Maya Goldstein

Maya Goldstein is a partner at Threshold Ventures, where she leads early-stage investments in AI-native product companies. Over the past four years she has evaluated over 600 AI product pitches, led investments in 14 of them, and watched 3 of those companies reach Series B — giving her a pattern-recognition view of AI product quality that very few people in the room will have.

Her investment thesis at Threshold centers on a question she asks in every first meeting: is this product better because of AI, or just cheaper to build? In her experience, the two outcomes produce completely different companies — different retention curves, different defensibility, different failure modes. She has developed a framework for distinguishing the two that she now uses both as an investor and as a board member working with founders on product decisions post-investment.

At BuildWithAI Summit, Maya joins the Day 2 panel as the investor voice in a room full of builders — the person asking whether the products being built are genuinely better for users, or whether speed and efficiency gains are being mistaken for quality improvements. She is not there to validate. She is there to push back, and she does it with specific data.