David Sacked by NYT, Sir Dylan Patel Joins, Kushner & Sama are Thriving | Ro Khanna, Jonathan Swerdlin, Cristóbal Valenzuela, Vincent Weisser, Ben Hylak, Alby Churven
TBPN
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Raindrop's Fundraise and Team-Building
Ben announces $15M raise led by Lightspeed and discusses hiring, culture, and customer traction.
Play episode from 03:12:27
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Transcript
Episode notes
- (00:16) - Alby Churven is a teenage entrepreneur from Sydney who, by age 14, has already founded Finkle, a gamified learning platform aimed at teaching teens coding, entrepreneurship, AI, and real-world skills. He began coding when he was six years old, and previously built Roblox games and a youth-oriented soccer brand before pitching Finkle to Y Combinator (Winter 2026). Alby’s vision blends youthful creativity with a mission to rethink education — and his journey has drawn global attention for ambition and boldness.
- (07:22) - Three Years Since the Launch of ChatGPT
- (13:06) - Gemini Surges
- (20:17) - David Sacked by NYT
- (39:54) - 𝕏 Timeline Reactions
- (01:01:19) - Dylan Patel, Founder and Chief Analyst at SemiAnalysis, discusses Google's strategy to sell Tensor Processing Units (TPUs) externally, highlighting the challenges posed by their non-standard design and the need for broader software support. He emphasizes the importance of open-source software in expanding TPU adoption and notes that while Google's internal software stack is robust, making it accessible to external customers is crucial. Patel also touches on the competitive dynamics between Google and Nvidia, particularly regarding hardware performance, software ecosystems, and market positioning.
- (01:33:48) - Ro Khanna, a Democratic U.S. Representative from California's 17th congressional district, is known for his advocacy on technology, economic equity, and transparency. In the conversation, he discusses his legislative efforts, including the bipartisan Epstein Files Transparency Act, which mandates the release of all Justice Department files related to Jeffrey Epstein, aiming to hold powerful individuals accountable and restore public trust. Khanna also addresses the impact of artificial intelligence on employment, emphasizing the need for policies that enhance human capabilities rather than replace workers, and highlights the importance of balancing technological advancement with job preservation to maintain social cohesion.
- (02:11:19) - Jonathan Swerdlin, co-founder and CEO of Function Health, is dedicated to empowering individuals to proactively manage their health through comprehensive lab testing and advanced imaging services. In the conversation, he discusses Function's mission to provide affordable access to over 160 lab tests and full-body MRI scans, enabling early detection of potential health issues. Swerdlin emphasizes the importance of utilizing technology to make personalized health data accessible, aiming to help people live longer, healthier lives.
- (02:27:59) - Thrive Announces Partnership with OpenAI
- (02:29:55) - Cristóbal Valenzuela, CEO and co-founder of Runway, discusses the release of Gen-4.5, the company's latest AI video generation model. Gen-4.5 achieves unprecedented visual fidelity and creative control, producing cinematic and highly realistic outputs while providing precise control over every aspect of generation. Valenzuela highlights that Gen-4.5 has surpassed competitors like Google's Veo 3 and OpenAI's Sora 2 Pro, securing the top position on the Artificial Analysis Text to Video benchmark.
- (02:46:41) - Vincent Weisser, CEO of Prime Intellect, discusses the recent release of Intellect 3, a 100-billion parameter model developed through scaled reinforcement learning and post-training, achieving state-of-the-art performance at a smaller scale. He highlights the creation of an open environment where contributors worldwide can develop reinforcement learning environments, enhancing the model's capabilities across various tasks. Weisser emphasizes the trend of open-source models matching closed models' performance and the potential for businesses to fine-tune models for specific applications, leading to better performance and cost efficiency.
- (03:01:01) - Ben Hylak, co-founder and CTO of Raindrop—a company providing monitoring solutions for AI agents—discusses the challenges of silent failures in AI systems and the importance of real-time monitoring to detect and address these issues. He highlights how Raindrop's platform processes millions of events daily, enabling engineering teams to identify complex problems like tool call failures and user frustration. Additionally, Hylak shares that Raindrop recently secured $15 million in seed funding led by Lightspeed Venture Partners to further develop their monitoring infrastructure.
- (03:17:02) - 𝕏 Timeline Reactions
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