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Vic and Marcus analyze the political and economic implications of the recent inauguration, discussing the rapid executive orders issued and their potential impact on healthcare, markets, and policy. They explore the intersection of politics and investment strategies, debate the role of DEI in the current administration’s economic outlook, and break down Trump’s increasing involvement in cryptocurrency and financial markets. The conversation extends to inflation concerns, Federal Reserve decis...
Vic and Marcus analyze the political and economic implications of the recent inauguration, discussing the rapid executive orders issued and their potential impact on healthcare, markets, and policy. They explore the intersection of politics and investment strategies, debate the role of DEI in the current administration’s economic outlook, and break down Trump’s increasing involvement in cryptocurrency and financial markets. The conversation extends to inflation concerns, Federal Reserve decisions, AI’s role in government, and how major healthcare players like Cigna and Walgreens are responding to industry shifts. The episode concludes with a discussion on the future of venture capital, the evolving role of General Catalyst, and broader implications of tariffs on the U.S. economy.
Links:
22:58 - US GDP Grew 2.5% in 2024, but Slowed Slightly in Final Quarter
24:07 - Fed Stands Pat on Rates, Entering New Wait-and-See Phase
26:10 - Trump Media Announces New Push Into Finance to Support the ‘Patriot Economy’
41:01 - General Catalyst selling stakes as it expands beyond VC roots Axios
44:48 - RFK Jr. Backs Vaccines and Trump’s Agenda in Senate Testimony
49:29 - Overview of President Trump’s Executive Actions on Global Health KFF
50:08 - OpenAI launches ChatGPT Gov for U.S. government agencies
53:06 - Trump's Treasury pick Scott Bessent pushes universal 2.5% tariff plan that would rise each month: Economic Times
1:05:21 - Cigna set to close $3.7B MA sale to HCSC in Q1
1:05:31 - Walgreens shares drop 10% after company suspends quarterly dividend amid turnaround efforts
1:06:12 - HCA Healthcare posts revenue gains despite hurricane roadblocks; execs address Trump policy uncertainties
1:07:22 - Hims & Hers to Advertise Weight-Loss Shots at the Super Bowl
1:07:34 - Hims: 60 sec Superbowl a]Ad Youtube
1:11:56 - Novo Nordisk’s Ozempic Gets FDA Approval as Kidney-Disease Treatment
1:14:57 - Roche Expects Sales, Earnings Growth After Better-Than-Expected Results
1:15:04 - Sanofi Expects Strong Earnings Growth This Year, Plans $5.2 Billion Buyback
1:15:24 - OpenAI’s ‘Operator’ Agent Can Buy Groceries, File Expense Reports
1:17:10 - OpenAI in Talks for Huge Investment Round Valuing It Up to $300 Billion
1:18:43 - Deep Seek explained on Bankless
1:19:35 - What to Know About China’s DeepSeek AI
1:24:46 - DeepSeek Scrambles U.S.-China Tech War
1:24:48 - NVIDA sales to Sinapore (maybe migrating to China?) X post
1:26:14 - Meta Gave Away Its A.I. Crown Jewels. DeepSeek Vindicated Its Strategy
Every week, healthcare VCs and Jumpstart Health Investors co-founders Vic Gatto and Marcus Whitney review and unpack the happenings in US Healthcare, finance, technology and policy. With a firm belief that our healthcare system is doomed without entrepreneurship, they work through the mud to find the jewels, highlight headwinds and tailwinds, and bring on the smartest guests to fill in the gaps.
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Thank you.
All right, I'm back.
Yes, you need me.
No question about that.
Uh, okay.
Good show last week.
Yeah, there's a lot to cover a little longer maybe than ideal but but a lot of a lot of policy to go through Yeah, yeah
a lot to cover.
Um, I love emily.
She is she's a dear friend and um, You know, I think that she Is largely responsible for my understanding of the moment that we're in, you know, she's the, she's the person closest to me that talks to me the most about, um, the right, she, she's not a political, yeah, she, she has a point of view, um, and, you know, she's an analyst, but she's kind of a clean analyst insofar as she's not Tied to anything.
No one has put money behind her.
You know what I mean?
So like she's an
independent researcher.
What you
see is what you get.
Yeah.
What you see is what you get.
Um, and so I, I appreciate that about her.
Um, you know, I've been on her show on.
On Hedgeye several times, and she's been on Insight with us, um, many, many times.
And I talked to her, you know, when, when things are normal weekly.
Yeah.
Right.
And, um.
She's been on this show.
Yeah.
Oh, yeah.
Oh, yeah.
She comes on quarterly to kind of talk about policy.
This was, this was different.
Yeah.
This was different.
Yeah.
This was
not a, this was not a quarterly one.
This was a guest host.
This was different.
I chose her to guest host because of the inauguration and all the executive
orders.
Of course, and she would be very knowledgeable about those things.
Um, but she's not apolitical.
And, um, you know, I think that the thing that we have done on this show is tried as best we can to take the investor's perspective.
And I would say the investor's perspective is fairly political.
Yeah.
You know what I mean?
Um, I think the investor's perspective is free markets.
Um, and then we each bring our own personal, um, aspects into it at times so that it's not like.
You know, it's not CNBC, right?
Um, we do bring our own personal aspects.
And then in
health care, there's, there's regulation and reimbursement.
So if something is being reimbursed at a high rate, yeah, I'll invest in that because it's my job to make money in that space.
And whether I agree with the policy or not.
Yeah, I think I'm mostly a capitalist
versus right or left.
Yeah, that's, that's, that's exactly right.
So, you know, I think the thing about, um, I think the thing about last week, in addition to it being the, uh, the inauguration, it was also a very, very intense week.
Um, the, the, the speed of action, the number of executive orders that came out.
Um, and you know, the thing about that is it was both.
Well planned, meaning everything was buttoned up and ready to go and also moving that quickly.
It's impossible to not break things, right?
Yeah, it's just impossible.
I don't care who's doing it.
Well, the Republic, I mean, Trump and the Republicans called it shock and awe.
They wanted to come out of the, come out of the gate with a huge amount of things that people are sort of saying about it.
Right.
Um, and by the way, just for listeners, uh, You might want to skip this section if you just want to listen to the show to kind of get because I'm going to talk for a minute before I say let's dig in.
So, um, you know, it, it was a, uh, it was a long, long week for a lot of people, you know, um, I went to UVA, a bunch of my friends live in the DMV area.
Um, several of them either work for the government or, uh, or are, um, Working in a way that that they're very closely related to the government.
Yeah
You know, I'm an Aspen Institute health innovators fellow many of many of the fellows run nonprofits or Working in tight coordination with with the government.
Isn't that the thing about health care, right?
Yeah
that how do you avoid actually working with the government?
Right, it's it's
Everyone
that's working with the government Yeah.
They pay half the bills.
Yeah.
Yeah.
How, how, how do you avoid doing that?
Right.
Um, you know, I'm, I'm on the board of HFMA and, uh mm-hmm.
You know, largely focuses on, on health systems.
Not exclusively, but largely focuses on health systems.
Um, and not just for-profit or non-profit, but certainly in America there's a lot of non-profits.
Yeah.
You know, a lot of nonprofits and, um, you know, I think, and they take care of millions of people take care of our communities.
And I think when we've been on this show, we have tried to, um, respect the, the unique challenges that nonprofit health systems have.
Uh, they have different paramixes.
They may not have the most ideal markets.
You know, they can't always pick and choose.
They certainly have a larger burden for charity care, et cetera.
Those things are all real.
Yeah.
You know, I mean, I, I have people in my health innovators fellows class who I know personally, I know what they're doing.
You know, I know the work that they're doing and, and the innovations that they're doing.
And um, you know, they are taking care of the most vulnerable.
Yeah, you know, there's no question about that.
Um, and that, and that actually doesn't matter if it's an academic medical center, one of the large super regionals or like a safety net.
I mean, I know people working at all three and I can say in all three cases, they're doing that.
So I think, you know, given the intensity.
Of last week, um, what I noticed about the show was that Um, I think I noticed my role on the show.
I think I think it's the most important point and and I Yeah, and I would just sort of apologize to the listeners for not being here.
I couldn't help it Yeah, um, but I would say I would apologize to the listeners for me not being here because I don't I don't want anyone to Audit themselves, silent themselves, edit themselves.
I want Emily to come on here and say who she is.
Um, but I would have fucking called her on her shit.
You know what I mean?
Um, when she said things that were her opinion.
And not like, real.
I always do.
You know what I mean?
I always do.
I always do.
And, and, and, and we manage to still be incredible friends with that, right?
You know what I mean?
We, we, we are able to disagree.
Well, yeah,
we're able to
disagree really well,
you know, and leave Emily his side.
I think you and I don't agree on everything No, and well Checking
because the two of you are aligned on yes, right.
That's that's the problem is that we're checking on it.
Yes.
Yeah, right Yeah, yeah, so my Probably my natural bias is aligned with her.
Yes Yeah, I mean, I'm not mad at that right?
Well, I'm not saying you're mad but the show is More balanced when you're giving the the other point of view a thousand percent and I I probably should have done a better job Stepping into that role, but there were so many policies.
I just want, I mean, it was hard to keep up with all of it.
So yeah, I was mostly trying to let's navigate the show in general.
I,
I'm not litigating your performance here.
Uh, because I, I think you, I listened to it, you know, I listened to it.
I actually thought it was a good show.
Um, cause I know you both.
Right.
And actually, I, I didn't agree with everything you both said.
Mm-hmm.
Marcus: Um, but I thought it was, I, I learned a lot.
I thought it was a good show.
Um, but I felt, uh, on a week, like last week mm-hmm . It was an important show for me to be on.
Yeah.
And I wish I was on it, you know, I wish I was on it.
So I, I, I think I didn't quite.
Understand the importance of my role here, and I got a better understanding of it.
Um, I wanted to, I wanted to read you a quote.
Uh, this is a quote from Toni Morrison, uh, from a speech that she did at a commencement for a college graduation.
The function, the very serious function of racism is distraction.
It keeps you from doing your work.
It keeps you explaining over and over again your reason for being.
Somebody says you have no language, and you spend 20 years proving that you do.
Somebody says your head isn't shaped properly, so you have scientists working on the fact that it is.
Somebody says you have no art, so you dredge that up.
Somebody says you have no kingdoms, so you dredge that up.
None of this is necessary.
There will always be one more thing.
So, right now, in the, in the everything that's wrong with America is diversity moment, that's what me and people like me are experiencing.
We're not asking for any sympathy on it.
And I would say we probably are.
A little bit kicking ourselves for getting a little too excited about the potential of this country actually, like, making real progress.
Um, I am not delighted that I made changes to Jumpstart Nova in 2023 so that I could have peace last week.
Right.
Because I knew it was coming.
Yeah, you could see it coming.
I knew it was coming.
And I got a lot of, uh, I got a lot of, uh, I don't know, people were, were disappointed in that, in the decision that I made to change, um, to change the mandate, you know, I mean, we, we had some LPs, uh, you know, that were really not happy about that, um, but, you know, If it's one thing, it's been kind of burned into me from day one is like, survive to live, to live, to see the next day.
I think what's going to be different this time, my sense, what's going to be different this time is, I think there's going to be a little bit less trying to prove the next thing.
I think that, um, we're going to trust people on their word this time.
And take them for who they are and what they say they are.
Um, as, and I, and I think that's, I think that's the right thing to do.
When I was in the, um, Aspen Institute fellowship process, they make every fellow go through this one week called the executive seminar.
And, um, they give you this book, uh, it's called the executive's compass and.
I have to be honest, like the one week we did the executive seminar, it's different than the rest of the fellowship because you're only with a subset of your fellows.
And then you have like other people that are that are so, uh, it's not quite the bonding experience that the actual fellowship is because the fellowship it's like, A, we're, we're all in the same area, we're all doing healthcare stuff, and B, we're spending like four weeks together as opposed to this one week.
Um, but interestingly, I, I will say this was probably, of all the things we did, one of the, the most powerful things I took away from, from the Aspen Institute, um, fellowship.
And it's this, it, It's this framework, right?
It's this framework for an executive to sort of understand the tensions and the trade offs in society.
Um, and so it's a compass and, and the, the, the poles are north and south is liberty and equality.
Uh, and then east and west is efficiency and community, right?
And so, um, once I saw this, I understood politics so much, so much better.
And I understood how, how difficult it is to be in the center and why it's, you're always kind of getting pulled in these, in these different directions.
Right.
So right now we're, we're very, very much up into the right.
We are, we are in the liberty efficiency quadrant.
Right.
That's, that's where we are.
I don't think we'll be there forever.
I think the pendulum swings.
I think, I think we go through cycles in humanity.
Um, and honestly, like having this framework was really helpful for me to sort of understand the much, much bigger play my short, precious life fits into, you know, just one wave of it.
And I, and I'm getting to experience what happens when, you know, humanity moves from community and equality to liberty and efficiency, you know what I mean?
And, and these kinds of swings.
And so having that perspective, reading the classics, um, it does provide.
Some comfort, you know, to sort of not feel like a moment like this is so existential Yeah, you have you have the opportunity to get perspective on what came before that's right and see where where your life and these These times fit into the overall
that's right.
That's right.
Yeah.
Yeah, and so and And at the same time, you know, I'm an entrepreneur, I'm an investor, I basically control my own time, um, you know, I'm, I'm really, I'm really, uh, minimally impacted by the things that happened over the course of the last week compared to many people that I'm very, very close to, you know, and, and so, um, you know, I think I just wanted to apologize to any of our listeners, um, who felt that for, um, The very, very large number of people in this country, you know, we need to remember, um, to this, to the Victor, go the spoils and, uh, politics are competitive and the truth is, um, Donald Trump and the Republicans won.
And so they get this moment.
And, um, and that's, that's just how this works.
That is just how this works.
Okay.
They get this moment.
They won.
Okay.
Um, and, uh.
And so we we live with that.
We have to live with that.
Um, but an assertion that it's right that it's fundamentally right.
Um, you know, I certainly didn't do that for the Biden administration all throughout, you know, at the time when we were talking about Gensler's weird issues with crypto or Lena Khan and the FTC.
Um, you know, I mean, I called that one as yeah.
As, as I saw it, um, I'm going to do the same here, you know, uh, do, do I think move fast and break things is a great way to, to run government?
Even if your goal is to, is to do something great for future generations, like cut the deficit.
I think that's a worthy ambition.
Absolutely.
Um, do I think move fast, break things and blame every single thing on diversity is a good way to go about being a unifier of this country?
Of course not, of course not, you know, um, and, uh, and that was missing.
So, uh, yeah, you know, look, I'm, um, I'm here to be an investor.
You know, I'm here to be an investor.
I understand the nature of competition.
And I understand that, uh, this is Donald Trump's moment and he, he earned it.
He won it.
Um, and, uh, and quite frankly, the Democrats did him nothing but favors in terms of the way that they manage their campaign.
Um, and historically that has been my team.
And so I. I feel that I can get mad at the way that they ran their plays.
I think their playbook was awful.
Um, for sure.
Um, but Republicans won and, and now we will see how this goes.
You know, we'll see how this goes.
But, uh, my role here, your, your job is not to change.
My role is to just show up, you know, and I'm saying that because I'm not going to show up for the next two weeks, right?
I'm going to be traveling.
I'm not going to be able to show up.
Um, but I think what makes this show valuable is We are not Uh, we're not dragged around by our collars by anybody You know, and we have our opinions and we're not just go along guys, and we are trying to objectively figure out what the hell is going on in this crazy world of healthcare and the economy and artificial intelligence.
I, I think that's what we're trying to do here.
Um, not assert.
That certain things are right.
And that was the problem that I got with last week's show.
And that's exactly what I expect from Emily, because that is consistent with who she is and what she does.
The problem was not her.
The problem was I wasn't here.
So, um,
yeah, well, I mean, that's me own.
I think that makes sense to me.
I want to.
respond.
I mean, I think my personal view is that the right thing is to give all people kind of a fair playing field to, to live their life and perform.
And there needs to be like an equal opportunity for advancement and success.
And we do not have that in this country.
And there's no question that black and brown and lower income and all kinds of people and women when women do not have An equal opportunity, they don't.
And so, DEI
But there are many people today who would claim they do.