Unsupervised Learning with Jacob Effron

Latest Episodes:

Ep 59: OpenAI Product & Eng Leads Nikunj Handa and Steve Coffey on OpenAI’s New Agent Development Tools Mar 25, 2025

Show notes

Two weeks ago, OpenAI released its set of tools to help developers build agentic systems. Today on Unsupervised Learning, Nikunj Handa (Product Lead) and Steve Coffey (Eng Lead) answer some of the biggest questions around how developers should be thinking about building in the agentic paradigm in 2025.

(0:00) Intro
(0:53) OpenAI’s Vision for Consumer Interaction
(4:51) Building Multi-Agent Systems for Business Solutions
(6:53) Challenges and Innovations in AI Fine-Tuning
(13:20) Exploring Computer Use Cases and Applications
(17:20) Advanced Use Cases and Developer Insights
(25:29) Challenges with Context Storage and Chat Completions
(26:09) Introducing the Responses API and MCP
(27:16) AI Infrastructure Companies and Their Role
(29:35) Building the Tools Ecosystem
(30:17) Exploring Computer Use Models
(31:47) The Future of AI and Developer Tools
(38:36) Quickfire

With your co-hosts:

@jacobeffron

- Partner at Redpoint, Former PM Flatiron Health

@patrickachase

- Partner at Redpoint, Former ML Engineer LinkedIn

@ericabrescia

- Former COO Github, Founder Bitnami (acq’d by VMWare)

@jordan_segall

- Partner at Redpoint

Jacob is an AI investor at Redpoint Ventures. He's led Redpoint's investments in companies like Abridge, Physical Intelligence & Legora. Follow Jacob on Twitter (@jacobeffron).
On Unsupervised Learning we probe the sharpest minds in AI in search for the truth about what's real today, what will be real in the future and what it all means for businesses and the world. If you're a builder, researcher or investor navigating the AI world, this podcast will help you deconstruct and understand the most important breakthroughs and see a clearer picture of reality. Subscribe to this show to stay up to date on our latest episodes.

Ep 58: Google Researchers Noam Shazeer and Jack Rae on Scaling Test-time Compute, Reactions to Ilya & AGI Mar 17, 2025

Show notes

On the latest episode of Unsupervised Learning, Jacob is joined by two of the most influential minds in AI today.

🔹 Noam Shazeer, co-inventor of the Transformer

🔹 Jack Rae, Research Director at DeepMind and one of the leads behind Gemini’s Flash Thinking

We got to ask them all of the top-of-mind questions in AI today about where we are, where we’re headed and what it means for businesses and the world. Some key take-aways:

(0:00) Intro
(1:30) Exploring Gemini 2.0
(4:04) Challenges with Evals and Benchmarks
(6:14) Reinforcement Loops and AI Productivity
(8:15) Agentic Coding and AI in Development
(13:02) Multimodal Capabilities and Applications
(15:21) Future of AI: Complexity and Reliability
(19:02) Test Time Compute and Data Efficiency
(31:20) AI Research Culture and Breakthroughs
(38:59) Reflecting on Large Language Models
(39:37) The Rise of Vision-Based Models
(41:01) Native Image Generation and General Purpose Models
(41:35) AI in Healthcare and Specialized Models
(43:32) Shifting Timelines and Rapid Adoption
(46:48) Open Source Models and Competitive Edge
(49:30) AI's Impact on Education and Personal Lives
(55:10) AGI Risks and Safety Considerations
(57:33) Future of AI Companions
(1:02:17) Quickfire

With your co-hosts:

@jacobeffron

- Partner at Redpoint, Former PM Flatiron Health

@patrickachase

- Partner at Redpoint, Former ML Engineer LinkedIn

@ericabrescia

- Former COO Github, Founder Bitnami (acq’d by VMWare)

@jordan_segall

- Partner at Redpoint

Ep 57: Former CTO of Meta Mike Schroepfer on the Path to Powering the AI Revolution Mar 05, 2025

Show notes

On today’s Unsupervised Learning, Mike Schroepfer (ex-CTO of Meta and founder of Gigascale Capital) reveals why energy is a key bottleneck holding AI progress back. Mike discusses how we can scale energy production to democratize AI globally and explores AI’s role in climate change. He also reflects on a decade as Meta’s CTO and how AI coding is transforming the CTO role. Finally, he offers predictions on the future of AI developer tools, VR, and open-source models.

(0:00) Intro
(0:43) AI's Role in Energy and Climate Change
(4:32) Innovative Energy Solutions
(14:50) Open Source and AI Development
(22:35) Challenges in Chip Design
(24:04) Balancing Data Center Capacity
(25:55) The Future of VR and AI Integration
(29:41) AI's Role in Climate Solutions
(31:41) AI in Material Science and Beyond
(34:31) Personal AI Assistants and Their Impact
(38:47) Reflections on AI and Future Predictions
(41:23) Quickfire

With your co-hosts:

@jacobeffron

- Partner at Redpoint, Former PM Flatiron Health

@patrickachase

- Partner at Redpoint, Former ML Engineer LinkedIn

@ericabrescia

- Former COO Github, Founder Bitnami (acq’d by VMWare)

@jordan_segall

- Partner at Redpoint

Ep 56: Distinguished Engineer at Waymo Vincent Vanhoucke Unpacks the Breakthroughs and Bottlenecks of Self-Driving Feb 26, 2025

Show notes

Waymo is an autonomous driving technology company with the mission to be the world's most trusted driver. The company operates a 24/7 public ride-hail service and provides over 150,000 trips each week across San Francisco, Los Angeles, Phoenix, and Austin, making mobility more accessible, sustainable, and safer for everyone.

In this week’s episode of Unsupervised Learning, we dive deep into the frontier where AI meets hardware — and there’s no better guide than Vincent Vanhoucke, Distinguished Engineer at Waymo and former Head of Robotics at DeepMind.

[0:00] Intro

[0:50] Waymo's Technological Evolution

[2:40] The Role of LLMs in Autonomous Driving

[6:02] Vincent's Journey to Waymo

[9:17] Challenges in Autonomous Driving

[11:58] Simulation and World Models

[27:44] Future Milestones and Expansion

[30:10] Broader Robotics and AI

[36:12] Future of General Robotics Models

[38:14] Hardware vs. Software Approaches in Robotics

[40:19] Challenges in Robotic Data Acquisition

[40:38] Simulation vs. Real-World Data in Robotics

[43:02] Human-Robot Interaction for Data Collection

[45:03] Advancements in Multimodal Models

[47:08] Unanswered Questions in Robotics

[52:02] Reasoning Capabilities in AI

[54:57] Future of Robotics and AI

[1:00:51] Quickfire

With your co-hosts:

@jacobeffron

- Partner at Redpoint, Former PM Flatiron Health

@patrickachase

- Partner at Redpoint, Former ML Engineer LinkedIn

@ericabrescia

- Former COO Github, Founder Bitnami (acq’d by VMWare)

@jordan_segall

- Partner at Redpoint

Ep 55: Head of Amazon AGI Lab David Luan on DeepSeek’s Significance, What’s Next for Agents & Lessons from OpenAI Feb 19, 2025

Show notes

David is an OG in AI who has been at the forefront of many of the major breakthroughs of the past decade. His resume: VP of Engineering at OpenAI, a key contributor to Google Brain, co-founder of Adept, and now leading Amazon’s SF AGI Lab. In this episode we focused on how far test-time compute gets us, the real implications of DeepSeek, what agents milestones he’s looking for and more.

[0:00] Intro
[1:14] DeepSeek Reactions and Market Implications
[2:44] AI Models and Efficiency
[4:11] Challenges in Building AGI
[7:58] Research Problems in AI Development
[11:17] The Future of AI Agents
[15:12] Engineering Challenges and Innovations
[19:45] The Path to Reliable AI Agents
[21:48] Defining AGI and Its Impact
[22:47] Challenges and Gating Factors
[24:05] Future Human-Computer Interaction
[25:00] Specialized Models and Policy
[25:58] Technical Challenges and Model Evaluation
[28:36] Amazon's Role in AGI Development
[30:33] Data Labeling and Team Building
[36:37] Reflections on OpenAI
[42:12] Quickfire

With your co-hosts:

@jacobeffron

- Partner at Redpoint, Former PM Flatiron Health

@patrickachase

- Partner at Redpoint, Former ML Engineer LinkedIn

@ericabrescia

- Former COO Github, Founder Bitnami (acq’d by VMWare)

@jordan_segall

- Partner at Redpoint

Ep 54: Princeton Researcher Arvind Narayanan on the Limitations of Agent Evals, AI’s Societal Impact & Important Lessons from History Jan 30, 2025

Show notes

Arvind Narayanan is one of the leading voices in AI when it comes to cutting through the hype. As a Princeton professor and co-author of AI Snake Oil, he’s one of the most thoughtful voices cautioning against both unfounded fears and overblown promises in AI. In this episode, Arvind dissects the future of AI in education, its parallels to past tech revolutions, and how our jobs are already shifting toward managing these powerful tools. Some of our favorite take-aways:

[0:00] Intro
[0:46] Reasoning Models and Their Uneven Progress
[2:46] Challenges in AI Benchmarks and Real-World Applications
[5:03] Inference Scaling and Verifier Imperfections
[7:33] Agentic AI: Tools vs. Autonomous Actions
[12:07] Future of AI in Everyday Life
[15:34] Evaluating AI Agents and Collaboration
[24:49] Regulatory and Policy Implications of AI
[27:49] Analyzing Generative AI Adoption Rates
[29:17] Educational Policies and Generative AI
[30:09] Flaws in Predictive AI Models
[31:31] Regulation and Safety in AI
[33:47] Academia's Role in AI Development
[36:13] AI in Scientific Research
[38:22] AI and Human Minds
[46:04] Economic Impacts of AI
[49:42] Quickfire

With your co-hosts:

@jacobeffron

- Partner at Redpoint, Former PM Flatiron Health

@patrickachase

- Partner at Redpoint, Former ML Engineer LinkedIn

@ericabrescia

- Former COO Github, Founder Bitnami (acq’d by VMWare)

@jordan_segall

- Partner at Redpoint

Ep 53: SemiAnalysis Founder Dylan Patel on New AI Regulations, Future of Chinese AI & xAI’s Scrappy Surge to Hyperscale Jan 21, 2025

Show notes

In this episode of Unsupervised Learning, we sit down with Dylan Patel, Chief Analyst at SemiAnalysis, to break down what these sweeping changes really mean. From how they consolidate power among Big Tech to China's narrowing options for AI dominance, we unpacked the impact of this regulatory shift.

Follow SemiAnalysis: https://semianalysis.com/

[0:00] Intro
[1:07] Grading the AI Diffusion Rule
[3:48] What Will Happen to the Malaysian Data Centers?
[7:23] How do the Regulations Favor Giant Tech Companies?
[9:07] Pre-Regulation AI Landscape
[13:00] Where Does Chinese AI Go From Here?
[22:00] The Goldie Locks Approach to Regulation
[24:16] Size of Cluster Buildouts Today
[37:47] How Big Will Cluster Buildouts Get?
[43:00] Are Open-Source Models Falling Behind?
[47:51] Questions Dylan Wants the Answer To
[51:30] Hardware Startups
[1:01:05] The Future of Enterprise AI
[1:05:10] What Made CoreWeave So Successful?
[1:19:28] Quickfire

With your co-hosts:

@jacobeffron

- Partner at Redpoint, Former PM Flatiron Health

@patrickachase

- Partner at Redpoint, Former ML Engineer LinkedIn

@ericabrescia

- Former COO Github, Founder Bitnami (acq’d by VMWare)

@jordan_segall

- Partner at Redpoint

Ep 52: Marc Benioff Responds to Satya and Unpacks the Agentic Era Jan 10, 2025

Show notes

In this cross-over episode with The Logan Bartltett Show, Marc Benioff (CEO, Salesforce) responds to Satya Nadella’s recent predictions and shares his thoughts on the current reality of Agi. He dives into the rise of digital labor, the multi-trillion-dollar potential of agentic technology, and what the future split between software and agentic revenue might look like. Marc also discusses why CEOs need to stay grounded in delivering actionable solutions, and he emphasizes the moral obligation businesses have to retrain employees and invest in communities as AI continues to evolve.

(00:00) Intro

(01:45) Salesforce's AI Impact on Business

(03:03) The Future of Digital Labor

(05:28) Agentic AI and Customer Success

(07:42) Salesforce's Competitive Edge

(11:48) Marc Benioff's Response to Satya Nadella

(14:16) The Role of AI in Enterprise Software

(20:14) The Balance of AI and Human Labor

(28:34) Salesforce's Philanthropic Efforts

(36:24) The Future of AI and Regulation

(40:24) Conclusion and Farewell

Ep 51: Former Chief Research Officer of OpenAI Bob McGrew - What Comes Next for AI? Dec 18, 2024

Show notes

In our new world of AI, few minds shine as brightly as Bob McGrew's. Until November Bob was the Chief Research Officer at OpenAI, and before that led Palantir’s engineering and product management for the first decade of its existence. He’s seen it all and we were fortunate to get his insights and vision for the future in one of my favorite episodes of Unsupervised Learning to date:

[0:00] Intro
[0:44] Debating AI Model Capabilities
[0:57] Inside vs Outside Perspectives on AI Progress
[1:39] Challenges in AI Pre-Training
[3:02] Reinforcement Learning and Future Models
[3:48] AI Progress in 2025
[5:58] New Form Factors for AI Models
[8:56] Reliability and Enterprise Integration
[18:14] Multimodal AI and Video Models
[24:05] The Future of Robotics
[32:46] The Complexity of Automating Jobs with AI
[34:08] AI in Startups: Tackling Boring Problems
[35:33] AI's Impact on Productivity and Consultants
[36:43] Traits of Top AI Researchers
[40:52] The Evolution of OpenAI's Mission
[46:57] The Challenges of Scaling AI
[49:16] The Future of AI and Human Agency
[54:47] AI in Social Sciences and Academia
[1:01:15] Reflections and Future Plans
[1:02:57] Quickfire

With your co-hosts:

@jacobeffron

- Partner at Redpoint, Former PM Flatiron Health

@patrickachase

- Partner at Redpoint, Former ML Engineer LinkedIn

@ericabrescia

- Former COO Github, Founder Bitnami (acq’d by VMWare)

@jordan_segall

- Partner at Redpoint

Ep 50: Fireworks CEO Lin Qiao on Why There Won’t be a Single Model, Will Hyperscalers Win Inference & AI Use-cases with PMF Dec 16, 2024

Show notes

Lin Qiao, the co-founder of Fireworks.ai, sits down for a deep dive into the future of AI. Lin ran the PyTorch team at Meta, which developed some of the most fundamental open-source AI software in use today. She’s got a riveting perspective on the AI landscape that is a must-listen.

[0:00] Intro

[1:06] Fireworks: Revolutionizing AI Inference

[2:12] Challenges in AI Model Development

[4:05] The Future of AI: Compound Systems

[4:32] Designing Effective AI Tools

[10:26] Customization and Fine-Tuning in AI

[14:06] Human-in-the-Loop Automation

[16:38] Evaluating AI Models

[19:18] Building Complex AI Systems

[21:18] Function Calling and AI Orchestration

[26:52] AI Infrastructure and Hardware

[31:08] Small Expert Models

[31:27] Hyperscalers and Resource Management

[32:14] Inference Systems and Scalability

[33:08] Running Models Locally: Cost and Privacy

[35:20] Open Source Models and Meta's Role

[36:41] The Evolution of AI Training and Inference

[38:04] Fireworks' Vision and Market Strategy

[40:46] The Impact of Generative AI

[45:18] AI Research and Future Trends

[46:58] Building for a Rapidly Changing AI Landscape

[49:36] Quickfire

With your co-hosts:

@jacobeffron

- Partner at Redpoint, Former PM Flatiron Health

@patrickachase

- Partner at Redpoint, Former ML Engineer LinkedIn

@ericabrescia

- Former COO Github, Founder Bitnami (acq’d by VMWare)

@jordan_segall

- Partner at Redpoint

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