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Jeremy Conrad

Co-Founder and CEO, PitPro Automation · 1 appearance on the record.

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

founderinvestorexecutiveengineer@nomadicnerd ↗jeremyconrad.com ↗

Conrad co-founded Lemnos, an early-stage venture capital fund and incubator that backed hardware companies including Airware and Swift Navigation. He later served as CEO of construction-technology startup Quartz and co-founded PitPro Automation, a robotics company developing automated tire-servicing systems.

19statements → 7claims → 3claims resolved → 67%fully supported → 3.84/5average certainty → 2.37/5average debate potential → ≈4.5/5argument clarity, estimated → 1said about them ↓

2 supported 1 partly supported 0 contradicted 4 not checkable as stated how the 7 claims stand · each chip opens the sources

2 predictions · 5 assertions · 7 opinions · 5 insights · every statement was checked. The predictions and assertions are the 7 claims: statements the public record can support or contradict. 3 are resolved, and 4 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 Jeremy 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

Assertion Supported
Cheap computing and 3D printing drastically reduced hardware startup costs by 2011
“Today, any 500 dollar computer can run incredibly sophisticated CAD. And on top of that, the software is Free. And then you kind of add in rapid prototyping like three D printing, and you're kind of timing for your first unit, plus things like Arduino, make it…”
Jeremy Conrad Sep 20, 2017 ▶ 3:47 20VC: Why Core AI Is Largely A Bunch of Nifty Tricks, Why Consumer Electronics Is The Hardest Thing To Do In Venture & Why Silicon Valley Will Dominate The Future of Robotics with Jeremy Conrad, Partner @ Lemnos Labs

How they sound: speaking style how? →

291 words/min while actually speaking · 1.9 um and uh per 1k words

No argument clarity score for Jeremy Conrad: 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 24 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 3,697 words across 1 episode, but every recording we have of Jeremy Conrad 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 ▾ 5/10
pushed back at the host ▾ 4/10
setup questions received 32%

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

Opinion
Core AI and machine learning in 2017 is mostly just nifty tricks
“So I really don't think it does, and I would also argue that what people consider a core AI ML today is a bunch of nifty tricks, and so you see lots of nifty demos, but in terms of actual production AI or ML actually out there, a lot of it's a little bit mecha…”
Jeremy Conrad Sep 20, 2017 ▶ 6:07 20VC: Why Core AI Is Largely A Bunch of Nifty Tricks, Why Consumer Electronics Is The Hardest Thing To Do In Venture & Why Silicon Valley Will Dominate The Future of Robotics with Jeremy Conrad, Partner @ Lemnos Labs
Insight
Selling standalone hardware without recurring revenue is no longer viable for startups
“So for us, when we look at consumer electronics, one, we think that single cell hardware is probably not viable right now. So there has to be some sort of recurring revenue model.”
Jeremy Conrad Sep 20, 2017 ▶ 14:46 20VC: Why Core AI Is Largely A Bunch of Nifty Tricks, Why Consumer Electronics Is The Hardest Thing To Do In Venture & Why Silicon Valley Will Dominate The Future of Robotics with Jeremy Conrad, Partner @ Lemnos Labs
Opinion
Commercial satellite imagery lacks high-frequency daily demand, making it a bad bet
“And so like, I'm pretty bearish on the kind of imaging side of it”
Jeremy Conrad Sep 20, 2017 ▶ 18:20 20VC: Why Core AI Is Largely A Bunch of Nifty Tricks, Why Consumer Electronics Is The Hardest Thing To Do In Venture & Why Silicon Valley Will Dominate The Future of Robotics with Jeremy Conrad, Partner @ Lemnos Labs
Opinion
LEO satellite communications startups are a terrible fit for venture capital
“There are groups trying to do this with these LEO constellations, but the first thing they do is spend hundreds of millions, if not billions of dollars on spectrum, and that's not a good fit for the startup ecosystem.”
Jeremy Conrad Sep 20, 2017 ▶ 18:28 20VC: Why Core AI Is Largely A Bunch of Nifty Tricks, Why Consumer Electronics Is The Hardest Thing To Do In Venture & Why Silicon Valley Will Dominate The Future of Robotics with Jeremy Conrad, Partner @ Lemnos Labs
Insight
Robotics startups cannot bet on locomotion and motor costs dropping rapidly
“The two things that I don't think are really that you can't bet on that will get better are locomotion and manipulation. So if your robot needs to drive around, you can't assume that, oh, like three years from now, my motors will cost a lot less.”
Jeremy Conrad Sep 20, 2017 ▶ 7:31 20VC: Why Core AI Is Largely A Bunch of Nifty Tricks, Why Consumer Electronics Is The Hardest Thing To Do In Venture & Why Silicon Valley Will Dominate The Future of Robotics with Jeremy Conrad, Partner @ Lemnos Labs
Prediction Partly held up
LIDAR sensor prices will drop fivefold between 2017 and 2020
“Whereas if you have LIDARs in your robot today, You can assume that they're going to drop five X in price in the next three years.”
Jeremy Conrad Sep 20, 2017 ▶ 7:55 20VC: Why Core AI Is Largely A Bunch of Nifty Tricks, Why Consumer Electronics Is The Hardest Thing To Do In Venture & Why Silicon Valley Will Dominate The Future of Robotics with Jeremy Conrad, Partner @ Lemnos Labs
Opinion
Consumer electronics is venture capital's hardest sector due to massive capital needs
“So I think consumer electronics is one of the hardest things to do in the venture ecosystem right now, partially because at some point you need a huge slug of money to go big.”
Jeremy Conrad Sep 20, 2017 ▶ 14:22 20VC: Why Core AI Is Largely A Bunch of Nifty Tricks, Why Consumer Electronics Is The Hardest Thing To Do In Venture & Why Silicon Valley Will Dominate The Future of Robotics with Jeremy Conrad, Partner @ Lemnos Labs
Prediction Not checkable as stated
VCs will stop funding consumer hardware companies before product-market fit
“But I think we're going to see a lot less of things like Juicero or Pearl, where they raise significant amounts of capital before finding out if they had product market fit.”
Jeremy Conrad Sep 20, 2017 ▶ 15:14 20VC: Why Core AI Is Largely A Bunch of Nifty Tricks, Why Consumer Electronics Is The Hardest Thing To Do In Venture & Why Silicon Valley Will Dominate The Future of Robotics with Jeremy Conrad, Partner @ Lemnos Labs
Opinion
People misjudge exponential S-curves when worrying about killer AI
“I'm not at all worried about killer AI. I think that people love to talk about, you know, when you're on the early part of the exponential, you can't tell. And I would argue that when you're on the exponential part of the S curve, it's hard to tell as well.”
Jeremy Conrad Sep 20, 2017 ▶ 21:24 20VC: Why Core AI Is Largely A Bunch of Nifty Tricks, Why Consumer Electronics Is The Hardest Thing To Do In Venture & Why Silicon Valley Will Dominate The Future of Robotics with Jeremy Conrad, Partner @ Lemnos Labs
Assertion Not checkable as stated
VCs refused to fund hardware startups in 2011 due to high costs
“And we started to talk to some other people and really found out that, you know, no one was interested in funding hardware startups. And so we asked around, we said, well, why? And they said, well, it takes too long and it's too expensive.”
Jeremy Conrad Sep 20, 2017 ▶ 3:05 20VC: Why Core AI Is Largely A Bunch of Nifty Tricks, Why Consumer Electronics Is The Hardest Thing To Do In Venture & Why Silicon Valley Will Dominate The Future of Robotics with Jeremy Conrad, Partner @ Lemnos Labs
Assertion Supported
Cheap computing and 3D printing drastically reduced hardware startup costs by 2011
“Today, any 500 dollar computer can run incredibly sophisticated CAD. And on top of that, the software is Free. And then you kind of add in rapid prototyping like three D printing, and you're kind of timing for your first unit, plus things like Arduino, make it…”
Jeremy Conrad Sep 20, 2017 ▶ 3:47 20VC: Why Core AI Is Largely A Bunch of Nifty Tricks, Why Consumer Electronics Is The Hardest Thing To Do In Venture & Why Silicon Valley Will Dominate The Future of Robotics with Jeremy Conrad, Partner @ Lemnos Labs
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Advances in sensors and compute drastically reduced robotics startup costs
“All of those things conspire to make the cost of starting a robotics company a fraction of what it used to be.”
Jeremy Conrad Sep 20, 2017 ▶ 5:48 20VC: Why Core AI Is Largely A Bunch of Nifty Tricks, Why Consumer Electronics Is The Hardest Thing To Do In Venture & Why Silicon Valley Will Dominate The Future of Robotics with Jeremy Conrad, Partner @ Lemnos Labs
Opinion
Shorter hardware stacks make robotics accessible yet defensible for startups
“And hardware, the stack for a hardware company is shorter than it's ever been. And so that's why I think it's a great time to start a robotics company, because it's hard enough that it's defensible, but easy enough for a startup to do.”
Jeremy Conrad Sep 20, 2017 ▶ 7:18 20VC: Why Core AI Is Largely A Bunch of Nifty Tricks, Why Consumer Electronics Is The Hardest Thing To Do In Venture & Why Silicon Valley Will Dominate The Future of Robotics with Jeremy Conrad, Partner @ Lemnos Labs
Insight
The best new robotics startups focus on a single obvious ROI
“I think the best robotics companies started today will have like a singular use case where the ROI is obvious and apparent.”
Jeremy Conrad Sep 20, 2017 ▶ 8:28 20VC: Why Core AI Is Largely A Bunch of Nifty Tricks, Why Consumer Electronics Is The Hardest Thing To Do In Venture & Why Silicon Valley Will Dominate The Future of Robotics with Jeremy Conrad, Partner @ Lemnos Labs
Insight
Series A and B investors will back hardware if the business scales
“The reality is, is that they just want to invest in great businesses, and if you can convince them that this is a scalable, venture-backed business, they'll look at anything.”
Jeremy Conrad Sep 20, 2017 ▶ 12:01 20VC: Why Core AI Is Largely A Bunch of Nifty Tricks, Why Consumer Electronics Is The Hardest Thing To Do In Venture & Why Silicon Valley Will Dominate The Future of Robotics with Jeremy Conrad, Partner @ Lemnos Labs
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Series B hardware investors now demand proven revenue rather than hype
“I think that two years ago, the ecosystem was in a place where you could go raise a big A or small B on like kind of hype and, you know, good team and like that, the idea that there was going to be a market there. But right now, you know, we're seeing a very m…”
Jeremy Conrad Sep 20, 2017 ▶ 12:31 20VC: Why Core AI Is Largely A Bunch of Nifty Tricks, Why Consumer Electronics Is The Hardest Thing To Do In Venture & Why Silicon Valley Will Dominate The Future of Robotics with Jeremy Conrad, Partner @ Lemnos Labs
Insight
Hardware startups must narrow scope because 90 percent functionality is completely useless
“I think it's about making sure that you really narrow your scope for your first product, because if 90% of your product works in its hardware, you have nothing.”
Jeremy Conrad Sep 20, 2017 ▶ 13:24 20VC: Why Core AI Is Largely A Bunch of Nifty Tricks, Why Consumer Electronics Is The Hardest Thing To Do In Venture & Why Silicon Valley Will Dominate The Future of Robotics with Jeremy Conrad, Partner @ Lemnos Labs
Opinion
Social media companies unfairly dominate mindshare over Silicon Valley's hardware firms
“And there's dozens of incredible hardware companies here, but they just don't have kind of the mindshare that I think some of the social media companies do.”
Jeremy Conrad Sep 20, 2017 ▶ 11:01 20VC: Why Core AI Is Largely A Bunch of Nifty Tricks, Why Consumer Electronics Is The Hardest Thing To Do In Venture & Why Silicon Valley Will Dominate The Future of Robotics with Jeremy Conrad, Partner @ Lemnos Labs
Assertion Supported
DJI is a $10 billion consumer electronics company showing no slowdown
“But also, let's be super clear, you know, DGI is just a consumer electronics company. It's a ten billion dollar company. And they're showing no signs of stopping.”
Jeremy Conrad Sep 20, 2017 ▶ 15:48 20VC: Why Core AI Is Largely A Bunch of Nifty Tricks, Why Consumer Electronics Is The Hardest Thing To Do In Venture & Why Silicon Valley Will Dominate The Future of Robotics with Jeremy Conrad, Partner @ Lemnos Labs

The other half of the tape: Jeremy Conrad's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 1 time in 1 episode on 20VC. every mention, with the transcript →

Who brings them up most Harry Stebbings 1

Every mention by year

tap a year for its mentions
0011112018episodesmentions
0112018episodes it came up in
000.50.5112018episodesmentions per episode
2018 1 mention in 1 episode

Appearances (1)

EpisodeDateSpeaking time
20VC: Why Core AI Is Largely A Bunch of Nifty Tricks, Why Consumer Electronics Is The Hard Sep 20, 2017 13m
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