Everyone's Chasing AI But This Matters The Most | Ron Gutman, Intrivo

Start

00:00The most uh profound experience that I had in my career uh in healthcare and one that I consider my most important accomplishment was uh in in my previous venture to to get more than 25,000 notes from people saying thank you for saving my life.

00:14I mean the the really like amazing it was profound. I mean like it's you know from somebody who's uh who had dreams as a child as a you know a computer geek to to build things that that have some impact to to really get you know tens of thousands of notes for people saying thank you for saving my life is something that uh you know it's bringing me to tears right now just to talk about this right I mean it's it's it's really like I getting I'm getting goosebumps and and I think that like the the it's it's just it just it really is special always do what you love.

00:50Always do what you love, right? Like, start by doing what you love. I mean, a lot of people choose to do things because they're cool, uh, because they're going to make a lot of money, uh, because it's fashionable, uh, because somebody told them to do that, because other people are doing that, right?

00:59Like a lot of reasons. Just don't like go into where your heart is, right? Like do things that you love. Why? Because when you do thing that you love, it doesn't feel like work and you're going to become a lot more successful and happier most importantly.

01:13It's not just about success. You want to be happy in your life. So follow your real passion and then everything else will follow like the the money, the fame, the whatever you want to do when you do things you love, they will come. [Music]

Intro

01:37Okay. Nice to meet you. Uh my name is Ron Goodman. and uh co-founder and CEO of uh Intrivo. We really like at the beginning of Invo the the vision was to to bring health and care to you where you are. Now when the pandemic started we tried to see where we can apply this to actually help resolve the pandemic and then we start solving the challenge of how do we bring efficient testing to use.

01:54So initially testing if you remember was a terrible user experience. We created this technology platform that enable us to manage the entire supply chain. And I really would like to be part of creating a solution like that that will change the way we manage our health and well-being in ways that were just not possible before.

02:14And I think AI has a a great opportunity to be the foundation for that. And I'm looking forward to the next chapter of uh you know how humanity managing not only health and well-being but happiness as well because I want more people to smile a lot more often.

02:36[Music]

How can we fix the world?

02:41The whole idea of helping other people uh came from home. My mom uh raised me with the the notion of tikun lam which is an ancient uh part of Jewish philosophy and tikunol lam means in English very simply fixing the world. What does fixing the world mean?

02:59My mom used to explain that fixing the world is something that is important for me to engage in just because the world needs fixing. It doesn't need to give me anything. It doesn't need to have a reason for it. But because things are not the way they should be and I have the ability to make a positive influence with them, I should do it.

03:15And think about it. If everybody thought this way and pay it forward without even needing to get anything, our world will look such a better place. Every single day I do things that help other people improve their lives, improve their health and well-being.

03:31Some of these uh really important lessons that I've learned. Uh first and foremost was traveling, traveling around the world. So I I I love travel. I love meeting people all over the world. I made it a point to meet people where they are and go and stay where they stay, eat where they eat, travel how they travel, volunteer as much as I could.

03:48And when I did that, I learned a lot from them and that helped shape me as an entrepreneur because when you build solutions that are global solution, you need to understand the world. And understanding the world is not enough to just do internet research.

04:02I believe you need to meet the people and need to see them where they are. Understand all people are people and and all humans are very much similar but they have nuances and if you understand these nuances and you understand different approach approaches to solving problems it creates for you a toolkit that is a lot richer when you tackle some of these challenges to not just look at it the way all of us look at a certain thing but find different angles that may be more applicable for particular challenges than the tools that you have in your regular toolkit.

04:36So one uh was definitely travel and and and I recommend uh people to do that and particularly meet a lot of people doing that

Silicon Valley community before TEDx

04:50[Music] being in the valley in a time that was you know post the the dot crash actually when most people left here and just a handful of people uh remained that were very very passionate about building businesses. And and some of these people that were very very early in their career back then are some of the most successful entrepreneurs of our time today.

05:09But the people who really stayed here stayed because they were passionate about building things that actually make a difference and change the world. and having long conversations with them, you know, early early in their career about how they think about building companies, how they think about building teams uh very early uh in the TED community for example uh the the TED conference before there was even TED X before there were like a million conferences before there was even a website I used to go to to

05:41Mterrey it was like we used to go a bunch of people from Silicon Valley uh to to Monterey every year and and it was a small handful of people that got It was all the people that started the most successful companies that you know in the world right now.

05:48It was back then. And we, you know, we would go and hear some talks and then at night we'd spend until 2, three or 4:00 in the morning just hanging out, chatting, talking about our challenges, you know, figuring out what to do. And I think that was amazingly amazingly important in shaping how all of us thought about doing certain things.

06:11Just interacting with one another, working with some of them that were more accomplished and already had, you know, some success. Some of them it was their first time of doing this but it doesn't matter. The the sharing was very important. So we did that at TED.

06:19We did it in the early days of South by Southwest when it was mostly a music festival that was a tiny little interactive section to it. There was a couple hundred people or whatever the number was back then. And the same thing we used to go there every year and and just hang out with each other and and chat about it.

06:46[Music] It's really really great to be here and I I really want to say before I start talking about that Silicon Valley I really want to say that this is this is not a community this is a movement I mean seriously I want to give a huge hand to Lara and Salomi like from everyone like it's it's just it's unbelievable it's so powerful We're talking about collaboration.

07:08We're talking about what we how can we leverage the learning that everyone here has achieved by putting together these amazing events in universities, in cities and everything and exchange this information, share it together and talking with Lara about trying to create a platform that will make it very easy to disseminate this information on an ongoing basis.

07:32You know, you all put together programs, you all put together some software or something that helped you make a better event. And I I felt putting together TEDx Silicon Valley that if we could tap into some of that or if we can share what we've created with everyone else, it would be amazingly powerful.

07:48So this is something that uh I'm very excited to help doing going forward. Uh and and it's really really uh important to get together in these gatherings, right, that are smaller gatherings with people who are experiencing the same thing that you're experiencing and share authentically what you're going through in these long midnight, you know, conversations, but also absorb a lot of uh how they're solving thing and get inspired by that.

08:11So that was really awesome.

People Are Everything

08:19Entrepreneurship is all about the people. It's all about you are going to be only as successful as the people around you. And it's very important to choose the people that you don't only think they're the best in doing what they need to do.

08:35And that's very important as a foundation. Choose people who have the right skill and right kind of level of experience to do what they need to do. but also make sure that they have the kind of energy right and the stamina and the kind of resilience that is required in order to solve entrepreneurial challenges.

08:54Sometimes uh you know I I chose people who who actually were great and smart and capable and had great resumes but you know they did not have this kind of dynamic and or this kind of character that would take them through a lot of ups and downs which entrepreneurship is has inevitable huge amount of these things.

09:09So think about how to bring people, communicate to them. Don't overcommunicate to them something that like, oh yes, we're going to everything is going to be great. We're going to build a huge company. We're going to change the world. That's great.

09:17Get them inspired, but also be truthful to them. Hey, this journey is going to have ups and downs. There will be some tough days. You need to think about that. And here's what's coming up next. Make sure that they are the right people. Also, what's important is that they gel with each other really well.

09:33Choose the right kind of characters that get along with each other well, that play well in a team, right? Unless they're a personal contributor that really wants to needs to do one very particular thing and they're excellent at it and doesn't require collaboration.

09:50That's rare, but that's sometimes important in things that you're building. The majority of people work with each other and teamwork does make the dream work, right? So you need to figure out how to choose people that get not only are great people and are social, but they get along with each other really really well, right?

10:06And and so that's that's a very very important thing. And eventually people that really resonate with the mission. I learned in my life that it's important to have missionaries and not mercenaries. Right? There's some people who are really good in what they're doing, but they're just there for the paycheck and they do what they need to do and they're done.

10:20Right? I think the best way to identify if somebody truly uh buys into a mission is to have a deep conversation with them that is situational. Don't just ask them to talk in generalities about uh the mission itself. Like it's everybody can say, "Oh yeah, yeah, I really want to help hundreds of millions or billions of people live a healthier life."

10:44I mean that's a very easy sentence to practice at home in a job interview and and then you know site it back. The best way to tackle this is to ask them how they practiced this uh this kind of mission, this kind of uh world, this kind of living, this kind of philosophy in their own life in the past, right?

11:00So, so to give you examples, right, of why they actually resonate with that mission or how they resonate with that mission, but things that they did, not just things that they're thinking about, right? Right? And even if it's small things, you know, some people want to help a billion people and it's, you know, it's it's daunting for them to even think about it because they're early in their career.

11:28So what how do you know because they're early in their career? But people who really care about these things do things in their lives that actually show that they are very very interested in the mission. So look for the doers, not just the thinkers.

What challenges are you facing now?

11:49So every everything that's worth doing is challenging in my mind, right? I think that there is a point in life in which you just embrace challenge, right? And and one thing that I learned over the years and I practice right now is, you know, I don't get too worked up when things are uh challenging and I don't get too excited when things are great, right?

12:07I try to just accept the fact that there's beauty in what we define as good and pleasurable and nice and and and you know fulfilling but there's also beauty in things that are challenging actually sometime make people sad. I know that sounds a little bit controversial but when you understand that the life is the circular approach and the whole approach of everything that's happening to us good and bad and and when you stop judging them when you start stop trying to just go to only figure out how to make things good and try to avoid the bad because the bad

12:48what we consider as bad or less favorable will happen. Not strive to make it happen but accept it. they say, you know, it's going to be there. It's fine. And it's it's it's something that is part of life and we celebrate it. We celebrate the good.

12:56We celebrate the not so good. It makes us stronger. And I think that the advice that I give everybody is to try to get to that place at least once a day. And then once you figure out where it is to start applying it here and there so you can go back to this clean slate cuz you're going to make better decisions, you're going to feel better with yourself and you're going to have a better, happier life.