Inside Epic Systems’ mythical campus, a world away from Wall Street

Dorothy Gale was right: The Land of Oz is not in Kansas. Rather, it is found in the rolling green plains of Verona, Wisconsin, a town of about 16,400 people located about 10 miles southwest of the state capital, Madison.

Verona is home to the quirky, sprawling, 1,670-acre headquarters of Epic Systems, one of the largest privately held technology companies in the U.S. Epic’s software stores the medical records of more than 280 million Americans and is seemingly ubiquitous in hospitals and clinics.

Though Epic employees bear the heavy responsibility of building tools to help doctors and nurses treat patients, they also spend their days in offices that seem straight out of the pages of a science fiction novel or children’s book.

A Wizard of Oz-inspired yellow brick road winds through the gleaming emerald-green building’s corridors, a giant chocolate chip adorns the chocolate factory’s entrance, and a mischievous cat smiles out of the building’s window, guarded by life-size playing cards.

Last week, thousands of healthcare industry executives flocked to Epic’s sprawling campus for the company’s annual meeting. User Group MeetingsThis is also to hear about new products and future initiatives. This year’s theme is “Story Time.” Judy FaulknerThe company’s 81-year-old CEO appeared on stage wearing a swan costume with feathers in his hair.

Faulkner, a modest mathematician who founded Epic in his basement in 1979, told the audience that the surrounding buildings and their upkeep account for 8 percent of the company’s total expenses. But he made the obvious point that it was much cheaper for Epic to buy land and build in Verona than in tech hubs like San Francisco, Seattle or New York. And in this small Midwestern town, the company is far from the hustle and bustle of big cities.

“Most of us in software development are avid science fiction readers,” Faulkner said in his keynote address.

For public market investors, Epic has always been something of a fantasy.

The 14,000-employee company doesn’t follow pre-determined budgets, doesn’t make acquisitions, doesn’t accept investments from venture capitalists, and abides by its own Ten Commandments, the first of which is “never go public,” according to its website.

Epic had revenue of $4.9 billion last year. Cerner, Epic’s biggest rival in the electronic medical records market, went public in 1986 and Oracle By 2022, it will reach more than $28 billion. Oracle FinancialsCerner contributed revenue of $5.9 billion in fiscal 2023.

S&P 500 Sub-index Stocks of software and services companies trade at nine times sales, which on average would value Epic at about $45 billion.

Faulkner isn’t as worried about the outcome as Cerner is — after all, the second commandment of an epic is “Don’t be bought.”

“Why should it be owned by people whose sole purpose is to serve the interests of the stock market?” Faulkner said onstage last week.

A tour of Epic’s campus makes it clear that the company exists far from Wall Street.

Epic’s 28 office buildings are each themed and grouped together into mini-campuses with names like Prairie Campus, Farm Campus, Central Park Campus, Wizard Academy Campus, Storybook Campus, etc. According to Epic’s website, the buildings have become more ornately decorated over the years, which has required negotiations with architects.

The chairs in the conference rooms match the building’s intricate theme. The campus’ dinosaurs, armor and working carousel are fun to watch but also serve a purpose. According to a series of testimonials on Epic’s website, Faulkner said his plan was to create a friendly environment that would attract and inspire talent and ensure employees had the quiet space they needed to be productive.

“We compete with large technology companies,” Faulkner said in his testimony. “These attributes allow us to hire the best staff and increase our productivity.”

Mr. Faulkner says the company should offer individual offices to all employees who want them. Most of the company’s employees come into the headquarters every day, and some have multiple jobs because hiring often outpaces construction.

Those who want to escape the office completely can hop on one of the company’s 600 cow-print bikes and hold a meeting in a treehouse, slide down a rabbit hole, or even have lunch on the train.

Underground Space

Epic’s address provides the first clue to its underworld presence: it is located at 1979 Milky Way, reflecting both the year the company was founded and Faulkner’s affinity for celestial themes.

Following a road that winds between buildings and vast green fields, visitors are greeted by a sign that reads, “Epic Intergalactic Headquarters.” Epic’s campus is made up of roughly 750 acres of active farmland, dotted with 42 sheep, 14 cows, and one donkey.

Most of the company’s parking is underground, which helps maintain the campus’ impressive look from above, and means employees don’t have to worry about clearing snow and ice from their cars during harsh Midwest winters.

Even when employees aren’t parking in the lot, they often use the underground: The buildings on campus are connected by a network of tunnels and enclosed elevated roads, so there’s no need to go outside to get between buildings.

Employees are also required to attend monthly staff meetings held in an underground auditorium called Deep Space. The meetings last about two hours, during which employees present their projects and discuss industry trends.

“That definitely includes grammar classes,” Faulkner said at a user group meeting in the 11,400-seat auditorium that opened in 2013 and is a feat of architectural engineering because it has no columns.

To reach Deep Space, visitors must descend through the Earth’s levels; the building’s levels are named Sky, Glass, Dirt, Rock, Magma and Core. The lobby outside the auditorium is inspired by the Lord of the Rings series, with the word “Precious” scrawled ominously on the wall in huge glowing red letters.

Sci-fi references are everywhere: Cafeteria 42 is the answer to questions about life, the universe and everything from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, and the Wizard Academy campus is clearly inspired by Harry Potter, with its own Kings Cross station, a giant chess set and an outrageous collection of portraits.

Epic is building a new campus on the same site inspired by epic fantasy like “Game of Thrones” and “Star Wars.” At last week’s event, the crane was decorated with a giant kite that soared high above the campus.

Though each office building has its own theme, the bones of their physical structures are all very similar: Long office corridors are punctuated with conference rooms, and most are three stories or less, a design that Faulkner says is intended to encourage face-to-face meetings.

Home to Epic’s oldest offices, the Prairie Campus features buildings named after celestial bodies such as stars, planets and galaxies.

Located on Storybook Campus, the building called Mystery looks like an old mansion where you can easily imagine Sherlock Holmes roaming its hallways, while the Castaway building resembles a ship and the interior is filled with maritime décor.

Many of the building’s walls are decorated from floor to ceiling, and local artists are on display throughout, including decorative arts, ceramics, mosaics and paintings.

Walking around the grounds during user group meetings, it was easy to forget that Epic is a software company.

But outside of that fantasy campus, medical professionals and their patients have very real needs for this giant tech vendor – and very real criticisms abound.

Epic has long been criticized for slowing down interoperability efforts to streamline the exchange of patient information between vendors.

Healthcare data in the U.S. has historically been siloed and difficult to move because clinics, hospitals and health systems can store information in various formats across dozens of different vendors. Data is also protected by federal laws such as the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA).

Oracle, now Epic’s biggest rival, says Epic is fiercely defending its turf. Blog Post“Everyone in the industry understands that Epic CEO Judy Faulkner is the biggest obstacle to EHR interoperability,” Oracle executive vice president Ken Glueck wrote.

Epic recently helped the federal government build a data exchange network called the Trusted Exchange Framework and Common Agreement (TEFCA), which aims to address both the legal and technical requirements for sharing patient data at scale. Epic announced last month that it plans to migrate all of its customers to TEFCA by the end of next year.

But the company still plans to use its own extensive proprietary network. At the user group meeting, Epic announced several new generative artificial intelligence capabilities for its Cosmos platform, an anonymized patient dataset that clinicians can use to support treatment and for research.

Seth Hayne, Epic’s senior vice president of research and development, spoke to reporters after his keynote in a lodge-style decorated conference room, where he had just given the audience a spectacular demo of an AI agent cross-referencing data from Cosmos to assess recovery after wrist surgery.

He said such tools could be ready as soon as within the next few years.

“The technology is advancing very quickly,” Hayne said.

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