The Dark Side of Building Two $100M Companies (Carm Huntress)

I started my first company when I was 15. We ended up getting some major contracts with large electronic health record companies like Epic and Cerner, and we literally went from, you know, 300 doctors to 150,000. After that, we were— or last we were at 300,000. We were less than a million, well into the 8 figures in under 3 years.

9-figure companies in healthcare. Current one, Credo Health, which is an AI copilot for doctors. And I just can't imagine. You've built this machine, this thing to finally prove to the world that you're enough. And you sacrificed everything. Your health, your marriage, your money. You get the phone call. You're no longer needed.

Wow.

I mean, that's— It's your entire identity. How do you let that go?

You know, I had to ask myself this question at some point. When I was 7, I actually lost my father to cancer. My mom got cancer too. And then at 15, I lost her. I needed something to escape from all of that. There's no way to describe it. It's one of the hardest things to go through, no matter what age you are, losing a parent. I was literally questioning, why do we live?

Welcome to another episode of the Money Stories Podcast. Today we are joined by a very special person in my life, a fellow brother on the path, someone who has been so important as, as a contributor and a co-creator of my journey. Founder of two 9-figure companies in healthcare, including his current one, Credo Health, which is an AI copilot for doctors. But your mission's even bigger than that. You're changing healthcare.

Yeah.

It's such an honor to have you. Welcome to the show, Carm Huntress.

Mike Brown, thank you for having me. It's a pleasure to be here. And if I could reflect back, it's been an honor to be your friend and to be on this journey of life together. We share a lot in common, including you know, 2 kids apiece, and we have a lot of fun adventures together. But as we talk about a lot, we're both on the path of learning and growing together, and that's been a true joy.

Same. I, I couldn't agree anymore. And I am so excited for you to be sitting here today to share your story because Quite simply, it's, it's extraordinary. It's breathtaking. So here's where I'd like to start. To build two 9-figure companies, you are obviously very driven. Where did that drive come from?

Yeah, I think I would start off by saying the drive today is so much different than where my drive started from. And I think like any entrepreneur, you go through an arc, a journey of starting somewhere and then ending up where I am now. And, you know, I'd probably start off by saying you have to go very far back. It's hard to— hard for even me to believe. I'm going to be 45 this year, and I started my first company when I was 15.

Hmm.

And I do have a lot of entrepreneurs in my, in my family. My father was an entrepreneur. I have uncles that were entrepreneurs, a lot of people that had started their own businesses. My, my great-grandfather actually started the first milk delivery company in Chicago called the Bowman Dairy Bottle. And, you know, so I come from a lineage, but I think if we're going to really have the conversation, we've got to start at the beginning when I'm 15. And what happened to me, because in many ways that's the very origin of my story. And so I'm 15 years old, and when I was 7, I actually lost my father to cancer. And then my mom got cancer too. And then at 15, I lost her. And at the time, you know, it's an unimaginable event when you're 15 and you got to grow up really fast. And oddly enough, I needed something to escape from all of that. And what I found was starting my own company. It's such— it was such a wonderful distraction. And a very dear friend of mine named Dan Caron, we started like so many companies did in the basement of his house, and we started building web pages and web hosting in the middle of the '90s, sort of '95, '96 timeframe. And we kind of fell in love with it. It was an amazing distraction for me. Technology was just emerging. The internet was just emerging. And it was such a place for me to just escape and dig in. And there was so much to learn. And it was a great time. Now, I was in a lot of pain. Back then.

Yeah. Carm, you've gone through something no child should have to go through, losing both of their parents at a young age. I know it's difficult to even put into words, but can you just give us a sense of what that was like for you?

Um, You know, when you're, when you're, when you're that young, there's so much of it you can't handle and process. And I, I've done a lot more processing as I've gotten older, especially— it really didn't even happen until my 30s and 40s where I really began to process it. You know, the first thing that happens is that you have to grow up incredibly fast. You know, I remember sitting on the playground and, you know, all the kids are playing and I'm sort of I was literally questioning why are, why do we live? You just start asking these big existential questions when you go through a trauma like that. And I think, well, everybody I think has some form of trauma in their childhood. Nobody sort of gets out of it unscathed. I think the harder part for me was it was both parents. You know, if you, if you have one parent that leaves, like, you know, you've got another one there to support you and love you and all that. But I think the challenge is when you lose both, you really go into sort of an existential crisis because it's a question of like, wait, why both? You know, why not just one parent? Why me? Why me? And you really have to ask those, those deeper questions. I think one of the things that first, you know, came out was of the experience was to serve, was actually to like give back. And I realized that's one of the greatest gifts we can do as humans is actually make a difference in other people's lives, right? If you think about like impact or what you could be most proud of, right, is, is serving and helping other people, which is sort of a big arc of my life in terms of the work I've done, especially now in healthcare. But, you know, I think the hard part as a child, just back to your question, Mike, it's— there's no way to describe it. It, it's one of the hardest things to go through, no matter what age you are, losing a parent. But I think as a child, I think the answer is really, it's, it's a, it's a grieving and a process that takes a lot of your life to kind of get to an adult, and then sort of work through what you went through as a child to resolve it. Because I don't think any child is ready to lose their parent. It's just not something we're wired to do nor have the capacity to do.

You used a word that carries a lot of weight, capacity.

Mm-hmm.

And the fact that losing both parents, just not something a child has capacity for. So what comes up in its place?

Well, for me, you know, I, I think when I look at sort of where I went and what drove me is, you know, this drive to, to build, but this other piece underneath all that was, well, why, why do I have this drive to build and create and sort of show the world that, you know, in some ways, you know, I, I was enough or capable. And I think entrepreneurial, you know, being an entrepreneur, you have this, you know, it's very much a hero's journey, right? I mean, I think a lot of entrepreneurs would relate to that where you have to kind of go out and find yourself and go through this journey. But what I didn't pick up when I, you know, until much later in life, until literally 20 years later, was that you know, my— the trauma that I went through in losing my parents, I was using entrepreneurship and trying to show the world, you know, I would even put it in that light, that I was enough, you know, that I had been through this hardship and that, you know, I could get the affection I lost from my parents through entrepreneurship and showing to the world how good I was and how complete I was, because that's what happens. You know, you achieve greatness or really good outcomes or success for your investors and you get all these accolades and attention and, you know, and I literally was in this sort of, you know, almost 20-year early journey, you know, in building these, these, you know, company after company and trying so many different things. But I love that part of it is getting the attention. And God, Carm, such this young, young, driven entrepreneur. And we so, you know, we look up to those.

Feels good.

Feels really good. And I think, you know, if you look at sort of how society measures is these sort of young, brash entrepreneurs that go all out, put it all on the line, and then achieve some major success. And you can point to You know, Mark Zuckerberg, Brian Chesky, Adam Neumann, right? Even though they're not successful maybe at the end of the day, but that's what we hold up. That's what we put on a pedestal, I think, in a lot of ways. And we miss the mark on what really matters. And I had to, you know, it took me a long, long time and a lot of work to get past that story of enoughness, right? Am I enough? And, you know, what, what was truly driving me in my entrepreneurial journey and the unhealthy nature of it. And, and there's a lot of dangers in living in that way and showing up in the world in that way.

Yeah, you know, I say often when people come to work with me, a question they often have is, yeah, I think I'm ready, but what if I lose my edge? And my answer is, if your edge is driven from darkness, you just might.

Yeah.

But what you get to build on the backside, you get to hone a new edge from a place of wholeness, from a place of light, so much more powerful than the edge driven by darkness. Yeah. However, that dark edge can be a really effective fuel. And it was for you.

Yeah. And I would say it, it came to a head. You know, I'd spent a lot of my 20s in a whole bunch of different early-stage companies and in Boston, in and around the Boston area. And I got to work on some incredible things. I was early in voice technology, early in RFID technology out of MIT, and got to work with a lot of incredible founders and other startups. And then, you know, my early 30s, I started this company called RxReview, which now is called Arrive Health. And, you know, our goal with that company was to bring real-time drug cost to doctors at the point of care and help patients, you know, better understand what the cost they were going to pay when they reached the pharmacy. And, you know, the hard part about that story is I started it when I was about 32, and, you know, got venture-backed. We raised a couple million dollars, got going with that company, and it was brutal. I mean, it was a level of— we, we just could not figure it out. We, we sort of had these years where we were building in a very complex healthcare system, and I ended up getting to a place where I felt like the only answer was to go all the way, you know, to put every ounce on the line. And I got to a place driven, I think to your point, Mike, about that darkness was I was driven during that time to, you know, basically put all my money on the line, every ounce of my savings on the line, including, including some credit card debt. I didn't go too far, but at least every ounce of my savings went out the door. We managed the company during the phase for 2 years on about 60 to 90 days of cash. And when you have like, you know, we probably had 15, 20 employees at the time. When you're like going through this cycle every 60 to 90 days of like, am I going to make payroll? Is this going to survive? You know, am I going to piss off all my investors? I mean, it wrecked me. And, you know, I think the challenge was I would, I would have at that time I would do anything to make those people happy, to please them. And, you know, it goes back to that root cause of I was living out of that trauma that I wanted. You know, I didn't have my parents and I wanted that love and respect and approval from others. And I was willing to people-please to the nth degree to, to get that from others. And it drove me, you know, to push my company to the absolute limits and really you know, the fatal flaw is it ruined my life, right? And I had to face some really hardships. My marriage actually fell apart and I ended up getting divorced. And, you know, that for me was when I hit that kind of rock bottom through that journey. And, you know, in sort of late sort of 2017, 2018, we finally figured it out. You know, we went through this 5-year period from 2013 kind of to 2018 trying to figure out how to do this with doctors and build the standards. And, you know, it turns out, you know, like, cost— you know, most of healthcare doesn't like even want cost transparency. It's this weird thing about especially drugs, like, it's this very opaque industry, and we had to figure it out and fight our way through.

Did you ever think about giving up?

You know, oddly, no, I never. Like, I think there were moments where I was like, this is crazy. And I think, I think for so many entrepreneurs out there, you play this thing like, oh, this is it. You know, I remember thinking about Brian Chesky, and he tells the story when they're building Airbnb, they had a, like, a, a business card holder, like a binder with credit cards in it that they had maxed out when they were building Airbnb. And you know, it was like 40 cards or something in this thing that they just— they couldn't pay the bills and they just kept stacking up credit cards. And I was like, oh, this is what you're supposed to do. You know, this is the, the, the story every entrepreneur goes through. And you push all the way and you figure it out and you just, you just keep going and you never stop.

In some ways, we almost idealize the stress.

Yeah, we do. And it's, and it's such a— it's, you know, the hustle culture. The sort of like the going to the end limits and investors love this stuff. You know, the whole industry is sort of obsessed with this idea of like, you know, you've got to go, you know, you know, Elon Musk is right. You chew glass and you stare into the abyss, right? Reid Hoffman has said that too. Like, that's the pain of building a startup, right? You jump off the cliff and you build the airplane on the way down. Totally right. That doesn't sound like a very like, you know, that sounds kind of crazy, right? But we're all like, no, this is the normal way. This is how this is how you're supposed to do it. Yeah. And so I think that belief was so rooted in me, I couldn't— I couldn't get past that. And so I was willing to go all the way. The sort of messed up part about the story is it worked. You know, we went all the way and then everything, you know, after about 5 years and not working, it finally worked. We ended up getting some major contracts with large electronic health record companies like Epic and Cerner. And we literally went from like you know, 300 doctors to in less than a year, like 150,000 doctors. And you got to realize there's only in primary care, outpatient care, there's only about 350,000 doctors. So literally got to like half of them in a year. And then we were— we were about a year after that, we were— or less, we were at 300,000. So we'd like penetrated pretty much the entire market.

True zero to one.

True zero to one in like under 3 years. The revenue of the company when, you know, we were less than a million, well into the 8 figures in under 3 years. Right. So it was just like, boom, rocket ship, rocket ship ride. And then those 3 years were, were, were amazing, kind of 2015 to 2018. But the damage was done, right, internally to me. And I was, I was on fumes at that point. And it was kind of this cascade that happened in my life where You know, my, my marriage fell apart. I got divorced. And then the, the biggest blow is the board came to me and said, you know, hey, we want to put a new CEO in place. And you get to that end point and, you know, the— now here comes the real blow. This is my entire identity, right? This is everything I am because it's everything. It's pretty much all I have left. And it's the thing I'm most proud of in my life was building this company. And, you know, I— and at that time I was so fried and so burnt out. I mean, in many ways, you know, the board came and talked to me and I was like, yeah, okay, you know, I get it.

I raised the white flag.

I raised the white flag. And I really luckily had some really good people around me who helped me sort of carry, carry through that transition. It was incredibly hard. You know, it's, it, you know, even looking back now, it was the right thing for me to step down. I think there was a huge part of me that didn't want to and wanted to forge ahead, but I was so, you know, after sort of 8 years and 5 of which were, were terrible and a lot of personal pain and suffering, I had gotten to a place where it was, it was really time. But boy, did I struggle with it.

I mean, take me back if you can to that rock bottom moment. You get the phone call, you're no longer needed.

What happens? Well, the good news was there was so much that happened in my personal life. I had some really good people around me and You know, I think like any good entrepreneur, you get really resourceful. So I picked up the phone and I called a bunch of people, mentors, advisors, therapists, right? Of like, what the hell should I do in this moment? Because I am not, you know, I'm struggling to leave. And, you know, I'll never forget one of my mentors, John. I was on the phone with him and I was just in such a hard place. And he said, "Karm, you have to trust me in this moment, and I need you to put your uniform on, and we're going to just get through this. And at the end of the day, if you fight this, if you say no, if you, you know, cause problems, everything you've built will go sideways. And you, I can tell, you know, It's time for you. And I know you can't. And I know there's a part of you that's holding on, but we're just going to put your uniform on and you're going to have to get through this.

Wow. I mean, it's your entire identity. How do you let that go?

I didn't. You know, I walked away from the experience and almost wanting to double down, almost wanting to And what was, what was interesting at that time, like the, the, you know, as an entrepreneur, I always have ideas and, you know, I have lists of, you know, I think like anybody who does this is, you know, for decades like I do, you're always thinking about stuff. And the inklings of Credo was actually there, what I'm working on now. But it was, you know, it was, it was such a challenge in that I desperately didn't want to let go. And I think, you know, like anything, I had to grieve it. And, you know, the first place I went to was anger, right? That I had given so much, that I had put myself on the line, that I had sacrificed all my financial health, all my relationships, my marriage to get through this. And now I was, you know, being asked to leave. Now, rightly so. And at the end of the day, I agreed. I put up the white flag, as you said, Mike, and I, I walked out the door and I put my uniform on at that time. And it was the right thing to do. It was incredibly— in the moment, I, you know, I barely was able to sort of take it on, but I went out. And I think the harder part— there was kind of two things that happened. One, I would say there was a big part of me that was like, Oh, now I'm going to show you all, right? I almost— I think I doubled down, which, which led me to Credo. But the other part that started to emerge is, hey, am I doing something wrong? Is there something broken here? Because I did all the things right. I did all the things the entrepreneur is supposed to do, and I didn't have financial success. You know, my marriage had fallen apart. I was basically in, you know, a financial, you know, ground zero, even though the company had done really, really well. And, you know, that first sort of like awakeness of like, oh, this isn't, something's really wrong here. So, you know, I'd say I left and I took a week. I took one week. I went to Cabo and I like blew, I spent like a lot of money, let's just put it that way. I just sat in Cabo and I surfed every day. I would get up in the morning and I think this is important because I was in, I was in a really rough place. I get up in the morning and I would literally go run in like Cabo heat, like, you know, in like for like an hour, right? And then I go into the gym and I remember I would just sit there and there was a sled with like weight on it, and I would just push that sled back and forth until I could not even function. And so much of everything was just coming out of me. And then, you know, the, the, the solace, the little bit of niceness I got every day, is I'd go down and I'd surf. And that, that let me catch my breath a little bit. And I took that one week, and in that one week I was like, I'm gonna start Credo next week. I mean, I look back and, you know, I should have taken a year off probably. But again, I think I was still so driven even then to keep proving to the world that I was enough. And so I came back and I sort of like started, you know, piecing together what I thought Credo could be at that time. It's changed a lot since that initial vision and I basically came back. I— the, the, the company asked me to stay on as chief innovation officer. So I did sort of a 9-month— while I was sort of thinking about Credo and this new company, I did sort of 9 months of sitting on the sidelines, which was really hard. And then eventually I said, I can't, I got to move on. Right? Because when you're, you're, you know, the leader of an organization and you end up in that kind of role, you really can't be— I, you know, you don't want to— I just couldn't contribute in the way I wanted to.

Of course.

And so I stepped out of that and this is the end of '21 and then in Credo started, it started Credo officially in '22, in early '22.

And I just can't imagine, right? You've built this machine, this thing to finally prove to the world that you're enough. And you've sacrificed everything— your health, your marriage, your relationship, everything, your money— and then it's taken away. And instead of quitting, the fire just burns even hotter.

Yeah, let's go prove it to the world again. And so, you know, in '22, I started credo. And, you know, like I said, I think there were two things going on for me. One was, hey, I can, I still have this fire. I still want it to burn and burn bright. And I'm, you know, and, and, but, but that was happening. And while that was happening, all these, these sort of questions of like, there has to be a better way. This can't be like, you know, I thought if I did all this stuff, I'm supposed to be happy. And I wasn't, I was like beyond miserable. I was in so much pain. And, you know, I'll tell you the first thing that, you know, I'd say started to wake me up was I ran into Brené Brown's work, right? And she talks a lot about the hero's journey and the man in the arena, right? Which is a Roosevelt quote about, you know, sort of this man in the arena and you know, it's not the critic who counts, right? It's sort of this man in the arena. And she tells this whole story about sort of her life after, after she found a lot of fame after her TED conference. She, she got criticized a lot and it hit her really hard and it took her down. And she sort of, she sort of came to this place to say, well, how do I show up in the world, right? I'm, I'm, all I value is what everybody else thinks of me. And, and, and that was really what hit me after my experience of like, well, if it's not these people giving me approval, then how do I show up? And you know what Brene sort of says, and what I took on was this idea of values, boundaries, and faith. And, and I think the first question I had to ask myself is, what do I actually value in life? Not what I think everybody else values for me, right? Which is kind of the way I was living, right? But really, what do I value and what do I want? And I think what's so interesting, I think if you, if you go up to any person, you know, 9 of 10 or 8 of 10, and, and I think many, many, most entrepreneurs, and you said, well, tell me your values, tell me what you really stand for, right? I— and, and can you list them? Do they come right off you? I don't think many people can do that. And I would say it's the single most important thing to give yourself for the first time. And this is where the shift started to happen, Mike, is that I went from this sort of deep people pleasing and trying to get approval from others to get this feeling of enoughness in the world, to looking at and saying, what are my values? And Am I— when I show up in the world, am I aligned with those values? And boy, was that a struggle, right? And I think this is where, you know, our friendship kind of started. I think you met me around this time. And if you remember, right, what was some of my, my first ones was discipline, mastery, integrity. You know, I'm trying to think of where they were back then because they—

because you can't remember now.

I can't remember now. They've evolved so much from them. But again, it was very, you know, I would say that that initial set of values was still, I'm gonna show the, you know, these are the values to show the world that I'm enough.

I mean, I remember challenging you in some of our early conversations on discipline as a value.

It's heavy. It is heavy. Yeah. Or mastery even.

Right.

Right. These are really heavy. Or legacy. Legacy was another value for a while. And that carried a lot of weight.

And it's all about being enough.

Yeah, it's all about being enough. And then I, you know, I think the second part to that, you know, that, that Brené raises is boundaries. And I think this is another incredibly hard thing for people to get. And it, and I, I, you know, I would still say I, I do boundaries work even today. But what are your boundaries? What are you willing to put up with and not put up with your life and hold true to. And wow, as for a people pleaser, you know, this is, this is an impossibility. You know, how can I go out into the world and, and hold a boundary with someone? Won't that disappoint them? Won't that upset them? And, you know, this was a sec— has been sort of a second big part of, of that journey, probably back to '22, of making that transition of Hey, I'm, I'm leaving this world of wanting enough, getting enoughness, being enough, living true to my values and my boundaries and allowing that to be my guide in my life. And faith is a third dimension of it. But those two core things I think most people don't get in their life and are, are critical to living in this world. If you can't define your values and your boundaries, I think you end up being bound to societal norms or the norms of people around you.

Whatever's handed down.

Whatever's handed down. And you never get to this deeper question of what is your— what really matters to you? How do you really want to show up in the world? And that's been you know, probably this recurring theme for me and really getting to letting go. And one of the biggest things for me, Mike, that shifted in that time through a lot of personal development work and a lot of therapy and a lot of stuff is that, you know, I had to come to a realization that my parents loved me, right? And how did you do that? It was a lot of work. It was a lot of therapy work. It was a lot of work with friends. It was a lot of really journeying on these questions of recognizing that in my mother's darkest hour, right? She was dying from cancer and she wanted nothing more than to survive for us, for my brother and sister and I. And I had to see, instead of her suffering and the pain of losing her, I had to see her love of us, right? What an incredible representation of a mother's love is to show up in that way, is to, you know, she's sitting there dying of cancer and she wants nothing more than to live for us because she knew that You know, there was nobody after her. My dad was already gone. And, you know, I finally got a chance to really connect with that. And boy, did that instantaneously change my life, right? Because I went from this place of desiring to get that love from others to feeling it from her and knowing, which I think we all want to say, is I know always my parents' love is with me. And that set me— that calmed that whole system down of people pleasing and wanting to prove to the world that I was enough and to get the accolades and to get the acceptance of the outer world. And really brought me to this place of, wow, I know my parents always love me and I don't have to prove anything to the world. Now I think that you get back to this harder question of now what?

Now what?

Now what?

What are your values now?

Well, they went through a really, a lot of iterations from '22 to now. And what I, you know, and I think you know my phrase, but they are power, craftsmanship, calm, service, health, and wealth. And the way they form for me is I am a powerful craftsman, calmly moving through the world, building my health and wealth to serve others. And that is my greatest truth. That is the thing. After so much work, I've gotten to this place. And, and I think it's important to talk about a few of these. You know, maybe the first 2 or 3.

Please.

Is, is what is, what is power?

Also one of my core values.

Yeah. And power is a really scary one because I'd say like a lot of people confuse power and force in the world and most people are forcing their way through. And so what I mean by that is it's the same thing I was going through. There's something that's happened to them to try to force themselves through. It, or, you know, it comes from a place of trauma essentially, and I'm trying to force my way to success, to some sort of outside measurement, opposed to saying, you know, what is my power in the world and, and what makes me great, right, from my inner compass. And I think like the realization, right, for me is this journey that I've been on from a very early age, this trauma I went through as a child. It is my greatest gift. It is my power. What, what could stand? What can I stand against, right? Like if something comes and hits me, like, I know I can handle it. You know, I don't have to be afraid of, of the world, life. I can live live in my power and show up in the world, and it's going to be okay no matter what. And I think that power is— is really speaks to, you know, Ken, if you really go out into the world, right, and you strive and you try to show up as your true self in the world, guess what's going to happen? There's going to be some people that criticize you. There's going to be people who judge you. Right?

Inevitable.

Inevitable. Like, there's just no way in this world not to have that happen. And so for me, you know, power is really about leaning and staying true to that, is that I know these things that I went through are actually the things that make me great as a human, and I can show up in my power in the best way I wanna, you know, share my gifts with the world. And yeah, judgment may come or accolades, I don't know, but I'm not tied to that. I can just show up and give my gifts to the world and they will land. And I think that's such a powerful transition for me from that arc of really showing up in force in the world to showing up in power. And then craftsmanship is really about your gifts. And I think this gets back to, you know, what makes me so unique is I've been an entrepreneur since I've been 15. So few people can really say that. I've never been in a big company. I've never worked in a cubicle. I've always been in that kind of zero-to-one moment when you're in that just creation and building something that's never been built before. And I have a wealth of breadth and knowledge of that. And I think, you know, you and I have talked about this idea of moving from sort of mastery to craftsmanship. I think it was the big transition I went through. And, you know, in, in mastery, you know, you get this sort of— the goal is like perfectionism, I think, too much, right? Where craftsman is You know, this analogy, right, is like a woodworker, right? A craftsman is in the— he's in his workshop, he's in his flow, he knows his tools, he knows how to use them, he's developing them, and he keeps developing them. And to be in that state, to be the craftsman in the world building these things, whether it's, you know, it can be a company, it can be in your personal life, it can be building with your family. But I think that ethos of craftsmanship is just really is the way I want to show up in the world. And again, I think it gets back to this, what you and I are talking about here, right? Which is this huge transition of moving away from trying to get enoughness from everybody else and everything out there and just being like, hey, I have these, you know, I'm a certain type of craftsman. I have a certain type of gift and I want to share that with the world. And that's like the purest place to come from without being obsessed or attached to the outcome, right? And that outcome can be money, it can be, you know, success, it can be people pleasing, right? Getting the, you know, the approval of others. But when you really let go of that outcome and just say, hey, what are my innate gifts that I've been given? And, you know, What has this journey of the arc of my life taught me that now I can bring to the world? And I think that is the most, the best place any human could ever get to, to create from that place. And it is a practice. You know, I'm not sitting here saying I'm perfect at this stuff. You have to, you have to, you know, curate and come back to this stuff and keep developing it over time.

And who are you building for now?

Oh, me. You know, me all the way. I, you know, I, I'd say one thing that I'm hoping maybe could help others out there is that as soon as you get to a place, Mike, where you're giving, you know, through trauma or through whatever's happened to you in your life, as soon as you start doing Or maybe I should say it this way: as soon as you start showing up in the world and trying to achieve or trying to accomplish for other people's reasons or for other reasons, and especially for other people in your life— and it could be as simple as, you know, your, your mother or father saying you should be a doctor. Right? As soon as you do that, you're giving up your innate gifts and purpose to others. And I think the place I am now is I will never do that again. Why on earth would I give those gifts up to anybody else? They're mine, and I've curated them, and I've been through the suffering and the loss and the journey and all those things make me me. And you're sitting here telling me I should give those up to get the approvals of others? No way. For me, I just want to, I want to show up and give to the world in the best way I can. And I'm so, you know, I now get to be in this place with Credo, right? Through this healing, through this work. Where I get to build what I really believe in and want to believe. Not, not what I think my investors want, not what I think, you know, LinkedIn wants, or my, my family wants, or, or my, my partner wants, you know, for me. And I get to create from that place. And so that's the, that's the big takeaway, I think, is just don't give your gifts up. To anybody else. Realize that you're, you know, they're yours and this is your opportunity always every day to share those gifts with the world.

And what was the final turning point? What was the final piece?

I mean, I would say that the piece that stands out for me is, you know, I had to ask myself this question at some point is, How do I let the fire burn within without the desire to win? I had to ask that really deep fundamental question of like, wait a second, if I give up on this people-pleasing thing, if I give up on these outcomes, what's my fire? How does it burn? How could it burn? There's nothing to burn. It's this sort of empty thing because all I know how to do is build the fire from a place of wanting to win more than anything else and prove to the world that I'm enough. And, you know, I think that for me was sort of the final thing I had to resolve. And I am now in the place where I am so clear, like I've never been before, that I don't have to be attached to those outcomes anymore. I get to just be in this place of creation and purpose for me and my gifts. And that's the thing that I, you know, think about now every day and get to share with the world. And it's so much, it's such a big open place when you're in this, when you're, when you're in this mindset. And I, I encourage others to pursue it, right? Which is You know, find your values, find your boundaries, find your faith, and live from that place every day and curate from there, right? And when you do that, you can get to this place after peeling back a lot where you start to let go of the outcome. You know, if you think about, I think, Mike, one way to look at this is like if you think about any great artist, or great musician, do you think they at all were interested in the outcome? Like, if you see them on stage, if you think about your favorite artist playing, I don't think you'd sit there and say, boy, that person was really into the outcome. They were trying to make that crowd real happy. I mean, you'd just say, no way. You would say, man, they are creating from a place of sharing their gifts with the world.

Pure joy.

Pure joy. Right, unattached to anything and just like, here it is, I'm in this state of flow and I'm giving fully.

Well, they're not playing music, they become the music.

Yeah, it just is. And they're not, they're not in the, the knowing of it and, and, oh, I'm playing this, you know, chord and now I'm going to go to this chord and that chord, right? They are feeling and just expressing themselves in the purest way. And I think we, we deeply admire that, but we deeply don't understand where it comes from. And so many people in society today aren't pursuing that, right? We've lost that in so many ways. We're, you know, kind of obsessed with, you know, out, you know, especially financial success. And I think a lot of people are really unhappy out there. I mean, I think a lot of people are really in this, in this state of, hey, I did, I did all the things. Right? I checked all the boxes. I did the career that my parents told me to do. I started the company, you know, from like me, like where to prove to the world that I'm capable and I can do this. And, you know, I get all this fame or money. So, you know, I'm going to work 100-hour weeks and be miserable, but I'm going to make a ton of money. Right? None of those things really relate back to what you and I are talking about, which is really showing up in this pure place and wanting to share your gifts with the world and be unattached to the outcome of whatever that is.

So what is it like to inhabit that place now, given where you've been?

Mm-hmm.

Building from the darkness, deeply suffering, giving everything, and still being asked to leave and told You're no longer needed here. Help me understand the contrast. Like, what does it feel like now to do what you're doing?

Well, I think what ends up happening is you end up in this very creative place, honestly, because, you know, if you think about like a people pleaser, Mike, you end up in this place where you're always kind of caveating yourself and catching yourself and sort of ruminating on, oh wait, what's this person going to think and what's going to be the outcome here? What will my investors think? Or, you know, how will, how will people perceive this? And the joy I get to have every day now is going into work and working with my team and sharing with them my vision of what I want in the world. And I think, you know, at Credo, we're really working on this thing where We want every doctor to have a copilot next to them to help them better care and take care of patients. And I think we're in this moment of time where AI is clearly showing that it can better take care of patients than really doctors can. And, you know, every single study I see is that, that we're on that trajectory or even past that trajectory of where AI will be better at diagnosing and treating patients. We still deem doctors to be guides, but, you know, we've asked doctors for, you know, the beginning of time to kind of be like gods, right? They have to know, you know, every piece of medical knowledge, and, you know, they have to just know everything to kind of treat a patient, you know, well. And if you think about like our world, you know, we get about 1,000 pages of medical history on every patient we touch today. There's no way a human can even hold that in their head, right? That is like an impossibility. If I like, hey, memorize 1,000 pages of something.

And that's for one patient.

That's one patient. And so, you know, it's, it's this untenable thing. And, and I think the thing that, you know, I would say that's so different for me is that my determination in that I believe we're in this moment of AI where we can move from sick care to healthcare. And Everybody knows how broken healthcare is and, and the whole system and going through it. And you know what I would say, Mike, is that, you know, and, and I've, as you know, I've had some health challenges lately and they've been, they've been difficult and I've had to go live in the system of healthcare. And it's made me really realize how broken it is. And when I started Credo, actually, I sort of write a whole thing of, of in 1995 when my mom was going through her cancer treatment, she, she would actually sit at night and type up— we had a typewriter— and she would, you know, go see second opinions. She went to a lot of different, different hospitals across the country. And she would sit there and I can never forget remembering listening to her type at night. And, you know, I'm sitting there, she has this cancer diagnosis and she's typing up her medical records for her doctors to like give them a summary. And, you know, she put a picture of my— her and with my brother and sister and I on the front of her records. And, you know, she'd go into the appointment and say, here's everything about me. And I would say like for most patients, that hasn't changed. And that was 1995. And it's kind of like that was a big impetus for me to start Credo. And I think that, you know, I've gone now to this place and, you know, with what's happened recently with my health and, you know, facing that head-on, I've come to this realization that I want to build this for me. And, you know, yes, what my mom went through was really hard, and I want to honor her memory always. But when you have to live through it yourself and you see how broken this system is and how much we need to change it and make it better. I know now that this is my opportunity to do it for me and not for anybody else, not even my mom. And to come from that place, I have never felt so empowered and so happy to be able to show up in the world in this way. And share my gifts in this way and know that we can make an incredible impact and really just change healthcare for the better. And like I said, move from a system of, of sick care to true healthcare where we have AI supporting doctors in every decision and really healing people. And I just, I don't even think we talk about it anymore. You know, what the true job of a doctor is to do is to heal people. And I think we're on that precipice with what's happening with technology right now. And that's what I'm so determined to bring to the world.

For you?

For me. And it's— I just would say to anybody out there, you know, I think in a lot of ways I've been through the hero's journey. Right. I've gone out into the world and I've stumbled and fallen and had my, my, my wars and my battles. Right. And I've come back home. And what I found is that I'm enough. Yeah.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

For sharing. I know this is going to impact a lot of people.

Yeah.

It's impacted me. You've impacted me. And thank you for the courage to walk the path and build this for you, because now all of us get to benefit.

Yeah, thanks, Mike, and thanks for your friendship.