From Boston Scientific to Entrepreneur: Chas McKhann’s Medtech Journey

From consulting to working at large companies to taking a risk with start-ups to becoming Silk Road Medical’s CEO, Chas McKhann has experienced almost everything in his long and illustrious career. In a discussion with Medtech Talk host Geoff Pardo, McKhann shares all the lessons learned from his jump to small private companies, handling a cultural rebirth as a newcomer CEO under the public eye, and taking on his role at Silk Road. He also talks about the “what if’s” of his journey and tips on surviving in the industry, as well as witnessing the market shift from only caring about revenue to wanting to see the path to capital break even. 

LINKS:
Medtech Talk Links: 
Cambridge Healthtech Institute   
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Gilde Healthcare  

Silk Road Medical: 
Silk Road Medical 

 

Episode Transcript

Geoff Pardo (00:03):
Welcome to the MedTech Talk podcast.
This is your host, Geoff Pardo,and today it's my pleasure to
welcome Chas McKhann to thepodcast.
Chas has had quite a run overthe last several years, with
turnarounds of ApolloEndosystems and Silk Road
Medical, both of which resultedin the sale of the respective
companies to Boston Scientific.
We're going to explore both ofthose experiences, as well as

(00:25):
some of the other formative theBoston Scientific.
We're going to explore both ofthose experiences, as well as
some of the other formativeexperiences in Chas's career.
Chas, welcome to the podcast.

Chas McKhann (00:33):
Geoff, thank you so much for inviting me.

Geoff Pardo (00:36):
Well, there's a lot to cover, and one thing I like
to do is to start with kind ofeverybody's backstory, and yours
is a particularly interestingone, so maybe we start there.
And what I'd love to hear isyou know kind of what your early
years were like, what yourearly interests were like, early

(00:58):
influencers, what you know whatcareers you were thinking about
as a kid growing up, justanything you're willing to share
on that front, sure.

Chas McKhann (01:07):
So I grew up in a medical family.
My grandfather was a physician,my dad, my uncle, my
grandmother was a physician, soa lot of physicians in the
family.
In some ways I'm the blacksheep who went the business
route.
But you know, especially mygrandfather and my dad also had

(01:28):
very interesting careers andbackgrounds and I think I
learned some of that almost byosmosis growing up.
My grandfather was a pediatricphysician and infectious disease
.
He was a professor ofpediatrics at both Harvard and
Michigan, but he also at onepoint was head of R&D for Park
Davis, the pharmaceuticalcompany, and he was an inventor.

(01:50):
He's on the original patent forthe iron lung for patients who
need a respiratory support.
So obviously he got involved ina ton of different things and
just was a great person to learnfrom, and late in his life he
actually lived with us inBaltimore and I was able to
spend time with him and justlearn from him.
Person to learn from, and latein his life he actually lived
with us in Baltimore and I wasable to spend time with him and
just learn from him, which wasawesome.
And then my dad was a biginfluence as well.

(02:12):
Dad was the founding chairman ofneurology at Johns Hopkins.
So it's pretty amazing to thinkabout that in as recently as
1969, there was no department ofneurology at Johns Hopkins.
It was just kind of part of theDepartment of Medicine, when
you think about how big theneurology field is now.
And dad was hired at the age of37 to go build that department,

(02:36):
and so even within a stateinstitution like Johns Hopkins,
he had a very kind ofentrepreneurial role and he
built the department andrecruited incredible talent and
was able to build what turnedout to be one of the leading
neurology departments, in fact,the number one ranked neurology
department in the world for many, many years.
And so, again, a great personto learn from sitting around the

(02:58):
table.

Geoff Pardo (03:00):
Yeah, did you feel like you were going to go into
medicine just growing up withthose influences?

Chas McKhann (03:07):
I did.
I did Certainly as I was goingthrough high school and even
into college.
I certainly thought about goingpre-med and I worked at Johns
Hopkins over the summers growingup a few times.
But I mentioned my olderbrother.
He's a neurosurgeon at Columbianow and he's old enough.
He's six years older than I am,so he was far enough along to

(03:29):
be going through med school andthen rotations as I was going
through my decisions of wherewhich way to head, and he loved
it, absolutely loved it, andloved the patient care part of
it, whereas I always gravitatedmore to some business things.
I had some sales roles when Iwas an undergrad.
I had some just other thingsthat I got involved with that I

(03:51):
liked the business side buteventually was really happy when
I could kind of combine thatand go full circle into
healthcare and sort of staywithin the family business, as
it were, but come from adifferent perspective.

Geoff Pardo (04:03):
Yeah, and I imagine , just given that your
grandfather did end up, you know, working for a company, you
know a company, and that itwasn't like, you're totally
going to the dark side ofbusiness.

Chas McKhann (04:17):
Certainly from his vantage point.
That's true, my dad was apretty academic physician and
you know, certainly at Hopkins.
But it has been reallyinteresting as his career
progressed.
Many of the people that hetrained eventually went into
leadership roles, especially inpharmaceuticals, and so you know
big jobs at places like Merckand AstraZeneca.

(04:38):
As my career was progressing inmed tech and then he got more
involved in working with some ofthose companies relatively late
in his career and so it wasinteresting to kind of compare
notes as he got more involved inindustry and as I was learning
about working in industry.
So that was kind of fun.

Geoff Pardo (04:55):
Yeah, I bet Interesting and particularly in
you know must have been really,I mean, to the extent you really
were in tune with it to justwatch your dad in neurology back
in those days.
I mean, I feel likecardiovascular was so much of
the forefront in the 80s, 90sand early 2000s and we're just

(05:16):
beginning to like, at least froma device perspective, start to
understand different things wecan do in the brain, whether
it's neuromodulation or otherforms of therapy.
I mean, what was it likewatching your father back in
those days, really probably beone of the pioneers in this
space.

Chas McKhann (05:35):
Yeah, no, it's a great question and it's amazing
to think about In the 70s, as Iwas young, but I remember seeing
him come home from the officeand his diagnostic equipment was
a reflex hammer.
I mean, that's, that's whatthey had, I mean, and so brain
imaging was the, the, the bigdevelopment.
I think he would have said insort of the, the bulk of his

(05:58):
career was imaging.
And so.
MRI and CT scans and being ableto the brain and you're right,
subsequent to that, you know.
Then what do you do about it interms of therapies, both drugs
and devices?
It still feels like in manyways, we're pretty early, such a

(06:26):
yeah, such an art to it inthose early days.
And the people he hired but he,he really did have amazing
people who you know worked inneuroimaging and neurovirology,
in epilepsy, in ms, which is oneof the areas he focused on and
just the things that they didover that period to really kind
of build the foundation arepretty incredible yeah, so you
mentioned you had some earlysales experience in college.

Geoff Pardo (06:48):
I'm curious what that was actually.
What were some of the thingsyou were selling in your
undergrad?

Chas McKhann (06:54):
Yeah.
So like a lot of kids in thatcollege period, I sold Cutco
knives.
You know, the summer after myfreshman year in college and I
came home and didn't have a jobvery different than kids these
days where it feels like they'relining up.
You know internships at bigfirms from an early days.
You know it was different backthen and so I came home and

(07:14):
needed a job.
I did some landscaping that I'ddone in high school as well,
but you know, started sellingCutco knives and turned out I
was pretty good at it.
And, you know, started sellingCutco knives and turned out I
was pretty good at it.
And you know you learn a lotwhen you have to essentially
cold call your parents' friendsand sit down with them and learn
how.
And I was lucky that some of myvery first interactions were

(07:37):
very willing people willing tohear me out.
I was so nervous and just hearme kind of go through my pitch
and listen and learn and how topick up on the nuances of what
they were really looking for.
And to this day it's a greatproduct.
We still have friends, kids,now approaching us about Cutco
and it's kind of fun to put themthrough their pit.

Geoff Pardo (07:56):
You know it's interesting, I didn't know that
and that's one of your earlyexperiences.
But you know, I always feellike learning how to sell
something, no matter what it is,but going through that process
of convincing someone else topart with their dollars to buy
something that you're holding onto.

(08:18):
I mean, I think it is like thecore thing that is lost a bit
today is kids stack theirresumes with different things
but they actually never, youknow, really engage in that core
selling element.

Chas McKhann (08:34):
I think, yeah, I think it's a good insight.
You're right, because you learna lot.
You learn a lot about yourselfand about how you interact with
people, and I was a prettyintroverted kid actually, and so
to get out of my comfort zoneand have those conversations
later in life gave me a lot ofconfidence.

Geoff Pardo (08:50):
Yeah, yeah Interesting.
So then you finish undergrad,and so what was the next step at
that point?

Chas McKhann (08:58):
Yeah.
So out of undergrad I decided Iwasn't ready to, you know,
become a pre-med and become aphysician, but I didn't know a
lot about what I wanted to enterinto.
So I started working for asmall consulting firm that was
based in Los Angeles and we dida lot of performance measurement
and management type of work.
So working with companies aboutwhat are you measuring?

(09:19):
What kind of scorecards do youuse?
How do you tie that tocompensation?
And we did it across industriesand it was a great way to get
almost a like formative business101 experience, because we were
working often at a board leveland, you know, with senior
management teams.
You know automotive industry atone point, some medical stuff,

(09:42):
some industrials, a whole rangeof things.
And then I got really fortunatebecause I was asked to go to
London and open a new office,and so it was one partner and me
as like a 25-year-old, inLondon building a brand new
office, and by the time I leftand went to business school, I
think we had 10 of us and we hada nice multi-million dollar

(10:04):
practice that we had built, andso that was.
That was a fun early stage.
You know, we didn't know.
What we didn't know in terms ofentering the UK market Probably
broke some unwritten rules, butit ended up working out for us
and we were pretty successful.
Yeah, and that was in the areaof performance management
through through the transitionto London, exactly so similar

(10:25):
approaches.
Some of the things that werebeing incorporated pretty
commonly in US companies at thatpoint weren't being done as
extensively in Europeancompanies and so just getting
more rigorous about movingbeyond just the financial
measurement and how do youincorporate non-financial
measures into your day-to-daymanagement.
You know, of course, today it'smuch more sophisticated with,

(10:46):
you know, various AI-relatedscorecards and things, but back
then it was even just getting agood grounding of what should we
be measuring and tracking, andputting the right systems in
place was a lot of fun work andgreat work to do.

Geoff Pardo (10:58):
Yeah, yeah, no, I can see that for sure.
And then, coming out ofbusiness school, you joined
McKinsey, is that right?

Chas McKhann (11:06):
Yeah.
So again, having been aconsultant and during business
school, and having been aconsultant that worked across
industries but sort offunctionally specific, I kind of
knew that I wanted to sort offlip that on its head and now,
really, over that period,decided I wanted to be in health
care.
Over that period, decided Iwanted to be in health care.
I spent actually a summer atPfizer during business school

(11:38):
and then you, know, focused inand was able at.
McKinsey to work in thepharmaceutical and medical
products practice and really dokind of commercial strategy,
kinds of engagements.
So you know, product launchesand portfolio management, a
couple of acquisitions, somelicensing deals.
Launches and portfoliomanagement, a couple of
acquisitions, some licensingdeals, but was able to stay
pretty focused within thatwheelhouse because, of course,
consulting firms work across awhole range of things.
I was able to keep it prettyfocused on the commercial side
of things, which is what Ireally like to do.

Geoff Pardo (11:56):
Yeah, and one of the you know, and having started
out my career as well inconsulting, you know, one of the
things I often heard, as I was,you know, sort of embarking on
that career, is, you know, don'tstay too long in consulting,
because you're you, you, you are, you are an advisor but you're

(12:17):
not really there for sort of thefinal, you know product or the
sort of the after effects, Iguess, of the consulting
engagement.
That that may or may not betotally true, but but I wonder
what, what you were feeling likeduring those days.
Did you feel like you needed toultimately, because you ended
up, you know, obviously inindustry, was there a pull to be

(12:39):
in industry where you were moreexecuting on some of the things
that you were advising on, orwhat was that?
You know?
What were you feeling like backthen?

Chas McKhann (12:48):
Yeah, that's exactly the kind of evolution of
my thoughts while I was atMcKinsey.
I was there for about fiveyears, I think, and as I
progressed and you reach thatpoint, you know about four or
five years in where you reallyhave the fork in the road of do
I truly want to be a partner ina consulting firm down that path
?
Or, you know, look at what theother options are which you know

(13:13):
could be.
Investing could be a range ofthings.
But as I progressed I reallyenjoy the operating side of
things and exactly what you'resaying.
I'm an action-oriented guy.
I love seeing the cause andeffect of decisions you make,
actions you take, and see howthey play out for good or for
bad and being able to do that.
And so, as I progressed inconsulting, sometimes you get a

(13:37):
chance to do that, but again,consultants are not inexpensive
and so often their roles verymuch are tailored to designing a
solution for a particularproblem, but not necessarily
implementing that solution.
And the good ones figure outhow to have something that can
be implemented and then coachingthe team on what needs to do it

(13:58):
and then handing it offeffectively.
But you're still not doing thatyourself, and so that then led
me into working with largercompanies, both j and j and
boston scientific, you know.
But even then in some of thebigger companies being able to
see cause and effect sometimescan be harder, and that
eventually led me to even moresmaller and more entrepreneurial
companies, and so that was kindof the arc or evolution.

Geoff Pardo (14:20):
Yeah, exactly we're talking about and what you know
, coming from a consultingbackground what, what are the
things that prepared you to dowell?
And maybe we jump into cordisnow, because I think that's
where you transition to whatwere the things that prepared
you to do well and what were thethings that you you know you
weren't well prepared to do?

(14:41):
How would you describe that?

Chas McKhann (14:42):
yeah, no, I, I think in the consulting
environment I was able to see alot of different situations.
I had worked with JohnsonJohnson pretty extensively,
working out of the New York andNew Jersey offices, so I had a
pretty good feel for theorganization.
But I hadn't actually workedthat much closely with the
Cordis team and that was whenCordis was obviously still part

(15:03):
of J&J.
But I, you know, having theability to kind of diagnose a
situation and get a pretty goodfeel of taking in a lot of
information and trying to figureout then what are the
priorities.
I think I learned a lot of thatin consulting and still apply
it in my work today.
But again, as we just touchedon truly understanding the how

(15:27):
do you then act across theorganization to get things done
was something I had a feel for,but I didn't know firsthand, and
so bringing that more closelyto home.
So when I joined Cordis, Ijoined in a marketing role as we
were launching the Cypher stent, the very first drug- eluting
stent, which was an incrediblyexciting time, and I had things

(15:49):
that I was working on.
But I, you know I had to thatpoint, had not worked very
closely with sales teams in themed device world and, as you
know, on the commercial side thesales team is critical, and and
so I knew very early on that Ihad to spend a lot of time out
in the field learning with ourbest reps, in cases hearing from

(16:11):
them directly If we weredeveloping marketing programs or
initiatives.
Me sitting in Miami Lakes,Florida, and just trying to
figure out on my own wasn'tgoing to work, and so I made a
big point of that and it'shonestly something that I've
really emphasized throughout mycareer as I've moved into
leadership positions of reallygetting close coordination
between marketing and sales andsales training and the

(16:36):
reimbursement teams, like allthe different parts of a
commercial function workingtogether.
But I had to go learn thatfirsthand, like in my first real
job, as it were.

Geoff Pardo (16:44):
Yeah, and I was going to say you didn't just
sort of step into the medicaldevice industry in some ho-hum
project.
You stepped in with probablythe launch of one of the biggest
innovations of that era.
For sure I would think, yeah,that must have been a bit of a

(17:07):
pressure cooker, I'd imagine.

Chas McKhann (17:08):
It was.
I mean, that was my.
That's why I took the job rightto be part of that environment.
So you know, this Cypher stentwas the very first drug-eluting
coronary stent.
It was one of the very firstcombination products at the FDA
and I'll come back to that in aminute.
And you know, bare metal stentshad already really captured the

(17:33):
angioplasty market.
The issue of restenosis was real.
We needed something to fix it.
There had been attempts atbrachytherapy that had been with
very mixed success, butdrug-related scents were
revolutionary and because ofthat man it attracted an
incredible team of people.

(17:53):
I was recruited by RickAnderson, who eventually became
a company group chairman at J&Jand now runs Revival Healthcare.
And then I was thinking aboutit the other day, I think of us
on that team who've since goneon to be CEOs of you know
medical device companies,successful medical devices,
including everything from youknow, bernard Zobinyan at
Edwards and Tyler Binney atRelievant right.

(18:15):
So all different sizes butreally successful med tech
leaders and just talented people.
And so it was a true honor towork with that kind of a team.
Yeah, I mean just talentedpeople, and so it was a true
honor to work with that kind ofa team.

Geoff Pardo (18:24):
Yeah, Now, as you think back on kind of Cordis
being J&J, Cordis being thefirst mover in drug-coded stents
, you know, ultimately theyweren't able to hold on to that
position.
What, in your view, was kind ofthe postmortem on that.
Why weren't they able to reallymaintain that leadership

(18:46):
position?

Chas McKhann (18:47):
Yeah, no, I think there probably are case studies
written about this.
There certainly should be.
And there, ultimately, withCypher, were three kind of fatal
flaws that all came together.
The first one and I kind ofmentioned it was the regulatory
side.
So we were the very firstcombination product and very

(19:08):
late in our approval cycle thedrug side of the agency looked
at the elution curves for Cypherand you know the testing and
there's variability because itis an expandable stent, it's not
a tablet or a capsule, and theydidn't like that variability.
It made them nervous and the netresult of all of that is,

(19:29):
instead of having 12-monthdating or even 18-month dating,
which we thought we were goingto have, we had three-month
dating on the product and thisis a product that we had already
committed to customers that wewere going to consign the
product, which was the standardand still is the standard in a
lot of categories withininterventional cardiology.
The clock started actuallymidway through the production

(19:52):
process.
So we were getting stents with,you know, six weeks of dating
or less.
Long story short, it wreakedhavoc to our supply chain and
you know we back in those daysthere was a phone number you
called as a sales rep to findout, you know, which stents we
had available on any given day.
And so customers who are havingthis huge anticipation for this

(20:15):
product line, um, we're reallyfrustrated and understandably so
, um, and we got better atmanaging it.
We, you know we're willing toeat a lot of inventory, which we
had to.
We set up localized deliverysystems.
I learned a ton about managingsupply chains and complex supply
chains, which ended up servingme well during COVID, to be

(20:36):
honest, um, but uh, you knowit's a.
It's a set of learnings wedidn't expect to have and we
managed through it.
But that was one and that setthe table for boston scientific
and the taxes step when theycame in, because they had
learned from that, they had abetter regulatory approval
process and didn't have thatsame issue and they overbuilt
inventory.
I mean, I talked to jim tobinsubsequently to it.

(20:58):
You know they were ready tosort of be completely different
and and and played that strengthand they did, and all credit to
them, yeah.
The second one was new productdevelopment.
We knew we had to get a betterstent, uh, better delivery
system, and for a variety ofreasons, our r&d team just
struggled with that andeventually they did.

(21:19):
But it was slow, um, and by thetime that was happening,
eventually you had other Olemosproducts.
So we had the Turalumus stent,you had others coming out from
Abbott and others in Medtronic.
And then the third is actuallya bit of the history to it but
also a good learning for anybodydeveloping technologies today.

(21:40):
So I mentioned brachytherapy.
J&j placed its bets inbrachytherapy.
Drug-eluting stents was almost askunkworks project initially,
and it was, you know, four orfive guys in Warren, new Jersey,
who you know realized this wasthe better way but didn't have a
whole lot of support.
So they had to go out andessentially license everything

(22:02):
you know.
They licensed a stent, theylicensed the coating from
Sermonix, they licensed the drugand all of that and they just
kind of pieced it together.
But the result of that is thatwe had a cost structure on
Cypher that was unsustainable.
So when prices and drug lootingstent prices, when you prices,
the list price when we launchedwas something about $3,000 per

(22:23):
stent.
Needless to say, that's notwhat the prices are these days,
right, I mean, they're only afraction of that.
And so, as the cost structurein that whole category changed,
cordis did not have afinancially viable product and
that's why you know, through theiterations of Cordis as a
company, they have not kept adrug-looting stent because it

(22:45):
just was not financially viable.
So all of that combined is a,you know, interesting moment in
time, but you know why.
Such a big product line was notsustainable for the long term.

Geoff Pardo (22:56):
Yeah, you know it's so funny in our business, it's.
You know, it doesn't always payto be the first to market.
You know, for exactly thereason you're talking about, I
mean it's.
It's a tough business we're inand there's often a lot of like
uh, hurdles or or or trials andtribulations that the first to
market has to endure and the andthe folks that are trailing

(23:19):
behind can learn from that andimprove from that.
And on the flip side, there'scertain cases you know, where
the first to market you take,like an Edwards with their heart
valve, you know percutaneousheart valve, or Boston
Scientific with Watchman, or youknow I think we can probably
call out many where they arefirst to market and successfully

(23:42):
iterate on that.
Do you have a sense, justcoming off of that experience
and all the other experiencesyou had, of why you know that
discrepancy sometimes exists?

Chas McKhann (23:55):
I think people, I think a lot of people, learn
from Cordis.
You know, cordis, frankly hadto happen twice.
If you look at their historybefore I was there and bare
metal stands, they gave up thatlead as well.
Um, and you mentioned edwards,there are, there were, a number
of, you know, former cortispeople at edwards and as well as
the leadership there, absent ofcortis, and I think they were

(24:17):
very conscious when they weredeveloping the taver market, of
building, you know, buildingreal moats commercially and
they've done that in terms ofhow well they train and how well
they support their customersand then staying ahead of it of
the R&D side and the innovationside.
It's so critical and you know,again, I think there are

(24:40):
elements to.
We knew about it at Cordis andwhat needed to happen, but some
of the things just didn'tultimately click.
And it's a competitivemarketplace and right behind us
were Guidant and Habit andMedtronic and Boston Scientific,
obviously ready to pounce andthey did.

Geoff Pardo (24:57):
Yeah, you know.
The next thing I want to getinto, because you have just, in
a twist of fate, you had a veryinteresting seat in the guidance
uh, I guess bidding process andthen, you know, end up to maybe
talk about that and where youended up going, because this to
me is a fascinating uh story itis.

Chas McKhann (25:17):
It is an interesting twist.
So in that kind of 2006timeframe, many listeners will
be familiar with what would havebeen the J&J Guidant
Acquisition.
We were based in Miami Lakes,florida.
The Guidant team on thevascular side, the guidance team
on the vascular side, which arenow part of Abbott, were based

(25:41):
out in the Bay Area and we wouldmeet up in typically the hotels
in the middle, basicallyChicago or Dallas, and spent
hours planning.
We pushed about as far as youcan with third-party consultants
of getting ready for what thiswould be and, Geoff, we got so
far that we have a I still haveit somewhere sitting here a pen

(26:03):
that says Guidant AJ&J Company.
We had swag, we were ready togo and then, you know, there was
a well-publicized series ofsafety issues that were reported
in the New York Times about thecredit with the management
business that impacted guidancestock and then, long story short

(26:26):
, that all resulted in thebidding war that became Boston
Scientific acquiring guidance.
But it was a fascinating time.

Geoff Pardo (26:35):
And then you know, then you go to Boston Scientific
and you end up actually verymuch involved in that whole
acquisition, right.

Chas McKhann (26:44):
I did.
I did so initially.
I was planning to go just to akind of smaller business where I
, you know, having been in thesort of big behemoth business
where I could just go learn in asmaller, growing business and
that was the old cardiac surgerydivision of what had been
guidance and they had anexcellent team leading it.
Maria Sainz had been leading itand then Lisa Earnhardt, who

(27:07):
now runs devices for Abbott,hired me.
I was going to be a generalmanager for a portion of that
business.
So it was a great opportunityto kind of expand my role and
responsibility in a smallerbusiness no-transcript Gettinga

(27:42):
and McCain Cardiovascular and weall sort of dispersed a bit.
A few people went with the dealbut a lot of us did other
things and I was recruited bythe leadership at Boston
Scientific at that point, jimTobin and Paula Violette, to
come to CRM.
So you know we just talkedabout that.
A lot had happened with the CRMbusiness.

(28:05):
There had been a huge internaleffort to sort of revamp the
quality systems and weessentially had to kind of
relaunch cardiac rhythmmanagement as a company, as a
division within BostonScientific.
You know the EP community didnot know Boston Scientific at
all, weren't familiar with thecompany and so it was really

(28:26):
just kind of starting over insome ways of launching an
organization, launching acompany and building confidence
in the quality of our products.
And we were able to do that andthat was fun work, again also
with a phenomenal team.
Guyton hired really really welland great people and many of
them you know, and I also playeda role a little bit of

(28:48):
Switzerland, because I wasneither Guyton nor Boston
Scientific, and it's, you know,been pretty well documented that
there were some culturalclashes in that acquisition and
I could sort of, you know,navigate both sides a little bit
and help kind of keep things ona good track and we were able
to do that and turn that and itwas a big shift, turn that shift
in a positive direction over aperiod of three or four years

(29:09):
while I was there.

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Geoff Pardo (29:26):
The next part of your career really fascinates me
because you've been now withtwo of really the biggest and
most successful device companiesin our industry.
I'm sure there's a very goodpath that lay ahead of you, and
you know it's to me a big leapto start thinking about going to

(29:48):
the startup world and, you know, getting involved in things
that are just at a much, youknow, lesser scale than what
you're dealing with.
Obviously, the risk quotient ismuch higher.
So maybe talk about this nextstage and kind of your decision
process as you thought about,you know, I imagine, whether to

(30:11):
keep going at Boston or tostrike out in more of a smaller
setting.

Chas McKhann (30:16):
Yeah, no, it was.
I appreciate the question.
It was a fascinating time.
This was in the kind of 2010time period and it was a
difficult time for BossScientific as a corporation
broadly.
That period between you know,jim and Paul, as they wound down

(30:37):
and before Mike Mahoney gotthere a few years after I joined
the company, had a number ofchallenges and I think that
reverberated through theorganization and so that that
played into it.
Being perfectly honest, but Ialso I'm a Stanford guy by
background and both undergradand business school, I think I
always wanted to go do somethingmore entrepreneurial.

(30:58):
I probably underestimated therisk profile part that you
mentioned.
I learned it firsthand.
I think there's a, you know,the arrogance of youth kind of
thing that comes into that andyou know was approached and had
a dialogue about a reallyexciting opportunity and that
was a little company calledApnex Medical.
That was a clinical stage atthat point, developing a new

(31:23):
hypoglossal nerve stimulationtherapy for sleep apnea.
For those of you who knowInspire Medical, we were kind of
neck and neck very similartechnology at almost exactly the
same stage and Mike Berman, whoyou know is very well known in
the device industry, was boththe co-founder and the chair of
Apnex, mike, has continued to bejust a great friend and mentor

(31:46):
to me through the years, but hewas the chairman as I was coming
on as CEO.
We had a very good investorsyndicate, so there were a lot
of things that were appealing ifI was going to jump into a CEO
role, which I did.
And we got a lot of thingsright, especially operationally.
We completed a feasibilitystudy, we developed a next-gen

(32:09):
product, we got our ID going, weenrolled subjects ahead of
speed, but in one of thosewoulda coulda shouldas of my
life, we ended up not beingsuccessful in our pivotal trial
with a product that is againalmost identical, a phenomenal
job in developing that businessand and treating patients.

(32:31):
It's a great therapy.
Um, but you know, implantableneurostimulator trial, they're
small trials and and we had arandomized trial and so small
choices impacting numbers oneither direction can absolutely
impact the success of the trialand we ultimately had an
unsuccessful one and that wasthat was disappointing, to say
the least.

Geoff Pardo (32:51):
Yeah for sure.
And and it's, it's, it's the,you know, the those experiences.
I think that you know, at leastI've had those and they keep me
up at night Like what could Ihave done differently, what
should I have done differently?
And I'm curious, as you lookback on that, what are the
things you could identify that,yeah, if we had perfect, if

(33:13):
hindsight really, you know, hadperfect hindsight, what would
you have done differently inthat situation?

Chas McKhann (33:20):
Yeah, it's a hard question because, yes, with the
benefit of hindsight.
So we were working with youknow, real experts in the field
of sleep medicine.
You know, both on therespiratory sleep medicine side
as well as the surgeon side.
We had a great group ofinvestigators working with us.
We had long drawn out debatesabout study design and whether

(33:44):
to you know, things likeinclusion criteria and certain
elements to it, and we thoughtwe were taking the right
approach in the decisions wewere making and the level of
even conservatism and in whatyou know specific decisions we
were making.
But again, now, with thebenefit of hindsight, if there
were, you know, given that thisstudy was so small, there are a

(34:07):
couple things we would have donedifferently and I think you
know the lesson to extrapolateis you know, give yourself every
chance of success, of having apositive study.
Yeah.
Even if it means down the lineyou need to do another study to
expand your indication orbroaden some things out right,
get the indication first.
And I think we knew that at thetime, but I know it even more

(34:28):
now.
Right, and it's just on themargin, it made a difference,
and so that was, you know, thatwas a big learning and one that
we all shared collectively.
But I own it, right, I wasrunning things um, and then, you
know, then the broader learningfor me was then just on a
personal level, because that wasthe first time in my career
that I was, you know, directlyresponsible in leading something

(34:51):
that, objectively, was, was afailure, right, was unsuccessful
and ultimately the company wasunsuccessful and that was, um,
that was humbling, to say the,to say the least.
But also, at that point, youknow, had to then think
carefully about.
You know this path that I hadstarted on and you mentioned it
on the entrepreneurial side andthe risk profile, and you know

(35:12):
how I felt about something thatwas going to have a lot more ups
and downs than working in a J&Jor Boston Scientific and the
financial implications of thatand the sort of personal mental
health implications of that.
And you know I ultimatelyrecommitted to it and I've
become increasingly comfortablewith it.
But now, as I like to, you know, coach and mentor, you know

(35:37):
people who are at the stage oftheir career making similar
decisions and I often try to atleast help them appreciate some
of those true risks and what itmeans on a personal level so
they can go in eyes wide openand just be conscious of it.

Geoff Pardo (35:52):
It's one of the things you stressed to me just
in the lead up to this podcastis just the ability to survive.
The ups and downs of thisbusiness is one of the biggest,
you know, lessons coming out ofthat?
And I wonder, because that issomething that I think you know
is critically important butprobably hard to hard to do.

(36:15):
So what, what, what are thesome of the things that you do
to survive kind of just thechallenges of this business?
Because I think we've all hadthem and it's not easy, right,
it's not easy to persist in thisbusiness.

Chas McKhann (36:30):
No, it's hard right.
I mean, we all know and I'msure the people listening to
this podcast are well aware thatchanging behavior in medicine
is hard right.
There are a lot of things thatneed to go right and so Partly
it's understanding andappreciating that and giving
yourself some grace if thingsdon't go well.

(36:51):
And then, you know I mentionedbefore, I've been very fortunate
to have some outstandingnetworks of people I've worked
with and it's especially inthose kinds of times when,
calling on them right on whetherit's in figuring out what to do
next or getting their coachingand advice on certain things

(37:13):
I've been very, you know, happyto maintain many of those
networks and stay close topeople, and they've been
tremendous amount of support,along with, you know, a really
good group of family and friendsright.
My wife has been incrediblysupportive, even at times when,
you know, middle of my career Ididn't have a job right.
My wife has been incrediblysupportive even at times when,
you know, middle of my career Ididn't have a job right, as I'm

(37:33):
figuring out what's next right,and we both had good confidence
that it would.
Things would work out.
But in the moment you have yourdoubts.
And so it's really good to havea good support network around
you.

Geoff Pardo (37:42):
Yeah, so and we were talking before the podcast
your career to me has had likemany different phases, you know,
from consulting to.
You know, being involved insome of the biggest product
launches and biggest you knowmoments in our device history to

(38:02):
get going into, you know, thesmaller private company.
In this next phase you wentfrom being CEO to the chief
commercial officer and I'mwondering take us through sort
of the intentionality of that,because I'm sure you had the
chance at that point to eithergo back to a big company, be CEO

(38:24):
of another company.
What were you thinking of atthat point in time?

Chas McKhann (38:34):
Back to a big company.
But I'd already gotten the bugof liking the environment, of
being in an entrepreneurialenvironment, and that, to me,
was pretty important.
And so then, and I did thinkabout do I go back and try to
get another CEO role?
But I had a much greaterappreciation just for how hard
it was and all credit to theCEOs out there who are battling

(38:54):
away and having success and Ialso realized that there was
plenty that I could still learnto become better prepared over
time.
So I still had that, I think,as an ultimate objective.
But I also had a bit ofself-awareness that, having
stumbled frankly in my firstrole that maybe I wasn't a sure
thing bet either for certainly atop bet, you know, ceo

(39:18):
opportunity.
And so you know what's the oldGroucho Marx line of I don't
want to be a member of a clubthat would have someone like me
as a member.
Right, you know, like I, just Irealized that I would be better
served to go.
You know, really still excitingopportunity, but go get some
more experience, which I did.
And so I joined Intersect ENT.

(39:40):
I mentioned Lisa Earnhardtpreviously.
She at that point was the CEOof Intersect.
We were just going public.
Her job was changingdramatically intersect we were
just going public.
Her job was changingdramatically and so I was
brought in as chief commercialofficer to help continue and
lead the growth.
We had a really good team thereas well.
Rob Binney was leading salesthere.

(40:01):
Rob now has become a verysuccessful CEO as well, susan
Stimson in marketing.
So again, a great team.
We were about a little over 30million.
We grew it to about 80 millionwhile I was there and eventually
the company was bought byMedtronic and then for some
personal reasons, I switched toTorax Medical.
That was based here in the TwinCities where I live Another

(40:23):
interesting story.
It's one of those that and thereare many like Torax that get
approval but aren't ready trulyto commercialize or struggle
with commercializing because westill need more long-term data,
we still need help onreimbursement.
But by the time I got theresome of those pieces were
falling into place and we wereable to really kind of put
things on a nice growthtrajectory.
And you know I mentioned beforekind of aligning sales and

(40:46):
marketing and our reimbursementefforts and building a
commercial model that worked.
And we took sales from, I think, less than $10 million when I
got there to about a $30 millionrun rate, and then J&J bought
Torax for a little over $300million, so it was as high as
how come?
It came faster than I expected,but I learned a lot in both of

(41:07):
those roles.
That served me well when I thenwent full circle and came back
into a CEO role at Apollo Endosurgery.

Geoff Pardo (41:14):
Yeah, and tell us about that because you know your
next, the next two that we'lltalk about Apollo and then Silk
Road.
Those were it wasn't likeyou're stepping into things that
were firing on all cylinders,Right, they each had their own
set of challenges.
So maybe, starting with Apollo,what did you see there that
kind of made you think you couldmake something happen here?

(41:37):
Tell us a little bit about thatprocess.

Chas McKhann (41:41):
Sure, but a broader editorial comment.
You're absolutely right, Geoff.
I've learned that when you getapproached by a recruiter about
a CEO job, there's probably apretty good reason why they're
looking for someone.
And you know, apollo was one ofthose situations.
I had known about the companyfor a long time, I mean
fascinating company founded byDennis McWilliams and a team of

(42:03):
really entrepreneurial GIs early2000s, right when they started
working on this, and they werethe pioneers of notes,
procedures or natural orificesurgery, and probably ahead of
their time, frankly.
And then they certainly raninto issues on the regulatory
front about how quickly theywere going to be able to develop

(42:23):
various products andindications, and so the company
had a bumpy road, to be honest.
And so, and then they went downthe path of they did an
acquisition that didn't work outvery well.
Dennis left and a new CEO camein and to his credit, he kept
the company alive, but kind ofbarely, and it had been a public
company but the revenues weredeclining and it hadn't gone

(42:46):
public from a position ofstrength.
It had been kind of a reversemerger in the public markets
just to almost stay alive.
And so I had a healthy dose ofskepticism when I was first
approached, to say the least,but I started looking into it
and I realized that, despite allof that, there were some great
assets that the company had Outof that initial work.

(43:08):
The overstitch suturing deviceallows endoscopic suturing um,
it was a fantastic product.
We were about to launch a newproduct called x-tac, which is
another suturing device.
We had a presence in 75countries around the world,
which I never would try to buildmyself, but we had acquired it
through the acquisition Imentioned, um, and that gave us

(43:29):
a bit of a portfolio effect,which is a nice thing as a
public company, of differentmarkets and how you're growing
different markets.
And then we were in the veryearly stages of developing an
endoscopic procedure for weightloss using the overstitch device
and working on a pivotal trialthat ultimately was published in
the Lancet.
And working on a pivotal trialthat ultimately was published in

(43:51):
the Lancet.
But that work was starting and Iwas, you know, familiar enough
with it and did my homework onit, where I'm like wait, there
are ingredients here, right, ifwe're able to get the right
people and team in place,there's some really cool things
we could do.
And so I joined and I also gota little lucky.
I mean, some of our R&D teamhad weathered a lot of down
years but we're still there andare incredibly talented.
Some of our best sales reps hadstuck around because they loved

(44:14):
OverStitch and loved thecustomer base, so there were
pockets of some really good,talented people.
But then I also brought in anew head of sales, a new head of
marketing, a new CFO, a newhead of reimbursement.
So it was a lot of mixing oldand new to help turn Apollo
around and we were able to dothat and that was a lot of fun
kind of building that cultureand working on it together.

Geoff Pardo (44:36):
And actually I wanted to touch on the culture
piece of it and sort of because,as we're sort of tying things
together here, I mean thisbusiness is tough, the company
had been through I mean thisbusiness is tough, the company
had been through you know sortof the vicissitudes of our world
and I imagine that there musthave been some fatigue there.

(44:56):
You know what is going to bethe end game for everybody.
You know, I'm sure there are alot of high hopes that it just
over time, you know, started to,you know, become a little more
tempered.
So I wonder, coming into thatsituation, how do you handle

(45:17):
sort of a cultural rebirth Doyou have?
I imagine it's not like a lotof Newt Rockne speeches, but
maybe talk a little bit abouthow you approach that as a newly
incoming CEO.

Chas McKhann (45:28):
Yeah, I thought a lot about that coming in because
, both internally and in thepublic markets, the company
needed a real refresh.
But, as I mentioned, I reallyfelt like the building blocks
were there and before I joined,actually I reached out to Chris

(45:50):
Simon.
Chris is the CEO of Humanetics.
And he's also, chris was one ofthe first partners I worked with
at McKinsey.
So this is again keeping thosecontacts alive.
And Chris had done a phenomenaljob when he took over his CEO
role of laying out kind of hisvision for the company over a
period of very classic McKinseysort of three phases of growth

(46:10):
short term, but doing it in away that was credible.
Now Chris had the benefit ofhaving had a McKinsey team work
on this for, I think you know,months before he joined.
But I didn't have that benefitbut I still had a feel for
actions I thought we could taketo really get things kind of on
the right track near term.
And then, if some of the chipsfell on some of the things I

(46:33):
mentioned with you know theweight loss procedure I
mentioned in the clinical study.
So I started laying those outand I was really conscious and
thoughtful about how much to putout there.
So I didn't get ahead of myskis but give people enough of a
vision of there's a lot here toget excited about Working on
that with some of the members ofthe team.

(46:54):
And then I had the benefit ofbringing in a few other people
who I'd worked with on the salesand marketing side.
They'd worked with me at Torexand we kind of crafted that
together and then hired JeffBlack, our CFO, who was
outstanding and was able to sortof lay that out, and then it
became okay.
The vision's been laid out.
Our analysts started playing itback to us, which was awesome.
That was perfect right.

(47:15):
So it's starting to resonate.
I used it in our internalmeetings, kind of this whole
framework, and then it was soimportant to hit the early
milestones, to build confidence,and we were able to do that
right.
I mentioned we had a newproduct launch and it did well
out of the gates.
Actually, yeah, but we were veryintentional on making sure it

(47:36):
did well out of the gates andbuild momentum and then sort of
the pieces fell together andthat helped get people on a
different foot.
And then obviously the marketstarted to react to that as well
.
When I joined, when I startedmy discussions, we were less
than a dollar a share, I think.
In that mid-period we were upto like $5 or $6 a share, and so

(47:59):
people could see progress.
But then ultimately, when wedid engage with Boston
Scientific, we ultimately soldthe company for $10 a share.
So, it was a nice progression.

Geoff Pardo (48:08):
You know the degree of difficulty of what you did.
I mean you know it is hardenough to come into a company
that is not public and executethat sort of turnaround, but to

(48:31):
do it under the public spotlight, I mean, is when you have these
quarterly pressures, I mean howdid you deal with that?

Chas McKhann (48:35):
Because that to me is an order of magnitude more
difficult than not having thatscrutiny.
I guess, yeah, it is.
You feel the pressure becauseit is that quarterly piece.
I actually reached out to afriend of mine who does investor
relations in the tech industryand got a lot of advice from her
about sort of managing thestreet, managing investors.
Um, like I said, I hired one ofthe best hires in my life of a

(48:59):
really good, experienced publiccompany, cfo jeff had worked at
alpha tech spine as they wentthrough, you know, tremendous
growth in the public markets andthen just being very
intentional about how we toldthe story right, how we
communicated about it, how muchwe disclosed, how much we did

(49:21):
not disclose sometimes, and thenwe were fortunate that we were
able to deliver on that andbuild some confidence.
And so in doing that we did doa fundraise about nine months
after I got there and it trulyin some ways was the IPO for the
company because I mentioned ithadn't truly gone public before.
So we raised $75 million andbrought in really good new med

(49:42):
tech investors you know bignames that are in the other kind
of big companies in our space.
We brought in new analystcoverage.
When we did that, Callan andStiefel joined us, which was
great and really good analystsfrom there as well, as you know,
others that have beensupporting us for years.
So I enjoyed that challenge, butit is.

(50:03):
It's a lot of work and itdefinitely you feel the.
You feel the pressure of it, noquestion.
I'd reached out to a friend ofmine who had been a tech CEO and
I was like how long were you inthe role?
He said 23 quarters.
I knew exactly Is that sort ofyour life?

Geoff Pardo (50:17):
Yeah Well, you must have enjoyed it because you
execute that sale and not toolong after that, silk Road comes
.
And maybe I'll ask the samequestion what did you see?
I mean, that was a company thathad been a very high flyer in
the last public wave.
I think Erica Rogers did agreat job sort of leading it

(50:39):
through that period, but it hadcome upon some more difficult
times.
I'm curious.
You know what intrigued youabout that story.

Chas McKhann (50:47):
I'm curious what intrigued you about that story?
Yeah, so this was the summerafter we closed the sale of
Apollo.
I was approached about SilkRoad and you're absolutely right
, all credit to Erica and herteam that did an incredible job
of building the TCAR procedurethis is for carotid artery
disease and successfullybuilding a company with, I think

(51:08):
I think, about $180 million insales that year, um, which is no
mean feat in our business, um,but at the time that I was
joining, the company was or atleast interviewing for the job
even the company was facing aseries of challenges.
There was some, there was some.
Some aspect of growth had beenslowing.
You know, it had been kind ofthat 30% plus growth and, as you

(51:29):
mentioned, the high flyers andthere were a few quarters that
didn't hit that and in some ways, almost more importantly,
didn't hit Wall Streetexpectations and Wall Street
doesn't like that.
There was a new CMS ruling thatwas going to favor traditional
carotid stenting more than inthe past.
That, frankly, the market'scompletely overreacted to and in

(51:53):
the past, that, frankly, themarket's completely overreacted
to, and that's probably whatalmost drew me in, because I
knew enough having I mean, thecrowded stenting world started
when I was at Cordis, however,many years before, and we were
working on some of the earlytrials to develop it back then
and, frankly, it hadn'tdeveloped much as a market for a
whole host of reasons, withreimbursement only being one
piece of it.
But the market had overreacted,so a stock price that had been
at like $60 a share or more wasdown to like $6 a share.

(52:16):
So it just felt like adisconnect in the marketplace as
well as a really good companyit was.
You know, apollo was aturnaround.
It was an operationalturnaround that needed to happen
, happen quickly.
Silk Road was not that.
It was a good company that wasdoing a lot of things right.
Now, if we're going to staystandalone which we were working
on we're going to have toevolve right, because we were

(52:38):
still essentially a singleprocedure, multi-products, but
one procedure in one market,that being the US, and I learned
from my time at Intersect,that's a tough place to be in
the public markets.
The US and I learned from mytime at Intersect, that's a
tough place to be in the publicmarkets.
So, and again, the team wasalready working on much of this,
but we had to get very clear onsome of our international plans

(52:58):
.
We had to get very clear onpriority.
Seeing some of our R&D work, wewere looking at things that we
might acquire, and so all ofthat would have, you know, taken
us down a different growth paththan the company had been on
for the next three to five years.
And we were working on all ofthat.
But then you know theconversation also with Boston
Scientific, and it's a good fit.

(53:20):
It's a really good fit withintheir peripheral vascular
business and they're able towork.

Geoff Pardo (53:26):
What was your major challenge as you stepped into
the role at Silk Road, giventhat there was a good team of
calm both internally and in themarkets again, right.

Chas McKhann (53:51):
I remember JP Morgan that year very clearly of
just having the benefit ofbeing an outsider coming in and
kind of reiterating the benefitsof the procedure and the
customer base and where it fitand room to still grow, and and
just and all the rationale as towhy we understood the change

(54:15):
that was happening within thereimbursement environment but
didn't feel that it was going tobe anywhere near as big of an
impact as was being feared,right.
So so providing a sense ofclarity and calm was really
really important, as importantfor the team as well.
You know, being in a publiccompany, people of course pay
attention to the stock price,and they are.
You know it impacts theirpersonal net worth and even just

(54:39):
almost the scorecard of how thecompany is doing right.
And so I think, being able todo that, and then, you know, we
reset expectations for the year,you know.
And then you know, we resetexpectations for the year, you
know, and then we're able tostart embarking on a path of,
you know, making very clear thatwe're going to hit and exceed
those new expectations and kindof pull our way out from a

(55:00):
confidence standpoint.
Confidence in the publicmarkets is so important and we
kind of lost that we needed toregain it.
Execution with the sales forcewe had a very good sales team,
but executing and making sure wewere clear on how we're going
to continue to sustain growthand, even if it wasn't 30%
growth, how we're going toreliably sustain growth in the
15 to 20% range, while thenworking on some of these other

(55:23):
areas I talked about for growth,but those were just kind of
getting going as we then enteredinto the acquisition
discussions.
We also had to rebalance thecost structure of the company as
well.
I mean, silk Road was fundedand was spending money as kind
of the go-go grow at all costsversion of the environment that
we lived in in the sort of 2021,2022 area.

(55:46):
It's not that anymore, right.
So we needed we were gettingclose to profitability and so we
didn't drastically cut, but wewere starting to make cuts to
get much closer into turningcashflow positive and had I
stayed longer, that would havehad to have been a big piece of
it as well, because we needed toget more fiscally disciplined
as well.

Geoff Pardo (56:05):
Yeah, yeah.
It's incredible how themarket's really shifted right To
only caring about revenue, tosuddenly, you know, really
wanting to see what the path tocashflow break even was and
having to adjust to that.

Chas McKhann (56:19):
I remember the quarter it happened.
It was when I was at Apollo.
I mean, I remember thedifferent set of conversations
and it was right when, wheninterest rates started to spike
and and you know, especiallylike hedge fund kind of folks
who had never many of them quiteyoung had never operated in
interest rates that again, byhistorical standards aren't that
high, but felt a lot differentthan you know, two and 3% rates,

(56:41):
right, and we're suddenlysaying, all right, capital is
expensive, what are you doingabout it?

Geoff Pardo (56:45):
Yeah, yeah, interesting.
So now, what's next?
What's next for you?
You have, I imagine, a lot offlexibility in terms of what you
want to do.
What are you thinking of?

Chas McKhann (56:57):
Yeah, no, I appreciate it.
I've been thinking a lot ofI've had time to think about it
and it's fun to now think aboutkind of filling in a portfolio
of kind of board roles and othersimilar activities.
I recently took on a new boardrole with a diagnostics company
called Exogen.
That's a publicly tradedcompany.

(57:18):
We've got a very innovativetest for lupus and some really
exciting pipeline products forautoimmune disease and kidney
disease and I'm a senior advisorat McKinsey, so a little bit of
going full circle and workingthere.
My wife is from Singapore and soI'm doing some things with the
Singaporean government and thenyou know, in conversations with

(57:38):
a handful of other companies andmy conversations, my learning
and talking to others who'vemade that similar changes is to
be careful not to overcommit.
So I'm trying to be very, verycareful to find a really, you
know, I'd rather do a smallernumber of things where I truly
can get involved and have animpact on the types of companies

(58:00):
I like to work with rightThings, typically commercial
stage ones that truly can impactpatients' lives.
You know, I do still hear mydad's voice in my head, you know
, as I think about what I'mdoing and what companies I might
want to work on.
And then you know, it soundssimple but ultimately it's also
about the people you work withand, at this stage of my career,
being able to do that and workwith good people and have some

(58:23):
fun doing it.
So we'll see how that goesright.
I don't know how that's goingto feel on a personal level.
I know what being in the corneroffice of a public company
feels like and I enjoyed it.
But I also, you know, I'mworking real hard now to get
myself in better shape and nottravel as much and all those
pieces as well.
So you know, but I'm committedto sort of give this portfolio

(58:44):
approach at least a few yearsand see how it goes, and then
I'll probably reevaluate it.

Geoff Pardo (58:48):
Yeah Well, I'm sure you're going to be great at it.
I mean it is.
I imagine it is a transition.
You know you've now beencarrying the ball for you know
many years, and now going backto influencing the ball carrier,
as we like to say, is different, but you have so much
experience in doing that already, I'm sure you're going to be

(59:10):
fantastic.
So I can't thank you enough fortaking the time and, as always
in these discussions.

Chas McKhann (59:23):
It's great because I learn a lot and I've really
enjoyed the discussion.
Geoff, thank you so much forhaving me.

Geoff Pardo (59:25):
It's been a real pleasure.
Great Thanks, Chas.