Pros
Forward brings together some of the best elements of SV startup talent / experience / mentality combined with a mission to radically fix the way we deliver healthcare. In contrast to the ever-so-incremental progress that's become the hallmark of healthcare provider "innovation", we've started from scratch with equal parts world-class technology, bold vision, rapid improvement / adaptation, and the scrappiness to make things work in the short term while not losing sight of what we'll need to succeed at scale. The culture of ownership here is incredibly refreshing -- it manifests itself in the level of transparency leadership provides to all levels of the organization, but also in the day-to-day expectation that ideas & solutions to some of our hardest problems come bottoms-up from across the company. Given the diversity of experience across engineering, ops, clinical, etc. it's a huge win to get those groups to collaborate constructively, which I think is happening incredibly well. I've never seen a healthcare organization adapt / iterate this quickly and I don't think it would be possible without the diversity of skillsets / perspectives and collectively assuming good intentions such that even when things break (which they do often), we're there to pick each other up, learn from it, and band together to provide world-class care for our members. I could go on, but frankly the combination of world-changing vision, culture, and talent level says it all for me. I consider myself genuinely lucky to be part of this team.
Cons
Growing pains of scale are evident right now, especially scaling ops to support rapidly growing membership and site footprint. Healthcare's a nearly impossibly difficult problem -- we can't yet solve it with tech alone and are having to bridge with more traditional solutions, which has led to a bit of wheel re-creation given the lack of healthcare industry experience in many parts of the organization (not all bad since it also helps us avoid falling into traditional healthcare traps). These are all solvable problems and not altogether surprising for a company at this stage, but worth calling out. Also somewhat unsurprising given stage, but a number of internal functions are overloaded and overworked -- hopefully that's something more bodies can fix ASAP. Some (especially clinicians / front-line clinical team members) may struggle with long(er) hours, rapid pace of change, style of practice, etc. that are more suited to the traditional "startup" world than healthcare -- continuing to hire at all levels such that those expectations are clear from the beginning and are tested for during the hiring process will be key.