VoIP to Brain Scanning: Lior Haramaty’s Pathway to Peak Performance Ep.12

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From Sound Cards to Saving Brains: Lior's Journey to Peak Performance

In this episode of The Pathway to Peak Performance, host Jock Putney sits down with Lior Haramaty, a true innovator whose work helped shape the digital age and is now driving breakthroughs in brain health.

From pioneering the first sound cards and launching Voice over IP (VoIP) to leading life-changing neurological innovations, Lior’s story is one of resilience, creativity, and problem-solving against all odds. He opens up about:

✨ Growing up in Tel Aviv and building independence from a young age
✨ The creation of groundbreaking technologies that disrupted entire industries
✨ His passion for culture, leadership, and building loyal, motivated teams
✨ Why fear of failure holds people back—and how to flip it into progress
✨ His current work transforming brain health diagnostics, making early detection as simple as checking blood pressure

This inspiring conversation is packed with lessons on entrepreneurship, innovation, and the mindset needed to stay on the pathway to peak performance.

👉 Don’t forget to like, comment, and subscribe for more inspiring conversations with leaders shaping the future.

#PeakPerformance #Entrepreneurship #Innovation #BrainHealth #VoIP

Transcript

 When people are asking me how do I define myself? I say, I'm a problem solver. By defining yourself as a problem solver, you're already defining that you have problems, but I mean, if you go completely unknown and you have no idea until it's too late, then it's just too late. Testing your brain or assessing your brain or detecting anything wrong with your brain should be as simple as as taking your blood pressure.

Someone who came on the show said fear is a part of their pathway to peak performance. So the fear of the initial failure stops a lot of people. I don't see that way. I see. If I don't experience it, maybe I, you know, I'll never get good at it, but at least I want to experience and see what it is in this episode.

A Pathway to Peak Performance, Lior Haramaty, Tech Innovator extraordinaire, sound card, voice over IP innovator, as well as his latest work, which is going to blow your mind. On top of that, he's got a great charity in the Gary Sinise Foundation. So please, you're going to enjoy this one. Welcome to the show, theor.

Harti. My so good to see you, my friend. Welcome John. Thank you very much for having me. Oh, it's my pleasure. If, uh, if there's anybody that I could ever think of that was really on the pathway to peak performance, it is you, my friend. Thank you. Thank you. You know, the show sort of talks about your story and your insights into Pathway to peak performance.

Mm-hmm. So let's take it all the way back. Share as much as you like. We'll kind of go back to, you know, if you want to childhood all the way through career and where you are today. Alright. So, childhood. Um, I, I, I don't know how much, I mean, if we have a couple of days now for this, I, I have a lot of stories.

But I'll, I'll try to be brief at least on the first part. I, uh, I born in Tel Aviv, grew up in Tel Aviv and Ramad Gunn, which is a city just by Tel Aviv. My mom was a Holocaust survivor. My, uh, father was a first generation in Israel. Um, mom was from Poland, from Levo, and originally, um, tough childhood was smuggled from a ghetto.

Um, when she was a year old. Uh, lost all her family. Um, a long story by itself. Um, in any case, they, I grew up as a normal kid in Israel. Uh, pretty free to do whatever, both parents working and, you know, not much money. Uh, and, um. I'll shorten it. My, uh, my parents got divorced when I was about 12 years old. Uh, my mom left the house, uh, about a year, LA later.

My father had a girlfriend, left the house. My sister was 18, drafted to the. Israeli army left the house. So I was living by myself, pretty much by myself since I was 13, which gave me a lot of independence. And, uh, you know, survival is the best way to learn how to do things. So I cooked for myself. I did cleaned and did everything for myself.

I was a, I guess, a kind of a nerdish boy in a way because I went to school every day. Uh, um, and, uh, but it gave me, it really created me as, um, you know, made, made me an independent person, which, which worked great. When I was about 13, I started programming, um, a very good friend of mine that later on I recruited, uh, to my first company.

He and his group, um, had a Sinclair, uh, computer. I'm talking late seventies, early eighties, probably a circa 1980. And, uh, I started programming, uh, Sinclair computers, machine language, basic whatever was, uh, was there. And, uh, actually I started working for the agency. First. I was building, um, audio amplifiers for them for all the beeps, uh, and sounds in the computer, which relates to what I did later.

Then I started programming and started selling my own software when I was 15, uh, for these computers running in the timeline. A little, uh, uh, faster, uh, drafted to the Israeli army like everyone else. When I was, uh, I was 18 and two weeks when I will got drafted to the, to the army, uh, started, they actually made me go to the Air Force when I started and I was flying some plane in a, in a flight school, uh, some prop planes and then, uh, small jets and, um.

After I, I, uh, I dropped from the flight school because I did not want to be a pilot, but it was fun to do it, and they forced me, so why not? I, um, uh, after a, a short few months path, I went to research and development where I met my first, uh, business partner along Cohen, and we talked and we both said, oh, we were really interested in doing sound on computers.

Um, and, uh, PCs just started and, uh, definitely in Israel. Uh. And, uh, we started developing a sound card and there were really no sound cards. I don't know if it was the first sound card or one of the first, but definitely it was very early on and we very fast, we developed a sound card, which because, uh, alone is an amazing engineer and a really, really bright guy.

We still friends. He lives a few minutes from me. We developed a sound card, which was very efficient at what they do, but also because we both had a background in, uh, electronics and, and sound was sounded very good even though it wasn't Hi-Fi or, but we recorded music and it sounded great. So people were saying, this is great.

Uh, uh, you can record sound, but why do you need it on computers? I mean, and, uh, so this is what we faced. We faced being way too early for the marketplace and the technology. So, um, we said, why you need it? We'll show you. And we started building applications and connecting with applications, um, making drivers.

Um, and we did a lot of innovative things, even though for us it was just finding solutions and finding things to do with it. We were just doing it. We didn't think about it as something innovative or special or so we had, for instance, uh, um. My mom worked for the, uh, uh, secretary, uh, to the office of, uh, uh, uh, defense in, in Israel.

And, uh, through that, uh, she was working with a lot of, uh, uh, handicap and uh, and uh, uh, families. So we built a system for the blind that enabled them to work with the computer without seeing the screen. I won't tell the whole story, but eventually it was using my voice in the text to speech. We had to develop text to speech, both in English in Hebrew because nothing existed.

And eventually it was my voice used for both and people calling for text support and talking to me, were saying, oh, this is your voice. So, um, so we had that, we had, uh, multimedia presentations when the. The term wasn't coined yet. Uh, there was a, uh, um, a program called from IBM called Storyboard that was doing slideshows, uh, but it didn't have any sound.

And we made, created drivers that were actually under dos, which is not, um, uh, um, a multi-processing operating system. We actually made drivers that played audio on in the background while another application was running on the computer, and we did integration with storyboard. People were using. Back then, we were talking mid to late eighties, people were using our card, uh, and making and do, showing and presenting multimedia presentations when nobody knew that audio even existed.

On, on computers, uh, a ilio, different things. We had the, all the, the ice cream trucks in Israel were playing with our devices, uh, story by itself. Um. Interesting story though. Oh yeah. The tell that story. Oh, okay. So we were approached by a guy that was supplying ice cream trucks with a mechanical music box he was buying from England that was playing music, um, uh, the music.

So it was a mechanical music box. Uh, the was a pickup, like a guitar pickup, uh, that was connected to an amplifi in the, in the truck and playing music. You know, they had to wind it and it was playing and it was an excellent sound quality and everything. But the problem is it was very expensive. It was like back then 400, I think, uh, uh, British Mount and.

Uh, he was saying the truck drivers, because it was so expensive, uh, in, at night, were locking it in the freezer together with the ice cream and the temperature changes were killing the mechanical, uh, music box. And after a few months they had to replace it and he said, we need a solution that plays without, uh, that can you, they can put it, uh, in the icebox, but it is not going to break.

So. We build them in a mill spec, a military grade, uh, digital, all digital playback device that was, we recorded the music, we put it on, on, on the electronics. Everything was solid state mill spec, uh, uh, circuitry and, um. All of the, uh, all of the ice cream trucks in Israel were playing music, two types of music with our, uh, with, with our electronics.

Um, this was the first time actually that we outsourced something. So we had a guy that was doing the soldering because it was too many, uh, too many. So, um, but we were still working from a room in my apartment that later on we were kicked out when my first son was born, uh, in 92, a little later. Anyways, uh, so that was another application.

Uh, we had, uh, billboards, you know, when they, they were still red and black, uh, uh, big billboards, uh, with LEDs. We, we, uh, uh, for a customer, we made them talk. We made them play music. So he was having advertisement on them and there was audio, uh, in connection with them. Anyways, from having a sound card inside the computer, we actually created an audio device that was external because, uh, laptops didn't have a place to plug um, cards in them.

Um, IBM was coming out with, uh, with, with their own technology for PCs that wasn't compatible with the regular cards. Uh, PS two. And, um, what we did is we, uh, all the computers back then had a printer port, so we used that printer port as a bus and connected, created a audio device that was plugged into the printer port.

You didn't need anything else. You plugged it into an, uh, so we had an external audio device now, which was, we wrote the dri drivers for it, that he, it, it was exactly the same as our regular card in terms of software integration. Um. Only an external card, by the way. Already in those years, we had full digital editing software for audio on the computer with graphic representation of the waves.

With selecting, uh, yes, with selecting, uh, the range, creating echo, uh, fading in, fading out, uh, connecting stuff. We first did it because we had to edit sound for the text to speech that we were developing, but then we sold it as part of the, uh, of the, uh, of the product. So you're talking probably 86. We already had digital audio editing software.

On PCs with graphic, uh, full graphic editing, uh, capabilities, zoom in, zoom out, two markers, copy and paste. You know, uh, all the functions that now are taken for granted. We had to develop it from scratch. So, um, anyways, um, we had the external audio device. IBM in Israel was very excited because they had PS two machines.

There were no sound cards. We gave them a solution. Um, it was another product. And again, a lot of different stories about that, but we could leave it to, for later on. Uh, 87, Al and I were like, uh, you know, there's this thing called computer networks. Maybe we can transfer audio on computer networks. Um, let's, let's see what we can do with it.

But we didn't have a network. So I, uh, borrowed, uh, two network cards from, uh, the brother of, uh, of actually by car, current partner, which I know since I was about six years old. A real, uh, hazy. So from his brother Jora, I, I took on a loan too. Um, uh, network cards and we started playing with audio over networks, over local area network.

And it was working, it was a prototype, but nobody had networks. So we said, this is great, but we don't have a market to sell it to. So we put it on the back burner. But in the early nineties, um, when, uh, networks were more common inside the office, especially NOL Networks, we developed the first product that was doing voiceover local area networks.

We called it vocal chat. Uh, it was used as intercom voicemail inside the office and we were selling it, and we were actually selling it also internationally, not just in Israel, which is ob obviously a limited market. Um, and I'm getting a support. I was doing all the support. I mean, still a startup, small company.

Right? Um, I, um. I'm getting a call from a guy from London and he is, um, he's saying, uh, listen, I'm using your software and I'm having breaks in the audio, and so I'm starting to troubleshoot and I'm, you know, uh, I'm asking him, what, what's the configuration? They say, I have a wider network line before between London and New York, and it's, uh, 60 4K in bandwidth and I'm trying to talk to the New York office and I'm getting breaks.

So I said, this is not meant for it. But then I said, but that's a great application. I mean, phone calls, just to remind you or note to people that were not, uh, uh, aware of it at that time were seven, $8 a minute between, uh, uh, you know, Europe and, and New York or, or Israel and, and, uh, the states. So I said, this is a great application.

Uh, let, let me see what we can do. So we developed a product called Vocal Jet Wan for Why ERA Networks. And that was a big seller already because that was a real money saver. It wasn't just adding features in the office, making everything in the computer and so on, which was a great, you know, great benefits.

But this was a real money saver. It was a no brainer. You have already a dedicated line. Why not use it for phone calls and there's no additional cost. You buy the product you are talking. Then internet, you know, started, you know, people started talking about the internet. Um, and uh, and we were looking at that.

Maybe taking it one step before though computer networks. Have two modes of operation. One is very reliable. So if information is not getting to the other side, you can resend it and actually the network protocol is taking care of it. But when you're talking about real-time voice, you can't wait for it to resend the information.

Everything has to flow and stream, uh, continuously, especially when you have a two-way conversation. If you're streaming one way, you can buffer. So you have a delay of five seconds in the buffering, but you still see a continuous stream. But if you have to conduct a conversation, you want minimal delay between the two sides.

Otherwise, it's like you, you see it, you saw it actually up until a couple of years ago. Now it's a little better. You saw that the delays actually affecting the conversation, right? Yeah. You had it. Compress the latency. Right, exactly. So we were looking at it alone. My, my partner and me were looking at it and saying, we cannot afford to have latency.

We have to minimize the latency, but we don't know the network condition. And the network condition is changing. Even if a, on a local area network, definitely on a wider network, internet is probably the worst, uh, uh, scenario. So we actually, and we had a patent on that. Um, we, we actually, um, came up with a solution that was doing dynamic buffering.

So you cannot rely on information, um, to be sent about the network condition. All you have is the receiving side is getting information, looking at it. And trying to figure out what's the best buffer it can use in order to maintain a continuous stream of audio while minimizing the latency as much as possible.

So we actually developed an algorithm that was looking, did we lose packets? Did the packets, latency was changing what was the longest, uh, packet latency. And by that, figuring out what's the optimal buffering or the optimal delay that we artificially create in order to maintain a continuous stream of audio, but the minimal latency possible.

And, uh, this is, this was, uh, the first patent for, for the company, uh, the very basic of what later on will be called voiceover ip, which is something that we coined. Uh, so VoIP, VoIP was, uh, actually all based on that algorithm. Anyways, uh, back to the timeline. So, um. In, uh, late 94, uh, we were, or mid 94, we started the working on an internet version of what we could, what we, uh, first we call it vocal, GGTI, uh, uh, and in, um, and we did a lot of beta testing with a lot of users that were very excited.

One of them is Jeff Pulver that later on became the guy that was doing all the trade drills for voiceover ip. Uh, and a good friend. My father was an amateur radio, by the way, and he was of an amateur radio. And for him talking to the whole world for free in, uh, something, which is, was that easy, um, was, was very intriguing.

He was in Long Island. We were in northern Jersey, so, uh, we were also definitely pretty close to each other. And he had a a t one line to his house, which was unthinkable for anyone, even the companies. But he said, yeah, my kids, uh, want to have where it's to have a good connection. Anyways, he came from a, uh, a wealthy family.

And anyway, in February 95, we announced with an exclusive, uh, uh, for the Wall Street Journal on a Friday. Um, and the official announcement was on Monday and all other paper newspapers, uh, came out with a, with a announcement on a Monday. We had a two week, me and the then CEO of, of the company. We had a two week, um, press tour all over the us uh, presenting internet phone, which was the product, uh, or iPhone for short back in an 95 way before, before, uh, iPhone.

What was what it is today, but everybody called it iPhone, that was the nickname. So I, we were schlepping around with a desktop under my arm. Um. Uh, demonstrating internet phone to everyone. And, um, and this was a huge splash. Now, the two week, we announced in February, uh, 1395 and the two weeks before, as you can imagine, was pretty cold winter.

And you know, me standing with the desktop under my, in Logan Airport in Boston, freezing as an Israeli not having the right clothes. I mean, it was very, me memorable to say the least. Uh, but it was also very successful. We had, first of all, the splash with Wall Street Journal on the Friday. Yeah. Then. On the Monday, all other newspapers and everyone picked it up.

It was so intriguing that phone calls suddenly are free. That, uh, uh, people were, you know, we had literally thousands of media clips back then. It was still Fax and Xerox. Uh, so we had, uh, bound books with thousands of media clips a month that the PR agency was giving us, you know, sending us. I have, I still have a couple of them.

Uh, and it was amazing. We were interviewed everywhere we were, you know, I was on CNNI was, you know, it was, it was great. Um, for us, really, the PR side of it for us was something that we didn't like, we didn't want, but we saw it as a necessary evil. We ha you have to do it right. Yeah. So we did just a funny part of that, uh, m.

In a lot of the interviews, they were asking me, how is it to be an overnight success? And I used to say, oh, it's great. Only the night was about 10 year long. It's like, you'd think it's just out of the blue. We were working, you know, on stuff like that for 10 years. It was, we started the company in 85. This is 95.

Overnight success is, you know, people see only the last, uh, you know, 24 hour. Yeah. And uh, and for us it was a lot of sleepless nights, definitely before the release, uh, uh, and during the release. Now to give some perspective of. The timing and the, you know, the, the, the era that we're talking about, nobody was selling stuff online.

I mean, some people, we had to explain what the internet was. Um, there was no e-commerce really, other than Amazon selling books. And maybe 1-800-FLOWERS I think was back then, uh, available. But there was no way to charge credit cards. So how did we charge credit cards for the software we were selling Only online.

That was like, and by the way, uh, Jeff Pulver was reselling us and probably was the first affiliate program on the internet because he was getting a cut to whatever was sold through him. I don't think affiliate program, uh, was, uh, ex and the term definitely didn't exist. Yeah. Uh, but we were doing it already anyways, to charge credit card.

There was no way to charge credit card online. I mean, so we had. On the, uh, on our web server, people that were, you know, uh, naive enough were putting in their, uh, credit card information, but where does it go? We can't charge online. So we collected all the information on a secured server, blah, blah, blah.

And then we had temps coming in the morning downloading it and typing it into a very phone and charging the credit cards and releasing the license to the user. So there was no instant gratification on getting the license code immediately because we needed the human to type in the, uh, the credit card information.

So that was the error. Um, and we were looking for, it's not that we were not, uh, looking for solutions. They didn't exist. And, you know, uh, on the flip side, we had users that were saying, I'm not putting my credit card on the internet. That's not safe. So we had calls from people from Australia giving us their credit card over the phone thinking it's way more secure.

Okay. Maybe. We, we didn't say no, uh, to anybody that was coming toward that. Um, so this was the big break for the company. Um, we had, we, we became very well known, uh, worldwide. We, that of course created some friction with phone companies that were, uh, having such huge margins and got used to such huge margins, and we were a huge threat.

So they started fighting us and trying to regulate voiceover ip, the internet, and so on. Um, by the way, voiceover ip that was. Not a term that was just invented, that was an evolution. My role in the company many times was to explain what we do to the layman, to, to try to simplify things. So I was always looking for terms, uh, and how to do it specifically on what we did.

We started by saying, we are doing. Voiceover packetized networks, which, you know, it wasn't a dedicated line. We, we are, right? So we started with voiceover packetized networks. Then we switched to just say, voiceover networks because people packetize, it's still too technical. So we were, the, the naming went through evolutions voiceover network, voiceover wide, our network.

Uh, eventually it became voiceover ip. Um, because also when we started it was different protocols because Novell networks for local air networks at that time was working with IPX, which was, um, uh, their own flavor of, of pro protocol. We had compatibility with some other networks. So voiceover, I feel was an evolution.

Anyways, um, the company became very successful and in, uh, February 96. The same. If you remember, there was an, uh, browser called Netscape, uh, back at the beginning. And, um, in February 96, we had our, uh, IPO. We went public on Nasdaq the same day as Netscape. So one of the very first internet IPOs. Um, and, um, the company evolved since then, became a big company.

We, I think the top was over half a billion dollar in valuation back then was we considered huge, um, uh, 350 employees in multiple offices all over the world. Uh, we acquired a few companies, uh, but we had, um. Products that today is even, are even considered advanced. So we had, um, not just audio, we had, uh, video conferencing.

We had, uh, audio streaming, uh, with a product called Voice, uh, uh, internet wave, uh, or iWave for short. Um, we had, uh, application sharing, whiteboarding, I mean really a, a suite of different applications. It was too early for the marketplace in many ways, too early for the technology. People were still connecting with modems.

Um, there was a, a, a whole, uh, line of reasons why it didn't became immediately. Uh, were usually too early for, for the market. Uh, too innovative, uh, in many ways now that I'm complaining, we're very successful. And, uh, it was definitely a fun ride. It's interesting 'cause I just wanna stop for a second and, and, you know, first of all, thank you.

And you, you disrupted the entire world, you know? And I'm sitting here with a technology legend. Oh. Which for me, thank you. You know, is, is a true honor. I mean, VoIP that changed the world. And by the way, I mean the, so the sound card before that, developing all of that, I mean, that's a huge accomplishment that didn't exist.

I can remember sitting at the computers back in the day when there wasn't any sound. It was just, oh, you know, and then the notion of. Creating something that was that disruptive to the entire telecommunications industry. And you've gotta imagine, I mean, that fight had to be a really tough fight. It it, it was.

But I can tell you when, when you're developing something innovative, you don't always realize that you're doing something innovative, especially when we're young. We're just doing it because we didn't know it can't be done. And this is actually, I'll, I'll tell a funny story here. After we announced the internet phone and we became, you know, it was a big buzz about it, uh, everywhere I was giving lectures and, you know, uh, uh, presentations, uh, wherever.

And I went to an IEEE, uh, event, which is a big standard, um, by the, and I was, uh, giving an event together with Winder Windsurf, which is one of the, uh, internet, uh, gurus. Uh, and, and an early on, you know, inventors. I, I mean, you know, for me, again, I was, you know, I didn't know what I was doing in the situation.

But anyways, I gave, you know, a, a speech about, uh, about what we do, an internet phone and so on. And, um, after I did it, uh, a guy called Dan Beringer approached me and he said, uh, can we meet I considering a, i I want really to work for you? And I said, of course. I mean, we don't have time now, but, uh, you know, let's set the meeting.

We set the meeting. He came to, um, Northern New Jersey. We met at a Mexican restaurant that I still frequently go to, uh, 30 years after. And, um, he said, uh, did you get a, a big, um. Order for internet phone like a few days after you announced from Bell Labs. And I said, yes. We got, I think it was like 36 copies of internet phone.

And I said, we actually made fun of Bell Labs because why order 36 copies? I mean, what? Why? And he said, I worked on a project in Bell Labs that the goal was to check if voiceover packetized networks, which is the internet, and is, is something feasible that we people can, that we can develop and use. And we closed that project about two months before you announced figuring out it can't be done.

And I said, oh. To make a very long, so story short, uh, Daniel Beringer, um, uh, worked for me soon after. Amazing Guy was doing a lot of, of, uh, um, the consulting work that we did when we started doing exchange, um, servers that connected the internet with the, a regular telephony, uh, that became actually a big business for us at one point.

Um, he helped me recruit a pro. I had to do to upgrade our servers. We had servers all over the world and we had to do, uh, upgrades and, and. I didn't know how to do it. And it was, it was like you needed project management for that. And then Berger said, you know what, I, I have a solution for you. I said, well, he said, I know this guy, uh, Larry Sager, he works for Bell Labs also, and he did small projects like rewiring the Pentagon, you know, tiny Project.

Yes. Anyways, I'm interviewing Larry Sager and he, uh, he was an amazing guy, professional project manager. Uh, you know, um, bell Labs spend a lot of time educating him and training him. And, uh, I, I actually, uh, uh, recruited him as well. Paid him more than I was getting at the time, but he really taught me how to do project management, which maybe we'll get to that, uh, soon, uh, in, uh, of, more, I think about project management, because I think it's a huge aspect of, of everything that you have to do.

So, um, anyways, vocal tech. I have a zillion stories before and after, but that was the, the, the gist of it. Um, it, it was an amazing experience. Um, um, people are still, um, uh, recognizing me for, for that time. And a lot of people, uh, by the way, uh, the guy that I started programming with, uh, his name is ov, which was a childhood friend, and, uh, I started programming with him since we were about 13.

Um, I recruited him to vocal deck when, um. The OS was switching from dos to Windows because I was a DOS programmer, but when the switchover was done, I was already doing more sales, marketing and business than, than the programming side. So I was still maintaining the old systems, especially the system for the blind, because that was a feel good, amazing project.

But I, I. Didn't have the time even to learn and we're growing and we needed to scale up. So he had a group of five, five guys that was doing programming. So he was the, the, uh, he was the second, um, employee. We, we recruited the whole group. I recruited another, uh, uh, childhood, uh, friend before him, Ram Amit that actually stayed the longest in the company way after we all left and became, he was the CTOI recruited him.

He was the first, so the, the first employee in vocal tech was my childhood friend that we officially recruited. And then we recruited the whole group of five people, which was ov and, and the rest of them, um, that were doing all the programming for us, um, on the windows and, and later on, amazing group of guys.

One unfortunately passed away El Alexion, uh, in a car accident, um, while he was working for us. Real genius, but they, they definitely did a huge amount of innovative and inventive, uh, uh, development, uh, over the years. So just mentioning their names, uh, very important. And, um, it also, the fact that I knew them and they were my childhood friends, um, has to do with a lot of what I think we are going to talk about next, which is, um, my take of how to get, uh, an organization or anything, um, run efficiently and, and optimist.

Um, so if you want to do the switchover, uh, I have more stories, but if you want to do the switchover, let's, let's take it where, let's take it where you want to go. Okay. So I think that it's very important in any organization or in any environment, if you will. How you set the culture of that organization or that body of group of people, any group of people.

Um, and, uh, if the culture is set from the get go as people who really care about what they do and are having fun of what they do and are being respected for what they do. I don't want to sound philosophic because you know, I'm, I'm, I'm actually translating things that I did probably mostly by instinct.

I didn't, I never studied, I not, it's not something that I, uh, I, I had studied officially anywhere. But if it's, if it's fun and if a manager see their goal as serving the people that he's managing and not trying to give them commands, uh, it's not saying that you don't build a, uh, um, this is the last word is mine.

Organization, but the process of the last word is mine is not, I'm just commanding you and I'm not even listening to what you're saying. There's always an interaction. There should be always respect. You should always think about the, uh, people that work with you, not just for you. Um, their motivation and their mindset.

If you build a culture that is based on that, you're getting, I don't know what the, what the multiplier is, but in terms of productivity, you're getting a multiplier. That is, you can't even quantify because if people want to do it, it means that they go home. On the way home, they're thinking about what they can improve.

They're in the middle of the night. Coming up with an idea that the next morning they're coding and saves you or makes you millions of dollars maybe within a couple of years if you build a culture, right? That's the foundation of everything. If you, if you force whatever reason, if the culture is wrong, you get resistance.

People are leaving, they're always looking for something else. They get home, they complain to whoever they talk to about the company you're getting, uh. Uh, instead of a multiplier, you're dividing their productivity. And, and what it, it's not even productivity. You can't even call it productivity is what you get out of them, because what you get out of them is not just being efficient, is being caring and creating things from nothing.

When you create things from nothing, you can't measure efficiency because it's, you start from zero. You just, it's an add-on, right? It's something that you suddenly create from nothing. So I think culture and the relationship within the company, um, or an organization that's the foundation for everything that's the, to that, that's the very big, uh, you know, prerequisite to make a group of people work in the most, uh, uh, beneficial way for whatever you're trying to achieve.

I, I have a question about Sure. So also, uh, certainly selection of people who have passion. For what they do and enthusiasm, that's also a key ingredient in that happening. Absolutely. So here you have of fear and, and the group of five and mm-hmm. Uh, um, of mm-hmm. And, uh, the group of five. And then from there you're creating this culture, but there's also this sort of like flow state that you all are in and you're really moving towards doing something that's super exciting.

Right? Um, talk more about that. Okay. So first of all, you, you are touching something that has to do with recruiting. So how do you bring the right people to organ to the organization? So there's no disruption for the culture that I was talking about, right? Mm-hmm. So I was doing interviews and people were saying I'm crazy, but I was doing interviews for an hour and a half.

I was talking to the person and I wasn't. Really focusing only on the, uh, on the, uh, technical side. Sometimes I wasn't focusing on the technical side and I was taking 'em my time first to tell them about myself so they know who they're talking to. They get comfortable because I need to learn from them about them.

And if they don't feel comfortable, I'm getting, you know, either partial information or skewed information. I want to bring them to talk about their dog. I want to bring them to talk about what their hobbies are. I want them, once they're talking about something, which has nothing to do with what I'm interviewing them for, apparently doesn't have anything to do.

I can read the person way better. So the first steps, uh, step in recruiting. If you don't have a referral, you know, from someone else, it's some, it's someone that you knew for, you know, years before. If you're really interviewing someone who's out of the blue, you someone you don't know any, you have to bring them to a comfortable position, a comfortable situation, environment, and to get them to talk about things that has nothing to do with what they thought they were going to talk about.

And then you're usually getting the real person. For me, that's the, the first step. If I'm getting bad vibes from, from while doing that, I already have a, uh, you know, my gut is telling me either they're not honest or they're trying to impress me too much. Why do they try to, they're not confident enough with what they do.

I mean, what, what's the reasoning behind? Now, I can't say that there's a formula to it that's not in, you have to. You know, plate by ear with the person that you're talking to. Uh, it's a, it's a dynamic env environment. It's a dynamic situation, but the goal is to make them talk about something they're very, very comfortable talking about, and that you'll get the real person saying it to you and not something which is in, in an interview trying to impress you or under pressure.

Uh, sometimes it helps because a lot of amazing people with amazing capabilities are so nervous at a job interview. Just that, right? That you get the completely wrong picture from them and you're missing a huge opportunity. 'cause somebody who is insecure or for whatever reason is having a problem when anxiety in a situation like this.

If he's a really good person for what you need for the company, sometimes you're getting a huge multiplier if you are. Accepting them, and you are working with them in a culture which is very supportive and fun. You're suddenly getting a person who's so appreciate that they're working for you, that you're the multiplier is, is even bigger of what you get.

And the loyalty, I mean, we see so much turnover with, with jobs now, it kills companies. I mean, every time you have to re recruit someone, I mean, you know, the process. So if you are creating that type of loyalty and culture, you're gaining so much that, that, that it's amazing. So I, I always take time in doing, uh, interviews.

I'm always trying to create the personal relationship from the get go. And I'm not, you know, we have half an hour for the interview, you know, I'm, uh, I always try to make it as Right. We're, we're let, yeah, let let it go. Exactly. Exactly. That culture is, you know, to be the ability to actually find the right person and that that's, those are, those are sage pieces right there.

The ability to actually kind of Right, right. Drop the veneer and get to the true person. Know if it's really a great fit or not is so important. Correct. Now when you think about it over simplifying it, yeah. It's a simple, simple concept, but when you look at the actuals, if you don't do it, it costs you so much.

I mean, it's when you do it right and you are not always successful, right. It's not a hundred percent success rate here, but it's, uh, raised the chances of getting it the right person and, and, uh, and having that multiplier of, of uh, what you're getting out of the person and the whole organization. Because it's not just the per the one person, you're creating a culture, you're making him comfortable, and then he communicates, or he or she, I should say, communicates with the rest of the organization.

So you're getting things that you're not directly, uh, even, uh, interacting with, but you get that interaction within the organization. That's a great point, because also at some point in time you're distanced from. The people that are downstream. Exactly. And you need to make sure that your, uh, the things that are important to you are being conveyed or that, that culture is, is pulling all the way down into all aspects of the business.

Exactly. And it does trickle down because once you create that culture, everybody is talking to everybody and it is very important that there's no, uh, you, you, uh, reduce as much as possible. I shouldn't say that. The, you eliminate, but you reduce as much as possible the internal competition. People understand if the company succeeds, everybody succeeds and there's no you, you don't create that thing that, you know, I don't want to talk to that person because maybe you'll think about something I'm thinking and it'll go to the per.

You have to reduce as much as possible the, the friction between people and increase as much as possible. Uh, the, the communication and the collaboration between people, which is by the way, a little more important, uh, more, uh, important now than a lot of people working from home. And, but that's a whole different, uh, yeah, whole can of worms.

Let's, let's, yeah, that tough one. So, uh, this is the first thing this, another thing which is very important in anything I do if it's business or not, is, is trying to make things as efficient as possible. So if you have to do whatever task more than twice. Try to automate it, try to make it as seamless as possible, and as manual, uh, as, as the less manual possible, uh, way.

Um, always very important. And my, my, uh, my first partner, Alon Co. And, uh, my co-founder, uh, for vocal tech, uh, always said he's finding simple solutions because he is very lazy. Uh, that was the, that, that was always his thing. I think that actually one of his resume even had it on it, which he, he is a very funny guy.

So you really want to make sure that there's no, you're not spinning your wheel wheels on anything in, in what you do. If, if you need to do something which is repetitive, try to automate it. It's, it, it makes a huge difference. And once you automated it, if you have to tweak it, you go back and tweak it, but suddenly it frees so much of your time, um, on doing other stuff.

I think this is, this is a concept, which again, saying it in three sentences is, is very simple. But if you really think about it, think about what you do every day, and you're figuring out, oh, maybe I can really s you know, save, uh, an hour a day. Because if the invoices are being produced and sent automatically, and I don't have to each one put in the lines myself, it's a different world.

Right. It's, it's a way different way of doing it. Absolutely. And now we're at a whole, a whole nother level that capability for automation is going to a whole nother level, right. With ai. Yeah. It's so exciting. Right. It's, it's exciting, but also dangerous because AI still needs to be monitored. We're, we can't rely on it.

But there are things that AI is saving us a lot of time. We can chat about AI just for fun, maybe later, but, um, uh. AI is definitely huge part of helping, uh, and can help anyone to be more efficient, uh, if, if used correctly and if monitored, because AI can produce a lot of nonsense as well. Mm-hmm. Uh, at least for now, I mean, from my own experience.

Um, so that's a, that's a very important thing in a, in an organization. Uh, maybe switch a little bit about what I do now, because I think this is very exciting by itself. Well, we're shooting this episode in August and I'm just gonna go out on a limb and say what, so we have, you know, the sound card, we have voiceover ip, but for where we are in the world today, I'm gonna say what you're working on right now is going to be the biggest game changer.

It is. Absolutely, unbelievably cool and valuable at this time, and it's gonna solve a major problem. So I can't wait for you to tell everyone about it. Thank you. And, and actually that's a big reason why I do it, but the, the, the trigger for what I, I do, um, is, was actually a, a medical issue that I had with one of my, uh, kids, uh, that had a seizure, uh, a couple of years ago.

Uh, he calls me on the phone and say, can you go check on my cat? And I said, it's 5:00 AM What are you talking about? Where are you? So I'm in the er, I had a seizure. Uh, I said, we were talking about it. So in two minutes I was in the er. Um, he had a, a, a serious seizure out of the blue. He was 27. Um, and, uh. I, what do I know about seizures and neurology?

Nothing at this point. So I started interrogating, um, uh, the doctor in the, the doctors in the er, luckily one of them was a, uh, uh, used to be a client, uh, a client of mine. And I had a fitness studio and a spin studio. So I'm asking questions and I'm learning fast that which I do with anything I face that I don't know about.

And I see, first of all, they don't do anything. When someone with a seizure goes to the hospital, they see that they're stabilized, um, and they give them a medication with a DOS dosage, there's a protocol, and send them home and see what happens. I said, no way you're doing it with Mike. First of all, do a CT scan.

See that there's, you know, nothing wrong with him. Uh uh, and CT scan was. Came back clean. And then I said, what about EEG? You're not doing, you know, you're not measuring his brain, you know, tell me what's going on. They said, no, we don't. The protocol is we don't do EEG. I said, I want EEG. I mean, uh, I, I then, I also found out that the insurance doesn't cover, uh, an extensive EEG if you don't do the first EEG, which is a, a simple, uh, probably hour and, uh, over an hour procedure.

So I force them to do an EEG on the spot, uh, in the er. Takes a couple of hours until the EEG technician does one EEG machine. They're rolling it in the hospital. It's a big hospital in New Jersey. The guy comes and I'm starting to interview him. I'm asking him, uh, you know, how long have you been that doing that?

He said, well, for like over 20 years. It started in, uh, south and India, and then I moved here and I'm, I'm doing it here for about 12 years now. So I asked him, uh, anything in the technology change since you started doing it? He said, not really. Uh, the presentation on the computer is a little nicer now, but everything else is exactly, pretty much exactly the same.

And I was like, so this technology is at least 20-year-old and at years old. And I, I was like, what's going, you know, that doesn't sound, I mean, with the, um, uh, acceleration of everything, uh, this is, this is not changed. And then I'm looking, I mean, I have my technical background, so I'm looking how he is doing it.

And uh, it's 23 electrodes, two electrodes on the chest. Everything is very long. Wires which are not shielded for anyone that was a little familiar with. I'm saying, uh, how do they measure the brain signals that are really, uh, uh, you know, uh, very weak signals that when you measure them with so, such long wires, all the interference, everything.

And I'm, I'm looking and I took some pictures and then I'm talking to my sister and she said, you remember that our friend, uh, a has, is, is dealing with something like this? I said, with all the turmoil, I didn't even think about it. You know, it was, uh, um, and because I spoke to him about it in the past we're, you know, we're, we're, we're good friends.

I know Ariel since I was about six years old. So, uh, um, there was, there's no pro with trust. And he is, he's an amazing guy. And, and, and very bright. So I'm, I'm calling a real and I'm asking him a real, this, this is what happened. Um, I'm, I'm, uh, I'm here in the er. He said, of course, the founder of the company, Nathan is, is in New York.

He can come and, and, uh, and run the test on your son, and we can see what's going on. So I already exchanging some pictures with him. I saw the disposable, you know, electrodes and, and, uh, and all the information from the E gene, the er, which was surprisingly primitive to me. Anyways, they send my son with the protocol medication.

Let's see what happens. And this is, I, I was talking to the, to the neurologist assistant at the neurologist, and they say this is the protocol. They give him medication. They see if it helps, if it helps. He keeps taking the medication. If he doesn't have any seizures, if he has a she seizure, they're changing either the medication or this dosage.

So it's a complete trial and error. Uh, usually takes time. Those, um, uh, medication have side effects. So they're really flying blind. There's, there's no real, uh, indication of what's going on. Anyways, uh, a couple of days later, Nathan, the founder of, uh, neuro Steer is, is coming to New Jersey. Um, I asked him to run the test on me first, um, because before he run it on my, and I see how simple it is, it's one sticker going on your forehead, uh, simple, tiny device.

You put it on your, or in your neck, um, 15 minute test, which is, uh, an audio guided stimulation. So you're listening to audio. You're using a clicker to answer some questions with music. If you hear the violin, please click. If you hear the trumpet, please click. I mean, a very. A pleasant way of, of doing it.

There's nothing really intimidating, and it's so simple with a single sticker on your forehead. So, uh, it's, you know, you wipe a little alcohol, you put the sticker, and, and that's it. And I, I was impressed. Uh, we'll talk about my results for a second. Then he did the same, the same, uh, assessment to my son, and we definitely, so showed, uh, it showed that, uh, he had, uh, post, uh, seizure activities in his brain.

Uh, he just started taking the medication. So probably it wasn't as, uh, uh, uh, much effective yet because those take time to, uh, to, uh, really work. In any case, uh, we looked at the results of my, um, uh, of my assessment and my responses and everything. Cognitive ability was, was pretty good. But what he did see is that my brain at rest, which should, the activity should be really low and I'm oversimplifying, but, um, the, the activity at at rest was relatively high.

So I asked why. He said, uh, you're thinking about your son. You're, you're worried about your son, so you're not at rest. You have this pressure even though you're maybe maintaining, I mean, outside, I wasn't looking, you know, I'm, I'm a very calm person and I can control how I look. Um. I said, your brain is saying that you're worried about your son.

Your, your, your brain is working overtime. Because, because of the situation since then. I did, of course, multiple times. I, I did the assessment. Uh, but, you know, as, as part of being curious, but also as part of, you know, working with the system and, uh, and on, on future tests, it was perfect. I mean, I always was already at rest.

I wasn't worried. I, uh, uh, so the, the, the results showed it very clearly in any case. Um, so I'm, I'm. Looking at what they have. And I say, okay, my son, I need to start studying neurology. I, uh, I did a crash co two week crash course in, uh, in neurology and what they do and, and learning about it. And after two weeks, a real, my friend is saying, why don't you join the company?

Drop everything you do. I did a zillion different things. Drop everything you do and join the company. I said, that's intriguing. Let me learn a little bit more about it. I need you to give me a lot of information. I did my due diligence for another few weeks and, uh, I joined the company, uh, because I saw that this is a platform that it's really a quantum leap compared to anything that exists on the market.

The only thing that measures direct, I mean, there, there are other ways to measure the brain. Um, they have blood tests. They have, uh, uh, MRI CT scans, all kind of. Things that are measuring, not the, the brain activity directly, but proxies of the brain, which gives you some indication of the condition of the brain, but it doesn't measure directly the functionality of the brain.

When you look at EEG, it's actually not a 20-year-old, uh, technology. It's over a hundred years old. Uh, the only real difference between what it was in the 1920s and now is that instead of on paper, it's showing it on a computer, but the technology behind it is pretty much the same. They have some ways to, uh, um.

To analyze the information a little better, but overall, it's the same information. Uh, a neurologist that was trained to read EEG, which is completely subjective and tons of information, tons of data, actually it's not tons of information because it's, it's really raw data that they're looking at. It takes a neurologist at least two years to be somewhat proficient in reading an EEG signal.

Uh, it's really ve very difficult to read. Uh, so the tool that is provided for the neurologist is very limited in what it can show. On top of that, if you look at what EEG is measuring, EEG is measuring a very low bandwidth. The bandwidth that they're measuring is between 40 and 70 hertz. That's it. Um, what our device is measuring is up to 1500 hertz.

So it's just. Huge difference. You orders of magnitude difference. Right? And the con knowledge was saying the brain doesn't produce, uh, signals that are higher than 40 or 70 hertz. Uh, so we don't have to look at them. Um, what we found out that, first of all, there might be signals that are higher than that, but more than that, the interaction between the hundreds of signals in our brain are creating, um, the, uh, higher frequencies because of the mix of them.

So if you take two sinus waves and you in different frequencies, you mix them, you're getting harmonics, which can be, uh, uh, very high. Um, and, and not just, not just the base signals. Uh, you see it also in graphics if you have the more rare effect. If you take two grids and you move them, you see a lot of different patterns created.

That's like noise, but it's actually information that is creating from the original signal. If you want to sample the signal and recreate. The original signals, base signals out of it. If you don't have all those harmonics, you cannot recreate the original signal accurately because you're missing a lot of data that was created by it.

So we're sampling, first of all, at a much higher bandwidth and second at a much higher dynamic range. Meaning we can read a very small signal level in its level and a very high signal in its level. If you, if you do an analogy for this, if you're using a microphone and you're whispering into the microphone or you're shouting into the microphone, if both signals are clear, you're, you're not missing this, the whispering or getting clips or distortions on the, on the shouting, it means that you have a high dynamic range.

And again, in the dynamic range, our system. Because of the topology, because of the electronics. The dynamic range that we can look at is way higher orders of magnitude higher than, than a traditional eeg. So we start with a very rich signal that we measure with a very simple device that is only on your forehead.

Now, if you're looking at EG, always with wet gel, multiple electrodes, a helmet, uh, I mean it takes probably over a half hour, half an hour to just set it up. Our system, you just put the sticker on the forehead and turn it on. It's like within, literally within a minute you start recording brain signal.

Yeah. Going back to what you're talking about with efficiency, right? I mean Exactly. So, um, the, the. And by the way, I joined the company in order to productize and commercialize what they did. So they did the heavy lifting of research and, uh, and, uh, statistics and, and developing the basic technology. And I joined in order to make a product which is friendly, usable, and start selling it.

So that was my, and I said I want to touch everything in the company in order to be able to get it to that, because it has to do with development, training, pricing, business model. I needed to be able to do everything and, and they let me so that, you know, good news for them. Right? So first of all, we're collecting a very rich signal out of the brain, but what we do is we're collecting it with basically one channel.

We have three electrodes that actually on that strip that we put it. But the three electrodes are only to reduce noise and make the signal very clean. It's a differential, um, uh, sampling the, the signal to reduce the noise and so on very short cables to the, to the, uh, analog part that is sampling it. So we are doing it in a very clean way.

It give us a really, really clean, rich signal with tons of information. If you compare it to, to regular EEG, that's a, I'm saying it's like looking at the ultra high definition television. We're looking at it directly, see every detail, regular EEG is looking it through a bedsheet, so you see spots of colors moving around, but really you don't see the details.

We looking at directly at the, at the picture and really sampling all the really fine details of the signal from the brain. But we're doing it with one electrode and one signal, and it sends all the information to our servers over an internet connection. And this is where, so, so we had that, that first part, which is a prerequisite to really sample what the brain is doing, but then you have to do interpretation for it.

So a research that was done by, uh, mostly by our founder, uh, Nathan, uh, in Trier. Um. Is taking that signal and breaking it to what we call, um, brain activity features. And brain activity features are functional networks within the brain. So we're not looking at where a function is being done, uh, not a, the brain has amazing plasticity.

So if a, a, a part of the brain is damaged, or, you know, some genetic, uh, uh, differences between people, right? The brain can take over and create the same functions in different parts of the brain. We're not looking where the function occur, we're looking at the function itself. So with algorithms, uh, uh, heavy mathematics, uh, that signal, the signal, the signal that we're measuring is broken into, uh, right now over a hundred components that represent functional networks.

Probably in the, in the future, we can break it to even three or 400. Um, uh, brain activity functions like this. Again, to use an analogy, if you're in a restaurant and you have 20 people talking around you and you're concentrating only on the person you want to listen to, you're actually getting ones signal with that cacophony of multiple people talking at the same time.

But your brain is amazing in doing signal processing. It's taking that, uh, mix of different, uh, people talking and it can identify from it the harmonic buildup of the voice you want to listen to and blocks everything else, and you're listening only to that person. Or if you're in a, uh, in a symphony orchestra listening and you have multiple instruments playing the same tune, you can.

Close your eyes, focus and listen only to the trumpet, or only to the violin. 'cause your brain is doing the signal processing, amazing signal processing of making you capable of concentrating only on that by the signature of that specific instrument. So we're doing a similar thing with the brain. We're breaking the, the one signal that we're sampling the brain into the different activities in the brain, which are like different instruments that are playing.

So that's the first step in what we do in the analysis. Then we're taking that and we're looking at the relationship between them, how they work in concert, how they, uh, they relate to each other and what we found out doing, you know, up until now I think over 10,000 samples of, of healthy and, and brains with some disorders, that the healthy brain has a very specific fingerprint.

You see it across people with healthy brains. You see that those basic network functions, uh, in the brain are working very similarly in a healthy brain and in a brain with specific disorders, you can find different fingerprints. So we showed in a, in a, uh, clinical study that, uh, we did with, uh, people who have Parkinson's that were known to have Parkinson's, using the golden, um, method of, of doing it with a, what's called fdo or PET ct, which is a CT scan, you know, thousands of dollars injecting, uh, radioactive tracers and so on.

So the gold standard. Uh, um, uh, we, we use the gold standard as reference, and we showed that we can identify people with Parkinson's, at least as good as the gold standard with the 15, with our 15 minute, uh, uh, test. And probably we can identify people in Parkinson's. Very early on, and I'm saying this with a disclaimer because the, the, this is still a small group, but even before symptoms occurred, which is critical to any way we, we look at it, th this is, this is where it gets so big.

'cause by the time you figure out that you have any neurodegenerative disease mm-hmm. It's kind of too late. I mean, there's, it's limited what you can actually do, but if you can detect it early, that's where the magic is. This is why this is so powerful. Talked about efficiency and access to. If you try to go have a CT scan, you go try to have any of these scans anywhere.

First of all, it's almost impossible to do right. Super costly time, all that kind of stuff, if you could even figure that out. But what you've done is you've brought it to the world in a way where the average citizen can get access to this information, right? It is an absolute game changer at a point in time when neurodegenerative, uh, issues, you know, conditions are on the rise in an exponential way.

I mean, it's, it's crazy. Absolutely. And I'll expand on that. So, CT scans are actually more common than MRI machines. Some of the, uh, uh, some of the conditions needs an MRI machine in order to do it, or even an FMRI machine, um, for Alzheimer's, uh, for instance. So, um, MRI machines are not available in 90% of the counties in the us.

People have to drive 50 to a hundred miles even to get an MRI scan that, that's one aspect of this. Uh, which is crucial. But another aspect of what you, what you mentioned about early detection, how do you, um, test or even develop a drug for treating pre symptomatic people with Parkinson's? On Alzheimer's if you don't know they have it before they have symptoms.

If you don't have a way to gauge, you can't even start the process. Now. Let's assume you start the process. You need some longitudinal way to, to measure it. You do a baseline. How do you know if the drug is effective? If you don't have a way to test it over time, in, in, in different time points, how do you know if it's effective?

How, how do you know if it helps? If you don't have the tool, you're flying blind. And I can't blame the physicians because they don't have the tools to use. So let me give, um, you know, I'm, I'm, I, I love real time examples, and this is one of the concepts actually that I didn't talk about, that I'm always thinking from the user point of view.

Uh, if you don't think from the user point of view, you're developing something which is not for the user. Amen. Amen. Yeah. Right. So this is a, a huge thing on everything that I'm doing. And I, and I always go and talk to users, and that's why I'm flying to clinics and that's why I'm talking to everyone. I can't, uh, about everything and I always asking to get the bad, not just the good.

I, I need to know everything anyways. If you don't have, um, that longitudinal way of measuring things, you cannot, you're, you cannot do anything. So from the real world, when do people with, uh, Alzheimer get to the doctor these days when they realize that they're not just forgetting their car keys, but suddenly there's a whole barrage of symptoms, right?

That the, and actually you tend to ignore the symptoms because it's like the, the, the, the story about the frog right there, you're turning on the heat and it's going slowly and slowly. And the, the, the. The frog doesn't jump out be until it's cooked, because it doesn't feel so, yes, I started y you know, we're rationalizing the symptoms.

Yes. So I'm, I'm, what was her name? What was her name? Yeah, I'm, I'm just, you know, I had, I didn't have enough coffee. I broke up early. I didn't, you know, you find excuses why you're not performing the way you perform and you get to the doctor and usually it's irreparable damage that is already done to your brain by the time you're getting into the neurologist that was referred by the psychologist that was referred by the gp.

Uh, you got there late already. You go through the process they send you for an MRI that you'll get in two months, uh, that will check if you have something, which is not necessarily an indicative of the condition that you had. The, just the tools are not there. So you get to the physician only, uh. When it's way too late, there's, there's irreversible damage, most probably already done.

And again, you can't blame the physicians because what tools do they have? Now, imagine you go to the physician for your animal test as of today. What do they do to test your brain? Nothing. They tap your knee to see that you have reflexes. They may be put a finger, you know, uh, or a light and see if you follow them, uh, with your eyes.

But there's really no way for the physician to test your brain health. So imagine you go to the physician for your annual and he said, okay, now we're testing. Your brain puts a sticker on your forehead, you're listening to something and re reacting. And after 15 minutes, the system can tell you there's something there that we suspect is an issue.

You better go check it because you might have the beginning of Parkinson's. This is a game changer. Because treatment can start early, medication can be developed, early treatments can be developed early, uh, for early, uh, uh, condition, even before symptoms. It'll make it something completely, uh, quantum, a huge, a real quantum leap in, in what is being done today.

Yeah. As a person who saw a close family friend degenerate it is one of the scariest things ever. You know, I remember the day that this is a person I've known my entire life, said to me, who are you? And I was like, wow. You know, I mean, they, he literally had no idea who I was and at that, and it just, it just got, it's a terrible.

I mean, the, the, as it goes, it just gets, it's so bad. I agree. Both my parents, my dad didn't get to a situation, which is that bad, but he was very aware that he was declining. He passed away before that and luckily he passed away just before COVID so we can, he was in Israel. I could still travel, um, to, to, uh, his funeral.

Um. With my mom. It was a long process and both my parents were, were very intelligent, that they were bright people. My mom, we couldn't tell that she had the decline because she was intelligent. So she was making up for the fact that she couldn't remember with all kind of tricks. World, no rallies. Yeah. So to give you an example, she broke her hip at one point, as it happens with a lot of all elderly, uh, women.

And she was in the hospital, my sister and I immediately, my sister is also in New Jersey, but by chance, so we're both flew to Israel immediately. We're in the hospital, we're talking to them. We're going, you know, uh, home at night, home to actually to my mom apartment, uh, at night. And we are getting a call from the doctor, from the er, and he said, I, uh, I need a few more, uh, details here.

I spoke to your mom, uh, and she gave me most of it, but, but let me verify with you. And he is starting telling us things that my mom told him about where she lives, what floor, what her condition, who's treating her. Everything was made up. The, the, all the information was wrong. And we told him, and he said, no way.

She was so confident. She speaks so clearly. He, he, he, he didn't realize that she had severe amnesia, severe cognitive decline because she was still bright enough to make it up. So it was, appearance was very important to her, always. Her Hebrew, even though she was an immigrant, you know, from Poland, um, she, she, her Hebrew was perfect, like a narrator.

She was always dressed up, makeup, everything. So she was talking to him, to him. He, she, she was. Uh, completely in control of all the information. So I know that, uh, eventually she passed away. She couldn't recognize us. So, so I'm, I'm very, that, that, that's part of what motivates me. I'm very aware of that from firsthand experience.

This platform. I mean, the, the reason, part of the reason I joined the company, I saw the versatility of this platform. We have, um, uh, we have studies in Mount Sinai for the ICU. We can check sedation level, we can show so seizures when a person is sedated or has no motoric, uh, um. Indicators of, uh, of a seizure.

We, the, there's so many things that can be done with this platform. Of course, it needs FDA approval, and I'm saying things that are not, you know, the studies were not big enough in order to get it approved and so on. Uh, so there's money and time involved in all of that. But the, the versatility of this platform and the differentiate, the, the difference between IT and anything else that is currently available is really day and night is really, I mean, uh, the same as, um, uh, as we did with voiceover ip where we took phone calls from seven, $8 a minute to practically zero.

And everybody now, I mean it, for us, it was a process, but everything now AC accepted, like something that was always there, right? It's zero. We want it to be. The same as you measure your, um, blood pressure now at the GP office. Yeah. Testing your brain or assessing your brain or detecting anything wrong with your brain should be as simple as, as taking your blood pressure.

Um, look at the cardio, right? Uh, ECG or EKG. It used to be that the doctor sent you to the cardiologist in order to do the test. Now you're going through your annual and within 15 minutes he did the test. Uh, it the, the machine gives him an indication of, of your heart condition. We need all of that to be.

Fully automated, right? We're trying to make it efficient. We're trying to make it as friendly as possible. So go to the doctor 15 minutes, listen to something pleasant, click a few clicks and you know, if there's something that you should be worried about or something you that you should, and treatment can be, I mean, it all depends on what, what's needed, but written can be, lifestyle, can be, you know, whatever your doctor decides.

But the first step is to know that there's something to, that needs to be treated right. And how do you not do it without, yeah. To quantify, you know, is the really the key right, is to really discovery, right? And then from there, what happens after that is, but I mean, if you go completely unknown. You have no idea until it's too late, then it's just too late.

Exactly. Exactly. So, I mean, this is a phenomenal thing. We're gonna talk a lot more about it. I'm gonna ask you to come back at some point in time and spend some more time with me, and I always love to sell you. I'd love that. And you, you'll be one of the most helpful people. Uh, I I'm really appreciative of everything that you've done for us.

Yeah. And I, I love talking to you. I mean, we met not long ago, but immediately it clicked and we became friends. Yeah. Uh, and I would love to, to join you anytime. Yeah. The, I wanna go back to sort of a thought process. I mean, a lot of things that you say are sort of like, Hey, I just did it. I just sort of, I didn't know that I couldn't do it, so I just did it.

But do you feel like, you know, you're in your pathway to peak performance. Mm-hmm. Is there some sort of formula? I, I don't know if you're really willing to talk about. The martial arts side of things. Sure. You know, maybe we can kind of go there a little bit. Well, first of all, I, um, I, I always wanted, as a kid to learn judo.

My mom wouldn't allow me, actually her family friend was one of the top judo guys in Israel. And, uh, so I had the opportunity, but my mom wouldn't allow me. She sent me to, uh, play tennis and, um, I'm not playing tennis. Um, but when I was 35, I decided that I'll go and, and learn. I I pretty much retired when I was 3 35 and I decided I, I have to go or I want to go and, and learn martial arts.

And I had a, an amazing karate dojo in the town I lived in, in New Jersey by sheer chance. Um. Unfortunately, I didn't meet the Japanese guy that started the, the, um, the, the style, that style of karate. It's called Koka Karate. Uh, but his, um, main student and someone he called my skin because he could do everything that he could do.

Uh, Gavin Armstrong, um, was there. And, um, I started training with him and I was training five, six days a week, uh, because I could. Uh, and I was very happy about it. I, um, I'm a, I'm a second degree black belt in karate, in sugar, kai karate. Um, and to, to, to get to what you're talking about, uh, few things that stop people from doing something.

Um, sometimes it's just the capability, the time. You know, you're, you're not, and people are saying, yeah, you can always make the time. No, you can't always make the time. Uh, so sometimes there are objective reasons. I mean, if you have to bring food to your family and you have to work 12 hour a day and then take care of the kids, you really don't have the time to do anything else and their objective, you know?

But a lot of time it's not that thing that, that actually, uh, um, limit you in what you want you can do or want to do. The thing that stops people is fear. They think I'm not good at it, so I'm not going to do it. That's why you do it. If you're not good at something and you want to do it, that's the way to be good at it.

You have to just do it. So the fear of the initial failure stops a lot of people. I don't see it that way. I see. If I don't experience it, maybe I, you know, I'll never get good at it, but at least I want to experience and see what it is. So I'm not facing anything in thinking I might fail. I'm facing everything, and I wanna see what it is.

If I see that it's beneficial for me, even if I'm not good at it to start with, I'm still pushing forward because I want to learn it. I want to see what it is. If I won't get good at it, at least I know what to ask someone else. Uh, if, if this is the situation, ask someone else to do it. And I know what to ask for because I'm already familiar with what it is.

Um, so fear of failure is, uh, I think the biggest thing in, in slowing people down, they don't want even to start because they're afraid of what will happen if they're not good. Maybe they're ashamed that if it's an, uh, if it's in a group, they're ashamed of how they look initially. Mm-hmm. You know, so what, uh, prove them wrong.

Right. But, so I think this is a very, uh, a very, uh, big showstopper for for many people. Um. I think that's the biggest thing. That's the, uh, that's it. Yeah. I think the fear. Yeah. Isn't that interesting? Fear? Yeah. Someone, someone said, uh, someone who came on the show said fear is a part of their pathway to peak performance.

Yep. That fear actually helps propel them forward if you, if you generally drive. Right. Right. But you can, you can use it in a very powerful way. Right. Absolutely. Yeah. Um, well, and I mean, you know, it's, it's just amazing to, uh, to sit here and, and talk to you and thank you. And listen, I, I, I officially, I, I was never educated, uh, you know, high school.

I, I went to high school, then I went to the Army. Then I, I've never went to, uh, you know, I have no academic degree. I have no official, I did one course in for a couple of days in, in Massachusetts for business, but you know, that really, I didn't give me much. Just do things. Everything that I, uh, that I do now is out of experience by doing it.

If you're stopping yourself from doing things, you're limiting what you know. Every time you do something that you don't know, you're expanding your arsenal of things that you can do and do a variety of things. Don't get stuck with something that, that's the only thing I know, that's what I do, because multidisciplinary way of knowing things or, or knowing things, different things gives you so much more leverage because you take something from a diff, I mean, I had a fitness studio.

I got tons of experience with subscription models, how it works, what's the profitability and so on. And I applied it now to what we do with the brain. So our business model is based on subscription, makes it very easy for the clinics to, uh, uh, to start, there's no barrier to entry really. I tell them, use it as much as you want.

If you don't want to use it, just stop. And we're, we're, we're fine. So the barrier of entry is very easy. Uh, it's very addictive in a way. I mean, we're giving tons of, uh, of benefits of course. I mean, we're giving a, a huge service. But everything, you know, done. So I, I took it from Fitness World, right? But also in the fitness world, I was always very big on compensation, which is related to performance.

Even in, in, you know, for a programmer, even for tech support people. Once you measure someone, you're actually getting way better results. And if you compensate them in correlation with the results or the performance, it doesn't have to be, you know, uh, uh, draconian. Um, but it's a simple way to do it.

Suddenly they get so much better. I used to say that if I pay bonus to myself on performance, I'm performing better. Even though it's me doing it to myself. It's already the psychology is working like a placebo. Right. I'm gonna have to try that. Yeah. So I'm saying it's, it's like it's working on you. So I I, I did that.

We opened our spin studio in 2000, beginning of 2015. By the way, project management, we, this was, I did a project manage managed. Renovation to a space which was completely broken down. Concrete floor, everything. Uh, within, I did project management with all the professionals that were working on the renovation.

Within six weeks, we had our first class with a studio that was the most high end that you can ever think with changing lights, colors, everything. Computerized, full audio system, performance tracking, uh, music, video projection, 30 high-end, uh, uh, spin, uh, bikes and so on. So six weeks. Project management with timing, I told all the profess the, the subcontractors, if you're not doing it, uh, the timeframes I specified, you're not getting paid.

Uh, so everything was with a gun chart. Everything was timed, everything. Anyways, uh, when we opened our fitness class. The compensation for all the, uh, instructors was something they never witnessed. Definitely nothing I heard of before. We didn't pay them flat fee for a, for a class. We didn't pay them for the time.

We paid them by the amount of people that they got to their class. So we had it structure very well. We had it structure. You know, initially you have a kickstart, uh, uh, period where, where you get compensated a little more to help them. But if you're not bringing. People to the class, which is how we get paid.

You're not getting paid. And I called it, it's self adjusting. The compensation is, is by what the motivation of everybody is. I need them to bring more people to classes. If they bring more, more people to, because they're getting paid more, I'm getting paid more. Everything is aligned. So you have to take, um, concepts from other.

Areas and build, bring them to the areas you're currently facing. And if you know a range of different disciplines that, again, it's a multiplier, right? You, it's not one-on-one time, uh, you know, equals two, it's, it's a much more than that. So learn. As much as you can about a variety of things. Don't limit yourself.

I'm, when I see a book, I'm opening and reading it. When you, when I see a History Channel program, I'm not flipping over to a stupid game show. I'm listening to that, uh, you know, to that program. Don't waste your time on a Instagram or Facebook, which is highly addictive, you know, even if I'm looking at it.

Um, and again, maybe it's a little, uh, against a podcast that is online, but, and then yeah, you flipping images and that's such a time waster. I, I personally Yeah, I would agree. And, you know, for this, this is educational in nature. Mm-hmm. So someone listening to this can learn quite a bit and can follow you.

And I think one of the things that's really cool about your story is just sort of this. This progression, even when you hit challenges. Anybody who's in is an entrepreneur, like you said, it was 10 years. There are many sleepless nights in that, and people who don't live the life that we live, they don't understand the how stressful it can actually be.

Right. One of the things that's really cool about you and I got that right away, is that you have learned to regulate that and manage that in a way that allows you to continue to climb, which is really powerful. Thank you. So, so I'll, I'll, I'll maybe one more concept. Uh, that if what people are asking me, how do I define myself?

I say I'm a problem solver, and that's the way I look at myself. So by defining yourself as a problem solver, you're already defining that you have problems. You're facing a problem, you're trying to solve it so you're not panicking because there's a problem. There are always problem, uh, who didn't face, uh, you know, 10 problems a day, at least, you know, with everything they do.

You know, the, the light is red and I, I'm late. The, there's always a problem. There's so always an issue. Solve it. Well, I have a question for you about that. Okay. Because what happens, and this is pathway to peak performance. This is, this is really, uh, very critical. What happens when you get to a saturation point where the pro problems have added up?

There's so much pressure on you that you feel like you just are sort of like, I don't, I can't take anymore. What do you do Then? I try to. Share it with someone that can help me with what I do. So, um, if you surround yourself with people that you can talk to, first of all, you can explain to them, listen, I, I tell to my girlfriend, um, I, we can't go to dinner tonight because I have to work two more hours because I'm overloaded with work.

And if you have the right person with you, they understand that you have a problem. Right? That's my partner, A real, I'm telling him, listen, a real, I can't do that. Can you, can you cover for me for this? So you can always get yourself into a saturated, uh, and we'll talk about this, I'll talk about this or, uh, in a second to, to a, to a spot where you're overloaded.

Um, but you need the people around you that can help you with that. Right. And this is, um, working and recruiting people that know more than you is a, is a very important aspect. So I spoke about Daniel Beringer and, uh, Larry Seger, which, uh, which were both Bell Labs, you know, highly educated, tons of experienced people.

They both know, knew things that I didn't know they were teaching me. Uh, as I said, I paid them more than I was taking, but, uh, they served such an important issue that was taking the load off me. So, work with people that are smart. Don't work with people that you have to teach them. Work with people that will teach you and then you can rely on them to solve problems when you're getting overwhelmed.

But the trick to, with getting overwhelmed is to prevent it. I was talking about it a couple of days ago actually here. Um. You have to stop and look at the big picture, and you have to do it as frequent as, um, the process requires. It can be once a week, it can be once a month. It can be once a day. But look at the tasks that you're make doing or look at the task that the group that you're managing, or it can be not direct management because a project manager is managing people who's not officially managing a lot of times.

Look at the tasks that are being done and think about what happens. The situation. Now, what will be the situation in a week, in a month? It all depends again, on the, on the nature of the beast. What, what company are you working? What, what, what, what is the frequency of different tasks and so on. C where we stand now, I have one programmer that is the bottleneck and needs to do 15 different tasks.

It's, it's inhumane to even ask him to do it. So I need another programmer. How do I get that programmer? Can I recruit someone fast enough? Can I outsource this? Can I, you know, and, and put some of the tasks. Let's see what tasks are there. So trying to prevent the saturation, that's the key. Uh, but you always get, because you have unexpected issues, you always get to a point where you, at one point in time, you have 16 different things that are suddenly appeared.

It can be champagne problems, problems. It can be, you know, five clients at the same time that you have to serve and you don't have the people to support them. Or it can be, you know, uh, bugs, errors, uh, uh, IRS, uh, I don't know, a different, um. So it happens. So look at it, prioritize and give whatever you can or ask for help with whatever you can.

And if you have the right relationship with people, it's a give and take. They ask you, you ask them, you know, I currently have to fix my roof, so Leonor, can you help me with, uh, that client that needs help until I'm done? So once it's a give and take situation. And, and the culture, which I talked about at the beginning is good.

And everybody thinks positive, not negative. So they want to help. You're creating an environment which answers your question. It, it actually fulfilled that, that task of, uh, of not being overwhelmed or being able to, to release that pressure of being oversaturated. Is that the answer? That's, that's perfect.

That's perfect. They are. It was so great to have you in. Thank you so much. You know, and I look forward to seeing you and having you back and learning more about all the great success that is to come. Awesome. Thank you very much for having me. Thank you. Pleasure. Yeah, my pleasure. Hey, thanks everyone for watching the show.

Please remember to like, comment, and subscribe. It really helps us out here at the channel and share the video with someone who might be interested in supporting the charity that our guest, uh, mentioned in the episode. Thanks again. We'll see you soon.