Are Most AI Pilots Failing?

Elad Gil joins Sourcery to unpack the story behind Brain Co, his new AI incubation venture with Jared Kushner (Affinity Partners) and Eric Wu (Opendoor).

Brain Co was founded to solve a glaring problem: Fortune 100s and government institutions desperately want AI adoption but lack the engineering depth and infrastructure to make it real. Backed by a $30M Series A led by Gil Capital and Affinity Partners, Brain Co is already pulling in some of the sharpest AI minds and heavyweight backers across tech and finance.

We dive deep into:

• The origins of Brain Co & why Jared Kushner approached Elad

• Eric Wu’s role after Opendoor and why he’s the right leader

• Why enterprise AI adoption is broken & how Brain Co fixes it

• The $30M Series A and the powerhouse angels behind it (Databricks, Stripe, Coinbase, OpenAI leaders, Naval, Reid Hoffman, & more)

• How Elad thinks about incubation vs. investing

Elad Gil: https://x.com/eladgil

Molly O’Shea: ⁠https://x.com/MollySOShea⁠

Sourcery: ⁠https://x.com/sourceryvc⁠

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Chapters:

(00:00) Elad Gil

(01:32) The “rule of 3” in markets: why industries collapse to 2–3 winners

(04:56) From investor to incubator: why Elad started Brain Co

(05:16) The “Brain” naming story & Braintrust origins

(06:15) Meeting Jared Kushner & aligning on enterprise AI problems

(06:54) Why Fortune 100s can’t adopt AI alone

(07:13) Recruiting Eric Wu and assembling Brain Co’s founding team

(08:29) Skipping SMB/mid-market → going straight to enterprise

(08:51) Brain Co’s dual strategy: platform + bespoke apps

(10:50) MIT study on AI pilots—why most fail & how Brain Co differs

(12:26) Lessons from internet & mobile waves on long adoption cycles

(15:30) Who are the real early adopters in enterprise AI?

(16:38) The $30M Series A: Elad + Kushner co-lead, full angel investor list

(18:47) Why Brain Co attracted top-tier operators & angels

(19:23) Eric Wu post-Opendoor & Brain Co’s vision

(20:47) Redemption stories & second acts in tech

(22:54) Headlines vs. reality—what media gets wrong

(27:18) Worst advice ever & “culture = winning”

(29:04) Managing context switching & long-term planning

(32:03) Lightning predictions: AGI, Mars robots, aliens

(35:39) Outro & wrap-up