About

AI stands to have a large impact on society. It feels like it could be one of the dividing lines in the history of technology, where before and after look totally different. We’re interested in people applying research to any narrow domain and especially those focused on the intersection of AI and robotics (manufacturing, self-driving cars, etc).

If we can fix education, we can eventually do everything else on this list. Human brainpower is vastly underutilized on this planet because most people lack access to a good education. Strong education systems lead to greater social mobility, better workers, better citizens, and more and better startups. A small increase in the learning output of education systems across the globe would have an enormous impact on human productivity and economic growth.

The world’s financial systems are increasingly unable to meet the demands of consumers and businesses. That makes some sense because regulations designed to protect customers can’t change fast enough to keep up with the pace at which technology is changing the needs of those customers. This mismatch creates inefficiencies at almost every level of the financial system. It impacts how people invest their savings, how businesses gain access to capital to grow, how risk is priced and insured, and how financial firms do business with each other. We think that software will accelerate the pace at which financial services change and will eventually shift the nature of regulations. We want to support individuals with novel ideas of how to make that happen.

A diverse workforce is good for business and good for the world. Without different perspectives, the products and services we create will miss big opportunities for large segments of people. We want to work with individuals and startups that are working on making technology a place that is more inclusive and attractive to people of all ages, races, sexual orientations, and cultures.

Software used by large companies is still awful and still very lucrative. Category-defining enterprise software companies will emerge to solve problems for every vertical, every business size, and every job function.

Healthcare across the country is badly broken. We’re interested in ways to make healthcare better for less money.

The internet has made it easy to distribute creative work to millions of people, but no one has figured out how to help creatives make a sustainable living.

About half of all energy is used on transportation, and people spend a huge amount of time unhappily commuting. Face-to-face interaction is still really important; people still need to move around. And housing continues to get more expensive, partially due to difficulties in transportation. We’re interested in better ways for people to live somewhere nice, work together, and have easier commutes. Specifically, lightweight, short-distance personal transportation is something we’re interested in.

Virtual reality and augmented reality have been long-unfulfilled promises. But we feel the wave is coming, and this is the right time to start working on it.