Alumni Ventures

Groq, a semi-conductor startup that makes chips for AI inference, was recently valued at $2.8 billion. It’s a classic “overnight success that was years in the making” tale. On the next episode of The Eric Ries Show, I talk with founder and CEO Jonathan Ross, who began the work that eventually led to Groq as an engineer at Google. He was a member of the rapid eval team – “that comes up with all the crazy ideas at Google X.” Nevertheless, he felt the risk involved in leaving to launch Groq in 2016 was far less than the risk of staying in-house and watching the project die. It’s just one of Jonathan’s many counterintuitive beliefs that have paid off. Groq has had many “near-death” experiences in its eight years of existence, all of which have ultimately put it in a much stronger position to achieve its mission: preserving human agency in the age of AI. Jonathan believes that in order to meet it, “[Groq] needs to be in the conversation. The best way to do that is to produce most of the world's AI compute. We want to make sure that there's a lot of voices, and that there isn't control [by] a small number of entities.” Groq is committed to giving everyone access to relatively low cost generative AI compute, driving the price down even as they continue to increase speed. We talked about how the company culture supports that mission, what it’s like to be on the same playing field as companies like Nvidia (and whether it even matters), and Jonathan’s belief that true disruption isn’t just doing things other people can’t do or don’t want to do, but doing things other people don’t believe can be done – even when you show them evidence to the contrary. Other topics we touched on include: ???Why the ability to customize on demand makes generative AI different? ???Managing your own and other people’s fear as a founder ???The problems of corporate innovation ???The role of luck in business ???The error of insisting on founder control ???How he thinks about long-term goals and growth ???The importance of empathy ???Maintaining trustworthiness You can listen to or watch the episode here: ?? YouTube: https://lnkd.in/gVAM58Vh ??? Spotify:?https://lnkd.in/gjuYysrh ??? Apple: https://lnkd.in/gjN459cB If you'd like to read about my main takeaways from the episode, they can all be found here https://lnkd.in/gACeYkuj As always, a big thank you to our sponsors. The show would not be possible without them! ?Runway ?DigitalOcean ?Mercury

In today’s fast-paced world, nearly every sector of the economy is reinventing itself with the latest advancements in technology. As the pace of innovation accelerates, companies both large and small are turning to groundbreaking approaches to create smarter, more sustainable solutions. Yet among the thousands of exciting new developments released each year, a select group of technologies stand out for their ingenuity. These are Fast Company's 2024 Next Big Things in Tech winners. The 138 honorees span 28 categories, including AI and Data, Space and Telecom, and Health. From corporate giants to ambitious startups, each honoree has demonstrated impressive progress—showing both immediate promise and potential to drive lasting change in the years ahead. You might see this dichotomy in some of our winners: Coursera, Electronic Arts (EA), Logitech, Headspace, Houzz, and Discord. It may be the first time you’ve encountered some of these brands, but it certainly won’t be the last. Whether using AI to improve disaster-response efforts, creating a hiking-friendly wearable exoskeleton, or making supply chains more ethical, each of these products, services, and technological breakthroughs reflects fresh thinking that inspires us. Read the full #FCTechAwards list: https://bit.ly/3Cz2HVj

Happy launch week of Oshi at the Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts in San Francisco! We are so excited to be partnering with the best hotel chain in the world and can’t wait to see what the future holds for Oshi ?????? Enjoy this behind the scenes look of the team at Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts doing a training session with our new dishes!!

Roame (YC S23) was selected as one of the top 3 most innovative startups of the year by Global Flight and invited to speak at the 20th Loyalty & Awards Conference! We presented our leading award flight search engine to over 250 executives and delegates from airline and hotel loyalty programs around the world including Accor, Air France-KLM, Air Astana, Allegro, All Nippon Airways, Asia Miles, British Airways, BWH Hotels, Cathay Pacific, Emirates, EVA Airways Corp., Finnair, Garuda Indonesia, GOL Linhas Aéreas, IAG Loyalty, Malaysia Airlines, Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group, Lufthansa, Miles & More GmbH, Qantas, Qatar Airways, Saudia Cargo, SAS - Scandinavian Airlines, Shangri-La Group, Thai Airways International, Turkish Airlines, Vietnam Airlines, Virgin Australia, WestJet, Xiamen Airlines Big thank you to Ravindra Bhagwanani, Anna Khomukha, Victoria Giglio, and Margarita Onanova for organizing such a wonderful conference! #loyaltyandawards #roame #awardtravel #loyalty #points

Today, I’m proud to announce Arc Intelligence, the first vertical AI platform for the hypergrowth $2 trillion private credit industry ?? In 2021, we set out on our mission to help startups grow. We’ve since launched our cash management platform, now supporting thousands of ambitious companies, and a private debt marketplace, now processing $4B of loan volume. We kicked off 2024 with the launch of Arc Capital Markets, designed to connect the best lenders with high-quality borrowers. Today, we complete our two-sided marketplace with the launch of Arc Intelligence: the first vertical AI platform designed to supercharge private credit deal teams. Arc Intelligence is an agentic system designed to automate complex financial tasks. It equips lenders with modern decision-making tools powered by AI. Today, Arc Intelligence is available to hundreds of active members in the Arc Capital Markets network. This means more efficient underwriting for lenders and accelerated funding timelines for borrowers. Next year, Arc Intelligence will power Arc’s full platform experience, generally available to thousands of VC and PE-backed companies who trust Arc with capital management. Sign up for early access, and experience it for yourself: joinarc.com/ai Arc is a financial technology company, not a bank. For important information about Arc, see our disclosure page: https://lnkd.in/e5VUM_R4