The Doctor Who Left Medicine to Fix Venture Capital - Rebecca Mitchell!

Dr. Rebecca Mitchell is a physician, product leader, and venture investor — and co-founder of Scrub Capital, a venture firm that's only three years old but has already made close to 20 investments. Her thesis is different from most of Silicon Valley: put clinicians at the center of the investment process, because they're the ones who actually know how care gets bought, used, and ignored.

In this episode of Inspiring Women, host Laurie McGraw talks with Dr. Mitchell about her winding path — from doing home care visits with her mother as a kid, to global health work before medical school, to a career-defining project bringing a NASA-designed garment to treat obstetric hemorrhage in low-resource settings, to roles at the American Medical Association and Livongo, and finally to building Scrub Capital's clinician-led venture model from scratch.

They dig into why most VCs lack real insight into how healthcare actually works, what the Livongo story reveals about proving ROI in a skeptical market, and what she looks for in founders navigating a market where capital, technology, and buyer behavior are all shifting at different speeds.

Topics covered:

- Why Scrub Capital built a model letting clinicians invest and advise without leaving clinical work

- How Livongo trained the market to measure and pay for healthcare outcomes

- Portfolio examples: Phil (digital prescriptions) and Conceivable Life Sciences (IVF automation)

- The founder traits Dr. Mitchell looks for: grit, humility, and mission alignment

- Why "unsexy" problems — pricing, distribution, workflow — often matter more than new tech

- Her reflections on Dolly Parton and what real authenticity looks like in leadership

Dr. Mitchell closes with advice for women building careers that don't fit inside one box: do the work to figure out who you are, and don't be shy about sharing it with the world.

Guest: Dr. Rebecca Mitchell, Co-founder, Scrub Capital

Host: Laurie McGraw

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