Julie Yoo A16Z Talks Investment Career and Healthcare Focus

Julie Yoo is a General Partner at A16Z, focusing on healthcare investments.

She has over a decade of experience in the industry, having worked at firms like McKinsey and Biogen.

Her background in consulting and pharmaceuticals has given her a unique perspective on healthcare investments.

As a General Partner at A16Z, Julie is responsible for identifying and investing in promising healthcare startups.

Julie Yoo is a seasoned investor with a background in building and scaling companies.

She famously declared to her previous co-founder that she would never become a venture capitalist, but instead convinced him to jump to the operating side and build two companies together.

Julie Yoo became aware of the tremendous moment in the healthcare space and the evolution it had undergone since her company Kyruus started.

The a16z bio and healthcare team's recent fundraise made Julie Yoo decide to come onboard and take a more horizontal view of the industry's pockets of opportunity.

Julie Yoo would likely be starting another company if she hadn't joined a16z.

Julie Yoo, a16z's 17th general partner, is leading the firm's expansion into health tech. She's a perfect fit for the role, having co-founded Kryruus, a routing and scheduling platform for hospital systems.

Yoo has a strong background in computer science and life sciences, having earned an MS in genomics from Harvard-MIT HST and an MBA from MIT Sloan. She's also a Young Global Leader with the World Economic Forum.

The healthcare industry is ripe for disruption, with nearly every other industry having been digitized. Yoo believes healthcare is at a tipping point, where technology can finally make a significant impact.

As a former CEO and CTO of tech companies, Yoo brings valuable expertise to the a16z team. She's also worked with companies like CVS and Generation Health, giving her a deep understanding of the healthcare industry.

Yoo sees three big reasons why now is a great time to launch a health-tech company: providers have finished implementing electronic health record systems and need best-in-class solutions, healthcare providers need digital solutions to navigate the shift from fee-for-service to value-based care, and there's newfound opportunity to create direct-to-consumer business models.

Health-tech companies can find market opportunities by tracking regulatory changes, as Yoo suggests. She points to the example of Generation Health, which formed right when other companies were interested in using genetic testing to guide prescription drug choices.

The a16z health tech team has investments in companies like Devoted Health, BioAge Labs Apeel, and Freenome, which are working on innovative solutions in healthcare. Yoo's vision for health tech is to "software eat care delivery and everything that flows from that."

Scaling a startup can be a daunting task, especially when growth accelerates. The biggest struggle Kyruus experienced was optimizing communication and organizational processes.

Kyruus' CEO, Yoo, relied on advice from Ben Horowitz's book "The Hard Thing About Hard Things" to address these challenges. The book provided practical and tactical frameworks, such as the notion of communication architecture.

Delivering a message five times can be necessary for it to become internalized by team members and established in the company culture. This is a crucial aspect of scaling a startup.

At Andreessen Horowitz, a specialized team helps funded companies manage their growth. This team shares best practices on organization-building, bringing expertise and insight to their entire portfolio.

Scaling a startup requires a specific science to get growth right. It's not just about throwing resources at the problem, but about having a clear understanding of how to build and manage a successful organization.