UBS On-Air: Market Moves
UBS AI Podcast - CEO Series - Ep. 2 (Lin Qiao, CEO of Fireworks)
May 15, 2025
Lin Qiao, CEO and Co-Founder of Fireworks, shares insights from her journey leading the development of PyTorch at Meta. She discusses the shift in AI focus from pre-training to inference, highlighting the challenges and strategies in building a generative AI SaaS platform. The conversation explores generative AI's transformative impact on enterprise productivity, emphasizing effective partnerships. Qiao also delves into the importance of customization in enhancing efficiency, and the future of AI, advocating for open-source models and their potential to lower costs and drive innovation.
47:13
Episode guests
AI Summary
AI Chapters
Episode notes
Podcast summary created with Snipd AI
Quick takeaways
- Meta's transition to an AI-first strategy emphasizes the importance of mobile technology in enhancing user engagement and data generation.
- Lin Qiao's Fireworks AI aims to revolutionize generative AI by optimizing inference processes for improved efficiency and scalability in applications.
Deep dives
The Evolution of AI at Meta
The transition of Meta from desktop-first to AI-first signifies a major shift in the company's approach to data and user engagement. By embracing mobile technology, Meta significantly increased user interaction, generating vast amounts of data that fueled AI developments. During Lin Xiao's tenure, she faced the challenge of establishing a robust AI infrastructure from scratch, which included addressing the lack of hardware and software necessary for extensive AI applications. By focusing on open-source adoption of the PyTorch framework, Meta positioned itself as a leader in bridging research innovations with production-scale applications.
