Derek Thompson

Like why does politics matter?

Because the people who win power do things with that power.

If people who run for office, who agree with aspects of the book, don't want to put permitting reform on a bumper sticker, I don't give a shit.

Like win.

Abundance is what happens if the bumper sticker works and you win.

How do you make people's lives better?

Like that's what I care about.

Most interesting thing that's happening right now in medical sciences, I think.

is we're in a phase of the GLP-1 revolution where these drugs were developed for diabetes.

They were found to have weight loss principles.

And then we realized there's a bunch of other things, that they reduced inflammation among people who weren't even losing weight, that they were good for cardiovascular health, again, among people who weren't even losing weight.

And right now, I did an interview on my podcast with Dave Ricks, who's the CEO of Eli Lilly, which is the company behind Munjaro and Zetbound.

And they're now in phase two and phase three clinical trials of versions of these drugs designed specifically for things like addiction or neurodegenerative health, dementia, Alzheimer's.

So this idea that GLP-1s initially seemed like this incredible drug that pushed one button

It now turns out that it's more like a splayed hand that's pushing five buttons at once.

And companies like Eli Lilly are trying to figure out, could we design a drug that's really, really good at pressing this button over here without side effects, really good at fixing addiction but doesn't cause nausea, really good at slowing plaque growth,

that is indicative of Alzheimer's without causing this other side effect that's common among people who use the highest dosage for type 2 diabetes or weight loss.

That's really exciting because these are problems, dementia in particular.

Yeah, I really don't want it either.

Alliterative fears.