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Sarah J. Buszka (00:09)
Hello, everyone. Welcome to the AI Applied podcast powered by Waukesha County Technical College.
or WCTC for short. This is where we explore the impact of AI across industry, education, and policy. I'm your host, Sarah Buska, Director of the Applied AI Lab at WCTC. I am so excited for today's episode because we are joined by the incredible Joe Kirgues who's the co-founder of gener8tor He co-founded gener8tor in 2012, which has grown from a team of two to over 100 across 50 markets.
gener8tor startup alumni have raised over 2.7 billion with a B in follow on funding and reported over 10,000 jobs created in that time alone. Joe and gener8tor are proud to partner with us WCTC on an implied AI program for startups in Wisconsin. So with that, Joe, welcome to the show. Thanks for being here.
Joe Kirgues (01:03)
Thanks for having me on, it's a pleasure to be here.
Sarah J. Buszka (01:06)
It's so exciting too because you and I were just chatting and what just two days ago we were in the room together with the leadership at WCTC and leadership I would say from prominent state agencies where we heard a leader of that agency say that they've never heard a technical college talk about what we were talking about in that room. And I think that's really exciting. And a big reason why I'm here at WCTC, why I know you're here as a partner with us is because we're talking about really cool things.
We are pushing the barriers, we're thinking differently, and we're not just talking about it, we're actually about it. We're walking our talk. So I wanted to give you the opportunity to just share what inspired you and gener8tor to want to collaborate with us at WCTC's Applied AI Lab, and what excites you most about this partnership?
Joe Kirgues (01:53)
I'm gonna go with the second part first. ⁓ The thing that excites me the most is we are playing to win for our community. And I think for WCTC, it's so expiring. There's a lot of people who you see, they're just getting through and they're happy to sort of protect the institution, maybe they inherited or they work. They're not necessarily gonna be out the forefront of pushing what the next chapter or evolution of that might require. And WCTC is out there.
Sarah J. Buszka (01:55)
haha
Joe Kirgues (02:23)
doing everything it can to reinvent itself to be ready for the next challenge. And I think for us, know, we did not anticipate with all the kind of different stakeholders that you might interact with in a community, know, a technical college was not at the top of my list of who we were likely to work with. But I think it shows the power of leadership and the power of partnership. And those two are areas that WCTC is second to none. And for us to have a chance to try to reinvent our community in terms of
just artificial intelligence and what it's going to mean for our everything from our workforce to our companies to our communities ⁓ with someone who's so proactive and trying to do the right thing and do it well. It's not something I took for granted and ⁓ we're very interested in whatever kind of follows from everything we start with you because it's so intentional and well done.
Sarah J. Buszka (03:13)
Thank you. Well, I didn't mean for this to be, you know, ⁓ give WCTC all this, these accolades kind of episode, but you know, if we're here to break, no, and I feel that so much too. And frankly, Joe, I really like one thing we love about working with you is just how open you are to work with us and for all of our ideas as well. ⁓ one thing I heard you say that I think is really interesting and I want to hone in on a little bit is the fact that you said.
Joe Kirgues (03:19)
it's...
It's very sincere, very well earned.
Sarah J. Buszka (03:40)
you were surprised that a technical college is doing what we're doing. So I'm wondering if you'd be willing to maybe talk a little bit more about that and where you see the advantages of working with a technical college or a two-year college versus maybe the more traditional route ⁓ or familiar route perhaps of working with the four-year institutions and some of those bigger names.
Joe Kirgues (03:49)
Thanks.
Absolutely. When we first met and you know, through the really every meeting, there's leadership from the college. I mean, it's not uncommon for you and I to be in a meeting with President Barnhouse and the cabinet or the leadership of the group. And it facilitates quick movement and pragmatic effort. And so I think for when you when you think of what the technical college can bring to the table, what I didn't realize was it's not just
It's not just the capabilities that come with training people and all these applied different facilities of our community, but it's also in there as an institution, their ability to move that quickly. And so, you know, it's much different in a four-year, think, or traditional four-year university or research school or whatever, where I think there's so many different stakeholders that oftentimes you don't kind of know when you leave a meeting even what pathway that person might take to get something done.
Or even if it's the leadership of it, how they'll be working to activate their institutions to follow their lead. Whereas at WCTC, it's a big institution. It's not small, but it's one that's capable of, you know, if the president and the leadership are aligned around an objective, you all put it to work right away. And so I think the speed with which you built that AI facility and team, including your role, is so impressive. And I don't know that we always see that from
some of the other research-oriented schools that maybe, along with their size and capacity has come processes and some bureaucracy that can inhibit that outcome.
Sarah J. Buszka (05:40)
Absolutely. And you know, we also like to joke about President Barnhouse's famous drive-bys where he'll come by your office and say, Hey, I want to start an apply to iLab and just walk away. And then, you know, you have to deliver on that in any way, shape or form. And thankfully he supports those ideas. And his famous line is, if you don't burn a building down, go for it. Right. So we, we appreciate you joining us and not burning any building down. Building's done with building some with us. Exactly. The day is young though.
Joe Kirgues (05:51)
Yeah.
Yeah, babe.
Yeah, Dave's young. Yeah, but.
But, know, he's he's I mean, it really speaks to it. But I mean, even everyone around him having that attitude of, OK, this is what it's like is it's cultural by and, know, maybe not always the kind of on your toes environment that facilitates a relaxing day, but it's it's cultural by and and it shows. Yeah.
Sarah J. Buszka (06:11)
Go ahead.
Exactly. It very much is. Yeah,
very much is. Yeah, one of our favorite things we love saying is when folks kind of doubt us or think, how could you possibly do something like this or it's never been done before? Like our typical response is, well, watch us. We're going to just try. We don't think we're going to be perfect. In fact, we know we won't be perfect. We know we're going to make so many mistakes, we have a great culture and that support that we know that we'll have that.
Joe Kirgues (06:42)
Mm-hmm. I hope that.
Sarah J. Buszka (06:54)
help and we'll be able to do something along the way, right? It's the phrase of we can do hard things and we believe that. So switching gears a little bit, I want to kind of focus a little bit more on entrepreneurship because one of our biggest partnership ideas and things that we do together is all about incubating startups and talking about entrepreneurs. And we actually just kicked off G Beta in the lab this fall, which we're super excited about.
Joe Kirgues (07:02)
Hear that.
Sarah J. Buszka (07:22)
I'm curious to hear maybe from your perspective, thinking about the entrepreneurial ecosystem overall, what gaps or needs was gener8tor hoping that could be addressed when this partnership began with WCTC and our applied AI lab specifically around bringing in AI startups here?
Joe Kirgues (07:42)
⁓ I think for the generator team, you know, we're thinking about what the community is going to do to compete as much as us or an institution, you know, where we've had the privilege of starting here and growing from here, but also the responsibility of serving communities around the country and increasingly around the globe. But there's no place like home. And so as we've gotten this broader perspective that comes with visiting, you know, Oklahoma City and Las Vegas and Fargo and wherever else.
that every community is sort of thinking they're going to win. And I hope all of them do, but I don't think it's for granted. And as a community, we have to be intentional in what we do to compete. And when you asked about what gap was this filling, know, for anyone who's looking at the space, mean, the artificial intelligence industry is completely changing. Just look at our community and how it's shaping everything from data centers to energy usage to. ⁓
you know, the next iteration of manufacturing or, or even knowledge economy jobs like graphic design or law firms, whatever, ⁓ the, the, it's going to happen. And the more we can try to be intentional about making sure it's a success here, I think the better. And there's certainly, when you speak of gaps, just, there was no product like it that we had available to us that we could work with supporting local startups and local businesses, ⁓ in, in starting and building and growing.
products and companies in this space. So when you come, can't have a of a well sort of gap. Like we just, had nothing available to help and your institution, you know, in this partnership has provided us with, I think one of the community's main lanes to do it. But ⁓ yeah, we're, there's going to be so much, you know, so much change as we reinvent how we do everything. Yeah, it was originally on CPUs and compute into now artificial intelligence, you know.
⁓ We're anxious to see what we can do to try to make sure that that's a win-win for Milwaukee and the Waukesha area.
Sarah J. Buszka (09:43)
Absolutely. Well, I want to give you the floor maybe to perhaps brag a little bit about other things gener8tor is involved in to help our community and our economy and frankly, Wisconsin, like I heard you say, win and compete. Are there any things you'd like to share with the audience that they might not know about gener8tor, what you're doing right now with respect to AI that you think they should know?
Joe Kirgues (10:03)
Sure, well, I I'll point out that we do, mean, our partnerships with you include, for example, you helped us secure a Microsoft partnership in Wisconsin to help provide generative AI training to incumbent workers in the state and leaders. So our company, started to kind of back what we do, how that plays out. We started with an investment accelerator that we still operate today. So we invest in a few startups. Those are amongst the many who've raised that 2.5, 2.7 billion now. ⁓ And ⁓ that program,
You know, we started in 2012 and grew through 2016. And then in 2016, we added the G-Beta program, which is a contract accelerator where we don't invest, but where we do provide the benefits of the accelerator model through partnerships with WCTC at no cost or payment or equity or anything to the founders who come through our cohorts together. And that G-Beta really blossomed throughout the country. So it just grew into Round Rock Texas last week. And we'll be announcing a new partnership in Green Bay tomorrow.
Sarah J. Buszka (11:01)
exciting.
Joe Kirgues (11:01)
Yeah, so we're excited, but it's grown now to now to graduate through 400 startups. So of that 2.7 billion raised, about 1.9 billion is from graduates of the investment accelerator, but 800, soon to be 900 millions from graduates of the G Beta program. And that program is just six years old. Its first cohort or seven years old, its first cohort was five companies. So it's really grown from, you know, that initial pilot to a much broader base. how that translates to skills, we...
In 2021, formed a partnership with skills, with Microsoft and skills to help people who are on an underemployed get a job. And now that's grown to about 15 plus communities and it'll graduated over a thousand people this year. So all in all, our team of over a hundred will run well over a hundred cohorts across startups and individuals who seeking a new career across 400 startups and a thousand people on the skill side. And we give this sort of front row seat for the economy changing.
What we're working on internally is the problem across all of our communities is why they're hiring us is amongst the 250 plus accelerators is really six or seven that are multinational. And within that club, we're the one doing locals investing in locals. And so if you bring us generator, we want to work with five startups from the Waukesha kind of regional area. Many of our peers will bring in outside startups to that same place. And the challenge we face is what can we do
across these three different constituencies of founders, just traditional startup founders who may be leaving a company or just graduated that are starting, ones that are affiliated with universities that were trying to facilitate the 40 billion a year of federal research coming to market. And then what can we do to attract national and international businesses to relocate to the communities we serve. But those three pools are the kind of ingredients we can use.
to create the recipe for success for each partner. And the challenge we face is, know, what in different communities you get a different mixture of each or different capacity to serve each. What can we do to be the best one? And it's so different recruiting, you know, the average AI founder who maybe is leaving their company after four or five years versus a university professor who's thinking about commercializing their tech versus a founder from overseas who's looking for a soft landing pad. You're dealing with such different challenges.
to attract each one, put them all together into a cohort that ⁓ comes out with the benefit of the community's resource to grow. That is the stuff that keeps us up at night. On the skills side, what can we do to recruit people who are on and underemployed, or in the case of our Generative AI Partnership, people who are looking to skill at large employers and then empower them with not only the new skill, but the last mile of support, whether it be to find a new job or to succeed in the one they have.
But it's running that product across a hundred different cohorts and 40 plus communities is I describe it as a powerful way to age early and die young ⁓ but ⁓ it's keep you up at night. Yeah, keep you up at night, but
Sarah J. Buszka (14:08)
Right. No small feet, right? Yeah. That's
one way to frame it. Keep you up at night, add to wrinkles on your face, all that type of stuff. Yeah. Well, you know, fun, two fun facts I want to share. One, my husband is a graduate of G beta, which I think is, yeah. Yeah. Which is really fun. Yes. Right. Well, I mean, well, I'm going to like talk about generator like I were.
Joe Kirgues (14:15)
that big go so
get out. had no idea. I'm embarrassed I didn't know this. How do I not?
I hope it was okay.
Sarah J. Buszka (14:32)
Yes, it was. He loved it. So I'm going to talk
Joe Kirgues (14:33)
Okay. right. You're good.
Sarah J. Buszka (14:34)
about gener8tor like I know about it, but I know that you started in Madison and Milwaukee, correct?
Joe Kirgues (14:40)
Yeah, we started in Mo- Yeah, Madison and Milwaukee, yep.
Sarah J. Buszka (14:42)
Yeah, Madison in Milwaukee and my husband did it in Madison and I'm based in Madison. We've lived in Madison for a long time, UW Madison alum, all of those things. And one thing I really want to kind of double down on and say and share with our audience is a phrase that you shared about generators philosophy, I would say of like locals investing in locals. And I think my husband being, you know, a G beta alum being in Wisconsin, being in Madison, this was back in the day, but nonetheless, I think that's a great example of locals investing in locals and something.
You know, I would say a big reason why we love working with you, because I think, you know, if you think about the venture capital capital space, you think about the entrepreneur space, typically that those dollars are reserved to only a few area codes in the country. think California, New York, Boston, right? I happen to have worked in California in the Bay area. went to school in New York at Cornell and I'm really familiar with what it's like to, you know, be a company or be an aspiring entrepreneur and know that you have those resources there.
Wisconsin being my home state knowing that it can be more tough to come by and I think the fact that you know gener8tor's philosophy is all about locals investing locals and frankly that kind of radical bet that hey talent isn't just reserved to these three You know zip codes. It's it's everywhere I think is really our philosophy that we have in the lab and so we couldn't be more grateful to have you as a partner in that Yeah, I'm switching gears a little bit. I want to ask you maybe some
I would say more specific questions, thinking we're in the VC space, thinking about investors, what that attitude is looking like. And I'm thinking, with the rise of vibe coding tools like Lovable, Base 44, with companies right now that are starting, think about like SaaS companies, AI companies, which are the startups are going to be the ones that are actually going to win in this new age of AI when it comes to VC investment? What does that look like?
Joe Kirgues (16:32)
⁓ I mean, certainly the winners right now, I if you look at the venture industry, it's concentrated to the point of unlike anything in my tenure in the space where, the amount going to an AI back startup is, is in order of magnitude, more cash, more valuation, more resource, and also just in a few zip codes, like you mentioned, it's, you if you look at all the big funding, it's, it's really just in, in three or four cities that have captured this many tens of billions, I think. ⁓
Nvidia just announced like hundred billion to help open AI basically build its own data center stack. it's a hundred billion more than I think we did in venture capital maybe five years ago total. And that's just one check to open AI. ⁓ So ⁓ yeah, think ⁓ it's certainly reshaping our economy at a pace that is beyond anything in our experience and that those benefits appear to be going disproportionately to the platforms that
Sarah J. Buszka (17:13)
Yeah, Right, exactly one check.
Joe Kirgues (17:30)
that house the entire package. So, ⁓ unlike the App Store, which was built to be facilitative, where you put an app on and you could have greater access to this marketplace of tools and solutions, it appears that these platforms may be consumptive in that they're not looking for an app to be built on them in the same way that the App Store was, but they're looking for a way to basically, within the scope of that AI platform, build the app custom made for you. And it's thinning the layer for startups to come out and
using those platforms themselves as, you it's not that same equivalency of what we were seeing from venture funding to solutions like an Uber or a DoorDash that themselves live within the, you know, for me, the Apple app, or at least the ecosystem. So it's definitely concerning to some degree when you first glance at it that, you know, we don't have this kind of database with a password around it that you can call software as a service ⁓ that fueled so much of the venture industry.
That's chapter one. it's for software, think, you know, certainly part of the reason why all that cash is just going to a few platforms. Now, chapter two, I think, is what's really exciting. And you look at what it means for applications outside of software. And I think it, for the first time in my time at Venture over the last 13 years, opens the door to AI companies and biotech or ⁓ more deep tech spaces that are using AI to enable
faster development of solutions or products or markets. And it's certainly manufacturing and quantum are areas that we think that this will come in next. it's, you know, we used to be able to go out and meet a venture capitalist and they could say they led a $3 million round and we could guess the valuation, the revenue of the company and their growth rate. And it was so perfectly priced that we could get pretty close.
you know, if they were at a $20 million round, well, then we could guess that the startup was this old at, you know, they had 20 million of revenue growing 30 % year over year or whatever. And the valuation was 40 million or 60 million. We could get pretty close. Now all bets are off and the market has to rebuild itself. I think that's a fun time to be for people who want to be builders, an investor in this space, but it's opening up the aperture to industries that maybe weren't historically thought of as venture capable. That's our hope. And that's what we'll see next. But
Today, the status quo is it's concentrated all the cash in just a few startups and it's really kind of soaking up the energy from maybe some more of the long tail that we saw getting funded or the longer list of startups that would have been funded five years ago is now a much smaller list.
Sarah J. Buszka (20:08)
Right. Yeah. Really fascinating. Thank you for your take on that. And for our audience, that was a little bit VC math for you. VC math light. If you want the in-depth VC math tutorial, apply for a G beta program. No, wanted, hey, I wanted shop. Exactly. Yeah. We're, here to talk shop Joe. That's the point.
Joe Kirgues (20:14)
I'm sorry. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah, that's probably too much trimmer fart. have to watch out. Sorry. It was like a very shop questions. gave a shop answer, but it's I think it's a good it's a good question. Yeah.
I deal, deal.
Sarah J. Buszka (20:33)
Well, to round us
out towards the end of this conversation, I'll ask you one final question. And in 30 seconds is the gauntlet that I'm throwing down. Awesome. All right. So what is one hot take that you would like to leave our Ardent's with regarding AI?
Joe Kirgues (20:41)
I'll take it.
⁓ that we have to choose to invest in ourselves in this. And a lot of the savings in our community are built up in these pension funds and endowments and balance sheets that are scattered at local hospitals or universities or corporations who are managing these dollars through professional investment managers that are allocating those venture portions of that to the coast. So you save a billion dollars, 2 % can go to venture capital and they're choosing to put those managers on the coast.
And we need some of that coming back here to empower our own companies, whether they be startups or mid or large companies to reformat themselves to compete in this era that I think is the game is going so much faster than the rules. And we really do need to coordinate across all levels of our community, gathering these resources to revitalize our own industries, again, big and small, so that we can go out and compete.
you know, right now, that's a big challenge. Was that 30 seconds?
Sarah J. Buszka (21:50)
Yeah, I'll allow it. It was 30 seconds. No, I really, I love what you shared. Thank you. think the message I'm hearing and for our audiences, you know, invest in ourselves, right? We have a lot of great resources in our backyard. have wonderful resources at WCTC. I would be remiss not to mention it. So thank you so much, Joe, for being on the show today. We are so grateful to have had you and had your time. I hope the audience appreciated this as well.
Joe Kirgues (21:52)
Okay, okay, all right.
Mm-hmm.
Thanks for having me. It's our pleasure.
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