What Would Lisa Suennen Say?
The basic problems facing the world today are not susceptible to a military solution. –John F. Kennedy Despite what JFK once said, it seems that the way our American culture faces into crises is by declaring war against the perceived perpetrator. Even when no guns are fired or troops deployed, we have adopted the language […]
Attention to health is life’s greatest hindrance–Plato Let’s just say you own a car. You have undoubtedly purchased insurance for the car and if you are diligent and worried about value and performance, you also are diligent about maintenance. You get the oil changed according to schedule, you fill it with the right kind of […]
On April 4, 2012, American Board of Internal Medicine (ABIM) together with 9 other leading physician societies launched the Choosing Wisely® program, which they describe as, “an initiative of the ABIM Foundation to help physicians and patients engage in conversations about the overuse of tests and procedures and support physician efforts to help patients make […]
I frequently am in a position to tell young companies that our firm is not ready to invest in them because their business model is, at least in the current world, overly dependent on consumers paying for the product or service being offered. While there are a few examples of successful consumer-pay healthcare companies, they […]
Mary Poppins, Disney’s most revered children’s expert, once sang, “A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down,” encouraging parents everywhere to mask bad taste in sugary sweetness in the best interests of their children’s health. “Living” back in 1910, the year in which the film was set, Mary Poppins could not yet have known […]
Last week there was a report about a patron of the Las Vegas-based Heart Attack Grill suffering a massive heart attack while consuming the restaurant’s famed “Triple-bypass Burger.” It would be funny if it weren’t so awful, but it is clearly the height of irony. I have written a few articles about the Heart […]
I was in Newport Beach last week to chair IBF’s Consumer Health and Wellness Innovation Summit. It was a very interesting event with about 100 people from many different segments of the health and wellness industry—a very eclectic crowd. There were people there from healthy food purveyors (Nestle, Kelloggs), provider organizations (MDVIP), health insurance firms (United […]
This week humorist Andy Borowitz sent out a Tweet on Twitter (I still feel like an idiot when I say Tweet with a straight face) which said, “Waiters say “Are you still working on that?” because Americans treat eating like a career.” As with all things Andy Borowitz, it was meant to be be funny […]
Xconomy, an extremely informative and smart web publication, today released a special Report on the Future of Education They compiled the content of the report by canvassing their Xconomists—whom they refer to as some of the world’s leading innovators, entrepreneurs, and investors—for their thoughts on what students should study to be prepared for the future. The […]
If you hired a lawyer who the world’s nicest office and excellent coffee in the lobby, but who lost the case for you every time, what would you think of that lawyer? How about if you hired a hairdresser who was always on time and had some great gossip for you when you sat in […]
Lisa Suennen is a venture capital investor and the managing partner of Venture Valkyrie, LLC, which publishes the Venture Valkyrie blog and co-produces the Tech Tonics podcast. She is also co-founder of CSweetener, a women's healthcare mentoring organization.