John Basmadjian

AI leaders have a crucial chance to address risks now and strengthen governance practices before playing catch-up to regulations, notes Kjell Carlsson, Ph.D. of Domino Data Lab. In a recent VentureBeat article, he shares his perspective on California's AI bill veto and why proactive governance is key to the future of AI innovation. Learn more about this addressing this opportunity: https://gag.gl/4WCTkP #AI #AIGovernance #AIInnovation #DataScience

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🚀 San Francisco: Still the Undisputed Tech Capital of the World Despite headlines suggesting otherwise, new research from SignalFire reveals that San Francisco's tech scene is not just alive—it's thriving. Here's why SF remains the epicenter of innovation: 📊 Key Findings: - SF dominates in tech talent and capital concentration - The Bay Area has more big-tech engineers than the next 10 markets combined - SF, East Bay, and Silicon Valley have more top startup engineers and VC-backed startups than Seattle, New York, and Austin combined - 26% of seed or Series A rounds from top VCs are in SF, with numbers rising since 2022 🧠 AI Boom: San Francisco's lead is even more pronounced in AI, cementing its position as the "epicenter of the new AI gold rush." 💼 Startup Haven: Y Combinator startups increasingly choose SF as their home base, especially in AI. 🌉 Why SF? - Unparalleled concentration of tech talent - Proximity to VCs, clients, and other entrepreneurs - Resurgence of in-person networking and collaboration 💡 The Big Picture: While other cities are growing their tech sectors, SF's lead "looks unlikely to be challenged any time soon." The city's tech ecosystem creates a flywheel effect that continues to attract talent and capital. https://lnkd.in/gCnPCBRU

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Instacart is a market leader when it comes to leveraging AI tools to boost productivity at work. I had an amazing conversation with JJ Zhuang, Instacart’s Chief Architect, who has shepherded over 50 AI-driven initiatives to market across the org. We explored what catapulted Instacart to the forefront of AI integration, supporting radically diverse use cases across various functional areas. One striking insight (echoed by Ethan Mollick and others elsewhere) is that you often don't need specialized tools for specialized work. Frontier models like GPT-4 can seamlessly adapt to a wide range of functions and use cases. They're not just for engineers; they're incredibly versatile tools used by marketing, comms, and legal teams. From generating code to proofreading and ideation, GPT-4 empowers every department to leverage AI for enhanced productivity and innovation. By integrating LLM’s like GPT-4 into their workflows, teams can streamline processes, automate repetitive tasks, and unlock bandwidth for new creative possibilities. How can you harness the power of AI in your own work to boost productivity? Share your thoughts below 👇 Want to hear more insights from JJ? Check out the full podcast episode by clicking the link in the comments.

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Geography is destiny

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Team San Diego! I though you may find this as surprising as I did...we are not alone. Read this quick article from Jon Prentice's (Silicon Valley Bank) interview with with James Newell (Voyager Capital), published in GeekWire on Seattle's innovation ecosystem....they lament the SAME issues as we do in San Diego: * Lack of angel investors, (Especially, it calls out, given the local giant tech co's) * "We need low-conviction check writers." * Lack of "cachet associated with being an angel investor" - We have similar efforts (as described in the article) to drum up angel activity: NuFund Venture Group and, Interlock Capital (read the article and you'll see why the Interlock effort is tops as relates to "paying back into the ecosystem") Connect.org strives to 'connect' innovative companies with investors of all types (angel, VC, PE...) - just see "Innovation Day". Their Springboard program provides another great way for experienced entrepreneurs to give back through mentorship...as for the companies going through Springboard: "Ask for advice, and you often get $$" Your thoughts on the article or San Diego innovation ecosystem? https://lnkd.in/gfwq6mfq

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Opportunities abound at Apple One thing to note here, Apple’s hardware chip bandwidth alongside their compute per watt approach combine with their Metal high-performance graphics and compute API to provide near-direct access to the GPU on Apple platforms. This in my view sets the stage for significant future opportunity.

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🏢 Big Moves in SF Commercial Real Estate! Intuit & Capital One 🏢 Two major financial firms are making strategic relocations within San Francisco: - Capital One is reducing its office space by two-thirds, moving from 201 3rd St. to 40,000 sq. ft. at 100 California St. This deal includes significant improvements to the new location, enhancing tenant experiences with new outdoor spaces and on-site amenities. - Intuit is downsizing from 200,000 sq. ft. at 22 4th St. to 36,500 sq. ft. at 505 Howard St. The move aims to leverage San Francisco's diverse talent pool while optimizing their workspace for future growth. These moves highlight the dynamic nature of SF's commercial real estate market and the need for adaptable, strategic office solutions. At Resource, we specialize in guiding companies through such transitions, ensuring seamless relocations and optimized space utilization. 🔗 Discover more about our tailored real estate services: yourresource.com #SFRealEstate #CommercialRealEstate #CapitalOne #Intuit #OfficeRelocation #RealEstateStrategy #ResourceCRE

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DeepCast shipped a number of really cool new features recently in advance of a broad outreach push to podcast listeners. One new feature is our new Daily DeepDigest tool that sends you a concise daily email including any new episodes from the trailing 24 hours from any podcasts you Subscribe to (on DeepCast). Think daily podcast cliff notes or podcast news ticker tape, with a hint of Morning Brew various brews or PitchBook News—it's increasing information throughput when you're pressed for time. And this feature is rapidly evolving to distill other key extractions from shows you're already interested in, but also exposing you to other shows you might be unfamiliar with that also have nuggets to share—and thus increasing your aperture yet still conscious of your time. Want to go deeper on any given episode? Click the episode detail and you're off to an episode on DeepCast, where you can subsequently read a longer form distillation of that episode or go straight to the source and listen to the episode. (And podcaster friends, these pages are definitely increasing indexing and thus Google entry points to your shows!) I'm loving this feature as a user, personally. Can't wait to see what others think! #BuildingInPublic #Podcasts #AllTheWorldsInformation #HowYouWantIt

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"Last year, more than 50% of all global venture funding for AI-related startups went to companies headquartered in the Bay Area, Crunchbase data shows, as a cluster of talent congregates in the region." In other news, water is wet. There was a moment during the pandemic when it looked like everyone was going to work remotely and there was an opportunity for startups to be founded anywhere. I think that time has gone: the San Francisco Bay Area is once again the place to found any kind of technology startup. Yes, there are always exceptions, but the confluence of community density, living conditions, universities, and mindset make for a perfect storm. NYC and London - and maybe Boston / Cambridge - are pretty good too, for what it's worth, but the sheer volume of startup activity in the area gives San Francisco the edge. This is something I fought earlier in my career: my first startup was proudly founded in Scotland and largely run from England. I wish we'd just moved to San Francisco. This isn't to completely sing the praises of the city: the cost of living is now astronomical, and there's a contingent of right-wing activists that seem to want to paint it as some doom spiraling hellhole, as if its progressive past isn't something to be proud of. But there is still beauty, there is still that can-do sense of adventure, and if I was founding something new, that's probably where I'd be.

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If you’re following the current AI debates in California, you’ve likely come across the state's efforts to influence the future of AI through new legislation. It might be tempting to view this as a problem confined to California, but there are broader implications for everyone. This legislation could threaten America’s economic stability and global leadership in AI and could set a precedent that other states could follow. Despite some revisions to SB 1047 since its introduction, major concerns remain. Abundance Institute plans to release the attached letter when the California Legislature reconvenes after its summer break—everyone with an interest in continued progress and leadership on AI should be watching closely. Cc: Christopher Koopman

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Earlier this week Texture, led by CEO & co-founder Sanjiv Sanghavi, announced its $7.5m seed round of fundraising with participation from Abstract Ventures, Day One Ventures, Equal Ventures, Lerer Hippeau, and a handful of angels. Dorothy Chang and I feel fortunate to count ourselves among the “handful of angels.” We didn’t invest just because Sanjiv is a close friend - though knowing him for over a decade has given us a lot of insight into his mind and how he operates. We invested for a lot of the typical reasons a VC would: Solving big problems with big potential returns - Venture investments only make sense if they have the chance to make massive returns. Texture is building the data infrastructure for energy networks - becoming a common data collection and sharing platform for every player in the energy grid, no matter the type of energy. There is already a huge gaping problem and a huge market here. Building for an inevitable future - On a macro level, as a society, we are moving more and more toward complex, interconnected energy sources as we optimize for the right balance of efficiency, sustainability and costs. Unique insight and founder-market fit - At a first glance, Texture seems like a big departure from what we originally knew Sanjiv from, as a Co-Founder of ClassPass. But since then, he has also played roles as the Chief Product officer at Arcadia, a successful energy data company (Arcadia’s CEO is also an investor in Texture) as well as an investor at Day One Ventures, investing in the energy/climate tech sector.  More details in this week's post: https://lnkd.in/eGBzXHwC

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I’m excited to share this one! Redactive has raised a $11.5M seed round -- their mission is to become the trusted GenAI engineer for enterprise teams. Blackbird co-led this round alongside Felicis with participation from Atlassian Ventures and Zapier. Andrew, Alexander and Lucas are working to solve an urgent problem hidden in plain sight – empowering GenAI applications to meet their promise of "magic" in an enterprise setting. GenAI applications are only as useful as the data that they have access to, and for most enterprises, the most valuable data is sensitive and permissioned. We all want a chatbot (“ChatGPT for…”) at work that can search the data that we share in private Slack conversations or store in private folders on Sharepoint but first, we need to trust that our data will be kept safe – from prying eyes and accidental disclosure to others in the organisation who should not see it. Redactive keeps your sensitive data safe, giving developers the trust to connect it to GenAI applications and build products that you will love. Here's to the next decade. https://lnkd.in/gPuEAFvW

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At a time of widespread concerns about the safety, efficacy and economics of AI, venture capital pioneer Vinod Khosla is still all in. Yes, artificial intelligence will become capable of replacing a good deal of human labor, Khosla said in my column for this week. But that will push down the price of healthcare, education and other services. Many current forms of work will even be eliminated, but society will be able to create a more robust safety net than is possible today. “Most expertise in the world, whether you’re talking about structural engineers, oncologists, mental health therapists or primary care doctors, or journalists and teachers, that expertise will be near-free for all of us to access,” Khosla said during a conversation at Khosla Ventures in Menlo Park. About 80% of the work involved in 80% of jobs across the economy can be automated over time, according to Khosla. “So 64% of all jobs can be done by an AI,” he said. Over a 25- or a 50-year period, GDP growth has the potential to climb to 5%. During the second quarter of this year, by comparison, the economy grew at an annualized rate of 2.8%. “We will have in that excess GDP growth lots of room to take care of the people who will be adversely affected economically,” he said. “If medical services are a lot cheaper, if education services are near free, if eldercare becomes substantially cheaper—and today eldercare is a liability that’s looming for so many nations around the world at a level that people haven’t accounted for—the social safety net is much easier to construct,” said Khosla. Khosla isn’t alone in his outlook, of course—at least elements of it. Existing generative AI and other technologies have the potential to automate work that absorbs 60% to 70% of employees’ time today, consulting giant McKinsey & Company said in a June 2023 report, raising its estimate from roughly half of employees’ time in a pre-generative AI study. That potential won’t necessarily be fully realized anytime soon, though, given the effort it takes to integrate new technology and the need for that work to make economic sense and pass regulatory scrutiny. Perhaps 30% of today’s work hours might be automated by 2030, according to McKinsey Global Institute Partner Michael Chui, an author of the report. 

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Thanks to Steve Ispas for hosting me on the #bayareainnovators show for The Epoch Times—excerpts in the link below. This interview is about #innovation, #startups, #founders, #entrepreneurship, #venturecapital, #funding, #exits, #ecosystem, #accelerators, #failures, and #success! We delve into how Silicon Valley continues to be the global hub for technology and startup activity while spreading this phenomenon worldwide. We also explore the role of VCs in startup success, the three horizons and six degrees of innovation, reasons why startups may fail, and much more. Full interview here: https://lnkd.in/gZc2yfbm FYDA Venture Partners FYDA Growth Partners Network VC Techne Infiniti Ventures

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What a night at the Alliance for Southern California Innovation's Venture Pipeline Alumni event! 🎉 Adam Hansmann's insights on building subscription-based content companies were especially sharp 🔪. Key takeaways: +  📱 Apple's ecosystem offers new opportunities for how content and AI-driven solutions can deliver. + 🌐 Reddit's success marks new opportunities for how community-driven content can grow successfully. +  📰 The NYTimes vs OpenAI lawsuit could reshape journalism and local news coverage. +  💡Subscription fatigue is real, but so is the smart, selective spending trend on tools that help us avoid being a product of the attention economy. +  📈 Even small subscriber gains matter when consistent & building from scratch. + 🧩 Smart, engaging content draws like Wordle can drive wider subscription funnels. Looking forward to sharing how this relates to our journey at Volascope Labs soon! Thanks for including Volascope Labs in such a great event Nima Ashraf, Eric Eide, and Andy Wilson! And facilitating such a great conversation Mark diTargiani 👏 . #Innovation #ContentCreation #SubscriptionModel #Journalism #StartupJourney #VolascopeLabs

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Terence Tao, a mathematics professor at UCLA, is a real-life superintelligence The “Mozart of Math,” as he is sometimes called, is widely considered the world’s greatest living mathematician. He has won numerous awards, including the equivalent of a The Nobel Prize for mathematics, for his advances and proofs. Right now, AI is nowhere close to his level But technology companies are trying to get it there Recent, attention-grabbing generations of #AI—even the almighty #ChatGPT—were not built to handle mathematical reasoning They were instead focused on language: When you asked such a program to answer a basic question, it did not understand and execute an equation or formulate a proof, but instead presented an answer based on which words were likely to appear in sequence For instance, the original ChatGPT can’t add or multiply, but has seen enough examples of algebra to solve x + 2 = 4: “To solve the equation x + 2 = 4, subtract 2 from both sides” Now, however, OpenAI is explicitly marketing a new line of “reasoning models,” known collectively as the o1 series, for their ability to problem-solve “much like a person” and work through complex mathematical and scientific tasks and queries

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Thoughtful exploration of how GenAI will impact DevOps teams and their practices!

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🏁 Bay Area vs. Los Angeles rivalry Exactly 3 years ago we moved to the Bay Area from LA, where I spent most of my life. Since then many have asked me what I feel the differences are. My general breakdown: 👩🏽‍💻 Technology Bay Area > LA - There is no place like the Bay for the sheer quantity and quality of big tech companies, startups, VCs, academic institutions, and talent. LA has Silicon Beach, which focuses mostly on media, entertainment, and consumer tech, while the Bay ecosystem is more diverse and dense. Some claim Silicon Valley has lost its appeal, I’d say the deep-rooted technology ecosystem, going back nearly a century with Bell Labs, HP, Shockley, etc., is not easily replicable. 🌴 Lifestyle Bay Area > LA - As my neighbor accurately put it: “In LA, success is measured by name-brand bags, luxury cars, and big houses. In the Bay, it's by how many exits you've had and the number of boards you're on." Both are ego driven, but I’d take the latter. LA > Bay Area - The cost of living in the Bay is infamously insane. (Cost of living in San Francisco is 23% higher than the state average and 71% higher than the national average. Housing is 187% more expensive than the U.S. average, while utilities are about 42% pricier.) LA > Bay Area - LA takes the crown for its diverse food scene, great restaurants, and affordability. Especially with Asian cuisine, it's hard to compete with the options in the San Gabriel Valley. LA > Bay Area - Style and cultural diversity are stronger in LA. Even though I ❤️ close to 30% of population in the Bay are AAPIs LA > Bay Area - grew up in Purple & Gold Bay Area > LA - Traffic, obvious Bay Area = LA - Weather, which is why we pay the infamous California "weather tax" 👥 People Bay Area > LA - Bay Areafolks are generally much nicer and more courteous than Angelenos. Bay Area > LA - The Bay has the most passionate people I've met when it comes to community involvement, activism, and social/political issues. Ingrained in the DNA and its cultural history. Which city is better? 🤼 “Let me serenade the streets of L.A. From Oakland to Sac-town, the Bay Area and back down Cali is where they put they mack down, give me love!” - Tupac

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