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What We Saw at CES: Health Innovation at the Consumer Tech Circus · StartUp Health NOW Podcast

• 0:00
  So I'm still tired from CES. Got back last night pretty late. I'm energized, Logan.
• 0:05
  [instrumental music] Welcome back to Startup Health Now, the podcast where we celebrate the entrepreneurs and innovators who are transforming health. I'm your host, Logan Plaster.
• 0:15
  This week, it's all about what we saw and heard at CES, the massive Consumer Electronics Show that takes over Las Vegas every January.
• 0:24
  I went for the first time with Unity Stokes, our co-founder, and it certainly gave me plenty to think about.
• 0:30
  Typically, CES is all about the coolest new robots or drones or televisions, and we certainly saw some of that, but we were focused on health tech, which is an area where CES is trying to expand.
• 0:41
  You could certainly see that expansion in action in the AARP Age Tech Collaborative zone, which was absolutely massive.
• 0:49
  And then in Eureka Park, which is their area for startups, more than half of the startups were related to health.
• 0:56
  I wanted to sit down with Unity as quickly as possible after the show, before I'd even gotten over my jet lag, to process what we'd experienced.
• 1:04
  It was a wide-ranging conversation covering new tech like affordable exoskeletons, but Unity and I also went down a more philosophical path about the role of exhibit shows in advancing health moonshots.
• 1:16
  A note that I'll be sharing more detailed observations about CES on LinkedIn. Let's get into the conversation with Unity Stokes.
• 1:24
  [upbeat music] This was our-- We wanted to do a hot take, a, a reaction podcast about going to CES because it was our, both of our first time there.
• 1:34
  And something that was so interesting to me was that it felt like nine out of 10 people I met in the healthcare sort of zone, um, it was their first time, too.
• 1:45
  And so it's clear that CES is, is making a move to try to grow in this area, um, which made it, I think, all the more interesting for us to be there and to see what it looks like and where it's going next.
• 1:59
  Well, on that point, I mean, I think it's incredible, actually. Um,
• 2:03
  my first time at CES, and this is my whole, whole world, and there's a very specific reason for that, which is normally the CES conference and the JPM conference are at the exact same time or kind of overlapping. Mm-hmm.
• 2:21
  And for over a decade, we were always, um, and still continue to be at the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference, uh, running around with the industry, running around with the CEOs, running around with our founders.
• 2:36
  So this year created an opportunity where CES was actually the week before J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference. I'm gonna be at J.P. Morgan next week as well.
• 2:47
  But right off the bat, it gave a lot of these healthcare folks, I think, the opportunity to go just because of how the scheduling worked.
• 2:57
  Um, the second point I'll make is I totally noticed, uh, and was, was pleasantly surprised by how much of the industry was focused on health and wellness.
• 3:11
  So even big companies that you wouldn't necessarily think, um, to be leaning in at the CES show as health or wellness as kind of their core focus- Yeah... that's what was going on.
• 3:26
  Um, and I would go s- it was certainly more than fifty percent of the show, maybe sixty, seventy percent of the show- Yeah... to me felt like... And maybe that's just 'cause I had my- No...
• 3:38
  my health [audio glitching] goggles on. Someone from CES told me it's more than half, and, um, that's wild 'cause it's a big show. Yeah. You know- Yeah, I'm sorry.
• 3:49
  That, that plays into just this sort of macro thought that I had the first day I arrived, and I was just seeing all these different industries kind of collided together, and you see folks in the media zone, and some of them are there to just report on, uh, home goods, and some are reporting on drones, and some are reporting here.
• 4:07
  All these different verticals and categories, and it just hit me.
• 4:11
  This is sort of maybe a, a, a dumb thought or, you know, sort of a broad, deep thought, but, like, healthcare matters to every single one of those people, and every single one of those people has, you know, a family or a child or a loved one, and they come here thinking, "Oh, I, I care about drones."
• 4:28
  [chuckles] Everyone thinks they have this one vertical, and yet healthcare is this unifier, is this great horizontal conversation that isn't the same as these other verticals. It's just not.
• 4:42
  It's just a whole unifying concept, and it got me thinking about how we can, we can use that to our advantage and, like, when we talk about health, talk about how it connects us as human beings and not just talk about it as an economic market.
• 5:01
  Totally. I mean, I, I've always
• 5:04
  said, I mean, really from day one at Startup Health, there's, there's only a few things that are genuinely universal to every human on earth, and, and health and wellbeing is one of those things.
• 5:16
  I think there's obviously others, climate, energy, water- Mm-hmm... fundamental things, but health is... If you go to something like CES, uh, it's universal.
• 5:28
  No matter what type of company, um, you are, whether you're a startup or whether you're one of the biggest companies in the world, if you're looking to grow your market and you're not focused on something that's universal, um, that's probably a missed opportunity, and I think that clearly came through- Yeah...
• 5:47
  um, at least from what I saw because, you know, just a little side note,
• 5:53
  one of the other things that really stood out to me is in terms of where the energy was, and I was going, "Hey, I'm curious what the big, the big dogs are doing.
• 6:03
  What, what's, what's going on?"I was most intrigued by where they shoved all the startups, which was down in the basement. Yeah. Um, that's where the cool- Eureka Park. Yeah. Yeah, Eureka Park. It was so vibrant.
• 6:18
  It was so action-packed. The, the energy in the startup zone was clearly where the party was. Yeah.
• 6:27
  Um, and I don't know if that's because it was in the basement, and the ceilings were low, and everybody was cramped in, and there was not enough space.
• 6:37
  But I don't know your take on it, but man, there was, there was, it seemed like thousands of startups- Yeah... from all over the world.
• 6:46
  I w- I was, I was, yeah, I was- And the majority seemed to be focused on some kind of thing that was applicable to health.
• 6:52
  Yeah, I was just telling somebody this morning, um, I think that that Eureka Park that they've developed, the startup zone, is, um...
• 7:00
  Well, I don't think there's, I don't think there's anything else like it anywhere at any other conference. I think it is truly unique.
• 7:07
  Um, whereas maybe you could see the other booths from the big companies s- some, you know, sort of replicated somewhere else. Like, this idea of, like you said, what feels like 1,000...
• 7:18
  No, I think there's definitely more than 1,000 s- tiny startups, universities, young people, even students crammed together row after row.
• 7:29
  It, it feels like miles, miles of these kiosks, more than half dedicated to healthcare. And, and what- And, and you know what? Sorry to interrupt. That's- But they were all over, from all over the world. Yeah.
• 7:41
  I mean, I was really impressed by, um, these different countries that came in and really represented for, for the, the innovation going on across their whole, whole country.
• 7:55
  France, for example, had a really big presence there. And it was really cool to see, um, you know, what was going on, the types of innovation coming from different parts of the world. I don't know. Did you notice that?
• 8:07
  Yeah. Well, a, a huge presence from, uh, uh, South Korea. And something [chuckles] I noticed, so I talked to one, uh, founder from Korea and I said, "Are you interested in expanding into Europe, um, uh, United States?"
• 8:22
  A- and they said, "No, we're just here talking to o- talking to Korean clients."
• 8:27
  And so [chuckles] the event had gotten so international that you could come there, um, a- and not be trying to go to market in the United States, and actually be looking for folks, uh, all around the world.
• 8:38
  So really it's like an Epcot Center for, for startups. Yeah, and, uh, you said something a minute ago I, I would beg to differ with just a little bit, which is you've never really seen this. I, I,
• 8:52
  I feel like this is what we did for so many years at the Startup Health Festival during our JPM Healthcare Week and, and our, our Startup Health Festival, which was create a zone, a real...
• 9:05
  If you remember that third floor at our Startup Health Festival, it had that buzz and vibe- Mm... of just cramming startups together. There was so much energy.
• 9:15
  And really it's the, probably the first time I remember since we did that, that I felt that way at a particular conference. So that's a real positive, and kudos to, to CES and, and the energy that created there.
• 9:30
  Um- There w- w- but, but there was something we did at the festival that was magic that they're not doing at Eureka Park that they need to do.
• 9:38
  So that third floor at the festival was all about, like, speed dating and matching people up, and, and there was an app so you could, like, you could find someone and meet with them.
• 9:48
  So it was all about collaboration, and there was, like, all these new connections being made. Eureka Park is like a trade show, which we didn't do.
• 9:57
  But a trade show, so you felt the energy of all these people, but I'm not sure they were meeting each other the way they need to, you know? Yeah.
• 10:04
  I'm not sure that there was, like, a central heartbeat saying, "Hey, let's collaborate," kind of the way we've been trying to, to be. Totally. I talked to so many startups there. They're like, "There's no customers here.
• 10:17
  There's no investors here. I'm not meeting the people I need to meet with. It's great to be here, but it's missing that." Yeah. And it's a total gap. And that's what's kinda broken right now.
• 10:29
  You've got all the investors, and the industry, and the customers next week over at J.P. Morgan Healthcare. Yep. And then- Yep...
• 10:37
  all this amazing technology and innovation and energy that we just saw, uh, running around at, at CES.
• 10:45
  And it's like two different worlds, and what we tried to do for so many years, and I think we did do, was marry the two.
• 10:54
  Um, and you know, I guess maybe we gotta bring it back because, um, somebody's got to if it's not us. Because it, there, the, the world needs to be more integrated in terms of
• 11:07
  the innovation going on and the commercialization of that innovation to get it out to the real world. Okay, so let's talk a little bit about what we saw there.
• 11:16
  Folks associate CES with new robots, with, uh, drones, with new kinds of cars. We were mostly in the healthcare area, and it's different than that.
• 11:26
  I think the technology is more subtle, and yet in my mind, more revolutionary, more world-changing, uh, even than these kinda flashy robots. Um, first- To be honest, I didn't see anything flashy.
• 11:39
  I, I was totally- Yeah, I, I agree... um, wrong. I agree. Not to- I didn't see one thing that stood out to me as being particularly novel or groundbreaking or innovating. Um, I, I saw...
• 11:53
  I looked at everything from big combines and tractors and boats- Yep... to small little rinky-dink things, to energy conserving things. And quite honestly, I've seen it all before online. Yeah.
• 12:06
  I've seen it all before in press releases. I've seen-You know, I was completely underwhelmed at large by what I'm seeing. And, and that's probably because I'm sitting here right now in Berkeley,
• 12:22
  and for the past few years engrossed in, in the AI innovation, in the CRISPR innovation, in the synth bio innovation, in all this what I would call real moonshot-type work going on.
• 12:38
  And we see so much with our, our Health Transformers and our community really groundbreaking innovation and technology going on in the medical field, in the science field, in the AI field.
• 12:53
  So to see what was actually coming to market from literally thousands of these companies, quite honestly, was pretty underwhelming to me. What, what was your take?
• 13:07
  Well, you know, I was looking more for micro trends, you know, as a... Looking for things to write about and seeing what was kind of bubbling to the surface. I agree with you at the macro level.
• 13:18
  Getting down into Eureka Park and, like, meeting founders, it confirmed for me that we're in this, uh, inflection moment with neurotech. And so we've seen it with our Alzheimer's moonshot.
• 13:31
  We are in this explosive moment and, uh, exciting moment in terms of being able to understand the signals of the brain, treat dementia and Alzheimer's through light therapy, through radio signals, through electrical stimulation.
• 13:47
  There are so many different types of technology converging right now. Now, they all need to talk to each other, which is why we started the moonshot.
• 13:55
  They all need to collaborate because otherwise we're just gonna be, you know, going in 100 different directions.
• 14:02
  But in addition to the companies that we've worked with, I saw a lot of neurotech down in Eureka Park, a lot of great research, um, coming together. So that's exciting to see.
• 14:13
  Well, it's, it's certainly exciting, I guess. Uh, and it's not just what I'm seeing at CES. I could list the last 10
• 14:22
  conferences that I've been at over the past, let's call it three years, and my general sense across the board is I have felt...
• 14:33
  And again, this is coming from the lens of someone who we're deeply involved with hundreds of really innovative health technology companies, really groundbreaking innovators from all over the world, and you're seeing what they're doing, what they have coming down the pipe.
• 14:51
  Um, and what my general sense is that I'm feeling that you're... As you're walking the trade show floors, and I'm, I'm going back 10 conferences, um, I have felt [laughs] like
• 15:08
  I'm at interactive CD-ROM conferences, and there's this thing across the street called the internet. Yeah. And it's that stark to me. Like, we're-- there's two different worlds of innovation going on. Mm.
• 15:21
  And what you're seeing at these conferences is, like, kind of old school legacy, almost outdated- Yeah...
• 15:29
  in a sense, versus what's really happening in the, in the labs, in the, the, the underground, what's-- what even the big tech companies are working on, is really quite revolutionary right now, and we are at that inflection point.
• 15:47
  But I don't necessarily think it's coming to bear at these conferences yet. Yeah. And, um, I don't know. I would push back, I would push back against one phrase you said. You said, "What's really happening?" Yeah.
• 15:58
  And it's not, it's not a matter, in my mind, of, like, sort of the reality of what's, uh, the true progression. It's more like bleeding edge versus the, [sighs]
• 16:10
  just the breaking ground, just the difficult work of getting reimbursement. Um,
• 16:17
  my mind goes to this, um, company doing, like, clinic in a box, where you can drop it into a place and you've got all these amazing sort of on-site diagnostics and telemedicine baked into a single unit.
• 16:30
  Well, you and I have seen that, like, two other times where, like, hu- uh,
• 16:35
  HealthSpot, we've seen multiple versions of that fail, and it took time for companies to basically correct the mistakes of the past and create a version of this that's gonna work with providers and with insurance and with the environment around it.
• 16:52
  So, like, just doing the grunt work of correcting gen one, gen two- Yeah... next gen. It's a fair point.
• 17:00
  It's a good point, actually, because I've often talked about this innovation paradox in, in healthcare, which is things are moving faster and slower at the same time. Right.
• 17:11
  Um, I think there is this moment we're in where the market's catching up with things that have been possible for, for in some cases decades. Telehealth in general is a great example of that. Exactly.
• 17:28
  Um, it's not a new innovation or technology by any stretch. It's just more of how it's actually coming into the market.
• 17:36
  I would say efficiencies within the, as you said, the actual workflows or billing or payments of, of care and all of that. It's pretty boring stuff, right? Yeah. It's the pipes. Yeah, [laughs] exactly.
• 17:50
  And, um, but it is... In a positive, it's actually here in a way where you're starting to see it truly being integrated, I think, in market, not just- Yeah... press releases.
• 18:01
  Um, so I think in that sense, I-- there is this l- uh, the, the worlds are colliding. It's just I al- also, what I'm trying to say is you want the world to see...
• 18:16
  If everyone's coming from all over the world to something like this-You know, there should be some- You wanna inspire?... groundbreaking, right? You wanna, you wanna inspire? Yeah. Like, w- you know, I mean- Yeah...
• 18:30
  one, one thing that I, I saw that I thought was pretty cool, um, or more interesting was, I don't know, did you see, I saw several people walking around with exoskeletons on. Yes.
• 18:45
  Did you s- I did, I did like, I did like those, yeah. Well, it, to me, it, it signaled, I think, just a f- a weird flashpoint into, I think, the potential of the future.
• 18:58
  In particular, as these types of technologies become invisibly integrated into our clothes- Yeah... into our long underwear, into our jeans, you know, whatever, and get really, well, invisible, I think is the word. Yeah.
• 19:14
  Um,
• 19:16
  I can see how, how much that will help people who are aging, who maybe have trouble walking, um, who maybe have Parkinson's or neuropathy or, um- Do you think healthy people will just do it, it'll be fun to be able to walk longer and just have augmented walking?
• 19:36
  Absolutely. Um, but I think in terms of where it will really serve the market well are people who really need it. Yeah.
• 19:44
  Um, I did see several people literally riding on electric suitcases too, which was kind of weirded me out because, you know, it's a good thing to walk if you're able. It is, it is.
• 19:57
  Um, to help- Now, here's the big thing about the exoskeletons is that there was one there for, um, sub, well, about $300.
• 20:05
  So this kind of technology, we've been seeing videos about it, and it's been like these big industrial sort of ideas, and now the, like the one that I saw was, like, s- strap on the belt, strap it on your legs, 300 bucks, you are, like, off and running.
• 20:21
  And so highly, highly consumerized. Basically everyone can have one. Boom. You know, flashpoint, like you said. Yeah.
• 20:31
  So anyway, you know, I left, um, energized, uh, more because of the people I met than the experience of a particular thing I saw or conference.
• 20:43
  Spending time, uh, you know, one of the things I love about, I think, the modern era of conferences is, again, in such a global distributed world, it is an opportunity to see old friends, uh- Yeah...
• 20:59
  to network with people you work with or, uh, want to work with and, and maybe already know. Yeah.
• 21:05
  But you're all finally in the same place at the same time, and that's why I'm looking forward to JP Morgan next week, um, is just getting to spend time with our health transformer community.
• 21:15
  Um, we've got probably 100 founders from our various companies coming from all over the world next week, and getting to spend, we spend time with them every, every day online, but to be, you know, in a, a group together breaking bread is, is a whole other experience.
• 21:35
  So that's my big takeaway- Yeah... more than any cool technology or innovation that I actually saw. Yeah.
• 21:42
  On, on my last day as I was leaving, m- the thought that I had as I checked out of the hotel using an app, ordered Starbucks on an app, ordered my Uber on an app, checked into my plane o- on, using an app, is that in order for us to, for these technologies, in order for us, for everyday technologies to integrate themselves into our lives, they just have to work pretty much perfectly.
• 22:05
  They have to be so easy, and a few things like those examples have gotten close, and people rely on them. And I think sometimes in health we take that for granted, that it has to be so seamless.
• 22:20
  It has to be kind of perfect for people to, to lean on it. Uh, it has to work every time. If your health app is glitchy, uh, and it, you know, it bugs out once or twice, you're just gonna stop using it.
• 22:35
  Uh, and we've come to expect a certain level of, of quality from these apps if we wanna lean on them on a day-to-day basis.
• 22:43
  And so these health tech companies- That's why I, I think a lot of the best stuff that we do see, um, comes from the consumer world, right? Yeah.
• 22:53
  Um, and where this really does go is the best health innovation will be invisibly integrated into our cars, into our homes, into our clothes, into our food, into our day-to-day lives, and you won't, in the best case scenario, notice it.
• 23:12
  Um, and it should just work. And we're, we're not there yet, uh, by any stretch. No.
• 23:18
  But it w- it's, that's why it's so important to marry these worlds of consumer innovation with healthcare innovation and, and all of that. So that, that's really my, my big takeaway.
• 23:32
  My, my big ask for anyone organizing these events is if you're gonna focus on health and wellness and wellbeing, maybe best not to do it in a place where
• 23:46
  smoking is kind of allowed and, uh, you know, you can't get water, and there's not much good food, and you spend, you know, most of your time actually trying to get somewhere than actually spending time with, with who you want.
• 24:03
  That's, that's just my little rant on, on that. Yeah. But, um, it, you know, I had a positive experience, and I, I loved spending time with our health transformers. Yeah. Well, it was good to see you there.
• 24:14
  I was glad that we went. Um, like you said, blown away by the Eureka Park and the startup energy there, uh, and excited to see that again in the future. Um, I've got a lot more insights.
• 24:26
  I'm gonna share them on LinkedIn and kind of share them through our, our content, uh, in the coming week and get down into some details of some, some things we saw there.
• 24:35
  But great to see you in the flesh and recap today. [upbeat music] Thanks for listening to Starter Health Now. We'll be back again with another episode next week. [upbeat music]