Detroit Made, Ann Arbor formed, New York hardened - Tulsa + Ann Arbor + Santa Fe. Venture Capital, Impact , Science Tech, cybersecurity, Econ Origins
Tulsa, OK
Joined April 2013
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Mark White retweeted
Armed guards at the door. Opioids offered on repeat. Apple Pay at my bedside. Welcome to the American Emergency Room.
The French think it bankrupts you. Americans think France does it for free. I’ve been to the ER in both. Both are wrong.
Mountain bike crash, dislocated and fractured shoulder. I’m French, I live in San Francisco, and I take slightly too many risks. Let’s compare.
Security
🇺🇸 Kaiser in Marin. Three armed guards and a metal detector. My phone set it off, so with my shoulder out of its socket I walked through again. And again. Then a pat-down.
🇫🇷 A couple of unarmed guys with walkie-talkies. Still not sure what they’re for.
Wait
🇺🇸 Three people in the waiting room. Seen in 15 to 30 minutes.
🇫🇷 Broken hand: packed room, 4 hours before anyone touched me.
Records
🇺🇸 Kaiser is vertically integrated. Insurer, hospital, doctors: one system. They had my file before I sat down.
🇫🇷 Every new doctor is a fresh context window. Zero history, maybe a printout from last time.
Infrastructure
🇺🇸 Small hospital, serious kit. Straight to the trauma bay: real bed, IV, vitals monitoring, ready for surgery if needed. All imaging on the spot.
🇫🇷 Broken hand: a plastic chair and a Doliprane.
Drugs
🇺🇸 Strong opioids were the default offer. I said no. They insisted. The doctor came in personally, confused why someone in that much pain would refuse. I stuck to Tylenol, an anti-inflammatory, to put the shoulder back in.
Yes, it hurt. No, I didn’t tap out. My mom is proud of me.
🇫🇷 Broken hand: Doliprane, opioids never mentioned. I have friends who got their shoulder popped back in with nothing at all.
US default: opioids. French default: Doliprane.
Bill
🇺🇸 Every nurse warned me: “You’re French, this bill is going to traumatize you.”
Before discharge, someone came to my bed to collect payment. Apple Pay, from the hospital bed. $300. For everything. On a ~$500/month Kaiser plan.
🇫🇷 A flat ~€20 ER fee, usually reimbursed by your mutuelle. The real bill shows up later, on your payslip (see below)
followup
🇺🇸 Kaiser called me right after to set up follow-up and physio, all in their system. So far, so good.
🇫🇷 Broken hand: discharged, figure it out yourself. A friend dislocated her finger. They put it back in wrong, sent her home with bad instructions, it locked up, and she needed surgery months later. Still not fixed.
“Free healthcare” in France
It’s not free when your marginal tax rate nears 70% with social charges. And if you want quality care fast, more and more people pay for private clinics anyway.
Verdict
One person, one data point. But the care was 10x better than anything I’ve had in France, for a price that’s completely fine.
France has a lot to learn.
And yes, I refused the narcotics to stay sharp enough to launch a NanoCorp from my hospital bed. Launch your first company run by an AI agent: nanocorp .so
Mark White retweeted
It’s No Joke. Nonprofit Hospitals Are More Profitable than For-Profit Hospitals
Studies find that nonprofit hospitals achieve greater profits with higher average prices than for-profit hospitals. On average, nonprofits have 29% greater profits than for-profits.
scottahodge.substack.com/p/i…
Mark White retweeted
88% of VC-backed founders who exited their companies got $0. Eduardo Azevedo and Kent Smetters analysed 157,669 startups and 248,454 founders from 1987 to 2025.
Let that sink in...
Yep, sit on the highest per capita carbon fuel reserves by a factor of like 10x and every policy looks easy.
The biggest cost drivers in the US system currently are Non-profit hospitals. No matter which way one looks at it, the most expensive it is, the less there will be of the thing.
This is funny because Pat McAfee is creepy and students calling him creepy is just hitting the mark too close for Pat.
Mark White retweeted
Joel Klatt: "Oh, come on, guys. What are we doing?"
Gus Johnson: "Come on now. My goodness."
Joel Klatt: "I understand protecting the quarterback. But when you graze with a thumb across the forehead, like, what are we doing?" 🏈🦓🎙️
How many fortifications calls by Jason Beck does Whittingham have to witness before he wishes to #FireJasonBeck
Kyle Whittingham on the play call:
"Everything falls on my shoulders. So whatever happens in the course of a game is on me.
"That was not a good football call. No, that was not a good call at that point in time.
"Do I have the ability to overrule? I can overrule anything in the whole program. And so like I said, it circles back to me. But it was a very disappointing outcome and a call that I know Jason [Beck] wishes he had back because it really was damaging."
Michigan needs to fire Jason Beck. Sign the petition below. #FireJasonBeck
c.org/mzrTrFpzHr
Person that hasn't read history pontificating on history. Trade, aka as the foundation of capitalism, has been around for most of human existence.
Mark White retweeted
Here's a visualization of profit pools in healthcare. Notice something? Pharma is about half. The insurance companies you complain about are that little sliver all the way on the left.
Now ask the question: which part of the healthcare ecosystem is most functional for you as a patient?
Is it the barely-profitable insurance companies - do you like them? Is it the health systems and providers? If you add up all their EBITDA profits, pharma and adjacencies still absolutely dwarf them. Or is it the massively profitable pharma and biotech segment that actually is delivering innovation and things that you like, like GLP-1s and cancer drugs?
Lots of people bemoan profitability in healthcare. But I would love to see more profitability (outside the pharma bucket). Profit pools for providers and software will grow if the private sector is delivering innovation that makes healthcare more productive.
Mark White retweeted
This is why I continue to argue that Michigan football is the best job in college football. In the current landscape, Michigan is the one "football school" whose alumni are abundant, rich, and extremely passionate about football.
Mark White retweeted
France’s protesters are rioting against austerity that doesn’t exist. Macron might as well give them the real thing, writes @K_Niemietz.
quillette.com/2026/10/21/fra…
Mark White retweeted
The French national railway company pulled out of bidding for the high-speed rail contract in California in 2011.
They said the state was terrible to work in and they preferred somewhere less dysfunctional.
They went to North Africa.
Mark White retweeted
“Your shops that got looted were nice, okay, but we’re starving.”
People looked this girl up and her dad is a corporate executive who worked for Shell.
What a smug psychopath.
I think this is truly the fair solution with some limitations:
10 year wait
Two degree limitation
One time pass
