The Peel with Turner Novak Building AI-Native Infrastructure for Developers | Erik Berhnardsson, CEO of Modal
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Oct 16, 2025 
Erik Bernhardsson, Co-founder and CEO of Modal, previously a Spotify engineer, dives into the creation of AI-native infrastructure. He discusses the GPU shortage and Modal's innovative approach to aggregating GPU capacity. Erik shares his insights from Spotify’s culture and the importance of treating hiring as a prediction problem. He believes AI will significantly increase the demand for developers, and emphasizes the need for startups to address challenging, long-term problems rather than chasing quick wins.
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Rebuild Infra For AI Developer Flow
- Modal rebuilt cloud infra from scratch to serve AI's developer experience and GPU needs.
- Erik Bernhardsson emphasizes throwing out legacy container/Kubernetes assumptions to optimize AI workflows.
GPU Scarcity Shapes Architecture
- GPUs are expensive and scarce, so utilization and capacity aggregation matter more than with CPUs.
- Bernhardsson explains inference demand volatility and why cloud regions alone can't guarantee GPU availability.
Prefer Consumption Billing Over Reservations
- Avoid long-term GPU reservations that sit idle; prefer consumption-based pricing to pay for actual use.
- Bernhardsson argues usage-based billing reduces upfront cash burden and waste for smaller teams.