Do you want to know when you're going to die? And for the most part, it's a philosophical conversation. Right, nobody gets to see the big the calendar that's written somewhere in the ether that's going to show us our exact time of death. But there is a new app that says, hey, you know what, give us a little health information, give us a little lifestyle information, and we're going to be able to give you a pretty good
ballpark of when you're going to die. And joining me now, the founder and CEO of death Clock, Brent Franzon, joins me to talk about just that. First of all, Brent, how did you get into the death business?
So I was I've been intacked my whole career, but I was very focused on helping people change their habits to improve their health. And we realized that if we were going to predict, if we use that information to predict when somebody was going to die, it made them more likely to change their behavior, and so we went We just went full into the death prediction business with death Clock.
So, I mean everybody has seen it. Well, I'm fifty six, so now I have I've lived long enough to have those friends who have had some kind of medical incident, right, maybe they had a minor heart attack, maybe they had some kind of brush with cancer that they came out on the other side. But boy, that'll snap them too. They will get out there. You see them out there working out and eat and write and changing their lives.
So is using that mentality sort of what you're doing here, instead of saying, wait till you have a heart attack, Let's show you how likely you are to have a heart attack.
Yeah, exactly.
I mean the heart attack that happens at sixty started at thirty five or forty. And so our goal is to shake people and say, look, we're all going to die, but there is a question of when. And so we predict two things. We ask you twenty nine questions, and we predict the day we think you're going to die based on your current health, but we also predict the day we think you're going to die based on optimal health.
As our goal to try to get you there, but to kind of let people know, look, there's a choice here, and if you want more time, the things you do today they matter.
Brett. One of the things we talk about on this show a lot because it's important to me is like, I hate it when people say, oh, I want to live to be one hundred, as if somehow living to be one hundred if you've spend the last ten years decrepit in a wheelchair, not being able to enjoy any activities of life is somehow desirable.
So we talk about health span a lot.
In health span meaning I want to live to be one hundred as long as I'm healthy and active and my brain is still there, that's I think a better conversation. How does that fit into with what you guys are doing?
Yeah, so you really think of a lifespan as health span plus care span equals lifespan and in the context of preventative health. So you know, I'm in my mid forties, you're in your mid fifties. If we start making the changes today to be healthier, to improve our biomarkers and all the different things we can use to measure our health, we're going to be extending our health span.
The care span.
Tends to be extended by the by our healthcare system. So our healthcare system has done a really good job of figuring out ways to get us all to help us all live longer later in life. When the quality is really low, but if you start earlier, you tend to be extending your health span. And you're right, it matters, matters much more than lifespan.
So how did you guys come up with this algorithm? How did you come up with twenty nine questions? And how certain are you that your information is good?
So we have a clinical board, so it's a set of doctors that weighs in on everything that we do. And we looked at what are the factors that matter most, so sleep, diet, exercise, family history, the age of your grandparents, blood pressure, things like that, and we train the algorithm on people who we have a lot of public information
about and have died. To be very accurate in predicting death, we stuck that we trained an AI on twelve hundred longevity studies, So all of that sits on top of the AI and all of the actuarial tables that are used by life insurance companies and other things. So we do predict an exact day, and we don't think the exact day is right, but we think directionally we're very accurate in terms of the life expectancy itself.
I mean, you guys don't have like the inside Track to the Grim Reaper. It's like this is not written in stone. What I think is interesting is that, honestly, the death clock is sort of an entry level way to get people to say, you, guys offer a whole range of products on the backside about this, What are those products about?
So in a post AI world, what we're really trying to do is and we're trying to build this platform, but everybody should be aware of this for themselves. Is you want to have all of your health data in one place. Number one. Number two is you want to have an AI that's trained on that data that can help you understand the reality of your health and make recommendations. Number two and then number three you want to go execute on those changes and try to be.
Healthier and live longer.
So we're trying to basically have an AI private doctor that'll help you live longer. You can do this on your own, but that's our goal. We want to try to help you help people live live ten years longer, not just scare you and predict predict when you're going to die.
I want to ask you a philosophical question, Brent, because you're a tech guy and the stuff that I'm seeing come out of the tech bros who are trying to live forever. Okay, you've got Brian whatever his name is, who is literally trying to live forever. And it feels like for whatever reason, And I'm not saying this is what you guys are doing, Okay, I'm really asking you if you fall into this category, it's like, we're all going to die. You started out by saying we're all
going to die. Why is this new focus? Why does it seem to be so intense in such a way that people really do seem to be trying to live forever.
Well, I think I think there's two things going on. I think one is we've all realized that our healthcare system is a sick care system and it's not good at helping us prevent getting diseases in the first place, and so I think cats out.
Of the bag on that.
And then two, I disagree with what people are doing. I think there's a lot of people saying, hey, maybe we can live to one hundred and fifty, or maybe we're never going to die. I totally disagree with that. I would put myself in the camp of trying to get what's called the incremental decade.
There are things we know we can.
Do to get a ten, you know, ten extra good years, and I want to help people go do those things.
But I don't want any.
Part of bleeding edge experimental things that we might be doing or inferring and communicating that maybe we're not going to die.
I think that's reckless.
So who comes up or how did you guys develop those back end things that we just mentioned.
So it's a combination of just training an AI on all of the top research around longevity and then reviewing.
That with a clinical board.
So on our clinical board, we've got an oncologist, an endocrinologist, cardiologist, a neurologist, and then a primary care doc. And so it's training an AI and then reviewing it with people who are actually at the top of their field and practicing medicine.
What sent you down this path personally?
You said you've always been invested in technology that helps people live a better life. Was there a specific thing that made you go this is going to be my area of concentration.
Yeah, you know, I got misdiagnosed as bipolar when I was a teenager.
There's nothing wrong with bipolar. I'm just I'm not bipolar, and I.
Got put on an antipsychotic to help me sleep, and I shouldn't have been on it, and I've had problems sleeping since, And so I've long been suspicious of the healthcare system. I think our healthcare system tends to go too quickly to pills and procedures and isn't very good at helping us with the basics. I was just a very rebellious team who is hormonal, and I was getting a little wild. I should have never been on that
medication in the first place. So I've realized I'm on my own and I want to build a tool that helps me manage my own health. And then I'm a technologist, I might as well, you know, we might as well make it available others well.
I put a link on the blog to both the Android app Store and the Apple App Store if you guys want to download it. By the way, Brian, I did it. Our brandt. I did it, and it said, as of right now, changing nothing. I'm going to live to be eighty nine, which I feel like is a pretty good run. But obviously I'm not doing everything perfect. As long as I'm good and healthy and keep doing the right things, I'm hoping that the death clock is a little short in terms of what we are, but
I very much appreciate your time. It's a super interesting concept, it really really is. And I'm guessing that for someone who goes to your app and downloads it and ask the questions and gets a number that is far closer to where they are right now than they realize this is going to be in a And I'm also guessing that someone who finds himself in that situation is open to making those changes because you're not going to download the app unless you realize, hm, I could probably be
doing something better. Is that kind of what you guys find?
Yeah, it's I mean, it's not scary.
We hear people are concerned about it on the front end, and we never hear that on the back end, so we've tried to lighten it up.
But yeah, we're all going to die.
It's good knowing where you might end up so you can proactively make the decision.
Is that long enough? Is eighty nine long enough for you?
If it is okay, fine, if you want to live longer, then you know you got to get on that now.
Well, in fifty six it seems long enough. But talk to me when I'm eighty five.
Okay, We'll have a follow up interview when I'm eighty five. Brent will make it happen, Brent Franson, his app is death Clock. Super interesting and hats off to you for just trying to help people live a happier, healthier life and a longer life if they if they really want to.
Bran, I appreciate your time today.
Thank you. Mandy