StarZero All shows Try the podcast clipper →

Rachel Kalmar

Principal Product Manager, Moderna · 1 appearance on the record.

computed by AI from the episodes · how this works → · full disclaimer →

scientistoperatoracademic@grapealope ↗LinkedIn ↗cyber.harvard.edu/people/rachel-kalmar ↗

Rachel Kalmar holds a neuroscience PhD from Stanford and became widely known in the Quantified Self movement as a record holder for continuously wearing dozens of sensor devices to study health tracking. Over her career, she has driven data and AI product development at Misfit Wearables, Tableau, Biogen, and Moderna.

9statements → 5claims → 1claims resolved → 3.78/5average certainty → 1.78/5average debate potential →

1 supported 0 partly supported 0 contradicted 4 not checkable as stated how the 5 claims stand · each chip opens the sources

3 predictions · 2 assertions · 3 insights · 1 disclosure · every statement was checked. The predictions and assertions are the 5 claims: statements the public record can support or contradict. 1 is resolved, and 4 name no date, number or outcome precise enough to check. Everything else (opinions, insights, what ifs, disclosures) can never be settled by the record, so it carries no assessment.

The record, in short

What the tape says about how Rachel argues and how the claims held up. Everything they said, and everything said about them, is in the tabs below.

Their most notable supported claim

Assertion Supported
Rachel Kalmar: Automakers are installing biometric sensors to monitor driver drowsiness
“There are a number of car manufacturers who are adding these kinds of sensors in the car, whether for use in driving, looking at drowsiness, et cetera.”
Rachel Kalmar Jan 2, 2019 ▶ 14:56 a16z Podcast | On Wearables, Quantified Self, and Biohacking

How they sound: not measured why? →

We measure speaking style by listening to the audio itself, and a fair number needs at least 2,000 words from one person on tape we have measured. There is too little of Rachel Kalmar on measured tape to publish a rate. This says nothing about how they speak.

Everything Rachel Kalmar said on the a16z Podcast that made the record, most notable first. Filter by type, assessment or year in the ledger →

Insight
Rachel Kalmar: Wearables fail by delivering raw data instead of solutions
“Most people say, okay, I have flour, but I don't bake. I want a cookie. Where's my cookie? And the challenge is that there aren't cookies yet, and that's not the fault of any one company. It's just a reflection of where the field is.”
Rachel Kalmar Jan 2, 2019 ▶ 12:22 a16z Podcast | On Wearables, Quantified Self, and Biohacking
Insight
Rachel Kalmar: Continuous noisy health data beats rare clinical doctor visits
“And if you take all of the noisy snapshots of your life, it will give you a better picture of what your life is actually like than if you only had high quality studio portraits.”
Rachel Kalmar Jan 2, 2019 ▶ 25:37 a16z Podcast | On Wearables, Quantified Self, and Biohacking
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Rachel Kalmar: Longitudinal wearable data will improve predictive health models
“We can take this data that right now is more in the health and fitness space, look at it in a longitudinal sense, and tie it together with clinically relevant outcomes that's going to allow us to have better predictive models of health and disease.”
Rachel Kalmar Jan 2, 2019 ▶ 4:33 a16z Podcast | On Wearables, Quantified Self, and Biohacking
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Rachel Kalmar: Future wearables will not require users to review data
“I think that what a cookie will look like will be apps and services built on top of this data that don't require people to look at the data. Predictive models like, hey, you're at risk for a heart attack because we've seen in all of the populations like you th…”
Rachel Kalmar Jan 2, 2019 ▶ 12:55 a16z Podcast | On Wearables, Quantified Self, and Biohacking
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Rachel Kalmar: Future wearables will automatically control smart home environments
“And I think another path will be closing feedback loops automatically. So without the person in the loop, the mood ring that would monitor how much exposure I've had to light. And instead of going through the seasonal affective disorder, kind of a funk where y…”
Rachel Kalmar Jan 2, 2019 ▶ 13:21 a16z Podcast | On Wearables, Quantified Self, and Biohacking
Insight
Rachel Kalmar: Wearable algorithms are useless if users reject the hardware
“If you can't get somebody to wear the device that you built, none of the sophisticated algorithms that you have matter at all.”
Rachel Kalmar Jan 2, 2019 ▶ 23:42 a16z Podcast | On Wearables, Quantified Self, and Biohacking
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Rachel Kalmar: Personal data is collected whether individuals track themselves or not
“Even if you think that you're not collecting data about yourself, it's being collected anyway.”
Rachel Kalmar Jan 2, 2019 ▶ 30:22 a16z Podcast | On Wearables, Quantified Self, and Biohacking
Assertion Supported
Rachel Kalmar: Automakers are installing biometric sensors to monitor driver drowsiness
“There are a number of car manufacturers who are adding these kinds of sensors in the car, whether for use in driving, looking at drowsiness, et cetera.”
Rachel Kalmar Jan 2, 2019 ▶ 14:56 a16z Podcast | On Wearables, Quantified Self, and Biohacking
Disclosure
Rachel Kalmar once wore 38 wearable devices every day
“I think my peak was 38 devices that I wore every day.”
Rachel Kalmar Jan 2, 2019 ▶ 0:32 a16z Podcast | On Wearables, Quantified Self, and Biohacking

Appearances (1)

EpisodeDateSpeaking time
a16z Podcast | On Wearables, Quantified Self, and Biohacking Jan 2, 2019 9m
Made with StarZero

Turn any episode into a week of clips.

This entire site, over 1,000 episodes transcribed, diarized, checked and made playable, runs on the StarZero media pipeline. Drop in your own episode and the podcast clipper finds the moments worth sharing, cuts them, captions them, and reframes them for every feed.

Try the podcast clipper Learn more