Scott Barclay is a nearly ubiquitous presence around the healthcare IT world, standing at the intersection of technology and health since 2005. He has journeyed down the data stream from CVS to startup whisperer to venture capital investor over the last several years, always searching for ways to combine information and empathy.
But it wasn’t always so. Scott started out in a small town in rural Virginia, the child of the first female engineer at Auburn University (who was also the first female pilot in Florida) and an entrepreneur who owned and operated a Styrofoam factory. Scott was supposed to turn a coveted Presidential appointment to West Point into a military future. Instead he left town and signed himself up for a liberal arts education at UVA and never looked back.
Though he started his career in finance, traveling throughout the US and Europe for Montgomery Securities in its heyday, then joining Boston Consulting Group (BCG), Scott ended up taking a job at BCG client CVS having heard the siren song of health IT. Scott has been wading knee-deep in the health technology and entrepreneurial scene ever since, working with numerous companies including Syapse, naviHealth, Lumiata and the precursor to Propeller Health (Asthmapolis), among many others.
Recently Scott became an investment partner at venture capital firm Data Collective after a stint as operating partner at the firm. He loves technology but firmly believes that “it’s not about the technology.” The real question is ‘what is the simplest thing that solves a problem,’” cautioning health tech entrepreneurs not to fall to in love with their own handywork. Scott firmly believes that his liberal arts background is what enables him to keep his focus on empathy and outcome before AI and other technologies du jour. It is this zeitgeist that he seeks to impart to the four children he and his wife are raising in the thick of Silicon Valley.
We are delighted to have Scott on Tech Tonics today!
We are grateful to GE Ventures for sponsorship of today’s episode. GE Ventures: Multiple Paths to Big Impact.
