Joseph Nelson is the Co-founder and CEO of Roboflow, making the world programmable by building computer vision tools for developers and enterprises.
We talk about how computer vision creates a new paradigm to program the world, and how visual AI is the missing piece of AGI.
Joseph also shares multiple live product examples, how computer vision unlocks new data sources, lessons from Stripe and Palantir, building business models in developer tools, his experience working with David Sacks, and developer marketing tactics and how Roboflow consistently gets to the front page of Hacker News.
Timestamps:
(00:00) Intro
(03:34) Computer vision is the missing piece for AGI
(05:59) Vision as a new paradigm to collect data
(10:55) Live examples of computer vision
(13:45) How a Magic Sudoku solver app led to Roboflow
(18:13) Using computer vision for automation
(24:49) Computer vision in sports
(27:02) How vision unlocks new data sources
(28:24) Inside developer tool business models
(33:32) The "Collison Install" and hands-on customer service
(36:45) When to adopt Palantir's Forward Deployed Engineers
(43:44) Why AI companies need to combine PLG and enterprise sales
(50:12) Advice on developer marketing
(52:30) Roboflow's greatest hits on Hacker News
(01:02:19) Benefits of David Sacks as AI & Crypto Czar
(01:05:32) Why all new technology has bad actors
(01:07:07) Why over-regulation holds back innovation
(01:12:01) How to get on the front page of Hacker News
(01:19:43) Multi modality, time recognition, and agentic vision
(01:28:36) Image-to-image prompting
(01:30:42) Growing up in Iowa
(01:32:20) Making TI-84 calculator games in high school
(01:36:32) Pioneer: hunger games for startups
(01:40:16) Why Roboflow does weekly Ship Lists + Ship and Tell
(01:42:46) Hiring former founders and "full stack people"
(01:45:16) Designing a bottoms-up organization while scaling
(01:50:35) Why candidates build with Roboflow in hiring process
(01:55:08) Hiring someone to help with the podcast
Referenced:
Robowflow: https://roboflow.com/
Roboflow Universe: https://universe.roboflow.com/
Paint.wtf: https://paint.wtf/
Roboflows NeurIPS Presentations: https://blog.roboflow.com/neurips-2023-papers-highlights/
Careers at Roboflow: https://roboflow.com/careers
Follow Joseph:
Twitter: https://x.com/josephofiowa/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/josephofiowa
Follow Turner:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/TurnerNovak
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/turnernovak
Subscribe to my newsletter to get every episode + the transcript in your inbox every week: https://www.thespl.it/
