EPISODE
Alap Shah, Will Brown, Michelle Lee, Mike Annunziata
00:01:00 Alap Shah, co-founder and former CEO of Sentieo, an AI-powered financial research platform, discusses the transformative impact of AI on white-collar employment, highlighting a significant decline in information sector jobs since 2022. He emphasizes the potential for AI to further disrupt the labor market, particularly as corporate adoption accelerates, and underscores the need for proactive measures to address these challenges.
00:02:00 Will Brown, Research Lead at Prime Intellect, discusses the company's recent release of a training platform designed to simplify reinforcement learning (RL) on open-source models, enabling users to focus on environment design and task specification without hardware concerns. He highlights the platform's accessibility, allowing users to train models effectively by converting existing data into training recipes, and notes the positive reception from the community. Additionally, Brown touches on the evolving landscape of AI, emphasizing the importance of customization and the potential of open-source models to achieve state-of-the-art performance in specialized tasks.
00:03:00 Michelle Lee is the founder and CEO of Medra, a company developing physical AI scientists to automate laboratory experiments and accelerate drug discovery. In the conversation, she discusses her background in chemical engineering and robotics, the development of intelligent robots capable of autonomously conducting experiments, and Medra's recent $52 million Series A funding to build one of the largest autonomous labs in the United States.
00:04:00 Mike Annunziata, Founder and Managing Partner at Also Capital, has a background in venture capital and entrepreneurship, including co-founding Farther Farms and serving as a board member at Varda Space Industries. In the conversation, he discusses his non-traditional path into venture capital, emphasizing the importance of investing in founders who are magnets for top-tier talent and have a clear, pragmatic vision. He also highlights the significance of having fun while playing to win, and announces the launch of Also Capital's second fund, totaling $50 million.