Sam Altman says doing psychedelics during a weekend retreat in Mexico changed his life

It may come as a surprise that the billionaire, who has been described as highly confident and charming, used to consider himself a “very anxious, unhappy person.”

“If you had told me that, like, one weekend-long retreat in Mexico was going to significantly change that, I would have said absolutely not,” Altman said. “And it really did.”

The CEO didn’t specify which psychedelics he used, but he said the experience changed him in a lot of ways. One of the biggest was that he now feels like a “calm person” and the shift improved his quality of life and also helped him work on hard things.

While the CEO said he has also dabbled in psychedelics at Burning Man, he said the “life-changing” experiences for him have been those where he travels and goes through the experience with a guide. The Burning Man version, he said, has been less altering and a rare occurrence.

It’s not the first time the tech mogul has spoken publicly about psychedelics.

In addition to various health startups the billionaire has invested in, Altman has served as the board chairman of a startup called Journey Colab that aims to help people suffering from addiction with the development and application of clinical psychedelic drugs for therapy. It’s not clear if he remains in the position, and Journey Colab did not immediately respond to Business Insider’s request for comment on his involvement with the company.

Altman also posted on X about psychedelics in 2022, evoking a response from Elon Musk, who is also vocal about support for psychedelics, about how “Amphetamines negatively affect empathy” and “psychedelics do the opposite.”

The trend of tech moguls experimenting with psychedelics isn’t new. Steve Jobs famously used LSD. More recently, PayPal Mafia member Peter Thiel funded a psychedelic therapies startup.

A significant number of people in the US have experimented with psychedelics as well, with 28% of American adults surveyed by YouGov in 2022 saying they had used a psychedelic at least once in their lifetime.

In 2020, Oregan became the first-ever US state to legalize psilocybin, the psychedelic compound in so-called magic mushrooms, for therapeutic use. Denver, Colorado, and Oakland, California, decriminalized magic mushrooms in recent years.

Demand for luxury psychedelic retreats has also been growing. Some professionals have also turned to psychedelics and other substances like ketamine in an effort to enhance their work performance.