What happens when a founder is offered $100 million and takes half on purpose?

Deepak Thomas started PHIL in 2015 after his own experience with chronic Lyme disease highlighted the gap between consumer-grade technology and how patients access medication. Phil now works with patients, prescribers, manufacturers, and pharmacies to make high-cost therapies accessible by solving for the two things that matter most: price and convenience.

In this conversation, Deepak talks about the capital discipline behind turning down $100m in funding in favor of taking half that amount, why character eats resume for lunch in early-stage hiring, how PHIL survived three distribution pivots before landing on enterprise sales, and why startups succeed through hermetic stress rather than hedging.

This one is for founders optimizing for unit economics, ...