20VC: Greenfield Opportunities For Machine Learning, Why Massive Corporates Finally See It's Potential & Why VC's Investment Decision Making Process Needs To Change with James Cham, Partner @ Bloomberg Beta
The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
The Twenty Minute VC
4.4 • 637 Ratings
🗓️ 19 October 2016
⏱️ 26 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
James Cham is a Partner @ Bloomberg Beta and one the pre-eminent thinkers in the machine learning space. Prior to Bloomberg, James was a Principal @ Trinity Ventures and before Trinity, James was a VP at Bessemer Venture Partners. At Bessemer, James was a Board Member of CrowdFlower and Open Candy. However, James has not always been a VC as he was originally a programmer receiving his degree in Computer Science from Harvard.
In Today’s Episode You Will Learn:
1.) How James made his way into the wonderful world of VC from being a programmer?
2.) How are organisations and corporations thinking about machine learning? How are they looking to incorporate it into their current infrastructure?
3.) Kieran Snyder @ Textio said, ‘the writing is on the wall for enterprise to embrace machine learning’. What are James' thoughts and how does the business model vary from licensed and SaaS?
4.) How is building machine learning models different from software development? On the topic of software development, how does James perceive the productivity differences between software developers?
5.) Moving to VC and how does James approach the investment decision making process as a VC? How does James relationship to religion intertwine with his investment career?
Items Mentioned In Today’s Show:
James’ Fave Book: Man Who Lied To His Laptop
James’ Fave Blog or Newsletter: Rob May, Jack Clark, Tyler Cowan
James’ Most Recent Investment: Netlify
As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and James on Twitter here!
Likewise, you can follow Harry on Snapchat here for mojito madness and all things 20VC.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is the 20 minute VC with your host, Harry Stebbings, and you can add me on the old Snapchat at H. |
| 0:04.8 | Debbings. I'd love to hear your thoughts on questions for upcoming guests, and I think Snapchat |
| 0:08.5 | really is the best platform for that. However, to the show, stay in. For long-term listeners, you might |
| 0:13.0 | remember our interview with Roy Bahad at Bloomberg Beta. Well, I'm delighted to be joined today by |
| 0:18.1 | Roy's partner, James Cham. So James is a partner at Bloomberg beta, |
| 0:21.7 | and I have to say at Bloomberg, James and the team have really become masters of the machine learning |
| 0:26.0 | space. And if you haven't checked out James' colleague Chauvon's deep dive, that is a must and can be |
| 0:30.6 | found in the show knows. But back to James, and prior to Bloomberg, James was a principal at Trinity Ventures, and prior to that, James was a VP at Bessemer Venture Partners. |
| 0:39.1 | However, I don't think that actually really paints an accurate picture of James, as he's originally |
| 0:43.4 | a programmer, shown through his Harvard CS degree and very developer-centric mindset. |
| 0:48.0 | I'd also like to say a huge thank you to James's partner Roy and David Aronoff, partner, Flybridge, |
| 0:53.3 | for the intro to James today. |
| 0:54.7 | But before we meet James, if you're a founder or entrepreneur looking for logo design, site design, |
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| 1:12.8 | Well, launch a project. Designers begin submitting quality designs for you to review. You then |
| 1:17.8 | quickly build up and generate a large gallery of designs that fit your needs. Once you select your |
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| 1:32.0 | So much better and more reasonable than an agency, and perfect for small businesses and entrepreneurs, looking for fast response times and reasonable pricing. So head over to |
| 1:36.5 | designcrowd.com forward slash VC and enter the promo code VC100 for an incredible $100 off. |
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