The AI Playbook: Former Salesforce Chief Scientist Richard Socher’s Guide to Building a Successful AI Company (Founder of you.com)

Richard Socher, most recently Chief Scientist at Salesforce under Marc Benioff and one of the most renowned AI researchers in the world, has now founded you.com instead of joining one of the big AI companies. Richard believes that he can have a more positive impact on humanity. you.com now reaches millions of users and gives you as a user the opportunity to work based on the latest models.

Richard talks about building an AI company that always has to work on the edge of innovation, how he would manage research teams today, how you as a founder find out which AI tools really help you and how he himself thinks about prioritization privately and in the product.

The conversation was particularly impressive for me, as Richard grew up in Dresden and moved to Silicon Valley at an early age and (not only) became an absolute luminary for artificial intelligence from there.

What you learn:

• How do you evaluate which AI tools will really help you and your company?
• When does it make sense to develop your own services in-house vs. outsourcing or buying in services?
• As a founder, how can I find out how much money I really want/should raise?
• How can I optimize my energy management as a founder?
• What qualities should a good mentor have?

Further links:

ALL ABOUT UNICORN BAKERY: https://zez.am/unicornbakery

Richard Socher:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/richardsocher/

Website: https://www.socher.org/

you.com: https://you.com/

Unicorn Bakery WhatsApp Broadcast: Here you can find out everything you need to know as a founder: https://drp.li/jrq5S Our WhatsApp Broadcast keeps you up to date with insights into the scene, news and top content.

Marker: 

(00:00:00) How to evaluate AI tools

(00:22:01) Will AI and LLM wrappers be valid businesses? 

(00:25:48) Product decisions: Building things inhouse vs. implementing things 

(00:29:23) How to size funding rounds

(00:34:24) you.com team setup & how to run high performing AI research teams

(00:38:59) Why is it more impactful to build you.com than joining OpenAI?

(00:43:44) Energy management as a founder

(00:52:58) Prioritization for founders

(00:56:19) What makes a great mentor?

(01:00:57) What is the easiest way to try you.com?