> Frankly, I do not know if it is realistic for me to begin learning at this age considering it will likely take me at least 5 years to reach a skill-level requ

> Frankly, I do not know if it is realistic for me to begin learning at this age considering it will likely take me at least 5 years to reach a skill-level required to implement many of the technologies a modern healthcare startup would need (HIPAA encryption, interfacing with EMRs, etc). If you were going to do a drug startup, would you think that you had to know how to form pills, package them, run large scale synthesis? You will benefit from knowing something, but no one knows all that stuff. > that my time would be better spent befriending and paying a talented programmer to help me in executing my ideas. I don't know about other people, but the "befrending" terminology sounds vaguely exploitive. Would you use that term to describe how you'd go about working with another medical professional with different skills?