Seeing Patients

Where technology, product craft, and empathy collide to give patients an edge.

Why this exists

Hi, I’m Ari Akerstein — cancer survivor, dad of three, Product leader (former PM at FB/Meta, Walmartlabs, IncludedHealth and other startups). I’m now Co-founder/CEO of Navis Health AI.

I’ve lived the crazy experience of navigating a cancer diagnosis as a new dad. I had this constant sense I was a two front war: one side was handling medical questions/biology, and on the other, navigating a very disjointed system.

This is meant to be my field notebook as I build Navis AI, living with cancer in my rearview (and sometimes side mirror), raising kids, talking to patients and clinicians. I don’t know exactly how it’ll end, but I want to capture the process as we go.

What I write about

I expect most posts fall into two loose but intertwined categories:

1. Patient-facing

These are written to (and sometimes by) people who are living this:

• How it actually feels to wait for scan results

• Decision-making when you don’t have the data you need

• questions to bring into the room with your oncologist

• the mental game of trying to be a parent/partner and a patient at the same time

I’ll try to make these pieces practical, honest, and readable.

2. Product & Company Building

These are founder notes on building a new kind of AI + people company:

• what it’s like to build Navis as someone who’s been on the receiving end of care

• how we think about using (and limiting) AI in cancer care

• product decisions I’ve regretted, and the ones I’d fight for again

• fundraising and tradeoffs when your “users” are literally patients

These are more “founder brain,” but I write them assuming patients might also be interested in how the machine gets made.

Why this exists

When I was diagnosed, it felt like a two-front war:

• one front was the biology and treatment

• the other was the system: scheduling, insurance, portals, conflicting opinions, and the quiet sense that no one had the full picture

At the same time, I knew there was a ridiculous amount of unused “magic” sitting on the shelf: AI models, diagnostics, data, tools. Patients were stuck with yesterday’s workflows while today’s tools sat in PDFs and pilots.

This newsletter is my way of:

• thinking out loud about how we could do better, and

• staying accountable to real patients while I build Navis.

What you’ll get

This is me riffing on whatever’s actually top of mind as I build Navis, talk with patients, and think through the messiness of AI in healthcare and everything around it. To be totally honest this is as much a personal journal as aimed at growing readership.

Who this is for

• Patients and caregivers who want clarity, validation, and better questions to ask

• Tech folks/Builders, e.g., product/engineering/design/data folks, and investors who care about patient-first AI and consumer product in cancer

• Clinicians and scientists interested in the latest care-delivery and tech tools helping patients.

And anyone else that finds this useful. If you’re interested in health tech/AI, patient care, cancer, AI, and the weird places they collide, then welcome!