For years, Elon Musk has been a proponent of using ketamine to treat depression. The Tesla CEO criticized popular antidepressant drugs, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), saying they “zombify” people.
“I have a [ketamine] prescription for when my brain chemistry sometimes goes super negative,” he wrote on X in August 2023.
Musk isn’t the only high-profile executive using psychedelic drugs. They’re growing in popularity among the startup community and increasingly being used in leadership retreats and coaching.
Two co-founders of an organization offering ketamine-assisted coaching sessions in the San Francisco Bay Area revealed to WIRED the details of their operation, which caters to primarily CEOs of Fortune 100 companies, CFOs, and other C-level founders.
“They’re like, ‘OK, what’s the next horizon? Because I’ve checked pretty much every box,’” said co-founder Shuang Shuang—a self-selected pseudonym.
What is ketamine?
Ketamine, also known as the party drug Special K, was the primary cause of the death of Friends star Matthew Perry in 2023.
The drug is approved for use by doctors and veterinarians as an anesthetic—but is also capable of producing hallucinogenic side effects, according to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Association. Those effects can distort the user’s senses, altering their perception of sights and sounds, while making them feel more disconnected and out of control.
That dissociation can make people feel detached from the environment they’re in, according to the DEA, while inducing feelings of calm and relaxation, immobility, relief from pain, and amnesia that can leave a user with no memories of events while under the influence of the drug.
What a ketamine journey for executives looks like
The three-day experience costs $2,600 plus $350 for a medical assessment and ketamine prescription. Meals are included, but lodging and transportation are not.
According to Shuang, these are “the loneliest people.”
“They have to lead and go through so many things by themselves. They can come and see that they’re not alone, and let go of the burden of being so protected all the time,” Shuang said. “They just want to be people.”
But before they can embark on their ketamine journey, the co-founders put them through a medical and psychological screening, including questions about whether they’re working with a therapist or have participated in a similar program. Shuang says they take extra consideration to evaluate those with a history of trauma, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and substance abuse.
The experiences involve nine to 10 clients at a time somewhere in the Mission district of San Francisco, Shuang explained. Floor chairs—cushions with upright seat backs—are arranged in a circle in the room with candles in the center. Each seat has a rose and information about what to expect from the psychedelic experience.
“The vibes are witchy,” Shuang said.
Once the process begins, the founders ask again for the consent of participants, who are able to change their minds if they don’t want to experiment with the drug.
“Then our medical doctor and registered nurse distribute the medicine through a shot—it’s all intramuscular,” Shuang said.
After that, what Shuang calls “an executive-coaching psychedelic slumber party” begins. In the same room, the executives are tucked into their own “nests” with blankets, pillows, earplugs, eye masks, and even stuffed animals if they’d like.
“Because ketamine is more of a dissociative medicine—there is this sense of naturally going inward and being quiet,” Shuang added.
The first day includes a “psycholytic dose” of ketamine, which Shuang explained is not a full psychedelic dose, “But it lets you kind of just teeter into the realms.” The second day is a mid-dose, Shuang said, which is a day “all about medicine and integration, and there’s coaching around it.”
Shuang’s co-founder, using the pseudonym Aria Stone, said that while people are on the ketamine journey, the organization’s founders are all “very attentive,” with four of them facilitating the sites.
“We’ve seen over 100 ketamine journeys at this point,” Stone told WIRED.
Shuang believes there are no “bad [psychedelic] trips”—only “challenging and uncomfortable journeys.”
“Let’s say someone’s trauma comes through,” Shuang said. “One way that could show up is you are screaming, or a lot of energy is just ripping through your body. You’ll get off your mat and you’ll just want to run. You’ll think you’re in a dangerous situation.”
Shuang said the way they handle that is to make sure the person knows they are safe, by holding their hand, taking their mask off, or walking around the room.
“All these things help bring you back to now,” Shuang said.
Stone said when the high wears off, people say they don’t want the feeling of it to end, leaving them to ask, “Can I integrate this way of being into my life?”
After two ketamine experiences, they turn to the coaching aspect, Shuang said, with questions like, “What does this mean for me? How did I feel? And how do I bring something positive from that journey into my everyday life?”
A week and a half after the experience, the clients engage in a virtual follow-up, focused on how they can apply what they’ve learned to their leadership, Stone said.
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