David H. Wasserman is Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Recognize, a New York based private equity firm investing in digital services businesses at the intersection of services and software. Founded in 2020 alongside Francisco D'Souza and Charles Phillips, former CEOs of Cognizant and Infor respectively, Recognize was built on a simple but contrarian insight — that private equity had largely ignored the space where technology services meets IP, and that the next generation of enterprise technology winners would live exactly there.

In this episode David shares the origin story of Recognize, born from a chance conversation at a celebration dinner in 2019 and stress tested almost immediately by COVID. He explains why three people who had already made it in their careers felt compelled to start something from scratch, what surprised them most about the journey so far and how the tectonic shifts in AI are reshaping both their portfolio and their investment thesis. David also gives a genuinely candid take on the SaaS disruption debate, drawing on an e-commerce analogy that reframes the whole conversation. And he closes with career lessons that have stayed with him throughout his career.

Key themes from this conversation:

• The serendipitous origin story of Recognize and how COVID became a catalyst not a blocker
• Why digital services was the overlooked gap between software and venture investing in 2019
• How AI is reshaping the tech stack and what that means for where Recognize invests
• The SaaS disruption debate, roadkill versus resilience and why complexity is the deciding factor
• Building culture from within, lessons from a basketball coach
• The difference between edge and energy as a leader
• Why the thin line between success and failure is the most important career lesson David ever received

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