Welcome to the Arena from ICR – Conversations with Today's Innovators & Business Leaders Krishna Gupta, Chairman and Interim CEO at Presto – Driving Innovation: Using AI tools to accelerate the service industry
Recently, the restaurant industry has been struggling to hire new workers and retain their current employees. Today's guest is using innovative AI technology to deliver speed and consistency in customer service, and in the kitchen.
On this week's episode we sit down with Krishna Gupta, Chairman and Interim CEO of Presto, one of the largest drive-through automation technology providers in the hospitality industry. Krishna is a founder and CEO of venture firm Remus Capital which he founded as a student at MIT in 2008. Remus partners with visionary founders and management teams to build technology businesses that rewire entire industries. This led him to Presto, which many years later trades on NASDAQ under the symbol PRST. Prior to Remus, Krishna spent time at McKinsey & Company, and JP Morgan, helping several Fortune 100 clients on billion dollar technology transactions.
Krishna is an incessant traveler, and has done business across five continents. Outside of investing, he has a broad set of intellectual interests. He's conducted chemistry research at the University of Chicago, and in Israel. He produced a film on English ancient history, which is used at Cambridge in Oxford, and competed as a finalist in the USA Mathematics Olympia.
Highlights:
- Krishna's start in venture capital and investing (2:57)
- Presto's products and their purpose (4:30)
- How Krishna stepped up as interim-CEO (7:14)
- What makes Presto services unique in the industry (8:05)
- The addressable market for automation (9:40)
- Automating labor and automation ROI (11:18)
- The journey to becoming a public company (13:33)
- Automation duality for customers and businesses (15:15)
- Collaboration with OpenAI and ChatGPT (17:10)
- How AI is implemented in the service industry (18:16)
- Current projects and goals for the future (20:21)
- Managing their P&L (21:21)
- Krishna's advice for beginner entrepreneurs (22:21)
- The state of human-machine convergence (24:03)
- What investors might miss about Presto (26:01)
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If you have questions about the show, or have a topic in mind you'd like discussed in future episodes, email our producer, marion@lowerstreet.co.