Welcome to The Uprising Show! In this thought-provoking episode, host Vivek sits down with Sergei Polevikov an accomplished mathematician, healthcare AI entrepreneur, and the candid author of the Substack newsletter "AI Health Uncut." Sergei shares his fascinating journey from Belarus to the front lines of AI innovation in healthcare, discussing how his passion for mathematics, research, and problem-solving led him from finance to making a real difference in digital health.
Sergei opens up about the tough realities and unique challenges of bringing cutting-edge AI into the healthcare industry, how his startups (including WellAI and Chart 2 Chart) have navigated complexities during the Covid era, and why data when harnessed correctly can feel like magic. The conversation pulls back the curtain on the difficulties of healthcare innovation, from navigating entrenched interests to addressing mismatched incentives among investors, providers, and patients.
He also dives into his Substack work, where he doesn't just celebrate AI’s wins but also investigates failures and exposes issues like misleading benchmarks, industry hype, and even alleged fraud. Whether it's his critique of venture capital’s role in digital health or his advocacy for more honest, research-based advancements, Sergei's frank insights and deep expertise make this a must-listen for founders, clinicians, and anyone passionate about the future of healthcare and AI.
Tune in for one of the most candid and intellectually honest conversations on healthcare, AI, and what it takes to push meaningful change in a notoriously challenging field!
00:00 "Navigating AI Challenges in Healthcare"
08:20 "Accidental Career Shift: A New Chapter"
10:25 Structuring PubMed Data Insights
15:41 "AI: Unveiling Healthcare's Black Boxes"
24:31 Disparity Between Management and Reality
26:44 Medical Device Harm and DOJ Probe
32:51 Venture Capital Performance Disconnect
37:55 Persistent Faith in Venture Capital Titans
47:37 Highlighting Failures in AI Startups
49:17 Cautious Optimism in AI Healthcare
55:11 "Skepticism on AI Product Viability"
01:00:33 "USMLE Problem Solved, Critiques Emerge"
01:04:50 Investigative Insights Gaining Support
Unpacking AI, Healthcare Innovation, and Hard Truths with Sergei Polevikov
On this episode of The Uprising Show, host Vivek sat down with Sergei Polevikov, mathematician, AI health researcher, and founder whose journey through economics, finance, and now healthcare has been anything but linear. What followed was a candid, deeply insightful conversation that peeled back the layers of hype, hope, and harsh realities facing digital health today.
From Stats to Startups: The Unconventional Path
Sergei's story begins in Belarus, with a family of scientists and educators who inspired his passion for research, his father a renowned physicist, his mother an engineer. Mathematics became his base, from which he launched a multifaceted academic journey: four master’s degrees spanning economics, finance, applied mathematics, and machine learning. What stands out about Sergei is not just the credentials but his relentless curiosity. He describes himself as someone who reads papers daily, always seeking to understand the latest in AI, especially as it applies to healthcare.
His move from finance to healthcare wasn’t planned. It grew out of personal and professional crossroads, combined with a chance partnership that ultimately launched the digital health startup wellAI, later merging into Chart 2 Chart. The spark? Frustration with how unstructured, inaccessible, or “magical” medical data is, and the challenge of organizing it in a usable, intelligent way for both clinicians and researchers.
Cracking Open the Black Boxes of Healthcare
A recurring metaphor in Sergei’s thinking is the “black box”, the hidden complexity that prevents researchers, clinicians, and patients from making sense of or contributing to broader medical knowledge. The original wellAI product aimed to ingest and intelligently connect massive amounts of PubMed data, essentially building a living, evolving neural network that gets smarter as new medical research is published (up to a thousand articles per day, according to Sergei).
Crucially, he points out how AI, when applied right, acts as an engine for revealing non-obvious, non-linear relationships in clinical data, a job humans are remarkably ill-equipped to do at scale. Yet, Sergei is the first to warn that most problems in healthcare can’t be solved by AI alone, sometimes simple automation suffices, and in many cases, incentive structures in healthcare actively hinder true innovation.
Debunking Hype and Exposing Weaknesses
What sets Sergei apart is his willingness to call out hype, expose weak claims, and discuss the not-so-glamorous side of digital health startups. In his widely-read Substack, “AI Health Uncut,” he doesn’t shy away from criticizing models that overclaim like those boasting 100% accuracy on medical exams based on flawed, cherry-picked benchmarking.
He’s skeptical of the current crop of healthcare AI scribes, pointing out that most are just repackaged APIs with little true innovation. Sergei’s advice? Value teams with deep research chops over those chasing headlines, and don’t mistake VC-backed press releases for real impact.
VC, Policy, and the Profit Paradox
Sergei’s financial background gives him a bigger-picture view: the venture capital model in digital health often puts profit and quick exits ahead of patient or practitioner benefit, leaving destabilized communities in their wake. He’s particularly critical of how public money (often funneled through Medicare, Medicaid, or pension funds) ends up supporting business models that don’t necessarily deliver long-term health value.
A Community of Candid Conversation
Beyond product and policy, Sergei is passionate about building honest discourse. His Substack now has thousands of subscribers, a Founding Members Club, and he regularly speaks at conferences driven by a desire to share lessons from both failure and success, and to foster discussion that’s evidence-based rather than hype-driven.
His closing message? Progress in healthcare AI is real but slow; it requires humility, rigorous research, and a willingness to learn from mistakes. As Sergei and Vivek agree: healthcare is hard a “different beast”—and the industry will only be transformed by those unafraid to dig into its toughest problems with clarity and candor.
To hear Sergei’s unfiltered takes or connect with him, follow him on LinkedIn or check out his Substack at AI Health Uncut.
The Uprising Show Website: https://theuprisingshow.com/
Vivek Nanda's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/viveknanda1/
Vivek Nanda's Twitter: https://x.com/vickks
TopHealth Media Website: https://tophealth.care/