Steve Tuekam

Investing & Finance, Healthcare & Tech, MIT & JPMorgan IB alum

[Steve Tuekam @SteveTuekam]

𝗦𝗮𝗻𝗼𝗳𝗶'𝘀 𝗖𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗿𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘀𝗶𝗮𝗹 𝗛𝗲𝗮𝗹𝘁𝗵𝗰𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝗗𝗶𝘃𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁

@sanofi, the (only) French pharmaceutical giant, is making waves with its plan to sell a 50% controlling stake in its consumer healthcare business, #Opella, to Clayton, Dubilier & Rice (@CDRBuilds) for approximately €15 billion ($16.4 billion).

Key points to consider:

1. #Strategic Shift: Sanofi aims to focus on innovative medicines and vaccines, citing higher margins and growth potential.

2. National Concern: The deal has sparked an ongoing debate in France over pharmaceutical #sovereignty and the #security of essential medicine production.

3. Labor Unrest: Employees at the Lisieux site, responsible for the iconic #Doliprane production, have initiated a #strike in response to the news.

4. Political Response: French politicians are actively involved, with some such as LFI (@FranceInsoumise) proposing #nationalization of Sanofi to protect national interests.

5. Government Oversight: Officials have warned they may intervene using foreign investment #control procedures if #commitments on #employment and #supply are not met.

This situation raises critical questions about the balance between corporate strategy and #national #healthcare security. It also highlights the growing tension between globalized business practices and the desire for domestic control over essential industries.

What are your thoughts on this complex issue? Should governments have a say in pharmaceutical business decisions? How can nations safeguard their medical #supply #chains in an increasingly interconnected world?

#PharmaceuticalIndustry #HealthcareSecurity #GlobalBusiness #SanofiDeal

[Steve Tuekam @SteveTuekam]

I track AI adoption trends pretty closely, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen a wider gulf between early adopters and everyone else.

In some corners you’ve got people Clawdbotting life decisions to agents who run their emails, manage appointments and plan their health routines. It’s like a sci-fi novel, except it’s real and happening now!
Meanwhile, in most orgs, folks are still waiting on IT to greenlight Copilot in Teams, if they’re even aware it exists.

Maybe this kind of gap has always existed, but this feels different. It’s not just a tech curve, it’s a cultural one. And the divergence is accelerating.

Sure, the tools are learnable, but just like the companies that started hoarding GPUs in 2021 now enjoy a structural advantage, we may soon watch the emergence of a productivity class divide driven not by talent, but by policy.

[Steve Tuekam @SteveTuekam]

“Greatness does not come about through accumulating great amounts of money, great amounts of publicity, or great power in government.

When you help someone in any of thousands of ways, you help the world.

Kindness is costless but also priceless. Whether you are religious or not, it’s hard to beat The Golden Rule as a guide to behavior.

I write this as one who has been thoughtless countless times and made many mistakes but also became very lucky in learning from some wonderful friends how to behave better (still a long way from perfect, however).

Keep in mind that the cleaning lady is as much a human being as the Chairman.

I wish all who read this a very happy Thanksgiving.

Yes, even the jerks; it’s never too late to change.

Remember to thank America for maximizing your opportunities.
(…)
Choose your heroes very carefully and then emulate them.

You will never be perfect, but you can always be better.”

[Geiger Capital @Geiger_Capital]

*WARREN BUFFETT TO NO LONGER WRITE BERKSHIRE ANNUAL REPORT

"To My Fellow Shareholders:

I will no longer be writing Berkshire’s annual report or talking endlessly at the annual meeting. I’m going quiet… I wish all who read this a very happy Thanksgiving.

[Steve Tuekam @SteveTuekam]

Insightful

[David Sacks @DavidSacks]

A BEST CASE SCENARIO FOR AI?

The Doomer narratives were wrong. Predicated on a “rapid take-off” to AGI, they predicted that the leading AI model would use its intelligence to self-improve, leaving others in the dust, and quickly achieving a godlike superintelligence. Instead, we are seeing the opposite: 
— the leading models are clustering around similar performance benchmarks;
— model companies continue to leapfrog each other with their latest versions (which shouldn’t be possible if one achieves rapid take-off);
— models are developing areas of competitive advantage, becoming increasingly specialized in personality, modes, coding and math as opposed to one model becoming all-knowing. 

None of this is to gainsay the progress. We are seeing strong improvement in quality, usability, and price/performance across the top model companies. This is the stuff of great engineering and should be celebrated. It’s just not the stuff of apocalyptic pronouncements. Oppenheimer has left the building. 

The AI race is highly dynamic so this could change. But right now the current situation is Goldilocks:
— We have 5 major American companies vigorously competing on frontier models. This brings out the best in everyone and helps America win the AI race.  As @BalajiS has written: “We have many models from many factions that have all converged on similar capabilities, rather than a huge lead between the best model and the rest. So we should expect a balance of power between various human/AI fusions rather than a single dominant AGI that will turn us all into paperclips/pillars of salt.”
— So far, we have avoided a monopolistic outcome that vests all power and control in a single entity. In my view, the most likely dystopian outcome with AI is a marriage of corporate and state power similar to what we saw exposed in the Twitter Files, where “Trust & Safety” gets weaponized into government censorship and control. At least when you have multiple strong private sector players, that gets harder. By contrast, winner-take-all dynamics are more likely to produce Orwellian outcomes.
— There is likely to be a major role for open source. These models excel at providing 80-90% of the capability at 10-20% of the cost. This tradeoff will be highly attractive to customers who value customization, control, and cost over frontier capabilities. China has gone all-in on open source, so it would be good to see more American companies competing in this area, as OpenAI just did. (Meta also deserves credit.)
— There is likely to be a division of labor between generalized foundation models and specific verticalized applications. Instead of a single superintelligence capturing all the value, we are likely to see numerous agentic applications solving “last mile” problems. This is great news for the startup ecosystem. 
— There is also an increasingly clear division of labor between humans and AI. Despite all the wondrous progress, AI models are still at zero in terms of setting their own objective function. Models need context, they must be heavily prompted, the output must be verified, and this process must be repeated iteratively to achieve meaningful business value. This is why Balaji has said that AI is not end-to-end but middle-to-middle. This means that apocalyptic predictions of job loss are as overhyped as AGI itself. Instead, the truism that “you’re not going to lose your job to AI but to someone who uses AI better than you” is holding up well. 

In summary, the latest releases of AI models show that model capabilities are more decentralized than many predicted. While there is no guarantee that this continues — there is always the potential for the market to accrete to a small number of players once the investment super-cycle ends — the current state of vigorous competition is healthy. It propels innovation forward, helps America win the AI race, and avoids centralized control. This is good news — that the Doomers did not expect.

[Steve Tuekam @SteveTuekam]

Pretty accurate…

[Tim Hogan @timjhogan]

twitter today

[Barchart @Barchart]

UnitedHealth $UNH hits most oversold level on the weekly and monthly chart since 2008 🚨🚨

[vitrupo @vitrupo]

Eric Schmidt says intelligence is about to decouple from us.

“The computers are now doing self-improvement.. They don’t have to listen to us anymore.”

Within six years: a mind smarter than the sum of humans -- scaled, recursive, free. We have no language for what’s coming.

[Steve Tuekam @SteveTuekam]

Compelling post by Dr. Elisabeth Potter (@EPotterMD) that sheds light on the persistent problem of #hidden #healthcare #pricing, from a provider’s perspective. Despite regulations like the #Transparency in Coverage Rule and the Hospital Price Transparency Rule, designed to reveal the true costs of medical services, the reality is far from transparent.

How? These rules require insurance companies and hospitals to disclose their negotiated rates and publish prices to create a clear marketplace for patients, allowing for informed decisions. However, the execution falls short since we're only presented with enormous and humanly unreadable data / database files that hinder any real comparison before treatment.

Imagine dining out in a city where every single restaurant has a menu with no prices and meager reviews, but nothing is free. It raises a critical question: Should hospitals and insurers be mandated to provide clear, upfront pricing, similar to how any other service industry operates?

I'm resharing Dr. Potter's post to hopefully spark a conversation about what we, as consumers of healthcare, deserve in terms of pricing clarity.

[Elisabeth Potter MD @EPotterMD]

On January 7th, 2025 I shared a video, after I was asked to call UnitedHealthcare from the operating room to answer administrative questions about the patient who was having surgery to treat breast cancer. Despite my efforts, they denied her stay.

UnitedHealthcare didn’t stop at calling me during surgery. Now, they’ve sent me a legal threat—and even worse? They ended up denying my cancer patient’s hospital stay. Exactly what I was afraid would happen.

Staying overnight after major surgery isn’t optional—it’s medically necessary. But UnitedHealthcare decided they know better than the doctors caring for the patient.

When they called me while I was operating, I knew that if I didn’t step out and respond immediately, they might deny her stay—leaving her with a massive bill. So, with another surgeon in the OR, I scrubbed out and called them back. But after all of that? They denied her stay anyway.

And instead of fixing their broken system, they sent me a legal threat for speaking out.

I’m sharing their response in full, letting their words speak for themselves.

Let me be clear: I stand by everything I said. I told the truth. I was honest about what’s happening in our healthcare system. And I will not be silenced by legal threats when it comes to advocating for my patients and my ability to care for them.

Denying an overnight stay that a doctor orders is dangerous. The doctor caring for the patient should be able to make these decisions without delay, pressure, or harassment.

If I don’t speak up, I lose—my integrity, my voice, and the opportunity to make a difference. And while it’s intimidating to receive a letter like this from a company as powerful as UnitedHealthcare, I know where I stand.

I am a woman taking care of women affected by breast cancer. I do this work with all of my heart, and I will continue to speak up for my patients—because they deserve better.

I ask you to follow along, share this story, and have these conversations in your own communities. I know I’m not the only one dealing with this, and real change will take all of us telling our stories and standing up for what’s right.

I’m here for it. Are you?

[Steve Tuekam @SteveTuekam]

In honor of Valentine’s Day, sharing this insightful thread on love, health and happiness

[Bryan Johnson @bryan_johnson]

Love and deep social bonds can reduce mortality risk by up to 91%.

A landmark meta-analysis with 309k participants found meaningful and complex social relationships reduced mortality risk significantly.

Happy Valentine's Day. 🧵

[Steve Tuekam @SteveTuekam]

🚨 Given the DeepSeek market selloff this AM, let me share this great thread from Morgan Brown & my 2 cents. Here’s an opportunity to apply Buffett’s rule of being fearful when others are greedy, & greedy when others are fearful.🗣️
It’s crucial to understand 2 things and calm down for a sec:

1. The DeepSeek model is open source and the underlying efficiency principles that led to its success can and will be leveraged by xAI, OpenAI, Anthropic, Google and others. Anyone remembers when xAI disclosed how they built Colossus (world’s largest and most powerful AI supercomputer) using 100,000 NVIDIA Hopper GPUs in just 122 days, vs. months to years? It was the most impressive engineering prowess in the space, a case study worthy example of first principle thinking, etc. Imagine what an optimized Colossus would mean, + don’t underestimate the value of quality training data (😉 Gemini with the impressive comeback in the race)

2. Word of caution: DeepSeek’s own AI Assistant just took over ChatGPT for most-downloaded free app in the U.S. on Apple’s App Store. This is NOT the same thing as the R1 model (open source) because the app is owned and operated by a Chinese corporation, has opaque privacy policies and is akin to installing TikTok on AI steroids 👀

[Steve Tuekam @SteveTuekam]

4/4
**Challenges and Outlook**:

The financial landscape for healthcare providers has been fraught with capital constraints, rising costs, and labor shortages. Despite these, there's a potential for recovery in 2025, though it starts on shaky ground with **Prospect Medical Holdings**, a company owning over a dozen hospitals, filing for bankruptcy in January 2025. This marks the second major system acquired by private equity to collapse in less than a year, raising some concerns about private equity's growing control of our healthcare system.

Looking ahead, the sector faces regulatory changes, ongoing pressure from payors, and macroeconomic shifts. While the hope is for stabilization, the data suggests that without strategic interventions, the challenges will persist.

[Steve Tuekam @SteveTuekam]

🩺 The Healthcare Sector's Financial Strain Persists in 2025, But 2024 Marked a Hopeful Turn 📉

1/4

After digging into the latest report from Gibbins Advisors, it's clear that while 2024 saw a slight improvement with **57 healthcare bankruptcy filings**—down from 79 in 2023—the sector still grapples with one of the worst financial climates in recent history. For context, this number places 2024 as the second-highest year for bankruptcies since at least 2018, when filings were at 38, showing a troubling trend over the past six years.

[Steve Tuekam @SteveTuekam]

3/4
**Subsector Spotlights**:

- **Clinics/Physician Practices**: 2024 saw the highest number of filings in six years with 10 cases, a clear sign of distress in primary care.

- **Senior Care**: This subsector continues to struggle, contributing significantly to the 2024 totals.

- **Pharmaceuticals**: Also a major factor, showing unique pressures within this industry.

- **Hospital Sector**: While filings dropped to 5 from 12 last year, the massive bankruptcy of Steward Health Care System, involving 31 hospitals, marked a historic low point (this reminds me of the two yachts of Steward’s ex CEO Ralph de la Torre…)

[Steve Tuekam @SteveTuekam]

Pro Quotes Drop:
Sam Altman (OpenAI): "This will be the most important project of this era."
Larry Ellison (Oracle): "We're securing American AI leadership - and creating jobs!"

The Spicy Takeaway: This could be more than just another investment. It's a technological moonshot that could help rewrite how we understand/consume healthcare, diagnostics, and medical innovation.

Is this finally the healthcare revolution we've been waiting for? Please drop your hot takes below! 👇

#AIHealthcare #MedTechRevolution #FutureOfMedicine

[Steve Tuekam @SteveTuekam]

🚀 $500B AI Moonshot: More Than Just Silicon Valley Hype?

With AI dominating headlines these past 24h, I wanted to cut through the noise and break down what Trump's "Stargate" project REALLY means - especially for an industry that could be about to get a mind-blowing tech makeover: healthcare.

The Quick Download:
- 💰 $500B investment spanning tech giants OpenAI, SoftBank, and Oracle
- 🏗️ First 1-million-sq-ft data center already rising in Texas
- 👥 100,000 jobs on the horizon
- 🌐 Strategic mission: Beat China at the AI game

[Steve Tuekam @SteveTuekam]

Potential Healthcare's AI “Revolution” (I know but pls keep reading…) 🤖

1. **AI-Driven Diagnostics**: Companies like PathAI and Zebra Medical Vision are turning medical imaging into a superpower. Imagine AI algorithms that can spot cancer, heart disease, and neurological disorders with laser-precise accuracy - catching what human eyes might miss! 🔍

2. **Drug Discovery on Steroids**: Firms like Insilico Medicine and Atomwise are essentially using AI as a pharmaceutical crystal ball. They can analyze massive datasets to:
- Identify potential drug candidates
- Predict drug effectiveness
- Optimize clinical trial designs
Result? Potentially slashing years and billions off traditional drug development. 💊

3. **Operational Magic**: Ever heard of Olive AI? They're automating the soul-crushing admin work in healthcare - scheduling, billing, claims processing. Translation: Doctors spend more time with patients, less time wrestling with paperwork. 📋

4. **Personalized Medicine Goes Next-Level**: Companies like Tempus and Foundation Medicine are turning patient data into hyper-targeted treatment plans. Genetic info, lifestyle factors, medical history - all fed into AI algorithms that craft precision healthcare strategies. 🧬

5. **Telehealth 2.0**: Platforms like Teladoc and Amwell are transforming virtual healthcare. AI-powered consultations and real-time health assessments mean quality healthcare isn't just for those living next to major hospitals anymore. 🏥