In this episode, we sit down with Sridhar Ramaswamy, CEO of Snowflake, for an in-depth conversation about the company’s transformation from a cloud analytics platform into a comprehensive AI data cloud. Sridhar shares insights on Snowflake’s shift toward open formats like Apache Iceberg and why monetizing storage was, in his view, a strategic misstep. We also dive into Snowflake’s growing AI capabilities, including tools like Cortex Analyst and Cortex Search, and discuss how the company scaled A...
Apr 10, 2025•1 hr 24 min•Season 2Ep. 42
In this fascinating episode, we dive deep into the race towards true AI intelligence, AGI benchmarks, test-time adaptation, and program synthesis with star AI researcher (and philosopher) Francois Chollet, creator of Keras and the ARC AGI benchmark, and Mike Knoop, co-founder of Zapier and now co-founder with Francois of both the ARC Prize and the research lab Ndea. With the launch of ARC Prize 2025 and ARC-AGI 2, they explain why existing LLMs fall short on true intelligence tests, how new mode...
Apr 03, 2025•1 hr 1 min•Season 2Ep. 41
In 2022, Lin Qiao decided to leave Meta, where she was managing several hundred engineers, to start Fireworks AI. In this episode, we sit down with Lin for a deep dive on her work, starting with her leadership on PyTorch, now one of the most influential machine learning frameworks in the industry, powering research and production at scale across the AI industry. Now at the helm of Fireworks AI, Lin is leading a new wave in generative AI infrastructure, simplifying model deployment and optimizing...
Mar 27, 2025•59 min•Season 2Ep. 40
Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) has become a dominant architecture in modern AI deployments, and in this episode, we sit down with Douwe Kiela, who co-authored the original RAG paper in 2020. Douwe is now the founder and CEO of Contextual AI, a startup focusing on helping enterprises deploy RAG as an agentic system. We start the conversation with Douwe's thoughts on the very latest advancements in Generative AI, including GPT 4.5, DeepSeek and the exciting paradigm shift towards test time c...
Mar 06, 2025•51 min•Season 2Ep. 39
In this episode, we dive into how AI is transforming video editing with Gaurav Misra, the CEO of Captions. Launched in New York in 2021, Captions already empowers over 10 million creators worldwide, leveraging AI to make video production as simple as clicking a button. Discover the strategic framework that led to the inception of Captions, and learn how the founders identified societal changes and technological advancements to build a groundbreaking company. We explore the challenges and opportu...
Feb 20, 2025•1 hr 13 min•Season 2Ep. 38
AI customer service agents are quickly replacing the often clunky AI chatbots of years past, and revolutionizing how we all interact with customer service. In this episode, we dive into this rapid transformation with Mike Murchison, CEO of Ada, a fast-growing leader in the space. Mike shares how harnessing the power of several Generative AI models enables Ada to automate up to 83% of customer interactions, providing a seamless and empathetic service that rivals, and will soon surpass, human agen...
Feb 13, 2025•1 hr 11 min•Season 2Ep. 37
Replit is one of the most visible and exciting companies reshaping how we approach software and application development in the Generative AI era. In this episode, we sit down with its CEO, Amjad Masad, for an in-depth discussion on all things AI, agents, and software. Amjad shares the journey of building Replit, from its humble beginnings as a student side project to becoming a major player in Generative AI today. We also discuss the challenges of launching a startup, the multiple attempts to ge...
Feb 06, 2025•2 hr 30 min•Season 2Ep. 36
In this episode, we explore the cutting-edge world of data infrastructure with Justin Borgman, CEO of Starburst — a company transforming data analytics through its open-source project, Trino, and empowering industry giants like Netflix, Airbnb, and LinkedIn. Justin takes us through Starburst’s journey from a Yale University spin-out to a leading force in data innovation, discussing the shift from data lakes to lakehouses, the rise of open formats like Iceberg as the future of data storage, and t...
Jan 30, 2025•1 hr 6 min•Season 6Ep. 35
As AI takes over the world, data is more than ever “the new oil”, and data engineering is the discipline that makes data usable behind the scenes. In this episode, we dive deep into the present and future of data engineering with Ben Rogojan, also known as the Seattle Data Guy. A seasoned data engineering consultant, Ben has built a big brand and reputation in the field with over 100k followers on platforms like YouTube and Substack. We started the conversation with a deep dive into data enginee...
Jan 23, 2025•1 hr 2 min•Season 2Ep. 34
In this episode, we dive deep into the world of AI engineering with Chip Huyen, author of the excellent, newly released book "AI Engineering: Building Applications with Foundation Models". We explore the nuances of AI engineering, distinguishing it from traditional machine learning, discuss how foundational models make it possible for anyone to build AI applications and cover many other topics including the challenges of AI evaluation, the intricacies of the generative AI stack, why prompt engin...
Jan 16, 2025•1 hr 13 min•Season 2Ep. 33
In this episode, we sit down with Florian Douetteau, co-founder and CEO of Dataiku, a global category leader in enterprise AI and a fixture on the Forbes Cloud 100 list and in the Gartner Leader Quadrant. Florian shares his journey from a Parisian student fascinated by functional programming to leading a global enterprise software company. We discuss how Dataiku bridges the gap between technical and business teams to democratize AI in the enterprise, the challenges of selling to enterprise clien...
Dec 12, 2024•53 min•Season 2Ep. 32
In this episode, we dive into the world of generative AI with May Habib, co-founder of Writer, a platform transforming enterprise AI use. May shares her journey from Qordoba to Writer, emphasizing the impact of transformers in AI. We explore Writer's graph-based RAG approach, and their AI Studio for building custom applications. We also discuss Writer's Autonomous Action functionality, set to revolutionize AI workflows by enabling systems to act autonomously, highlighting AI's potential to accel...
Nov 21, 2024•36 min•Season 2Ep. 31
Nathan Benaich, founder and GP at VC firm Air Street Capital, publishes every year "State of AI", one of the most widely-read and comprehensive reports on all things AI across research, industry, and policy. In this episode, we sit down with Nathan to discuss some of the highlights of the 2024 edition of the report, including the "vibes" shift in the industry from existential risk concerns last year to the current monetization race, the financial success of the foundation model labs, how a gener...
Nov 14, 2024•52 min•Season 2Ep. 30
In this special episode of the MAD Podcast, Matt Turck and Aman Kabeer from FirstMark delve into the AI market from a venture investor perspective, in the final weeks of an incredibly packed and exciting 2024. They comment on their favorite news stories, such as OpenAI's record-breaking $6.6 billion funding round and the massive $200B investments in AI infrastructure by Meta, Google, and Amazon. They tackle the latest trends in funding and valuations in both public and private markets, debate th...
Nov 08, 2024•1 hr 10 min•Season 2Ep. 29
Before he founded Modal, Erik Bernhardsson created Spotify's music recommendation system. Today he's bringing a consumer app approach to radically simplifying developer experience for data and AI projects on the Modal platform. In this episode, we dive into the broader AI compute landscape, discussing the roles of hyperscalers, GPU clouds, inference platforms, and the emergence of alternative AI cloud providers. Erik gives us a product tour of the Modal platform, provides insights into the AI in...
Oct 31, 2024•56 min•Season 2Ep. 28
A founding engineer on Google BigQuery and now at the helm of MotherDuck, Jordan Tigani challenges the decade-long dominance of Big Data and introduces a compelling alternative that could change how companies handle data. Jordan discusses why Big Data technologies are an overkill for most companies, how MotherDuck and DuckDB offer fast analytical queries, and lessons learned as a technical founder building his first startup. Watch the episode with Tomasz Tunguz: https://youtu.be/gU6dGmZzmvI Webs...
Oct 24, 2024•59 min•Season 2Ep. 27
With a $4.5B valuation, 5M AI builders and 1M public AI models, Hugging Face has emerged as the key collaboration platform for AI, and the heart of the global open source AI community. In this episode of The MAD Podcast, we sit down with Clément Delangue, its co-founder and CEO, and delve deep into Hugging Face's journey from a fun chatbot to a central hub for AI innovation, the impact of open-source AI and the importance of community-driven development, and discuss the shift from text to other ...
Oct 17, 2024•1 hr 7 min•Season 2Ep. 26
This episode is a captivating conversation with Richard Socher, serial entrepreneur, investor, and AI researcher. Richard elaborates on why he likens the impact of AI to the Industrial Revolution, the Enlightenment, and the Renaissance, discusses important current issues in AI, such as scaling laws and agents, provides a behind-the-scenes tour of YOU.com and its evolving business model, and finally describes his current investment strategy in AI startups. You.com Website - https://you.com/busine...
Oct 10, 2024•1 hr 29 min•Season 2Ep. 25
In this episode, we sit down with Tobie Morgan Hitchcock, the founder of SurrealDB, to dive deep into the evolving world of databases and the future of data storage, querying, and real-time analytics. SurrealDB isn’t just another database — it’s a multi-model database that merges document, graph, and time-series data, making it easier for developers to consolidate their backend without sacrificing performance. You'll learn how SurrealDB separates storage from compute for scalability, its innovat...
Oct 03, 2024•53 min•Season 2Ep. 24
In this episode, we dive deep into the story of how Datadog evolved from a single product to a multi-billion dollar observability platform with its co-founder, Olivier Pomel. Olivier shares exclusive insights on Datadog's unique approach to product development—why they avoid the "Apple approach" of building in secret and instead work closely with customers from day one. You’ll hear about the early days when Paul Graham of Y Combinator turned down Datadog, questioning their lack of ...
Sep 27, 2024•1 hr 2 min•Season 2Ep. 23
In this episode, we sit down with Ali Dasdan, CTO of ZoomInfo, a titan in the B2B sector, who harnesses vast datasets and advanced AI to redefine sales and marketing for over 35,000 global customers with $21.2 billion in annualized revenue. We delve deep into ZoomInfo's AI initiatives, including their transformative 'Copilot,' explore sophisticated data management, and discuss their dual platforms catering to internal and customer-facing needs. ZoomInfo Website - https://www.zoominfo...
Sep 19, 2024•46 min•Season 2Ep. 22
In this episode, we sit down with Eric Glyman, co-founder of Ramp, the company that revolutionized finance management to become a powerhouse valued at $7.6 billion. Eric shares the tradition of counting the days since Ramp's founding and how it fosters a sense of urgency and productivity, explains the use of AI to automate expense management and fraud detection, and gives an inside look at Ramp's cutting-edge AI products, including the Ramp Intelligence Suite and experimental agentic AI ...
Aug 01, 2024•49 min•Season 2Ep. 21
In this episode, we reconnect with Sharon Zhou, co-founder and CEO of Lamini, to dive deep into the ever-evolving world of enterprise AI. We discuss how the AI hype is evolving and what enterprises are doing to stay ahead, break down the different players in the Inference market, explore how Memory Tuning is reducing hallucinations in AI models, the role of agents in enterprise AI, and the challenges of making them real-time and reliable. Lamini Website - https://www.lamini.ai Twitter - https://...
Jul 25, 2024•44 min•Season 2Ep. 20
In this episode, we sit down with Jeremy Kahn, the AI Editor at Fortune Magazine, who has recently published a book called "Mastering AI: A Survival Guide to Our Superpowered Future". Jeremy shares his unique insights on AI's potential risks and transformative benefits, including the importance of UI design in maximizing AI's utility, the potential for AI to create a "winner takes most" economy, and the need for thoughtful AI regulation to mitigate risks without stifl...
Jul 18, 2024•49 min•Season 2Ep. 19
In this episode, we sit down with Azeem Azhar, an expert on AI and technologies, whose weekly newsletter "The Exponential View" (www.exponentialview.co) is read by nearly two hundred thousand people from around the world. We delve into the nuances of AI adoption, discussing how LLM's are reshaping industries and what this means for corporate leaders, the dynamics between the U.S., China, and Europe in the AI race, and the concept of sovereign AI. Azeem Azhar Website - https://www.e...
Jul 02, 2024•1 hr 2 min•Season 2Ep. 18
In this episode, we sat down with Aaron Katz, the CEO of ClickHouse, a company that went from an open-source analytical database into a highly successful cloud service, utilized by Spotify, Netflix, Disney, and many more. Aaron Katz provides intriguing insights into the challenges of transitioning an open-source project into a thriving business, ClickHouse's go-to-market strategy, the role of technical support in pre-sales, and the strategic decision to avoid traditional SDR and CSM roles. C...
Jun 13, 2024•49 min•Season 2Ep. 18
In this episode, we sit down with Daniel Dines, the co-founder and CEO of UiPath. From a small rented apartment in Bucharest to $1.3 billion in revenue, UiPath's story is one of perseverance, innovation, and strategic pivots. Daniel shares his insights on the pivotal moments that shaped UiPath, how to build a robust go-to-market strategy, the role of partnerships, and the lessons learned in hiring and managing a sales organization. UIPath Website - https://www.uipath.com/ Twitter - https://x...
Jun 01, 2024•1 hr 13 min•Season 2Ep. 17
In this episode, we sit down with Howie Liu, co-founder and CEO of Airtable, to explore the incredible journey of Airtable from its early days to becoming a powerhouse in the enterprise software space. Howie provides a candid look at the challenges and learnings from transitioning Airtable from a PLG product to an enterprise platform, how companies are transforming their marketing operations with AI, and the transformative potential of AI in automating workflows and enhancing business processes....
May 23, 2024•1 hr 3 min•Season 2Ep. 16
In this episode, we sat down with Tomasz Tunguz (https://twitter.com/ttunguz), the founder of Theory Ventures and a leading voice in the tech investment space. We discussed the transformative potential of Ethereum as a database company, the importance of data security in a decentralized world, and the evolving landscape of AI technologies from foundational models to AI-native applications. 📰 Article "What If LLMs Change the Business Model of the Internet?": https://tomtunguz.com/what-...
May 16, 2024•55 min•Season 2Ep. 15
In this episode, we sat down with Renen Hallak, founder and CEO of VAST Data, a $9 billion company that's shaking the foundations of data storage, databases and compute functionality. Through the conversation, we explore VAST's perspective on AI infrastructure, the process of selling over a billion dollars worth of software, and the technical innovations behind disaggregated, shared-everything architecture. VAST Data Website - https://www.vastdata.com/ Twitter - https://twitter.com/VAST_...
May 03, 2024•45 min•Season 2Ep. 14
