April 4, 2025 • 28 mins
In this episode, Joel Palathinkal explores the intersection of faith, community, and business with insights from J and B Medical's journey. The discussion highlights Vatican initiatives and the concept of Sedika, emphasizing the role of faith in shaping business practices. The conversation shifts to workforce development and global healthcare trends, focusing on investments in medical infrastructure and AI. Sarah Thompson shares her expertise on institutional investing, delving into challenges and trends in sustainable investing. The episode concludes with advice for aspiring investors, a Q&A session, and a preview of upcoming episodes, sponsored by InvestCo.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
I mean, so faith is such a beautiful thing anda lot of people that know me know I'm a
(00:06):
personal quote.
I have to share a couple here but so MartinLuther King said, faith is taking the first
step even when you don't see the wholestaircase.
And think about that.
In life, not everything spelled out.
Mean, and many, many times the people that aremost successful are not the smartest and most
(00:30):
talented, they're the most resilient.
And I think faith is an underlying importantthing at least on our journey.
Welcome to The Investor, a podcast where I JoelPalafinkel, your host, dives deep into the
minds of the world's most influentialinstitutional investors.
(00:52):
In each episode, we sit down with an investorto hear about their journeys and how global
markets are driving capital allocation.
So join us on this journey as we explore theseinsights.
All good, brother.
Cool.
All right.
So I think we're live here.
We are here with Steven from Akad Holdings.
(01:13):
Steven Shaya, you know, he represents hisfamily office, very, very successful, active
investor and, you know, also involved in thechurch ecosystem as well.
So just excited to kind of learn a little moreabout you, Stephen, you know, we've met through
some really good people through some commonconnections.
So, you know, why don't we just jump right intoit?
(01:34):
You know, I know we got limited amount of time.
So I want to jam pack all this wisdom veryquickly.
Tell us a little more about you becoming aphysician and building this successful company.
Share a little more about your ambitionsgrowing up.
Know, you probably you probably weren'texpecting this, but just tell me what you what
was going on in your head when you were kind ofa young professional, maybe thinking about
(01:55):
college, maybe thinking about your professionallife, and you decided to become a physician.
So tell me that transition from kind of being aphysician to kind of getting into the business.
So first of all, Joel, thank you for having meon today.
It's really an honor and thank you everyone forlistening to this.
So my family came from Iraq, we're IraqiChristians, Chaldeans specifically, which is a
(02:21):
small enclave in the Northern part of Iraq.
And my grandmother, my maternal grandmother,she had 12 children.
When number 12 was in utero her husband passedaway and she raised all 12 children on her own
which Joel I got to tell you is mind numbing tome.
I have three children and I'm sucking wind halfthe time so 12, I don't know someone said seven
(02:46):
takes you to heaven, I don't know but anyway
So my dad's one out of eight so he's the oldestout of eight and yeah I mean I've got two and
I'm lucky I still have So
some hair left.
I totally
So
my grandmother was a was a midwife.
She delivered thousands and thousands andthousands of baby in her small little
(03:10):
community.
They didn't live in a place where they had ahospital close by.
She would often go spend a whole night there,deliver babies for folks that didn't have any
money or means and she would barter with them.
They would give her a basket of tomatoes orvegetables but she got such joy Joel, such joy
(03:36):
in service and such joy in giving something Inever forgot.
And it is very surreal to me that when I meetpeople that say hey, you know your grandmother
delivered me.
It's a little surreal.
I've delivered a So anyway, that always left aindelible mark on me just to see how much joy
(04:00):
and happiness and richness that she had.
She didn't have much materially but she wasrich in family, she was rich in spirit and she
was rich where it really mattered.
And so there was a time something I haven'ttold a lot of people where I was looking at
becoming a priest and something very few peopleknow and I was looking away to give back and
(04:24):
ended up landing on becoming a physician and Ihave personally delivered only 100 babies in my
career and by the way for the record I didn'tdeliver our three babies probably for very,
very, very good reason and I have threechildren 11, nine and seven.
And so I always thought that my journey was toserve, how could I get that same joy and
(04:52):
richness that my maternal grandmother had andalso my late father.
He had an equally big family.
He left his Iraq in 1966 under very underduress, under difficult circumstances.
Came here first day got four jobs, ended upworking his way through medical school.
(05:17):
He went to University of Michigan.
He met my mother during the process.
And so we didn't, we grew up in a very, I'd sayrich household, but not rich materially.
Again, rich like my grandmother, rich infamily, in spirit, rich where it mattered.
And I went on to become a physician.
(05:38):
And in nineteen ninety six, six when Igraduated I was doing a fellowship in
occupational environmental health and I hadsome time on my hands and my dad had started a
medical lab which he sold in 1996.
He was retired for about five weeks andbasically my mother after five weeks said you
(06:00):
really need to go do something after he sold.
So he couldn't get back to the lab business sowe started this medical supply company.
I came on board and started helping them.
And it's been an incredible journey.
I never thought that I would be running aglobal company with my family but know God has
(06:28):
a plan and one advice have for your audience ischase your passion.
Because when you chase your passion, you findyour purpose.
And our passion, my family's passion was toprovide affordable and accessible healthcare to
as many people globally as we can.
(06:51):
J and B, a lot of people ask me who and what Jand B is.
We have 18 different business enterprisestoday.
We run the gamut for medical distribution wherewe sell everything that goes in a hospital,
pharmacy, physician's office, supply equipment,pharmaceuticals to specialty businesses like
EMS, animal health.
Our claim to fame is we're one of the largestthird party billers of consumable medical
(07:14):
products to the homes in The United States.
Diabetic supplies, wound care, ostomy, insulinpumps, continuous glucose monitors.
We reached two sixty million covered lives viainsurance contracts today.
We reached 170,000,000 on the pharmacy side.
We're licensed in 49 states there.
We have a telemedicine, telehealth company.
We do virtual visits around the world, mentalhealth, behavioral health, substance abuse,
(07:37):
social determinants of health.
And you know, we're in 49 states, we're in 20countries today.
It is a family business.
I get fired all the time, but that's a wholeanother discussion for a different day.
But, you know, J and B is really a platform ofpurpose and possibilities and making healthcare
(07:58):
as affordable, accessible to as many peopleglobally as we can.
So that's a little long winded version of myjourney.
Now it's amazing.
Looking back, building a business, especiallywith your family and just taking a company
globally.
What are some learnings just reflecting on, youknow, maybe the last, you know, handful of
(08:20):
years that that you kind of are thinking about,you know, as you kind of, you know, you're
going for a walk, and you're kind of reflectingon some of these memories building this
business, what are some of the biggestlearnings?
So I think when you find your meaning, when youfind your purpose, whatever the world throws at
(08:42):
you and God knows today Joel, the world, howmany crazy unexpected twists and turns we've
seen just in the last several weeks, right?
But when you find your meaning, when you findyour purpose, you'll be able to weather the
(09:04):
storm and just like in anything whether it'srelationships, whether it's a business, make
sure it's something that really is consistentwith your meaning, with your purpose, with your
DNA.
(09:24):
I think the more in tuned you are to that, thehigher chances you have to be successful.
Because inevitably those challenging momentscome and if you don't have that perspective, if
you don't have that passion, if you don't havethat love for what you're doing and who you're
working with and things will I think it's themost important thing.
(09:51):
Working with my team, of realizing at an earlystage that our meeting, our purpose was to put
the human back into humanity, the care back inhealthcare, and use our God given opportunities
to, you know, not only provide access tohealthcare, but build bridges across the
(10:11):
religious, the political and socioeconomicdivides in our world.
I think for us, that's helped us weather a lotof the challenging moments.
So I tell people I have more scars and starsover twenty eight years.
That's for sure.
Yeah.
But it's been a blessing and a lot of thosechallenging moments have really helped set us
up for future successes.
(10:33):
Yeah.
I think you hit on an important point.
I think having, you know, I think having faith,whatever religion you are, right?
The audience is gonna have people that believein different things or don't believe in
different things.
But I think if you have some type of faith andthat could even just translate to just having a
positive attitude, just faith in yourself, evenif it's not in a higher person, you know, or
(10:54):
being or entity.
But I think just, you know, I think thatdefinitely is what helps people, you know,
continue to go on.
Right?
It's like, hey, I believe that I can getthrough this.
And then I think the second piece is havingsome type of community.
Right?
So you were fortunate.
I was also fortunate to have kind of supportsystem.
My dad being out of one out of eight.
You know, usually when there's issues, thefamily gets involved, they kinda try to make
(11:16):
things work out.
But if you don't have a big family or a familythat you get along with, I think just being
part of some tribe, right, like founders havefounder communities.
I've built kind of this fund manager ecosystem,fund managers, especially early stage fund
managers, they're pretty much founders, right?
They're founders in the capital business.
And, know, it's just a tough grind right now,especially in this market, to try to close
(11:40):
capital.
So when all those things are at a loss, and allyou have is really your faith in your community
and your support system.
Absolutely, absolutely.
Well, I think that's well said and to use abiblical in Proverbs of the Bible, says iron
sharpens iron.
And I think finding those folks that you canlearn from, that you can grow from, you're
(12:06):
energized by being around.
Joel, when you and I met, it was like I justmet you but I feel like I've known you all my
life.
Know like you feel like you connect with peopleat a much deeper level.
For me it's people that are you know have somesort of underlying faith.
I'm Catholic but it could be any faith.
You know.
(12:27):
I think people that are cognizant that there'sa higher power.
And I will say Joel, one thing I've noticed,you know, we're divine beings on a human
journey, but the people that are the mostfulfilled on my journey at least are the people
that are trying to be part of something biggerthan themselves.
(12:48):
And a lot of times those people, you knowpeople call them dreamers, know a lot of these
entrepreneurs that you're referring to you knowit's a big leap to wherever they're trying to
get to.
I think Jensen Wang recently with Nvidia saidif I would have known what I had to go through
to get where I am today, I wouldn't have doneit.
(13:09):
Oh yeah.
I mean so faith is such a beautiful thing and alot of people that know me know I'm a personal
quote, so I have to share a couple here but soMartin Luther King said, faith is taking the
first step even when you don't see the wholestaircase.
And think about that.
(13:31):
In life, not everything spelled out.
Mean, and many, many times the people that aremost successful are not the smartest and most
talented.
They're the most resilient.
And I think faith is an underlying importantthing at least at our journey.
No, I totally agree.
(13:51):
I think, look, I mean, we bought it because I'mCatholic as well.
But like, I'd say, look at what are theunderlying principles for many other religions,
Try to be honest, to be a good person, treatpeople how you want to be treated.
So I think, you know, you know, just the basicprinciples of being a human being, right?
Kind of like you said, or just trying to bekind to others, I think, you know, things work
(14:15):
out somehow.
And just having that positive spirit definitelyhelps you going, especially when there's a
tough time.
You know, tell me a little more about like yourinitiatives at the Vatican.
So how did that expand?
Guess, were you you know, I guess, did yourbusiness kind of have some impactful
initiatives that kind of supported the Vaticanor how did you kind of break into that industry
and tell us about the first time you met thePope, how was that interaction?
(14:38):
Because I don't know if everybody in myaudience knows about that.
So we've had the honor and privilege of meetingRobin Smith, who by the way, I'll recommend she
should get on your podcast.
But she has this group that she founded calledthe CURA Foundation.
(15:00):
And she had a health issue many years ago andshe needed stem cells and there was such a big
stigma against stem cells because it's tiedinto abortion and fetuses And as a Jewish
woman, non Catholic, went to the Vatican andconvinced them that, hey, not all stem cells
(15:23):
come from fetuses.
There's other ways to get stem cells likeadipose tissue and we need to have an adult
conversation.
So she convinced the Vatican that we shouldhave these convenings every couple of years and
I went to my first one in 2016 and my sonGrayson got kissed by Pope Francis and he also
(15:49):
got kissed by Vice President Biden the sameday.
So it's kind of the Mount Rushmore forsomething.
Don't know what but and my third son Gavin wasin utero with my wife and so we call him Gavin
Francis Shia named after Pope Francis but lookas a Catholic, you know the Catholic church has
(16:15):
a lot issues.
I don't want to sugarcoat them.
There's a lot of challenges with the Catholicchurch but Joel nobody houses, clothes, feeds,
educates, provides more healthcare globallythan the Catholic church.
It's not even close.
So I think we've got to look at everything.
One of the challenges in this on our journeysis what lens are you looking things at?
(16:42):
In The US for example, a lot of people look atthings from a political lens.
If you're a conservative leaning person, you'regoing to look at events a certain way.
If you're a liberal leaning person, you'regoing look at them another way.
But I think we need to step back and realizethat again we're divine beings on a human
(17:06):
journey there's good and not so good in everysituation and everything is an opportunity to
learn.
For me, those lessons are imbued in faith,they're imbued in my personal faith journey.
For other people they may look at itdifferently, which I totally respect, but I
(17:31):
think that's something that as a society, weneed to develop some perspective and kind of
have a little more self awareness of what lenswe're looking at things because certainly
whatever lens you're looking at things couldcolor your perspective and I think we have to
do more to understand people on the otherside's perspective, whether it's politically,
(17:55):
whether it's other dynamics.
And I think that's one thing as a servantleader, I tried to share with the folks that I
work with.
So we really need to understand all sides ofall dynamics if we're gonna be effective
servant leaders.
Yeah and I think if you can kind of create awin win where you're creating impact supporting
(18:19):
an institution like the Catholic church andalso kind of deliver.
I really like your quote, deliver solutions forpeople impacting the purpose and then also
paying it forward, know, it's kind of a it'skind of a win win across the board.
So I love that mantra.
Can you share a little more about that mantraand kind of what motivated you to I mean, it's
(18:40):
pretty, pretty straightforward, right?
But, But what's helped you to kind of put thatmantra together?
So there is a Jewish scholar named Mayimadidesand he had a concept he discussed in his
teachings called Sedika which is giving andthere was different levels of giving.
(19:05):
And the highest level of giving was formingpartnerships with people.
So you weren't just giving them money or someother treasure, so to speak but you're helping
them get out of dependency.
You were making partnerships.
And that was the highest level.
(19:25):
And so for us to give you a couple of real lifeexamples, our company J and B has 103 service
disabled veterans with disabilities that workfor us today in Atlanta, an entity called Bobby
Institute, and thirty eight percent of peoplethat lead military service are unemployed.
And one of the things that we realized, andthis was really my late father's kind of, we
(19:49):
talked about total health, the health of thepatient, the health of the employee, the health
of the communities and particularly with theseunderserved type communities.
And another example of that would be that wehave in New Mexico a partnership with the
Navajo Indians, a group called Strongbow, andso we formed a partnership there to take care
(20:11):
of folks, we're providing jobs, we're providingopportunities, but Joel, there's a lot of
medical data that shows that underserved,underprivileged populations do better when
taken care of by their own.
There's a lot of cultural nuances that peopledon't appreciate.
And so, I think, as J and B continues toevolve, we've kind of went from a products
(20:37):
company, kind of B2B to a best in class lastmile providing products and services to the
homes to more of a population health company.
Well, as part of that journey, providingworkforce development opportunities where we're
kind of training and developing and educatingpeople in their communities to take care of
(20:57):
themselves, I think to take care of their own.
I think there's huge, huge, huge opportunitiesthere.
And we call it, you know, there's a lot ofdifferent names, but you know, people that have
a higher health literacy, you know, the peoplethat know about their health conditions that
are more educated do better, and also folksthat are taking care of from their own
(21:20):
communities, you know, folks do better andthere's actually quite a bit of medical data
there.
Yeah, so my aunt is in an assisted livingfacility in India and obviously being from
India, they love the food and kind of theassociation with kind of, you know, people that
(21:42):
come from her same community.
So have you started thinking about kind of likeassisted living and kind of how that's being
hyper localized in some regions as well?
So like the Navajo community, you know, I'msure they have kind of like processes and
infrastructure in place.
But like when you think about healthcarebecoming more and more expensive, you know, I'm
seeing people from where I'm from.
(22:03):
I'm from India, right?
I'm seeing a lot of people go back to India,because there's really high quality facilities
there and they can afford it with their, youknow, with whatever their retirement
compensation is.
And it goes a little further.
Obviously, with inflation, everything isgetting more expensive.
But I thought that's kind of an interestingtrend, you know, and there's sometimes even a
(22:23):
tourism aspect of it, where people that are notnatively from India, they're going to India now
to kind of get some of those services as well.
So that's something that's kind of reallyinteresting to see.
Yeah, and I will say this about India.
I'm a huge fan.
There's been a huge seismic shift in thehealthcare ecosystem.
(22:46):
Many of the products that were made were madein China and Asia, but I think India is the
absolute future.
I mean they have the labor, they have the skillsets, they're very, very strong in medicine.
To give you an idea, 200,000,000,000 is goingoff patents for pharmaceuticals or drugs by
(23:14):
02/1930 and a lot of these next genericversions of the column 503B are going be made
in India and there's a lot of groups.
Walmart is moving more and more of theirprocurement from China to India.
So I see tremendous opportunities in India andfrankly India doesn't have the geopolitical
(23:41):
challenges that China does.
I mean look there is challenges when you dobusiness abroad no matter where you go but it
seems like there is a lot of momentum in India.
The folks that I have met there are absolutelyworld class.
Mean some of these groups you know likeReliance Industries owned by Mukesh Ambani and
(24:04):
a lot of these groups I've met are justabsolutely positively world class and also a
lot of the tech now coming from India.
So I'm very, very bullish on India.
We've also spent a lot of time with a groupcalled APPI, American Association for
(24:26):
Physicians of Indian Descent.
And there was a statistic they shared which isabsolutely staggering to me.
One third of all the patients in The UnitedStates are seen by an Indian doctor one way,
shape or form or doctor from Indian descent.
If you think about that, I mean it isabsolutely, it's mind boggling to me and I see
(24:51):
continued momentum there.
Yeah, well, know we got about four minutesleft.
You and I, we spent some time talking aboutsectors that we're interested in on the
investing side.
So maybe you can give us one or two bullets interms of things that you're excited about from
the investing front.
Obviously, you have a huge foundation andnetwork in the healthcare space.
(25:12):
And there's a lot of innovations in AI and, youknow, digital health.
But just maybe tell me, you know, maybe one ortwo things that you're excited about, as far as
just kind of looking at for investing in?
So for my family and I personally, there's acouple areas.
Number one, medical infrastructure.
And so we kind of see medical infrastructureprojects as an opportunity not only to create a
(25:42):
business opportunity but also address some ofthe challenges of today.
So let me give you a real life example.
People talk about the Mexican border andimmigration and the one little fact that kind
of gets lost in everything is the vast majorityof people that are coming from the Mexican
border are not Mexican.
(26:02):
They are from Guatemala, are from El Salvador,they are from Honduras, so we are looking at
doing some project in that area which wouldcreate jobs, would create opportunities and
create reasons for them not to immigrate to TheUS.
That's one.
We have a project ongoing in Saudi Arabia rightnow where we're gonna start a project to build
(26:25):
IV fluids.
It's not only fantastic project, only 22% ofthe local consumption is made in Saudi and this
will be the first one that has US FDA and SaudiFDA approval.
So it'll be the first one in the market likethat.
But let me tell you, every time we do one ofthese projects, Joel, it's a bridge across the
(26:52):
religious, the political and socioeconomicdivide.
I tell you, whenever I travel places, by andlarge, the people are amazing.
When you find things like providing access toaffordable, accessible healthcare to people.
I mean, it brings us together with people fromall different walks of life and so for us,
(27:16):
we're really looking at these medicalinfrastructure projects and then the other is
you can't overstate the importance that AI andmachine learning are gonna have moving forward.
I'll give you one example where to put a lot ofthis medical infrastructure.
There is a lot of factors that go into it.
(27:36):
One of them is climate changes over the nextten years, one of them is population density,
one of them is access to supply chain.
So there is, it's multifactorial so usingthings like AI, we can make better decisions on
not only where to place facilities but alsowhere to make big investments.
So God's calling to us is healthcare and we'reusing that but we're just stewards of the
(28:02):
blessings.
Well, Stephen, thank you so much.
We learned so much in just a compressed amountof time.
You're with your family.
So really means a lot to me for you to maketime for me and the community.
Hope you have safe travels and we'll catch upsoon.
Thanks for everything.
Really appreciate it.
God bless everyone.
Thank you, Joel for having me take care.
All right.
(28:22):
Take care.
Bye.
I mean, so faith is such a beautiful thing anda lot of people that know me know I'm a
(00:06):
personal quote.
I have to share a couple here but so MartinLuther King said, faith is taking the first
step even when you don't see the wholestaircase.
And think about that.
In life, not everything spelled out.
Mean, and many, many times the people that aremost successful are not the smartest and most
(00:30):
talented, they're the most resilient.
And I think faith is an underlying importantthing at least on our journey.
Welcome to The Investor, a podcast where I JoelPalafinkel, your host, dives deep into the
minds of the world's most influentialinstitutional investors.
(00:52):
In each episode, we sit down with an investorto hear about their journeys and how global
markets are driving capital allocation.
So join us on this journey as we explore theseinsights.
All good, brother.
Cool.
All right.
So I think we're live here.
We are here with Steven from Akad Holdings.
(01:13):
Steven Shaya, you know, he represents hisfamily office, very, very successful, active
investor and, you know, also involved in thechurch ecosystem as well.
So just excited to kind of learn a little moreabout you, Stephen, you know, we've met through
some really good people through some commonconnections.
So, you know, why don't we just jump right intoit?
(01:34):
You know, I know we got limited amount of time.
So I want to jam pack all this wisdom veryquickly.
Tell us a little more about you becoming aphysician and building this successful company.
Share a little more about your ambitionsgrowing up.
Know, you probably you probably weren'texpecting this, but just tell me what you what
was going on in your head when you were kind ofa young professional, maybe thinking about
(01:55):
college, maybe thinking about your professionallife, and you decided to become a physician.
So tell me that transition from kind of being aphysician to kind of getting into the business.
So first of all, Joel, thank you for having meon today.
It's really an honor and thank you everyone forlistening to this.
So my family came from Iraq, we're IraqiChristians, Chaldeans specifically, which is a
(02:21):
small enclave in the Northern part of Iraq.
And my grandmother, my maternal grandmother,she had 12 children.
When number 12 was in utero her husband passedaway and she raised all 12 children on her own
which Joel I got to tell you is mind numbing tome.
I have three children and I'm sucking wind halfthe time so 12, I don't know someone said seven
(02:46):
takes you to heaven, I don't know but anyway
So my dad's one out of eight so he's the oldestout of eight and yeah I mean I've got two and
I'm lucky I still have So
some hair left.
I totally
So
my grandmother was a was a midwife.
She delivered thousands and thousands andthousands of baby in her small little
(03:10):
community.
They didn't live in a place where they had ahospital close by.
She would often go spend a whole night there,deliver babies for folks that didn't have any
money or means and she would barter with them.
They would give her a basket of tomatoes orvegetables but she got such joy Joel, such joy
(03:36):
in service and such joy in giving something Inever forgot.
And it is very surreal to me that when I meetpeople that say hey, you know your grandmother
delivered me.
It's a little surreal.
I've delivered a So anyway, that always left aindelible mark on me just to see how much joy
(04:00):
and happiness and richness that she had.
She didn't have much materially but she wasrich in family, she was rich in spirit and she
was rich where it really mattered.
And so there was a time something I haven'ttold a lot of people where I was looking at
becoming a priest and something very few peopleknow and I was looking away to give back and
(04:24):
ended up landing on becoming a physician and Ihave personally delivered only 100 babies in my
career and by the way for the record I didn'tdeliver our three babies probably for very,
very, very good reason and I have threechildren 11, nine and seven.
And so I always thought that my journey was toserve, how could I get that same joy and
(04:52):
richness that my maternal grandmother had andalso my late father.
He had an equally big family.
He left his Iraq in 1966 under very underduress, under difficult circumstances.
Came here first day got four jobs, ended upworking his way through medical school.
(05:17):
He went to University of Michigan.
He met my mother during the process.
And so we didn't, we grew up in a very, I'd sayrich household, but not rich materially.
Again, rich like my grandmother, rich infamily, in spirit, rich where it mattered.
And I went on to become a physician.
(05:38):
And in nineteen ninety six, six when Igraduated I was doing a fellowship in
occupational environmental health and I hadsome time on my hands and my dad had started a
medical lab which he sold in 1996.
He was retired for about five weeks andbasically my mother after five weeks said you
(06:00):
really need to go do something after he sold.
So he couldn't get back to the lab business sowe started this medical supply company.
I came on board and started helping them.
And it's been an incredible journey.
I never thought that I would be running aglobal company with my family but know God has
(06:28):
a plan and one advice have for your audience ischase your passion.
Because when you chase your passion, you findyour purpose.
And our passion, my family's passion was toprovide affordable and accessible healthcare to
as many people globally as we can.
(06:51):
J and B, a lot of people ask me who and what Jand B is.
We have 18 different business enterprisestoday.
We run the gamut for medical distribution wherewe sell everything that goes in a hospital,
pharmacy, physician's office, supply equipment,pharmaceuticals to specialty businesses like
EMS, animal health.
Our claim to fame is we're one of the largestthird party billers of consumable medical
(07:14):
products to the homes in The United States.
Diabetic supplies, wound care, ostomy, insulinpumps, continuous glucose monitors.
We reached two sixty million covered lives viainsurance contracts today.
We reached 170,000,000 on the pharmacy side.
We're licensed in 49 states there.
We have a telemedicine, telehealth company.
We do virtual visits around the world, mentalhealth, behavioral health, substance abuse,
(07:37):
social determinants of health.
And you know, we're in 49 states, we're in 20countries today.
It is a family business.
I get fired all the time, but that's a wholeanother discussion for a different day.
But, you know, J and B is really a platform ofpurpose and possibilities and making healthcare
(07:58):
as affordable, accessible to as many peopleglobally as we can.
So that's a little long winded version of myjourney.
Now it's amazing.
Looking back, building a business, especiallywith your family and just taking a company
globally.
What are some learnings just reflecting on, youknow, maybe the last, you know, handful of
(08:20):
years that that you kind of are thinking about,you know, as you kind of, you know, you're
going for a walk, and you're kind of reflectingon some of these memories building this
business, what are some of the biggestlearnings?
So I think when you find your meaning, when youfind your purpose, whatever the world throws at
(08:42):
you and God knows today Joel, the world, howmany crazy unexpected twists and turns we've
seen just in the last several weeks, right?
But when you find your meaning, when you findyour purpose, you'll be able to weather the
(09:04):
storm and just like in anything whether it'srelationships, whether it's a business, make
sure it's something that really is consistentwith your meaning, with your purpose, with your
DNA.
(09:24):
I think the more in tuned you are to that, thehigher chances you have to be successful.
Because inevitably those challenging momentscome and if you don't have that perspective, if
you don't have that passion, if you don't havethat love for what you're doing and who you're
working with and things will I think it's themost important thing.
(09:51):
Working with my team, of realizing at an earlystage that our meeting, our purpose was to put
the human back into humanity, the care back inhealthcare, and use our God given opportunities
to, you know, not only provide access tohealthcare, but build bridges across the
(10:11):
religious, the political and socioeconomicdivides in our world.
I think for us, that's helped us weather a lotof the challenging moments.
So I tell people I have more scars and starsover twenty eight years.
That's for sure.
Yeah.
But it's been a blessing and a lot of thosechallenging moments have really helped set us
up for future successes.
(10:33):
Yeah.
I think you hit on an important point.
I think having, you know, I think having faith,whatever religion you are, right?
The audience is gonna have people that believein different things or don't believe in
different things.
But I think if you have some type of faith andthat could even just translate to just having a
positive attitude, just faith in yourself, evenif it's not in a higher person, you know, or
(10:54):
being or entity.
But I think just, you know, I think thatdefinitely is what helps people, you know,
continue to go on.
Right?
It's like, hey, I believe that I can getthrough this.
And then I think the second piece is havingsome type of community.
Right?
So you were fortunate.
I was also fortunate to have kind of supportsystem.
My dad being out of one out of eight.
You know, usually when there's issues, thefamily gets involved, they kinda try to make
(11:16):
things work out.
But if you don't have a big family or a familythat you get along with, I think just being
part of some tribe, right, like founders havefounder communities.
I've built kind of this fund manager ecosystem,fund managers, especially early stage fund
managers, they're pretty much founders, right?
They're founders in the capital business.
And, know, it's just a tough grind right now,especially in this market, to try to close
(11:40):
capital.
So when all those things are at a loss, and allyou have is really your faith in your community
and your support system.
Absolutely, absolutely.
Well, I think that's well said and to use abiblical in Proverbs of the Bible, says iron
sharpens iron.
And I think finding those folks that you canlearn from, that you can grow from, you're
(12:06):
energized by being around.
Joel, when you and I met, it was like I justmet you but I feel like I've known you all my
life.
Know like you feel like you connect with peopleat a much deeper level.
For me it's people that are you know have somesort of underlying faith.
I'm Catholic but it could be any faith.
You know.
(12:27):
I think people that are cognizant that there'sa higher power.
And I will say Joel, one thing I've noticed,you know, we're divine beings on a human
journey, but the people that are the mostfulfilled on my journey at least are the people
that are trying to be part of something biggerthan themselves.
(12:48):
And a lot of times those people, you knowpeople call them dreamers, know a lot of these
entrepreneurs that you're referring to you knowit's a big leap to wherever they're trying to
get to.
I think Jensen Wang recently with Nvidia saidif I would have known what I had to go through
to get where I am today, I wouldn't have doneit.
(13:09):
Oh yeah.
I mean so faith is such a beautiful thing and alot of people that know me know I'm a personal
quote, so I have to share a couple here but soMartin Luther King said, faith is taking the
first step even when you don't see the wholestaircase.
And think about that.
(13:31):
In life, not everything spelled out.
Mean, and many, many times the people that aremost successful are not the smartest and most
talented.
They're the most resilient.
And I think faith is an underlying importantthing at least at our journey.
No, I totally agree.
(13:51):
I think, look, I mean, we bought it because I'mCatholic as well.
But like, I'd say, look at what are theunderlying principles for many other religions,
Try to be honest, to be a good person, treatpeople how you want to be treated.
So I think, you know, you know, just the basicprinciples of being a human being, right?
Kind of like you said, or just trying to bekind to others, I think, you know, things work
(14:15):
out somehow.
And just having that positive spirit definitelyhelps you going, especially when there's a
tough time.
You know, tell me a little more about like yourinitiatives at the Vatican.
So how did that expand?
Guess, were you you know, I guess, did yourbusiness kind of have some impactful
initiatives that kind of supported the Vaticanor how did you kind of break into that industry
and tell us about the first time you met thePope, how was that interaction?
(14:38):
Because I don't know if everybody in myaudience knows about that.
So we've had the honor and privilege of meetingRobin Smith, who by the way, I'll recommend she
should get on your podcast.
But she has this group that she founded calledthe CURA Foundation.
(15:00):
And she had a health issue many years ago andshe needed stem cells and there was such a big
stigma against stem cells because it's tiedinto abortion and fetuses And as a Jewish
woman, non Catholic, went to the Vatican andconvinced them that, hey, not all stem cells
(15:23):
come from fetuses.
There's other ways to get stem cells likeadipose tissue and we need to have an adult
conversation.
So she convinced the Vatican that we shouldhave these convenings every couple of years and
I went to my first one in 2016 and my sonGrayson got kissed by Pope Francis and he also
(15:49):
got kissed by Vice President Biden the sameday.
So it's kind of the Mount Rushmore forsomething.
Don't know what but and my third son Gavin wasin utero with my wife and so we call him Gavin
Francis Shia named after Pope Francis but lookas a Catholic, you know the Catholic church has
(16:15):
a lot issues.
I don't want to sugarcoat them.
There's a lot of challenges with the Catholicchurch but Joel nobody houses, clothes, feeds,
educates, provides more healthcare globallythan the Catholic church.
It's not even close.
So I think we've got to look at everything.
One of the challenges in this on our journeysis what lens are you looking things at?
(16:42):
In The US for example, a lot of people look atthings from a political lens.
If you're a conservative leaning person, you'regoing to look at events a certain way.
If you're a liberal leaning person, you'regoing look at them another way.
But I think we need to step back and realizethat again we're divine beings on a human
(17:06):
journey there's good and not so good in everysituation and everything is an opportunity to
learn.
For me, those lessons are imbued in faith,they're imbued in my personal faith journey.
For other people they may look at itdifferently, which I totally respect, but I
(17:31):
think that's something that as a society, weneed to develop some perspective and kind of
have a little more self awareness of what lenswe're looking at things because certainly
whatever lens you're looking at things couldcolor your perspective and I think we have to
do more to understand people on the otherside's perspective, whether it's politically,
(17:55):
whether it's other dynamics.
And I think that's one thing as a servantleader, I tried to share with the folks that I
work with.
So we really need to understand all sides ofall dynamics if we're gonna be effective
servant leaders.
Yeah and I think if you can kind of create awin win where you're creating impact supporting
(18:19):
an institution like the Catholic church andalso kind of deliver.
I really like your quote, deliver solutions forpeople impacting the purpose and then also
paying it forward, know, it's kind of a it'skind of a win win across the board.
So I love that mantra.
Can you share a little more about that mantraand kind of what motivated you to I mean, it's
(18:40):
pretty, pretty straightforward, right?
But, But what's helped you to kind of put thatmantra together?
So there is a Jewish scholar named Mayimadidesand he had a concept he discussed in his
teachings called Sedika which is giving andthere was different levels of giving.
(19:05):
And the highest level of giving was formingpartnerships with people.
So you weren't just giving them money or someother treasure, so to speak but you're helping
them get out of dependency.
You were making partnerships.
And that was the highest level.
(19:25):
And so for us to give you a couple of real lifeexamples, our company J and B has 103 service
disabled veterans with disabilities that workfor us today in Atlanta, an entity called Bobby
Institute, and thirty eight percent of peoplethat lead military service are unemployed.
And one of the things that we realized, andthis was really my late father's kind of, we
(19:49):
talked about total health, the health of thepatient, the health of the employee, the health
of the communities and particularly with theseunderserved type communities.
And another example of that would be that wehave in New Mexico a partnership with the
Navajo Indians, a group called Strongbow, andso we formed a partnership there to take care
(20:11):
of folks, we're providing jobs, we're providingopportunities, but Joel, there's a lot of
medical data that shows that underserved,underprivileged populations do better when
taken care of by their own.
There's a lot of cultural nuances that peopledon't appreciate.
And so, I think, as J and B continues toevolve, we've kind of went from a products
(20:37):
company, kind of B2B to a best in class lastmile providing products and services to the
homes to more of a population health company.
Well, as part of that journey, providingworkforce development opportunities where we're
kind of training and developing and educatingpeople in their communities to take care of
(20:57):
themselves, I think to take care of their own.
I think there's huge, huge, huge opportunitiesthere.
And we call it, you know, there's a lot ofdifferent names, but you know, people that have
a higher health literacy, you know, the peoplethat know about their health conditions that
are more educated do better, and also folksthat are taking care of from their own
(21:20):
communities, you know, folks do better andthere's actually quite a bit of medical data
there.
Yeah, so my aunt is in an assisted livingfacility in India and obviously being from
India, they love the food and kind of theassociation with kind of, you know, people that
(21:42):
come from her same community.
So have you started thinking about kind of likeassisted living and kind of how that's being
hyper localized in some regions as well?
So like the Navajo community, you know, I'msure they have kind of like processes and
infrastructure in place.
But like when you think about healthcarebecoming more and more expensive, you know, I'm
seeing people from where I'm from.
(22:03):
I'm from India, right?
I'm seeing a lot of people go back to India,because there's really high quality facilities
there and they can afford it with their, youknow, with whatever their retirement
compensation is.
And it goes a little further.
Obviously, with inflation, everything isgetting more expensive.
But I thought that's kind of an interestingtrend, you know, and there's sometimes even a
(22:23):
tourism aspect of it, where people that are notnatively from India, they're going to India now
to kind of get some of those services as well.
So that's something that's kind of reallyinteresting to see.
Yeah, and I will say this about India.
I'm a huge fan.
There's been a huge seismic shift in thehealthcare ecosystem.
(22:46):
Many of the products that were made were madein China and Asia, but I think India is the
absolute future.
I mean they have the labor, they have the skillsets, they're very, very strong in medicine.
To give you an idea, 200,000,000,000 is goingoff patents for pharmaceuticals or drugs by
(23:14):
02/1930 and a lot of these next genericversions of the column 503B are going be made
in India and there's a lot of groups.
Walmart is moving more and more of theirprocurement from China to India.
So I see tremendous opportunities in India andfrankly India doesn't have the geopolitical
(23:41):
challenges that China does.
I mean look there is challenges when you dobusiness abroad no matter where you go but it
seems like there is a lot of momentum in India.
The folks that I have met there are absolutelyworld class.
Mean some of these groups you know likeReliance Industries owned by Mukesh Ambani and
(24:04):
a lot of these groups I've met are justabsolutely positively world class and also a
lot of the tech now coming from India.
So I'm very, very bullish on India.
We've also spent a lot of time with a groupcalled APPI, American Association for
(24:26):
Physicians of Indian Descent.
And there was a statistic they shared which isabsolutely staggering to me.
One third of all the patients in The UnitedStates are seen by an Indian doctor one way,
shape or form or doctor from Indian descent.
If you think about that, I mean it isabsolutely, it's mind boggling to me and I see
(24:51):
continued momentum there.
Yeah, well, know we got about four minutesleft.
You and I, we spent some time talking aboutsectors that we're interested in on the
investing side.
So maybe you can give us one or two bullets interms of things that you're excited about from
the investing front.
Obviously, you have a huge foundation andnetwork in the healthcare space.
(25:12):
And there's a lot of innovations in AI and, youknow, digital health.
But just maybe tell me, you know, maybe one ortwo things that you're excited about, as far as
just kind of looking at for investing in?
So for my family and I personally, there's acouple areas.
Number one, medical infrastructure.
And so we kind of see medical infrastructureprojects as an opportunity not only to create a
(25:42):
business opportunity but also address some ofthe challenges of today.
So let me give you a real life example.
People talk about the Mexican border andimmigration and the one little fact that kind
of gets lost in everything is the vast majorityof people that are coming from the Mexican
border are not Mexican.
(26:02):
They are from Guatemala, are from El Salvador,they are from Honduras, so we are looking at
doing some project in that area which wouldcreate jobs, would create opportunities and
create reasons for them not to immigrate to TheUS.
That's one.
We have a project ongoing in Saudi Arabia rightnow where we're gonna start a project to build
(26:25):
IV fluids.
It's not only fantastic project, only 22% ofthe local consumption is made in Saudi and this
will be the first one that has US FDA and SaudiFDA approval.
So it'll be the first one in the market likethat.
But let me tell you, every time we do one ofthese projects, Joel, it's a bridge across the
(26:52):
religious, the political and socioeconomicdivide.
I tell you, whenever I travel places, by andlarge, the people are amazing.
When you find things like providing access toaffordable, accessible healthcare to people.
I mean, it brings us together with people fromall different walks of life and so for us,
(27:16):
we're really looking at these medicalinfrastructure projects and then the other is
you can't overstate the importance that AI andmachine learning are gonna have moving forward.
I'll give you one example where to put a lot ofthis medical infrastructure.
There is a lot of factors that go into it.
(27:36):
One of them is climate changes over the nextten years, one of them is population density,
one of them is access to supply chain.
So there is, it's multifactorial so usingthings like AI, we can make better decisions on
not only where to place facilities but alsowhere to make big investments.
So God's calling to us is healthcare and we'reusing that but we're just stewards of the
(28:02):
blessings.
Well, Stephen, thank you so much.
We learned so much in just a compressed amountof time.
You're with your family.
So really means a lot to me for you to maketime for me and the community.
Hope you have safe travels and we'll catch upsoon.
Thanks for everything.
Really appreciate it.
God bless everyone.
Thank you, Joel for having me take care.
All right.
(28:22):
Take care.
Bye.
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