GoKawiilJoe Hogan sees a lot of smiles. When people ask him where he works, he responds with “Align Technology,” which inevitably prompts the follow up, “What’s that?” It’s the $12 billion company behind Invisalign, the hellish and expensive pieces of clear plastic worn about 22 hours a day that brute force teeth into better alignment. After months, sometimes years, the discrete rival to braces promises to give people smiles they will want to show off. Hogan gets a look at them all. And he’s eager to see more.
Align is embarking on its biggest manufacturing overhaul since it was founded by two Stanford Graduate School of Business classmates 29 years ago. The company is preparing to begin directly 3D printing the aligners at the core of its business, ditching what Hogan describes as a longer, more wasteful process that involves making molds. A successful transition could lower costs and make treatment more affordable in the long run, bringing Invisalign to more customers and boosting Align’s profits.
It also, according to Hogan, would entrench Align as the world’s biggest user of 3D printers. Hogan isn’t a founder or a scientist, though he has raised honeybees for over 25 years. He also doesn’t have a Wikipedia page, despite having run three multibillion-dollar international companies. But he’s a manufacturing veteran who knows about plastics and 3D printing, especially after over a decade at Align.
Shares of the company have tripled in price during his tenure as it outlasted failed upstarts and surged past other competition. Align handled a record 2.6 million cases last year, including a high of 936,000 kids and teenagers. Altogether, 22 million patients globally have worn Align’s growing portfolio of aligners.
The company controls nearly every step of the process. It develops the scanners that map patients’ teeth, the AI-powered software that helps doctors plan their treatment, and the boxy machines that will soon drip out aligners and retainers. On that foundation alone Hogan expects decades of growth ahead.
Last month, Hogan spoke with WIRED at Align’s lab in Silicon Valley about his predictions for the future, his tips for patients, and why he believes my recent Invisalign experience was an anomaly.
This interview has been edited for clarity and length.
WIRED: Have you ever been an Invisalign user? What's your journey with teeth been like?
Joe Hogan: I didn't know anything about teeth before I came here. I didn't even know how teeth moved your entire life. The first thing I did is I got my teeth scanned and started a treatment so I could really learn. So that was 10 years ago. I can't tell you that I always wear my retainers. My wife always wears hers. I tell my wife sometimes and I say, “Kate, you don't have to wear them every night, like every other night.” She goes, “You're not a doctor, Joe. You just run the company.” But the journey was good.
In the clear aligner market globally, Invisalign represents 60 percent to 70 percent of the market share, but within all of dentistry, where do you sit?
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