Latest / AI for Founders with Ryan Estes / The soft skill crisis costing healthcare billions

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The soft skill crisis costing healthcare billions · AI for Founders with Ryan Estes

0:00
Imagine this. Your doctor just told your
0:01
pregnant wife good news, the baby's still alive as a
0:04
punchline, which I'm sure was one of many like that.
0:07
But that's not a joke that actually happened.
0:09
It happened to me and this energy is exactly why nurses are
0:13
burning out and leaving the profession every single year.
0:16
The vibes are just off in hospitals.
0:18
We spent billions training healthcare workers on what to do
0:21
and almost nothing on how to be human while doing it.
0:24
The result? Patients are scared, families
0:26
are furious, and a workforce so emotionally wrecked they're
0:29
quitting faster than schools can replace them.
0:31
Now imagine a founder who saw this gap and built an AI
0:34
simulation platform where nurses can practice the hardest
0:37
conversations imaginable with a digital patient who reacts to
0:41
their tone, their body language, even their eye contact, then
0:44
gives them a full performance breakdown afterwards.
0:47
Just brutal, honest, repeatable practice at scale.
0:50
The applications of AI and medicine are endless and I think
0:54
it's time we use this opportunity to help the
0:56
providers perform at their best when we need them the most.
0:59
Welcome to AI for founders, I'm Ryan Estes.
1:02
Today I'm sitting down with Lucas Consoli, Co founder of
1:05
Empath EQ. In this conversation, you're
1:08
going to learn how AI is being used to close the soft skill gap
1:11
in healthcare, why nursing schools are the Trojan horse
1:14
into a billion dollar health system market, and how an
1:17
Argentinian entrepreneur with 0 connections built a company at
1:21
the intersection of cinematic storytelling in real time AI.
1:25
This one is for founders who want to build in health tech,
1:27
simulation, or any space where human behavior is the product.
1:31
Now, the AI for Founders newsletter is where this
1:33
conversation goes even deeper. Deals, breakdowns, founder
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1:41
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1:44
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That's Kickcaster by MO Burst. All right, Lucas, welcome to the
2:30
show. Thank you so much for joining
2:31
me. Thank you Ryan for having me.
2:34
I'm living with Starstruck right now.
2:36
How? Dare you.
2:38
Yeah, right. Let's dive right in.
2:40
OK, So I'm really excited about your product, largely because
2:43
the, the convergence of AI and health and Wellness, medical
2:47
pharmaceuticals, it's kind of a recurring theme on the show.
2:49
I, I feel like there's a lot of unbelievable opportunity coming.
2:54
And so we'll start with your company Empathic, which could
2:58
also be read as empath or empath EQI like both, but.
3:04
Depends on the depends on the Co founder that you're talking to.
3:07
For me it's empath. EQ.
3:08
My American Co founders and say empathic.
3:11
Empathic. Yeah.
3:12
Either way, it now the the mission of this is to build an
3:16
AI simulation platform that helps healthcare professionals
3:19
practice difficult human interactions such as empathy,
3:23
communication and de escalation. So tell me more about the
3:27
platform. So I think everything started
3:32
with the common belief between the Co founders and also our CTO
3:36
that technology can be used to improve the soft skill, soft
3:41
skill gap that it created. And we're working to impact a
3:46
struggling workforce as nursing that currently has no
3:49
preparation for these human challenges they confront right
3:53
on a day-to-day. So I can tell you a lot about
3:57
the problem, but basically our solution today is a simulation
4:02
platform where you are interacting with digital, a
4:04
digital patient, a digital person on the other side that
4:08
interacts with you, that reacts to your verbal, non verbal and
4:13
para verbal language and gives you feedback afterwards on how
4:17
to improve that as well. Amazing.
4:20
Now, did you say Australian specifically?
4:23
I'm Argentinian Australian, you said?
4:26
Yeah. I'm sorry for the products
4:28
released to America. Yeah, OK.
4:32
Well, I'm going to put a pin in Argentina because I got lots of
4:34
questions there. That's somewhere I really want
4:36
to go, largely because they have a love of beef and BBQ similar
4:41
to me. But we'll come back to that.
4:43
We'll come back to that one thing now it, it's anecdotally,
4:46
I have a lot of stories about like having problems with
4:49
doctors and you know, the, the one of the challenges of the
4:53
American kind of medical conglomerate as it is, is it,
4:58
it's really hard to become a doctor.
5:01
And so and I think that's good. They're put through a lot of
5:03
rigor, maybe too much, but also means that like the people that
5:06
make it through all the education, all the training,
5:11
everything they have to do, they have grit.
5:13
They're tough. They're maybe you could say
5:16
cocky, you could say they're arrogant.
5:18
Shout out to all my doctors. I they listen to this and every
5:20
time I trash doctors, they they get upset with me.
5:23
I love you guys, but you know how you are now anecdotally, one
5:27
story of my wife is pregnant with our first daughter.
5:29
We're about 6 months along. There's some kind of like issue
5:32
my wife's having. She just can't stop throwing up.
5:34
Now she's also kind of, that's kind of how she is.
5:37
She'll get on a roll and like she'll need like some kind of
5:40
medication to help her from, from throwing up.
5:42
So anyway, we go to the, the hospital, we, the doctor comes
5:46
over, she's like, hey, I'm throwing up.
5:48
What's going on? He's like, well, good news is
5:51
the baby's still alive. And I was like, what?
5:55
And he starts laughing. He's like, ha, ha, just kidding.
5:59
So like this bedside manner when we're talking about empathy,
6:02
there are definitely doctors that this is a major problem.
6:06
And it could be just gallows humor.
6:08
You're seeing so much trauma every single day.
6:10
They got to do something to to entertain themselves.
6:12
But as a patient, like literally, I wanted to fight
6:15
this guy. I was like, dude, don't even say
6:17
something like it to my wife. Like it was crazy.
6:20
So I see the problem first hand that like training in empathy
6:25
communication, de escalation is a major problem.
6:28
And what I, where I see kind of like the benefit of AI is we're
6:32
moving to a place where some of the prescriptory procedures or
6:36
just like the diagnosis and the therapies are all going to be
6:40
enhanced by AI, which is going to actually give the the patient
6:44
more time with the doctor, more time for the human element.
6:47
And this might be a big shift for doctors, largely because I
6:51
heard a statistic that, you know, doctors only get 13
6:54
minutes with the patient on average when they're seeing a
6:56
patient. So let me know if any of that
6:59
lands and maybe kind of I would love to learn a little bit how
7:02
this platform, a simulation is helping doctors kind of build on
7:07
these personal soft skills. This episode is brought to you
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Founders dot Co. Now back to the show.
8:07
Amazing it learns, you know, very personal spot also, because
8:12
I had a similar experience, not with my wife or with with my
8:17
mother two years ago and she had to be in, in an induced coma for
8:22
two weeks and, and I could see my, my, my reactions, my
8:29
emotions be so dependent on the nurse in charge of that shift.
8:35
You know, there were some nurses that didn't have had 0 empathy
8:39
and I was just like, wanted to just grab them by the neck and
8:42
say, what the fuck is going on with your mom?
8:44
You know, tell me, give me more information, you know, that they
8:47
were just like shut out stupid data that I had no way on how to
8:51
integrate and how to, you know, manage.
8:53
And then there's the other nurse that totally, you know, down to
8:58
earth that just brings you calmness and it's there to like,
9:02
really, how about ease up your, your, your emotions in the
9:09
moment, right. So we are starting with nurses,
9:13
not necessarily with clinicians, not with doctors, though I
9:16
understand completely what you're saying because I have two
9:18
brother in And every time I talk with someone, they tell me, hey,
9:30
this is amazing for doctors. Why didn't you start there?
9:33
The issue starting there, it's twofold, say 1 is that still
9:40
today nurses will spend much more time with the, with the
9:43
patients, right? Like at least in the in the
9:48
situations in which a patient is in an ER on an OR, you know, And
9:54
so there's much more touch points that we can impact there.
9:58
The second is that the doctors today have little incentives to
10:05
practice and to become better at this because they have all the
10:09
power, right? And why would they want to
10:11
become better? It's like, no, OK, fuck you
10:13
enough. Yeah.
10:14
Anyway, so we still need to get a lot more validation in our
10:22
product and get more power behind it.
10:25
You know, therefore then go to the doctors and say, hey, XY
10:28
said these are all the metrics and Y you will retain better
10:32
your clients, your patients. And This is why, you know, you
10:35
should be doing this and, and, and train with our with our
10:39
tool, right. And yeah, maybe I don't know if
10:43
I answered your question there, but what we are seeing is that
10:47
there isn't an how you say there is an understanding today that
10:55
to train behaviors you need to just train, right?
11:01
To to learn behaviors you need to train, you cannot read
11:03
through them. You need to be in a simulation.
11:06
You need to go into the field and like golfing, right?
11:09
Someone can tell you 2 hours of how to do the perfect swing, but
11:12
if you don't go to the driving range and just shoot balls, you
11:16
will never change that behavior. Similar to communication, right?
11:20
I can sit here and read all the and watch all the Ted talks and
11:23
how to communicate better, but if I don't practice and nothing
11:27
will land properly, it will not stick in when you, you will not
11:30
integrate it. So simulations has been used in
11:34
nursing schools and in medical schools for a long time, but
11:37
mainly for clinical skills for everything that it's like hard
11:41
skills, right? So we saw an opportunity not
11:45
because we are very creative, but because the market told us
11:48
we were working with nursing schools and they kept on telling
11:50
us, hey, this is our problem. This is our problem.
11:52
We saw an opportunity to train soft skills because today to
11:56
train a soft skill, you need to go to get an actor acts like as
12:02
a patient, you know, you need to schedule 200 students with one
12:07
actor once a year for three minutes maybe.
12:10
And, and just pray to the Lord that that's enough to train them
12:16
on how to have proper communication with like a
12:19
patient that is, you know, just anxious or with a family member
12:24
that wants to know that the news of their potentially dying, you
12:28
know, parent or whatever. So yeah, that's where it all
12:32
started and that's what we, we, we want to impact.
12:36
Amazing. So for nurses, this is kind of a
12:38
role-playing where they can log on and, and there'll be like a,
12:41
a patient or a parent of a patient or a, a, a loved one.
12:46
And there's differently scenarios basically is that is
12:49
that kind of the idea? Yeah, that's easier.
12:52
Yeah. And so you have everything from
12:56
a patient, the family member, another nurse, like in a church
13:00
charge nurse, you have the clinician also, because it's not
13:05
only with patients, but it's also between the healthcare
13:09
providers that there's a lot of friction there.
13:12
There's a lot of potential burnout being affected by the
13:17
communication between them as well, Right.
13:19
And miscommunication as well. And so, yes, you log into our
13:24
platform, you have different scenarios that you can choose
13:26
from depending on the course you're going through.
13:28
You'll have different scenarios that are assigned to you, maybe
13:30
for a grade or something of the sort.
13:32
And then you go through it and you navigate the seven minute
13:37
scenario, let's say, and you get a report afterwards that tells
13:41
you, hey, look, look at yourself here.
13:44
You were not paying attention. You were just looking around and
13:47
saying, yeah, everything is gonna be all right.
13:51
You should be trying to connect, validating with the patients
13:54
emotions. Look at their eyes, into their
13:57
eyes into there. We have a bunch of different
14:00
metrics there that we can give you feedback on.
14:03
Yeah, You know, I, I, and as much as I kind of relate to the
14:07
patient standpoint, I am very empathetic for nurses and like
14:10
how hard their job is, especially now.
14:13
I mean, if you look at that whole episode that went down
14:16
with like, Luigi Mangione, you know, and he became kind of a
14:19
cult hero. And then you have everybody
14:22
who's a Google doctor now. They're like, oh, you said I I
14:25
need to do this, but Google says I should just rub a crystal on
14:28
it. So what do you want?
14:28
You know, like everybody has like they're getting attacked
14:31
kind of from all angles of people in like very heightened
14:34
emotional states. So I'm very sympathetic.
14:37
It's a very difficult job. On top of that, you know, a
14:40
friend of mine shout out to Katie with Jobstream.
14:43
You know, she was talking about how what a shortage there are of
14:46
nurses right now because they're getting so burned out, you know,
14:49
in a, in a way to like deal with big emotions on a daily basis.
14:53
Some people are talented with that, but most of us, you know,
14:56
we have to practice, you know, so this seems like a brilliant
14:59
idea and a great opportunity to come against, you know, some
15:02
really challenging situations through the role-playing and,
15:05
and be able to work that out on an emotional level before you're
15:08
actually working with people, which are obviously more dynamic
15:11
and more confusing. So I would love to hear about
15:13
the tech stack. Like what are you using to
15:15
generate these, these AI actors? And like, how are you starting
15:18
to program their personalities? How are you creating different
15:21
scenarios? How have you gone about
15:23
basically creating the platform itself?
15:26
So let's go there, but also if you want to go back to the
15:29
problem itself, I can give you so many statistics there on how
15:32
the burn rate of the of the nurses is just alarming.
15:36
Alarming is huge. It's huge.
15:39
And it's not just a problem. It will once they become, you
15:41
know, professionals. But it's the problem we had
15:43
before as well. You know, how we select the
15:45
students that go into these nursing schools and etcetera.
15:48
But yeah, we can go back to that.
15:50
I'm going to just first answer your question on on the tech
15:53
stack. So we are working at the edge of
16:00
technology here because fortunately it's very creative
16:05
aspect of technology that we're in because we leverage AI in a
16:10
lot of different ways. AI as a video rendering tool in
16:16
real time, it's not there yet, right?
16:18
Like it will take you 10 seconds to create 1 still image.
16:22
So imagine if you want to do like a whole video that is
16:25
responding to you in real time as a as a stream, you're right
16:29
it's impossible. So what we're doing, it's mix
16:33
between AI and cinematography in which we pre record or pre
16:37
render a bunch of different potential scenes, micro scenes
16:44
that are kind of architectured around narrative arc that you
16:49
need to go through that scenario.
16:51
And we have an orchestrator and AI that based on your facial
16:56
expressions on what you're saying and how you're saying it,
17:00
the prosody of how you're saying it and where you are in this
17:03
scenario, in this narrative arc chooses the next scene right to
17:07
play. So if I, I don't know if I'm
17:13
saying something in a positive way and I'm validating your,
17:18
your emotions, then the, the orchestrator will choose
17:21
something that reacts to that accordingly, right?
17:24
While if I say fuck you, I don't want to listen to you, to you
17:28
whining, you know, it would just overreact and say what, you
17:32
know, what's happening here, you know, So I don't know how
17:37
detailed you want to go into the text stack, but that's basically
17:41
how we are manipulating it. We have a service provider, an
17:46
SDK that runs locally to process all the imaging and we then
17:52
translate also all the audio into text for to create a
17:57
transcript of what is being said.
17:59
And we get all the signals of your audio.
18:02
And all of that information is going in a package of data
18:06
every, let's say, every couple of seconds to our orchestrator
18:10
to make a decision basically. Amazing.
18:13
So cool, you know, and I could see in the future a
18:15
personalization because we all have certain biases, you know,
18:19
we hate to admit it, but like for me, for example, the the
18:22
sound of like a petulant child crying, like makes me like
18:27
horribly irritated. We'll put it mildly.
18:30
So I know that if like there is, it would be, if I'm trying to
18:32
have an empathetic conversation and there's a kid crying right
18:35
next to it, I'm going to have a very hard problem.
18:38
So why not go in there and practice in that scenario?
18:41
You know what I mean? Because it's like kind of like a
18:44
contemplative or meditation practice.
18:46
You know, you say, where's the friction?
18:48
That's where the traction is. You know, you're you.
18:50
You would think you're enlightened, not sitting on the
18:52
cushion. And then suddenly you have a
18:54
conversation with your parents and then you're right back to
18:57
square 1. So, you know, everybody is going
18:59
to have different triggers and different things that drive them
19:02
up the wall. And you can almost like start
19:04
there and be like, OK, here's how I'm going to deal with these
19:06
situations because I'm guaranteed to do it.
19:09
And ultimately not only do what I not want to burn out, but I
19:12
want to thrive in my profession. You know, I want to be really
19:16
good and at the end of the day, have a little juice left to go
19:18
to the gym and do what I need to do ultimately, amazing.
19:22
I love it. Let's talk about the business a
19:23
little bit in the economics. So how have you financed the
19:26
project so far? So we were lucky enough that one
19:32
of our Co founders Alex shout out to him.
19:35
He has been very successful in his previous companies, 5 out of
19:39
five exits, so amazing. So he was able to finance the
19:44
first say 5-6 months of this. And last year in November, we
19:50
close our PRECEDE with some local funds here, really good
19:55
partners in crime. It's gotten and and some really
20:00
good angels from the ethics side of things.
20:03
And right now we still have the the PRECEDE open and say for a
20:07
specific strategy partner that we are waiting for more than
20:11
from the healthcare side of things.
20:13
But yeah, that's how we've been financing today, today, great.
20:17
How much is close to date and then how much are you looking to
20:20
close to to end out the the the round?
20:24
So we have around 600 K and we're looking anything between
20:28
150 to 200 more. But again, it's not out of need.
20:33
It's more to open to a specific strategic partner that would
20:37
make sense. You bet.
20:38
Now talk about that strategic partner.
20:40
Are you looking for distribution?
20:42
Are you looking for industry expertise?
20:43
Are you looking for giant Checkbook?
20:47
No, I would be more of the two first right distribution either
20:51
that they are a health system maybe themselves or experience
20:56
in the in the in the world of nursing staffing agencies or
21:02
health systems or higher Ed in this particular nursing schools
21:07
something of the sort of yeah. And, you know, probably one of
21:10
the most popular sections of our newsletter right now is the
21:14
Deals Corner where we post, you know, rounds that are open just
21:18
to for, for all the investors that listen to the show and, and
21:21
read the newsletter. So if you want to include that,
21:23
I'm happy to do it on the newsletter to find that domain
21:25
expertise because you know, really when we're talking about
21:29
going to market now, you know, my buddy Josh talks about like,
21:33
you know, you got to have distribution on the cap table,
21:36
you know, so I think it's really smart the way you're thinking
21:37
about it. You have to have that expertise,
21:39
which it sounds like you've got, you know, and then you have to
21:42
have some way to to get to market, you know.
21:45
So let's talk about that a little bit of going to market
21:48
where you guys are at. How many customers do you have
21:50
now? Have you, do you have a customer
21:52
yet or are you still building? I want to say one thing there
21:55
like. I believe that in the time that
21:58
we are living in AI, technical expertise is not the biggest,
22:04
it's not the biggest resource right now, right.
22:06
It's this acquisition, this go to market and that's where we
22:10
have a lot of value from our Co founders, but also where we want
22:15
to put more emphasis on the cap table.
22:17
As you're saying, right now we have, I think I don't want to
22:21
lie between 14 to 16 institutions that are working
22:25
with us on a day-to-day basis, creating the simulations, giving
22:29
us feedback on the on the product and saying that we want,
22:33
you know, to integrate these either in our higher Ed courses
22:37
or in our distribution and learning learning side of
22:44
things. On the hospital side, they have
22:47
not yet paid and there's a lot of stealing red tape around
22:52
integration with them, right, because of HIPAA compliance,
22:56
because of accessibility and things like that, that we,
23:00
luckily we already passed the first stress test there.
23:05
But yeah, our next step is to make them pay.
23:07
Basically. I was talking with one of my my
23:10
beer investors and I was like, man, I'm a little scared.
23:14
We only hear yeses from the market.
23:17
Am I being just oblivious out of something?
23:19
It's like, what's going on? You know this, I know this is
23:22
huge problem. I know like our product is cool,
23:25
but why am I just hearing yeses? And he's like, that's a problem.
23:29
That's clearly a problem because then you're not pushing enough.
23:32
You know, just push them and you get them to pay and say, OK,
23:35
that's the next step then. Amazing.
23:37
When you're thinking about pricing, how are you thinking
23:39
about pricing it? Is it like a usage base outcome
23:42
base SAS subscription with seats?
23:44
What do you how do you think about charging?
23:46
It's more of a SAS subscription with seats.
23:50
The nursing schools have these institution that is the
23:53
simulation department that basically is a service provider
23:59
to all the different colleges inside and so and courses inside
24:03
and instructors. And so they seed over a lot of a
24:07
big budget, right, because the simulation centers cost
24:10
millions. All other VR and digital
24:13
simulations cost millions as well.
24:16
And so they could be the ones paying or could also be the
24:19
student as a, let's say, if you put it as a graded part of the
24:24
grade, you can think about it as a book book, right?
24:28
So depends on who is paying, what's going to be the price
24:31
point, but it's going to be around like 60 bucks per
24:34
semester. Something that.
24:36
Cool. Amazing.
24:37
I love that. And then is there kind of a
24:38
certification at the end with when somebody completes things?
24:42
I know how much people love a blue ribbon, you know, and a
24:45
piece of paper with a gold stamp on it.
24:49
So right now we're thinking about it as an integration into
24:52
an existing course, that curriculum that already exists
24:55
in the higher education. So we are not creating any micro
24:59
credentials over that. But once we start going into
25:02
health systems, we are already talking with other startups that
25:07
are doing micro credentials and how to create that blue ribbon.
25:10
Today, it doesn't exist. I think also I would feel bad if
25:14
we don't have any validation out there to just give blue ribbons
25:17
that are meaningless, you know, So I think it's coming, but
25:22
give, give us one more year, something like that.
25:24
You got it. No participation awards.
25:26
This isn't field day. They they're going to have to
25:29
earn it. I like that.
25:31
OK, it's time to enter the Quantum round.
25:33
Are you ready? Yeah.
25:36
All right. So you're from Argentina.
25:39
How does being from Argentina give you an unfair advantage in
25:44
in business and with this project?
25:47
Another question, I feel maybe this is not just Argentina,
25:51
could be more of like developing countries.
25:53
I feel Argentina particularly creates this entrepreneurial
25:58
spirit of like go getters, like just grinding.
26:02
And there's something in the Argentinian political landscape
26:08
that we cannot trust any institution.
26:11
We don't trust institutions, so we cannot trust loss.
26:15
So we have to create our own loss.
26:17
We have to create our own moral compass.
26:19
We have to create our own way of thinking around every problem
26:25
that we face through childhood onwards, right?
26:28
So I think it's a muscle that we don't realize that we just
26:32
develop just by living in a country like that.
26:35
And then you go out to the world and it's like, man, this is a
26:38
playground sometimes. In that sense, I feel like that
26:42
gives me an A fair advantage. And also just being a little bit
26:48
cheeky. I think the accent open some
26:50
doors. They're like, OK, nice accent,
26:53
you know? Well, you got the look too.
26:55
You look like a soccer player or something.
26:58
Funny you say this is this is our local FC.
27:03
Nice, nice, of course. OK, so how about the other side?
27:08
Where is being from Argentina a disadvantage?
27:15
I think sometimes, again, going back to the accent, maybe they
27:19
hear an accent. It's like, OK, where are you
27:20
coming from? You know, it doesn't create
27:22
validation from the beginning. Like maybe in the First Capital
27:27
of say, companies I worked for, they were, they were unicorns,
27:32
one of the few unicorns in Argentina, but not many people
27:35
know them, right? So I then need to talk about my
27:38
experience in Europe, my experience in the US, you know,
27:42
to have a little more validation.
27:45
I also think that sometimes I'm very emotional and that's a very
27:51
Argentinian thing, very Latin American and in business you
27:54
need to be a little more cat throat in some relationships,
27:57
right? With I cannot be friends with
27:59
every service providers. So like, I, I have this service
28:02
provider I just want to kill sometimes and I'm like, I should
28:06
just tell him like I'm going to just catch you off, you know,
28:10
not pay your shit or whatever. But he's a friend at the same
28:12
time. It's like, why did you become a
28:14
friend so quickly, you know? That's hard for me too.
28:18
I kind of fall in love with everybody I'm around, you know?
28:20
So it's like, oh, these are all my buddies.
28:21
It's like I can't be, especially with team and staff.
28:24
I've gotten better, but that's a tough one.
28:26
I and I, that's one thing I appreciate about you because
28:29
that means you got a big heart and we need more of that
28:32
business. If you ask me kind of, you know,
28:35
obviously immigration and, and all that kind of stuff has been
28:38
top of the news. Has it been challenging for you
28:40
to get work visas or anything in the States?
28:43
And no, so I'm lucky enough that I came to the States because of
28:48
my wife. So she's American.
28:50
And we were, we met in Berlin, Germany, where we lived there
28:55
for five years and I had two companies there non speak, not
28:59
not speaking German at all. So I think that is one of my
29:02
biggest proudest things ever. Amazing.
29:06
But she had to come back for her licensing as a psychotheria
29:09
piece. And so we we got married early
29:12
on. So I got a green card that way.
29:14
So I was lucky enough. Now I have a lot of friends who
29:17
I play soccer with, you know that I hear you and not
29:20
necessarily entirely legal. And I have a friend that just
29:24
came before the pandemic and couldn't leave afterwards.
29:29
And so he had no papers, nothing.
29:31
And he didn't even want to stay here, but he couldn't leave
29:33
because out of like fear what would happen.
29:36
And, and so right now, I feel that I'm lucky enough that I
29:41
feel safe, but I can see around me, you know, the ripple effects
29:46
of everything that's going on. And it brings a lot of anxiety.
29:50
And if you ask my wife, she is anxious for me.
29:52
She is like, Nah, you cannot go around the the streets without
29:56
your green card with you. It's like, why do I need my
29:58
green card with me? It's like, I have my license.
30:00
No, you know, take your green card like, OK.
30:03
Yeah, and that's disgusting, honestly.
30:05
We don't do politics on this show, but like the fact that you
30:08
have to have your papers. No, that's that's not America.
30:12
That that this too shall pass. So I I wouldn't be worried about
30:16
it if I was you either. Like we could deal with this in
30:18
court. I wouldn't mind a little
30:20
settlement check right now, actually.
30:22
So what's up? OK, if you were entering college
30:28
now as a freshman, what would you study?
30:33
Great question. I thought about this for a bit
30:35
because I also want to go back maybe to school and study
30:38
something. So I think AI is changing the
30:46
landscape a lot, a lot. But there's very clear industry
30:52
or market or like place where AI cannot go, which is a human side
30:56
of things. So anything that has to do with
30:58
understanding humanity, I would prioritize.
31:03
So I am very curious about human systems, so sociology, political
31:08
systems, policy making. I think that is something that I
31:11
would maybe prioritize or even psychology as well.
31:15
You know, the mental health pandemic, it's not going to go
31:19
away because you are talking with an AI chat bot.
31:22
I think you you sent a newsletter.
31:25
Yeah, this week maybe about that only fans artist.
31:32
That article was really curious. But yeah, I feel like
31:36
psychologist, you know, mental health professionals are going
31:39
to be super needy. They're going to have like a big
31:41
leverage. And personally, there is a
31:43
second branch that I'm very interested in, which is the
31:45
manipulation of the physical world.
31:48
So like the engineering in a way, but more like design, the
31:53
industrial design. That would be super interesting
31:55
for me. That's your design for sure.
31:58
That would be cool. Yeah, I'm glad you said that.
32:00
I've been, you know, I asked everybody that question and it's
32:02
interesting the response. But it does seem to be like the
32:05
humanities is a great place to go.
32:07
It's like it might be the best time in the world to like study
32:10
music and poetry because there's a phenomenological thing that
32:14
happens in humans when we have that light bulb moment or
32:18
whatever it is when the hair on the back of your neck stands up
32:20
and there's an expansion of consciousness that happens
32:23
usually in a moment, you know, to like find the thing that
32:27
encourages that in you as kind of like a a guiding light and a
32:31
beacon to kind of send you on your way.
32:32
You know, it's like I feel like my whole life is chasing that
32:35
experience, you know? I love that what you're saying
32:38
because I think I was giving from my perspective, but for
32:41
anyone listening, the main message that I want to give you
32:45
is full of something that you're passionate about because the the
32:51
world moves so fast, but you're whatever you're passionate about
32:56
and what you learn about compounds, right?
32:59
Because you are going to invest your energy in it.
33:01
You're going to invest your time in it.
33:02
And I agree totally with you that an AI will never replace
33:08
that human factor that just creates A goosebump effect,
33:12
right? I was just in in Italy, in
33:14
Tuscany, and we went to see the David and it's it's huge piece
33:20
of marvel or whatever rock it was.
33:22
And it's just a person that you're seeing right like there
33:26
in time and you're like, how did he do this?
33:29
You know, how did he master these?
33:31
And it was just time and time that he dedicated for that
33:35
craft, just out of passion, right?
33:37
Totally. I think those things last now,
33:41
if you do things without passion, if you chase the next
33:44
$1,000,000, the next linking status, the next exit only, that
33:49
just feels away. You know, in time.
33:53
Totally agree. We all love ideas here.
33:56
I am fascinated with health and AI, you know, health tech, if
34:00
are there, if you were to start another company, what what do
34:05
you see like would be successful right now, which is to say like,
34:09
you know, is there a product or a category of products that you
34:11
would love to see brought to market?
34:17
So I think value is created where there is like some kind of
34:25
arbitration, some kind of friction in the market.
34:30
You see two things happening. 1 is that the cost of developing
34:39
things or solutions like personalized solutions, it's
34:41
going down a lot, but not many people are as your listeners are
34:47
so in tune with the latest technology.
34:50
I still have friends in in Argentina that don't even know
34:53
what slack is, right? So I think there's still like a
34:57
90% of population and 85% may of the GDP that can be affected by
35:02
this personalization of solutions through AI.
35:06
So I would go into the S&B world, right like this small
35:09
businesses that still are struggling with like keeping
35:13
their accounting, their finances, their operations, you
35:17
know, and and create bespoke solutions for them.
35:20
I don't have this idea good idea top of mind right now.
35:23
The second thing that I would think of is I always see these
35:27
kind of movements like waves, right, like the AI wave is
35:31
moving the market towards here. OK, what space is living is left
35:35
behind and it's like empty space that because this whole volume
35:40
of attention energy went this way.
35:42
OK, where is that empty space? What is this about?
35:46
And I think that's where mental health is right now.
35:50
So all these entrepreneurs that might be listening to these that
35:55
we might relate to and talk with these, they are using so many AI
36:04
tools to improve and their, their work stream.
36:09
But it's creating for me so much cognitive overload that it's, I
36:15
think it's going to affect, it's affecting already their, their
36:18
lacks, right, their mental health.
36:20
And I feel like there's a big opportunity there in talking
36:24
their language, the tech design thinking language, bringing the
36:31
Buddhist side of things, the sand meditation, the breathing
36:35
techniques. So if I were to start a business
36:40
right now, I think it would be more than that side because of
36:43
my passion as well. Yeah, amazing.
36:46
I know you like to support local food banks there in Cincinnati.
36:49
You want to give them a shout out and maybe a little
36:52
information why that's important to you.
36:54
Yeah, great shout out to Cain. Cain, they are local.
37:00
It came from the church, but then a couple of years ago they
37:04
became like a nonprofit with no affiliations.
37:08
They do an amazing job here locally and I, I just love
37:15
interacting with them because they are very down to earth
37:17
organization and very professional and they have a
37:20
huge impact there, especially in the Latino community.
37:24
I don't know why, but the Latino community really is prevalent in
37:29
the, in the people that need this, right?
37:32
And it's, I think it's just very grounding for me going even once
37:38
a month to see these people because what I'm saying, you
37:42
having interactions with sites of society that you and I don't
37:47
interact maybe on a day-to-day basis.
37:49
And I think that's necessary for everyone to have a little more
37:53
empathy and a little more compassion, a little more
37:55
understanding for what the world is going through.
37:59
Of that, and that's Kane, cincy.org.
38:02
Now question about your town. Is Joe Burrow healed up?
38:07
How's he doing? Is he going to play next year?
38:10
I have no idea, but I don't, I don't, I don't follow sports
38:14
that way. So I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I don't
38:18
understand that question. Incredible, Lucas, I could talk
38:22
to you forever, but unfortunately I'm going to have
38:23
to cut a little bit early, but I want everybody to check out
38:26
Empath EQ dot AI. Lucas when it where's the best
38:31
place online for people to connect with you personally?
38:34
Would be LinkedIn. So Lucas Consoli.
38:37
That's Lucas CONSOLI and you'll see a picture of me with long
38:45
hair. I don't have that that fab you
38:47
look anymore. Oh, what happened?
38:49
Why did you cut it? Stress.
38:54
I'd say it was a day of stress. I was like, just, I need to get
38:57
rid of all these, you know, just baggage.
39:01
Cool, this has been so much fun Lucas and I.
39:03
I love talking to early stage companies, you know, it's my
39:06
favorite because you know, this is where you get to make all the
39:08
fun decisions, do all the validation, get all the ducks in
39:11
a row. Will you come back on when
39:13
you're you're a little bit further along down the pipeline?
39:16
Would love to, you know, I feel like we have a great product and
39:20
the next step is building a great company, right, which is
39:24
much more difficult. So once I have a company, I'll
39:27
come and and yeah. And of course, try to, you know,
39:32
just share my experience. I would love that and you had
39:37
great hair. Man that must have been a tough
39:40
day. I'm looking at your LinkedIn
39:41
pic. I'm like man I would love to
39:44
have hair like that. I tried growing my hair out once
39:46
for about 8 or 9 months and I just couldn't handle the
39:48
ridicule from my family. They were trashing me the whole
39:50
time because my hair grew out. Looked like a scarecrow.
39:54
You know, there's two secrets to that.
39:57
One, it was doing pandemics and no one was looking at me and the
40:01
second? I had a girlfriend, my wife, she
40:04
took care of it, so that's her hair on me.
40:06
Love it. Amazing.
40:08
Lucas, thank you so much. Thank you Ryan, it was amazing.
40:11
Have a great day.