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Demystifying the conversations we're already here at RRE and with our portfolio companies. In each episode, your hosts, Will Porteous, Raju Rishi, and Jason Black will dive deeply into topics that are shaping the future, from satellite technology to digital health, to venture investing, and much more.
Jason: If you were a kitchen appliance, what would you be and why?
Raju: I might be that spork.
Jason: [laugh] is that an appliance?
Will: Welcome to RRE POV—
Raju: —a show in which we record the conversations we’re already having amongst ourselves—
Jason: —our entrepreneurs, and industry leaders for you to listen in on.
Jason: And today, we’re talking to our partner, Raju Rishi, on the topic of functional medicine. Welcome to the pod, guys.
Raju: Thank you.
Jason: As if it’s my pod.
Raju: It’s your pod.
Jason: [laugh] we’re kicking it off. What’s just—at the highest level, Raju, what is functional medicine?
Raju: So, everybody’s heard of the term, but I’ll get into a little more of the specifics and nuances. It’s really a systems approach focused on identifying and addressing the root cause of an illness as opposed to just addressing, you know, the symptoms, gathering data such as genetic makeup, blood work, urinalysis, gut biome, determining diet and lifestyle, and then using that data to treat the root cause through nutrition, supplements, exercise, and sleep, some stress reduction, and basically low-risk interventions that modify cellular and molecular systems to reverse the drivers of illness. You know, I’ll give you an example of it because I think, you know, kind of makes it more real.
An individual can have several issues such as diabetes, heart disease, and arthritis, each of which can be individually treated through traditional medicine, but if you want to deal with the root cause, it might be inflammation, which can be better treated through functional medicine. So, that kind of gives you an analysis. I mean, historically, doctors have said, “Well, let me treat diabetes with this drug, let me treat heart disease with this drug, and arthritis through this.” And if you did more of a holistic, you know, sort of understanding of an individual, you might determine that all of this is being, you know, generated through inflammation in the body, and there are better tools to address that and then diminish and reduce some of those underlying conditions.
Jason: What’s interesting is, that just seems like way better than our current healthcare system. Why isn’t this more prevalent? Why is this, kind of, a newer thing or technology or approach to medicine in comparison to, kind of, our more reactive approach, or kind of, isolated issue approach that we have today?
Raju: Yeah, that’s a great question. I wish more, and more doctors practiced functional medicine. I think there’s been a bunch of barriers to adoption, frankly. You know, first and foremost, lack of trained doctors, right? You go to medical school, and you learn how to prescribe specific medicines, and you know, use pharmacies, drugs, to basically address particular issues.
You know, very few doctors are taught this holistic approach. So, that’s number one. You don’t have—you have a lack of trained doctors. Secondly, in order to do this, you know, you have to get a real amalgamation of patient data, which has historically been expensive. You want to get genetic data, you want to get blood work, you want to get your urinalysis, you want to get, you know, gut biome details, and frankly, the reality is, it’s been expensive to get that data, if it’s available at all, and some doctors don’t even know how to analyze it.
And then lastly, I think health care reimbursement and the health care model has not been designed for holistic or long-term treatment. It’s really been designed around, okay, you have this illness, let me prescribe this drug, and then you know, the symptoms go away, and then, you know, sort of, I don’t have to deal with you long-term, I don’t have to have a lot of payments going out the door. I think, you know, you want to be able to effectively—you have to redesign the healthcare system a bit to deal with this. And part of that is the reimbursement models to doctors. Doctors don’t get paid as much on a per-minute basis for some of the functional treatment, which is a longer visit to a particular patient, as opposed to doing, you know, sort of diagnoses and treatment within 15 minutes.
Will: I want to make sure I understand kind of how to think about functional medicine versus, call it holistic health. Like, I’m trying to understand the functional in functional medicine because it feels like what you’re talking about is treating the whole patient, sort of understanding the totality of root causes, which requires a doctor to be able to go beyond their specialty. But what am I missing?
Raju: I think functional medicine, holistic medicine, precision medicine, personalized medicine are all sorts of categories, and the umbrella is functional medicine. And what functional medicine—it’s an overarching term, effectively, and it encompasses kind of all of those. I think, you know, when you look at precision medicine, it’s been highly lab and drug-driven. You focused on identifying which approach will most effectively service a patient based on genetic, environmental, and lifestyle factors. I think holistic medicine has said, “Well, let me look at different homeopathic medicines and not just traditional drugs to deal with this.” So, the terms have been confusing. You can use precision medicine, you can use personalized medicine, you can use holistic medicine. I think functional medicine is really an overarching term that encompasses all of those. So, maybe give some clarity around, you know, just the space.
Jason: We are in a big transition period between fee-for-service and value-based care, and I was wondering if you see the shift to value-based care as being a tailwind for the functional medicine space. And maybe you can touch on what that is for our listeners who might not know what fee-for-service and value-based care is?
Raju: Absolutely. Yeah, you’re dead on, right? I mean, there is this shift going on. You know, traditional medicine has been, hey, I go to the doctor, the doctor performed some tests, prescribed some drugs, and they get paid, the pharmacies get paid, you know, there’s a whole ecosystem built around that. And I think, you know, sort of the CMS—which is the governing body around some of this setting some of the standards around healthcare for the United States—has said, you know, “We got to focus on more value-based care,” which means I’m going to measure the payment model in this ecosystem based upon whether the patient actually got better. It’s been hard to measure, frankly, and it’s been a slow moving process, but I think that is absolutely a tailwind here because when you look at functional medicine, you’re trying to find the root cause, you’re trying to create a roadmap for the individual, a long-term care plan, and ultimately keep them out of the hospital, keep them out of, you know, sort of chronic illnesses, or all over the place, so I think that is going to be a tailwind. And there are a whole lot of other tailwinds.
Jason: Maybe we can get into some of those. You mentioned some barriers earlier on in the podcast as well. Sounds like, you know, the actual payment model and reimbursement may no longer be a huge barrier. What are some of the other barriers that are either coming down, or accelerants from a technology, or even consumer acceptance perspective that will really drive innovation in the space?
Raju: So, 50% of people will deal with chronic disease in our lifetime. 18% of GDP—of our entire country’s GDP—goes to treating those chronic diseases, and it’s 86% of our healthcare costs. So, you know, value-based care is driven around some of those metrics. How do we, you know, sort of balance things out a little bit and create more long-term value. But there’s been more barriers, frankly.
One is, lack of trained doctors. Doctors, they go to school, they’re like, “Okay, you know, you got X issue. I’ll give you Y drug.” You know, you got a shoulder injury, we’ll do an MRI, we’ll give, you know, whatever kind of drugs to deal with that, you know, maybe it’s, you know, an arthritic issue, and we’re going to give you arthritis drugs or whatnot. So, it’s basically—and the entire payment model and everything has been designed around that.
I think doctors are beginning to become more trained around functional medicine and sort of the holistic elements of things, but I think that is still, you know, going to be a long pole in the tent. I think we need more doctors to be able to, you know, sort of analyze the appropriate data streams. A second, sort of, roadblock that actually is being unlocked in a big way, is, you know, sort of patient data, getting genetic data, getting, you know, the appropriate blood tests, getting gut biome data. It’s historically been really expensive. Now, there’s a lot of cheap sources of data.
You can go to 23andMe, get some genetic tests. MRIs are becoming inexpensive. What was the company, Jason, you and I looked at around, you know, just reducing the price of MRIs?
Jason: Ezra?
Raju: Yeah, Ezra. So, beautiful model. It’s allowing patients to say, “Hey, I want to get a more holistic understanding of my body. I want to do a full body MRI scan, or I want to target areas that I might be predisposed to have issues around.” Those are getting much, much more cheapable and more accessible to patients. There’s—
Jason: Cheapable, baby. Cheapable…
Raju: Cheapable…
Jason: [laugh].
Raju: I love cheapable.
Jason: That’s a great new term. I got to start using that.
Raju: Yeah. I think that’s—
Will: The ability to be cheap, but maybe not yet cheap [laugh].
Raju: It’s like—I think it’s the codename for Chipotle. Cheapable.
Jason: Cheapable.
Raju: Yeah, you [unintelligible 00:09:41] everything cheapable. So, I think it’s getting cheapable. I think, you know, patients have access to their own blood tests. I mean, crazy, right? Like, ten years ago, there is no way LabCorp, Quest, were marketing directly to patients.
Now, you can go to LabCorp, you can go to Quest, you got Everlywell, you can get home blood tests, you know, you can get what you want. So, I think that is a big change here that’s happening. I think another big change is, really, consumer demand, which is crazy. Like, if you want to unlock in this space, you look at consumers, right? There’s over a million consumer searches every year on functional treatments. That’s 20% year-over-year increase.
People are trying to figure out, like, how can I use functional medicines, functional treatment, to address, you know, this illness that I’ve got? I don’t want to necessarily just take this drug. I want to look at the long-term. I mean, people aren’t learning about inflammation, they’re learning about methylation.
Jason: Yeah, that’s just searches, as well. I mean, Facebook groups and Reddit threads. I mean, there’s actually some really active healthcare groups where it’s like, “Okay, it didn’t get solved in my 15-minute visit with my primary care physician, and that’s all I got from the health care system. Let me turn to online communities. Who else has this?” I mean, I know there’s, like, a huge group, you know, specifically around Lyme disease, which is kind of this very amorphous, challenging disease. So anyways, seems like a massive uptick in interest, to, like, take your health into your own hands.
Will: So, Raju, clearly the consumer or the patient is driving a search for functional medicine alternatives, they’re arming themselves with data, they know a lot. It seems like though this is asking a lot of doctors to go beyond their specialty, beyond their comfort zone, beyond their, in many cases, their ability to diagnose accurately. I mean, does the success of functional medicine ultimately depend on real either behavioral change or change in the way we train doctors, or are we really just looking for a different organizing principle in order to serve this patient demand?
Raju: That is such a good question. I—you know, this is really the fundamental roadblock that needs to be addressed. I mean, you know, like, to do this, right, the doctor needs to spend a few hours with a patient. They… he or she needs to go get a bunch of tests done on a regular basis. I mean, probably quarterly, frankly because you want to see if you’re having impact on stuff, as opposed to, like, an annual, you know, blood work.
And, you know, the reimbursement model for doctors just isn’t designed around that. It’s designed around, “Hey, I got this giant malpractice insurance bill, I don’t get paid much for any visit, so I got to get people in and out of the door in 15 minutes.” Where you see this happening, first and foremost, is in these concierge clinics where the doctors can make a few more bucks and people are willing to pay. You don’t want that to be the long-term answer here, though because that’s going to be a situation where, you know, if you’ve got money, you can get better, you know, treatment and care, and you’re getting a more holistic process. It’s got to be a fundamental change in the reimbursement model.
And that goes to payers, that goes to, you know, sort of the government and how this deals with it. I think this is a ten-year journey, you know? Frankly, I don’t think people should expect, like, okay, in a year, functional medicine is going to replace traditional medicine and the way we go about doing things. I think it’s going to be a long process, but I think it’s real. I think you’re seeing, you know, sort of these whole body MRIs, finding things earlier, and people kind of figuring out, hey, if I’ve got a genetic predisposition to this particular illness, or this particular cancer, or this particular, you know, I’ve got, you know, a familial background, you know, my dad had diabetes, my mom had high cholesterol or high blood pressure, you know, that’s a factor that goes into this.
You know, people are going to look at, say, you know, what’s my lifestyle? Do I drink historically? Am I a binge drinker? You know—I don’t want to answer that question, Jason, so—
Jason: [laugh].
Raju: —so [laugh], anyway, you know, you can an—what’s your lifestyle? And do you exercise? Do you exercise enough? Are you, you know, nobody can be Jas—Everybody can’t be Jason and Will that, you know, can ride bicycles for infinite amounts of time. I actually think you two could probably live your lives on bicycles. Like, if you had a laptop, like, next to you while you’re riding bikes, you could probably just do it and, like, there were food—there was a food source, you could just go continuous.
Jason: That’s why I’m excited for the Apple Vision Pro because I can see through what I need to, you know? I can see through the goggles, and you know, it can give me a perfect view of my surroundings. But, you know, if I know I got a long stretch of road I can, you know, get that email back up and yeah, kind of crank through it. It’s going to be great.
Raju: I know, the both of you, though, I mean, like professional rower, professional or semi-professional biking. Yeah, I’ve got, I’ve got, like, the third wheel on this podcast. I got a lot of ground to make up. So—
Jason: You’re working your jaw out, though. It’s burning calories. I’m sure Apple Watch is—
Raju: Dude.
Jason: Tracking that right now.
Raju: You have no idea. If it was by the word, if literally calories were by the word—
Jason: You’re a professional talker.
Raju: —I’d be, like, rail thin. Rail thin.
Jason: Yeah [laugh], exactly.
Will: So, Raju, that seems like a good, good segue to talking about some of the specific companies and applications that you’re excited about. And as you think about that ten-year journey, for us as investors, how do we think about what success looks like for those companies in the short term, particularly as we wait or hoped for meaningful changes in the payer model, in the way doctors approach these things?
Raju: Yeah, no. I mean, that’s, that’s, you know, right down the alley of where we sit, right? We’re investors, and you know, we’ve got—hopefully our listeners are folks that are, you know, starting companies in this space, and you know, other VCs that are partnering with us. You know, I think about… a bit of a narrower niche. Like, where, where—what is happening, right?
Data gathering is a big deal. So, you know, companies like Genova, which is getting gut biome data. We had UBiome. You know, they’re not around anymore. They weren’t a little early, you know, but they did sort of break ground in the space. There are additional startups that are being created around gathering that gut biome and analyzing that gut biome and basically determining, you know, what—you know, foods are creating inflammation in your body, that they’re not reacting well to you, and also trying to figure out, you know, what bacteria sits in your body, you know, good and bad.
There are companies that I’m excited about that are a little bit narrower, like, GRAIL that are doing, you know, pre-cancer screening, you know, Ezra, which is doing sort of, effectively pre-cancer, you know, cells in your body to see what’s growing in maybe early [stages 00:16:50]. So, I’m excited about that. So, I think that’s a category: data gathering. I think consumers are going to eat that up. I think that many doctors are going to eat that up in the more near term.
I think there are companies that are focused around, you know, sort of, you know, genetic testing, you know, that for narrower processes that I’d be excited about. Not—we’ve got the 23andMe, which is doing more of the generalized thing. I think there are ones that are going to do more narrower testing based on a predisposition of your, you know, health and where you are. So, I think that’s kind of interesting, as well. I also think that, you know, startups that—we’ve got one in our portfolio—we, you know, we put a bet here, right?
There’s a company called Elementary, that’s co-located between here in New York and Taiwan. And they’re a startup that’s looking at functional health. And, you know, the thesis behind this company is that if I gather data around an individual, if I get the genetic data, I get, you know, the appropriate blood work, you know, and I get gut biome data, I get some maybe urine data, and then I can actually affect your life trajectory around certain things. And they’re picking—it’s basically an incubator or a startup studio, and they’re going to start four or five companies. And they’re looking at, you know, weight loss as an element, you know? If I get this data, how can I affect your weight loss trajectory?
We have other companies in our portfolio to do this as well, like Noom, and they’re thinking about it from just, you know, sort of, a mental standpoint and a process standpoint. But this is actually trying to diagnose, should you be eating different things, should you be taking supplements, and can that help your weight loss? You know, there’s things like, you know, hair loss. Now, fortunately, for the three of us, people can’t see us, but we got some head of hairs here, right?
Jason: It’s luscious—
Raju: We got—yeah—
Jason: —luscious hair.
Raju: —the three of us are just—I mean, like, I don’t want to brag, but we’re pretty good in that category, but, so we probably won’t be using it.
Jason: Glorious.
Raju: —but, you know, there’s others, there’s others out there that are going to want this, and you know, rather than just taking Rogaine, you know, is there things you can change for your health care? They’re going to look at things like that. Libido is another category, and there’s, you know, four or five others that are in the works. So, you know, I’m excited. I think there are companies like that can not necessarily say, you know, functional health is going to treat, you know, my diabetes or my cancer, I think we might be a little ways away from that, but I think you can look at other attributes and treat things that are more, you know, maybe don’t require an FDA approval. So, I’m super, super excited about those things. And, you know, I don’t know, you guys are as well. I know, Jason, you’re looking at this category, a handful of—
Jason: Yeah.
Raju: —that you’re looking excited about?
Jason: Well, before we get to that, I think… I mean, you listed off a great smattering of companies. I think one of the things that I heard in that answer as well, is that, you know, back to, kind of, the question around doctors and training, is a lot of these data sets and sources are kind of beyond human scale as it is, right? Like, you know, reading out your entire genome, that is more of, kind of, a computational and machine learning problem than it is somebody going through your Gs, Cs, Ts, and As on an individual basis, right? Which to me says, like, I think a lot of these functional medicine businesses and the transformation here is going to be, if not driven entirely by, then certainly augmented substantially with actual computation, actual machine learning, actual AI, in conjunction with, you know, a traditional or a functional healthcare provider. Do you agree?
Raju: I could not agree more. And I mean, back to Will’s question, which is, you know, you don’t have enough doctors that can actually—that are trained around functional medicine or that have the ability to, you know, kind of look at things holistically, you can absolutely see a world where AI and machine learning help to get the medical professionals up to speed, give them a little better approach. Now, you know, Jason, Will, you know, we all participated in our limited partner meeting and there was an interesting stat, which is, like, you know, just using AI to look at, you know, sort of, test results, radiology exams, and 93% accuracy with the AI and machine learning tools, you know, more like a 65% accuracy—I can’t recall the numbers exactly—with a doctor. So, what are the doctors, what are the radiologists doing? They’re leveraging the AI tools to help them.
It’s not like you’re going to displace doctors. You’re not going to have AI, you know, prescribe a particular drug or, you know, sort of figure out what your methylation streams are. You know, you’re basically going to have traditional doctors out there—we’re long way away [laugh] from, you know, automated diagnoses and all that kind of stuff—but you can absolutely see doctors saying, “Hey, I can’t—you know, I’m not a professional or an expert at reading genetic data, but I’m going to have the AI and machine learning kind of pre-chew it for me, so I can get the key pieces of information.” So, I definitely see that happening. I’m kind of excited about that, frankly.
Will: Actually, it seems like that’s going to be a crucial insertion point, that ability to absorb a whole bunch of different types of patient data. You know, it could be heart rate data, it could be blood work, it could be testing, it could be a genetic profile. And to, kind of, process that in a way that a traditional medical professional can turn around and take advantage of it, right, there’s a bridge there. Because we’re all going to be armed with all this data, increasingly. I mean, back to your point earlier, Jason and I—I have 25 years of heart rate data from all my workouts. It’s pretty boring [laugh], but I have all this [crosstalk 00:22:55]—
Raju: Yeah, because your pulse is, like, a 40. Your pulse is, like, a 40. I think it goes up to 42 when you’re running hard.
Will: It shows just how boring I actually am is what it shows. But within that, there’s heart rate variability indicators that you could look at over a long period of time. That stuff sits in a silo for me as a consumer, and there’s actually no way for traditional medicine to ingest it. And it’s, you know, it’s a vanity for me to think that they might actually be interested. But if you expand to consider lots of data types, don’t we have a—don’t we need, or don’t our medical professionals need a way to kind of process everything that may be coming at them?
Raju: Yes and no, right? So, there are functional medicine doctors out there already. I think it’s like 10% of the community, right? So, they can look at more, you know, aggregated, you know, data and synthesize it. I think they tend to be specialists in particular categories, and they deal with it functionally, like, you know, heart disease, or, you know, they look at a bunch of—you get a bunch of illnesses concurrently, they’ll look at inflammation as a tool.
But yeah, we’re going to need it, right? Like, it’s just going to be an influx of data. And frankly, we haven’t—we’ve just—it’s the tip of the iceberg. You can’t consider the entire human population as one uniform, you know, data set, right? There’s, like, you know, Indian community, Indian genealogy, you know, they’re probably different, you know, sort of reactivity to certain drugs, different responsiveness to certain drugs, there’s going to be, you know, sort of particular illnesses that are predisposed in, sort of, my genetic makeup than yours.
So, I think it’s going to get more and more precision-oriented, which I know is, like, this nuanced term. It is functional medicine, but I think you know, that precision piece is also going to play a role. And yes, you need AI and machine learning. It’s going to be too overwhelming to get all of it done. But that’s okay, right? Like, it’s not like—medicine has advanced quite considerably. Look at, you know, drugs are being developed by AI now. Why can’t we diagnose a human through the assistance of AI, right? There’s no reason why that’s not going to happen.
Jason: Amen. And you know what else we use a little bit of AI to help us with is the Gatling gun section. We just toss that into ChatGPT, and got some actually pretty hilarious ones.
Raju: And by the way, you guys are missing out on this, right? Jason, for the first time, I’ve not seen it. I don’t know when he did it, probably this weekend sometime, his hair is white—
Jason: Shock white.
Raju: And it looks amazing. Like, I wish this wasn’t a podcast because we—actually, frankly, humility aside, we’re a good-looking group. Na—well, maybe the two of you are. So, you know, this should have been sort of a video model we should have just did on Twitch or something.
Jason: We’re going to get that upgrade. Yeah.
Raju: Yeah.
Jason: Yeah, we’re laying the foundation right now, and then once it’s really humming—
Raju: Trying to save some [LP 00:25:49] money, you know?
Jason: [laugh]. It’s so expensive.
Raju: [laugh]. Yeah.
Jason: Okay, so here we go. I love these because they’re just a little bit weird.
Raju: Yeah.
Jason: If you were a kitchen appliance, what would you be and why?
Raju: I might be that spork.
Jason: Is that an appliance?
Raju: Yeah, well—oh, appliance.
Jason: I’m thinking, like, toaster.
Raju: Oh, okay. You’re talking about, like, if you’re talking tool, I would be the spork, which because it’s a fork and a spoon. But—
Jason: Okay.
Raju: I think I will go with blender.
Jason: Blender. I love that.
Raju: I think I’m going to go with the blender, and I’m going to tell you why. Because—
Jason: Will it Blend?
Raju: Th—no, I mean, people use it for, like—it’s—you know, for the tastiest of all products, which is baked goods, quite a bit, but it can be very dangerous and deadly.
Jason: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just like you.
Raju: —so, I know people—
Jason: Most people don’t know that you have a black belt.
Raju: I don’t—you know—
Jason: Dangerous and deadly.
Raju: Three of them. I bought one at Nordstrom. I got two at—I got one at JCPenney, and I might—I don’t know if Lululemon sells them, but I’m really getting into that store right now. So.
Jason: [laugh]. They’re fantastic. Okay, so if you were the ruler of your own country, what would you name it, and what would be its national pastime?
Raju: Well, my—ruler of my own country? Man, these are, these are really sophisticated questions. Okay.
Jason: Yeah, this isn’t Coke and Pepsi. This is we’re getting into the deep, the nitty-gritty. Though it’s supposed to be a Gatling gun where this requires a little bit more thought just because they’re a little bit weird.
Raju: All right. [WillJaJu] is going to be the name of the country.
Jason: [laugh] okay.
Raju: It’s—
Jason: Ruled by three people.
Raju: Yeah, ruled by three people.
Jason: Our national pastime is podcasting, obviously.
Raju: It’s not going to be podcasting. I think it’s going to be… we’re going to, just—we’re going to play—we’re going to do a lot of biking. It’s—the national pastime is going to be biking while ya—using the headsets, those wacky, what, the new Apple—
Jason: Apple Vision Pro.
Raju: Apple Vision Pros, and we’d do Magic the Gathering on the side—
Jason: I like that.
Raju: And maybe a little badminton. I like—and Frisbee. We got to have Frisbee in there. I can throw a disc.
Jason: Yeah. Like, we could get on those… they make those floating bikes, so we get the rowing—we get floating bikes, and we play ultimate on floating bikes.
Raju: I’m going to tell you what. I’m going to—there’s, like, different positions in Ultimate Frisbee. I can throw a disc. I mean, I’m decent at throwing a disc, but I bet you guys—
Jason: You definitely are.
Raju: Because you’re tall and you guys can run, I bet you guys would—you guys would be the best runners out there. Like, I just chuck it, touchdown every time. Point, point, point.
Jason: To me, baby.
Raju: Point, point, point, point.
Jason: It sounds like it’s mostly going to be Ultimate, which I like.
Raju: Okay, fine.
Will: That’s fine [laugh].
Jason: Let’s skip to the last one. This is one that is going to require less thought because you’ve clear—everybody has been challenged by this question at one point. Would you rather fight one horse-sized duck or one-hundred duck-sized horses? Explain your strategy.
Raju: I would—I’m going to go with one hundred of the little ones. And—
Jason: Duck-sized horses?
Raju: I’ll tell you why.
Jason: Okay.
Raju: Yeah, because they’re not fast.
Jason: They’re horses, though.
Raju: No, they’re horse sized.
Jason: No, no, they’re duck-sized horses.
Raju: Oh, duck-sized horses. Yeah, but they got tiny legs.
Jason: That’s true.
Raju: Tiny legs. I’m going to outrun those.
Jason: Fair enough. I like the strategy. Run away.
Raju: Yeah, a horse-sized duck?
Jason: Run away from your problems.
Raju: Imagine a horse sized duck that could fly?
Jason: Yeah, I don’t know. Yeah. Like, you could just get a loaf of bread and toss it, you know?
Raju: I know. But have you seen Mothra? Did you see Godzilla, what, five I think, with Mothra?
Jason: I stopped at three.
Raju: Oh, okay, sorry. In five, there was Mothra. Effectively, like, a—it was like a mega-horse-sized duck with wings. It hissed at you [crosstalk 00:29:36]—
Jason: Yeah, I mean, it does sound kind of terrifying.
Raju: Terrifying.
Jason: Yeah.
Raju: The little ones you could probably, like ducks, right? Like, little horses. They’re kind of cute. People—you could probably sell them.
Jason: Yeah, what are they going to do? Like, ram into your shin?
Raju: You know, I’m going to do? I have a German Shepherd. I would have the German Shepherd heard them. Heard all of the little horses, and then I would sell them on various sites. And people would buy that. Like a tiny little horse?
Jason: Yeah. Nobody said they were angry. You just decided to fight them. [crosstalk 00:30:03] you decided, like, like passivism [prevails 00:30:04].
Raju: I’m not going to fight them.
Will: I think if you have a bag of baby carrots, a bag of baby carrots is all you need. You can just feed the horses baby carrots and then just kind of, you know…
Raju: These, these, these are fantastic questions.
Will: Send them out to run out in your yard there in Florida. Your dog can round them up, and then you can sell them on eBay.
Raju: Yeah.
Will: Yeah.
Raju: I don’t even know if I go to eBay. Can you sell living things on eBay? I don’t know if you can.
Will: There’s an eBay Live.
Raju: EBay Live.
Will: It’s a whole different section, yeah.
Jason: [laugh]. EBay Live. EBay… Alive.
Will: Yeah.
Raju: [crosstalk 00:30:34].
Will: Which will help you with your data problem there in South Florida.
Jason: [laugh]. Incredibly engaging podcast on functional medicine. Raju, thanks for that overview and insights you shared, and I think we’re going to get to the outro now.
Will: Thank you, Raju. I learned a lot. That was great.
Raju: All right. Thanks, guys. That was awesome.
Will: Thank you for listening to RRE POV.
Raju: You can keep up with the latest on the podcast at @RRE on Twitter—or shall I say X—
Jason: —or rre.com, and on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts—
Raju: —or wherever fine podcasts are distributed. We’ll see you next time.