Lessons from Second-Time Founders: Empowerment and Innovation

Founded in early 2023 after spending years at Stripe and OpenAI, Gabriel Hubert and Stanislas Polu started Dust with the view that one model will not rule them all, and that multi-model integration will be key to getting the most value out of AI assistants. In this episode we’ll hear why they believe the proprietary data you have in silos will be key to unlocking the full power of AI, get their perspective on the evolving model landscape, and how AI can augment rather than replace human capabilities.

Hosted by: Konstantine Buhler and Pat Grady, Sequoia Capital

00:00 - Introduction

02:16 - One model will not rule them all

07:15 - Reasoning breakthroughs

11:15 - Trends in AI models

13:32 - The future of the open source ecosystem

16:16 - Model quality and performance

21:44 - “No GPUs before PMF”

27:24 - Dust in action

37:40 - How do you find “the makers”

42:36 - The beliefs Dust lives by

50:03 - Keeping the human in the loop

52:33 - Second time founders

56:15 - Lightning round