Nabil Laoudji

One of the things we see quite often at Grit Capital Partners, is a newly minted CEO. We see a big difference in the transition to CEO based upon the historical lane the CEO is coming from. There are different new muscles if you are coming from Product, Engineering, Finance, etc. In this article, we go deep on the CRO to CEO transition, which includes some thoughts from Rosie O'Meara, a particularly fine example of someone who has made the transition quite well. What were your biggest transition moments? https://lnkd.in/eEB-K2ZU

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When I set out to write “Winning with Generative AI,” I struck gold in finding a co-author in Katia Walsh, Ph.D. Here’s why. She’s the ultimate fact-checker. Katia has been on the ground, in the generative trenches for the past two decades. Whereas I’ve never built a certain AI model, she has—multiple times. So, I’ll write a chapter, and she’ll verify what works and what doesn’t: “That’s not important. Instead, put more emphasis on this.” “Don’t promise that. It’s too risky. Take that out.” “You may think that’s really cool, but trust me: It’s not.” She’s the perfect reality check. And we are the perfect combo. Katia brings her unparalleled AI expertise. And I offer up a clear, pragmatic approach to harnessing it. The result is a definitive guide to generative AI that leaders will be able to turn to time and again and, most importantly, to trust. Want more stories like this, plus exclusive book updates? Join my Linkedin Book Launch Community and join our exclusive email list: https://lnkd.in/eK6e8TYS https://lnkd.in/e8_itCsc #AI #strategy #disruption

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After decades in venture capital, I’ve watched innovation cycles unfold—from the internet boom to the mobile era to today’s AI revolution. The thrill of transformation drives this industry, but only when things go sideways do we pause to consider what we might have done differently. That’s why I am launching The Ethics Edge. In today’s market, AI is reshaping the landscape at breakneck speed and overlooking ethical risks could mean missing out on insights that can drive both competitive edge and resilience. But how do you integrate ethics in a way that fuels growth, accelerates market leadership, and improves risk without slowing progress? Each week, I’ll break down real-world investments through an ethical lens, exploring questions we all face but rarely discuss. Can ethics be a strategic advantage? Where do they fit in board discussions and KPIs? And at what point in a company’s lifecycle do they start to matter? I am calling venture investors to join me on this journey—follow The Ethics Edge on Substack and join the LinkedIn Group. Jack Bixby Lucas Stephanie Sharron Anik Bose Elizabeth Meyer Chris Gillam Katherine M. Tassi Paul Clastre Elmer Huh Katharine T. Courtney Allen Weinstein #venturecapital #ethics #theethicsedge #innovation #investing

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🚨 Episode 4 Alert: “Want Evergreen Innovation? Subtract, Don’t Add. An Interview with Government Innovation Expert, Brian Elms” 🚨 On the latest *No BS Bureaucracy* podcast Michael Sarasti and I interview innovation expert extraordinaire Brian Elms, of Change Agents and Denver Peak Academy. This is not your typical “innovation, rah rah” convo either - no platitudes, no jargon. A candid discussion by practitioners who are all former local government bureaucrats. https://lnkd.in/eKWP7D-J  https://lnkd.in/ed8Rkxw3 ✨ Don’t Quit When You're Ahead -   Innovation in government is never “done”—continuous improvement means just that, continuous. The churn in local government demands perpetual training and focus on continuous improvement. ✨ Process Improvement is the Art of Subtraction - Governments love to add, but often the best improvement is simplifying and subtracting. ✨ Overwhelm the Bureaucracy -  The recipe for success is training up 50% of the organization and situating the innovation lead where there’s a high level of organizational influence. Basic rule of thumb, process improvements come from the people who do the work, not outside experts. Plus, introducing RVRWRK (“river work”) https://rvrwrk.com/ Brian and Mike’s new venture. How they're leveraging low-code tech and AI to fast-track discovery and rapidly document process mapping. The goal is to get gov clients to the “improvement” stage of the process work faster with super clear documentation of the current state. #innovation #publicsector #changeagents #RVRWRK #smartcities  #GenerativeAI #LocalGovernment

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I’m delighted to showcase a special guest blog from my Stanford colleague, Dr. Frederik G. Pferdt. Frederik is Google’s original Chief Innovation Evangelist, and just published his first book, “What’s Next Is Now.” *** Let’s face it: our minds are wired to crave certainty about the future. We scour the news, analyze trends, and even check our horoscopes—all in search of a glimpse into what’s coming next. But here’s the thing: that relentless hunt for predictions is a mistake! Why? Because the future isn’t something that happens to you. It’s something you actively shape. By obsessing over predictions, we become passive observers, waiting for the future to unfold. But what if we flipped the script? What if we stopped worrying about what might happen and started creating the future we want? I’m a future optimist because I believe in embracing the opportunities ahead rather than fearing uncertainty. The choices you make today are the building blocks of your future. The more intentional and varied your choices, the more opportunities you create for yourself. On the flip side, if you avoid stepping outside your comfort zone, someone else ends up making choices for you. Ever wonder how people find themselves in unfulfilling careers? It’s often because they stopped making intentional choices that could have led them down a different path. They become passengers in a car driven by fate, luck, or happenstance. But here’s the good news: You don’t have to be a passenger. You can be the driver. Imagination is your most powerful tool. By engaging with the possibilities of each moment, you start to see a different landscape for your future. (More insights at the link in comments below!)

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This week, Leopold Aschenbrenner, who was previously fired from OpenAI’s safety team for allegedly leaking material, published a 165-page blog post on AI and the decade ahead. The post was received with both excitement and dismissal by various factions. Aschenbrenner says: "Over the past year, the talk of the town has shifted from $10 billion compute clusters to $100 billion clusters to trillion-dollar clusters. Every six months another zero is added to the boardroom plans. Behind the scenes, there’s a fierce scramble to secure every power contract still available for the rest of the decade, every voltage transformer that can possibly be procured. [...] it is strikingly plausible that by 2027, models will be able to do the work of an AI researcher/engineer." Aschenbrenner’s view is in the same sort of ballpark as Eric Schmidt’s and roughly lines up with what Microsoft’s CTO, Kevin Scott, said. Scott talked about GPT-5 performing at a level of a PhD student. Let’s assume that scaling laws hold and that performance leaps continue for the next several years. What kind of real-world impact would such a leap in performance have? I find one of Sam Altman’s frameworks quite clarifying. He talks about “the five-second tasks, the five-minute tasks, the five-hour tasks, maybe even the five-day tasks” that AI could do.  We could apply this to our experiences with LLMs: GPT-3 or GPT-3.5 was good at five-second tasks; GPT-4 is good at five-minute tasks, and perhaps GPT-5 will be good at five-hour tasks (or at least 50-minute tasks!). But what comes next? Well, in Sam’s telling of the story, we could expect GPT-5 to handle five-hour tasks. This is congruent with Eric Schmidt’s argument that in the next five years, these machines will be able to undertake tasks that have 1,000 discrete steps. This is pretty substantial. The question I’ll pose to all of you is this: what does having a piece of software capable of conducting a task mean? A well-trained human - say MSc-level (although Kevin Scott says PhD-level) - takes 5 hours to do, but in any domain. That piece of software doesn’t cost much… Perhaps it’s free, $20 a month, or a little more. And once you access a GPT-5-class model, you can use dozens or more of those PhD-level software assistants. A business could potentially run hundreds of thousands or millions. A state, billions. https://lnkd.in/eHyZAShb

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New insights on AI reveal that Generative Ai hype is prevalent across industries. What may also he worrying is that over inflated expectations, hyped up productivity possibilities and raising future outlook based on perceived adoption by industry can lead to a messy future. Read the new article by Ash Center at Harvard to understand better. https://lnkd.in/gKRUH-fd #harvard #genai #ai #aiproductivity #aitools #aiOutlook #futureai #airegulations

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I highly recommend taking a few minutes to explore a fantastic new piece on global AI adoption from my colleagues and friends Christian Schwaerzler, Miguel Carrasco, Christopher Daniel, Brooke Cashman Bollyky, Yoshihisa Niwa, Aparna Bharadwaj, Dr. Akram Awad, Richard Sargeant, Sanjay Nawandhar, and Svetlana Kostikova.   Their matrix looks at 73 countries leading in AI adoption and sorts them into four archetypes based on how “ready” each economy is for further disruption.   One insight I found to be particularly striking was that over 70% of measured countries had a significant gap between exposure and preparedness—scoring below the halfway mark in the AI ecosystem participation, skills, and R&D categories. There is a great opportunity for policymakers in the new year to close this gap and the report includes a helpful roadmap for leaders wondering where to start.   Check out their research and let me know what you think: https://lnkd.in/eeyZ6kTm. 

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MyPOV: Should we slow down AI adoption due to concerns about job displacement, or should we embrace AI Join Constellation Research, Inc. @rwang0 on 9/11 at 11:25 PM for a session briefing at #Gain2024 Live from Saudi Arabia! https://bit.ly/3Mvgzl6 @globalaisummit #GainSummit

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We're light-years from Joseph Weizenbaum creating the first “chatterbot” (later shortened to chatbot), ELIZA, a mock psychotherapist, that used natural language processing (NLP) to converse with humans. San Altman suggests that we've quickly taken for granted achievements most of us would have thought impossible just a few years ago. The recent release of o1 (internally code-named Strawberry) lets anyone on the internet use a tool that's better at math than all but the top few 100 students in the U.S., and works at the level of upper-echelon programmers. In an onstage interview on a panel at an OpenAI event on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly meeting in Manhattan, Altman said that the AI-powered device he's working on with former Apple design guru Jony Ive will not be a phone and promised that OpenAI still has more big news this year, though he wouldn't say whether it is the long-rumored GPT-5 — if that's even what it will be called. Altman pointed out that costs for a set AI computing task have rapidly come down. He added that when OpenAI and its rivals cut prices, that's because they have found ways to accomplish the work using less computing power — and, therefore, less energy. "The energy use of AI, I think relative to the value it's creating, is quite tiny today," Altman said. "I don't want to minimize it too much, because it's going to go up — like we will use gigawatts over time, out of, you know, terawatts on Earth." I'm currently wearing my "Be Disruptive" shirt in Vegas for a quick 24 hrs. Schmoozing with conference attendees in the lobby of our hotel, we are talking about AI, how it is affecting their line of work and the focus continues to come back to my shirt. It opens up to me discussing how SMBs need to take on the mantra of "Either your company is going to be disrupted, or you're going to disrupt your company." With the evolution of AI, one or other is going to happen. At the moment, most companies have a choice to make. Become the Blockbuster of their industry, or get "Netflixed". #AI #OpenAI #Disruption https://lnkd.in/gitDzNus

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Informative discussion this week on a panel with Sri Mruthik Chris Sullivan & Anant R Adya on scaling AI This article provides an overview of AI adoption across industries… “The who, what, and where of AI adoption in America - artificial intelligence is being adopted unevenly in the U.S., with use clustered in large companies and industries such as manufacturing and health care” #InfosysCobalt #InfosysTopaz #EnterpriseAI

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Your Daily AI Implementation Tip for Business Leaders 📌 Tip: Start Small with Pilot Projects ⚠️ Problem: Jumping into large-scale AI implementations without proper groundwork can lead to costly failures and unmet expectations. Many organizations underestimate the complexity and overestimate their readiness for a massive AI rollout. 💡 Solution: Start with small, manageable pilot projects to test the waters. By beginning with smaller AI projects, you can effectively gauge the potential impact, identify challenges, and fine-tune your approach before scaling up. This iterative process helps ensure that your team builds the necessary skills and knowledge to handle larger, more complex AI implementations successfully. #AIforLeaders #GetSkillsAI #AIBusinessStrategy #SmartAIExecution

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For a strategist every hot topic, no matter how hot it is, is just another piece of the big and complex puzzle, or a new detail for a large and complex mechanism, that might fit somewhere, improve its overall performance and even replace some of its legacy parts, or might become just another fidget spinner. This outcome depends on the understanding of the mechanism in question, all its gears, interconnections, etc. Although very old, the mechanism might be completely operational and effective, or might lack speed or power in some of its parts. Maybe an old gear is worn out and needs replacement, or the whole system is falling apart. But it is not the new technology that would make a choice, even if it pretends to possess intelligence. Start not by asking where to apply any new technology and amassing a budget to invest to one. Start by understanding what is not good enough in the system you intend to apply it to, what improvements need to be made, and only after you may begin to choose the most appropriate tools for making those improvements. This way of doing things is not very fancy, but much more effective in every way possible. https://lnkd.in/eDzKKyZB #strategy #AI #ROI

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Very interesting. But I don't think the recursive aspect of simulation theory proves or disproves anything. Outer or "parent" simulations could have more than enough computing power in their universe to power any finite (but not infinite) number of nested simulations. The other question I have is where there's just a spectrum from NPC to Role-Playing. I see three questions leading to 8 different metaphysical truths: 1. Are we real or simulated intelligences? 2. Is the world around us real or simulated environments? 3. Can we exit this universe to enter a "parent" simulation or "root" reality. Most of the 8 combinations have corresponding philosophies. Some are quite odd. Finally, I'm less worried about proving we're in a simulation (where some admin ends or resets it as a result), than I am about proving we're in a simulation and also that we can't exit. What would we do then, except maybe end it voluntarily out of pure nihilism?

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Hopefully you all know by now that at Forerunner, we obsess over spotting shifts in consumer needs & behavior that when combined with step-change tech advances, provide a rare moment to reshape entire markets and build category-defining businesses. Right now, AI’s rapid ascension paired with consumers' increasing demand for more seamless, affordable assistance throughout all aspect of life marks an unbelievable opportunity for every category, sector, and company to be reimagined. This comes off of over a decade of growth where many thought software alone could drive outsized value creation. But now, with AI automating everything that isn’t subjective, software is increasingly becoming a commodity vs. the star. Instead, cultural resonance and consumer connection is what will differentiate AI/tech-driven experiences. ‍‍ Foresight into human adaptation is now essential for success, as the opportunity is much more about how tech can be manipulated to suit personal needs to enable frictionless movement through life. While technical prowess long reigned supreme in Silicon Valley, human understanding and context is now emerging as the ultimate competitive edge. Today, we’re announcing our new $500m early-stage Fund VII, which is dedicated to this time of re-imagination that will ultimately bridge what humans want with what AI can actually do. Reach out if you’re a passionate founder building a life-changing experience within #ConsumerAI and you're looking for an investment partner who has a track record of understanding and addressing evolving consumer needs. https://lnkd.in/gzuXNDqt

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Breaking down the Seattle Venture Ecosystem! Kudos to Jacob Laes and Nick Khormaei for shedding light on the often complex and opaque Seattle funding ecosystem with their comprehensive investor map. For founders, navigating the venture capital world can feel like a maze, but this map offers a much-needed clearer view of where Seattle’s investors are truly placing their bets. And you know me—data is everything! Data drives decisions and, in this case, holds the key to unlocking new opportunities for startups. This project covers 58 firms with insights on: Industry sector focus Investment stages Portfolio track records It’s a game-changer for founders looking to connect with the right investors more efficiently. Check out their breakdown for a detailed view, and feel free to reach out for the full data set! Evan Poncelet Jesse Posey #Startups #Entrepreneurship #VentureCapital #SeattleTech #Funding #TechInnovation #Investing #StartupCommunity #VentureEcosystem #FounderJourney #BusinessGrowth #SeattleStartups

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