The AI Investment Landscape: Insights from the Builders, Dreamers, and Decision-Makers (June 2024)
CMU Tech & Entrepreneurship was on the official lineup of events for NY Tech Week 2024 on June 4th, 2024, featuring a panel discussion of all Carnegie Mellon alumni with perspectives from two startup founders (Arman Hezarkhani & Jeremy Toeman), an academic researcher (Zhou Yu), and a VC investor (Phil Bronner). The panel was moderated by Steven Guo, President of CMU Tech & Entrepreneurship. Panelist Bios available below.
https://www.cmute.io/
Panelist Bios:
Arman Hezarkhani (Builder): Arman is the Founder of Parthean, focused on personal finance education for young professionals. In his current role, he's using transformers to make money easier for people, has raised $2.8M, hired a small team, and more. Before this, he studied Electrical & Computer Engineering (ECE) at CMU, started two other startups, taught at CMU, and worked with Google. (CIT 19’ BS in Electrical & Computer Engineering)
Learn more about Parthean at https://www.parthean.com
Jeremy Toeman (Builder): Jeremy is the Founder & CEO of Aug X Labs and is passionate about the intersection of media and technology. His startup makes Augie, an AI Assistant that seamlessly blends user-owned content, stock media, and AI effects to automatically craft captivating marketing videos. Jeremy's career spans 25+ years in the field, with recent VP experiences at WarnerMedia, Joyn, and CBS Interactive, as well as startups such as Sling Media and Dijit. (DC 96’ BS in Business & Economics)
Learn more about Augie at https://www.augxlabs.com
Zhou Yu (Dreamer): Zhou is an Associate Professor at the Computer Science Department in Columbia University. She is also a co-founder of Articulate.ai which centers its efforts on harnessing the power of Conversational and Generative AI to empower and shape the future landscape of the workspace. She was featured on Forbes 30 under 30 in Science in 2018. Her team also won the 2018 Amazon Alexa Socialbot Competition. Her team’s work on Persuasive Dialog Systems also won the ACL 2019 best paper nomination. (SCS 17’ PhD Computer Science)
Learn more about Articulate.ai at https://articulateai.com/
Phil Bronner (Decision-Maker): Phil is Co-founder and Managing Partner of Ardent Venture Partners, an early-stage venture fund investing in B2B fintech, marketplaces, and vertical SaaS+. Throughout his 15-year career, he has led 16 investments totaling over $100 million with prior roles as Founder/Managing Member of Summer League Ventures and General Partner at Novak Biddle Venture Partners. (SCS 92’ BS in Computer Science)
Learn more about Ardent Venture Partners at https://www.ardent.vc/
Moderated by Steven Guo (Facilitator): Steven is the President of CMU Tech & Entrepreneurship, which is building the infrastructure to support a community of thousands of Tartans across the tech and entrepreneurship continuum with programming, connection, and opportunity. He previously was at LifeX supporting an accelerator for early-stage health tech and life science startups in Pittsburgh and is passionate about building startup ecosystems with an interest in scaling social impact and social innovation. (DC 18’ BS in Decision Science)
소셜 리스닝
Meet the Tech Prodigy Breaking the US Education System
Arman Hezarkhani is the founder and CEO of Parthean, a fast-growing eduction tech startup backed by legendary investor Pejman Nozad, Morning Brew’s Alex Lieberman, and Litquidity. OUTLINE 0:00 Context 0:51 Early days 2:00 How a trip to Iran changed his life 4:23 Persian resilience 5:49 Co-founder breakups 6:50 Startup pivots 9:42 Handling struggles 11:03 Startup accelerator truths 12:03 Legendary VC Pejman Nozad 15:04 Morning Brew's Alex Lieberman 16:22 Mentors 17:20 US education system 18:32 3 Way to fix US education 22:58 Parents 26:03 Relationships 27:35 Love 29:47 Advice for young people ARMAN & PARTHEAN LINKS: - Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/ArmanHezarkhani - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ahez/ - Website: https://www.parthean.com/ FOLLOW ME: - Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bahram_t/ - TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@bahram_t - Twitter: https://twitter.com/bahram_t - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bahramt/ Topics: startups, startup pivot, tech accelerators, Y Combinator, pivoting, Iran, edtech, technology, venture capital, tech, education technology, podcast, interview, school, education #startup #entrepreneur #education #edtech #iran #venturecapital #vc #tech #technology #college #podcast #interview #yc, #startups #ideas #school
The AI Investment Landscape: Insights from the Builders, Dreamers, and Decision-Makers (June 2024)
CMU Tech & Entrepreneurship was on the official lineup of events for NY Tech Week 2024 on June 4th, 2024, featuring a panel discussion of all Carnegie Mellon alumni with perspectives from two startup founders (Arman Hezarkhani & Jeremy Toeman), an academic researcher (Zhou Yu), and a VC investor (Phil Bronner). The panel was moderated by Steven Guo, President of CMU Tech & Entrepreneurship. Panelist Bios available below. https://www.cmute.io/ Panelist Bios: Arman Hezarkhani (Builder): Arman is the Founder of Parthean, focused on personal finance education for young professionals. In his current role, he's using transformers to make money easier for people, has raised $2.8M, hired a small team, and more. Before this, he studied Electrical & Computer Engineering (ECE) at CMU, started two other startups, taught at CMU, and worked with Google. (CIT 19’ BS in Electrical & Computer Engineering) Learn more about Parthean at https://www.parthean.com Jeremy Toeman (Builder): Jeremy is the Founder & CEO of Aug X Labs and is passionate about the intersection of media and technology. His startup makes Augie, an AI Assistant that seamlessly blends user-owned content, stock media, and AI effects to automatically craft captivating marketing videos. Jeremy's career spans 25+ years in the field, with recent VP experiences at WarnerMedia, Joyn, and CBS Interactive, as well as startups such as Sling Media and Dijit. (DC 96’ BS in Business & Economics) Learn more about Augie at https://www.augxlabs.com Zhou Yu (Dreamer): Zhou is an Associate Professor at the Computer Science Department in Columbia University. She is also a co-founder of Articulate.ai which centers its efforts on harnessing the power of Conversational and Generative AI to empower and shape the future landscape of the workspace. She was featured on Forbes 30 under 30 in Science in 2018. Her team also won the 2018 Amazon Alexa Socialbot Competition. Her team’s work on Persuasive Dialog Systems also won the ACL 2019 best paper nomination. (SCS 17’ PhD Computer Science) Learn more about Articulate.ai at https://articulateai.com/ Phil Bronner (Decision-Maker): Phil is Co-founder and Managing Partner of Ardent Venture Partners, an early-stage venture fund investing in B2B fintech, marketplaces, and vertical SaaS+. Throughout his 15-year career, he has led 16 investments totaling over $100 million with prior roles as Founder/Managing Member of Summer League Ventures and General Partner at Novak Biddle Venture Partners. (SCS 92’ BS in Computer Science) Learn more about Ardent Venture Partners at https://www.ardent.vc/ Moderated by Steven Guo (Facilitator): Steven is the President of CMU Tech & Entrepreneurship, which is building the infrastructure to support a community of thousands of Tartans across the tech and entrepreneurship continuum with programming, connection, and opportunity. He previously was at LifeX supporting an accelerator for early-stage health tech and life science startups in Pittsburgh and is passionate about building startup ecosystems with an interest in scaling social impact and social innovation. (DC 18’ BS in Decision Science)