Bill Austin on the Founding and Future of Starkey

Dave talks to Starkey’s Founder, Owner and Chairman, Bill Austin, about how he got his start in the hearing industry, his quest to help the world hear, what he loves about custom hearing aids, and why caring is at the core of what we do.

Link to full transcript

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:02

Hello, Starky Snumbite listeners. A quick note before we start the podcast. This interview is being recorded virtually as we continue to navigate the COVID-19 pandemic. In the first minute, you'll hear some background noises. They're over very quickly. Now long with the podcast. Welcome to Starkey Snumbites. I'm your host Dave Fabry, Starkey's chief innovation officer. Our guest today needs no introduction to the hearing industry. He's none other than Bill Muston, owner of Starkey, the founder and a trailblazer in the hearing healthcare space. Bill started his career in the hearing industry 61 years ago this month. I'm honored to call him boss, mentor, friend, and colleague. And uh Bill, uh just thank you for joining us with the podcast today.

SPEAKER_02 0:52

Dave, uh I'm always glad to speak with you. Uh I'm uh I'm so uh happy that you can call me a friend and a mentor and a colleague, because uh if I've contributed at all to to anything in your life that makes me have uh more value, I'm I'm worth something. I know one of your favorite value to my life.

SPEAKER_01 1:24

Well, one of my favorite sayings is uh, you know, in your humility, you'll say, well, well, I'm not a big deal, but I've got news for you, you're not either. And uh, you know, I I think that that reminder that we all play important parts in each other's lives, but also not to uh underestimate and overestimate that. And I do want to thank you uh for your leadership and your vision for Starkey and uh and the opportunities you've provided me uh to have a significant part of my career here. And uh I enjoy uh what I do every single day. And uh and I've had the benefit of traveling uh around the world with you and uh and really seeing you in action uh on uh on missions as well as the day-to-day, and as well as over in the Center for Excellence here on campus. And uh it's it's amazing the energy that you have. And I want to say, you know, you're celebrating a milestone birthday this month, 80 years young, and I know you still run circles around people 30 years younger than you, but first and foremost, I want to say happy birthday.

SPEAKER_02 2:29

Well, you're welcome, Dave, and I don't think I'm running those circles as fast as I used to, but I'm running them as fast as I can. And I'm still enjoying being part of tomorrow by contributing to today. That's what I like to do.

SPEAKER_01 2:44

Yep, I I know you're doing. I know you're not a big one for uh celebrating on your own, but uh what what do you plan to do for your birthday? What are you planning to do to celebrate it?

SPEAKER_02 2:54

Actually, I I I don't think I've ever really celebrated a birthday. Some people have had little birthday parties for me, but for me, a celebration really comes when I've been part of progress uh to help people better than we've ever helped before. And that's my Eureka moments, and that's when I I go around uh really celebrating. So I'm always looking to the past, trying to learn from that experience and apply it to today, but it it's not a direct application. We're living in a changing world, and uh we have to adapt to new. We can't be stuck in the way it always was.

SPEAKER_01 3:46

No question. I mean, uh I think you can reflect on the past to look and provide some guidance for the future, but as you say, we've certainly in the last few years uh we've we've seen unprecedented times in terms of the impact of that change, but nonetheless, staying true to the vision that you established when you really began Starkey in 67. And then also really uh you're also celebrating an anniversary of 61 years in the industry this month.

SPEAKER_02 4:15

That's right, Dave. Um I started in February 1961. And uh I actually came to Minnesota with no interest or intention of having anything at all to do with the hearing aid industry. I had decided that I would find the value in my life by being a missionary doctor like Albert Schweitzer in Africa, having a clinic and helping people and being pleased every night when I went to bed because I did the best I could for every one of those patients. And I thought that was important work, and that the hearing industry didn't seem to me at that moment in time to be important work. It was, I just didn't think it was as critical as medicine, and I changed my mind uh after having some experience. I took a job making earpieces for hearing aids. I uh became pretty good at that pretty quick, and I uh I read about uh the work and what we were doing, and I got a little experience, and one day an old man came in and I was called upstairs because he couldn't solve his feedback problem. He had a profound loss, and I got him squared away. And when I saw in his face what it meant for him to hear, I I mean, I it just struck me, and it struck me so much that it was the end of the day, and I was virtually speechless. I just went down, changed out of my you know, smock and what I was wearing into my street clothes, and caught a city bus home. And in the cantilever of the bus, there was a little quote the true path to humility is not to stoop till you're lower than yourself, but rather to stand at your true height against some greater nature that will show the real smallness of your greatest greatness. And I always remember that quote. That quote just like it was timely, it was there at the right moment. It hit me as being important. I got home, went upstairs, and sat on the on the little single bed I I had got to sleep on, uh, or and uh started talking out loud to myself. And the first thing I said is, Bill, the reason you want to be a doctor is so you can help people. If you do this work, you'll be able to help people and you won't kill anyone. As a doctor, you're sure to kill many. And I was kidding myself because I was inundated with thought that I couldn't verbalize that quickly. I saw, I like it. Uh that we would have. And so I said, you know, how many people can you hear a see a day as a doctor, Bill? 20, 25. Night will fall, you'll go to bed, you'll get up the next day, you'll see 20, 25, you'll live your life. And then it was like I was in a trance. I had this vision in full color, and I was at the bottom of a grave, and people were standing around the grave, and one man looking down said he was a nice old doc and he impacted our community. And I was like, I was out of there like that. I knew I could do more with my life, but I had to change. I had always thought it was all about me, all about my hands, all about my skills, what I could do. And I realized all of a sudden that no one can impact the world alone. No one can have that big of an impact. But with leverage, you could, the leverage being the hearts and the minds and the hands of many who agree with the philosophy and are willing to work with you as a team. And I wanted that leverage. At the moment I got the first glimpse of it, I wanted to be part of that. I didn't have to own it, I didn't have to run it, I didn't have to make a lot of money from it, but I wanted to be part of the leverage that would impact people around the world and would contribute significantly to life. Because I believe the more lives you contribute to, the more expanded your life is. And I believe we live on into the future through those contributions that we make today. And I that's my idea of immortality. Wow, so it's I was I was ready to go. I mean, I just I couldn't go fast enough. And so I started, Dave, uh, thinking that I could dispense hearing aids efficiently and manufacture them. I started design, I had already been thinking about building them in the ear, and I had the concept in mind that I could make an in-the-ar product that people would really want and would accept better than an appliance outside the ear. And um so I started on that path, and I started with retail shops, and I found I couldn't uh control the quality of the care, of the way the people would talk to the patients and deliver the hearing aids. And I was fighting with that, trying to have a delivery system for hearing aids where uh we could control the quality. And then one day I decided I wasn't gonna I wasn't gonna get there on this path. And I decided the true way to get the leverage was in the on the manufacturing side, and that rather uh we would try to offer services that would help uplift the industry. And uh I couldn't get good service on a on repairs then. Uh uh really the policies were poor, the workmanship was it wasn't good, and it was erratic. You never knew what you were going to have to pay. When you send an aid in for service, it could be all over the place because it was always a parts and labor thing, and no one knew what went in, and there was a lot of cheating going on. So I said, I'm gonna make it simple. There's gonna be one price, it's unconditional, we'll take care of anything. If it's an eyeglass hearing aid, the person tries to shape it to the head, and I told them to if you break it, we'll re-case it or replace it at no charge. The patient is your foremost responsibility, take care of them right, and we'll be behind you. So we had that repair service. The people just loved us. We grew within a couple of years, it was the world's largest repair service. I mean, we were doing business with lots of the dealers in this country that the the manufacturers didn't realize because they were only selling new hearing aids. But I knew I was going to do more. I said, uh, our reputation is our most valuable asset. We're going to guard that by doing our very best every time because we're going to do more with these people. I knew we were going to provide in-the-ear hearing aids to them.

SPEAKER_01 11:56

So that was so 1967, you founded Starkey, and then within that, you already were thinking about improving the processes not only for ear molds, but then thinking about in-the-ear hearing aids at that point in time.

SPEAKER_02 12:11

Absolutely. And we started making then hearing aids for a select few customers. And just to make sure, and I wasn't satisfied that our range of fitting was adequate. I'm thinking, well, we're going to have an order come in and we won't have enough power. We won't, you know, be able to address it right. The other end of the scale is we could never get adequate venting to avoid the occlusion. And so we solved those problems. We uh we got the the it was called called then an old Westinghouse push-pull amp, and we were able to build very strong aid stably. And uh we developed, I developed the BAV vent. That was the the first uh the first humongous venting contoured in, cast in. I made it for a a man named Austin Reynolds from Rochester, Minnesota. And he came up and I couldn't get rid of the occlusion. I couldn't, and I remade it, and I finally designed this vent and had it cast in, and it was perfect for him. So then I felt like I was ready. I could cover the milder laws, I could cover the more profound bosses. And in January of 1973, I sent a simple letter out to all of our customers, and it said, we do something more than just service hearing aids and make ear molds. We also make an in-the-ear hearing aid worthy of your consideration. And that was from then on, it was all we could do to keep up with trying the the growth of the company because our our policies were 90-day trial.

SPEAKER_01 13:59

No one else in the industry was doing that at that time.

SPEAKER_02 14:02

No one, no one did that. They thought it was wrong, heresy. I was going to ruin the industry by offering those policies. And I said, to the contrary, we're going to make the industry better because it's going to make the reputation of hearing aids better by assuring that people get better hearing when they buy it instead of just getting out the money. So we did that. We uh not only made them uh available on trial, but I said we'll treat the hearing loss, not the pocketbook. So if your patient can't afford a hearing aid, just write Starkey fund on the order and we'll make the same hearing aid.

SPEAKER_00 14:42

Uh unheard of in the industry as well. I mean, it was.

SPEAKER_02 14:45

That was unheard of. No one ever thought of anything like that or did anything like that. And that was our policy from the beginning, from the day one. It was because I thought everyone deserved a chance, everyone deserved equal respect. And maybe uh if we lift someone up, uh they'll be able to be a better part of society in our community, and we should do that when we can. And I thought we would make enough money on the the people who could pay. And I didn't think we'd be overwhelmed because our customers can't stay at in business giving away here. So they would only want to do it when they really needed to. And it's exactly the way it worked out. Uh and uh so we were able to serve uh a broad spectrum of the marketplace.

SPEAKER_01 15:44

Well, and then you you continued through the 70s to continue to perfect your craft with this custom craftsmanship and focusing on, as you mentioned, while during those days it was probably, you know, 80 to 90 percent of the products dispensed, at least in the U.S., were behind-the-ear devices, but you were focused on making small custom devices to help address not only that envoy secclusion and the cosmetics to address the stigma, but then really perfecting that notion of custom craftsmanship to the individual's ear and thinking about that led to uh tremendous growth, as you say, leading up to the early 80s when uh there was another sort of pivotal moment in the industry in first archie.

SPEAKER_02 16:29

Well, during this time, uh uh we the our issue was, Dave, not to just make something cosmetic, not to just make something different, but to help people better than they'd ever been helped before. So it wasn't about replacing a behind the ear with an in the ear because it was more cosmetic, was actually about helping them hear better. And there's certain efficiencies to coupling a hearing aid of the ear. You have the advantage of pinafocus, and we didn't have then what we have today with all of this digital processing and directional uh uh features that are somewhat helpful, but the pina focus helped quite a bit. Getting rid of the plumbing gave us uh uh we didn't have those resonant peaks from the tubing and the response, and we were able by designing a circuit that was carefully beta matched to have more dynamic range, and so we actually were able to replace those 80 to 90 percent behind the ears without any problem and have people say, Wow, I really like this new hearing aid. So that was the goal, and they that they worked, so it was very quickly that percentage was changing from in the ear to uh from behind the ear. Not to mention, Dave, that I go back to the idea that some people come in for a hearing loss, and they're nearly really not quite ready yet. Uh they haven't accepted as well as they need to. Uh they weren't sure they had that much hearing loss. Uh their hearing was, you know, just beginning its progression, it's down a little, and they'd gotten used to hearing that way. And so all of a sudden, they're hit with uh behind the ear or eyeglass hearing aids at those times. And they would say, Well, I better go home and think it over, and you wouldn't see them again. But when I offered them an in-the-air hearing aid that moved with their body when they did exercises, when they played tennis, when they did anything, it was part of them, that was acceptable. That became more acceptable as a point of uh getting started. Another advantage, farmers who worked outside would sweat out the behind-the-air hearing aids. No problem with the in the ears. They can wear them, work all day, and they weren't failing from uh perspiration. Uh there are different uh people like car mechanics rolling under cars and things are hitting their head, and hearing aids are falling off. And today we have masks that are getting tangled up in them. So there's all kinds of reasons why they're better for some people. So if I'm going to fit hearing aids well, I have to have all of that available to me. I can't be a good hearing aid fitter if I'm not a good fitter of in-year products. They're a little more challenging to deal with, but they're worth it for the patient. It's not that everyone should have one or needs one, but there are some people that are really better off with them. And there are some people that really wouldn't be getting a hearing aid at all if they didn't exist. So I think today uh you can't say that one solution will take care of everyone. You have to have that full battery, that full armitarium of uh uh of choices to deal with a hearing loss the way you should deal with it. And uh that's always the fun part is not just selling a hearing aid, but helping someone the way they want to be helped, they need to be helped, with a product that's transparent to them, they don't notice it, and they hear better. And so uh that's part of what we need to do that job. I have motorcycle riders and different people that really don't they can't deal with behind the ears, but they can deal within the ears. So there's reasons for it.

SPEAKER_01 21:05

Well, and it was really only after about, you know, you you mentioned around 67 already thinking about custom and then perfecting that through the 70s. Then in the early 80s, when you uh worked with then President Reagan, I think you know, fitting him with custom devices when BTEs were still the dominant form factor led to tremendous growth for Starkey. And then I think one other thing that you uh did that I I don't know gets uh recognized enough is that in the early 80s, uh monorail fitting, fitting for one ear was still pretty common. And you fitted both ears um with custom devices, and now that's commonplace, but at that time it certainly wasn't.

SPEAKER_02 21:47

Well, yeah, it was a lot more uh common uh to fit one hearing aid. You know, if something if you need to do something, you should do it the right way. And that's the right way to take care of uh hearing aids. Reagan was uh a big boost uh in uh the industry, but we were already doing very, very well. Yeah, yeah, and so it almost gave us prosperity disease by having too many orders. Yeah, you know, uh you should not have more than you could handle well. And you see that today with the logistics of transportation and this and that, getting products to people. We were buried in mail, and uh everyone, you know, thought that was wonderful. Uh, I didn't because it it was a time where we really had to work so hard seven days a week for uh months to try to keep up the best we could. And it was it was difficult for our workers uh to ask that much of them, to the team. But we did. We ask it because it's what we needed to do, and uh we got through it.

SPEAKER_01 23:04

Yeah. Well, one of the things that you mentioned early on, you know, that ability to work directly with patients and then also leverage that by providing products that you knew, if properly fitted by the professional, would uh change people's lives. And they continue to do that every day. The thing that I think is most impressive to me is even after 61 years in this industry, when you're on campus, um, you're in the Center for Excellence and you're working directly with individuals even now. And I I you know I think as somebody who also uh enjoys not only the new technology, but the watching people's faces and seeing how that technology impacts their lives is the best feeling in the world. And I don't think it ever gets old, does it?

SPEAKER_02 23:51

Not at all, Dave. I'm I was born in Missouri, and they say that's a show me state. And I don't believe in talking about it, I believe in doing it. I think anybody can talk a good story and say nice things about what should be done. But if you really care and you really mean it, you'll you'll you'll you'll do it. And I learned so much from the patients from experience. That's how we developed, like someone would come in with a unique need, like atresia, and I designed a headband bone conduction aid back in the 70s. And then the doctor would come in and he couldn't hear with his stethoscope, so we designed a power stethoscope and uh and people with tinnitus, and we made maskers and masquerades before anyone else. We were the first people to do that, and uh there were a lot of firsts, and that's because of the patients that patient-driven. What do we do to help this person? Now we had other people in manufacturing that had industrialized the process, like frankly, some of our competitors, and they would say, Well, there's not enough of those kind of people, it's like an orphan drug to do this. But I took a different attitude, and my attitude was it wasn't about money as much as it was that everyone was important, and for us to show that respect, we had to use our talent to try to help them, and it it was uh a fun time of growth. Now, in those days, I could work on the design of the products today. They're so complex that uh I can just stand on the side and admire the work that's being done by Achen and the team. And I'm also a bit of a futurist. I did I drive him on things that we haven't released yet and that I think will be long-term important, and that some other people don't think uh uh are ready. And I think those things may not be ready for the market that we know today and the dispensing knowledge that dispensers have today, but they will adapt to uh these new things, and we will truly have uh healthables that will help people live longer, communicate across barriers, perform the task better, because uh we have a personal assistant on board with them. And I think the the uh that's gonna become uh the hearing aid of the future.

SPEAKER_01 26:27

No question. No question. Fundamentally, though, I know that uh first and foremost, job one is ensuring that sound quality and speech intelligibility for every patient uh is uh ensuring that we're making the best possible devices for each and every person in terms of intelligibility and sound quality. But sound quality is such a difficult term to identify and define. How would you define sound quality when you say we want to have the best sound quality possible?

SPEAKER_02 27:02

Well, you've got to have a good dynamic range uh without distorting the signal. And back in the 60s, when I was fitting some behind-the-ar aids, I would order from the manufacturer like a dozen at a time and grade them, send the ones back that didn't sound as well. Now remember, they're all built to the same spec. They're all supposed to be the same, but those hearing aids sounded different. And I quickly found out that the ones that I thought sounded very sweet were the ones that the patients really liked. And so I sent back and they simply reshipped those to other people who tried to fit them and didn't know any better. But I knew there was a difference. So for all of these years since we've been making hearing aids, I've been pursuing that sound. I I identified it early, I knew it made a difference, and I've been pursuing that. And you cannot see it in the typical uh BK analysis uh uh or the measurements of hearing aids that are done by machine, but I could I could hear it with my ears, and I uh particularly my left ear now.

SPEAKER_01 28:22

Well, and yeah, there it's an overused term, but people will talk about a golden ear. But I can honestly say after seeing and and and watching you listen and test every hearing aid that was uh uh fitted on a mission or that is fitted in the center or that comes in for adjustment, and and and you know, you're right, it doesn't show up on an ANSI chart of some standardized battery of tests, but the human ear can still, if it's trained like yours is, and how many hundreds of thousands of hearing aids you've listened to over the years, you could tell the difference, and you know quality when you hear it.

SPEAKER_02 28:58

Absolutely. Dave, it's uh it's something I think that a lot of people don't can't relate to anything other than the measurements. It's what you've learned in college. Well, there's a lot you haven't learned, and a lot that we think is right today that we'll find out isn't quite that way tomorrow. And one of the things is everybody is is very comfortable with going back to an exact number, and they do that with those machines, but there's more to sound than that, and there's more to hear hearing than that, and to pair those two together is an art. I I uh and I like it that way because if it was simple, they wouldn't everyone would do it, and and it's not everyone could do it, and I could do something else, I wouldn't have to do this job, but I like this job.

SPEAKER_01 29:50

It's yeah, that comes through.

SPEAKER_02 29:53

Well, uh and it's always changing because it's people, and people are all different, the requirements are different, and even if you measure their hearing loss with what the measurement you think is is accurate, and you do a threshold test and a discrim test, and you say this person is this, you could take another person with the exact same measurements that would want their hearing aid different, sounding different.

SPEAKER_01 30:21

Yeah, sound is very personal. You can't just predict from the audiogram how a person is gonna want it.

SPEAKER_02 30:28

Need to sound sweet and good, but it needs to sound uh the way that person is best uh recognizing speech and hearing. So it's it's it's an interesting job. And uh I think if you accept that as a challenge, it makes everyday fun.

SPEAKER_01 30:49

Yeah. Well, no question. And you famously have said, speaking about sound as personal and the impact of hearing, uh March 3rd is World Hearing Day. You coined a phrase that I've known for many years of so the world may hear. Um what would you want to share with our listeners on World Hearing Day, knowing that your life's passion has been devoting to helping people communicate better, and yet we know with what, 465 million people around the world with what the World Health Organization considers to be a disabling amount of hearing loss, only a small fraction uh wear hearing aids today. So talk a little bit about that part of your life's purpose.

SPEAKER_02 31:32

Well, you know, we've been trying to do that uh with our outreach programs. We had uh programs in 70 countries. We've been impacted severely by the COVID, but we're still we still have our people out there servicing hearing aids and and uh delivering new hearing aids on uh uh in in but at a lesser scale, uh because we're not able to travel and and build it up. But we have uh and we're training people to fit, and we have a simple fitting system that's effective, that can be taught, and it's practical for uh this kind of uh uh hearing level approach. So I believe with our training facilities and with uh you know the intersection uh uh the some help from uh different governments or organizations that want to be part of it, that we will reach uh more of the world population. Uh it was so the world may hear was you know, in the fanciful dream is it's it's it's uh the double entendre, it's two things uh to hear is to understand. So to understand, uh you need to know someone's intent. You hear that through their voice, the inflection, their eyes. And so I wanted the world to understand that we were seven billion brothers and sisters, and we were better when we helped each other. And since I'm from Missouri, we had to do that by going out, reaching out, and doing it. So that's so the world may understand. So the world may hear was well, giving everyone a chance at hearing so they could at least understand better their family, their friends, and be connected to life. So I had a kind of a spiritual side to this mission and a physical side to it. And both of those have been, we've been working on. And I knew all the time, you know, when you say so the world, the world is big, and that's highly unlikely in anyone's lifetime that you're going to accomplish that. But I remember the true path to humility is not to stoop till you're lower than yourself, but to stand at your true height against some greater nature. And this is showing me the real smallness of my greatest greatness, this challenge.

SPEAKER_01 34:08

How many have you lost track of how many countries that you visited in your quest to help the world here?

SPEAKER_02 34:16

I have uh Tany tells me we have programs in 70 countries or so that we've had. And I I think I visited all of those in and some more. Well, I've certainly visited more countries.

SPEAKER_01 34:32

Yeah. But uh you've had programs that you've established.

SPEAKER_02 34:37

Yeah. Remarkable. Something I I certainly must be well over a hundred countries because, of course, we go to all of the developed countries too, and and we don't count those because they have their own hearing. They have their own structure.

SPEAKER_01 34:52

Well, in and speaking of developed countries, and in the U.S. for the last five years or so, we've been intently focused on accessibility and affordability. And lo and behold, uh, we're going to have an over-the-counter um hearing aid channel created in the U.S. And what are your thoughts on that? Good news. We've got we've got inexpensive hearing aids. And and how uh how does that address the problem? And um and is it going to put professionals out of business?

SPEAKER_02 35:20

Well, no, it's not gonna it won't put professionals out of business because hearing is not that easily dealt with. First of all, over-the-counter hearing aids were available when I started in the business. Mail order business were available from Rhodes and some of the Boyds, Lloyds, I remember was one. And people could write in and they'd uh they'd try to send them a hearing aid, and then they in some cases they try to send them an impression kit and have them try to take an impression of their own ear and send it back. And you know, there's this this went on, but it it it it never was uh a very effective solution at the same time. In Japan and the Asia, the way hearing aids were sold were over the counter. There were cabinets and you'd look and there would be hearing aids in it with little price tags, and you'd point at the one you wanted to buy, and they'd take it out and give it to you uh with some standard ear tips, and uh off you would go, hoping, or you'd buy one for grandma or grandpa or whoever, which was uh, you know, the age age that people are respected there. And that's how that was the hearing aid business. But because of that, hearing aids had a very bad reputation. Most of those didn't work, they ended up in the dresser drawers because they weren't interfaced properly. So today uh we have uh somebody once again coming into the industry, and we've had many of those, major, large corporations who said, Well, these boys are dumb. We're gonna get into this business and show them how it how it should be. And uh they all lost millions of dollars and they've gone away. This is a highly competitive business, even though there are fewer competitors. So here we are uh with uh uh an over-the-counter hearing aid again. Uh today uh there may be some advantages that people with milder losses are accepting them. It may be somewhat easier to interface a RIC that's open uh to an ear with a mild loss, and they may get a boost out of it. I never thought we could, and then what about the cable links? The ears are all certainly going to be fitting very nice, or is it gonna be loose and flopping around? And is it gonna be adjusted very well for the person?

SPEAKER_01 37:56

Yeah, and it's really that customizing and personalizing both the acoustics and the form factor. And you know, really the the individuals that are worried about being made obsolete, uh I think you know, you you can't commoditize caring and you can't commoditize that art and science. And I still think our technology in the hands of the professional will deliver the best results.

SPEAKER_02 38:20

Absolutely. And you're not going to get a decent uh custom fit uh in-the-ear fit over the counter. There's no reason today for a large obtrusive behind-the-ear hearing aid. None zero, zero, zero. Uh, people think, well, the big hearing aid will have more power. I can get just as much power out of my little tiny rick as you can any hearing aid that's made in the world behind the ear. No problem. And the reason is the power is dictated by the output transducer. We're putting that transducer right into the mold. I can put the same transducer in the in the ear that they put in the power behind the ears, and the circuits are the same. Uh, people that don't seem to understand that. They think that it's different, but it's not different. The driver is the same, the same circuit, and the power is dictated by the output transducer. We can only uh we can only go as far as it will go. And we are able to make a really nice-looking rig fitting on the most profound corner audiogram.

SPEAKER_01 39:24

And and great sounding. And so I do want to transition. I know we're we're already uh more than uh 40 minutes into this conversation, but I want to also talk about your vision and you and Brandon uh in bringing uh Achin Bomick uh in as CTO around five years ago now, as we as you anticipated this transition, really raising awareness we've seen in the last decade and really accelerating in the last few years the link between hearing and overall health and wellness. And uh talk a little bit about your vision and how are we doing with that transition of thinking about hearing aids from single purpose into multipurpose, multifunction devices.

SPEAKER_02 40:10

Well, you know, uh it started a long time ago when someone asked me to pause and think about the future. I think about 1980 I was asked to write an article for the Hearing Aid magazine. And I said, if you're asking about the future of hearing aids, there is none. Uh because in the future, we will be making devices that cross barriers to communication of more than just hearing loss, of uh language, of various uh uh distance noise. And we will we will cross those barriers. And I said that's the future. Then in the 1998, with the advent of science moving along a little further, we in fact people don't know Starkey made the first digital hearing uh with uh Dan Grabby, uh Beaks and some others that we worked together and with. And and I was thinking about what we could do with that, but it was impractical as size, what you know, to produce it. And so we were out of that. But now with the advent of it coming back in and becoming more practical, I knew uh that we could realize many of the things that I talked about. And so we had a meeting in Germany, and uh I don't know if you were in attendance, I think you were, but there were we brought our people our people in from the heads of some of the other countries and our engineers. And I said at that meeting, I said, we own this territory, we will be the future of hearing aids, we'll uh translate uh language, they will do uh all of these different things. And I said, work on that. I mean, this is this is you we own the future, we got to be part of this future by doing it. And I would keep asking, how are we doing? Well, and again, it's not ready yet. Well, it's not ready yet, and this goes on and on into you know uh 2015 or something, and I'm saying, this is like uh not not yet, and I'm saying it it we just don't have the right leader for this team. So we went out on that search and we found Ajin, who didn't want to work for Starkey and had no interest, and then he discovered that he did have an interest because he wanted to be part of our values. It wasn't a job, he didn't make more money, he made less, and he didn't care. He was part of something he wanted to be part of. And so with the advent of him coming on board, he brought on engineers in Israel and other places that had worked for him at Intel. We we we developed our ability to move quickly forward. And uh that's that's changed the whole landscape for Starkey, and it will prepare us for the future the way we should be prepared. And incidentally, in defense of those past, I probably was a little bit too ahead of my time asking for that. It it just wasn't ready. But in defense of myself, I told them that. That's the way I am. If I tell you something's ready right now, it probably means it'll be ready in three years. It takes longer to execute than it does to think about it and to dream about it.

SPEAKER_01 43:43

Well, um, so you know, 61 years in the industry, and with uh your vision for where we are today, what predictions do you have looking at your crystal ball for the future now? I mean, obviously, central is that sound quality and speech intelligibility. What other things do you? See on the horizon for hearing aids?

SPEAKER_02 44:03

I see that hearing aids will become an indispensable uh personal assistant that rides with you and communicates to your brain uh discreetly and quietly information that will help you uh perform the task better, be healthier, and communicate across barriers, including hearing loss. But it's including hearing loss. It's not only because of hearing loss.

SPEAKER_01 44:34

Right.

SPEAKER_02 44:35

So I envision in the future we will be fitting these devices to people with normal hearing.

unknown 44:40

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 44:43

And that and it and they will all have uh good reason, good value, and good purpose to those individuals. Uh the human ear is different. Uh it's so different that uh I don't see uh an easy way around having professional involvement so you can adapt the device to that individual. So we still need the professionals and uh we are going to support that and try to provide uh the education that's necessary to uptrain them on uh uh using the new features as they come become available. Excellent.

SPEAKER_01 45:34

Well, as we um wrap up, we always like to ask our guests to share some of their key learnings, and you've already dropped some great uh pearls of wisdom here. But uh life lessons uh for uh those with hearing loss or the professionals who work with those individuals. Um uh what comes to mind when you think of trying to summarize in a few words a career that already spans 61 years, and I know uh you're not done yet.

SPEAKER_02 46:08

Well, I would say if if you're a professional, rather than rely on your degrees on the wall to prove how good you are, people don't care how smart you are. They want to be helped. And they'll decide whether they can trust you by uh how much you care. So if they can read in your voice and your actions that you really care about them as an individual, they'll release the hearing problem to you, and then you can work with them and try to solve it the best way possible. So it's about caring. You've got to care enough to do your best every time. If it's late in the day, you stay longer. Uh, you don't just you don't just accept what you want to do, fixed office hours, fixed programs, fix whatever you want. It's you're there for one reason to serve the patient. It's all about the patient. And if you make it all about the patient, you'll find your greatest reward. You'll not only be successful uh financially, but you'll be successful spiritually because you'll feel that you've contributed to life. And I I am a testament to that. You know, I started out with nothing, and I never liked going to any bank meetings or talking about finance. All I wanted to talk about was how are we going to help someone better? And because of that, Starkey has been successful. So it proves that uh you don't have to have a bunch of Wall Street wizards uh crunching numbers to build a company. You can have someone who just wants to serve well, and that's what people will reward. People reward good, humble servants.

SPEAKER_01 48:02

Yeah, you're you are the best definition that I can think of as a servant leader. And I can think of no one who leads by example that way and is never afraid to lead where wherever you are, whether you're in front of a group of 4,000 people or more, whether you're in the middle of that group, or whether you're even watching from behind as a as a sheep herder, if you will. You are you are my definition of a servant leader, and I'm grateful uh for you sharing with us the time today and also your leadership and continued leadership as the founder of Starkey.

SPEAKER_02 48:38

Well, Dave, it's just because I know I don't amount to much. But we are really significant. We've got to work together and make that future happen the way uh we can all be part of it and we can all find more significance in our lives. That's just that's what Starkey is. It it's a place to work together to contribute to humanity.

SPEAKER_01 49:09

Well, thank you for your leadership, your wisdom, your vision. Uh, and happy birthday again, 80 years young, and uh look forward to uh continuing to work with you far into the future.

SPEAKER_02 49:21

And uh well, as long as I can uh you know, as long as I can do it, I'm gonna uh uh keep working. I have no retirement uh uh interest.

SPEAKER_01 49:30

What would you do? What would you do? You'd be doing what you're doing now, I think.

SPEAKER_02 49:33

I couldn't stand it. I've got to uh I've got to be part of contributing to life, or my life is over, and that's what gives me luck.

SPEAKER_01 49:43

Well said. And uh thank you for being with us today and to our listeners. Thanks for listening to this episode of Starky Sound Bites. If you enjoyed this conversation with Mr. Austin, please rate and review Starky Soundbites on your preferred podcast platform. You can also hit subscribe to be sure you don't miss a single episode. We'll see you next time, and thanks for listening to us.