Today, I’m joined by David Lee, head of Samsung Next, the investment arm of the global electronics maker.
Before joining Samsung, David was a managing partner at Refactor Capital and a managing partner at SV Angel. Now, he leads the strategy for a diverse portfolio that spans AI, blockchain, fintech, healthtech, and media.
We cover David’s experience in venture capital and Samsung Next’s investments in companies like obé fitness, Aviron, and Terra. We also discuss the future of digital and connected health, wearables, and emerging opportunities in web3.
In this episode, you’ll learn:
- Characteristics David looks for in investment prospects
- David’s thoughts on the future of connected healthcare
- The emerging blockchain opportunities for healthcare in web3
Links & Resources
- obé fitness
- Aviron
- Terra
- DAYTWO
- Glooko
- Headspace
- Noom
- Tom Brady: The TB12 Method: How to Achieve a Lifetime of Sustained Peak Performance
- Subscribe to the Fitt Insider newsletter
- Visit the Fitt Insider jobs board
- View current Fitt Insider investment and get in touch
David Lee’s Links
- Refactor Capital
- Follow David on Twitter
- Samsung Next’s website
- Email David
Episode Transcript
This is a machine-generated transcript. Please excuse any errors.
[00:00:00] David:
The silver lining of COVID-19 is that it’s pulled forward some of these trends that are here to stay. One of those trends is this idea of tele-health, and how we think about what is good enough when it comes to being treated or interacting with our doctor or other practitioner.
[00:00:28] Joe:
Welcome back to the Fitt Insider podcast. I’m your host, Joe Vennare.
Today I’m joined by David Lee, head of Samsung Next, the investment arm of the global electronics maker.
In this episode we cover David’s experience in venture capital, the firm’s investments in companies like Obé Fitness, Aviron, and Terra. We discuss the future of digital and connected health, wearables and emerging opportunities, and Web3.
Let’s get into it.
Hi, David, welcome to Fitt Insider. Thanks for joining us.
[00:00:52] David:
Hey, Joe. Thanks for having me.
[00:00:54] Joe:
I’m looking forward to today’s conversation.
To kick things off, can you introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about Samsung Next?
[00:01:01] David:
Sure.
I run Samsung Next. We are an investments in M & A arm for Samsung electronics. I’m Korean American and never thought I’d work for Samsung. I don’t speak a lick of Korean. I can maybe talk a little bit more about the opportunity for Samsung.
We are the number one mobile footprint in the world in terms of phones available, and we sell a TV every second, so people are very familiar with our consumer brand. We also have a semiconductor business, and we also have a business in CDMO, which is a foundry business for drugs and therapeutics.
Our mandate is really to invest in the best founders in areas that we care about. Just with the footprint that I described, you can imagine that captures a lot of different areas. It could be blockchain. It could be edge computing. It could be media or what everybody is calling the metaverse these days. Certainly health is one of those areas.
I’ve been an investor for about 10, 12, maybe 15 years. Before that I was a lawyer, and an engineer. I started my investment career at a firm called SV Angel, which I managed with a notable angel investor named Ron Conway. Through that time we were able to invest in a lot of companies, particularly in the health and fitness area; invested in some of the early companies around 2010 or so.
And then after us V angel, around 2015, I actually start a firm called refactor capital and Refactor Capital, which is now run by my partners. All bill Amoria is currently focused, purely on health. We initially had a little bit of a larger aperture, but we saw around 2015 that more and more of the best founders were working in this area of health and bio, which we broadly defined.
And so that was an incredible run. around 1994, I had stage four lymphoma. And so this is an area that’s been, of particular interest for me on a personal level. And so here at Samsung Next, which I joined about a year ago, it’s been great to continue my personal interest in mission and working with founders who are, who are in the general area of health, fitness, and wellness.
So, so that’s a little bit about me and a little bit about Samsung.
[00:03:34] Joe:
Yeah, that’s an incredible that, you know, so glad to hear about, you know, your, your health kind of journey turning around and being able to overcome that and that. Experience both with, investing and now the opportunity with Samsung Next as it relates to health, but also more broadly in terms of all those emerging technologies.
You talked about, the opportunity, the the various sectors that, Samsung next is involved in. And how you think about that footprint. Can you just talk a little bit about more, how you see the opportunity, how it ladders up to the investing piece ladders up to Samsung more broadly and what that overall. accelerate an opportunity does for some of these companies that you are investing in and engaging with.
[00:04:16] David:
When I got here, there was a general idea of thinking about the opportunity here in 2021, or then 2021 of what was happening in technology about startups. Obviously it was sort of in the heart of, of COVID-19. there was this trend or this idea that really has been pulled forward of startups emerging everywhere, not just in Silicon valley.
And the idea was okay. If we want to think a little differently, we being Samsung Electronics about how to address the opportunity in the next 5, 10, 15 years. One of the best ways to do that is to really stay in touch with the best founders who are working in these areas. And so for me, it’s really kind of amazing.
You, you can work with a hundred startups and they all profess Their vision is a future that doesn’t yet exist. And there’s a certain impatience for that future to become a reality. And it’s so hard because out of a hundred, maybe 70 don’t make it 30 or 29, let’s say, make it in some way. And then there are one or two who basically told you what the world was going to look like.
And so for us, that’s the idea of if you can work with the best founders in these areas, how can that inform our thinking? And more importantly, how can we add value to support their mission? Because supporting their mission grows the whole pie, and we believe that in a pie that’s always increasing companies like ours are going to be able to capture our share.
[00:05:56] Joe:
Yeah, it’s really incredible and powerful. When you think about it that way and the ability. Not every company can succeed. Right. And part of it is placing enough beds and finding the people and the ideas, that can see this through and really bring that their vision of the world into focus and then into existence.
When you think about that, you know, one of the questions that I is is top of mind when you work through that is how do you even begin to establish. A framework for, or recognition of those characteristics in a founder or a company that says like, yes, this is one of those call it hundred, that, that we will even have that conversation with and invest in knowing that a large portion of them.
Right. Can’t go on to be the ultimate winner. How do you, what, what frameworks or filters do you use when evaluating founders?
[00:06:48] David:
You know, it’s really hard because, my career has been spent mainly, in the earlier stages of a startup. So anywhere from seed to series a and you know, it’s become almost a. The tripe model to think about, but in terms of how I think about. posture or approach one could take towards investing. And it’s this combination of beginner’s mind and prepared mind.
And I say somewhat tried because there’s the whole idea of mindfulness of beginner’s mind. It’s something that, has become more mainstream in the last five years or so, but I really think it’s, it’s the best way to capture how one should approach a startup opportunity, where there is a beginner’s mind thinking about things or an opportunity with no baggage or no waiting and just being present. And then a prepared mind is more of a, well, this is where I think the world is going to go. This is what I think about home fitness, or this is what we as a firm think about connected health or digital health.
And so. Because I work primarily, or my career has been primarily in seed and series a, I think it’s more important to come with a beginner’s mind. and, and that probably means spending more time with the founder and really understanding his or her story. what is it about this opportunity such that he or she is willing to sacrifice the next five to seven years of their life?
Probably have, severe swings in emotions And adversity, probably again, sacrifice your social life, sacrifice, personal life, gain weight, lose weight, whatever it is you don’t want to do. and you’re willing to sacrifice all of that for this. And if you put it in that frame, there are some people where that’s not a choice to them.
That’s a false choice in them because this is what they think about at night. they would rather be nowhere else than doing this. And so that is a part of it. And so, so much of it is I wish there was a template that I could look for. And to evaluate human potential to evaluate the easy part are the measureables, right?
Are they smart? Are they good designer? Where do they work so forth? And so on the hard part, that it’s almost impossible to project is what happens when things aren’t going their way. or what happens when they do hit that first speed bump or what happens when the first version of product market fit. Exhausts out which it always will, you know, product market fit. Is this sort of continuous concept, not, not this sort of discreet. well, it’s sort of like, I’m dating myself because I was a physics major where it’s like the quantum mechanics theory of light it’s, it’s the screen and continuous at the same time product market fit, but generally speaking.
It’s about really evaluating a founder or team. And what happens when, When you can’t really project how he or she is going to react. And so, that’s the, that’s the piece that’s, that’s tougher and that’s, that’s where I’ve been spending my career. And that’s part of it, frankly. What makes it fun? the framework that I use is really spending time with the founder. And some of the common questions I may ask myself . Would be what I follow him or her would I you know, I’m somebody who, is more senior in my career.
And what is it. about this person? That makes me, intrigued. one of my heroes is Richard Feynman I was a physics major in college, as I mentioned, And I really struggled with, with physics. I didn’t really understand it. And he has his famous set of books called the red books and he was the first person who could enthusiastically and simply explain complex. Concepts. And that is something that I look for founder who can take something that’s really complex, really hard to understand and distill it down in a way that I can understand. And more importantly, that I get enthusiastic about. So that’s probably one of the traits that, that are common across, founders that, that I’ve worked with in the past.
[00:11:07] Joe:
Yeah, I think, you know, Listening and trying to extrapolate some of those points. It’s like how those founders deal with adversity, which is difficult to. No, unless you go through that with them, right. There’s only so many questions you can ask. It’s kind of like the idea that, you know, everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face or knocked down.
I think it was a Mike Tyson quote, but, that idea of how they respond to that, but also this, this idea of clear thinking that if they have that understanding of this complex idea, but they can explain it to you in a succinct way and also get you excited about it. I think. The ability to inspire others, to then follow them is also going to play a huge role in their success.
When you think about, you know, building a brand or recruiting a team to build this thing and bring it to life. so I think those, those points definitely resonate with me just in terms of like the, the basics. is there a particular stage check size criteria that, that Samsung Next is focused on? You mentioned your career early stage, but in terms of the firm, is there a focus area that.
[00:12:14] David:
You know, we will invest really at any stage if we think there’s, the company is, is growing. and what do I mean by that? I think is very easy, especially in this type of. To conflate valuation and growth. and so oftentimes the best times to get involved in a company, either as an investor or a perspective employee is when something is really working and the company is still less than about a thousand people.
And when people hear that thousand people number, they’re like, oh my gosh, that’s, that’s a huge company and like I said, it’s, it’s very easy to, you can be growing. Exponentially fast, at a thousand people and growing really slowly, the three people. and so for me, anytime we see a company that’s growing and a company and a set of founders that we believe are going to create a network for us and by network for us, I mean, a network in the community.
So for example, if you think about, some of the companies. Airbnb Uber, Facebook, Google, and just naming some of the notable ones. You see, a lot of their employees went off and start companies or started investment funds. And in many ways, investing in that company increases your network. And so for me, when, if you think about investing in, a company, even that, you know, 500 people, there’s this idea of, okay.
If we invest in that. We are now part of this network and we will learn with them and hopefully support them in their, in their journey. We invested in, I know it’s not, health-related accompany FTX in the blockchain crypto area. and they have very high valuation, but that, that’s an example off the top of my head of a company that’s growing very fast and I’m still in its early days.
And so it’s probably, it’s less about stage and more about growth for us.
[00:14:09] Joe:
Yeah. And then you mentioned there as it relates to, this audience and the health and fitness space. we were chatting offline a little bit and I just mentioned how I came to know Samsung Next. You invested in a company called Terra and Obé. We’re also investors in Obé, Aviron the rowing company that just raised money, but also other ones in terms of like, the microbiome Day Two.
Glooko the, diabetes focused company. And so a whole bunch of companies also at the intersection of, health, but also healthcare, in this kind of evolving definition of what is, you know, personal wellbeing. Can you just talk about, your particular interests and also Samsung Next particular interest in these sectors health, fitness, health care more broadly?
[00:14:59] David:
Yeah, I think for personally I’ll, even going back to my days at Refactor was. It’s this general idea that health is wealth. And how do you define health? Health can be, listen, you’re sick and you need to get better. health, can be in that there are many different dimensions. There’s the traditional or the conventional way of, you know, it’s you have an affliction physically and needing to get better.
So that relates to. certain types of new novel drug discovery of new techniques for drug discovery, new ways of delivering care. Then when you think about health, it’s also staying healthy. in 2015, it’s almost commonplace now, but in 2015, it was more of an emerging trend of a new generation thinking about health, not just, you know, when I was thinking about health, it was like, okay, I want to do chest Tris backed by an apps.
And it was all like beach muscles. and I’m sure, you know, even at this point in my career, in my life, there’s, there will be an element of personal vanity, but it’s also about, Hey, I need to stay healthy to do the things that I want to do in my life. And what you saw, what we saw back then is that you saw a generation of people that were much younger.
Let’s say. Anywhere from 25 to 35 who had that mentality of not just, okay, I want to look great at the beach, but also I really care about my health and I want to do the things that. That are necessary in order for me to lead a really fulfilling life. And so one of the investments that I made early on 2012 was Headspace.
And the whole idea of how, when you think about health, why is it that, you know, you can have a personal trainer and there’s no stigma around it, but if you have. quote unquote, mental health coach, there’s somehow stigma around that. And so for me, and then that goes into eating and your diet.
And, you know, I joked with my partner back then, I’m a new England Patriots fan. But if you look at Tom Brady and, he wrote this book, the TB 12. Method and he was kind of mocked for a lot of the things that he did in order to stay healthy. But if you actually unbundle every chapter, every chapter, there’s a billion dollar business, right.
There’s sleep. There’s, you know, plant-based diet, there’s a pliability and bands. There’s drinking water and, or staying hydrated. And so for me, that idea was really interesting because, and it was also where I am in my life. And, as I look out some of the things that I feel like I need to do in order to lead a fulfilling life, and if I bring it back to Samsung next and Samsung, it’s actually very relevant because I talked about our mobile footprint Something that’s really interesting to us is listen, we have our devices on us 24 7. Right. And we’re always in front of screens. And what can we Samsung if we, if we have that time with our users or our customers, what sort of services or offerings can we provide that enhanced somebody’s health? So the most trivial example back in the day was a step-up.
Right. So you have that in our watch, you have that in, in the phone and there has been this race among the big companies and the startups to think about different ways of giving feedback to users and customers about how to lead a healthier life. and so for us, that’s something we think about a lot in terms of how can we utilize our footprint, and what are startups doing right now, That are novel and that users are, are what new services are people using? you know, that are interesting and fun, it could be average. And then the second component of it. Related to our footprint, our manufacturing capacity. One of the big themes is just closing the loop. If you think about some of the larger companies or some of the efforts around reforming healthcare in the U S everyone knows that you have all these fitness trackers, people are monitoring what they’re eating, how much water they’re drinking, what they’re doing for exercise.
But if you’re not closing that loop with the provider, that’s just data in the air. And what can you do from, by closing a loop so that your providers have that data and they back in and help and inform outcomes. and so if you think about again, what we can do with screens, what we can do in terms of, new devices for practitioners, that’s something that’s exciting for us.
[00:19:30] Joe:
Yeah, I absolutely want to touch on both of those points a little bit more. So maybe take them one at a time. You mentioned so Headspace. Bringing mindfulness into the main stream, removing the stigma around it. There’s obviously been no shortage of companies who have also pursued that. And now it’s common, right?
That the idea of mindfulness and meditation and even mental health and making that more accessible. You talk about, you know, Tom Brady and TB 12, you have, you know, this idea, he was talking about it as it relates to his career and performance, but like longevity and pliability and all these other ideas.
And now the, the conversation around longevity, recovery, not. As it relates to performance, but also, you know, lifespan and health span is, is into the mainstream. Is there another trend category that you look at, or are excited about saying like, Hey, we want to back this idea or this concept, because we think it’s going to be the next mindfulness or longevity or whatever that trend may be.
[00:20:34] David:
It’s so hard because it’s less about maybe for us thinking about the trends, and more about just what are the founders doing. And so for us, it’s. spending time with companies like humor, big health, canopy. And what is making them impatient? What, in, in that, what are some of the problems that founders are working on? such that, you know, for them, there’s, there’s an itch to thing need to scratch. and so that, that to us is it’s. So it’s less about the trends And more about what’s happening from a bottoms up level. It’s interesting because certainly you see an effect when like, when Peloton was at its high, you saw more and more companies, this sort of X for Y the Peloton for X. and those are companies that sometimes I get a little bit more wary of. but you have to try angulate as well.
So we’ll come from like Aviron you could say, oh, it’s kind of Peloton for rowing, which it kind of isn’t because there was a different dynamic with indifferent relationship with the user or different offering for the user. But overall, so there’s not one concrete trend that we think about, but this idea of people being more mindful of their health, wanting more control of their.
Being mindful of, even their health data and their health records. That’s something that, was probably more of a fringe concept, maybe five, 10 years ago. And now people are very comfortable with, understanding what what’s their markers are with their health, that what their parameters are ensuring that with their providers.
[00:22:10] Joe:
Yeah. And you even see that with, well, it plays into Terra and we can talk about that, but also even. Apple coming out and, you know, enabling a feature that allows you to share that kind of health data with a doctor or somebody else. And more and more down that path of linking it with, healthcare practitioners And doctors, but also, you know, who else you want to see that from a nutritionist or a personal trainer who, or whoever else
[00:22:35] David:
In terms of great example of everything, a lot of things that we think about as investors and as worth inside of Samsung in terms of, for me, a lot of investing is it’s a matter of timing. And if you spend time enough time with the entrepreneurs who are really bright and, You you learn that there’s more bad timing than there are bad ideas.
And even if you look at something like Terra it’s not clear to me in 2016, let’s say five or six years ago, whether or not Terra was a good idea. Whereas if you look at 2020 or 2021, when they launched, or when we met them, there was this notion that okay, What is how many people have an Apple Watch or in my case, a Samsung watch or how many people are monitoring the number of steps or how many people are using Peloton or how many people are using Strava and that whole, or how many people are monitoring, what they eat.
And so for a lot of reasons, you just saw a different type of user behavior. Where it felt like, okay. Now is the time where it feels like there’s enough data and enough shift in the user behavior for something like Terra to really capture and provide a lot of value.
[00:23:53] Joe:
Yeah. And just quickly, if folks aren’t familiar, basically. The Plaid for health and fitness data. It enables API access to basically any device health monitor, fitness tracker, or piece of equipment that, that has that, that access. so you can see now how all of these things, they don’t live in this siloed world, where your fitness is separate from your sleep is separate from your nutrition is separate from whatever other device that you you might be using.
And that kind of brings us back to this idea of. Samsung with the screens and closing the loop. the fact that so many of these things have been siloed and they’ve certainly been separate from health outcomes or health insurance, or, any type of insight from your doctor. How do you think about this connected health landscape kind of playing out and if, and when we can get to the point where it is like more turnkey, right.
And it is an integrated ecosystem instead of a, a siloed kind of fractured.
[00:24:56] David:
You know, optimistic and pessimistic at the same time. I’m I’ll start with the, the pessimism. Pessimism is not the right word. I think the innovation, particularly in the U S will take. Or it’s less about innovation, more about progress. And if you look at some again, companies, it could be Amazon alphabet apple, someone, their efforts to really get into and affect healthcare.
They haven’t been as successful. And I would argue that it is that closing the loop. it’s not just a matter of getting one side of the market ie people to adopt this technology. It’s also about getting the other side of the market, which are the providers and the payers to buy in as well.
And so it’s all about, can you affect outcomes? And for a lot of reasons, you know, healthcare, I think it’s $3 trillion economy, 18% of our GDP or 20% of our GDP every year. one could argue that it’s fragmented and disjointed precisely because it’s a service-based industry. But then you look at, at other countries where you may not have that type of, For lack of a better term, just the fragmentation or, or the problems in getting, in tying together sort of.
Your behavior with your outcomes and working with your providers. And so if you see companies like, you know, we’re not investors in these companies, but at one medical or a forward, we’re trying to create a vertically integrated, experience where it’s the payers, the practitioners, the patients are all using the same technologies. in the bar for making a delightful customer experience is so low that if you can provide that experience, people will eventually prefer that over, the current solutions. And, I think that’ll take time in the U S a big part of it is also the number of people who get their health insurance through their employer.
And so, it’s not clear to me. I just don’t know. Or I don’t think that you have the same dynamic in other countries, the optimistic part. So the pessimist, it’s not necessarily a matter of pessimism, but it’s a matter of just looking out, saying, okay, this could take time and it’s less about our innovation problem or about a human coordination problem.
So it’s a little bit like self-driving cars. I think in other parts of the world, You don’t necessarily have some of this for lack of a better term baggage. And if you could see some countries, especially in emerging markets where they’re just leapfrogging legacy systems, that’s a trend that you see in financial technology, you see it in, in other areas.
And I think you’re going to see that in health as well. And so we’re, it will be, It feels that it’s that market or those areas are more open for a vertically integrated approach where both the providers and the payers are using common software, they’re using common apps and there is a common language.
I think one of the companies that, another investment arm of Samsung is we’re investors in a company called Noom which is a very well known among and said you is, is just an amazing entrepreneur. And I think it takes somebody like that to really move the needle. and he’s somebody who, and this is a classic, I mean, I don’t know how long he’s been at it, but he’s been at it for awhile.
[00:28:25] Joe:
Like 14 years he’s been on the podcast and I’ve gotten to know him a little bit. He’s great. So, yeah, he’s been.
It’s 14, 15 years. Yeah.
[00:28:32] David:
Yeah. So, I hope that the next Noom in the U S won’t take 14 or 15 years to get to where he is today. but there are parts of me that say, okay, this is going to take some time. to really, for lack of a better term. And it’s why we call the name of the firm, refactor, refactor some of the systems.
So you can actually create different outcomes or different results.
[00:28:59] Joe:
Yeah, we’ll definitely be following along and hopeful that it can come together. But as we get toward the end of the conversation, one other thing I did want to ask about, you had mentioned, Samsung Next being interested in this space, it’s certainly a, trendy buzz word, a lot of hype around it, but, just metaverse blockchain and FTS as it relates to web three and what’s happening there, specific to the health and fitness space.
Do you have any thoughts on how that technology impacts the health and fitness sector? And if, if not specific to that, just in general, how you’re thinking about the opportunities there.
[00:29:41] David:
I do think there are some ideas. I remember there was this one startup, five years of called cold sweat point where you basically earned ERC 20 token, based on your workouts. and it was one of those ideas. I think it was enough time ago, such that you would look at it and go, this is never going to happen.
And then if you watched it today for various reasons, again, getting back to the timing you say, okay, I kind of get that. it’d be easy to say that a lot of the conversation and a lot of the, there is obviously a lot of hype around this concept of the metaverse.
And for us, we just think about it as it’s just a blanket way of describing improving hardware. And, software to create different types of experiences that support a new type of social behavior. So I think the second piece is the piece that really is going to drive a lot of this new, great companies and new great startups.
And that, that is the people who, you know, I, I’m a father of a 12 year old and eight year old. and we have cousins around us and the cousins would come over and they just, sit there on their iPad, playing roadblocks and they want to spend all this time together and they just sit there and they’re just, and all the parents would get, mad at, go play outside. And the reality is there is a generation that they interact using technology. And as a result, there’s there are these ideas. And if you interact with technology and it’s not just roadblocks or remind craft, it could be Reddit. It could be other communities, and there’s pseudonymity and there’s this buzzword of community, but it is this idea that you are forming this connections that are digital.
Facebook. It was offline relationships first that were mapped to the digital realm. And I think what you’re seeing now, let’s forget about VR AR and metaverse are just relationships that are formed digitally. And then you can map out to the real world. So it’s the inverse of Facebook. And I think that when you think about fitness and health, it’s really interesting as to what, where that could go.
The most trivial examples are some of the things that you see in VR AR some of the boxing games, supernatural, so forth. And I think that will, you’ll be able to have different experiences, around fitness, around health. But what’s really interesting is what will happen in three to five years. When, if you do think about, what are the new experiences for fitness or wellness that plug into, for lack of better term, this idea of community or this idea of new user behavior?
There’s, there’s one of the founders, she spoke at our, this event we had in Miami NFTIRL got together a group of artists and technologists, startup folks. just to talk about what’s happening today are names Krista Kim insure her some she’s done some pioneering work around, transcendental meditation and digital art. And if you just see someone rework and you see some of the people who get together, and the common bond is how they’re experiencing her artwork. And you can see sort of the relationships that are being formed offline related to mindfulness, transcendental meditation, mental health.
It is one of those moments where you look at and go, wow, like what else is possible? So, it is one of those areas where, I do think about it’s, I, I, you know, it’s clear as day to me, it’s one of those concepts. That’s, over-hyped in the, short-term under hyped in the long run. And I end part of it is this user behavior that is emergent and some of the new technologies that will support that.
[00:33:31] Joe:
Yeah, I agree. Totally. Especially as it relates to health and fitness it’s, if you can change the. The social dynamic, the way people engage with it, the community aspects around it, there’s so much that can be done. That goes way beyond what we see now, which is, you know, a leader board, a digital leader, board or badges, or, you know, virtual high fives. This is a totally different thing in terms of incentivizing people.
[00:33:57] David:
And then getting back to this other trend of opposing. And what does telehealth look like when VR and AR is even tours of magnitude better than what we have today. Right. And forget about 10 orders of magnitude. But if you think about the original iPhone and you just looked at the iPhone 6, you’d be like, wow.
It’s like, these are two different experiences. Right. And what we’re we’re on like the iPhone 13, I guess I should mention the Galaxy, but. we are on like V1 or V2 of virtual and augmented reality. And as it relates to health and treatment, I can only imagine the impact that will have on telehealth and it like all things, I think you know, the silver lining of, COVID-19 is that it’s pulled forward.
Some of these trends, that are here to stay. And I do believe that one of those trends, and I don’t think. unique insight is, is this idea of telehealth and how we think about, what is good enough when it comes to being treated or, or, interacting with, with our doctor or other practitioners?
[00:35:05] Joe:
Yeah.
I feel like we could continue to talk all day, especially down that path; home diagnostics, tele-health, the tie into wearables, and what that connected health looks like. We might have to do a round two to get into some more of these trends.
We’re coming up on time here, but maybe one more quick question, and then we’ll get you out of here.
What’s the best way for a founder company to get on your radar? Is it just a matter of a warm introduction through their network, et cetera?
[00:35:38] David:
Just email us: david.lee@samsungnext.com. You can email any of us on the team, DM us through Twitter. That’s usually the best way. If you know somebody and it’s a warm introduction, that’s great, but it’s not necessary. Especially in today’s world where a lot of the interaction, the networking, meeting new people, meeting interesting people is done online.
It’s been pretty amazing the number of people that I’ve met online in the last three to four years, compared to the five or seven years before that. I think that’s a trend that really accelerates. It’s a lot of fun as well.
[00:36:26] Joe:
Yeah, certainly. Bringing us together in a conversation like this as well, is pretty exciting.
[00:36:31] David:
Yeah.
[00:36:32] Joe:
David, I appreciate you making time, the conversation, and the insights. I’m super excited to share this conversation, so I appreciate it and certainly we’ll be following along. We’ll have to reconnect and potentially do a round two.
[00:36:44] David:
Awesome. Thank you, Joe. I really appreciate it.