Entrepreneurs of Life Keyi (Sophie) Wang

Welcome to Episode 2 of the Entrepreneurs of Life podcast, dialogues with distinguished immigrants in Silicon Valley, along with AI insights!



Today, our guest is Sunny (Jiangtao) Sun, a legendary FinTech founder of five successful startups across Asia and the US. The most prominent one is Qian Dai Bao, a leading digital payment app in China serving over half its population. Sunny is now revolutionizing cross-border banking with his latest venture in the US, CBIG.



Discover how CBIG leverages technology to serve a long tail of small- and mid-sized businesses in cross-border trades, where offerings from traditional banks fall terribly short. Sunny also shares battle-tested insights on timing market opportunities, startup exits, validating product ideas, navigating strategic tradeoffs as a founder, and much more.



This episode is a must-listen for aspiring entrepreneurs and FinTech enthusiasts alike.



(Quick heads up: the interview was in Chinese. We’ve got English subtitles on YouTube or Spotify and a slightly abridged English transcript on Substack. All links in show notes.)



Key Chapters:


(00:00) Introduction

Part One: Lessons from 5 Payment Startups over 20 Years


(04:56) Secrets of timing market entrance and exit
(11:42) How to choose the strategic partner to sell your business to
(14:45) Meituan's strategic vision behind the acquisition of Qian Dai Bao

Part Two: The Story Behind CBIG


(18:08) Macro perspective: the founding thesis of CBiBank
(25:40) Massive opportunity for global cross-border banking services
(28:48) Why do traditional money center banks struggle with serving SMBs?
(32:01) How CBiBank uses technology and AI to redefine the game
(34:50) From payments to deposits and loans: CBiBank’s product suite evolution
(38:22) Much more than a bank: Positioning CBIG’s banking versus SaaS services
(40:57) License vs. partnership: a crucial choice for early FinTech startups

Part Three: Advice for Founders


(46:04) Validating startup ideas: how to tell pseudo or weak demands?
(49:59) Go broad or go deep? A founder dilemma
(53:09) US vs. China: differences in startup ecosystems



Also Find This Episode on:


YouTube (EN subtitle)
Apple Podcast
Substack (EN edited transcript)



Other Links:


CBiBank website: https://www.cbibank.com/



Interested in AI, technology, or startups? Subscribe, follow my ⁠LinkedIn⁠, and also check out my ⁠free Substack newsletter⁠! See you next time :)

Episode Summary:

In this inaugural episode from "Entrepreneurs of Life," we delve into a few complex yet fascinating AI topics with two experts in AI and data. Our discussion spans the intricacies of transformer models, the art and challenges of model evaluation, optimizing AI usage through model routers, and visions for the industry’s future.

(Note: this conversation was recorded on February 26, 2024, before the release of Claude 3.)

Guest Bios:

Yuzheng Sun is a data scientist at StatSig, the leading platform for A/B testing backed by Sequoia and serving clients including OpenAI and Character.ai. Previously, Yuzheng had various DS and economist roles at Tencent, Meta, and Amazon after his Economics PhD from Cornell. Yuzheng is also a prolific blogger on tech, data, career, and personal growth with 0.2 million followers across platforms. For our Chinese listeners, you can find him online as "课代表立正".

Jason Hu is the founding engineer at Martian, a fast-growing AI startup backed by NEA. Their first product, an LLM router launched last year, is already adopted by developers from 300+ companies, including OpenAI and Amazon. Before Martian, Jason did research at the Chicago Human+AI Lab and ByteDance and graduated from the University of Chicago. He leads one of the largest AI communities in the Bay Area, aligns.ai, with speakers and community members from OpenAI, NVIDIA, Stanford, and more.



Key Chapters:


(00:00) Introductions
(03:23) Understanding the AI “Martians”: Why the startup Jason works at named itself "Martian", and its symbolism for their mission to make AI models more interpretable and usable.
(06:27) “Decoding” Transformers: Why it’s hard but crucial to understand how transformers work, and what we need to know.
(14:05) The Model Evaluation Maze: Current state of large language model evaluations; challenges facing AI developers when choosing foundational models for their applications.
(29:23) Model Routing – Calling LLM “Avengers”: What is a “model router”, and why is it useful? How Martian's router intelligently matches tasks with the most suitable models to optimize for client objectives.
(41:35) AI as the New Electricity: Martian’s end goal of making AI straightforward to use, similar as everyday utilities.
(47:22) “GPT-N” vs. Compound AI Systems: Do we eventually need just the best foundational model, or a multifaceted system?
(53:58) The Future of the AI Stack: Concluding reflections on the AI industry's evolution and the myriad possibilities that lie ahead.

Join us for a thoughtful exploration into the world of AI, where we unpack its complexities and consider its future trajectory.

Interested in AI, technology, or startups? Follow my LinkedIn and subscribe to my free Substack newsletter for
interviews with distinguished founders / VCs and insightful AI discussions! See you next time :)

Additional Links:


Paper on benchmarking LLM routers, co-authored by Jason & others
Yuzheng’s interview with ex-Sequioa partner and ex-Meta VP Mike Vernal: The real story behind Facebook's unprecedented growth


Sophie's blog about the 4 big questions on the future of AI: Four Fascinating Questions on the Future of AI
"The 20 Big Questions in Science," as mentioned by Yuzheng: 20 Big Questions in Science
Blog on Compound AI Systems, as mentioned by Jason: Compound AI Systems