The art of gathering
Yesterday evening I got to learn about Stanford’s new Masters in Clinical Informatics program by sitting down to dinner with a couple of their class. Julia, one of the organizers, had somehow managed to coax management into offering a formal budget for informal dinners at True Food (food was great) so the class could chat with healthcare startup leaders.
I had a great time with awesome company and really good tomato soup, Also Stanford Mall has free and abundant parking at 7:30pm.
I was definitely not the smartest person in the room
A little bit about the MCiM program for anyone interested (I was):
1-year program: Really new - this year (2024) is the 3rd cohort ever, probably the first who ever did it in-person.
MBA for healthcare: But nothing like the random MPH programs any health tech person gets outreach for on Linkedin. Coursework spans strategy, leadership, the business of care, and actual care.
I asked So what is leadership and Ali replied Something something psychological safety
Supercommuters: A lot of the cohort are supercommuters because the classes are spaced out in 2 week increments. Some fly in from other states (as far away as Boston) to attend class, and then fly back - but many have realized a lot of the value is being on campus and so have moved.
This program wasn’t around when I was a student and I kind of wish I’d known about it or been able to take classes there as an undergrad.
Gory topics
The conversation flowed very naturally given there were a good number of founders and full-time students / employees at the table. All folks had spent varying amounts of time in industry.
Fundraising: __shall not be named__ and I spent some time trying to reverse engineer their AI company’s TAM for Series A fundraising starting soon. “Needs to hit $5-10B and we’re only at 1 and I’ve already added everything in”. (The struggle is real.)
Cannot run away from GTM: I talked a bit about designing for users VS the actual channel sales partners who will help you get to users, which was a great plug for Julia’s Out of Pocket course that she teaches.
Balancing school and work:
Ali is almost done with her biomedical PhD and has all this time been running a company, TINA healthcare, which took something she worked on in undergrad and brought it to market - wow.
(Another) Aly has a family across 2 countries and is CMO at a startup while supercommuting from Boston to Palo Alto every 2 weeks.
Sergii just got FDA approval for some sort of urinary incontinence device he’s been working on that is probably incredible, but when he described how it works to the table and got excited about the probe and the electric shocks everyone (understandably) winced and made him stop.
He said selling it without flinching would be the ultimate test for their new sales reps
Check Julia’s course out here. (Love the Y2K design - makes me feel mysteriously like playing snake on a nokia).
On bringing people together
In my previous post I reflected a little bit on the hidden labor it takes to host. I was talking to Julia afterwards about how much I appreciated her putting in the work to get this series going - also what great followership she and Audrey were role modeling given it is literally finals week of winter quarter (which anyone knows is the roughest, shortest quarter).
She recommended I check out The Art of Gathering by Priya Parker, which seems like a great read I’ll add to my kindle when I finally remember to charge it.
I in return gave her some warnings about a bar in Singapore she wants to hit up next week that has great views and pretty over-the-top concept, mediocre drinks. I’d say this was equivalent value exchange because drinks are serious business
Global citizenship
As expected from a graduate course at a large research university, students are very international. This is something I really miss about being in school / on Carrot’s former Global Solutions team.
I have come to realize how at home I feel alongside smart folks who straddle a few countries at a go, for whom a single country of origin is not the sole oyster of choice. Conversation flows differently and minds are more open. There are fewer assumptions, there is more careful listening, and there is just more consideration in every word and interaction.
I loved meeting -
Aly from Egypt who works with folks in the US, Egypt, and Switzerland, from Boston (prepositions galore)
Audrey from the Philippines, whose cousin is a cousin of my college roommate (the southeast asian connection is always real)
Sergii from Ukraine, who has lived a third of his life in Hong Kong (and is not Chinese)
Julia from Philadelphia, who is a US native but has had more recent travel under her belt than any other person I’ve met and we got to bond over watching our dads return to hometowns they hadn’t been back to in 40 years and what that was like.
There is no default accent in these circles and life feels simultaneously deeper and wider.
Stacking schedules
When I am down in the South Bay I try to consolidate meetings. Yesterday was no exception.
SF (home): Rush a bunch of work all happening at once
San Mateo: Hang out with Emma
Los Altos: Conduct user interview
Stanford: MCiM dinner chat
In between, I also had the joy of experiencing post-covid Bay Area traffic which is 100% back to pre-covid days.
It’s nice to be out and about in the real world again, and a weird “did that even happen?” throwback to think just a few months ago everything was shut down, folks were doing school remotely, conferences were online, Zoom uptime meant no one could work.
But it’s also nice to be productive in pajamas, and I’m always happy to be back home in our little apartment.
Bouquet for a new friend down the street, 3.5 y/o dog, and something like 50 y/o vintage womb chair
