Exponential Wisdom

Episode 95: Transforming the Educational System

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Peter and Dan discuss how the pandemic has changed our educational system forever. As countless schools have turned to fully online curriculums, entrepreneurs and educators are experimenting with a “new normal,” innovating novel platforms for learning from home.

In this episode:

  • Peter gives an update on being a parent as his kids attend school online. Dan explains why the school system must increasingly accommodate the individual, and Peter outlines the need for educational platforms to help children find their passions.
  • Dan remarks that this is the first time in 50 years that most children know what their parents do for a living. As a result, children are interacting in the domain of working adults more than ever before. Exploring implications, Peter elaborates on the real-time education now afforded to children through exposure to their parents’ day-to-day working lives.
  • Peter and Dan illustrate why skills are the most pivotal asset for getting hired in today’s job market. Where you went to school is ultimately far less important than being equipped with the skills required for a given task or position. Emphasizing this phenomenon and its application to the gaming world, Peter highlights the rate at which his (and other) kids can learn a game and become experts.

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Episode 94: When the Hospital Comes To You

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Peter and Dan discuss transformations in healthcare as a result of the pandemic and consequent stay-at-home orders. Peter envisions a future wherein people don’t go to the hospital when they get sick, but instead have a hospital at their fingertips thanks to sensors, wearables, and an abundance of personalized medical data.

In this episode:

  • Peter gives an update on COVAXX and a number of other vaccines developed for COVID-19. 
  • Dan delves into tele-health transformations within our modern-day healthcare system. 
  • Peter and Dan discuss why they believe the pandemic will speed up healthcare transformations, including: AI collaboration with physicians; drugs customized and designed for the individual; and rapid improvements in wearable hardware and commercial viability.

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Episode 93: Longevity Mindset: Part 3

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Peter and Dan continue their conversation about the Abundance Platinum Longevity trip, where Peter and a select group of entrepreneurs, executives and investors spent five days learning from the top longevity and immunology experts in two of California’s top biotech hubs.

In this episode:

  • Peter talks about the importance of two technologies, vaccines and gene therapy, both with incredible medical benefits. In particular he mentions a company called Vaxxinity who is democratizing healthcare using vaccines against chronic diseases. Another company Gordion Biotechnology is using a gene therapy based discovery platform to radically improve therapeutic R&D for complex diseases of aging. 
  • Dan and Peter discuss the importance of having a longevity mindset in order to be on the content lookout for new technology breakthroughs that will allow us to live longer healthier lives. 
  • Peter gives a rapid overview of twenty companies and his biggest takeaways from his chat with the CEOs including technologies like brain computer interface, synalytic medicines for senescent cells and AI drug discovery.

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Episode 92: Longevity Mindset: Part 2

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Peter and Dan continue their conversation about the recent Abundance Platinum Longevity trip, where Peter and a select group of entrepreneurs, executives and investors spent five days learning from the top longevity and immunology experts in two of California’s top biotech hubs.

In this episode:

  • Peter and Dan discuss the explosion of sensors and preventive medicine breakthroughs now emerging at the helm of today’s healthcare market. As smartphone apps and AI more seamlessly enable personalized medicine, consumers will soon be able to monitor and act upon their own health data in real-time.
  • Peter explores his biggest takeaways in the field of CRISPR and genetic engineering. Most notably, Peter showcases Mammoth Biosciences, a pioneering startup on a mission to democratize access to next-generation CRISPR tools for diagnostics and therapeutics. 
  • Peter highlights the importance of cutting out sugar from your diet, a shift critically conducive to improving longevity outcomes. He similarly emphasizes his belief that the biggest contributor to living past 80 is to not die from something stupid.

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Episode 91: Longevity Mindset: Part 1

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Peter and Dan recap the recent Abundance Platinum Longevity trip, where Peter and a select group spent five days learning from the top longevity and immunity experts in two of California’s top biotech hubs.

In this episode:

  • Peter offers his biggest takeaways from the trip, including one insight from Dr. Deepak Srivastava, President of the Gladstone Institutes, who explained why heart disease remains the leading cause of morbidity and mortality in the U.S. A tremendous feat, Dr. Srivastava’s recent discovery involves using gene therapy to convert fibroblasts into heart myocytes, reversing scar tissue in the heart, and helping heart attack victims rapidly recover to live healthy lives. 
  • Dan and Peter agree that mindset is one of the most important pillars of living a long and healthy life. Peter explains why the most important goal is to “not die from something stupid,” as advances in longevity technology will have dramatic impacts on the human healthspan in the next 5-10 years. 
  • Peter talks about the power of intermittent fasting, citing a majority of featured scientists who have touted its health benefits. 

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Episode 90: A New Era of Human Spaceflight

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Peter and Dan discuss the recent launch and recovery of the SpaceX Crew Dragon, which carried humans in a commercially built spacecraft to and from the International Space Station. NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley splashed down on August 2, 2020 making it the first water landing since 1975.

In this episode:

  • Peter gives a quick history of the U.S. and Soviet Union space race, spanning the launch of Sputnik in 1957 to the recent 2020 launch of the SpaceX Crew Dragon.
  • Peter breaks down the cost of a rocket launch and explains how SpaceX brought this cost down 10X by making the rockets reusable. 
  • Dan and Peter discuss why the next 10-20 years will be the era in human history wherein humans move irreversibly off planet Earth and into space.

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Episode 89: Simplifier Multiplier Collaboration

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Peter and Dan discuss one of Dan’s latest concepts: are you a Simplifier or a Multiplier? Every great entrepreneur is primarily one or the other, and identifying which category you most fall into offers meaningful insight into the way you instinctively create value.

In this episode:

  • Dan talks about his book Simplifier-Multiplier Collaboration and one of the strategies it highlights: once you identify as either a simplifier or multiplier, you can find the perfect collaborator: your opposite. Simplifier-Multiplier collaborations often lead to unprecedented breakthroughs and results, giving entrepreneurs the freedom to focus exclusively on what they do best.
  • Peter discusses the challenge wherein entrepreneurs attempt to play both roles out of necessity, but emphasizes that entrepreneurs tend to add greatest value when left to act on their natural affinities. 
  • Dan elaborates on the problems that arise when a simplifier tries to play the role of a multiplier, or vice versa. In this scenario, each type becomes a “complicator,” and hence departs from one’s most useful state. 

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Episode 88: Cracking the Vitality Code

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Peter and Dan discuss a number of longevity and pharmaceutical companies that are working to crack the vitality code of life. Exponential technologies, from machine learning to CRISPR, are enabling scientists to probe medical data, understand aging, and reverse its processes like never before.

In this episode:

  • Peter discusses a startup he’s tracking that uses gene therapy to treat age and age-related diseases afflicting animals, extending pets’ healthy lifespans by nearly a decade, with no side effects.
  • Dan discusses a major paradigm shift in financial planning, whereby financial advisors that embrace technology are beginning to use forecasts of 120 years instead of conventional actuary tables that take by default a life expectancy of 90 years.
  • Peter and Dan emphasize the importance of a resilient mindset, purpose and long-term inspiration for individuals striving to maximize their longevity journeys.

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Episode 87: How Industries Will Change

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Peter and Dan discuss the ways in which today’s pandemic will fundamentally reshape a handful of industries, from commercial aviation to education. For most of us, we will not be returning to business as usual. Rather, we will see the emergence of redefined and reorganized companies, made resilient by their need to adapt to new market conditions.

In this episode:

  • Peter and Dan evaluate a number of possible outcomes for the airplane and travel industries, as countless businesses adapt to the new paradigm of working-from-home.
  • Dan makes the case for his prediction that while technology will continue to globalize, almost every other aspect of everyday life will localize.
  • Peter and Dan delve into the future of education. As schools determine whether to pursue an additional semester of online learning, and parents play an increasingly pedagogical role, how will tomorrow’s classrooms adapt, and what impacts will we see on learning?

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Episode 86: Business Model Innovation

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Peter and Dan discuss how evolutionary pressures speed up innovation, agreeing that the pandemic will accelerate technological progress and change our lives forever. In the arc of contemporary history, we will remember a clear distinction between life “Pre-COVID-19” and “Post-COVID-19.” To this effect, Peter and Dan demonstrate how business model innovation is at an all-time high, fueling historic levels of productivity and creativity for entrepreneurs in our new “work-from-home” economy.

In this episode:

  • Peter talks about the search for grand challenges — problems that make you angry, or new phenomena you can’t live without — and the process by which you can turn these into solutions or new business models.
  • Dan argues that “scary times” should not be so scary for tenacious entrepreneurs. As the most successful CEOs constantly face risks and unknowns, COVID-19’s uncertainties provide the perfect conditions for entrepreneurs to fail, learn, and thrive… Because building a successful business requires grit, perseverance, and trial by fire.
  • Peter illustrates how intense pressure speeds up the inevitable. In a pre-COVID marketplace, when business owners knew they needed to downsize a department or kill a venture, most put it off “until tomorrow.” Yet as COVID-19 drives businesses to the edge, there is no debating, and one must take action. 

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