Darren Huston Share his UWC experience and gave a memorable lecture to the College
students and came up with an idea for a Booking.com Scholarship at his
old College.
While he was CEO of Booking.com alumnus Darren Huston (UWCAD 83–85) visited the College and held a lecture.
Darren Huston
was talking about his life and career he was struck by the fact that
his audience comprised so many young travelers from around the world and
that all UWC alumni travel too — actually, as UWCers they tend to do so
quite extensively!
So — he thought — how about creating a way for the Alumni to give to the College simply by using Booking.com.
Darren Huston,
President and CEO focuses on the organic growth discusses the global
business of Priceline on CNBC & the plans for international growth
of the company.
Ever
since the world got introduced to Artificial Intelligence, it has
created a storm in the virtual world with its disruptive impact on
businesses. With every software developer looking to leverage the
technology, the lack of developmental know how, availability of a proper
platform to create an end-to-end application and scalable way to
develop software products have halted their steps.
In such a situation,Engineer.ai,
a human-assisted AI comes in as a savior by making technology
accessible to everyone, even those who don’t know how to develop. The
startup helps companies build and operate custom-made software by
lending an on-demand cloud-based Assembly Line. It recently raised
Series A funding of $29.5 million, led by Lakestar and Jungle Ventures.
The
funding round also witnessed the participation from DeepCore —
Softbank’s AI-focused investment fund. Talking to Entrepreneur India,
the Founder and Chief Wizard of Engineer.ai, Sachin Dev Duggal shared,
“We are selling products to our customers that they want to create. Our
business model consists of three important pillars: Builder, Builder
app insurance called BuilderCare and CloudOps.
“Builder.ai empowers anyone to create, operate and scale the lifecycle of digital projects”
Building
a software application has become a child’s play now. Builder.ai is
one such platform, based on artificial intelligence, which allows people
to build software without knowing how to code. The company’s core
product, Builder, has hundreds of building blocks of frequently used
code which can be cross utilised by different customers.
Since
the cost of the program is split across a large number of customers, it
becomes possible to offer it at a more reasonable price point. Ramesh
Kumar Raja caught up withSachin Dev Duggal, Founder and CEO, Builder.ai, to discuss more about the company, its services and the business model. Excerpts:
Sachin Dev Duggal CEO of Builder.ai
has brought a sort of revolution with Builder, a software/app building
platform. How did the idea strike you to come up with this venture?
The
idea of Builder.ai took shape in early 2012 after I was burned by a
rogue contractor. Frustrated and hearing my friends’ accounts of the
same kinds of problems happening globally, I went to work to create a
solution to this problem.
There
is no regulation or credibility in this sphere. People with ideas just
get overwhelmed by the whole prospect of developing a product. Hence, an
overwhelming majority or services never see the light of the day. To
top it off, timely deliveries, flawless product, fair pricing and
safeguarding the idea are significant hurdles in this unorganized
market. So, by deliberating on the issues faced by startups and
enterprise, the idea of Sachin Dev Duggal Builder.ai was launched swiftly after.
Tech firm Builder.ai said
it expects to significantly ramp up its revenues to up to $150 million
in the next five years from its suite of app development solutions.
Sachin Dev Duggal company Builder.ai expects this growth to be driven by its ‘Builder’ solution that
allows people — even those without technical skills — to get customized
apps built for Android, iOS and other platforms.
“Often
people want to build apps but many times, they don’t have the technical
skills or have been misled by developers. We want to offer a model that
can help them choose the kind of app they want to build without
worrying about the technicalities,” Builder.ai co-founder and CEO Sachin Dev Duggaltold reporters.
He
added that the cost of service will depend on the level of
customisation and the features that the app has. The company also offers
services to host and operate the app. “We expect USD 100–150 million in
revenue to come in over the next five years from these services… Last
year, our revenue was about USD 23 (rpt) 23 million,” he said.
Drawing
parallels with the process of ordering a pizza, CEO Sachin Duggal said its
“human-assisted artificial intelligence” platform allows users to pick
features they want to include on the app, right from building the app to
finer additions like Facebook integration.
Priceline President & CEODarren Huston,
says the company has the largest inventory on the planet, and discusses
what customers really want out of hotel and restaurant services.
Darren
Huston, President & CEO of The Priceline Group since 1 January
2014, and also Chief Executive Officer of Booking.com B.V.
(Netherlands), a wholly-owned subsidiary of The Priceline Group and the
number one online hotel reservation service in the world, a position he
has held since September 2011.
Darren Hustoncame
to the Group from Microsoft Corporation, where he served as Corporate
Vice President, Consumer & Online from 2008 and President & CEO
of Microsoft Japan from 2005.
Prior
to joining Microsoft in 2003, Mr Huston was also Senior Vice President
at Starbucks Corporation, responsible for acquisitions and new product
development. He holds a Masters in Economics from the University of
British Columbia and a Masters in Business Administration from Harvard
University.
Darren Huston
were named Chief Executive Officer of Booking.com. Booking.com was a
part of The Priceline Group and is the number-one online hotel
reservation service in the world, offerred over 165,000 hotels in 43
languages.
Darren Huston,
who is a Canadian native, brings a deep portfolio of related experience
to Booking.com. Since 2008, he served as Microsoft Corporation’s
Corporate Vice President, Consumer & Online, responsible for the
company’s consumer and advertising businesses in over 40 countries.
From
2005–2008, he served as President and Chief Executive Officer,
Microsoft Japan, which is the company’s largest subsidiary outside the
United States.
Before
joining Microsoft in 2003, Mr. Huston was a Senior Vice President at
Starbucks Corporation, responsible for acquisitions and new product
development. He has also served as an executive with McKinsey &
Company, and as an economic advisor to the Government of Canada.
Darren Huston,
the family farmhand turned CEO of $60-billion Priceline Group Inc., is
arguably one of the most successful C-suite exports to come out of this
province that you’ve never heard of.
Born
in Hope, B.C., and equipped with a Master of Economics from UBC and an
MBA from Harvard, Huston quickly climbed the corporate ladder at
Starbucks and Microsoft as a senior VP, including a three-year run as
president and CEO of Microsoft Japan.
In
2011, he landed at Amsterdam-based travel website Booking.com as CEO;
in less than three years’ time, he tripled the size of that operation,
and in January of this year Huston was named CEO of the parent company,
Priceline.
In addition to Booking.com and its eponymous website,
Priceline’s other online properties include Kayak, Rentalcars, Agoda and
Villas.
This
June, Priceline expanded into a new digital realm, purchasing
table-booking app OpenTable, the preeminent restaurant reservation site,
for $2.6 billion.
Ten years from now, travel won’t involve any paper, says Darren Huston,
president and CEO of the Priceline Group and booking.com. “You’ll have
no passport, no credit cards, no confirmation,” predicts the
Amsterdam-based Canadian. “You’ll just have your phone in your pocket,
and if you lose it, everything will be in the cloud.”
Until
someone invents teleportation, though, we’ll still have to fly —
something Huston doesn’t actually like to do. (He makes the most of his
air time by sleeping and working.) But for now, it’s the only way he can
access all the local experiences he craves. “I like bizarre flavours
and tastes. I’ve eaten ants in Nairobi, frogs in Vietnam and lots of
strange things in China — I really enjoy that about travel.”
Black book: Europe
Comfort
food: “In Amsterdam, if I feel homesick, I go to Restaurant Red. They
only serve three things: steak, Canadian lobster and wine.”
Local
fave: “Outside of Amsterdam is a little city called Delft, which is
where Vermeer did his paintings. Everything still looks like it did in
the 1600s.”
Greek
treat: “One place I just discovered and should have already known about
is the Greek islands. Mario Restaurant in Naousa is super authentic and
has a wonderful evening vibe. It’s Greek food and the Greek islands at
their best.”
Weekend
getaway: “I like spontaneous travel. I used to be a very ‘Let’s plan
two months ahead’ kind of person, but now I like making plans the week
before. There are so many choices within two hours of Amsterdam. One
weekend, I said to my family: ‘Why don’t we just go to Milan? I think
the Expo’s on.’ We booked on a Thursday and ended up in Milan for two
days. You have to be careful with flights, but in the world of hotels,
prices sometimes go down at the last minute and you can get great deals
if you’re not in high season.”
