Rob's one of the smartest people I know -- and I know a fair number of smart people. Disclosure: I was an early investor in Rob's prior company Backupify and am an early investor in Talla.

Rob May, the the co-founder and former CEO of Backupify (acquired by Datto) and the current CEO of business AI company Talla, is on a quest for knowledge. Probably the smartest person in any room he may happen to be in, May's intellectual interest has led him on an quite the journey thus far. May has gone from being one of the earliest bloggers to find a way to actually make money while writing on the internet, to achieving a good mix of business successes and failures on the road to founding cloud data company Backupify, which was acquired by Datto in a deal worth $90 million. After seeing an opportunity in artificial intelligence, Rob learned as much as he could about the space and founded Talla, an AI-enabled digital assistant. Hearing about May's career alone is interesting, but his advice for early-stage founders is priceless. Whether it's talking about how to form the right team, the silliness of being in "stealth" mode, or how to take advantage of opportunities in growing spaces, such as AI, Rob's insight is unparalleled.