HHCIB 008 Jim Herrnstein & Pivot

How Hard Can It Be?

This week we’re going to do something short and sweet, a Holiday Quickee coming in a little over 30 minutes. I think you'll really enjoy my conversation with G20 member Jim Herrnstein, one of the most brilliant yet humble people I’ve encountered in my travels. To say Jim’s not your typical entrepreneur would be a dramatic understatement... First off he has a PhD in astrophysics from Harvard, and in Astrophysics circles he is best known as part of the team that in 1995 used an $86 million radio telescope to find the first black hole hidden at the center of a galaxy. Rather than rest on his laurels as a tenured professor in some Ivy-covered sanctuary, Jim signed on to apply his remarkable skills in math and physics to one of the world’s most legendary quantitative hedge funds, Renaissance Technologies. But even that’s not the most interesting thing about Jim Herrnstein. In his spare time, Jim is the Chairman of of an organization called Pivot, whose mission is to create a model system of universal access to quality health care for Madagascar via comprehensive health system strengthening in a region near Ranomafana National Park. Why the hell Madagascar? Why should anyone who could do a guest cameo on Billions spend his time trying to save lives on an Island 8,600 miles from home? Those are the questions I asked Jim in the second segment of our interview, and a big part of the reason this particular conversation was so special to me, and something I wanted to share during this season of giving. How Hard Can It Be is sponsored as always by G20 Ventures, early traction capital for East Coast enterprise tech startups, backed by the power and expertise of 20 ?of the Northeast's most accomplished ?entrepreneurs. G20 Ventures.?..?? ?People first. How Hard Can It Be is ?also ?sponsored by Actifio?. Actifio? virtualizes?? data ?the way a hypervisor virtualizes compute, ?to ?help customers enable the? ?hybrid cloud, build higher quality applications faster, and improve business resiliency and availability.? ?Actifio?... ?Radically Simple.?