Paul Hooper: investing in peds, waves of tech hypes, and miniaturization as a strategic advantage

“We should be investing in the children and we're not! Instead, we're investing in [someone like] me from a medical perspective.”We enormously enjoyed catching up with none other than @ Paul Hooper, a longtime supporter of Impact1. Paul's wealth of knowledge, insights, and also humility made him a fantastic guest and we could have chatted forever, but here are few topics that stuck with us:Pediatric innovation is still massively under-capitalized - When capital gets “sucked out” by outsized AI valuations, it leaves less room for health tech—especially pediatric health tech.Miniaturization isn’t just a constraint—it’s a strategic advantage - Innovating for smaller patients can create a “knock-on” value proposition that later scales to adults.AI: hype cycles vs. real clinical value (first wave / second wave) - The “AI on every slide” moment is real—but the second wave is about where AI is actually powerful and additive in medtech.Sign up to present https://biodesign.stanford.edu/programs/impact1.html