{"id":215007,"date":"2026-02-18T11:23:00","date_gmt":"2026-02-18T16:23:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/02\/18\/former-doctor-quit-his-job-to-create-an-ai-tool-and-his-company-is-now-worth-465m-what-aspiring-entrepreneurs-can-learn-from-his-experience\/"},"modified":"2026-02-18T15:55:17","modified_gmt":"2026-02-18T20:55:17","slug":"former-doctor-quit-his-job-to-create-an-ai-tool-and-his-company-is-now-worth-465m-what-aspiring-entrepreneurs-can-learn-from-his-experience","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/02\/18\/former-doctor-quit-his-job-to-create-an-ai-tool-and-his-company-is-now-worth-465m-what-aspiring-entrepreneurs-can-learn-from-his-experience\/","title":{"rendered":"Former doctor quit his job to create an AI tool, and his company is now worth $465M. What aspiring entrepreneurs can learn from his experience"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.aol.com\/finance\/former-doctor-quit-job-create-123000366.html\">Former doctor quit his job to create an AI tool, and his company is now worth $465M. What aspiring entrepreneurs can learn from his experience<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.aol.com\/finance\/former-doctor-quit-job-create-123000366.html\">https:\/\/www.aol.com\/finance\/former-doctor-quit-job-create-123000366.html<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Publish Date: <a href=\"publish_date]\">2026-02-18 11:23:00<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Source Domain: <a href=\"www.aol.com\">www.aol.com<\/a><\/p>\n<p>A doctor looks at the computer in his office.<\/p>\n<p>In 2021, Thomas Kelly stood at a crossroads in his career journey.<\/p>\n<p>Already a successful family doctor in his early 30s, the more sensible choice was clear: pursue a certification in vascular surgery. But that isn\u2019t what Kelly did. Instead of doubling down on his medical profession, Kelly quit his secure practice to pursue a new path in artificial intelligence (1).<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"heading\">Must Read<\/h2>\n<ul class=\"content-list\">\n<li\/>\n<li\/>\n<li\/><\/ul>\n<p>Luckily for Kelly, his AI bet paid off. According to the most recent funding rounds, Kelly\u2019s company, Heidi, has a valuation of $465 million.<\/p>\n<p>As an AI scribe, Heidi\u2019s system helps medical providers organize their days and transcribe notes on the spot to reduce many necessary but tedious tasks. The idea behind Heidi came from Kelly\u2019s own frustration with the limited time in his daily practice.<\/p>\n<p>When explaining why he decided to give Heidi his full attention, Kelly told CNBC, \u201c[I thought] I\u2019ll regret it forever if I don\u2019t take this chance. How many surgical trainees are good enough in math and have had business experience and can build this product? I think not many.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Although Kelly focused on medicine during his studies at the University of Melbourne, he also had a passion for math and computer science. Plus, he had previous experience building the AI system Oscar, which helped thousands of students practice interacting with a lifelike medical interviewer.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMaybe it was hubris,\u201d Kelly admitted, \u201cbut I thought if anyone can start this company, it would be me, and let\u2019s try and see what happens.\u201d<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"heading\">Is quitting the smart career move?<\/h2>\n<p>Many physicians in the U.S. can relate to Kelly\u2019s struggles in providing quality care to patients while taking care of their own mental and physical health. An analysis from Stanford found that approximately 45% of physicians reported at least one symptom of burnout between 2023 and 2024 (2).<\/p>\n<p>Add in the recent headlines related to AI startups raising millions or billions (3), and it makes sense that some of&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.aol.com\/finance\/former-doctor-quit-job-create-123000366.html\">Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Former doctor quit his job to create an AI tool, and his company is now&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":215008,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/s.yimg.com\/cv\/apiv2\/aolfp\/images\/og-image.png","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[20],"class_list":["post-215007","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificial-intelligence"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215007"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=215007"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215007\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":215009,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215007\/revisions\/215009"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/215008"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=215007"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=215007"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=215007"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}