ROUNDUP: Amazon Buys One Medical
Plus DARPA's plan to keep open source safe and a spam-fighting service that charges the spammer.
Amazon Buys One Medical
One Medical is a darling of Silicon Valley. It's a primary medical care provider in the US that provides for all your health care needs in one place, including a range of telemedicine services. Kind of like Kaiser but promoting digital and virtual interactions more. It promises 24/7 Telehealth and same or next-day appointments guaranteed. They offer a direct to consumer product that you pay for on top of your health insurance but also offer the service through companies for more than 8,500 organizations. It's also more expensive than Kaiser. You can think of it kind of like Whole Foods for health care. Modern forward thinking and pricier.
And it's an apt comparison in another way. Amazon is buying One Medical. Other than paying $18 a share and valuing the company at $3.9 billion, Amazon isn't saying much about its plans for One Medical yet.
Amazon has a developing health care strategy. Since 2018 it has run an online pharmacy through PillPack. And in 2021 it expanded its Amazon Care telehealth service across the US. It's virtual and only available through employers, but it's roughly comparable. Think of it as the Amazon Fresh to One Medical's Whole Foods if you will. Amazon might roll One Medical and Amazon Care into one service or keep them separate. One Medical CEO Amir Dan Rubin said he will continue to run One Medical after the deal closes. "
One Medical lost $90.9 million on revenue of $254.1 million in Q1. But Amazon is used to running services at a loss or low profit margin until they reach scale.
The deal will need regulatory sign-off and approval from shareholders.
Here are a few more tech stories I followed this week
- Gated’s Plan to Make Spammers Pay to Fight Spam
- FrameWork Ships New Laptop Upgrade Module
- Ford Solidifies Battery Supplies
- OpenAI Opens Up DALL-E 2 Image Generator
- New Net Neutrality Bill in the Works
- DARPA Want to Make Open Source More Secure
- Solar-powered Ev Gets Real.
- Shopify's AR Tool for Sellers
Paid subscribers keep scrolling to read more about them.
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