You’ve probably never seen her on a flashy tech stage in a black turtleneck. Judy Faulkner doesn't do "disruption" for the sake of a venture capital exit. She doesn't have a board of directors breathing down her neck for quarterly earnings. Yet, from a sprawling, quirky campus in Verona, Wisconsin, she controls the medical records of more than 325 million people.
It’s kind of wild when you think about it.
Judy Faulkner and Epic Systems have become the backbone of modern medicine, not by playing the Silicon Valley game, but by explicitly rejecting it. While Oracle and Microsoft are busy buying their way into the sector, Faulkner is busy building a "galactic" headquarters and ensuring her company can never be bought or sold. Ever.
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The Basement Start and the "Trust Protectors"
Back in 1979, Faulkner started Epic in a Madison basement with about $70,000. No VC funding. No outside masters. That independence is her "hill to die on." At the 2025 Forbes Healthcare Summit, she made it crystal clear: "Our independence... is what we would never give up."
She’s now 82. Most founders at that age are long retired or looking for a massive payday. Faulkner? She’s busy setting up a legal fortress. She recently revealed a succession plan involving three health system CEOs—she calls them "trust protectors"—whose sole job is to sue anyone who tries to take the company public or sell it off.
Basically, if you try to buy Epic, you're buying a lawsuit.
Her voting shares won't go to the highest bidder. They go into a trust governed by her family and senior managers. The rules are strict: no acquisitions, no IPOs, and the next CEO has to be a developer who has been at Epic for a long time.
Why Hospitals Keep "Drinking the Kool-Aid"
If you talk to doctors, they have a love-hate relationship with Epic. It's complex. It’s "click-heavy." Some call it the "Death Star." But here’s the reality: as of 2026, Epic owns nearly 40% of the acute care hospital market in the U.S. and over 43% of the ambulatory market.
Why? Because it works.
When a patient moves from a specialist in New York to an ER in California, if both use Epic, the records are just there. That interoperability—through their "Care Everywhere" network—is the gold standard.
- The "Orion" Method: Epic doesn't just sell software; they sell a way of life. When a hospital installs it, Epic staff (often young, high-achieving grads) basically move in. They dictate how the hospital should run its workflows based on "best practices."
- The Cost of Leaving: Once you spend $500 million or $1 billion on an Epic implementation, you aren't switching. You're locked in.
- The Cosmos Project: This is the real "secret sauce." Epic has a massive de-identified database of over 250 million patient records called Cosmos. It allows researchers to see trends—like which drugs work best for specific demographics—at a scale no one else can match.
Healthcare Intelligence: The 2026 AI Pivot
Honestly, everyone is talking about AI, but Faulkner is actually embedding it. Epic is rolling out something they call "Healthcare Intelligence."
We aren't just talking about chatbots. They are launching over 150 AI features this year.
- Art: An AI assistant that helps clinicians "talk" to a patient’s chart. Instead of clicking through twenty tabs to find a lab result from three years ago, they just ask Art.
- Emmie: A patient-facing AI in MyChart that handles the boring stuff—insurance capture, pre-visit forms, and medication reviews.
- Penny: Focused on the administrative side, helping with the nightmare that is insurance claims and billing.
The goal is to turn AI from a "cool tool" into a "digital workforce." They’ve already seen results. At The Christ Hospital in Ohio, their AI tool "Art" flagged incidental findings on routine X-rays that led to over 100 early lung cancer detections. That’s not just tech; that’s life-saving.
The Giving Pledge and "Roots & Wings"
Faulkner is worth somewhere around $7.8 billion, but she lives a relatively modest life in Madison. She’s signed the Giving Pledge, promising to give away 99% of her wealth.
She doesn’t just write checks to big universities. Her foundation, Roots & Wings, focuses on low-income children and families. She’s been selling about $100 million of her Epic shares back to the company every year to fund this.
The name says it all: "We need to give roots so you're strong and wings so you could fly."
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What Most People Get Wrong About Epic
People often think Epic is a "monopoly" because it’s the biggest. But Faulkner argues it's just better software built by people who actually understand healthcare.
"Health IT is more complex than rocket science," is a phrase she loves to repeat. She’s even hired former rocket scientists who agree. The complexity isn't a bug; it's a reflection of how messy human bodies and insurance companies are.
Key Actionable Insights for Healthcare Leaders and Observers:
- Audit Your AI Readiness: If you're on Epic, 2026 is the year to move from "assistive" AI (like scribes) to "collaborative" AI (like Epic’s Art and Penny) that actually handles multi-step processes.
- Focus on Data Hygiene: Epic’s "Cosmos" is only as good as the data entered. Hospitals that prioritize clean clinical documentation will see the biggest returns on predictive analytics.
- Prepare for the "Trust" Era: With Faulkner’s succession plan set in stone, don't expect Epic to change its "no-acquisition" policy. If you’re a third-party dev, you need to build for the Epic App Orchard/Showroom, not hope to be bought by them.
- Leverage MyChart Features: Patient engagement is shifting to automated pre-visit tasks. Implementing "Emmie" for insurance and med-rec can significantly reduce front-desk burnout.
Epic isn't going anywhere. Judy Faulkner has made sure of that. While the rest of the tech world is chasing the next exit, she’s building for the next 50 years.