Just Your Typical New Mexico Image Recognition Startup Spun Off From A Government Lab

Far from Silicon Valley, Descartes Labs aims to turn a national research facility's AI research into new ways of understanding the world.

On a recent Friday afternoon, I was riding the San Francisco subway when the doors opened at a station and Mark Johnson stepped into the car. It was a pleasant surprise to see him . . . but not that much of a surprise. Over the years, Johnson has worked at a bunch of startups I've covered, including Kosmix (acquired by Walmart), Powerset (later one of the foundations of Microsoft's Bing) and Zite (which was bought by CNN, which later flipped it to Flipboard). He's the sort of guy I think of when I think of Bay Area startups.

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