Training Data

Phaidra’s Jim Gao on Building the Fourth Industrial Revolution with Reinforcement Learning


Listen Later

After AlphaGo beat Lee Sedol, a young mechanical engineer at Google thought of another game reinforcement learning could win: energy optimization at data centers. Jim Gao convinced his bosses at the Google data center team to let him work with the DeepMind team to try. The initial pilot resulted in a 40% energy savings and led he and his co-founders to start Phaidra to turn this technology into a product.


Jim discusses the challenges of AI readiness in industrial settings and how we have to build on top of the control systems of the 70s and 80s to achieve the promise of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. He believes this new world of self-learning systems and self-improving infrastructure is a key factor in addressing global climate change.


Hosted by: Sonya Huang and Pat Grady, Sequoia Capital 


Mentioned in this episode:

  • Mustafa Suleyman: Co-founder of DeepMind and Inflection AI and currently CEO of Microsoft AI, known to his friends as “Moose”
  • Joe Kava: Google VP of data centers who Jim sent his initial email to pitching the idea that would eventually become Phaidra
  • Constrained optimization: the class of problem that reinforcement learning can be applied to in real world systems 
  • Vedavyas Panneershelvam: co-founder and CTO of Phaidra; one of the original engineers on the AlphaGo project
  • Katie Hoffman: co-founder, President and COO of Phaidra 
  • Demis Hassabis: CEO of DeepMind
    ...more
    View all episodesView all episodes
    Download on the App Store

    Training DataBy Sequoia Capital

    • 4.5
    • 4.5
    • 4.5
    • 4.5
    • 4.5

    4.5

    26 ratings


    More shows like Training Data

    View all
    This Week in Startups by Jason Calacanis

    This Week in Startups

    1,281 Listeners

    a16z Podcast by Andreessen Horowitz

    a16z Podcast

    1,008 Listeners

    The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch by Harry Stebbings

    The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch

    525 Listeners

    Y Combinator Startup Podcast by Y Combinator

    Y Combinator Startup Podcast

    214 Listeners

    Machine Learning Street Talk (MLST) by Machine Learning Street Talk (MLST)

    Machine Learning Street Talk (MLST)

    92 Listeners

    Dwarkesh Podcast by Dwarkesh Patel

    Dwarkesh Podcast

    315 Listeners

    The Logan Bartlett Show by by Redpoint Ventures

    The Logan Bartlett Show

    189 Listeners

    No Priors: Artificial Intelligence | Technology | Startups by Conviction

    No Priors: Artificial Intelligence | Technology | Startups

    106 Listeners

    This Day in AI Podcast by Michael Sharkey, Chris Sharkey

    This Day in AI Podcast

    178 Listeners

    Latent Space: The AI Engineer Podcast by swyx + Alessio

    Latent Space: The AI Engineer Podcast

    70 Listeners

    The Social Radars by Jessica Livingston

    The Social Radars

    94 Listeners

    Crucible Moments by Sequoia Capital

    Crucible Moments

    88 Listeners

    BG2Pod with Brad Gerstner and Bill Gurley by BG2Pod

    BG2Pod with Brad Gerstner and Bill Gurley

    419 Listeners

    AI + a16z by a16z

    AI + a16z

    26 Listeners

    Lightcone Podcast by Y Combinator

    Lightcone Podcast

    18 Listeners