AI can transform any business, but only if there's enough power to run it. Dr. Serena Huang sits down with Dave Easton, Partner in the Growth Equity team at Generation Investment Management and WEKA board member, to explore what investors now look for before betting on an AI company. They dig into how to measure AI ROI that your customers actually feel, why culture and the right incentives matter more than any metric, and how to get the most intelligence out of your energy use. 

Timestamps:

0:29 - Meet Dave Easton of Generation Investment

5:00 - What investors ask now vs. 18 months ago

7:30 - Spotting pilots vs. real deployments

9:38 - The simplest ROI wins

12:39 - Why AI activity is not the only efficiency metric

17:12 - Creating a winning culture

19:46 - How companies are approaching sustainability in AI

29:26 - The next 18 months of AI investing

33:24 - Dave’s two magic AI metrics

Links: 

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AI spending is outpacing budgets, and most organizations don't know why. Dr. Serena Huang sits down with Val Bercovici of WEKA to unpack why enterprise AI costs keep rising despite falling model prices. They dig into the three tiers of enterprise token consumption, the memory shortage reshaping AI infrastructure, and how signal maxing can be a better metric for enterprise AI ROI.

Timestamps:

1:30 - Meet Val Bercovici

3:44 - Jevons paradox: 100x cheaper per token, 100x higher net bill

6:52 - The real cost of agentic AI

8:31 - Three tiers of enterprise token consumption

11:16 - How agents learned to cut their own costs

16:48 - Understanding AI Pricing

18:25 - Signal maxing vs. token maxing

24:39 - AI Memory: The cost driver no one budgeted for

35:14 - What happens when AI subsidies end

47:34 - Revenge of middle management

Links: 

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When the stakes are as high as cancer care, the infrastructure powering the research is becoming as critical as the science itself. Dr. Serena Huang sits down with Jessica Audette, Head of Enterprise Infrastructure Strategy and Transformation at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, to examine how MSK's supercomputer, Iris, is compressing years of research into months. They discuss how AI is transforming patient scheduling, clinical documentation, and at-home recovery, and what organizations in regulated industries need to consider before deploying agentic AI.

Timestamps:

1:39 - Meet Jessica Audette

5:28 - Iris: MSK's supercomputer ranked #2 in the US

8:45 - AI-powered scheduling for patients

11:47 - AI dictation for clinicians

15:00 - Personalized medicine through wearables

17:35 - Meet Amelia: MSK's agentic help desk agent

20:55 - Safety, compliance, and working with InfoSec

22:47 - Strategy before deploying AI

29:58 - Rethinking what innovation really means

Links: 

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Connect with Jess

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As AI scales, energy demands are growing 100x and efficiency is no longer optional. Dr. Serena Huang sits down with Daria Mukhortova, Head of Sustainability at Nebius, and Val Bercovici, Chief AI Officer at WEKA, to examine whether innovation can outpace its own energy appetite. They explore how efficiency at the infrastructure and software layer is becoming a business imperative and what organizations should demand of their AI providers.

Timestamps:

(1:16) Meet Daria Mukhortova & Val Bercovici

(4:14) Inside Nebius's Helsinki data center & heat recovery

(6:36) What energy efficiency unlocks for AI customers

(8:59) The metrics that actually matter

(12:30) Goodput vs. throughput: are you measuring the right thing?

(14:37) Software's hidden role in AI sustainability

(19:23) How much energy does AI actually consume?

(21:37) Common misconceptions about AI's environmental impact

(26:31) How to choose an AI infrastructure provider

Links: 

Connect with Serena

Connect with Daria

Connect with Val

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Are you tired of hype, hot takes, and headlines that overpromise and under-explain?

I’m Dr. Serena Huang, and this is The Deep Geeks Podcast, where we go beyond the noise and into what actually matters in AI. In every episode, I sit down with the people who are shaping the future — builders, operators, and enterprise leaders — to unpack the ideas and innovations transforming the field.

Clear thinking. Real expertise. Conversations that actually make you smarter. Because the future doesn’t belong to shallow thinking, it belongs to Deep Geeks.

This podcast is brought to you by WEKA, the AI storage company building the foundation for enterprise and agentic AI innovation.

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