1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator AI Investor Forum: Warren Packard, AI Fund (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: So, the obvious question that stems out of what you described is, how do you identify or qualify the founder who’s fit for this kind of a model?

Warren Packard: Right. That’s exactly the pressing question. Just to take one step back, once we find this opportunity, we spend about four weeks validating the opportunity. We need to make sure that it’s a venture scale opportunity that many different companies, not just one, has this challenge. We look for competitors, et cetera.

Ultimately, if it validates and passes validation, we tap Linda and say, “Linda, let’s get a CEO in place.” We call this individual the founder in residence, but they become the CEO after we build.

But what are the characteristics of this individual?

This is somebody who has built a company before from zero to one. It’s somebody who is technically very astute. It’s somebody who has that intellect and drive and charisma to be a CEO. It’s also somebody who has that subject matter expertise in the domain in which we’re building.

So, we’re looking for somebody that has all those elements, but really going back to what qualifies an entrepreneurial CEO, it does come down to those subjective characteristics of somebody that is super driven will be able to suffer through the challenge.

Sramana Mitra: Oops. Warren’s line went dark. This is an interesting angle that we are hearing from Warren Packard and the AI fund, where instead of founders pitching an investor, we have investors calling for founders.

Warren, back to you.

Warren Packard: I apologize. The audio went out for a moment, so I only caught the tail end of the prompt. If you don’t mind repeating that.

Sramana Mitra: We lost you for a bit. You were talking about finding a founder who’s driven, and it sounds like you’re looking for repeat founders. You’re not looking for first time founders.

Warren Packard: That’s correct. I was managing director of DFJ for 13 years. During that time, we were hearing pitches from young founders that had not started a company before, and we were eager and interested and driven to back those founders in addition to those founders who had prior experience.

However, at AI Fund, you’re absolutely correct, we are looking for repeat founders. That might be a founder who started a company very young, and they’re still young. So it has nothing to do with age per se, but it has something to do with experience. We are looking for that experience where somebody understands what it takes. Again, success as a founder is not necessary, but just having lived through an experience, whether for success or non success is perfectly fine.

This segment is part 2 in the series : 1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator AI Investor Forum: Warren Packard, AI Fund
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