Thought Leaders in Financial Technology: Infima Founder and Chief Scientist Kay Giesecke (Part 1)

Kay is a Stanford professor. He has applied Deep Learning models to various use cases within the Mortgage and Mortgage-backed Securities space to build Decision Support tools for Traders and Portfolio Managers. The general principle applies to other forms of credit as well, besides Mortgage.

Sramana Mitra: Let’s start by introducing our audience to yourself as well as to Infima.

Featured Videos

Catching Up On Readings: Chip Wars

This feature from The Wall Street Journal covers in detail how chips have become the new oil and how the two superpowers are racing for dominance in the industry and artificial intelligence. For this week’s posts, click on the paragraph links.

Thursday, January 19 – 598th 1Mby1M Mentoring Roundtable for Entrepreneurs

Entrepreneurs are invited to the 598th FREE online 1Mby1M Mentoring Roundtable on Thursday, January 19, 2023, at 8 a.m. PST/11 a.m. EST/5 p.m. CET/9:30 p.m. India IST.

If you are a serious entrepreneur, register to “pitch” and sell your business idea. You’ll receive straightforward feedback, advice on next steps, and answers to any of your questions. Others can register to “attend” to watch, learn, and interact through the online chat.

You can learn more here and REGISTER TO PITCH OR ATTEND HERE. Register and you will receive the recording by email, even if you are unable to attend. Please share with any entrepreneurs in your circle who may be interested. All are welcome!

Video FAQs

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Sergey Jakimov, Co-Founder and Partner at LongeVC (Part 5)

Sramana Mitra: There is the opportunity for gene editing before a baby is born. Then there is the opportunity for gene editing later in life.

Sergey Jakimov: There is a huge ethical component. If you leave that aside, what makes total sense is identifying potential life-threatening diseases or disabilities with DNA-driven factors for unborn babies and introducing these changes early on so that the new person gets to live a normal life. That’s totally fine by me.

Best of Bootstrapping: Serial Entrepreneur Bootstrapped Two Startups to Enormous Revenue

If you haven’t already, please study our free Bootstrapping course and the Investor Introductions page.

Oversee.net Founder and Manage.com Co-founder Fred Hsu bootstrapped two companies with huge amounts of revenue. The first, he sold to a private equity firm. The second was acquired by Criteo in 2018. We spoke in 2015, amazing story!

Sramana Mitra: Let’s get started at the beginning of your personal story. Where were your born, raised, and in what kind of environment?

Fred Hsu: I was born in Ohio. My parents were Chinese immigrants who came to the States for graduate school. They had moved to Taiwan during the communist takeover. I have an older sister. She was born in Virginia. I also have a younger brother who was born in Connecticut. We moved around a lot as kids. My dad was a defense contractor moving from one air force base to another. My mom was an accountant by trade. She fell into the insurance industry and eventually, programming.

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1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Sergey Jakimov, Co-Founder and Partner at LongeVC (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: Are you looking for something in this DNA testing and sequencing area that you haven’t found yet?

Sergey Jakimov: I would be looking for a merge between DNA sequencing capacity and actionable insights based on that. I would be looking at the comprehensive model where the company offers you DNA sequencing and a comprehensive report with some supplement-based insights or potential diagnostic-based insight or non-prescription interventions to mitigate risks.

Best of Bootstrapping: Bootstrapped an Evergreen Business from Oregon

If you haven’t already, please study our free Bootstrapping course and the Investor Introductions page.

There is a trend among entrepreneurs wanting to keep running companies without seeking an exit. Kristin Quinlan, CEO of Certified Languages International (CLI), told us about one such evergreen company in 2015.

Sramana Mitra: Let’s start at the very beginning of your story. Where are you from? Where you born, raised, and in what kind of background?

Kristin Quinlan: I was born and raised in Portland, Oregon. I went to school at the University of Oregon. My children are also there. One is graduating from there now and my daughter is currently enrolled. They are fourth-generation University of Oregon attendees. I spent a year of my education in Amherst, Massachusetts. Other than that, it’s all been here.

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1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Sergey Jakimov, Co-Founder and Partner at LongeVC (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: Let’s switch gears to another category. Pick another category where there is a heavy computer science element.

Sergey Jakimov: Another interesting one is digital health. If we’re talking longevity, it’s of course aging clocks and all sorts of consumer-facing risk calculators. That’s another very interesting angle of how we taught algorithms to work with clinical data or user-reported data as well as how we made it consumer-facing and consumer-digestible.