Chris Altchek, Cadence CEO, on earning the right to deploy clinical AI

This week on Lifers, Christina Farr sits down with Chris Altchek, who went from investment banking to building Mic, a digital media company that reached 100 million readers, before co-founding Cadence, a health tech company now managing nearly 100,000 chronic disease patients per day. They dig into the hard lessons from media's platform-dependency collapse, what it really takes to build a sustainable business inside the US health system, and why Chris believes AI could make elite-level care accessible to far more Americans within a decade. Dive into the Granola notes from this episode:

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Join Christina for an upcoming webinar:
* ⁠5/19 - What will AI do for employer healthcare and benefits with Garner Health - https://streamyard.com/watch/sQfWpwRzMqWE 
* 5/21 - The case for building an AI native electronic health record system - https://streamyard.com/watch/RCVSNheSPePs 
* ⁠⁠6/3 - Privacy, AI & the future of HIPAA with the former founding director of ONC - https://streamyard.com/watch/bzW4sh8WAPyS 
* ⁠⁠6/23 - Not everyone can access the top 1% of physicians. Will AI change that? - https://streamyard.com/watch/qY9td6fhiXK3 

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SPONSOR: Granola
Granola AI, The AI notepad for people in back-to-back meetings: https://granola.ai/lifers with code: LIFERS
Interested in sponsoring the show? lifers@a16zstudios.com
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LINKS:
Chrissy Farr on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@LiferswithChristinaFarr 
Chrissy Farr on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cfarr/ 
Subscribe to the Second Opinion Newsletter: https://secondopinion.media/ 
Chrissy’s Book: The Storyteller's Advantage: https://www.chrissyfarr.com/books 

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FOLLOW:
Chris:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrisaltchek 
https://x.com/caltchek 

Chrissy:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/christinafarr/ 
https://x.com/chrissyfarr 

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TIMESTAMPS:
(00:00) Lead In
(00:58) Intro
(02:57) Early life and trading
(05:22) Investor mindset lessons
(09:22) Perseverance as founder
(14:35) Mic Media lessons
(18:53) Sponsor break
(19:46) Cadence origin story
(23:33) Business model and reimbursement
(28:30) Data and remote monitoring
(30:46) Winning health systems trust
(35:16) CMS Access model strategy
(39:25) Cutting inefficiency in care
(42:31) Clinical AI that matters
(45:27) Future of US healthcare
(48:35) Wrap