Does anyone have the perfect answer to the title of this article?
Psychedelic Invest was founded with the intent of providing transparency and information about the investing world that is exploding around psychedelics. It’s no secret that hundreds of millions of dollars have already poured in, with several companies now sporting valuations of over $1 billion.
Although many companies have raised millions of dollars from outside investors, Psychedelic Invest has not. In fact, we are a completely bootstrapped team of individuals who have worked very hard over the past several years to create a reliable and trustworthy platform.
We have never taken any type of outside money from sponsors, as we have had the goal of staying unbiased in our reporting. Our team is made up of a diverse group who are located throughout the US, and we have worked with many people around the world.
The past year has been a whirlwind for everyone involved in the psychedelics ecosystem. On our front we launched the industry’s first index, have interviewed dozens of men and women from private and non-profit organizations, published an in-depth guide to psychedelic legalization, and have created numerous other resources and tools to assist the growth of the psychedelic world.
We have done this all at our own cost, risking our time and money, knowing that we are building something very important for the psychedelics world.
As a platform that is focused on investing, Psychedelic Invest created this list of people to understand who is influencing the growth of the industry. To do this, we created a ranking system that takes into account social reach, scientific accomplishments, legislative initiatives, and value creation/contribution.
We weighted social reach the most, as we believed that those with the largest audiences are currently influencing the psychedelic ecosystem the most. For example, the individuals in our top ten have audiences that number in the hundreds of millions. What these individuals share with their audience can have massive influence.
Our intent with this list was to tell everyone, “Hey! These are the people that are making significant waves about the world of psychedelics! We hope that this will start new conversations and allow those with large influence to be connected with those who have important information to share.”
What we neglected to prioritize was inclusion of a diverse group of people. Instead, we simply looked at numbers and made a list that prioritized people who had access to the biggest audience.
While we do still believe that this list is accurate in terms of public influence, what we learned (very quickly after publishing) is that we are also an important member of the psychedelic community.
As a member of this community, we have a responsibility to ensure the sustainable growth of the broader psychedelics ecosystem. That means doing a better job of showing the true community, which includes people from around the world with diverse backgrounds.
Furthermore, we realized that audience size is not always the most important way to rank individuals who have influence. There are many important developments happening deep within the psychedelics world that have trickle down effects on the broader community. These less identifiable developments may in fact be just as, if not more, important than audience size.
This oversight in responsibility is what our entire team will be meeting about this week. How do we ensure we are making fair representations of the entire community? How do we accurately report data and information, while balancing a message that encourages the sustainable growth of the whole ecosystem?
We’re already working with a variety of people who have graciously reached out to us to help in this process.
Immediately, to show our actions beyond these words, we are removing the headline image. Although the image represented the top ten people on our list, it does not represent the broader psychedelics ecosystem.
We will be taking further action to create an image – which we understand is the first thing anyone within or outside the psychedelics community will see – to ensure that there is a better representation of the multitude of diverse people who exist throughout the psychedelics ecosystem.
We also encourage anyone to reach out to us directly. Although we have received plenty of public criticism, we have only heard from a few who have directly contacted.
As much as we wish we had had this foresight several weeks ago, the reality is that we have no other choice than to own our mistakes and move forward.
By already risking our time and money to build Psychedelic Invest, the last thing we want to do is risk our reputation with the thousands of individuals who visit our site.
Going forward, our priority will be with the vision to ensure we are building our own company in a way that acknowledges and pays tribute to all of those around us. This is not only in our best interest, but more importantly, in the best interest of the entire psychedelics ecosystem.