No Priors: Artificial Intelligence | Technology | Startups

In this episode of No Priors, Sarah and Elad unpack the current state of the AI market - whether it’s consolidating, what’s enabling or blocking key mergers, and where the most promising untapped opportunities lie, particularly in biotech. They also explore the rise of world models and how AI’s novel methods for understanding complex systems may ultimately reshape how humans approach discovery and problem-solving. 

Show Notes:

0:00 Is the AI market consolidating into clear winners? + the physics of the current landscape

7:01 Why more companies don’t merge (even when it makes sense) 

10:09 Exploring biotech’s biggest commercial opportunities and the challenges founders face 

17:14 Building world models 

21:34 How AI is expanding the way humans reason, design, and evolve systems

Arvind Jain joins Sarah and Elad on this episode of No Priors. Arvind is the founder and CEO of Glean, an AI-powered enterprise search platform. He previously co-founded Rubrik and spent over a decade as an engineering leader at Google. In this episode, Arvind shares how LLMs are transforming enterprise search, why most tools in the space have failed, and the opportunity to build apps powered by internal knowledge. He discusses how much customization is still needed on top of foundation models, what made building Glean uniquely challenging compared to Arvind’s previous ventures, and what’s next for the company.

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Show Notes:

0:00 Introduction

0:58 How LLMs are changing search

2:05 Building out Glean’s platform

5:09 Why most search companies failed

8:41 Out of the box vs. bespoke models 

10:26 Creating apps on top of internal knowledge

15:34 User behaviors & insights 

19:11 Unique challenges of building Glean 

21:51 Product-led growth vs. enterprise sales

25:00 Succeeding in traditionally bad markets 

27:08 What Glean is excited to build next

On this episode of No Priors, Sarah talks to Luis von Ahn, founder and CEO of Duolingo, the world’s most popular education app with over 116 million monthly users and a market cap of approximately $17 billion. Controversially, it has recently committed to being “AI-first.” They discuss why motivation is the biggest challenge in education, how Duolingo harnesses game mechanics and behavioral insights to keep learners engaged, and the company’s efforts to leverage AI to personalize education at scale. Luis also shares thoughts on the Duolingo brand, courses beyond language (chess and math), and the broader impact of AI on content creation.

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Links:

Show Notes:

0:00 Introduction

4:01  Optimizing learning behavior through tech

11:20 Adopting AI at Duolingo

17:25 AI’s threat to content companies

18:34 An unhinged corporate brand

21:28 How do people learn?

25:16 What people misunderstand about Duolingo?

26:24 How AI is transforming learning at scale

30:28 Leveraging AI across the business

This week on No Priors, Elad and Sarah sit down with Eric Mitchell and Brandon McKinzie, two of the minds behind OpenAI’s O3 model. They discuss what makes O3 unique, including its focus on reasoning, the role of reinforcement learning, and how tool use enables more powerful interactions. The conversation explores the unification of model capabilities, what the next generation of human-AI interfaces could look like, and how models will continue to advance in the years ahead.

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Show Notes:

0:00 What is o3?

3:21 Reinforcement learning in o3

4:44 Unification of models

8:56 Why tool use helps test time scaling

11:10 Deep research

16:00 Future ways to interact with models

22:03 General purpose vs specialized models

25:30 Simulating AI interacting with the world

29:36 How will models advance?

On this episode of No Priors, Sarah sits down with Isa Fulford, one of the masterminds behind deep research. They unpack how the initiative began, the role of human expert data, and what it takes to build agents with real-world capability and even taste. Isa shares the differences between deep research and OpenAI’s o3 model, the challenges around latency, and how she sees agent capabilities evolving. Plus, OpenAI has announced that deep research is free for all US users starting today.

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Show Notes:

0:00 Deep research’s inception & evolution

6:12 Data creation 

7:20 Reinforcement fine-tuning

9:05 Why human expert data matters

11:23 Failure modes of agents

13:55 The roadmap ahead for Deep Research

18:32 How do agents develop taste? 

19:29 Experience and path to building a broadly capable agent

22:03 Deep research vs. o3

25:55 Latency

27:56 Predictions for agent capabilities

This week on No Priors, Sarah and Elad are joined by Josh Goldman, cofounder and president of KoBold Metals. KoBold is using AI to transform how we discover critical minerals like lithium and cobalt, making the exploration process faster, more precise, and more scalable than traditional methods. In this episode, Josh explains how KoBold is rethinking the fundamentals of mineral exploration by combining unique datasets, scientific modeling, and predictive algorithms. They dive into the company’s driving philosophy and technical approach, how they validate underground hypotheses, and why regulatory knowledge and a localized approach are crucial. Josh also discusses what success looks like in exploration today and the scarcity of world-class deposits.

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Show Notes:

0:00 Introduction

0:29 KoBold Metals

3:14 Using unique datasets

6:20 Traditional methods of lithium exploration

8:38 Regulatory vs. rarity constraints

13:40 Technical approach

16:25 Validating hypotheses

23:56 Redefining success in mineral exploration

25:44 Scarcity of good projects and deposits

32:44 Philosophy behind prediction

36:46 KoBold’s origin story

On this episode of No Priors, Sarah and Elad sit down with Brendan Foody, CEO and cofounder of Mercor, to discuss the company’s rapid growth and their vision for the future of the labor market. They dive into how AI is reshaping the workforce in real, tangible ways and what skills are worth investing in today. Brendan shares insights on evaluating talent in an AI-driven world, including how models might identify outlier or 10x candidates and even assess “taste.” The conversation also touches on the evolving role of human data, the future of hiring in fast-scaling startups, and whether AI will act as an individual contributor or a data-centric manager.

Show Notes:

0:00 Introduction

0:16 Building Mercor

3:00 Identifying outlier talent with AI

9:07 How AI is reshaping the workforce: job displacement & evolution

11:18 What skills should we invest in now?

12:18 Verifiability

13:36 Evaluating models

16:07 What should kids learn today?

17:05 Evaluating taste in talent assessments

18:45 Future of data collection

26:07 Humans’ role in the AI economy

28:53 AI as a contributor vs. a manager

33:03 Mercor’s goals 

34:50 Evolution of labor markets 

36:00 Hiring advice

In this episode of No Priors, Sarah and Elad examine the current state of AI. They break down the recent dip in public markets, how tariffs could impact the tech industry, and where opportunities remain in large language models. They highlight the opportunities in more specialized models, new approaches to model development, and how the market is beginning to standardize with integrations like the Model Context Protocol (MCP). The episode ends with a look at early consumer AI applications and what types of expertise will matter most in the coming years.

Show Notes:

0:00 Improvements in image gen

4:42 Public markets 

8:08 Effects of tariffs on tech

9:42 Today’s large model market

11:34 Opportunities in specialized models

16:30 Research advances in model approaches

21:10 What expertise will matter?

24:30 Anthropic’s Model Context Protocol 

26:30 Consumer applications

In this episode of No Priors, Elad and Sarah chat with Shiv Rao, MD, founder and CEO of Abridge. They dive into how Abridge is reshaping healthcare by creating AI tools that enhance clinical documentation and improve doctor-patient interactions. Shiv shares his thoughts on building trust with established healthcare systems, giving agency and time back to clinicians, and what makes the healthcare AI opportunity different today. They also discuss Abridge’s approach to developing and launching AI products, along with Shiv’s journey in founding Abridge.

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Show Notes: 

0:00 Introduction 

0:35 Abridge’s Story and Vision 

5:30 Strategy for Customer Choice 

7:41 Healthcare AI Opportunities 

11:24 Navigating Incumbent Partnerships 

14:26 Doctor-Centric AI Solutions 

19:54 Abridge’s Future Plans 

22:13 AI’s Impact on Healthcare 

28:43 Shipping and Iterating Products 

32:50 Shiv’s Journey to Abridge

This week on No Priors, Elad speaks with Chelsea Finn, cofounder of Physical Intelligence and currently Associate Professor at Stanford, leading the Intelligence through Learning and Interaction Lab. They dive into how robots learn, the challenges of training AI models for the physical world, and the importance of diverse data in reaching generalizable intelligence. Chelsea explains the evolving landscape of open-source vs. closed-source robotics and where AI models are likely to have the biggest impact first. They also compare the development of robotics to self-driving cars, explore the future of humanoid and non-humanoid robots, and discuss what’s still missing for AI to function effectively in the real world. If you’re curious about the next phase of AI beyond the digital space, this episode is a must-listen.

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Show Notes:

0:00 Introduction

0:31 Chelsea’s background in robotics

3:10 Physical Intelligence 

5:13 Defining their approach and model architecture

7:39 Reaching generalizability and diversifying robot data

9:46 Open source vs. closed source

12:32 Where will PI’s models integrate first?

14:34 Humanoid as a form factor

16:28 Embodied intelligence

17:36 Key turning points in robotics progress

20:05 Hierarchical interactive robot and decision-making

22:21 Choosing data inputs

26:25 Self driving vs robotics market

28:37 Advice to robotics founders

29:24 Observational data and data generation

31:57 Future robotic forms