The Uncommon Path | Trey Holterman on Building AI to Fix Patient Referrals

Trey Holterman, co-founder and CEO of Tennr, explains why he reframed one of the healthcare industry's favorite value, customer obsession, into something sharper: problem obsession. In conversation with ICONIQ General Partner Murali Joshi, he traces his uncommon path from All-American rower at Stanford to building proprietary models that move patients from point A to point B through one of healthcare's messiest workflows. He also unpacks why Tennr operates with a frontier mindset instead of a traditional software playbook, and how confrontation and urgency became central to its culture. Stay connected: Follow us on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3V8wH0b Follow us on X: https://bit.ly/4874SwQ Explore ICONIQ Insights: https://bit.ly/45Vj22R Disclaimer: iconiq.com/outreach-disclaimer Timestamps: 00:00 Why Tennr's ML team started calling themselves cowboys 00:52 From All-American rower at Stanford to building healthcare AI 04:51 Why Tennr built its own model instead of renting a frontier one 06:46 Reframing customer obsession into problem obsession 08:55 The $18M raise and $24M token bill that brought RaeLM into existence 10:18 Cowboy and confrontation, and why every value needs a sharp edge 16:39 The hot take on faxes and unstructured information in healthcare 21:57 Building a culture that names steep stakes out loud 26:15 Why Trey chose to partner with ICONIQ