Latest / Masters in Business / Challenging the Status Quo of Healthcare Investment with Annie Lamont
Transcript
- 0:02Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news. This is Master's in
- 0:11Speaker 1: Business with Barry Ridholds on Bloomberg Radio.
- 0:16Speaker 2: What can I say about this week's rock star guest?
- 0:20Speaker 2: Annie Lamont incredible track record as a venture capitalist. She's
- 0:26Speaker 2: co founder and managing partner of Oak HCFT. I can't
- 0:31Speaker 2: list all her accolades because they're just one hundred most
- 0:35Speaker 2: influential people in healthcare Forbes Midas List five times, Top
- 0:41Speaker 2: one hundred venture capitalists according to CBE Insights, Top vcs
- 0:46Speaker 2: on the New York Times List, Top twenty Private equity
- 0:49Speaker 2: power Players, Fintech Finance forty. She has had seventy exits
- 0:56Speaker 2: seven zero over the past twenty five years. Fifth ten IPOs.
- 1:01Speaker 2: Just an incredible track record of investing, primarily in the
- 1:06Speaker 2: healthcare but also the financial technology space. There as surprising
- 1:12Speaker 2: amounts of overlap in terms of access, outcomes, cost speed, friction,
- 1:18Speaker 2: especially those last three cost, speed, and friction between the two.
- 1:22Speaker 2: She's also First Lady of Connecticut and married to Governor
- 1:26Speaker 2: Ned Lamont. She's been doing VC work for thirty five
- 1:31Speaker 2: forty years and just as as insightful as anyone in
- 1:36Speaker 2: the world about those areas, especially healthcare. I found this
- 1:41Speaker 2: conversation to be absolutely fascinating. I think you will also
- 1:45Speaker 2: with no further ado, my discussion with Oak Hcfts.
- 1:50Speaker 3: Annie Lamont, thanks very great to be here.
- 1:53Speaker 2: I've been really excited for this conversation. You do so
- 1:56Speaker 2: many interesting things. But let's start with OAKEN Investment Partners.
- 2:01Speaker 2: You were a GP there starting in eighty six and
- 2:05Speaker 2: eight c ventures. What led you to that part of
- 2:08Speaker 2: your career.
- 2:09Speaker 4: Well, very early on, I got out of Stanford when
- 2:12Speaker 4: Silicon Valley was really at the very beginning of Silicon
- 2:17Speaker 4: Valley and joined somebody called hambrickton Quist, which was a
- 2:21Speaker 4: boutique investment bank venture firms or of legendary at that time.
- 2:25Speaker 4: I think I was the fiftieth employee and really fell
- 2:28Speaker 4: in love with venture from day one and working with entrepreneurs.
- 2:32Speaker 4: I Carrie Steve jobs Bags on the Apple IPO road
- 2:35Speaker 4: show in my first three months there. Wow, the first
- 2:38Speaker 4: three months we also took Genentech public, so I worked
- 2:41Speaker 4: with two of the greatest entrepreneurs ever.
- 2:43Speaker 1: I didn't know that at that time.
- 2:46Speaker 2: That was my next question is did you have any
- 2:48Speaker 2: sense of who you were upping shouldiers with or was
- 2:50Speaker 2: just like fast moving blur.
- 2:53Speaker 4: I certainly those two seemed like extraordinary people, and I
- 2:57Speaker 4: extrapolated that to most entrepreneurs. I quickly learned they were
- 3:01Speaker 4: two extraordinary individuals. But that was it just got me hooked.
- 3:05Speaker 4: I thought, if I could just learn and be with
- 3:07Speaker 4: people like this and not be the entrepreneur, but be
- 3:10Speaker 4: the person that supported, helped, edited, therapist, whatever was required.
- 3:15Speaker 4: I just wanted to spend the rest of my life
- 3:17Speaker 4: with people who envisioned the world as it should be.
- 3:20Speaker 2: And H and Q is known for a lot of
- 3:23Speaker 2: their software, internet hardware technology. What led you over to
- 3:28Speaker 2: the healthcare sector.
- 3:29Speaker 4: So when I joined Oak, which was really just a
- 3:32Speaker 4: couple of years out of out of Stanford. We were
- 3:37Speaker 4: founding Genzyme the year that I joined, one of the
- 3:39Speaker 4: also very first biotech companies, and there was only one
- 3:44Speaker 4: public software company at that point. And I wasn't really
- 3:47Speaker 4: interested in one of the three hundred disktrive companies that
- 3:50Speaker 4: were being created.
- 3:51Speaker 2: Not an Iomega fan, I remember that one.
- 3:54Speaker 4: Just yeah, they had done seagates for the original Seagate
- 3:57Speaker 4: shuegart And so I said, I want to create my
- 4:01Speaker 4: own space, you know, I want to create my own
- 4:03Speaker 4: expertise in an area that I could fundamentally be interested in,
- 4:06Speaker 4: and that ended up being biotech and so focused on
- 4:09Speaker 4: life science is the first fifteen years of my career,
- 4:12Speaker 4: and that companies like Alexian, Cephalon, Alkermes, all host of companies.
- 4:18Speaker 2: Were you anything healthcare or medical or biotech related at Stanford?
- 4:23Speaker 3: Well would you do?
- 4:24Speaker 2: Now?
- 4:24Speaker 4: I should have been a hum bio major, but I wasn't.
- 4:26Speaker 4: I had no idea how interested I was in the topic.
- 4:29Speaker 4: But I became fascinated by it and educated myself and
- 4:32Speaker 4: I wish it would have been nice to have had
- 4:34Speaker 4: the Internet back then.
- 4:35Speaker 2: But what what'd you study at Stanford?
- 4:37Speaker 4: I was a political science major, so of course that
- 4:40Speaker 4: prepared me for my life with my husband ultimately. But
- 4:44Speaker 4: I did have an interest in politics, but.
- 4:46Speaker 2: No technology, no engineering.
- 4:48Speaker 4: I mean, everybody takes a computer science course at Stanford.
- 4:51Speaker 2: But huh really interesting. So Oak Investment Partners very sophisticated
- 4:56Speaker 2: VC platform going back to like the late seventies, I
- 5:00Speaker 2: think is when they launched. Yeah, so when you joined
- 5:04Speaker 2: them in the eighties, what did you what did you
- 5:06Speaker 2: focus on? What? What was was it healthcare right out
- 5:10Speaker 2: of the gate or how did that transition take place
- 5:13Speaker 2: from carrying Steve jobs bags on the road show to
- 5:18Speaker 2: focusing on healthcare.
- 5:20Speaker 4: I think my interest, I said, and we found a
- 5:23Speaker 4: genzyme it just intellectually interested in the area, but worked
- 5:26Speaker 4: on you know, some software companies back then, and then
- 5:30Speaker 4: decided I really needed my own hook. Like the reality
- 5:33Speaker 4: is in every career, you know you should, you need
- 5:36Speaker 4: to create your own expertise and your own special lane.
- 5:40Speaker 1: And that was going to be my lane.
- 5:42Speaker 4: I wanted to differentiate myself from all the other engineers
- 5:46Speaker 4: at at OAK and do my own thing.
- 5:49Speaker 2: Was was that kind of a white sheet at that point?
- 5:51Speaker 2: There wasn't a lot of there. Yeah.
- 5:54Speaker 4: Yeah, that was the other thing. It wasn't any real
- 5:56Speaker 4: competition at OAK. And in terms of the market, it
- 5:59Speaker 4: was a burgeoning area and you didn't have to be
- 6:03Speaker 4: a PhD. You could hire PhDs to help you analyze
- 6:07Speaker 4: these things.
- 6:07Speaker 2: What was Oak's core focus when you joined them was
- 6:11Speaker 2: was healthcare something that had they had previously played in?
- 6:15Speaker 2: Or you essentially did you stand up that sector? Yes, Oak? Yes,
- 6:20Speaker 2: huh So what else were they investing in at the
- 6:22Speaker 2: same time?
- 6:25Speaker 4: Well, a lot of hardware is, I said, a number
- 6:27Speaker 4: of disk drive companies PC. I mean we did actually
- 6:30Speaker 4: invest in compac during that period, and so it was
- 6:35Speaker 4: more PC hardware telecom related.
- 6:39Speaker 2: So clients, the LPs who come to Oak, were they
- 6:43Speaker 2: just giving them cash to be allocated across all these
- 6:46Speaker 2: different sectors or did people say all right, I'll try
- 6:49Speaker 2: a little bit of healthcare and a little now.
- 6:51Speaker 4: We always had and we do have an OKHCFT one
- 6:54Speaker 4: fund at everything, and we would choose the allocation.
- 6:57Speaker 3: Huh.
- 6:57Speaker 2: So that investors are getting bosure to whatever you guys
- 7:01Speaker 2: think has the most potential. Right, So you're listed as
- 7:05Speaker 2: a managing partner at Oak as well as a managing
- 7:10Speaker 2: partner and co founder at Oak HCFT. What's the relationship
- 7:15Speaker 2: between the two companies?
- 7:16Speaker 4: There is there is no relationship. Ok Investment Partners is
- 7:19Speaker 4: Wine is wound down effectively, I'm still there until the
- 7:22Speaker 4: last company is.
- 7:25Speaker 2: Just waiting for a right.
- 7:26Speaker 3: Yes, for the last.
- 7:28Speaker 4: Exactly have an obligation to those LPs in that firm,
- 7:32Speaker 4: But the reality is there is no relationship. We started
- 7:34Speaker 4: ok HCFT because we had had two practices obviously in
- 7:40Speaker 4: healthcare and fintech. Andrew Adams and myself launched the firm
- 7:44Speaker 4: and ten years ago and really wanted to focus on
- 7:48Speaker 4: the new model of investing that wasn't just Jedi Knights
- 7:52Speaker 4: from you know, twenty five years ago, where it was
- 7:54Speaker 4: just you're a good advisor and you don't have a
- 7:58Speaker 4: talent function and you're not The really changed to become
- 8:01Speaker 4: a service entity to entrepreneurs, to support entrepreneurs. And it
- 8:05Speaker 4: was always partnering with entrepreneurs in the past, but the
- 8:08Speaker 4: reality is that became a far more competitive world. You
- 8:11Speaker 4: really needed to be deep in a specialty to differentiate yourself,
- 8:14Speaker 4: and you needed to have things like tech support. Talent
- 8:18Speaker 4: support is enormous because it is all about people. We
- 8:21Speaker 4: have five individuals that are just singlely focused on talent
- 8:25Speaker 4: and attracting talent for our companies and also introducing us
- 8:29Speaker 4: to repeat entrepreneurs we haven't invested in before.
- 8:32Speaker 2: So you've used the phrase Jedi Knights in the past.
- 8:36Speaker 2: Tell us a little bit what you mean by that.
- 8:39Speaker 2: I get the sense the world of venture today is
- 8:42Speaker 2: very different than the eighties and.
- 8:44Speaker 1: Nineties, very different.
- 8:47Speaker 4: I think the Jedi Knights means that it's just a
- 8:51Speaker 4: group of individuals, maybe a firm, but it's a group
- 8:54Speaker 4: of individuals that are sort of all out for themselves
- 8:57Speaker 4: just investing directly with entrepreneurs, with no real overlap between
- 9:02Speaker 4: anyone else in the firm and that entrepreneur, whereas now
- 9:05Speaker 4: I would say, like, okay, safety is very much a
- 9:08Speaker 4: team based approach where we support the entrepreneur in a
- 9:11Speaker 4: myriadive ways. Whatever they need, you know, will we will
- 9:15Speaker 4: supply as a firm.
- 9:17Speaker 2: So some of the VC books and autobiographies and the
- 9:21Speaker 2: like that I've read kind of imply the early eighties
- 9:26Speaker 2: and earlier days of venture was first they would write
- 9:29Speaker 2: a check, and after they had been writing checks for
- 9:32Speaker 2: a few years, they ended up having a bit of
- 9:34Speaker 2: a network of other engineers and other venture funds and
- 9:38Speaker 2: other entrepreneurs, and so people would plug into that network.
- 9:42Speaker 2: It sounds like you're describing something much more comprehensive and
- 9:46Speaker 2: holistic than the venture of old. Servicing the entrepreneur put
- 9:53Speaker 2: some flesh on those bones. How much service does oak
- 9:57Speaker 2: provide to the companies you work work with besides funding?
- 10:02Speaker 4: I think that first of all, that we should just
- 10:05Speaker 4: talk about that the difference between a world where everything
- 10:09Speaker 4: there was more, There was less capital and more entrepreneurs
- 10:14Speaker 4: in the early days, so the supply demand balance was
- 10:17Speaker 4: such that there was a lot more power I would
- 10:20Speaker 4: say with the money than with the entrepreneurs and the
- 10:23Speaker 4: great entrepreneurs. And I would say that's flipped in this
- 10:26Speaker 4: world and that there are obviously many more entrepreneurs, but
- 10:32Speaker 4: there's also a lot more money in the industry, and say,
- 10:35Speaker 4: you really have to differentiate yourself. And I think that's
- 10:38Speaker 4: where this service model came in of support that is how,
- 10:43Speaker 4: in part, you differentiate yourself. And yes, it's great relationships
- 10:46Speaker 4: and great advice, but it's also the wrap around of
- 10:52Speaker 4: talent which is huge, like recruiting and understanding that you're
- 10:55Speaker 4: providing someone go to market advice at times exit, really
- 11:01Speaker 4: understanding the process in terms of exiting companies introduce you introductions,
- 11:06Speaker 4: which is the importance of being deep in these two
- 11:09Speaker 4: sectors is you know the customers. We know the customers intimately,
- 11:13Speaker 4: we have great relationships with them broadly, and so we
- 11:16Speaker 4: can help make the introductions as well as many of
- 11:19Speaker 4: those customers end up being buyers of the companies, and
- 11:22Speaker 4: so just understanding that life cycle and being completely connected
- 11:26Speaker 4: to those communities is really is hugely important.
- 11:30Speaker 2: So that flipping of the power dynamics from the capital
- 11:34Speaker 2: to the entrepreneur. Does that have anything to do with
- 11:38Speaker 2: companies now staying private for so much longer that seems
- 11:42Speaker 2: like there's endless amounts of money around and no shortage
- 11:46Speaker 2: of people willing to fund startups. How does that dynamic
- 11:50Speaker 2: play out with all these companies just postponing IPOs for
- 11:55Speaker 2: seemingly much longer than they used to.
- 12:00Speaker 4: Less about postponing ipo. So though certainly some of the
- 12:06Speaker 4: major you know, some of the very large companies are
- 12:09Speaker 4: doing that in order to realize full value, I would
- 12:14Speaker 4: say that the IPO market is not as you know.
- 12:17Speaker 1: It is so cyclical.
- 12:19Speaker 4: It's just not For example, it's not friendly right now,
- 12:22Speaker 4: and it's hard to get exits. So I would say
- 12:24Speaker 4: in these two sectors, I mean, a stripe can go
- 12:27Speaker 4: public anytime it wants. Is when to choose to go
- 12:31Speaker 4: public when it feels like the values there and they're
- 12:35Speaker 4: in the best position from a profitability standpoint and growth perspective.
- 12:42Speaker 4: The reality is most companies cannot go public. What has
- 12:46Speaker 4: changed dramatically in the last thirty years is that companies
- 12:49Speaker 4: could go public much earlier in their life cycle. Now biotech,
- 12:53Speaker 4: which we don't do anymore, we do all technology enabled
- 12:57Speaker 4: software and services and healthcare that it started in two
- 13:01Speaker 4: thousand with Athena Health.
- 13:03Speaker 1: The reality is is.
- 13:06Speaker 4: It is not an exit to go public, and with biotech,
- 13:09Speaker 4: it's just a funding mechanism, right, there's a it's a
- 13:12Speaker 4: public private world in biotech. The rest of the universe,
- 13:16Speaker 4: you really have to be a more mature company. You
- 13:18Speaker 4: have to be an over billion dollar market cap company
- 13:20Speaker 4: to haven't make any sense to go public. You know,
- 13:23Speaker 4: there used to be companies that have one hundred and
- 13:26Speaker 4: two hundred million dollar market gaps that would go public,
- 13:29Speaker 4: but it's been it's been made much more difficult to
- 13:33Speaker 4: be a public company. There are far fewer people that
- 13:35Speaker 4: play with those companies. If you don't have a large
- 13:37Speaker 4: market cap, people don't the liquidity isn't there. The dollars
- 13:42Speaker 4: are so much larger going into these public companies that
- 13:45Speaker 4: it's just a it's a very different world than it
- 13:47Speaker 4: was thirty years ago. But now we've created in the
- 13:50Speaker 4: private markets a sort of private public world. And I
- 13:53Speaker 4: would say while eighty percent of our exits are through strategics,
- 13:58Speaker 4: the financial pe world is our buyers for early stage companies,
- 14:05Speaker 4: but we have to get them profitable, you know.
- 14:09Speaker 2: It seems odd that markets are at all time highs
- 14:13Speaker 2: at the same time. Not a friendly IPO market. I'm
- 14:17Speaker 2: trying to remember the last time those two things happened
- 14:20Speaker 2: at the same time, right, Like you think back old
- 14:23Speaker 2: time highs, late nineties, red hot IPO market, even mid
- 14:27Speaker 2: seventies before the financial crisis, pretty robust IPO market. And
- 14:32Speaker 2: then again venture and IPO is right up and through
- 14:36Speaker 2: the early part of the pandemic, you know, red hot market.
- 14:40Speaker 2: This is my first example of all time highs and stocks,
- 14:45Speaker 2: but not so much in IPO issuance.
- 14:48Speaker 4: But I think if you looked at the market, so
- 14:50Speaker 4: much of it has been driven by the top seven
- 14:54Speaker 4: tech companies. So it's a bit of a head fake.
- 14:57Speaker 4: You're now seeing rotation right in terms of other companies
- 15:00Speaker 4: through you know, other companies now benefiting by the markets
- 15:05Speaker 4: from being higher. But I think the reality is right now,
- 15:09Speaker 4: we just have an overhang from certainly in my world
- 15:12Speaker 4: I can speak to healthcare and fintech, a number of
- 15:14Speaker 4: companies going public and then disappointing or evaluation just being
- 15:19Speaker 4: excessive compared to the maturity of the businesses. So I
- 15:23Speaker 4: think there's just a hangover from that, and people are
- 15:26Speaker 4: going to invest in known entities that are already public
- 15:30Speaker 4: at this point, and we still have a ways to go.
- 15:32Speaker 4: I think for some of those companies, many of those
- 15:34Speaker 4: smaller to mid sized companies being valued in the marketplace
- 15:39Speaker 4: and appropriately really interesting.
- 15:43Speaker 2: So let's talk a little bit about some of the
- 15:46Speaker 2: companies that you guys have invested in. You were very
- 15:50Speaker 2: early in some iconic names. You mentioned Athena, there's also
- 15:55Speaker 2: one medical Village MD Devoted Health. Quite a on of
- 16:00Speaker 2: really big names. Tell us what led you to these companies?
- 16:04Speaker 2: How are you so early so often in companies that
- 16:08Speaker 2: turned out to be, you know, big movers in the space.
- 16:12Speaker 4: Well, I would say it started with Athena Health, backing
- 16:16Speaker 4: Jonathan Bush and the Park brothers there, Todd and Eddie Park,
- 16:19Speaker 4: then founded cast Light actually by Todd, and then then
- 16:24Speaker 4: devoted So a lot of what we do repeat entrepreneurs.
- 16:27Speaker 4: Once you find a great entrepreneur, you develop a deep
- 16:30Speaker 4: relationship with them their friends as well as business colleagues,
- 16:35Speaker 4: and then you back them over and over again. And
- 16:38Speaker 4: so we've done that very successfully over time. But it
- 16:41Speaker 4: did start with that. The whole tech enabled services approach
- 16:46Speaker 4: and healthcare started with Athena, and it started with our
- 16:50Speaker 4: view that we really just wanted to invest in things
- 16:52Speaker 4: that lowered cost, improved outcomes, and patient experience in healthcare
- 16:57Speaker 4: period the end.
- 16:57Speaker 2: Give me, give me those three again, improved outcomes and
- 17:02Speaker 2: patient experiences. Yes, well that sounds like, you know, the
- 17:05Speaker 2: Holy grail if you can do all three of those.
- 17:07Speaker 4: So you don't always do all three, but at least
- 17:09Speaker 4: two of them. It really is a mission for us
- 17:12Speaker 4: and trying to improve healthcare. And we started Athena was
- 17:16Speaker 4: the first cloud based healthcare company, and we invested in them,
- 17:22Speaker 4: and really it was just a red cycle management company then,
- 17:24Speaker 4: which was part of art thinking also around why we
- 17:27Speaker 4: did payments and fintech. A lot of overlap in the
- 17:29Speaker 4: whole payments world in healthcare. But so and then and
- 17:33Speaker 4: then it became an EHR Electronic health record company seven
- 17:38Speaker 4: years later actually, and so now they have one of
- 17:41Speaker 4: the most important EHRs in the country and in that space.
- 17:46Speaker 4: But really it was just a like paid doctors faster,
- 17:50Speaker 4: better using technology. And so if you're looking at some
- 17:56Speaker 4: of the newer companies, think Devoted, which is a fascinating
- 18:01Speaker 4: company that's focused on medicare advantage and is competing with
- 18:06Speaker 4: all legacy companies, United, Humanita, Elevants, Anthem. If you think,
- 18:13Speaker 4: if you look at what Devoted is doing, they have
- 18:17Speaker 4: redesigned the entire tech stack. They're using gen Ai in
- 18:21Speaker 4: their function. They are a combination of a villager, Oak
- 18:25Speaker 4: Street and an MA plan, meaning that they're actually they
- 18:30Speaker 4: have Devoted Medical Group which started as virtual but as
- 18:34Speaker 4: a network managing network of the care because you cannot
- 18:38Speaker 4: you cannot as a health plan, directly manage the cost
- 18:42Speaker 4: of care is eighty five percent of all healthcare, and
- 18:47Speaker 4: so as a health plan, in order to manage care,
- 18:50Speaker 4: you actually have to in part own the care. And
- 18:54Speaker 4: so Devoted Medical Groups starts with you know, primary care
- 18:56Speaker 4: docs virtually wrap around services virtually as well as extending
- 19:01Speaker 4: their networks so that they can actually impact the quality
- 19:04Speaker 4: and cost of care. So there really is nobody else
- 19:08Speaker 4: effectively doing both being the NMA plan as well as
- 19:12Speaker 4: being a source of managing the care. And so they've
- 19:16Speaker 4: done that amazingly well. The fact that they have a
- 19:18Speaker 4: modern tech stack that no one else has. Everybody else
- 19:21Speaker 4: is writing off of thirty and forty year old legacy programs.
- 19:25Speaker 4: Even I mean, if you look at Epic just from
- 19:27Speaker 4: the software side. I mean, there's literally based on mumps,
- 19:31Speaker 4: you know, from the nineteen seventies. So what's exciting about
- 19:35Speaker 4: Devoted is that you're now seeing the impact of all
- 19:38Speaker 4: of that, whereas MA plans all over the country are suffering,
- 19:42Speaker 4: and they're actually excelling this environment.
- 19:45Speaker 2: So let's talk a little bit about quality and cost.
- 19:49Speaker 2: It seems like healthcare, unique in the US business space,
- 19:54Speaker 2: has been so resistant to an end to end form
- 19:59Speaker 2: of technology that improves quality reduced costs, like technology and
- 20:04Speaker 2: computers and software seem to have improved productivity and lowered
- 20:09Speaker 2: costs everywhere twenty thirty years ago, and it's still compounding.
- 20:14Speaker 2: Why has healthcare been such a challenge to build in
- 20:19Speaker 2: basic technologies? Why are they still working on thirty forty
- 20:23Speaker 2: year old legacy systems?
- 20:26Speaker 4: Well, so a little like banking, as many of those
- 20:30Speaker 4: are also working off of cobol systems but are now
- 20:32Speaker 4: finally being reinvented. I would say healthcare. If you actually
- 20:37Speaker 4: to most people who have worked in healthcare, there's almost
- 20:41Speaker 4: like a right brain left brain disconnect and that you're
- 20:44Speaker 4: either tech focustory or healthcare focused. And I would say,
- 20:47Speaker 4: what's happened in the last decade is that you have
- 20:50Speaker 4: a younger generation coming into the industry that are just
- 20:54Speaker 4: naturally tech focused, right your tech savvy users. There are
- 20:58Speaker 4: a number of technologists that are interested in healthcare and
- 21:01Speaker 4: so there's been much more reinvention. I mean, I think
- 21:04Speaker 4: not to talk about devoted too much, but the reality
- 21:08Speaker 4: is the CEO Eddie Park is a computer science major
- 21:12Speaker 4: from Herbert So that is is like a different mentality.
- 21:16Speaker 4: And I would say if you look at most healthcare companies,
- 21:20Speaker 4: they just have not focused on that and they haven't
- 21:23Speaker 4: if you're a hospital system in general, you've not been
- 21:27Speaker 4: forced to be truly efficient. HCA different story they have,
- 21:32Speaker 4: but in most cases they've implemented epic or in some
- 21:36Speaker 4: cases than the ambulatory side, maybe in Athena. But they
- 21:41Speaker 4: are not tech. This is not their business. You know,
- 21:45Speaker 4: their core business is delivering healthcare and they really haven't
- 21:48Speaker 4: understood the power of tech. I do think what's changing
- 21:53Speaker 4: and the massive inflection point right now with jen Ai,
- 21:57Speaker 4: you now have all this unstructured data that is abundant
- 22:02Speaker 4: in healthcare, and you now can take that and have
- 22:06Speaker 4: the power of that to change workflow, to change and
- 22:10Speaker 4: support the doctors and nurses that are delivering here in
- 22:13Speaker 4: a way that doesn't require behavior change but makes their
- 22:16Speaker 4: lives easier, and that is going to be a game changer.
- 22:19Speaker 2: So I want to put a little It's almost a
- 22:22Speaker 2: cliche to say flesh on the bones, no pun intended.
- 22:26Speaker 2: So I have my Charts by Epic on my phone
- 22:30Speaker 2: and it's the first app I've ever used where I
- 22:33Speaker 2: can renew a prescription, I could set up an appointment,
- 22:35Speaker 2: I can ask a doctor question. But literally six months ago,
- 22:40Speaker 2: if I wanted a record before I put this on
- 22:42Speaker 2: this phone, the doctor's office would say, fax your request
- 22:46Speaker 2: to us, Like, what's a fact? I mean, really, we're
- 22:50Speaker 2: still using fifty year old technologies. But that seems to
- 22:53Speaker 2: be in most of the medical profession. I know there's
- 22:58Speaker 2: some security concerns and some rules about what can and
- 23:01Speaker 2: can't be emailed, but faxes, I mean they're living in
- 23:05Speaker 2: the nineteen seventies. Is it that far behind the curve
- 23:09Speaker 2: for much of the medical US?
- 23:12Speaker 4: Yes, just even in New York City. Just got any
- 23:16Speaker 4: doctor and you will find that they're still faxing or
- 23:20Speaker 4: handing you a piece of paper, and they're not integrated
- 23:23Speaker 4: with their own hospital system that they may be affiliated
- 23:26Speaker 4: with or have surgical privileges at is.
- 23:29Speaker 1: It's absolutely insane.
- 23:30Speaker 4: My images, I'm still carding around on discs right, it's crazy. Now.
- 23:37Speaker 4: The amazing thing and the problem with Hippa is you're right,
- 23:41Speaker 4: like you can't do zoom.
- 23:42Speaker 1: You're not supposed to do zoom.
- 23:43Speaker 2: Right because it's not secure.
- 23:45Speaker 1: It's not you don't have it's not hippo compliant.
- 23:47Speaker 4: You. What makes absolutely no sense is that a fax
- 23:51Speaker 4: is considered secure.
- 23:53Speaker 2: Right. It sits on the fax machine somewhere for hours.
- 23:56Speaker 4: Anybody can see it, right, you know the sanitation worker
- 24:00Speaker 4: that night, can you know, like see, the whole thing's
- 24:02Speaker 4: crazy so much somehow you know your private email is
- 24:06Speaker 4: not private enough?
- 24:07Speaker 2: So I mentioned my charts. Epic is still private, very
- 24:12Speaker 2: large private company. There's been some litigation because of any
- 24:16Speaker 2: trust concerns with them. How big is their penetration if
- 24:21Speaker 2: so many offices are still you know faxing records around.
- 24:26Speaker 4: Their penetration is enormous and growing and I effectively you
- 24:31Speaker 4: know Serner is losing traction and losing clients every day.
- 24:38Speaker 4: Really and yes, Epic is is owning that market.
- 24:43Speaker 2: Is that because the software is so good? And I
- 24:45Speaker 2: will tell you my experience with the app, you know,
- 24:49Speaker 2: ten out of ten. But what else is happening behind
- 24:52Speaker 2: the scenes that's giving them such an advantage over everybody else.
- 24:57Speaker 4: Well, I think Cerner lost its way in manner a
- 25:00Speaker 4: decade ago. Oh really a decade ago. So it just
- 25:03Speaker 4: create opened up the it just opened up. There wasn't
- 25:05Speaker 4: you know. It takes time to create all the different
- 25:07Speaker 4: modules and all the different departments. So this is just
- 25:09Speaker 4: a time game almost and that you know, Epic had
- 25:13Speaker 4: a lot of time to create integrated software across all
- 25:16Speaker 4: of these different departments. And and because they got every
- 25:20Speaker 4: academic medical institution in the country to effectively adopt them,
- 25:24Speaker 4: you know, they they've become a standard and there there
- 25:27Speaker 4: is a danger in that in terms of talking about monopoly,
- 25:31Speaker 4: they are going to have a growing monopoly in this market.
- 25:35Speaker 4: They've also as you say, it's it's a benefit you know,
- 25:38Speaker 4: their views like Apple, they're going to be a walled
- 25:39Speaker 4: garden and that'll be a benefit to the customer. And
- 25:44Speaker 4: that's that's okay. And certainly hospitals you know, like it
- 25:48Speaker 4: and there's a real benefit to it. I do think
- 25:51Speaker 4: the issue is, I mean, we would never sue epic
- 25:55Speaker 4: for any of our small companies that are trying to
- 25:57Speaker 4: interface with them. That isn't the way we roll. But
- 26:00Speaker 4: do think that there it's a cautionary note about the
- 26:04Speaker 4: amount of power.
- 26:05Speaker 2: They've become the eight hundred pound gorilla in the space.
- 26:08Speaker 4: Is that what's happened, no question, And you as an
- 26:11Speaker 4: innovator has to have privileges to link into that system.
- 26:16Speaker 2: So they were the disruptor, and now like Apple was
- 26:20Speaker 2: the disruptor, now they become the dominant player. So that's
- 26:25Speaker 2: why there's some challenges. I was kind of shocked when
- 26:29Speaker 2: I saw the chatter about anti trust because literally it's
- 26:33Speaker 2: the first app that just works as a patient. Wait,
- 26:37Speaker 2: I could do all these things, prescriptions, appointments, I could
- 26:40Speaker 2: see X rays or whatever. Wow, nothing else has ever
- 26:43Speaker 2: worked this well, they always send you to a website,
- 26:46Speaker 2: which opens up a different site. Like nothing really felt secure.
- 26:50Speaker 2: This really does feel like a secure app. So does
- 26:55Speaker 2: that create opportunities for other companies to come in and
- 26:59Speaker 2: being disrupted disruptors or are they sort of blocking the
- 27:04Speaker 2: entrance way to new startups that want to compete in
- 27:07Speaker 2: that same space?
- 27:08Speaker 4: Well, I think you know, let's define the space right
- 27:11Speaker 4: that is just for providers and hospital systems specifically, not
- 27:15Speaker 4: independent providers there. But you think about the way we
- 27:19Speaker 4: think about healthcare in general. What we do in tech
- 27:22Speaker 4: enabled software and solutions is we're treating pharma services so
- 27:27Speaker 4: farmer as a client, employers payer, employer market as a client,
- 27:32Speaker 4: and payers our clients beyond our customers of our companies,
- 27:36Speaker 4: beyond hospital systems.
- 27:38Speaker 1: Actually, this has.
- 27:40Speaker 4: Been the hardest place to play and where we've made
- 27:43Speaker 4: the least number of investments, the fewest number of investments
- 27:47Speaker 4: is in hospital systems because Epic owned it, and so
- 27:53Speaker 4: you know, it's been a sort of dangerous territory for
- 27:55Speaker 4: a young innovator to go into. But there's plenty of
- 27:58Speaker 4: opportunity to have payers, solutions to focus on provide creating
- 28:03Speaker 4: companies that are value based or focused on out how
- 28:06Speaker 4: do we create better outcomes in medicare, medicaid and commercial.
- 28:10Speaker 4: That don't mean that you're competing in the hospital environment. Again,
- 28:14Speaker 4: but back to Jenai, I think the reality is because
- 28:18Speaker 4: of the power of our unstructured data, I think that
- 28:22Speaker 4: there will be many more opportunities to be a disruptor
- 28:26Speaker 4: in the hospital market. And I don't think it's certainly possible.
- 28:30Speaker 4: My dream would be in a decade, ten to twenty
- 28:33Speaker 4: years that you wouldn't you wouldn't need an EPIC because
- 28:37Speaker 4: you would have the ability to integrate with all these
- 28:41Speaker 4: solutions using unstructured data across the hospital.
- 28:44Speaker 2: So you guys aren't necessarily an investor in hospital systems
- 28:49Speaker 2: or hospitals. But when we look in the hospital space,
- 28:53Speaker 2: there's been a lot of private equity activity. There's been
- 28:55Speaker 2: a lot of consolidation. A ton of not for profit
- 28:59Speaker 2: hospitals still carrying that moniker have been picked up by
- 29:03Speaker 2: for profit private equity players. How do you look at
- 29:07Speaker 2: the consolidation taking place in the hospital chain area? How
- 29:10Speaker 2: does that affect how you think about software technology and integration.
- 29:16Speaker 4: There will be more consolidation, it will mostly be done
- 29:19Speaker 4: by not for profits. That is, the vast majority of
- 29:23Speaker 4: hospital systems now are part of not for profits. Right
- 29:28Speaker 4: the private equity world, we consider ourselves venture capitalists or
- 29:32Speaker 4: growth growth investors, not PE but p you know, has
- 29:36Speaker 4: bought several hospital systems, not all of it's gone well.
- 29:42Speaker 4: I do feel there's some backlash to that. You know,
- 29:45Speaker 4: our goal is to reduce costs in healthcare and improve
- 29:49Speaker 4: the patient experience, and you can't really do that if
- 29:53Speaker 4: you're focused on owning hospitals. The reality is, everything we
- 29:56Speaker 4: want to do is keep people out of hospitals. That's
- 30:00Speaker 4: the goal, right. Nobody wants to be in hospital, Nobody
- 30:03Speaker 4: wants to die in a hospital. So everything that we
- 30:07Speaker 4: want to do is a better patient experience in the home,
- 30:10Speaker 4: right in military surgery or in the home, outside of
- 30:13Speaker 4: the hospital system. So that that's our goal and focus,
- 30:17Speaker 4: not being not owning hospital systems. I will say I
- 30:20Speaker 4: was on the board of HCA for a while, not
- 30:22Speaker 4: as an investor, but an observer of the best hospital
- 30:25Speaker 4: system in America. And if you think about that, that
- 30:28Speaker 4: was a pe deal. It was owned by a family,
- 30:30Speaker 4: but multiple times right they went public, they went private,
- 30:33Speaker 4: they went public again, and that is the best run
- 30:36Speaker 4: hospital system in America as a for profit really, yes,
- 30:40Speaker 4: the best run, the most efficient, great outcomes. And I
- 30:45Speaker 4: think the way you've got to look at this not
- 30:47Speaker 4: for profit hospitalism is that every not for profit hospital
- 30:51Speaker 4: is a for profit hospital because every decision is made
- 30:55Speaker 4: by a for profit doctor.
- 30:57Speaker 2: Right somewhere along the line, someone is making a decision
- 31:00Speaker 2: and obviously.
- 31:01Speaker 1: That impacts their income.
- 31:03Speaker 4: Right, So that there's no such thing as a not
- 31:05Speaker 4: for private hospital in America.
- 31:08Speaker 2: So what are the better known hospitals that HCA manages
- 31:12Speaker 2: If I'm not familiar with eight c A generally, Well.
- 31:17Speaker 1: They're going to be brands.
- 31:18Speaker 4: You know, there's Baptists, there's They're gonna be brands all
- 31:21Speaker 4: over the country and they're gonna be different in every
- 31:22Speaker 4: market because they.
- 31:23Speaker 1: Want to be local.
- 31:24Speaker 4: You feel local, and so you wouldn't necessarily know the brands.
- 31:28Speaker 4: It's gonna be Florida, and it's going to be city
- 31:31Speaker 4: by city, and every hospital will have a different name.
- 31:33Speaker 2: Like I've been fortunate to not spend a whole lot
- 31:36Speaker 2: of time in hospitals, my experience at NYU Lang Gone
- 31:40Speaker 2: was kind of eye opening. Well, first, you know, sometimes
- 31:44Speaker 2: you get advice, Hey, go someplace that specializes what you need.
- 31:48Speaker 2: So they've seen every variant. And even with that, I
- 31:52Speaker 2: wasn't prepared for what an amazing factory assembly line. And
- 31:57Speaker 2: I mean that the most positive sense of it. It's like, yeah,
- 32:01Speaker 2: we do a million of these a day. Whatever you have,
- 32:03Speaker 2: it's not a problem. We've seen it. And it was true.
- 32:07Speaker 2: They had it down to like bing bang bing, you're
- 32:11Speaker 2: in and out and it was really impressive to see.
- 32:15Speaker 2: I'm just curious if that degree of competency. I think
- 32:21Speaker 2: my whole copay for the whole experience was fifty bucks,
- 32:24Speaker 2: which I guess just means my wife has good health
- 32:27Speaker 2: insurance as a New York teacher. But it was really impressive.
- 32:33Speaker 2: Is that specifically a function of one hospital or is
- 32:38Speaker 2: that a broader management approach to the whole chain?
- 32:42Speaker 4: New York does not allow for hospitals, so you wouldn't
- 32:47Speaker 4: experience it in New York state.
- 32:49Speaker 2: It did not feel like it was a not for profit. Yeah,
- 32:52Speaker 2: it felt like everything was structured to get them in,
- 32:55Speaker 2: get them out, move on time.
- 32:57Speaker 4: We have New Yorker's a lucky and that they've got
- 33:01Speaker 4: a somewhat competitive hospital environment and for sure excellent care
- 33:06Speaker 4: here right.
- 33:08Speaker 1: So No, it's and that's that is.
- 33:09Speaker 4: I think if you sat in a boardroom of a
- 33:12Speaker 4: not for profit and a for pro hospital, you'd be
- 33:14Speaker 4: amazed how similar the conversations are.
- 33:17Speaker 2: I don't doubt that at all. How do you think
- 33:20Speaker 2: about having sat on a board how do you think
- 33:24Speaker 2: about managing problem hospitals? I just got off the phone
- 33:28Speaker 2: with a friend in Florida who jokingly said, you know,
- 33:32Speaker 2: if you fall and break your leg in Florida, you
- 33:34Speaker 2: don't call an ambulance, You call cab. You call an
- 33:36Speaker 2: uber to take you to the airport to fly up
- 33:39Speaker 2: to New York. I think he was exaggerating a little bit.
- 33:42Speaker 2: But that's not the first time I've heard things like.
- 33:44Speaker 1: That over and over again.
- 33:45Speaker 4: People come dig you know, from Connecticut, and people come
- 33:49Speaker 4: back to Connecticut all that they do their healthcare. Connecticut
- 33:53Speaker 4: may be there, or Northeast could be their second home,
- 33:56Speaker 4: and maybe theyre domicile now in Florida, but they come
- 33:59Speaker 4: back for the hospital.
- 34:01Speaker 2: How does the system that has that sort of reputation,
- 34:04Speaker 2: how do they address that. It seems like in Florida,
- 34:08Speaker 2: you would think that they have lots of people who
- 34:10Speaker 2: were older. They should be really good.
- 34:13Speaker 1: At that, they should be really good.
- 34:16Speaker 2: It's a it's just a you know, it's just a
- 34:19Speaker 2: I'm just musing. But it just seems like I mentioned
- 34:23Speaker 2: somebody I was speaking to you, and they're like, find
- 34:26Speaker 2: out why Florida hospitals are not good. I don't think
- 34:29Speaker 2: she invests in hospitals.
- 34:30Speaker 4: Well, you know, and I think there's there's just a
- 34:32Speaker 4: long history, like they have doctors going to to Florida
- 34:36Speaker 4: to there's been a culture of like making money there,
- 34:39Speaker 4: you know, and the more specialists you have, the more
- 34:42Speaker 4: it's it's amazing. The more specialist you have, more surgeries and.
- 34:46Speaker 1: More things to get done it right.
- 34:47Speaker 4: And so I just don't think they have the same
- 34:50Speaker 4: tradition of quality that other states have had, or the
- 34:54Speaker 4: Northeast has had.
- 34:56Speaker 1: So I can't.
- 34:57Speaker 4: Obviously they're good HCA hospitals and Florida, but for some reason,
- 35:02Speaker 4: the whole ethos there has not been the same in general.
- 35:06Speaker 2: So I'm kind of intrigued by a couple of things
- 35:10Speaker 2: you've said about wanting to improve outcomes, reduced costs, and
- 35:15Speaker 2: enhance experiences, and you talk about five levers of change
- 35:21Speaker 2: that the fun looks at, and let's go through all
- 35:24Speaker 2: of these access, outcome, cost, speed, and friction that sounds
- 35:32Speaker 2: like everybody's combined headache in healthcare. Tell us a little
- 35:37Speaker 2: bit about those five levers.
- 35:40Speaker 4: Well access. I think we all learned a lot about
- 35:42Speaker 4: that during covid R. There is differential access and it's
- 35:47Speaker 4: not just minority or city based. Obviously rural. The rural
- 35:50Speaker 4: environment is very challenging a.
- 35:52Speaker 2: Little bit of a healthcare desert.
- 35:54Speaker 4: In some healthcare desert, you've got pharmacies closing, you have
- 35:59Speaker 4: hospital that are a year and an hour and a
- 36:02Speaker 4: half away from people. You have challenged hospital systems. I
- 36:05Speaker 4: would say in suburbia and urban environments, hospitals are actually
- 36:11Speaker 4: doing quite well in making a fair amount of money,
- 36:13Speaker 4: but in rural far more challenged. So that is something
- 36:17Speaker 4: that we're actually addressing in whatever our company is called
- 36:20Speaker 4: main Street, which is focused on it's a oak Street
- 36:24Speaker 4: maybe Village MD for the rural environment, but with a
- 36:28Speaker 4: different business model, and the point is for them to
- 36:32Speaker 4: actually own everything in those environments except for cute care
- 36:36Speaker 4: hospital and try to keep people as much as possible
- 36:39Speaker 4: out of the hospital, but provide a broader set of
- 36:43Speaker 4: care opportunities to those in rural environments.
- 36:46Speaker 2: So I have a vivid recollection of a television show
- 36:50Speaker 2: called Northern Exposure. They wanted more doctors in Alaska, so
- 36:54Speaker 2: the state of Alaska would pay for your medical school,
- 36:57Speaker 2: but you had agreed to practice there for five years.
- 37:00Speaker 2: It seems amazing that in the United States in twenty
- 37:03Speaker 2: twenty four there are healthcare deserts. Why haven't states? And
- 37:09Speaker 2: I know this is not your expertise, but it seems
- 37:12Speaker 2: like states should have addressed this a long time ago.
- 37:15Speaker 2: How is it possible in a modern era you could
- 37:17Speaker 2: be two hours away from an emergency room. It's unthinkable,
- 37:21Speaker 2: at least in the Tri state area. It's hard to imagine.
- 37:24Speaker 1: Yeah, no, I agree.
- 37:25Speaker 4: I'm the fact that they should be in setting primary care,
- 37:27Speaker 4: paying for people's medical school that will go into primary
- 37:29Speaker 4: care and go to rural markets, and there are some
- 37:32Speaker 4: that are doing that. I think about virtualization though, because
- 37:34Speaker 4: of one of the aspects of a main street or
- 37:37Speaker 4: some other models we have care Bridge is that virtual
- 37:40Speaker 4: care and wrap round care so much of this actually
- 37:43Speaker 4: can be done virtually. You can have specialists in a
- 37:47Speaker 4: network that don't you know, your best oncologist from MSK
- 37:52Speaker 4: in New York City can be advising people in rural environments.
- 37:55Speaker 3: Right, memorials locattering, Ye, yes.
- 37:57Speaker 1: Memorials loancuttering exactly.
- 38:00Speaker 2: Difference between virtual and wrap around how do they differ?
- 38:04Speaker 4: Well? I think wrap around may mean that you have
- 38:06Speaker 4: a connectivity locally, plus you have virtual care that extends
- 38:11Speaker 4: what is available locally. But wrap round could be you
- 38:15Speaker 4: have in Carebridge's case, you're you're managing what we call
- 38:19Speaker 4: dual eligibles, which are those who have Medicaid and Medicare.
- 38:23Speaker 4: They're the sickkest of the sick that are in long
- 38:26Speaker 4: term services home based services, so they're in the home.
- 38:29Speaker 4: Generally they're sick enough to have a caregiver and who's
- 38:31Speaker 4: either a family member or a caregiver who's hired to.
- 38:36Speaker 1: Help them out.
- 38:37Speaker 4: And then you're supplying you know, nurses and mad and
- 38:41Speaker 4: others that will they get to know these patients, but
- 38:45Speaker 4: all virtually but end up you know, developing a relationship
- 38:48Speaker 4: with the caregivers that have a you know, we have
- 38:50Speaker 4: an iPad in the home with a button essentially, you know,
- 38:54Speaker 4: like the nine one one button where you hit the button,
- 38:57Speaker 4: as opposed to all of a sudden for every issue,
- 39:00Speaker 4: sending that patient to the emergency room, which is wildly expensive,
- 39:04Speaker 4: right and not constructive because often they get admitted and
- 39:07Speaker 4: you know, and then all of a sudden you have
- 39:08Speaker 4: a thirty thousand dollars expense. The reality is that button
- 39:12Speaker 4: is going to a nurse that's on you know, on
- 39:15Speaker 4: call or in a call center for a care bridge
- 39:19Speaker 4: and or a main street that's taking care of that
- 39:21Speaker 4: individual and actually knows knows the medical records, has gotten
- 39:26Speaker 4: developed a relationship with the caregiver and the patient so
- 39:30Speaker 4: they can walk through what are the issues to say
- 39:33Speaker 4: mental health crisis, which is you know often is or
- 39:37Speaker 4: get ahead of some of the challenges of wound that
- 39:40Speaker 4: gets taken care of as opposed to in the er,
- 39:43Speaker 4: you know, by somebody going to the home or getting
- 39:45Speaker 4: them to another facility. So these are the things that
- 39:48Speaker 4: it's just like long digital care management of individuals and
- 39:52Speaker 4: the chronically ill are those that end up in the
- 39:54Speaker 4: hospital most often.
- 39:55Speaker 2: And you mentioned Carebridge, that's a company you have an
- 39:58Speaker 2: investment in. It seems I'm so obvious. How do we
- 40:01Speaker 2: get better outcomes and less expensive costs by intervening before
- 40:06Speaker 2: they end up in an emergency room? Again, how has
- 40:10Speaker 2: this not taken place before? Is that is that what
- 40:13Speaker 2: care bridges business?
- 40:15Speaker 4: Yes, and yes they mainish the sickness of this chronically
- 40:19Speaker 4: ill in the home that are in that are dual eligibles,
- 40:22Speaker 4: and that is what they do. They develop a relationship,
- 40:24Speaker 4: they wrap around, but they it's all about part of
- 40:27Speaker 4: this is financial alignment. They have contracts with the health
- 40:29Speaker 4: plans to take care of these individuals. They get paid Basically,
- 40:33Speaker 4: they have full responsibility for the cost of care for
- 40:36Speaker 4: these individuals, so they're highly incentive to take.
- 40:38Speaker 3: Good care of them, preempt those emergency.
- 40:42Speaker 4: Those emergencies rooms. The two most expensive things are in
- 40:45Speaker 4: healthcare are rising hospital costs, which are up like twenty
- 40:49Speaker 4: percent this year, and drug costs, So if you can
- 40:54Speaker 4: manage drug compliance better, and most importantly the easiest but
- 40:59Speaker 4: not easy thing to do is to keep people out
- 41:01Speaker 4: of the hospital appropriately. Nobody wants to be at the hospital.
- 41:05Speaker 4: I mean, this is the thing I always hospitals always
- 41:07Speaker 4: talk about utilization management. You're keeping people out of the hospital. Well,
- 41:11Speaker 4: that's actually our job is do preventative care and keep
- 41:14Speaker 4: people from using the most expensive resource in America.
- 41:17Speaker 2: And it's always astonishing to when you read I think
- 41:21Speaker 2: medical errors are the third most common cause of fatalities
- 41:24Speaker 2: in the United States. That's a stunning number. And I
- 41:29Speaker 2: guess why none of us really want to be in
- 41:31Speaker 2: a hospital this weekend.
- 41:32Speaker 4: It's dangerous to be in a hospital. It is dangerous.
- 41:36Speaker 4: Think about the infection rate in a hospital staff, and yes,
- 41:41Speaker 4: it is actually dangerous to be in a hospital. So
- 41:43Speaker 4: there's better be a good reason to be there.
- 41:45Speaker 2: So we talk about access outcome. I'm kind of intrigued
- 41:50Speaker 2: by the focus on cost, speed, and friction because all
- 41:54Speaker 2: three of those seem to apply to both healthcare and
- 41:57Speaker 2: financial technology. You mentioned they both live on old legacy systems.
- 42:02Speaker 2: They're not nearly as cutting edge as they should be.
- 42:06Speaker 2: Is that how you ended up being both a healthcare
- 42:08Speaker 2: and a fintech investor?
- 42:11Speaker 4: Certainly between insurance and payments and rev cycle, we thought
- 42:15Speaker 4: it was in two thousand and two and obvious place
- 42:18Speaker 4: to go. And having gone into biotech early and then
- 42:21Speaker 4: tech enabled you know, software using leveraging the Internet in
- 42:24Speaker 4: healthcare early, I just felt like payments in fintech I
- 42:28Speaker 4: wanted to be early, like that was an area you
- 42:30Speaker 4: could just tell the tailwinds were there. And so we
- 42:33Speaker 4: came in two thousand and two before anybody knew what
- 42:36Speaker 4: fintech was, and we were focused initially on the sort
- 42:39Speaker 4: of prepaid underbanked market.
- 42:43Speaker 2: And prepaid an under bank.
- 42:46Speaker 4: Underbanked being sixty at that time, sixty million people in
- 42:49Speaker 4: America did not have checking accounts or credit or debocards, right,
- 42:53Speaker 4: and think about what you can't do, okay, and you
- 42:55Speaker 4: had the advident of the internet, you can buy things online.
- 42:59Speaker 4: You could and reserve a hotel room, you couldn't rent
- 43:02Speaker 4: a car, like all these things that change your life.
- 43:06Speaker 1: So by investing in netspend, which is one of the.
- 43:09Speaker 4: First prepaid debit cards, people could actually do those things.
- 43:13Speaker 4: They could buy online, they could reserve a hotel room,
- 43:16Speaker 4: they could rent a car. I mean, these are game
- 43:19Speaker 4: changing things to someone.
- 43:21Speaker 1: So that was.
- 43:22Speaker 4: Exciting because we were changing people's lives and giving them access,
- 43:27Speaker 4: you know, democratizing credit effectively.
- 43:30Speaker 2: So it's interesting you started in fintech in two thousand
- 43:34Speaker 2: and two, because I recall former fitcham and Paul Volker
- 43:38Speaker 2: said only half in Jess and I want to say
- 43:41Speaker 2: it was twenty eleven, twenty twelve. You know, what innovation
- 43:46Speaker 2: is there in the financial space? Other than the ATM,
- 43:50Speaker 2: nothing's happened, And it seems like that really isn't true.
- 43:53Speaker 2: There's been a ton of innovation in the financial space.
- 43:57Speaker 2: Tell us some of the other fintech investments made.
- 44:03Speaker 1: More recently. And fraud. Just think about fraud as being
- 44:05Speaker 1: an area.
- 44:06Speaker 2: Of constant, constant.
- 44:08Speaker 1: Battle arms race.
- 44:10Speaker 4: It is an arms race, and well even more so
- 44:12Speaker 4: when you think about what happened was in the payments
- 44:14Speaker 4: world you had card present right, you're swiping at the
- 44:18Speaker 4: point of sale. And then we had the Internet come
- 44:21Speaker 4: along and they had virtualization of payments. Then fraud exploded, right.
- 44:26Speaker 1: And now with.
- 44:29Speaker 4: You know jen ai and obviously deep fakes, you have
- 44:32Speaker 4: person at present, So you've got a whole different level
- 44:36Speaker 4: of fraud that is being experienced right now, right where
- 44:40Speaker 4: somebody's mimicking your voice for a call right.
- 44:45Speaker 2: Literally, just had this conversation yesterday with my head of compliance.
- 44:50Speaker 2: It was a I don't remember it was Gizmoto or
- 44:52Speaker 2: one of those sites that talks about the fake calls
- 44:56Speaker 2: you're getting supposedly from Google, who will never really call you.
- 45:01Speaker 2: Assume any foone call you're getting it is a fake.
- 45:04Speaker 2: But the AI agent on the other side sounds so realistic.
- 45:11Speaker 2: Always ask them to sing a song and that was
- 45:14Speaker 2: that was the solution, and AI app will sing it
- 45:17Speaker 2: until or whatever silly thing you ask. But it just
- 45:21Speaker 2: seems like the ability to impersonate people is just getting
- 45:25Speaker 2: better and better. Who's going to win this arms race?
- 45:29Speaker 4: Yeah, Well, I think it's just going to be a
- 45:31Speaker 4: continual battle of they'll create new ways to implement fraud
- 45:37Speaker 4: and then we'll create solutions against that fraud, and so
- 45:40Speaker 4: it is I think will be a perpetual and continual battle.
- 45:44Speaker 4: We have companies like feeds I and Prove that are
- 45:48Speaker 4: focused on that area, and it.
- 45:50Speaker 2: Be feeds I focuses on risk management and combating fraud.
- 45:55Speaker 4: Combating fraud for Yes and Prove is that when you
- 46:00Speaker 4: get the pin and you're you're putting, you're doing sort
- 46:03Speaker 4: of double authentication. They're the ones that are integrated in
- 46:06Speaker 4: the operating system of phones and effectively are giving you
- 46:09Speaker 4: that number that pen when you're typing in that second
- 46:13Speaker 4: number to authorize a transaction. So so we have a
- 46:18Speaker 4: number of companies, probably seven or eight in that space.
- 46:22Speaker 4: Other companies that do If you think about the America
- 46:27Speaker 4: and where we are here in terms of credit payments,
- 46:31Speaker 4: think about La Latam is two decades behind us, and
- 46:36Speaker 4: so we're seeing a number of opportunities in fintech.
- 46:39Speaker 2: And two decades behind.
- 46:41Speaker 4: Yeah, two decades behind, which actually will probably be an
- 46:44Speaker 4: advantage and they will leap frog us because they don't have.
- 46:47Speaker 2: These they'll start from scratch.
- 46:49Speaker 4: Those start from crutch and scratch. And if you look
- 46:51Speaker 4: at Brazil, they've created something called Picks, which they built
- 46:55Speaker 4: for two million dollars, which is amazing by their central bank,
- 46:59Speaker 4: and it's real time payments, and effectively it's a protocol
- 47:03Speaker 4: and effectively allows bank to bank authentication. So if you
- 47:06Speaker 4: think about ACCH and your cash account to somebody else's gay,
- 47:10Speaker 4: it is incredibly complicated in the US to do an
- 47:13Speaker 4: ACCH transfer your bank account to another bank account.
- 47:16Speaker 1: Right, there's this takes forever.
- 47:20Speaker 2: I wanted to address that. I grabbed my phone and
- 47:23Speaker 2: I'm opening the folder with the fin tech apps on it.
- 47:27Speaker 2: So Venmo is the easiest thing in the world to
- 47:30Speaker 2: use just to send money to someone else. But I
- 47:34Speaker 2: did something in South American Colombia. I had an old
- 47:39Speaker 2: truck rebuilt in Colombia and I was using remitly and
- 47:44Speaker 2: World remit to send as long as it was less
- 47:47Speaker 2: than ten thousand dollars at a time. Internationally, it was
- 47:50Speaker 2: like click click, click done. That was an unthinkable nightmare.
- 47:56Speaker 2: I don't know five years ago, ten years ago, I'm
- 47:59Speaker 2: looking at at the t D and the Schwab app,
- 48:02Speaker 2: I'm looking at the chase. I mean, just the amount
- 48:06Speaker 2: of things you could do on your phone. So it
- 48:09Speaker 2: feels like the innovation.
- 48:11Speaker 4: Certainly, the innovation from the consumer experience is there. It's
- 48:15Speaker 4: ironic though, because if you think about Venmo, everything runs
- 48:17Speaker 4: on on the credit card rails right now, right, I
- 48:21Speaker 4: mean that's actually what's happening on the visa rails, the
- 48:23Speaker 4: master card rails or MX and the reality is that
- 48:26Speaker 4: because it scur it exists.
- 48:29Speaker 1: Right, and it's easy.
- 48:30Speaker 4: So I mean think about Apple, right, they run on
- 48:32Speaker 4: you're putting your credit card in for Apple.
- 48:34Speaker 2: Pay, right, I just drop the phone on it and
- 48:39Speaker 2: that's right, that goes right through the credit So that's.
- 48:41Speaker 4: If you think about Latim, that's an expensive option. And
- 48:45Speaker 4: so what they've done in Latam has created a pretty
- 48:48Speaker 4: friction free visa like rails, but the very cheap like
- 48:54Speaker 4: sense pennies like virtually no cost. So that is then
- 48:58Speaker 4: that is probably taken like forty percent of credit card
- 49:03Speaker 4: and debit card transactions.
- 49:04Speaker 2: Really and wasn't there a couple of things done over
- 49:08Speaker 2: cell phones in parts of Africa where they didn't have
- 49:12Speaker 2: a credit card system and just you know, necessity being
- 49:16Speaker 2: the mother invention came up with some things. So my
- 49:19Speaker 2: question is are all of these various things secure or
- 49:25Speaker 2: you know, what is the challenge building the next generation
- 49:28Speaker 2: what's going to replace I think will anything replace credit cards?
- 49:33Speaker 4: Well, I think real time payments will replace credit cards.
- 49:35Speaker 4: But you are going to build costs on top of it,
- 49:37Speaker 4: because if you're talking about large B to B payments, right,
- 49:41Speaker 4: you're still going to be talking about something that needs
- 49:43Speaker 4: and even larger B two C payments. There is more
- 49:46Speaker 4: fraud capability that needs an identity authentication capabilities that need
- 49:50Speaker 4: to be built on top of it. There will be
- 49:52Speaker 4: great opportunities for companies for us to invest in that
- 49:55Speaker 4: will create B to B opportunities on top of picks
- 49:58Speaker 4: and on top of other infrastructures that are being built
- 50:02Speaker 4: in Latam or India or Africa.
- 50:06Speaker 2: H really kind of fascinating. So, given these two areas
- 50:11Speaker 2: that you focus on and the track record you guys
- 50:15Speaker 2: have put up, I just wanted to mention again you
- 50:18Speaker 2: were named one of the top ten venture farms of
- 50:22Speaker 2: twenty twenty four and a number of other accolades last year.
- 50:28Speaker 2: How does this affect the deal flow you see in
- 50:31Speaker 2: the companies you look at. Do you have your own
- 50:34Speaker 2: space and that's what you drill into or are you
- 50:37Speaker 2: guys a little broader thinking about a variety of different
- 50:41Speaker 2: types of companies.
- 50:44Speaker 4: For example, we define fintech very broadly. If that is
- 50:48Speaker 4: e commerce infrastructure, you know, it's fraud and identity, it
- 50:53Speaker 4: is payments, it is general infrastructure. So it's fairly broad
- 50:59Speaker 4: and to how we look at it. I think the
- 51:03Speaker 4: as we think about opportunity in the sector, think of
- 51:07Speaker 4: us as starting things or backing an entrepreneur who has
- 51:12Speaker 4: started something, because we have a whole thematic approach to
- 51:15Speaker 4: an area, and I'll talk about something we just did
- 51:18Speaker 4: all the way up to a classic ABC round, right,
- 51:21Speaker 4: And we'll even do an occasional buyout or two where
- 51:26Speaker 4: we think there's huge growth opportunities if we invest in
- 51:29Speaker 4: the tech portion of it. So something we did recently
- 51:33Speaker 4: I think is emblematic of what we're doing more lately
- 51:38Speaker 4: with a two billion. Our most recent fund was two billion,
- 51:40Speaker 4: and we backed the individual Dave Clark out of Amazon,
- 51:46Speaker 4: who built the for twenty two years, built all the
- 51:49Speaker 4: supply and logistics chained at Amazon, and he brought his
- 51:53Speaker 4: chief scientific officer and a number of people from Amazon
- 51:56Speaker 4: and others that he's worked with. And when we announced
- 52:00Speaker 4: this company, twelve hundred people that day submitted resumes. Wow
- 52:05Speaker 4: to them it was it was extraordinary and speaks to
- 52:08Speaker 4: his reputation. And the idea is that we will build
- 52:11Speaker 4: a Jenai software native AI software platform that will incorporate
- 52:17Speaker 4: some of the supply chain software boutique best to breed
- 52:21Speaker 4: software systems that are out there that constitute the supply chain,
- 52:25Speaker 4: because if you are in Amazon or someone else, you're
- 52:29Speaker 4: working with twenty different vendors to complete your supply chain,
- 52:33Speaker 4: and the reality is you really want that integrated in
- 52:36Speaker 4: one infrastructure. And so their plan is to basically build
- 52:39Speaker 4: the supply chain infrastructure.
- 52:41Speaker 2: And to end one company for software from when it
- 52:45Speaker 2: leaves this place to what ends up that place and
- 52:47Speaker 2: all the quantitative metrics and tracking and everything that with it.
- 52:51Speaker 1: Huh really really, So we committed one hundred million to that.
- 52:54Speaker 2: Oh no kidding. Oh so that's you're pretty that sounds
- 52:58Speaker 2: like a pretty big bet.
- 52:59Speaker 1: Yeah, we're all in.
- 53:00Speaker 4: But yes, we're doing more of the one hundred million
- 53:03Speaker 4: plus investments seventy million dollar investments because we want concentrated
- 53:07Speaker 4: bets in the areas that are most exciting to us
- 53:10Speaker 4: with the best entrepreneurs.
- 53:12Speaker 2: So I only have you for another ten or fifteen minutes,
- 53:15Speaker 2: and before I get to my favorite questions I ask
- 53:17Speaker 2: all of my guests. I gotta throw a curveball at you, Okay,
- 53:22Speaker 2: which is you know, normally at this point in a
- 53:26Speaker 2: conversation with a VC, we talk about you've had seventy
- 53:30Speaker 2: exits and fifteen IPOs, and but you're also the first
- 53:36Speaker 2: Lady of Connecticut. You're married to Ned Lamont, the governor
- 53:40Speaker 2: of Connecticut. Kind of an unusual role for first ladies
- 53:44Speaker 2: being a VC. Tell us how you juggle these two roles.
- 53:48Speaker 2: It's it's You're the first VC I've spoken to who's
- 53:52Speaker 2: also in a state house.
- 53:54Speaker 1: Right, it is unusual.
- 53:56Speaker 4: The great news is that there is no expectation for
- 54:00Speaker 4: the first Lady of Connecticut either. There is no established role,
- 54:05Speaker 4: and so I'm really just a partner to my husband
- 54:09Speaker 4: as I would be in terms of just their support
- 54:14Speaker 4: and guidance. But I do campaign with him. I go
- 54:17Speaker 4: on week you know, on weekends, we do things together.
- 54:21Speaker 4: But he's very much running the state of Connecticut. Well,
- 54:24Speaker 4: I am doing my thing, you know, during the week,
- 54:26Speaker 4: and then we come together in Connecticut and Greenwich during
- 54:29Speaker 4: the weekend.
- 54:30Speaker 1: But it's been I mean, it's fascinating. He loves the job.
- 54:33Speaker 4: It's I you know, I'm biased, but I think he's
- 54:36Speaker 4: done a great job for Connecticut as a businessman himself,
- 54:40Speaker 4: but somebody who has a you know, his social conscience.
- 54:44Speaker 4: So it's been fun to watch because he does love
- 54:46Speaker 4: the job and.
- 54:48Speaker 2: Really really interesting. All right, let's jump to our favorite
- 54:52Speaker 2: questions that we ask all our guests, starting with since
- 54:56Speaker 2: since you mentioned you like to uh spend the weekends
- 54:59Speaker 2: with your your husband the governor, what do you guys
- 55:01Speaker 2: do on the weekends? What are you watching listening? What's
- 55:04Speaker 2: keeping you entertained?
- 55:06Speaker 1: Right?
- 55:07Speaker 4: Yukon basketball? I can't wait to have it back. So
- 55:10Speaker 4: women and men are going to be amazing this year.
- 55:13Speaker 4: So and they I have been obviously, the men have
- 55:15Speaker 4: won two years in a row.
- 55:17Speaker 2: Huskies have a great team. They've been they've been winning for.
- 55:20Speaker 1: A long time, amazing.
- 55:22Speaker 2: And the women's team has done really well. Also the past.
- 55:24Speaker 1: Gina is incredible.
- 55:25Speaker 4: I mean, the fact that they had five injured players
- 55:28Speaker 4: and got into the basically the final four was incredible.
- 55:32Speaker 4: So between Gino Oriama and Dan Hurley to the best
- 55:36Speaker 4: coaches in the country. So that's been super fun. We
- 55:38Speaker 4: go to games and we and we watch on weekends,
- 55:41Speaker 4: but we're we're I don't know, I don't know if
- 55:43Speaker 4: I'm an athlete, but I love sports, and we love sports.
- 55:46Speaker 4: We play golf and tennis and hike and it's being
- 55:49Speaker 4: out ski and being outside as much as possible.
- 55:53Speaker 1: Uh.
- 55:53Speaker 4: And he watches and you know, he's been a long
- 55:56Speaker 4: suffering Jets fan. We're hoping the Jets are back, and
- 55:59Speaker 4: I having to be a Pack fan being from Wisconsin.
- 56:01Speaker 2: So really interesting. Tell us about your early mentors who
- 56:06Speaker 2: helped shape your career.
- 56:08Speaker 4: Yeah, there was an individual, Jerry Gallagher. I'm from Wisconsin.
- 56:11Speaker 4: He was from Minnesota and he ran for a prior firm.
- 56:17Speaker 4: He ran the retail investing and was a brilliant investor.
- 56:22Speaker 4: I mean it was somebody at Donaldson, Luff and Jen
- 56:25Speaker 4: Ratt in the early days. He was the retail analyst
- 56:27Speaker 4: and he actually invented the same store sales metric.
- 56:32Speaker 2: Oh no kidding.
- 56:33Speaker 4: If you can imagine, people were just saying, oh, that
- 56:35Speaker 4: company's growing one hundred percent a year. They didn't know
- 56:37Speaker 4: if they'd added one hundred store you know, double number
- 56:39Speaker 4: of stores. But yeah, so he actually invented that. He
- 56:43Speaker 4: joined us and invested in well, there was a filing's
- 56:46Speaker 4: basement Whole Foods Amazon Whole Foods, which we sold Amazon
- 56:54Speaker 4: Dick's Sporting Goods office depot. It was just a pfang Jambajews,
- 57:01Speaker 4: I mean, just an unbelievable track record, the best retail
- 57:05Speaker 4: investor in the country. And he taught me a ton.
- 57:08Speaker 4: So he was the first person, when I was twenty
- 57:11Speaker 4: seven years of age who said to me, you're focused
- 57:14Speaker 4: on the idea. You're not focused on the CEO enough,
- 57:16Speaker 4: You're not focused on the people like you have got
- 57:19Speaker 4: to raise your bar on CEOs. And of course it's
- 57:23Speaker 4: of course it's I mean, it's so obvious it's all
- 57:25Speaker 4: about the people. But I think people you do get
- 57:27Speaker 4: enamored with trends, secular trends and ideas, and ultimately it's
- 57:33Speaker 4: it was the most important advice anybody ever gave me,
- 57:35Speaker 4: because it's it's all about the CEO at the end
- 57:37Speaker 4: of the day, and the team they can attract and
- 57:39Speaker 4: how they treat people. It's and I think it was
- 57:42Speaker 4: very much golden rule, you know, he was. Some might
- 57:45Speaker 4: have considered Jerry old fashioned, but the reality is that
- 57:48Speaker 4: that old fashioned message just cycles back and every crazy
- 57:51Speaker 4: cycle yeah have with entrepreneurs, and that is you know,
- 57:54Speaker 4: just obviously do the right thing, you know, and treat
- 57:58Speaker 4: people like you'd like to be treated, and be kind
- 58:01Speaker 4: and yet you know, be be direct of you tough.
- 58:04Speaker 2: I don't remember which VC it was that said the
- 58:07Speaker 2: same thing that you just said about backing the team
- 58:11Speaker 2: and the entrepreneur, not the idea, but to drive the
- 58:16Speaker 2: point home. Hey, each of these companies that have had
- 58:19Speaker 2: a successful exit, they've pivoted five times and however it
- 58:23Speaker 2: works out. It's never the initial idea, it's always the person.
- 58:28Speaker 2: And I never really thought about that until right. It's
- 58:32Speaker 2: if you're betting on the idea, your you're three iterations
- 58:36Speaker 2: away from where it's going to end up.
- 58:38Speaker 4: Yeah, and the general idea and secular trend maybe right,
- 58:42Speaker 4: but actually the business model is wrong. So getting the
- 58:44Speaker 4: business model is so right is so critical.
- 58:49Speaker 2: Really really interesting. Let's talk about books. What are some
- 58:52Speaker 2: of your favorites?
- 58:53Speaker 3: What are you reading right now?
- 58:56Speaker 4: Well, original favorite was To Kill a Mockingbird, and but
- 59:00Speaker 4: that like influenced my sense of social justice. And then
- 59:05Speaker 4: it's probably the Robert Massey books. And you know, I've
- 59:07Speaker 4: never been to Russia, but I've been fascinated by you know,
- 59:10Speaker 4: Peter the Great Nicholas and Alexandra Catherine the Great. I
- 59:13Speaker 4: mean one, it's so if you look at what's going
- 59:17Speaker 4: on in Russia now, same exactly like you understand cultures, right,
- 59:20Speaker 4: I mean, it's sort of like understanding history and culture.
- 59:22Speaker 4: Don't It doesn't change that much, right, I mean, it's
- 59:25Speaker 4: a It is a that is a country that understands
- 59:27Speaker 4: suffering and likes autocrats basically, you know.
- 59:31Speaker 3: They like Not a coincidence, right.
- 59:34Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, not a coincidence. So yeah.
- 59:36Speaker 4: And then recently The Money Trap, written by a friend
- 59:41Speaker 4: of mine of Lokes Soma, is a fascinating book. He
- 59:45Speaker 4: was the head of soft Bank during the crazy period
- 59:48Speaker 4: in North America. Yeah, and he actually had never written
- 59:51Speaker 4: a book. He went to the Creative writing program Okay,
- 59:54Speaker 4: got his visa, was able to stay in America, went
- 59:57Speaker 4: to the Creative writing program in New York City and
- 1:00:00Speaker 4: and wrote this book. And it's absolutely beautifully written and
- 1:00:02Speaker 4: it's fascinating. So I highly recommend it Money Trap.
- 1:00:05Speaker 2: I'm gonna I'm gonna put that on my list. If
- 1:00:08Speaker 2: you're you mentioned books about Russian I know you're talking
- 1:00:12Speaker 2: more historically. If you haven't read read Notice.
- 1:00:16Speaker 3: By I know Bill and yes, so you did.
- 1:00:19Speaker 2: Yeah, astonished. It's it reads like it's fiction and it's
- 1:00:24Speaker 2: such a page turner. All right, Our final two questions,
- 1:00:28Speaker 2: What sort of advice would you give a recent college
- 1:00:31Speaker 2: grad interest in a career in either venture investing, healthcare, fintech?
- 1:00:37Speaker 2: What would you would you how would you advise them?
- 1:00:41Speaker 4: They have to go work inside companies, and they should
- 1:00:44Speaker 4: go work in a startup, in an early stage company,
- 1:00:48Speaker 4: and maybe mid stage, and definitely a larger legacy company,
- 1:00:53Speaker 4: because they need to understand business. I mean when I
- 1:00:56Speaker 4: read the New York Times Business section, now, I think
- 1:00:59Speaker 4: these people have never been in business. And obviously Bloomberg
- 1:01:04Speaker 4: specializes in it, and so it has a lot of
- 1:01:06Speaker 4: reporters that deeply understand it and respect it. But I
- 1:01:08Speaker 4: think that you can't write about something you don't haven't
- 1:01:12Speaker 4: actually lived at all and truly understand what is. They're
- 1:01:16Speaker 4: obviously things that are very flawed in business, and it's often,
- 1:01:19Speaker 4: particularly in the early stage, extremely chaotic, but it is
- 1:01:24Speaker 4: what drives our economy, which provides jobs for people and
- 1:01:28Speaker 4: employees people and allows them to pay their bills and
- 1:01:32Speaker 4: support all our great social programs.
- 1:01:34Speaker 1: So it's important to understand and.
- 1:01:36Speaker 2: Our final question, what do you know about the world
- 1:01:39Speaker 2: of investing today you wish you knew back in the
- 1:01:42Speaker 2: nineteen eighties when you were first getting started.
- 1:01:44Speaker 4: It's an interesting question because I, you know, and maybe
- 1:01:48Speaker 4: because I have a tough, long memory, but I feel
- 1:01:50Speaker 4: like I only remember the good things. I think, you know,
- 1:01:54Speaker 4: knowing that large secular changes are the most important thing
- 1:01:58Speaker 4: that drive investment waves and right and and ultimately build
- 1:02:02Speaker 4: great companies, just focusing on those. But I feel like
- 1:02:06Speaker 4: I ended up actually doing that well, you know, picking
- 1:02:12Speaker 4: the secular wave that made sense and getting ahead of it,
- 1:02:15Speaker 4: but not too far ahead of it.
- 1:02:16Speaker 2: I was going to say you did that well, but
- 1:02:18Speaker 2: you were You were also early in a lot of
- 1:02:20Speaker 2: big secular trends.
- 1:02:21Speaker 4: Yes, So I would say that ended up working out well.
- 1:02:25Speaker 4: You can't be Being too early is a killer, right
- 1:02:28Speaker 4: right in investing, So that worked out well. But I
- 1:02:31Speaker 4: would say, you know, in general, I don't sweat the
- 1:02:36Speaker 4: small stuff. You know, get the large things right and
- 1:02:39Speaker 4: the rest of it will take care of itself. So
- 1:02:42Speaker 4: I would only caution those that are starting out now
- 1:02:45Speaker 4: in the investing world, or frankly in any career, to
- 1:02:48Speaker 4: just all those things that seems so important that are
- 1:02:51Speaker 4: so small during the day, Like just remember that, you know,
- 1:02:55Speaker 4: think about yourself forty years from now, what's going to matter,
- 1:02:58Speaker 4: what will have mattered to you, what will matter to
- 1:03:00Speaker 4: your success, and just focus on those things and don't
- 1:03:04Speaker 4: focus on all of the petty small things that it
- 1:03:08Speaker 4: may go on wrong or the people around you, you know.
- 1:03:12Speaker 4: And then otherwise, just stay away from toxic people and
- 1:03:15Speaker 4: make sure you carefully work with people you love and respect.
- 1:03:20Speaker 4: And I think in general I've done that, but I
- 1:03:21Speaker 4: think there are times where I would have walked away.
- 1:03:23Speaker 4: I would have started OKHCFT so much sooner, and that
- 1:03:26Speaker 4: would be like the one change in my career that
- 1:03:28Speaker 4: I would have made.
- 1:03:29Speaker 2: Huh really interesting. Thank you Annie for being so generous
- 1:03:33Speaker 2: with your time. We have been speaking with Annie Lamont,
- 1:03:36Speaker 2: co founder and managing partner at okhc FT. If you
- 1:03:41Speaker 2: enjoy this conversation, well, be sure and look up any
- 1:03:44Speaker 2: of the previous five hundred discussions we've had over the
- 1:03:48Speaker 2: past ten plus years. You can find those at Bloomberg, iTunes, Spotify, YouTube,
- 1:03:55Speaker 2: wherever you find your favorite podcasts. And be sure and
- 1:03:59Speaker 2: check out my new short form podcast at The Money
- 1:04:03Speaker 2: conversations with experts about your money, earning it, spending it,
- 1:04:08Speaker 2: and most importantly investing it. At the Money in the
- 1:04:11Speaker 2: Master's in Business feed or wherever you find your favorite podcasts.
- 1:04:16Speaker 2: I would be remiss if I did not thank the
- 1:04:18Speaker 2: Crack team that helps me put these conversations together each week.
- 1:04:22Speaker 2: Anna Luke is my producer, Sean Russo is my head
- 1:04:26Speaker 2: of research. Steve Gonzalez is my audio engineer. Sage Bauman
- 1:04:31Speaker 2: is the head of all podcasts at Bloomberg. I'm Barry Ritoltz.
- 1:04:35Speaker 2: You've been listening to Masters in Business on Bloomberg Radio.