WEBINAR: Australian Emerging Growth & Venture Capital Series | What’s Next in AI: The Road Ahead from Silicon Valley

Warren Packard is an entrepreneur and venture capitalist with over 30 years experience in helping build tech companies and early stage startups. Warren is currently the Founder and CEO of Recursive Robotics, a start-up at the intersection of AI and robotics. He is also currently on the board of Mojave Energy Systems, a novel air conditioning platform company that he co-founded in 2022. Warren was most recently a Partner at AI Fund, a venture studio with over $375 million in assets under management, where he co-founded two dozen AI companies along with AI pioneer, Andrew Ng. Prior to AI Fund, Warren was the founder and CEO of Thuuz Sports, an AI-powered platform for creating automated sports highlight reels. Prior to Thuuz, Warren was Managing Director at Draper Fisher Jurvestson for over 13 years, where the firm was the principal investor in many multi-billion-dollar companies including SpaceX, Tesla, Box, Skype and Baidu.

Dave Burgess is LinkedIn’s Vice President of AI Infrastructure, bringing over 25 years of leadership across software engineering, data engineering and large‑scale AI systems. He has held senior roles at major technology companies, including Chief Architect of Advertising Solutions at Yahoo! and Vice President of Data Engineering at Pinterest, where he also chaired multiple international boards. A recognised innovator, he has advised leading venture firms such as Sequoia Capital and Notable Capital. Dave holds a BSc (Hons) in Mathematical Physics from the University of Edinburgh, a PhD from the University of Oxford, and completed post‑doctoral research at Stanford University.

Richard Horton is an experienced dual-qualified Australian and US (California) corporate and technology lawyer with over 25 years experience in Australia and Silicon Valley. He focuses primarily on venture capital, private equity, tech sector M&A transactions and IPOs and strategic IP/tech licensing and commercialisation advice.  

He represents a diverse client base of start-up and later stage tech companies across Australia and large tech companies from the United States doing business in Australia, as well as various Australian and US venture capital and private equity funds.  

Richard speaks regularly to research institutes, universities, industry bodies and government groups on Australian and US venture financing, tech sector M&A transactions, IP strategy and licensing, and general corporate and commercial law. He is also regularly engaged by the media to discuss issues relating to the Australian and US tech scene. 

Before moving to Piper Alderman, Richard worked for several leading multinational law firms across Australia and the United States (including 15 years in Palo Alto, California).