#15: Escaping Dictatorship, Hacking the Internet, and Building a World-Class AI Platform

Jun 18, 2025

40:29

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How do you build an AI company trusted by the world's top enterprises, while surviving political oppression, hacking a country's internet, and rewriting the future of work?

In this episode, Waseem Alshikh, co-founder and CTO of Writer, shares his extraordinary story. At 17, he launched his first startup in Syria — only to be imprisoned when the government tried to steal it for one dollar. In retaliation, he shut down the country's internet and fled to Lebanon. From there, he taught himself English, built groundbreaking NLP tools, and eventually launched one of the world's most trusted AI platforms.

We explore how Writer built its own LLMs to serve enterprises like Uber, Deloitte, and Spotify; how AI agents are replacing outdated internal tools; and how a new generation of founders is reshaping pricing, trust, and innovation in the AI era.

This episode is a masterclass in surviving chaos, scaling with focus, and building AI-first from Day One.

Follow Waseem Alshikh - X (Twitter): https://x.com/waseem_s

Follow Derek Andersen - X (Twitter): https://twitter.com/derekjandersen

Timestamps:

00:00 - Introduction to the Syrian Regime Collapse

00:49 - Early Success with Digital Mapping

01:42 - Government Takeover and Jail Experience

04:00 - Hacking the Internet for Revenge

05:36 - Escape to Lebanon and New Beginnings

06:44 - Learning English and Computer Science

08:08 - Transitioning to AI and Open Source

09:22 - Building Generative AI Models