This essay is a follow-on extension of that belief — and the topic of conversation we’ll continue next week at APOLLO HOUSE, the summit we’re convening during JPM Healthcare Week in San Francisco. There, we’ll gather leaders from across technology, healthcare, and investment to explore a central question: how can this moment be leveraged to deliver meaningful progress for humanity?

I believe the answer lies in refocusing ‘the race’ — by defining a new Health Moonshots Race built around clear, health-specific benchmarks and real-world results that impact people’s wellbeing.

If the many forces driving the current AI frenzy want to keep the boom moving up and to the right, they will need to earn broad trust and deliver on a more definable (and consequential) promise for humanity. They can do so by competing on something that matters to everyone: human health and wellbeing.

We are living through a dynamic moment of acceleration. Capabilities that once took decades to develop are emerging in months. Investment, talent, and attention are pouring into artificial intelligence. And yet, as powerful as today’s AI systems have become, the way the industry benchmarks “winning” is still poorly aligned with humanity’s most urgent needs.

That misalignment matters.

If we are truly entering an age of superintelligence and abundance, then what we choose to measure, reward, and celebrate will shape where these tools are ultimately applied. Today’s race largely rewards performance on academic, synthetic, and technical benchmarks — useful tests of capability, but disconnected from many of the problems most people actually face. If we want to understand what these systems are truly capable of, we should challenge them (and the people creating them) to solve more of the problems that affect every human on earth.

This is the moment to change the game.

Healthcare already measures a great deal. Clinical trials track survival rates and biomarkers. Public health relies on population-level indicators. Health systems manage cost, efficiency, and access. Researchers benchmark molecular and diagnostic performance every day.

But these measures were designed for healthcare — and for a different era — before AI at scale, frontier compute, and a global technology race fueled by unprecedented capital and talent. If we want faster health transformation, we need new frameworks that pull the world’s most competitive innovators (from all industries, especially tech) into the health arena and “reward” them for winning there.

What we lack is an AI-first, outcome-driven race — one that moves beyond the boundaries of healthcare and unites the broader technology ecosystem around shared health goals, much like the space race once united governments, scientists, and innovators of every stripe.

Today, the global AI race is defined by speed, accuracy, scale, and performance. These benchmarks have accelerated progress, and they deserve credit. But they leave unanswered the question people increasingly ask: How does all of this help my family, my community, my future?

The answer won’t come from better test scores. It will come from visible, real-world progress on issues that shape people’s health and wellbeing — progress that families can recognize in their own lives.

We need a new class of benchmarks — impact-driven challenges that align the world’s most innovative people, tools and resources toward solving problems that affect everyone.

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Health Moonshots, and AI-driven evaluations, with clear and measurable outcomes.

One lesson emerging from today’s AI research is that progress accelerates when benchmarks are narrow, practical, and grounded in real-world outcomes. The most useful evaluations are no longer broad measures of “intelligence,” but focused tests tied to specific domains and problems. In health, that could mean benchmarks for early disease detection, trial design efficiency, diagnostic accuracy for particular conditions, or reductions in time from discovery to patient impact.

These kinds of evaluations don’t replace moonshots — they are the stepping stones to help make them achievable. Big breakthroughs are rarely won in a single leap. They are reached by stacking many focused wins, each measurable, each hard to game, and each tied to outcomes that matter. In an age of superintelligence, the path to curing disease may run through hundreds of smaller, well-defined races that compound over time.

The opportunity now is to design these benchmarks intentionally — so that the competitive energy of the technology world is directed not toward abstract scores, but toward measurable progress in human health.

A Call for Benchmarks That Matter Outside the Bubble

Imagine if, alongside weekly and quarterly AI performance updates, the global innovation ecosystem rallied around dozens (or even hundreds) of shared health goals such as:

• Progress in early detection and disease-modifying interventions for Alzheimer’s and related dementias

• Reductions in the burden and cost of diabetes and cardiometabolic disease

• Faster, more accurate diagnosis and treatment of major diseases

• Demonstrable impact from food-as-medicine approaches

• Measurable gains in healthy lifespan — not just years lived, but years lived well

• Real reductions in cost, waste, and friction across healthcare delivery

These are not abstract ideals. They are outcomes that can be measured, tracked, and improved over time. And for the first time, if we change the game — so that the most powerful organizations (and people running them) are competing to improve human health — progress will accelerate dramatically.

The next great race should be AI, capital, talent, and ingenuity aligned in service of human health.

A Health Moonshots Race — designed for the age of superintelligence — that encourages competition where it matters, collaboration where it helps, and faster translation from discovery to real-world impact. Not a one-off challenge, but an ongoing framework that makes progress visible in a way the whole world can get behind.

The benchmarks don’t need to be perfect on day one. But they do need to be clear, public, and continuously updated — so the world knows what it’s racing toward. If we design them to be as easy to check as the weather or your favorite sports team, than people outside the bubble will start to pay attention.

An Invitation to Change the Game

As we kick off 2026, let’s push on what we want all this intelligence to be used for.

Benchmarks shape behavior. They define ambition. They tell the world what winning means.

We now have tools — and a global community of health innovators — capable of changing the trajectory of human health at scale. The task before us is to aim these mighty resources deliberately, and to measure success by how much healthier our communities and world become.

P.S. You can apply to join our APOLLO HOUSE waitlist here. Or learn how to join StartUp Health’s network here.

P.P.S. Ping me if you have ideas for what these benchmarks could / should be! Let’s get going.

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I first met Esther at my first job out of college (long before she became our first angel investor at OrganizedWisdom and StartUp Health) and she has shown up through my life ever since as one of my most trusted mentors and friends. I’m deeply grateful that, over the years, she has gifted me (and countless innovators and Health Transformers) the most precious resource of all: her time.

Esther has a way of cutting through noise without losing nuance. She asks the kinds of questions that stay with you – sometimes for years.

Earlier this month, I had the good fortune to spend another afternoon with Esther in downtown Oakland, overlooking the port at sunset – ships moving in and out, constant motion, a quiet reminder that everything has a season. It was the perfect backdrop for a conversation about term limits – not just in politics or leadership, but in life: the boundaries that give meaning to our choices, and the discipline required to honor limits in a world addicted to ‘more.’

We talk about her upcoming book on term limits, the seductions and dangers of abundance, the AI bubble debate (and what bubbles really mean), and what must remain distinctly human as superintelligent tools reshape culture – including healthcare. Esther doesn’t offer ten tidy takeaways. She offers something better: hard-won wisdom, generously shared, and an invitation to ask better questions. Watch our listen to our video convo below, and read an edited Q&A text version here.

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The age of superintelligence has arrived, reshaping healthcare at a pace even the boldest futurists underestimated. As AI accelerates discovery, democratizes expertise, streamlines administrative tasks, and rewrites how care is delivered, our once-distant vision of achieving global health moonshots is shifting from audacious dream to attainable reality. The question now is how we guide this transformation—-and how fast we can elevate our collective imagination to use these tools with purpose, urgency, and ambition. We finally have the technological foundation to pursue health moonshots at full speed.

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To rise to this moment, we need to challenge the world’s leading AI platforms to a new kind of race—-a Health Moonshots Race—one measured not by math scores or language exams but by weekly benchmarks like: curing Alzheimer’s, diabetes, cancers, and reducing suffering for billions.

We have entered a new era, one where AI-powered science and technology are redefining what’s possible in discovery, patient care, and global access. Speaking personally—-as someone who has spent my career working with thousands of innovators—-I have never witnessed momentum like this. It feels different. The last time I felt like this was the early nineties when I first used the World Wide Web.

Today’s shift is more profound.

Just a few years ago, mapping a protein or designing a promising drug candidate required armies of scientists and years of painstaking work. Today:

• AlphaFold 3 is modeling proteins, nucleic acids, and molecular interactions with precision that has become foundational to modern biology.

• Isomorphic Labs, Google’s AI drug discovery company, is signing multi-billion-dollar partnerships with Novartis and Eli Lilly to co-develop medicines designed directly by AI.

• Autonomous, “self-driving” labs operate around the clock, compressing months of experimentation into days.

• Multimodal medical AI models interpret imaging, labs, genomics, and patient histories simultaneously—already matching or surpassing specialist-level performance in radiology, ophthalmology, dermatology, and triage.

• And for the first time, anyone (whether you have insurance or not) can access medical-grade guidance and mental-health support that would have been unavailable or unaffordable a year ago. My personal dream of “a million doctors in your pocket” is already emerging.

Capabilities once reserved for elite institutions or decades of incremental research are becoming accessible to anyone with a connected device.

This is not incremental improvement.
It’s a magic leap.

And a new generation of founders is leaping with it—building AI-first platforms, vibe-coding useful protoypes in minutes, and reimagining how we diagnose, treat, prevent, and live healthier lives. We now exist in a post-ChatGPT world, where every product, workflow, and care model built before 2022 is being re-designed from first principles. From the back office to the bedside to the home, transformation is underway.

This is the moment health moonshots become truly achievable.

A moment when billions can gain access to medical guidance.
A moment when the marginal cost of life-changing services approaches zero.
A moment when discoveries that once took decades can materialize in months—or even hours.

But here’s the critical question:

If AI can decode biology, design drugs, and run entire labs autonomously, how to we inspire the world’s leading models to compete to cure Alzheimer’s, diabetes, cancers, and the chronic conditions affecting billions?

The challenge is no longer technological possibility.
It is human intention.

The question is not whether AI will transform healthcare.
The question is when we will direct more of that compute—and more of our brightest AI researchers, doctorpreneurs and health innovators—toward universal access, better outcomes, and meaningful progress for all.

The time is now.
We cannot afford to wait for cures and breakthroughs that are within our line of sight. It is time to set new benchmarks for superintelligence. Time to unite the world’s builders and technologists around shared purpose. Time to inspire healthy competition among the world’s leading platforms to solve humanity’s most urgent health moonshots.

Let’s make the coming years the moment when health moonshots become reality—-for everyone.

Welcome to 2025!

This is my personal insider newsletter called Dream Impossible! for friends, business contacts and fellow artists & instigators who are also inspired by the amazing mantra: it always seems impossible until it’s done.

You are on my personal newsletter list because you are a friend or contact from my linkedin or gmail and I thought you’d be interested in the innovation topics discussed here. If you don’t wish to get my insider newsletters, it’s super easy to unsubscribe below.

I’ve been blogging off and on since 2004, and one of my goals is to start sharing my ideas more regularly this year with people like you who also care about doing big things in the world. So a few times a month, I plan to post essays and insights on innovation topics like AI, wearable tech, robotics, AR/VR, biotech, health moonshots, neurotech, food tech, design and culture, and discuss ideas / tools / concepts I hope spark more big thinking and positive impact.

Below is my first Dream Impossible! essay of 2025. It’s titled 50+ Books That Changed My Life. Perhaps some of them may change yours too…

P.S. I’ll be running around CES in Vegas and JPM Healthcare Conference in SF the next two weeks meeting with StartUp Health members, Health Transformers, and people looking to do big sh*t in 2025. If you are attending either conference, ping me on LinkedIn or reply to let me know where you will be hanging out. I hope I get the chance to chat about what’s on your 50+ list…

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50+ Books That Changed My Life

Just before my 50th birthday, I started working on what began as a daunting list: 50+ Books That Changed My Life. While I planned to share this list with friends and family, I never published it.

A year later, as I celebrate my 51st birthday, I thought it would be fun to kick off 2025 by finally sharing this essay publicly for the first time.

What started as a casual list quickly turned into a literary Rorschach test of my life——a mirror reflecting how I think, feel, and see the world.

50+ Books That Changed My Life

357KB ∙ PDF file

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The books featured on my list may not be the most famous or universally acclaimed, but these are all books that have made me who I am and inspired me to Dream Impossible! in different ways.

If you take the time to read the (way too long) PDF, you’ll find reflections on 59 books——each paired with key themes, memorable messages, and personal anecdotes about their impact. Whether you’re an avid reader, a curious explorer, or someone seeking fresh inspiration for your journey, I hope you find a few useful nuggets.

I could easily add 50 more titles to this list, but these are simply the ones that first came to mind when I sat down to write this essay.

Finally, as we enter a new year, may your own journeys be as delightfully unpredictable as mine. If nothing else, as I learned from more than one of my favorite reads: whether you’re on the bus or off the bus, the journey itself is always part of the story. And, in many cases, it is the story.

If that isn’t nice, what is?

Here’s a sneak peak at The 50+ Books…but you’ll have to download and read the essay, if you want to learn why…

1. The Hero's Journey – by Joseph Campbell

2. Harpo Speaks! – Autobiography of Harpo Marx with Rowland Barber

3. Chronicles – by Bob Dylan

4. Man’s Search for Meaning – by Viktor Frankl

5. The Fountainhead – by Ayn Rand

6. Getting Real – by 37signals (Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson)

7. The Joy of Sex – by Alex Comfort

8. The Joy of Cooking – by Irma Rombauer

9. Siddhartha – by Hermann Hesse

10. The Art of War – by Sun Tzu

11. Rich Dad Poor Dad – by Robert Kiyosaki

12. The Far Side – by Gary Larson

13. Merde! The Real French You Were Never Taught in School – by Geneviève and Adrien Clautrier

14. The Anarchist Cookbook – (Authorship disputed)

15. Poor Man’s James Bond – by Kurt Saxon

16. Too Far From Home – by Tom N. R. Rogers

17. Dressing the Man: Mastering the Art of Permanent Fashion – by Alan Flusser

18. Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind – by Yuval Noah Harari

19. Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow – by Yuval Noah Harari

20. The Giving Tree – by Shel Silverstein

21. Where the Sidewalk Ends – by Shel Silverstein

22. The Automatic Millionaire – by David Bach

23. The Way to Wealth – by Benjamin Franklin

24. Stealing Fire – by Stephen Kotler

25. Don’t Make Me Think – by Steve Krug

26. Le Petit Prince – by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

27. L'Étranger (The Stranger) – by Albert Camus

28. Women – by Charles Bukowski

29. OJ is Guilty But Not of Murder – by William C. Dear

30. Don’t Think of an Elephant – by George Lakoff

31. The Beautiful and Damned – by F. Scott Fitzgerald

32. On Writing – by Stephen King

33. On Writing Well – by William Zinsser

34. The Dip – by Seth Godin

35. Daily Afflictions: The Agony of Being Connected to Everything in the Universe – by Andrew Boyd

36. The Power of Now – by Eckhart Tolle

37. Chaos: Making a New Science – by James Gleick

38. Food Rules – by Michael Pollan

39. Dinkelman's Rules – by Joe Lamport

40. The Inevitable – by Kevin Kelly

41. The Innovator's Dilemma – by Clay Christensen

42. Hercules – (Various adaptations and retellings)

43. Be Here Now – by Ram Dass

44. Getting to Yes – by Roger Fisher

45. The E-Myth – by Michael E. Gerber

46. The Innovation Stack – by Jim McKelvey

47. The Fourth Turning – by William Strauss and Neil Howe

48. Let’s Go Europe – (Various editions)

49. The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test – by Tom Wolfe

50. On the Road – by Jack Kerouac

51. High Weirdness – by Erik Davis

52. If This Isn’t Nice, What Is? – by Kurt Vonnegut

53. Get to the Point – by Andrew Gilman and Karen Berg

54. The Last Question – *Short Story by Isaac Asimov

55. Hooked on Phonics – (Educational program)

56. The Catcher in the Rye – by J.D. Salinger

57. The Republic – by Plato

58. Turn Your Life Into Art - by Caveat Magister

59. Pucci – by Taschen

50+ Books That Changed My Life

357KB ∙ PDF file

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We're in the midst of a seismic cultural shift—a global inflection point. This is one of those rare moments when it pays to pause, reflect, and pressure-test your assumptions and plans. If you play it right, these moments can be your best opportunity to leapfrog forward.

Every so often, there’s a symbolic event (or series of events) that signals The Times They Are A-Changin’—a flashpoint representing deeper tectonic shifts in culture, business, politics, the economy, and the environment. These are rare but transformative moments that punctuate the decades and define cycles. Think Strauss-Howe Generational Theory or the predictions in The Fourth Turning.

In my lifetime, I've seen a handful of these turning points—maybe one or two each decade. Here’s a snapshot of the game-changing events I’ve used as recalibration moments from recent history:

• World Wide Web (1993 >)

• DotCom Bust (2000)

• 9/11 (2001)

• iPhone Launch (2007 >)

• Obama (2008)

• 2008 Financial Crisis (2008)

• Social Media + YouTube Algorithm Changes (2011 >)

• Trump 1 (2016 >)

• Covid Shutdown (2020 >)

• Post-ChatGPT AI (November 2022 >)

• Trump 2 & The 2024 Election (2024)

If you’re focused on long-term, high-impact missions—like our health moonshots at StartUp Health—these moments are prime opportunities to leapfrog and level up.

Here’s the thing: while most leaders and builders keep their heads down and try to push through with brute force, I believe inflection points are when you need to look up and recalibrate most. These are rare windows where you can, and should, reassess everything—holistically. 

Inflection points give you the cover to do what most avoid: to pause and rethink your approach. While the world gets lost in chaos, confusion, and noise, you have the chance to reexamine the playing field. It’s a time to rethink assumptions and break from old patterns.

This is the perfect moment to look at everything in your business and life with fresh eyes. It's an opportunity to go back to first principles. To dig deep. To be bold. 

How to start? Take a long walk. Ask questions. Listen more. Change your routine for a few days. But don’t waste time. Windows close fast.

Yes, transitions can be unsettling, even frightening. But they’re also your permission slip to shed old layers, embrace the unexpected, and stack your deck while everyone else is distracted.

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Thought-Starters for Reflection

Whether for business or personal growth, here are some key questions to consider:

North Star

• Has my WHY evolved?

• Do my goals and mission need refining to fit this new reality?

• Are they bold enough for this world in flux?

• What truly matters to me and my loved ones right now?

• How can I achieve my dreams faster?

The World

• How has the world shifted, and why?

• How do these changes impact my mission and goals?

• What are my competitors doing—or more likely, not doing?

• Who are my real competitors today/tomorrow?

The Future

• Given what we know now, where do I see things heading in 1, 5, or 10 years?

• How has the landscape transformed?

• What are the implications for my business and life?

Taking Action

• What needs to change in how I operate, today and moving forward?

• How can I leverage this inflection point to advance my WHY and personal goals?

• How can I use this moment to propel my mission further/faster?

Dream Impossible!

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Hey friends: I’m looking to meet the very best Health Transformers (biotech, health tech, healthcare founders/CEOs) looking to collaborate during this inflection point to scale faster. I’d like to invite them to join one of our 24 Health Moonshot communities at www.startuphealth.com.  Please have them mention your name so our team gives them VIP priority for interviews.

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Since 2011 when we launched StartUp Health we’ve been guided by this unifying principle: Health Transformers multiplied by the Network Effect equals Achieving Health Moonshots. At first glance, it may seem the multiplying force of network effects is the key variable, but it’s not. The real power lies in the purpose behind the networks—our Health Transformers and their health moonshot missions. 

Health Transformers are mission-driven innovators taking on bold challenges like eradicating Alzheimer’s or ending diabetes (see all 20+ Health Moonshots here). What sets them apart isn’t just their expertise or groundbreaking technology—it’s their unwavering commitment to a mission fueled by purpose. 

We unite these brilliant minds in Health Moonshot Communities, creating a constellation of innovation around a dedicated health challenge. Together, they navigate obstacles more easily, collaborate more effectively, and share wisdom to avoid costly mistakes. 

Imagine a single beam of light shining into the night sky. It’s bright, but its reach is limited, cutting through only a small patch of darkness. Now, picture thousands of beams of light scattered across the sky, shining independently— each illuminating a small area but still disconnected from one another. Together, they are bright, but fragmented. 

But what happens when those beams are aligned? When they are focused toward a single, shared purpose, something extraordinary happens. They merge, creating a powerful, unified force that can light up the entire sky. 

This is the power of a purpose-driven network. It’s not just about bringing people together—it’s about aligning them around a bold, shared mission that transforms individual efforts into something far greater than the sum of its parts. 

Today, thousands of healthcare innovators, doctorpreneurs, and scientists are working tirelessly to bring transformative health solutions to the world. These bright stars are full of potential, yet many are navigating the complex, often isolating universe of the health industry alone. Too many are working in silos, grappling with the enormous challenges of innovation without enough support. 

Network effects aren’t just theoretical— they are a practical, essential ingredient for leapfrogging progress. We’ve seen this time and again over the past 14 years: when Health Transformers collaborate, share insights, or make the perfect introduction at just the right moment, the entire network benefits. 

Yet the most powerful force driving this network forward is purpose. When a community of innovators is united by a shared mission, network effects are supercharged. Purpose transforms connection into collaboration, and collaboration into lasting, collective impact.

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Founders / innovators: working on your own health moonshot and want to join our community of like-minded Health Transformers, we’d love to meet you. Apply for an interview today.

Investors / funders / friends: If you want to nominate a founder/company you want us to meet, send them to startuphealth.com to apply and please have them to mention your name and this blog for VIP love!

Ever since Steve Jobs held up the first iPod in 2001 to announce “1,000 songs in your pocket” and Nicholas Negroponte launched the One Laptop Per Child project in 2005, I've been dreaming about how we could revolutionize global health by putting "1,000,000 doctors in your pocket."

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In June, I had the honor of being the closing speaker at Reinvent Futures' incredible AI + Bio event in San Francisco, titled “How AI Can Accelerate Progress in Health.” There, I shared my vision for how we can achieve ambitious dreams like providing access to a million doctors for every human.

In my brief talk, which you can watch above, I argue that now, more than ever, we need bold challenges akin to NASA's Apollo Moonshot Missions. These missions unified the entire country, mobilizing over 20,000 companies and 400,000 people toward a goal many deemed impossible.

Progress, whether through NASA, Jobs, or Negroponte's ambitious dreams, occurred for three key reasons:

1. The challenges they pursued were sufficiently hard to attract the world's best and brightest minds.

2. The missions were inspiring, capturing the world's imagination.

3. Success wasn't just about technological innovation; it required beautiful design, long-term collaboration, and innovative business models.

It's time for us to dream big again. By leveraging AI, data, and existing technologies, we can make the impossible possible, turning the vision of "1,000,000 doctors in your pocket" into reality. Let's unite in this mission and transform global health for all.

This week’s announcement from Thrive AI Health from Arianna Huffington and Sam Altman is an exciting move in this direction and we have hundreds of inspiring Health Transformers in StartUp Health working on these types of bold health moonshots. But in this moment, it’s time to all push harder, think bigger, be bolder so we can enter a new era of progress.

By harnessing today’s exponential tools and daring to dream, we can put the power of a million doctors in every pocket. The time to dream impossible is now.

Tech giants are making early moves to partner as they see business opportunities emerge in the digital healthcare market.

Earlier in December, we learned that Intel will replace Texas Instruments as the provider of chips for Google Glass. We also learned that the company plans to promote Glass as a workplace-computing device to healthcare workers and that physicians may begin using Glass as an application to record electronic health data.

The union of these two tech titans, joining forces to advance wearable technology and its application to healthcare, is encouraging. But the truth is, the potential for further industry collaboration is just beginning.

While the mainstream has focused largely on the activity-tracker craze, the reality is that opportunity and impact of wearable health is only just beginning. Not only is the movement toward consumerism in healthcare and the leading tech companies of our time shepherding us here, but a growing force of early stage innovation is completely rethinking how wearables can change our health and wellness.

Unlike other industries, healthcare is plagued by regulation and longer product development timelines. Bringing successful products to market is challenging for both large industry players and digital health entrepreneurs. Startups need access to advisors, peers and dollars, while large companies need ‘batteries included’ entrepreneurs fueling innovation. The unprecedented level of change gripping the healthcare industry today presents both challenges and opportunities for both.

Take a look at BASIS Science, one of our portfolio companies and an early entrant into the wearable space. BASIS benefitted from a network of entrepreneurs and innovations and received ongoing support infrastructure to navigate challenges as they scaled. All this led to its acquisition by Intel in March 2014.

Innovation within wearables today extends well beyond activity trackers to enabling improved quality of life, building on valuable data and information that these new devices collect with ease. MC10 is developing several home diagnosis and remote monitoring tools, including a patch for babies that monitors and wirelessly transmits temperature to smartphones.

Google is partnering with Novartis to develop a smart contact lens with the potential to monitor the wearer’s blood sugar levels. Oxitone has created the world’s first mobile bracelet health monitor for continuous supervision of pulmonary, heart and sleep-related diseases. And Cerora, which, through a headset, delivers actionable diagnostic information regarding concussions and brain injury, with further application to Alzheimer’s disease.

Intel’s push into healthcare speaks to the fact that we are living in an extraordinary moment in history where big data, sensors and connected devices are making it possible to reimagine healthcare, and the amount of opportunity is undeniable.

We’re already living in a world where technology is being designed into and onto everything around us. Our beds, cars and refrigerators collect data with the potential to better understand ourselves. Imagine what will happen over the coming years as an army of entrepreneurs bring their innovations to the world and start partnering in exciting new ways with the healthcare industry to refashion healthcare together.

An editorial (depressingly titled “‘Moonshot’ Medicine Will Let Us Down”) ran in the NYT shortly after Obama’s announcement argued that precision medicine is unlikely to make most Americans healthy; therefore, money should be invested elsewhere.

As an entrepreneur and investor focused on digital health innovation, I was struck by the notion that if something is likely to fall short of expectations, it isn’t worth trying.

Precision medicine may still be early (think 1994 Internet), but we are no longer operating in a linear world. Conditions are different today instigating exponential innovation that wasn’t possible over the past 25 years, and a new ecosystem of entrepreneurs has emerged striving to more radically transform health and wellness.

Companies like Nanthealth are focusing on turning a cancer diagnosis from a death sentence into a life-with-chronic-disease diagnosis with the potential of saving and extending millions of lives.

With recent and rapid advancements in technology, genomics and biomedical informatics, cancer researchers are developing targeted therapies for individual patients. This more personalized approach to treating cancer or diabetes over “one-size-fits-all” methods is already showing promise. Precision medicine is about customizing and guiding treatment with genomic and other personalized data, and right now there are plenty of sick people who are benefiting from this. For that reason alone, it is worth the investment into this space.

With the help of Obama’s initiative, and an influx of new investment and support, imagine what can be accomplished in the next 10 years when an army of healthcare transformers is inspired to rethink what’s possible and set about building the world’s next generation of healthcare solutions. Most every other industry has been disrupted by technology and data over the past 25 years, and it’s happening now in healthcare.

A $215 million investment is a drop in the ocean if you conceptualize its impact. Or even consider it against the R&D spend of Roche, Novartis, J&J and Merck (all over $7.5 billion in 2013) or the broad government support of organizations like BIO. If anything, I say we should challenge the government to level up investment in this area and as quickly as possible. 

The White House’s interest and investment in the category will surely drive more interest in precision medicine, and as we’ve already seen from health reform and their open data initiatives, help to inspire a wave of innovation led by entrepreneurs rethinking what’s possible. If science has shown us anything, it’s that more energy, funding and support from the market often brings more energy, funding and support to the market, and ultimately results in discovery. We have certainly seen this over the last five years in digital health as this market has exploded with new solutions to the benefit of consumers and industry alike.

With that as the backdrop, I believe now is the time to go all in on moonshot medicine.

What if Thomas Edison had thought, after a few attempts at making the light bulb, that it just might not be possible? As legend has it, he failed 999 times before success.

Yes, it’s hard to develop a clear picture of who is really at risk for what, as Dr. Michael J. Joyner points out in his editorial. But has anything as entrenched as healthcare, or as complex as human biology, ever been easy to disrupt? Look at the struggles that the world’s biggest disruptors went through and you’ll know the answer.

We must look to newcomers and “exponential entrepreneurs” — as Peter Diamandis and Steven Kotler term them in their new book Bold — who are not jaded by years of stagnation and are taking a fresh look to explore what’s possible. Entrepreneurs who think like this will lead in precision medicine.

The good news is that there are many advancements already happening in the field.

Take Tute Genomics, a platform that enables doctors and healthcare organizations to use human genome data for genetic diagnosis, personalized therapeutics and new discoveries. Tute is opening a new door for precision medicine by providing a scalable, clinical-grade solution based on a trusted heritage of discovery and an unprecedented database of genetic variant information making it easier for clinicians to practice precision medicine.

And Cue, a startup building a next-gen health tracker to go way beyond measuring weight and activity to understand your body at the molecular level and measure things like testosterone, fertility and inflammations to deliver personalized recommendations for your health.

So, let’s embrace moonshot thinking and triple-down on exponential thinking that may not work as planned. Now is the time to go all in and support the entrepreneurs and innovators reimagining every aspect of our health and wellness.

[My presentation talking points from my June 12, 2024 talk at the REINVENT FUTURES Great Progression Series in San Fransisco.]

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TITLED: DREAM IMPOSSIBLE!

I’m grateful to share a few thoughts on How we can leverage AI to accelerate progress in health.

In 2011, I co-founded StartUp Health with a multi-decade plan dedicated to achieving a series of health moonshots, like curing Alzheimer’s and diabetes.

We were inspired by NASA and the original moonshot, which leveraged a collaborative innovation model. The combined ideas and technology from more than 20,000 companies and 400,000 people made the moon landing possible.

So after investing in more than 500 health startups and halfway into our 25 year plan to achieve health moonshots, here’s why I believe this new wave of AI is so exciting:

At the same time we’re experiencing exponential leaps with AI, we’re benefiting from a multi-layered wave of innovation across a spectrum of categories converging to advance human health.

Wearable tech, affordable sensors, home diagnostics, neurotech, brain-computer interfaces, robotics, nanotech, genomics, personalized medicine, AI-powered drug discovery…we are in the midst of a new era for health innovation. Quantum leaps like AlphaFold, CRISPR, and new drugs like GLP-1s are just the beginning.

A new spectrum of health innovation is emerging, and today’s powerful AI are just starting to supercharge them all.

But as we learned from NASA, it’s not just about tools and technology.

Progress happened for three reasons:

1. The challenge was sufficiently hard to attract the world’s best and brightest.

2. The mission was inspiring and captivated the world’s imagination.

3. Success depended not just on technology but on collaboration.

To most effectively leverage AI for health progress, we need to focus more on these three fundamental things:

First: Today’s investors and entrepreneurs have a choice. How big of a challenge do you want to tackle?

Much of the health innovation today leveraging AI is down the “administrative path” – logistics, billing and paperwork stuff. Yes, it’s important for the business of healthcare, and there’s lots of money to be made there.

Then there is the hard stuff: the “clinical path like care delivery” and the “discovery path where prevention and cures will emerge”. Yes, it's hard and takes more time. Just ask the pharma execs in the room. This is where safety comes first and the regulatory process really matters.

Second: We need more imagination from businesses and investors. Let’s rise to the ability of the AI tools at our fingertips and do what we do best: create. Too many brilliant minds are still solving the supposed challenge of getting people to click on stuff and buy things faster. We need more big thinking and more innovators and investors to stop optimizing and to start dreaming.

How do we cure Alzheimer’s faster? How do we cure diabetes faster? How do we deliver care to billions more people? The bold ones can find a way with AI in their pocket.

Third: We need more collaboration and cross-pollination of innovation.

Many of the most brilliant minds in AI are within a few miles of here. We need more technologists merging with “doctorpreneurs” and healthcare leaders to unlock the potential of the tools and technologies already available. We need designers, scientists, engineers, entrepreneurs, investors, and patients working on these challenges together.

Imagine the progress we can make when more of us decide to unlock our creativity to better leverage AI for health. Imagine if we cross-pollinate today’s most amazing tools and supercharge them with AI. Imagine the step change forward for humanity when we all start collaborating on the hardest challenges…

This is how we go from “a thousand songs in your pocket” to safely delivering billions of people “a million doctors in your pocket”.

Unity Stoakes
June 12, 2024 Shack15

Humans have navigated many destabilizing shifts before—such as the transformation from agrarian culture to the industrial revolution—but never have we experienced a fantastic storm merging man, nature, and machine in such evolutionary ways.

Mutations can cause great harm, or they can be leveraged to unlock extraordinary potential and achieve magnificent feats. We are inspired by this moment of mutation, driven to guide the future with creativity, purpose, and the golden rule in mind.

It’s moments like these that call for more good, less evil. More Yoda, less Vader. More Force, less Darkside.

We’re experiencing an EVOLUTIONARY MERGE—where quantum leaps in scientific discovery, exponential technology, personalized medicine, and beautiful design converge to push human potential and make the impossible possible.

Once confined to the realm of fiction, I dream of creating a present-future where rapid innovation in wearable tech, robotics, AR/VR, biotech, personalized medicine, genomics, brain-computer interfaces (BCI), food tech, material science, and human design cross-pollinate with artificial intelligence to transform our world in productive ways.

In Sub-­Saharan Africa, traditional banking infrastructure has never quite gained a foothold. That’s because instead of brick and mortar vaults, the region has seen sweeping use of mobile banking. Micro­financing and transfers, all from your cell phone, offered simplified, safer banking solutions for a fraction of the cost.

This is an example of “leapfrog” innovation ­­ and the same paradigm is beginning to emerge in health care in Africa, Asia and Latin America, creating a global opportunity for health innovators.

This past week President Obama was in Africa at the Global Entrepreneurship Summit calling on entrepreneurs and industry leaders to ignite growth on that continent and beyond. The question is ­­ will the leaders in today’s largest health care markets seize the moment? Or will upstarts leap over them by bringing radically less expensive and more accessible healthcare options to the rest of the world?

Like banking, health care once required investment­heavy infrastructure to get any traction. Now leapfrog technological development, entrepreneurial ingenuity, and extreme need promises to rapidly accelerate the pace and efficiency of healthcare solutions. The best and brightest inventions are coming from (and to) places you might not expect: poor nations with poor health outcomes.

Entrepreneurs around the world are emerging to develop solutions with the goal of better serving massive populations in need in places with limited or no access to care. By starting with a blank slate, and addressing cost, business models and patient access head on, these innovators are challenged and motivated by extreme constraint. And dire unmet need is forcing elegant solutions.

Low­tech solutions are addressing current high­profile problems. For example, washing and reusing syringes is a tempting proposition in resource­poor regions, yet this practice plagues the developing world with high transmission rates of blood­borne infections like HIV. A simple syringe, created by inventor Marc Kosa, breaks after one use, eliminating the dangerous possibility of reuse. And The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is now sponsoring a challenge to reinvent the toilet to radically improve sanitation around the world.

Leapfrog innovation also promises to streamline patient monitoring. As it stands in the U.S. and other Western nations, large industry players charge hospitals hefty fees for high­end tech solutions. Soon, consumer monitoring and telehealth solutions will be available in places where patient monitoring isn’t even an option today.

This rapid pace of innovation is enabled, in part, by a relaxed regulatory environment that allows for swifter implementation of less tested solutions that may seem risky to some. But the risks can be even greater if the alternative is doing nothing at all.

In developing and populous regions, patient monitoring will by necessity be cheaper, more mobile and easily accessible even in remote regions. In the field of telemedicine, the possibilities are endless. Video conferencing, or even drone delivery, will be a key component of health care access in rural or underserved regions.

For the most part, the benefits of leapfrog innovation for the underserved may still be conceptual, and perhaps real progress won’t materialize the way entrepreneurs like me envision it. But with history as our guide, necessity may create health care’s biggest opportunity.

Innovators who operate in these regions will pave the way, and while change might be slower to come to a legacy Western infrastructure, the smart and nimble industry players will see the value in gaining access to new (and large) healthcare markets.

Once entrepreneurs have established the opportunity, the first wave of followers hopefully will be among industry, as medical device, drug, and service companies try on new business models. But policy and health care reform will continue to follow suit as changes to HIPAA policy and FDA approval cycles account for the new realities of a digital world.

Personally, I believe we are at the cusp of an explosive era that will ultimately help level the playing field for those most in need. But will stakeholders from the Fortune 500 have the foresight to leap over their most profitable businesses -- businesses that serve only an elite few, to see the much larger opportunity to serve global health?

Today’s U.S. health care system is often characterized as overpriced, inefficient and wasteful. Within a bureaucracy marred by red tape and roadblocks, innovation inches forward.

Yet in the developing world, where infrastructure is sparse and the risk of failure may be imminent death, it’s the entrepreneur’s mindset that is turning seemingly unsurmountable constraints into opportunity.

Over the past 25 years, almost every industry has been transformed by technology, data, design and collaborative platforms that have made it easier for entrepreneurs and creators to develop and deliver solutions that once lived on the pages of science fiction and the dreams of early adopters.

Industries as diverse as communications, media, travel, education, entertainment, finance and manufacturing have experienced what economist Joseph Schumpeter defined decades ago as a cycle of  creative destruction, where entrepreneurs leap over stagnating entrenched players and breathe new life into the market with a wave of innovation.

Health care, however, has refused to surrender to Schumpeter's gale -- until recently, when the perfect storm of health reform, an aging population, a chronic disease epidemic, the digital revolution, and a golden era of entrepreneurship have created a global environment ripe for disruptive displacement.

Despite these new tailwinds, health care remains a different beast.  Challenges extend from the regulatory, to engaging consumers who have never controlled their own care, to elongated customer sales cycles that entrepreneurs have to work through. That’s why it takes a company that thinks different to lead in health care today. And while thousands of young entrepreneurs are seeding health care towards piecemeal solutions and reinventing every aspect of the system, there is really only one company at global scale that can claim the ‘think different’ gene.

Enter Apple. The most important health company in the world.

And it’s not because of their hyped products such as the Apple Watch, or HealthKit ResearchKit platforms; rather, it’s the unique combination of assets, starting with Apple’s powerful relationship with the consumer, that will pave a path for their huge impact on health:

1.  Purpose and imagination

If an organization from the top down and bottom up is not completely passionate and deeply inspired by the opportunity to help solve one of the most important challenges of our time, it won’t be able to put a dent in health care or impact our health. It’s just too hard. Health care transformation requires long­view fortitude and the imagination to rethink absolutely everything.  Nibbling at the edges won’t fix today’s broken system. Only an exponential plan that takes into account  Moore’s law and a deep understanding that we are no longer living in a linear world will win. Apple is committed to becoming a serious health company.  Apple CEO Tim Cook said recently during an interview with Jim Cramer on CNBC that he thinks health will be the company’s biggest market.

2.  Consumer trust and engagement

Health and wellness is personal. And ongoing engagement is required to make a difference. But most health care companies don’t have a deep relationship with consumers.  With millions of new customers entering the market (10.2 million have already signed up for Obamacare), and more people and employers paying attention to price and outcomes, those who know how to connect with the consumer, will have the advantage moving forward. The future is about being willing to put the consumer back in control. With more than 700 million iPhones in the market, close to a billion credit cards on record, retail stores in 450 cities and 16 countries, and one of the most important consumer brands in the world, Apple sits among the world’s most trusted and ubiquitous brands. As more care becomes consumer-driven and shifts to retail, you not only need a digital and physical footprint, you need ongoing engagement to make it matter.

3.  Technology, data and design

Every aspect of health and wellness is being disrupted by the digital revolution. Genomics, precision medicine, mobile health, wearables, and quantified self are just the beginning.  It’s one thing to be able to structure massive amounts of data (and most old­school health care companies are still struggling with basics like the electronic medical record).  But it’s no longer enough to capture data. You must also figure out how to make it useful and how to make the technology around it invisible. Companies will need exceptional technology, smart data, and inviting design in their DNA to keep pace. From the wonder of design that was the original iMac to their music and then smart phone devices, no single company has operated more successfully at the intersection of technology and design.  And the Watch, beautifully designed even in its first generation, is also a health device in many respects.

4.  Innovation networks

Does your company have platforms that make it easy to empower patients, health professionals, researchers, engineers, designers and entrepreneurs? As the open source movement has demonstrated, the ability to empower the crowd, leverage distributed networks and open up marketplaces will provide solutions no one ever could have imagined on their own. While not “open source”, Apple has proven with its App Store and iTunes, how to catalyze and then leverage an ecosystem of creators and partners to build and expand on their vision.  

5.  Global reach and local delivery channels

Mobile health and retail health are changing the delivery models for care. The companies that have vast retail footprints and the ability to make health mobile, will have a huge advantage. People are traveling for care, staying home for care, printing their care, Googling their care, crowdsourcing their care, wearing their care, Ubering their care, downloading their care. The more efficient the access the better. Apple, with a network that is encroaching on 1 billion users, is as close to ubiquitous as you will find – spanning geographies, demographics, devices, etc.  The rise of the smartphone, for all its content-generation and mobility, is a key development that covers off on both the breadth and depth necessary to be successful in the future state of health care.

6.  Power, influence and capital

As we’ve seen from the past few decades of non-­stop lobbying to prevent health reform, many established interests have not wanted to change without a fight. Now that health has become politicized, it’s more important than ever to have the government as your customer, regulators as your friend, and a war chest to withstand battles. Companies will need the flexibility to collaborate with bureaucratic institutions or be in the position to take on (or go around) these powerful players.  Ironically, despite being the world’s most valuable company – as measured by market capitalization and arguably affinity to its users –Apple is a comparable laggard to other technology companies in lobbying DC.  That said, their reach and war chest is like no other company.  They appear to be the rare company whose influence on DC does not need to be extracted in DC.

So Apple has the Goods, but what we have seen to date is just the tip of the iceberg. With HealthKit and now ResearchKit, Apple is already putting in place the rails for thousands of innovators to build on and enabling millions of health professionals and consumers to contribute. In the days after releasing ResearchKit, thousands of people signed up for a cardiovascular study, providing more data than 50 medical centers could have gathered in a year.

Imagine what happens when tens of millions of people (or billions) are wearing Apple’s connected health devices and a community of healthcare transformers are able to leverage the data of the crowd to advance our health and wellness? What happens when these tools start delivering actionable advice, incrementally, over the course of our lives? That’s where this all builds to -- every Apple device collecting, connecting and contributing to a personalized dashboard representing our own health and wellness portfolios. The dashboard is a big step forward around personalized care and in the form of a connected platform for researchers and innovators, a sea of opportunity to solve for health issues that plague large subsets of our population.

Apple in true Apple fashion, has never felt the need to be first in health care. Instead, it comes from behind, learns from the efforts (and failures) of others, only to introduce something so different and all­-consuming as to vault the company to head of the class. Let’s hope Tim Cook makes good on his comments about Apple’s plans in health care and brings the company’s passion and ‘think different’ approach to bear.  As we all know, doing so will be a boon to the whole system and most importantly to health.

The United States has the biggest healthcare industry in the world, spending approximately $3 trillion a year. By 2018, healthcare will comprise close to 18% US gross domestic product - a sizable market opportunity for a new generation of entrepreneurs selling innovations to the industry, the government, and increasingly directly to consumers.

The highly publicized “$3 trillion” figure is a staggering, but ultimately distracting number when it comes to predicting future opportunities for healthcare innovation. Instead of focusing on the bloated US economy, long-term investors and entrepreneurs looking to make a dent in the universe should turn their focus to the rest of the world that currently has limited, or no access, to health care at all.

In practical terms, the US market is where it’s at for most upstarts today. And for good reason: it’s a huge market with new demands. But for those dreaming to change the game completely, a myopic focus on the US ignores the coming leapfrog opportunities in China, India, and throughout Africa and elsewhere. The healthcare market is global, and forward-thinking entrepreneurs understand that economic needs for health services are expanding far beyond US borders.

Over the next five years, somewhere between three and five billion new consumers will be connected to the internet for the first time, according to entrepreneur Peter Diamandis, who calls these new consumers “the rising billion.” The rising billion are consumers of goods and services, but they are also patients in need of medical care.

They should not be ignored. They are the future of radical healthcare transformation; the solutions created for them will boomerang back to solve today’s biggest healthcare challenges: access, quality and cost.

With more than one billion people on Earth living on less than $1 per day, engineers and healthcare pioneers are looking for solutions that are not only radically cheaper, but also better than those used in the US. For example, a new molecular diagnostic test called GeneXpert is being used in developing nations to quickly and accurately diagnose tuberculosis, still one of the most deadly diseases worldwide. Another tech solution in Sub Saharan Africa helps patients with internal bleeding from a car accident or complication during pregnancy. In order to survive, these patients need to have their blood safely removed, filtered and returned. A simple device called Hemafuse allows even untrained persons to safely treat internal bleeding.

High and low tech solutions are being deployed to address significant medical need in regions with little to no healthcare infrastructure. Because of the specific social and economic needs of these patients, healthcare solutions are being designed at a fraction of the price compared to similar solutions in the United States.

As the rising billions are armed with mobile and connected devices, affordable AI, 3D printing and even delivery drones, they will for the first time have access to healthcare services which were previously unattainable. These services won’t always have to be engineering marvels, such as the blood filtration device and diagnostic assay mentioned above (although many will be). They may be as simple as educational YouTube videos on basic wound care, or on proper sanitation to prevent disease.

With the power of mobile devices, billions of new people are starting to educate themselves on how to live healthier, more productive lives with the simple internet-based tools we take for granted here in the United States. Imagine what will happen when affordable AI, drone delivery and the 3-D printing maker movement starts to scale in the most remote parts of the world.

Just as significantly, the rising billions are sure to affect the business models of today’s healthcare giants. When the cost of care must be close to zero out of necessity, new models will emerge.

Merely the methods used to deliver healthcare services can make a big impact on cost. HIV treatment and care in the United States has improved significantly thanks to lessons learned from community health workers in Africa, Haiti and other parts of the developing world hard-hit by the epidemic. In fact, Partners in Health tested this leapfrog approach in Boston, where 20 patients were treated using a program developed in rural Haiti. They found that among these patients, medical expenses decreased by 40%.

Finally, this global movement will serve an added benefit to American consumers through the phenomenon of “leapfrog innovation,” which I have previously written about. As soon as consumers and industry stakeholders in the United States see that much of their healthcare services can be delivered for a fraction of the cost, and with quality or superior outcomes, they will demand those better alternatives. We have already seen this trend unfold as public outrage over pharmaceutical price-gouging, a practice in which some companies charge US patients hefty sums for drugs that are distributed elsewhere for pennies.

Healthcare spending in the United States is expected to rise almost 6% by 2024. But the global health market is expanding, with billions of new consumers increasingly empowered by connectivity and affordable tech. How much does this opportunity represent in dollars? Is it a $3 trillion opportunity? How many new patients will enter the global healthcare economy in the next 10 to 20 years? It’s difficult to say, but the opportunity I see is that entrepreneurs who start serving the rising billions today will be the leaders of tomorrow.

One of the most important areas of healthcare today is aging.

In the U.S. more than 10,000 people a day turn 65. Not only can the current system barely keep up with the healthcare needs of today’s aging population, but radical changes are essential to managing the massive demand for care in the coming years.

The good news: there’s a lot to be optimistic about and there’s a rapidly emerging ecosystem of innovators focusing on transforming the entire market.

I had the opportunity to spend time this week in Kentucky at the Louisville Innovation Summit with a group of healthcare leaders and entrepreneurs.  The focus of the discussion was The Future of Aging Care.

Here are some of the biggest transformations impacting the future of aging care that I outlined during the panel I moderated at the event.  For context, our panel was titled 10 Biggest Innovations in Aging Care and focused on a wide ranging discussion with four Healthcare Transformers from StartUp Health each building different solutions for the aging care market. The conversation included Unaliwear founder Jean Anne Booth; Carelinx founder Sherwin Sheik; Care Predict founder Satish Movva; Life Bio founder Beth Sanders.  Here’s some of what we discussed...

10 of the biggest transformations changing the future of aging care:

1. Home care: a wave of new solutions making it easier for people to stay in their home longer and enabling home care delivery.

2. Virtual health: from telehealth to remote monitoring, the digital health revolution is making care anywhere possible.  Not only at home, but on the go, persistently.

3. Consumerism: the empowered patient and skyrocketing consumer demand for information, access, and control is changing the market.

4. Price transparency: the ability to understand and shop around for pricing is changing the power dynamic of healthcare at all levels.

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6. Data liberation: interoperability and connectivity layers are changing how providers, family, and caregivers interact.

7. Caregiver platforms: marketplaces are empowering patients, families and caregivers to create better care, accountability and reduce costs.

8. Design: an emphasis on personalized design and usability for all is simplifying and leaping aging care forward in elegant ways.

9. Vitality: a focus on wellness and lifestyle is shifting the focus of health from just treatment to prevention and living well.

10. Longevity: an understanding that we are living longer, healthier lives. 90 is the new 65.

11. Market focus: Once a neglected area of innovation, entrepreneurs, innovators and investors are passionately rethinking the entire aging care market. And this will have profound implications for generations to come…

By no means is this list comprehensive. What innovations do you think are making the biggest impact on aging care today? Tweet me @unitystoakes with your ideas.

After deep reflection on what we have learned over the past five decades as artists and instigators, entrepreneurs and technologists, and as patients and citizens of the world, we keep realizing that our life’s work is only just beginning. With StartUp Health we started a magnum opus that many skeptics say is an impossible mission: to grow a global army of Health Transformers to solve the world’s biggest health challenges. The skepticism has been enlightening, sometimes maddening, and ultimately a helpful driver to keep us moving forward. Nelson Mandela inspired us long ago with his great words and we are believers: "It always seems impossible until it's done." Our masterplan, now in its second decade of development, is to leverage the power of community and collaboration and to inspire and educate a world of like-minded people to work together to achieve health moonshots. We believe the cumulative result of this global force for good will become clear over time in the form of improved health and happiness for billions of people. We are aware this sounds dreamy and the reality is we are seemingly far away from driving transformational change anytime soon. So we are doing something about it. We are embarking on our next chapter to expand what we started 12 years ago with StartUp Health Academy. We are building Health Transformer University, with the sole purpose of helping grow generations of Health Transformers who collaborate to solve big health challenges. We are seeking passionate founders and funders who want to build and back health moonshot companies. To join our mission, contact us at moonshots@startuphealth.com.

First-principles thinking – the idea of breaking down complicated problems into basic elements so you can build back better from the ground up – is core to our strategic process at StartUp Health. It’s one of the best ways to unlock creative possibilities that shift us from linear to exponential progress. A decade after launching our plan for achieving health moonshots and our mission to improve the health and wellbeing of everyone in the world, we continue to examine our plan and the core principles that drive our thesis to identify what’s working and what’s not so we can recalibrate for the future. A first-principle that has always been foundational to us is that collaboration is key to achieving any health moonshot. Breaking down silos and leveraging the power of network effects is essential to exponential innovation in the vast and complicated world of healthcare. But what’s the unifying principle that ties all health moonshots together and makes collaboration work? How do we create global solutions that deliver on the promise of access to quality care for all, no matter who you are, where you live, or how much money you have? 

WE BELIEVE THE ANSWER IS DIVERSITY 

Simply put, if we are going to make transformative progress in solving the great health challenges of our time, in the name of greater health for all, then the only answer that makes sense to us is to infuse new frameworks of health equity into the fabric of the health moonshots we are working to achieve. We need more diversity in thinking, a deeper understanding of the problems we are trying to solve, and networks that extend far beyond the closed loops and processes that currently dominate the market. This means we must dramatically accelerate the number of innovators focusing on solving health challenges with the lens of health equity in mind. And this means we must inspire, educate, and invest in exponentially more founders from historically marginalized backgrounds. To speed up progress, we need more founders who are women, more founders representing people of all races and backgrounds, and more diverse investors, boards, and advisors; and we need to unite as an ecosystem so that together we can build and scale transformative solutions for the world far beyond what anyone has created so far. 

HEALTH EQUITY AS A FOUNDATIONAL LAYER FOR HEALTH MOONSHOTS 

At StartUp Health, we have always backed founders from a diverse array of backgrounds and spanning 29 countries to date and we are proud that health equity has always been infused into our mission of transforming global health. We've done so because it's the right thing to do, and because it's good for business. According to research, teams with greater diversity have higher revenue, better margins and higher quality patient care. Yet, with global health outcomes getting worse, not better, it’s too clear that way more progress is needed. Which is why in September, we announced StartUp Health’s Health Equity Moonshot, at the Clinton Global Initiative specifically to reshape our health system and innovation ecosystem to be more fair and just in the name of greater health for all. What’s different about this health moonshot, which is being led by KP Yelpaala, a long-time Health Transformer in StartUp Health, is that we are designing its frameworks holistically into the fabric of all of our health moonshots from the ground up. We are looking backwards and forwards so that we can be intentional, long-term in our approach, and provide 360-degree support for underrepresented founders and patients around the world. This is a way of thinking for us that will last a lifetime and impact everything we do as a company. 

StartUp Health’s vision for achieving health moonshots – solving big audacious and seemingly impossible health challenges – has always been driven by our belief that transformational progress is most effectively driven through collaboration and leveraging the power of network effects to speed up impact. Our premise is that by uniting a global army of Health Transformers and marching together, we can accomplish even the most complex missions. For more than a decade, we have used this model to focus on a broad list of integrated health moonshots ranging from Access to Care to Curing Disease to Mental Health to Longevity. After more than 400 investments, and years of working with a vast network of stakeholders, we’ve learned a lot. It turns out, the hard part in this plan is not in defining big goals, or inspiring the world’s most extraordinary innovators to action, or even advancing technology or science. The biggest opportunity is in breaking down silos and driving a level of collaboration the world too rarely sees. For too long the forces and funds needed to address the greatest health challenges of our time have been separated, and often competing. Yet at the core, collaboration is essential to achieving any moonshot. Collaboration sounds good, but in practice it isn’t easy. We all know this from our day to day lives. Take any large group, and it’s not long before basic decisions and simple tasks start to take longer than necessary. Conflict often ensues. Transformational progress is stunted. The clear-eyed reality is that the vast industry of healthcare is driven by competition, and what’s disturbing is that the system’s core business models and incentive structures are often at odds with what we believe should be the ultimate goal of keeping people healthy and well. Today, the baseline in the world of healthcare can be summed up as fragmented, complex, confusing and competitive. Not exactly fertile ground for innovation to thrive. That’s why we are steadfast in our belief that what’s needed more than ever is to double down on the equation that has defined StartUp Health from the beginning: Health Transformers x The Network Effect = The Transformation of Health. Our biggest learning, however, is that to really break down silos that are slowing progress we must go deeper into our health moonshot framework by uniting disparate (and sometimes competing) stakeholders from patients and families to caregivers, clinicians, entrepreneurs, scientists, industry, investors, governments, foundations, and donors. To date we’ve done this broadly in an effort to cross-pollinate thinking and wisdom across health moonshots. Now we must go deeper to connect and align stakeholders within each moonshot.

A mission control to guide collaboration and drive deep impact If the first required element is to foster meaningful collaboration in order to achieve health moonshots then you need an organizing platform to set the targets, manage the process, and ultimately simplify and unite the fragmented pieces. Over the past decade we have built one global mission control (StartUp Health’s global platform and community) to chart this course and make tremendous impact. Now it’s time for us to expand by going deep which is why we are launching a family of dedicated health moonshots each united by a specific mission, driven by their own impact board, and fueled by aligned partners. We will supercharge our efforts by supporting even more entrepreneurs and innovators through these dedicated health moonshots, and work toward bridging the gap that still exists between R&D and commercialization so we can deliver innovation to the world in a direct and tangible way. Too many good ideas are still trapped on the shelf or locked up in a lab. And too many parties are still marching forward alone. We intend to change that.

Starting with a dedicated moonshot for Type 1 Diabetes to demonstrate this approach to dedicated health moonshots, we are starting by launching a focused 25 year mission to prevent, manage, and cure Type 1 diabetes (T1D). Soon we will follow with the launch of a dedicated Alzheimer’s Moonshot with many more to follow. With the launch of the T1D Moonshot, StartUp Health will leverage its same global platform, yet lean in with a dedicated fund to support a generation of solutions developed across academia, nonprofit, and commercial environments and be built on a level of collaboration that the world hasn’t seen before. We’ve started this mission by assembling a world-class T1D Moonshot Impact Board that unites patients, caregivers, industry leaders, entrepreneurs, scientists, funders, and innovators from many groups who have already made tremendous impact and contributions to T1D. For the first time, these leaders will all be sitting on the same Impact Board, aligned by the same health moonshot mission. Together we will combine the energy of passionate entrepreneurs with the world’s top investors and institutions who care deeply and are aligned on the same global impact metrics. StartUp Health’s T1D Moonshot builds on a series of investments StartUp Health has already made in the diabetes space more broadly and we are proud to share that the Cecelia Health, founder David Weingard, who has been a Health Transformer in our community for many years will serve as Chief Impact Officer of the T1D Moonshot. This launch of dedicated health moonshots is also an invitation to all stakeholders and funders who can fuel more health moonshot missions with us. If you believe in a collaborative, global approach to solving big audacious health challenges like preventing, managing and curing T1D or eradicating Alzheimer’s, we want to meet you. Email us at moonshots@startuphealth.com. To partner with us on the Type 1 Diabetes Moonshot, email T1D@startuphealth.com.

One of the most exciting developments in health innovation is the growing wave of startups emerging from dozens of new health hubs around the world. We’ve worked to accelerate this trend over the past decade by making investments in Health Transformers spanning 27 countries and six continents; from Helsinki to São Paulo, we are thrilled that more Health Transformers are starting local, then going global. In the After-Covid world, we see an extraordinary opportunity to exponentially accelerate this global impact. When we launched StartUp Health in 2011, not only did we see the pressing need to transform health across the US, we realized there was no one responsible for the transformation of health at global scale. No government, company, or foundation was focused on organizing long-term global collaboration to solve the most universal human challenge of all: how to improve the health and wellbeing of all people, everywhere. We soon realized that the only way to do so was to help build a global ecosystem to focus on this challenge. Our health moonshot vision was born and ever since we’ve been organizing Health Transformers to solve big health challenges that impact billions of people. With 7.5 billion people in the world – most with limited or no access to quality care – creating solutions to address the health of humanity is a moral imperative. What’s so striking however, is how few investors yet realize how big of an opportunity it is to think exponentially and systemically about the health impact that can be made at global scale. Some of the world’s wealthiest families have pledged fortunes to solving important global challenges and there are governments, foundations, and NGOs tackling pieces of the puzzle for sure. But judging by the still nascent institutional funding for earlystage healthcare startups in global markets, too few investors seem to have assessed the tremendous opportunity to invest globally. We plan to help change this dramatically over the next decade. Healthcare is, of course, regional; and in terms of fundamentals like regulatory process, business models, and care delivery realities, locality certainly matters. But as we have seen in other industries facing complex challenges from banking to mobile, it’s possible to leverage technology, rethink business models, and deliver essential value in order to leapfrog legacy systems and solve big problems. Using this playbook – across the world – let’s do the same for healthcare and accelerate global impact.

We have always believed that when it comes to great startup founders, 1+1=3. When people are united with purpose, passion and mindset, a magical fusion occurs that makes exponential progress possible. Whether it’s Ed and Todd Park, the brothers who founded Devoted Health; or Iyah Romm, Dr. Toyin Ajayi, and Bay Gross, who lead Cityblock; or our investors like Esther Dyson and Lee Shapiro; or any of the 1,000+ entrepreneurs and investors in our growing global army of Health Transformers, we are stronger together. For a decade we have shared a simple equation, core to our philosophy from inception at StartUp Health, to describe our unique model: Health Transformers (Mobilized to Achieve Health Moonshots) x The Network Effect = The Transformation of Global Health. We see that when a whole community of Health Transformers march together to solve common challenges, success is more likely – and exponential progress begins to add up to something more impactful. To us, that something is improving the health and wellbeing of billions of people by solving the world’s most challenging health goals we call health moonshots. People can achieve extraordinary feats on their own, but it’s rare. To go it alone is slow, and to be honest, doesn’t look very fun. We know from our own experience as business partners for nearly 25 years, through multiple ventures, that the entrepreneur’s journey is long, with constant ups and downs, often in the same day. It’s our partnership, and the relationships and communities around us, that accelerate us forward and give us energy. There’s great strength in numbers, and when organized meaningfully, the compounding effect is transformational. That is why we will never stop working to unite and mobilize all entrepreneurs, investors and collaborators from around the world, who care as much as we do about achieving health moonshots. We hope you will join us too.