Fund/Build/Scale Is AI Compute Broken? Tim Davis on Modular’s $130M Bet
Would you leave a stable, high-paying job at Google to build something that competes with NVIDIA, Intel, and AMD?
That’s exactly what Tim Davis, co-founder and president of Modular, did.
Since then, his company has raised $130M to reimagine AI compute infrastructure — but are AI startups really desperate for a new compute layer? And what’s it like to build a startup when your biggest competitors are trillion-dollar giants?
In this episode of Fund/Build/Scale, Tim shares his vision for the future of AI compute, why talent is the real key to success, and some of the tough lessons he’s learned from three startups.
(1:26) “We are building a new accelerated execution platform for compute.”
(6:41) “ It will exist all over the place and it already does, but AI will be everywhere that compute is.”
(11:18) “ You only you only have so much time in a week. What is the thing that you're best at?”
(15:13) “ We have decided to start from the hardest part of the software stack.”
(22:44) “For the most talented people in the world, the risk is actually not as great as what you think.”
(30:24) “ Growing up in Australia, my view of the of the United States was very much driven from the media and from Hollywood.”
(33:26) “ I sat in a room for six weeks and just met everyone that I could. And that really was the beginning of a journey to the United States.”
(37:48) “ I still think there's a special place in the Bay Area, and in the United States, there is a different risk appetite.”
(40:41) The one question Tim would have to ask the CEO before he’d take a job at someone else’s early-stage startup.
LINKS- Tim Davis, co-founder, president
- Chris Lattner, co-founder, CEO
- Modular
- AI startup Modular raises $100 mln in General Catalyst-led funding, 8/24/2023, Reuters
🎧 Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/fund-build-scale/id1719488387
🎧 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0EbC8PTUSfpZ4USPC9ErnN
📥 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/7249143254363856897/
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Thanks for listening!
– Walter.