Whoop’s Will Ahmed on The Future of Healthcare & Cristiano Ronaldo

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[00:00:09]

Joseph Cass

Hello, and welcome. My name is Joe Cass, Senior Director at S&P Global Ratings and the host and the creator of the Leaders podcast. On this episode, we have Will Ahmed, Founder and CEO of WHOOP, and Art Wong, Managing Director at S&P Global Ratings. A quick reminder that the views of the external guests are their views alone, and they do not represent the views of S&P Global Ratings.

[00:00:30]

Joseph Cass

Okay. Let's get into it. Will, can you give an overview of what WHOOP is? Your inspiration to start the company and how your background as a Harvard athlete shaped its development.

[00:00:42]

Will Ahmed

Absolutely. Thank you for having me. So our mission at WHOOP is to unlock human performance and health span, which means we really want to help human beings live longer and perform better. We build wearable technology, software, hardware, data that's really designed to help an individual understand their bodies.

I got into this space what's now about 12, 13 years ago. As a college athlete, I was someone who used to overtrain. I felt like I didn't know what I was doing to my body. And I just got very interested in physiology, which is to say, what can you measure about the human body to really understand it, to understand performance, to understand health.

And I did a ton of physiology research while I was a student, read hundreds of medical papers and started this company WHOOP, while I was really a college kid out of a dorm room. And it's been quite a journey over the last 13 years. I think we've evolved from being a company that focused on really high-end athletic performance, so working with many of the world's best athletes, to over time, now being a company that's used by really a wide array of consumers looking to improve their health and improve their performance.

And just recently, we announced a whole new suite of hardware and software features, the WHOOP 5.0, the WHOOP MG. We just came out with some of our first medically cleared features. So we can get more into that. But I think the evolution of the company has been one of going from really the highest performing athletes in the world to now everyday people who are looking to live longer and healthier.

[00:02:26]

Joseph Cass

Art, can you let everyone know your background, what you do at S&P Global Ratings and also your areas of expertise?

[00:02:34]

Arthur Wong

I'm Arthur Wong, Managing Director here at S&P Corporate Ratings. I'm the sector lead for the health care team, and our team assigns corporate credit ratings for the health care industry.

We cover over 180 companies, and the range includes health care providers, pharmaceutical names and medical device companies as well. Our ratings are based on several different factors, but it's mainly based on our assessment of a company's competitive position, combined with what we believe how strong their financial policies are and what their financial strength is.

[00:03:07]

Joseph Cass

Will, what's the most common mistake people make when analyzing their WHOOP data?

[00:03:13]

Will Ahmed

Well, I think, first of all, I would say a general mistake that the population makes is not collecting this data in the first place. I mean it's pretty amazing that wearable technology exists today in a form factor at a price point that is pretty accessible for a large number of people and in turn, can really help you understand what's going on inside of your body.

It can help you get healthier, it can help you identify whether you're getting sick, it can help you screen your heart now. And so these are tools that are really at our fingertips and I think should be taken advantage of. I think when people first start using WHOOP, one mistake they may make is just to overreact to the data.

Oh, I had a red recovery today. What does that mean? Oh my gosh, I'm anxious about that. Or I had a green recovery. Oh, I got to go do a bunch of stuff. I think that it's important to recognize that WHOOP is a tool. And like any tool, it takes a minute to learn how to use it. And I think you want to understand today's data as much as you want to send trends of the data.

A big theme for WHOOP is looking at data over the period of 30 days and understanding what data today means in that context. And so it's less about the raw reading, and it's more about understanding what progression someone's on.

Are they getting slightly healthier? Are they trending up? Are they getting slightly less healthy? Are they getting enough sleep or not enough sleep? And so in general, we see a common mistake is to overreact to the data.

But I think for the most part, people who are now using this tool every day feel quite empowered by it. And rather than understanding your health from a health and fitness magazine, you can just have real-time super accurate data at your fingertips to interact with.

[00:05:07]

Joseph Cass

Art, can you let us know the main trends and drivers that are really top of mind for health care investors right now?

[00:05:14]

Arthur Wong

Sure. I think that the big focus for health care from an industry standpoint, but not just from an industry standpoint, but also from a societal and legislative standpoint is the rising cost of health care. You see that -- and it's coming from the growth in demand, there's a growth in the population and just also the increasingly aging population that we have around the world.

And the big challenge is how do we control those costs while ensuring a high quality of care. And that growth as well, that demand has also led to burnout amongst nurses, amongst doctors. I think everybody knows -- you've read of a shortage in health care labor.

And just to put it into perspective, health care spending in the U.S. consumes 18% of GDP. And that's almost $1 in every $5 that's being spent on health care. And I know that there's a saying technology eats the world, just because of how technology, how prevalent it is in our everyday lives.

I'd like to really amend that statement to actually include health care eats the world as well. And not just from a cost standpoint, but also how central health care is to our well-being. And what you're seeing is you're seeing in the industry an increasing use of technology and hopefully controlling the growth of those costs, but also raising the quality of health care.

And you see that in things like increased use of telehealth, remote patient monitoring. collecting health data and applying health analytics. And of course, we can't avoid the discussion of the use of AI that's penetrating everything. That's also penetrating into health care. And of course, as you know, use of AI, it requires lots of data.

And to Will's point, on all this data that's coming in, the challenge is not just for the patients to understand that data, it's also for the health care industry and for doctors how to interpret all that data and not to be overwhelmed by all this incoming data.

And I think whatever companies can figure out how to understand this data, which is going to be critical in terms of how we control costs and hopefully improve health care and as well lessen the burden on our hard-pressed health care professionals, those companies are going to do pretty well.

[00:07:21]

Will Ahmed

I think Art makes a great point there. I just want to add, a lot of the capabilities of wearable technology, the potential of wearable technology is to shift a lot of these curative costs to being preventative costs because if you can identify something that's going to happen before it happens, that saves a whole hell of a lot of money because the curative costs are really where all the bloat is in the health care system.

And so as we think about that at WHOOP, it's being able to diagnose and predict well before something happens. And continuous health monitoring, we think, plays a really important role in that.

[00:07:58]

Joseph Cass

Well, can you talk a little bit about the data you receive from WHOOP users and how it could positively contribute to our understanding of human biology at a scientific level?

[00:08:10]

Will Ahmed

Yes. I mean we're collecting a scale of data that's never really been collected before. I mean, literally, we're collecting trillions of heartbeats a month from our member base. And if you think about what this data is capable of, it's really giving a much deeper understanding of the human body. And it's also making discoveries at a population level that have never been made before.

I'll give you an example. We looked at heart rate variability of pregnant women. And we were able to discover that over the course of a pregnancy, women's heart rate variability steadily declines for the first 33 weeks, and then there's this sharp inflection 7 weeks before birth.

And it turns out that inflection occurs if you're premature as well. So if you're going to deliver early, it happened 7 weeks back. So it might happen at the 30th week or the 31st week. And if it did, that would be a sign that a woman would deliver actually 2 weeks early or 1 week early. And this was just an amazing discovery that we had from essentially just having large data.

And we've made similar discoveries across all these other different variables. We saw it with COVID, where we were able to identify that respiratory rate was a predictor of someone having COVID 2 or 3 days even before they had symptoms. We've learned a lot about alcohol. We learned a lot about training. We've learned a lot about sleep. And all these things when you start to apply them at the population level, lead to discoveries.

[00:09:42]

Joseph Cass

Art, to what extent are the major health care companies considering wearable technology? Is it seen as a fad or a long-term structural trend?

[00:09:53]

Arthur Wong

In terms of is it a fad or a structural shift, it's definitely not a fad. I think wearables offer a high level of convenience for patients and for consumers. And when you have greater convenience, you have greater compliance.

And to Will's point, I think that's really important because you're trying to shift the focus of health care to more preventative -- to preventative care and that requires greater compliance on the patients. And when you have greater compliance, you have better health outcomes, you have a healthier patient. And with a healthier patient, you have lower cost.

I mean, for example, let's say you take a diabetes patient. And there -- a diabetes patient is most concerned about the A1C levels, what their level of blood glucose is. And previously, how a patient would monitor that, you would do pin pricks. Now you have these wearables, these continuous -- what they call continuous glucose monitor, CGMs, from companies like Abbott, from Dexcom that they wear.

And then with an app on their phone, they can monitor what their A1C levels are throughout the day. So no more pin pricks and it's greater convenience, it's more accurate and obviously, is less painful because you don't have to prick your finger all the time.

And when you see -- and then when you see that your levels of A1C are too high, they're wearing -- the patient probably is also wearing a wearable insulin pump, such as Insulet's Omnipod. So you don't have to inject insulin as well. Also greater convenience, improves your compliance and it's less painful.

And also, again, with a healthier patient, it lowers cost. And through these devices as well, all this data is being collected throughout the day. And hopefully, it gets analyzed and you get greater health insights.

[00:11:40]

Joseph Cass

Will, what's your expectations for the future of health wearables? Could we ever reach a point where they predict or even prevent illnesses?

[00:11:51]

Will Ahmed

I think if you look at the history of wearable technology, it's sort of like progressively getting more interesting. And V1 was sort of this world of tracking, right, where it just would record certain information, but wouldn't necessarily tell you what to do with it or how to organize it.

I think V2 of wearables has been organizing that data into scores that are a little bit more actionable. So for example, sleep scores and recovery scores and health scores. And I think the sort of the utopia, if you will, is being able to take all of this data to a place of coaching and behavior change. And that's where you can see a fairly profound outcome for society.

So for example, WHOOP just came out with this feature called Healthspan with WHOOP Age, where we essentially tell you how old you are physiologically based on all of your habits and your behaviors. And we're already seeing fairly meaningful behavior change associated with people understanding, well, if they get a little bit more sleep, that's going to make them younger. If they get -- exercised a little bit more, that's going to make them younger.

If they do weight lifting, that's going to make them a little younger. If their resting heart rate is higher, that's going to make them older. If their VO2 max is lower, that's going to make them older. These sorts of things start to become more actionable and very tangible.

A related sort of thing as it pertains to health outcomes is being able to diagnose something. So for example, WHOOP now has the ability to take an ECG reading right from your wrist and diagnose whether or not you have AFib. And that's a report that you could send directly to a cardiologist. So again, these are the sorts of capabilities that really didn't exist just a matter of years ago and are now giving medical-grade technology into the hands of consumers.

[00:13:53]

Joseph Cass

Will, Cristiano Ronaldo is now a partner and investor at WHOOP. How did you land Ronaldo as a partner? Did you just cold e-mail him? And secondly, what was it like meeting and interviewing Cristiano at his house?

[00:14:10]

Will Ahmed

Well, fortunately, WHOOP is really the best advocate for the brand. And when I say WHOOP, I mean the product itself. And in Ronaldo's case, much like a lot of the world's best athletes, he was just someone who started using WHOOP. And we discovered he was wearing it just by seeing his photos on Instagram or in the public eye.

And so it was about 2 years of him wearing it before I had any interaction with him or contact with him. And in fact, his team reached out to us because he loved the product so much. We've always been in the business of trying to authentically tell stories around health and data. And because our product is geared for high performers, high-performing people organically wear it, authentically wear it. And so our marketing strategy tends to be to amplify those stories.

Ronaldo, of course, one of the most highest-performing individuals in the world and certainly from an athletic standpoint. So I got to meet him in Riyadh where he lives, and we spent a couple of hours together and really hit it off. And I realized in listening to him talk about his training that he was something of a sports scientist.

There was a side to him that I hadn't really seen before, where he was talking very deeply about his body and his data and certain things that he would do to improve his sleep or decrease his resting heart rate or breathe before a big moment. And there were these little details that I found quite fascinating that I thought we could amplify in our storytelling.

And so then we spent a few months trying to work out what a deal could be together, and he became a large investor in the company and a global ambassador for WHOOP. And I've now done a few interviews with him. I've spent a lot of time with him. I think he's got an intensity that burns inside of him that's unique. I mean, really, his drive, I think, is what differentiates him.

Yes, we see the talent. But what you don't see is the other 22 hours of the day when he's not competing on a football field, all the little things that he's doing and choosing to do that make him great. And for a lot of athletes, I think that's something they can do for 5 years or 8 years.

I think it's unusual when you see someone doing it for 20-plus years. And that also speaks to why at 40 years old, he's still a very competitive athlete and someone who's winning. So we love our partnership with Cristiano, and I think he's a great ambassador for the company.

[00:16:45]

Joseph Cass

Art, as someone who is ingrained and well versed in the world of health care, did you use a health care tracker in your own personal life?

[00:16:53]

Arthur Wong

I do use one. It's an Apple Watch. So sorry, Will, I haven't tried the WHOOP's device yet. I think with your device feature, being able to estimate what your true age is, I'm a little bit nervous to try to use it now. But I do think with devices like WHOOPs, like Apple Watch, like the Google Watch, they're gaining in popularity. People are becoming more focused on their health and their well-being and especially as they get older.

And this generation of seniors, they're also more active. So they do want to have more focus on their health care because they want to be more active as they go along. And you're also seeing a consumerization of health care.

So consumer-friendly devices and services such as the Abbott and Dexcom, CGMs such as insulin pump, but also from companies like Apple, Google, Amazon, WHOOP that you're seeing an increasing use of technology and data that these devices are collecting. And hopefully, they will also help keep people healthier. And I think that's a great thing.

[00:17:56]

Joseph Cass

Will, I saw on Instagram, you recently became a father. First of all, congratulations.

[00:18:02]

Will Ahmed

Thank you.

[00:18:03]

Joseph Cass

We had our second daughter a few years ago, and I was wearing my WHOOP. And I can tell you there was a lot of red days during that first few months. So very interested to know how you're finding your own personal score these days.

[00:18:15]

Will Ahmed

Well, I will say becoming a father is an amazing feeling and the sort of biological love that you feel for this new little human isn't it just an amazing -- it's an amazing feeling. I think that, I guess, in WHOOP terms, my sleep consistency has actually been a little better, so that's going to bed and waking up at the same time.

And the reason it's better is because we've tried to build a schedule around our bed times and wake times that adapts to our new little son. And I also have been traveling a little less than usual to be around the family and be around my son.

I will say the quality of my sleep, so your hours of sleep, your restorative sleep, that's declined, so that's not as great. And then I am seeing some lower recovery scores, some red and yellow scores that otherwise might have been green. But look, that's the sacrifice that comes with having a newborn.

And again, back to my point earlier about just learning how to use this data, I think it's okay to go through periods where you're not having the best data. And it's just part of it is an awareness that you don't have the best data. Your body is not at its peak level and giving yourself a little bit of forgiveness, so to speak, during that period.

I'm not trying to crush workouts the way I was before I had a newborn. I'm not trying to make an additional 100 decisions from the period of 5 p.m. to midnight like I otherwise might have been. So those are just sort of things that you start to recognize by measuring your body.

[00:20:01]

Arthur Wong

Actually, I'm curious, Will, after having the baby, how much older does your WHOOP device say you've aged?

[00:20:07]

Will Ahmed

Yes. The aging has been fascinating. When we first had this -- when the WHOOP Age feature first came out, my pace of aging was kind of like 1:1, which is to say that every chronological day is equivalent to my physiological age, and so it's sort of like 1:1. And you want it to be less, right?

So of course, I immediately am motivated by this new feature, and it just plunges. And so I'm working out all the time, I'm sleeping all the time, I'm like dialed in. And then we have the newborn and all of a sudden, you see it just start rising back up and my pace of aging, all of a sudden is above 1. And so just now, I've actually kind of turned the corner again as little Tommy has built out a sleep schedule and as I've kind of dialed some things in at home.

[00:21:01]

Arthur Wong

Congratulations again.

[00:21:03]

Will Ahmed

Thank you.

[00:21:04]

Joseph Cass

Will, if we could unlock one major breakthrough in health optimization, what would you want it to be?

[00:21:13]

Will Ahmed

Well, I think at the sort of the biggest unlock is to be able to drive health outcomes, which is to say when you put a WHOOP on, fast forward a month, fast forward 3 months, fast forward 6 months, you're going to be a healthier person. And we're close to being able to show that we can do that.

We certainly do it for some people. We want to be able to do it for all people. And that's to say that because of the data that you see, because of the coaching experience you go through, you start making better decisions, you start having better habits, and that leads you to a healthier and higher performing state of being. That's really the utopia.

I would say from a sensing standpoint, I'm really proud of the fact that we just launched blood pressure monitoring. And so our latest technology has a new feature called Blood Pressure Insights. It gives you a daily blood pressure reading. That's from the wrist, that's without a cuff. And that's been seen as one of the probably most difficult things in wearable technology. And so we're very proud to be one of the very first companies to do this, and so that's a pretty big leap forward.

[00:22:27]

Joseph Cass

Will, last one now. What's the best piece of advice you've ever been given and who gave it to you?

[00:22:34]

Will Ahmed

Well, I think the biggest piece of advice that I just keep hearing in my head is keep going. And the reason for that is like when things are going great, there's a huge problem that's lurking around the corner. And when things are really bad and you're dealing with an avalanche of problems, guess what, the sun also rises, you're going to get through it, you're going to come out the other side, good days await.

And so there's just a little bit of like a keep going mindset that I think is helpful for every entrepreneur. That's certainly a talk track in my mind. It's not to get too comfortable when things are great, and it's certainly not to get too down when things are hard.

And in fact, when things are really hard, I think you end up learning a lot from those experiences. And so many of like my fondest memories in the history of WHOOP are these like insanely difficult periods that really tested me or my team or the company at large to push through. And at the end of the day, the thing that's kind of helped guide me is just this mindset of, okay, we're going to keep going.

[00:23:44]

Joseph Cass

Well, that's it. Thank you very much to Will and to Art for your time today. To everyone listening, everyone watching, see you next time on the Leaders podcast.

[00:23:52]

Arthur Wong

Thank you for having me.

[00:23:54]

Will Ahmed

Thank you, Joe.