Podcast appearances and mentions of brian brackeen

Although notoriously known as the King of Spicy Tweets, Brian Brackeen, seasoned entrepreneur and General Partner at Lightship Capital, has built a track record of raising billions in support of Black businesses and entrepreneurs, making waves that resonate far beyond the confines of 280 characters. In this interview, Brian Brackeen provides an intimate look into his journey as he recounts the pivotal moment of his removal as CEO, offering profound insights into the distinctive challenges encountered by Black founders. Brian also discusses the crucial theme of legal preparedness, stressing the importance of contracts and protections for founders, especially those from underrepresented communities, to fortify themselves against unjust removals from their own ventures. This episode is a must-listen for anyone seeking inspiration, legal wisdom, and a deeper understanding of the journey toward a more equitable tech industry. Tune in for a dynamic exploration of Brian Brackeen's remarkable journey and his impactful contributions to the tech and startup ecosystem. KEY POINTS  (1:21) - Brian's role at Lightship Capital and his journey from Philly to Apple and IBM  (4:05) - Brian on his move to the Miami startup ecosystem for venture capital raising  (8:33) - Starting Kairos: how it shifted from a time clock company to facial recognition technology  (10:03) - How to best structure a board and fortify yourself as a founder  (12:10) - Brian on the day of his removal from the Kairos board (14:13) - Bridging disparities in legal preparation, transparency, and support for Black founders (17:29) - Fostering transparency and shedding light on inappropriate board removals (19:41) - Brian on the privilege of having safety nets for white vs minority founders  (21:32) - The origins of Black Tech Week in providing opportunities & resources for Black entrepreneurs  (25:03) - The origin story of Candice & Brian Brackeen and 6 years of building their legacy (27:55) - Creating visibility & opportunities, and featuring the stories of Black founders through Black Tech Week  (31:42) - What's next for Brian Brackeen and Black Tech Week? QUOTABLES  “One of the problems of venture and startups in general is that it's highly designed for the young white male founder.” - Brian Brackeen “Unfortunately, one of the worst parts of my job is I probably take between 8 and 12 calls a year, every year, from a founder who has been inappropriately removed asking me for my help.” - Brian Brackeen RESOURCES Brian Brackeen Twitter | @BrianBrackeen  IG | @lightship.capital Linkedin | @brianbrackeen [APPLICATIONS OPEN!] | Are you building a high growth business in tech healthcare, AI, media entertainment, or consumer goods and services? If so, we'd like to help you scale. Don't miss your chance to win $1 million, capital coaching, and access to an amazing community of diverse innovators! Apply for the 2024 Black Ambition Prize competition now  Felecia Hatcher IG | @feleciahatcher Black Ambition IG | @blackambitionprize So Ambitious is produced by EPYC Media 

Innovation ecosystems — places where companies and anchor institutions cluster and connect with startups, incubators, and smaller accelerators — are far from a new urban trend. As technology has become core to our economy in the past few decades, big coastal cities like Boston, San Francisco, and Seattle have become big tech innovation ecosystems, attracting more and more talented workers, startups, and investment capital from across the country and the world every year.  Despite all the growth spurred by these tech-based innovation ecosystems, the resources and the capital haven't been shared equitably with existing communities. Additionally, as we've seen in these big coastal cities, the creation of housing hasn't kept up with the influx of workers — causing prices to skyrocket and creating new challenges for lower-income groups and people of color. But there's a new global trend happening to intentionally plan innovation ecosystems in a way that still brings the advantages of economic opportunity and jobs, while also attempting to share the benefits more broadly. In this episode, we explore this new generation of innovation ecosystems that could not only spark economic growth, but offset some of the urban development approaches that have left too many neighborhoods behind. In this episode: [0:00 - 5:50] Phil Armstrong, executive director of Greenwood Rising Black Wall Street History Center, and Trey Thaxton, entrepreneur and owner of the Tulsa-based Goldmill Co. and Greenwood Ave. cover the history of Tulsa, Oklahoma, and what tomorrow could look like with a new innovation ecosystem in place. [5:51 - 10:33] The podcast hosts Vanessa Quirk and Eric Jaffe discuss Innovation Ecosystems and how a mixed-use innovation ecosystem in neighborhoods might benefit from the opportunities by staying in their communities as well as generating wealth over time. [10:34 - 22:16] Landon Taylor, co-founder of Legacy First Partners, and Victor MacFarlane, founder and CEO of MacFarlane Partners, explain their vision for the Freedom West that will allow the residents to have access to job training, entrepreneurship training, and access to capital to allow them to participate in the 21st-century economy. [22:17 - 29:03] Randy Wiggins, founding managing director of Build in Tulsa, and Brian Brackeen, general partner of Lightship Capital strives to build Tulsa as the most Black entrepreneur-centric ecosystem in the country and in the world. To see images and videos of topics discussed in this episode, read the link-rich transcript on our Sidewalk Talk Medium page at https://bit.ly/3DdhNKL City of the Future is hosted by Eric Jaffe and Vanessa Quirk, and produced by Guglielmo Mattioli. Story editing by Rough Cut Collective and Benjamin Walker. Mix is by Andrew Callaway. Art is by Tim Kau. Our music is composed by Adaam James Levin-Areddy of Lost Amsterdam. Special thanks to Phil Armstrong, Trey Thaxton, Landon Taylor, Randy Wiggins, Brian Brackeen, Alison Novak, Jesse Shapins, and Chrystal Dean.

3:00 - Career Journey and Early Lessons (Chris Adamo)5:09 - Working at 1-800-Flowers6:55 - Opportunities8:00 - Mindset Practice/Second Nature8:36 - Career Change9:54 - First Job Shift / Startup Scene in Miami11:40 - Hardest part in getting into Startup13:04 - Why is Miami so Special15:32 - Story of Colorful Shirts17:27 - Key Lesson taught by Chris Dad18:30 - Chris Legacy19:18 - Chris's North Star21:19 - Max's Introduction23:33 - Brian's Introduction25:00 - Why Miami is so great overall26:36 - Saturation Point28:46 - What is Miami missing out on?31:33 - Secret Sauce / Team Work and Culture34:48 - Opportunities in Miami38:54 - Keeping the Passion strong in remote work39:49 - Go-to Interview Questions (Soft skills)44:29 - How to pay forward47:06 - Brian's Best Mentor48:50 - Miami in 10 years51:55 - Greatest Piece of advice  

Brian Brackeen, the founder and former CEO of facial recognition startup Kairos, has made his way back to the company following his ouster in 2018. Brackeen is now chairing the company's scientific advisory board, where he'll help to address and eliminate issues of racial bias from the technology.

Brian Brackeen, the founder and former CEO of facial recognition startup Kairos, has made his way back to the company following his ouster in 2018. Brackeen is now chairing the company’s scientific advisory board, where he’ll help to address and eliminate issues of racial bias from the technology.

Candice Matthews Brackeen is looking outside of typical Silicon Valley circles for the next billion-dollar company. She’s a general partner at Lightship Capital, which raised a $50 million fund last summer that’s focused on companies from the Midwest that have Black, Indigenous or People of Color (BIPoC) founders. “Right now we’re trying to build the best portfolio possible to return capital to the LPs,” she said on the Modern Retail Podcast. Matthews Brackeen first got the investing bug when she began working with startups in the Cincinnati area. She had difficulty raising money for her own company, and made a group for other Black entrepreneurs to talk shop. This group gave proof to how difficult the landscape was for non-white founders. With that, she launched an accelerator program five years ago. Slowly but surely, those experiences led helped Matthews Brackeen launch a venture capital fund. On the podcast, she talked about how the investing landscape has changed over the last year. Following last summer’s Black Lives Matters protest, funds like hers began to get more noticed. Institutional investors began reaching out looking for funds in which they can participate. “We’re not a social impact fund, but there are investors who are involved with us for a social impact reason,” she said. Part of her role as at Lightship involves helping both portfolio companies and other investors. Matthews Brackeen and her spouse, fellow Lightship co-founder Brian Brackeen, have spent weeks living nearby to founders to get a sense for their daily rhythms. They would have portfolio companies come out to Cincinnati or Miami and spend time together -- eating all meals together and spending most of the daylight hours working on business development. “I think that it’s important that we break down those barriers,” she said. “That’s the way that we grow relationships with our founders.” Over the years, Matthews Brackeen has also found herself to both a liaison and a teacher at both ends of the table. She’s instructed other VCs about their invisible biases, and coached founders about presentation styles. “Not only are we teaching our LPs, but we’re teaching our founders, like, how to have grace when people screw up,” she said. Ultimately, it’s about positioning Lightship as a fund that should be considered alongside every other top VC firm. “I want to be a VC,” she said. “I don’t want to be a Black VC.”

For far too long, implicit bias and systemic racism have created huge gaps in the VC and startup world —favoring white, male founders, while ignoring the brilliant minds of so many others in our diverse world. The data is out there but yet we still aren't seeing capital deployed to the underrepresented. As a former tech founder himself and a relentless advocate for underrepresented founders, Brian Brackeen has witnessed the difficulties of raising capital while black and has made it his mission to provide meaningful mentorship and funding in and outside Silicon Valley. Last year, Brian, alongside his wife and co-General Partner, Candice, launched Lightship Capital, a first-of-its-kind $50 million venture fund for underrepresented founders in the Midwest. The groundbreaking partnership with SecondMuse Capital will invest in early-stage startups launched by people of color, women, veterans, LGBTQ+ and people with disabilities in the Midwest and the South (“all the places other investors fly over or vacation in, including Miami,” Brian said). Their hope for the fund is to make the VC world accessible to all founders and to provide much-needed funding that allows minority-founded startups not only to survive, but to thrive, and to create a more equitable future. Join us in the first of our new series, Raising While Black, as we chat with Brian about his experiences as a black male founder and investor. This is one you won't want to miss!

Palm Beach Tech CEO, Joe Russo, and Johanna Mikkola, CEO & Co-Founder of Wyncode interview Brian Brackeen (General Partner @ Lightship Capital) on investing in underrepresented tech founders.

Brian Brackeen of Lightship Capital and Todd Khozein of SecondMuse join us for a new episode of Off the Sidelines, an investor education podcast.

Brian Brackeen of Lightship Capital and Todd Khozein of SecondMuse join us for a new episode of Off the Sidelines, an investor education podcast.

Greg interviews Brian Brackeen and Candice Matthews Brackeen on this first ever power duo episode!Candice studied economics and statistics but became an entrepreneur and built an app called Hello Parent, before working with an accelerator funding minority owned and operated startups and subsequently launching Lightship Capital.Brian has been a coder since he was 8 years old, and after dropping out of college worked for several major technology companies such as IBM, ADP, and Apple. Brian started and built a company called Kairos focused on facial recognition technology.Brian and Candice started Lightship Capital to provide growth capital to minority owned and operated businesses in the Midwest. They are fully subscribed and looking forward to launching Fund 2 down the road.

In this episode we talk to Brian and Candice Brackeen, Partners at Lightship Capital. Prior to becoming investors and co-founding their venture firm, Brian and Candice were entrepreneurs with first hand experience building, financing and raising funds for their respective companies. Join us as we talk to them about their latest $50 million dollar fund, which is considered to be the largest-ever VC fund to invest in Midwest in underrepresented founders including BIPOC (Black, Indigenous and People of Color), LGBTQ+, and people with disabilities working on artificial intelligence (AI), consumer packaged goods (CPG), sustainability, e-commerce, and healthcare. You can learn more about the fund and pitch Brian and Candice at www.Lightship.Capital and and by following them on twitter @brianbrackeen and @candicebrackeen. Show Notes and Links:The Grit by Angela Duckworth, Candice book reference. Undock, instantly schedule, host and document meetings with your network.FreshFry, Lightship Capital first investment under new fund. If you enjoy the show please leave us a review on iTunes and let us know which was your favorite part of the show.

Facial recognition startup Kairos, founded by Brian Brackeen, was one of the only companies in it's space with a black CEO, and it turned out to be their secret weapon... until the Trump Administration came knocking and wanted to use their ability to more accurately recognize illegal immigrants and deport them. Brian refused, but his board revolted and sued him to remove him as CEO. This is the story of a founder who refused to compromise on his values. This episode is brought to you by: SIEMENS is running a new, free webinar on July 29th at 2 pm ET called Building a sound, digital foundation for hardware startups. You can register here. Digital Ocean is a cloud provider that makes it easy for entrepreneurs and startups to deploy and scale web applications with no issues and unplanned costs. Get started for free at do.co/rocketship. Earth Class Mail scans and digitizes you physical mail and makes it available to you on mobile or desktop or even Google Drive or Dropbox. Rocketship listeners get 25% off their subscription for the first 3 months by going to earthclassmail.com/rocketship. Rocketship is brought to you by The Podglomerate. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today, I am joined by my friend Brian Brackeen, who is the general partner at Lightship Capital. Brian and I go way back in the #MiamiTech scene together. Brian was the co-founder and CEO of a facial recognition company called Kairos, that really pushed forward the whole space with some incredible innovations. In particular, Kairos really broke-ground by making a stance to never sell their technology to government or law enforcement for surveillance purposes due to the ramifications that it could cause. Now after moving on from Kairos, Brian is the General Partner of Lightship Capital, a $50M venture capital fund that is focused on investing in minority-led startups.In this episode, Brian and I discuss recent events and the importance of this moment. After the murder of George Floyd at the hands of police officers in Minneapolis, there has been a huge demand to see real change across our nation, primarily with racism and the plight that Black American's across our country have to deal with on a daily basis. Racism exists in many forms and through many different communities. Unfortunately, Brian has first hand experience dealing with systemic racism in the startup and venture capital space, and he recently wrote an article called “Some Of My Fellow Venture Capitalist Are Racists. Here Is How You Fix It” which I thought was absolutely eye opening.After reading that article, I asked if Brian would come onto the show to give more about his perspective as a Black founder turned venture capitalist, to have some difficult conversations about the racism that exists in those spaces, and what actionable steps we can do as a community to help.I’m incredibly grateful for this conversation, and I hope you get as much value out of it as I did.Find Brian Brackeen:Twitter: https://twitter.com/BrianBrackeenLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brianbrackeen/Lightship Capital: https://www.lightship.capital/Check out Brian's latest article: Some Of My Fellow Venture Capitalists Are Racists. Here is How You Fix It.

Brian Brackeen didn't know he was an entrepreneur until later in life. He was adopted at an early age by loving parents who supported his decision to drop out of college, leave a big job at Apple, and eventually start his own company Kairos.   Juan Pablo was part of the group of early Angel investors in Kairos and has unequivocally supported Brian over the past 8 years. Brian founded Kairos in 2012.  His leadership saw Kairos selected by Wall Street Journal as one of 2013's top 25 startups in the country.  Growth and innovation within the company and in the face and emotion recognition space continued until he was forced out of the company in 2018.  Brian then went on to launch Lightship Capital the Cincinnati based venture capital fund that works to support of underrepresented, early-stage, transformational businesses. Brian is responsible for fund operations, entrepreneurial training, and leadership of the AI team.   Lightship Capital has already garnered attention from important publications such a the Wall Street Journal https://www.wsj.com/articles/lightship-capital-launches-fund-for-underrepresented-founders-in-the-midwest-11593165601In the tech world Juan Pablo is known as one of the partners of Patagon.com, one of the first on-line banks that was bought by Banco Santander for more than US$700 million. Juan Pablo has co-founded Idea.me, Miami Angels, the Lab Miami, Lab Ventures & Wonder (purchased in 2020 by Atari). He also publishes a widely read column on the TecnoLatino https://latamlist.com/author/jpcappello/ and continues advising entrepreneurs in the region from PAGLaw https://www.pag.lawThe podcast “Aqui & Ahora” asks: What are the leaders of the TecnoLatino doing “here & now”? How are they facing the changes and challenges we are living? “Aqui & Ahora” offers tips for entrepreneurs, investors and supporters of the TecnoLatino.[As noted in the podcast PAG Law represented Brian related to his exit from Kairos.   Juan Pablo is not a litigator and did not advise on that work.  Anyone with a different version of events is more than invited to reach out to Juan Pablo.  He is open to putting them on the podcast if they are willing to have an honest conversation.]Sponsored by PAGLaw

Brian Mackeen is creating a real Wakanda by investing in black and brown entrepreneurs all across the country. As a successful founder of an AI company, Kairos, Brian knows what it takes to be a successful start-up while black.

Dawn and Kairos Founder/CEO Brian Brackeen have an epic convo on IG Live about building the right team for your startup. They discuss their own experiences and answer questions from listeners.

The post E854: Kairos CEO & Co-founder Brian Brackeen on innovating in facial recognition, processing over a billion faces, raising $30m via token sale, the dream & dystopia of AI, the persistence of racial profiling, & why he won’t sell his technology to law enforcement appeared first on This Week In Startups.

The post E854: Kairos CEO & Co-founder Brian Brackeen on innovating in facial recognition, processing over a billion faces, raising $30m via token sale, the dream & dystopia of AI, the persistence of racial profiling, & why he won’t sell his technology to law enforcement appeared first on This Week In Startups.

On this week’s If Then, Will Oremus and April Glaser talk to Dr. Guadalupe Correa-Cabrera, a professor of political science and policy at George Mason University and an expert on immigration and security at the U.S.-Mexico border. They discuss how technology contractors benefit from working with the government to carry out its immigration policies — while others suffer from the ever-broadening surveillance state. And they examine the concept of a “virtual border wall,” and what that might look like in reality. The hosts are then joined by Brian Brackeen, CEO of a face recognition company called Kairos. Kairos provides face recognition technology to businesses, but Brackeen warns that putting that same kind of software and data in the hands of law enforcement is a very bad idea. Oremus and Glaser ask him why that is, and what he sees as the more appropriate uses for a controversial cutting-edge technology. Podcast production by Max Jacobs. If Then plugs: You can get updates about what’s coming up next by following us on Twitter @ifthenpod. You can follow Will @WillOremus and April @Aprilaser. If you have a question or comment, you can email us at ifthen@slate.com. If Then is presented by Slate and Future Tense, a collaboration among Arizona State University, New America, and Slate. Future Tense explores the ways emerging technologies affect society, policy, and culture. To read more, follow us on Twitter and sign up for our weekly newsletter. Listen to If Then via Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify, Stitcher, or Google Play. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On this week’s If Then, Will Oremus and April Glaser talk to Dr. Guadalupe Correa-Cabrera, a professor of political science and policy at George Mason University and an expert on immigration and security at the U.S.-Mexico border. They discuss how technology contractors benefit from working with the government to carry out its immigration policies — while others suffer from the ever-broadening surveillance state. And they examine the concept of a “virtual border wall,” and what that might look like in reality. The hosts are then joined by Brian Brackeen, CEO of a face recognition company called Kairos. Kairos provides face recognition technology to businesses, but Brackeen warns that putting that same kind of software and data in the hands of law enforcement is a very bad idea. Oremus and Glaser ask him why that is, and what he sees as the more appropriate uses for a controversial cutting-edge technology. Podcast production by Max Jacobs. If Then plugs: You can get updates about what’s coming up next by following us on Twitter @ifthenpod. You can follow Will @WillOremus and April @Aprilaser. If you have a question or comment, you can email us at ifthen@slate.com. If Then is presented by Slate and Future Tense, a collaboration among Arizona State University, New America, and Slate. Future Tense explores the ways emerging technologies affect society, policy, and culture. To read more, follow us on Twitter and sign up for our weekly newsletter. Listen to If Then via Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify, Stitcher, or Google Play. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Sitting down with innovator and tech genius Brian Brackeen of Kairos about all things entrepreneurial on your way to  a billion dollar business. Follow me on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/kamikazekitten/ (https://www.instagram.com/kamikazekitten/) More info on Kairos http://www.kairos.com/?gclid=Cj0KCQjw8MvWBRC8ARIsAOFSVBUjqm2TQHw47kpIuglK9wSPPEGRI5bDZVD-pjF9sdlIJs5vcfRksiQaAgsmEALw_wcB  (http://www.kairos.com/?gclid=Cj0KCQjw8MvWBRC8ARIsAOFSVBUjqm2TQHw47kpIuglK9wSPPEGRI5bDZVD-pjF9sdlIJs5vcfRksiQaAgsmEALw_wcB)

002: Brian Brackeen - Founder at Kairos Inc “When you can give somebody hope… it doesn’t matter what their current situation is.” — Brian Brackeen In this episode of Innovation City we’re talking with Brian Brackeen, CEO and founder of Kairos, which was selected by The Wall Street Journal as one of 2013’s Top 25 Startups in the U.S. Brian leads Kairos’ senior management team, developing growth strategies that have established Kairos as a major innovator in face and emotion-recognition AI.

Brian talks about Kairos, blockchain, and if Disney's Black Panther is revolutionary. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Despite not having graduated college, Brian has worked for big corporations including Comcast, ADP, IBM and Apple before founding the facial recognition company Kairos. Today on the EO Podcast, Brian discusses the how Kairos was started, and explains how A.I. and facial recognition works for everything from movie screenings to cruise ships. Tune-in to learn how Brian handled the evolution of Kairos, his worries about the future of A.I., and his beliefs on privacy regulation in the tech world. Brian also explains his take on how he wasn’t “black enough” for Inc magazine. Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:07 – Brian is the founder and CEO of Kairos, an A.I. company focused on facial recognition, in 2012 01:28 – Selected by Wall Street Journal in 2013 as one of the top 25 start-ups, was previously a Senior PM for Apple, a senior managing consultant for IBM, and also worked for ADP and Comcast 02:17 – Also lectures on entrepreneurship, code, A.I., computer intelligence, digital economy, and participates in mentorship programs like “Girls who Code,” “Black Girls Code,” and through Miami’s school district 02:56 – What is the motivation behind getting so involved? 03:08 – Grandfather was Baptist preacher and was always giving back, this was engrained from young age 03:30 – Adopted at 6-8 months and was given great childhood so wants to show the same generosity, had Amish foster parents – ironic considering his career path 05:48 – He got poor grades but then went to Penn State...how? 6:25 – Got into a commuter version of Penn State but never graduated 06:42 – Ended up in Miami twice 07:50 – Was picked up by Apple despite not having a college degree because he could code and was senior level at the previous companies he worked for 08:20 – Believes higher education is not always necessary; it depends on degree 09:20 – Apple story: MobileMe had poor user experience, wasn’t a great product, and Steve held team meeting to ask everyone what MobileMe means to them. 11:40 – After hearing teams positive responses, Steve screams, “Then why the fuck doesn’t it do any of that?” 12:23 – Elevator story 13:00 – He was told to leave elevator if Steve gets in elevator with him because he was new and didn’t have a prepared answer to the inevitable, “What do you do here?” 14:16 – Kairos was started as a punch card system to combat “buddy-punching,” but quickly realized it was more of a facial recognition company 15:15 – He tells young entrepreneurs that whatever you are doing year 1 will be very different year 2 or 3 15:40 – You need to be able to see the signs of change and move the company until you find the perfect product market fit 16:03 – At first facial recognition was the biggest challenge, but once they got it the entire company changed; the product was strongly differentiated, increased in value, and providing it to enterprising companies changed everything 16:35 – 3 years in, the company pivoted to an entire focus on facial recognition for enterprise customers 16:45 – Kairos can be consumed in 2 ways: As an API and STKs/on premise solutions 18:30 – Kairos can focus on motion, age, gender, sentiment, ethnicity (and mixed ethnicity) 19:10 – Kairos can learn everything about a face and can tell you the % of ethnic groups in the face 19:40 – It wasn’t coded that way; A.I. learned the facial groups and human genealogy over time by itself 20:10 – A.I. is so powerful because it can find insights that we otherwise couldn’t see 20:45 – Scary/worrisome things about A.I. 21:08 – Implicit biases: Biases can be trained into the algorithm by mistake and it’ll be repeated over and over again at scale, this is worrisome 21:35 – Example of implicit biases: faucet sensor that was only trained with Asian or white hand, so the faucet wouldn’t work with African American hands 22:25 – Statistics on accuracy of Kairos’ facial recognition software 22:50 – Software can find 1 person in 1 billion in 1/30th of a second and they are 99.8% sure that person is who they think they are (based on photos) 23:30 – Any camera, any image, 70 pixels between the eyes (iPhone is 1000 pixels across) 24:15– Use cases 24:25 – Used by movie studios for audience emotion recognition and to determine the likes/dislikes of specific demographics 25:00 – Frictionless checkout: Being able to walk onto cruise ship without stopping because data is already in system and face is recognized upon entrance 25:20 – The retail experience: Walking in, grabbing what you want, looking into a camera, and card is automatically charged 25:40 – New uses: Automotive and health care industries: Doctor pulls up medical records with facial recognition and cars with emotion recognition to drive to users liking 26:45 – How can a child who ages over time still be recognized? 26:50 – Post-puberty: Certain spaces and bone structures won’t change with age or weight 27:27 – Issues with regulation, morality, privacy – Where is the line drawn? 28:10 – They are one of only companies that work closely with privacy regulation, they believe there should be consent or a relationship between company and scanned person in appropriate spaces 28:40 – Others in industry are anti-regulation (including Facebook) 29:28 –Has received $8.1 million in funding...how? 29:40 – Put in $250,000 himself, and the other $250,000 came from investors – this was in angel/idea phase 30:29 – The relationships he made were key in making it possible 31:20 – Had early customers and traction a year in with good projections 31:40 – $1.35 million in priced round, evaluation was $4 or $5 million 31:50 – Led by New World Angels with VCs 32:00 – He is a majority shareholder and the angel group and VCs are still involved and have reinvested 32:30 – 40% of company given away in equity; they have an employee option pool so some employees have equity 33:00 – Had a co-founder in the beginning, but as they got bigger she chose to move on 34:16 – “How black are you?” 98% 34:45 – He wrote “I’m not black enough for Inc Magazine” article 35:00 – He’s actually 15% Welch 35:15 – Inc magazine was following him around and interviewing people around him to do an article on him and African American entrepreneurship 35:56 – He got an email stating that the editor killed the story because he doesn’t represent the “archetype of a black entrepreneur” 36:20 – The person they wrote about instead had been to prison and had a rags-to-riches story 36:30 – His problem with their decision is that in their minds he and his background is not what an African American’s should be; when in fact the average African American is middle class 37:11 – Believes that we need to get past feeling the need to paint a negative narrative for African Americans   “Boxers or Briefs” segment The Matrix or I, Robot– The Matrix IBM or Apple – Apple End of human kind via A.I. or Meteor – Meteor Beyoncé or Shakira – Both Michael Buble or Michael Jackson – Michael Jackson Coffee or Tea – Tea Netflix & Chill or Dance Party – Netflix & Chill Snapchat or Text – Snapchat Email or Slack – Slack IPhone or Android – “PLEASE!” iPhone Dog or cat – Cat Miami heat or Philly snow with a side of cheesesteak – Philly snow...because of the cheesesteak 40:19 – Ethnicity test anyone can take: Website 40:45 – Test is free to grow awareness of what facial recognition can do and shows them what is possible, and system can get smarter from the tests 41:30 – Reach Brian via Twitter Dave closes the episode and encourages you to visit his website 3 Key Points: A college degree isn’t always necessary depending on the field and one’s ambition and willingness to self-teach. It is important to recognize your company’s necessary changes and evolution so you can find your perfect product market fit. Mentorship and transparency are important in the A.I. field to show people what is possible, open up the relationship between the company and the people involved, and understand when regulation is necessary. Resources Mentioned: Entrepreneur's Organization – The EO Network Kairos – Brian’s company New World Angels – Organization of angel investors “I’m not Black Enough for Inc Magazine” article written by Brian Credits: Show Notes provided by Melissa Valder

Brian Brackeen, Founder and CEO of Kairos, shares about how technology can help us better understand humanity, the startup scene in Miami, and the influence Steve Jobs and Apple on company culture. Full show notes: http://backstagecapital.com/missionandvalues/s2e1-kairos/

Brian Brackeen, Founder and CEO of Kairos, shares about how technology can help us better understand humanity, the startup scene in Miami, and the influence Steve Jobs and Apple on company culture. A Backstage Capital podcast.

Brian starts out with telling us about how his love for computing begin with his first Atari computer. He then talks to us about the various jobs he has before starting Kairos. Cecil ask Brian as what moment did he know it was the right time for him the launch a startup. Brian talks about Kairos, the problems they’re trying to solve and their vision for the future. Cecil ask Brian to share some of the interesting ways customers are making use of their APIs. Brian used to work for Apple during the Jobs era. Cecil asks Brian what he ...

Brian Brackeen didn't know he was an entrepreneur until much later in life. He was adopted at an early age by loving parents who supported his decision to drop out of college, leave a big job at Apple, and eventually start his own company. Despite having strong ties to Philly, Brian determined that the cost of living, cost of doing business, and access to capital made Miami the most compelling place to relocate his facial recognition and emotional analysis technology company, Kairos. Kairos is a VFA Company Partner in Miami with strong ties to the Miami entrepreneurial ecosystem. Kairos has managed several acquisitions and has over 9,000 customers around the world across a variety of sectors including medicine, events and retails. Listen to this week's episode to learn more about the fascinating world of facial recognition technology and how Kairos has helped reunite abducted children with their families.