We chat with Phil Markunas about his wild journey from Army staff sergeant to voice AI founder.

Phil shares how Standard Practice evolved from a healthcare payment startup to building an AI assistant that handles complex insurance calls. Along the way, we learn about Phil's life in Japan, his Oreo obsession, and why he believes natural conversation is as hard as self-driving cars.

I loved Phil’s concept of “success, but doof” — it neatly encapsulates just how hard it is to measure the success of AI voice calls.

Stay tuned next week for our chat with Olivia Moore from a16z.

See you soon—dave & harish

Follow Phil:https://www.linkedin.com/in/phil-markunashttps://philm.io/https://x.com/philmarkunas

Standard Practice:https://standardpractice.ai

Chapters0:00 - Introduction to Phil Markunas, CTO of Standard Practice1:34 - AI icebreaker and Phil's emotional response to voice AI & Oreo obsession5:17 - Military background and how Army service shaped Phil's people-first leadership8:07 - Global citizen with 60+ moves and life in Japan13:04 - The Nibble Health origin story and creating a medical bill payment card17:59 - Facing challenges and developing the SimpleBuill medical analysis tool22:07 - Pivoting to voice AI to solve the healthcare insurance call problem26:25 - Why voice conversation is an AGI-level problem and deceptively complex33:21 - Beyond "just prompt it up" to building sophisticated voice AI architecture40:45 - "Success, but doof" moments and the future of Standard Practice

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