Burke Norton's path is unusual for a venture investor: he went from partner at Wilson Sonsini to senior operating roles at Expedia and Salesforce, including Chief Legal Officer and executive committee member, then co-led Vista's Perennial strategy before co-founding Smith Point, and he has also chaired the World Economic Forum's Digital Policy Community. That mix shows up in his investing focus on software built for regulated, operationally complex industries—like life insurance, defense, and logistics—and on AI that's actually deployed in daily work rather than just talked about, with a recurring interest in tools that become a core system companies rely on to run their operations.