Konstantin started Kaia Health after paying $50,000 to cure his back pain at an elite pain rehab centre. It worked. But it seemed stupid. Why did this need to cost $50,000? Kaia Health has since raised $125M and helped 625,000 users. 0:00 The 90 second story 1:22 How did he grow 20% every week? 2:15 Market timing is everything 7:43 We never put pre…

Imam Tom Facchine of Yaqeen Institute returns to the podcast to break down the concept of innovation in Islam. Tom talks about his studies at the Islamic University of Madinah and how his understanding evolved over the years. We specifically cover the issue of the Mawlid (the celebration of the Prophet Muhammad (Peace be upon him)'s birth) and disc…

Jon Ronson is one of the most interesting people alive today — period.He’s the author of the Men Who Stare at Goats, So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed and The Psychopath Test — which spent 10 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list.His two Ted talks have been watched 20 million times, his books have been brought to life by George Clooney on the bi…

For the second time on the podcast, I was joined by Dr. Yasir Qadhi. Shaykh Yasir is someone who needs little introduction as he is one of the leading Muslim public intellectuals in the world. We discussed topics such as: -His motivations in studying Islam -His mindset when juggling secular studies with his aspirations for higher Islamic studies -H…

Shaykh Hasib Noor is the Founder and Director of The Legacy Institute. He is also among the founders of Faith. Global, which is a global platform for creating faith-based community spaces. He studied Islam formally at the Islamic University of Madinah College of Islamic Law. He has a special interest in the archaelogical sites and historical landma…

Shaykh Mustafa Umar is a returning guest to the podcast; he is an Islamic scholar from Southern California who is the youngest executive member of the Fiqh Council of North America. He studied Islam in India, Egypt, France, and the UK. In this episode, we talk about the first annual Men's Conference he is helping to organize in Southern California.…

Dr. Haroon Sidat is a student of knowledge in the Islamic sciences. After completing the memorization of the Qu'ran, he completed the traditional Darsi-i Nizami curriculum and then pursued his secular education in Economics and Finance along with an MA in Education. He also has a PhD in Religion and Theology. He is a Research Associate at Cardiff U…

Max Parmentier is the CEO of Birdie, a Series B AgeTech startup who have raised $52M from the likes of Sofina, Omers Ventures and Index Ventures — and captured 10% of the UK market whilst currently scaling into Europe. 0:00 Intro 2:37 Shopify vs Amazon model in AgeTech 7:26 Product pivots: D2C never wins 11:56 Predictive AI AgeTech 13:58 I pitch an…

Tom Wicher is CEO of DrDoctor — who have served over 20M patients and just raised £10M in their recent Series A round. But he spent the first 7 years bootstrapping, and diverged from his colleagues: Opting for the slow and steady gentle disruption path. Why? 0:00 Gentle disruption beats move fast and break things 3:36 Picking a problem in healthcar…

Drug discovery is becoming more expensive and producing less results than ever before (Eroom's Law)—why?One of the ballooning costs are clinical trials. Pharma/biotech often outsource their trials to CROs (contract research organisations).But many CROs are incentivised to make trials as bloated and inefficient as possible. That means more money and…

Shaykh Hamzah Maqbul is the resident scholar for Ribat, a center of Islamic education and dhikr based out of the greater Chicagoland area. He did his formal education at the University of Washington and pursued traditional Islamic studies across the Muslim world; in Syria, Egypt, Morocco, Mauritania, U.A.E., and Pakistan. He is also currently colla…

Rewind.ai just raised their Series A at a valuation of $350M. Investors include Andreesen Horowitz, Reddit’s Alexis Ohanian and OpenAI’s Sam Altman.Rewind sits on your computer and phone, and watches everything you do. Then you can ask it questions like: What was that really great Mediterranean recipe I looked at last month? Or I’ve got a call with…

Shaykh Ismail Kamdar is the founder of Islamic Self Help and Izzah Academy. He completed the Alimiyyah Program in 2006, and a BA in Islamic Studies in 2014, specializing in Fiqh, Tafsir, and History. Currently his full time day job is as Research Operations Manager at Yaqeen Institute. He is the author of over a dozen books in the fields of Islamic…

Back on the episode for a second time is Dr. Mohamed Ghilan. He is someone who has managed to excel in both the Islamic sciences and his professional career and exemplifies a model of the "Deep Life". Mohamed has had a unique spiritual journey and is familiar with various methodologies of spirituality within Islam. For this reason, I wanted to have…

People are wearing Apple Watches to their wedding days. Has this whole 'quantified self' movement gone bananas? Is any of this data actually useful?I spoke to Maitham Dib about this. He's building Vital (YC21); a startup which makes all wearable/lab data available to other startups/companies.0:00 Wearable data is mostly useless3:22 The case for wea…

Dr Jared Dashevsky writes Healthcare Huddle (acquired by Workweek). He's scaled to over 30,000 subscribers. And it was pretty simple. Here are 12 frameworks that work for healthcare content creation (and mistakes to avoid). 0:00 Intro 1:14 Consistency is king; systematise it 7:40 McKinsey reverse pyramid principle for writing 9:10 You need to have …

Despite $billions of investment into the sector — there are still no AI discovered drugs on the market. Why?Recursion Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: RXRX) is one of the hottest AI drug discovery companies on the market. Especially after NVIDIA's $50M investment into them.Dr Imran Haque (SVP of AI and Digital Sciences) explains why AI drug discovery is so…

My family and I attended the Al-Maqasid Summer Retreat from August 7, 2023 to August 13, 2023. It was one of the best experiences we have ever done together as a family. In this rare solo episode of the podcast, I share my full review. *One slight edit: In the episode I refer to Imam Ahmad Mashur Al-Haddad. The proper title he is referred to is: Ha…

0:00 NVIDIA's $50M investment into Recursion Pharmaceuticals2:28 NVIDIA is becoming a seed investor3:45 Bull case for Recursion Pharmaceuticals9:20 Recursion's two big acquisitions13:05 How are Recursion going to make money?14:15 Recursion is overhyped19:45 Recursion is unprofitable22:21 Kim Kardashian's full body MRI scan 26:03 Longevity doctor's …

Habeeb Quadri is the superintendent of MCCA (Muslim Community Center Academy) schools, one of the largest and long-standing Islamic schools in the country. He also serves as part-time staff at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. In this episode, we discuss how he got into his field, issues surrounding modern-day education, how Islamic schools…

Ever waited months for a scan? Scan.com is making getting a scan as easy as booking an Uber. Behind the scenes of the disruptor changing medical imaging forever.0:00 Race to the bottom?1:34 AirBnB 11 star framework9:57 Scan.com looks really easy to build — what's hard about it?12:19 Lessons from working at Deliveroo15:14 How do you make a lot of mo…

0:00 David Sinclair's controversial claim 1:39 Bull v bear case6:23 David Sinclair's history of exaggerating and profiteering8:34 Adam Neuman's involvement11:40 Raising from unsophisticated investors16:30 Why aren't big pharma interested in longevity?22:45 Cynics are right, optimists get rich25:26 Will a longevity drug be the most valuable therapeu…

0:00 Why not let the builders build? Move fast and break things? 1:56 Why don't you ban people from googling their symptoms? 3:28 Is a disclaimer enough? 5:27 Why are LLMs difficult to regulate? 10:13 Move fast and kill patients — principal agent problem 12:23 People aren't idiots (they are) 14:20 Dr ChatGPT will never work 17:35 Spotting bubbles i…

Daniel Ek (Spotify Founder) has raised $65M for his new longevity startup: Neko Health.0:00 What is Neko Health2:18 They're doing nothing new5:33 The bull case; why it's going to be huge7:47 How are they possibly going to make money!?18:30 Why aren't they doing full body MRI?20:26 The bear case; why this will fail25:13 Smells a bit hypey29:15 The r…

0:00 Leaked secret Apple health report 5:06 What Apple are up to in healthcare 9:21 Decentralised clinical trials 11:35 Apple healthcare leaked documents controversy 15:38 Apple is going to become a health insurer 23:07 Imran's advice to Tim Cook 26:11 Being a healthcare provider is unprofitable 28:12 Apple will make a longevity/subscription health…

Huma is about to reach a 1 billion dollar valuation, and is thriving while other digital health companies are dying. But what’s their secret sauce? Dan Vahdat is the Johns Hopkins dropout — who meticulously studied the successful business practices of big pharma, and using these, has created the 'soonicorn' digital health company that’s about to ta…

0:00 Intro1:04 The genius business model of GetHarley5:26 How important is marketing? 50% of revenue14:57 Why aren't they doing cooler more innovative stuff?22:38 What verticals would we expand GetHarley's biz model to24:37 Vitamin vs painkiller27:49 Why have investors put so much money into GetHarley?31:00 Feedback and outroLinks mentionedGetHarle…

In this episode of the podcast, I had the privilege of chatting with Dr. Salah Sharief, who is an entrepreneur, academic, and student of the Islamic sciences. He is the Founder and CEO of Kalaam Halal Audio and the Founder of Wordsmiths Editing. Currently, he is residing in Cairo, Egypt where he is continuing his pursuit of Islamic studies. We disc…

0:00 Intro 0:20 DEA comes after DTC health startups 3:18 How DTC health startups hacked customer retention 10:30 Will this kill the economics of D2C health startups? 12:57 How would we solve the problem 15:30 New LLM Paper in Nature 28:18 Audience feedback and outro Links Mentioned Cerebral Pushed ADHD Prescriptions And Failed To Report Data Breach…

Numan have raised $70M+ and are set to become the biggest men's digital health startup, ever. Here's how. From their eccentric Founder.0:00 Intro0:42 Valuation1:46 Lessons from Calm.com4:49 Raising aggressively 7:35 Successful entrepreneurs are not hyper intelligent10:38 When to quit14:43 The Social R Number18:14 Being nice gets you nowhere22:24 Nu…

0:00 Intro 0:18 Ali Parsa's Immigrant Story 1:57 Picking a Problem That Was Too Big 4:15 The Supply Induced Demand Problem 5:55 The Unit Economics Problem 7:37 The Misaligned Incentives Problem 10:11 The Friction Problem 12:06 The First Mover Disadvantage 13:30 Raising Too Much Money 14:55 The SPAC Problem 17:40 The Pig With Lipstick Problem 22:07 …

Shaykh Ismail Alqadi is a Qari (professional reciter of the Qu'ran) from Amman, Jordan. He learned the various sciences related to the recitation of the Qu'ran from several teachers and has an ijazah and sanad in the ten different narrations of the Qu'ran. He also has a degree in Islamic studies majoring in Fiqh and Usul. In this podcast, Shaykh Is…

0:00 Intro 0:38 VC Dirty Money (LP Sources) 8:30 Power Dynamics Founder vs VC 12:56 Trillion $ Alzheimer's Opportunity 14:26 Eli Lily's New Alzheimer's Blockbuster (?) Donanemab 19:01 More Issues with Donanemab Phase III Results 21:48 Will Anyone Pay for Donanemab? 24:13 Donanemab Side Effects 27:15 Startup Opportunities in Alzheimer's 31:34 Outro …

Mawlana Saaleh Baseer is a brilliant young scholar of Hanafi law and Mughal history from the Bay Area. After completing his memorization of the Qu'ran, he received his Alim degree from Darul Uloom Azaadville in South Africa. Afterwards he went on to pursue a Bachelor's degree from Columbia University where he majored in History. Most recently he ha…

Papers Mentioned— ChatGPT better + more empathetic than human doctors (JAMA Int Med Paper): https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullarticle/2804309 Detecting eye disease using AI (Nature Biomedical Engineering): https://www.nature.com/articles/s41551-022-00867-5 Predicting dementia using LLMs (PLOS Digital Health): https://pubmed.…

0:00 Intro 0:32 Why are VCs so unhappy? 2:18 What’s hard about being a VC? 3:56 Hustle culture, FOMO, always-on culture in VC 9:54 Is it ever easy to become rich? 12:22 It’s time to build in healthcare 15:31 Why is healthcare so hard for big tech? 17:31 Reasons why healthcare is easier than you think 21:04 Imposter syndrome for tech people entering…

Martin Shkreli is an American Investor, Pharmaceutical Executive and Hedge Fund Manager who became the most hated man in America in 2015 when he obtained the drug Daraprim and increased its price from $13.50 a pill, to $750 overnight. 0:00 Intro 1:56 The Big Short 8:04 How to price a drug 20:01 Should we price drugs like iPhones 25:36 Pharma's dirt…

Dr Ben Maruthappu is the the Co-founder and CEO of Cera Care; a digitally-enabled social care company which has raised over $400M dollars. He was made a Member of the Order of the British Empire in 2020. 0:00 Intro 0:47 Ben's story 6:10 How to have good ideas, at the right time 12:14 Good decisions Ben made with Cera to scale 21:07 Is the US greene…

Dr Ala Alenazi is a TechBio Investor at Ascension and holds a PhD in Molecular Genetics from Cambridge University — she describes herself as a recovering scientist with extreme FOMO. 0:00 Intro 0:47 Being bombastic 3:32 Do PhDs make good VC investors? 10:38 How much of VC is luck? 12:47 Network building in VC 19:16 Getting deal flow 22:15 How to as…

0:00 Intro 0:54 Is AI Too Powerful? 17:59 Outlive, Peter Attia's New Longevity Bible 45:16 Why Are Americans Dying So Young? Joined by: Dr Adam Bataineh: Longevity doctor and Co-founder Span Health (acquired by EightSleep). Dr Imran Mahmud: Investor, Oxford-trained doctor, ex-Mckinsey and Co-founder of NYE Health. Dr Mustafa Sultan: Creator of Big …

Dr John Whyte is the Chief Medical Officer of WebMD, he’s also worked at Director level at the FDA and was also Chief Medical Expert at the Discovery Channel. 0:00 Intro 0:54 Anxiety as a content creator 2:33 Why should executives think like physicians? 7:23 Decision-making with limited information 10:47 Bayesian reasoning 12:57 Risk, acuity and st…

On this episode of the podcast, I bring back Shaykh Umair Haseeb to talk all things Ramadan. What do we do if we don't prep at all? How do we navigate Ramadan when we're struggling with sins? How do sages of today approach Ramadan? Shaykh Umair is a graduate of Al-Qayrawayin University in Fes, Morocco and is currently serving as Director of Religio…

0:00 Intro 1:00 AI drug development 7:04 Big picture impact of AI drug development 9:14 Counterintuitive facts about drug development 11:06 Why can't we just make novel drugs with AI? Biology is hard 19:06 Microsoft's GPT-4 healthcare play 26:48 The hardest thing about health startups 31:49 Outro Joined by: Dr Adam Bataineh: Longevity doctor and Co…

Dr. Yakoob Ahmed is an Ottoman historian with a specialization in late Ottomon history. He received his Ph.D. from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) at the University of London and he currently teaches at Istanbul University in Turkiye. I had a chance to sit down with Dr. Yakoob after I attended a weekend seminar he did in Chicago o…

Dr Shivdev Rao is a Cardiologist and CEO/Co-founder of Abridge, who have raised over $22M. Think of Abridge like an Alexa or Siri (or other voice assistant) that sits there whilst the physician and patient talk. Instead of the physician writing notes during the consult, or staying late and charting — Abridge listens to the conversation and writes u…

0:00 Intro 1:27 Semaglutide (Wegovy) lowdown, use in longevity clinics 6:38 Is a 'pill for everything' a bad thing? 10:39 What's going to happen to all the DTC weight loss startups? 13:37 Is Semaglutide a TikTok conspiracy by big pharma? 14:55 The new alcohol-free alcohol, GABA 21:07 Where are all the big UK healthtech exits? 24:16 US investors/ent…

0:00 Intro 1:09 David Sinclair's New Startup 11:25 ChatGPT for Drug Development 28:32 Transhumanist Gene Editing to Sleep Less 37:38 Banter/Audience Feedback Dr Adam Bataineh: Longevity doctor and Co-founder Span Health (acquired by EightSleep). Dr Imran Mahmud: Investor, Oxford-trained doctor, ex-Mckinsey and Co-founder of NYE Health. Dr Mustafa S…

In this episode, I bring back my good friend Nabeel Azeez who's a Dubai based copywriter to talk about his latest project, "40 Hadith on Masculinity: How to be a Good Man". We discuss how he went about commissioning the project and tackled a few examples of things related to masculinity that content creators struggle with. We also discussed his for…

Dr Ignacio Medrano is the Founder of Savana (raised $44M dollars with over 100 employees). They use AI to unlock all the value out of clinical records and produce real world evidence. 0:00 Intro 0:34 Ignacio's story 1:30 Learnings from Neurology -> Entrepreneurship 3:27 How to build good health products/services 5:03 Downsides of being a doctor in …

Jumha Aburezeq is an active entrepreneur, philanthropist, and founder of StoopidFit. To date, he's helped over 1000 people across the world gain freedom with their body, mind and food with his trademark 3 Phase Fat Loss System. To connect with Jumha and learn more about his programming, go to: https://stoopidfit.com/ Resources for "Sultans and Snea…