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James Cham

Partner, Bloomberg Beta · 1 appearance on the record.

computed by AI from the episodes · how this works → · full disclaimer →

investorengineer@jamescham ↗LinkedIn ↗bloombergbeta.com ↗

At Bloomberg Beta, James Cham focuses on early-stage investments in artificial intelligence, machine learning, and the future of work. Across his career at Bloomberg Beta, Trinity Ventures, and Bessemer Venture Partners, he has backed companies such as Weights & Biases, Streamlit, Dropcam, and Twilio.

16statements → 7claims → 1claims resolved → 3.5/5average certainty → 2.38/5average debate potential → ≈4.5/5argument clarity, estimated → 4said about them ↓

1 supported 0 partly supported 0 contradicted 6 not checkable as stated how the 7 claims stand · each chip opens the sources

5 predictions · 2 assertions · 1 opinion · 7 insights · 1 disclosure · every statement was checked. The predictions and assertions are the 7 claims: statements the public record can support or contradict. 1 is resolved, and 6 name no date, number or outcome precise enough to check. Everything else (opinions, insights, what ifs, disclosures) can never be settled by the record, so it carries no assessment.

The record, in short

What the tape says about how James argues and how the claims held up. Everything they said, and everything said about them, is in the tabs below.

Their most notable supported claim

Prediction Held up
James Cham: ML SaaS will enable cross-company insights without sharing raw data
“There's going to be something, some similar insight and some similar buzzword about the separation of models and the ability to share insights of models between companies while at the same time not actually sharing data.”
James Cham Oct 19, 2016 ▶ 12:21 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

How they sound: speaking style how? →

247 words/min while actually speaking · 2 um and uh per 1k words

No argument clarity score for James Cham: no usable question→answer exchanges on raw tape (a fair score needs 8+). We do not score a sample that small. Roundtable and news formats yield far fewer direct exchanges than interviews. Their coarse estimate from 10 exchanges on the produced feed is ≈4.5/5, shown at half point precision because the sample is small and produced tape scores higher.

Measured by listening to 3,564 words across 1 episode, but every recording we have of James Cham is the aired feed, and an editor cleaned that audio before release. Some of the hesitation was cut before we ever heard it, so read these as floors: the true rates are at least this high. These are measurements of speaking style, not scores. How it's measured →

How the interview went all their pushback → series average →

Across 1 rated episode:

host pushback ▾ 2/10
pushed back at the host ▾ 2/10
setup questions received 60%

Everything James Cham said on 20VC that made the record, most notable first. Filter by type, assessment or year in the ledger →

Prediction Not checkable as stated
Cham: Many corporate ML projects will fail due to poorly defined problems
“My own bet is that you'll see a lot of that happening over the next few years as the number of high profile projects inside corporations end up not yielding fruit in part because the problem was not defined well enough, or there was an assumption that If we ju…”
James Cham Oct 19, 2016 ▶ 10:32 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
Insight
Cham: The best venture investment decisions are always highly controversial
“The best investment decisions were always very, very controversial.”
James Cham Oct 19, 2016 ▶ 15:47 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
Disclosure
Bloomberg Beta allows any single partner to individually approve investments
“In our firm at least, we've made the decision that anyone can say yes.”
James Cham Oct 19, 2016 ▶ 16:06 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
Insight
James Cham: Doomsday and labor replacement debates miss real AI opportunities
“The danger, though, is that a lot of the conversation focuses on what I would call either Theological questions about the end of the world, which is interesting, but I think oftentimes not relevant, or questions around straightforward labor replacement, and I …”
James Cham Oct 19, 2016 ▶ 6:11 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
Prediction Held up
James Cham: ML SaaS will enable cross-company insights without sharing raw data
“There's going to be something, some similar insight and some similar buzzword about the separation of models and the ability to share insights of models between companies while at the same time not actually sharing data.”
James Cham Oct 19, 2016 ▶ 12:21 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
Insight
James Cham: Groups are uniquely bad at making interesting decisions
“Groups are really good at Getting new diverse points of view and new bits of information. And groups are actually also really good at doing complex coordinated tasks. Groups are uniquely bad at making interesting decisions.”
James Cham Oct 19, 2016 ▶ 15:09 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
Opinion
Cham: Entrepreneurship is the closest humans get to God's work
“Is that it is the act of creation, and I think that the act of creation, that is to say making something from nothing or something from very, very little, is as close as we'll really get to doing the work of God.”
James Cham Oct 19, 2016 ▶ 18:19 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
Prediction Not checkable as stated
James Cham: AI will transform society without altering fundamental human identity
“To be honest, I don't know that AI is gonna be necessarily that different. Which is say all those other technologies were incredibly transformative, and this will be another example. And people who come from a thousand years ago will look at us and sort of mar…”
James Cham Oct 19, 2016 ▶ 21:05 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
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Machine learning is now a top agenda item for Fortune 50 CEOs
“Now, what's interesting, when we first started talking about machine learning three years ago, I think it was still seen as something that only tech companies were interested in, and what's changed over the last three years is that now everyone's interested. T…”
James Cham Oct 19, 2016 ▶ 5:51 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
Prediction Not checkable as stated
James Cham: Near-term AI will consist of many small specialized systems
“I think machine intelligence is not going to be, at least in the near term, you know, one big intelligence, but as it is for our own brains, many small intelligences and many, many small systems that help us make Good decisions or make decisions for us and do …”
James Cham Oct 19, 2016 ▶ 9:10 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
Insight
James Cham: Standard SaaS pricing metrics fail for machine learning software
“The more data you get, the more valuable it is actually for the SaaS company, right? And so all the normal units of measure around how much you should charge are, don't really apply and don't entirely make sense.”
James Cham Oct 19, 2016 ▶ 12:45 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
Insight
Cham: Smartphone adoption turns all workers into knowledge workers
“I think we live now in a world where everyone is a knowledge worker, and so everyone from the construction worker to the chef, the line chef, will have a Android phone and will be able to digitize their work.”
James Cham Oct 19, 2016 ▶ 13:10 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
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Cham: Applying developer concepts to vertical industries will generate many startups
“And I think that frame of thinking is a helpful frame and has, is going to lead to A huge number of startups.”
James Cham Oct 19, 2016 ▶ 14:46 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
Insight
James Cham: Machine learning should be viewed as smart statistics, not magic
“One way to think about machine learning is that it is basically Really, really smart statistics that, that ends, that end up constantly improving. And I think that as a frame for thinking about machine learning rather than machine learning as magic is, is, is …”
James Cham Oct 19, 2016 ▶ 22:27 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
Insight
Cham: VCs enter the industry for returns or science fiction
“I think some people become VCs because they like the opportunity for fantastic returns, and some people become VCs because they read too much science fiction.”
James Cham Oct 19, 2016 ▶ 4:25 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
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Cham: Google's 15-year quiet ML work is yielding major opportunities
“The work that Google has been doing for, you know, kind of quietly for the last 15 years is now yielding an incredible amount of fruit and creates all these opportunities.”
James Cham Oct 19, 2016 ▶ 7:44 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 other half of the tape: James Cham's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 4 times in 2 episodes on 20VC. every mention, with the transcript →

Who brings them up most Roy Bahat 3Harry Stebbings 1

Every mention by year

tap a year for its mentions
0011212016201720182019episodesmentions
0112016201720182019episodes it came up in
0010.5212016201720182019episodesmentions per episode
2019 2 mentions in 1 episode
2016 2 mentions in 1 episode

Appearances (1)

EpisodeDateSpeaking time
20VC: Greenfield Opportunities For Machine Learning, Why Massive Corporates Finally See It Oct 19, 2016 16m
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