Diversity Is the Way
StartUp Health founder letter #10
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.