Merrill Lutsky, co-founder and CEO of Graphite, discusses their evolution from stack diff workflows to Diamond, an AI code review agent that just helped secure their $50M Series B. He shares insights on building reliable AI review systems, why over-generating and pruning comments works better than single responses, and the shift from RAG to agentic code browsing. Merrill offers a provocative vision where developers define requirements and AI agents build the code, potentially eliminating traditi...
May 20, 2025•43 min•Ep. 34
This week Raza is joined by Amit Jain, CEO and co-founder of Luma AI, to explore why the future of artificial intelligence lies beyond language. Amit shares Luma’s bold mission to build world models through multimodal training and why video is the most overlooked and critical data source in AI today. Chapters: 00:00 - Introduction 03:40 - Competing with Big AI Labs: Language vs. Multimodality 08:09 - Joint Training and Why Current Multimodal Models Fall Short 11:01 - Language is Discrete, the Wo...
May 13, 2025•40 min•Ep. 33
Eric Simons discusses the meteoric rise of Bolt.new, an AI-powered web app builder that went from zero to $40 million ARR in just five months. He shares insights on how they built an AI agent capable of creating full-stack web applications from simple prompts, the challenges of rapid growth, and the future of AI in software development. From nearly shutting down the company to becoming one of the fastest-growing AI products in history, Eric offers valuable lessons for anyone building in the AI s...
Apr 03, 2025•42 min•Ep. 32
In this episode of High Agency, Patrick Leung from Faro Health explains how they're using AI to revolutionize clinical trial design by both generating regulatory documents and extracting insights from thousands of existing trials. Patrick emphasises the essential collaboration between clinical experts and AI engineers when building reliable systems in healthcare's high-stakes environment. Chapters: 00:00 - Introduction 04:26 - Clinical trials before: Microsoft Word Documents 08:17 - Document gen...
Mar 21, 2025•48 min•Ep. 31
In this episode, Raza is joined by Shahriar Tajbakhsh, the co-founder of Metaview. They discuss how Metaview’s AI scribe automates interview note-taking, how AI agents can surface top candidates from thousands of resumes, and why hiring managers should think of AI as a co-worker, not just a tool. Raza's recomended reading: Creating a LLM-as-a-Judge That Drives Business Results . Chapters: 00:00 - Introduction 03:32 - How AI Co-Workers Are Transforming Recruiting 06:21 - Inside MetaView: AI Scrib...
Mar 07, 2025•53 min•Ep. 30
In this episode, Raza Habib chats with Zach Lloyd, CEO and founder of Warp, about how AI is transforming the developer experience. They explore how Warp is reimagining the command line, the power of AI-driven automation, and what the future holds for coding workflows. Chapters: 00:00 - Introduction 04:06 - Why the terminal needed reinvention 07:11 - AI’s role in Warp’s evolution 08:55 - Key AI features in Warp 12:49 - Balancing safety, reliability, and usability 19:43 - Challenges in AI-Powered ...
Feb 21, 2025•48 min•Ep. 29
Will Bryk, CEO of Exa, sits down with Raza Habib to reveal why traditional search engines are becoming obsolete and how his startup is building an AI-powered search engine for the future. From constructing a massive GPU cluster to predicting AI will surpass human mathematicians by 2026, Will shares fascinating insights about the technological breakthroughs that will reshape society in the coming months. Chapters: 00:00 - Introduction 05:13 - Exa as a Tool for LLMs and Neural Search 06:19 - Intro...
Feb 07, 2025•39 min•Ep. 28
In this episode, Jesse Zhang joins Raza to discuss building cutting-edge AI agents for customer support. They explore how his early passion for LLMs led to creating a company that’s transforming the way businesses like Rippling, Duolingo, and Webflow interact with customers. Jesse breaks down the challenges of scaling AI systems, the importance of customer feedback, and his predictions for the future of AI. Chapters: 00:00 - Introduction and Jesse Zhang's Background 01:17 - First Exposure to LLM...
Jan 22, 2025•42 min•Ep. 27
On this week's episode, former GitHub Copilot lead Ryan Salva breaks down how AI coding tools became ubiquitous almost overnight. They discuss the critical differences between what novice and expert developers expect from AI, why starting with predictive text was both a blessing and a curse, and how the rapid adoption of AI assistance is reshaping the future of software development. Chapters: 00:00 - Introduction 01:09 - The Creation of GitHub Copilot 05:39 - From Prototype to Product: Challenge...
Jan 07, 2025•39 min•Ep. 26
In this week's episode, Raza speaks with James Theuerkauf, CEO of Syrup Tech, and Sara Ittelson, Partner at Accel, to explore the challenges and opportunities for entrepreneurs in this transformative era. They discuss building AI-first companies and the lessons learned from scaling in a rapidly evolving space. With practical tips on leveraging data, creating competitive advantages, and sustaining passion for the long haul, this episode offers invaluable guidance for founders in AI. Chapters: 00:...
Dec 27, 2024•44 min•Ep. 25
In this episode, Noam Rubin, a Software Developer at Vanta reveals how his team uses data-driven strategies to design, test, and improve cutting-edge AI features. Learn how customer insights, rapid prototyping, and iterative development transform raw ideas into tools that make compliance and security easier for businesses everywhere. Chapters: 00:00 - Introduction 02:47 - The process of building AI products at Vanta 04:51 - The role of customer feedback in product development 06:59 - Integrating...
Dec 18, 2024•41 min•Ep. 24
In this episode of High Agency, former OpenAI researcher Stan Polu shares his journey from AI research to founding Dust, an enterprise AI platform. Stan offers a contrarian view on the future of AI, suggesting we may be hitting a plateau in model capabilities since GPT-4. He discusses why startups should focus on product-market fit before investing in GPUs, shares practical lessons for building AI products, and predicts increased competition between AI labs and API developers. Chapters: 00:00 - ...
Dec 11, 2024•44 min•Ep. 23
In this episode, we explore how Replicate is breaking down barriers in AI development through its open-source platform. CEO Ben Firshman shares how Replicate enables developers without machine learning expertise to run AI models in the cloud. 00:00 Introduction 00:29 Overview of Replicate 03:13 Replicate's user base 05:45 Enterprise use cases and lowering the AI barrier 07:45 The complexity of traditional AI deployment 10:24 Simplifying AI with Replicate's API 13:50 ControlNets and the challenge...
Nov 13, 2024•36 min•Ep. 22
How do you build AI tools that actually meet users’ needs? In this episode of High Agency, Raza speaks with Lorilyn McCue, the driving force behind Superhuman’s AI-powered features. Lorilyn lays out the principles that guide her team’s work, from continuous learning to prioritizing user feedback. Learn how Superhuman’s "learning-first" approach allows them to fine-tune features like Ask AI and AI-driven summaries, creating practical solutions for today’s professionals. 00:00 - Introduction 04:20...
Nov 07, 2024•43 min•Ep. 21
This week on High Agency, Raza Habib is joined by Chroma founder Jeff Huber. They cover the evolution of vector databases in AI engineering, challenge common assumptions about RAG and share insights from Chroma's journey. Jeff shares insights from Chroma's development, including their focus on developer experience and observations about real-world usage patterns. They also get into whether or not we can expect a super AI any time soon and what is over and under hyped in the industry today. 00:00...
Oct 24, 2024•55 min•Ep. 20
In this episode of High Agency podcast, Peter Gostev shares his experiences implementing LLMs at NatWest and Moonpig. He discusses creating an AI strategy, talks about challenges in deploying LLMs in large organizations, and shares thoughts on underappreciated AI developments. 00:00 - Introduction 00:44 - OpenAI dev day reactions 03:47 - Using AI to automate customer service 10:43 - Impact of AI products 13:41 - Who are the users of LLMs 14:47 - Challenges building with AI in a large enterprise ...
Oct 16, 2024•40 min•Ep. 19
In this episode of High Agency, we're joined by Surojit Chatterjee, former CPO of Coinbase and now CEO of Ema. Surojit unveils his audacious plan to create universal AI employees and revolutionize Fortune 1000 workforce. Drawing from his career at tech giants like Google and Coinbase, he shares how these experiences fueled his vision for Ema. Surojit dives into the challenges of building AI agents, explores the concept of artificial humans, and predicts how this technology could transform the fu...
Oct 02, 2024•45 min•Ep. 18
Hamel Husain is a seasoned AI consultant and engineer with experience at companies like GitHub, DataRobot, and Airbnb. He is a trailblazer in AI development, known for his innovative work in literate programming and AI-assisted development tools. Shawn Wang (aka Swyx) is the host of the Latent Space podcast, the author of the essay 'Rise of the AI Engineer,' and the founder of the AI Engineer World Fair. In this episode, Hamel and Swyx share their unique insights on building effective AI product...
Sep 25, 2024•1 hr 9 min•Ep. 17
Raz Nussbaum is a Senior Product Manager in AI at Gong — the leading AI platform for revenue teams. He is an absolute legend when it comes to building and scaling AI products that genuinely deliver value. In this episode, he opens up about what it takes to build successful AI products in an era where things change at lightning speed. Chapters 00:00 - Introduction 01:16 - How LLMs Changed Product Development at Gong AI 08:32 - Including Product Managers in Development Process 13:05 - Testing and ...
Sep 18, 2024•30 min•Ep. 16
In this episode, we dive deep into the world of AI-assisted creative writing with James Yu, founder of Sudowrite. James shares the journey of building an AI assistant for novelists, helping writers develop ideas, manage complex storylines, and avoid clichés. James gets into the backlash the company faced when they first released Story Engine and how they're working to build a community of users. 00:00 - Introduction and Background of Sudowrite 02:26 - The Early Days: Concept, Skepticism, and Use...
Sep 11, 2024•57 min•Ep. 15
In this episode, LiveKit CEO Russ d'Sa explores the critical role of real-time communication infrastructure in the AI revolution. From building voice demos to powering OpenAI's ChatGPT, he shares insights on technical challenges around building multimodal AI on the web and what new possibilities are opening up. 00:00 - Introduction and Background 01:34 - The Evolution of AI and Lessons for Founders 05:20 - Timelines and Technological Progress 10:32 - Overview of LiveKit and Its Impact on AI Deve...
Sep 04, 2024•49 min•Ep. 14
This week we’re talking to Lin Qiao, former PyTorch lead at Meta and current CEO of Fireworks AI. We discuss the evolution of AI frameworks, the challenges of optimizing inference for generative AI, the future of AI hardware, and open-source models. Lin shares insights on PyTorch design philosophy, how to achieve low latency, and the potential for AI to become as ubiquitous as electricity in our daily lives. Chapters: 00:00 - Introduction and PyTorch Background 04:28 - PyTorch's Success and Desi...
Aug 28, 2024•42 min•Ep. 13
In this episode of High Agency, we are speaking to Paras Jain who is the CEO of AI video generation startup Genmo. Paras shares insights from his experience working on autonomous vehicles, why he chose academia over an offer from Tesla, and the research-minded approach that has lead to Genmo's rapid success. Chapters: (00:00) Introduction (01:52) Lessons from selling an AI company to Tesla (07:01) Working within GPU constraints and transformer architecture (11:18) Moving from research to startup...
Aug 21, 2024•49 min•Ep. 12
In this week’s episode of the High Agency podcast, Humanloop Co-Founder and CEO Raza Habib sat down with Eddie Kim, co-founder and Head of Technology at Gusto and guest host Ali Rowghani to discuss how Gusto has applied AI to revolutionize ops-heavy processes like payroll and HR admin. Eddie also elaborates why Gusto is choosing to build, and not buy, the majority of their GenAI tech stack. Chapters 00:00 - Introduction and Background 02:15 - Overview of Gusto's Business 05:59 - Operational Comp...
Aug 16, 2024•56 min•Ep. 11
In this episode, we sit down with Michael Royzen, CEO and co-founder of Phind. Michael shares insights from his journey in building the first LLM-based search engine for developers, the challenges of creating reliable AI models, and his vision for how AI will transform the work of developers in the near future. Tune in to discover the groundbreaking advancements and practical implications of AI technology in coding and beyond. I hope you enjoy the conversation and if you do, please subscribe! --...
Aug 02, 2024•57 min•Ep. 9
Jason Liu is a true Renaissance Man in the world of AI. He began his career working on traditional ML recommender systems at tech giants like Meta and Stitch Fix and quickly pivoted into LLMs app development when ChatGPT opened its API in 2022. As the creator of Instructor, a Python library that structures LLM outputs for RAG applications, Jason has made significant contributions to the AI community. Today, Jason is a sought-after speaker, course creator, and Fortune 500 advisor. In this episode...
Jul 24, 2024•55 min•Ep. 8
If you need to understand the future trajectory of AI, Logan Kilpatrick will help you do just that. Having seen the frontier at both OpenAI and Google. Logan led developer relations at OpenAI before leading product on the Google AI Studio. He's been closer than anyone to developers building with LLMs and has seen behind the curtain at two frontier labs. Logan and I talked about: 🔸 What it was like joining OpenAI the day ChatGPT hit 1 million users 🔸 What you might expect from GPT5 🔸 Google's ...
Jul 17, 2024•45 min•Ep. 7
I'm excited to share this conversation with Max Rumpf the founder of Sid.AI. I wanted to speak to Max because Retrieval Augmented generation has become core to building AI applications and he knows more about RAG than anyone I know. We get deep into the challenges of building RAG systems and the episode is full of technical detail and practical insights. We cover: 00:00 - Introduction to Max Rumpf and SID.ai 03:39 - How SID.ai's RAG approach differs from basic tutorials 07:30 - Challenges of doc...
Jul 11, 2024•47 min•Ep. 6
In this episode, I had the pleasure of speaking with Wade Foster, the founder and CEO of Zapier. We discussed Zapier's journey with AI, from their early experiments to the company-wide AI hackathon they held in March. Wade shared insights on how they prioritize AI projects, the challenges they've faced, and the opportunities they see in the AI space. We also talked about the future of AI and how it might impact the way we work
Jul 02, 2024•41 min•Ep. 5
In this episode, I chatted with Shawn Wang about his upcoming AI engineering conference and what an AI engineer really is. It's been a year since he penned the viral essay "Rise of the AI Engineer' and we discuss if this new role will be enduring, the make up of the optimal AI team and trends in machine learning. The Rise of the AI Engineer Blog Post: https://www.latent.space/p/ai-engineer Chapters 00:00 - Introduction and background on Shawn Wang (Swyx) 03:45 - Reflecting on the "Rise of the AI...
Jun 25, 2024•49 min•Ep. 4
