Our guest today is Davis Blalock, Research Scientist and first employee of Mosaic ML; a startup which got recently acquired by Databricks for an astonishing $1.3 billion.

In our conversation, we first talk about Davis' PhD at MIT and his research on making algorithms more efficient. Davis then explains how and why he joined Mosaic and shares the story behind the company. He dives into the product and how they evolved from focusing on deep learning algorithms to generative AI and large language models. 

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Follow Davis on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dblalock/

Follow Neil on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/leiserneil/  

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(00:00) - Intro
(01:40) - How Davis entered the world of Data and AI?
(03:30) - Enhancing ML algorithms' efficiency
(12:50) - Importance of efficiency
(16:37) - Choosing MosaicML over starting his own startup
(25:30) - What is Mosaic ML? 
(37:34) - How did the rise of LLM aid MosaicML's growth?
(46:54) - $1.3 billion acquisition by Databricks
(48:52) - Learnings and failures from working in a startup
(01:00:05) - Career advice