Monthly Archives: June 2011

Striving for Obsolescence

Posted on June 30, 2011 by
retro

Well thank goodness. I have recently learned that I can be replaced by a piece of software.  Work has been pretty taxing lately, so this is quite a relief, as long as they keep paying me. Apparently there is a new data analysis product called Quid that is able to detect what sectors in a given industry are ripe for innovation and direct venture capital investors towards the best opportunities.   Since that is a key function of those in the venture capital biz, it is a relief to think that I can outsource it to someone (something?) who won’t bring their personal issues to the office or drink the last of the coffee without replacing the pot.

According to a recent article in Venture Capital Journal (excerpted in PE Hub), you can visualize Quid as follows:

But imagine plugging data into a computer, such as hiring trends and past rounds of funding for thousands of companies in a sector, and then having software that crunches the numbers and predicts what areas are untapped by startups and ripe for investment opportunities. That way, when a gung-ho entrepreneur walks in a … (read the rest)

Posted in Healthcare private equity, Healthcare Venture Capital, Private Equity, Uncategorized, Venture Capital, Women in Venture Capital & Private Equity | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

TMI, Dude!

Posted on June 26, 2011 by
Hopefully the tracking technology is improving!

If you are a baseball fan like I am, it is not unusual for you to spend time with your fellow sports fanatics comparing statistics.  A player’s batting average, on base percentage, runs batted in, earned  run average, home run stats and how those compare to their team mates’ stats–all fair game for friendly conversation.  The personal analysis of players’ worth doesn’t stop there, as each of them has their height, weight, age and home town displayed on the screen as they step up to bat.  Can you imagine if every time you went to work a big Jumbotron screen with all your vital statistics followed you around for all to see.  “Look, there’s Lisa on deck.  Man, she really is that short.”

Well, you might be horrified to think that the intimate descriptive details of your being might be published and used to compare your value to others, but there is a growing cadre of people who willingly do exactly that despite the complete impossibility that they will ever be found sliding into home plate. In case you have missed it, there is a burgeoning movement built around “self-knowledge … (read the rest)

Posted in Health and Wellness, Healthcare, Healthcare Information Technology, Healthcare private equity, Healthcare Venture Capital, Preventive Health, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

There’s Gold in Them There Healthcare Hills

Posted on June 21, 2011 by
The second coming of the gold rush?

Once upon a time in 1955, Fortune Magazine published its first Fortune 500 list, an annual list that ranks the top 500 U.S. public and private companies based on their gross revenue.   The original Fortune 500 was restricted to companies whose revenues were derived from manufacturing, mining, or energy exploration, although Fortune published some ancillary lists of the 50 largest commercial banks, utilities, life insurance companies, retailers and transportation companies.  Look closely at those early lists; the closest thing to a healthcare company that appears in the original Fortune 50, the top of the list, is Procter & Gamble.  I am not really sure what P&G’s primary brands were in 1955, but their claim to fame in healthcare currently includes toothpaste and tampons, not the “big stuff” such as pharmaceuticals, health insurance, medical devices or healthcare services/IT.

Procter & Gamble remained the only healthcare-ish company in the Fortune 50 until 33 years later in 1988, when Johnson & Johnson joined it on the list.  While there were a few companies that may have dabbled around the fringe of healthcare before 1988, such as Hewlett-Packard, healthcare has had a real … (read the rest)

Posted in Health and Wellness, Healthcare, Healthcare Information Technology, Healthcare private equity, Healthcare Reform, Healthcare Venture Capital | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

We’re From the Government; We’re Here to Help

Posted on June 16, 2011 by
door

Unlike many of my colleagues who got MDs or MBAs, my graduate school education was focused on political science–the study of political behavior to be exact.   I was a good portion of the way through a PhD program in this field when I started working in industry (high tech marketing at the time, not yet healthcare).  I was managing to balance the study of politics and the high tech marketing roles pretty decently, or so I thought until my graduate school advisor gave me an ultimatum:  quit the job and spend full time in the political science department researching and teaching or quit the program.

I remember thinking at the time that my odds of working in government were pretty low (too blunt) and that I wasn’t cut out for a life of public policy-making (too impatient), so I decided to leave the study of government and political behavior behind and dive full-time into the life of the private sector.  That was it, I figured:  political life over, business life here I come.

What a difference a couple of decades makes.

This week I attended two separate healthcare conferences.  The … (read the rest)

Posted in Health and Wellness, Healthcare, Healthcare Policy, Healthcare private equity, Healthcare Reform, Healthcare Venture Capital, Medical Devices, Women in Venture Capital & Private Equity | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Mad Libs: Venture Capital Edition

Posted on June 10, 2011 by
madlibs

Today it was announced that the inventor of Mad Libs, Leonard B. Stern, has died.   I hope you remember Mad Libs, the bound tablets that feature stories with key words strategically removed, left to be filled by silly adjectives, nouns, verbs and adverbs by willing kids and adults alike. If you are around my age (don’t ask) you may remember gleefully filling these in with dirty words when your parents weren’t around and laughing with your friends until you fell off the bed.  Hopefully you don’t remember that because it happened last weekend.

Anyway, according to his obituary, Leonard Stern invented Mad Libs when he was writing a script for the Honeymooners and was casting around for an adjective to complete a sentence. His colleague offered up “naked” and “clumsy,” making Stern laugh and setting off a cascade of events that may lead to Congressman Weiner’s undoing. So far, Mad Libs has sold over 150 million copies of it’s various versions and it’s still going strong more than 50 years after its invention. Now that’s a business.

Stern’s obituary really jumped out at me because literally two days ago … (read the rest)

Posted in Healthcare private equity, Healthcare Venture Capital, Random Thoughts of the Day, Uncategorized, Venture Capital | Tagged , , , , | 6 Comments

Your Cell Phone IS Trying to Kill You

Posted on June 8, 2011 by
Now that's a killer phone

Many people are talking about (or actively trying to ignore) the World Health Organization’s (WHO) recent declaration that cell phones might actually cause cancer.  WHO’s International Agency for Research on Cancer did a review of dozens of published studies on cell phones and cancer before classifying cell phones as “possibly carcinogenic.”  “Possibly carcinogenic” is a specific category that WHO uses to characterize medical risk; other categories include “probably carcinogenic,” “carcinogenic, “ or “probably not carcinogenic”.  Other things in the “possibly carcinogenic” category are night-shift work, engine exhaust and coffee.   Guess we know what that means?  I’ll die from coffee before the cell phone gets me.

Meanwhile, hospital leaders have for years taken extra precautions with cell phones, barring visitors and staff from carrying them into patient areas for fear that they might interfere with medical equipment and monitors. What they didn’t realize was that they had the right villain but the wrong crime, according to a study in the June issue of the American Journal of Infection Control.  Turns out that the real risk that cell phones present at hospitals is that they are chock full of bacteria, some of … (read the rest)

Posted in Health and Wellness, Healthcare, Healthcare Information Technology, Patient Safety, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Next Best Thing to Sliced Bread?

Posted on June 4, 2011 by
The $10 million sandwich

It is an oft-stated piece of conventional wisdom in venture capital that most investment firms will get 1 deal right and make a big return on it for every 4 or more they get wrong. In other words, you are lucky to see 20% of your investments make enough money to pay for the 80% of mistakes you made picking the others, plus a profit.  If that is true it means, of course, that the risk venture capitalists take by investing in seemingly wacky ideas needs to be covered by the sure bets (the things you can’t possibly lose money on) plus the little bluebirds that come from the wacky ideas you fund because well, who the hell knows, it just might work.

As I consider the announcement made this week about Sequoia Capital’s investment of approximately $10 million in a new start-up called The Melt, I note that it is tough to figure out which side of the risk profile ledger they are putting this one on.

The Melt is a new restaurant idea based on the idea that people just love themselves a good grilled cheese sandwich.  The … (read the rest)

Posted in Health and Wellness, Healthcare Venture Capital, Private Equity, Uncategorized, Venture Capital, Women in Venture Capital & Private Equity | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment