20VC: Is Big Data Still A Thing with Matt Turck, Managing Director at FirstMark Capital

Matt Turck is Managing Director of FirstMark Capital where he invests across a broad range of early-stage enterprise and consumer startups. Prior to FirstMark, he was a Managing Director at Bloomberg Ventures, the investment and incubation arm of Bloomberg LP. Previously, Matt was the co-founder of TripleHop Technologies, a venture-backed enterprise search software startup that was acquired by Oracle. Matt organizes two large monthly events, Data Driven NYC (focuses on Big Data and AI) and Hardwired NYC(focuses on IOT, AR/VR, drones). At Firstmark, Matt has made investments in the likes of Sketchfab, Sense 360 and the much loved X.ai with Amy Ingram as your personal secretary. 

1.) How did Matt make his way into the world of VC?

2.) What does big data really mean? With the cool kids in the data world moving on to obsessing over AI, is big data still a ‘thing’ in 2016?

3.) Why is now the time for big data? What has enabled big data to have sudden mass utility across a variety of applications?

4.) How does Matt view the integration of big data and AI? Is AI helping big data deliver it’s promise?

5.) How can we combat the incumbency advantage of large companies owning the majority of datasets? How can startups access similar datasets?

Items Mentioned In Today’s Episode: 

Matt’s Fave Blog: AVC, Chris Dixon, Brad Feld, Wait But Why 

Matt’s Most Recent Investment: Hyperscience

As always you can follow The Twenty Minute VC, Harry and Matt on Twitter here!

If you would like to see a more colourful side to Harry with many a mojito session, you can follow him on Instagram here!

 

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