January 31, 2024 • 33 mins
🎙️ A fan of The Career Manifesto shares her path to CEO
🎙️ How AI and data are lighting the way to a cure for cancer
🎙️ And finally an honest answer: is it any fun to be the CEO?
A genuinely uplifting episode that will make you optimistic about the future of technology and human health!
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🤘 More about The Career Manifesto, including free resources, at mikesteib.com.
🌟 Upcoming episodes: a founder and a CEO who have each helped to revolutionize how we engage with our local communities. Text or call your questions at (213) 419.0596.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Welcome to office hours, but we sit down with the
chief executives shaping the world and answer your most important
questions about leadership, careers, and life. I'm Mike Steibe and
I'm grateful for the opportunity today to interview Carolyn stare It.
We've all heard someone talk about their job and say, well,
it's not like we're curing cancer. As CEO of flat
(00:26):
Iron Health, Carolyn and her team are quite literally helping
to cure cancer. So Carolyn, we first met before you
were CEO. We did, and now you're here and I
didn't even know. You popped up on my LinkedIn feed
and it's like, now you were the boss final out.
I thought that was the coolest thing. And now we're
on the pod.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
Well, I'm really excited you're here.
Speaker 3 (00:49):
Thank you so much for inviting me.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
This is a treat.
Speaker 1 (00:52):
So we had a bunch of questions from the audience.
We'll talk a little bit about you know, some people
wanted to hear how you got started. People want to
know how to flat iron work.
Speaker 3 (01:03):
If it's all right, will literate sounds great?
Speaker 1 (01:07):
So Isaac in Columbus, Ohio asks.
Speaker 3 (01:11):
Who's curious what role does flat irons help play in
the cancer treatment ecosystem.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
Thank you so at basic blocking and tackling question.
Speaker 3 (01:20):
Tell us tell us about flat I'm always delighted to
talk about what we get to do. So Flattern was
founded at about twelve years ago now, and our mission
from the very beginning has been to learn from the
experience of every person with cancer. And we have two
kind of two halves of the business. One half is
that we build software that is used to manage patient
(01:43):
care in cancer centers and to handle clinical decisions, support
and treatment help with treatment decisions. And then we have
another half of flat Iron, which takes and curates data
that are generated through that routine care to think about
how can we anonymize them and harmonize them and link
them to other data modalities to figure out what's really happening.
(02:05):
How do we help life sciences companies bring and make
novel new therapies available to patients in a faster way
and with a better understanding of the actual mechanisms and data.
Speaker 1 (02:16):
It's an amorphous concept probably for a lot of our
audience who's not in it with you. What is it
that you know?
Speaker 3 (02:22):
You know?
Speaker 1 (02:22):
For someone who has a certain type of cancer, what
treatment they've taken, and what results they saw. What are
the various facets of data that are going to help you.
Speaker 3 (02:31):
Yeah, so we actually build an electronic medical health records system,
which is think of it as like the ERP or
the CRM system of a cancer center. So we know
everything that you could know about a cancer patient, and
you know where they come from, their demographics, their treatment,
their outcomes. Now, what you find that's both incredibly challenging
(02:54):
and a real opportunity is that those data aren't easily accessible.
Most of the data live in a document or a
lab PDF or in places that you can't actually access.
So we do a lot of the work we do
is thinking about how to use AI and natural language
processing to pull data out, thinking about how to stitch
together other data sources there.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
So when you say it's like a CRM, like most
companies have a sales team that knows every single thing
about a potential client before they reach out and try
to sell them. And you're telling me the hospitals didn't
have a simple thing like that for a cancer patient.
Speaker 3 (03:28):
Well, in general, if you go back the high TechEd act,
let's say this is probably fifteen twenty years ago. I mean,
this is a case of government regulations actually doing their job.
There were large incentives which said hospitals and cancer centers
as well had to roll out electronic medical health records.
Before that, you would go into your doctor's office and
it was a wall of charts and it was written documents,
(03:49):
and yeah, none of it lived digitally wild.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
And so you'll find you use that AIRP system or
the CRM system, your machines will go through the data
and what types of things will they learn.
Speaker 3 (04:04):
So, first off, I mean from a patient perspective, before
we do anything with the data, we de identify it
and we go through pretty rigorous processes to ensure that
the data are stripped of any sort of personally identifiable information.
But then we go in and we can do things
like look at the impact of social determinants of health
on how someone's outcomes time to treatment, for example, and cancer,
(04:29):
we can do things. One of the most classic examples
is there aren't enough men who get breast cancer to
run a clinical trial that can tell you with statistical
significance what the results would be of different therapies for
breast cancer. So we were able to look in the
data and say actually, what do you do if you
show up with cancer and you're a guy who doesn't
(04:50):
have an approved therapeutic option. You do the best you can.
You apply the clinician would apply judgment. And so we
were able to look in our data to see all
of the men who had had us cancer and to
see their outcomes and then work with the FDA to
approve a label expansion to approve a drug called poba
cyclone for men.
Speaker 1 (05:08):
And a lot of a lot of our listeners have
on their minds. I see it and hear it in
the questions that we get, sort of the having purpose
and mission in their work. And I'll just read off
one of the one of the d ms that I
got from uh Tara and Fort Worth, Texas. Did you
always know you wanted to work in this industry? And
how did you find your path into this role? And
(05:29):
what do you what advice do you give to emerging
leaders who are trying to find their place.
Speaker 3 (05:34):
Yeah. So I actually spent most of my career prior
to joining Flatiron in working in enterprise technology companies. And
the thing that connects all of the experience is through
my career has been this fascination with solving problems in
smarter ways. How do we how do I use technology
to transform the experience I have day to day? How
(05:55):
can we use technology to just get smarter about how
we experience the world, how we build new businesses, build
new new products, and so, you know, each step of
the way, I've been fascinated by, honestly like very challenging,
complex problem spaces. And I got to a point. I
(06:15):
was working at a predictive analytics start up here in
New York before deciding to come to Flat Iron, and
we were building these really cool predictive analytics models, working
with e commerce sites and trying to figure out how
to shape the consumer experience. And I just I thought,
you know, there's so many really important problems that we
can go after. I wonder if there's a way that
(06:36):
I can I can, you know, find my way to
a place that inner it that blends health and data
and technology. And so I found my way to flat
Iron through my network and then have now spent eight years,
you know, learning in the classroom of the work that
we do with cancer centers, the work that we do
with life science customers.
Speaker 1 (06:56):
You didn't you didn't come into CEO cover this at
the top. So how what was that? What was that
path for you?
Speaker 3 (07:03):
Actually, so I should I should out you a little
bit here. Funny story the way that we connected. Initially.
I came in initially building the customer experience with the
cancer centers that we work with, so parlaying my tech
and software experience into rolling out these these software systems
that cancer practices. And I I worked hard and was
curious and you know, tried to tried to create as
(07:25):
much value as I can and got promoted into a
role leading as a GM that side of our business.
And at the time, I looked around and everyone was
super frustrated about career development. And a mentor of mine
pointed me to your book, The Career Manifesto. Actually, Jason
was our CFO. It was another Lexi Reese, who I
(07:46):
think you worked with a Google. I'd sat down with
her and one of the things you say in that
book is actually follow the advice people give you. And
so her advice was go read this book. And so
I went and read this book. I was I was
literally on vacation in Spain, I think, and I was like, ah,
this is perfect. You did such a great job of
distilling just all these things that I kind of think
I intellectually would know, but you had just written in
(08:08):
this beautiful, very simple, like quick to digest format. So
I read the book, I gave it to my whole team,
and then another colleague introduced us, and you sat down
and were like so generous with your time to you know,
help me think about how to scale up. So long
story short, I was at that point running a g
stepping into a role as a general manager on top
(08:29):
of one of our businesses, and trying to figure out
how to how to level up as a leader. Flat
Airn was acquired about five years ago, and I had
the opportunity to really build and scale my team, and
I loved what I was working on, and so I
oddly never felt bored. It's the first time that I
(08:50):
can look back and say there were just there weren't
moments where I was like, I don't have something new
to learn, and so I stuck with it. And then
three years after the acquisition, are two co founders decided
to move on to the next thing, and I got
the opportunity to step into the CEO role.
Speaker 1 (09:07):
Well, I love I mean I love this story because
I'm in it and.
Speaker 3 (09:11):
I a little credit.
Speaker 1 (09:13):
I was love it because California Senate candidate Lexi Reese
isn't it for her career manifesto has been pretty amazing,
has indeed so wonderful. So all these terrific people have
been in some way, including to make sure you're the
CEO of Flat Iron Health. When you, I mean when
you read the book or when you were thinking about
your career, you were thinking about people who work with you's,
people who work with you, their career frustrations. What was
(09:35):
the takeaway for you? What would be your advice for
somebody else who's on the come up trying to figure
out her career. What do you tell folks?
Speaker 3 (09:42):
I mean, I think the number one thing, and this
is what you say at the very beginning of your book,
is you got to take ownership for your own career.
You I am the CEO of my own career. No
one's going to do it for me. And I think
so often it's easy to look to others to solve,
you know, to solve the what next, or to solve
like how am I going to stretch myself and find
some new growth opportunity? And and what I've tried to
(10:05):
remind myself over and over again, is that's actually my job.
And it takes work, and it's like you got to
carve out time to set goals and get creative and
make connections and invest in development. But I think what
I've seen over and over again is that when I
do that, the opportunities start to come my way because
I don't wait for someone to hand it to me.
(10:27):
I say, oh, this looks really interesting. I'm intrigued by this.
Let me go see if I can, if I can
solve this problem, if I can make an impact, And
then all of a sudden, it, you know, always leads
to new things.
Speaker 1 (10:36):
That's awesome. Okay, let's go to the next one. Evan
and Jacksonville, Florida.
Speaker 3 (10:41):
Hey, first time caller here. I was wondering what has
been some of the big wins and setbacks you've seen
over the last few years in your career. You know,
I think you kind of do you have to go
to COVID because it's been such a defining moment in
terms of company culture and how we collaborate and how
we communicate. I stepped into the sea role at FLATIRN
in April of twenty twenty one. You know, just over
(11:05):
a year into COVID, and I spent the first year
and a half, you know, thinking about how I bring
together our leadership team, you know, reset the long term strategy,
reset our priority is all you know, without the opportunity
to bring the team together. And you know, we had
gotten pretty good at learning how to work remotely and
you know, hybrid meetings and all these things that we
(11:27):
take for granted in some ways now, but I still
think there's there's just no substitute for being able to
sit down together with a team when when it comes
to really complex trade offs and and creative thinking and
complex interdependencies. And so that was that was really challenging.
Speaker 1 (11:47):
Let me ask you, because works a grind, like all
day every day, where there are moments when you were like,
this is today's a big win? Today was today's amazing? Well,
what are the times when you get to step back,
for you professionally that you've experienced like, here's a moment
that I can be really excited about, we can all
be excited about.
Speaker 3 (12:06):
I try to really actively look for them everyday moments, right,
I think I have a it sounds cheesy, but a
practice of gratitude, Like let me write down the three
things that I'm most grateful for or proud of any
given day, and I like genuinely makes me feel better.
But I also try to look back every week and say,
what are what is a moment that just I can
(12:27):
really celebrate with the team we have. We have a
ring the Bell channel in slack at Flatiron where we
post all the big customer wins or you know, the
big regulatory approvals that have happened. So you know, I
had one. I came earlier today from a customer council.
We bring together all of our key customers in New
(12:48):
York about once a year to do demos of all
the new products. And I got to see a demo
today of new functionality that we've built. And then this
really cool partnership we're launching to solve for clinical documentation
using AI. And every now and again you just see
this step change advance that is going to foundationally change
(13:10):
the experience of treating patients and sitting in an exam
room with a patient. And that was that was one
of those moments earlier today that I just I sat
back and I said, Wow, this is like this big.
Speaker 1 (13:23):
Selling the company. Most felt pretty good too.
Speaker 3 (13:27):
It did. I was at the time. I was a
member of the executive team. But you know, it's funny
that selling the company, it's it. It feels amazing in
some respects. But I also think those milestones get built
up into an event. That is, it can come across
as if it's the end, when in actuality, it's just
(13:49):
the beginning. And I say that, you know, having now
been five years out from that event, I think about
how much has changed. I think about how, you know,
the real beginning of the impact we get to have
was was with that event. In some ways, you know,
because we knew we had a long term future, it
wasn't actually any sort of an end.
Speaker 1 (14:17):
We're gonna go next to Naomi in Indianapolis, who says what.
Speaker 4 (14:21):
Trends in technology should we be watching in the near future.
Past guests have talked a lot about AI and how
it's shaping their companies. So what does AI do today
to help curing diseases like cancer?
Speaker 3 (14:34):
Yeah, well, so maybe I'll expand on that example I
just shared, and I can give you one other. So,
in the context of oncologists sitting down with cancer patients,
one of the biggest challenges is the documentation burden that happens.
There's so much that has to get documented in a system.
EHR has get a terrible wrap for this. It's painful.
And you hear, you know, so many stories about physician burnout,
(14:57):
because what ends up happening is you spend all day
and in a room with a patient and then all
night going home to document all the things that happened.
So like this pilot that we just did this or
that we just signed, and the demo that we did
this afternoon was a kind of mock of a patient
experience visit with an oncologist and a patient going through
an actual visit to say like, here's my condition, here's
(15:18):
my past medical history, here's all the steps that led
up to today. And we went through a ten minute example,
all the while the ambient scribe was listening to that example,
and then we looked at the output of what happened
at the end, and we reviewed a physician note that
came out of that exchange, which which was not perfect,
(15:40):
which was not perfect at all, but which got like
eighty or ninety percent of the work done with no effort.
And so it's a total game changer because instead of
starting from scratch dictating or typing up the entire assessment
and plan and next steps. You start with almost a
finished product, and then you just scan it and review
it and you know it's in There's a lot of
(16:01):
complex language and oncology, and there it is not perfect.
I think one of the things we always have to
remember is that so an example, it got eighty or
ninety percent of it right, but it got the name
of a drug wrong. In the context of a patient
treatment decision, you got to get the name of a
drug right right, And a lot of these drugs sound
(16:21):
kind of similar, but at the same time the doctor
can quickly catch that and check it. So I think
the real promise is not AI in and of itself,
but AI is an enabler of everything just being so
much more streamlined and so much smoother. Another example is,
you know, I mentioned we try to learn from all
(16:42):
of the data that we see across all of these
patient experiences in our network, and historically, because we wanted
to be really careful about accuracy, we you know, built
an entire team of oncology nurses who would log into
certain elements of the chart and review the data field.
So review kind of the line of therapy or review
the progression of disease. And now we feill mL models
(17:04):
that can do all of that work, and we can
measure their accuracy against the human labeled and curated data
sets we have, and we're finding that sometimes the models
are even better than the humans at doing this work.
And what that means is instead of sampling and being
constrained in how much data we can look at, we
can look at all of the data across all of
the patients that we happen to see and pull that
(17:25):
together and truly learn from the experience of every patient.
Speaker 1 (17:30):
This has been a theme on the podcast and all
the leaders we've talked to about this, I have interpreted
the future and that it's going to be a complement
to your work. It's going to superpower your work. We're
not seeing a lot of examples where it's going to
sort of replace the human in the process. And we've
talked about it in content creation and art and on
and on on, and it sounds like you're seeing healthcare
(17:54):
got the same way.
Speaker 3 (17:55):
I think, so I think what it replays, I mean,
I think in so many fields, it's a new competency
that we all need to figure out and get conversant
in and I think is not replacing humans, but it
will significantly challenge people who don't know how to use
it appropriately to be more efficient and to do their
jobs with all of the you know, additional power and
(18:20):
efficiency that can come when you're using the technology appropriately.
Speaker 1 (18:24):
And when usen back and you think about what the
healthcare landscape will look like in ten or twenty years,
what will it be like? What are your expectations.
Speaker 3 (18:35):
I think data and technology will be much more ubiquitous.
It is taken far. You know, we talked about electronic
medical health records and digital digital data sets rolling out
over the last twenty years. Despite all of this progress,
they're still super fractured. We still use fax machines in doctors' offices.
So I think we will finally see the ubiquity of
(18:58):
data exchange and interoperability between systems and the ability to
parse those data in ways that actually make them usable.
And at the same time, I think we will have
to depend on technology to do a better job determining
the best treatment options for any given patient, determining you know,
how to make a decision about how to design a
(19:20):
trial and how to find the right patients. I mean,
I think these are topics where the degrees of the
number of variables that need to get considered you just
can't process it in the human brain. And so I
think I think we're going to see a continued push
to try to embed that that change in you know,
(19:42):
all of the ways in which healthcare impacts our system,
whether it be the experience in a doctor's office, the
experience in a clinical trial, the experience with your payer.
I mean, it's it's one of the most backward industries
still in terms of how far we are now, and
I think there are a lot of blockers to progres,
but we're finally really well positioned the same are change.
Speaker 1 (20:04):
Compared to you compare all care to other trillion dollar
or multi trillion dollar industries. All of the others seem
to have become modern, technologically efficient, competition has driven the
right outcomes. It doesn't seem to be happening or happening
very fast in human health.
Speaker 2 (20:25):
Why is that.
Speaker 3 (20:28):
Incentives? I think it's the primary one. If you think
about the US healthcare system, we are optimized around a
fee for service model. For the most part, this is changing,
But for the most part, a fee for service, which
means you or I show up at the doctor and
the doctor bills for a procedure or a specific appointment
or a specific medicine that they give us. And we've
(20:49):
had a really hard time looking across the system to
actually think about value and patient outcomes, and so as
a result, it's really hard to figure out the right
inner mentions and the incentives aren't in place for care
coordination across multiple different individuals who need to think about,
you know, different elements of a holistic care. And so
(21:10):
you'll hear the theme of value based care in healthcare,
and what that actually means is new payment models, which
say we're going to look at the overall outcomes in
a population and you know, the experience and the payment
will be dictated by the outcomes, not by the individual
steps and interventions that a practitioner is taking. But that
(21:34):
runs through the entirety of the healthcare system, you know,
the entirety of kind of how the pairs are structured,
the entirety of how physician practices are optimized. Frankly, the
patient experience is crazy because we don't see our bills.
There's no other industry where you don't see the bill
for what you are consuming in the industry.
Speaker 1 (21:54):
One of our listeners texted in a question that's related
to this. Luis and Austin texts asked, what is the
regulatory landscape around health tech and what changes in regulation
could accelerate better patient outcomes?
Speaker 3 (22:10):
So super complex, if you, I mean, I think you
can come at that from so many different ways. There's
the regulatory landscape for approving new medicines. There's the regulatory
landscape for approving new digital technology devices and you know
where might they need an approval. There's the landscape for
(22:31):
how we think about interoperability between existing software and systems
and different vendors, So we could come at that from
a There's the kind of landscape in terms of how
we think about the government payment models, the Medicare, Medicaid.
So I think healthcare is just one of the most
regulated fields that exists, and so all of these different
(22:55):
legislations and rules need to come together to drive innovation,
to drive collaboration, to drive coordination of care, and that
leads to a kind of complex, complex system.
Speaker 1 (23:07):
Fiona and San Francisco, California called in with this one.
Speaker 3 (23:11):
Mindy Grossman talked a few episodes back about the challenges
women face on the path to CEO. Have you found
it harder to lead and rise in the industry as
a woman.
Speaker 2 (23:21):
I have a tactic that I use, which is that
I always try to focus on the things that I
can control, and I think it's it's easy to kind
of fall into a mindset of I'm the victim of
a situation.
Speaker 3 (23:36):
You know, why is this wrong? Or to I try.
I try to make sure I'm focused on where I
get to be an agent of outcomes, and I find
that makes it much easier for me to to to
feel like I'm the agent of my destiny and I'm
not you know, uh, you know, stuck reliant on the
situation that I've been in, and so, you know, I
(23:58):
think that has helped me really focus on where I
can take agency, where I can drive impact. I've leaned
into relationships and as a result, I've never actually felt
like I have been held back by by you know,
nature of my gender. That's a really privileged position to
(24:18):
be in. I think I've also been exceedingly lucky and
the mentors and sponsors that I've found throughout my career,
and and you know, so so often I think the
thing that we need to do as women is pay
it forward with each other. You know, there's there's something
really powerful about helping each other, you know, get to
(24:38):
that next step, see see something in a new way.
And and so I've had so many incredible people support
me in that way, and I and I try to
think about how I can I can give back the same.
Speaker 1 (24:49):
Sure, Well, if being a woman has held you back,
it's hard to find the evidence. Yeah, I mean leading
the industry doing amazing work. It's it seems to have
worked out for you. And so your and your advice
totap and pay it forward and seek mentors and that.
Speaker 3 (25:05):
Yeah, And I think it comes from mindset. If you
have a mindset, which is that anything is possible that
can you know help, it helps in manifesting those possibilities.
Speaker 1 (25:16):
I'm also hearing you say, though, it's not just believing
that it can be possible. What it is it is
being the agent of yours, being the CEO. You're you're
the CEO of your career long before you were the CEO.
And I you know, as a parent, I see this
in my children's lives. I worry a lot when you know,
I just see seven year olds, moms and dads tying
their shoes for them before the match. I'm like, they
(25:36):
can diye those shoes, you know they can. And the
thousand other examples. Whether these moments where that you could
tell a kid like you're in charge, figure it out
or not? Yeah, and I don't. I'm sure everyone always
thinks this about the next generation on the way up,
but I don't see enough little kids believing that they
have agency, that they should be the solution to their problems.
Speaker 3 (26:00):
I'm figuring this out now. I'm a new mother. I
had a son this year, my first five months old now,
and I can say, you know, in some ways, I've
that is a that is a choice that I made.
I'm an old, first time mom, and so I had
the luxury of really leaning into my career over the
last decade and not trying to figure out how to
(26:20):
juggle both sides of growing my family and you know
what I want to do professionally, and that, like, frankly,
that's a lot of time that I got to devote
that I wouldn't have had. Now as I think about
how do I want to shape my son's Hudson, how
do I want to shape his life? How do I
think about, you know, ruthlessly prioritizing where I show up
and how I show up. It's definitely teaching me a
(26:41):
whole new set of skills.
Speaker 1 (26:43):
I love it well. One thing I can certainly advise
is at this age, when Hudson's like reaching for a
toy and can't quite get it, don't get it to him.
I swear I feel like it made such a difference
for my kids that they had to like drag themselves
across the carpet to get that toy. You're forming these
synapses early.
Speaker 3 (27:03):
Yeah. My ours right now is is he'll wake up
in his crib all the time, and he wants to
practice his roles, and he wants to and and just
like he needs to stay and he's going to learn
to be comfortable and roll around.
Speaker 1 (27:14):
I wasn't as good at that. I just the kids
wanted to come in the bed. I was like, come on,
come in the bed, okay. I was always like, no,
we have to train them. I'm like, it's there's no
third or seventeen year old still getting in bed with
their parents. I're got to figure it out. But I
was soft on that on that front.
Speaker 5 (27:27):
But I think it was selfish.
Speaker 1 (27:39):
You're gonna like this question. Aiden in New Jersey, My
CEO always looks so stressed out.
Speaker 4 (27:45):
Do you like the job of CEO? I don't think
I would want that job.
Speaker 3 (27:51):
I mean, that's so funny. Honestly, I did not think
I wanted the CEO job when I when it was
offered to me. It wasn't something I I I appreciate
the autonomy. I care a lot about having latitude to
do what I want to do. I loved my job
as a general manager owning strategy and an end to
end business unit. But I always looked at the CEO job,
(28:11):
and so that looks really lonely. And I thrive in
the relationships that I have, and I wanted to be
part of a team, and so I was not pushing
to step into this role, and I wasn't sure if
I would like it. When I agreed to do it,
I didn't feel like I could say no. I was,
you know, inspired enough by what we're doing that I
wasn't going to walk away from the opportunity. But I
really wasn't sure if I would like it. And I
(28:33):
would say the first year was steepest learning curve I've
ever had in my career. It was incredibly challenging.
Speaker 1 (28:39):
Oh it's really hard. The first year in that job.
Speaker 3 (28:42):
Yeah, and we had a bunch of leadership transitions and
I was hiring and I you know, there were three
to four open roles on my team at any given
point in time.
Speaker 1 (28:49):
So that was I was no good at it. I
don't know anyone who is good at being a CEO.
At first, I am general manager. I gain just that
next level of leadership. We have cross functional responsibility. Yep,
it's really hard.
Speaker 3 (29:02):
I think each one of those inflection points, and I
think over the arc of her career. It's an amazingly
rewarding thing to look back and say, oh my god,
that was so hard. Now it's two and a half
years ago, and now I feel like I've I know
how to do that thing. What was so so hard
two and a half years ago, Like, doesn't feel that
hard now. And I would say, I'm actually really enjoying
the job now that I've built the team and we
(29:24):
have a really clear and compelling strategy, and so it
started to be a lot of fun. I hope I
don't look as stressed. I bet I did look pretty
stressed out the first year. I don't think I look
quite as stressed out now.
Speaker 1 (29:33):
Yeah, to be clear, Aiden doesn't work for you talking
about his CEO, it may work for me. It's a
common name. Last one is from Vivian and Boston, who says, Hi,
I was just wondering, Well, all of these advances in
data science and technology lead to a cure for cancer?
Speaker 3 (29:54):
I hope so. Biden and this administration has announced the
Cancer Moonshine and the stated goal there is to reduce
cancer mortality by fifty percent over the next twenty five years.
And I think there are more and more cancers where
we are talking about cures. At the same time, I
think there are more and more cancers where we have
the opportunity to have very extended lives, that are that
(30:17):
are that are very high quality of life for a
much longer time than we could ever have contemplated before.
And I think that's the that's the end game. How
do we improve outcomes for patients, How do we improve
quality of life? How do we give patients more time
with their families and their loved ones, And and that
is changing all the time for the better. And so
(30:38):
that's what I find really really inspiring.
Speaker 1 (30:40):
And I understand doctors are telling patients all the time
now not to not to google the likely outcomes from
cancers because because the medicine has gotten so much better
so fast, that the that the life expectancies are changing rapidly.
Speaker 3 (30:54):
Yeah, Google can can cannot be your friend in some
of these situations because the personal consider it is, the
treatments are more personalized, there are more and more precision therapies,
and and so actually the range of outcomes looks looks
wider and wider.
Speaker 1 (31:08):
Well, I'm just I'm glad that a good, smart person
like you is contributing to this. It's I suspect everyone
of our listeners has somebody in their life they worry about,
and I'm glad you all are doing the doing the
good work.
Speaker 3 (31:22):
Thank you, Carol.
Speaker 1 (31:23):
This has been really fun. Thanks for coming to the podcast.
Speaker 3 (31:25):
This is a treat Thank you.
Speaker 1 (31:26):
First, you read the book, we met, you read the book,
and he came on the pod. What are we going
to do next? Yeah, I know, it's the beginning of
a wonderful friendshi ah, I love it. Friends. That was
interesting in a number of ways. I didn't appreciate all
of the advances that are being made and data and
(31:48):
technology under the under the hood and the healthcare industry
and helps explain why the outcomes are getting better and
better for patients. One of the things I took away
personally Carol and talked about being the agent of your
own career, the CEO of your own career. And it's
something I certainly believe myself and I so regularly see
(32:11):
in others who find success professionally that they did it
with a plan. We've talked about here on the podcast before.
I always drop in the show notes the link to
my book, but I'll tell our listeners if you want
a free copy, you just hit me up on LinkedIn
and I'll send it to you. There's a way that
you can lay out a planned to get from where
(32:32):
you are to where you want to be by taking
that leadership not in your job, but in the overall
direction of your career. And I really want to encourage
you to do it, because we all get one shot
to have real impact in our careers, an important impact
the way Carolyn is, and you could be doing something
like that too. All right, guys, we've got some amazing
guests coming up the next few weeks. We're going to
(32:55):
cover some New Year's Resolution stuff soon. I think you're
really going to enjoy Just you know what to text her,
call in your questions at two one, three four one
nine oh five nine six, or you can hit me
up on LinkedIn, Instagram, et cetera. At Mike Steib I
want to thank Carolyn was wonderful today, And of course
I want to thank Jen and Cara, Meg, Jada, Matt
(33:15):
and the whole team at Blue Duck Media for putting
this all together, Dylan, Sasha, Gei, Nathan and Christine at iHeart.
I want to thank the heat in the studio mixing
it up for us again. And I don't think Ben
and the team at William Morrison Devor for all their support.
Office Hours is a production of Blue Duck Media and
distributed by iHeartRadio. Happy holidays everybody, and stay on your grind.
Welcome to office hours, but we sit down with the
chief executives shaping the world and answer your most important
questions about leadership, careers, and life. I'm Mike Steibe and
I'm grateful for the opportunity today to interview Carolyn stare It.
We've all heard someone talk about their job and say, well,
it's not like we're curing cancer. As CEO of flat
(00:26):
Iron Health, Carolyn and her team are quite literally helping
to cure cancer. So Carolyn, we first met before you
were CEO. We did, and now you're here and I
didn't even know. You popped up on my LinkedIn feed
and it's like, now you were the boss final out.
I thought that was the coolest thing. And now we're
on the pod.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
Well, I'm really excited you're here.
Speaker 3 (00:49):
Thank you so much for inviting me.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
This is a treat.
Speaker 1 (00:52):
So we had a bunch of questions from the audience.
We'll talk a little bit about you know, some people
wanted to hear how you got started. People want to
know how to flat iron work.
Speaker 3 (01:03):
If it's all right, will literate sounds great?
Speaker 1 (01:07):
So Isaac in Columbus, Ohio asks.
Speaker 3 (01:11):
Who's curious what role does flat irons help play in
the cancer treatment ecosystem.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
Thank you so at basic blocking and tackling question.
Speaker 3 (01:20):
Tell us tell us about flat I'm always delighted to
talk about what we get to do. So Flattern was
founded at about twelve years ago now, and our mission
from the very beginning has been to learn from the
experience of every person with cancer. And we have two
kind of two halves of the business. One half is
that we build software that is used to manage patient
(01:43):
care in cancer centers and to handle clinical decisions, support
and treatment help with treatment decisions. And then we have
another half of flat Iron, which takes and curates data
that are generated through that routine care to think about
how can we anonymize them and harmonize them and link
them to other data modalities to figure out what's really happening.
(02:05):
How do we help life sciences companies bring and make
novel new therapies available to patients in a faster way
and with a better understanding of the actual mechanisms and data.
Speaker 1 (02:16):
It's an amorphous concept probably for a lot of our
audience who's not in it with you. What is it
that you know?
Speaker 3 (02:22):
You know?
Speaker 1 (02:22):
For someone who has a certain type of cancer, what
treatment they've taken, and what results they saw. What are
the various facets of data that are going to help you.
Speaker 3 (02:31):
Yeah, so we actually build an electronic medical health records system,
which is think of it as like the ERP or
the CRM system of a cancer center. So we know
everything that you could know about a cancer patient, and
you know where they come from, their demographics, their treatment,
their outcomes. Now, what you find that's both incredibly challenging
(02:54):
and a real opportunity is that those data aren't easily accessible.
Most of the data live in a document or a
lab PDF or in places that you can't actually access.
So we do a lot of the work we do
is thinking about how to use AI and natural language
processing to pull data out, thinking about how to stitch
together other data sources there.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
So when you say it's like a CRM, like most
companies have a sales team that knows every single thing
about a potential client before they reach out and try
to sell them. And you're telling me the hospitals didn't
have a simple thing like that for a cancer patient.
Speaker 3 (03:28):
Well, in general, if you go back the high TechEd act,
let's say this is probably fifteen twenty years ago. I mean,
this is a case of government regulations actually doing their job.
There were large incentives which said hospitals and cancer centers
as well had to roll out electronic medical health records.
Before that, you would go into your doctor's office and
it was a wall of charts and it was written documents,
(03:49):
and yeah, none of it lived digitally wild.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
And so you'll find you use that AIRP system or
the CRM system, your machines will go through the data
and what types of things will they learn.
Speaker 3 (04:04):
So, first off, I mean from a patient perspective, before
we do anything with the data, we de identify it
and we go through pretty rigorous processes to ensure that
the data are stripped of any sort of personally identifiable information.
But then we go in and we can do things
like look at the impact of social determinants of health
on how someone's outcomes time to treatment, for example, and cancer,
(04:29):
we can do things. One of the most classic examples
is there aren't enough men who get breast cancer to
run a clinical trial that can tell you with statistical
significance what the results would be of different therapies for
breast cancer. So we were able to look in the
data and say actually, what do you do if you
show up with cancer and you're a guy who doesn't
(04:50):
have an approved therapeutic option. You do the best you can.
You apply the clinician would apply judgment. And so we
were able to look in our data to see all
of the men who had had us cancer and to
see their outcomes and then work with the FDA to
approve a label expansion to approve a drug called poba
cyclone for men.
Speaker 1 (05:08):
And a lot of a lot of our listeners have
on their minds. I see it and hear it in
the questions that we get, sort of the having purpose
and mission in their work. And I'll just read off
one of the one of the d ms that I
got from uh Tara and Fort Worth, Texas. Did you
always know you wanted to work in this industry? And
how did you find your path into this role? And
(05:29):
what do you what advice do you give to emerging
leaders who are trying to find their place.
Speaker 3 (05:34):
Yeah. So I actually spent most of my career prior
to joining Flatiron in working in enterprise technology companies. And
the thing that connects all of the experience is through
my career has been this fascination with solving problems in
smarter ways. How do we how do I use technology
to transform the experience I have day to day? How
(05:55):
can we use technology to just get smarter about how
we experience the world, how we build new businesses, build
new new products, and so, you know, each step of
the way, I've been fascinated by, honestly like very challenging,
complex problem spaces. And I got to a point. I
(06:15):
was working at a predictive analytics start up here in
New York before deciding to come to Flat Iron, and
we were building these really cool predictive analytics models, working
with e commerce sites and trying to figure out how
to shape the consumer experience. And I just I thought,
you know, there's so many really important problems that we
can go after. I wonder if there's a way that
(06:36):
I can I can, you know, find my way to
a place that inner it that blends health and data
and technology. And so I found my way to flat
Iron through my network and then have now spent eight years,
you know, learning in the classroom of the work that
we do with cancer centers, the work that we do
with life science customers.
Speaker 1 (06:56):
You didn't you didn't come into CEO cover this at
the top. So how what was that? What was that
path for you?
Speaker 3 (07:03):
Actually, so I should I should out you a little
bit here. Funny story the way that we connected. Initially.
I came in initially building the customer experience with the
cancer centers that we work with, so parlaying my tech
and software experience into rolling out these these software systems
that cancer practices. And I I worked hard and was
curious and you know, tried to tried to create as
(07:25):
much value as I can and got promoted into a
role leading as a GM that side of our business.
And at the time, I looked around and everyone was
super frustrated about career development. And a mentor of mine
pointed me to your book, The Career Manifesto. Actually, Jason
was our CFO. It was another Lexi Reese, who I
(07:46):
think you worked with a Google. I'd sat down with
her and one of the things you say in that
book is actually follow the advice people give you. And
so her advice was go read this book. And so
I went and read this book. I was I was
literally on vacation in Spain, I think, and I was like, ah,
this is perfect. You did such a great job of
distilling just all these things that I kind of think
I intellectually would know, but you had just written in
(08:08):
this beautiful, very simple, like quick to digest format. So
I read the book, I gave it to my whole team,
and then another colleague introduced us, and you sat down
and were like so generous with your time to you know,
help me think about how to scale up. So long
story short, I was at that point running a g
stepping into a role as a general manager on top
(08:29):
of one of our businesses, and trying to figure out
how to how to level up as a leader. Flat
Airn was acquired about five years ago, and I had
the opportunity to really build and scale my team, and
I loved what I was working on, and so I
oddly never felt bored. It's the first time that I
(08:50):
can look back and say there were just there weren't
moments where I was like, I don't have something new
to learn, and so I stuck with it. And then
three years after the acquisition, are two co founders decided
to move on to the next thing, and I got
the opportunity to step into the CEO role.
Speaker 1 (09:07):
Well, I love I mean I love this story because
I'm in it and.
Speaker 3 (09:11):
I a little credit.
Speaker 1 (09:13):
I was love it because California Senate candidate Lexi Reese
isn't it for her career manifesto has been pretty amazing,
has indeed so wonderful. So all these terrific people have
been in some way, including to make sure you're the
CEO of Flat Iron Health. When you, I mean when
you read the book or when you were thinking about
your career, you were thinking about people who work with you's,
people who work with you, their career frustrations. What was
(09:35):
the takeaway for you? What would be your advice for
somebody else who's on the come up trying to figure
out her career. What do you tell folks?
Speaker 3 (09:42):
I mean, I think the number one thing, and this
is what you say at the very beginning of your book,
is you got to take ownership for your own career.
You I am the CEO of my own career. No
one's going to do it for me. And I think
so often it's easy to look to others to solve,
you know, to solve the what next, or to solve
like how am I going to stretch myself and find
some new growth opportunity? And and what I've tried to
(10:05):
remind myself over and over again, is that's actually my job.
And it takes work, and it's like you got to
carve out time to set goals and get creative and
make connections and invest in development. But I think what
I've seen over and over again is that when I
do that, the opportunities start to come my way because
I don't wait for someone to hand it to me.
(10:27):
I say, oh, this looks really interesting. I'm intrigued by this.
Let me go see if I can, if I can
solve this problem, if I can make an impact, And
then all of a sudden, it, you know, always leads
to new things.
Speaker 1 (10:36):
That's awesome. Okay, let's go to the next one. Evan
and Jacksonville, Florida.
Speaker 3 (10:41):
Hey, first time caller here. I was wondering what has
been some of the big wins and setbacks you've seen
over the last few years in your career. You know,
I think you kind of do you have to go
to COVID because it's been such a defining moment in
terms of company culture and how we collaborate and how
we communicate. I stepped into the sea role at FLATIRN
in April of twenty twenty one. You know, just over
(11:05):
a year into COVID, and I spent the first year
and a half, you know, thinking about how I bring
together our leadership team, you know, reset the long term strategy,
reset our priority is all you know, without the opportunity
to bring the team together. And you know, we had
gotten pretty good at learning how to work remotely and
you know, hybrid meetings and all these things that we
(11:27):
take for granted in some ways now, but I still
think there's there's just no substitute for being able to
sit down together with a team when when it comes
to really complex trade offs and and creative thinking and
complex interdependencies. And so that was that was really challenging.
Speaker 1 (11:47):
Let me ask you, because works a grind, like all
day every day, where there are moments when you were like,
this is today's a big win? Today was today's amazing? Well,
what are the times when you get to step back,
for you professionally that you've experienced like, here's a moment
that I can be really excited about, we can all
be excited about.
Speaker 3 (12:06):
I try to really actively look for them everyday moments, right,
I think I have a it sounds cheesy, but a
practice of gratitude, Like let me write down the three
things that I'm most grateful for or proud of any
given day, and I like genuinely makes me feel better.
But I also try to look back every week and say,
what are what is a moment that just I can
(12:27):
really celebrate with the team we have. We have a
ring the Bell channel in slack at Flatiron where we
post all the big customer wins or you know, the
big regulatory approvals that have happened. So you know, I
had one. I came earlier today from a customer council.
We bring together all of our key customers in New
(12:48):
York about once a year to do demos of all
the new products. And I got to see a demo
today of new functionality that we've built. And then this
really cool partnership we're launching to solve for clinical documentation
using AI. And every now and again you just see
this step change advance that is going to foundationally change
(13:10):
the experience of treating patients and sitting in an exam
room with a patient. And that was that was one
of those moments earlier today that I just I sat
back and I said, Wow, this is like this big.
Speaker 1 (13:23):
Selling the company. Most felt pretty good too.
Speaker 3 (13:27):
It did. I was at the time. I was a
member of the executive team. But you know, it's funny
that selling the company, it's it. It feels amazing in
some respects. But I also think those milestones get built
up into an event. That is, it can come across
as if it's the end, when in actuality, it's just
(13:49):
the beginning. And I say that, you know, having now
been five years out from that event, I think about
how much has changed. I think about how, you know,
the real beginning of the impact we get to have
was was with that event. In some ways, you know,
because we knew we had a long term future, it
wasn't actually any sort of an end.
Speaker 1 (14:17):
We're gonna go next to Naomi in Indianapolis, who says what.
Speaker 4 (14:21):
Trends in technology should we be watching in the near future.
Past guests have talked a lot about AI and how
it's shaping their companies. So what does AI do today
to help curing diseases like cancer?
Speaker 3 (14:34):
Yeah, well, so maybe I'll expand on that example I
just shared, and I can give you one other. So,
in the context of oncologists sitting down with cancer patients,
one of the biggest challenges is the documentation burden that happens.
There's so much that has to get documented in a system.
EHR has get a terrible wrap for this. It's painful.
And you hear, you know, so many stories about physician burnout,
(14:57):
because what ends up happening is you spend all day
and in a room with a patient and then all
night going home to document all the things that happened.
So like this pilot that we just did this or
that we just signed, and the demo that we did
this afternoon was a kind of mock of a patient
experience visit with an oncologist and a patient going through
an actual visit to say like, here's my condition, here's
(15:18):
my past medical history, here's all the steps that led
up to today. And we went through a ten minute example,
all the while the ambient scribe was listening to that example,
and then we looked at the output of what happened
at the end, and we reviewed a physician note that
came out of that exchange, which which was not perfect,
(15:40):
which was not perfect at all, but which got like
eighty or ninety percent of the work done with no effort.
And so it's a total game changer because instead of
starting from scratch dictating or typing up the entire assessment
and plan and next steps. You start with almost a
finished product, and then you just scan it and review
it and you know it's in There's a lot of
(16:01):
complex language and oncology, and there it is not perfect.
I think one of the things we always have to
remember is that so an example, it got eighty or
ninety percent of it right, but it got the name
of a drug wrong. In the context of a patient
treatment decision, you got to get the name of a
drug right right, And a lot of these drugs sound
(16:21):
kind of similar, but at the same time the doctor
can quickly catch that and check it. So I think
the real promise is not AI in and of itself,
but AI is an enabler of everything just being so
much more streamlined and so much smoother. Another example is,
you know, I mentioned we try to learn from all
(16:42):
of the data that we see across all of these
patient experiences in our network, and historically, because we wanted
to be really careful about accuracy, we you know, built
an entire team of oncology nurses who would log into
certain elements of the chart and review the data field.
So review kind of the line of therapy or review
the progression of disease. And now we feill mL models
(17:04):
that can do all of that work, and we can
measure their accuracy against the human labeled and curated data
sets we have, and we're finding that sometimes the models
are even better than the humans at doing this work.
And what that means is instead of sampling and being
constrained in how much data we can look at, we
can look at all of the data across all of
the patients that we happen to see and pull that
(17:25):
together and truly learn from the experience of every patient.
Speaker 1 (17:30):
This has been a theme on the podcast and all
the leaders we've talked to about this, I have interpreted
the future and that it's going to be a complement
to your work. It's going to superpower your work. We're
not seeing a lot of examples where it's going to
sort of replace the human in the process. And we've
talked about it in content creation and art and on
and on on, and it sounds like you're seeing healthcare
(17:54):
got the same way.
Speaker 3 (17:55):
I think, so I think what it replays, I mean,
I think in so many fields, it's a new competency
that we all need to figure out and get conversant
in and I think is not replacing humans, but it
will significantly challenge people who don't know how to use
it appropriately to be more efficient and to do their
jobs with all of the you know, additional power and
(18:20):
efficiency that can come when you're using the technology appropriately.
Speaker 1 (18:24):
And when usen back and you think about what the
healthcare landscape will look like in ten or twenty years,
what will it be like? What are your expectations.
Speaker 3 (18:35):
I think data and technology will be much more ubiquitous.
It is taken far. You know, we talked about electronic
medical health records and digital digital data sets rolling out
over the last twenty years. Despite all of this progress,
they're still super fractured. We still use fax machines in doctors' offices.
So I think we will finally see the ubiquity of
(18:58):
data exchange and interoperability between systems and the ability to
parse those data in ways that actually make them usable.
And at the same time, I think we will have
to depend on technology to do a better job determining
the best treatment options for any given patient, determining you know,
how to make a decision about how to design a
(19:20):
trial and how to find the right patients. I mean,
I think these are topics where the degrees of the
number of variables that need to get considered you just
can't process it in the human brain. And so I
think I think we're going to see a continued push
to try to embed that that change in you know,
(19:42):
all of the ways in which healthcare impacts our system,
whether it be the experience in a doctor's office, the
experience in a clinical trial, the experience with your payer.
I mean, it's it's one of the most backward industries
still in terms of how far we are now, and
I think there are a lot of blockers to progres,
but we're finally really well positioned the same are change.
Speaker 1 (20:04):
Compared to you compare all care to other trillion dollar
or multi trillion dollar industries. All of the others seem
to have become modern, technologically efficient, competition has driven the
right outcomes. It doesn't seem to be happening or happening
very fast in human health.
Speaker 2 (20:25):
Why is that.
Speaker 3 (20:28):
Incentives? I think it's the primary one. If you think
about the US healthcare system, we are optimized around a
fee for service model. For the most part, this is changing,
But for the most part, a fee for service, which
means you or I show up at the doctor and
the doctor bills for a procedure or a specific appointment
or a specific medicine that they give us. And we've
(20:49):
had a really hard time looking across the system to
actually think about value and patient outcomes, and so as
a result, it's really hard to figure out the right
inner mentions and the incentives aren't in place for care
coordination across multiple different individuals who need to think about,
you know, different elements of a holistic care. And so
(21:10):
you'll hear the theme of value based care in healthcare,
and what that actually means is new payment models, which
say we're going to look at the overall outcomes in
a population and you know, the experience and the payment
will be dictated by the outcomes, not by the individual
steps and interventions that a practitioner is taking. But that
(21:34):
runs through the entirety of the healthcare system, you know,
the entirety of kind of how the pairs are structured,
the entirety of how physician practices are optimized. Frankly, the
patient experience is crazy because we don't see our bills.
There's no other industry where you don't see the bill
for what you are consuming in the industry.
Speaker 1 (21:54):
One of our listeners texted in a question that's related
to this. Luis and Austin texts asked, what is the
regulatory landscape around health tech and what changes in regulation
could accelerate better patient outcomes?
Speaker 3 (22:10):
So super complex, if you, I mean, I think you
can come at that from so many different ways. There's
the regulatory landscape for approving new medicines. There's the regulatory
landscape for approving new digital technology devices and you know
where might they need an approval. There's the landscape for
(22:31):
how we think about interoperability between existing software and systems
and different vendors, So we could come at that from
a There's the kind of landscape in terms of how
we think about the government payment models, the Medicare, Medicaid.
So I think healthcare is just one of the most
regulated fields that exists, and so all of these different
(22:55):
legislations and rules need to come together to drive innovation,
to drive collaboration, to drive coordination of care, and that
leads to a kind of complex, complex system.
Speaker 1 (23:07):
Fiona and San Francisco, California called in with this one.
Speaker 3 (23:11):
Mindy Grossman talked a few episodes back about the challenges
women face on the path to CEO. Have you found
it harder to lead and rise in the industry as
a woman.
Speaker 2 (23:21):
I have a tactic that I use, which is that
I always try to focus on the things that I
can control, and I think it's it's easy to kind
of fall into a mindset of I'm the victim of
a situation.
Speaker 3 (23:36):
You know, why is this wrong? Or to I try.
I try to make sure I'm focused on where I
get to be an agent of outcomes, and I find
that makes it much easier for me to to to
feel like I'm the agent of my destiny and I'm
not you know, uh, you know, stuck reliant on the
situation that I've been in, and so, you know, I
(23:58):
think that has helped me really focus on where I
can take agency, where I can drive impact. I've leaned
into relationships and as a result, I've never actually felt
like I have been held back by by you know,
nature of my gender. That's a really privileged position to
(24:18):
be in. I think I've also been exceedingly lucky and
the mentors and sponsors that I've found throughout my career,
and and you know, so so often I think the
thing that we need to do as women is pay
it forward with each other. You know, there's there's something
really powerful about helping each other, you know, get to
(24:38):
that next step, see see something in a new way.
And and so I've had so many incredible people support
me in that way, and I and I try to
think about how I can I can give back the same.
Speaker 1 (24:49):
Sure, Well, if being a woman has held you back,
it's hard to find the evidence. Yeah, I mean leading
the industry doing amazing work. It's it seems to have
worked out for you. And so your and your advice
totap and pay it forward and seek mentors and that.
Speaker 3 (25:05):
Yeah, And I think it comes from mindset. If you
have a mindset, which is that anything is possible that
can you know help, it helps in manifesting those possibilities.
Speaker 1 (25:16):
I'm also hearing you say, though, it's not just believing
that it can be possible. What it is it is
being the agent of yours, being the CEO. You're you're
the CEO of your career long before you were the CEO.
And I you know, as a parent, I see this
in my children's lives. I worry a lot when you know,
I just see seven year olds, moms and dads tying
their shoes for them before the match. I'm like, they
(25:36):
can diye those shoes, you know they can. And the
thousand other examples. Whether these moments where that you could
tell a kid like you're in charge, figure it out
or not? Yeah, and I don't. I'm sure everyone always
thinks this about the next generation on the way up,
but I don't see enough little kids believing that they
have agency, that they should be the solution to their problems.
Speaker 3 (26:00):
I'm figuring this out now. I'm a new mother. I
had a son this year, my first five months old now,
and I can say, you know, in some ways, I've
that is a that is a choice that I made.
I'm an old, first time mom, and so I had
the luxury of really leaning into my career over the
last decade and not trying to figure out how to
(26:20):
juggle both sides of growing my family and you know
what I want to do professionally, and that, like, frankly,
that's a lot of time that I got to devote
that I wouldn't have had. Now as I think about
how do I want to shape my son's Hudson, how
do I want to shape his life? How do I
think about, you know, ruthlessly prioritizing where I show up
and how I show up. It's definitely teaching me a
(26:41):
whole new set of skills.
Speaker 1 (26:43):
I love it well. One thing I can certainly advise
is at this age, when Hudson's like reaching for a
toy and can't quite get it, don't get it to him.
I swear I feel like it made such a difference
for my kids that they had to like drag themselves
across the carpet to get that toy. You're forming these
synapses early.
Speaker 3 (27:03):
Yeah. My ours right now is is he'll wake up
in his crib all the time, and he wants to
practice his roles, and he wants to and and just
like he needs to stay and he's going to learn
to be comfortable and roll around.
Speaker 1 (27:14):
I wasn't as good at that. I just the kids
wanted to come in the bed. I was like, come on,
come in the bed, okay. I was always like, no,
we have to train them. I'm like, it's there's no
third or seventeen year old still getting in bed with
their parents. I're got to figure it out. But I
was soft on that on that front.
Speaker 5 (27:27):
But I think it was selfish.
Speaker 1 (27:39):
You're gonna like this question. Aiden in New Jersey, My
CEO always looks so stressed out.
Speaker 4 (27:45):
Do you like the job of CEO? I don't think
I would want that job.
Speaker 3 (27:51):
I mean, that's so funny. Honestly, I did not think
I wanted the CEO job when I when it was
offered to me. It wasn't something I I I appreciate
the autonomy. I care a lot about having latitude to
do what I want to do. I loved my job
as a general manager owning strategy and an end to
end business unit. But I always looked at the CEO job,
(28:11):
and so that looks really lonely. And I thrive in
the relationships that I have, and I wanted to be
part of a team, and so I was not pushing
to step into this role, and I wasn't sure if
I would like it. When I agreed to do it,
I didn't feel like I could say no. I was,
you know, inspired enough by what we're doing that I
wasn't going to walk away from the opportunity. But I
really wasn't sure if I would like it. And I
(28:33):
would say the first year was steepest learning curve I've
ever had in my career. It was incredibly challenging.
Speaker 1 (28:39):
Oh it's really hard. The first year in that job.
Speaker 3 (28:42):
Yeah, and we had a bunch of leadership transitions and
I was hiring and I you know, there were three
to four open roles on my team at any given
point in time.
Speaker 1 (28:49):
So that was I was no good at it. I
don't know anyone who is good at being a CEO.
At first, I am general manager. I gain just that
next level of leadership. We have cross functional responsibility. Yep,
it's really hard.
Speaker 3 (29:02):
I think each one of those inflection points, and I
think over the arc of her career. It's an amazingly
rewarding thing to look back and say, oh my god,
that was so hard. Now it's two and a half
years ago, and now I feel like I've I know
how to do that thing. What was so so hard
two and a half years ago, Like, doesn't feel that
hard now. And I would say, I'm actually really enjoying
the job now that I've built the team and we
(29:24):
have a really clear and compelling strategy, and so it
started to be a lot of fun. I hope I
don't look as stressed. I bet I did look pretty
stressed out the first year. I don't think I look
quite as stressed out now.
Speaker 1 (29:33):
Yeah, to be clear, Aiden doesn't work for you talking
about his CEO, it may work for me. It's a
common name. Last one is from Vivian and Boston, who says, Hi,
I was just wondering, Well, all of these advances in
data science and technology lead to a cure for cancer?
Speaker 3 (29:54):
I hope so. Biden and this administration has announced the
Cancer Moonshine and the stated goal there is to reduce
cancer mortality by fifty percent over the next twenty five years.
And I think there are more and more cancers where
we are talking about cures. At the same time, I
think there are more and more cancers where we have
the opportunity to have very extended lives, that are that
(30:17):
are that are very high quality of life for a
much longer time than we could ever have contemplated before.
And I think that's the that's the end game. How
do we improve outcomes for patients, How do we improve
quality of life? How do we give patients more time
with their families and their loved ones, And and that
is changing all the time for the better. And so
(30:38):
that's what I find really really inspiring.
Speaker 1 (30:40):
And I understand doctors are telling patients all the time
now not to not to google the likely outcomes from
cancers because because the medicine has gotten so much better
so fast, that the that the life expectancies are changing rapidly.
Speaker 3 (30:54):
Yeah, Google can can cannot be your friend in some
of these situations because the personal consider it is, the
treatments are more personalized, there are more and more precision therapies,
and and so actually the range of outcomes looks looks
wider and wider.
Speaker 1 (31:08):
Well, I'm just I'm glad that a good, smart person
like you is contributing to this. It's I suspect everyone
of our listeners has somebody in their life they worry about,
and I'm glad you all are doing the doing the
good work.
Speaker 3 (31:22):
Thank you, Carol.
Speaker 1 (31:23):
This has been really fun. Thanks for coming to the podcast.
Speaker 3 (31:25):
This is a treat Thank you.
Speaker 1 (31:26):
First, you read the book, we met, you read the book,
and he came on the pod. What are we going
to do next? Yeah, I know, it's the beginning of
a wonderful friendshi ah, I love it. Friends. That was
interesting in a number of ways. I didn't appreciate all
of the advances that are being made and data and
(31:48):
technology under the under the hood and the healthcare industry
and helps explain why the outcomes are getting better and
better for patients. One of the things I took away
personally Carol and talked about being the agent of your
own career, the CEO of your own career. And it's
something I certainly believe myself and I so regularly see
(32:11):
in others who find success professionally that they did it
with a plan. We've talked about here on the podcast before.
I always drop in the show notes the link to
my book, but I'll tell our listeners if you want
a free copy, you just hit me up on LinkedIn
and I'll send it to you. There's a way that
you can lay out a planned to get from where
(32:32):
you are to where you want to be by taking
that leadership not in your job, but in the overall
direction of your career. And I really want to encourage
you to do it, because we all get one shot
to have real impact in our careers, an important impact
the way Carolyn is, and you could be doing something
like that too. All right, guys, we've got some amazing
guests coming up the next few weeks. We're going to
(32:55):
cover some New Year's Resolution stuff soon. I think you're
really going to enjoy Just you know what to text her,
call in your questions at two one, three four one
nine oh five nine six, or you can hit me
up on LinkedIn, Instagram, et cetera. At Mike Steib I
want to thank Carolyn was wonderful today, And of course
I want to thank Jen and Cara, Meg, Jada, Matt
(33:15):
and the whole team at Blue Duck Media for putting
this all together, Dylan, Sasha, Gei, Nathan and Christine at iHeart.
I want to thank the heat in the studio mixing
it up for us again. And I don't think Ben
and the team at William Morrison Devor for all their support.
Office Hours is a production of Blue Duck Media and
distributed by iHeartRadio. Happy holidays everybody, and stay on your grind.
Host
Mike Steib
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