In the Flatiron District of New York City, Foursquare’s headquarters serves as a major hub for hosting regular meetups for the technology community to discuss the latest trends and innovations in AI, platform technology, big data, and much more. At Foursquare, we’re grateful to have multiple office spaces across key cities – San Francisco, Seattle, Chicago, Belgrade and New York – that allow us to partner with industry leaders, such as FirstMark Capital and ProductTank, and learn from Founders, CEOs, entrepreneurs, and beyond. These meetups create a vibrant atmosphere built upon thought leadership and connection, helping attendees garner insights around new trends to anticipate this year.
Earlier this month, we hosted a meetup with FirstMark Capital, a prominent NYC venture capital firm, where we had leaders from Dataiku, RunwayML, and Raspberry AI, talk about their predictions around generative AI’s impact on enterprise and the evolution of platform building. Foursquare’s President and CEO, Gary Little, kicked off the meetup by sitting down with FirstMark Capital’s Managing Director, Matt Turck to discuss some of the latest innovations in platform technology, amongst other topics. Little shared that with Foursquare’s platform infrastructure, “We’re proving ways customers can use their own data and get to the business outcomes they are trying to achieve.”
As the range of topics and speakers vary from meetup to meetup, many new insights have been unlocked on Foursquare’s very own stage. Dataiku’s Co-Founder and CEO, Florian Douetteau, delved into his perspective on the opportunity for Generative AI in enterprises sharing that, “For generative AI, most enterprises are testing stuff, [enterprises] are doing some proof of concepts… we’ve seen some use cases in production, but it’s not the majority yet.” This will be a big area of opportunity that Dataiku can help solve for, with Turck confirming that 2024 will be the year when “AI becomes real in the enterprise.”
At another recent meetup, we had the pleasure of opening up our stage to one of Europe’s very first Decacorns, Celonis. Celonis CEO, Alex Rinke, led the conversation about the bigger impact of process mining, and how Celonis has contributed to building out this new category. Rinke shares that, “…there’s a top line impact, a bottom line impact, a people impact, and a green line impact to process mining.” He also states that in order to help bring a very horizontal product to market, such as theirs, you have to build out your core use cases, think through the life cycle of your customers, then build a flywheel around it. “But just hiring a lot of sales people isn’t a go-to-market strategy,” says Rinke.
Another organization that we’ve welcomed into our NYC office recently is Pursuit. Last year, we hosted the social impact organization’s Pursuit Demo Days, where Pursuit Fellows presented their very own self-built apps allowing them to showcase their year plus worth of learnings in software development, professional development, and beyond. It also offered the opportunity for an esteemed panel of tech judges, who shared hands-on feedback and experience with the fellows based on the presentations delivered that day. Pursuit prides itself on the “support system” it creates in helping talent meet the right opportunities and the power of coming together as a team to solve hard problems.
As businesses adapt to evolving work environments and meetups continue to gain momentum, there’s no doubt about the positive impact that networking and knowledge sharing has on individuals, helping attendees stay ahead of the latest trends and innovate with their peers.
Interested in hosting a meetup with Foursquare? Contact us to learn more and follow Foursquare on LinkedIn and X to keep an eye on local events near you.
Written By: Maya Bitton
Reviewed By: Casey Moynagh
