This episode is supported by Xero, helping businesses use AI with
more control through JAX, its in-platform AI finance partner. Get
90% off your plan for your first 6 months at
xero.com/highflyers.
________
Ellen DaSilva is the Founder and CEO of Summer Health, the
pediatric healthcare company that served 30,000+ families before
being acquired by Doctronic in 2026. Earlier, she was employee #8
at Hims & Hers and worked at Twitter during its hyper growth
years. She is an active angel investor and Sequoia Scout, and
earned her MBA with Distinction from Harvard Business School.
In this conversation, Ellen joins Vidit to unpack the ambition
behind her extraordinary career, the leap from Wall Street to
scaling Twitter during its hyper gowth years, why she nearly
became a Hims competitor before joining as employee #8, and what
happened when she finally took the founder leap with Summer
Health.
They also explore how consumer software has changed, what makes
great companies feel “inevitable”, why Ellen is “incapable of
turning off founder mode”, and the philosophy behind living life
on “maximum mode” and lots more.
Please enjoy exploring your curiosity.
_______
Get in touch with us via email at contact@curiositycentre.com
Join our stable of commercial partners including the Australian
Government, Google, KPMG,, Allens, Macquarie Capital, Xero, JP
Morgan and more.
Show notes and more episodes here
Follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter and Instagram
Get in touch with our Founder and Host, Vidit
Agarwal directly here
Contact us via our website
This episode is supported by Xero, helping businesses use AI with
more control through JAX, its in-platform AI finance partner. Get
90% off your plan for your first 6 months at
xero.com/highflyers.
________
TIMESTAMPS
00:00 Ellen’s “hot take” on consumer AI
02:00 From Barclays to selling Summer Health
05:00 Growing up ambitious in New York
09:00 The family behind Ellen’s drive
11:00 “CEO of Coca-Cola” at age five
13:00 Politics, Bloomberg & an early obsession with
change
15:00 Why Ellen studied English literature
18:00 Raising three intensely curious kids
19:00 China vs Wall Street
23:00 “I knew I was going to marry him”
26:00 Discovering tech from a Wall Street desk
29:00 The 10-day leap from Barclays to Twitter
31:00 Scaling Twitter during hypergrowth
33:00 Why “every job becomes sales”
35:00 How Twitter shaped Summer Health
38:00 HBS, ambition & “colouring outside the lines”
42:00 How Ellen spots exceptional companies early
45:00 The startup she nearly built before Hims
47:00 employee #8 at Hims to IPO
48:00 Building healthcare like consumer software
49:00 Why Summer Health removed the interface
51:00 Why text-based products may win
52:00 What Ellen would build next
54:00 Why Summer Health sold to Doctronic
57:00 Ellen’s fundraising playbook
01:02:00 The 5 people in her "hall of fame" room
01:08:00 The hardest period of her career
01:11:00 “I’m incapable of turning off founder mode”
01:13:00 Parenting without slowing down
01:14:00 Living life on “maximum mode”
01:17:00 Food, health & learning Mandarin
01:18:00 Vibe coding, robotics & what Ellen wants to learn
next
01:19:00 “Where are you an outlier?”
01:20:00 Ellen’s pet peeve
________
The High Flyers Podcast features in-depth interviews with the
world’s most influential figures in business, tech, finance,
government and sport. Launched in 2020, it has ranked in the
global top ten for past three years, with listeners in 27
countries and over 200+ episodes released, and featured in
Forbes, Daily Telegraph, and at SXSW.
Our guests include -- Malcolm Turnbull (Prime Minister of
Australia), Keith Rabois (Managing Director, Khosla Ventures),
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Eventbrite), Shiv Rao (CEO, Abridge), Jesse Zhang (CEO, Decagon),
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David Haber (a16z Partner), Jodie Auster (Uber's Global Head of
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and Philip Green (Australia's Ambassador/High Commissioner to
India).
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