The Heart of Healthcare | A Digital Health Podcast

Breaking Dunbar's Number in Home Care | Seth Sternberg, CEO of Honor

Dec 23, 2024

Seth Sternberg, Co-founder and CEO of Honor, previously led Meebo before pioneering changes in home care. He discusses how AI rescued Honor from collapse and transformed the industry, utilizing 22 models to enhance care and retention. Interesting insights include why caregiver satisfaction goes beyond pay, the shift to W2 employees, and how 'revealed preferences' match caregivers and clients. He also contrasts international home care practices and explores expanding services to address aging challenges.

28:56

Episode guests

Seth Sternberg

AI Summary

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Episode notes

Podcast summary created with Snipd AI

Quick takeaways

Seth Sternberg emphasizes that treating caregivers with respect and investing in their development significantly improves retention and client outcomes.

Honor successfully utilizes AI technology to enhance caregiver-client matching, allowing for personalized care experiences tailored to individual needs.

Deep dives

Innovating Care for Older Adults

The discussion emphasizes the need for innovation in caring for older adults, driven by the personal experience of Seth Sternberg, co-founder and CEO of Honor. After encountering challenges while caring for his mother, he recognized a systemic failure in how society approaches elder care. This realization fueled his determination to create a solution that not only addressed the immediate needs of older adults but also tackled broader issues within the healthcare system. Honor's approach focuses on making significant impacts through technology and dedicated service, aiming to revolutionize how care is delivered.

Intro

3min

Transforming Home Care: Innovations and Challenges

16min

Comparing Home Care Practices Across Countries

2min

AI in Home Care Services

5min

Navigating the Challenges of Eldercare vs. Childcare

3min

After building and selling Meebo, Seth Sternberg wanted his next venture to transform lives at scale. A decade later, Honor has become the world's largest in-home senior care network, delivering care to 35,000 US homes daily. In this candid conversation, Sternberg reveals how AI saved the company from near collapse in 2015 and why treating caregivers like true professionals creates better outcomes for everyone.

We cover:

🏠 How Honor grew from a "shed startup" to a $2B global care network

🤖 Why AI was the key to solving home care's scaling problem - and how they use 22 different AI models today

👥 The surprising truth about what really drives caregiver retention (hint: it's not hourly wages)

💼 Why they switched from contractors to W2 employees in the first 6 months

🔍 How "revealed preferences" help match caregivers with the right clients

🌐 The dramatic differences in home care models across countries

🚀 Their vision for expanding beyond basic care to solve food, medication and other challenges for aging adults

About our guest:

Seth Sternberg is the Co-Founder and CEO of Honor, a non-medical home care company with a mission to enable our parents to remain in their homes as they age. Prior to Honor, Seth was the Co-Founder and CEO of Meebo, which brought instant messaging to the web and reached close to half the internet population in the United States. Meebo was acquiredby Google, where Seth became a Product Director working on the Google Identity Platform, and then within GoogleX. Seth started his career with IBM’s Corporate Development group after graduating from Yale.

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