High Agency: The Podcast for AI Builders

Latest Episodes:

How Graphite's $50M Series B is Transforming AI Code Review May 20, 2025

Show notes

Merrill Lutsky, co-founder and CEO of Graphite, discusses their evolution from stack diff workflows to Diamond, an AI code review agent that just helped secure their $50M Series B. He shares insights on building reliable AI review systems, why over-generating and pruning comments works better than single responses, and the shift from RAG to agentic code browsing. Merrill offers a provocative vision where developers define requirements and AI agents build the code, potentially eliminating traditional IDE coding. This episode provides valuable perspectives on how AI is fundamentally reshaping software development workflows and engineering roles.

Chapters:
00:00 - Introduction and Graphite overview
01:58 - Evolution from stack diffs to AI review
07:39 - Diamond: The AI code reviewer explained
10:13 - Human vs AI review: Finding the balance
11:44 - Engineering challenges of reliable AI review
17:38 - Over-generate and prune: A winning strategy
24:49 - From RAG to code browser agents
28:12 - The bitter lesson of AI engineering
30:48 - The future of software engineering
37:33 - Is AI over or under-hyped?

The End of Language-Only Models l Amit Jain, Luma AI May 13, 2025

Show notes

This week Raza is joined by Amit Jain, CEO and co-founder of Luma AI, to explore why the future of artificial intelligence lies beyond language. Amit shares Luma’s bold mission to build world models through multimodal training and why video is the most overlooked and critical data source in AI today.

Chapters:
00:00 - Introduction
03:40 - Competing with Big AI Labs: Language vs. Multimodality
08:09 - Joint Training and Why Current Multimodal Models Fall Short
11:01 - Language is Discrete, the World is Continuous
14:36 - Do These Models Have World Models?
18:18 - Planning, Counterfactuals, and Causal Reasoning in AI
22:08 - Capabilities of Ray 2 and Real-World Use Cases
26:14 - Rethinking Video Length and Creative Workflows
29:18 - Solving Coherence Across Shots and Characters
30:00 - When Will AI Create a Feature-Length Film?
31:27 - What You Can Build with Luma’s API Today
35:49 - Overlooked Ideas and Noise in the AI Industry
38:34 - Why Video is the Missing Link in AI

From 0 to $40M in 5 Months: Bolt.new Story with Eric Simons Apr 03, 2025

Show notes

Eric Simons discusses the meteoric rise of Bolt.new, an AI-powered web app builder that went from zero to $40 million ARR in just five months. He shares insights on how they built an AI agent capable of creating full-stack web applications from simple prompts, the challenges of rapid growth, and the future of AI in software development. From nearly shutting down the company to becoming one of the fastest-growing AI products in history, Eric offers valuable lessons for anyone building in the AI space.

Chapters:
00:00 - Introduction and Bolt.new overview
06:05 - The journey from near-shutdown to rapid growth
13:28 - Challenges of explosive growth and scaling
18:50 - Technical deep dive: Building Bolt.new
26:37 - Debugging and improving AI-generated code
32:09 - Future directions and enterprise adoption
34:11 - Advice for building AI applications
37:03 - The concept of "vibe revenue" in AI startups
39:39 - Is AI over or under-hyped?

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Humanloop is the LLM evals platform for enterprises. We give you the tools that top teams use to ship and scale AI with confidence. To find out more go to humanloop.com

Saving Pharma Companies Billions with AI l Patrick Leung from Faro Health Mar 21, 2025

Show notes

In this episode of High Agency, Patrick Leung from Faro Health explains how they're using AI to revolutionize clinical trial design by both generating regulatory documents and extracting insights from thousands of existing trials. Patrick emphasises the essential collaboration between clinical experts and AI engineers when building reliable systems in healthcare's high-stakes environment.

Chapters:
00:00 - Introduction
04:26 - Clinical trials before: Microsoft Word Documents
08:17 - Document generation using AI
12:26 - What makes clinical trials so expensive
16:26 - Parsing and processing clinical trial data
18:04 - Challenges with traditional evaluation metrics
21:28 - Importance of domain experts in the evaluation process
24:35 - Collaboration between domain experts and engineering
31:26 - Building a graph-based knowledge system
34:27 - Roles and skillsets required
38:06 - Lessons learned building LLM products
40:56 - Discussion on AI capabilities and limitations
46:07 - Is AI overhyped or underhyped

100x Hiring Speed with Superhuman Recruiters l Metaview Co-Founder Mar 07, 2025

Show notes

In this episode, Raza is joined by Shahriar Tajbakhsh, the co-founder of Metaview. They discuss how Metaview’s AI scribe automates interview note-taking, how AI agents can surface top candidates from thousands of resumes, and why hiring managers should think of AI as a co-worker, not just a tool. Raza's recomended reading: Creating a LLM-as-a-Judge That Drives Business Results.

Chapters:
00:00 - Introduction
03:32 - How AI Co-Workers Are Transforming Recruiting
06:21 - Inside MetaView: AI Scribe and Workflow Automation
09:11 - Unlocking Hiring Insights with AI-Driven Conversations
11:30 - Balancing AI Innovation and User Adoption
14:05 - Metaview’s Tech Stack and the Role of LLMs
18:29 - How MetaView Generates Superhuman Interview Notes
23:18 - The Challenges of Building Reliable AI Hiring Agents
32:40 - The Future of AI in Hiring: Automating Job Descriptions
40:26 - AI Co-Workers That Work While You Sleep
47:08 - Why Vertical AI Will Win Over General AI Agents
50:24 - The Underrated Power of Graph-Based AI

AI Will Replace Command Lines I Ex-Google Tech Lead and Founder at Warp Feb 21, 2025

Show notes

In this episode, Raza Habib chats with Zach Lloyd, CEO and founder of Warp, about how AI is transforming the developer experience. They explore how Warp is reimagining the command line, the power of AI-driven automation, and what the future holds for coding workflows.

Chapters:
00:00 - Introduction
04:06 - Why the terminal needed reinvention
07:11 - AI’s role in Warp’s evolution
08:55 - Key AI features in Warp
12:49 - Balancing safety, reliability, and usability
19:43 - Challenges in AI-Powered development
22:33 - Changing developer behavior with AI
27:24 - Prompt engineering and context optimization
31:05 - Lessons for building AI products
37:50 - The future of AI in software development
46:42 - Underappreciated AI innovations
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Humanloop is the LLM evals platform for enterprises. We give you the tools that top teams use to ship and scale AI with confidence. To find out more go to humanloop.com

Google Is Dead: How This 144-GPU Startup Is Building Einstein-Level AI Search I Will Bryk | Exa CEO Feb 07, 2025

Show notes

Will Bryk, CEO of Exa, sits down with Raza Habib to reveal why traditional search engines are becoming obsolete and how his startup is building an AI-powered search engine for the future. From constructing a massive GPU cluster to predicting AI will surpass human mathematicians by 2026, Will shares fascinating insights about the technological breakthroughs that will reshape society in the coming months.

Chapters:

00:00 - Introduction
05:13 - Exa as a Tool for LLMs and Neural Search
06:19 - Introducing "Websets" and Its Use Cases
10:16 - Building a Compute Cluster: Why Own vs. Rent?
12:00 - The Bitter Lesson and Scalability in AI
17:11 - Interesting Use Cases for Exa
19:44 - People Search and CRM Opportunities
21:10 - Predictions for AI Progress and Test-Time Compute
27:10 - Implications of AI on Creative Tasks and Society
29:15 - Automation, Jobs, and the Knowledge Economy
33:57 - What Could Stop AI Progress?
36:22 - Advice for AI Builders and Entrepreneurs

$100M raised: How Decagon is building better AI agents I Jesse Zhang Jan 22, 2025

Show notes

In this episode, Jesse Zhang joins Raza to discuss building cutting-edge AI agents for customer support. They explore how his early passion for LLMs led to creating a company that’s transforming the way businesses like Rippling, Duolingo, and Webflow interact with customers. Jesse breaks down the challenges of scaling AI systems, the importance of customer feedback, and his predictions for the future of AI.

Chapters:
00:00 - Introduction and Jesse Zhang's Background
01:17 - First Exposure to LLMs and Building Early Projects
04:32 - Decagon’s Rapid Growth and Differentiation in AI
06:37 - Understanding Decagon’s AI Customer Support Product
10:21 - Challenges in Building High-Performance AI Systems
13:14 - Evolution from Simple RAG to Agent Architectures
16:54 - Measuring Accuracy with Evals and Customer Feedback
19:05 - Balancing Customization and Reusability Across Clients
22:35 - Handling Customer Data and Incremental Deployment
25:21 - Restructuring Support Teams for AI Integration
27:03 - Team Composition and the Role of Domain Expertise
29:19 - Advice for New AI Builders: Customer-Driven Development
32:21 - Key Insights on AI Agents and Enterprise Adoption
36:34 - Predictions for AI Advancements in 2025
39:41 - Is AI Overhyped or Underhyped?
41:07 - Closing Remarks and Final Thoughts

How GitHub Copilot Became the First LLM-Powered Developer Tool with Ryan Salva Jan 07, 2025

Show notes

On this week's episode, former GitHub Copilot lead Ryan Salva breaks down how AI coding tools became ubiquitous almost overnight. They discuss the critical differences between what novice and expert developers expect from AI, why starting with predictive text was both a blessing and a curse, and how the rapid adoption of AI assistance is reshaping the future of software development.

Chapters:
00:00 - Introduction
01:09 - The Creation of GitHub Copilot
05:39 - From Prototype to Product: Challenges in Scaling
07:37 - How GitHub Copilot Works Behind the Scenes
11:18 - Metrics That Matter: Evaluating AI Success
14:43 - Building Momentum: What It Feels Like to Launch a Hit
17:51 - The Evolution of AI Tools for Developers
21:13 - Evaluations and Testing in AI Development
26:00 - The Role of Automation and the Future of Coding
30:53 - Will Engineers Still Write Code in the Future?
33:16 - Advice for Aspiring AI Builders
36:51 - Is AI Overhyped or Underhyped?
38:17 - Closing Reflections

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Humanloop is the LLM evals platform for enterprises. We give you the tools that top teams use to ship and scale AI with confidence. To find out more go to humanloop.com

What Gives an AI Founder Staying Power I James Theuerkauf, CEO of Syrup Tech I Sara Ittelson, Partner at Accel Dec 27, 2024

Show notes

In this week's episode, Raza speaks with James Theuerkauf, CEO of Syrup Tech, and Sara Ittelson, Partner at Accel, to explore the challenges and opportunities for entrepreneurs in this transformative era. They discuss building AI-first companies and the lessons learned from scaling in a rapidly evolving space. With practical tips on leveraging data, creating competitive advantages, and sustaining passion for the long haul, this episode offers invaluable guidance for founders in AI.

Chapters:
00:00 - Introduction and Guest Backgrounds
01:27 - Syrup Tech’s Approach to AI in Retail
03:29 - The Role of AI in Demand Forecasting
08:49 - Building Effective AI Systems and Teams
15:30 - How Generative AI is Shaping Businesses
19:18 - Advice for Founders in the AI Era
28:15 - Building an AI-First Company
33:26 - Innovations and Trends in AI
38:47 - Is AI Overhyped or Underhyped?
42:46 - Closing Thoughts and Reflections

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Humanloop is the LLM evals platform for enterprises. We give you the tools that top teams use to ship and scale AI with confidence. To find out more go to humanloop.com

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