December 19, 2025· 49 min

The Booming Business of Chinese Peptides

Orality
Model
50%

Speaker Breakdown

HostTracy Alloway(1,609 words)
M:94%
HostJoe Weisenthal(2,222 words)
M:94%
GuestJasmine Sun(2,800 words)
M:28%
GuestZak David(1,933 words)
M:28%

Oral Indicators

Agonistic48%
literally, completely, very
Engagement66%
you, our, your
Memory Aids100%
listen, now, okay
Repetition100%
like (113x), it's (74x), about (67x)
Parallelism63%
And I'm Joe Wasenthal...., But I've been hearing about th..., And I just said that that it's...
Sound Patterns100%
103 question(s), alliteration: "markets move", alliteration: "barclays brief"
Formulaic Phrases4%
you know what, i mean

Literate Indicators

Hedging8%
may, apparently, could
Passive Voice5%
been used, been tested, been experimented
Abstract Nouns19%
investment, recommendation, business
Subordination9%
because, until, since
Sentence Length29%
Avg: 12.2 words/sentence
Word Complexity49%
investment, analyze, anticipate
Academic Markers3%
according to
Impersonal Style34%
674 personal pronouns found
Descriptive Style99%
literally, completely, apply

Description

You probably already know someone doing peptides — the amino acids that form the basis of popular new drug treatments like Ozempic and Wegovy. Today there are peptides meant to help with everything from weight loss, to cellular regeneration, to improved eye contact while talking. In San Francisco, there are even organized “peptide raves.” Yet most of these underground peptides haven’t been approved by regulators for human use in the US. So where are they coming from? And how do they get here? On this episode, we speak with two guests who have seen this growing subculture up close, Jasmine Sun, an independent writer covering AI and San Francisco culture, as well as Zak David, managing partner of Pirsek Technologies, which runs a peptide supplier, Peptide Partners. Subscribe to the Odd Lots Newsletter Join the conversation: discord.gg/oddlots See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.