Jess Lam

You're listening to McKinsey on Healthcare, a podcast exploring the ideas and innovations shaping the future of the industry.

I'm Jess Lam, a partner in McKinsey's Healthcare Practice and within McKinsey's AI consulting arm, Quantum Black.

Today, I'm joined by Eric Larson, president of Towerbrook Advisors and a venture partner at Thrive Capital and SignalFire.

He's also president emeritus at the Advisory Board Company and a leading healthcare strategist, author, and advisor.

He recently launched his own podcast, Incumbents and Insurgents in Healthcare,

which brings together AI pioneers and healthcare leaders.

In today's episode, we'll be discussing the rise of generative AI, what makes this moment different from other waves of tech hype, and how leaders can prepare their organizations for the future.

So, Eric, welcome.

We've been talking a lot about how there's almost two different languages when it comes to the incumbents of the healthcare industry and then the new players, like the tech companies, the AI natives, or the insurgents, as I think you like to call them.

So your new podcast takes an interesting view of bringing these incumbents and insurgents together.

And I'm going to talk a little bit about that.

outside of that podcast recording studio.

How are you seeing these interactions going today?

Like what's driving the gap between these two entities?

That makes sense.

And by nature of me being a consultant in the healthcare industry, I naturally spend the bulk of my time with the incumbents.

You're getting to spend an increasing amount of your time with some of the luminaries in the tech world.

How do you see them approaching kind of these strategic decisions and actually just the healthcare industry broadly?

Along those lines, one of the things I love about our conversations, Eric, is that you are somehow simultaneously a deep expert in two things that I consider to be near opposites, technology and history.

So it kind of brings a very unique view.