134 – How the Anthem Founder Plans to Fix Chronic Disease and Reinvent U.S. Healthcare w/ Ben Lytle

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Vic: everyone. Welcome to Health Further. I have a great guest, Ben Lightle today. Ben, we're gonna talk through several topics, the fun time, kind of a chaotic time in the world today. Happy to have you on health further. Thanks for doing this. Thank you. I'm looking forward to it. So Ben, you have, uh, launched, gosh, a lo several companies SE seven I think, that are large enough to be sort of documented, right?

And then you've written three different books around sort of how humans can work with ai. Maybe give the audience that may not know your background, sort of how you got started in healthcare and, uh, maybe just a quick summary and then, we'll, I'm sure we'll talk through lots of it. 

Ben Lytle: Sure. Yeah. 'cause my career's kind of parallel, intertwine, uh, intertwined, uh, three [00:01:00] major themes.

One is, uh, information technology and, and, uh, and the other is human development and human potential, uh, which really shaped my. Uh, my, uh, my management leadership style, but also, uh, affected how I look at entrepreneurial opportunities, uh, and then healthcare. And so those things, uh, really are, are my story.

I, and I began in it at 16, uh, and, uh, and, and worked my way through undergraduate school doing, uh, working nights in it, uh, raising a family, uh, and then, uh, went on to, uh, just get promoted, uh, through a series of companies. I worked at a big finance company for five years, a bank for a couple of years, and then landed at Blue Cross, uh, of Indiana.

And, uh, and from there rose up and became CIO of, of a what, what was a quite large, uh, it organization, about 400 people. [00:02:00] And from there got promoted into, and I learned, uh, quite a bit about healthcare from that seat, but, uh, learned a lot more because I got promoted to chief operating officer. Oh. And while I was, in those years when I was working for Blue Cross, I got my law degree at night at Indiana University.

So I, yeah. 

Vic: And especially in healthcare, there's so much regulation. Oh yeah. That, that was probably really valuable as you, as you Oh, 

Ben Lytle: it, it actually, without it, I don't think I would've ever gotten the idea of how to create Anthem. So it literally was that important. Uh, and uh, and so I got the, the law degree in four years.

Uh, and thankfully have never had to go back to school at night again. 

Marcus: Yeah, 

Ben Lytle: yeah. After eight years of that, uh, and, uh, and so became Chief operating Officer was Chief operating Officer for five years, and then the CEO and at that 

Vic: point, just to be clear, that it was still Blue Cross of Indiana. Right, right.

It was Blue 

Ben Lytle: Cross of Indiana. Only doing business in [00:03:00] Indiana and, uh, and only, uh, just doing, uh, health insurance. Uh, and, uh, and my, uh, then boss, uh, and CEO recommended to the board, asked the board to, uh, actually slate me permanently two years in advance to be his successor so that he can act, he and I could start working in partnership with that transition worked great.

And I used that two years to come up with a strategic plan to both diversify the company because at that point it was being threatened by, uh, what was then called Hillary Care, but it was a health reform plan that would've eliminated health plans at least. So they threatened, uh, and at the same time, uh, to expand Blue Cross.

Outside of the state of Indiana through mergers and con with other, uh, blue Cross companies. And, uh, I thought one or the other would work. And they both worked. 

Marcus: Yeah. Yeah. 

Ben Lytle: You know, 

Vic: so, uh, yeah. Yeah. So maybe, uh, we [00:04:00] talked about it in the, in the, so the planning code, but talk about your leadership philosophy as you were taking that first CEO role.

I know you have a really, um, interesting sort of perspective on helping others grow and building their organizations. So maybe talk about how you approached that. 

Ben Lytle: Yeah, when, when I was 20 years old, I had this, you know, one of these fantastic aha, life changing moments, uh, where I took an elective course in the summer, uh, and it was called Introduction to Personality.

And this charismatic, uh, young professor, uh, said to us, there's only about 15 of us in the class. And he said, you don't have to be anything that anybody wants you to be or expects you to be. Uh, who you are is inside to be discovered and lived. That's your potential and it's your job to find it and, and live it out.

And, and it, you know, that was like, wow. I'd never had anybody explain life so succinctly and clearly. And [00:05:00] so I really and incredible 

Vic: at 20 to get that insight and almost empowerment that you can, 

Ben Lytle: yeah, you can do whatever you want. Yeah. Yeah. And so literally I changed my, my degree I, I I I, I just glommed on to everything this guy could pass on to me about human development.

And I've spent the rest of my life learning about human development and the relationship between your, your potential and wisdom, which are interrelated and how wisdom are making the best possible decisions throughout your life is really what defines you. And so, so that really has guided me and it, it has shaped my leadership and management style because I felt like my job was to help people see the potential in themselves.

They couldn't yet see. And that's a very different way. And once people know that that's what you're trying to do, it completely changes your relationship as a leader. Yeah. It's much more You're optim optimistic. 

Vic: Yeah. It's much more optimistic and uh, kind of empowering them to [00:06:00] do great things. Yeah. Yeah.

Ben Lytle: Exactly. And so we had a, we had a fantastic team of people. I mean, no, CEO builds a company, teams build companies and mm-hmm. Uh, we had this fantastic team that built two New York stock exchange companies in parallel, uh, over 11 years. And both of 'em were wildly successful. Yeah. So talk 

Vic: about that. I mean, blue Cross of Indiana, it was a large, it was a large blues plan, but a single state and a mutual business, which we can talk about, right.

Because it might be important. And then you built two publicly traded very large businesses, nationwide, businesses out of that. Right. And maybe talk through how that planning process evolved, what you saw at that point and how you, how you put it together. 

Ben Lytle: Yeah, so, so I'll talk about the, the, uh, the diversified company Accordia first, we didn't have a lot in, I mean, we had, we weren't a broke company.

We had a mm-hmm. You know, we had about 300 million in, in the equivalent of shareholders' equity, if that [00:07:00] would've been a public company. Yeah. But we didn't, you know, a lot of that had to be held in very conservative reserves, and so we didn't have a lot of things to go speculating on. And I had learned, having worked for other diversified companies, that you do best when you stay close to what you know, uh, and also if you can, you know, put a limited amount of money in and test it.

And that's what we did. So we found, uh, we, I, the, my study of the insurance industry said that. Business with the lowest capital requirements and the highest margins coming out of it would throw off the most cash was, uh, so it could grow on its own, was the insurance brokerage business. And it's still a very good business.

Marcus: Yeah. 

Ben Lytle: So I went into it, uh, we put the Anthem put $35 million into it. Uh, and uh, and we built strictly off the cash flow of the company after that and, uh, sold it, uh, and started 

Vic: in Indiana with large employers. Yeah, yeah. From, yeah, we, we actually 

Ben Lytle: bought an Erie, Pennsylvania based broker and a great management team.

[00:08:00] And, uh, and they were really our brains to build that out. And, uh, and we, and we did that over a period of about six or seven years, uh, and I, and then sold it, um, for a nice price. Uh, at the end, Anthem got a fabulous return because once the Hillary care risk went away mm-hmm. And then in parallel with that.

I started to, we were, I, you know, discovered that we were a mutual insurance company. Most people in the company thought it was a not-for-profit, and it wasn't, it was a mutual insurance company and found out there were 14 in total, 14 Blue Cross mutual insurance companies. Well, the fascinating thing about merging mutuals is no money changes hands.

Vic: Yeah. You're not 

Ben Lytle: allowed 

Vic: to change. 

Ben Lytle: Yeah. You're not, you're not allowed to change. Yeah. It's, it, it is to be a vote of the membership to come together and nobody can get paid for it. And so that has, so just, just, I can 

Vic: understand. A mutual, who are the members? Is it the actual subscribers or is it more like when you think of shareholders, who, who are [00:09:00] the members?

No, they, 

Ben Lytle: they are the policy holders except that, uh, that they have to be policy holders. This, and it varies some by state, but that, uh, that actually, uh, uh, ha have a risk bearing contract. Like we couldn't do administrative services only contracts Indiana. 

Vic: Yeah. 

Ben Lytle: Those didn't count as members, but other states have slight variations off that.

Vic: Okay. And so you had to do a merger and then convince your customers basically that this merger was a good idea. And they voted, they literally voted for it. 

Ben Lytle: Yeah. And it, and it was a good idea because all, we ended up merging four mutuals, started with Kentucky, then Ohio and then Connecticut. And, and those, when we demutualized, uh, you know, when we, when we demutualized, those people got checks mm-hmm.

For their ownership or they could choose stock or a mix of both. Yeah. [00:10:00] And, and it was amazing 'cause a lot of them couldn't quite understand how they were get 'cause they didn't understand a mutual insurance company. Yeah. I actually owned the company. Right. So, so they got cash and got to keep their insurance.

And it was cute because a lot of the people who ended up owning, uh, Anthem and Indiana and a couple of the other states were Medicare supplement members who have been long-term members. Usually and some very often a man, you know, a husband and wife. Or a wife. Yeah. And they would a couple and they would both have policies and they were contributing all those years.

Mm-hmm. And because you invest that money particularly carefully, because that's, you know, the elderly. Yeah, they, they, they built a lot of the, the reserves of the net worth, the company. And so we were writing checks for, you know, $70,000. Yeah. Yeah. Really changed their retirement. Changed their retirement.

Yeah. They thought it was fantastic. I remember them trying to, some, trying to come give their checks back 'cause they thought we were [00:11:00] canceling their blue cross. That's that. 

Vic: Right, right. 

Ben Lytle: You get to keep it, you know? Yeah. Okay. So, so it was a very fun path. So you, you 

Vic: merged several states together, four, four different states and then took it public on the New York Exchange?

Ben Lytle: No, we, there was another step in there. Several years. We, several years in there. We acquired several not-for-profit blue crosses that were struggling at that time, uh, financially. And so we bought, uh, Maine, New Hampshire, uh, Colorado and Nevada. And that expanded us to other states as well. Yeah. And those have been great states for us.

Vic: Yeah. Okay. Excellent. And so that was the, um, really a huge. Series of wins that kind of launched your career, but that you were just kind of warming up. I want to move to, because it's really of an innovation, uh, podcast, although that was very in innovative as well at the time. I want to talk about Silver Sneakers 'cause its', chronic disease [00:12:00] is a really hard issue to get our hands around.

Our, our system is designed for treating a broken leg or a car accident, not really for treating long-term chronic care, where you need to pull the patient in and help them change their lifestyle, change their decision making. So talk about what you saw in Silver Sneakers. I know you, you and your son, uh, acquired kind of a startup, a a high growth, but pretty small business.

Right? What did you see at the time, and then how did you grow it into what, what it became, which is, you know, a huge thing to help seniors. 

Ben Lytle: Well, you know, one of it, it, it was a shock to everyone when at 52 I said, I'm gonna leave, uh, Anthem everything I've built here, uh, to go into business with my son and move to Arizona.

And yeah. But, but it was really a buy this, 

Vic: this little thing helping seniors work out or I hope it was characterized then. Yeah. 

Ben Lytle: Well, and, and it, and it was multiple [00:13:00] things. I wanted to work with my son. He and I had been talking about that since he was 18, 19 years old. And, uh, but I also wanted to achieve peak fitness for myself and mm-hmm.

And maintain it. And it's, you know, when you're, when you're running a big public company, you don't have a lot of life left to do stuff like that. I wanted to really get, I was starting, I already had one grandchild. I knew that I had others coming. I wanted to know them and them to know me. Not some guy they saw two or three times a year.

Yeah. So they literally have grown up on my property here, and now they're all through college, you know, so, uh, so that, those are all really important to me. Uh, and, and, but, but on the business side, so my son and I, uh, really, uh, sat down and said, what is it we want to do in healthcare that we're really interested in?

And, and one was, I. Uh, prevention and, and fitness and wellness. We just felt like we were, and, and this was, you know, early two thousands, so it was, it wasn't, you're ahead of the 

Vic: curve on that. That was [00:14:00] not, uh, like a trendy thing to talk about. 

Ben Lytle: No, it was not. Uh, and, and the other was, uh, chronic disease. We both, you know, at, at Anthem, one of the first things I learned running Anthem was the, the dramatic divi, uh, all di division in usage and utilization and cost.

You know, that roughly 5% of the population, or 50% of the cost, and in any given year, 80% of the population only need primary care. And so, so, so you have this wild division. Um, so anyway, uh, really got interested in chronic disease. He did as well. He worked, uh, he worked at a, uh, at a PBM and saw some of the same kind of things and how they had, they had huge numbers of medicines to manage.

Uh, and so anyway, we started down a path and we saw that they could actually merge, that we could put, uh, we could focus, uh, prevention and wellness on [00:15:00] chronic disease. And so we started looking around, uh, spaces and we found some and, and the, and we had a private equity company that, two of 'em that backed us.

Uh, and they thought there was real promise here and believed in us as a team. And so we, we made five acquisitions in two years and integrated them. And two of the standouts, one was a smoking cessation company done online. At that time, revolutionary had huge success and still out there doing well. And the other was with this, uh, wellness company that, that, uh, senior fitness company, uh, and that had one product called Silver Sneakers.

And a brilliant lady, uh, uh, named Mary Swanson had invented it because her dad had been a great athlete and when he, he had heart, he had heart trouble. And there was basically nowhere for him to work out. Mm-hmm. You know, he wasn't, he didn't feel very welcome with the guys and the tats and 

Marcus: Yeah, yeah.

Right, right. [00:16:00] 

Ben Lytle: So, so we thought, but they had invented a very clever program that used the, the midday when the fitness center wasn't busy and to create these classes. And it was just a wonderful idea. So we bought that and we were able, because of some of our healthcare connections and, uh, and really putting the drive in by behind having more than just one.

Uh, one solution. Uh, so because we had a lot of seniors that were also smokers, uh, that, uh, that the thing just took off and exploded. And today it's, uh, I think it's, if it's certainly one of the largest, uh, health, uh, fitness programs in the United States, if not the largest and average age is 78 years old.

Yeah. And that's just, if you go watch, if you don't have anything to do one day, go down to your local fitness center and say to you guys, offer Silver Sneakers. I'd like to sit in and, and you will be absolutely amazed how, what a beautiful program it is because it really does [00:17:00] bring together, uh, ending isolation, building community, you know, it's got all of the things, relationships, everything we need to, to age well.

So anyway, very proud. That was the thing 

Vic: that I think, I mean, starting with. At the brand level started with the name of it. Mm-hmm. And the fellowship and the community. It is a, it is chronic disease management. Right. But, but it's, it's positioned and it's a fun community building, life giving kind of experience.

It's not, yeah. Uh, I mean, chronic disease management doesn't sound that fun. Right. But I'm joining Silver Sneakers is, is a lot Yeah. Going to have a good time does, right? Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. 

Ben Lytle: Yeah. And, and it, and it's, uh, you know, the, it's, uh, it's primarily sold through, uh, through Medicare Advantage plans.

They offer that as one of their free programs. There have been other clones developed, but I don't think any of the others are near as successful, so. Right, 

Vic: right. Yeah. Um, so I wanna shift a little, your, for your [00:18:00] entire career have really focused on. Being a futurist and thinking about the future in a very disciplined and kind of organized way.

Maybe talk about the practice that you go through of, of even what futurism is, right? And then I wanna transition to how you see the market today and maybe help us, you know, there's a lot of. Lot of changes going on. Yeah. Can we use some of your insight and your futurism, um, as we think about innovation going forward?

And then of course, I wanna talk about AI and, and Yeah, sure. Healthcare in general. Yeah. So what is futurism, or how do you think about the role in future? 

Ben Lytle: Yeah. So, so my, my interest started really young, uh, and, and I loved science fiction when I was a, a really starting as a little kid and Reddit. And then along the way I began, I discovered futurists and futurists instead of using fiction to predict and describe the future, they use more analytics and research.

Mm-hmm. And, uh, and convergence of trends. One of the things that I [00:19:00] discovered that, uh, not all futurist identified pretty early on. Was that it's convergence that drives these things. So, so it's, you know, people will think, well, it's ai or they'll think it's technology now. It's usually multiple forces that are converging at a single point in time.

And then, and there's always a technology aspect to it. That's the change agent. And boom, it takes off, it accelerates change, solves big problems, creates new ones. But that's what it does. And so then I began to really, both as I began to study the practice of futurism, and of course it was a big part that made my career every time we were ahead of the curve in what we did.

Right. And, and, uh, and that's, that's, that's what you want to do as a business. But the other thing that your audience might. Uh, might, uh, enjoy. And I, I actually have a, a speech on this and I think it's out, it's out, [00:20:00] uh, on, uh, on social media as well. Yeah. Is one of the surprising things about studying the arc of history.

So I spent a lot of time on what innovations have changed the world, why does innovation change it? Uh, and what I discovered was that innovation more than people doing good works is what cha has changed and lifted society. That doesn't mean those things are unimportant, they're wildly important, but it does say the power of innovation to lift humanity.

If you go back and think about. The beginning fire and then the wheel, and then yeah. Uh, the, and then, uh, the printing print. And then Ben, 

Vic: how, how do you define innovation? Like, so I would define it as sort of the application of a, of a core technology for some purpose. Is that close to how you would define it or, I.

Uh, 

Ben Lytle: I'd go more than technology. It's more, I think the, the ability to, uh, to see the convergence [00:21:00] of multiple benefits to something. So, so for example, uh, the, the, at the time, uh, the printing press came around, it was very much driven, uh, in, by two things. One was the church wanting to spread the message of mm-hmm.

The, the, the Bible at the time. And the other though was that, that as people began to assert their rights a little bit more, uh, and, and demand their rights a little bit more, they needed to be able to articulate those rights in more than just words. They needed to spread it. And, you know, these early, these early writings around Gutenberg and his financial backers who reputedly spent the equivalent of a billion dollars today in inventing that thing.

Yeah. Uh. That. And we're, and it took a long time and 

Vic: it took a long time to be monetize. I mean, like yeah. A hundred years, 200 years to be monetized. Yeah. 

Ben Lytle: Yeah, yeah. So, so, but that's kind of, and, and so I'm always fascinated by the person who sees not just the [00:22:00] technology or not just some applications, but what else is happening in the environment that's gonna set this on fire.

Vic: Yeah. That's it. One of the things that I, I've been trying to think through is, there are cycles in our life, right? Yep. And we all understand the, the daily cycle of the sun. And, but longer term cycles tied to demographics or, uh, technology curve, uh, we have harder time recognizing, right? But if you study it as a futurist, you can see, oh, the, you know, the demographics are shifting or this, um, this technology is, you can predict how, I don't know how memory is gonna be, how expensive our processing.

Absolutely. You, you can't predict the day. You can predict it pretty well over time. Is that close to the work? Yeah. One, one of 

Ben Lytle: the principles, uh, the, uh, both, uh, you remember I said these things intertwined. One of the principles of human development is a great way to identify patterns. And one of those principles is the principle of the [00:23:00] microcosm and the microcosm.

So what it really says in psychology is, whatever goes on between my ears is also going on in the world and also going in the universe and reverse. If I spot something going on in the world, it's probably between my ears. And so once you realize that, you start to look at patterns very differently because you say, well, okay, this happens in human nature.

Why? I mean, in, in, in society it's probably gonna happen in me, inside me as well. Yeah. Almost like a 

Vic: pattern, like it's like a fracture pattern. It's happening in the individual. It's happening in a city, it's happening in the overall civilization. Absolutely. 

Ben Lytle: And you start to look at world affairs very differently.

You, you start to realize that these things have always a bigger cycle to them that's going on. And so that's one of the reasons today, you know, I spend a lot of time, my time going around telling people don't be afraid because, uh, because we've gone through times of great division before. Uh, I, I was a [00:24:00] young man in the sixties.

They were pretty ugly at times. Right. Uh, and as recent times, uh, and also when there's great division, it means something big is about to happen. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And, and, and if we hold that tension, a lot of 

Vic: change, there's a lot of change coming. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Exactly. 

Ben Lytle: Exactly. Yeah. 

Vic: Okay. So from that perspective.

I wanna talk about your book series and then also where you see the future of healthcare, which is better to do first. How do you wanna approach that? 

Ben Lytle: Uh, we, yeah, we can start with the books and then I'll, because it'll lead right into healthcare. Okay. But, uh, but yeah, so what, the way they came about, I never in my entire life had an intention to write a book.

I mean, I love to write, I love to speak and stuff, but I didn't have, I didn't have any intention. 

Marcus: Yeah. 

Ben Lytle: Uh, but every, every year I take a few days, a bit of a sabbatical around the first of the year, and I really ask myself, what am I missing? What could I be doing that would, you know, take this body, this life, this mind, and yeah.

[00:25:00] And, and use it, uh, to a, for a good purpose. That, but was something would also make me happy. And, and I realized, uh, about 2010 ish timeframe that, uh, that my family, uh, among others, starting with my fam, my young and large family, uh, really didn't see what was coming. I talked to other friends, very smart people, very well educated.

Everybody's busy. Everybody's busy, busy, busy, busy, 

Vic: and nobody we're all focused on this week or maybe this quarter, but we don't pick our head up and look even five years out. Yeah. 

Ben Lytle: Right. And so I, because I'm a futurist and I follow a lot of trends of technologies and, and, and, and social thought, I said, boy, this is gonna be big.

This is gonna be really big. So I gave it a name, the, the new reality that we hadn't discovered yet. Mm-hmm. And, and I, I, I thought at the time I'd write a white paper for my family, which in our family's not that weird. So, [00:26:00] so 

Marcus: yeah. Yeah. 

Ben Lytle: So, so I started on it, well, one white paper ended up to be three, and it was, and they were about, you know, four, three inches thick.

Yeah. And I said, okay, this is, and then other, your 

Vic: friends wanna read it. And all of a sudden it's, it's a, it's kind of a, so I thought, okay, 

Ben Lytle: well I'll, I'll, I'll do a self-published book only for a handful of people, my family and friends. And in the process, I hired an editor. The editor said, uh, Mr. Lidle, this is good stuff because you're talking about something.

There are a lot of good books on the future. Most of 'em, they don't get very many people read them 'cause they're dense. You write in a style, it's easy for people to understand. And he said, uh, also, uh, you're, you're telling people here's what you can do to adapt. 

Vic: Yeah. Right. 

Ben Lytle: Because that's, I mean, if you're talking to your family, they don't wanna care about Yeah.

You wanna like, here's how you can have success in life. Here's how can have meaning do. 

Vic: Yeah. Right. 

Ben Lytle: Right. So that became my focus. And, and so the books called The Potential List are how do you [00:27:00] reach your potential and become wise in order to make better decisions in a time where the decisions are gonna be unprecedented and harder and you can't count on the institutions to guide you.

Right. And so that became the focus of the three books I. Two of them are, are out. Uh, the first one. Uh, your future in the new reality of the next 30 years. Yeah. Describes the future in, in seven things that are, start of seven solid steps that would be wise to take now, more important than ever. And then the second book is all about how do you actually reach your potential and become wise.

Vic: Yeah. And the third book will be out. Even the amount of change that's going on in this space right now. Right. I mean, I haven't read the book, I have to admit. Uh, but I, but I am going to read it. 'cause I, I need, I need the, I need these tools. I need to figure out how to. Nevermind, maximize their p just, just survive and like understand all the change.

And so give us a [00:28:00] preview of the seven things or how can people, uh, they should buy the book and we'll put it in the show notes, but, but what are some, uh, quick things they can, they can start to do today? Yeah, 

Ben Lytle: so, so the, the seven things are things that have always been a good idea. But now they're gonna become crucial because the world we're gonna live in is gonna be very different.

It's gonna be much faster paced. We can already see it. Yeah. And it's gonna be much more complex. So the, and it feels, 

Vic: what about volatility? It feels like everything is changing very quickly. 

Ben Lytle: Well, and and, and volatility will also be true in our job, in our careers. Companies are gonna come and go faster.

Careers are gonna come and go faster. Yeah. So, so, so the, the first book concentrates on like fundamentals that, that people have ignored in the past. You can't ignore anymore taking care of your body. Uh, you're gonna live a lot longer and, and you're gonna have the opportunity to live a lot longer. But if you're not, if you, if you destroy it in the first 30 or 40 years [00:29:00] of your life, it's gonna be, and, and, and it is not clear how we're gonna finance the chronically ill, uh, and the catastrophically ill in the future.

Yeah. Yeah. We don't know we're gonna 

Vic: bleed into healthcare. I don't know that the US government is going to be able to finance it. We, we just, right. I mean, whether we intend we change our policy or not, even if people want to continue the course, it's, it's gonna be unsustainable. 

Ben Lytle: Well, and, and the high, the way to think of it at the highest level is that the demographic risk transfer.

We've always depended on lots of young people take care of your elderly, right? Is is evaporating. And so we got, that's a big number. We gotta figure out how to do that. I've got some ideas trying to get those ideas forward. Yeah. People in government, we'll see. Okay, so step one is 

Vic: take care of yourself.

Take care of your physical health, your 

Ben Lytle: mental health, your, yeah. On same, same thing. Uh, you could be your, you know, the vast majority of people today are, are wildly under [00:30:00] underfunded to, to fund themselves in a longer life. Retired. Uh, and so number one, you gotta have your health because you're gonna need to work longer.

Just count on it. Yeah. Uh, and number two is you're gonna have to do a better job managing your money. Uh, and so those are basics, but then there's more. It's like thinking like an entrepreneur that, that you, the, the idea that I can go to work, I got this nice, stable job, I can kind of go to sleep on a and do, do this repetition job, right?

That's, that's evaporating as fast as you can imagine it. So you have to start thinking like, like an entrepreneur, what could I do if I suddenly lost my job? What, how, how could I build a business? Or how could I join an entrepreneurial business? What skills do they look for? Things like that. Yeah. Those days of 

Vic: joining, uh, IBM Ord joining Anthem or joining HCA.

Just not here anymore. No. The company's aren't gonna take care of you like that. 

Ben Lytle: Right? It's gonna be very different. And, and then the other one I'll mention, I won't, don't have time for all seven, but the other one I would [00:31:00] mention, it's actually the chapter I'm proudest of in that, uh, in that book it's chapter 11, which is success.

And so what I'm proposing, you know, is to read, particularly for younger people, redefine success. It is not fame, power, uh, money, uh, social status, uh, uh, appearance. All of those things are transitory, particularly over a longer life. And, and, and, and, and I will tell you from interviewing tons of people, uh, nobody feels they're successful once they have those things.

Marcus: Mm-hmm. 

Ben Lytle: They, they, they're, they, they're feeling something missing. So if it is not that, what is it? It, but the latter, the latter of 

Vic: success never stops. Right? You, you make X number of dollars. That's fun for a week or a month, but then, then it loses it. Yeah. 

Ben Lytle: Right. It's not anything is wrong with these things, but they're, they're not gonna, when you put your head down on the pillow, yeah.

You are not gonna feel successful 'cause you have [00:32:00] that. Yeah. Well, here's what does, knowing in your heart every day I did my best to be my best and left the world and the people I met along the way a little bit better and I found them. That's it. That's 

Vic: a fulfillment impact, meaning those kind of things.

Ben Lytle: Absolutely. Because, because first of all. You can't ask yourself, and the world can't ask you any more than your best, and you'll know whether it's your best or not. You're the only person who will And, and then and if. And then if you're trying to, to live your life, well, you're not sacrificing your life.

That's part of it. You wanna live a good life, but you do it in a way that you try to make the world and the people you meet along the way a little better, then you'll feel very good. 

Marcus: Yeah. 

Ben Lytle: And it's really a lot. It's, it's very actionable. It's very measurable. And you can, every day I do, every day I start out that way.

And every day I go to bed that way. 

Vic: Yeah. Okay, excellent. Well, I'll apply the book in the show notes for people to order. I'm certainly reading it. I might listen [00:33:00] to it. Uh, now how does that translate to where you see healthcare going? And then I wanna talk about the ARC 

Ben Lytle: project 

Vic: next. 

Ben Lytle: Right. Well, and by the way, I wanna mention the second book just on one thing.

Okay. One of the things, if you really look at the factors of success that medicine can't solve, but absolutely as is, as, as important as you taking care of your body to living a healthy li, living a healthy life, particularly as you age, is relationships, uh, uh, having a sense of purpose. Uh, and, uh, and wisdom, uh, and, uh, and a sense, uh, uh, that my life matters.

I don't care if you are very sick and you can't even get out of bed, your life still matters, and that's crucial. So that's a lot about what the second book tries to yeah. Teach you early on is that your life does matter and why, and then how do you live it to its full, to its own? So going back to healthcare, uh, [00:34:00] where, uh, where I think, um, where I.

Think and hope, and I'm advocating that we go as a country is to first of all focus, which we are not focused on, uh, on chronic and catastrophic disease. We have spread those, the, we have those cases in a variety of em, employer insurance plans, we've got it in Medicare, we've got it in me in Medicaid, we've got it in veterans, and then it's, and then it's divided up again by state and then it's divided up again by local communities.

And so as a result, we have no expertise that would, that you would get by combining those cases and focusing some top companies on that problem by putting out in RFP, here's what we want. Here's the way we would, and that's so easy. We could do that in a heartbeat and, and finance [00:35:00] those people separately.

That then becomes a national catastrophic health plan with a very simple social contract. And, and you maybe 

Vic: create incentives and, and, uh, the RFP is designed for certain metrics depending on what disease you're, you're focused on. 

Ben Lytle: Right. And, and what you've done then is you've created the, you know, the laws of insur insurance.

It isn't in our, our healthcare, just like, uh, social security is an insurance system and that means you have to, one of the principles is you spread it over the largest population possible. So if you spread those costs over 330,000, PE 30, excuse me, me, three 30 million people and everybody pays a little bit 'cause it won't be terribly costly.

Marcus: Yeah. 

Ben Lytle: Then we, and focus the care. We'll, we'll reduce the cost, help people get better care and guess what happens? Insurance costs on everybody else will fall 40 or 50%. 

Vic: Right. Yeah. And you sort of align, uh, the efforts [00:36:00] in the right place versus it being kind of spread around and, and fraction. 

Ben Lytle: Yeah. I mean, think about it.

Every business or everybody in their home focuses on your biggest problem to make it go away. We're not focused on the biggest problem. We dip, we are dabbling at it and, and, and it, and it is not focused. And that's how we'll fix it. Well, and 

Vic: every CFO is every year frustrated with their blues plan or their, whoever their a SO provider is.

And it's the same conversation every November when they get the new rates. Absolutely. But there's not enough perspective. It's not pooled in the right way, just like you're saying. It's not structured correctly. It's structured for a healthcare need that we had in the fifties and sixties. That is not what we have today.

Ben Lytle: Right. Second and a second big step. That, that would be huge, uh, is to move, quite frankly, um, move away from, uh, government, uh, and, uh, employers, uh, uh, defining [00:37:00] our benefit plans. Mm-hmm. Uh, and move from defined benefit to defined contribution, just like we did for, uh. Just like we did retirement for pensions because Yeah, because in this new environment, people are gonna need that flexibility.

They, you know, too many people are trapped right now 'cause they got three kids and they can't afford to leave their healthcare plan. Yeah. Uh, and, and, and what'll happen when that happens is you'll suddenly create a much bigger market for insurance. A lot of new insurers will come in the market. Uh, the government can, can, can, can be again, a, a good regulator and a, and we need to build a national market.

And we also, we need a national market for providers. Uh, you know, why is, why, why do I, if I change states, do I have to worry that a nurse, what a nurse practitioner could do mm-hmm. Should be nationwide? The same thing's true on all of that. That'll make being able to make delivery systems much more flexible, able to deliver [00:38:00] national solutions.

So that's another, so then, then when we go, if we go 

Vic: to a divine contribution like that. How do you protect the, the chronically sick that, um, maybe they have? Remember 

Ben Lytle: they're, they're in a separate system. Okay. So you're all pulling, 

Vic: you're pulling them out, so yeah, they're out pulling them out first. That makes sense.

Yeah. They're out sick. Otherwise, otherwise, you have all the young, uh, healthy people not wanting to join a pool with, with sure. Folks that have Sure. And that's what 

Ben Lytle: we have. That's what we have today. Yes. 

Vic: Right. That's what we have 

Ben Lytle: today. That's we, and we've fractured the risk pools to where they're so small, nobody can spread the, it would be the equivalent in property and casualty insurance if 50% of the houses that cost $5 million more burn down every day.

That's the problem. We have too many shock claims to distribute across this fractured system. Right. And, and we, and we can fix this, that both of those are big fixes. And of course, the fix I'm most excited about is AI because the number, [00:39:00] the number one biggest problem, and I'll make sure you're listeners know this, I know you personally know it.

The number one biggest problem we have in healthcare right now, and this is one of those forces that came outta nowhere 

Marcus: Yeah. 

Ben Lytle: Uh, to it felt like actually it was, even though it'd been around for a long time, is we don't have enough clinicians, right. To take care of the people. We cannot care for the elderly the way we do it today.

We don't have enough clinicians, we don't have enough at every level. 

Vic: I, I mean every level, you know, and surgeon. Surgeon, right. Internist, nurse, right home health, every level that we don't have enough actual humans to deliver the care. 

Ben Lytle: Right, and priority number one has to be, we have to radically increase the productivity, and I'm talking about two to five times.

The productivity of every clinic clinical provider we have, and we need to accelerate the education and training of those people. And unfortunately, I'm not seeing much happening there because, you know, the [00:40:00] medical, uh, university medical centers are some of the slowest to change. And so I'm not, I, I wish that would happen.

So we have to really concentrate on the productivity, and I believe we can do that. I believe that is possible to achieve if we move fast enough, uh, on trying to really fundamentally change that transaction between patient and doctor fundamentally change it. So it's. Far more productive. And I think that's, that's possible.

Well, so 

Vic: ai, you and I are both, uh, working with it a lot. I wanna talk about the ARC project in a minute, but it can be scary to, uh, employees in lots of industries because it's going to take away a lot of the duties where it gets automatically done. Right? Right. But in healthcare, we have a shortage of people.

And so there's really, there should be no fear. If you're a healthcare worker listening to this podcast right now, we need you and we need you to use AI because you have to treat 10 times more patients than you are now. [00:41:00] Right. And we want to treat them really well. We should give those patients ai. We need to give our clinicians ai right?

And that's gonna be needed in order to fulfill the duty, we have to take care of all of our people, right? We're not gonna lay off massive number of people 

Ben Lytle: in healthcare. No. As a matter of fact, I, I give a lot of speeches to CEOs and I recommend to 'em, don't lay anybody off. Yeah. You're gonna need every person.

That's, that's a good employee. You're gonna need every person you've got. And before you know it, you're gonna be turned around and kicking yourself. 'cause you let some good people go. Right. Figure out a way to redeploy 'em because you're gonna need 'em. Uh, and 

Vic: that's so that empathy of like listening to a patient and helping them understand their diagnosis, helping them, yeah.

Uh, kind of modify the treatment protocols to fit their lifestyle and what they wanna achieve. That is best done by a human sort of augmented with AI tools. 

Ben Lytle: Yeah. And that's what nobody's, Lisa, nobody that I know of is talking about replacing doctors with [00:42:00] ai. They're talking about augmenting them right now.

What do we mean augmenting? So for example, today we would like to assume all of our doctors know and practice the best medicine. The fact is they don't. Yeah, they can't. It's not because they don't want to. They can't. It it's so, so, uh, the amount of 

Vic: research that comes out daily, I. No human can can absorb all that.

You just can't. 

Ben Lytle: No. So, so, so, so, uh, some of the, the, you know what some of the medical schools recently have said that a doctor would've to read 28 hours a day, stay current. Well, that's obviously can't happen, right? But AI can read, uh, you know, in, in seconds and totally get the, get that and pass it on to the doctor at the right time.

Same thing with the best practice. And so these are, these are big ways that we can look at how can we accelerate that doctor. And then the other is on the other side, on the patients, uh, doing more self-care, [00:43:00] doing more self detection. If I get help, uh, through home testing and wearables and other things, maybe I can detect things quicker and maybe I can have a better conversation with my doctor when I call.

Vic: Yeah. Ben, what do you Th I've been trying to use this analogy to help my doctor friends understand kind of how I see ai, right? I'm a, you know, self-confident, maybe my wife would say arrogant. I don't lack confidence, right? I go, I think I'm a good driver. So driving my automobile, I think I'm really good. I, I don't always stay in the speed limit.

Um, and I, I believe I'm really a high quality driver. I still use my interlock brakes. Partially because you can't buy a car without them. Right. But also because there's no way on a wet road, wet road coming through a, a, you know, light turning from green to yellow that I'm gonna pump the brakes a thousand times a second, like my automatic anti-lock brake system does.

Sure. And it doesn't [00:44:00] mean I am admitting, I'm not very good at driving it. Just the purpose is different. Like, so this is what you're saying with, you know, reading all these published reports, that's not what the human doctor should be doing. Right. Doesn't mean they're less good of a doctor, just like I think.

I'm a great driver, but I'm, it's not my job to pump the brakes a thousand times a second. Does that analogy fit with how you think 

Ben Lytle: about it? Yeah. A Abso absolutely, and, and we have to remember, we, we have a good model to see what happens. You know, when for, for decades. Pilots were the cowboys of the sky.

Nobody told them what the hell to do and nobody was gonna tell 'em what they'll do. 'cause they had a special skill and were anointed, you know, to fly these airplanes. Uh, and, and then we learned, uh, as more flying became more popular, that most of the problems, most of the crashes were pilot error. 

Marcus: Mm-hmm.

Ben Lytle: And, and so we still have pilots. There's still two pilots on every plane. Yeah. [00:45:00] Uh, and, but they have a computer now that helps them fly the plane. First of all, they have simulators to train 'em faster than ever before. I wish we had more of that in medicine. Uh, and that would train them faster. Uh, and then, uh, when, when something goes wrong and things occasionally do go wrong with the AI things and sometimes it's wrong, uh, and so they're there.

That's a very different, and they, and they still, uh, play an essential role in safety. So I don't think their jobs are diminished at all. And, and medicine, certainly not this. And we don't have a choice. It's, it's kind of an academic debate. We want see people dying 'cause they can't get to a doctor dying because they can't get the treatment they need.

Yeah. No, we can't, we can't, we can't be that fussy about this right now. Yeah. But we can about making sure it's augmentation, not replacement. 

Vic: Yeah. Now, now you, um, have a strong opinions about how to [00:46:00] use ai, especially in medicine. I mean, generative AI is, um, non-defined. Like, it, it, it every time generates a new outcome.

And there's lots of use cases for open AI and Gemini andro, these tools. But you have, you taught me about bounded ai, which is a very different. Way to assemble an AI system, right? So maybe explain to the listener what the differences are and why in medicine it might be, might be smarter to use a bounded system.

Ben Lytle: Uh, and, and they're growing very fast. So I, I, I had thought I was done founding companies, uh, right. But, but I, I, as I looked to the future, and this is years before chat GPT came out, I felt like that probably big tech was gonna be wedded. To their business model that makes them a fortune, which is they [00:47:00] take our information and data and they sell it.

Yeah. So social media, we were gonna certainly That's 

Vic: the entire business model. Yeah. 

Ben Lytle: Right. And that what we were gonna see was AI that was driven very much like an extremely smart search engine. Mm-hmm. Uh, and, and so, so, but, but I, but the problem, one of the great things about AI is it can have handle massive amounts of data very fast because of the technology, as you know, uh, and, and converts it to a, you, you know, your, it can converts your, your conversation to a mathematical formula and looks for matches.

Uh, the downside is the more data you run it against, the greater the chance for error or. Inconsistent answers. And so that's the, the problem. I mean, they, these things are wonderful chat, GPT, uh, grok, all of 'em, they're wonderful devices, but you do have to recognize that. And so I realized early on, know what you [00:48:00] need, what we need in education and in healthcare and in a lot of other certain business applications, we have to have precision.

It has to be accurate to the 99 more accurate than a human would be. Uh, and it has to be consistent. In many cases. We want it absolutely consistent, right? Uh, and, and so, uh, and, and so tho for those reasons, we, we came up with, we didn't have a name for it initially, but what ultimately became called bounded models, meaning we load the data, just the data we need, and that's what we look for from answers.

And then we curate it. To make sure it gives those answers and is precise. Now, we can still go against the internet, but it's under very controlled circumstances. Very targeted, and we make sure we don't take any information out. We don't want, and we don't bring anything in that we [00:49:00] don't, uh, that that could, could, could be cause it to be incorrect.

And, and so, so that's the, a bounded model. And Open AI has recognized and they've said this is a, this is a lot of the future of healthcare. I mean the future of AI because of the need for precision and consistency. 

Vic: And is it, uh, is it a quantitative qualitative difference? So like for instance, in, I mean it's easiest to give an example with math, but in healthcare there are lots of examples where there is a right answer, right?

Like Right. 10 times three is 30. Right? That is. Should always be deterministically, factually true. Right? And there are times in healthcare where if your AC A1C level is over X, we want to get it down. It's harder to go to healthcare and find an exact analog like that. But there there are. We want, we want to always be the same answer.

And it's not a judgment call. Those are [00:50:00] factual. And then there are some parts of healthcare that are a researcher and that we're trying still learning. 

Ben Lytle: Like, I've had 104 fever for six hours. Should I go the er? Yes, yes. Right? 

Vic: Yes. 

Ben Lytle: We don't need to, not, a, not a aspirin is not gonna work, dude. So. Right, right.

So, so, but, but there, and there are many, many of those, but there's also cases that, and this is especially true in the case of best practices, you know, there is no one best practice for most of medicine. Mm-hmm. Uh, there are, there are, there are different approaches that the specialty societies of the physicians will take.

There's others that research will take. So, but there's a way to present. But there, but 

Vic: there, there are, you know, buildings full of differential diagnosis. Mm-hmm. Best practices that are very detailed and, and a doctor can walk through that and we'll get to the same answer. Even though there's lots of judgment calls along the way.

Um, right. So [00:51:00] 

Marcus: AI can do, putting that into 

Vic: ai. Yeah. So, but it would be in a bounded system. It's not like, uh Right. Grabbing everything in the internet. 'cause the internet also has, you know, things on Facebook with people just talking about, you know, sure. Put some dirt on it and it fixed it, which is not, you know, maybe not Yeah.

That scientific. 

Ben Lytle: Yeah. And, and, and so that's a, that's a great example of how you would take the legitimate sources that look at different medical practice and you'd create consensus outliers. Mm-hmm. Or there's nothing written. 'cause there's a lot of stuff, there's nothing written on. Yeah. And so for a doctor, I can, that helps a lot.

I can see the consensus, I can see the outlier, I can see the data. So, so that's a perfect, and so have 

Vic: you, have you started to put this in place? It cannot be done or Yeah. How far along is it to be done? Ab 

Ben Lytle: absolute, absolutely can be done. We're, we're working, uh, the company that I invested in founded m their many, their other investors, uh, and I'm not the CEO, they are, they are [00:52:00] pursuing creating a, a, a complete revolution of how the doctor and the patient work together.

Uh, on and on a case with the highest priority because that's, you know, where we know where the biggest problem is, is in chronic and catastrophic disease, but also everyday things. And, and, and one of the other really important, uh, things for people to remember is that 70 to 80% of all chronic disease results from lifestyle.

And so, right. So we'd like to tell ourselves, well, it's our genes and it's our, and it it is for some, but, but there are lifestyle solutions even for a lot of times when it's our genetic issues, there are lifestyle improvements. So that, that whole thing about, 

Vic: and related to that is, I think in addition, many of these 70% can be improved if you start changing your lifestyle.

Absolutely. Can be improved, can be made less bad, can be reversed. So you start to have less bad chronic disease or not have the same symptom [00:53:00] levels. So it's, it's hopeful. Every day, 

Ben Lytle: every 50% of the people in the United States have high blood pressure and the vast majority of it's unmanaged. Now there's one right there and, and pe but people don't know how.

And so, so, but that's not rocket science to explain to 'em how to manage it either. So those are, it's like, it's like smoking 

Vic: cessation. I mean, you did this early on with smoking cessation. Yep. That's a behavior change. It's a hard addiction to work through. Right. But with, with coaching, with guidance, with support.

With the, you know, the, the proven procedures of how to help people through that process. You can have success. They can have success. 

Ben Lytle: Yeah. And that's where we'll start, we'll start with the ones where there's huge products, big numbers of people who suffer from it. Uh, it's, there is behavior change that can fix it.

Uh, and the combination of working with the doctor and the patient, we don't ever exclude the doctor. Uh, that we get those two working so that, that when [00:54:00] the doctor's not there, that patient's doing their part. To help themselves get over this. 

Vic: Yeah. Now is it public? Can people go and check it out? Um, you said the name, but yeah, we're, no, this is still 

Ben Lytle: very much, and it's very much, uh, still something that we, you know, we're, but I, I, I would say this to the public.

There, there are lots, and I mean, in the hundreds of people working on this problem from different angles. Yeah. And so I'm very encouraged that, uh, that we're gonna start to see some miracle, uh, miracles being done at the retail side, the retail of medicine, the retail of, I'm a consumer that, or a patient.

That's where we're gonna see some big stuff being done in addition to all the wonderful things that are happening with science. Uh, these are, these are things that are going to develop in the next, uh, three or four years that are gonna be huge. I believe some of, and I now you combine that to what I said [00:55:00] about how we.

Should finance and structure healthcare. Mm-hmm. You can start to see how, how much more effective that could be. That because you could deploy the right tool to the right person. 

Vic: Yeah. You know? Okay. So is it, uh, maybe, maybe summarize things. It's a kind of a scary time. Like, my wife is scared. There's, there's lot, you know, every time we turn the news, there's, there's lots of, you know, one channel saying how great it's gonna be.

The other channel's saying how terrible it is. But either way it's scary. You've researched the future, you've launched loss of successful healthcare companies. Uh, I think you sound hopeful and optimistic. Uh, you feel good. Like we're in a, we're in a, it's a, a, yeah. Chaotic time, but there's, there's hope.

It's gonna be good. Yeah. Uh, 

Ben Lytle: yeah. And, and, and first of all, you know, one of the, one of the key aspects of wisdom is perspective. And, and you have to keep perspective here. Uh, we have to remember we live in a 24 7 [00:56:00] 365 news cycle. Yeah. And they get paid to scare the living hell outta you. Right. Right. That's what they do.

Vic: And yeah. In 1935, there was a lot of scary stuff going on. But what we didn't have CNN and Fox and Twitter always telling people everything. 

Ben Lytle: Yeah. Right. And, and, and throughout history we didn't Yeah. And, you know, things were, were more dangerous than by a huge factor mm-hmm. Than they are today. And so, and the number one thing that, that I, that I speak to this right in the every book, I speak to it in every speech I give.

The worst thing you can do is let fear drive you. Fear makes you cause, make, causes you to make bad decisions. And o uh, pessimism causes you to walk right past the opportunities and not see them. Yeah, that's guaranteed. If you go back and study the other, re the other industrial revolutions, that's what divided the winners and the losers.

The winners saw, oh, wait a minute. This could be good. You know? Yeah. And, and, [00:57:00] and they, and, and they weren't fearful. And, and so, so fear is overstated in our society, way overstated. And it's driven at us constantly. And it makes you pessimistic. And that's just not a healthy thing. It's not healthy for your body, it's not healthy for your mind, it's not healthy for your career or anything else.

Marcus: Yeah. And 

Ben Lytle: right now we need to be saying, and, and if you're fearful, you're gonna spread that to the young people around you. 

Marcus: Right. 

Ben Lytle: That's the worst thing in the world you can do. So. So I am definitely, I mean, at the very, at 

Vic: the, I agree completely at, at the core kind of where this entire discussion, which has been wonderful.

We are in the, uh, challenge of facing chronic disease because our parents and grandparents really solved acute care, right. And solved, um. You know, uh, infectious disease, which, which were killing lots of people, so Sure. It's because of those great successes in the last 50, a hundred [00:58:00] years. Right. But now we have this opportunity to, we didn't live long enough to have heart disease, diabetes, kidney failure.

'cause we were dying earlier. So it's a wonderful experience, but we have to like, sort of see it that way. 

Ben Lytle: Well, and, and, and what, what I would, you know, what the term that I use, uh, is pragmatic optimism and, and pragmatic optimism. I'm not a, I'm not a, a rose colored glasses guy. Yeah. My, my optimism is backed up by facts.

Uh, and the fact that, that, if you look at the arc of history, we've always gotten better. Always. We went through horrible times. Absolutely horrible times. Much worse than today. And, and, and every time we came out on the other side as a high, as a elevated society from where we had been, and we will do it again.

Uh, there's no reason to believe we won't do it again. Uh, and, and if you really stand back, you'll see that people are better. So I, I tell people the, I look at it this way, [00:59:00] isn't it a fantastic time to be alive? Yeah. The biggest transition in human history is occurring right now. And it'll occur over the next two or three genera, two or three, uh, decades.

And we get to be part of it. And we not only get to be part of it, if you want to, you can shape it. And everyday people say, well, how can I shape it? Talk to your family. Talk to your family, explain to 'em why division is simply a way for a new idea to be born. Tension between this tension between that new idea gets mm-hmm.

Marcus: Yeah. 

Ben Lytle: That's a good thing. Uh, and, and, and there was some of the greatest times of greatest tension produced, the greatest changes. And so that's what we're about here. 

Vic: And your book, the potential is, I think is sort of helping individuals and society Yeah. Achieve their potential or, or have the tools to achieve the potential.

Ben Lytle: Yeah. And, and, and we've achieved bigger things, bigger transitions, bigger elevations in the past. And this time is the time for [01:00:00] wisdom because we've really conquered, uh, information, uh, uh, and, and knowledge, I mean, at our fingertips now. 

Marcus: Yeah. 

Ben Lytle: Uh, with, with all of these amazing AI tools and, uh, and with what's, yeah.

Vic: Yeah. I have, I have the, we don't need it entire human knowledge history in my phone on an AI model that it would just give me an answer to everything. But it doesn't gimme wisdom. It doesn't gimme wisdom, it doesn't gimme perspective. It doesn't gimme sort of that understanding of where it fits. Yeah. 

Ben Lytle: And it's very achievable.

So, so I am truly a pragmatic optimist, and I would ask people, even if you can't get there, please don't say that kind of stuff in front of young people. They, they, they have to rebuild these institutions that have lost their way. They have to, even, even, you know, democracy, it's gotta be a, a more accountable form of representative democracy than it is today.

Uh, and, and, and we, we need those young people to be optimistic to see that these things [01:01:00] can, can be done. And, and the only, they li the people they listen to their grandparents and their parents, right. And their aunts and uncles. So we all have that responsibility. 

Vic: Yeah. Well, Ben, thanks for sharing this.

It's been an incredible career and you have more to go. So I'm excited to hear about the new company. We put a, we'll put a link in the show notes to the book. And really thanks for doing this. I really appreciate it. 

Ben Lytle: No, I, it's, it's been so fun. You're, you're a very sharp guy and you, you understand innovation.

It's fun to be with you. 

Vic: Yeah. Thank you man. I really appreciate it. 

Ben Lytle: Okay. 

Vic: And then when you, when you have the new, uh, models out, we'll have you come back. Yeah. 

Ben Lytle: We'll bring 'em out and, we'll, we'll, we'll demonstrate our, our doctor and our patient and our Yeah. And, uh, people will, I think will get a kick out of it.

Vic: Okay. Excellent.