“Computers have been the innovation platform of the last decade. The human body will be the innovation platform of the next decade.”
Those were the words Geoff Woo, CEO & co-founder of Nootrobox, who recently spoke at The Economist Events—Innovation Summit 2017. Nootrobox is a San Francisco-based nootropics company funded by Andreessen Horowitz, Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer and Zynga CEO Mark Pincus, among others. The company is best known for GO CUBES, its chewable coffee nootropic (a compound you take to enhance cognition).
Woos area of expertise is the rapidly growing trend of biohacking, treating the body as hardware which can be improved through constant tweaking. Think everything from fasting to smart drugs, to implanting glucose monitors under your skin, to microdosing LSD and youll see why the human body is the next platform for innovation.
Basically, what started as a trend among techies in Silicon Valley is becoming more mainstream, with people drinking bulletproof coffee and taking nootropics to try to get ahead at work, at school, in athletics, in gaming, etc. And Woo is part of a new generation of entrepreneurs who want to hack the brain and the body, improving everyday performance through nutritional supplements called nootropics.
Paste: Why did you start Nootrobox?
Geoff Woo: As a competitive person by nature, I’ve always had the drive to tap deeper into my full cognitive and physical potential. So a few years ago, I dove into the world of biohacking and nootropics, and I really absorbed the science and theories behind nootropics and also the practical necessities like safety and quality control processes to enhance oneself safely. I had access to some of the top researchers and academics in the space (some who are now my colleagues and friends), and I thought that what I had learned might be valuable to other people. Thats when I decided to launch Nootrobox as a service for high-quality, science-validated nootropics.
Paste: Why do you think millennials are more likely to take risks and follow their passions?
Woo: They have less to lose. It’s very scary to float your life savings on a crazy idea when you have a family and mortgage. The bar to pull the trigger to go is now that much higher, and often times the best ideas are what seem like the riskiest at Day 0.
Read the story pastemagazine.com
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