33. Sam Baker, Scale Venture Partners - Cognitive Apps are the Future of Work

Sam shares how his iconic, early-stage enterprise s/w venture fund found itself investing in emerging tech applications like warehouse robotics, drones, etc., outlines why “cognitive applications” will be the next generation of great s/w companies and how those apps are built on top of the current foundation of cloud & SaaS infrastructure, describes how Scale leverages their Mega-Trends Process to identify the upside potential/alpha within emerging technologies, walks us through lessons learned of what does and doesn’t work to hit product-market-fit in industrial robotic settings where bits meet atoms (hint: start with doing one high-frequency task associated with a tangible ROI really well!), and finally he discusses how he thinks about early-stage investment syndication within these emerging tech and industrial applications.