What I learned this week. Wolves in sheeps clothes & herding the real thing (sheep not wolves). Can we build a tool to detect a wolf in sheep clothes for investors & bad actors w/ideas? It's like the definition of insanity. Tempus AI latest casualty. Even Vinod Khosla said “90% of VCs add no value to startups, 70% even harm them”. Rubén D.. Which brings me to the $53M snagged by Function Health, this one has to be different or it might break my spirit... I'm excited Mark Hyman, MD & Function Health but I'm equally terrified. Let's not lose the secret sauce during scaling. Healthspan not lifespan is the future, it's my jam. After 30 years in HC, we at BP2 Health are finally part of the creation of a healthcare system (vs. our sickcare system) - it's the moment. Let's not lose Function to the "nice to have", "worried well", inequity bucket. Andreessen Horowitz Casey Means, MD Pranitha Patil Seth Weisfeld Mike Nemke Blake Griffin Jay Shetty Jeff Dean Speaking of shepherding, I inadvertently did so in real life on Clint Brauer's farm to see #regenerativeag sheep and all at Greenfield Incorporated with their scalable solution to make regenerative farming attainable and poised to replace current broad scale farming methods and record our first On The Farm edition of The Reverse Mullet Healthcare Podcast. We can create a HC system based on the pillars of lifestyle w/access to regenerative food and reverse lifestyle disease. #foodishealth Erin Martin Carter Williams Katie Stebbins Martin Tull Have we finally learned our lesson about retail capital intensive clinics and the fact that primary sickcare doesn't work? Walgreens flushed $4.5b down the toilet from VillageMD CITYMD and according to their current stock price more like $9M while Tim Wentworth wisely positioned or cushioned himself for a massive future payday. Sergei Polevikov, ABD, MBA, MS, MA 🇮🇱🇺🇦 Jean-Luc Neptune, MD MBA. Meanwile Amazon seems to have gotten the message given their announcement of Amazon Clinic and One Medical under 1 brand with a prime rate of $27/mth for a family of 4 w/$0 telehealth Matthew Holt. Kurt Tamaru, M.D. great play by play of the abusrdity of sickcare primary care experience. And I personally tapped into my $0 telehealth benefit today to save myself from the pain and the $450 to hear what I assumed - kid should take tylenol. The debate, I can't. Apparently we beat Medicare vs. proclaiming to a national audience the HUGE win for seniors in drug pricing. DC will remain interesting Andrew Schwab Mara McDermott Speaking of DC, the Supreme court overturned the Chevron deference so actions by agencies like CMS will be under a microscope Noah Tong Sarah Covington Misty Snodgrass, MPA Sam Melamed BUT worried for the good work of CMMI Liz F. Ellen Lukens esp given recent hearings on the hill about lacking savings. C'mon everyone we have to start somewhere and right now everyone continues to favor dipping their toes in. But cold plunges work.
Joshua Anang
5mo
Has there ever been a sheep in wolf's clothing? :)
Sarah Covington
5mo
Let’s dive in! Chevron’s overruling will likely impact healthcare in a variety of decisions over the next few years. Everything from tax, to employment law, to OSHA, to FDA, to CMS, etc. is open to interpretation challenges.
Katie Stebbins
5mo
I did Function Health because for the money it is a no brainer- kudos to Mark Hyman, MD! I paid out of pocket way less for a ton of really useful data than I would otherwise. Wondering if HSAs will be the entry point to WellCare? If I could buy veggies and function pre-tax, that would be pretty cool!
Well said on Function Health, it’s great prevention is getting more airtime but honestly it’s helping a small minority while our population health continues to decline. The more I dig into it the more I’m convinced insurance isn’t the right model for routine healthcare financing. We need a different financing startegy and whoever models this will revolutionize healthcare equity.
Great weekly summary, as always, Ellen. I'm reading it like a novel before bedtime, although in all honesty, some of these news are serious and disturbing. For the $9 billion Walgreens' loss on VillageMD, I'll leave a link here for reference: https://sergeiai.substack.com/p/the-big-bath-of-tim-wentworth-or. The sad irony is that because of these poor and, I believe, unethical decisions by Walgreens' management, the entire century-old iconic company is now worth as much as they paid for VillageMD and CityMD just two years ago.
Sorry, Ellen, but now I'm confused. 😮 It seems you just lost 8-9 of your new organic followers to Biden and Trump! 😆 Can I help you get them back? You're far more interesting to follow than either of these guys, given the latest developments... 🤣
“C'mon everyone we have to start somewhere and right now everyone continues to favor dipping their toes in the water.” On the high dive Ellen Brown. Not better. Extraordinarily Different.
Brad Boa
5mo
Sell "sky"... it is falling
President at Datuit
5moI think we have to rely on ourselves to detect the wolves in sheep's clothing. Every time you create something to do that work for you, the wolves develop better, more effective sheep's clothing. We have to be smart and know our values so that we can avoid the traps. And we all have to be smarter so we don't get fooled by other wolves that don't use sheep's clothing but just use effective economic arguments that appeal to us, even if they don't really make sense.