Alex Gras brings a rare hands-on background to venture investing, having worked as an oil and gas engineer, served as Chief Commercial Officer at The Cannon, and co-owned Houston hospitality businesses like Love Croissants, Weights + Measures, and Petite Lucie, which shapes his focus on using AI to solve real problems in slow-moving industries like energy, heavy industry, real estate, sports, and hospitality. He pays particular attention to why companies struggle to actually adopt AI—due to messy data, old systems, and trust issues—and shares this perspective through his podcast, AI After Dark, which looks at how companies are really built once the hype fades.