00:41:06 · Andrew Huberman
I do think that once a day, it's very valuable, even if it's for just a few minutes, to just get out of stimulus response and going kind of inward, and checking with yourself whether or not you're allocating your energy properly. Some people are more prone to getting pulled into conversations and dramas and what they see. Sometimes people will see things online that has a long tail in their nervous system, and there's data on this showing that your thoughts in two hours are sort of seeded by what you saw in previous hours. But some people are more of like square waves, when they compartmentalize better. Other people like myself, if I have a conversation earlier that's of interest to me, it sort of lingers, and it will impact the next thing that I do. So I think these moments where you just kind of check-in and separate yourself from all the inputs, allows you to to pivot more effectively. And so we don't really have formal protocols for task switching, but this is extremely important for company founders and employees across the board. Right? You have to be able to to cognitively task switch. And so we need more more data on how that's done, but it certainly involves re... Returning to some state where there aren't any inputs. I think this is very important. In fact, Rick and I have been kicking around some some tools that are not meditations. We've been trying to build some tools that are not meditations. They're not yoga nidra, but that would allow you to program your mind for what comes next. Like, if you think about it, it's 2026. Why in the world are we sitting down to do work and just going, okay, now I'm gonna be focused. And now I'm gonna be creative. Well, I'm gonna... Like, we should have ways to control neural activity that would allow us to access those circuits more quickly and more deeply.
00:42:57 · Daisy Wolf, Andrew Huberman
[00:42:57] S1: I've been pitched on a headband that reduces like, ADHD and helps focus Interesting. By sending waves through your brain. [00:43:04] S0: Mhmm. Yeah. I think it's going to be in part by controlling activity. Mhmm. So it'll be sort of general brain state oscillations and things like that. I think it will I like the idea that it will be personalized. I like the idea that you hear your own voice in your head, maybe through headphones, telling me... That knows you, knows where you're weak and knows where you're strong, and your own AI built coach that's telling you how to create some blinders around certain things and and organize your focus. Or maybe to decompress from the day and just completely relax. [00:43:40] S1: Mhmm. [00:43:40] S0: I'm very excited about these technologies, but mostly in the domain of sleep and waking up. Because right now, we don't have the ideal tools, maybe this company does, but if you think about a sleep mask that could put you to sleep by virtue of controlling your eye movements, it's very easy to do with a little bit of electrical stimulation behind the ear. [00:43:57] S1: Yes. Tell you about that. What's that vagus nerve or something? [00:44:00] S0: Well, you have branches of the vagus around the ear. There's some other vestibular nerves that because they innervate the inner ear that run superficially enough that you can do this, and the extraocular muscles. [00:44:12] S1: So
00:44:12 · Daisy Wolf, Andrew Huberman
[00:44:12] S1: So [00:44:14] S0: I've actually had the chance to try one of these sleep masks, and for me it was six minutes, I'm out. It can also wake you up, which is really interesting. I mean, maybe it would deliver the proper lighting, know, these kinds of things. Yeah. So the transitions into and out of sleep, I think, are going to be the first place where the neurotechnologies really conquer the challenge. Because we know exactly what you need. You need to be asleep. Mhmm. Okay? You need to be awake. You need to be alert. When it comes to, okay, now we're gonna sit down and and do this type of task, we're still not clear what the patterns of brain activity that you want really are. Like for focus, wanna be alert but not too alert. Right? It's the inverted u shape function that over that hump, you... You're highly distractible. Too sleepy, you're highly distractible. It's that sweet spot. So I think that that's a really exciting area of neurotechnology. And again, it'll happen first with sleep. And also with AI, it will be able to calibrate and say, oh, know, we need to make the deflections broader in order to induce when you're in this particular state. [00:45:21] S1: Mhmm.
00:45:23 · Andrew Huberman
[00:45:23] S0: Yeah. I'm super excited by this. So you asked about tools for founders. I think that, right, I think that organizing your day in a way that is tailored to what's most important to you. Right? So setting personal life differences aside, you need to get your best work done twice a day. You need to treat yourself like an athlete. You know, it occurred to me when I was running a lab, but also when I was a postdoc, like, I get to bed earlier at a conference, I'm gonna be sharper the next day at the conference. Conferences were really important to me then. Likewise, with doing experiments, I can get twice as many experiments in as everybody else, not just by working really hard one day, but I'm getting an extra hour of work done. Of course, I was also the person I'd sometimes bring my experiments to seminars. I was like, this is crazy. I I need to run some immunohistochemistry. Why wouldn't I bring it to the seminar? I'd heard someone else did that, I was like, I'm going to just bring my trays and transfer. You know, if everyone started doing that, it'd be problematic. But the point is that if you take yourself and your work really seriously, you need to organize your day that way. I do think that having one day per week where you just completely disengage from things can be very beneficial for your ability to reengage. You you know, my dad's a scientist and has been involved in... Worked at Xerox PARC for a long time, and now he's doing other things. But long ago, he said, you know, you you have to be a long distance runner. Like, is this is an endurance event.
00:46:46 · Daisy Wolf, Andrew Huberman
[00:46:46] S1: I agree. [00:46:47] S0: So the best advice I ever got, and this will be the last piece on this, is there was a neurologist out at UC Berkeley and UCSF, Bob Knight, years ago, very talented. And I asked him for advice, was starting graduate school, and he said, Figure out the maximum amount of real work that you can do every day consistently, and then figure out some nondestructive way to reset yourself every single week. I thought, okay. And for me, at that time, could work very, very long hours. I said, how do you reset? He said he he likes fishing. I'm okay with fishing, but I'm not into... I I know what I like. I like to hike. I like to get into nature and spend time with people while I do it. So I figured out I could work x number of hours per day, five days a week, sometimes a little trough in the middle of the week, and I just stuck to it for, you know, twenty five years. If you... People who take a ton of stimulants and just blitz, blitz, blitz, blitz, blitz, these are the same people that crash and disappear. So you have to figure out and build your capacity. And I think we don't talk about that enough because people really differ in in this regard. But yes, you have to work extremely hard. You have to be extremely focused, but you also have to figure out how long you can keep this up.
00:48:04 · Erik Torenberg
[00:48:04] S2: Thanks for listening to this episode of the a 16 z podcast. If you like this episode, be sure to like, comment, subscribe, leave us a rating or a review, and share it with your friends and family. For more episodes, go to YouTube, Apple Podcasts, and Spotify. Follow us on x at a sixteen z, and subscribe to our Substack at a16z.substack.com. Thanks again for listening, and I'll see you in the next episode. As a reminder, the content here is for informational purposes only, should not be taken as legal business, tax, or investment advice, or be used to evaluate any investment or security and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any a16z fund. Please note that a sixteen z and its affiliates may also maintain investments in the companies discussed in this podcast. For more details, including a link to our investments, please see a 16z.com forward /disclosures.