01:15 What are the most memorable milestones that brought you to where you are today?

02:58 What is the driving force behind your passion for Health Technology?

05:43 What made you the jump into co-founding a startup?

07:14 What is the difference between being an intrapreneur that innovates within an organization, and an entrepreneur?

09:06 What was the value you found in collaborating with startups in your work at the Morris Kahn and Maccabi Research & Innovation Institute?

15:03 Let's talk about Alike Health, what does Alike do?

20:27 Obviously the US market is very interesting, why aren’t you creating a product for the German market?

22:15 Doesn't the scoring system create more anxiety with the patient? Will the patients know how to act upon it when there is no 100% certainty?

24:27 Do you give patients the option to call a live person and discuss or get clarifications on the report? 

26:12  What is the business model for your company?

28:35  You raised your seed round from a single investor – Pitango. Do you think raising a seed fund from one VC investor is advantageous?

29:33 How has the Israeli Health Technology ecosystem evolved over the decades?  

36:27 Where are we going with health? What is going to be the next revolution that we're going to see?

40:04 How is Alike.health closing the loop on data?

41:45 What advice would you give to someone who wants to do what you are doing?

46:15 If you could go back to your 16-year-old self, what would you tell her?

47:13 Why do you think there are less Women entrepreneurs and what needs to be done in order to change it? 

So, any innovation or technology should start with a good story. And I think Yaron's story is one of the most amazing and touching stories I brushed upon or came across in the last two decades, in which I'm operating in the med tech field. Yaron, why don't you tell us a little bit about how BrainQ's technology came to be? What is your story?

Yaron Segal First of all, the story started about 20 and a half years ago, when my son Lear was born. When he was born, he was our second child. So, we knew how newborns should act and he was different. He had an infection; he didn't swallow. Well, he was very hypotonic. So, we began a small search to find out what's wrong with him. After about three months, on Independence Eve, we went to the doctor and discovered that he has something called familial dysautonomia.  It's a rare genetic disease that infects the development of the autonomic nervous system, which controls everything we take for granted. Starting with feeling of heat, cold, touch, hurt (pain), and it goes to swallowing and everything is controlled by the body like salt in the blood, temperature, and the rest of it.

So, we went from the diagnostic room broken. But the first thing that we wanted to do is to find about what to do with it.  We went to the doctor, the doctor told us, 'Well, there's nothing you can do about it. You're going to live with this until the end of days. And I'm a physicist; physicists are very simple people. We have a problem, we diagnose the problem, we solved the problem. This is how we'll act. And they said okay, let's see what's the problem, diagnostic problem and solve it. The problem is that there is about 500 people with the familial dysautonomia in the world.  So, it was not very easy to find, 'what is the problem?'

And the problem is not a that he doesn't eat well, we need to put him eyedrops and take care of everything that you need to. The problem was the most fundamental one. And after a long time, I realized that the problem was never an obvious problem. So, how to fix that? And then, he goes to school and I see his peers, what they do to them; physiotherapy, occupational therapy.  And what the therapists said that they activate the systems in a way to make connections, and then maybe it resolves something. But then, how do you go to the autonomic nervous system. And then, I got introduced to the world of brainwaves, EEGs, and that kind of technology.

And I said, we can adapt this to learn about what's not working with his brain, and then try to imitate it in a way to generate the same thing that they do in physiotherapy.  I looked at the technology that was available at that time. And to be honest, because those children are so affected by their nervous system. I didn't want something aggressive. I wanted something more natural, something more holistic in a way. And then I was walking with him in the streets of Jerusalem. And it was like a 1.5 hour walk because he's, among other things, is a bit autistic.  And he wanted to go with a specific path every time.

And I was talking to him, going on about this great idea. And finally realized that, if we can measure EEG out of the brain, you can also transmit something very similar into the brain. And then it started, it took some time to generate the first experiment to see if it is working. And when something started to work on animals, it was time to make it a company.  Because sitting in the sofa, in the living room and generating ideas is very nice. But if you want to really help people, you have to make a company. And during that search of mine, I realized that all nervous systems have the same, common thing.

They all suffer from lack of some kind of activity somewhere. And if you can help, I can help Lear, it can help other people. And at that time, I joined with Yotam to generate BrainQ as a company. Because I'm an inventor, I'm not a businessman. And I needed somebody that has the skills to bring it into something much bigger than just me building something at home and trying it on animals.

That's amazing. Yotam, it's your turn.

Yotam Drechsler: You can imagine. First time I met Yaron, I was back then in the business world, I used to work for the Boston Consulting Group. My background is actually in math, computer science and cognitive science. The first time I met Yaron, I must say that this was a bit of a disbelief if you want. I mean, I wasn't quite sure how to digest this story. This is just one of the probably the holy grail of science not yet been solved. Leave COVID aside, we already seem to solve this one with the vaccine.  A father comes with his own bias, and tells you as a way to solve this problem. It has the magnitude to influence, directly 1 billion people and that means essentially, every one of us. So, the first is a disbelief. I said, 'Okay, give me the materials, I don't believe anything but I will read it.' And then slowly, gradually, you're starting to read the materials, you started to talk to people. And you realize maybe there is something here. I think out of this story, a company and a vision, was built. Is that a good way to put it?

First of all, I think it's amazing, Yaron, that you had the strength to take something so personal and then also try to find something better for your son. But also, to take that and say, I want to help other people. So, I applaud you for that courage and that strength. I'm curious to understand, how you got to the world of stroke from this?

Yaron Segal: The thing is that, when you want to investigate a new technology, such as the one that we developed in BrainQ, you need to have something that you can relate to; in animal model and later on people. Because my intention was to get it to people. I don't like to hurt animals and then fix them. And we worked in ... And during the time I was thinking, which was the first indication that we're going to get through.  The first thing you go up to say, 'I have a child with dysautonomia. I'm going to do that.' The thing is, there's no animal model describing very well, any neurological disorders of people.

There are models that imitate it, but it's not the same thing. So, in order to first investigate how that works in animals, I had to find something that is very straightforward between animals and people.  There are three things that are very straightforward. It's a traumatic brain injury, stroke, and spinal cord injury, because those are direct hits to the nervous system and then it's similar. However, TBI is very diverse. It's very hard to distinguish exactly what happened and it has a lot of effects on all the system in the brain. Spinal cord injury is very difficult also.  The easiest in a way, but it's not very easy is stroke. Because stroke is more homogeneous as some organisms can be. So, the first initiation to go to stroke. And I have to say that I've seen people with stroke; my mother for instance, and I see the effect it has on both the person and the family. So, that was one of the first notions to go to stroke.

Yotam Drechsler: I would say that, this is the nice part. When someone like Yaron comes with an idea and push forward against all odds. It's very important to realize that this can never be driven by just looking at the economics or the Excel of how many patients are there. This is so difficult. Stroke has a lot of good reasons to go after. It's the number one cause of long-term disability worldwide; it has been in the past few decades.  There has been extraordinary success in keeping people alive for a stroke. But the number the incidence of disability for a stroke, because it will just increase. And it's a huge burden on the world. And it is a life changing event, not for the just for the patient. And I had my grandmother as well, just few months ago, but for the rest of the family ... So, I mean ...  And stroke is also a holy grail in the world of neuroscience.

If you can show in stroke that you can generate neuroplasticity processes. I mean, then you can go further to other indications. But day one ... I mean, these are not all the different considerations to push forward against all odds. It's about ... You actually get this feeling like Yaron saw his mother and he got this feeling that he needs to help her and he also had Lear in his mind.  And I think this is why push forward. I can tell you nowadays that we are building a clinical pipeline, of course for several other indications. It's already a much more mature process that all kinds of evaluation criteria come into place. But day one is much more of a gut feeling. I would say, push.

So, what exactly is the BrainQ product?

Yotam Drechsler: Let me explain the product. And then, Yaron can explain the [i12:35 - unintelligibly] of it. BrainQ has developed a wearable medical device that creates low intensity frequency-tuned electromagnetic field, that you wear it for about one hour a day, for about two months following a stroke. And this device facilitates endogenous recovery processes for the patient and by essence, both amplify the potential recovery that you would have if you've just gotten physical therapy, which is a sort of cure as well as potentially expedite the recovery.  Now, we the claim to fame of BrainQ comes in a twofold way. One is the way that we choose the frequencies of our treatment. Because we see these frequencies as kind of signatures, access codes to different networks that have been impaired in the brain as their own, as described before, and facilitating their recovery.

And the second claim to fame is that we have designed our product from day one to meet the challenging pathway of neuro patients.  So, a stroke patient spends about four days in acute hospital in the US, and then about two weeks in a rehab center. And then, ultimately the rest of the time at home and going back and forth to the hospital once in a while. The economics of this world; you have a lot of patients, but you have a shortage of medical stuff. You can't treat these patients at the hospitals; they want to be at home.  You can't drive them back and forth with an ambulance every day. It just doesn't work. Whoever try to go this path has always failed. So, we had to think about a decentralized care model from day one. And we have actually designed it as a wearable medical device, which is cloud connected. So, you can treat the patients wherever they are. In 2017, when we introduced the first version, nobody was willing to talk about it.  In 2020 COVID came in and change the paradigm. So, this is part of what we do. Yaron, do you want to talk a bit about the intuition of why would this work from a mechanistic perspective.

I would love to hear a little bit more about the issue of neural networks and the technology. How does your technology work? And then we'll get into business models and how it works the factor and how it will work in everyday life.

Yaron Segal: First of all, I have to say that we don't have all the answers right now. The thing is like this, when you're listening to the podcast now, something happens in your brain. You're listening to what we're saying, and some of your neural networks will make new connections and will host how this memory in you. Someday later, you can take this memory out and use it for something else or just look it up at a website. Or I hope will not get treated by us.  So, the idea is that each network produces those kinds of ways when it operates. And if we can imitate, and those brainwaves are connected to the, what we call plasticity. Which means enhancing the ability of the connections between the neurons in the brain and therefore enhance the ability to perform an activity. The problem with somebody that is injured, some of those brain cells are not there anymore. 

But some of other brain cells which are not connected anymore, because synapses that were connected are not there anymore. Still can operate, but they need to connect to another nerve cell. What the treatment is doing is imitating what a natural brain would do in such conditions. And therefore, those cells which are not connected right now, has the feeling so to speak, that somebody is trying to connect to them, and they start a new connection.  If this connection from one side and connection with the other side, somewhere along the line, this connection will happen. And then, those functions that they used to do would be able to be restored. Why? Because they used to do that. But they didn't have the connection to the other part which executes that connection. So, this is basically what we're doing. We are measuring healthy people and injured people; we compare them and see what's not working in the patient. Therefore, we drive a treatment that will in a way, cheats the brain to think that it worked and push it to work building new connections. That is, it in a nutshell.

Yotam Drechsler: I like to think about it in the simplest way. If there is a baby born that comes out of his mommy preborn in 6 months, you would create an incubator for 3 months that would imitate the natural microenvironment of his mommy, right. So, he will continue to develop. In essence, we're doing something very similar, we are creating this microenvironment that feels as if this is the natural setting. And as a result, all these endogenous processes continue, would that be a fair description

Yaron Segal: It's the same thing. It's, we're trying to imitate the process of learning in the brain. And learning is not just academic learning. It's also the ability to move your hand, the ability to walk. It's the ability to do everything; breathing and digesting and everything else. So, we are trying to recreate what happens in the "belly of the mother" so to speak, artificially.

So, do you see the actual reformation of brain cells and damaged area? Or are you just educating the brain to bypass the damaged area by teaching it what it knew in the past and probably forgot, after the stroke happens?

Yaron Segal: Let's look at it. We cannot revive dead cells; this is something that we cannot do. However, if you look, for example, if you have ... Let's take the internet that you have for example. If your computer uses that inlet on the wall, and you have a router or you have some kind of device that connects them. For some reason this device stopped working.  What we are doing is generating a new connection between your computer and the Internet to generate the activity that you had before. We don't replace the dead cells because you cannot replace them. But we are generating an environment that will help the brain to reconnect, or the network to reconnect, with itself despite the fact that some of the cells are dead and not functioning anymore.

So, in a healthy brain, can you make like a super brain using this? Is this something that creates like new ways to get to information and speeds it up?

Yaron Segal: Let's put it like this. If you are studying something, you're doing the same thing as we're doing; you're activating the system, the system generates the same brainwaves, and then new connection happens. And then you learn what you learned. What we're doing is we're imitating the function that generates the new connections. We're not putting new data or new activity into them. This is something that you have to do like you're doing the learning process normal way. You're just imitating the same thing that would happen, when you are learning something new. The problem is that in the case of people after stroke, or TBI or any neurologic disorder, this function cannot happen because the cells are not connecting with each other. We're imitating the feeling of connection, so to speak. So, they will try to reconnect with each other.  What happens, for example, when you study something, you're doing it yourself. We are imitating that for people who cannot do it for themselves, but you still have to learn. We are not generating something out of the blue and generating motion where there isn’t motion at all. You have to learn and you have to exercise it to make it work. Because we are generating the ability to connect, we're not generating the function of the connection itself.

Yotam Drechsler: In our treatment for stroke, for example, our patients are actually conducting physical therapy in conjunction to our therapy. So, I think it relates to what Yaron says, I mean, we're not trying to replace this sort of care or the need to learn. We're putting the right fertilizer in place for this to really be meaningful.

Is the system a closed loop system? Can it generate information from the patient and know how to optimize the therapy protocol per patient and per incidence of stroke?

Yotam Drechsler: This is something we have looked at in the past and we have been doing it to a certain extent. I would say that we are doing some level of precision medicine already today by fitting the treatment to the patient. And as we go further along the way, this will be more and more personalized. I'll just say that there is a delicate balance when you're building a company and you want to use sexy words like precision medicine and personalization. You also have to account for your ability to bring something to the market and do it in an efficient way. And I think this is a general challenge for HealthTech sort of companies. So, because of regulation and your ability to demonstrate a well-designed study, also is being affected by the kinds of tools that you use for personalization. So, I think a lot of the challenges is to find a common ground.  And also decide, what is your penetration strategy? What level of precision do you want to come with on day one, and then later on expand it? So, I will not say more than that. But I will tell you this has been a delicate issue we've been dealing with. And I think we did find that the delicate balance that will allow us to come in well.

While you were developing this product, the regulation around digital health changed. And in a way, you've created a digital therapeutic. But I think the concept of digital therapeutic, wasn't there when you started developing the product and you went through the medical devices route.  Looking back and knowing what is available now around digital therapeutics, would you choose a different route? Or do you think you chose the right process and reimbursement strategy?

Yotam Drechsler: I think we would not change anything. There are a lot of buzzwords going around. I'm not even sure that we are digital therapeutics by definition. If you think about digital therapeutics, they typically refer to an app that helps to kind of improve your cognitive "something"; we are literally a therapy. And there is a new word that is becoming more and more confident. It's called bio convergence. And actually, bio convergence is one that allows you to kind of take some of the good parts of different segments.  But if you think ... So, you can think about it as bio convergence. But if you think about it, BrainQ is a medical device that goes by a medical device regulation. By the way, with a very attractive safety profile so far. At the same time, we're using digital tools, embedded digital health in it. We're using AI; we're using cloud.

We are aiming for a therapeutic effect that is no less of a drug. And so, I think our results are very attractive.  So, when you come to design a product, you have to be aware of everything. But you also have to be very clear about what would make the difference. And I think BrainQ is dedicated, "picked", the right ingredients. And in even now, just towards what your question was. BrainQ was privileged to receive a Breakthrough Device designation by the FDA just a few months ago. There are a lot of potential good implications for our ability to have. By reimbursing the coverage by Medicare, which accounts for every person in the US 65 and above, which is roughly 50% to 60% of our target population in stroke. And that pathway is actually very applicable for medical device companies. So, I do feel we have chosen correctly. But over time, we will have to be very cautious and more hands-on to make sure we're making any adjustments needed because this world is evolving. And I think both regulatory spears, and also companies, are shaping themselves together to fit it into this bio convergence world.

I think that you're absolutely right. Digital therapeutics will be called therapeutics in the future. And regarding bio convergence, that's an Israeli term. I came across companies who describe this to overseas investors and had no idea what they're on about. I looked it up on Google, and most of the bio convergence is discussed in Israel by the Israel Innovation Authority. So maybe it's changing and I'm completely for coining new terms.

Yotam Drechsler: I don't think you will find it on our website. I mean, we've actually started to see Israel is pushing for this term. But you can actually see it in Korea and some other places. I agree with you, I don't think there is a good enough terminology. But it's very difficult to take the old-fashioned buckets and call us a medical device or digital health or even digital therapeutics. The most critical ingredient is just making sure you do the right thing. And if you can use technology in order to improve your product, which is what we've been doing, I think you'll just use it.

I have one more question about the product and technology. One of the main challenges in stroke is time to treatment. Stroke is very difficult to diagnose. Most patients are brought to a regular hospital, not to a stroke center. Many hours after the stroke have commenced then the standard of care, which involves injecting them with TPA. You have to do it within 4 to 6 hours, otherwise, it doesn't work.  But I read somewhere on your site, or in the press release, that you believe that the BrainQ's technology will extend the therapeutic window. I mean, it won't be limited to hours within stroke, but days and potentially within weeks after stroke. Why do you think it will work on these patients?

Yotam Drechsler: Let me explain. First of all, just to articulate it. If you think about stroke, there are two key buckets here. I mean, the overall goal is the same. You want to get someone through a stroke back to his life. Now, most of the effort in the past two decades was around prevention. In prevention, every minute matters because millions of cells die. So, a lot of these technologies aim at; can you expedite time to the hospital, can you do a quick diagnostic and make sure that the patient comes into treatment faster or better.  There has been the biggest advancement in the past two decades is called thrombectomy back to me and it's not just TPA. Thrombectomy is a way to clot retrieval that inserts into your brain and takes out the blood clot. But no matter how you look at it right now, it's about 5% of the patients applicable because of many good reasons; some of them you have mentioned. 

And even if it's going to get better, it's going to be applicable for 8%, maybe 10% in the pink is dreaming. Within this 10%, I mean, a large portion will still remain with a long-term disability. So, 95% of your problem remains. When we talk about extending the window, we are talking within the second bucket and that is the recovery and we want to reverse the disability So, we're not preventing the disability, we want to reverse the situation. When we talk about this window, we're talking about the intervention window. If (the brain is) weakening, our treatment is designed to intervene in the days and the early weeks following stroke. This is the most critical time frame for the brain that, the brain is trying to priming to reorganize itself. The brain has suffered from a stroke and now the brain is trying to find its way back. This is where you start to intervene with physical therapy.  What BrainQ aims to do is to intervene then, maximize and expedite this recovery and potentially reverse or, recover the patient fully. And this is what we mean by that. So, we take into account that all these patients that you've mentioned, would not make it into the proper hospital; would not get there. If one day, I don't think we're there. But if one day, hopefully, all patients will be prevented from have a stroke. I mean, we want to have a job, but I don't think we're there. So, this is where we come into play. And in this field, right now, there are essentially no solutions.

I'd love to be in that day where there is no stroke. So, summing up on the product side, I think we want to take a bit of a step towards commercialization, if that's okay. And first of all, it's great news about the Breakthrough Device designation. What is next for you? What are you going to do next on the commercialization angle? And if we can talk a little bit about the business model, while we're at that.

Yotam Drechsler: So, I'll talk very briefly about both things. Our first breakthrough is on the verge of launching a pivotal study in the US with some of the best sites in the world and the best [31:48 - unintelligibly] leaders. This pivotal study is exactly what we've just said. The ability to intervene in the subacute phase days following the stroke, and potentially recover the patient significantly, and reduces disability. And actually, test in the main playground of the world, this centralized care model, where the patient starts his treatment in the hospital. And then, continues the treatment at home with a cloud connected therapeutic medical device. The results of this pivotal study will be the base for an FDA approval. And if we get this approval, that would be the first time in the world that somebody gets an approval for the subacute phase.  Substantially increasing this very limited window quality for reducing disability, from as I said, hours towards days and weeks. And this is what we are after.

And if you look at our Gantt right now, we're talking about a two-year time from now, hopefully, towards the US market, which is our first market entrance. That will be complemented by us setting the ground towards commercialization from several aspects. That means, how do you distribute and what's your pricing model and so forth.  BrainQ is aiming at what's called the (DME) Durable Medical Equipment model. Durable Medical Equipment model means that you list something for the patient on a monthly basis. If you were to think about it, in Israel, that would be yetzirah or like giving a wheelchair to a patient. But ultimately, this world is changing because a lot of the care is moving from hospitals towards homes. So nowadays, you can see much more sophisticated devices. 

One example is Novocure, an Israeli-based company. But very similar model to what we're trying to do, other things like on dialysis and so forth. So, BrainQ is aiming for this aiming for this DME model. And that means that we will lease this on a monthly basis to patients and potentially work with strategic distributors to do so. So, that's in terms of the planned commercial model. Right now, BrainQ is building every single piece of the puzzle in order to be in this commercialized stage in place.  So, this is not just the people who're excited. It's about the right kind of publication strategy, the right kind of health economics models, the ability to manufacture at scale and so forth. Everything is set towards two years from now and we also have worked with it. We are setting the stage towards in Europe and in Asia. And we have a quite vast clinical pipeline of other indications that we will further launch in the next couple of years.

I'd like to talk about financing. You recently raised significant capital, $40 million. Congratulations. I have actually two questions. One, a very silly one. What does it feel like waking up in the morning and suddenly seeing that you're $40 million in the bank? Is this business as usual? Or like, 'Whoa, let's get out and party.' And secondly, you weren't born with $40 million in the bank at the moment.  And of course, you still need to get some work done in order to bring the product to market. Could you maybe perhaps, Yaron, can give tips to entrepreneurs who are just starting out in this arena, not necessarily in urology? What is the best way to get traction from investors and interest from investors for the first round of financing?

Yaron Segal: First of all, I want to say that having the $40 million is a triumph. It's the first time that you feel and know, I mean, deeply inside you that you can get there. You don't need to worry about anything, you can now get there. And you're free to do it. And you don't have to think about where are you going to get the next count of cash or being limited. How do you say it? In cartoons, you have this moment with the Roadrunner runs over the cliff and find itself in the air and try to fly; we can fly.  That's the first time you can really feel that you can fly and you can achieve what you want. And you don't have to make any compromise on what you're doing on how you're going to do it. The second thing, for any inventor, my first tip will be, you have to think about your invention and you really, really need to want it. Because if you don't really want it, it's not easy to get the first investors. 

You can come with an idea that's probably new, or somebody did something very similar to it and you're going to get a lot of rejections. Not because something is bad about your idea. Because the people that invest, they're looking for something that they can later on benefit from. And you have to be very, very sure of yourself and what you're doing and where you want to go to withstand all those rejections on one hand, and not get overwhelmed and super happy when you get it.  Because you need to stay in focus. When you get $40 million, it's very easy to say, 'Okay, let's buy cost to everybody in the company, because you have the money.

But the thing is that you need to stay focused on what you want to do and what you want to get; and when you want to get there. Because when you don't do it, you will lose your mind. First of all, you will try to question yourself on where I'm going and what am I doing.  On the other hand, when you get it you will lose your mind saying, 'Well, I can do other things and spread it'. And lose all the money on things that you don't really need to do to get you there. So, you have to be very sure about yourself and you have to be very ... I was working with Lear for 3 years before I closed the concept totally. People have to be very closed on the topic, what they want to do, how are they going to get there, even though they don't have all the answers. But they need to have a very fixed idea of where they want to go and what they want to do. Otherwise, it will get lost; get it underway.

Semi-personal question. So, we've heard that ... And this is for Yotam, Yaron. I know you walk a lot, but we've heard Yotam runs marathons. And we've noticed there are many CEOs who run marathons, triathlons, do all of those crazy things. Do you think it's urban legend that successful CEOs run marathons? Or are those who run marathons due to become successful CEOs and we need to go recruiting them at the end of the marathon. How do you think that impacts you?

Yaron Segal: Let me answer before the Yotam answers. Doing sports, gives your mind to think. When you do sports, you have, for example, if I work for free for 1.5 hours, Yotam does a lot of runs. It's time that your brain can go free and think without the need to rush into anything because you have to be there in 2 hours, 3 hours. Then you have the time to clear your mind and think without the pressure of the daily things. And that I think, you can go swimming, you can do any kind of sports.  Sports is very good, because it gives you the time to clear your mind from the daily things or daily rush. And when you think, when you open your mind, it comes to you. So, now Yotam can answer about running, I cannot run.

Yotam Drechsler: First, to be accurate. I was planning for a marathon but so far, I only did half marathons. Actually, did a bit more maybe. But I haven't had a marathon yet, the COVID came in the middle and kind of ... It's been crazier, that's for a different podcast. I do agree with Yaron. When I came into this, I don't think I understood what I was coming into.  And back then, I think some people are naive and I guess I was a bit naive myself, that maybe this is a quick flip. Do 1 or 2 years and I'm just going to exit it, whatever. A, I think it's a bad recipe for any entrepreneur in every different field. If you think about, you're going to do something for [41:39 - unintelligibly], and then you're going to sell it. You don't want to go into entrepreneurship with this kind of notion.

Most of the times it doesn't happen and the second, I think it makes you work for the wrong targets (reasons).  In HealthTech, it's almost impossible. And that means that you're always in a marathon run. I mean, Yaron was saying before, you don't have to care about money, I'm already thinking about my next round. So, I mean, this is a bit of a work split. This is a marathon. And at some point, in life, you also realize that ... I mean, it happened to me at a breaking point that I don't care if that's going to be my last work ever.  And if I'm going to spend the next 15-20-30 years, I have no desire in switching into anything else. I'm not saying this may not change. I think that as the smarter one, you get to enjoy the journey and you will get to enjoy every single day. And I agree with Yaron that the actual running is, what it gives you, it clears your mind it helps you think. In a day-to-day, especially as a CEO, I guess I mean, you can really be dragged down by the day-to-day problems. And a lot of the pivot, since we've been doing a lot within support, came to me while running. I came the next morning, brought everybody in the room and said, 'Look, this is what we do.' And so, this is how I think about it. And any way, if you don't enjoy the journey and you just think about the end of the way. This is not the right place for you.

I know that you participated in a Google program years ago, because I've been asked about it. What program was that and how did it contribute to you guys personally, professionally and of course, with BrainQ.

Yotam Drechsler: The first thing to realize is that we are ... I mean, let's talk about the paradox. We are a small company from Jerusalem, Israel trying to solve one of the most impossible to solve problems out there in the world. And right now, we are on the verge of showing that this is possible. And again, we have the clinical community working closely with the US. Like the most prestigious sites, joined with us because they believe there is a real chance here to do history.  Now think about us, not even now, think about us with $40 million dollars in our pocket. So, well think about us 3, 4 years ago. This was inconceivable. And that means that if you were to knock on a door in the US, so forth, nobody will talk to you. This is not another cyber company.

This is just a company that says, 'I'm going to cure the brain.' So, I think what Google brought us first and foremost, is the channeling. And that's very critical one. So, Google had a new program back then. Overseen by Peter Norvig, he was the director of AI. One of the most famous AI leaders in the world. He was the 13th employee if I'm not mistaken of Google and they brought him as the expert in A.I., so you can imagine where he is today. And they were looking for some AI-based solutions that can change healthcare dramatically. And they've set it as a call to were, like, so something, a voiceover. I mean, whoever win the asset project. 

And I think like 1000s have applied, they picked four companies. Three from San Francisco, and one from Jerusalem, Israel. I mean, that's also part of the politics, right, it's very easy to pick this San Francisco based company. So, we came in ... I think, we were very bold with our mission statement and with a project that we had proposed. And we came on a 6-month project in San Francisco, the ethicist really pushed forward.  At the end of this project was a personalized algorithm to treat stroke patients, which we told them, we're going to set up on the ground. And then we took it, when we set up a randomized, double-blind pilot for stroke patients based on what we have developed with them. And the rest is history. This is where the results came from. This is where we get the breadth of designation, the funding and now the people who study it. 

Now, could all this have happened without Google? Yes, maybe, who knows. But sometimes in those very critical moments in time, you get somebody to help you pass the bridge, that's a very critical one. Because this is really a dead valley and so many obstacles along the way. And every time you just find another creative way to get you through. And Google is definitely one of those. And I mean, we're still in touch with them. And I think there is a lot of, for me, there is a lot of gratitude for them giving us this opportunity.

That's great. It's good to hear that the big tech can actually give value to smaller companies. And hopefully that keeps happening, so we can change health healthcare. I think we have time for two last questions. For me, the first question is going to be general around BrainQ, and I guess your future. So, are there any other applications in the pipeline that you're looking at? Let's talk 3 to 5 years from now, after you've started hitting the market. Do you have anything else up your sleeve that you're planning to do that you can share?

Yotam Drechsler: BrainQ aims to disrupt a wall, which is currently called the rehab; and a rehab is a bed word rehab. By definition means you can't really help the person, you're just assisting them a bit. Rehab affects billions of people. Every single ... It's not just stroke, spinal cord injury, TBI; MS Parkinson, Alzheimer and you can name it.  Every single person that has issues with neurological disorders eventually falls into this world, one way or another.

In this world, it accounts for so many people and so much money, but it actually operates. If you think about the 19th century tools, physical therapy has been invented 200 years ago, 300 years ago.  This is still a lot of care for many of these indications. There is so much for us to do there and actually help to redesign this world. And again, I think, there are a lot of amazing researchers in the field and clinicians with a lot of motivations to bring this world forward. So yes, they're in our pipeline. There are many different indications. Some of them I've actually mentioned before and stroke is just the first one. And every one of them can affect millions of patients. Yaron, do you want to 'yell' from your side?

Yaron Segal: My slogan is neurons are neurons are neurons. And if we can regenerate connections between neurons, for motor activity, you can also have for cognitive activity, you can for memory, for sensing. And the only thing is that we need to learn how they operate and how they develop. So, we can try to do the same to anything. So, but it takes time. I have to say it takes time. It's not something easy. Motor is relatively easy, so to speak. Other cognitive functions are much more complex, but we want to get there.

Yotam Drechsler: The one thing you have to realize, I think it's also on our walls. One of our biggest values is remain humble. There is so much that we don't know, we don't know. I mean, every day passes we understand how much we don't know. And we are facilitating something which is much bigger than us. We're not going to be bringing all the solutions and there will be failures along the way. But I do believe that we have a real chance to change peoples' lives.  And it's also a very collaborative approach. We're not, ... There is room for everybody to be honest. If you think about it this way, there is nothing easy and there is nothing quick. But you can still make very big advancements and change people's lives.

One of the things that really excites me is when I talk to people on this podcast, even people who manage funds, sell companies, etc. I notice is how humble they are. And I applaud you for that. If you could go back and tell your 16-year-old self-something, what would it be? My small question, because we started with Lear, Yaron's son. I must end by asking, how's he doing today?

Yaron Segal: Well, I would say to my 16-year-old self, it's something that I wrote in my web page. 'Life takes you to places you didn't expect, or didn't think you can get to. and you have no control over it.' What you can do is maneuver your boat in the river to make the best of the flow, instead of trying to fight it. Because you cannot fight reality, you cannot fight what happens to your life. But you can make the best out of it and maneuver it to where you want to go. When he was discovered, I couldn't do what many other parents do.  They get depressed. They stop doing something. They stop having dreams. They stop having a smile on their face and they just collapse into the reality. My way of living said, ‘No'. I'm going to take this with everything accounted for it and I will make something out of it. I will not settle to it. I was singing, 'Sorry, don't go to the ...' I don't remember the song. But, 'Don't go to the dark alone', or something like that.

Don't do it, you can still do something with what is given to you.  About Lear, He is not 20 and a half years ago old. I'm starving to find data related to a syndrome, which is very difficult to find. And whenever we find something, there is going to be a mission for him. Because learning is something that never stops, your brain always can get new information, new talents, new things that you can do. That process that BrainQ is developing is not related to one-time events. You can still grow the brain, you can still rehab; regain your function and you can develop things that you never felt that can be built again...

Yotam Drechsler: It's very difficult to speak after Yaron, Seriously. I will say this, it's two-fold on my wall and my roommate says what Shimon Peres actually, I think, would have told his son. He says, you're as great as the cause that you serve and as young as your dreams. And I think it's a very important statement, because it's not what you achieved at the end. It's what you try to achieve and the real realization that walking this journey is an important one.  And the second part, I will tell myself at 16 years old, that it's all about people. Journeys, is not about technology, it's not about biology, it's about people. I mean, the very fact that we are here together is because Yaron's persistence. And also, because Yaron and I found our joint path to work in harmonization together. It's not an easy one. For founders from different agendas and different backgrounds to find a way. And later on if you extend into a team, again, it's about people. And then, when you do collaborations, it's about people. If you find a way with people, and interpersonal relationships, this is how you make dreams come true. You don't make it by technology, not by biology. And I will make sure my son or daughter realize it as well. So, pursue the right kind of dreams and do it with people in a way that will allow you to collaborate well.

Yotam Dreschler's profile in Linkedin

Yaron Segal's profile on LinkedIn

BrainQ website