Bloomberg BETA’s James Cham on venture investing & the future of work

Tell us about your background and career journey so far.

I grew up in Montebello, a suburb just east of downtown Los Angeles that featured a diverse mix of Asian and Latinx culture. My parents — a Panama-born electrical engineer and Taiwan-raised dietician of Chinese descent — met in California. I was an avid fan of public radio (NPR), which offered a window into a wider world and sparked a lifelong interest in journalism. One of my favorite columnists was Guy Kawasaki, who shared my love of the Macintosh computer and popularized the title of “developer evangelist.” When I was in fifth grade, my parents, younger brothers, and I visited the Bay Area, and I decided I wanted to be a developer evangelist who would do things like convince people to use Apple products and programming tools. My role in venture capital includes many elements of these early interests, and I currently serve as a director of the board of my local NPR station, KQED.

I applied to universities that had a good newspaper, and I was fortunate to be accepted at Harvard University and to work on “The Harvard Crimson” as a design editor and a weekly magazine editor. But I also loved programming, so I pursued a computer science degree. I loved the intellectual atmosphere in Cambridge, MA, and I became an active member of a local church. Plus I met the woman who would become my wife — we lived in the same dorm and started dating during our senior year — so we stayed in the area for another nine years.

I spent my first three years working at Andersen Consulting (now Accenture), where I helped build databases and web applications. Then I joined a startup that did software development for management systems. By then, the tech bubble had burst, so I studied for my MBA at the MIT Sloan School of Management. After graduating, I joined Boston Consulting Group.

In 2005, a friend of mine got funded by Bessemer Venture Partners, a terrific Silicon Valley firm, and suggested I check out one of the company’s openings while I was on paternity leave. I flew up to the Bay Area and found my calling. My family joined me, and my career as a venture capitalist flourished — first for five years at Bessemer, three years at Trinity Ventures, and now, Bloomberg BETA, where I’ve been since 2013.

I invest in companies that are working on applying machine intelligence to businesses and society, like Orbital Insight (satellite imaging), Primer (analyst tools), Domino Data Lab (AI model management), and AppZen (expense management).

You helped co-found Bloomberg BETA in 2013. What enticed you to join the firm, and what keeps you excited nine years later?

Bloomberg BETA gave me, Karin Klein, and Roy Bahat the opportunity to create a new organization from scratch. We had great chemistry, and I knew right away that I wanted to work with them. Even more exciting was having the full weight of the Bloomberg brand – the vast resources and deep connections – backing us. Even the most recognizable VC name is not as famous as Bloomberg.

Every day, I’m motivated by the reality that any of the random connections I make could lead to the next big thing. It’s a state of dynamic, constant optimism. I see people who start something new and don’t really know what they’re doing, but they have little sparks of insight or brilliance or accomplishments that make you want to join them. I don’t think that thrill will ever fade for me.

How does Bloomberg BETA impact Bloomberg’s operations around the globe?

Venture capitalists are typically the first people to see lots of examples of the widest range of technologies on the cutting edge. It’s really the very best way to collect insight and intelligence that Bloomberg’s various teams can use to stay on top of where the tech industry is going and what tools are available for us to use to improve our operations.

Bloomberg BETA was created to function as a typical VC firm would so that we have access to the newest problem-solving technology in development. So far, it’s proven to be true, both in terms of spotting new trends, making interesting connections, and learning about new companies, regardless of whether we invest in them.

We can also help make connections – from identifying companies that should be buying Data Licenses and showing our engineers a hot startup that can solve an existing problem to introducing Bloomberg to potential partners.

What does a typical day or week look like?

A third of my time is meeting founders of early-stage startups, so there’s a lot of networking involved. The rest of my time is a mix of trying to learn about new markets, supporting our existing portfolio companies, talking to engineers inside Bloomberg, and promoting Bloomberg BETA through my social channels, event appearances, and more to increase our visibility and attract additional founder meetings. Considering the unpredictable pandemic conditions, I mostly sit in front of my table, talk on the phone or over Zoom, and text constantly. I really wish I could use Instant Bloomberg (IB) for all my messaging because it has such great features for helping to manage and search all the random things going on. Unfortunately, I have to organize my work across WhatsApp, Signal, Telegram, regular SMS, and email.

I’m happy to see trends that the world of venture capital is starting to become more transparent. About 15 years ago, a founder would have to know someone influential who could make some introductions that would lead to meetings with venture capitalists with offices on Sand Hill Road in Palo Alto. In some ways, my job is to broadcast what I’m interested in so that I can help evangelize categories for our portfolio companies and also to attract new founders who might be a good fit for us. Since many of my investments have been around machine learning or different forms of automation or developer tools, I need to look for those audiences who could be potential customers or communities that are interested in solving problems for those customers.

Bloomberg BETA invests in companies focusing on the “Future of Work.” What does that mean, and what are some surprising trends you’re seeing in that category?

We were the first venture fund to focus on the future of work, and we think about this category in terms of how everyone in the economy can succeed, and how founders can reshape business to make it more productive, humane, fair, and inclusive.

New technologies go through a hype cycle before they’re actually useful. The web is a great example. We’re about 25 years into having this technology, and we’re still not using it really well.

Just think about videoconferencing. We have little streams of ourselves stacked on top of each other; you see a picture of yourself, which would never happen in real life and feels really weird; and we’re only just now able to record them. But what are the other ways the conversation could’ve been made more efficient and effective? What if the content could turn itself into a blog post or automatically assign and schedule tasks from the meeting? Plus, there’s always a lag when the speakers change. We could build product features that figure out ways to make that slight latency less awkward, or to make it clearer how participants are reacting to each other. All those sorts of things are possible and potentially right around the corner.

The other big trend is around machine learning and artificial intelligence, which you can broadly classify as using data to make decisions in an automated way. We’re all still grappling with figuring out the best use case, and when we finally do, the sector will really take off. I spend a lot of time not just on technical innovations, but also the way those innovations intersect with how people actually think and act.

That sort of product innovation is entirely driven by entrepreneurs and innovative people inside companies, and that’s the exciting market that Bloomberg BETA is tapping into.

Lightning Round:

• Secret talent? Photography – mostly portraits
• Latest binge watch? Atlanta
• Hobbies? Reading… a lot!
• Recent reads? “Whole Earth: The Many Lives of Stewart Brand” by John Markoff, and of course, I love my wife’s newest novel “The Night Tiger,” which the BBC selected as one of the seven books they spotlighted for Queen Elizabeth’s Platinum Jubilee.
• Favorite sports teams? I’m from Los Angeles, so it’s the Dodgers and Lakers.

How does Bloomberg Philanthropies impact Bloomberg BETA?

When we first started promoting Bloomberg BETA, we didn’t initially mention Bloomberg Philanthropies. And then we had an ‘aha moment’ about sharing where Bloomberg’s profits – as in the money we make from our startup investments – actually go. And it turned out to be incredibly important and inspiring to many of our portfolio companies’ founders. Of course, founders start companies because they want to make a lot of money, but the majority of them want to make the world a better place, both with their technologies and with their fortunes. Some of the best ones even aspire to have an impact on the order of magnitude that Bloomberg Philanthropies does. Having them as a core part of our business is a differentiating selling point for us when startups choose their funding partners.