From Design Thinking to $1 Billion Healthcare IPO: Omada’s Sean Duffy + His Former Boss

When Sean Duffy was a medical student interning at IDEO, he came face to face with a hard truth: millions of Americans with chronic disease weren’t getting the support they needed to actually get healthier. In this episode, Sean tells the story of how an unlikely mix of medicine and design thinking led him to spend a year refining an idea that would eventually become Omada - a company that’s since helped over a million people and gone public. We also talked to his former boss at IDEO, David Webster, about the intern application that fell on the floor, and the rare combination of expertise that Sean brought to a huge problem. It’s a story about how ideas don’t arrive fully formed, but get found, tested in strangers’ living rooms, and built through steady commitment.