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Dr. Hayes interviews Dr. Trevor Powles his involvement with translational medicine in the UK and early bisphosphonate. Conflict of Interest: Dr. Powles has not reported any conflicts of interest to ASCO.   TRANSCRIPT The purpose of this podcast is to educate and to inform. This is not a substitute for professional medical care and is not intended for use in the diagnosis or treatment of individual conditions. Guests on this podcast express their own opinions, experience, and conclusions. The mention of any product, service, organization, activity, or therapy should not be construed as an ASCO endorsement.   Welcome to JCO's Cancer Stories-- The Art of Oncology brought to you by the ASCO Podcast Network, a collection of nine programs covering a range of educational and scientific content and offering enriching insight into the role of cancer care. You can find all the shows, including this one, at podcast.asco.org. Welcome to Cancer Stories. I'm Dr. Daniel Hayes. I'm a medical oncologist, and I'm a translational researcher at the University of Michigan Rogel Cancer Center in Ann Arbor. And I'm also the past president of the American Society of Clinical Oncology. Today I am privileged to be your host for a series of podcast interviews with the founders of our field-- today in particular Dr. Trevor Powles. Over the last 40 years, I've been fortunate to have been trained, mentored, and inspired by many of these pioneers. It's my hope that through these conversations all of us can be equally inspired by gaining an appreciation of the courage, the vision, and frankly the scientific understanding that these men and women who established the field of clinical cancer care over the last seven decades. By understanding how we got to the present and what we now consider, quote, "normal," end of quote. I hate using quotes, but in oncology I think we can also imagine our work together towards a better future for our patients and their families during and after cancer treatment. As I've noted today, I'm really honored to have as my guest on this podcast Professor Trevor Powles. He's really generally considered one of the true pioneers in breast oncology. Dr. Powles was raised in London, where he went to medical school. He trained in medicine and surgery at St. Bartholomew's Hospital and associated affiliates, graduating from medical school in 1964. He went on to obtain a PhD at the Institute of Cancer Research. He directed his thesis towards hypoglycemia and bone metastasis. Following his PhD, he then completed specialist training in medical oncology at the Royal Marsden and further pursued training in endocrinology with Professor Philip Bundy, [? who was ?] then Chief of endocrinology at Yale before moving to the UK. Dr. Powles remained at the Royal Marsden hospital during the bulk of his distinguished medical career, first as head of the Marsden breast cancer unit, and ultimately is the founding chairman of the Committee for Clinical Research for the entire Royal Marsden. After he retired-- which again requires [INAUDIBLE]-- at the age of 65, Doctor Powles has served on staff at the Cancer Center at London Parkside. Dr. Powles has authored hundreds of peer reviewed papers. He's mentor of many of the leaders in breast college around the world, which we will discuss in a second. And he's really won too many awards and honors from me to list here, but they include the coveted William McGuire Award presented annually at the San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium-- and by the way, so have two of his mentees, Professors Mitch Dowsett and Ian Smith. And he's also won the Nancy Brinker Award. Many of you know Miss Brinker founded the Komen for the Cure Foundation. And perhaps what is perplexing to those of us in the colonies, in 2002 he and his twin brother Ray were named Commanders of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, or CBE for short-- which of course is one of the highest honors one can obtain in the UK-- for their work in breast in Trevor's case, and haematologic cancers in Ray's case. Trevor, I know that a lot of your work also was done with a variety of other contributors, including Dr. John Kanis, Dr. Eugene McCloskey, and of course Sandy Patterson [? period. ?] You've always been quite generous in pointing out that they had a lot to do with your own contributions, and we appreciate that as well. Dr. Powles, welcome to our program. Thank you very much, and thank you for those kind words. Yeah. Actually, I interviewed someone a few weeks ago, and he said, "Geez, that sounded like my mother wrote that." [LAUGHTER] I have a number of questions for you, and I want to start out-- your research and your background was really in endocrinology of the 1960s. And that was a particularly exciting time for endocrinology with the discovery of the hormones not more than 20 years before that, and then the increasing knowledge of understanding of [? the ?] peptides steroid hormone receptors. What made you veer off from that field into oncology in general and breast cancer specifically? When I was working at the Hammersmith Hospital doing my endocrinology [INAUDIBLE] endocrinology there. And one of the conditions we would be looking at would be hypercalcemia with hyperparathyroidism. And hypercalcemia was occurring very commonly in the breast cancer patients in the oncology and the radiotherapy department. [? And ?] to begin with, we thought this would just be another paraendocrine-type syndrome, and that was the thing that really fired my interest. From there, I then wanted to do my PhD to look more into what was causing the hypercalcemia with breast cancer, and that started the whole path of finding out about bone metastases, what they were doing, how they were causing the hypercalcemia, and the path just continued and continued. Most of your work-- I'm going to get to some of the other things you've done-- has been endocrine therapy, endocrine processes, and the bone metastasis, which is really endocrinology. In the United States about that time, most of the excitement in the 60s was around chemotherapy. Was it difficult for you to stick with the endocrine approach? No, it wasn't really. When I first started, all of in the endocrine treatment was ablative treatment. And I knew that from when I was doing my endocrinology is that the hypophysectomy, adrenalectomy, oophorectomy, those were the early days for chemotherapy at using combination chemotherapy and metastatic disease. [INAUDIBLE] and endocrine therapies were far better treatments from the chemotherapy. And although I was doing chemotherapy because we started with single agents then combination treatments-- and there was a lot of chemotherapy going on at that time at the milestone for haematological cancers, lymphoma, teratomas, et cetera-- I was able to do that, but I really focused on the endocrine side. And coming back to the hypercalcemia, the one thing that really impressed me was when I was originally doing my endocrinology was that rapid response you could get to the hypercalcemia by ablative endocrine therapy for oophorectomy, or adrenalectomy, or hypophysectomy. And that was really the thing that started all of the research I did in bone. It started on my PhD with in vitro work. We set up bone assays, I went to Cambridge to [INAUDIBLE] very famous scientist Cambridge to teach us how to do the bone assays for in vitro bone assays. We also set up the animal model with breast cancer. We were able to show that breast cancers could cause bone breakdown and osteolysis in vitro. We could find that we could block that by using drugs like aspirin, and that got us very interested in cross [? demandings. ?] We could then go into the animal experiments. And when we had a rat model using breast cancer that we knew from our assays caused bone breakdown in vitro, and when we did that in the animals by injecting into the aorta we could get bone metastases [? and ?] soft tissue tumor. When we gave aspirin, we could completely prevent the bone metastases-- quite dramatic experiments. And that was what really fired me into getting into the oncology, getting into the endocrine treatment in oncology because of my background in endocrinology. And that has stayed ever since. So what was the timing there? This is the late 60s? My PhD was 1970 to '73. I was at the Hammersmith from '67 to '69, and then I went to [? Barts ?] to endocrinology, and then I came back and then with Bondy in the Marsden, and then I got on the staff of the Marsden as a senior lecturer in 1975. So what you just described to me sounds like translational science. That word wasn't coined until probably 20 years later. Was it unique where you were to be taking things from the lab straight out to the clinic? And where there obstacles to doing that? No, there weren't. The thing that was good about that was we were doing the laboratory work based on what we'd seen, what I'd seen in the endocrinology with the hypercalcemia and the bone metastases, and responding to endocrine therapy. I then was in the PhD, doing the PhD, and then I was able to translate that into the clinic once I then became a consultant. So the main work I was doing when I was first a consultant, the research work, was actually looking at hypercalcemia bone metastases in patients. We had a surprise because when we took the aspirin into patients, we could see no effect at all even though we'd had very dramatic effects in vitro and in vivo. And it was only when the bisphosphonates came through that we were able to then use those, because at this stage we knew it was working on osteoclasts. And it was only when we started to get the bisphosphonates that we really got into the dimension of first of all, being able to treat the hypercalcemia, then being able to switch off the bone metastases, bone pain, and bone fractures with bisphosphonates. And then take it into the adjuvant, I was then able to take it into the adjuvant scene and set up the first adjuvant bisphosphonate trial. So I'd gone right from in vitro, I continued the path right the way through to clinical work. And then what happened was that if we did the bisphosphonate trial and we got the result of just like that had happened in the rats-- it stopped the development of bone metastases and it stopped the hypercalcemia in the rats, but didn't affect the soft tissue. So in the humans, we had exactly the same result where we were able to reduce bone metastases, not have an impact on soft tissue or other disease, and improve mortality. And so we've gone right the way through. It's a story that's extraordinary from my point of view, because I was able to follow the whole path all the way through. And you're absolutely right. That is a really good example of translational research where you hang in there until you get the answer. What's the history behind transferring the bisphosphonates from prevention of osteoporosis in cancer? Now they're widely used as well as denosumab. In fact, it's malpractice not to use them in a patient with bone metastasis. How did you make that leap where you're standing next to somebody who was treating osteoporosis, and you said, "I wonder if that should work?" And how did you get hold of the drug? There's got to be a history behind it. Well, we were looking. We were looking for [? anti-osteodiscitis ?] agents [INAUDIBLE] the aspirin didn't work but [INAUDIBLE] worked so we knew for no reasons at all that it would prevent, stop hypercalcemia. And so we were going down that path, and two really important people in the way the path was going. One was Herbie Fleisch, and Herbie Fleisch [? had ?] suddenly produced bisphosphonates. It was a terrific story if anybody was interested in bone, because it was an agent that clearly was working on osteoclasts, and that was the target we were after. We knew at that stage that the cancer cells had to activate osteoclasts in order to cause the bone breakdown and develop in bone. And the second person who was key was Craig Mundie, who again I met. And I went over to the Boston Dental Hospital several times, and I met Craig and the others there, and that was linking up with being able to see the story that they were developing where tumor cells were activating osteoclasts that were then causing bone breakdown that was then producing growth factors to activate the cancer. So it became a really preferential site for bone metastases to develop because of the interaction between the cancer cells and the osteoclasts. So then there's Herbie Fleisch in Switzerland. I had a few skis with him. He was a very good skiier. But the spin off was that bisphosphonates were going to be the thing that we really [INAUDIBLE] to be looking at. And then we tried four different bisphosphonates. Five foot was a guy in Amsterdam who had APD that was actually the forerunner for [INAUDIBLE]. And the one that worked best for us was clodronate, which we got originally from Finland. And we set up the bone trials. We had to go through three stages. We had to-- first of all, before we could use adjuvant, we had to show that it worked in metastatic bone disease. And it did. It reduced what's called skeletal related events-- that's fracture, hypercalcemia, pain-- requirements of radiotherapy. We then did a trial for phase 3 trial of using clodronate for patients who had metastatic disease but who didn't have bone metastases. And we could reduce the risk of them getting bone metastases. And then we had the justification for doing the-- So let me interrupt you for a minute. Now you're about 1983 or '4 I think when that was probably? Is that right? It was-- yes, it would be. With the adjuvant trial, we would have started in '86. I think. That's the window of time. And then in that trial, we didn't get the results from that until I think it was 1997 when we did the first analysis, and that we were able to then show in that randomized-- it was placebo controlled as well-- we were able to show a reduction in bone metastases and improved survival. And then we did a subsequent analysis in 2006. So we've got longer term data. Back then where other bisphosphonate trials were going on, adjuvant bisphosphonate trails going on, and then we had the meta analysis in 2015, Oxford meta analysis, which I was involved with Rob Coleman. And we did the analysis there, which confirmed that we could reduce bone metastases and improve survival with adjuvant bisphosphonates. So the story that starts from a test tube, so to speak. Oh, there's one other very interesting experiment we [INAUDIBLE] that's never been repeated. Right at the beginning, we were able to show that doing co-cultures-- you're reminding me of things now-- doing co-cultures of the bone assay with human breast tumors I'd get from the Marsden while I was at the institute. We'd have fresh human tumors, and we would do a co-culture and some of them could cause the complete breakdown of the bone assay, and others would not have osteoporosis. And we did a follow up of those patients-- it was only about 30 patients, I think-- and we did a follow up of those patients, and those who had the most bone breakdown in vitro [? with ?] [? those ?] patients who were then going to get the bone metastases. That was a real incentive to show that link that we were getting. So we knew something was going on there. And that experiment was going on in 1971. And in 2015 with the meta analysis of bone mets and mortality. So that's a long story. That's the story. Let me say that this entire story reiterates the phrase that, "On the shoulders of giants we all stand." You look at the number of people you've laid out who led to this story, which is still ongoing. It's actually fascinating. I want to return just a minute to your work with endocrine therapy of breast cancer and your work with tamoxifen. But first of all, a lot of young people listen to this. 'Cause I came in the field just as surgical ablation of many of the origins of estrogen was going away. Can you talk about what it was like to take care of the patients who were having hypophysectomies and adrenalectomies and oopherectomies? I recall thinking, "I'm an endocrinologist here. I'm not a medical oncologist," as a first year fellow taking care of Addison's disease and other things. There are two things about ablative endocrine therapy. The first was that the responses could be very dramatic, and it was quite a high response rate. There was something [INAUDIBLE]-- don't forget we weren't basing it on ER. ER came later, and then [INAUDIBLE]. Even not based on ER, we were getting 30% to 40% response rates, particularly in bone. The second thing is the management of the patients. The hypophysectomies were relatively easy, because I'd already got experience of patients who got pituitary failure from my endocrinology, and that's much it easier to manage. But the adrenalectomies are much more difficult because you can get very acute glucocorticoid symptoms if you're not getting cortisol, whereas in hypophysectomies it's a relatively slow process. And they were much more difficult to look after. But the thing that was important about it was the fact that although we were doing it, these patients were getting hypercalcemia [INAUDIBLE]. You could have a patient who was hypercalcemia, you do ablative surgery, within 48 hours the calcium is back to normal. In fact, it will go hypoglycemic sometimes on bone hungry [INAUDIBLE] thing. And from a clinical point of view, it was some of the best responses we ever saw even up to this time. Now one of the things that came out of that was that we had one patient-- I can say a name because he's long since dead and [INAUDIBLE] anyway-- her name was Mrs. Pottinger. It's engraved in my mind forever. And she had bone metastases, and she was not particularly well and also had some heart problem. And she was due to have adrenalectomy, and she wasn't well enough for adrenalectomy. And so what I did is I'd used [INAUDIBLE] when I was at the Hammersmith as part of treating Cushing's disease. And so I'd already knew about medical treatment for-- so I then decided that we would do-- and I think it must have been the first patient. I had to get permission from [INAUDIBLE], and I still got the letter I wrote to the medical director of [INAUDIBLE] then saying could we use [INAUDIBLE]. So what we do is the basis was in order to get her well enough to have her adrenalectomy, and she did exactly the same as she would have done if we'd done adrenalectomy. Within 24 to 48 hours, she's getting better, the pain's going, the calcium's down. So she then refused to have an adrenalectomy. There's no way she is going to have it. She said, "No I'll continue with the [INAUDIBLE]." And she continued on [INAUDIBLE] for over a year before she died. And that started a whole new thing. [? Ian ?] [? Smith ?] was my registrar at the time. And so we decided we'd do a phase 2 trial. We did a Phase 2 trial of [INAUDIBLE] on the understanding we were doing a medical adrenalectomy. And that started the whole story that we were doing using [INAUDIBLE], because a [INAUDIBLE] came over, I had various other people come, and what we found was the story was. It wasn't the medical adrenalectomy by blocking postmenopausal estrogen. And then we went down the pathway of doing various, about three or four different aromatase inhibitors with Mitch doing all of endocrinology. It's a wonderful time. We had Adrian Harris, Charlie [INAUDIBLE]-- [COUGHING]. [INAUDIBLE]. [INTERPOSING VOICES] That's a parade of stars. Were you talking across the Atlantic a lot during that time with Dick [? Stanton, ?] and Angela Brody, and the other two who were also-- Yes. Angela Brody was the one who got us a source for [INAUDIBLE]. That was the phase 2. Charlie led on that on the phase 2. That was Angela getting us to do that and linked him with Mitch. And Dick Stanton, yes it was a lot of collaborative work with Donald MacDonald. And a lot of the endocrinologists I knew. So that was how that whole story rolled. That's an amazing library. Let me take you back now to your childhood. I know you and your identical twin, Ray-- by the way for the listeners, if you Google either Trevor or Ray Powles, you'll see pictures of the two of them standing together. And I challenge you to tell who's who. [LAUGHTER] Anyway-- Well I could. I could tell the difference. Yeah I know you can tell the difference. I know that you were both young boys in London during World War II. Tell me about the experience then, and how your mother moved you. Obviously, we were very young. My father was in the Navy abroad, so my mother was alone and was looking after my older brother David, who was four or five years older than us. And I can remember the bombing. I can remember quite a lot about it, surprisingly. We were evacuated up into the north of England 1943, 1944, something like that. And we were there for I think something like six months. And it was an incredible story. I went back to see-- I hadn't been back-- I went back to see-- I was up in the north of England, and I suddenly thought I'll go over. We were at a place called Stockton. And so I was five when we left-- four, four years old when we left. And I had no idea. I knew it was Stockton, and I knew the name of the house was the Priory, and I had a faint recollection of the door. And then I went up to Stockton, and I found the house we were in. And I knocked on the door, and it was a major-- a colonel-- Colonel Brown and his sister who lived there. And the sister was still alive, and she must have been about 90. [INAUDIBLE]. And she looked at me and she said, "You're one of the twins." [LAUGHTER] So we had a chat. [INTERPOSING VOICES] At the time, did you think of this as being frightening, or was it just a great adventure for a young boy? Yeah, I wasn't unaware of danger. My house was bombed down the road flattened and presumably a lot of people died, but I was unaware of danger as such. We had a shelter-- it's something called a [INAUDIBLE] shelter, I think it was called-- that was half buried with corrugated iron as the top thing. And if the siren went, I can remember that we would have to go out and get into the shelter. And we could hear the V-1s very, very-- I can still remember. You can hear the V-1s coming over. It made a hum-- [HUMMING] --like that. And it's gradually getting louder and louder, and then it would stop, and then it would just fall out of the sky at an angle. It would go down at about 45 degrees. So if you could hear the [? stop ?] overhead, you weren't going to be hit. But if you could hear the [? stop ?] coming towards you, there was a chance you were going to get hit. I can remember that. Everybody was sitting listening to where these bombs were cutting out their engine. So that's one of the things I can remember. And I can remember the V-2. It was a huge bang if one went off. I know that you and Ray both also developed tuberculosis as young boys. What was the background behind that, and how were you treated? Yeah, Ray-- we'd just finished school. And we weren't sure what we were going to do, and Ray had developed [INAUDIBLE], which again didn't mean anything to me. He coughed up a couple of times or [INAUDIBLE] of blood. And the next thing he's carted off and he's got tuberculosis, and he's been taken down to a sanatorium down near the Thames out along the marshes sort of thing. And he's there for six months. And during that six months, I can't see him and everything, and I thought, "Well, you know I'd like to do medicine. I think this is rather a good thing." So what I did, I then applied for medical school and got a place. And then Ray gets better, and he then applies to medical school, and he gets a place as well. The dean said to Ray when he saw it, he said, "Haven't we seen you here before?" And Ray said, "No, it's my twin brother." And he then says, "Did we accept him?" And Ray said, "Yes." And then he said, "Pity." [LAUGHTER] And it was the end of the interview. The next thing, he's in as well. [LAUGHTER] And then I get TB, because it's about an 80% chance you get it if an identical twin's had it. And I was in the hospital for three months. So we were both back a year. I would have been a year ahead of Ray, but in fact then suddenly we're both back a year. And it was quite an interesting year for me, because I only had one subject to do. So I was able to do some reading, things like Darwin and that sort of stuff. And then we just carried on. And you were treated with streptomycin in those days? [INAUDIBLE]. You had 50 grams of strep. Yeah, yeah. Sounds like you used that as a springboard to change the practice of medicine. So in every cloud there's a silver lining. The one thing I want to bring up-- I remember several years ago at one of the San Antonio meetings, and you and Dr. [? Bernie ?] Fisher were the bait. And he did all but call for you to be arrested and locked up because your study was negative, and of course the [? PL1 ?] one was positive. And you very graciously responded to that, "You know, Dr. Fisher, I didn't start this trial up to be negative." [LAUGHTER] That was a great response. My goodness did I not admire him. The reason I did the trial is-- again, this is a funny story. I did a lot of horse riding, as you know. And what I did is after the 1985 first meta analysis, Oxford meta analysis, that was the first one to show that chemotherapy worked for the [INAUDIBLE] and other trials that chemotherapies show the reduction. And it showed that tamoxifen worked. That was the first meeting where I was really convinced that both those were positive effects. Up till then, it was one trial and you couldn't be sure if it was going to be reproduced all the like. And that was the 1985 meta analysis meeting in Oxford. And then I came back home, and I got on my horse, and I rode for a week. I took the horse down to the South Downs. The South Downs is a long, expansive country, and it took me five days, I think it was, of riding to get across from one side to the other where I'd stop in a pub. I had to go down the week before and plan out exactly what I was going to do. So I've got five days on a horseback thinking, and that was where I thought, "Well, where do we go from here?" You might say, well, let's do bigger and better chemo or the like, right? And you might say endocrine therapy, let's do more tamoxifen, or different doses, or [INAUDIBLE] down those paths. So I said, "But if you really want to do something different, the two things you could do would be for chemotherapy is why not give it before surgery?" That was the time when I really thought neoadjuvant chemotherapy was where we ought to be going, because then we could see that they're responding or not et cetera. But tamoxifen, if it weren't for adjuvant therapy, then it should work for prevention. We had a clinic at the Marsden that I took over because somebody was leaving-- which was a family history clinic, and they all had very strong family histories three or four relatives, et cetera, et cetera. And I took over this clinic, and I thought to myself we could do a prevention trial here with tamoxifen. We'll do a pilot. What happened at the Marsden they just had a ethics committee set up, one of the first in the world. This is in 1985. And it had never met, it had only passed the trials to be done. And so the first meeting of the ethics committee at the Marsden was to discuss the prevention, because it was such a awful thing to do. Do you know what I mean? And but after two or three goes, I got it through the ethics committee mainly because a colleague of mine who was the head of medicine then was Tim McIlwain. He pushed it through because he said "Look, it makes so much sense." And we did a [INAUDIBLE] and we had an agreement that we could do 250 patients randomized, then go to 500. And then we had a national meeting to discuss setting up the national program. And so it was a feasibility trial actually looking to see what the toxicity was or whether it was acceptable to do it. And we had such a spin off from that, because tamoxifen at that stage was supposed to be a pure anti estrogen. And we were screening all the tissues, we were doing bones that [INAUDIBLE] from the clotting factors. Everything. Cholesterol. We were doing, measuring everything in pre and post menopausal women. And everywhere we looked, tamoxifen wasn't acting as an anti estrogen. It was acting as an estrogen effect, so much so that at the Think Tank-- I presented it at the Think Tank, and I said, "Look these aren't [INAUDIBLE] tamoxifen and anti estrogen at all." And I thought Mark, dear old Mark Lippert, was going to have an epilepsy, which 'cause it's correct because it is an anti estrogen breast cancer effect. But that was the first time. So then in the paper I wrote, I called it a selective anti estrogen. But I didn't coin [INAUDIBLE], but I did coin the expression, the first published thing of a selective anti estrogen. I remember that paper. [INAUDIBLE]. I remember that. So I want to finish up with just-- Let me just finish up one thing. Can I just finish up one thing? [INTERPOSING VOICES] Because it links into [INAUDIBLE]. So after Think Tank presented it possibly as an estrogen. And what was happening is we've got a bell shaped curve that was very narrow. So we were on the estrogen side as opposed to the anti estrogen side, right? And that was what was happening in the normal tissues. So I had a slides that said, "Tamoxifen is not an anti estrogen." You probably remember if you were there. You were there. We go out on the boat, and we get stranded out of the boat in the mist-- the one you've mentioned about where you and I and Mark, et cetera-- when we're approaching the time after about four hours when we're thinking about meeting our maker, Mark says to me, "I've really got to have a word with you about this anti estrogen." Well one other thing-- and this is going to be more my talking than yours. I really just touched on the surface of your contributions to the field, but I think probably the greatest is your mentoring history. And you've already hit on a few of these, but I travel extensively and I'm struck by the number of times I've been in some remote area-- or at least remote to me-- and corner of the world, and somebody-- it's usually my host-- volunteers that he or she trained at the Royal Marsden with Trevor Powles. And I think it's one of the things you should be most proud of all the many things you've done. And I want to know that you set up a system that was opening and inviting and also somehow funded to support people to come from all over the world. What made you do that? How did you do that in the first place? It's hard to do. Certain people came to me, which was very nice. We did have funds. I would be able to get funding even at that stage. There are many more hurdles for getting funding now than there were then. And the other thing about it was the fact that I find that people-- many times we've [INAUDIBLE] [? mentioning ?] things-- but one of the things I really did [? let ?] is let people have the run of doing things as opposed to me doing it maybe with the assistant. And that was very rewarding for me in terms of results and [INAUDIBLE], 'cause people were very motivated to do it, people like you, and Charlie, and the others. So in some senses, I think it was the fact I was looking for the results we wanted to get rather than anything else. That's probably the basis of it, and therefore people came who ere good. And I'm very lucky I had very, very good people come. So just to go through the list briefly-- Ian Smith, Mitch Dowsett, Troy [? Kohns, ?] Adrian Harris, Paul Goss, who am I leaving out? Anyway, it's a who's who of breast cancer, especially endocrinology and breast cancer. And they all came out of your brilliance. So we owe you not just for what you've done, but who you've trained to do even more. Very kind of you to say that, but in fact they get the credit because if you look through my publication lists you can see.     Actually, I left out Steven Johnston, of course, who is-- Steve. Yeah, Steve. Yeah. OK, we've run out of time. I very much appreciate the fact that you've taken time to come on and do that for us. I'm sure our listeners will be thrilled by the stories you've told-- at least I always am-- and it's great to hear most of them again. And I hope sometime we can even do this again. So thank you for all you've done, thank you for all the people you've trained, and thank you for taking time to do this today. Well, thank you so much for asking me.   Until next time, thank you for listening to this JCO's Cancer Story-- The Art of Oncology podcast. If you enjoyed what you heard today, don't forget to give us a rating or review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen. While you're there, be sure to subscribe so you never miss an episode. JCO's Cancer Stories-- The Art of Oncology podcast is just one of ASCO's many podcasts. You can find all the shows at podcast.asco.org.

Let's Talk... Business, Finances & Wealth. But not just in this 49th Episode of the... and Landlord Podcast. I'm now ready (and now have the location) for an in-person local meet-up. So here I announce that starting on April 6th (and the 1st Monday of each month thereafter) - we'll have a monthly meet-up to talk about (among other things)... Business, Finances, Wealth Creation, Mindset - and so much more about MONEY. The location? It will be at Rivals Barbershop in Downtown Durham, North Carolina (727 N. Mangum Street - Suite 100). And Rivals Barbershop is my latest business endeavor... A partnership with Professional Barber (Khedron Mims) in a Sports Themed Barbershop. NO - I'll not be cutting anyone's hair! But in line with the purpose of this monthly meet-up - I partnered with Khedron in Rivals Barbershop because its another business that will create additional passive income for me. It also gives me the chance to lend my business knowledge and expertise to aid Khedron in creating passive income for himself. So what better place to come together on a monthly basis to discuss helping others to do the same. If you've ever desired to start a Business; have a Business that you seek to grow; want to get into Real Estate (Flipping, Wholesaling, Rentals); or you just want to make more Money; improve your Finances and grow your Financial IQ - this is the place you need to be each 1st Monday of the month at 6:30PM.

Interview – Gene Frederick In today’s episode we have Gene Frederick, a current member of eXp Realty’s Board of Directors. After getting into real estate in 1984, Gene worked for a small independent and then transitioned to RE/MAX for a number of years before purchasing his first franchise. Additionally, Gene spent over 21 years with Keller Williams as a manager, team leader and regional owner of six offices across the nation until discovery eXp Realty. In this episode, Gene discusses how he found himself at eXp Realty, a revolutionary real estate brokerage model, why agents love this model, how eXp sustains 8,000 agents and why he compares eXp to Netflix. Learn More about eXp Realty - Click here to watch a quick 7 Minute Intro Video. Remember our disclaimer: The materials and content discussed within this podcast are the opinions of Kevin Cottrell and/or the guests interviewed.  This information is intended as general information only for listeners of the podcast. Listeners should conduct their own due diligence and research before making any business decisions. This podcast is produced completely independently of eXp Realty and is not endorsed, funded or otherwise supported by eXp Realty directly or indirectly.   In this episode Gene’s background in realty and why he transitioned to eXp Why independent brokers are taking a closer look at eXp Realty Why transitioning away from brick and mortar is sustainable The benefits of utilizing a Cloud Office What is a disruptive technology and why it is important The future of real estate from a broker’s point of view Why top agents are joining EXP Resources To contact Gene Frederick, text 703-338-1515 Gene Frederick on Facebook, https://www.facebook.com/gene.frederick.750 Tweetables “If you are constantly having to think outside the box, maybe the box needs fixing.”   PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION   KEVIN: Welcome to the show, Gene. GENE: Oh Hi Kevin. How are you? KEVIN: I'm fantastic. So you know before we dive in on eXp Realty and I'm going to ask you some questions specifically about eXp. Why don't you give listeners that maybe don't know your whole story your story leading up to before eXp and then we'll talk a little bit about what made you decide to do what you did before you joined eXp. GENE: Thanks Kevin for having me on today. I really loved telling this story because I've been in real estate since 1984, here in Texas. Most of my career has been in the Dallas- Fort Worth area. So when I got into real estate in 1984 I worked for a small independent and then went to Remax and I was at Remax for quite a few years and then in 1989 I bought my first franchise which was a realty executives franchise owned that for five years in DFW and I sold that in 1994 and in 1994 - Boy these years go fast let me tell you - 1994 my wife and I Susan I were two of the first ten agents to launch Keller Williams in the Dallas area and the first Dallas office. And I spent 21 years almost almost 22 years a little over 21 years with KW until I found out about eXp and that's what I want to talk to you about today. In other words I learned about this three years ago and my story is I was basically... I was basically retired as being a manager and team leader my wife and I both are and the team leader Hall of Fame at KW. We were team leaders for quite a long time, regional directors and we also owned at that time we thought we were retiring Kevin. We owned 6 Keller Williams offices across the nation; 3 in California, two in Texas and one on the East Coast and also a region. We owned the Keller Williams region for Northern California and Hawaii and we were basically retired here. We had moved to Austin, Texas 2010 and a couple of my past agents came up to me one day and said "Could you check out this new model?" And I said sure, I don't have anything to do with you. This will be fun. And a gentleman named Glen Sanford flew into Austin, met with me for a couple of days and it was just awesome to meet Glenn and the new model that he showed me and treat me so much. I spent five months researching it. I flew up to Boston to meet the CEO at the time still our CEO and been our CEO for right now eight years Jason Guessing. He lives in the Boston area and those two gentlemen showed me this new model. And after five months of researching it which is exciting. Not even looking I came back to Susan in the spring of 2015, not quite three years, and I told her I said Susan guess what. She goes "What?" And I said, "Well honey if you knew Netflix existed would you own a blockbuster?" She said, "Of course not." And I said "Well honey, we owned six of them." And she said, "Excuse me." And I said "I just found Netflix and that was the eXp Realty." And it was really funny at that time, it had about 400 agents and with the way Glenn's vision laid out in a way Jason was so convicted and Glenn is such a visionary. Seeing something that could go very very big and revolutionizing the way real estate brokerage was going to be run with agents as owners, not the brokers and owners, and I said Honey I think we got to sell all the blockbusters. And she says oh OK and just see you know Kevin try that out for size after 20 years of marriage and look at that and we're thinking we're just about ready to retire. And I said honey this is going to work. This is really going to work. So in the spring of 2015 we sold our six offices and our region and we join the eXp Realty right around May 1, 2015 and we've been with the company two years and 10 months and I can't tell you why I joined. I mean this is revolutionary to me because if you ever read Malcolm Gladwell's books, you know Tipping Point Blank and one of his books I remember one of the headings was and one of the chapters was if you are constantly having to think outside the box, maybe the box needs fixing. And as the real estate brokerage you know I've owned so many franchises I've been through so much of the franchise world I knew that the franchise world was it didn't just need fixing. It really needed a whole new broker box. And when Glen Sanford showed me this model and said Gene the agents, the agents are going to drive this model, not owners. Actually when I first met him, Kevin it was funny, he said and I looked at it and about a month later I called him up and I said "Glenn, I'm curious how much does Texas cost?" and he goes "Well Jean it's not for sale." So what do you mean it's not for sale. He goes well we're not selling franchises we're going to build through the agents and that's when I knew we had a new box and that excited me to grow through the agents with agents as owners rather than owners having to sign leases having to buy furniture having a certain territory which was to me always very very restricted from the owner's point of view, especially on the money side. So it's been two years and 10 months and I got to tell you it's it's like birthing a baby. It's my same for the last almost three years. Let's make real estate fun again. And I'm just having fun being attracted and what I found out Kevin which is funny. I've got to tell you in May of 2015 I started interviewing people in Austin, Texas. This is where I live. I had 20 interviews. Let me ask you this guess how many people of the 20 people and by the way are twenty one on one interviews 18 signed up. Guess how many of those 20 people asked me where the physical office was going to be. None of them. Not one not one. And that's when I went. Why are we building blockbusters. You know there was a reason in the 80s in the 70s that we went to a physical office right. There was a reason before the internet that we had phone numbers attached to the sign that we all funneled into one area and had phone time where agents we went into the back room and answered phone calls from people that drove by signs. And since the invention of course the Internet and the smartphone you know we have agents putting their smartphone number or whatever number they want to have called and straight into that. And there is no longer a reason for that physical office. By the way I had to 18 for 20 the first month. Of the two that did not join, one joined a month later and the other one joined like nine months later and that's when I came back to Susan I said Susan "This is it. This is the next real estate brokerage model that's going to work because I've never been 20 for 20 ever in my real estate career". By the way those were all all productive agents not news agencies are productive agents. KEVIN: You know the interesting thing about that is when you look at coming out of a franchise system you know you were doing that when the company had realistically about four or five hundred agents when you started right. GENE: Yes exactly. KEVIN: And so people like you and Mitch Riback and others have done a lot of heavy lifting. Right. The company is only you know was founded in 2009. At this point it's a whole different world isn't it. GENE: It's so funny because I look back on it. In fact I've got to tell you a story even today it's just makes so much sense to me. I texted, didn't text I actually did a workplace message to our founder our visionary Glenn Sanford today. I said glad you remember two years ago I said I got to tell you. February 29th which was a leap year two years ago. That was 2016. We're talking right now February 28 2018. I said Glen can you remember we were at a restaurant with Debbie and Susan and myself. We were in Austin,Texas at the Oasis Restaurant and Glen had his smartphone out, Kevin. And he was looking at it and I said "What are you looking at,Glenn". He goes "1996 1997 1998." I said "What's that?" He goes It's our agent count and I said we're going to go over 1000 and he goes thousand thousand?. We had a toast and we went crazy. This is just two years ago. So let's fast forward. I said Glenn that night was... To me the hardest thing is getting to 1000 agents just so you know this is 2018 in the first month of January of 2018. We added 1000 agents net every 30 days we're adding over a thousand agents right now. So at the end of 2000 yes, to give you updated numbers, at the end of 2017 we ended up with 6505 agents. Just a little bit over 6500 agents. That was the heavy lifting and now all of a sudden we did a press release just two weeks ago in the middle of February we hit 8000 agents. Kevin that is... and by the way again not with new agents experienced agents. If I had a nickel for every time an experienced agent I talked to says "Where have you all been?" You know when we go to a new town I've never heard of you but where have you been. And I said I don't know I just found them two years and ten months ago. I mean I just found them three years ago. I mean I said I'm like you. I didn't know it existed. But once I saw it I went new model new Model. It's going to work in the book Blink. You know Malcolm Gladwell talks about that there's a blink basically an emotional side of our thinking process. I'm very analytical because Kevin I used to be a financial analyst before I got in real estate. So I have more spreadsheets than anybody on earth. I love thinking analytically but when I saw this model my blink my emotional output was I went this is going to work and it has. And it's just exciting to me to have the Amazon of real estate in fact Stefan Swann Poole, the famous writer consultant that talks about real estate all throughout our industry in 2013. He did an article about us 2013. What a visionary he was. He says these guys are the Amazon of real estate and I don't think the bricks and mortar franchise owners understood what he was talking about. Well, I'm living. KEVIN: What's interesting about that is you talk about the momentum adding 1000 agents a month. It really I want to talk about a couple of different demographics and let you give me your opinion on why you think it's occuring you know Mitch Ryback and Florida was one of the first larger independent brokers that converted into eXp and at this point you myself and a number of other people at eXp are having conversations every week with independent brokers. Why do you think independent brokers have suddenly woken up and go I need to look at eXp realty. GENE: Well there's two things to me. Number one the Bricks and Mortar models the Bricks and Mortar model is dead Kevin. And when I say that if you are running a real estate brokerage especially independents it's hard to get over that 50 75 100 agents, right. You can't hit a level where you just stay there. I see so many of the firms and they think they're going to get to 500 agents or 400. They don't want to do franchises because they understand how hard that is and also pain that franchise fee off the top doesn't make sense to them and really 55% of our industry according to NAR I think at least 55 percent, over 50 percent is independent brokers. So they've struggled, they struggled they went through this last downturn you know 2006 to 2012. That was not fun. Now we've come out of it since 2012. But guess what? It still isn't where they are doubling or tripling in size. You know I met Mitch a year ago in Austin. He flew to see me in Austin. We spent some time together and you know he didn't own his company for 12 years. You know you own something for 12 years and it's you know you don't want to tell the agents that you're not making very much money. But it's a struggle. You know let's just think about it. Leases, furniture, phone systems and you know the independents. Kevin you and I have talked about this. Now they have to compete against the big franchises right. So the franchise rollout some big tech thing and they can't compete. They can't rule that out for all their agents. They don't have the money to do that. So it's very very restricted. We already got in January we got two small independents in Texas one with 40 agents in San Antonio just join us and one with 56 agents in McAllen in south south Texas near the border. That gentleman rolled his company in with 54 agents and we instantly became number two in the market boom! And I really think they're looking at 40 or 50 agents. Kevin you and I have talked about this. Now they can take those 40 or 50 agents and turn them into 100, 150 in their own little team through rev share, through revenue share. KEVIN: Well and one of the things that you and I have talked about and I want to make the point for anybody listening to this is even if you're an independent broker and you have some amount of expenses that can't just be x. In other words it costs you 30 40 50 60 thousand, a hundred thousand dollars a month. Do the due diligence people like Mitch and all these brokers don't necessarily make the expenses go away immediately but get with the right resources and gene you're certainly one of them that can help you do the due diligence because it's not a go no go. I have to make my expenses to zero to make it worth at eXp realty. There is a due diligence process and these independent brokers are figuring out that they can leave some amount of infrastructure in place and make the transition with their agents and then come out of it in 12, 18, 24 months. And like Mitch they've got a much bigger revenue share stream that exceeded what they were making as it had been a broker. GENE: Yes. And with that that was a perfect point to make. Kevin you and I've talked about it let's say that I think the one and MacCallum He had three offices he reduced the three offices down to one because he still had leases he was obligated to. But he got rid of a whole bunch of expenses and then you just gradually work into making sure that the agents get used to the cloud office. They're no longer going to come into the office they're going to go into our cloud office which by the way is the difference maker. The cloud office, we call it our cloud campus I call it a cloud office because that's where everybody is. That's where our accountants are. That's where our tech people are. That's where our onboarding people are. That's where our marketing people are. We have over 180 people right now in that cloud office, Kevin as avatars. And they speak to you just like I'm you know you just walk in and talk to them just like a video game. The cool part about it is when I saw that and when Glenn rolled that out to me I said Glenn I've always wanted to get rid of Bricks and Mortar as an owner. I mean there's not one owner in the nation that would love to get rid of that expense. Love to get rid of all that copiers everything. You name it. I ran it. I ran a couple of the largest offices for Keller Williams ever and those expenses just it's hard to cover those expenses and it just weighs on you even if you're making a little bit of money. Kevin you and I talked about it even if you make it a little bit of money. You're not making a lot of money and it just wears on you after a while. KEVIN: Yes. The message here if you're an independent broker is don't just discount conversion into eXp realty because maybe you've tried to talk to one of the big franchise systems and you couldn't make the numbers work. The independent brokers if they're running through due diligence with Mitch or with Gene Frederick or anybody else in the leadership are figuring out how to do this and understanding rev share and I want to talk about rev share for a minute before we talk about why mega agents and teams are joining. Rev share is something from my opinion. I want to get your concurrence on this Gene. When you were a regional owner you mentioned you owned Northern California and Hawaii. You got paid basically based on the agents in the region. Right it came off the top and you got paid out of the royalties and a franchise system but there was a stream of income that was very predictable. You knew if you had producing agents that would stay with the company. And every year you had x number of them you could predict pretty accurately how much revenue you'd have. Right? GENE: Correct and even in the downturn since the franchises they take money off the top we took money off the top. I was in two franchises. We knew the money off the top. We got that even in 2007 2008 2009 when we knew our owners of the offices were struggling. It was sad they weren't making money but as a region we got our money right off the top. KEVIN: And that for anybody out there you may have heard sort of the noise and information and sort of misdirection that revenue sharing is not sustainable from my opinion. I look at revenue share as exactly the way the franchises pay the regional owners. Do you agree? GENE: Exactly. When I talk to agents because they've never been owners of franchises Kevin like you and I have a ram franchises or ran offices they're just selling real estate. I said Let me explain to you this model would you rather have in your commissions money taken off the top and given to the owners are money coming off the top and given back to you the agents for helping us grow the company and they said was like the one where it comes back to me and I go. That's our system. We're just giving it to somebody different. I was really into this as somebody a couple of years ago and they said Gene you didn't change a sister you didn't change that part of it. You're just giving it back to someone else. Very very sustainable. We were sustainable at five hundred agents. You know now we just did a press release in the middle of February where over eight thousand agents just imagine Kevin could you imagine if you were running an office nationally with eight thousand agents with no bricks and mortar no cost. KEVIN: And that's why it's sustainable and profitable and for anybody listening to this. If you are under the misimpression that revenue sharing is sustainable there's a precedent for this and the franchise system don't let anybody confuse you that taking money off the top out of the revenue stream of the company dollar is not sustainable because the franchise systems take money off the top and they pay the original owners. eXp realty is doing the same thing. And so to tie down the independent broker conversation this is a big way that these independent brokers are figuring out as Gene said earlier to converting the eXp realty they can keep a lot of their systems in place. They can get all of the tools and technology of the eXp realty. They can provide a better environment from a technology standpoint for their agents and at the tail end of it you know if you listen to the interview with Mitch Riback he's making so much more money now than he was as an independent broker. If you're interested in the eXp. Get with the right members of the team do due diligence and understand why it is. Because as compared to things like profit share or other systems, the predictability of revenue share because it does come off of the top can be modeled. You can figure out exactly what your PNL is going to look like, what it looks like later. And as the revenue share grows it's predictable based on the number of agents and if you listen to Mitch's interview you'll see him say my spreadsheet was a big understatement for what I thought it was going to be. I'm actually making more money than I even model that I would do it. And that is why if you're scratching your head as an independent broker how would I ever do this. The piece that you're missing and you yourself if you're considering it to get in and dig in and understand how it works because it may not be apparent from the outside. GENE: And the two things brokers are concerned about Kevin we've talked about forever and I've been a broker of numerous franchises. You have to have a model that attracts people. First of all if they don't sell more real estate at your place than the other place they don't come. We've talked about this. Our technology is phenomenal. I mean Glen and Jason are just bonafide. We're going to have some of the best technology tools for people to get leads to the Internet. So everybody gets conversion for free, right? Sometimes I even get to the conversion part and they said wait it's free here because some of the small independents I talk to say well we do provide conversion for our agents but they have to pay for it. Are we you know 400 a month or 500 a month and I said what if all your agents came in got it free here and they go oh my gosh I can attract a lot more agents in my market and I go yeah we have that and also the second thing for brokers that they don't understand is once you let the agents in the game to help attract other agents they grow. Because most independents go I don't want my agents attracting people I want to track them make sure I do all the interviews and I go wow. Once you let the agents attract people the way they can their salespeople. Oh my gosh. And that's what Mitch told me Mitch didn't realize that his people could attract agents better faster quicker than he ever could because he's letting them into the ownership game. Kevin, like you and I talk about in the royalty game you know they're getting royalties off the top. Wait that's never been done that's never been done. That's why we're getting number one agent Louisiana. Darren James number one agent Tucson, Arizona. You know number one agent Richmond, Virginia I could name the town's number one agent Nashville. I won't name everybody's names I'm sorry but it's just like why are the top people why are they looking at us. And joining us in a week. 10 days from start to finish. Because it's a brand new model. You and I have talked about a lot of people come to me and they go well can you compare it to this company or the company that got started in the 70s the company that got started in the 80s and I go well they're franchise models and we just don't compare. I can't even compare it's a brand new. It is Netflix right. Just like Netflix and Blockbuster. You know I love using that example because blockbuster both watching movies right. We're both watching movies. But let me ask you a question Kevin. What was the technology that did away with Blockbuster? Streaming video. So when that technology, it's called a disruptive technology, you hear it all the time on Shark Tank. When you hear somebody go I've got a disruptive technology which means it's going to change the way we do something right. And your first to market with it the fact that you have a disruptive technology plus your first to market with it boom right. Wow! And that's why I compare it does everybody gets confused because a they said well you guys don't have any offices. See we do. We have offices. In fact you can go to any Regis we have a national arrangement. Kevin with Regis across the United States. So in every town there's always a five or 10 Regis's if you want to meet a customer in an office, meet him right there. But I think everybody gets confused with the fact that we have a game changer and when Glen Sanford saw he caught it early late 2009 is when he started the company says Gene. I just went to everybody and said no more bricks and mortar. He had three offices. He says I'm shutting everything down. I mean man, that takes a lot of gumption to do that in 2009. But he says I believe in this model that agents will go to our office. I can get to the office with my iPhone now. I can go in just straight to my iPhone. Of course I can get it on my computer and boom don't have to get dressed, don't have to drive to the office. It is the way real estate is going to be run from the broker's point of view. I think the next 10 years. KEVIN: It's certainly as you described earlier a disruptive model and I agree with you. I think if you get to 21 22 in terms of 20 21 22 most of the bricks and mortar operations will have to go away. Same way the blockbusters went away. So let's tie down the agents obviously productive agents are joining eXp realty. There is no take away from the standpoint of the economic model right in other words people aren't joining hoping to do better. We talked a little bit a minute ago about tools and technology but from an economic model it's not a take away for an agent to join eXp is it. GENE: Oh my gosh no. We have the same cap for every single agent in the company. I love it. Everybody's on an 80 20 with no royalty, no royalties a biggie. So once they pay 20% and an equal sixteen thousand dollars. Kevin That's our cap. And then they go to 100%. So it's kind of neat. We're getting people that do over a hundred million a year, 100 million in production with big teams and they said what's the structure and I said well it's one camp 16000. You can go to as many cities as you want in your state. You can go across state lines and have agents in other states and they go what you mean I don't have to pay another cap in those cities are in that state. I go no because we don't have franchises. We haven't sold franchises in those cities like the other ones. So a lot of the other models we compare for the large large teams love the fact number one that they can expand their team only pay one cap for the lead agent and the other agents are a half cap. All right. And then here's the second thing that we're noticing Le Page and Johnson from Charlotte, North Carolina. They joined us last spring and she said Jane they brought over 16 agents with them they do over 100 million a year. And she said Gene what I realize now after being with the eXp for three or four months is I knew it would be beneficial for my team because I care about my team members but they love it more than I do. And I said What do you mean? They go. She goes oh my gosh they get all the benefits I do. So they can take for example on the stock they can take 5% of their commissions every month. The team members can as well as anybody and purchase stock every single month at a 20% discount. I mean they're creating equity in their lives. So they're team members are being able to create equity. They're team members are being able to help attract. We call referrer agents as they're doing transactions and now they're team members are getting revenue share stock and she told me she was I've never had a happier team members in my life because their teams just like brokers because the big teams Kevin are like small brokers right. They're concerned with how to attract agents to my team and how do I retain them. It's all about retention. And they said we're not losing anybody now because they're aquiring stock. They're acquiring revenue share and they're happy again. I can't believe I've got Brett Gove. I talked to a year ago year and three or four months ago I think is one of the top agents in Northern California. I talked to him on Thursday. He came and talked to Glen and Jason at our national convention. It just happened to be at that time he signed up the next Friday. Kevin I'm talking. One of the top agents in the nation joins in eight days. It's a compelling value proposition for sure. And he came to the convention I love it because all these top people come to the convention by the way we have two conventions a year, one in April which is our stockholders meeting every year. We believe in getting together and networking. And then of course we have one in October which is our national convention. Same thing. Great networking and learning things. But what's funny is when they came to these he brought two people with him. I love telling Brent's story because Gene I brought two people with me and I told him OK talk me out of this. Talk to everybody and find out what's wrong with this model. Of course he comes back and on Friday He's about ready to leave and he talks to those two gentlemen they were standing right next to me he said what did you find out in he. Man this model is real. This is working and he goes OK I'm in. KEVIN: What's interesting about that is you and I were both team leaders and we recruited a lot of agents in our day and the franchise system. It's unheard of to have teams and mega agents convert in that quick period of time and I think it's a testament to the value proposition and the fact that between revenue share and the ability to buy stock and earn stock based on the way EXP lays it out. What are your thoughts on the noise in the market about revenue sharing. Obviously we've got enough experience with it now and I interviewed Mitch a number of other people and as you mentioned people that are teams it's a huge retention item for mega agents and especially mega agents with teams because unless they're going to set up some sort of profit share and 401 K for their team members they don't have the ability to do anything close to this in terms of creating wealth. GENE: Well the same with small brokers. When I say small brokers any broker that has 50 agents or 100 agents or 200 agents, as big as a broker can get there really running their team. They don't want people to leave right. So I was talking to a broker just the other day and he says Gene the hardest thing is I train them, coach them. They stay with me for a couple of years and then they leave. Right when they're getting ready to be really really productive. And I said well you want to solve that. And he goes what. And I said get him into our system. It will retain them when they get stock. They want to see that stock go up. They have ownership in it because you've never give them ownership. So the same thing with the teams the small brokers what they're beginning to realize that I knew it would happen Kevin. I knew it three years ago. But now it's starting to happen. Even though they're doing OK. Right. We haven't had another shift yet in our market really nationally. But the brokers are going. You mean I can turn 50 agents into a hundred. I said Let me show you what Mitch Ribak did. Let me show you the small you know they're just getting it. They're getting it. And all of a sudden they're going Wow!!. And of course as a broker if you're tired of running that doggone office you're not the broker anymore. Right? That's a big thing. Our states are all run by a broker. We have supervisory brokers because in big states like Texas where we have close to 2000 agents we have a head broker and four supervisory brokers. So we have a lot of brokers to take care of that and they go, oh you mean I don't have to answer the broker questions. I said No I'll go to the broker. Just bring the agents let them run and let them produce. KEVIN: Absolutely. So if you're listening to this it doesn't matter if you're an independent broker or a mega agent or a team in a team lead you can go to the show notes and there's an intro video it's like seven minutes long you can get all the sort of facts and information that Gene and I are talking about. And then you really want to dig in and get due diligence. You know whoever introduced you to eXp realty can introduce you to whomever you know whether it's Gene or me or any of the other leaders around the country that can help you get the right information to make a good decision. Doesn't matter if you're a broker a mega agent or otherwise. If you're scratching your head as to why people are joining. That's the first step. Watch that intro video that's in the show notes and then go back to whomever introduced you to eXp Realty and say all right I'm intrigued enough. I want to dig into it and then they'll get you pointed in the right direction to get connected. Gene any final thoughts on that I want to get your contact info in case anybody wants to reach you. GENE: The only final thought I would say is I want to say something to everybody out there especially where we are not. First the market is everything. When you look at all the marketing books and I'm a, you know I graduated with a business degree and all the marketing books I've got an old marketing book and the number one thing in marketing is being first to market. That's why I have an iPhone. That's why a lot of us love Pandora. This is why you know what I look at first to market with anything, Netflix, Air BnB. When I see first to market even Uber right. When I see first the market, people don't really understand how huge that is to be first in your market to bring eXp to your area. You know we have the tools to show you how to explain the model. Kevin and I want to share them with everybody. And the fact is if are first to market I don't want you to wait two years, three years and say I'm just going to wait to see if it's going to work. It is working. It's working nationally right now. So get on board. I can't wait to work with everybody. I just don't want people to go well you know I'll just wait and see if they make it. Come on now. Just don't wait. KEVIN: Absolutely. I've had that same conversation with people were there like well I see a few agents in my market. I'm a mega agent and I've got a team I do 20 30 million dollars a year and you know I don't see the people that I mastermind with are my peers. That's not typical when Gene joined eXp in Texas he just mentioned there's 2000 agents are very close to him right now. I think there were five agents in the state and a few major decision like a mega agent would if they made a mistake they wouldn't even recognize what happened in Texas. GENE: Yes correct. And so that's what I always say to folks get rid of that fear. It's not really a fear at all. We're selling real estate just like you would anywhere else. If it doesn't work out you can always go back to your other company right. But but I can tell you once you come into our system and see the tools and the people because we're all made of people and the people just like you that you can mastermind with nationwide through the cloud collaborate so easily because I'm telling you right now. Kevin you know as well as I do there's a few people in my world that I talk to two and a half years ago. They are just now joining now. I said well it was available to you two and a half years ago and they go well I'm starting now. I'm going now and I go good. But if you're in a town where we're not even in yet, guys we can open immediately. We do not need bricks and mortar. We just need good quality agents. We talk about it all the time in our attraction. It's quality not quantity. We want quality agents so come join the explosion as we call it the eXp explosion. And it really is happening and I can't wait to work with everybody. KEVIN: Fantastic. Gene if somebody is listening to this and they want to reach you how do they get in touch with you. GENE: The best way to reach me guys if you want to is texting. Please do not e-mail me. You can. Really pretty much find me. I'm in Austin Texas. My name is Gene Frederick but my cell number and I'll give it to you so you can text me or private message me on Facebook you can private message me on Facebook of course just Gene Frederick is on my Facebook account but 703 3381 515 is my cell number 703 3381 515. Just text me. I really respond fast. I can't wait to work with all of you. KEVIN: Fantastic. Thanks for coming on the show. GENE: Thanks Kev. Take care.

What material do I use? Many PCB designers ask this question. This is an episode about RF and Microwave PCB Design as well as Design for Manufacturing or DFM and it will help you to understand material choices and where to get answers about high speed laminates. Join John Bushie, Director of Technology at American Standard Circuits and Altium's Judy Warner in a discussion about High Speed laminates and the exciting world of RF/Microwave PCBs.   Show Highlights: John and Anaya's new book on iConnect007 about RF/Microwave PCBs You can design something that meets IPC standards and still have problems. What kind of material do you need? That depends. There's what you simulate, and then there's physics. Physics trumps theory. PCB101, a manufacturing educational experience pioneered at ASC   Links and Resources: American Standard Circuits website The Printed Circuit Designer's Guide to Fundamentals of RF/Microwave PCBs The Printed Circuit Designer's Guide to Flex and Rigid-Flex Fundamentals John Bushie on Linkedin Hi everyone, this is Judy Warner with the OnTrack Podcast, welcome back. Today we have a really great guest for you. I'm really looking forward to sharing my guests with you and please, if you would follow me on LinkedIn or on my Twitter which is @AltiumJudy and if you would like to follow Altium you can go to our Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn profiles. So let's get started. Today I have the great pleasure of being with John Bushie who is the Director of Technology for American Standard Circuits which is outside of Chicago area and ASE specializes in both RF microwave circuits and also flexible circus but today I want to talk to John about a new micro Ebook that they have published through iConnect007 and this book is near and dear to me. Some years ago I wrote a guest blog on a microwave journal because so many RF and microwave engineers and just engineers in general are being tasked with designing their own boards. And particularly in the RF and microwave space a lot of these designers, these guys are designing boards and haven't had the opportunity to spend a lot of time in a fab shop. Yeah, and they really just don't get a chance to be exposed to as much as we do being a fabricator. Since a lot of the people at our organization tend to be a little bit grayer in appearance we all have a lot of experience and the reality is is we can share this with them. One of our most important jobs is being able to educate them, and that's really how I think of myself, educating other people sharing the knowledge that I've gained over the years and just trying to help them out with their designs because ultimately we just both want to be successful. Yeah absolutely and as you know, I spent 25 years or so in the fabrication industry and when I had a stint in the RF and microwave industry and it was like culture shock, John, like it just felt like a whole different animal, it was like drinking from the fire, Were you working with the designers at that time? Yeah so it was like... and I felt completely inept at first when I started there to talk about laminates but all of a sudden we're talking about performance instead of just mechanical dimensioning and making… - sure we're just used to meeting specifications right? Right! - And those have a physical dimension to them and the route is you start getting into this realm of higher frequencies and you start to find out what's really important to these designers. Yeah, and I started to feel it, the more and more I learned the more kind of stupid I felt and the more I realized; holy cow there are so many ways that a board shop could screw up and there's literally… There’s literally thousands of different ways we could manufacture the same board and the reality is is we always have to try to manage any of the risks that the design presents and certain aspects of certain designs actually will will present problems, or they'll complicate other features that are important to the RF designer’s ultimate performance goals, and so working around those issues is what is so exciting about it. It is exciting. It's really challenging and fun and what was really stunning to me is to really get to the point where I realized; oh my gosh we could be 100% compliant to IPC standards... -and still have something that doesn't work... … and make a trash board - that's exactly correct. Because you know we’re within tolerances so we did a little of that, but you know what, if we over etched and you know that circuit had a little too much under or over etch or whatever that the performance went to heck and and they're like, no this is not what we simulated in and we're like, too bad so sad it's the IPC standards so it's a lot more complicated. So why don't you go ahead and talk about, sort of this is now? This is a book I wish I had enough brains to write so I'm glad you did. Don't give me too much credit. So why don't you tell us a little bit about it? Well first why this book? I just wanted to share the knowledge that I've gained and I've had the opportunity and the great fortune to be able to work at several world-class fabricators. Poly Circuits in my early days helped get Mega Circuits into PTFE materials and now with American Standard circuits. But in the middle there - I was also able to work for an RF circuit board laminate company at Taconic. Well I got to work very intimately with the designers in North America as well as Asia and Europe so it's the ability to be able to interface with what are some of the most brilliant people I've ever met just taught me so much and when you talk about coming into something feeling completely ignorant… well that was me a long time ago and the reality is now I I hope that I can share some of the knowledge that I've gained through all this experience. So since I know you've been it Taconic you probably told me that before, and just wasn't remembering it. But let's just pause there for a second and just talk about composition of high speed materials. Sure. Because that was kind of the first place I started and the realization of you know with Upper 4 you've got some fiberglass resin… - resin, glass, maybe fillers and there you go and you're off to the races. Now talk about high speed materials, the different compositions what, they are? What they are and… traditionally high-frequency materials were generally all PTFE based and what that meant in the early days is that there was very few flavors I think everybody knows the term Duroid. great materials fantastic from an electrical performance standpoint. But some of the mechanical properties were perhaps a little lacking and that's really the largest improvement we've seen in materials throughout the years. It’s the increase in strength and dimensional stability of these materials which makes it easier for us to fabricate because honestly if a material moves around a lot during the physical stresses that we put it through then we have tendencies to have registration issues, or it causes other issues within our manufacturing. The biggest change in the materials nowadays is the change to higher thermal conductivity materials. That's where we see the market going and respect to those types of products as the power levels go up and designs get small. Everybody's got to deal with these heat issues that they've got. And I'm sure automotive is driving a lot of that. Well automotive does too... that's an interesting… another realm that we're talking about, is these very high temperature materials and a lot of the underhood automotive application. It's something we just get a little bit of exposure to but it's also a very interesting field. Yeah just one of the things you mentioned too are... I neglected to mention to our listeners that we are here at Design Con in Santa Clara, so if you hear some voices in the background it's because we're here at a trade show and so just wanted to mention that so ASC is here with a booth and also rolling out hard copies of their book so. So the going back to the laminate side. So, I know from the RF experience I've had that each of these compositions of materials behave differently right? Mm-hmm. Like when I think of PTFE distinctly and there's a completely different system, you know? Distinctly, and when you go from the the thermoplastics to the thermoset materials both have their advantages you know. PTFE is a fantastic material in that it's largely inert. It's inert to the effects of high frequency radiation and it doesn't change and that's what yields the fairly consistent results that you get with PTFE materials. Now there's the introduction of the lower-cost thermosetting materials that also have pretty good electrical properties and that that can be a huge benefit just in the rigidity. Overall dimensional stability and the fairly low CTE values you know. At the same time, they've been filling PTFE materials for years in order to alter their properties and they've actually done a phenomenal job and bringing the CTE values very close to those of copper, which is the ideal since every board, every layer is clad with some level of coppers. Right. Yeah I mean we could devote… You know I this is an interesting subject and there's a new material that comes out virtually every couple months all right and there's just a lot of good materials out there there it really is which is really what the whole key to this. Yeah which is really actually good for industry great for designers right? Which is why when we get asked the first question that everybody asks is what's the right material for my design. That's an impossible question to answer on the face of it but the reality is, as we dig deeper and deeper into these designs, we can kind of get a sense of where their price sensitivity lies, what level of performance they need, and just just seeking to go through the process and understand what their requirements are. Before we got down that road... if I read - I had the pleasure of reviewing your book before it got published - and don't if I remember correctly. Don't you have a chart there or is it on your website that shows, like side by side, all the differences? We do, it compares all of the various laminates that we use and actually, I had had a ex-colleague from that company that I used to work for mention that.. hey I left out a few of the most recent materials particularly in Europe. I apologize Manfred, I did not know that there were materials released, but thank you for catching that and I appreciate your insights. Because you know again going back to that subject. I've been phenomenally lucky to have worked with some fantastic minds as well as fantastic people in this. Which I'm sure is an awesome asset for you at ASC. So okay so give us a quick rundown again. This is a micro book this is not a textbook? Yeah and it was never intended to be a treatise on the subject it's really to touch on some of the major - I'm gonna call them issues for lack of a better word - because if we don't deal with them at the beginning of the design they can end up taking what is otherwise a fantastic board and make it virtually non manufacturable and this is really about DFM. It really is. You know we go into all the subjects - obviously not every subject as it relates to circuit boards - but from material selection, to copper roughness, to choosing the right stack ups and balancing your constructions whenever possible. How does copper thickness play a role in the ability to be able to manufacture? To find fine lines and spaces, edge plating, cavity constructions, thermal management. It touches on that wide variety of subjects and it just kind of gives you an overview of what we deal with. What to be thinking about when you're going through this process and hopefully it'll be an aid. Yeah well,  I can imagine that this will be a great sort of starting place because I'm sure you get asked these same questions over and over again? Yes and the reality is, is we want it to start the dialogue right you know - and we want to be able to put something in your hands that can aid you right now. But also help you think about certain aspects so that we can work together right. We've dealt with some designs that deal with basically a composition of every circuit technology known to man in one board but since we've worked so in-depth with this customer for a very long period of time we've ended up balancing out the performance requirements that they need with our ability to be able to manufacture right. Because it doesn't matter whether it's the highest performing smallest assembly in the world, if we can't make it or we get 10% yields, it's it's not going to end up satisfying the customer. Yeah and that's another thing I remember feeling kind of pounding my head against a wall like you know now that I'm on the EDA side of the market right, there's such good powerful EDA tools out there and, but they won't necessarily flag you and say, no dummy you can't... Yes indeed you're right, and that's exactly what ends up happening. I mean we've gone through designs where people expect to get a certain level of performance and all the materials are there, the components are there and we find that one aspect was missed and you know, there could be copper roughness. Oh we didn't account for that right. So you know we get, hey I'm getting minus 3db down from what I expect to be getting that's a huge loss it’s almost double. Yes so there's what you model and then there’s reality. My friend used to say, there's what you simulate and then there's physics. Exactly then there's, yeah physics gets in the way right? And then John Toussaint who actually works for you guys, his favorite line used to, be physics trumps theory. Right very true. Right? So you know there's just limitations to what we can manufacture so well this is a really, really great again as I said I wish I had the ability to be the one that wrote this but I'm so delighted. I think it's truly a great service not only to your customers but just to the industry to get this information out because it's sorely needed and to my ability no one has really put this out you know... No I'll be very honest if an a hadn't worked so hard on this project it never would have been realized either so thank you for pushing on this project and driving it forward I do think it will be helpful to great many people and who knows, maybe there'll be some addition to this in the future. Yeah that would be great and I know you guys have written one actually which maybe is another Podcast series we can talk about… The rigid flax which is that is becoming more and more. We're actually seeing the two integrated in some instances. Yeah when I was referring to that one design that's exactly what we're talking about. Yeah IMS flex RF FR4, multilayer blind and buried vias and flex later. Right and the middle core I'm sorry I left that out. Oh good lord... but manufacturable - piece of cake! Can’t you give me. you know $10 off that board John? Sure exactly we're gonna deal on price, but you know, you do what you can there and you know you've got to try to make it. You've got to try to make it successfully and usually we try to make it for a cost. Of course like people, not everyone really understands. I wish I could take every designer and engineer and they would be like forced to go through board shops like five times. You're right. I mean we even created a tool for that called PCB 101 just to kind of give you a good overview. Once you start breaking it down and you think of the circuit board processing as each path is in itself a process right. Then you start to add up all the processes that the board is exposed to as it goes to the manufacturing operation. When we get to some of these complex designs it might be going through 150 - 200 different operations. Yeah, exactly right. And all of them have potential risks so absolutely... Yeah people don't really… you know, we've come to sort of take for granted printed circuit board manufacturing. I think we're all impressed with semiconductors and their performance and bla bla bla - boards are… they're dumb and they’re just boards and they just lay there or whatever.. except unless that that board is made right none of those parts work. And with high-speed digital ou have controlled impedance with RF its dielectric constant line width and loss. So I mean you've got one or the other. Yeah and now with the added dimension of thermal management, since people are becoming a much more... which is fantastic because it can offer performance levels that weren't even theoretically possible just you know five ten fifteen years ago you know. So let's talk about where people can find the book first which I think is on the iConnect007 website correct? That's correct. And and then where can people find more information about ASC John? They can go  to www.asc-i.com. Okay let me check that one more time - www dot ASC (that’s American Standard Circuits) dash-i dot com - okay very good. So is there anything else that I may have not covered or asked you relative to this awesome book you just put out? No it's just all I do, is just encourage people to give it a read, say that it's downloadable for free. Yes it doesn’t get less expensive right? It doesn't get less expensive. So you basically just put in your name and your email and download it and it’s a PDF right? So it's a digital ebook. I'm gonna look over just to get a little bit of agreement, that is in PDF form is that correct? Yes it’s in PDF form. Excellent okay PDF form and, here at Design Con you guys have brought a limited number of hard copies to give away so I'm sure those will be appreciated and and I'm sure once you start getting readers you'll probably end up printing out more of those but, well thanks so much for your time okay. So now for the fun stuff I'm going to ask you two fun questions. First what is your favorite techie gadget that you own? Wow that's difficult… Like that you can't live without... Well I mean everybody's gonna say their smartphone nowadays but besides that, yeah I'll be honest, no I always go back to home entertainment. I'm sorry okay. Well hey that is totally okay. Do you have like a pimped-out home entertainment? I have a pimped-out setup at home. Okay let's hear it let's hear the specs! It's got over a horsepower of wattage, it’s considerable it's got 13 speakers. It's a little excessive - nuts. People say I’m nuts when they go into my house but that's alright. Is it like a home theater.. little home... wait how big is your screen? It's only 60 inches I'm trying trying to talk five feet I'm trying to talk the wife into the 80 inch OLED but for some reason that thirteen thousand dollar price tag is a little steep. So we're gonna wait for the price point to go down. My second question is… I know you're not a printed circuit board designer but a lot of us techie people have kind of interesting creative hobbies and things. I'll be honest I'm the exception to that. No I shouldn't say that actually... actually I've been a bit of a computer nerd always have been, uh used to spend way too much time on computers. I think I set my first network up at home to be able to online game with, or at least network game with buddies back in 93. So you're dating yourself? Yes I am. I was there. Right but I know you can't stop getting older Judy, so... That's right. Okay I decided I'm gonna start counting backwards on my birthdays, that's how I'm solving that. Okay so anything else or shall we wrap up here? Is there anything else you wanted to share that I might have left out John? I think we pretty much covered everything Judy, appreciate the opportunity. Oh and is there anything of note that you guys, other than booths and talking to a whole bunch of people for a couple days. Is there anything else that you guys are bringing besides your book to this show that may be of interest to or listeners? I don't have any specifics that come to mind. I mean the reality is this is what we're working on right now. We're bringing this effort forward and hopefully, like I said, people will find value in that but the nice thing is there's our rigid flex expert Dave Lackey and myself so when we come here we try to bring some value to the people that might stop by Okay so while I have you recorded on it, will you promise to say... send Dave Lackey back to talk to us about rigid flex? Well we will round them up and send them in here okay? Great tie them up okay! Great well John thank you so much and thank you again for taking the time and effort to put this book out. I think it's going to be of great value to the industry for certain. Your customers and I really appreciate that laminate chart you put together - I wish I had that a long time ago. Exactly. Well thank you very much and have a great show. Thank you again this has been Judy Warner with the OnTrack Podcast please remember to subscribe and add us to your favorite RSS feeds and we look forward to talking to you next time and always stay OnTrack.