Finding Startup Success in America's 4th Largest City with Brian Richards

Timecoded Guide:

[00:00] Podcast begins - Houston Innovation at Scale: Finding Startup Success in America's 4th Largest City with Brian Richards

[03:53] Spearheading innovative partnerships with Houston Exponential

[10:46] Inside Accenture’s 750,000-person global operations

[16:15] Collaborating with startups at the Houston Innovation Hub

[21:45] Generative AI technology in Houston’s future industries

[29:23] Management’s role in embracing innovation & growth 

[32:22] Forging the future through reflecting on past technology

What does Accenture do exactly? 

Brian explains that because Accenture is a global company, they leverage their large size to make strong impacts operating big pieces of their clients’ businesses. Primarily, Accenture centers their work on strategy and consulting, while Brian’s work specifically allows him to strategize and consult with startups at the Houston Innovation Hub. Brian believes Accenture’s benefit with the Hub is being able to be out in the market, finding the technology their clients need to succeed. 

“We're always looking at the future, but every big company is disrupted by new waves of change, technology change, geopolitical change, market changes, and dynamics. And what we are really good at is helping them navigate that change, and to embrace all of that potential and to transform themselves to be a higher performing business.” 

How do startups get into Accenture’s Houston Innovation Hub? 

Located in downtown Houston, the Houston Innovation Hub sits at the epicenter of the Energy Transition capital of the world. Startups get involved in the Hub through Accenture’s outreach into the Houston community, especially through their relationships with the Ion and Greentown Labs. Additionally, sometimes startups are sought out because of the unique technology needs of Accenture’s clients, inviting specific tech into the Hub and into partnership with Accenture. 

“We do invest in companies, but we're trying to find companies less for capital appreciation. It's less about, how much money are we going to make off of the capital appreciation of the company? And more about, is this someone we can partner with who's going to help drive our clients' business and our core business that we can build around?” 

What are you doing with generative AI at Accenture? 

Although AI models like ChatGPT are still relatively new and untapped, Brian believes that generative AI is a technology that Houston needs to leverage. With proper protocols and responsibility models in place, AI can revolutionize the incredibly successful industries already in Houston, such as medical. Brian is excited to see where AI goes next, and hopes the Houston innovation community can apply AI thoughtfully to their everyday needs.

“One of the things I'm very passionate about in this space is not only the responsibility side, but what this means for Houston. Houston missed the digital wave 2 decades ago, we've been playing catch up ever since. I am determined to ensure we recognize the potential this has.”

How are you forging the future? 

Beyond his incredibly impactful work with Accenture and the Houston Innovation Hub and Houston Exponential, Brian personally focuses on forging the future through analyzing the past. Learning about past technology, such as sun dials and celestial navigation, can open your eyes to how past people looked at innovation, Brian explains. Technology has moved at a record pace throughout human history and there’s so much to learn by looking back. 

“People 300 years ago didn't have Gen AI, but they had greed, they had competitiveness, they had all the things that go into markets today. I study that past and that's how I really get my inspiration for being thoughtful about new technologies, how to think of deploying them, how to think of scaling them, separating hype from reality.”