---
title: "Big Tech Companies Want to Hack Your Heart Health"
description: "## Watch This"
date: "2018-10-18"
modified: "2018-10-18"
authors:
  - name: "Jon Christian"
    job_title: "Executive Editor"
    link: "https://futurism.com/authors/jonc"
url: "https://futurism.com/neoscope/biggest-tech-companies-hack-heart-health"
categories:
  - "Health & Medicine"
tags:
  - "apple"
  - "big tech"
  - "healthcare"
  - "the digest"
---

# Big Tech Companies Want to Hack Your Heart Health

![When it shipped the first Apple Watch with a heart rate monitor, the tech giant didn't realize the impact it could have on users' heart health.](<https://futurism.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/biggest-tech-companies-hack-heart-health.jpg>)
*\<em\>Image: \<a href="https://pixabay.com/en/smart-watch-apple-technology-style-821558/" target="\_blank"\>fancycrave1/Victor Tangermann\</a\>\</em\>*

## Watch This

When Apple added a heart rate monitor to its Apple Watch, it never expected the gadget would reveal to users that they had irregular heartbeats or other serious medical conditions.

But according to a [new *CNBC* feature](<https://www.cnbc.com/2018/10/17/what-every-tech-company-needs-a-cardiologist.html>), stories about users learning about their heart health from the device were a wake up call to the company. Its executives realized that they had a sensor on the pulse — literally — of millions of people worldwide.

Suddenly, Apple was a healthcare company.

## Heart Throb

Nowadays, *CNBC* reports, major tech companies from Apple to Amazon are so interested in developing products to support users' heart health that they're competing to hire the world's best cardiologists in the same way they've long jockeyed for the best programmers.

The CEO of Verily, Alphabet's life sciences property, is a heart doctor. The latest Apple Watch contains the [world's first over-the-counter EKG](<https://futurism.com/neoscope/announcement-apple-watch-medical-device-ekg>), and the company's chief operating officer [told *CNBC* last year that](<https://www.cnbc.com/2017/11/30/apple-ceo-jeff-williams-talks-to-cnbc-complete-transcript.html>) Apple's focus is on "empowering individuals to play a more active role in their health."

## Health Wealth

Big tech's long-term goal seems to be hacking heart disease and high blood pressure by collecting and analyzing data from lots of people and finding subtle patterns in it — the same approach it used to tackle everything from online advertising to web commerce.

That approach made those companies extraordinarily successful. But Amazon built that dominance by [treating workers poorly](<https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/jul/30/accidents-at-amazon-workers-left-to-suffer-after-warehouse-injuries>), and Alphabet's child company Google recently [shut down its Google Plus social network](<https://www.cnet.com/news/google-reportedly-exposed-data-of-hundreds-of-thousands-of-google-users/>) after accidentally exposing personal data about hundreds of thousands of its users.

As big tech moves into healthcare, maybe we should ask ourselves whether we're OK putting our hearts into its so-often-careless hands.

**READ MORE: [Why Big Tech Companies Keep Hiring Heart Doctors](<https://www.cnbc.com/2018/10/17/what-every-tech-company-needs-a-cardiologist.html>)** \[*CNBC*\]

***More on medical tech: [The New Apple Watch Transforms What a “Medical Device” Can Look Like](<https://futurism.com/neoscope/announcement-apple-watch-medical-device-ekg>)***

## Author
I'm responsible for editing, assigning, and scouting at Futurism, as well as occasionally writing for the site. That work involves keeping an eye on a wide range of narratives and issues, but over the past few years I've become increasingly interested in how AI is shaping the future of media, the web, and information itself. My day-to-day often involves collaborating on reporting and commentary projects bylined by my colleagues, but I try to find time to do my own reporting as well; stories I've broken for Futurism have been cited by publications including the New York Times, the Washington Post, the New Yorker, Wired, Ars Technica, New York Magazine, the Columbia Journalism Review, Bloomberg, and more. I grew up in Southern Vermont and attended Vanderbilt University. Prior to Futurism, I contributed to outlets including the Boston Globe, Vice, Wired, Slate, the Atlantic, the Outline, Ars Technica and more, and did stints in farming and food service. I currently live in Brooklyn, New York, and in my free time I enjoy pinball, word games, cycling, running, and music production.

### Author social links  
[Bluesky](<https://bsky.app/profile/jonchristian.net>)