Jorge Torres is the Co-Founder and CEO of MindsDB, an open-source AI data platform headquartered in Berkeley, California. He is a Visiting Research Scholar at UC Berkeley focused on machine learning automation and explainability. Torres built MindsDB to democratize AI—letting any developer query AI models directly from databases using plain SQL or natural language. Under his leadership, MindsDB has raised over $77 million in funding from investors including Benchmark, NVIDIA, Mayfield, and Y Combinator, garnering recognition from Forbes as one of America's most promising AI companies and from Gartner as a Cool Vendor for Data and AI.
Alex Balkanski is the President and CEO of Picarro, a Santa Clara-based company pioneering precision methane and greenhouse gas measurement technology for natural gas utilities worldwide. A Harvard-trained physicist turned serial entrepreneur, he co-founded C-Cube Microsystems in 1988, helped establish the MPEG video compression standard that underpins modern digital television, took C-Cube public in 1994, and orchestrated its acquisition of DiviCom in 1998. After a stint as General Partner at Benchmark Capital, he pivoted to climate tech, joining Picarro in 2013 to apply the same precision-instrument mindset to the urgent challenge of detecting and quantifying fugitive methane emissions across global gas distribution networks.
Eric Vishria is a General Partner at Benchmark Capital, one of Silicon Valley's most selective venture firms, where he has led investments in companies like Confluent, Cerebras Systems, Benchling, and Amplitude. Before venture, he co-founded RockMelt (acquired by Yahoo in 2013) and spent years at Loudcloud/Opsware through its $1.65B HP acquisition - an experience he describes as a graduate education in startup warfare. Known for his 'slope over starting point' framework for evaluating founders and his early warnings about AI capital implosion, Vishria brings rare operator depth to a firm built on equal-economics, no-hierarchy partnerships.
Matt Cohler is one of Silicon Valley's most accomplished yet deliberately low-profile venture capitalists. A Yale music graduate turned McKinsey consultant, he joined LinkedIn as a founding member, became Facebook employee #5 and VP of Product under Zuckerberg, then joined Benchmark Capital in 2008 as its youngest-ever General Partner. His investment portfolio - including Instagram, Tinder, Dropbox, Asana, and Zendesk - places him among the most successful consumer internet investors of his era. Since stepping back from active fund management in 2018, he serves on the boards of KKR, the Yale Investments Office, and the Environmental Defense Fund, and sustains a lifelong devotion to classical music through 17+ years on the San Francisco Symphony board and patronage of the Berlin Philharmonic.