Latest Interviews

A Fireside Chat with Nicolas Dessaigne (YC-Combinator) & Jean de la Rochebrochard (Kima Ventures)

Nicolas Dessaigne, Jean de la Rochebrochard, Nicolas Tassin

Kima Ventures' Jean de la Rochebrard and Y Combinator partner Nicolas Tassin discussed their investment strategies, emphasizing that AI has shifted from a distinct category to a de facto standard comparable to cloud computing. The investors outlined distinct regional dynamics, noting that US founders leverage superior risk tolerance and speed while European entrepreneurs must overcome cultural humility to access the capital pools required for billion-dollar growth. They concluded that future market leaders will likely emerge in vertical applications within "boring" industries rather than horizontal platforms, provided founders prioritize authentic execution over hype and build defensible data moats.

Inception Fund & AI: From Inception to Exit Building AI Giants from Europe and the Nordics

Peter Sarlin, Oliver

Former professor Peter Sarlin founded the private AI lab Silo AI in 2017 and led the bootstrapped company to a $700 million exit when acquired by AMD in 2022, establishing the largest pure-play AI acquisition in Europe. Sarlin attributes this success to a contrarian philosophy that prioritized functional machine learning over hype while hiring primarily from academia, resulting in a workforce of over 220 AI scientists before the strategic sale. Beyond this specific case study, Sarlin highlights that the fragmentation of the European single market remains the primary barrier preventing regional startups from scaling into trillion-dollar enterprises, forcing founders to adopt a global-first strategy despite Europe's strengths in industrial AI applications.

Lambda, Hugging Face, SemiAnalysis: The Neural Network Is the Computer

The discussion outlines a fundamental shift from traditional programming to "neural software," where generative models act as dynamic interfaces that execute user intent through natural language rather than static code. Key developments in video, audio, and multimodal integration are enabling consistent, real-time content creation while replacing fixed graphical user interfaces with adaptive, semantic environments. This evolution promises to eliminate conventional coding barriers by 2030, though it simultaneously introduces complex challenges regarding state retention and the societal implications of AI-driven interactions.

Jaspar Carmichael-Jack, Co-Founder & CEO, Artisan: How We Generate 1000s of Leads with AI

Jaspar Carmichael-Jack, Jasper

Founded by CEO Jasper in September 2023, Artisan has rapidly scaled to over $6 million in annual recurring revenue as the second-fastest-growing AI startup globally following its Y Combinator Winter '24 graduation. The company distinguishes itself through a controversial "Stop Hiring Humans" marketing campaign that generated over one billion impressions and a proprietary AI agent named Ava, which recently delivered nearly $1 million in ARR from a $20,000 investment by autonomously managing outbound sales cycles. Looking ahead, Artisan is preparing a major Q4 product expansion while refining its strategy to leverage AI-generated content for high-volume marketing, reserving human oversight for SEO and brand-critical communications.

OVH Cloud, ClickHouse, Neon, Aiven, Airbyte & Commit: Open Software Infrastructure 2.0

Abel, German, Oskari, Heike, Michel, Alexei, Francois Beaufort

Executives from Aiven, Neon, Airbyte, ClickHouse, and OVHcloud converged to discuss how open-source data platforms are securing $10 billion in combined valuations while addressing enterprise needs for data sovereignty and interoperability. The panel detailed how the AI boom is driving a shift from human-led development to agentic provisioning, creating demand for storage-centric architectures that support short-lived, unstructured data workloads. Looking ahead, industry leaders predict a five-year trajectory where hundreds of millions of citizen developers leverage commoditized AI to compress development cycles, necessitating hybrid infrastructure strategies that balance local model execution with scalable cloud data management.

Alix, SAP, Daytona, Feedly, Prosus & Handelsblatt: The Future Agentic AI & Autonomous Workflows

Alix, Edwin Kodabachan, Paul Van der Boor, Alexander Maisor, Emmanuel Casimates, Ivan Bourazin

Experts at a recent industry gathering defined Agentic AI as a shift from simple request-response models to autonomous systems capable of multi-step planning, emphasizing that security and governance remain critical barriers requiring strict human oversight. SAP and other leaders proposed frameworks like "agentic quality controls" and locally hosted environments to manage agent identities and comply with regulations, while anticipating a workforce evolution where humans supervise "digital teammates" rather than performing manual tasks. Despite concerns over the hype cycle, participants agreed that organizations with mature data and processes will soon leverage these tools to exponentially increase productivity, provided they implement robust guardrails to direct this technological capability toward tangible business value.

A fireside Chat with Paddy Srinivasan, CEO of DigitalOcean ft. Semafor

Paddy Srinivasan, Patti, Reid

DigitalOcean CEO Patti and Reid Hoffman discuss the platform's role in serving 3 million developers by providing specialized AI infrastructure for both native startups and traditional firms integrating large language models. The conversation highlights critical global bottlenecks, including power constraints necessitating nuclear energy and a talent war driving new hiring protocols for AI automation engineers. Hoffmann forecasts a massive economic expansion where AI increases the technology sector's share of global GDP to 25% within a decade, alongside a predicted dispersion of value beyond current market leaders.

Oege De Moor (XBOW) & Apoorv Agrawal (Altimeter): Hackers with GPUs Offensive Security in the AI Era

Oege De Moor, Apoorv Agrawal, Uhey Dhimur

Altimeter Capital-backed startup Expo has deployed an autonomous AI agent that ranks as the world's top ethical hacker, identifying over 1,200 vulnerabilities including critical zero-days in enterprise giants like Palo Alto Networks and Salesforce within a single week. This superhuman capability forces a strategic industry shift toward AI-driven defense to combat a "skill shortage" in malicious actors that has enabled nation-states to automate attacks with unprecedented speed. While the market anticipates a major cyber incident within twelve months due to rising AI-generated code risks, human security roles are expected to evolve from technical execution to the strategic orchestration of these autonomous systems.

A fireside Chat with Ramin Hasani, Co-Founder & CEO of Liquid AI ft. Robert Cahill (Enhance Venture)

Ramin Hasani, Robert Cahill

Liquid AI, an MIT spin-off founded by Ramin Hassani, is deploying a unique full-stack foundation model platform that utilizes biologically inspired Liquid Neural Networks to run generative AI directly on edge devices. This architecture achieves linear scaling rather than the quadratic costs of standard Transformers, enabling powerful on-device intelligence in resource-constrained hardware like smartphones and satellites without relying on data centers. Positioned as a specialized "gatekeeper" alongside massive cloud-based Oracles, the Boston-based company targets a projected $1 trillion on-device AI market by 2035 with applications spanning consumer electronics, automotive, and aerospace sectors.

SQORUS & Oracle: How AI is transforming step by step our industries. Use cases by ONET

Cyril Grira, Geoffrey, Gaurit Champenois, Romain Guyettremotier

Oracle, Skorus, and ONET Airport Services unveiled a comprehensive digital transformation at a 40th-anniversary celebration that leverages Oracle Cloud Infrastructure to reduce annual baggage losses by 25%. Led by Cyril Grira of Oracle, Geoffrey of Skorus, and ONET CIO Guillaume de Montessu, the project utilizes Autonomous Database 23ai, AI-powered vision services, and generative AI to shift operations from rigid timing-based SLAs to value-driven, real-time decision-making. Future initiatives plan to advance this system toward autonomous mission assignment and augmented reality interfaces to further optimize ground service productivity across Charles de Gaulle and other major hubs.

Fractile AI, Rogo, Scribble VC, San Francisco Compute: The AI Trillion-Dollar Opportunity

Eric Manisse, Elizabeth Weill, Walter Goodwin, John Willett

San Francisco Compute CEO Eric Manisse, Scribble Ventures' Elizabeth Weill, and founders Walter Goodwin and John Willett convened to analyze strategies for scaling AI infrastructure, hardware, and enterprise solutions amidst rapid technological evolution. The panel detailed critical operational frameworks, including balancing hardware development timelines with software agility, mitigating hallucination risks in financial applications, and proactively shaping export control regulations rather than merely complying with them. Experts concluded that long-term success in this sector relies on specialized human expertise for deep tech, the creation of durable data moats, and a shift toward treating global compute as a utility to drive the next industrial revolution.

Fireside Chat with George Robson, Partner @ Sequoia & Felix Blossier, Co-Founder & COO @ Pennylane

George Robson, Felix Blossier

Penny Lane, founded by seven entrepreneurs after the Price Match acquisition, transitioned from a service-led hybrid model to a pure software platform designed to empower SMB accountants through AI-driven co-pilot tools rather than automation. The company navigates the complex regulatory landscapes of Continental Europe, particularly France and Germany, by leveraging a business rule management system that allows non-engineers to manage compliance updates without code changes. With a recruitment strategy prioritizing curiosity and domain expertise over experience, Penny Lane aims to scale its all-in-one bookkeeping and tax solution across Europe despite the severe scarcity of local accounting talent.

A Fireside Chat with Luc Julia, Renault & Matthieu de Chanville, Shift for Good

Luc Julia, Matthieu de Chanville

Luc Beaulieu, Renault's Chief Scientific Officer, highlights the critical lag between century-old automakers and agile startups regarding AI adoption, noting that legacy software cycles remain incompatible with the rapid hardware refresh rates required for software-defined vehicles. While dismissing the feasibility of Level 5 autonomy and humanoids, Beaulieu champions specialized "physical AI," geo-fenced Level 4 robot taxis, and virtual sensor technologies to enhance manufacturing efficiency and reduce environmental impacts. These insights are further reinforced by the "Software Republic" consortium, which includes Renault and Thales, as it advances a vision where artificial intelligence serves as a specialized tool to augment human capability rather than replace it.

An AI conversation with Prashanth Chandrasekar, CEO of Stack OverFlow

Prashanth Chandrasekar, Henry Shi, Prashant

Stack Overflow has pivoted from a traditional Q&A hub into a revenue-generating knowledge intelligence layer by licensing its data to major AI providers like Google and Microsoft while launching enterprise solutions for corporate workflows. This strategic shift addresses a 64% year-over-year traffic decline caused by user migration to AI search, transforming trust deficits among senior developers into a premium verification service rather than a code-generation competitor. Despite risks to junior developer roles, the company remains profitable and is expanding its talent pipeline through certification challenges and asynchronous human-to-human chat features.

Eric Piscini (Hashgraph) & Jonathan Dotan (EQTY Lab): Proof of Trust Rethinking AI ft. DLTBlockchain

Eric Piscini, Jonathan Dotan

Equity Lab and its partner Hedera are deploying a hardware-rooted system that leverages next-generation Intel and NVIDIA secure enclaves to generate tamper-proof certificates for AI agents, addressing the critical trust barrier identified by business leaders. This architecture delivers a 400,000x performance improvement in cryptographic proof generation while recording immutable audit trails on the Hedera blockchain to ensure compliance with global regulations like GDPR. Following a successful pilot with 11 Accenture agents, the technology positions itself as an essential infrastructure for the projected trillions of autonomous agents expected to dominate future web traffic and enterprise supply chains.