king-david-banksworth-healthcare

# S01E16 · King David Banksworth — Healthcare Acquisitions <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJabXM4gXM8" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img class="uv-poster" src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/VJabXM4gXM8/maxresdefault.jpg" alt="King David Banksworth on The Useful Podcast Episode 16" loading="lazy" /></a> King David Banksworth says the quiet part out loud about ten minutes in. Healthcare is lucrative because health is not negotiable, and after years inside the system he decided he was not going to change it from the outside — so he is going to buy into it. His MBA thesis is on acquiring healthcare companies. He got there the long way. Born in Nigeria, he moved to Canada at nine, went into nursing to satisfy his parents, then worked hospital, travel, and long-term care nursing in Thunder Bay before moving into Indigenous Services in fly-in communities, where a broken wrist can turn into a week of flights and cancellations. That gap between what care costs and what care actually delivers is the whole argument. He is not cynical about it — he is specific: if the system runs on capital, the people who want it to work differently need to own some. Also in this conversation: what he learned running a venture capital competition, and why he thinks school taught him performance rather than learning. ## Listen <ul class="uv-linkrow"> <li>Watch<a class="uv-ico uv-yt" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJabXM4gXM8" target="_blank" rel="noopener">YouTube</a></li> <li>Show<a class="uv-ico uv-sp" href="https://open.spotify.com/show/033DRed1adLXd1bg8honOl" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Useful Podcast on Spotify</a> · <a class="uv-ico uv-x" href="https://x.com/theusefulpod" target="_blank" rel="noopener">@theusefulpod on X</a></li> </ul> <a class="uv-btn" href="https://useful.ventures/podcast/king-david-banksworth-healthcare/transcript">Read the full transcript</a> ## Key facts <ul class="uv-facts"> <li>EpisodeThe Useful Podcast, Season 1, Episode 16</li> <li>GuestKing David Banksworth, nurse and MBA candidate working on a healthcare-acquisitions thesis</li> <li>HostGokul Bala, co-founder of Useful Ventures</li> <li>FocusAn MBA thesis on acquiring healthcare companies, built on a nursing career spanning hospital, travel, and Indigenous fly-in community care</li> <li>TopicsFly-in Indigenous healthcare, why healthcare is lucrative, travel nursing, the Queen's MMIE program, the VCIC venture capital competition, performance vs. learning in school</li> <li>LengthAbout 60 minutes · Published August 2026</li> </ul> ## Guest <ul class="uv-linkrow"> <li>Host<a class="uv-ico uv-x" href="https://x.com/GokulsVision" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Gokul Bala on X (@GokulsVision)</a> · <a class="uv-ico uv-ig" href="https://www.instagram.com/gokuls.vision/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Instagram (@gokuls.vision)</a></li> </ul> ## Key insights **Health is not negotiable, and that's the whole thesis.** David is blunt about it: healthcare is lucrative precisely because it isn't a discretionary purchase — if you need neurosurgery, you need neurosurgery, and you pay whatever it costs. After years working inside the system as a nurse, he decided the more effective lever wasn't fighting the system from the outside, it was owning a piece of it. His MBA thesis is on acquiring healthcare companies, combining his clinical background with the business and diligence skills he's been building since. **A broken wrist can cost a week and two flights.** David spent time providing care in fly-in Indigenous communities in Northern Ontario, including Bearskin Lake, where a child fractured her wrist on the monkey bars. Getting an X-ray meant flying her to Sioux Lookout — an hour flight that costs roughly $2,000 round trip — and when the community's own X-ray technician unexpectedly became available, David had to cancel that flight, only to rebook another one days later once the fracture needed to be reduced. Non-Insured Health Benefits covers flights, food, and lodging for people with status and band numbers, but the logistics gap between "needs an X-ray" and "gets an X-ray" is the whole argument for why access, not just care quality, is the real crisis. **Nursing was the compromise between his parents and himself.** Coming from an immigrant family that wanted him to be a doctor, engineer, or lawyer, David didn't have the grades for medical school out of high school, but discovered nursing could still count as "healthcare" to satisfy his parents while leaving a path open toward a nurse practitioner credential later. He built physical discipline first — waking at 5 a.m. in high school to train, becoming known as "Big D" for bodybuilding — before that same discipline carried into nursing school and, eventually, into travel and Indigenous Services nursing. **School taught him to perform, not to learn.** David traces his fear of school back to Nigeria, where discipline was enforced physically — a ruler to the hand, standing in a painful squat for not listening. He says that environment taught him school is "a place you have to perform," not a place to learn, and that real discipline came from his family's dynamics after immigrating to Canada at nine, not from either school system. **Running a VC competition reframed how he thinks about deals.** David and his team won regionals at the VCIC (Venture Capital Investment Competition) at St. Mary's and went on to the global finals at UNC. Judging real startups forced him to think like an investor — what's the return, are you working in the business or on it — and that diligence muscle now feeds directly into his acquisitions thesis: acquiring a healthcare company takes both clinical knowledge and business acumen, and VCIC gave him a rehearsal for the second half. **If the system runs on capital, the people who want it to work differently need to own some.** That's David's least cynical, most specific articulation of the whole argument. He isn't pretending capitalism in healthcare is fair — he says as much, bluntly — but his response isn't to opt out. It's to get enough ownership inside the system to actually change how a piece of it runs. ## About David's thesis King David Banksworth is a registered nurse and MBA candidate whose thesis focuses on acquiring healthcare companies. His clinical background spans hospital nursing, a private travel-health clinic, public health nursing in Thunder Bay during COVID-19, long-term care nursing, and nursing with Indigenous Services Canada in fly-in northern communities. Through Queen's University's MMIE program (Master of Management, Innovation and Entrepreneurship), he competed in the Venture Capital Investment Competition (VCIC), winning regionals at St. Mary's and advancing to the global finals at UNC — experience he's now applying to the due diligence and investor thinking behind his healthcare-acquisitions thesis. His argument is straightforward: healthcare runs on capital, so people who want the system to work differently need to own a piece of it. ## FAQ <div class="uv-faq"> ### Who is King David Banksworth? King David Banksworth is a Nigerian-Canadian registered nurse and MBA candidate. Born in Lagos State, Nigeria, he moved to Canada at age nine and grew up around Whitby and Toronto. He trained as a nurse to satisfy his parents' expectations of a stable healthcare career, then worked as a travel-health consultant, in public health in Thunder Bay during COVID-19, in long-term care, and with Indigenous Services Canada in fly-in northern communities. He is now pursuing an MBA with a thesis on acquiring healthcare companies. ### What is King David Banksworth's MBA thesis about? His thesis is on acquiring existing healthcare companies rather than starting one from scratch. His reasoning: healthcare is a lucrative, non-discretionary industry, and the fastest way to change how it operates is to own a piece of the capital driving it, combining his clinical nursing background with the business and due-diligence skills he's built through his MBA and the VCIC venture capital competition. ### What is it like providing healthcare in Canada's fly-in Indigenous communities, according to King David Banksworth? David describes deep logistical barriers that don't exist in most of Canada: a specialist visit or an X-ray can require flying a patient out of the community, at a cost of roughly $2,000 for an hour-long round trip, funded for status and band-number holders through Non-Insured Health Benefits. Fresh food is scarce and expensive because everything is freighted in, and something as routine as fixing a fractured wrist can take days and multiple flight bookings to resolve. ### What is the Queen's MMIE program, and how did the VCIC competition shape King David Banksworth's thinking? Queen's MMIE (Master of Management, Innovation and Entrepreneurship) is where David pursued his MBA. Through the program, he competed in the Venture Capital Investment Competition (VCIC), a competition where students evaluate real startups and pitch investment decisions as if they were venture capitalists. His team won regionals at St. Mary's and advanced to the global finals at UNC — the due-diligence habits from VCIC now directly inform how he evaluates healthcare companies for his acquisitions thesis. ### Why does King David Banksworth say healthcare is lucrative? He argues that healthcare is uniquely lucrative because it is not a discretionary purchase — unlike clothing or most consumer goods, where buyers can choose not to buy, a person who needs a specific medical procedure has to pay for it. That inelastic demand, combined with high barriers to entry, is what makes healthcare a business model unlike almost any other, in his view. ### What is The Useful Podcast? The Useful Podcast is a series of founder-to-founder conversations from Useful Ventures, hosted by Gokul Bala. Each episode digs past the highlight reel into the actual work of building something. This is Season 1, Episode 16. </div> ## Related * [[podcast]] is the full Useful Podcast index. * [[manifesto]] is how we see the world and how we work. * [[notes]] is where we write about the world we see coming. * [The Useful Podcast on Spotify](https://open.spotify.com/show/033DRed1adLXd1bg8honOl) · [YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/@TheUsefulPodcast) · [@theusefulpod on X](https://x.com/theusefulpod) Back to [[podcast]].