FCV Collective: Health Care PEU/Tech Gods

After doing a piece on Ben Black, the son of Apollo's Leon Black, I wondered what happened to Harrison Frist.  Harrison is the son of former Senator Bill Frist, M.D. and the nephew of HCA's Tommy Frist, Jr., M.D.  My search led me to Frist Cressey Ventures (FCV).  I noted they'd just began promoting their next fund and an executive forum:

"The FCV Forum is an opportunity that does not exist elsewhere: a retreat from the day-to-day, where a select group of the nation's top leaders from across healthcare and beyond come together in an invitation-only setting to understand the big picture trends and more importantly, to develop connections with each other and create a community of innovative leadership."

Think Davos, Milken or Bilderberg, focused on healthcare.  One name stuck out of their list of past attendees, Ellie Rubenstein (Manna Tee).  Ellie is the daughter of Carlyle Group co-founder David Rubenstein, a politically connected private equity underwriter (PEU).  Carlyle employed Harrison Frist earlier in his career.

FCV's website had a "Strategic Innovation Report 2025" which listed a number of their affiliates, their focus and other investors.  FCV invested alongside Town Hall Ventures on three affiliates.  Town Hall Ventures' founder Andy Slavitt served as Administrator of Medicare/Medicaid under President Obama. 

The path from public service to private equity (and back) has become well worn by both political parties over the last two decades.  It should be no surprise that the Red Team's Bill Frist and the Blue Team's Andy Slavitt could stake similar financial bets on companies while using their political pull to increase their odds of winning.

Both Bill and Andy are betting on Artificial Intelligence (AI).  What can a "network of top level executives" deliver?  We know they want to achieve significant financial returns.  The last two decades the American economy grew billionaires as evidenced by PEU legends and their new TechGod brethren.

Slavitt wants to use technology to serve poor people on Medicaid.  And that brings us to another PEU with a history of public service, Brad Smith.  Smith got his base wealth from selling Aspire to Anthem, the giant health insurer.  From there Brad served in numerous government roles, including Deputy Administrator for Medicare/Medicaid.  Smith formed Russell Street Ventures, a Nashville based PEU before taking RSV's top team to Elon Musk's DOGE (which I call DOUGEBAG).

Recent headlines give Smith credit for $67 billion in HHS cuts.  Rest assured the government will spend big on tech to achieve their healthcare savings.  I expect healthcare "as medicine" to be shoved aside.  Andy Slavitt said it all with "healthcare services as software."  

So the people turning healthcare into a dizzying array of tech products are three things, CEOs, political people from both parties and an insatiable investment class.  

I finally found Harrison Frist at the end of Frist Cressey Ventures' Strategic Innovation Report.

Now, if we could all just land on our feet after the coming sea change.  The collective is a very small group of people, leading massive change with no constraints.  It should worry our elected officials but they've long sided with PEU legends and their TechGod brethren.  

When I think about this exclusive collective, it's hard not to offer an invective.