The Code of Survival: Dr. Mohammad Al-Ubaydli’s Journey to Founding a HealthTech Revolution
On the Beyond the Boardroom podcast, Aleksandra sits down with Dr. Mohammad Al-Ubaydli, a man whose life story is a compelling blueprint for how personal adversity can fuel global innovation. Dr. Al-Ubaydli, the CEO of Patients Know Best, reveals how a childhood defined by exile and a rare health disorder ultimately led him to merge the seemingly disparate worlds of medicine and programming to solve a problem that was, literally, personal.
From Scorpion Bites to Cambridge: A Nomadic Childhood Born in Bahrain, Dr. Al-Ubaydli’s earliest memories were shaped by his family’s exile in the 1970s. Despite the war-torn regions and a childhood event like being bitten by a scorpion while sleeping on the floor, his parents—an academic and an artist—instilled two core values: education and close family connection: "If you are close with your family and you have an education... it doesn't matter where you are. It's gonna be okay."
His childhood involving exposure to wildly different cultures taught him a profound lesson: that most people’s habits are "random and arbitrary," giving him the unique ability to objectively evaluate and accumulate the best habits from each culture. This objective, problem-solving mindset was crucial.
The Personal Problem: Weak Immunity, Strong Will The greatest catalyst for his career was his own health. Dr. Al-Ubaydli suffers from a rare immune disorder where his body cannot make specific antibodies in response to threats like infections. His mother, using sheer intuition and detailed observation, constantly collected data and argued with doctors in the UK, often bringing "receipts" to prove their diagnoses were wrong. He was finally diagnosed at Great Ormond Street Hospital: "As a patient, I really want this problem fixed, and they're all doing it wrong. So I... I'm gonna fix it."
Merging Minds: Programmer Meets Physician Driven by a quote in a book on Chaos science, He realized that while geologists and meteorologists learned to program to model chaotic systems, "there was no doctor who learned how to program" to model the body's chaotic systems. Despite initial rejections from medical schools for this unique perspective, Cambridge accepted him, allowing him to combine disciplines and graduate with a first-class degree. The philosophy he now applies as CEO is simple: hire people smarter than you and be "as minimally irritating as possible" so they can focus on solving the big problems.
Quotes
"If you are close with your family and you have an education... it doesn't matter where you are. It's gonna be okay."
"As a patient, I really want this problem fixed, and they're all doing it wrong. So I... I'm gonna fix it."
Key Takeaways
Ambition should be focused on tackling things that seem difficult or impossible, not on being competitive.
A CEO's job is to find the right people, with the right values, and convince them to fix the company's (and the CEO's) gaps.
Sales and cooperation, even in medicine, are built on understanding the other person's story and asking, "What can I do for you?".
Resources and Mentions
Guest Company
Guest LinkedIn
Aleksandra Press
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