The Exchanges

Q Is it just what you're saying that these businesses are, the margins are so razor thin that unless you go and do luxury version of it, you're not going to be able to produce the margin. Like, is it as simple as that?

A I think it is as simple as that. I think that you can kind of bifurcate the market and you can say, You can say, Hey, I want to go super expensive, 15, 20, 30, 40,000 dollars a year per person. Don't venture back it. Um, and say, I'm going to build a nice, like slow growth, reasonable business. But let me be clear. You're not affecting like, you know, the, the common man, right? This is not for, for everybody. Or you can say, Hey, I want to push towards massive scale, which is kind of the, the forward attempt of, uh, I'm going to be very low price. I'm going to try and be affordable enough that everybody in society can get it. And our whole goal, uh, was that because we're using technology as opposed to kind of an enormous amount of labor that we're able to kind of just reduce that price more and more over time till it becomes the commodity that everyone has. I think both of those strategies are reasonable strategies. Um, it just depends on what's your goal. Like, why'd you start the company, right?

AI assessment note: “I think it is as simple as that. I think that you can kind of bifurcate”

Q Well, no, I mean, I think that's what your choice to do this, this fast. I mean, I'm, I'm, I'm here pushing you on these things because it's worth, it's worth thinking about, like, do you think you should have?

A I would not have done that. Uh, and, and I will not. And again, somebody else should go try that if they think it's a good idea. I, I will not go do that. It's like, it's like Larry Page sitting down with Sergey and being like, hey, we want to invent Google. Step one, let's learn the Dewey Decimal System and visit the Library of Congress. It's like, what are you talking about? No, like, like, you know, you're not gonna, you're not gonna disrupt it by trying to, uh, to create the existing system. Again, you could make improvements and you can have impact. I, I don't want to say you can't, but I don't think you're gonna create that generational kind of new company.

AI assessment note: “I would not have done that. Uh, and, and I will not.”

Q Just quickly. Like when you think about how you do that, is that like more cash in the bank?

A Is it was so, so Uh, everybody here presumably knows Mujal Shah, who's a good friend of mine who, um, has a startup called Hippocratic. That's really exciting. Before this, he did a startup that, that didn't work out. And so I asked him like, well, how are you approaching Hippocratic? And he, I free, I'm not going to use the right terms, but he's like, we basically have this go cold plan. Anything goes wrong. We can scale down our burn and ensure that like with the contracts we're signing, we're never over committed. We can always scale down to a point where we've got, and I forget his number, 36 months of cash in the bank. I actually thought that was a really intelligent way to think about it.

AI assessment note: “scale down to a point where we've got... 36 months of cash in the bank”

Q Like take us to 20, 21 for a second. Like, like, so when you were, when you saw those big check, those big valuations, like, I mean, you're a smart man, right? You know that that would wrap up expectations, but what was it about this moment that made you want to swing for the fence?

A Well, I wanted to swing from the fence from the beginning. Um, so just taking a step back, like I, you know, I've, I've done, uh, I've done enough things in my career where it's not like I'm like sitting around going, oh, you know, getting a single or a double, is that interesting? You know, at some point, this is your life more than this is your career. And I just want to see if I can, you know, improve humanity for the better. That's really important for me. And I know that healthcare is easily one of the largest problems on this planet. It literally affects every single one of us. Unless, you know, somebody who's not going to die, maybe Brian Johnson, it doesn't and everybody else, we, we, we need a healthcare solution. And so I said, okay, let's go for it. Now we always took a stance that like the, the approaches that everybody has in the world of healthcare are incredibly incremental right now. Um, you can't look, you know, maybe, maybe I'm biased, maybe I'm wrong, but if you go look at every single healthcare company out there, you don't go, wait a minute, if they're successful, everything changes. And what I wanted was the company where it's like that generational company where you say, you know what? We've kind of just put a pin in, in that, in that kind of healthcare problem. And we no longer really have to think about it anymore. I think a lot about like, what did Goo…

AI assessment note: “Well, I wanted to swing from the fence from the beginning.”

Q doctors better doctors, making nurses better nurses, which is what you just said with scribing, right? Like you're basically by doing AI scribing, you know, you're kind of like removing this thing that wasn't billable. Now they can do, go do more billable things, right? Yeah. Couldn't your software by being in the middle of every conversation between doctors and nurses on the planet, theoretically do this and improve billing?

A Yeah. So, so the question is, could you create a company where you're selling off of one incentive, but by once you're in, you're just kind of doing good for the world. Maybe most companies kind of revert to their incentives over time and invest in the things that make them money. So I'd be nervous about a company where you're trying to scale it off the wrong business model. But the second thing I'd say is if, if that's the case, it should probably be somebody else. I'm not a healthcare expert. I don't know, uh, how healthcare systems run intimately. And so it's not to say that that strategy couldn't be effective. It is to say that I don't know how to do that.

AI assessment note: “It is to say that I don't know how to do that.”

Q Yeah. So take us, well, actually take a few follow-up questions. When the wave of acquisitions was happening, why weren't you guys acquired? Were you not ready to go that route?

A No, I mean, candidly, and, and, you know, hindsight's always twenty-twenty, but kind of, as I mentioned from the beginning, our goal was to change the world. Um, I, I think our goal still is to change the world, right? Like we're, we're, I know everybody says this, but I, I promise if you walk through the halls of Ford, you'll find the most mission-oriented people you've, you've ever seen in your life. Like they, we didn't, we didn't get into Ford because we're like, oh, we're looking for a quick buck. We got into Ford saying, how do you create like literally the, The most important, uh, company in healthcare that affects the largest amount of lives. And so, I mean, during the SPAC era, we really didn't entertain those conversations. During the acquisition era, we didn't entertain those. Like, that wasn't really what we were trying to do.

AI assessment note: “During the acquisition era, we didn't entertain those. Like, that wasn't really”