The guest
Kevin Rose — Tech investor, founder (Digg, Revision3, Dignation), and Tim Ferriss's longtime co-host on The Random Show; involved with the Way meditation app and an active early-stage AI investor.
The gist
In this Random Show, Tim Ferriss details his frontier experiments with accelerated TMS brain stimulation for anxiety, including a breakthrough one-day protocol enhanced with the drug d-cycloserine. The pair dig into Alzheimer's prevention given Kevin's family history, covering DORA sleep medications, the ketogenic diet, and new blood tests for dementia-linked proteins. Kevin delivers a state-of-the-union on AI, arguing Google now leads the race and that the cost to ship a product is collapsing. They close with a long run of holiday gift recommendations and a candid conversation about modern app-based dating and relationship communication tools.
Big reveals
- Tim explains his breakthrough: instead of five days of accelerated TMS, he did a single day of hourly stimulations preloaded with d-cycloserine (DCS) lozenges, and it worked where five-day booster sessions had failed.
- Tim frames bioelectric medicine, 'computer chips over pills,' as the next frontier he's most interested in, predicting it could become accessible to millions within two to three years.
- Tim reveals that Nolan Williams, the Stanford researcher who helped develop accelerated TMS, died by suicide about a month or two prior, calling it heartbreaking and a leadership vacuum for the field.
- Kevin discovers he has aphantasia, the inability to voluntarily visualize mental images, explaining lifelong trouble remembering faces and names; Tim reveals he is the opposite, with hyper-vivid visual recall.
- Kevin argues Google is now in the driver's seat of the AI race because it owns the full stack, noting Gemini 3 was the first frontier model trained exclusively on Google's own TPU chips, no Nvidia required.
- Asked where he'd bet in AI, Kevin says at current valuations he wouldn't put a dollar into the top three to five labs, favoring instead a basket of power/nuclear, data centers, and bloated companies that will cut headcount via AI.
- Tim opens up about a new, fast-getting-serious relationship he met on Hinge, and they spend the closing stretch on the plight of addictive, app-based modern dating.
Things worth remembering
- Kevin describes his new '222 rule' for alcohol after ending his sobriety: a maximum of two drinks per night, never two days in a row, and no more than two days per week.
- Tim's first accelerated TMS round (5 days of stimulation, neuro-targeted via fMRI at Mass General) gave him roughly three to four months of essentially zero generalized anxiety.
- D-cycloserine (DCS) is a tuberculosis/UTI antibiotic now studied as a cognitive enhancer; it's a partial agonist at the glycine site of the NMDA receptor, whereas ketamine is an antagonist.
- DORA sleep drugs (dual orexin receptor antagonists) like Belsomra inhibit wakefulness rather than sedate, preserving more naturalistic sleep architecture; Tim switched from trazodone to Belsomra.
- Kevin has three relatives currently diagnosed with Alzheimer's, including APOE4-negative individuals; Tim is APOE 3/4, roughly 2.5x higher risk than a 3/3.
- Giving advanced Alzheimer's patients ~35 mL of exogenous ketones before a walk can, within 30 minutes, take them from one-word answers to speaking in full sentences (Alzheimer's is sometimes called 'type 3 diabetes').
- Kevin says AI coding tools improve three to four times every three months, comparing today's AI to the brick Motorola phone era versus the iPhone.
- Kevin's pendant AI recorder was always recording; Tim asked him to take it off and put it in his bag because it caused too much anxiety and harmed conversational honesty.
- Kevin's learning hack: generate a deep-research guide in ChatGPT/Gemini, paste it into NotebookLM, and have it create a five-minute podcast primer on any topic.
- Tim's older dog Toaster (15) and Kevin's plan to put his dog Molly on rapamycin ('Rappa'); Tim says they've already seen roughly a 20% lifespan boost.
Recommended in this episode
Books, products and media the guest or host genuinely endorsed here — with the buy link.
Affiliate link — we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you.
RecommendedProduct
Barr Hill Gin
Caledonia Spirits (inferred)
“I ended up grabbing a glass of gin. Calonia Spirits Barill gin for anybody who's curious. I do like my gin.” — Kevin Rose 00:01:33Find it on Amazon
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Awareness: Conversations with the Masters
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“there was a great book, you know, the book Awareness, which you've recommended to me. It's one of my favorites. I have one of my many copies downstairs” — Kevin Rose 00:02:05Find it on Amazon
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Nanoblock (inferred)
“these bonsai nanoblocks... This is a fun stocking stuffer. People are going to love this. It is oddly satisfying to build these little tiny like bonsai trees.” — Kevin Rose 01:00:23Find it on Amazon
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Stop Fixing Yourself: Wake Up, All Is Well
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“It's called Stop Fixing Yourself, Wake Up. All is well. It's by Anthony Dlo, the Jesuit priest and therapist that we talked about earlier.” — Kevin Rose 01:00:55Find it on Amazon
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“tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow... by Gabriel Zean. It's a fiction book and it was on the New York Times list of the hundred best books of the 21st century.” — Tim Ferriss 01:04:05Find it on Amazon
Guest’s ownProduct
Coyote (card game)
Exploding Kittens / Tim Ferriss (inferred)
“Coyote, another stocking stuffer, the card game that I made with Exploding Kittens, I noticed it's on Black Friday sale, by the way.” — Tim Ferriss 01:04:05Find it on Amazon
RecommendedBook
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Rumi, translated by Haleh Liza Gafori
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“this is 25 different micro like everything from hex nuts to screwdrivers to flatheads and it's a magnetic little insert... It is the best stocking stuffer in the world.” — Kevin Rose 01:07:14Find it on Amazon
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Elgato Wave 3 Microphone
Elgato
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“Oh, Elgato makes this beautiful little prompter you can control with an iPhone or an iPad... Elgato's some great gear and it's not that expensive.” — Kevin Rose 01:12:56Find it on Amazon
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Torque (inferred)
“the Tank M3 push sled. It's bar none the best sled I've ever used. I would not trade it... It's just an amazing sled.” — Tim Ferriss 01:13:28Find it on Amazon
Guest’s ownProduct
The Way (meditation app)
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“the way app, it's so easy... It started out as just my handdown favorite meditation app. It's the easiest way to get back in the habit.” — Tim Ferriss 01:14:31Find it on Amazon
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“It's a walking treadmill. My wife Daria turned me on to this... I think it's the best walking treadmill. We did a bunch of research and it's the best one under $300.” — Kevin Rose 01:17:38Find it on Amazon
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Notion (with AI agents)
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“AI on the notion front has been quite good. The agents that they've added inside of notion are phenomenal and that continues to get better.” — Kevin Rose 01:21:16Find it on Amazon
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NotebookLM
Google (inferred)
“Are you talking about Notebook LM?... notebook LM is getting better and better. So, here's a fun hack... You have an instant podcast primer on that thing.” — Kevin Rose 01:22:49Find it on Amazon
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