Bayes Impact

Products

“Bob” is an artificial intelligence-powered conversation application which is intended to assist with job searches. Bayes Impact markets the application to employment agencies and similar organizations, claiming that it reduces the time needed to find a job and frees human career coaches to focus on job seekers who require more personalized help. ²

“Conotify” is a COVID-19 contact tracing application which asks users to self-report if they believe they have been exposed or infected. Bayes Impact claims that the application does not track users’ location and that users have the option of reporting themselves anonymously. ³

“Encompass” is a mapping tool which is intended to determine the availability of social services to various demographic groups. According to Bayes Impact, the application is supposed to address unequal outcomes in healthcare and other fields: the firm claims that societal “barriers” keep minority groups from sufficiently accessible social programs. ⁴

“Ursus” is an application for reporting police use of force incidents. Bayes Impact claims that it is designed to increase “police integrity” and improve “community relations.” According to the firm, the state of California has adopted the system. ⁵

Partners

Bayes Impact operates an “Impact University Program” in partnership with Duke University, New York University, Northwestern University, the University of San Francisco, and the University of California Berkeley. ⁶

Backers

Bayes Impact has attracted major funders in the tech industry and left-leaning philanthropy sphere. These include tech giants Google and Microsoft, whose former executives Eric Schmidt and Bill Gates both went on to launch highly influential grantmaking organizations with left-of-center priorities. The latter of these—the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation—funds Bayes Impact directly. Financial industry giants MasterCard and JPMorgan Chase have also backed Bayes Impact through their social impact arms, the Center for Inclusive Growth and the JPMorgan Chase Foundation, respectively. In addition, the firm has received funding from several French investors and foundations. ⁷

The lead investor into Bayes Impact was the now-closed venture capital firm IronCapital, which, together with its parent firm Iron Group, identified left-of-center identity politics as a priority issue for itself and the broader corporate world. Of the 17 investments the firm made, at least one was selected with racial, gender, or other “diversity” in mind. ^{8 9}

Bayes Impact also received support from Y Combinator, a major tech industry startup accelerator. Y Combinator similarly touts its practice of selecting funding recipients at least partially on the basis of race, sex, and other identity categories: of the more than 5,400 investments the firm has made, more than 800 are so-called “diversity” investments. ^{8 10}

Leadership

Paul Duan is the founder and president of Bayes Impact. He previously worked for the ticket sales service Eventbrite. Duan has studied at the University of California, Berkeley; the Sorbonne in Paris, France; and the Paris Institute of Political Studies. ¹¹

Pascal Corpet is the co-founder chief technical officer at Bayes Impact. He previously worked as a staff engineer at Google, which now provides funding to his firm. ¹²

Financials

In 2017, Bayes Impact generated more than $960,000 in revenue. In the following years, income declined rapidly: in 2019, the firm raised just over $100,000. That year, Bayes Impact reported that its president Paul Duan had received no salary. ¹³