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Mel Strong

Sep 14, 2026

12:22
Scott McCurkin?
12:24
Right? Yeah, there was Scott.
12:26
There was a whole variety, Rosemary Sinclair, a whole variety of really smart people around the table, early days.
12:32
I was one of those cast of characters.
12:35
But had the opportunity to work with Lance on that project.
12:37
It was amazing.
12:39
We raised over half a billion dollars for cancer research.

14 MINS LATER

27:04
This is, it's all about network, but then how do you pick the institutions and the schools? And like, so like as an investor, what are you looking for where you send your money, where you invest, what type of data, like I think is really important for all of us, like whether I'm a consumer or a researcher, What are you looking for?
33:08
And so am I wrong?
33:12
No. Yeah, what's interesting now in this chapter of my life working with startups, working with companies that have just established product market fit and are creating some revenue and starting to figure out how to scale, it's interesting that this problem of how we judge women as leaders is the same.
33:40
So there's something there culturally that's bigger than certainly Nike, and I think bigger than a lot of these corporations, which is that, um, you only get to kinda fail once.
33:51
I think there was this prevailing belief at Nike, this was my experience, that you could only really fuck up once, um, whereas we seem to have, um, endless [laughs] uh, space and generosity for a lot of our male leaders' failures.

28 MINS LATER

62:17
Mm-hmm.
62:18
Can it help people get better sleep, prevent, you know, uh, unwanted pregnancy, or help, uh, plan a wanted and planned-for pregnancy? There are a whole variety of really interesting health outcomes associated with any wearable, but it comes at a price, and not everyone can afford that price.
62:37
And so I think we've had to figure out how to make sure when we do invest in a company, not only hopefully is it addressing a big lever that is improving health outcomes for a lot of people, but that they are particularly trying to solve for the problem of access.
62:56
So how can we make sure it isn't just the heavily insured or willing-to-pay-for-out-of-pocket type of patient or customer who can get the best healthcare? That's why with Oura as the example, getting HSA, FSA approved was super important.

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