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Insights from an AI investor
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A longtime investor in AI’s take
You already know that the tech investment dollars are flowing into AI (no surprises there). But do you know what’s going on from an investor’s perspective? With so much buzz clogging up every corner of the AI convo, the investors are the ones cutting through the noise to identify what’s worth focusing on.
I wanted to get inside the mind of one such AI investor, so I welcomed Alysia Silberg onto a bonus episode of The Business of Tech. She’s been active in the AI scene since 2003 and recently authored a book: Unemployable: How AI Transformed My Work and My Life.
Care to join as I follow the money and find out what Silberg is thinking these days? Here’s what we got into.
A look at UNEMPLOYABLE
Silberg’s latest book is a culmination of two decades of AI experimentation, so I began our convo by asking for that origin story.
Turns out, Silberg’s interest in AI was first sparked when she was sitting in her actuarial board exams in her home country of South Africa. She and her peers were asked to learn nearly 3000 formulas by heart, with only a small calculator to help them. At that moment, she was so frustrated with the tediousness of the assignment that she decided to pursue technology full-time.
“I had this epiphany that there was a machine that could be created that could partner with me, and I could be the creativity, and it could do the hard heavy lifting. But there was no way that it was sustainable that every person could learn these formulas. And it was just this moment that I fell in love with the idea.”
Since then, she’s found technology to be an absolute gift and joy in her life.
The partnership premise
As my long-time followers know, I personally find the ‘partnership’ messaging for AI to be the most compelling. Microsoft’s Copilot is the perfect example, as it partners human creativity with the machine to create a collaborative relationship.
I ran this by Silberg, and she’s also quite passionate about this direction. In fact, that’s part of what caught her interest back in 2003:
“The people that are around me are hyper-technical. I’m not. And so the idea that I always had this disadvantage, and I could find this partner who could enable me to work alongside you to create an extraordinary company, whatever the case may be, that was incredibly empowering. And that was my firsthand experience.”
Despite how much fear people have about AI, she’s always approached it from a place of curiosity. Both two decades ago and today, she pushes people to ask themselves questions like, “How can this be my thought partner? How can this be my creative partner?”
Silberg’s investment philosophy
As for Silberg’s investment journey, the path hasn’t always been easy. When she came to the US and bought her first AI company, she and her team had a really tough time building their product and convincing people it had value. She got a lot of pushback, but the experience helped her settle on her most important value: resiliency.
“In terms of what I look for, of course, it’s the innovation, of course, it’s the impact, of course, it’s the team. Does it need to be groundbreaking? Yes. Are they super smart? Do they have deep domain knowledge? Yes. But it’s also about a level of resiliency, the ability to adapt rapidly, and being able to stay focused even when there’s so much noise. to not be thinking about, ‘What’s a cool idea right in front of me?’ Because you just see those companies getting wiped out rapidly.
Finding the customer value
After so much time working with AI, as you’d expect, Silberg has a strong sense of what resonates with customers.
In short, customers want the same thing they want from every other type of technology: a real-life use case with practical value. Right now, she’s seeing too much hype from a lot of AI companies, and as a result, she’s seeing too much impracticality.
“The ones that are winning are actually solving problems in a way that actually improves things. It delivers a return, and the customer’s smiling.”
The takeaway here? Don’t overthink it.
The role of the service provider
Another concept that my long-time followers know I like is the idea that service providers should see themselves as AI sommeliers. If we develop a refined palette for identifying the models and tools that pair well with certain scenarios, our customers will see value in our recommendations.
Silberg agreed, even taking it a step further and saying that that type of skill set is critical. Because in addition to too much hype, she’s noticing two common pieces of customer feedback: that customers are overwhelmed by their choices, and that implementation hasn’t been easy.
So if we as service providers step up to be the intermediary, we can take away the stress of decision paralysis. But as for implementation, there’s another piece of feedback to be aware of: while a lot of leaders are excited to roll out AI, there’s been a lot of resistance from teams. They want to be more productive, but they also don’t want the human value to get lost along the way.
That leaves us with Silberg’s last note on the role of the service provider: implementation should include a strategy around ethics.
Advice for founders
Finally, for my fellow founders out there, I asked Silberg for her advice for small entrepreneurs. Her message was short but sweet:
“The one thing I have seen time and again is that you don’t have to be the smartest. You have to be the most resilient. And I think tech rewards resiliency,” she said.
For more from Silberg, check out her book UNEMPLOYABLE: How AI Transformed My Work and My Life on Amazonor subscribe to her AI newsletter at www.readunemployable.com.
That’s it for this week! As always, I’m available for thoughts, musings, and more at [email protected].
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