Visions of Perfection

IN A WHITEWASHED start-up space peppered with green ferns and old movie posters, two men lounge on oversized beanbags, their laptops perched precariously on their laps. Two more sit hunched over a desk by the window, a view of Sydney’s Surry Hills beneath. All are furiously typing as house music roars from a UE Boom speaker by the door.

It’s an innocuous scene, save for the water cooler in the corner, concealed by a blanket, its little blue spout peeking out the bottom. I’m told the cooler is covered to block light from reaching the LSD that’s been dissolved in the water. Two of the four men in the room claim the hallucinogenic drug helps them reach their “peak potential” when it comes to coding crunch time – certainly a less lofty goal than the glimpse of the almighty one of them had referred to earlier.

“Using LSD is illegal here. We kind of have to be careful,” explains the 25-year-old Elon Musk