DIY health creates prevention-focused power users.<\/p>\n
Thesis. In its Big Ideas 2026 outlook<\/a>, Andreessen Horowitz partner Julie Yoo outlines how health-seeking consumers could reshape<\/a> a system built for sick care.<\/p>\n Reframing healthcare through SaaS metrics, Yoo coins \u201chealthy MAUs\u201d (monthly active users): people who aren\u2019t actively sick but want to proactively track, understand, and manage their well-being.<\/p>\n Mismatch. Traditional healthcare optimizes for acute episodes and chronic disease. A small slice of the population drives the majority of spend<\/a> \u2014 roughly 5% of patients account for about half of all healthcare costs, with the top 1% responsible for more than 20%.<\/p>\n Rewarding treatment over prevention<\/a>, proactive check-ins, ongoing monitoring, and early detection are undercovered by insurance and deprioritized by providers.<\/p>\n Realignment. That dynamic is starting to change. AI is lowering the cost<\/a> of care delivery, consumers are increasingly willing to pay out of pocket<\/a>, and new insurance models<\/a> are emerging \u2014 making preventative care economically viable.<\/p>\n Opportunity. For builders, healthy MAUs could become the largest and most valuable user base in healthtech: highly engaged, data-informed, and focused on staying well. Expect AI-native startups and retooled incumbents to chase this cohort.<\/p>\n Punchline: If healthcare has historically monetized sickness, healthy MAUs flip the model \u2014 turning prevention into a habit, and adherence into the business.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DIY health creates prevention-focused power users. Thesis. In its Big Ideas 2026 outlook, Andreessen Horowitz partner Julie Yoo…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":397439,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[64,63,137,500],"class_list":{"0":"post-397438","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-healthcare","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-health","11":"tag-healthcare"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/397438","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=397438"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/397438\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/397439"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=397438"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=397438"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=397438"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}