Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Naveen Jain: Turning Audacious Ideas Into Life-Changing Innovations | E66
Tue, 31 Dec 2024
Naveen Jain believes that no idea is too crazy to pursue. With the right questions and focus, you can turn big ideas into life-changing solutions. After his father's battle with stage 4 pancreatic cancer, Naveen wondered why early cancer detection wasn’t possible. This led him to apply his 'Why me? Why this? Why now?' framework, sparking innovation in early cancer detection and chronic disease management. In this episode, Naveen talks with Ilana about the mindset that drives him to solve the world’s toughest problems. He emphasizes the importance of staying focused, persistent, overcoming failure, and obsessing over solutions. Naveen Jain is a serial entrepreneur, author, and philanthropist dedicated to solving the world’s biggest challenges through life-changing solutions. Driven by a relentless passion for innovation, he has built several successful companies in diverse fields. In this episode, Ilana and Naveen will discuss: (00:00) Introduction (01:29) How Life’s Experiences Shape Who We Are (04:50) The Three Questions You Must Ask Before Starting Any Project (11:20) Overcoming Fear and Embracing ‘Moonshot’ Thinking (13:16) Turning Personal Loss into a Health Revolution (18:33) Why Microbiomes are the Key to Preventing Disease (22:50) Using Cutting-Edge Tech for Early Cancer Detection (30:07) How Obsession, Not Passion Helps Entrepreneurs Succeed (33:00) The Power of Persistence in Overcoming Challenges (39:41) Parenting Future Entrepreneurs (42:41) Teaching Kids to Question Everything and Drive Innovation (50:26) Embracing Crazy Ideas and Never Giving Up (51:34) How Viewing Failure as an Experiment Fuels Growth Naveen Jain is a serial entrepreneur, author, and philanthropist dedicated to solving the world’s biggest challenges with life-changing solutions. Driven by a relentless passion for innovation, he has built several successful companies in diverse fields. He founded Viome, a health-tech company specializing in personalized medicine through microbiome and gene expression analysis. He also co-founded Moon Express, a company focused on mining resources from the Moon. Naveen is the author of Moonshots, and his mission is to help humanity realize its fullest potential on Earth and beyond. Connect with Naveen: Naveen’s Website: https://naveenjain.com/ Naveen’s LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/naveenjainintelius/ Naveen’s Instagram: www.instagram.com/naveenjainceo Resources Mentioned: Evvy Website: https://www.evvy.com/ Naveen’s Book, Moonshots: Creating a World of Abundance: https://www.amazon.com/Moonshots-Creating-Abundance-Naveen-Jain/dp/099973640X Leap Academy: Ready to make the LEAP in your career? There is a NEW way for professionals to Advance Their Careers & Make 5-6 figures of EXTRA INCOME in Record Time. Check out our free training today at leapacademy.com/training
Chapter 1: What shaped Naveen Jain's entrepreneurial mindset?
It's really the strings of experiences, first of all, that makes you who you are. You know, a lot of us tend to go back and trying to find that one single moment that changed us, right? And it comes from this philosophy that we constantly keep saying, it's the last straw that breaks the camel's back. And we all know that it's never the last straw that breaks the camel back.
It's all the other straws that were there before, right? So it's really the strings of experiences together that makes us who we are. Every experience in childhood that you have, good, bad, how your parents actually nurture you. And then as we get along, I would love to tell you a little bit more about this idea of counterintuitive parenting and how we incorporate that into our own world.
Because, you know, when you are born and when your kids are born, they don't come with a user manual. It's not like, here's who I am, here's how you operate me, and here is my user manual, right? I wish. I wish, right? The point is, we all wish that way, but that's not how it happens. And we do our best to raise children. But what's really interesting is that
If you grow up in humble beginnings like many of us do on who are the first time entrepreneurs, we all grow up in very humble beginnings. And we believe that shapes us who we become because we still have that hunger, that desire to actually do something. And it could be a desire to obviously be financially successful.
But as you will learn, making money is simply a byproduct of doing things that improve other people's lives. And I'll give you how I look at starting every venture. I can't find wood here anymore in the office. Here, I have one for you. Here you go. It's a knock on wood. Every company so far I've started has been wildly successful.
You know, there is a method to the madness of how do you think about these audacious moonshot ideas? And I'll give you the framework for that. And then as we go along and we'll talk about that, now that once you become successful, how do you start to bring that type of hunger into the children? And how would you go about doing that?
So with that, first of all, I want to thank you, Ilana, for hosting me here. You have been an unbelievable mentor to millions of people who listen to your podcast. And the fact that you're dedicating your life to improving other people's life is something that everyone could learn from. So it's not what I'm going to tell you that is going to be important.
It is everyone who is listening to you every single episode. They need to know that your sincere desire to help the humanity, to help everyone who's listening to it, make them better with every guest. You give your time. The most important thing you have in your life, your time to actually doing it for others, someone else. And that to me is so commendable. So my hat's off to you and thank you.
So beautiful, Naveen. Thank you. That means a lot. And it is a big passion. And you've been doing all these things to change millions of lives. So I would love to learn more how you started, what you've done. How do you come with these moonshot ideas? What do you do?
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Chapter 2: What are the three questions to ask before starting a project?
Chapter 3: How can personal loss drive innovation in health?
So with that, first of all, I want to thank you, Ilana, for hosting me here. You have been an unbelievable mentor to millions of people who listen to your podcast. And the fact that you're dedicating your life to improving other people's life is something that everyone could learn from. So it's not what I'm going to tell you that is going to be important.
It is everyone who is listening to you every single episode. They need to know that your sincere desire to help the humanity, to help everyone who's listening to it, make them better with every guest. You give your time. The most important thing you have in your life, your time to actually doing it for others, someone else. And that to me is so commendable. So my hat's off to you and thank you.
So beautiful, Naveen. Thank you. That means a lot. And it is a big passion. And you've been doing all these things to change millions of lives. So I would love to learn more how you started, what you've done. How do you come with these moonshot ideas? What do you do?
Ilana, so first of all, every time you start any project, you should ask yourself three questions. Why this? Why now? Why me? And I'm going to explain this to you in very simple things, how you go about doing it. So why this is about, go backward and ask yourself, God forbid, I am actually successful in solving the problem that I set out to solve.
Would it help a billion people live a better life? It could be 100 million. It could be 10 million. It could be 1 million. Would it help people's life be better? If you can help a billion people live a better life, you can create a $100 billion company. But you don't wake up in the morning and say, what should I do to create a $100 billion company?
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Chapter 4: Why are microbiomes essential for disease prevention?
Making money is simply a byproduct of doing things that improve people's lives, right? And a lot of young people who just don't seem to understand that concept. So I explained to them in a way they do do, which is making money is like having an orgasm. If you focus on it, you're never going to get it. You just have to learn to enjoy the process.
So every time you start, whatever it is, ask yourself if you're successful, would it actually move the needle? Would it help lots of people live better life? The second part is why now? So why now has actually two pieces to the puzzle. Number one is,
Ask yourself what had changed in the last two or three years but more importantly what do you expect to change in the next three to five years that will allow you to solve the problem at scale in three to five years and this problem could not have been solved five years ago.
That means, are you actually intercepting and taking advantage of the technologies that are coming up and actually scaling as the technology, the price performance curve is coming down, rather than using something that already existed five years ago, because then you're going to become commodity by the time you even launch.
Chapter 5: How does cutting-edge technology facilitate early cancer detection?
So really understanding what is changing and how do you intercept these technologies that are happening? So if you look in today's world, the cost of sensors are coming down. They're becoming faster, better, cheaper, right? So look in the iPhone, number of sensors that are coming out. You look at AI that has been able to now process this massive amount of data.
You look at these cloud computing, that means you can have so much data coming out of the sensors that can be stored and compute for at a very minimal cost, and then using AI to actually be able to make sense of it. So what would you do? So now the question is, if you know this is what is going on, what industry would you disrupt? What is it that you care enough about to do that?
So that's number one part. And the second part of the puzzle really is you never ever focus on how you're going to solve the problem, but you want to ask yourself, what are the set of problems that need to be solved for this big problem to be solved? So let's pick any examples, right? So let's say we want to live on setter. You don't say, ah, that's not going to happen, right?
You simply say, what would it take for us to be able to live on Saturn? Number one, you have to be able to leave Earth orbit. Number two, go from all the way Earth orbit to the Saturn orbit. Number three, land on Saturn. And number four, find a way to actually live on Saturn. So there are four problems that need to be solved. And suddenly you will realize,
Leaving the Earth orbit, we have done that many times, we call them a rocket, right? Going from Earth orbit to Saturn, well, we have been to Mars, so we know and we have taken horizon that has gone beyond Pluto out of our solar system, so we do know how to go long distances.
And if you're going to have people there, maybe we'll have to modify it a bit more about how we're going to do that, but that's a technology that does exist. In terms of landing on Saturn, well, we don't quite know that, but we do know how to land on Mars. And maybe the gravity on Saturn is slightly less or slightly more, but we landed on the Mars three different ways.
We did the bouncing ball, we did the crane, we did the parachute. So we know multiple ways we can actually land on a different planet. And now maybe we have to modify a little bit, but we know it's the incremental problem. And the last thing is, how are we going to go live there? And that really comes down to my last question, which is, why me?
And this is about the questions you ask is the problem you solve. So why me is really about how are you looking at the problem from a different perspective than everyone else has been looking in the industry. For example, If you say, I want to solve a world hunger problem, or I want to live on Saturn, it's the same thing.
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Chapter 6: What role does obsession play in entrepreneurial success?
When people are talking about every single person who wants to solve a world hunger problem, if you ask an expert, they will tell you it is about increasing the yield of the crops so you have more food for more people. It is about reducing the wastage in the transport because so much of the food that's wasted in the transport. So how do you grow the food closer to where people are?
But no one will ever ask the question, why do we eat food? Because suddenly when you ask question, why we eat food? And you say, oh, you need energy and you need nutrition. What are the different ways can we get energy? Well, plants get energy from photosynthesis and there are bacteria that grow in the radioactive nuclear waste. They get the energy from radiation and they protect
their DNA from radiation. So what if we can take a genetic material from these bacteria, use CRISPR to modify our cells, and now we are radiation resistant and we can get energy from radiation. And suddenly it is like living on set and say, honey, do you want to go out and get some radiation, not go out and get some pizza, right?
And you have now opened up the problem to many more solutions that you would have by simply asking why we eat food, not how to grow more food. And that's the foundation to solving big problems.
So what you're saying, the questions you're asking will actually decide what you are actually focusing on. And that determines... basically the levels of solutions that you're starting to look at. One of the things that we notice with a lot of entrepreneurs is even that is scary.
So even asking these moonshot questions, you don't necessarily want to hear the answers because you don't want to take something so big on yourself. So how do you work on the fear?
Interesting thing is, it's easier to solve a big problem than to solve a small problem. It's really counterintuitive, really. And here's why. If you have something that is so audacious, the best and the brightest in the world want to work on the toughest problems. The people who are successful, they want to create legacy.
And what they want to work on is something, if they are successful, changes how humanity is going to live in the future, right? That means it allows you to get the best and brightest to focus on your problems. Number two, when you have the team and you have a great moonshot, good audacious idea, everyone who wants to invest, they say, look, these guys have an unbelievably great idea.
And look at the kind of people they have assembled. You get the investment. So it is really easier to solve a big problem than to solve a small problem. Imagine if you say, I'm going to develop another iPhone app that will help you find a roommate. People say, good luck, have fun with it. And when you come back and tell someone, hey, we're going to actually make humanity a multi-planetary society.
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Chapter 7: How can parents nurture the next generation of entrepreneurs?
We're going to make illness optional. What if we can actually solve the problem that no one ever have to develop a cancer or have depression or ever have Alzheimer's? People say, sign me up. Tell me how you're going to do that. And suddenly- You now have the best and the brightest in the world who want to work on the problem that you set out to do.
Let me take this framework and let me apply it to the company that I started because that actually will ground it so you can see how to apply it, right? So seven years ago, I found myself in a really tough predicament. my dad was diagnosed with stage four pancreatic cancer. And there's nothing I could have done. At this point, he was given three months to live.
And unfortunately, that's all he got. And it occurred to me that there was nothing. There was no symptom. There's nothing we could have done. Why in this age? We can't find a way to detect early stage cancers. Why is it that we had to wait until he was at stage four and there was nothing that we could have done? I started to think back and looked at his life. He had high blood pressure.
He had diabetes. He had all these chronic diseases. And we just accept it. That's how it is. He's getting older. Obviously, he's going to have high blood pressure. Of course, he's going to have heart disease. Of course, he's going to have diabetes. Of course, he's going to gain weight. This is all we accepted. And we say, wait a sec. Why does it have to be this way?
Because humans have not changed in the last 100 years as a species, yet younger and younger people are getting more and more chronic diseases. There has to be something we actually have changed. So this is how I started. I said, what if? And every moonshot idea, every project I do, I always start, what if? What if we can actually understand what changes in the human body
at the onset of these chronic diseases, whether it is cancer or diabetes or heart disease or Alzheimer's. If we can do that, if we understand what is changing in the human body, then we will be able to potentially prevent the disease from happening, diagnose them early, and God forbid, outright reverse them. If we can do that,
Then I asked myself, if I could actually be successful in solving this problem, would it help a billion people live a better life? And the answer was 8 billion. Every one of us is going to suffer from it. So I said, good. So why this is checkmark? Because we know that this is a big problem that we could attack. And then I asked myself, why now?
And we said, look, to solve this problem, there are three things that have to happen. We have to be able to digitize the human body. We have to be able to take massive amount of data that's coming from this digitization and to be able to process the data. And number three, the AI has to be powerful enough to be able to make sense of all this data.
So I said, okay, let's understand what is it that's going on in the industry that will allow us to do so. The cost of sequencing is still $1,000 to understand just the one simple sample. And if you were to sequence, it's $1,000. And we said, that's too high. We can't solve this problem. But it used to be $100,000, $10,000. It is $1,000.
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Chapter 8: Why should we embrace 'crazy' ideas in problem-solving?
So I'll give you $1 today and the $2 tomorrow, and I'm going to give you $4 and then the $8. And you do the math and say $8 becomes $16, becomes $32, $64. And then with $64, $128, $256, $512, $1,000. And I'm already at eight days. And I'm thinking in 30 days, never is going to be a million dollars, let alone $100 million.
Give it to me now.
without realizing that 30 doubling later, it is a billion dollars. And that is the part of the thing that human mind just never, because it looks at the early things and it forgets the part. So that was first part was cost of sequencing was coming down. And then we looked at and saying to process, we will never have access to supercomputer, but we can use the cloud computing.
And we looked at the cost and they said cost was at that time was about $47. And we say, wow, that's a lot of cost to process a single person's data. But it has come down. Cost of storage is coming down. The cost of CPUs are becoming more faster and cheaper. This should come down to about $10 in the next three to five years. And today we spend about $1.50 on that.
And AI, by the way, everyone has realized that AI was going to be more and more powerful and we will have the AI that we needed for doing that. So we realized the time to start was there. Then came the biggest part, why me? And again, I am not a scientist. I am not a doctor. And here is the problem that I'm trying to solve in healthcare. Know nothing about it.
And most people will be so scared about not knowing anything. People say, you're not a doctor. You're not a scientist. How are you going to solve it? And I think as I was telling you that non-experts are better at solving the problem than experts are. And here's why. Every expert takes the foundation to be granted because that's what makes them an expert.
The foundation of the industry, they take it for granted because the foundation knowledge is what makes them an expert. Non-expert are the only one that can challenge the foundation of everything that experts have taken it for granted. So here I am. never done a healthcare company. And my first thing was, wait a sec, everyone in the industry is asking, they want to know about your DNA.
And there were, you know, tens of companies doing DNA testing, and everyone thought DNA is unique to every individual. If they could somehow understand the DNA, which they understood as the software of our body, if they knew your DNA, they could find out what is going on. And my first reaction, as in non-expert, was, Does your DNA change when you gain 100 pounds?
So if you do my DNA test today and I gain 100 pounds, has my DNA changed? And the answer is no. Now, if I become diabetic, has my DNA changed? No. If I have heart disease, my DNA changes? No. I have depression, anxiety, does my DNA change? The answer is no. And my point was, in fact, even after you die, your DNA doesn't change. So if you were to look at DNA of a dinosaur, it's the same DNA.
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