so two of our first hundred users were

LeBron James and Michael Phelps

[Music]

Nike and apple and a dozen other

companies were entering the space but

when it comes to health monitoring we're

the best game in town that really came

from an insane level of focus in the

beginning on what we were trying to

solve one of the reasons whoop has been

successful is there were a lot of

counter-intuitive decisions along that

Journey one obvious one is that would be

interesting

steal that it's worth emphasizing for

your audience why that matters so

there was a phase in building Loop where

it was so much about the next Milestone

that I was running almost exclusively on

like a dopamine engine if the company

has a great day you're feeling like a

rocket ship and if whoop was failing I

was failing what's the personal toll on

you in those moments that people don't

see I was super stressed out I was

drinking too much and I remember I was

driving my car

and I'm on the highway and all of a

sudden it's like your peripheral vision

like starts narrowing on you and you

feel your fingers and they're like numb

I actually drove myself to the hospital

and they do

um you know all these analysis on me and

like it turns out I had a

before this episode begins I just want

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further Ado I'm Stephen Butler and this

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keep this yourself

well

as you look back on your your life and

you connect the dots that led you to to

do what you've done now with whoop and

your professional life

um

what are those dots

well I I grew up on uh the North Shore

of Long Island

um I was always into

Sports and exercise I was super active

kid

uh my parents are

very different my dad's an Egyptian

immigrant a very

Street Smart charismatic came to this

country with very little Rose the ranks

and finance over time

my mom uh very analytical very

book smart and

and watching how they approached life I

think was a fascinating way to grow up

because they had very different uh tool

sets to solve problems and

uh I was always playing sports I was

always exercising and that eventually

LED my way to Harvard and uh and so I

was a college athlete I got

um recruited to play Squash at Harvard

and over the course of my time there uh

got very fascinated by how I could

better understand my body how I could

uh understand what it meant to train

optimally how I could prevent over

training which was a problem that I had

uh how I could really uh understand the

other 20 hours of the day when you

weren't exercising and so

that took me down this Rabbit Hole of

physiology research which we can get

into but I read hundreds of medical

papers while I was uh in school and then

ultimately wrote a paper myself around

how to continuously measure the human

body and then over the course of my time

at Harvard built up the confidence to to

start a company which was a fairly crazy

thing looking back on it and for the

last 10 years I've been building this

company called whoop we went through

that very quickly but a lot of those

things are very very unusual one of the

first unusual things is I mean we all

train we all a lot of people train and

work out and stuff but we don't then

fall into an obsession about how to

optimize the performance of our training

and ourselves what is it about you have

you been able to figure out in hindsight

what it is about you and your makeup

that made you so obsessed with that

particular

topic well it struck me as something

that uh

really didn't make a lot of sense like

you I was spending three or four hours a

day at Harvard exercising with no

information about what I was doing to my

body and yet that's a school also that

is totally obsessed with deeper

knowledge and so that in itself seemed

like a like a deep irony and then I also

was a pretty competitive person and I

was someone who was over training right

where you see you get fitter and fitter

and fair you sort of fall off a cliff

and you don't know why and that bothered

me like that bothered me that I didn't I

didn't fully understand what I was doing

to my body what was what was the missing

ingredient so to speak and I just sort

of started pulling at that thread and it

really took me down a rabbit hole over

training I've heard this time never been

sure if I've believed it because I don't

really know what it is but for someone

that doesn't know what that is what what

is over training the technical

definition is it's a continued state of

overreaching that then leads to a period

where your body is essentially in a

depressed state and what that will look

like physiologically is essentially you

your body's run down you know activities

that would normally feel somewhat easy

uh are quite difficult

um psychologically it makes you feel

kind of lousy run down symptoms similar

to being sick and depending on how over

trained you are can last you know a week

or could last month in my case that

Norma didn't last longer than a couple

weeks but it it's kind of this ultimate

betrayal right because you're pushing

yourself so hard

to get stronger and fitter

that you actually get to a place where

you're completely

broken down

had I asked you at 14 years old say 14

16 years old what you were going to be

when you grew up what would you have

responded I don't know that I would have

known but if you looked at the things I

was interested in so I was always

playing with technology which in

hindsight uh was quite predictive like I

had the first I had the first iPod in my

sixth grade class I remember so we're

about the same age so you probably

remember when the iPod came out and like

how cool that thing was thick but yeah

it was really thick and it had that like

Wild Wheel a little before that I had a

Palm Pilot like a pom pilot seven it was

like the original uh Palm Pilot that

could get internet access when I was

around 12 or 13 I had one of the first

uh voice recorders that you could speak

into and it would type for you oh wow so

it was like you know Siri but 20 years

ago uh and it didn't quite work

unfortunately but I I had this real itch

towards technology and then I think

somewhere between the ages of like 18

and 20 I I also saw this huge

convergence happening with with

smartphones with the way that computers

to me seemed like they were sort of

seamlessly moving from being on your

desk to on your lap to in your pocket to

what I perceived to be eventually on

your body or even in your body I thought

that was a Natural Evolution so I

definitely had this pull towards

technology but I think throughout uh you

know I was overcoming this feeling of

whether I should go into Finance because

I grew up my dad was in you know in

finance in fact after my freshman year

at Harvard to most undergrads do you

know different internships and whatnot

after my freshman year I did an

internship at a hedge fund my sophomore

year I did an internship at an

investment bank and my junior year I did

an internship at a private Equity Firm

so so like I did I was really flirting

with going into Finance but I think I

think this is what I was supposed to do

from everything I've read it's quite

clear to me that you're a very curious

person and my brother is very

interesting my oldest brother whenever

we when we were younger he always wanted

to understand everything and when he

became interested in something he became

obsessed in it and he went like right

down into the rabbit hole as I read

through your story on multiple occasions

whether it's meditation or others or how

the business came to be or you know your

journey to trying to figure out how to

optimize the body all of these struck me

as a person that once they get

interested in something they go all the

way down into the rabbit hole to find

out the solutions is that accurate I

think it's fair I think

it also stems from this uh

ability to throw myself out there

um

you know back to how your childhood

influences your your future uh there's

there's a story

I don't know if I ever talked about this

but uh fascinating story where I was in

fifth or sixth grade middle school

and we're doing what's called uh blue

and gold day so I went to a school

called Greenvale the colors are blue and

gold and you have this like Fair

essentially which is all sorts of

different competitions races that sort

of thing and uh there's a captain's race

at the end of the day with like the the

four people representing their their

class so to so to speak to run the fast

race and I was a I was a captain so I

was very anxious about this final race

and right before the final race was one

of the longer races like uh I think it

was three or four laps and so

uh you know if you were to run that

you'd be quite tired and I that wasn't a

race I ever ran but uh Timmy all of a

sudden was sick and so he didn't show up

for for this race and I remember uh

Peter zaloum who's our science teacher

he's walking around and he's yelling hey

blue we need someone to run this race we

need someone to run this race and I'm

kind of like avoiding even making eye

contact with this teacher because I

really don't want to run this race

and it was like he zeroed in on me out

of a distance and just marched over and

he said well you should run this right

and I said no no I've got the captain's

race I got to do that and he's like well

90 of life is showing up

the other 10 is what happens when you

get there

and like in that moment I was like okay

yeah I'm gonna go around this and I

don't even remember what happened in

that race I don't even remember the

captain's race uh which in some ways

emphasizes his point but that whole

thread of just showing up is something I

think about all the time

why why do and this is I guess a lesson

for entrepreneurship because you saw

some

I was going to say and this is links to

Something in Your Story I was going to

say you saw an opportunity but you

didn't see an opportunity did you you

were dragged by your obsession well

interest

in building whoop yeah

I definitely saw an opportunity to

continuously measure the human body and

I also saw an opportunity that uh

Computing was getting to a size and and

sort of sophistication where it could be

smaller and smaller

uh

but the poll that got me to building

this company and I think persevering

over years was that it also was a

personal Obsession to really understand

my own body yeah

because when people typically recite

their stories of how they became an

entrepreneur you get this kind of like

they put I don't know a white piece of

paper there and they're like what is the

opportunity in the market and and when I

read the quote from you that said you're

an entrepreneur before you realized you

were yeah that's true that books that

narrative a little bit which I think

entrepreneurs sometimes try and sell

because it makes them seem more

intentional

I can't replicate your curiosity and

interest that made you go off in that

journey of optimizing the human body so

I just think in society and culture

generally entrepreneurs sometimes look

back and try and make their story sound

like really really intentional when a

lot of it in your case as is the case in

mine was like I was interested in this

thing and I just kept on going because I

loved it I think that's right I also

spent a lot of time like building the

confidence to start the company like I

really didn't know what it meant to

start a company and

I mean I spent two years doing

physiology research I then took another

class that was around if you have an

idea how do you write a business plan

for it and I remember like my senior

year I was doing like the third or

fourth iteration of this business plan

and I was meeting with the MIT Professor

a guy named Howard Anderson who taught

the class and was like a venture

capitalist and at that point I wasn't

even enrolled in the class I was just

working on this business plan and he's

like he just sort of stopped he said

well at some point you have to ask

yourself is this a paper or are you

starting a company right it sort of puts

you on the spot like why are you doing

all this work and I think I

I think I did a ton of work to feel as

prepared as possible to like have the

confidence to take the leap

and I'm so glad I did but you know when

I meet young people I try to encourage

them to do as much work as they can to

build up that confidence and also to

understand that

there's a lot of things you aren't going

to know in the process of building a

company but once you make that

commitment the learnings come in fast

right and I'm sure you've experienced

that yeah yeah yeah and I see it all the

time especially in young people who um

they're using perfectionism as a way to

procrastinate

because they're they don't feel

competent already yet to so you'll have

people that you know come come up to you

and say I've been working on this idea

for two years three years and they're

making all these assumptions which they

could quite probably figure out in a

week if they just went to Market to but

it's a guys for fear I think sometimes

to guys have like I actually don't feel

ready or I don't know I don't have the

answers so I'm just preparing more I'm

waiting for that perfect moment yeah I

think overcoming a fear of failure

is a really critical step in life and

there's a lot of methods to think about

for that

I think for me it was doing a lot of

work I think it was following

my passion in some ways the reason I

feel like I became an entrepreneur

before I knew what an entrepreneur was

it was that it almost became an

inevitability that I was starting the

company unless so a choice because it

was like all I was thinking about in my

free time you know the things you do the

things you think about before bed or in

a shower you know the Quiet Moments

throughout life I think those are pretty

telling

and what role has that played that

obsession with that with solving the

problem and solving that challenge and

your general interest in it what role

has that played in your hardest times

as in when things get really [ __ ]

difficult and it's easy to quit

if you're someone that's authentically

driven and authentically curious about

that thing

must make it somewhat easier

to carry on I think for sure

it pulls you through like the the

obsession of solving a problem pulls you

through

I mean I struggled though for years uh

with building whoop it was it was really

really painful and I think an important

thing for any entrepreneur but

especially was for me was to

disassociate my own identity from that

of the companies

if you're and you you've been a young

entrepreneur so you know this

like as a young entrepreneur

I think a lot of your identity all of a

sudden gets tied up in that thing you're

creating and for me that meant

if woop was having a good day I was

having a good day if whoop was having a

bad day I was having a bad day

um and if whoop was failing I was

failing

and that's a very unhealthy Association

but it's also not true like literally

you can be taking great steps to improve

as a leader or as a manager or even as a

recruiter and certain things will happen

that may put your business sideways

and conversely I'm sure you and I have

both met Founders entrepreneurs who have

watched their company go like this but

meanwhile they're spinning out of

control right and I think the faster

that I could separate those two

identities my own and whoop the easier

it actually became to build a successful

company

is part of the reason you also our

identity becomes attached to the company

because I was thinking about why that

was that was definitely the case for me

and the answer was because my entire net

worth was was this thing as well so

coming from a background where I didn't

have money my family didn't have money

my entire net worth was this thing that

was going well so you can see how if the

company starts to struggle it's like

Steve's actually broken well I had that

too for auditory then some in some

respects I still have it today just like

given the nature of the yeah of the

value of the business the key uh the key

at least for me in building the business

was Finding ways for myself

to manage stress to manage uh the

difficulties that come with building a

company without finding myself on that

yoyo of the company's performance right

it can't be that uh if the company has a

great day you're feeling like a rocket

ship and if the company's having a bad

day you're feeling down and so a lot of

my

I think growth as an entrepreneur has

been figuring out how to have a steady

hand and how to you know sort of stay

calm through the chaos chaos yeah how

have you done that a few different

things

um

I think the first uh and probably the

most profound for me in general has been

learning how to meditate

so in 2014 so I was about 24 years old

the company was maybe I don't know 30 or

40 people

um I think I'd raised maybe 20 million

dollars something like that which

certainly felt like a lot of money and

uh

and I felt like I was really failing

like as a leader I was super stressed

out I was drinking too much and uh and I

remember having what I would later learn

was a panic attack

um you know and I was driving my car

and I'm on the highway and all of a

sudden it's like your peripheral vision

like starts narrowing on you and you

feel your fingers and they like are a

little bit numb you have this taste in

your mouth I actually thought I'd been

food poisoned because of the feeling was

so

unusual outrageous and uh and so I drove

I actually drove myself to the hospital

and I checked into the hospital and they

do

um you know all these analysis on me and

like it turns out I just had a panic

attack

but the fact that I end up in the

hospital from panic attack I was like

all right wait a sec like I gotta really

reset how I'm building this company and

growing and uh two days later I signed

up for this meditation course

Transit on meditation and uh I've been

doing it like every single day since

then about

yeah about eight and a half years later

when I sit here with CEOs who many of

which have had panic attacks yeah funny

funny enough um and they'd talk to me

about meditation I always seem to get a

similar response which I can't meditate

my head's too busy for that

well I think the busier your mind is the

more you need to meditate

I

so I learned how to meditate in 2014 and

I think there's different stages of the

way you understand meditation as well

um there's sort of a four-week check

mark

I think there's like a four month or

maybe a one-year check mark and then

there's four years plus which is

fortunately where I am today

and the fascinating thing is

what you first observe in meditating

um and I should just sort of clarify

what kind of meditation I'm doing so I

spend about 22 minutes every morning

doing this and you literally are

um you're breathing but then you start

repeating a mantra

and the idea of the Mantra is to start

clearing your mind out and you're just

focusing on the Mantra but what

inevitably happens is thoughts start to

drift in as you're saying the mantra and

you get to have this moment where you

get to decide

do I want to think about the thought or

do I want to pass it along by going back

to the mantra

so just right there in that moment you

start to realize that you can filter

your thoughts

you also get to choose to sit with

certain thoughts right think how often

in your life you might have thoughts

coming in you feel like you can't really

control what you're thinking about right

you almost like don't have that Focus

so that's the immediate benefit that you

get that you feel while you're

meditating

the more powerful benefit and this is

what I meant about feeling certain

stages of having done it is at least for

me it started to feel like I had a third

person

you know sort of watching me and I would

hear this voice in my head suddenly like

when I was about to get angry or when I

was about to be upset or and it was sort

of uh all of a sudden you're able to

sense what you're about to do or say

before you do it so the immature version

of me as an entrepreneur might find

himself saying things and being angry

and reacting

um and then sort of almost catching up

to the emotional state that I was in and

trying to reel it back whereas the the

more meditated version of me

I think has has been able to recognize

what I'm about to say something before I

say it or feel something before I feel

it and and that

it feels like a superpower

did not grow over time that third person

ability with your Transcendental

Meditation practice

I think so I mean it's I imagine that

learning how to breathe and meditate is

like any other skill and if you refine

it for weeks versus months versus years

it it gets better and it's it's

basically becoming conscious isn't it of

what's going on in your mind you're

becoming more conscious of your thoughts

and that their choices and you're not

them yeah exactly I think it it's at

least helped me stay more in control of

of my actions my feelings decisions I'm

making

and and I really recommend it to anyone

like I think it's I think it's a game

changer

2014 you cite um in a few things you've

you've spoken on um as being a very

difficult year that's when you had as

you said 20 to 30 employees you'd raise

20 million things were pretty crazy in

those early years

um did you have doubt because when I

think about the whoop story

it's competitor set are all massive

[ __ ] Juggernauts and I've I've like

from afar obviously when I got I got my

week two months ago I remember thinking

how the [ __ ] have they done that

in an environment where you've got these

big you know Steve Jobs founded

companies and this company and they've

all got billions and 200 billion in the

kitty yeah I'm like how did they get on

my wrist how did they pierce and get

you went into an incredibly competitive

market

when you did that when you raised that

20 million did you have doubts about

yourself

I think I developed doubts

um in managing the company like I always

believed in the vision uh of what we set

out to build I mean dating to 2011 or

2012 when I was doing all the research

like it was almost a straight shot from

2011 or 12 to today the paper I wrote In

2011 was titled the feedback tool

measuring intensity recovery and sleep

and like literally today our three main

metrics are strain recovery and sleep so

in terms of having a strong perspective

on what the world should look like when

the technology is built and actually

measuring all the things it needs to

Super accurately

I think building whoop was was more of a

straight line than than the average

company

where it was all kinds of zigs and zags

and chaos is uh learning one how to be a

CEO and run the company to your point

learning how to navigate competition and

we can talk more about that we've had

some interesting experiences in that

category a big theme was actually being

able to raise capital

in part because of the competition right

like it was hard

first of all for a number of years we

were building the technology before we

ever were really generating Revenue

and that's that's just a hard business

to build and it also took us a lot

longer to get the product to Market than

we thought it would right and so

you're in the scenario where

you know you're you're saying to

investors well we're getting there we're

getting there we're getting there and so

the you know the first seven years of

the company I would say or enormously

hard from just a technology development

standpoint from a capital raising

standpoint in from a business generation

standpoint because we you know we were

seven years in and then completely

changed our business model on its head

which was a bet the company moment you

know and uh and so there were just a lot

it was a lot yeah and I told you at 22

the next was 22 when you founded the

company yeah if I told you at 22 the

next seven years would look like that

do you think you would have done it

I think I would have done it yeah I mean

it was painful but I knew I was doing

the right thing like I knew I was I knew

I was in the right storm you know what I

mean like

um there were a lot of feelings of being

like my back against the wall

um there were a lot of feelings of

uh doubt

what were those feelings of doubt

you know are we going to get this thing

to Market soon enough do are we going to

figure out what the right way is to sell

it are we maturing as a as a team are we

going to be able to attract more capital

I mean again back to raising capital

we've raised about 400 million

dollars in capital day but that's still

sense when you look at the companies

we've been competing against to get to

this stage and so I was I was nervous

about that piece of it and especially

again as a young entrepreneur who's who

is Raising capital for the first time

you said team and we there co-founders

yeah

how important is that in hindsight

because I feel like you don't find out

the answer to how well you've chosen

your co-founders until a couple of years

in

yeah look I I had a great

um CTO I had a great lead mechanical

engineer we've we've built the business

together for 10 years or my CTO just

just uh transitioned to new projects

but it's been an amazing ride and I

think the

the fact that we've been able to build

this technology that has you know

through a variety of different uh third

parties been credited as being the most

accurate wearable in the market speaks

to the the technical chops of of the

founding team and I I don't take credit

for that uh so I think it's uh it's a

remarkable accomplishment and I think

it's also important when you're building

a founding team to have a a fairly clear

set of responsibilities I get a little

nervous when I hear of a founding team

and they're both like the business guy

or they're both like the technical guy

and kind of the same thing you know the

the advantage that we had in starting

the company was each category of thing

that we were trying to do was so hard

like inventing a wearable that could

measure uh hurry variability as

accurately as an electrocardiogram or

raise Capital at a time that you know

Nike e and apple and you know a dozen

other companies were entering the space

like

if I struggled with raising Capital like

I wasn't gonna have a partner giving me

a hard time if he struggled with

building the technology I wasn't going

to give him a hard time like we just

knew it was hard uh and we also knew

that the other wasn't going to be better

at it so I think that there was an

element of complementary uh skill sets

that's helpful

if you were giving someone advice on how

to pick a co-founder in terms of the

character traits that you look for in

that person what would you suggest that

they look for because it's a question I

get asked all the time our co-founders

it's probably some combination of

commitment intensity and humility

um

the commitment piece is really important

because

you're going to have a lot of very

difficult things happen in the first

six months let alone the first six years

and so you want to know that this

person's committed to doing this and

it's going to be hardcore and no matter

what happens we're going to get through

it you know I I think startups really

only fail if the founders quit or you

run out of money so like if you can

overcome those two things

you've got a pretty good shot

and and so commitment's critical and

then intensity and humility that's what

I just generally look for in anyone that

that I work for or work with you want

hard driving people you want people who

recognize that it's going to take an

enormous amount of work and discipline

to develop whatever product or service

it is that you're creating for the first

time

but you also want along the way

um to have people who recognize that

with that intensity and with that

intelligence with that depth

they have the humility to recognize that

they may not have all the answers

and in particular when you're building a

company and a small company at that that

has a lot of different departments that

intersect and then in the case of whoop

I mean Hardware software analytics data

regulatory design marketing whatever you

could have a meeting with four different

departments and it's really just four

people and all of a sudden there's this

massive Collision around how we're going

to send data from a whoop strap to an

iPhone

and like the product person has their

own perspective the iOS engineer has his

own perspective you know the the

Bluetooth expert has their perspective

the engineer has the mechanical

engineer's own perspective and so

there's this natural Collision of how

should we solve this problem and I think

when you build teams with high humility

they tend to come out with the answer

that's best for the company not like I

came up with it

so that would I think that's a pretty

good starting point commitment intensity

humility

when you think about the the most

difficult times so I know that you would

have been through many many difficult

times but when you when when I say that

when I say the most difficult time

maybe a day maybe a piece of news you

got

an email

is there something that comes to mind as

the most difficult day time moment well

there is a period of time of about 18

months where whoop never had more than

three months of Runway

of cash in the bank yeah wow so picture

that right because

um you know so much of building a

business is having the runway to

strategize and grow and recruit and and

I had the company had gotten into a

weird moment where

we were still doing Innovative things

but we hadn't found the next investor to

sort of carry the company through to the

to the Future uh to a future round or

you know give us two years of Runway

which is sort of what you'd want for any

Capital injection and

we were making some deals happen there

were there were compelling things

happening in the business and so we were

able to stitch along a number of uh

Investments but never enough capital and

so I just felt this enormous weight on

my shoulders man like it was it was so

intense and uh and it also was it was a

company size that you know it's one

thing to say okay 18 months and you

never have more than three months of

Runway something you said when you're

like a 10 person team like we were like

a 50 70 person team something like that

so you know that you feel a lot of

responsibility as well when you're

operating through a period and

essentially it got to the point where

um if we didn't get uh essentially a

term sheet signed uh on a Wednesday

uh we were gonna go bankrupt on that

Friday or file for bankruptcy on that

Friday so imagine like two days from

from it all going away and I remember

writing uh like even writing a note to

all of our investors about what a

journey it had been and thank you like I

felt all the feelings of the company had

failed without the company having failed

and fortunately was able to get the deal

done on that day and uh

yeah I'm so glad I did I've been there

I've been there for multiple payrolls I

told this funny story about it being

Payday on that day in the bank not our

bank at the time not releasing the funds

we have 200 people

um and them saying they'll only release

the funds on that Friday when everyone's

expecting payment if I get a contract

signed by one of our clients

so I'm in London having drinks with this

client and we get to like you know a

certain point at lunch but I'm like you

wouldn't mind signing this contract send

it off but multiple times especially

running a B2B agency business that was

growing cash is always 60 days away

you've got to pay your bills today but

what's the personal toll on you in those

moments

that people don't see

well I look back on that whole period

with like immense gratitude because it

being able to overcome that and being

able to

essentially pull through in a

circumstance where I think almost uh any

other business would have failed

it just it reframed for me going

forwards what it means to be facing a

challenge

like that was a real existential

challenge like this whole thing's going

away we're all going home the technology

is worth nothing right that's a that's

like poof

and so now it's like

okay the sales were lower this month in

the last month or this great person on

our team got poached by that company or

this epic competitor came out with this

product like

there's there's some level of

perspective that comes with all of those

you know big challenges because I just

remember

being able to work through the what I

deemed to be one of the biggest

challenges did you get anxiety through

that period

totally but I I also like I was able to

build a whole lifestyle and process to

approach

um stress and I do think that success

may come for people when they overcome a

level of stress that would break most

people

and so

I'm a little critical of how

um pop culture likes to talk about

stress which is if you're stressed you

know take on way less of it right and

that that may be true in small doses but

what we really want to learn is how to

cope with stress and how to manage

through it and how to overcome it and I

think also if you're stressed about

something it's also a signal that it

matters to you and it's important right

so

uh look it was that period of time was

uh

enormously stressful painful

um I felt like I had to keep some of it

to myself versus burden like a larger

team with it you know so that there's

certain burdens I do think that

um CEOs or leaders or entrepreneurs

carry or you're almost

compartmentalizing something and you

know you're gonna have to

to feel it

I'm sure you know what that feels like

yeah of course I think you know I did

that for my entire career and then I

think the shift I've seen in in culture

with leaders was covid when a lot of

companies the facts were clear like we

have to close down if you're a High

Street brand for example we have to

close the doors so that's when I think a

lot of CEOs started being more honest

with the state of play with their team

members and would say things like listen

we're gonna have to let half the team go

and this is how much money we have in

the bank if we don't get here then we're

gonna have to close down I I saw a big

shift then and it inspired me a lot

about

being transparent with my teams but I

mean for the whole of my professional

career yeah I just come I just Brave

face it was like you would have no idea

if it was the best day or the worst day

because my face was the same so you got

good at holding it in 100 but my

business partner didn't and he became an

alcoholic so he as he's talked about

many times he turned to alcohol us we

lived in the same house together sure

and he would I there were times when I

went downstairs at 3am and went into the

laundry room and he was there drinking

yeah and you know so we were we were

both coping in different ways I was kind

of compartmentalizing and kind of just

I called it a video game mindset where

it's what you've talked about I was I

was holding the controller I think my

business partner was inside the game

yeah you know what I mean as in like

there was a a chord between me and what

was going on did you develop any like

lifestyle hacks

um

I've got to be honest no not at the time

and now I think I have more

but at the time no I was just

trying to get to the next day and I

think I have a natural sort of

predisposition to in the worst moments

ever just purely focusing on what I can

control

part of me which bother is a big deal

yeah yeah I I only know this in

hindsight because I wonder why in honor

if I told you about the worst day we

ever had in the business

years later my business partner says why

were you so calm on that day well well I

had very few choices

so not the worst day we ever had in the

company my choices were so small

and they were so obvious as they often

are it's like if the room's on fire like

the doors over there and the buttons

there I think about that all the time as

like are you controlling all the

controllables and

often if you are or even just you know

setting sitting down in your mind or

even putting on paper hey what are all

the things I control about the situation

what are things I don't

that can be a very calming exercise it's

very focusing yeah even talk about that

day we made the cash flow problem I knew

what my objective was get this guy to

sign this piece of paper yeah what's

there to worry about I have no time to

worry so

um so yeah that was a but you developed

lifestyle hacks to help you

we talked about meditation which was a

big one

um

exercise big one uh

I got into hot cold transitions

gratitude's a big one

so take me through your day then because

I think this will reveal a lot of your

habits

sure so

let's take a a given day in Boston yeah

the day actually starts for me a little

bit the night before because I'm getting

into a a framework for you know the next

day

um

a few days a week I work out with a

trainer early in the morning so I'll

actually pack everything up for that

well I've got my my workout clothes out

I'll have the what I'm gonna wear to

work the next day

um I'll I'll probably have written down

like two or three things that I'm gonna

focus on the next day

and

and then like sleep because you know

building whoop you think a lot about

sleep

I uh you know I sleep in a really cold

bedroom uh really dark bedroom why cold

and dark

it's just shown to give you higher

quality sleep

yeah and I try to go to bed at a

somewhat consistent time this is a

little trickier because my wife's kind

of a night owl and I like to go to bed a

little earlier but uh so I'll probably

go to bed between I don't know 11 30 and

midnight and then I'll wake up at around

6 30 and controversial question about

your wife then does your sleep

deteriorate with your wife in the bed it

doesn't because we have uh we've got

good intimacy like we've got good bad

cuddle habits you know it's like a

cuddling ton yeah yeah we we

we've done a good job co-existing in a

bedroom environment although that's an

interesting thing you can track on whoop

so if people really want to know whether

or not they sleep better or worse with a

partner you can literally record that in

the whoop journal in the app uh so in a

second I want to hear what's in your

movement

well you probably check while you're

chagging against uh so

cold room a consistent bedtime

um

yeah and then I wake up and I'm like out

the door really quick shower workout

clothes got my stuff I always give my

wife kisses before I leave that's like a

nice relationship hack uh while she's

while she's sleeping and then uh I work

out for an hour with my trainer I'll do

uh steam room after that freezing cold

shower I do a breakfast that's mostly

like egg whites it's mostly proteins

like egg whites like avocado bacon that

kind of stuff two points there so the

first was working out in the morning

yeah is there any like dates where

science around that being advantageous

so back to being able to control the

controllables I like to work out in the

morning in large part because it means I

can then stay at work later if I need to

okay what I hate is when I go to work

without having worked out in the morning

and I'm supposed to pill I like squash

that evening and then a couple things

come up around 6 p.m and all of a sudden

I realize I'm not gonna get out the door

and so then you know you know you don't

exercise so the nice thing about working

out first is like okay I've checked that

box and then the other thing was this

the cold water

cold water yeah talk to me about why you

do that and how that helps

so

there's something I think to be said for

doing things that naturally make you

happy

even if in the moment they're a little

painful and uh for me being in the cold

is one of those things like I feel a

huge jolt of adrenaline from it uh it

also forces me to breathe properly and I

think anything you can do that helps you

breathe properly or forces You to

Breathe properly is good for you uh and

then I feel kind of happy after doing it

like like this little injection of

happiness and so I end a hundred percent

of showers that I take cold and as cold

as possible the colder the better

and then the the steam room aspect or

the sauna aspect depending on where I am

is uh

I mean there's a fair amount of research

that shows if you do a steam room or a

sauna a few days a week it is likely to

increase longevity

I would say I like the cold more than

the hot but anyway

all right Sam the opposite

my my girlfriend is a breath

practitioner oh okay Coach so obviously

you understand what comes with that and

cold water is a big part of what she um

encourages on me so she jumps in these

ice baths and I'm like I'm trying not to

feel amazing I might put my toe in and

I'm like coming up with reasons but now

she's got me into it so so what kind of

breath work do you do

um I didn't even know the name of it

she's got her own method she teaches

classes she's doing classes in London at

the moment big groups one-on-one

sessions she's doing

um she does sessions with lots of people

that come on this podcast in fact oh

cool because they end up getting getting

to know her so but

yeah I don't know what type of breath

work it is but it's an hour in a room

like the

yeah the double inhale yeah Game Changer

just yeah I think they're cool I think

it's amazing yeah that's a huge industry

that's that's feels like a wave coming

into Shore because this word breath work

showed up like 18 24 months ago over

here and now it's everywhere with like

Wim Hof that's a good point I mean Wim

Hof yeah I think Wim Hoff pushed a lot

of it especially around the cold and

I look I think it's taking off for a

good reason in part because again back

to controlling things you can control

you can literally control your breath in

a second

and there's an interesting whoop hook to

all this because one of the core things

that

led me to starting the company was

discovering this statistic called heart

rate variability and heart rate

variability is essentially this lens

into your autonomic nervous system it's

the amount of time between successive

beats of the heart so it's a little

confusing but if your heart beats at 60

beats per minute it's not beating every

second like it might be 0.7 seconds and

then 1.3 seconds and then 0.6 seconds

and 1.4 seconds and it turns out that

variability of time between successive

beats is actually a good thing

because it's a sign that your body is

able to regulate in its environment

and your autonomic nervous system

literally consists of sympathetic and

parasympathetic activity now sympathetic

is activation

so that's heart rate up blood pressure

up respiration up

um often it's what's happening when

you're feeling a little bit of stress or

you're exercising right now parasympic

is all the opposite hurry down blood

pressure down respiration down

it's what helps you fall asleep

but where this all comes back to breath

work

is literally inhaling

that's sympathetic

that's parasympathetic

so just by controlling your breathing

you can decide whether you want to be

sympathetic dominant parasympic dominant

you can increase your heart rate

variability you can decrease it and

that's something that's in your control

and heart rate variability is one of the

core statistics that we look at as a

lens into how restored your body is

I noticed that because my friend Logan

said he went up for a night out he got

drunk it was a yeah yeah and then he

screenshotted his his whoop dashboard

the next day and was and put it into our

chat and went [ __ ] because everything

was red and and he was trying to explain

to me heart rate variability and why it

was important but I couldn't quite

understand

um and I remember trying to trying to

read about why it was important but I

knew you were coming here so I thought

I'd ask you myself because you I've

heard you talk about the importance of

heart rate variability I understand now

what it is but why is it such an

important indicator and what are the

things that we do that make it plummet

so the fascinating thing about hard

variability is it's been measured since

like roughly the the 80s and

the physiology research that I was

reading in college was showing that uh

Olympic power lifters were using heart

rate variability to determine how much

they should lift So based on whether

they had a low or high heart rate

variability in the morning and they'd

get hooked up to an electrocardiogram

like this is an intense thing and then

they would go decide how much they were

going to lift based on what their

reading was I think that's kind of

interesting turned out cyclists were

doing it in the 80s the CIA was using

heart rate variability for lie detection

tests

doctors cardiologists were using heart

rate variability to predict whether

former heart failure patients were going

to have a heart attack again

so I'm thinking about myself this is a

pretty powerful statistic that I've

never heard of that feels like everyone

should be measuring and uh and so that's

really

that was one of the core insights in

building whoop was that you need to be

able to measure heart rate variability

continuously and in particular it's

going to play a huge role in helping us

understand the status of your body's

Readiness and uh how well you're

sleeping so those are two ways that

whoop is primarily using heart rate

variability

uh you know things that decrease heart

rate variability uh dehydration bad diet

we just talked about alcohol

um heavy exercise uh you know heavy uh

psychological stress

often people are surprised how just

The Wrong conversation with their

partner the night before bed

can totally throw their sleep out of

whack or their heart rate variability

out of whack

so it's a very powerful statistic it's a

fascinating statistic and I'm mostly got

like a lot more people are measuring it

it seems to know us before we know

ourselves to know how to describe it one

of the things I would say in building

whoop is

uh

feelings are overrated there are things

happening in your body that you can't

feel and I think heart rate variability

is one of those one of those key

indicators where for most people it'd be

very hard to know what their heart rate

variability was saying in any given

moment

but uh it has turned out to be a good

embodiment of what whoop does which is

that feelings are overrated I say that

because I remember looking at my heart

rate variability and seeing it was

orange or red I can't remember and then

asking myself why and I go oh yeah I

know why because I was really I think I

was really stressed that day I hadn't

slept and then I hadn't slept because we

had a back to back to back schedule so I

was going to sleep at 4am and waking up

at 8am for like three days in a row and

my heart rate variability just seemed to

plummet and that was when I speak to my

sister and I go listen we need to no

meetings before 11 because I need to

sleep

um and it knew me before I and it's

funny because it yeah it it changed my

life by telling me something that maybe

I wasn't listening to

it changed my routine by telling me

something that was clear maybe from a

subjective objective standpoint but I

clearly was ignoring thinking that I was

invincible I think covid-19 was a big

wake-up call for people in that category

right of

um of feelings are overrated because

here you have a virus that you can get

that you don't feel

you're not even sick and yet you give it

to someone else and they get deathly ill

we had a fascinating relationship with

covid-19 in being able to measure it

because we detected a statistic called

respiratory rate being super elevated

but I can't tell you how many

screenshots and messages I've gotten

over the last two years if people seeing

this huge spike in their respiratory

rate you know two three days before

ultimately testing positive for covid

and

it reaffirmed in a lot of ways the

founding story of the company although

in a different direction it wasn't about

not knowing that you should train today

or rest today it was about not knowing

that you were sick it speaks to the

potential of Health monitoring and why

it's so exciting

another conversation I've been having

recently with a friend is about

blocking out certain types of light I

heard you do that yeah so uh blue light

essentially what emits from a cell phone

a television set an iPad I mean blue

lights frankly all around us and blue

light essentially tells your brain to

stay awake

and so

one way to offset that is to not be on

devices into the evening but you know

I'm still I think largely optimizing my

life around being a great entrepreneur

or or uh CEO so for me that doesn't

quite feel like an option yet or I

haven't quite built that level of

maturity

but what I do do is I I wear these blue

light blocking glasses which have a red

tint to them and uh it's like a get out

of jail free card for using devices into

the evening and uh and then they start

to make you sleepy

it's probably the single biggest thing

that's boosted my REM and slow wave

sleep on woop is is wearing blue light

blocking glasses

it's worth emphasizing for a second like

for your audience why that matters so if

you spend

like seven hours in bed

you're not actually getting seven hours

of sleep right and if you think about

the seven hours you spent in bed it's

divided up of time in which you're awake

you're in light sleep you're in slow

wave sleep or you're in REM sleep

and awake and light sleep as stages go

really are kind of irrelevant like they

don't do much for your body

physiologically they're not restorative

but REM and slow wave sleep that's like

where all the magic happens so REM sleep

is when your mind is repairing

cognitively it's when you'll have uh

deep dreams so people who say they don't

remember their dreams or they don't

dream they probably aren't getting

enough REM sleep so for human beings REM

sleep is like critical right because

that's cognitive repair slow wave sleep

that's when your body produces about

like 95 of its human growth hormone is

that deep sleep on woop yeah yeah and so

you know people think they're getting

stronger going to the gym right really

you're just breaking down your muscles

when you go to the gym you actually get

stronger when you go to bed during slow

wave sleep because you're producing all

your human growth hormone

so just to zoom out if you're someone

who's spending seven hours in bed

it might be that you get a total of 30

minutes of REM and slow wave sleep of

those seven hours

it could also be that you get like five

and a half hours

out of those seven hours and often when

you talk to people about sleep they're

like I just don't have time blah blah

blah we're not even talking about more

time we're just saying how do you take

the seven hours that you're in bed and

make them way better

and uh and so for me blue light blocking

classes was one of those things there's

a couple others but yeah this was the

thing that made me fall in love with my

whoop I remember getting eight hours

sleep waking up and feeling great

looking at my whoop and it said you'd

had three hours REM sleep and be going

yeah smashed it that's nice yeah and

then a couple of days later or the next

day getting eight hours sleep waking up

and feeling like [ __ ] looking at my

whooping it said oh you've got 30

minutes or something and me going ah

there is it because you think oh I spent

eight hours in bed so I must have had

yeah as you say like eight hours sleep

but it's j when you once you see that

you can't unsee it it's like this whole

29 years of my life I've been like I've

misunderstood something so foundational

about my entire life and the fun thing

is you can optimize it like once you

measure it you can manage it yeah I kept

my girlfriend at the bed I said goodbye

well you don't have to go yeah you don't

have to be that extreme but it's uh yeah

I do think it's empowering and like

sweeps about a third of your life

be good to take care of that third too

but just the the difference I see on a

on a day where I've just had bad REM

sleep or bad deep sleep versus the days

when I've had good like my performance

my mood everything is so different it's

a completely different human being

also there's a fascinating phenomenon

too as it relates to stress

so research shows that the more REM

sleep you get the less heightened your

amygdala response is Right amygdala is

like fight or flight right and so if you

get a ton of REM sleep it essentially

softens your amygdala um it it makes it

less active

uh funny enough I did a a podcast with

Alex Honnold do you know who that is so

Alex honnold's the famous uh rock

climber who did free solo Oh you know

that documentary yeah yeah so he scales

this crazy uh you know slab of of

mountain without a without a rope and he

also happened to wear a whoop and so I

was talking to him about

uh risk and fear and all these sort of

different concepts stress but uh it

turns out that he gets like four and a

half to five hours of REM sleep a night

on woop

and I was thinking like how perfect is

it that a guy who literally can rock

climb and risk dying every single day

has this like unbelievable uh outlier

also ability to get REM sleep of course

and could those two things be related

the other time that I wasn't familiar

with until I got away was this idea of

strain I I'm gonna be honest I we talked

a little bit before we started recording

about my little fitness group yeah the

way the fitness group is designed is

that it's but you get it's like a league

table it's rewarded on consistency we

call it the fitness blockchain so

there's 10 of us in it if you lose you

get kicked out of the group and someone

who gets put in every month

it's quite vicious you get put into

another group you have to wait for three

months before you get one chance of

getting back in if you don't you go into

what we call chump hell story it's like

a hardcore like fantasy football yeah

it's crazy um we track it we track a lot

of things you have to submit your

workouts every day as well and then

someone verifies Etc

um strain currently in that group you're

rewarded for working out every day

is that a good thing

well

the way that we think about strain is to

balance it alongside recovery

so

the average amateur

uh exerciser let's call it the weekend

warrior

uh probably has workouts that look too

consistent in terms of intensity or too

consistent in terms of strain so whoop

has a scale from 0 to 21 on whoop that

might look like a 12. or like a 13. like

so every time they work out it's a 13.

and the reality is when your body's run

down

maybe you don't want to do anything or

maybe you should go for a walk like just

let your body recover give yourself the

permission to catch a breather

but if your body's peaking

like go crush it right take on a 16 or a

17 or an 18.

and I should also say that you know

strain is essentially looking at

the amount of time that your body is in

an elevated heart rate zone

so we're talking about a primarily

cardiovascular measurement of stress

that you're putting on your body for any

period of time

but back to your question like you

probably don't want to do

a high strain every single day unless

your body's freakishly recovering and

there are people who do that but they're

mostly like professional triathletes or

whatever

and you also want to try to vary the in

the The Strain level

so if you're at a 50 recovery maybe

you're doing a 10 if you're at a 75

recovery you're doing a 16 or 17 or an

18. and a lot of this goes back to

in building the product we wanted to

make it actionable

a lot of wearables maybe V1 wearables

sort of told you what happened

we were very focused on telling you what

to do next and how you can

uh get better on that point of recovery

then how if I if I'm training a lot

um how can I improve my recovery outside

of sleep

a lot of it would be diet and hydration

uh potentially supplements if you're

taking them making sure you're taking

the right ones

um because if you're taking the wrong

supplements that's actually a lot worse

for you than taking none uh

you know

I think some type of mindfulness or

meditation or breath work speeds up

recovery that's that's my own bias uh we

certainly see uh sleep consistency so

that's less about what you're doing

during sleep but actually more just

routine so going to bed and waking up at

similar times

even exercising at a similar time may

help you recover faster because your

body's getting used to it

of all the of all the metrics that

attract on the whoop is heart rate

variability the one you love

the most well on a personal level it was

the thing that jumped off the page to me

you know

10 years before it became even

remotely mainstream so I feel some

relationship with it in the sense that

like I saw there was a lot of potential

for this thing

on a on a whoop level

the product does now measure a lot of

different things very well so I don't

want to say that any one statistic is

the Silver Bullet I think a lot of it is

collecting all of this information in a

form fact in a format by the way that

you're willing to wear 24 7 which has

its own challenges we can talk about uh

and then creating scores or creating

messaging to an end user that that gets

them to change Behavior gets them to

improve health that to me is the if you

think about the Pyramid of you know sort

of challenging things the tip of the

pyramid is a product that is changing

your behavior and improving your health

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company

um the business you've built

I heard that your employees that would

get a bonus if their sleep is considered

to be good on their whoop how much truth

is there to that it's a fun uh it's a

fun employee perk that we came up with

so

everyone on woop is on a team together

and you can opt into What's called the

Sleep bonus and if you get 85 percent uh

sleep performance on average throughout

the month uh you get a hundred dollar

bonus like on your pay stock and so it's

it's mostly uh it's mostly a fun thing

but it does speak to our culture which

is

using the data we have in front of us uh

promoting uh sleep and good habits

actually during covid we also came up

with the red recovery policy which was

because we had a lot of people actually

coming into the office during even

during the peaks of covid because we

built Hardware accessories supply chain

things that you kind of have to do in

person very physical things and so the

red recovery policy was that if you had

a red recovery

you actually uh needed to stay home

because either you are getting sick or

you are at risk of getting sick because

your body was run down so again fun fun

ways to use the data in an actionable

way and and you know build it into the

culture

when you talk about why your company has

done so well and it has one you talk

about there being a more Scrappy kind of

nature to the team

which sounds more like innovation

how does one go about as your company

grows keeping that Innovation that's so

Central to you winning because with

growth often cut becomes like I don't

know things move slower you know

bureaucracy before being for Jenny's

come back from annual leave

what are you doing from a culture

standpoint

I think one of the reasons whoop has

been successful is we had a pretty clear

perspective on what we were building and

why

and the consequence of that is also what

you're not building

right like whoop is graded all the

things that it does for all the things

that it doesn't do

we are

not a smart watch

we don't allow you to download a bunch

of apps we don't receive phone calls

you can't flag an Uber with your whoop

right but when it comes to health

monitoring we're the best game in town

and that

really came from an insane level of

focus in the beginning on what we were

trying to solve

and it carried us through to today

there were a lot of counter-intuitive

decisions along that like along that

Journey

um one obvious one is that whoop is not

a watch

uh and I can't tell you how many people

have asked for whoop to be a watch and

the reason it's not a watch is is

there's a few different reasons but just

by putting the time on it all of a

sudden you've created this enormous

competitive landscape

and competing with watches is hard like

there's a lot of beautiful watches

there's also a lot of watches that serve

different functions

watch also says a lot about your

identity

the other thing about a watch and you'll

notice this from every technology

company is the second there's a screen

there's this enormous scope creep that

occurs for what the product's actually

meant to do

and very quickly you're in a product

meeting where you're talking about email

notifications and different screen

colors and various ways to tell the time

and whether or not you're going to be

able to give it voice memos and and all

of a sudden you're talking nothing about

health monitoring

and so if I look back and

um you know over the last 10 years

we made these decisions so like we made

a decision to not be a watch uh and not

have a screen on it

we made a decision on the flip side

though to invent a modular charger

where you could charge your move without

ever taking it off

and that was super expensive and took

you made the product take way longer and

cost a bunch of hundred dollars but

again it was back to that identity of

Health monitoring needs to be 24 7 to be

the most effective and if you take it

off all of a sudden it's not 24 7 you

might not put it back on

so that was something we did that other

people didn't do right

um everyone was measuring steps

we didn't think steps was

physiologically relevant

so we we tried to stay true to our

identity and I think that helped us

navigate a competitive landscape where a

lot of people were copying each other or

where companies may have had even too

much resources and those resources got

them down you know into this very

expansive place without being great at

anything

focus and first principles is what I

heard throughout that that what you said

there the first principles point about

24 7 monitoring yeah that's like a

totally first principles thought because

you said well health is a 24 7 thing so

we have to create a solution we don't

take the watch off convention says no

just get charged and you take it off at

night you put it by your bed and you

signal so

that approach and that conviction

towards like thinking for yourself about

this problem

is much easier said than done for

companies like t i I feel like peop one

of the you know in all facets of our

life whether it's our relationships or

intimacy or friendships or building

companies or how we construct teams

thinking for yourself is what I heard

there

um you say it so easily but it's wise

it's impossible for people to do

especially when they're thinking about

innovation

because you know you had all those

moments where why doesn't this have a

screen on it so also why I love it it's

probably also why the battery lasts

longer it's also why I'm so committed to

it as you've identified but those are

all like

first principles that came from whoop I

think what

what's different about your product is

also what makes it special and I think

that true Innovation often comes from a

level of focus or discipline that's

really uncomfortable

like having said everything I just said

I still think about whoop as a watch on

a near daily basis because

it's it's something that pulls at me you

know because

I can see a world in which it is a watch

but it's not a watch and I'm not

building it as a watch you know what I

mean so there is this uh

you know sort of painful level of

discipline that has to occur I think to

be able to continue marching forwards

and we actually went a different

direction where

uh We've looked at invisible as a more

compelling landscape so obviously you

can wear it on your wrist but you can

actually you know take it apart and

depending on what garments you're

wearing right so you take this clasp off

you can now put this sensor into

different places on your body so really

so yeah so we've come out with shorts uh

boxers bras underwear uh uh shirts that

have it in your arm sleeve and so you

can just tuck this into a little pocket

that allows you to wear it in different

areas of the body

I didn't know that so I could put up my

boxer shorts lining yeah oh nice dope

yeah now also kind of crazy to start a

wearables company and realize you're

designing boxers but that goes back to

your first principal's point I suppose

right yeah exactly why would you design

boxers well because you need to create a

way for them to wear it 24 7.

something else you said which I've never

had anybody say before but it's so

unbelievably true is when people have

bigger budgets when six like with

success comes greater temptation to be

and do everything and become everyone

and that's often when companies lose

their way

is because of their success everyone

goes well why don't we do we've got

these customers now so why don't we do

this and that and this and why don't we

do it five of them

have you felt that temptation

yeah absolutely I mean uh I think it's

that's probably the biggest way that

success

uh is a bad teacher is the degree to

which it makes you think you can go into

a bunch of things and abandon the level

of intensity or Focus

that you took in building the original

thing to be successful

so

but you know that doesn't stop me from

dreaming of ways that the company can go

in totally different directions

you just you have to check yourself like

you really do have to check yourself and

make sure

uh

you've got the right level of focus if

you're going to go into it that's been

one of my biggest mistakes is we become

successful I then come up without new

ideas I then think more about the reward

of the new ideas versus the actual cost

the cost of like mental time for the

whole team the cost of like everyone

waking up and being in the shine

thinking about a different problem

and then we had a recent incidents where

we spent I'm going to say nine months

planning something big big new thing in

one of my companies

offered someone a job to be the CEO of

this this new company and then I don't

know what it was something in my gut

says you're doing it again Steve you're

losing focus

cancel it all and it's funny because my