California’s tech entrepreneurs have moved on from designing apps and driverless cars, and turned their attention to the human brain. But can they really create a faster, cleverer generation of workers? Richard Godwin sampled their wares
Nootrobox, the hottest tech start-up in California, doesn’t make sexting apps or robotic cars or drone-delivery services. Beyond a simple e-commerce site, it doesn’t have much of an online presence either – at least, nothing you can download onto your iPhone. Its co-founders are Geoffrey Woo and Michael Brandt, two 27-year-old computer science graduates from Stanford University – and I’m afraid they do still talk like Silicon Valley hucksters.
“Biohackers today are like the people who were making home-made computers in the 1970s,” Woo is telling me at caffeinated speed. “Back then the product they were innovating was silicon. Now it’s the human body.” Just as motherboard hobbyists such as Steve Jobs and Bill Gates went on to pioneer home computing, so they believe biohacking – the art of engineering the human mind and body for optimal performance – will turn them into household names. They intend to do this with their mail-order “nootropics” – a “stack” of performance-enhancing drugs containing compounds including L-theanine, rhodiola and astaxanthin oil, which they currently send out to around 20,000 subscribers (and counting).
Diese Geschichte stammt aus der January 07 2017-Ausgabe von The Week UK.
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Diese Geschichte stammt aus der January 07 2017-Ausgabe von The Week UK.
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