Morning Midday

the advantage of that?”

Nootrobox has no shortage of competitors, detractors, or both. “They’re just selling sugary caffeine cubes,” says Eric Matzner, 28, the founder of Nootroo, also based in San Francisco. Unlike Nootrobox’s products, Nootroo’s pills contain a type of piracetam, the compound for which the term “nootropic” was coined in the 1970s. Although not approved by the FDA, piracetam has been used in other countries to improve focus and treat diseases like Alzheimer’s. Purists maintain that only piracetam and a handful of other substances qualify as nootropics, but the term is now commonly used to describe almost any cognitive enhancer—from caffeine to ADHD and wakefulness drugs such as Adderall and Modafinil, respectively, which are more potent than Nootrobox’s offerings.

To sell piracetam in the U.S., Matzner labels his gold-colored jars with the disclaimer “intended for use in neuroscience research only.” He says he has almost 1,000 subscribers who pay $55 a month. In addition to Nootroo’s pills, Matzner says he downs as many as 40 supplements per day, which he believes will improve his brain and extend his life span: “I take them before even getting out of bed in the morning.” He pulls out a laptop emblazoned with stickers of two large gold pills and begins flipping through links to studies. “This is stuff you can’t get from just eating food,” he says. “One is from the skin of a pineapple, one is from the stomach of a silkworm.” To demonstrate the fruits of his experimentation, Matzner performs an impromptu speed-typing test on his laptop. He can hit 150 words per minute; 40 is about average.

On a Monday back in New York, I try Nootroo’s “neuroscience