No Priors: Recent Episodes
Conviction and Pod People
We are living at a special moment in the history of technology. We have made core breakthroughs in machine learning, and exciting companies are developing the "Software 3.0" fueled by artificial intelligence. That's why Sarah Guo and Elad Gil are sitting down with the world's leading technologists, researchers, founders and CEOs in the No Priors Podcast. Learn the deep inner workings of the most fascinating and mystical technology, secrets to founder success, and what's next from leading AI researchers. Sarah Guo is a startup investor and founder of Conviction, an investment firm purpose-built to serve "Software 3.0" companies. She spent nearly a decade incubating and investing at Greylock Partners, where she was the youngest and only female General Partner. Elad Gil is an investor, advisor and co-founder of Color Genomics. He was the co-founder and CEO of Mixer Labs. He was the Vice President of Twitter, where he helped scale the company from 90 to 1500 people. He's the author of the High Growth Handbook.
"Biological Software" is the future of medicine. Jakob Uszkoreit, CEO and Co-founder of Inceptive, joins Sarah Guo and Elad Gil this week on No Priors, to discuss how deep learning is expanding the horizons of RNA and mRNA therapeutics. Jakob co-authored the revolutionary paper Attention is All You Need while at Google, and led early Google Translate and Google Assistant teams. Now at Inceptive, he's applying these same architectures and ideas to biological design, optimizing vaccine production, and magnitude-more efficient drug discovery. We also discuss Jakob's perspective on promising research directions, and his point of view that model architectures will actually get simpler from here, and be driven by hardware.
Show Links:
Inceptive - CEO & Founder - Jakob Uszkoreit | LinkedIn
Inceptive
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Show Notes: (0:00:00) - Creating Biological Software (0:06:54) - The Hardware Drivers of Large-Scale Transformers (0:14:32) - Challenges in Optimizing Compute Allocation (0:23:25) - Deep Learning in Biology and RNA (0:32:49) - The Future of Drug Discovery (0:41:41) - Collaboration and Innovation at Inceptive
The future of education is right at your children’s fingertips. Sal Khan, CEO and Founder of Khan Academy, joins Sarah Guo and Elad Gil this week on No Priors. For over a decade, Sal Khan has been trying to reform education, beginning with tutoring his cousins in math. He's the father of the YouTube "chalk talk" format, and has now served tens of millions of students through Khan Academy.
He guides us through how Khan Academy is using AI to personalize a student's educational experience, transporting students into immersive learning experiences that allow them to debate historical figures, to assisting teachers with lesson plans that address the learning gaps keeping students from reaching their full potential, to a Khanmigo, a tutor for every child.
Prior to founding Khan Academy, Sal worked as a hedge fund analyst. He holds an MS in business from Harvard University, as well as an MS in Engineering and a BS in Computer Science from MIT.
Show Links:
Khan Academy - CEO & Founder - Khan Academy | LinkedIn
Khan Academy
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Show Notes: [0:00:06] - Sal Khan's Journey [0:08:41] - Mastery Learning and AI in Education [0:19:53] - Future of AI Tutors in Education [0:23:10] - Education's Future With Generative AI [0:29:35] - Connecting Learning Through Tutoring and Collaboration [0:33:22] - Implications of GPT 4 on Education [0:40:42] - Future of Education and Job Skills [0:46:47] - Importance of Traditional Skills in Education
This week on the podcast, Sarah Guo and Elad Gil answer listener questions on the state of technology and artificial intelligence. Sarah and Elad also talk about the 2024 tech market, what type of companies may reach their highest valuation ever and the (former) unicorns that may go bust. Plus, how do Sarah and Elad define happiness? Hint: it’s a use case for a specialized AI agent. Sign up for new podcasts every week. Email feedback to show@no-priors.com
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Show Links:
Cerebras Systems signs $100 million AI supercomputer deal with UAE's G42 | Reuters
Our World in Data
Show Notes: [0:00:37] - Impact of GPU Bottleneck in the near and long term [0:10:30] - Timeline for existing incumbent enterprises to use AI in products [0:11:50] - Vertical versus broad applications for AI Agents [0:19:33] - 2024 tech market predictions & how founders should think about valuations
How are the best in class ML developer tools continuing to push our capabilities to new heights? Lukas Biewald, CEO of Weights & Biases, joins Sarah Guo and Elad Gil this week on No Priors. Lukas explores the impact of ML in various industries like gaming, AgTech, and fintech through his insightful perspective. He discusses open source models and their adoption, the potential hidden costs of running your own model, and the challenges of finding companies that have LLMs in production. He gives advice for aspiring AI company founders, placing emphasis on customer feedback and using insecurities for better customer discovery.
Prior to founding Weights & Biases, Lukas conquered the problem of data collection for model training as the Founder of Figure Eight, which he sold in 2019. He holds an MS in Computer Science and a BS in Mathematics from Stanford University.
Show Links:
Lukas Biewald - CEO & Co-founder - Weights & Biases | LinkedIn
Weights & Biases
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Show Notes: [0:00:00] - Lucas Wald's Journey in AI [0:08:16] - Startup Evolution and Machine Learning [0:18:54] - Open Source Models Implications and Adoption [0:29:54] - ML Impact in Various Industries [0:40:27] - Advice for AI Company Founders
Can frontiers as high-stakes as next-generation, AI-enabled defense depend on something as mundane as data integration? Can "large language models" work in such mission critical applications? In this episode of No Priors, hosts Sarah Guo and Elad Gil are joined by Shyam Sankar, the Chief Technical Officer of Palantir Technologies and inventor of their famous Forward Deployed Engineering force.
Early employee and longtime leader Shyam explains the evolution of technology at Palantir, from ontology and data integration to process visualization and now AI. He describes how a company of Palantir's scale has adopted foundation models and shares customer stories. They discuss the case for open source AI models fine-tuned on private, domain-specific data, and the challenges of anchoring AI models in reality.
Show Links:
Shyam Sankar - Chief Technical Officer - Palantir Technologies | LinkedIn
Palantir
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Show Notes: [0:00:00] - Palantir's CTO Discusses Company's Background [0:10:17] - Apollo and AIP [0:20:25] - Future of UI and Application Integration [0:28:29] - Investment in Co-Pilot Models and Education [0:31:22] - Exploring AI Implementation in Various Industries [0:38:19] - Operational and Analytical Workflows in Context
Video dominates modern media consumption, but video creation is still expensive and difficult. AI-generated and edited video is a holy grail of democratized creative expression. This week on No Priors, Sarah Guo and Elad Gil sit down with Devi Parikh. She is a Research Director in Generative AI at Meta and an Associate Professor in the School of Interactive Computing at Georgia Tech. Her work focuses on multimodality and AI for images, audio and video. Recently, she worked on Make a Video 3D, also called MAV3D, which creates animations from text prompts. She is also a talented AI-generated and analog artist herself. Elad, Sarah and Devi talk about what’s exciting in computer vision, what’s blocking researchers from fully immersive Generative 4-D, and AI controllability. No Priors is now on YouTube! Subscribe to the channel on YouTube and like this episode.
Show Links:
Devi Parikh - Google Scholar
Text-To-4D Dynamic Scene Generation named MAV3D (Make-A-Video3D)
Full Research Paper
Website with examples of image to 4 D generation
Devi’s Substack
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Show Notes: (0:00:06) - Democratizing Creative Expression With AI-Generated Video (0:08:31) - Challenges in Video Generation Research (0:15:57) - Challenges and Implications of Video Processing (0:20:43) - Control and Multi-Modal Inputs in Video (0:25:50) - Audio's Role in Visual Content (0:39:00) - Don't Self-Select & Devi’s tips for young researchers
Frank Slootman, CEO of Snowflake Computing, joins Sarah Guo and Elad Gil this week on No Priors. Before scaling Snowflake to its blockbuster IPO and beyond, Frank was also the CEO from early to scale for landmark enterprise companies ServiceNow and Data Domain. Frank grew up in the Netherlands and is also the author of three books: Amp It Up, Rise of the Data Cloud, and Tape Sucks. In this episode, our hosts talk with Frank about the opportunity for generative AI in the enterprise, why Snowflake isn't really a data warehousing company, their acquisitions of Neeva and Streamlit, apps within Snowflake, and how AI relates to traditional analytics and BI. He also talks about his personal journey, why it's always a good time to do performance management, and why most leaders struggle to raise the bar for performance. No Priors is now on YouTube! Subscribe to the channel on YouTube and like this episode. Show Links:
Forbes: How CEO-For-Hire Frank Slootman Turned Snowflake Into Software’s Biggest-Ever IPO
Amp It Up: Leading for Hypergrowth by Raising Expectations, Increasing Urgency, and Elevating Intensity
Rise of the Data Cloud (Audible Audio Edition): Frank Slootman, Steve Hamm, Zach Hoffman, Snowflake: Books
TAPE SUCKS: Inside Data Domain, A Silicon Valley Growth Story eBook : Slootman, Frank: Kindle Store
Frank Slootman’s LinkedIn
Sign up for new podcasts every week. Email feedback to show@no-priors.com Follow us on Twitter: @NoPriorsPod | @Saranormous | @EladGil | @SnowflakeDB Show Notes: [00:06] - Frank’s Insights on Career Success as a three-time CEO [12:42] - The message of his book Amp It Up [25:01] - Future of Natural Language and Data [36:29] - Data Management and Industry Transformation Future [45:13] - Managing Resources in Changing Economic Environment [50:09] - Amping Up Energy and Intensity Amid Economic Headwinds
Fidji Simo, the CEO of Instacart and co-founder of Metrodora Institute, a medical center and research institute for neuroimmune axis disorders, shares her personal journey from growing up in France, to leading the Facebook app, to becoming a wartime CEO. Fidji talks about the future of Instacart, their AI strategy, how the current era of AI is different from prior ML waves, and the impact of LLMs in commerce, robotics and healthcare. She also shares how she earns followership from her teams. No Priors is now on YouTube! Subscribe to the channel on YouTube and like this episode. Show Links:
May 31, 2023: Instacart users can now plan meals using AI - Fast Company Profile
May 13, 2023: Instacart CEO Fidji Simo makes groceries personal. Now she’s doing the same for women’s health
December 2, 2021: Rapid Response: Re-founding Instacart, w/ first-time CEO Fidji Simo | Podcast: Masters of Scale with Reid Hoffman
Metrodora Institute
Fidji Simo’s LinkedIn
Sign up for new podcasts every week. Email feedback to show@no-priors.com Follow us on Twitter: @NoPriorsPod | @Saranormous | @EladGil | @Fidjissimo Show Notes: [00:01] - Leading With Impact and Authenticity [11:48] - Implementing AI [17:28] - Future of Grocery Shopping With AI [25:38] - AI in Advertising and Commerce [32:54] - Metrodora: AI in Biotech and Healthcare [34:18] - The positive impact of AI, mitigating harm & role of regulations
Olivier Pomel, co-founder and CEO of Datadog, the leading observability company, discusses the company’s founding story, early product sequencing, platform strategy, and acquisitions. Olivier also shares his thoughts on their more recent expansion into security, and why he’s bullish on the potential for AI in DevOps. No Priors is now on YouTube! Subscribe to the channel on YouTube and like this episode. Show Links:
Nov 22, 2022: Product-led Growth: Founder 1-on-1 with Datadog and Aiven - Olivier Pomel & Oskari Saarenmaa
May 25, 2022: Datadog, Inc. (DDOG) CEO Olivier Pomel Presents at J.P. Morgan's 50th Annual Global Technology, Media and Communications Conference
Jan 6, 2021: Datadog CEO Olivier Pomel on the cloud computing outlook
Datadog’s Official Website
Olivier Pomel LinkedIn
Sign up for new podcasts every week. Email feedback to show@no-priors.com Follow us on Twitter: @NoPriorsPod | @Saranormous | @EladGil | @Oliveur Show Notes: [00:10] - DevOps and AI Potential [06:54] - Datadog and Generative AI [20:40] - Datadog's Acquisition and Expansion Strategy [31:46] - LLMs in Automation and Precision [42:35] - Datadog's Customer Value and Growth
This week on No Priors, Sarah and Elad do another hangout to answer listener questions. Topics include debunking common misconceptions about AI and its implications on the world, the analogy to nuclear power and nuclear safety, the impact of larger context windows, developer productivity, incumbent announcements of AI products, and some requests for (fat) startups. No Priors is now on YouTube! Subscribe to the channel on YouTube and like this episode. Sign up for new podcasts every week. Email feedback to show@no-priors.com Follow us on Twitter: @NoPriorsPod | @Saranormous | @EladGil | @SchimpfBrian Show Notes: [00:21] - What Are People Getting Wrong About AI Right Now? / New Capabilities of NLP [04:35] - Nuclear Power and Safety Concerns [11:12] - Emerging AI Companies and Research [15:54] - China's Hardware Sanctions and Funding Ramp [20:34] - Innovation in Heterogeneous Compute Infrastructure [28:08] - Enterprise Stack and Decision Making [33:44] - Data's Impact on the World
Today on No Priors, we discuss defense technology, AI, drones, and autonomous vehicles (think giant submarine drones!) with Brian Schimpf, the co-founder and CEO of Anduril, a next-generation defense technology company. From his early days of coding at age 12 to working on self-driving cars, and finally founding Anduril, Brian's incredible journey led him to create innovative solutions for pressing defense problems. This episode covers the impact of AI, intelligent software, and other technologies to defense. We discuss the challenges of deploying and selling technology in the government spaceBrian shared his perspective on building general-purpose defense technology, the importance of a software-first approach, and how Anduril is working to solve urgent defense problems with speed and efficiency. As we wrapped up our conversation, we touched on the recent shift in the low cost of space launch, which has changed the way the US thinks about defense. We examined the proliferation of satellites, drones, and hypersonic missiles, and how these technologies can be applied, scaled, and built in a way that can fundamentally shift America's approach to defense. Don't miss this fascinating episode with Brian Schimpf as we uncover the cutting edge of defense technology and its implications for the future. No Priors is now on YouTube! Subscribe to the channel on YouTube and like this episode. Show Links:
May 16, 2023: AI in Military Operations and How We Can Prevent It From Outsized Effects
May 9, 2023: CNBC Disruptor 50 - Anduril Industries
Anduril Website
Anduril Newsroom
Sign up for new podcasts every week. Email feedback to show@no-priors.com Follow us on Twitter: @NoPriorsPod | @Saranormous | @EladGil | @SchimpfBrian Show Notes: [0:00:01] - Exploring AI in Defense Tech [0:05:15] - Lower Cost Defense With Intelligent Software [0:15:10] - Building General Purpose Defense Technology [0:20:41] - Autonomy in Defense Challenges [0:25:05] - Machine Learning in Defense & Intelligence [0:29:06] - Scaling a Defense Tech Company [0:37:08] - The Future of Defense Technology [0:46:53] - Allied Forces and Washington Engagement [0:51:47] - Discussion on Leadership Popularity