Innovation, Adaptability, and Honesty in Leadership (ft. Dr. Dave Albert)

Ed (00:04)
Hey, Ed Marks here. Welcome to another edition of Digital Voices. Thank you for listening. I know you have a lot of choices of different podcasts to listen to. You've chosen ours. We'll make the time very worthwhile. I am thrilled to have Dr. David Albert, founder of AliveCor, join us. Dave, welcome to Digital Voices.

David Albert (00:27)
Thank you, Ed. It's a pleasure to be

Ed (00:33)
And there's so many reasons why I'm excited to have you, but we'll jump in those in a minute. And so we've really only met online, LinkedIn, and I've been a follower because I'm personally and professionally connected to AliveCor. And so I was so thrilled to have this opportunity to speak with you. But Dave, the most important question of our time together is what is on your playlist? What kind of music do you like to listen to?

David Albert (01:04)
Well, as an oldie, I love oldies. I go back to Motown. I loved Motown because in my high school days, the Spinners, the Four Tops, were kind of the kind of people I listened to. Then I went into, you know, went to college and then medical school. Then I went through disco. We all went through disco. And then, you know, I keep up

modern, having, four kids and grandkids. I hear all kinds of music. And I love show tunes, by the way. So I'm a show tunes guy as a native Oklahoman, Rogers and Hammerstein, not just Oklahoma, but other show tunes. South Pacific, ones like that are wonderful. A Bally High and, you know, all kinds of wonderful tunes.

Ed (02:07)
Yeah, I'm a big Rodgers and Hammerstone fan as well. And love a lot of their music. What about life message and mantra? Is there some words that you live by?

David Albert (02:24)
Well, I have a personal mantra, and that is saving lives one invention at a time. Now with going on about 90 patents, and this is my fourth company, all of them have a focus as a physician. In 1981, I took a Hippocratic oath in the Duke Chapel. I went to Duke Medical School. you know, that was not lost on me, what I thought I was supposed to do. I've

not a linear path from that time, but I think that mantra and that message still rings true. And at AliveCor, it's certainly part of our mission, you know, to help people live full lives.

Ed (03:14)
I love that. And again, very meaningful to me, which we might get into. Dave, you already shared a little bit about yourself, your kids, your grandkids, some of the music you like to listen to and back to your physician and so forth. Can you tell us a little bit more about yourself personally, professionally, and then we'll jump into a live core.

David Albert (03:36)
Well, personally and professionally, I've been married now a month over 40 years. And my wife is a physician, an academic physician, an amazing physician at USC Medical Center. We have our oldest son, we have three sons and a daughter. Our oldest son is a physician and the rest of them think medicine's nuts. And I appreciate that in today's world. Medicine isn't what it was 45 years

and, and so, the fact that we have one that went into medicine is amazing to me because it has changed dramatically. you know, I was a physician turned engineer and inventor, and went to engineering graduate school at Duke also. And then as I was leaving, I was introduced literally one month left in Durham. had been there six and a half years, one month left and

was introduced to a woman who is today my wife, 40 years. And so that was an interesting notion. go back to Oklahoma. I bring her back with me from North Carolina and, I'm, I'm training and I'd already licensed a couple of inventions and I had a new invention and I thought it should be licensed, but nobody had an interest in it. And that was shocking to me. So I went and told my, my wife.

We had a little baby. I told my parents that I was gonna drop out of medicine and become an entrepreneur. That was literally the dumbest thing I ever did. I knew nothing about business, absolutely nothing. And so I followed my heart and not my brain. And I've been very fortunate. So now almost 37 years later, it's been okay. But...

It was a struggle at times and you know starting

Ed (05:35)
No, I love it. That's a great story.

David Albert (05:41)
That's where it started. again, it's not a linear path. were ups and downs, backs and forths. But today, I really have an amazing job and an amazing position. While I am a commercial physician scientist, I'm very involved, literally, with the best medical centers in the world. I do clinical research.

be a co -author on a dozen papers this year and have over 100 publications and presentations. So I get to be, do the things I love, which is work on new things and new cures and new innovations. At the same time, I get to see them turned into commercial solutions. So that's a, it's a wonderful job. Just wasn't a planned job. It just kind of

Ed (06:42)
No, thank you for sharing. It's an amazing journey and I'm glad that you have followed that path because it's certainly helped thousands and tens of thousands of people like myself. Let's talk a little bit about AliveCor. So can you share the founding story and the mission and vision?

David Albert (07:02)
Well, I had started a company in 1993. And in 1995, I had an idea. You may be old enough to remember the beginnings of what we call mobile computing. It's this thing called the Palm Pilot. I think they're only in museums today. And there were several other devices. And I saw them as a real opportunity, along with this nascent

Ed (07:26)
Thank you.

David Albert (07:30)
idea of wireless communication, that we could directly connect patients and their critical life critical information directly to physicians. It's crazy idea, but built a prototype that looked like something out of a Rube Goldberg experiment, got a patent and even got an FDA 510 K in about 1996, 97. That technology was not practical. was wires and cards and cell phones

mobile computers, it was not a really practical invention, but it was an idea. So then comes 2007 and Steve Jobs does this famous, one more thing, introduces us to the iPhone. And I thought, yeah, this may be able to do what I envisioned 10 years before, but it couldn't because you couldn't develop for it. But 18 months later, there was an app store and you could develop for the iPhone. And so I went to an old friend of mine.

who is a co -founder down in Australia, a guy I'd known for 15 years who was an expert engineer, medical engineer. And I said, I got this idea, we're gonna make an EKG device that connects into a smartphone. And he said, no, that can't be done. And I said, well, no, I got an idea. That idea worked. So over the next year or so, 2009 to 2010, we built a prototype. And in December,

We went over to Hong Kong, we got a manufacturer and on my birthday in 2010, which is December 14th, I received a box of 15 of these prototype cases. We have cases for our smartphones. These were cases. And I got a prototype app from my friend in Australia and I put it together and it was cool, it worked. was the realization of my idea. And so on December

Excuse me. Yeah, December 30th, 2010, I go into my little innovation office and I make an unscripted four -minute video. And that unscripted four -minute video was because the next week I was going to the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas to show this new innovation. And there were going to be a few companies that weren't there, mainly medical companies, like my previous employer GE Healthcare, who had acquired my company Data Critical in 2001.

And they weren't going to be there. So I made this four minute video. My nine year old at the time, he's now 25, taught me how to upload to YouTube because he was a YouTube guy at age nine. And I made this video demonstrating this thing. And as I was getting ready to hit the upload button and go home, this is just in the morning, didn't take me very long. There was a button that said, send a link of this to your LinkedIn connection.

I didn't have any YouTube, I didn't have any Twitter followers. I had LinkedIn because it was the business network and I probably had 200, 250 people that were from my previous medical device world. And I happened to hit that. I don't even know why I did. And then I hit upload. I waited for it to upload to YouTube and I went home. The next day was New Year's Eve, had a date with my wife. We try to make date night a regular thing. at about three in the morning, which

during the day in Australia, I get my phone rings and it's my Australian partner. And he says, mate, what did you do? I said, what do mean, what did I do? He says, there are 200 ,000 views of that video. And the rest is history. I was called by Good Morning America and Fox and Friends. And when I went to, I was tracked down literally by everybody from GE Healthcare to Apple at the Consumer Electronics

show to show them this innovation. And at the same time, my partner was monitoring down in Australia all the online activity because I wasn't really a social media online guy. And he said, by the way, here's a group in Czechoslovakia or someplace, Slovakia, that said it was a blog of biomedical engineering. And they said, this thing doesn't work. It's impossible. This is all fake.

And so there were people who were saying, no, it's fake. They just staged this. You can't do that. You can't interface in. I got home and my nine year old who had taught me, said, dad, you've made it. And I said, how, do you mean? He said, you know, you've made it when you have YouTube haters. And so I had YouTube haters and the rest is history. had a very famous doctor, Dr. Eric Topol get a hold of me. And then later in the year, this venture capitalists of some renowned Vinod Khosla.

came to me and he's now the chairman of our board and obviously a very prominent financier in technology. And the rest is history. know, it's been an overnight success now about 13 years in the making. We've helped literally millions of people. And, and, you know, I, I'm humbled because we have people telling us literally every day, thank you for saving my life or my dad's life. wouldn't have known he,

had this problem if your device didn't exist and we couldn't just buy it at a drug store. So that's been very fulfilling. We've continued to innovate. I'm not dead yet. I'm old, but I'm not dead. And we have some new innovations that are really exciting. And so I'm still excited. I'm still motivated.

Ed (13:14)
No, I could tell your enthusiasm and passion is very catching. Dave, you mentioned it. What can you share? Are you able to share some of the sort of innovations or where you're headed next? Or of course, everyone uses the word AI. You know, anything that you can share with us in terms of what's happening

David Albert (13:30)
Well, absolutely. No, no, no. We just recently, within the last couple of months, received FDA clearance for a brand new innovation, the Cardia 12L, which when you go into a doctor's office or a hospital, they put all those sticky electrodes on you, record you if you have a stress test or if you're in the emergency room. And we've made one that literally fits in your pocket. And it has very significant AI that was developed

data from our partners at Mayo Clinic and Emory and Massachusetts General Hospital. And it's basically the world's most portable AI driven with three deep neural networks, 12 lead ECG. And now as FDA cleared, we're involved in clinical research around the world. And it's a major innovation. have distribution relationships with people like GE healthcare for

who is the leader in EKG technology. So this is a very exciting one because it goes after something we haven't been able to. And that is the diagnosis, rapid diagnosis, anywhere, anytime of heart attacks. And unfortunately, as we've made tremendous progress in cardiology with the likes of statins and blood pressure medicines, heart failure medicines, cardiovascular disease remains the number one killer.

more than all the cancers put together. So this is an amazing innovation and one that I think, you know, I'm excited to see promulgated around the world and see fulfilling my dream of saving lives one more invention at a

Ed (15:20)
Yeah, let me drop in my story super quick. I don't want to take up too much time, but I just want to thank you personally for how your invention and the company that you lead helped not only save my life, but improve that quality of life. So I was, I'm on team USA triathlon, you know, I in the last two miles of national championships, right? And you, if you finished in the top 10, you go to the world championships and represent the country. And, and I was otherwise healthy, normal.

male in my around 50 years old and you know, because I was the chief information officer of the Cleveland Clinic. We were working with you already. Some of our clinicians were very keen on the technology. So I had I had device with me in my vehicle because my suitcases anyways, I had this again, I'm going to go fast just for the sake of time, but I had an event but I wasn't sure what was happening. But I knew door to balloon time was critical. So I decided to keep running instead of stopping.

And, and then when I got to the medical, I crossed the finish line, got to the medical tent and the physicians could not figure out what was going on. So they use a stethoscope and that's all really they had. And so I said, wait a second. sent one of my buddies who came to the tent with me to my car. He retrieved my little, EKG device. They connected it to their smartphone and connected to the hospital, the race hospital. And they said, he's having a widow maker. So it was only through that device that they were able to identify that I was having LAD and had to get in obviously very quickly.

Thankfully, even though was early Saturday morning, there was the cath team was ready there because of a previous emergency. Anyways, they took care of me, saved my life. And, and I made the team, I was in top 10, made the team and represented, crossed the world champion, finished line at the world championships 90 days later. But I owe it all because of a live core and to you, sir. So that's why I really appreciate having you as my guest and sharing a little bit about what you do. All right. So.

David Albert (17:05)
Well, thank you. That's part of why I get up every day. And that's what motivates

Ed (17:14)
Yeah. Yeah. It was a very profound moment for me, obviously. So let's talk about being CEO. So, but you, recently relinquished the title CEO, correct? And your focus is on maintaining the company and continuing forward, but tell us a little bit about that, transition.

David Albert (17:26)
I'm not the CEO, I'm the chief medical.

Well, let me just say, first of all, I'm not the CEO. Our CEO is a woman named Priya Abani, who came from Amazon and we have a very sophisticated management team. know, I early on remember I told you the story of I started my first company knowing nothing about business. I'm not sure I've learned a lot in 40 years, but I would tell you that I've learned enough to know that being an innovator is my strength.

you know, at Cleveland Clinic. On our board, have Toby Cosgrove. My friends, Daniel Catilin and Kaldun Tarachi are now chief medical officers at Medtronic and Massimo. And so I don't know if I had an influence on them, but both of them are good friends of mine and both of them are innovative guys. And so I feel like I get to do, like I said, I have the best job in the

I get to continue to innovate. get to continue to work with people like the Cleveland Clinic, the leading medical centers to really promulgate the innovations. And so I leave, know, HR, marketing, sales, regulatory, finance, legal, all those things, to be honest with you, no interest, but they are critically important. And so you need to have people who are

who are skilled at those jobs and we have that. So we have a very skilled management team from our CEO, Ms. Abani down through the senior executive ranks. And so I feel very, very proud of what we've built at AliveCor, how many people we've helped, how many people we continue to help and the fact that we continue to grow our business robustly despite the fact that we have non -insignificant competitors. I don't know, Apple, Samsung,

Google, I've heard of those companies. But despite that, we continue to do really

Ed (19:35)
Absolutely. And you've had a couple of companies, as you mentioned, are there one or

David Albert (19:37)
so you, you, it sounds like you heard of

Ed (19:44)
yeah. What would you say are the common success criteria between the different companies? Like what makes a successful company? What are maybe one or two things? I think you already mentioned one, Dave, which was really important. You knew what your role was, right? And it wasn't to be CEO. You allowed someone else to take that position because you realized what made you happy and what your strengths might be. But are there any other success criteria?

David Albert (20:14)
Well, you better have an innovation that fits a market need. That's a business notion. I didn't used to think about that, but that is critically important that there is a need, okay, and that you have an innovation that can fit that need and that the market will accept. And so I think that's, I read a few business books and one of my favorites

is the innovator's dilemma by the late Harvard Business School Professor Clayton Christensen talking where he coined the term disruptive innovation. And not only am I a fan, but I am a promulgator of disruptive innovations. And I think we can't stand still because the innovator can tomorrow become the disruptee. And so

always working to push the envelope. And I think that's critical. We've seen too many companies in my adult life, whether it's Kodak or digital equipment, there are a number of companies that are gone, that were world leaders. And so we have to always be cognizant of the fact that we can't stand still and rest on our laurels.

Ed (21:42)
Yeah. Those are good. think I asked for one or two and I think you gave me a yes. That's true. Yeah. You, you have to, what got you here won't get you there. We've heard that before and it's absolutely true in life and in, and in business. Absolutely. That's speaking of leadership and some of the traits that you were describing, how do you continue to evolve yourself both as a person

David Albert (21:43)
By the way, like Cleveland Clinic, they don't seem to

Ed (22:11)
professionally, and you mentioned, you know, like reading and things like that. What are some other things that people might benefit from learning from you in terms of what you do to evolve

David Albert (22:24)
Well, the most important thing is listening. And you know, you need to listen. And that doesn't just mean listen with your ears. It's listen to the world because the world evolves. Okay. We have a new world. Again, 30 years ago, nobody thought about China today. Can't help but think about China in terms of business. So you need to listen to the environment, listen to people.

adapt adaptation. know, Darwin didn't say that the strongest will survive. Darwin's evolution theory was the most adaptable will survive. And so again, I think you have to learn to adapt to the environment as it changes. And I, I try to do that through reading and listening and, and, you know, really watching as the world changes and adapting what I do to fit

Ed (23:26)
What is the best leadership advice or it doesn't have to be leadership, but best advice you ever received?

David Albert (23:36)
best advice I ever received, be an honest person. You know, my, my, my, can, I can tell you, I was in sixth grade and, my dad caught me in a lie about homework. And after that I was, he put the fear of God in me and he said, don't lie. There's no reason to lie. And, and, and you see it time and time again, so the lesson

passed on to our kids, oftentimes, whatever it is that you do, because we're humans, we make mistakes, it's not that that gets people in trouble. It's trying to cover up or lie about that that gets them in trouble. And we've seen it many, many times. Admit your problems, admit your mistakes, move forward, don't do it again. And so that's really good advice. It's good advice because then people trust you. Okay. And I think trust is a huge business.

Today, the people at the Cleveland Clinic, the Mayo Clinic at Duke, they trust me. When I tell them something, I don't have to prove it with a thousand things. I go home, this is going to work, this is what it's done. And that trust I've built over my whole professional career. And I think that's invaluable because I get treated as a peer when I go to Cleveland Clinic or I go to Mayo Clinic or I go

Cedars -Sinai, I get treated as a peer and they trust me. So be honest and they'll trust

Ed (25:17)
Love it. It's simple yet profound and so true. Dave, this has been a fascinating conversation. We have a Spotify playlist of everyone's favorite music. I think you'll be the first where we'll post some Rodgers and Hammerstein, which is fantastic. Took me through the disco era. And then we talked about your life and your mantra and just how you came to be 40 plus years of marriage and.

I think one of the keys that you dropped for us was having date nights, routine date nights, keep the marriage strong, really good stuff. We talked about a live core and again, personally thankful, but you've helped millions of people like myself and continue to do so. We talked about your role and in terms of what are the success criteria as a leader. And you you talked about disruptive innovation, having the right people lead the right areas.

Find that need, fulfill that need. And then when we talked about how do we evolve as a leader or what are some great leadership traits and advice, talk about listening to the world, listen to others, being adaptable, reading. And then finally, at the end there, you talked about the most important thing being an honest person and that develops trust. And then obviously that leads to good things all the way around. Dave, what did we miss or anything you want to double down on? I'll give you the last.

David Albert (26:41)
Well, I think what I would tell people is if you want to be an entrepreneur, you need to have an unrealistic view of your ability to succeed. Okay? And that's because you're going in with the odds stacked against you and you will have to be the driving force that overcomes those odds. And so I would say you need unrealistic optimism.

And I would tell you, my wife believes I have unrealistic optimism. I said, well, you've stuck with me for 40 years. That makes her smile.

Ed (27:24)
That's great. This has been, like I said, a fantastic conversation. Dave, thank you so much for what you do and for being a guest on Digital Voices.

David Albert (27:35)
Well, Ed, thank you for inviting me. This has been a pleasure.

Ed (27:42)
Hey, that wraps up another edition of Digital Voices. Thanks for listening.