Health Tech: Stephen Scheeler Of Omniscient Neurotechnology On How Their Technology Can Make An Important Impact On Our Overall Wellness
An Interview With David Leichner
Humility — When I joined Facebook, I was the oldest person the company had ever hired. I was humbled to be leading a team of people who were experts in disciplines about which I knew little. To that end, I learned to embrace humility and ask each person to teach me something about their expertise. Doing so made me a more effective leader.
In recent years, Big Tech has gotten a bad rep. But of course many tech companies are doing important work making monumental positive changes to society, health, and the environment. To highlight these, we started a new interview series about “Technology Making An Important Positive Social Impact”. We are interviewing leaders of tech companies who are creating or have created a tech product that is helping to make a positive change in people’s lives or the environment. As a part of this series, I had the pleasure of interviewing Stephen Scheeler.
Stephen Scheeler is a big-tech veteran and formerly one of the early leaders at Facebook (now Meta). Among other roles at Facebook, Stephen headed up Facebook Australia & New Zealand through its hyper-growth years in the 2010s. He helped scale Facebook from a mere startup to the tech giant it is today. He brings tremendous software business leadership to the Omniscient team.
Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series. Before we dive in, our readers would love to learn a bit more about you. Can you tell us a bit about your childhood backstory and how you grew up?
I was born and raised in Buffalo, New York — far from the glamour of Silicon Valley. In my neighborhood, the dream job was to work in the steel plant or at the auto factory down the street. That path wasn’t for me. However, I was also never very interested in technology growing up. I was much more interested in the humanities such as history, music, literature. My undergrad degree was actually in East Asian History, with a studious avoidance of all math and science. But technology eventually pulled me into its grip!
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began your career?
I had a pretty unusual start to my time at Facebook, to say the least. I was on the commercial side of the company, which had a big focus on advertising sales. In those days, as now, Google was Facebook’s biggest competitor in digital advertising. However, when I joined Facebook, Google was much bigger and more successful than Facebook in the digital ads business — they were our 500-pound gorilla. I was determined to steal a march on Google…so much so that I wound up doing something out of the ordinary. During the annual company conference of one of our biggest potential clients (where Google was strong and Facebook was weak), I donated to the client’s charity auction a meeting with Mark Zuckerberg in Menlo Park. I did this in the spur of the moment and was trying to catch the attention of the company’s CEO and Chief Marketer. And, boy did my plan work! The meeting with Zuck attracted the highest bid in the history of the charity auction and was bought by a member of their board of directors. The fly in the ointment was…I had zero authorization to auction off a meeting with Zuck. Luckily, Mark was super supportive, and he wound up spending an hour with the donor and his family at Facebook’s head office. It was a colorful beginning of my relationship with Mark.
None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?
It’s another story from my time at Facebook. When I was interviewing to join the company, the process took a while. In fact, I went through 16 interviews before getting hired. I later discovered that one of Facebook’s biggest concerns was that I was too old to be successful at the company. At that time, the average age in the company was 23, and Mark was 26. I was 46 (and, as I later discovered, the oldest person Facebook had ever hired up to that time). After I joined, I came to learn that one of Facebook’s senior leaders (who had been one of the 16 interviewers) was a huge champion of hiring me…against a lot of internal opposition. He became a great mentor and friend and was a big factor in my success at Facebook. We have both since parted ways with Facebook, but I often still turn to him for counsel about issues of leadership, people, culture and just building a great company. He has the wisdom of Yoda!
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
“Screw it, let’s do it!” is a famous Richard Branson quote. To me, it speaks to my own bias toward taking action to rapidly move the business forward. I’ve never met Branson, but in reading his autobiography, I learned that he is dyslexic and can’t really read effectively — so, he’s naturally more focused on people and ideas and getting things done. I try to be the same.
You are a successful business leader. Which three character traits do you think were most instrumental to your success? Can you please share a story or example for each?
- Humility — When I joined Facebook, I was the oldest person the company had ever hired. I was humbled to be leading a team of people who were experts in disciplines about which I knew little. To that end, I learned to embrace humility and ask each person to teach me something about their expertise. Doing so made me a more effective leader.
- Decisiveness — Much about success is putting yourself in the right situations to succeed. I often get asked by talented people what they should do or change to accelerate their careers and one option I strongly recommend is “quit,” especially if they’re working for an organization or leader who can’t develop them or give them the opportunities they need to advance. I’ve quit jobs in my career where I knew the opportunities for me were limited. It can seem risky at the time, but talented, driven and decisive people will generally find the right situation.
- Honesty/Clarity — I actually don’t think I am the most empathetic person naturally, but I’ve learned that really listening and being super honest and clear with people makes me a better leader. When I started at Facebook, one of the first things I said to my team was, “I don’t care if I hit my targets or if I get fired — I’ll find another job. My job is to make you successful. Period. If I achieve that, I’ll be fine. If you screw up, I’ll take the blame from higher up. But I’ll hold you accountable to me and the team.” That seemed to really sit well with everyone and gave them the compass by which to navigate with me as their leader.
Ok super. Let’s now shift to the main part of our discussion about the technology or medical devices that you are helping to create that can make a positive impact on our wellness. To begin, which particular problems are you aiming to solve?
We are world leaders in a field called, “connectomics,” the use of big data and machine learning to map the connections and networks of the human brain. The brain is an extraordinarily complex biological computer that physicians have struggled for centuries to fully comprehend. The burden of health problems related to the brain is immense and more than 1 in every 5 people will experience a neurological or psychiatric condition in their lifetime. Unlike issues caused by other major organs, brain-related disorders have been largely misunderstood until recently. While the connectomics research community has characterized detailed working models of the brain, most practicing physicians today still make decisions based on far more simplified models defined more than a century ago. Connectomics is a revolutionary advance that is opening the door for truly personalized brain medicine. Omniscient is leading this revolution, starting with enabling neurosurgeons to visualize the clinical impact of their decisions.
How do you think your technology can address this?
Quicktome is an FDA-cleared precision brain mapping platform that uses machine learning to analyze millions of data points derived from a standard MRI scan, allows medical professionals to map the brain’s cognitive and emotional regulation networks. These include the default mode network (active when the mind engages in internal thought or contemplation) and central executive network (responsible for tasks and decision making). Already used by neurosurgeons to visualize the brain’s pathways prior to a procedure, our technology ultimately aims to transform brain health and address conditions such as Alzheimer’s disease and depression.
Can you tell us the backstory about what inspired you to originally feel passionate about this cause?
As a brain surgeon, Michael Sughrue, MD, who is our co-founder and chief medical officer, realized that patient outcomes would be significantly improved if he was able to visualize the functional networks in a patient’s brain. He knew he needed to better protect his patient’s postoperative cognitive and emotional well-being, and understood he needed advanced technology to achieve this. He recognized the need for a practical application that would allow clinicians to access and utilize the latest connectomics research, as existing research far outpaced surgical, neurological and psychiatric medical practices. As there was no precedent for this type of technology and no current technology platforms could house and provide this information, he sought the advanced technical expertise of Stephane Doyen, PhD, to help make the information accessible for medical professionals. Sughrue and Doyen understood that bringing in a CEO could better help them achieve their goals, and I am excited to be onboard.
Coming from big tech, I am passionate about big data and the positive impacts that it can deliver. Leading a company that is using big data to better understand the brain and potentially improve billions of lives, is the opportunity of a lifetime.
How do you think this might change the world?
Our technology is poised to revolutionize how brain health specialists understand, diagnose, treat and prevent brain health conditions, such as depression and Alzheimer’s disease. We aim to find biomarkers, create diagnostic tools, create therapeutic targeting, and track disease progression, and make our technology broadly accessible to doctors dealing with a brain-related disorder. As an example, while physicians today can easily diagnose schizophrenia based on symptoms, our tools will allow neurologists to identify which specific brain circuits are impacted and determine how to best care for and treat each individual patient.
Keeping “Black Mirror” and the “Law of Unintended Consequences” in mind, can you see any potential drawbacks about this technology that people should think more deeply about?
Omniscient is a pioneer in “connectomics,” the use of big data and machine learning to map the connections and networks of the human brain. We are mapping how the brain interacts with itself and other parts of the body and are not designing our technology to read a person’s mind. We are committed to developing this novel technology with safety and ethics at the forefront of our efforts. As a start, we are adhering to the FDA’s guidance on cybersecurity and plan to implement additional security to ensure the safety and privacy of our patients. This is a new, and evolving, industry that will improve the lives of billions of people, and we take our responsibility in safely and ethically developing this technology very seriously.
Can you share a few best practices that you recommend to safeguard your technology or medical devices from hackers?
At Omniscient, we understand that no data is more personal than that which is found in a person’s brain. During my time at Facebook, I was exposed to both best practices — and challenges — of data management and privacy. This presented me with unique insight on the incredible power of big data and the equally incredible need to serve as a data custodian. Regarding our product’s security, Quicktome is a cloud-driven, HIPAA compliant platform that operates on hospital-owned devices behind the facilities’ already stringent firewalls.
If you could tell other young people one thing about why they should consider making a positive impact on our environment or society, like you, what would you tell them?
We are living in exponential times, where a single individual really can have a profound impact on the world, even at a very young age. Look at Mark Zuckerberg, Steve Jobs, Greta Thunberg, or Madiha Afzal. All have made profound impacts on the world before their first grey hair! We still measure too much of our value as individuals and society by the money we make. The positive impact you can make in the world is the much more important measure.
Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would like to have a private breakfast or lunch, and why? He or she might just see this, especially if we tag them. :-)
I’d make it a big lunch, because I’d invite every billionaire on earth. The super-rich are often accustomed to getting their way through their money or influence…but all the money in the world cannot protect their 80-year-old mother from getting dementia that prevents her from recognizing them, their teenager child from attempting suicide, or they themselves from becoming hopelessly depressed. Their money and influence are useless for these things…the things that REALLY matter. Through connectomics, Omniscient has built the platform designed to conquer the mental illness and dementia epidemics that are sweeping the world today.
If the super-rich really want to make a profound impact on the things that REALLY matter, their money and influence can help Omniscient accelerate connectomics as the global standard of care for billions of people, so that mental illness and depression are eliminated from the planet. There is no greater legacy to leave to your family and to humankind than that.
How can our readers further follow your work online?
Our site, o8t.com, contains information about not just our company and products, but also the field of connectomics. Omniscient Neurotechnology is also active on LinkedIn and Twitter (@o8tneuro). Follow us on either platform for our latest updates!
Thank you so much for joining us. This was very inspirational, and we wish you continued success in your important work.
About The Interviewer: David Leichner is a veteran of the Israeli high-tech industry with significant experience in the areas of cyber and security, enterprise software and communications. At Cybellum, a leading provider of Product Security Lifecycle Management, David is responsible for creating and executing the marketing strategy and managing the global marketing team that forms the foundation for Cybellum’s product and market penetration. Prior to Cybellum, David was CMO at SQream and VP Sales and Marketing at endpoint protection vendor, Cynet. David is a member of the Board of Trustees of the Jerusalem Technology College. He holds a BA in Information Systems Management and an MBA in International Business from the City University of New York.
