#16 Global Interconnectedness, Healthcare and the Future of the World with Brendan McAdams
Healthcare Sales consultant Brendan McAdams on healthcare and the future of the world.
Brendan has over ten years of experience as a sales and marketing strategist for healthcare start-ups and he is co-founder of Expertscape, a site that identifies and objectively ranks medical and scientific expertise by specific topic. Some topics we cover in this episode are...
- Healthcare in the US
- Global Interconnectedness and remote working
- Nationalization vs Globalization - US vs China
- Future of accessibility in healthcare
TIMESTAMPS
[0:37] Brendan’s background
[1:57] Selling to Healthcare Companies
[3:17] Healthcare in the US
[4:30] How can we improve healthcare in the US
[8:27] Future of technology in healthcare
[10:27] Past versus Present Healthcare cost
[18:57] Global Interconnectedness and remote working
[19:32] Romanticization of remote work
[22:57] German healthcare system
[25:16] Future of accessibility in healthcare
[29:27] Healthcare and life expectancy
[32:57] Philosophy and the future of healthcare
[36:35] Future of the World
[43:27] US/China Financial Relations
[44:51] Cryptocurrency
[45:38] Enterprise Sales
Shownotes
Where you can find Brendan McAdams:
Twitter: @brendanmcadams
Linked In: Brendan McAdams
kiinetics.com
brendanmcadams.net
expertscape.com
Check out his book:
Sales Craft: Proven Tips, Tactics and Ideas to Elevate Your Sales
The book Brendan is currently working on:
Sales Fundamentals for Tech Founders (working title: #SF4TF)
References/terminology throughout the episode:
Venture Capital Funding
Health Maintenance Organization (HMO) model
The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology by Ray Kurzweil
Peter H. Diamandis
Ex machina
Her
Tim Ferriss
Addicted to Learning Episode 13
Transcript
And so I think, I think for certain people, the possibility of living a lot longer is, is quite great. The question just becomes is how, how broadly distributed will that privilege be... was the CEO of Chrysler, said that the biggest expense in his cars wasn't steel. It was healthcare.
All right. Brandon, thank you so much for making the pleasure to be here.
[0:37] Brendan’s background
So, um, maybe tell us, uh, about your background and, um, what you're focusing on at the moment. Uh, well, well, so, so I've been in sales, um, for a long time, always, uh, B2B kind of enterprise sales. And over the last 10 years, I've been doing a lot more consulting, uh, to tech companies around sales, helping them with their sales strategy and execution and that sort of thing.
And now I'm, I'm doing more, more these days, coaching of founders and startups, very early stage companies and kind of helping them with their sales. Um, because I, I can make more of an impact. And, um, and it's, it's fun. And I think a lot of cases, I think founders really need to be selling, but they needed to know they need to know, uh, how to do it better.
And I kind of help them with that. So that's what I've been doing. And, um, before, uh, You were spending a lot of time in, in healthcare, right. That was like the main sector you've been in. Right. Reasonably. Yeah. So it's, I used to be in a, I was in telecom for a long time selling to ATT bell labs. And then, uh, and then in financial services, on wall street selling to wall street, and now I've been, uh, most recently for the last 15 or so years, um, selling into, uh, healthcare companies.
Yeah. Yeah.
[1:57] Selling to Healthcare Companies
And what specifically have you been, uh, selling. So in, in healthcare, my consulting work is largely with companies that have a patient facing or physician facing solution. So, you know, doctors are using something or the patients are using semi or they're using something to engage the two, those two groups.
But my customers typically in those situations would be academic medical centers or, um, Or, um, uh, health plans. And then in addition to that, I'm the co-founder of a company called expert scape that, um, identify as an objective, we ranked medical experts by specific topic. And so it uses pub med to find and, and kind of quantify the people that have published the most on very specific topics over 29,000 different topics.
And so those customers. For expert scape, they're pretty much, uh, academic medical centers, uh, today and pharmaceutical companies. All right. You already said a bunch of like juicy stuff that I want to dig into there. So, so, um, so you said your, uh, your customers, um, are, or have been, um, kind of like healthcare plans, um, the other day, because
[3:17] Healthcare in the US
I'm considering a move to the U S I was looking into how much I'd have to pay for, for healthcare in the U S yes.
Yeah. And it's ridiculous. Crazy saying the good thing for you is you're relatively young, so it's cheaper still for you, but it's still crazy expensive. And in fact, uh, jumping right in here, I, I view this as a real disadvantage for entrepreneurism, uh, in the U S because if you're, if you want to go off and start a company, You need, I don't know, 24, $36,000 right upfront every year to cover your health insurance expenses right out of the gate.
And that's not something that European come, uh, countries, you know, people in Europe don't typically have that problem. That same problem. Healthcare is usually. Kind of bundled in and then as a result, people have a lot more opportunity to go off and start a new thing. Whereas in the U S it's it's, it's, it's a sizable chunk of income.
Yeah. And, um, so what, basically, I think it's fair to say that this system is, um, Very messed up and, um,
um, like, like basically what, what can we do to fix it?
[4:30] How can we improve healthcare in the US
And, um, what maybe over the next five to 10 years, um, could happen or maybe it's happening already since, since you're so deep in the space. Maybe, maybe tell us about it. Well let's first start with the fact, uh, how, how absolutely complexity is in the us in the sense that our, um, our economic model is very different from the rest of the world in, in most cases.
And that is it's very much a, a profit based economic model in the U S right. And so, um, And, and the consequences of that is huge in, you know, the GDP healthcare, uh, is 17, at least 17% of GDP right now, and heading very quickly towards 20. And at some point it's going to collapse. Our economy, because it's just an enormous tax on every other business in the country.
I mean, long time ago, Lee Iacocca, who was the CEO of Chrysler, said that the biggest expense in his cars wasn't steel, it was healthcare. And, uh, and so if you drive that through to the rest of the American economy in itself, You know, if, if RGG, if, if, if healthcare is 17 or 18 or 19% of the GDP and it's seven or eight or nine or 10% for Germany or Japan, then just use those two countries.
Examples. Then the cost of a car coming into this country can be significantly less. And, and be just as it'd be priced properly, but you know, priced competitively and consequently, when we ship things overseas, we're, we're dealing with the healthcare expense burdened into the product. That's that's, um, that's, you know, twice what it is for any other country.
And so that's, that's an economic problem for us as a country. Now it gets complicated in a lot of ways in the U S because of we're a profit-based economic model. But the, the, the, the, the problem is because 70 18% of the GDP is healthcare. You can't just lop that out of the cost of care, because it affects 17, 18% of the economy.
And so all of a sudden when literally one sixth or one seventh of the economy is healthcare. You can't just chop that out because there are just millions of jobs and millions of companies that are at that trough, if you will. So it's a complicated problem. Yeah. Yeah. And it's, and it's one of those, no, sorry.
I was gonna say, um, I haven't even begun. I don't even know that there's, it's easy to way to solve it, but, but at some point. We need to figure out some way to take a lot of the inefficiencies out of the process. I mean, it just in terms of processing claims and, and, uh, who's involved and, and increasing in providing more competition rather than less, I mean, a lot of healthcare is consolidating around large, large, large players.
And a consequence of that is there's not a lot of. Incentive for competition in any given market, in many markets in the U S there are one or two large health systems that dominate the market and consequently, they don't have there's no, there's no competitive pricing pressure on those institutions.
They basically say, Hey, these are our costs. Pay them or not. And in a health insurance company has to, has to basically pay those costs because. Consequences of that is, is they can't otherwise deliver care to that. You know, their, their, their customers won't be able to go to those, to those institutions that.
[8:27] Future of technology in healthcare
That's still at solving the problem though. No, no. And, and like, I'm, I'm obviously hopeful that technology, um, like we're seeing this rise of, uh, telemedicine now with, with COVID. So I'm hopeful that technology can take out some of the inefficiencies. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Well, and telemedicine is, is, is the pandemic, you know, in a very interesting way has accelerated.
That adoption rat the dramatically in the U S I mean, a lot of the walls have come down between States in terms of delivering care. The acceptability of doing things over, uh, over video has gone way up. And the infrastructure around that has, has started to really develop and reimbursement around those things in the U S that's a big deal reimbursement for tele tele medicine, uh, consults.
Has has become much more normalized and those things are all gonna work to accelerate that, uh, uh, as the care delivery mechanism. And, and so I think you'll see. Yeah, you'll definitely see improvements there as a result of that. But I guess the question is like, well, those cost savings, um, get passed on to the, um, to the customer, like the B to the actual person at the end, not like some.
You know, element in the chain, just like, you know, increasing margins. Yeah. Yeah. And I guess, I guess some of the, what, what we're hope, I guess what we have to hope to see, isn't so much that the cost will come dramatically down, but the curve will flatten and, and, and there, I mean, there's probably an argument to be made that, that accompany, that the country can, can tolerate 17% GDP.
[10:27] Past versus Present healthcare cost
We seem to have been able to do that so far. Uh, for healthcare expense, but there, there is, uh, there is a breaking point and if we can kind of curve that, um, bend that curve downwards even a little bit is a phenomenal, uh, it would be a far phenomenal accomplishment and we've done it before we did it back in, I guess it was in the eighties when we went to this HMO model and so forth.
And we, we did actually reduce healthcare costs. Significantly and, and, uh, but, but only temporarily, but then what, what happened? What happened? Well, 'cause, I think, um, there's a, there's a long conversation, but I think a lot of it had to do with the kind of that the complexity of our system. And, and we, we had gone to this HMO based kind of model, and particularly where you, you were, you didn't have much choice.
You were inside of a. Inside of, uh, uh, you, you could only really go to certain healthcare professionals and Americans love choice, and they love, they love immediate gratification. And so if you want to be able to go to your doctor and not just any doctor, you want to be able to go to your doctor now. And, and so those things, the, the old healthcare system back in the eighties, uh, didn't didn't accomplish that.
I mean, it kind of prevented that, and there was a kind of return action and new new offers came out and consequently, we're back to this, this, uh, this climbing, uh, pricing. Cause. Yeah. Cause like, I would think after a certain point, a lot of, you know, middle class folks will just say, I'm not going to spend, you know, whatever, like 25,000, $35,000 a year on healthcare, I'm just gonna like opt out and not have insurance at some point, you know?
And then that's just gonna like have such massive ripple effects down the line because then something simple, like, you know, breaking an arm can like. You know, like make you unable to work and then you lose your job and then like you're in poverty. Right? Well, I mean, in the U S typically it's, it's typical that if you work for, um, uh, for a company, that company provides some level of health insurance, and so the costs are not nearly as, as, uh, Onerous as they wouldn't be for someone that's unemployed or self-employed.
Um, so, so as long as you're holding down a job, there's a, there's a really good, there's a decent chance that you've got health insurance of some sort. And so, so, um, those people, aren't the ones that. I mean, it's still expensive, but it's there. They're not there. They're probably protected from, uh, you know, a catastrophic outcome, but, but there's a sizeable percentage of people in the U S that are not insured or under-insured or dramatically under-insured and, and.
And that's, and that burden, ultimately that cost burden comes back to how hospitals it comes back to the U S government. And because someone ends up paying that bill either it's charity care and it's it's written off or what have you, but they cost is born by somebody. Yeah,
I know on a, on a, this, this is a bit, this is a bit, you know, bumming me out. Well, I'm sorry, but it's like it's and it is fancy. I was thinking about this the other day. This, this is actually probably exacerbated by the whole VC kind of funding. I'm going to make no friends, but when I say this, but within the BC community.
But, but, um, but there's a, there's a strong argument to say, you know, if you're an entrepreneur and you've got a decent idea, you want to go out and get VC funding because the VC funding in part helps you finance the very health insurance that you need. To, to, to staff your team, to staff your company. And, you know, if you get a check for half a million bucks, you know, it's, it's probably to do some product development, but it's probably also to recruit people and paid salaries.
And this is the fundamental component of salaries is having health insurance. If you didn't have that burden and health insurance burden, you might not, you might be able to bootstrap for a lot longer, you know, Um, and, uh, I haven't thought that all the way through, but I mean, I w th that is an incentive to go out and get and get funded.
Yeah. I mean, it really is because you need to capture your downside. Yeah. Yeah, because then I don't know. I'm just thinking, cause like on the other hand shirt and you know, according to that logic, you know, in Europe and whatever Germany, you have a much better, um, you know, startup friendly environment.
Yeah. However, and he's from that from a healthcare standpoint. Yes. And that's pretty true. Yes, sir. Certainly from this, you know, healthcare, uh, standpoint yet you don't have nearly as much, uh, startup activity here. So. It clearly is some kind of mentality mindset thing and not, you know, this is not, you know, enough of a deterrent that like, I mean, clearly you have to be crazy in the first place to start a company.
Um, but, um, just, just interesting, you know, the different, um, it has to be some kind of cultural mindset thing. Yeah, I see it historically. I think that's probably true. I mean, The U S has this kind of wild West mentality that, you know, uh, because of our, you know, our culture and so forth, they really do celebrate the Renegade and the, the, the iconic class and, and, uh, Uh, much more so than I think other countries do, uh, we value money the way European cultures tend to value education in a lot of cases.
Right? I mean, I mean, education in, in Europe and my experience is that's a, that's a signal, whereas in the us, a very strong signal is, is, is, is your income, your, your, your, uh, your financial status. Um, so. But I think that's changing. I think it started to change. I see a lot more activity. Um, the Y Combinator crowd, you know, they're, they're now actively, um, Uh, out there looking for startups in other parts of the world and having huge success, I think in terms of, in terms of identifying entrepreneurism, um, you know, elsewhere in the world.
So I don't, I think that there are certainly advantages in the U S and there's certain a cultural mindset in the U S but I think, I think other countries are starting to really kind of pick up on it. Now, would you say the same? Yeah, I would say I definitely, um, I started getting more broad as far as like, you know, like kind of like, you know, they're saying like kind of like Silicon Valley finally starting to go remote.
Um, yeah. Yeah, I would say so though, you know, it remains to be seen whether we'll see this massive decentralization or it's just like a bit, you know, a bit extra sort of, you know, here and there, right. Yeah. Yeah. It's it's uh, it, well, I mean, you're seeing, you're certainly hearing about this X to this out of Silicon Valley to places like Miami and Austin and elsewhere.
And there's, there's a, there was a strong argument that says, well, you can do a lot of this stuff online and you don't have to be, you don't have to be in close proximity to people and you go, I wonder, what's going to happen with real estate. And these offices going, you know, going away. At least to some regard.
I mean, there are no, there seemed to be a number of companies that have decided, Oh, you know what, we're not going to have a huge, um, corporate footprint anymore. And people can work from home. You know, they'll come in once in a while for meetings and so forth, but you can do a lot more things remotely and, and, uh, and virtually, and if that's the case, is that, is that not also true for Silicon Valley?
Yeah, for sure. I'm still, um, it's still unclear with, um, commercial real estate. Um, I think there are certain, you know, like for instance, um, warehouses, that's going to be a big thing, obviously going forward with all the e-commerce. So that's fairly safe, but sure. If you're, if you're talking offices, um, is difficult, um, yeah, yeah.
[18:57] Global Interconnectedness and remote working
I'm here. I have way more conversations with people. In Europe that I do with people in Baltimore now, for example, because just the nature of the pandemic and, and, and zoom and so forth. And I. You know, I, I wrote a book about sales and a long time ago, I started using video way before, uh, the pandemic I was using video calls.
So I'm kind of quite customer accustomed to it, but I mean, I think everybody is now. I mean, it's quite normal to have a video call and I have them all the time. Now. I don't know that it's necessary to go into the office every day. No, no. Like the one thing I'm concerned yeah.
[19:32] Romanticization of remote work
About is this, um, almost like fetishization of, is that even a word of this remote?
Yeah. You know, lifestyle, um, to the point, you know, where hard tech, startups, you know, hardware, startups, you know, solid, like making things is being looked down upon because you know, you can't be in the cloud. You can, you know, work from the beach and because the world needs that too. Yeah. A lot, actually, you know, everything to do with energy, you know, climate, like, that's all like very much hard tech where you need to be there physically in person.
Cause you're making an actual tangible thing. Yeah. And I'm just like, because like the new, you know, I don't know, American dream almost seems to be like this. Yeah. I want to like, you know, work from anywhere and ideally have my software business in the cloud. And like, but with those heart things you can't like because they're actual physically.
There. Yeah. So I hope that, you know, the smart kids, um, that, ah, I don't know, but, but then even it's like on the other hand you have, um, um, it's getting so expensive, it's getting so expensive in the, even in the secondary hubs. Um, And then the question is like, where do you know, where do, where do the kids go?
Cause like back when all the hardware startups started, for instance, Silicon Valley, it was dirt cheap in comparison to now. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, uh, but, but in some ways real estate costs are, well, it, this is, this is a kind of a, definitely an inflection point because. Now we're seeing all sorts of different, weird, um, uh, behaviors with real estate in particular like Silicon prices and homes and Silicon Valley are arguably, maybe going down.
I don't, I, you know, I don't know, you know, uh, but, but like manufacturing, the cost to do manufacturing is in a lot of cases going way down. So, you know, theoretically there will be a lot more manufacturing. I, I remember a long time ago reading about how Intel. You know, used to have real difficult, you know, creating a, a chip factory used to be a really big investment and it's got a much, much simpler and smaller now, much more importable.
And, and so you can actually start a chip company, you know, w REL much less expensively than it used to be. And, and, and certainly you're seeing like 3d printers then, right. And, uh, and in other tools that are making manufacturing cheaper and smaller. And, uh, uh, so I think there's. You know, it'll be interesting to see how that, that, that all plays out.
But in a lot, a lot more of that will be automated. My, my, uh, my son works at Tesla in the factory and, and, um, you know, it's all robots, you know,
which is a whole nother topic. We can do AI and robots and that, but yeah, I'm just like, um, um, because Tesla famously, um, started building this, um, Factory, uh, new Berlin, Germany where I live. And, um, it was this, um, you know, this huge thing because, um, um, well, because obviously Tesla is, um, very, you know, sort of like zeitgeisty, um, really.
[22:57] German healthcare system
Yeah. Um, no speaking of Germany. So, um, it seems to me like the German healthcare system must be excellent because a lot of foreign leaders, a lot of high-level people, uh, continuously come into Germany for medical treatments. Yeah. Yeah, no, I actually know something about that because experts get identifies.
As I said, identify as medical experts by using pub med. In Germany has a very strong, um, uh, uh, you know, scientific and medical, you know, infrastructure. And, and I'll tell you kind of funny story kind of like completely ad hoc. But I had a, I had an aortic valve replacement last October, so I had a, uh, open-heart surgery.
And, and as a consequence of that, I was, um, uh, or actually building up to that. Uh, I had gotten an email from a guy in Martin, in Germany, and, uh, he had mentioned to me that he was, uh, he wanted, he had some questions about his ranking and us in our, uh, in our system. And that experts gave. And I, I, I wrote him back and said, Oh, you man, you're an expert in all these areas, you know, leading the top one 10th of 1% of the world in certain things, including I wrote to him, the very thing that I have that I'm suffering from, which is aortic valve.
Um, I have, uh, I had a bad belt and I wrote him and he said, Oh, by all means, you gotta. Keep me prized. Let me know how it goes. So I'd send him my, my, uh, echocardiogram results and he'd read them on the right. He, he read them and then diagnose him and then send it back to me. And then, uh, and then I got an MRI and, uh, I said, I asked them at then MRI.
You know, I asked a MRI, um, folks, can I get a copy of the, Oh yeah, we'll burn you a desk. And they get to hand me a disc. And I, I put that in the cloud and I sent it to him and he, he, he diagnosed, the whole thing is tell you're going to be this blah, blah, blah. You're going to be this valve. And even gave me the brand of the valve and this is in Germany.
So, so you know, so I, you know, I went into my, see my doctor, knowing everything I needed to know about, about, about having a valve replacement. And, and that's going to be available to everybody at some point, and this kind of brings up, but kind of a fascinating thing. And that is that I believe that there's this move towards an expert economy.
[25:16] Future of accessibility in healthcare
And so, you know, because of the virtual nature of the internet and access to physicians like Martin, um, you know, now you can go and you can console with the very most knowledgeable people in the whole world on a topic. And, uh, and he didn't charge me, but he ostensibly could have. And so, you know, a lot more people are going to have access to German physicians, for example, that are the best in the world or, or, or are, uh, American physicians to Johns Hopkins who were among the best in the world and certainly in many areas.
And so that, you know, and this is going back to this whole telemedicine thing, people are going to be able to access really talented individuals. And it, it's going to be interesting to see how that plays out for, for, uh, for everyone else. Yeah. Oh, a hundred percent, especially since, um, like you said, it's so much more scalable too, because yeah.
You know, you can, and also, you know, obviously economics one Oh one, like Mister, you know, specialists can charge probably thousands. Um, because half the people will happily pay and it's also, you know, bringing almost like making it more accessible because maybe, maybe until recently it was only the, you know, the, I don't know, president of some African country that could, you know, fly out to Germany in his private jet.
Yeah. And now it's like a middle-class American that can just hop on zoom. Yeah, right. Right, exactly. And, and, uh, and he used to be either, you know, Martin could only see someone that was within, you know, a couple of hundred kilometers of his hospital, perhaps, but now a stance of league, see anyone on the globe long as they have internet connection and he can diagnose them, you send files back and forth and you obviously can't yet Purdue, uh, perform the surgery.
But that day is not that far away either. I mean, I think they did a robotic surgery for, uh, someone in the Antarctica. Right. They had, they had, uh, they had someone that was sick in Antarctica and they get a robotic surgery based on, you know, someone else were in the, in the world. So, you know, those days are coming, man.
That's crazy. Yeah. Yeah. That's actually crazy. Like a remote controlled. Yeah. Third year surgical robot. Yeah, you, they do, uh, robotic hip and knee replacements now. Um, hip in particular, uh, where the surgeon doesn't operates from a, from a terminal effectively. And, and, uh, you hear, you've seen just, you're going to see more and more of that in the, in the future, I think, and those things.
So those sorts of things are going to happen. I can't remember the fellow, his name now, but he, um, I will eventually, but, um, you know, they're, they're now talking about pills that you take, they'd have to have a Gibson them in a bag, you know, and then they run through your body. And they, and they record various readings as they run through your digestive system.
And then, and then he spit out the data and you've got a whole, you know, uh, analysis of your diet. You've got a diagnostic system that it just in the form of a pill. Does that, does that, have they made that already? Is that working on that? Yeah, that's that's, that's, that's him. That's certainly developed. I don't know.
I don't know if it's been through the FDA and so forth, but it's certainly, yeah. Those things are, you know, now you can get all sorts of diagnostic tests for cardiology that so that you can, you can have a remote diagnostic, uh, uh, consult with a cardiologist based upon, you know, some apps and, you know, devices that you can now get, uh, that are FDA approved.
So, I mean, uh, healthcare is definitely. A lot of interesting things that going to happen with healthcare. Hmm Hmm. Yeah. Oh, for sure. Yeah, no, definitely.
[29:27] Healthcare and life expectancy
Do you think the other side of the coin, um, do you think people are gonna live much longer as a result? Oh, no certain people, no question. No. I mean, there's a whole school.
There's a whole bunch of, uh, effort and there's some real, very significant investments and attention being placed on longevity in, you know, there's, um, uh, Oh, Ray Kurzweil is the guy that kind of started it all with, uh, the singularity and his, you know, I don't know if he started, but he certainly has, has made that he, you know, Peter Diamandis talks about living to be 700.
And so I think, I think for certain people, the possibility of living a lot longer is, is quite great. I, the question just becomes is how, how broadly distributed will that. Privileged B um, uh, you know, as in most things, especially in the U S things are equally distributed. So, you know, um, we have one of the word, one of the among, among first-world countries, we have one of the worst records for, uh, for, uh, infant mortality right now.
And, you know, we're, I think we're below Cuba. And in terms of infant mortality, but it's, it's very much skewed towards, uh, based on financial, uh, by economic factors. So, um, you know, so, and I I'm, I'm pretty certain that the same will be true with, in terms of longevity, you know, right now, In fact, I would argue that there's a whole bunch of very interesting stories, scifi stories that you could write about, about longevity and how it's going to play out, you know?
So, Oh yeah. That, that's fascinating to me also how, you know, Saifai, um, it's sort of like science fiction writers that made up the future and then, you know, it's like nerds that get hooked on that and then they actually decide to build that. And then that becomes reality. Yeah. Um, well, there are some movies that like this we're going off in non-sequitur, uh, really often a tangent, but two movies that I think are really prescient in that regard are ex Makina.
And, um, he, he builds robots and that have artificial intelligence and learn, you know, are learning machines and her, which, uh, the one with, uh, Scarlett Johannson and, uh, Phoenix. What's his name? Uh, Joaquin Phoenix. Those two movies, I think are so telling about where the future is going and, and, you know, and I wonder if they're not cautionary tales, so I don't wonder they are, there are cautionary tales.
So, um, but from a science fiction standpoint, they're, they're very forward-thinking but at the same time, I think they're they're. I think they're, they're very predictive. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I heard this, um, The other day I was listening to this, a technology guy, a technologist Balaji, something. Yeah, I have to, I have to listen to that.
This is the Tim Ferriss interview. Yes. Yes. It's queued up or like, I would have loved to listen to it today. Yeah. It's supposed to be fantastic. Yeah. Oh yeah. And um, no, he was, uh, he was saying something along the lines of like, if the goal of technology is to remove scarcity, then the ultimate goal of technology.
[32:57] Philosophy and the future of healthcare
Is to make people live forever. Yeah. Yeah. That's a, there's a big, that's a big philosophical question though. I mean, what is, you know, what, what happens when there's no end? Right? What do you do with the, at that point? They were going off really off, uh, well, off in the distance now, but I mean, you know what happens if there's no ad I mean, that's, I mean, humanity has always been, you know, Has been, you know, you know, focused on preoccupied with the end and, uh, you know, What happens when there is no head, you know, and yet there's no, there's the possibility that it just goes on and on that's.
And even if that's just the, um, you know, kind of like marketing speak to get people hooked on longevity, even if let's just say, hypothetically, you get the life expectancy, you get it up to, I don't know, 300, right. That's still. You know, a lot, you know, that's a lot. Yeah. That's, that's crazy. And then art and there's so many questions, right?
Do people then, um, will they put off a lot stuff, a lot of stuff until tomorrow, will they maybe get tired of life? And maybe some people will say at 120 I've had enough or will people at 300, um, want to, you know, extend life to the point that they can live, you know, all the way to 500, so many questions.
Yeah. I don't know if that seems so, um, that seems so that's so wild. First of all, I, I, you know, maybe I'm pessimistic here, but I, I don't think that that's something that is going to be broadly distributed in my life. Like, like, uh, like I don't think most people, my age will be living to be. 200 or even 150, I think, you know, I, uh, you know, I think, I think the likelihood of making each 100 is greater greater if you're in a certain economic threshold.
Uh, uh, but, um, I don't know that I don't know that 200 is, or I'd know, 150 because we just, we still have a breaking down faster than, than, than, uh, science is able to put us back together. Exactly. And there's, there's a lot of unsolved bottlenecks still, like, you know, the brain as far as, you know, Alzheimer's dementia.
Yeah. And then it's of course kind of like replacing broken parts. Yeah. Yeah. I think that, I think there's a lot of, there's going to be, uh, innovation in particular around that, around fixing things that are broken, uh, more so than figuring out how to keep them from breaking in the first place, at least for the time being.
Um, but it, it, it does. It does. Um, I don't know. It'll be interesting. It'll be interesting. And I, and then, then the ultimate question then becomes how, how, how, what are lots of ultimate questions, but one of them would be how, how much can the planet sustain if all of a sudden or over some period of time, the whole population or big chunk of the population is now living three times as long as they were supposed to.
Yeah. Yeah. That's that's a big question. Yeah. So yeah. Let me, let me, yeah,
let me maybe like switch gears a little and, um, ask about again, just, just a little, just a, well, because it's tangentially related.
[36:35] Future of the World
What is your take on sort of like the next 10, 20 years as far as you know, the prosperity of the world? Do you, are you, are you very bullish on Europe because you seem very pro Europe, are you more bullish on the U S are you on Asia?
Uh, how do you see the next, you know, 10 to 20 years sort of like map out. Yeah. Uh, that's, that's an excellent question because, uh, you know, th the one thing I found, um, one particular rule of thumb is it's it, is it being, being negative, having a fixed mindset, almost never works out to your advantage somehow, or another things always having a growth mindset tends to be, you get rewarded for having a growth mindset in most cases.
So. It's easy to be a little bit, uh, it's, it's easy to be, uh, uh, negative about certain aspects of, uh, where, where things are going, but it, number one, I guess it's, it's generally speaking a bad idea to bet against the United States on economic matters and so forth. So I, I think, um, that's, um, you know, I think the us will continue to do well.
I think, uh, I think that the Europe seems to be doing. Will will be a good environment because of, of what's. I think some of the things that are happening there, um, I think Asia is really ascendant. China is, is, is the, is the big, is the big, uh, question Mark right now? I mean, I think they're, they have the potential to be just enormous and in some ways really scary in the sense that they are just a as a, as an they're not a democracy.
So as a, as a. As a society, they're very buckled down and they're doing some really kind of troubling things in terms of, um, surveillance and, and oppression, uh, L L electronic oppression. So, so it'll be, it remains to be seen how China's going to play. And I think, I think in that, in that interview, uh, the tempered Paris interview, doesn't he predicted there'll be war between China and the U S.
I haven't come that far if he does. Cause it's like a two hour interview. Yeah, no it's uh, so I think , you know, that's a troubling prediction right there, cause that's not, uh, that's not how it come that I think anybody wants. Um, so I, yeah, I, I guess I'm, I guess I'm bullish, uh, you know, because it doesn't pay not to be.
Hmm. But we have some big challenges ahead of us, uh, environmentally in particular and, uh, You know, I think in the us it's, uh, income, uh, inequality is, uh, is really working against the society as a whole and, uh, healthcare as we talked about. And, um, and our political system, our media system is really, is really kind of broken right now.
And it'll be interesting to see if we can kind of get it on, uh, on a better footing. Yeah. You know, like. So I'm half Russia and my dad's from Russia. And, um, so I like to talk a lot about, um, I like to talk to a lot of Russians too. You know, my family, they're just, you know what, what's, what's going on, you know, tell me.
And, um, so they're all saying the same that everyone's smart and capable ends up leaving the country as soon as they can. Yeah. Because of, you know, Russia and China are quite similar in there, you know, as far as like, you know, oppression, uh, freedom of speech, et cetera. Um, but also I can not, you have to be very well connected to begin with too, to get somewhere.
It's not like, you know, in the U S it truly does seem like, you know, if you're from the middle of nowhere and. You know, maybe someone will bet on you, but you know, in Russia, this really doesn't seem to be the case unless you are well connected. And yeah, and again, obviously I don't, I really, I don't know, um, anyone really from China.
So, but, but I would imagine that, you know, it's quite similar in that Chinese people are trying to, you know, get out of China into a more free society. Right. And yeah, and I think, um, uh, as long as that's true, as long as Chinese people, as long as the, the elites quote, unquote, the smart people, um, are leaving, China will not be number one.
Right. Uh, I don't know. I mean, yeah, maybe, um, I'm not, I don't worry particularly about Russia. Russia's a clip kleptocracy for all practical purposes. And I don't think it's, I think it's, it's basically in place to take advantage of, you know, for, for, uh, you know, for a very small subset of people and, you know, it's, um, but, but I don't, I don't know about China because it's so, because they make it so difficult for so many people to leave.
Hmm. And, and where are they going to go? Hmm. If they, you know, uh, uh, just given the size of that population, I, I wonder, uh, what, uh, what might happen, especially given the fact that they do so much to inform their people, their population of a certain mindset. They, they, they control the, the channels of information, I think, to a much greater degree than we do in the U S Hmm.
Of course, uh, although we've got our own media issues, as I already mentioned. Um, so I think, I think it's going to be that I think they're very formidable. Yeah, I w I wonder, in fact, I wonder if this, if in some ways this, um, you know, we're, we're in the process of, uh, there's 1.7 trillion that was just being, is now being spent on the, because of the pandemic to kind of, kind of help people out.
And then there's none of the 3 billion that they're contemplating here, uh, to, to, to spend. And that's a lot of debt for this country. And I sort of wonder if it just makes it obligates to China to like, continue to. Uh, behave at some level. Otherwise they run the risk of losing because they are financing.
A lot of the U S is a debt. And so I wonder if there's some sort of a, kind of a strategy to, to owe them so much money that they can't afford not to work with us. You mean like, just like, I think I understood what you mean, but just for the listeners, because I think this was a little bit of finance speak that might've been unclear.
[43:27] US/China Financial Relations
Can you rephrase that? Well, I mean, we, a lot of us debt is a detonation right now. And, um, and a lot of that debt is financed by China, right? They're our single biggest lender. And if we add 1.7 and another 3 trillion in new, new spending in the U S how much of that is coming from from countries like China, if China ends up funding, even more of our debt, uh, what.
D can they afford to go be afford to go to war with us or they can, they afford to be so competitive that they cripple us financially at some way. So they don't get that money back. I don't, I don't know the answer to that. It's just sort of a thought experiment. That's going through my head for sure. For sure.
So listeners can, uh, can chime in and tell us whether I'm off base there. Yeah. Cause like, cause like for sure, by the way, please do. Um, and, and like also I'm thinking, what about the, what about the money printing? Because, you know, in that sense they're inflating away the debt, which is a good thing. If you're the debt, um, issue that, um, holder I think is the right one.
Yeah, that's right. Yup. Yup. The lender. Yeah. Um, I, yeah, certainly, certainly we're and then that brings in a whole other area, which I'm, I'm just not knowledgeable at all. And that is this whole, uh, crypto currency, you know, uh, world. Um, and how that changes everything that, that, that, that dynamic there's going to be Metta.
[44:51] Cryptocurrency
This is going to be a first, so while doing a podcast, I'm advertising another podcast episode. Number 13 just dropped and it's with Gabriel Heinz and it's all about decentralized finance, one Oh one for sort of non crypto people intro. So, you know, feel free to do that. I listened to that one. Oh, I will, I, then I would, I would learn from that.
[45:38] Enterprise Sales
That'd be good. Yeah, sure. Um, actually like one last thing I would want to talk about switching gears one more time because, uh, enterprise sales. Yeah. Oh, good. This is a topic. I can actually talk with some, with some experience off
far away. How the hell do you sell into huge corporations, hospitals, healthcare providers, um, from the outside in, because I'm assuming this is like a very complex long kind of daunting process. Why can't be, um, yeah, there's so much to that question. I mean, first of all, you have to identify the opportunities and so forth, and oftentimes they, they come to you with that.
And then they say, uh, we have a problem. We're trying to talk about blah, blah, blah. And, or they discover you somehow through your marketing, but say, say you get a conversation going, in some cases, you're, you're doing reach, you're reaching out to them directly and saying, Hey, I can help you. And here's how, and then from then it's, there's so much emit is right.
There are so many moving parts. There's so many people to talk to and so forth. But I think if I were to answer the question, as simply as I could, it would be the thing you have to do at that point. Once you get the conversation going, it's really, it's a conversation around it's discovery. It's, it's understanding what their, their businesses want, understanding what their objectives are, what the obstacles to, to doing something in a new way.
Uh, you know, what's the implementation process, the onboarding process, all those sorts of things and understanding at a, at a kind of, uh, at a fundamental level, how, how might you be able to help solve their problem and, and, and, and, uh, and work with them and be successful. And so, so it's a, it's a roughly big question, but.
The ultimately comes down to understanding, uh, being able to ask a lot of important and kind of probing questions in a way it's, it's, it's reviewing. And, uh, and, and so, and I that's called the D the discovery process, and there's kind of a methodology around that. And I, yeah, she even have a, um, I have a, uh, like, uh, uh, uh, a series of documents, you know, worksheets that you can download it off the website.
That kind of help help you think through all this, the questions and the steps and the discovery that you need to do to, in order to kind of get to the bottom of that. Yeah, for sure. And we'll obviously link to below. Yeah. Um, So if you are cause I'm, cause I'm just thinking, going back to the whole VC and starting out as a founders, startups, et cetera.
Um, so if you're starting out, maybe even you have whatever, half a million in seed funding, maybe you have some, you know, startup accelerator, some yup, yup. You know, some background, but, but even then, you know, if your customer is. Um, like a health care provider or huge hospital. How do you even get your foot in the door?
Well, that's kind of where I help startups is like, I kind of coach them on that. So. Like, so what I do is I, I work on a, kind of a retainer basis where I'm basically on call and I coach them, we'll have a structured call and then we'll have a, we'll have regular, we'll have on ad hoc calls, whatever they need.
But my Mo what I do is I'll, I kind of work with them to figure out how to, how to, how to get into accounts and how to talk to the right people and what to talk about and, and what sorts of questions to ask and so forth. Um, You know, and then, you know, with this, do you use cold email or do you, do you know, is there some sort of, uh, you know, like how do you get that initial conversation going and are there, are there introductions that can be made all those sorts of things?
And that's kind of what I work. That's kinda what I work on. Okay. So, so in a, in a way, is it fair to say that they're kind of like paying for your network for you to give them an introduction? Okay. Much not really. The, the, the network, isn't really the thing I do. You know, it's really more of like allowing them to become better at doing their own selling.
And for founders, they have to do their own selling. They have to be. They have to be engaged in the sales process because they have to hear what the customers want. They have to understand what the obstacles are. They have to understand the workflow and integration, and they have to understand the industry and the language.
Like what, what words do you use to speak? Um, all that sort of stuff. And then, um, and then, uh, uh, and then ultimately establish relationships with those people. Those are, those are the customers they have to, they have to work with. Yeah, thank you for giving the, um, you know, the glimpse it's been great, especially with the sales, but also, you know, the future of the world, healthcare, all that good stuff.
This was a, you know, a smorgasbord of, of topics. Yeah. And, um, yeah, again, obviously we'll link it all below and um, thank you again. Uh, Gabriel. It was a pleasure. Thank you, man. Thanks so much for listening. If you like the podcast, please subscribe and leave a review on iTunes or Spotify and share the episode with someone.
You know, it really helped me out a ton new podcasts coming out every year, Monday. See you next week.