In this episode, we dive into Artificial Intelligence (AI) investing with Rudina Seseri, founder and managing partner of Glasswing Ventures.
Rudina’s career started twenty years ago as an investment banker in the technology group at Credit Suisse. In that role she was responsible for multibillion-dollar acquisitions. Her acquisition work continued in the corporate development office at Microsoft.
She has served four years as Entrepreneur-In-Residence at Harvard Business School where she was recently appointed as an Executive Fellow and was recently named to the Board of Directors of the New England Venture Capital Association.
Highlights from this Episode
Steve Jobs once said, “Overnight success stories take a long time.” While it may seem like the hype around AI emerged overnight, according to Rudina it has really been more than a decade in the making. That’s how long she has been investing in AI technology. Having that perspective is essential at a moment like the one we are living through right now.
For example, on their most recent earnings calls, Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta, and Microsoft mentioned “AI” 5X more than they did a year ago. Hype cycles always bring with them tremendous hope and optimism about the future. They also make it difficult for investors to discern hype from reality.
Rudina’s advice for entrepreneurs, executives, and investors is to recognize the essential role the underlying technologies play in driving advancement, enterprise adoption, and opportunities for innovation. This is crucial. She sees a major wave of investment opportunities across the AI landscape, from industry-specific applications to advancements in machine learning frameworks, hardware, semiconductors, and more. In her view, the application layer represents the best opportunities for investors and builders in generative AI. Rudina also believes the investment and innovation to come are likely to mitigate job losses, one of the major concerns about AI.
Other issues will be harder to solve, like ensuring that AI algos are free from bias. AI applications are only as good as their data, so it is critical to ensure that humans remain in the testing loop. Rudina sees data governance and compliance as major issues right now. That’s because the technology is far ahead of the regulations, which has enterprises looking to governments for direction. They’re going to get it. For investors, that will be important to watch.
This is an exciting time for investors in AI. Look no further than Nvidia crossing $400/ share and $1B in market cap this morning. This is a timely conversation. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.
Rudina Seseri on AI enabled enterprise SaaS, cloud and IT software