How Taking Magic Mushrooms Led To A Billion Dollar Fortune
ByAmy Lamareon May 26, 2021inArticles›Billionaire News
If writing for CelebrityNetWorth has taught me anything, it’s that there are endless ways to make a billion dollars. You could become a billionaire through a more traditional route like the worlds of finance, tech startups and real estate. You could earn billions as a circus clown . You could earn billions through cryptocurrency . There’s probably even at least one person in the world who made a billion dollars from dogecoin.
Crazier still, you could earn your billionaire status thanks to a fateful hallucinogenic trip on magic mushrooms…
Johannes Simon/Getty Images
The Makings Of A Future Billionaire
Christian Angermayer isn’t a familiar name on Wall Street. He is a 42-year-old German investor who spent most of his life totally abstaining from all drugs and alcohol. His lifelong abstinence streak ended in 2015 after a very fateful dinner party.
In 2015, Christian was a guest at a dinner party seated next to a neuroscientist. The two struck up a conversation about the relative harms and benefits produced by various drugs.
The neuroscientist followed up with a research paper that ranked 20 drugs in order of harmfulness to users.
FYI, alcohol ranked #1… as in it causes the MOST harm to individuals and society at large.
Angermayer was stunned to see that psilocybin – aka magic mushrooms – ranked at the bottom of the list… as in the least harmful. The report claimed that magic mushrooms were a highly effective treatment for severe depression.
The report inspired Christian to break his lifelong abstinence and experiment with mushrooms while on a vacation in the Caribbean, where the substance is legal.
Life Changing Moment
Christian has since described that first experience with magic mushrooms as “life-changing.” In fact, he has said it was the most meaningful thing he’d ever done in his whole life.
The trip inspired a moment of profound insight. When he came out of the fog, he claimed to finally understand Bitcoin.
The experience and epiphany inspired him to radically reorganize his investment portfolio. He soon went on to make major investments in psychedelics, weed, space travel, cryptocurrency, life extension and the film industry. It’s an odd portfolio for the odd times we live in.
Making A Fortune
In 2016, Angermayer tried mushrooms again and had another profound, life-changing experience. He got the idea to commercialize psychedelics. To find companies he called up billionaire former Goldman Sachs executive Mike Novogratz. Novogratz told him he knew of a couple, George Goldsmith and Ekaterina Malievskaia, who were trying to start a mushroom business and needed backers.
That startup is Compass Pathways Plc., a pharmaceutical company developing a magic mushroom-based treatment for depression. Angermeyer and Novogratz both made angel investments into Compass.
And it appears that he was on the right track. The psychedelics-as-mental-health industry has exploded in the last four years, with over 50 companies going public. We have seen the culture and stigma around all psychedelics shift dramatically. And these compounds are now seen more as therapies than the traditional party drugs. There are even sites like Healing Maps , which help connect psychedelic-curious patients with ketamine clinics in their area and retreats worldwide.
Today Angermayer’s stake in Compass Pathways is worth $2 billion.
Angermayer’s strategy is simple. He invests in the things he’s passionate about.
To date he has invested in AbCellera Biologics, which had a part in developing an antibody-drug for Covid-19. He founded Atai Life Sciences, a psychedelics-biotech startup that has backing from Peter Thiel.
Angermayer has made a fortune on his investments over the past 14 months. His Apeiron Investment Group has been the main investor in seven companies that have made their IPO in the last year. Those IPOs raised more than $1 billion combined. Ten more companies he’s invested in plan to go public in 2021.
As of this writing, Christian’s investment fund Apeiron manages more than $2.5 billion in assets. Roughly 50% of the fund’s assets are Angermayer’s personal funds.
In other words, Christian’s net worth is around $1.25 billion. A billion dollar fortune inspired by a magic mushroom hallucination. What a trip!
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Compass Co-Founder Robert Reffkin In Prime Position To Become America’s Next Black Billionaire
ByAmy Lamareon April 20, 2021inArticles›Entertainment
The real estate firm Compass went public recently at $18 per share. By the end of the first day of trading the stock was at $20.15, giving the growing company a market cap of $7.9 billion.
We obviously have no idea where the stock will go over time, but the public listing puts its 41-year-old co-founder, Robert Reffkin, in prime position to potentially become America’s next black billionaire . If all goes to plan, Reffkin would also be the youngest black billionaire in the elite group.
Or the stock could plummet!
As of this writing, here are America’s six black billionaires:
#6: Jay-Z Net Worth : $1.3 billion
#5. Michael Jordan Net Worth : $2.2 billion
#4. Oprah Winfrey Net Worth: $3.5 billion
#3. David Steward Net Worth: $3.9 billion
#2. Robert F. Smith Net Worth: $6.5 billion
#1. Kanye West Net Worth : $6.6 billion
[We do not yet count Tyler Perry as a billionaire as another publication has declared. But it’s possible that by the time Reffkin reaches billionaire status, Tyler will have as well…]
Photo Provided by Compass
Reffkin co-founded Compass in 2012 with Ori Allon. He formerly was an executive at Goldman Sachs. Reffkin owns $480.7 million worth of Compass shares currently and has another $186.5 million that will be disbursed to him over the next four years. So at today’s prices, Reffkin is essentially worth around $670 million on paper right now.
Reffkin’s stake in the company makes him one of the most successful real estate entrepreneurs in the country after nearly a decade of being a fringe player in the industry.
Reffkin got his bachelor’s degree and MBA from Columbia and went into the world of consulting with gigs at McKinsey, Lazard, and in the administration of George W. Bush (he was fellow in the Treasury Department). While with Goldman Sachs he rose through the ranks to become chief of staff to firm president and COO, Gary Cohn .
Compass is not yet profitable. Since its 2012 founding, the company has lost around $1 billion. Compass lost $270 million in 2020 alone.
That said, the company’s revenue has also grown by more than 20 times since 2016 when it had $187 million in revenue. Revenue in 2020 topped $3.7 billion. According to the comapy’s S-1 filing with the SEC, Compass’s market share rose from 1% to 4% from 2018 to 2020. Compass is growing roughly 10 times faster than the average U.S. real estate company.
Reffkin was inspired to found Compass by his mother, Ruth, who is a long-time real estate agent. She now works for her son’s firm. On a personal front, he has raised more than $1 million for charity. One of the charities, America Needs You, (he is the founder) aims to help young people who live below the poverty line and are the first person in their family to go to college.
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