79 – This Leak Could Ruin Your Life: Every SSN Has Been Compromised

Marcus: [00:00:00] Alright, what have you been up to this week?

Vic: I’m back in the saddle. Good job last week, uh, when I was out. I appreciate it. That was last week? Yeah, that was last week. You were on your own. I left you, and it was incredible. Really good job. That was like three

Marcus: weeks ago.

Vic: And I was out of touch, and so it was really helpful to actually get caught up with my own show that I was not part of.

Vic: Oh, that’s good.

Marcus: That’s good. Well, I’m happy I could be of service to you. Yeah.

Vic: How are you feeling? You got injured. Yeah, yeah, the odds makers have been asking me like, what’s the, how are you feeling? Yeah.

Marcus: Don’t say anything. Um, no, last weekend, uh, Rachel and I were in Chicago. I competed in the Chicago open.

Marcus: It was like a tune up. Worlds was, you know, two weeks later, um, it was good. Uh, I, uh, I won and, um, faced, faced the guy who I faced in the finals of 22 and, um, great guy and, you know, he was really, really tough in 22 and we both knew each other a [00:01:00] little bit better this time. So it kind of took some of the edge off and I felt, I felt good about how I performed.

Marcus: Yeah. So, um.

Vic: And you beat him. So it’s a, he’s a nice guy and much nicer in second place. Or, yeah, yeah.

Marcus: I mean, somebody’s got to lose, right? So, you know, um, this time it wasn’t me. So anyway, um, yeah, kind of getting ready for worlds, which is, which is good. Um, hard to, I mean, I’m either sick or injured, so that’s just kind of, but you know what, like watching the Olympics this year, um, so this is the first time.

Marcus: Since high school, then I’m watching the Olympics and I’m a competing athlete, you know, and it’s one thing to watch it and just be like, these people are so unbelievable. Like, Oh, did you see what they did to see this? Did you see that? And it’s an entirely different thing to know, like, Oh man, they must be so jet lagged.

Marcus: Oh, you know? This person got sick. Oh, did you see the, the two [00:02:00] golf carts that crashed into each other? Like that’s ridiculous. You know, just knowing all the little things that, um, you know, the whole Noah Lyles getting COVID thing, all the little things that go wrong. And then that appointment will still come at the right date, at the right time, and you have to walk out there and perform, period.

Marcus: End of story. Yeah, I thought

Vic: about it. I forget his name. There’s a male U. S. gymnast, um, really charismatic guy from Michigan. I wish I knew his name. But he did well. But he brought his own bed. Because he was saying this, I’m going to be in the Olympic village. I don’t know what’s going to be like. And, um, sleep is, I mean, you need to sleep.

Marcus: You need to recover. It’s a big deal. It’s a big deal. Yeah. And the gymnastics was really grueling. It was kind of like day after day. Um, so anyway, I, I just, I had so much more appreciation for it this year. And it was also really inspiring because I’m leading into worlds and like, it’s crazy, man.

Marcus: Everything is just, you know, I got sick twice this summer, [00:03:00] you know, now I’m like injured and it’s just, you know, but. That’s, that’s like, that’s what it is. That’s part of

Vic: it.

Marcus: Yeah. That’s what it is. Right. You

Vic: know, so anyway. And when you talk about Steph Curry, just for a second, he was light out in, and they actually had a little bit of competition, which was great.

Marcus: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, to make it fun. Yeah. That’s what I mean. To make it fun until he decided. He decided, okay, we’re done. Yeah. Yeah, uh, man, that guy is the greatest pure shooter I think ever. Yeah. Ever. Um, the range and the buckets. Yeah,

Vic: he’s just like double teamed out at the mid court.

Marcus: Yeah. And like, just swish.

Marcus: I mean, perfect. Yeah, he’s, he is, he is something special. All right, man, we got a long show because you found too many stories. So let’s, let’s, let’s dig in. All right. Uh,[00:04:00]

Marcus: big news on the inflation front. It fell below 3 percent for the first time since 2021.

Vic: So it’s great. I mean, it’s been bouncing around at three ish, and we got down to 2. 9. And so really positive. We had a, you know, a hard jobs report. Was that two weeks ago? A little while ago. And so I think this is the, um, kind of seals the very likely case that the Fed will cut their next meeting, which is great.

Vic: We’re all, Yeah, did you

Marcus: see Joe Biden, uh, talking about, uh, I, I like non running Joe Biden. He looks better. He looks like he got five years back. Yeah, I’m sure. Um, but he, he was, somebody was asking about his economic policy and he was like, yeah, it’s a soft landing. Like I told you, start writing about it.

Marcus: And I was like, good for you, Joe, man. You know, like, I like that he’s he’s talking with a little bit more reckless abandon. Yeah, it’s pretty cool. Um, yeah. So look, this, this is, uh, all leading up to September, right? I mean, we’re, [00:05:00] we’re going to track week to week just to see what the landscape looks like when we hit the FOMC September window.

Vic: Yeah. I think most people are. The stock market will front run it. So now it’s sort of like people are expecting it. It’s like a hundred percent. I mean, so whether it’s 50 or 25 is the real question. That’s right. That’s right.

Marcus: Um, all right. This is a great story that you found in the wall street journal.

Marcus: The headline is the dramatic turnaround in millennials finances. And we’ve heard for ever that the. The great financial crisis destroyed the millennials and they entered the workforce with no prospects and

Vic: they’re all behind, they can’t buy a house, they can’t get married, they can’t do whatever.

Vic: Everything’s terrible for millennials. And the Wall Street Journal has this article that it’s been a huge turnaround. And so in the last, uh, since the pandemic really. Um, the millennials have in, in change in wealth. And so if you’re, if you’re not watching this, uh, in video, first of all, you [00:06:00] should, but we’ll kind of describe it.

Vic: The millennials, of course, are younger, so they don’t have as much wealth as other generations, but the growth during 2020 to 2022, it’s, it’s probably 200 percent growth and it really, uh, the article talks about, you know, There’s a class of millennials that purchased a home before the pandemic, right? And there’s a class that, that didn’t get around to it.

Vic: It didn’t, didn’t do it for whatever reason. And that really has sort of separated into two, two cohorts because the real estate prices and the, and you know, probably many of those people also had a few stocks and investable assets. That’s right. And both of those asset classes, real estate and stocks and bonds just exploded in all the.

Vic: Pandemic, you know, craziness.

Marcus: Yeah. So this, this graph shows that from the first quarter of 2016 to today, um, millennials have [00:07:00] outpaced every other generation in, uh, change 300 percent change. Uh, now they were starting from a lower base, um, but we’re talking about less than 10 years to three X. Yeah. That’s incredible.

Marcus: As a, as a.

Vic: As a generation cohort, the whole generation. Yeah. There’s a lot of people in there.

Marcus: Yeah. And, and knowing, like a whole bunch of people are dragging that down. Yeah. You know, especially the ones that were not able to buy houses in the 2020 window.

Vic: Right. We talk about the K shape economy all the time on the show, and it’s, it’s real.

Vic: That’s sort of a cross generation. Yep. Based on do you own a home? Do you own stocks? Because that’s where the the booms have been. Yep. Um, but it’s great to see the millennials, uh, catching up and maybe, you know, they’re growing faster than any other generation.

Marcus: Yeah. Hopefully that’s where we’re going to be able to end that narrative.

Marcus: Yes. Um, look, I feel like the Millennials are. Quite frankly, they’re, they’re getting pretty old.

Vic: Yeah.

Marcus: You know, they’re in the mid thirties.

Vic: Yeah. And then they have caught up. I think a [00:08:00] lot of them are starting to have kids. They have houses. I think the narrative is, is, should be over. It’s still being trotted around, but I think this story, it surprised me.

Vic: But, uh, but that’s why I wanted to bring it up because I think we should. Pay attention. They’re starting to do well.

Marcus: Yeah, which is good, which is good. Another story in the journal headline. Suddenly, hourly workers aren’t so hard to find. This is a little bit more color on the recent jobs numbers and the unemployment rates that we’ve seen over 4%.

Marcus: But we all remember coming out of the pandemic. Every place, if it was a retail storefront, had a big we’re hiring sign and there was all this stories about you cannot find hourly workers. Now we knew that there were, you know, STEMI checks were still out there and people were sort of taking their time, but now the tables have turned.

Marcus: We, you know, it started with, uh, the tables turning on the white collar worker. Uh, we, we had quiet quitting, you know, during the pandemic and then it was like, Oh, I lost my job and I can’t get a new job. Um, but now the hourly worker, uh, is finding themselves in, in a bit of a pinch [00:09:00] as well.

Vic: Yeah, and that’s the reason I think the Fed needs to start turning to really trying to get back to full employment.

Vic: It’s a, there’s starting to be, I think, some pain in the hourly workers not able to find jobs. Unemployment rate is ticking up. It’s not huge, but it’s ticking up above four. Um, and there’s not as many open jobs anymore. So there’s a chart in here that the open jobs, uh, is declining pretty significantly on a month by month basis.

Vic: Yeah. Yeah, and it’s mostly, it’s affecting every job segment, but primarily the lower, the lower income, retail, manufacturing, the hourly worker roles.

Marcus: Yeah, and look, I mean, one of the big themes here is, downsizing layoffs, right? Um, so a story that caught my eye this, this week, uh, was in CB CNBC. [00:10:00] They covered that Macy’s is going to close 150 of their stores by early 2027.

Marcus: Um, and I think that accounts for about a. Third of their stores. So, uh, that’s, you know, apparently it’s less than 10 percent of their sales, but it’s 25 percent of their gross square footage. So there’s two stories here, right? One is a corporate, uh, real estate story, right? I mean, malls, you know, not quite the same, but it’s, you know, It’s real estate.

Marcus: These assets are.

Vic: And it’s, it’s hard to repurpose that. That’s right. They’re talking about things they might do, but, but those are not going to create the same kind of job growth or economic growth.

Marcus: No, no. So there’s a devaluing of the asset, but also hourly jobs. You know, Macy’s definitely a lot of workers that a lot of workers at a Macy’s, right?

Marcus: And you feel like a Macy’s has a lot of. Sort of satellite things around it. Yeah. Um, so yeah, it’s, it’s these downsizes and these huge layoffs that are, that have been happening and compounding over the course of the [00:11:00] last two, three years. We see these things as, okay, they’re happening to companies in accumulation over the course of multiple years.

Marcus: It starts to be a whole workforce issue. And I think we’re now finally starting to feel and see that.

Vic: Yeah. And it’s, I’m not sure the Fed can really change that very quickly. No. So they need to not get too far behind. That’s right. Yeah.

Marcus: Yeah. I mean, whatever we’re seeing now, It’s probably rolling out over the next 12 months and that’s not stoppable.

Marcus: Right. Yeah. So I agree. I mean, we, we need to start to change direction now. Totally agree with that. All right. Moving into VC, uh, Carter came out with their state of the private markets for Q2, 2024. And, uh, thank you Carter for producing this state of the private markets in particular, because finally we’re getting some decent news in the venture ecosystem.

Marcus: It feels like. We have flushed out [00:12:00] all the bad deals. It feels like all the founders have capitulated. It feels like all the down rounds and the pay for play has happened. And we’re now reset the books, you know, probably by the end of last year, everyone took their medicine before their audited financials had to come out.

Marcus: And now here we are. 2024. And we’re now starting to kind of see fresh deal making starting to happen. It’s not happening at a breakneck pace, but it is, it does feel like a reversal of the trend.

Vic: Yeah, I think that’s right. Every key component. So the, the number of deals, the valuations, the time to graduation or the next round, all those things are getting better.

Vic: And I think it is, I think you’re right. It’s we’ve flushed through a lot of the, a lot of the bad actors or the negative things or people. Kind of holding on with not the right business model and too many employees. That’s all kind of gone now. And it, listen, it’s never easy to raise money. Even in the boom times, it’s not easy to raise money.

Vic: That’s right. [00:13:00] I don’t think it’s easy today, but high quality companies are getting financed. And we need that. That’s, that’s healthy and, and it’s great to see it like come through in the reports.

Marcus: Yeah, yeah. And, and, uh, I mean, especially great for those companies that were able to hunker down, figure out how they were going to make it through the winter, um, that we just went through.

Marcus: I mean, I, I’m not sure if it does feel like we’re entering spring in, in the venture markets. I mean, I, I, I don’t want to. Call winter over quite yet, but we are starting to see some a rounds and B rounds starting to get done now here in the third quarter. Um, and it just doesn’t feel like there’s that same level of desperation.

Marcus: And it also feels like a lot of companies figured out how to lower their cost of operating, lower their burn and get more focused on their P and L. So if it, if it changed the behavior, flushed out the bad. You know, the weak hands and made the strong [00:14:00] company stronger. We should have a really nice rebound coming out of this.

Vic: Yeah, I think that’s right. And the, um, when we talk about AI every week here, the, the creative destruction is, is hard to go through. I mean, like, but now you’re starting to see most businesses have figured out a way to reduce their costs and increase the way they can deliver for customers. Even, usually it’s not even an AI product, but they’re using artificial intelligence to do more and higher quality work with fewer employees and less cost.

Vic: Yeah. Yeah. And that was a hard process to go through, and it’s painful, but, but I think we’re now seeing the other side of it. We’re getting much more Much more efficient, uh, startups that can do a lot more with less money. I, I,

Marcus: one of, one of our portfolio companies has through the hard work figured out how to get their burn down from, it was, you know, north of a million a year, um, [00:15:00] to where it’s, I think their, their net loss next year will be around 75 K, which basically means you’re at that point and all the changes they needed to make.

Marcus: To get there, those, those were painful

Vic: changes. Um, and there’s real, there’s real people that changing their job or they, they cut staff or in my portfolio, I have all of those.

Marcus: It was, it was so hard, but I’m telling you, we went through that budget reforecast meeting and it was just like, wow, like this company basically controls this destiny.

Marcus: It just needs to work on working capital now, you know what I mean? And, and you, and, and now value creation starting to happen. Right. So I, I know, I know that that company is not the only one who went through that process, right? Many others went through that process. And so, uh, I’m excited for those companies because on the other side of this, there’s going to be capital looking for who, who cleaned up their house, who got fit, you

Vic: know?

Vic: Yeah. And we’re starting to see that in this Carter report. There’s a [00:16:00] lot of capital on the sidelines. It’s like looking for the opportunity. That’s right. And it’s starting now to pay attention. And there’s great companies out there. That’s right.

Marcus: Uh, speaking of, uh, deals getting done pays in nabs, 32 million series B plus 200 million debt facility to fuel market expansion.

Marcus: So this is a healthcare fintech startup. That’s us by now pay later, uh, in the healthcare space. And, uh, this round was led by NEA. Uh, and, uh, 32 million, uh, other investors are seven wire, single fire, uh, Viola and others. Um, Vic, what did you take out of this story?

Vic: Yeah, I I’m, it’s great to see the, the buy now pay later option being, being brought out there.

Vic: I mean, it’s in a lot of other spaces and healthcare. is very expensive. And I think in general, people want to pay a fair price for healthcare, but it’s difficult to, to make that huge one time payment. And so a structure where you can [00:17:00] pay over time at reasonable rates, I think is great.

Marcus: Well, there’s that, but there’s, there’s also like, how does this work?

Marcus: Right. So it’s, it’s, uh, part of it is the, the, the, the, Cutting down the amount of time it takes for the provider to get their, their cash. Right. Um, in the buy now pay later space for the retailer. I mean, the retailer just basically treats it like a, like a marketing expense. You know, that’s, that’s how they make the money because the consumer’s paying the same amount of money, right?

Marcus: Often it’s like 0 percent for some amount of time. Okay. So who finances that and who loses, who pays? The retailer pays the buy now pay later company. Okay. Um, sort of for getting access to the cash right away while that company takes on the risk of, you know, holding them. Yeah.

Vic: And we, and we know that you can negotiate with providers.

Vic: Exactly. Probably most people listening know that, but most patients don’t know that. That’s right. That’s right. And so this is a great way to say to the patient, we will [00:18:00] allow you to pay this over time, which in reality, is not that hard to negotiate. But, but it’s in a structure that they’re used to. And it’s a, I think it’s good.

Marcus: Yeah. And, and look, I mean, you’re taking away the, the business of managing credit risk from a provider who’s not very good at it to an organization that’s dedicated to doing that. And for the provider, you just get your money faster. Right. So this is actually something that really does make a lot of sense.

Marcus: Um, and, and probably should be scaled out beyond just this one company. All right, uh, next story here. MD ally raises 14 million for virtual triage. So, uh, a couple of friends on this deal, um, shout out to Toyo Louie from, uh, say adventures who was in early on the, I think seed round of MD ally, uh, Catherine and I looked at this deal.

Marcus: We were too late, uh, to it. It was during the pandemic when I met Chantelle and, um, she Chanel and she was already like, I got money. I don’t need your money. Um, and now, um, Derek Dedecker [00:19:00] at, uh, at first Cressy, um, led this round. And so congrats to him. And I’m just happy for them and sad for us that we didn’t get to play in this round.

Marcus: Cause, uh, this is a great company, really great company. They’ve, they focus on basically, um, optimizing 9 1 1. Um, you know, the, the, the, that process of triaging. Where, um, where you should be routing that call. So it doesn’t, uh, fire up an ambulance. If that’s not actually the best, um, you know, if that’s not, if that’s what they need, yeah, that’s not the best resource that they need.

Marcus: Um, triaging that that’s a, that’s a big deal. Um, and so there’s a lot of things in the medical dispatch and response system that can be optimized through technology, through triage, through care navigation, and that’s what MD ally does really, really smart business. Yeah. Um, saves a lot of money, saves a lot of headache, I think also delivers the right care to people when they need it and when they most need it in an emergency setting.

Marcus: [00:20:00] So, great business, happy for them for sure. So, moving into policy, but I think also just talking about cyber attacks. Um, We know that we have an epidemic in cyber attacks in hospitals in America at this point, everyone gets that, um, but who’s helping them? I think has been our question, right? And we’re learning that actually some of the big tech players are now pitching in to, to assist.

Vic: Yeah. So the largest hospitals. And the largest payers. I mean, we’ve had stories of very large on both sides being attacked, you know, successfully for the attackers and the rural, smaller community systems don’t get the same kind of press, but they are not able to fend off these attacks. They get attacked a lot.

Vic: And so Google and Microsoft have both agreed to, I think in some cases they’re doing it for free, you know, other times it’s a 70, 80 percent reduction from their normal billing [00:21:00] rates to come in and provide. Cyber security tools and resources and consulting advice. for these health systems, which is great.

Vic: The Biden administration kind of coordinated this effort and NPR just sort of highlighted it. I think it actually happened in July. I missed it, but they have a couple health systems that, you know, it’s really helpful, and they’re talking about how valuable it is. There’s some concern about will it last long enough?

Vic: Mm hmm. But I’m less worried about that. I mean, they need help today. They need help today. And what they need in three years, I don’t know. But, but, um, I assume the big tech companies will be there then too. I mean, it’s not, it’s a good PR move for Google and Microsoft, both of which need PR. And I don’t think it’s that much effort for them to do it.

Marcus: No, no, it’s, it’s, it’s a, it’s a positive story in what has otherwise been pretty bleak. Yeah, right. Set of stories. Right. Uh, Speaking of bleak, Um, You found this, [00:22:00] This, uh, story on bleepingcomputer. com. Uh, Hackers leaked 2. 7 billion data records with social security numbers. So, That’s all of us.

Vic: Yes. It’s the entire population of the United States.

Vic: And the reason it is so many is, Many of us, like for me, sometimes I’m Vic Gatto, sometimes I’m Victor Gatto, sometimes I’m Victory Gatto. Those are, that’s three different people. So, but it’s basically, if you’re listening to this, your name, address, social security number is out on the dark web and is being sold.

Vic: And probably several different versions of your name and different addresses you have. And it’s already out there.

Marcus: Yeah.

Vic: And there’s not much that we can do about it.

Marcus: I mean, this all really kind of went down in a bad way when Equifax got hacked, right? That was kind of like the beginning of knowing, okay, yes, that’s the honeypot.

Vic: Yeah, and this was a different company, but [00:23:00] same same space, background checks and credit scores. They had aggregated. Everyone’s social security. They had to have all that information and they got, they got it stolen from them. Yeah. Yeah.

Marcus: So look, I think most of our listeners are probably already doing this, but you should have credit monitoring and, um, you know, dark web monitoring.

Marcus: My credit score is frozen. Like you should, you should have your credit report locked. Yeah. Like you just, you just have to, you just, you just have to at this point because all our stuff is out there. Yeah. You can’t think your stuff is not out there. That’s right. All right. This has been a big story. Uh, Google now really squarely in the crosshairs of antitrust suits and the judges are starting to move in the direction of saying Google is a monopoly.

Marcus: Yeah. And I think everyone’s known that for a while, but now we’re We’re starting to get some, some validation on that fact. Um, it does not [00:24:00] feel like we’re going to move aggressively into a breakup phase. It seems like everyone wants to be very thoughtful about this and about how we reconcile the fact that Google totally controls the search market.

Marcus: Um, but it seems that it is no longer a question that Google is a monopoly. I

Vic: mean, it was, it was found in a court to be a monopoly in search, and the remedies is what the court calls it, like what we will do about it is going to be decided in early September. Yeah. Um, I think the big thing that is being pointed at as where they are wrong, is the, the pay, the Apple payments and other, and other payments.

Vic: Yeah. But the Apple one, the Apple is the biggest one, 20 billion a year for Apple to put Google as the, as the default search.

Marcus: And I think Google decided to position that as profit sharing.[00:25:00]

Vic: And I think, um, what was interesting is in the, some of the testimony People from Apple said, well, if we didn’t do this with Google, we just wouldn’t do it at all. But the fact is that they, they took the money and they have done it for several years. I think it’s, um, this article in the New York Times is talking about the Justice Department considering breaking them up.

Vic: I don’t think that’s real. I agree with you. No. Maybe the just where I was considering all kinds of stuff, but I just don’t think the Discussion about breaking YouTube away from search away from Android is gonna happen I could be wrong, but I I’ve talked to a couple people that like study this stuff and they think it’s not realistic I think the The payments are going to stop and it’s going to be now a free for all of of what search engine does apple want to put on there?

Vic: Yeah. Yeah. [00:26:00] Um, and I, I don’t know, I think, I think it’s, I’m sure Google might lose some, a couple of points, a couple of points, but apple shareholders, I mean, they get 20 billion. Yes. Of like 99 percent free, free,

Marcus: free cash.

Vic: And

Marcus: I haven’t

Vic: looked recently, but it’s like a significant multiple on their earnings.

Vic: And so it’s going to be also

Marcus: negative for Apple. So do you think Buffett was tracking this, this, uh, suit and did the math before he dumped, uh, half his position? I don’t know. Maybe,

Vic: maybe. Um, I’m not sure why he has moved to sell his Apple position, but that certainly is. Maybe a factor in it.

Marcus: Google is also sort of losing in their Google play app store.

Marcus: Epic, which is the game maker behind Fortnite and many other very, very popular games. They’ve largely been known for their shoot against Apple. Just all of the. 30 percent [00:27:00] taxes that Apple does, all the lockdowns of what you’re able to do in your app in terms of like an economy and doing transactions. Um, all of those, those things that Apple has, uh, locked in and in their app store, Epic’s been at war with Apple over those things.

Marcus: But, um, apparently Epic also went to war with Google over the same things. Most people don’t think about the Google Play app store that much. Um, And apparently Google lost, and the changes that I guess they needed to make to open up the ability for app makers to operate an economy inside of their apps that are deployed via the App Store, Um, they, Google said it was going to take 12 to 18 months, and the judge said, no, you’re Google, you can do better than that, you need to do it much faster.

Vic: Yeah, I think the, uh, that’s right, and the, the strategy deployed by Google and Apple was very different. Apple said, okay, you’re right. We will create a way for you [00:28:00] to do transactions outside the app store. And then they charge the same for that. That’s 29%. And the after is 30%, which, you know, it’s ridiculous, but kind of brilliant.

Vic: Google, I think took the attack that. Android has multiple app stores, right? And there is customer choice, which is true. And I have an Android phone and they thought they could win. And I think where they were wrong is just the, the misunderstanding that the facts were not the, the facts were not the point.

Vic: No, it was to try to somehow make it more fair broadly. And the fact that there are several app stores that doesn’t matter. And so just the tact, the strategy and the tactics around the legal case, Apple did a much better job. They had a harder case. Counterintuitively, that made it easier for them to figure out a [00:29:00] backdoor.

Marcus: And I think the thing between these two stories is Google is now becoming synonymous with monopoly.

Vic: Yes. Google is in trouble from a regulatory, at least public perception. And, and, and they’re going to be, they’re going to be under the crosshairs to figure out some way to make it More competitive to compete.

Vic: The problem is that there is no search that can compete with Google. No. So I don’t know how it’s gonna change very much, but the government’s gonna try to do something.

Marcus: CMS is saying that negotiated drug prices would have saved Medicare six billion dollars last year.

Vic: So they came out today with the Ten, is it ten?

Vic: The list was on here. Ten, there’s a list of ten, yep. The ten, uh, negotiated prices for the ten drugs that they negotiated, and there were, obviously, there were significant savings. And so next year, these prices will kick in. [00:30:00] And the federal government will save, you know, roughly 6 billion next year. Um, it’s not true that that will be passed on to Medicare or Medicaid participants.

Vic: No, the federal government’s going to say that’s right. Um, I, I’m in favor of it. I think it’s, I think it’s good to do. I don’t know why 10 is the number. Maybe it’s because it took, took them, you know, eight months to, they started in, in the first quarter, I think they started in February. So maybe if they had done 15, they would have never got it done in a year.

Vic: Um, but. At least they’re trying something.

Marcus: Yeah. I mean, they, they, they took 10. I think they tried to take the 10 most used. Um, it was

Vic: some algorithm of the most commonly used and the highest price. So it’s the most cost to the federal government.

Marcus: Yeah. And then when we look at the. Who the pharma companies are between the ten no pharma [00:31:00] company represents more than two of the ten So I think that also probably has some diversity and make sure you’re you’re appropriately spreading the love.

Marcus: Yeah Well, yeah

Vic: lover anti love,

Marcus: right? Alright, so not so great story monkeypox outbreak has Started, I’m not sure if it actually started in Africa, but it has really gotten serious in Africa. Yeah, we’ve

Vic: lost control of it in Africa, or it’s a serious health emergency. WHO has declared a health emergency in Africa.

Marcus: Yeah.

Vic: Yesterday.

Marcus: Yes, and I wanted to make sure like I found the numbers here because I remember seeing that there were over 500 deaths Yeah this year from it. So that’s that’s pretty serious. Yeah Many of the cases that have been reported this year more than 14, 000 with over 500 deaths largely in the western part of the country [00:32:00]

Vic: Yeah, and, and it’s, um, I mean, 500 people dying is terrible, and I think it is, we need to try to get control over it, but it’s, so it’s good that they’ve declared emergency.

Vic: I think that unlocks a lot of money and resources and support, um, to try to, um, Stop it.

Marcus: Yeah. And by the way, those numbers were for the Democratic Republic of Congo. So that’s just one country.

Vic: That’s just yeah, but that’s the worst that in South Africa. The two worst. Okay.

Marcus: Okay. Uh, and then apparently now there.

Marcus: So that was yesterday yesterday. Yeah.

Vic: And then today, two hours or three hours ago. So we’re recording on Thursday. The first case in Europe was detected. Swedish women travel are coming from Africa.

Marcus: Mm. Yeah.

Vic: And so maybe not that surprising, but you know, we’re all scarred by the COVID pandemic, we’re just a global interconnected society.

Vic: So [00:33:00] our thinking that we’re, that it’s going to just stay in Africa is not realistic.

Marcus: Yeah. And, um, the last time that we had a flare up of monkey pox, there was a shortage of the vaccines. So there’s the whole shortage issue, but there’s also the whole vaccine issue. Cause now we’ve got like a very big.

Marcus: Vaccine trust issue in the world, but certainly in America, a very, very big vaccine trust issue. So I don’t think those two things overlapping is, is great for, um, it’s terrible

Vic: outbreak. The lack of trust in our healthcare institutions is really dangerous. And I don’t know how to roll back the clock. I mean, there’s a lot of reasons that people don’t trust, but at the same time, if we don’t trust the World Health Organization to tell us about it.

Vic: The global pandemic risk. I think we’re in trouble. So it’s sort of, uh, it’s not good in either either case. Yep. Agree. [00:34:00]

Marcus: All right. So I talked a little bit about this last week, uh, when you weren’t around, but, uh, th this whole Aetna thing, uh, with CVS is starting to take more shape. So a group of employers, uh, are suing Aetna claiming that the, you know, their, their pay rates are inflated, unduly inflated.

Marcus: Um, what, what, what’s all going on here? You know, CBS is framing it as, you know, The leader was not meeting expectations, but very quickly. Now we’re starting to have suits coming out against Aetna as well. What, how many stories have you read on this, on this situation?

Vic: I mean, I’ve tried, I mean, I’ve read probably five different stories.

Vic: Yep. But there’s, there’s not clarity on where this is all headed. It’s, it’s a train wreck, right. It’s not good. The merger that had a lot of promise, clearly has not gone well and [00:35:00] um. Karen Lynch has come over, come in to lead the whole thing. They’re not replacing Brian Cain, as far as I know. They haven’t, they haven’t named a replacement.

Vic: Um, and it just seems really like a mismanaged, um, CVS and Aetna are both, Wasn’t a merger of equals, but they both were very large. Yeah, and I don’t think the Aetna side really has been managed very well It seems like it seems like that. It seems like that

Marcus: I mean, I mean those those seem to be the statements coming out from yeah

Vic: from

Marcus: CVS.

Vic: Yes, right. And so Um, I don’t know it seems really difficult given CVS has a lot of issues in its in its retail store right platform right too. I mean there’s issues all around um with CVS and Aetna and a lack of management and even like control over the [00:36:00] various It’s not a good thing.

Marcus: All right. Our friend, Clay Richards, who is an operating partner at Clayton DuBellier and Rice, he is taking the helm at a new platform called Mosaic Health, and they’re taking the, a pre health asset, which was actually a combination of VeriHole Health and Caslight, and they’re merging it with their Millennium, uh, technology.

Marcus: a physician group asset, which was a physician group that I think was largely in the, um, it’s, it’s a primary care, uh, asset largely in the Florida, uh, area, but they were very good at, uh, Um, I can’t remember if it was employer or if it was like Medicaid that they were really, really strong in. Um, but basically Clayton DuBellier is, is now integrating all of their assets and they’re partnering with, um, Elevance slash Carillon, uh, on taking this primary care platform out to the market.

Vic: [00:37:00] Yeah, um, that’s, that’s basically the summary of what I know. I think it is, um, I think Clay’s a good operator, and it, there’s a lot of advantage in putting these things together. And I think it has a lot of promise, like stitching them together and being able to share information and manage populations of people from the primary care, advanced primary care kind of point of view can be really powerful.

Vic: Um, not a lot of new things as far as I can tell. It’s more like they’re integrating it together.

Marcus: It’s integrating it and aligning it with a very, very large payer with, with ambitions, you know, and moving very quickly on the payvider side. Yes.

Vic: Yeah, so it seems like it’s really promising, but I know sort of what you described.

Marcus: Alright, this is a story you found in the Wall Street Journal. The headline is, Hospitals New Push, Treating Patients in Their Homes. I mean, I think you and I know this is not a new push. It’s not a [00:38:00] new push. You remember when Travis Messina launched Contessa here in Nashville.

Vic: Um, the thing that caught my attention is that it’s much more widespread.

Vic: This is Mass General, um, doing it in the Boston area. But there’s, the story talks about several hundred health systems that have these initiatives. And it’s, it’s evolving in a way that is, um, hard to fully get my head around. But when Contessa Hospital Home was, there was a lot of infrastructure that was brought into the patient’s home.

Vic: Yep. And it was. pretty limited in the number of like, um, patient eligibility was pretty limited. You had to have a certain set of.

Marcus: Very specific protocols. Yes. And

Vic: they were predefined. Yeah. And there was a, usually a hospital bed and diagnostic machines and a 24 hour nurse often. Um, and what is [00:39:00] being described here is not that it’s, it’s whatever care the patient needs.

Vic: Delivered to their home, but much more flexible set of, uh, options. So not every patient needs all the diagnostic equipment and a 24 hour nurse. Some do, some don’t. And I think that is on one hand, really attractive. Like if we can make the patient,

Marcus: not everything is ICU.

Vic: Yeah, right. If we can make the patient get to recover in their home, With their family, and the pets is a big piece, and their loved ones, you know, come to visit them easily.

Vic: Yep. Not have to go to a new place that’s maybe hard to find. And not where they can easily come by after work. That’s a net positive. That’s a good thing. That is good. But there’s, there’s, uh, There seems to be a lot of questions around, well, what patient populations are eligible for [00:40:00] this and what services would fit.

Vic: And a lot of the description in the story sounded much more low acuity, more like home health set of services and equipment, meaning very little equipment and, you know, hold up your iPhone to talk to a doc. If you need to. Get a doc’s opinion on something. And well, that’s maybe going to be a more efficient way to do it.

Vic: It also opens up lots of opportunity for billing at hospital rates for. What really is a home health service and I couldn’t find clarity and in fact, in the article, there’s a lot of discussion of regulators having concerns about the trend line. And so, yeah, it’s not a new story, but the scope and scale and the sort of diversity of patients that are being treated seemed worth mentioning.

Marcus: And I think what’s really interesting is that. [00:41:00] Patients will want this. Oh, patients definitely want it, right? Um, so I I kind of think hospital wants

Vic: if you can build the inpatient rate

Marcus: Well, of course, but but I I guess what i’m saying is from the regulator’s perspective Patients want it. I say that in the same vein that I would say consumers want it right.

Marcus: Like, it doesn’t mean that regulators won’t act aggressively, but, uh, it does create a little bit of a headwind for regulators when it is something that the public wants, right? If like, if it, if it’s not politically popular to over regulate this thing that is popular with, and let’s, let’s be honest, right?

Marcus: Most people who are going to be eligible for this are going to be like Medicare. Yeah, right. Recipients. Right. Which is a really strong voting bloc.

Vic: Strong voting bloc, and they’re not paying. No, and they’re not paying. Right, so. And they’re not paying. I mean, let’s take it to the extreme. We could, I mean, home healthcare is a hard business.

Marcus: Yeah.

Vic: We don’t reimburse [00:42:00] enough, in my opinion. No. And we should reimburse more, and then have home health responsible for visiting more and providing more services. Yes. And there’s a, there’s an opportunity, I’m not saying that, that, General’s doing this or anyone’s doing this, but there’s an opportunity to to sort of have reimbursement for Really hospital services, but but deliver let’s say a more higher service level home health kind of care Right, and if we want to do that, I would be in favor of that Sure, but we should you guys do the we should talk about it and get some kind of new reimbursement code Yeah, you gotta do the work I just pretend like it’s hospital at home if it’s not right and right I don’t I think you’re right The patients will like it the hospitals like it The healthcare workers like it.

Vic: Sure, everyone. The only person that doesn’t like is the taxpayer who doesn’t even know. Right. And so, yes, it’s going to be, it’s going to [00:43:00] tend to have no one on the other side talking about it. Yeah. And, you know, if we want to fund that as a society, that’s great. I might be in favor of it, but. We haven’t decided to do that.

Vic: We’re just sort of doing it all in a hospital home.

Marcus: Uh, all right, here’s another kind of, uh, unorthodox thing happening at, at hospitals. Northwell Health has built a production studio, a movie studio, uh, on their facility, and they’re going to develop documentaries, films, and TV shows. Yes.

Vic: And I, I don’t even know, I don’t know why this makes sense, but they have, they’ve already done it and they’re, they’re, They’re doing TV shows and documentaries.

Vic: If they want to do marketing and PR, that’s marketing and PR. Producing TV shows for Netflix. Does not make sense

Marcus: to me, but hold on the very first full paragraph in this article says [00:44:00] spurred by the success of documentary streaming on Hulu, Max and Netflix that have been set at Northwell Health’s network of 21 hospitals and hundreds of clinics across New York City and Long Island.

Marcus: The system recently established a production company of its own to work on more projects. So they’ve run some pilots of this and the docs are already on the big three streaming platforms.

Vic: Yeah, I know. I know. And I don’t think they have any business doing that. I mean, look, I mean, it’s not, it’s not an entertainment.

Vic: Studio. No, but it’s a commitment. It is. There’s what they’re creating.

Marcus: Yeah, but, but, but it’s a, it is a communication, uh, medium. Right. And I think, I think what would feel savvy and real, especially in a time where, you know, we want to talk about entertainment. I mean, the media industry is collapsing. In front of our very [00:45:00] eyes.

Marcus: And you, you were in the media business before, but like, you know, so it’s, it’s no surprise to you, this thing is collapsing right before our very eyes right now. Right. And I mean, WPD, Paramount, I mean, you name it. They’re just. Getting crushed and part of why that’s happening is because we have distributed the ability to produce To everybody and we’ve distributed channels Everywhere and it now feels more.

Marcus: I mean look look at us. We what did we do? Look if we were to ask our LPS Should Vic and Marcus build a studio in their office? How many of them would would say, yes, no one would say yes. They would all say they have no business doing that. Right. Right. But like we have become much better investors because we have a studio in our office and we do this show.

Marcus: Right. So I kind of think about that. The same thing here. And I just [00:46:00] generally think this is the world. Like we’re going to have production studios everywhere. Nowhere’s going to be off limits for it because you have to control the medium of communication about your business. You have to, you can’t rely on PR.

Marcus: You certainly can’t rely on it on the incumbent media ecosystem to do it. I mean, they’re always going to get it wrong. So you got to be out there. Communicating your own brand the way you think is best. I think

Vic: I agree with that. I think you I think we should and health systems should communicate their brand in the best way they can.

Vic: And I’m also in favor of letting people see behind the scenes and showing that doctors are people too and nurses people too. And they’re trying their best. Then, unfortunately, In health care, you know, not every patient survives and it’s hard and, and really important work. I, I’m in, I’m in favor of that.[00:47:00]

Vic: When they try to say they’re going to create a production studio as a revenue center and it, and it’s going to be part of the strategy. Like, I don’t, I want to have a lot of listeners to this show. And I don’t think we are going to start selling ads. No, no, of course not. Of course not.

Marcus: I, I, I, I think any revenue that they are going to make has to be thought of as, um, offsetting expenses and maybe a little bit of cream.

Marcus: I think the primary thing, and look, they’re in, they’re in New York, right? That’s actually a pretty competitive ecosystem from, from, uh, Um, health system brand perspective, if they can make sure their brand, the Northwell health brand is the brand across the top three streaming platforms, that’s gonna, that’s, that is likely a marketing investment worth making, right?

Marcus: That is likely to drive top line volume, uh, against, against their competitive brands. So [00:48:00]

Vic: let me just quickly say like. We used to run an accelerator and there was a point in time when people wanted to come in and film our accelerator. And I was allergic to that. Like, I don’t think that would, I think that would be negative to the effort of helping a company grow and.

Vic: Detrimental to the mission, and so if they are showcasing the great people at Northwell and using it as marketing and PR, I’m in favor of that. If they’re trying to create a drama, a new ER, um, I just don’t think it makes sense. Yeah,

Marcus: yeah. Let’s, let’s hope they’re not trying to make A new ER. Yeah, let’s hope big drug makers are clenching smaller deals.

Marcus: So this is talking about how the large pharma companies are now focusing on targets that are 5 billion or less. Um, seems to be a couple of storylines here. One regulators have been crushing the big deals. And so do the small [00:49:00] deals that you can get in under the radar. The other one is biotech’s been hurting and they are trying to sell their assets and lower prices are easier to sell.

Marcus: So it seems to be,

Vic: yeah, probably both.

Marcus: Yeah.

Vic: A little bit of both. The story is skewed, uh, because the wall street journal and the, and they are trying to pretend like everything is great. If the regulators would get out of the way, that’s just their stack. Um, it’s slanted mostly to the regulators are looking really carefully at anything over 5 billion.

Vic: I think there’s truth to that. Sure. But there’s also truth to the fact that the biotech, uh, kind of growth community has fewer assets that are worth more than 5 billion and the farmer businesses need every revenue they can get. So like they’re willing to look at smaller deals. That’s right. There just aren’t that many people to choose.

Vic: There aren’t any companies to choose from that are really impactful. Um, so I [00:50:00] think it’s probably some of both. But it does mean that the overall industry is not able to sort of grow at the same pace. Whatever the underlying reason is, I think you’re not going to see those Mega blockbuster deals as often.

Marcus: Yeah. And to that end, we’re now seeing Roche considering the sale of Flatiron Health. Yeah. Which is a big unwind. Yeah. Right. When Roche bought Flatiron Health, to me, that was like one of the, one of the capstone acquisitions of a pharma company getting into digital health, getting into data. And it wasn’t the only one.

Marcus: Many of them, you know, AstraZeneca made their whole platform that they were going to do from a digital health perspective, but it was, it was sort of this, this was doing a bunch of artists was doing a bunch of stuff. It was this wave of pharma saying, Hey, we’re going to get into digital.

Vic: Yeah. Digital data, extending away from biochemistry and physical You know, pills on the shelf into [00:51:00] digital solutions,

Marcus: a little bit of like kind of a conglomerate mindset.

Marcus: Right. Yeah. Um, and now they’re talking about unwinding it there. Their position on why they’re doing it is that they’ve actually hurt Flatiron because since Roche has become the acquirer, even though Flatiron is a separate business, other pharma companies are less willing to work with Flatiron because they’re under the Roche umbrella.

Marcus: Um, which I’m sure is actually. Part part of what’s going on here. Um, but there also could be something about a we just need to tighten up our ship and not do this conglomerate thinking. And let’s just form a company.

Vic: Yeah, I think it’s partially that that could be pretty easily fixed calling a couple competitors and doing it doing a deal.

Vic: with terms that are clearly not, you know, negative to those companies. I think the more, maybe less, uh, good for corporate public relations, but I think more true is [00:52:00] they, they need to find the money and they need to focus on their core business. And it’s a new executive team that this isn’t their deal.

Vic: And so I’m sure they’ve looked at it. Like we, they bought it for 2 billion. They could probably get. Two billion, right? Um, and they could use that money and focus and, and what do we want this thing for? I think that’s more what it is that they’re trying to spin.

Marcus: Yeah, yeah, I think that’s right. Uh, big health clinches an FDA clearance for its digital therapeutic for insomnia.

Marcus: Sleepy O R X. So haven’t heard about digital therapeutics in a while. I was glad to see you bring this up. Um, FDA clearance is good. Now you got to get CMS to pay for it. And, uh, apparently big health thinks they’re going to get CMS, uh, to pay for it inside of the next, you know, I

Vic: think, yeah,

Marcus: the next 90 days, 90 days.

Marcus: Okay, so this, this is one where I just wanted to make sure we started a conversation about it to track and see whether or not they get it, uh, through CMS and they get it paid for. If they [00:53:00] do, then my question goes to, is it because of, of the fact that it’s, it’s sleep and sleep is something that, you know, we’re not really, tackling very aggressively on the pharmacological side.

Marcus: So we are looking to digital, you know, solutions to help people with their sleep. And we’re, we’re now more than ever realizing the importance of sleep and overall health. So it has something to do with the specific thing that, that’d be good. Health care or is it we’re, we’re open to digital therapeutics.

Marcus: Right.

Vic: The reason to track this is, is the latter. I mean, I, I like sleep. I think sleep’s really important and I have an investment in sleep stuff, not this one. Um, but the reason I think our audience to track the, why I want to track it is if we can come back to digital therapeutics, I think they actually are, there’s a lot of, I mean, they’re, they’re, they’re effective.

Vic: So many benefits. There’s a lot of benefits and we should reimburse, we should figure out some framework to do that. [00:54:00] Um, and it’s been dormant, quiet for gosh, 18 months. Yeah. And so, um, I’m hopeful that, that they make it for a bunch of reasons. I mean,

Marcus: it feels like the dust has settled. We’re a long ways away from pair.

Marcus: Right.

Vic: Right.

Marcus: And it does feel like we can start to kind of re approach this, right? Like let’s, let’s, let’s get some stuff through the pipeline. Let’s get some stuff paid for and let’s see how it works out. And look, we’re going to, we’re going to, uh, you know, the next show we’re going to publish is, uh, uh, our, uh, our six month check in with TK, uh, from Virtua.

Marcus: And it’s a digital therapeutic effectively. Right. I mean, you know, so.

Vic: Yeah. And he’s had a great results. So, um, yeah, I’m hopeful that they, We’ll start paying for these things.

Marcus: Yep. All right. Uh, speaking of DK, uh, striker continues their shopping spree with the acquisition of smart hospital developer care AI.

Marcus: So these are friends. Uh, Bruce Brandis is I think the president at care AI. And, uh, so congratulations to Bruce and the team over [00:55:00] there. Um, striker sort of maker of beds and, uh, other things that are happening in the hospital and carry. I is kind of their, their big move to transition their, uh, their, their position in the market from just being a provider of beds and related devices to the full smart hospital room.

Marcus: That’s right.

Vic: And, um, I mean, we talk about it with TK as well, because it’s AI and he knows this, we know, everyone knows, you know, on a call with TK knows this space. It’s a great move for Striker, and I think good for Kara AI. Striker also owns Vocera, the voice over IP piece, and when you stitch together Kara AI and Vocera and Striker’s existing You know, physical things like beds and equipment.

Vic: It’s a pretty powerful portfolio of suite of tools and in a [00:56:00] really interesting way outside of the sort of lockdown of Epic and Cerner, which is, which I love to see, I want someone to like, keep them honest and force them to do something. Yeah. And so. I don’t even care who wins. Just the fact that they’re now there’s going to be competition will be good.

Marcus: Agreed. Headline of the story in the New York Times, ALS stole his voice, AI retrieved it. This is a profile on the second Neuralink patient.

Vic: Yes. And it’s a great story. We’ll put the link in the show notes. Um, ALS is terrible. It also is a progressive disease. It’s, you know, fairly slow. So he knew he was going to lose his voice.

Vic: Um, You know, read the story to his daughter and all this really kind of, you know, emotionally hard things and Neuralink, uh, it’s the second patient Neuralink has restored his voice, which is incredible and really just positive for humanity that we can do this. It’s, you know, it’s only a second patient, but it’s the second successful [00:57:00] patient out of two and I’m excited about it.

Vic: Yeah. It’s a, it’s a, it’s really good. It’s a big deal.

Marcus: I, I love Elon. The engineer. Yeah.

Vic: Yes. She’ll stay out of politics. I’d like him to

Marcus: get off X. Yeah. Give it back. Give it back to Jack. Uh, Vivid Health brings generative AI into home health care, hospital home services. So this is a kind of a care navigation care planning LLM, uh, that interacts with patients, accesses their listens to them, but also access their record.

Marcus: Yeah. Um, and helps to basically navigate what they should be doing at home, what kind of caretaker setup they need, et cetera, et cetera.

Vic: Yeah. So I think we have progressed beyond, uh, covering all the back office things. AI is now I think accepted. I mean, people are still adopting it, but that’s right.

Vic: That’s not novel anymore. They are using it in developing care plans and interacting with patients to, and they change [00:58:00] the, what you do tomorrow with the patient. Yep. Which. Could be incredibly valuable. Yep. And it also, you know, the clinical side of generative AI has a lot more opportunity, but also more safety things to think through.

Vic: Um, but it’s and then it ties back to the home health care and hospital at home. They’re merging the two together. Yep. Um, because they probably don’t see much of a difference between the two. All right.

Marcus: Final story. Uh, I’m gonna let you take this one, man.

Vic: Quantum computing. People have been talking about quantum computing.

Vic: It’s over my head technically, but basically instead of ones and zeros, you get all, all grades from zero to one, including 0. 5 and everything else in between. So a lot more, um, complexity, also a lot more power. It is hard to manage the quantum bits in a way that’s [00:59:00] useful. So I think for a long time, we’ve had quantum bits.

Vic: We couldn’t really do much with them. And this story, which is in tech crunch is saying that in the next five years, there’ll be an ability for quantum computers that can’t do everything, but they will be able to decrypt RSS encryption, which is the, which is what my bank, everyone’s bank uses normal encryption, And in the next five years is pretty short.

Vic: And so several, three different standards have come out so that encryption professionals can begin putting in tools that can fight against that because you have to start now if you want to be ready in five years. And so this was shocking to me. And maybe, maybe you’ve been following it, but

Marcus: it was shocking that the quantum was going to, was going to work

Vic: in five years.

Vic: Oh, oh, I, I know Quantum is going destroy our, our say encryption. Okay. [01:00:00] Okay. I

Marcus: was thought, expect, expect in the next five years. Yeah. Got it. Got it. Okay.

Vic: Because,

Marcus: you know, I, I didn’t, I didn’t know the timeline, but the next five years doesn’t surprise me. And I also know people have been working to counter this because they know it’s inevitable.

Marcus: Yeah. It’s definitely going happen, whether it’s five

Vic: years or six years. Yeah. I mean, it’s, it’s soon. Yeah. Much sooner than I thought. Yeah. I would, I thought was thinking it was much further away, 20 years, 30 years. No, no, no. If we’re going to put new encryption into our banking system and our credit check system and all of our systems, we need, it takes five years to do that.

Marcus: I mean, dude, every, I mean, we’re talking SSL. We’re talking like the ability to transact online. Yeah. We’re talking all crypto, all cryptocurrency. I mean, I mean, quantum breaks all that.

Vic: Yes. All that. So forget, um, people having my social security [01:01:00] number. Yeah. They don’t need that. No, they just go into my bank, send themselves money.

Vic: They don’t need my social security number. That’s right. Um, And it’s really a state, like a country risk. And so, I don’t know, I wanted to talk about it, and I think it’s good that we are coming out with new encryption methodologies that can protect ourselves.

Marcus: Yes, good, good and very important. Yes. And also, just a reminder that, uh, staying ahead of time.

Marcus: Of things from a technology perspective is a national security matter. Yes. It’s like, it’s like you don’t have a choice. You’ve got to invest in this stuff and investing actually means having great immigration policies because you want to be able to import the best brains in the world so that you can stay ahead of everybody else.

Marcus: Yes,

Vic: that’s right. And a great VC. Apparatus and great entrepreneurs and yes, great inventors. And yes, the United States has that. And so we just [01:02:00] have to keep investing it. Right. We’ve got to set up to win. That’s right. We just have to try. Yes.

Marcus: So anyway, that was good, man. That was good. All right. Uh, you’re around for a while, right? No more travel. I’m here. Okay, good. Well, then I’ll see you next week.