Celeb Shot: Ken Rotondo
SLAH sits down with the most interesting man in Saratoga.
Be careful what you say to Ken Rotondo. When I sat down across from the former veterinarian, lecturer and serial entrepreneur at Morrissey’s on Thursday, I made a comment about Uncharitable, the documentary film about the nonprofit sector I had seen earlier that morning. “Here’s another way to look at it,” Ken said, launching into a soliloquy that touched on Will Smith, bioinformatics, climate change, the UN, Creative Artists Agency and Betamax. Six minutes later, against all odds, Ken made it back to his original point—that for-profit businesses like his can often do as much or even more good than nonprofit ones—and I had been given 10 additional interesting things to think about. Ken, I decided, is literally a walking TED Talk.
Of course, you only have to be careful what you say to Ken if you don’t like intellectually stimulating conversations in which the Saratogian speaks so passionately about his interests that they inevitably become your interests as well. And while he can’t help but unload every compelling idea currently residing in his brain on you, he does so in a way that makes you feel like you’re a part of the story. In between comments about the country’s addiction problem, he’ll ask about where you grew up and how you became the person you are today. “A gossip is someone who talks to you about someone else,” he says. “A bore is someone who talks to you about his or herself. And an engaging conversation is when someone talks to you about you.”
But by nature of being the interviewee, Ken ended up talking mainly about himself on Thursday—about his “Pet Connection Health Tips” commercial series that ran when NEWS10 Meteorologist Steve Caporizzo launched Pet Connection, about his dedication to fitness and his ability to hold a plank for 20 minutes, and about that one time he golfed with Donald Trump. But he mostly talked about Rehavior, formerly known as Mind Genomics, the company he runs that “scales behavioral economics” by “hyper-personalizing communication” in the healthcare space. If you want to know what the heck that means, keep reading.
SLAH: Why did you want to be a veterinarian?
KR: I was the first of three generations of my father’s family to graduate from high school. My dad went into World War II at 16, because he got a priest to lie about his age. He came out of the Navy and became a cop. One time he took me to a veterinary practice—he wanted me to see things all the time—that was not far from Casino Park in Queens. Back then, you could rent horses and ride them around the park. And this horse got hit by a car and had a big laceration on his leg. So I went there and the guy’s got hemostats and he’s suturing it up and I go, “Wow, this is neat.” So from that point on—I was probably 8 or 9—I always wanted to be a veterinarian.
SLAH: You were born in Queens. How did you wind up in the Capital Region?
Just before my father retired, he bought a farm in upstate New York near Oneonta. I went from Bayside High School, which had 3,000 kids in a class, to Franklin Central School, where my graduating class was 16. I went to the only college I could drive to, which was Oneonta. From there I matriculated to Cornell Veterinary College, and after I graduated I was traveling around looking at veterinary hospitals. My old car breaks down around here, and there was a guy I never thought I’d interview with, but he had a practice in Niskayuna with every piece of surgical equipment you can imagine. It was the highest paying job I interviewed for, so I wound up settling here.
SLAH: And then what?
KR: My dad’s admonition to me was “Work hard, get an education, life’s not easy…and buy real estate.” I graduated from veterinary college back when people aspired to have one veterinary hospital. I built five. Not only did I want to be a veterinarian—I was a serial entrepreneur, but nobody know how to spell entrepreneur back then. Every hospital I had, I owned the real estate. I would have to go to planning board meetings to get the approvals for the property. I’m working my butt off building my veterinary practices, and when I walk out of the planning board meetings, all the land developers are getting into SL 500s and Maseratis. I’m getting into a Honda and I’m going, “What’s wrong with this picture?” So I started investing in real estate.
Then I realized that I can read lab work and X-rays and ultrasounds, but I can’t read a financial statement. RPI was offering its first executive MBA program, so I was in the first class. From there I wound up investing in a bunch of other things. I invested in a computer company during the dot-com era. In the late 1990s I created a company called Live Vet, which was an early form of telehealth.
SLAH: How did you first get interested in behavioral science?
KR: I was always curious about how people made decisions. I retired comfortably, but I got bored after two years of golf and retirement, so I started Rehavior. During my veterinary career, when I’d be making an obvious medical recommendation, some people would say yes and other people would say no. Why?
SLAH: OK, let’s get into it. Can you give me one example of a recent project that shows what Rehavior does?
KR: The national average for colorectal cancer screening is 63-65 percent. The screening rate in West Philadelphia was 17 percent. So we met with the people at the University of Pennsylvania and said, “What is it that you’re already doing? How do you engage with patients?” Our team of behavioral scientists looked at that and put it in a testable format. That testable format is a stimulus response with a lot of statistical algorithms. We analyzed all that and said, “Wait a minute—you have three different types of people here that all get messaged differently.” So what now happens when a healthcare provider goes in and talks to someone in that minority community? They ask them only four questions based on our algorithmic identifications. We wound up doubling colorectal cancer screening from 17 to almost 37 percent.
And let me tell you how non-medical the motivations are, because, don’t forget—everything we do is built on behavioral economics. You’re familiar with Daniel Kahneman, Richard Thaler: The subconscious brain drives our decision-making. So we are able to identify some of the cognitive biases that affect people’s decisions that are not rational. If I come in to see you, you tell me all the factual reasons why I should get screened. But it’s not until you say something like, “Do you want to dance with your granddaughter at her wedding? Do you want to see your grandson graduate from college?” Sounds pretty trivial, but that motivates people.
Another one: There’s this thing called a temporal bias. Temporal bias is that everybody in Saratoga and around the world likes good news in the present and bad news in the future. For some people, that’s subconsciously so strong that I come in to your office, you start talking to me about cancer screening and you say, “Ken, early detection is important. Colorectal cancer is the second leading cause of death by cancer in the United States.” And if I have a strong temporal bias—I’m one of those people—I hear that, and my subconscious is saying to me, “Hold the phone. You don’t need to hear bad news right now. Procrastinate.” Now, if I took a survey and you asked me in the survey, “Ken, if I told you early detection was important, would that deter you from getting cancer screening?” I would incredulously say absolutely not, because it’s my cognitive, rational mind answering that question.
SLAH: But in the actual moment, the subconscious brain would take over and you would end up putting off the screening. Are there other companies doing this type of thing?
Qualtrics does it, but they’re mostly a test and response type of thing. I’ve been told by a number of people that nobody scales behavioral economics like we do. People read Kahneman’s book or Thaler’s book and they go “Oh, Jesus. This is really interesting. There’s so much that goes on in people’s brains.” But nobody knows how to operationalize it. That’s what we did. We figured out how to operationalize it and scale it.
SLAH: Back in 2020 when Rehavior was called Mind Genomics and you worked with companies outside of healthcare, I wrote a story about how you were working with the Saratoga County Chamber of Commerce on messaging that would draw tourists to Saratoga despite the racetrack being closed due to Covid. Are there other ways Rehavior can work in Saratoga?
KR: I offered SPAC to use Rehavior science to find out how to communicate with the very wealthy people to find the need or necessity motivating them—the equal message of dancing with your granddaughter at her wedding. It’s finding that subconscious driver that’s going to get more people to donate to SPAC.
SLAH: Do you have any life philosophies?
KR: My father gave me a quote that I always carry with me. It was by Mark Twain and said, “Always do the right thing. It will please a few people and astonish the rest.” I always knew I could learn and assimilate information and be technically good at what I did. But I was fortunately raised by two people who were devoutly religious and very empathetic. And that carried forward and framed how I conducted my scientific entrepreneurial business.
SLAH: In what way?
KR: Perfect example: This woman comes up to me and says, “Are you Dr. Rotondo? You don’t remember me, but you put my dog to sleep a long time ago.” And then she rattled off the year and it was like 1985 or something. I go, “Wow, you’ve got a remarkable memory.” She goes, “I have been wanting to tell you this story for years.”
When I got into veterinary medicine, not as many people viewed their pets as their child as they do now. So those that did sometimes were stigmatized by their family. And when they had to make a decision to euthanize the dog for medical reasons—justifiably—they agonized over the decision. And that was colossally monumental to them. So the times I would encounter that client, I felt woefully inadequate to be able to counsel them on how to do so. Well, what do you do when you have a scientific training? I read about grief and grieving and mourning, and found out that guilt was a natural component to any grieving process. If your Aunt Tilly died and you didn’t see her, you would feel guilt about not going to see her.
So, why did she want to talk to me? Because back then when I got that client in front of me that was totally devastated by the decision, I’d go, “Listen, you’ve made the right choice; however, you’re going to experience apprehension, second thoughts, some remorse, even guilt. If you do, here’s my card.” And I would flip it over and write my home phone number on it.
Nobody ever called me at home, but that gesture—here’s where it was relevant to her. She goes, “You did that. Six months later, my father got diagnosed with terminal cancer. I went up to the nurse and said my sister and I would really like to talk to the doctor about our father’s condition.” And the nurse basically said “The doctor’s very busy—what’s your question? I’ll relay it to him.” And she said “I went the next 10 years telling everybody about you in sharp contrast to the physician who couldn’t talk to me.” I had tears coming down my cheek thinking, how many years later? Thirty some years later and she’s remembering that? It was just really remarkable.
SLAH: So, your philosophy?
KR: I want to do business for good.
—Natalie
Quote of the Week
“I’m going to be more beer than man.”
—a skier packing his coat with Labatt Blue Light cans
Charity’s Case
As I mentioned in the above story, on Thursday morning, the Palace Theatre hosted a free screening of the documentary Uncharitable, put on by The Community Foundation for the Greater Capital Region, Broadview Federal Credit Union, MVP Health Care and The United Way of the Greater Capital Region.
The film is the brainchild of Dan Pallotta, who wrote a book of the same name that the Stanford Social Innovation Review said “deserves to become the nonprofit sector’s new manifesto.” Dan’s argument is that in order for nonprofit organizations to make massive, impactful change, we need to change the way we think about charities. Specifically, about how they spend money. Historically, nonprofit overhead costs—salaries, office space, travel expenses, etc.—have been seen as a bad thing, with charities being rewarded for how little they spend. In practice, that lessens the impact such charities can have on the world. With larger operating budgets, nonprofits can attract better talent, dream bigger and in turn do more good, even if their overhead costs go up.
“As a newer nonprofit, I see some of what the documentary was about,” says Bring on the Spectrum founder Lisa Audi, who was in attendance on Thursday. “There’s a need to invest in staff, in infrastructure and in marketing. Sometimes expenses are seen as a negative, versus the impetus of programs and raising funds. It also showed hope of what we can build together.”
To hear Dan’s argument in his own words, check out his TED Talk.
A Call to Arms
Missed out on Saratoga Arms’ limited holiday brunch series? Don’t despair—the boutique Broadway hotel is rolling out a Sunday brunch service that’s open to the public beginning this Sunday, January 21. Make a reservation here.
New Digs
Saratoga’s premier architectural design firm is now in Lake Placid. Following the opening of a second office in Troy in 2019, Phinney Design Group has now opened a third location in Lake Placid, which makes it easier to serve the firm’s already robust list of clients in the Adirondacks. “This new location will enable us to better serve our existing clients while also fostering new connections within the vibrant Lake Placid community,” says Founding Principal Mike Phinney. “My family is six generations from the Lake Placid region and my father, a former bobsled racer. It feels like coming home in many ways.”
Third Time’s the Charm?
Sperry’s, the historic Caroline Street bar and restaurant that closed last March, may finally have a buyer. Earlier this week, Louis Lazzinnaro, owner of Wilton Italian restaurant Nové, told the Times Union that he has finalized a deal to purchase the business and building, and expects to close next week. Lazzinnaro owns the lot next to Sperry’s which has been empty since a fire in 2016, and has dreams to build a 50- to 65-room hotel that would incorporate the Sperry’s building. “I don’t know that it will get approved,” he told the Times Union, “but I hope so, because I want to put something classy on Caroline Street to make it better—a beautiful lobby bar, Sperry’s, a rooftop (terrace).”
ICYMI
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