Amazon Invests $4 Billion in One Medical, Expanding into Primary Care

In a twisted turn of events, corporate giants have been on a shopping spree for primary-care practices. CVS Health splurged a cool $11 billion to acquire Oak Street Health, a chain of primary care centers. Amazon is also dishing out nearly $4 billion to snatch up One Medical, yet another doctors' group.

Why the sudden interest, you ask? Well, primary care doctors, have a loyal following of patients who bring business and profits to a hospital system, a health insurer, or a pharmacy outfit eyeing expansion.

The growing privatization of Medicare means that more than half its 60 million beneficiaries have signed up for policies with private insurers under the Medicare Advantage program. The federal government is now paying those insurers $400 billion a year. That’s the big pot of money everyone is aiming at.

Rapid Rundown

• 🔍 Corporate giants like CVS Health and Amazon are acquiring primary-care practices to tap into the loyal patient base and profit from the growing privatization of Medicare.

• 💰 Medicare Advantage program's $400 billion annual payment to private insurers attracts these acquisitions for a share of the money.

Elon Musk Passes the Torch: Linda Yaccarino Takes Charge of Twitter

Linda Yaccarino, NBCUniversal’s advertising mastermind, is taking over as CEO of Twitter. Yaccarino has been a big shot at NBCU for over a decade, championing better ways to measure the impact of ads and playing a key role in launching their ad-supported Peacock streaming service.

Yaccarino will have her work cut out for her as CEO, especially trying to win back advertisers who bring in most of Twitter’s revenue. It’s a tough spot, but with her reputation as a tough negotiator and her $13 billion in annual ad revenue oversight, she might just be the right person for the job.

Meanwhile, Musk himself is transitioning to an executive chairman and chief technology officer role. Musk will concentrate on product design and the implementation of new technology, while Yaccarino will be primarily responsible for overseeing business operations, transforming Twitter into X - the everything app.

Rapid Rundown

• 📢 Linda Yaccarino, NBCU's ad expert, becomes Twitter CEO, facing the challenge of winning back advertisers.

• 👑 Elon Musk transitions to exec chair & CTO, while Yaccarino takes the reins in ~6 weeks.

Short-form video is the future of marketing

Brands are finally realizing that they’re not as cool as they thought they were. They’re now working closely with influencers to produce content for their social channels. This move towards authentic and natural marketing could render highly polished ads outdated and ineffective.

According to a recent survey from HubSpot, 33% of marketers reported leveraging short-form videos on TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube Shorts as the backbone of their marketing strategies. 90% said they would increase or maintain their investment in short-form video in 2023. 20% said they plan to begin creating short-form content for the first time this year.

Many brands want to emulate the user-generated content style in their short-form videos, even when they’re not hiring creators to produce those videos. Back in the day, ads would interrupt content, but now ads may just become indistinguishable from the content itself.

Rapid Rundown

• 📢 Brands collaborate with creators for authentic content, leaving polished ads behind.

• 🌟 Short-form videos dominate marketing strategies, blurring the line between ads and user-generated content.

Tools & Apps

Meander -- The mentorship platform for non-linear careers

Moda -- An e-commerce growth marketing platform

Metabob -- Automate debugging and refactoring with AI

PaLM 2 -- Google's next generation large language model

Black Blocks -- Validate first, build later

Articles & Resources

How to Know if It’s a Good Co-Founder Match -- Finding a co-founder is actually more involved and has greater implications than the actual marriage. This is not an exaggeration.

Creating Healthy AI Utility Function: ChatGPT Example -- Embrace conflict and diversity to create a healthy AI utility function.

The Dao of Using Your Smartphone -- How rituals can change our relationship with technology.

A visual introduction to machine learning -- Understand machine learning through animated data visualization.