The Future of Everything: Matt Turck

Jan 21, 2018

7

min read

M

att Turck, Managing Director of FirstMark Capital, invests across a broad range of early-stage enterprise and consumer startups.

Prior to FirstMark, he was a Managing Director at Bloomberg Ventures, the investment and incubation arm of Bloomberg LP, which he helped start. Previously, Matt was the co-founder of TripleHop Technologies, a venture-backed enterprise search software startup that was acquired by Oracle.

Matt is passionate about building communities, and organizes two large monthly events, Data Driven NYC (which focuses on data-driven startups, Big Data and AI) and Hardwired NYC (which focuses on the Internet of Things, AR/VR, drones, and other emerging technologies).

Matt graduated from Sciences-Po (IEP) Paris and holds a master of law (LL.M.) from Yale Law School. He is a prolific blogger at mattturck.com ;)

1. How did you get started in the wonderful world of VC?

I started my career in technology by co-founding an enterprise software company, focused on search and classification of enterprise documents and other forms of unstructured data using Bayesian methods — interestingly, an area that now feels very current, with the whole current AI craze. The company had a good outcome as it was acquired by Oracle after 5 years, but experienced a fair amount of ups and downs before that — building enterprise software in New York in the nuclear winter that followed the burst of the Internet Bubble wasn’t exactly easy, and this has given me deep empathy for the challenges entrepreneurs experience on a daily basis. After a tour of duty at Oracle, I left to help start Bloomberg Ventures, the first investment and incubation effort of Bloomberg LP. About 4.5 years ago now, I joined FirstMark, which has become the largest early stage New York VC firm, and has been an amazing place.

2. What is your methodology for defining and selecting the companies and entrepreneurs who are going to create the future?

It’s a little bit of a cliche in the VC world, but for me it comes down to having a prepared mind. While by design I’m a generalist, I have a couple of broad “majors” where I spend a lot of my time — one being “the world of data” (Big Data, AI, data-driven businesses) and the other “frontier tech” (emerging computing platforms). In those areas, I do a tremendous amount of homework — including doing annual landscapes (Big Data/AI and Internet of Things), and running large communities (Data Driven NYC, Hardwired NYC) where every month I feature 7 or 8 speakers that are amongst the most prominent in those industries, a very unique source of insights for me. But for all the preparation, ultimately you have to be willing to have an entrepreneur walk into the room and change your mind about something. One of the hardest part of the VC job is to be able to suspend disbelief and jump into an entrepreneurial journey when all the work you’ve done has well alerted you to all the perils and reasons why it might not work.

3. From an investors standpoint, being the one who gets to invest in the “future of everything”, what can we expect to see in a 5–10–15 year timeline?

As much as things have changed since the Internet emerged some 20-odd years ago, we’re just getting started. We’re still at the beginning of an exponential technology-driven acceleration where everything will continue changing at an unprecedented pace. Some of it is just the continuation and acceleration of trends that have been afoot for decades, like eCommerce which is still a tiny part of overall commerce. Some of it is all the futuristic stuff (AI, robots, etc) that suddenly is not feeling that futuristic anymore; or entirely new paradigms like the blockchain and crypto currencies. Plenty to be excited about.

Over the next few years, the major limitation to progress is not going to be related to technology or business; it’s going to be a question of political and social acceptance. It’s a tremendous time to be an entrepreneur or investor or in tech in general — but it’s not as fun if you’re on the receiving end of the disruption, to say the least. Things are going to be messy on that front, and it’s an area where we need to be collectively very thoughtful.

4. What themes, trends, or sectors are you primarily interested in and why?

Within the broad themes I mentioned above (world of data and frontier tech), I’m particularly interested in a bunch of sub-themes like vertical/enterprise applications of AI, the intersection of bio/healthcare and software, blockchain applications, etc. There are also other segments I find super interesting, but hard to invest in, such as the Internet of Things, robotics, 3D printing, AR/VR, material sciences, space tech — lots of smart people working on really interesting companies there, but really early across the board and rapid cycles of hype and disillusionment… but I definitely want to do more there over time. Finally, beyond those two major areas, I spend time in a variety of other domains, including: enterprise software in general, developer tools, creative tools and platforms and the “world of work.”

5. What moonshot are you most excited to see solved?

Curing cancer.

6. What problem or challenge is under-funded and why? What sector needs more attention?

I’ve been fascinated about the globalization of entrepreneurship, and I think a tremendous amount of good could come out of more tech investment in under-served parts of the world, like Africa, some parts of the middle-East, etc.

7. What is the role of venture capital in creating the future? What responsibility does VC have to help improve the lives of others, and ultimately the world?

As a VC, I think it’s crucial to realize that your job is to empower entrepreneurs, not define the future.

You certainly have an impact by being a gatekeeper of sorts, but the entrepreneurs are the ones that are (and should be) driving the bus. The best founders are incredible domain experts and deeply passionate about a very specific problem they’ve been thinking about for years. As an investor, your role is to recognize that unusual talent and vision and then empower and support them.

Regarding your second question on responsibility: it’s a topic I think about a lot, especially in connection with investments in areas like AI, where the potential impact on jobs is very clear. The cynical view is that the responsibility of VCs is to return as much capital as possible to their LP investors. So from that perspective, the key driver to an investment decision should not be to create a better future — there’s a real danger in funding companies because “they need to exist in the world,” as you sometimes hear.

The good news is that there are great companies out there that both have tremendous business/return potential but also have a very strong positive impact — I’m proud of our recent investment in MissionU, for example. Also I think that investing in categories of founders that are under-represented (female, minorities, immigrants, etc.) is just good business as they have to clear more hurdles to just get to where they are. So there are various ways good business and a better world align nicely.

8. What company or investment in your portfolio are you most excited about and why?

It’s a little bit like asking which child you like best (laughs), but I’m excited that FirstMark put together a very strong portfolio around the key emerging themes I outlined above, including AI/machine learning (HyperScience, x.ai, Dataiku, etc.), self-driving vehicles (Optimus Ride), computational genomics (Phosphorus) and IoT (Helium, ROLI, etc.)