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A couple of decades ago I sat down with a local Angel Investor, a little lost. I’d been through a couple of high growth tech startups, had then founded my own a few years prior. It didn’t go to plan, and my company got utterly decimated in the dot-com implosion. Ever curious, I posed the question to him: “What is the most important thing you look for when you invest?”.
I could never have guessed the response: “Scar tissue”.
But it made total sense. There are lots of ideas out there. There are lots of really bright people. But there aren’t many people that have been through the wringer and just get back up, and keep going and try again, and again, and again, until they figure it out.
I’m a work in progress.
Career wise, I’m still, and always will be, a startup person. My focus has been AI/Machine Learning/Data for the past few years. This started with Predictive Analytics, moving into the Product Science space, and I’m currently the CTO of a very early startup in the AI Bias/Fairness space, which is a really exciting place to be.
Robotics has always been an area of immense curiosity, and time sink. This includes tinkering with Raspberry Pi’s, Arduino’s and 3D printers; converting mills to CNC and building out a maker space; and mentoring High School and Middle School competition robotics teams (First and VEX).
But at the end of the day, as cool as technology is, it’s all about people. It’s about making peoples lives better. It’s about helping humanity. But there are absolutely risks, hence the blogs title (stolen from Douglas Adams) – “Mostly Harmless?”
As of the time of starting this blog (September 2023), tech is in a deep recession, and LLM’s/ChatBots are being talked about everywhere/over hyped. Over the next decade or more, AI, Robots and Humans are on a collision course. We’ll likely see more disruption to our daily lives than we’ve ever seen before, which means immense opportunity, and immense risk.
That’s what this blog is about.
My name is Steve Denton, these are my observations and opinions, they are worth exactly what you’ve paid for them. Welcome.
This is me: LinkedIn