Essays by Matt Turck on AI, machine learning, data infrastructure and the annual MAD Landscape.
Every human worker needs a computer. In the next decade, every AI agent will too — except agents won’t need one computer. They’ll need millions: instantly provisioned, securely iso
In venture capital, some investments require squinting into an uncertain future and imagining a market that may one day materialize. Investing in European defense is no such exerci
A major new entrant in voice AI: Gradium. If we were designing computers from scratch today, the default interface probably wouldn?t be a keyboard. It would be voice. Yet most AI p
A market map + 25 crisp ideas for an over‑heated, heads‑down year in AI & data Anyone who has been near AI this year has felt both: the froth of record funding and the grind of rea
In the tradition of previous quick S-1 teardowns (Snowflake, Palantir, Confluent, Klaviyo, Cerebras, etc), some quick notes on the CoreWeave S-1 from my colleague Aman Kabeer and I
In AI, it’s been the year of big, bigger and biggest. My colleague Aman Kabeer and I just did a fun episode of The MAD Podcast where we discussed what we’re seeing in t
Look up in the sky! It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s… an IPO. The Cerebras S-1 filing is interesting in many ways, but certainly one is that, well, it is an (upcom
Many SaaS stocks have been getting clobbered in public markets. Some see the “end of software“. Is SaaS dead? What seems to be happening: What happens next: (unedited S
As a companion to the 2024 MAD (ML, AI & Data) Landscape (blog post, PDF, interactive website), my colleague Aman and I had a fun chat about some key trends we see in data and
This is our tenth annual landscape and “state of the union” of the data, analytics, machine learning and AI ecosystem. In 10+ years covering the space, things have never been as ex
Billing infrastructure has been a vexing issue for generations of software and Internet companies. It is mission critical infrastructure and as such, feels like a problem that sho
1) Be an AI leader: Buy at least one share of Open AI in that employee secondary at an $86B valuation – then change website and all social profiles to “early believer and inv
If you scroll through the list of biggest companies in the world by market capitalization, it will come as no surprise that, in the now tech-dominated ranking, commodities companie
Is this it? Are we back? Everyone in the startup and venture world has been waiting for months for the re-opening of the IPO window. After a record breaking 2021 (1035 IPOs, beatin
An overnight success 10 years in the making, Dataiku, the leading enterprise AI platform targeting Global 2000 companies, was named “Partner of the Year” for data scien
(This post is part of my “This Week in AI” series, which is general off-the-cuff market commentary. I’m not an investor in either MosaicML or Databricks) $21M per
Synthesia, the market leader in AI video generation, is announcing this morning an exciting $90M Series C financing. This is a great milestone for the company, making it a newly-mi
Pigment just closed an exciting $88M Series C (TechCrunch coverage here). The company is rapidly emerging as the global leader in the next generation of business planning platforms
Note: those are quick thoughts on some of last week’s most interesting news in AI. I may, or may not (!) do this on a regular basis. This last week in AI: Adobe killed all th
I recently got an opportunity to chat with Prateek Joshi on Infinite Machine Learning, his excellent podcast. It was a wide-ranging conversation about Generative AI (which I would
Every year, as part of our MAD project, we do a presentation at Data Driven NYC about the top trends we see across data and ML/AI. (here’s the 2022 version for reference). Th
Software Daily (aka Software Engineering Daily) has been on my podcast rotation for a while, so it was fun to get a chance to be a part of it – thanks to Jocelyn Houle who mo
One of the cool parts of publishing the MAD landscape every year is the conversations that come with it. Here’s a fun chat I did recently with Joe Reis and Matthew Housley, c
It has been less than 18 months since we published our last MAD landscape, and it has been full of drama. When we left, the data world was booming in the wake of the gigantic Snowf
“It’s been crazy out there. Venture capital has been deployed at unprecedented pace, surging 157% year-on-year globally […]. Ever higher valuations led to the creation of 136 newly
(note: this is part III of the 2023 MAD Landscape. The landscape PDF is here, and the interactive version is here) In the hyper-frothy environment of 2019-2021, the world of data i
(note: this is part IV of the 2023 MAD Landscape. The landscape PDF is here, and the interactive version is here) The excitement! The drama! The action! Everybody is talking breath
1) Update public profiles: remove any reference to ever having ever liked crypto/web3, deny any rumors that I was claiming to be “down the rabbit hole” less than a year ago, say th
Cockroach Labs, the ambitious database company with a funny name, has gone from strength to strength over the last few years. Started with three ex-Googlers in 2014, it successfull
In addition to his role as co-founder and Chief Analytics Officer of Mode, a leading collaborative data platform, Benn Stancil is a prolific and thought-provoking writer about the
The only thing better than VC pontification in general is VC pontification *in French* Thanks Sabrina Quagliozzi and BFM Business for giving me the opportunity to chat about the cu
In a world where everything moves ever faster, it seems inevitable that data infrastructure will need to move sooner or later to a predominantly real-time paradigm. Yet the infrast
Since its creation in 2014, Ledger (in which FirstMark is a very proud investor) has rapidly evolved to become one of the key global players in the entire crypto and web3 ecosystem
Some news: $1B in new funds! When FirstMark Capital was founded in 2008, the idea that one could build a premier, top-tier venture capital firm out of New York was still largely co
In the world of data infrastructure, dbt Labs has undoubtedly been one of the most exciting startups to watch. The company is the creator and maintainer of dbt, a data transformati
I’m recruiting a junior investor / associate to work directly with me at FirstMark. You’d think the role would be mostly about ghostwriting my tweets, and yeah maybe, but wait, the
As enterprises around the world deploy machine learning and AI in actual production, it’s becoming increasingly critical that AI can be trusted to produce not just accurate,
In the ever vibrant world of the “Modern Data Stack” (an ecosystem of mostly young tech startups that represent the rising generation of data software vendors, and inte
Google Translate for venture capitalists, 2021 vs. 2022
Meltem is one of the most visible and most thoughtful personalities in the crypto / web3 world and it was a real pleasure to welcome her at Crypto Driven. In addition to running he
Are we witnessing a major VC pullback? Is it temporary? What does that mean for startups? Certainly the topic du jour in startup circles. Here’s what I’m seeing. IS THE
As more and more companies around the world rely on data for competitive advantage and mission-critical needs, the stakes have increased tremendously, and data infrastructure needs
Chainalysis has been been playing a key role in the crypto ecosystem. As the leader in the blockchain data and intelligence market, it’s made it easier for many financial and
Our business lives are full of optimization problems – scheduling, time management, resource planning, pricing, routing, risk management, network optimization, financial engi
The world of data governance is not the most visible part of the data revolution, yet it is of critical importance. As more and more data floats into the enterprise, and its role i
In a crypto industry that outsiders often like to criticize for its supposed lack of clear use cases, Helium stands out. The New York Times recently recognized this reality in a re
At our Crypto Driven event, we hosted co-founder and Managing Partner Kyle Samani, who is widely recognized in the crypto ecosystem for his writing and system-level analysis. We co
For all the excitement about the explosive pace of progress in AI and technology that many readers of this blog will share, there’s an undeniable feeling of uneasiness: thing
The last couple of years have seen a dramatic acceleration in the adoption of graph databases, a category of databases that stores nodes and relationships instead of tables, or doc
I’ve been interested in the intersection of AI and crypto for a while (see AI & Blockchain: An introduction), and Numerai is one of the most exciting companies I came acr
At FirstMark, we believe that every company is going to become not just a software company, but a data company. For that to happen, it is essential that technologies that leverage
1. Be a mentor: give interns the chance to ghost-write my meme tweets and Web3 thought leadership posts 2. Improve work/life balance: minimize non-public effort, such as board work
Sometime in the Fall of 2011, I was looking for a community in New York where a non-technical person like me could learn about about “Big Data”. I couldn’t find
I am a venture capitalist. Here’s my daily routine. 8am: Wake up hungover from a crypto dinner. While in bed, tweet how refreshed I feel from a great night on my Eightsleep a
As the volume of data in the enterprise continues to explode, with ever large amounts stored in data warehouses and data lakes, the problem of data discovery has become an increasi
Ask anyone who spends time in the data ecosystem, and the name “ClickHouse” is one that has come up countless times in conversations over the last few years. ClickHouse
For anyone interested in a quick overview of our long-form 2021 Machine Learning, AI and Data (MAD) Landscape, here are the Cliffs Notes! My co-author John and I did a presentation
VCs: “Let’s take it from the top” = I have not read your deck “There’s a lot to unpack here” = I have no idea what you just said “We’re a very collaborative VC firm” = who else is
In the admittedly small world of people who obsess over data technologies, one of the hottest topics of the last year has been the “data mesh”. Created by Zhamak Dehgha
Full resolution version of the landscape image here It’s been a hot, hot year in the world of data, machine learning and AI. Just when you thought it couldn’t grow any more explos
Today, Dataiku is announcing a major new financing – a total of $400m at a $4.6B valuation, led by Tiger Global (which had also invested in the company’s Series D), alo
This morning, Sketchfab announced that it was joining the Epic Games family. From inception, Sketchfab has been a visionary company in the creator economy, pioneering the emergence
This last year has seen tremendous levels of activity for early stage startups in the data infrastructure ecosystem. At our most recent Data Driven NYC, we featured some of the ris
A member of our Emerging MAD Index of companies on their path to an IPO, Confluent is a very interesting company in a strategic part of the data space, providing infrastructure for
Databricks is an enterprise software giant in the making. Most recently valued at $28B in a $1B fundraise announced in February 2021, the company has global ambitions in the data a
A couple of years ago, FirstMark led the Series A of Text IQ, an impressive AI startup focused on the management of unstructured data in the enterprise for legal, privacy and compl
One of the most exciting emerging areas for AI is content generation. Powered by anything from GANs to GPT-3, a new generation of tools and platforms enables the creation of highly
MongoDB’s path from unlikely NYC enterprise tech startup to global category leader has been amazing to watch. I’ve had the pleasure of hosting two of MongoDB’s co
A few weeks ago, my colleague John Wu and I introduced the MAD Index, a new public market index to track the progress of “pure play” machine learning, AI and data publi
Dataiku (in which I’m a proud investor and board member) has had an impressive ride over the last few years. An early entrant in the enterprise Data Science and Machine Learn
At our most recent Data Driven NYC, we had the great pleasure of hosting Bindu Reddy, CEO and co-founder Abacus AI, and formerly GM & creator of AI verticals at AWS, and an ex-
We all have insatiable appetite for video, both in our personal and professional lives. Time and again, video is shown to capture our attention better than any other medium. This i
Today, we are previewing a new public market index – the MAD (for machine learning, AI and data) index. Readers of this blog know that we have been tracking the data ecosyste
Pinterest is near and dear to our hearts at FirstMark because we had the good fortune of being the first institutional investor back in 2009 when the company was just getting start
Real-time data streaming is an increasingly crucial part of the data ecosystem. While financial services (trading) initially represented the bulk of the demand for streaming, the e
At our most recent Data Driven, we had the great pleasure of hosting Chip Huyen, a writer and computer scientist who also teaches machine learning design at Stanford, for a fascina
While it’s been around for 15+ years, Reddit has been on a tear lately: a $367M Series E round announced a few weeks ago, rumors of an IPO, and plenty of Internet action with
In just a few years of hyper growth, Snyk has become a $2.7B unicorn, most recently raising $200M in September 2020. A developer-first security company, it has also helped usher th
If you follow the various talks at Data Driven NYC, and the data ecosystem on general, it’s plenty apparent that the overall tooling for data, data science and machine learni
Although this was never publicly announced, for the last 2+ years, FirstMark was the lead investor in an exciting seed-stage company called Timber, alongside a great group of folks
Billions of dollars have been invested in the rise of data science and machine learning as mainstream disciplines in the world of business, one of the most exciting tech trends of
For anyone in the data analysis community, Wes McKinney a very well known figure. In addition to literally writing the book on the topic (“Python for Data Analysis”), h
Hosting Alok Gupta at our most recent Data Driven NYC was special for a couple of reasons. First, because Alok is the very talented head of data science and machine learning in a c
There’s an inherent tension at the heart of modern data infrastructure. On the one hand, it’s becoming more mission-critical every day, as companies around the world re
The tech industry has a rich history of startups that started with a pretty awkward name, and rebranded over time to the big brands we have come to know. Some of those changes are
As we close an incredibly active year in the world of data infrastructure, it was a particular treat to host at Data Driven NYC two of the most thoughtful founders in the space, fo
Business planning is, of course, one of the vital functions in the enterprise: hard to run a successful company beyond a certain size without a clear sense for objectives and resou
“It wasn’t a walk in the park. Today, Gong is a super hot company. But at that time, we got a lot of no’s, by not stupid people. There were a lot of objections, like s
For anyone following the software industry, there’s been a little bit of snark about C3.ai (“C3”) over the years. Here’s a company that was founded by Silicon Valley r
Sisense is a fast-growing business intelligence startup that was ranked #31 in this year’s Forbes Cloud 100, and reached unicorn status at the beginning of 2020 through a $10
In a year like no other in recent memory, the data ecosystem is showing not just remarkable resilience but exciting vibrancy. When COVID hit the world a few months ago, an extended
David Cancel puts the “serial” in serial entrepreneur. David has founded a total of five software companies over the years, which he says make him “certifiable
One of the biggest recent trends in the data world recently has been the rapid emergence of the “modern data stack”. This stack is largely centered around the cloud dat
Every startup is not just a business adventure, but also a human journey. Today, Sense360 is getting acquired by Medallia (NYSE: MDLA), see the press release. It’s one of tho
The Palantir S-1 is a long and meaty read, and a pretty fascinating one considering the company was highly secretive, and often controversial, for so many years. It is also writte
The Snowflake IPO is shaping up to be particularly exciting. Their S-1 shows very impressive metrics across the board, including explosive revenue growth at scale (growing 174% an
Celonis was founded in 2011 by three students who didn’t know they wanted to start a company, but fell in the love with a school project. Today, Celonis is a Forbes Cloud 100
While we miss the special energy of having 350+ people in a room every month, it’s been fun to settle into the routine of hosting the online version of Data Driven NYC —
A few days ago, I tweeted this: This generated a good discussion in the thread with some great input. VPs of Finance are a little bit of a counter-intuitive hire in early-stage st
Earlier this week, Forbes published a piece on ScaleFactor, a startup using AI to automate accounting, which shut down after raising $100m. Here’s the heart of the issue cove
[July 14, 2020 IPO update – stock popped + 195% first day of trading, see end of post for details on IPO] The upcoming nCino IPO is an interesting story, and a good reminder
While AI may seem like a futuristic goal for most companies around the world, Facebook has already been there for a while. “There’s pretty much a deep learning system in ever
While it’s certainly possible to build a tech giant solely in Europe, the path to building a global, category-dominating company will, for most European tech startups, require buil
Ben Horowitz resoundingly falls in the category of “needing no introduction”: a highly successful entrepreneur who navigated a perilous situation with his business (Lou
By any measure, Datadog is an incredible entrepreneurial success story. The company went from a tiny startup in 2010 that had trouble raising money, to a public company that, at th
No longer. But, also, kinda, yes… It’s complicated. When people talk about “fundraising seasons”, they mean that there are certain times of the calendar year when you shou
Fundraising can feel like an awful lot of pushing. You push to get an introduction to investors, you push to get them to commit to a meeting, you push to convince them, you push
(This is the fourth post in this fundraising mini-series: quick, simple ideas that I’ve used in various fundraising conversations over the years, that I’m sharing here, one by one)
Our most recent VC guest at Data Driven NYC, Mike Volpi of Index, has had a pretty amazing last couple of years, with three of his venture investments going public: Zuora, Sonos a
(This is the third post in this fundraising mini-series: quick, simple ideas that I’ve used in various fundraising conversations over the years, that I’m sharing here, one by one)
Best-selling author, Professor of Computer Science at the University of Washington, recent recipient of the prestigious IJCAI John McCarthy Award for excellence in artificial intel
Last year, Sarah Guo made news by becoming the youngest General Partner at Menlo Park firm Greylock Partners, and we were delighted to host her at our most recent Data Driven NYC.
(This is the second post in this fundraising mini-series: quick, simple ideas that I’ve used in various fundraising conversations over the years, that I’m sharing here, one by one)
Should we be worried about the prospect of AI superintelligence taking over the world? “In the real world, current-day robots struggle to turn doorknobs, and Teslas driven in ‘Auto
For founders thinking through fundraising, here’s a simple mental model I like: “If this was a product launch, instead of a fundraising process, what would you do?” Almost by defin
I haven’t written much on this blog about fundraising over the years, in part because there’s already so much good content on the topic out there. But each time I get a chance to
In its largest acquisition since Oculus in 2014, Facebook just announced last night it acquired CTRL-labs, a 4 year old startup based in New York, for a reported $500M-$1B. Coincid
The Datadog IPO just happened, and it’s proven to be a resounding success, not surprisingly given the company’s superb metrics – big revenues ($333M ARR), happy c
I’m excited to announce that FirstMark has led a $12.5M Series A investment in Crossbeam, alongside Salesforce Ventures and Hubspot Ventures, with existing investors Uncork,
Part I of the 2019 Data & AI Landscape covered issues around the societal impact of data and AI, and included the landscape chart itself. In this Part II, we’re going to dive i
It has been another intense year in the world of data, full of excitement but also complexity. As more of the world gets online, the “datafication” of everything continues to acce
Great power, great responsibility: as the data revolution continues, and companies big and small are increasingly able to collect and analyze massive amounts of data, they are faci
Shopify (NYSE:SHOP) is one of those unlikely success stories that entrepreneurial dreams are made of. In 2006, co-founder and CEO Tobias Lutke was a 24 year old German autodidact p
“We are, by far, the earliest company here”. This how Zach Perret, CEO of Plaid, started his talk at his first appearance at Data Driven NYC, back in February 2013. 
Perhaps this is slightly strange for an early stage venture VC, but I’m fascinated by entrepreneurs who bootstrap their tech startup and build them into very large, industry-
What is the number one mistake technical founders make? Why is pricing so important? Should entrepreneurs avoid at all costs having a service component to their business? What is f
Who would be crazy enough to compete head-on with AWS? The question was almost as obvious seven years ago than it is today. Yet in just a few years since its founding, Digital Oc
The hedge fund world has been evolving dramatically over the last few years. Just like in other industries, software, data and AI/ML have been playing an increasingly important, an
Not so long ago, AI startups were the new shiny object that everyone was getting excited about. It was a time of seemingly infinite promise: AI was going to not just redefine eve
At the kind invitation of Rob May and the Botchain team, I had the opportunity recently to keynote Brains and Chains, an interesting conference in New York exploring the intersect
It’s been an exciting, but complex year in the data world. Just as last year, the data tech ecosystem has continued to “fire on all cylinders”. If nothing else, data is probably
As I wrote recently, the Internet of Things (IoT) has been experiencing, at a minimum, some serious growing pains. This is particularly true for consumer IoT where a lot of old is
Some call it “strong” AI, others “real” AI, “true” AI or artificial “general” intelligence (AGI)… whatever the term (and important nuances), there are few questio
I spend a lot of time thinking about hype cycles, across industries (Big Data/AI, IoT) and ecosystems (New York). Whether you use the Carlota Perez surge cycle (see this great Fred
2017 was an extraordinary and crazy year in the world of cryptocurrencies. Prices skyrocketed (Bitcoin: +1,400%; Litecoin: +5,400%, Ethereum: +8,700%; Ripple +35,000%). ICOs raise
For proponents of the Internet of Things, the last 12-18 months have been often frustrating. The Internet of Things (IoT) was supposed to be huge by now. Instead, the industry new
A few days ago, I sat down Sam DeBrule of Machine Learnings for a broad conversation about AI and startups. We got into a number of topics including creative data acquisition tact
It feels good to be a data geek in 2017. Last year, we asked “Is Big Data Still a Thing?”, observing that since Big Data is largely “plumbing”, it has been subjec
What goes up must go down, and the hype around AI will inevitably deflate sooner or later. One unfortunate consequence of the hype is that it created the widely-shared perception
A few months ago, Foursquare achieved an impressive feat by predicting, ahead of official company results, that Chipotle’s Q1 2016 sales would be down nearly 30%. Because it
Today our portfolio company HyperScience is coming out of stealth and talking a bit more about what they’ve been working on for the last couple of years. We have been involve
In the early days of Big Data (call it 2009 to 2014), a lot had to do with experimentation and discovery. Early enterprise adopters would play around with Hadoop, the then-new ope
Artificial intelligence is, of course, all the rage in tech circles, and the press is awash in tales of AI entrepreneurs striking it rich after being acquired by one of the giants,
Over the last few months, the usual debate around unicorns and bubbles seems to have been put on hold a bit, as fears of a major crash have thankfully not materialized, at least fo
In September 2001, I was the young co-founder of a NYC tech startup, TripleHop Technologies. We were building recommendation engine software, à la Amazon. We had maybe 25 people
As we are perhaps reaching the end of a cycle of innovation in tech – the one that resulted from the simultaneous emergence of social, mobile and cloud – and collective
I’m fascinated by tech ecosystems, and the network effects behind them. I wrote about Berlin (here) and about Paris (here) But of course, as an NYC venture capitalist, I
Is the Internet of Things the world’s most confusing tech trend? On the one hand, we’re told it’s going to be epic, and soon – all predictions are either in tens of billions (of co
In a tech startup industry that loves its shiny new objects, the term “Big Data” is in the unenviable position of sounding increasingly “3 years ago”. Whi
In the furiously competitive world of tech startups, where good entrepreneurs tend to think of comparable ideas around the same time and “hot spaces” get crowded quickl
How does one get a VC job? Method 1: Start a tech company, drive it a multi-billion dollar success. Drop a few bon mots on Twitter to your robust group of followers, make visionar
We’re about to see a lot more 3D content in our digital lives. Various trends, some years in the making, are now intersecting to make this a near-term reality. On the produc
Among all the excitement for the Internet of Things and the resurgence of hardware as an investable category, venture capitalists, many of whom new to the space, have been re-disco
The venture financing path has evolved incredibly fast over the last 18 months. In this very busy financing market, what used to be a reasonably well understood progression from a
A few days ago, I was invited to speak at a Yale Entrepreneurship Breakfast about about one of my favorite areas of interest, Artificial Intelligence. Here are the slides from the
AI is experiencing an astounding resurrection. After so many broken promises, the term “artificial intelligence” had become almost a dirty word in technology circles.
The superb Lending Club success story is what the startup world is all about: a software-based reinvention of massive and inefficient industry; a product that puts consumers first
An edited version of this post appeared on TechCrunch here. A downloadable version of the chart is available on SlideShare here. It’s been about 18 months since my original
I joined FirstMark as a partner a little over 18 months ago now, and it’s been a thrilling ride. It’s also felt like a steep learning curve: lots of nuances, and lots
Last night I was invited to speak at the inaugural NYC European Tech Meetup. There are tons of obvious reasons why the NYC and European tech ecosystems should work closely with on
I know, when thinking about hotbeds of startup innovation, France doesn’t exactly jump to mind. Sure, there are interesting things happening in European tech – in Londo
Note: This post appeared on VentureBeat, here. It’s been almost two years since I took a first stab at charting the booming Big Data ecosystem, and it’s been a period o
In the eye of some entrepreneurs and venture capitalists, the Bloomberg terminal is a bit of an anomaly, perhaps even an anachronism. In the era of free information on the Interne
The field of bioinformatics is having its “big bang” moment. Of course, bioinformatics is not a new discipline and it has seen various waves of innovations since the
Here’s the video from SIIA’s “IIS: Breakthrough” conference that corresponds to the slides in the previous post. Not necessarily the crispest delivery on this one, but here
I’m doing a talk on the Internet of Things tomorrow at the SIIA’s “IIS: Breakthrough” conference tomorrow, and here are the slides I’ll use. It’
1. Big brand curved TVs and mega booths are cool, but to me this year’s show was all about the rise of the crowdfunded hardware startup. 2. It’s official, there ar
As the fundamentally important debate over women in technology and entrepreneurship rages on (most recently sparked by what Paul Graham said, or perhaps didn’t say), I’
I recently got a chance to participate in a panel focused on opportunities in hyperlocal at the 2013 StreetFight Summit, along with Ben Siscovick. Since they recorded it, here it
Note: This post first appeared in TechCrunch, here. Almost 15 years ago, a friend of mine at McKinsey spent a few nights writing a document called “The Battle for the Home”. The th
Thomson Reuters CTO James Powell runs a great series of podcasts where he interviews people in the technology world about topics of relevance to his organization. I was fortunate
Some updates on the event/community front: 1) A little while ago, I changed the name of the data event I’ve been organizing from “NYC Data Business Meetup” to 
Note: This post was originally published in TechCrunch a few weeks ago (see original post here). Below is a revised version of the chart, that reflects many of the comments we rec
The May edition of Data Driven NYC (f/k/a NYC Data Business Meetup) featured some of the coolest kids of the Data Science world, in NYC and beyond: * Cathy O’Neil, Senior Dat
At the April #NYDBM, we explored the fascinating intersection between Big Data and the Internet of Things. One of the reasons why volumes of data have been escalating prodigiously
We had an all star event on March 19 at the New York Data Business Meetup with some great presentations and discussions (and some fun stuff as well: see Jeff Hammerbacher’s f
A few weeks ago, I was invited to do a couple of guest lectures at NYU (as part of the excellent “Ready, Fire, Aim” entrepreneurship class that Lawrence Lenihan, now my
Today I’m very excited to announce that I’m joining FirstMark Capital as Managing Director. My main investment focus will be on areas that correspond to my professiona
Our February NYC Data Business Meetup was focused on the intersection of data and finance (both market and consumer finance). Quantopian, Plaid and ZestFinance presented. We also
The rise of Berlin as an entrepreneurial center is not exactly news, and a number of U.S. VC funds or angel investors have been active there for a while. My overall impression, how
Our January NYC Data Business Meetup was focused on data analytics. Here are the slide decks: SumAll SimpleReach Hadapt ClearStory Here are the videos: SumAll SimpleReach Hadapt Cl
The December NYC Data Business Meetup was focused on big data infrastructure companies, with the co-founders of Sqrrl, Infochimps and MemSQL presenting to a full house. We started
The November NYC Data Business Meetup was focused on “vertical-specific” applications of big data – startups leveraging the big data stack to offer new solutions
Here are the videos from the NYC Data Business Meetup that was held on October 23, 2012, in order of appearance: Jeff Carr, COO, Precog Max Yankelevich, co-founder, CrowdComputin
So here we are again. My colleague Shivon and I had made a first attempt at making sense of the rapidly evolving big data ecosystem back in June. Based on some very helpful feedb
Here are the videos and some pictures (scroll down) of the NYC Data Business Meetup held on September 25, 2012 In order of appearance: 1) Rick Smolan told us about his fascinating
Mark Birch has a good summary of a recent panel organized by the NYC Enterprise Tech Meetup (which also has a video of the panel on its site, unfortunately with poor audio quality)
Like many people in our industry, I have been watching with growing discomfort Facebook getting beaten up on the public markets, including yesterday’s new $17.729 low. Regard
Here are the some videos, slides and pics from the most recent NYC Data Business Meetup. The videos are unfortunately not of the greatest quality, but are good enough to watch. Al
I have been very intrigued by the recent emergence of “data driven” firms, aiming to use data to reinvent venture capital. While they certainly review various data points and metri
Three days in, Brewster, the new personalized address book, has become an instant classic for me. Perhaps I lucked out, but I didn’t experience much of the delay in processi
My colleague Shivon Zilis has been obsessed with the Terry Kawaja chart of the advertising ecosystem for a while, and a few weeks ago she came up with the great idea of creating a
It’s been a few days now since their acquisition was formally announced, and I continue to be fascinated by the Buddy Media story. But what fascinates me is less the company
Here are the presentations from the NYC Data Business Meetup on May 21: VoltDB – Presenter: Scott Jarr, co-founder Datastax – Presenter: Matt Pfeil, co-founder RJMetri
Just got a copy of the video of a panel we did a few months ago at the Bloomberg Link Empowered Entrepreneur conference. It features Roger Ehrenberg of IA Ventures, Joe Fernandez
In connection with Big Data Week and Data Science London, we helped organize and host a global data science hackathon that took place simultaneously in various locations around the
Pictures of the NYC Data Business Meetup #5 (April 23, 2012). Presenters: Alex White, Co-Founder and CEO, Next Big Sound; David Liu, COO, and Jesse St Charles, Data Scientist, Kne
There’s a lot of interest in data-related businesses and products everywhere these days, but it’s been particularly fun to see things accelerating in New York (where I&
If you’re a startup founder, a day will come, generally sooner rather than later, when you have to deal with a big company – whether that’s a Fortune 1000 company you’re trying to
Are you a smart data scientist? In connection with Big Data Week and Data Science London, we’re helping organize a global data science hackathon that will simultaneously take place
Videos from the NYC Data Business meetup on March 20, 2012 Michael Driscoll, CEO, Metamarkets (go to 1:40 to skip the intro) Jeremy Howard, President and Chief Scientist, Kaggle
Mike Driscoll (CEO, Metamarkets), Jeremy Howard (President, Kaggle) and Sean Gourley (CTO, Quid) at the NYC Data Business Meetup on March 20, 2012 Photo credits: Shivon Zilis
As the interest in all things big data continues to increase, I’ve had a few chats recently with executives and entrepreneurs looking to learn more about the space, where I was ask
Videos of the presentations at the NYC Data Business Meetup on February 23, 2012 (can’t seem to be able to get better quality image, suggestions are welcome): Hilary Mason, C
Here are the presentations from the recent NYC Data Business Meetup – thanks to our terrific speakers: Hilary Mason, Chief Scientist, bitly; Stephen Sorkin, VP of Engineerin
Like many in the NYC tech community, I was excited to hear the news last Friday night that data startup Hyperpublic was acquired by Groupon. In addition to the fact that he was the