
Aza Raskin Leaving Mozilla - twapi
http://www.azarask.in/blog/post/leaving-mozilla/
======
baran
Aza is correct. The fundamental problem inhibiting good personal health is
lack of timely feedback. In healthcare, feedback always happens too late. The
beer I drink tonight doesn't affect me until my liver fails. Overeating
doesn't become a problem until your are stuck in a vicious cycle.

With that said, for the majority of the healthy population, the main indicator
of health is weight. Thus for the personal health space, the holy grail is a
device which automatically measures the caloric input/output. When I say
automatic, I really mean automatic. No writing/taking pictures/tweeting about
your food or exercise. Think a watch that tells you how many more calories you
can eat in the day. Anything more complicated will fail.

Aza does point out an example population which would be assisted by better
technology - individuals with chronic health problems. These people are faced
with their disease everyday, whether they want to think about it or not, so
they have the most to gain from new technology. There is a niche in improving
the "diabetes diary", but in my mind the real power comes from a complete
feedback loop. One which encourages care providers (physicians, nurses, etc.)
to be more involved in managing their conditions. Think about giving your
diabetes diary to your physician. Patterns would emerge for the physicians
that would not be seen by the patient. This data could then be the catalyst
for change in how the patient manages their disease.

The problem right now is that no personal health system exists with connects
patients and providers. The data which resides in your medical record is
locked into proprietary systems which are vary reluctant to "open" data.
However, the landscape is beginning to change. Industry is realizing a the
game-changing health applications need the underlying data which is being
housed in clinical institutions to function optimally. Check out SMArt
Platforms if your interested in this push.

Summary

Be very careful in the personal health space. Two things I've learned after
being in the industry for a while (1) it's very difficult to get people to
care enough about their health to take action on it and (2) the most useful
applications are the ones which connect patients and care providers which is
difficult due to lack of data liquidity.

~~~
replicatorblog
The other big problem with healthcare is the opaque nest of regulation, data
privacy laws, physician buy-in, retail distribution, insurance coverage, and
myriad other challenges that get in the way of good design.

There is an elephant's graveyard of cool medical concepts, products, and
initiatives that have died because they didn't factor in the realities of
medical product design and instead focused on disruptive UI/Business
Model/etc.

My company is working on a competitive product
([http://www.fastcodesign.com/1662351/blood-glucose-monitor-
fo...](http://www.fastcodesign.com/1662351/blood-glucose-monitor-for-the-
iphone)) so I know how much of a challenge it can be. Good luck to them, the
health market needs energy, hopefully they will expend it in the right
directions.

------
shalmanese
I'm friend with both Sutha and Aza and I've been following the progress of
this startup from week 1. I'm incredibly hard to impress when it comes to
startup ideas but this was one I believed in from the start. The idea of using
the smartphone as the new interface for your health information is one with
almost limitless potential and these are to wicked smart guys who have the
execution ability to pull it off.

Mark my word, these guys aren't playing around. They're trying to build the
next billion dollar company.

------
nodata
The Massive Health logo is the Fedora Project logo.

~~~
brandon
I noticed a similarity, too. But it's just that, a similarity.

Note that the Fedora guys superimpose an F over a tilted lemniscate where the
MH guys are superimposing a plus. Nevermind the color differences and lack of
a teardrop background on the MH logo.

~~~
jackowayed
Also, the Fedora logo doesn't spin when you click it.

------
noidi
This is a minor nit to pick, but why is the link to their twitter account on
their website a button? Maybe I'm not representative of the common user, but I
subconciously expect buttons to do something (e.g. tweet the address of their
site on my behalf), as opposed to taking me somewhere (like a hyperlink). Like
I said, this is a very small thing, but it stuck out to me on the website of a
company focused on user experience and interaction design.

------
forsaken
Glad to see startups trying to solve the big annoying problems in society.
Banking (Bank Simple) and Health Care are the big ones that I know about, but
I'd love to know about more.

~~~
fredoliveira
I too am glad to see banking and health be tackled by startups. I also think
projects like Votizen may have an important impact on politics which is a
great cause too.

Interestingly, I think the problem Google has been trying to solve for 11+
years now is (while certainly not as noble as health) quite important. The
ability to find (just about) anything in under a second is amazing - and it
pretty much defines the current generation of people. It ultimately means that
you are not limited by your access to data, but what you do with it. The
impact on innovation/education and most other areas is huge.

I would say one of the major problems we still have as a society is
communication. For those of us in 1st world countries this may not sound like
reality at all, but there's people who have no way to access the internet,
talk to relatives or do emergency (tele)communications. This isn't necessarily
an easy problem for a startup, but the road to free, ubiquitous communication
is only starting to be paved now.

~~~
jasonlotito
> I too am glad to see banking and health be tackled by startups.

Which startups are working to tackle the banking problem?

~~~
ptio
<https://banksimple.com/>

~~~
jasonlotito
Will be interesting to watch that. Thanks! I had forgotten about them.

Any others?

Edit: > We are not a bank. We work with partner banks (soon to be announced)
to provide FDIC insured products.

Still interesting, but less so.

------
endtime
Aza, if you're reading this, you might want to take a look at GlucoVista - I
think they're trying to solve the problem you describe for diabetics.

Also, your website is beautiful, but for some reason it puts me in mind
of...the Umbrella Corporation from Resident Evil? I'm not sure, but something
along those lines. Not the best association for a health company.

~~~
ra88it
I agree about the website. It is beautiful but very dark and mildly
depressing.

~~~
j2d2j2d2
I'd like to see the textures applied to the common red and white. Perhaps the
hospital colors can be used while not feeling like you're in a hospital.

~~~
j2d2j2d2
The more I think about it, the more I think the dark red makes me think of
blood.

------
dmpayton
I'm also in the process of building a diabetes related started, and I'm both
scared and excited to see someone else tackling this problem.

Aza, if you're reading this, I'd love to talk! Contact info is in my profile.

------
thisisblurry
Good for Aza. I've been following his work over the past few years and he
really seems to be an insanely smart guy with great intuition (his wikipedia
article does a pretty good job of supporting this:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aza_Raskin>). I look forward to see what Massive
Health brings to the world. If it's half as good as Aza's design
sensibilities, we're in for a real treat.

------
ariels
Love that smart people are starting to tackle health problems. This is a huge
global issue in need of significant innovation.

~~~
joebananas
You post is dumb as hell.

~~~
fredoliveira
You're exactly the kind of guy I wish was unable to create an account here.

Why is the post dumb? If not health, what would be the most hard pressing
problem our species has? And if you can answer that question, why are you not
trying to solve it and are being a troll on the internet instead? I know this
post itself reads like a flame, but honestly, I worry whenever I see people
whose main purpose here is to dampen the ideas (or opinions) of others.

~~~
lkrubner
I'm just guessing but couldn't "dumb as hell" be a reference to this:

"Love that smart people are starting to tackle health problems"

Smart people have been working on health problems for several centuries.
Severutus worked out the circulatory system in the 1500s, Lister and Pasteur
contributed to the germ theory of illness in the 1800s. Sir Alexander Fleming
developed the basic idea of penicillin in the 1920s. Smart people have been
working on health issues for a very long time.

~~~
randallsquared
I had the same startled reaction to ariels post that joebananas apparently
did. The idea that smart people are _just now_ starting to look at health is
just... astonishing. Fortunately, joebananas took the karma hit to show us all
that HN doesn't think doctors or scientists are "smart people". :/

------
dochtman
I wonder what this means for Panorama... Since it's not close to being done
yet (as far as something like that ever gets done), it could surely use more
of Aza's design chops.

~~~
gjm11
In what sense is it "not close to being done yet"? I'm using 4.0b7 right now;
it has Panorama in it; it works fine.

I dare say it could have more features and/or polish added, but that's true of
almost any software. It's certainly of releasable quality.

