Jon Sakoda
Jon Sakoda is the Founding Partner of Decibel Partners, an independent venture capital firm that focuses on early-stage technology companies. He has a background as an entrepreneur and venture capitalist, having previously served as a general partner at New Enterprise Associates, where he led investments in the consumer internet and enterprise software sectors.
Before his venture capital career, Jon co-founded IMlogic, Inc., where he held the roles of Chief Technology Officer and Vice President of Products until its acquisition by Symantec Corporation. He also worked in the private equity group at Goldman Sachs, investing in software, internet, and communications sectors.
Jon graduated from Harvard College and is known for his commitment to helping startups identify their unique advantages. He is also passionate about spending time with his family and exploring new adventures together.123
Highlights
I am excited to share the latest episode of “Founders Helping Founders” with Dmitri Alperovitch (@DAlperovitch) Co-Founder and Former CTO of Crowdstrike, one of the most valuable cybersecurity companies in our industry
Like a lot of success stories, the founding story of Crowdstrike is often misunderstood
Early on it was not a product or story that appealed to the masses, and nobody had the budget for a new endpoint security solution
Dmitri gives the masterclass in finding early product-market fit by combining elite consulting services with an end-to-end product, a formula which has resulted in a company that today has a >$50 B market cap
Along the way we had a chance to touch on the influence of Jay Chaudhry (founder of CipherTrust and Zscaler), Paul Judge (@pauljudge, founder of CipherTrust and Pindrop), Kevin Mandia (founder of Mandiant), Heather Adkins (founding member of Google's security team), Dave DeWalt (CEO of McAfee and FireEye), and many other notable figures in our industry who were instrumental in his career
I hope you all enjoy the show! (link below)
Decibel and Latent Space (@FanaHOVA and @swyx, @latentspacepod) hosted our first Sovereign AI Summit in Singapore this week and were excited to connect with the largest sovereign investors, major cloud providers, and government leaders in the region. Singapore is one of the first countries to create a comprehensive National AI Strategy, accelerating the awareness and adoption of AI throughout the country while also implementing regulations for its responsible use.
Sovereign AI is a term popularized by Jensen Huang that describes the national importance of mission critical AI infrastructure, including access to high performance compute, sustainable energy sources, and state of the art foundation models. These resources are key to improving workforce productivity, industrial competitiveness, and digital resiliency in a world that is rapidly embracing AI to drive economic growth. Singapore is a thought leader in this increasingly important field, and is further ahead as a country in implementing its AI strategy than many Fortune 500 companies.
Modern AI and LLMs are technologies made more powerful when we share our knowledge in a common language. Many thanks to our guest of honor Dr Ruimin He (@heruimin), Singapore’s Chief AI Officer and Deputy CTO for sharing your wisdom with our group - we are grateful to all who joined us in our inaugural forum and look forward to seeing you all again soon!