Ignite Startups: The Hidden Power of Knowledge Graphs in Enterprise AI with Malcolm De Leo | Ep174
Ignite: Conversations on Startups, Venture Capital, Tech, Future, and Society
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Malcolm De Leo is the Co-founder and Chief Business Officer at GraphIQ, an innovation-first platform redefining how enterprises discover and connect with business intelligence. With a PhD in chemistry and a 20+ year career spanning Clorox, Orbital Insight, and Quantified, Malcolm has built a reputation for evangelizing innovation, data-driven transformation, and cultural change inside legacy organizations. In this episode, he shares how GraphIQ was born from repeated market frustration, and why the real unlock in AI isn’t the models—it’s the data.
In Today’s Episode We Discuss:
00:01 – Welcome & Guest Introduction
01:30 – Shifting from Science to Startups
03:00 – Lessons in Culture and Change from Big Companies
03:50 – The Origin Story of GraphIQ
05:00 – The “Aha Moment” Behind GraphIQ
06:50 – What Makes GraphIQ Different
09:45 – Go-To-Market Strategy and Ideal Customers
12:15 – The Forgotten Power of Data in the AI Boom
14:00 – Trust, Transparency & Attribution in AI Tools
15:00 – Happy Accidents & the Realities of Fundraising
18:00 – Balancing Revenue vs. Vision
20:20 – Product-Market Fit Frameworks
22:00 – Designing Culture on Purpose
25:00 – Remote Teams and Scaling Collaboration
26:00 – What VCs and Founders Get Wrong About Enterprise Sales
29:30 – Facing the Founder Mindset Shift
36:30 – The Next Chapter for GraphIQ
37:40 – The Future of Enterprise Intelligence
38:30 – Rapid Fire Round
44:50 – Lessons from Orbital Insight & Building Smarter
47:00 – Closing Thoughts & Where to Find Malcolm
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173 episodes