Sabrina Albert (Wu), a key early-stage investor at Madrona Venture Group, has been promoted to partner — stepping into a more prominent role at the Seattle firm at a time of rapid technological upheaval.
“We’re living through one of the most dynamic and consequential moments in tech history,” Albert told GeekWire.
Since joining Madrona in 2021 after a 3-year stint with Vector Capital, Albert has worked with various enterprise software startups such as Pulumi, Clarify, SeekOut, Finpilot, and others.
Albert is especially bullish on enterprise AI agents embedded directly into business workflows. She’s looking for startups taking advantage of new infrastructure technology to rethink traditional systems and processes.
“We’re going to enter a world in which these agents function both as semi-autonomous and fully autonomous coworkers,” Albert said. “They’re going to have similar goals as employees like you and I, and they’re going to be starting to work like us.”
She believes this shift will fundamentally alter how humans interact with software: from static apps to more dynamic, AI-powered co-workers. And she thinks there’s a “willingness from a lot of industries” to adopt this new approach.
When assessing pitches, Albert focuses on “founder-market fit” to determine what makes a particular CEO the right person to lead a company.
She said startup leaders building companies today need to iterate quickly and be open-minded about adopting new models or tools that can improve customer experiences.
“What your customers need yesterday may be different than what they need today,” she said. “Being able to be dynamic in this environment is more important than ever.”
Albert, who helps publish the Aspiring for Intelligence newsletter, said she sees an abundance of technical talent and ambition in the Seattle tech ecosystem — but wants to see more founders willing to swing big.
She’s also thinking about the city’s next generation of founders, builders, and operators.
“It’s exciting to see how much innovation is happening,” Albert said. “A lot of earlier-in-career builders are coming to Seattle, being brought here by a variety of different things — and I just would love to see it flourish.”
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