No Priors: Artificial Intelligence | Technology | Startups - podcast cover

No Priors: Artificial Intelligence | Technology | Startups

Conviction
At this moment of inflection in technology, co-hosts Elad Gil and Sarah Guo talk to the world's leading AI engineers, researchers and founders about the biggest questions: How far away is AGI? What markets are at risk for disruption? How will commerce, culture, and society change? What’s happening in state-of-the-art in research? “No Priors” is your guide to the AI revolution. Email feedback to show@no-priors.com. Sarah Guo is a startup investor and the founder of Conviction, an investment firm purpose-built to serve intelligent software, or "Software 3.0" companies. She spent nearly a decade incubating and investing at venture firm Greylock Partners. Elad Gil is a serial entrepreneur and a startup investor. He was co-founder of Color Health, Mixer Labs (which was acquired by Twitter). He has invested in over 40 companies now worth $1B or more each, and is also author of the High Growth Handbook.
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Episodes

Biohub: The Future of Biology is Open-Source with Co-Founders Mark Zuckerberg, Priscilla Chan, and Head of Science Alex Rives

Biohub started with an ambitious goal of curing, preventing, and managing all disease by the end of the century. A decade later, thanks to the convergence of frontier AI and biological data, that goal may have been too conservative. In this episode, Elad Gil and Sarah Guo sit down with Biohub co-founders Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan, alongside Biohub Head of Science Alex Rives. Together, they discuss Biohub’s $500 million virtual biology initiative, which integrates frontier AI with wet-la...

Jun 10, 202656 minSeason 1Ep. 165

The Rise of the Full-Stack Builder and Hyper-Leveraged Generalist with Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella

What does it mean for a business to truly operate at the AI frontier? In a special crossover episode at Microsoft Build, Sarah Guo and Elad Gil team up with Latent Space host “swyx” to talk with Microsoft Chairman and CEO Satya Nadella about the future of AI platforms, software development, and the tech ecosystem. Satya reflects on the latest breakthroughs from Microsoft Build, the strategic shift toward multi-model harnesses, and why private evaluations (evals) are now a company’s most importan...

Jun 04, 202642 minSeason 1Ep. 164

Building an AI Guardian for Enterprise with Onyx Security CEO Maxim Bar Kogan

We are now closer than ever before to living in a world where AI agents are smart enough to run our power grids and manage water supplies. How do we keep them from going rogue? Sarah Guo sits down with Maxim Bar Kogan, founder and CEO of Onyx Securities, to explore the complexities of supervising and securing autonomous agents at the enterprise level. Maxim explains Onyx’s product as an AI control plane, which oversees the permissions and flexible contexts of agents while balancing latency, cost...

May 28, 202641 minSeason 1Ep. 163

The Story Behind Cerebras’ $63 Billion IPO with Founder and CEO Andrew Feldman

Companies in Silicon Valley from Nvidia to AMD are racing to fuel the AI revolution with postage stamp-sized AI chips. Meanwhile, a chip the size of a dinner plate just fueled a $63 billion IPO for Cerebras. Elad Gil and Sarah Guo sit down with Cerebras founder and CEO Andrew Feldman to discuss the company’s journey to making one of the largest tech go-publics in history. Andrew details the multi-year journey of pioneering wafer-scale AI computing, including surviving a brutal period of being ah...

May 21, 202631 minSeason 1Ep. 162

Pax Silica: Inside the Trump Administration’s Tech Strategy with US Under Secretary of State for Economic Affairs Jacob Helberg

Securing AI dominance requires more than just semiconductors; it demands a complete overhaul of how the West manages everything that goes into them, from rare earth minerals to actuators. Enter: Pax Silica. Sarah Guo and Elad Gil sit down with US Under Secretary of State for Economic Affairs Jacob Helberg to discuss the launch and expansion of Pax Silica, a 14-country economic security coalition designed to secure the entire AI supply chain. Jacob talks about the creation of a forward-deployed i...

May 14, 202638 minSeason 1Ep. 161

Amex Global Business Travel: The World’s First AI Take Private with Long Lake CEO Alexander Taubman

The world’s first AI-take-private just proved that AI can revolutionize the real economy. Long Lake Management co-founder and CEO Alexander Taubman joins Elad Gil to discuss his firm’s agreement to acquire the legacy platform American Express Global Business Travel (Amex GBT) in a deal valued at $6.3 billion. Alexander explains the mechanics of AI-driven roll-ups, and why Long Lake chooses to acquire and transform businesses rather than simply selling them software. He also talks about how Long ...

May 11, 202622 minSeason 1Ep. 160

Baseten CEO Tuhin Srivastava on the AI Inference Crunch, Custom Models, and Building the Inference Cloud

Baseten CEO and co-founder Tuhin Srivastava sits down with Sarah Guo and Elad Gil to discuss the rapid growth of AI inference demand, Baseten’s 30x growth, and why inference is becoming the strategic “last market.” Tuhin Srivastava argues the application layer will persist because companies with unique user signals can encode value into workflows and post-train specialized models, citing examples like Abridge and support workflows. The conversation covers GPU capacity constraints, Baseten’s mult...

May 01, 202643 minSeason 1Ep. 156

SAP: Bringing the ‘Operating System’ of a Company into the AI Era with CTO Philipp Herzig

More than fifty years ago, the modern idea of the standard enterprise software was birthed at SAP. Now, after managing companies through technological shifts from the mainframe to mobile, SAP is at the forefront of closing the AI adoption gap for their customers. SAP Chief Technology Officer Philipp Herzig joins Sarah Guo to talk about how SAP has remained a durable end-to-end “operating system” for its more than 400,000 customers from finance to supply chain. Philipp argues that the AI transiti...

Apr 23, 202646 minSeason 1Ep. 158

Scaling Global Organizations in the Age of AI with ServiceNow Chairman and CEO Bill McDermott

Few teens are business owners, but by age 16, Bill McDermott had purchased and was running a local deli. Now he runs leading global technology powerhouse ServiceNow, a company that is defining how the world’s largest organizations transform for the digital age. Sarah Guo sits down with ServiceNow CEO Bill McDermott to discuss his journey from child entrepreneur to CEO, and how he navigates his role as a leader in the age of AI. Bill argues that human connection is still a vital part of being a s...

Apr 17, 202657 minSeason 1Ep. 157

The Agentic Economy: How AI Agents Will Transform the Financial System with Circle Co-Founder and CEO Jeremy Allaire

Jeremy Allaire, Circle co-founder and CEO, discusses the future of programmable money and the agentic economy, where AI agents drive economic activity. He explains why traditional banking systems are inadequate for this future and how stablecoins like USDC, backed by full reserves, provide the necessary infrastructure for instant, global, and programmable transactions. The conversation delves into Arc Blockchain's role as an economic operating system, the widespread tokenization of real-world assets, and predictions for substantial economic growth driven by AI and blockchain convergence.

Apr 09, 202644 minSeason 1Ep. 156

AI for Atoms: How Periodic Labs is Revolutionizing Materials Engineering with Co-Founder Liam Fedus

Liam Fedus, co-founder of Periodic Labs and co-creator of ChatGPT, details his journey from physics to AI and how his company is applying AI to materials science. He explains how Periodic Labs leverages large language models as an orchestration layer alongside specialized neural nets to overcome data bottlenecks and run closed-loop physical experiments. The discussion also covers the multidisciplinary approach, commercialization strategies, the future of AGI, and the transformative role of robotics in lab automation for accelerating physical development.

Apr 03, 202629 min

Andrej Karpathy on Code Agents, AutoResearch, and the Loopy Era of AI

Andrej Karpathy explores the revolutionary impact of AI agents on software engineering, highlighting the shift from human-coded tasks to autonomous agent delegation and the concept of "AI psychosis." He delves into AutoResearch, a project where AI improves AI, and introduces "Dobby," his home automation agent. The conversation also covers the future of jobs, open vs. closed-source models, and how AI will reshape education and human-AI collaboration.

Mar 20, 20261 hr 7 minSeason 1Ep. 154

From Coder to Manager: Navigating the Shift to Agentic Engineering with Notion Co-Founder Simon Last

Notion isn’t designing AI agents that just use tools. Their agents can autonomously build their own integrations, as well as write the code needed to finish a task. Sarah Guo sits down with Notion Co-Founder Simon Last to explore Notion’s rapid evolution from a simple writing assistant to a sophisticated platform for custom AI agents. Simon discusses the technical hurdles of indexing disparate data from sources like Slack and Google Drive, as well as the internal shift toward using coding agents...

Mar 12, 202629 minSeason 1Ep. 153

How Capital is Powering the AI Infrastructure Buildout with Magnetar Capital Managing Director Neil Tiwari

By the end of 2026, AI capital expenditure is projected to hit nearly $700 billion. The question isn’t who has the best model, but who has the most creative financing to build out AI infrastructure and beyond. Sarah Guo is joined by Neil Tiwari, Managing Director at Magnetar Capital, a financial innovator helping the AI industry scale from billions to trillions of dollars in CapEx. Neil explains some of the debt structures used to finance massive GPU clusters, who is taking the risk, and how the...

Feb 26, 202636 minSeason 1Ep. 152

From SaaS to AI-First: How Companies Are Reshaping Innovation

In this episode of No Priors, Sarah and Elad dive into the evolving landscape of software, exploring how AI is transforming the traditional SaaS model. They discuss whether SaaS as we know it is coming to an end, what new business and sales strategies are emerging, and how AI is reshaping the way software is built, sold, and scaled. The conversation also examines whether or not these shifts are a good thing for both big and small companies, and how coders and software experts are reacting to abr...

Feb 19, 202641 minSeason 1Ep. 151

Rivian’s Roadmap to AI Architecture and Autonomy with Founder and CEO RJ Scaringe

Autonomous vehicle technology has moved past human-coded rules and into an era of neural networks and custom computer chips. And to solve the most difficult driving scenarios, electric vehicle company Rivian abandoned its original technology platform to build a vertically integrated data stack. Sarah Guo sits down with Rivian Founder and CEO RJ Scaringe to explore the seismic shift in the automotive industry toward AI-driven, software-defined vehicles . RJ discusses the move away from function o...

Feb 12, 202632 minSeason 1Ep. 150

Introducing 4D Creation Open Beta: NPCs, 4D Worlds, and the Future of Gaming with Roblox CEO Dave Baszucki

From “virtual doppelgängers” to “real-time dreaming,” online gaming platform Roblox is using AI technology to build the “Holodeck” envisioned in science fiction decades ago. Sarah Guo and Elad Gil sit down with Roblox CEO Dave Baszucki at Roblox headquarters to explore the intersection of AI, physics simulation, and the future of human connection. Dave discusses the evolution of the 4D creation tool in Roblox, a high-fidelity simulation that enables thousands of people to interact in real-time w...

Feb 05, 202644 minSeason 1Ep. 149

Why Cryopreservation is No Longer Science Fiction with Until Co-founder and CEO Laura Deming

What if we could pause biological time to wait for a cure for a disease? Thanks to innovations and research in reversible cryopreservation, this possibility is no longer just science fiction. Sarah Guo sits down with Laura Deming, CEO and co-founder of biotech startup Until, to dive deep into the growing field of reversible cryopreservation. Laura talks about how her time as a Thiel Fellow as well as her founding of the Longevity Fund fueled her obsession with solving the “social blindspot” of a...

Jan 29, 202631 minSeason 1Ep. 148

No Priors Live: Building Durable Software in the AI Age with MongoDB President & CEO CJ Desai

Why are there only a handful of companies in the world with over $10 billion in pure-play software revenue? CJ Desai believes the reason is that products are replaceable, but platforms are forever. For No Priors’ very first live from MongoDB.local SF, Sarah Guo is joined by CJ Desai, CEO and President of software developer MongoDB, to discuss the shifting landscape of enterprise software. CJ discusses whether AI will erode the value of software, and what truly constitutes a “moat” in the age of ...

Jan 22, 202637 minSeason 1Ep. 147

AI and the Future of Warfare with US Under Secretary of War Emil Michael

Today’s arms race looks a little different from those of the past. Under the Trump administration, the US Department of War (DoW) is deploying generative AI to millions of employees in order to maintain a strategic edge over our global adversaries. Sarah Guo and Elad Gil sit down with Emil Michael, the Under Secretary of War for Research and Engineering of the United States, to discuss the radical technological transformation of the US military. Emil outlines the architecture and launch of GenAI...

Jan 15, 202645 minSeason 1Ep. 146

NVIDIA’s Jensen Huang on Reasoning Models, Robotics, and Refuting the “AI Bubble” Narrative

Even if ChatGPT never existed, the tech giant NVIDIA would still be winning. The end of Moore’s Law—says NVIDIA President, Founder, and CEO Jensen Huang—makes the shift to accelerated computing inevitable, regardless of any talk of an AI “bubble.” Sarah Guo and Elad Gil are joined by Jensen Huang for a wide-ranging discussion on the state of artificial intelligence as we begin 2026. Jensen reflects on the biggest surprises of 2025, including the rapid improvements in reasoning, as well as the pr...

Jan 08, 20261 hr 16 minSeason 1Ep. 145

The 2026 AI Forecast: Foundation Models, IPOs, and Robotics with Sarah Guo and Elad Gil

Pundits are screaming about the so-called “AI bubble.” But historically slow-to-adopt industries like medicine and law are actually embracing AI at an unprecedented speed. Sarah Guo and Elad Gil look ahead to 2026, breaking down the major trends that will define the next era of AI technologies. They explore the future of AI foundational models, predicting breakthroughs in solving complex scientific problems. They share competing views on the timeline for robotics and self-driving cars, debating ...

Dec 19, 202541 minSeason 1Ep. 144

The Future of Voice AI: Agents, Dubbing, and Real-Time Translation with ElevenLabs Co-Founder Mati Staniszewski

Imagine learning chess from a grand master, or negotiating tactics from an expert FBI hostage negotiator. ElevenLabs’ voice AI technology is making that unlock possible. Sarah Guo sits down with Mati Staniszewski, co-founder of ElevenLabs, to explore how the three-year old company is transforming how humans interact with technology through voice. Mati talks about the technical challenges of building foundational audio models, the strategic thinking between conducting research and deploying produ...

Dec 11, 202542 minSeason 1Ep. 143

Scaling Legal AI and Building Next-Generation Law Firms with Harvey Co-Founder and President Gabe Pereyra

In just over three years, Harvey has not only scaled to nearly one thousand customers, including Walmart, PwC, and other giants of the Fortune 500, but fundamentally transformed how legal work is delivered. Sarah Guo and Elad Gil are joined by Harvey’s co-founder and president Gabe Pereyra to discuss why the future of legal AI isn’t only about individual productivity, but also about putting together complex client matters to make law firms more profitable. They also talk about how Harvey analyze...

Dec 05, 202544 minSeason 1Ep. 142

Sunday Robotics: Scaling the Home Robot Revolution with Co-Founders Tony Zhao and Cheng Chi

The robotics industry is on the cusp of its own “GPT” moment, catalyzed by transformative research advances. Enter Memo, the first general-intelligence personal robot, focused on taking on your chores to give back your time. Sarah Guo sits down with Tony Zhao and Cheng Chi, co-founders of Sunday Robotics, to discuss the state of AI robotics. Tony and Cheng speak to the challenges they faced while developing their technology, the innovative glove system employed to scale real-world data collectio...

Nov 19, 202539 minSeason 1Ep. 141

How AI Will Accelerate Breakthroughs in Biotechnology with Benchling CEO Sajith Wickramasekara

Bringing new drugs to market is a costly, time-consuming endeavor. On top of that, most medicines fail at some point in the research and development phase. Sarah Guo is joined by Sajith Wickramasekara, co-founder and CEO of Benchling, a company that has not only become the central system of record for biotech R&D, but uses AI agents to assist scientists to help fix this broken system. Sajith details the roadblocks that impede drug development and approval, the “dot com” bust occurring in bio...

Nov 13, 202548 minSeason 1Ep. 140

Meet Snowflake Intelligence: A Personalized Enterprise Intelligence Agent with Sridhar Ramaswamy

Snowflake is moving beyond the data warehouse. Its new Snowflake Intelligence is an agentic platform for every employee, not just data teams. Sarah Guo sits down with Snowflake CEO Sridhar Ramaswamy to discuss his first 18 months at the helm, as well as the massive pivot to make the data giant AI-first. Sridhar talks about Snowflake Intelligence, the company's new AI agent platform, and its implications for enterprise data management. They also explore how Sridhar navigates partnerships with maj...

Nov 06, 202542 minSeason 1Ep. 137

The Best of 2025 (So Far) with Sarah Guo and Elad Gil

2025 has thus far been a year of great leaps and advances in AI technology. And Sarah and Elad have spoken with some of the most enterprising founders and scientific minds in the field of AI today. So we’re revisiting a few of our favorite conversations on No Priors so far in 2025 – Winston Weinberg (Harvey), Dr. Fei-Fei Li (World Labs), Brendan Foody (Mercor), Dan Hendrycks (Center for AI Safety), Noubar Afeyan (Flagship Pioneering), Brandon McKinzie and Eric Mitchell (OpenAI o3), Isa Fulford (...

Oct 31, 202519 minSeason 1Ep. 138

Reinventing the Developer Terminal with Warp Co-Founder and CEO Zach Lloyd

For decades, the developer terminal has remained largely unchanged. But for Warp CEO and co-founder Zach Lloyd, reinventing this core tool is the key to unlocking AI agents for coding, debugging, and automating the entire development process. Zach joins Elad Gil to discuss how seeing this opportunity for innovation led to Warp’s agentic terminal for developers. Zach talks about the phases of software development, from coding by hand to the current "develop by prompt" era, and the coming age of f...

Oct 23, 202527 minSeason 1Ep. 137

Unlocking the Road to Energy Abundance with Base Power CEO and Co-Founder Zach Dell

With demand from AI for energy already exploding, our electric grid is facing a crisis. Base Power CEO and co-founder Zach Dell is ready to re-architect its future from the ground up. Zach sits down with Elad Gil to talk about Base Power’s recent $1 billion fundraise from major investors. Zach discusses the role of energy across industries, as well as Base Power's mission to lower electricity costs through vertical integration. Zach and Elad also explore the future of energy, the role of batteri...

Oct 15, 202532 minSeason 1Ep. 136
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