No Priors: Artificial Intelligence | Machine Learning | Technology | Startups

Arvind Jain joins Sarah and Elad on this episode of No Priors. Arvind is the founder and CEO of Glean, an AI-powered enterprise search platform. He previously co-founded Rubrik and spent over a decade as an engineering leader at Google. In this episode, Arvind shares how LLMs are transforming enterprise search, why most tools in the space have failed, and the opportunity to build apps powered by internal knowledge. He discusses how much customization is still needed on top of foundation models, what made building Glean uniquely challenging compared to Arvind's previous ventures, and what's next for the company. Sign up for new podcasts every week. Email feedback to show@no-priors.com Follow us on Twitter: @NoPriorsPod | @Saranormous | @EladGil | @jainarvind Show Notes: 0:00 Introduction 0:58 How LLMs are changing search 2:05 Building out Glean's platform 5:09 Why most search companies failed 8:41 Out of the box vs. bespoke models  10:26 Creating apps on top of internal knowledge 15:34 User behaviors & insights  19:11 Unique challenges of building Glean  21:51 Product-led growth vs. enterprise sales 25:00 Succeeding in traditionally bad markets  27:08 What Glean is excited to build next

On this episode of No Priors, Sarah talks to Luis von Ahn, founder and CEO of Duolingo, the world's most popular education app with over 116 million monthly users and a market cap of approximately $17 billion. Controversially, it has recently committed to being “AI-first.” They discuss why motivation is the biggest challenge in education, how Duolingo harnesses game mechanics and behavioral insights to keep learners engaged, and the company's efforts to leverage AI to personalize education at scale. Luis also shares thoughts on the Duolingo brand, courses beyond language (chess and math), and the broader impact of AI on content creation. Sign up for new podcasts every week. Email feedback to show@no-priors.com Follow us on Twitter: @NoPriorsPod | @Saranormous | @EladGil | @LuisvonAhn Links: Duolingo is now AI-First: http://bit.ly/3RQzny3 Show Notes: 0:00 Introduction 4:01  Optimizing learning behavior through tech 11:20 Adopting AI at Duolingo 17:25 AI's threat to content companies 18:34 An unhinged corporate brand 21:28 How do people learn? 25:16 What people misunderstand about Duolingo? 26:24 How AI is transforming learning at scale 30:28 Leveraging AI across the business

This week on No Priors, Elad and Sarah sit down with Eric Mitchell and Brandon McKinzie, two of the minds behind OpenAI's O3 model. They discuss what makes O3 unique, including its focus on reasoning, the role of reinforcement learning, and how tool use enables more powerful interactions. The conversation explores the unification of model capabilities, what the next generation of human-AI interfaces could look like, and how models will continue to advance in the years ahead. Sign up for new podcasts every week. Email feedback to show@no-priors.com Follow us on Twitter: @NoPriorsPod | @Saranormous | @EladGil | @mckbrando | @ericmitchellai Show Notes: 0:00 What is o3? 3:21 Reinforcement learning in o3 4:44 Unification of models 8:56 Why tool use helps test time scaling 11:10 Deep research 16:00 Future ways to interact with models 22:03 General purpose vs specialized models 25:30 Simulating AI interacting with the world 29:36 How will models advance?

On this episode of No Priors, Sarah sits down with Isa Fulford, one of the masterminds behind deep research. They unpack how the initiative began, the role of human expert data, and what it takes to build agents with real-world capability and even taste. Isa shares the differences between deep research and OpenAI's o3 model, the challenges around latency, and how she sees agent capabilities evolving. Plus, OpenAI has announced that deep research is free for all US users starting today. Sign up for new podcasts every week. Email feedback to show@no-priors.com Follow us on Twitter: @NoPriorsPod | @Saranormous | @EladGil | @IsaFulf Show Notes: 0:00 Deep research's inception & evolution 6:12 Data creation  7:20 Reinforcement fine-tuning 9:05 Why human expert data matters 11:23 Failure modes of agents 13:55 The roadmap ahead for Deep Research 18:32 How do agents develop taste?  19:29 Experience and path to building a broadly capable agent 22:03 Deep research vs. o3 25:55 Latency 27:56 Predictions for agent capabilities

This week on No Priors, Sarah and Elad are joined by Josh Goldman, cofounder and president of KoBold Metals. KoBold is using AI to transform how we discover critical minerals like lithium and cobalt, making the exploration process faster, more precise, and more scalable than traditional methods. In this episode, Josh explains how KoBold is rethinking the fundamentals of mineral exploration by combining unique datasets, scientific modeling, and predictive algorithms. They dive into the company's driving philosophy and technical approach, how they validate underground hypotheses, and why regulatory knowledge and a localized approach are crucial. Josh also discusses what success looks like in exploration today and the scarcity of world-class deposits. Sign up for new podcasts every week. Email feedback to show@no-priors.com Follow us on Twitter: @NoPriorsPod | @Saranormous | @EladGil | @KoBold_Metals Show Notes: 0:00 Introduction 0:29 KoBold Metals 3:14 Using unique datasets 6:20 Traditional methods of lithium exploration 8:38 Regulatory vs. rarity constraints 13:40 Technical approach 16:25 Validating hypotheses 23:56 Redefining success in mineral exploration 25:44 Scarcity of good projects and deposits 32:44 Philosophy behind prediction 36:46 KoBold's origin story

On this episode of No Priors, Sarah and Elad sit down with Brendan Foody, CEO and cofounder of Mercor, to discuss the company's rapid growth and their vision for the future of the labor market. They dive into how AI is reshaping the workforce in real, tangible ways and what skills are worth investing in today. Brendan shares insights on evaluating talent in an AI-driven world, including how models might identify outlier or 10x candidates and even assess “taste.” The conversation also touches on the evolving role of human data, the future of hiring in fast-scaling startups, and whether AI will act as an individual contributor or a data-centric manager. Show Notes: 0:00 Introduction 0:16 Building Mercor 3:00 Identifying outlier talent with AI 9:07 How AI is reshaping the workforce: job displacement & evolution 11:18 What skills should we invest in now? 12:18 Verifiability 13:36 Evaluating models 16:07 What should kids learn today? 17:05 Evaluating taste in talent assessments 18:45 Future of data collection 26:07 Humans' role in the AI economy 28:53 AI as a contributor vs. a manager 33:03 Mercor's goals  34:50 Evolution of labor markets  36:00 Hiring advice

In this episode of No Priors, Sarah and Elad examine the current state of AI. They break down the recent dip in public markets, how tariffs could impact the tech industry, and where opportunities remain in large language models. They highlight the opportunities in more specialized models, new approaches to model development, and how the market is beginning to standardize with integrations like the Model Context Protocol (MCP). The episode ends with a look at early consumer AI applications and what types of expertise will matter most in the coming years. Show Notes: 0:00 Improvements in image gen 4:42 Public markets  8:08 Effects of tariffs on tech 9:42 Today's large model market 11:34 Opportunities in specialized models 16:30 Research advances in model approaches 21:10 What expertise will matter? 24:30 Anthropic's Model Context Protocol  26:30 Consumer applications

In this episode of No Priors, Elad and Sarah chat with Shiv Rao, MD, founder and CEO of Abridge. They dive into how Abridge is reshaping healthcare by creating AI tools that enhance clinical documentation and improve doctor-patient interactions. Shiv shares his thoughts on building trust with established healthcare systems, giving agency and time back to clinicians, and what makes the healthcare AI opportunity different today. They also discuss Abridge's approach to developing and launching AI products, along with Shiv's journey in founding Abridge. Sign up for new podcasts every week. Email feedback to show@no-priors.com Follow us on Twitter: @NoPriorsPod | @Saranormous | @EladGil | @ShivdevRao Show Notes:  0:00 Introduction  0:35 Abridge's Story and Vision  5:30 Strategy for Customer Choice  7:41 Healthcare AI Opportunities  11:24 Navigating Incumbent Partnerships  14:26 Doctor-Centric AI Solutions  19:54 Abridge's Future Plans  22:13 AI's Impact on Healthcare  28:43 Shipping and Iterating Products  32:50 Shiv's Journey to Abridge

This week on No Priors, Elad speaks with Chelsea Finn, cofounder of Physical Intelligence and currently Associate Professor at Stanford, leading the Intelligence through Learning and Interaction Lab. They dive into how robots learn, the challenges of training AI models for the physical world, and the importance of diverse data in reaching generalizable intelligence. Chelsea explains the evolving landscape of open-source vs. closed-source robotics and where AI models are likely to have the biggest impact first. They also compare the development of robotics to self-driving cars, explore the future of humanoid and non-humanoid robots, and discuss what's still missing for AI to function effectively in the real world. If you're curious about the next phase of AI beyond the digital space, this episode is a must-listen. Sign up for new podcasts every week. Email feedback to show@no-priors.com Follow us on Twitter: @NoPriorsPod | @Saranormous | @EladGil | @ChelseaFinn Show Notes: 0:00 Introduction 0:31 Chelsea's background in robotics 3:10 Physical Intelligence  5:13 Defining their approach and model architecture 7:39 Reaching generalizability and diversifying robot data 9:46 Open source vs. closed source 12:32 Where will PI's models integrate first? 14:34 Humanoid as a form factor 16:28 Embodied intelligence 17:36 Key turning points in robotics progress 20:05 Hierarchical interactive robot and decision-making 22:21 Choosing data inputs 26:25 Self driving vs robotics market 28:37 Advice to robotics founders 29:24 Observational data and data generation 31:57 Future robotic forms

This week on No Priors, Sarah and Elad talk with GitHub CEO Thomas Dohmke about the rise of AI-powered software development and the success of Copilot. They discuss how Copilot is reshaping the developer workflow, GitHub's new Agent Mode, and competition in the developer tooling market. They also explore how AI-driven coding impacts software pricing, the future of open source vs. proprietary APIs, and what Copilot's success means for Microsoft. Plus, Thomas shares insights from his journey growing up in East Berlin and navigating rapidly changing worlds. Sign up for new podcasts every week. Email feedback to show@no-priors.com Follow us on Twitter: @NoPriorsPod | @Saranormous | @EladGil | @ThomasDohmke Show Notes: 0:00 Introduction 0:37 GitHub Copilot's capabilities 4:12 Will agents replace developers? 6:04 Copilot's development cycle 8:34 Winning the developer market 10:40 Agent mode 13:25 Where GitHub is headed 16:45 Building for the new challenges of AI 21:50 Dev tools market formation 29:56 Copilot's broader impact 32:17 How AI changes software pricing 39:16 Open source vs. proprietary APIs 48:01 Growing up in East Berlin

This week on No Priors, Sarah is joined by Dan Hendrycks, director of the Center of AI Safety. Dan serves as an advisor to xAI and Scale AI. He is a longtime AI researcher, publisher of interesting AI evals such as "Humanity's Last Exam," and co-author of a new paper on National Security "Superintelligence Strategy" along with Scale founder-CEO Alex Wang and former Google CEO Eric Schmidt. They explore AI safety, geopolitical implications, the potential weaponization of AI, along with policy recommendations. Sign up for new podcasts every week. Email feedback to show@no-priors.com Follow us on Twitter: @NoPriorsPod | @Saranormous | @EladGil | @DanHendrycks Show Notes: 0:00 Introduction 0:36 Dan's path to focusing on AI Safety 1:25 Safety efforts in large labs 3:12 Distinguishing alignment and safety 4:48 AI's impact on national security 9:59 How might AI be weaponized? 14:43 Immigration policies for AI talent 17:50 Mutually assured AI malfunction 22:54 Policy suggestions for current administration 25:34 Compute security 30:37 Current state of evals

This week on No Priors, Sarah sits down with Noubar Afeyan, Co-founder and CEO of Flagship Pioneering, the biotech firm behind groundbreaking companies like Moderna. They explore how Flagship creates the conditions for scientific breakthroughs, tackles regulatory uncertainty, and pushes the boundaries of discovery. Noubar shares insights on AI's role in healthcare, the challenges of bringing new therapies to market, and lessons learned from past pandemics. He also discusses Flagship's platform approach to biotech innovation and introduces the idea of polyintelligence. Sign up for new podcasts every week. Email feedback to show@no-priors.com Follow us on Twitter: @NoPriorsPod | @Saranormous | @EladGil | @NoubarAfeyan Show Notes:  0:00 Introduction 0:48 Founding Flagship  5:51 Fostering environments for emergence 11:17 Expanding into new frontiers 14:26 Developing technology amid regulatory uncertainty and risk 19:12 How Flagship has evolved 22:47 AI applications in healthcare 27:30 Bottlenecks in bringing new therapies to market 32:20 Lessons for the next pandemic 34:11 Building a platform 38:10 Polyintelligence 

On this week's episode of No Priors, Sarah Guo is joined by leading members of the teams at Vevo Therapeutics and the Arc Institute – Nima Alidoust, CEO/Co-Founder at Vevo Therapeutics; Johnny Yu, CSO/Co-Founder at Vevo Therapeutics; Patrick Hsu, CEO/Co-Founder at Arc Institute; Dave Burke, CTO at Arc Institute; and Hani Goodarzi, Core Investigator at Arc Institute. Predicting protein structure (AlphaFold 3, Chai-1, Evo 2) was a big AI/biology breakthrough. The next big leap is modeling entire human cells—how they behave in disease, or how they respond to new therapeutics. The same way LLMs needed enormous text corpora to become truly powerful, Virtual Cell Models need massive, high-quality cellular datasets to train on. In this episode, the teams discuss the groundbreaking release of the Tahoe-100M single cell dataset, Arc Atlas, and how these advancements could transform drug discovery. Sign up for new podcasts every week. Email feedback to show@no-priors.com Follow us on Twitter: @NoPriorsPod | @Saranormous | @Nalidoust | @IAmJohnnyYu | @PDHsh | @Davey_Burke | @Genophoria Download the Tahoe Dataset Show Notes: 0:00 Introduction 1:40 Significance of Tahoe-100M dataset 4:22 Where we are with virtual cell models and protein language models 10:26 Significance of perturbational data 17:39 Challenges and innovations in data collection 24:42 Open sourcing and community collaboration 33:51 Predictive ability and importance of virtual cell models 35:27 Drug discovery and virtual cell models 44:27 Platform vs. single hypothesis companies 46:05 Rise of Chinese biotechs 51:36 AI in drug discovery

Kyle Vogt joins Sarah and Elad on this week's episode of No Priors. A serial entrepreneur, Kyle co-founded Twitch, transforming live streaming, and later Cruise, the autonomous vehicle company acquired by GM for $1 billion. Now he's taking on AI-powered home robotics with The Bot Company. In this episode, Kyle shares his journey building transformative tech companies, the challenges of scaling autonomous systems, and why he believes home robots are the next frontier. They also discuss the parallels between AVs and robotics, overcoming consumer skepticism, US vs. China manufacturing, and the policies needed to foster a competitive robotics industry. Sign up for new podcasts every week. Email feedback to show@no-priors.com Follow us on Twitter: @NoPriorsPod | @Saranormous | @EladGil | @KVogt Show Notes:  0:00 Introduction 0:29 Founding Cruise  3:12 Tesla vs. Waymo approach 4:44 Scaling autonomous vehicles 10:03 The Bot Company  16:35 Deploying  robots in the home 17:56 Parallels between robots and AV markets 20:51 Personifying robots and overcoming consumer skepticism 25:00 Timeline on consumer robots 26:47 Chinese vs. US manufacturing  29:15 Fostering a competitive domestic robotics industry 34:00 Lessons from Cruise & personal philosophies

This week on No Priors, Sarah sits down with Harvey Co-Founder and CEO Winston Weinberg. Harvey is one of the leading application layer AI companies. Harvey is building domain-specific AI for law firms, professional service providers, and the Fortune 500. They are already working with companies like Bridgewater, KKR, PWC, and O'Melveny with over $500M in funding from OpenAI, Sequoia, Kleiner, GV and Elad and Sarah. In this episode, Sarah and Winston cover everything from approaching customers with AI solutions, expanding across domains, and building to volume capability improvements.  Sign up for new podcasts every week. Email feedback to show@no-priors.com Follow us on Twitter: @NoPriorsPod | @Saranormous | @EladGil | @WinstonWeinberg Show Notes:  0:00 Introduction 2:39 Harvey's founding story  3:46 Capability improvement 6:39 Building teams around AI capabilities 9:17 End to end task ahead 12:37 Beginning with huge industry clients - 17:21 Working with users who are skeptical of automation 20:40 Being a lawyer today and in the future 26:02 Applying learnings and adapting product for other domains 26:58 Hiring 30:39 Lessons and mistakes as a founder 32:53 Winston's personal drive 40:21 Advice to other founders finding their idea 44:35 Prediction for next ChatGPT moment

This week on No Priors, Sarah and Elad celebrate the 100th episode! They dive into the biggest AI stories of 2025, breaking down DeepSeek—truth vs. hype, the rapid consumer adoption, and the real cost of training the models. They debate model commoditization and the value of being a frontier model provider vs. building on existing work. Plus, they unpack OpenAI's new Deep Research release and the latest on Stargate. Finally, they share bold predictions for 2025, covering robots, autonomous vehicles, local AI models, emerging data-generation strategies, and reasoning breakthroughs. Sign up for new podcasts every week. Email feedback to show@no-priors.com Follow us on Twitter: @NoPriorsPod | @Saranormous | @EladGil  Show Notes:  0:00 Introduction 0:19 DeepSeek  5:38 Are models commoditizing? 8:33 DeepSeek's consumer adoption 9:16 OpenAI's Deep Research release 13:30 Stargate 15:04 Elad & Sarah's Predictions for 2025 

This week on No Priors, Elad sits down with Rick Caruso, LA real estate developer and runner-up in the 2022 mayoral race. With experience serving under three LA mayors, as well as on the police commission and the board of water and power, Rick offers a unique perspective on the systemic failures that contributed to the devastation of the January 2025 wildfires in communities like the Palisades and Altadena. He discusses the steps he took to build more resilient infrastructure in his properties and how California can rebuild smarter to better prepare for future disasters. They also explore the state's water management, rising crime, and how to leverage California's vast natural resources and budget to create a better future for all residents. Sign up for new podcasts every week. Email feedback to show@no-priors.com Follow us on Twitter: @NoPriorsPod | @Saranormous | @EladGil | @RickCarusoLA Show Notes 0:00 Introduction 0:56 Caruso's history in business and public service 3:36 Failures in fire prevention and response 5:58 How Caruso's properties survived  8:26 Water shortages and infrastructure failures  9:47 Arson, looting, and crime in LA 15:03 Rebuilding  20:50 Allocating California's resources effectively 26:15 Caruso's future plans

This week on No Priors, Sarah and Elad sit down with Bill Clerico, founder of Convective Capital, an early stage venture fund focused on technology-driven solutions for wildfire mitigation and climate resilience. The wildfires in Los Angeles have caused unprecedented property damage and immense hardship for countless individuals and families. This episode is devoted to diving into understanding what happened and what we can do in the future. Bill shares his insights into the increasing severity of wildfires, the role of policy, and how infrastructure issues, like outdated building codes and underfunded utilities, are contributing to the crisis. They discuss the latest innovations in fire-fighting technology, from advanced detection to drones, and how these tools can help mitigate future damage. Sign up for new podcasts every week. Email feedback to show@no-priors.com Follow us on Twitter: @NoPriorsPod | @Saranormous | @EladGil | @BillClerico Show Notes:  0:00 Introduction 1:02 Why are wildfires getting worse? 5:37 Policies and regulatory decisions 10:47 Housing: building codes and permitting 13:19 Key factors in response 16:20 Improving water supply and city infrastructure  19:10 Preventing wildfires 21:26 Underinvestment in California's utilities 26:53  Innovative fire fighting technology 29:35 Accelerating Los Angeles' recovery 34:29 Actions homeowners, insurance companies, and governments can take

Today on No Priors, co-founder and CEO of Decagon, Jesse Zhang, joins Elad to discuss the future of agentic customer support. Decagon provides AI-powered customer interactions for companies like Rippling, Notion, Duolingo, Classpass, Substack, Vanta, Eventbrite, and more. Jesse shares the thesis behind starting Decagon, why he sees customer support as the ideal entry point for agentic technology, and what areas of AI excite him most. They also discuss voice-based interfaces, issues with latency in current capabilities, and the connection between young math olympiad communities and today's AI startups. Sign up for new podcasts every week. Email feedback to show@no-priors.com Follow us on Twitter: @NoPriorsPod | @Saranormous | @EladGil | @TheJesseZhang Show Notes:  0:00 Introduction  0:30 Starting Decagon  3:15 Business impact of adopting agents for customer support and customer ops 8:00 AI infrastructure and models for customer success agents 12:05 Voice-based capabilities and text-to-speech engines  15:00 Combatting latency  16:25 Crossover of math and AI communities 21:12 Exciting areas of AI  25:29 Strengths and weaknesses of agents

Today on No Priors, Elad chats with Erik Bernhardsson, founder and CEO of Modal Labs, a platform simplifying ML workflows by providing a serverless infrastructure designed to streamline deployment, scaling, and development for AI engineers. Erik talks about his early work on Spotify's ML algorithms, what Modal offers today, and his vision for building an end-to-end solution for AI engineers. They dive into GPU trends, cloud vs on-premise setups, and when to train custom models vs use off-the-shelf solutions. Erik also shares his thoughts on the evolving role of AI in fields like coding, physics, and music. Sign up for new podcasts every week. Email feedback to show@no-priors.com Follow us on Twitter: @NoPriorsPod | @Saranormous | @EladGil | @Bernhardsson Show Notes: 0:00 Introduction  0:22 Erik's early interest in ML infra 1:22 Founding Modal Labs  4:17 State of GPU use today and what's to come 7:14 Modal's end-to-end vision  9:00 Differentiating amongst competition 10:20 Cloud vs on-premise  12:35 Popular AI models  13:20 Gaps in AI infrastructure 14:55 Insights on vector databases  16:48 Training models vs off-the-shelf models  17:47 AI's impact on coding and physics 22:14 AI's impact on music

2024 has been a year of transformative technological progress, marked by conversations that have reshaped our understanding of AI's evolution and what lies ahead. Throughout the year, Sarah and Elad have had the privilege of speaking with some of the brightest minds in the field. As we look back on the past months, we're excited to share highlights from some of our favorite No Priors podcast episodes. Featured guests include Jensen Huang (Nvidia), Andrej Karpathy (OpenAI, Tesla), Bret Taylor (Sierra), Aditya Ramesh, Tim Brooks, and Bill Peebles (OpenAI's Sora Team), Dmitri Dolgov (Waymo), Dylan Field (Figma), and Alexandr Wang (Scale). Want to dive deeper? Listen to the full episodes here: NVIDIA's Jensen Huang on AI Chip Design, Scaling Data Centers, and his 10-Year Bet No Priors Ep. 89 | With NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang  The Road to Autonomous Intelligence, With Andrej Karpathy from OpenAI and Tesla No Priors Ep. 80 | With Andrej Karpathy from OpenAI and Tesla Transforming Customer Service through Company Agents, with Sierra's Bret Taylor No Priors Ep. 82 | With CEO of Sierra Bret Taylor OpenAI's Sora team thinks we've only seen the "GPT-1 of video models" No Priors Ep.61 | OpenAI's Sora Leaders Aditya Ramesh, Tim Brooks and Bill Peebles Waymo's Journey to Full Autonomy: AI Breakthroughs, Safety, and Scaling No Priors Ep. 87 | With Co-CEO of Waymo Dmitri Dolgov Designing the Future: Dylan Field on AI, Collaboration, and Independence No Priors Ep. 55 | With Figma CEO Dylan Field The Data Foundry for AI with Alexandr Wang from Scale No Priors Ep. 65 | With Scale AI CEO Alexandr Wang Sign up for new podcasts every week. Email feedback to show@no-priors.com Follow us on Twitter: @NoPriorsPod | @Saranormous | @EladGil Timecodes: 0:00 Introduction  0:15 Jensen Huang on building at data-center scale  4:00 Andrej Karpathy on the AI exo-cortex, model control, and a shift to smaller models  7:14 Bret Taylor on the agentic future of business interactions  11:17 OpenAI's Sora team on visual models and their role in AGI  15:53 Waymo's Dmitri Dolgov on bridging the gap to full autonomy and the challenge of 100% accuracy  19:00 Figma's Dylan Field on the future of interfaces and new modalities  23:29 Scale AI's Alexandr Wang on the journey to AGI  26:29 Outro

Today on No Priors, Sarah sits down with Elias Torres, CEO and founder of Agency, an AI agent for customer success teams. Elias shares his journey from growing up in Nicaragua to founding several companies, leading engineering at HubSpot, and selling Drift for $1B. He also discusses his work consulting with OpenAI in 2022, which deepened his understanding of the business opportunity LLMs presented and inspired him to start Agency. In this episode, Elias offers a unique perspective on the future of AI and customer success, explaining how current software has fallen short and his vision for a new generation where customers have direct relationships, spend less time on tasks, and have software working invisibly on their behalf. They also discuss the evolving landscape of hiring as teams shrink, and Elias reveals his ambitious plan to reach $1B in revenue with fewer than 100 employees. Sign up for new podcasts every week. Email feedback to show@no-priors.com Follow us on Twitter: @NoPriorsPod | @Saranormous | @EladGil | @EliasT  Show notes: 0:00 Introduction 0:34 Elias' journey to entrepreneurship 2:36 Growing HubSpot to IPO and founding Drift 6:19 Consulting with OpenAI, learning about LLMs, and diving into AI 9:35 Founding Agency to focus on customer success and AI-driven solutions 11:40 What will a customer experience look like in 5 years? 15:48 Company building in an era of AI, as a 5th time founder 18:32 Reducing headcount while raising the bar on hiring 20:35 Key challenges in building Agency and crafting a standout product 23:06 Addressing software flaws and transitioning to an era of intuitive, self-operating solutions 26:27 Timeline for the next-gen software revolution + the power of building from first principles

In this episode of No Priors, Sarah sits down with Felix Ejeckam and Ty Mitchell, founders of Akash Systems, a company pioneering diamond-based cooling technology for semiconductors used in space applications and large-scale AI data centers. Felix and Ty discuss how their backgrounds in materials science led them to tackle one of the most pressing challenges in tech today: thermal efficiency and heat management at scale. They explore how Akash is overcoming the limitations of traditional semiconductors and how their innovations could significantly boost AI performance. Felix and Ty also talk about their collaboration with India's sovereign cloud provider, the importance of strengthening U.S. manufacturing in the AI chip market, and the role Akash Systems could play in advancing satellite technologies. Sign up for new podcasts every week. Email feedback to show@no-priors.com Follow us on Twitter: @NoPriorsPod | @Saranormous | @EladGil |@AkashSystems | @FelixEjeckam Show Notes: 0:00 Introduction 0:30 What is Akash Systems? 2:12 Felix's personal path to building Akash Systems 4:45 Ty's approach to acquiring customers 6:40 Challenges of operating in space 7:54 Live demo on diamond's conductivity 9:50 Heat issues in data centers 15:38 Heat as a fundamental limit to technological progress 20:44 Akash's role in the semiconductor market 22:54 Growing diamonds 25:10 Collaborating with India's sovereign cloud provider 28:15 Importance of American manufacturing for AI chips and outlook on current data capacity  29:45 The Chips Act 31:22 Future of national security lies in satellite and radar tech 32:46 Critical issues in the U.S. AI supply chain 36:34 Deep learning's role in material science discovery 40:16 The future: AI expanding our possibilities

In this episode of No Priors, Sarah talks with Eric Simons, co-founder and CEO of StackBlitz. The company has experienced explosive growth since the launch 2 months ago of Bolt.new, an AI application that lets users prompt, run, edit, and deploy full-stack applications directly in the browser. Eric talks about the years-long journey that led to overnight success, why so many non-technical users are forming a community around Bolt, and the democratization of coding. Sign up for new podcasts every week. Email feedback to show@no-priors.com Follow us on Twitter: @NoPriorsPod | @Saranormous | @EladGil | @EricSimons40 Show Notes: 0:00 Introduction 0:36 Bolt.new 2:04 How Bolt stands out from other coding assistants 3:28 Building beyond ChatGPT wrappers 6:13 Driving growth through community 9:42 Evals 13:29 Eric's favorite use cases and startups leveraging Bolt 17:10 Why engineers are embracing no- code tools 24:32 The years long journey of StackBlitz 31:50 Balancing an Ironman, a newborn, and a product launch 35:18 Predictions for developers and code generation tools

In this episode of No Priors, Sarah is joined by Aidan Gomez, cofounder and CEO of Cohere. Aidan reflects on his journey to co-authoring the groundbreaking 2017 paper, “Attention is All You Need,” during his internship, and shares his motivations for building Cohere, which delivers AI-powered language models and solutions for businesses. The discussion explores the current state of enterprise AI adoption and Aidan's advice for companies navigating the build vs. buy decision for AI tools. They also examine the drivers behind the flattening of model improvements and discuss where large language models (LLMs) fall short for predictive tasks. The conversation explores what the market has yet to account for in the rapidly evolving AI ecosystem, as well as Aidan's personal perspectives on AGI—what it might look like and when it could arrive. Sign up for new podcasts every week. Email feedback to show@no-priors.com Follow us on Twitter: @NoPriorsPod | @Saranormous | @EladGil | @AidanGomez Show Notes: 0:00 Introduction 0:36 Co-authoring “Attention is all you need” 2:27 Leaving Google and founding Cohere 4:04 Cohere's mission and models 6:15 Pitfalls of current AI  8:14 How enterprises are deploying AI today 10:58 Build vs. buy strategy for AI tools 14:37 Barriers to enterprise adoption  20:04 Which types of companies should pretrain models? 24:25 Addressing flaws in open-source models 25:12 Current and expected progress in scaling laws 29:54 Advances in multi-step problem solving and reasoning 32:29  Key drivers behind the flattening curve of model improvements  36:25 Exploring AGI 39:59 Limitations of LLMs 42:10 What the market has mispriced

In this week's episode of No Priors, Sarah and Elad sit down with the Google DeepMind team behind AlphaProof, Laurent Sartran, Rishi Mehta, and Thomas Hubert. AlphaProof is a new reinforcement learning-based system for formal math reasoning that recently reached a silver-medal standard in solving International Mathematical Olympiad problems. They dive deep into AI and its role in solving complex mathematical problems, featuring insights into AlphaProof and its capabilities. They cover its functionality, unique strengths in reasoning, and the challenges it faces as it scales. The conversation also explores the motivations behind AI in math, practical applications, and how verifiability and human input come into play within a reinforcement learning approach. The DeepMind team shares advice and future perspectives on where math and AI are headed.  Sign up for new podcasts every week. Email feedback to show@no-priors.com Follow us on Twitter: @NoPriorsPod | @Saranormous | @EladGil | @Rishicomplex | @LaurentSartran | @ThomasHubert Show Notes:  0:00 Personal introductions 2:19 Achieving silver medal in IMO competition 3:52 How AlphaProof works 5:56 AlphaProof's strengths within mathematical reasoning 8:56 Challenges in scaling AlphaProof 13:40 Why solve math? 17:50 Pursuing knowledge versus practical applications 21:30 Insights on verifying correctness within reinforcement learning 28:27 How AI could foster more collaboration among mathematicians 30:28 Surprising insights from AI proof generation 34:17 Future of math and AI: advice for math enthusiasts and researchers

In this week's episode of No Priors, Sarah and Elad sit down with Jensen Huang, CEO of NVIDIA, for the second time to reflect on the company's extraordinary growth over the past year. Jensen discusses AI's takeover of datacenters and NVIDIA's rapid development of x.AI's supercluster. The conversation also covers Nvidia's decade-long infrastructure bets, software longevity, and innovations like NVLink. Jensen shares his views on the future of embodied AI, digital employees, and how AI is transforming scientific discovery. Sign up for new podcasts every week. Email feedback to show@no-priors.com Follow us on Twitter: @NoPriorsPod | @Saranormous | @EladGil | @Nvidia Show Notes:  00:00 Introduction 1:22 NVIDIA's 10-year bets 2:28 Outpacing Moore's Law 3:42 Data centers and NVLink 7:16 Infrastructure flexibility for large-scale training and inference  10:40 Building and optimizing data centers  13:30 Maintaining software and architecture compatibility  15:00 X.AI's supercluster  18:55 Challenges of super scaling data centers 20:39 AI's role in chip design  22:23 NVIDIA's market cap surge and company evolution  27:03 Embodied AI 28:33 AI employees 31:25 Impact of AI on science and engineering  35:40 Jensen's personal use of AI tools

In this week's episode of No Priors, Sarah sits down with Tarek Mansour, CEO of Kalshi—the first CFTC-regulated prediction market exchange in the U.S. They dive into Kalshi's recent victory to legalize election betting, explore ethical questions around trading on elections, and discuss whether prediction markets can offer more accuracy than traditional polls. Tarek shares insights on the history of futures markets, the line between gambling and financial trading, and the psychology behind betting. Plus, Sarah makes a live election bet, and Tarek reveals some of Kalshi's most intriguing markets. Sign up for new podcasts every week. Email feedback to show@no-priors.com Follow us on Twitter: @NoPriorsPod | @Saranormous | @EladGil | @MansourTarek Show Notes:  0:00 Introduction 1:22 Sarah makes a live election bet on Kalshi 3:35 Getting approved and regulated by CFTC 5:48 Going up against the CFTC to legalize election betting 7:21 Debating the ethics of trading on elections 8:12 Gambling vs. trading  9:12 Context and purpose of futures markets 12:38 The human psychology behind speculating /Humans conditioned to risk taking 17:17 Building a healthy exchange and scaling liquidity  19:30 Introducing leverage and working with clearinghouses 22:29 Polls vs. prediction markets 24:59 Conditional markets 26:38 What makes Kalshi's markets accurate 31:29 Tarek's insights on the most interesting trades and markets on the platform

In this episode of No Priors, Dmitri Dolgov, Co-CEO of Waymo, joins Sarah and Elad to explore the evolution and advancements of Waymo's self-driving technology from its inception at Google to its current real-world deployment. Dmitri also shares insights into the technological breakthroughs and complexities of achieving full autonomy, the design innovations of Waymo's sixth generation driverless cars, and the broader applications of Waymo's advanced technology. They also discuss Waymo's strategic approach to scaling amidst regulation, deployment in cities like Phoenix and San Francisco, and the transformative potential of autonomous driving on car ownership and urban infrastructure. Sign up for new podcasts every week. Email feedback to show@no-priors.com Follow us on Twitter: @NoPriorsPod | @Saranormous | @EladGil | @Dmitri_Dolgov Shownotes: 00:00 Introduction 00:15 History of Self-Driving at Google  00:29 DARPA Challenges and Early Involvement  01:39 Formation of Waymo  01:53 Industry Lineage and Early Skepticism  03:05 Initial Goals and Milestones  4:33 Pivot to Full Autonomy  04:50 Scaling and Deployment  05:29 Generational Breakthroughs  06:59 Choosing Deployment Cities  09:26 Technological Advancements  11:01 Evaluating Safety  14:41 Regulatory Stance and Trust  16:52 Future of Autonomous Driving  23:19 Business Strategy and Partnerships  26:06 Changing Urban Mobility Trends  26:40 Challenges and Misconceptions in Self-Driving Timelines  28:43 The Role of Traditional OEMs in an Autonomous Future  30:54 Designing Cars for Autonomous Ride-Hailing  33:42 Scaling Responsibly  35:18 Generalizability and Future Applications of AI  37:10 The Complexity of Achieving Full Autonomy  42:58 The Importance of Data and Iteration in AI Development  46:13 Reflecting on the Journey and Future of Waymo

In this episode of No Priors, Sarah and Elad explore how AI is transforming consumer apps and entertainment, with a focus on potential integrations in gaming and dating that could shift traditional societal incentives. They reflect on AI researchers winning Nobel Prizes in Science and Chemistry for the first time, discussing what this trend means for scientific discovery. The episode also covers recent AI releases, including their thoughts on OpenAI's O1 model and Google's NotebookLM, and examines which companies and job functions are most at risk—or resilient—in the face of AI advancements. Sign up for new podcasts every week. Email feedback to show@no-priors.com Follow us on Twitter: @NoPriorsPod | @Saranormous | @EladGil  Show Notes:  (0:00) Introduction (0:47) Google releases NotebookLM  (5:20) Integrating AI into consumer apps and gaming (9:11) Future of AI companionship and procreation (14:45) OpenAI o1 model improves on iterative reasoning (18:06) Sarah and Elad reflect on Nobel Prizes going to AI researchers (21:23) Jobs and businesses at risk of disruption (27:18) AI-durable companies

Today on No Priors, Elad is joined by Ankur Goyal, founder and CEO of Braintrust. Braintrust enables companies like Notion, Airtable, Instacart, Zapier, and Vercel to deploy AI solutions at scale by efficiently evaluating and managing complex, non-deterministic AI applications. Ankur shares his insights into emerging trends in the use of AI tooling and coding languages, the rise of open-source, and the future of data infrastructure. Ankur also reflects on building resilient AI products, his philosophy on coding as a CEO, and the importance of a startup's initial customer base.  Sign up for new podcasts every week. Email feedback to show@no-priors.com Follow us on Twitter: @NoPriorsPod | @Saranormous | @EladGil | @Ankrgyl Show Notes:  (0:00) Introduction (0:38) Ankur's path to Braintrust (3:05) Braintrust's solution (5:46) AI tooling trends  (7:58) Instruction tuning vs. fine-tuning (8:57) Open-source AI adoption  (10:42) Future of data infrastructure and synthetic data (14:45) Designing technical interviews (18:04) Rethinking agent-based approaches (19:34) Building out an AI team (23:35) Typescript as the language of AI (25:12) The shift away from using frameworks (26:02) Vendor consolidation among enterprises  (27:16) Coding as a CEO  (30:16) Collaborating with customers (33:00) Future of Braintrust and evals

Lina Khan's FTC has been the most active in decades, notably challenging tech giants and adopting a more hands-on approach to regulating the digital age. On today's episode of No Priors, Lina Khan joins Elad and Sarah to discuss her regulatory philosophy for tech markets and what the industry can expect for future M&A deals. She shares her approach to overseeing emerging technology sectors, including AI at the model layer, and her work to ban non-competes on a federal level. Khan also offers insights into the realities of leading a government agency, the scarcity of young leaders in power, and how she measures the FTC's impact. Sign up for new podcasts every week. Email feedback to show@no-priors.com Follow us on Twitter: @NoPriorsPod | @Saranormous | @EladGil | @LinaKhanFTC Show Notes:  (0:00) Introduction (0:56) Lina Khan's background and path to the FTC (2:35) Amazon's Antitrust Paradox (4:20) Frameworks for regulating M&A in young markets (8:50) Khan's perspective on AI acquisitions (12:18) What founders can expect from Khan's M&A environment  (14:55) Promoting competition at the large model layer (17:01) Creating fair AI regulation (18:40) FTC's work to ban non-competes (20:31) Why so few young people hold power in government today (22:18) The realities of running a government agency (24:20) Measuring the impact of FTC

In this episode of No Priors, Sarah and Elad sit down with Matt MacInnis, COO of Rippling, to discuss the company's unique product strategy and the advantages of being a compound startup. Matt introduces Talent Signal, Rippling's AI-powered employee performance tool, and explains how early adopters are using it to gain a competitive edge. They explore Rippling's approach to choosing which AI products to build and how they plan to leverage their rich data sources. The conversation also delves into how AI shapes real-world decision-making and how to realistically integrate these tools into organizational workflows. Sign up for new podcasts every week. Email feedback to show@no-priors.com Follow us on Twitter: @NoPriorsPod | @Saranormous | @EladGil | @Stanine Show Notes:  0:00 Introduction 0:32 Rippling's mission and product offerings 2:13 Compound startups 3:53 Evaluating human performance with Talent Signal  13:19 Incorporating AI evaluations into decision-making at Rippling 14:56 Leveraging work outputs as inputs for models 18:23 How Rippling chose which AI product to build first 20:53 Building out bundled products 23:26 Merging and scaling diverse data sources 25:16 Early adopters and integrating AI into decision-making processes

Bret Taylor, Cofounder of Sierra, Chairman of the board at OpenAI, and former co-CEO of Salesforce and CTO of Facebook, joins Sarah and Elad in this week's episode of No Priors. Bret discusses building company-branded AI agents with unique personalities, goals, and guardrails at Sierra, and their potential to revolutionize customer engagement while cutting costs. The conversation explores the next sectors for enterprise AI adoption, building resilient AI products, and the parallels between today's AI market and the evolution of the cloud industry. Bret also shares his unique insights on future business models and upcoming technology shifts. Sign up for new podcasts every week. Email feedback to show@no-priors.com Follow us on Twitter: @NoPriorsPod | @Saranormous | @EladGil | @Btaylor Show Notes: (0:00) Intro (0:42) Defining agentic systems and types of agents (3:55) Customer-facing company agents (5:43) Sierra AI (8:11) Transforming customer service and reducing costs (9:57) Challenges in implementing LLMs for company agents (14:45) Drawing parallels between AI and the cloud market's evolution (17:50) Future of the AI landscape (19:15) Building durable AI products (24:39) Outcome-based business models and tangible ROI in AI solutions (29:22) Next wave of AI sectors for enterprise adoption (31:15) Customizing goals and guardrails with customers (35:55) Creating distinct personalities for Sierra's agents (41:05) Bret's insights on upcoming technology and hardware shifts (46:50) How AI software could enhance human agency

In this episode of No Priors, Sarah and Elad go deep into what's on everyone's mind. They break down new partnerships and consolidation in the LLM market, specialization of AI models, and AMD's strategic moves. Plus, Elad is looking for a humanoid robot.  Sign up for new podcasts every week. Email feedback to show@no-priors.com Follow us on Twitter: @NoPriorsPod | @Saranormous | @EladGil  Show Notes: (0:00) Introduction (0:24) LLM market consolidation  (2:18) Competition and decreasing API costs (3:58) Innovation in LLM productization  (8:20) Comparing  the LLM and social network market (11:40) Increasing competition in image generation (13:21) Trend in smaller models with higher performance (14:43) Areas of innovation (17:33) Legacy of AirBnB and Uber pushing boundaries (24:19) AMD Acquires ZT  (25:49) Elad's looking for a Robot

Andrej Karpathy joins Sarah and Elad in this week of No Priors. Andrej, who was a founding team member of OpenAI and former Senior Director of AI at Tesla, needs no introduction. In this episode, Andrej discusses the evolution of self-driving cars, comparing Tesla and Waymo's approaches, and the technical challenges ahead. They also cover Tesla's Optimus humanoid robot, the bottlenecks of AI development today, and  how AI capabilities could be further integrated with human cognition.  Andrej shares more about his new company Eureka Labs and his insights into AI-driven education, peer networks, and what young people should study to prepare for the reality ahead. Sign up for new podcasts every week. Email feedback to show@no-priors.com Follow us on Twitter: @NoPriorsPod | @Saranormous | @EladGil | @Karpathy Show Notes:  (0:00) Introduction (0:33) Evolution of self-driving cars (2:23) The Tesla  vs. Waymo approach to self-driving  (6:32) Training Optimus  with automotive models (10:26) Reasoning behind the humanoid form factor (13:22) Existing challenges in robotics (16:12) Bottlenecks of AI progress  (20:27) Parallels between human cognition and AI models (22:12) Merging human cognition with AI capabilities (27:10) Building high performance small models (30:33) Andrej's current work in AI-enabled education (36:17) How AI-driven education reshapes knowledge networks and status (41:26) Eureka Labs (42:25) What young people study to prepare for the future

Today on No Priors, Sarah Guo and Elad Gil are joined by Eric Steinberger, the co-founder and CEO of Magic.dev. His team is developing a software engineer co-pilot that will act more like a colleague than a tool. They discussed what makes Magic stand out from the crowd of AI co-pilots, the evaluation bar for a truly great AI assistant, and their predictions on what a post-AGI world could look like if the transition is managed with care.  Sign up for new podcasts every week. Email feedback to show@no-priors.com Follow us on Twitter: @NoPriorsPod | @Saranormous | @EladGil | @EricSteinb Show Notes:  (0:00) Introduction (0:45) Eric's journey to founding Magic.dev (4:01) Long context windows for more accurate outcomes (10:53) Building a path toward AGI (15:18) Defining what is enough compute for AGI (17:34) Achieving Magic's final UX (20:03) What makes a good AI assistant (22:09) Hiring at Magic (27:10) Impact of AGI (32:44) Eric's north star for Magic (36:09) How Magic will interact in other tools

In this episode of No Priors, hosts Sarah and Elad are joined by Matt Garman, the CEO of Amazon Web Services. They talk about the evolution of Amazon Web Services (AWS) from its inception to its current position as a major player in cloud computing and AI infrastructure. In this episode they touch on AI commuting hardware,  partnerships with AI startups, and the challenges of scaling for AI workloads. Sign up for new podcasts every week. Email feedback to show@no-priors.com Follow us on Twitter: @NoPriorsPod | @Saranormous | @EladGil  Show Notes:  (00:00) Introduction  (00:23) Matt's early days at Amazon (02:53) Early conception of AWS (06:36) Understanding the full opportunity of cloud compute (12:21) Blockers to cloud migration (14:19) AWS reaction to Gen AI (18:04) First-party models at hyperscalers (20:18) AWS point of view on open source (22:46) Grounding and knowledge bases (26:07) Semiconductors and data center capacity for AI workloads (31:15) Infrastructure investment for AI startups (33:18) Value creation in the AI ecosystem (36:22) Enterprise adoption  (38:48) Near-future predictions for AWS usage (41:25) AWS's role for startups

In this episode of No Priors, hosts Sarah and Elad are joined by Jared Quincy Davis, former DeepMind researcher and the Founder and CEO of Foundry, a new AI cloud computing service provider. They discuss the research problems that led him to starting Foundry, the current state of GPU cloud utilization, and Foundry's approach to improving cloud economics for AI workloads. Jared also touches on his predictions for the GPU market and the thinking behind his recent paper on designing compound AI systems. Sign up for new podcasts every week. Email feedback to show@no-priors.com Follow us on Twitter: @NoPriorsPod | @Saranormous | @EladGil | @jaredq_ Show Notes:  (00:00) Introduction  (02:42) Foundry background (03:57) GPU utilization for large models (07:29) Systems to run a large model (09:54) Historical value proposition of the cloud (14:45) Sharing cloud compute to increase efficiency  (19:17) Foundry's new releases (23:54) The current state of GPU capacity (29:50) GPU market dynamics (36:28) Compound systems design (40:27) Improving open-ended tasks

In this episode of No Priors, hosts Sarah and Elad are joined by Ramp co-founders Eric Glyman and Karim Atiyeh of Ramp. The pair has been working to build one of the fastest growing fintechs since they were teenagers. This conversation focuses on how Ramp engineers have been building new systems to help every team from sales and marketing to product. They're building best-in-class SaaS solutions just for internal use to make sure their company remains competitive. They also get into how AI will augment marketing and creative fields, the challenges of selling productivity, and how they're using LLMs to create internal podcasts using sales calls to share what customers are saying with the whole team.  Sign up for new podcasts every week. Email feedback to show@no-priors.com Follow us on Twitter: @NoPriorsPod | @Saranormous | @EladGil | @eglyman l @karimatiyeh Show Notes:  (0:00) Introduction to Ramp (3:17) Working with startups (8:13) Ramp's implementation of AI (14:10) Resourcing and staffing (17:20) Deciding when to build vs buy (21:20) Selling productivity (25:01) Risk mitigation when using AI (28:48) What the AI stack is missing (30:50) Marketing with AI (37:26) Designing a modern marketing team (40:00) Giving creative freedom to marketing teams (42:12) Augmenting bookkeeping (47:00) AI-generated podcasts 

Hunting down receipts and manually filling out invoices kills productivity. This week on No Priors, Sarah Guo and Elad Gil sit down with Pedro Franceschi, co-founder and CEO of Brex. Pedro discusses how Brex is harnessing AI to optimize spend management and automate tedious accounting and compliance tasks for teams. The conversation covers the reliability challenges in AI today, Pedro's insights on the future of fintech in an AI-driven world, and the major transitions Brex has navigated in recent years. Sign up for new podcasts every week. Email feedback to show@no-priors.com Follow us on Twitter: @NoPriorsPod | @Saranormous | @EladGil | @Pedroh96 Show Notes:  (0:00) Introduction (0:32) Brex's business and transitioning to solo CEO (3:04) Building AI into Brex  (7:09) Solving for risk and reliability in AI-enabled financial products (11:41) Allocating resources toward AI investment (14:00) Innovating data use in marketing  (20:00) Building durable businesses in the face of AI (25:36) AI's impact on finance (29:15) Brex's decision to focus on startups and enterprises

In this episode of No Priors, hosts Sarah and Elad are joined by Oriol Vinyals, VP of Research, Deep Learning Team Lead, at Google DeepMind and Technical Co-lead of the Gemini project. Oriol shares insights from his career in machine learning, including leading the AlphaStar team and building competitive StarCraft agents. We talk about Google DeepMind, forming the Gemini project, and integrating AI technology throughout Google products. Oriol also discusses the advancements and challenges in long context LLMs, reasoning capabilities of models, and the future direction of AI research and applications. The episode concludes with a reflection on AGI timelines, the importance of specialized research, and advice for future generations in navigating the evolving landscape of AI. Sign up for new podcasts every week. Email feedback to show@no-priors.com Follow us on Twitter: @NoPriorsPod | @Saranormous | @EladGil | @oriolvinyalsml Show Notes:  (00:00) Introduction to Oriol Vinyals (00:55) The Gemini Project and Its Impact (02:04) AI in Google Search and Chat Models (08:29) Infinite Context Length and Its Applications (14:42) Scaling AI and Reward Functions (31:55) The Future of General Models and Specialization (38:14) Reflections on AGI and Personal Insights (43:09) Will the Next Generation Study Computer Science? (45:37) Closing thoughts

This week on No Priors, Sarah Guo and Elad Gil are joined by Howie Liu, the co-founder and CEO of Airtable. Howie discusses their Cobuilder launch, the evolution of Airtable from a simple productivity tool to an enterprise app platform with integrated AI capabilities. They talk about why the conventional wisdom of “app not platform” can be wrong,  why there's a future for low-code in the age of AI and code generation, and where enterprises need help adopting AI. Sign up for new podcasts every week. Email feedback to show@no-priors.com Follow us on Twitter: @NoPriorsPod | @Saranormous | @EladGil | @Howietl Show Notes:  (00:00) Introduction (00:29) The Origin and Evolution of Airtable (02:31) Challenges and Successes in Building Airtable (06:09) Airtable's Transition to Enterprise Solutions (09:44) Insights on Product Management (16:23) Integrating AI into Airtable (21:55) The Future of No Code and AI (30:30) Workshops and Training for AI Adoption (36:28) The Role of Code Generation in No Code Platforms

This week on No Priors, we have a host-only episode. Sarah and Elad catch up to discuss how tech history may be repeating itself. Much like in the early days of the internet, every company is clamoring to incorporate AI into their products or operations while some legacy players are skeptical that investment in AI will pay off. They also get into new opportunities and capabilities that AI is opening up, whether or not incubators are actually effective, and what companies are poised to stand the test of time in the changing tech landscape. Sign up for new podcasts every week. Email feedback to show@no-priors.com Follow us on Twitter: @NoPriorsPod | @Saranormous | @EladGil Show Notes:  (0:00) Introduction (0:16) Old school operators AI misunderstandings (5:10) Tech history is repeating itself with slow AI adoption (6:09) New AI Markets (8:48) AI-backed buyouts (13:03) AI incubation (17:18) Exciting incubating applications (18:26) AI and the public markets (22:20) Staffing AI companies  (25:14) Competition and shrinking head count

Believe or not, we're almost halfway through 2024. Sarah and Elad have spent the first of this year talking with some of the most innovative minds in the AI industry, so we're taking a look at some of our favorite No Priors conversations so far featuring Dylan Field (Figma), Emily Glassberg-Sands (Stripe), Brett Adcock (Figure AI), OpenAI's Sora Team, Scott Wu (Cognition), and Alexandr Wang (Scale).  Watch or listen to the full episodes here: Build AI products at on-AI companies with Emily Glassberg Sands from Stripe Designing the Future: Dylan Field on AI, Collaboration, and Independence The argument for humanoid robots with Brett Adcock from Figure OpenAI's Sora team thinks we've only seen the "GPT-1 of video models" Cognition's Scott Wu on how Devin, the AI software engineer, will work for you The Data Foundry for AI with Alexandr Wang from Scale Sign up for new podcasts every week. Email feedback to show@no-priors.com Follow us on Twitter: @NoPriorsPod | @Saranormous | @EladGil  Show Notes:  (0:00) Introduction (0:46) Emily Glassberg Sands on the Future of AI and Fintech (4:23 Dylan Field on AI and Human Creative Potential (9:03) Brett Adcock on Running Figure AI's Hardware and Software Processes (12:43) OpenAI's Sora Team on Artists' Creative Experiences with their Model (17:43) Scott Wu Gives Advice for Human Engineers Co-Working with AI (21:06) Alexandr Wang on How Quality Data Builds Confidence in AI Systems

This week on No Priors, Sarah Guo and Elad Gil sit down with Karan Goel and Albert Gu from Cartesia. Karan and Albert first met as Stanford AI Lab PhDs, where their lab invented Space Models or SSMs, a fundamental new primitive for training large-scale foundation models. In 2023, they Founded Cartesia to build real-time intelligence for every device. One year later, Cartesia released Sonic which generates high quality and lifelike speech with a model latency of 135ms—the fastest for a model of this class. Sign up for new podcasts every week. Email feedback to show@no-priors.com Follow us on Twitter: @NoPriorsPod | @Saranormous | @EladGil | @krandiash | @_albertgu Show Notes:  (0:00) Introduction (0:28) Use Cases for Cartesia and Sonic  (1:32) Karan Goel & Albert Gu's professional backgrounds (5:06) Steady State Models (SSMs) versus Transformer Based Architectures  (11:51) Domain Applications for Hybrid Approaches  (13:10) Text to Speech and Voice (17:29) Data, Size of Models and Efficiency  (20:34) Recent Launch of Text to Speech Product (25:01) Multimodality & Building Blocks (25:54) What's Next at Cartesia?  (28:28) Latency in Text to Speech (29:30) Choosing Research Problems Based on Aesthetic  (31:23) Product Demo (32:48) Cartesia Team & Hiring

 AI video generation models still have a long way to go when it comes to making compelling and complex videos but the HeyGen team are well on their way to streamlining the video creation process by using a combination of language, video, and voice models to create videos featuring personalized avatars, b-roll, and dialogue. This week on No Priors, Joshua Xu the co-founder and CEO of HeyGen,  joins Sarah and Elad to discuss how the HeyGen team broke down the elements of a video and built or found models to use for each one, the commercial applications for these AI videos, and how they're safeguarding against deep fakes.  Links from episode: HeyGen McDonald's commercial Sign up for new podcasts every week. Email feedback to show@no-priors.com Follow us on Twitter: @NoPriorsPod | @Saranormous | @EladGil |  @joshua_xu_ Show Notes:  (0:00) Introduction (3:08) Applications of AI content creation (5:49) Best use cases for Hey Gen (7:34) Building for quality in AI video generation (11:17) The models powering HeyGen (14:49) Research approach (16:39) Safeguarding against deep fakes (18:31) How AI video generation will change video creation (24:02) Challenges in building the model (26:29) HeyGen team and company

The first step in achieving AGI is nailing down a concise definition and  Mike Knoop, the co-founder and Head of AI at Zapier, believes François Chollet got it right when he defined general intelligence as a system that can efficiently acquire new skills. This week on No Priors, Miked joins Elad to discuss ARC Prize which is a multi-million dollar non-profit public challenge that is looking for someone to beat the Abstraction and Reasoning Corpus (ARC) evaluation. In this episode, they also get into why Mike thinks LLMs will not get us to AGI, how Zapier is incorporating AI into their products and the power of agents, and why it's dangerous to regulate AGI before discovering its full potential.  Show Links: About the Abstraction and Reasoning Corpus Zapier Central Sign up for new podcasts every week. Email feedback to show@no-priors.com Follow us on Twitter: @NoPriorsPod | @Saranormous | @EladGil | @mikeknoop Show Notes:  (0:00) Introduction (1:10) Redefining AGI (2:16) Introducing ARC Prize (3:08) Definition of AGI (5:14) LLMs and AGI (8:20) Promising techniques to developing AGI (11:0) Sentience and intelligence (13:51) Prize model vs investing (16:28) Zapier AI innovations (19:08) Economic value of agents (21:48) Open source to achieve AGI (24:20) Regulating AI and AGI

After Tengyu Ma spent years at Stanford researching AI optimization, embedding models, and transformers, he took a break from academia to start Voyage AI which allows enterprise customers to have the most accurate retrieval possible through the most useful foundational data. Tengyu joins Sarah on this week's episode of No priors to discuss why RAG systems are winning as the dominant architecture in enterprise and the evolution of foundational data that has allowed RAG to flourish. And while fine-tuning is still in the conversation, Tengyu argues that RAG will continue to evolve as the cheapest, quickest, and most accurate system for data retrieval.  They also discuss methods for growing context windows and managing latency budgets, how Tengyu's research has informed his work at Voyage, and the role academia should play as AI grows as an industry.  Show Links: Tengyu Ma Key Research Papers: Sophia: A Scalable Stochastic Second-order Optimizer for Language Model Pre-training Non-convex optimization for machine learning: design, analysis, and understanding Provable Guarantees for Self-Supervised Deep Learning with Spectral Contrastive Loss Larger language models do in-context learning differently, 2023 Why Do Pretrained Language Models Help in Downstream Tasks? An Analysis of Head and Prompt Tuning On the Optimization Landscape of Tensor Decompositions Sign up for new podcasts every week. Email feedback to show@no-priors.com Follow us on Twitter: @NoPriorsPod | @Saranormous | @EladGil | @tengyuma Show Notes:  (0:00) Introduction (1:59) Key points of Tengyu's research (4:28) Academia compared to industry (6:46) Voyage AI overview (9:44) Enterprise RAG use cases (15:23) LLM long-term memory and token limitations (18:03) Agent chaining and data management (22:01) Improving enterprise RAG  (25:44) Latency budgets (27:48) Advice for building RAG systems (31:06) Learnings as an AI founder (32:55) The role of academia in AI

Garry Tan is a notorious founder-turned-investor who is now running one of the most prestigious accelerators in the world, Y Combinator. As the president and CEO of YC, Garry has been credited with reinvigorating the program. On this week's episode of No Priors, Sarah, Elad, and Garry discuss the shifting demographics of YC founders and how AI is encouraging younger founders to launch companies, predicting which early stage startups will have longevity, and making YC a beacon for innovation in AI companies. They also discussed the importance of building companies in person and if San Francisco is, in fact, back.  Sign up for new podcasts every week. Email feedback to show@no-priors.com Follow us on Twitter: @NoPriorsPod | @Saranormous | @EladGil | @garrytan Show Notes:  (0:00) Introduction (0:53) Transitioning from founder to investing (5:10) Early social media startups (7:50) Trend predicting at YC (10:03) Selecting YC founders (12:06) AI trends emerging in YC batch (18:34) Motivating culture at YC (20:39) Choosing the startups with longevity (24:01) Shifting YC found demographics (29:24) Building in San Francisco  (31:01) Making YC a beacon for creators (33:17) Garry Tan is bringing San Francisco back

Alexandr Wang was 19 when he realized that gathering data will be crucial as AI becomes more prevalent, so he dropped out of MIT and started Scale AI. This week on No Priors, Alexandr joins Sarah and Elad to discuss how Scale is providing infrastructure and building a robust data foundry that is crucial to the future of AI. While the company started working with autonomous vehicles, they've expanded by partnering with research labs and even the U.S. government.   In this episode, they get into the importance of data quality in building trust in AI systems and a possible future where we can build better self-improvement loops, AI in the enterprise, and where human and AI intelligence will work together to produce better outcomes.  Sign up for new podcasts every week. Email feedback to show@no-priors.com Follow us on Twitter: @NoPriorsPod | @Saranormous | @EladGil | @alexandr_wang