This Week in AI

This week Jason sits down with three founders at the frontier of AI infrastructure, software development, and vertical AI: Matan Grinberg, co-founder and CEO of Factory; Russ d'Sa, co-founder and CEO of LiveKit; and George Sivulka, founder and CEO of Hebbia.
They break down why AI coding agents are more powerful than vibe coding, how voice became the default interface for AI, why LLMs are becoming commoditized like RAM, and what it actually takes to build a moat in 2026.
Mentioned in the show:
Factory: https://factory.ai
LiveKit: https://livekit.io
Hebbia: https://hebbia.com
Cursor: https://cursor.com
DeepSeek V4: https://deepseek.com
SpaceX / xAI: https://x.ai
Polymarket (Cursor acquisition odds): https://polymarket.com/event/will-spacex-acquire-cursor
LM Arena (model benchmarks): https://lmarena.ai
SWE-bench (coding benchmarks): https://swebench.com
Silicon Valley HBO clip (Son of Anton): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m0b_D2JgZgY

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Timestamps:
00:00 Intro & AGI debate: where are we really?
02:26 Meet the guests: Matan Grinberg, Russ d'Sa, George Sivulka
03:30 Factory's mission: bringing autonomy to software engineering
04:29 LiveKit's origin: open source WebRTC to ChatGPT voice backbone
07:40 Learned helplessness and the raptor fence: a founder story
10:31 Hebbia: financial superintelligence for capital markets
13:21 SpaceX acquiring Cursor for $60B: the deal breakdown
17:28 Why enterprises can't standardize on one model provider
21:50 The Silicon Valley clip: when AI deletes all the software
23:09 How AI coding tools have changed internal dev workflows
26:28 Moats in the age of vibe coding: what actually protects you
30:12 The relentless iteration promise as a company's core moat
33:40 Slack example: the buy vs. build calculation in 2026
38:10 Deterministic agents and encoding institutional expertise
41:17 LLMs as commoditized infrastructure: where value pools
45:56 DeepSeek V4 drops mid-episode: $3.48 vs. Claude's $25
50:13 AI in financial markets: arbitrage, meme stocks, and ASI
56:58 China blocks Metas acquisition, OpenAI-Microsoft deal redux
58:41 AGI definitions and who wins the US vs. China model race
01:02:13 US open source embarrassment and the talent war
01:05:23 OpenAI's spend vs. revenue: risk of ruin or name of the game?
01:09:14 Apple's new CEO, M-series compute flood, and space data centers
01:12:08 P-doom scores and final thoughts

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This week we sit down with Aravind Srinivas and Edwin Chen on This Week in AI Episode 10. Aravind is the co-founder and CEO of Perplexity, whose revenue has grown from $100M to $500M on the back of Perplexity Computer. Edwin is the co-founder and CEO of Surge AI, the data training company teaching frontier models how to think, which quietly bootstrapped past $1B in revenue without ever raising a dollar.This Week In AI is made possible by:PayPal Open - One Platform for all Business: https://paypalopen.com/Timestamps:00:00 Cold open01:00 Welcome & intro to Aravind Srinivas and Edwin Chen02:40 Why Perplexity Comet and Perplexity Max are taking off05:25 Edwin on Surge AI and why "data labeling" is the wrong term10:47 Tim Cook steps down — what Apple's new CEO should do13:56 Owning your agent loops: why Apple wins21:20 "The iPhone is not getting disrupted by AI at all"23:09 $242B raised in Q1 2026 and the late-stage capital flood23:55 Edwin on bootstrapping Surge past $1B without raising25:09 The ChatGPT "one weird trick" story and clickbait models30:58 Claude Code as a loss leader to dominate token collection33:30 Are we in the endgame for coding?35:35 Autocomplete to auto-diff to auto-outcomes38:54 The death of the no-code movement41:34 30% headcount growth, 5x revenue, the efficiency playbook45:41 AI in Hollywood, Gal Gadot, and $70M movies that should cost $200M50:29 "People don't buy models, they buy products"57:20 Specialization vs commoditization — what actually accrues value58:00 "LM Arena is a cancer on AI"63:34 Perplexity's heuristics for measuring user intent65:41 Model Council, Jensen Huang, and orchestrating frontier models71:23 Most impressive AI experiences — WhisperFlow, Grok on X, Claude Design, and WHOOP78:29 Hiring at Surge AI and PerplexitySubscribe to This Week in AI on Apple:https://thisweekinai.ai/appleSubscribe to This Week in AI on Spotify:https://thisweekinai.ai/spotifyFollow Jason:X: @jasonLinkedIn: /jasoncalacanisFollow Oliver:https://x.com/oliverkorzenCheck out all our partner offers:https://partners.launch.co/Links Mentioned on the Show:Perplexity: https://perplexity.ai/Surge AI: https://surge.ai/Perplexity Comet: https://comet.perplexity.ai/Perplexity Max: https://perplexity.ai/maxClaude Code: https://claude.com/product/claude-codeClaude Design: https://claude.com/claude-designOpenAI Codex: https://openai.com/codexGitHub Copilot: https://github.com/features/copilotCursor: https://cursor.com/LM Arena: https://lmarena.ai/Kimi K2: https://www.kimi.com/DeepSeek: https://www.deepseek.com/Apple Silicon: https://www.apple.com/mac/m4/WhisperFlow: https://wisprflow.ai/WHOOP: https://www.whoop.com/

This week we sit down with Lin Qiao and Demi Guo on This Week in AI Episode 9. Lin is the co-founder and CEO of Fireworks AI, a frontier inference platform processing tens of trillions of tokens per day, built by seven ex-Meta engineers who created PyTorch. Demi is the co-founder and CEO of Pika, building humanized AI agents for creative work, agents you interact with like a person, not a prompt box.

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Timestamps:
00:00 Welcome & intro to Lin Qiao and Demi Guo
02:38 Lin's journey from Meta to Fireworks AI
05:13 Building PyTorch and bootstrapping AI infrastructure
06:58 Who Fireworks competes with and why enterprises need it
08:43 Activating the 95% of private data locked in enterprises
11:31 Demi's journey building Pika and the pivot to humanized agents
16:03 The best interface for creation is a human-like agent
16:42 The AI layoff trap — a prisoner's dilemma for firms
19:00 Cambrian explosion of startups and the hobbyist-to-inventor pipeline
22:07 Flattening organizations and the death of middle management
28:03 Taste, judgment, and why "slop" is the real risk
31:22 Why agents drift and the case for constant iteration
33:40 Rethinking agents: not tools, but children you raise
39:36 How close are open-source models to frontier?
43:20 Token usage and the economics of running agents
46:15 Toys becoming tools — the hobbyist signal
48:59 Public perception of AI: America vs. China vs. Silicon Valley
53:04 Agents as self-expression and identity creation
57:06 The expert vs. public perception gap on AI's impact
63:17 Meta's Muse model and the open-source debate
68:26 Data drought, synthetic data, and the next architecture leap
72:06 Hiring at Fireworks AI and Pika
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Links Mentioned on the Show:
Fireworks AI: https://fireworks.ai/
Pika: https://pika.art/
PyTorch: https://pytorch.org/
"The AI Layoff Trap" paper (UPenn & Boston University): https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.20617
Fortune: CFOs say AI cuts will be 9x bigger than reported: https://fortune.com/2026/03/24/cfo-survey-ai-job-cuts-productivity-paradox-2026/
HBR: Companies firing based on AI potential, not performance: https://hbr.org/2026/01/companies-are-laying-off-workers-because-of-ais-potential-not-its-performance
New Yorker profile on Sam Altman (Ronan Farrow): https://techcrunch.com/2026/04/11/sam-altman-responds-to-incendiary-new-yorker-article-after-attack-on-his-home/
Sam Altman home attack: https://www.cnbc.com/2026/04/10/sam-altman-house-hit-with-molotov-cocktail-openai-office-threatened.html
Block layoffs — Jack Dorsey cites AI: https://fortune.com/2026/02/27/block-jack-dorsey-ceo-xyz-stock-square-4000-ai-layoffs/
Pew Research — AI experts vs. public perception: https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2025/04/03/how-the-us-public-and-ai-experts-view-artificial-intelligence/
Meta Muse Spark announcement: https://ai.meta.com/blog/introducing-muse-spark-msl/
DeepSeek V3: https://github.com/deepseek-ai/DeepSeek-V3
Bubble Pal AI toy (Shenzhen): https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/hugging-every-fun-thought-haivivi-unveils-the-worlds-first-aigc-toy-bubblepal-302209714.html
Cursor (Composer): https://cursor.sh/
NVIDIA Nemotron: https://developer.nvidia.com/nemotron
Qwen (Alibaba): https://qwenlm.github.io/
Mistral AI: https://mistral.ai/

This week on TWiAI, Jason sits down with three founders at the center of the AI stack: Kanjun Qiu (CEO of Imbue), Carina Hong (CEO of Axiom), and Jonathan Siddharth (CEO of Turing). They break down Anthropic's explosive $30B run rate, why it just overtook OpenAI in revenue, Meta's bizarre internal token-burning leaderboard, and what happens when every person on Earth has 100 AI agents running for them.
Anthropic's Revenue Explosion: Anthropic hit a $30B run rate, up from $9B just six months ago, and appears to have overtaken OpenAI in token sales. The panel breaks down where the money is coming from and why Meta might be the biggest customer.
Meta's Token-Burning Leaderboard: Reports surfaced of an internal Meta contest rewarding teams for burning the most tokens, with employees building bots that loop just to rack up usage. Is it brilliant adoption strategy or pure waste?
Open Source Agents vs. Lock-In: Kanjun argues that handing your entire business, memories, and workflows to closed AI platforms is a recipe for lock-in. She's building open agent infrastructure so users can swap models freely and own their data.
OpenAI's Identity Crisis: The panel dissects OpenAI's dropped Disney deal, its $100B+ raise, internal CFO tensions, and whether the company is doing too many side quests while Anthropic eats its lunch.
The Commodification of Developers: A year ago, the debate was whether AI makes developers 5% or 15% more efficient. Now the question is whether everyone is a developer, and what that means for the industry.
Why Open Source Must Win: From Apple Silicon to local models, the case for owning your AI stack and why Jason is going all-in on open source hardware and software.

Learn more about Imbue: https://imbue.com
Learn more about Axiom: https://axiommath.ai
Learn more about Turing: https://www.turing.com

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Timestamps:
00:00 Cold open
01:03 Welcome and intro to this week's panel
01:31 Kanjun Qiu on open source agents and Imbue
05:10 Carina Hong on building an AI mathematician at Axiom
06:30 Formal verification and why superintelligence needs proof
09:52 Jonathan Siddharth on Turing's superintelligence accelerator
15:53 Anthropic's $30B run rate and overtaking OpenAI
22:27 OpenAI's strategy, Disney deal, and $100B raise
28:27 Meta's internal token-burning leaderboard
44:08 The commodification of developers
50:31 God mode for code: formal verification in practice
58:27 Superintelligence in 36 months: what happens next
01:08:41 Apple, Siri, and why Big Tech is failing at AI products

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This Week in AI, JCal sits down with three CEOs building the infrastructure, intelligence, and interfaces for the next era of AI: Jeremy Fraenkel (CEO, Fundamental), Victor Riparbelli (CEO, Synthesia), and Nick Harris (CEO, Lightmatter). We break down what's actually happening beneath the AI hype: the data modality LLMs completely missed, why copper is the real bottleneck in AI data centers, OpenAI shutting down Sora, the build vs. buy debate for AI tools, and how close we really are to AGI.
AI's Biggest Blind Spot, Tabular Data: LLMs transformed text, images, and code, but 70-80% of enterprise data lives in rows and columns.
Copper Can't Keep Up: Nick explains why AI data centers are hitting a wall. GPUs compute faster than they can communicate. Lightmatter's photonic chips push 1.6 terabits per fiber and can 3x training speed.
Why OpenAI Killed Sora & Anthropic's Focus is Winning: Victor breaks down why even OpenAI had to learn the lesson of focus, and why Claude Code has every founder talking.
Vibe Coding Your Own CRM vs. Buying Salesforce: Jeremy reveals Fundamental built their own internal CRM using vibe coding. The panel debates when building beats buying and when it's a distraction.
The Omnipresent CEO: Jason shares how he's using AI agents for root access to Slack, Gmail, and Notion, resurrecting former employees as AI personas, automating SDR workflows, and summarizing employee inboxes while they're on vacation.
Are We Already at AGI?: Nick says the rate of progress is a double exponential. Jeremy argues AGI is a moving goalpost. Victor warns of "Future Shock" and societal disruption.
🔗 Learn more about Fundamental: https://fundamental.tech🔗 Learn more about Synthesia: https://www.synthesia.io🔗 Learn more about Lightmatter: https://lightmatter.coThis Week In AI is made possible by:PayPal Open - One Platform for all Business: paypalopen.comTimestamps:00:00 Welcome & intro to Jeremy Fraenkel, Victor Riparbelli, and Nick Harris01:47 What is Fundamental? Large tabular models explained07:01 Victor Riparbelli on Synthesia & why OpenAI killed Sora11:09 Claude Code dominance & the Lightspeed founder retreat12:08 Nick Harris on Lightmatter, photonics & the new Moore's Law14:38 Copper vs. fiber: why AI data centers are hitting a wall18:44 Reinventing video: interactive, real-time, personalized21:32 The economics of a custom AI movie23:55 Why Amazon, Google & Meta are building their own chips28:06 Tables have a bandwidth problem too32:27 When will compute be as cheap as storage?36:10 The future of software: every company gets a custom stack38:06 Vibe coding your own CRM vs. buying Salesforce45:57 Jason's quest for root access to Slack50:18 The omnipresent CEO: Doctor Manhattan meets Jesus CEO52:13 Resurrecting former employees as AI personas53:25 Victor's executive changelog for a 650-person company55:07 Whisper Flow & the Plaud Pin1:00:03 AGI: is it already here?1:03:37 Jeremy: we've only solved half the brain1:06:30 70% of Americans fear AI will impact jobs1:08:47 Future Shock & keeping the rope tight*Mentioned in the show:*
Wisper Flow: https://wisperflow.ai
Plaud Pin: https://www.plaud.ai
Athena Executive Assistants: https://www.athenawow.com
WHOOP: https://www.whoop.com
"Future Shock" by Alvin Toffler: https://www.amazon.com/Future-ShockAlvin-Toffler/dp/0394425863
Victor on TWiST, E1776: https://youtu.be/jxET4fq_2eA
Nick on TWiST, E1787: https://youtu.be/FPW2nnEqfMsSubscribe to This Week in AI on Apple: https://thisweekinai.ai/spotifySubscribe to This Week in AI on Spotify: https://thisweekinai.ai/appleThanks for watching!🤖 If you want to stay ahead of the curve on all things AI, make sure to join our community across all platforms:📩 Get the Weekly Newsletter: https://thisweekinai.ai/📺 Subscribe on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ThisWeekinAIPodcast📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thisweekinaipodcast