Orbit - An Hg Podcast Hg

Time for a conversation with one of the greats.

As Professor of Finance and Economics at Columbia, former senior banker at both Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs, and currently Senior Advisor at Evercore Partners, Jonathan Knee’s thinking is held in high regard across the business world. His recent book, ‘The Platform Delusion’, dismantles the long-held belief that a platform business which provides connections rather than creating products is inherently valuable.

So how should we assess business quality in this new era of AI & platforms? Mr Knee outlines the fundamental drivers which haven’t changed in the face of new technology and applies them to assessments of Uber vs Airbnb, Etsy vs Amazon and, of course, how does this all relate to vertical software where we at Hg spend our time.

The advances in technology on the clinical side of healthcare were shown convincingly in the speed of our response to Covid and in the new discoveries and improvements we continue to see.

Covid may have also had a part to play on the administrative side - breaking down old habits and prompting the green shoots of innovation - but there is still a long way to go as legacy systems continue to be expensive, opaque and inefficient.

In both cases, there is a huge opportunity for new ideas, new entrants and new investment. This expands from the traditional centre to prevention and lifestyle change too.

Hg’s Nick Crowne speaks to Rod O’Reilly, a new advisor to the Hg team. Rod has been a leading figure in almost every aspect of the healthcare ecosystem for many years and is a strong advocate of change, disruption and the quest for greater affordability, access and outcomes.

After a year when the sudden leap forward of Gen AI and LLMs took almost everyone by surprise, it’s a good time to ignore the hype, take a step back and look at what we have.

Guido Appenzeller is a special advisor to a16z, a former CTO at Intel and VM Ware and a leading voice in the current wave of software and technology.

In part two of our conversation with Guido, we look at the ways the new generation of AI applications will effect the business world. How do you best capture the value of this wave, how to prepare for it and how to enable your teams to experiment from the bottom up.

After a year when the sudden leap forward of Gen AI and LLMs took almost everyone by surprise, it’s a good time to ignore the hype, take a step back and look at what we have.

Guido Appenzeller is a special advisor to a16z, a former CTO at Intel and VM Ware and a leading voice in the current wave of software and technology.

In part one of our conversation with Guido, we discuss where AI fits into the existing software universe, what phase 2 might look like, the potential limitations – regulatory and infrastructural - and what it means for developers when you have an additional fundamental system building block with which to work.

Always at the forefront of scientific progress, the world of healthcare continues to advance as technology and software are drawn in and adopted. But its uptake is uneven at best with some doctors having to cycle across cities with floppy discs in their bag while others experiment with artificial intelligence. With tightening budgets, the efficiency that comes with software and automation is vital but, in the world of healthcare, the ability to process and share results quickly can also mean the difference between life and death.

In this landscape, the job of a CIO is more and more important: ensuring that the potentially disparate elements of healthcare are connected, interoperable, well-equipped and staffed. Speaking to Hg's Dr Katherine Wiles, Kara Marx has been working at the crossroads of healthcare and technology for many years. Until very recently the CIO of Northern Arizona Healthcare, she has been perfectly placed to watch things evolve and take note of the difference between the rushing to adopt the latest tools and ensuring that each addition brings value to what are some of the most complex organisations on the planet.

The world of reinsurance may seem obscure to most of us, but it is an elemental ingredient vital in keeping the wheels of business turning. Insuring the insurers; managing the risk of those who manage ours and allowing them to react to the world with more agility. This is ever more important as covid has given way to increasingly frequent catastrophes, high inflation and disruptive world events.

Elliot Richardson, Vice Chairman of reinsurance challenger Howden Tiger, engages the head of Hg’s insurance team, Andrew Land, in a wide-ranging discussion: taking on the history of reinsurance, it’s pre-eminent affinity with data, the more recent application of technology, and the plan for Howden Tiger itself to take on the big three players dominating the industry.

Note: This episode was recorded in March 2023 and may include some time-sensitive statements.