Spotlight On

Generative AI has transformed technology, presenting new opportunities and raising concerns about potential harm. There is no shortage of questions about how to hold generative AI accountable – or if we can at all. Glen Wise and his team are answering these questions through Cinder’s trust and safety platform. Because of the recent advancements in artificial intelligence, companies face new challenges in identifying how users, networks, or content may violate their terms of service. Glen and his team at Cinder are uniquely qualified to help. Before Cinder, Glen worked for the US Government and, after that, in threat discovery at Meta. There he met his co-founder, Brian Fishman, a renowned expert in counterterrorism and hate speech. Together, they collaborated to build community threat intelligence capabilities to combat some of the biggest Internet abuse campaigns of our time involving hate groups, terrorist organizations, and election disinformation. Cinder was born out of Glen’s efforts to improve threat intelligence at Meta. To understand the tools and best practices other companies were using, Glen spoke to teams in delivery, ride-sharing, gaming, and AI, only to come to a startling realization: there weren’t any. To meet the need, Cinder’s trust and safety platform launched in 2021. Today, it is used by both rising AI companies and the top tech companies adopting new technology to help combat internet abuse at scale. “AI is being used across almost every single threat vector today, and we’ve seen real examples of how AI can be used for harm. We need to take this seriously. Can we actually hold this thing accountable?” – Glen Wise, CEO and Co-Founder of Cinder Glen balances the optimism of Silicon Valley with a unique perspective—AI alone can't replace humans in ensuring safety. Platforms will always involve humans in critical decisions and people will always remain essential. On this episode of Spotlight On: AI, Glen and Sara Ittelson discuss the security challenges that have been accelerated by AI and the enduring responsibility humans have in countering them. Conversation Highlights: 00:00 - Intro and Glen’s background 03:00 - The journey to YCombinator and the founding of Cinder 04:00 - Introduction to Trust & Safety and the impact generative AI has had on the space 08:00 - How AI can combat abuse and where it could be used as an engine for harm 14:00 - How investors like Sara discern product-market fit with new AI technologies 17:00 - Glen’s predictions for the future of AI in T&S and the role humans will play 25:00 - Advice for founders to build resilience earlier on so their platform isn’t used for harm Host: Sara Ittelson Partner at Accel Featuring: Glen Wise, CEO and Co-Founder of Cinder Learn more at www.accel.com/spotlightOn/cinder-glen-wise

AI can be used to reduce human bias, but if we’re not careful, it can also learn it. In this episode of Spotlight On: AI, Daniel Yanisse, Co-Founder and CEO of Checkr and Accel partner Rich Wong discuss their concerns, hopes, and advice for building a fairer future. “Be self-aware. You know where bias may be, so be cautious where there is AI in those business processes. What becomes dangerous is when it is a black box, and you don’t think about how to apply it tactically.” – Daniel Yanisse Born in France, Daniel's robotics passion led him from college in Switzerland to the Silicon Valley. After roles at NASA and Cisco, he was drawn to the allure of startups. In 2013, he and his co-founder, Jonathan Perichon, realized background checks were a significant bottleneck to the on-demand ecosystem emerging at the time. To fix it, they decided to build an API for background checks. After YCombinator (S14), Checkr was born. Since Accel’s partnership in 2014, we've seen Checkr evolve into the leading background check platform with a clear mission to provide fair chance hiring opportunities to the 80 million Americans with criminal records, a mission made possible through artificial intelligence. Creating a fair and accurate background check involves using AI to navigate a complex and messy sea of unorganized data. Checkr’s AI initially focused on crime classification and expanded to address broader hiring process issues and mitigate human prejudices. Today, it can identify human biases in the recruiting process, pinpoint discrepancies in compensation, and scrutinize interview records for potential race or gender biases. There are many reasons to be optimistic about AI – productivity, accessibility, and reduction in human error. At the same time, there are valid concerns around issues like bias. It is a complex problem that demands a dual solution – AI can help humans by pointing out their existing biases, and humans can reciprocate the effort by training AI against it. We discuss the concept and more on this episode of Spotlight On. Conversation highlights: 00:00 - Daniel’s upbringing in France and early interests that inspired his move to the United States 05:00 - The experience with background checks that inspired the creation of Checkr 07:30 - Getting into YCombinator and meeting early investors through “speed-dating” 09:10 - Checkr’s early days meeting needs of the booming on-demand economy, and gaining early customer traction 11:40 - The inspiration behind Checkr’s mission to build a fairer future by reducing the imbalances and biases in the hiring process 19:50 – How Checkr has been using artificial intelligence since its earliest days to make sense of the background check data, ensure accurate classification of crimes, check for bias in the process 26:00 - Advice for founders who are excited about the potential of artificial intelligence but want to reduce AI biases that exists in  machine learning models 35:00 - Closing thoughts and a warning about the technological divides that may come from AI progress Host: Rich Wong, Partner at Accel Featuring: Daniel Yanisse, CEO & Co-Founder of Checkr Learn more: www.accel.com/spotlighton/checkr-daniel-yanisse

Ironclad's story is one of great patience, careful preparation, and steadfast belief in the transformative power of artificial intelligence. For nearly a decade, the team has been preparing for the AI moment we are now in. Join us as Cai GoGwilt, Co-Founder and Chief Architect of Ironclad, shares the challenges and triumphs of their journey since founding the company in 2014. The story inspires founders to ask themselves: are there things you want to do in the future that you can prepare for today? Cai never expected to work in the legal industry. At Palantir, he was a software developer in military intelligence and AI. He noticed many industries were underserved by modern software and, inspired by friends who were lawyers, decided to start building tech that would improve the practice of law. Around the same time, Jason Boehmig, who is now Cai’s Co-Founder and Ironclad’s CEO, was a corporate attorney at Fenwick & West. Jason was seeking tech solutions to break through legal bottlenecks. In 2014, they teamed up to build Ironclad to do precisely that. For the first few years, they focused solely on collaboration tools. But in the background, they were always working on AI. Years later, when GPT3 launched, it changed everything. “When I first saw what AI is now capable of, my first thought was, ‘It's time.’.’” – Cai GoGwilt Ironclad has been building, learning, and experimenting with AI for nearly a decade. Despite meticulous preparation, the rapid pace of progress over the past year was not without challenges. In the upcoming episode, Cai and Accel’s Steve Loughlin will share how their team sustained their stamina for AI and turned roadblocks into critical ingredients for success. Conversation Highlights: 00:00 - Cai’s early interest in legal tech and the formation of Ironclad’s founding team 7:00 -  Balancing early product development with patience for the AI ecosystem to develop 11:00 - Predictions for the dramatic impact AI will have on the legal practice 14:00- Ironclad’s attempts at building an AI agent – and their big open-source breakthrough 18:00 - What startup founders can learn from Ironclad’s quick response to GPT 23:00 - Implications of AI on the legal workforce; massive efficiency gains 27:00 - Advice for avoiding common mistakes startups make when a new disruptive technology emerges Host: Steve Loughlin, Partner at Accel Guest: Cai GoGwilt, Co-Founder and Chief Architect of Ironclad Learn More: www.Accel.com/SpotlightOn/Ironclad-Cai-Gogwilt

A self-proclaimed sci-fi enthusiast, Victor Ribarbelli is drawn to the exciting frontiers of technology. His work began with website development and evolved into a passion for company building. Eventually, he found his place in the European startup ecosystem as Synthesia’s Co-Founder and CEO, where he has had a lasting impact. After a year of exploring VR, AR, and AI startup ideas, he crossed paths with Professor Matthias Niessner. Niessner’s influential research on AI video generation at Stanford captivated Victor. When he saw the research paper for the first time, he knew he wanted to focus on exploring its concepts. “I just felt like I saw magic. It's rare you get those moments in life. A lot of people had that with ChatGPT where, when you try it, you're mind blown. I had that moment. I saw the technology and realized this is going to change everything we know about media production.” - Victor Riparbelli The company they went on to build, Synthesia, is now the leading AI text-to-video platform for the enterprise. We first met Victor Riparbelli and the Synthesia team in 2021, and we’ve watched them push the boundaries of what’s achievable with generative AI. Even when they launched in 2018, when the term generative AI was relatively unused, Synthesia had embraced the technology, referring to it as synthetic media. Despite their progress, Victor feels they’re only 5% into the roadmap of what’s coming at Synthesia, let alone the AI video ecosystem. There are entire scenes, interactive avatars, and enhanced movement, all to come. The visionary nature of Victor and his co-founders is clear. They've come remarkably close to predicting precise developments across the AI industry, including the fact that text-to-video would materialize around 2023, and full Hollywood-style filmmaking would be done with AI by 2028 – both of which are well underway. In conversation with Accel’s Philippe Botteri, Victor explores Synthesia’s journey and breaks down his predictions for the future of artificial intelligence. The discussion extends to offer guidance for founders on product development, fundraising, AI research, and navigating regulatory shifts. Listeners will hear why Victor remains unsurprised by the swift transformations taking place in the landscape. Conversation Highlights: 00:00 - Synthesia’s founding story and Victor’s belief in the radical impact of AI on video 05:00 - The hard work that went into building a founding team and raising initial funding from Mark Cuban 13:00 - Org structures of powerful AI companies; balancing science, research, and development 19:40 - Victor’s predictions for the future of video avatars and multimodal intelligence 34:00 - How Synthesia’s team built a great GTM engine through virality 39:00 - How founders and creators can harness AI’s benefits and reduce its harms 42:00 - The challenges and implications of AI regulation and legislation Host: Philippe Botteri, Partner at Accel Guest: Victor Riparbelli, Co-Founder and CEO of Synthesia Learn More: www.accel.com/spotlighton/synthesia-victor-riparbelli

Jack Krawczyk, Google Bard’s Product Lead, has a founder-like obsession with pooling feedback and measuring success. Since launching in March 2023, Bard has been quickly recognized as an extraordinary tool for unlocking creativity. In this episode, Jack shares his experiences building Bard, his advice for founders, and discusses the creative opportunities to come from AI. We first got to know Jack in 2016 when he joined our team as an Entrepreneur in Residence, and later advised for an Accel company. Born in Poland, Jack’s family immigrated to the US when he was young for his father’s job as an electrical engineer. He has always been fascinated with math, computing, and the intricacies of the world's functions. These interests led Jack to carve an impressive course of product impact across a number of startups, and, eventually, Google. The Bard experiment came together around the same time as OpenAI’s ChatGPT, and despite the rapid uptake of these large language models (LLMs), Jack believes the technology is still in its infancy. As a result, the Bard team has been uniquely intentional about acknowledging risk and limitations. “I describe generative AI as an idea creator. It helps take an idea in your mind, helps you find the words to describe it, and makes it approachable for people so when you do speak it into the world, it has legs.” - Jack Krawczyk On this episode of Spotlight On: AI, Jack sits down with Accel’s John Locke to discuss Google’s AI efforts, creative AI opportunities, the importance of risk mitigation, and timely advice. Conversation highlights: 00:00 - Jack’s upbringing and early interest in math and technology 04:52 - The problems that led Jack from banking to a career in technology 12:01 - How the team behind Bard came together to launch the AI assistant 16:24 - Jack’s advice for user research and measuring the success of new AI products 20:10 - Navigating the highly competitive dynamics in the AI space 21:56 - How Jack uses Bard in his everyday work and life 24:54 - Understanding the risk discrepancies between reliable AI output and input 27:03 - What startup founders can learn from Bard’s success as a “startup” within Google, and how they can apply AI effectively Host: John Locke, Partner at Accel Featuring: Jack Krawczyk, Sr. Director of Product at Google, focused on Bard Learn more: www.accel.com/spotlighton/google-bard-jack-krawczyk *Bard's episode was recorded in early November, 2023

It was only recently that Scale AI stepped into the limelight. But since 2016, it has been one of Silicon Valley’s quiet but indispensable forces – the data infrastructure powering the entire AI industry. Today, every significant large language model (LLM) is built on top of Scale’s data engine. Because of Scale, AI has the potential to transform the global economy. “AI is the most important technological advancement of our time.” - Alexandr Wang At its helm is founder and CEO Alexandr (Alex) Wang. Born in Los Alamos, New Mexico, as the child of two physicists, Alex saw the profound impact of science and technology demonstrated many times. But he rarely followed anyone else’s playbook. Before Scale, Alex tinkered with artificial intelligence and deep learning. He created AI algorithms that could detect people’s emotions based on facial expressions or power a refrigerator camera to catch if his roommates were eating his food. Alex understood that progress in AI would not hinge on algorithms or technical limitations but on data availability. Alex believed he could build the data infrastructure platform to support the entire AI ecosystem. So, at 19 years old, Alex dropped out of MIT to launch Scale. Around this time, the Accel team met Alex, and we were struck by his determination. In the years following, Scale has been at the forefront of every significant advancement in AI, contributing to projects such as autonomous vehicle programs at General Motors and Toyota, the US Government's pioneering AI initiatives, and several leading AI labs at Meta, Microsoft, and more. At just 26 years old, Alex is now a seasoned veteran in the AI space. In this episode, he joins us to reflect on Scale’s founding story and, in his own words, the advantage of naïveté and how a fresh perspective enabled him to achieve things no other artificial intelligence company has. He also shares advice for founders on how to get a headstart in a developing industry and gives his thoughts on how the AI ecosystem has developed faster than he ever expected. Conversation highlights: 00:00 - How Alex’s upbringing as the child of two physicists shaped his view of the world 03:00 - The significant bottleneck for AI development that inspired Alex to launch Scale 04:40 - Defining AI infrastructure and how to spot a great infrastructure opportunity 10:00 - Alex’s advice for founders on critical early entry into new markets before they are “cool” 13:00 - Why “naïveté” ​​can help new founders accomplish things that left other companies in a rut 23:00 - Future predictions on how AI models could become highly personalized 27:00 - Exploring the potential impact of AI on the national and global economy 33:44 - Alex’s opinion on why “algo-raving” is the best way to experience music Host: Dan Levine, Partner at Accel Featuring: Alexandr Wang, CEO and Founder of Scale Learn more: www.accel.com/spotlighton/scale-alexandr-wang *Scale's episode was recorded in October 2023 and references events that have now passed as “upcoming” **Due to the Thanksgiving holiday next week the next episode will air on 11/28/23

Shensi Ding and Gil Feig met during a computer science class in college and quickly formed a close friendship. Years later, they would reconnect and launch Merge. In this episode of Spotlight On: AI, Shensi reflects on their founding story and how Merge has evolved from streamlining product integrations to serving the quickly growing market of AI companies. Today, Merge is powering the next generation of AI SaaS companies. The journey began in 2015 after Shensi and Gil graduated from Columbia University. They pursued different roles, only to discover a shared professional challenge: building and maintaining product integrations. In 2020, they made the bold decision to leave their jobs and launch Merge. For the first time, companies using Merge could add customer-facing integrations to their product with a single API, saving developers countless hours. Their goal for Merge was to become the go-to integration platform for all companies. Even so, they could never have predicted the staggering demand from the AI ecosystem. Seemingly overnight, Merge's platform experienced an unprecedented surge in users, as AI startups blossomed and integrations were needed to provide data to power language models like ChatGPT became critical. Shensi and her team navigated the overwhelming demand, and in recent months have even launched their own AI products, like Blueprint. “We wanted to make sure if we were investing resources into AI products on an already very packed roadmap that it was going to be worth it. You can’t build it just because everyone else is if it is not the right thing for your company” - Shensi Ding Conversation highlights: 00:00 - Intro 00:10 - Merge's founding story and Accel’s investment 04: 10 - Advice for cultivating a strong early company culture 11:55 - The decision-making process behind launching their first AI product and its impact 17:21 - Advice for building a resilient business, how to incorporate AI and when not to 21:00 - How to distinguish genuine threats from AI and the importance of human involvement Host: Ben Fletcher, Partner at Accel Featuring: Shensi Ding, CEO and Co-Founder of Merge Learn more: Accel.com/spotlighton-merge-shensi-ding

Ada’s founding story is one the Accel team has always loved. Before its launch, founders Mike Murchison and David Hariri convinced seven customer service teams to let them work as support agents. After a year of exhaustive intake, they knew that for Ada’s customer service platform to add real value, AI was imperative. This was 2016 and at that time, an AI-first approach to customer service was unique—but the results were astounding. We discuss their journey on this episode of Spotlight On. “We realized if we can put AI in the hands of customer service teams, allow them to help more customers and help them resolve more – we can transform the future of customer service. And that's what we've been focused on ever since.” - Mike Murchison Let’s back up a bit. In 2014, Mike and David had just launched a different startup. The company grew quickly, but it had a major problem: keeping up with customer service demand. Their team went from wanting to talk to our customers a lot, to avoiding customer contact. That bothered them. But these problems weren’t new. Customer service is notoriously cumbersome and hard to scale. The problems also weren’t going away, so Mike and David saw an opportunity to build a solution. Two years later, Ada was born. Today, enterprises like Meta, Verizon, Yeti, and Square use Ada to automatically resolve customer inquiries in any language or channel. In this "Spotlight On: AI'' episode, Mike discusses the early reactions to Ada’s customer service AI approach, challenges they’ve faced due to recent demand, advice for other founders on how to use technology to deliver real value, and the impact AI will have on the customer service workforce. Conversation highlights: 00:00 - Intro 04:00 - The core learnings from Mike’s experience working as a customer service agent, and how they approached AI in the early days 07:32 - Why Ada made an early decision to bring AI capabilities in-house, and how they built a strong technical team 14:09 - How the rapid development of ChatGPT and LLMs impacted Ada 25:00 - Advice on how to make a lasting impact with an AI product, and cutting through the hype Host: Ben Fletcher, Partner at Accel Featuring: Mike Murchison, CEO and Co-Founder of Ada Learn more at Accel.com/SpotlightOn/Ada

We first got to know Daniel Sturman during his time at Cloudera, and have always valued his insights on building great technical teams. Daniel was part of Accel’s original "Spotlight On" series, which debuted as a blog back in 2019. His insights on Building Great Teams were as salient then as they are now. In this episode of Spotlight On, we expand upon the subject of team building, by examining it through the lens of today's rapidly evolving AI landscape. The company name Roblox is ubiquitous among all humans under 13 and many over that. The 3D immersive platform allows users to create their own experiences, or participate in those created by others—and they’ve been building AI into the platform for years. Daniel Sturman, who is now Roblox’s CTO, believes the recent surge in AI progress has significantly enhanced trust & safety on Roblox and further democratized the platform for its creators. But challenges persist, and for many CTOs like Daniel, hiring top technical talent is a critical priority. Daniel teams up with Accel’s Talent Partner, Pete Clarke, to talk about the hiring philosophies he’s used to build exceptional teams at IBM, Google, Cloudera, and Roblox, as well as the transformative journey of Roblox’s AI development. Conversation highlights: 00:00 - Introduction to Roblox and Daniel’s background 03:21 - Where Daniel and the team at Roblox see the most immediate impact of AI, in trust & safety and creator-assistance 12:45 - Advice for talent acquisition during today’s AI era where technical talent is extremely competitive 17:17 - How Roblox’s Generative AI capabilities like Material Creator and Code Assist empower creators on the platform 27:43 - Daniel’s advice for building great teams that can advance and adapt to new AI technologies 37:00 - Advice from Daniel for making the best Barbecue Sauce, based on a recipe from Franklin Barbecue with a few special touches including a base of bourbon, reduced sugar, heightened spiciness, and his secret ingredient: a dash of fish sauce! Host: Peter Clarke, Talent Partner at Accel Featuring: Daniel Sturman, CTO at Roblox Learn more at www.Accel.com/SpotlightOn/Roblox

Dylan Fox, founder and CEO of AssemblyAI discusses the profound changes to the AI landscape over the past eight years, gives insight into where he thinks AI is going as a category, and offers advice on how founders should approach hiring, problem identification, customer interaction, and more. In 2015 Dylan Fox was a machine learning engineer at Cisco. Amazon Alexa launched earlier that year, taking the world by storm, and creating a significant demand for companies to add voice controls to their products; Cisco was one such company. Dylan had to get familiar with the various speech recognition software solutions in the market. Much to his frustration, they all had poor developer experiences. He knew there was an opportunity for advanced speech technology. Soon after that, AssemblyAI was born. Today, AssemblyAI is used by enterprises like WSJ, NBC, and Spotify to access state-of-the-art AI models to transcribe and understand speech and build AI-powered features faster. Highlights from the conversation: 00:00 - Intro 06:15 - AssemblyAI's origin story and Dylan's journey as a solo founder in YCombinator 08:10 - Advice for founders around hiring and product improvement 19:26 - Advice for founders during the AI development process 29:40 - The change across the AI landscape since AssemblyAI started 27:34 - Best practices for cutting through the noise as an AI-native company 35:45 - Predictions about the future of AI apps Hosts: Sara Ittelson and Steve Loughlin, Partners at Accel Featuring: Dylan Fox, CEO and Founder of AssemblyAI Learn more: www.accel.com/SpotlightOn/AssemblyAI