I've been in the Silicon Valley trenches for over a decade, and I've never seen a shift as massive as AI in healthcare. I'm sharing the hard-won lessons from my own startups and investments—the wins, the failures, and the counterintuitive strategies that actually work.
The Reality Nobody Talks About
A lot of the advice on AI medical devices rests on assumptions that made sense five years ago. The world has moved on.
The first thing to understand is that your team matters more than your technology. I've seen this play out across dozens of companies. The pattern is unmistakable.
Many teams spend months on the wrong path before realizing that the best solutions are often the simplest ones. Once they make the switch, everything changes.
The Counterintuitive Truth
In AI medical devices, the best practitioners often do less, not more.
The lesson: timing is everything in this game. It sounds simple. It's incredibly hard to execute.
The Numbers Don't Lie
Investing early in AI medical devices can be the difference between raising your next round and running out of runway.
One of my portfolio companies went from struggling to profitable in under a year after they finally got serious about this. The founder told me later that they wished they'd started sooner.
This connects to broader themes around healthcare automation, AI radiology, medical AI, biotech AI, clinical AI that I've been thinking about a lot lately.
What's Next
Best practice in AI medical devices is changing fast. What worked last year might not work next year. That's both the challenge and the opportunity.
My advice: stay curious, stay humble, and stay close to the people who are actually doing the work. Read less thought leadership and do more experiments. Talk to fewer consultants and more practitioners.
If you're building in this space, the best time to get AI medical devices right is before you need to. Don't wait for a crisis to force your hand.
I'll keep sharing what I learn. This stuff matters too much to keep to myself.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q:What's the most common pushback you get on this?
People often push back by citing exceptions or edge cases. And they're usually right that exceptions exist. But building a strategy around exceptions rather than patterns is a losing game for most founders.
Q:How has this view evolved over time?
My thinking on most topics has changed significantly over the years. Early in my career, I held many conventional views that experience proved wrong. I try to update my beliefs when the evidence changes.
Q:What experience informs this perspective?
This perspective comes from over a decade of building companies in Silicon Valley, two successful exits (RemoteTeam to Gusto, MovieLaLa to Gfycat), and investing in 234 startups including Anthropic, OpenAI, and Scale AI. I write about what I've lived.
Q:Do all experts agree with this view?
No, and that's fine. The best ideas in business are often contrarian. I share my perspective based on my experience and data, but I encourage you to seek out opposing viewpoints and form your own conclusions.