In this episode, host Hamza Choudery is joined by Sridhar Ramaswamy, the CEO of Snowflake. Before taking the helm at Snowflake, Sridhar scaled Google's ads business from ~$1B to $115 billion and founded one of the first AI search companies, Neeva (which was acquired by Snowflake in 2023).

During the episode, he discusses:

• The first principles for AI product building,
• The importance of product velocity,
• The future of the foundation model layer,
• Creating data flywheels with AI,
• And much more!

—

[00:00] Up next:

[00:29] Episode introduction

[01:28] Autoblocks: AI Optimization Platform

[01:52] Sridhar's journey

[08:47] The birth of Neeva and the GPT moment

[13:32] Lesson from Google for startups

[16:19] The Snowflake acquisition

[21:48] Snowflake's AI product strategy

[26:35] Snowflake's internal and external AI applications

[28:39] Snowflake Cortex

[30:37] The future of the foundation model layer

[34:52] The AI data flywheel

[38:09] Building reliable LLMs

[41:52] Lightning round

[43:08] Sridhar's hottest AI take

—

Brought to you by Autoblocks (https://www.autoblocks.ai/) — how product teams deliver better AI experiences.

—

Building with AI is a weekly podcast featuring conversations with top AI product builders and leaders. Through thoughtful dialogue, host Hamza Choudery (Co-founder of Autoblocks) uncovers tactical insights that help listeners build & scale world-class AI products.

—

Subscribe to Building With AI:

• Website: https://www.autoblocks.ai/bwai
• X: https://twitter.com/buildingwith_ai

Where to find Sridhar Ramaswamy:

• Linkedln: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sridhar-ramaswamy/
• X: https://x.com/RamaswmySridhar

Learn more about Snowflake:

• Website: https://www.snowflake.com/en/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/snowflake-computing/
• X: https://x.com/snowflakedb

Where to find Hamza Choudery:

• Linkedln: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hamzachoudery
• X: https://twitter.com/hamzachoudery

Learn more about Autoblocks:

• Website: https://www.autoblocks.ai/
• X: https://twitter.com/AutoblocksAI