Columbus unicorn Olive AI Inc. has surpassed 1,000 employees and plans 300 more hires by year's end – making it five times larger than it was at the start of 2020.
The growth through nationwide hiring and acquisitions puts the health IT company on pace for its goal of 1,600 employees by the middle of next year. Valued at $4 billion in a July venture capital round, Olive builds a suite of artificial intelligence software that automates administrative processes and augments decision-making in healthcare.
Meanwhile, it has added tech industry expertise to its board of directors with a cryptocurrency entrepreneur and former Amazon executive.
Olive has credited its ability to recruit so quickly to a permanent distributed workforce model adopted last year in the throes of the coronavirus pandemic. About 20% of employees are in Ohio.
Besides the Columbus headquarters, it has leased offices in cities with a critical mass of employees – most recently Chicago and Los Angeles. Otherwise people log in from home or a coworking space.
"The Grid enables us to hire top talent from anywhere without being restricted by proximity to a physical office," Chief People Officer Brian Rutkowski said in a news release.
The new directors come from outside healthcare, but with experience at companies that grew to massive scale:
- Surojit Chatterjee, chief product officer for fast-growing cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase Global Inc., and formerly in leadership at Flipkart and Google.
- Luis Felipe Visoso, CFO of Unity Technologies, real-time 3D content platform, and before that CFO of Amazon's Web Services and Worldwide Consumer divisions, and in leadership roles at Palo Alto Networks, Cisco and Procter & Gamble.
"As we continue to grow at an unprecedented rate and get closer to our goal of creating the Internet of Healthcare, the experience of these leaders will be invaluable," Olive CEO Sean Lane said in the release.
