How Atul Gawande landed perhaps the most extraordinary (or impossible) job in health care

STAT June 25, 2018
Rick Berke

ASPEN, Colo. — It’s hard to imagine having to endure a more exacting executive search committee than the triad of corporate chieftains atop Amazon, JPMorgan Chase, and Berkshire Hathaway.

But Dr. Atul Gawande’s selection last week by Jeff Bezos, Jamie Dimon, and Warren Buffett to run a venture with the extraordinary yet seemingly futile goal of disrupting the health care industry didn’t stem from any longstanding relationship he had with any of them. Its genesis was an article he wrote for the New Yorker nine years ago.

“That opened the door,” Gawande told STAT, providing the first explanation of how his selection came about.

Gawande, 52, the celebrated surgeon, author, and journalist, said the closest he had come to knowing...

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