Madrona

We dropped our latest Investor Spotlight, featuring Sabrina Wu. We're also spotlighting Runway Co-founder and CEO Cristóbal Valenzuela in our latest Founder Spotlight. Partner Jon Turow led a panel on open-source models at Cerebral Valley New York. Madrona Venture Labs shared part 4 of its "Journey From Proof of Concept to Proof of Value" series. And Delta Air Lines shared a wonderful tribute to Madrona Co-Founder Jerry Grinstein. From the portfolio, Route announced a $40M funding round, Clerk.com, Fauna Inc., Groundlight AI, unstructured.io, and Runway all announced launches, and so much more. #AI #AgenticAI #Agents #opensource #GenAI #AppliedAI #Innovation #digitalAI #investing #startups #founders #entrepreneurs

Don't miss our latest Investor Spotlight! Sabrina Wu shares insights from her journey from #PE at Vector Capital to #VC at Madrona and the traits she looks for in founders. Her emphasis on grit, authenticity, and intellectual honesty is a must-listen for all aspiring entrepreneurs! And here's a great tip for aspiring founders: Sabrina responds to cold emails! She values genuine outreach (hint - do your homework) and is always on the lookout for passionate founders with innovative ideas. Tune in now to hear more about Sabrina's journey and gain insights that could help you on yours! You can watch wherever you get your podcasts: YouTube: https://lnkd.in/gWBvCRQa Spotify: https://lnkd.in/gqfV5bk4 Apple: https://lnkd.in/gfivmZ-2

Catch this live podcast with Vivek Ramaswami and Grace Gong at 1:30 PST today!

I had a fun conversation about the future of Open Source AI with Laurens van der Maaten of Meta, Jonathan Frankle of Databricks, and Ali Farhadi of Ai2. These folks and others are investing heavily to put more control in the hands of AI developers. And that creates a counterweight to closed models, a bit like Android did for iOS. YouTube linked below, but first - here’s a glimpse into our conversation: 🌟 Motivations Behind Open-Source AI: Each speaker shared the unique reasons their lab has chosen to release open-source AI models. A common theme was the importance of decentralization. But why is decentralization important, and what's in it for them? 🤔 Future of Open-Source AI Models: We asked our panel if they believe open-source AI models will meet or surpass the best closed models for general purposes within the next 36 months. 💰💡 Investment and Innovation: With the next wave of capabilities projected to be incredibly expensive (around $10B or more), we explored whether open-source AI might need to slow down, or continue to thrive through direct investment or efficient new techniques. 🤝🖥️ Community Contributions: While community contributions have always been a cornerstone of open-source software, open-source AI presents unique challenges due to the need for significant GPU resources. We spoke about how the community can effectively contribute to open-source AI. 📈🔧 AI-Enabling Software vs. Core Models: Lastly, we discussed the role of AI-enabling software as a complement to open-source AI models. How does open-source software fit into the evolving story of open-source AI? Really enjoyed this discussion. Thanks to the group, and to Eric Newcomer for having us! YouTube Link: https://lnkd.in/gbpDnvX3

Recruiting is THE most leveraged thing founders do. If you recruit well, you can do many other things poorly and still thrive. The good news is that who and how you hire are the most predictive and controllable inputs to your company's success. The bad news is that many founders approach recruiting as a series of transactions rather than as a strategic pillar of company building. As the company grows, founders might be tempted to hire a recruiter or outsource parts of the recruiting process to team members or agencies. Don’t succumb to this notion. Now is the time to triple down on founder-led recruiting, not hand it off or staff it out!! Read more on founder-led recruiting & subscribe to Hooked on Substack: https://lnkd.in/gsTBT7hH Thanks, Christopher Aberger (Numbers Station AI) for your insights! Shannon Anderson

Don't miss Partner Vivek Ramaswami on Venture with Grace tomorrow! He'll be diving into scaling startups!

Be sure to catch the most recent episode of Founded & Funded with Madrona Digital Editor Coral Garnick Ducken and Investor Sabrina Wu. In this Investor Spotlight Sabrina discusses her transition from private equity to #venturecapital and the learnings that translate to building successful VC-backed startups, her focus on intelligent applications, and the characteristics she looks for in founders — grit, authenticity, and intellectual honesty. Sabrina also shares her approach to engaging with early-stage founders and her interests outside the office. This is a great episode for #entrepreneurs interested in working with #VCs. You can watch wherever you get your podcasts: YouTube: https://lnkd.in/gWBvCRQa Spotify: https://lnkd.in/gqfV5bk4 Apple: https://lnkd.in/gfivmZ-2 #VCinvesting #VC #pitching #pitchinginvestors

Congratulations to Madrona's fearless and inspirational co-founder Jerry Grinstein who was celebrated for his role in building Delta Airlines as the company approaches its 100th anniversary. Delta renamed the main executive building, the Jerry Grinstein Executive Building, in honor of his “transformational impact on the airline’s core values.”   Jerry’s role at Delta went from Board Member to CEO in 2004, a period of tumult for the airline. He led the airline successfully out of Chapter 11 bankruptcy and was an inspiration for the spirit of Delta employees. These employees came together to fight off a hostile takeover, raised money for the first 737 purchased by the airline, and also started a fund to help Delta employees through hard times. Delta's tribute to Jerry rings incredibly true to all of us at Madrona. Jerry understands the deep value of building a people-first culture of support and excellence — and he does it all with an incredible sense of humor.    Read more about Jerry in the tribute here: https://lnkd.in/gxeBHZ9n

Madrona Partner Jon Turow took to the stage at Cerebral Valley New York today to lead a discussion on all the aspects of open-source AI with open model builders Jonathan Frankle from Databricks, Laurens van der Maaten from AI at Meta, and Ali Farhadi from Allen Institute for AI (AI2).