After athenahealth went public in 2007, Todd and Ed Park's father told his sons something they had waited a long time to hear. It was all right that neither of them had become what he and their mother wanted: one a doctor, the other a lawyer.
The parents had come from Korea in 1969, as the brothers have described it on the a16z podcast, chasing the American dream. Their father studied chemical engineering at the University of Utah, and Todd was born in Salt Lake City in 1973. The father's first real job was at Dow Chemical, where he became one of the company's most decorated engineers, with more patents than almost anyone there. The family landed in Granville, Ohio, among cornfields and apple trees.
The family landed in Granville, Ohio, among cornfields and apple trees.
Todd was a Presidential Scholar in 1990 and went to Harvard, graduating magna cum laude in economics. Ed studied computer science. A doctor and a lawyer, it was not.
What almost nobody outside the family knew was where the first money came from. Their father had put away $50,000 for graduate school of his own. When his sons asked for it to start a company, he said yes. On the podcast the brothers recalled his one wish: that they would "fail fast because you're my only two kids."
They did not fail fast. At 24, in 1997, Todd co-founded athenahealth with Jonathan Bush. In 2008 he co-founded Castlight Health, and later he helped lead the first HealthCare.gov, reportedly built in 90 days.
In 2017 the brothers started Devoted Health. Medicare Advantage lets private plans run seniors' coverage, and Devoted tries to run the plan and the care together. Ed is generally listed as its chief executive, with Todd as executive chairman. By January 2026 it reported 466,000 members in 29 states, up 121% in a year, and a Series F at about $16.1 billion.
The price of that speed is murky. One estimate puts 2024 revenue at $3.27 billion, while another says 2025 revenue fell 5% to $2.1 billion. The two do not sit easily together, and no profit figure has been published.
A father's savings account is not a term sheet, and he knew what he might be giving up. The thing a founder can take from it is that someone once decided the bet was worth more than the safety, and the founders have been paying that back ever since.