After a brief hiatus from recording podcasts, it was a privilege to dust off the microphone and interview Kyle Frye. As U.S. president of SyntheticMR, Kyle is tasked with growing and expanding the brand and business in the U.S. for the Swedish-based company that is creating the future of quantitative MRI technology. Their innovative MRI software solutions support shorter exam times and deliver more information to clinicians, leading to improved diagnostic efficacies.

Prior to assuming this role in August 2019, Kyle was a Zone Vice President of Sales for Siemens. Before that, he held leadership positions at both niche and large medtech companies including Blue Belt Technologies (now Smith & Nephew), Verathon, and Brainlab. Kyle also worked for BioMedix for three years, working his way up from a sales rep driving 4–5 hours a day to Western Area Sales Director, which required relocation from metro Cincinnati to the San Francisco Bay area. Kyle received a B.A. degree in political science and finance from Northern Kentucky University in 2004.

Norbert Juist, an executive recruiter who specializes in medical device sales and marketing, joined me as a special guest for this interview with Kyle. He brings a unique perspective to this discussion, having worked as a sales rep and consultant in pharma and medtech for nearly 20 years prior to transitioning to recruiting.

Scott Nelson: This should be a really fun conversation for those listening that haven't caught a Medsider interview for quite some time. I had to dust off the mic a bit. It's been a little bit over a year, I think, maybe, quite honestly, closer to two years since I've busted out the old podcasting mic for a wide variety of reasons, one of which is I've been kind of knee-deep in helping to grow my own Medtech startup Joovv which photo bio-modulation or light therapy company. But nonetheless coming up for air. I'm excited to kind of kick things off here with a really good guest in Kyle. Joining me on the show which is a little bit of a different twist is Norbert Joost, who I've known personally for, gosh, Norbert it's probably been maybe close to 15 years now, at least 10 years.  know you spent really the majority of your career in Medtech. It'll be fun to have you join me on the show and we can kind of go back and forth with our guest. So, I guess welcome

Norbert Juist: I'm excited as well. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you. I'm excited.

Scott Nelson: Yeah, cool. So, Kyle, we're going to learn a lot about your climb within your Medtech career, which I think it's going to be really fun to glean some insights from. But for those listening that that aren't familiar with you and SyntheticMR just for contextual purposes why don't you provide an overview of what you're doing now and maybe the product that you're commercializing with SyntheticMR and then we'll go back in time and really learn a little bit more about how you got to your current place and then also some of the unique challenges that you're facing and what you're learning along the way. Does that sound good?

Kyle Frye: Sounds great and I'm glad you got the cobwebs to be dusted off with me. So, happy to be a part of it. Yes, SyntheticMR it's something that when I went through the hiring process for the role to run the US operation, it was something that continued to intrigue me day in and day out through the conversation. It's one of those things where I've been heavily involved in the capital, hardware, robotics, imaging, you know, the whole gamut within the hospital system, and this is something that's really software-driven. As you kind of see the marketplace shifting software becomes a big piece of why people are moving the needle in the medical world. 

I saw the software and what SyntheticMR could do is something that really could broaden it not only as a niche product if you will but become a standard of paired, which was something that, to me was exciting. So, just in a short, little brief background on SyntheticMR, the software and we'll also call a sequence. So, in the MR world people that don't need to know much about MR but basically, we have a software that allows shorter patient time on the table for their sequence and their protocol of an MR scan. In some instances, you may see an MR scan of 30/45 minutes. Our sequence can allow for it to be less than 10 minutes total, and we run what we call six minutes can side. Then we also can post-process it with the software to allow the neural radiologist additional time to be able to read and interpret and diagnose their patients. 

So, it's a product that gives what we call quantitative. So, as you know, in your world, Scott, what you've done, Norbert and what you've done in the background of recruiting is data is key. In the radiology world, the radiologists are really looking at black and white and qualitative data, and what SyntheticMR can do is provide quantitative data to allow for a diagnosis. So, it's pretty exciting what it does. So, a little bit of brief background on what SyntheticMR does.

Scott Nelson: That's great. Thanks for providing that highlight, keeping it pretty high level. I know there's going to be some interesting follow-up questions that Norbert and I have kind of coming full circle on what you're seeing kind of in the marketplace, especially commercializing this type of technology that's sort of centric to Europe. But now you're kind of leading all things in the US. But one follow-up question with respect to SyntheticMR. If I'm understanding this correctly because I've really spent no time in the imaging world or at least commercializing imaging products. So, you are in essence adding a quantitative layer on top of a baseline qualitative like MR. So, in essence, is this helping a radiologist diagnose something with that much more accuracy?

Kyle Frye: Exactly. So, what we aim to do is provide two strong things, workflow enhancement and diagnosis enhancement and so through what we call our synthetic sequence it shortens the scan time, which allows for increased workflow, allows more patients to be scanned within any given day. It adds additional information to your point to allow for a more precise and better diagnosis, and to give that peace of mind from which, you know in some instances when you're looking at a large number of scans per day, it's nice to have that additional data to give you that peace of mind. 

Frankly, I'm sure the patients want that as well. The patients want to know their reading radiologist is saying I've got that additional data to know that, hey what we're diagnosing is very accurate. That's great peace and that's what SyntheticMR brings. So, those are one of those things where I think this can truly become an everyday sort of use that it could become a protocol that techs, hospitals, radiologists are asking for utilizing on a day to day basis. Right now, it's focused on the brain, Scott but we are certainly looking at other avenues whether that's the spine, MFK in the abdominal area to where we can provide this sort of technology across all platforms within the MR scanner world.

Scott Nelson: God, that sounds really interesting. Technology for sure and everyone that's listening to this is kind of familiar with the phrase bigger, better, faster. It sounds like you're hitting on at least two of those buckets in better and faster when it comes to MR techs. With that said, hopefully, everyone kind of has a better feel of what you're doing. Your position, what you're doing kind of with SyntheticMR, what you're kind of commercializing. So, using that is kind of a baseline point let's go back in time now. I think a lot of people listening to this myself included, are really going to be fascinated with kind of your career track. I know, I'm dating myself here, I'm getting old. 

When I first got into Medtech, I was always super curious. How did people in sales management and executive management, how did they get to where they are? What path did they follow? What kind of levers did they pull? What challenges did they face? What failures quite honestly did they have to overcome? It's an advance within their career. So, let's try to answer some of those questions because when Norbert introduced us, that's the first thing that I noticed looking at your background is you've had this really strong track record of setting yourself up for what seems to be really nice career moves. I'm not sure if all of those were intentional or not, and Norbert, feel free to chime in here because this is really your wheelhouse. But you started Kyle as a sales rep back in kind of the mid-2000s. Was that kind of your first entry in the medical device game?

Kyle Frye: Yeah, absolutely. So, it's been an awesome journey, but it's been one that I would say the failures have helped me to get to where I'm at today, but yeah, I started off as a sales rep. I started off carrying the bag in the medical world, running around the Midwest, much like you guys did, and living in Minneapolis, running around Iowa, Wisconsin, and having a nice four/five hour drives. Wish I would've had a podcast to listen to back then. But yeah, it started off just hitting the ground and going but I always had a vision. When going through college, I played college baseball. I was competitive. I knew that my vision was to run a company, didn't know how I was going to do it. What I was going to do, what would be the pathway there, but I knew that I was passionate about winning. I was passionate about being able to bring value to people and medical just spoke to me. 

So, I always had that vision to get into medical sales and had the opportunity to do so and started that journey. After going through that and tearing the bag, I knew I wanted to lead, and I don't think that leaders are born. I think leaders can develop leaders that can be made and I think you have to have a vision for yourself. You have to have a reason why you do something and to have in front of you what you want to do. I think if you have those blinders on to creating your path you're going to be successful. I started carrying the bag and then had the opportunity to manage with the company. I had had to move all the way to San Francisco, California, to have the opportunity to manage within the medical device company I was that at the time, which was BioMedics was the name of the company and had the opportunity to build a team. 

What a daunting task that was, not having really, truly building a team before having to build a team. I'll tell you, it's not always to build it in the image of lightness of yourself. I think, you know to build a team I learned a lot in hiring and interviewing and it was crazy the amount of experience you get, just by starting to run your first team. In doing so again, as I said again, learned a lot and built that and was able to take a team from the bottom ranks and voted up towards the top of the ranks, which is fantastic. I truly put that to a testament of building a team around you of people that are just better than you. Don't be shy to build a team of people that are more talented, more driven, and because they're going to ultimately build you up. So, I was able to do that. Go ahead.

Scott Nelson: Sorry to interrupt Kyle but I just think that's such an interesting point. If you don't mind, I'd love that to chime in with just a couple of questions. One- what really stands out to me, especially when you talked about your experience at BioMedics because of your first kind of step into more of a leadership position. You said you moved and so, that's something that I had to personally do in my Medtech career is to move to Minneapolis into a marketing capacity. So, I'd like to get your quick, hot take on how important that really was, your kind of flexibility in moving in order to take that next step in your career. Really the following question, let me let ask you that. I'd love to ask a follow-up question about building your team because it's something that I personally have struggled with, and would admit that really it's a challenge for me when it comes to managing and leading people in the way that you would normally do things yourself. So, I want to ask you a little bit about that. The move, the relocation, how important is that for people to consider for their careers when it comes to progress?

Kyle Frye: I think it's crucial. I think a move isn't forever. People that grew up in a particular part of the US and love being in that area. Be comfortable being uncomfortable. Be comfortable to make an uncomfortable decision to move, to go do something to further your career because, honestly, it always works out that you're going to be able to go back to where you want to go if that's truly what you want to do. You have to be willing to make those sorts of decisions and I think it can speed up your career path is what you want to do. If you're willing to move and relocate, I think it shows investment in the company and the company then is willing to invest in you. So, I think it was crucial. It was absolutely crucial because it allowed me to develop at a younger age and a younger tenure-ship and I think it's something we'll probably touch on a little bit, too. Time versus talent. It allows you to develop some of those tools earlier on if you're willing to relocate.

Norbert Juist: Right. Yeah. Actually, Scott touched upon the two things that I took away from what you had said at this point was number one you had a focus. When you were in college, you said, hey, I knew I wanted to be at a leadership level. So, that was the first takeaway I had from that second was Scott hit on exactly what I was going to ask you is the ability to move. But the other thing that I'd like to have you add in there as well from the perspective of a recruiter is I grew up with the mindset. My father worked for DuPont for 30-plus years, and I had the mindset you get with a company, you stick with them, your loyal to them and you look at your, what I would call almost a meteoric rise in leadership levels. You've moved between companies so as you continue to talk about your progression, talk about the thought process there as well, if you would, because I think a lot of people have that old my father's mindset ingrained in our culture and society that changing companies is bad.

Kyle Frye: Totally. I think as I was coming up the same thing applied. I mean, my family members were the same way, I mean, really dedicated to staying at a position. But I think they also we're kind of early. My parents would make decisions that would be better off with the family and better off for them and they weren't afraid to make a decision. One of them was I grew up moving around. I mean, I grew up. I was born in Texas, moved to San Francisco, moved to Virginia moved to Cincinnati, moved back to Virginia, and so I kind of moved around a lot as a child, and it was four career moves for my parents. But when I got in, I agree, when I talked to recruiters when I got into the medical world and then I was looking to grow in my leadership side, it was recruiters that would say, you know what, we're willing to take a chance.

I know that the higher manager is going to have an issue with you moving from one role to the next. To me, that was always being able to explain why I was making the move or why I would be willing to make that move. I do think it's kind of old philosophy and I think if there are sales reps listening to this podcast today I would say create your path and build your brand. Don't worry about the length of time. I certainly from my side, and it kind of brings up the time versus talent. I want to hire talent. I want new ideas. I want people that have a fresh perspective and that are willing to work hard. I think the one thing we should take is that you need to work hard. The grind overcompensates for me, for the experience. Talent is what can help drive companies to the top. Talent is what can help you surpass your competition. If you're number four in that space, that you can help jump to number three or number two through talent. Yeah, technology will help but talent will be there. For me I had to deal with that and even still, as I've moved up every time I've spoken with a recruiter about a potential position and/or the hiring manager, it's certainly come up to say, hey look, you've been in these roles for X period of time. You've moved up. Yes, but why not and why have you not stayed? I think you also have to understand your limitations. 

So, I think some companies, you only have so far you can go. If you want to continue to move up, you have to make a move. I think that loyalty to a company to me is you should show loyalty to people, not to a company and that may get some criticism. But I believe that you're loyal to the people that work for you. You're loyal to the people that you work for, and if you do so career opportunities can happen but if not, career opportunities can happen elsewhere. I mean, I think some of the opportunities that I've gotten Norbert and Scott have been because of the relationships that I've built along the way with people and building my brand to where people have called to bring me over. 

People have thought about me in roles and to suggest me to other people because I've built a brand. Then I've also realized that you need to build relationships and the days of loyalty to a company for 30 years. We're just not there anymore. So, don't be afraid to go after a job. If you've been a successful rep for two years and you want to manage within your company, be hungry, and go push yourself forward to go manage or put yourself in a position to call you Norbert and say, hey, look, I want to manage. You may have connections at other medical device companies that say, look, I've got and up and comer, someone that's going to be able to change the game for you and you should give him a look. A good hiring manager's going to pay attention to what the recruiters say and they're going to take a chance on somebody.

Scott Nelson: We got deep really quick, and this is really, really good stuff. I'm being serious when I say that. There are so many like insights just in hearing you download there Kyle that I wish that I had in my tool belt back when I first started in Medtech. A couple of them that really stand out just as follow-ups is that why and you kind of addressed it kind of under the guise of this time versus talent kind of context which I love. I love that phrase. I'm not sure if that's yours. If it's yours let's brand it the Kyle Frye. 

Kyle Frye: Let's brand it. Yes, I like it.

Scott Nelson: I love that a lot because it's so true. It's like at the end of the day, it's asking the why. So many of us have like you get stuck in this. I've got to be at this job for three years. I've got to be at this gig for four years or whatever. But if there's a why, if you can tell the why behind that move, I think that's supercritical. I mean, I experienced that. Early on in my Medtech career, I bounced around a bit. Some of those I would say we're kind of quasi-intentional, some of them were just unique opportunities. But I think what did kind of help me, I guess in some of those moves, considering that they were fairly short relatively speaking was I was able to effectively communicate the why, as to why I want to make this move. I think that helps a ton and then the other big thing that really stands out kind of hearing you explain some of those moves is just the openness, the flexibility, and being confident in where you intentionally want to go. 

Some of that, I think the point you made about relationships so crucial and one of my buddies as an example, he does a lot of different things, but he's a really, really good digital marketer especially within the consumer health space. He has this phrase where it's like relationships trump algorithms. I love that because it's so true and it sounds like you could have experienced the same thing in your career, by really focusing on people and relationships and not over-indexing on the job or the company but instead on people and relationships. That really serves you well. So, that's super cool to hear.

Kyle Frye: I think if you want to have goals and aspirations to move up within organizations or in your career, job title if you will or increased responsibility. I think it's really, really important that you build your brand internally and externally, but that you create followership, that you create people that are willing to come with you to your next job, and that will follow you blindly because they trust you. You build that trust by creating an atmosphere for people to be successful and that doesn't come without failures. But I truly believe some of the best leaders out there and some of the best presidents and CEOs are people that wherever they go, they're going to have a core group that's willing to follow them blindly regardless because they believe in what they do and they know that they're going to take a challenge that they are going to go into it with both feet and make the most of it and make it work. So, I think as I've learned and seen those things there's a lot of my what I would call mentors or people that I look up to. You see that followership which is pretty incredible.

Norbert Juist: So, help us understand you've worked for very large organizations like Siemens and now with SyntheticMR being a small European based company. Help us understand the idiosyncrasies may be of the different types of organizations and what you see as the pros and cons and maybe some of the challenges that that presents to you at SyntheticMR or possibly some of the benefits that it provides. 

Kyle Frye: Yeah, I think working for a big company like Siemens was fantastic and I think you learn different things in different areas. I've learned a ton at Siemens and have nothing but the highest respect for the organization. And I think when you work for a small company, you have the ability to make decisions. I think sometimes at larger organizations the decisions you made may be scrutinized by four or five different hierarchy levels before it's actually made, or if you make it. If it works great, somebody's going to try to tag along and take credit and if it doesn't, someone’s going to try to point that finger at you. But I think at a smaller organization you're ride or die. You make that decision and you roll with it and it either is going to be a great decision or it may be a bad one, but you can learn from it. 

The nimbleness of a small company is fantastic and I'll tell you at SyntheticMR our CEO, his name is Alrick and he's really allowed to say, Kyle, I want you to build this, I want you to grow this and really given the reins and you've been a huge support mechanism. Really, the entire team that's based in Sweden has really been a huge support mechanism. It's great when you have a company and you want to show growth and you want to go into growth mode. It's great when you really have the support of everybody there. I think that's one of the beauties of a smaller company is that when you make a decision, you almost make the decision together. We're going to branch out into the US. We want to build that market and people get behind and rally behind it and so it's a really cool piece with SyntheticMR from the small size of the company. 

Scott Nelson: I'd love to since you mentioned your CEO and kind of the environment that it sounds like he's trying to provide you in building out your team here in the US. I'd love to kind of circle back around kind of this concept of building out a team. But before we go there real quick, I'm going to hold that thought and ask you a few questions on the flip side of a startup because I think most people listening are like, oh Kyle, I love that idea of being more nimble, being able to make more decisions in a faster, more efficient manner, etc. What are some of the challenges that may be unexpected or not, that you've kind of seen thus far to go into a startup versus coming from a big strategic like Siemens?

Kyle Frye: Yeah, first, and foremost is when you have the infrastructure at a big company like Siemens. You have that internal support mechanism which is second to none. When you work for a large organization you have support every which where you go. I think that is huge. I think with a smaller company you have to be prepared in some instances to be on an island. You have to be prepared in some instances that you're the underdog. When you work for a small company, nobody knows your name. Nobody knows the brand. Nobody knows anything. So, you're creating that from scratch. To me, I love that. 

To me, it's about how do I control the process? How do I create new? How do I build the brand of the company? I'm given the keys to do that here which is fantastic and being the president of our US operations. You know, some of these larger companies, there are so many other mechanisms that are in place to help that you must follow to do so, which can be helpful. But I love being able to really have that entrepreneurial type of spirit. So, I think if people you know are willing to bet on themselves, a smaller startup type company is something that you should certainly push yourself to do because you really have your ability to put your stamp on something versus somebody else's.

Scott Nelson: That's great, Norbert, anything else to add before we can get to this topic of team building because that is something that I'd really love to get your opinion on Kyle?

Norbert Juist: No, I would like to hear that as well.

Scott Nelson: Okay, cool, and I think you guys at SyntheticMR really doing some interesting things with your tech especially as relates to AI. That's definitely something that we will want to make sure we cover kind of in the last 15 to 20 minutes here. But let's get on team building because as I mentioned earlier, this is something that I've personally struggled with. It's like you as any sort of competitive person, which by and large, people kind of in Medtech usually are. They're pretty competitive, pretty ambitious. I've struggled with having high expectations and then having the patience to lead people in the best way possible. Where they win, the team wins, et cetera and maybe that's just me. Maybe it's just my character flaws, very well could be the case, but really interested to hear your thoughts on that, Kyle, how you've done that? Obviously, you're an ambitious guy it sounds like competitive, successful. But you've been able to do this, you've been able to build out teams and experienced a lot of success along the way. So, can you speak to that idea of team building and really allowing for your team to function and move forward in the best possible manner?

Kyle Frye: Yeah, I think look, I made mistakes in hiring and I think anybody that's been a hiring manager and a leader of an organization would tell you that they've made mistakes and hired the wrong people. Maybe they weren't the wrong people but, you didn't lead them the right way or didn't enhance them in the right capacity. I've done the same as well. Again, one of the first management positions when I was with BioMedical, I hired a lot of people that I thought were like me. It's tough to manage like you, to manage yourself, if you will in many instances and it's not necessarily the best way to do it I think. You would talk and drive people how you would want to be driven but that's not necessarily the way to do it and so I think, in building the team, for me, it's very important to create a culture. 

So, people talk about culture, and I think culture starts at the top of the food chain but then culture can be managed and run within your microcosm. It's to create a culture of work hard, play hard for me is what has been successful in building that. So, trying to bring in people, yes, salespeople are individual contributors but at the end of the day, you work within a team right. So, people talk and communicate, and you want there to be a culture where work hard, play hard is important and winning is important, but also providing a product that an experience to the patients and the customers that allow for patient care to be supreme and number one. 

So, I would do that by trying to hire people that are going to challenge me. For me, I also want to hire some people that are okay to be in their position that they're in today, but then also mix that up with people that are very A-type personality, very driven, very motivated, want to be able to take the next steps and are always looking at how they can get better and what they do and to grow with what they do. So, you have a mix of a team and you don't manage anybody the same. It's a very easy thing to say and people are listening and saying yes, nobody should manage somebody the same way. But I'll tell you, as you see out there, there's a lot of people that manage every individual the same way. You've got to allow people to have the ability to spread their wings and fly and do what they need to do. 

So, you've got to put trust in that, and you don't learn that without a lot of deep conversations. You don't learn that without a lot of understanding. What makes people tick, and what makes you tick Scott may be different than what makes Norbert tick and what makes me tick. So, it's really being able to do that. But I think to me, I would say the most important thing in building a team for me is they need to know that you care. They need to know that you care about them as individuals, more so than you just care about what they do on a day to day basis. You need to have some humility to you. You need to have the ability, to be honest with them, and to have some humility to where... We all know, right, Scott, in companies that you're going to drive forward on a product. They need to know that they hey, were driving forward on this but something else, hey, look, I understand this may not be the best piece but we're going to push forward because this is the initiative for the company. But I have to have some humility to know that I understand that maybe something that we may want to change, and I hear you and I have that understanding and I have that humility. I think if you're just always hard-charging or always pushing towards a certain thing you're going to lose your team. I've never seen a team be successful without them buying into the person they're working for you. That's just kind of...

Scott Nelson:  It's so great. I find myself really nodding along as you're talking. Obviously doing this virtually so you can't see my reaction, but Norbert, I'm sure you have some thoughts. Some of the things that like really resonate with me Kyle hearing you explain that is there's really two things that stand out. One is humility. I mean, some of these lessons, we can talk about them within the context of business, but they are life lessons too. I mean, so having that level of humility, to say, like my thing or my way that I think is so important may not be the case, and I've got to let someone else spread their wings as you put it and run with something, even though there's some disagreement there. 

So, that really resonates with me and then the other one being kind of this concept of leaning in but yet letting go at the same time. Leaning in and driving hard but also letting go. I kind of think those two probably overlap a little bit. In order to let go, you've got to be kind of humble and show some humility, but at the same time, it's not like you're just carefree and you don't care. So, you're leaning in and letting go. It's like this paradigm in both business and in life that I think really resonates with me. How about you Norbert, what are your thoughts?

Norbert Juist: There's the Theodore Roosevelt quote, "Nobody cares how much you know until they know how much you care." So, you touched upon that. The other thing is you're talking about situational leadership and I think so many organizations preach situational leadership. So, money managers say I'm a situational leader, but I think Kyle, you touched upon the fact that so many people know it consciously but yet continue to manage every rep the way they are wired. 

That speaks to the other hot topic of the day is emotional intelligence and you know, I can't help but sit here and listen to you talk Kyle and think to myself man, you're young, but you're so mature. Young, relatively to your position, you know what I mean? I mean, it sounds like you've had so much personal growth and I think that is a huge key to any persons sales rep, management, etc. is that you have to constantly continue to strive for personal growth and continue to grow personally, emotionally to become that kind of leader. As Scott said, I'm sitting there nodding along with everything you're saying, and I just think it's really impressive.

Kyle Frye: Hey, I appreciate it. I think the biggest thing to me is I don't learn from my successes and I learned from my failures and you want to own the failures. Those are what can make anybody grow in what they do. Don't shy away from the failures. I think so many times, I was talking with somebody I used to work with the other day. They had a big loss that happened and they're sitting there trying to have postmortems and talk about all the reasons why they lost the deal. It's one of those things that's great. That's a process. That part of it is what did you learn from it that can make you better. Let's focus on how you can use that to the positive. It's not about why you lost it. It's about how you improve? How do you make this toe where it doesn't happen the next time? 

You're looking at it as a learning lesson because if you focus so much on the negative, it bottles you down and then for that next 60, 90, 120 whatever it is days you become worthless when you're in front of the customer. It's about failing but then quickly picking up and saying I'm now going to utilize this to my advantage. I think I have failed so much. I utilize it in baseball. Right now, we've got playoffs going on. If somebody bats 300 in baseball, they're the king. That means they failed 70% of the time and failed is no. I mean if you have a pipeline of 100 and we close 30 deals, you're the king or the queen as well. That's great but think about you've also failed a ton. Focus on I think more about the failure than I do the successes because that's what motivates me to get better.

Scott Nelson: It's straight stuff and to your point, Norbert. Sometimes it's so hard to like consciously understand it. But actually, to live that out, I think, is a different thing. I think Kyle to your point. Some of those learning lessons only come with real failures and saying I thought I knew this in my head, but it certainly wasn't translating, in terms of the way something unfolded, so to speak. I guess one of the points that I'm getting at is I think about this personally within my career prior to Joovv. One of the last gigs I had, one of the last roles I was in at Medtronic, I so badly wanted this next thing. It became such a distraction, and at the end of the day, I was almost exclusively focused on myself and what it meant for me in my career, my family, and all of this stuff that I thought was so important. 

But it was all focused on me and looking back, it's like if I would have just shown more humility, thought less about me, and more about the team and the initiatives and other people I probably would have gotten that gig maybe, probably higher likelihood, who knows in retrospect. But it's just some of those things that you think back and it's like that's a failure that sticks with me personally. So, anyway, good stuff, nonetheless. In the spirit of not talking about learning from our failures and not dwelling on them too much. 

I want to be cognizant of time. We've only got about 5 to 10 minutes left here and I'd love to get if you guys were cool with it. I'd love to kind of transition into what some of the tech that you're employing at SyntheticMR and really kind of under the topic of AI which is another kind of big thing, especially within Medtech and medical devices. AI is kind of this hot button thing. It's kind of a little bit abstract and hard to put your arms around. We're certainly exploring this within Joovv. But AI, what is that software AI? What does it mean to you Kyle and what is your general take on its impact within the Medtech, medical device space moving forward.

Kyle Frye: Yeah, I think AI is going to be the wave of the future. I think you see big organizations like Siemens and like GE healthcare really putting that at the forefront and it's true. It's how can software affect better patient outcomes vs hardware. When you think about hardware and the length of time it takes to come to the market and when you think of costs and bill of goods and all those things. Software is things that you can see happening now and so you see a big push for that. So, within Synthetic, we really have that in our quantitative data. The quantitative data to allow for a better patient outcome by way of a diagnosis and that continuum pair that goes, and the more items we can add to our software, the ability that we have to decrease the time it takes to diagnose so we can have more predictive analytics around it to build help in the diagnosis thus allowing for more time to treat a patient or allowing for more time in that continuum of care. 

So, you see that. If you look on LinkedIn, everybody's talking about AI. Well, really, it's an algorithm. It's software that's allowing current technology to grow based on whether that's utilization, whether you're doing 150 scans. You take all that information and that builds in to allow for a better algorithm to help t look at things, are allowed to have better image quality when you look at MR. It allows in robotics to allow for better techniques in what you do. Surgeons using something through AI can allow say if we look at something through this measure, you're going to be allowed to save time in your procedure and also potentially reduced recovery time for a patient. So, AI is something that is such a huge piece and it's something that really software-driven to where if you get it to be a certain way, you can implement it much quicker than that of hardware. 

I think that's where I grew up in the hardware world and that's where I come from is that it's about the piece that you hold whereas the AI is about that back end is about that data, which is where everything's going. I'm happy to work for a company that has that at the forefront, and I think that's something to keep in mind for people that are looking for their next piece that they go in the medical world, and Medtech world is something that has AI as part of their initiative. I think it's something that should be pretty attractive for individuals to look at

Scott Nelson: On that note, my follow-up question to that was do you think AI is overrated. So, it's probably safe to say within the context of what you guys are doing at SyntheticMR, it's probably not. Correct?

Kyle Frye: No. Yes, not over it. I think again anything that can help. Here's what I look at. To me, it's about the patient. How do you provide the best patient outcome and then how do you enable the position, the hospital, the tech, the user of this to be able to make sure that what they're doing, that they can get a decision, or do something with confidence. Because we have incredibly bright physicians, incredibly bright tech leaderships within hospitals and we have incredibly bright people, leaderships of companies. If you can allow the software to allow for better patient care, that's a better patient outcome. 

It's always going to be at the forefront and that's why you've seen robotics come into play. That's why you've seen all these different levels of imaging quality. It's all to provide better patient outcomes. If we can do that and AI can do that at a much less cost because you don't have all the hardware, it's going to stay there. It's going to only get bigger and grow more and more. I would imagine five years from now it'll be part of a normal conversation. So, we should probably go back to this podcast in five years, Scott, and listen to it and see how much AI has become a part of the medical world in five years.

Scott Nelson: Yeah, I know there's a pretty famous quote, I think it's by Marc Andreessen with Andreessen Horowitz, which is arguably one of the top venture capital firms in the world. He's had this kind of phrase that, "Software eats the world," and it's been around within the traditional kind of software space, tech software space, Silicon Valley Area but it's almost like we're finally starting to see it happen right within the conservative medical device community. Right where software is maybe beginning to eat the world, so to speak. But Norbert are you seeing the same trends from your work as well that AI is maybe as hot as it seems to be within the media landscape.

Norbert Juist: Well, I think it is getting integrated into every aspect of every company. Actually, Kyle came from a robotic company at one point, and understanding the SyntheticMR technology it's just a huge enhancement over what the old capital companies can provide. So, it's almost I hate to use the phrase no brainer, but I mean, it's so logical that you can't walk away from, you can't not expect to change our future.

Scott Nelson: It certainly seems to be the case. I think the reason I asked that question around is AI over-hyped because it is receiving a lot of attention and I think sometimes it's easy to see, wow has the pendulum swung too far within AI. But, to your point, Kyle, I mean, really, at the end of the day, this is all about software and algorithms. AI can be kind of this abstract thing. Maybe is it hard to understand? What needs is it really solving? At the end of the day, it's just software. It's software and algorithms that are allowing, whether it's in your case with SyntheticMR or other capacities allowing greater efficiency faster, better, maybe in some cases bigger but definitely faster and better modalities, therapies, etc. So, anything else to add Kyle there before we kind of get to the last three rapid-fire questions? 

Kyle Frye: No, no, no, no. I think I wanted just to touch on again just more for your listeners and we talked a little bit about the time versus talent and we talked about length of time and things, but I would just say if you believe in what you want to do, don't let someone tell you, you need to be at your job for X period of time or that you need to have these experiences in order to do it. Talent can trump that and push forward for that. I want people to know that and I want your listeners to know that as well is that the market wants talent and they're going to drive to find those people. Norbert, that's your job, right? To go find that talent and for you, I don't think you look now at the length of time somewhere, you look at the talent and what that person could potentially bring to the table.

I can tell you I have hired some of the most talented people that are now very high up in organizations. I can think of one guy I hired out in Spokane, Washington that sold coffee, didn't know the first thing about medical, and now he's an Area Vice President for a company doing extremely, extremely well. It was because he had the talent in the motivation to come in to push forward in medical and he kept pushing forward. So, let talent drive you, don't let time do that piece. Starting in on a soapbox, but I just want to make sure your listeners know that because it's so critical.

Scott Nelson: That's super good stuff and yet no problem, it's a good soapbox to stand on for sure. Norbert, any follow-up thoughts on Kyle's comment, considering especially this is your thing, man. This is your wheelhouse?

Norbert Juist: Well, you know the takeaway again, you know, I think I could create a whole bullet-pointed outline of takeaways, and it's being focused personal growth. It's not standing in line, but it's also not having to work for a certain organization for a certain period of time before you take that next step, get out of line. But the other thing I would say on the flip side of it is you know that the moves need to be strategic. I get so many people who are making their moves solely about money, solely about grass is greener syndrome. You look at Kyle's moves, they have all exactly what he said, then explainable. They have all made sense and so it's all about being strategic with those moves rather than just I'm making 180 and I want to make 200. So many people get caught up in that, that they get sidetracked and end up getting into a bad situation. So, I mean, wouldn't you agree with that Kyle? 

Kyle Frye: Totally. Yeah, you've got 1000% agrees. If this is what you want to do then you strategically put yourself in place to go to make that next move, Yeah, making a move because you had a bad year or making the move because you know you're at odds with your boss or things like that. Those aren't the strategic moves and frankly, those aren't the moves that I would say are moves of someone that wants to be a leader wants to mature in their career. I think those are not well thought out decisions. So, I agree. Be thoughtful. I mean, it's writing something down, writing your goal down of what you want to do, and being strategic about it. You've got to have a plan and that's really the people that want to continue to move up. There's always those individuals that want to stay where they're at too and that's great. But if you're making a move for money, you're kind of making the wrong move. You've got to make a strategic move based on where you want to be in your career.

Scott Nelson: Those are really good thoughts, and I want to get to these last three rapid-fire questions. But if you guys will allow me to step on a soapbox real quick. This stuff really hits home for me. because, your first point Kyle, about talent and talent trumps time. For me and this is not meant to be egotistical in any capacity at all. But I did not have a traditional medical device background when I first got out of the game and Norbert knows this really well. But the gigs I had previously were in sales, but I had more marketing chops than I did sales chops, especially when it comes to direct response marketing. I think me demonstrating that through the interview process and some of the kind of unique things and creative things that I did. Even during the interview process, I think, helped shine some light on maybe the potential talent that I had. 

So, I mean, your comment about not letting time be a constraint. I think really, really is important for people to consider. It certainly rings true for me. But on the flip side, I think you guys commenting about people making the wrong moves and I have definitely made some wrong moves in my career. In retrospect, looking back some of the times, I think if I would have just stayed put and showed some humility as we discussed before, I probably would have learned. I would have learned that much faster, just stayed in that rolled, showed some humility and probably more and better doors would have been open and I think that's just important for people that may be considering making a move for the wrong reasons. Maybe it's time to let go and show some humility. Stay put, grind a little bit, and maybe by demonstrating some of those different characteristics, maybe some different doors will open up for us. So anyway, that's my soapbox. I'll get off for a quick sec. 

Kyle Frye: I agree. I agree with you there. No, no, I totally agree with you, 1000% agree with what you're saying. 

For the rest of this interview transcript, check out the podcast link below.