Sramana Mitra: The use case was investing and trading in stocks?
Armando Gonzales: Yes, it didn’t start that way. It started as a very generic AI platform that could do all sorts of things including trading. We thought it could be used for healthcare diagnostics. We were looking at it from a cybersecurity perspective as well. We also tried building a prototype of open-source intelligence system that can be used by governments or global organizations.
>>>If you haven’t already, please study our Bootstrapping Course and Investor Introductions page.
Adding to our roster of Bootstrapping Using Services case studies, here’s my conversation with PMG.net Founders Joe LeCompte and Robert Castles from 2015.
Sramana Mitra: Let’s start at the very beginning of your personal journey. Tell us a bit about where you come from, where you were born and raised, and in what kind of background.
Robert Castles: I was born in Columbia, South Carolina. I spent the first half of my life there through to college. I have always been interested in technology as early as I can remember. When I was 11 years old, I begged my father for a Radio Shack Color Computer so that I could take it home and learn how to program. This is while all my friends were looking for baseball mitts, which I also like. I spent an inordinate amount of time looking for that computer, which I got.
Armando has built an AI company over 20 years, deeply focusing on Finance and Trading.
He discusses his journey, and also reflects on how generative AI startups can be built in a capital-efficient manner. Great conversation!
Sramana Mitra: Let’s start at the very beginning of your story. Where are you from? Where were you born and raised? What kind of background?
>>>According to a recent report, the global enterprise collaboration market is expected to grow 15% to $54.88 billion this year and grow at 14% CAGR to reach $92.4 billion by 2027. Atlassian (Nasdaq: TEAM) recently announced its third quarter results that surpassed market expectations.
>>>This report from CB Insights covers the funding trends in the AI space. While lobal AI funding plunged in the quarter, the number of unicorns was steady. Three Generative AI unicorns joined the club this quarter including Anthropic, Adept, and Character.AI. For this week’s posts, click on the paragraph links.
>>>I’m publishing this series on LinkedIn called Colors to explore a topic that I care deeply about: the Renaissance Mind. I am just as passionate about entrepreneurship, technology, and business, as I am about art and culture. In this series, I will typically publish a piece of art – one of my paintings – and I request you to spend a minute or two deeply meditating on it. I urge you to watch your feelings, thoughts, reactions to the piece, and write what comes to you, what thoughts it triggers, in the dialog area. Let us see what stimulation this interaction yields. For today – Thunderstorm II
Thunderstorm II | Sramana Mitra, 2021 | Watercolor, Pastel, Brush Pen | 9 x 12, On Paper
I’m publishing this series on LinkedIn called Colors to explore a topic that I care deeply about: the Renaissance Mind. I am just as passionate about entrepreneurship, technology, and business, as I am about art and culture. In this series, I will typically publish a piece of art – one of my paintings – and I request you to spend a minute or two deeply meditating on it. I urge you to watch your feelings, thoughts, reactions to the piece, and write what comes to you, what thoughts it triggers, in the dialog area. Let us see what stimulation this interaction yields. For today – Thunderstorm I
Thunderstorm I | Sramana Mitra, 2021 | Watercolor, Pastel, Brush Pen | 9 x 12, On Paper
Sramana Mitra: Data is clearly going to change the pharmaceutical industry.
Susan Wood: Similarly to find sites. Here are 50 sites that do high-quality imaging work. We went into this by getting imaging biomarkers. That’s an important thing, but more importantly, there are so many disconnects and inefficiencies in running these trials that our data can help in other ways.
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