Artificial Intelligence: Business Strategies and Applications

SAMEER B. SRIVASTAVA

Associate Professor & Harold Furst Chair in Management Philosophy and Values

Sameer B. Srivastava is Associate Professor and Harold Furst Chair in Management Philosophy and Values at UC Berkeley's Haas School of Business and is also affiliated with UC Berkeley Sociology. His research unpacks the complex interrelationships among the culture of social groups, the cognition of individuals within these groups, and the connections that people forge within and across groups. Much of his work is set in organizational contexts, where he uses computational methods to examine how culture, cognition, and networks independently and jointly relate to career outcomes. His work has been published in journals such as American Journal of Sociology, American Sociological Review, Administrative Science Quarterly, Management Science, and Organization Science. It has been covered in media outlets such as The New York Times, Fortune, The Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, and Forbes. Sameer teaches a popular MBA elective course, Power and Politics in Organizations, and co-directs the Berkeley-Stanford Computational Culture Lab. In a prior career, Sameer was a partner at a global management consultancy (Monitor Group; now Monitor Deloitte). He holds AB, AM, MBA, and PhD degrees from Harvard University.

THOMAS LEE

Associate Adjunct Professor, Research Scientist

Thomas Lee is an Associate Adjunct Professor and Research Scientist in the Haas Operations and Information Technology Management Group at the Haas School of Business. He teaches and conducts research on information and communication technologies to support innovation and new product development. Specifically, he develops and applies text and data mining methods for processing user-generated content. His goal is to discover and select opportunities for product and service innovation. Recent research has mined the text of online customer reviews to induce market structure and mined electronic medical records to redesign emergency department healthcare service processes. He holds Ph.D. and M.S. degrees from MIT’s Engineering Systems Division and B.A. and B.S. degrees in Political Science and Symbolic Systems (Artificial Intelligence) from Stanford University. He has served as a visiting scientist at the Computer Security Division of the National Institute of Standards and Technology, a research engineer at the MITRE Corporation, and as a contractor for DynCorp-Meridian supporting the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency doing research on Internet privacy and security. His research has been featured in Bloomberg Business News and the U.S. National Public Radio. He has consulting experience with companies such as Autodesk, IBM, Kelora Systems, Singtel, Telkomsel, and Vodafone.

ZSOLT KATONA

Assistant Professor of Marketing

Zsolt Katona holds a Ph.D. in computer science from the Eotvos University in his native Hungary and a Ph.D. in marketing from INSEAD France. He is an Assistant Professor of Marketing and the Cheryl and Christian Valentine Associate Professor at the Haas School of Business, University of California, Berkeley. He is an expert in online marketing strategy and social media. Zsolt’s research focuses on online marketing strategy, networks, and social media. He studies how firms can better take advantage of new Internet technologies and how they can integrate them into their marketing mix. His research has appeared in leading scientific journals such as Management Science, Marketing Science, Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Marketing Research, and Journal of Applied Probability. His research has been featured in Bloomberg Business News and the U.S. National Public Radio. He has consulting experience with companies such as Autodesk, IBM, Kelora Systems, Singtel, Telkomsel, and Vodafone.

PIETER ABBEEL

Professor, UC Berkeley Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences (EECS)

Pieter Abbeel is a Professor at UC Berkeley’s Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences school and Director of the Berkeley Robot Learning Lab and co-director of the Berkeley Artificial Intelligence Research (BAIR) lab. He works in machine learning and robotics. In particular his research focuses on making robots learn from people (apprenticeship learning), how to make robots learn through their own trial and error (reinforcement learning), and how to speed up skill acquisition through learning-to-learn (meta-learning). His robots have learned advanced helicopter aerobatics, knot-tying, and basic assembly, for example. Also, Abbeel, who has won numerous awards for his work, frequently hosts executive groups for lectures and discussions on recent advances and trends in AI. His work has been featured in publications, such as The New York Times, BBC, Bloomberg, Wall Street Journal, Wired, Forbes, Tech Review, and NPR.

MATTHEW STEPKA

Visiting Scholar/Executive in Residence UC Berkeley Haas School of Business

Matthew Stepka is a Visiting Scholar and Executive in Residence at UC Berkeley Haas School of Business. In addition, he is managing partner at Machina Ventures, an investment firm focused on early stage, artificial intelligence and data science enabled companies. Previously, he served as Vice President, Business Operations / Special Projects (Strategy) at Google, where he led and incubated strategic initiatives. Nowadays, he is also a public speaker on technology that is reshaping society and the economy, particularly AI and blockchain. Stepka has a B.S. in computer science from Case Western University and a J.D. from University of California Los Angeles School of Law.