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Google I/O Afterparty: The Future of Human-AI Collaboration, From Veo to Mariner Jun 03, 2025

Show notes

Fresh off impressive releases at Google’s I/O event, three Google Labs leaders explain how they’re reimagining creative tools and productivity workflows. Thomas Iljic details how video generation is merging filmmaking with gaming through generative AI cameras and world-building interfaces in Whisk and Veo. Jaclyn Konzelmann demonstrates how Project Mariner evolved from a disruptive browser takeover to an intelligent background assistant that remembers context across multiple tasks. Simon Tokumine reveals NotebookLM’s expansion beyond viral audio overviews into a comprehensive platform for transforming information into personalized formats. The conversation explores the shift from prompting to showing and telling, the economics of AI-powered e-commerce, and why being “too early” has become Google Labs’ biggest challenge and advantage.

Hosted by Sonya Huang, Sequoia Capital

00:00 Introduction

02:12 Google's AI models and public perception

04:18 Google's history in image and video generation

06:45 Where Whisk and Flow fit

10:30 How close are we to having the ideal tool for the craft?

13:05 Where do the movie and game worlds start to merge?

16:25 Introduction to Project Mariner

17:15 How Mariner works

22:34 Mariner user behaviors

27:07 Temporary tattoos and URL memory

27:53 Project Mariner's future

29:26 Agent capabilities and use cases

31:09 E-commerce and agent interaction

35:03 Notebook LM evolution

48:26 Predictions and future of AI

Mentioned in this episode:

Whisk: Image and video generation app for consumers
Flow: AI-powered filmmaking with new Veo 3 model
Project Mariner: research prototype exploring the future of human-agent interaction, starting with browsers
NotebookLM: tool for understanding and engaging with complex information including Audio Overviews and now a mobile app
Shop with AI Mode: Shopping app with a virtual try-on tool based on your own photos
Stitch: New prompt-based interface to design UI for mobile and web applications.

ControlNet paper: Outlined an architecture for adding conditional language to direct the outputs of image generation with diffusion models

From Data Centers to Dyson Spheres: P-1 AI's Path to Hardware Engineering AGI May 27, 2025

Show notes

Former Airbus CTO Paul Eremenko shares his vision for bringing AI to physical engineering, starting with Archie—an AI agent that works alongside human engineers. P-1 AI is tackling the challenge of generating synthetic training data to teach AI systems about complex physical systems, from data center cooling to aircraft design and beyond. Eremenko explains how Archie breaks down engineering tasks into primitive operations and uses a federated approach combining multiple AI models. The goal is to progress from entry-level engineering capabilities to eventually achieving engineering AGI that can design things humans cannot.

Hosted by Sonya Huang and Pat Grady, Sequoia Capital

Gong’s Amit Bendov: From Meeting Recordings to Revenue AI May 20, 2025

Show notes

CEO Amit Bendov shares how Gong evolved from a meeting transcription tool to an AI-powered revenue platform that's increasing sales capacity by up to 60%. He explains why task-specific AI agents are the key to enterprise adoption, and why human accountability will remain crucial even as AI takes over routine sales tasks. Amit also reveals how Gong survived recent market headwinds by expanding their product suite while maintaining their customer-first approach.

Hosted by Sonya Huang and Pat Grady, Sequoia Capital

Mentioned in this episode:

“New paradigm of AI architectures”: Yann LeCun’s talk at Davos where he talks about the world beyond transformers and LLMs in the next 3-5 years.
The Beginning of Infinity: Book by David Deutsch that Amit says is “mind-changing.”

LIVE: Google's Jeff Dean on the Coming Transformations in AI May 16, 2025

Show notes

At AI Ascent 2025, Jeff Dean makes bold predictions. Discover how the pioneer behind Google's TPUs and foundational AI research sees the technology evolving, from specialized hardware to more organic systems, and future engineering capabilities.

LIVE: Ambient Agents and the New Agent Inbox ft. Harrison Chase of LangChain May 15, 2025

Show notes

Recorded live at Sequoia’s AI Ascent 2025: LangChain CEO Harrison Chase introduces the concept of ambient agents, AI systems that operate continuously in the background responding to events rather than direct human prompts. Learn how these agents differ from traditional chatbots, why human oversight remains essential and how this approach could dramatically scale our ability to leverage AI.

LIVE: How AI is Reinventing Software Business Models ft. Bret Taylor of Sierra May 14, 2025

Show notes

Recorded live at Sequoia’s AI Ascent 2025: Sierra co-founder Bret Taylor discusses why AI is driving a fundamental shift from subscription-based pricing to outcomes-based models. Learn why this transition is harder for incumbents than startups, why applied AI and vertical specialization represent the biggest opportunities for entrepreneurs and how to position your AI company for success in this new paradigm.

LIVE: Sam Altman of OpenAI on Building the ‘Core AI Subscription’ for Your Life May 14, 2025

Show notes

Recorded live at Sequoia’s AI Ascent 2025: Sam reflects on OpenAI’s evolution from a 14-person research lab to a dominant AI platform. He envisions transforming ChatGPT into a deeply personal AI service that remembers your entire life's context—from conversations to emails—while working seamlessly across all services. Sam describes the generation gap in how users engage with ChatGPT, and makes surprisingly specific predictions for the next 2-3 years of AI evolution.

Workday CEO Carl Eschenbach: Building the System of Record for the AI Era May 06, 2025

Show notes

Workday CEO and Sequoia partner Carl Eschenbach explains how the company is evolving its platform to handle both human and AI workers. He shares Workday’s three-pronged approach to monetizing AI through seat-based pricing, role-based agents and consumption-based API access. Eschenbach discusses why domain-specific agents with curated data will be more valuable than general-purpose models in the enterprise, and how Workday is helping enterprises navigate the transition to an AI-powered workplace while maintaining human connection.

Hosted by: Sonya Huang and Pat Grady, Sequoia Capital

The Quest to ‘Solve All Diseases’ with AI: Isomorphic Labs’ Max Jaderberg Apr 29, 2025

Show notes

After pioneering reinforcement learning breakthroughs at DeepMind with Capture the Flag and AlphaStar, Max Jaderberg aims to revolutionize drug discovery with AI as Chief AI Officer of Isomorphic Labs, which was spun out of DeepMind. He discusses how AlphaFold 3's diffusion-based architecture enables unprecedented understanding of molecular interactions, and why we're approaching a "Move 37 moment" in AI-powered drug design where models will surpass human intuition. Max shares his vision for general AI models that can solve all diseases, and the importance of developing agents that can learn to search through the whole potential design space.

Hosted by Stephanie Zhan, Sequoia capital

Mentioned in this episode:

Playing Atari with Deep Reinforcement Learning: Seminal 2013 paper on Reinforcement Learning
Capture the Flag: 2019 DeepMind paper on the emergence of cooperative agents
AlphaStar: 2019 DeepMind paper on attaining grandmaster level in StarCraft II using multi-agent RL

AlphaFold Server: Web interface for AlphaFold 3 model for non-commercial academic use

Pricing in the AI Era: From Inputs to Outcomes, with Paid CEO Manny Medina Apr 22, 2025

Show notes

Former Outreach CEO Manny Medina discusses his new company Paid, which provides billing, pricing and margin management tools for AI companies. He explains why traditional SaaS pricing models don’t work for AI businesses, and breaks down emerging approaches like outcome-based and agent-based pricing. Manny shares why he believes focused AI applications targeting specific workflows will win over broad platforms, while emphasizing that AI companies need better tools to understand their unit economics and capture more value.

Hosted by Pat Grady and Lauren Reeder, Sequoia Capital

Mentioned in this episode:

CPQ: Configure, Price, Quote
Invent and Wander: Book by Jeff Bezos and Walter Isaacson
Foundations of Statistical Natural Language Processing: 1999 book by Chris Manning and Hinrich Schütze that Manny cites as a piece of AI content every AI founder should read. (still in print, companion site here)
The fox and the hedgehog:
Quandri
XBOW
HappyRobot
Owl
Crosby

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