We won't need labor in five years. There will be no jobs in ten years, none at all. Maybe we'll all still work one day and have some kind of soft job, but anyone who says otherwise is either politically correct or doesn't understand AI and robotics. We've only seen the tip of the iceberg. Everything will be deregulated. They want to go back to the period from 1840 to 1910. We had 40 years of extremely high capital markets, extremely high valuations, because we also had 10-20% economic growth, because there was no regulation back then. There's no DNA for dinosaurs anymore, but there's an idea with AI and a new technology where you can assemble DNA. It won't be an exact dinosaur, but I believe in five-plus years you can create an animal that is something like a T-Rex.
For the third time as a guest, almost you'd say a regular. Although the first recording was in 2020, then '22, now '26, a longer break, and an incredible amount has happened in Christian Angermayer's life. I think it's going to be fireworks. Hello Christian.
Hello. Very pleased. Thank you, thank you, that I was at least okay enough for you to have me back a third time.
Yes, of course. So you already mentioned last time, for anyone who wants to listen back, we won't start from the very beginning, maybe a brief overview later, but there is really an incredible amount going on with you.
A very brief preview: when we came in here, I asked you where you're coming from, what you're doing, and why your phone keeps ringing. And you said, tell us briefly what you said.
This week, I think the podcast comes out after this, so to speak, but now that we're sitting here, this week is the Munich Security Conference, and on Friday afternoon we're hosting an entrepreneur get-together, what do you call it? Chatham House Rule with Secretary Rubio and others, so the US Secretary of State. Yes, exactly.
The one you're bringing there yourself, or you could... No, no, he's there because of the security conference. Yes, but we have a good contact. And I think it's important, maybe we'll get to it in the podcast, I have a very positive opinion on what's happening in the USA right now, a less positive opinion on where Europe is heading. And I think it's important because people always hear it from me and then they say, 'Okay, Christian is a bit of a fanboy.' And I always add, yes, I'm not the spokesperson for the Trump administration, but I believe it's important, when people then meet someone like Rubio and understand a bit, that my core point is, we're already in the middle of it, but my core point about the USA is, no matter how you evaluate it, we can discuss it with anyone. And I might not always have the same opinion as the Trump administration, but the biggest mistake, which I think many media and many Germans and Europeans make, is to say it's all chaotic, it's completely crazy, because it's exactly the opposite. They have a very, very structured approach, a very detailed problem analysis. If I saw this as a company, I would say, top notch.
From your perspective, you know the Trump family quite well and many of the players. Who is the one who thinks about this the most or designed the strategy? Is it Mr. Trump himself, Donald Trump, or who is the mastermind?
Like when a sentence is finished, and that's why I think it's important what we're doing on Friday or what we did in the podcast, is that German entrepreneurs hear it directly from the horse's mouth, so to speak, that I'm not just reporting, oh my God, they have a real strategy. And as I always say, you can still say you don't like the strategy, but I think it's very important to understand, it exists, it's very well thought out, and it's also executed very, very well. Yes. And so on. So, but that's ultimately a core team. First of all, I would say Trump is like an extremely good CEO. Yes, he has assembled an extremely good team around him. He also has an extreme love and passion like an entrepreneur. Really, the simplest way is to imagine it like a company. I think that's the difficulty many media and also many German politicians have, because they operate in completely different... I'll tell an anecdote. I was... I have to think about what I'm allowed to tell, but last week I sat with a family member and it was about a head of state who would like to see his father. Also an important head of state, not the biggest country in the world, but in the top 50. And he's been trying for six months, I know because the son asked me, trying to get an appointment. One of his family members said, okay, let's call my dad. Because he really likes to meet, but head of states, that always gets lost in bureaucracy. In the old days, if head of state A wanted to meet head of state B, it went through the embassies and so on, and that's not how they function. Trump is like, okay, why don't you call me? I really like to see you. Like an entrepreneur functions. The son arranged it, they met. In this case, it will hopefully happen soon. Yes.
So how do you know the Trumps so well?
I've known them for a very long time, because in 2000... I don't know the right year, '15, '15 it was, the elections were '16, yes, '15, I had seen or my assumption was Trump would win, and specifically the primaries, so we're talking about the time when the primaries had just started. And back then everyone said he wouldn't even win the primaries, he was the outsider of the Republican Party. And I said, hey, I believe if I look at everything, how America works, what are the problems, what do the people want, he will win the primaries and then become president. And that was completely crazy. And I had thought, how can you make money from that? And back then there was no Polymarket. And what I did then with a friend, big shoutout to Bernd Fischl, who is among other things publisher of Aktionär and so on. We both here, super, Bernd is one of my... no, I think even one of the oldest friends in business. Was he almost a mentor for you early on? Exactly. And we come from the same region and so on. I'm seeing him this week. And so big shoutout to Bernd, because we were sitting together. I told him and I think it was even his idea to say, who actually owns the book rights of Donald Trump? And nobody had them, because in Germany really everyone back then said, oh crazy, nobody wants to read that. And Bernd and I together then bought the book rights. The first book was 'Crippled America' and then we translated the others and published them in Bernd's publishing house, Plassen Verlag, so to speak. And so, as I'm sitting here, I always like it when someone asks me and wants to hear me talk about things I'm passionate about. And so I told everyone in my circle who didn't want to hear it back then, hey, I just bought the book rights of Donald Trump. Then for Germany, for Germany. Yes. And then a friend of mine said, hey, I'm very close friends with Trump Senior, Trump Junior, and they will find it really cool that they finally have a German publisher, because Trump loves Germany and so on. Should I connect you? And I still have the email. And then he wrote to Trump Senior and Junior and said, hey, my friend Christian just bought your book rights in New York. And within 10 minutes, both replied, hey, come to Trump Tower, we'll meet you. And so I went there and had an hour with them and it was awesome. It was really good. I mean, I know in Germany nobody wants to hear this, but they have a very, very well-thought-out view. But who develops it? That was back in '15, they didn't have... he wasn't president, he didn't have a staff, the Republican Party didn't have it, it was really Donald Trump Senior and Junior, and they had the same view as today, very well thought out, and I find that very, very remarkable.
Let me just interrupt for a moment, because that's probably what many people are asking. There is now, I think, a certain consensus that certain things he saw early on are correct. NATO needs to be better funded, needs to be stronger. All those things. At the same time, there are things like the tariffs, where many economists or trade experts for decades say it doesn't actually bring anything, it doesn't bring prosperity for anyone if you impose such tariffs. But he's doing it anyway. What's the calculus there, would you say?
First of all, I want to say this. It's always very tricky when someone says he's an expert, because the American perspective is, if you're a trade expert and you're really good, then you're not a trade expert, you're a billionaire. But it's really important, and that's often my fun, when I say it reminds me of the new nobility, the nobility expert, where I say, holy shit, who actually invented the job of nobility expert? I don't want to offend anyone, but what's the education? How do you become one? But let's say we have to be very careful, because many always say experts, oh, that doesn't work. I believe the tariffs, where are we now? Now we're in January, they were implemented in May last year. So has anything collapsed? I checked inflation yesterday. For other reasons, there's Truflation. That's, in my view, the most neutral way to observe inflation. It's, I think, at 0.7% now. Okay. So I haven't seen that in May all experts said the world would collapse. So, then he gave in a bit. I believe, to his question, what are they, from my perspective, it's like this, he believes that he really, and I believe that too, I'm not a trade expert, but I believe that the net is a positive revenue. Yes. And at the same time, he used the excessive tariffs, which he never implemented, as a negotiating principle, yes, to get better deals. I believe at some point we need to be much more self-critical, we non-politicians in Europe, with our politicians. Europe doesn't move without pressure, which is a shame. I can tell an anecdote. When Trump became president in 2016, when we already knew each other better and had really connected, a German politician, I won't name names, asked me for a briefing. And I'll try to make it neutral. It wasn't anyone... I don't want to say it's a traumatic story, but it was about... I had written down what was in Trump One, what are the things we simply have to expect. And number one was really NATO spending. Yes. And the answer was, well, Bush told us that too, and Obama told us that too. Then I said, and why haven't we... and then even came the comment from the German side, the government side, of course we know it's right. And I said, wait a moment, so we know it's right, and Bush asked you, and Obama asked you, why haven't we done it? Ah, you know, it's not a popular topic here and so on. And then my answer was, listen. And before that, they had also complained about Trump being so vulgar, always calling him names, just so in your face and aggressive. But wait a moment, if two friends in your life advise you of something, which you even know yourself is right, and you don't do it, then maybe you need the third one who is no longer polite, but who says, hey, I'm gonna punch you in the face if you don't do it because it's good for you. And so I could go through many, many things. But would you say that Trump is ultimately a friend of Europe? He is 100%, and an egoistic friend of Europe. Trump's worldview, he has maybe three, four, five constants that I can confirm. We had that in the conversation, he wasn't even a candidate for his party yet. He pursued that in Trump One, in his first presidency, and he's doing it now. So what it shows is, there isn't... oh my God, now he's influenced by someone. Trump is super consistent, I can't repeat it often enough, his worldview, which is also very constructive and so on. And I can list a few points. By the way, the very first one, and it's sad that I have to say it's extraordinary, he finds war and human suffering unbearable. And that was my first point where I said, that's why I love him, because there are too many politicians who, I think, although they might want good things, but accept certain things. And Trump's threshold, who of course also has certain constraints as a head of state, is much higher to start a war. He has a much higher drive to end a war. Yes. And anyone who knows him, that's also an open... many people, he is really moved when he sees, for example, Gaza and so on, then the Iran thing is here, that's enough, there are children and so on. I consider him one of the most humane heads of state, who doesn't... but the reality of... how do you explain this... because it fits so well, yes, this ICE thing now in Minnesota, that's making big headlines, that people have died there and then... that's why it has also de-escalated very much, but the problem is a different one, we always jump too short. The problem is, now we come to the other point, but I say Trump's one of his other, I would say five or six core theses is immigration is bad, and he's right. I'll put it in one sentence, we can also discuss it a lot. Anyone who has understood AI and robotics wants no immigration. Not even skilled labor, because we won't need labor in five years. There will be no jobs in ten years, none at all. Maybe we'll all still work one day and have some kind of soft job, but the moment you understand AI, I would formulate it so pointedly, anyone who says otherwise is either politically correct or doesn't understand robotics. Yes, whether we want that as a society, what that means, is a completely different question. But if you understand AI and robotics, you don't need immigration. Neither skilled nor unskilled, because you can then think about, one of my favorite topics, what does it actually do to people when they have no job at all? We will have enough societal problems anyway, because people... he also saw that, he said 10 years ago, okay, AI was still small, 10 years ago or so, it wasn't as clear as today maybe. But back then, maybe not AI, but robotics was already such that he saw the major upheavals and transformations would reduce jobs in the long run, and therefore you want to ensure that your people, the Americans from his perspective, which by the way every head of state should do, it's again sad that you have to say that, should be there for his citizens and not for the world, that immigration makes no sense. So what we've now seen with this ICE thing is that it's incredibly difficult when people are illegally, I would also emphasize they are always illegal. I've always said, why doesn't Obama make them legal? If you really wanted to, it was always an absurdity in America that you have this shadow realm or shadow thing of illegal immigration, you call it illegal but it's okay, I don't make it legal, whatever. Obama also deported a lot of people. I think even more than Trump. But that's the point. The point is that what's happening now is that the base of the Democrats is really going against it. And by the way, what you read here, oh my God, Trump is building a militia with ICE, whatever, that's a federal agency, an existing one, like the border patrol, the federal border guard is a militia. So. And where does the problem come from? And nobody reports it. The problem is that in Minneapolis, the local police were pulled out, because what happened is ICE is doing a job that is already difficult enough and we know, and also under Obama by the way, produced unsavory images. Yes. And secondly, there are local more than demonstrations, they are really local uprisings, that's a harsh word, but so to speak, that want to prevent it, and actually the local police should have... ICE is not trained and not there to look after local US citizens, let's call it neutral. But the governor of Minneapolis pulled the police out, and then you had ICE versus Americans, which shouldn't happen if the police had stayed. So the nuances are always lost in the entire reporting. So, okay. So we weren't just talking about Trump. But it's important to me, because you can almost... and it's just one example, I find the reporting is just always too short-sighted. I don't obviously say tendentious, but also such things get lost. So, but they have now understood that, so to speak, then it is ultimately the conclusion, and they should also learn from Europe. Deportation is always ugly. Yes. You can try to do it nicely, but it's always ugly, because people don't want to leave. So we should say even more that we won't let new people in. That's what America will do. Trump is now okay, maybe I should be even harder at the border, because once they are there, it's harder to get them out. And the same is actually what I would say in Germany, we will have so many problems simply from the media images, because deportations are not nice. Yes, so bad enough, so we should actually say we should be even stricter at the border, but that's just the conclusion.
I mean, you also know the whole cabinet quite well. I think Howard Lutnick is the Finance Minister, right?
No, the Commerce Secretary.
Commerce Secretary, Commerce Secretary, that's also someone you've worked with before, right?
Yes, a lot even. He did several IPOs for me. He's a good friend. And he was also on Wall Street before. Exactly, he built Cantor, so it's not just a banker, but he really... at the end of the day, I'll come back to it, it's an extremely competent cabinet. You can go through it. Howard built Cantor from a small broker to a top 10 Wall Street bank. One of the most competent bankers. Yes, super cool guy. Scott Bessent, very good friend.
Scott Bessent was still at Soros back then. I met him during the Euro crisis, he always wanted to know where Germany is heading and so on. I said jokingly, hey, the tables have turned. You always called me to explain the Euro crisis to me. And he was working for George Soros, exactly, we met back then because I was friends with Deutch, who was definitely not in the Republican camp. So that's already... yes, I also believe that on that level there is much less behind-the-scenes fighting than we think. I believe, for example, many policies, even if the Republicans were to lose the next election, the Democrats would gladly adopt many policies, but are happy that Trump is doing it. For example, Greenland. I believe in the end, one way or the other, Greenland will belong to them. What does belong mean? They will, so to speak, but Greenland will be associated with the USA, and I believe that's a question the Democrats would answer just as affirmatively, that you need it, you have to look at certain defense policy realities. I believe the Democrats are quite happy that Trump is doing the hard work, but if they have Greenland, the Democrats won't give it back to us. Yes, because they see just as well that America, out of purely selfish interests, but there comes the old Bismarck quote, states have no friends, only interests, needs it. But I have to come back, but I want to, because that was the core question, and I believe it's important, it's my opinion. But I believe it's important to say it, which doesn't come across like that. Yes, I believe it's out of self-interest, because Trump and his team have maybe four or five core risks they see for America, and one of these risks is a potential conflict with China. It can be imminent, can be in 20 years, but those are the two superpowers where the risk is that they clash at some point, and in this conflict they want Europe on their side. That's a very clear statement. But they need a functioning, economically and defense-policy strong Europe for that. And now comes the other side, that they can rely on. And for this reason, I say that, I also want to, but I am very pro-European. People, oh, I had someone yesterday from a German corporation, I'm not negative, I am very negative on Europe, but not because I want to be, so to speak, I love... I'm actually very patriotic, but so much more am I happy that there is someone who is very tough, because I've learned too often that nothing works in Europe if you're not forced and pressured, that someone from the outside puts pressure on us and lays our problems bare. And one problem is the whole topic of defense capability. Yes, so to speak, I can't repeat everything, but the statistics I see are insane. I believe we need 15 years in the current production capacity in Europe of basic defense material to replenish the situation, because we are at zero due to the Ukraine war, helping Ukraine. Yes, so to speak. Yes, so we are basically... understood. Let's go back for a moment. We have to... there are so many topics. I want to go through your CV a bit for everyone who is getting to know you properly for the first time. Maybe we'll start backwards. You're 47 now. Exactly. And the last few years, maybe we'll get to that at the end. I'll ask, how did you get to Bessent back then? He was working at Soros. He doesn't just call anyone in Europe. He called you, wanted to know about George Soros, how does George get to you? So I met George. I don't remember anymore if I met him, but I can also... I think in the end, it's compounding, because that's very simple. I believe I'm a nice person at heart, I hope people say that. And I also want to say to people, I like to be liked, and I am really... and many people, that's always my favorite, oh such a great network, and I don't like the word because it's so targeted. With me it's the opposite. I had... I think we talked about it last time. Yes, but that explains a lot. I had more success with the first biotech company than I would have expected here. That was so to speak, where you came out of university and you made a first biotech company with professors, you as a business student, they as doctors, and that was around the time of Grund Pharma, and it was then renamed to Alnylam, is now a very large company. I sold early, but sold well. And so I was sitting there at 23 and thought, what do I actually want from life? Yes, and the two things I really want is I only want to work with nice people. Sounds banal, but don't work with assholes. Yes, you still make mistakes. So you sometimes meet people you think are nice, but as long as I can, I want to avoid it, that's for me the number one. But what are the next steps? Or the second is, I only want to do things and only deal with people who personally excite me. Whatever that is, but like I don't want to be bored. And if you do that for 27 years, to your question, and are also a nice person, then it comes automatically. It's like compound interest, if you say, hey, I'm nice, I'm reliable. Yes, I hope people find me interesting. Yes, and I like interesting people.
And what were the biggest breakthroughs? The principle is totally understood. You sold this company at 23, it already sounds like 10, 20 million.
Exactly. Order of magnitude. Exactly. And then I had a time with four friends, who are also still friends of mine. We had a holding, ABL, where we did more financial services, financial distribution, investment banking. Yes, we separated in 2012, that was a very big cut, and so to speak, if I would now divide my entrepreneurial life, the first few years, then the ABL time, which went from 2002 to 2012, which was also more focused on Germany, more focus on financial services. Yes, then we separated, and since 2012 until today, I am the only... Apeiron is my... I am the only shareholder, and so to speak, the focus is more on USA, Tech, Biotech, we can go through that, but Apeiron is in my view, you develop an investment thesis or a field or something that interests you or where you see potential, then you raise money for it and then you set up a company or invest in an existing one to get a topic under Apeiron or to be involved with a topic. So it goes from a lot of biotech or pharma, magic mushrooms or all these psychopharmaceutical topics to things like the Enhanced Games, events where you say, okay, the next version of the Olympics, so to speak, should be that, and fintech, crypto startups in Germany, startups in the USA, you have various investment hypotheses, then various vehicles under Apeiron, also with external money, own money. Exactly. To simplify, it's like this. Apeiron is my own money, yes, on the balance sheet. And we invest in companies and we found companies. So when we found companies ourselves, which is still my passion, I am an entrepreneur at heart, then we raise money for these individual companies, then I am the founder. I invest myself too, yes, but then we raise money for individual companies. So I do that as a founder, how a founder raises money, and then we have at Apeiron, besides our own balance sheet capital, we have several funds where we also manage external money in these funds. So that's... my own money in Apeiron, yes, then deal by deal, when I found a company myself, because I say, hey, if it's Atai or Enhanced Games, I'm obviously biased, love it. I founded it, so to speak. I want my friends to say, hey, I want to give money for that too. And then we have for the third companies, when we act as a venture investor, we have various funds.
And how much money is currently under management at Apeiron?
We have, if you include real estate, because we do a lot of real estate, both hospitality real estate and real estate in Germany. There is also a lot of external money, from pension funds and so on. Then we are clearly over 7 billion now. If you only take Tech and Biotech, excluding real estate, then we are at about 3 billion.
And of that, half is your money, or a third, or?
Half, so because three, half is 1.5. That means the question you always get, and I've tried it every time a bit, or also asked you, because you're always Christian Angermayer, the German billionaire. So it's not wrong. No, no. It's funny, if I did the interview in English, I think I would flinch less, but then comes this German perspective, but it's true. No, and in the end, I think we should become more American. A good thing, so to speak. So, what did I have then, so to speak, and maybe one last thing before we go into the current topics? This jump from the first exit, already life-changing, then this ABL time, and then to now a level where you say, okay, there are assets owned by me worth 1.5 billion, there are probably also a lot of book values that haven't been realized yet, that are not... so wealth and liquidity are different things. Like, so to speak, most billionaires in the world that I know don't have the money that's on the rich list in liquidity. That would be absurd, because then you would... because I also believe, my opinion is, we are going into further inflation and dollar devaluation. You don't want to be in cash either, but of course that is... so to speak, if you now talk about the one and a half billion, that's what you have in NAV, those are assets, those are stocks, of course many illiquid stocks, like unlisted ventures, that's the whole portfolio. Okay, okay, okay. That means then in the end the biggest growth, that value really grew over the years through compounding, and that is parallel, so to speak, I would say from the first 10, yes, became 1.5 billion euros, and from the first university contracts became the network, it really works, it's exactly the same. So I really see network, if you want to call it that, and assets the same, if you are consistent. Then let's go into the company. What is, so to speak, would you say now all-time the best company for you, where you say, that was really super good over the years?
The question is, in what respect? Where have we made the most money, is it sold, where am I most proud of? That is, I think the answer is simply where have we really created a lot of value, but where am I also most proud of, is AI. Yes, what the... the psychedelic company is, if I look at my portfolio first, we have, I think, very, very cool investments, as I said, in our venture division, but personally I am of course emotionally most involved in the things, and there we are, I think, also unique. I think there are few investors who really do both, hopefully we do it very professionally, as I said, we have over 120 portfolio companies over our five different themes, which we might address in a moment, but so to speak, where we go from seed to sometimes late stage and sometimes listed, so we do tickets from 1 million to 50 million plus, so the whole life cycle of the company, yes, in venture or in so to speak... and there are some that I find very, very cool and am also very close to. But then we have the division that is emotionally more important to me, but also, one must say, the even greater value contribution, are the companies where I am really the entrepreneur. Yes, that is currently mainly Enhanced Games, that is Atai. That is a longevity biotech company.
Then let's go into that for a moment. What can one consume there? What does one buy there?
Not yet. We are a biotech company. That means my idea, and I am incredibly proud of that. We don't have to go that far, people probably, if anyone has listened to the podcast, I've been talking about psychedelics for a very long time. Yes. But I believe deeply on many different levels that psychedelics are really very positive for humanity. I don't want to be too dramatic, you can listen to Joe Rogan. You were on Joe Rogan, the Joe Rogan podcast, psychedelics and the whole thing. But in short, on the medical side, psychedelics, and I can say this now, this is no longer Christian's opinion. Five years ago I would have said what my opinion is, in the sense that we have invested over a billion with Atai in clinical studies. We have now also finished Phase 3, the last studies for biotech for magic mushrooms. The active ingredient is called psilocybin. Yes. We then have three more psychedelics. 5-MeO-DMT, DMT, and a novel version of MDMA in development. Yes. Where I say, we have now proven, I can say it scientifically, proven with FDA gold standard clinical trials, that this group of medications really helps significantly with all forms of mental health issues, depression, anxiety disorders and so on. And there is nothing else. So we really have success rates of 50 to 70%, which is unheard of. So the dataset we had last year was probably the best result for a new neuroscience drug in 30 years for 5-MeO-DMT, with almost no side effects, really just headache, nausea. So when that comes to market soon, like psilocybin will in the USA this year, beginning of next year, not on the market, I know, but you have to go to the doctor, that's my opinion on psychedelics, these are not things you should take home. That's why they won't even be prescription-only, but they will be medications where you go to the doctor, then do the therapy session with the doctor, so while you consume the psychedelics, you are at the doctor's, and then go home again. So, but that's a billion-dollar market. And as I said, from January so to speak at the latest, revenue will also come, but we are currently in the process of the first medication.
Then let's go into the second topic, because I find that interesting too. I'm a sports fan, you too. Enhanced Games, that is also of course controversial, so what stuck with me is, it's like the Olympics, you have to say, which sports are then in the foreground, probably not all, but where doping is so to speak allowed. That's the whole fuss, is that right?
Exactly, that's the tagline. Yes, but first for the explanation, if someone is listening, why these companies fascinate me, because I think we have really managed it. These are extremely new ideas. So what we are not, we are not some incubator, I'm doing me-too models. For psychedelics, why I'm also so proud of that, but I think make the world a bit happier, whatever, and because I was really the first in this century, they existed before in the last century under medical supervision, but in this century I was really the very first to say, hey, I'm not just enjoying it myself, but I think they should be back. The principle is so to speak, we only found companies if we really do something novel, because otherwise I can invest in other companies and say, hey, there's a great founder, I'm an investor. So to speak. But if you want to understand Christian, you have to also realize it. You are on the hunt for new theses, for new perspectives and investment opportunities that no one has seen before and that are then of course attractive for investors, but also in the end... and Enhanced Games is also, you don't have to like it, but at least nobody has thought about it before, so to speak, to say, okay, how would it be if we did the Olympics with drugs. So, one who thought about it was Saturday Night Live in the 90s. There is really... you can google it. There is this Saturday Night Live clip, I think from the 90s, where they make fun of doping Olympics. Yes. But nobody dared to do it.
How did you get to it? So did you somehow, in this case I have to say, we have a good brand, I think, also as an entrepreneur sometimes. I always need partners, because also at Atai, I have very good co-founders, yes, who are also the CEO. I am the chairman, so to speak, because I am time-constrained. That means I can, so to speak, I am very involved. I think more than many people think, positively, because I love it, but so to speak, I need good entrepreneurs, very good entrepreneurs, with whom I do this together. And when I had the idea for psychedelics, the idea really came from me, then I found them. And with Enhanced Games, it was like this, very early, before it was a company, a very good friend, Aaron Soussan, came to me and said, hey, how about we start a company, a sports company, making doping allowed? And I was like, love it. Yes. And then we co-founded it, but the idea came from him. Yes, we also took a third co-founder, a German, Max Martin, with us, and there we are.
But maybe briefly about the concept, because it's actually much more thought out, and where I'm super happy, really as we speak, the press is also changing. I have to admit that at the beginning, we live in a media and attention world, and what we really... I can say a few numbers, they are insane. Yes, what we've cracked is the media algorithm. So at the beginning, we of course wanted to be the bad boys. There is much more science and much more in it, I can't tell. But so to speak, at the beginning we of course sought the shock moment, yes, doping Olympics, and then the IOC made a press release, and they are stupid because they don't understand media, because every press release the IOC made was only good for us. The IOC even managed, I can't say it, I know it's a politically incorrect joke with the autopen of Joe Biden, that the White House, Joe Biden made a statement that the Enhanced Games are morally depraved, and it helped. We sat there and opened a bottle of champagne because you can't have more marketing. Yes. So and I can say, we are now going into a phase where suddenly our biggest critics, so the media, are looking at it...
See, by the way, we have 50 of the best athletes in the world. These aren't fringe athletes; these are people who won silver in Paris and so on. We have the best athletes, we probably have the best science team in longevity and performance enhancement. And now the critical media are also saying, 'Oh wow, it's not crazy, it's actually still controversial.' You can still discuss whether that's good or not, and I love the discussion. But they're saying, okay, there's actually much more science and so on.
Which sports are being contested there?
Let me briefly explain the rules. We have rules; it's not 'everything goes.' It must be an FDA-approved product. I believe in science, I believe in data. Drug development is nothing else. For me, everything that's in a pharmacy with a doctor is fair game. Very importantly, not crystal meth, because some people make jokes. Obviously. But also no experimental drugs. It must be something that is approved and in a pharmacy. The second rule is, that's why you need a doctor. That means these are things you can't just get yourself. And third, before the games, we do a complete health check and you need to be perfectly healthy. Not, by the way, because I think performance-enhancing substances are negative, but I want to avoid that people have something else. They have the flu or something, and then it looks bad. Those are the three rules.
What we're doing is swimming: 100m freestyle, 50m butterfly. Running: 100m sprint, 110m hurdles. And weightlifting. Those are the disciplines. More will be added in the coming years, but if you look at the viewer ratings at the Olympic Games, that's what people want to see: running and swimming. And there aren't that many. For running, you could do a marathon, 10,000m, 5,000m, but we don't do that. What we're doing is, you can also watch the arena on our website and YouTube channel. We're building the arena, which is in Las Vegas. The first games are on May 24th. And we also want to completely change the visual effect of how the consumer consumes this sports data on screen and especially on social media. If you watch the video, it's extremely optimized for social media.
The second innovation, and that's why all athletes love us, even those who haven't switched over yet, is that we pay the athletes good money. And it's sad that I have to say that's special, because we're all used to football and basketball, where athletes, and rightfully so, are the soul and heart of the sport, earning good money. In all the Olympic disciplines, it's a shame. I think about it every day, how cynical it is that we celebrate them in all the newspapers as our Olympic heroes, and they get 10, 20,000 euros. It's incredible. And why is that bad? You might say, 'Ah, it's really little money.' It's not just that; it's a disregard for the performance. And above all, to be at the level of an Olympic athlete, you have to sacrifice your twenties and focus. And then they're 30. And I think it's good that it was said, one of our Olympic athletes went to OnlyFans, I think it was big in the Bild newspaper. I think it's great, I find it cool, but they should, I think every gold medal winner should get a few hundred thousand euros from our pot. And they should have gotten it before. The worst part is the IOC makes about 4 billion in revenue every cycle. Where is the money going? And regardless of where the money is going, if you look at other sports, about a third of the revenue goes to the athletes. A third of the revenue the IOC makes should go to the athletes, because these people, with their passion and performance, make the Olympic Games what they are, not the officials from the IOC.
How do you finance that? We've raised a lot of money, but we pay our people. They get 100,000, 250,000 if they win a gold medal, and they get a million dollars in the core sports if they break a world record. Plus, we help them get sponsors and so on. I was just in Las Vegas a few months ago, it was super emotional, but I told myself, 'Shouldn't be emotional,' when they said, 'Hey, Marius, for example, a German swimmer, says, 'Hey, for the first time in my life, I'm flying business class.' The guy is a gold medal winner. For the first time in my life, I have a single room.' At 29, you should have a single room. We really treat them, and I find it so terrible, we celebrate these athletes, but we don't do what we should do with heroes. And as I said, the IOC makes four billion and doesn't give it up.
But how is the business with you?
So, the business with us is, first, we give a part of our revenue to the sports clubs. That's by the way, that was much more. If you had asked me two years ago, I told in the first podcast, I would have thought at the beginning that the 29-year-olds would come to us. We also have, they say, 'Hey, I've done the Olympics once or twice now.' But we now have Fred Kerley, one of the three best sprinters in the world, who says, 'Yeah, the future.' He's 24, and we'll have a few more big names in the next few weeks. But 40 out of 50, we have. But how does the money come in? We've done several financing rounds, classic venture capital. We have big investors, Peter Thiel, Donald Trump Jr.'s fund, Balaji, so really cool. But that's the financing side. Revenue has to come in too. And we've just, I find the financing side interesting, we've just done a SPAC merger and will probably trade as a stock on the stock exchange at the end of March when the SPAC closes.
On the revenue side, we have two business models. We have the sports side. The sports side generates revenue in the second year, not the first, from media rights. Why? I decided in the first year, which I believe is the right decision, that we don't sell the media rights in the first year. I think most young sports make the mistake of selling too quickly. Even Netflix only has 300-something million subscribers. I want to create a worldwide phenomenon in the first year. That means in the first year, we're on the big streamers. We're on all platforms like YouTube, Roku, and so on. But we don't charge them, because otherwise they want exclusivity. And with that, we get the reach. From the second year, we will sell media rights. The games take place annually, not all the time. We'll probably even do them semi-annually, once in the USA as the main games and once in the Middle East in the winter. And we do monthly pop-up events. At the games in our arena, it's more the classic sports. We want to add high jump, long jump, and so on. And then, in between, every month, we do something like we have an enhanced mountaineering team that will hopefully break the world record for the ascent of Mount Everest. We have a cycling team that goes from New York to LA in the fastest time ever, and so on. So we do cool pop-up events.
So, what's the business? The first is the sports event and sponsorship business. The second is the consumer products and telehealth products. And the third business model will be drug development. We have the best and largest dataset ever collected for performance-enhancing drugs, and the outcome is positive. It's all about recovery. And by the way, the big sports leagues are already asking. Not the IOC, but the basketball owners and so on, they say, 'Hey, can we talk?' Because it's big business, and the one thing they want is that their athletes... I just spoke with the former head of the NBA. The biggest discussion they have is with the players' union about how many games they have to play. Because the team owners say, if I have someone like LeBron James, who I also know because he's a big mental health supporter, I met him through psychedelics, love him. What's the biggest thing? They sell more tickets when LeBron James plays. But the guy has to recover. When we come out and say, 'Hey, not even performance-enhancing in the traditional meaning, all about recovery,' every team owner will say, 'Hey, can we do that maybe a little bit?' So you'll see after our games, it's already changing very positively, but the event will be, I believe, one of the biggest shows. Everyone who hears this should tune in. It will be on Instagram, YouTube, or so. YouTube, Roku, probably Netflix. Yes, on one of ten partners. It will be the biggest sports show of the year. But in Germany with RTL or so, we're still negotiating with German TV channels. For us, the German market is important. You get reach over YouTube, the question is what do we get? I don't want money, but reach. And what we get from the big platforms, and then we're ready to say, 'Hey, we'll make it semi-exclusive if they give us marketing power.' With YouTube, the question is, are you on the homepage? How much power do they give you? In the first year, it's just about reach. But I believe we will also change the image of performance enhancements, which I like, and I'm proud of, just like with psychedelics, moving topics. And I believe that in three years, we'll see that many sports leagues say, 'Well, maybe we still don't allow performance enhancements in our sport beforehand, but if someone is injured, we'll make an exception with the doctors.' We will license our dataset, and so on. I believe we will structurally change the image of sports.
Mhm. Okay, so at the end of May we'll know more. I'm very curious.
May 24th, Las Vegas time. The only shitty thing for Germany is it starts at 5 PM local time in Las Vegas. Exactly, on May 24th. Maybe just briefly, what do you take yourself? I mean, I know you told me once, testosterone we've already said. I'll say it as it is, and I don't want to dodge it, I like to say things, but the most important statement is, by the way, also what I say at biotech, what I say at Enhance, you have to do it with a doctor. I'm a bit of a conservative libertarian. I'm for free choice, but you need informed free choice. That's why I'm also not in favor of recreational drugs being legal. I also think alcohol shouldn't be. Very scientific.
Then back to Trump, maybe briefly, because I also find it too irritating. You're a Trump supporter, this vaccination, there's this health minister, Mr. Kennedy, who you also know well obviously. He's a big fan, I was very proud because he's one of our biggest fans of psychedelics. But why does he not care about vaccinations that have helped over years and so on? I'm not deep into it, but I read that certain diseases you can vaccinate against are no longer being vaccinated.
That's not true. I'm not in the details, but to my knowledge, not a single vaccination has been banned by him. Full stop. It's not that vaccinations are no longer available. What I believe you're alluding to is that because he is critical about vaccinations, not all parents are vaccinating their children anymore. But it's not that America has said the vaccination doesn't exist anymore. But I believe he is blamed for unsettling parents and so the vaccination... I would say that's borderline. But I want to say one thing again, I always want the big picture. During COVID, I won't name any single names, but I spoke with various heads of state, health ministers in America and everywhere, and said, 'Hey, I know mRNA technology very well. It will be developed, and by the way, it's going to be amazing for cancer.' mRNA is, I believe, the best future solution for cancer treatments. Moderna is a great company. So if you develop something for cancer treatments, then the side effect is, with anything in biotech, you always have side effects. With our psychedelics, someone gets a headache, thank God only that, but still, a headache is a side effect. So it's not zero. And then you always ask yourself, what am I solving with it? If you naturally solve cancer, if someone has cancer and I can cure it, I accept other side effects than if I want to protect myself from COVID, for example. That's always the case. And what I told everyone who didn't want to hear it was, 'Hey, if you take an extremely strong, because that's what was wanted, an extremely strong technology that causes an extremely strong immune response, because it can even cure cancer, and I take that within just two years—I wasn't against it—but I take that within just two years and apply it to a viral disease that isn't as bad as cancer, I think we can agree on that. Then there will be some severe side effects, and you have to say that.' And what I blame everyone who was in government at the time for is that they didn't believe that the people, and I believe the mass of normal citizens would have been completely capable of understanding this very simple explanation I just gave. They should have stood up and said, 'We have now developed a vaccine, I took it, by the way, and I would still take it. It's the right thing to do because I weighed it up. But I knew, okay, not one in a million, but there will be severe side effects because it's a super strong immune response.' And this communication was wrong. They should have said, 'We did it in two years, it's not perfectly researched, and it's still the right decision, but you all have a choice.' And what we did was really, I believe, and that's why it's still too little, we shouldn't have forced people, we shouldn't have had these vaccine passports. It's not okay. You have to educate people and then give them the choice. That's a fundamental principle of a free, democratic, medical order. And that's the backlash we're seeing now. It's also not completely okay. I say exactly what I just said, what I said before, I say to RFK and say, 'Hey, you need to tone it down. I understand that you now want to say, hey, vaccinations have side effects. It's true, and they still make sense on average. If I have children, I will have them vaccinated. Is there a risk? Yes. And of course, the older the vaccination, the better researched, the fewer side effects.' But everything is being lumped together. But I just want to say where it comes from, you only see one side. And not all media in Germany, the ones who are now screaming and saying RFK is blah blah blah. If I go through every single medium, 'Unvaccinated people can no longer participate in life, they must be forcibly vaccinated,' and so on, we were all completely crazy. And we were crazier than RFK is now.
I mean, generally, we keep coming back to Trump, because that's also so big right now, because it shows, I find, you also say for him, you say surprisingly, for example, this behavior that many find totally irritating, sometimes seems very unpredictable, unplanned, and somehow...
I hope I can tell the story. Richard Grenell, a very good friend, his favorite anecdote is when he first saw Merkel, she was apparently complaining at the German embassy, and she said something like, 'Your boss is so hard to calculate.' And Richard Grenell's answer, which he has also said in other interviews, so I can say it, was, 'Madam Chancellor, the President of the United States should not be predictable for the Chancellor of Germany and should not be predictable for anybody. I think it's a strength.' Why should the President of the United States be predictable? That means, in negotiations, it's better if the other side doesn't know. But I think it's more than that. I think we currently have the challenge, and I know everyone, including me, says, 'Huh, this could also go wrong,' but we have to do it. We are going through the greatest transformation that humanity has ever made in the shortest time ever, where we've seen an innovation. Nothing is comparable. In the next 10 years, the world as we know it will structurally change thanks to AI and robotics. We will almost have no work left. We have to reinvent ourselves, what that means, because we have a society where work is how we define ourselves. When you meet someone, you say, 'What's your job?' and that's gone. This will lead to an unprecedented crisis of meaning. But there are many other things. It's not just that, but what does it do to people, even if they still have a job, when robots are walking around outside? We have foreign policy shifts, which are also conditioned, not because of individual actors. It's one of my big theses. Foreign policy or geopolitical things are not created by politicians. Politicians only manage them. They are created by things like there will soon be 500 million more people in Africa than 20 years ago. These are the big shifts. And these big shifts require, in my opinion, that we structurally rethink many things we've gotten used to over the last 50 years. I say this very neutrally, it's from NATO to trade relations, to how we build our society, to how we think about the elderly. It goes from politics to how we see our body. And I prefer to have a US President who knows and understands all these topics. I can testify to that. And who then says, 'In order to reinvent things, we need to break things.' And this breaking is never nice. And we Europeans stand there and say, 'We don't want to break things, we just want to go on like it is.' But that option is not on the table, and it has nothing to do with Donald Trump. Nothing. The option that we continue like this, and by the way, I would say we've worked poorly for the last 20 years, if I may put it that way. But even if I... the option is not on the table that we continue in this mediocrity and underperformance we've had for the last 20 years. Like I tell every company, every mediocre company, if you don't evolve, you die. The same applies to Europe. But the question is, are we Argentina in 10 years? Or are we still closer to anything American? That's our choice. And I think it's good that Trump, the way he is, is sometimes very... but you need this way. But also insulting people, the image of women, there are a few things there that you can't really find good, right? That's also okay, let's leave it at that. First of all, now we can definitely, I would also say ten things, you can probably tell me. I would say he shouldn't have said that. No. But what I don't like is that we get distracted, because I say 95% of the things are right, maybe not nice, because I'm from Bavaria, I don't even know if I like it, but the way the world is changing, it is a fact-based decision. And I believe that much of what is blamed on Trump is because he sometimes says things where I say, 'My God, I wouldn't say that either,' but hey, he's successful, who am I? And I say, I gladly accept that. I would have liked a more polished Trump, who maybe also, one can't choose one's mentors, unfortunately he's no longer alive, said, 'You can't choose your people.' But overall, he delivers. By the way, but now back to the women, because there are so many bullshit stories circulating. He's anti-Semitic, he's misogynistic. Who had the first female chief of staff and thus the most powerful woman in the cabinet? Trump. Second question, who is the president who had the first openly gay, married cabinet member? Is it Lincoln or who? No, no, no. That was already in the last administration, it was Rick Grenell. After he was ambassador here, he became DNI, Director of National Intelligence, which is a cabinet post, and thus Rick Grenell is historically the first openly gay cabinet minister. Why I say this is, if you Google it, all the media write, 'Amazing Biden in America, Biden has the first gay...' It's just a lie. That's not even interpretable. But the media couldn't live with the fact that Trump is probably much less homophobic, or actually, Trump doesn't care. That's my experience. I believe Trump and the whole family really don't care if black or white or gay or woman, just deliver the American way in a business sense. Do you make me money? I don't care. Seriously, what I want to know when I invest in someone is not whether they are diverse, whether they are heterosexual, whether they are black or white. Will you make me money? And that's how America works, and I love it. And that's how Trump sees his cabinet. These are people, will you deliver for me. He has Kash Patel, a devout Sikh. He has the first woman as cabinet chief. He has Scott Bessent, gay, married, two children. He has Howard Lutnick, who is Jewish. His daughter converted to Judaism. You can go through this cabinet. It's really the most diverse cabinet, but it's not made for it. That's not the reason, but because these are people where you believe that these... absolutely, I find it interesting that it is so, and that it also sounds very modern. But it's important to me, because I also hope, again, I'm very patriotic about this, America is on fire. I've been there for a good part of my time for 12 years, longer for 15. And any Democrat would say that too. The Democrats say, 'Hey, I would still prefer someone else.' But the truth is, business, by the way. Their plan, and I believe they will achieve it, is that they will go from a steady state of 7 to 10% GDP growth. That hasn't happened in decades. The innovative power, anything that I value. There may be people who say I value something else. But I believe we haven't yet understood how this gap, which is already there, will widen extremely in terms of innovation, in anything, but also military might, by the way, in the next 10 years. One of my concerns is, to think around the corner a bit, when I look at what's happening in America right now with defense tech, robotics, AI, and what the outcome is for the military, I believe that America might already be today—I saw this in Venezuela, they suffered no losses, it's high-tech versus low-tech—but in at most 5 years from today, America will be an atomic superpower militarily, which they are today. So my negative conclusion is that if there's some dodgy bad player out there like Putin or Xi who wants to do something bigger militarily, you have to do it now. Because you know in 5 years, no chance, because they will be so strong. Exactly. So, but my concern is, that was one of the reasons for the First World War, that Germany saw, I believe there was a railway line from Russia into Europe and so on. There were some things where at least the German Empire concluded, if we want to, we have to do it now. My concern is that bad players say, 'Ugh, America is pulling ahead of us,' that if they—I hope they don't—but I say, if someone has plans, I believe they will do it sooner rather than later. Because in anything, military, business, economics, whatever, I believe, and I believe that if the Democrats win, I said before, I believe that although they say Trump is bad communication, bad person, blah blah blah, but I believe that secretly, they've already done this with his China policy, 'Oh Trump is bad,' hey, the China policy hasn't changed at all. And I believe they are currently at a point where they say, 'We want him to no longer be president, but Greenland we really need.'
Yeah. Did you ever meet Jeffrey Epstein?
No. And I don't know if I should say this as a joke. Because several friends wrote to me, they don't know if I should be happy or ashamed. The probability would have been high, because of the network. But no, I haven't really. But now you don't know if I say, I would immediately say I also find it completely absurd that people are now blamed because they exchanged a few emails with Jeffrey. I believe there was a very dark core, when I look at it, a super bad person, and there was a group around him, and they should all be held accountable. But now demonizing people... I would count him as very dark. Yeah, I would. Okay, I believe, but in the end, we should have courts. But what I mean is, people are currently being dragged through the mud because they wrote three emails and said, 'Then you can go to dinner with me.' Yeah, probably he would have hit on me, yeah, I probably would have said yes too, why not. But that's where I draw the line. People who, I can't say it, but my feeling is, if he did bad shit, most likely with underage girls, but in any case with women who didn't want it. And I believe the people who were involved in any sexual stuff with him, bad. But now dragging people through the mud, like Mandelson in the UK, he exchanged emails with him, but Mandelson was certainly not in a sexual way. I believe we are not capable of drawing a very rational line, which I believe, if we were talking privately, is very clear, where you draw that line. Was someone at dinner? So what. Was someone involved in sex with underage girls? Very bad. Yes, obviously. And then there are maybe a few gray areas, but currently everything is being lumped together. But no, I never met him and never exchanged emails.
Let's move on. I find it interesting. You take testosterone. What else is in your personal regimen?
I take relatively many peptides. There's Tesamorelin, an approved peptide that boosts fat burning. SS-31, a peptide that is also approved. That means you're already tearing through the gym world. Cool. But I actually try to only be in my three places of residence: Switzerland, London, and New York. But mostly I don't take them with me. Peptides go bad immediately if they're not refrigerated. So if I'm just in Germany for three days, I don't have my peptides with me. But you should take a break anyway. Not so bad. Okay. But peptides, yes.
Are you doing this weight loss thing? Tell me quickly.
Exactly, I'm doing Mounjaro again now. I gained a bit of weight and I want to be in perfect shape for the Enhance Games. So yes, Mounjaro. By the way, I'll come back to this, because I think the Zeitgeist moment, my personal moment at the Super Bowl was neither Bad Bunny nor the Super Bowl. It was Serena Williams, who gave herself an injection in a commercial during the Super Bowl. That's what we still find so dodgy. By the way, I can't say it enough how big a sign that is and positive for us, because that is enhancing, and she says it. Serena Williams is not clinically obese. And by the way, my favorite topic with my hands was always as an early argument, all these GLP-1s, Mounjaro, Ozempic, and so on, they are actually only approved for diabetes and clinically obese, very fat people. I am not clinically obese. Serena Williams is not clinically obese. So that means, that is off-label use, that is already enhancement. That is not the old definition of medicine, that is the new definition of medicine, that you can also take things preventatively and to improve yourself.
Do you do anything for your hair?
Have you done a hair transplant? No. You have very full hair, everything, but how do you do that?
Well, I believe hair is very genetic. My father still has hair. A bit less, but there are three things. The first is Finasteride. The active ingredient is Finasteride. That's this very famous one, many men take it, it was very controversial, that's why what I'm about to say is important. Finasteride stops hair loss, but has these dramatic side effects for, I believe, I don't know, 20% of the people, you can't get an erection anymore. I never took it as a pill until recently, because it was too much for me. Again, I'm always informed, look at it and then... but it came onto the market as a spray three years ago, and with the spray, you only have it where it's important for your hair and not in your whole body. That means, FDA-approved, science is, you get all the upside of Finasteride, you don't get the downsides. So since then, I spray Finasteride. Secondly, red light therapy, the best thing you can do for hair. There are now helmets, you can work, you have a red light for 20 minutes a day. Do you do that? Yes. Hair becomes colored again, white hairs go away and more grows. By the way, super solid science, not product-related, just using science. And then there's a peptide, GHK-CU, copper peptide, you can spray that on your hair. That also makes hair grow back.
Okay. How often do you train, how much sport in the week or a day?
Right now, I had a bad... the last few years were amazing, since we last met, but they were also very draining in a good way. Because I really, people ask how do you do it, I work really a lot, I don't want to praise myself, but it was very draining. And especially last year with preparations, Hans Kammerlander, and so on. And when I get out of the rhythm with sports, especially when I'm very tired towards the end of the year, and that's why I didn't train for three months. And since January, back on GLP-1s, testosterone, this whole regimen, and one hour of sport every day. Without sport, it doesn't work. With all enhancements, also for our athletes. It's not that you enhance yourself and then...
How much, how much, how much... so we have to live in three cities, in Switzerland, Lugano, right? London, and then you commute back and forth and across the world, so to speak.
And work also 7 days a week.
My work is my hobby, so I hope my work will be the last thing to be disrupted because I really like what I'm doing. But I probably also have to reinvent myself. I believe in sports, so I want to do one more because we've jumped so far. I hope people have a bit of the impression that I can keep going for a very long time. But what is my conclusion from everything I've been told? My conclusion is that you have to invest more in the USA than in Europe, unfortunately.
We have shifted our extreme focus over the last seven years, actually since 2018, to the USA. So I always try to implement my macro view in the office. So one thing is very American, also from our investments and where the companies are, and so on. And then my conclusion from the mix, what interests me, I said at the beginning, I only want to do things where I have passion and where I believe the world is heading. We have five themes. We do a lot of biotech, but in biotech, especially mental health is a flagship. But we also have a very cool brain-computer interface company, and so on.
Two is fintech and crypto. In fintech, it's mainly payments. Crypto will come back up, for sure. But I believe it will still take months. I think it will be a sideways movement between 50 and 70, maybe the price. Yeah, the dollar 50 to 70,000 is my personal opinion. And then I believe sometime in the third or fourth quarter, it will go up again. But we are focusing on payments and then crypto. In crypto, we built our own L1, Plasma.
But if you're sitting there and you're doing crypto and suddenly Bitcoin drops brutally, as happened in the last few weeks, we're talking... not funny. But I would say I have a very strong opinion that we are going into an asset price inflation phase. We are already in it. If you look at the two or three big things in America, I've mentioned them often: they want to stop immigration in the USA and Europe. Secondly, prepare for war with China, which hopefully never comes, but prepare for it. And thirdly, they have to fix their own finances.
America, if it were a company, would be bankrupt. Now you can say a reserve currency can't go bankrupt, or a country with a reserve currency. But it can certainly trigger a very severe financial crisis. So what are they doing? They actually wanted to do three things. One was to cut the budget. That was the Elon topic. They didn't succeed. That is the actual defeat of Donald Trump. What no one writes is one thing he didn't succeed. What he really wanted was to cut the budget, because his own party, the senators and congressmen, said stop here, don't take away the money from our districts and so on.
So they are completely focused on the two remaining ways a state can fix its finances. One is growth. You can grow out of the mess. For that, you need a sustained 7 to 10 percent growth. And they will achieve that. They are already doing it through deregulation. We have only seen the tip of the iceberg in anything. AI, financial markets, everything will be deregulated. They want to go back to the time from 1840 to 1910, which was unleashed entrepreneurial growth. We had extremely high capital markets and valuations for 40 years because we also had 10 to 20 percent economic growth because there was no regulation back then.
Now you can say, do we want to go all the way back? But maybe we should go a little bit more back to that and unleash a new entrepreneurial era. And the third thing in this restructuring is that the dollar must be devalued against any form of assets. So my personal opinion for the next five years is that I have to be invested in anything other than bonds, and then obviously you try to optimize. Is it Bitcoin or is it an AI individual stock? Is it the S&P or whatever? But don't be in cash and don't be in bonds. And that's why I also believe very strongly in Bitcoin.
Sorry, I'm coming back. Biotech, fintech, and crypto. Then deep tech, which is mainly space tech, AI, and robotics. And then, as the flip side of AI and robotics, because I deeply believe in this topic of jobs, work will not be there anymore, and other things. We have... the fastest-growing area of our portfolio value is entertainment, sports, and hospitality. We started the Enhanced Games as a new sports league. We have with the German Entertainment AG, which is now very global, or at least Europe-wide, one of the largest live entertainment providers with 500 million in revenue, doing concerts and classical music, exhibitions, anything, I think 8,000 events a year.
And with Limestone, we have one of the largest new real estate hospitality asset managers. We own the properties. We have money under management, but above all, we own the brands. For those listening, shameless marketing: Aethos is the brand. We are now in London, Milan, Ibiza, Sardinia. Hotels. If anyone wants to experience a five-star hotel in London from you, that's Aethos. You told me it's still 25 percent or... exactly 22. Exactly. It's amazing.
And then the fifth area is natural resources, because I also believe this boom, this reindustrialization that the USA is igniting, is reflected in the demand for things like copper, uranium, because they are going full on nuclear, and so on. And we do natural resources stuff.
A note in our own interest. We host our OMR Festival every year in May, this year on May 5th and 6th, our flagship event with 70,000 to 100,000 visitors from the digital world, of course from marketing, finance, retail, e-commerce, fashion, sports, pharma, and many, many more industries. People come to inform themselves, to get to the top with ChatGPT, to be seen on TikTok, but also to get to know each other, to exchange ideas, to network, and to be inspired by great keynotes, by the atmosphere, by great moments. Accordingly, we have not only 600 to 700 experts in the breadth, really top speakers on the most diverse topics. We also have larger-than-life personalities. Tom Brady will be there, the founder of the fitness brand Whoop, our regular guest Scott Galloway, but also our podcast regular guest Philip Klöckner. Anyone who wants to be there can find information on our website omr.com in the festival section, and the tickets are available at omr.com/tickets.
If you want to get more impressions of the days, they are coming up right here. I would be happy if we see each other in Hamburg.
So, how do you keep track of all this? How big is your office that you use to monitor everything?
Okay. So that's the team with which you monitor and manage everything.
And is more coming? Is that it or...?
This year, really, my colleagues would say, hopefully he says no now. Because my colleagues always say, hey, we need to focus and it's a lot in a good meaning. But I would say, until the middle of the year, because I'm really very involved with the Enhanced Games and I want to be, because I think it's cool, I can't do anything new right now. And above all, we now have some things that are just maturing, that are just getting big. I'm super proud of Plasma with the German government. It's a blockchain layer one focused on stablecoins. We are one of the fastest-growing new L1s.
We have very cool things maturing. But still, I tell every founder listening here. I know it's really difficult. I get a lot of emails a day, I have to scan them somehow. It's always a bit of a random process. Ideally, I always say, does anyone know someone who knows me and tells me, okay, that's worth it? Because I don't have the possibility. I get about 100 emails and LinkedIn messages a day with cool ideas. And I'm sure there are always very cool ideas among them. It always hurts a bit that I just can't screen them due to time constraints. So everything we do actually results from an intro. Either because I know someone or because I know someone I trust. If Peter Thiel says, hey, really look at this, then obviously I look at it. But still, we will do new things, we love it. And I want to know, I want to meet the next founder who brings me an idea like the Enhanced Games and says, hey, have you ever thought about this?
