Keep pulling the thread on Rob Goldstein.
BlackRock has implemented a "first draft principle," which encourages using AI to create the initial version of all documents, including client presentations, internal documents, and prospectuses.
BlackRock is using a new software development workflow where a meeting is recorded, transcribed into a functional document by AI, and then used by AI coding tools to generate a functional prototype.
A new AI-driven workflow at BlackRock has collapsed the software development cycle for a prototype from a unit of measurement of "months" to "days."
Rob Goldstein observes that companies like OpenAI, Anthropic, and SpaceX are in a "race to go public" because public markets offer value propositions beyond what private markets can provide.
Tony Kim, a technology portfolio manager at BlackRock, predicted approximately one to two years ago that the total number of lines of code in the world would increase from a baseline of 100 to one million by 2030.
The founding thesis of BlackRock was to use linked Sun Workstations, costing $10,000 each, to replicate the power of supercomputers for risk modeling, bringing technology previously unavailable to the buy-side.
BlackRock's early recognition that the asset management business is fundamentally an information processing business was a key differentiator and a novel concept 20-30 years ago.
BlackRock established its own AI lab in 2018.
BlackRock employs roughly 5,000 engineers, data analysts, and modelers.
Rob Goldstein predicts that users will increasingly interact with expert systems like Aladdin by typing natural language requests, with an AI agent executing the tasks in the background.
Rob Goldstein predicts that over the next 10 years, large financial platforms like Aladdin will become more integral and perform more functions, not fewer.
BlackRock initiated an "Open Aladdin" campaign approximately 10 years ago to allow clients to interact with the platform via code and APIs.