The fluorescent lights hummed quietly overhead, casting a sterile glow across the sea of cubicles. I sat in mine, a fresh-faced graduate student intern at Apple’s Cupertino, California, headquarters in 2010, tasked with overseeing the healthcare category of the nascent App Store. (That Apple entrusted a novice like me with this role said less about my qualifications and more about how little the company prioritized the sector at the time.)
My fingers tapped the keyboard of my iPhone (3GS!) as I opened yet another uninspired medical app. To my left, separated by a four-foot partition, sat Linda Kim. The energy and enthusiasm radiating from her cubicle completely contrasted with the silence in mine. Linda covered the gaming segment, and the excitement in her voice as she discussed the latest apps in her category was palpable.
Healthcare felt different.
I leaned back in my chair, my gaze drifting between my screen and the sign in our department that read “Love Is in the Detail.” Not only were there nine gaming apps for every medical app on the App Store at the time, but the quality of the gaming apps was light-years ahead. The app developers Linda worked with used every native feature of the iPhone in creative new ways. The healthcare apps on my screen, in contrast, felt like afterthoughts—outsourced projects lacking the same passion and ingenuity. It was clear where the love (and the detail) was being lavished, and it wasn’t on healthcare.
I wondered: Why is so much of our best talent working on ways to entertain people for a few extra minutes a day, while so little is focused on helping them live longer, healthier lives?
Healthcare in the United States delivers essential services that sustain lives and communities. It employs one in nine Americans. And yet it creaks under the strain of enormous challenges—escalating costs, limited access, rising chronic disease, and widening inequities. Most of us have experienced the frustration firsthand: confusing bills, opaque insurance rules, long waits, fragmented care.
The reality is that our healthcare system is broken.
Unchecked expenditures consume nearly one-fifth of the nation’s GDP and continue to grow faster than the economy. Access remains uneven. Outcomes lag behind other high-income countries. And millions of Americans remain disengaged from their health until a crisis forces their hand.
These are just a few reasons fixing healthcare is one of the greatest opportunities of our time.
It is a $5 trillion industry. Even narrow solutions can reach millions of people. A single structural change—a new reimbursement code, a new data standard, a new care model—can ripple across the entire system. When innovation focuses on a critical unmet need, it can create a cascade of positive impact.
Still, healthcare is hard. In fact, it may be the hardest place to build.
Entrenched interests resist change. Regulations are complex. Payment systems are misaligned. Sales cycles are long. Progress often feels like it happens in slow motion. You can wake up every day pushing forward and still feel like the system barely budges.
Over the years, I’ve watched people move through predictable phases. At first, there is optimism. Then comes frustration. Then often, battle-scarred skepticism—the realization that there are no easy answers here. Many leave at that stage, their passion worn down by the difficulty.
But some reach a different mindset. I call it enlightened determination.
Enlightened determination is not naïve. It does not assume healthcare can be fixed overnight. It accepts trade-offs. It recognizes constraints. It understands that you cannot pull every lever—quality, cost, access, and experience—at the same time.
Instead, it asks: What is both possible and catalytic? Which levers can I pull from within the system, and which require bending the frame itself? Where can I focus my energy for the greatest long-term impact? It is the discipline of playing the long game.
Innovation in healthcare requires relentlessness—tenacity, resourcefulness, and a willingness to challenge entrenched systems. It requires accepting that most ideas will fail and learning quickly from those failures. It requires being obsessed with the problem, not stubbornly attached to a single solution. It also requires courage.
This is not easy work. The challenges are plentiful, and the wins often feel scarce. But a different view emerges if we step back and see the bigger picture. It’s the gestalt, the sum greater than its parts, where our individual impact intertwines and contributes to collective progress.
I believed this when I was sitting in a cubicle at Apple, and I still believe it today: Healthcare needs all the talent we can get to solve some pretty big problems.
Whether you are a seasoned clinician, a technical entrepreneur, an operator, an investor, or someone simply searching for work that matters, there is a place for you here. The system will not transform because one heroic founder swoops in to fix it. It will change because committed citizens show up day after day, willing to do the hard, often invisible work of improvement.
Our loyalty is not to the healthcare system we were handed. It is to the future we can build—one that catches people before they fall through the cracks, one in which money-making and mission-advancing are not at odds, one worthy of a country that claims to be the greatest in the world.
Will it be easy? Absolutely not. You’ll likely face naysayers, setbacks, and moments of self-doubt. But I hope the stories and strategies I’ve shared have shown you that these hurdles are not insurmountable.
Never forget that you have a secret weapon: Your passion and unwavering belief that a better healthcare system is possible. We can overcome challenges by learning, adapting, and never losing sight of the prize—massively better healthcare for all.
This article is adapted from Massively Better Healthcare: The Innovator’s Guide to Tackling Healthcare’s Biggest Challenges published by Columbia Business School Publishing (c) 2026 Halle Tecco. Used by arrangement with the Publisher. All rights reserved.
