All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
00:36:31 · Will Ahmed
[00:36:31] S0: Well, just to say, like, it's been a... Certainly a long process for Whoop and working with the FDA, and we've worked with them in a lot of different contexts, which I'll talk about here in a second. And, you know, the history of very innovative technology with, you know, somewhat dated regulatory policies is a history that has controversy from time to time. So I'm not surprised that we've had some challenges or disagreements along the way. But I'm actually really happy with with our relationship with the FDA today. Now four years ago, I really wanted to be able to do blood pressure monitoring. And historically, you needed a cuff for that, and it was really a pretty difficult signal processing problem. There was no product on the market that could measure blood pressure accurately from the wrist. And so we set out to see if we could do it. And one of the ways that we collected a huge dataset on it was in collaboration with our members where we asked members if they wanted to participate in a stress, sleep, and blood pressure study. And as part of that, we actually had 70,000 people enroll. So think about, you know, the ability to generate studies at at huge scale fast. And and so people were actually uploading their blood pressure readings every single day for a number of weeks. And what that allowed us to do was to build out a pretty powerful dataset on on blood pressure monitoring and also to be able to train that alongside all of the physiological data that we were already collecting. Anyway, fast forward, we get to a period where all of a sudden we've got a very powerful algorithm for measuring blood pressure and that's one of the things that we do I think, very well at Whoop is, you know, we pick a hard physiological signal and then we say we wanna be able to measure it as accurately or within a similar accuracy as a medical device. And then we look to bring that to consumers. And there was controversy around blood pressure monitoring before we launched because prior to launching it, historically, blood pressure had been under the category of physiological signals that needed to be a quote unquote medical device. And just as some, you know, background for for our listeners, the FDA is really supposed to evaluate products that have a medical diagnosis.
00:38:56 · Will Ahmed
And and then if you're not providing a medical diagnosis, then it falls under a category called wellness. And and there's, like, a pretty good, you know, history for this with with heart rate monitoring, for example, where if you do heart rate monitoring for exercise, that's wellness. If you do heart rate monitoring for sleep, that's wellness. If you do heart rate monitoring for, you know, A fib detection or heart attack prediction, okay, that needs to be regulated. So the FDA in the past had a pretty clear distinction for heart rate. This is wellness. This is medical. Right? With blood pressure, they said that if you're measuring blood pressure, it has to be medical. But the problem with that is there's an avalanche of research that supports that, not surprisingly, blood pressure affects your stress. It affects your sleep. It affects your overall well-being. And we felt like there was a pretty clear lane for us to introduce a blood pressure feature that was a wellness feature. And so we launched the feature. The FDA, you know, came back and said that they felt like it needed to be regulated. They actually sent us a warning letter. There was a big disagreement that played out that was quite public about it. But we, you know, we stuck to our guns, and and I ultimately really believe in in the way that we approached it. And through a long process, the FDA actually has since updated their guidelines, I think based on our case, but also based on feedback from the industry that supports that blood pressure can also have wellness applications. And and so, you know, our blood pressure insights feature is still available for consumers. And just to say it, we have we have these conversations with the FDA across a lot of different categories. Whoop also has medical clearances from the FDA. So our ECG feature where you can literally do an ECG from your wrist by just putting your fingers on the Whoop, that's an FDA cleared product, five ten k. And so in some cases, we're we're going through a process of clinical trials to get FDA approval. In other cases, we wanna bring a product to market faster, and we also believe it's a wellness application. And so that's kind of a healthy, I think, process for innovative companies like Whoop to be pursuing with the FDA.
00:41:20 · Jason Calacanis
[00:41:20] S1: Why don't you guys... I know you guys have some sort of integration with this Omron blood pressure cuff. I I saw it, like, I was, like, looking it up. Why don't you guys just make your own blood pressure cuff? Or what... Listen. We're at a $10,000,000,000 valuation here. We got 4,000,000 members, 250 on average a year, let's say. Got a billion in revenue. Like, let's just buy this company, Omron, or let's get in the blood pressure cuff business, and let's get in the scale business while we're out of it. Like, I trust the brand. I just want the Whoop scale. I want you to be the person who puts the features in. I want you to control it. I want it to work. I don't wanna have to go through Apple Health in the back door to get my Fitbit scale uploaded, and I I just want... I want a Whoop branded blood pressure cuff and a Whoop branded scale.
00:42:06 · Will Ahmed, Jason Calacanis
[00:42:06] S0: Well, appreciate you saying that. Mean, a lot of categories we are debating, do we wanna build this ourselves? Do we wanna partner with someone? Or are we gonna make an acquisition? And and often we've defaulted to either building or acquiring versus partnering. In the case of blood pressure cuffs, we felt like that was a fairly commoditized technology, and there is, you know, medical efficacy there. So, you know, if people wanna do a calibration with a cuff to set up their Whoop, which will then measure it without the cuff, because at the end of the day, we kinda wanna replace the cuff, that, you know, that feels like a a fairly healthy system. And and it's also worth saying that we we feel like we've earned the right to accumulate all this data because we have very strong data policies. So we do not sell data. You know? You are not the product, Jason. Like, you're... The membership is the product. [00:42:59] S1: And Got it. [00:43:00] S0: And that's a huge, I think, distinction in this space, especially when you have, you know, big technology company. [00:43:06] S1: Apple... Yeah. Let's just call it what it is. You may not wanna say it, but I can. They're they're... They make their money advertising, and Apple Apple is pretty good steward of data. I'll give them that. But, you know, they make it on really expensive hardware, so you are unique in both cases in terms of business model. You're in our corner, which I love. Yeah. Because Apple's gonna make a competitor. They know their watch kinda sucks, and their software sucks. Like, Apple Health is terrible.
00:43:06 · Jason Calacanis, Will Ahmed
[00:43:06] S1: Apple... Yeah. Let's just call it what it is. You may not wanna say it, but I can. They're they're... They make their money advertising, and Apple Apple is pretty good steward of data. I'll give them that. But, you know, they make it on really expensive hardware, so you are unique in both cases in terms of business model. You're in our corner, which I love. Yeah. Because Apple's gonna make a competitor. They know their watch kinda sucks, and their software sucks. Like, Apple Health is terrible. [00:43:32] S0: The Apple Watch is the most successful smartwatch in the world. And so I think in terms of the category that they built to own, I think they I think they've been successful. I think it's an important product for them. It's a it's a product that does a lot of things. And so if you want text messages and emails and to be able [00:43:52] S1: to talk make... About what... You worry to keep you up at night that they're gonna make a Whoop competitor? [00:43:57] S0: Well, I have enormous respect for Apple. I think they're one of the the best in the world at hardware and software. I think a lot of companies have entered our space and had challenges with with the screenless wearable or other wearable products. You know, it's interesting. Ten years ago, there were more competitive products in the market than there are today. [00:44:15] S1: That's true, actually. Yeah. You had a lot of people trying this. [00:44:18] S0: People forget the whole Jawbone kind of Fitbit era. There was a whole [00:44:23] S1: Oh my god.
00:44:23 · Jason Calacanis, Will Ahmed
[00:44:23] S1: Oh my god. [00:44:23] S0: Class of Nike and Adidas and Under Armour. [00:44:26] S1: What... I mean, how dumb was it for Nike to stop pursuing that? My god. That was such an obvious smart thing for them to do. Had a good start, and then they gave the business to Fitbit, I believe. And then they just got out of it. Alright. Listen. It's time for lightning round. [00:44:39] S0: Oh. It's lightning round. [00:44:41] S1: Lightning round with Will. Yeah. You gotta be honest here. Here we go. Brian Johnson or Andrew Huberman? Pick one. [00:44:47] S0: For podcasting, Huberman. [00:44:49] S1: Who's making a bigger contribution to the the science and technology? [00:44:53] S0: I think Huberman has a a wider audience. I think Brian has pushed people's imagination of what they should be measuring. And I think both of those are really helpful. [00:45:04] S1: Cold plunge, cold shower. Cold plunge, cold shower. Make a difference? [00:45:08] S0: I'll say cold shower because it's very accessible. Okay. And it's something that people can do every day. And you do it for even thirty seconds, sixty seconds, you're just gonna feel a lot better. [00:45:18] S1: Yeah. Wakes you up. Red light therapy or just the classic hot sauna? [00:45:22] S0: I like the hot sauna. Old school.