Marco Benitez - The Wearable Data Problem: How Rook is Creating a Universal Language for Health Tech

Hey friends, welcome to the Future of Fitness, a top-rated fitness and wellness industry podcast for over five years and running. I'm your host, Eric Malzone, and I have the honor of talking to entrepreneurs, innovators, and cutting-edge technology experts within the extremely fast-paced industries of fitness, wellness, and health sciences. If you like the show, we'd love it if you took three minutes of your day to leave us a nice supporter review wherever you consume your podcast. If you're interested in staying up to date with the future of fitness, go to futurofitness.co to subscribe and get weekly summaries dropped into your inbox. Now onto the show. Spanning over 4,000 clients in 40 plus countries, Teamup has a vast global network with its roots right here in North America. Whether it's AI, new features, new partnerships, and new markets, TeamUp's sites are set on raising the bar of the industry to enable their customers to perform and operate at the highest level locally, nationally, and overseas. However, the most reliable APIs in the market, you can deliver premium customer experiences and scale your fittest enterprise with the strongest technological infrastructure our industry has to offer. Empower your staff, engage your members, and unlock your next chapter of growth with software designed for you. For a limited time, get a very generous 50% off your first month. To redeem the offer, simply contact the TeamUp sales team and use the promo code THEFUTURTEROFFFITS. Head to go teamup.com. That is G-O-T-E-A-M-U-P dot com. Hey friends, this is Eric Malzone, and this episode of The Future of Fitness is brought to you by the Podcast Collective. Since our inception in 2023, we have emerged as the fitness, health, and wellness industry's premier podcast placement agency. We're honored to work with many of the industry's most prominent technologists, thought leaders, startup founders, and business executives. Why? Because they recognize that being on podcasts is the most effective way to authentically connect with their specific target audiences and rapidly grow a lucrative professional network. From podcast placements to speaking engagements, go-to-market strategies to investor relations, and media kits to press releases, the podcast collective brings a level of professionalism and deep industry expertise that can only be achieved by spending decades in the trenches. If you are a startup founder, business executive, emerging thought leader, or simply a savvy operator that understands the power of authentic media, learn more at podcastcollective.io and feel free to book a 30-minute strategy session with yours truly. Traditional media is dying on the vine. Podcasts are rising quickly to fill the void. Do not miss the boat. That's podcastcollective.io. All right, we are live. Marco Benitas, welcome to the future of fitness, my friend.

Thank you so much, Eric. Very, very excited. It's like an honor being here. And also it's like having a talk with a good friend, one of my best friends.

So it's it's going to be very fun. Yeah, I appreciate it. And you know, truly, it's it's long overdue. I'm just gonna set the table for our conversation about you and Rook here by by saying, like, I think I first you guys first came on my radar right around 2020. I was working with Morpheus, Joel Jameson, and you know, at the time, obviously it was pre-pandemic or it was right in pandemic, everything was going to shit. It was it was not the best time for the fitness industry. We don't have to rehash that now, but it was it was bad timing. And you know, what Morpheus was doing was we're, you know, integrating, and what he still does, this is Joel Jameson, it was like integrating a bunch of wearable data for recovery purposes, right? And at the time, that was revolutionary, right? Pulling all wearable data into one app and making it usable. And you know, it was kind of a fun, cool feature. But now, you know, I'll reference a conversation on how a Dr. Glory Winter, she's the uh chief health officer at the YMCA, she she basically said that you know digital health data is gonna be the foundation upon which we build the next healthcare system. So it's gone from a cool feature to fundamentally changing how we look at healthcare and preventative health. You guys are right in the middle, you know, you're you're laying the plumbing, you're laying the groundwork for how this is all done. So super excited, having y'all and I think we're gonna learn a lot from this conversation with you today, Marco. So let's start with like this with as always. You know, give us a little bit of your background. How'd you be the co-founder and CEO of Rook and we'll we'll take it from you?

Yeah, sounds great. I mean, I'm very excited because again, data is something that it's revolution, it's revolution in different areas like AI and different types of things. Yeah, let's start from the beginning. I'm Marco Benítez, I am one of the co-founders and the CEO. I'm from Mexico, so it's like I'm very and but I live here in the US, in Naples, in the beautiful Naples. It's so good right now, by the way, the weather. But yeah, my background is I'm a biomedical engineer, I have a second degree in biomedics. In fact, it's my second startup. My first startup, I got an exit in 2006, so we were very, very young. I always said that on those days, startup was not even a worth, at least in Mexico. So here in the US, I agree it was a complete different space and momentum, but in Mexico was not the same thing. So only traditional companies on those days, and we built an algorithm for hospitals on those days. My previous co-founder now is again my co-founder, he's the CTO, he's my best friend. We know each other for the last, I don't know, 20 and ish years. So on those days were very interesting. Then we sold the company, was not a big exit, but that helps a lot, you know, to complete the studies and start to do something with the money and try to invest in different types of things. But again, on those days in uh 2006, the the world was completely different. After that, I traveled a little bit, I was in Europe in different places, and then start to working, starting to work in big pharma. Big pharma is a very interesting area, it's a very interesting industry. I really love the big pharma, even though that it's like a very enterprise, you know, very big and doing a lot of stuff. And I can tell you that not a lot of people like big pharma, but now that I work before in big pharma, I understand a lot of things. I was involved in clinical trials. Clinical trials between phase one and phase four in oncology, respiratory vaccines. And believe me, it's a huge opportunity for those patients that don't have any type of, you know, for an oncology, someone who has cancer, for example, it's like they don't have any chance. They don't have any drugs available for them. Only the the old therapeutic activities like chemio and all these types of things. But then Big Frama bring the opportunity to test a specific molecule drug that can help me to improve, you know, the life and you know, have a better at least release. So for me, it was very interesting. I was involved again in in data. I was involved in making, you know, help the principal investigators to the activities with the the trials. So was I really love that. I was between GSK, nobody's rush. In Russia, I was the head of medical affairs for Latin America and part of the US. So again, it was like helping them to make the landscaping for different molecules, which type of protocols has need to be implemented in Latin America or in the US in order to receive the FDA clearance. So again, a lot of learnings. One of the biggest ones is when you have a lot of information, you can create things. But secondly, when you have a lot of data, you can improve people's lives. So that's why we start to build Brooke. That's the beginning. That's how we because again, we have been in this industry, at least in the fitness, wellness, health, the last eight years. So we started before pandemic. And before pandemic, we have a different business model. We have like something like MyZone, which is this effort zone calorie burn in real time with uh with a wearable. We create also a wearable. We had before a heart rate monitor for chest and another one for the arm. And we create that. So what's very interesting because we bootstrap that company. Mainly we have the fitness clubs in Mexico and then in the south of the US. And what's very interesting because we learned a lot of stuff. We were the Mason in the cheapest, and uh let's say like cost effective. Let me change the word, cost effective version from Mason, and we had a lot of you know, fitness clubs in in Latin America, so a lot of fun. We understood a little bit how those the system were, a SaaS platform, these type of things. And then during the pandemic, as as you said before, the pandemic changed everything. At least 40, between 40 to 50 percent of the fitness clubs, at least in Latin America, in specific in Mexico. Mexico is the fourth, five country that have more fitness clubs in the whole world. So between the 40 and 50 percent, everyone close, we understand different types of things. First, we create something for the fitness and for the virtual fitness. So we create the same environment but virtually, and then also we start to ask a lot of questions with our clients like what type of things you want to improve, what type of things do you want to show? And we realize that everyone wants to use their own wearable, they have Apple Watches, they have polars, they have Garmin's, whoops, all of that. And we were like interesting. What if we start to integrate wearables in our own platform? And what's a big surprise, but we start to see a ramp up in the use of our technology in our platform. So that was very interesting, and we start to see patterns. By the way, starting to integrate wearables was very difficult. We saw the mess over there because every single time that we integrate a specific wearable, we saw a lot of you know updates, and we start to see that we have to use a lot of our time from our developers to just working in those integrations. And secondly, make sense of all these data because every single wearable gives you the information in a very different way. So standardize everything, it was a thing. So that's how we started. And then when we saw the opportunity, was in fact in was in LA. In LA in the health connected, what's the name?

Oh, the connected health and fitness.

Exactly. I always have problem with the name. But it's like uh we had that conversation with someone with an insurance company over there. An insurance company told us that was the CEO of this insured tech company. They told us, hey, I have a big problem. I have a fitness, not a fitness, we have a corporate wellness uh application and we want to integrate wearables. However, it's very difficult. We already invest a lot of our resources and we can't make it work. Can you integrate your platform in our own platform? And we said, interesting, that's another opportunity. Well, we have to bring and we have to create an API. And she was like, Okay, I can pay for that. Maybe we can do something. No kidding. Next month, no, not next week, they pay for to create this API, and that's how everything started. It was very funny, but everything was, you know, at the end of the day, everything is like an opportunity, and you have to be very open to hear, listen, and then implement and see how you start to see the market, you know, wearables penetrations, you start to see a lot of FDA clearance. The the Apple Watch during pandemics receive an FDA clearance. Not only Apple Watch, also other you know, wearables start to review and see how they can be like more a medical device because I think that there is no better source or there is no better, you know, device that can track to 24-7 hours. It's impressive that you can find a lot of information on those in these devices.

So, yeah, that's how how we Yeah, it's it's excuse me. The the entrepreneurial journey is is so interesting sometimes. You never rarely end up where you think you're gonna end up when you start, right? When you when you're envisioning like like you guys started like a which by the way, a hardware company, like wearable hardware, like that that's a very challenging business, man. Oh yeah. It's very challenging. So, you know, obviously, you know, transitioning to to software and APIs is uh a much more scalable model, but you know, has its own challenges. When you talk about like wearable data, and maybe, you know, I'm sure you guys work with a lot of different data. So you know, maybe if there's I don't know if you guys work with you know other biometrics like blood work or anything like that, but yeah, maybe you can paint the picture for all the type of data that's available. What would it take for it to be truly trusted and used in the healthcare industry as like this is real data that we're gonna you know bring into our medical professions and and and use with in a clinical sense? Like what is it, what is that gonna take or is it already happening?

It's happening right now, it's happening with in some industries. For example, clinical trials. In the clinical trials with with uh with Big Pharma, they are incorporating these wearables because it's it's the best way to track and also to decentralize the clinical trials because normally it works like the patient has to go to the to with the physician, with the doctor every month, for example, or every 15 days, because they are trying to track adverse events. Of course, they need to implement the drug, but also they are looking for adverse events. So basically, for example, in vaccines, they are looking for temperature. So there is a lot of wearables outside that already measure temperature, and they can see the patterns, they can see if there's like an elevation of the temperature. So it's it's the best way to start looking for adverse events. So it's for example, that industry already, when I was over there, they started to integrate it to incorporate wearables on those days, and we are talking about 10 years ago, so now they are using a little bit more. Also, they are starting to use for once the drug is outside for pharmacoviligilance. So there is a lot of industries, and I I can tell, cancer tell unfortunately, the names of those big companies that are reaching out to us because they are already using it. But it's like it's becoming very, very interested. Interesting. Also, the other thing is that patients are pushing the doctors to use the information from the wearable. I can hear a lot of doctors right now. Every single time I have a conversation in in an event, everyone is telling me, like, my patient is pushing me to use the data. And I can see a lot of patterns. When we were back in during the pandemics, we saw a lot of these patterns in the wearables data for temperature, for HRB, for different types of things. So we start to see this type of things with with the with the doctors. So I mean, it depends. I think we have different types of doctors. We have the conservative ones who are a little bit more old and they only trust in the information they have in front. In fact, some of them they don't trust even in medical devices. I mean, if if they don't trust in medical devices and they only trust in what they can see, because they are more heuristic. Heuristic is like all the things they learn during the whole during the life. So let's say today we have more doctors that are involved with these devices, with wearable devices. They believe in longevity, they believe in prevention rather than reaction. So this is, I think the market is changing a lot. So, and of course, they are receiving those wearables are receiving the FDA clearance. So that's that's really interesting. We aren't living in a very interesting moment.

Yeah. And so, you know, we I think everyone who listens to this podcast is probably very familiar with you know, most wearables, whether it be a whoop, an aura, an apple watch, garmin, fitbit. What other types of data are you seeing that's becoming that that's getting leveraged more within the healthcare and wellness space?

Yeah, I I have a lot of, for example, temperature, it's a very interesting one.

Okay.

Temperature has to also for your sleep, stress levels, when you have a specific, you know, problem, uh, if you are going to have flu, whatever, or common cold, you see the temperature changing, HRB, but also, you know, CGMs right now, it's something. CGMs, I think the last time we were talking about it in in where was it? In Los Angeles, I think.

Okay.

We were talking about the CGMs. And CGMs are becoming something very interesting because you can start seeing what happened every single time that you eat different types of you know, food, when you eat fruits, what happened when you eat meat, what happened when you eat bread. I don't know. So it's becoming something very interesting. So blood, I think glucose is becoming something more important. And it's very funny because, for example, right now TEXCOM invests, I don't remember how many millions of dollars in in Diora, for example. So you can start see, you can see this relationship, or even Avot with Lingo. Avot they have medical devices as CGMs, and they are approved to use by the FDA, whatever whatever. But also they have lingo. Lingo is more for the fitness and wellness industries. You know, patients and users are open, they are open the eyes, and they can use the data, they can see patterns, they can see everything. And it's very interesting because it's like ownership, they are taking ownership of their own health. So, yeah, I mean, again, temperature, blood pressure, glucose levels, those are very important. HR, HRV, all of them, when you see the whole picture, you can start to analyze everything.

So Yeah, it's really exciting. And I think, you know, I was just at a a luncheon yesterday with a bunch of people here in town, nobody really within the fitness industry. And so on, I shook someone's hand, they're like, Oh, is that a war ring? I'm like, Yeah, you know, a lot of conversations start that way. And we start talking about it. And, you know, just generally the the everyone has a million questions for me once they find out this is the industry I'm in. And people still just don't know what to do with the data, right? They they they don't know what to do with their own personalized data, and I think that's probably the biggest opportunity is everyone's getting fed data. Most people don't even know what HRV is, why their resting heart rate is important. You know, I don't even know. Can you get blood pressure through a through a wearable device?

Yes, there's one we're okay if they have one, yeah.

Yeah, interesting. So, like I guess the opportunity for our industry, you know, specific to fitness and wellness, as we kind of converge in health, is helping people make sense of it. You know, taking actionable results, actionable steps to improve their health based on the data. So and I know that's something you guys do too, is you you you bring the data in, you actually make it usable for the companies that you work with, and then you know, as a result, the end consumer as well. So give us an example, maybe paint a picture of us. Like, what is the opportunity for us within this industry to capture wearable data and make it usable for our clients and leverage that in like a business setting? And maybe I don't know if you have any examples of people you work with or people you're seeing doing it successfully, but yeah, what's what's the opportunity for us, Mark?

Yeah, definitely. It's a huge opportunity right now with all the information that the the wearables can give you. And definitely there is like a real problem that no one knows what to do with the data. For example, the Apple Watch. When you go directly to your health kit and you see all the information, it's very difficult to make sense of all this information. It's like uh it's overwhelming, exactly. It's like uh, where do I start? Where how can I see the patterns? How you know, you have to be very involved and you have to take a lot of ownership and you have to read and you have to understand that you have to, you know, just to make a correlation between your HR, HRB, temperature, blood pressures, you know, sleep data, stress levels. So it's too many, too many things in one place. I think, for example, Whoop and the auras and this Fitbit also, they are trying to do something with the data. I think that we are not yet over there because every single one has their own health kit, uh, sorry, a health score and different you know, scores, and it's like a very difficult to understand exactly who has the which one is the source of truth, right? So I have the the whoop, I have. The aura, I have the Apple Watch, I have everything, and I can tell you that the information I have everything. We have the happy ring, we have the ultra-human, we have we have everything, and we love it, by the way. Every single one has a specific thing, and a specific biomarker, which is completely different from the other one, and that's where Rook enters in the equation. We are the ones who help those industries that want to leverage all the information because every single end user has different wearables, and it's perfect. It's okay. Even like freaks like me that have four wearables in the same in their own body. So I have the eighth leap, by the way, in my room. So again, every single one has different information and it's very different. So try to normalize and standardize everything for those companies that want to use this data. It's very important. I think they are the ones who can do more with the information. For example, remote patient monitoring. I think that specific area is very interesting for me. And because it's it's on my, you know, my background, it's in with clinical trials and this type and this industry, it's becoming more interesting. But there's a huge opportunity over there to start to make sense of all this information. What we do and we are trying to help at this moment, it's mainly extract all the data, squeeze the information from the wearable, start, try to standardize, normalize, no matter which wearable you are using. And we deliver clean and structured data, but we are very granular data. We deliver the small information, you know, the heart, the beat of your heart every second. So we try to give those companies all this information, but very standardized. So they can really can put like graphics or health scores or different types of things that can help to improve people's lives with an AI, could be or whatever. In fact, I think also we are trying to do the same thing. We have a lot of algorithms in our own cloud that can help to make some insights to those clients. So, but still, we have we are in that momentum that there is a huge opportunity to make sense, you know, all this data because it's too much thing at the same time. It's like an open AI. It took like, I don't know, 10-15 years to be where we are today, and also it's not so accurate, but the information every single time that they bring more updates and versions, it's more accurate. It depends how which type of data you are putting in each agent or in chat or whatever. Everything is around the data. If you have clean and structured data, you can do a lot of stuff. A lot. When I was working in in big pharma, that was my approach and my one of the things that I learned. They have very good data inside the company, they have very good data in the clinical trials. They are very careful the way they extract the data from each patient. Because if they have clean data, the results are going to be really great. And we are in that momentum. So I'm trying, I I learned before to do that. I'm I'm implementing the same thing with my company. It's trying to bring clean data, structured data. So now you can use it for a specific purpose.

Awesome. Artificial intelligence, it's hard to get out of a conversation without talking about it. But you know, I I think the promise or the vision has always been that wearable data comes in, health data comes in, all these different sources, right? You you can get maybe twice a year you get a blood panel done, that data comes in. Now, you know, through AI, like you can get super personalized suggestions, meal plans, like time to go to sleep, hydration, like all these different things. Like you get as granular, as personalized as you want. And that's kind of the vision. And then it also becomes very inexpensive, right? Like at scale, this can become very, very inexpensive. And everyone can have you know their own private doctor essentially. So when you when you think about a world like that, is it science fiction? Do you think it's it's coming? Is it here now? Can we do it now? Or do you what do you think it'll take to get to that that level of of personalization?

I think we are moving towards that. I think that it's we are not yet there. Also because we are not asking the right questions. Because it's like, for example, you have whoop right now, they have an AI integrated. No one knows what to ask over there. It's like you know what to do with it to be healthy. It's do your workouts, sleep well. Maybe something that changes when you are drinking, for example, alcohol. If you see you drink three hours before you go to sleep, maybe you will see less problems in the night or you will be less stressed during night. But these type of things also help you to improve your your all the things that you are doing all days. So I think that we are not yet in that momentum, that we can, you know, use AI for our personal health. We need the doctors, and I think we always will need them. Just AI is a tool, that's the important thing. It's a tool. We are not changing the doctor, we are not changing your psychiatrist, even though that I don't know if you tried that, but it's like uh I the other day I was playing with the open AI with ChatGPT, and I I put him like a specific agent to be my psychologist. It's really interesting. It's real, it's really interesting, the answers. Really, believe me, and and and give me very good advice, very good ones. So, I mean, it's a tool, definitely it's a real good tool, but we are not yet over there, also because people before everyone was using Google, right? So I have a specific symptom, and I was, yeah, and before everyone was in Google, like you know, typing, hey, I have this symptom. What do I have? You know, and everyone was scared and different types of things. But now with the AI, I think now we can go a little bit more specific. I not encourage anyone to use it for that purpose. However, you can start navigating. And the other day, I heard a very good, you know, answer to a doctor, and someone asked, like, hey, are you not scared now that people are asking more to the Chat GPT rather than go to your doctors? And I really love, and the answer was no, I'm super happy about it because now people is taking ownership, and that changed the equation. And that's something that an a doctor answered for that specific question. A very good doctor, he's part of the he's a national doctor in the hospital of Mayo Clinic or whatever. So was very I really love the the answer. And I think the answer for everything is like the ownership of the patient on the end user.

It'll be interesting too. That always makes me think about how the medical, the education in the medical profession may change to focus on basic health data. Like how do they start to leverage it and use it in their practice and who will be the pioneers in that space, right? And I think a lot of them are think of it like a Gary Brecka or something like that, like these people who are, you know, kind of out on the floor. Maybe they're not traditionally educated through the medical profession, but but they're doing unique things. So yeah, it's it's pretty fascinating. When you look at like within our industry, fitness and wellness, like who is leveraging wearable data well? I mean, is there any particular use cases, maybe someone you guys work with or someone, you know, that you you think we should emulate, we could look at? Like, what where would you point us on that?

I mean, there is a lot of companies in the fitness. Well, not a lot, but everyone is starting to use it for different purposes, like, for example, eGim.

Today's episode of The Future of Fitness is proudly brought to you by EGI, a vertically integrated market leader in the fitness and health industry with an incredible vision, transforming healthcare from repair to prevention. I've been a huge fan of EGM's team and technology for years now, and I can tell you that their commitment to innovation is unparalleled within our industry. Here's what makes EGM so special. They partner with companies to improve employee health by providing access to fitness and health facilities. Then they equip those facilities with cutting-edge smart gym equipment and digital solutions. The benefits are clear. Companies see reduced healthcare costs and increased productivity, while fitness facilities benefit from a growing engaged membership base. What really excites me is EGM's smart fitness ecosystem. By combining their strength equipment with AI-powered software and their corporate wellness platform Wellpass, they are leading the shift to proactive preventative health. This isn't just AI for show. This is the real deal. If you're interested in learning more about EGM and how they're transforming healthcare through exercise, visit eGim.com. That is EGYM.com.

EGM, I think they are doing really great. I think they are trying to incorporate all these tools, wearables in their own in the hardware devices and bring you different types of things. I think at some point everyone is going to tell us exactly how many repetitions with what weight and all these types of things that can help us to improve the way you are doing the workouts. And we have we have clients. I can't unfortunately tell everyone because we have a disclosure with some of them and they are very big, but they are doing very well. They are trying to help, they have like agents, they have like virtual coaches that give you a lot of insights. Like I'm using one specific one, and they are our clients, and they they have like an agent. So they have a this coach that since the beginning knows how many, how many workouts you do during the whole, during the week, during the year. And on top of that, they give you like, hey, let's add, you know, real feedback. I I love the feedback that they give me because they analyze my weight, my height, and everything. And then they give me like, hey, you have to do more aerobic aerobic exercises because you are doing a lot of only weight things. And if you want to burn your fat, you have to do this type of exercises. So very interesting one. I really love what they are doing. They raise, I don't know how many millions during, I think was a couple of years ago. One year ago, I don't remember, but they are doing very well great. We are working with a lot of those companies that are trying to bring something to the end user, which is very important. And you know, fitness industry is very, very complicated because the retention is something that it's not easy, and not all the people have the discipline to continue doing, you know, exercise. So get bored or whatever, right? So it's I think it's very competitive at the end of the day, and I think AI can help to bring more this type of engagement with the end user and bring more personalized experience for nutrition, for exercise, workouts, different types of things. I can see more of these type of things, and I think today the big differentiator also is like, yes, you can add this type of tools like us and bring all these insights and create AI and different types of things, but also it's like a there, there is like a division right now with a standard and premium. The premium I think is going to be a little bit more with someone really helping you, you know, a person helping you to improve your experience. So I think the premium right now is going to be with these AI tools. That's my only advice for everyone who is starting. Like, freemium is going to be in the normal, the new thing, and every the standard is going to be the AI with virtual coach with all this information from wearables, and the premium one is going to be with someone who is really a person.

So basically you're saying is like coaching will be the premium. Yes. Right? Like that human touch. And I think that's you've heard so many people say it in different ways, but you know, AI is not gonna replace the trainer or the coach or the practitioner. Coaches, trainers, practitioners that use AI will replace ones that don't. And I think that's like something like I can't say I I want to say it again so people hear me when I say it, but like really, if you're not um it was kind of like when wearable data first came out. I I was I was a gym owner of a coach, it's probably I don't know, 2012, maybe like Fitbits are starting to come out, and like West Polar, I think Polar West. Yeah, polar or whatever. Like people were starting to wear, and people, I every once in a while I get a question, hey, what do I do with like what does my resting heart rate mean? Or like what's HRV or what do I do with this, right? And you know, that's when I decided, like, well, I just gotta get a couple wearables and I gotta start to understand what all this is, and and maybe doing a little bit of, you know, let's when I got you know Joel Jameson's first chest strap, a bio strap, and started testing HRV and and you know, getting a feel for it. And I think that's if you're in the industry right now, you should have Chat GPT or Claude or whatever it is you want, have it open on your desktop and just start using it. Like play around with it, you know, 10, 15 minutes a day. Just like like I just planned my uh itinerary to a trip to Japan. It was the best. It's my personal assistant. Like there's so many things you can use it for, and maybe like I, you know, give it your your blood work and see what it comes, you know, spits out with that. So there's a lot of different things I think people need to be doing. One of the things I I want to cover with you, it's not the sexiest topic for most people, but it's so critically important, and that's data privacy. Yes. And maybe you can explain to me, like, I'm seven years old, Marco. Like, why is it something we should be concerned about? Why is it such a tricky thing? And you know, this is coming off the heels of 23andMe you know, filing for chapter 11. Everyone's worried about well, what's gonna happen to all my genetic data that they have? Like, what are they gonna sell it off? Is it gonna be private? Is it protected? So yeah, maybe it's an insight as like, why is data privacy so big when it comes to this particular area? And what should we know?

Data privacy, it's a really, really, and I I would love to go deep over there, but maybe we need like another hour just for you know this this topic because it's really interesting. I love it. In fact, I really love it, and that's why we have a very strong structure for that. My background again, it's biomedical, always in in the healthcare space with big pharma and data private privacy, it's one of the most important things. So when I was in in big pharma, the only way to extract data from patients and different people was through the informed consent, which is like what we have today in data privacy, right? So it's like agreements that you can share the data. But the most important thing is since since before there was HIPAA and GDPR and all these type of things, which is the way how everything is implemented. Also the way how you share an email, how do you track the data, how do you all keep the data, how much time do you keep the data, you have to de-identify, anonymize all this information. So anyone you know knows that it's Eric Miles who has, I don't know how many years, and you know, you have to de-identify everything. So it's it's very interesting right now how things are evolving because before it was more in the healthcare space, now it's more in the fitness and wellness, everything that you share, you are the owner. The end user definitely is the owner of this data, no questions around it. However, you as an end user, if you want to share your data with your insurance company, with your doctor, with with whatever you want, you can do it. So we are the ones who also can help to do it in a very secure way because we implemented so many, so many doors, locks, and different types of things that can help that, which is very it's it's quite important. So something that I learned here in the US is there's a lot of scam. I'm not sure how they take all my data. I receive emails or mail, you know, we with USPS. I receive mails, a lot of mails receiving from Marco Benitez and bringing me like scam around my house and my insurance. I don't know how many things at the same time. Why receive calls? So it's like a what's going on here? That type of things never happened to me in Mexico. For me, it wasn't very impactful. Because, yeah, believe me, there was it's a scam. There is a scam. There's other ways to scam over there in Mexico. Receive calls that someone could have a kidnap, kidnap your your family, whatever, but it's like a real scam, right? So it's it's different, different scam. But for me, it was very I was impressed how how everyone can, you know, have your your data. Or even you know that like was the last year, I think was a leak in the social security's numbers. I was one, well, my kids were one of those, you know, that received this letter saying that the social security was we have a leak over there. Well, they have a leak, the government has a leak over there. So it's like impressive, it's really impressive, and you have to be very careful where do you put your data, with whom, why, what type of things you are receiving. You know, I I can tell you, there's a lot of layers when we are talking about the data, and where do you share all this information? So that's why we are investing a lot, believe me. Believe me when I'm saying that we are investing at least the 40 to 60 percent of all the investments that we have are just specific for data. And every single time we have an outdate from a specific client that it's working with insurance, they are very surprised that because of the type of company that we are, we have this type of you know processes in place.

Yeah, it's it's really interesting. And it's you know what I like, even just as a podcaster, I've noticed over the last six months, and this is where like AI and data plus scamming comes into play. Like, I get I get pitched two to four times a day for guests, and it's the same freaking formula. They must just like take a transcript, right, fit it into AI, pump out a couple emails, and then like they just blast it out to to people. And it's like, you know, that's one of the reasons why what we do with podcast collective is is meaningful to me because I'm tired of that shit. I don't want I know other podcasters are tired of it, so we want to make sure that we're actually connecting with with other podcasters, you know, an authentic way. But it's it's only gonna get worse. And uh I don't know what to do about it. It's like email used to be, I used to go to my email inbox, you know, myself 20 years ago, right? And it would be like, oh, there'd be like five emails and it would be from people I know. Now it's like gremlins, like if I feed it after midnight, like I wake up in the morning and it's just it's just it's exploded, and I don't know anybody. I don't know how I got on these lists, and I keep on subscribing, but it just keeps coming back, and it's just anyway. Paint me a picture here, Marco. So we're in 2025. Let's give it a nice time frame of 2030. When you start to like look at the future of where our healthcare, personalized healthcare can go if we properly integrate wearable data and and uh maybe layer in some artificial intelligence and democratize it a little bit. Where do you think this is this is gonna go? What does that look like in five years?

Oh man, for me it's very exciting. Every single time a new wearable medical device is it's outside, I'm the first one trying to prove or learn something around it. But I I can see uh uh a future in five years from now or 10 years from now where everyone will have a wearable and can track everything. Everything, everything. And probably in 20 years, we can start seeing, you know, how can we, you know, to these Alzheimer problems, the mentor, the mentor, everything around with mental mental health, you know, obesity, diabetes, at least to know which ones who has more percentage to acquire this type of diseases. So to have this type of diseases. So I think everyone is going to that direction. I we can see that with the drugs too, with new drugs that are coming, are more specific. It's not so broad like before. Before we have a specific pill, and the pill can help you in different types of things at the same time. Right now, it's very specific. So I can see a feature, and it's not so far that we can start looking for this type of specific drugs, specific areas, or even like, hey, I have this problem, and then with all this AI, machine learning, different types of things, we'll give you the specific drug that you need with the dozzage, with everything for you. I can see real this world. And this is something that my the previous companies that I work, they start to do that. They bought a very big company just to do that. So they are recollecting all this information from medical devices, clinical trials, hospitals trying to analyze everything, and they are trying to bring this specific, you know, very personalized, customized drugs depending on your condition. So I can see that. And we are not so far. Incredible.

Last question, buddy, that I always ask is you know, as an industry, if people are listening, what do you need help with? You know, if people are going to reach out to you, obviously, if they want to engage in your services and learn more about rook, they can go to try tryrook.io, is that right? But specifically, like, you know, partnerships, investments. Um, like what are you guys looking for right now? What's important?

Yeah, today, very important. It's like anyone who needs the these type of tools, the this API, and we can help with all the problem, leverage you with all the wearables. Please reach out. Definitely, that's the best way anyone, if anyone can help us. Definitely, we are the solution for you, and we we can help you with all the data. Please reach out to us to the webpage with tryrook.io, or we are in LinkedIn as rook. You can reach me directly and reach out to me directly to Marco Benitez. I'm in different channels, LinkedIn, you know, Instagram, whatever you want, you can you can find me or Marco at trerook.

Awesome, man. Well, yeah, you guys have an amazing reputation in the market. You guys are doing really good work, and I think anyone who gets to know you and Jonas and the team, you know, you guys are so likable. Everyone's cheering for you. So thank you. Great work, man. Keep it up. And uh yeah, ladies and gentlemen, Marco Beninis. Thank you so much. Hey, wait, don't leave yet. This is your host, Eric Malzone, and I hope you enjoyed this episode of Future of Feminists. If you did, I'm gonna ask you to do three simple things. It takes under five minutes and it goes such a long way. We really appreciate it. Number one, please subscribe to our show wherever you listen to it, iTunes, Spotify, Castbox, whatever it may be. Number two, please leave us a favorable review. Number three, share. Put it on social media, talk about it to your friends, send it in a text message, whatever it may be. Please share this episode because we put a lot of work into it. We want to make sure that as many people are getting value out of it as possible. Lastly, if you'd like to learn more, get in touch with me, simply go to the futureoffitness.co. You can subscribe to our newsletter there, or you can simply get in touch with me as I love to hear from our listeners. So thank you so much. This is Eric Malzone, and this is the future of fitness. Have a great day.