When Arvind Purushotham decided to leave the Sand Hill stalwart Menlo Ventures in 2010 to start a new VC arm for Citibank, he joked with friends that he was going from an operation with 25 people to one with four more zeroes in its workforce. 15 years-and more than 200 investments and 30 exits-later, he has built one of the more formidable Wall Street corporate venture outfits at a moment when frontier technology like AI and blockchain threaten to upend financial services.
"Toyota is looking for the next new new thing in mobility, climate, AI, and industrial automation. Its answer is $1.5 billion in new capital that will focus on, and invest in, the lifecycle of startups - from the first seeds of an invention through its growth stage and eventually to mature companies. Toyota made two related announcements Tuesday that provide a snapshot of the company's growing interest in the startup ecosystem."
The reaction is: 'Oh my God, this is all hype,' 'This stuff doesn't work. We're wasting our time.' Disaster, right? But if you dig into it, the real issue—and this is pervasive—is about evaluations. What are you trying to accomplish, and how do you evaluate it? And that's an organizational issue and a process issue. You have to understand the limitations of where we are with what AI can do, effectively benchmarking and evaluating from there: Is this effective or not?