Wait, What’s This DOC Thing You’re Doing?!

An old friend asked me what I was up to the other day, and despite two years having passed since I started getting that question (here’s my first post on the subject), I realized I’ve not made much progress on a concise answer. Usually I’ll list the various projects that currently fill my day – working on the P&G Signal conference, trying my best to be a good board member at a number of media, tech, and data companies, managing various investments, and running a new health event I co-founded last year called DOC. 

“Wait,” my friends invariably ask. “Why are you involved in a health project?!”

It’s a fair question. DOC is the eighth company I’ve had a hand in starting, but the first in the health category. It’s something of a left turn in a career that started with covering Apple as a reporter during its Macintosh heyday. That led to an obsession with the impact of digital technology on society, which led to Wired in the early 90s, The Industry Standard in the late 90s, The Search (and this blog) in the early 2000s, and covering (and participating in) the resurgence of the web, social media and digital advertising from 2004 – 2014 (Web 2 Summit, Federated Media, and Sovrn). By then, I was starting to become skeptical of tech’s power, so I started a company that identified and celebrated mission-driven startups (NewCo – 2013-2019). 

Disillusioned with the increasingly oligarchical tech culture of the Bay Area, I moved to New York in 2018. I promised myself I’d not start another company, and took a full time teaching and research role at Columbia University, focusing on the architecture of data in society. But the startup bug hit me one final time. With its focus on politics, The Recount was a bit of a detour from my tech-driven career path, but it was consistent with my work as a journalist and my writings here, which were increasingly concerned with how much political power technology companies were amassing. 

It all made a certain amount of sense. But given that I keep getting questions about how DOC fits into my otherwise tech-heavy career,  I thought I’d revisit my post announcing DOC last year. Here’s an excerpt: 

Given I’ve spent most of my career thinking about the impact of the internet on society, you might be wondering why I’m wading into the world of health. The two industries are increasingly intertwined, and they share many of the same problems and possibilities. Over the past three decades I’ve observed that bad companies with great marketing often beat great companies with bad marketing, at least in the short term. This is due to two overarching trends: First, capital markets demand solutions at scale far faster than those solutions can actually be delivered. And second, we all want to believe the stories these companies are selling us. Remember Webvan, the celebrated startup that was going to deliver groceries to homes across the country? It took two decades for that promise to be met, but in a span of less than five years – 1997-2001 – Webvan raised nearly a billion dollars, went public, and filed for bankruptcy.

We’ve noticed a similar misalignment in the healthcare industry, particularly in longevity science.  Our economy is increasingly driven by an aging and wealthy population that is eager to be told what it wants to hear. While the science is remarkable, if not downright miraculous – stem cell therapies, targeted cancer therapeutics, mRNA vaccines, GLP-1s – they all face significant obstacles that limit their ability to scale. In the meantime, silver-tongued charlatans sell promises spun from tantalizing headlines, absent the rigors of scientific evidence. 

Instead of wringing our hands, at DOC we’re convening a tribe of scientists, technologists, and business leaders who are identifying and addressing the obstacles limiting good science from helping as many people as possible. DOC is anchored by an outstanding Faculty of top-tier researchers and clinicians who have developed some of the world’s most extraordinary advances in medicine and longevity. For three days this Fall, they’ll provide the foundation for a fast-paced, highly engaged dialog where every participant is also a conversant. Those conversants include world-renowned financiers, CEOs of global media and communications companies, tech product leaders, and founders and CEOs of high-growth healthcare, data, and AI firms. Topics we’ll be discussing include advances in neuroscience and cancer, the role of capital in healthcare, best practices in preventative health, and the information ecosystem driving our society’s understanding of longevity and medical science. 

DOC had an extraordinary launch in 2024 and is back this year. Once again, it’s an invitation-only gathering. If you’re interested in joining the movement, let us know!