Amias Gerety is a partner at QED Investors, a fintech-focused VC firm with $3.8 Billion under management. He was previously the Assistant Secretary at the US Department of Treasury. And he graduated from Harvard.

Amias's favorite book: The Origin of Species (Author: Charles Darwin)

(00:01) Introduction and Setting the Stage
(00:29) The Status Quo: AI Agents and Online Purchases
(02:20) The Current Payment Infrastructure Explained
(04:42) Automation Today: Auto-Complete and Recurring Payments
(06:09) Why AI Agents Need Dedicated Financial Infrastructure
(08:29) Historical Examples: Auctions, Bots, and Payment Systems
(09:32) Identifying and Verifying AI Agents in Commerce
(11:59) Risks of Agentic Commerce: Lessons from Knight Capital
(14:47) Stripe’s Role in Agent Payments: SDKs and Gaps
(19:46) Opportunities for Startups in Agentic Frameworks
(22:49) Challenges: Disputes, Chargebacks, and Reversals
(26:32) Regulation and Governance in Agentic Payments
(28:24) Building Merchant Trust in AI Transactions
(30:11) Needs of AI Developers: Reliability in Transactions
(33:04) The Future of Agentic Commerce and Microtransactions
(35:42) Building Consumer Trust in Agentic Systems
(38:45) Broader AI Applications in Finance
(40:13) Rapid Fire

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Where to find Amias Gerety:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/amias-gerety/

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Where to find Prateek Joshi:

Newsletter: https://prateekjoshi.substack.com 
Website: https://prateekj.com 
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/prateek-joshi-91047b19 
Twitter: https://twitter.com/prateekvjoshi 

Cody Coleman is the cofounder and CEO of Coactive AI, a multimodal AI platform to accelerate metadata generation. They recently raised their $30M Series B co-led by Cherryrock Capital and Emerson Collective along with participation from Greycroft, Andreessen Horowitz, and Bessemer Venture Partners. He has a masters degree from MIT and a PhD from Stanford.

Cody's favorite books:
- The Inner Game of Tennis (Author: W. Timonthy Gallwey)
- Gettine More (Author: Stuart Diamond)

(00:01) Introduction: Setting the Stage for Metadata
(00:21) What is Metadata? Structure in Unstructured Data
(01:37) Metadata in Real-World Visual Data Analysis
(03:01) Automating Metadata Generation: Challenges and Approaches
(06:57) Introduction to Multimodal AI: What and Why
(11:25) Managing Trade-Offs in Multimodal AI Systems
(13:31) Labeling Challenges in Multimodal Datasets
(16:23) Characteristics of an Ideal Metadata Language
(18:22) Linking Metadata Quality to Model Effectiveness
(20:56) Measuring Efficiency of Metadata Extraction Engines
(22:55) Role of Synthetic Data in Metadata and AI
(25:30) Evolution of Data Labeling and Future of Metadata
(27:27) Exciting Technological Advancements in AI
(29:29) Rapid Fire Round

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Where to find Prateek Joshi:

Newsletter: https://prateekjoshi.substack.com 
Website: https://prateekj.com 
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/prateek-joshi-91047b19 
Twitter: https://twitter.com/prateekvjoshi 

Gilwoo Lee is the founder and CEO of Zordi, a company that builds and operates autonomous greenhouses with mobile robots and AI. They raised $20M in their most recent funding round led by Khosla Ventures. She has degrees from MIT, CMU, and University of Washington.

Gilwoo's favorite book: Masayoshi Son's 300-Year Plan (Author: Takashi Sugimoto)

(00:01) Introduction
(00:08) What is a Greenhouse?
(01:08) Greenhouse Usage in Different Regions
(02:45) Advantages and Challenges of Greenhouses
(06:15) Crops Suitable for Greenhouses
(08:23) Introduction to Autonomous Greenhouses
(10:40) Technology Stack of Autonomous Greenhouses
(12:17) Factors Affecting Crop Growth and Automation
(14:00) Data Requirements for AI Models in Greenhouses
(15:14) Upgrading Traditional Greenhouses to Autonomous
(17:26) Tasks Managed by Robots in Greenhouses
(18:45) Engineering Challenges in Robotics for Greenhouses
(20:16) Future of Robotics in Greenhouses
(21:39) Robotics Supply Chain and Standardization
(23:23) Verticalized vs. General-Purpose Robots
(27:16) Robotics Foundation Models
(29:52) Economics of Autonomous Greenhouses
(33:16) Future of Autonomous Farming
(34:01) Rapid Fire Round

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Where to find Prateek Joshi:
 
Newsletter: https://prateekjoshi.substack.com 
Website: https://prateekj.com 
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/prateek-joshi-91047b19 
Twitter: https://twitter.com/prateekvjoshi 

Vivas Kumar is the cofounder and CEO of Mitra Chem, the first lithium-ion battery materials product company focused on shortening the lab-to-production timeline by over 90%. They recently raised more than $80M in funding from Social Capital, General Motors, Alpha Wave Ventures, and others.

Vivas's favorite book: Long Walk to Freedom: The Autobiography of Nelson Mandela (Author: Nelson Mandela)

(00:01) Introduction
(02:25) How Lithium-Ion Batteries Work
(04:56) Evolution of Battery Materials
(06:46) Development of Lithium-Ion Battery Technology
(08:10) Optimizing Battery Properties: Cost, Energy Density, and Cycle Life
(10:52) Supply Chain of Battery Materials
(13:16) From Lab to Production: Key Bottlenecks
(15:26) Using AI to Accelerate Synthesis Design
(18:18) Battery Cell Qualification: Process and Importance
(20:13) Managing Risk in AI-Driven Battery Experiments
(21:20) Data Generation for AI-Driven Battery Development
(22:52) Challenges in Manufacturing Large-Scale Batteries
(25:02) Current Limitations in Battery Materials Development
(26:39) Next-Generation Battery Materials in the Pipeline
(27:50) Advancements in Battery Technology Beyond Materials
(29:52) Advice for New Founders in the Battery Industry
(31:42) Rapid Fire Round

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Where to find Prateek Joshi:

Newsletter: https://prateekjoshi.substack.com 
Website: https://prateekj.com 
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/prateek-joshi-91047b19 
Twitter: https://twitter.com/prateekvjoshi 

Alan Cowen is the cofounder and CEO of Hume, a company building voice-to-voice foundation models. They recently raised their $50M Series B from Union Square Ventures, Nat Friedman, Daniel Gross, and others.

Alan's favorite book: 1984 (Author: George Orwell)

(00:01) Introduction
(00:06) Defining Voice-to-Voice Foundation Models
(01:26) Historical Context: Handling Voice and Speech Understanding
(03:54) Emotion Detection in Voice AI Models
(04:33) Training Models to Recognize Human Emotion in Speech
(07:19) Cultural Variations in Emotional Expressions
(09:00) Semantic Space Theory in Emotion Recognition
(12:11) Limitations of Basic Emotion Categories
(15:50) Recognizing Blended Emotional States
(20:15) Objectivity in Emotion Science
(24:37) Practical Aspects of Deploying Voice AI Systems
(28:17) Real-Time System Constraints and Latency
(31:30) Advancements in Voice AI Models
(32:54) Rapid-Fire Round

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Where to find Prateek Joshi:

Newsletter: https://prateekjoshi.substack.com 
Website: https://prateekj.com 
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/prateek-joshi-91047b19 
Twitter: https://twitter.com/prateekvjoshi 

Hassaan Raza is the cofounder and CEO of Tavus, a video API platform for digital twins. They've raised more than $28M in funding from investors such as Sequoia and Scale VP.

Hassaan's favorite book: Go Like Hell (Author: A. J. Baime)

(00:01) Introduction
(00:38) Overview of AI in video generation
(01:44) AI models used in video generation
(03:35) Capturing intricate facial movements in real-time
(06:46) Data capture and 3D modeling from basic video input
(09:01) Explanation of neural radiance fields and Gaussian splatting
(10:14) Capturing facial expressions for video generation
(15:22) Temporal coherence in video generation
(18:05) Challenges in conversational video, including lip-syncing and emotion alignment
(20:38) Inference challenges in conversational video
(22:47) Bottlenecks in the pipeline: LLMs and time-to-first-token
(26:58) Multimodal models and trade-offs
(27:36) Advice for founders running API businesses
(30:04) Pitfalls to avoid in API businesses
(32:15) Technological breakthroughs in AI
(34:10) Rapid-fire round

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Where to find Prateek Joshi:

Newsletter: https://prateekjoshi.substack.com 
Website: https://prateekj.com 
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/prateek-joshi-91047b19 
Twitter: https://twitter.com/prateekvjoshi 

Alex Gallego is the founder and CEO of Redpanda, a streaming data platform built for data-intensive applications. They've raised more than $165M in funding from investors such as Lightspeed, GV, and Haystack. He was previously the cofounder and CTO of Concord Systems.

(00:01) Introduction
(00:07) Defining Streaming Data
(04:14) Evolution of Streaming Data Systems Over the Last 10 Years
(09:10) Introduction to Sovereign AI
(14:14) How Sovereign AI Works in Practice
(19:51) Infrastructure Needed for Sovereign AI
(23:48) Sensitive Workloads in Enterprise AI
(28:01) Foundation Models and Streaming Data
(32:41) Breakthroughs in AI Related to Streaming Data
(34:39) Rapid Fire Round

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Where to find Alex Gallego:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexandergallego

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Where to find Prateek Joshi:

Newsletter: https://prateekjoshi.substack.com 
Website: https://prateekj.com 
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/prateek-joshi-91047b19 
Twitter: https://twitter.com/prateekvjoshi 

Will Lu is the cofounder and CTO of Orby AI, an AI platform to automate people's repetitive tasks. He was previously the Head of Engineering at Google and a Systems Software Engineer at Nvidia.

Will's favorite book: Beyond Enterpreneurship (Authors: Jim Collins and William Lazier)

(00:01) Introduction
(00:07) History of RPA
(01:04) Building Blocks of RPA
(02:34) Drawbacks of Traditional RPA
(05:06) Introduction to AI-Native RPA
(06:38) Advantages of AI-Native RPA
(08:14) Defining Generative Process Automation (GPA)
(10:15) Explanation of Large Action Models
(11:47) Role of AI Agents in Process Automation
(13:11) Data for Building Large Action Models
(14:44) Benchmarking Large Action Models
(15:53) Risk Mitigation in AI-Native RPA
(17:44) Changing Roles in the RPA Industry
(19:14) Adoption of Agent Technologies
(21:03) ROI Measurement in AI-Native RPA
(23:05) Explainability in AI Systems
(24:25) Fast Adoption Teams in Enterprises
(25:15) Handling Unstructured Data
(26:12) Digital Organizations and Future Automation
(27:09) Exciting AI Breakthroughs
(28:03) Rapid Fire Round

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Where to find Prateek Joshi:

Newsletter: https://prateekjoshi.substack.com 
Website: https://prateekj.com 
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/prateek-joshi-91047b19 
Twitter: https://twitter.com/prateekvjoshi 

Tim Tully is a partner at Menlo Ventures, a VC firm that has invested in companies like Uber, Anthropic, Pinecone, Benchling, Chime, Carta, Recursion, and more. He was previously the CTO of Splunk, a publicly traded company that was acquired by Cisco for $28 billion. Prior to that, he was the VP of Engineering at Yahoo for 14 years.

Tim's favorite book: Infinite Jest (Author: David Foster Wallace)

(00:01) Introduction
(00:07) Evolution of Databases
(03:17) Enduring Business Models in Data Management
(04:41) Challenges and Trade-offs in Database Choices
(06:20) Modern Database Architecture
(09:06) Separation of Storage and Compute
(10:35) Role of Indexing in LLM Applications
(13:20) Handling Different Types of Data in Databases
(14:50) Distributed Databases Explained
(16:20) Real-time Data Handling and Requirements
(18:53) Architecting Data Infrastructure for AI
(21:29) ETL in Modern Data Infrastructure
(24:53) AI's Role in Database Optimization
(27:17) Network Architecture
(30:13) Hardware Improvements and Database Performance
(33:35) Technological Breakthroughs and Investment Opportunities
(35:11) Rapid Fire Round

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Where to find Prateek Joshi:

Newsletter: https://prateekjoshi.substack.com 
Website: https://prateekj.com 
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/prateek-joshi-91047b19 
Twitter: https://twitter.com/prateekvjoshi 

Brad Porter is the founder and CEO of Collaborative Robotics, where they are building robots that will seamlessly blend into our surroundings. They've raised funding from Sequoia Capital, Khosla Ventures, General Catalyst, and Lux Capital. He was previously the CTO of Scale AI. Prior to that, he was the VP of Robotics at Amazon. He has a bachelors and masters degree from MIT.

Brad's favorite book: Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel (Author: Virginia Lee Burton)

(00:00) Introduction
(02:11) Collaborative Robots Explained
(05:17) Building Blocks in Robotics
(11:01) Architecture of a Cobot
(14:12) Safety in Industrial Settings
(18:08) Sensors in Cobots
(20:20) Power Consumption and Optimization
(23:31) Zonal Compute Architecture
(26:34) AI Models for Task Planning
(30:32) Reasoning and Human Interaction
(35:00) Simulation to Real-World Deployment
(38:49) Multi-Robot Coordination
(41:57) Technological Breakthroughs in Robotics
(45:29) Rapid Fire Round

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Where to find Prateek Joshi:

Newsletter: https://prateekjoshi.substack.com 
Website: https://prateekj.com 
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/prateek-joshi-91047b19 
Twitter: https://twitter.com/prateekvjoshi