From concert halls across the world to the cutting-edge labs of MIT, Amanda von Goetz has carved a path that many might find unconventional—transforming from a musician deeply immersed in the romantic nuances of Russian music and language to a tech innovator whose company, Fermata Discovery, is now revolutionizing how law enforcement works critical cases. In this interview, Amanda shares how the structured yet creative worlds of music, language, and technology intersected to inspire her journey, shape her view of leadership and innovation, and drive her mission to use technology for meaningful impact and change.
What inspired your transition from music to tech?
It all started whileI was a student at Juilliard. At that time, there were a number of fantastic musicians from the former Soviet Union that were coming over to study in the U.S. Russian was still the predominant language across various countries, so I heard it flying around a lot in my daily life at school.
There was something about the sound of the language that I really loved. Much like Russian romantic music and literature, there is an incredible depth, a combination of structure and strength mixed with lyricism. To me, it sounded very…musical.
As I explored that and set out to learn some Russian, I figured out just how similar the hierarchical structures of music and language were. There were also many similarities in work process between learning a piece of music, and learning a language: much of it is about fine-tuning the creation of specific sounds, translating visual input to an audio output, and above all: iteration.
Following this line of thinking, I later learned that the structures of music and spoken languages were abstractly mappable to many other things, including computing languages. I became fascinated by the tech world, because it seemed so different than the world of classical music.
Over the years that followed, I learned to program for the web and started experimenting with ideas. Following all of my curiosities eventually led me to pursue graduate studies at MIT.
How did your time at MIT influence the way you think about innovation, technology, and leadership?
To me, MIT represented a kind of “Disneyland for the Curious Mind.” Anything you could possibly dream of, someone was working on. The sheer level of talent that I was exposed to was simply mind-blowing. The people I met there were so thoughtful, so intelligent and talented that you felt lucky just to be able to share a moment with them. In fact, I still remember specific moments that, in small ways or large, irrevocably altered the way I think or see the world. It was a very humbling experience.
If I had to distill my learnings with respect to innovation, technology or general leadership, I would focus on three things:
First of all, MIT gave me exactly what I needed at that time in terms of personal development. I initially came from the performing arts world where we tended to experience the world through more of a visceral, emotional lens. But while at MIT, I learned how to prioritize the way I think over the way I might feel about something. Building a new lens, one that is more logical and objective, was really important for me. While I noticed a contrast between the approaches of these two “sides” of the world, so to speak, I also saw many similarities as my early experimentation showed. In general, I think we tend to think about “art” and “science” as distinct, or possibly even diametrically opposed at times. But there are so many things that are similar between them that I think the distinctions are often more a matter of human construct, how we have chosen to frame them. And I think the reality is much more fluid.
Second of all, building on the previous point, I think that we all tend to live in our “spheres,” which could be “art,” it could be “science,” or “business,” or other. We might choose to call it our “industry” or our “market” – again, mostly a matter of framing and vernacular. While at MIT, I learned that even the very concept of innovation, is highly relative to sphere. Something that may be ground-breaking in one part of the world, might be the status quo in another. That doesn’t add or take anything away from either. But I do think it’s important, especially if you are developing a company, to understand the context of the sphere you are trying to impact.
Lastly, with respect to leadership, I think that good leaders need to constantly strive to understand people. That is an aspect of MIT’s world that fascinated me above all – the people. While a student there, I actually visited a class in every department. Why? Not because I understood anything about a graduate-level class in nuclear engineering, but rather because I was curious about the personalities that had taken that specific path. The different personalities that self-selected into specific disciplines, ranging from pure math to physics to engineering. I also took Russian IV with Prof. Maria Khotimsky while at MIT, and that was one of my favorite classes, much for the same reason. Language classes drew majors from all over campus – civil engineering, mechanical engineering, computer science – because they represented something very different from their normal workflows. That class became a medium for cross-disciplinary interaction, and I am still close friends with several people I met there.
And even today, in my work now – I am still amazed by the people I get to meet, and the life stories I have the privilege of hearing.
What was the spark behind the creation of Fermata Discovery?
In the simplest terms, it was the acute identification of a problem, which became apparent when a good friend of mine found himself embroiled in a civil legal battle. He was being sued for an exorbitant sum, and I truly believed it was unfair, and unjust. In an effort to help, I joined his intelligence team and worked alongside ground investigators and surveillance specialists. Through this experience, I learned how a large lawsuit is conducted.
And I saw numerous possibilities to create efficiencies through automation. So, I started writing utility scripts that could help to aggregate data to aid in my friend’s defense. To put into perspective just how much time could potentially be saved in an investigation, discovery on a case as large as that one would normally take around 9 months. We were done in 8 weeks.
The investigators I worked with on that case were very enthusiastic about the idea that they could potentially accelerate their workflows, so they kept calling me for other cases. And through subsequent experiences, I learned about the insane volume of unsolved cases that are out there.
I learned that a lot of cases remain unsolved or unresolved, simply because someone on the chain – a detective, a private investigator, a district attorney – essentially because someone along the chain, usually and very unfortunately, ran out of time.
The very reason the company is called Fermata is after the musical symbol, which indicates to hold or sustain a note – to freeze time. This is exactly what we strive to do for the people that use our products.
Fermata’s product, VIXN, is software often used by law enforcement. Did you specifically want to design for this audience?
Through my work these past few years, I have come to learn about law enforcement, local and federal, purely from a civilian perspective. And based on the little I have learned, I can readily attest that we – the general public – often do not fully understand what goes on in these worlds. We think we know, because we know what we see in what is communicated to us by the media. This makes us feel informed, but we are usually only exposed to the tip of the iceberg.
I have also learned that there are thousands of people in law enforcement at all levels, who are doing meaningful work on our behalf, who never get credited or recognized for it. We really have so many freedoms that we take for granted. And we can afford to take them for granted because of the tremendous work that is being carried out behind-the-scenes, by people whose names we will never know, whom we will never see in the limelight.
This is an audience I wanted to build for, for people who work tirelessly on behalf of others. By that same token, we make an effort to support organizations that are doing incredible work to support law enforcement. We have a non-profit program where we donate licenses for VIXN to orgs such as the Anti-Trafficking Intelligence Initiative (ATII), Seeking Justice, A Voice for the Voiceless, and the Cold Case Foundation.
The company’s vision and mission have always remained the same: to help bring more cases to a resolution, in less time. Serving law enforcement and non-profits – is one way we are moving towards accomplishing that vision.
The applications of AI in law enforcement is a hot topic these days. What is your position on the insurgence of AI in the field?
Overall, I think that we need to be very, very careful with AI in law enforcement. Ethical implementation of AI is of paramount importance. In my opinion, many AI products that are currently emerging on the mainstream market, are still fairly nascent-stage and require more iteration to reach a level of refinement that would be required for reliable use for law enforcement applications. I think at a strategic level, many companies are feeling the pressure to be first-to-market, which can prevent them from focusing on the long-game.
As one very basic example, facial recognition technology – while novel and potentially enormously beneficial to law enforcement – is still very much being perfected. The models are often shown to be biased. A model may be very adept at detecting differences between Causasian facial features, possibly because it was engineered by Caucasian engineers. That same model may be less adept at detecting a greater level of nuance within Asian or African-American faces. This could drastically increase the probability of confusion, mistaken identity, and, at worst, pointing the finger at the wrong suspect. The latter case, obviously, could have disastrous implications.
It is for this reason that we have held off on introducing facial-recognition features within VIXN. We want to be a part of the solution, not inadvertently contribute to, or perpetuate, the problem. We try to be as thoughtful as possible about the implementation of AI-driven features. VIXN is not inherently an AI product, it is primarily an automation-driven platform that can be AI-enabled. We never intended for VIXN to replace an investigator – I don’t believe that’s even possible – but we are focused on supporting investigators to supercharge the way they work. We are committed to continuing to work diligently and ensure that all boxes are checked before we move forward with any AI implementations.
I think the responsibility befalls all technology founders and companies that are in the investigation / intelligence or defense spaces, to ensure that there is a healthy balance between experimenting with new technologies in live cases, while also insulating the potential downsides.
In Fermata, you’ve brought together people from diverse backgrounds. What value do you see in bringing in these varied perspectives, and how do they contribute to Fermata’s success?
For a company like Fermata, I think you certainly need people with domain expertise. That’s why we have team members that have backgrounds in investigations and/or intelligence. We also have an enormous resource in the New North Ventures team, our seed-round lead VC, with whom we work closely. The New North founders and partners are all ex-CIA executives or are successful founders who have exited. For us, the NNV team represents the perfect balance of talent and skill from the public and private sectors, so we are very lucky to be working with them.
More broadly, I think that diversity in skill sets and life experiences is what drives innovative problem solving. There are so many parallels between seemingly disparate fields, and there are so many transferable skills that can enrich any team-driven environment. I love when we bring someone on to the team that has a very different scope of experiences than the rest of us, because it means that our collective perspective will inevitably morph and evolve.
What has been the most rewarding moment in your journey with Fermata so far?
We take the confidentiality of our customers’ cases extremely seriously. Most involve peoples’ lives in a very real and serious way, and therefore there are case specifics that I can’t discuss.
However, the most rewarding moments, for me, hands down, are when VIXN impacts a live case. There is nothing more exhilarating than knowing that we played a role in the positive outcome of a critical matter.
As an example, there was one case that involved a serial killer, who had been at large for over a decade. VIXN played a role in confirming a key piece of evidence in that case, which eventually led to the arrest of the prime suspect in the case. Now, of course, there were many people involved in this coordinated investigation, but it is interesting to consider what might have happened if VIXN had not been able to find and connect these specific pieces of information. It’s very possible that the killer would still be out there, terrorizing people.
In my experience, cases often get their big break when that one needle-in-a-haystack is found. Sometimes the seemingly most insignificant detail – can change absolutely everything.
Those are the moments of the Fermata story that I will always remember.
