About the author

About Steve Kaplan

Steve Kaplan holds a BS in marketing from UC Berkeley and an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. He spent four decades in the technology industry, cofounding and selling companies, staying on to lead them through each acquisition, and advising startups, work that required making high-stakes decisions under uncertainty with incomplete information. He is also the author or coauthor of nine previous books on technology and business, including The ROI Story: A Guide for IT Leaders.

None of that made him a cardiologist. What it gave him was a framework for evaluating evidence, questioning assumptions, and recognizing when expert consensus deserves scrutiny and when it doesn’t. When a coronary artery calcium score of 641 arrived in January 2024, he applied that framework to the most consequential decision of his life.

Why Steve wrote this book

After seeing so many members of Facebook heart groups go through the same difficult decisions and the same confusing, conflicting recommendations he had, Steve wanted to help. He made plenty of mistakes and wrong turns along the way, and he wrote The Stents I Didn’t Get to help others avoid as many of them as possible.

Steve lives with his wife, Wendy, near Lake Tahoe, where he still hikes, snowboards and skins up Heavenly before the lifts open. His Chihuahua, Piper, whose own cardiac condition is managed with daily medication, usually joins him on the hikes.

Disclaimer: Steve is not a physician. All observations and interpretations on this site and in his book are his own, based on published evidence and conversations with his physicians, and do not constitute medical advice. Talk with your own doctor before making decisions about your health.