Very few startups set out to compete with the biggest leaders in their industry - let alone those who are among the biggest companies in the world. But that doesn't mean it's not possible. In 2020, Greylock investor Sridhar Ramaswamy (who joined the firm following 15 years at Google) launched Neeva, a new kind of search company. The differentiator? Neeva is an ad-free, subscription-based search engine that doesn't track users across the internet. Ramaswamy, his fellow Greylock investor Reid Hoffman, and Chris Yeh discuss how startups have made audacious bets in the most competitive markets, and what makes it possible for them to thrive. You can read the essay version of this podcast here: https://greylock.com/greymatter/taking-on-tech-titans/
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Reid Hoffman and Sridhar Ramaswamy | Taking on Tech Giants

How do tech startups go from idea…to iconic? Greymatter’s weekly podcast features interviews with VCs, founders, and tech visionaries on everything from AI, marketplaces, and cybersecurity as well as company-building strategies like growth, finding product-market-fit, and recruiting top talent. Founders and VCs offer candid accounts of success, failure, and adaptation. Greymatter delivers practical insights mixed with the bold optimism that defines entrepreneurship.

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Greylock partner Corinne Riley reads her essay "Code Smarter, Not Harder: Solving the Unknowns to Developing AI Engineers."
Building AI tools for code generation and engineering workflows is one of the most exciting and worthy undertakings by startups today. But there are still many open questions about the technical unlocks that must be solved to make coding tools that work as well as (or better than) human engineers in a production setting. Riley explores these core questions alongside an analysis of the current ecosystem of startups developing AI coding tools. You can read the essay here: https://greylock.com/greymatter/code-smarter-not-harder/


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Code Smarter, Not Harder

App-tracking rules closed the door on user-tracking and targeted ads, but AI opened up new channels of engagement and personalization that previously weren’t possible. Commerce infrastructure company Fermat ushers businesses into this new era of online retail. CEO and co-founder Rishabh Jain talks with Greylock partner Saam Motamedi about the double impact of ATT and AI on commerce, and how Fermat is helping to build the next generation of online businesses. You can read the transcript of this interview here on greylock.com.
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Reinventing Distributed Commerce with AI

Audio version of the essay "The Big 4 Era: Shifting Power Dynamics in the AI-Focused Cloud" written by Greylock partners Jason Risch and Jerry Chen (read by Greylock head of editorial Heather Mack).
It’s never been harder to compete with the Big 3 cloud providers. As the AI revolution has shifted NVIDIA into the central power broker of the tech ecosystem, AWS, Azure, and GCP have rushed to build their AI edge. In this “Big 4” era, What’s left for startups?
At Greylock, we see ample opportunities in developer tools, infrastructure, agents, apps, security, codegen, and robotics. These observations our based on our daily work, as well as our ongoing data collection and analysis for our Castles in the Cloud project. This essay outlines those areas of opportunity, as well as those that are better suited for incumbents. You can read the essay at greylock.com.
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Shifting Power Dynamics in AI-Focused Cloud

Guest episode of Product-Led AI, a new podcast series hosted by Greylock partner Seth Rosenberg featuring conversations with leading AI builders.
Adept CEO and co-founder David Luan has been riding the LLM wave since the early days of the modern AI boom: an early OpenAI employee, he led the company’s engineering team before serving as the tech lead for Google Brain’s work on LLMs. He co-founded Adept in 2022 to develop multimodal agents built to work alongside humans in any profession. Believing computers should work more like humans and not the other way around, Adept has stood out for its human-centric approach to AGI. 
In this episode, David talks about the moment he realized building a new product (and a startup) was a faster track to AGI; breaks down the frameworks for Adept; and shares his view of a future where AI functions almost invisibly below all software we use. 
Check out the whole series at productledaipod.com
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Product-Led AI: Adept CEO David Luan on Upleveling Human Work

Guest episode of Product-Led AI, the new series hosted by Greylock partner Seth Rosenberg where he chats with builders who put the power of AI into products that people love.
This week, AI visionary (and fellow Greylock partner) Reid Hoffman talks with Seth about the main opportunities in the application layer of AI, with an extra deep dive on AI-powered networks and marketplaces. Having been instrumental in building and scaling several iconic networks throughout his career, Hoffman has learned the core fundamentals of building these types of businesses don't change much - they just look different, depending on the latest tech platform shift. 
About the series: Investor and former product builder Seth Rosenberg talks with founders about their inspiration and process to build, test, and continually reimagine how AI and humans work together. You can find more about the series at productledaipod.com.
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Reid Hoffman and Sridhar Ramaswamy | Taking on Tech Giants

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