C3.AI Top Executive Possesses High Aviation Quotient

Flying is an important aspect of Tom Siebel's life, and training is the foundation.

Monday, September 09, 2024 at 08:49 AM ET

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Tom Siebel, the chairman and CEO of C3.AI, poses outside company headquarters in Redwood City, California. [Jeff Berlin]

Key Takeaways:

Tom Siebel, a tech leader and pilot, demonstrates an extraordinary commitment to aviation safety and proficiency, dedicating 50% of his extensive annual flight hours to training across various aircraft types, from aerobatic planes to floatplanes.
Despite his expertise in AI, Siebel believes fully autonomous, pilotless aircraft are not a near-term reality, asserting that human pilots remain irreplaceable for their adaptive intelligence in complex and unpredictable aviation scenarios.
Siebel advocates for AI's most effective role in aviation as a pilot assistant and in predictive maintenance, citing C3.AI's PANDA system which uses machine learning to anticipate aircraft system failures and significantly increase military aircraft availability.
Beyond personal recreation and business, aviation serves as a philanthropic platform for Siebel, who hosts an annual fly-in to raise funds for college scholarships for children of Montana state law enforcement and park officers.

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Whether you immediately recognize the name Tom Siebel or not, you’re likely familiar with the companies he’s led—Oracle, Siebel Systems, and C3.AI. Siebel is founder, president, and chairman of C3.AI. And if you’re curious, or even concerned, about pilots with actual intelligence being replaced by artificial intelligence, you’ll be as interested as I was to hear Siebel’s opinion about it. More on that later.

One of the things I love about aviation is that it’s the great equalizer. Being a pilot is a shared space that seems to allow who you are and what you’ve accomplished melt into the background for a while allowing the experience and joy of flying an aircraft to become the tie that binds. And if you’re paying attention, there’s almost always something you can learn from listening to another pilot.