Venkat Mocherla
speaker
203 appearances
2 recordings
1 series
first heard Jan 2025
last heard Feb 2025
Venkat Mocherla’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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I think there's actually a lot of thought that these systems are doing in What are they open for and what are they closed for? And I think that, I think also will accelerate a lot of this.
I have not. I mean, most of my career has been focused on care delivery and not as much in the life sciences. But all I could say is, you know, Marty McCary, the new FDA commissioner, you know, is very thoughtful and open around new technologies and innovators and entrepreneurs. So I actually think, for what it's worth, that at least from this particular angle set,
There's a ton of intentionality and thought and openness from what I've heard and seen from the outside in. There are others, for example, my friend Suchi Saria has been focused on, there's a group of advisors in thinking about AI implications for the FDA, others that have been successful there. So I would not comment for more than that.
Yeah, I mean, this is an incredibly important pillar of, I think, being successful for us at Midstream. We take it incredibly seriously. I just think that this is sort of a binary thing. I think either you take security, privacy, seriously, or you just don't belong in the business.
And so I think, look, I think maybe 10 years ago, five years ago, you know, you could come to a health system and, you know, talk to them about all sorts of solutions and not take this seriously. They are so much more sophisticated now in their governance and their privacy and how they think about cybersecurity, because this is one of those events that, you know,
will fundamentally change the way that they're perceived in the market. And so I think Scott, making security and governance a core part of this, one of the first key employees, teammates we got to hire is somebody who is a security expert from GitHub. And I think it's a very important part of this. The other thing I will just sort of say is that
I think we are fooling ourselves if we don't understand the data governance and data security processes as part of the broader sales cycle for entrepreneurs. And so I think actually what I suggest and advise entrepreneurs is getting ahead of this. Even when you've had, for example, your first meeting to share your idea, actually proactively welcoming
conversations with their security and governance teams and saying, we actually prescriptively have a viewpoint on this. You know, we want to answer as many questions as possible. You know, they have a standard security questionnaire, et cetera, kind of getting ahead of it versus, you know, sort of what tends to happen is people when they think last minute,
There's no last minute anymore inside of health systems. This is front and center. And this will kill not just, you know, will stall your deal. This will kill your deal if they don't perceive you as as somebody who's extremely competent in this. And so I and this is one where, frankly, the incumbents have tremendous advantages because
you know, people trust, you know, the IT teams trust Epic, they trust Workday, they trust Oracle. And so this is one where companies like ours have to go even harder to talk about some of the advantages we have over legacy technology companies.
Yeah. I, you know, the thing, the advice I always give entrepreneurs, including I give this to myself and others I've been fortunate, either I've been invested in or mentored, which is the equation first you have to think through on this is first is the market and the customers. Second is the team. And third is the capital. And so, you know, when you think about
Does the customer fundamentally want what you're selling and what you're making? Do you have that proof point? And do you have the best team you could find? Everyone doesn't have access to the same people, but whatever team that you could go build for solving this particular customer set, if those two are a slam dunk, Scott, every investor in the world would want to invest in you.
And so that's just a... like a sort of a high level advice I always have, because so often entrepreneurs are so excited, which makes sense to get that term sheet. They want the term sheet from, you know, the top tier investor, Andreessen, whatever it is. And they go for that versus what is the substance of what you're making, who you're selling to and who's your team?
Just if you focus on that support, the thing about incubators, accelerators, et cetera. And by the way, I think Y Combinator is world class at what they do. I think it's just not for everyone. That's the one caveat, which is that I think in healthcare, it takes a village, I think like I was saying, to be successful.
And if you're gonna go build a software for health systems, well, having the right angel investors on your cap table might be more helpful than having, who have successfully navigated health systems might be more helpful than having an incubator or an accelerator. The other thing you have to be really thinking about is like the equity exchange you're having.
I think Y Combinator is quite fair in what they do. I think it's 7%. But I've seen some really high equity asks. So being thoughtful of that. I do think Y Combinator has done a good job of becoming a phenomenal brand for investors to come to. But it's no guarantee that just because you went to one of these programs, you're going to get downstream financing. And so my...
Again, I go back to some fundamentals that are simple. Are you focused on making the right thing for the right customer set? And then do you have the right team? And then obviously, look, I'm not going to discount how hard it is to network. If you're not in Silicon Valley, if you're not in New York, if you're not in one of these core markets, these are relationships. You've got to build them.
You've got to network.
The one thing I'll sort of say, Scott, is that I think that entrepreneurs also have to understand that funds and investors come in all sizes. So if you talk to a multi-billion dollar fund, they want to make sure that if they underwrite your investment, that you're a multi-billion dollar outcome.
So if you're a billion dollar fund and they're going to invest in you and they own whatever, a fifth of your business, you better be a $5 billion outcome as, as sort of whatever IPO exit, et cetera, versus going to a $300 million fund or a $50 million fund.
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