The Executive Longevity Plan (ft. Tony Medrano)

How did you get involved with triathlon and longevity overall?

I thought it was an opportunity to, to kind of hack the system to see if I, if it could be done from somebody who was not training for it and didn't really know how to ride a bike or swim very well. I'm not a perfectionist, but an experimenter. We want people to actually be healthier, not just look healthier, and not just feel better, but actually be better. There's so much interest out there in being healthy. I would challenge everybody just to ask, ask me, ask others, make the most use out of an extra half hour a week.

Welcome to Digital Voices, where healthcare and life science leaders explore the real work behind transformation. This podcast is about people, leadership, and the conversations that move healthcare forward. Now your host, Ed Marx.

Hey everyone, welcome to another edition of Digital Voices. I have my friend Tony Medrano with us. Tony, welcome to Digital Voices.

Yeah. Thanks so much, Ed. Glad to be here.

I thought this would be a fun episode, kind of mixing it up a little bit and just talking about being healthy, longevity, peptides, all the things that we hear about in the media right now, kind of all the rage, and get some context and some perspectives from someone who's right there in the mix as an athlete themselves and a believer in longevity. So, it should be a really interesting discussion. But Tony, before we get too far, the most important question in our entire time together are what songs are on your playlist?

Let's see. You know, I go back and forth between moods. Sometimes it's Jimmy Buffett, sometimes it's Odesza, sometimes it's, you know, 1980s metal bands.

Yeah. Is there a particular song, like before a race, do you have a pump-up song?

You know, I, I don't, I tend to be quiet and meditative about it and focus on the sort of visualizing the race without a song. But yeah, that's a, that's a good, good question.

No, no, I, I like that as well. Yeah. Sometimes you kind of go, go through in your mind, like all the different aspects of the race. So it's like well ingrained, so you don't have to think about it once you're out there.

I'm a contingency planner, so I like to plan, plan things out.

What about life message or mantra? Are there words that kind of guide you how you live life?

Well, up in my office, right, I'm looking at it right now. I've got a big poster that says grit. And what is it? The definition is made up of hustle, passion, and perseverance. I think that sums up how I view life and the opportunities that are either there or not there.

Oh, I like that. So Tony, most of the audience, at least my audience, probably hasn't heard of you previously. So tell us a little bit about yourself. Like, Who are you? What's your story? And, you know, where, so let's just start with like, where did you grow up?

Yeah. Yeah. I grew up in a blue-collar suburb of Los Angeles County. You know, kind of inland near Pomona, Diamond Bar, if people are familiar with LA, the boring side, not the coastal side. You know, I served in the Navy in San Diego. I live in San Diego now, but I've been in Silicon Valley about half of my career. You know, I went to school in Boston, New York, The Bay Area, kind of lived all over. Been in the technology industry for over 25 years and recently the last 10 or so, the AI and medical diagnostics side of it. So leaning towards longevity optimization with AI.

Yeah, we didn't talk about it. You know, your, your background, not just Ironman triathlon, but MBA and Stanford and Columbia and Harvard and, uh, your JD, uh, quite, quite accomplished. Being a vet, as you mentioned, it's pretty cool. How did you get involved with triathlon and longevity overall?

Yeah, I've always been, I'd say, generally athletic, but was not a college athlete at all. Ran one marathon 20 years ago. And then, about 7 years ago, a friend of mine from Stanford Business School who had run 15 Ironmans at the time, And was ranked in the world, just sort of challenged me like, hey, why don't you run one of these with me? I think it was more of a joke. Well, yeah, she actually says it was more of a joke. And I said, okay, great. I'm going to do it. So that was 90 days before the race that I ended up competing in and finishing. So I took the dare seriously, buckled down. I thought it was an opportunity to kind of hack the system to see if it could be done from somebody who was not training for it and didn't really know how to ride a bike or swim very well. I made it, I finished, and I actually, 6 weeks before, I was hit by a car, separated my right shoulder. You know, when the car T-boned me effectively, and about 20 miles an hour I was going on my bike, separated my shoulder and still learned, you know, hacked the swim with one arm and hacked the bike without being able to change gears.

Wow.

Because I couldn't get down in aero position. Some of the cyclists out there will know. But I made it and I found that so neat that I just wanted to do more of them. So, I did 2 more after that and looking for my 4th this year.

Wow. Oh, that's amazing. Yeah. And, for people who wouldn't know, an Ironman, you would typically already maybe be a triathlete and you would normally have 6 months, 180 days to really dial in a plan and prepare. You did it in 90 days plus with those 2 injuries. That's pretty amazing. What about a pivotal moment in life that fundamentally changed your trajectory?

It would have to be serving in the US Navy. The Navy paid for me to go to Harvard. I would not have been able to attend, would it have not been for the scholarship that I received. While I was in high school, similar to the Naval Academy, I got an ROTC scholarship to Harvard. That really opened up the doors for me to one, be around the smartest, most hardworking, successful people that I could imagine. I'd never seen that really level before, but then, you know, make friends with them, be exposed to opportunities business-wise, healthcare-wise, and really become an entrepreneur. So After Harvard, I served in the Navy and then I went to Stanford for business school because I knew I wanted to be a leader, entrepreneur, or I went to law school as well. I liked the transactional side, but started my first business at Stanford Business School. So that entrepreneurial mindset came out of me figuring out the opportunity, how to get to college, how to pay for it, and then having fun in the Navy, Leading. So, leading a firefighting group on a destroyer in a really sort of hands-on, off-the-wall type of adventure job.

Yeah. I would love to, next time we meet up in person, I'd love to hear some of the stories from your Navy. So, did you get any tattoos in the Navy or Ironman tattoo after an Ironman?

I've got one tattoo. It was after the Navy and before Ironmans, but I've thought about getting the standard Ironman tattoo, except I don't like the calf so much as the location. That's usually where where they put it, right?

Yeah. It's not, I didn't want to be stereotypical, but I figured between the two that you probably had a tattoo somewhere. So, yeah, you shared a little bit of your journey, but how did you get to longevity specifically? So, like what you're doing now?

Yeah, it was a combination of my Ironman experience, which started in 2019. And then in 2020, I joined a molecular diagnostics company. So, it was my first jaunt into medtech or healthcare. Before that, I had I started an artificial intelligence company in 2016, been in Silicon Valley and tech entrepreneur for years, and combined all those things into start Longevity Plan AI, which is an AI company that offers peptide plans and optimizes peptide therapy. I got into personal optimization through running Ironmans, hacking it with sort of one arm functioning. And not being an experienced triathlete of any kind, even experienced cyclist or swimmer, made me appreciate the mathematics of hacking an event. And now, I'm not talking Bryan Johnson hacking, but more like what the everyday person can afford. I mean, like I said, I had a time trial bike with aero bars on it. I probably should have bought a road bike after my injury, But I was too cheap and I figured, oh, I can just get down there in the race and gut it out. But I couldn't. So I'm trying to do those things on a normal budget in a fun way to keep myself engaged. I'm not a perfectionist, but an experimenter.

Well, yeah, with all this experience, you know, the founder experience, what's your advice for someone trying to build at the intersection of tech and human health?

I would say focus on the data. There's so much data out there. That organizations and individual consumers are not able to make sense of it or use it to its full levels. So if there's data that they have access to or they see and they can use AI to make that more actionable by people, by a large amount of people with a problem ideally, that there's probably a good opportunity for that entrepreneur.

Yeah. I want to talk a little bit about peptides, but first, can you define for anyone listening that might not know?

Yeah, great question. I mean, the term is thrown around. A peptide is basically a chain of amino acids between, you know, 2 and 50 amino acids. So, it's a small protein. If you're familiar with, like, you know, high school biology, right? Amino acids form proteins. Proteins are larger molecules. Peptides are really in between. amino acids and proteins. So, they're the building blocks for a lot of our own body. And our body produces most of the peptides that are being talked about currently in the market. They're not exogenous compounds like drugs. And they're not— the way peptides are delivered is not the same way testosterone or human growth hormone or other exogenous compounds are injected into the system that override your body's, um, creation of, of those, um, compounds. What peptides do is just remind your body to make some more of what it used to make a lot more when you were 20.

Right.

So it's great for longevity science.

Yeah. And it's, and it's a, it's legal to use in, um, sports and things like that.

It's just natural part. Yeah. There, there's only a couple that are banned by WADA, you know, the World Anti-Doping Association. And those are not because of health reasons, but just because they are an unfair competitive advantage. There's not too many athletes talking about peptides, but there's a lot of them using them.

How are you positioning peptides as part of this data-driven longevity strategy?

Well, peptides have been used for decades and prescribed by doctors for decades, you know, used by athletes, by people looking at longevity. Insulin is a peptide. Collagen is a peptide, right? There's GLP-1s like Ozempic, you know, are the newest peptides that probably fueled the craze in the media. Peptides solve a lot of problems. And they've— since they've been used, there is a lot of anecdotal data out there for them. What we are using AI for is to help people optimize their peptide plans and protocols. and figuring out what's working for people, basically. Things like dosage are, the recommendations are all across the board.

Yeah.

You know, our medical doctors on staff have different ideas because of their experiences. You know, effectively you can microdose for one result, or you can give a larger dose for an acute injury. And, you know, there's a lot of opportunity there for, I'd say, more Clinical-like data to help the, just the, the people.

Yeah. I think what you're talking about is really the personalization of peptides. Yeah. 'Cause you know, with, with modern medicine, one of the challenges is that everyone gets the same medicine and the dosage based on your height and weight, you know, in a very specific form. But That we may not be very— that particular medicine may not work very well for me, but might work well for Tony, for you. And, but we just ever give everyone the same, uh, basically. But what you're doing is leveraging AI and really personalizing the, the whole treatment for better outcomes.

Exactly. We're incorporating people's lab work, their genetic tests and biomarkers, um, EHR data and wearable data. into those recommendations and into the dataset. So, it can exactly be more personal. And, based on gender too, gender and weight are often 2 things that don't even make it into dosage recommendations.

Yeah. So, what are some of the results that your clients are experiencing? Like, I mean, and you yourself, like, does this really work beyond the modeling?

Yeah, absolutely. Well, first, I'm not a medical doctor, right? Everybody, Anyone taking peptides or interested in it should consult their doctor before putting anything in their body. But, my own experimentation, I've lost 35 pounds now in the past 12 weeks. And, that's been a factor of GLP-1s, some additional peptides like MOTS-c for mitochondrial repair and optimization, some injury recovery peptides like BPC-157 and TB-500. I tore a meniscus 30 years ago in military service. I have all kinds of other injuries like my shoulder. It helped repair those very quickly and very naturally. And, those repair-oriented peptides allowed me to work out more, recover faster with less pain, and then just have more energy and happiness. virtuous cycle of sort of energy production and optimization. And I've, you know, our, our clientele has seen a lot of those same things. These are the peptides I named are pretty common ones. I'd say some of the top 3 or 4 peptides that have used or are being used by folks out there.

Yeah. And well, what I appreciate about you is that you're like living what you're preaching and doing. How has being an Ironman, I think most of my listeners know I've done a couple myself. How has being an Ironman informed some of the longevity solutions like the peptides that you talk about with your clients?

You know, it really has put a framework together for all of the recommendations. And just like you said, you know, you've done a couple yourself. So, you know how it focuses you on the long term. There's no way to just, you know, fake an Ironman. You know, right? And you have to be serious about real health, not just looking good or some other things that maybe influencers out there are marketing, right? It's not about that surface level. It's about really cardiovascular optimization. So, that takes time and it takes some science as well as some work. So, all of those things have colored the peptide therapy that we give because we want people to actually be healthier, not just look healthier, or not just feel better, but actually be better. And, it's my biological age. I just Did it. He did it the other last week. He's 28. Um, I'm 55. So the stuff's working.

Yeah, no, it definitely, definitely works. Yeah. So share, you know, not everyone is a supporter. Share one unpopular or contrarian belief that you have, you know, your philosophy, uh, that people still get wrong. Like, well, you know, what are some of the pushbacks?

There are, there are a lot of common pushbacks. I think we'll call them like old wives' tales that get repeated.

Yeah.

And I'll, I'll use creatine as a good example. Of, I believe it's one of the most, if not the most clinically studied supplements of all time. There's still people pushing back on creatine because they believe it's a bro gym supplement that only makes, you know, you bigger and more masculine, or they, you know, add other descriptors to it.

Yeah.

And forget about the brain health, the dementia and Alzheimer's prevention benefits, the sleep recovery benefits, and those things that are recent science. So, you know, reading peer-reviewed journals and doing our legitimate research is something that our team just loves. We like discovering new things that are maybe not as popular among the influencer community. And bringing those to light about peptides. And it's easy for me to tell if somebody has a view that either all peptides are bad and dangerous, or all peptides are great and miracle drugs. I know they haven't really dove into it because everyone's different. There, it would be like saying, you know, all, all vegetables are good or bad. Well, some are good and some are bad. You got to pick the vegetable first before you start, you know, throwing it out.

Yeah, those are good points. So, one of the reasons I wanted to have you on is a lot of our listeners are not necessarily high-performance athletes that you and I might be, but they're high-performing executives. Can you talk about the benefits? How would you redesign a high-performing executive's routines if they came into you and they weren't doing anything? What might be some of the suggestions they Wonderful.

Great question. I'd say the majority of things that I've done for my own health have been because of my executive career, not because of wanting to perform better in triathlons. I'm one who just finishes. I don't try to win. I started testosterone replacement therapy when I was about 45 for business reasons. I was losing energy, motivation. I heard about it. And so, I went to the local rejuvenation center and had them teach me about TRT and started back then for those reasons. It gave me more energy, more focus, more drive. And, it had some athletic benefits, but I didn't really capitalize on those. So, peptides are the same and so is exercise, nutrition, and sleep. See, those are the 3 pillars that We talk about all the time. And if you're eating as best as you can, it's practical, sleeping as much as you can in a good way, trying to optimize that. And then doing some kind of exercise, just 3 times a day for a half hour will get you by. You don't need to be an athlete. That's not really, that doesn't describe most of our clients. Most of them are executives that want to be a little more, have a little more energy for their family and their work.

A common theme, Tony, throughout what we've been talking about is really leadership. What are one or two key skills that enabled your growth and your success in all these different areas, whether it's athletics or the Navy or being a founder or now with your new company?

Yeah, great question. Yeah, I've been able to pivot and do a lot of different things successfully. So it's been a combination of listening, And being open to new ideas. I've been able to interpret the circumstances and the opportunities and then jump in and do them mostly because I didn't have strong biases or I was aware of my biases and then was able to get over them. You know, peptides were the same way. I heard about it maybe 5 or 6 years ago and was like, oh yeah, sounds like some supplement scam. You know, I'm— if anything's over-marketed or has too much color on the label. I view it as like, okay, stay away. There's too much marketing in there that I'm paying for. Um, but then I, with my injury, I said, well, let me, let me do some research about what can actually fix it and how the body works and discovered BPC-157 there. So I was initially biased against, you know, what was marketed as a miracle cure. But then when I looked at the science, it was legit and it was safe. So I tried it.

No, it makes total sense. Who was a person in your journey that helped you see who you could be?

It was likely, you know, growing up, my best friend in high school, his father was an executive at a big oil company, Chevron, and he was a scientist there and was a great mentor for me. We didn't have too many scientists running around in the community, but he really Spent time with me. I got to know things about the oil industry. I used him as a business advisor at some of my companies later when I sold technology to the oil industry. And I have always appreciated that, the PhD, the hard science view that he had. And it colored my need to be convinced with data Versus being able to be convinced by somebody's stylish argument.

What's something that your parents made you do when you were a kid that you probably like rolled your eyes like, oh my gosh. Uh, but now in hindsight, you're like, I'm glad my parents made me do that.

My mom was a first grade teacher. So for 45 years, um, that was her, her career. And she really, um, was a great one and fits that, that mold of somebody who cares about children and their education. At a fundamental level. So before I was even aware of what was happening, she was taking me to museums and to parks and to places of historical significance just to show me things. I don't think I rolled my eyes too much, but I definitely wouldn't have gone myself at 5 years old to museums.

Yeah.

But that just got me interested in it and And, uh, got me asking questions. And then that asking questions led to a lot of interest, discovery, engagement, all those things that are very, you know, exciting for children to explore.

Tony, we've covered a lot of ground in a short amount of time. We talked about, uh, the Navy a little bit. We talked about music. Uh, we talked about, uh, your background as a founder, but we spent a lot of times around longevity, peptides, how they work, what they are, what you're doing, and then the whole leadership that sort of enabled your success to date. What did we miss, or is there anything you want to double down on? I'll give you the last word.

I'd like to double down on the opportunity for executives to look proactively at their health. Yeah. I certainly, you know, this is my 3rd time being CEO, co-founder of a company, you know, When I haven't been running a company, I've been head of sales of a company. So flying around, eating in airports, staying in hotels with, you know, terrible gym hours, all of the above, you know, going out drinking with clients, all the bad things. I've performed so much better. And, and, uh, when I've been conscious about diet and exercise, especially, I still don't sleep enough, but that's because I'm working or having fun. Um, But when I started being more visibly healthy running triathlons, I got a lot of questions from executives. They all asked me how, and so I started giving them pointers and I really enjoyed it. So there's so much interest out there in being healthy. I would challenge everybody just to ask, ask me, ask others, other executives that are into fitness for tips. To make the most use out of an extra half hour a week.

Yeah, no, that's why I wanted to have you on as our guest because I know that many people struggle, right? We know we've both been executives, both military officers, and we know that many people struggle and to stay healthy and it has negative impacts when you're not healthy. And so, yeah, longevity, a focus on longevity and peptides and different things like that. can really be helpful. So Tony, thank you so much for sharing, uh, what you're doing and a little bit about yourself. I think it's gonna help a lot of people.

Yeah, thanks a lot, Ed. It was great to be here. Really a pleasure talking to you.

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