Out of the Crisis

Eren Bali of Carbon Health on public health, Covid vaccinations, and working as a unified society to problem solve May 24, 2021

Eren Bali arrived in Silicon Valley from Turkey in 2010 hoping to relaunch Udemy, his online education company. He spent a few years working at the tech startup Speed Date before following through with his original plan, after which Udemy went on to be enormously successful. When his mother became ill and Eren spent some months accompanying her to doctors in order to get the right diagnosis and treatment, he had a realization that led him to his true mission.

Now, as CEO and founder of Carbon Health, Eren is leading one of the country's fastest growing healthcare startups. It's mission is to provide really high quality healthcare to the entire population, with a special focus on underserved demographics. A provider of low-cost health clinics across the country, Carbon Health was also on the frontlines when the COVID pandemic hit--and even understood what was coming long before most people in the U.S. did. They pivoted to monitoring patients for COVID, then testing. Ultimately, the company partnered with the City of Los Angeles, and as Eren recalls, "seven days after the original handshake and launch into a scheduling website, we helped launch Dodger stadium, which was the single largest mass vaccination site in the country." From there, Carbon Health fully reinvented themselves as a full-stack public health company.

Brian Armstrong of Coinbase on cryptocurrency, being mission-oriented, and institution building May 03, 2021

A few weeks ago, Coinbase , which facilitates buying, storing and purchasing cryptocurrency and also operates a cryptocurrency exchange, went public. It was one of the year's most successful IPOs so far, and has been heralded as a "landmark moment" for cryptocurrency's entrance into mainstream investing.

Just before the IPO, I had a far-reaching conversation with co-founder and CEO Brian Armstrong as he approached this major milestone for the company he co-founded back in 2012. We talked about a wide variety of topics, including what the decline in public trust of institutions means for companies, how to codify company culture and intentions, remote work, the concept of the ICO--initial coin offering--and his side company, ResearchHub, which he founded to counter his belief that "there's a crisis happening in scientific research, that is just slowing down human progress."

Noah Smith and Brad DeLong: the cost of the crisis Aug 31, 2020

We are now seeing how damaging our weak response to the pandemic was in the US. Both on human lives and on the economy. But, how much would it actually have cost, if we had completely shuttered the economy for six weeks and paid everyone to stay at home? Would it be cheaper and more effective than the patchwork responses we are seeing now?

These questions are not easy to answer, so I spoke to two economic experts Brad DeLong and Noah Smith. Brad and Noah don't agree on much, or really anything. However, they came together on one idea. We missed and are still missing a massive opportunity to save lives and save the economy.

Zeynep Tufekci (part two): How we get out of this mess and predictions for the future Aug 24, 2020

After Part One, you should have a sense of Zeynep. If you haven't listened, it is worth going back and hearing her impressive background and history.

In part two, we changed our focus and started talking about the pandemic. We discussed her early work advocating for common sense policies, how we got our response so wrong, and what we can do now to begin the recovery. Given her history of being right, we should all pay attention to what she has to say.

Zeynep Tufekci (part one): from Turkey to Technosociology Aug 17, 2020

Zeynep Tufekci may be the most important account on Twitter. The reason being she has a habit of being early on the defining trends shaping our world. The pandemic was no different. Zeynep was sounding the alarm early in 2020, calling for common sense policies advocated by public health officials. It's safe to say, we would have been better off if we had listened to her.

Zeynep's life is unique, and I didn't want to cut the fascinating stories she told me. So, I split this conversation into two parts. In this first part, Zeynep discusses growing up in Turkey, learning to code, and tricking IBM into hiring her.

Ron Klain: The Ebola Czar on COVID Aug 10, 2020

Ron Klain may know more about government pandemic response than anyone in the US. This is because in 2014 Ron lead the response to the Ebola epidemic, resulting in only 18 infections and 2 deaths. Ron was talking about a need to response to COVID as early as January of this year, when he authored an op-ed in the Atlantic saying we had moved beyond the "if" COVID comes to the US to the "how bad will it be" phase.

Ron and I spoke about his experience as the Ebola Czar, how we should have responded to this pandemic, and how Ron thinks we can end the crisis.

Tomas Pueyo: The Hammer and the Dance Jul 27, 2020

In these conversation, I have spoken with many every day people who managed to have a large impact in this crisis. Tomas Pueyo is, perhaps, the best example of this.

Tomas began to notice what was going on with COVID early in 2020. He realized that there was no comprehensive guide on what governments needed to do to flatten the curve. So, Tomas set out and wrote "The Hammer and the Dance" After an initial share on Facebook, this article eventually reached over 60 million people. Tomas and I spoke about how he got the data for the article, the impact it had on government responses and what it means for governments to use the hammer and the dance.

Bitwise: Retraining and reemploying American workers Jul 20, 2020

There are two types of unemployment we are seeing right now. Unemployed caused by pandemic, and unemployment caused by the lockdown caused by the pandemic. This is a serious issue and will have long lasting impacts on our country if we don't act now.

Jake Soberal and Irma Olguin were already tackling the issue of unemployment, and job training, well before the pandemic. Bitwise, the company they founded, specialized in providing technical training to people in what they called "underdog" cities. So, when the saw the rampant unemployment, they sprung into action. I spoke to Jake and Irma about Bitwise, the organization they founded in response to the pandemic Onward US, and what more needs to be done to fight unemployment.

Revolution Foods: Rethinking the Food Supply Chain Jul 13, 2020

Kristin Groos Richmond and Kirsten Saenz Tobey had no idea that they were building a nationwide phenomenon when in 2006, they founded Revolution Foods. Their mission was simply to provide kid-inspired, chef-crafted food to school aged children. Fast forward to 2020, they were serving over 2 million meals per week to kids across the country.

When COVID hit and they saw their revenue decline, they made the choice to get into the fight. Kirsten and Kristin used their food supply chain to get meals to the most vulnerable among us at nursing homes and homeless shelters. While there is so much more work to do, Revolution Foods is providing crucial support at a time of need. We should all follow their example.

Sal Khan: The Classroom of the Future Jul 06, 2020

Sal Khan may be the most famous educator in the world. His organization, Khan Academy, was helping millions of students around the world supplement their learning. However, since the lockdown, Khan Academy has taken on a new role. Instead of just augmenting education, Khan Academy has become a provider. They are now partnering with school districts across the world to provide education to hundreds of millions of students.

I spoke with Sal to discuss how Khan Academy reacted in the early days, how they are operating now, and if a fully remote education system could work.

Max Henderson: CovidActNow, a Necessary Counterweight Jun 29, 2020

Remember how fast shelter-in-place went from seeming impossible to becoming a reality? Remember how policy makers all of a sudden appeared to understand what was at stake and take action? How did this happen?

Max Henderson was on a sabbatical from his full time role at Google, when he saw the first few COVID cases in the US. At that moment, he realized that we were not acting quickly enough. This led Max to found CovidActNow.org, which started out as a simple calculator to understand how many deaths could result from every day of delay. Pairing this with a large public pressure campaign, Max helped push government leaders to respond to this crisis. I spoke with Max to talk about the early days of CovidActNow, how he came up with his model and what he is focusing on going forward.

Dr. Robert Schooley: Why weren't we ready? Jun 25, 2020

Why weren't we ready? There are so many conflicting theories surrounding this idea that it seems hard to answer. But it is not a black box, there is a science to this. In fact, we have been through outbreaks so many times that our lacking response is shocking. To learn more about the history of infectious disease and why we weren't ready I decided to talk to an expert.

Dr. Robert Schooley is one of a handful of true infectious disease experts. He has seen numerous outbreaks and spent his entire career in research and treatment of infectious disease. Dr. Schooley and I spoke about the historic lack of resources for the study infectious disease, where we went wrong in this pandemic, and what the path to "normalization" must look like to avoid a relapse.

SF New Deal: A model for the future Jun 22, 2020

Lenore Estrada, like many of us, was set up for a good year heading into 2020. She had just broken ground on a new site for her bakery, Three Babes Bakeshop, and was scaling up her operations. Then, everything had to be put on hold. At this moment, Lenore decided to use the tools of entrepreneurship and her experience in the food industry to make a difference.

Lenore launched SF New Deal with the goal of providing income for workers and meals for those who have been hurt by COVID-19. Now, SF New Deal has disbursed over $3 million to small businesses and delivered over 300K meals to people in need. Lenore and I spoke about how she started SF New Deal, the broader implications this crisis is having on under-resourced communities, and how we can use her experience as a model for others who want to join the fight.

Robert Rhinehart: Building the tools for research Jun 18, 2020

Robert Rhinehart is most known for Soylent, a company and product he founded in the search for nutrition supported by science. But, Robert has always been interested in technical underpinnings of biology.

So, after reading a paper about the effect of COVID on the brainstem, Robert jumped into action. He launched the Corona Initiative, a public benefit corporation dedicated to building the tools for research. These tools, such as a psuedovirus, are required for researchers to run experiments and test treatments. In this conversation Robert and I discussed why basic research is underfunded, what we need to accelerate COVID research and the implications this pandemic could have on biotechnology companies going forward.

Some of the resources we discussed are:

marsbio.vc

corona-initiative.com

https://cdn.elifesciences.org/articles/57309/elife-57309-v3.pdf

Alpha Lee: An Open Source COVID Moonshot Jun 15, 2020

After seeing the impact of the SARS pandemic as a child in Hong Kong, Alpha Lee dedicated his life to science. Studying mathematics and biology at some of the most prestigious universities in the world, Alpha has now turned his attention to an area ripe for disruption, preclinical drug discovery.

Alpha had just arrived in the bay area for the startup program Y Combinator when the lockdowns for COVID starting. Having been through this before, Alpha knew what he needed to do. Alpha decided to use the technology he had been developing to find promising compounds to fight coronavirus and then open source it. Alpha received thousands of submissions and now the most promising of those are being developed in a lab in the UK. Alpha's message throughout all of this? Let's not waste the opportunity, this time.

Resources we discussed:

https://postera.ai/covid

https://www.alpha-lee.com/

https://www.gofundme.com/f/covidmoonshot

https://covid19-hpc-consortium.org/projects/5e8be82df1a9290078584cf4

OOTC Special: Roy Bahat: a reflection on Tech's Response to COVID-19 Jun 15, 2020

This year, I sat down with Roy Bahat at CogX, a large global technology conference, that this year was completely virtual.

Roy and I used this time to reflect on everything that has happened since the start of the pandemic. What many don't know is that a catalyst for the technology industry's response to the crisis in the early days was a WhatsApp group that Roy and I were a part of. We shared what it was like in those early days, how we got involved and what we need to do now to make sure we build a better world on the other side.

This is the first ever live tapping of Out of the Crisis. It was recorded on June 9th, 2020.

Curative: Testing Thousands for COVID-19 Jun 12, 2020

Fred Turner is a scientist and biotech CEO who, like so many during this crisis, felt an obligation to act when the pandemic hit. In a matter of days and with the help of his friend Celine Halioua, Fred pivoted his startup, found a research lab, and relocated his entire operation from San Francisco to Los Angeles. Now, Fred and his team at Curative are testing thousands for COVID-19. Fred and I discussed his pivot, how he managed to get up and running within days, what those first tests were like, and what more we need to do to get widespread testing adopted in this country.

Jeremy Howard: The Data Behind Masks4All Jun 08, 2020

Jeremy Howard is not a lobbyist, politician or a doctor. He is a data scientist. And yet, he is one of the main reasons that governments across the US are telling citizens to wear masks outside. To understand how this came to be, I spoke to Jeremy about his background, the data supporting masks, other country's experiences with masks, and the various trends the data is showing.

Hannu Rajaniemi: Creating a Vaccine Manhattan Project May 28, 2020

Hannu Rajaniemi is most know for his work as a science fiction author. However, recently, he has taken his talent for seeing the bigger picture and turned it towards finding a solution to the pandemic.

In the early days of the crisis, Hannu rapidly pivoted his cancer vaccine startup Helix Nano to focus on developing an mRNA vaccine for COVID-19. But he has as not stopped there. Hannu has also put together a proposal for a Vaccine Manhattan Project, calling for the coordination of public, private and nonprofit sectors to create a vaccine for COVID-19 in a matter of months. This project is ambitious, but it may be the best shot at mitigating the damage the virus could have on our society.

In this episode Hannu and I talk about his background, the biological mechanisms at work when a virus attacks our cells, the different types of vaccines, and the need for a Vaccine Manhattan Project.

Frontline Foods: fueling the fight against COVID-19 May 25, 2020

Sydney, Frank, and Ryan have been friends for a long time. So when the crisis hit and Sydney was thrown into the frontlines as a pediatric nurse, Ryan and Frank wanted to help.

What started out as a pizza party for Sydney's team, has now turned into one of the largest organizations coordinating meals for frontline workers across the US. I asked the three founders of Frontline Foods to share how they got started, the impact they have had so far, and where they want to take the organization from here.

Hosted on Breaker.

Brian Chesky (part two): Exponential Growth May 21, 2020

In part one, Brian and I spoke about the effect the pandemic has had on Brian personally and the changes he has made to both his personal philosophy and his business. But then, the conversation shifted to the future.

In part two, Brian shares his thoughts on the importance of design, why there is no better time than now to start a company, the power of exponential growth, the importance of thinking and acting long-term, and why it is so important to build businesses on love and trust.

In this episode we discuss:

The second half of the chessboard:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wheat_and_chessboard_problem

Grand Tours:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Tour

Paul Grahm Be Good:

http://paulgraham.com/good.html

Brian Chesky (part one): The Hero's Journey May 19, 2020

I have been lucky to call Brian Chesky a friend for a long time now. So, when the crisis hit, I knew how hard it was going to be for him and Airbnb. He and the Airbnb team have been working furiously to make sure what they have built will not only weather this storm, but be defined by it.

This is one of Brian's first public conversations since the pandemic hit. It is also the first time Brian publicly discusses the layoffs and why they took the approach they did. We also discussed Brian's approach to crisis leadership and the importance of love and compassion. There was a lot to cover, so I decided to release this in two parts.

Links and resources we discussed:

Andy Grove: https://venturebeat.com/2020/04/23/intel-ceo-bad-companies-are-destroyed-by-crises-great-companies-are-improved-by-them/

RISD Industrial Design Program: https://www.risd.edu/academics/industrial-design/

Extenuating circumstance policy: https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/2701/extenuating-circumstances-policy-and-the-coronavirus-covid19

Airbnb grant to Hosts: https://techcrunch.com/2020/03/30/airbnb-commits-250-million-to-helping-hosts-cover-cancellations-due-to-covid-19/

Brian's note about layoffs: https://news.airbnb.com/a-message-from-co-founder-and-ceo-brian-chesky/

Joseph Campbell's The Hero of A Thousand Faces: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1577315936/?tag=CSSF-20

Frontline Stays program: https://news.airbnb.com/frontline-stays-global-program-update/

Hosted on Breaker.

HelpwithCovid.com May 11, 2020

HelpwithCovid.com (HWC) has now matched thousands of volunteers with projects focused on providing COIVD relief. I personally have placed hundreds of volunteers on projects through the site. The projects range from building PPE, to providing food to frontline workers to initiatives as simple as sending supportive messages to families affected by COVID. Right now, HWC is a major hub for any civilians who want to get into the fight.

To help share the story of how HWC came into being, I decided to record a conversation with the founder Radu Spineau. I have worked with Radu closely over the last few months, and I am excited to help share his story.

The links we discussed are:

Hosted on Breaker.

ANA Therapeutics: Niclosamide May 04, 2020

Like almost all scientists, biologists and pharmaceutical researchers, Akash, Nadja and Andrew were not planning to work on COVID-19 treatments a few months ago.

They had just taken a big step with the FDA for their contraceptive treatment and were going full steam ahead in drug development. The company they founded, YourChoice Therapeutics, was poised for a big year. Then, the crisis hit. They realized their treatment could have an impact on COVID. The following weeks saw them pivoting their entire operation to try to help.

In this episode we discuss the science behind their treatment, the story of how they pivoted their company and the challenges they are facing.

Hosted on Breaker.

Carl Liebert: Radical Optimism Apr 27, 2020

Carl Liebert has been in leadership positions during multiple crises. He oversaw Circuit City stores in New York during 9/11, led Home Depot in New Orleans when Katrina hit, and took over a major role at 24 Hour Fitness during the 2008 recession. Prior to all this business experience, Carl was an officer in the Navy.

These experiences and hardships would make some into cautious leaders with warnings about the dangers of a crisis. However, when I talked to Carl, I was surprised to hear his radical optimism. Carl and I discussed the lessons he learned in his various roles, advice for other leaders during this time, and the importance of staying positive, no matter what.

Hosted on Breaker.

Jen Pahlka and Raylene Yung: Creating the US Digital Response Apr 21, 2020

A few months ago, Jen Pahlka was planning on stepping back from running organizations and working on a book. Then the pandemic struck. Along with Raylene Yung, Jen has now put together the US Digital Response, an organization dedicated to connecting governments with the tech resources they need to address the current crisis. I spoke to Jen and Raylene about USDR, the trends they were seeing and how they thought we could get out of this crisis.

Hosted on Breaker.

Mark Cuban: The Role of Business in a Crisis Apr 06, 2020

There are very few people who don’t know about Mark Cuban and all he has accomplished. What many people don’t know is how instrumental he is in relief efforts for the COVID-19 Crisis. Mark and I are working on a few different initiatives together so I asked him to take some time to discuss his view on where we are in the crisis, how we get out of the crisis, and what the world will look like when we do.

For those who want to get involved in the initiatives we discussed please visit:

And for those interested in learning more about the Dunning-Kruger effect you can check that out here.

Hosted on Breaker.

Sam Altman: Accelerating Biotech’s Metabolism Mar 30, 2020

Sam is one of the most prolific company builders in Silicon Valley. He’s also one of the first people I saw taking action to help fight COVID-19. In this episode, Sam and I discuss the investor’s perspective and role in helping with a crisis, how he thinks we’ll move on from the pandemic, and whether the pandemic will lead to a paradigm shift in work, science, and crisis prevention.

For those who want to get involved in the initiatives we discussed please visit:

Hosted on Breaker.

Introduction Mar 30, 2020

This is a series of podcast conversations with people who are helping to lead the way out of our current crisis. Each of them is working from a different angle to bring together and support the industries and individuals using innovation, expertise, and sheer force of will to tackle the challenges we face.

Despair is not an option right now. There is a future. There's an opportunity to act decisively, to mitigate damage, and to lay the foundation for a prosperous, more equitable future. But it’s not going to happen on its own. We have to find courage, examples, and inspiration to take action. I hope you’ll find all of that in this podcast.

Hosted on Breaker.

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