Artificial Intelligence

• Unlocking the potential of AI for your organization
• Understanding the challenges and limitations of AI
• Preparing your organization for the AI revolution
• Addressing fears and concerns surrounding AI

VC Due Diligence

Trust is in short supply. At Astor Perkins, they go beyond the due diligence of most VCs. They get into forensics. Most startup founders don’t start out to defraud investors. It happens over time. It’s looking for small clues and nascent behavior that could indicate a potential problem or a legal matter down the road. It’s not simply a matter of financial auditing. It’s trying to piece together the flow of money between different legal entities. What are they hiding? It’s interviewing executives and employees for behaviors of secrecy, obfuscation, ethical lapses, lack of governance and controls and a potential toxic culture. Scott and the team at Astor Perkins see it as their duty to LPs to not only deliver solid fund performance and long-term results but to invest in sound, well-governed startups that have the best chance of becoming the next trillion-dollar company.

The Future of Innovation & Jobs

The new marketplace for industries like manufacturing, energy, gas and oil, and construction is a far cry from that in decades past. The perfect storm of problems has been brewing, as novel challenges cut into revenue and force corporations to scramble to find fresh opportunities. Obstacles to growth come in many forms. For example, the Bureau of Labor Statistics noted that there has been a gradual slide in worker productivity, not over just the last few quarters, but over the last decade. However, just as some industries are struggling, there is little doubt that the tech sector is going strong—and that it is shaking up other verticals to create value and opportunities for expansion and growth. While it is not likely that a single solution can bring about significant change in the industrial sector, the appropriate application of advanced technologies, data analytics, machine learning and robotics can result in a greater optimization of business workflows and processes, enhanced safety, improved research and development, and the creation of new revenue streams. The silver lining is that innovation also ushers in new types of jobs that didn't exist before. Innovation coupled with continuous lifetime learning and retraining creates a flexible and adaptable labor force.

Exponential Disruption: Is Your Organization Ready for the Era of Human-Machine Innovation?

Disruption is a great term, as long as it’s being applied to your competitors and not your firm. Exponential technologies are creating disruption. The convergence of exponential technologies is expected to disrupt almost every sector and business. Changing trends are forcing leaders to take a hard look at their business models and core competencies. New entrants are threatening to displace “cash cows” and prominent brands. How is your company positioned to take advantage of the multi-billion dollar opportunity that beckons? Or is your business at risk from the advances in technology? If your company is not embracing technological and business model changes, it may be in danger of becoming obsolete.

Are You Ready for Disruption?

How do you turn disruption Into innovation? In PwC’s Annual Global CEO Survey, 62% expressed concern about the impact of disruption in their industry. Disruption is coming from all directions — from the Internet of Things, blockchain cryptography, AI/ machine learning, data analytics, decentralized computing to changes in consumer behavior.

According to an Accenture study of 1,000 large enterprises, big companies struggle with innovation. The biggest barrier is not a lack of vision but because, by definition, big companies are mature. Organizational structures and processes are in place to guide the company towards efficiency. Seasoned managers steer their employees from pursuing the art of discovery and towards engaging in the science of delivery. Employees are taught to seek efficiencies, leverage existing assets, and listen to their best customers. Such practices and policies ensure that executives can consistently deliver positive earnings to Wall Street, but they also minimize the types and scale of innovation that can be pursued successfully within an organization. No company ever created transformational growth by doing what they do a tiny bit better and a tiny bit cheaper.

The biggest barrier is not a lack of vision but because, by definition, big companies are mature. Organizational structures and processes are in place to guide the company towards efficiency. Seasoned managers steer their employees from pursuing the art of discovery and towards engaging in the science of delivery. Employees are taught to seek efficiencies, leverage existing assets, and listen to their best customers. Such practices and policies ensure that executives can consistently deliver positive earnings to Wall Street, but they also minimize the types and scale of innovation that can be pursued successfully within an organization. No company ever created transformational growth by doing what they do a tiny bit better and a tiny bit cheaper.

(BOOK) The Human Race: How Humans Can Survive in the Robotic Age

Scott explores the imminent net job loss from artificial intelligence, robotics and the Fourth Industrial Revolution and its impact on income inequality and rise in populism and nationalism that are sweeping across the globe.

AI-driven cyber-physical automation is expected to displace 50% to 80% of the human workforce by 2030. As the pace of convergence of exponential technologies reach near vertical slope, the trend of human displacement is unstoppable. What will be the role of humans?

For the structurally unemployed and underemployed, it will be bleak future with limited options. Only those with highly specialized PhDs in fields that create, train and maintain AI, robotic and advanced scientific and technical systems may have a place in the world of hyper-automation. Contrary to popular belief that only predictable physical work is automatable, as narrow AI continues to master new niches, it will amass a superset of capabilities that will not only replace tasks but holistic job functions. There is no senior executive, policymaker or subject matter expert that will be safe.

Scott explores the limitations of universal basic income and taxing robots. Instead, he proposes a vastly different, out-of-the-box solution called the Human Currency. It’s a global economy and a cryptocurrency based on human-to-human empathy services. Moreover, it has the resiliency and sustainability built into the system to ensure the viability of the human race for centuries to come.

Scott emphasizes the need to pursue job training and labor force development in human-to-human services that leverage our ability to empathize with the human condition. The empathy business models and services will become the bedrock of post Fourth Industrial Revolution.