Having Your Own Genetic Personal Trainer - FOXO Technologies

More Intelligent Tomorrow host Dave Anderson got a chance to catch up with FOXO Technologies’ Tyler Danielson and Nichole Rigby to discuss longevity, epigenetics, and rethinking life insurance.

Tyler Danielson is the Chief Technology Officer at FOXO Technologies with a history of working in the financial services and commerce industries. Nichole Rigby is the Director of Data Science and Bioinformatics at FOXO Technologies. She’s a data scientist specializing in analyzing genetic and other biological data.

FOXO Technologies is a company that’s bringing epigenetics together with AI to disrupt the insurance industry. It’s creating models to classify human health based on epigenetic data and using those models for the goal of underwriting life insurance.

Since epigenetics is a new term for most of us, Dave asked Nichole to explain it.

At the most basic level, epigenetics are the chemical modifications that exist along the outside of DNA strands and affect gene expression. They’re not your genes, which are coded into your DNA and don’t change. Epigenetics are chemicals that sit on the gene and are responsible for the expression of those genes.

We’re still learning what controls and influences epigenetics. But we do know they change over a person’s lifetime. Some are naturally expressed, and others are affected by factors such as diet and exercise.

David says he’s been hearing more and more about epigenetics lately. Is this new science, or are we just noticing it more?

While it’s a new field of study, the public is getting familiar with the idea of individual genetic data thanks to the rise of consumer genetic testing services.

An epigenetic test starts with collecting a saliva sample, so it’s less invasive than a traditional blood test.

When your doctor runs a blood test, they’re usually looking for specific indicators which will tell, for example, if you’re a smoker. The advantage of epigenetic testing is that it returns a much wider range of information. 

For an insurance company, the results could be useful for determining if it should insure someone and for how much.

"Human made epigenetics risk classification is a challenge."

This is a new approach to risk classification. Because the insurance industry already has a long-standing history of using existing actuary tables, the acceptance of epigenetic testing as a tool for risk classification is proving to be one of the biggest challenges for FOXO.

But the use of AI has helped them uncover new insights. With just a single sample, FOXO can quantify more than 850,000 sites along the genome overnight.

"I'm here to do really cool science with the potential … to help humans and make the world a better place."

FOXO is unique in using epigenetics as a wellness report. It’s the first company to combine epigenetics, wellness, and insurance.

Dave wants to know how we get to a more intelligent tomorrow with epigenetics.

Nichole’s answer is with lots and lots of data. Tyler wants insurance companies to take a step back and reconsider how to help its customers live longer.

In this episode, learn more about how FOXO Technologies is seeking to disrupt the insurance industry including:

• Learn about epigenetics and how it differs from DNA
• Discover how using epigenetics can help you live longer
• Hear the reasons epigenetics is changing the insurance industry

Transcript

Nichole Rigby (00:00):
When we talk about epigenetics, we're actually talking about chemical modifications that exist along the outside of the DNA and these little chemical modifiers affect gene expression. So they can turn genes on, turn them off, maybe even amplify or mute gene expression. The addition of these little chemical modifications, these epigenetics, have no change to that DNA sequence, that series of ATCs and Gs in your genome, these chemical modifications don't alter that at all.

Speaker 2 (00:38):
Welcome to More Intelligent Tomorrow, a podcast about our emerging AI driven world, critical conversations about tomorrow's technology today. On today's episode, host Dave Anderson sits down with Tyler Danielson CTO at FOXO Technologies and Nichole Rigby, Director of Bioinformatics and Data Science at FOXO Technologies.

Dave Anderson (01:07):
Hey Nichole, hey Tyler. Welcome to the More Intelligent Tomorrow Podcast. Great to have you here.

Tyler Danielson (01:13):
Thanks.

Nichole Rigby (01:13):
Hi, Dave. Thanks.

Dave Anderson (01:17):
Before we even really get started, I was in a bar last night reading about what FOXO Technologies does and it was about longevity and epigenetics. Aside from absolutely loving the website, which is a very unique styled website for a corporate entity, I would say, it does talk a little bit about longevity and the irony was I was sitting there with maybe a couple of glasses of wine and it made me think about some of my life choices. So why don't you guys kick it off and help me understand and help the audience understand what's FOXO technologies and what do you guys do?

Tyler Danielson (01:55):
I'm Tyler Danielson. I'm the Chief Technology Officer here at FOXO technologies. My role is really to make sure that I build the tech to support all the amazing work that Nichole's doing so I'll let her explain.

Nichole Rigby (02:07):
Awesome. Thanks, Tyler. I'm Nichole Rigby. I've been on the FOXO Science Team for almost four years now. Seen a lot of evolution at the company which has been really exciting. I am the Director of Data Science and Bioinformatics here at FOXO and my job is to look at the epigenetic data and utilize that epigenetic data to create some really cool models to classify human health for the purpose of life insurance and maybe it would make sense now for me to describe what the heck epigenetics is.

Dave Anderson (02:44):
Yeah. I was going to ask because immediately, everyone just goes like, "Epigenetics?" and you're trying to get a picture of it in your head. So if you were at a dinner party and someone said to you, "Oh, aside from..." You would say, "Oh, I work with epigenetics," and the person next to you just goes, "Oh, that's interesting," and they weren't really listening. You would have to surely get a follow-up question which is, "What is that exactly?"

Nichole Rigby (03:09):
Yeah. You're totally right. Every time I tell someone what I do, a lot of times they get one of those blank stares and maybe just a nod. They're like, "Oh, that's cool."

Dave Anderson (03:18):
You're not really listening, aren't you?

Nichole Rigby (03:20):
Right. So epigenetics to talk about what that is, let's first think about a DNA molecule. Anytime someone says DNA or DNA molecule, a lot of times what people think is that beautiful double helix structure and that is exactly what I hope you'd picture, at least when we talk about DNA. So that's DNA, that is genetics. But when we talk about epigenetics, we're actually talking about chemical modifications that exist along the outside of the DNA and these little chemical modifiers affect gene expression. So they can turn genes on, turn them off, maybe even amplify or mute gene expression. The addition of these little chemical modifications, these epigenetics, have no change to that DNA sequence, that series of ATCs and Gs in your genome, these chemical modifications don't alter that at all.

Dave Anderson (04:25):
So you have the genes and so, you're basically saying it's the genetic effects of what happens outside of that. So I would say, as you're getting older, the different chemical reactions that are going on in the body as you engage with the environment, you eat, drink exercise, is that essentially what we're talking about?

Nichole Rigby (04:51):
Yeah. So at different times, depending on what you're doing in your life, you may want to express different genes at different times so your cell will add these little chemical modifications to turn certain genes on or off. Even if you are doing the same thing in and out every day, there's actually lots of different epigenetics that are happening in your body just at baseline.

Nichole Rigby (05:19):
One example I like to talk about is if you think of a red blood cell, that is a cell that is responsible for transporting oxygen throughout your blood and it does that with hemoglobin. Red blood cells, they need to express hemoglobin genes because that's their job but a neuron or your brain cell, its job is not to carry oxygen through the blood so it doesn't need to express hemoglobin. That difference in gene expression between these two cell types is arisen through epigenetics.

Dave Anderson (05:59):
How long have you been studying epigenetics for?

Nichole Rigby (06:05):
Oh gosh. I'm not the best historian.

Dave Anderson (06:09):
Yeah. Yeah. But my question's like, you know how you start to pay attention to things and I don't know whether it's like... Let's say, you're going to go buy a car and we're talking about cars previously before we came on here. You decide you're going to buy a car and then all of a sudden you see the cars everywhere. Is it because I've been having conversations recently about genetics or epigenetics that we're starting to see it more often or is it because the technology's getting better we're able to surface up the information and therefore this information we're collecting is becoming more relevant to how we live our lives and how we run businesses and what we're going to do with this information?

Nichole Rigby (06:56):
Yeah. I don't think we've seen a lot of big, recent changes in epigenetic technology but I do think that it is becoming more of a buzzword, it's more prevalent in social culture. It's not just you having heard it and now, you're seeing it all the time. The availability of genetic testing and these companies that will look at your DNA and give you some insights about your health and your wellness. These are becoming a lot more prevalent and I think that prevalence has paved the way for epigenetics to become popular as well.

Dave Anderson (07:36):
You're not going to be able to predict when we're going to die.

Nichole Rigby (07:40):
No, no. That's a big question and when I tried to explain to people what I do, they ask that a lot, for sure. We are trying to classify aspects of human health and give people better insight into how their behaviors are affecting their health. So if someone is a smoker and has been smoking cigarettes for 20 years, we can try to give them some additional insight into how that's affecting them on a molecular level.

Tyler Danielson (08:12):
Much like cars, you could say, even. If you are driving on salty, dirt roads and you drop that thing off at the rental car place and it's covered in rust, they're going to be pretty clear and aware that you use that in a specific way much like we could see the rust on a car with epigenetics, we're seeing aging and disparities that help us determine that you've ran that machine pretty hard potentially.

Dave Anderson (08:38):
Yeah. It's a good analogy. How do you guys collect the genetic samples?

Nichole Rigby (08:47):
So you can get epigenetics from all types of cells. The easiest non-invasive way is to just get someone to spit in a tube.

Dave Anderson (08:58):
That's it?

Nichole Rigby (08:59):
Yeah.

Dave Anderson (09:00):
From spitting in a tube, you can determine various different factors that are affecting or what I've done.

Nichole Rigby (09:09):
Yeah. It's pretty awesome that we don't even need to stick someone with a needle and get blood to get at epigenetic information.

Dave Anderson (09:17):
So it's really a lot more non-invasive than drawing blood. I had to do a health insurance policy at one point, I had a nurse that had to come out, it was a long process and they would take my blood and they'd go process that blood and then they'd come back and they'd go, "Tadah," and I'd get a result. But I don't believe it had any of this technology built into it because when I got mine back, they didn't know that I was even very... I don't know. I don't smoke. I work out I'm pretty fit. My results actually showed something different and I'm just wondering, is this different? Is this something that you would actually get a different result from saliva than you could from blood or do you get the same result if you take blood, it's just easier to extract it?

Nichole Rigby (10:09):
We can get additional things that you can get from blood. So when an insurance company takes your blood and runs tests on it, they're running a specific series of tests and they're looking for specific things with those tests. With a saliva sample in epigenetics, we're not limited to what a certain laboratory is willing to process. We can get epigenetics for the entire genome and we can look at many, many different things. We're not limited to just a small number of tests that we can do.

Dave Anderson (10:46):
Aside from it being way more efficient to collect, there are two schools of thought now, and maybe there's three, but there's the consumer side that goes, "Hmm. I'm going to find out all this information about me and what's going on inside of me." The other school of thought, naturally, is an insurance company goes, "I'm going to find out all about Dave and whether we should insure him," and they're very different, these two. Can you explain? Is that something that you guys are going through right now?

Tyler Danielson (11:23):
Yes. It's quite challenging trying to connect epigenetics which are... It's your body, right? It's not like we created these things. It's not like these markers came out of nowhere. They'd been there and they mean different things. Underwriting an insurance was a manmade tool many years ago, over a hundred. As we got more tests that we could run, we got a little bit more information but really, underwriting has stayed the same, it's very simple tests to get very simple data based on a risk classification score. Relating epigenetics which are a part of your body and have been and evolved over many, many years and relating that to a human made epigenetics risk classification is a challenge and it's something that we're working very hard on right now.

Tyler Danielson (12:12):
It's a combination where it has to work both ways, right? We know that the industry is very hard driven in what underwriting is in those classifications because they already know the risk. They've had people die for the past 70, 80 years. And so, we know longevity or mortality, I should say, in the tables that those represent. And so, trying to relate a new thing that we haven't really studied for a long time, 78 years, in epigenetics to that mortality table is really hard to do and that's one of the biggest challenge FOXO technologies is undertaking right now. We directionally feel very good about everything we're doing with DataRobots, a huge part of that in helping us understand those models. But really, it's that directionality that we're building this company on and I could add... Nichole, I'm sure, can add a ton on what she's finding in those models but it's very positive in that sense.

Dave Anderson (13:03):
Yeah. So you're applying AI... Just to simplify it. You're applying AI on top of these datasets. You're applying AI on top of this to uncover new insights. Do you want to explain how that works, Nichole?

Nichole Rigby (13:19):
Sure. Basic process would be we get saliva from an individual and then we extract the DNA from their saliva, which contains those epigenetics. We specifically look at one type of epigenetic modifications. It's called DNA methylation. So we look for DNA methylation along someone's genome. It's typically quantified by a technology called a micro array and a micro array can get at about 850,000 sites along the human genome. We take quantitative data for each of those 850,000 sites and we apply models to that to try to classify an individual as a number of things, the types of things that you would care about for life insurance application, smoker, non-smoker drinker, non-drinker, BMI, just to name a few. There's many that we could look at.

Dave Anderson (14:25):
Did you say 850,000 variables? I mean, this is where AI would come into its own because it's too complex and too hard for a human or humans to sit there taking saliva tests, understanding all these variables, and then being able to segment and get outcomes that would go non-smoker, BMI of this, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. That's exactly one of the reasons why AI is coming into fruition, right? It's automating and serving up faster, intelligent answers.

Nichole Rigby (14:57):
Definitely. The amount of time it would take me or even an army of me to do the same thing would be years and years when AI can do it overnight while I'm sleeping which is pretty convenient because I like to sleep.

Dave Anderson (15:14):
I'm going to go deeper again. So you literally are putting, and I'm going to play the real simple human here, you're going to get all these indicators back that tell you about your longevity, your health, and it's an AI that's processing it. Without explaining it, the average person I think will freak out because they have this perception in their head that AI is this evil thing that's going to crush us like an ant, right? Because that's what the media did because Hollywood wouldn't exist without AI movies where we all end up getting wiped out off the planet. But this is not it, if you actually explain it, it's actually super cool.

Nichole Rigby (16:04):
Yeah. Very cool. We de-identify the data that the AI see so it's not like there's some crazy, all knowing super computers somewhere that knows everything about everybody and all of their DNA not like Hollywood.

Dave Anderson (16:21):
No. That's a good thing though. So you process the saliva, you go to sleep, the AI does the processing, you wake up the next day, and it's processed all this information on all these people that says whether they're a smoker, what their BMI is, what their health indications are. That information is invaluable, I would imagine, to insurance companies to help them insure people. Are people reluctant to give this information or do they welcome it?

Tyler Danielson (16:53):
Good question. There's probably a good line drawn between the people that do and the people that don't. We've seen some people be very interested in finding out what this information could lead to especially when it comes to their health and wellness and that's what most people are interested when they try to get this data is, "What can I do right now to make myself healthier?" The other side of it is, "Well, can I afford insurance in case I'm really awful, my health is bad? Are they going to totally screw me over?"

Tyler Danielson (17:22):
And so, that's the other part of this is ethics and what are we doing with this data to make sure that we're, one, being open about it, letting people download it and use it however they would like, delete it if they so choose but also make the right decisions that we think are best for them. I mean, we're really interested in, honestly, what is the best for our consumers not necessarily what's best for us and that's where we've drawn that line in how we ethically think about the data that we're collecting.

Dave Anderson (17:50):
Do you think the people like a WHOOP band, an Oura ring, a Garmin watch are... I love data. I wake up every day going like, "Uh-oh. Recovery index not good. What am I going to do today to rest and recover?" I would love this. Is this available to a consumer as well as to insurance companies and corporate entities?

Tyler Danielson (18:16):
Not currently on its own, no. We're really helping build the database for what we want to do with underwriting. So you will, and we don't have this out yet, but you'll be able to buy a life insurance policy for reasonable cost that includes a longevity report. And so, that'll be the longevity report which is the epigenetic test and then from there on, you can actually go buy more longevity reports by doing another spit. We think and we're learning, right? Don't quote me on all of these things but we think about every six months to a year, you'll be able to come back and see progression for the changes you've made because every goal should really be long term with short goals that are mixed. What we think you'll see is progression over time, for instance, quitting smoking or not drinking 14 drinks plus a week or who knows? Eating a lot of microplastics. There could be a lot of very interesting data that we'll eventually find out that we don't know yet.

Dave Anderson (19:07):
This is mind blowing because we don't know it yet but you're essentially like a genetic personal trainer.

Nichole Rigby (19:16):
Yeah. That's a great way to think about it. I love that analogy. I think this is where epigenetics is so cool because we know that it's mutable, it's not permanent like your DNA. Your DNA, that sequence of ATCs and Gs you have, that sticks with you for life. Epigenetics can change because it's based on gene expression and your gene expression changes over time and with what you expose your body to diet, exercise, stress. So we can potentially, as Tyler is pointing out, look at these changes in someone over time if we test them repeatedly. Just like a personal trainer, "Okay, this is where you're at today. Go home and do 30 squats a day and come see me in three months," it's similar.

Dave Anderson (20:06):
Do you guys think we're going to live longer as a result of this stuff?

Tyler Danielson (20:10):
Oh yeah. Yeah. Definitely. I think there's no doubt. I mean, existing underwriting is all built on previous mortality tables, like I said earlier. We assume that those are relatively accurate but we also know how inaccurate their tests are and we can compare that to what the epigenetic markers we're getting back are. That's our starting point is what's currently available to determine mortality. We think what we're collecting, we don't know for sure, right? But we think what we're collecting is going to show so much more than those very simple markers and what people's current wellness is and we could help people live longer which is something that most insurance companies would've a hard time saying.

Dave Anderson (20:56):
You know how they always have these reports that come out and they go, "Coffee is good for you. Too much coffee is bad for you." And then they'll be like, "Drinking is okay. Red wine's okay. White wine not okay. 14 drinks? Not 14 drinks. Women this much, men that much," and you go, "Where do you get..." It seems to contradict itself. You guys might just ruin it for everyone. You won't get those articles anymore and no one can lie about like, "It's okay for me to have another glass of red wine because they said it," and now, you guys are going to go, "Nope."

Tyler Danielson (21:32):
I really think what epigenetics is going to share with you is personalized wellness reports where instead of saying, "Coffee's good for you and everybody else out there, here's your headline," it's going to say, "Hey for you, Dave, two cups of coffee is just right and maybe stick to two glasses of wine. But if you overdue the carbs on a Friday, you're going to feel like crap and you're probably going to hurt your..." So there's going to be a lot of that type of stuff coming out where it's for you and we've seen this in, again, Nichole, please.

Tyler Danielson (22:04):
It's just exciting. We've seen even with nicotine where certain people don't express that gene which means that they may not be the type of people that get cancer. We don't know these things for sure but they may not be as prone to those type of diseases that come from smoking in that particular case. This is just nicotine but think about that for a whole bunch of markers, right? Just tons and tons of these things, hundreds of these things, and the different ways that people live their lifestyle, we may be able to help them adjust to best fit what helps them live longer or just live happier. It really could be a whole bunch of things in that area and it's very exciting.

Dave Anderson (22:43):
No one can see my face but when you said personalized like it's not just a, "Here's a generic group data assessment of what you can and should do," but a real personalized approach of what impacts your body. No one on the... Because this is a podcast, no one saw my face but my jaw hit the table and I went, "Oh my god." Nichole, that's mind blowing.

Nichole Rigby (23:12):
Yeah, it is. We are not there yet but definitely, I think the direction that we could head towards with this technology.

Dave Anderson (23:21):
This is way more than just insurance too. Like a direct to consumer... I was even... The team always gets annoyed with me because I always reference Peloton but I go and work out every day on my Peloton, it gives me lots of data or a work band or whatever. Imagine integrating health metrics and diet metrics and just these additional insights as to my longevity and is it making a difference is like science fiction.

Tyler Danielson (23:55):
It really is. Yeah. I'm more of a book-

Dave Anderson (23:59):
Is this why you do it?

Tyler Danielson (24:00):
Yeah.

Dave Anderson (24:00):
Is this why you do what you do? What else is there in this world? You want to work for a company and you're about making profit, right? I do interviews all the time and I interview people and they use AI and it's, "We're making more money. We can release more products faster where..." And then, sometimes you get stories and they're like, "Well, we can help people. We can help people get back more time so people like Nichole can sleep at night." And then, you get the holy grail of conversations and it's like, "Well, we're actually going to help people live longer."

Tyler Danielson (24:37):
Yeah. That helps us at the end of the day if we sell a bunch of insurance to people that we can help live longer and no one files a claim, guess what? We are the winning company and we feel confident in that. But a lot of this research is expensive and that's just running the tests, the wet lab side of things. And so, we really need to create a company that's profitable and insurance is one way to do that so that we can support the amount of research we really want to do which is millions and millions of dollars to get there.

Dave Anderson (25:09):
Nichole, is it the same for you? Are you a scientist or a data scientist? Are you a medical side or are you data? Because you talk so fluently about genetics, epigenetics, I should say, correct me now, but you talk so fluently about it and so passionately about it like this is your dream.

Nichole Rigby (25:33):
It is. I'm so happy doing this. I find it a little difficult to classify myself as scientist versus data scientists. I joined FOXO because it was this perfect little marriage of both the things that I love, both the molecular biology and the AI crunching numbers side of things and I am passionate about it. People at FOXO are not going to like it when they hear me say this but I don't really care that much about life insurance. I'm here to do really cool science with the potential to have all these really awesome applications to help humans and make the world a better place. If the first application we go for is life insurance, well, that's great. But honestly, I'm here because I think that we are doing something really, really cool and it's something like you said, yeah, I'm very passionate about.

Dave Anderson (26:33):
Have you guys tested yourselves? Wouldn't you just wake up every day and go, "I'm just going to run a little test on myself and see how I'm going."

Tyler Danielson (26:41):
I think I've taken the test 10 or 11 times this point. Yeah.

Dave Anderson (26:49):
Has it helped?

Tyler Danielson (26:52):
Well, I do a lot of dirt bike racing. I don't know if that helps but what we're learning is that straining your body in some ways may have a positive effect on your longevity. Again, we haven't validated a lot of this stuff so take that with the grain salt. But what I will say is that I'm 36 years old and my grim age was minus seven in the last test so that makes me feel very good.

Dave Anderson (27:19):
Your what age? Say that again. Your?

Tyler Danielson (27:21):
I'm 36 and my grim age was negative seven which means that I'm aging... I look more like I'm 29 based on the current data that we have. Nichole, you can maybe fill in the gaps there on what that really means because it's in its infancy in what it really means.

Nichole Rigby (27:40):
Yeah. So Tyler's getting at this concept of biological age and to really understand that let's first lay some groundwork. To understand biological age, let's talk about chronological age. That's the age that everyone's familiar with, right? That's measured in calendar time. It's the number of years you celebrate when you have a birthday, that's your chronological age.

Nichole Rigby (28:03):
Biological age is a concept of, it's more of like a perceived age and it could be a molecular level, physiological level, functional level and it's how someone is aging with respect to their chronological age could be faster, could be slower. It's a bit intuitive. I'm sure everyone can think of a time in their life where you've met someone and then you're like, "Oh, that's how old you are? You look so much younger," or the opposite, "Oh, that's how old you are?" and then you don't tell them but they actually look much older. That kind of phenomenon, that's what we're trying to get at with this idea of biological age and we are measuring that using epigenetics. Like Tyler said, it can be greater than your chronological age or less than and he's nice and fit so his is less than.

Tyler Danielson (28:58):
We think that's fitness but who knows.

Nichole Rigby (29:00):
Yeah.

Tyler Danielson (29:01):
It could be some of that, it could be the amount of stress I put on my body, it might have a positive effect.

Dave Anderson (29:07):
The pollution, where you live, all sorts of factors, right?

Tyler Danielson (29:11):
That's a huge factor, right? A lot of pollution could be as bad as smoking because you're just breathing in a lot of the same chemicals.

Dave Anderson (29:19):
Oh, I couldn't... There was two things as you guys were talking about that. The first one was I was picturing my birthday and you know how someone goes, "How do you feel?" and you go, "I feel like I..." You turn 40 and you're like, "Yay. I turned 40," and you go, "How do you feel?" and you go, "I don't feel a day over 30," and then the little Alexa should pop up and powered by FOXO Technology, "Actually, Dave, your biological age is 52 because you drink too much and don't exercise." You're like, "Shush, Alexa."

Dave Anderson (29:51):
And then the other one, when you first get the result, it would be like getting your results from university. If you went to university and you wait for that moment and you open it up and you go, "I got in," or, "I passed," and now you're like, "Am I over or under the age average?" Nichole, have you done it? Have you got your result?

Nichole Rigby (30:18):
I haven't but this year I'm going to. This year, I'm definitely going to. I want to know now. Before I was-

Dave Anderson (30:20):
Are you nervous about the result?

Nichole Rigby (30:27):
A little bit.

Dave Anderson (30:27):
Are you going to prepare? Are you going to swap tests and go and do heaps of running, cut down in your drinking just before you go into the test? Then you go, "It's been six months, I haven't had a single drink, worked out every day, I've got air filters all through my house. I'm ready for the test. Let's do it."

Nichole Rigby (30:42):
Yeah, definitely. Of course. I wouldn't have a really good age although we're not totally sure what all of those things are that affect biological age. My suspicion is it's going to be all the things that we know influence a healthy lifestyle like you were just saying like exercise, good diet, manage stress, those things.

Dave Anderson (31:05):
You would hope so. Otherwise, we've been lied to for our entire lives and every science body has been telling us complete rubbish for a long period of time which would be very, very evil.

Dave Anderson (31:24):
This is so exciting. I'm just amazed. This is why we do podcasts because I get to meet people that are just working in the most fascinating areas. Do you feel proud? Do you wake up every day and go, "I'm working in such a groundbreaking area."?

Tyler Danielson (31:55):
I really am... I've got two things going on. One is around the epigenetics, right? But the other one is around fixing what I think are an immense amount of problems with insurance and technology. Depends on the day I wake up because I spend probably 70% of my time in insurance which can be pretty tough some days but it is nice to know that what we're supporting with epigenetic underwriting and the discoveries, real discoveries that Nichole is making, are there to potentially provide great new wellness insights to my own health. And so, that's why as soon as I could spit in that tube, I was ready to do it especially because I've... Like you have the WHOOP, I ride my Swift, and I want to know every data point I could think of. So yeah, it's fun to wake up and do this every day.

Dave Anderson (32:42):
Nichole?

Nichole Rigby (32:43):
Definitely. I'm super proud of the cool science and excited to always talk about it with other people who are interested or willing to hear me talk about epigenetics and what I do with it. Yeah. I think that we're doing really cool stuff and I like how FOXO has a strong sense of integrity when it comes to science. We're making sure that we're doing good quality science and we're not just pushing out the next best products that we can make money on. Like I said, I've been with FOXO since 2018 and we're just now starting to launch models for production this year so we have been fine tuning things and doing lots of studies to make sure that we're doing good research and putting out good models and that means a lot to me too.

Dave Anderson (33:42):
No one can see this when they're listening but both of you light up when you talk about what it is that you do, it's really remarkable actually. Maybe people will hear it in the voice but you just see it in your faces like you just are passionate about what you do and that just is what it's all about.

Tyler Danielson (34:06):
Yes, definitely. It's so interesting.

Dave Anderson (34:08):
What could be more interesting than understanding life and the impacts that are occurring to life. I love that with FOXO, you've got practical use cases like a practical business model but for anyone scrolling through the website, it's clear there's a vision too. And so, it would be an inspiring place to work.

Tyler Danielson (34:35):
Yeah. We actually just redid that website too and it's... Carmen, our designer who designed that site also designed the longevity report. So when we do finally release our insurance product, that includes that longevity report, people will be able to see it firsthand plus really cool animations and other things that are included in that review of that report. I could go on for days though, David.

Dave Anderson (34:58):
We've got too much... You've got human evolution to go and solve so we can't stay here forever. But what I do want to know is how do we get to a more intelligent tomorrow?

Nichole Rigby (35:15):
Well, my initial answer is lots and lots of data. The way that we are going to make these models better so we can reach this goal of personalized information and personalized feedback is to get really high quality data in very large amounts so that we can work to understand it the best we can.

Tyler Danielson (35:47):
Yeah. I'd say, in particular with the insurance industry is because this is an industry I know very well, we really need a lot of the industry, including myself and others that are involved in it, to step back and take a real deep view of what this is really doing. We're classifying people as best we can on how they're living their lives and a lot of that has been to make a certain amount of profit to be able to support the risk that those companies are taking on.

Tyler Danielson (36:16):
What I would really like for a more intelligent tomorrow would be for these companies, including ourselves, to really step back and be able to understand how we can really best provide consumers with great insurance but then, help them live longer. I mean, it just seems so obvious and it's not that we can't do it just with FOXO but there's so many steps in what this insurance industry is. That instead of just getting so into the minutia of what underwriting is like, "Oh, you smoke?" and, "Here's the test and that means you smoke," to like, "Okay, well, does smoking really affect you? Does it provide an emotional happiness that helps you live longer or does it reduce stress that..."

Tyler Danielson (36:58):
Just really looking at it differently than we had been up until now which might have been specifically for profit or just to underscore the risk and now thinking about it, "Well, how do we actually help the consumer instead of just ourselves?"

Dave Anderson (37:11):
Again, you flipped me because it's not a yes or a no with some of these things, is it? It's a yes, no, and, or, maybe, and depends.

Tyler Danielson (37:21):
Uh-huh (affirmative).

Nichole Rigby (37:23):
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Dave Anderson (37:31):
It's so fascinating, the personal insights of like... Because we are all unique. All humans are different and therefore, so many of the different things that we do will have different outcomes. I would take this test now, tomorrow, anytime you would just want to know, it's like better the devil you know and get personalized insight.

Tyler Danielson (37:58):
Yeah. But I'm not trying to promote people doing this right away. I think it's worth putting some really thought into. But the sooner you do get your epigenetics, the more you'll know later because you can see a progression and change. And so, it's nice to have my first ones happen early or mid last year so that I can see like, "Okay, after I did 10 endurance bike races, how much worse if I made my muscles hurt a lot more? But is that good for my longevity? I don't know." And so, for us at least, that progression is what's important not necessarily the point in time.

Dave Anderson (38:36):
Yeah. Because I did a boot camp yesterday and I woke up and it said you need to spend more time recovering and I'm like, "I was straining myself in the red heart zone for that period of time, is that good for me or not?" Like physically, I feel good and maybe I look better but maybe on the inside, I'm not. Maybe it's not good.

Tyler Danielson (38:54):
I do it all the time and I think it's good. That's not based on any science. That's an opinion.

Dave Anderson (39:02):
Yeah. You had seven years taken off your chronological age so I'm just going to take that as my test for now. That's the rationalization of like, "Because I've met you and you said it, I trust you more than I trust anything I read in the paper."

Tyler Danielson (39:16):
I've spent some time in Thailand so you can imagine that when you're out there on the beach doing nothing except having a few Singhas and that doesn't help, but it certainly didn't hurt enough for it to matter now that I live a much more healthy lifestyle.

Dave Anderson (39:32):
Guys, it's been so interesting. It really is. When you really go under the covers to understand what's going on, it puts new faith into what we humans are doing in a world where sometimes you just wonder what on earth is go... Literally like, "What on this earth are we doing?" And then, you get to have conversations like this that make you really pause for a moment and Tyler, to your point, pause the insurance companies like take a step back and take the time to really understand what do you as an insurance company want to exist for and why and really think about the humans. It's inspiring stuff.

Nichole Rigby (40:23):
We definitely think so. Glad to hear other people do too.

Dave Anderson (40:28):
Congratulations, guys. I can't wait to see how you go with it and thanks so much for your time. It's been a really fascinating chat.

Tyler Danielson (40:37):
It's a pleasure, Dave. Thank you so much.

Nichole Rigby (40:39):
Yeah. Thanks for having us.

Speaker 2 (40:43):
Thank you for joining us on this More Intelligent Tomorrow journey. Discover more and join the conversation at moreintelligent.ai. The future is closer than we think.