Founded & Funded

Cohere's Ivan Zhang on Foundation Models, Retrieval-Augmented Generation, and Feedback Loops

Aug 23, 2023

In this episode, Madrona Partner Jon Turow and Cohere CTO and Co-founder Ivan Zhang discuss the world of foundation models for the enterprise. Ivan shares his renegade journey, renegade hiring practices, importance of feedback loops with customers, and the difference between fine-tuning and teaching a model. They also explore the role of home rolled and hosted models, implications of foundation models in organizations, and share insights about surprising advancements and future predictions in technology.

21:51

Creator website

Episode guests

Ivan Zhang

AI Summary

AI Chapters

Episode notes

Podcast summary created with Snipd AI

Quick takeaways

Cohere focuses on building foundational models to accelerate productivity, emphasizing the importance of feedback loops with customers.

Cohere's renegade spirit is reflected in their hiring practices and risk tolerance, as well as their playful and practical approach to research and development.

Deep dives

Cohere: Accelerating Productivity with Foundation Models

Cohere is an AI company based in Toronto that focuses on building foundational models to accelerate productivity for knowledge workers. They offer a platform where users can access foundational models for building features like summarization, search, and chatbots. Additionally, Cohere uses these models to make employees more productive. The company emphasizes the importance of feedback loops with customers and distinguishes between fine-tuning models for new capabilities and teaching models to retrieve the right knowledge. Cohere's renegade spirit is reflected in their hiring practices and risk tolerance, as well as their playful and practical approach to research and development.

Introduction

2min

Cohere: Building Foundational Models

15min

The Role of Home Rolled and Hosted Models, Importance of Feedback Loops

2min

Implications of Foundation Models Within Organizations: Integration, Data Sensitivity, and Security

2min

Discussion on Surprises and Predictions in the Field of Technology

2min

In this episode, Madrona Partner Jon Turow and Cohere CTO and Co-founder Ivan Zhang dive into the world of foundation models for the enterprise. Cohere was founded in 2019 — a time when even the most passionate believers did not realize how soon the world would be struck by the capabilities of foundation models. The company announced a $270 million raise in June – which put it at an over $2 billion valuation — and — Ivan’s co-founder Aidan Gomez was a co-author of the seminal paper “Attention Is All You Need,” which actually introduced the Transformer, the architecture behind foundation models. Notwithstanding the big numbers, Cohere keeps itself scrappy and hungry, having still only raised a fraction of what others in the space have to date.

In this episode, Ivan shares about his decision not to finish school and instead gain practical experience working in startups and publishing research to basically prove that he could without a degree. He dishes about applying that same renegade spirit to hiring, shares his thoughts about the importance of feedback loops with customers as well as the difference between fine-tuning and teaching a model how to retrieve the right knowledge, and so much more.

You can read a transcript of this conversation here: https://www.madrona.com/cohere-ivan-zhang/

Remember Everything You Learn from Podcasts

Save insights instantly, chat with episodes, and build lasting knowledge - all powered by AI.

Founded & Funded

Cohere's Ivan Zhang on Foundation Models, Retrieval-Augmented Generation, and Feedback Loops

Episode guests

Podcast summary created with Snipd AI

Quick takeaways

Deep dives

Cohere: Accelerating Productivity with Foundation Models

Cohere's Journey into Deep Learning and Startup Creation

The Role of Cohere's Foundation Models in the Enterprise

Remember Everything You Learn from Podcasts