Company leader
Alex Katz
Founder and CEO
Two Chairs
Alex Katz is founder and chief executive of Two Chairs, a mental health practice that matches clients with salaried therapists and psychiatrists and measures whether therapy is working. He started it after watching his partner struggle to find a therapist, and before that he led the Consumer Goods group at Palantir Technologies and advised health systems at McKinsey.
Stanford, McKinsey, and Palantir
Katz holds a B.A. and an M.S. from Stanford University, according to his Two Chairs biography. At McKinsey he advised large health systems, where he came to appreciate how hard it is to deliver great care in the U.S., and at Palantir he led the Consumer Goods group.
A Partner’s Search for a Therapist
He met his long-term partner at Stanford. Years later, while working as an elementary school teacher, she sought help, sifted through her insurer's list of therapists, and called around, reaching full voicemail boxes and therapists with no openings, he told Voyage LA in 2021. The therapist she found was a poor match, and she saw little progress over six months of weekly sessions. “This was the crux of the issue, from my perspective,” Katz said.
Opening Clinics in San Francisco
Two Chairs opened its first clinic in the Financial District of San Francisco, California, in August 2017, with a matching process built on research showing that the bond between client and therapist is one of the strongest predictors of results. Katz chose to employ Two Chairs therapists as salaried staff, a choice he says lets the company pick strong clinicians and lighten their paperwork. When the pandemic arrived in March 2020, Two Chairs moved its sessions to video overnight.
Katz has also spoken about his own therapy. Even as the founder of a mental health company, he told Voyage LA, taking the first step was hard. “But I’m so glad I did,” he said.
Measuring Therapy at Scale
By 2024 Two Chairs had more than 500 therapists, mostly seeing clients by video. “While it has gotten easier to find a therapist because of different digital platforms, it’s still just as hard to find the right therapists and really high-quality care,” Katz told TechCrunch that April, when the company raised $72 million. He doubts software will replace therapists soon: “It is such a human, emotionally driven job, and that’s only possible [to do well] with a great therapist in the room.”