As a tech founder, I hit a wall. Here’s how I rebuilt resilience | Ember Health Patient Stories: Dan

In October of 2025, cybersecurity CEO and Ember Health patient Dan volunteered to tell his story as a part of a storytelling project run by documentarian Chandler Kauffman. The objective of the project is to raise awareness about how IV ketamine works to treat depression, and who it may help. We are humbled to serve extraordinary people like Dan and others in our community so that they may experience the relief they deserve, realize their full potential, and make their marks in their communities.

You can read Dan's full transcript below. If you’re seeking relief from depression and curious to explore care at Ember, we invite you to schedule a consultation call with a clinician from our team to understand whether IV ketamine care may be a fit.

The founder journey is not for the weak. I didn't have any support when I was building my company. It can easily feel hopeless. You feel like there's something wrong with you. You feel like there's something that you're doing wrong that's causing this and there's no way out.

I'm Dan Guido. I'm the CEO of a cybersecurity firm that specializes in high stakes engagements. My clients count on me to secure their most sensitive intellectual property to keep billions of dollars safe or sometimes protect against the risk of loss of life. I am the expert that people turn to. I like the pressure because it means that people are using me for their most intense challenges. 
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But working under those conditions every single day and getting feedback about your failures, which is really common in security, you don't notice when something works the right way is something that can really drain you. So the whole field is really one where people deal with depression symptoms a lot, they deal with anxiety a lot because you're always worried about where this thing is going to fail. As the company began to grow, so did the pressure on me. As the founder added to the pressure of an already high stakes job. Now I'm responsible for the health and well being of my employees. When we hit 100 employees, that's when I really feel like I hit my first wall. I lost a lot of sleep and then the sleep led to me showing up to work tired and irritable, which then made the problem even worse. 
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That is what precipitated me seeking out mental health treatment for the first time. I was open to trying any I could. I was gratitude-journaling, I was meditating. I went to see a therapist. I went to see a psychiatrist. I got on anti anxiety medication. Each of them had an effect, but it was too small to get me out. I went to a psychiatrist and I got prescribed Lexapro. It sort of makes the world fade to black and white. There's not a lot to get sad about, but there's not a lot to get happy about either. And it doesn't address motivation. I went to a mastermind group and there was a woman there who described ketamine as 10 years of therapy in a single hour. Her statement of how important it was to her life is really what turned the corner for me. 
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The first place that I picked up ketamine from was one of these at home mail providers that gave you dissolving tablets that you could take in the privacy of your own home. That was convenient. But I had a lot of worries about it. I didn't know if I was doing it right. I didn't know if I was taking the right amount. I didn't have anybody to guide me through the experience.

The one big knockout punch came from getting ketamine at Ember Health. I did infusions about once every four weeks. Eventually, we extended the time frame. I went to six weeks, I went to eight weeks. And then in 2025, I switched to as needed, which is great. That's a huge accomplishment for me. I finally realized that, oh, wow, there is a future that I can be happy about. I can imagine it. 
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And here are the things I need to do to get there. I just woke up one morning in December and did everything on my to-do list because I finally could imagine a life that was different than the one that I had that came from the ketamine. That was the neuroplasticity that people talk about.

The care team here at Ember Health has been helpful to put it in perspective, especially before I'm about to go into an infusion. I do really like verbalizing a little bit of what's going on in my life. It helps me get out of the endless rumination that I might be stuck in. Since I've come to Ember Health, I've been advocating for other people to consider treatment with them more as a first line technique to deal with depression than something that they discover after everything else has failed. 

It has the benefit of taking action immediately after care. At Ember, I'm on stable footing. I have techniques to deal with depression when I feel it. I feel like I've built a baseline that is dependable and I'm resilient enough where I'm not falling back into that hole as frequently as I ever did.

I'm self aware to know what the difference is between depressed Dan and not depressed Dan. And I have steps I can take to do something about it.