One thing that founding (as opposed to employee-ing) has taught me is what it feels like to lean into fighting a different fire (or eating a different flavor of shit sandwich) every single day. Over this last year I’ve explored a couple ways to cope with that craziness.

The more I learn about the risks he took, with kids, his elderly mother and his elderly grandmother (!) to care for, the more his success feels extra sweet. But there is an overlooked seed of his success, and that’s my mother-in-law — his hidden cofounder.

tldr - looks very different from a 9-5. It isn’t an overstatement to say that at this super nascent “day 0” stage, everything can FEEL eternally on the brink of life and death. But it’s been such a ride.

When you’re running a business that is trying to be a force for social good and financial good, please for the love of g*d don’t condescend to your end user. Please root for them instead.

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.

Tomorrow is the day that every women’s health / “fem-tech” (though I don’t prefer that word) organization will milk for all possible press value: International Women’s Day. Gird your loins, Linkedin! etc.