E103: Competing with CoPilot to Give Developers AI Superpowers
Aug 29, 2023
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Varun Mohan, Co-founder & CEO of Codeium, discusses competing with GitHub Copilot, their own infrastructure for incredible scale, building a 30K person community, and leveraging open source in generating AI. They also explore the future of AI models and building a product that matters to users.
CODEUM aims to provide a complete end-to-end application development solution using generative AI.
CODEUM emphasizes the significance of open source in the generative AI space for rapid exchange of ideas and exploration of new possibilities.
Deep dives
CODIAM: A Modern Coding Superpower
CODIAM is a modern coding superpower founded by Roon, which aims to optimize deep learning workloads and make GPU inference workloads efficient at scale. It originated from the company X-A-Function, which focused on optimizing deep learning workloads. Once they realized the potential of generative AI, they built CODEUM, a product that focuses on building applications using generative models for software development. The value of CODEUM goes beyond auto-completing code, aiming to provide a complete end-to-end application development solution. The team believes that generative AI is similar to the early stages of the internet, where companies like Google and Amazon succeeded not just by building the best infrastructure, but by providing valuable applications.
Open Source and the Reach of CODEUM
CODEUM recognizes the importance of open source and strives to make its product available to as many developers as possible. The core language server API of CODEUM is an open interface, allowing the product to be used across various IDEs, including Sublime Text, EMAX, and VIM. The open source approach has been critical in reaching a wider user base and fostering collaboration. Additionally, CODEUM emphasizes the significance of open source in the generative AI space, as it enables the rapid exchange of ideas and the exploration of new possibilities. Although CODEUM does not currently have a specific open source strategy or partnership, it acknowledges the immense potential that open source brings to the development of generative AI models.
Bets on the Future of AI and CODEUM
While CODEUM recognizes the potential for new model architectures in the future, such as those beyond transformers, it currently focuses on building upon existing successful models. The company believes that retrieval augmentation and fine-tuning models on specific codebases will play a crucial role in enhancing the CODEUM product. By leveraging the strengths of large language models and tuning them to deeply understand code, CODEUM aims to provide a superior offering. It strives to optimize latency and provide valuable tools to developers today while being future-oriented. CODEUM also emphasizes the importance of building a product that matters to users, ensuring that it is an essential part of their daily workflow.
Lessons Learned and Finding CODEUM
The founders of CODEUM emphasize the importance of building a product with immediate value that is relevant to users today, while also keeping an eye on future advancements. They recommend avoiding the trap of creating something solely based on its potential and focusing instead on delivering a product that is useful and indispensable to users. CODEUM encourages users to try the product and join their Discord community, which has over 25,000 users. They value user feedback and aim to continually improve the product based on user needs and experiences.
Varun Mohan is Co-founder & CEO of Codeium, the AI-powered coding platform for developers.
In this episode, we dig into competing with a behemoth like GitHub Copilot, how developing their own infrastructure has enabled incredible scale, building a 30K person community, and much more!
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