Latest Interviews

Open Source Wins, AGI Is Here, and Scorsese’s AI Toolkit with CEOs of Cerebras & Black Forest Labs

Andrew Feldman, Robin Rombach, Martin Scorsese

Cerebras Systems leverages a $25 billion order backlog from major tech giants to deploy chips that accelerate AI reasoning fifteen times faster than standard inference, effectively achieving early Artificial General Intelligence while reshaping global energy infrastructure. Simultaneously, Black Forest Labs utilizes its pioneering latent diffusion algorithms to bridge generative media and robotics, partnering with entities like Martin Scorsese to create scalable production tools and autonomous "world models." Both companies advocate for a hybrid ecosystem combining open-source accessibility with proprietary sovereignty, aiming to resolve economic bottlenecks and regulatory challenges through staged deployments and secure data practices.

Every Startup Has a Hole in the Ship — Kalshi's Tarek Mansour on the Problem You Can't Delegate

Tarek Mansour

The speaker distinguishes between organizations that actively confront critical internal flaws and those that ignore them, asserting that unaddressed defects inevitably lead to failure despite external growth. In January, the industry identified a reputational leak caused by public confusion between regulated platforms like Calci and unregulated offshore operators such as Polymarket. To resolve this, the organization has initiated a strategy to educate stakeholders on the necessity of regulation, aiming to normalize compliant operations and distinguish them from non-compliant models.

The Next President May Control Superintelligence

Sneha Revanur, Zershaaneh Qureshi

Founded by Sneha Ravenor at age 15, the nonprofit ENCODE has evolved from capability skepticism to spearheading a strategic campaign to regulate existential AI risks through state-level legislation and coalition building. The organization successfully influenced California's SB 53 and SB 1047 by prioritizing whistleblower protections and internal deployment reporting, while simultaneously dismantling corporate intimidation tactics like the OpenAI subpoena through diplomatic engagement. Facing the 2028 election as a potential turning point for AI governance, ENCODE advocates for a phased regulatory approach that codifies voluntary safety standards to build political capital before pursuing aggressive liability measures.

Solving the Blank Canvas Problem: Gusto's AI Co-Founder

Eddie Kim, Harj Taggar

Launched in just ten weeks by a five-person team including co-founder Eddie Kim, Gusto Co-founder is a new AI product that transforms Gusto's payroll and HR data into proactive, agent-based automations for small businesses. The platform has already onboarded 500 paying customers by replacing traditional dashboards with text-based interfaces that execute complex workflows, such as full payroll processing, weather-based customer notifications, and tax credit application. This initiative validates a strategic pivot toward becoming a proactive business partner capable of lowering entry barriers for new entrepreneurs while automating compliance and growth opportunities through a "vibe coding" development methodology.

Has the AI boom entered a manic new phase? | The Economist

Henry Curr, Mike Bird, Josh Roberts

US equity markets have reached near-record capitalization levels driven primarily by massive AI-focused "giga IPOs" like SpaceX and anticipated offerings from Anthropic and OpenAI. This concentration, now comprising nearly 40% of the S&P 500, coincides with unusual retail participation and inverted options pricing that signal a shift toward speculative mania. Simultaneously, major technology firms have redirected capital expenditure toward infrastructure, causing a collapse in free cash flow and transforming the sector into a dominant force in global corporate debt markets.

Inside Zipline's Autonomous System: 140M Miles, Zero Incidents

Keller Rinaudo Cliffton, Eric Watson, Alfred Lin, Pat Grady

Since its 2016 launch in Rwanda, Zipline has evolved from a struggling medical logistics provider into a global autonomous infrastructure operator serving 5,000 hospitals across eight countries. The company now achieves a safety record of zero incidents over 140 million commercial miles while leveraging a vertical integration strategy to reduce delivery costs below those of human-driven vehicles. This operational success recently facilitated a $550 million partnership with the US State Department aimed at deploying similar life-saving services under a new commercial diplomacy framework.

A Look Inside Jane Street’s Internship Program 2026

A candidate from an aerospace and computer science background secured an internship at Jane Street by solving a puzzle and demonstrating a collaborative problem-solving approach during interviews. During the role, the intern built a tool for bond desks and optimized GPU memory management using autoencoders, with the resulting code now deployed in active training systems. The experience highlighted a firm culture that values learning from mistakes and adaptability, featuring mentorship in a commodities trading project and social connections through shared hobbies like the Irish fiddle.

AI: What Investors Should Know

Jim Covello, Sharmin Mossavar-Rahmani

Goldman Sachs analysts project that global AI capital expenditures will surpass $3 trillion by 2026, though they warn of distinct "earnings bubbles" in public markets and "valuation bubbles" in private sectors driven by unsustainable demand. While consumer adoption remains strong, enterprise integration faces hurdles due to data fragmentation, leading experts to predict a strategic shift toward specialized Small Language Models that prioritize efficiency over mass labor replacement. The investment landscape is further complicated by geopolitical divisions favoring the U.S. in chip infrastructure and China in model production, alongside concerns over circular financing practices that delay profitability for large-cap companies.

Geopolitics, AI, and Private Credit: Navigating Three Key Investor Concerns

Matt, Matthias

Following Middle East strikes that disrupted global oil production and slightly altered Federal Reserve rate cut expectations, U.S. equities have recovered to record highs as historical data indicates a 95% probability of recovery within eight weeks. The firm attributes this resilience to America's energy insulation and revised 2026 earnings growth forecasts, while advising a strategic overweight in U.S. assets alongside a selective tilt toward the software sector. Although private credit risks remain contained and systemic stress is deemed unlikely, investors are urged to maintain long-term market participation through customized asset allocations rather than attempting to time the current volatility.

Accel: The Quiet Firm Behind Facebook, Cursor, Nebius, Lovable, Vercel

Arun Mathew, Miles Clements, Matt Weigand, Molly O'Shea

Accel leverages its multi-stage platform and three-decade partner cohesion to deploy hundreds of millions in capital across the full technology stack, recently leading significant investments in AI infrastructure giants like Nebius and cybersecurity leader Cyera. The firm strategically balances early-stage discovery with massive late-stage checks targeting potential trillion-dollar outliers, driven by a thesis that artificial intelligence will transition from hype to tangible real-world efficiency in sectors ranging from healthcare to developer tools. By prioritizing operational depth and a silent partnership model over marketing, Accel aims to capture exponential returns as the market converges on trusted platforms capable of scaling proven AI workloads.

The American Dream at 250 | Global Conference 2026

Jon Clifton, Michael Milken, Anousheh Ansari, Giselle Fernandez, Sanjay Gupta

The Center for the American Dream Initiatives hosted a panel featuring Iranian-born astronaut Sanooch, journalist Giselle Fernandez, and surgeon Sanjay Gupta to highlight how immigrant resilience and access to opportunity fuel the national narrative. Drawing on personal histories and data showing that immigrants view the dream as most thriving despite falling institutional trust, the speakers argued that collective optimism is essential to overcoming domestic polarization. The event further unveiled an interactive, AI-enhanced mural honoring 68 immigrants, reinforcing the thesis that the United States continues to be the primary global destination for those seeking to build a future.

AI Sovereignty Wars, Palantir-Nvidia Deal, SCOTUS Birthright Ruling, Newsom’s CA Budget Lie

Newsom, Alex Karp, Trump

Palantir and Nvidia launched a partnership to establish a Sovereign AI Operating System, enabling U.S. government agencies to retain full ownership of their hardware, data, and model weights through customized open-source Nemotron models. This initiative addresses executive concerns that reliance on external AI providers like Anthropic risks transferring proprietary intellectual property to competitors, while economic data suggests that in-house, open-source solutions offer significantly lower costs and greater financial security. Concurrently, the discussion extended to broader political and economic issues, including the Supreme Court's confirmation of birthright citizenship and a critique of California's fiscal mismanagement, which hosts argued threatens to accelerate the exodus of capital and population from the state.

Why America is stepping away from the institutions it built | The Economist

John, Ed, Charlotte

U.S. foreign policy is undergoing a structural shift from values-based engagement to a transactional approach, driven by a bipartisan consensus that the post-World War II order has failed to deliver sufficient economic returns or strategic advantages. Former President Trump's 2015 platform catalyzed this pivot by framing the abandonment of multilateral institutions as a correction to decades of free-riding, leading to increased reliance on tariffs and coercive trade rather than traditional alliances. Experts project three potential futures for this realignment: a renegotiated U.S. hegemony, a fragmented status quo, or a chaotic descent into systemic collapse triggered by unchecked military coercion.

Ben Horowitz on the Global Race for Tech, Power, and Influence

Ben Horowitz, Anne Neuberger, Raghu Raghuram, Jen Kha

Andreessen Horowitz is formally launching a global strategy that expands its operations beyond Silicon Valley to secure American technological leadership through dedicated offices in San Francisco and strategic partnerships in key allied regions like Japan, Mexico, and the Middle East. The firm leverages its unique government relations and industry networks to help portfolio companies navigate complex, non-transactional international markets, explicitly aiming to embed democratic values into global AI infrastructure while countering authoritarian tech models. By integrating capital with diplomatic and commercial alliances, the strategy focuses on accelerating the global expansion of U.S. startups and strengthening national security through private-sector innovation in defense and cybersecurity.

Dylan Field on the “Permanent Underclass of Zero Taste”

Dylan Field, Molly O'Shea

At Config 2024, Figma CEO Dylan Field addressed a global audience of 10,000 designers and engineers to refute narratives that AI renders design obsolete, asserting instead that human intent and cultural context remain essential for scalable systems. The event highlighted Figma's strategic pivot toward unifying design and code interfaces while introducing tools like Figma Weave to ensure AI outputs align with specific brand voices rather than generic averages. By emphasizing "agent swarms" and data liquidity, the conference outlined a roadmap where platforms empower users to build bespoke tools, shifting market focus from job displacement fears to enhanced offensive productivity capabilities.