Pietro Zinni, a brilliant neurobiologist, loses his job at the university because of the financial crisis. Without any reasonable chance to find another contract, Pietro assembles a team of ex-researchers like him—a chemist, a cultural anthropologist, an economist, an archaeologist, and two Latin scholars—to produce a little-known smart drug that is not yet illegal under Italian law. The gang achieve immediate and unexpected success but are unprepared for the problematic lifestyle that comes with such sudden wealth.