A year ago today, Oscar Health ($PRIVATE:OSCARINSURANCE) was hiring for just 46 positions with an uncertain future in an American healthcare industry undergoing massive change. Today, it's hiring for nearly twice that at 86 openings. Look for that to accelerate.
That's because Alphabet, parent company of Google, just infused Oscar Health with a massive $375 million investment that Wired estimates is worth about 10% of the company, putting Oscar's valuation somewhere north of $3 billion.
The hiring spree began earlier this summer, and with the investment, we fully expect to see expanded hiring once checks clear (more on that below).
The jump in hiring began in the new year and hasn't stopped or slowed down since. And according to LinkedIn data, the number of people listing Oscar as their employer has swollen from 543 in the new year to 677 today.
The vast majority of openings at Oscar are for its New York City headquarters followed by its Arizonal concierge facility.
For comparison sake, United Health Group ($UNH), considered America's largest healthcare provider, employs over 100,000 people according to LinkedIn data.
Oscar was started by Stanford scholar Mario Schlosser along with Joshua Kushner (brother of Jared) in an effort to transform the healthcare industry via technology and data. So far, they've had an okay go of it as they've navigated the complex world of healthcare. It turns out that simplifying one of the most complex industries in the world isn't so easy.
But this partnership with Alphabet could assuage efforts and give the company the working capital it needs to compete with giants like United Health Group.
"We’re humbled that Alphabet’s coming in," Schlosser told Wired. "We raised our first round of funding from Capital G three years ago and since then they’ve been following us closely, seeing what we’ve been building, and Alphabet has come to the conclusion that they want to put more behind the company. It’s fantastic for us because it will really allow us to focus fully on the core model we’ve been building for the past six years, which is: use technology, use data, use design, use a human approach to build a very different health care experience. And that’s what this allows us to do."
And, indeed, some of the money will be used to continue Oscar's hiring spree.
"We can hire more engineers, we can hire more data scientists, more product designers, more smart clinicians who can think about health care a different way," said Schlosser.
We'll certainly keep an eye on Oscar's hiring trends as it reinvests in its workforce.
