The first, most famously, was AOL, which he offloaded on Time Warner's shareholders. The second, less well known, was Flexcar, a car-sharing startup which he ended up combining with Zipcar. Dumping Revolution Health would just be the latest face-saving exit for Case.

That the rationale for the deal with Everyday Health is consolidating Web traffic speaks to Case's diminished ambitions. Instead of transforming healthcare, as he loudly said he hoped to do, Case has ended up optimizing websites for search engines. Case's holding company would retain some other health-related startups after the proposed deal, including clinic chain Redi-Clinic and insurance broker Extend Health. None show transformative promise, but unlike Revolution Health, they at least sound like sensible businesses.

a second goal of 23andMe [is] to collect a large database of genetic information and then come back to you over time with invitations to provide specific health data and participate in research.

Storing health records online is nothing new. Most hospitals computerized their records long ago. The new bit is allowing patients access to their data from anywhere. Interestingly, third-party services like Google Health aren't currently covered by HIPAA, the federal health privacy law that establishes strict protocols for how health data can be shared. For example, the current law requires doctors and hospitals to notify patients when subpoenaed for a medical record. Once medical records are transferred to a service like Google Health — a storage service, not a medical provider — it could be easier for outside parties to obtain medical records.

In other words, Congress is sure to get involved. But wait a moment: What's the fuss all about? Who really needs this service? The Cleveland Clinic is an ideal testbed because many of its patients are retirees who migrate to Arizona and Florida for part of the year, away from their regular doctors who hold their health records. Aside from that group, how many people need portable health records in the first place? Google, Microsoft, and others are all pursuing this market avidly, but I don't see anyone stopping to ask how healthy a business it is.

To get them out of the way, of course. Yes, yes, Adam Bosworth, the former Microsoft engineer, was a glorious hire for Google back in the day. Yes, yes, he invented XML and the Access database and so on and so forth, and he sort of invented Ajax, the set of technologies used by most modern websites (but not really). But what, exactly, has he done for us lately? Exactly. So it makes perfect sense for Google to get him out of the way by putting him on an obscure, sure-to-fail healthcare project.

It's a time-honored tradition in tech: If you have an executive you can't stand but can't get rid of, put him in charge of your "healthcare initiative." That's what Intel did to Steve McGeady, after all. When he was in charge of the chipmaker's software business, McGeady frequently sparred with Microsoft, and even testified against the software giant in the Department of Justice's antitrust lawsuit. Stripped of his software job, he was put in charge of Intel's Internet Health Initiative, and quit a few years later.

As for Microsoft's Steve Shihadeh, look no further than his resume: He's a salesman, not a technologist. His goal is to sell Windows server licenses to hospitals, and if some patter about revolutionizing healthcare means he can sell more software, of course he'll add that to his spiel. Like any good salesman, he doesn't really believe it.

So keep that in mind when you read about any tech company with high-minded healthcare plans, and its "health architect" wants to schmooze you up. Either you're dealing with someone who's got something to sell — or someone who's got nothing but time on their hands. Either way, their career's not looking healthy.