Invest Like the Best with Patrick O’Shaughnessy
Business:Investing
Today, my guest is 21-year-old Gavin Uberti, who dropped out of Harvard to build Etched, which is one of the most fascinating companies I’ve seen. The topic of our conversation is the ongoing revolution in artificial intelligence, and more specifically the chips and technology that powers these incredible models. To date, general-purpose AI chips like Nvidia GPUs have powered the revolution, but Gavin’s bet is that purpose-built chips, hard-coded for the underlying model architecture, will dramatically reduce the latency and cost of running models like GPT4. We’re about to embark on what Gavin calls the “largest infrastructure buildout since the industrial revolution”, and I won’t spoil what he thinks this will unlock for all of us. It is so uplifting to me that someone so young can be working on something so big. Please enjoy this great conversation with Gavin Uberti.
Check out Etched.AI
Listen to Founders Podcast
For the full show notes, transcript, and links to mentioned content, check out the episode page here.
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Invest Like the Best is a property of Colossus, LLC. For more episodes of Invest Like the Best, visit joincolossus.com/episodes.
Past guests include Tobi Lutke, Kevin Systrom, Mike Krieger, John Collison, Kat Cole, Marc Andreessen, Matthew Ball, Bill Gurley, Anu Hariharan, Ben Thompson, and many more.
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Show Notes:
(00:03:41) - (first question) - Born too late to explore the world, too early to explore the stars
(00:05:59) - Interpreting and defining superintelligence
(00:07:20) - Excitement we can have for an AI driven future
(00:09:25) - Overview and basic terminology of the transformers that power AI
(00:15:53) - What Q* is and the rumors around it
(00:20:41) - Robotics, machinery, and what’s interesting about them
(00:23:18) - The problem of latency and computing power
(00:8:55) - Needing to build physical infrastructure that doesn’t exist
(00:32:18) - Inference and training AI models
(00:36:00) - Major stages of chip design and the upper limits of speed
(00:45:56) - Customers for billion dollar generative AI models
(00:48:56) - A sci-fi-esque reality and the politicization of AI
(00:50:38) - The Bitter Lesson and the implications of powerful AI models
(00:56:27) - The most important companies in the AI space today
(00:61:52) - Strategically building a defensible AI product
(01:04:07) - Software development and why other AI companies fail
(01:06:51) - Specialization and chip performance improvement
(01:15:34) - Why the transformer remains the leading architecture
(01:17:26) - A proliferation of models beyond the major players and data access
(01:21:19) - The kindest thing anyone has ever done for Gavin
Gaurav Kapadia - Everything Compounds - [Invest Like the Best, EP. 269]
Marko Papic - A Multi-Polar World - [Invest Like the Best, EP. 268]
Garry Tan - Unwrapping the Gift - [Invest Like the Best, EP. 267]
Eric Mandelblatt - Investing in the Industrial Economy - [Invest Like the Best, EP. 266]
Sebastian Kanovich - Powering Emerging Markets Payments - [Founder’s Field Guide, EP. 56]
Frank Slootman - Narrow the Focus, Increase the Quality - [Invest Like the Best, EP. 265]
Tim Flannery - Simplifying Fund Closing - [Founder’s Field Guide, EP. 55]
Joey Levin - Building an Anti-Conglomerate - [Invest Like the Best, EP. 264]
Peter Chernin - Betting on Passion - [Invest Like the Best, EP. 263]
John Pfeffer - Adapt and Evolve - [Invest Like the Best, EP. 262]
Geoffrey Moore - Building Gorilla Businesses - [Invest Like the Best, EP. 261]
Gavin Baker - The Cyclone Under the Surface - [Invest Like the Best, EP. 260]
Sam Englebardt and Richard Kim - Investing in Immersive Worlds - [Invest Like the Best, EP. 259]
Ricky Sandler - Building an Investment Compass - [Invest Like the Best, EP. 258]
Orlando Bravo - The Art of Software Buyouts - [Invest Like the Best, EP. 257]
Nick Saltarelli - One Foot in Front of the Other - [Founder’s Field Guide, EP. 54]
Jenny Johnson - Seven Decades of Investing Expertise - [Invest Like the Best, EP. 256]
Doug Colkitt - The Evolution of Markets - [Invest Like the Best, EP. 255]
Bill Gurley and Philip Rosedale - Back to the Future - [Invest Like the Best, EP. 254]
Francis Davidson - Design-led Hospitality - [Invest Like the Best, EP.253]
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