Dr. Myra Ahmad graduated from medical school in 2022, looked at the system she'd just trained inside, called it dystopian, and decided to build something outside of it instead of starting a residency. Three years later, Mochi Health has served more than 500,000 patients across all 50 states.
In this episode of Founders & Empanadas, Myra and Joshua get into the strategy behind the build: why weight-loss medication was only ever a wedge into primary care, how she designed a three-sided marketplace where the best providers rise and the weakest wash out, and why she thinks the entire incentive structure of American medicine is broken.
She also shares a contrarian take that lands well beyond healthcare: in a post-AI company, stop hiring narrow specialists and hire generalists who can move between teams, because the tooling makes picking up new skills nearly free.
Highlights:
- Why GLP-1s were a go-to-market, not the actual business
- The post-AI hiring philosophy: generalists over specialists, and roles that aren't fixed
- Why doctors never get a raise, and what that taught her about incentive design
- How she draws the line between what AI handles and what only a provider should
- Why a $250 surprise bill is a symptom of healthcare's pricing black box
- How she reads marketplace reviews when everything defaults to five stars
- Building three software products at once without starving any side of the market
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Myra AhmadGuest
Joshua EidelmanHost