Mike Fridgen
Mike Fridgen is Venture Partner at Madrona, Founder and CEO at a stealth startup, Advisory Board Member for the Buerk Center for Entrepreneurship at University of Washington, and Chief Operating Officer at Rover. He previously served as Director of Interactive Marketing at Alaska Airlines, President & CEO at Decide, General Manager at eBay, Partnerships Manager at Expedia Group, and VP Marketing & Product at Farecast.com. He founded Decide.com and Farecast, both acquired, Madrona Venture Labs, TripHub, and his current stealth startup. His expertise is in consumer travel startups and building technology products in the travel industry.
Live show: Amazon, Meta and the fight over the future of AI; Plus, is Seattle still the place to build?
This week: Amazon is blocking Meta's new Muse AI assistant from shopping on Amazon.com, saying the agent doesn't identify itself and violates the site's conditions of use. We explain why the standoff is an early sign of a much bigger fight over whether AI agents can use websites and apps on people's behalf, and why Amazon has so much riding on the answer. For the definitive word on the issue, we ask Muse what it has to say for itself, and get an impressively sophisticated and evenhanded answer. We recorded this week's show live at Daniel's Broiler in downtown Seattle…
Gen AI Series - The AI agent redefining travel: Managing Director Mike Fridgen, Madrona Venture Labs
New episode location: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CO5SOfXRduE&list=PLqH2XogpwLRmYvCCxOj-W-eOAlCrhrk7i&index=22 Learn about the founding of Otto from Mike Fridgen, the Managing Director of Madrona Venture Labs where this concept was incubated. Otto is your personal AI travel agent that seeks to be as valuable and insightful as a dedicated personal assistant. Otto offers enterprise-grade travel booking and servicing capabilities through an easy-to-use AI travel agent that autonomously plans, books, and manages your travel, even during your trip. As Managing Director of Madrona Venture Labs (MVL), Mike Fridgen leads the studio's mission to partner with founders from day one to create extraordinary companies. Mike co-founded multiple MVL…
Organizations
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Madrona Venture Partner 2025–present · current -
Stealth startup Founder and CEO 2025–present · current
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University of Washington Advisory Board Member for Buerk Center for Entrepreneurship 2014–present · current
Education
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Harvard Business School MBA · 2001–2003
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Foster School of Business Entrepreneurship/Entrepreneurial Studies · 1993–1997
