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Tim Ferriss · 2025-08-12 · 1h 58m

The Random Show — Sobriety, Fasting, Home Defense, Vibe Coding, Roblox, and More

Kevin Rose hits 100 days sober as he and Tim Ferriss trade hacks on fasting, ketones, home defense, vibe coding, and the AI-driven future of trust.

The Random Show — Sobriety, Fasting, Home Defense, Vibe Coding, Roblox, and More
The guest

Kevin Rose — Tech investor and serial founder; partner at True Ventures, co-founder of Digg (now rebooting dig.com with Alexis Ohanian) and the intermittent-fasting app Zero, and creator of the card game Coyote. Tim Ferriss's longtime co-host on The Random Show.

The gist

In this Random Show, Kevin Rose celebrates 100 days with no alcohol, prompted by a liver-enzyme health scare, and explains the friend support, 12-step toolkit, and 'just not today' reframe that finally made sobriety stick. The conversation runs deep on metabolic health: Tim details a ketogenic-then-intermittent-fasting protocol that produced his best lab work in a decade, while Kevin describes micro-dosing the GLP-1 drug Zepbound to repair his insulin sensitivity, both framing Alzheimer's prevention (Tim is APOE3/4) as a core motivation alongside guidance from researcher Rhonda Patrick. They cover home security after Kevin found a homeless man living in the closet of a house he was touring, then pivot to a long discussion of venture capital's looming disruption by vibe coding, the 'dead internet,' human-data marketplaces, and cryptographic trust. Kevin promotes the dig.com reboot and his hit card game Coyote, and closes on his expensive Roblox 'Grow a Garden' habit replacing alcohol.

Big reveals

  • Kevin reveals the milestone: 100 days with no alcohol, the longest sobriety streak he has ever achieved after many failed attempts over decades.
  • The turning point was fear of death after his doctor told him his liver enzymes were roughly 5x to 7x normal levels; they snapped back to normal within four weeks of quitting.
  • Tim reports his best lab results in a decade after doing roughly four weeks of strict ketosis followed by 16:8 intermittent fasting, dramatically improving his family-cursed insulin sensitivity.
  • Kevin reveals he has been micro-dosing Zepbound (tirzepatide) for about two months at well under one unit via insulin syringe, trimming about 30% off his glucose spikes to repair insulin sensitivity rather than for weight loss.
  • Kevin recounts that while touring a brand-new empty house, his wife opened a closet to find a homeless man crouched inside who put his finger to his lips and said 'shh'; the man had been living there, doing laundry and making the bed.
  • Kevin, a True Ventures partner, argues venture capital is on shaky footing for early-stage software because vibe coding lets anyone build a once-$250K app for about $50, so founders increasingly won't need VC checks.
  • Kevin reveals he and Alexis Ohanian are rebooting dig.com as a 'safe haven' for authenticated human content, betting human-generated data and proof-of-personhood become critical against the bot-flooded 'dead internet.'
  • Kevin shares that gameplay videos of his card game Coyote have surpassed 300 million views and it's now in 8,000-plus retail locations, with inventory unable to reach warehouses fast enough.

Things worth remembering

  • Tim notes Sigmund Freud once promoted cocaine as a solution to heroin addiction.
  • Nanoblocks are tiny Japanese building blocks (about the size of a baby aspirin) engineered around Lego's patents, sold with branded tweezers and notoriously confusing instructions.
  • A YouTube account of a Norwegian truck driver driving through the countryside ('slow TV') reportedly has around 5 million subscribers; Craig Mod uses binaural in-ear microphones to capture immersive ambient Japan recordings.
  • Rhonda Patrick was Tim's podcast guest number 12 out of more than 800 episodes; her father was diagnosed with Parkinson's.
  • Peter Attia described his first OG ketone monoester shot as so vile he had to white-knuckle the sink while dry-heaving for about 10 minutes.
  • Tim's premium exogenous ketone costs roughly $20-$30 per dose, which he calls the 'Bugatti of exogenous ketones.'
  • Tim lowered his sauna from 194-plus degrees to about 175-180 after Rhonda cited Finnish studies suggesting overly hot sauna may actually accelerate dementia.
  • A solo, six-month-old vibe-coded startup, Base44, sold to Wix for $80 million cash; Swedish platform Lovable hit $100M ARR just 8 months after launch, the fastest software company ever to that milestone.
  • Kevin got his retina scanned by Tools for Humanity's Orb (Sam Altman-linked), which shards data anonymously, and predicts trust will shift from a binary blue-check to a gradient score backed by ZK (zero-knowledge) proofs.
  • Kevin's Roblox 'Grow a Garden' rare red zen dragon has a 1% drop chance at $20 per 10 rolls; he admits the dragon cost him around two grand, joking he traded a liver-killing vice for a bank-account-killing one.

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

Nanoblock

Kawada (inferred)

“So this is called nanoblocks, and it's one of the things I wanted to talk about today. So nanoblocks are from Japan” — Kevin Rose 00:09:52
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Lego The Great Wave off Kanagawa (Hokusai)

Lego

“The Great Wave Hokusai. Almost everyone will have seen this. That actually is a legit Lego. This is not Nanoblocks, but this one is really cool” — Kevin Rose 00:10:54
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Craig Mod ambient field recordings / slow TV

Craig Mod

“Craig Mod's the best. He has gone out and he's done these ambient recordings where he just goes to these rural parts of Japan” — Tim Ferriss 00:12:27
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Babe

“the first movie I chose that popped up on Amazon Prime, which is Babe. Masterpiece of a movie” — Tim Ferriss 00:17:08
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FoundMyFitness podcast (Rhonda Patrick)

Rhonda Patrick

“people can learn all sorts of stuff about 168 intermittent fasting from Rhonda Patrick and she's had a number of scientists on her podcast” — Tim Ferriss 00:26:27
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Martin Berkhan / Leangains intermittent fasting work

Martin Berkhan

“his recommendations around intermittent fasting plus resistance training are very compelling. So I would suggest people check that out” — Tim Ferriss 00:26:27
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Ketone-IQ

Ketone-IQ (inferred)

“recommended ketone, qi t o n e, and it's a powder that you can add into your coffee and mix up as a creamer, which is what I do” — Tim Ferriss 00:34:41
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Creatine (monohydrate)

“caffeine, ketones, and creatine, which is also great to take. 10 grams of creatine. I've been doing that for a long long time” — Tim Ferriss 00:38:20
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Zepbound (tirzepatide)

Eli Lilly (inferred)

“I started micro dosing basically about two months ago, Zepbound. I have lower just standard resting glucose. And my spikes don't get near as high” — Kevin Rose 00:46:08
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Curcumin Phytosome

Thorne

“Curcumin phytosome from Thorne. So really switching from NSAIDs like ibuprofen to curcumin. I have shifted to Thorne Brand” — Tim Ferriss 00:53:54
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Guest’s ownProduct

Coyote (card game)

Kevin Rose

“Coyote, this card game, it's fast, casual, couple minutes to learn, 10 minutes to play. Kids love it” — Kevin Rose 01:49:32
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Zero (intermittent fasting app)

Kevin Rose

“you're talking to the guy that created Zero, the intermittent fasting app. I've definitely done my fair share of 168” — Kevin Rose 00:47:41
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Cursor

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“If you're really taking vibe coding seriously, you would be using cursor, not not lovable” — Kevin Rose 01:35:11
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Lovable

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“Lovable I think is probably my favorite hosted vibe coding platform that's out there. It's great. It's a great place to start” — Kevin Rose 01:26:42
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River (getriver.io) in-person event platform

River

“It's get river.io. I used this service to run the podcast 10th anniversary global meetups. the team over there was awesome” — Tim Ferriss 01:46:57
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