This AI Founder Became A Billionaire By Building ChatGPT For Doctors
For doctors trying to stay abreast of the latest medical breakthroughs, reviewing the latest research is like being shot in the face with a water cannon. A new paper is published every 30 seconds. Trying to comb through it all to come up with a diagnosis or treatment plan that reflects the best current options while seeing 20 patients a day is a near-impossible task. “We talk about the golden age of biotechnology where there are new drugs and better drugs developed all the time. But it is like the dark ages for physicians because of burnout,” Daniel Nadler, cofounder and CEO of OpenEvidence, told Forbes. “There is this enormous firehose of information they need to stay on top of, and the human brain is limited in its capacity to read millions of studies.” So Nadler, 42, a Harvard Ph.D. who sold his previous company for $550 million back in 2018, set out to solve the problem with artificial intelligence. Now, the startup’s proprietary algorithms search millions of peer-reviewed publications, including in top journals like the New England Journal of Medicine and the Journal of the American Medical Association, to help doctors find the best answers fast, with full citations to papers so doctors can read more for themselves. The software is free for verified doctors to use and makes money through advertising–much like Google does. “I think OpenEvidence looks like it’s going to be for healthcare what Google was for the Internet,” said Kleiner Perkins billionaire chairman John Doerr, who invested in the company personally as well as through his firm, adding, “It’s the free-for-physician model that’s the magic here.” Since its founding in 2022, Miami-based OpenEvidence has signed up 40% of doctors in the United States, or more than 430,000, and is adding new ones at a current rate of 65,000 per month. Its revenue from advertising is now coming in at an annualized rate estimated at $50 million. That’s not huge, but thanks to the software’s rapid adoption, investors are betting big: OpenEvidence has raised $210 million led by GV (Google’s venture arm) and Kleiner Perkins at a valuation of $3.5 billion, up from $1 billion at its last financing in February, Nadler told Forbes. Other storied VC firms like Coatue, Conviction and Thrive Capital also invested. The new investment makes Nadler, who owns roughly 60% of the company, a billionaire, with a net worth that Forbes estimates at $2.3 billion. Cofounder Zack Ziegler, the company’s 30-year-old chief technology officer, owns some 10% of the business, worth about $350 million. Nadler was able to hold on to such a large stake by being its first seed investor, putting in some $10 million of his own money before raising any VC funding. “One of the great things about being a second-time entrepreneur is, I’m not an idiot,” Nadler said. “I think the second thing is going to be bigger than the first so maybe the first $10 million should come from me. That’s by far the smartest financial decision I made in my life…..I wanted to bet on myself.” The problem OpenEvidence is addressing is enormous, and one that’s only getting bigger. Medical literature is proliferating at a meteoric rate—doubling in size every five years—as new treatment options like gene therapies are developed and scientists learn more about how different diseases and drugs may interact with each other. Sorting through all of it is a herculean task: some papers are excellent, some are bad and many more are outdated. (With AI being used to publish and review research papers, the problem has only gotten worse.) Meanwhile, physicians in the United States are increasingly strapped for time, given a growing shortage of medical professionals—creating an opportunity for startups to build technology that can help provide better care and relieve pressure on doctors. “When everyone was scrambling to come out of crypto, I was like, ‘I am just going to run circles around all of you.’”Daniel Nadler, cofounder and CEO, OpenEvidence OpenEvidence isn’t the first company to try to make sense of the overload of medical publications; Wolters Kluwer’s UpToDate has been around for decades and has recently been incorporating AI, along with advice from experts, to do the same thing. But it is the first to build software that integrates AI from the start to make it easier for doctors to find answers to pressing clinical questions and to do so far more accurately than ChatGPT. Doctors now use OpenEvidence on some 8.5 million consultations a month. Because the tool isn’t considered diagnostic, it doesn’t need FDA approval as algorithms used to detect strokes or sepsis in patients do. And since doctors can download it or use it online for free, it can bypass the lengthy and bureaucratic procurement process with hospitals or large group practices. That’s helped the company sign up doctors at an ever-faster clip. Dr. Susan Wolver, an internist in Richmond, Va., has become a true believer, using OpenEvidence to write prior authorization letters and look up details of drugs. Most dramatically, while she was on a domestic flight recently, an immunocompromised passenger nearly fainted in the bathroom. Wolver turned to OpenEvidence to figure out the patient’s immune-system risks and come up with a treatment plan on the spot. “I don’t think a day goes by when I don’t use it,” she said. Nadler grew up in Toronto where his parents were part of the great wave of post-war Eastern European immigrants–his father from Romania and his mother from Poland. “My grandfather was in Auschwitz and survived,” he said. “After the second world war, my grandfather wanted to come to America, and America wasn’t letting people in so they made their way to Canada.” As a kid, Nadler was competitive to a fault, dabbling in memory games to see whether he could recite more pages of a Hamlet soliloquy than a friend. “I was a total nerd,” he said. A Mensa member, he found school boring, and after getting a bachelor’s degree at the University of Toronto, applied to Harvard for grad school, hoping for a greater challenge. Once there, he got a Ph.D
Investidores da Meta e Zuckerberg Chegam a Acordo sobre Julgamento de Privacidade do Facebook
Mark Zuckerberg e os atuais e ex-diretores e executivos da Meta chegaram a um acordo nesta quinta-feira para encerrar o litígio que pede US$ 8 bilhões por danos que eles supostamente causaram à empresa ao permitir repetidas violações da privacidade dos usuários do Facebook, disse um advogado dos acionistas a um juiz de Delaware na quinta-feira. As partes não revelaram detalhes do acordo e os advogados de defesa não se dirigiram à juíza, Kathaleen McCormick, do Tribunal de Chancelaria de Delaware. McCormick suspendeu o julgamento no momento em que ele entrava em seu segundo dia e parabenizou as partes. O advogado dos autores da ação, Sam Closic, disse que o acordo foi fechado rapidamente. O investidor bilionário Marc Andreessen, que é réu no julgamento e diretor da Meta, estava escalado para testemunhar na quinta-feira. Acionistas da Meta processaram Zuckerberg, Andreessen e outros ex-executivos da empresa, incluindo a ex-diretora de operações Sheryl Sandberg, na esperança de responsabilizá-los por bilhões de dólares em multas e custos legais que a empresa pagou nos últimos anos.
Meta e Executivos Fecham Acordo em Processo Bilionário sobre Privacidade no Facebook
Decisão foi tomada no segundo dia do julgamento em Delaware; detalhes do acordo permanecem confidenciais Um processo movido por acionistas contra Mark Zuckerberg e outros nomes de alto escalão da Meta foi encerrado nesta quinta-feira (17) após um acordo entre as partes. A ação, que tramitava na Corte de Chancelaria de Delaware, buscava responsabilizar pessoalmente Zuckerberg, o investidor Marc Andreessen e ex-executivos da companhia, como Sheryl Sandberg, por perdas estimadas em US$ 8 bilhões devido a violações recorrentes da privacidade de usuários do Facebook. O julgamento, que havia começado recentemente, foi interrompido pela juíza Kathaleen McCormick, que reconheceu o encerramento amigável do caso e parabenizou ambas as partes. Os advogados de defesa não chegaram a se manifestar publicamente, e os termos do acordo não foram divulgados. Segundo o advogado Sam Closic, que representa os acionistas, o entendimento foi alcançado de maneira ágil. Um dos réus mais aguardados para depor nesta etapa era Marc Andreessen, membro do conselho da Meta. Os acionistas alegavam que os réus deveriam arcar com os custos de multas e despesas legais enfrentadas pela empresa — entre elas, a multa de US$ 5 bilhões aplicada pelo governo americano em 2019, por descumprimento de um acordo anterior com a Comissão Federal de Comércio (FTC), firmado em 2012. Os acusados sempre rejeitaram as acusações, classificando-as como exageradas. A Meta, que mudou de nome em 2021 e não era ré diretamente no processo, preferiu não se pronunciar sobre o desfecho. Os advogados dos réus também não comentaram até o momento.
