Why Healthcare Needs Its Own Foundation Models | Ortet Founder & CEO Kyunghyun Cho
One of the world’s leading AI researchers has big plans for healthcare. And Thoreau just committed $500 million to bring that vision to life.
This week, we are the first to sit down with Ortet founder and CEO Kyunghyun Cho to talk about the frontier AI lab for health. After helping shape some of the technologies behind modern AI and selling his last AI startup to Genentech, Kyunghyun is now taking on a much bigger challenge: building a foundation model that can learn across biological, clinical, and operational data to deliver predictably better care.
We cover:
Why healthcare needs its own foundation models, and the “cold start” problem he thinks it can solve
What Ortet plans to do differently from general-purpose AI companies
Why Ortet secured $500 million before it had even really gotten started
What buying AI compute and a lobster roll have in common
How KC’s own experience with cancer shaped his vision for more predictable healthcare
What Wall Street Gets Wrong About Healthcare | DaVita CEO Javier Rodriguez
Nearly 37 million Americans live with some form of kidney disease, and about 700,000 of them have progressed to kidney failure, a condition with no cure, only a treatment that takes over 12 hours of their week for the rest of their lives.
In this episode, we talk with DaVita CEO Javier Rodriguez about what it actually takes to keep hundreds of thousands of patients alive through dialysis, and what it’s like running one of the largest chronic care companies on the planet.
Can AI Finish What The Quality Revolution Started? | Bunkerhill Health CCO Dr. Azita Hamedani
For decades, healthcare's quality movement gave us checklists, forcing functions, and protocols to catch human error before it reached a patient. It worked, to a point. But as medical knowledge and patient complexity keep outpacing what any human system can track, a new question is emerging: can AI pick up where that movement left off?
In this episode, in her first interview since stepping into the role, we talk with Dr. Azita Hamedani, the newly appointed Chief Clinical Officer at Bunkerhill Health, an AI company backed by Sequoia and Khosla Ventures. After nearly her entire career in academic medicine, Azita made the leap to a startup chasing a promise she's been thinking about since medical school.
Anthropic’s Bet on the Future of Healthcare | Sarah Russell, MD
Sarah Russell picked up a phrase at her new job at Anthropic: a "non-regrettable primitive." It's how she describes the kind of infrastructure she thinks Anthropic should be building in healthcare, and it says a lot about how one of the most closely watched companies in health AI is positioning itself.
In this episode, Steve talks with Sarah Russell, healthcare and life sciences lead at Anthropic. This conversation comes as Anthropic heads toward what's shaping up to be one of the most anticipated IPOs in years.
From Early Struggle to Billion+ Exit | SmarterDx Founders Michael Gao & Joshua Geleris
We don't talk enough about how hard it actually is to build a healthcare startup. Behind SmarterDx's story, now one of the biggest health AI exits to date, were 18 months without a single customer, a pivot that seemed to make no product sense, and two co-founders who went back to working as hospitalists just to get by.
In this episode, Steve gets the real story from Dr. Michael Gao and Dr. Joshua Geleris about the challenges they faced and what ultimately unlocked real growth and led to their billion+ acquisition by New Mountain Capital.
Training Doctors for the Next 40 Years | Stanford University School of Medicine Dean Dr. Lloyd Minor
For our back-to-school episode, we sat down with Stanford University School of Medicine Dean Dr. Lloyd Minor to talk about how AI is already reshaping what future doctors learn and how they're taught, as well as what's still not working in American healthcare.
Why We Demand Perfect Machines Yet Tolerate Human Carnage | Dr. Jonathan Slotkin
Every day, roughly 100 Americans die in crashes caused by human drivers. Yet when a self-driving car hesitates at an intersection or makes the news for an unusual mistake, public trust can evaporate. In this special episode, Dr. Jonathan Slotkin reads his latest Noema essay exploring why we demand perfection from machines while accepting human error as inevitable. Drawing on lessons from medicine, psychology, and autonomous vehicles, he argues that the biggest barrier to safer technology is trust.
Shareholder Primacy Is Breaking Healthcare | Eric Ries
This week, Halle sits down with Eric Ries, author of Incorruptible, to unpack the rise of shareholder primacy, what it is, and why he believes it's at the root of many of society’s biggest challenges. They discuss the surprising history of corporate governance, the lessons behind Novo Nordisk's century-long success, and what founders can do today to keep their companies aligned with their mission as they grow.
Can AI Build the First New Pharma Giant in Decades? | Formation Bio CEO Benjamine Liu
Over the last decade, the number of drug candidates entering development has doubled, yet the number of successful drug approvals remains flat at ~50 per year.
This week, we sit down with Formation Bio founder and CEO Ben Liu. His company has raised more than $600 million to build what he hopes will become the first new enduring pharmaceutical company in decades, powered by AI. Ben explains why he believes clinical development, not drug discovery, is becoming the industry's biggest bottleneck, and how AI could fundamentally change the economics of bringing new medicines to patients.
Building A Healthcare Unicorn In Three Years | Assort Health Founders Jeff Liu and Jon Wang
They built a $1.2 billion healthcare AI company in under three years, but they say the hardest part of healthcare AI isn't the AI.
This week, Halle sits down with Assort Health co-founders and co-CEOs Jeffery Liu and Jon Wang, whose company reached a $1.2 billion valuation in under three years. They discuss why building great healthcare AI takes far more than good models, how they scaled from 15 employees to nearly 250 in a year, and what they've learned from more than 190 million patient interactions. They also share why voice AI is harder than it looks, how they're thinking about building durable moats in the age of foundation models, and why helping patients navigate the healthcare system may be one of AI's biggest opportunities.
Healthcare’s Oppenheimer Moment | Eric Larsen
Back by popular demand, 3x Heart of Healthcare guest Eric Larsen joins Steve to answer listener questions on healthcare's AI revolution. Drawing on the ideas behind his latest essay, Healthcare's Oppenheimer Moment, Eric argues that healthcare may be approaching a once-in-a-generation inflection point, and discusses what leaders need to understand before it's too late.
What Healthcare Can Learn From Waymo | Qualified Health CEO Dr. Justin Norden
Autonomous vehicles may be the closest real-world example of AI operating in life-and-death situations at scale. Justin Norden believes healthcare has a lot to learn from how that industry approached safety, testing, adoption, and trust.
This week, Michael and Halle sit down with the founder and CEO of Qualified Health, fresh off the company’s $125 million Series B, to discuss why healthcare organizations need to think differently about deploying AI. Justin shares how his experience at Stanford, Apple, Waymo, and in healthcare investing shaped his view that health systems need AI infrastructure, governance, and workforce buy-in, not just another point solution.
Investing in “Whole Person Care” | Lance Armstrong
Most careers don’t follow a straight line. But few require starting over in full view of the public.
This week, Halle sits down with Lance Armstrong to discuss how he rebuilt his life and career after multiple turning points, including surviving advanced cancer, and how those experiences shape his approach to life. Now he invests in health and wellness companies through his VC firm Next Ventures, backing new approaches to “whole person care”.
How AI Will Finally Make Healthcare Deflationary
AI in healthcare may be entering a new chapter, one where the biggest question is no longer whether the technology works, but who is willing to deploy it, measure it, and take responsibility for the risk.
This week, Steve sits down again with Eric Larsen to revisit his predictions from last year’s Webby-winning episode on generative AI in healthcare. Eric argues that the first wave of AI has been inflationary, reinforcing the old payer-provider payment model, but that the next wave could be deflationary as automation moves into revenue cycle, administrative work, clinical reasoning, and drug development. They discuss why incumbents still have a narrow window to co-develop the future, why clinical AI may move faster outside the US, and why liability may become the deciding factor in who wins.
What It Takes To Scale Care With AI | Akido Labs CEO Prashant Samant
Medicaid reimbursements are shrinking, providers are pulling back, and vulnerable populations are losing access to care. Akido Labs is betting that AI can expand care capacity fast enough to reverse that trend.
This week, Halle sits down with Prashant Samant, co-founder and CEO of Akido Labs, to discuss what it actually takes to scale care with AI. They explore why Akido built a full-stack healthcare company, how its AI operates inside real clinical workflows, and why the hardest patients are the best place to test whether this model works.
Is ChatGPT Now The World's Largest Health App? | OpenAI VP of Health, Nate Gross
Forty million people use ChatGPT for health-related questions every day, making it one of the most widely used tools for health information in the world. So what is their team doing to maximize impact and minimize harm?
In this full circle episode, Halle Tecco sits down with her Rock Health co-founder Nate Gross, who also co-founded Doximity (DOCS) and is now VP of Health at OpenAI. They discuss the astonishing speed of AI progress, how models are trained for safety and accuracy, and what this technological evolution means for every part of the healthcare system.
The Chaos Of Drug Pricing | GoodRx CEO Wendy Barnes
Nearly one billion prescriptions are abandoned at the pharmacy counter every year, often because patients are blindsided by the cost.
This week, co-host Halle Tecco is joined by Wendy Barnes, President and CEO of GoodRx, to discuss the chaos of prescription drug pricing, the murky world of Pharmacy Benefit Managers (PBMs), and how digital tools are changing patient affordability. They break down the layered system of manufacturers, payers, and pharmacies that creates inconsistent pricing, and explore the current push for greater transparency.
Building a Health System for “Customers” | Baylor Scott & White Health CEO Pete McCanna
Pete McCanna, CEO of Baylor Scott & White Health, believes that health systems are built around the wrong objective… and he has an ambitious goal to change that.
This week, Halle sits down with McCanna to unpack how one of the largest and most successful health systems in the country is shifting from a supply-driven model to one built entirely around the customer. They discuss why legacy systems operate like “walled castles,” what it takes to redesign care around real conditions instead of departments, and how Baylor Scott & White is testing a model that prioritizes access, personalization, and long-term trust over short-term profit.
The Drugstore Cowboy | C.O. Bigelow Owner & Pharmacist Alec Ginsberg
Last year, his independent pharmacy spent $13 million on brand-name drugs for patients processed by the three biggest Pharmacy Benefit Managers (PBMs) which earned a profit margin of 0.01%.
In this episode, Halle speaks with Alec Ginsberg, owner and fourth-generation pharmacist at C.O. Bigelow, the oldest surviving apothecary–pharmacy in the United States. Alec is fighting against the forces squeezing independent pharmacies and charting a course for the future of the pharmacist.
Where Healthcare Policy Is Headed | Chief Counselor at HHS, Chris Klomp
Chris Klomp, Director of Medicare and Deputy Administrator of CMS, and Senior Advisor to HHS Secretary RFK Jr., has big ambitions to reshape how healthcare works in the United States.
This week, Steve sits down with Klomp to discuss how his experience as a digital health entrepreneur is guiding his current role overseeing a roughly $2 trillion department. Klomp shares the government's strategy for restoring trust between providers and payers, driving down costs, and addressing a system where approximately 90% of healthcare dollars are still spent in a fee-for-service arrangement.