CB Insights Founder Anand Sanwal - Data Business & AI
May 21, 2024
51:11
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Anand Sanwal, Founder of CB Insights, discusses tech narratives vs data, AI integration, future of data businesses, CEO transitions at 1 to N companies. Tech competition dynamics and challenges in emerging markets, data selling strategies, efficiency of AI in data processing, CEO succession planning, personal branding, rethinking education, and dynamics of hiring and empowering people in business.
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Quick takeaways
Investors tend to follow tech trends, leading to consensus bias in funding decisions.
Lengthening exit times in tech market create secondary market focus on large exits.
Venture capital firms are evolving to incorporate data intelligence for informed investment decisions.
Deep dives
The Tech Market is Memetic
Investors tend to follow trends rather than be contrarians in the tech market, leading to a more consensus-based environment. This often results in numerous companies in the same sector receiving funding, even when a few dominant winners emerge, showcasing a bias towards consensus and lack of contrarian approaches.
Challenges in Tech Exits
The time taken for companies to exit is increasing, causing misalignment with fund cycles. This lengthening exit time has led to the emergence of a secondary market for funds trading stakes, with a focus on larger exits. The discussions and celebrations of tech exits often overlook smaller successful outcomes, focusing more on the big winners.
Data Savviness in Venture Capital
Many venture capital firms lack data savviness, often basing investment decisions on simplistic metrics like app downloads or web traffic without deeper analysis. Successful venture investors are increasingly implementing data intelligence in decision-making, moving beyond traditional metrics to make informed choices.
Enhancing Deal Evaluation with Data
Investors use various intelligent data strategies to enhance deal evaluation, like lineage tracing to uncover missed investment opportunities and thought leadership approaches to attract founders. Incorporating non-traditional signals like commercial transactions and management quality scores improves deal assessment and decision-making.
Personal Branding and Social Channels
Anand Sunwal leverages social channels like Twitter for experimentation and idea testing, using them as an open mic for thoughts and research concepts. His engaging and authentic writing style reflects his natural conversational tone, shunning the concept of personal branding in favor of genuine expression and exploration of diverse topics.
Anand Sanwal is the founder of CB Insights, a business analytics platform and global database of intel on technology companies. Anand was CEO of CB Insights for 14 years and recently stepped into the role of executive chairman.