I went to my boss at that moment at J.P. Morgan.
# Transcript

Eduardo della Maggiora joins Demian Bellumio for Episode 006 of Augmented
Wellness. This transcript follows the approved final edit. Consult the published
audio and video for delivery and exact timing.

I told him, Poncho, I'm quitting.
And he's like, where are you going?
Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley.
I told him, no, I'm moving to Africa.
Now, how could we bottle this up, right,
and allow anyone anywhere to help others by helping themselves, right?
And that's where the concept of BetterFly started.
We raised $200 million from top VCs, right?
We became a unicorn, but a social unicorn, which is what I love the most, right?
So I went from being, you know, at 34, 35, an overworked, overweight banker
to becoming a world champion, you know, Ironman runner-up two years in a row.
Building a company is not a sprint, right?
It's not even a marathon.
It's an Ironman, right?
I've built all of these kinds of agents.
Maybe what's relevant today, you know, I built this obsidian brain.
I built a bunch of agents, but one is called Arnold, you know,
after Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Welcome to Augmented Wellness, where we meet the people in pursuit of better.
Today we speak with Eduardo della Maggiora, founder and CEO of Betterfly, investor and Ironman.
Welcome to another episode of Augmented Wellness.
I'm here with Eduardo de la Maggiore, fellow LATAM entrepreneur, very excited to have you
here.
As I do usually, full disclosure, you are an investor and an advisor to Betterness.
So obviously, you know, we'll do some plug-in of the company along the way, but very excited
to have you.
Thank you.
Very happy to be here.
Very happy to be an investor and advisor to Betterness and yeah, and excited to get the
conversation going.
Yeah.
I know you're a hard one to nail down.
You're traveling a lot.
I know you recently came from Mexico.
We'll talk about that.
But I'd like to start.
Let's go to the beginning.
Yeah.
Let's talk a little bit about, you know, your beginning in Chile.
You know, tell me a little bit about sort of those formative years, which obviously, usually
for entrepreneurs, you know, set the tone for the rest of your life.
And then we'll move from there and some other interesting things that I know about you.
Yeah.
Great.
So yeah, so I'm Chilean, born and raised in Chile, grew up, you know, in a family there,
spent some time, you know, when I was young in New York.
And for, for like four or five years, when I, when I moved back to Chile, um, yeah, no
worries, no worries.
Yeah.
I'll, I'll let me open this.
No, no, no, no.
Yeah.
Wow.
So yeah, Chilean, born and raised in Chile, grew my, my life in Chile.
From 5 to 10, I lived in New York.
Right when I moved back from New York to Chile, I discovered tennis, which became, I would
say, my first passion in life.
Started to play tennis around 10, 11 years old.
And when I was 16, 16 years old, 15, 16, I started toying with the idea of becoming
a professional tennis player.
I always say that I was not the best, but I really loved tennis, and I wanted to, you
know, do this for the rest of my life, right?
And at that point in time, you know, my life, you know, suffered a quick, a drastic change.
My father had an accident.
I was in the back of the car.
He had a heart attack, and my life changed completely, right?
He did not die at that moment, but he died two, three years later of his disease.
And that changed everything I could do, right?
My family did not have, you know, life insurance, so we went technically into bankruptcy.
That meant that tennis was not part of the equation.
So I changed, you know, the tennis rackets for studies.
Then I entered engineering.
I spent almost 15 years in M&A at J.P. Morgan, first in Chile, then in New York.
And then, to make a very long story short, when I was 34, 35, I was living in New York,
working in banking, you know, living a dream life, if you will, you know, single in New
York.
And then life, you know, threw me another curveball.
I went to Chile for a business trip, and my mom, you know, we were having lunch.
I was there just for the weekend.
She had this small rash in her chest, and it was basically leukemia, right, a very aggressive
form of leukemia.
And once again, I was faced with the fragility of life, right, and how life can change in
an impact.
And that life event made me rethink what I was doing.
You know, I said, well, life is fragile, right?
You know, everything can change, you know, like this in an instant.
And I started asking myself, you know, the meaning of life, a very profound question.
Like, if today, you know, I got hit by a bus, how would I measure my life?
Would I measure it by my professional success?
Would I measure it by the amount of money I had?
And I started a personal reflection process around the meaning of life.
At that moment, TED Talks were really popular, so I started watching a bunch of TED Talks on
the topic.
I started watching, reading a lot of books, and I came to a conclusion that, you know,
a good way to measure my life would be to see how I was using my time, my skills, you
know, God's gifts, you know, to make an impact in other people's lives.
So year 2014, I started asking myself, what are you doing today in Manhattan to make an
impact in other people's lives?
I could not answer that question.
Went to my boss at that moment at J.P.
Morgan.
I told him, Poncho, I'm quitting.
And he's like, where are you going?
Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley.
I told him, no, I'm moving to Africa.
What?
Africa?
What are you going to do in Africa?
And, you know, I told him, look, I want to spend six months just focusing on making
an impact in others, and then I'll come back.
And that was the plan.
My plan was not to go forever to Africa.
I just wanted to spend six months there.
And crazy enough, like everything in life, you know, I would say that trip to Africa planted
the seeds of what would later become Better Fly.
And what happened in that journey is that while I was in Africa, I got to work with children
with non-nutrition.
And at the same time, I was one night under my mosquito net, right, in Tanzania, and I
came across with this video of the Ironman triathlon, right, the long-distance triathlon.
I was, at that moment, tennis was not part of my life.
I was an overworked, overweight banker, and I saw that video, and I said, what happened
to your passion for sports, right, that you had 20 years ago, you know, and that you left
in pause?
And I saw that video.
It was very inspiring.
I had never, you know, swam or ran or biked those distances, right?
But something in my gut, you know, said, you know what, let's pick up, you know, sports,
and I signed up for a local sprint race in Chile.
So I moved back to...
So let's pause there.
Yeah.
So we rewind a little bit.
Yeah.
So we, you know, we do a little bit of a double click on sort of the first part, because,
you know, the second part is obviously the one that I want to spend some time on.
So obviously, you've been competitive forever.
I mean, competitive tennis, right, and these life events, obviously, you know, I mean, and
obviously, I'm sorry, very unfortunate that, you know, both your parents, you had to live
through that.
And then obviously, you, you know, we talked about this.
We shared, you know, the investment banking part.
For me, it was very, very informative in who I was, especially we probably were in the
same time, right, bankers, you know, where, I don't know how it is today, but, you know.
It was crazy.
It was a lot of work.
It was a lot of work, and it's like, you know, 24 hours.
And so, you know, talk to me about, you know, those years, right?
Because for me, we're, again, we're very formative.
It was at that point, you know, today, everybody wants to be in tech and AI.
Back then, everybody wanted to be, you know, investment banker.
It was one of the sort of most challenging things.
So how were those years?
How did you get into it?
Because you started engineering, and then you went into...
Yeah, so I was in engineering, and Latin America, and Chile, maybe in Argentina also,
right?
It's a strange thing where if you're good with numbers, right, you're very equipped
to go into finance, right?
So I, you know, I really have a philosophy of life of approaching everything I do with
a lot of obsession, right?
And to be obsessed about something, you really have to be passionate about it.
So after tennis, I chose engineering because I was, you know, very passionate about numbers.
I love math, physics, right, and everything around that.
And I chose engineering not knowing what I would do later on.
You know, in Chile, at that moment, engineering is six years.
It's not four years undergrad.
You have four years of, you know, hardcore math, and then you specialize in certain verticals.
I specialized in computer science.
And when I graduated, right, J.P. Morgan, I was between banking and consulting, right?
I always say, you know, I had two interviews, McKenzie and J.P. Morgan.
I chose J.P. Morgan, believe it or not, because I, you know, it was tougher, right?
I said, you know what?
I don't know how long I'm going to do this.
Probably a couple of years, but I'm going to learn probably in two years what I would
learn, you know, six or eight years.
And then I'll be equipped to do whatever I want to do next, right?
So banking for me, as crazy as it sounds, was something that I really enjoyed, right?
I approached it from a, you know, like servicio militar, right?
Like, you know, I knew I was going to spend a significant time doing work that would probably,
you know, not allow me to do other things.
But at that moment, I was not married.
You know, I was single.
And I was all in, right?
So I literally worked from, you know, Monday to Sunday for almost 10 years.
Those two, three years became five years, then six years, then 10 years.
And I always share that, you know, if it wasn't for that, you know, that time period in banking,
I probably, you know, every entrepreneur has their own path.
Some start entrepreneurship when they're 20, others 30, others 50.
For me, it's difficult to imagine a world where not having that, you know, those 15 years
in banking would have worked with what I did next.
And it was very formative because it allowed me to understand various industries, right?
And the value levers or the business models around those industries, right?
One day I was working in a tech company, you know, then I was working in a money transaction
on a, you know, retail company.
So it allowed me to understand very deeply the business levers of how businesses are built,
right?
So, and in the last five years in banking, I specialized when I was a vice president at
J.P. Morgan in the life and health insurance industry, which, as we'll discuss later, you
know, has a lot to do with what we're building at Betterfly.
So those years were like a training ground, I would say.
And I always say I worked 15 years, which were in dog years, it's probably like 30 or 40 years
on a regular job, and it gave me the baseline to do, you know, a lot of things because of
that training, right, that I did at J.P. Morgan, right?
And the work ethic, right, the, you know, I'm a super fan of J.P.
Morgan, right, and the concept of investment banking approach from the right lens because
it gives you a work ethic for whatever you do, right?
Like first, first-class business in a first-class way, which is J.P.
Morgan's, you know, motto, you know, the standard was really high.
My colleagues were the best, you know, in the world, not only from Chile, Latin America,
you know, HBS, Stanford, MIT, and you had the best people in the world, right, working
side to side with you, and that was energetic.
And I remember those times also, there was a little bit of this mystique around it too.
I mean, I remember, you know, there was Liar Spoker.
Yeah, all those books, all that.
Yeah, all the books, the Goldman Sachs one.
All that, and I went through the crisis, right, because, you know, you and me were probably
at the same time where, you know, 2008, 2009, right, the crisis came, and everything changed
after that, but it was really an extraordinary period for me.
I mean, if I would go back, I would not change a bit of that.
And if it weren't for, you know, my mom's, you know, disease, I would probably have stayed
in banking for a, you know, longer period of time because I was really enjoying what
I was doing, right?
And I think I did very well in banking, and I think I did very well not because I was the
smartest, you know.
I was really passionate about doing what I was doing until I wasn't, right?
And that's when I decided to make a pivot.
So that's a good segue, you know, the butterfly story, which obviously I stopped you a little
bit because I want to make sure that we set that foundation because what you learn, as
you said, what you learn in, you know, in J.P.
Morgan, especially in the insurance space, right, and then you have this now newfound mission
turning to something that is actually pretty unique.
I mean, even, you know, we met a couple months ago, and I had heard of butterfly, but I had
no idea that you did what you did.
So let's go into it.
Yeah, sure.
So I would say, well, I was sharing this story.
So I, you know, moved back to Chile, right, 2015, 2016, and I started training for triathlons,
right?
Again, not Ironmans, but short-distance triathlons.
And one day, I was biking, you know, in Farallones, which are the mountains in Chile.
I had lost, like, I don't know, 10 pounds, right, of weight, and this crazy thought crossed
my mind.
And I said, what if the pounds I'm losing, I could convert them into pounds of food for
these kids I met in Africa, right?
What if, you know, the calories I'm burning, I could convert them into calories of food?
And what if I could use, you know, this human desire that all of us have, you know, of helping
others, of giving back, as a motivator, right, to get you active and healthy, right?
Maybe a parenthesis here.
When I got back from Africa to Chile, I remember, you know, everyone would tell me, oh, it's
incredible, the volunteer work, that.
But I felt like that was a little bit unjust, because I really felt that I was very lucky
to have spent, you know, six months, just from the moment I woke up until I went to bed
at night, in helping others.
And that, you know, fulfilled me in a way I, you know, I could not imagine, right?
I had read about it, right?
But I said, you know, how could we bottle this up, right, and allow anyone, anywhere to
help others by helping themselves, right?
And that's where the concept of Betterfly started.
Actually, before Betterfly, the company was called Burn to Give, Burn Calories to Give
Calories.
And the first thing I wanted to prove, right, is this what I share, that, you know, as human
beings were designed to help others, were designed to live in community, were designed,
you know, to help others.
And I created a very simple app that basically integrated with Strava, with Garmin, you know,
with your Apple Watch.
And every calorie you burn, we would basically convert into calories of food.
It was a completely different business model, it was B2C, it was a more advertising, you
know, we had brands like Coca-Cola, like Walmart, that would pay for those calories.
And a little bit after, you know, I would say six to eight months after, you know, founding
the company, I raised a small seed round, you know, we pivoted the business model, and
this is where insurance came in, right?
So one of the things I learned at J.P.
Morgan, right, after building countless financial models about insurance companies, particularly
life insurance, is that life insurance is an industry, not only is it massive, right,
it's a $4 trillion industry, you know, globally in the U.S. it's probably $2.5 trillion, right?
But it has every incentive for the policyholder to be healthy, right?
If you're a life insurer, right, and you, or if you're a policyholder and you have a
$1 million policy, and you die, the life insurer has to pay you a million dollars.
Now, the life insurer knows that, you know, 80, 85 percent of the reasons you will die or
not die in the next 20 years, let's use a term life of 20 years, has to do with not
your genetics, not where you were born, but the lifestyle habits you do, or you have,
or you don't have, and you do every day.
So sleep, nutrition, exercise.
So the vision was, what if we could use the financial P&L or the financial power of the
life insurance industry to drive healthy behavior in society, right?
And instead of that life insurer spending $1 million to pay a claim, let's grab 50K or
100K and use it to, you know, drive healthy behavior to that policyholder, right?
Give them access to preventive care.
Give them incentives to walk.
Give them incentives to eat healthier, right?
Give them tools to do that.
And that's how the concept of BetterFly started, of, you know, creating technology, right, that
allowed to protect and improve people's lives at the end of the day, right?
And connecting, in a way, protection with prevention in a way that hadn't been done
before, right?
So that's where 2019, 2020, we pivoted to a B2B model.
So I want to, you know, have a question there.
What was that moment?
What was that, I mean, because, you know, obviously we all have the stories and all of a
sudden you went from here to here, but was it one conversation, was it one moment that,
you know, all of a sudden this materialized?
It was, I would say from the day one, if you look at the, you know, the pitch deck when I
raised the first seed round, when I was burned to give, the insurance angle was always there,
right?
I didn't know quite yet how to include it right.
And when we started launching the platform, we were actually pretty successful.
You know, we were about to reach two, three million ARR with only in Chile, right?
With the D2C app.
But I knew the biggest value would come from insurance, right?
So I, you know, after probably, as I was telling you, like eight months after we launched, you
know, I sat down with, you know, the two, three investors that I had and I told them,
look, we're going to pivot.
We're going to pivot to, you know, a B2B to C, right?
And I'll explain why we went B2B to C.
And we'll include insurance as the key driver of growth.
And at that moment, my investors were like, are you crazy?
You know, you went from zero to two, three in a period of eight months.
Not many companies do that.
And we took a risk there and it was the right one.
So that was early 2020, right before COVID.
Not to get very deep, but I remember I took a plane from Chile.
I went to Silicon Valley, right to New York to pitch our Series A.
We had like six term sheets.
I flew back to Chile and COVID hit.
And all those term sheets, you know, were like, no, no, no, the world is changing.
You know, let's take it easy for a while.
But then, you know, something incredible happened.
I was looking at China, right?
That was probably one, two or three months ahead of us in COVID.
And something really incredible was happening with the life insurance industry.
Like, given, you know, that COVID maybe showed us the fragility of life at a global scale, right?
Life insurance was starting to grow like never before in history, right?
Because people were realizing, oh, life is fragile, right?
I can die.
And digital life insurance was growing even faster.
So those term sheets that had disappeared came back after four or five months.
We raised our Series A.
And at the end of 2020, we launched what is BetterFly today, right, which is this bundle, right, that goes to companies and their teams and provides them, you know, a life insurance benefit plus the preventive health tools, you know, to drive healthy behavior, right?
And what we do is not only the protection or the life insurance and voluntary benefits side of things, not only the preventive care, but also the gamification part of it.
So we created, you know, what Duolingo does for languages, right?
We do it for health and for longevity and the insurance industry.
Yeah, so let's, because, you know, obviously, you know, we use all these terms and, you know, most people are not really familiar with the terms in insurance.
So to put it simply, you're targeted small, medium-sized companies, right?
Yeah.
And, you know, the insight is that someone that at least does a couple of healthy things, and I think we discussed this, like do a lab work a year and walk more than X steps or do some type of exercise.
That already allows you to get a, you know, get a rate for insurance for that person that is well below, you know, other people that don't do that.
And then, you know, you incentivize a business in the sense that if you get your entire team to do that behavior and be healthier, it lowers insurance for everybody else.
So the business benefits because it could offer, you know, a better benefit at a cheaper price, and everybody gets healthier.
Yeah, so we realigned incentives of the insurance ecosystems.
And what are the key players there?
It's the employee, of course, that receives the coverage.
It's the employer.
It's the broker who distributes this, and it's the carrier.
So let's, and it all starts with driving healthy behavior because that user, let's say user A, right, you know, starts walking a little bit more.
And let's just use steps because, as I mentioned, we integrate not only with LabWorks but with your, you know, your apps, your, you know, your garments, your Fitbit, your Whoop, your Aura, you know, your A's, whatever it is, right?
So let's say someone's walking 4,000 steps, and after a couple of months, they're now walking 6,000 steps.
And you would say, okay, that's just 2,000 steps.
But if you walk 2,000 steps, right, that makes you, if you want, not only healthier from an employee perspective but less riskier, right?
And believe it or not, your longevity expands.
So we go back to the carrier and we tell them, look, this person, person A, is walking 2,000 steps more.
He's lower risk, so their coverage should be cheaper, right?
So what we do on the back end is that we make that coverage.
Let's say he has a $100,000 life insurance coverage, and it costs $10 per month.
Now it's going to cost $8 per month, right?
And for the employer, right, healthy employees is a more productive employee, right?
But also for the employer, not only does that coverage become cheaper, but also their health insurance, which in the U.S. is a very big, you know, chunk of, you know, what companies spend on their teams, it's also more affordable.
Because a person is healthier.
Is healthier, he gets sick less, right?
It's not only the life component.
And so we rely on these incentives for every stakeholder, right, to win by keeping people healthy, right?
And we created this very innovative product that I don't want to get into the complexity of it, but we created the world's first life insurance policy that grows at no cost with your healthy behavior.
How does that work?
So you go for a run.
You go for a walk.
Walk.
Let's say you walked, you know, 5,000 steps.
You came back.
You earned $50 of no-cost coverage.
So let's say you started with $100,000, and you pay $10 per month.
You or your company.
After a year, after all your steps, you will have $120,000.
You have $20,000 more coverage.
That has no cost to you, to your company, and you're protecting your family while you're exercising or walking or whatever.
So we work on the background, right?
You don't have to log your steps.
We integrate with everything.
And at the end, we're turning around the insurance industry from a reactive product to a proactive one, right?
And I have a question.
Does it go the other way?
Which way?
So, you know, the healthier you are, it increases.
Yeah.
What about if you stop being healthy?
No, we don't punish people for, yeah.
So if you don't do anything, it's $100,000.
It stays there, right?
We just reward people for engaging in healthy behavior.
Yeah.
And look, this is very interesting because obviously, you know, and later on, you know,
maybe we'll talk to some of the agents about some of these metrics.
But, you know, a lot of people say today, oh, I'm overwhelmed with the aura and this and that, you know,
and it's so much information.
But I think, you know, you actually have seen the data of how this actually drives good behavior.
Yeah.
I even see when my father recently, you know, he got back operation.
He, I was really, really concerned about him because he wasn't moving.
He was just sitting down and almost entering a depressive state.
Went to see all these doctors.
And he was looking for a solution and nobody was giving him solutions.
He was getting more depressed.
And I said, look, I need to do something about it.
And I went and, you know, bought him a new set of tennis shoes for walking.
Got him a walker with, you know, nice wheels.
And I actually got him to, with Betty and his Apple Watch.
No, not his Apple Watch, his phone because he doesn't have an Apple Watch, to start tracking steps.
And I said, you need to get out and you need to walk.
You need to walk around the neighborhood.
You know, he started doing it every day now.
He counts the steps that he walks.
He tells me 2,200 steps a day or 3,000.
And for me, it was, you know, obviously when you see it personally, it's, you know, because we, I mean, we're in this industry.
We track everything.
It has a lot of power.
It has a lot of power.
Like when you, I can remember from the engineering finance background, when I heard the word gamification, right, I thought it was a little bit crazy.
But people, you know, get really driven by these things.
Like I always put the example of our, you know, our first corporate customer.
It was a 1,000 employee company in Chile.
They were in the 12th floor, right, of a building.
And, you know, one of the things we do is we gamify this.
You have leaderboards within the company so you can compete with your colleagues who's earned more better flights, which is the currency we give, you know, for healthy behavior across different pillars.
And I told them, look, guys, if you, you're here on the 12th floor.
If you decide to take the steps instead of the elevator and you make groups of five people, okay, and you walk the steps instead, just that, right, going up, not even up and down, up the stairs when you get into work in the morning.
You do that for 10 months.
Every group of five people, not only will your coverage increase, you'll have all of these rewards, but you will be able to, you know, collect the better flights to take one child out of malnutrition.
Which is crazy.
That company, believe it or not, after a year and a half, you know, they had, you know, a couple of people that were, you know, severely overweight, depressed.
Just by walking and taking the stairs, it created a massive impact in, you know, in that company, right, in terms of health, in terms of community, in terms of what they would do together.
And also the concept of collective impact, right, of how everyone, by doing something small every day that improves their health together, they could make an impact on themselves.
Yeah.
I mean, it goes back to almost like, I mean, we have the same belief that maybe, you know, obviously that's why our companies are called Betterness and Betterfly.
But that we, you know, we believe, I mean, I actually believe that people want to do good and want to be part of something better, bigger.
And it's, you know, super interesting that you, I mean, hopefully we'll catch up to you guys at some point.
Because obviously you're very successful.
So I want to, you know, finish on that success.
So you're already a unicorn.
Yeah.
So after that, we, you know, the rest is, you know, we launched the product.
We, you know, we raised $200 million from top VCs, right?
We became a unicorn, but a social unicorn, which is what I love the most, right?
Because not only is our business model, right, part of our gross profit goes to these NGOs.
We're a B Corp.
We're a PVC.
We see, and we have in our DNA, right, the concept of giving back, of helping others.
And we believe, you know, same as Betterness, that it all starts with your health.
I mean, it's very difficult to make an impact or do something for your family, for your career,
if you're not, you know, taking your health seriously, if you're not healthy, right?
So once, that's like the tipping point or the base of the pyramid to be able to drive change.
So now what comes next?
You recently announced an acquisition in Mexico.
Yeah, so we recently acquired a company in Mexico called Minu, which is, you know,
a company that attacks the same problem we do, but from a different angle, right?
We're very focused on insurance, on, if you want, physical, mental, emotional well-being.
They started on the financial well-being angle, right?
So they go to companies and their teams as well.
So this is a transaction that not only, you know, consolidates our presence in Latin America,
but allows us to have a, if you will, if you want a product that is basically a 360 degree of well-being,
physical, mental, financial well-being, right?
They have a product that is the earned wage access product that in the U.S. is becoming very popular.
And again, it's not, the rationale behind the acquisition was not only, you know, expanding and scaling in Mexico,
but, you know, consolidating and making more robust the product we're launching here in the U.S.
So literally we're in these weeks launching here in the U.S.
where we are going with this prevention, protection, and engagement solution for companies and their teams.
And obviously it is a big market, the U.S.
It is a big market.
What is it, like 60, 70 percent of the world?
It's probably closer to 70 percent of the world.
And the reason behind it is that the U.S., you know, unfortunately, the health crisis here is not only bigger in terms of, you know,
proportionally to other countries, but, you know, look at the health care market, right?
It's a $4.2 trillion market.
So the U.S., the whole economy of the U.S. and China are the only two economies that are big.
So $4.2 trillion is bigger than the whole economy of Germany, which is the third largest country in the world.
And the reason behind that is we all know this, right?
The health care system is completely broken, right?
And there is where we see the biggest opportunity, right?
And our unique approach is partnering with these insurance companies and, you know, driving healthy behavior,
through, you know, through what we call a prevention-powered protection product, where, you know, we start with protection,
but then we drive preventive care at scale through companies.
And it seems that the time is right now, right?
Yeah, yeah.
And obviously you need data for it, and now data is flowing everywhere.
Everywhere, yeah.
So let's move into more personal, you know, passions that you have.
So obviously, I mean, it probably helps that you're such a also personally active person in your health, right?
When, you know, you go speak to these companies about the value of being healthier, you talked that you started training for Ironman.
And so let's, you know, talk a little bit more about that journey because you didn't stop just, you know, casually riding in the mountains, right?
You took it a little bit.
A little bit further.
So, yeah.
So I went from being, you know, at 34, 35, an overworked, overweight banker to becoming a world champion, you know, Ironman runner-up two years in a row.
So I've competed in Kona, that video that I saw in Tanzania when I was sitting there.
I've been four times in Kona.
This year, it's my fifth Kona competition.
I finished on the podium two years ago.
My ambition is to hopefully become world champion in the next one.
If not, I'll continue trying.
But I went again.
I always share my story because, you know, it's never late in life, you know, to pursue what you're passionate about, to dream, you know, a new dream.
I left my tennis dreams in a closet, and I'm now, for the last 10 years, I've been pursuing it, you know, via triathlon at an age that maybe, I don't know, 10, 20 years ago would have sounded impossible.
And thanks to all of the advances in preventive care and longevity, you know, I feel younger and healthier than I did when I was 25.
And that's what drives me, not the concept of becoming world champion, but showing that, you know, at 45, you know, my age today, you know, you can be competitive in a very high-demanding sport.
And what's behind that is, of course, the base, which are the lifestyle habits, sleep, nutrition, exercise, mental health, community or relationships, your purpose, but also the advances in longevity and preventive medicine that have, you know, come into the equation in the last two or three years.
Yeah, and they're becoming more and more accessible.
But let's talk about something you told me that was really interesting is that actually most of Ironman are actually pretty successful executives and people.
What do you think, obviously, it's clear, right, it's people that are very driven, but what else do you see, you know, in them?
And what can we learn, some of us that, you know, maybe, you know, need a little bit more motivation?
I think I always make the comparison of, you know, of, you know, building a company or being a successful executive with endurance sports and an Ironman, which is what I do, because both of them require persistence.
It requires, you know, a long-term view.
Building a company is not a sprint, right?
It's not even a marathon.
It's an Ironman, right?
It requires falling, you know, 99 times and getting up 100 times.
It requires, you know, having a strong why on why you do it.
And it requires, you know, being 1% better every day and resilience, right?
I think, you know, we've, unfortunately, you know, with technology, you know, we live in a world where we want instant gratification from everywhere.
And I think sports, and again, Ironman in my case, endurance sports, teaches you something that, you know, there's no quick wins, right?
These things are built over decades, over many years, and it requires doing the hard thing every day.
I was sharing this morning.
I had a two-hour bike session at 4 a.m. in the morning that I did not want to do.
I was traveling all week, and I did it, and I did it precisely because it's hard, right?
And after doing the hard things, right, you realize that that's where growth comes, right?
So I have a question there, right, because, you know, you obviously went from not doing all this to now obviously being able to, after a long trip, do it, which is really hard, right?
Because, you know, especially after closing a transaction probably was, how was it at the beginning?
You know, because, I mean, the beginning probably wasn't, you know, as, you know, easy as it is.
Not easy, but as, like right now you have this mission and you go for it.
But that transition period, was it hard?
I mean, did it take you a couple years to really get into that groove?
A hundred percent.
Getting started, I think, is the most difficult part because most people, 99% of people, stop there.
And you're starting like, this is too much.
I mean, I'm not seeing the results.
I'm not seeing the results from a physical perspective, from a mental perspective, from a performance perspective.
And you think, you know, this is not for me, and you move to the next thing.
And that's a really good question because I think, again, in sports, in life, in business, right,
the biggest results, you know, come right after you're about to quit, right?
And when you start exercising, going from nothing to, you know, to a full exercise routine,
that inflection point is a really important one.
And not to get too detailed into the science, you know, I have a lot of friends that, you know,
I've fortunately been able to, you know, get them motivated to exercise.
And one thing I learned, right, going into the exercise physiology is that, you know, you bike a lot, you know, I train a lot.
And, of course, every time I train, you got the, you know, the runner's high or the biking high, right, the endorphins.
But when you're just getting started, there's this thing that does not happen to you right away.
So, actually, the first three to six months, you have your, if you want to call it, you know, endorphin blockers where it's not,
you run for an hour and you don't feel the endorphin rush, right, that you feel today.
So, you're like, why am I doing this?
It's hard.
It's difficult.
No, and you're getting sore.
And you're getting sore.
And you're like, so that's where the why kind of comes in.
And you have to be doing it for a deeper reason than just wanting to lose weight or just wanting to look good or just wanting to win a race, right?
And I think that's what makes getting started easier, right?
Which is interesting because you don't hear a lot about this, right?
I mean, people start training and.
I mean, look, the first thing I tell someone that wants to start training, write down in a piece of paper why you want to do this.
Do you want to inspire your kids?
Do you want to, you know, show someone or yourself that you're capable of finishing this?
Do you want to overcome, you know, whatever it is?
But it has to be something deep that is very meaningful for you.
And it cannot be an extrinsic motivator.
It has to be an intrinsic one.
And I think that, you know, my, my, my, you know, I have a coach today, you know, that I've been working with him for almost, almost three years.
And the first thing I sent him, you know, when we started working three years ago was my why.
It was a very detailed email why I'm doing this, right?
And, and, and, and, and the reasons why I want to, you know, achieve peak performance, you know, after my, you know, my 45 years old, my, into my 50s, into my 60s.
And it's, and it's, it's significantly deeper than just because I want to become a world champion.
That's the end of the road.
It's the journey and what you want to achieve within that journey.
And again, it can be with your family.
It can be, you know, with your kids, with your, with your friends, something that you want to, you know, you know, prove to yourself.
But getting deep into that why I think is very, very important.
And, and needless to say, doing something that you really like doing.
Like, if you don't like running, try something else.
And keep trying until, because if you want to be consistent, you really love to love what you're doing, right?
So if you're, after, after two, three, four months, you go running or biking or whatever you're doing, you try something else because.
Well, but it's a funny thing because an Ironman, someone usually doesn't like one of the three, right?
Yeah.
Yeah.
In my case, it's swimming.
So let's talk about what an Ironman is for people that don't know.
So an Ironman is, is a, is a race, which is basically 2.4 miles of, of swimming, then 112 miles of, of biking, and then a full marathon or 26.2 miles.
You have to do it in one day and the fastest, you know, possible way.
And it's, it's a sport that is pretty new.
It started, you know, in 1978.
It was basically a runner, a biker, and a swimmer that, you know, they were arguing about among themselves.
Who's the fittest of all, right?
And it was in Hawaii, right?
Where the, that's why the world championships is there.
And they were like, okay, you know what?
We're going to do a race where we have the three disciplines.
And it was 12 people, I think, 12 or 13 people in, in 1978 that did it.
In 1982, you know, it was already 100, 120 people doing it.
And the, the sport became popular in 1982 because when the race was finishing in the last hundred meters of the race.
So, I don't know, 200 feet or whatever, 150 feet.
There were two women that were going, number one and number two.
And the one that was leading, a hundred meters before finishing the race, she could not walk.
So she, she, you know, threw herself to her and she started crawling.
And then the one that was number two, she also started crawling because she could not.
So it, it demonstrated how tough that was, right?
And after that, I believe 1983, it was 1,500 people.
And, and yeah, the sport today grew, you know, in, in, across the world.
It became an Olympic sport at the same time, right?
And, and yeah, and today there's Ironman races all across the world.
They created the Ironman 70.3, which is the half Ironman as well.
And up until this day, you know, the world championships, which you need to qualify are where that race, where those three guys were, where, you know, discussing who's the fittest, the swimmer, the biker, or the runner.
And, and it takes place in Conan the, in the second week of October.
So, so to wrap, to wrap up this part, how do you manage training for an Ironman, running a unicorn, obviously being a father, a husband, family man, how do you manage?
What is your, I mean, I call it the operating system.
Yeah, so it's a system.
It's a system.
You know, I think human beings are, are, you know, if, are, you know, the, the habits you do every day dictate where you will be in one, three, five, 10 years.
And if you don't build systems on how you do things, it's very difficult to, to, to, to do those habits on a daily basis.
So you have to prioritize, you have to say no to a lot of things.
So, you know, in my, in my life, it's my family, it's my health, and it's, you know, my work and, you know, my, my, what we do at BetterFly.
And I try, you know, every day to, you know, sleep very early, right, and, and wake up very early to, to train.
I try to train every morning, you know.
So what time you wake up?
4, 4.15 every day.
I, I, I, you know, read for a little bit, then I have breakfast, and I train for a couple of hours, and I wake up the kids.
You know, some days I take them to school, to my wife, but at 9, 9 a.m. I'm, or 8.30, I'm at my desk working.
Now, to do that, I have to go to sleep very early.
So I have to eliminate things like social media, like, you know, TV, like, you know, a bunch of things, prioritizing sleep,
because at my age, you need to recover, right?
It's not the same when, when I had 35 or, or, or 30.
And I try to, you know, build a life around, you know, my passion, and which is, is, you know, taking care of my health through, through, through my training,
my family, and, and my purpose in life, which I, you know, you know, try to achieve through Betterfly, right?
So, but it's a virtuous circle, because when I exercise in the morning, you know, I get to work with more clarity, with more energy, right?
And it's sometimes counterintuitive, because you're like, you know, you see me at 9 a.m., and I'm all pumped up, right?
Because I've been up for three, four hours, you know, exercising.
And that creates a virtuous circle, because it gives you more clarity, it gives you, you know, more energy,
it allows you to, you know, navigate the entrepreneurial journey, which, as we all know, has ups and downs, more downs than ups, right?
In a, in a, in a more resilient way, and, and yeah, and, and now with kids, right?
I started doing this when I was not a dad, a father.
For me, it's, it's a really powerful way to transmit to them the values of, of, of what I do, right?
So I train with them on the weekends, they see me doing these things, waking up early, right?
Sacrificing a lot of things to pursue my dream.
And at the same time, I hope, you know, as they grow up, they are, you know, I, it inspires them to do what they're passionate about, be it sports or whatever, whatever it is, right?
Yeah, no, and obviously, it's amazing when, you know, your kids, you know, you know, you see that they, they have a natural tendency for sports, because you know how important it is.
I know you have a daughter, I was, you know, I, for my daughter, I, I, I try to tell her, I mean, the other day, I saw something in Instagram that I share with, is the, the, the amount of executives women
that had, you know, that did sports all the way through college, you know, how it really helped them.
And there's actually a big difference when they drop off early.
And, and for, for girls, it's easy to drop off early, you know, and continuing that.
So, you know, keep them motivated.
So let's wrap up here at the end.
I, I like to get geeky.
You have a pretty cool setup in your house, Mac Studio, you know, you vibe code, you know, we shared it.
Let's go a little bit.
What, what excites you about AI, you know, things are going, I know you, you have your obsidian brain.
Yeah.
For those who don't know, obsidian is a very cool way to store knowledge in, in sort of a knowledge graph of documents and wikis.
And you've been playing with that for a while.
So walk, walk us through what, what is your setup?
And I'm completely obsessed with, you know, you know, that's right.
Since you saw me now, I have two more Mac Studios.
Okay.
We're different.
You have to tell me how you get Mac Studios, because I've been trying to get one.
No, it's, it's, it's, I plan in advance.
So they did like two, three months, but you, you know, you, I just got the mic.
I'm waiting for the, because the M5s are coming.
They're coming.
They're already out.
I, I don't know if they're, they came out or not, but mine is not the M5.
Yeah, okay, yeah, yeah.
But yeah, I had, I have a bunch of setups that, you know, I, as I mentioned, I have a, you know,
I undusted my engineering, you know, my computer engineering skills that I, I left on a closet
like 30 years ago.
And, and yeah, I, I've built all of these kinds of agents.
Maybe what's relevant today, you know, I built this obsidian brain.
I, I, I built a bunch of agents, but one is called Arnold, you know, after Arnold Schwarzenegger.
And I basically integrated into, into this brain on a local computer, everything from
Strava, Garmin, biomarkers, all my Ironman races for over the past 12 years, the results,
you know, the run splits, the swim splits, biomarkers, what I ate, you know, uh, since
I've been tracking it, right.
The week before, the night before the taper that I did for each of these races and it's
working 24 seven, right.
Optimizing the work I do with my coach, right.
So now, uh, you know, Boston Marathon three, three months ago, you know, it was like, look,
you should be doing this taper because this is how you optimize what you will do on race
day in a way that, you know, is, would be impossible.
So now the, the, the, the, the, the cool thing that everybody's talking about is, is loops.
Right.
So you, you, you, you, are you running some loops in it?
All, all day, all day and all night.
Right.
And it's, it's, again, given that it integrates with everything, right.
Telegram, I take a picture of what I eat and it already knows the calories, you know,
the macros and everything, uh, the recovery store scores from my eight sleep, from my
aura, from, from my, uh, so, so, so, so you have, so you have, you know, so you have all
the knowledge being stored in obsidian, right.
You're, you're running analysis of all this stuff, which is adding to the brain.
And how do you make it actionable?
So, so what it does, it basically every morning, every week and every month with definite levels
of details, right.
It gives me an insight of what I should do every day.
I have a training plan with my coach, right.
And based on, you know, what I've been doing for the last seven, 10 days, how I slept that
night, what I ate the two, three days before, it gives me maybe a shift towards the training
I should be doing.
So let's say this morning, right.
I had planned an hour and a half with certain intervals, uh, I was traveling, but I actually
slept pretty well last night and my HRV, right.
It was a certain level.
It was like, no, you're due to two, two, two hours, two hours, 15 this morning, because
your, your body's ready for that.
Another day it can tell me, you know what, you have an hour and a half today.
Take it easy.
Just do one hour, right.
Based on what you've been doing the last day.
That's the, the daily insight, the weekly one gives me an overview of, you know, how I've
been able to absorb training and how I'm prepared for the week that comes, right.
So, you know what, you reach the threshold here or that, you should be changing this
and that.
And every month, right, it's updating with the information there, but also with information
that comes, you know, from new innovations and things I should be trying, right, from
different, from preventive medicine to integrations, you know, to, you know, performance and biometrics.
So that architecture, I wanted to show something here, Shay, in the, in the, in the screen.
Very interesting that you actually mentioned, we didn't talk about this, right.
But so the way that, you know, we set up, and obviously probably inspired a lot of our
conversations, the way that, you know, we set up Betty now, Betty, you know, you know,
we have goals, right.
The system has goals.
So there's all these goals that the agents see from all the activity that are happening.
You make those goals active, right.
Yeah.
So you say, these are my goals.
And then the agents every day or every week, they monitor them.
So similar to what you were saying, they say how you, how I slept.
And they say, you know, gentle sauna and coherence cool down at 3.30 because, you know, probably
I didn't have a good sleep.
HRSB has been flat for three consecutive nights, right.
And those things, right, are game changers, right.
Like when I get something like that, right.
And it's like, you know what, you should do a sauna session today, you know, or you should,
or you should not do this or do that.
It changes the game because at the end of the day, right, historically, and for many years,
we've been operating on randomized control trials and what works for everyone.
But we're an end of one.
Each of us is completely unique.
Every one of us has a different stress level each day, each week, each hour, right.
And we're moving into a world where health and performance will be tailored to our unique
needs.
So a really concrete example I like to put, you know, I have a certain small injury, so
I haven't been able to run.
So I'm doing a lot of biking these days.
Today at 45, I'm able to push power that I could not push at 35 when I was training 40
hours a week in Boulder.
Today I train 15, maybe 20 hours when I'm in the last lead up to Kona, but I train half
the distance.
I'm 10 years older and I'm pushing more power.
That's not because I'm more talented today than I was 10 years ago.
It's because of technology and what you're showing there, right.
And I think one of the reasons, you know, I invested in betterness and we're sitting here
is because I truly believe technology like this one is going to allow everyone everywhere
that wants to, some want to pursue health, some want to pursue performance in a way, in
an end of one that up until only recently was available to the, you know, very small minority
people that had the tech capabilities or the resources to do this.
And this changes everything because what works for you is not the same that works for me.
No, and even, and the way we even see it is, and it's funny that, you know, you say,
no, not funny, but you, you, you know, when you bought this company, you say finance, financial
is part of health, right?
Completely.
Even me, myself, I don't know if you see here.
My last thing is actually posting in social media because that's actually one of the things
that keeps me up.
It's like, I need to build my brand.
And like, it's part of what I have to do to execute my life goals, you know, I'm, you
know, not doing it gives me stress.
So at least now I have this that tells me you should, you know, plan for a post, put
in your calendar, do it and just get out of the way.
Yeah.
So the, you know, the other unique thing that we do in this, in this podcast that I try
to do is leave something behind.
So maybe what we could do when we release this, maybe do a little bit of a prototype
of your Ironman obsidian brain and maybe leave it, leave it as an artifact for, for the audience.
A hundred percent.
Happy to do that.
And especially for those that are listening, that are doing triathlons or marathons or whatever,
right?
Happy to share some tips on how I built that and how it connects with what, you know,
we're building here.
Let's do it.
That's going to be what we leave you behind for.
Eduardo, it was awesome.
Always great conversation.
Thank you.
And, and yeah, let's, let's, let's make the world better together.
Let's make the world better.
Thank you, Damien, for, for the invitation and I'm really excited about betterness and,
you know, the future ahead.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Well, see you in the next episode.
And yeah, be in the lookout.
I think we're going to create some cool artifact here together to share with you.
Thank you so much.