The surprising things AI wants to know about your health

We need to get the health care revolution right.

Artificial Intelligence promises to reduce bottlenecks, improve quality of care, and allow our over-stretched healthcare systems to scale to meet the needs of the aging global population.

But it's not going to be easy.

Today we talk with Kota Kubo, founder of Ubie about the opportunities and challenges involved in the coming wave of healthcare innovation. And since Ubie just raised $27 million to  fund their global expansion, you'll be hearing a lot more about them in the future.

It's a great conversation, and I think you'll enjoy it.


Show Notes

The right way to use and AI symptom checker
Is founding a 50/50 startup with an old friend a good idea?
How you can manage 150 employees without managers
Why the team designed Ubie's UI in Hibiya Park
The "karaoke interface" for medical data
Why you should ignore your customers and listen to your users about design
Why it's so hard to sell to doctors (and how to do it right)
How to better support orphaned diseases

Ubie's strategy for going global.


Links from the Founder

Everything you ever wanted to know about Ubie
Check your symptoms with Ubie's AI Symptom Checker
AN overview of Teal Management
Follow Kota on Twitter @quvo_ubie
Connect on LinkedIn



Transcript
Welcome to Disrupting Japan, straight talk from Japan’s most successful entrepreneurs.
I’m Tim Romero and thanks for joining me.
Even if AI can't give us the right answer, sometimes it can help us to ask the right questions. It turns out, that's a lot more important than you might think.
Today, we sit down with Kota Kubo, the co-founder of Ubie, an AI based symptom checker and hospital check-in tool that is being used at over a thousand hospitals and clinics across Japan. And as you'll see in this case, the questions, the AI raises are more important than those it answers. And since Ubie just raised 27 million to fund their global expansion, you'll be hearing a lot more about them soon.
 We also talk about how Ubie manages 150 staff with no managers, why it's so hard to sell to doctors and how to do it right. How to bring attention to orphan diseases and why you really need to ignore your customer’s ideas about UI and listen to your users.
But, you know, Kota tells that story much better than I can. So, let's get right to the interview.

Interview 
Tim: Cheers.
Kota: Cheers.
Tim: So, we're sitting here with Kota Kubo of Ubie, who is disrupting digital health here in Japan. So, thanks so much for sitting down with me. Health tech is so important in Japan. And so you've got two different products you offer. 
Kota: Yes. 
Tim: So, let's do just a real quick introduction to what those products are and then we'll dive deep.
Kota: Yes, we have the two side of product. First, is for the patient product. It's our AI symptom checker Ubie and the users input their symptoms like headache or stomach ache or something. So AI asked some of the sort of questions. And after that AI suggest a disease name so their users can get to know their symptom, condition and disease. And after that, we also suggested the clinics or hospitals. 
Tim: Okay. You know, one thing I'm curious about that, because I've used it. It's really interesting, but so like some sites like WebMD, for example, they have a really famous problem where someone will go on with like, I don't know, a runny nose and they'll start searching and asking questions. And 10 minutes later they're convinced they have like rabies or some brain eating parasite or some horrible disease. How do you stop that kind of unhealthy interaction at Ubie?
Kota: Yeah, it's very difficult. I think so our end the point of the suggestions guide people to the appropriate clinics and hospitals and we suggest a specialist created to their symptom. So, I think their users feel they're safe.
Tim: So, and again, you're really focusing on providing information,