What does RNI have in common with an all-electric car company and efficient space travel?
Tesla Motors, Space-X, and the Rowe Neurology Institute have interesting parallels. All have learned the hard way they have to provide everything in house to guarantee quality and efficiency in production. All operate in highly regulated industries, where entrepreneurship is hampered by federal policy. And all can deliver quality products at a small fraction of the cost of federally facilitated juggernauts. Tesla and Space-X, created by Elon Musk, deal with the built world. The RNI deals with the most complex structure in the known universe, the human nervous system. Both use technology and vision to help humanity.
For Tesla Motors, the maker of all-electric cars, the federally facilitated juggernauts lined up against them are the automobile industry and all their suppliers, and the oil industry. For Space-X, a private company that sends supplies to the International Space Station, the federally facilitated juggernauts are Boeing and Lockheed, and other defense contractors.
For The Rowe Neurology Institute, the federally facilitated juggernauts lined up against it are hospitals and hospital systems, and the vastly profitable pharmaceutical industry. The Rowe Neurology Institute has developed independent of these systems in order to advance medical care and keep patients as the sole priority. The RNI is the only non-hospital owned neurology institute in the Kansas City region. An affiliate company owns world-wide patents to help make many drugs safer.
Tesla, Space-X, and the RNI are David and Goliath stories, as described in Gladwell’s recent best-seller David and Goliath. All three companies were developed with a vision and hard work, and have maintained a certain lightness on their feet that has enabled them to develop services and compete successfully with behemoths at a fraction of the cost.
Tesla, Space-X, and the RNI were engineered around a vision of humanity that seems radical in the present day, but will lead to improvement in the quality of life for many in the future.
