Adam was the Managing Director of two Techstars Accelerators, Washington DC (powered by JP Morgan and Equitech in Baltimore), where he invested in approximately 70 early-stage companies throughout a number of verticals including healthtech, cybersecurity, AI solutions and gov/regulatory tech.  He is the former Founding Managing Director at MoxE where he built an impact fund and is the founder of AthletesInnovate.  Before becoming an investor, Adam built a career throughout the federal government (US Senate, USDOJ, USDOT) and industry (Oil/Gas, Transportation) as a Senior Attorney and Director of Innovation. He holds a BA (Psychology) and a MA (History) and JD.

01. What are you looking for in startups for Techstars Baltimore AI Health?

I firmly believe that startup success is driven by two main factors: the founders and the business, BUT it’s the founder that ultimately makes the biggest difference. This vision will drive our decision-making as we evaluate companies for the Techstars Baltimore AI Health Accelerator. We will be looking for great founders who have an innovative business idea, and we’ll build on their ability to be laser-focused on things that are working, enthusiastically optimistic about things that are not working, and flexible enough to pivot when required. The kind of founders that refine their businesses based on customer needs and validation.

In addition, I’m very excited about the chance to work with founders that are embracing the nascent (but potent) strength of AI to bring solutions to patients and providers throughout the healthcare value-chain. Great founders only need an opportunity to make exciting things happen, so we plan to bring great partners and great tech together with those founders and watch what happens.

02. What are some of the biggest learnings from your career and entrepreneurial journey that you bring to being a Techstars MD? 

I was so excited to join the Techstars community a few years ago, and there are so many parts of my background that have brought me to this point with the right tools and perspective to maximize this opportunity for founders. From the very first job I had as a page in the library, when I was a high school sophomore, to my work as a senior attorney for the Federal Government sitting across the counsel table from Fortune 500 companies, I have always thrived on the opportunity to put a “stamp” on my work. This should have been the first clue I was going to eventually be a founder! I absolutely love building things myself and being around others who build things. In addition, I always think back to the best job I’ve ever had, which was as a basketball coach for seventh graders when I was 21. The moments where I watched those young players “catch” what I was trying to explain to them remain some of the most thrilling moments of my professional life even to this day. It wasn’t because I was solving a thorny intellectual issue, but rather because I was helping someone develop and internalize a permanent building block or tool that they would then take with them. There is nothing more exciting than that.

03. What is your favorite thing about the Baltimore, MD startup scene?

I have spent time in a number of startup communities (Baltimore, MD / Buffalo, NY / Washington, DC / Northern Virginia / Chicago, IL), and I really enjoy Baltimore’s unique set of strengths. Over the years I’ve spent more time in the Greater Baltimore Region than my actual hometown (Buffalo, NY), and have stayed here for a reason. The quality of people that come to this area is really hard to match. Whether it’s because of our world-class educational and health institutions or our world-leading policy institutions, the Greater Baltimore Region draws the very best people in the world to come here, and (serendipitously) lots of those are bright young people who are interested in starting businesses or become interested once they encounter the opportunity. Add the scads of new/talented young people to the loads of mature and growing businesses that dot the landscape here and the possibilities are ENDLESS!

I also love that while Baltimore has another city (Washington, DC) with an additional startup scene closeby, it always maintains a unique strength and identity all its own. Baltimoreans have a pride in their city that is special and the institutions that make their home here share that characteristic.  

04. If you could have coffee with any entrepreneur who would it be and why?

This may strike some as odd but I would choose to spend time with Warren Buffett. Even though he’s a trader/investor, I think he acts as an entrepreneur in his field in a way that I really admire. I read “The Intelligent Investor - Benjamin Graham” a long time ago, and the value-investing model really struck me as a managed and intelligent approach to risk that has informed how I weigh investments even now. What I love most is investing that is “principled” while maintaining “opportunistic awareness”. Whether he is working on a deal for a little-known insurance conglomerate or a mainstream gaming/streaming company, Buffett’s moves become the signal for others to move. To me that kind of disciplined-flexibility is incredibly difficult to maintain over time, and is the difference-maker for founders (and others frankly) when it comes to weathering the ups-and-downs of business-ownership. I would love to talk to him about what it takes to maintain that into his 90’s. That would be a coffee break well spent!

05. Why is it important to have part of the focus for the Accelerator be on Artificial Intelligence?

The recent “blossoming” of Artificial Intelligence has taken a number of folks by surprise, but AI has been around for a long time. From science fiction in the early 20th century and Alan Turing’s framework paper in 1950 to the “expert systems” and expanded algorithms of the 1980s, we have been exploring the concept of machines having and/or exercising artificial intelligence for a long time.  With the advent of exponential increases in both computational processing speed and storage, we are closer than ever to experience what actually “feels” like computers that can think for themselves and make independent decisions, and that has massive implications for any industry where technology use and/or large datasets are necessary.

Just thinking about one of those applications, accessing currently unstructured datasets to help make better healthcare decisions, shows the potential impact of this technology.  A huge amount of unstructured data will come online and be made actionable when we have capable and reliable artificial agents to augment human decision-making.  THAT is why AI is such a crucial focus for this accelerator.  Healthcare will be one of the MOST impacted industries when AI can help bring order to unstructured data, and in a number of different ways we haven’t yet considered. The future is exciting.

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