CrowdStrike shares dropped 9% after issuing weak earnings guidance as the company signaled ongoing pressure from its global IT outage that rattled businesses in July.

The cybersecurity software provider said it expects fiscal first-quarter earnings to range between 64 cents and 66 cents per share, versus the average Factset estimate of 95 cents. CrowdStrike is projecting earnings for the year to range between $3.33 and $3.45 per share, excluding items. That fell short $4.42 expected by analysts polled by LSEG.

For the fiscal fourth quarter, CrowdStrike posted a net loss of $92.3 billion, or 37 cents per share, versus net income of $53.7 million, or 22 cents per share, in the year-ago period. The company also reported $21 million in costs from incident-related expenses and $49.9 million of tax expenses connected to acquisitions.

The company also said it anticipates another $73 million in expenses for the first quarter resulting from its July update that spurred a global information technology outage, grounded flights and disrupted businesses. CrowdStrike projects an additional $43 million in costs due to some deal packages offered in its wake.

The outage has also weighed on free cash flow margins, which CrowdStrike said on a conference call with analysts Tuesday it expects to return to 30% or more in fiscal 2027.

Many on Wall Street expect headwinds from the July issue to start abating in the new fiscal year, with Bernstein’s Peter Weed expecting a pick up in CrowdStrike net retention rate in the new fiscal year.

“Although FY26 guidance marked a conservative start to the year, in our view, we expect management is setting the stage for a return to a beat-and-raise cadence we saw before the outage,” wrote JPMorgan’s Brian Essex.

CrowdStrike’s disappointing guidance offset better-than-expected fiscal fourth-quarter results. The company posted adjusted earnings of $1.03 per share on $1.06 billion in revenue and said that revenue grew 25% from a year ago.

Founder and CEO George Kurtz called the company a “comeback story” on the conference call.

“I’m extremely proud of the engagement we’ve had with customers, partners, prospects in the market navigating a year that tested CrowdStrike,” he said. “Q4 showcases the fruits of our labors, giving me strong conviction in our AI-native, single platform, excellent execution, and accelerating market opportunity.”

One Medical CEO Trent Green will step down from the Amazon-owned primary care provider after less than two years in the role.

Green is leaving One Medical to become CEO of National Research Corp., or NRC Health, a provider of health-care analytics and other services, the company said in a release Tuesday. He’ll start there on June 1.

Under Green, One Medical expanded into new geographic markets and opened more offices. It also integrated further into Amazon, with the company adding medical services to its Prime membership program.

Amazon confirmed Green’s departure in a statement.

“After nearly three years with Amazon One Medical, CEO Trent Green has decided to leave the company,” an Amazon spokesperson said in a statement. “We are grateful to Trent for his many contributions and wish him well on his next endeavor.”

Neil Lindsay, who leads Amazon Health Services, said in a memo to employees on Tuesday that Green is moving back to his home state of Nebraska for the new role. Green’s last day at Amazon will be April 4.

“Trent has helped One Medical solidify its position as an incredible place for providers to deliver — and patients to turn to (and return for) — high-quality, human-centered care,” Lindsay wrote in the memo, which was obtained by CNBC.

Green was named CEO of One Medical in September 2023, succeeding Amir Dan Rubin. The change in leadership came roughly six months after Amazon completed its $3.9 billion acquisition of One Medical.

The deal for One Medical is the third-largest acquisition in Amazon’s history, behind its 2017 purchase of Whole Foods for $13.7 billion and its $8.45 billion deal for MGM Studios in 2021.

Amazon acquired One Medical as part of a deepening push into the health-care market. The company scooped up online pharmacy PillPack in 2018 for about $750 million, before launching its own offering.

It’s continued to tweak its health offerings. Amazon launched, then shuttered, a telehealth service, as well as a line of health and fitness devices.

For Erez Druk, who spent almost four years working at Facebook, building health-care startup Freed has been a labor of love, quite literally. 

Druk’s wife, Dr. Gabi Meckler, works at a community clinic in northern California, where she cares for children and adults, and delivers babies at a local hospital. When not with patients, Meckler is inundated with paperwork, constantly updating medical records and related documents.

“I got sucked into the world of clinicians,” Druk said in an interview. “One day, it was like, ‘Hey Gabi, what should we just build for you?’ And she said, ‘Do my notes for me.'”

Druk worked as a software engineer at Facebook from 2013 until launching his prior startup, UrbanLeap, in 2017. He shuttered UrbanLeap, which focused on software for public procurement, in 2022, and started Freed the following year, along with Andrey Bannikov, who had spent the prior decade at Facebook.

Freed offers an AI scribe that automates the clinical notetaking process in real time as doctors consensually record their visits with patients. The company sells the technology directly to individual clinicians, oftentimes at small or independent practices, for $99 a month, and is beginning to partner with entire practices, Druk said. 

On Wednesday, Freed announced a $30 million funding round led by Sequoia Capital, a hefty haul for a company raising its first institutional capital. The company also announced new features like custom note formatting, pre-charting, and specialty specific templates. Freed said it plans to build additional capabilities, like automating coding and other billing cycle functions. 

Clinicians spend nearly nine hours a week on documentation, according to an October study from Google Cloud. A study last year from Athenahealth concluded that administrative tasks are a significant reason for burnout, as 64% of doctors feel overwhelmed by clerical requirements.

Physicians are responsible for completing mountains of paperwork, including the tedious and time-consuming process of clinical notes, which contain detailed records of patient visits.

Druk wants to automate as much of that process as possible so doctors can spend more time with patients and, perhaps, even with their family.

As of late February, 17,000 clinicians around the world are using Freed in about 2 million patient visits each month, he said.

“It just started spreading,” Druk said. “It’s really been beyond my wildest expectations.”

The AI scribing market has exploded in recent years as health systems have been searching for tools that can help address administrative burnout. Freed is going up against tech giants like Microsoft, as well as startups like Abridge and Suki that have developed similar tools. 

Josephine Chen, a partner at Sequoia, said the crowded market reflects the seriousness of the problem. She said Freed’s scribing tool has gained traction by focusing on smaller, independent offices.

“Freed’s approach is unique because most of the companies we see are serving a different market segment,” Chen said. 

Natalie Desseyn said Freed is the reason she’s still working as a nurse practitioner in psychiatry.

Desseyn sees about 250 patients through a practice called Cloud Break Therapy in Virginia. She’s been using Freed for about two years and pays for it herself. Without it, she said she wouldn’t be able to see patients on such a large scale, if at all. 

“I’m not over here writing, so people feel really heard,” Desseyn said. “I can’t tell you all the ways, it’s literally changed my life.” 

Desseyn has tried a few other AI scribing tools, but she said she always comes back to Freed. She said its model is better at keeping things precise, sticking to the facts and avoiding extraneous comments in the notes.

Meckler, Druk’s wife, said documentation was the thing she disliked the most while practicing medicine. She said Freed felt like “magic” the first time she used it.

Previously, Meckler said she would spend about half of her day writing notes. Individual tasks that used to take her around 15 minutes to complete now take closer to two, she said.

“I expect great things from Erez, but I was still shocked,” Meckler said. 

Druk said he and his 50-person team are focused on building the business and its product portfolio this year. He said he remains committed to creating a platform that clinicians, and his wife, enjoy using.

“It’s truly the most fulfilling and the most important work I’ve ever done, and probably will ever do,” he said.

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