Favorite Quotes from Wearable Tech + Digital Health + Neurotech Silicon Valley

“The major gap in sensors is regarding the biochemical state—we want 24/7 info on chemical markers.” ~ Joe Wang, UCSD “One key in sensors is bridging the gap between soft (our bodies) and hard (sensors).” ~ Joe Wang, UCSD “We are focusing on sensors in various liquids: sweat, tears, saliva, etc…. for non-invasive sensing.” ~ Joe Wang, UCSD “‘Person’ is what Doctors call patients—patient centered care is an oxymoron—we need person centered care.” ~ John Mattison, Kaiser Permanente “We are beginning to see patterns in the bacteria in our gut that relate directly to specific disease states. Data Science will be critical in deciphering this.” ~ John Mattison, Kaiser Permanente “We are living in Platform economy—a ‘plecosystem’ (of inter-related data platforms).” ~ John Mattison, Kaiser Permanente “Are we really going to be monitoring 100 parameters continuously at scale? Probably not—we need to determine the right biomarkers.” ~ John Mattison, Kaiser Permanente “‘A behavioral symphony of wellness’ is determined by the array of choices we each make every day.” ~ John Mattison, Kaiser Permanente “Any physician who is afraid a computer will replace him, should be replaced.” ~ John Mattison, Kaiser Permanente “I view the tech companies coming into healthcare as the continents colliding.” ~ Walter Greenleaf, Stanford

“It seems like Neurotech is where the PC was back in the early ‘70s—what lessons have we learned from the maturation of that industry?” ~ Shahin Farshchi, Lux Capital “98.6 turns out not to be universal temp, there is lots of variation—we need to personalize our health!” ~ Michael Snyder, Stanford “ALS and Parkinson’s may be pathologies of one particular cell type, rather than being signs of general brain degeneration.” ~ Christof Koch, Allen Institute for Brain Science “The basic brain hardware between us and the mouse is basically the same, though our brain is 1000 times bigger.” ~ Christof Koch, Allen Institute for Brain Science “The last common ancestor between us and mouse was 65 million years ago.” ~ Christof Koch, Allen Institute for Brain Science “We are discovering there are many different cell types within our brains—the number is still very much in flux—(but is much larger than we thought—maybe 2000 or more).” ~ Christof Koch, Allen Institute for Brain Science “The neocortex is like ‘One million notes on a grand piano.'” (quoting Henry Markham) ~ Nathan Intrator, Neurosteer “The umwelt is the word for the part of reality that you (or a species) can sense.” ~ David Eagleman, Stanford & Neosensory “‘The PH Model of Evolution’—where your eyes, ears, nose are just pieces that get plugged into a Mr. Potato Head.” ~ David Eagleman, Stanford & Neosensory “I think in the next 20 years we will make more progress than the last 100. (Think 2040 will be as different as 1920 is from now).” ~ Vinod Khosla, Khosla Ventures

“There are plenty of romantics who think human’s do it better, but the only way to do good virtual tumor boards for cancer patients is with AI.” ~ Vinod Khosla, Khosla Ventures “Some would argue there is science behind the placebo effect—there is something pretty interesting there.” ~ Vinod Khosla, Khosla Ventures “What makes me optimistic is the number of people with passion and expertise that want to drive this (in health care).” ~ Vinod Khosla, Khosla Ventures “I don’t mind a 90% chance of failure if there is a 10% chance of changing the world.” ~ Vinod Khosla, Khosla Ventures “What Europe has done with GDPR has set it back. In 20 years, China will be way, way ahead. Its not clear where the US is going.” ~ Vinod Khosla, Khosla Ventures “You are going to see very different ways to diagnose disease. It is not going to be ‘how are you feeling?’. We will predict disease in advance.” ~ Vinod Khosla, Khosla Ventures “Symptoms will no longer be the tool we use (to diagnose)—they are too coarse.” ~ Vinod Khosla, Khosla Ventures Conference Link: Wearable Tech + Digital Health + Neurotech Silicon Valley