The Secret to Building a Unicorn in Healthcare: Omada’s Sean Duffy + mentor David Webster

When Sean Duffy was a medical student interning at IDEO, he came face to face with a hard truth: millions of Americans living with chronic disease weren't getting the support they needed to actually get healthier, and the healthcare system wasn't built to give it to them. In this episode, Sean tells the story of how an unlikely combination of engineering, medicine, and design thinking led him to spend a year testing and refining an idea in strangers' living rooms, before spinning Omada out of IDEO and eventually taking it public. His former boss at IDEO, David Webster, joins to share what he saw in Sean's intern application (including how it almost fell on the floor), and why that rare intersection of expertise was exactly what a problem this big required. It's a story about how great ideas don't arrive fully formed. They get found, stress-tested in the real world, and built through years of steady commitment. 🎙️ HOST: David Rusenko — founder of Weebly ($365M acquisition by Square), now backing early-stage founders at Leap Forward Ventures. 🔗 Website: https://leapforward.fm/ 💼 LinkedIn:   / leapforwardfm   📸 Instagram:   / leapforwardfm   🐦 Twitter/X: https://x.com/leapforwardfm