Latest / StartUp Health NOW Podcast / #232: Fireside Chat with Steven Krein & Unity Stoakes, StartUp Health & Esther Dyson, Wellville

Transcript

#232: Fireside Chat with Steven Krein & Unity Stoakes, StartUp Health & Esther Dyson, Wellville · StartUp Health NOW Podcast

• 0:00
  [on-hold music] We're gonna try and be both expansive and quick, but we want to just talk a little bit about the last two days and, and wrap it up and so forth. So first of all, just
• 0:17
  t- each of you tell me what was the highlight for you. Well- You loved all the girls, I know. I- But [laughs] Well, for me, um, I just love being around entrepreneurs. Um, so walking...
• 0:31
  I just came up, or came down from the third floor, and just literally just walking through the room, you get this energy. Mm-hmm. Um, you see the conversations, you see the smiles, you see the interactions.
• 0:44
  Uh, it's what it's all about. It's just all of us being together, interacting, building relationships. So I, I just feel like it's the energy for me that's the highlight more than any one comment or, or talk.
• 0:58
  Yeah, I mean, it's, it's, it's really amazing. I, I've shown a couple pictures of our first year here back in two thousand and twelve. Yeah. It was Unity and I alone in U- in Union Square trying to hold our festival.
• 1:09
  Uh, you can imagine it was, um, it was a very different moment in time.
• 1:13
  And now to feel, uh, here seven years later that we have thousands of people coming to this event, attending, entrepreneurs, investors, patients, and so many people that have gotten behind this mission, people watching online.
• 1:27
  And so, um, I've tried to stay in the moment from yesterday morning till- Mm-hmm...
• 1:31
  uh, right now, and just enjoy each one of the moments, uh, as they unfolded and each conversation, uh, as a moment to be present, because there were so many different highlights.
• 1:42
  I think one of the interesting things yesterday, um, was how each one of the conversations, each one of the amazing presentations...
• 1:51
  And before I actually forget, I wanna make sure that I give a round of applause to all the entrepreneurs who presented. [clapping] Yes. We had, um,
• 1:59
  we had our, you know, we have a, uh, a global army of now two hundred and sixty-eight companies from, uh, I think it's twenty-two countries, and everyone here got to see over a hundred, eh, I wanna say a hundred and ten of them present, a hundred and twenty of them present in, in various formats.
• 2:15
  And, um, the amount of work that went into- Yeah... uh, preparing for that, for them- They were all coherent, which is amazing. [laughs] Right? And that was- Part of that...
• 2:23
  the, our amazing team coaching them and guiding them, and the amazing commitment that all the entrepreneurs had to working on it.
• 2:28
  And so, um, this really was an incredible two-day celebration of them, and I really think that, as evidenced by the growing momentum that this festival has had every year, um, a really exciting just step back and reflect moment for, for me.
• 2:45
  Okay. Well, I'm, I'm not, I'm not gonna play favorites exactly, but I do actually have... My highlight was the family panel. Mm. So- The Park brothers and the, and the Cryan brothers. Yes. The... Right.
• 2:58
  And- I'm feeling a little left out though. I know. Well, no. Well, it, so- Well, you know, it's funny. So, I mean, it, it, tell the- Tell the, tell the Iris story and then- Yeah.
• 3:04
  Yeah, I mean, so, um, about six months ago, we were down at the Biden Cancer Initiative with, uh, Todd Park.
• 3:10
  Uh, so for those who might have missed it, uh, Todd Park, uh, has been a serial entrepreneur, Athenahealth, Castlight Health, now Devoted Health.
• 3:16
  He was at the Department of Health and Human Services, and then, uh, chief technology officer to the government.
• 3:21
  We were talking about the core prime directive of this new company that we just invested in that he and his brother launched called Devoted Health, and we were talking about the fact that the prime directive is to just take care of everyone as they're getting older, the way they would, the way you would want your family member to be taken care of, your mother- Like your younger brother.
• 3:39
  Yeah, exactly. And they are two brothers that started the company, and what's fascinating, you know, for everybody knows that, um, Unity and I have worked together now twenty- Twenty-two years... twenty-two years.
• 3:49
  I know, we look younger than that.
• 3:50
  [laughs] But, uh, we've worked together twenty-two years, brothers from another mother, and along the way, you know, uh, my sister Bari, who's our, our chief strategy officer, my brother Howard's our chief medical officer, and Unity's wife, Katya, are all part of the leadership team.
• 4:04
  But more importantly, the way we built the entire company, everybody on our team is like a family member, and that was really what Todd and Ed's message was about family.
• 4:13
  And it, it's not a very popular thing, quote unquote, in startup land to be building companies with family members, but I think as Bari, uh, evidenced by her introduction of the panel, it's at the core of who we are.
• 4:26
  And I think our health transformers feel that they're part of the family. I think our partners feel that they're part of the family.
• 4:32
  And starting with Unity and I at the core, and then just everybody that we've both attracted and gets attracted to this movement, it really is at the core very much about what we talked about with, uh, Ted and, uh, T- Todd and Ed.
• 4:44
  I'm calling him Ted. [laughs] They call us Stunity. Stunity. [laughs] So when you merge together Steve and Unity, so they're like, uh, uh, Ted. But, uh, Todd and Ed are just terrific entrepreneurs. Mm-hmm.
• 4:54
  We're proud to be investors. But that family is at the core of everything we do. And a shout-out to my nephew, Max, who is here. Oh, yeah. We met- Oh, we just met him. Yeah. A programmer from Berkeley available for hire.
• 5:04
  [laughs] Yeah. Well, you know what? Raise your hand, Max.
• 5:07
  W- the interesting thing about this family theme, Esther, is that we're, all of these moonshots that we're working on and everything that we're doing every day is about family.
• 5:15
  It's about our mothers, our fathers, our sisters, our brothers, our children. And, and, and that is at the core- And our future wives and husbands- A- a- absolutely... if we live. Um, so talk about that 11th moonshot.
• 5:28
  So far there's ten, and now- The urgent moonshot... and that was a highlight too, Sanjay. Yeah, I mean, it is an urgent need. I mean, um,
• 5:38
  you know, the addiction crisis, I think probably everyone in, in this room knows someone, y- whether it's in your family or a friend or- Themselves... someone, themselves, um, who's, who's going through, uh, something.
• 5:53
  And, uh, you know, we believe that there's, um, there's other solutions besides drugs, you know?
• 6:00
  There's a lot of opportunity to rethink, um, rethink what's possible.Um, so if we can all work together, if we can explore new innovation, new creative thinking, um, really open up the boundaries, um, and invest in, in new ways of, of combating this, then there's a big opportunity to, to reverse the trend and, and end addiction as we know it, and, and, and stop this plague.
• 6:26
  One, one thing I've seen over the years is, and again, you guys are leading it, but there's... It's also more generally, th- there was more about the social determinants of health here, Bernard Tyson, uh,
• 6:41
  the addiction crisis. It's, it's not just a crisis of people dying, but it's a crisis of people living with despair and a, a crisis of childhood trauma leading to vulnerability to addiction. And it's, it's nice to see us
• 6:58
  and the world at large paying attention to it. It's horrible that it's there, but
• 7:04
  somehow we need to move the solution up to some of the companies that presented that were more focused on Medicaid or on mental health or ultimately good parenting, 'cause it, it gets passed down. Yeah.
• 7:17
  Well, you know, it's interesting. Um, having now seven years to st- uh, unpack this conversation and, and having, uh, a 25-year commitment to doing this, uh...
• 7:26
  By the way, it's, I think it's a lifelong commitment, we just say [laughs] it's 25 years. But I think at the end of the day, to allow this conversation to keep getting, uh...
• 7:35
  It's a multidimensional conversation, and to start now talking about causes in childhood and so many other pieces of it.
• 7:41
  I think that, um, one of the things I talked about both this morning and yesterday morning was, um, the, the man landing on the moon was a metaphor we use a lot.
• 7:50
  Um, obviously this idea of moonshot thinking and moonshots. But, um, not a lot of people know that it wasn't Neil Armstrong and the team at NASA that landed a man on the moon, it was actually a collaboration- Mm-hmm...
• 8:01
  of 400,000 people over almost a decade, with probably- And the voters who paid for it. Yeah, and, and- Right...
• 8:07
  and, and the American public who paid, uh, the equivalent of about 50 cents a week per man, woman and child in America.
• 8:13
  And, uh, but what's fascinating is that, um, the amount of collaboration, global collaboration truly, not just in the United States, but collaboration, people, um, at every aspect of what it took to actually accomplish that one thing.
• 8:26
  So when you talk about achieving the moonshot, ending addiction or any of the other ones that are so important, access to care, curing disease, ending cancer, um, they, they really do require going below the surface that you can cover at an event like Start- uh, StartUp Health Festival or a one-off conversation or a one-off startup.
• 8:43
  So I think that that to me is what is such a wonderful part of this now global community that we've built and assembled, that continue to have conversations and unpack it. Yep. It's all connected.
• 8:56
  Right, it- It's the com- it's all connected. It's- It is, indeed... it's the community, it's the food, it's the air- Yeah...
• 9:00
  it's the water, it's, it's, uh, the innovation at every level, it's the business models, you know.
• 9:07
  Um, and that's what I loved about actually the, the conversation with, with Bernard Tyson, um, because they've been investing in prevention. Um, and, and I always, you know, I always think, "Why aren't...
• 9:19
  Why isn't everyone doing this?" You know? Yeah. Um, but it, it really is all connected. Yeah. Someday it would be great to have policy... We've, we've had some policymakers in the past. Yep. I think it's,
• 9:34
  now more than ever, it's, it's time to think more deeply about payment systems and how we go beyond fixing the cracks to actually maybe cracking the rocks or something. You know, one of the...
• 9:49
  We, we had these eight Cs we talked about, uh, around, uh, l- landing a man on the moon. One of them was continuity. Um, government administrations change, people change, things come and go. It, it's interesting, um...
• 10:00
  And we had Jay Metcalfe here this morning talking about the 25-year horizon, not getting caught up in any of the minutiae of today. Um, it's an interesting question.
• 10:07
  You know, we try to make sure that the mindset, this is a big piece, the mindset of the people that not only are invited to attend this two-day festival, but that have become part of this community, um, think differently and think a certain way.
• 10:19
  And so I think while there are critical policy changes and other things that need to happen, it's really important that we find those people, the individuals who are gonna make it happen.
• 10:28
  I think we're starting to see some of that. I think, um, we have dance, although we've had Vice President Biden here now twice- Yeah... and his, and his incredible, incredible wife, Dr. Jill Biden, here yesterday.
• 10:39
  Speaking of family. How great was she?
• 10:40
  I think, um, the conversation about, um, both her as an individual, but also what, um, she's done with the breast cancer initiative 20 years ago and the Cancer Moonshot and the Biden Cancer Initiative, I think that's what these organizations and that, and those initiatives are really trying to tackle.
• 10:57
  And I think the big thing is staying in this game long enough to make sure we follow through. Yeah. And these aren't short-term commitments, and so policy change has gotta be a big piece of that. So it struck me,
• 11:09
  Jill Biden still works as a teacher, Sanjay still works as a doctor. That, that was also really cool. Uh, another thing we wanted to cover was, what do you think...
• 11:23
  What do people think StartUp Health and the festival are, and what, what else should they know? [laughs] This is their favorite question. [laughs] Well,
• 11:34
  Jerry Levin, sitting back there, who I wanna thank for being here- [audience applauds] Um, he's been here for two days. Hopefully, many of you have had a chance to meet him.
• 11:45
  He's, he's been with us since the beginning of StartUp Health. Um- Actually, Esther introduced us to Jerry. Esther introduced us to Jerry. So- Yeah... Jerry came in, um, a changed man because he had
• 12:03
  m- m- met a woman, a, a new woman whom he married, family again, and she told him- Lori Levin, actually. [audience applauds] Dr. Lori LevinWho's also back there And she told him, "Dude, you gotta sleep more."
• 12:20
  [laughs] Yeah. And he, he became mellow. He... Okay, Jerry, you actually said to me, "I used to be kind of a stiff, and I didn't care unless you had a million-dollar deal,
• 12:34
  and now I just like people," or something like that. [laughs] And [laughs] sorry for outing you, but it was one of the most magical moments. [laughs] And that spirit pervades StartUp Health, so.
• 12:47
  Well, he always asks us, you know, "What is StartUp Health?" And it's taken us years, I think, to, to answer that. I don't know that we- we'll ever have a true answer, uh, because- It will evolve anyway...
• 13:01
  it will evolve. I mean, in a lot of ways it's a philosophy. It's, it's a way that I think we all think. Steve mentioned, um, the health transformer mindset.
• 13:11
  It's, it's a commitment to, um, trying to bring hope to 7.5 billion people around the world and, and use our collective force as a global army for good, as entrepreneurs and innovators working together to collaborate to solve the biggest health challenges of our time.
• 13:29
  Um, it's so many layers of what it is underneath that, but it's about, uh, putting a spotlight on the stories of these innovators and entrepreneurs so that they can blossom and, and solve these challenges.
• 13:44
  How do you describe it? Yeah, I mean, a- and it's interesting 'cause some people come to the festival and they think this is... First of all, they think it's a conference and that's what we do.
• 13:50
  I mean, this is just a two-day celebration of what we do all year long and what the entrepreneurs all around the world are doing every day. And we use it as a moment to come back.
• 14:01
  It was something we kinda created back in 2012 as a way to say, "Look, what would happen if we came back every year to mark and celebrate, almost like an anniversary, not only the commitment we made back at the White House in 2011 when we launched StartUp Health, but let's come back and show the world, and bring the army with us, what we're gonna do and how committed we are to achieving health moonshots as a global community."
• 14:23
  And so we come together every year for these two days. You know, he always says, "Two days is long."
• 14:29
  [laughs] But two days is just a glimpse of what happens in a moment in time to actually make sure that we don't, um, miss the big picture of what have we accomplished over the last year.
• 14:42
  Not what have we haven't we accomplished. What have, what have we accomplished over the last year, and what are we gonna do over the next year?
• 14:48
  And when you actually break down a 25-year mission, which is exactly what we launched, uh, in 2011, was you have 100 quarters over 25 years. And 100 quarters is a lot, right?
• 15:00
  And then you go, oh, you got four ye- four quarters in a year. Yeah.
• 15:02
  And so we're excited that every January we get a chance to stop, take a deep breath, look back, and look forward, but invite our new friends and old friends and people who are working so hard to fight the fight and work on saving the lives of our mothers, our fathers, our sisters, and our brothers.
• 15:20
  So StartUp Health is very much so multidimensional.
• 15:24
  Um, and at the, at the core, that, that one moonshot, bring hope to seven and a half billion people through this global army of entrepreneurs and innovators who are linked arm in arm to do this together.
• 15:37
  And regardless of what obstacles we face, just know that we've all got each other's back, and we're gonna do this. So unless you guys have more to say, there is a party waiting for us. Yes. There is a party. And
• 15:52
  there's just one thing. In this world of investors and chief financial officers and all this stuff,
• 16:03
  to my mind, there's too much talk about exponential growth, which is fundamentally unsustainable, versus something like real goals. They may be really tough goals. We may never achieve them completely.
• 16:17
  You know, and people do, in fact, always die. The question is more how you can keep them alive.
• 16:22
  But somehow, what I really admire about this place is having real goals rather than some mystical vision of exponential growth, which is fundamentally... You know, we're about people and reality- Mm-hmm...
• 16:39
  and that's what I love. So. Yeah. Come- Well, thank you. Esther, we wanna thank you- Yeah... because you were our very first investor and supporter, and you introduced us to Jerry- And I'm still here [laughs]...
• 16:50
  and, and so many people. And you've just been, I think, at every StartUp Health festival. You support us throughout the year. You support so many of the entrepreneurs in, in StartUp Health and around the world.
• 17:02
  Um, so we thank you, and we're in- eternally grateful. So thank you, Esther. Thank you. Yeah. [audience applauding] Woo. Um, okay. Thanks, everybody. And so we, we also wanna- Tell them where to go...
• 17:12
  we wanna thank you all. Um, you guys make the festival a festival. Uh, we are going to keep the festival going. On the third floor there's an open bar right now, and down in the cafe an open bar right now. Team.
• 17:24
  We're gonna do a, a, a changeover here, get, uh, Jerry Harrison, uh, who's, um, co-hosting this event with Oliver Wyman and Red Crow, uh, celebrating with us.
• 17:36
  So, uh, we wanna thank all of our partners, and we wanna thank the StartUp Health team- Yeah... and family who, um, have made this all possible. So thank you all. Thank you. [audience applauding] Great.