Shift+6 3: Greg Tracy, CTO, Propeller Health

I've known Greg Tracy since before founding Redox, connecting over civic hacking projects in Madison, Wisconsin. As the co-founder and CTO, Greg helped Propeller Health from its inception to serving patients across the globe and through its recent acquisition by ResMed (for $225M), where he now serves as the chief architect. 

Greg shares the Propeller Health story, their early choice to go through FDA clearance, and how they built the business into a global brand, as well as the constant struggle to prioritize projects, no matter how large the organization. He’s always been a mentor to the up and coming developer-leaders in Madison; this conversation exemplifies this. Thanks for the great conversation Greg!

Find Greg on Twitter (@GregTracy).

Key Moments

01:12 - Overview of Propeller Health’s product offering 03:09 - Greg’s background and starting Propeller 08:29 - Balancing speed and quality in an FDA certified domain 11:57 - Managing a diverse set of users and stakeholders 14:29 - “Suck” meetings for engineering 16:59 - Getting acquired by a public company 23:24 - Prioritizing endless wants 27:19 - How Slack fails product teams 30:00 - The best innovation in healthcare comes from those without experience