# Baszucki explains his hypothesis for why keto helped his son

Markdown copy of https://realalpha.app/s/baszucki-explains-his-hypothesis-for-why-keto-helped-his-son/ on Real Alpha, the best minutes from long interviews with the people building AI. Cite and link the page, not this copy.

- Speaker: [David Baszucki](https://realalpha.app/people/david-baszucki/) · David Baszucki is founder and CEO of Roblox. · Co-founded Roblox and has led it as CEO since 2004, serving more than 100M daily users.
- Host: [Tim Ferriss](https://realalpha.app/people/tim-ferriss/) · Host, The Tim Ferriss Show · Wrote The 4-Hour Workweek; an early investor or advisor in Uber and Shopify.
- Show: The Tim Ferriss Show
- Episode: [The Path to 150M+ Daily Roblox Users, Ketogenic Therapy for Brain Health, and More — CEO of Roblox](https://realalpha.app/v/DHOgteC4yX0/), Nov 5, 2025
- Moment: 16:55 to 21:42 of the episode (5 min), playing on https://realalpha.app/s/baszucki-explains-his-hypothesis-for-why-keto-helped-his-son/; the episode from there: https://realalpha.app/v/DHOgteC4yX0/?t=1015

## Quote

> “What happens when someone is in ketosis is you run on ketones, this alternate energy pathway, and you get very **consistent energy** and very clear energy, especially to your brain.”
> — [David Baszucki](https://realalpha.app/people/david-baszucki/) at [19:06](https://realalpha.app/v/DHOgteC4yX0/?t=1146) · The Tim Ferriss Show

## Takeaways

1. The diet shifts the body toward ketones as an energy source.
2. Baszucki hypothesizes steadier brain energy may matter in bipolar disorder.
3. His son worked with a dietitian and Dr. Chris Palmer.

## About this segment

David Baszucki describes ketones as an alternate fuel and proposes that steadier brain energy may have helped his son. He shares why the family tried the diet after years of treatment.

From “The Path to 150M+ Daily Roblox Users, Ketogenic Therapy for Brain Health, and More — CEO of Roblox”, Nov 5, 2025. [Watch the full episode](https://realalpha.app/v/DHOgteC4yX0/)

## Transcript

Transcribed by machine (Whisper) from the episode’s audio, so a word may be off here and there.

[17:08](https://realalpha.app/v/DHOgteC4yX0/?t=1028) when so many other things had failed, or at least what is your best understanding of that? Yeah, so I want to take a step back. Your audience may be familiar with what a ketogenic diet is, but in the big picture, almost all of us live our lives day-to-day burning glucose, and we have monitors. Too much glucose can lead to insulin resistance and diabetes. And society, I think, is just learning about glucose and how it brings energy to the body.

[17:46](https://realalpha.app/v/DHOgteC4yX0/?t=1066) Now, interestingly enough, the body has a second way of generating energy called ketones. Most people never touch their ketones. It's a more primitive way of generating energy. it's a way of generating energy that we all go into if we don't eat for a day or two because there's no more glucose we go into ketosis but it's also a way of generating energy that you know people who live far up in the north and eat seal blubber all day long aren't getting any glucose they're not getting any carbs and so they eat that seal blubber and they go into this thing called ketosis. And, you know, it's arguably something that is closer to the way we lived as primitive people than the way we live today. We arguably live today with more carbohydrates in our diet because about 10,000 years ago, we had this thing called the agricultural revolution

[18:52](https://realalpha.app/v/DHOgteC4yX0/?t=1132) and the agricultural revolution in this amazing thing, humans figured out they could generate a lot of food that would support a lot of people. It was an amazing invention, but it was more carbs than what the traditional diet has. So being in ketosis comes from fasting or eating very low carbs and more fat than we would be used to. What happens when someone is in ketosis is you run on ketones, this alternate energy pathway, and you get very consistent energy and very clear energy, especially to your brain. The thesis would be, I guess my thesis would be, there are a lot of people around, arguably, interestingly enough, with bipolar, people who have pretty big brains, like people who are trying to process a lot.

[19:49](https://realalpha.app/v/DHOgteC4yX0/?t=1189) And if they're not getting consistent energy to their brain, which could happen from glucose spike, glucose crash, glucose spike, glucose crash, one might argue that what people see in bipolar is actually just a little bit of a symptom of not having enough brain energy to their brain. So what we did with Matt and people have been exploring with keto diets for a long time for epilepsy. Also, you know, I like to think when those Aboriginal people would run 300 miles in America a thousand years ago with a bag of pemmican, that was pretty keto food. That was high fat, low carb food and allows people to go pretty far without crashing. We put Matt on a keto diet and we worked with a dietician and Dr. Palmer. And this is a diet, you know, less than 20 grams of carbs per day, which is almost unfathomable for modern people, right? Because

[20:51](https://realalpha.app/v/DHOgteC4yX0/?t=1251) like a quarter of a Coke probably has 20 grams of carbs. And also a diet that probably had more fat than protein, which is also something that we're not used to because I think the last 50 to 100 years, we've migrated. to less fats in our diet as well, somewhat. So we migrated Matt to what is called a ketogenic diet. And after 20 plus meds and treatments and all of it, we started, and he started to see results from this diet, which was an absolute miracle. How do you make it as easy as possible to follow