2. 2
Moore’s Law +
The Hype is Real
Data
Source: http://pointsandfigures.com/2015/04/18/moores-law/ and
https://www.promptcloud.com/blog/want-to-ensure-business-growth-via-big-data-augment-enterprise-data-with-web-data/
3. 3
APIs++ = ?
The Hype is Real
Cloud
Source: http://ecsnamagazine.arrow.com/solving-the-mysteries-of-cloud-computing/ and
https://www.programmableweb.com/news/research-shows-interest-providing-apis-still-high/research/2018/02/23
4. 4
Machines Beat Humans!
Source: http://image-net.org/challenges/LSVRC/2016/results and http://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-beats-humans-at-speech-recognition-2016-10
7. Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec
Harvard Ethics and
Governance AI Fund
Samsung Next
Comet Labs & Baidu
partner
Google’s Gradient
Ventures
Toyota AI Ventures
Basis Set Ventures
Andrew Ng new
$150M fund
Salesforce Ventures
AI
Microsoft launches
Innovate.AI
AI initiatives from nearly every major company…
Source: TechCrunch and public news sources
8. 8
The arrival of screenless tech… 25M + 25K
>25M Alexa devices sold >25K Alexa skills created
Source: VoiceBot.ai
10. What does the next AI
unicorn look like?
10 Source: http://fortune.com/2016/09/21/startup-unicorn-exits/
11. 1. Have a data moat
• Algorithms that learn from proprietary, actionable, and growing
datasets
• Only 0.5% of the world’s data is being used or analyzed 1 massive
opportunities
11
Helps HR departments manage and analyze
employee feedback
1. Proprietary company feedback data
2. Informs actionable ways to improve
employee and business performance
3. Growing datasets that makes the product
stickier over time!
Source: [1] https://www.emc.com/about/news/press/2012/20121211-01.htm
12. 2. Leverage existing tools
• Basic machine learning is commoditized
12
Cloud-based image and video management
platform for developers
• Takes advantage of Google, Amazon, Imagga
APIs for auto-tagging
• Adds a higher value layer on top of existing tools
13. 3. Do one thing and do it well
• Focus on a specific vertical or problem avoid the giants!
‒ Agriculture, manufacturing, niche functions of the enterprise (e.g. HR)
• Allows you to follow laws #1 and #2 effectively
13
Using computer vision to help farmers better
monitor crops
• Focuses on a niche vertical and problem
• Building a proprietary dataset around crop
images
• Builds off existing tools from tech giants
14. 4. Enablement > Replacement
14
Automating away low-hanging tickets for
customer service reps
• Fits into existing workflow for an agent
• Allows them to focus on higher-value work
Remove Friction Predictive Insights Full Automation
Transportation Cruise Control Tesla Autopilot L5 Self-Driving Car
Call Center Auto-Dialer Real-Time Call Guidance Virtual Agent
15. 5. Voice is the new UI
• Voice is more efficient + natural
‒ Human speech (150 words per minute) vs. typing (40 words per
minute)
‒ Particularly useful for driving or home settings
• Breaking point in NLP tech
‒ 40% use voice search daily; 50% of searches by 2020 1
‒ Google’s speech recognition error rate is 4.9% and falling 2
15 Source: [1] https://www.branded3.com/blog/google-voice-search-stats-growth-trends/ and
[2] https://venturebeat.com/2017/05/17/googles-speech-recognition-technology-now-has-a-4-9-word-error-rate/
16. 6. Expertise matters
• The race for AI talent is more
intense than ever
‒ AI PhD salaries $300-500k
‒ Uber and FB poaching entire
research departments
• What we look for:
‒ Technical founding team
‒ Deep expertise in niche
areas of AI or ML
16 Source: CB Insights
17. The laws for the next AI unicorn…
17
Have a
data moat
Leverage existing
tools
Do one thing
and do it well
Enablement
>
Replacement
Voice is the
new UI
Expertise
matters
1 2 3 4 5 6
18. ... but laws are meant to be broken
Some of our best historic investments have been our most controversial!
18
And we’ve missed a lot of BIG winners… check out our anti-portfolio!
