Andrew Lacy
speaker
125 appearances
1 recordings
1 series
first heard Dec 2024
last heard Dec 2024
Andrew Lacy’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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And the best companies, like the most sort of world-changing companies are built from these asymmetric information situations. And when that collapses, all of a sudden, when everyone understands that, let's say, whole body screening can potentially change the world, well, by that stage, it's too late. The companies that are working on it will have already been working on it for like 10, 15 years.
The goal of the company really is to change this entire industry, turn it upside down from an industry that's very reactive, where we're afraid to learn about our health. It's a scary thing. I mean, the single biggest challenge my patients have to overcome is in coming in is the fear that the health system has put in their heads that anything we find might be life-threatening.
And the world we wanna create is one where you get a screening every year or so. It's like going to the dentist. We're checking to see how things are going. You will have disease, but because we're looking so routinely, we're going to find things very early. And we're going to find things so early that sometimes you don't even need medical intervention. You can just change your lifestyle.
And if you need medical intervention, it's going to be cheaper and it's going to be much more successful outcome for the patient and for the health system. That's the world that we're trying to create. You won't recognize it, I don't think. In the same way, I think people in 30 or 40 years will look back at the healthcare system today and they'll just shake their heads.
And for me, that it's incredible to be able to change, you know, work to change the industry and save lives in the process. I just feel so blessed to being able to do that every day of the week.
When I was in fourth grade, I remember a teacher brought in a video camera to videotape us. And I'm going to display my age here a little bit, but that was like the first time I saw a video camera. And the woman was filming us. And I just felt so fascinating. All these knobs were spinning around. And I just asked her, why is that? How is it working? What's going on here?
Why is that thing spinning? And the teacher got so upset at me, I got detention. But I think that's me. I have friends that they build a company, they sell it, and then they start the same company again, plus or minus 10%. And then they sell that. And they start the same company again, plus or minus 10%, and sell that. And it's probably a better way to be financially successful for sure.
But for me, it just feels very boring. So I've just always had this curiosity for learning new things. And that's why every one of my companies has been a completely new sector. I've done different roles in most of them. And I've been curious enough to experiment with what does it mean even to do it in different countries around the world? I don't know.
I just think that's what makes life interesting is that every day is going to be a constant challenge. That's what most people don't know about me is, yeah, I got attention routinely for just asking too many why questions at school.
The simple answer would be that I sort of wasted 10 years of my time before I figured out that building companies was the thing that motivated me. So my first company... I was, I think, 31, which is still young, but in Silicon Valley speak, that's kind of old when it comes to starting companies. That's the easy answer.
The reality is I don't think I would be successful if it wasn't for that experience. But for sure, you have a lot more energy in your 20s than you do in your 40s. You have fewer familial responsibilities. I still work quite hard, but I cannot work anywhere near as hard as I used to because I have a child to look after and I'm married and And I just don't have the energy.
So I don't know, maybe getting started a bit earlier, but then probably expect to fail and then get back on the horse and do it again.
I do, but I less and less like what I see looking back at me in the mirror the next day compared to when I was 20 or 30 years younger.
I feel pretty privileged because I sort of always had a pretty good banner. The next best alternative for me was always going to be something where I could put bread on the table. So I could always go back to consulting. I don't think I go back to law, but I could, I guess, in theory. For me, that's like a really privileged place to be. It sort of is very freeing and enabling of taking risks.
I mean, everyone should sort of evaluate themselves and whether that sort of fits them or not, or how can they organize their life in such a way that they can really take a chance if that's something that is going to be really motivating for them. It's funny, like I used to volunteer at a prison, actually in California, where we did this like entrepreneurial contest.
And a lot of these people that we worked with were people that they might've been in prison for like 10, 20 years, like their entire adult life. Some of them for quite serious crimes, but they all had this passion for the fact that their sentence was coming up and they had to figure out they don't want to come back in jail, which is what usually happens. So what can they do?
And so we taught them entrepreneurship. And they all came up with ideas. And they weren't VC fundable ideas. But for those people, it's very difficult to get a job. And becoming their own business owner sometimes is the best way. In fact, the lowest way to figure out how to put bread on the table. So I don't know. I think it's just such a personal decision.
And I'm always very nervous to say, well, it's easy. Just quit your job and rent a house with five other people and just eat two-minute noodles. Because not everyone can do that. Hopefully many people have a time and place in their lives where that's possible.
And if you're in that time of your life where that is possible, like I would think hard about whether that's now's the right time because you don't want to have those regrets when you are, you know, you have family or you have other commitments where it's like not quite possible to be able to do it.
It is a psychological difference. But when I speak to my staff, I often talk about something that I truly believe, which is successful companies have entrepreneurs at all levels.
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