The advances in technology on the clinical side of healthcare were shown convincingly in the speed of our response to Covid and in the new discoveries and improvements we continue to see.

Covid may have also had a part to play on the administrative side - breaking down old habits and prompting the green shoots of innovation - but there is still a long way to go as legacy systems continue to be expensive, opaque and inefficient.

In both cases, there is a huge opportunity for new ideas, new entrants and new investment. This expands from the traditional centre to prevention and lifestyle change too.

Hg’s Nick Crowne speaks to Rod O’Reilly, a new advisor to the Hg team. Rod has been a leading figure in almost every aspect of the healthcare ecosystem for many years and is a strong advocate of change, disruption and the quest for greater affordability, access and outcomes.

After a year when the sudden leap forward of Gen AI and LLMs took almost everyone by surprise, it’s a good time to ignore the hype, take a step back and look at what we have.

Guido Appenzeller is a special advisor to a16z, a former CTO at Intel and VM Ware and a leading voice in the current wave of software and technology.

In part two of our conversation with Guido, we look at the ways the new generation of AI applications will effect the business world. How do you best capture the value of this wave, how to prepare for it and how to enable your teams to experiment from the bottom up.

After a year when the sudden leap forward of Gen AI and LLMs took almost everyone by surprise, it’s a good time to ignore the hype, take a step back and look at what we have.

Guido Appenzeller is a special advisor to a16z, a former CTO at Intel and VM Ware and a leading voice in the current wave of software and technology.

In part one of our conversation with Guido, we discuss where AI fits into the existing software universe, what phase 2 might look like, the potential limitations – regulatory and infrastructural - and what it means for developers when you have an additional fundamental system building block with which to work.

Always at the forefront of scientific progress, the world of healthcare continues to advance as technology and software are drawn in and adopted. But its uptake is uneven at best with some doctors having to cycle across cities with floppy discs in their bag while others experiment with artificial intelligence. With tightening budgets, the efficiency that comes with software and automation is vital but, in the world of healthcare, the ability to process and share results quickly can also mean the difference between life and death.

In this landscape, the job of a CIO is more and more important: ensuring that the potentially disparate elements of healthcare are connected, interoperable, well-equipped and staffed. Speaking to Hg's Dr Katherine Wiles, Kara Marx has been working at the crossroads of healthcare and technology for many years. Until very recently the CIO of Northern Arizona Healthcare, she has been perfectly placed to watch things evolve and take note of the difference between the rushing to adopt the latest tools and ensuring that each addition brings value to what are some of the most complex organisations on the planet.

The world of reinsurance may seem obscure to most of us, but it is an elemental ingredient vital in keeping the wheels of business turning. Insuring the insurers; managing the risk of those who manage ours and allowing them to react to the world with more agility. This is ever more important as covid has given way to increasingly frequent catastrophes, high inflation and disruptive world events.

Elliot Richardson, Vice Chairman of reinsurance challenger Howden Tiger, engages the head of Hg’s insurance team, Andrew Land, in a wide-ranging discussion: taking on the history of reinsurance, it’s pre-eminent affinity with data, the more recent application of technology, and the plan for Howden Tiger itself to take on the big three players dominating the industry.

Note: This episode was recorded in March 2023 and may include some time-sensitive statements.

“From this absolute belief that we could democratise an industry, to the belief that we can also help to democratise the society we live in.”

A co-founder of Salesforce Europe, Dr. David Dempsey has been a standard bearer for sustainable business for many years. Taking a moment at our recent ESG Forum, David talks to Hg’s CSO, Caroline Löfgren, about the responsibilities of a “future ancestor” and the unique position of business as a changemaker: more flexible than government and more powerful than the individual.

As CEO of dbt Labs, Tristan Handy finds himself at the centre of the "modern data stack" of many leading businesses. But what defines the modern approach to data, what came before and where is it likely to go next? Tristan speaks to Hg's own data expert, Tim Harrison. 

The past saw big data projects fail under their own weight: taking so much resource to build and redirect that needs could move on before results were available. The modern data stack is more nimble, value-centric and without the language walls between major players that stopped businesses from being able to experiment. 

The industry has evolved into a multitude of different solutions to specific problems but when does that become confusing and counter-productive and where will the solution to that problem take us?

A catch-all term sweeping the tech world, 'Artificial Intelligence' couldn't be more exciting, daunting and, inevitably... vague. Thankfully Hg's Head of Data & Analytics, Amr Ellabban, learned his trade alongside Nebula.io Co-Founder and the host of the SuperDataScience podcast, Jon Krohn.

From AlexNet's deep machine learning, to the human bias against self-driving cars and on to the opportunities and threats brought by the evolution of ChatGBT, should we be thrilled or concerned? Should algorithms be put in charge of home loan approvals or prison sentencing? How should humans adapt to the latest technological advances and make sure the new tools work for us rather than the other way round? Recorded at Hg's recent Digital Forum, Jon and Amr tell us not to panic.

Hg sees the continued growth of software and technology as still just the early stages of a multi-decade trend. Combining ever-increasing performance, productivity and automation, this industry will make our work lives richer and more fulfilling for years to come.

Nic Humphries, Senior Partner, and Matthew Brockman, Managing Partner discuss how the short-term fluctuations of economies are not to be ignored but they're confident that the sectors in which Hg invests will provide organic growth for the long-term.

A born problem-solver, a career spent around the trading desks of large banks meant that Philip Morgan’s efforts were often hampered by the status quo. Now, as CEO of Pirum, he has the freedom to address the inefficiencies of the industry from the outside in.

From the days of wandering the City of London with a folder full of contracts; to the lessons learnt from the collapse of Lehman Brothers; to what he sees as a new & improved, agile age of fintech innovators: Hg’s Steve Burn-Murdoch is our guide on a trip into a highly complex $17 trillion world.