Latest / Vanguards of Healthcare by Bloomberg Intelligence / Halle Tecco on AI, Boom-Bust Cycles and Building Better Care
Transcript
- 0:21Speaker 1: Welcome to another episode of Bloomberg Intelligences Bandguards of Healthcare
- 0:24Speaker 1: podcast where we speak with the leaders at the forefront
- 0:26Speaker 1: of change in the healthcare industry. My name is Jonathan Palmer,
- 0:29Speaker 1: and I'm a healthcare analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence, the in
- 0:32Speaker 1: house research arm of Bloomberg. I'm very excited to welcome
- 0:36Speaker 1: Halle Techo to the podcast today. Hallie's best known as
- 0:39Speaker 1: a founder of Rock Health, one of the earliest and
- 0:41Speaker 1: most influential venture funds dedicated to digital health. Over the
- 0:45Speaker 1: past decade and a half, She's had a front row
- 0:47Speaker 1: seat to the evolution of healthcare innovation, from the early
- 0:51Speaker 1: days of mobile health apps to the recent surge and
- 0:54Speaker 1: AI enabled care models. She's also the author of the
- 0:57Speaker 1: new book Massively Better Healthcare, which is spores how entrepreneurs, investors,
- 1:01Speaker 1: and policy makers can build a system that you delivers
- 1:05Speaker 1: dramatically better outcomes for patients. Thank you so much for
- 1:09Speaker 1: joining us today. Why don't we start with your journey, Howie?
- 1:13Speaker 1: What first drew you to healthcare and ultimately led you
- 1:15Speaker 1: to found Rock Health, you know, a decade and a
- 1:18Speaker 1: half ago.
- 1:19Speaker 2: Yeah, thanks Jonathan, and thanks for having me. I'm a
- 1:22Speaker 2: longtime listener, first time guest, so really excited for our
- 1:26Speaker 2: conversation today. I came to healthcare when I was in
- 1:30Speaker 2: business school, and I was really interested in combining my
- 1:33Speaker 2: interest in technology and at that time kind of more
- 1:36Speaker 2: broadly social impact. And I started just putting feelers out
- 1:41Speaker 2: there and learning about different areas and reading up on
- 1:46Speaker 2: different social problems within the US, and honestly, healthcare was
- 1:52Speaker 2: the one that I was most drawn to. Felt like
- 1:54Speaker 2: something that touches all of us, something that I personally
- 1:57Speaker 2: was very passionate about seeing family members deal with certain
- 2:01Speaker 2: health experiences, my own healthcare experiences, and I ended up
- 2:08Speaker 2: at the time I was just blogging and I was
- 2:10Speaker 2: starting to just share ideas. That's the best way I
- 2:14Speaker 2: know how to learn is actually synthesizing what I'm learning
- 2:18Speaker 2: and then putting it out there in the world and
- 2:21Speaker 2: starting these conversations as something I've always done. But something
- 2:24Speaker 2: I wrote got the attention of the then chief of
- 2:28Speaker 2: staff to Steve Jobs, and he reached out to me
- 2:30Speaker 2: and said, why don't you come spend the summer at Apple.
- 2:33Speaker 2: We want to do more in healthcare, And I was like, absolutely,
- 2:38Speaker 2: like one incredible, incredible opportunity, and I was just back
- 2:42Speaker 2: in San Francisco for a month from my book tour
- 2:44Speaker 2: and got to catch up with him and thank him
- 2:46Speaker 2: for everything he's done. And we've since he's now in
- 2:50Speaker 2: a VC and he's invested in one of my companies,
- 2:53Speaker 2: which is cool. But that was really the turning point
- 2:57Speaker 2: for me, having that opportunity to be at Apple me
- 3:00Speaker 2: you know, in charge of the healthcare medical segment for
- 3:02Speaker 2: the App Store. The App Store was a year old
- 3:04Speaker 2: at the time. I tell the story and the opening
- 3:07Speaker 2: of my book because I say, like I had them
- 3:11Speaker 2: bringing me in to run healthcare had little to do
- 3:14Speaker 2: with my qualifications to do so, and more that, like,
- 3:19Speaker 2: you know, the attention was elsewhere and they needed someone
- 3:23Speaker 2: to kind of take a look at things. But healthcare
- 3:25Speaker 2: was not important to Apple at the time. Gaming, social media, lifestyle,
- 3:31Speaker 2: those apps were the ones that people were downloading like crazy,
- 3:35Speaker 2: that developers were really innovating around. And I tell the
- 3:39Speaker 2: story in the book about sitting next to Linda Kim,
- 3:42Speaker 2: another you know now dear friend. She's gone on to
- 3:45Speaker 2: do very cool things, and she covered the gaming segment
- 3:49Speaker 2: and the developers that were coming in and out of
- 3:51Speaker 2: her cubicle that were building these apps were using every
- 3:54Speaker 2: native feature of the iPhone. The one app that I
- 3:58Speaker 2: remember that really was like an AHA moment for me.
- 4:02Speaker 2: I don't know if you remember this, but it was
- 4:03Speaker 2: like a Marble game and it used the gyrometer on
- 4:06Speaker 2: the phone and you'd like move your phone around to
- 4:09Speaker 2: move the marble through a maze. My mind was blown.
- 4:14Speaker 2: I thought, oh my gosh, this phone is going to
- 4:17Speaker 2: change everything, Like we have an opportunity now in every
- 4:21Speaker 2: single industry to make products, services far more accessible and
- 4:28Speaker 2: continuous than ever before. And here I sit covering the
- 4:32Speaker 2: segment that is the biggest industry of them all, and
- 4:38Speaker 2: I was seeing crap. Like the developers that were building
- 4:41Speaker 2: for healthcare. First of all, there were no entrepreneurs, there
- 4:45Speaker 2: were no founders. There was really no one from Silicon
- 4:48Speaker 2: Valley that was doing anything interesting, at least that I saw.
- 4:51Speaker 2: They were generally large healthcare companies like al Selvier. What's
- 4:57Speaker 2: the the medical DM Remember they did one of the
- 4:59Speaker 2: first stabs and it really felt more like check the
- 5:03Speaker 2: box strategy that was taking what was previously on a
- 5:09Speaker 2: website and making it smaller. It was nothing interesting, nothing innovative,
- 5:15Speaker 2: and I was just so fired up from that experience.
- 5:19Speaker 2: I thought healthcare deserves better. I want all these super
- 5:22Speaker 2: talented people that are over here building gaming apps trying
- 5:27Speaker 2: to figure out how to get people to click on ads,
- 5:29Speaker 2: I want them to come to healthcare. And so I
- 5:32Speaker 2: went back to finish my MBA, partnered with a classmate
- 5:37Speaker 2: of mine who was an MDMBA, Nate Gross. He went
- 5:41Speaker 2: on to start Doximity take it public. Now he's head
- 5:44Speaker 2: of healthcare at Open AI. I've worked with some really
- 5:48Speaker 2: cool people in my career, very lucky. But he and
- 5:51Speaker 2: I spent the year working on a business plan to
- 5:55Speaker 2: kind of bring together these two very very separate, siloed worlds,
- 6:01Speaker 2: and from that grew Rock Health and move back to
- 6:06Speaker 2: the Bay Area, and you know, the rest is history.
- 6:11Speaker 1: What did you get right and maybe what did you
- 6:13Speaker 1: get wrong in that initial business plan, because I imagine
- 6:15Speaker 1: it's gone through a couple of innovations.
- 6:19Speaker 2: So what did we get right? I would say we
- 6:25Speaker 2: we welcomed everyone in. We recognize that we cannot solve
- 6:31Speaker 2: these problems with the same thinking that we used to
- 6:34Speaker 2: get ourselves into this mess, and we were very welcoming
- 6:39Speaker 2: to quote unquote outsiders and I don't like that term
- 6:42Speaker 2: because I think if you have a body, if you've
- 6:45Speaker 2: helped a loved one go through a challenging diagnosis, if
- 6:49Speaker 2: you've been to the doctors yourself, like you're a stakeholder,
- 6:52Speaker 2: you belong here. I don't like you know, you're not
- 6:55Speaker 2: an outsider. Let's stop treating people like outsiders. But that
- 6:58Speaker 2: was very radical, right, Like people were not welcomed into healthcare.
- 7:03Speaker 2: So I think that's something we got right. At the
- 7:04Speaker 2: same time, we broad in healthcare experts. Our very first
- 7:10Speaker 2: LPs were Mayo Clinic, Kaiser Permanente like giants in healthcare
- 7:14Speaker 2: who were excited about the opportunity to work with tech folks.
- 7:20Speaker 2: So we welcomed everyone. We didn't gatekeep. We were very open.
- 7:24Speaker 2: I would say that's that's what we got right.
- 7:26Speaker 1: What do you think resonated, you know with those early investors.
- 7:31Speaker 1: I've imagining going to Mayo and saying, you know, I've
- 7:35Speaker 1: want to do a healthcare technology fund or digital health fund,
- 7:38Speaker 1: depending on what label you put on it. Yeah, and
- 7:42Speaker 1: then saying okay, but we could maybe do this ourselves,
- 7:45Speaker 1: or you know, maybe there's other people out there doing it.
- 7:47Speaker 2: Well, there weren't other people doing it. Really there was
- 7:50Speaker 2: very We had healthcare deep healthcare investors who didn't believe
- 7:55Speaker 2: in the consumerization of healthcare, thought patients will never pay
- 7:58Speaker 2: for things. And then you had tech investors who were
- 8:02Speaker 2: more tourists vcs who some of them are better than others,
- 8:07Speaker 2: but most of them see very different timelines in tech
- 8:11Speaker 2: and didn't have the patience to stay in healthcare. So
- 8:13Speaker 2: we call them like tourist vcs that have kind of
- 8:15Speaker 2: gone in and out. Some of them have built real
- 8:18Speaker 2: expertise in healthcare over those years, and now I think
- 8:21Speaker 2: have done a great job, So I would say it
- 8:27Speaker 2: would have been fine for them to do it on
- 8:28Speaker 2: their own as well. Like we weren't like cap tables
- 8:32Speaker 2: have dozens of investors on them, so it's not like
- 8:35Speaker 2: only one investor could win. But we were doing the
- 8:41Speaker 2: leg work of building the community and we were on
- 8:46Speaker 2: the ground. We were young, we had, you know, the
- 8:50Speaker 2: time and energy to put into truly building the community
- 8:55Speaker 2: and bringing people together on a daily basis. Our office
- 9:02Speaker 2: was it was a very cool office, open to everyone.
- 9:07Speaker 2: People come through, you know, we'd have visitors from Japan
- 9:11Speaker 2: that were like, we've heard what you're doing. You want
- 9:12Speaker 2: to come by and of course come by to check
- 9:15Speaker 2: us out. So I think that they were It wasn't
- 9:18Speaker 2: a let's do let's fund Rock Health instead of doing
- 9:23Speaker 2: our own thing. It was like, we're investing in digital
- 9:25Speaker 2: health as part of that, let's support Rock Health.
- 9:30Speaker 1: Got it? What categories did you gravitate towards those those
- 9:33Speaker 1: early days? And it's just funn It's funny when you're
- 9:35Speaker 1: talking about the book. I actually read it before we chatted,
- 9:38Speaker 1: and I think there's a picture of Sean Duffy sitting
- 9:40Speaker 1: in your office from Amata, right, is that one of
- 9:42Speaker 1: the early day photos.
- 9:44Speaker 2: Yeah, A Motto was our very first, very first company,
- 9:49Speaker 2: and have worked with them for many years. I would
- 9:52Speaker 2: say me personally, I mean, obviously our portfolio, our early
- 9:56Speaker 2: portfolio was made up of companies that are tea t
- 10:00Speaker 2: was team was most excited about. I personally have always
- 10:03Speaker 2: been drawn to companies that change the patient experience and
- 10:09Speaker 2: empower the consumer in some way. That has been a
- 10:12Speaker 2: constant theme in my career and what fires me up.
- 10:18Speaker 2: And then you know, I for many years had a
- 10:21Speaker 2: co managing director, Malay Gandhi, and he and I worked
- 10:24Speaker 2: so well together because he was really into and understood
- 10:28Speaker 2: the piping and infrastructure that was necessary for healthcare to
- 10:33Speaker 2: function better and to drive down costs and remove waste.
- 10:38Speaker 2: So you know, he got excited about those deals, and
- 10:42Speaker 2: you know, we collaborated a lot, but it was, you know,
- 10:45Speaker 2: a lot driven by what we were personally really passionate about.
- 10:49Speaker 1: And you know, you've you've probably had a front seat
- 10:50Speaker 1: to I don't know, thousands of different founders. I mean,
- 10:53Speaker 1: if you could kind of maybe distill it down into
- 10:55Speaker 1: a couple key categories what really worked for you, and
- 10:59Speaker 1: find out where and who you wanted to invest in,
- 11:03Speaker 1: you know, I.
- 11:06Speaker 2: I was taught, I was kind of raised to believe
- 11:09Speaker 2: like that in the jockey, not the horse. And I
- 11:14Speaker 2: think for the most part, that's that's worked out. There
- 11:17Speaker 2: are obviously cases where really great people couldn't figure out healthcare.
- 11:21Speaker 2: I mean, look at a tool Gwande and Haven Health,
- 11:24Speaker 2: some of the biggest giants in our industry couldn't figure
- 11:27Speaker 2: it out. And I think that's nature of startups, right.
- 11:31Speaker 2: Ninety five percent of startups fail, seventy five percent of
- 11:34Speaker 2: VC back startups fail, and healthcare is not immune to that.
- 11:38Speaker 2: And I don't think that we should expect people to
- 11:43Speaker 2: not try just because it's more likely to fail than succeed.
- 11:48Speaker 2: I think it's all about trying. And I think we
- 11:50Speaker 2: actually in our industry need more openness and conversations about
- 11:55Speaker 2: why things didn't work out and not caring around shame
- 11:58Speaker 2: because I would personally rather see people try then not try.
- 12:03Speaker 2: And also, and I give the stat in the book,
- 12:05Speaker 2: but there was some really compelling research that shows that
- 12:09Speaker 2: founders who start companies that don't work out end up
- 12:12Speaker 2: after the company better off than their peers who didn't
- 12:15Speaker 2: even try because interesting future employers value that experience no
- 12:20Speaker 2: matter what, and so they end up in with higher
- 12:23Speaker 2: titles and higher salaries. So if you're even worried about failure,
- 12:27Speaker 2: like you're actually going to be fine. I think, obviously
- 12:30Speaker 2: not if it's a catastrophic failure, if you're you know,
- 12:33Speaker 2: in trouble with the lob, but if you get it
- 12:36Speaker 2: an honest shot and you learn something like that is valuable.
- 12:41Speaker 2: So I think that finding founders who are really hungry
- 12:47Speaker 2: to make change, if they come to the problem with
- 12:50Speaker 2: like genuine curiosity and compassion for the stakeholders, and then
- 12:56Speaker 2: you know, you heard me talk about this so much
- 12:59Speaker 2: in the book but I call it like, you have
- 13:00Speaker 2: to become an anthropologist of healthcare, at least in the
- 13:03Speaker 2: corner of healthcare that you are trying to change, and
- 13:07Speaker 2: just be so close to the problem. The proximity really matters,
- 13:11Speaker 2: and you're not building it from the outside and expecting
- 13:13Speaker 2: people to just like follow your lead. You're building it
- 13:17Speaker 2: with your stakeholders. And that's that type of founder is
- 13:21Speaker 2: always more successful. And those are the types of founders
- 13:24Speaker 2: that I try to work with.
- 13:25Speaker 1: Maybe just going out a tangent here. You know, you
- 13:27Speaker 1: mentioned the Haven example, and it's one that I bring
- 13:31Speaker 1: up constantly in my discussions. And I can recall ten
- 13:34Speaker 1: years ago the discussions we were having with public equity
- 13:37Speaker 1: investors were like, well, is big tech going to come
- 13:39Speaker 1: in and basically just take over healthcare? And you know,
- 13:42Speaker 1: we were talking about Apple, we were talking about Facebook,
- 13:44Speaker 1: even Google. You know, where where have you seen that
- 13:49Speaker 1: cycle kind of ebb and flow? And where do you
- 13:51Speaker 1: think we are today with the I don't know, incumbents
- 13:56Speaker 1: or big companies in terms of how they're focused on healthcare?
- 13:59Speaker 2: Such a question. There's been a lot of wasted time,
- 14:03Speaker 2: dollars effort from big tech their interest. Do you remember
- 14:08Speaker 2: when I was getting started, it was like the Google
- 14:10Speaker 2: Health they were building an EMR with the Cleveland clinic and.
- 14:14Speaker 1: And the health fault was that Microsoft. I can't remember
- 14:17Speaker 1: health vault?
- 14:18Speaker 2: Was that help?
- 14:19Speaker 1: Was that Google? I think it might be Google.
- 14:22Speaker 2: Microsoft did Yeah, I think that was Google, and that
- 14:23Speaker 2: Microsoft had something obviously IBM Watson remember that I have
- 14:28Speaker 2: such mixed feelings about it because it's the same conversation
- 14:31Speaker 2: as like, founders have to be okay with failing, and
- 14:33Speaker 2: we had to be okay with at least we tried. Uh.
- 14:36Speaker 2: But you would hope that with all the resources in
- 14:39Speaker 2: the world that these companies had, the balance sheets that
- 14:43Speaker 2: they had, that they could actually create bigger change than
- 14:49Speaker 2: they've been able to. So it's like it's it's been disappointing,
- 14:54Speaker 2: but maybe there have been small cracks in the foundation
- 14:58Speaker 2: that they've enabled that have open the doors for others.
- 15:02Speaker 2: And so I think we can remain hopeful and we
- 15:06Speaker 2: don't want to see them abandon healthcare. But we see
- 15:09Speaker 2: like Google's alphabet is a good example because think about
- 15:13Speaker 2: all the different places within alphabet that touches healthcare. I mean,
- 15:16Speaker 2: GV has uh, you know, backed a ton of companies.
- 15:20Speaker 2: I'm an investor in City Block Health. They have big
- 15:22Speaker 2: sidewalk labs ties, so Google, it's like an optopus right
- 15:27Speaker 2: like there, it's it's little tentacles are in healthcare in
- 15:30Speaker 2: a lot of different ways, and some of the ways
- 15:33Speaker 2: have been successful and others have fizzled out. But I
- 15:39Speaker 2: think that it's not because they don't have the resources
- 15:44Speaker 2: or haven't taken it seriously. I think it's because health
- 15:46Speaker 2: care is really hard and the incumbents are very, very powerful,
- 15:52Speaker 2: so it'll be interesting. I mean, I people think that
- 15:55Speaker 2: maybe like a Google or Apple will just you know,
- 16:00Speaker 2: maybe make some big acquisitions, like maybe Apple just by Aura,
- 16:03Speaker 2: or Google will buy Epic. You know, who knows what's
- 16:08Speaker 2: going to happen, but it might this success might come
- 16:10Speaker 2: from using their dollars for acquisitions versus building it in house.
- 16:15Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I think I think you make a
- 16:16Speaker 1: good point. We've seen some chipping away on the margin.
- 16:18Speaker 1: I like the example of Amazon Pharmacy bringing transparency to
- 16:22Speaker 1: drug pricing, and that's definitely caused some behavior change. You know,
- 16:26Speaker 1: we were talking before we started about Mark Cuban and
- 16:29Speaker 1: what he's doing, and you've seen drug pricing is becoming
- 16:33Speaker 1: more transparent totally.
- 16:35Speaker 2: And I talk about pill pack in my book. And
- 16:38Speaker 2: Amazon's then obviously a big acquirer and I'm a one
- 16:42Speaker 2: medical customer still to this day and wow, yeah, and
- 16:46Speaker 2: it's it really they do make it easy to get scripts,
- 16:49Speaker 2: so I do appreciate that. But it'll be it's interesting.
- 16:52Speaker 2: Didn't Amazon recently do they announce like Kiosks, they're they're
- 16:57Speaker 2: going after the Kiosks. So we've seen a numberumber of
- 17:00Speaker 2: iterations on the whole, like Health, Kiosk, idea, Forward Health.
- 17:07Speaker 1: I think Forward Health is the best example. But I
- 17:09Speaker 1: think that was an interesting one because the leader there
- 17:12Speaker 1: very much, in my view, seeing more of the outside
- 17:16Speaker 1: pushing in that this is the tech way to do
- 17:19Speaker 1: things versus maybe taking the inside out.
- 17:24Speaker 2: Yeah. Absolutely, I mean he came from he came from Google, right,
- 17:27Speaker 2: and a lot of tech investors, and you know, they
- 17:32Speaker 2: were building for archetype that was themselves though, so you
- 17:35Speaker 2: could argue they were building for a high net worth,
- 17:39Speaker 2: worried well customer and maybe that just couldn't scale.
- 17:45Speaker 1: Right, right. You know, as we're talking here, I'm thinking
- 17:48Speaker 1: about the different cycles with the large cap companies. And
- 17:51Speaker 1: then I wanted to get your view on the cycles
- 17:53Speaker 1: that you've seen, you know, in the digital world or
- 17:57Speaker 1: really the health technology or however you want to describe it,
- 18:00Speaker 1: over the last decade and a half, because it seems
- 18:01Speaker 1: like we've gone through a couple peaks and valleys. And
- 18:04Speaker 1: I also think as a public equity analyst, you know,
- 18:07Speaker 1: we had that period and the pandemic with the IPOs
- 18:09Speaker 1: and the SPACs and a lot of those didn't really
- 18:12Speaker 1: work out. I'd love to get your take of, you know,
- 18:15Speaker 1: what cycles have you identified, and maybe where are we
- 18:20Speaker 1: right now and what do you see for the next
- 18:22Speaker 1: I don't know, year or two.
- 18:24Speaker 2: Not to be kind of generic, but I do feel
- 18:26Speaker 2: like there's a pre COVID digital health and a post
- 18:28Speaker 2: COVID digital health. And I'm sure you saw the same thing.
- 18:31Speaker 2: But what happened in COVID was an acceleration of adoption
- 18:35Speaker 2: of technology that we had never seen before and that
- 18:38Speaker 2: would have otherwise taken years and years and years. And
- 18:42Speaker 2: one of the things that happened, and I've talked to
- 18:44Speaker 2: a lot of health system executives and CEOs that basically
- 18:50Speaker 2: we're forced to change culturally in a very short period
- 18:55Speaker 2: of time, and then recognize like, hey, actually we're pretty
- 18:57Speaker 2: good at this. We're pretty good at vetting third party products.
- 19:02Speaker 2: We're not bad at building in ourselves. And we've figured
- 19:06Speaker 2: out how to roll these out to our employees and
- 19:09Speaker 2: our staff in a way that somewhat reduces friction but
- 19:14Speaker 2: like builds it into their workflows. And so now today
- 19:19Speaker 2: we're seeing the hospitals are bigger adopters of digital health
- 19:22Speaker 2: than health plans or farm or any other industry, which
- 19:25Speaker 2: was completely flipped before. If you had come to me
- 19:28Speaker 2: ten years ago with a product selling to a hospital,
- 19:31Speaker 2: or come to any investor, it would have been you know,
- 19:34Speaker 2: this is that is a long sales cycle. It's very
- 19:38Speaker 2: painful to sell to hospitals. Now it's like, actually, hospitals
- 19:42Speaker 2: are some of the best customers and you know, and
- 19:46Speaker 2: once you are able to get into the hospital those relationships,
- 19:50Speaker 2: the LTV there is huge because it becomes so sticky
- 19:54Speaker 2: and the switching class is so high. So that's kind
- 19:57Speaker 2: of the big thing that I saw at COVID. Obviously
- 19:59Speaker 2: we had a bump, as you mentioned the IPOs and
- 20:03Speaker 2: the SPACs. I think the only SPAC that worked out
- 20:05Speaker 2: was Hymns. A lot of a lot of failures during
- 20:08Speaker 2: that time. I think that was very painful in twenty
- 20:10Speaker 2: twenty two to twenty twenty three to be a company
- 20:13Speaker 2: fundraising at that time or selling at that time. I'm
- 20:16Speaker 2: an investor in fifty one active companies right now, and
- 20:19Speaker 2: I have been recapped by so many of them in
- 20:22Speaker 2: that time period because these later stage investors come and
- 20:26Speaker 2: even if the company had been doing well, they obviously
- 20:31Speaker 2: all had inflated valuations during the pandemic twenty twenty twenty
- 20:36Speaker 2: twenty one, and it's hard for any company to grow
- 20:39Speaker 2: into that valuation, and so there's a reset. And of
- 20:43Speaker 2: course those resets happened in early employees, early investors are
- 20:47Speaker 2: the ones that get screwed over in that situation. So
- 20:50Speaker 2: we had this this time period where I'll just say
- 20:53Speaker 2: I got many many sad emails from founders who were
- 20:57Speaker 2: put in situations where to continue on with the company
- 21:01Speaker 2: they had to take deal terms that were not favorable
- 21:04Speaker 2: to them or their existing investors. It was very challenging
- 21:07Speaker 2: a lot of companies that got sold for pennies that
- 21:11Speaker 2: good otherwise good companies, companies that I think would have
- 21:14Speaker 2: been better off had the pandemic not happened. Even though
- 21:18Speaker 2: the pandemic peaked in terms of their revenue and growth structory,
- 21:23Speaker 2: a steady path would have been better for them. And
- 21:26Speaker 2: then now we've I think, gotten to a place where
- 21:31Speaker 2: there's more steadiness and pricing of these deals. The supply
- 21:36Speaker 2: and demand is more in line if you are an
- 21:40Speaker 2: AI or AI enabled company, and if you are not,
- 21:46Speaker 2: then you probably are experiencing well, I know you're experiencing
- 21:50Speaker 2: the same sort of investor market as we all experienced
- 21:56Speaker 2: and we'll say twenty twenty three.
- 21:58Speaker 1: So maybe that's a good segue. Contain a sure. I mean,
- 22:01Speaker 1: I think it's really interesting the point you make around
- 22:04Speaker 1: the providers, particularly the health systems, adopting these tools. I
- 22:08Speaker 1: have a sneaky suspicion that the reason managed care has
- 22:11Speaker 1: had such a hard time the last couple of years
- 22:13Speaker 1: is that there's been widespread adoption of a lot of
- 22:15Speaker 1: the RCM tools and that's really driving up the on
- 22:20Speaker 1: paper acuity of a lot of these patients. I mean,
- 22:24Speaker 1: we've seen a ton of deals in that space and
- 22:26Speaker 1: a ton of funding. So yeah, I guess the question
- 22:30Speaker 1: I'd like to ask is that AI how much is
- 22:33Speaker 1: hype and how much is reality? In your view.
- 22:36Speaker 2: I think AI is the biggest thing to happen to
- 22:41Speaker 2: healthcare in my career. I think it will have a
- 22:44Speaker 2: bigger lasting impact on healthcare than the pandemic did. I
- 22:49Speaker 2: think there's a lot of hype. I think there's a
- 22:51Speaker 2: lot of overpaying. I see these deals that come to
- 22:54Speaker 2: me that are just like an idea. They don't have
- 22:57Speaker 2: anything really built, yet they vibe coded something.
- 23:00Speaker 1: Then you know, three people in a term sheet.
- 23:02Speaker 2: Three people in a term sheet, and you know they're
- 23:05Speaker 2: just plugging into open AI and they're asking, you know,
- 23:08Speaker 2: for one hundred million dollar valuation. That's not sustainable. That
- 23:14Speaker 2: doesn't that doesn't make sense to me. But I do
- 23:17Speaker 2: think that the underlying capabilities that AI is enabling is
- 23:23Speaker 2: going to create lasting change. We're already seeing that, Like
- 23:25Speaker 2: we're already seeing clinicians adopt AI faster than truly anything,
- 23:33Speaker 2: like you know, open evidence saying that they've there their adoptions,
- 23:36Speaker 2: but faster than anything since the mobile phone for clinicians.
- 23:39Speaker 2: And to see that being a pull versus a push
- 23:43Speaker 2: that also changes things, right, like we have had to
- 23:46Speaker 2: force clinicians to use to use things. I talk in
- 23:49Speaker 2: my book about the Kaiser nurses that are protesting, you know,
- 23:52Speaker 2: using these new tools. I mean there's a resistance to
- 23:56Speaker 2: change across healthcare providers that has existed from my entire career,
- 24:00Speaker 2: and now we're seeing providers be like, hey, I need this,
- 24:03Speaker 2: I want this. I don't want to work without my
- 24:05Speaker 2: scribe because this makes my job easier better. I'm no
- 24:09Speaker 2: longer working at night because I'm not needing to chart
- 24:12Speaker 2: because I have this tool that's charting for me and
- 24:15Speaker 2: seeing that pool is really exciting. So I think overall,
- 24:18Speaker 2: like when it comes to the technology, I do think
- 24:20Speaker 2: that this is the biggest thing that's happened in our
- 24:22Speaker 2: careers and will have positive lasting change in terms of
- 24:28Speaker 2: like what's having on the business side, where I think
- 24:33Speaker 2: that's going to be temporary and I think we'll level
- 24:35Speaker 2: out to a place that makes a lot more sense.
- 24:37Speaker 2: And then there are other areas that have been harmed,
- 24:39Speaker 2: like like looking at the SaaS stocks right now that
- 24:42Speaker 2: have been hammered over the last twelve months because of this.
- 24:46Speaker 2: I think that that's like also overblown and that that'll
- 24:49Speaker 2: that'll normalize as well.
- 24:51Speaker 1: I think you're absolutely right there there's always this knee
- 24:54Speaker 1: jerk reaction that that the world is going to change,
- 24:57Speaker 1: you know, at the drop of a dime, and it
- 24:58Speaker 1: never really truly comes to asked like that. I mean,
- 25:01Speaker 1: maybe the pandemic is the you know, the edge case
- 25:04Speaker 1: where things do change overnight, but that's unlikely to happen
- 25:09Speaker 1: in the next twelve months, eighteen months.
- 25:11Speaker 2: You know.
- 25:11Speaker 1: One of the things I wanted to ask you about, though,
- 25:13Speaker 1: is that the framework for your investments. How has that
- 25:17Speaker 1: changed maybe today around AI versus how you looked at
- 25:21Speaker 1: the digital world ten years ago. Has that framework changed
- 25:25Speaker 1: at all?
- 25:26Speaker 2: Absolutely, I've evolved my framework, but not because of AI.
- 25:32Speaker 2: I went back to school to get my MPH when
- 25:35Speaker 2: I was thirty something years old and thirty five years old.
- 25:41Speaker 2: I think I was mostly because I was like, Okay,
- 25:45Speaker 2: I feel like I'm a decent investor. I'm like pretty
- 25:47Speaker 2: good at this. I have a lot of good markups,
- 25:49Speaker 2: But like, am I actually making health care better? That
- 25:52Speaker 2: was like a question I could not confidently answer, and
- 25:57Speaker 2: I probably didn't need to go to school to do that.
- 25:59Speaker 2: But I like school. I like universities, I like campuses.
- 26:03Speaker 2: Obviously I've been teaching the last decade, but getting fluent
- 26:09Speaker 2: in public health and understanding the forest and the trees
- 26:14Speaker 2: and how any product has downstream effects that impact the
- 26:20Speaker 2: entire healthcare system. Being able to learn how to ask
- 26:24Speaker 2: those questions and become a little bit more skeptical, become
- 26:28Speaker 2: a balance skeptic helped me kind of refine my framework
- 26:32Speaker 2: so that I could funnel my time, energy and resources
- 26:36Speaker 2: into companies that I feel like, as I say in
- 26:39Speaker 2: the book, like align the margin and the mission where
- 26:42Speaker 2: they are growing because they're making health care better. There's
- 26:46Speaker 2: a lot of ways to make money in healthcare that
- 26:49Speaker 2: frankly makes healthcare a lot worse in my mind, and
- 26:53Speaker 2: they can take someone else's money. I'm not interested in
- 26:56Speaker 2: those kind of things anymore. And I don't think that
- 26:58Speaker 2: founders have bad intentions. I think they just don't necessarily
- 27:02Speaker 2: ask hard questions about how they might be worried about
- 27:06Speaker 2: their primary stakeholders, but their secondary stakeholders they don't really
- 27:10Speaker 2: think about. And I give the example in my book
- 27:12Speaker 2: about full body MRIs and some of the questions that
- 27:16Speaker 2: I think need to be asked around that. I'm not
- 27:19Speaker 2: a skeptic. I'm very much for empowering patients, and I
- 27:23Speaker 2: believe that I don't even think you should have to
- 27:25Speaker 2: have a doctor's note to get your blood taken? Why
- 27:29Speaker 2: do we like, why are there all these gatekeepers for
- 27:31Speaker 2: us to have information about our own bodies? I think
- 27:34Speaker 2: that is like I have a strong position on that,
- 27:38Speaker 2: but I think that for these companies who are commercializing
- 27:40Speaker 2: these tools, we have to understand and ask the questions around, well,
- 27:44Speaker 2: what are your false positives? What are your false negatives?
- 27:48Speaker 2: Like how is this impacting the healthcare system? How many
- 27:50Speaker 2: people are going down rabbit holes and then have to
- 27:52Speaker 2: do follow ups? Is that overwhelming an already strained system.
- 27:57Speaker 2: These are just the types of questions that I was
- 28:00Speaker 2: that I'm now able and I do actively think through
- 28:05Speaker 2: as I look at companies, because look, we're here for
- 28:09Speaker 2: a very short time. We allocate every day to different activities,
- 28:16Speaker 2: and then, frankly, I'm just like I'm you know, I'm
- 28:19Speaker 2: probably I don't know, halfway point in my career. Now
- 28:23Speaker 2: I'm forty two, and we'll see, we'll see how much
- 28:26Speaker 2: longer I want to go. But I want, I truly
- 28:30Speaker 2: want to make health care better like it is. I
- 28:34Speaker 2: wake up every day wanting to make health care better
- 28:36Speaker 2: and so being able to ask those tough questions and
- 28:39Speaker 2: learning to ask those tough questions has really helped. I
- 28:41Speaker 2: think I wanted to make health care better in theory
- 28:47Speaker 2: this whole time, but it just took a while for
- 28:49Speaker 2: me to understand the sort of questions that you need
- 28:53Speaker 2: to ask that help answer that question.
- 28:56Speaker 1: Well, that's a good, good, good move towards you know
- 28:59Speaker 1: where what made you decide to write the book? And
- 29:02Speaker 1: why now? And you know who's it really geared to her?
- 29:04Speaker 1: Because I was reading it and I was like, well,
- 29:06Speaker 1: this is this would be great for an investor, would
- 29:09Speaker 1: be great for a founder and operator? Who did you
- 29:11Speaker 1: write the book for? And you know why now?
- 29:14Speaker 2: Yeah? Why? No? Is more? I mean I could give
- 29:17Speaker 2: like the generic answer of like, you know, healthcare is
- 29:22Speaker 2: in the most challenging spot we've ever been in with
- 29:25Speaker 2: rising costs. Consumers are at the highest frustration point ever.
- 29:31Speaker 2: At the same time, we have new tools that didn't exist.
- 29:34Speaker 2: It's easier than ever to start a company. That would
- 29:38Speaker 2: be like that would be like the PR answer, That's
- 29:41Speaker 2: what like my PR personal wants want me to say.
- 29:44Speaker 2: The real answer is I've been working on this book
- 29:47Speaker 2: for over a decade, putting notes in notion every every
- 29:50Speaker 2: time I hear a story in a case study, and
- 29:52Speaker 2: I just personally felt ready. I felt like I had
- 29:56Speaker 2: I had enough stories, I had enough frameworks. I've developed
- 29:58Speaker 2: these while teaching a lot of the framework site, I
- 30:01Speaker 2: would kind of formalize for my students so I could
- 30:04Speaker 2: convey everything I've learned to them. And so I just
- 30:07Speaker 2: felt personally ready, and I had a publisher that was
- 30:11Speaker 2: willing to help me get it out in the world.
- 30:13Speaker 2: So that's the real answer, why now? And then who's
- 30:15Speaker 2: the audience? We specifically use the term innovator because we
- 30:21Speaker 2: debated it right. It was like, under it's probably too
- 30:24Speaker 2: narrow because I think you can still even if you're
- 30:28Speaker 2: not the founder, you can still make an enormous difference
- 30:31Speaker 2: in many types of rules across healthcare, and so I
- 30:35Speaker 2: didn't want to narrow it so much. We have an
- 30:37Speaker 2: obsession over being a founder, and actually we're seeing that
- 30:40Speaker 2: become kind of now that it's easier than ever to
- 30:42Speaker 2: start a company, it's becoming a little bit of a
- 30:44Speaker 2: problem for I was actually just having rug with the
- 30:47Speaker 2: Stanford professor who teaches CS and undergrad was like, we
- 30:51Speaker 2: can't keep students around, like it's they're making it too
- 30:54Speaker 2: easy for them to quit and start companies, and you know,
- 30:58Speaker 2: and then like we don't have students here on campus
- 31:00Speaker 2: already wants to start a company, but they can't hire
- 31:01Speaker 2: anyone because everybody wants to be a founder. And I
- 31:04Speaker 2: think there's you know, being a founder is a is
- 31:07Speaker 2: a very cool experience and it's very intense, and people
- 31:09Speaker 2: need to like really self assess if that's the role
- 31:12Speaker 2: they want. And so I think that and I tell
- 31:15Speaker 2: my students this all the time, of like actually working
- 31:20Speaker 2: at a company and having that experience and learning from
- 31:23Speaker 2: other people's mistakes is a great first experience before starting
- 31:28Speaker 2: a company. You don't need to start a company right
- 31:30Speaker 2: out of school. You can if you want. But like,
- 31:33Speaker 2: there are a lot of ways to learn about healthcare,
- 31:37Speaker 2: learn about innovation, learn about digital health that is on
- 31:43Speaker 2: someone else's dying essentially, So that is you know, who
- 31:46Speaker 2: I'm writing for, And I would say generally the book
- 31:50Speaker 2: is more for people that are coming into healthcare. If
- 31:54Speaker 2: you're you probably you know some of the chapters are
- 31:56Speaker 2: probably yeah, yeah, yeah, I know this, I know this,
- 31:58Speaker 2: I know this, I do you know to chapters just
- 32:00Speaker 2: on the stakeholders history of why we are where we are.
- 32:05Speaker 2: And I think that's like really helpful for people to
- 32:07Speaker 2: get up to speed. But if you're someone who's been
- 32:10Speaker 2: working in healthcare, you can probably skip through some things
- 32:13Speaker 2: and then find some hopefully helpful pieces of wisdom later
- 32:17Speaker 2: on in the book.
- 32:18Speaker 1: Well, I definitely did. There's a couple of the footnotes.
- 32:20Speaker 1: I went back and looked up some of the data
- 32:22Speaker 1: and studies that you had, So I'm very appreciative for
- 32:25Speaker 1: your writing it. You know, you've been a professor for
- 32:27Speaker 1: more than ten years at Columbia. What is the course
- 32:31Speaker 1: cover and what have there been any success stories from
- 32:34Speaker 1: your students coming out and starting companies starting companies.
- 32:37Speaker 2: I would say a lot of my students now are
- 32:40Speaker 2: like execs set a lot of the digital health companies
- 32:43Speaker 2: in New York, which is super cool to see. So
- 32:46Speaker 2: the course that I teach that I created is called
- 32:48Speaker 2: Investing in Digital Health, and I share the frameworks that
- 32:54Speaker 2: I share in the book around building gable digital health companies.
- 33:02Speaker 2: And then because I learn by doing and the classes
- 33:06Speaker 2: that resonated most with me as a student were experiential
- 33:10Speaker 2: in nature, I bring that to the classrooms. So what
- 33:12Speaker 2: we do is every day we have a different founder
- 33:16Speaker 2: that comes pitches their business and uses a real pitch deck.
- 33:19Speaker 2: I make them use their most recent pitch deck. And
- 33:22Speaker 2: the students are the vcs, and they're in groups of four.
- 33:26Speaker 2: They have these I make them name their VC firms
- 33:29Speaker 2: and they listen to the pitch, they ask questions, and
- 33:32Speaker 2: then they write up an investment memo. And they're not
- 33:35Speaker 2: just learning about how to evaluate a company, but they're
- 33:37Speaker 2: learning how to have that conversation with their classmates, their
- 33:41Speaker 2: group of investors. And I make the groups very diverse.
- 33:44Speaker 2: They all have at least one international student. They all
- 33:47Speaker 2: have someone with the finance background. They also want the
- 33:49Speaker 2: healthcare background, so they can learn to work together to
- 33:53Speaker 2: come to a decision, which is yes I want to
- 33:56Speaker 2: investor no I don't want to invest in the rationale
- 33:58Speaker 2: why it's funny looking back a few years ago, I
- 34:02Speaker 2: did an analysis of like, are they actually good at this?
- 34:05Speaker 2: And the answer is yes, they're actually good at this.
- 34:07Speaker 2: Some of my early companies included health which was Grand
- 34:10Speaker 2: Rounds at the time. You know they he oh and pitched.
- 34:15Speaker 2: One of my first classes did very well. Maven Kate
- 34:18Speaker 2: from Maven pitched in twenty sixteen. She and you know
- 34:21Speaker 2: obviously ended up doing very well, so it's fun to
- 34:25Speaker 2: kind of see the companies that have pitched now evolve
- 34:28Speaker 2: and look back. So I save every single memo I
- 34:32Speaker 2: you know, look at kind of you know, there's probably
- 34:34Speaker 2: twelve memos per case. So that's class and it's really fun.
- 34:39Speaker 2: It's an elective I now because I don't live in
- 34:41Speaker 2: New York anymore, so I now do it as a
- 34:42Speaker 2: block week. So I come in for a week and
- 34:46Speaker 2: we do it full time for a week. So it's
- 34:47Speaker 2: very intense, but then they get all the credits that
- 34:49Speaker 2: they would have gotten over a semester and it's easier
- 34:52Speaker 2: for that.
- 34:53Speaker 1: Sounds fun. Yeah, I think I need to take that.
- 34:55Speaker 2: Come join us. Yeah. I teach at the end of August,
- 34:58Speaker 2: right before the fall term, and I also teach now,
- 35:00Speaker 2: I also teach at Harvard Medical School, so I teach
- 35:03Speaker 2: a class that's kind of the opposite. So my class
- 35:05Speaker 2: at Columbia Business School is mostly teaching healthcare and digital
- 35:08Speaker 2: health to business students. But at har Medical School, which
- 35:11Speaker 2: is it's a graduate course for clinicians in leadership, I
- 35:15Speaker 2: basically teach them the opposite. So like they come with
- 35:17Speaker 2: deep clinical expertise and then kind of like get them
- 35:20Speaker 2: up to speed on startups. So it's fun.
- 35:23Speaker 1: I'm so curious about that Harvard class. Where do you
- 35:26Speaker 1: think the biggest blind spots are or what are the
- 35:29Speaker 1: bigger blind spots that you've seen that clinicians have.
- 35:32Speaker 2: Yeah, it's actually the direct opposite of tech. So someone
- 35:35Speaker 2: comes from tech, they understand the world of possible solutions
- 35:39Speaker 2: from a tech standpoint, but they don't necessarily understand the
- 35:44Speaker 2: problem as intimately as they need to, whereas on the
- 35:47Speaker 2: clinician side, they will know the problem better than anyone else,
- 35:52Speaker 2: but they don't necessarily have an idea of like the
- 35:55Speaker 2: possible universe of solutions, and so they just don't know
- 35:59Speaker 2: where to start a lot of times, or they pick
- 36:02Speaker 2: something that they think sounds like a good solution and
- 36:05Speaker 2: are like so wedded to it versus recognizing that not
- 36:09Speaker 2: only is there a universe of solutions that might be right,
- 36:13Speaker 2: but that will probably change, and you want to you
- 36:17Speaker 2: want to iterate and test new things out and build
- 36:21Speaker 2: with the feedback that you're getting in mind. So actually
- 36:25Speaker 2: a lot of you know, cross disciplined teams I think
- 36:27Speaker 2: work the best because you kind of bring both of
- 36:29Speaker 2: those worlds together. You have, you know, one who's really
- 36:33Speaker 2: good at product and users, studying users and getting that feedback,
- 36:38Speaker 2: and then the other one that kind of intimately understands
- 36:40Speaker 2: the problem set.
- 36:42Speaker 1: Gosh, there's a million questions I want to ask around that,
- 36:44Speaker 1: but you know, we only have limited time here, so
- 36:46Speaker 1: I wanted to actually dive into a little bit. And
- 36:49Speaker 1: this is an unfair question because you mentioned you had
- 36:51Speaker 1: fifty one investments, but you know, what are some of
- 36:53Speaker 1: your favorite children today? What are you most excited about.
- 36:59Speaker 1: I'm putting you on the spot.
- 37:00Speaker 2: I apologize, I know, so I'm gonna I'm gonna or.
- 37:03Speaker 1: Maybe categories that might be a better way to say it.
- 37:06Speaker 2: Well, I'm gonna give a fair answer by I'm on
- 37:08Speaker 2: two boards of two companies I invested in. So one
- 37:12Speaker 2: is Collective Health and we invested them very early at
- 37:14Speaker 2: Rock Health, and they are really helping empower the consumer
- 37:20Speaker 2: through the way most of us are are insured, which
- 37:23Speaker 2: is through our employers, and so they help employees manage
- 37:28Speaker 2: their their benefits, UH find the best care and essentially
- 37:33Speaker 2: navigate the insurance that's given to us. And so that
- 37:36Speaker 2: has been really fun to be on the board there
- 37:39Speaker 2: and help the company grow. It's obviously a much later
- 37:43Speaker 2: stage company and then on the other side company I'm
- 37:45Speaker 2: an investor, and that's at this post series A. It's
- 37:50Speaker 2: called Cofertility, and it's a really awesome company because my
- 37:54Speaker 2: one of my my biggest regrets in life is not
- 37:57Speaker 2: freezing my eggs. In my twenties, I struggled with infertility
- 38:00Speaker 2: for many years. I'm very fortunate to have one miracle
- 38:05Speaker 2: child through IVF, but it is something that I'm personally
- 38:09Speaker 2: very passionate about, and fertility care is just like so
- 38:12Speaker 2: broken in this country. And so our model at Cofertility
- 38:15Speaker 2: is egg sharing, and women can freeze their eggs entirely
- 38:18Speaker 2: for free when donating half to a family that can
- 38:21Speaker 2: otherwise conceive. So we work with families women who've had
- 38:26Speaker 2: breast cancer who you know, weren't able to freeze their
- 38:29Speaker 2: eggs and need to use an egg donor, for gay
- 38:31Speaker 2: couples that need an egg donor, single moms and dads
- 38:36Speaker 2: that need an egg donor. And so we've basically rewritten
- 38:40Speaker 2: the entire egg donation industry, which previously was like quite
- 38:44Speaker 2: a cottage industry and quite honestly icky because it was
- 38:48Speaker 2: just shrouded in secrecy and anonymity. Whereas like we were
- 38:52Speaker 2: just like, what's everything that's wrong with this? Talk? We
- 38:55Speaker 2: talked to parents that used egg donation, we talked to
- 38:58Speaker 2: donors who Previously, you know, it was a different group, right,
- 39:01Speaker 2: it was only people who are doing it for money.
- 39:03Speaker 2: Now we get it people who are doing it more altruistically.
- 39:06Speaker 2: And then most importantly, we talk to donor conceive people
- 39:09Speaker 2: because that's like a group that this is a product
- 39:12Speaker 2: of what we're doing. Yet they are never consulted, and
- 39:14Speaker 2: there are very vocal groups that and there's a group
- 39:17Speaker 2: at Harvard that has done some studies around it where
- 39:21Speaker 2: most donor conceived people don't like the idea that their
- 39:24Speaker 2: birth was because of a financial transaction and just like
- 39:28Speaker 2: hearing that learning from them and what and also the
- 39:31Speaker 2: fact that they feel like they should have access to
- 39:34Speaker 2: information about their genetic donor and being shut out because
- 39:40Speaker 2: their parents made a deal with an egg bank feels
- 39:44Speaker 2: very unfair to them. So we only do open donations
- 39:47Speaker 2: or at least open id at eighteen, so when the
- 39:49Speaker 2: person's eighteen, they can find this information. And it has
- 39:52Speaker 2: been so rewarding to build that out because it's like
- 39:56Speaker 2: it's just truly very game changing for everyone involved.
- 40:00Speaker 1: I mean, I imagine you get asked to be on a
- 40:01Speaker 1: lot of boards, but it sounds like you're applying that
- 40:04Speaker 1: lens of impact and the downstream parties to where you're
- 40:09Speaker 1: choosing to spend your time. Is that a fair way
- 40:12Speaker 1: to say it.
- 40:12Speaker 2: That's a good way to say it.
- 40:13Speaker 1: Yes, I mean between all the different things. You're an author,
- 40:17Speaker 1: you're on these boards, you're a lecturer, professor, you know,
- 40:22Speaker 1: where do you want to spend your time the next
- 40:25Speaker 1: I don't know, five ten years.
- 40:26Speaker 2: Yeah. I love the setup I have because you know,
- 40:31Speaker 2: when I was at when I was running Rock Health,
- 40:34Speaker 2: it was like one hundred percent all the time. I
- 40:37Speaker 2: didn't have a shower where work was not on my mind,
- 40:42Speaker 2: and it was so all encompassing. And so I you know,
- 40:48Speaker 2: my husband and I both kind of made personal professional
- 40:52Speaker 2: decision that having this like multi hyphen it fully flexible
- 40:58Speaker 2: career where we're focusing on the things that are I
- 41:02Speaker 2: don't know, piecemeal. I mean, being on the board is
- 41:05Speaker 2: a very big responsibility, but it is not a full
- 41:08Speaker 2: time responsibility. I'm not in the trenches. Uh, And so
- 41:12Speaker 2: I live, I sleep well at night. I you know,
- 41:16Speaker 2: we last year spent a month in Japan, you know,
- 41:20Speaker 2: just spend a month in San Francisco we were. I
- 41:23Speaker 2: now live in London. I having that sort of flexibility
- 41:28Speaker 2: is absolutely where I want to continue for the next
- 41:31Speaker 2: ten years. I would say, I've been kind of vocal
- 41:34Speaker 2: about this. I'm not angel investing anymore. The early stage.
- 41:38Speaker 2: I'm done for now with early stage. I'm moving to
- 41:41Speaker 2: kind of later stage support only because like this concept
- 41:46Speaker 2: of like fewer deeper engagements is more appealing to It's
- 41:52Speaker 2: kind of like a few years ago I decided I
- 41:53Speaker 2: wouldn't do any fast fashion shopping anymore. I was like,
- 41:56Speaker 2: I'm done with Zara, I'm done with Mango, Like I
- 41:59Speaker 2: want fewer, better pieces, and so that sort of like
- 42:04Speaker 2: same mentality, I would think is like my engagement with startups,
- 42:08Speaker 2: Like I don't want to have twenty startup advisory positions.
- 42:12Speaker 2: I want maybe one more board position, maybe three board positions,
- 42:15Speaker 2: because those are so meaningful and being able to support
- 42:18Speaker 2: the founder at that level is so much more rewarding
- 42:22Speaker 2: to me. And then you know, I think I've just
- 42:24Speaker 2: learned a lot with angel investing, and you get forgotten about,
- 42:27Speaker 2: like I have deals where like I'm like, hey, guys,
- 42:30Speaker 2: like I haven't had an update in years. What's going on?
- 42:32Speaker 2: I mean you or like a founder leaves and the
- 42:35Speaker 2: new CEO takes over, or you know, things happen and
- 42:39Speaker 2: you become less important to the company, which is fine.
- 42:42Speaker 2: I mean you want the companies to grow you, but
- 42:47Speaker 2: it's an engagement that is not as meaningful as the
- 42:53Speaker 2: board work that I've been doing last couple of years.
- 42:56Speaker 1: No, that makes total sense. The way I like to
- 42:59Speaker 1: wrap these conversations is to really discuss a life lesson
- 43:03Speaker 1: that's either from your personal life or your professional life
- 43:05Speaker 1: that really helps drive you or what you see as
- 43:07Speaker 1: your mission. Is there something that comes to mind that
- 43:10Speaker 1: fits that framework. Is there some mission or a lesson
- 43:13Speaker 1: that you learn that you know informs what you see
- 43:15Speaker 1: as your mission going forward.
- 43:17Speaker 2: Yeah. I have always just wanted to be a cheerleader
- 43:23Speaker 2: for folks who are willing to give it a try
- 43:27Speaker 2: to fix health care, and I've done that in a
- 43:31Speaker 2: lot of like one on one, but my work more
- 43:34Speaker 2: recently has been like how can I do that one
- 43:37Speaker 2: to many? And writing a book is a good way
- 43:41Speaker 2: of doing that, Like I can give that advice to
- 43:43Speaker 2: you know, coffee meetings every day for you know, a month,
- 43:49Speaker 2: or I can teach and I have, you know, seventy
- 43:52Speaker 2: five students in my class, and that's one to seventy five.
- 43:55Speaker 2: Or I can do it through a book and then
- 43:57Speaker 2: you know, thousands of people can be reached by that.
- 44:00Speaker 2: And so trying to just help as many people as
- 44:04Speaker 2: possible feel empowered, supported, inspired to make meaningful change in
- 44:09Speaker 2: healthcare is my mission and it'll be my mission until
- 44:13Speaker 2: I retire.
- 44:14Speaker 1: Well said, thank you for sharing that.
- 44:16Speaker 2: Thanks for having me. It was a fun conversation.
- 44:18Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, we could have done another two hours.
- 44:20Speaker 2: We'll have to have you back on Talk two.
- 44:24Speaker 1: When you write your second book, or maybe you start
- 44:27Speaker 1: another company, we'll do this again.
- 44:30Speaker 2: I don't know anither of those things will happen, but
- 44:32Speaker 2: so maybe, yeah, maybe.
- 44:34Speaker 1: We'll have to do We'll do an update on the
- 44:36Speaker 1: markets maybe in a year.
- 44:38Speaker 2: Awesome Glad Darren introduced us.
- 44:41Speaker 1: So thank you so much for joining us for our
- 44:42Speaker 1: latest episodes, and please make sure to click the follow
- 44:45Speaker 1: button on your favorite podcast app or site so that
- 44:48Speaker 1: you never miss a discussion with the leaders of healthcare innovation.
- 44:51Speaker 1: I'm Jonathan Palmer, and you've been listening to the Vanguards
- 44:53Speaker 1: of Healthcare podcast by Bloomberg Intelligence. Until next time, Take care.
- 45:15Speaker 3: MOSS bases US most ESS bases,