Joanna Stober, Midi Health CEO and co-founder, has never had a possibility to run her business plans past legendary enterprise capital investor John Doerr, chairman at Kleiner Perkins. But that did not stop her from tapping Doerr, in an AI version, for advice on growing her startup, a virtual clinic offering midlife health take care of women.
“He is essentially accessible to you on ChatGPT,” Strober told CNBC’s Julia Boorstin in the most recent episode of the “CNBC Changemakers and Power Players” podcast.
A former enterprise capitalist herself, Strober co-founded Midi Health in 2021. Today, the corporate has a network of 400 women’s health specialists, has served greater than 200,000 patients and recently introduced testosterone hormone therapy. Midi counts Amy Schumer and Tory Burch amongst its investors and reports an annual revenue run rate of $150 million.
Strober was named to the 2025 CNBC Changemakers list.
As Strober was laying out the milestones for her startup’s next phase of growth, getting guidance and mentorship from successful business leaders — through AI prompts — became a key, surprising a part of her process.
During a recent plane ride, Strober says she “talked to John Doerr for eight hours,” gathering feedback on her ideas for Midi’s ‘Objectives and Key Results’ (OKRs), a framework Doerr has championed to assist firms and organizations set and achieve ambitious goals.
“I got feedback again and again and all over again on the OKRs that I got here up with,” Strober said. “Finally, he liked them, and it was very nice.”
An unlimited trove of Doerr’s public work enables the AI chatbot to emulate his guidance. Doerr is the writer of “Measure What Matters” — a guide to the OKR system adopted by Google, the Gates Foundation, and Bono — and has shared his approach across podcasts, speeches, videos and interviews over the the past several a long time. That wealthy body of content, Strober says, gave her a remarkably lifelike Doerr to interact with.
“This is definitely really fun. You’ll be able to have a ‘nice John Doerr,’ or you possibly can say ‘be a harsh John Doerr’ after which it changes the feedback that it gives you,” she said.
Though she has never received advice directly from the true Doerr, Strober’s closest friend growing up in Silicon Valley was the late Susan Wojcicki, who’s featured in Doerr’s book for the OKRs she developed at YouTube. Wojcicki, who was an early Google worker and later became the CEO of YouTube, died of lung cancer at age 56 in August 2024. Strober says her close friendship with Wojcicki, and Susan’s success in business, helped motivate her to start out Midi.
“I used to indicate up at Susan’s house on a regular basis asking her questions, and I miss her so much,” Strober said.
As Strober sat on that very same plane ride refining her business strategy, and texting along with her husband, he suggested running the business goals past an AI-generated version of Wojcicki, which he did. “Her advice was so good,” she said. “I used to be very emotional on the plane when she said, ‘these are pretty good, but I’d take into consideration this, and I’d change this.'”
“It was actually very helpful to have her giving me advice,” Strober added.
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CNBC is accepting nominations for the third CNBC Changemakers: Women Transforming Business list. The unranked list will recognize a distinguished group of ladies whose accomplishments have left a mark on the business world and who’re paving a path forward.
