The Exchanges

Q What's the biggest mentor to you and how did he or she come about?

A Look, you know, I've been incredibly blessed, I think, with broad number of people that have given me enormous advice over the years, and it's almost unfair to point out, but one, but I'll mention two. I think probably early in my days, I was mentored by a gentleman named Ed Kozel, who was the CTO at Cisco, and through a bunch of fortunate circumstances, I ended up working for him, and he taught me a lot of things. Most importantly, He taught me about the notion of trying a lot of things, even though you might fail at them and trying them irreverent to the risk of failure. So I credit him. And in that context, we were doing a lot of M&A and many of them weren't working, but the ones that worked really worked. Ed really taught me that. And I will owe him for, you know, the rest of my professional career for that lesson. The other one I would say is somebody that you brought up earlier, which is Andy Ratcliffe. Uh, interestingly, the roles are reversed now. I'm on his board. Uh, but, uh, Andy, in my view is one of the great venture capitalists of all time. And he taught me a lot about how the venture business works. And a lot of the things we talked about earlier in terms of being a good venture capitalist, you know, what that means, how you should behave and what your role should be are a lot of things that he's taught me. So those two, to those two individuals, I owe a great de…

AI assessment note: “I'll mention two. I think probably early in my days, I was mentored by a gentleman named Ed Kozel”

Q Mike, as we said, research, not stalking, okay? But I'd love to start today by hearing a little bit about you and how you made your way into what I call the wonderful world of venture and what your entrance really looked like.

A I made the transition to venture. I guess one would characterize a little bit later in my career. I spent first, uh, 1617 years working in regular companies. And then in my mid forties, I made the transition over to venture. In fairness, it wasn't the first time that I had thought about the opportunity, but it felt like a good moment in my career. And certainly the transition isn't an obvious one because it is a very different kind of a job. It's a very different kind of a role that you perform as a venture capitalist versus, you know, running a company or operating in a large company. And I think the biggest difference that I'd characterize is that you go from being everything in the first person. You're the, you're the actor on stage, if you will, when, when you're operating a company to being backstage and essentially being the one that suggests and advises and ultimately is trying to be helpful, but it also provides Super important to understand that the people that are actually making the decisions that own the success or failure of a company are the ones that are on stage. And I think being able to make that transition and not feeling like you're the one that is front and center is one of the really important components of being a good venture capitalist. And for somebody that's been in an operating role, it takes a little getting used to.

AI assessment note: “I spent first, uh, 1617 years working in regular companies. And then in my mid forties”

Q do have one question from, from former past CEO, Dave Morin, and he goes further back. Then your operational career, into your kind of growing up period, and says that you grew up in Japan, in Italy, as I said, not a stalker, this was from Dave, and he says, obviously unique places to grow up, but how did that shape then your worldview going forward as a person, really?

A It was a very unique experience for me. As I like to say, I was born a regular Italian kid in, in Milan, and then my family took me to Japan, and then I ended up in the United States, and I think that what that kind of trained me to do Was to be able to connect and understand with people of extremely different background and heritage than what I am and what I do. And in many cases, being a little bit of an outsider and being a little bit in the minority, I think allowed me to better understand people. And obviously, you know, whatever profession you choose, whether you're an operator or you're a venture capitalist or, you know, whatever the case may be, being able to understand and connect with people that are Different than you is just extraordinarily important. And, you know, as you apply it to the venture capital context, many of the most talented entrepreneurs and great company starters in the world are very unique and unusual individuals. And I think one's ability to connect with those kinds of unique and different people is an incredibly important resource. A great entrepreneur very rarely listens to advice from lots of people. If you're able to put yourself in a position where, because you can connect with them, because you can understand them, even though they may be very different, that you can establish a good communication channel and influence them, that's a huge ad…

AI assessment note: “trained me to do Was to be able to connect and understand with people”

Q We mentioned the growth of the index brand there, and you've had a front seat view for the brand building of the likes of Slack, Sonos, Blue Bottle, just to name a few. So how have you seen companies execute on this playbook as such of creating these generation-defining brands?

A I would say that universally, the one common concept with anybody that's able to build a great brand is it starts with a fantastic experience for the customer. That's, that's how the brand builds. It's not billboards and blogging and nice logos and all that stuff. It really is about delighting the customer or the user of the product. And when you recite the brands that you talked about, whether it's, you know, Sonos, which, you know, users absolutely rave and Love the product. Blue bottle where people, you know, have a queue out the door to get a cup of coffee. Slack, which is spreading virally at a, you know, velocity that's, I don't think I've seen before in the enterprise environment. Those all at the heart have a fantastic customer experience and almost an obsessive passion that the product creators at those companies have about delighting their users. And then this is very true of all three companies and of many more that we've backed. So It starts with that, and if you do that over and over again for a period of time, that builds the brand. Now, later on, you can associate a variety of metrics with that, you know, net promoter scores, and so on and so forth, but all of those metrics really are just a proxy or a representation for that core value system of building great products, and frankly, I think if To index itself, our firm, what we're trying to do is to delight our …

AI assessment note: “starts with a fantastic experience for the customer. That's, that's how the brand builds.”

Q What's the biggest mentor to you and how did he or she come about?

A Look, you know, I've been incredibly blessed, I think, with broad number of people that have given me enormous advice over the years, and it's almost unfair to point out, but one, but I'll mention two. I think probably early in my days, I was mentored by a gentleman named Ed Kozel, who was the CTO at Cisco, and through a bunch of fortunate circumstances, I ended up working for him, and he taught me a lot of things. Most importantly, He taught me about the notion of trying a lot of things, even though you might fail at them and trying them irreverent to the risk of failure. So I credit him. And in that context, we were doing a lot of M&A and many of them weren't working, but the ones that worked really worked. Ed really taught me that. And I will owe him for, you know, the rest of my professional career for that lesson. The other one I would say is somebody that you brought up earlier, which is Andy Ratcliffe. Uh, interestingly, the roles are reversed now. I'm on his board. Uh, but, uh, Andy, in my view is one of the great venture capitalists of all time. And he taught me a lot about how the venture business works. And a lot of the things we talked about earlier in terms of being a good venture capitalist, you know, what that means, how you should behave and what your role should be are a lot of things that he's taught me. So those two, to those two individuals, I owe a great de…

AI assessment note: “I'll mention two. I think probably early in my days, I was mentored by”

Q What do you think good VCs do in terms of communication channels with entrepreneurs? Is it kind of dictatorial instruction? Is it kind of asking pensive questions that make the entrepreneur think? Is it kind of go to market strategy? What do you think they do in that communication channel that makes the great ones great?

A Well, I mean, obviously, first of all, you have to be a great judge of people, right? Because ultimately, entrepreneurship, especially at the early age, is less about, you know, analytics and numerics, and it's really about understanding human beings, their incentives, their motivations, and what makes them great. So, being a good thief, first of all, is about being a good judge of people, and that's Incredibly important in terms of communicating and associating with entrepreneurs. I think it's important to have a great degree of empathy. So understanding what they are going through and why they are facing what they're facing in good and bad is incredibly important. And being able to communicate with them in the context of what they're facing, rather than, you know, sort of being a professor in front of the room, telling them what it should be sort of saying, I understand what you're feeling. I know that this is what's going on in your mind. Have you thought about the possibility of this, or have you thought about the possibility of that? Um, you know, what if the condition were like this? So, you know, essentially allowing them to work through their own thinking process by asking good questions and perhaps making suggestions is a much more powerful tool because at the end of the day, the CEO, the founders, they are the ones that are ultimately responsible for running the busin…

AI assessment note: “allowing them to work through their own thinking process by asking good questions”

Q And I mean, I'm so pleased you touched on that because your partner, Danny Reimer, asked in particular for you, how did you find that transition from actor to coach? And what were the surprises and challenges?

A The most challenging part is that when you're trained as an operator, like when you're trained to run a business, you are judged ultimately on the hundreds of decisions that you make every day. And some decisions are important ones. You know, should we be making this product line or not? Should we have the product do this? Or should our logo look like this? And you make literally hundreds of those decisions, some super important, some less. As a venture capitalist, You make far fewer decisions. Fundamentally, you make a decision whether you should invest in the company or not, and then after that, your job is really to ask good questions and influence and advice, but you're not making the big decisions, and I think the most important thing is that operators tend to want to make their decisions for others, and that's the wrong approach, I think, for a VC, and I think that your ability to let go of that instinct to make decisions and to be the actor is Is very, very important. And it takes a little while because if you've been doing it for a while, you're just trained to want to make those decisions and to tell people what should be done. So untraining your brain and, um, becoming more of a intelligent advisor to takes a little getting used to. And I think in my case, it probably took me two, three years, frankly, to retrain.

AI assessment note: “The most challenging part is that when you're trained as an operator”

Q You spoke there about VC value. There's always a lot of questions around the future of VC and how we can innovate on our offering. Do you agree that the future of VC is aligned with the Andreessen style operational value add? Or do you think we'll see different innovations on our service providing role?

A You know what? I think you're going to see a great deal of diversity. You know, the venture capital is a fascinating profession because there isn't really a Textbook way of building a great firm. If you look at the great venture capitalists of our time, talk about individuals, you have ones that were journalists, you have ones that were operators, and you were ones that did nothing but VC their entire life. I don't think that there is a universal way of saying, hey, this is the way you should build a firm. I think what, what matters a lot is the, the consistency and the core belief of the principals who are doing the job. Right. So the venture capitalists themselves, I do think that firms like Andreessen and Kleiner and Greylock have done a phenomenal job building services organizations. And there is no question that there is value in doing that. And then there are other firms like say benchmark who have done a terrific job without those kinds of services. And so I don't know that necessarily there is a right or wrong strategy. There are certainly more venture capitalists than there ever have been. What I think you'll see is a bigger and bigger, a broader distribution of different kinds of approaches. You know, at the end of the day, I think each has its strengths, and each has its weaknesses. In some cases, one approach works better than the other, but I wouldn't say that ther…

AI assessment note: “I think you're going to see a great deal of diversity.”

Q And Andy Ratcliffe at Wealthfront asks, with your dual experience of both the US and the UK venture markets, how do you compare the two, and what are your thoughts in terms of comparisons of both markets?

A They're extremely different. I mean, entrepreneurs obviously are fantastic in both places, and it turns out, as you probably know, that many of the entrepreneurs here in Silicon Valley are immigrants that come from Europe. There are terrific people. The difference is, of course, here in San Francisco, there's an enormous support ecosystem around these entrepreneurs. People who start companies here can get advice at every street corner, at every cafe. There's an extremely supportive Network and infrastructure. There are advisors, attorneys, there's VCs everywhere, and so in some sense, you're dropped in the midst of this extraordinarily rich ecosystem that allows entrepreneurs to flourish here. In Europe, being an entrepreneur is still a more solitary job, and the role of a venture capitalist is a little more instructive in some sense because there isn't as much of a textbook or playbook That a lot of the European entrepreneurs enjoy. Now that obviously with the internet and much more transatlantic communication, that's changing, but it still is the case. And as a result of that, I think in Europe, you have to be a little more patient with the evolution and the creation of companies. And you have to be a little more patient also in the investment process. There are far fewer skilled investors in the European market than there are here in the U S and that in some sense is an adva…

AI assessment note: “They're extremely different. I mean, entrepreneurs obviously are fantastic in both places”

Q do have one question from, from former past CEO, Dave Morin, and he goes further back. Then your operational career, into your kind of growing up period, and says that you grew up in Japan, in Italy, as I said, not a stalker, this was from Dave, and he says, obviously unique places to grow up, but how did that shape then your worldview going forward as a person, really?

A It was a very unique experience for me. As I like to say, I was born a regular Italian kid in, in Milan, and then my family took me to Japan, and then I ended up in the United States, and I think that what that kind of trained me to do Was to be able to connect and understand with people of extremely different background and heritage than what I am and what I do. And in many cases, being a little bit of an outsider and being a little bit in the minority, I think allowed me to better understand people. And obviously, you know, whatever profession you choose, whether you're an operator or you're a venture capitalist or, you know, whatever the case may be, being able to understand and connect with people that are Different than you is just extraordinarily important. And, you know, as you apply it to the venture capital context, many of the most talented entrepreneurs and great company starters in the world are very unique and unusual individuals. And I think one's ability to connect with those kinds of unique and different people is an incredibly important resource. A great entrepreneur very rarely listens to advice from lots of people. If you're able to put yourself in a position where, because you can connect with them, because you can understand them, even though they may be very different, that you can establish a good communication channel and influence them, that's a huge ad…

AI assessment note: “what that kind of trained me to do Was to be able to connect”

Q We mentioned the growth of the index brand there, and you've had a front seat view for the brand building of the likes of Slack, Sonos, Blue Bottle, just to name a few. So how have you seen companies execute on this playbook as such of creating these generation-defining brands?

A I would say that universally, the one common concept with anybody that's able to build a great brand is it starts with a fantastic experience for the customer. That's, that's how the brand builds. It's not billboards and blogging and nice logos and all that stuff. It really is about delighting the customer or the user of the product. And when you recite the brands that you talked about, whether it's, you know, Sonos, which, you know, users absolutely rave and Love the product. Blue bottle where people, you know, have a queue out the door to get a cup of coffee. Slack, which is spreading virally at a, you know, velocity that's, I don't think I've seen before in the enterprise environment. Those all at the heart have a fantastic customer experience and almost an obsessive passion that the product creators at those companies have about delighting their users. And then this is very true of all three companies and of many more that we've backed. So It starts with that, and if you do that over and over again for a period of time, that builds the brand. Now, later on, you can associate a variety of metrics with that, you know, net promoter scores, and so on and so forth, but all of those metrics really are just a proxy or a representation for that core value system of building great products, and frankly, I think if To index itself, our firm, what we're trying to do is to delight our …

AI assessment note: “the one common concept with anybody that's able to build a great brand is it starts with a fantastic experience”

Q And I mean, I'm so pleased you touched on that because your partner, Danny Reimer, asked in particular for you, how did you find that transition from actor to coach? And what were the surprises and challenges?

A The most challenging part is that when you're trained as an operator, like when you're trained to run a business, you are judged ultimately on the hundreds of decisions that you make every day. And some decisions are important ones. You know, should we be making this product line or not? Should we have the product do this? Or should our logo look like this? And you make literally hundreds of those decisions, some super important, some less. As a venture capitalist, You make far fewer decisions. Fundamentally, you make a decision whether you should invest in the company or not, and then after that, your job is really to ask good questions and influence and advice, but you're not making the big decisions, and I think the most important thing is that operators tend to want to make their decisions for others, and that's the wrong approach, I think, for a VC, and I think that your ability to let go of that instinct to make decisions and to be the actor is Is very, very important. And it takes a little while because if you've been doing it for a while, you're just trained to want to make those decisions and to tell people what should be done. So untraining your brain and, um, becoming more of a intelligent advisor to takes a little getting used to. And I think in my case, it probably took me two, three years, frankly, to retrain.

AI assessment note: “The most challenging part is that when you're trained as an operator”

Q What do you think good VCs do in terms of communication channels with entrepreneurs? Is it kind of dictatorial instruction? Is it kind of asking pensive questions that make the entrepreneur think? Is it kind of go to market strategy? What do you think they do in that communication channel that makes the great ones great?

A Well, I mean, obviously, first of all, you have to be a great judge of people, right? Because ultimately, entrepreneurship, especially at the early age, is less about, you know, analytics and numerics, and it's really about understanding human beings, their incentives, their motivations, and what makes them great. So, being a good thief, first of all, is about being a good judge of people, and that's Incredibly important in terms of communicating and associating with entrepreneurs. I think it's important to have a great degree of empathy. So understanding what they are going through and why they are facing what they're facing in good and bad is incredibly important. And being able to communicate with them in the context of what they're facing, rather than, you know, sort of being a professor in front of the room, telling them what it should be sort of saying, I understand what you're feeling. I know that this is what's going on in your mind. Have you thought about the possibility of this, or have you thought about the possibility of that? Um, you know, what if the condition were like this? So, you know, essentially allowing them to work through their own thinking process by asking good questions and perhaps making suggestions is a much more powerful tool because at the end of the day, the CEO, the founders, they are the ones that are ultimately responsible for running the busin…

AI assessment note: “allowing them to work through their own thinking process by asking good questions”

Q And Andy Ratcliffe at Wealthfront asks, with your dual experience of both the US and the UK venture markets, how do you compare the two, and what are your thoughts in terms of comparisons of both markets?

A They're extremely different. I mean, entrepreneurs obviously are fantastic in both places, and it turns out, as you probably know, that many of the entrepreneurs here in Silicon Valley are immigrants that come from Europe. There are terrific people. The difference is, of course, here in San Francisco, there's an enormous support ecosystem around these entrepreneurs. People who start companies here can get advice at every street corner, at every cafe. There's an extremely supportive Network and infrastructure. There are advisors, attorneys, there's VCs everywhere, and so in some sense, you're dropped in the midst of this extraordinarily rich ecosystem that allows entrepreneurs to flourish here. In Europe, being an entrepreneur is still a more solitary job, and the role of a venture capitalist is a little more instructive in some sense because there isn't as much of a textbook or playbook That a lot of the European entrepreneurs enjoy. Now that obviously with the internet and much more transatlantic communication, that's changing, but it still is the case. And as a result of that, I think in Europe, you have to be a little more patient with the evolution and the creation of companies. And you have to be a little more patient also in the investment process. There are far fewer skilled investors in the European market than there are here in the U S and that in some sense is an adva…

AI assessment note: “They're extremely different. I mean, entrepreneurs obviously are fantastic in both places”

Q You spoke there about VC value. There's always a lot of questions around the future of VC and how we can innovate on our offering. Do you agree that the future of VC is aligned with the Andreessen style operational value add? Or do you think we'll see different innovations on our service providing role?

A You know what? I think you're going to see a great deal of diversity. You know, the venture capital is a fascinating profession because there isn't really a Textbook way of building a great firm. If you look at the great venture capitalists of our time, talk about individuals, you have ones that were journalists, you have ones that were operators, and you were ones that did nothing but VC their entire life. I don't think that there is a universal way of saying, hey, this is the way you should build a firm. I think what, what matters a lot is the, the consistency and the core belief of the principals who are doing the job. Right. So the venture capitalists themselves, I do think that firms like Andreessen and Kleiner and Greylock have done a phenomenal job building services organizations. And there is no question that there is value in doing that. And then there are other firms like say benchmark who have done a terrific job without those kinds of services. And so I don't know that necessarily there is a right or wrong strategy. There are certainly more venture capitalists than there ever have been. What I think you'll see is a bigger and bigger, a broader distribution of different kinds of approaches. You know, at the end of the day, I think each has its strengths, and each has its weaknesses. In some cases, one approach works better than the other, but I wouldn't say that ther…

AI assessment note: “I think you're going to see a great deal of diversity.”

Q And in terms of helping entrepreneurs, as you said there, in 2011, you and Danny Reimer decided to help a new segment of entrepreneurs with the opening of the Index West Coast office. So how was that experience for you, carving out a segment in the already very crowded West Coast market?

A Well, you know, it's important to set the concept of how we think of ourselves at Index, right? I mean, you know, Index, obviously, we're very lucky that we've been able to back some terrific entrepreneurs in Europe and establish a good name for ourselves. And when back in 2011, when we were thinking through this decision as a firm, we very much believe that we should never rest on our laurels as a firm, that we should evolve and continue to challenge ourselves to step up and get to the next level. And it was obviously apparent back then that while we had done a good job backing the right kinds of people in Europe, if we wanted to build a world-class firm, we had to have a presence in Silicon Valley. We were not going to do that remotely. So we made the decision to jump into the market here with a few thoughts in mind. One is a lot of the things that made us successful in Europe wasn't necessarily that we were European, but that we thought of the world in alignment with the entrepreneurs that we backed and that we brought a different perspective to their company creation and that those concepts, I think we believed translated extremely well in Silicon Valley, but realistically in a market where you have the world's best venture capitalists and the world's best entrepreneurs, this was not going to be an overnight effort. We did not think that index ventures in San Francisco, Wou…

AI assessment note: “This was a ten-year effort for us, and even now, five years into it”

Q Mike, as we said, research, not stalking, okay? But I'd love to start today by hearing a little bit about you and how you made your way into what I call the wonderful world of venture and what your entrance really looked like.

A I made the transition to venture. I guess one would characterize a little bit later in my career. I spent first, uh, 1617 years working in regular companies. And then in my mid forties, I made the transition over to venture. In fairness, it wasn't the first time that I had thought about the opportunity, but it felt like a good moment in my career. And certainly the transition isn't an obvious one because it is a very different kind of a job. It's a very different kind of a role that you perform as a venture capitalist versus, you know, running a company or operating in a large company. And I think the biggest difference that I'd characterize is that you go from being everything in the first person. You're the, you're the actor on stage, if you will, when, when you're operating a company to being backstage and essentially being the one that suggests and advises and ultimately is trying to be helpful, but it also provides Super important to understand that the people that are actually making the decisions that own the success or failure of a company are the ones that are on stage. And I think being able to make that transition and not feeling like you're the one that is front and center is one of the really important components of being a good venture capitalist. And for somebody that's been in an operating role, it takes a little getting used to.

AI assessment note: “I spent first, uh, 1617 years working in regular companies. And then in my mid forties”

Q And in terms of helping entrepreneurs, as you said there, in 2011, you and Danny Reimer decided to help a new segment of entrepreneurs with the opening of the Index West Coast office. So how was that experience for you, carving out a segment in the already very crowded West Coast market?

A Well, you know, it's important to set the concept of how we think of ourselves at Index, right? I mean, you know, Index, obviously, we're very lucky that we've been able to back some terrific entrepreneurs in Europe and establish a good name for ourselves. And when back in 2011, when we were thinking through this decision as a firm, we very much believe that we should never rest on our laurels as a firm, that we should evolve and continue to challenge ourselves to step up and get to the next level. And it was obviously apparent back then that while we had done a good job backing the right kinds of people in Europe, if we wanted to build a world-class firm, we had to have a presence in Silicon Valley. We were not going to do that remotely. So we made the decision to jump into the market here with a few thoughts in mind. One is a lot of the things that made us successful in Europe wasn't necessarily that we were European, but that we thought of the world in alignment with the entrepreneurs that we backed and that we brought a different perspective to their company creation and that those concepts, I think we believed translated extremely well in Silicon Valley, but realistically in a market where you have the world's best venture capitalists and the world's best entrepreneurs, this was not going to be an overnight effort. We did not think that index ventures in San Francisco, Wou…

AI assessment note: “realistically in a market where you have the world's best venture capitalists... this was not going to be an overnight effort.”

Q And I had Rob Siegel at XE Capital on the show before, and he said that the enterprise space is less interesting. Now we're entering a period of consolidation, so I'm really intrigued. How do you view the market as a whole today from the enterprise space? And then a question from Martin Minier at Index in London. Which segments and micro segments do you find to be most exciting?

A Well, I love Rob. He was my classmate in business school, so it's terrific that you had him on the show. In this particular circumstance, I pose a slightly different thesis to what Rob was saying, in that Obviously, we are enjoying right now one of the more vibrant times in terms of M&A activity and consolidation in the market, and there certainly are a number of very strong big tech companies that are out there, whether it's, you know, Facebook or Apple or Google or, you know, whatever the case may be. So there are some great companies out there. With that being said, a period of consolidation is also a period in which entrepreneurs that are being acquired by these companies will or are Coming out from those companies and starting new things. So it presents actually the opportunity for second time experienced entrepreneurship, which is terrific. Uh, two is, you know, track record of M and A having done a little bit of it at Cisco in my era is broadly speaking, not super successful. You know, you have to do a lot of them and many of them fail, which is the right methodology. I don't disagree that you should do M and A, even though some of them fail, but what it does is just as one company gets absorbed, That creates an opening for a new company to enter that slot. And so I think actually a period of consolidation represents a period of opportunity for new companies that are try…

AI assessment note: “I pose a slightly different thesis to what Rob was saying”

Q And then in terms of the micro segments that are super exciting for you, Is it the machine learning integration into, into the enterprise?

A Broadly speaking, I'm an enterprise investor. Occasionally, Danny and my partners let me out of the shed, and I get to go invest in things like Sonos and Blue Bottle. But, um, broadly speaking, I'm an enterprise investor. I think the enterprise sector is incredibly interesting in multiple dimensions. The big themes, of course, are taking all forms of enterprise software and moving them to the cloud, which is really this theme around SaaS that's been True for a decade, but it continues to be very true today. Obviously, in the main SaaS categories, you've seen the emergence of some very big players, people like Salesforce and Workday and ServiceNow and so forth. But there are many, many more software verticals than is represented just by those companies. And many of those still run good old-fashioned on-premise software running on Windows or DOS or something like that. And I think the transformation for a lot of those is imminent. And enterprise investing definitely encompasses a range of those, and I still feel very, very excited about the sector. I do think machine learning is an exciting category. I would generally say that we're probably more excited about the application of machine learning rather than the algorithms and the processes of doing machine learning itself. So intelligently applied machine learning can be very, very interesting, both for consumer, but also for the…

AI assessment note: “I do think machine learning is an exciting category. I would generally say that we're probably more excited about the application”

Q And I had Rob Siegel at XE Capital on the show before, and he said that the enterprise space is less interesting. Now we're entering a period of consolidation, so I'm really intrigued. How do you view the market as a whole today from the enterprise space? And then a question from Martin Minier at Index in London. Which segments and micro segments do you find to be most exciting?

A Well, I love Rob. He was my classmate in business school, so it's terrific that you had him on the show. In this particular circumstance, I pose a slightly different thesis to what Rob was saying, in that Obviously, we are enjoying right now one of the more vibrant times in terms of M&A activity and consolidation in the market, and there certainly are a number of very strong big tech companies that are out there, whether it's, you know, Facebook or Apple or Google or, you know, whatever the case may be. So there are some great companies out there. With that being said, a period of consolidation is also a period in which entrepreneurs that are being acquired by these companies will or are Coming out from those companies and starting new things. So it presents actually the opportunity for second time experienced entrepreneurship, which is terrific. Uh, two is, you know, track record of M and A having done a little bit of it at Cisco in my era is broadly speaking, not super successful. You know, you have to do a lot of them and many of them fail, which is the right methodology. I don't disagree that you should do M and A, even though some of them fail, but what it does is just as one company gets absorbed, That creates an opening for a new company to enter that slot. And so I think actually a period of consolidation represents a period of opportunity for new companies that are try…

AI assessment note: “a period of consolidation represents a period of opportunity for new companies”

Q And then in terms of the micro segments that are super exciting for you, Is it the machine learning integration into, into the enterprise?

A Broadly speaking, I'm an enterprise investor. Occasionally, Danny and my partners let me out of the shed, and I get to go invest in things like Sonos and Blue Bottle. But, um, broadly speaking, I'm an enterprise investor. I think the enterprise sector is incredibly interesting in multiple dimensions. The big themes, of course, are taking all forms of enterprise software and moving them to the cloud, which is really this theme around SaaS that's been True for a decade, but it continues to be very true today. Obviously, in the main SaaS categories, you've seen the emergence of some very big players, people like Salesforce and Workday and ServiceNow and so forth. But there are many, many more software verticals than is represented just by those companies. And many of those still run good old-fashioned on-premise software running on Windows or DOS or something like that. And I think the transformation for a lot of those is imminent. And enterprise investing definitely encompasses a range of those, and I still feel very, very excited about the sector. I do think machine learning is an exciting category. I would generally say that we're probably more excited about the application of machine learning rather than the algorithms and the processes of doing machine learning itself. So intelligently applied machine learning can be very, very interesting, both for consumer, but also for the…

AI assessment note: “we're probably more excited about the application of machine learning rather than the algorithms”