"I Came To America With $5": The Billionaire Detecting Stage 1 Pancreatic Cancer Before Symptoms Appear

0:00Naveen Jain:Ask yourself, what if you're actually successful in solving whatever the problem you're trying to solve? God forbid you're actually successful. Would it help a billion people live a better life?

0:16What would happen if we just told the truth? Welcome to TruthWorks, where we dig into the nitty-gritty of leadership and work. And what needs to change. I'm Jessica Neal. And I'm Cati McCord. Our journey together started in HR, but trust us, it's evolved into something wild, honest, and well, a bit rebellious. So throw out the handbook. We're here to redefine rules to work for us, not against us. Let's dive into another episode.

0:54Hi, everyone. Welcome to another episode of TruthWorks. I'm your host, Jessica Neal, and I have a special guest here today. I'm so excited. I think, first of all, we were just chatting and I think his energy and our energy together is going to be unmatched in this podcast. But I have Naveen Jain and I don't know if any of you know anything about him, but he is a serial entrepreneur. He has so much experience and is actually, I don't know even what you're doing right now. I want you to explain it to me because I think you're trying to get people on the moon. is what I understand. And you're the CEO of Moon Express.

1:31And you've had other companies, you have done TED Talks, you know one of my friends, Bose. And I'm just so excited to have you on the show. So welcome, Naveen. And tell us about you and your story. And are you really trying to get people to be on the moon? Is that what you're doing?

1:50Naveen Jain:So first of all, Jessica, what an honor and a pleasure to be with you. And I'm not going to talk about myself because I'm going to focus on talking about the people who are listening to us and giving us something that is most valuable to them, which is their time. So let us focus on what can we do to add the most amount of value to our audience here. So right now, this decade of my life, I am focused on one thing and one thing only, which is how do we get people to stay healthy and how do we get people to find the joy and happiness in their life. And my goal is to eliminate illness so that every single day when you wake up, you don't wake up in any type of pain, any type of suffering.

2:39Naveen Jain:And how can we make illness optional? What can we do with our diet, with our nutrition, to be able to completely eliminate all types of chronic diseases. And I'm going to tell you a little bit more about how my journey in this world started. From mining the moon for helium-3 to creating effusion reactors to all types of things. And here I am now focusing this decade of my life on chronic illness and how to understand human biology and how to keep our fellow humans healthy. So was there, what set you on this mission? Was there something that happened? Yes. I mean, always, you know, every journey in life, it starts because you care about it.

3:28Naveen Jain:And I really think this is something that I want people to start to pay attention to it. In life, whatever you do cannot be for simply about making money. So every time I start any company, any project, and I want people to pay attention to it, you ask yourself three basic questions. Why this? Why now? And why me? Why this is really, really simple. Ask yourself, what if you're actually successful in solving whatever the problem you're trying to solve? God forbid you're actually successful. Would it help a billion people live a better life? And it's not because you're a philanthropic person. It is because you are a capitalistic person that sees any product, any service that can improve the lives of billion people, you can create a hundred billion dollar company.

4:23Naveen Jain:But making money is simply a byproduct of doing things that improve people's lives. But you can never wake up in the morning, say, what should I do to create a hundred billion dollar company? It comes automatically when you wake up every day and say, what can I do to improve someone's lives? In other words, making money is like having an orgasm. If you focus on it, you're never going to get it. So just enjoy the process. Probably true. Probably true. Probably true. Yeah. Now, the second part of it really is making sure that things you're trying to do are right timing. And the way you see the right timing is look at what changed in the last couple of years.

5:07Naveen Jain:And I think, Jessica, we're going to get back to you and I'm going to interview you because Netflix did exactly the same thing. What was the thing that made Netflix successful? It wasn't something they said, oh, we can create a media company. They looked at the things and said, hey, there is a massive shift that is happening. The massive shift is changing. And in the next three to five years, more and more people are going to have a broadband access. And what if we can change so people can get the media at their home rather than have to go somewhere, get something, forget you can pay the late fees.

5:46Naveen Jain:And here you are stuck with all these things. What if we could actually do a streaming media that actually the cost of delivery is zero? You don't have to pay the mails and stuff. And that is what made the Netflix a Netflix today because they were able to see what was changing and what were expected to be changing in the three to five years. And they went ahead of what was possible three to five years later. And this is the beauty. So the timing is about what changed, but more importantly, what do you expect to change in the next three to five years that will allow you to solve the problem at scale in three to five years.

6:27Naveen Jain:And this problem could not have been solved a decade ago. That means you never focus on saying, oh, this could have been done 10 years ago. The point is, if this could have been done 10 years ago, you're already way too behind. So you really want to intercept what is going to happen, not what is already has happened. And this is why the great companies are created. So if you look at almost every company, they are able to intercept the changes in the technology. They're able to foresee what was happening and get ahead of it. So by the time the technology is there, they're already at the level of scaling, not level of starting a company today.

7:06Naveen Jain:And that is really the beauty of how things get done. Now, the last part is the most important part, which is why me. That means what questions are you asking that are different from what everyone else in the industry is asking? And that means the questions you ask are the problem you solve. So what questions would you ask? And generally, everyone who is an expert tend to ask very similar questions because their expertise, their knowledge allows them to think they know the basics and the foundation. And they all end up becoming the group thinking. And whereas someone else comes from outside the industry, rethinks the problem, redefines the problem, and suddenly it changes the solutions available to them.

7:58Naveen Jain:So, for example, if you say, hey, there are 8 billion people on planet Earth today. What if there were 20 billion people? How would we solve world hunger? And every single expert will tell you, you have to grow more food. You have to reduce the wastage in transportation because that's how the food gets wasted. But nobody will ask a question, why do we eat food? Because when you ask why do we eat food, you realize it's about more energy and nutrition. What are the different ways can you get energy? What are the different ways you can get nutrition? And suddenly you wide open the problem to the solutions that would have never even come about if you were simply thinking about how to grow more food.

8:39Naveen Jain:And this is the beauty of, and the second part of why me, which is what I reason I wanted to get back here was, it needs to be personal to you. You have to ask yourself, what are you willing to die for and then live for it? And that means what is it one thing you're willing to dedicate 10, 15 years of your life to solving that is so important to you that you're willing to cross every hurdle gets in your way. You're going to go over the wall, under the wall, around the wall because you care enough about solving this problem. Now, to answer your question, here I was, you know, working on a company called Moon Express.

9:25Naveen Jain:We became the first company ever to get a permission to leave Earth orbit. President Obama signed into the law that says anything we mine and bring back, we get to own it, not the country. And then we became one of the six companies to get$2.6 billion NASA contract. Yeah, crazy. And I was on the top of the moon. And then my dad was diagnosed with stage four pancreatic cancer. I'm sorry. I didn't even know he was sick, let alone he had a stage four cancer. He was given three months to live. And unfortunately, that's all he got. And it really shocked me that here I'm thinking that we can colonize the moon and Mars.

10:06Naveen Jain:And then here we have our loved ones suffering and we have no idea they're getting sick. So my first shock was, oh, my God, why can't we detect these cancers early? And then I said, wait a sec, it wasn't about cancer. I took it for granted that as he was getting old, of course, he's got diabetes. He's taking a metformin. Of course, he's got a heart disease. He's taking his statin. Of course, he's got a high blood pressure. He's got to be taking his medicine. We just assume that as people are getting older, they just have to get these diseases and you give them the medicine and that's just part of life.

10:39Naveen Jain:And then it occurred to me that there's nothing, at least from what I understand, human biology that has a clock. say you turn 40, now you have this disease, you turn 45, you have this disease, and turn 50, you have this disease. And I'm thinking, what if? And all great problems start with what if. I say, what if we can actually understand? Because at the end of the day, our body is simply biochemical reactions that are happening in the body. And there are, you know, hundreds of millions of biochemical reactions happening. What if we can actually measure what is going on inside the body and then use AI to find a solution of what's causing people to develop diabetes, obesity, depression, anxiety, cancer, Alzheimer, Parkinson's, or even fatigue, whatever that is.

11:27Naveen Jain:What is it that's changing in the human biology? If we can find it, we can diagnose them early. We can actually prevent them from happening and God forbid outright reverse them. And that's like, my God, if you could do that, that's an amazing thing that happened. And the reason I focused on chronic diseases rather than infectious diseases, so despite the pandemic that we saw, we as humans, human species have really in the last 40, 50 years since the invention of antibiotics, really don't die from infectious diseases. You know, this is once in a hundred years pandemic we get. Most people are suffering from these chronic diseases.

12:07Naveen Jain:And in fact, 90 % of our healthcare dollars are spent in really these managing these chronic diseases. And my first thing was, you know, you don't wake up one day and say, you know what, honey, I was hanging out with the boys last night. I think I might have caught diabetes. You don't catch diabetes. It takes you 8, 10, 15 years where you slowly, slowly start developing diabetes. You slowly, slowly start developing a heart disease, right? So this is not something happened overnight. That means there are plenty of signals in the human body you should be able to detect. And that was fundamentally what I set out to do.

12:41Naveen Jain:And this is now applying back the framework that I told you. Why this? Why now? Why me? So I'm going to apply this framework. So here I'm sitting... I was going to ask. Yeah. So here I said, look, what if we can actually solve this problem where we understand the human body at a biochemical level, and we can now diagnose these disease early, prevent them from happening, and actually potentially reverse them, would it help a billion people live a better life? The answer is 8 billion of us. Checkmark that one. Great. Love it. Second part, why now? And I said, look, to solve this problem, there are three things have to happen.

13:21Naveen Jain:You have to be able to digitize the human body. Cost of digitization is really coming down really fast. It used to be millions of dollars. When I started the company, it was thousands of dollars. And then I thought in the three to five years, it'll come down to$100. And today it is down to under$10. Cost of processing this information, we knew it was going to be a massive amount of data. when we, you know, it used to be thousands of dollars, it became hundreds of dollars, and today it's under a dollar, right? So it is really, we knew that it was plummeting, and we knew that AI is going to be actually becoming more and more powerful.

14:01Naveen Jain:So if we could start something, this problem could get solved. The next part was, why me? So I said, look, everyone in this industry is asking the same question, which is I want to know about your DNA, your genes. Everyone wanted to know about your DNA. And I am not a scientist. I'm not a doctor. And my first reaction was, this is good, but does your DNA actually change when you develop these disease? So you do my DNA test today. I gain 200 pounds. Has my DNA changed? Answer is no. Then I become diabetic. Has my DNA changed? No. I get depression. I get anxiety. do my DNA test, it's still the same.

14:45Naveen Jain:Then I get heart disease, no change. Then I die. 100 years after I die, you do my DNA test again. It's still the same. We still look at the DNA of mummies and dinosaurs, right? So DNA can't even tell you you're dead or alive. How will it ever tell you you're becoming healthier or sicker? So my first reaction was, wait a sec, then what that change in the body, something has to be changing. Well, it turns out it's not your DNA, is your RNA, your gene expression. Your genes are the same, but what they're expressing is always changing. And not being completely naive, I don't understand what this RNA means.

15:23Naveen Jain:But my first reaction was, hey, if that's what's changing, why can't we just measure that thing? Whatever that thing is. Right, yeah. You can measure it, yeah. Let's go measure that damn thing. And everybody's like, looked at me, said, this guy obviously doesn't know it. You can't measure that. It's, you know, blah, blah, blah. And I'm thinking, don't tell me it can't be measured. Just tell me, what if I can do that? Would it solve the problem? And they say, you know, kind of. What do you mean kind of? What's the next problem? Well, 29 % of all the genes that are expressed in our body don't come from a mom and dad.

15:54Naveen Jain:It's like, what are you talking about? Yeah, really? So where are they coming from? Well, turns out there are 100 trillion, 100 trillion microbes that live in our gut, in our mouth, and all over. as these microbiome, gut microbiome, oral microbiome, skin microbiome, everything, 100 trillion of them. And they produce somewhere between 2 million to 20 million genes compared to only 22 ,000 protein coding genes in the human DNA. So 99.9 % of these microbes, my first reaction was, why do we care? It doesn't matter. And I then think, okay, fine. Let me go do some research. So I went to Dr. Google and I say, Parkinson's and microbiome.

16:42Naveen Jain:Here are 20 papers that says how microbiome actually causes these diseases. And by the way, Parkinson's starts in the gut 10 to 15 years before you see the first symptom. I'm thinking that's just abnormal. How about Alzheimer's? What about diabetes, depression, obesity? And turns out every single thing, including cancer, is now connected to this microbiome thing. And they are talking about how even cancer therapy. So they did the research where they took the people who had cancer and they gave them the immunotherapy. It worked for one third of the people, didn't work for two third of the people.

17:19Naveen Jain:And then they changed their gut microbiome for the two third of the people who did not work. And suddenly the therapy started working. And I'm thinking, holy shit, this is unbelievable. Now, my next reaction was, wait a sec. If everyone believes this microbiome thing is so important, and there are tens of companies doing microbiome testing, then why is this problem not solved yet? And then I went back and said, what questions are these microbiome companies asking? And turns out they're doing exactly the same mistake that DNA companies did. They are doing the DNA of the microbiome. bio, and they're telling you, Jessica, you have this organism called C.

18:00Naveen Jain:diff. You have this organism called Acremencia. You have this organism called this. And my first reaction was, look, I don't know what these organisms means. In my mind, like you, maybe they're tiny, tiny humans in my body. And I'm thinking, wait a sec. If they're tiny humans, it doesn't matter whether they call Jessica or Paul or Naman or Naveen, what matters is what they are doing. Because the same human being in a good environment will have a good behavior, in the bad environment will have bad behavior. So if the organisms are doing the same thing, we should focus not on who they are, we should focus on what they are doing and how it is impacting the human body.

18:45Naveen Jain:And that is what everyone is missing out on. So what if we can focus on understanding what these microbiome is expressing, how it impacts the human immune system, human body, then we can solve this problem. Now I have, I think, okay, I got this thing right. I know. Now this is why me was most important because I am thinking from a non-expert perspective. Yeah, you're not a scientist. You're not a doctor. That's a simple problem. Now, all I have to do was find a way to solve this problem. And I'm thinking this is the easiest problem. NASA JPL is sending these rovers to Mars looking for life. They have to have figured this thing out.

19:28Naveen Jain:So I am not like out there, the NASA JPL in Pasadena talking to the director. Guys, tell me what technology you guys have that is going to the Mars looking for this life on Mars. I want to understand that. and can I use this technology to solve the problem? I'm trying to solve it. They look at me and say, we have no idea because we don't look for any of these organisms. There is nothing there. We're simply trying to find any sign of life that used to exist in the past. And I'm thinking, what a bunch of morons. I need to go to NASA headquarters. I've got to go to Houston. Houston, we have a problem, right?

20:02Naveen Jain:So I went to Houston and they said, well, you can play with the moon rocks. You can do whatever you want, but we don't know what you're talking about. And I'm thinking, wait a second. Just forget this thing. I'm going to go to Stanford, MIT, Duke, and I'm going to every university looking for someone who has to do it. No luck. I'm at now Lawrence Berkeley, Lawrence Livermore. And I'm like, you know, somebody had to have solved this problem. And then I found myself at Los Alamos National Lab. Now, you know what that is famous for, right? No, I don't know if I do. Atomic bomb. Well, okay. Yeah, now I know.

20:37Naveen Jain:It was called Manhattan Project. And most people think it was done in Manhattan. It wasn't in Manhattan. It was Los Alamos National Lab, right? Now, what do you think they're working on next? They were working on biological weapons and biological defense. Right. And so here I am describing this problem to them, what I want to do. And there's one scientist who says, I know exactly what to do. And I shake my head. I'm like, really? I asked him, what project are you working on? And he looks at me and he says, what's your security clearance level? And before I could answer, he says, don't bother answering me that because even if you told me you work at CIA, I can tell you your security clearance level is not high enough for me to tell you what project I'm working on.

21:22Naveen Jain:So I being naive, I said, what kind of security clearance level do I need for this? And he said, that itself needs a security clearance. And it's like, okay. And I said, okay. Now, I am thinking this guy just completely BSing me because he has no idea what he's talking about. So I told him, I said, look, don't need to know what project you're working on. Now, I'm going to give you some lessons of life. In case you forget, I am a US citizen. Every single dime of money that you're investing in this research is coming out of my taxpayer dollars. I have every right to know what, how you're solving this problem.

21:59Naveen Jain:I don't need to know the project you're working on, but that you cannot tell me how to do it. And he said, that's fair. And he describes to me how he has solved this problem. I don't understand, but I'm really good note taker. So I'm taking all the notes. I wrote it down and I said, thank you very much. And I came out and I went to Lawrence Berkeley and I went to the scientist and I said, guess what? I have solved the problem. And they all look at me, say, you solved the problem. I said, yep. First you do this and then this. And then I described to them everything that you do to solve this problem.

22:33Naveen Jain:They pondered and they say, you know what? I think if you can do that, this will absolutely work. And I'm thinking, holy shit, this guy knows what he's talking about. Yeah. Went back. And now someday I will give you a longer story. If somebody who is a brown color immigrant in this country who cannot figure out what they are working on, managed to get an exclusive perpetual license to the technology, hired that guy who is my chief science officer. And then I hired the head of IBM Watson Research to do all the AI work for me. And this is what became Vime, right? So these guys have figured out how to do this.

23:12Naveen Jain:And the problem they were trying to solve was very simple. If there was ever any type of biological terror in our great country, how would we protect ourselves? And the way we protect is We couldn't care less what was in the biological weapon. We care more about how it is impacting the human body so we can create the antidote for it. And that literally, I thought, was the same problem that I was trying to solve. Eight years later, Jessica, here we are. We have now done 1.5 million tests, collected over 400 quadrillion biological data points. When you do a test, you give us a spit of your saliva, you give us a finger prick blood, four drops of your finger prick blood, and a touch of your stool.

24:03Naveen Jain:And we analyze 100 million biochemical reactions. And then we tell you everything that's happening in your body from your biological age to your cognitive health, to your oral health, to your heart health, to your gut health, to your immune health. And if you want to be nerdy with me, we got the nerdy stuff for you. Your LPS production to your uric toxin production to your homocysteine, we got everything for you. And then we say, you know, Jessica, you shouldn't be eating avocado right now because your uric acid production is very high. If you keep eating avocado, which is high in uric acid, you're going to end up developing a gout.

24:46Naveen Jain:And here's a science paper if you want to learn more about it. That's crazy. the don't eat broccoli or cabbage right now because your sulfide production is too high is going to end up causing more inflammation. And here's the science paper for it. Right. But as you were describing, like these things are in your body, but they're changing all the time. So like today, it may not be don't eat avocado and tomorrow it might be don't eat broccoli. Right. It doesn't happen that way. So I'm going to explain to you. So what happens is your microbiome cannot change anything instantly. And here's why. These microbes, 100 trillion of them, actually are tens of thousands of different of these organisms as one ecosystem.

25:43Naveen Jain:In that ecosystem, one organism digests the food and releases something else. Other organisms take what they get from that and they process it and release something else. So this ecosystem remains in balance. If you, let's assume, one organism says, you just ate a different food right now, I'm going to change what I do. the whole ecosystem falls apart and energetically, that is extremely expensive for organism to change how to express something different. So what happens is unless you take antibiotics or you completely change your diet, you only ate vegetables and now you suddenly only ate meat for the next three months, then your body will change.

26:32Naveen Jain:If you keep eating a similar food that you are eating, it takes six months before your actually organisms change any meaningful way. And that's why we tell people to retest after six months. Okay, so like every six months. Every six months, right. So now we tell you what foods you should eat, why you should eat them, and a science paper for it. Don't eat these food, here's why, and the science paper. And then we go and tell you, hey, your risk of developing high blood pressure is now going up because of these things we are seeing. And here is what you need to do is to eat these foods. Don't eat these foods to minimize that risk.