Applying AI and Machine Learning To Retail and E-commerce with Lewis Gyson and Yunus Saatci

On this episode of Venture Stories, Erik is joined by Yunus Saatci, of Uber AI labs and a founding member of OnDeck, and Lewis Gyson, founder and CEO of Ant, a Village Global portfolio company. They were interviewed recently in downtown San Francisco. Yunus talks about the unique career he's had so far, with stops at big tech companies as well as in venture capital. Lewis explains what he and the team at Ant are trying to do and how his experience working for New Zealand's version of eBay (New Zealand and China are two countries where eBay doesn't operate) helped inform what he's working on now. They break down some of the most commonly used (and overused) terms in artificial intelligence, including machine learning, deep learning and others, and explain how those techniques work. They also talk about the relevancy of academic machine learning techniques to commercial applications and why machine learning is called "a solution in search of a problem."They talk about some of the ways that AI can transform brick-and-mortar retail and direct-to-consumer, and all the advancements in retail that a company like Ant can provide when it comes to supply chain management, delivery, and point-of-sale. They also discuss big companies in AI and their motivations in making AI tools open source.Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform. Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global and is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg. Colin Campbell is our audio engineer and the show is produced by Brett Bolkowy.