Tim Tilly, a partner at Menlo Ventures, and Nathan Benaich, the founder of Air Street Capital and author of the State of AI Report, dive into the massive investments flooding the AI sector while profits seem elusive. They discuss the dramatic rise in AI spending—from $2.3 billion to $13.8 billion—and the challenges in ROI. The guests also explore the emergence of AI agents that promise efficiency but come with economic considerations, and they highlight the optimism for future advancements in AI technology despite current financial hurdles.

Nathan Benaich, Founder and General Partner of Air Street Capital, discusses the future of AI in 2025. He highlights the explosive growth of frontier models and the rise of natural AI workflows, making interactions with technology more seamless. Despite advancements, the journey toward AI-designed drugs remains complex. Benaich also addresses the geopolitical implications of AI funding and infrastructure, noting the strategic significance of AI labs on a national scale. His insights reveal a landscape balancing incredible potential with nuanced challenges.

Nathan Benaich, Founder and general partner of Air Street Capital, offers a wealth of knowledge on AI advancements. He discusses the implications of economic challenges in model inference and highlights the promising intersections of AI and biology, particularly in generative AI investments. Benaich shares insights on the AGI debate, emphasizing the gap between tech capabilities and real-world impacts. He also examines market dynamics, tech adoption disparities, and the geopolitical landscape, providing a comprehensive overview of the current AI innovation climate.

Nathan Benaich, Founder and General Partner at Air Street Capital, discusses the state of AI, open-source versus closed-source, benchmarking and evaluation of AI models, opportunities in the natural sciences, reinforcement learning from human feedback, generative AI applications, the importance of compute, geopolitical tensions, and predictions for the future of AI.

Reid Hoffman, Saam Motamedi, Sarah Guo, Lan Xuezhao, Matt Turck, Leigh Marie Braswell, Nathan Benaich, Rob Toews, Cat Wu, and Michael Dempsey highlight the AI trends to keep an eye on. Brought to you by Sardine Scams only work if people believe they’re real. Scams hide in plain sight. The email outlining an investment opportunity or the phone call promising paid work may seem like good fortune. But more likely than not, they’re attempts to defraud you. The sophistication of these scams means that anyone is at risk. Last year, fraud losses increased 70%, suggesting that fraud is outstripping our technological defenses. It’s a problem that is constantly evolving. While people like me and you are at risk, so are companies. Businesses lose billions every year in scams, sometimes without realizing it since they’re often defrauded by “verified” customers. Sardine protects businesses from such threats. Leveraging sophisticated machine learning, Sardine stops the scammers from winning. You can think of them as the world’s best fraud team that you hire as an API. Compliance, onboarding, transaction monitoring, and fraud detection are all handled through Sardine’s simple API and SDK. The impact is major. Sardine helps businesses like FTX, Brex, Metamask, and Blockchain improve their conversion rates, raise order values, and lower fraud losses. Scale without the scams. Implement Sardine today. To find the original piece, published Oct 30, 2022, follow this link. Subscribe to this podcast, and to our newsletter at readthegeneralist.com. You can also follow @mariogabriele and @thegeneralistco on Twitter for updates.