Welcome to MGMT Boston where we try to help thousands of you manage your awareness of top Boston startups, founders, and local builders putting in the work. Glad to have you here!
July Presenting Partners:
TLDR:
Episode 3: Code & Cobblestones with Ellen Rubin - our first guest has founded three companies, taken Netezza through its IPO, and sold startups to both Verizon and AWS
Thanks to Justin Obey at Obey Creative for the partnership
Thomas Hackett, Co-Founder & CEO at PLATFORM Golf - building the next evolution of golf simulation, bringing the uneven lies of a real golf course into the simulator bay
Jim Fairweather, Head of AI GTM at Google Cloud - leading the GCP team the helping CEOs and leaders of software & technology companies incorporate AI into their people, products, and GTM strategies
Cecilia visits RightHand Robotics, Pt. 1 - warehouse automation, order picking, and labor changes in fulfillment are all being tackled by RightHand Robotics
MGMT Life Sciences Launch - we’ve got a new vertical here at MGMT. Tune in!
MGMT Boston 2026 Startup Partners: Blitzy / Suno / HYCU / OnRamp / WHOOP
We’ll be creating media all year alongside these standout teams! More to come!
Upcoming Events:
Around the Hub on MGMT Boston’s News Feed:
Walden Robotics raises $300M Seed round to build general purpose robotics
Neo (cybersecurity) launches out of stealth with $100M to secure AI software across the enterprise
Cephable launches a new Private On-device AI Assistant platform
Boston ranks #3 in Carta’s startup ecosystem leaderboard - this we knew!!
Other Resources:
Code & Cobblestones - alongside my co-host, Will Lehmann at Step Function, we’re going to be bringing you the here & now from top founders & builders here in Boston - Thanks to Justin Obey at Obey Creative for all the hard work getting this off the ground
Open Market and The Art of The Possible - once upon a time in Cambridge, 30 years ago, a buzzy Web 1.0 startup went public with $1.8M in trailing revenue. These are their lessons for the age of AI
MGMT Boston Operators Club - a community and opportunity engine for 125+ Boston based up & coming venture backed operators
Boston Tech Big Board - 2026 Startups to Watch
Ellen Rubin has founded three companies, taken Netezza through its IPO, and sold startups to both Verizon and AWS.
Now an operating partner at Glasswing Ventures, she sits down with us to talk about why the hard, unglamorous parts of the stack are the ones worth building, and why Boston is the place to build them.
From a citywide push to teach every high school student AI, to what a soccer crowd taught her about B2B sales, come check out our convo from the classroom to the cap table
Why Boston Public Schools' new AI literacy requirement matters, and how BostonPublic.ai (with Kayak's Paul English) is getting there first
How the "crossing the chasm" playbook broke, and what replaced it in the AI era
What makes a customer worth chasing, and how to measure real urgency instead of polite excitement
Why AI has to run through every part of a company, not just the product
The most underrated Seed-stage hire right now
The real advantages of building in Boston (and the honest disadvantages)
What changes when you leave the operator seat for the other side of the table
Timestamps:
00:00: Our first guest! And why
00:56: Boston's new AI literacy requirement, and BostonPublic.ai
06:12: Three seed rounds: Enlay, Flux, and Pillar
10:01: What the Tartan Army taught Matt about B2B sales
14:34: The accidental entrepreneur: Booz Allen to Netezza
19:20: Founding CloudSwitch and ClearSky Data
23:07: Choosing your customer, and the chasm collapsing
28:43: The real advantages of building in Boston
31:27: Leaving the operator seat for Glasswing
34:18: Building an AI-native team in the age of agents
38:52: Rapid fire
42:50: Stop talking about what Boston doesn't have
Welcome Thomas Hackett, Co-Founder and CEO at PLATFORM Golf on this episode of 🔥 The Lantern 🔥
PLATFORM Golf is building the next evolution of golf simulation.
Their technology brings the uneven lies of a real golf course into the simulator bay, for both full swing and putting, giving coaches, fitters, and gamers the ability to feel what it's like on green grass where 96% of golf shots come from uneven lies.
🏗️ What is PLATFORM Golf building in 2026? 🏗️
PLATFORM Golf has nailed down a global partnership with Trackman and is in the final certification process of its most recent release, launching across the country in July.
Their footprint is already global, from Yas Links in Abu Dhabi to Thailand out of their Needham HQ. The team raised $7.5M with a cap table that includes the founder of Club Champion and the operator behind the TaylorMade turnaround, with a Series A fundraise planned for the fall.
Their team is giving people that “made-putt” feeling inside a simulator.
🤔 What advice does Thomas have for other Founders? 🤔
If you have an idea, go out and tell people. Make sure it can be validated by people who are industry specific or industry adjacent and invest in that industry.
Raising money is a real indicator of whether something is going to work.
🤝 How can we help PLATFORM Golf grow here in Boston and beyond? 🤝
The team is scaling from 20 employees to 40 by year end and wants to hire from Babson, MIT, Harvard, BU, and Northeastern. If you've ever considered a simulator for your office, this is completely different. PLATFORM takes the same hyperrealism NASCAR drivers train with, applied to golf. Go check them out!
Welcome Jim Fairweather, Head of AI Go-To-Market at Google Cloud, on this episode of 🔥The Lantern 🔥
Jim leads the Google Cloud team helping CEOs and leaders of software & technology companies incorporate AI into their people, their products, and their go-to-market strategies.
🔍 What is the AI GTM team building at Google Cloud? 🔎
Google sits in a unique spot as the only hyperscaler with a true frontier model and the only frontier model company with chips.
The AI GTM team was formed just two and a half years ago and has grown tremendously, pulling talent from across Google to meet this AI moment.
The startups they're working with who are winning in this new era are open, curious, and committed to learning.
💡 What is actually happening on the ground with AI companies? 💡
A recent Gallup poll found 83% of executives are not yet seeing organizational ROI from AI, while 65% of individuals report massive productivity gains. Jim expects 2026 to be the year those converge.
He also describes the pattern he sees everywhere…
AI adoption starts with...
"Wow, this model is incredible"
Followed a month later by "wow, this bill is expensive"
Then there’s a recalibration on which model fits which solution.
🤔 What would you share with Founders and builders? 🤔
Get specific. The mistake companies keep making is going too broad. Quantify the value your product delivers clearly enough that a still-learning market can understand it, then educate first and inspire second.
Build yourself and your team a sustainable motion with AI, because new things are dropping every single day.
🤝 How can we help Google Cloud? 🤝
Go try Gemini 3.5 and the Gemini Enterprise app.
Google's agent platform supports models beyond Google's own, including Anthropic and open source, in a safe and secure environment. Trust is paramount, and that is what Google wants builders to count on. Check out the GCP team!
If you're a fan of physical AI, Cecilia’s got you!
She represented MGMT Boston at the RightHand Robotics open house in Boston, where she spoke with executives from RightHand Robotics and Locus Robotics about the problems robotics is solving today: warehouse automation, order picking, and labor challenges in fulfillment.
Get ready for Part 2, where she explores the future of robotics and what's next for physical AI.
Any feedback for us? One thing you liked? One thing you didn’t? Local startups, founders, or operators to highlight? Just reply to this e-mail!
See you next week!
-Matt
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