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Erik Gregorio Cruz, Micaela Moss, and Jordane Thomas joined Alto this summer as the company’s first engineering interns! Here they share their learnings, accomplishments, and their advice for future Alto interns.

How to Make the Most of Your Engineering Internship — Advice From Alto's First Interns

Erik Gregorio Cruz, Micaela Moss, and Jordane Thomas joined Alto this summer as the company’s first engineering interns! In their three months with us they blazed the trail for future Alto interns while adjusting to a new norm of fully remote work during the global pandemic. Here they share their learnings, accomplishments, and advice for future Alto interns.

Coming out of a bootcamp program rather than a traditional Computer Science degree program, Micaela hoped to find a company open to non-traditional educational paths. “I know that a company that is welcoming of bootcamp grads values diversity, inclusivity, and mentorship.” 

For Erik, it came down to his interview experience: “Everyone seemed to really enjoy their experience and really believed in the mission they were working on.” Micaela agreed, adding that it also ultimately came down to the people for her. “You can tell a lot about a company’s culture based on what the people who interview you are like,” she said. “From the recruiter to the engineers, everyone was incredibly friendly and a joy to interact with.”

What was the most fun moment of your internship? (That is, assuming you had fun!)

Virtual team lunches were a highlight for all 3 interns. However, one special moment during Micaela’s internship actually came from resolving a ticket that involved writing an end-to-end (E2E) test—something she was not looking forward to. “I was dreading it for two reasons: First, I do not particularly enjoy writing tests—I’d rather write the code that passes them—and second, I had never worked with Cypress before. Several hours later, after reading lots of documentation, studying previously written E2E tests, and getting stumped by a hidden selector, I managed to write the test. When I finally ran it and got to watch the video as it clicked on buttons and filled out inputs, I became instantly enchanted. I may have run it several more times just to watch it, smiling like a goofball, knowing that this test that I had created would be run every time code was pushed and merged.” 

In addition to their respective engineering managers, whom the interns had weekly 1:1s with, each intern was also assigned a dedicated mentor, who committed at least 5 hours a week of dedicated support to their interns over Slack and Zoom. Mentors were able to provide historical and business context, help interns get ramped up on Alto’s tech stack, codebase, and tools, and pair program as needed. “Working with my mentor definitely made me more productive,” said Jordane.

The mentors added that working with the interns actually helped them improve their ability to articulate technical concepts, as well as their ability to talk through technical challenges with others more effectively in their day to day work.

What was it like interning during the pandemic and being fully remote?

“I found myself setting up ‘Hey, there’s a pandemic, and this is crazy, so let’s get introduced virtually, maybe?’ meetings,” said Micaela. “Although, as someone who is horrible with names, it is worth noting that a silver lining to being entirely remote is having everyone’s name in the corner of their zoom video. That, and sweatpants everyday!” 

Erik and Jordane agreed that being remote required a little extra effort. Alto’s engineering office is based in SF, and since they weren’t required to be physically in-office this summer due to the pandemic, both Erik and Jordane were based in other time zones. “In the beginning I was starting my day at 9am EST/6am PST, but if I got stuck I would have to wait until West Coast working hours before I could reach out,” explained Jordane. With time, “I picked up a different working rhythm that worked better for everyone.”

While Jordane was surprised by just “how friendly and accessible everyone was,” Erik was surprised by how quickly he was able to actually deploy code. 

Acknowledging that her chosen career path has a history of gender imbalance, Micaela shared that she “was pleasantly surprised” to have both a female manager and a female mentor. “It was a great experience getting to have two strong female role models to learn from during my internship.”

Micaela and Jordane were both on the Pharmacy Platform team, which defines best practices and processes that promote a future-forward and scalable way of development. The platform team provides tools, libraries, and services that make development work at Alto and enable all of Alto's engineers to write performant code. Erik was on the Pharmacy Supply Chain team, which enables a better, faster experience for patients by ensuring the right medications get out the door, on time, and at the lowest cost possible.

Erik’s mentor, Eric Leite, helped us understand what Erik contributed to the Pharmacy Supply Chain team: “Sometimes our operations workflow requires manual intervention to resolve issues. We use an extendable admin interface to help us navigate the more complex issues. Erik created an add-on to this application that helped our on-call team work more efficiently. We can now resolve a specific kind of complex insurance claim issue by using his add-on to guide us through the multi-day resolution process. Erik learned about our supply chain operations workflow, how insurance claims are processed, how to model out a problem using Ruby on Rails, and how to write effective tests using RSpec.”

Micaela and Jordane, both on the Pharmacy Platform team, worked on optimizing performance and cleaning up legacy code. For instance, Jordane helped standardize Alto’s frontend by increasing adoption of our component library. “Although this was a relatively straight-forward task that didn’t require much problem solving, it did require a lot of endurance,” said Jordane. “I had to edit and test changes to over 300 files by hand. There were many times I could have broken [the platform], and changes needed to be made very carefully.”

What is the biggest learning you are taking away from this experience?

“The biggest learning I am taking away from this experience is nicely summed up by the grail knight in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade: ‘You have chosen...wisely.’” said Micaela. “I knew I enjoyed software engineering when I was learning it, or when I was working on my personal projects, but that can change when it becomes a job. After spending the summer as a software engineering intern at Alto, I can say with confidence that I have chosen...wisely.”

Jordane discovered that “engineering isn’t just innovation,” as he came into the experience believing; “it’s also investigation.” When we asked the interns’ mentors and managers what they had learned from the interns, they all recognized the genuine curiosity the interns brought into their respective teams and projects, which helped them to see Alto’s codebase through new eyes. They also gushed about the excitement the interns had when pushing to production for the first time.

What words of wisdom would you give to future Alto interns?

All three agreed: ask as many questions as you need to! “Over communicate, and just relax & enjoy the process!” offered Jordane. Erik agreed sharing, “Do not be afraid to reach out when you get stuck. Reaching out for help is essential.” 

“An internship is all about learning and growing,” said Micaela, “so take advantage of the wisdom and experience of your peers. They have a lot to offer!”

Ashley Qian, the Senior Engineer who mentored Micaela, advised, “Know your limits! Take breaks! Find something else to enjoy other than software engineering because your work is not your life, and your life is not work. Surround yourself with people who are your advocates and go to bat for you, and if you find yourself in a system or an environment that does not support you, try to understand what your boundaries are, and leave if you can. You always have a shoulder to lean on if that's the case, here, with the friends you've made at Alto!

Interested in being an intern at Alto? Check out our careers page HERE.

When trying to understand the (rather large) differences between type 1 and type 2 diabetes, we find that it’s helpful to start with what they have in common—namely, a problem related to the hormone insulin. 

What’s the Difference between Type 1 and Type 2 Diabetes?

Put very simply, diabetes is a health issue that affects how the body converts food into energy. This simple understanding is complicated, however, by the fact that it’s actually a term for several conditions. When trying to understand the (rather large) differences between type 1 and type 2 diabetes, we find that it’s helpful to start with what they have in common—namely, a problem related to the hormone insulin. 

Your cells use a simple sugar called glucose for energy. Your body obtains it by breaking down the carbohydrates that you eat. Once the glucose enters your bloodstream, your pancreas releases insulin in response, which promptly helps move the sugar out of your blood and into your cells. In a person with diabetes, however, one of the following things happens: 

The pancreas does not produce any insulin at all

The body doesn’t respond to insulin in the right way, which is known as “insulin resistance.”

Without treatment, a person with diabetes will develop a condition called high blood sugar, which is just as it sounds—too much glucose in the blood. This can lead to serious and even life-threatening complications such as heart disease, vision loss, kidney disease, or nerve damage. There is currently no cure for diabetes, but it can be managed through lifestyle interventions and, depending on the type, oral medication and/or insulin injections. 

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), over 34 million Americans, or about 1 in 11, have diabetes. In addition, it’s estimated that 1 in 3 adults are currently at serious risk of developing type 2 diabetes, meaning more than 40% of American adults are in some way affected by this disease. In case you glossed over that last statistic, we’ll let it sink in again. Experts believe that nearly half of all American adults have either diabetes or prediabetes. 

To understand this disease’s startling prevalence, let’s take a look at how and why each type occurs. 

Type 1 diabetes: The immune system on the attack

Type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune condition that occurs when the body mistakenly attacks the pancreas with antibodies. This destroys the pancreas’s insulin-producing cells, meaning people with type 1 diabetes don't produce any insulin at all and must rely on insulin injections to control their blood sugar. 

Because type 1 diabetes commonly begins in childhood, it used to be known as juvenile-onset diabetes. However, it can happen at any age to people of all races and body sizes. The CDC estimates that it affects nearly 1.6 million Americans, making it much rarer than type 2 diabetes.

Symptoms of type 1 diabetes usually come on very quickly and can include excessive thirst or hunger, frequent urination, sweating, nausea or vomiting, and weight loss. The cause is unknown, but genetics plays a role and those with a family history of type 1 diabetes are at increased risk. If you experience these symptoms, it’s important to contact your doctor right away.

Type 2 diabetes: A silently growing epidemic

In the case of type 2 diabetes, the pancreas is usually able to produce some insulin. The problem is either that it’s not enough insulin or the body isn’t able to use it properly. This means glucose doesn’t easily reach the body’s cells to provide essential fuel. 

Type 2 accounts for over 90% of all people with diabetes. It develops over the course of many years due to a mix of genetic, lifestyle, and environmental factors. Unlike in the case of type 1 diabetes, those at risk for type 2 can often prevent its onset through lifestyle interventions such as losing weight, eating healthy, and staying active. 

This high-risk phase is known as prediabetes, and occurs when a person’s blood sugar levels are significantly elevated, but not high enough for a type 2 diagnosis. It’s estimated that more than 88 million adults have prediabetes and 85% of them have no idea. 

So how do you determine if you’re within this group? Well, you could be at higher risk of prediabetes if you are:

Black, Hispanic/Latino, American Indian, Asian American, or Pacific Islander (The reasons are not yet understood, but researchers have found varying rates of diabetes among different racial and ethnic groups)

High blood pressure or take medication for it

Low HDL cholesterol and/or high triglycerides

Been diagnosed with Polycystic Ovary Syndrome (PCOS)

Falling into just one of these categories puts you at higher risk, however they do not mean that a diagnosis is in your future. Staying active and eating well is the best way to lower your risk.

Indicators of type 2 diabetes include tingling in the hands and feet, excessive hunger or thirst, fatigue, frequent urination, slow-healing cuts and bruises, and blurry vision. Quite often, however, there are no symptoms at all or they develop very gradually. If you’re feeling uncertain, talk to your doctor. They may recommend an A1C blood test to check your average blood sugar levels over the past few months. The American Diabetes Association offers a free one-minute test that can help you or a loved one learn more about your risk. They also provide a variety of tools focused on preventing or managing a diagnosis, from recipes to fitness plans.

Since a type 1 diabetes diagnosis means you cannot produce your own insulin, you will require regular insulin injections and frequent testing of your blood sugar levels. Even with an insulin prescription, meal planning and daily exercise will help to further regulate your blood sugar. The important thing to remember is that this disease is manageable and it doesn’t have to mean being held back in life. The American Diabetes Association puts out a magazine called Diabetes Forecast that’s full of information, recipes, and fitness tips and there are many online communities you can join for advice and support.

Managing your insulin prescription might feel overwhelming at first, but the team of pharmacists at Alto will have your back, answering your questions and ensuring the seamless delivery of your insulin and other medications. 

Treatment for type 2 diabetes works a little differently for everyone. You may need to take oral medications or insulin injections, or you might be able to manage it with lifestyle changes alone. 

Oftentimes, treatment includes a mix of several oral medications and/or insulin. To minimize confusion over multiple prescriptions, the Alto app can help you easily manage everything in one place and set up automatic refills. Not to mention, our team of pharmacists will always be standing by to offer guidance. 

But whether you need a prescription or not, eating right and exercising will be extremely important parts of your life with type 2 diabetes. A healthy lifestyle will help keep your blood sugar stable, maintain healthy cholesterol levels, and control your blood pressure. The American Diabetes Association offers free resources that can help you get started, and you certainly won’t be alone. There are many millions of people currently living and thriving with type 2 diabetes around the world. An online community is a great place to start connecting.

A diabetes diagnosis can be daunting, but it never has to mean missing out on life. Remember, we’ll be here to help you understand your medications and set up a delivery plan that fits into your schedule. 

Looking for a partner to help you manage your prescriptions? Our team is available to answer your questions from 6 am - 9 pm PT Monday - Friday, and 7 am - 6 pm PT on weekends; reach out by phone or in-app secure messaging.

The content is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified health provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition.

If you are one of the thousands of womxn navigating these changes to your coverage, here’s what you should know about your options.

At Alto, we believe that affordable and equitable access to a medication as basic and fundamental as birth control should be protected by law.

A recent Supreme Court decision has changed the rules that employers must follow when determining what medications will be covered at no-cost by employer-sponsored insurance plans. Per the July 8th decision, employers can now opt out of providing no-cost coverage for contraceptives (previously required under the Affordable Care Act). This change may mean that you now have an increased out-of-pocket costs - or may have no insurance coverage at all - for your birth control medications.

Birth control is essential health care - nine in ten women will use contraceptives in their lifetime. At Alto, we believe that affordable and equitable access to a medication as basic and fundamental as birth control should be protected by law. 

If you are one of the thousands of womxn navigating these changes to your coverage, here’s what you should know about your options:

Generic options - If your current medication now has a high out-of-pocket cost, you can ask your healthcare provider if there are generic options or other alternatives to consider that may be more affordable, while still being safe and effective. 

Coupons and discounts - Ask your pharmacy to confirm they’ve checked for any available manufacturer coupons, copay cards, or savings programs that you may be eligible for.

Health savings account - If you have access to a health savings account (usually available with high deductible health plans), pay for your birth control with your HSA funds. HSA contributions are tax-free.

If you live in one of Alto’s service areas, we will automatically apply any available coupons, search for lower cost alternatives, and coordinate any switches with your healthcare provider so you can have affordable access to your medication, on schedule and without delays. 

Our pharmacies stock dozens of birth control options, all available for free, same-day courier delivery. Reach out to our pharmacists with any questions - we’re available seven days a week via secure messaging in our mobile app or phone.

1 https://www.guttmacher.org/fact-sheet/contraceptive-use-united-states, https://www.plannedparenthood.org/about-us/newsroom/press-releases/planned-parenthood-announces-nationwide-fight-for-birth-control

If you are one of the thousands of womxn navigating changes to your coverage, here’s what you should know about your options.

Tips for Navigating Birth Control Costs

When the city of Denver instituted a shelter-in-place order, the non-profit A Precious Child (APC), based in Broomfield, CO, suddenly saw both a dramatic decrease in donations and an increase in people in need. With COVID-19, APC found that many children and families were still in dire need of donations of cleaning supplies, hygiene products, and more, but it was much harder for APC to collect and distribute these goods. The Alto team in Denver started a food and clothing drive to help support APC's efforts and is offering free delivery of donations to people in need.

Matt Alley, Sr. Manager of Operations at Alto Pharmacy in Denver, had previously been a volunteer at A Precious Child and received a message from APC as they were looking for organizations to help support their efforts. We caught up with Matt to hear more about Alto's commitment to the Denver community.

Q: Can you share how the Denver Alto team got involved in efforts to support A Precious Child?

When the shelter in place started in Denver, I had a few non-profits reach out to me as many of them were really impacted by this and looking for ways to ensure they could help people in need. I had volunteered with A Precious Child before and believe they are doing great work to support children in the area.  

I immediately wanted to find a way that I could support them, but also knew that many of my Alto coworkers had been talking about how they could help give back to the community during this time. We spoke with A Precious Child to hear what they needed help with and our team decided to hold a food and clothing drive to help collect donations for A Precious Child.

We all focused on reaching out to our own networks to ask for donations that we collected at the Alto office and then delivered to A Precious Child for them to distribute to families in need.

At our core we are a community pharmacy. This is just what we do. That’s why this is so important to me.

Q: How do you anticipate this partnership with A Precious Child may adapt as Denver ends its shelter in place?

The shelter in place order definitely had an immediate impact on A Precious Child’s donations since more people were staying home. They normally have individuals drop off donations in person, but that doesn’t work during shelter in place, so they were exploring ways to aggregate collections and have them delivered in bulk. A Precious Child created a wish list of things that they needed to get to families such as hygiene, cleaning and baby essentials. Our team worked to get these goods and then our Alto delivery couriers helped drop these off in a safe way to the donation center.

Looking forward, we have identified that the way we can best help out A Precious Child is to have Alto couriers provide safe, no contact delivery of donations to families in need. Since Alto has continued to serve the community and help get deliveries of medications to people, even during shelter in place, we already have great processes in place to keep both the delivery courier and the person receiving a delivery of medications or donations safe.  

We are going to be partnering with A Precious Child in an ongoing capacity to offer free delivery service of donations to families in need across eight counties in the Denver area each Friday. 

I am grateful that the Alto leadership has been so supportive of our team’s efforts to give back to the community. We are in such a crazy new reality with COVID-19, and it feels really good to be able to contribute and give back. I know it’s been motivating for everyone here on the Denver Alto team to be able to give back to the community both through our own work at Alto and through this partnership.

Now, more than ever, I think Alto’s services and free doorstep delivery of medications will help keep the community healthy and safe.

Alto’s Denver Team is Delivering Impact During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Are You Right for Alto?

Why Mission-Driven Software Engineers Hold the Key to Alto’s Continued Success

Alto is the world’s most people-centric pharmacy. Our goal is not simply to distribute medications but to improve health outcomes and quality of life. What’s more, we want to make those improvements accessible to everybody.

To get to that point, we need to understand what is preventing people from accessing all the benefits medicine has to offer. We believe it’s especially important to address non-adherence, which is when people don’t take medications as prescribed. Non-adherence is a national problem that causes 125,000 avoidable deaths per year (more than three times the number of car accident deaths) and $300 billion in avoidable medical costs (more than half the money spent on pharmacy as a whole).

It also means learning how to scale our technology and processes to bring our products to a bigger swath of the population. To achieve both of these things, we need to first scale our engineering team.

Because of our unique business model, Alto is positioned to pursue three exciting growth vectors:

New Therapeutic Specialties: In addition to our general pharmacy capabilities, we have developed specialized expertise and infrastructure for managing complex treatments like fertility, dermatology, HIV, psychiatry, and other therapies that come with sticky coordination issues and unique considerations. We have made it easier than ever for people to navigate these treatment areas, but there is more we can do. Our team has identified 26 additional treatment areas that could benefit from specialized technology and processes. Mastering those areas is high on our to-do list.

New Geographic Markets: By expanding into the top 50 U.S. cities, we could potentially serve 55% of the country’s population. If we expand to the top 100 cities, our coverage would increase to 70%.

New Clinical Partnerships: Alto facilitates coordination between our team, healthcare providers, insurance companies, and the people taking the medications. In the process, we improve workflows and health outcomes. That offers a powerful benefit to clinics, medical groups, and hospital systems. Because of that reputation, we currently have a waiting list of healthcare providers who want to partner with us. That’s more demand than we can keep up with, which isn’t such a terrible problem.

When Opportunity and Demand Exceed Capacity

Alto is in a fortunate position. It is rare among companies to have multiple compounding growth vectors and a reserve of would-be partners angling for our product. We are not demand constrained, we are operationally constrained, and even then, we continue to double our business every six to nine months — just not as quickly as our potential promises.

Scaling up as a means of reaching our potential is an exciting challenge we’re already tackling. In late 2018, we closed our Series C, giving us the fuel we need to build out our engineering team and develop the technology and processes that will make our continued growth possible. That work will entail fleshing out each of our existing product areas, scaling them, and identifying and solving even more deep-rooted industry issues through better technology and better processes.

Currently, Alto boasts a small but talented and agile engineering team staffed by individuals who honed their experience at some of the biggest names in tech like Facebook, Google, Uber, 23andMe, MIT, Stanford, and Berkeley. All of our engineers are relatively senior, so everyone has autonomy and ownership over their projects. It’s a collaborative, supportive, mission-driven environment, which is how we’ve been able to build so much in a relatively short period of time.

Up until now, we have been deliberate about keeping the team small, but we’ve reached an inflection point. In the next 18 months, we’re looking to increase the engineering team four-fold. With our new team in place, we will be in a great position to focus on our objectives: building and perfecting our operational efficiencies and product scalability.

We’re approaching the challenge of scalability from a few angles:

One is automation. We want to take the algorithms that are in our employees’ heads and put them into code, so they can focus more on caring for patients rather than logistics. We’ve done a bunch of automation work already, but there’s a lot left to do.

We’re also intent on designing tools to help our own team be more efficient with their time, which will mean better UX, better UI, more batching, and less context switching.

The third angle is self-service, and it’s the one we’re focused most intently on. Right now, there is significant human interaction between our team and consumers because we want to make sure consumers have the information they need to make optimal healthcare decisions. In our next phase of growth, we want to automate that process without losing any transparency or depriving a consumer of any agency, no matter their technological competence.

Essentially, we want to build the pharmacy version of TurboTax (without the part about lobbying to keep the system broken). With the right prompts and information, TurboTax walks users through the U.S. tax system, which is huge and complicated. In effect, the user becomes totally self-servicing. We want to do the same for the people who use Alto. That said, not everybody is proficient or comfortable with technology. In the spirit of accessibility and inclusivity, it will still be important that everyone who uses Alto also has the option to speak to a real, knowledgeable, and friendly person to get their questions answered and needs met. We have a responsibility as a healthcare provider to take care of all our patients, no matter how tech-savvy they might be, but for these patients we can still use technology to enable our team to get the patient the best possible option, quickly and easily.

Our engineering team is working toward products with even more expertise built in. In the process, we will also make our operations more efficient and more scalable, unblocking barriers to expansion in existing markets, new markets, and new verticals.

When we succeed at that alignment, we stand to change the nature of the industry. To get there, we will continue to grow our engineering team with right-fit, world-class talent that not only has the skillset to take Alto to the next level but also the values to keep us aligned and mission-driven in the process.

Learn more about Alto’s company values and mission-driven work culture.

To Alto’s CTO, an ethical, altruistic, supportive workplace is everything.

Every morning (ok, most mornings), I wake up motivated — eager, even — to get out of bed and go to work. But it’s not because I am some super-performing success-bot. This is not another blog post about a c-level executive’s otherworldly, highly-meticulous-yet-seemingly-effortless morning routine, and I have no prescriptive regimen for staying happy and mindful while still managing to “get it all done.” I only have one piece of advice, but it is one that has served me (and my mornings) well:

Work with people who share your passion and values.

At Alto, the company I co-founded in 2015, everyone, from me (the CTO) to product engineers to part-time prescription couriers, is dedicated to the same mission and vision. Every day, we strive to improve health outcomes by optimizing technology and processes to become the world’s most people-centric pharmacy. I am never not excited to work alongside the few hundred Alto employees that daily act in concert to support the success of our company and make a difference in the lives of people who use Alto.

Underlying this relentless drive toward mission and vision is a set of shared core values that defines our internal culture:

Patients come first — even before our bottom line and industry partners. We will always prioritize the wellbeing of the people who use Alto to manage their prescription medications.

Leave no person behind. It’s more important to be good for all than to be great for a select few.

Start with empathy. We strive deeply to understand the thoughts and feelings of everyone we interact with.

Focus on impact. We prioritize impact over activity and focus on the work that makes the biggest strides toward our goals.

Think rigorously. We’re open to changing our minds and never hesitate to question assumptions and first principles. There is nothing sacred about the status quo.

Be humble. Our work — however expert, technical, or specialized — is in service of our team, the people who use Alto, and the greater good. Everyone’s contributions count, and no one is too important to take out the trash, so to speak. And we are certainly not above other players in the industry whose mission to help patients aligns with our own.

For me and my teammates, it’s extremely fulfilling to contribute to this smart, caring, talented team working tirelessly to help so many people. Everyone’s role is different but invaluable, and our efforts have real meaning. I can say with confidence that working in this environment makes a huge difference in how I carry myself, because I know from previous professional experiences what the opposite looks and feels like.

When my co-founder Matt and I started Alto in 2015, we were both software engineers at Parse, a Facebook-owned company. Having spent years in Silicon Valley, we were already jaded by the tech ecosystem and were ready for a change. In thinking about what we wanted to pursue next in our lives, we noticed that other companies were not working on society’s most meaningful problems; they were focused on catering to the 1%. In contrast, we wanted to use our time and skills to build something that makes a tangible, positive impact on the daily lives of all people, especially those ignored by the tech industry.

And so, we found ourselves drawn to healthcare — a big, broken industry that affects most people negatively, especially the underprivileged. We did a lot of research to figure out what our wedge into healthcare would be, and pharmacy jumped out to us. Essentially, pharmacy is the healthcare industry’s consumer product, and consumer products just happens to be our area of expertise.

If you think about it, pharmacy is a product not unlike Facebook; almost everybody in the country uses at some point in their life. But evidence suggests it’s generally a bad one. The net promoter score of chain pharmacies is somewhere in the vicinity of -10. That’s shockingly bad. (For reference, American Airlines has a net promoter score of four.) Our research also found that more than 35% of all medications sent to pharmacies are never picked up as a result of some upstream issue.

It became clear to us that none of the pharmacy incumbents thought of themselves like a product, and especially not one that is consumer focused. None of them had the mindset to prioritize and optimize the user experience, which is the mindset Silicon Valley applies to photo-sharing apps and ad optimization tools and all sorts of other products we aren’t so passionate about. Instead, pharmacy incumbents focus on extracting value from the system and pushing the cost off onto patients. In that gap, we saw opportunity — and a moral imperative.

Today, Alto is making pharmacy convenient, accessible, and user-friendly. We make it easy for consumers to get information on their medications so that they can make informed healthcare decisions. To get there, we have built and continually work to improve a robust set of user-facing and internal tools to guide consumers through the complex and often barrier-laced process of prescription procurement, payer authorization, and medication fulfillment.

Because health outcomes are what we care about, we’re not pushing pills for profit. We are just as happy if a patient pursues an alternative therapy so long as it is in his or her best clinical interest. Our unique business and operational models make that possible.

In disrupting an industry that can be predatory to the most vulnerable among us, I am proud to say Alto attracts some of the most ethical, altruistic talent I have ever worked with. They make coming to work a pleasure and a privilege, and that makes all the difference, not just in my mornings but also my professional satisfaction and overall well-being. If any of that resonates with you, you might be just our type.

"Work With People Who Share Your Passion"