During the weekend, while most students were making their way back from the nightclubs, Songyee Yoon was dashing across her South Korean university campus. By evening, she would execute some tasks on her college’s supercomputer, and as the machine processed her work, she’d remain awake without rest in her dormitory. “I would be up at around 2 a.m., 3 a.m. walking across the campus due to my eagerness to view the outcome,” she expressed. 

Her uniqueness on campus was such that a writer found inspiration in her for a television show centered around her university.

“There wasn’t a plan to develop personas based on a real individual,” she mentioned. Yet, while the writer interacted with pupils to obtain content, “the writer constantly heard tales about this peculiar girl.” 

Thus, Yoon served as the muse for “Genius Girl” on the Korean TV series KAIST.

Currently, if a series were to be crafted about Yoon’s existence, it’d resemble HBO’s “Silicon Valley.” With a PhD attained from MIT, she ascended to the role of president at the South Korean video game firm NCSoft, and currently, she’s introducing Principal Venture Partners (PVP), a $100 million fund initiated to support AI startups. This fund will grant early-stage finances ranging from $100,000 up to “single-digit millions” and has already been infused into six startups, amongst them, model creator Liquid AI. 

Her co-partners are a line-up of esteemed figures in AI academia: Daniela Rus, a notable academic Yoon connected with through her role on MIT’s board; Dawn Song, a MacArthur Fellow well-known for extensive publications on computer security; and Jeremy Nixon, the creator of AGI House, an AI hacker house famous for enticing young talented innovators. 

PVP represents one of the exclusive investment entities boasting a profound roster of academic experts — an asset Yoon perceives as advantageous when pursuing agreements. 

“I believe entrepreneurs prefer an assortment of advisors capable of offering diverse viewpoints,” she articulated. Yoon is of the view that the research expertise within the PVP team bestows a deep comprehension of how AI “has developed over the years” and the directions it might explore.  

The team anticipates that upcoming unicorns will be AI-native enterprises, constructed with AI as a fundamental focus from the outset, not integrating AI functionalities into the system subsequently. Yoon doesn’t fret about missing the window on contributions in foundational enterprises like OpenAI or Anthropic. “Observing the top 10 NASDAQ enterprises, over half are digital-native firms established post the advent of broadband,” she noted. 

Yoon mentioned that the enterprise will finance across various fields. She is notably enthusiastic about AI’s potential to revolutionize the insurance sector, whether it involves employing AI to aid individuals in comprehending their coverage or insurance businesses specializing in underwriting autonomous robots. 

Yoon is also concerned about AI’s ability to intensify cultural imperialism, a subject on which she penned an article last year. She pointed out the instance of major model producers claiming, “oh, we have trained this AI using data globally sourced.” 

“However, bear in mind that 35% of the global populace lacks broadband access,” Yoon argued. “And they don’t contribute to the data pool used in training this AI. Consequently, such cultures and viewpoints inevitably remain unrepresented.” 

She acknowledges it’s a convoluted issue that can initiate resolution through ongoing dialogues and amplified industry representation — like, for example, an AI-centric fund with three female partners. 

“While we don’t declare it a female-directed fund, I observe many female founders approaching us, knowing we possess greater empathy,” Yoon said. “They understand we can recognize their true potential and unique capabilities.”