NeurIPS 2025 by Basis Set

Stop worrying about superintelligence. The real threat? "Good enough" AI deployed at massive scale. Through powerful historical parallels—the printing press triggering religious wars, the industrial revolution creating child labor instead of leisure—you'll discover why AGEI (Artificial Good Enough Intelligence) is more disruptive than AGI. When mediocrity can be deployed instantly and cheaply, the hidden frictions holding society together disappear. This episode reframes how you think about AI risk by focusing on what's actually happening now, not science fiction futures.

Topics Covered

- AGEI: Artificial Good Enough Intelligence vs. AGI

- Historical disruption patterns (printing press, industrial revolution)

- Why we consistently mispreddict technology's native capabilities

- Hidden frictions that hold society together

- The fragility of systems when mediocrity scales instantly

The commerce ecosystem is massive, so massive that the sector can sustain entire infrastructure unicorns building nothing but tools and services enabling commerce businesses.

In this conversation between Catherine Stewart, Board Partner at Basis Set and fmr COO of Shippo, and BSV investor John Mannes, we discuss the new APIs, customs automation and cross-border fulfillment and payments infrastructure that will support more streamlined, but globally capable supply chains.

It's clear that offering convenience at-scale means serving large and incredibly diverse arrays of populations. And while it's true that many innovations in convenience, like delivery, started in dense urban centers. Founders would benefit from considering the challenges that companies like 7 Eleven face on a daily basis, getting fresh food to the far corners of America. And tech has a huge role to play in that.

In this conversation between Josh Stramiello, responsible for leading an internal effort to partner with startups transforming food and logistics, and BSV investor John Mannes, we discuss how founders can leverage technology to build convenience solutions that scale to every consumer.

The proposed $2 trillion dollar U.S. infrastructure package will create major incentives for the adoption of climate technology and offer startups many pathways to secure growth funding.

In this conversation between Mona Sheth, Senior Director of Federal Government Relations for Schneider Electric, two policy experts from DC-based government affairs firm Lot 16 and BSV investor John Mannes, we discuss how founders can navigate billions in new non-dilutive funding opportunities for climate tech startups.

In this conversation with Paul Hanna, Head of Procurement at a 150 person manufacturing company, we discuss how the next generation of hardware design tools in manufacturing will be even more tightly connected to the purchasing process, with greater intelligence — increasing collaboration between engineering and procurement teams.

While Covid-19 has pushed technology deeper into the deskless workforce, it’s also elucidating shortcomings of existing tools not optimized for the unique challenges of specific industries and regions of the world.

In this conversation between Kris Kemeny, Managing Director of the venture arm for Tekfen, one of Turkey’s largest industrial conglomerates, and BSV investor John Mannes, we discuss how founders can build for the global deskless workforce while localizing solutions for customers.

While most industries have had enough to manage with Covid-19, the oil and gas sector has had to manage the pandemic, along with a fierce price war between Russia and Saudi Arabia and broader existential questions about its identity in the face of the energy transition.

In this conversation between Iain Cooper, a nearly 30 year veteran of multinational oil field services company Schlumberger and current CEO of drone gas emissions inspection startup SeekOps, and BSV investor John Mannes, we discuss how each facet of the oil & gas industry has been impacted by Covid-19 and unpack the impact of these macro shocks on technology adoption.

73% of companies surveyed in a new report, identify as having encountered major issues in their supply chains as a result of Covid-19. The disruption has been so significant, that major brands are reconsidering once sacred supply chain doctrine. Companies are considering moving operations out of China, holding more inventory in stock and collaborating with competitors to source.

In this conversation between David Shillingford, the chairman of Resilience360, a supply chain risk software company jointly owned by DHL and Columbia Capital, and BSV investor John Mannes, we discuss a new report quantifying the impact of Covid-19 on global supply chains and discuss the implications for the tech ecosystem.

The history of American agriculture is a story of technology improving the efficiency of production. But the volatile global economy of the last decade is showing the industry that efficiency is not everything. Changing consumer taste coupled with increasing pressures of commoditization are forcing farmers to embrace technology as a lever for much needed differentiation.

In this conversation between Matt Nicoletti, the Head of Business Development and Venture Investing at Penny Newman, one of the largest grain distributors in the western United States, and BSV investor John Mannes, we discuss how the agriculture sector is being affected by Covid-19 and the important role technology will play in keeping farms afloat as industry consolidation accelerates amidst a growing economic recession.

The 2008 financial crisis catalyzed the most ambitious real estate technology startups ever founded. Airbnb changed the way homeowners conceptualize home value, Opendoor simplified real estate transactions in a way the industry never thought possible and Compass redefined the role technology plays in agent workflows. As we wade deeper into the Covid-19 crisis, we’ll see similar attempts at differentiated businesses models and novel financial products that help homeowners extract greater value, more conveniently, out of their largest assets.

In this conversation between Sheila Vashee, the VP of Growth and Marketing at OpenDoor, a real estate unicorn simplifying the process of buying and selling homes, and BSV investor John Mannes, we discuss how the real estate industry is being affected by Covid-19 and the important role technology will play in keeping transactions happening and keeping people in their homes coming out of the crisis.