“If I Had Put My Money in Stocks Instead of in Your Company, I Would Have Made Many Times My Money.” Does That Hold True?
What Physician Investors Should Understand About Opportunity Cost, Private Companies, and Value Creation
Dr. Kingsley R. Chin MD, MBA
Professor, Orthopedic Spine Surgery | CEO KIC Ventures
An investor in one of our private portfolio companies recently said this to me.
“If I had put my money in stocks instead of investing in your company seven years ago, I would have made many times my money by now.”
It got my attention.
Another physician investor once told me that, looking back, he might not have invested in AxioMed had he known we would not sell the company shortly after completing the FDA IDE.
Two physician investors. Two versions of the same concern.
The longer their money remained in our private companies, the more money they believed they were losing by not having it invested in stocks.
It sounds logical.
But do you think it is true?
Consider Globus Medical
Globus is an impressive medical technology company in an industry I understand well.
Globus went public in 2012 at $12 per share. At approximately $74 per share as of September 18, 2026, that represents more than 6X the IPO share price.
But someone who invested approximately five years ago would be down about 9% based on the accompanying chart.
Meanwhile, Globus itself has grown tremendously. Revenue increased from approximately $958 million in 2021 to $2.94 billion in 2025.
Same successful company. Different entry points. Very different investor returns.
The company grew. Revenue grew. Enterprise value was created.
But that does not mean every investor multiplied his or her money.
The Physician Investor Paradox
Many physicians comfortably give substantial capital to wealth managers who invest it across companies and industries we may know very little about.
There are good reasons for this. Diversification, liquidity, and professional management have real value.
But many physicians I speak with have also developed an assumption:
Put money into stocks, leave it there long enough, and eventually it will multiply.
There is no such guarantee.
Yet a surgeon may be more reluctant to invest in a medical technology addressing a clinical problem he or she understands intimately.
Why?
Stocks give us a price every day.
Private companies do not.
After seven years without an exit, it becomes natural to ask:
What could my money have made somewhere else?
That opportunity cost is real.
But it does not tell us whether the private company has been creating value.
Waiting and Building Are Not the Same Thing
This is where MANTIS taught me an important lesson.
I invested my own capital developing MANTIS, a minimally invasive spine technology that was ultimately sold to Stryker.
My return on the capital I invested was approximately 100X.
That is neither a benchmark nor a prediction. Private investments can also fail.
The lesson was simpler:
Build fast. Create value. Exit at the right time, not simply the earliest possible time.
Time alone creates nothing.
What matters is what gets built during that time.
When I evaluate the progress of a medical technology company, I look for something very specific:
Are we advancing the technology and protecting the intellectual property?
Are we generating clinical evidence and achieving regulatory milestones?
Are revenues and physician adoption growing?
Are we strengthening the company’s competitive position?
Are we protecting shareholders from unnecessary dilution?
Are we moving closer to an acquisition, strategic transaction, or IPO?
If those things are not happening, time is being wasted.
If they are happening, the absence of a daily stock price does not mean the investment has been standing still.
Speed Creates Value. Time Can Build Wealth.
MANTIS taught me that speed and patience are not opposites.
Speed is how we build. Patience is how we avoid selling what we built too early.
My investor may ultimately be right. His money might have earned more somewhere else. Every investment has an opportunity cost.
But neither outcome should be assumed.
A rising stock market does not mean every investor multiplied his money.
And seven years without a private company exit does not mean seven years without value creation.
There is a difference between waiting seven years and building for seven years.
For physician entrepreneurs and physician investors, that distinction matters.
Physicians can have an advantage that traditional investors may not: firsthand understanding of the clinical problems, workflows, unmet needs, and potential value of technologies within their specialties.
That knowledge does not eliminate investment risk.
But it can help us ask better questions about where value is actually being created.
Money makes money.
But speed creates value, and time spent building that value can create wealth.
That is the lesson I learned from MANTIS and the discipline I bring to KIC Ventures today:
Build with urgency. Protect ownership.
Create value. Use time to build wealth.
Exit at the right time, not the earliest time.
#Doctorpreneur #PhysicianInvesting #PhysicianEntrepreneur #MedTech #HealthcareInvesting #MedicalInnovation #PrivateMarkets #Entrepreneurship.
Author
Dr. Kingsley R. Chin MBA is a board-certified Professor of Orthopedic Spine Surgery and honors graduate of Harvard Medical School and the Harvard Combined Orthopedic Residency Program. He did his spine fellowship with Dr. Henry H Bohlman. He was Chief of Spine Surgery at the University of Pennsylvania.
Disclaimer:
The information provided in this article is for informational and educational purposes only. Doctorpreneur News, KIC Ventures, the authors, and any companies referenced do not provide investment, tax, financial, or legal advice. This article does not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy any securities.
Any investment involves risk, including the potential loss of principal. Prospective investors should conduct their own independent due diligence and consult with licensed financial, legal, and tax professionals before making any investment decision.
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