The Blown-Out Nervous Systems of People in Tech
An exited tech founder is regulating the nervous systems of tech burnouts, women in their 30s, and even billionaires
For a few months now, I’ve been posting videos mocking some of the behavior of the tech billionaires, hoping to both diminish their power through mockery and to draw attention to the absurdity of their behavior.
As a result, the algorithms-that-be fed the videos to the feed of Ben Lee, a hospitality entrepreneur with a few tech exits who realized that his style of over-work was making him unhealthy, and that he needed to reset his entire way of living to actually physically be well. He has since gone on to found Re(center), a “regulation retreat” in the jungle of Costa Rica.
He shared with me that some of the most optimization obsessed people in tech are actually the ones with the most blown out nervous systems, among other things. Please enjoy our conversation below.
A quick note, before we get into it … Hard Reset has two events upcoming in New York City and San Francisco. Take a peek and sign up:
SF: AI prompts got you down? Hard Reset is here to bring back the fun of coding with a painting with code workshop at Gray Area!
Create your own expressive drawing and painting program! We’ll take inspiration from some novel paint programs created by artists, and then learn the skills needed to make our own. All skill levels welcome—we’ll work with p5.js, a friendly tool for learning to code and make art.
NYC: We all know about the massive layoffs that are happening at major corporations. Meanwhile, Zohran’s New York is taking off. This leaves us wondering: how can tech best be used by government to improve government & city infrastructure? What does the future of tech in NYC look like? How is it changing?
Join us for a private dinner at Persian restaurant Sofreh to discuss.
Ariella Steinhorn: Tell me the founding story!
Ben Lee: I was a software engineer, and built my own consulting firm. For fifteen years, I was burning the candle on both ends—and actually I didn’t even burn out, burnout was just my default.
I was constantly living in a state of dysregulation, and ultimately I got physically sick. I had to take multiple leaves of absence and go overseas for treatment.
Eventually I sold my business and moved to Costa Rica, where I regulated my nervous system and started it thinking that a lot of my peers might benefit from this sort of lifestyle and nervous system reset. I was focused on men’s health, and helping men find a connection point through community.
But men are very much in their ego, and not willing to get as vulnerable. They were like, “your nervous system, what the fuck is that?”
But then, two women—one a venture capitalist and one a post-exit founder—became best friends on the property. They were like, you don’t know what you’re creating, this is so incredible.
Within a week, I realized that while this was initially built for men, the ideal customer profile to stay at this retreat was actually women. I began reaching out to every high-performance woman I knew.
Now, I’ve worked on some big projects, including with tech unicorns, and I’ve never seen anything like this in terms of adoption. So now, we cater to that sort of broad spectrum of women in every season of their life.
AS: What does the gender make-up of the retreat/center look like now?
BL: It’s 80% women. Most of the women are in their mid-30s. They may have just frozen their eggs, and are having an existential crisis, wondering why they live in New York and San Francisco—wanting to be in a relationship and more in their bodies. Some women are in their early 50s and in menopause, about to divorce their husbands.
Women are taking the most action—coming here, wanting to see what happens to their body somatically. Some decide they want to work part-time, or that they want to advise or become executive coaches. They don’t want to accept the status quo of work, health, inflammation, gut health, and a host of issues. Men are more one-and-done, they want to optimize. They think oh, fourteen minutes in the sauna, that’s it.
But some men still come, because men want to be in places where there are women. So billionaires show up.
AS: And what do you see with these billionaires?
BL: What we’ve seen consistently in this “1% club” is that these are 1% of the worst nervous systems we have seen. Their cell phone usage is out of control, they go into the sauna with their cell phone.
They’re doing all the peptides and concierge medicine, and they have humongous saunas and wellness studios. They have physique, their wife may run a Pilates retreat.
But for these ultra high net-worth individuals, their systems are blown out. Their partner’s systems are blown out, because your partner has an effect on your nervous system.
The pillars of what we offer are: community, joyful purpose, clean food, nature, movement, and good sleep. Honestly it’s hard to hit all of those when you’re in Brooklyn or San Francisco, especially with the case of men. They’re incredibly lonely and not successful in relationships; the community aspect is lacking big-time even if they’re fulfilling their purpose in business.
AS: What exactly is a nervous system scan?
BL: We scan people before and after, using something called an ECG device, a non-invasive device that is connected to your wrist. It’s sensory based, and measures the time and beats in between your heartbeats. We have a dataset of 50,000 profiles.
We have one of the most accurate nervous system protocols focused on heart rate variability (HRV). What that means is we detect the elasticity and space between heartbeats.
This is what biometric devices like Oura and Whoop try to detect, which have obviously become an obsession of the biohacking and performance optimization world. But they’re not accurate; they provide passive insights while you’re sleeping.
It helps us detect how much energy block someone has—for example whether your energy is a certain level but you have a lower output. We develop a personalized report based off of the scan.
A caveat is that our protocol is not 100%, because to get a totally accurate baseline of someone’s HRV or nervous system data, you have to scan one week prior to them arriving. So we’re trialing sending these devices to people’s homes.
AS: It’s interesting to me that they don’t seem to care, as men are the key perpetrators of violence…
BL: Totally. When I was making the pivot to women customers and meeting investors, I got to see and experience what it might have felt like for a woman to be in the fundraising room pitching fem-tech.
Investors were yawning. And while I had more data and social proof than anyone in the wellness retreat space on burnout, no one was really giving me the time of day—unless it was
focused on making money and 10xing productivity. But they need this the most.
Now, we can’t hire fast enough.
AS: How many scans have you done so far?
BL: 600 people.
AS: We’re all familiar with the overarching phrase “nervous breakdown” but we’re far less familiar with what it means to regulate your nervous system.
BL: Nervous breakdowns come in different shapes and sizes. There was the irony of me burning out while building a burnout center in the jungle.
AS: What are the most common reasons people come?
BL: A few examples: grief, major life transitions, burnout, inflammation, sleep issues, gut health, autoimmune issues, PCOS, or endometriosis. Some people know something is wrong, but not what it is, so they enter a lab of testing to figure out what works.
People can choose between seven, fourteen, and twenty-one day stays; we do a lot of couple’s work too.
Overall I have learned that regulation is much more about energetic alignment, not about working or pushing hard. Working hard is the easier part. But we need to make sure we’re with the right people. When it’s not with the right people, that’s when things get chaotic, and can turn into physical symptoms like swelling.
At 38, I’m better at checking my “engine light.” Sometimes I realize that instead of pushing too hard, I’m going to sleep in. One woman VC from SF told her VC partners that after the retreat, she was going to have her assistant sync her schedule with her cycle. And if it helps her feel better, everyone wins.
It’s critical to learn to be connected somatically. And I think this is far more effective than relying on data or an app.