← Success Story with Scott D. Clary
Success Story with Scott D. Clary
Giorgos Tsetis - Nutrafol Founder | From Personal Crisis to $3.5 Billion Exit
01:38:19
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- [00:00]
A
You said business can be sacred. What do you mean by that?
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Business can be such a powerful force for goodness and greatness. Business is ultimately a community that is pursuing a great mission.
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Some people see problems, others engineer solutions. Jorgo Sadis is the Greek born entrepreneur who did both. Once an engineer and fashion model, he faced a personal battle with hair thinning. And rather than accept the status quo, he built a better way. That mission became neutrophil when I started.
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To get very concerned about my hair loss. It was in my early 20s. That was a quite devastating period in my life. I was just so incredibly motivated and driven to figure out what was going on with myself. We basically became research buddies, shoulder to shoulder. Every night we were just going through scientific white papers, trying to connect dots. And sometimes it's just one person that you need, one person who believes in you, blocking out all the noise and all the people that are just way too negative because that's a very negative influence that needs to be caught up.
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He didn't just disrupt an industry, he gave millions confidence and a real solution grounded in clinical evidence.
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When you're dealing with people's health, there's nothing more important than that. If you add value to people's lives, no matter how you do that, it's like then creating a great business around that is just a side benefit. Helping people at scale leads to so much fulfillment and meaning and purpose in the world.
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A
So Georgios, you said business can be sacred. What do you mean by that?
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B
Business can be such a powerful force for goodness and greatness. And I think as leaders, we have to take that very seriously. Right. So a business is ultimately a community that is pursuing a great mission. And if that mission is sharp and it's exciting and it's inspiring, you can do something really, really great. And I think that comes with responsibility. On top of that, when you lead a community of people, that pursuing something that also comes with further responsibility because you're responsible for those people as well. So how do you make sure that everyone feels really good about themselves, about what they do on a daily basis? Time is precious. So how do we make sure that we protect what we have and stay really focused on what we're trying to do, which ultimately, and that's the hope, right? That every business is trying to add value to people's lives. And that's always what we stood for, right? In our case it was hair health, but it wasn't just about hair. It was about how people would feel about themselves. Right. And if we would even able to help People a little bit, even if it's a little bit less stress about their potential, hair thinning or hair loss. Right. A little bit of less weight on a daily basis. You know, that alone can, Can. Can really elevate someone.
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Right.
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So it was always about the ripple effect and the impact that we can make collectively and how that then impacts individuals at scale.
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I'm sure you work with a lot of entrepreneurs at this stage in your career, and a lot of people reach out to you for advice and the way that you look at business, sort of like as giving value first, like just giving an immense amount of value first. Even before, you know, we press record, you're like, Scott, with what you're doing with the podcast, you're. You're trying to give as much value as possible. I appreciate that because I definitely am. But do you feel. Do you feel like that's how most entrepreneurs first think about business when they, when they first get started? Is that. I feel that's the way they should think. But what's the way that most entrepreneurs start? Do they think about problem solving, value, giving value back to society? Is the average entrepreneur a little bit more, maybe scarcity mindset? I'm just trying to find a way to make a little bit of money to survive. Like, what do you see when somebody's just starting out?
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B
I see it. I see. I see everything. What I'm typically looking for are people who are very clear on their mission and their why. And obviously, we all want to elevate ourselves from a financial perspective. We all want to solve, I guess, problems, right, Something, and pursue something that we're super passionate about, ultimately. Love. I typically just resonate a lot with people who are just deeply, deeply passionate about something that they're pursuing and ideally, truly love. It's almost like this sense of obsession. I love it, too. I just got goosebumps, right? It's like that's how passionate I am about just the world and life and adding value as much as we can. But, you know, because that all the more obsessed, the more you truly love something, the less likely it is that you're going to give up. And as you know extremely well yourself, it's like you need that level of determination every day because it's not easy. If it was easy, everyone would do it. So what is it? What is that drive? And I think if that drive is just simply finances, at some point you're going to give up, right? So I'm always trying to find, yeah, the passion and the obsession and the why behind what People are doing and why they're truly pursuing what they do. And I've seen tremendous amount of success. Right. You don't necessarily, even when you look at me, it's like I didn't have a typical, a typical background to start Nutrafol. I'm not a scientist, I'm not a doctor. I have an engineering background. I love to problem solve. But it's like even now asking these early investors, sometimes I'll just go back to them. It's like, what made you so passionate? Why did you write that early check? And so we could just feel the level of determination, how extremely motivated you were to solve this problem for yourself, but then also hopefully for others. And that's what made us believe in you. Right. So I'm trying to take all these learnings every single time I meet with other people because together again we can create such a beautiful ripple effect as long as we care for the people that we serve. Right. Which typically in a business, those are your customers, but I also think that you kind of forget about your people, right. Often, often we say it's like let's, you know, customers king or customers before everything. I even think that it's about how do you make sure that you build an amazing culture and the people that are working with you and for you on a daily basis just feel great, right? Great about what they do and they feel treated greatly so they can drive that impact. How can you expect from a community of people, a company to be kind and to add value to other people's lives if they don't feel good about themselves? Right. So that was always something I wanted to stay extremely focused on.
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A
This is such a beautiful way to look at business. Like not only give a ton of value to the world, but give a ton of value and respect to the people that work with you, which, which are your team, your peers, your employees. Because that, that has like a trickle down effect when you do give tons of value and when you do focus on putting them first, that that's how you create a business that succeeds. I think, I think that that's where the focus has to be internal first. And then if you focus internal first, then the trickle down will be your customers will also be served incredibly well. I know a little bit about your story. So you started finasteride at 22, which is for people who don't know that's a drug. And I think that's a very old school drug that helps with hair loss. Like it helps, I think stop hair loss or probably helps with hair Growth. And at this point, at 22 years old, and correct me if any of these facts are wrong, but this is when you suffered sexual dysfunction because of the drug. But if you stop the drug, that meant hair loss was accelerated. So you were trapped in this horrible. I don't know, this, this, this circle spiral. Yeah, Downward spiral of I get to choose hair or sex. But I. Yeah, but I can't have both. And that doesn't sound like a great place to be. But you did this for almost nine years. You were trying to figure this out for nine years just with traditional drugs, correct?
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Yes, exactly. Because when I. When I started to get very concerned about my hair loss, this was. Yes, it was in my early 20s and my father started to lose his hair. Actually was completely bald by the age of 25. I just did. I was just very concerned because at the time I was studying engineering and it's. Even during my studying, it was just raining hair and it was just so much evidence that I would at some point lose it. And that was confirmed by a dermatologist. And. And the side effects were downplayed. This was. Back in Holland. The side effects were downplayed. And unfortunately I. Yeah, I experienced those side effects quite severely. The problem was, as you said, the moment I stopped using finasteride, my hair started to fall out. So that was a quite devastating period in my life because I just didn't know what to do. And the doctors that I was going to just didn't have any answers. Right. It was just like, well, it's only a small percentage. Just keep taking it. They didn't give me any alternatives. So I was just so incredibly motivated and driven to figure out what was going on with myself. Right. First of all, why am I losing my hair? I'm young. I didn't want to lose my hair at the time. Also, I was fortunate enough to earn my money through fashion modeling. So it's like my hair was my income. So basically I used the fashion modeling to finance my engineering studies. Right. So it was important. It was important. Am I obsessed with hair? Not necessarily, but it is a part of your identity and it's never fun to lose it. Right. Because it's not necessarily the loss of your hair. It's more of a. And this is what I figured out later, especially when we deal with so many customers at scale, it's that loss of control that is triggering something in people that is just not pleasant. And some people can, of course, deal with it quite nicely or take control and they just shave their hair off. Which is perfectly fine. And we men can deal with it, but for women, it's a whole different ballgame. This is something that I never understood, but because we paid attention and we listened to our customers and we saw the demand, it's like, wow. It's like this issue is as large for women than it is for men. Potentially larger. Because men can take finasteride or didasteride. Women don't have a lot of great alternative solutions. And a lot of the basic vitamins and minerals are just simply not working good enough. They're not powerful enough to make a difference, especially if it's hormonal or stress related or there's inflammation involved. So, yeah, that was for us, how and why we started. It was like, man, we need something that's effective and safe. This is what we need. It's like everything that was safe was not working. And everything that was somehow effective as finasteride, it just, just a terrible side effects. And when I hit the panic button was when there was a study that came out, I think it was the University of Michigan, where it could potentially can cause permanent sexual dysfunction, post dysfunct discontinuation of the drug. So that's where I was like, okay, you know, this is, I'm, I'm severely jeopardizing my health here. I'm worried. And that's where I opened up to my business partner who was a. This crazy and beautiful science biohacker that approached health in a very different way. This is about 10 years ago. And I was just very inspired on how he reverse engineered his rheumatoid arthritis at the time. So. And that's really what sparked this whole conversation about, okay, well, there's more at play than DNA, right? Why, why are we not. Why we're not addressing stress with powerful formulations, why we're not addressing inflammation? Because my business model was targeting inflammation CRP with a very potent botanical ingredient. And he did that very successfully. But as a side benefit, his hair started to grow back. So I went back to my doctor. It's like, how does inflammation play a role with hair health with the disruption of the hair growth cycle? And I got no answers. Right.
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I was wondering if they would tell you anything useful.
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Yeah, exactly. I was so incredibly surprised that the hair experts didn't have a lot of explanation around just hair biology. And hair is incredibly complex. Your hair follicles are mini organs. So anyway, we basically became research bodies, shoulder to shoulder for every night. We were just going through scientific white papers trying to connect dots and to try to find a way to approach it healthier and more effectively. And that's really what led to birth of Mutrafol.
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A
I think that the saddest part about health concerns like hair loss or there's a variety about even sexual dysfunction. I was just listening to some of your past podcasts and just one of the quotes that you said, it wasn't a long quote, but it just sort of summed up what a lot of people feel. You said like this led to sleepless nights, anxiety, loss of confidence, all of it. And it's sad that I think a lot of people with these, with these medical issues, I feel like they just kind of suffer alone and they don't know who to talk to about this because traditional science kind of just medicates them with really harsh drugs, whether or not it's sexual dysfunction, whether or not it's hair loss, whether or not it's a million other different things that they're suffering from. And I, I am not by any means a scientist or a doctor, but I feel like there's so many op. There's so many opportunities for less harsh, somewhat natural remedies for people where taking a, taking a. A fix to solve one thing in their life doesn't lead to all these other complications and problems. But like you mentioned, the issue is that a lot of GPs and doctors and family doctors or even sometimes specialists, they don't have. They don't have answers. So you just kind of like, suffer in silence. You kind of like suffer like you did for nine years, basically trying to figure out what the hell to do. And even with finasteride, I'm sure there's some people where it worked perfect. But I'm sure there's, like you mentioned, a large portion of the population, men and especially women, who don't have the opportunity to probably take some of these harsher drugs where just for years, like parts of their life, they just had no option at all. So it's just, it's, it's. It's sad that traditional, you know, the, the people we rely on with our health and wellness don't think outside the box. But that's why it's so important for entrepreneurs to come up with these innovative solutions. And that's. I think that's exactly what you did, obviously, and it worked quite well. But when you think about doing something that's never really been done before, or doing something without a science background and building a company around something that you know needs to be fixed, but you don't know exactly how to do it, say what you were going to say. But then I was also curious about how do you get the courage to approach that problem? Because that's a, that's a huge daunting problem. And I think that that would overwhelm a lot of entrepreneurs because where do you even start?
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Yeah. And everything that you just said really resonates. It's, it's trying to just, let's, let's focus on trying to address the underlying issues. Right. Why people are suffering of a condition. And that, I think is. It's such an important mindset. And we're seeing that. I think we're moving in the right direction. Right. Functional medicine is growing at a rapid pace. The information that's available to patients, to consumers is overwhelming. I think could be a bad thing. But it's also, in many cases, it's a great thing. Your ability to ask the right questions and to understand truly what you're going through before to your point, you start to medicate is incredibly, incredibly important if you can do it yourself. Trying to find a doctor who at least is willing to do a deep dive. Right. And is willing to understand it and not just by default, just prescribe a medicine. I'm extremely worried, especially a lot of those online pharmacy companies who are just prescribing those drugs to young men and women and marketing those drugs like it's candy. Right. And it's. I think that's deeply concerning, especially when you touch more serious issues like mental health. Right. And, and others. But, you know, there's, there's hope because, you know, trying to. This is, this is 10 years ago. Nature of our first tagline was like, you know, targeting the root. Right. Targeting. Let's try to understand the underlying causes. And it's a multitude of underlying causes. Don't just block testosterone within your. To keep your hair right. There's stress, there's inflammation, there's dietary deficiencies. Like it's a multifactorial problem. And if you, if you approach that effectively with the hope, of course, is with very effective botanical ingredients, nutraceuticals, that have clinical evidence, perhaps you can make a difference. Right. So that was the hypothesis. That was, that was incredibly important to your other question as far as. Yeah. Trying to come up with a drive. I used to have this quote up in my office. I believe it was from Richard Branson. It was, if people aren't calling you crazy, you're not thinking big enough. And that was such a. I put that up one night and I needed that. I truly needed that because I had a lot of people around me that were naysayers. I had a lot of people around me who said, look, you're crazy. You know, who do you think you are? It's like you don't have the background, right? Or even when we launched the company, it's like your margins are, like, not industry standard. It's like. And I was like, well, these ingredients are of high quality. I'm happy to pay a premium for ingredient because I know there's proof, I know that the bioactives within that singular ingredient are going to be able to make a difference, right? We're talking about. I can give you a specific example. We use the curcumin and we still use curcuminoids, right? Who are able to lower CRP inflammation in the body very effectively. We used to pay $500 a kilo, and you can get the same curcumin for like $10 a kilo, right? So we paid a premium, a massive premium, because there was clinical evidence that the actives were still available, were still potent, that the actual ingredient itself was bioavailable and it actually gets absorbed in the body. And of course, there was clinical trials attached to those ingredients, right? And on the other hand, I would have investors and as we tried to pitch in the early days, say, look, your product is never going to make it because your margins are not healthy enough. Right? So I had to just block out all that noise. And that's been really the greatest blessing. On top of that, I'm also incredibly fortunate that at least I had some people and including my mom and dad, who at least didn't question me. They just said, you know what? We believe in you. Right? And for them to say that meant a lot, right? Because I followed a very traditional engineering career. I did start my own company because I love to not work for anyone else, but that was going really well. But then to completely pivot and pursue hair health and then at least to have some people at least around you say, you know what? We believe in you pursue it, let's go. It's a real blessing. And sometimes it's just one person that you need, right? It's very hard to do things by yourself. One person who believes in you, maybe one thought partner, and then let's go, right? Let's try to make a difference. And I'm blocking out all the noise and all the people that are just way too negative, because that's a very negative influence that needs to be caught up.
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A
When you were first starting Nutrafol, you had investors, they said that clinical trials weren't necessary for supplements, but you spent over a million dollars of your life savings on pharmaceutical grade trials anyways. Because you wanted to know what worked. I love that you took that approach. Walk me through what you were thinking when you were getting pressure just to launch, when you took people's money and they were telling you to do it in a quicker, cheaper way, and you still pushed back and you said, no, we got to do this the right way. Because I would like to think that all people would make that decision, but I'm pretty sure that not everybody would.
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Yeah, at the time, we just didn't want to build another marketing company. Right. This goes back to the mission, which was we wanted to figure this out for ourselves and we wanted to help a lot of people along the way. So how do you build something that ultimately becomes really impactful and creates this ripple effect? And it wasn't just about selling product. I wasn't interested in selling product. I was way more interested in changing the conversation. Then the question becomes, okay, well, how do you change the conversation around hair health for men and for women? Right. How do you break down certain taboos? How do we make this a bit more discussable? How do you make sure, to your point, people do not suffer in silence? Right. Because that's terrifying. How do you truly contribute there? And the only way to do that, in my opinion, was by pursuing thought leadership, pursuing and educating physicians who have been trained, who have the credibility, and advising the world on how to approach this. So it became our mission to partner up with them and to convince them. We spent endless hours and years, frankly, with physicians, trying to educate them and to present them with this 100 page white paper that we had. We're so proud of it. And people, people, we would present it all the time, but not everyone would pay attention. But at least we had figured it out. You know, it was basically wrote, rewrote hair biology. It was our bible. Right. And we use that as a, as a guideline. This is even preclinical trials. But in order for us to take it to a whole new level, we had to make those investments. And frankly, I personally, this goes back to my own personal values. I would never feel comfortable promoting a. If it was just relying on ingredient claims. Right. Because that's how the industry works. You can technically rely on ingredient claims, but just by using common sense. What happens when you put all those ingredients together? Is there synergy or are there potential side effects? These botanicals are incredibly powerful. These are not just herbals, these are pharmaceutical grade nutraceuticals who are incredibly potent. What happens in the human body when you take this for a long period, amount of time? So just from an ethical standpoint and from a moral standpoint, I just felt obligated to myself and to everyone around me to double down on this. And yes, it was a massive risk because those clinical trials for hair, they're incredibly complex. Imagine, right? It's like these are, these are six to 12 months clinical trials. Now you have placebo controls, double blinded, right? Especially for women, they're already going through such an emotional journey, losing their hair, even knowing that they're in placebo, right? The dropout rates are huge. So these are very complex clinical trials, multi site studies and they're also therefore very risky. What happens? The investors ask the right question, like, what happens if those clinical trials come back with not the ideal results? Right? And I was like, you know what, we have to do this. We can't even question. We just have to believe that what we have formulated and what we've put on paper is going to work. And that turned out to be true. We launched the first clinical study for women going through hair loss during menopause, pre and perimenopause. And can you imagine, nobody's ever done a study like that, right? And at the time we already had a very strong, we had already strong clinical evidence around the women's products. And we're challenged there as well, right? You launching another product for women, what if those results are not ideal? How's it going to jeopardize what you currently already have in place where you would have hundreds of thousands subscribers on these products? And again, similar mindset there, like let's what would we do? How do we want those people to be treated? Right? We want those products to be tested. So we're going to have to do what's right. We have to double down. And if for whatever reason it doesn't turn out the way we want it to be, then we deal with it, right? We deal with it and we move on from there. But it was always that problem solving mentality as an entrepreneur that really helped me throughout. Because you can't question yourself too much. I apply a 70% rule to that. It's like you can't be too certain. You just have to be certain enough to make an important decision. Because if you're certain enough, it's often too late. If it's below 50%, your chances, the odds are not on your side. So it's like 70% rule for me was enough to make those decisions as fearlessly as possible.
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It's so interesting. So you have to, you have to make that decision, but then you have to verify and test. So you have to, you have to, like, you have to have a thesis. But then still, what you did is you didn't just have the thesis, you spent the money and the time and the effort making sure that the thesis was true, which I think is, again, in the, like. Listen, there's a, there's a lot of issues that I have with the supplement industry. There's a lot of issues that I.
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Have for the right reasons.
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For the right reasons. Yeah. I mean, if we look at, we alluded to these before, but just briefly, like, I mean, my, I used to play a lot of hockey, I played a lot of sports, and I got into, you know, bodybuilding, working out. And there's all these stories about supplements being mislabeled and, you know, the wrong ingredients or just not even listing some of the ingredients. And I'm sure it's in a lot of different nutraceutical companies where people try and get around regulation. And then on the drug side, it's not much better. Well, I guess it's regulated by the fda, but like you mentioned before, I just experienced this as well. I didn't realize that. I'm Canadian, moved down to the US A couple years ago now. But I just realized that this whole telemedicine phenomenon where you can claim to have a medical problem and a doctor who's never even seen you can prescribe a drug and it ships to your door. So it seems like whether or not it's drugs or, or, or, or supplements or nutraceuticals, like the, the industry on average does not pay enough attention to the end user.
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It's all driven by profit. It all is. And it's, it's how the world functions. And I get it, right? But when you're dealing with people's health, there's nothing more important than that, right? We're talking about mental health here, we're talking about physical health, we're talking about prevention of diseases, right? Companies need to have a very high degree of standards, right? Because the potential consequences are too devastating. So I'm happy you're recognizing that. And the industry is doing better in many ways. But I think it continues to be very important that the right leaders are being put in place in those companies so they can make those right ethical decisions. Not when things are going great. It's always easy to make good decisions when things are going great. It's like what kind of a decision are you going to make when it gets hard? Right. That that's always what I'm interested in and say with investors, right? Who is going to stick by you when things are not going so great? You know, those are the people that you want to be surrounded by.
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- [34:51]
B
There was a ton of anxiety, frankly. They didn't, not everyone, some did, but not everyone believed in it. It's like this, this is a men's issue, right? We've been told for, for, for decades, right, that this is a men's issue, right? Look at these legacy old school brands. It was always, it was always a men's issue. So it's like, I will never forget, Scott, when I launched, I wanted to raise awareness around Hair loss for Women. And I wanted to. We bought in the early days, like a page in a popular magazine. And the headline was something as simple as Take control of hair loss. And it was a women's ad and it was completely rejected. It wasn't suitable for their audience. And for me, that was such an eye opening moment. There's so many women who are suffering in silence and we cannot even talk about this. Forget about a solution, we cannot even talk about this. And that to me was an additional drive to prove also a lot of those people wrong and to raise awareness around this issue. Because every single time we walk into a hair salon without products, I wanted to give it out to men. And then all the women would come to us. And it's like, I need this, right? So it goes back to just really not trying to pursue where the money necessarily is or people are telling you to do, but remaining open and listening to the people who you're serving. And that's why we decided to further optimize that women's formulation for women who are going through menopause, because physicians would give the men's formulation to women who are going through menopause, right? And it's like, well, that's a little confusing, right? Maybe we can do better, right? And it's incredibly rewarding, right? And the reason why I'm sharing this is because I think this can give a lot of people hope, right? It's pursuing what you believe is right. Forget about the money for a second. If you add value to people's lives on a daily basis, no matter how you do that, it's like then creating a great business around that is just a side benefit. That's why I continue to go back, even with my team, just from a cultural perspective, we would ask that question to ourselves all the time. Are we still adding the right value? And people will get tired of this question, right? But it's like, yeah, we continue because it also evolves, right? Science evolves, the company evolves. We became much larger, right? The industry changed. More competition. It's like, are we still doing the best we can? And if the answer to that is yes, okay, great. But let's continue to just compete with ourselves all the time to make sure that we serve our customers the best way possible, right? And every single decision was made through that. Like, at some point we, we had core formulations plus these personalized boosters that would serve through hair testing. Lifetime value for those products was astronomical. Investors looked at this and said, this is, this is something we've Never seen before. And I was like, well, but the retention is not great. People, people are not, you know, they have to take way too many pills. They have to adapt. This, this habit formation that needs to take place here and they're dropping out. They may not see the results that they would like to see. We may make more money as a company, highly profitable, but we're not serving our people better. Let's actually skip this entire program and we reduce the amount of boosters that we recommended through our algorithmic engine to customers at scale. That's another example where we had to choose the customer over just simply profit.
- [39:00]
A
You, you achieve all the regular business metrics and milestones by, by adding a ton of value. Also what I've noticed is, and I'm curious about your opinion on this, you have always found, you have always found a way to alleviate somebody's suffering. Like somebody is suffering from some sort of ailment or somebody suffering from some sort of physical condition. And that's what you lean into, right? You also, I know, I think you're on the, the board of X Prize and you see a lot of entrepreneurs that are very innovative and they're trying to create new things that have never been created before. Have you ever thought of the opportunities for entrepreneurs just in, in finding this suffering that's kind of been normalized and trying to fix that as opposed to creating something new? Like I feel like if more people just looked at what are people dealing with in a day to day, that's a good place for an entrepreneur to start ideating on what to create or what to solve. It's like what suffering has been normalized and how do we destigmatize it and help somebody through it and create that market?
- [40:16]
B
I think that's a great starting point for entrepreneurs, right? But ideally it's personal, especially if it's your first entrepreneurial journey. I see a lot of entrepreneurs trying to solve issues, right? But then it's not that personal, right? And then I go back to what's your level of determination if it gets harder along the journey. But I do think the world doesn't need more products, right? The world doesn't need more marketing necessarily. It's like the, we're trying to compete for people's time, people's attention, right? And I used to say this to the marketing team all the time. It's like this level of marketing at scale, we spend like 40, 50 million dollars a month on marketing, right? It's like that comes with responsibility. It's like we better Say something that's of value to people. Let us try to just sell product. It's like even if you forget about people buying the product, it's like maybe, maybe leave them with a thought that's inspiring or some education around hair that they maybe can take into consideration when they move, when they make their decision. Marketing comes with responsibility. We are fighting for people's attention and I truly believe that, that we need to do everything in our power to continue to add value as much as possible. As far as the suffering concerned, what I'm trying to focus on now a lot is, okay, what are we experiencing as a society, right? And one of the things that constantly comes up is like, from a mental health perspective, it's like we're not necessarily moving in the right direction. The constant extraction, your data is basically being extracted from you. We have become the product. And it's so incredibly hard, at least when I speak for myself, it's hard to feel very, very good continuously, right? And I'm worried about our children. I'm worried about our children and how they're going to grow up and the forces that they're going to have to deal with. So what can we do as entrepreneurs to focus on issues that can systemically change things around to make sure that the world is moving in the right direction. And yeah, of course, if you connect with brilliant minds, I always say there's nothing better in life than just do great things with great people. So you find great people that care about a problem enough, if you can then find your focus and then pursue that and not give up, you can make a difference. You actually see that with xprize in a beautiful way, right? We define a problem and then on a global level, you've got all those teams that are passionate about that issue, compete for that price and solve that problem together. And we're seeing tremendous, tremendous success there. And I think there's an opportunity to do this on a global level. I think we're more united than we think we are. And that's the optimist in me. And once you identify an issue, and we've proven that in history as well, once we identify an issue and we can all rally behind that and truly care, we can make a massive, massive difference. So I'm always trying to look for opportunities to solve underlying issues, to elevate human well being, really, because especially with everything that's happening on the AI side, it's like we need to protect us, right? We need to protect us. And therefore we need people and leaders who care about the world care about humans and have a sense of empathy.
- [44:11]
A
So fast forward to today after, after Nutrafol was sold to Unilever. This is, this is sort of your, this is sort of what you, you live for now. And one idea that I've heard you speak about, which is really what you're just describing, is human flourishing. So describe and explain maybe what human flourishing means, because I think that it's this, the way that I interpret it is like it's a blanket idea because I feel like people do struggle with physical health, physical suffering, mental health, mental suffering. And then if we layer on all the tools and technologies that, that are sort of advancing human civilization, obviously a lot of people, there's a lot of benefit to that. But I also think it's stressing a lot of people out and probably adding more stress and more anxiety and more physical and, and mental suffering to the average person who's worried about their job or being replaced by AI or robotics. So I think for some people life is very difficult and, and there's a lot of anxiety right now in the, in the average person as to what life's going to look like in the next five or 10 years for a variety of reasons. So what does human flourishing actually mean? Like, how do, how do you look at human flourishing? How do you balance not just the physical, the physical and the mental well being of somebody, but how do we pair that with technology? Nai. So it can be used to actually progress humans and make the average individual's life better, not put them out of work and then have them all stressed out, which is going to lead to a whole bunch of other physical and mental problems.
- [45:51]
B
Yeah, the whole human flourishing, human thriving idea and thinking came actually from Nutrafol. Right. Because we saw the effects of if people feel a little bit less stressed about themselves or a little less stressed in general on a daily basis, what that actually can do to someone and not just to themselves, but the people around them and showing up as a better parent, as a better spouse, as a better partner, as a better employee, et cetera. So the ripple effect there really, really inspired me. Right. So I think we all have a responsibility to work on ourselves and figure out what we're about, who we are, who am I? It's like a fundamental question that I constantly trying to answer and trying to figure out who you are and what you stand for and what the values that you want to provide in this world is, is I think, important. But you're right, there's all these forces that are coming at Us, and I think we need to stick together and trying to solve those problems collectively. Right. I've got a ton of those examples. I'm focusing a lot now on nonprofits as well, because a lot of the non profits are suffering. They're typically not good business models and. But there are great initiatives, right, from building free boxing gyms for underserved youth in the Bronx here in New York City, to helping HIV positive mothers in Africa deliver HIV negative babies. Right. It's like we all have a responsibility, I think, to help each other. We interconnected as a world, as humans. So if you can feel better about yourself and you can thrive and you can feel mentally clear and you know where you're going and you feel physically strong and at least you feel not physically unable to do something or a little bit in pain, and it doesn't hold you back. The moment you're in that state and you entering that phase of thriving and feeling great on a daily basis, I think that's where you can make the impact. That's how you can start to help others around you. So I still believe that you need to start with yourself. I'm incredibly interested in what's happening in the digital world with AI and just the data as we have become the product ourselves. It's like we don't own any of that data, so it's being used against us. The fact that ChatGPT knows you better than you know yourself is concerning. Right. So how do you change that around and how do you create a sovereign infrastructure for individuals is something that's incredibly inspiring to me. Because that could be fundamental, right? It could be fundamental to understanding yourself and to provide value to others. And yeah, as far as, as far as mental health concerned, it's something that is deeply concerning because it's not moving in the right direction. And I don't have an answer, I don't have an answer to all, all those issues, but just.
- [49:14]
A
No, but I think that you touched on something really powerful, actually. I think that. I think that post covet, we, we felt more isolated than ever before. We kind of just felt like we're figuring out life on our own. Right. We kind of feel like a little bit more isolated and, and I think that it's hard to. Maybe this is just me, but when I'm not feeling good, if I'm sick, if I'm foggy, if I feel out of shape, if I feel like garbage, it's very hard for me to show up for someone else. Like it's, it's basically impossible. For me to give my time and energy and attention effectively to someone else. When, like, I feel like, I know I'm just like making it very simple. But I think if more people understood the power of fixing their health, mental and physical, that could be a mixture of like, things that can help them. Not stress about how they look, but also how they feel. Going to the gym, fixing up their diet, taking supplements that actually benefit them. Not just supplements that lie about what's, what's in the actual, the, the label lies about what's in the product. Like if they optimize their health and well being so that they're running at 100%, I think that's when they can contribute more of themselves to helping their friend that's stressed about this, that or the other thing in their life. But you can't do that if you're always, if you're always feeling like, if you're stressed about your own life, if you're stressed about like your own well being, like, you just, it's very hard. So I think you have to, like you said before, you put your own mask on first, but you have to give somebody the tools to do that. And then after somebody feels good, that's when they can be the best version of themselves. And then they can help people in their community, at their job, whatever. That's, that's how I feel. I genuinely feel that is very true. At least for me, it is. Because the second I'm like 100 and I'm healthy, then I can spend time mentoring somebody. I can jump on a call and help somebody that has a problem. I can sit down for coffee with somebody and give them good advice. Because I'm clear in my mind. I like this, it's like this holistic way to just be a better society without sounding too.
- [51:30]
B
Exactly. And the less, and the more stressed people are, the less sense of empathy they can show to others as well. Right. That's deeply concerning. Right. Imagine a world where we're more stressed than ever before. Everything comes at us. We don't have the ability to process everything fast enough. Right. Stress goes through the roof. We're chronically stressed. We don't even realize it. Right. And now our sense of empathy significantly decreases. Right. That's, that's not necessarily a good place to be as a society because we are interconnected and we want people to care. Right. But it's hard to ask someone to care about the environment if they struggle on a daily basis themselves, right. To feel good about themselves. So it's like I Think there's such a great opportunity to solve those issues together. And again, I think we're more aligned than we think we are. And it's all about creating an ecosystem around that to identify those issues and to pursue it all together. Because together we're incredibly strong. Right. There just needs to be a focus and a not giving up mentality.
- [52:41]
A
When you look at sort of the current health space or even like health tech space, where, where are those opportunities? Like if we look at all the things that are plaguing society, so we have, we have people that are stressed about their jobs, stressed about technology, stressed about their again, physical mental health. Where do you see the biggest gaps that we could, you know, with a little bit of innovation and a little bit of thought we could really make the biggest moves and help the most amount of people. Like, I'm sure there's some examples from like some of the companies that are part of xprize. And I think that for people don't understand what XPRIZE is. Basically these are these incredible companies that are, they're basically trying to build these moonshot type products, these products that have never really been done before, products that could really change the world. It's a really cool organization. But are there examples of companies that are currently being built in? I also think it's tied to Singularity University and Peter Diamandis and I think that whole ecosystem is all about innovation and solving big human problems. But anyways, are there some examples that you can think of like the biggest opportunities within Singularity, within xprize or just things that you've seen that can really, really improve the quality of life for the average person?
- [54:13]
B
Yeah, X Prize is an amazing organization and they're making a lot of progress. What I'm personally very excited about is it's just a focus on prevention, you know, the moment, just disease prevention. And there's so much technology now out there where you can early detect disease. Right. If you can make that available to the masses and get everyone into a specific mindset to test early enough to understand and to know what's going on within your body so it's not too late, that's a massive unlock because the technology is there. It's all about changing the mindset and make it available to the masses in a much more affordable way. So anything related to early detection and the prevention of disease is I think key because the moment you're diagnosed goth a bit with something, that's where everything gets harder. We just talked about your ability to give back or your ability to upgrade the world is significantly reduced. And we see that even within Nutrafol. Right. We, because we're dealing unfortunately a lot with women who are losing their hair because of cancer treatments. Right. And we see how devastating those experiences are. But if you can early detect, right. That's where you can make the greatest difference. And you don't necessarily have to pursue those very invasive standard of care treatments that are just very toxic for the body. Right. So early detection, this preventative mindset and then approaching it in the most natural way to solve those issues early enough, I think is the way to go. But there's still a lot of progress to be made there.
- [56:13]
A
I was going to say, I think that unfortunately a lot of our health care system is very, is very reactive. I wonder, because you're sort of your front line in this, in this health and wellness fight. Do you think we're getting better at being preventative, at detecting earlier, at actually adopting more natural remedies? Do you see us moving significantly in the right direction towards these things and sort of pushing back against traditional health and wellness?
- [56:46]
B
Yeah, I think there's hope. There's certainly hope because you're seeing a lot of consumers and patients now. It's also a lot about, it's not just about even early detection. It's like let's start to gather the information, let's actually start testing more often. And then of course, with the use of AI, the insights that you can gain are mind blowing. Right. So I absolutely believe that there's such a massive opportunity for AI to disrupt healthcare in general and to make a real difference there for patients and consumers. And you see that a lot of those health tech companies are doing extremely well, or most of them. And even within Nutrafol we've seen a massive difference because in the beginning, to convince someone to buy a product on a preventative basis, it's way harder. It's, it's way easier when someone is suffering from an issue for them to be convinced. But our entire business became so large, we've got about over 2 million subscribers. And the reason for that is because we started to focus a lot on people who are concerned but don't necessarily experience the issue yet. Once they're in that mindset, their likelihood also to remain on the product is also way greater. And also the product is set up for greater success as well because it doesn't have to work as hard. Prevention is typically easier than, especially in hair, than trying to regrow hair back. So being early enough is absolutely key here.
- [58:31]
A
What is the biggest stress in Your life. We went into some very heavy, deep topics. We spoke about the world being stressed out and the world feeling isolated and all these new technologies that are a benefit but are also stressing people out. And like, what's the big thing that keeps you up and, and sort of pushes you to keep. Because, you know, even though you're technically, you could be retired, I know for a fact you're not. So you're still sort of, you're still trying to figure out a few things. What's that thing that keeps you up at night?
- [59:01]
B
Yeah, I'm certainly not retired. It's such a blessing to, to exit a company, but it's also bittersweet. It was a monumental exit. It was the largest exit in the space. It was 3.5 billion. And yes, in the tech space, those numbers are now more common. But in the consumer space, in the health space, these numbers aren't. And the reason why I'm sharing that is because there's so much opportunity and, and I want to give entrepreneurs a sense of hope right the moment there's focus and you can solve a problem for yourself and for many others, you can build an amazing business around that. So I think that's important context. What keeps me up is frankly, are we going to leave this world in a better place for our children? In an ideal world, we're moving in the right direction, and I think in many ways we are. But there's also a lot of concerning pieces that we just talked about, and that includes our health, mental and physical. But we're able to make a difference there. I'm sure with the technologies that we're going to be able to move the needle there. But the other issue that I think is major is the wealth concentration with everything that's currently happening. And so there must be a way to redistribute wealth better. Right. Because it's. The gap between rich and poor isn't not necessarily just widening. Right. It's also moving in very different directions. And especially now with AI and tech, it's like that's where all the money is made.
- [60:54]
A
But it's, it's going to keep increasing.
- [60:57]
B
Exactly. The gap is increasing. It's moving in all directions. And I think that's concerning because I think, I think capitalism is great. But is there an opportunity to rewire that and to make sure that we also at the same time focus on human suffering? Can we make a difference there? Because if we're not, it's going to become an issue. And on one hand, everyone is making so much more money. All these tech companies, trillion dollar companies, investors make a ton. The finance world, stocks are through the roof. Everything is going great there. But then on the other hand, there's so much here that needs to be improved. And I'm trying to think about models where we can change the mindset there as well to see if some of this here could be properly utilized to help people in need. Right People help people with just health care. Right. Elevate some of the suffering there. Help our children and make sure that we give back wherever possible to make sure that, yeah, we not grow too far apart.
- [62:14]
A
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And it pulls all your analytics and your data and KPIs into one place instead of having them scattered across 15 different tabs and tools. Plus the AI agents that HubSpot builds for you can automate the repetitive stuff that's eating away your day. Bottom line, you get better results faster without burning out. See, with HubSpot, everything's connected in one platform instead of duct taped together. So if you're tired of being spread too thin, check out HubSpot.com marketers to see how this actually works. But I think that's my biggest concern about new technology. Because new technology, mainly like AI robotics, are like the sort of like the hot things right now. This new technology can create a massive amount of wealth. Like I, I see the opportunity. So now you can create a million dollar company with. You can probably create a 10 million dollar company with just yourself and AI, if you know a little bit about what you're between vibe coding and copywriting and graphic design and, and strategizing with, you know, chat, GPT, Claude, Perplexity, whatever other generative tool you want to use. So this can be a huge wealth building opportunity. But if people don't learn it, and if people don't understand how to use it, then not only will they not be able to take advantage of the wealth building opportunity that all these new technologies afford us and, and allow us to participate in, but they'll, it'll also, it'll also make it so that they're not competitive in the existing job market. They're not competitive at all. So now these people are, are going to be not able to build a company with, with the new tech unless they learn it, which obviously they should. But if they don't, then they're missing out on that opportunity. And they'll also be replaced by people who do learn the tech. Maybe they're not entrepreneurial, but they do learn attack. They'll be replaced by those people in their jobs. And then you're going to have this increasing wealth gap and you're going to have more and more people out of work and if they don't upskill themselves, I don't know what it's going to look like in the next five years, but it's not going to be pretty for a lot of people. I mean, we're already seeing massive layoffs with, with factory workers and assembly line workers, with all the robotics that are coming out. And we saw layoffs with, with people that were being replaced by AI as well. So the people that aren't as technically savvy, that are feeling like they're being replaced by AI and they're stressed about their jobs and they're stressed about money, there is a responsibility on the people that understand it and use it daily to spend energy teaching it to people. I like. Listen, I'm a big fan of people taking, you know, their own life into their own hands and being accountable for their own success. But at the same time, like, if you understand something kind of like what I'm doing with this podcast in a very basic way, like, and if you have a way to teach somebody something, I think you have like a little bit of a responsibility to do that. So when I have conversations about business or artificial intelligence or like I have a platform, a lot of other people have a platform, I think that you have a responsibility to help people that don't quite understand what's going on, help them understand it so they can use these tools as well. And hopefully, hopefully that means that there's not as many people that are left behind.
- [68:49]
B
It's beautifully said and I love that you stand for that and you're absolutely making an impact by sharing great information and empowering people to do something right with their lives in a beautiful way. I think it's hard, it's going to be incredibly hard for everyone to keep up and that's just, and it's just not for individuals also from a country perspective, right. It's like there's certain countries that are not going to keep up. So how do we make sure that we continue to reinforce the message that we are interconnected. Right. That if we continue to do extremely well and others don't, that's going to become a, an issue for everyone. Right. So promoting this togetherness concept and to solve those problems together I think is going to be extremely, extremely key. I don't know what the answer to that is, whether it's a universal basic income or healthcare. I'm not an expert there. But somehow we need to find a solutions to those issues because it's going to be a much bigger issue very, very soon.
- [70:00]
A
I do think that, listen, there's, there's going to be a lot of, of things that have to work out to, to bring society closer together because the way society is structured right now, whether or not it's within a country or a community or globally, it is, we're kind of set up to, to be split apart and to like with like social media and news cycles and fear mongering and politics. Like the world is currently working against cohesiveness. It's working to sort of silo different groups with different belief systems which ultimately just hurt everyone. So I think that there's a lot of different things that you just mentioned which I'm not an expert in either. There's a lot of different technologies and companies that organizations like xprize and, and Singularity are looking to, to build that can solve a piece of this puzzle. There's other components like again getting people physically and mentally well so that they can operate sort of like have, like they can perform at their peak. But it's all of it like it's. And I think that the last, sort of, the last piece of this puzzle is reminding people that we are more alike than different and to honestly stay off social media as much as possible because that is probably the worst tool that separates and divides us. And companies make trillions of dollars creating animosity and division Between. Between, you know, you and your neighbor, whether or not they're next door in another country. And I think that all these ideas combined are how we kind of move in the right direction. But everybody just has to, you know, do their best and play their part, and hopefully we'll end up in a better spot than we are today. That's all you can hope for. It's not. That's a heavy. That's a heavy ass idea, though.
- [72:00]
B
Amen to that. I remain extremely positive that this is possible. I think people are searching for meaning, for purpose. Right. We're more aligned than we think we are because we are being divided at all levels. Right, but that's exactly. During so much disruption, there's opportunity, and I'm just incredibly excited to work on those issues. Right. With people who care and people who have the capacity to do something about it.
- [72:33]
A
So I do want to touch on a few last things that I think are a little bit more tied into your leadership philosophy. And we'll talk about sort of how Neutrophil ended and we'll talk about that exit. But one thing that I love that at least you're very focused on as a leader and as an entrepreneur is kindness and kindness as a strategy. So you refuse to be called boss. Like, you didn't like to hold on to any kind of leadership title. Is that correct? Was there a reason for that? Was that just something that you push back against? Because I think that if I look at sort of your value system, how you serve your customers, how you serve your team, you've always been like a. A kind leader. But what are the things specifically that. That you did that you feel were slightly different than the average entrepreneur?
- [73:34]
B
I always tried to treat people how I want to be treated. Right. So she had a whole boss. I did. I just never felt better than anyone else. Right. I always felt so privileged that people are actually coming to work for me and with us. Right. So. And I try to always respect that because these are major life decisions that people are making. Let's not underestimate that. It's like people move to a company and they're relying on that company to support themselves and their families. That's a big deal. I always try to keep that in mind. The reason. And these are small little things, but I think the nuances matter. Just an open door policy all the time. Right. I didn't even have my, my private office because I didn't want to be that guy who's just in that office that everyone looks up to. Right. I Wanted to be with the people. That's why I learned that's, you know, I wanted to build this relationship of trust. Right? Because if there's trust, people open up, then, you know, right. Then you can support and you can know where the issues are. So having your finger on the pause as a leader is extremely important. And without trust and without psychological safety, I don't think you can properly achieve that. So I tried to pay attention to those nuances, but they also just came natural to me. I like to be with the people. I always said, I'm working for you as much as you do for me, and together pursuing this mission. And I felt that was always deeply respected and so I doubled down on that and that turned out to be really great. The retention post acquisition was extremely low. It was less than 1%, right. Typically, typically the people that are leaving, typically a lot of people leave post acquisitions because of cultural changes, etc. We built such an amazing culture around kindness and caring for one another. And when the company wins, then everyone should win, including incentive structures that support that. And that is now beautifully maintained by the new CEO. Her name is Cindy. And that's a real, real blessing because if a company can live beyond you and do real success and continue to add value to people's lives, that's, I believe, the ultimate success. So, yeah, whether it was an open door policy, which sounds basic, but it was meaningful to a lot of people, making sure that I'm always asking how people are actually feeling. Forget about work for a second. It's like, how are you doing as an individual? We're starting a meeting with a bunch of people ready to dive in, ready to solve the problems, ready to, to make a difference in other people's lives is like, let's start with ourselves, right? It's like, how do you feel? And is there anything, you know, we can support each other with? And again, that was a culture, that was a mindset that was just very rewarding to be in and which is what I currently miss the most. Right? It's like about 500, 600 people at Nutrafol and they continue to thrive. And that's something that I'm very happy with.
- [77:05]
A
What's, what's the relationship that you found between kindness and performance?
- [77:09]
B
I don't think you can perform great under, under, under distress, right? And if people are not kind, there, there is distress, right? People who are rude or are only thinking about themselves or they don't pay attention to what you're saying or are not making you feel valued, that can never be good. That's not sustainable. So I definitely think there's a relationship between kindness and progress and achievements. Psychological safety is a big deal. There's studies that are published around that. It's like the moment people feel safe. And the question, of course, when is someone feeling safe to voice themselves within an organization? Right. But that's just table stakes, in my opinion. People should feel free to voice themselves about anything, to propose to leadership or to other pieces in the organization to make a difference. So I think it's fundamental. And if that's not in place, I don't think great businesses can sustain. I think the future of leadership is actually kindness. We need more kindness. We need more empathy. And not in a weak sense. Right. Because empathy can be used in. You can take advantage of people who have a real sense of empathy. That's not what I mean by that. It's like if people are kind, if you care for one another and you pursue a mission together, it's like that's how you can make the greatest impact.
- [78:58]
A
So you had a $3.5 billion exit to Unilever. So walk me through, walk me through the exit. Even some of the emotion attached to the exit. Because like you mentioned in the, in the consumer goods space, that's a, that's an enormous exit. And this is something that you, at the time, you had been building for how long before the exit?
- [79:22]
B
About 10 years.
- [79:23]
A
10 years?
- [79:23]
B
Yeah, yeah, almost. Almost hit the 10 year mark.
- [79:26]
A
So, so tell me, tell me. I mean, you, you brought an investment, so at some point there had to be some sort of return and some sort of exit which you definitely delivered. But how did you know that this was the right time? How did you know that Unilever was the right strategic buyer? What, what, what were the events that led up to this?
- [79:47]
B
So the company started to grow quite well. We were always in hypergrowth mode because we just wanted to impact as many as people as possible. And then the focus really became all about retention and lifetime value. So as a lot of DTC companies really try to pursue, just client acquisition. Right. At the lowest cost. Yes, we did that to grow growth, but we really put a lot of emphasis on retention and setting people up for success. That became a massive initiative within the organization. We build an entire team around retention reduction of churn. We increase our customer experience team significantly. Right. To really make sure that we support people who go through this emotional hair loss experience. How do we set them up for success and how do we do everything in our power to support them and help them. And that really turned the entire organization extremely profitable. So this goes back to what we just discussed. By caring for your people, you're able to make a real, real difference also from a financial standpoint. And that's the time when we decided to explore an acquisition because the company started to become rather large already. Yes, we had to create a liquidity event for our, for our investors, etc. But we also recognize, because it's all about timing, those type of situations, it's like luck is also very important. I felt that we had to explore this because we were becoming already quite large. The company was already doing hundreds of millions in revenue. And as a result of that, the number of acquisition partners that are going to be able to move are being decreased. So there's a little bit of a sweet spot in the consumer space that we were aware of, but we also had great momentum. I always believed that we. Well, we never built a company in order to sell it. That was rule number one. We needed to build a healthy company. That was the ultimate focus. Right. But then we also recognized that in order to drive further impact on a global level, partnering up with the right partner was important. And then of course, timing is essential there. So we started to explore the M and a process in 2021. And that was about a year's time. It took about a year. It included dating. Right? It's a dating process because you want to find the right partners. And I didn't necessarily need to sell all my equity within the company. So I wanted to make sure that we attracted the right partners who really believed in the mission and were able to support us along the way. The conditions started to change during that process because geopolitically, things altered with the war in Ukraine and Russia. So a lot of those large conglomerates, their appetite to buy significant company and take some risk around that, that appetite was decreased. So our options were not that great at the end. But through tough negotiation and a lot of conversations, we did find Unilever as the ultimate partner. And I'm very happy that we chose them because they were just as we just talked a lot about. They were great people. They're people who cared and people that I could rely on. So that happened in 22. So the company got acquired for, yeah, way above a billion dollars, which was a great success, not just for ourselves, but really for the industry. But what was important for me is like, okay, how do we continue to grow the company and make sure that we also prove to the world that after such acquisition, the company can Sustain itself. Right. A lot of those acquisitions, typically because of disruption, because of cultural changes, because of leadership changes, they then continue to do what's right and ultimately it becomes a race to the bottom. So how do we make sure that that doesn't happen in this case? So we doubled down on culture, a great incentive structure for our people. And we're very happy and grateful that we're able together again to grow the company almost three times post acquisition. And that's what led to the $3.5 billion value exits which happened the beginning of this year. And again, that's the reason for that. I still believe, even reflecting. It's that ultimate focus on adding value to customers and optimizing the experience, not necessarily spreading yourself too thin because it's very easy to get distracted with distribution and more products and more categories. How do we really stay very focused? You can be known for everything, right? You, you want to build a brand around the technology or around a solution that is impactful and focus is absolutely necessary for that approach. And that's what we did.
- [85:29]
A
No, it's an incredible story and I've actually had a conversation with. I know that now you're involved in X Prize, but the reason why I know about Singularity University is because I've interviewed Salim Ismael, who I think either. Or is he.
- [85:48]
B
Yeah, he's a part of the board.
- [85:50]
A
He's part of the board. And the whole conversation that we had was about how Singularity you and some of his work is focused on helping companies do proper acquisitions and making sure that the company that acquires the smaller startup or whatever. You weren't really small startup at the time, but still, I guess compared to Unilever you were small. But to make sure that the acquiring company doesn't treat the acquiring as like this disease and there's like this. And they have to find a way so that once you acquire the smaller startup, the parent company doesn't have this autoimmune reaction to it, this, this cultural autoimmune reaction and destroy it basically which happens in a lot of cases. And he mentioned a few companies that have sort of perfected the art of acquisition which he named like Google and Apple. Obviously these are the. And they. And they do a very good job. I guess Unilever has a great way of doing it as well. But also it's a testament to how strong you made the company culture that didn't just get absorbed and cannibalized and parceled off within Unilever. It was so successful post acquisition that it had a 3.5 billion after just a few short years. And I. I just want to highlight. I'm just telling that story because I don't think people understand how rare it is for a company to thrive after an acquisition. I think it's actually, I don't have any data to support this, but I'm sure that if you. Maybe you have an idea, but I actually think it's the opposite. I think it's less likely for a company to thrive after acquisition than. Than to. Than for it to. To do what. What Neutrophil did.
- [87:33]
B
Yeah, it was a massive concern. Thank you. It was a massive concern to me. It's like, what's going to happen not just for the products that we serve to our people and the skill that we have achieved, but again, the people who have manifested all of this and the people that are working on this on a daily basis. Like, we need to do everything in our power to protect them and elevate them. And when the company continues to succeed, everyone has to be elevated. Right? It's a collective that ultimately leads to success. It's not just one individual or a group of individuals. It's everyone. Right. So how do we set that up? And, yeah, we put in an interesting incentive structure in place to facilitate that, and that's something that we are quite proud of. But, yeah, it happens all the time. Right. It's like they're just adding another company to their P and L and they don't care about the nuances. Cultures are degraded. Right. And yeah, it's how ultimately companies become less relevant. Right. And the hope is for those great companies that care is to exist for decades to come.
- [88:44]
A
So now, I mean, you're not retired, you're still working. Are you content? Are you happy? Are you still like, where what is, what is. What is your main goal right now? Are you happy with what you've accomplished? Are you still thinking that there's a lot that's unaccomplished that you want to take on? Like when you wake up in the morning, what drives you, what excites you after a $3.5 billion exit?
- [89:12]
B
Yes, I am very happy and I'm very grateful. And that comes with responsibility. Right. And I focus a lot on my health because that's fundamental. And I also focus a lot on my family, because that's also absolutely key. You're meeting a lot of people, right, who have great companies or have achieved an enormous amount of wealth, but then when you look at their family dynamics are often not ultimate, right? So I really want to make sure I'm paying enough attention there, because how do you expect to continue to add value to the world if you don't have your own ducks in a row right in your own small, beautiful community, family, household? So that's really my focus at the moment. So once. And as that's being further optimized, I can really focus on impact. And we talked a little bit about those areas of focus, but it's mental health, it's physical health, it's human thriving. How do we make sure that we continue to be in a good place? How do we focus on disease prevention, early detection, and how do we ensure that with all this evolving technology and the pace that all of this is being introduced and the wealth that's only created in one area and not in others, how do we make sure that all of that stays as much as possible and balanced? So I'm trying to join exciting boards of organizations who do great things. I'm also supporting a lot of nonprofits that are really trying to make a difference. One of them, which is quite exciting, but it's called Mama. It's Mothers Against Media Addiction. Oh, very good for their children. And they're based in New York, and they're very much involved in policy making. And. And it's those grassroots organizations that can move the needle. And these changes can, I think, make a massive difference. And they already have been responsible for some great success. So ranging from that to very exciting projects in the Bronx for underserved youth, focusing on a great community for children to come together, because a lot of those neighborhoods, some of them are not doing great, to say the least. So what do you introduce for those children to actually come together and give them a sense of hope for the future? That's something I'm extremely excited about because that's taking off and then other larger issues, such as the immune system. Not to get too scientific, but it just amazes me that we don't understand too much about our immune system, just immunity in general and how fundamental that is to our existence and disease prevention. So that's an amazing organization. It's called hip, the Human Immuno Project. It's big thinking, and it's like the genome project. And I think decoding the immune system can get us really, really far. So being involved in those nonprofits are great. And then I'm using a lot of the investments and the returns that are making in for profit companies, such as some of the larger AI companies, the tech companies that are next gen. How do you Redistribute those profits to fuel nonprofits. That's a model that I'm actively thinking about, because if you're able to do that in a sustainable way, you can really make massive improvements at scale. So, overall, very grateful. And I want to make sure that I continue to focus on what feels right for the world.
- [93:25]
A
You work on a lot of very interesting stuff. Is there a place where you speak about, I mean, drop your preferred socials or where people can go to sort of connect with you? But do you speak about some of the projects that you work on and people can follow along? Because if somebody's listening to this, they would probably want to learn a little bit more about some of these companies that you work with. Just because I think that a lot of people can get behind, again, your value system and the way you want to help the world and the companies and the technology and the entrepreneurs that are doing it. And I don't know if there's a spot where you talk about this stuff regularly, but if there is, or if there's even a spot where you talk about it infrequently, I'm sure people would want to pay attention and follow along.
- [94:13]
B
Yeah, certainly we can't do this alone, so we need a lot of help. Yeah, people can find me on Giorgos G I O R G O S IO. That's the website where I'm listing on the great things the fundes call the great things. It's basically an ecosystem where a lot of my investments are there, but also nonprofits that I'm supporting. People can connect with me there, and if they have any interest, we can hopefully collaborate. And then, of course, just the typical social media handles. Giorgio's Zettis. But, yeah, I'm excited to collaborate with people who want to make a difference, and I remain extremely optimistic. I know we talked about some deep topics, but I think the future is extremely bright. We just have to come together and align and focus on what's right. So, super excited and thank you for the difference that you're making.
- [95:12]
A
Thank you. Well, you're. You're contributing to it. This podcast wouldn't be much without. Without. Without the people that are actually changing the world sharing their stories on it. So thank you. Last question I always like to ask. You've given over a lot of different ideas and advice and wisdom, but just to close it out, say you could only have one piece of advice, that there's two frames. You can pick the frame. It can either be advice that you'd want to pass on to your children or advice that you'd want to pass on, or advice you'd tell your 20 year old self. But ultimately the most important sort of words of wisdom, what would that be and why?
- [95:48]
B
Yeah, what I would love to pass down to my kids is the importance of self discovery, really, and understanding who you are and making sure that once you figure that out, somehow you focus on helping others, helping people. I think helping people at scale leads to so much fulfillment and meaning and purpose in the world. And even if I would advise my younger self, I would say exactly that. Like to focus on what I'm truly passionate about and to make sure that I do everything in my power not to just help myself, but to people around me. And that doesn't have to be at a massive scale, by the way. It's like I admire people who are just helping a few people around them, right? Or even someone who's just kind to a stranger. It's like there's massive impact there that is hard to measure. But ultimately helping other people while feeling good about what you do is I think, what my life is about. And I try to inspire others to think in a similar way because that's how you upgrade the world.