups, but it took a lot of extra cognitive resource to work and to focus when the phone is on the table or even in a bag underneath or behind your chair.

[Bill Burr]

How do they measure that?

[Andrew Huberman]

They can measure how much essentially how much energy people devote to focusing versus to generating new sort of creative thoughts into, you know, a flexible use of the information. And so it takes a lot more work to focus when your phone is in the room. That's just the simple takeaway. So when the phone's out of the room, you see what looks like a boost in cognitive performance. It's actually just getting people to baseline. And this is something, it reminds me of David Goggins, the guy who's former Navy seal, he's always running around and shouting and this kind of thing. And super high performer in the physical domain who's now actually studying to become a paramedic. And he said it perfectly. He said it's never been easier nowadays to outperform your peers, but it's mostly a function now of what you don't do. Just putting your phone away gives you what looks like a cognitive boost, but it just puts you on par with all the generations before you that didn't have phones in the room. Right. So, you know, to succeed now as a young person, it's much harder unless you're able to abstain from interactions with short form video mostly and the phone generally.

[Bill Burr]

So speaking of outperforming your peers, I'm always interested in like why something wins. I mean, and that's like take Mr. Jesus Christ. I mean, there was many religions that were, that were prevalent besides the old Greco Roman religions which were kind of dying out at his time in the Mediterranean. It wasn't just Christianity. Why did that one win? You know, why did MySpace go away and you know, Facebook, you know, is

[Andrew Huberman]

MySpace the heaven's gate of cult religion? Now I'm really dating myself. Heaven's Gate. I think it was a cult. I think they castrated themselves, shaved their heads in war.

[Bill Burr]

Oh, the Heavens Gate cult.

[Andrew Huberman]

The Heavens Gate cult.

[Bill Burr]

Right, right.

[Andrew Huberman]

That was sort of the MySpace of cults.

[Bill Burr]

It's self destructed in, in the cult world. That's when you win is when you kill yourself, I think.

[Andrew Huberman]

Yeah, that's right.

[Bill Burr]

Branch Jamestown in the field of, like, you know, medical advice. So crowded. What is your own assessment of why you became premier into Paris in this field? What is it now? I think you're great, so I'm not gonna prejudice the jury. I mean, I listen to you and I feel like it's great information delivered in a way I can understand. But what is your thing? Because this is a very, very crowded field. I mean, half this country is, like, too poor to be able to even worry about their health and what they eat. And the other half are like, paranoids. Maybe that's because I live in la. No, I thought we were just, like, doing every fucking cold plunges and they're. They're tanning. They're tanning their asshole. Remember that one? Tucker Carlson? Wasn't he tanning his asshole?

[Andrew Huberman]

Was he?

[Bill Burr]

Yes.

[Andrew Huberman]

Oh, my goodness.

[Bill Burr]

There was taint tanning, like he was saying. I think it was. I'm pretty sure it was Tucker Carlson who was like, yes, you gotta get sunlight on your taint. You didn't. You didn't say.

[Andrew Huberman]

I remember that fad. I didn't realize Tucker was associated with that.

[Bill Burr]

I believe that.

[Andrew Huberman]

I think of him now as the nicotine guy. He's, like, really bullish on nicotine, which we can also talk about.

[Bill Burr]

And hating Jews. It's tanning your taint or hating Jews. This guy is telling you a little all over the map.

[Andrew Huberman]

He's definitely taken a turn in this.

[Bill Burr]

Oh, yes.

[Andrew Huberman]

Oh, yeah, he's taken a turn for sure.

[Bill Burr]

So. But really, why you?

[Andrew Huberman]

Yeah, so.

[Bill Burr]

Well, why you?

[Andrew Huberman]

Well, thanks for the kind words. I'll say. You know, some of it was a matter of circumstance. We launched the podcast during the pandemic and there was a lot of discussion about vaccines.

[Bill Burr]

Right?

[Andrew Huberman]

And that's obviously where the major debate was, besides the lockdown issue. And I decided at the time, in part because Stanford had a very strict rule, that we weren't supposed to talk about vaccines publicly. Because early in the pandemic, if you recall, there were like, documents, like Word documents circulating on the Internet, people claiming to be affiliated with certain universities and having protocols for dealing with COVID And, you know, universities, including Stanford said, listen, you know, we need virologists and public health experts to talk about this or no one else. So on the podcast, I chose to talk about all the things that were universal. How to manage your sleep, how to keep your anxiety down during the lockdowns as best you could, how to Maintain some level of physical fitness if you couldn't leave your house. And then I just started teaching and I think in large part it was because I wasn't selling a book, I didn't have a podcast. I was just giving away information. I will say also, if you look at a lot, not all, but a lot of the top podcasters, including yourself, including Rogan, Lex Friedman and there are others, Jocko Willink, for instance, most of them did something else very well first. They were credentialed someplace else. Right. Lex is. Most people don't realize is lex is a PhD, right. He's very versed in computer science and artificial intelligence and these kinds of things. Joe obviously had a prior career. You had a prior career, very successful, in addition to the other things you're doing. I was running a lab at Stanford up until a few years ago. Now I still teach at Stanford, but I shut my lab down because of the podcast. So what you find is that often the most successful podcasts are from people that sure entered the field at a certain time and there were fewer people in, in the podcast game then, but who also were very fluent in a particular subject and were ready to bring that to the world. So it wasn't like, I want to be a podcaster. It was, I love science, I love learning and teaching. I have an interest in health, I have a long standing interest in health and fitness in addition to my neuroscience background. So I'm going to talk about all of that. And I think the connections that one has, like your colleagues, like the people that I bring on my podcasts, are, I'm honored to say, and so privileged to have the opportunity. These are the top, top neurosurgeon, chair of neurosurgery at ucsf, Eddie Chang, Robert Malenka, the expert in dopamine. Anna Lemke, the expert in addiction medicine, you know, Sean Mackey, the expert in pain medicine, and on and on. And, you know, we include other people, creatives, you know, David Cho, Rick Rubin, et cetera. But to be able to put those people in front of the world was not really happening before. The only person who had really done it before was Charlie Rose. And he had taken a pretty swift exit in the previous years. I'd never met him, but that's where you saw the neuroscience series.

[Bill Burr]

He was great at neuroscience. Bad at coming out of the bedroom with a bathrobe on.

[Andrew Huberman]

I don't know what the circumstances were.

[Bill Burr]

Oh, that's what it was. Coming out of the bedroom with a bathrobe on.

[Andrew Huberman]

Well, so I Think that was it. And then I like to think it's also because, you know, I do the things I talk about. Right. I get morning sunlight. I've long been interested in resistance training. And I. And I believe, of course, in modern medicine. But I also believe that lifestyle factors and the things we can control fundamentally shape how healthy or unhealthy we are and how many medications we need or don't need.

[Bill Burr]

Look, about 2003, I switched from Western medicine. Not that I abandoned it because, of course, Western medicine is wonderful in many ways. Sure. But from, you know, but to a much more holistic approach, meaning preventative. And I feel like I, you know, I got with a doctor I respect very much who I think knows a great deal. We don't agree on everything. And of course you also need an md. But I feel like until that point in my life, I did not really understand how the body worked. I read different books. I don't want to go through the whole holistic Bible. But they more are of the notion that there is really only one disease, which is cellular destruction. And it has two main causes. One is deficiency of nutrients, and the other is toxicity getting into the cell. And we label things a million ways. There's a million names for many diseases. But it all comes down to not just all that, because I think genetics is really important.

[Andrew Huberman]

Yeah. Some people who have Huntington's, for instance, you know, they could be doing everything right and still be genetics eventually get seriously ill. Although doing as many things as possible right, in terms of lifestyle will greatly extend their lifespan and health span.

[Bill Burr]

There's no question. Do you subscribe? Would you say that is your overarching theory also, that it's just. It's all about the cells winning the battle on the molecular level. And our cells. I mean, there's so much in society that is, you know, fatigue, like chronic fatigue, these kind of things, and irritable bowel syndrome and even allergies, maybe even asthma. Just this stuff that, like, says it's because we're not treating ourselves right. They're getting too much toxicity and they are deprived of nutrients because what they're being given is processed food. You know, sugar, corn, fungus. Love to get into fungus with you. I'm a big fungus person.

[Andrew Huberman]

We talk about psilocybin, which never.

[Bill Burr]

No, no, not that kind of. But that's fungus too. I used to do it, but no, just how harmful fungus is and how much. We always go to germ theory. It's always the bacteria and sometimes it's the fungus. I mean, Fungus is. Is everywhere.

[Andrew Huberman]

Sure, yeah. I mean, so I absolutely subscribe to the idea that when cells get sick, organs get sick. When organs get sick, you get systemic breakdown eventually. I think that when you talk about toxicity, I think it's very clear that you can have, for instance, toxicity from too many calories. But affluent malnutrition. That's right, they call it too many calories but not enough. Micronutrients, perhaps. Right. Or just too many calories. Energy load, toxicity.

[Bill Burr]

And when you don't get the right nutrients, even though you're eating more food, your body is still asking for those nutrients.

[Andrew Huberman]

That's right.

[Bill Burr]

Which is why you get fat, because you're eating more food, but you're not getting what the body needs, so it wants more.

[Andrew Huberman]

I think the two things, I mean, there are many things that are making Americans and others sick, including lack of physical exercise and so on. But I think at least two of the important ones that aren't discussed enough are being divorced from our natural circadian schedule. So you want bright days. We've talked about this before, but I'll just briefly reiterate. Bright days, meaning sunlight in the morning, bright days as best you can. Getting sunlight through a window. There's a recent study showing that if you work near a window, it actually can help with blood glucose management and dark nights. And, you know, for some people, going to bed late and waking up later is best for them. For other people, waking up early and going to bed earlier is best for them. People have to figure out what's ideal for them.

[Bill Burr]

Oh, I'm so glad to hear you say that.

[Andrew Huberman]

Oh, absolutely.

[Bill Burr]

Because there are some hard, hardcore people who insist that the healing only happens

[Andrew Huberman]

between 10pm and 2am no, that's nonsense.

[Bill Burr]

Thank you.

[Andrew Huberman]

That's nonsense.

[Bill Burr]

Thank you. Because I, you know, 2:00am is when I'm just getting to sleep.

[Andrew Huberman]

Okay, so you're a night owl, and there are what we call chronotypes. And some people do best on a late to bed, late waking up schedule. And nonetheless, getting bright light, ideally from sunlight in your eyes in the first hour after waking up.

[Bill Burr]

I listen to you on that. And the first thing I do is go over to the window and it's always like, oh, I feel like a vampire, you know, because. But I force myself.

[Andrew Huberman]

Great.

[Bill Burr]

You know, open my eyes to that. Great. And, you know, and also I'm very, very aware that light in the eye at night, you know, it's the worst thing for you. It wakes up the penal gland. Right. This podcast is sponsored by Squarespace. We're all supposed to have a brand now, whether we ask for that or not. And if you're going to exist online, you might as well look like you know what you're doing. Squarespace is the all in one website platform that lets you build something professional without turning your life into a tech project. You get a domain, a great looking site, tools to offer services, take payments, send emails, everything in one place, which is rare and frankly, underrated. The design is the best part. Their templates are actually good. And if you don't want to start from scratch, Blueprint AI builds a customized site for you based on what you do and what you want. No coding, no panic, no late night Googling. And if you're running a business, Squarespace handles scheduling, invoices, analytics and SEO so people can find you and pay you, which is always the goal. If you've been sitting on an idea, it's time to get up, open your laptop and get started. Go to squarespace.com clubrandom for a free trial, and when you're ready to launch, use offer code ClubRandom to save 10% off your first website or domain. You ever notice how the older you get, the more your doctor starts saying things like, let's just keep an eye on that? Well, that's not comforting. That's a warning with a polite tone. And high blood pressure is one of those things. It doesn't hurt, it doesn't announce itself. It just quietly does damage while you're busy pretending everything's fine. We've all got people in our life dealing with it, and it's one of those things you don't think about until suddenly you do. That's why it's time to start paying attention to 120 life. It's a once a day drink designed to support healthy blood pressure. Not a pill, not a stimulant, not some trendy miracle nonsense. Just a functional drink made from a blend of super fruit juices. And it actually tastes good, which already puts it ahead of most healthy things. The best part is that it easily fits into your routine. You just drink it daily. Check your numbers with a home monitor and see where you're at. A lot of people notice changes in a couple of weeks, which is why it's gotten so popular. And by the way, hundreds of doctors are recommending it now. Not influencers, actual doctors. Always a good sign. Look, by March, everybody's already abandoned their New Year's resolutions. But your blood pressure didn't get the memo. Don't wait until next month. Nothing to lose. Except higher blood pressure numbers. Go to 120life.com and use my code random for 20% off, use code random today. These statements have not been approved by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.

[Andrew Huberman]

Yeah. So your pineal gland makes melatonin, which makes you sleepy and makes you fall asleep. Light inhibits melatonin light reaching the eyes. Specifically, I should point out that it's clear that some people can tolerate screen light and fall asleep with no problem. But what bright light does in the morning is it increases cortisol, which we know is a stress hormone. But in the morning, you want your cortisol high. This is the foundation of health. To have your morning cortisol high. Yes, high. And then to have it taper off into the afternoon and evening. This is true for men, for women, perimenopausal, menopausal, pregnant women, kids, everybody. This has been, it's called the healthy cortisol curve. And if that curve flattens, meaning if it's not a big enough peak in your morning, whatever time that happens to be, and if you have too much cortisol in the evening, you're going to have problems with sleep. You're also going to have problems with blood sugar regulation because cortisol has been labeled a stress hormone. But we need to think about cortisol as a glucose, as an energy mobilizing hormone. So it turns out that even if you can sleep just fine after being around a bunch of bright lights at night, it will elevate your morning blood glucose. Now, is that going to make you pre diabetic or diabetic over time? It, it actually might. Kids nowadays, they've done a beautiful experiment where they had kids sleep in a room with 100 lux, that's very dim, 100 lux light overhead, eyes closed, and they saw significantly elevated morning blood glucose levels. So dimming the lights at night is important. Now, there's a lot's been said about blue light and for some people wearing blue, blockers can be helpful, et cetera. But just dimming the lights, this environment that we're in here is actually quite dim. It's bright enough for us to see each other, but this environment is not nearly bright enough for the morning. What we need in the morning to spike cortisol, which is what we want, but it's plenty bright to spike cortisol at, say, an hour before sleep. So just in the first hour, make the first hour of your day as bright as possible. Ideally, from sunlight. Make the last hour of your day as dim or as dark as safely you can.

[Bill Burr]

I do start to lower the lights, but, you know, there's only so much you can do.

[Angie.com Advertiser 2]

Sure.

[Bill Burr]

But when I go to bed, I cover up all these little things. Everything in fucking America now has to have a little fucking stupid light that you don't need. I cover them all, like, with, like, washcloths. I'll put things all over them.

[Andrew Huberman]

I put duct tape and I'll cover it with them.

[Bill Burr]

Exactly.

[Andrew Huberman]

Or get a. Get a great. A soft eye mask is my best investment.

[Bill Burr]

I don't like that because I feel it. It's onerous. But I have blackout curtains. No. When I go to sleep at night, it is as black as Stephen Miller's heart. It is black in there. I'm telling you, when I open my eyes or close them, I see the same thing.

[Andrew Huberman]

Great.

[Bill Burr]

That's dark.

[Andrew Huberman]

Great.

[Bill Burr]

You know what's stupid? And I don't mean to knock. This product. I'm wearing it right now. These rings that I'm sure you're burying.

[Andrew Huberman]

I wear a whoop band where I measure my sleep with an eight sleep. The cooling mattress.

[Bill Burr]

Okay, well, this is the same idea. And look, I've just started it up and it blinks. I had to. You know what I did? And by the way, I was.

[Andrew Huberman]

That's why I don't wear one of those. That's why I measure my sleep with my eyes.

[Bill Burr]

I figured it out, and I'm gonna give you. Here's a life hack, you life fucking hackers. Okay? So, yes, it blinks at night. It's supposed to be about your health. And it does. The one thing you're not supposed to do, which is have light on in when you're sleeping. Bright green light or yellow light. Okay? So what I did was I took a black surgical glove, you know, like thin rubber gloves. We got a zillion of them during COVID and now they're polluting the entire country and world. So great on that one. But I just cut off a little piece of it and I put it on as a fucking Oura ring cozy at night, and then it blocks it off. So there's your life hack. For all the people who wrote in like I did and said, this is so silly. We're trying to do our health here. I know.

[Andrew Huberman]

So I think the emergent theme in our conversation already today is technologies that we use to improve convenience or improve our health inevitably have some sort of side effects that we run up against everything does. It's true. So this is wild. So the long wavelength light, red light, infrared light, et cetera, that's the heat from the sun that you feel. It's part of that, that you said that long wavelength light is not the light that burns your skin. It's not the wavelength of light. And it was present in incandescent bulbs. So incandescents are, you know, even if you see a white incandescent bulb, it's got short wavelengths. So it's got blue, it's got green, it's got yellows all the way out to red, and in some cases even infrared. That infrared and red, we'll just call it long wavelengths, believe it or not. Beautiful. Data on this from Glenn Jeffrey's lab, University College London. It can go into and through your body and it actually helps. This is a loose term as I'm using it, charge your mitochondria. The mitochondria, there's water in that area and the water absorbs the red light. If you've ever gone swimming, you've gone down, you know, snorkeling or something, below a certain depth, you lose the reds, okay? Because the reds get absorbed. So your mitochondria function better, you increase ATP production, your metabolism increases. In the presence of red lit, long wavelength light to the skin. This study has been done. Shine long wavelength light on somebody, watch blood glucose levels in a blood glucose test, and it's blunted. Now, the LED lights that are commonly used now, or most everywhere, they are truncated so that it's all short wavelength and medium wavelength light. And that short wavelength light in the absence of long wavelength light has been shown to damage the mitochondria. There's a kind of a niche group online, different from the butthole sunners, so that are very bullish about this idea that the switch from incandescents to LEDs, and not just screens, but general lighting, is causing disruptions in mitochondrial function. This used to be considered crazy. This was like chemtrail crazy, right? But now we're starting to see from animal studies and human studies, from Glenn Jeffrey and others, that people's vision gets better when they get in front of an incandescent bulb once a day. If they get sunlight, which also has long wavelength light, your vision improves because of improvements in mitochondria, you can again better blood glucose regulation. This study just came out. Eating near a window or working near a window improves blood glucose regulation. So, you know, I'm not paranoid. I have LEDs in my home, right? But if you can get outside and get some Long wavelength light from the sun without getting a burn. That's the trick. Right.

[Bill Burr]

And do it every day.

[Andrew Huberman]

You don't watch too much uv. Yeah. And you look extremely healthy. I'm not just saying that so I'd be in a position to gauge. Right.

[Bill Burr]

Oh, finish your thought.

[Andrew Huberman]

Well, it's absolutely true that I owe

[Bill Burr]

it all to clean living.

[Andrew Huberman]

Right. So I don't want to say that short wavelength light is poison. That's not quite right. It's short wavelength light in the absence of long wavelength light. And if you had asked me about this, you know, eight, 10 years ago, I'd say my colleagues in the sleep lab at Stanford, you know, one of the preeminent sleep labs in the world, they're really big on morning sunlight, afternoon sunlight. That's actually where I learned it from, from the sleep biologists at Stanford first. But you start to look at, our environment is becoming very short wavelength rich, long wavelength diminished. We're having darker mornings, people straight onto the phone. In the evening, it's too bright. And then you, you know, we can make it generational and say this younger generation that seems to really be struggling. Let's set aside the content they're looking at. Right. What's actually on those screens. It may be that we've made them sick. And so while I am a fan of modern day, it's the light itself. What's that?

[Bill Burr]

It's the light itself is what you're saying.

[Andrew Huberman]

I'm saying it's the light itself.

[Bill Burr]

And that's such an important message that it's not just the fact that it's a bunch of stupid tiktoks. Well, it's that too, that are poisoning your mind. It's the light itself. Even if it was transmitting the smartest, wisest messages throughout history, the light itself, the light itself, it's just not natural.

[Andrew Huberman]

That's right. And incandescent bulbs and firelight and candlelight, all these things were very healthy for us. And I actually think it's hard now to get incandescents. There's some, there's some people think it's illegal. They're just very hard to get. They are less energy efficient than LEDs.

[Bill Burr]

Yes.

[Andrew Huberman]

But when you talk about going to the hotel and everything is like this bright, intense blue.

[Bill Burr]

Right.

[Andrew Huberman]

When was the last time someone had to change an LED bulb? You never have to do that. Right. So it's like idiot proof and it's, you know, power efficient. But there's always a cost on the back end.

[Bill Burr]

There's always.

[Andrew Huberman]

And you mentioned TikTok. But you, you know, as much as I'm a fan of Instagram, I teach on Instagram and YouTube, they've really migrated towards shorter content. They promote three minute or shorter reels on Instagram. They tell you if it's longer than that, it's not gonna get shared as broadly. I mean, all of the platforms have shifted towards shorter video at the same time. Longer audio is still on the rise.

[Bill Burr]

That's. I've said this many times. I don't understand the American public. Their attention span seems to be eight seconds or three hours. If I do a podcast that's less than 90 minutes, they feel very cheated. And yet what you're talking about, that seems also prevalent in our culture, that people have no attention span at all and you gotta get it in there in two minutes or less or just forget about it.

[Andrew Huberman]

It's wild.

[Bill Burr]

What do you make of that? Is that a generational thing?

[Andrew Huberman]

I think it's a fundamental difference between the auditory system and the visual system, where the visual system can tolerate a lot of fast updating. But if you had to hear something different every 90 seconds or every three minutes even, it would be chaotic. You'd just be like, this is crazy.

[Bill Burr]

That's interesting.

[Andrew Huberman]

This is crazy. I mean, it's like shorter than a Ramon song.

[Bill Burr]

It's how we're taking it in.

[Andrew Huberman]

Exactly.

[Bill Burr]

Visually, because we're so used to movies for I don't know how many decades now. Quick cutting and just, you know, we can subliminal advertising. Remember when that was a thing? Oh, yeah, it would be. You wouldn't even notice. The controversy was they put a skull and crossbones into. Subliminally into cigarette ads because the theory was people really want to die.

[Andrew Huberman]

Are you serious?

[Bill Burr]

Yeah, I am absolutely serious. Whoa. They subliminally put a skull and crossbones in there. Whoa.

[Andrew Huberman]

I would have thought they would have done the opposite.

[Bill Burr]

Right.

[Andrew Huberman]

No, you know, put it like a beating heart. There's like a robust beating heart.

[Bill Burr]

Or that's how evil they are.

[Andrew Huberman]

Nude woman or something like that.

[Bill Burr]

No, that's how fucked up we are. But you know, when you said like a few years ago, it was like chemtrail level conspiracy theory. That's why I get a little nervous when people say, oh, the ultimate expert in. I'm sure they are.

[Andrew Huberman]

Sure.

[Bill Burr]

But you know what? Science, there's no final. I mean, there are, you know, but it takes time. Like evolution, when it first came out, people didn't just sign on. It had to go through the testing period. Okay. We're past that. And we're past that with global warming too.

[Andrew Huberman]

I was thinking about. Tucker would argue different. Right?

[Bill Burr]

Yes. Okay, we're past that.

[Andrew Huberman]

Right.

[Bill Burr]

You know, we can argue about what to do about it, but we're past the, you know, humans aren't causing it. Yes, they are. And, you know, maybe that's whatever, you know. But, you know, this, this idea.

[Andrew Huberman]

Well, it's interesting. It seems like there's bipartisan support for the idea that we're contaminating water sources and food sources. You know, I think, I guess more closely to what you just raised, it's beyond me why artificial lighting environments might be damaging us in some way. And certain medications like antibiotics can be beneficial. Like, we are living in the land with respect to health. We do seem to be living in the land of whatever expert. Certainly is not how I try and pitch things, but whatever expert is speaking to us seems to think that the things they're talking about are the only things that are important. Like, I'm not saying it's only light, I'm saying light is foundational. Circadian biology is foundational. Cortisol rhythms are foundational nutrients and food, not excess calories getting enough micronutrients. But when you look online, what you find is that the people couch themselves as the it's all sunlight or it's all food. And I think this is what's really damaged the Maha movement, frankly, because I think most people across the board would say, okay, getting food additives out and reducing processed foods, surely that's a great thing. But then the vaccine debate, for instance. Actually, I have an update on the vaccine piece that I spoke to NIH director today to get you an update because last time when I was on your show, I talked about it and it's about these MRNA vaccines.

[Bill Burr]

Oh, yeah.

[Andrew Huberman]

Because I said, and I still think that to cancel the research for MRNA vaccines for cancer would be utterly foolish. I think that's a three neuron disorder.

[Bill Burr]

Agreed.

[Andrew Huberman]

Okay. So I talked to Jay and he

[Bill Burr]

assured me, Jay Bhattachary.

[Andrew Huberman]

Jay Bhattacharya Director of NIH and actually currently also director of cdc.

[Bill Burr]

Let's give people some background who during COVID and you know, I was one of the people who took a lot of shit during COVID I feel very vindicated, by the way, but I'm sure not nearly as much as the people who are in charge of health now. And Jay Bhattachary was one of those people who was thrown off Twitter or wherever because, you know, like, he's a nut because he had an alternative view of how we were handling Covid.

[Andrew Huberman]

He was large. He was largely opposed to lockdowns at certain phases. I know this because he's my colleague at Stanford.

[Bill Burr]

He was right. We didn't treat it overarchingly. We just didn't treat it the right way, which was to protect the most vulnerable population, but let society go on because it wasn't the bubonic plague. It killed mostly very old people and obese people. I know that's politically incorrect to say. It's just the truth. We didn't need to overreact the way we did. We didn't need to spend more money than we did on World War II.

[Andrew Huberman]

Is that right?

[Bill Burr]

Yes, it's right. Wow. On, you know. Well, of course, we told everybody to go to your room and hide under your bed, you know, and we'll. We'll make up your salary. Where do you think we got that money? Where we always get it. Out of thin air. That's going to come home to roost. And that's going to affect your health.

[Andrew Huberman]

Yeah, well, the mental health in the lockdown.

[Bill Burr]

Before I. Before we talk about vaccines, because it makes. It makes you do this.

[Andrew Huberman]

I have an update for you on.

[Bill Burr]

I don't know what this is, but. Oh, yeah, what is it?

[Andrew Huberman]

So, okay, so the MRNA vaccine update is Jay. Dr. Jay Bhattachary, who now is also acting director of the cdc, by the way. He's juggling both roles.

[Bill Burr]

And a smart guy and a very

[Andrew Huberman]

smart guy and a very. And somebody who listens. You know, I'm not formally associated with Maha, despite what you might read out there. I'm not formally associated with any political group. I'm neither a double hater nor a double lover when it comes to politics. I am. I am an issue by issue person.

[Bill Burr]

That's me in politics. Great.

[Andrew Huberman]

Okay. Appreciate you. Thank you. Thank you. So he assured me that his words. That the NIH funding for MRNA vaccine research for oncology for cancer has not been cut. What was cut, he said his words was the $500 million put towards MRNA vaccines for upper respiratory illnesses that was set aside from Project Warp Speed, which people forget was a Trump initiative. I'm not trying to. What do the kids say? Glaze or glow up or what? I'm not trying to. But we should remember that that was part of the Trump administration.

[Bill Burr]

Absolutely.

[Andrew Huberman]

And I think that the MRNA vaccines, the label has caused a lot of people to say, I don't want anything to do with those. But I just had an oncologist on my podcast. The potential to eradicate cancers using technologies like those or others like CRISPR is so exciting. And the way this is gonna work is not by testing on humans. It's gonna be by harvesting a T cell.

[Bill Burr]

Let's stop on CRISPR, because I remember first seeing it on 60 Minutes. Gene splicing, right?

[Andrew Huberman]

It's gene editing.

[Bill Burr]

Gene editing.

[Andrew Huberman]

So you can actually go in and add genes and modify genes. A Nobel prize was given.

[Bill Burr]

Why is it called crispr?

[Andrew Huberman]

The CRISPR CAS system is an enzyme system that can get and insert and cut and repair DNA at specific locations.

[Bill Burr]

Okay. But, yes, I've been hearing about CRISPR ever since that 60min. But that was like seven or eight years ago. I feel like, hey, I'm 70 now. Where's CRISPR when I need it?

[Andrew Huberman]

So CRISPR is being used.

[Bill Burr]

I mean, I'm not saying I need it, but I'm saying I'd like it.

[Andrew Huberman]

CRISPR has been used to successfully treat certain childhood cancers. Crispr, now, I should say that's by taking cells, modifying their genes and reinserting those cells, which works very well in the immune system.

[Bill Burr]

But it's not a cure for cancer.

[Andrew Huberman]

Well, it holds.

[Bill Burr]

Sometimes it is.

[Andrew Huberman]

It holds the potential to cure many forms of cancer. See, cancers are all generous.

[Bill Burr]

And it's done it sometimes. Right already.

[Andrew Huberman]

Sure. Yeah. I mean, it's not in widespread use because there are a lot of ethical issues. I will tell you. There was a guy, he actually trained as a postdoc at the same time as I did in the United States, then went to China. He did. He made CRISPR modified babies. Okay. This is a well known. Yes. He announced at a meeting that he had taken some kids from ivf. The report was that the father was HIV positive. He modified the receptor for HIV in these embryos, and two kids were born with modified genomes. Now, here's the twist. From what womb they were inserted into the guy's wife, I believe. You know, so they took the eggs, her egg, his sperm modified the embryos. Once the embryos were in a dish using crispr, she carried. So targeting a specific gene, Right. I should say when people get really worried about genetic selection, when people partner, select their genetic select, right. When they go, oh, that person's attractive or successful or kind or whatever.

[Bill Burr]

But she carried it, determined they had a baby shower.

[Andrew Huberman]

Two babies. Yeah, two babies.

[Bill Burr]

I'm not asking about Chinese baby shower. I want to know about the shower.

[Andrew Huberman]

Yeah, Chinese baby shower. I don't know what that was.

[Bill Burr]

Is it different when you.

[Andrew Huberman]

I imagine it is. And these babies were born. Now, here's why it's controversial. First of all, he didn't get any approval from the international ethics committee. There is no international ethics committee. There was no international ethics committee on this at that time.

[Bill Burr]

International ethics committee.

[Andrew Huberman]

And there is rumor that this HIV receptor may actually not just confer some susceptibility or resistance to hiv, but that it also might be involved in brain circuits, involved in memory. So the story became that he used CRISPR to generate these, you know, super babies or something like that. The Chinese government claims that he was punished. We don't know if he was punished by being put in jail or given a laboratory. We don't know. It's all very mysterious and cloaked. But when this happened, the international community paused, and it was very unclear. I was watching this very closely. It was very unclear for a few moments whether or not he would be given a Nobel Prize or whether or not he would be thrown into a cell. The world didn't know how to deal with this because he was way ahead of the curve. I guarantee that there are countries now where people are using CRISPR on embryos. I'm certain it is, you know, has serious ethical concerns. It is not allowed in the United States, but it's coming. In fact, you can deep sequence embryos now from ivf, and you can isolate the embryos that you think have the fewest disease genes or that you think have the most genes that would confer whatever traits that you.

[Bill Burr]

Well, don't you think we're always late on getting to some of these things. I know from a friend who had cancer that he had to go to Mexico to do the thing where they take the stem cells out and put it back in your body. And it worked, by the way.

[Andrew Huberman]

Yeah.

[Bill Burr]

Why do we have to go to Mexico to do that?

[Andrew Huberman]

Our regulatory bodies here are much stricter on certain things than anywhere else.

[Bill Burr]

But, I mean, if you're dying, what do you have to lose?

[Andrew Huberman]

Yeah. Well, there's this weird inverse stringency. So when it comes to, like, sunscreen, we'll talk about sunscreen, for instance, you know, or food additives. Europe bans certain things that we allow very readily.

[Bill Burr]

Formaldehyde.

[Andrew Huberman]

Yeah. And certain pesticides. And In Europe, alcohol. No dis is classified as a.

[Bill Burr]

No dis.

[Andrew Huberman]

World Health Organization classifies it as a Class 1 carcinogen. Do as you like, but know what you're doing here. We don't classify it as a carcinogen, even though we know it increases cancer risk. You're fine. You're healthy in other ways.

[Bill Burr]

I wasn't freaking out for a drink. Right?

[Andrew Huberman]

You're very calm.

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Make it quick, young man. Aw. See?

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Huh?

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[Bill Burr]

you know that feeling when you're at the gym doing the exact same routine you've done for years, and somehow two miles on the treadmill feels like you're training for the Olympics? Well, nothing's wrong. Exactly. You're not sick. You're not tired. Tired. But bending down to tie your shoe has somehow become an event nobody tells you about that part of getting older. There's no pamphlet. One day you're fine, the next your body's just running on low battery mode. So some guys in my world started looking into Mars Men. Even one of my producers has, and he's not a guy who gets excited about things. What he told me is it's not like taking a shot of espresso and bouncing off the walls. It's more like the lights came back on, workouts felt stronger, recovery got better, and he stopped needing a nap after doing basically nothing. Here's the science part, and I'll keep it short because I know you didn't come here for the lecture. Apparently, there's a protein in your body that binds to your testosterone and basically puts it in witness protection. Mars Men is designed to help free that up naturally. We're talking zinc, vitamin D, boron, no needles, no weird Lab stuff, nothing synthetic. For a limited time, our listeners get 50% off for life plus free shipping and three free gifts@ Mengotomars.com that's Mengotomars.com for 50% off and three free gifts. When you check out, after you purchase, they will ask you where you heard about them. Please support our show and tell them our show sent you.

[Andrew Huberman]

But on the other side, when you think about which drugs we allow doctors to provide or what's allowed over the counter here, there's a lot more stringency. For instance, right now there's a huge battle over peptides, which I'm happy to talk about because the GLPs are so popular. Which are peptides?

[Bill Burr]

What are peptides?

[Andrew Huberman]

Peptides are small chains of amino acids that have a biological function. Insulin's a peptide. GLP1 is a peptide. You make these things naturally, but these can be synthesized and put into the body and they can have an effect. And typically when a drug like a GLP1 drug like Ozempic, Mounjaro or the big one that's coming, this is going to be a trillion dollar drug and it has huge implications for the sorts of things you and I think about. The interaction between politics and health is retatrutide. It's a GLP3, meaning it hits the GLP receptor, GIP and glucagon. It can cause up to a third of loss in body weight and some degree of muscle sparing. Some people should still exercise. Now Eli Lilly holds the patent. It went through phase three very successfully. Eli Lilly does not want compounding pharmacies selling retatrutide.

[Bill Burr]

Why?

[Andrew Huberman]

Because it's far cheaper. And we had this recent thing where Trump argued for lower drug prices, right?

[Bill Burr]

Yeah.

[Andrew Huberman]

Do you think the drug companies were like, oh, yeah, sure, let's just lower drug prices? No, it was a deal, Right. I won't say how I know this, but it was a deal whereby the administration kind of did a wink nod that drugs were going to pass more quickly through R and D to market. So they're going to make up the cost differential on the research and development end. Right. Less money invested in research and development, less time to market and happy to lower prices. This is my understanding. Someone will probably tell me I'm wrong, but that's my understanding. Now, Eli Lilly wants to protect the patent for retatrutide. But I'll tell you, in Los Angeles county right now, there are a lot of people, mostly people that get in front of cameras taking retatrutide because it works so spectacularly well, at a fifth of the prescribed dose or the recommended dose from these trials and at a tenth of the price if you get it from a compounding pharmacy. Now compounding pharmacies aren't supposed to make it, but this is another area where the FDA would like them to not do it. But it's pseudo regulated. The gray market as I'm referring to it, is when people can buy this stuff online for research purposes only. Okay? And then the black market people refer to as Chinese peptides, which are peptides that probably don't contain what you think they do. And there's very little astringency and you have to really worry about contamination. It's a little unfair to China, I want to be clear. Like these could be coming from Belarus for all I know. I mean they could be coming from anywhere. But people refer to them as Chinese peptides, which is not fair. We should just call them black market peptides. So the FDA would like to protect its relationship to pharma. Pharma wants to protect the patents for drugs where there's a lot of money. Retatrutide stands to be a trillion dollar drug. So here's the weird split. I want to make sure I close the hatch on the FDA piece right now. The key is to prevent harm, right? We don't want people taking black market or gray market peptides that could hurt them. At the same time, these compounding pharmacies have made many drugs, not just GLPs, but many drugs much more affordable to people. In a landscape that I don't even have to justify, right? People are really struggling for healthcare, self directed healthcare. Are peptides the be all, end all? Well, no, not necessarily lifestyle factors and drugs in some cases, or lifestyle factors and, you know, other things. But the key here is that if a drug stands to make a company a lot of money, then there's an incentive to regulate this stuff. So we're in this weird landscape where I really think you have two populations of slightly overlapping populations of people. You have people that their level of stringency is if it's not FDA approved from a traditional company, you know, from pharma, multiple randomized controlled trials. I don't want to take it, I'm not putting it anywhere near my family or anyone I know. And then you have a separate category of people which is quite large who say the fact that something is from pharma, the fact that it's associated with the FDA is the major reason why they do want to take something. And this is where I think I'm So tired of looking at traditional media coverage of like peptides is where they throw it out like a dog's breakfast. Of all these different things. Lump and just say peptides don't do anything. Really? Insulin doesn't do anything for a diabetic. Really. The GLPs don't do anything. The root of all of this is control of the patent and financial pipeline. Which is not to say that I don't understand you can't relate. I mean, Lilly. I have no stock in Lilly. Kind of wish I did. I mean it's over 1,000 bucks right now. It was a couple hundred bucks a few years ago. Lilly invested hundreds of millions of dollars. They stand to make trillions of dollars. It makes every bit of sense why they would try and shut down that read A True Tide compound.

[Bill Burr]

It's so funny that it's so similar to politics, which is you can't trust either half fully. You have when the argument is like peptides are all bad.

[Andrew Huberman]

Right.

[Bill Burr]

It's like Trump is all evil or you know, the Democrats are all evil. And it's like you have to read both sides because nobody tells you the full truth. They only want to forward their narrative. And it sounds like it's the same thing in medicine as it is in politics.

[Andrew Huberman]

It is. I mean as a research scientist and friends with many, many physician scientists and physicians, I do think, at least at Stanford, most all physicians and scientists, I do believe want to solve problems correctly and provide good for the world.

[Bill Burr]

Stanford seems like it's a super woke place.

[Andrew Huberman]

No, Stanford, we have Hoover, we have the Hoover folks, right. I mean that's like a libertarian think tank, basically.

[Bill Burr]

Oh, is that.

[Andrew Huberman]

Connie Rice runs it, I believe.

[Bill Burr]

Is that at Stanford?

[Andrew Huberman]

Yeah, it's at Stanford. The big tower. The tower.

[Bill Burr]

You know, I'm not.

[Andrew Huberman]

Yeah, sorry, I got familiar with. No, I would say Stanford on balance is, is very, is very balanced because

[Bill Burr]

I read somewhere like this is going back, you know, sort of peak woke time five years ago or something that they had 10,000 administrators.

[Andrew Huberman]

It's a big place. It's got his own zip code, you know.

[Bill Burr]

Okay, but it just seems like that's all. We're not talking about professors and we're not talking about students. We're talking about bureaucrats kind of, you know.

[Andrew Huberman]

But there is a hospital, a children's hospital. I mean it's one of the most modern. And look, I maybe, you know, you know, I have this podcast.

[Bill Burr]

I don't trust anything until I get both sides of the story. I'm just saying I read that. And that. That. That I concede right away, that is forwarding somebody's narrative that elite colleges are out of control. Which, by the way, I do think there is absolute truth in that. What's the other side of it? Well, there's another side of it, too, so I'm anxious to hear you tell me. Maybe we need 10,000. Maybe they do need 10,000 administrators at Stanford.

[Andrew Huberman]

Well, with the caveat that I can already hear the voices saying, oh, you know, he's just trying to protect his job. Look, I'm tenured. You know, Jay kept his job during the pandemic.

[Bill Burr]

You're a celebrity now. You can't be fired.

[Andrew Huberman]

I mean, I have this other gig, so I'm comfortable. So, you know. But I will tell you. I'll give you the positives, I'll give you the negatives. I'll be real direct with you. I've been many places in my academic career, and I will tell you that while there are other, many other excellent places, there are very, very few, if any, places in the world where you find people who are just absolutely focused on bringing their science, which often impacts healthcare, to the next level with the utmost degree of rigor. My colleagues are amazing, I'm telling you. I mean, I've got colleagues like Carl Deisseroth, who developed ways to image and modify cellular activity across the board. Everything from humans, rat, cat, monkey, bat, for research purposes. People who were blind are seeing again as a consequence of that.

[Bill Burr]

Right.

[Andrew Huberman]

I've got colleagues building artificial retinas. I've got colleagues who are figuring out in the psychology department that are really parsing this notion of, like, ally chrome mindsets, which is a setting for the mind, how to navigate stress, not just thinking that stress is gonna dissolve you into a puddle of tears, but how to harness stress performance. She's a D1 athlete, clinical psychologist, and runs a major research lab. And mom and happily married. I mean, these people are, like, on a whole other level. Okay. It's also a place where people are very collegial. Now, are there a lot of administrators? Yes. Are there a lot of beautiful lawns and palm trees also? Yes. But I'll tell you the real strength of Stanford. You know this woman, this freestyle skier who ended up skiing for China in the La Go.

[Bill Burr]

Yeah.

[Andrew Huberman]

Okay. She's Stanford. Okay. I will tell you, the real prize at Stanford is the students. Right? Everyone who works there knows that the intellect of the students and the ingenuity of the students is what sets it apart. And again, there are other places. Now, the downside, doing research is very expensive. Very expensive. And in the current NIH climate, one of the first things that happened when HHS got revised and I was very bullish about pushing back on this, is they want to cut the indirect cost, the support of the university, not just the labs, to 15% across the country. That would devastate science across the country. Now you could say, oh well, Stanford's got this massive endowment. It's as big as a country. Same with Harvey. Why don't they pull from there? Okay, let's just take that argument and say 15% would take the University of Utah, which is a fantastic place, a fantastic place for biomedical research and many other things, the UT Austins, the Wisconsins, the Wash U's, and it would demolish them. Fortunately, that cut didn't happen. And I'm very happy to say, and I take no credit for this, but I've been very vocal on the phone and elsewhere, getting in Jay's ear and other people's ear. You cannot cut the federal budget for research in this country. It fuels companies, it fuels basically the healthcare exploration and development for the entire world. And they just put a 1% increase on the budget. Now, I think that's too small. But the problem that I have with big institutions, rich institutions like Stanford, Harvard, mit, Caltech, now here's the other piece of it, is that 30% of the indirect money, meaning the additional funds that come from nih, go to a very small subset of universities across the country for big facilities, genomics facilities, proteomic facilities, which means that the laboratories there have what many people view as a bit of an unfair advantage. Okay. So if we really wanted to equally distribute intellectual growth, and we want to equally distribute scientific growth, we would distribute that money more equally across the country. Now, my colleagues at Stanford are going to hate me for saying this, but it's kind of weird, right? I mean, if you're at the University of Colorado, Boulder, and you're a graduate student, shouldn't you have the opportunity to do the most cutting edge experiments there? And just because you're not at Stanford, you shouldn't be hindered. So I think a lot of the

[Bill Burr]

country feels left out.

[Andrew Huberman]

Yeah. And I think the redistribution of some of these funds would be good.

[Bill Burr]

It would be helpful. A lot of the country feels like all the cool jobs are in a few different places and they kind of look down on us. And we're not all hicks out here, you know, I think something like this would go a long way. Yes. Yeah. I mean, I don't know what the University of Boulder is like, but, you know, I've been to Boulder. I played the city. It's not a bunch of fucking hicks.

[Andrew Huberman]

It's very liberal. Great place.

[Bill Burr]

Very liberal.

[Andrew Huberman]

Great place. Great science. Yeah, I mean, they had some unfortunate incidents there. I think there was like a. Like some sort of pseudo terrorist attack.

[Bill Burr]

No, no, no.

[Andrew Huberman]

Someone threw a Molotov cocktail or something at some protester. I mean, this guy. I mean, Boulder seems like a nice little piece of.

[Bill Burr]

I think it was the place where the Batman, he dressed as the Joker or Batman or something. This is like 2013. I remember because I played the city like a couple of months after. It was in a theater. It was a shooting. It was a mass shooting.

[Andrew Huberman]

Yeah, that's right.

[Bill Burr]

I know what you're referring to.

[Andrew Huberman]

And yeah, yeah, I think that was. Yeah, I'm thinking of a separate incident, a more recent incident that was related to a public protest.

[Bill Burr]

No, I remember. Cause I donated the proceeds from the weekend in Colorado to that fund. I know it was.

[Andrew Huberman]

Yeah, there was one at University of Virginia as well.

[Bill Burr]

Would've looked bad not to.

[Andrew Huberman]

Or Virginia Tech, but yeah, it was. Yeah. Redistribution of resources across the country would be great. And so I talked to Jay about this today and he said that one of the initiatives is to start creating national centers that get a large percentage of funding so that scientists and people running clinical studies from anywhere in the country can go there and use the state of the art tools to be able to do their experiments anywhere. I think that's a wonderful idea. I think that that's going to ruffle some feathers at some of the, let's say, wealthier institutions. But endowments are very, you know, are thick at certain places. Right. There's a lot of money sitting in the endowments of these places.

[Bill Burr]

No, and as you say, I think it's important for people to know that some of this stuff that, and I agree with you that they shouldn't cut any of this money. It hasn't happened. You know, people come up to me all the time when I'm out and Bill, what are we gonna do? Like their world is coming to an end, which it's not. And I was just saying the Supreme Court stopped the President from his tariff thing. You know, I'm sure you saw that that was a kind of a big one that the Supreme Court, including two of his appointees, said, no, I'm sorry, you know, we'll give you a lot, but we're not going to give you this. Thousands of cases of local courts have pushed back on detaining immigrants. And the budget that he asked for never got, it's basically the same down the line as it was the year before he took office. So for people who think the sky is falling, it's not quite falling. You know, there still is a system that we have. It's definitely taking a stress test we've never had before. But it's sort of holding in this way. And this is part of it. Like that money is still there. Yeah, the money is still America and we're still, you know. Do you think we're the leading edge

[Andrew Huberman]

in scientific research, holding in there with some other top places like in Germany, Switzerland, Scandinavia, and I will tell you, China is in terms of brain machine interface, inserting chips into the brain of non human primates and humans to do, you know, increasing memory, novel ways of using AI for cognition. They are miles ahead of us.

[Bill Burr]

What do you mean non human primates?

[Andrew Huberman]

Ape, macaque monkeys is the typical model. Very hard to do that work in the United States because it's very expensive and it's dangerous. Macaque monkeys carry something called. It's a form of herpes that kills humans. They get a cold sore. People have died from this. There was a woman in Atlanta, had some monkey.

[Bill Burr]

How do you get a cold sore from a monkey?

[Andrew Huberman]

Well, no, the monkeys splash urine in her eye. And so, yeah, I mean, it was deadly. She was dead within a couple weeks.

[Bill Burr]

Is that right?

[Andrew Huberman]

Yeah.

[Bill Burr]

So years, you know, not that it's going to really affect my personal life, but which monkey is this?

[Andrew Huberman]

The macaque monkey.

[Bill Burr]

The macaque?

[Andrew Huberman]

The big ones with big teeth?

[Bill Burr]

No, no. Yeah, I fucked some chimps, but this is. This is not okay.

[Andrew Huberman]

Oh, my goodness.

[Bill Burr]

Wow. So that's.

[Andrew Huberman]

Yeah. So China is making strides. You know, Switzerland shut down non human primate research. As far as I know, it's very expensive to do in the U.S. the National Primate Centers used to be a big piece of research in this country for everything. The development of birth control was tested in non human primates. You know, they're the closest model to us. Now, I have to say, you know, I'm not saying this to protect myself. I'm saying this because I truly feel, I think the need for justification to do work on non human primates has to be very high. They are very much like us. I've interacted with these animals a lot.

[Bill Burr]

Does it hurt them when they do it?

[Andrew Huberman]

Yes, it does. They do what they can to minimize pain, but it absolutely does. I mean, having stereotypes implanted in the head, injections into the eye. There's no way to do that completely painlessly. And you know, that's tough. It wears on the soul. I will tell you to do that work.

[Bill Burr]

I'm Peter. I'm Peter McGinn.

[Andrew Huberman]

Right. So I am. I personally couldn't do that work, you know, years ago. You know, I've worked on a bunch of different species and I'll tell you, one of the reasons I'm so happy to be doing what I'm doing now is I hated working on animal models. But in many cases, animal models are what we have. But again, non human primates, we need a very, very high justification and threshold before one would want to invest in doing that kind of work.

[Bill Burr]

As long as, what are we going to get out of it? That's worth it.

[Andrew Huberman]

Yeah. So I think, okay, well, you're asking me to justify something for which I'm a little.

[Bill Burr]

No, I'm not asking you to justify it. I'm just saying what in the best possible scenario would we get out of it where someone down the road could make the case and say, yes, I'm sorry the monkey suffered, but now, you know, 8 million children with Tourette Syndrome are free of this curse.

[Andrew Huberman]

Yeah, I guess it depends on the extent to which you believe that going from mouse to human is a reasonable jump. It's been the intermediate species. It's either been mouse to pig to human or mouse to non human primate to human for, you know, dose lethality, infectious disease, you know, I mean, they are very similar to us, you know, I'll tell you, I'm very happy to not work on non human primates. They, they are sentient, as are dogs, in my belief. And it's a, it's a really tough, tough problem. I think one of the, one of the challenges is that now there's a lot of excitement about AI and I think you can do a lot with AI that you, you know, that you couldn't do a few years ago. But cells, as you were pointing out earlier that, you know, the foundational building block of all organs and health. And oftentimes to understand human health, you have to understand it in a, in a model system that's similar. Let me give you an example. This is. As long as we're staying edgy, there's something new that's being done in Mexico and in Europe called Three party ivf. It's illegal here. It's actually being done in the uk.

[Bill Burr]

I think I had one here. So we know that only one of them was Mexican.

[Andrew Huberman]

But we know that as women age, the number of sort of eggs that can be successfully fertilized and create healthy humans goes down with age. We know this. Right? So one of the things that makes it harder as women get older is the mitochondrial genes that control some of the splitting of the egg and the formation of more cells, et cetera. Turns out that people figured this out first in mice and then in non human primates, that you can take the DNA from the woman who wants to be the mom, the sperm from the guy that wants to be the dad, and you can take those and put them into an egg from a younger donor where the DNA has been taken out, but the spindle and the things that pull it across with the mitochondrial genes are intact and you can end up with a healthy kid. How do we know this? Because there are women who have mitochondrial genetic diseases. This was done in the UK and all your mitochondrial genes come from your mom. And so these people wanted to have kids. So someone said, hey, maybe you could do this. So they did it first in mice, then in non human primates, and now in Mexico and elsewhere around the world, people who are having trouble conceiving or by standard IVF are starting to do this three party ivf. It's not yet legal in the United States, but this is a good example where it went from mouse to non human primate to human. So you would say, gosh, would you want to go from mouse to human? Like, that's a pretty big jump. So at the same time, we're not macaque monkeys. They're not identical to us, obviously. So it's the way the fields have progressed and in terms of cognition and things like that. But again, I don't want to be. I'm not arguing that more work should be done in non human primates. I'm not making that argument. I think whenever possible, we should avoid the use of animal models. Always. Right. Why injure or take a life when you potentially don't have to?

[Bill Burr]

But you know when you say whenever possible. Yeah.

[Andrew Huberman]

I mean, there are cancer treatments that I doubt humans, unless they're dying and they're really at the end of life.

[Bill Burr]

No, it's just, it's just saying, I mean, this is the, this is where the rubber meets the road.

[Andrew Huberman]

Yeah.

[Bill Burr]

Is whenever possible. Of course, I think everyone would say whenever possible.

[Andrew Huberman]

Right. Or most people. And in this country, we don't tend to have cat and dog research anymore, largely because of the advocacy groups, because

[Bill Burr]

we like them, because they're our pets.

[Andrew Huberman]

The other one, people tell Me, pigs are very sweet.

[Bill Burr]

I don't know. But they're not our pets, so we throw them under the bus. They're bacon.

[Andrew Huberman]

And China's different. China treats. You know, I think they treat this whole landscape of animal research very differently. They have a lot of researchers in Europe keep their primates in China because of the lower costs and do the work there. I mean, we're sort of going into the future of brain machine interface and kind of where that is. And, yes, China is really a. Kind of a hot seat.

[Bill Burr]

But why couldn't. Why do we have to use animals? Why can't we just use humans that nobody likes? Like, you know, Klansmen or, you know, guys who are on Epstein Island? Well, something like. Something like that. I mean, there's.

[Andrew Huberman]

So that's how they should settle the Epstein.

[Bill Burr]

Well, of course, because they're human. It's going to be better research anyway.

[Andrew Huberman]

Oh, my goodness, those files. I couldn't help but go into those files, and I was able to find examples of people saying, you can find this there saying, we should. Too bad we can't experiment on kids. Or we should experiment on kids. It's in those files.

[Bill Burr]

Experiment what? On kids?

[Andrew Huberman]

They just are talking about wanting to do experiments on. On children. Who is in the files?

[Bill Burr]

But who. Which. Which people?

[Andrew Huberman]

Oh, okay. So Bill Gates, you really want to go down this.

[Bill Burr]

Yeah, I'm curious. All right.

[Andrew Huberman]

It's all on the DOJ site.

[Bill Burr]

Okay.

[Andrew Huberman]

Yeah. So.

[Bill Burr]

But who? What.

[Andrew Huberman]

So here's what I think is not.

[Bill Burr]

Deepak.

[Andrew Huberman]

Deepak. I don't think so. No.

[Bill Burr]

Oh, he's. I think that's the worst because he always was like, oh, I'm the spiritual man. I'm the healer. I will tell you. You are part of the universe. Yeah. Part of the universe that went to Epstein Island. And I mean, his shit just. I mean, I like him. He's been. I've never met him.

[Andrew Huberman]

I'm never one.

[Bill Burr]

Okay. He's.

[Andrew Huberman]

I'm proud to say I've never met him.

[Bill Burr]

He's a sweet guy, but, you know, it was always a Halloween costume, and I'm not that sorry that it got. The mask got torn off. I mean, it just. Look, I'm not a person who's big on, you know, like, people who say they're spiritual leaders anyway, so, like, you know, his thing was always. I was winking, and I always felt he was kind of winking back. Like, you and I both know I'm selling a book, okay? You know, like, that kind of thing. And it's the Same book like 45 times.

[Andrew Huberman]

Yeah. That's weird when people publish the same book over and over. That's just because. What is that?

[Bill Burr]

It's because people want to be reaffirmed of what? Sunken cost fallacy. You know what that is that, you know, like you say, you believe the gypsy who's been telling you that, you know, to give all your money to this person and you just. You already out a million bucks. You can't turn back on it now. Even though something in your mind is telling you this is not right, but it's sunken cost fallacy. You just keep going with it. I think that's what it is.

[Andrew Huberman]

You're talking about the customers or the people who write these things that.

[Bill Burr]

The customers, Yeah. I mean, for the people who write them, it's just a gravy train, but for the customers, yes, it's like, you know, the latest version of. Yes, it's the same book over and over, but it's telling them. It's comforting to hear what you already think you know and believe and is helping you, even though there's probably a mountain of evidence that it's not. Or maybe it does, because the human mind is an amazing place that can convince itself of anything and a lot of success in life. Somebody once said it a million years ago, if you think you're happy, you're happy. Are you happy? I am happy right now.

[Andrew Huberman]

Yeah. I'm happy. I equate being peaceful and being happy. Very similar.

[Bill Burr]

Yeah. Well, I mean, why you. If you're not happy, then you have big fucking problems. I mean, you're doing well, you're well liked, you're popular, you're a huge success.

[Andrew Huberman]

You know, I mean, I have my internal crime of life, internal storms like anyone else where. Where, you know, I see things out in the world that frustrate me. But then I remind myself my, you know, I'm striving and I'm, you know.

[Bill Burr]

Yes. There's a lot of cognitive dissonance I feel, between the top half of the country that is doing well. You know, not the people who are working three jobs and paycheck to paycheck, but the people, the ones who come up to me and say, bill, what are we gonna do? Well, because it's just a dissonance between, like, their world, which is fucking awesome. And look, even if your world is awesome, I'm not saying you're wrong to be worried about the state of the country. Absolutely. I'm in the boat with you. There I am. But I also don't lose sight of the fact that my own world. No, I'm not on the edge of madness every day. And maybe we'll get there, but we're not. So let's not pretend we are. Let's not pretend. What are we gonna do? Go finish your dinner. That's what you're gonna do.

[Andrew Huberman]

Yeah. Well, I think that the numbing out and the rage that the Internet offers are incredibly intoxicating for people. I think, you know, to go online is to either forget what you would otherwise be surrounded by.

[Bill Burr]

It's what every algorithm is built on, isn't it?

[Andrew Huberman]

Built on that?

[Bill Burr]

Built on hate and rage and conflict.

[Andrew Huberman]

Yeah. I mean, I think the Epstein files, to me are an interesting. I think people are gonna be talking about this a hundred years from now. I think it's gonna be, wow. Really? I think it's. Well, I'll say a couple things. First of all, I never met him, never interacted with him, never corresponded with him, you know, and thrilled about that.

[Bill Burr]

Makes two of us.

[Andrew Huberman]

Yeah.

[Bill Burr]

Great.

[Andrew Huberman]

Nice. Thank you. Once again, thank you.

[Bill Burr]

We'll start off with that.

[Andrew Huberman]

You know, he had deep pause in the scientific community.

[Bill Burr]

Yes.

[Andrew Huberman]

And in media.

[Bill Burr]

Every community.

[Andrew Huberman]

And every community. I'm very happy to know that, you know, no one at Stanford was taking money from him. That's great. Actually. I remember in 2017 when that case kind of first broke, and I'm in touch with our development, our fundraising office all the time, and I said, please tell me that he's not funding labs. And they said, no. He approached us. We gave him the cold shoulder. You know, they vet very carefully, which is what MIT didn't do, it's what Harvard didn't do, it's what Columbia didn't do. I mean, my. I consider him a colleague only because he's in the field of neuroscience. Right. But Richard Axel won the Nobel Prize for discovering the molecular basis of olfaction. He shared it with Linda Buck in 2004, and he had to step down as the director of the Columbia Neurosciences Institute today.

[Bill Burr]

You got this off YouTube?

[Andrew Huberman]

No, I got this off every.

[Bill Burr]

Yeah.

[Andrew Huberman]

So, you know, don't take me so serious. Okay, well, I'll try not to.

[Bill Burr]

He learned to sit here.

[Andrew Huberman]

I mean, he was. He was a killer of our field. And to learn that he was, you know, buddy. Buddy with Epstein for so many years, and, you know, I think that it's. So here's one thing that's clear to me at the. I'm not a psychologist, but I'm a human being with some Degree of experience. And what I know is that if you're in touch with your gut sense, if you're around a guy like Epstein, you should want to get out of there. So the fact that people. With. With. Now, I understand how some people were manipulated by him because they were too young or whatever to be able to navigate that, but why anyone, especially these supposed high IQ folks, would actively seek him out and try to embed themselves in his.

[Bill Burr]

Oh, I can answer that question.

[Andrew Huberman]

Omnipotence.

[Bill Burr]

But before I do, who are you gonna tell me about?

[Andrew Huberman]

Richard Axel?

[Bill Burr]

Is that who you were talking about? Oh, before, yes.

[Andrew Huberman]

Yeah. No, that wasn't what I was gonna tell you about.

[Bill Burr]

Well, tell me.

[Andrew Huberman]

Okay, so I've looked at this thing very carefully now, because you and I are in the business of media. So here's the question that I think has not been explored thoroughly enough. Why is it that in 2008, Epstein was convicted, then comes back to New York. I mean, he's still traveling all over the place, and people continue to engage with this guy. Like, people seek him out. People are taking funding from him. And yes, I got it. He wore the Harvard sweatshirt, which doesn't mean shit at all, by the way. Anyone can buy that.

[Bill Burr]

Anyway, I can tell you why.

[Andrew Huberman]

Why?

[Bill Burr]

He's a pimp. I can't believe I have to explain this to everybody. He's a pimp. Okay? There are people in this world, a lot of them, who are very achievement oriented, shall we say, and successful in their field, which is either science or finance, who have zero clue how to get a female human into bed.

[Andrew Huberman]

So you think these guys were just too TV to get laid?

[Bill Burr]

Correct. He's a guy like any pimp who can just get. I don't know what it is. I don't possess it. I don't want to possess it. It's horrible if you do it. But he could get all these women. And you look at the emails. It's in the emails.

[Andrew Huberman]

I mean, some of them were certifiably dweeby.

[Bill Burr]

Well, they're saying things like, richard Branson, hope I get to see you again, but, you know, only if you're gonna bring your harem.

[Andrew Huberman]

So it's what he brought with him. I accept your hypothesis, but the. But may I do a. Yes, and if you.

[Bill Burr]

Implies yes and yes, or you can disagree.

[Andrew Huberman]

And I've talked about this before, publicly, Actually, a couple years ago, before any of this popped, I was on Rogan and I, and we were talking about why scientists cozied up to Epstein, and he Provided either directly or by being the rabbi in certain introductions, enormous amounts of funding to certain places. Like, you know, I mean, they're in the files, right? I mean, I'm not trying to dodge a lawsuit here. I mean, the Columbia Neuroscience Institute was not funded by Epstein, but there's a lot of record of sort of joint meetings around that and, you know, people in the leadership from Columbia meeting with Epstein and the people who eventually gave the money. So here's the part that, I don't know, maybe I'm just too west coast to understand, but here's the thing.

[Bill Burr]

What's that?

[Andrew Huberman]

Well, it's just, you know, this is a very New York story when you really think about it. He had the biggest real estate for Footprint. He had all in an island and all this shit. Like, honestly, like, I grew up in the South Bay. I'm impressed by people that discovered things and done things and, you know, creatives and things like that. Like, I get it, I understand Manhattan, where your real estate is, how big the real estate is. But for people to otherwise intelligent people to blow past their understanding of his crimes, because that's what they were against minors. Wait, hold on. This means something. I know. Let's just take the example of the person who's not there for the women, who is there for the money, because a lot of people made a lot of money for their pet projects, their research projects, their technology projects. I mean, the list of people that's in there, it doesn't look to me like they were all with him so they could, you know, get access to women. They wanted money. And I think what he. What he offered people was a sense of omnipotence. He has an island that's separate. It was like a level above the level that he offered other people. That turned out to be the level below everything else. And we're somehow shocked now that this happened. But I do think from 2010, this is what I was emphasizing before. From 2010 or so until he was eventually arrested again and was standing trial before he was killed. It's so obvious he was killed and didn't kill himself. He was trying to be a member of the scientific community. I mean, there are interviews in there. He had a staff. He hired people. The guy who he hired, you want something interesting? The guy who he hired to redo his web presence to kind of bury his sex offender status was a guy named Al Secel. I know because he came from the science community. He wasn't a neuroscientist, kind of a failed scientist. He ended up marrying Ghislaine Maxwell's sister. Guess what happened to al Secel in 2015. Found at the bottom of a cliff in France. No one knows what happened. Wild, right? The woman that eventually came out against Prince Andrew, right.

[Bill Burr]

Virginia Gear Free, killed herself.

[Andrew Huberman]

Said at some point, if I die, it's not suicide. And then quote, unquote, killed herself. There are a lot of people that.

[Bill Burr]

Off.

[Andrew Huberman]

Apparently off themselves or allegedly off themselves around this. And one of them was the guy who was in charge of his rebrand. Okay, so I don't. I completely agree with you.

[Bill Burr]

There were people that were just a different issue.

[Andrew Huberman]

It's a different issue.

[Bill Burr]

I do not disagree with you.

[Andrew Huberman]

No, no. I think these are yes. And these are. Yes. Yes.

[Bill Burr]

It very well could be that these deaths are legitimately suspicious.

[Andrew Huberman]

Yeah.

[Bill Burr]

Because a lot of people have a lot to hide from. But the essential question, it's that no matter how big the big head is, there's some. You're right. Some of the smartest people in the world, no matter how big the big head is, it's the little head that is going to. This is the oldest maxim about men in history. You're thinking with the wrong hand. And they will always do that.

[Andrew Huberman]

But to the point of over. But to the point of over.

[Bill Burr]

Lizard.

[Andrew Huberman]

The part that makes no sense to me is overlooking whatever. But not to the point of overlooking the fact that he was a pedophile. It wasn't that he was caught with a prostitute.

[Bill Burr]

It's morals. You think they fucking care about morals?

[Andrew Huberman]

I guess I.

[Bill Burr]

First of all, they were able to justify it because when he came out of that, what they said, what they put out there was that she was like six months below the legal age.

[Andrew Huberman]

That's what was online. But that's not true.

[Bill Burr]

Okay, but that's enough for them to

[Andrew Huberman]

believe, which is exactly the point.

[Bill Burr]

Enough for them to tell themselves I'm not really engaging with a true pedophile.

[Andrew Huberman]

How could they tell themselves that? I would argue it was his web presence, which was very orchestrated. Right. To make him seem like a rich guy who had gotten into some trouble. Came back to you. That's he had people actively working to build that Persona. I've spent some time in these files, and I'll tell you, if his representation online had been closer to the reality, maybe I'm naive, but I like to think it would have been harder for him to pull so many people around him as layers of protection.

[Bill Burr]

I would totally agree with that.

[Andrew Huberman]

Okay, so we're in agreement.

[Bill Burr]

Yeah, we're in Agreement.

[Andrew Huberman]

But what about the other folks around him, like that visited his island? That clearly do not fall into the category that you're talking about. I can't wrap my head around that.

[Bill Burr]

Like who?

[Andrew Huberman]

Well, you know, I mean. I mean, Clinton supposedly spent time with him.

[Bill Burr]

I mean. Kidding.

[Andrew Huberman]

Supposedly spent time with him. Right, Whatever.

[Bill Burr]

Think of him.

[Andrew Huberman]

But he's not. But he's not a. He's not a dweeb. Right.

[Bill Burr]

No, but.

[Andrew Huberman]

Or. Or let's say. Okay, all right. As long as we're coming up with examples, I mean, you gotta be really careful. I just think some of the folks that. That sat down to dinners with him. Right. Like, you couldn't pay me enough money to have dinner with a guy where I had knowledge of. Of that. Listen, I'm far from perfect. I'm not arguing that I'm perfect. I'm not trying to draw a distinction. And sure, I. I have.

[Bill Burr]

No one says you're perfect.

[Andrew Huberman]

Right. I certainly.

[Bill Burr]

I'm replete with flaws, actually. For years. No one has been saying for years.

[Andrew Huberman]

I said I'm replete with flaws.

[Bill Burr]

The problem. I like you, but the problem is

[Andrew Huberman]

no one understood what replete.

[Bill Burr]

No one's saying you're perfect, so I'm certain.

[Andrew Huberman]

But I just don't see a world where people who are otherwise intelligent don't have this issue with not being able to get laid, as you refer to it, are sitting down with somebody who's a convicted criminal for something like that. I mean, pedophiles get killed in prison. I mean, Epstein killed himself. We know that. But it's. I mean, other criminals kill pedophiles.

[Bill Burr]

Dude, I explained it to you. I mean. I mean, if you don't want to get it.

[Andrew Huberman]

No, no, I get it. I get it.

[Bill Burr]

I guess maybe I'm telling you, that is exactly, exactly what it is. All right. That is exactly. I trust your judgment. I'm telling you, okay? The urge in men like that. These dirty guys who are like, I created eight big companies and, you know, I. I made $300 million last week and no girl cares.

[Andrew Huberman]

But some of these guys seem pretty

[Bill Burr]

happy, except for the money.

[Andrew Huberman]

Beautiful women, like some of the big tech giants are very happily married.

[Bill Burr]

Yes.

[Andrew Huberman]

You know, Zuck seems happily married. I mean, Bezos is now happily married.

[Bill Burr]

I mean, you know, I mean, Bezos is newly married. And I agree.

[Andrew Huberman]

Elon seems to have, you know, he's got a lot of baby mamas.

[Bill Burr]

Elon is. On the emails first, he totally denied it, and he's caught being a huge liar. That's who Elon is in the emails. He's caught being a huge liar who said to the world, oh, yeah, he tried to get me on his island and I was not interested. And then the email says, when can I get there? What night is the wildest party? You didn't see that one?

[Andrew Huberman]

I missed that one.

[Bill Burr]

I guess we read different emails.

[Andrew Huberman]

I guess we read different emails.

[Bill Burr]

Well, I mean, that's.

[Andrew Huberman]

I was spending time trying to understand the sort of trajectory of this as it related to the academic and scientific community and his media presence.

[Bill Burr]

But, you know, people like that who have access to do anything tend to do it. You know, my friend has this theory about shark soup. You know, you're not supposed to have it. It's endangered the sharks, but they make soup. And it's not supposed to be really good. But you know what? I can get it and other people can't. Wait.

[Andrew Huberman]

But I thought you're PETA. You're PETA. I am.

[Bill Burr]

I'm not supporting Peter. I'm just saying people. That's what people. They just. The point is that it's forbidden fruit. So I'll. So I'll. So I. And I'm a special person, so I'll indulge in that. But that's. I'm saying the essence of this. They think of themselves. And they are so special in this many other ways. And yet in this fundamental human need. I mean, not to always be picking on Bill Gates, but obviously it was a sexless, passionless marriage at some point. Maybe not in the beginning. Most marriages become that. I know, horrible thing to say, but it's true. And at that point, men are just living lives of quiet desperation.

[Andrew Huberman]

But men who cheat, and I'm not condoning cheating, or women who cheat, certainly not condoning cheating in either direction. They don't have to cheat with minors. I mean, that's the part that makes no fucking sense.

[Bill Burr]

I don't think these guys were cheating with minors. I think Epstein had the minors. I think he introduced them to women who were masseuses.

[Andrew Huberman]

Or you think he was blackmailing them and keeping files on that too?

[Bill Burr]

Probably, yes.

[Andrew Huberman]

There's this thing about the tiger with the camera eyes.

[Bill Burr]

Even if he didn't have it documented, they knew he knew.

[Andrew Huberman]

All right, can I.

[Bill Burr]

Before we close.

[Andrew Huberman]

Do we have to close on this? We're gonna close on this.

[Bill Burr]

No, I just wanna say I know there's a lot of. Everybody wants you. Cause you bring a lot of ratings. So it meant a lot to me that you would come here. And I really Appreciate it.

[Andrew Huberman]

Oh, I'm delighted. I'm always happy.

[Bill Burr]

There's a million things I was wanting to ask you about my own health and. Health, but, you know.

[Andrew Huberman]

Well, I always learn from you. And seriously, I really enjoy our conversations. No, come back anytime. I would love to. I'll tell you one thing about cannabis before we wrap. It's likely being rescheduled or has been rescheduled to Schedule 3, which means. I was told this today, which means that now it can be explored more thoroughly for potential therapeutic uses.

[Bill Burr]

I've been exploring it for 45 years, and I'm telling you, it's fantastic. It doesn't. I mean, it's. Do you think.

[Andrew Huberman]

Unless someone has a predisposition to psychosis, in which case it can be very dangerous.

[Bill Burr]

Oh, for fuck's sake. Yes. Unless. Unless. Unless. I mean, do you think smoking, like, a joint every few days is going to really hurt me? I mean, you.

[Andrew Huberman]

No, The. The. The kid. The kid with a predisposition to schizophrenia. Yes.

[Bill Burr]

Okay. Well. Okay. I'll keep it away from him. Club Random. Oh, my God.

[Andrew Huberman]

Well, thank you.

[Bill Burr]

Yes, you.

[Andrew Huberman]

Oh, man, I got an education there.

[Bill Burr]

I'm going to. Oh, my. I'm going to loosen you up, Andrew. Over the years. It's Club Random.

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[Bill Burr]

Huh?

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Aw.

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