Anthony O'Donnell: I'm Anthony O’Donnell, and this is Life Accelerated, A podcast for life insurers striving to achieve digital transformation. In this episode of Life Accelerated, we speak with Joel Albarella, founder of New York Life Ventures, Venture capital branch of New York Life that is investing in emerging technologies with the aim of dramatically impacting the future of financial services.
The conversation with Joel makes a great follow up from the last episode of Life Accelerated, where I spoke at the insured Tech Connect Conference with Kim N of Principle and Brian Poppy of Mutual of. In that conversation we talked about the perspective gained since 2021. When we scarcely seem to have emerged from the pandemic.
Joel gives a similar kind of perspective that builds on conversations he and I have had over the years, including one from December 2020.
While new challenges have emerged, in addition to Covid, Joel's perspective remains very optimistic. He stresses that venture investing operates on a longer time scale than the ups and downs of politics and the economy. In Joel's view, the best is yet to come in the Ensure tech space.
In my conversation with Joel, we cover a variety of topics, including why now is the time for continued investment in emerging technologies. Joel's observation that the consensus about InsureTech is that it has become more about enabling than disrupting, and also his account of creating a culture of innovation within New York Life.
I'm excited for you to listen in on my conversation with Joel. Joel. Tell us about New York Life Ventures and how you came to play the role you do. Why was New York Life Ventures founded? What was and is its purpose?
Joel Albarella: Great, Anthony, thank you very much and great to be here with you on the Life Accelerated Podcast. We were founded over 10 years ago. We actually just had our 10 year anniversary and really we were founded to help drive the acceleration of innovation at New York Life. At the time we were eyes wide open.We still are eyes wide open to the profound impact that technology is having in our daily lives as humans, but also, what technology represents as a deep opportunity for acceleration for large enterprises. Really it was that insight 10 years ago, that led to found what is now New York Life Ventures.
I founded the team back in 2012 and we were focused on driving both financial returns. For the organization as well as strategic value. It's been a fun ride and certainly there's been a lot of opportunity, at the intersection of financial services broadly and technology, but certainly, insurance and life insurance and technology the years.
Anthony O'Donnell: Well, Joel, maybe you could elaborate a little bit on the strategic value. So on the one hand, you're a venture company, within New York Life that's dedicated to profit, right, to making money. But, you mentioned strategic value and that's I gather about making sure that New York Life has access to innovative technologies that help it to meet its business objective.
Joel Albarella: Yeah, I think that's exactly right, Anthony. I mean, if I think about how we operate, we call it our flywheel here internally, and it consists of as you mentioned, we invest in startups, we invest in venture funds. We essentially investment professionals that are responsible for New York Life's exposure into both the venture asset class as well as the growth. Asset class and we do that via managing a direct fund as well as investing in some select venture funds importantly connected at the hip that effort our business development the startup community. So what we do is we manage a very wide, top of funnel, if you will, for startups don't necessarily need to be raising capital.
They just need to be doing something that could help us as first and foremost, a very large organization that's been around for 177 years in some ways. There's a lot of innovation to be had. There's a lot of value to be had connecting with early-stage companies that have nothing to do with insurance per. They're just involved in enterprise technology, or they're involved in data and analytics or cybersecurity, or cloud architecture, et cetera. So we have a firm belief that there's a lot of value to be had at that layer. and then obviously we're a financial services company and then also we're a life insurance company, and we've started to see even more fit for purpose innovation focused on. our particular industry, which has been really, really great to see, you know, the coalescence of high talent and lots of capital to drive innovation for our industry, I think it is, awesome to see. And I think it's gonna be an exciting, exciting next 10 years. So that's really the two main aspects of what we do.
It's the investing and then it's the driving that strategic value. There's lots of ways in which that comes together. I think a third element that we also had a pretty impact internally is really on the cultural evolution. And we have a group that we call innovation services, which is really a teach to fish type philosophy around human centered, design, and other elements of essentially driving more of a curious and growth mindset, throughout the organization and that's been great. So if you think about our kind of value creation here, it really goes across the spectrum from the very highly quantitative in the form of we're investing dollars and we're looking to manage against a return for those invested dollars. And we can measure that in a very quantitative way. To driving the testing of, the learning from and the using of technology in the form of partnerships with startups that can drive real ROI, to our businesses. And then on the other side of the spectrum, more of a longer term, impact on evolution in the face of a, you know, rapidly digitizing.
Anthony O'Donnell: Well, that's interesting. The cultural evolution part, me as interesting is, is this teach to fish approach, kind of pushing a different way to source and consume technology innovation at New York Life. You know, we're, we're seeing now with, with InsureTech, we have seen for some time, right? this change from developing stuff in house to essentially outsourcing innovation to entrepreneurs.
And with your Teach to Fish idea, it seems like teaching your organization not just to innovate, but to, to source and consume innovation.
I think the way you just articulated it there at the end makes, makes a lot of sense. Anthony. I mean, I think the, taking a step back, the philosophy behind the Teach to Fish was an acknowledgement in the early days that, you know, innovation is so, enmeshed with, the individuals that run an organization and. Really that includes all levels of the organization. So this idea that you can, have a group that's responsible for innovation was something that we always very skeptical of. And we always wrestled, with that. Right. And I think you had, Plenty of academic, research around innovators, dilemma, and, you know, the work of Clayton Christensen at Harvard really, you know, laid the groundwork for, a lot of this.
Joel Albarella: And, rest in peace. Clayton Christensen, I think he did a lot corporate America. And, you know, and really pulling back the veil on why it's difficult for large organizations to innovate. There might have been some overreactions were creation of these very big innovation groups where at the very top of the organization it was believed that, oh, now we have an innovation group. I guess now we're innovative and we can check that box. And I think that, you know, the reality is, or at least in our experience, is that it's at the individual level. It. you know, time needs to pass before you can measure something as being innovative or not. And really the most sustainable, quote unquote, innovation is a, deliberate evolution. Of how, individuals, that work for an organization make and how they think about, know, the potential outcomes of making those, those decisions. And so that's what we mean when we say teach to fish. And, and really the work that we do around innovation services, from within New York Life ventures, it's really. A partnership with HR, a partnership with corporate communications. You know, it really needs to be embedded in how we think about a large organization. New York Life as 177 year old mutual insurance company, you know, older than the dollar Bill, is the perfect place to do venture investing
You need to have that messaging that it's okay, it's okay to take risks. It's okay to move, Quickly and move in ways that maybe feel, non-traditional, that's okay. But I think at the same time, you need the grassroots, you need the bottoms up skillset. You need people to feel rewarded, for risk.
Anthony O'Donnell: Yeah. You know, one of the things that's really striking to me about your responses is just how well integrated New York Life Ventures is with the enterprise. And I, I don't know when the first time we spoke, but it has to be well over five years ago. And, I think at that time there was more of a sense of the autonomy of New York Life ventures rather than the integration with the enterprise.
So I'll let that stand for now, but I wanted to note, you know, back in those days also, people were talking about whether InsureTech, were a fad and I guess they could look at New York Life ventures as a, as an affirmation. You've just passed your 10-year anniversary, I think. What, what you've, you've lasted longer than the Beatles.
Now. People thought they were a fad and, uh, and, uh, and you, you even spoken about the next 10 years, but I understand you've passed some other notable milestones recently.
Joel Albarella: Yeah, so the 10 year one is a big one for us, especially when we began and we had this. You know, it was viewed by some at the time as naive. This dream of being able to deliver both the financial as well as the strategic and, trying to run corporate venture unit that can really pull off both of those things at the same time.
And. And, you know, we learned a lot along the way and we continue to this day, candidly to refine our model here. And we learn a lot from others in the space and, from our trusted network, which has been so, so important to us. And our success is really the shoulders of our network and of the individuals that have given us advice along the way.
But, you know, for me, I'd say the most, proud. I mean, it might not seem like a big deal, but most proud really is the longevity and the fact that we are just getting started the gratefulness of being on a, on a platform is stable as New York life the leadership that's as committed, you know, to change and to moving new directions, that we have today. most corporate venture units. last a terribly long time. I re you know, I remember the moment when I made the case that we needed to get into the corporate venture capital, and we had no exposure venture. And it was a good time. And, you know, we, we had the right leadership at the time, and I had the right mentors at the time to help to succeed and, and to really give the support, you to stand up for what was really a brand. Type of concept for the entire industry. but at the time we were just very excited and wanted to. To pull off these two, these two wins simultaneously. And, we heard a lot of pushback, you know, and remember doing on and learning that the half life of corporate venture units is very brief and, and sort of asking a lot of questions as to why that was.
And it's typically the a new change, you know, in the C-suite and, and wanting to be more innovative. So these groups get stood up and then there's change at the top, and then these groups get shut down and then they get stood up and then they get shut down and, It leads to, mistrust on the part of founders and other VC partners where they don't know that the capital's gonna be there.
They don't know that the partnership is gonna be there. When you're a founder and you choose who to work with, you want somebody that's gonna be around for a long time. So I think the reputation of CVCs as being a little bit of a fit and start type of initiative for most organizations was, unfortunately there was data to support that feeling. We didn't want to be that. And you know, some might view it as ironic, but New York Life as 177 year old mutual insurance company, you know, older than the dollar Bill, is the perfect place to do venture investing.
The stability, the patient capital, the long term orientation, the commitment to core principles that have stood the test of time and we expect to continue to do what we do. I'm proud of the team and I'm proud of what we've created and the results that we had were passed a billion in AUM to hit on a couple other milestones. As you mentioned, sourced over 3000 startups at this point. We drive a proof of concept test somewhere within New York Life at a rate of one every two and a half weeks.
And that's now been going on for over a decade. So those are all great, milestones and great metrics.
and I think as you look around and ask folks throughout the organization, I think we've had a pretty, pretty impact on certainly mindset shift, but also tangible value from partnering with, with early-stage companies throughout the organization.
Anthony O'Donnell: You know, when we think about longevity, it makes me think about economic ups and downs. And we've seen some during the past 10 years, but we're also in a kind of too extreme and adjective, but we're in a very interesting time economically. This brings me back to a conversation you and I had in December of 2020.
Now, this was of course in the wake of the pandemic that had emerged earlier that year. And I recall that you talked about fears of the economic downturn persisting to the point of potential capital crisis. Which is to say a shortage of available capital for investment and in endeavors like InsureTech and now rather than the economic situation being better, we see persistent inflation.
We also see current economic effects of the war in Ukraine, and we can expect them to get worse during the winter. What does all this mean for InsureTech investment in general and from the perspective of New York Life Ventures in particular?
Joel Albarella: I do recall that conversation. It was a great, it was a great conversation and we were in the throes of the global at the time. And you know, I think at that time there was some. There was some concerns.
I was optimistic if I recall at that time, and, and I remain optimistic today. I think that the capital crunch issue always a concern. I think in venture it's less acute than you have, know, most venture investors have. Reserves and it's less of the ability, it's actually an expectation that's just a, a core characteristic of the asset class is to raise capital and then deploy that capital slowly over years. So just in terms of an asset class, it's one that's illiquid, by nature, but your tradeoff for that illiquidity is, you know, you're getting investments over a longer period of time some companies that are traditionally difficult to access. So there is a smoothing to venture, venture investing just because of the mechanics of how money gets put to work. but if there's a capital crisis, if there's, you know, significant dislocation that lasts for a long time, it could start to be painful. Where venture funds have trouble raising money. Right. I think that from what I've heard from our friends, again, we. We invest purely New York Life's money. and there's a, there's a real strong commitment to continue to lean into the origination that we're able to do. So we're in many ways, insulated from the pain. But my friends who are raising capital and some folks in our network who are raising capital right now, it's definitely a difficult environment.
Joel Albarella: I think as, as asset holders are trying to really weigh the depth and the breadth and the potential pain here, in the short term, in the medium term, and really pulling capital to the vest. It's a tough environment right now. flirting with potential recession, and certainly massive correction in the equity markets and, Inflation moving and the war in Europe and prices going up.
And obviously all those things affect how individuals think about, you know, deploying new investment dollars.
Anthony O'Donnell: It for us in the venture space, as I mentioned, we were fortunate in that New York Life is a company that's really, you know, we use the term built for times like these, which is when you. We tend to shine our brightest when the days are the darkest. And, 2021 was an unsustainable of, activity. was, terms of deals, and certainly deal volume and the amount of. valuation inflation that we witnessed as an industry was, was really very, very high. And, and you had a lot of crossover investors coming in that were really just trying to get access at all costs. And what that cost was oftentimes valuations that really based in reality all that much. I think from perspective, it's a welcome shift towards more, know, this mindset of, fear of missing out to try to get into the good deals and you'll pay anything to get in. And the founders saying, Hey, trust me, I can get this done.
Joel Albarella: This kind of shift from the shift from trust me on the part of the founders to show me on the part of the I think is a good, healthy shift.
Anthony O'Donnell: It sounds as if you're saying that, that despite these hard times there, there's a potential good side it can introduce a degree of discipline. I think we have seen what Allen Green span called irrational exuberance in the InsureTech field. We've seen a lot of money being kind of thrown at the problem, but it does seem as if there may be an upside in the form discipline coming from the hard times.
Joel Albarella: Yeah, I think that's good observation and, I know it's something that we've always been committed to and in some ways having the. of having proprietary capital. We don't have a long list of LPs that we need to make sure we're putting money to work at a certain rate. We can be a lot more discerning and again, we could be a lot more patient. But yeah, no, I think that's right, specifically tech, the coalescence of talent, as well as the remaining capital that's available, in and of itself is very, very positive I think for our industry moving forward.
Anthony O'Donnell: Having said that, then, we might say, despite these headwinds, it seems like you anticipate the pace of innovation to continue. I mean, I might ask you, what do you anticipate in terms of both the pace and the volume of innovation in the life insurance industry and the near future?
Joel Albarella: Yeah, so we obviously follow the space very, very closely. We're a very large insurance player in the insurance industry. We're the number one now annuity, writer in the country. And we've got a pretty powerful proprietary force to the tune of 12,000 agents on the ground, throughout the country. So obviously the innovation that we're seeing is really. Music to our ears or a delight for our eyes or whatever the expression could be there. Anthony.
Anthony O'Donnell: Sure.
Joel Albarella: We do see a shift, you know, maybe one thing I'll share here is, part of our thesis the beginning really has been, you know, the opportunity for us. For us as a big old company opposed to us being a big old company that happens to sell insurance. So I think that's, we've started to see that play out in a much more meaningful way where now you're seeing talent, create much more, bespoke solutions for us to enable industry as opposed to trying to disrupt the industry.
And I think that's been something that I'm thrilled that we were on point about because I think it's really good the, for the entire You know, we kind of talked about this, shift from, from trying to disrupt, this shift from, you don't need an agent and, and insurance is bought, not sold. and the experience isn't right and the experience needs to be different. know, I think importantly, you don't wanna throw the baby out with the bath water here. I think, you know, for some that's absolutely true. where, you know, you might. purchase it very, very quickly. And I think that was, that was really good for our industry.
I think those innovative founders, and many of them are, are my friends, have created an aspiration for the entire industry of what the purchase experience should look like. I think that's gonna persist. I think that's gonna be a really strong north star that was created for our industry.
And I think short of having bring a spirit of disruption. I don't know that the industry would've, would've created that as quickly, if it was left to do it organically. So, so I think that's a very, very important I do think though, that the shift from a soul focus on disruption towards more of a, of an enablement mindedness really marks what we. Categorizing as the second wave here of Inure Tech and, which will just be marked by more general enablement across the value chain. more bespoke fit for purpose type technologies, really entrepreneurs that are understanding the need and how they can grow very big just by selling services to large organizations that are in deep need of acceleration and digitization across their organization.
And then the other trend we see is really enabling the intermediary. So instead of, you know the intermediary in the form of either an agent or an RIA or an independent advisor. seeing a whole ecosystem of technologies that are being created to, to actually enable, the distributor. So that's really nice to see as well.
Anthony O'Donnell: Yeah, I can, I can't help thinking of Mark Twain saying that the news of his death had been greatly exaggerated. you, you called and said, meaning the insurance industry or the traditional insurance industry. In this context, you speak about a second wave of InsureTech, but for us who've been around long enough back in the, in at the dawn of eCommerce, we had. What might be called the great Disin Intermediation Scare, where everybody thought, well, we don't need agents anymore. We'll just go direct. Right? and what eventually happened was that those ambitions or fears, depending on your perspective, were chased by reality.
And in fact, the internet became one of the most important tools historically, for how carriers and distributors work together. So it's kind of reassuring to see this happen. Discipline in ideas and expectations as well as a kind of financial discipline coming in.
So, I thought from that, I would ask you, Well, what, what is happening? I mean, we're not going to go backwards, right? The innovation is gonna continue to move forward at whatever pace and at whatever volume. So I thought I would. What will be some of the most important technologies for competitive differentiation in the life insurance industry in the near to midterm?
I think there'll be a lot of them. Anthony and I totally agree with your sentiment there. I think that there's, you know, I think that we are at an important inflection point here with respect to innovation in the insurance I think that you've got a few things.
Joel Albarella: There's some trends here that are worth. Highlighting one. think the opportunity at the intersection of insurance and technology is, not a cottage I think that there's a, that, that there's a real acknowledgement there and I think you've got a lot of capital still focused on that and I think you've got a lot of very talented individuals that are understanding that there's value to be. By starting new companies. So I think we'll have a really good supply know, of companies focused on, individuals really focused on solving problems that are gonna drive a lot of value for our industry. That's number one. Number two, the idea that the leaders at large incumbents. somehow have their heads in the sand and are, are, you know, dismissing technology as a fad. And, this kind of caricature of some curmudgeon individual who's like, ah, these, you know, kids these days, they just don't get it. Like, That I think is gone.
You know, again, and I don't, you know, I mean, maybe in the early days there was a little bit of that,
Anthony O'Donnell: Sure,
Joel Albarella: that's not the case.
coming through covid, like the eyes are, eyes are wide open.
Like, we need to spend capital, we need to lean in, we need to move more quickly. We need to create the right experiences for our customers. We need to create the right experiences for our agents. Like this. This is, this is not a. Right. So, know, so that's very important cuz I think the individuals who are making the decisions and the boards all on the same page.
Right? it's not like waving a wand unfortunately because there is a bit of a cultural shift that needs to happen. again, I can't speak for every organization, but I couldn't be more energized at New York Life at just the. the commitment, know, to continuing to move quickly.
So I think you've got a, really powerful supply demand dynamic here that we can see over the next five to 10 years. then specifically where we see the opportunities, might not As sexy, as a, disruptive, direct to consumer, you know, life insurance app. we'll certainly see some of those continue To be built, but I think a lot of the value will be in more of the middle office, will be more in the, know, harmonizing data, accessing better data sources, creating better pricing of a risk asset that's being put on the books and analytical tools to analyze. Risk assets that are already on the books. Potentially different operating models large organizations to create the right and ability to test new things at scale. If you think about other themes like underwriting, I think we're gonna see a lot of innovation there. You keep going all the way to the back office and how low code, no code is gonna be used more how businesses are gonna be better enabled to insight at scale. Those walls will be broken down and technology will be much more embedded with the business.
And think all those trends will be really really strong. And I think there'll be a lot of startups solving a lot of interesting things. And we're looking at a lot of them and investing in them today. And we expect to continue to see a nice pipeline moving forward.
Anthony O'Donnell: Very good. You know, I'm thinking about how when the Insuretech movement was first getting started, I tended to think about it as a reaction. By the insurance company's leadership as a kind of panic, not really knowing what to do because they were faced with this rapidly changing consumer demand and they didn't really know what to do and they eventually started outsourcing their innovation through Inure Tech.
And one of the characteristics that seemed to me was kind of throwing money at the problem and when New York Life Ventures emerged and have been other entities that have emerged since 2012. It was, I thought, a more disciplined way to approach investing in the problem.
And, I thought I'd invite you to make a statement about the validation of New York Life Venture's mission as we look back 10 years as that kind of a thing, as a way of disciplining the investment process, entrepreneurs accessing innovation. And coming up with a more disciplined way, not only of investing, but also of, consuming innovation within the enterprise.
Joel Albarella: I mean, look we feel first and foremost grateful for standing on, know, such high shoulders in the form of a very large stable organization that's been super patient and, very deep pockets when it comes to capital. And really very. Committed to moving quickly and continuing to test new things. So it's been, again, it's been a really fertile environment. I think being able really create mission in a way that aspirational in the form of trying to drive investment returns. strategic value, plus value and being committed to figuring out the right way to bring all those things together and then track our try to drive progress know, make sure that we're acknowledging those who have helped us along the way and continuing to nurture our network.
I think that's the best, takeaway for me is that we've been able to create an aspirational model. We've been able to build the team and the function, the individuals and the support throughout the organization to be able to get it done. And then importantly, that our model has resonated out in the ecosystem. that's where it begins and ends, right? So this idea of being here and not going might sound like a minor thing, but I think that landed very, very well. And I think that's served us extremely well in terms of, you know, reputation, right? I mean, we might not be, know, winning every deal by being the first with a term sheet, but we're measured in our views, we've got longevity, we've got optimism, we've got perspective on the industry and, we're transparent and we're honest. And I think those things, they sound like glib statements, but that's what we're committed to.
And I think that's, that's kind of played out really well in us creating our relationship network. I'm an analogy guy and we talk a lot about, where we sit the analogy I come back to a lot, if you'll indulge me here, if you think about New York life as, as planet Earth We're a satellite, we're very much in the gravitational pole of the planet, know, and we're in constant communication with the planet, but we're just closer to the ever expanding universe.
And we're more eyes out as opposed to eyes in. We're very fortunate to occupy that space on behalf of a firm like New York Life. I think there's gonna be plenty of exciting things that continue to happen out in space to stick with the metaphor there, Anthony.
But, we say the next ten's gonna be greater than the last 10 is kind our mantra here at New York Life Ventures that we were talking about when we, when we celebrated our 10 year milestone. And I really believe that.
Anthony O'Donnell: Yeah, I think I would add to your list of adjectives. Patient.
Joel Albarella: Yeah,
I'm not gonna say slow and steady, but slower and steadier.
Joel Albarella: Yeah, I think that's important. I mean, look, if you think back to, the roots of venture, and again, I wasn't there, but this is more from through friends and through research, but people had their sleeves rolled up to their shoulders. Right. And funds would've been considered tiny in modern terms because you couldn't put too much money to work because that would mean you wouldn't have the ability to get involved. You wouldn't have the ability to have a positive impact on solving the problems.
And I think what we've seen, and to a certain extent, we still see, I mean, I hope that this continues to evolve, but we, we see very transactional, financially oriented, slots on term sheets for exposure and, and as opposed to, you know, having a situation where you're bringing more to, more than money to the table, we've always been committed to that. And that in and of itself does imply the point you just made. I think it is more of. of a patience, but also more of a prudent allocation of your time to the areas where you think that can have the most impact.
Anthony O'Donnell: Well, Joel, it's been great catching up with you and congratulate you on 10 years of success and I wish you the best over the next decade.
Joel Albarella: Thank you very much. Always a pleasure.
Anthony O'Donnell: Perspective always helps in understanding the challenges of the moment we're living. This conversation with Joel was a great reminder of all the industry changing innovation that's been achieved in the past 10 years since New York Life Ventures was founded and what's likely to come during the next decade.
I appreciated hearing Joel's positive, yet very grounded outlook, and I look forward to seeing what innovations he and his team invest in over the next 10 years and beyond.
Anthony O'Donnell: Thank you for joining us for the Life Accelerated Podcast. For more relevant content to help you achieve digital transformation, visit equisoft.com/lifeaccelerated
