Lead Smarter Podcast

All right, welcome to the Leadership Lend
podcast.

I'd like to introduce Kartik Tewari.

Let me just start over here, sorry.

Okay, welcome to the Leadership Lend
podcast.

I'd like to introduce my next guest,
Kartik Tewari.

Kartik is a highly experienced
entrepreneur in the robotics and

autonomous vehicle sector.

He co -founded Andromeda Surgical and is
recognized for working on autonomous

surgical robots.

Kartik has been part of multiple impactful
startups, including one...

that made significant advancements in self
-driving semi -trucks.

Kartik, I know I could speak quite a bit
about your background.

We've had a chance to talk a little bit
already.

But if maybe you could give me a little
bit of background from your experience,

just high level, what got you to the point
of actually getting in the medical sector

and doing autonomous robots and surgical?

Yeah, yeah.

Thanks, David.

First of all, it's great to be here.

Yeah, so my background is...

mostly in robotics.

And I started off as a mechanical
engineer, but slowly steered my way into

more general robotics system design and
then more focused on autonomous systems.

My last startup was in, as you mentioned,
in self -driving trucks.

and I, about, about...

years ago or so, I realized that the
technology that we are working on and the

market that we worked on in trucking was
actually way similar than I thought with

surgical robots.

It's safety critical, highly regulated
industry, and also has a huge shortage of

skilled people.

So yeah, that was my initial trigger to
start exploring this.

And I noticed that you mentioned that you
started in your journey in India in a

firm.

What got you, what basically motivated you
to move from studying robotics and then

going into the startup ecosystem?

Obviously highly regulated and startups,
those tend to clash.

There's usually a lot more flexibility in
startups and you kind of have embedded

yourself in more of a regulated industry.

with higher standards, what was the
motivation for that?

Gosh, okay.

So yeah, that, so I actually, there's
probably two questions in one, probably

answer the journey starting from India.

I think that that was a, more of a calling
thing.

I, I worked at, at a Japanese automaker
back in India.

And, as, as with any Japanese company, you
have this open workspace where you can, I

could see.

obviously myself, but my boss, my boss's
boss and like three layers up the

management right in front of me.

And I could pretty easily chart out my
next 25 years of professional career

literally in front of myself.

And that was really disheartening.

Not saying that, you know, that job
shouldn't be done, but you know, that was

not for me for sure.

So, you know, right out of college, I did

know what to do, but I knew that that was
not something that I was comfortable with.

And I started looking at different options
and realized that robotics is something

that I'm genuinely interested in.

I was frankly actually interested in it
even before, in my college undergrad

projects.

So yeah, so I started looking into it and
realized that the best way forward is to

jump in.

the pond, get get over to the US, go
through a prestigious college, and get my

master's in robotics.

So that's what that's what I did.

Can you tell me a little bit about how you
got to the point where you were actually

leading the charge when it came to the
autonomous self -driving vehicles in the

large 18 -wheelers?

Like how did you go from just interest in
robotics to that level of a problem to

solve?

So when I was in my master's program on
the East Coast, I had no idea about

startups actually.

I just, peripherally I knew that startups
existed, but that was never an ambition

that I had.

This is why I'm studying, this is what I'm
studying for.

But a friend of mine actually...

we still work together, even in this
company, a friend of mine I had not met

then.

I met him in the course.

introduced me to the option that we can
actually right after this course, start a

company in robotics because that was the
focus of everything for us.

And to me, it sounded like, okay, this is
something that I haven't exactly explored.

but I don't have a lot of personal risk
profile, as in like I don't have like a

lot of debts to pay.

I don't have a family to take care of at
that point.

So it seems like the right time if I ever
have to explore this, I just have to do

it.

There was a lot of uncertainty, but yeah,
that was the main thing for me at that

time.

So I took the leap and for the next...

two and a half years, we both kind of like
struggled and this was, I call that the

startup crash course for me, Startup 101.

There were a lot of drawbacks to the idea,
looking back obviously, but those were the

right kind of states that I was making to
build out this mental checklist of what

needs to be done.

the right.

ideas to work for and what other things
that I find interesting also have valuable

societal impacts.

So yeah, so that chapter finally ended.

I did, I was, I think like out of just
luck, serendipitously just got in touch

with my, like now ex -co -founder who
reached out to me.

That's also kind of a funny story, but we
can get into that.

But yeah, we've just all got in touch with
each other.

And it never stuck to me that this was a
really giant mountain that I'm signing up

to climb.

It was mostly that this is a very relevant
problem that has to be solved.

And this seems like...

a risk that I can take with the things
that I know of, which is the technology,

things that can be done where it just fits
in the risk profile that I had mentally

created for myself.

So it never felt like I was going to
challenge the norms of safety, AI, and

software development and all that.

So that's how I just went into it.

It was like one step at a time.

There's a solvable problem.

What was the year?

When was it that you were starting to
develop this risk profile and enter into

the idea that you were going to solve this
problem by developing an autonomous semi

truck?

When was that?

was, yeah, we started working on this full
time in 2016.

OK, so back in 2016, and what's 2024 now?

So what's that?

Eight years ago.

Eight years ago, you were comfortable with
the technology at that point to develop an

autonomous semi truck.

Yeah, yeah.

Actually, we.

of the problem was driverless semi trucks.

And then that was the big leap that we
were taking.

Obviously Google, I guess it wasn't called
Waymo back then, but Google self -driving

project existed.

And cruise still existed, was just out of
the infancy.

But yeah, but we defined the problem in a
way that was very palatable.

And definitely way different than, and I
would even suggest even still way

different definition of how self -driving
technology can really overlap with the

actual business needs that were present
back then and are still relevant today.

Well, what's interesting is I think even
people today that aren't in the industry

would look at self -driving semi -trucks
as a pretty big problem to solve.

I mean, we've gotten some instances in the
country or around the world where you can

see self -driving cars.

They've done certain, you know, self
-parking, even to the point where they

actually can do autonomous taxis.

But even still, eight years later, a self
-driving semi truck represents what I

would say a whole different level of risk.

And the fact that you were comfortable
with the technology eight years ago says a

lot about probably where you are now and
how you develop the skills to then enter

into maybe even a more advanced or more
risky area, which is doing autonomous

robots in the medical sector for
surgeries.

Can you tell us a little bit about when
that journey started for you?

Like when you...

recognize that problem that you were
wanting to solve and you were the risk

profile you were evaluating and when that
happened for you

I think the important switch that happened
in my head was looking at problems from

ground up rather than top down because if
I look at the results, i .e.

a semi truck, 80 ,000 pounds, like you
were battling down the road, it creates

this emotional response of safety and high
risk.

But if you...

flip that problem around and start
thinking about what is needed to actually

get there, it becomes way more palatable
and you can actually strike off things

that you know that, okay, these are the
things I know for sure can be done and

these are the things that have some level
of risk that it cannot be done or it can

be done with some reliability or no
reliability at all.

So when you start to go down that list, it
becomes an achievable goal and more

objective goal.

than a very vague emotional response of
around safety.

Counter -intuitively, the technology
needed for autonomous surgical robots is

actually way easier and simpler than self
-driving trucks.

And even like this is another one of those
things which is very, like in,

is a lot of emotional response around
this.

Making a truck that runs mostly on the
highway, autonomous, is way easier than

making a car that drives around cities,
let alone San Francisco.

a busy city like San Francisco.

It's very easier that way.

That's why we have high speed rails that
only has one

person conducting the entire train running
at higher leg -

fast because it is a very constrained
environment and we cannot do that for

driving around the city.

So I think to answer your question, the
switch for me was just to flip the

question around and start to look at it
from ground up.

This is also something that

a mentor of mine, I guess, we had an angel
investor, actually, maybe people in the

audience might know the founder of
Zenifitz and now Rippling.

He gave this advice to just do work in
general at a startup.

Like you just go down and list down all
the things why you aren't in the market

right now.

And that forces you to think of this

to this ground up approach of what are the
things you're going to get.

And once you go there, it becomes way more
digestible.

And that was kind of like the trigger that
makes things way more easier to go

through.

when did you start that journey?

When did you discover the problem and you
started to tackle autonomous surgical

robots?

How long ago was that?

This was, yeah, I think this was as a
nugget of an idea.

This was about, I'd say like two or two
and a half years ago.

I was, I was still very much involved in
the, in the self -driving trucking

industry.

And I had a, I had a chat with a friend of
mine who knew who was actually in, who

worked in a, a big

medical tech company in Europe and they
were working on a prototype surgical

platform, also a tele -operated surgical
platform and they were having this issue,

like some single point of failure safety
issue around connectivity.

So they, so he.

to talk to me because it sounded a similar
problem because I my my system

had a remote driver, driver truck that is
like 500 miles away, and they wanted to do

the same thing with surgeons.

And while I was explaining the thought
process around how to solve this, it

became really one -to -one transfer of the
technology there.

This is actually.

very similar problem to solve.

Now the only question is, where is this?

like hidden fire problem that I can look
into and as an entity slide in.

So yeah, the initial spark of the idea
that the application for the technology

was there for about two and a half years
now.

But...

actively started working on this
particular problem and project.

when I met my co -founder Nick through the
YC network in January of last year.

Okay, and when we spoke earlier, you'd
mentioned that getting through the

healthcare industry, getting through red
tape obviously has lots of hurdles.

Can you explain a little bit about how
you're able to...

get your technology into the market and
kind of how you see it shaping the market

over the next decade.

Yeah, so this was, I was completely
unaware of the ins and outs of the

healthcare industry, the market in
general, how FDA worked.

I knew high level that FDA, that the bad
reputation FDA has in general, that

everyone in Silicon Valley kind of doesn't
like any government body coming and

telling us what to do, what not to do.

But since I had,

I have had relationships with federal
regulatory bodies before, like NHTSA.

It wasn't a huge barrier for me to think
about.

There are general healthcare related
issues in the country, like reimbursements

and all of that, those insurance stuff.

But those were things that I knew I could,
like those are solvable problems.

But the thing that convinced me that this
is actually the right problem for me to

solve was how the...

companies that have come before me or the
teams and projects that have come before

me have been very much constrained by the
types of ideas and types of problems

definitions that they had, where there is
only one single

team and organization that is responsible
to provide the entire suite of solution,

which means you always have to think about
the patient and introducing new modality

of risk to the patient by, let's say,
building a new tool, surgical tool, or

building a new procedure that

will support both safety and efficacy.

What we did, which is, in my opinion, like
something very new to the industry, is

that we have divided the problem into like
things that we have divided the problem so

that different people and different with
different expertise can take care of their

own areas of expertise.

So if a surgeon has come up with a really
great procedure because they know the

anatomy better, they can be responsible
for that and we can just provide them the

right tools to conduct that procedure
efficiently in the right way.

There are ways that procedures just cannot
be accounted for, cannot be conducted

because

surgeons are also people and they are
constrained by their physical and mental

capability.

So if we can augment both of those things,
there are more procedures and better

procedures with better results that can be
conducted as well.

And that those can actually not only give
better patient results, but also reduce

the burden of proof that we have to
provide to all the stakeholders required

because we

are only the tool providers.

The surgeons are better equipped at
providing the proof of any new surgery or

any new procedure and its efficacy.

And that's where we think that we can
complement each other, where they can come

in and provide their clinical expertise
and we can come in and provide our

technological expertise and work together
complementary to each other.

And am I understanding correctly, so
you're developing these robots and if I

understood what you were saying, they
would be remotely controlled by a surgeon

as at phase one.

Is that my understanding of how this
works?

So phase one, we are not doing anything
remote.

What we are actually doing is the surgeon
is still going to be in the room.

This system is going to provide them with
physical and cognitive assistance.

Things that a surgeon just has to like
train their mind and body to do over four

or five years of.

just repeating the same thing over and
over.

again.

So our system is just going to provide
them on a silver platter because a robot

is just like the things that people find
really hard to do.

A robot can actually do it out of the box
right away.

It's actually really easy for them to do
and vice versa as well.

There are things that a robot finds really
hard to do that people are really, really

really hard to do.

to do.

So yeah, counter -intuitively robots, us
providing robots with this kind of

definition makes a surgery more human
because people are going to, the surgeons

are going to actually care more about and
relate to patients way more than focusing

on holding the scalpel really stable or
remembering where like their

hand -eye coordination and all that.

Those are things that a robot can do
that's way, way easier.

Okay.

What's the next level of this technology
from being a surgical tool inside a

surgery with the doctor there?

What's phase two?

And I had mentioned maybe that it would be
remote.

And is that kind of where you see this
going?

Yes.

do think that doing this remotely is
something that can happen in the near

future.

However, the best way that we internally
talk about the progression is like going

from, I'm going to use a driving analogy,
and it's like going from a stick shift,

driving a stick shift car to an automatic
where

there are the, all the functions are still
happening in the car, but there are, but a

lot of those now happen under the hood.

The next step to that is cruise control,
then adaptive cruise control, lane

keeping.

So adding these, these, these autonomous
features kind of chips away a lot of

things that you as a, as a, as a surgeon
would do on a day -to -day basis.

And then slowly

keep on reducing the amount of cognitive
load that the surgeon has to specifically

just the clinical needs and needs alone.

Like what the anatomy is about, what the
patient health record says and recommends,

all of those things are the only things
that the surgeon has to worry about.

And then at a certain point, I mean, I
talked about the shortage of surgeons.

This can pretty easily be...

again replicated over long distances as
well.

Right now, because this is our MVP, we are
going to first introduce this with the

surgeon in the same room, but it's not
that difficult to assume that we can start

replicating this remotely as well.

Yeah, and as I was mentioning earlier, I
was curious where you saw this going 10

years after it's released into the market.

What you just mentioned is you see it as
an evolution going with the surgeon as a

tool, remote from the surgeon as a remote
assistance with a shortage of surgeons

around the world and maybe in locations
where they're needed.

Do you see it evolving even past that
given what we have with machine learning

AI, having the machine actually be able to
perform the surgery?

itself?

Is that something you're seeing as a path?

So the way we think about automation is
that the trajectory of automating any

task, you always get to a point of
diminishing returns of automation where

the last few percent of automation is
going to be way more, is going to be

intractable to automate considering how
much value it's providing versus

versus how much safety resources you have
to spend to actually do that automation.

So we always think that the value curve
plateaus beyond a certain point, and it is

actually going to be way easier for us to
have a surgeon guide and...

be the head chef, actually that might not
be a good analogy, but be the lead surgeon

among and supervise a bunch of these
resident surgical robots to do surgery.

And things that are, the kind of tasks
that we think can be automated are the

things that are

Ha ha ha.

like good confidence on that they know
this is just a thing that has to be done

and not a lot of thought has to be put in.

Just a lot of concentration needs to be
there.

Anywhere where surgeons themselves cannot
have a consensus because there are a lot

of places where even between surgeons
there is a lot of contention about.

whether this is the right way or that is
the right way.

Those are the things that we think that we
don't have the right expertise to poke

around.

We are only the tool providers.

We are not surgical experts or clinical
experts.

So if the surgeons come to a conclusion,
yeah, we can automate that.

But if the surgeons don't have that
conclusion, then yeah, we are going to

leave it to them.

Makes sense, you're not gonna take it
beyond what the experts are confident in,

it sounds like.

So I'm actually curious, so you've
described a lot of your background and

where your technical expertise comes from,
and I'm curious now, you're in a startup,

you're a founder of that startup.

From a leadership perspective, what
personal experiences have you had that

have had the most impact on your growth as
a leader and an entrepreneur?

Hmm, interesting.

I think like one of the most profound
thing that I experienced again as a

leader, there are a lot of like in the
core engineering things that I can

remember.

But as a leader, one of the things that I
distinctly remember was realizing that

building

a new organization and also building a new
kind of organization or a new product, I

should say, requires a new kind of
organization.

And there are any time that in the history
that a new company has built a

groundbreaking product, be it Windows, be
it IBM, be it Ford,

Apple or Tesla, they could only do it
because they redefined what organization

meant for them.

They defined what work culture meant for
them.

And that particular work culture and that
particular organization cannot be

transferred over to some other
organization, some other type of

organization.

So in my last startup, we had people

like machine learning AI software
engineers sitting right next to automotive

and aviation safety experts sitting next
to truck drivers.

And they all had to talk the same
language.

And that had to be figured out.

And with something as vague as safety, you
had to talk to all of them in the same

language.

It was an insanely tricky task to do.

And we have the same kind of issue here as
well.

We have a lot of our engineers are new to
healthcare, like as I am, and we also have

surgeons as advisors and also as full
-time team members, and they have to talk

in the same language.

So figuring out the work culture where
everyone can...

talk about and know what the other person
is doing when they have drastically

different backgrounds is so, so important
that, yeah, it's like this, like people

don't talk about that enough that I have
realized, yeah.

companies, lots of technology companies,
they've got roles for that.

They've got a product manager that will
talk about what the clients need on the

front end and try to have that captured
and understood by the technical in the

back end.

What you just described to me, do you have
something like that?

Do you have, let's just call it like
somebody who's got experience in medical

and tech who can speak both languages or
you're just from the ground up training

both teams in all languages so there's no
need for a communicator in between?

Yeah, I think the role of product manager
is like shorthand for what you just

described.

But I think what generally tends to happen
in any industry is product manager also,

or for that extent, any title, kind of
starts to focus on one set of skills.

And those skills are very

focused on that industry.

And actually a really good example here is
when you and I think of UI UX experts or

an engineer who works in UI UX, we pretty
quickly think about websites or how do you

layer up your website, if you have any
sort of interaction or your app.

But UI UX for us,

is completely different.

This is something that we even have issue
when we put a job opening because we get a

lot of web developers front end and back
end and that's not what we want.

We want UI UX.

UI UX also means what you physically have
in your hand.

That's also UI UX.

So that thing also goes to product
managers as well.

Product managers

are only as good as the industry that they
are kind of like colloquially part of.

But if you are building a new kind of
industry, then you need to build and train

your own product managers.

And most of the time, those are going to
be

Those are going to come internally from
the early team where there are a lot of

ideas that are going to go nowhere.

There are going to be a lot of ideas that
no one thought of, but kind of organically

come through.

And those learnings will then define the
role five years from now.

And people are going to use that as a
template in the industry.

I mean, Uber did it with their driver
hiring.

like managers, they're like people who
have that, that is a standard skill set

that didn't exist before.

But yeah, stuff like that like has to
happen when you are disrupting.

you mentioned, so would you define or
would you consider the business you're in,

that your product you're launching, I
guess, I think it's still technically not

launched, but would you consider that
business you're developing not only

launching maybe something that's
relatively new in terms of interactions or

in the surgical situations, but would you
consider it an entirely new market?

Like this is not just a new product, this
is a new market.

So we have to have a new culture, we have
to have new thinking.

And if so, how did you bring that into
your business?

How are you managing your culture to this
entirely new standard, like you were

saying IBM and Microsoft did?

Yeah, so I think we are looking at
building and launching this product as a

new, as defining a new market completely.

And I think the way we think about this is
that we can only build out and do what we

want to do if we and everyone who
interacts with us directly on and

directly.

thinks about us differently than any other
surgical robot because technically we are

still categorized as a surgical robot
company.

But if all the touch points that we have
with our potential users or anyone who is

going to get overlapped with us, if their
interaction has that hint of difference,

they are going to look at us differently
because

We want to position ourselves as a
technology company and that's what we want

everyone to think about because that's
what we are doing.

If we fall into that bucket of your run
-of -the -mill medtech company, then all

the baggage that comes with it will be on
us as well.

And the nimbleness, the fast, the moving
fast, like...

the quality that we have that will pretty
quickly be lost.

It will be a slippery slope after that.

So.

that pitfall?

So you're a company that wants to be
defined one way, but could easily be

defined based on maybe industry
categories, right?

Somebody's gonna look at you from an
industry category standpoint, they're

gonna be like, this is, I can see what you
produce, that product, it falls into this

category.

You've gotta somehow try to get ahead of
that with language, with positioning.

How do you get ahead of being
mischaracterized from the position you

wanna be in?

Yeah, I mean, I think there are like a
thousand answers for this.

But like the high level answer that I
always keep top of my mind is that it

needs to start from the team.

Like the team needs to feel and believe
that this is a different product.

And that makes almost all the difference,
I would say.

because it won't be just you as a founder
who is interacting with all the external

and internal customers.

And if the team believes it, if the
individual talking to the CEO of a

hospital or the potential user believes
that, they are quickly going to also bring

up all the differences that they think or
the users

might quickly think of when they think of
surgical robots, but they're going to

emphasize the salespeople, the clinical
experts are going to emphasize that, no,

actually, it's going to work this way and
not that way.

And yeah, like one quick example is we
have had a lot of, there is this idea of a

surgical robot needs to be controlled this
way.

and to control it, a surgeon needs to go
through like a certification training or

whatever.

We are, it is still like unclear, like
we're not 100 % clear about this, but we

are pushing forward to get to a point
where a surgeon doesn't actually need

certification and training.

For us, the whole point of automating
something is to make it easier.

But if you are automating something and
that automation requires training, then it

kind of like for us, it kind of defines,
like defeats the purpose.

So that's like one really small example of
how a surgeon looks at us and like thinks

about that, yeah, you actually don't need
any training.

suddenly puts us in a different category.

There's a different mental model that they
start creating for us because that is not

how they are used to working.

That makes sense.

It's like if all cars became semi
-autonomous in the future and they could

all parallel park, you probably wouldn't
be trained to parallel park for your

driving test.

Yeah.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah.

So that's, again, as I said, those are,
that's a small example, but there are

thousands of other examples, examples
that, and decisions that we make on a day

-to -day basis, where it, it kind of
redefines your thought process of how,

what, what, what a surgical robot is.

Another one quick example is any robot or
any medical device almost, I mean, we

internally call it like one show, is
almost always a one show pony.

Where you like build it, you like the, and
then there's a procedure that is defined

with the system.

And you like hold in a lot of marketing
effort to push it on to customers.

and it just does one procedure and then
goes and sits.

Obviously it has its own P &L for the
hospital, but it only does this physical

piece of hardware occupying space only
with like, I don't know, like 500 ,000 to

a million dollars or sometimes $2 million
worth of equipment.

Only just does this one thing.

Which is insane and and like our phone
which is way cheaper can do like thousands

of different things And that's that that
is a different different kind of mindset

that you have to get into to realize that
yeah, this is actually a Platform this is

something that can actually do a lot more
than than just sit around just like do one

one particular thing

And once you open up the minds of people
that interact with your system, suddenly

you start to see an explosion of ideas as
well around your product and the brand

associated with it.

what you're saying is your platform,
unlike the ones you were describing, the

one show ponies, your platform is going to
be designed to be able to do multiple

procedures, multiple different kinds of
surgeries.

And is that where it's starting out at
launch or are you starting out one

procedure to begin with?

But it's going to be designed for scale
and growth beyond that.

Yeah, we are starting with one particular
procedure.

And the idea is that it is something that
we can expand on over time.

Yeah.

of the things you also mentioned is the
whole idea behind the technology is to

take things that are repetitive, that are
maybe like taxing on a surgeon and make

this tool enabled to just kind of amplify
their abilities.

From you personally, like you're running a
startup, obviously, when you start as a

founder, you're wearing lots of hats.

How do you balance yourself personally
running a startup?

to have a personal well -being that's also
trying to meet the high demands of a

startup in this cutting edge field.

yeah, I think like some of that personal
wellbeing has to, has to like go on the

back, back foot, if I'm being honest.

I think like the, the, I mean, I'm only
half joking, because you, you, the, the,

like the personal hack that I have is, if
I am, if I cared about the, the problem

enough, then

then getting solutions for the, for, I
guess like professional problems is going

to have a personal impact for my health,
well -being as well.

So that kind of balances out, balances it
out for me.

It is like, at a certain point, I think
like in my last startup,

I realized that if you, I guess like YC
also gives this advice that if you do any

sort of cost benefit analysis of your time
investment in a startup, you will always

come out with the idea that this is not
worth your time at all.

And I completely agree with that.

But so the only reason why you are working
in a startup is because you cared about

the problem enough.

Because there isn't going to be any other
reason why.

And if you care about the problem enough,
then that becomes a personal thing as

well.

That you want to get it done.

You are very driven by the problem and you
don't see it as two different things.

This is not personal or professional.

This is just one thing that makes you
happy, solving problems.

a startup.

a founder and a leader, as long as the
problem aligns with you personally, the

return, the currency return is that you're
seeing progress in that problem and you're

personally contributing to something that
you care about.

Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah.

On that, what advice would you give to
aspiring entrepreneurs about tackling

ambitious and high -stake projects like
what you're doing?

The first thing that I actually always say
to someone who is just starting out is not

to just try to do a startup.

I think a lot of people have talked to me
about, I want to do a startup.

That's my career plan.

And that's not how...

things are going to work.

And it can work.

go two years, let alone 30.

So good luck with that.

yeah.

And even things like, I want to like, and
this is kind of like, this kind of, I

mean, not good for my recruiting, but I
think there's still a good advice for

people.

And if anyone wants to join a startup to
understand what's going on so that they

can do a startup, yeah, you're not.

You just, you should just start like build
the startup that you want.

and also fall in love with the problem
that you're solving.

I think the glitz and glamour around a
startup and, I mean, fortunately nowadays,

it is good that people do see startup
founders as these ambitious leaders of our

society.

I think the stuff that also has to be kept
in mind is that that is not what you're

aiming for.

That shouldn't be what you're aiming for.

The fame.

It is a secondary thing that comes with it
and definitely enjoy if you are and if you

have that.

But the thing that you should enjoy the
most and the driver should be your love

for the...

problem that you're solving.

Because without that, no cost benefit
analysis would let you go through the

rough patches.

There's no way that you'll see the first
rough patch and you'll be out.

Nothing will be worth it.

I'm willing to bet that is also probably a
reason many startups don't make it is

because many of them didn't start by
falling in love with the problem so they

weren't going to see it through to solving
it when they saw that this was the trials

you have to experience to get to the point
of actually solving anything.

Absolutely, yes.

So I also wanted to just ask if you could
go back to your 18 year old self and you

could only take three lessons with you
that you've learned, whether it be in

philosophy, business knowledge, general
advice, what would those three lessons be

and why?

Wow, three lessons.

Actually, so I mean, I guess like this is
a kind of, I don't think this is a cop out

answer because I do genuinely believe
this.

I don't think I would genuinely give any
new advice to my opinion or self.

Maybe one thing that I would say as a life
advice, which

I always kind of has has recently or maybe
when I say recently, I mean, like, maybe

like the last five, six years has changed,
changed a lot of my thinking is like never

assume that that people are making dumb
decisions.

They are like, I think like, one
conversation that I had kind of summed it

up, I was talking to

someone I actually don't even remember,
actually an investor and we were talking

about politics and ended up saying that,
yeah, that this, I don't know who, some

politician is, like doesn't, you know,
doesn't like think much or like is dumb

or, you know, something like that.

And the investor said that, yeah, but they
are really good at counting votes.

And that made me think that, yeah, like
actually these are at the end of the day,

really driven.

and smart people who have ended up at
these public offices.

There's a reason why they are there.

And they are really, really, really smart
about counting votes.

So there is no done decisions.

It's just dumb incentives and bad
incentives.

And as long as you can figure out the
incentives for people, you can actually

get things done.

Okay, well now that kind of brings us to
the end of our episode here and I just

wanted to ask if for listeners that are
interested in the product, in the business

that you're developing, what would your
advice be to follow you, to pay attention

to what's happening in the market, how
would you want them to support you and pay

attention to what you're doing?

Yeah, so we are pretty open about what we
are working.

There's nothing stealth about what we are
doing.

So we have our website, although we
haven't updated it for long.

But we do provide at least every two to
three months an update on our social

media, on our Twitter and our LinkedIn
accounts.

And yeah, we also have openings that we
are

hiring actively for.

So yeah, if anyone is interested, yeah,
you can reach us out there on any of the

social media platforms.

for those listeners, what's that URL for
your website and what are those social

media channels they would follow?

Yeah, so our website is andromedasurgical
.com and the same handle is for our X and

Orega's Twitter and LinkedIn at Andromeda
Surgical.

Great.