#72 – From big tech to startup (Ben Grynol & Maz Brumand)

When you are curious and adopt a growth mindset, your interests can lead you down unexpected career paths. That was the case with Levels’ new Head of Business, Maz Brumand. After an exciting career at Apple, Maz made the big decision to switch gears to startup life. In this episode, Maz chats with Ben Grynol, Head of Growth, about his experience in health tech, why big companies and startups hold their own strengths, and what attracted him to Levels specifically.

04:14 – The desire to innovate

Maz was originally studying to become an electrical engineer, but realized that he wanted to work in a sector that had a faster pace of innovation and allowed him to learn what made things tick.

When I started my career, I trained as an electrical engineer in undergrad, and I had a couple of engineering jobs. One was at Honeywell, and worked for their private jet division, working on something called the ground proximity modules, basically a thing that make sure you don’t crash into the ground. And working on that and looking around, I noticed that aerospace is super cool when you’re in college, you think that’s the coolest, most high-tech stuff that you’ll ever work on. But then looking around, you notice that people have been there for 30, 40 years and working on almost the exact same thing. And at the time, I didn’t know why, but it was pretty clear after working there for a month because of all the regulation and the safety and what the failure means. It means that you can’t really innovate that fast. So when I looked and thought about my career and do I want to be working on the same thing for 30 years? I think that gave me a different perspective. Especially given that my life up to that point was a lot of different things and change. So then I did a soul searching of what do I want to do with my life at 21 and 22, and the thing that really excited me was understanding how things work.

10:36 – Working on health tech at Apple

Maz’s first foray into health technology was at Apple, where he worked as a researcher and then as a business and program development leader for health software services.

It was a wild ride. It’s one of the most interesting, fascinating experiences that I could have hoped for. It definitely blew me away and exceeded my expectation in every way. And I learned all the things that I had hoped to learn. I worked for some of the most capable people, including the person that hired me, and learned a ton. And as part of that, being part of the new technologies group within Apple, I got involved in health when Apple started to focus on health, and worked on a lot of the research programs that Apple launched, worked on a lot of different technologies that were related to health. And after a few years of doing that, one of the executives that I had worked on a project with asked me to come join his team within the health strategic initiatives team, which focused 100% on health, and we started building and launching research programs, and he asked me lead the business and program development for our research and our software services. So I worked on that for a number of years and we did a lot of interesting things. For example, in cognition, we launched one of the largest cognitive studies to understand and quantify human cognition. And as part of that journey, I delivered a couple of big products and services.

12:55 – Starting at Levels

Maz took a leap of faith when he left Apple for Levels, to deciding that it was time to move on and join a startup.

I had been introduced to Sam about a year ago and I’d been keeping track of the company. And because obviously Levels is so open and it’s building in public, there was just a lot of information. So keeping the tab and seeing what Levels had achieved was a lot easier than a lot of companies, and I just fell in love with how we think about running a business, thinking about metabolic health and the impact we want to have in the world. So the rest is history, and I’ve been here now for two months and it’s been a fascinating two months and still a lot more go.

15:00 – Big companies versus startups

Maz said that companies like Apple are excellent when it comes to building big, mass-market platforms. But where startups can excel is in the realm of innovation and experimentation.

One of the things that keeps us from making a change is change itself. So being constantly changing over the last 30 years, that was easier, I think, for me. I think the question of why do you leave the biggest company in the world doing some of the most interesting things in health and joining a startup is a couple of things. I think one is, I think big companies are really good at making things mainstream, and creating a fantastic experience that really everybody can benefit from. I think startups, what they’re good at is they can move fast and innovate and try a lot of different things. And I think in health, both are needed. So Apple’s done a really fantastic job at creating platforms like HealthKit that really gives the user control of their data and allows people to collect, review, correlate, and other companies to build on top of. And I think without that capability for people to take control of their data and for companies to build on top, I don’t think the health progress that we’re about to see would have come about. So I think companies like Apple are really good at building those platforms and then creating really refined experiences that anybody can use at mass market.

16:18 – Levels approaches health from a consumer perspective

Maz was attracted to the fact that Levels puts consumers at the center of everything they do and takes a holistic approach to metabolic health.

What startups are really good at is when the system needs something that’s not so obvious or coming at it from an approach that is not consensus. And Apple is probably one of the most fast-moving companies, but it’s just qualitative different than a startup. And at Levels, what I really loved about the mission was we are approaching health from the consumer side. So a lot of people look and say, “Well, there is big dollars in payer markets, so that’s where the product should be focused on.” But the problem with that is when you’re building a product where the buyer is not the user or the consumer, you end up with a different type of product. And I think what Levels really focused on was how can we actually make a product in the metabolic space for consumers that people will use and enjoy using and benefit from, versus building a product for payers that will pay for products. And I think in addition to that, it’s a much broader discussion. I think a lot of people are focusing on diabetes and glucose, but somebody’s taking a step back and looking at the broader picture of metabolic health, which is how your body produces energy and thinking about it that holistically was very new and innovative. So between the idea that Levels could move fast, it was thinking about the problem from the consumer side, and it was thinking about the problem much broader than most people were. That was really attractive.

23:37 – Learn where to focus

At a startup, one of the most important things you can do is learn where to focus your energy and attention in the face of infinite possibilities.

When you come to a startup, there’s so many things you could do. It’s not a lack of choice. It’s the opposite problem. How do you think about the disciplined approach and how do you think about what you say yes to, and given that startups are typically at the early stage, you can go many, many different directions, but then really keying on what do you say yes to, what leads to a simple, elegant solution versus something that seems cool? Here’s a core thing. Also thinking about it from the consumer lens. Everything we did, the question was, “What does the user experience look like?” We’re not competing on metrics or we’re not competing on marketing slogans, but what does the user experience actually look like?

27:56 – Company culture has internal and external benefits

When a good cultural DNA gets built in early and is upheld consistently, it can impact the value that is added for both internal employees and customers.

I think culture is probably one of the most underrated, most important things that helps shape great companies. And I think Levels has done a really fantastic job for its size focusing on culture, and it really is what differentiates how people work with each other in the company to be successful. But also how does that translate into customer values or what the characteristics of Levels that customers are attracted to? So I think by focusing on ourselves and building that culture, it just pays dividends both in terms of making and running a company a lot easier, but also creating the value system that then you can deliver to customers and making sure or that it creates value. The idea, for example, is trust. You can’t have an outward-facing policy of trust without having a cultural value that enforces and builds trust. So they’re all very connected, and focusing on that internally will pay dividends externally.

38:18 – The consumerization of health

Maz is most excited about what he calls the consumerization of healthcare: putting individuals in the driver’s seat when it comes to health data and healthcare.

I think I’m really excited about the consumerization of health. Meaning there is no intermediaries making decisions on behalf of people, especially with limited information and limited science, but really this is enabling experimentation and consumers to really take the center, and then everybody building for those consumers versus other alternative motives or alternative motives or a business interest, but really the consumer’s in the center and all the technologies are focused on solving problems for consumers. I think that this intermediation that’s happened in US healthcare is obviously well documented and the big source of the problem, and now removing that and putting the consumer at the center, I think I’m really excited about.

43:22 – Dialing in technology, science, and social adoption

Maz believes there are three main challenges that need to be surmounted to create health solutions that make a true impact.

I think one bucket is the technology bucket. When is the hardware going to be ready, when is the software going to be ready, and how do we actually put it together in a seamless way that many, many, many people can use? It’s not just a niche product for a small group of people. I think that’s the technology side. I think the second is the science side. We obviously haven’t collected a lot of this data in real time, so it’ll take some time to do the research and really be able to create the right either interventions or outcomes. So I think there’s a science piece side. I think there’s a lot of research to that needs to be done in this space, but technology can help with that. And I think the third piece is this idea of the social aspect of it or the acceptance of it, whether it’s the established system, the payer and providers, or whether it’s people. Obviously when you’re talking about such a sensitive area as health and the newness of it, it’ll take some time for that to work through the different groups, whether it’s the people that are using it, getting more comfortable with it, to healthcare systems, knowing how to use it and leverage it, side by side by the infrastructure that they have.

45:01 – Healthcare and health tech

Maz thinks that health tech is not in competition with healthcare. Rather, the two should complement one another.

I don’t think that healthcare and health tech are competing. They should really be complementary in that sense. I think there’s a use case for both. We obviously can’t leverage our expensive infrastructure, physical infrastructure at the rate that the population is aging, and this is becoming prevalent. So there’s got to be a different answer. So I think there’s a place for both of those to work in concert versus in a zero-sum way. So I think those three things, to sum it up, it’s technology, it’s the research, and it’s the social side of it and the acceptance of it by the system and people.

Maz Brumand (00:06):

So when you make the decision between the best company, biggest company, most innovative company, versus a small company that is at the same caliber, but at just a different point in its evolution and tackling the problem from a different angle, I kind of see Levels and Apple in that sense different, but the same.

Ben Grynol (00:32):

I’m Ben Grynol, part of the early startup team here at Levels. We’re building tech that helps people to understand their metabolic health, and this is your front row seat to everything we do. This is A Whole New Level. When a person’s curious, has an open mind, very much a growth mindset, it can lead them down all these different paths. Well Maz, he was working in New York, in the world of finance. And when Maz started to think about the impact that he wanted to make in the world, well, working with a hedge fund, it was challenging, but it wasn’t necessarily fulfilling him. So Maz started exploring what are all these different career paths that I could take? Maz ended up joining Apple and had an incredible opportunity to work in the strategic business unit. That meant that he got exposure to all these different projects that took place around the world.

Ben Grynol (01:34):

After a number of years, a new business unit was getting started at Apple. The Apple health team. As Apple started to think about some of the initiatives that they wanted to undertake. Well, Maz was at the starting line of a lot of these projects. So Maz, after eight years, decided to move on from Apple. Something that seems like a big swing when you’re working with a big blue chip tech company. Well, when he decided to move on to Levels, he was strictly because he wanted to be part of this movement of making an impact in the world as it pertained to metabolic health. So Maz joined the team late in 2021. The idea is that Maz would come on board as head of business to help us scale our efforts. As we think about things like business model, as we think about things like vendor relationships. So Maz and I sat down and talked to all about his background, his experience, and why he’s excited to join Levels and be a part of what we’re doing. Here’s where we kick things off.

Ben Grynol (02:35):

So you have had this very interesting path into Levels, this eclectic background of living all over the world, literally all over the world in different countries, working all over the world, and you had a path from working in banking, working with a hedge fund or finance, if you want to call it that, and then you went and worked with Apple, doing things more around business and strategy. So here we are with Levels, January 2022, and would be great just to hear, what was it that brought you to Levels after being in a very high pace and important career with Apple?

Maz Brumand (03:21):

Yeah, I’ll answer that question, but maybe it would be helpful to go even further back to-

Ben Grynol (03:27):

Take it back to childhood, all the way, [crosstalk 00:03:31], at the foundation.

Maz Brumand (03:32):

Yeah, so as you said, I’ve lived in a number of places and that shaped how I think I was brought up, which is… It really shaped my career. And as you said, I took a really nonlinear path in my career, but also previous to that, living in different places, you experience different things and tend to not take things for granted, and always looking for what’s different in your environment, and how do you respond to that or adapt to that? And it also creates that sense of wonder a little bit too, because you’re always discovering new things that you had no idea about. So when I started my career, I trained as an electrical engineer in undergrad, and I had a couple of engineering jobs. One was at Honeywell, and worked for their private jet division, working on something called the ground proximity modules, basically thing that make sure you don’t crash into the ground.

Maz Brumand (04:36):

And working on that and looking around, I noticed that the aerospace is super cool when you’re in college, you think that’s the coolest, most high tech stuff that you’ll ever work on. But then looking around, you notice that people have been there for 30, 40 years and working on almost the exact same thing. And at the time, I didn’t know why, but it was pretty clear after working there for a month because of all the regulation and the safety and what the failure means. It means that you can’t really innovate that fast. So when I looked and thought about my career and do I want to be working on the same thing for 30 years? I think that gave me a different perspective. Especially given that my life up to that point was a lot of different things and change. So then I did a soul searching of what do I want to do with my life at 21 and 22, and the thing that really excited me was understanding how things work.

Maz Brumand (05:39):

Basically, we all have a model in our head of how we think the world world works, but then there is the actual model out there that is the way the world works. And living in different places was very cognizant that the way you think the world works is very different than the way the world works. So I wanted to pick a career where I could learn that. So I jumped into consulting and always knew that this is not something I want to do for the long term, but really as a way to understand how business works and how different companies work and get a broad exposure to business. So I worked in consulting for a few years, always knowing that I wanted to do something different, but I wasn’t sure what it.

Maz Brumand (06:17):

And during those few years I got introduced to a number of ideas or books and people, and some of the people that impacted me the most was probably Ray Dalio and his Principles book, which gives you models about… Mental models about how to think about stuff. And then also another person that really influenced me was Charlie Munger, which as you know is Warren Buffett’s business partner, and he’s very big into mental models. So I got really interested in that. And as part of that process, I got interested in finance, really not your traditional finance, but the finance that would help you understand how things work, how economics works, how do the markets work, how does capital work? And I started studying that on my own. And after a little bit, I realized I need to go get a real business degree, given that I had no business background to be able to do that.

Maz Brumand (07:13):

And I went to business school with the sole intent to work for hedge funds after business school, and primary reason because I thought that gives me another world view into how things work, whether it’s behavioral economics, whether it’s politics, whether it’s psychology. And the area that I focused on was macro hedge funds, which really looks at world events and understands how things are… What things are going to happen based on the underlying factors. And you make investments based on that. And the other thing I liked about finance was that it was very much a closed loop feedback system, where you would know whether your thinking and your decisions actually resulted in the outcome that you expected, and you would get that feedback relatively fast. So it afforded a lot of learning pretty fast, oftentimes actually pretty hard learning.

Maz Brumand (08:11):

So I did that for a few years and I learned a lot. It was one of the most intellectually challenging things that had done up to that point and I enjoyed. But it occurred to me, and I think this occurs to almost everyone that works in a field like that, that you’re not really creating things, one. So the long term sense of contributing back to the world isn’t there in finance. And people say you’re creating liquidity or you’re creating money for pension funds and so on and so forth, but it just wasn’t satisfying enough. That answer wasn’t satisfying enough. And I’m sure a lot of other people could do that. So I was doing a soul searching of what do I want to do next, and it was two parts.

Maz Brumand (08:52):

One is how can I contribute, but also there is a pretty big hole into your learning when you work in a field like that. It’s very deep in a few areas and intellectually very challenging, but you’re kind of missing some key skills or capabilities. For example, how do you manage people, how do you convince people to do things? How do you lead? How do you create? So I was doing a soul searching on what do I want to do next? And I had interviewed with a number of companies and got a couple of offers. One of which was trading the currency book for a large multinational. And at that point, my brother was, we’re very close, told me that I should… He worked at Apple and said, “Hey, before you make a decision, why don’t you just come talk to a few people at Apple and see if this is a place for you?”

Maz Brumand (09:40):

And actually the interesting thing was Apple was on my mind, especially after Steve had passed away. I noticed how much outpouring there was for him. And I think part of that was not because Steve the person, but what he had created and put into the world. And that resonated with me, the idea of how can you give back and do something that… Creating value in the world. And the outpouring that happened for Steve made those two things connect for me. So I interviewed with Apple, I think I did 22 interviews over four or five days. They couldn’t quite figure out where they want to put me and what they want to do with me. So finally one of the executives there was starting a new group working on new technologies that took a chance on me and welcomed me and asked me to join his team. And we founded what we call the strategic deals team at Apple, which works on new technologies.

Maz Brumand (10:36):

It was a wild ride. It’s one of the most interesting, fascinating experiences that I could have hoped for. It definitely blew me away and exceeded my expectation in every way. And I learned all the things that I had hoped to learn. I worked for some of the most capable people, including the person that hired me, and learned a ton. And as part of that being part of the new technologies group within Apple, I got involved in health when Apple started to focus on health, and worked on a lot of the research programs that Apple launched, worked on a lot of different technologies that were related to health.

Maz Brumand (11:17):

And after a few years of doing that, one of the executives that I had worked on a project with asked me to come join his team within the health strategic initiatives team, which focused 100% on health, and we started building and launching research programs, and he asked me lead the business and program development for our research and our software services. So I worked on that for a number of years and we did a lot of interesting things. For example, in cognition, we launched one of the largest cognitive studies to understand and quantify human cognition. And as part of that journey, I delivered a couple of big products and services.

Maz Brumand (12:03):

And at some point I stopped, and I’d been at Apple now for almost nine years at that point, and reflect and I said, “What do I really want to do for the next 10, 20 years of my life, and what do I think is the most impactful area?” And two things came to mind after I did that soul searching. And one was metabolic health, given the state that metabolic health is in the world, and the US, obviously, and what impact we could have by really tackling that problem. And then two was mental health and just how the brain works and how the mental health side of the brain works. And between the two, I looked at different companies that were out in that space, primarily [inaudible 00:12:49], which I think would’ve been able to move fast and innovate.

Maz Brumand (12:53):

And obviously Levels, I had been introduced to Sam about a year ago and I’d been keeping track of the company. And because obviously Levels is so open and it’s building in public, there was just a lot of information. So keeping the tab and seeing what Levels had achieved was a lot easier than a lot of companies, and I just fell in love with how we think about running a business, thinking about metabolic health and the impact we want to have in the world. So the rest is history, and I’ve been here now for two months and it’s been a fascinating two months and still a lot more go.

Ben Grynol (13:29):

I guess it was 10 years ago, you were in New York, right?

Maz Brumand (13:35):

Yes.

Ben Grynol (13:35):

So you’re working in finance in New York and it was when you decided to work with Apple, when you’re vetting these opportunities, you took a leap of faith. It’s not just, “I’m going down the street to the next place.” You’re moving across the country to a very different environment, to geographically a different place, but also the way that people think, the way they execute, it might be different. I mean, it is different if you start to think about the tech ecosystem that surrounds the Bay Area versus New York. They’re different in those approaches. And things are flattening out with remote work, but 10 years ago it was drastically different.

Ben Grynol (14:14):

So you took this leap of faith, you went to Apple, and then after 10 years you had the same… What sounds like this leap of faith, where when you decided that it was time to move on and you were joining a startup, people internally were like, “Why would you leave one of the biggest tech companies in the world to go to this small thing? What are you doing? Are you sure?” So it was either he knows something we don’t, or does he not have a clue what he is doing? That’s what it sounds like the two schools of thought were based on some of the conversations we’ve had before.

Maz Brumand (14:48):

Yeah, I think one of the things that I think helped me was the fact that I’ve lived in so many different places and made so many different changes in a nonlinear way, made that decision easy because I think one of the things that keeps us from making a change is change itself. So being constantly changing over the last 30 years, that was easier, I think, for me. I think the question of why do you leave the biggest company in the world doing some of the most interesting things in health and joining a startup is a couple of things. I think one is, I think big companies are really good at making things mainstream, and creating a fantastic experience that really everybody can benefit from. I think startups, what they’re good at is they can move fast and innovate and try a lot of different things.

Maz Brumand (15:41):

And I think in health, both are needed. So Apple’s done a really fantastic job at creating platforms like HealthKit that really gives the user control of their data and allows people to collect, review, correlate, and other companies to build on top of. And I think without that capability for people to take control of their data and for companies to build on top, I don’t think the health progress that we’re about to see would have come about. So I think companies like Apple are really good at building those platforms and then creating really refined experiences that anybody can use at mass market. I think what startups are really good at is when the system needs something that’s not so obvious or coming at it from an approach that is not consensus. And Apple is probably one of the most fast moving companies, but it’s just qualitative different than a startup.

Maz Brumand (16:40):

And at Levels, what I really loved about the mission was we are approaching health from the consumer side. So a lot of people look and say, “Well, there is big dollars in payer markets, so that’s where the product should be focused on.” But the problem with that is when you’re building a product where the buyer is not the user or the consumer, you end up with a different type of product. And I think what Levels really focused on was how can we actually make a product in the metabolic space for consumers that people will use and enjoy using and benefit from, versus building a product for payers that will pay for products. And I think in addition to that, it’s a much broader discussion. I think a lot of people are focusing on diabetes and glucose, but somebody’s taking a step back and looking at the broader picture of metabolic health, which is how your body produces energy and thinking about it that holistically was very new and innovative.

Maz Brumand (17:46):

So between the idea that Levels could move fast, it was thinking about the problem from the consumer side, and it was thinking about the problem much broader than most people were. That was really attractive. And then when you add the fact that the way that Levels is building the company, which is with a lot of integrity, a lot of openness, and creating value people, putting consumers at the center, was also really different and refreshing. So when you put those two together, it’s not something that’s so common out there. So when you make the decision between the best company, biggest company, the most innovative company, as dubbed by the media, versus a small company that is at the same caliber but at just a different point in its evolution and tackling the problem from a different angle, I see Levels and Apple in that sense different, but the same.

Ben Grynol (18:43):

Yeah, it’s such an interesting thing to think about pertaining to execution. So often people will say, “Aren’t you worried about Apple, or just big tech co, inc? Aren’t you worried that they could just go do it and make hardware and make software.” And some of these things are true and some are harder to implement than it might seem from the outside. So if there’s the thought exercise of what is Apple really good at, well hardware and creating platform software, but not necessarily feature based software. So what does that mean? Apple is really good at making the Apple Photos album and that serves a purpose, but they wouldn’t be the company to create something like Instagram. That falls outside of their core competency. It’s not about riffing on nuanced features of some smaller feature of the entire platform.

Ben Grynol (19:42):

So then it gets really hard when you start to think about it, it’s like, would Apple go and make a metabolic health software product tomorrow? Probably not, because there are all these other things pertaining to, “How does that fit into our current stack? How do we treat it from a branding perspective? It’s such a deeper exercise.” And I think that’s where the dichotomy is of being a big, established company that is pushing innovation in certain parts of the world, and then there’s other parts like… Let’s use the analog of headphones.

Ben Grynol (20:15):

So there’s value in acquiring Beats, 2014, the Beats acquisition and keeping it as Beats, Because it would’ve been really hard from the ground up to build something that moved in the culture the way that beats did. So there was still value in Apple having its own headphones product that was branded differently, and they’ve remained separate for specific reasons. And I think that thought exercise can be applied to startups in general. And whether you apply this to things like social platforms or software platforms pertaining to metabolic health like Levels, it’s just a different way of building and a different way of thinking about how can you approach the market, especially when it’s frontier.

Maz Brumand (21:02):

You’re exactly right. I think it’s about changing the framing and understood of how things work, which is, it’s not a zero sum game. So Apple is a platform company that will create platforms for other people to build on top, and may decide to go into a vertical. So an example is obviously Apple has the Apple Watch fitness app and has offerings, but also has created a platform and APIs and HealthKit to enable people to build on top, like Strava and so on and so forth. So it’s not a zero sum game. I think the question is how can you expand the pie instead of divide the pie? And I think by creating these platforms and then allowing people to build on top, whether it’s feature rich or whether it’s just different take is the right way to think about it.

Maz Brumand (21:52):

And I think metabolic health is no different in a sense that I think there is a huge market out there. As we all know, 88% of people have metabolic dysfunction of some sort. So there isn’t a shortage of people that need help. It’s about how can we all do our part to create a technology that will help people in their metabolic journey. So I don’t see it as a zero sum game, and I think a lot of different products, services, and platforms can coexist to help people get where they need to go.

Ben Grynol (22:27):

Well, that’s exactly it. I mean, you were exposed to so many different projects, ones that are confidential that you can’t even talk about with anyone now. How did you take those learnings, like some of the projects that you were exposed to that had a global lens, and then how do you apply that to a startup? Because the scope and the scale of some of those projects is so much bigger where we’re just not at that stage now.

Maz Brumand (22:51):

Yeah, it’s a good question. I think there’s a couple of key lessons that I learned from Apple, which just kind of becomes ingrained in you and you don’t even realize sometimes you have these things ingrained in you. I think one is just mastering complexity and creating a simple product, not a simplistic product, but a simple product. So really working through all of the complexities and then offering something that simple, I think that is one of the core principles of Apple that’s executed really well on. And when I come to a startup, it’s kind of the same thing. There’s so many things you can do in a [inaudible 00:23:23] way, or there’s so many bells and whistles you can build into something, but really distilling it down and cutting and cutting and cutting, and saying no. The famous thing is Apple says a thousand nos for every yes or something like that.

Maz Brumand (23:37):

And when you come to a startup, there’s so many things you could do. It’s not a lack of choice. It’s the opposite problem. How do you think about the disciplined approach and how do you think about what you say yes to, and given that startups are typically at the early stage, you can go many, many different directions, but then really keying on what do you say yes to, what leads to a simple, elegant solution versus something that seems cool. Here’s a core thing. Also thinking about it from the consumer lens. Everything we did, the question was, “What does the user experience look like?” We’re not competing on metrics or we’re not competing on marketing slogans, but what does the user experience actually look like? And I think that’s enough other thing that I took away from working at Apple. But there are just so many things, and it’s been… It’s really helped shape me working at Apple for this many years, and there are so many lessons that we can get into

Ben Grynol (24:43):

What’s the DNA? If you’re summing it up, without reading a page out of a cultural handbook, if you’re summing up, what’s that core DNA that everyone has at Apple and what is it at Levels? I guess it’s a matter of we all probably will have a viewpoint about what it is at Levels, but if you’re looking at the two, what was it at Apple that you’re like, “That’s the DNA.” And then what is it at Levels?

Maz Brumand (25:14):

You know, one of the key things that Apple did really well, and this is really deeply rooted in the company is privacy. And it’s not a surface level thing, but really deeply, everybody believes in privacy. And another way to say privacy is trust. So we at Apple went above and beyond when it came to privacy. And I think the corollary at Levels is trust. One of our key principles is trust and maintaining that trust with our customers. Because as we know, if you want a long term relationship with a customer, which obviously health is a long term relationship. By definition it’s forever, and by definition it’s over the long term. And we want to have that long term relationship. Trust has to be there. Without trust, you cannot attract or keep customers. It also would be a terrible place to work if you are not creating a product that fosters trust. So I think there is a corollary between Apple’s focus on privacy and Levels’ focus on trust. I think there’s a corollary there.

Maz Brumand (26:23):

I think another one is Apple always thinks about the user experience. If you look at Apple products, usually they’re not the first to market, but when they come to market, they’ve thought a lot about the user experience and how is it used? How does it solve a problem for somebody? Versus it being gimmicky or gadgety? And I think the same thing is true at Levels, where we put the customer at the center. So every decision that we make we ask, “Does this actually create value for the customer?” And that could really shape how you make decisions on product, on business, on design. And I think there is corollaries between the UX centric view at Apple and the customer centric value creation at Levels.

Ben Grynol (27:11):

Yeah, a lot of those foundations get built early. You hear about it with Amazon or Apple, some of these companies that have DNA that’s built from years and years ago. I mean, from the foundation, the Homebrew Club. That’s when it probably started with Apple. Same thing with Amazon, when it was old doors that were turned into desks, and that was the way that they thought about being frugal and the way that they thought about being scrappy. I think this cultural DNA gets built in early, and if you can maintain it moving forward, that’s a way that a company or all the team members of a company start to think about execution and how it applies to the work that they do.

Maz Brumand (27:55):

Yeah, exactly. I think culture is probably one of the most underrated, most important things that helps shape great companies. And I think Levels has done a really fantastic job for its size focusing on culture, and it really is what differentiates how people work with each other in the company to be successful. But also how does that translate into customer values or what the characteristics of Levels that customer are attracted to? So I think by focusing on ourselves and building that culture, it just pays dividends both in terms of making and running a company a lot easier, but also creating the value system that then you can deliver to customers and making sure or that it creates value. The idea, for example, is trust. You can’t have a outward facing policy of trust without having a cultural value that enforces and builds trust. So they’re all very connected, and focusing on that internally will pay dividends externally.

Ben Grynol (29:07):

So you saw culture from the outside. I guess you watched it for a year, or stayed in tune with, we’ll call it air quotes, culture of what was being built. And that was maybe a lens on Levels, that was a lens on metabolic health. But now that you’re in it, day to day you’re in it, how has the lens evolved, if you want to call it that, as far as your outlook on metabolic health and everything we’re doing. You’re so close to it now that it’s what you’re immersed in.

Maz Brumand (29:39):

I can give you a couple of examples. I think on the how people actually interact with each other, obviously one of our biggest things is asynchronous and remote and really putting that into practice. And saying that is easier than done, because if you don’t build it from ground up, I think creating an asynchronous and remote culture as a bolt-on is very different than thinking about every single aspect and creating a system that works together and reinforces itself versus just ad hoc. For example, you can’t have a remote company if all the conversations are synchronous, because it’s just going to create huge information gap for people. So making sure that if you’re going remote, asynchronous as reinforcing characteristic is important. I read a lot. I think I had read something 50 documents that Sam had shared with me, which really helps, because you can read one document and say, “Well maybe they just wrote that as a recruitment tool.” But when you read 50 and they all work as a system and talk to each other and are consistent, you get the sense that this is not just talk, this is actual action.

Maz Brumand (31:02):

So I had a high degree of confidence that what I was reading is actually what happens. So when I entered the company, I was wondering if it was just a really well curated set of documents or is it real? So either Sam’s a genius and should get a Pulitzer award, or this is real. And I think it’s real. From what I’ve seen, I keep on pinching myself saying, “Is this all make believe or is this real?” But so far so good. It’s been a really big learning experience for me as well, because it’s so different. The way Levels runs the company is so different than anything else I’ve ever seen, which is really fantastic, because it’s almost I’m a college grad again, learning a bunch of stuff that I had no exposure to. The idea of asynchronous, the idea of deep work, where you really focus on thinking versus reacting. There’s just so many great things that I’ve experienced in the last few months.

Ben Grynol (32:11):

Yeah, it’s about resetting your baseline, your way of thinking. What seems so foreign and seems odd, maybe that’s a good way of framing it, seems odd. Like, “Hey, let’s not distract each other. Let’s not answer messages.” And I’m saying it in a colloquial fashion because of course we answer messages and of course we make sure that we stay in touch with each other asynchronously, but it’s not, “Hey, let’s feel this need, this pull, let’s feel this draw to go just check that inbox or check threads or check Notion.” We almost lean into the opposite direction and say if you are checking this all the time, then you’re doing it wrong. Or if there is a behavior that is, “Hey, let’s start having a synchronous conversation that happens to be through text, and we’re pretending it’s asynchronous.”

Ben Grynol (33:05):

We’re all pretty good at calling each other out and being like, “This is inefficient. We don’t work this way.” It is a very different way of operating, thinking, working. And from the outside, it can seem a little bit foreign and it can seem, like you said like, is this just a really well curated set of documents that’s painting a certain picture, maybe a facade of a company, and then when you see under the hood, you’re like, “That’s not the way it is.” But then people come in and they’re like, “Oh, I just saw more details of this watch. Some horologist built this crazy watch and look at the inner workings of this thing. It’s fascinating.” It’s a very different lens on building a company.

Maz Brumand (33:49):

Yeah, completely. It takes a lot of effort to do it this way. And I think what’s different is it’s not just the how, it’s the why that makes the difference, which is not these are the things you shall and shall not do, and therefore we have an asynchronous company now. It’s actually the why, the underlying understanding why things work this way and why we want to do it differently. And things that are we’re proposing, why it’s a better way to do it. I think that’s quite important. And the pieces that the team has this written is pretty deep and thoughtful. And one of the things that’s just so different is understanding, at a deep level, why, for example, the entropy is set up in a way that it is. And by entropy I mean if you left things as they are, which way would they gravitate?

Maz Brumand (34:43):

So the entropy says that companies will become meeting culture companies. People will tend to do a lot of short burst communication and not a lot of deep work. If you don’t do anything, the system tends to, the entropy tends to move you in that direction. And in order to not move in that direction, you can address it a couple ways. You can either come up with a bunch of rules and say, “Thou shall not do these things,” and therefore try to mechanically turn the system, which doesn’t work. Because as soon as somebody’s not watching people that don’t understand why would just do what they normally do. Another ways to explain why, and then propose a system that is also implementable and practical that will take you away from that entropy.

Maz Brumand (35:31):

And I think what Levels has done is being able to identify like, what are the things we don’t want to become? Why is it important not to become that way? And then proposing a system that will take you in a different direction, and again, explaining the why and the how. And I think that’s what makes it different than most companies where you just get a rule book of, “Thou shall not have recurring meetings. Thou shall not have more than five people in a meeting,” and so on and so forth, which doesn’t work. Eventually people will gravitate towards their natural state.

Ben Grynol (36:02):

Yeah, I think it’s a matter of always challenging the mechanics and the assumptions. So we do something like, “Hey, let’s use threads.” It’s an example. We transitioned to threads, I think it was around July, but we’re constantly questioning. Like it’s not, “Okay, here’s this thing. This is just it now.” It’s how can we use it differently? We’re always questioning our priors and updating accordingly. And sometimes the answer is like, “Yes, it’s still sufficient for our needs, given the current state of the team size and the way we work and all these things.” And other times we’ll make micro changes. It’s just constant evolution with every minor detail, or every very, very micro detail of a process or of the way we work of what we do, because it will end up at a point where it just doesn’t work, and as you said, it’s just about entropy. It’ll just steer in the wrong direction if it’s not addressed.

Maz Brumand (37:09):

Yeah, I think the concept that, “Hey, things could change, so we should update our world view.” If the information changes, the decision changes, typically, and we shouldn’t be dogmatic about it. And two, it’s like, “Hey, if I was wrong, if we made the best run at it and we were wrong about it, we’ll just change it, and that’s okay.” I think having those two concepts as part of built in of the culture, going back to the culture concept, it’s okay. You make your best crack at it. If you’re wrong, you’ll fix it, and if you’re right, great, you’re in a better place.

Ben Grynol (37:42):

So you’ve seen some pretty big swings with Apple, very big swings with all these different projects that you’ve worked on, literally around the world, and looking forward, how are you thinking about this space of metabolic health and what we’re doing? All the projects that are coming down the pike, knowing that the long term vision and what we can do from an impact standpoint is large, but there are a lot of little steps to get there. How are you thinking about that as we move forward with everything going on?

Maz Brumand (38:17):

That’s a good question. I think I’m really excited about the consumerization of health. Meaning there is no intermediaries making decisions on behalf of people, especially with limited information and limited science, but really this is enabling experimentation and consumers to really take the center, and then everybody building for those consumers versus other alternative motives or alternative motives or a business interest, but really the consumer’s in the center and all the technologies are focused on solving problems for consumers. I think that this intermediation that’s happened in US healthcare is obviously well documented and the big source of the problem, and now removing that and putting the consumer at the center, I think I’m really excited about.

Maz Brumand (39:06):

And then when it comes to metabolic health, I think it’s just such a broad topic, which it’s the foundation of how our bodies produce energy, which I’m excited about it because it has profound impacts on our health. And we know that it’s a problem, whether it’s our food, whether it’s other sources. And what I’m excited about is having real time feedback enabled by technology, where we can close the loop with the individual and say, “Look, here’s your behavior. And then here’s the outcome within your body.” And giving that real time feedback to people. And I think CGMs, for example, the reason they’re so exciting and different than many wearables that are out there, they give you direct bio feedback in real time at the molecular level that translates your behavior of picking up that hamburger and putting it in your mouth and your glucose response of what your body thought of that action and making that and visualizing that and internalizing for you in a way that not many things could do.

Maz Brumand (40:19):

If I gave you a pamphlet that says hamburgers are bad for you, or if I even showed you a video of a life of a hamburger in your body, it’s very different than you taking the hamburger, eating it, and seeing your body’s response to it. So I think this idea, and you can extrapolate that and say this idea of bio observability, which means our actions results to a reaction from our bodies. And can we actually show people what that is, and in real time and help them adjust their behaviors in a way that will lead to a better outcome for them. I’m excited about that. And I think the technology can get us there and the software can get us there. It’ll take time, but then everything is personalized and everything is based on direct feedback versus either a broad brush signs or even the wrong signs.

Maz Brumand (41:18):

For many years we’ve been eating a certain way, which has proven to be totally wrong, or we have been doing different things that we thought was the best thing at the time, but because that feedback didn’t exist, there was no way to really know, at least not on an individual level. So I’m really excited about consumerization and this bio observability that allows people to make decisions based on real data versus conjecture or generalization.

Ben Grynol (41:50):

So then what do you think the, I guess, challenge is going to be, because the idea of bio observability is insanely cool to think about. It sounds so silly when using the analogy of like… Imagine if your car didn’t have a dashboard and every time you needed to see if you had gas in the tank, you had to get out of your door and open the tank and look inside and be like, “Yeah, I think I’ve got enough. That’s my data point there.” It would be impossible to operate your car and keep it mechanically sound if you didn’t have sensors. And that the same thing goes with, there’s so much to learn about our bodies and what is happening internally, what is as far upstream as we can go and what the downstream implications are. But what do you think, what are some of the challenges that we’re going to face because it doesn’t happen overnight and there’s a lot of stuff around market adoption. There’s a lot of stuff around building the product. It’s not an easy thing to do, but it’s very be cool to think about.

Maz Brumand (42:55):

You know, there’s a couple of different angles you can look at it from. One is the technology. When is the technology going to be available, mature, and mainstream enough, both from a user experience perspective and cost. I think that’s a whole different set of problems. And then software is I included in that. When the software can actually generate the right insight and visualization, understanding. So I think one bucket is the technology bucket. When is the hardware going to be ready, when is the software going to be ready, and how do we actually put it together in a seamless way that many, many, many people can use. It’s not just a niche product for a small group of people. I think that’s the technology side.

Maz Brumand (43:36):

I think the second is the science side. We obviously haven’t collected a lot of this data in real time, so it’ll take some time to do the research and really be able to create the right either interventions or outcomes. So I think there’s a science piece side. I think there’s a lot of research to that needs to be done in this space, but technology can help with that. So looking at research from a different angle than traditional clinical research and coming up with different, new, innovative models of doing research, I think could unlock that at a much faster pace than historically research has been done. And I think Apple’s been a big innovator in this space and doing things the research app and the Apple heart study, really changing the way research is done.

Maz Brumand (44:25):

And I think the third piece is this idea of the social aspect of it or the acceptance of it, whether it’s the established system, the payer and providers, or whether it’s people. Obviously when you’re talking about such a sensitive area as health and the newness of it, it’ll take some time for that to work through the different groups, whether it’s the people that are using it, getting more comfortable with it, to healthcare systems, knowing how to use it and leverage it, side by side by the infrastructure that they have.

Maz Brumand (45:01):

I don’t think that healthcare and health tech are competing. They should really be complementary in that sense. I think there’s a use case for both. We obviously can’t leverage our expensive infrastructure, physical infrastructure at the rate that the population is aging, and this is becoming prevalent. So there’s got to be a different answer. So I think there’s a place for both of those to work in concert versus in a zero sum way. So I think those three things, to sum it up, it’s technology, it’s the research, and it’s the social side of it and the acceptance of it by the system and people.