The Baby Boomers are now the Sandwich Generation, faced with taking care of their aging parents as well as their children. Executives in Silicon Valley are not immune to this development, but some of them have a different reaction to the challenge. In the spirit of “give a kid a hammer and the whole world looks like a nail,” many of these execs have left their corporate jobs to launch new ventures aimed at addressing some of the healthcare issues faced by the elderly and their caregivers.
In an article published by Reuters, author Christina Farr describes some of the startups launched by former employees from Google, Groupon, and other Silicon Valley companies. Founded by a former Google exec, Vida has a mobile app that provides access to physicians and other healthcare professionals through your smartphone. Another former Google exec created Hi.Q, an app designed to help consumers be better informed about health and medical issues.
As we’ve mentioned here on several occasions, money is flowing rapidly to Health Tech startups, and these leaders with executive experience are no doubt attractive to potential investors. The same article sites the Venture Firm Rock Health’s report that investments in this sector reached $2.3 billion in June 2014, compared with $1.9 billion for all of 2013. As these execs become more aware of the challenges of aging and chronic conditions, we can expect to see even more attention given to these problems by tech startups.
