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.

  1. 16 HR AGO

    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 multi-cloud fabric across 18 clouds and 90 clusters, long-term contracting dynamics, the importance of the software layer for stickiness, evolving workloads, multichip possibilities, and operational lessons at scale. Sign up for new podcasts every week. Email feedback to show@no-priors.com Follow us on Twitter: @NoPriorsPod | @Saranormous | @EladGil | @Tuhinone   Chapters: 00:31 Baseten growth 01:55 Why the app layer wins 05:57 Serving frontier customers 07:55 Open source model mix 09:21 Chinese models and geopolitics 13:07 Custom inference dominates 14:22 Post training acquisition 17:10 When to invest in custom models 18:35 Supply crunch and data centerse 22:25 Longer GPU Contracts 24:09 What Makes a Winner 26:07 Multi Chip Future 28:19 Runtime Roadmap 31:08 Scaling Edge Cases 33:48 Hiring and Leadership 36:44 Operations Pager Culture 38:19 Efficiency Drives Demand 40:41 Concierge Everything Future 42:34 Conclusion

    43 min

  2. 23 APR

    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 transition in businesses should focus on customer outcomes, UI changes, business processes, and the data layer. He also explains the challenges in enterprise AI adoption, including security, scaling, and data fragmentation, as well as the importance of evals and verifiability. They also discuss SAP’s suite of AI products, limitations of predictive tabular models, how SAP is shifting its pricing models in the AI era, and Philipp’s interest in quantum computing optimization. Sign up for new podcasts every week. Email feedback to show@no-priors.com Follow us on Twitter: @NoPriorsPod | @Saranormous | @EladGil | @pheartig | @SAP Chapters: 00:00 – Cold Open 00:42 – Philipp Herzig Introduction 01:18 – What SAP Does 02:51 – Why SAP Endures 06:53 – CTO Priorities and AI Push 12:14 – Scaling AI in Enterprise 17:06 – Verifiability and Agent Mining 20:42 – Tool Calling vs. Computer Use 22:11 – Domains Where Agents Deliver Value 24:58 – Limitations of Predictive Tabular Models 29:07 – Barriers to Enterprise Adoption 31:54 – How AI Will ‘Uplevels’ Work 34:03 – How AI Changes SAP’s Pricing Model 36:41 – What Makes a Winner in the AI Era 38:53 – Day in the Life of a CTO 40:08 – Customer Challenges 42:36 – Business Problem of Quantum Computing 46:21 – Conclusion

    46 min

  3. 17 APR

    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 successful leader, and as such, AI must be used to serve people rather than substitute for ambition. He breaks down the mechanics of hyper-growth, and the art of staying customer-centric at a global scale. They also discuss the future of enterprise software, how generative AI is fundamentally reshaping the labor market, and what founders need to know about building a resilient company culture that survives economic and technological shifts. Sign up for new podcasts every week. Email feedback to show@no-priors.com Follow us on Twitter: @NoPriorsPod | @Saranormous | @EladGil | @BillRMcDermott | @ServiceNow Chapters: 00:00 – Cold Open 00:50 – Bill McDermott Introduction 01:14 – Lesson from Buying a Deli 07:35 – Leadership in the AI Era 09:41 – How Bill Got Hired at Xerox 15:47 – Can Agency Be Taught? 18:40 – Seeing Change as Opportunity 25:18 – ServiceNow as an AI Control Tower 30:30 – Which SaaS Gets Disrupted? 32:22 – Defining a Platform Business 36:25 – Does AI Decrease Implementation Time? 39:06 – Agents Will Reshape the Workforce 40:59 – Success Signals at ServiceNow 44:07 – Enterprise Attitudes About AI 48:41 – How AI Has Changed Customer Conversations 50:48 – Bill’s Curiosity Beyond ServiceNow 52:29 – Day in the Life of a CEO 57:27 – Conclusion

    57 min

  4. 9 APR

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

    AI agents can already collaborate, but they lack a trustworthy medium in which to store value and execute contracts. Enter Circle’s Arc Blockchain, an economic “operating system” designed for a world where machines drive the real economy. Circle co-founder and CEO Jeremy Allaire joins Elad Gil to dive into the future of programmable money and the agentic economy. Jeremy explains why traditional banking fails to support the needs of AI agents, and how stablecoins like USDC facilitate an internet-native economy. They also discuss the tokenization of real-world assets, the move toward full-reserve banking, and Jeremy’s predictions for double-digit GDP growth as AI and blockchain reach their “broadband moment.”  Sign up for new podcasts every week. Email feedback to show@no-priors.com Follow us on Twitter: @NoPriorsPod | @Saranormous | @EladGil | @jerallaire | @circle Chapters: 00:00 – Cold Open 00:05 – Jeremy Allaire Introduction 00:21 – Origin Story of Circle 02:11 – Rethinking the Financial System 05:26 – The Role of Stablecoins 09:52 – Use Cases for USDC 11:30 – Programmable Money  12:25 – Blockchain as Operating System 14:37 – The Agentic Economy 17:45 – Arc Blockchain Use Cases 27:00 – Scaling Models and Privacy Tech 30:45 – Securitization of Other Assets Under the Blockchain 34:16 – Prediction Markets 35:09 – Incremental Revenue Through GPU Usage 37:19 – Jeremy’s 10 Year Future Vision 41:12 – AI and GDP 44:00 – Conclusion

    44 min

  5. 3 APR

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

    What happens when you apply the scaling laws of large language models to the physical work of atoms? Elad Gil sits down with Liam Fedus, co-founder at Periodic Labs, which is pioneering an AI foundation lab for atoms. Liam discusses how he pivoted from dark matter physics research to the front lines of artificial intelligence, including stints at Google Brain and working on ChatGPT at OpenAI. He talks about how Periodic is connecting massive language models to the physical world to overcome data bottlenecks in material science. Liam also shares how they use language models as an orchestration layer operating alongside specialized neural nets to run closed-loop physical experiments. They also explore the future of AGI and ASI, as well as the role of robotics in lab automation. Sign up for new podcasts every week. Email feedback to show@no-priors.com Follow us on Twitter: @NoPriorsPod | @Saranormous | @EladGil | @LiamFedus | @periodiclabs Chapters: 00:00 – Cold Open 00:05 – Liam Fedus Introduction 00:39 – Liam’s Background at Google Brain, OpenAI 05:14 – From ChatGPT to Materials and Atoms 06:34 – Training Data in the Physical World 09:52 – Generalization Across Domains 11:31 – Models as an Orchestration Layer 12:48 – Commercialization and Business Model 16:10 – How Periodic’s Success May Shape the Future  17:45 – Multidisciplinary Scaling 19:41 – Capital and Compute 21:12 – Hiring at Periodic 21:44 – Thoughts on AGI and ASI 23:30 – Timeline for Machine-Directed Self-Improvement 25:39 – Automation and Data Generation 27:59 – Why Liam is Excited About the Future of Robotics 29:25 – Conclusion

    29 min

  6. 20 MAR

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

    What happens when AI agents can design experiments, collect data, and improve — without a human in the loop? Andrej Karpathy joins Sarah Guo on the state of models, the future of engineering and education, thinking about impact on jobs, and his project AutoResearch: where agents close the loop on a piece of AI research (experimentation, training, and optimization, autonomously). 00:00 Andrej Karpathy Introduction 02:55 What Capability Limits Remain? 06:15 What Mastery of Coding Agents Looks Like 11:16 Second Order Effects of Natural Language Coding 15:51 Why AutoResearch  22:45 Relevant Skills in the AI Era 28:25 Model Speciation 32:30 Building More Collaboration Surfaces for Humans and AI 37:28 Analysis of Jobs Market Data 48:25 Open vs. Closed Source Models 53:51 Autonomous Robotics 1:00:59 MicroGPT and Agentic Education 1:05:40 Conclusion

    1hr 7min

  7. 12 MAR

    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 to build Notion itself. Plus, Simon elaborates on what he sees as a fundamental transition in productivity: moving from a tool where humans do the work, to one where humans manage a swarm of agents. Sign up for new podcasts every week. Email feedback to show@no-priors.com Follow us on Twitter: @NoPriorsPod | @Saranormous | @EladGil | @simonlast | @NotionHQ Chapters: 00:00 – Cold Open 00:05 – Simon Last Introduction 00:26 – Genesis of Notion AI 04:10 – Challenge of Semantic Indexing and Retrieval 07:16 – The Six-Month Rewrite Cycle 08:12 – Notion’s Coding Agent Era 09:44 – Impact on Team Dynamics 12:49 – Launching Custom Agents 15:39 – Notion as the ‘Switzerland’ for Models 17:33 – Designing APIs for Agent Customers 20:09 – Simon’s Personal Agentic Workflows 24:48 – Notion: Tool for Work is Now A Tool for Agents 27:28 – How Building Has Changed for Simon 29:00 – Conclusion

    29 min

  8. 26 FEB

    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 industry is maturing. Sarah and Neil also discuss how power distribution, energy storage, and physical materials like steel are the bottlenecks of the AI industry. Plus, Neil gives his take on the future of inference-optimized clouds, and why the market shift away from software and into infrastructure might be an overreaction. Sign up for new podcasts every week. Email feedback to show@no-priors.com Follow us on Twitter: @NoPriorsPod | @Saranormous | @EladGil  Chapters: 00:00 – Cold Open 00:05 – Neil Tiwari Introduction 00:26 – Magnetar’s Story 01:28 – Why CoreWeave Helped Magnetar Win 06:15 – Scaling CapEx Efficiently 09:02 – Debunking GPU Collateral Risk 11:42 – How Deal Structures Evolve 13:01 – What Bottlenecks Buildout 15:28 – Circular Financing Critiques 17:35 – The Shift from Training to Inference Workloads 23:10 – AI Factories 24:12 – Constraints of the Current Power Grid 28:27 – Sovereign Compute Buildouts 29:54 – Physical AI Capital Needs 32:48 – The Capital Rotation Away from SaaS 36:04 – Conclusion

    36 min
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Trailer

About

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.

Information

  • Creator
    Conviction
  • Years Active
    2023 - 2026
  • Episodes
    160
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Copyright 2023 Conviction. All Rights Reserved.

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