American healthcare is worth $4 trillion, which is five times the global advertising industry that makes up much of the revenue for four of the world’s current most valuable companies (Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon), Daisy Wolf and Vijay Pande wrote in a Nov. 11 Andreessen Horowitz blog post. All four Big Tech firms are trying to break into healthcare.
“Our bet is the future’s biggest company, the consumer health giant, won’t be one of today’s Big Tech or incumbent healthcare companies,” the investors wrote. “It will be a consumer-obsessed, healthcare-native tech company that reimagines what care can look like.”
They said the startup that becomes the world’s biggest company will be either a “‘payvidor,” a consumer-friendly payer/provider that eventually owns most of healthcare — imagine if UnitedHealth Group and Apple had a baby — or a firm that builds a “consumer marketplace or infrastructure layer that enables all other care delivery companies” — think a go-to retailer like Amazon or a trusted brand like Visa.
“A consumer health company will win by placing consumers first and ruthlessly building for them, while still taking into account the realities of payer and provider incentives,” Ms. Wolf and Mr. Pande wrote.
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