The AI Agenda: GPT5 leaks and the business of AI News — Steph Palazzolo, The Information

[Music]

Hey everyone, welcome back to the lid in

space podcast. This is Allesio, partner

and CTO at Desible and I'm joined by

Swixs, founder of Small AI.

Hello. Hello. Today we're it's an

unusual podcast because we're in a

remote studio, but we're joined not by

researcher or founder, but a journalist,

our first ever journalist on the

podcast. Welcome Steph Palazola from the

information.

Hi. Yeah, I'm super happy to be here.

Steph, I don't know if you remember, but

actually I think the first time I came

across your work, I actually did a

parody of it for the Sam Alman blip back

in like 2023 where I I put like sort of

Adam Newman as like the pro perspective

CEO of Openly Eye. That was pretty fun.

No, that was super funny. I remember

just seeing like a bunch of parodies of

that over the next couple days. It was

just like every single insane tech

personality you could think of. Um, so

yeah, that was a very insane week, but

that that meme definitely stands out to

me. I definitely remember that.

I was like, who's the funniest possible

CEO I could install in OpenAI? I know

the the Wei work guy. But yeah, may

perhaps you could introduce yourself to

our audience. How'd you get started in

reporting and basically covering AI for

the information?

Totally. Yeah. So, um, my name is

Stephanie Palazolo. I cover AI here at

the information and so that means um

working on just stories about the space

whether that's about um investments or

big tech companies broader trends but I

also help to run our daily AI newsletter

um AI agenda so that comes out four

times a week and we get more into like

the weeds and talk a bit more about what

we're seeing with developers and and

researchers. Um, and so I've been here

for about two years. Before that, I was

covering the same beat at Business

Insider. And then before that, actually,

I I have a bit of a weird background

because I used to work in tech

investment banking. So I was like in

finance like doing the IPO and any

craziness during uh co and yeah I really

enjoyed working with tech um tech

companies and startups but I was like I

don't know if finance was my passion

which I don't think is like the craziest

thing for anyone to say but um I just

had always loved journalism growing up

and I was like what better time in my

life to try something kind of out there

and try to combine like tech and writing

and see how it goes then yeah I mean

everything's worked out so I'm very

happy. Yeah, in in in remarkable

fashion. Yeah, Lester, you wanted to see

something.

What was your first story?

How did how did you get started

covering?

Yeah, I mean I think I mean I'm sure

that my first story was probably just

like some silly like write up of like a

report or something, but I think the

first story I remember doing about AI

was during summer 2022. I I live in New

York, so every couple months I go visit

SF. And specifically on that trip, I

went and everyone was like, "Oh my god,

let me show you this like funny app

called Dolly and like we're going to

make pictures of like cats floating in

space and it's like so funny and cool."

And then it just started to come up in

so many conversations that I was like,

"Huh, like this is like a fun little

trend. Like maybe I should write

something about it." So then I ended up

doing a piece that was like why VCs are

obsessed with like this new area called

generative AI. And then obviously like 3

months later it was like blown up and

chatb was was released. Um, but yeah, I

remember that was my like first

generative AI specific piece that I did,

which was like honestly kind of just

like an accident. Like I just happened

to talk with a bunch of VCs who were

excited about it. Um, but yeah, and then

ever since then, I've been been covering

the space. So

yeah, we slowly being pulled into the

orbit. Before we go deeper into your

work and how you cover AI, I just wanted

to discuss the information more more

broadly. Um, I actually remember when

Jessica Lesson left like uh I think Wall

Street Journal um and joined and and

started the information I I was

basically following her since then. Um

and basically I'm just kind of Yeah,

like I'm also a finance refugee by the

way. I I used to be in a hedge fund as

well.

Nice. Be nice. All all uh recovering ex

finance people. Love that.

Yeah. I mean like look I I think we have

an interesting perspective in terms of

like covering these startups as

effectively stocks. like you know I I

don't view myself secretly as like you

know all all the writeups that I do are

industry sector reports that analysts

make cover except they're not publicly

listed companies. So like I'm curious

like how is the information organized

today? AI has taken over everything. So

is like everyone covering AI how do you

how do you sort of split the work and

and all that?

Yeah. No, it's funny. I feel like people

always ask me like oh my god AI is so so

crazy. How do you cover it by yourself?

And I'm like, we actually have like 10

different, you know, 10 different

writers who are basically covering like

different areas of AI. So I I get a lot

of help. Yeah. Specifically, so the

information, we've been around for over

a decade. We are kind of like a tech and

finance media publication.

uh specifically I would think of us as

like yeah kind of going above and beyond

to get you behind the scenes and to get

the scoops around what's happening at

some of the most important you know tech

media finance companies today and so

specifically like for me covering AI I'm

kind of part of like what you might

think of as like the enterprise tech

team and so we have reporters who are

covering like the major tech companies

like Google Amazon Microsoft but then we

also have reporters that are covering

like cloud more broadly or chips or like

crypto

And so we have like a mix of reporters

that cover specific companies, but then

also reporters that are covering like

larger beats like AI for instance. And

then of course we have another part of

the business that covers like finance

and deals and retail companies and

consumer companies. And so yeah,

basically like we just cover anything

and everything around tech and and

finance. So it's quite a wide array of

things. And we're always like looping in

like you know anytime I do a story

around like OpenAI's need for compute

like we're always looping in like my

colleagues Ana who covers cloud or

Chenner who covers chips and our

reporters who cover like the big cloud

providers. So it's very collaborative.

Yeah I'm sure it has to be. Uh okay you

you so you let's let's see what you do

right you you you write the AI agenda

you show on uh you you um also appear on

TITV which is like your new sort of TV

channel.

you you report groups like like once to

twice a week I I feel like uh

how do you like is it you know how do

you do it? What what is what else is um

part of your role?

Yeah. Yeah. I know it's kind of funny

because like I think for me cuz I came

from finance I never had done a

journalism job before that. Like I still

feel like I'm pretty new to the field

and learning about how things work. And

whenever I first joined, I think you

kind of just assume that as a writer

like most of your time would be spent

writing, but that's actually probably

like 20% of my day. Um, I think like the

vast majority of my day is spent maybe

like I don't know I don't know if VCs

would like this analogy, but maybe in

some ways like how a VC might where

you're constantly reaching out to

founders and interesting startups and

asking people like, "Oh, if I want to

learn about XYZ topic, who should I be

talking to next?" So like the vast

majority of my day is actually on on

calls with with with you know founders

and researchers and investors and

basically just like begging them and

being like hey like what's like the

hottest gossip that you guys know or

like what's like the coolest new trend

in AI that that you've seen.

And so I think it's just constantly

trying to stay ahead of what's in the

mainstream news about AI. And I think

for me two things that I really care

about are, you know, maybe you relate to

this, like previously working in finance

is thinking about like the business

models and the financials of these

companies. So we've done a bunch of

pieces or like I've done a bunch of

pieces around like infants providers and

like their gross margins and business

models, which which initially might

sound very boring, but I think is

actually really interesting. And then

also like on the tech side of things

like I think we're always trying to

understand what is the trajectory of AI

development like what are the obstacles

and how are the big AI labs trying to

get you know past those those

challenges.

Yeah we can get right into it. I was

actually going to start with the labs

first but I mean since since inference

is coming up. Uh today's big news is

modal is raising a billion dollars. I

saw the other day fireworks is raising

at 4 billion. Things seem on fire

everywhere but like you know what's

going on in the inference market. Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

What's what the high level take for

people people kind of out out of the

loop.

Yes. The high level take. So, yes.

Basically, I'm sure a lot of your

listeners already know this, but these

inference providers are companies that

are, you know, helping developers like

run and train and customize open source

AI models more easily than they would be

able to otherwise. And so, yeah, there's

just so many companies in the space. You

mentioned some of them. Fireworks,

Modal, there's Together, there's B 10.

There's just a ton of these companies in

the space. So

f is another one. Yes. Um and so yeah,

it's it's very interesting because a lot

of these companies have gotten so much

funding, but there's still a lot of like

skepticism around this space and like

whether these companies are actually

going to end up being like, you know,

like billions or trillions of dollars,

like trillion dollar company. Um so I

think a lot of people like think

basically just call these companies like

GPU resellers. So they're just like,

"Oh, all you're doing is just being like

a cloud basically,

you know, helping developers get access

to chips to run models on. So you're

like a knockoff Amazon or like a

knockoff like Azure or Google Cloud."

Um, which is like a bit derogatory. But

I think that's kind of like what the con

argument that's like the argument

against them. Um because also unlike

software companies, they have to like

spend so much money getting the you know

getting those chips and they have to

keep a bunch of them like unused at any

given time in case there's a sudden

spike in demand. I think like the

argument for them that I've heard from

investors is just like yeah like as you

know AI apps become more popular like

we're going to see the amount of money

going into AI inference to just like

explode and go way beyond the amount of

money and compute being spent on on

training. So we should have a bunch of

companies that are available here to

like help developers build these apps

and like access models really quickly.

And I think the space is also there are

some companies in the space that are

starting to like think about maybe

having their own data centers and moving

more into like the data center like

truly cloud provider world versus just

like I'm going to use chips from

existing clouds. So yeah, I don't know.

It's like a very interesting space and I

think it's just an example of like a new

category of startups that really didn't

exist like even 2 or 3 years ago that

are just popping up because of like the

demand for AI models.

Yeah. And you know I I think just to

point to another example that we didn't

mention but Core Weave technically a GPU

reseller um and you know a public

company. So like definitely a lot of

I mean I I would be curious for Allesio

like what you think about this space

like from kind of like the the VC side

of things. give us your hottest take.

I think on the VC side initially I think

everybody well not everybody obviously

because some people invested in it. I

think the first the timeline of when the

existing companies were going to catch

up I think people overestimated how

quickly they would do it. I think the

same thing happened in coding which I

think the a lot of the sentiment

initially was like well you know I mean

we have cursor on our pockets like two

and a half years ago

and the sentiment is like oh it's great

open is using it but like GitHub cannot

possibly let them run away with it you

know and I think with inference it was

like similar where it's like hey you

know obviously these tools are growing

quickly because you know the main

providers don't really offer these and

um blah blah blah and then there was

kind of like this question of is there

like a AI air pocket in pre-training

where you kind of have all these like

commitments on the GPU and the

hyperscalers but then they're going to

go back to inference and so it's kind of

going to bring the price so down can you

really build a company in the space but

I think f especially has done amazing

because um media is still very open

source driven when it comes to image and

video generation in a way the language

is not as much so I think they they've

been doing great and you know very happy

for their announcement today but yeah we

haven't done any but also like we have a

smaller phone and I think all of these

inference things are like big money

investments. Like you cannot do a $5

million round in like an inference

company, you know, you kind of need a

good chunk of capital to to run the

business. So obviously luckily the VC

model has evolved now to have these mega

funds that are able to support this like

100 million like you know FA raised 125

million million today. You need a lot of

money to run these things and together

raise a huge amount of money like it's

not easy to survive and I'm curious to

see where where they land in a in a few

years.

Yeah. No, it's crazy to just see like

casually like a hundred million dollar

plus round and being like, oh yeah,

that's so that's totally normal for an

early stage AI startup. So yeah,

I mean two billion seed rounds is normal

now. So you know

that's true. That's true. Yeah, the the

small the small seed round of of two

billion.

I mean we we'll go we'll get to the

labs, but I just wanted to stay focused

on on the infra side. Uh we did have a

chat with Eric uh from Mold and you know

we talked a little bit about how it's

almost a little bit like a bank, right?

like you it's basically what you're

doing is maturity transformation of of

long-term contracts into shorter term uh

you know usage of of things and you know

I think who whoever is the best

technologist uh and the best developer

experience is going to win there in

terms of serving out these GPUs for

providers and the other thing I always

think about from a finance point of view

that maybe people don't even think don't

think about that closely but obviously

push back if you if you disagree is that

it's basically a proxy for the gap

between open models and closed models

because if the open models do where um

the sort of the API hosts the inference

hosts do better and if open models fall

behind then they do worse. So so far

DeepSeek obviously like still one of the

biggest news of the the year

what was a big gift to to uh to to the

the inference providers and the sort of

relative decline of Llama and

disappointment llama 4 was uh you know a

problem for them. So yeah that that'll

be how I characterize it.

Yeah. Yeah. No, I think I think that's a

very fair point. I do think there's

probably a lot of usage of the inference

providers for not necessarily to get

state-of-the-art models, but because

like there's so many tasks that you can

that you'd want to use like a cheaper

model for or I even I know even whenever

like the Deepseek R1 model first came

out, one of the major like startups in

the space was like yeah 75% of the usage

that we see for for R1 is people trying

to distill it into like whatever use

cast uh use case they want, which I

think is like really interesting because

I don't know if I would think that like

distillation is like a like I I don't

know if I would say it's a good thing

that 75% of your usage is distillation,

but I mean you can't deny that like

whenever you see models come out like

DeepSeek like that that is a huge draw

to these inference startups for sure.

Yeah. Um I I think that's absolutely it

and also partially because Deepseek was

huge, right? There's a lot of these like

Kimmy K2 and what's the other one? GLM

uh 4.5 right now. All these are hundreds

of billions of parameters like very

costly to to serve for like sort of

day-to-day use. So you have to distill

it somehow.

Yeah.

Yeah. Uh so I think the other more

recent news I'm just going to go in sort

of like reverse cron order but also like

feel free to just do tangents on on

themes and stuff. Uh the next one is

meta. This is a fun one. I was super

happy to reach out to you because you

not only like breaking news and scooping

things, you actually put opinions into

your newsletter, which is I think very

brave as a journalist,

right? Because like sometimes you have

to like meet these people face to face

and you're out here saying Meta should

not have super intelligence. What's up

with that?

That's true. Yeah, I know. Whenever I

whenever we published that with that

headline, I was like, "God, I feel like

I'm going to get some angry comments

with this." No, but like

I don't know. I think there's like two

ways to look at this. Like I think one

way is like obviously if you're going to

reach super intelligence like I think

every big tech company with the

resources like does not want to miss out

on that. So like it makes sense like

Meta's like you know if super

intelligence is a future like I want to

be part of that and I want to be part of

like that development. But

I think just

if you take a look at like how Meta

actually makes money today, right? It's

through like social media apps and ads

and these things that are have been

around for for quite a while.

Oh yes, there's my lovely piece.

I'm providing visual aid for people and

also people can Google it. Yeah,

thank you. Yes,

but like if you think about it, a lot of

things like ads like you don't need

super intelligence. So whenever you

think about all the investment that Meta

is putting into AI today, which is great

and great for a lot of open source

developers like

maybe what's actually good for their P&L

and their finances, is to not focus so

much on building these like insane huge

state-of-the-art models, which they've

obviously struggled with more recently,

but it's to take things that are, you

know, 70 80 like 90% as good as the best

stuff out there, and figure out how to

use it in its apps. Like I think that's

like a problem I've seen from like Meta

and a lot of other companies where it's

like the models are getting better.

That's great. But it's like if I'm going

on Instagram and like the only AI stuff

I see is like oh do I want to talk to

like like an AI version of like the hawk

to a girl or like like I'm like who's

using this? Like like this cannot be

like where consumer AI ends up, right?

Like that's just so depressing and like

I don't know who's using this stuff. So

I'm like I feel like we've seen progress

in models and even for Meta like maybe

the I mean as we saw with Llama 4 even

the progress wasn't like amazing it

seems but like we've seen even less

progress like in actual products and

like innovation there. So I'm like I

would love it if Meet you know came up

with some really cool like AI apps that

I couldn't even think of versus just

like more and more models. But yeah, I'm

curious like what you guys think. And I

think people have very strong opinions

on whether Mark is making the right

moves with like some of these big hires

and the super intelligence labs and all

this craziness going on.

Uh yeah, I mean it's really hard to know

what to think. Obviously, so we're we're

recording this the day after Facebook

had their earnings report and Mark uh

put this like personal letter which was

very inspired by Nad Freeman

on personalized super intelligence. I

host the AI engineer summit in world's

fair and at the summit in in in February

uh Sum from Meta was also talking about

personal intelligence which I think like

it's it's of a kind like I think um that

part of that group in that that part of

Facebook really believes in that that

agenda. We're hoping to talk to Mark for

the podcast we ask him directly. A lot

of people think that it's basically he

just wants to be the dominant player in

every platform. So like you know if VR

is a thing fine we'll do VR. if crypto

is a thing, we're fine. We we'll have a

crypto play, you know, and like this is

this is the the the AI play, but

obviously I think he's going after this

bigger than basically everything else

he's ever done, which is his right as a

as a young founder still still in

control of his company. But like it's

it's also very bold and it's very

inspiring. I mean, we haven't shipped

anything yet, so we don't know what like

what what it's going to look like, but I

think it makes sense. I don't know about

business model, but like you know, he

was happy to bleed like $20 billion a

year on VR, so like why not?

They got glasses. They just put AI in

the glasses and it's fine. We're all

gonna wear glasses.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. I mean it was I mean even like

reading his the kind of letter he put

out about personal super intelligence

and like hearing the way he talks about

super intelligence is very interesting

in contrast with like you know like

anthropic open AI these other players

that are like we want to solve like the

world's most dangerous like diseases and

you know solve all these like huge

problems we have in science. And then

yeah it's interesting. And I think Meta

has really just doubled down on this

idea of like, okay, like that's cool and

all, but just like, how about the

everyday person? Like, we want to help

them, too. Which I think I think is

good. I think it's good that they're not

trying to just do what the other labs

are doing, but I feel like I still have

to see how the personal super

intelligence like marketing and angle is

going to play out with like consumers

and stuff.

Yeah, totally. Well, the other big part

of MSL, which obviously everyone's very

excited about, is the pay packages that

people are getting. you guys have been

reporting very diligently on that. And

other this is also like very breaking

news. I'm glad that we're doing this

today rather than like maybe last week

because I I get to up to like update

things, right? And we get we get some

fresh perspectives.

A meta spokesperson said uh push back on

on the sort of billion dollar offers

that have been rumored, right? Uh so

like we're past the 100 million mark

right now. We're at we're at a billion.

Um, and he it seems like he deleted this

tweet, but basically he he sort of

pushed back on the uh the sort of pay

packages, but like how do you know when

you're being

told the truth, right? You have a lot of

people leaking you information. There

are a lot of people accusing Sam Alman

of say of throwing out numbers in order

to play the media. I don't know how true

that is. It could be true. It could not

be. I just I just don't know. Like, how

do you know when you're being played?

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's a it's a tough

Yeah. It's something that I think every

journalist has to struggle with and deal

with. I think first is thinking about

the incentives of the person that you're

talking to. So obviously if I'm talking

to a PR person at OpenAI or Anthropic or

one of the big labs, like they're

obviously going to be pushing a certain

narrative that's like probably positive

about their company and maybe not so

positive about other companies. But even

like some of the researchers and stuff

like they might have very strong

opinions about like the safety culture

at an anthropic or like again like

Mark's strategy at at Meta like everyone

like has biases and they want to like

make themselves and their companies like

look good. So I think you just first

have to keep that in mind. So I think

like pretty much anything we get a tip

like this where it's like a huge number

that makes a certain company look good

and another company not look so good. We

wouldn't report that unless we had like

multiple sources and we would know like

who, you know, like who did that offer

go to. If it's over multiple years, how

much of that is like cash? How much of

that is stock? Is it over like 2 years?

Is it over four years? Right? There's a

lot of ways to like manipulate a number

like 1 billion and make it seem like way

more crazy or like way less crazy than

what it actually is. So I think it's

very tough because like there's crazy

numbers like that getting thrown around

but like I think as journalists we do

have responsibility to get into the

details and kind of question a little

bit more like okay why is this person

telling me this and like is it actually

helpful for me to write this number or

is there actually like xyz things that I

also would need for this to be like a

full like a story that tells the full

truth. So yeah, I think the reporting on

some of these comp numbers has been a

little tough because I think at this

point anyone just throwing out any like

hundreds of millions of dollars number

or billion dollar off like offer number

and everyone's like okay like that

sounds reasonable. So like yeah I think

some of these numbers like I think

journalists should include more details

on like exactly how these offers are

structured that could make them look

better or worse.

Yeah, like I have Dylan Patel pushing

back on even the $100 million uh signing

bonuses that people that I think you

guys have rewarded. Like I I don't know

what the the factor I mean unless you've

seen the actual offer. Like it's really

hard like you know firsthand to to

actually know what's going on.

Yeah, that's that's true. And I I do

think like there are situations where

like Sam Alman is on a podcast like yeah

like Mark's

given hundred million dollar offers to

our

right

researchers and right and it's like

that's immediately a headline because of

like how important Sam Alman is but like

it doesn't really go through the same

like scrutiny as just a normal news

story from like a publication. So I

think a lot of CEOs are very smart about

this and they like know how to throw out

stuff and immediately it catches on with

the news.

Yeah. because like then then that opens

for counter narratives which it's just

is to me it's fascinating how CEOs sort

of kind of use the media as a tool to

play games with other CEOs obviously and

like we're part of it like so it's it's

a very meta thing but like you know like

recently I think this week also there's

there's this story about like how you

know multiple multiple of these offers

have gone to thinking machines people

and all of them have rejected it or

whatever right and definitely that's a

planted story from think thinking

machines I I I don't know how to how

else to say it

they just want to look Good.

I mean, yeah, that story definitely

makes Thinking Machines Lab like look

look good for sure.

Okay, cool. Before we move on from meta,

I was just want to, you know, leave the

door open. Any other themes that you're

watching uh on on the meta side?

Yeah, I mean, I think we definitely

covered a lot of the really interesting

ones. I think I mean one theme that I

think like Mark has even kind of touched

on recently is whether they'll continue

open sourcing models, whether they're

going to start closed sourcing stuff and

like what does that mean for its

business model. Um cuz obviously like

like right now, you know, Meta doesn't

make money from an and an an API the way

that like OpenAI and Anthropit does, but

if they start closed sourcing models,

maybe that might change or that could

change kind of the shape of the way that

they think about how to make money from

this. And so yeah, I think that's very

interesting. And I don't know, I think

for me as a consumer, like I'm always

really interested in like consumer AI

because I feel like there's not really

as much coverage on it as I would like.

And like I personally I use a lot of AI

stuff, but nothing that's like truly

kind of transformed my like

nonwork-related life. So I'm very

curious like what Meta will come out

with with consumer AI.

And you know, if if there's any lab that

would do it, it's them and Open Eye, I

guess. Yeah. You know, we we did a

podcast. We also had our first I think

our first VCs on the podcast, Justine

and Olivia Moore who cover consumer AI

and that just seems like a fun job. They

scroll Tik Tok for a living. That's

that's what they do.

Oh wow. Okay. Well, yeah. I I also

scroll TikTok for a living. So, you

know, I I I wish I could get paid money

for that, but no, but it's a very tough

job. Honestly, I think investing in

consumer AI is like in some ways way

trickier than investing in enterprise

AI. So, props to them.

Yeah, I I've come around. So, I think

that is the Silicon Valley narrative,

right? that like consumer AI is a kind

of a crapshoot. Um, you know, sure,

every every now and then you get a

Facebook, but most most of the time it

flops. But I think like I think the the

the idea or the meta or like discussion

or vibe in Silicon Valley has shifted a

little bit mostly basically influenced

by chatbt where if you know if you build

a strong consumer business, you can get

the scale and the diversity to build up

like infrastructure and then data and

all that. And I think like it seems very

powerful but obviously also subject to a

lot of fads. Anyway, I'm not I'm not a

consumer guy. You can tell. Cool. Which

what other lab is sort of top of mind? I

I I guess you know uh we're we're

recording this on with GT5 imminent.

That's another big story. Uh you want TV

talking about it. How has been your

coverage of just generally just you know

stepping back Open EI in general? Like a

very tricky large secretive company to

to cover. What's it like?

Yeah, I mean it's it's crazy. Well, we

are hiring specifically an OpenAI

writer. So, that can tell you like how

much work goes into covering that that

company and the fact that we

only open.

Yeah. So, we want to have one person

that's just like reporting on Open AI,

which is like crazy. I feel like um

Yeah. I can't even think really of past

examples of where you have you would

have a journalist, you know, focus on

like one, you know, early stage startup

just by by itself. But yes, it's a very

complicated and somewhat secret

secretive company. And I think

especially because like there are so

many angles to come at it from, right?

Like there's like consumer product,

there's enterprise side, there's, you

know, the work it's doing with the

government now and the and the

regulation and laws and and policy that

it's involved with. And then obviously

there's stuff like Stargate and compute

and like the crazy data center project

that they're working on. Yeah. I mean

like really like any angle under the sun

like you can write about it with with

OpenAI.

I think specifically whenever I think

about like GBD5 which we recently wrote

a story on. Um I think like what's so

interesting about that to me is that

kind of like you know the past year

we've seen a lot of progress especially

in reasoning models. But I think like

under all of that has been the fact that

like GPT4 has been kind of the like

leading GPT model for for a very long

time and everyone's kind of like okay

when is something worthy of the GPT5

name going to come out. Like we saw 4.5

which was like low-key kind of a flop

and like I think has actually been

deprecated from the API now which is

crazy.

Yes. I'm very sad.

Yes. But like you know as much as we see

01 03 doing super well like this has

been the big question like what is going

on with GBT

in the story that we wrote we kind of

talked about how at least the people

that we've talked to who have tested it

so far have been pretty impressed. They

seem to think that it's been you know

there's been improvements in a number of

domains and both like like science and

coding but also areas like creative

writing and general knowledge.

But I think like the question that we

have coming out of this is how like what

does the performance of GPT5

say about the trajectory of AI?

If GPT5 is like a flop for some reason

like what does that mean about like what

does that mean for reasoning models and

like the good progress that we've seen

there? Like is 04 also going to be a

flop? But then on the flip side, if GBT5

is good, is that necessarily because

pre-training is still going super well

and we're we've a we've been able to

scale up pre-training really nicely and

everything's going super smoothly or is

it actually because like reinforcement

learning is the area that we're getting

the most improvements from now and like

if that's true, how much further can we

go with like reinforcement learning and

and postraining? So I think like that's

going to be the most interesting part

coming out of the GBT 5 launch is kind

of

Not just thinking about like oh like

what does this mean for open AI standing

in the AI race but like literally what

does this mean for just like AI progress

for every AI lab?

Yeah. How do you think about poking into

the other labs? So you know JD5 is

coming out soon. Are you in parallel

trying to see okay is Entropic going to

release something? Is Gemini going to

release something? Is like is XAI? You

know Elon always wants to drop things at

the same time. What's kind of like the

the routine?

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we're always keeping

an eye out on like all the labs and

there definitely have been some points

where I know like a year or two ago, I

think OpenAI like released their like

multimodal model like the day before

Google released theirs. So, there's

always like some fun little like drama

happening in the background. But I think

for the most part at least like and I

hope I don't jinx myself, for the most

part, I think right now like GPG5 is the

main model on the horizon for us. I

think most of the other labs like have

like somewhat recently released models

and so I would expect maybe for it to be

like a couple months before they come

out with with something but you know

like we see Anthropic for instance like

raising a a huge round right now and so

I have no idea if that's at all affected

by like GBG5 coming out and them wanting

to like really accelerate things because

they're like worried for instance but

yeah I think depending on how this model

goes like we will definitely see more

models released from some of these other

labs or like them wanting to raise

rounds and things like that to like get

the next model here faster.

Yeah. Uh I I I mean I think u cycle of

you ship a big model get some get some

um track get some like I guess traction

and noise and excitement and that helps

you with the fundraiser. next thing you

know happy to move on uh in terms of

topics but obviously opening eyes is

very huge but like I do think that it's

also very interesting when each lab CEO

puts out a blog post because it often

tends to tends to lead the fundra so I

think most directly I think for example

machines of loving loving grace was

directly before the hundred billion

dollar fundra for philanthropic and um

you know I think I think like there's I

think there's some correlation there in

terms of like when Daario shows up

somewhere and says like oh like a third

of the workforce is going way. That's

also like a very obvious like eye of

fundraising sign. And I I don't know if

like people read the TV leaves like that

or am I, you know, being like sort of

conspiracy theory.

Yeah. Yeah. I guess I think about what

was it the anthropic memo where they're

talking about taking money from like the

Middle East. Although I think that one's

like pretty obvious. I was like, okay,

definitely something's going on.

That was what What was that? Like that.

Yeah, that was like very interesting. I

mean, I don't know. Obviously, like I

don't know Daario personally or anything

like that, but I think in some ways you

got to respect somebody who's like that

open with their employees for better or

for worse. Like potentially for worse

because it leaked and I think people

were like not super happy with them. Um

yeah, I don't know. I think it's

interesting with like AI. There's a lot

of these conflicts where it's like, you

know, a lot of the companies for

instance are like taking are removing

from their terms of usage like we can't

you can't use AI for weapons or

military. Um, and then sometimes like

you kind of hear from them and they're

basically just like, "Well, obviously I

would I don't want our AI to be used to

like kill people. But if we take this

off then at least we can like be in the

room with like the military or the

government and be able to like give them

advice and like shape what they're

doing." And so yeah, there's a lot of

like weird like moral conflicts I think

with these companies and like who they

take money from or like who they allow

to use their models. That's very tough.

But yeah, well, what did you think of

the Daario memo? Were you like

surprised?

You know, you see these things, you

know, everyone knows like when you put

something like this out, it's going to

be all over the press and like why would

you put anything potentially

embarrassing? Like you just you just

didn't have to feed your your critics,

you know, you can just say like, "Hey,

we're we're we're looking at the Middle

East." You don't have to say like we're

compromising our principles or whatever

to to go into the Middle East. Anyway,

yeah, I think more broadly, you know, I

don't have I don't have a take on that.

I I think um everyone has to sort of

find their way. Um I think Google you

know has had to deal with the don't be

evil slogan that they had in the early

days and you know at some point like

what does evil mean to you doesn't mean

doesn't doesn't mean the same thing to

me as if I live in a completely

different country and context than you.

So like yeah that there's there's one

there's one form of discussion. I think

the other thing that that happens a lot

with big founders with big CEOs which uh

you know I've had sort of offline

offline conversations a lot of them like

want to build AGI but like that that I

approve of in order to fight the AGI

that I don't approve of. So like it's

you know the only thing that can beat a

bad AGI is a good AGI and and so they

they rather at least be part of that

debate rather than I guess is not be. So

I think that's that's a very

motivational factor.

Yes. Yeah. That's that's very true. I

feel like it's a very tech thing to be

like to be like I I know how to protect

us from like the evil tech.

I mean you have to like somebody has has

to try and if you don't try someone else

will try.

That's true.

So like you know you want to be high

agency or you're not high agency and and

the I mean the other thing is like you

know you if you have the ability then

maybe you have the responsibility you

know not to not to be too spider about

it.

That's true. That is true.

So so yeah I mean and then you know I

think the other the other things about

anthropic are are like um you know they

they made a real dent with with on the

coding side. Are they going to be a

coding oriented lab? they you know they

they they made some movements on

financial services and and uh you know

other other verticals like maybe defense

but I think coding is obviously a very

key battlegrounds like we just talked

about how GT5 is maybe open pushing back

on cloud code and sonnet and opus but

like is that a big part of the

conversations that you're having?

Yeah, definitely. I mean it definitely

feels like anthropic has decided that

coding is kind of their like

battleground and I mean so far they've

been doing really well. I think like one

thing I've heard and I'd be curious like

I think like I'm not a developer

obviously so I'd be curious if this is

your opinion as well but like I think

one thing that developers have told me

is that like one reason why they like

clawed for coding so much is because

it's not only good at kind of like

competitive or academic programming

tasks but it's also like these more like

soft skill type or not not soft skills

but more like more practical everyday

things that they're good at like working

with you know huge code bases that have

lots of like old legacy code in them or

just even being like persistent with

solving a coding problem and realizing

like hey I've tried X thing like three

times and it hasn't worked so like let

me try something different. So it kind

of feels like as scientific as like code

feels like it seems like behind the

scenes at anthropic there's a lot of

like it's like a like more kind of like

art than science like there's a lot of

like shaping of the model that is

happening to help with kind of what

engineers deal with during their

day-to-day versus more like academic you

know competitive programming questions.

I think the $200 a month for unlimited

usage definitely helps people go towards

entropic with cloud max on the clock

code. But yeah, the the models are

definitely very good at that. And I

think they have now a great harness to

get data to make the models even better.

Like in the um in cloud code now it

basically tells you, you know, you can

respond and tell cloud what it got wrong

if you don't want to do the thing that

it says it's going to do. Uh, and I

think obviously OpenAI wants to get the

same type of data with codeex, but I

think they're way far behind as far as

adoption, at least in our in our

circles. I'm sure they have a lot of

usage in in other groups. But yeah, the

models are good. And you know, one thing

Chroma released this context rod paper

recently about context utilization and

the cloud models are actually the best

at using kind of like longer context. So

I think there's maybe been this question

of like, you know, maybe the model is

not better code necessarily. it's like

just better using the context and and

kind of the day-to-day that ends up

playing a lot a lot to it. So, I think

we don't yet know like you said it's

kind of like it it's better but like why

is it better like it's unclear

necessarily but um the vibes are

definitely are definitely good.

Yeah, it's like it's hard to explain in

words. I mean, like, how how upset would

you I mean, I know Anthropic has come

out with some new news about like kind

of rate limits, but like how upset would

you guys be if they like raise the

pricing for from 200 or like put some

pretty intense like usage base pricing

on it?

Well, you can pay as you go on top with

the API. So, at least, you know, I think

that's what they're going to test. It's

like, okay, how much over do people go

uh with the API as you go pricing?

I don't know. I mean, I always said with

cursor, I was always saying this. I was

like, I would definitely pay 200 bucks a

month for cursor. Like, when it was like

20 bucks a month, it just like it

doesn't make sense that it only cost 20.

I don't know what the claw number would

be. I think I think yeah, 400 I would

probably pay.

Okay.

But above that, it's kind of like, okay,

I don't know. But maybe once I start

using the API as pay as you go on top of

it and I realize how much to spend, I'm

like, okay, maybe I should still doing

it. I don't know. It's going to be a

interesting I I don't know Sean what

what your take is.

Yeah. How much are you willing to pay

for a

Yeah.

cursor or you know

look like I mean I'll pay as much as I I

get value out of it. And if you know if

I my job is to produce a lot of code

then and there's a lot of you know

there's there's some there's some top

tier thing that is generally not just

producing slot but like actually

productively paying creating creating

code then then I think you know I would

definitely pay like thousands a month

right like uh I was out when they came

out with the sort of $200 a month plan

for CHP pro I forget the actual title

the names of these plans I was I was out

here saying like we're going to have

2,000 of them on CHBT right they're like

they just have they they he's just like

stuffing up products in there and model

value in there, you'll get it. And I

mean similarly, I think like Devon is is

or so the Cognition's Devon is like in

the 500 to,000 a month uh tier and like

I I think prices will go up as long as

you're using that inference

productively. I think specifically for

anthropic and cloud code. Uh it's really

more about quote unquote the margins

which is the the meme I always post now

every time there's a sort of entropic

post about like how their revenue

projections have gone like from four

billion this year to 9 billion uh

because of quad code

and and I always post like what are the

margins like you guys started talking

about topline but like you know if

you're if you're all negative margins

then like you know it's not that

exciting.

Yeah. But like

yeah no I mean we had a story yesterday

about open AI and how like I think

they've reached about 12 billion AR and

yeah but their burn went from like they

projected like 1 billion to like 8

billion or something. So yeah so like

the question is like revenue is great

but like how about those margins? So I

think that's very fair. Yeah.

Yeah. And like it's going to be the

major factors of like compute personnel

is now an increasingly key one. um data,

you know, we we have this concept of the

four wars of of AI and it's it's all

around like the key battlegrounds that

that people have. The last one is

multimodality.

And so like uh I I think like there

there's there's a lot of like really

interesting uh work there that's that's

being done that like uh I think it's

like a balancing act like you you just

kind of have you need a visionary

founder

of successes like you know two to three

times a year. Um, and you just kind of

keep the the plates spinning while uh

while where while you're growing this

thing, but like I really wonder what the

sort of quote unquote terminal value,

you know, just to use the finance term

of what all these things are.

Yeah. Yeah. No, I mean especially now

that like I mean we we saw the like

boomerang with the claw code leads like

going to cursor and then coming back.

Yeah. What was that? What was that? Can

you double click on it?

I to be honest like I I know that we

like we kind of broke that story but I

think your guess is as good as mine. We

know that they that they went there.

They were there for I think about 2

weeks and they came back. I think our

sense is that it wasn't a situation

where it was just about comp where like

Anthropic was just like, "Oh, we'll like

pay you more." But yeah, I don't know.

It's a really interesting question. I

don't know.

Okay. So, for example, you're saying

it's not about comp in the sense that

like they were poached by Cursor and

then Dario raised this $100 billion and

he goes turns around and goes like,

"Hey, where are my quo guys?" And

they're like, "Screw you. Get them

back."

I mean, I think yeah, my my sense is

that it wasn't that case. I mean, I'm

sure Kurser gave them like a great

package and I'm sure like the package

Yeah, I'm sure we if we heard some of

those numbers, we'd be like, "Wow,

that's that's awesome." But I mean, like

Anthropic like has a lot of money and

like they they care a lot about their

workers. I think if it was just about

comp like they could have probably just

given them a higher offer. They they

really wanted to keep them. So, I think

there is something else going on. I

don't know if it's like culture or just

like how interesting the work is.

Something that must have brought them

back to anthropic. I think

margins like this the other thing,

right? Like it's very damaging to like

for somebody to go in, look at cursor

and go, "Yeah, I'm not sticking around."

And then they leave, right? Like so I to

be super clear to anyone listening, I

this is not insider information. This is

just uh you know this is these are the

things that people say in the valley

of like how it looks when nobody talks

about the actual reason. People just

speculate.

You did have a nice piece on like the

retention curves of uh of these

different coding agents

up there. That's a big story.

We can talk about that. We've kind of

segueed from uh the the model labs into

the the coding agent startups.

What was your sort of summary of like

the whole windsurf situation?

Let's just leave it at that. The summary

of windsurf.

Yeah. Summary of the windsurf. Yeah.

That actually is really funny cuz that

happened like while I was on a on a boat

in the Mediterranean. So, I was like I

just came back and I was like, "Oh my

god, like some some went down while

I was gone." No, but I mean it's very

interesting. I think it's another

example of these like strange aqua hire

deals that are happening. But like I

think it's interesting like Windsurf I

think got so much more attention and

honestly like hate from people in

Silicon Valley, people on Twitter, on

XAR than some of these past deals

because of like the the structure and I

think how many people were like left

behind. And so, and I think there's also

this sense of like a lot of these aqua

hires have happened when the startup

that's getting acquired is maybe not

doing super well or like it's kind of

reached its peak and it's it's on the

way down, but it kind of felt like

Windsurf was like on the up and up and

people were still really excited about

them. And maybe they just got a deal

that was like too good to turn down, but

I think a lot of people were

disappointed that like a company that

was doing so well would kind of just

choose to go like the acquisition route.

Um, but yeah, I mean I don't know like

as developers like I mean I'm assuming

that you guys would prefer when maybe

you'd prefer Win Surf to stay an an

independent company so you have more

like coding assistance and options to

choose from. Maybe that doesn't matter

but um yeah

I think Windserve as a as a product is

going to stick around and like people

who really like Windsurf I mean I was

use Windsor user for a long time um are

going to keep using it because it fills

a a need and like obviously Cognition

bought it for for a reason. Yeah. So no

no no particular thoughts there. I think

the the people are mostly in drama about

one the sort of weird I've been calling

this exeu hires basically like it's like

not quite an eu echo hire but like you

high ID executives and then two like

obviously the this quote unquote the

startup founding engineer employer

contract which uh was you know is is

calling the question now with

what happened. Yeah, I mean I think the

thing that is uncertain for me is like

there's been like five of these

character scale all these. Is this the

new normal? Was the Windsor deal any

different? Because somehow the others

had a lot less outrage than this one

even though a lot of the the sort of

surface level details were the same. Um,

and like I mean I I would really love to

like talk to one of the lawyers involved

in like these things like how did they

how did they negotiate the deal points

and like technically the entire company

is cashed out so like how do the

investors feel about it?

Yeah,

it's all it's all super interesting.

Yeah. No, I mean yeah I think I think

two things I think first like talking to

investors I think they're starting to I

think they're kind of they're kind of

over these types of deals. like they're

like, "Hey, I mean, like this is like

fine, but like we don't invest in

companies so they can get like a weird

aqua hire situation a couple years

later. Like we're investing in them

because we think they can go public or

like, you know, at the very least get

bought in like a pretty good exit." So,

I think a lot of VCs are like not super

thrilled with these deals continuing to

be like the new norm. But yeah, I think

to the something that you said earlier

like there's a sense that whenever you

join a startup like you're going to be

compensated for the risk that you're

taking on of joining like something

that's unproven and then now you're

having these situations where like yeah

some people do get rewarded for taking

on that risk but then other people who

have been there for like just as long or

you know like feel like they've put in a

lot of work like are getting like

seemingly nothing out of the deal. So

yeah, I I I think it's definitely like

messing with the trust between startup

employees and CEOs and founders for

sure.

Yeah. You know, I think the the one

thing I would sort of put a footnote in

there is um you know, like they I think

even in the Windsurf deal, they they did

get uh offers at um at Google, but like

you know, there was some kind of

revesting thing going on. Uh yeah, cool.

Any other sort of uh uh coding agents

commentaries while we're still on the

sort of coding topic? anything else

you're watching. How do you cover uh I

guess like coding in general if if

you're you know out in in New York and

you know we're over here.

Yeah. If I'm not if I'm not like a

developer and I'm like trying to

understand what the heck is going on

with coding startups.

Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, I think a lot of it is

just like finding sources and developers

that I really trust and like being very

straight up with them and being like,

"Hey, I like I'm not a developer, but

like show me a couple examples of things

that you built with this. Like tell me

your opinions about what they're good

for or not good for."

I think like one thing I'm interested in

is like the rise of some of these like

open source coding assistants like

Klein, which I I know was on your

podcast and they're announcing their

their A today. Yeah. Yeah. And um and

also the rise of kind of these like

coding assistants targeting

non-technical users like Bolt or uh

Lovable where yeah you see a bunch of

these startups that have raised a decent

chunk of funding that are like we want

to target like either people wanting to

make like prototypes of actual apps or

just like small businesses that want to

make like a website or you know

something that's not super com complex

but like we'll get them up and running.

Um, there's also been a lot of stories

around like what can go wrong when

you're using like Vibe coding. Like it

can accidentally delete your code. It

can like totally not have some security

thing that you need in there and like

lots of stuff gets leaked out. And so

yeah, vibe coding is great, but I think

we're only just now starting to see some

of the consequences of what happens

whenever you're not like careful with

it.

Yeah, very mixed feelings for all those.

Uh, go ahead, Allesia. on the client

thing. I was gonna say sorry it was just

funny that Forbes did an artle and used

the latest in space bot screenshot as

their

what

nice

for listeners the screenshot guy is

Allesio so

it's actually kind of cool that like

they stole his artwork I guess I don't

know

yeah it was funny anyway just

I feel like you guys should you guys

should get a get a commission for that

or something you know

it's Forbes who cares I mean okay I mean

I'll go there you know I I don't know if

it's offensive or not, but like look

like Forbes Forbes and Business

like you don't work there anymore, but

like Forbes and Business Insider like

really fell off. Like even like people

are saying like Tech Crunch really fell

off. Like the information is like

actually up there. Like we will never

have those people on. We'll obviously

talk to the information, but like what's

going on with with like legacy online

tech media has like really declined

really hard and like I don't know what's

going you know is there is there chatter

on the reporter side? Yeah. I mean,

yeah, media is like a very crazy

industry. I mean, as somebody that like

still feels pretty new to it, there's

just a lot of stuff going on. I think

like I think like business modelwise,

like ads are not working very like

they're not working as well as they used

to. I think like the information like we

do well because we have this

subscription model, but like still I

cannot tell you how many people complain

to me cuz they're like, "Why is your

subscription like literally $500?" Like

that's insane. And so like yeah, so like

we do it because we need to like stay

alive as a business and like I want to

get a salary, but like also there's

you're also giving up some like

accessibility for people who like want

to read our stuff. Although we do have

many free newsletters. I'll put that out

there.

So there's like the business model stuff

is like not going super well. And I

think a lot of publications are

struggling to kind of like find their

niche in the way that they've done in

the past. So, like I think the

information like our whole thing is like

scoops and exclusives, but like if

you're a company that's more known for

like summarizing like the daily news or

even like having some sort of opinion or

analysis like now that you people on

like X who are doing that or you can

just use like Chatbt to send you summary

of the news every morning like you're

just competing against so many other

sources of news and I don't know I just

feel like in general like a lot of

people just for some reason kind of

distrust like media now and are turning

to like influencers that they trust or

you know people on social media, people

on on X for news because they feel like

a personal connection with that person

and they like think that they are a

trustworthy person. So I think the media

is like fighting an uphill battle right

now and it's it's tough and that's like

tech media. So like I think like

covering politics like way way worse.

Yeah. Yeah. Um, well that's out of her

domain, but I I always think it's it's

fascinating just like I I hear some

really awful stuff at Techrunch and I'm

like not Techrunch, you know, like

Techrunch is a is an institution, you

know. Anyway, so so okay, there's the

the two angles I really want to focus in

on. I I'll start with the first one,

which is Scoops and Exclusive, right?

You guys are amazing at it. Could you

peel back the curtain a little bit on

how obviously like not the whole like

secret sauce or anything, but like like

h like what you know, how do you how do

you get people to talk to you? Like I

try to get there a little bit as an

amateur, but like also you're really

good at it. Like let's let's face it,

like you're really good at it.

Thanks. I mean, I don't know about that,

but I don't know. I think like I think

everyone kind of has their own approach

or like their own just like thing that

they do. So, I feel like I know some

reporters who are like super blunt, like

very to the point, and they will just

like be super persistent, and just like

call you up, ask you straight about the

deal and

kind of give off the vibe of like, hey,

like I know what I'm talking about, and

like I'm going to get this information,

so like you should help me. I think I

know other people that are much more

like

it's Caris for sure, right?

Right. Oh, yes.

I mean, Caris model.

Yes. And then also I know other people

who are much more like kind of like uh

disarming or like they say stuff like oh

like you know I think I saw like this

like tweet that said this and like did

you hear about that? Like I don't know.

I think for me like I cannot be like

scary or aggressive. Like I

unfortunately just don't have that gene

which I I wish that I did have it. And

so I feel like my thing is mostly just

to be like try to be like super curious

and like talk about my newsletter where

I do cover things that are not scoops

and be like, "Hey, like I I love a good

scoop as much as anyone else, but like I

also care about the tech and the

science, so like let's just like start

there and talk about that." So I think

like you need to kind of figure out like

what works best for your style and like

who you are as a person, but then also

think about oh the person you're talking

to. If I'm talking to a researcher,

maybe I don't want to just come out and

be like, "Oh my god, is like so and so

buying so and so," but just start with

more of like, "Hey, tell me about your

research and like, I'm just curious

about it." Versus like if you're like

talking to a VC, it might be more

transactional where you're like, "Hey, I

heard about these five deals. Have you

heard about them? Like hopefully I'm I'm

helping you, so can you help me out,

too?" So, it's just a lot of different

approaches. I think also it's just like

not being embarrassed about your job and

just like like literally like I will

just cold call people I've never talked

to and just be like hello like I don't I

know you don't know who I am but like

please tell me this piece of information

and like sometimes like you accidentally

call their mom instead of them or you

like get yelled at on the phone and then

you just have to be like okay like

that's just the way it is and like it's

just my job and I'll just move on. So,

there's a bit of kind of like just

accepting the fact that this is your job

and like not caring if sometimes you

people are like, "What is this annoying

journalist doing calling me?"

I'm surprised you actually cold call.

Like, I will never pick up a cold call.

I know. Yeah. No, I Something that I

feel like uh especially like millennials

and Gen Z, like we hate calling people.

So, that was like lowkey something that

I had to get over cuz I was like I used

to hate calling people and I was like

I'll just text them and like maybe

they'll like get back to me. But, no,

you're just like aggressively calling

people all the time now. I have a I have

a new respect for for your work. Uh al

also like do you have to like how do you

protect sources? People trust you and

like they can get fired for if for like

telling you things they're not supposed

to tell you.

Yeah.

Do you just like reward things? You get

a second source. You say many people

close to the matter. Like what what's

what are the techniques here?

Yeah. I mean I think for me like

protecting my source is like my number

one priority. Like there are times where

I hold off on a story or you know I let

people and maybe somebody tells me

something and then they're like actually

like I'm really worried. I don't want

you to write about that anymore. I'm

like it's okay. Like this is not that

big of a deal. Like like I've done stuff

like like that because like I care about

my sources and like them obviously not

getting in trouble or getting fired. But

yeah, there's like there's lots of stuff

stuff that you can do. Like I think we

always try to get like multiple sources

on facts or obviously like I think we

have a responsibility to our readers and

like we want them to trust us. So we try

to tell them as much as we can about

like how our source knows this

information. So if like they were in a

in a meeting or if they saw like a

document. So we we try not to use stuff

like oh like a person familiar with XYZ

cuz that's like quite vague. You don't

really know like what that means. But we

still do try to we try to give some

information but like keep it as broad as

possible. So like instead of saying

investor, we might say like a person

who's talked to the executives or

instead of saying like a person that

worked on this team specifically, you

might say like a person with knowledge

of this product or like a person or like

an an employee at this company. So it's

like always stuff that you can do. I

think it's just it's just like building

trust with your source over time. And

like you know like I want them to trust

me because I want this to be a long-term

relationship. So, like even if we just

talk completely off the record the first

like 10 times, like that's totally fine.

Like I I'm I'm in it for the long run.

So, I just don't want them to ever feel

like uncomfortable or like they're

putting their, you know, their job at

risk because of me.

Totally. I mean, we do the same for

people that talk to me and and Allesio.

Yeah. So, obviously anyone listening, if

if you have stuff for for Stephanie, um

I'm sure she's easy to reach. A lot of

people seem to use Signal or Telegram. I

I mean I don't think it's that encrypted

or you know but like yeah that's that's

a that's a tool of your trade right? Um

yeah

I think the other the other thing for

for readers I think is also like a cool

like peak behind the curtain of like how

these things get formed. Uh I don't know

if you want to say anything to readers

on like sort of how to read the tea

leaves on on the stuff that that you do.

But like um

yeah it's fasating.

Yeah that's that's a good question. I

like to think that we're like pretty

straightforward. Like I think we are

like pretty like straightforward and to

the point with our writing and

you are I really appreciate that as much

as possible. Oh, thank you.

Yeah.

Yeah. Sometimes it's like I remember

whenever I first started covering AI

here and like trying to think about how

to explain like model weights and like a

layman's I was like this is like

impossible. But yeah, I think for

readers like I think,

you know, I think one thing that we and

every media publication can always do

better at is like taking a step back

from the individual scoops and

understanding like what this all means

more broadly. And so we we try to write

about that in our in our newsletters on

like our TITV. But a lot of the times I

think it's like really easy to get

caught up in like oh this model

developer raised like this inference

provider raised and it's like very hard

to kind of think about okay like what

does this all mean or like what does it

mean that five inference providers

raised in the last like 3 months or

something. So I think whenever you're

reading just keep that in mind and we

will like link to related stories all

the time. So like definitely let

yourself go down that rabbit hole of

like you know understanding how this

story isn't just a story or scoop on its

own. it's connected to like this long

narrative of like the progress of AI

over the past couple years and just try

to think about like what does this mean

in this like broader story that we're

trying to tell here. And so obviously we

want to do that for you as much as we

can, but I think that's also just a way

to think about reading these scoops that

will hopefully like let you understand

help you understand more what's going on

in the broader context of the tech world

than just like a single story.

Yeah, I I I definitely encourage people

um the way to elevate the conversation

instead of just repeating what you just

saw on Twitter is that to tie it into a

broader trend to have an understanding

of why now understanding of like the

economic forces at play, agendas of

different players. It's a lot of what I

do is is just trying to read into that.

Um honestly like um I have a little um

chip on my shoulder. I don't I don't

think we do it that well, but I'm kind

of curious. Do you guys maintain a list

of trends we are tracking?

databases of stuff, but like I almost

feel like I can't keep up of how many

kind of thesis I'm I'm tracking in my

head because it all comes through

conversations and conversations like in

in a single conversation you can have

like 20 20 different things that you

touch on.

Yeah, definitely. I mean, yeah, that's

like the hardest thing I think

sometimes. Like I think there's some

like just organizational things that you

can do. Like we have like weekly

meetings about AI or like deals that

we're chasing. And so I think some of

that also rests on our editors because

they're not kind of like in the weeds

chasing down stories all the time. Like

they're better at like, okay, here are

like the five trends that we're thinking

of writing stories about and like I'm

going to assign this one to you

Stephanie and like let's talk about this

every week.

Yeah. Yeah. And I think there's like I

mean there's like this is obvious but

stuff I do like I have like a notepad of

like all the all the major trends that

I'm chasing and so at any point I kind

of like know what the top five like

priorities are for myself. So I think

it's just understanding like you can't

remember all 30 trends and tips that are

going on but like just keep in mind the

top five maybe that you're thinking

about and think about how tips and

information that you hear can tie into

those. I was hoping you have some

magical AI tool that I can Yeah.

Sorry. Yeah, it's like journalist

journalist AI. Well, if somebody wants

to make an AI startup for that, that

would be great. Although, I don't know

if like journalist is a very lucrative

market for companies to go after, but

I mean, yeah, you know, like meeting

note-taking, like you say, that you're

meetings all day. I mean, that's a huge

market. It's it's basically granola and

notion. And, you know, I think there's

there's a there's a long tale of others.

There's a grip tape which I think is

journalist focused which is kind of cool

that they're they're boost company

but like yeah I mean I think there's a

lot um I think people want to get on top

their personal knowledge management they

want to build the second brain I was a

big part of that movement uh before AI

stuff like yeah and then more more

broadly thematic wise you know it's

literally like again like going back to

like finance days like that's what I did

as a as a hedge fun analyst I would I

would track like portfolio themes and

like here's here's here's all the, you

know, the trends that the news items

that coming in that change our

bullishness or bearishness on on a theme

and like then then you have to express

that in your portfolio through the

stocks that you make. But like my

portfolio, your portfolio here is your

coverage, right? Like and and like every

guest we pick is a guest, you know,

takes a slot for a guest that we do not

pick because we want to emphasize this

theme. For us, like we tend to emphasize

engineers and coding and so our lanes

are relatively well defined, but like

yours are very wide.

Yeah, definitely. Okay, cool. Well, how

do you choose to cover smaller startups,

right? Like a lot of people want to get

on and be covered by the information.

Sometimes you cover, you know, a lot of

it's like the big labs and of course

like huge amounts of money, but like

occasionally you cover like Versel and

today you're covering modal like how do

you how do you choose the smaller

startup coverage? When should they reach

out to you?

Yeah. No, it's funny about modal that we

it's like the world has gotten so crazy

now that like a billion dollar startup

we're like it's like a baby. But uh

oh that's cute. But but New York tech.

Uhhuh.

True. True. Yeah. That was the key

because I

New Yorkers like finally like

not just data dog and MongoDB.

Exactly. Exactly. No, but I mean like I

Yeah. Like I mean just reach out to me

and I I'm I'm even if I don't cover

Okay, so actually let me take a step

back. I think if you want to get

coverage, part of it is like

understanding that like it's a long

game. you might not get coverage right

now, but like I might not have the room

in the newsletter to cover your funding

round right now, but like I'm always

looking to meet new startups and like

hopefully we can find a way to do

coverage or have some sort of story

that's around your startup later. So, I

think don't just like come in and be

like, "Hi, we've never met, but like I

need you to cover my like $3 million

seed round or something." But I think

also like another way to pitch to like

talk to me and pitch to me is like again

what I just mentioned about taking that

step back. And so like even if I don't

cover smaller startups like standalone

like for instance this week I did a

story about kind of the next step in

data labeling and data curation which

are like these startups building like RL

environments for for agents. And so I

listed out like I don't know like four

or five startups that are doing that.

And these are some that like haven't

even like really raised funding. They're

like they're like just pretty small. And

one of the startups I talked to like we

had like a really great conversation and

I included a lot of information about

like their company and the story because

like they were just super helpful and

like clearly very like well educated on

the space. And so I think if you're like

a startup and you're like, "Hey, I think

like my space is really interesting and

like people aren't really understanding

like why this is important, like don't

think about just pitching your startup

to me, but like pitch me on like why

your entire space is important and like

I will write something like it's more

likely that I'll write something about a

trend or like a new industry."

Yeah. Um, and by the way, uh, I had to

draw for for inerson meeting, but I I I

figured this this conversation is great,

so I just want to keep it going. Yeah.

So that's great. I think uh I wanted to

get that on the record because like I

think people want to work with you but

like on you know and they just don't

know how and sometimes like you know

like I u people want to work with us and

the worst thing is they get a PR firm

that like barely knows us

spells my name wrong and like you know

like gets in touch with me with like a

story that is like completely not a

story and like they know it I know it

like this is just a formality they're

just getting paid to send the email like

it's so routine and like I think I think

people want to know how to break through

the noise and come to you when the good

stuff because a lot of people are

working on good stuff. So, yeah.

Yeah, totally. Yeah. I mean, like don't

like just send me like an email like

don't have Yeah. Don't have like a PR

team send me like a really generic email

and like just totally get your company

wrong. Um I think it's like better if it

comes from you personally and like I

I'll appreciate it a lot more.

Yeah. I'll even say like for the early

stage startup founders listening I think

most of your PR teams are kind of

pointless unless you really want to get

on like CNBC. Most most of us are like

easily reachable, you know, like like we

we screen tons of requests and it's

fine. Like it's it's it's like you're

probably much more much better at

pitching your own company than than the

PR team and we make a decision like

really quickly. Like it's not it's not

that complicated. Cool. Like u Yeah. So

more broadly, any other sort of coverage

areas or themes that are or sort of big

hits that you're um that you know you

want to talk about? like I don't get a

sense of like what your biggest hit is

or your general sort of thematic

overview if that that makes sense. You

know, there's like robots, there's XAI,

there's perplexity, there's all these

other things. Uh what what stands out to

you as something that you really want to

uh chat about?

Yeah, I mean I guess two things. Well, I

think first like the first thing is like

I think this is what I'm most interested

in, but um I did kind of touch on it

with like our conversation about GBT5,

but just like the trajectory of AI

progress and kind of like you know first

there was like pre-training scaling and

then now there's like reasoning models

and reinforcement learning then like

what comes after that like is it RL

environments for Asians? Is it something

that's different than the transformer?

Like I think we're always curious just

like what is coming next. And I like I

think that's why I love to talk to more

people at the big AI labs cuz I feel

like they're really on the forefront of

that.

They can't tell you.

That's like a national secret.

Yeah. Yeah. And it's like Yeah. I think

a lot of times it's it's like I'm not

even trying to get like a scoop. Like

I'm just like as a person living in a

world. Yeah.

It's like what do I need to be like

excited about and like what do I need to

be worried about? Like I I'm just like

genuinely curious. not as a journalist

but again like as a human being living

in today's world.

I think like I mean this is not a topic

that I would like necessarily write

about because like our you know our

audience is like business focused but

like yeah I think the societal impact of

AI is like fascinating like I mean I

have a younger sibling who's going to

college right now and like you know has

no idea like what they should major in

or like what job they should have

because like everything's just so up in

the air

and like I have friends who are working

in like investment banking who are being

asked to test like financial modeling

software that could one day like replace

their jobs. And that's without even

getting into the whole like AI boyfriend

girlfriends like people on Twitter going

crazy because like the AI is supporting

their like manic episodes and just like

yeah like there's just so much like

we're shaping the AI the AI shaping us

in society. It's like, yeah, I don't

know. It's like, and I think sometimes

like you hear some of the CEOs say stuff

like like Mark from Meta made a comment

where he was like like on average today

people have like I don't know what it

was like four friends, but we really

have demand for like 12, which is just

like such a crazy statement to say.

I didn't I didn't I didn't I didn't read

that. Okay.

Yeah. So, it's kind of like Yeah. It's

like this back and forth between

technology and society. And I'm just

like very curious like what the average

college student is going to look like 10

years from now or like what my job is

going to be like 10 years from now and

how I'm going to like like how my

friendships and you know work

relationships and stuff are going to

going to work. So

I have a lazy joke but it's not really a

joke. Like you know everyone imagines

that everyone else's job is going away

but theirs, right? So Mark and Jason's

like, you know, like everyone's job is

at risk, but like but VCs will be fine.

Door cache is like podcasting will be

fine. So like uh yeah, I mean that's a

lazy throwaway joke. I think the more

serious take is like uh the top I think

um AI and just technology in general

accelerates the difference between the

halves and have nots. And so there's

like relatively recent college grads

that uh that are now getting the $100

million offers from from Meta. And

there's also like I think something

crazy like 20 30% unemployment from

fresh college grads for like people who

don't meet that bar. And so like I think

it's just going to exaggerate

inequalities, you know, that's why

people talk about things like universal

basic income. Some some amount of like

sometimes like human human society is

just not made to adjust as quickly and

things have been accelerating and like

we just our systems just don't adjust

that quickly. like we have like annual

schedules but these things ship like two

three you know major models a year and

like yeah I I I do think like at some

point like you know the autonomy of

knowledge work automation of knowledge

work I think really starts to hit the

GDP and in society and like I think

that's uh that's really scary.

Yeah. Yeah. It's kind of like the whole

joke of like instead of being like, oh,

like I'm related to the Vanderbilt

family, kids in the future going to be

like, oh my god, my great great grandpa

was like an like a a founding researcher

at Meta Super Intelligence Labs or

something. And like that's going to be

the new like status of being part of the

elite, which is like scary.

Uh they traffic a lot of memes. So this

is like literally the daddy what do we

do to get so rich? They were like you

know your dad took like you know the the

meta meta offer. Uh

exactly.

Well, yeah. I mean like so I and you

know my positive spin on this is that

you know we we used to freak out about

kids wanting to grow up to be YouTube

stars and Tik Tok stars. Now they want

to aspire to be ML researchers. Maybe

it's not a bad thing. You know if you

want to do more STEM it's not a bad

thing you so maybe they'll they'll be

that u and uh you know well I I mean I

think coming back to like the sort of

more technical stuff because you know

that's that's the the sort of meat and

potatoes of what we do. I think most

people that I talked to are not

seriously pursuing alternative

architectures. There are some notable

exceptions primarily together with the

Mumbok architecture um recurs with RWKV

there's like the XLSTM that was uh

created by separate hawk rider and so

like there are alternatives but mostly

people are happy scaling it up and

sometimes um this is what we call the

lottery ticket hypothesis. It doesn't

matter what the the global best is as

long as like everyone's optimized for

one architecture. It's fine.

It's kind of like English isn't the

perfect language, but you know, it's

good enough like and everyone speaks it

like

you know it's got it quirks, but like we

like we did try to design the perfect

language. It's called Espiranto and

nobody speaks it.

Yeah.

So like that transformer as the lingo

frana I think makes sense to me and now

like people are just like scaling up

data and like other and techniques. I'm

curious if um you're the fifth person

this week to talk about reinforcement

learning environments. Is that just like

a theme? Like apparently there are like

10 startups all doing this and like

applied comput the the the hypy one.

It's like three kids in a basement worth

$500 million or something.

Yeah. Yeah. No, I mean I I feel similar

to you. This is like me last week. I was

like, "Oh my god, why have like four

people brought up this like idea to me?

I like need to do like a a newsletter on

it." But yeah, I think it's like like

this idea where it's kind of like why

like let let's just like let agents and

models like roam free in this like

escape room copy of whatever app and let

it figure out for itself like how to

like you know put a lead into Salesforce

or like do these different things. And

yeah, I think it's like this idea of

like having less human involvement in

reinforcement learning um and getting it

to be more automated. But I mean, from

what I've heard, it seems like still

pretty early and like I think people are

still trying to figure out like how to

actually get it working super well.

But are you are you you saying when you

say it's still pretty early, like I

expect this to work, I expect this to

work immediately. Like is is it not

working?

No. No. No, I I I think it is working,

but like like I think it's just very

compute inensive to have like an AI

agent like taking a bunch of like

actions

actions in like this environment and

like a lot of them like don't work out.

Some of them do. So I think it's like

it's like quite expensive and at least

the way somebody explained it to me is

like if I want to make like a copy of

Salesforce to teach an agent how to like

navigate it like it's not easy to just

create like a copy of Salesforce.

there's like a lot of different like

buttons and like different databases it

connects to and like yeah I think it's

just complicated to make it a realistic

environment for the model to play around

in. But I agree I think it's like really

interesting and very promising and at

least the one the startups that I've

talked to a decent chunk of them are

already starting to work with like the

AI the big AI labs and like these are

quite early startups. So it seems like

they are very the AI labs are are very

excited about this approach. So

yeah I I would say I hear the same

thing. Cool. Thank you so much for

taking the time. Any other parting

thoughts, questions, calls to actions?

No, I mean this has been super fun and

yeah, I would just say for all your

listeners like I am always open to

chatting even completely off the record

and yeah, I don't know. I just like find

AI to be like fascinating and I love

talking to people about it. So, please

email or or text me and I would love to

chat.

Yeah. Um, thank you for all the great

work you're doing. Um, yeah. Well, I'm

sure we'll chat again.

Sounds good. All right. Thanks.

[Music]