From AI Founder to Startup Mentor

In 2014, Apoorv Agarwal, MS‘08 and PhD‘16 in computer science, co-founded Text IQ, acquired by Relativity, a B2B artificial intelligence company with a reimagined approach to managing and mitigating risks derived from unstructured data. 

Today, Agarwal is an adjunct associate professor of computer science at Columbia Engineering, teaching the course, "Topics in CS: Building a Successful Startup.” The course is offered to undergraduate and graduate students, and as a part of it, Agarwal hosts weekly guest speakers from his network of venture capitalists, investors, and unicorn company founders.

Beyond his academic role, he is currently working on a new entrepreneurial adventure, taking advantage of the Columbia Start Up Labs, and works closely with chief executives of Fortune 500 companies, helping them implement AI as a tool for digital transformation. He is also the host of Earn The Right, a podcast series featuring in-depth conversations with leaders shaping global institutions. 

We talked to Agarwal about his experience studying at Columbia Engineering and what advice he has for those looking to study and work in AI.

Why did you choose to attend Columbia Engineering for your graduate programs?

One of the books that I was a big fan of is written by Alfred Aho [a pioneer in programming languages and Turing Award recipient], now Professor Emeritus at Columbia. Very quickly I came to realize many of the other incredible professors who I followed were all at Columbia. It has a stellar faculty. I had offers from a few other Ivy leagues, but given my area of interest, which is computer science and data mining and machine learning, the faculty at Columbia is absolutely world-class. And because of that, it became a no-brainer for me to come to Columbia.

How have you leveraged Columbia’s alumni network?

One thing that really benefited me, which was very pronounced and very obvious, was the School’s alumni network. I've done thousands of cold outreach, and that network and recognition of brand is so powerful. If I'm in a social gathering and introduce myself by saying I went to Columbia, they immediately pay attention.

I was just meeting with a first-time founder who just graduated from Columbia, and he had some questions about how to build a company or what to do next; if there's an opportunity for me to contribute and give back then I'm happy to do that.

Was there a particular class or professor that impacted you?

Professor Kathy McKeown; she's one of the earliest pioneers of computational linguistics. She’s had a lot of influence on me as a student, as a researcher. She's had a big influence on my trajectory and she remains to be a mentor of mine.

The faculty here is not only top class in what they do, but have this entrepreneurial bent of mind, and they like to bring the research out of the lab and commercialize it and build companies around it. When I look back, certainly some of their innovative, entrepreneurial nature rubbed off on me.

What is the academic experience like at Columbia Engineering?

Columbia’s courses are full of smart people, and you have to really work hard to get a decent grade. Going through the motions of staying disciplined, working hard, and so on, it prepares you for pretty much everything in life.

And, there was diversity in coursework. I took courses not just in computer science, but courses in the math department and in operations research. Everything was so accessible. I think that was very helpful.

Do you have any advice for people thinking about studying AI?

A lot of young people come to me and ask, ‘How should we think about my career?’ I say no matter what you do, you have to tie yourself to AI.

I think humans will continue to make decisions. We still need humans for stakeholder management, for building bonds and relationships and all of these things that machines cannot do, but it's important to be an early adopter because no matter what the function is, if you're not using AI to do that function more efficiently and with better quality and output, someone who's doing that will take that position. Even if people want to pursue marketing or sales or law or consulting, my advice to them is to learn something basic about AI and learn how to use this tool. It's going to become very much like a calculator that you absolutely need to do your job.