Three IPOs. One $18.5B exit. Still calling the healthcare system broken - and building the fix.
In 2014, Glen Tullman's eight-year-old son Sam was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes. The doctor called Sam "a diabetic." Tullman pushed back on the spot: "No. He's a person who loves football and music and playing outside - and also happens to have diabetes." That one correction, made at a pediatrician's appointment in suburban Chicago, became the founding philosophy of Livongo Health - a company that would eventually sell to Teladoc for $18.5 billion.
That's Tullman's method. He finds a broken thing, names it precisely, builds the alternative, then does it again. He ran that loop at Enterprise Systems (took it public, sold to McKesson). He ran it at Allscripts for 15 years, turning a paper prescription pad company into the dominant electronic health records provider. He ran it at Livongo. And since 2021, he's been running it at Transcarent, the consumer-directed health platform he founded for self-insured employers.
Most people who have already done all of that retire. Tullman signed the Giving Pledge in 2025, committing the majority of an estimated $1 billion fortune to philanthropy. He also launched a new $100 million fund - 62 Ventures - named, with some cheek, after his age at founding. Then he led Transcarent through the $621 million acquisition of Accolade. In the same calendar year.
"No, he's not a diabetic. He is a person who has lots of qualities we can talk about - and also happens to have diabetes." That insistence on identity over diagnosis shaped Livongo's entire product: technology that empowers people to live better rather than simply managing a condition.
The middle - payers, PBMs, suppliers - profits from friction and inefficiencies. That's the problem.
- Glen TullmanJoined as CEO when it was a niche e-prescribing outfit. Left 15 years later as the dominant EHR provider for physician practices. Led the IPO and multiple secondary offerings. If a doctor in America typed a prescription into a computer screen between 2000 and 2012, there's a reasonable chance Tullman built that screen.
Founded after his son's diabetes diagnosis. Built connected devices and an AI-powered platform for people with chronic conditions. Took it public in 2019 in the largest consumer digital health IPO ever. Then sold it to Teladoc for $18.5 billion - the largest merger in digital health history. The company that started because of one doctor's dismissive label became an industry-defining acquisition.
A health and care platform built for self-insured employers - the Fortune 500 companies writing multi-million dollar health benefit checks and getting unreliable results. Tullman's thesis: the navigation layer is broken. Fix the way people find, access, and use care. WayFinding, Transcarent's AI product, goes beyond pointing to a provider - it actually performs tasks on the user's behalf. 780 employees. $424M raised. CNBC Disruptor 50, 2025.
Most Giving Pledge commitments are announced at the end of a career. Tullman signed his in 2025 while simultaneously running a multi-billion-dollar company, launching a new VC fund, and completing a major acquisition. The pledge isn't a capstone - it's another parallel project.
His philanthropic framework is rooted in tikkun olam - the Jewish tradition of repairing the world. It shows up concretely: a $100 million commitment to diabetes research (personal, not abstract), backing education technology through Modern Teacher (now LEAP Innovations), and co-founding SoCore Energy with his son Ben, a solar installation company later acquired by Edison International.
He also co-founded the Tullman Family Office with his daughter Cayley - a structure that signals a multi-generational approach to both capital and impact. The Tullman name on a deal is increasingly a family enterprise.
He holds positions at the World Economic Forum as an Agenda Contributor and has spoken at major global health conferences, including Frontiers Health and Health Evolution. Oxford gave him a year studying social anthropology after Bucknell; it shows - Tullman talks about healthcare as a system of human incentives before he talks about technology.
After Bucknell, Tullman spent a year at Oxford studying social anthropology - about as far from health tech as one can go. He credits that year with shaping how he thinks about healthcare: not as a technology problem, but as a human systems problem where incentives, identities, and institutions determine outcomes far more than gadgets do.
If I'd had a finish line, don't you think I would've crossed it years ago?
- Glen Tullman (quoting Bill Gates)Transcarent operates in the employer-sponsored health benefits space - the $1 trillion segment where large self-insured companies bear the financial risk of their workers' medical costs. The traditional model layers brokers, TPAs, PBMs, and point solutions on top of each other until no one knows what's covered, where to go, or why the bill is wrong. Tullman calls that "profitable friction."
Transcarent's answer is WayFinding: an AI-powered navigation layer Tullman describes as "agentive" - it doesn't just tell users what to do, it does things for them. In his words: "Technology perfectly applied is indistinguishable from magic." His public framing for 2025 is explicit: "People who implement AI solutions are going to be dramatically ahead of other people."
The Accolade acquisition - completed April 2025 - brought a human advocacy layer onto Transcarent's digital platform. Where Transcarent built the AI navigation, Accolade had built a network of human health assistants and employer relationships. The combined organization gives Tullman what he's always wanted: a full-stack consumer health experience, from the moment someone types a symptom into an app through to surgery coordination, pharmacy, and chronic condition management.
Financing for the deal was led by General Catalyst and Tullman's own 62 Ventures - meaning he's now literally invested in both the VC backing his company and the company itself. At 65, he is his own lead investor.
"My motivation isn't building another successful company - it's solving unsolved healthcare problems."
"We could improve customer experience, outcomes and lower costs - all three."
"I make mistakes every day. The best baseball players make more outs than hits."
"What's good for customers is good for business. The same is true in healthcare. But we forget who the customer is."
"Technology perfectly applied is indistinguishable from magic."
"People who implement AI solutions are going to be dramatically ahead of other people."
Tullman grew up the youngest of six children in Highland Park, Illinois - an affluent Chicago suburb where being the baby meant either getting overlooked or learning to hold a room. He went into economics and psychology at Bucknell, then took an unusual year off at Oxford to study social anthropology before returning to corporate America. That combination - behavioral science plus structural analysis - never left his thinking.
He describes himself as a disruptor, not a revolutionary. The distinction matters to him: a revolutionary starts from scratch; a disruptor finds leverage inside the existing system. His career bears that out. He didn't invent electronic health records - he made them ubiquitous at Allscripts by meeting doctors where they were. He didn't invent chronic disease monitoring - he made it consumer-facing at Livongo by starting with identity, not technology.
He co-founded SoCore Energy with his son Ben - a solar installation business that Edison International eventually bought. He started Modern Teacher (now LEAP Innovations) to bring classroom technology to Chicago public schools. He named a venture fund after his own age. He seems constitutionally unable to not start something.
Named at founding when Tullman was 62 years old. Where most executives taper activity, he launched a fresh $100M fund and named it after the age that allegedly signals decline.
Wrote "On Our Terms: Empowering the New Health Consumer" - a manifesto for patient-centered care that preceded the Livongo exit by several years.
His philanthropic framework - the Jewish concept of repairing the world - is not a marketing line. It runs through his Giving Pledge letter, his diabetes research commitment, and his framing of every company he's built.
The CEO explains the mission, the model, and why fixing the navigation layer is the key to fixing American healthcare.
Tullman on navigating healthcare's most dynamic era - founders, consumers, and the systems designed to resist change.
American Telemedicine Association interview on why consumer-first design is the only approach that actually works in health tech.