A new psychedelic movement is born in Silicon Valley. And this time it doesn’t start from the bottom, from the counterculture or from the experiments of artists and musicians. But by the managers of the big technology companies. It is the Wall Street Journal to tell the phenomenon. A picture showing that Elon Musk takes ketamine. Sergey Brin hallucinogenic mushrooms. Some of the most active investors in Silicon Valley throw psychedelic parties.
All moved by the belief (assembled in recent years, and become popular also thanks to various documentaries on major streaming platforms such as Netflix) that the intake of these substances contributes in some way to broaden the potential of the brain, of perception and, in somehow, of human intelligence.
The use of hallucinogens in Silicon Valley corporate culture
Not only. The habitual use of drugs would have moved from a recreational activity, mostly done away from working hours, to something that is somehow part of the corporate culture. Managers, board members, engineers, employees of various technology companies would start using psychedelics. LSD, it is believed, would be good for business.
“There are millions of people right now who are microdosing psychedelics,” a former sales and marketing consultant in San Francisco told the WSJ. According to the newspaper, the adviser is briefing friends and colleagues across the Valley’s tech industry on how to fine-tune the right small dose for maximum awareness. It’s “the fastest route to opening your mind and seeing clearly for yourself what’s going on”.
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Karl Goldfield, that’s his name, doesn’t have a medical degree. “But experience”. And he says the number of requests would increase exponentially month after month. Musk and ketamine is a separate chapter. News of Musk’s drug use would come from people who have seen him taking the substance. Neither Musk, nor his attorney, nor a close adviser to him have responded to requests for comment from The Wall Street Journal. But ketamine, they say, would help them fight some depressive states. While for Brin, co-founder of Google, the use of mushrooms would be confirmed by some people who would have attended his parties. Not even in this case did the newspaper receive confirmation or comments from the manager.
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The issue of drug use in Silicon Valley is closely related to the business world. If it is true that the Bay Area has historically been very close to the use of drugs and the world of psychedelics, this new phenomenon would be more linked to the need for managers and entrepreneurs to relieve the tensions to which they are subjected. The use of these drugs, reminds the Wall Street Journal, carries risks of addiction and abuse. And most drugs are illegal in the United States.
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Psychedelic users rely on drug dealers for ecstasy and most other psychedelics. They did, they still do. The elites of the Valley rely directly on chemists, just like in the well-known Breaking Bad series. Some of them, explains the Wall Street Journal, begin experimenting with psychedelics in search of mental clarity or to deal with health problems and end up using the drugs more frequently at Silicon Valley parties or raves, where they have taken on a role similar to alcohol at a cocktail party.
Invitations to psychedelic parties are often sent through encrypted messaging app Signal, rather than via email or text message, so they can’t be shared easily. At some high-end private parties, users are asked to sign non-disclosure agreements and sometimes pay hundreds of dollars to attend, according to people who have attended or received invitations. A secret world. Or that it has been trying to be for several years. And that now, slowly, begins to emerge.