James Cham is a Partner at Bloomberg Beta L.P. At the firm, he focuses on investments in data-centric and machine learning-related companies. Mr. Cham was a Principal at Trinity Ventures which he joined in 2010 and focused on investments in consumer services specifically ecommerce, social media, and digital media. He was a Vice President at Bessemer Venture Partners. He focused on advanced web technologies and was instrumental in eight new investments in consumer internet services, security, and digital media sectors along with a number of seed investments. He was a part of Data Security investment team. He was a Consultant of Boston Consulting Group. At, Boston Consulting Group, he developed marketing strategies for entertainment and information technology companies. Earlier, Mr. Cham built web applications for startups as a Principal at Zefer and led teams that designed award-winning web applications. He also developed information technology systems for Fortune 500 companies as a Software Developer at Andersen Consulting.
Mr. Cham started his career at Accenture as a Technology Consultant, where he created enterprise applications for clients in the financial, defense, and retail industries. He serves as a Director of SweetLabs, Inc. While at Bessemer, he was a Board Member of CrowdFlower and Open Candy and a Board Observer of LifeLock, ReputationDefender, Sonic Mule, and BillShrink. He has over five years of investing experience in the consumer services, enterprise software, and digital media space.
Mr. Cham received an M.B.A. from MIT's Sloan School where he was a Siebel Scholar and interned at Sun Microsystems. Mr. Cham earned an A.B. degree in Computer Science from Harvard University.
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James Cham was introduced to us by our longtime pal Harper Reed. He’s a partner at Bloomberg Beta and all around interesting guy. We’re pleased to have him on the page this week. -Colin (CJN) Tell us about yourself. I grew up in the San Gabriel Valley of Los Angeles. When I was in the fifth grade I wrote a report saying I wanted to live in Silicon Valley and work as a developer evangelist. I got close: I live in Palo Alto and invest in software companies. I work at a seed-stage venture capital firm called
Venture capitalist James Cham helped found Bloomberg BETA, with its mission of investing in extraordinary founders looking to shape the future of work.
James Cham is a co-founder and partner at Bloomberg Beta, an early-stage venture firm that invests in machine learning and the future of work, the intersection between business and technology. James explains how his approach to investing in AI has developed over the last decade, which signals of success he looks for in the ever-adapting world of venture startups (tip: look for the "gradient of admiration"), and why it's so important to demystify ML for executives and decision-makers. Lukas and James also discuss how new technologies create new business models, and what the ethical considerations of a world where machine learning is accepted to be possibly fallible would be like. Show notes (transcript and links): http://wandb.me/gd-james-cham --- ⏳ Timestamps: 0:00 Intro 0:46 How investment in AI has changed and developed 7:08 Creating the first MI landscape infographics 10:30 The impact of ML on organizations and management 17:40 Demystifying ML for...