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From building soccer-playing robots to co-founding a top venture firm, Ann Miura-Ko has never followed the conventional path. She once challenged a university instructor on behalf of his struggling students — then went on to launch a fund with him. She “rebelled” against her father by skipping the PhD track… only to get one anyway. In a fireside chat with Applied Intuition CEO Qasar Younis, Ann shared the stories behind her unconventional rise in venture capital, reflecting on what it takes to navigate startups, stand out, and stay true to yourself. One theme stood out: when others zig, Ann zags.
Read on for five takeaways from Ann's chat with Qasar.
1. Exploit uncharted territories.
In polite circles, Ann would be called contrarian. Her own description is less varnished: “I like doing things where people say, ‘That's just kind of an idiotic move.’” Whether a quirk or a gift, it has enabled her to see opportunity in change. One example: When AWS appeared on the scene in 2006, she saw how the resulting reduction in costs would let startups develop and scale their innovations with smaller amounts of capital. But she also saw the second-order opportunity for investors. But what really set her apart was identifying the second-order effects: it wasn’t just that companies could be built differently — it was that an entirely new kind of investor could emerge.
“I believed that something was changing. And that's when I started talking to my partner about what we were seeing in the startup industry.”
This led to a reevaluation of the prevailing practice in startup investing, where founders would give up half their company in exchange for an investment on the order of $5 million. As the cost of building startups dropped, a niche opened between angel investors and larger venture capital funds.
“When we got started, there was this gap between angel investors and VC firms wanting to write $5 million checks. We would fill that gap.”
Ann and her team did their homework and saw only three or four possible competitors targeting this opportunity at that time. How many are there today? “There's over a thousand now,” Ann said. “It's just a completely different playing field.”
This approach provided crucial early-stage funding to startups that were often overlooked by traditional investors. And being contrarian with this approach meant spotting value where others saw risk.
"People tried to talk me out of doing a no-name venture capital firm with a self proclaimed ‘washed-up enterprise software guy’,” she said of that time. “So we knew there was something there."
2. “I want to be either an entrepreneur or a venture capitalist.” But why?
"Talk to any sophomore at Stanford and they’ll say ‘I want to be either an entrepreneur or a venture capitalist.’" That take on founder fever in Silicon Valley might be glib, but Ann backs it up by pointing to a couple cultural drivers that have made the startup world more mainstream. "There's a mass awareness of startups,” she said, citing the movie “The Social Network” and television show Shark Tank. “People just know more about startups."
As to how an aspiring founder knows they have the right motivation for doing a startup, Ann said it’s when they believe that in not starting that company, “you would die a thousand deaths.” She referred back to how the idea behind Floodgate felt inevitable—but only to a small group of people, and that contrarian insight is what made it so compelling. “I knew some other folks were going to do it because it was such an obvious idea. But I knew it was uniquely obvious to me and only a few other people. And I think that was an important motivating factor.”
3. Understand the real value of AI.
Ann has questions about where real long-term value will accrue in the expanding AI landscape. "Where is the real value coming from, and which customers are going to use it? And why? That’s the real question we should be asking."
Less dismissive than cautious, Ann tempers the potential she sees for AI companies with a filter that distinguishes buzzy concepts of today from viable startups in the long term. “Part of what we're seeing is there's so much hype about what ‘can be,’ but that 'can be' is more like 10-20 years away. That said, we are so excited by just a handful of people we’ve met who are truly living in the future, and the glimpse we have of that future is really exciting."
4. “In Silicon Valley, your currency is your ideas.”
“They're just thinking about networking,” Ann said of many aspiring founders. “And I think that falls flat.” Every individual has a unique perspective; no one sees the world through the eyes and experiences of others. To take advantage of this, individuals should hone the ability to see things in the world that are unique to them. There are so many inflection points where huge waves are created. Tap into the perspective that can uniquely harness the power of that wave, whether it’s a product, business model or ecosystem.
Asked how she would advise an engineer looking to pursue their unique idea, Ann offered that, “If you have a unique insight, then people will want to talk to you. If you have a perspective that you want to share, oftentimes if you write it down people will come find you.”
“There's so many inflection points outside in the world where huge waves are being created. And the big question for you is, what is it that you know through your own experiences, through your lens, that allows you to take advantage of that outside wave? In Silicon Valley, your currency is your ideas. Harness that.”
5. Seeing Applied Intuition as a strategic innovation in autonomous technologies.
"You just left the room. But we wanted to offer you a term sheet." That’s how Ann told Qasar that she and her partner decided to invest in Applied Intuition.
Their swift commitment stemmed in part from her insights into autonomy. Ann’s time on the board of Lyft and exposure to other companies pursuing autonomy gave her first-hand insight into the challenges they faced. “I saw how much people were throwing money at these things,” she said. “And how long it was taking.”
So why invest in Applied Intuition? She described how the pitch, by Qasar and Applied Intuition Co-Founder Peter Ludwig, set their idea apart from others. “The two of you were just so zero-based about where the wedge would be, and then how you would grow out the business,” she said of the market entry point they described. “Versus saying ‘we're going to create a whole stack from day one.’ How you pitched it to us was very compelling. It felt real. It felt like something you could capitalize on.”
How does that investment look to her now? She said, “The way you have built out this business proves you are addressing the customer's needs, not just the pure promise of technology.”
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