S1EP07 - Bias Isn't Personal with Annie Brown

This is The Capital Flex. I'm Naseem Sayani. This show codifies the capital playbook because no founder should have to learn the hard way. We talk about what really happens behind closed doors, the bias, the breakthroughs, and the things no one says out loud. If you've ever walked into a room and felt the system wasn't built for you, you're in the right place. Hello and welcome to The Capital Flex. My guest today is Annie Brown. She is the founder and CEO of Reliance. Reliable, an AI infrastructure company providing software to improve accuracy and reduce bias in machine learning training. Reliable reached $600K in ARR within 10 months, which is tremendous. She's been building and growing this company in incredible ways. As an AI researcher at UC San Diego, she has published work at NeurIPS and ICML. She previously founded Lips. Which is when I met her, it's the company she was working on, a creative platform for women and LGBTQIA+ creators and grew to 50,000 users with that business. Brown's work has been featured in Forbes and Fast Company, and she has been invited to the White House and the UN in discussions on AI policy and online safety, which I think is tremendous. Annie and I met 3 years ago at the Women's Venture Summit when we were both on a panel to talk about Vices. And the things that get into term sheets when funds are raising capital from their LPs and will limit sometimes what funds can do when they write checks. We had a ruckus conversation and said all the things out loud, which was fantastic. And we have been fast friends ever since. So I am so excited that you're here. Thank you for joining me on the pod today, Annie.

Oh, it's wonderful to be here. I, I've love, I love this topic. As you know, I could talk about it for hours and days, so I'm, I'm excited to, to chat.

I love it. I love it. So I would love for our listeners if you shared a little bit more on you, your background, and tell us more about Reliable.

Sure. So yeah, I, I am an AI bias researcher and the founder and CEO of Reliable. As you mentioned, we're, you know, where a lot of companies I think are trying to address machine learning gaps and biases from the data layer, like just pumping more and more data into it. What's really ignored is how important the data labeling layer is, like that layer before it actually goes out to production. And so what Reliable does is we have a platform and also software that allows us to bring in user insights into the machine learning training pipeline, which then brings a lot more diverse perspective into something that is being labeled. One thing that, you know, we've talked about was how a really good example is like women's pregnancy image is get labeled as explicit or adult content by AI classifiers and even by human labelers. But if you have people that have actually experienced pregnancy, you know, or, or who are in the women's health field labeling those answers or labeling those datasets, you'll get much different output. So, so yeah, so that's, that's what we're working on. And we are currently working with large companies, nonprofits across model evaluations and consumer AI, health AI, automotive. So anywhere where AI is kind of moving into this more contextual space and requires more nuance and understanding and I guess diverse perspectives in order to get it right. That's, that's the type of AI that we jump in and, and help with.

It's really, really incredible. If you could, just so everyone listening has a, just a little bit better understanding of the use case, when you're working with a large company, how do they integrate Reliable into their workflow? Where does it fit? Where does it show up?

Yeah, so there's two ways. So one, we have a backend platform, so they log in, sign up, create a Reliable account, and they can upload all of their data or connect their data wherever it lives— is AWS, Azure— they connect all of that and then start doing labeling, even bring our annotator pools in. So that's the, that's the backend. But then the frontend piece of it is that we also have a widget, so you can actually install Reliable into your site wherever people are uploading data. So if it's a form, one of our customers is a skincare company for melanated skin called Ozaz, and they actually just integrated us into their skincare survey. So as people are labeling their skin tone, labeling their skin conditions, all of that comes back into the reliable backend, and then they can use all of those annotations to actually train their machine learning.

Oh, it's fantastic. It sounds like high impact, high value technology that every brand needs and would use and would help them make their product more searchable. More sellable and make marketplaces work in faster, better ways.

Yeah. Well, every brand everywhere is where we're, what we're working on, but one, one company at a time. But yeah, no, it's, it's, it's great because I think a lot of people think about bias as something that's just a social impact thing, but in AI, reducing bias actually improves your accuracy and improves the, you know, customer experience of your AI. So we're able to do impact as well as you know, up the certain KPIs of our customers too.

Yeah. Yeah. No, that's great. That's great. And I want, I wanted to add that little bit because the focus of this podcast is fundraising and the really fun experiences that women, people of color, non-binary people have when they go to market trying to raise money for fantastic companies and tech platforms that bring value and add a lot of great things to great companies to help them increase value, have more revenue, et cetera, et cetera. And yet we have really hard times raising money. So I get a lot of great stories, hard stories, uh, from the founder community on the things that happen and wanted to surface them and talk about them out loud and bring some visibility because we talk about it in, you know, hushed corners and in the corners of conferences. And people call me and text me with the things that happen and I said, we just need to talk about it and, and make sure that founders don't feel like they're alone or that it's happening to them or that it's personal or has anything to do with their credibility. but that it is a system problem. Uh, and then also give the founder ecosystem a toolkit and a way to respond and a way to walk into rooms and feel more confident when these things happen so that they can navigate fundraising in better ways. And so you and I have talked a lot about some of the things that you have been through as you, when, when you were building Lips and then when you transitioned to building Reliable. And I would love, before we dig in to some of the things, if you had to characterize your fundraising experience. In 3 words, what 3 words would you use?

I would use, I guess, 2 words sort of come to mind. Eye-opening, I would say, would be kind of the 2 words I would use, just because I come from a gender studies background. So I've actually, you know, literally researched and, you know, studied the presence of gender discrimination in our society. And I have never in my life experienced such blatant sexism as when I started doing VC. And I think for me it's, you know, I look at it from both like the, the social sciences person that finds this fascinating that this is happening. And then I also, from the founder that is discouraged and, and, and even though I know about the mechanisms that are causing this and I know that's a systemic problem, the problem with discrimination is it's still hurts your confidence, your, like, personhood. And so those are kind of the two things I'm balancing. Like, you know, I see it from, wow, this is very interesting perspective, and I see it from the, wow, this really hurts perspective. Right.

I understand both of those things because it's hard to believe, and yet you have studied it for a long time, and it has to be mind-blowing that it's so apparent and so deeply ingrained in an ecosystem like this. That is focused on innovation, that's meant to be about new things and breaking new ground, which is a feel— must feel like a contradiction. So take us, take us into it. Take us through some of the things that have happened.

Yeah. Well, I think, you know, I was actually just talking with about this on the phone with my mom the other day, cuz my mom has been very supportive while I do all of this. And she's kind of the person I go to where I'm like, man, I had another one of those awful meetings. But something that she said is like, wow, not a lot has changed in the past 5 years since you've, you know, started doing startups. And I said, yeah, not, not a lot has changed, and that's frustrating. So I started working— I started working in startups about 10 years ago, but then started my own startup company a little over 5 years ago, Lips, as we mentioned. And that was a social media platform for LGBTQ community, and I faced discrimination kind of on, on two sides there. So one side was, you know, coming in as a woman founder, which was already hard, but then ra— like raising for a platform that was for women in LGBTQ community. So that added another layer to it. And like what we talked about on that panel was a lot of VC companies have in their— or, or a lot of VCs have in their clauses like this vice clause which is very broad. And so if, if the firm wants to, they can say that LGBTQ content fits under that vice clause or women's reproductive, like any sort of reproductive startup, like fits under that vice clause. So it's up to the VC's sort of interpretation and that their LP's interpretation. And one thing I think I started realizing, like how systemic This was when I went into a pitch with a fund that was focused on underrepresented founders and started, you know, sharing our deck. And the feedback we got was that, you know, we really like your vision because when we were, we were pitching Lips, it was less like a little bit less about the, the social platform itself, but more about the underlying technology. And they were like, you know, we really, really like this. It's very innovative, but. Your deck uses the term LGBTQ a lot. There's a lot of LGBTQ representation and images in your deck. If we were to present this, you would need to tone this down, or you would need to, like, we're not sure if we can take an LGBTQ-focused company to our LPs because they're very conservative. They're from countries where, you know, being gay might even be illegal and things like that. So. We can't take that. So that's when I started really moving into advocacy around this because it was, it showed me that it was this systemic problem. It was, even if you're in an underrepresented fund, if you're taking money from, you know, conservative LPs, that's gonna affect what you're able to invest in and things like that. So that was one thing that really like, that was the first moment of like, oh wow, this is. Very ingrained.

Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's incredible that despite appreciating the technology, appreciating the innovation, there would still be an ask that we, that you almost cleanse it of the, of the value proposition that it's attached to.

Right.

It's not even, you know, let's, you know, tune it or use the, it's, it's literally the value proposition that you were after and that's what they wanted you to take out.

Which would've hurt the business. And we're still getting that today. I mean, it's with Reliable, even we've gotten suggestions from VCs to take out the word diverse or take out the word bias. And that, those are keywords that our customers are actually, some of our customers are finding us through. And yeah, and, and even bias is a technical AI term, but still being told to take that out because of the conservative nature of some of the investors and LPs.

It's incredible. It's incred— these vice clauses, are incredible to me. One, that they exist. Two, that VCs will still take them on and let it affect their decision-making. It seems unreasonable to me, and I don't understand why these things are still out there. And so in that situation, how did you handle it? What did you do?

Well, and this is something I would love to get your advice on and your thoughts too, because I'm still struggling with this today because I'm a very polite person. I was raised to be polite and, you know, and I'm grateful that they took the meeting. You know, I, I also am very, you know, wary of, you know, burning any bridges or anything like that. So I just, I didn't say, yes, we'll do it. I said, I don't think that's something we could do. I didn't, I didn't call them out or say, you know, that's really inappropriate. I think looking back, cuz this was, you know, 5 years ago or so, I think looking back, I think I would have said and, and what I want to try to do moving forward is not attack them because I don't know if they like in, I don't think for them, cuz they were an underrepresented fund, I don't think there was an intention of harming the LGBTQ community. But I think whether they listened or not, at least just saying, you know, hey, like if that is something that your LPs are worried about, if you're an underrepresented fund, I would, you know, consider looking for other LPs or con— like, think about that. Like, just think about that for a moment, like implications of that. So yeah, so I, I think like in those moments it's very hard for me to, you know, call people out or, or, or tell them because I, I don't, I don't know what their intentions are and I, and I don't want to be rude, but at the same time, Someone's gotta let them know, I think, if, if they don't already know.

Right. Yeah. No, it's a, it is. I mean, it all comes down to the phrasing, right? Which is, yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah. The, it, it's Spitfire, but you know, it's core to our value proposition. We are deeply committed to underrepresented populations, which I do know you appreciate.

Right. Mm-hmm. And right.

And so it's not even direct, it's just, it's embedded in language and whether they get it or not, who knows? But it's a, Thanks, but no thanks.

Right. And, and what about when, when they attack, when not attack, but what, what about when they come at you as like a person? Like when they criticize you and they're criticizing your femininity, but like how do you come back and say it? 'Cause it's hard to couch that in business language too. And I also like get caught when I, when I sense sexism happening, I think a part of me kind of shuts down. The inner vision of me is like, I will not take this. But like the outer version of me or the version of me that's nervous in a VC meeting kind of shuts down a little bit.

Yeah, no, it's a good question. I mean, there's a, it depends. There's a couple different ways that I've handled it. Uh, it is, one is how it's asking, but how am I supposed to understand that? Oh, I like that, which is just a confusion question. How am I supposed to understand that? And then they, they have to, to then kind of sit back and have to maybe explain the bias or, or zip around it and, and not, and take it back. Uh, the other is, you know, well, I, I've been really successful to date and, and I will continue and I expect that I will continue to be. Thank you. and this has been really nice and I'm going to go to my next meeting.

Okay. Yeah.

When you just, you let it roll off, right? And you remind them that you've been really successful to date and you will continue to be.

Because that's the way I think about it. It's like, you know, if you're asking me to change who I am presenting myself, you know, to be successful in VC meetings, but the reason that I've gotten this far is leading the way and presenting the way that I am. Which is why we've attracted certain team members. Like they didn't, they didn't, you know, they came to me because of my leadership style. Yeah, that's very interesting. I like, I like both of those, those approaches, especially, yeah, especially like, you know, what do you mean by that? Because it's just like, could you clarify? Like, you know, why don't you talk more about that? Dig yourself a little deeper.

Yeah. Because the other thing that I take issue with is when, when those offenses happen, right? When we, when we call it out, we get called offensive and we've caused harm and right, we were called emotional, we raised the fuss, we caused the scene. And what doesn't get called out is the original offense. And so it's okay for me to be offended, but it's not okay for me to offend. And, and that for me is a big problem. And so finding a way to not take the offense, but to point to the offense calmly and without being offensive. Is the thing that I try to do because I don't have to take, I don't have to just accept the bad behavior. Let me just ask you what you meant.

No, I love that.

Yeah. Gosh, advices. Okay. Most startups have lots of trusted people around them. Advise, I'm, I advise a good handful of advisors and other people that you keep close. How, how have those relationships been? How has that gone in your experience?

It's been a learning experience, honestly. And I think it's kind of exposed another way that women founders, women and underrepresented founders are, are taken advantage of. Because when I started in venture capital, like I, I don't come from a wealthy family. I don't come from a lot of, you know, wealthy connections or, or even like deep business connections. Like I just came to this because. you know, I knew, you know, basically my company Reliable actually came out of the technology that we were building for Lips and I just, we had a lot of people coming to us asking for this product. I knew we had a very good product and needed capital to help build it. Like that's, that's how I got into venture capital. And so I think for me it was very easy to be drawn to people who promised a lot, be, and promised a lot of connections. And also folks that, you know, basically saw that I was a woman founder who was, you know, new to venture capital raising and really wanted to build what I wanted to build and was very passionate about it. And so there was actually a women's, like, it was basically like a women's startup group that I joined. And the person running it gave, you know, like basically promised a lot, promised a lot of investment, promised a lot of connections. And there were a lot of other women in, in the group as well. And I think now I would not have joined that so quickly because basically what happened was in order to be a part of that, you had to give some equity of your company up, and so without vetting, I gave some of, I gave some equity of the company, but then it turned out that person had falsified some of their, I guess, like credentials and weren't doing things the, the appropriate way, weren't raising appropriately, wasn't talking about raising appropriately, and pretty much everyone in the group did not get what was promised and were taken advantage of. And it made me upset because, I mean, I think if this was an isolated incident, that would be one thing. But like you said at the beginning, like with all these things, it's systemic. And so I've seen this over and over again where even development firms take advantage of, of women founders who maybe don't have, you know, the technical background. So they lie to them about how much something will cost or, how long something will take to build, overcharge and leave them hanging and don't ever deliver the software. And so it just things like that, that I think the system that already makes it hard for women to get into or have connections into then also opens up women to vulnerabilities of being taken advantage of. So like, I know now, and part of me being on this podcast and talking about this is raising awareness about it, cuz I think part of me as a CEO is a little embarrassed that, you know, I, I trusted somebody that I probably shouldn't have. But talking with more and more women, it's like, it happens to a lot.

Everyone's been through something like this. It, it happens all the time. Yeah. What is, what's the red flag? How, how does someone spot the red flag to not get caught in it? What do you, what do you look for now to know that it's, not real.

You know what? It's so funny and this might sound a little, little woo woo, I guess, but really it's a feeling that I get in my stomach. Like that first meeting, I had a feeling in my stomach that this just wasn't right. And I kind of wrote it off as just like nervousness. Like, you know, might as well see, you know, how it goes. Like the, the reward is worth any kind of icky feeling you have about this. But I am going by that so much more. These days, especially as I'm doing like VC meetings. Like if I get that icky feeling during a meeting, I don't think I would write somebody off completely just because of that. But that what that icky feeling tells me is like, let me look into this more. Let me do a little bit more due diligence on my side. And so I think that, that kind of gut feeling as far as like Practical red flags, I would say people who promise a lot. Building a business is hard. Raising money is hard. Anybody who tells you, I'm gonna get you the money in 6 months, or, you know, this is gonna be easy, no problem, either doesn't understand the industry or is lying. And so, you know, I, any, anytime anyone tells me it's easy or it's going to be easy. That is a red flag. The people that I really trust are people that are honest and say, this isn't gonna be easy. I can't promise anything. Let me see what I can do. We're gonna work together on this. This might take time. Like, those are much more realistic things that, you know, at the time, you know, maybe aren't exactly what you wanna hear because as founders we wanna move as fast as we can. But that's just the reality of things. So I would say that, that gut feeling plus anybody who's telling you, it's going to be easy are red flags.

Yeah. Yeah. You know what's so interesting about what you said is this has come up in a few conversations, is trusting our gut and really trusting our intuition. And we have, to some extent, women have been maybe conditioned out of doing that. And our intuitions are strong and right and usually spot on. And I heard this in a conversation recently that our that gut feeling is not just in our gut. Our brains are talking to the rest of our body all the time, and it's actually coming from our brain. And so something in our brain, there's a, there's a logic sequence that's broken and it's, it goes to our gut because that's the place where we have those feelings most often. But it is actually our brain talking to our gut and saying something's wrong. It's kind of same place fear comes from and those things. And so we should be listening because our brain has sensed something that's off and it's told our gut to stop. And, and so we should be listening cuz it, that's a quite a real reaction to something that's wrong. And then the other thing is, you know, the reason, the reason I think we fall into those things is because we're also living in scarcity. And if we don't get the money here, where will we get the money? And so we'll lean into every opportunity because there often aren't as many opportunities and the fundraising is so hard that if there's a chance to get $20,000, $30,000, $40,000, $50,000 out of this thing, if I don't try it, then I haven't tried everything. Uh, and we have to maybe trust or give ourselves room to live in some abundance and trust that there will be money in other places.

Yes. I, I love that because I think that's, that's where I am now. Is basically, you know, that I've been through, you know, right now Reliable is breakeven. Next month we're gonna be profitable. So like, even though we don't, you know, I see, you know, companies with, you know, no traction and no product, like raising millions and living that, you know, startup dream and all that sort of stuff. It's like that, that's not worth partnering with somebody that, that you don't want to work with every day. 'Cause now I kind of look at people who are giving money to Reliable, I kind of take that as joining the team. Like, and we have a very tight-knit culture. Like everyone is very supportive, very kind on our team. And like, you know, introducing, 'cause even though it's a check, you're not just taking a check, you're taking that entire firm, that entire investor. So, so yeah, having that gut feeling, it's like, do you wanna have that feeling anytime you go into a meeting with them or like things like that? So I think it is, it is trusting that you'll, you'll find the right people. They're just, you know, they're harder to find, but also the more, the longer you're building the business. And I think we were just talking about this the other day that like now we're in a space where, you know, reliable has. Earned a trust in the industry that we're attracting more people that have that, you know, real experience that we're looking for that don't have, you know, fake credentials and things like that. They're the real deal. And that's a really exciting time. But when you're just starting out and just proving yourself, those people aren't gonna come right away. It just, it just takes time. And, and I also just add to the brain to the gut thing. I think that's really interesting because right now with one of our customers, Humane Intelligence, we're doing, we're assisting with bias bounty around accessibility and neurodivergence in video conferencing. And one thing about video conferencing is our brains are constantly processing like micro signals. So, so like micro facial signals, micro like adjustments in voice that we aren't really conscious of happening. So while in my conscious mind I might not say like, why, I don't know why I feel this way, your brain is probably processing a bunch of little micro signals that are telling you this is not a good, a, a good situation.

Wow. So it's, it's so interesting because it's why, it's why fatigue has gone up so high since COVID because we're on video all the time where we used to do conference calls always and now we're just on video all the time. Yeah.

And your brain has to work harder on video to process those little micro signals. Yeah.

Yeah. Goodness. Other questions. So as you've gone through diligence, with different teams, whether it's larger funds or the more emerging funds and things. What have you experienced there? How has that, how has that gone? What kind of differences or observations have you had?

Yeah, well, it's funny. So I started this talking about Lips is a difficult company because we were a consumer brand, which is already a difficult space to raise for, but then also LGBTQ and women-focused. So, you know, on groups that you know, a lot of these venture capital funds don't, you know, understand or believe our large markets in the first place. So that was difficult in its own right. Now with Reliable, you know, I'm in the AI space, which I get a lot of times people tell me, oh, that's— we're in the easiest time to raise for AI. And I always kind of like, with— when the people say that, I correct them and I say, well, it's a very easy time for white straight men to raise in AI. I And right, but for, for women founders or underrepresented founders, founders of color, what, what we're running into, and I, and I say we because I've talked to several other AI founders that have experienced this, is that we'll go to the funds that are focused on underrepresented founders and we'll do really well with them. We'll resonate with them. We'll show like our huge traction, huge numbers. But then when it comes to due diligence, there's, there's a resource problem because we are deeply technical and a lot of these funds, because they are smaller, don't have the resources to do technical due diligence. And so basically, unless they have already invested in AI infrastructure, because we're not just, you know, using AI or a ChatGPT wrapper, we're actually the ones like building and training the AI, unless they've already invested in a space like that, they don't feel comfortable investing in this space. And, and that's been hard for me to hear as someone who is a huge advocate for these underrepresented funds, because I think AI infrastructure is gonna be one of the biggest markets. You know, it, it already is, but it's gonna be even bigger. And so It makes me sad that a lot of these emerging funds are missing out on those exits for their own funds and, and for the future of more diverse founders in, in the startup space. But then on the other side of it, we go to these highly technical funds and I get attacks on my, you know, person as, as a woman. So basically questioning my ability to run an AI startup, questioning you know, how I, how I run the startup, you know, being a woman, being somebody who, you know, doesn't have quote unquote masculine traits. And so that's been very difficult as well. So we're stuck in the middle because, you know, the funds that do have the technical due diligence to run us have a lot of, whether conscious or unconscious biases that make their portfolio primarily men, and then, you know, these underrepresented funds are just not right now, just not investing in these deep tech companies. So that's been a really hard, hard space for us. And I, I see it changing. We've, we've, we're now in deep diligence with some funds that, you know, have that middle ground space, but it just took a long time to, to find them. And so that's what I'm kind of hoping to see more of. And, you know, if I ever get into venture, that's something I would love to explore too, is having that space for, for that deep technical investment in underrepresented founders. Right.

Yeah. No, the, it's a big breakpoint for the whole category, right? And it's the underrepresented funds, A, don't have those investments yet, and B, don't have yet the expertise on their teams to, to do the diligence. And they need that, right? And so the, but they believe in the human, they're, that that is the, what the gap they're closing is believing that talent is everywhere, but not able to properly assess the opportunity. And then on the other side, they believe in the opportunity, but they're not trusting the talent. And so we're, we're, we're missing, right, the lever on either side of it. And we haven't, we have to figure out how to close both of those gaps.

I think what you said about the fir— they haven't invested in it yet. Like, I think some of these funds are just gonna have to take the leap and like say, like, I, I see the traction, I've talked to the CTO of the company, I know the CTO's background, I know the CEO has a technical background, like, you know, maybe run it by a trusted friend or, or founder or something like that and just make a risk, you know, do, do the VC thing and take a big bet. Because once that's in there and you're able to at least have one in there that you're able to track and see and see what the market is, I mean, heck, if some of these funds invested in us, I would do diligence for them, no problem. So bringing more of this into their ecosystem, I think it's, it's just gonna take that leap of faith for those first few big, deep technical investments.

That's what I've done in at least a few cases. I've both leveraged founders from other teams that I've invested in who have the deep technical expertise, who have built AI, who are building AI. To help me due diligence on new tech-based companies. And then two, I've pulled from the LP base because I have deep technical expertise in the LP base, and I'll say, hey, you got to, you got to join this call with me because I'm good at tech, but I'm not that good, right? So prep them, tell them who I'm looking at and why, and let them run the call and ask all the hard questions and then give me the debrief, like, is it real, real, and what do I need to keep an eye on or support them with. And so we— there, there is a way to close the gap. There has—

there is. I think there's this, like, I've talked to some investors that have like this Warren Buffett mentality. I think it's like this, this idea that you as an investor have to understand everything you invest in. But the problem is, is like, as we're entering an era of very complex technologies to think that you're gonna miss out on a lot of investments if, you know, you think that you have to get a PhD in, you know, AI in order to invest in AI. And so I think, like you were saying, like how, how you close the gap and also how do you just have that, how do you personally as an investor get that level of confidence and trust that I don't fully understand this, but I see the markers that show me that this is a good business investment. Because looking at it from a business side versus looking at it from a technical side, I think you can, you can separate those things a little bit. Yeah, no, absolutely.

And I, I do, I have seen some of those funds find ways to close the gap, which is good. It's getting better for sure. It's just, it's taking, it needs to happen more. That's, And then the, the other funds need to trust the talent.

Well, and that's the other thing. It's not all, it shouldn't all be on the underrepresented funds to fund everything.

I agree.

Right.

This is it. Same with like, women don't need to solve all the problems for women. We need—

Exactly.

The whole ecosystem needs to work.

Yeah, exactly. So I think there needs to be that balance, but at the same time, while we are trying to educate some of these VCs about the value of investing in underrepresented founders and, and trying to disrupt some of those unconscious biases. In the meantime, if these underrepresented founders are able to kind of, you know, fill the gap a little bit, that would be a, a huge help because it's more, more predominant than, than it really should be. I mean, almost every woman AI founder I talk to is, is facing a, a very similar situation, which is terrible and just makes everything harder, right? It's already hard, let alone, makes it harder, but Yeah, it also sets us back on a, on a technology perspective, because I think, you know, the less diversity we're bringing into the AI field, the more you're going to run into a lot of the problems we're seeing now. And so it's not that diversity fixes everything, but what it does is it helps to give different perspectives so that you don't have these huge, huge blind spots in, in what you're building. And so right now we have huge blind spots because we're not getting enough investment into diverse founders and teams. Right, right, right.

Well, in the, in the, the biases that exist in the world are just, they're accelerating and they're gonna continue to accelerate 'cause the pace of AI development is so, so fast. We're just going to, everything gets worse if all of those biases accelerate the way they are in the tech. If we don't have more women, people of color, more broad voices involved in building the tech. It's just everything gets worse.

Yeah, I think it's the— it— what's crazy about AI is that not only is it building faster, but the technology itself is exponential. So like, it's just such a— so if there's one small biases, which maybe, you know, maybe in this conversation we had, I said something that was biased, but AI then records this information, takes it to train, and then it exponentially How crazy is that?

It's crazy. What other, if there were a couple of, you know, must-know, must-do points of guidance that you would give the, all the founders that are, will listen to this, what are the things that you would tell them?

I would say one, don't be so hard on yourself. That's something I'm trying to do every day. I mean, I think it's a balance because we can't say, you know, you can't say, oh, I haven't raised just because I'm a woman, because that's, that's not true. There are things, you know, about our, their feedback we've gotten from VCs that are very accurate that I've used and gone and worked on my company and it made us a better company. So you have to, you know, take everything a bit with a grain of salt, but at the same time, just understanding that you are working with, you're working within one of the most male-dominated, but also just male-centric industries. In the world. I mean, as somebody who has literally studied gender inequality, I can tell you like, this is, this is on another level. And so for, you know, women founders, LGBTQ founders, founders of color, or any sort of underrepresented group, just know that like the fact that you've gotten to where you are within an industry that there's so much pushing against you, You just have to kind of pause and take time to celebrate that and not so much focus on, on the negatives because when you're comparing yourself to others or things like that, it's just that there are obstacles that are, that are there in your way that, that aren't in the way of, of others. And so, so I think to, to be patient with yourself and not put all of the, all of the blame on, on yourself personally, I think is, is a really important. Takeaway that I'm still working on every day.

Yeah. Yeah.

I know.

Absolutely. It's a hard one to not take it personal all the time, but we have to because it's, it's not us, it's the system. And we have to, I like to say we have to play the game we're in, not the game that we want. And for founders in particular, right? It's your endgame is the check. And I like to say, let, let me fix the system. You focus on getting the check and let, let me fix it. Let me, let us, let's fix the system. Uh, because it's not your, it can't be your focus to do that, right?

And so, well, there's so much, there's so much else, I mean, just day to day that you're, you're having to work on. So to, yeah, to have to, to have to fix a, and that's something I've kind of had to let go of a little bit too, that like, this isn't something that I'll be able to fix alone, but what I can do is I can talk about it. 'Cause I, I think that's, that's something like when in my Techstars program, I, I hosted a workshop. On, you know, prejudice in VC, 'cause that wasn't really something we talked about in the program. And a lot of people showed up and really appreciate it 'cause at least, you know, we started sharing and you start hearing that it's not just happening to you and start to understand it more from others. And, and so I think not being afraid to talk about it and what we talked about at the beginning, also not being afraid to address it when it comes up. Or question it, I think is good too. So those are two kind of small things I think people can start to do. One other thing that I'm hoping through our work to be able to have some impact is that AI is being used for VC decisions more and more. And so, you know, trying to, from a technology and from our company perspective, trying to address some of those biases within VC AI is something I would love to, work more on because I think, yeah, that's, that's, again, we talked about exponential, like that's just gonna make it so much harder.

Oh yeah. Well, if there's, you know, the tools that are being used for sourcing, if it's based on past sourcing, you know, we're just gonna end up leaving women and people of color out entirely because it's, especially if your entire investment history has been wonderful white men in hoodies, we're, we're, you're never going to source anything else but that. And so you have to Purposefully design it differently so that you let other success factors in or other profiles in, otherwise it'll never find them.

Exactly. And the sad thing is, is these tools are already being used pretty widely and they're, they're not, they're not being fine-tuned to account for, for those types of biases.

No, it's, it's been on my mind for a while because it comes up in so many different discussions about how we're bringing AI to VC, VC and how it's getting automated, diligence is getting automated, all of these things. And yes, it'll help, but a lot of our job is, is in the, like, the art of VC and, and thinking about the trends and rolling them forward and the intuition that comes with thinking about how the world changes and finding what's next. And I, I am just not of the belief that AI can do that for for us.

Not yet. And, and I, and I think that I, I do think that there's, there is though an argument that if we build AI the right way, that it could help to flag when biases are happening. So if a lot is relying on intuition, because a lot of these unconscious biases, I think a lot of VCs feel as intuition, like, I don't trust this founder. Why don't I trust this founder? Is, could it be because that she's a woman? And so the AI could have the potential to take out those biases, but that's just a potential right now because that is not the way it is being built.

Right, right. And you still have to have built in that that could be a source of bias, right? That's fueling your intuition. And unless you design it to do that, it's not going to catch it, right?

Yep, exactly.

Absolutely. Goodness. So last question, what can everyone listening do to help? You and Reliable? What's, what's your ask?

From founders who are listening, I would say introductions to customers building AI. If you're building AI in a complex data space, I highly recommend getting in, in touch with myself and the team because we will help your AI be better and more competitive in the market. Also, for both founders and VCs, we are raising right now. We're you know, at a, we're at an inflection point where we're getting a lot of big opportunities coming and knocking at our door. And so we are raising the capital to, to meet that demand. So would love to chat with any AI-focused funds that, you know, are, are, are cool with investing in the ladies.

Who believe in talent and opportunity at the same time. Yes.

Yes. Right.

Amazing. Well, Annie, thank you so much for joining and bringing all of your knowledge and wisdom and your experience coming to the pod and sharing so much. It's going to be so valuable for everyone who listens, and I appreciate it.

Oh, I hope so. I hope so.

Thanks for listening to The Capital Flex. If today's episode hit home, share it with the founder you love and follow me on LinkedIn for more.