Mada Seghete

Can't say thank you enough to Amanda Kahlow for founding Empowered CxO and to 6sense for their support of this awesome event where women executives get to come together to learn, grow, and let our hair down a little. I have a lot to think about from Alison Fragale on becoming (more of?) a Likeable Badass and helping everyone on my team do the same. Can't wait to read the book, but her presentation alone was worth the trip! All the other phenomenal presenters were extra icing on the cake. I especially appreciate the vulnerability in Rashmi Vittal, Elizabeth Maxson Martinet, Sarah Pease, and Sarah Hodges sharing their MomentS They Stepped Into Their Power. And lastly, shoutouts to friends new and old Liza Adams, Abby Strong, Carrie Kelly, Gracey Cantalupo ✨and all the other fabulous women I met for the words of wisdom, laughs, and strong paddling. If you ever need an "Other Promoter" - you know where to find me!

I’m ready for a world where measuring VO₂ max doesn’t require looking like Darth Vader while running up an increasingly brutal hill. I’ve done VO₂ max testing a few times. The mask is uncomfortable. It inevitably feels like it’s falling off my face, and by the end I'm running at maximum effort while someone is trying to make sure the whole contraption stays attached to my head. All for a number that has become almost gospel in longevity medicine. To be fair, for good reason. Cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF) is one of the strongest predictors we have of cardiovascular disease and all-cause mortality. The American Heart Association has even argued that it should be treated as a clinical vital sign. But the limitations of measurement make it hard to incorporate into regular clinical practice. Besides measurement, another debate is brewing: is VO₂ max the thing we care about or is it a phenotype of something deeper? A high VO₂ max reflects a whole system working together: cardiovascular function, oxygen delivery, muscle physiology, metabolism, physical activity, body composition and more. While the association between CRF and longevity is incredibly strong, association and causation aren't the same thing. That’s part of why I’m excited about an upcoming webinar with Brooks Leitner, MD, PhD, founder of VO Health, Tuesday October 6th at 9am PT. They’re working on a very different way of looking at fitness: using proteins circulating in the blood to estimate cardiorespiratory fitness. Related published research has shown that proteomic signatures can predict CRF and change alongside improvements in fitness after exercise training. The obvious benefit is scalability. A blood draw is considerably easier to deploy than putting everyone in a Darth Vader mask and running them to exhaustion. But I think the more interesting possibility goes beyond just convenience. A traditional VO₂ max test tells us the phenotype. Could molecular measurements eventually help us understand the biology underneath it? And if they can, could we eventually move from “your VO₂ max is 42” to understanding why it’s 42 and what intervention might actually change it? Brooks and team have some truly exciting insight on how to incorporate this diagnostic and give your patients more than just "increase your zone 2-3 training". We’ll get into what the science actually supports today, what it doesn’t yet, and where this could go for personalized medicine. And 10/10 will recommend that blood draw over the Darth Vader mask run. Join the event here: https://lnkd.in/gpDxdBNq

Most AI sales tools are built to book meetings. Amanda Kahlow is building one that replaces the meeting entirely. Andy Mowat and I recently caught up with Amanda, Founder and CEO of 1mind, about how her AI "Superhumans" handle full solution conversations from first touch, giving buyers the depth of a solutions engineer without waiting three steps to get there. "My goal is to bypass that meeting to be the meeting in that moment so that we can drive revenue at the bottom." Amanda's Superhuman "Nigel" joined a live meeting, held 31% of talk time, and helped close the deal. A consistent theme underpinning GTM Council conversations: If you're not rethinking how AI will transform your GTM, you're already behind. Full episode here: https://lnkd.in/giKwNsbM

After six years, I'm leaving Artera to start a new adventure 🚀 (more on that next week). Six years in "startup years" is an era. When I joined Artera (then WELL Health) during the early days of COVID, healthcare was in crisis and struggling to reach patients digitally. 📣 Today, we serve 1,000+ healthcare organizations. Leading this company on the executive team has been one of the privileges of my career. Through every victory, heartbreak, challenge, and pickleball match, it has been anything but boring. Through all of it, two things stayed steadfast: the mission to make healthcare #1 in customer service and the remarkable humans who make it possible. To my peers and partners, Guillaume de Zwirek, Tom McIntyre, Michael Jensen, Zach Wood, Nicole Ossey, Damon Lanphear, Kari Baldonado Lander, Michael B Kaufman and Melody Stackhouse: thank you for your support, partnership and trust. And, thank you to our board for your guidance. To my friends and mentors, Justin Widlund, Ashu Agte, Meg Aranow, MPH, Jordan Pecherer; Sarah Shillington and Isabelle Meyer Stapf: thank you for your wisdom and belief in me.  And to my Marketing & Communications team. My secret in business is hiring people smarter than me, and I succeeded beyond measure here. Emily Coy, Rachel Miller, Emily Natoli, Caitie Schooler, Linda Wuest, Taylor Gasdia, Marissa Jankowski, Noor Noush, MS, and Sally M.: your tenacity, skill and wit made everything we built possible. You are everything, and I can't wait to watch what you do next. The list of people who made me better at Artera is so much longer than this post and includes many, many former Arterians not named here. Please know that I am grateful for you and the time we shared. Artera, I'm cheering for you always. 💜

Your team is too close. Your friends are too nice. Your investors are too busy. It’s time for an honest opinion on your brand. For SF TECH WEEK by a16z, we’re hosting Potato Meter, our spin on Rotten Tomatoes for startup brands. Think: a panel’s critique, an audience verdict, and potatoes that can take a roast. Submit your site and let a room full of founders and marketers score it with… potato paddles. Scoring alongside the audience: Lester Chen (Partner, a16z), Morgane Palomares (VP of Marketing, Braintrust), Malthe Sigurdsson (Head of Craft, Stripe). But first, Maya Spivak from Marketing.fan sits each of them down to talk about the work they're known for. Sign up here → https://lnkd.in/dRD6j4Qe

Last night during #oktane I got to sit down with customers and new friends over some Korean BBQ. We broke bread, well in this case, bibimbap and beef? 😅 Let me tell you, the conversations had RANGE, from excitement for our newly launched product, Opal Zero, to finding out one of customers just ran a Tough Mudder last week! Respect. ✊ Grateful for the convos and I'm looking forward to many more opportunities like this in the near future as we hit the road for #CybersecurityAwarenessMonth Big thanks to Aron and the Risotto team for co-hosting. Randy Sameer Aayush