Ashton Kutcher is perhaps most recognized as an actor but is also a successful Silicon Valley investors. He has been interested in technology since he was young and first studied to become a chemical engineer at the University of Iowa. Obviously, it didn't turn out that way and instead he became an actor and began investing primarily in media companies. Then Kutcher was hired as a product engineer at Lenovo (Hong Kong: 0992.HK) in 2013, his interest in technology becomes more obvious all the time. “It’s the same interest that made me do a magic show. I want to
know how it works, and I want to help solve problems through technology,” he has said.
I think they sit on tones of data and tones of waste, and they take our tax money and waste the sh*t out of it... - Ashton Kutcher
During a talk at Lenovo, Kutcher told his view and believes on how the future will shape up. Overall he seems to be a smart dude and have a good understanding of the technological development. Among the things he talked about I thought the most interesting was how he think Governments need to change and that technology can be used to provide better service. His passion to solve problems and efficiency becomes obvious in the following statement, "I think they sit on tonnes of data and tonnes of waste, and they take our tax money and waste the sh*t out of it, and hand us back a product that is sub-par,". Then he also mentioned the rapid development of Artificial Intelligence. If you want to learn more about AI, I have written a post you can read here: How To Invest In Artificial Intelligence
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But let us start to look at what Ashton Kutcher has invested in, among the first investments you will find Foursquare and Skype. Foursquare is a social network that allows users to "check in" to locations and Skype, the online video call company, became a huge success and Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) acquired them for $8.6 billion. Kutcher then started a venture capital firm in 2010 with two friends. Entertainment manager Guy Oseary, who is Madonna's manager, and billionaire investor Ron Burkle. The Firm is called A-Grade Investments and invests in technology start-up companies.
Ashton Kutcher says that the first thing he looks at when to invest in a new tech enterprise is...
They have invested in companies such as Uber, Airbnb, Shazam, SoundCloud, and Spotify. Most people probably know or have heard of these companies. Uber is an app that allows consumers to submit a trip request for crowd-sourced taxi drivers. The service is now available globally and is available in 53 countries and more than 200 cities worldwide. Then we have a website where users can rent out their homes or sofas as an alternative to hotels, the website is called Airbnb. I also mentioned three music services; Shazam is an app that helps you to find out what song that is playing with music identification. And I don't think SoundCloud and Spotify, the popular music streaming services, will need a further introduction. (However, I want to point out that they are both from a fabulous country, namely Sweden.) Spotify is expected to go public next year and it's rumored that they also are developing a video service. If you're interested you can read more about Spotify here: What's Next For Spotify?
A-Grade Investments has estimated $100 million invested in technology businesses and seem to focus on consumer-oriented companies that are changing the way consumers share information or shake up traditional marketplaces. Ashton Kutcher says that the first thing he looks at when to invest in a new tech enterprise is which problems they solve. Do you solve a problem for a large subset of people? Then he also points out how important it is to look at the founders. Will they be able to build something that is gonna be enduring? Do they have the passion and willpower to get through all the challenges? You often hear how important it is to assess the management of a company even as a smaller investors in a listed company, yet it's hard to overstate its importance for success. I think all investors should see this, as a rule, "invest in people, not ideas".
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