From Startup to Exit

Send us Fan Mail Many of the large language model providers have built their LLM models by scraping data from websites and open source sites. Some have licensed the content like Open AI has done with Reddit. Nonetheless, many of these LLM providers have been sued for illegally copying data for which they have no permission. In this podcast, Adam shares his thoughts on the Fair Use doctrine and var...

Send us Fan Mail You may not think of the State of Louisiana as a software innovation hub but it is doing a lot to attract startups to its state. It has a $100 million seed capital fund to match VC investment dollar for dollar. It is willing to rebate 25% of your software development dollars for software development done in its state. It is also providing sales tax rebates to attract large data ce...

Send us Fan Mail These days you will often call into customer service for a company whose product you are using and will be connected to an agent with a foreign accent. For many Americans, this can be a challenging experience as they cannot understand what the agent is saying because of their accent. Foreign agents have also complained that it can be a dehumanizing experience. This can result in a...

Send us Fan Mail On our one year anniversary, we are releasing this terrific episode with Jay Bartot, partner at Madrona Venture Labs (MVL). Jay talks about the model that MVL uses to work with startup founders and vet startup ideas. Like many technology entrepreneurs, over the last 18 months, Jay has been deeply immersed in Generative AI technology, building experimental products, and testing the...

Send us Fan Mail Rajeev embarked on his career at Microsoft as a developer after a sabbatical from his Ph. D. to build upon his internship experience in Seattle the previous summer. In this episode, he delves into how his journey and interactions with various leaders have influenced his own leadership style as the CTO of Atlassian. The theme of ‘Developer Joy’ has resonated with Rajeev throughout...

Send us Fan Mail Generative AI has taken the industry by storm as we all know. Besides Open AI. a number of players like Meta, Google and Anthropic have announced new foundation models. In this episode, we get Vivek's perspective of the competitive landscape and how it will likely evolve. Will open source models start to match Open AI's GPT 4o in terms of capabilities? We also discuss Ap...

Send us Fan Mail Artificial intelligence has the potential to be a powerful tool for human progress if properly trained, harnessed, and deployed. Policies must be created to protect personal privacy, nurture innovation, and foster prosperity. The Transparency Coalition (https://www.transparencycoalition.ai/). a non-profit, is focused on creating tools, systems, and policies that hold AI developers...

Send us Fan Mail Enterprise SaaS solutions are rapidly adopting Gen AI technology to solve business problems. Learn about iCertis, a leader in Contract Lifecycle Management and how they are deploying Gen AI technology to offer a number of CoPilots to allow enterprises to gain intelligent insights into their contracts and to perform risk assessments. Sudarshan Chitre brings over 25 years of experie...

Send us Fan Mail 2023 was a dramatic year for AI with the emergence of Gen AI and ChapGPT. Learn about the evolution of Generative AI from industry leader and expert Joseph Sirosh. Understand how enterprises will deploy Gen AI technology to make their workers more productive. Learn about how Joseph's new company CreatorsAGI will leverage Gen AI to enable creators and authors to interact in ne...

Send us Fan Mail Follow the journey of Vikram Chalana, a Seattle based entrepreneur who started his entrepreneurial journey with an enterprise product called Win Shuttle that allowed MS Excel users to exchange data with SAP. He grew the company to significant revenues and ultimately sold the company to a Private Equity firm. More recently, he has started a Gen AI company Pictory. AI that allows cr...

Send us Fan Mail Listen to our 2024 Annual Investment Outlook Panel with four top VCs based in Seattle and the Bay area. Get their perspective on the investment climate in 2024 and their plans to invest specifically in AI/ML based startups. Tim Porter, Managing Director, Madrona Ventures Tim joined Madrona in 2006 and invests in B2B software companies in the Pacific Northwest. He is currently inte...

Send us Fan Mail Enjoy this exclusive Fireside Chat with Sunny Gurpreet Singh, Founder of Roundglass, moderated by Akhtar Badshah. Sunny Gurpreet Singh is an entrepreneur and philanthropist based in Seattle, US. He is the founder of Roundglass, a global Wholistic Wellbeing organization established in 2014. Through his experience in the US healthcare system, Sunny realized the importance of a proac...

Send us Fan Mail When Vetri Vellore was given the responsibility to turn around the Systems Management Server business at Microsoft, it was a failing business. In fact, at a business review, Bill Gates famously threw his deck back to him telling him to shut down the business. But Vetri persisted and completely turned it around. Soon Vetri embarked on a remarkable entrepreneurial journey where he s...

Send us Fan Mail Raj has a common theme with his startups Snapfish and Fitmob. Both of them needed to be pivoted and focus on survival. He found buyers for both and his mantra to founders is to dissolve the ego and make sure your company sees another day to battle. He spent several years at Mayfield and invested early in Lyft and led the autonomous driving strategy for Lyft. Raj is a co-founder an...

Send us Fan Mail In 2011, Greg Gottesman had a bad experience leaving his dog for the weekend at a local Kennel. That experience led him to pitch the idea for Rover at a Startup Weekend which he won. That led to the formation of Rover and the rest is history. In our second podcast episode, Gowri Shankar and I explore the foundation of Rover as well as the business model behind Pioneer Square Labs....

Send us Fan Mail Today, we have invited Nick Huzar, the co-founder and former CEO of OfferUp for more than a decade. He is currently operating as a board director, brand evangelist, and advising the CEO on strategic projects. Nick's experience lies in building two-sided marketplaces from the ground up. Through this, he has raised over $380M in financing from leading investors including A16Z,...