Rahul Conda’s Post

Is anyone _not_ talking about the Goldman Sachs report alleging that we are all looking at a bubble in #GenAI and that the potential value may never justify the proposed trillion dollars in project investment? I would suggest the report is precisely half-right! 1. They are right to be skeptical of value of many use cases proposed to date, but (like almost everyone else), they don’t understand the real potential value of GenAI. Chatbots are nice but only so consequential. Writing emails for you is a party trick. They breakthrough value will come from converting unstructured text to structured data that companies can manipulate and analyze. Lawyers reviewing ISDAs and MBAs reviewing contract terms are expensive! More importantly, think about the insight you could derive because it will be economical to look for patterns, for example, across thousands of vendor or customer contracts. Or insurance claims. Or electronic health records. 2. They are half right on cost. The cost of technology will get cheaper — no reason to expect Moore’s Law wont apply to GPUs — and academic (academics!) are churning out reams of papers on how to train, train and deploy LLMs in more compute-efficient ways. The cost of electricity worries me, though — US electrical generation capacity has been flat for two decades (decreasing power intensity per dollar of GDP and GDP growth have cancelled each other out). Not clear to anyone that we have the regulatory model to expand electrical generation capacity quickly. 3. I wouldn't be surprised as the cost and complexity of GPU capacity buildout means that this will continue to happen off-prem, rather than being repatriated by enterprises. Sequoia Capital is maybe a bit less bearish than GS -- in part because of GPUs in the pipeline should offer a lot more power for only a bit more money. https://lnkd.in/eJeGysQY

Large banks spend Billions on technology. 90% of banks want to buy from Tech and Fintech companies, yet nearly half of all signed contracts failed to Go Live. How do we fix this? 👇 I’ve been selling to large banks for 10 years and worked for a bank helping startups get deals internally for 5 years. Here are the most important lessons I learned when selling to banks (or any large enterprise). 🧠🧠🧠 1️⃣ Why would you want to sell to an incumbent? They sign long contracts (5+ years) for large sums. They’re less worried about price and more worried about performance. Their complex tech stack and being highly regulated means they need A) Every certification B) Detailed policies and procedures C) Massive throughput / low latency 🧠🧠🧠 2️⃣ Understand their world A) Their tech stack is hard to change with 1000s of systems. Adding anything new is complex. B) A meeting isn’t a deal. You might meet “Head of X” but from that to signed deal usually takes years. C) Relationships matter. Understand their world, their pressures and stay patient and you can capture the opportunity. 🧠🧠🧠 3️⃣ They have a complicated buying process A) Innovation teams have PoC budgets. You can get $50k or $100k to prove your product could work but still have low odds of success long term B) Becoming an “approved supplier” is hard. Countless forms, processes and sign-offs are needed, not obvious which at outset 🧠🧠🧠 4️⃣ Their buying is designed for big, not small A) The incumbent has no downside for going slower in a negotiation for a startup that can cost survival. Manage with advocates and senior buy in. B) Don’t assume integration will be easy for them. 81% of banks struggle to integrate with a tech company because the bank lacks experience with APIs. 🧠🧠🧠 5️⃣ The gatekeepers matter. A) Legacy providers are already in and likely have a competing product. Sometimes good > great if it can be operationalized B) Consultants run the show. They recommend vendors for RFIs / RFPs and manage integration. C) Other Fintech companies can be frenemies. RFPs look for “comprehensive solutions,” but sometimes that comes from a partnership not one co. 🧠🧠🧠 6️⃣ Set yourself up for success A) Document your processes, and get your certification in order. B) Sell to the “awake at night” pain point like new regulations C) Find partners who care about your success like legacy providers or consultants 🧠🧠🧠 7️⃣ Closing thoughts There’s an old saying that “incumbents want to be first to be third.” They want innovation only if it's secure and robust enough for their scale. But don’t worry; there’s always one that will make a leap. Find your advocate; find someone who can get it done, and one will lead to many. 🧠🧠🧠 👉 If you enjoyed this, I hope you’ll subscribe to fintechbrainfood (link in bio) #fintech #fintechpartnerships #baas #partnerships

So it begins....Sears Corporate Building Demolition. 2.4 million square feet to be completed summer of 2025.

My “a ha” moment around the power of cash flow underwriting (more below ⬇ ) Years ago, I was leading partnerships for a major lending marketplace when the pandemic hit. Unemployment rose, lenders tightened underwriting, and some stopped originating completely. At the time I’d ask lenders: what do you need to see to start making loans again? There was a consistent answer: they wanted a fuller financial picture of their applicants. The economic environment seemingly transformed overnight, and they needed more actionable and real-time cash flow data to supplement traditional credit data.  From that point on, I knew that cash flow data was the missing puzzle piece in lending. Years later, this is as true as ever. Today, I’m excited that cash flow underwriting is *finally* mainstream with Consumer Report, a new solution from Plaid Check, our consumer reporting agency. Built on Plaid’s expertise in bank account connectivity, Consumer Report provides lenders, property managers, and other credit providers real-time visibility into a borrower’s finances, along with signals only made possible through our vantage point as the leading open banking network. We look forward to working with customers to build the future of cash flow underwriting! See post in thread to learn more.

Ruchi (my wife) and I have worked really hard to make life work for us. Both of us come from humble backgrounds. Our parents struggled a lot to send us to good schools. We studied hard. Got good jobs. Earned a living. We felt truly blessed and grateful that we were able to escape the orbit of survival, that our parents stayed in all their lives. Our kids, Vidur and Uzma, are aged 12 and 6. Vidur was born when both of us were 31. By the time he started developing conscious memory, we had reached 36 years of age. The next 4 years were actually the toughest for us. They were years of massive lows  — where we were nearly bankrupt with no visibility of the future. We worked really hard to get out of this and a part of it was witnessed by Vidur. Perhaps even registered. Uzma was born when we were 37. By the time she developed conscious memory, we were both 42. More importantly, by the time she was 5, we were settled in life. So if I were to ask Uzma, “What do you think is needed to be successful in life?”, her response most likely will be: "Work from home. Travel a lot. Go once in a while to shoot something in front of a camera. Make lots of money. And yay!" WHICH IS SO FAR AWAY FROM THE TRUTH. Vidur may still say — “You have to go to work and slog. There may be hard days but you persist and life works out hopefully and eventually.” So the biggest concern that Ruchi and I have is — how do we teach our kids about the hardships that we went through for 40 years, before we landed upon this life that they were born into? And that is our biggest responsibility as a parent. Not to snatch away the privilege they were born in. Instead, to make them aware of the privilege they were born in. So that is the question for you today. Many of you would have seen your parents work really hard to create the life you were given. You saw the struggle. You perhaps still do. But how do you teach that struggle to someone else? How do you remember that struggle when life has changed permanently and for the better? What do you think, LI? #life #awareness #money #warikoo

Congratulations to our Chief Financial Officer John Rettig, who is a finalist for the 2023 Bay Area CFO of the Year Awards in the Public Company (Small to Medium) category! John’s strategic vision and operational leadership has helped guide and grow BILL into the company it is today – a company that serves and champions SMBs. He’s a great leader and we’re lucky to have him! Give a round of applause to John Rettig! 👏 https://bit.ly/3QqoNOO . . . #BayAreaCFOAwards #Finalist2023 #CelebrateCFOs #FinanceLeaders #BayArea2023 #CFOJourney

“Impact of ChatGPT” - new cartoon and post https://lnkd.in/gehFWYjS Salesforce recently found that 67% of senior IT leaders are pushing to adopt generative AI across their businesses in the next 18 months, with one-third naming it their top priority. At the same time, a majority of these senior IT leaders have concerns about what could happen. Among other reservations, the report found that 59% believe generative AI outputs are inaccurate and 79% have security concerns.  In adopting generative AI, organizations are simultaneously pushing the accelerator to the floor while trying to work on the engine at the same time. This urgency without clarity is a recipe for missteps. A nonprofit eating disorder organization called NEDA found this out recently after replacing a 6-person helpline team and 20 volunteers with a chatbot named Tessa.. A week later, NEDA had to disable Tessa when the chatbot was recorded giving harmful advice that could make eating disorders worse. I once spoke at a digital transformation summit hosted by Procter & Gamble. One of their attorneys talked about the challenge of balancing urgency with safeguards in a time of digital transformation. She shared a model that stuck with me about providing “freedom within a framework.” BCG Chief AI Ethics Officer Steven Mills recently advocated for a “freedom within a framework” type of approach for AI. As he put it: “It’s important folks get a chance to interact with these technologies and use them; stopping experimentation is not the answer. AI is going to be developed across an organization by employees whether you know about it or not… “Rather than trying to pretend it won’t happen, let’s put in place a quick set of guidelines that lets your employees know where the guardrails are … and actively encourage responsible innovations and responsible experimentation.” One of the safeguards that Salesforce suggests is “human-in-the-loop” workflows. Two architects of Salesforce’s Ethical AI Practice, Kathy Baxter and Yoav Schlesinger, put it this way: “Just because something can be automated doesn’t mean it should be. Generative AI tools aren’t always capable of understanding emotional or business context, or knowing when you’re wrong or damaging. “Humans need to be involved to review outputs for accuracy, suss out bias, and ensure models are operating as intended. More broadly, generative AI should be seen as a way to augment human capabilities and empower communities, not replace or displace them.” For related cartoons and all the links in this post, click here: https://lnkd.in/gehFWYjS To sign up for my weekly marketoon email newsletter, click here: https://lnkd.in/g9DBM6tD #marketing #cartoon #marketoon