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Dr. Howard Farran: All things dentistry, Pulp Podcast Episode 6

EndosKool1:45:05

Transcription

My 84-year-old mother says, "Sometimes I wish there was a machine gun mounted on the hood of my car 'cause I'd put 50 rounds on that guy who just..." And I'm like, "Mom, chill out."

When I retired at 60 years old, I sold my dental office, and a lot of DSOs wanted it because they like to get big brand names behind it, you know, third-person endorsement. And I took a haircut on the price of my practice. I could have doubled my money, but I sold it to a real-world general dentist who was going to work there. I just, I just wasn't going to go to a DSO.

I mean, uh, Tracy Morgan was the dean. He said, "Before they become dentists, they must take the sacred denttocratic oath." The oath will be led by the valedictorian, which was Scarlett Johansson. Scarlett says, "Thank you. Honored to be here." Tracy said, "By the way, where did you match and what is your specialty?" Scarlett says, "I have proudly matched with Oceanside Tooth and Breath in Cleveland, Ohio, the office right next to the Panda Express." Tracy said, "Wonderful, wonderful student."

I always tell people, think of the average dentist, uh, in the United States. That's weird to think of the average dentist in the United States, but then when you think half the dentists are worse than that guy, then you're like, "Holy crap. Oh my god."

The number one overhead cost in dentistry is insurance write-off. Okay? Hire one Python programmer for 100 grand, and you've got two people over here doing insurance, and just have them observe. Three months later, it's completely automated.

>> Welcome to the Paul podcast, where we talk about all things dentistry and non-dentistry from a generational perspective. I'm joined today with my co-host, Dr. Anotch, who's remote, and Dr. Para Shahiti. So, Parsa, I think today we have the king of all media, uh, and, uh, someone who started all the digital stuff in the industry. I'm really happy about that. So, why don't you go ahead, do a little introduction for?

>> Yeah, it's, it's a real pleasure. Today, uh, we have our very own version of Joe Rogan. We call him, uh, Dr. Howard Fan. Of course, the king of media in the dental space, a great person, and I've heard so much from both of you about him. Uh, for those of you who don't know, and I don't think there'll be many of those who don't know Dr. Howard Fran, but he's the founder of, uh, Dentistry Uncensored, Dental Town, and the number one dental podcaster. So, uh, we've heard you have 10,400,000 downloads of all of your episodes. Is that right, Howard?

>> Just that's just on iTunes.

>> Oh my gosh.

>> That's amazing. So, all right. So, Annie, why don't you go ahead and, uh, start the conversation?

>> I think one of the things that's interesting is as, as both FA and myself, as we age a little bit and we kind of think, well, my retirement is so good, then we kind of get a little bored with things, right? There's only so many grandchildren you can visit, there's only so many rounds of golf. And, uh, just speaking with you, Al, I, I really sense that how you've been re-energized. But before we get into some of the new AI stuff, something a little bit more prosaic is like, where do you think currently dental continuing education is on the internet?

>> Wow, that's a phenomenal question. I think there's a lot of gatekeepers on CE, you know what I mean? And, you know, a lot of gatekeepers. And I think that, um, that now it's getting so easy to build a website and to do media and filming and editing and all those things. I think there's going to be a Cambrian explosion of CE. And, um, and I think people of our generation forget the questions are happening in dental school. I had a person, um, a senior in dental school, um, and she, um, post, she texted me, she goes, "What exactly is an MB2?" And we just forget that you can be a junior in dental school and, and still, you know, so, so, you know, it's, it's a big broad spectrum, and the, the continuing education's got to be at different levels, you know? There's a, I tell dentists right now that, you know, when I was in, when we all graduated from dental school, if you didn't have someone in your family that's a dentist, you could only get a job in the military, public service, Indian Health. And now, what's great about DSOs is these graduates can come out of school and they can get a job anywhere, any city, if not rural, but in the big cities. And I tell them, you know, you're going to have to do a hundred crowns before you even know the right questions. You're going to have to, you know, you're just going to have to, you know, it takes you years to be an average dentist, and it takes you a decade to be a great dentist. And, and, um, and you got to take all the online CE you can. The one, the one thing I noticed of all the really successful dentists, even successful financially, is they all had their FAGD. And I noticed that straight out of school. Every time I went to the course in Phoenix, here's this big town. It's the same 100 dentists, and they all got this FAGD, MA. And, uh, and what I realized is, you know, if you're not taking a hundred hours a year, you're never going to be a great dentist. You're never going to be an elite dentist. And the other thing is, I, I look back at my, uh, on my CE career, and like I was talking before the show, you know, when I, when I went to the MIS Institute, now I fell in love with four or five different dentists that I still keep up. And, you know, one of them, you know, Chip Casting out in Bakersfield. I, I mean, so you, you, it's the relationships. It's talking after the show. Even Pankey, >> I got probably 80% of everything I learned at Pankey, the evenings arguing with the other classes till 2 in the morning than you did during the morning 8 to 5 lecture, you know.

>> And let me know, Allan, you and I have talked about this in the past, more specifically about endodontics, the lack of clinical endodontic education in many dental schools in this country, especially the older ones. It's appalling. Now, I've still done a lot of courses every year all around the country, and my big thing is young recent graduates because for all the money they're paying, they're getting very little clinical experience. The average now in the courses that I've done in CE is two canals. Some dental schools are splitting pre-molars. How would you do the buccal? I do the palatal. And then when I do a hands-on, uh, and I go around and I always ask people, how many, uh, root canals did you do in dental school? And they give me an answer. After about 20 minutes, when they realize Andy's pretty chill, they come up to me and they go like this. You know, Dr. Cotch, you know, when I said I did two cases in dental school, I said, "Yes." Well, actually, they were only in a sim lab. I never did a real clinical case. That's, that's 10 to 15% Howard are the, are the graduates.

>> And they paid $100,000 a year for that?

>> Right. $100,000 a year. Yeah.

>> So, where do you go to get that?

>> But a lot of it's like anything, you know, you, you know, you, you take any behavior, it's on a spectrum. I mean, I don't even care if it's murder. You know, they say only less than 1% of people murder someone, but everyone's over said, "Oh my god, if he did that, I'd murder the guy." There. I, I heard my, my 84-year-old mother say, "Sometimes I wish there was a machine gun mounted on the hood of my car 'cause I'd put 50 rounds on that guy who just..." And I'm like, "Mom, chill out." But, but, you know, they come out of school, you know, people are so complicated. I'm, I'm almost convinced at age 62 that I'm the only normal person I've ever met. And, uh, they come out. That's a kid, that's a joke. But they, you know, they come out of school and I say, "Okay, now, uh, Midwestern and, and, uh, in Glendale, Arizona, and 18 still in Mesa, Arizona." And I say, "Look, man. You're $400,000 in debt. I know your dad. You're already married with a kid. Move into your mom and dad's basement. You'll have no rent, no mortgage, none of that stuff. And you need to work six 10-hour days till till you're..." And no, they go, they always complain about their $400,000 student loans, but they never tell you that they immediately went and bought a $450,000 house. And, you know, they already got one kid walking, one in the oven. And then they, they complain about that endo deal and pulpotomies. They say, you know, almost no one did a pulpotomy in dental school anymore. I mean, if you did, if you, you know, we had to do 15 canals of endo, but I mean, they're not even doing five, and they're doing zero. So I'll show them these Medicaid clinics, and they're all over the place, right?

>> And I'll say, "Well, you can go do that Medicaid clinic and in a, and every single day you'll, you'll do three or four pulpotomies and three or four root canals." They go, "I'm not going to work at a Medicaid clinic. They're only paying this much money." And I go, "Well, how come you paid at Still and Midwestern $100,000 a year?" And then you go to these people, they're not going to pay you enough. They're paying you, and you're going to do your dental school requirements on endo and pulpotomies every day you work. So it's, it's like anything in life. The people that have hustle, the, you know, Annie, I mean, you, so weak of hustle. You've been hustling your whole life. Oie started all these companies. By the way, Annie, you were telling me before the show, the only regret you had in life was starting the Harvard Endo program.

>> Yeah. Yeah.

>> What, what a bunch of hacks, especially the rich.

>> But see, that's you. I mean, who the hell is an endodontist in Boston and then just sets up the endo, um, program at Harvard? Only Annie could do that in her part-time. And, um, so, you know, if you're coming out of school and you want to hustle and you want to work hard, dentistry is going to give you anything you want. Uh, but if you're going to be lazy and entitled and not work evenings and weekends, then, you know, look at endo. I, I had a friend in, uh, New York, and he went out to, uh, New York City. And, you know, the Christians or, uh, the Muslims, their Sabbath is Friday, and the Judaism is Saturday, and the Christians are Sunday, right? And on Saturday, there was an endodontist in Manhattan, and he was Jewish. And I said, "I don't care if you're, you know, talk to your rabbi. I don't know, but I have a pretty good feeling if you opened up on Saturdays in New York, you'd do really good." And he built the biggest endo practice in the world. And he, he credited all opening on Saturday. He, he was hustling.

>> Yeah. Hustling.

>> Absolutely.

>> That is interesting. It is just the quintessential thing.

>> Just work hard, live below your means. And, and in my generation, I remember when, uh, when Amazon went public in '94, and I was like, "What the hell is that?" And that's back when we read the Wall Street Journal, Investor's Business Daily.

>> And I was so damn dumb. It took me till '90, I think '96. I think Amazon had to go up about 30,000% before I even registered on my mind. And then I went to Barnes & Noble and I said, "Do you have any books on this thing called the internet?" And she goes, "We have four books on the internet." And I think that was '94 or '96, '97. So I bought all four books and I read them. And I think it was on the fourth book where I thought, "Oh, maybe we should get AOL because our teacher is saying to get AOL so our kids can do their homework or whatever." I got AOL and, and my gosh, when I logged on that and I realized that someday I, not buying a book on Amazon, I could be posting an X-ray on a website and Annie could tell me if the root canal failed and you could draw the red line where the missed canal is and you could draw another line where, you know, all this stuff is. And I just got religion. And I had finally paid off my student loans, paid off my house, paid off my practice. I was finally debt-free. And in 1998, had saved $1 million. And I immediately cashed it in and bought 10 programmers for about $110,000 a piece 'cause they were bidding up the price for the Y2K problem. So a programmer in '98, '99 was crazy. And, uh, we started Dental Town, and it was just a revolution. Now, 25 years later, I was retired and I was getting bored. And I, my problem was when I'm bored, I just eat. I mean, it's my favorite hobby, restaurant. And you think since you have money, you can afford to go to nice restaurants. And I swelled up to about 238. I'm back down to 180. Uh, actually 178. So I actually lost 60 pounds. And it was just from coming back to work. And everybody told me, they go, "Howard, you know, you, you're not born to retire. You're not going to sit in a chair and listen to all this toxic stuff about the the Putin Ukraine war, the China, Taiwan, US politics." I was getting grumpy and cranky, and I needed my dentistry back. So I came here and, and just like in the internet, I got AI religion. And it came from Chat GDP. And Chat GDP was funny because I had four kids, and one of the four is a programmer, and he's an AI, modern, 10x programmer. And he, for six months, he kept telling me, and I'm like, "You're a programmer, I'm not going to, you know, whatever." And then it was my other son, and Greg, he goes, "Dad, just download the app, let me show you." So I download it, and I started doing it. I started doing it, and I, I just got religion. So then I came into this operation, and I, it feels horrible, but, you know, all these people have been with me forever, but they were with the last generation. And now that was, you know, HTML, C++, SQL server, all this stuff, and they didn't evolve into modern Python programming. And, um, my gosh, uh, when I, uh, started this, uh, AI revamp, I think we had 22 employees, and now 14 of them have gone on, retired, whatever. And I've replaced them with 10 AI programmers. And that's 10 out of, initially we had, we've trimmed down. Two, two of them had master's degrees, but just, you know, just had massive difficulty. But it is just amazing. Our to-do list right now is about two years long.

>> And so how does this work for dentistry? So I'll go into a, a big group practice, they'll have four people up front, and I'll say, "Okay, hire one Python programmer for 100 grand, and you've got two people over here doing insurance." And just have them observe. Three months later, it's completely automated. And, and, and here, here's the thing that's exciting to me. Like when I go into Hertz, when I return a car to Hertz rent-a-car, they walk out there with a, with a wireless tab, and then we have like exactly six questions. What's your mileage? What's your gas tank? Here's the price. Sign here. Give me your credit. Whatever. And it's just fast. I check into the Hyatt Regency, and they ask you nine questions. Not eight, not 11, not 12. Nine questions. And you can hire someone for minimum wage of $20 an hour, and they'll never fail you. That. Then you go into a dental office. You open up Dentrix, Eaglesoft, Open Dental, and there's 40,000 buttons and functions. And I only want her to, I only need her to do eight things, but she forgot two of those because she's overwhelmed. And, and I, I remember going to, uh, Dentrix up in Provo, Utah, to their dental influencers conference. And he started talking about, um, I said, "Well, what's, what's, what are you going to talk about?" And he goes, "Well, we have a lot of new reports." And in the room were all these famous dental practice management people. And I just said, by show of hands, then I just started pointing people, how what percent, when you go into a dental office, what percent of the reports have never been run one time ever? And they go, "At least 85%, maybe 95%." And so now you're making more buttons and more reports and more noise. And what you're going to see in the future is you're going to see AI sit there and take that whole Open Dental, Dentrix, Eaglesoft, and close it all down to just keep it simple, stupid. Here's just simple, simple. And then the next move is, um, is agents. And we're already, we're already seeing agents come out. So now you already got deals where you know, like you can, um, tell your agent, hey, on Friday, I'm going to, I don't want to fly to Anaheim. I'm going to drive. It's only 6 hours. Give me a reservation at Disneyland Hotel. Give me two-day passes for Saturday and Sunday. Uh, one for each theme park. And then ask my four sons if any one of them want to go. Find out who wants to go and then make it all happen. And it does it. And it doesn't even call a human. It calls their AI. And it's just, it, we, and then, and then last, and I'll shut up. But if you were born in 1900, and I told you, Annie, Ali, Para, in 30 years, there's going to be planes, trains, and automobiles. You'd say, "What? What are they?" And in 30 years, that was the whole world. When I walked out of dental school, there was no internet, no laptops, no Apple, no smartphone. When I walked out of dental school, the coolest technology that I got was the automatic garage door opener. And I was so thrilled that I could push a button and that whole damn door would come up. And now I'm 62, and I'm looking at this world. I didn't see any of this coming. And when I graduated in 1987, and I don't think right now, I, I think the industrial revolution was 200 years, and it took us from, I mean, I mean, really, humans are a million years. They only show up with evidence of anything thinking, like paintings on walls or caves, like 50,000 years ago. And, um, you know, and I, I think that that 200 years ago, we went from the industrial revolution to landing on the moon. And I think what, what the industrial revolution took 200 years to do, I think AI is going to go one more scale in 20 years. And I already, I mean, you, you guys, I'm sure you all see it happening, but you've got to, you've got to turn your whole world upside down. And I, I, I tell these kids, you know, like when I work out at EOS, I tell those kids in law school, I said, you know, um, are you learning AI? And they go, "Well, they say next year they're going to have an AI class." I said, "It's too new. How are you going to get an old teacher to teach you something they know nothing about?" I said, "I would learn how to program in Python." Um, because if you just, if you just, I mean, it's such an elegant, simple language. I mean, think about it. We started with Cobol and Fortran 40 years ago. Ugly, ugly, crude languages. Python is so elegant, and it, it's going to change the whole world. And then they, they follow my advice. So now I was talking to him just about a month ago, and he said, he said, "Oh my gosh, there's about three or four lawyers down there, and there's some dental students 'cause I'm in downtown Phoenix, right where the ASU law school is. And this young graduate just got a job at a law firm." He said, "Oh my god, Howard, all the lawyers your age that look like you, you come in for a consult, they talk for an hour, he's sitting behind a library, and then he says, you know, I'll get back to you in a couple weeks and tell you what to do, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah." And he said, "They come in with me, and he's on a law AI, and it's recording you, and it's recording. He's got, he's got the, the, the Chat GDP or the, the law version app up there. He's recording you, which is digitizing. The AI is reading the digitizing, and then it's prompting them questions like, well, did, did Annie get the driver's license or the car tag or what, whatever the case, the exact questions. And then when you're all done, in one nanosecond, it writes up the whole summary, lists every statute for Arizona, the United States, foreign countries, the whole deal, the whole case is done."

>> And he says, "We're not even 20 minutes." He says, "I can't even ask questions for 20 minutes about a case, and the AI is telling me the questions to ask based on what they're saying." So, so, um, and then another one, there's an architect. They're building several 30-story apartment buildings downtown. And this guy was telling me that, um, the owner, cuz I walk by it every day on the way to the gym. And the owner says that, you know, that he's been doing this forever, and when he needed blueprints for this that would take a year and a million dollars, and 20 people would sit around designing this 35-story building. Now, he says, this went there. They said, "Where's the lot?" They pulled it up. "How many stories? 30." You know, 30. "How many units?" This. And you just enter all the, the prompted questions, and the blueprints are done. And then if you go back and say, "No, I don't want 8-foot ceilings. I want 10-foot ceilings." Okay, one entry done.

>> I mean, I mean, so, so AI is not going to replace any jobs. If you're in a job like an architect or, uh, whatever job you're in, and you use AI, you're going to replace all the other people in your career that don't use AI. It's just going to make everything so much more productive, faster, easier, scalable, you know, it's just, uh, I mean, it, it's going to be unbelievable. So Howard, those are all great points. And, you know, uh, being someone like yourself who's kind of seen originally the, uh, potential impact of the internet and then used that, uh, early on to, um, to do the Howard media and start with the, uh, the first use of chats and, you know, blogs and things like that to have dentistry conversations. Now, obviously, as you said, it's a perfect example with the industrial revolution and now the logarithmic growth of adding AI to our capability to increase productivity, growth, and so on. Where do you see, um, the AI's impact in dentistry would be the greatest? Would it be on more on the diagnostic side? And by the way, to, to do a disclaimer, we have been developing an AI app for diagnosis. Par is doing her, uh, degree and post-doc degree in AI, and we've also founded an AI society at the school at, at Harvard. So we're really very much involved, and we're just as enthusiastic about it as you are because we really think it's going to change the field. But we are interested in knowing which specific area of dentistry do you think will be most impacted? Obviously, all, but which one do you think would be the first and would be, you know, subsequently later on?

>> Well, first of all, Parsa should answer all the questions because he actually started his own venture, his own startup company while he was still in dental school. Is that amazing?

>> That is so amazing. When I was reading that about you, I'm like, what a stud to be.

>> Thank you. I appreciate that.

>> Starting your own business. I mean, what an entrepreneur. You're an entrepreneur on steroids. I was lame and slow. I, I, I think Amazon had to go from a dollar to a million before I finally like, "Okay, now I get it." And, uh, but, um, I would say, I would say all the above. I, I think, well, the first thing that's dear to me, >> is, you know, I, when I retired at 60 years old, I sold my dental office, and a lot of DSOs wanted it because they like to get big brand names behind it, you know, third-person endorsement. And I took a haircut on the price of my practice. I could have doubled my money, but I sold it to a real-world general dentist who was going to work there. I, I just, I, I just wasn't going to go to a DSO. I mean, it's not that I'm against DSO. It's just that it's two steps forward, one step back. And what I don't like is, you know, when you go to these DSOs, well, a couple things off the bat. Look at, um, look at Chick-fil-A. How Chick-fil-A came along, and McDonald's was a leader. They were doing $3 million a store and open seven days a week. Chick-fil-A says, "Nope, you need a day of rest." Every religion said, "You need a day off." Um, you know, every religion came up with this idea. And, uh, Chick-fil-A closes on Sunday, and their average store does $5 million a year. They beat McDonald's to death. And, and, um, and how do they do it? They only sell you one franchise. Ali, this is your only store. So if you're ever going to, you have any dreams with your family, kids, you ever want to take a vacation, it's going to be one store. And Chick-fil-A, and you get a day off. And, uh, my gosh, like Subway. If you walked in there with $10 million, you could buy 10 franchises. You come out of the NBA, and these players say, "Well, you know, I like Burger King. I'm going to buy me a dozen Burger Kings." Yeah. You've never worked at Burger King. That's why when you go to Burger King, you always know the owner has more than one location because when you eat the French fries, you'll always find like half an onion ring or a tater tot. There's always a surprise at the bottom with just as multi-location. Same thing with DSOs. When I see DSOs where everybody in there is only going to make their money there, the office manager only works, each, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, 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uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, 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uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, *Uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, 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uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh,

>> I would say managers will make >> Exactly. The exact opposite. I think that, um, that basically what happened is Greenspan decided that, you know what would be good for the economy is free money. And, you know, you, you know, banking and finance in healthy countries, if I put a dollar in the bank, you'll give me a nickel a year, and then you'll loan it out for a dime a year.

>> And that, that, that wasn't good enough. And, you know, so, you know, he lowered it all the way to free. And so all these, um, all these DSOs had free money, and they were expanding and running out loss. And then we had that, um, 2000, that, um, the co deal.

>> Right?

>> And I, you know, and the only DSO boss that wasn't even remotely nervous was Rick Workman because he already sold out a big portion of his stake for equity. He was debt-free. He had gazillions of dollars. I think he has like 25 Corvettes and a couple of jets. Um, he was fine. But the other ones, they were, they lost their flipping mind. They were so leveraged. And I think that interest rates are going to go up, right? Because with $33 trillion of debt, and it's not just the United States, Japan's got twice the debt per GDP as we do. All 20 democracies have shown that what the government does is first they try to raise taxes till you say no more. And then they try to borrow all the money they can till you say no more. And then they get you in so much debt, but that it was fine because interest was zero. Grant Greenspan had interest, no interest for a decade. And, uh, but now that interest is coming back, the United States just got its credit rating lowered. I mean, are you realizing that right now, every month, you spend more interest, more money on interest on the $33 trillion federal deficit than you do on the military?

>> It's the second item on the budget.

>> More money on interest than the military. And that's going to affect the DSOs because when they do these mergers and acquisitions, I got 40,000 followers on LinkedIn, and I'm always getting these, uh, papers and stuff. It'll be some consultant, some broker, and I've seen some really big deals. And the first thing I notice about the deals is when somebody's selling a large DSO, like say I have a large DSO and I'm selling it to Parsa, and I say I'm going to sell it for a dollar. And Par says, "Okay, but I got to borrow the dollar and I got to borrow all the closing costs." I'm looking at this deal, says, "Well, does the, does the buyer have any skin in the game?" Oh, hell no. It's all borrowed money. It's all super massive leverage. And I think when interest rates start to go up, you're going to have an ugly reckoning of highly leveraged people. And it doesn't matter if they chain a DSO. By the way, when you say DSO, the thing I don't like about, there's only a couple of few DSOs that I got, a thousand to 500 locations. Your average DSO has three locations. And there's about a thousand DSOs that have three locations headed to four, headed to five. And I'm just keep telling them, just watch the leverage, man. I mean, just, just get your business model. Look at, um, look at, um, McDonald's. They spent 20 years on their first 10 locations, and a couple of them didn't make it before they perfected it. Then Ray Kroc comes along, buys it, and he can roll it out. Um, it's the same thing. Look at Walmart. Walmart started the same year I was born, 1962. And after 10 years, I mean, they only had like eight or nine locations, but they, they were slowly perfecting their scale. You know, one turns into two. That's your hardest scale. Then two turns into four. That's the same size scale, but that's the second time you scale. Then four turns into eight, and then eight turns into 16 into 32. I, I remember when Southwest Airlines was scaling out all these states, including where I was from, Kansas. The governor said, "Look, we'll buy you a free $50 million Southwest Boeing 737 'cause we really want Southwest here." And he goes, "Dude, airplanes aren't even my cost. My pilots are my number one cost. Labor is the second cost. Fuel's the third cost. And what I need is operations and logistics. And I can only grow my team so fast. If I just opened up 30 locations, it would be mismanaged. We, we'd probably go bankrupt." And I remember when I got out of school, the, uh, one of the first consultants I used was Greg Stanton. Greg Stanley. And I said, um, I think, um, that I'm going to take my dental office and put one north, southeast, west, and the bank's going to loan me. They said, I got a line of credit for $10 million 'cause I was debt-free and had a million. And Greg said, "Oh, well, you should do that 'cause there's no way you could go bankrupt faster than starting four offices, uh, rolling one to three." He goes, "You're insane. Don't do it with leverage. Go slow, do it in cash, and it'll take you years from one to go to two. You'll learn from that, then you can go from two to four." And after 25 years, I never even scaled to two because I didn't see where the money was coming from. The insurance, uh, reimbursement was going lower, the overhead was going higher, and the dentist would come out of school, and people are weird. They come out of school $400,000 in debt, telling me all this stuff. And I'd say, "Okay, well, I want you to work, uh, evenings, three nights a week, and I want you to work Saturdays, um, from 8 to 1." And they'd just say, "No." They said, "What do you mean no? You're $400,000 in debt, you're married, and you already got a kid on the ground walking."

>> Howard, I, I have a question for you. So as a new, you know, as a, maybe the new generation of, you know, dentists and specialists coming up, the way that I look at what you're saying, and the way that I perceive it is, you know, we have one of two options, right? If we want to start our own businesses, our own practices, um, your philosophy is, take the one you have, perfect the systems, perfect the operations, roll out slowly, organically, lower your debt burden. So if it has to be organic growth, and then roll out after several years to your second, third, fourth location. There's a contrarian point of view, which is, um, you know, using debt as a tool to be able to optimize your growth. Companies like Apple do it, Salesforce of the world do it. When money is cheap, it's not so cheap right now. The question is, you have these people growing out their practices to 10, 20 locations, and then they take advantage of the fact that the ones with the money in dentistry are the larger DSOs with the cash on hand to be able to come in and make an offer, two times, three times what you would get from a private owner or private buyer. So people are really excited to turn their private offices into basically these different styles of DSOs. Um, some are boutique DSOs, some are volume DSOs, but the mission is, let's, let's grow something so that it can be rolled up and sold to these big groups at a higher premium. That's what's making it more attractive for them. Do you, do you agree with that? Do you agree with the fact that that's what's happening?

>> Well, you know, I get to see both sides of the equation. So, I got these people, and I don't want to drop any names because I don't want to get back to Rick Workman or anybody like that, or Rick Hersner or anything like that, but a lot of these people, they get to five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10 to 20, and they're, they're going to go bankrupt, and then they try to get bought by like a Heartland or something like

That and they're just train wrecks. There's there's so many train wrecks, and that was with free money. And like I say, from when I got out of school, high school in 1980 to now, um, you know, when I got out of high school in 1980, interest rates was 21%. Paul Volcker from the New York Fed was trying to break inflation, and that 1980, '81, '82, that, that was the worst I'd ever seen it. And then, and then the interest rates went all the way down, and they've been down really, really low for the whole time, and now the pendulum is swinging back. So the, the, the, the years of leverage and, and all that free money and cheap money and all that kind of stuff, they're gone, and they're going to be gone for probably the next generation.

I, I think what happened in the last 40 years, like, like look at momentum trades. Um, the, the, the, the stock market, I mean, we start badmouthing the whole world and all this stuff like that, and the reason, um, you know, the majority of money is in the New York Stock Exchange is because it was a momentum trade. Well, there's probably like $30 trillion, um, invested in the, from foreigners in the, in the United States stock market, and we've already seen about a third of that, $10 trillion, leave. Now, right now, who's replacing it? All these, you know, meme investors and all these guys that, you know, they think they're Warren Buffett. And, and so you have big institutions in Japan and Germany and South Korea selling, and then who's replacing it? Some hobby guy trader who's into Bitcoin and, and, and Tesla stock. And I, I, I think, I think what you saw in the last 40 years, the easiest model, just that the pendulum's going the other way. So if you just realize that exactly the opposite is going to happen for 40 years, and then, and then it's okay because what does Japan and South Korea, the Russian Ukraine war, and if China invades Taiwan, what does that have to do with my dental office? What does that have to do with Dental Town? So I think it's time to focus. And, and again, my mission is very simple. I don't want Taylor Marie to go to a dentist and he sees a crown opportunity. The office manager running nine locations and Wall Street saying, "Hey, are we going to be able to contribute, you know, 14% to earnings?" Like, like these DSOs, I mean, if, if they're so good, if they took my dental supplies and lab to zero to zero, that's still less than the 14% they're skimming off the top. So where, where are the efficiencies that this DSO is bringing me that I can add another lab bill and supplies bills? I mean, I mean, I don't know what you're smoking, but you know, I'm, I'm sure, um, you know, >> taking multiple planes of uh positions here. I'm not even sure at what point are you contradicting yourself or not, Howard. But let me just tell you one thing here, in that, in terms of the uh, um, the inflation and the rate of the interest rates, I'm going to take the contrarian position and kind of disagree. I'm not sure if we're going to ever be able to go back to the 1980s in the Volcker rule and those high inflation rates because we simply can't afford it. He just mentioned the currently the interest uh payment is the second item on the on the budget, and as a result of that, the country cannot afford that, and the Fed knows that, and the Fed is playing a game with inflation, but in reality, they're going to have to understand that the only way to pay back the debt is going to be through inflation. So they're going to have to keep the interest rate low because any higher interest rate is going to make it impossible to pay back the debt. So I, I just don't feel that that is going to happen. And so that's where I think this idea of what uh uh Parsa was saying as well with the big companies leveraging, buying out mergers and acquisitions is just baked into the system as, as I see it. We're not going to have high, high u interest rates.

>> The, the, the, the only person that matters in this conversation is the bond market. And the bond market. I'll go back to a couple years ago when England in uh elected another run-of-the-mill typical, and they came in and they promised tax cuts to the rich and a bunch of increase in spending and a bunch of increase in deficit, and the bond market shut him down, and they had to fire her. She was the shortest running prime minister in the history of the UK. I think she lasted like 50 days, and they dropped the tax cuts and they do all this. You know, it'll, everything will be fine until it's broken. And I really believe we're we're there. And so I, I, I >> a different debt situation in the UK, right? Don't, don't you think so? In terms of the sheer numbers and so on. And I'm sure you probably know about Modern Monetary Theory. So that kind of, they kind of have a whole different view of of the way the inflation works. But uh >> well, I got an MBA from ASU and, and uh, I'll tell you what, my professors are scared shitless, but, but anyway, I >> but one other things, you know, since this is about, since the podcast is about all things dentistry and non-dentistry here, the, the one thing that I think here that we have to also consider is, is the US, the privilege of the dollar, right? I mean, that is really the thing that is >> we're losing the privilege, we've lost >> so that is that, to me, is the most detrimental >> 10% of the value of the dollar this year, >> right? One year, still is the world's current. Yeah. Still the world's, you know, reserve currency. But that is, to me, I agree with you in that sense, is that >> the only reason the United States will keep the reserve currency because all your alternatives are horrific. It either doesn't have enough volume like the pound, or, you know, they don't, or you think the Federal Reserve is bad here. Well, what are you going to use the Chinese CCP money with no law, no transparency, no rules? You can put money in, you can't. So the United States will maintain the reserve currency for sure because there's no alternatives. That's >> well, BRICS has been, you know, coming up as as the alternative, whether I mean, people trust, you know, all the countries in that bunch, uh, that's the thing. But I mean, if that comes up, to me, that is like the greatest threat.

>> So, so it will be the reserve currency, but, but as the, as the momentum trade goes back, I mean, like, uh, like in the military deal, when, when, you know, you sell them planes and then you say they can't use them. Well, now Europe just canceled all their fighter planes, and then we got to build our own. I mean, we, we can't buy your planes, and, and then, and then the president can say, "Oh, well, you can't use them, or we'll cut off your satellite, or we'll cut off your F.E." I mean, it's crazy stuff. Okay.

>> Lots of multivaried factors, but I want to go back to my core mission. So, my core mission, what got me out of retirement is that I, I don't care if my daughter goes to a very well-run DSO where they have one office manager and the dentist has been there 5, 10, 15, 20 years, but I don't want to go into a DSO where an office manager is running nine locations and their average dentist isn't even there for a year. The DSOs really helped my practice in Phoenix because every day they were coming in, they said, "I went to this DSO and Dr. Dr. Annie said that I had three cavities and I came back to do three, and then I went back there and she no longer works there. So then Dr. Holly came in and said that I actually had four cavities and he wanted to do two on this side and two on the other, and I came back the third day and Dr. Para was now my dentist and he said that he didn't agree with the it just, it just, you know >> I agree 100%. That is detrimental to all of us.

>> I especially agree with the Para part. Oh my god. I want to practice in the middle of all the DSOs because if you don't have staff turnover and you're only focused on one location. But, but back, back to my mission. My mission is this. You know that there, you know, the DSOs can't go to the rural just because of the mating pattern of primates. They're, they're, they're not going to come out hot and horny at 24 and go to Beville, Texas to find a mate. They're going to go to Austin or Houston or Dallas. No one goes to Beville looking for love. Okay. And, um, so you go to the rural area, but let's talk about the urban dolls. You, the, I, I'm competing against a DSO that's got a marketing department, an accounting department, um, you know, gets dental supplies cheaper. These are all things AI can solve. The dentist is wearing too many hats, and my gosh, they can do better. They, they can automate so much of their management, their practice management software.

>> That's a good point to actually stay h stay on here. So I, I understand your point. So you're saying that DSOs have a specific ranges of spectrum, and that there is a range in which it would work, and then there is a lot of ranges outside of that where it wouldn't work, and it would be bad and toxic for for everyone. That kind of makes a lot of sense. I kind of agree with you. But so the question then becomes, in an operationalized center that's run by big business, how can the small private practitioner have a chance to compete? And what you're seeing right now is that potentially a way of using AI to operationalize their processes. They might be that kind of what the AI promise of the first billion dollar oneperson company uh could be, that the equivalent of that that dentists could use AI to help ex expedite and streamline their processes even at a small operation to be able to compete with the big dogs. Is that what you're saying, or am I putting in?

>> Absolutely. I'm trying to find. Did you guys see SNL on Saturday Night Live uh this week?

>> No, not this week.

>> No.

>> Did you see it? Annie, are you telling me?

>> Oh, is that the one with

>> I didn't see it. No.

>> Is that the one, the one they were singing about that that song with the dental graduates and stuff?

>> They had a u they had Scarlett Johansson.

>> Yes, that's I saw a clip of that. I

>> They had her graduate from dental school. But I want to read you, I want to read you Dale. Um, they, uh, uh, Tracy Morgan was the dean. He said, "Before they become dentists, they must take the sacred denttocratic oath. The oath will be led by the valedictorian, which was Scarlett Johansson." Scarlet says, "Thank you. Honored to be here." Tracy said, "By the way, where did you match and what is your specialty?" Scarlet says, "I have proudly matched with Oceanside Tooth and Breath in Cleveland, Ohio. The office right next to the Panda Express." Tracy said, "Wonderful, wonderful students. You may now take your oath." And here's our oath. "I swear to fulfill to the best of my ability and judgment this covenant. I promise to break, stab, yank, crack, crunch, bust up, jack up, strike, confuse, irritate, penetrate, stab. Oh, wait. Did I already say stab? Well, yeah, 'cause I'm gonna be stabbing. I also promise to crush, rip, twist, drill, scrape, and intimidate. Above all, I swear to do as much harm as possible. I will trust the technology. When I do an X-ray, I'll assure my patient that it's safe, that I'll cover them with a lead apron and run out of the room as fast as I can. I will ask if they floss. I know they haven't. After a cleaning, I will ask my patients to rinse and spit in a bowl. Inside the bowl are unimaginable horrors. I will hire colleagues without showing preferential treatment. For my dental hygienist, I will only hire the thickest Dominican and Armenian baddies you've never seen. Booty busting out of the scrubs. Fake lashes so thick she can't drive at night. Flossing so flossing you so hard you got tears in your eyes. Four fingers in your mouth, ripping your cheeks like she's giving you the Joker smile. And as she reaches up to turn on off the surgical light, one giant boob will rest on your face. At the end of the visit, I will ask my patients to make an appointment on a random day six months from now. I dare you to tell us you're busy then. I dare you. Our cosmetic dentist can give you an amazing pair of veneers. Girl, you look crazy. We honor this sacred profession and may the devil guide her hand. I now proudly present the Westmont University Dental School class of 2025." And all I'm saying is that dentistry has, you know, that that's, you know, we don't match. You know, we open up next to the Panda Express. You know, we, we do all these things. But I'll tell you, the winners are going to be the dentists who are obsessed with dentistry. They take minimum 100 hours of CE a year. They join the AGD. Not so much because nobody knows what a FAGD is or MAGD. Just so that if, if I run with dentists that take a 100 hours of CE a year versus I run with a hundred dentists who hate dentistry and all they want to talk about is golf and drink beer and go to the Cardinals game and they literally hate dentistry. I'm going to hate dentistry. I'm going to hang out with people that love dentistry. I'm going to meet them at CE and I'm going to socialize with them, and then in my office, I'm going to hire people. I'm only going to do dentistry that I would do on myself. I'm going to treat every single person as if they are my mom, my dad, my five sisters, my brother, my four kids, and, and I'm going to sit there and obsess over high-quality dentistry. But you're going to beat all the ass. And what I'm going to do to help you is like AI is going to help you with your supplies. AI is going to help you with your practice management. AI is going to say, "Oh, uh, Parsa had a two o'clock appointment for an hour and it's only 10 o'clock. He just canceled." Uh, and they'll sit there and it'll sit there and say, "Okay, I'm going to contact the 10 most likely people that could come in at two o'clock 'cause they said, 'Put me on.'" You know, there's going to be so much non-dentistry automated with AI that they'll be able to wear 10 hats because they don't have to have a marketing department, an accounting department, a tax department. You know, AI is going to help them with all that stuff. And then on the dentistry, um, oral ma oral and max low facial radiology is going to be the first to go. I mean, they can read a mammogram. I mean, I mean, I went, um, I turned 60, so they had to make, they had to take a brain scan and make sure I don't have a brain cancer. They said they, you know, right now they'd be small and they'd save you. They had to have prostate, all this stuff. Oh my god. It used to be when you take an X-ray, you wouldn't find out for a week or two what the results back. You find out what the results are before you leave. AI just reads it, and then an oral radiologist reviews it and signs it, and it, it's done. And I even told them, I said, "I can't believe you can get these these X-rays read before you leave or that day." And they go, "Yeah, AI." And, um, I just, I, I think dentistry is going to be fine. I think go rural. And then here's another thing. Driverless cars. I'm in Phoenix, Arizona, where they started with Waymo. I would never Uber anywhere. Why would I do an Uber? Now I got to tip a person. I got to smell another person. He's going to talk to me about all this weather and crap, and I, I just want to sit here on my iPhone and do my email or get caught. It's faster. It's cheaper. And so if I, um, if my wife and kids want to live in Scottsdale, but I know the real opportunity is in Eloy an hour away. Well, I don't have to drive an hour. I mean, you're like this far away from just getting in your car and it just automatically drives there. If that really bothered you for now, you could just take a Waymo. Um, I, I think the rules where it's at.

>> And, um, >> That's terrific. So Howard, hold on.

>> But it's something I want to ask Howard because he's really getting around this.

>> Do you see where do you see auxiliary personnel participating in dentistry? The kind of like the equivalent of the physician's assistant, right? Where, where do you see that type of assistant working with new technology, more specifically working with AI? Where do you see that going into the day-by-day clinical practice of dentistry in the next 10 to 15 years?

>> Again, the, the people that are calling me in, they're usually large group practices, and I'll just look at their balance sheet. I'll just look at their deal, and, you know, they, I'll say, "What is your goal for overhead? What, what is your goal for supplies?" And they'll say, "I would like it between four and 5%." I said, "Well, pick one. I need, I need an exact goal. I can't." And then they'll say, "Okay, I want it 4%." And I'll say, "Let's look at your supplies. It's 4%." And then it goes 8%. And then it goes to 5%. And then it goes to 7%. Then it gets back down. You know, the variance because everything's based on a human primate hormonal monkey. And then if she's sick or gone, and I think all that stuff is going to be moved to AI where, no, we're going to get a dental supply deal and, and it's going to be fed into your practice management. And our budget is, you know, pick four, pick five. I don't care. You can pick 18 if you want, but, you know, I think supplies, paperwork, taxes, accounting.

>> I'm, I'm, I'm thinking more in terms of a clinically. Do you, do you see less dentists, more auxiliary personnel? Kind of like the medical model where you see, you know, six people before you see a physician.

>> Yeah. So, so, um, again, I had no idea when I got out of school that eventually I would lecture in 50 countries around the world. All because I, my dental school asked me to lecture and I said yes, and word of mouth referral. You don't need marketing. And, um, I, I saw all the different business models in Singapore, especially, really just left me speechless. You know, the American way was mass producing Henry Ford, six operatories, and the hygienist do the front two, and then the dentist works too. Then we have an emergency room and all that stuff, and, and you could see a dental office do a million dollars and the dentist only takes home 140. And then you go to Singapore, no employees. Here's my office cell phone. My name's Howard. My patients call me Howie. And they'll sit there and say, "Yeah, I got a toothache. Can I come down?" "Yeah, I'm in my office." They have nice features like, like in America, your, your private office is a phone booth. And then you go home to a 4,000 square foot with big screens, mansions, goats. In Singapore, they, they had an office where if no one showed up that day, hell, they had their refrigerator, they had their La-Z-Boy, they had their big screen, the wife and kids would come in and out and everything, but if they did $300,000, they took home $200,000 and nobody scaled that deal. So now what happens is COVID comes along and the 20 richest governments, they don't take savings and distribute it, they just print a bunch of money, and then it caused all this inflation, and the infla, and then they disrupted the supply chains, uh, with because of COVID and the shipping and all that stuff. So we saw a massive increase in labor. Hell, 10% of the hygienists left the workforce, right? And, and girls that would have gone into dentistry during COVID said, you know what, maybe I don't want, maybe dentistry is not a good, maybe I should go into banking or restaurants or cooking or whatever. So, so this, the, so the, the shock in dental supplies and labor is so high. Every dental consultant that I talk to privately or on Dental Town, they say, every off, you know, we used to say labor should be 20 to 25%. And that's total labor, that's FICA, matching, that's Fed, if you need uniforms, CE, my total cost of labor cannot be over 25. And if you're going to have 50% overhead, it's got to be more like 20. Now labor is 30 to 31 to 32 everywhere you look. And the only solution to that is to reduce headcount. So Andy, this is what happens in the, the America. So the dental assistant, well, hell, let's start with hygiene. So, so our DSOs are not profitable and they're not transparent. And I've seen way too many deals just on LinkedIn. And then I, and then I show them to, uh, I can't tell you who I showed them because it might make Rick Workman mad. And I, I'll show them to other DSO people, and they're like, "Oh yeah, we, we'll talk about this stuff, uh, for hours." And, um, my gosh, the only publicly traded DSOs, two are on in Australia, 1300 Smiles, and I, I forgot the, uh, uh, what's the, the, uh, other one in, um, uh, it's 1300 Smiles and, uh, here, I'll find it. Oh, 1300 Smiles, Pacific Smiles Group. And then there's Q&M in, uh, in gosh darn, um, Singapore, which I think will be the first billion dollar, uh, DSO, but they're, they're public trade. And let, let me just tell you what they told me. They, number one, they have no hygienists. You know why? Because they studied the Americans the most. And they said, when you come in for a new patient, the doctor comes in, he takes an FMX, a pano, he takes all the X-rays, he diagnoses it, he comes in, he talks to you for about 15 minutes, and then you decide you need these five dental things done. And the average treatment plan, let's say it's three bucks. And, uh, and then you do all that work, and then you come in every six months for three, four years, and no dentistry is done. And then that person falls off the wagon and ends up at a dental office, and they get a new patient, and it's the same thing. They sit down, the doctor spends 15, 20 minutes, and they find five dental things, and you do them all. Then you go there every six months, never done. So here, here's what happens. And, and, and so, so what they did is they said, um, so you have two rooms of hygiene and $40, $50 hour hygienists come and set up the room, and it could have be done by a $20 hour dental assistant. And then, um, and then the $50 hygienist takes bitewings. Well, the $25 dental assistant could have done that. And then when the $50 an hour hygienist needs to probe, she needs to call a $25 hour assistant to come in the room and then record the probings. Then she does her scaling, and she does her polish, and her subgingival, and all that kind of stuff like that. And then they tell me that they, the average wait for the dentist is 10 minutes. And then the dentist comes in, he's running three rooms, and he's, he comes in, you're upside down, he's got a mask, glasses on, and he says, "Oh, you need an MOD." And then he flies out of the room, and you never get any clinical dentistry done. So, what 1300 Smiles and what the only three publicly traded DSOs are. And I know that MB2 is going to try to be the first publicly traded one, but I, I, I, I, I'll believe it when I see it. And, and what do they do? They got rid of all hygienist. Hour assistant clean up the room, set it up, go see the patient. Then the assistant takes the bitewings. Then the assistant goes and gets the doctor and says, "Doctor, we're ready for a periop probing." So, the doctor comes in, he probes all the teeth, he records. Um, he's reading the X-rays, and he does the scaling. He can only, he's the only one that can do the scaling and the probing. Well, the bottom line is he's been in there 50 minutes saying, "Andy, how's the, how's the dog? How's the cat? How's Boston? When are, how do you like, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah?" And then you get the dentistry done. So, none of them have hygienists because they equate hygienist with high overhead and not accepting a treatment plan. And then when the dentist is done, the dentist leaves, and the assistant does the polishing, and then she does the fluoride treatment. Then she dismisses the patient and cleans up the room and all stuff. So, hygien, I, I think hygienists are are gone. I mean, they're, they're, I mean, I, I think I think that, you know, if you were ever gonna have DSOs in America that are publicly traded and are going to show Wall Street that they can make, you know, 7, 9, 10, 12, 14 cents of net income on every dollar. I just want to know that if that includes a hygienist, how come I don't see any hygienist in any publicly traded dental offices around the world from Australia to New Zealand to Singapore? I, I've never seen it in my life. And when you're telling me that these DSOs are going to take over the world, I'd like to see them take over their balance sheet first. I'd like to see them quit running operations on borrowed money. I'd like to see them start paying down their debt. And I got to ask you, Ollie, you're, let's ask Parsa. He's the entrepreneur. He's more entrepreneur than all three of us. Parsa, why isn't all the major DSOs publicly traded? Think of how many insane companies are publicly traded. My, think of all the stuff that my grandchildren would never need to buy that are publicly traded. In fact, my favorite trick is being grandpa. I just tell all my kids when they want some. I say, "Absolutely. Really, Grandma? Absolutely." Then I get in the car and we go to Walmart. And they go, "Well, it's not at Walmart." And I said, "Well, Walmart sells 60,000 items. If you need something that Walmart would have it, if Walmart doesn't have it, you don't need it. And if you think you need it and Walmart doesn't think you need it, then you need to get your own damn job and buy it with your own damn money because I don't know what anybody could ever need in their life that wasn't at Walmart." And, um, so I think that, um, I think that the DSOs are not transparent. I don't think you really see. I, I think if they could go public, are you telling me that you think any of the big DSOs could go public today, but they just don't want to? Para, how many companies, how many startups in Silicon Valley don't want to go public?

>> Well, I think, I think it's a fad today to not want to go public. I mean, there was a whole boom about SPACs, right? Uh, Chamath was the was the guy behind all that, the, the one of the first Facebook employees, and now he's working with the Trump administration. I think what, to answer your question honestly, for, for the dental space at least, from what I believe to be true, is that, um, you know, the multiples of the DSO rollups into private equity are just better. And I think that it would be kind of a waste of time and resources to go public. And to your point about the hygiene and all that. I mean, I, I always thought about it and curious to know what everyone else thinks. Um, I always thought about hygiene being the, the workhorse of every practice because the hygienists are, you know, in their, whatever their rate is, let's say these days between $60 and $80 an hour, and they're, you know, they're, they're lead generating for the offices that while the dentists are, you know, generating their hourly rate doing their productive procedures, and, and it would be the practices that have the most hygiene running would be the most efficient and effective ones. I don't know. What do you guys think about that?

>> Well, well, well, wait, wait, wait. You three are all from Harvard, and private equity has a liquidity problem. Harvard has had to go to the bond market three times in the last 18 months. I'm sure you're all aware because they can't cash out of their private equity deals. And private equity just says, "Oh, yeah. The value is more and more in there, you know, and when it's publicly traded, the market determines your price every day." When you go into private equity and you can't cash out your position for five years, and they tell you everything's fine, everything's not fine. And Harvard. Why don't you call the Dean of Harvard and say, "Hey, how's those private equity investments going?" Because I, I see you keep borrowing money because you can't sell your private, your private equity stocks. I mean, come on, that's so one of the things Howard, one of the things though is that

>> That's bad GDP right now. But, but in 2008, Howard, the, uh, due to the financial crisis and the Dodd-Frank reemergence of some of the newer, uh, policies that were set by the Feds, it was so to make sure that public companies don't go ary, uh, that cause, I mean, you know, it is, it's the, it's the fluidity of the market in many ways. So all of the money moved from the public sector into the private sector. That's actually what led to the growth of private equity. Uh, it's just purely this one policy that was set. So it created, so it's because of the fact that the financial reporting is so stringent and the regulatory framework is so, so onerous, people are moving to private equity.

>> See, humans believe what they want to believe. They start with what they want to believe, like when I die, I'm going to have dinner with my dad, and then they fill in everything backwards. And private equity, um, yeah, the government was too regulatory.

>> But p, but public stocks were transparent. So they decided the solution was, screw all the regulation, but they went opaque.

>> And you just believe everything's fine, but you have all these rumblings about liquidity and people can't selling their private equity and they, it's all locked up. And you three all went to Harvard, and everyone at Harvard's going to tell you, "Yeah, we can't get out of these investments." It's like people who bought Alibaba in China,

>> They go to sell their stock and move their money back to the United States, and there, there's no door open for that money to leave. So, what do they do? They buy Alibaba ghost trading stocks, but you don't own one share of Alibaba. It's just a complete scam. But I, you know, everything's not all black and all white. I believe everything's on a spectrum. I believe the pendulum swings back and forth. I think, um, the days of, uh, free money and going to private equity where you could just keep borrowing because they believe, kind of like that, the, remember that, uh, Theranos girl? What was that?

>> She actually believed that if she just had enough cash flow, she would actually find the scientists and get everything together before the bubble popped, and she just didn't do it. And I think that's what a lot of private equity people think. They just keep thinking

>> Madoff too, right? More locations and more people and more smart people, eventually they're going to have a profitable business. But I, I don't buy it. And I saw it during COVID. I mean, I did, we'll do this. Go back to Dentistry Uncensored. Um, COVID come back, March of 2000. Watch the podcast I did with dental CEOs, and you read their body language, and you tell me if they were their pants or not. They were scared to death because they're so leveraged. And, and again, I, I'm a, I'm a selfish bastard that only cares about my eight grandchildren. And right now, I want him to go to an owner-operated dental office.

>> Where the buck stops here. She owns the practice. She's going to do, she's going to treat Taylor just like her own daughter. There's no going to be running around saying, "Oh, well, we're going to have a, a serac. Whoever does the most ser this year, it's a week vacation in Hawaii in a cruise." I don't think medicine should do that. I don't think MODs are crown opportunities. And what if, and Taylor goes to a dentist who answers to Wall Street? Where's Taylor going to go if she needs a dentist?

>> Now, now will DSOs get better? Yeah, they got scale. They could, they could pass laws that, you know, the CEO and the has to be a wet-blooded general dentist, or they got to be a real dentist. And, and you could look for red flags like, okay, you could have eight locations, but you're not going to have one office manager running eight locations, you know? I mean, I mean, it's not all as simple as it sounds, but I, I, I, I know they're not going to the rural. So, that's half of America. Half of the America is rural. And I think our job will be to use AI to make them to do dentistry faster, easier, higher quality, lower cost, scalable, and, and, and warranty it with their reputation. And, uh, and I, and that's the person I'm trying to help, and I'm trying to give them all the tools I can, um, so they can do better marketing. Uh, like, like their website, they'll go buy a website and it hasn't been redone for 10 years. They bought it at an ADA convention before COVID, and nothing's changed on their website. And, you know, I mean, everything can get so much better with, with AI. And I think the AI revolution, and, and I don't think any of us right now are smart enough to be able to describe what it's going to look like in 30 years, just like in 1900, the three, we could, I could be having a conversation with three Harvard doctors from Harvard, and no one would have guessed planes, trains, and auto bill in 30 years. I graduated from dental school. Not one of you told me that we were going to have cell phones with internet and email and, I mean, and electric vehic, I mean, but I think this AI revolution is going to be on hyperspeed. What, what the, what the industrial revolution took 200 years to do, these guys are going to do it in 200. And let me give you some examples of that. When ChatGPT, um, six months ago, it, it couldn't even make an image. Now it can make a pretty damn good image. I mean, but it can't spell. I'll give you an example. Uh, there's four numbering systems. And of course, the universal system is the one the Americans use, and they're the only country that uses the universal system. That's why it's called the universal system. Same thing with World Series. We're the only ones who watch baseball, so it's the World Series. But the rest of the world uses FDI, and there's the Panar. There's four systems. So I put all those systems in ChatGPT and just say, "Make a chart explaining that." I, I broke ChatGPT. It was giving me question marks and pound signs and it was just gibberish. And after I did it like six times, I finally walked it over to one of my programmers. I said, "What the hell is this?" And he goes, he goes, "It has no idea what to do. It's mixing math with logic with the alphabet and these angles that, you know, the upper right, upper left." He says, "It's not there." But my programmers, I got 10 programmers, and they said that one year ago, they thought ChatGPT writing code was a joke. I mean, it was comical. And when people said it would write code, they laughed. And now a year later, they said anything simple, they all use it every day and all day. It's the simple stuff. And I said, "What about the complex?" They go, "Well, I assume in another year or two, it'll do that, too." So the dentist is only one or two years away from having his own. All you have to do is say, uh, "Program me a website," and then boom. And then you can say, "Well, add this," boom, "add that," boom. I mean, so AI is going to be there. And they need to get their, um, the main thing they need. Oh, well, here's another thing. If you have Delta Dental or Easy Dental or Open Dental, and I say to you, uh, Ollie, what's your overhead? They, you always tell me, "Oh, I don't know, 60, 65%. I don't know." I said, "No, I want to know. Drop a decimal point and give me two numbers after the decimal point. What's your overhead? You have no idea." And I said, "Well, get on Open Dental and find out." He opens up Open Dental. There's 400 reports. He doesn't know what to do. You know what? You know what's intuitive is when you just sit there and say, "Hey, ChatGPT, what day is it today?"

>> Hey, today is Wednesday, May 21st, 2025. And I'll use the same thing and I'll say, "Hey, Dental Town AI, what's my overhead?" And it'll go into your QuickBooks Pro. It'll go into your Open Dental, Dentrix, Eaglesoft, and it'll tell you your overhead is 72%. Uh, what would be the best way to lower my overhead? Well, you take 13 PPOs, and you currently lose money on six, you break even on three, and you make money on five. Well, what should I do? And I said, "I would drop the ones you're losing money on. I would take no more new members on the one you're barely making money on, and I would focus on Blue Cross Blue Shield, Connecticut, J, whatever, whatever it recommends." And then it'll sit there and say, "What? What's, and then it could connect with so many other dental offices on Dental Town or in some community and say, why are my overhead so high?" Well, the average dentist has 1.5 dental assistants, and you have three. The average dentist has two girls up front, you have four. Why do you have so many bodies? And here's what you see, Ollie. Here's the diff. Can I tell you the difference between a 50% overhead dental office in Phoenix where I could give you 10 names and locations you go to versus the other 10 that are 65%? I walk in the room, Ollie's in there for a crown on number 30, and the assistant's got the room set up with topical. He goes in there and he numbs up, and then he goes back to his office and he's on Instagram and TikTok for 20 minutes. And then he comes back in there, he preps the tooth, but I'm going to use expanded function. So I'm going to be a businessman. I'm going to go back to TikTok and Dental Town, and the assistant's going to pack the cord. Yeah, that's another 10 or 15 minutes. Then I'm going to come back and the cord's packed. I'm going to take an impression. Then I'm going to leave, and uh, the assistant's going to make a temporary because I like to delegate. I'm a businessman, and that pays in there an hour and a half, and you charge $1,000 for a crown, but Delta's only giving you 600. The number one overhead cost in dentistry is insurance write-off. Yeah, your fee was a thousand, but Blue Cross Blue Shield pays 600. So, we're going to write off 400. So, your number one overhead isn't labor, it's insurance write-offs. And then the 50% overheads, you come in there, I come in there, I numb you up, and then I set the timer for four minutes. I use Septocaine, I use one carpule for four minutes. I'm bonding. Hey, Ollie, how's the dog? How's the kids? How's the car? What's up with Boston? And blah, blah, blah. And then, and then I take an impression for the temporary. And then the thing goes ding. And then I say, "Hey, Ollie, if this hurts, raise your hand. I'll stop and give you some more." And I, I, I prep, I take out my inner prox, did the occlusive reduction, I fine prep it. Then I pack my zero cord, my one card, my one cord. Then I perfect the deal. And then I take the impression. And then when I sit there doing the impression, I'm writing up the deal. Do they need a script? Whatever, whatever, whatever. And then I take out the impression. I got my loops on. I read the impression. Do I need to modify? I mean, my, I learned a lot about my preps from the impression. Maybe I need to touch up a margin, or maybe there wasn't enough clearance, or, or they bit through the impression and I got to do some reduction. Throw that away. In fact, when you get a remake, a reimpress, um, or when you get a reduction coping from your lab one time in your life, one time in your life, the only thing you should have said is, "Well, that's what happens when you take the impression before you make the temporary." So I make the temporary with the assistant takes, you know, take the pre-op and price in, put in the acrylic, make the temporary, and you're adjusting the temporary, and you adjust all the way through it, and you realize, I don't even have enough clearance. So you reduce some more, and then you start temporary number two, and you can read the margin with your loops. You can see the margin. You're like, "This is good. Let's impress." I mean, it only takes five minutes to set up. I'm finishing the notes. I'm doing whatever. The impression's good. We re-cement the temporary, and you're out in 30 minutes. That guy has 50% overhead. The average guy in Phoenix spends an hour and a half for a crown. I mean, I mean, it's just they rinse, drill, look, rinse, drill, look, rinse, drill, look. Oh, why don't the assistant pack the cord while I go in the baker room and eat Takis and Cheetos and Doritos and drink Dr. Pepper? I mean, they're just, they're just lazy.

>> So Howard, do you think

>> I want you to do one audit for me. I want you to all do this. Do one audit. Just pick a random dentist for sample size. Pick five. And one day on to work, I want you to pop in five dentist offices on the way and just tell me. Just pop in there. Don't say anything to anybody. Just find the doctor. Four times out of five, they'll be in their private office while the high overhead hygien, the assistants are doing the temper. They don't do anything, though. When you don't do anything and you got all these bodies, you have high overhead, and it's killing the DSOs. You walk into a DSO, it looks like a circus. It's like, how many people are actually in this building? Why do you need all these people? So, you know.

>> Yeah. So, so do, do you think that the, um, problem of a lack of efficiency from the way you're describing it? Is it just a function of not knowing how to be more efficient? Is it a function of, uh, uh, I don't know, is it just, uh, people are not comfortable, they rather be, as you sit in the back, you know, watching their TikTok and Instagram?

>> I don't think, I don't think people are lazy. I think it was an evolutionary strategy to conserve energy. I mean, when lions get done eating a gazelle, they don't go to the gym and work out and run marathons and sprints. They just lay there and sleep until their glucose level runs so low they go back into fight or flight, then they go kill something and eat. And I just think that it's human nature to conserve energy. And when your kid's sitting on the couch watching Netflix or TikTok, I don't think they're being lazy or bad. I think that's what their body is telling them to do. Eat as much food as possible and don't burn any energy. And I think every behavior is on the spectrum. So obviously half the dentists are more productive and work harder than the other half. I always tell people, think of the average dentist, uh, in the United States. That's weird to think of the average dentist. But then when you think half the dentists are worse than that guy, then you're like, "Holy crap. Oh my god."

thought the average is bad." Then I realize half are worse than him. And and there and your assistant, she squeezes out the impression material and the temporary material like like it's peanut butter and jelly squirting it out. But if you're the dentist paying for that stuff, you can I I have dentists in Phoenix tell me, you know, I can squeeze out enough temporary material that when I put on the crown, there's like almost no flash. I can make 10 temporaries out of this one little carpiel. And every other dentist I know will will make one and then the assistant will throw the carpel away.

And I just think if you want to hustle, if you want to obsess on customer service, if you want to treat other people like you want to be treated, if you live below your means and you follow Annie's advice that it's not all the technology is why your patient loves you, they they love you because they trust you. They love you because you gave them your your cell phone number. I'd say the two or three patients that loved me the most ever was uh three women that were upper dentures and three for three broke their denture on like a Thanksgiving holiday whatever and they called me on the cell crying mortified and I said I said I will get to my dental office before you do and I hung up.

I go boys daddy's got an emergency. We all run to the car. My little Zach, he'd hold the front door. And then Ryan would have the napkin big chain. And then, you know, Eric, the oldest, would be the suction guy. And she came in there and I did that denture repair. She baldled like a baby. She was so mortified. That's it's word of mouth referral. You're not going to build it on.

And then I want to say one thing about marketing. Your worst bias is yourself. When you look at the research, the number one marketing is still direct mail and email. And everyone that comes out of dental school thinks they're going to build their dental office on Tik Tok. Well, let's let's let's build a Tik Tok video every day. And then they pay $50 to bump their uh boost their post so they get more followers and likes and all this crap. And let's say you bump that $50 a day. And and some of them bump it every every day. They they'll spend $5,000 a month bumping their Instagram. Why do you think some of these people on Instagram have 200,000 followers? I mean, I have 300,000 followers on Facebook because I played that game. And then I realized it's a stupid game. It doesn't do anything. And that's why I only have 30,000 followers on Instagram, 40,000 on LinkedIn, 30,000 on Twitter. But if you would have taken that $5,000 and you would have made a flyer about dental implants from Ali's dental implant practice and you mail that to everybody in your zip code that's over 65, a nice glossy uh uh letter in an envelope, whatever for $5,000, which one do you think would get you 10 implant cases, Tik Tok or direct mail?

And then and then they come in your office and are you ollie are you still using your email aliworldendo.com or did it change because we email and we cell phone the text when we have a tickler file and and but since Dentress and Eaglesoft know have 40,000 functions and all I want to make sure is we updated their insurance their cell phone number their email for marketing their home you know the nine things that they needed at Hertz Run a car are the high regency and you only picked up six of them because you have 40,000 buttons. Less is more.

I think dental practice software is going to have stuff like like Indopractice Manager. What I would do I would get with the big is the big Indopractice Manager still that guy out of uh San Diego the rich guy that had raced horses and all that stuff. Um >> Oh, the TDO you're talking about? >> Yeah. TDO car thing. Yeah, Gary Carr. it anyway. They sold they sold resources to another company actually. Yes. >> Yeah. But um but I I I think I think that um I think practice management is going to be less more and you could you could buy that practice management. You could machine learn TDO for probably 50 hours on one of these big machine learning deals and you could then then you could just set it up. You could just keep it simple, easy, close down all the stuff you didn't know and then you could say this is Annie's endo practice management. We're not going to ask you 40,000 questions. These are the only things Annie needs to know on the CBCT, the address, the mailing, the cash. U you know, we're not going to use USA e pay and Stripe. We're going to use Stripe. You know, we're just going to make it clean and simple and stupid and we can be able to check the patient out in the back room. And what do you do now? Okay. Well, we're done. Go up front. The lady has no idea what we just did. And then she'll check you out and she'll try to make you an appointment. She knows nothing. The endidonist and the assistant in the room know everything.

If it has to be done, it's done in the operatory. You don't say, "Well, hey, I'm God and I finish objecturating the gut of purchase. So, I will just float on air out of the room and then you go up front to a bunch of strangers and they'll drop the ball 50% of the time." Now, if it needs to be done, it's done in the back because in the front, I don't know if the phone's going to ring one time or three times at the same time. I don't know if Annie's going to ask me at what time I close or we're going to have a 20-minute conversation. So, if it the the front office is entropy and chaos. If it has to be done, it's done in the back office and you got to do everything faster, easier, higher. Like, look at the notes. Why are you having to write notes? There's so many AI deals that are recording the entire conversation, key takeaways. That'll feed right into your notes. The X-rays, you take the X-rays digitally, they go right into the records. the insurance will be in there and when you're done the deal said should we submit the insurance? Why do you bills insurance? Why does someone come in on Fridays for half a day and bill insurance? Do they do that at the Hyatt Regency? Does everybody sleep for free at the Hyatt and then on Fridays they bill everyone? I mean it just it's just going to be keep it simple stupid.

And by the way, what's neat about AI, like you take my um I had a fourperson accounting team and now you just there's software. You say, "Okay, well, what does the CEO of a Fortune 500 company need on their monthly accounting reports?" And then it just makes me the report and it's and it's updated in real time. You know, Walmart closes out all of its books, statement of income, statement of cash flow, and balance sheet. Every hour on the hour, it closes out all of its books. And my dentist, they sit there when May's over, he's not even going to get his bank statements for two weeks to June 15th. He's going to find out June 15th. By the time the accountant gets the bank statements, he's going to find out June 15th what happened May 1st. And now I can't go fix the overhead. But as the overhead's drifting up, and right now it's May 21st, and my goal is 60% overhead or 50% overhead, and it's the 21 uh 1st, and I got nine days. And then you can sit there and you start saying, "Okay, well, you know what? We're uh we're $7,000 short for the month." So, okay, I'm I'm gonna give up my lunch. I got two dental assistants who will go with me through lunch and who will go at the end of the day. And what would happen with me is the one with kids say, "I'll skip lunch because I need to pick up my kids." And then the single ones are without kids say, "Okay, I'll go eat lunch." And and I'll say, but we'll sit there and say, "Dude, we got to make up $7,000." And in my 30 years, do you know how many times I said, "I'm sorry, man, but we're going to have to open up Saturday. We're going to have to stay late. We're gonna we're you know, we're not we can't go at the end of the month $9,000 short and we got nine days to fix $9,000. That's $1,000 a day."

And and then I call your office and then um and and you have a cancellation 11 o'clock and then uh that so everybody just sits around for an hour and then someone calls at 11:30 and says I got a toothache and you say well I don't even have an opening in the afternoon cuz I'm going to lunch at 12 to 1. You haven't done anything for an hour. See, you're entitled to go to lunch. Can a fireman when he's putting out a fire say, "Oh, sorry it's 12:00. We're going to lunchtime. Sorry about the fire. It's going to have to burn down." the these dentists in healthc care in dental offices, they're so entitled. You don't see it in hospitals. In hospitals, if the bypass takes 19 hours, what will Dr. Debbi do? He'll stand there, suck it up, buttercup, and he did 19-hour bypasses. I mean, I know because I went to Kraton and his uh his first cousin was uh on the ninth floor there, and he said he he couldn't believe it. He tried to he tried to get involved in watching us. He said, "No one could stand on their feet that long." But it's it's going to come down to work ethic. It's going to come down to hustle. It's about doing the right thing. It's about working hard. It's not, you know, if you're sitting in your dental office at least 15, 20 minutes an hour, I can already tell you have high overhead. Um I I can just get tell me how many doctors are in there, how many assistants, how many hygienists, and how many receptionists, and I can tell you what your overhead is. It's labor, labor, and labor. And as far as supplies, um, you know, when you delegate everything to your assistant, they're not skimping on supplies, but when you make the temporary, you squeeze out like like it's like it's some kind of expensive drug or something and you just have enough. But she's like blobbing jelly and peanut butter and goobers into this thing.

So, it's I would go and I wouldn't even say go rural because I think I think the DSOs, but just look at their doctor turnover. You can't have doctor turnover without patient turnover. I don't care what anybody says. It's a onetoone deal. When they have that much doctor turnover, in fact, if I was a young dentist watching this and I was out there and I had and I really wanted to go back to Beville, Texas, and there's, you know, there's three DSOs there and and there's two guys hiring private practice. I would walk in there and I would just say, um, to each person I met, "Oh, hi Dr. Para. How long have you worked here?" Oh, eight months. Wow. Hello, Dr. Ollie, how long have you worked here? A year and a half. Wow, Annie, they say you've worked here the longest. How long you worked here? 19 months. Wow, that's impressive. Then you go to private practice, they go, "Yeah, the new I mean, when I sold my office, the new hygienist, the new one had been there 12 years." I mean, my god, I have so many people that have been with me 25 years, right? and and when when when when you're on your fourth wife and nobody in your office has stayed with you more than two years, it's a train wreck. So, if you can't please your staff, you can't please your wife, you're not going to please your patients. It's all the same skill set. It's about being humble, doing the right thing, apologizing, talking, and these dentists, they'll walk in their room, and the first thing they'll do is they'll pull up the bitewing say, "Okay, I see a I see an interroxal between two and three. She needs her MO. Uh, Annie, she needs M12 and a D13. And then on the other side, 12 needs mod. So, uh, three fillings. Uh, uh, do you have any questions? It's like, dude, you need to go get a job as a bartender or a waiter, and you need to talk to other primates, and you don't walk up to a bar, not make eye contact. And a lot of bartenders will give you a fist bump. I I went there last night. I went out at um Pommo on First Street in uh Roosevelt in downtown Phoenix. God dang it. At the end of the dinner, I seriously thought the waiter was my new best friend. I mean, he was the nicest, coolest guy. And then when they gave me the tip deal, it had um 18, 20, 22, and then it said other. I hit other and put 35%. Because he could talk and dentists are introverts, they can't talk.

But the thing is when I would walk into today's dental I would say a lot of people think I'm an extrovert because they think that you know I'm lecturing and tough death you can talk. >> I think we can all agree on that >> people are annoying and when you walk in there you say look your staff might have had a bad night. Nobody wants to go to the dentist. It's going to hurt there. You're on stage >> and you walk through that door and you say you're on stage and you're all smiling. Howard, I think it's good. It's good advice. Honestly, I I think that um this idea and this notion that you're you're telling us to from from our perspective and and thinking about how we need to deal with patients is being able to have a conversation, connecting with them, not treating everything like a commodity, I think is the takeaway from this conversation. Um, and and honestly, from from what it sounds like you're saying to us, um, you know, really really doubling down on developing those long-term relationships with our patients is the key, especially for a fruitful long-term career. I mean, that's that's sort of what I'm taking away from this. And >> yeah, >> but remember remember your own bias. I I lectured a thousand times in 50 countries, so I sat by complete strangers for 15 six I mean I mean it's a 17 hour flight to LA. The longest flight I had was to when I lectured in Cambodia I had to fly from Phoenix to San Fran to Tokyo to Hong Kong to Quala Mapur Qualapur and then to Cambodia and I took three of my boys and when we left our house it was 36 hours before I got to the hotel and and I would always say to everyone I'd say well what is your dentist's name? Oh my god, what is his name? He's short. He's fat. He's bald. God, what is his name? And I said, "Well, what's his assistant's name?" "Oh, Annie." "Oh, I love Annie." "What's a hygienist's name?" "Oh my god, Missy. She's the greatest hygienist in the world." Um they usually leave your office from toxicity at the front and they're usually talking about finance or something embarrassing they don't like instead of going into a private room. And so, you're only one relationship in that whole office. And when you have a a local group of like 25 dentists all that been practic each other for 10 or 15 or 20 years sometimes I've seen it so many times they'll just walk up to us put their arm around and says what does your receptionist have to do before you shoot her. Does she have to like drive her car through the waiting room? She's toxic. She's rude. She's mean. I had to invite my orthodontist over to the house on a Sunday and just tell him three written testimonies of what his receptionist said up there and he's all looking confused and why? Because after the patient, they always go back in the doctor's room and shut the door. Why can't you check out the patient and you're running 15 minutes late? No, the assistant doesn't take a patient up that you were 50 minutes late. Ollie, you were 50 minutes late. So, you're going to walk the patient out there. Then you're going to walk out the next day and para say para I am so sorry but she had like worms coming out of her tooth and there was you know and pus and infection and I'm sorry I ran 50 minutes late but I I you know I have to do the same job and I thought I could do this in an hour. I'm so And they're like, and whenever you apologize, they're like, "Oh, it's okay. It didn't even bother me." And then when I take them back, the reception tell me, "She was up there cussing. I had a 1:00 appointment. It's 1:15. What the hell's going on?" But then the doctor walks out there and they go, "Oh, it's no big deal. I was fine. I was just on TikTok. I I'm all good." So, no, but so when you go into your private office and shut the door in between every patient, you have no idea what's going on. You have staff turnover.

And and the bottom line is I'll just give you the I'll just I'll give you the simple math. So, here here's the math on uh uh uh well well look at overhead. If you're o if if you do if you want to make $25,000 a month and you have 40% overhead, you only got to do $41,000 a month. If you have 50% overhead, obviously you only got to do $50. But if you have 65% overhead, now you got to do $71,000 of molar root canals to make your 25. And if you have 80% overhead, now you have to do $125,000 of endo to make your 25 grand. I think you could do it at 50% overhead. And I think if you want to make 25 grand, I think you only got to do $50,000 a month. and um you know and um it's just uh uh and then then here's um if you get 10 new patients if a hygienist can only work 40 hours a week, 50 weeks a year, even though I've never met a hygienist that works 40 hours a week. Let's say that she exists. That's 2,000 hours a year. A recall is an hour. She can do a recall on a thousand people in an hour twice a year. Well, if you get 10 new patients a month, um then every 8.3 years you need another full-time hygienist. you get 20 new patients a month every four years. If you're the average dentist getting 30 new patients a month every two and a half years you need another full-time hygienist. So how come you're graduating Annie and you're graduating from school you're 25. You're going to go in your dad's practice. He's practiced there 40 years getting 25 new patients a month and he has one hygienist three days a week. Guess what I'm thinking? Your dad's an ass, >> right? >> Your if if four people meet your dad, three never come back. Why? I mean, look at the Hoover Dam. You close that back door and you can't swim across Lake me. Yet every dental it's like a cup of coffee and you've been pouring coffee into the same cup for 40 years and every drop that goes in another one comes out. Why does no one come back to your office? Oh, you we were talking about I say you don't want a hygienist because the only three publicly traded DSOs in the world don't have them. And they said because they want that doctor patient relationship. But but how come every hygienist that you know in the world um he's had the same hygienist for 10 years but they get 20 30 new patients a month? Why? That means every time she cleans a new patient's teeth, an old one never came back. And anybody that doesn't come back gets a phone call from the doctor. What happened? Did you move? Did you die? They'll tell you. >> Uh you said it wouldn't hurt and it did. It's and actually I'm not saying this just because I'm the dentist, but half of it uh well it's proportional. You got a dentist, an assistant, a hygienist, and two girls up front. There's five. They're each responsible for why 20% of the patients never come back. And you got to identify why. Sometimes it's the people. There are crazy people there and they're all Irish from Boston. That's what I'm uh first thing Boston should do is give all the Irish people back to Ireland and get on with it. But but the bottom line if you got five people but see you're sitting in your back room so you don't see the confrontation going on up front. Why is there why is there yelling up front? And I've called the police on three pages once a decade where I'm checking someone out and some guy saying dropping the f point and I see my recept and I just calmly just pick up the phone dial 911 and said yes I have a person disturbing the piece in a dental office. He's making he's dropping the fbomb. He's scaring everybody now. And the patients completely freak out. Of those three times I went to the court deal, the first time I went to the court deal, it was so amazing. This big old heavy set judge sits out and she sits down and the first thing she says says, "Ollie, what did I tell you the last time I saw you? What did I tell you? That if I ever saw your face again, a year in the slammer, get out of my face. So him dropping the fbomb at my receptionist cost him a year in jail. And then another time the cop come and they go, "Well, he's gone." I said, "Well, here's his chart. Here's his damn address. Will you really want me to go there and arrest him?" I'm like, "Oh, so will you give me all my taxes back because I I've been paying a lot of money in taxes and I thought you enforced public safety. So if you don't want to do your job that I don't want to pay my tax, you give me a refund on my state my state taxes and then you can leave him there because he was dropping the epom. He's scaring my staff and I guarantee you this needs to be documented because someday a judge is going to say, "Oh, you got a rap sheet pretty long. You you were arrested from Dr. Fran's office. You know, a bar you got thrown out of, you know, but anyway, it's just think small. You don't need all this mass production. You don't need four operatories. You don't need to be doing a root. And by the way, if you were doing a root canal on me, do you think I think it's high quality if every 15 minutes you had to leave the room and go numb up someone else or go check someone else or go do a hygiene check? I would kind of think that if I was getting a bypass by a real doctor that as soon as the scapel hit my sternum, everyone had everything they needed and they'd all stay there till it's done. I think it's really weird that every 15 or 30 minutes uh um the cardio master say, "Oh, I got to go check a there's an emergency in the front office and the waiting room. I need to, you know, just just it's so easy. Just work hard. Live below your means."

Um but but AI is going to change the world and do everything you can. Oh, by the way, and I just want to say one last thing about AI is there is uh I think what MIT did, uh you guys ever heard of that MIT living in Boston? >> It's a little school. >> Um power that's um so MIT, which when I learned this, it almost made me cry. They decided that they could help the world better, not by graduating a few thousand graduates every year, but put their entire curriculum for free online. And they have a free Python programming course. It's 36 hours long. It starts introduction to computer science and programming in Python 6.00001 MIT open courseware 38 videos. It's on YouTube and I have told everybody that they do that when I was hiring my Python programmers I was going to the universities and when I couldn't get them what I need at ASU I was driving to like Sierra Vista to coach East. I drove to Douglas and I would talk to the the computer program. And I said, "Do you have any good Python programming graduates?" And he goes, "Nobody graduates with a degree in Python programming. After one year, you can get a job for 85 grand." In fact, you know what a lot of the kids are doing? They just get on YouTube with an MIT course. Even in my class, I hardly know anything about AI. They're in my class watching MIT YouTube videos. And Python is so elegant. And I I could name you five people that I I convinced, you know, they were telling me, uh, well, talk to my daughter. She really wants to go to dental school. And I'd say, well, I wouldn't go to dental school. I'd go get a degree in Python. And I would first do this. It's just like another language. And I I have five dentist children that did this while they were in college and got a $85,000 job while they were in college. They dropped out of college because they really excited about working on this team and they thought they could learn programming better with this fun team working on this really cool project than taking English history and social studies at ASU and NAU.

>> So Annie, we get it then founder of the Howard FN dental uncensored dental podcast and all of that stuff with the dentistry is telling us to not go to dental school and study Python. So that's the that's funny, but I think that was a very great I mean, you know, we had a lot of we're coming to the end of the thing in terms of time here, so we're going to have to cut it short. We had a lot of questions and so on we were going to ask, so maybe at a different time because we really didn't get a chance to >> We'd love We'd love to have you come back too, Howard. Annie, you know, I love you. Worship you. You and Ollie and and I'm sure Parson now have done so much for me, for dental. >> We're thrilled, Howard. Absolutely. >> Pass interviews. You've been so And that's what you guys you guys are the epitome of openness, accessibility, transparency, which is not what private equity or government does. >> And and keeping things simple. Absolutely. Keeping things simple. >> Remember that our model was so sophisticated. It's simple. >> And do you remember telling me 25 years ago, you were showing me these silver point cases that worked because they cleaned it so good. They found all the canals. It was so well done with the basics that you could fill it with a crappy silver point and it still worked. >> Absolutely. >> Yeah, those absolutely right and we've talked about that that so much of the innovation nowadays is just different ways of doing the same thing and creating just a new economy is at the end of the day it's the same thing. But again, it was a pleasure having you Howard. >> Oh, it has been wonderful. Thank you so much. Stay as you like to say. Thank you. I know the these two came on the Dentistry Uncensored show. So, I want you to come alone on the dentistry on senso so I can uh meet you and know you as good as Ollie and >> be a huge pleasure. We're so lucky to have you and we're going to have to do it again and I I can't I can't tell you how much I've heard about you from everyone but especially Dr. Nas and Dr. Caj, thank you again for joining us uh for this episode. >> Terrific. >> Yes, absolutely. >> The the honor and privilege was all mine. >> Have a have a have a happy and safe holiday weekend. >> Okay, you too. Alrighty, this was the Paul podcast. We'll see you in the next video. [Music]