Joanna Stober, CEO and co-founder of Midi Health, has never had the opportunity to execute her business plan beyond John Doerr, legendary venture capital investor and chairman of Kleiner Perkins. But that didn’t stop her from turning to the AI version of Doerr for advice on growing her startup, a virtual clinic that provides midlife health care for women.
“He basically has access to you on ChatGPT,” Strober told CNBC’s Julia Boorstin on the latest episode of the podcast “CNBC Changemakers and Power Players.”
Strober, himself a former venture capitalist, co-founded Midi Health in 2021. Today, the company has a network of 400 women’s health professionals, serves 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 run rate of $150 million.
Mr. Strober was named to the 2025 CNBC Changemakers list.
As Strober was formulating milestones for her startup’s next stage of growth, receiving guidance and coaching from successful business leaders through AI prompts became an important and surprising part of her process.
During a recent flight, Strober said she “spoke with John Doerr for eight hours” to get feedback on her ideas for Midi’s “objectives and key results” (OKRs). This framework is one that Doerr has championed to help businesses and organizations set and achieve ambitious goals.
“I got feedback over and over again about the OKRs I came up with,” Strober said. “In the end, he liked them. It was very nice.”
Doerr’s extensive public works allow AI chatbots 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 over the past several decades through podcasts, speeches, videos, and interviews. Strober says that rich content has allowed her to interact with Doerr, who is surprisingly lifelike.
“It’s actually really fun. You can say, ‘Be nice John Doerr,’ or you can say, ‘Be tough John Doerr,’ and the feedback you get changes depending on that,” she said.
Although she never received direct advice from the real Doerr, a close friend of Strober’s growing up in Silicon Valley was the late Susan Wojcicki, who is featured in Doerr’s book on OKRs, which she developed on YouTube. Wojcicki, an early Google employee who later became CEO of YouTube, died of lung cancer in August 2024 at the age of 56. Strober said his close friendship with Wojcicki and Susan’s success in business inspired him to start Midi.
“I was always showing up at Susan’s house and asking her questions. I miss her so much,” Strober said.
While on the same plane, developing business strategies and exchanging email messages with her husband, Strober proposed that she go beyond the AI-generated version of Wojcicki to achieve her business goals, which she did. “Her advice was very good,” she said. “I got very emotional on the plane when she said, ‘This is pretty good, but we might think about this and change it.'”
“The advice she gave me was actually invaluable,” Strober added.
Follow and listen to this and all episodes of the podcast “CNBC Changemakers and Power Players” on Apple and Spotify.
CNBC is accepting nominations for the third annual CNBC Changemakers: Women Transforming Business list. The unranked list recognizes an outstanding group of women who are making a mark in the business world and paving the way for the future.
