Is Anthropic a Cult? AI Beats ER Doctors & Recursive Self-Improvement | This Week in AI E12

This week, JCal sits down with two builders working on opposite ends of the AI stack: Naveen Rao, co-founder and CEO of Unconventional AI (his $4.5B startup rethinking the computer from first principles), and Trey Holterman, co-founder and CEO of Tennr, the platform automating the messy paperwork that decides whether millions of patients ever get the care they need.

They break down why AI already beats ER doctors at diagnosis, why Epic is the most hated company in healthcare, what it takes to disrupt healthcare's $5 trillion incumbents, and whether $1.1 trillion in hyperscaler CapEx will pay off before the energy runs out.

Mentioned in the show:

• Unconventional AI: https://unconv.ai
• Tennr: https://tennr.com
• Abridge: https://abridge.com
• Ambience Healthcare: https://ambiencehealthcare.com
• Epic: https://epic.com
• Plaud (NotePin): https://plaud.ai
• Whoop: https://whoop.com
• Function Health: https://functionhealth.com
• Oura: https://ouraring.com
• Eight Sleep: https://eightsleep.com
• Perplexity: https://perplexity.ai
• Databricks: https://databricks.com
• Harvard / Beth Israel ER study: https://www.harvardmagazine.com/ai/ai-outperforms-doctors-diagnosis-harvard-study
• Jack Clark on recursive self-improvement: https://jack-clark.net

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Timestamps:

00:00 Cold open

00:51 Welcome & intro to Naveen Rao (Unconventional AI) and Trey Holterman (Tennr)

05:43 Tennr's mission: fixing the U.S. healthcare "black hole"

06:23 Why primary care is changing in the AI era

09:09 The radiologist that wasn't replaced & what AI got right in 2015

15:31 Harvard study: AI beats ER doctors 67% to 55%

20:16 Plaud Pin & the always-on AI in the exam room

22:29 AI scribes, EMR privacy & how Abridge actually works

24:01 Whoop, Aura & when wearable data finally meets the clinic

25:20 Epic, FHIR & the 800-pound gorilla of healthcare

34:21 Disrupting Epic with an open-source EMR play

37:20 The Abridge vs Ambience scribe wars

42:06 Jack Clark's 60% odds on recursive self-improvement by 2028

53:41 Morgan Stanley's $1.1 trillion hyperscaler CapEx forecast

1:04:53 Anthropic's marketing machine & the AI religion thesis

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