Stories

Sami Inkinen was 36, wealthy, and semiretired. Trulia, the online real estate company he cofounded and nurtured from a startup to a business with some 20 million users, had filed to go public, and he had decided to cease his operational role. That would leave plenty of time for his main hobby: triathlons. A champion who obsessively tracks his biometrics, Inkinen was a fitness freak even by Silicon Valley standards. He had less than 8% body fat. But life is full of ironic twists, and he was hurtling ­toward a particularly sharp one. Soon after Trulia went public, Inkinen noticed something strange: His blood sugar levels were above normal and rising. He was prediabetic. He took his mission even further: Inkinen launched Virta Health, In a clinical trial conducted in partnership with Indiana University Health, researchers found that 56% of the roughly 240 participants on the Virta platform lowered their blood sugar below diabetic levels by the end of the 10-week trial, and 87% no longer needed insulin.

Return to GP