Speaker 1: Do you want to know when you're going to die?
Speaker 1: And for the most part, it's a philosophical conversation. Right,
Speaker 1: nobody gets to see the big the calendar that's written
Speaker 1: somewhere in the ether that's going to show us our
Speaker 1: exact time of death. But there is a new app
Speaker 1: that says, hey, you know what, give us a little
Speaker 1: health information, give us a little lifestyle information, and we're
Speaker 1: going to be able to give you a pretty good
Speaker 1: ballpark of when you're going to die. And joining me now,
Speaker 1: the founder and CEO of death Clock, Brent Franzon, joins
Speaker 1: me to talk about just that. First of all, Brent,
Speaker 1: how did you get into the death business?
Speaker 2: So I was I've been intacked my whole career, but
Speaker 2: I was very focused on helping people change their habits
Speaker 2: to improve their health. And we realized that if we
Speaker 2: were going to predict, if we use that information to
Speaker 2: predict when somebody was going to die, it made them
Speaker 2: more likely to change their behavior, and so we went
Speaker 2: We just went full into the death prediction business with
Speaker 2: death Clock.
Speaker 1: So, I mean everybody has seen it. Well, I'm fifty six,
Speaker 1: so now I have I've lived long enough to have
Speaker 1: those friends who have had some kind of medical incident, right,
Speaker 1: maybe they had a minor heart attack, maybe they had
Speaker 1: some kind of brush with cancer that they came out
Speaker 1: on the other side. But boy, that'll snap them too.
Speaker 1: They will get out there. You see them out there
Speaker 1: working out and eat and write and changing their lives.
Speaker 1: So is using that mentality sort of what you're doing here,
Speaker 1: instead of saying, wait till you have a heart attack,
Speaker 1: Let's show you how likely you are to have a
Speaker 1: heart attack.
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2: I mean the heart attack that happens at sixty started
Speaker 2: at thirty five or forty. And so our goal is
Speaker 2: to shake people and say, look, we're all going to die,
Speaker 2: but there is a question of when. And so we
Speaker 2: predict two things. We ask you twenty nine questions, and
Speaker 2: we predict the day we think you're going to die
Speaker 2: based on your current health, but we also predict the
Speaker 2: day we think you're going to die based on optimal health.
Speaker 2: As our goal to try to get you there, but
Speaker 2: to kind of let people know, look, there's a choice here,
Speaker 2: and if you want more time, the things you do
Speaker 2: today they matter.
Speaker 1: Brett. One of the things we talk about on this
Speaker 1: show a lot because it's important to me is like,
Speaker 1: I hate it when people say, oh, I want to
Speaker 1: live to be one hundred, as if somehow living to
Speaker 1: be one hundred if you've spend the last ten years
Speaker 1: decrepit in a wheelchair, not being able to enjoy any
Speaker 1: activities of life is somehow desirable.
Speaker 4: So we talk about health span a lot.
Speaker 1: In health span meaning I want to live to be
Speaker 1: one hundred as long as I'm healthy and active and
Speaker 1: my brain is still there, that's I think a better conversation.
Speaker 1: How does that fit into with what you guys are doing?
Speaker 2: Yeah, so you really think of a lifespan as health
Speaker 2: span plus care span equals lifespan and in the context
Speaker 2: of preventative health. So you know, I'm in my mid forties,
Speaker 2: you're in your mid fifties. If we start making the
Speaker 2: changes today to be healthier, to improve our biomarkers and
Speaker 2: all the different things we can use to measure our health,
Speaker 2: we're going to be extending our health span.
Speaker 3: The care span.
Speaker 2: Tends to be extended by the by our healthcare system.
Speaker 2: So our healthcare system has done a really good job
Speaker 2: of figuring out ways to get us all to help
Speaker 2: us all live longer later in life. When the quality
Speaker 2: is really low, but if you start earlier, you tend
Speaker 2: to be extending your health span. And you're right, it matters,
Speaker 2: matters much more than lifespan.
Speaker 1: So how did you guys come up with this algorithm?
Speaker 1: How did you come up with twenty nine questions? And
Speaker 1: how certain are you that your information is good?
Speaker 2: So we have a clinical board, so it's a set
Speaker 2: of doctors that weighs in on everything that we do.
Speaker 2: And we looked at what are the factors that matter most,
Speaker 2: so sleep, diet, exercise, family history, the age of your grandparents,
Speaker 2: blood pressure, things like that, and we train the algorithm
Speaker 2: on people who we have a lot of public information
Speaker 2: about and have died. To be very accurate in predicting death,
Speaker 2: we stuck that we trained an AI on twelve hundred
Speaker 2: longevity studies, So all of that sits on top of
Speaker 2: the AI and all of the actuarial tables that are
Speaker 2: used by life insurance companies and other things. So we
Speaker 2: do predict an exact day, and we don't think the
Speaker 2: exact day is right, but we think directionally we're very
Speaker 2: accurate in terms of the life expectancy itself.
Speaker 1: I mean, you guys don't have like the inside Track
Speaker 1: to the Grim Reaper. It's like this is not written
Speaker 1: in stone. What I think is interesting is that, honestly,
Speaker 1: the death clock is sort of an entry level way
Speaker 1: to get people to say, you, guys offer a whole
Speaker 1: range of products on the backside about this, What are
Speaker 1: those products about?
Speaker 2: So in a post AI world, what we're really trying
Speaker 2: to do is and we're trying to build this platform,
Speaker 2: but everybody should be aware of this for themselves. Is
Speaker 2: you want to have all of your health data in
Speaker 2: one place. Number one. Number two is you want to
Speaker 2: have an AI that's trained on that data that can
Speaker 2: help you understand the reality of your health and make recommendations.
Speaker 2: Number two and then number three you want to go
Speaker 2: execute on those changes and try to be.
Speaker 3: Healthier and live longer.
Speaker 2: So we're trying to basically have an AI private doctor
Speaker 2: that'll help you live longer. You can do this on
Speaker 2: your own, but that's our goal. We want to try
Speaker 2: to help you help people live live ten years longer,
Speaker 2: not just scare you and predict predict when you're going
Speaker 2: to die.
Speaker 1: I want to ask you a philosophical question, Brent, because
Speaker 1: you're a tech guy and the stuff that I'm seeing
Speaker 1: come out of the tech bros who are trying to
Speaker 1: live forever. Okay, you've got Brian whatever his name is,
Speaker 1: who is literally trying to live forever. And it feels
Speaker 1: like for whatever reason, And I'm not saying this is
Speaker 1: what you guys are doing, Okay, I'm really asking you
Speaker 1: if you fall into this category, it's like, we're all
Speaker 1: going to die. You started out by saying we're all
Speaker 1: going to die. Why is this new focus? Why does
Speaker 1: it seem to be so intense in such a way
Speaker 1: that people really do seem to be trying to live forever.
Speaker 2: Well, I think I think there's two things going on.
Speaker 2: I think one is we've all realized that our healthcare
Speaker 2: system is a sick care system and it's not good
Speaker 2: at helping us prevent getting diseases in the first place,
Speaker 2: and so I think cats out.
Speaker 3: Of the bag on that.
Speaker 2: And then two, I disagree with what people are doing.
Speaker 2: I think there's a lot of people saying, hey, maybe
Speaker 2: we can live to one hundred and fifty, or maybe
Speaker 2: we're never going to die. I totally disagree with that.
Speaker 2: I would put myself in the camp of trying to
Speaker 2: get what's called the incremental decade.
Speaker 3: There are things we know we can.
Speaker 2: Do to get a ten, you know, ten extra good years,
Speaker 2: and I want to help people go do those things.
Speaker 3: But I don't want any.
Speaker 2: Part of bleeding edge experimental things that we might be
Speaker 2: doing or inferring and communicating that maybe we're not going
Speaker 2: to die.
Speaker 3: I think that's reckless.
Speaker 1: So who comes up or how did you guys develop
Speaker 1: those back end things that we just mentioned.
Speaker 2: So it's a combination of just training an AI on
Speaker 2: all of the top research around longevity and then reviewing.
Speaker 3: That with a clinical board.
Speaker 2: So on our clinical board, we've got an oncologist, an endocrinologist, cardiologist,
Speaker 2: a neurologist, and then a primary care doc. And so
Speaker 2: it's training an AI and then reviewing it with people
Speaker 2: who are actually at the top of their field and
Speaker 2: practicing medicine.
Speaker 4: What sent you down this path personally?
Speaker 1: You said you've always been invested in technology that helps
Speaker 1: people live a better life. Was there a specific thing
Speaker 1: that made you go this is going to be my
Speaker 1: area of concentration.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, I got misdiagnosed as bipolar when I
Speaker 2: was a teenager.
Speaker 3: There's nothing wrong with bipolar. I'm just I'm not bipolar,
Speaker 3: and I.
Speaker 2: Got put on an antipsychotic to help me sleep, and
Speaker 2: I shouldn't have been on it, and I've had problems
Speaker 2: sleeping since, And so I've long been suspicious of the
Speaker 2: healthcare system. I think our healthcare system tends to go
Speaker 2: too quickly to pills and procedures and isn't very good
Speaker 2: at helping us with the basics. I was just a
Speaker 2: very rebellious team who is hormonal, and I was getting
Speaker 2: a little wild. I should have never been on that
Speaker 2: medication in the first place. So I've realized I'm on
Speaker 2: my own and I want to build a tool that
Speaker 2: helps me manage my own health. And then I'm a technologist,
Speaker 2: I might as well, you know, we might as well
Speaker 2: make it available others well.
Speaker 1: I put a link on the blog to both the
Speaker 1: Android app Store and the Apple App Store if you
Speaker 1: guys want to download it. By the way, Brian, I
Speaker 1: did it. Our brandt. I did it, and it said,
Speaker 1: as of right now, changing nothing. I'm going to live
Speaker 1: to be eighty nine, which I feel like is a
Speaker 1: pretty good run. But obviously I'm not doing everything perfect.
Speaker 1: As long as I'm good and healthy and keep doing
Speaker 1: the right things, I'm hoping that the death clock is
Speaker 1: a little short in terms of what we are, but
Speaker 1: I very much appreciate your time. It's a super interesting concept,
Speaker 1: it really really is. And I'm guessing that for someone
Speaker 1: who goes to your app and downloads it and ask
Speaker 1: the questions and gets a number that is far closer
Speaker 1: to where they are right now than they realize this
Speaker 1: is going to be in a And I'm also guessing
Speaker 1: that someone who finds himself in that situation is open
Speaker 1: to making those changes because you're not going to download
Speaker 1: the app unless you realize, hm, I could probably be
Speaker 1: doing something better. Is that kind of what you guys find?
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's I mean, it's not scary.
Speaker 2: We hear people are concerned about it on the front end,
Speaker 2: and we never hear that on the back end, so
Speaker 2: we've tried to lighten it up.
Speaker 3: But yeah, we're all going to die.
Speaker 2: It's good knowing where you might end up so you
Speaker 2: can proactively make the decision.
Speaker 3: Is that long enough? Is eighty nine long enough for you?
Speaker 2: If it is okay, fine, if you want to live longer,
Speaker 2: then you know you got to get on that now.
Speaker 1: Well, in fifty six it seems long enough. But talk
Speaker 1: to me when I'm eighty five.
Speaker 5: Okay, We'll have a follow up interview when I'm eighty five.
Speaker 5: Brent will make it happen, Brent Franson, his app is
Speaker 5: death Clock. Super interesting and hats off to you for
Speaker 5: just trying to help people live a happier, healthier life
Speaker 5: and a longer life if they if they really want to.
Speaker 4: Bran, I appreciate your time today.
Speaker 3: Thank you. Mandy