Haven, the JPMorgan, Amazon, and Berkshire Hathaway healthcare venture, is setting up shop in NYC

Courtesy Haven

Haven, the joint healthcare venture set up by JPMorgan, Berkshire Hathaway, and Amazon, has set up a New York City office.
It’s the second office for the company, which said in 2018 that it would be headquartered in Boston.
The office is in New York’s Union Square neighborhood and is hiring for tech and engineering roles.
Haven’s CEO, Dr. Atul Gawande, is one of Business Insider’s 100 People Transforming Business. You can read the full list here.
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Haven, the joint health venture from JPMorgan, Berkshire Hathaway, and Amazon, is setting up an office in New York City.

It’s the second location for the company. In 2018, when hiring CEO Atul Gawande, Haven said the venture would be based in Boston.

Haven’s New York office will be in the Union Square area, the company’s chief technology officer, Serkan Kutan, said in a LinkedIn post. Based on job postings, the company appears to be hiring for tech and engineering positions in New York.

"Excited to be building an outstanding tech team at Haven," Kutan said on LinkedIn. "We are growing in Downtown Boston and Union Square NYC. Come join us on this important journey!"

Over the years, New York has grown to have a big health-tech presence, drawing from the growth of companies like Flatiron Health, Zocdoc (where Kutan previously worked), and Oscar Health. The backing from JPMorgan, Amazon, and Berkshire Hathaway should give Haven a good set of tools to be competitive in the talent market in the city.

Haven’s approach to tackling healthcare costs

In January 2018, Amazon, JPMorgan, and Berkshire announced that they would create a healthcare joint venture that’s aimed at lowering healthcare costs for the companies’ employees and improving the quality of their care. At the time, news of the partnership sent healthcare stocks plummeting, especially health insurers and members of the pharmaceutical supply chain that might be impacted by the three business giants getting into their lines of work.

In a letter posted to Haven’s website, Gawande outlined the venture’s guiding principles, including being an advocate, creating new solutions to get to better care, and being "relentless."

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While Haven hasn’t been too specific about how it plans to upend the healthcare system, new details have come out through a a lawsuit filed in Massachusetts against a former Optum employee who joined the venture. Testimony in the case from Haven’s chief operating officer Jack Stoddard, who joined the venture in September, provides new information about the venture’s plans. The testimony was unsealed after a motion brought by the parent companies of Stat News and The Wall Street Journal.

The three employers oversee healthcare for about 1 million people, and spend $4 billion a year on it. Stoddard said the plan is to partner with existing companies when possible rather than build new products to improve the companies’ healthcare.

"We’ve been asked to look at the full spectrum of what are the options, how can we crack the code, who can we have partner with, and how can we derive better outcomes, in the order of better experience, better quality and then lower costs," Stoddard said in the unsealed testimony.

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