Joanna Stober, CEO and co-founder of Midi Health, has never had the opportunity to execute her business plans beyond legendary venture capitalist John Doerr, president of Kleiner Perkins. But that didn't stop her from turning to Doerr, in a version of AI, for advice on how to grow her startup, a virtual clinic that offers medical care to middle-aged women.
“Basically, you can access it through ChatGPT,” Strober told CNBC's Julia Boorstin on the latest episode of the “CNBC Changemakers and Power Players” podcast.
Strober, a former venture capitalist, co-founded Midi Health in 2021. Today, the company has a network of 400 women's health specialists, has seen more than 200,000 patients, and recently introduced testosterone hormone therapy. Midi counts Amy Schumer and Tory Burch among its investors and reports an annual revenue rate of $150 million.
Strober was named to the CNBC Changemakers of 2025 list.
As Strober set milestones for his startup's next phase of growth, getting guidance and mentorship from successful business leaders (via AI prompts) became a key and surprising part of his process.
During a recent plane trip, Strober says he “spoke with John Doerr for eight hours,” gathering feedback on his ideas for Midi's 'Objectives and Key Results' (OKRs), a framework Doerr has championed to help companies and organizations set and achieve ambitious goals.
“I got feedback over and over again about the OKRs I came up with,” Strober said. “He finally liked them and it was really cute.”
A trove of Doerr's public work allows the AI chatbot to emulate his guidance. Doerr is the author of “Measure What Matters,” a guide to the OKR system adopted by Google, the Gates Foundation and Bono, and has shared his approach through podcasts, speeches, videos and interviews over the past decades. That rich set of content, Strober says, gave him a remarkably realistic Doerr to interact with.
“This is really fun. You can have a 'good John Doerr' or you can say 'be a tough John Doerr' and then he changes the feedback he gives you,” he said.
Although she never received advice directly from the real Doerr, Strober's closest friend while growing up in Silicon Valley was the late Susan Wojcicki, who appears in Doerr's book on the OKRs she developed on YouTube. Wojcicki, who was an early Google employee and later became CEO of YouTube, died of lung cancer at age 56 in August 2024. Strober says his close friendship with Wojcicki and Susan's success in business helped motivate her to found Midi.
“I used to show up at Susan's house all the time asking her questions and I miss her so much,” Strober said.
While Strober was sitting on that same plane ride refining her trading strategy and texting her husband, she suggested moving the trading goals past an AI-generated version of Wojcicki, which he did. “His advice was very good,” he said. “I got really excited on the plane when she said, 'These are pretty good, but I could think about this and I could change this.'”
“It was actually very valuable to have her give 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 women whose achievements have left a mark on the business world and who are blazing a path for the future.
