The School of Greatness - 563 Achieve the Unthinkable with Naveen Jain

Episode Date: November 15, 2017

"People who are great at anything they do don't do it for the money. The money is just a byproduct of achieving greatness. Have you ever looked up at the moon and wondered what it's like to walk on its surface? It's fascinating to think of going there on vacation and seeing the world from a new perspective - literally. The only reason why it hasn't happened yet is that people haven't found the monetary value in it. Most people think of the moon as a big deserted rock without much purpose, not to mention how expensive and hard it is to get there. You'd sound like a crazy dreamer to say that that is going to change anytime soon. Our guest today not only sees the moon in a different light, but he has found a way to get us there very soon.

This is episode number 563 with Naveen Jain. Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, a former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur. And each week we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin. Christopher Reeve said, so many of our dreams at first seem impossible, then they seem improbable, and then when we summon the will, they soon become inevitable. I'm so pumped for our interview today. It's with Naveen Jain, who is an entrepreneur and philanthropist driven to solve the world's biggest challenges through innovation. A man who knows no limits. Naveen pushes big dreams into

action, spurring massive cultural and technological change. His audacious vision and magnetic personality continually inspires others to follow what feels impossible. The founder of Moon Express, World Innovation Institute, iGnome, TalentWise, Intellius, and Infospace, Naveen has seen beyond the current business and technological landscape, creating companiesen has seen beyond the current business and technological landscape, creating companies that make a true impact. He blows my mind because he's literally taking people to the moon. That's his vision. And in today's interview, we talk about where a scarcity

mindset comes from within all of us. Also, why problems are an opportunity for someone to build a business. Why there is no one universal diet that works for everyone. Also, how to enroll people in your big vision when it takes a lot of resources, a lot of money, and a lot of support. And how to make people thirsty for knowledge. This one may inspire you to do things a little bit bigger than you've ever thought before. So if you're not ready to take massive action and take your ideas to the next level, then make sure you do not listen because this will inspire you to get out of your seat and start thinking bigger than you've ever thought in your life. Make sure to take a screenshot of this right now, post it on Instagram stories or Twitter or Facebook. It's lewishouse.com slash 563. Again, tag me at Lewis House when you're listening so we can

connect on social media. All right, let's dive into this. Start thinking bigger, taking bigger actions and making a massive impact with the one, the only Naveen Jain. Welcome back, everyone, to the School of Greatness podcast. We have Navin Jain in the house. My man, good to see you, brother. Good to see you, brother. I'm very glad you're here. We met recently at an event in Toronto, which was a lot of fun. It was really the first time I got to be aware of more of what you do. I'd seen your face and I'd heard your name before, but I really didn't know what you did. And then when I heard you're trying to go to the moon, I was like,

who is this guy? Let me learn more. So you've got a business called Moon Express, right? Moonshot. Moon Express or Moonshot? Moon Express. Moon Express.

And you're literally taking people to the moon. Is this right? Yeah. So our goal really is to create a multi-planetary society because after all,

we're all living in the same spacecraft called planet Earth. And whether we destroy it ourselves or we get hit by some large asteroid we'll all become dinosaurs and that's definitely something we don't want to do right what gave you the inspiration to try to go to the moon though yeah so i really think a lot of the inspiration came from just growing up with a very humble background in india we didn't have a lot of resources. We didn't have days. We didn't have food to eat. We didn't have place to stay. And really looking up at the moon, it was something about it that you could see and feel for a second that you are the richest man in the world because

the richest man in the world cannot be looking at it any differently than you are. And it felt like you could be anybody you wanted to be. And to me, the going to the moon really was symbolic for me about what individuals and a small group of people are capable of doing. So for me, going to the moon is an amazing business. So if I could rephrase John F. Kennedy, it will sound something like, we chose to go to the moon, not because it's easy, because it's a great business. And what makes it a great business is there are 16 quadrillion worth of minerals on the moon. What's really amazing about it, it is a planet, a celestial body that is almost like our eighth continent of the planet Earth. And once we can learn to live on the moon, and that is so close, and very similar types of problems as living on the Mars, we can next look at the whole space as our own backyard.

We could be living on Europa and Titan and Mars and anywhere else. And to me, another way of looking at it is, what is it that people fight over? We fight over land, we fight over people fight over we fight over land we fight over water and we fight over energy and if you look up there's an abundance of land out there there's an abundance of water and all the comets and all the asteroids and you start to look and there's abundance of energy our solar system even the planet earth even in our own galaxy, we are a tiny pale blue dot in our own galaxy. And there are trillions of these galaxies in this universe. And there could be trillions of universes in this multiverse. So where is the scarcity? The scarcity comes in our mind because

we believe it's not possible. So we believe the only place we can live is this planet. And that's why everything that we value today, because they are scarce. But what if we can create abundance of food? We can create abundance of land. We can create abundance of energy. And we can create abundance of everything that we value. And people still say, well, humans are just greedy. It doesn't matter how much they have. They will want more.

And then I remind them, we are really not that bad people. Because when you look at air and you look at oxygen, we have learned to live together. We can all be in the same room and we never said, hey, Luis, you're taking my oxygen. Move away. We don't because we inherently believe it is an abundance. And that mindset, if it's an abundance, we don't value it and we don't fight over it. And there's no doubt in my mind that we have access to these exponential technologies that can create these abundance of food, abundance of water. And we can talk about it a little bit more.

Wow. When was the first idea for you that you wanted to go to the moon was it when you were a kid or you're like that'd be interesting one day yeah it you know that was to me just the germination of an idea that what if that was possible right and then you obviously the man landed on the moon in 69 and that showed it was really possible at that point we did that for political reasons some scientific but it has never been explored from the perspective of let's go somewhere where no one has gone before and let's stay somewhere where no one has stayed before right so idea is not just to go there just to visit what if that simply became the next australia where we just lived there and we had the same type of connection that we have on other continents.

And moon just simply became another continent. And we'll have the same internet or let's call the intergalactic net. Right, right. You've got to educate me. How would someone live on the moon? So again, you know. You have to create a new atmosphere or we'll all be living in bubbles or what? So again, you know.

You have to create a new atmosphere or we'll all be living in bubbles or what? These are all of the things that every problem is simply an opportunity for someone to start thinking about creating a business around it, right? So you say, well, how can we live there? There is a tremendous amount of radiation, right? So radiation is a big problem. And at the same time, you start to look at the nature.

The nature is an amazing innovator. So you find these bacterial organisms that are growing in the radioactive nuclear waste. You talk about radiation, that's the radiation, baby, right? And that radiation, what nature has figured out, not only how to survive in that radiation, it has figured out how to use the radiation as a source of energy. So now imagine if we can take the genetic material from these bacteria and use the CRIS as a source of energy. So now imagine if we can take the genetic material from these bacteria and use the CRISPR technology, which is genetic editing technology,

for us as humans, and we suddenly, our genetic material is also the same as these bacteria, so that not only we are resistant from the radiation, in the evening, we'll just be simply holding the hand with our honey and say, honey, do you want to go out and take a walk and get some radiation right no longer going out for dinner anymore right and that's to me just a thinking about the possibilities right now seven years ago when i

started saying we are going to go to the moon and we're going to mine for the resources and people say that's a freaking crazy idea and when someone tells you it's a crazy idea, that means you're on the right path. Because dreams so big that people think you're absolutely crazy. And when you tell them what you're going to do, and if they don't think it's a crazy idea, you're not thinking big enough. So think big.

And the reason is, when someone tells you it is impossible, it becomes impossible for them, not for you. And the more people who tell you it's impossible that means more people have taken themselves out of the solution and now the field is yours to on yours only right and that's just a different way of looking at it so when i look at as an entrepreneur i don't focus on what the world is i focus on what the world can be. So don't look at the glass being half empty or half full. You focus on saying, is this glass worth filling? Do I want to fill this glass or not? Because if I do, does it really matter if it's half empty or half full? And if I don't,

do I really care if it's half empty or half full, right? And that to me is really starting to think about every time you see something and you say what is possible what if and imagine are the two amazing words in the english dictionary so when i say lois imagine what happens is you all your preconceptions go away and you're willing to open to anything that i'm willing to say for at least the next 30 seconds of imagining. And then you may come back and say, oh, that will never work. But at least you're open for that time. So, for example, when I was finishing up my moon project,

just to let you know, we are the only company in the universe right now that has a permission to leave Earth orbit and land on the moon. So even though everybody believes that Elon and Richard and Jeff, they're all going to the space, they actually so far, the only thing they're doing is in the suborbital space. They're still in the Earth orbit. There's no private company that has ever received a permission

to leave the Earth orbit. And we are the only company. In fact, in 2015, President Obama signed into the law, it's called Space Resource Act, that gives us the ownership of everything that we bring back. We have an ownership of that. Wow. So clarity of that law.

Crazy. Crazy, isn't it? As I was finishing this project, we are launching a mission to the moon in six months. So imagine, it's not like someday. Six months from now. Six months from now. You're launching a mission. Launching a mission to the moon. How many people are going? Now, this is the first one. Obviously, the first one is going to be a robotic mission, right? But the thing is, when we started the project, people thought it was going to be a billion-dollar venture, right?

I was convinced that given how fast the cost of these sensors and technologies coming down, it will be probably 100 million or less. It turns out I was, I thought I was being 10x optimistic. It turns out actually I was 10x pessimistic. The cost is under $10 million. No way. Yeah, yeah. To send a rocket to the moon. Including the cost of the rocket.

Wow. The whole lander and the rocket, the combined thing is going to cost under $10 million, right? And it's going to come back too? No. So first mission is one-way mission. And our second mission is going to be a return mission. But the amazing thing is, imagine what you're just talking to me. You're starting to believe the mission of landing on the moon is already done. You're talking about, when are you coming back? What are you going to bring back? And what is stuff out there? You're no longer even

questioning that I'm going to land on the moon and that is the human mindset well it's already been done too so i believe that hey if it's been done before of course it can be done again right except it has never been done by a private company and you know at the private company you can't mobilize 20 million people to go out and call on the nation to say here here's $100 billion, go do it. How much did it cost for us to go to the moon before? The cost in 1960 was $25 billion. Oh my gosh. And in today's dollars, that would be $100 billion, right?

And so that would have been priced prohibitive and from a business perspective would not have made sense, right? Right. But now it costs the $10 billion, it starts to make sense, right? So bringing this stuff back, and obviously there is platinum grade material.

There is helium-3. Helium-3 is an amazingly clean energy fuel resource. That means you can use a small quantity of helium-3 in a fusion reactor, and you can power this planet for generations. No way. Yeah, yeah. And here's the thing.

People say fusion reactor. Did you say fusion? Don. And here's the thing. People say fusion reactor. Did you say fusion? Don't you know that we don't have a fusion reactor right now? And I say, I do. But I don't have helium-3 either, right? But the point is in the next 10 years, when we are able to scale and start to bring helium-3, the technology will be there for fusion.

And when these guys have a fusion reactor, they're going to be looking around and say, does anybody have helium-3? And that's when you say, yep, got some. So my point is, as an entrepreneur, your job is not to be where the puck is. You focus on where the puck is going to be. And so you start to look at where the technology is headed,

and you start to plan for that. And even if you just brought the moon rocks back, and you and I talked about that, right? That itself could completely disrupt the diamond industry, right? Sure, yeah, yeah. How much could you charge for that? Imagine, diamonds are neither rare, and nor were they ever a symbol of love and romance

until in 50s, when the De Beers basically marketed them as a symbol of love and romance, right? Moon has been a symbol of love and romance for centuries. All we have to do is when we bring the moon rocks, we make diamonds as commodity. And the way you do that is simply to change the way people look at them. Everyone gives someone a diamond. If you love her enough, you give her the moon. Don't promise her the moon, you give her the moon.

And the girl gets up and says, Louis, you're giving me a diamond, you're trying to buy me. I thought you loved me, because if you loved me, you would have given me the moon. Right? And then honeymoon really becomes

about taking your honey to the moon. If you take honey to Hawaii, there'll be honey Hawaii, not honeymoon. Right, right, right. When are you guys going to start doing trips with anyone? If I just wanted to buy a flight to the moon, when would that be? My gut check is in the next 10 years,

I'm hoping the tickets will be so cheap, like $10,000 ticket to the moon. And that's really when it starts to become very affordable for most people, at least, to be able to say, you know, it's a little more expensive than going to New York, but no more than going a first class ticket to say Australia. Yeah. Wow.

That'd be crazy. And how long do you think they'll stay for? You go for like a day, come back or what would it be? Some people are going to stay for there. There's no doubt in my mind, the next 20 years, there's going to be a baby born on the moon. No way. Really. Wow.

And then parents are going to be looking at this baby and saying, look up, we come from that planet. That's crazy. Right? Wouldn't that be crazy? Right? And that's just the beginning of the craziness. And if you continue to expand on the thought process of what entrepreneurs are capable

of doing, right? So my feeling is that exponential technology is growing at such a pace that's allowing you and I and small group of people to do things that could only be done by the large companies and the nation states and as you and I were discussing earlier now imagine what is it that the nation states do they provide education health care right going, defense, all the stuff that used to be done by the government sector. What if the entrepreneurs can do this and do that better? So as you know, I started my another company called YOM. And the goal there is really simple. What if we can create a world where chronic illness is a matter of choice?

What if illness actually become optional? And people say, that's a freaking crazy idea. And you know you're onto something. So about a year ago when I said, we are going to make illness optional. That was a crazy idea at that time. And a year later, now we have not only the technology, but the people who are actually doing it, right? So a crazy idea that a day before a breakthrough is a crazy idea,

the day after it's an obvious idea, right? So we have now, you know, head of the Watson research came and joined us to do the artificial intelligence to look at what's happening inside your body. Dr. Messier joined me to essentially understand how to interpret all this data. Dr. Yusevich, who was working at Los Alamos National Lab, it turns out they were working on a technology for biodefense work for national security. And the whole purpose was to know what is going on inside the human body. So we took that technology, got exclusive license, put the team together, and now we

launched the company where we are able to analyze everything in detail inside your body. Wow. And I'm going to tell you some of the things that, you know, not being a rocket scientist or not being a doctor, right? Not being a rocket scientist or not being a doctor, right? It still doesn't stop you from pushing the envelope and changing the way people do things. So, for example, the reason we were able to do a launch to the moon for so cheap is because we were thinking more like a software guys. Don't build a big rocket.

It's not to build a smaller rocket and build another thing on top of that that can go off and take to the moon just like the software programmers do they build modules right and the same thing happened in the medicine everybody is focused on therapeutics you have Alzheimer how do I build a drug for that you have Parkinson's

how do I cure it as opposed to how do I prevent it that's exactly right and it turns out I know I read a lot Louis I read a lot of science journals. In the last five years, every single scientific journal is showing that we as humans are mostly microbial. So what surprised me as coming from outside was I was told- We're mostly what? Mostly microbes in our gut. Microbes, got it.

So what happens is I was told, you are your genes. Your genetics are your destiny. If your father had this, your mother had this, you're more likely to have it. More likely to have it. But it turns out it was so wrong. Our human DNA only produces 19,000 genes.

The organisms in our gut produce anywhere between 5 million to 10 million genes so think about that we're 99 percent microbes microbial genes less than one percent human genes right the research is so clear that every single chronic disease that we know of parkinson's starts in your gut not in your brain and you don't have to take my word for it. Just Google Parkinson's and microbiome, you'll see it. Alzheimer, autism, depression, anxiety, your behavior control, obesity, diabetes type 1, type 2, autoimmune diseases, all of your gut issues, every one of them have one thing in common, chronic inflammation, which is essentially caused by the imbalance of microbiome.

So your microbiome, which is really these organisms in our gut, the nature created us as a symbiotic relationship with all other organisms. We can't do all the work ourselves. So they created this ecosystem. They digest our food. In turn, they release the nutrients. So when we eat fiber, our human body cannot digest fiber.

It goes to these microbes. They eat the fiber and they release short-chain fatty acids. And that is what our body needs. They release the vitamins. They release all these things that we need. So if we don't feed them, they get unhappy. And then they affect the vitamins they release all these things that we need so if you don't feed them they get unhappy and then they affect the rest of your body they cause cancer disease exactly and what happens is when your guests are not at ease we become uneasy your guests

though you said yeah yeah those are your guests are uneasy the host host becomes uneasy. And unease is called dis-ease, which is disease, right? So you're basically, disease is simply about your body not being at ease, right? So what if you can understand what they're doing? What if we could tell you exactly what food and diet you need and nutrition you need and the supplements you need and just for you? And what I learned was was there's no such thing

as universal healthy diet. What's healthy for you is not healthy for me. What's healthy for me today may not be healthy for me three months from now. So you have to constantly change and adapt because what happens is when you change your diet, your body changes and your body adapts to it, right? Then you have to change it again otherwise you always have imbalance you keep feeding only one part of organisms other starts to die so you have to constantly balance them and this balance of the ecosystem is what keeps our body healthy right so imagine if we could do that right so we launched that company what three months ago now and we have thousands of people

who are already benefiting from it so to me it's just so satisfying that not coming from the medicine coming from outside the world able to rethink it and able to do something that could change the lives of billions of people around the world so what is the success success is not about how much money you have in the bank. Success is simply about how many lives you've been able to impact positively. And you know, I tell our children all the time is that, you know, the best way you will ever know

that you have become successful is the day you become humble. Because if you have an iota of arrogance left in you, that you're still trying to prove something to someone or yourself, that means you're not successful. Success comes from when you don't have to tell someone you know who i am right you just be yourself right and you go out and do things that you care about and what is it that you're passionate about what is it that you're willing to die for and then you live for it what if you had everything in life what would you? And if you do that today, and that's how you constantly focus and find your passion to do things

that can change the world. When did you start to think this way? Because you said you grew up in India. When did you leave India? And were you always struggling financially growing up? Or how did it happen? So I came to the United States 35 years ago and I had $5 in my pocket, barely spoke the language.

And God has been very, very kind to us. I mean, any which way you look at it, every single day, I feel we are so blessed. This is my seventh company, and knock on wood, everything that I have done so far has been really, really successful. And to me, I am more focused on making a improvement in people's lives because the people who helped me become who i am don't need my help and that is one of the worst feeling you can have is when you can't pay back the debt you have you you know there are people who helped you you did not do it yourself and you let you ask them what can i do for you and you say nothing not and that's the worst feeling you get is that you have all this

obligation to the society what would you do so if you can't pay back you pay forward and to me that is really became who i am is constantly focused on what can I do that will change the lives of billions of people around the world. It's not about money anymore. And that's something that I try to tell a lot of young people who focus so much on making money, that making money is like having an orgasm. If you focus on it, you'll never get it.

So if you just enjoy the process and do the things that you love, you'll automatically get what you're looking for. But just don't focus on it. Yeah, yeah. And when did you start thinking this way, though? Did you always have this mindset of anything is possible, that I can create anything I want, even when people say I'm crazy?

Or did you start to see results in something, and you're like, okay, maybe I can do this? So it's really, I cannot recall a singular moment that says, you know, this is where the change really happened. Or was there someone that like inspired you this way, who thought differently? I think what happens is as you start to gradually start to go in that direction, you start to surround yourself with the people who think similarly. So to me, really is you become an average of the 10 people that you surround yourself with. And if you are a

negative person, you tend to surround yourself with negative people, right? And the minute you start to think everything is possible, I can achieve any dream I set out to do. Amazing things happen. The people around you start to change, right? And that's what I tell people. The first thing you need to do is get rid of everyone around you who laughs at your ambition and say, oh, you can't do that. Louis, you are nobody. Just look at yourself.

How can you possibly think you could be reaching millions of people someday and you could tell them what you think? And they would have said, you are crazy, Louis. And you told them, that's okay. Right, right, yeah. Now you've started seven them, that's okay. Right, right, yeah. Now you've started seven companies, is that what you said?

Seven, yeah. Seven companies. And I'm assuming raised hundreds of millions with all these companies combined, right? You've raised a lot. I don't raise a lot of money. So far, really, every company other than this last company, I rarely raise the money.

It's really been a company became profitable very very early in the strapped it yeah and we bootstrap even this one we bootstrap the company ourselves but the goal was so massive that if we could do this and we really could find a way where people never have to be sick imagine what will happen the whole health healthcare system will just implode. And what's really happening, Louis, is that any system, once it becomes big, it becomes like an organism, where the Darwinian theory starts to take hold. The survival of the system is what really matters, and the purpose goes out the window, right? So if you look at healthcare system, pharmaceutical companies really have become parasites on humanity. They don't really want you to be well. They won't make money.

They won't make money. In fact, one of the CEO of the pharmaceutical company said, the best drug that we develop are the drugs that people have to take rest of their lives. So think about that mindset. If I can keep them sick is the best drug I develop. That's not good. That's not good. And all they do is they treat the symptom, they suppress the symptom.

And when they suppress one symptom, they cause four more. So now they have four more drugs to sell. Oh my gosh. So whole system has become so corrupt. And that's the reason when I started this, I said, we're just not going to sell anything because people should be able to just find the food what they eat. And if we just tell them what they they need the whole idea of these pharmaceutical companies the doctors and the hospitals and insurance company let this system implode and then we'll

save the trillions of dollars we're spending on this health care the chronic diseases will just go away i am absolutely a firm believer. We actually can eliminate chronic diseases because they all happen. By the way, they all happened the last 100 years. People who still live on the farm don't have allergies. They don't have autoimmune diseases. They don't get Alzheimer's because they are one with the nature.

They get all exposure to all of the microbes from the chicken and the cow. And the more hygienic we're becoming, the more things we're living in the urban areas, more genetically modified foods we are eating. All of those things are killing the ecosystem inside us. We're taking antibiotics. Antibiotics is like throwing a nuclear bomb because you saw a bad guy. It obviously gets the bad guy, but it gets everyone.

And when you kill the ecosystem, what happens? Suddenly your body cannot digest things. You suddenly are sick. So every time you take antibiotics, you literally are destroying your body. And then you have to rebuild that body again, right? And so idea is what if we can prevent all of these chronic diseases from obesity to diabetes

to depression to anxiety i mean these are you know anybody who had a family member suffer through them or even cancer so there was a research that came out a couple of days ago from cleveland clinic where they found the breast cancer is caused by the microbes and the cure for cancer whether it's chemotherapy or immunotherapy whether it works or does not work can be predicted by simply looking at your gut. So the key is, remember your mother said probably, Louis, listen to your gut. Do the gut check. She was the scientist, right?

These are the things. When you are anxious, you see the butterfly in your stomach. You don't see a butterfly in your head, right? When you're depressed, what do you do? You eat. Everything goes back to the gut. The point is, I believe that sooner or later, just like we changed our mind,

but we used to believe the earth is the center and everything revolves around earth until we learn better. I believe in the next five, 10 years, we're going to realize that gut is our primary brain and it pulls the string on the puppet that's on the top of our shoulder. And it just simply follows. Your gut decides what you crave when you are hungry, when you're full, and your behavior. So behavior is, by the way, what's most surprising thing is controlled by the the organisms in our gut these microbes control our behavior and people say how can that possibly be and i remind them look you

know when dogs get infected with rabies what the first thing they start to do they become aggressive and they bite so these things change the behavior with dog becomes starting to bite a good dog becomes a bad dog right so these microbes are the ones, and the way the mechanism works is, the recent research showed that, even in our brain, the prefrontal cortex, they take over the communication mechanism called microRNA,

and they start to manipulate the microRNA that changes the genetic expressions. So our microbes in our gut are controlling in our brain, and the communication is happening back and forth using the vagus nerve. And it uses the neurotransmitter like cortisol and serotonin to go back and forth. Most people may not realize 70% of serotonin is produced in our gut, not in our brain. So when you talk about feeling good, it's all in your gut. Wow.

I'm fascinated by how you enroll people in your vision. These crazy ideas that people think are crazy, but then later they're like, oh yeah, that makes so much sense. How do you get these overwhelmingly unrealistic concepts and infect these ideas in other people to say, come with me? Whether invest with me, Obama signed an act with me, whatever it is, how do you enroll? Whether invest with me, Bama sign an act with me, whatever it is, how do you enroll? First thing really you have to do is believe in yourself that it can be done. And people have to believe that with or without them, it's going to get done. It's happening. It's happening. This train is leaving the station. So I, you know, when I started the first time and, you know, on the Moon Express, I said, people, every time in your life, you have had a chance to watch the history being made. How often in your lifetime you get a chance to make the history? Come join me and we can make the history

together. Or you can watch on the sideline while we make the history and you watch. Right? And that's- No one wants to miss out. Nobody wants to miss that out. And another thing that I found really interesting is the bigger and the crazier the idea, the easier it is to execute. Yeah. And here's the thing.

So for example, if I tell someone, hey, I'm going to build an iPhone app that's going to be able to help you find a roommate. People say, good idea, great idea. Go do it, have fun with it. When I tell them, I'm going to start something that's going to make illness find a roommate. People say, good idea, great idea, go do it, have fun with it. When I tell them, I'm going to start something that's going to make illness as an option. You start to get the best and the brightest

from around the world because now you have created a big magnet. It attracts the people who want to make this their legacy. They want to work on the hard problem. They want to solve the problem that changes the way people live their lives, right? And when I did that, I was telling you the head of the IBM Watson Research called and said, I can build an AI for you. I've been doing it for 20 years. Just get me the data from inside the body and I can get the AI for you. Dr. Messier, PhD

in microbiology, MD. She's working for Craig Venter, who was in the cover of Time Magazine with the title, The Man Who Played God, making the people live forever. She calls me and says, what's the point of living longer? People are going to be sick. I love your vision. I'm going to quit my job and join you, right? Dr. Yusevich found us because he said,

I have the technology that looks inside your body. We did it for the national defense work. I think we can get that for you, right? They say, I have the technology that looks inside your body. We did it for the national defense work. I think we can get that for you. The point was that single goal of what is possible allowed me to bring these people together. And when you have these people together, what happens? Every single venture capital wants to be investing in that because you have this amazing team, all-star team with a vision that could change the way people live their life.

What if I'm right? This is not a $10 billion company. It's not a $100 billion company. Even sky is not the limit, right? The moon is not the limit. Even moon is the limit. Galaxy is not the limit. Even universe is not the limit, right?

Because it can be anything. It changes the way people live their lives but the best thing is you did something that changed the lives of billions of people around the world and that is the thing that people want to be nobody joins the company saying oh i will make a lot of money people do it because they say i will i'll have serious impact and i remind people unlike the olden days, people did good or people did well. That means people started nonprofit or people started for profit.

I really think the world had changed where people like you, Lewis, are changing the way people live. They're saying is you can be great, but you don't have to be mean. You can build amazing, great companies, not at the backs of people. And I really believe if you want to do the small good in the world, you create a non-profit, right? If you do want to do a large good in the world, you create for profit because

profit is the engine that drives you to scale, So never, ever think that what you're doing, if it makes money, somehow you are letting yourself down. You say, if I'm ever going to be doing great stuff in the world, it needs to have an engine for profitability. Yeah, resources. Resources. Make more money, right? Yeah, exactly.

Even if you're the richest man in the world, and if you give away your money, it's only a matter of time before you run out of money. It's not generating new money. That's right. It's not generating resources. That's right. You're constantly asking for more.

That's right. And that's the thing. Doing good and doing well is really the right philosophy, and that's the reason I love what you do. You allow people to be great. You allow them to create amazing ventures. They do great things, but doing it in the right way. Never sacrificing your integrity and values to get something. Knowing that what you have inside you is the most precious thing you have,

your integrity. Never, ever give that up. Yeah, that's great, man. That's great, I appreciate that. Wow, and so what we talked last time, a few months ago, you said you're working on solving the world's biggest problems, essentially, right? And that's what excites you. Things that seem like they can't be done, you want to work on them.

You're working on going to the moon, you're working on eliminating illness, preventing illness. Is there other stuff you have in the future that you also want to work on? Or do you have too many ideas that you can't execute the few that are ahead of you that are already seeming impossible? Well, so interesting thing is I spent seven years of my life on Moon Express. And now we are so close to the launch, I want to look at my next moonshot. So I did this healthcare. And I'm already starting to see the light

at the end of the tunnel, that in the next four, five years, we will have this problem under control. Once we get about a million people using Viome, I don't know, Viome, that's like V- Viome, Viome, right? You know, as an Indian, I cannot pronounce that word V. So I always like, is it Viome? It's Viome, Viome, that's like V-I-O-M. Viome, right? You know, as an Indian, I cannot pronounce that word. So I'm always like, is it Viome?

It's Viome, Viome, whatever, right? But yeah, it's V-I-O-M-E, right? So as I think we can solve that problem in the next five years, and then I want to really solve the problem of education. Because I think the problem in the healthcare and the problem on education are very, very similar. Just like our healthcare system was designed to treat infectious diseases in acute care. And now we are suffering from chronic diseases.

So it was designed for episodic being sick. And now we are always sick, the chronic diseases. And that's why the system is falling apart. And the irony here is the cure for the infection antibiotics is largely responsible for many of the chronic diseases, right? If you look at the school system, same problem. It was designed to teach you skills. Today in the world of exponential technologies, skills are becoming obsolete every five to seven years. That means by the time you graduate, the skill that you learn may no longer be needed.

And that really creates this chronic unemployment. So now the school system, it's not that it's broken. It's not that it's not doing what it was supposed to do. It's doing exactly what it was supposed to do. But our needs today are very different than they were there. So you have to reimagine that education system. How do you solve that? And that means now it's not about teaching you skills anymore because you have to assume today we have all the information in our hand using iPhone.

That means we know every fact. I don't need to remember when Abraham Lincoln was born. I simply remember the Google words. I need to Google the keyword to find that information. My memory no longer needs to be in my brain. I can outsource it on the cloud. That means all the phone numbers, all the information that I care about is already on the cloud.

Even our decision-making, like when I'm driving, I no longer use my brain. Google Maps tells me turn left. I turn left. It says make right, make right. I don't think about it anymore, right? That means now our brain is constantly outsourcing the system. So our education system now has to say,

okay, if you have all this information, how do you connect the dots? How do you solve the problem using interdisciplinary things? How do you learn to learn? How do you remain intellectually curious as we were talking about the things earlier we as humans the day we stop learning is the day we die and we become a zombie and there are a lot of people in you know you and i know who are just zombies they're not learning anything they're coasting through life and i see a lot of these people

whether it's a teacher or an entrepreneur, they get so frustrated. They say, I can only take you to the water. I cannot make you drink. And I keep reminding them. I say, step back for a second. What if you made them thirsty? And if you made them thirsty, you don't have to ever worry about them finding the water and them drinking. How do you make them thirsty?

Intellectual curiosity. If you start to show them what if this was possible, what if you could do this, what if, how would you go about doing that? And that intellectual curiosity will drive them to constantly find the water, which is the knowledge. And constantly drinking is to constantly solve the problem because now they have the knowledge. And that's is to constantly solve the problem because now they have the knowledge.

And that's the reason when I came to this healthcare, I was saying, I was reading and I start to look at the stuff and every research is showing how microbiome is responsible for this, how microbiome is responsible for that. And those are all connecting dots until I said, I think we can make illness optional. Same thing in education. What if there was no need for teachers?

What if there was no need for a school system? Just like what we're doing in healthcare. We're saying, why do you need the doctor? Why do you need the hospitals? When you can empower each individual to become the CEO of their own health. What if I told you, Louis, what is inside your

body is not a black box. This is what's happening inside your body. And here's what you can do about it. And you simply sign up and look at the information and you know what to do about it. You no longer have to be treated like a black box or helpless victim. So when you call somebody a patient, or they're really calling them a victim, and you're saying, now listen to me, right? The sage on the stage is telling you what to do. And the sage on the stage doesn't even know the basic science. So when I go to the doctors and I talk about the microbes, they're not even taught in the medical school. I was interviewing a couple of doctors to join us for the team.

I said, do you know how our gut works? Do you know these microbes? Do you know this thing called leaky gut? Do you know something about the difference between DNA and RNA? He said, they don't teach us that in medical school. So think about that for a second. You're getting advice from someone who is at least 10 to 15 years behind the science. So science is coming up now.

It's going to be 15 or 20 years before they teach them in medical school. And by the time you talk to a doctor who's gone through internship and practicing for a few years, you're 25 years behind where the science is, right? And that's the reason why I believe time has come for us to go directly science to consumers.

And that's the reason we started a company to bypass this whole health care system what if we did the same thing for education system what if we can go to every child and say whatever you want to learn you can get that on a smartphone in the way you learn so today's school system is backward a teacher teaches a certain way we learn differently some people learn experimentally some people learn conceptually some people learn graphically we have to all adapt to the teacher's way what if the other way around happened what if the software adapted to how you learn right what if software allowed you to learn things at your own pace

like a video game? You learn the level one, and then you go to the level two. It doesn't matter whether it takes you three days or three years. You always go learn at your own pace. You learn to solve problems. You're no longer learning skills. You're learning all the resources that are at your disposal on Google. How would you apply them to solve this?

And that's just a different mindset. What would you say is the greatest lesson you've ever learned and who taught it to you? The greatest lesson to me really has been this idea of possibilities, the idea of dreaming big, an idea of never giving up. And I remember from the early days, my mother was illiterate. My mother did not know how to read. And it's very interesting. I have vivid memories. I'm five years old.

My mother's sitting across me. And she wanted to make sure that we get out of the cycle of poverty. And she wanted me to learn. Where in India were you living? We had no place. We were moving from village to village. What city or region? We moved from, in the northern India,

we moved from village to village to village. And here's what happened, Louis, that my father was an overseer and whose job was to build the buildings for the government. India is an extremely corrupt world. And since he's working for the government, the government realized everybody's going to take a bribe anyway. So why pay them? My dad decided that he wants to be an honest man.

And when you're an honest man, that means now you're not taking bribe. And here's what happens. The way the system works is that you tell the contractor, don't use the cement, use half cement, half sand. The building is going to fall apart in a few years, but you save the money, you give us a piece of it. He takes his part, gives the rest to his boss. His boss takes his piece, gives it to his boss. And then everybody in the food chain makes good. Since my dad was not taking money, his boss will call the contractor every six months.

Hey, not getting any money. Is he keeping it all? He said, keeping it all. You know what he's asking me to do what he's asking me to build a building to this pack i'm losing my shirt i thought i would only use sand and now he's asking me these all cement i'm losing my shirt in government you never get fired you get transferred every six months he will go from village to another village until we went to such remote villages, there was nothing to be built.

Because then he's not taking anybody's bribe. They don't care if it doesn't work as long as he's not taking anybody's bribe away. So most of our studies were done in places. There were no tables, no chairs. You wrote on the floor. My sister went on to become a post-doctorate in applied mathematics. My brother had a PhD in statistics. I am the least educated person in my family,

ended up doing engineering and MBA. And the reason I'm saying is that, when my mother, I didn't know she's illiterate, she's sitting in front of me saying, "'Tell me the answer to this problem, she will point it." And I say, "'Mom, the answer is seven.'" She said, "'Don't make me look, do it again.'" And I do it again and say, "'Mom, I think the answer is still seven.'" She't make me look do it again and I do it again

and say mom I think the answer is still seven it's good now go to the next one I did not realize she couldn't even read but she cared that love and believing that I can get there so the idea of never giving up so you're asking me what is the greatest lesson I learned was never giving up. Because as an entrepreneur, you only fail when you give up. An idea that you try may or may not work. And every idea that does not work is simply a stepping stone to a different idea and a bigger idea. So just never give up. Love that. What about your father? What was the greatest lesson he taught you? Integrity. I mean, he really taught me that it doesn't matter how tough life gets. You never, ever compromise who you are.

You never give up your values. You never sacrifice integrity. And day in, day out, I said, there's nothing that I would do that would make my dad ever look back and saying, what have you become? Right. That's great. That's great. Huh. Wow.

This is fascinating. You're at last for words. It really happens. I'm just excited. I want people to feel like they have something they could do right now. So I'm curious, how do people cultivate this idea of innovation

the way you have and the way a lot of your friends have done, where maybe they feel like, well, I'm not sure. I don't have those resources. So how could they get started in their life right now? Good. So I think one of the things is that about this constant learning, the good thing is everything that you need to learn is already available on the internet. What I do is I get up very, very early. I get up at 4.30 in the morning and I spend the first three hours just learning about all the different technologies.

So I will go read every science magazine. What's happening in the nanotechnology? I don't have to know a lot, but by learning every time. So initially what I did is I went to YouTubes and I learned the basic lectures about basics of nanotechnology, the basics of neuroscience, time. So initially what I did is I went to YouTubes and I learned the basic lectures about basics of nanotechnology, the basics of neuroscience, the basics of artificial intelligence.

And once you start to develop the vocabulary, then you can start to read more because they start to make more and more sense. So really just watching things like Singularity University where I'm on the board now, but at that time I was not. So I'm now on the board of Singularity University, where I'm on the board now. But at that time, I was not. So I'm now on the board of Singularity University. I learn about every exponential technologies. I had all of our children go through the exponential technologies. And to me, when I look at myself and say, what has been my biggest accomplishments? I really say that would be our children. To me, the best thing we did is allow these children to have the same ambition and same hunger. I grew up poor and I would be lying if I said God has been so kind. You know, these children were growing up in extremely affluent home.

How do we still create the nurture, that hunger and desire and a passion? And I remember that, you know, having these conversations with our children and telling them that your self- these conversations with our children and telling them that your self-worth is not from what you own your self-worth comes from what you create and if you own a lot and you haven't done anything you're still a worthless piece of shit in the where and when it comes to society you are a parasite on society so don't ever be a parasite create something don't just own something. And that to me is really the kind of thing.

So just to brag about the children, I mean, how wonderful they come out. I have an oldest son who is 27. When he was 17 years old, he started something called Kairos Society, K-A-I-R-O-S. And now it's the world's largest college entrepreneurship thing. And you look at the STEM, whether you say every single top CEO, entrepreneurs from 140 countries, they're all college entrepreneurs, right? He started a company called Human, got acquired by Tinder,

and now he's going and starting a second company. Daughter is 23, graduated from Stanford. She's a Stanford Mayfield Fellow. She's on the board of Stanford Women in Business. And she's a youth ambassador for United Nations. And our youngest one is a junior at Stanford, right? Amazing things. Our daughter was passionate about women empowerment.

You know what she did? She's now in a company doing a women empowerment by actually removing all the bias and hiding. So it's a company called Pymatrix. They build the artificial intelligence to remove the bias. And when they're working with companies that unilever, suddenly the more women and diversity and people are starting to get hired, right? So, point is, the technology in itself is a tool to allow you to do what you actually care about.

She cared about women empowerment. It wasn't about AI. She's using the technology to deliver what she cares about. She cared about women empowerment. It wasn't about AI. She's using the technology to deliver what she cares about. And that to me is really the key. What do you think is the greatest skill that every person should be learning and mastering? If there was one thing that we had to learn. Again, I'm going to go back to what I've said, intellectual curiosity, learning to learn, constantly finding desire that you are always, every day when you go to bed, ask yourself, am I intellectually better today? Am I emotionally better today? Am I

spiritually better today? And if you're not, the next day you need to try twice as hard because every single day you got to be at least better in one of the three ways. In your mind, you've met a lot of great people a lot of wealthy people a lot of interesting smart people who do you think is the most fascinating human alive right now well it's such a difficult things because i find in different areas i just respect so many different people i love love Richard Branson from perspective of his humility. Even though in a public persona, you comes across as a flamboyant person.

In person, I would say he is introvert and his humility is just unbelievable. And you look at, you know, our neighbors, Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos, they are just great, great entrepreneur. You look up to them. Elon Musk, I mean, you know, he has failed many times, and he has done many things,

and he and I have been in a very similar industry for almost the last 30 years, right? When he was running Zip2, I was running Infospace. When he was running X.com or PayPal thing, I was running the Authorize.net. He's doing SpaceX, I'm doing Moon Express, right? You look at him, and every time I look and say, you know what?

He's got, man, he's got a ball of steels. He's just amazing to go out and do things that he can do, right? So got tremendous admiration for them. So I mean, you look at all of these people, it's hard to pick one. Yeah, yeah. If you could have a conversation

with someone who's no longer here, who would that be? Someone from the past that you never got to speak with? There are so many people in the past that you start to look at Marcus Aurelius, what a great philosopher he was, right? And you start to look at, to some extent, Mahatma Gandhi,

and you look at many great people that have been on this planet Earth. I wish I could just watch what they were thinking when they were doing Alexander the Great, what caused him to go create this large empire, what was going through his head. It can't be the land, the conqueror of the land, what was going through his mind, right?

So to me, what really I find most fascinating is how people think, not what people do, right? And I think you and I had a brief conversation earlier about that everyone wants to know about the seven habits of, and I always thought that was such a dumb thing to always do, right? Why would you want to follow the rituals

and the habits of someone? You want to follow their thought process because rituals don't make you them. Their thought process makes you them. So for example, Tony Robbins takes ice bath every morning. You can take your ice bath three times a day. Now I'm going to make you Tony Robbins. What's going to make you Tony Robbins

is you think like Tony Robbins. And that's the reason I love the idea of people following the thought process of these people who have just done amazing things in their lives. What do you dream about then? I dream about every single day what other problems I could be doing. Am I really giving it my best to the society back?

Have I really given enough back than what I have taken? Because to me, this obligation to give back is so strong because I feel I don't want to die with that debt on my head. Right. Wow. What's missing in your life? At this point, I just feel that there's so much to do. The time is the only thing that's missing in my life. I work 18, 19 hour days, seven days a week, and I just wish I could just do twice as much. So yes, I try my best to build the best team around me so we can leverage a lot of that,

but I just wish somebody could give me more time. Maybe that's the next challenge. Maybe that's the next… Stop time? Expand time, something, I don't know. That'd be interesting. Cool. I want to ask a final few questions.

This has been fascinating. For people that are interested in ending any illness or preventing it, That'd be interesting. Cool. I want to ask the final few questions. This has been fascinating. For people that are interested in ending any illness or preventing it, where can they go to learn more about Viome? Is it viome.com or how do they? Yes. V-I-O-M-E.com. We'll have links up for this afterwards

and tell you guys where to go to get all that. That is correct. And you can, in fact, this technology used to cost thousands, $3,000 to $5,000. We brought it down to $399. And once you do one test, you can do as many tests as you want during the year for $199. Wow. So we're really trying to make sure that everybody can get to the things. And I know it's still a lot, but my hope is that as people start to come on board, price will continue to come down. Sure, sure, yeah. Viome.com, so make sure to check that out. Final few questions.

This is called the three truths. Yes. Three truths. So imagine this is the last day for you many years from now, and it's, life's over. You haven't been able to expand it past 200 years, so it's another 100-something years from now. 150.

150 years. And everything you've created, you've solved so many of the world's problems. There's skyscrapers on the moon, you're going off to Mars now, you're created, you've solved so many of the world's problems. There's skyscrapers on the moon. You're going off to Mars now. You're doing whatever you want. Any dream you've had, it's happening or it's happened. For whatever reason, all the things you've ever said,

all the things you've talked about, your speeches, they're erased from time. So no one has your information anymore. And you have a piece of paper and a pen and you get to write down the three things you know to be true about all your experiences in life. The three things, three truths that you would share with the world, the lessons.

What would be those three truths for you? Always be who you are. Don't let someone mold you to think you want to fit into the society. So never give up your identity to fit into the society. Stay crazy because the crazy is who change the world. It's never in the middle of the pack that will ever change the world. And the third thing is never stop learning

because the day you stop learning, you have essentially have, you died. So those are three basic through intellectual curiosity, dreaming big and being true essentially have, you died. So those are three basic three, intellectual curiosity, dreaming big, and being true to yourself, the integrity. I love that. Where can people connect with you personally? I am on a social media.

You can find me on LinkedIn. You can find me on Twitter. You can find me on Facebook, or you can send me an email. I'm myfirstname.lastname at gmail.com. So that's naveen.jain at gmail.com. Okay that's Naveen dot J at gmail.com. Okay, perfect. Awesome.

And Viome dot com. Make sure you guys check that out. Before I ask the final question, I want to acknowledge you, Naveen, for your incredible ability to dream and to think so big and to dream about not just what's in it for you, but what's in it for humanity and the world.

You're constantly pushing the boundaries of what's possible, and you're attracting the best of the best to help solve these problems so that we don't have to suffer anymore. So I acknowledge you for your ability to be crazy, to continue to learn, and to give back, and not just make it all about you. So I want to thank you for that. I want to acknowledge you, Louis, for doing what you do

to allow everyone's dream to be coming true and to be able to share these ideas with your community and your tribe. All I can say is thank you very much for dedicating your life to spreading the magic of greatness. And I can tell you from my side, there is no better school of greatness than to be talking to great people around the world. I appreciate that. Final question is what is your definition of greatness than to be talking to great people around the world. I appreciate that. Final question is, what is your definition of greatness? My definition of greatness really is someone who is able to find happiness inside them. Because as long as you're looking for that happiness in the outside world, you'll always be chasing the mirage.

You'll never find it. The happiness comes from inside. That means able to be at peace with yourself is the best greatness you can ever have. Naveen, my man. Appreciate you very much. Thanks, brother. There you have it, my friends. I hope you enjoyed this one. Again, I am ready to go to the moon. I hope you are as well. Let's do it together. Let's go to the moon and make sure to check out the full show notes and all the resources and information we talked about with everything that Naveen is doing and everything else

at lewishouse.com slash 563. Again, you can watch the full video interview also there. Check out about our sponsors, the links to check out their products and their offers. Again, Christopher Reeves said that so many of our dreams at first seem impossible, then they seem improbable. And then when we summon the will, they soon become inevitable. You were born for great things. Continue to expand your mind, to expand your heart and make an impact in the world. And as always, you know what time it is. It's time to go out there and do something great. Bye.