Keynote: The Hidden Patterns

Event Overview

What can you learn from 6,000 startup pitches? A lot, if you know how to read the signal.

In this Keynote, Blue Moon co-founder Ben Orthlieb draws from his analysis of 6,000 startup pitches to reveal three key insights about what's actually emerging in AI-driven startups. The next wave may be built by radically lean teams — often just three technical builders and one commercial lead — representing a shift toward more efficient startup structures. We’re also seeing a new surge in SMB software that presents significant opportunities in the current market. Finally, compliance may be the most overlooked opportunity available to entrepreneurs today.

Blue Moon is an AI-native seed fund built to see more, know more, and win more. Its model uses proprietary AI systems to scan markets, evaluate founders, and surface patterns that traditional venture firms miss. The result is the throughput of a much larger fund with the speed and conviction of a focused seed investor.

Join us as Ben sits down with Johnson School faculty Lutz Finger to discuss what he’s seeing across the fast-changing startup landscape.

What You'll Learn

Why investors are still looking in the wrong places and missing key opportunities in the current market
Why incremental "sustaining innovation" is often the wrong bet for breakthrough success
How real opportunities are now forming in emerging areas that most people aren't watching yet

Speakers

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Ben Orthlieb

Co-Founder and GP

Blue Moon

Bio

Ben Orthlieb is co-founder and GP at Blue Moon, an AI-native seed fund backing exceptional B2B founders across North America.

Blue Moon redesigns ventures for the AI era by building proprietary systems that systematically identify exceptional founders and companies through large-scale pattern recognition and dynamic market analysis. Ultimate conviction, however, remains deeply human, rooted in the founder’s trajectory and character.

The result is three times broader market coverage and higher win rates (97%) versus legacy funds. Fund I is tracking in the top 0.1% of US VC funds by TVPI (Carta). The model has been the subject of a Harvard Business School case study.

Ben previously led Corporate Development & Strategy and Investments at LinkedIn. He has an MBA from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, a CFA charter, and an MS in CS and EE Engineering from Télécom SudParis/Institut Polytechnique de Paris.

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Lutz Finger

Visiting Senior Lecturer

Cornell SC Johnson College of Business

Bio
Certificates Authored

Visiting Senior Lecturer, Cornell SC Johnson College of Business

Lutz Finger is a Silicon Valley technologist and Cornell faculty member with 20+ years of experience building AI-driven products and platforms at Google, LinkedIn, and Snap. He is a serial entrepreneur (R2Decide, acquired in 2025; Fisheye Analytics, acquired in 2013) and currently leads AI strategy at XGEN AI, developing next-generation generative retail solutions.

Finger teaches several courses on AI and product development. His eCornell certificate program provides an end-to-end guide to using AI to create measurable business value, and has helped executives worldwide move from AI ideas to real implementations:

Finger is also a frequent Forbes contributor on AI and the future of commerce. He is a Venture Partner at Cherry Ventures, serves on multiple advisory boards, and has advised and invested in data-centric companies across the United States and Europe. He holds an MBA from INSEAD and an M.S. in Quantum Physics from TU Berlin.

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