The Derby Mill Series

The Derby Mill regulars host Shopify CEO Tobias Lütke on the heels of the ecommerce giant’s release of its Winter Edition 2026, aka The RenAIssance Edition, a significant artificial intelligence-enabled refresh of the company’s products and services. With more than 150 new and updated products, the update aims to help entrepreneurs, merchants and small businesses use AI to amplify their human creativity.In one of the first conversations to happen with Tobi Lütke after the Shopify update, AI legends Rich Sutton, Sendhil Mullainathan, Niamh Gavin and Suzanne Gildert join Intrepid’s Ajay Agrawal to examine where artificial intelligence, machine learning and reinforcement learning may take ecommerce at the limit. How can AI help ecommerce merchants? What can machine learning do for small business? Could Shopify Sidekick’s agentic AI help merchants optimize their path to profitability? And will Shopify SimGym empower small businesses with the testing capability of much larger companies? It’s all on the agenda, and more, in our latest episode.About Shopify CEO and co-founder Tobias Lütke:Tobias Lütke is CEO and co-founder of Shopify, the marquee shopping cart system of the e-commerce industry, which he co-founded in 2006 after encountering difficulties trying to create an online snowboard retailer. Today, the company has a market capitalization of $210 billion USD, with customers in 175 countries around the world. FY2024 revenue was $8.88 billion US and transactions on the Shopify platform can amount to 10% of all US commerce.GUESTS AND HOSTSTobias Lütke, CEO and co-founder, ShopifyAjay Agrawal, co-founder and partner, Intrepid Growth PartnersRichard Sutton, senior advisor, Intrepid Growth Partners, 2024 Turing Award recipient, pioneer of reinforcement learning and professor, University of AlbertaSendhil Mullainathan, senior advisor, Intrepid Growth Partners, MacArthur Genius grant recipient and professor, MITNiamh Gavin, senior advisor, Intrepid Growth Partners, Applied AI scientist and CEO, Emergent PlatformsSuzanne Gildert, founder and CEO, Nirvanic Consciousness TechnologiesLINKSSubscribe to The Derby Mill Series at our Substack (main site) or on YouTube, Spotify or Apple Podcasts.Shopify’s Winter ‘26 Edition presentation and summary press release.Mentioned in the pod: Susan Athey’s co-written journal paper is Artificial Intelligence, Competition, and Welfare, published by the National Bureau of Economic Research.Derby Mill is created by the team at Intrepid Growth Partners and produced by Ghost Bureau.DISCUSSION POINTS00:00: Cold open with Shopify CEO Tobi Lütke saying, the goal is not to be the most powerful AI company, but to make AI gifts from labs maximally valuable to people.01:01: Guest introductions, including Tobi Lütke, CEO of Shopify; Turing award winner Rich Sutton, who pioneered reinforcement learning; MacArthur Genius recipient Sendhil Mullainathan; applied AI scientist Niamh Gavin; and robotics and AI expert Suzanne Gildert.01:50: Tobi discusses Shopify’s scale—operating close to six million storefronts and serving close to a billion customers purchasing about $30 billion a month in gross merchandise value.03:17: Shopify as a counter-example to machine intelligence amplifying the power of large companies, instead using it to significantly boost smaller companies.04:28: Toby Lütke provides an overview of Shopify, a Canadian company started 20 years ago that powers millions of merchants, often the websites customers buy from if it’s not Amazon.06:57: Introduction of the three specific AI applications to be discussed, starting with “SimGym” for launching with confidence without real consumer testing.07:38: Description of SimGym, a simulator with AI shoppers that predict customer behaviour and reflect the archetype of a merchant’s customers.08:51: Discussion on the data backbone for SimGym’s personalized prediction, which includes transactional history, browsing behaviour matched to personas through standard clustering, and demographics from deliveries.10:30: The goal of SimGym is to help small businesses get to conviction faster with their testing, as traditional AB testing takes a very long time for them.12:58: Sendhil Mullainathan discusses how Shopify deploys scale economies to artisan producers, providing small businesses with data to make consequential decisions.14:09: Introduction of “Sidekick,” Shopify’s agentic co-pilot, and the feature “Sidekick Pulse,” which delivers insights based on a store’s data, economic trends, and Shopify’s commerce knowledge, serving the non-sophisticated, time-and-money-constrained entrepreneur.15:55: Sidekick is described as an assistive technology that automates tasks, finds factors to benchmark a business’s success, and provides insights in a human-like way, contrasting with the “very autistic” nature of typical software.18:02: Shopify as a bridge between incredible research and the global network of commerce, bringing valuable morsels back to “entrepreneurship land”.19:31: How merchants complained when Sidekick was temporarily taken down, with some referring to it as their “employee of the month”.22:11: Shopify’s business model is fully aligned with customers; it does not charge for services like Sidekick because it benefits from bigger businesses, allowing the value of the AI to be absorbed in the existing model.24:24: “Shop slop”—the concern that fully automated store production and drop shipping might push out small business owners.25:48: Tobi Lütke argues that e-commerce is different from content generation because it has two governors: atoms must be assembled, and a transaction involves money, which is a rivalrous resource, meaning a purchase validates the value.28:02: Rich Sutton asks how SimGym works and how it can be better than a shop owner’s intuition. Tobi Lütke’s response explains that it involves parameterized agents using a vision model browser loop to browse the website.30:44: Discussion of Shopify’s advantage in having end-goal data (the sale) for its Reinforcement Learning (RL) system, providing true ground truth for the goal.34:10: Ajay speculates that Shopify may become the most powerful AI company due to its access to vast data, the end goal (sale), and the large number of independent merchants, enabling a high degree of experimentation crucial for RL.36:39: Introduction of “Shopify Product Network,” which uses machine intelligence to fill in product gaps for small merchants, like a skateboard store selling compatible helmets, thereby removing a scale economy disadvantage.39:18: Introduction of the third AI product, “Sidekick Pulse,” which provides “next best action” predictions to merchant owners, advising on the most ROI- or sales-increasing action to take.40:57: Niamh Gavin’s vision is that this technology enables a new age of affordable mass personalization by levelling the playing field for merchants and leveraging the community in a win-win network effect.41:41: Suzanne Gildert questions the long-term objective function, asking if optimizing only for purchase volume could lead to a “dopamine addiction system” and suggests including consumer happiness.42:34: Sendhil Mullainathan presents a positive future vision where Shopify’s architecture pushes AI in a different, decentralized direction, focusing on innovations that decision-makers (small merchants) find helpful.44:32: Clarification of the two AI trajectories: autonomous decision-making (large organizations) versus human-machine “centaur” optimization (Shopify’s small merchants), where local information and the shop owner’s power are key.47:40: The discussion notes that the centaur model would require a different set of performance benchmarks, focusing on improving human performance aided by AI.49:54: Sendhil Mullainathan compares autonomous coding to co-pilots, suggesting that the centaur model focuses on making AI errors more transparent to humans and optimizing for diversity/variance rather than correctness.53:38: Tobi Lütke reiterates that Sidekick and the other products function as “assistive technology with human in the loop,” aligning with the philosophical view that computers should work for humans and handle computing/data transfers.56:08: Mention of the HSTU architecture, developed with Liquid AI and Nvidia, which has been “extremely game-changing.”57:23: Rich Sutton discusses the limits of e-commerce, questioning whether decentralization should be around the merchant or the customer, suggesting a future where Shopify supports both.01:02:30: The question is raised: what new and surprising thing will make online commerce different a year from now.01:03:13: Niamh Gavin predicts that Sidekick Pulse’s ability to generate insights and automatically execute next best actions (like drafting a win-back email) will be the most surprising change in online commerce.01:04:39: Suzanne Gildert expresses interest in consumers delegating agency to their own AI assistants, which could use simulation tools like SimGym to make buying choices from artisan merchants.NUGGETSShould AI Optimize for Correctness or Variance? (2101)MacArthur Genius Sendhil Mullainathan to Shopify CEO Tobi Lütke: Should AI Optimize for Correctness or Variance?Nugget 2 - The Most Powerful AI in the World (2102)Could Shopify’s Winter ‘26 Edition Make It the World’s Most Powerful AI Company? Ajay Agrawal, Rich Sutton and Tobi Lütke discuss.DISCLAIMERThe content of this podcast is for informational and educational purposes only and should not be construed as marketing, solicitation, or an offer to buy or sell any securities or investments. The opinions expressed in this video are those of the participants and do not necessarily reflect the views of Intrepid Growth Partners or its affiliates. Any discussion of specific companies, technologies, or industries is for illustrative purposes and does not constitute investment advice. Viewers are encouraged to consult with their own financial, legal, and tax advisors before making any investment decisions. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit insights.intrepidgp.com

Does the Canadian AI community have a communications problem? Too often, AI investors feel they have to go outside of the country to find great targets for deals. Similarly, domestic AI companies find it difficult to attract dollars from Canadian sources of capital. Too few investors and companies actually talk to one another. And fewer still have the kind of trusted relationship required to get deals done.So in this episode, Derby Mill host Ajay Agrawal, a co-founder and partner at Intrepid Growth Partners, gathers some of the key figures working to create the Canadian AI community, to discuss how to improve things. We’re excited to welcome Canada’s first Minister of Artificial Intelligence, Evan Solomon, in a discussion that also includes one of the driving forces behind Canadian growth equity, Mark Shulgan, also a co-founder and partner at Intrepid, as well as Adam Keating, the co-founder and CEO of CoLab, a software platform that uses AI to accelerate and improve engineering design processes, based in St. John’s, Newfoundland.Their discussion highlights the special moment in which Canadian AI finds itself—as well as the challenges the country must overcome to achieve international success.GUESTS AND HOSTS (extended bios below)Evan Solomon, Canada’s Minister of AI and Digital InnovationAdam Keating, CEO & co-founder, CoLabMark Shulgan, co-founder and partner, Intrepid Growth PartnersAjay Agrawal, co-founder and partner, Intrepid Growth PartnersLINKS Derby Mill series website. Derby Mill is created by the team at Intrepid Growth Partners.Be sure to catch every episode of The Derby Mill Series by subscribing on the following platforms: YouTube // Spotify // Apple PodcastsDISCUSSION POINTS00:00 Cold open01:35 Context for episode02:19 What is CoLab?04:21 Role of AI06:21 AI beyond hotspots07:44 Canada’s AI potential17:09 AI in St. John’s24:22 CoLab’s innovation29:04 Canada’s greatest risk37:36 Final remarksEvan Solomon is Canada’s first Minister of Artificial Intelligence and a Member of Parliament representing Toronto Centre. Before entering politics, he was one of Canada’s most recognized journalists for more than 25 years, known for his incisive interviews and deep coverage of national and global issues. He co-founded Shift, an award-winning international magazine exploring the rise of the digital age, and is the author of two best-selling books, Fueling the Future and Feeding the Future. Today, Evan leads Canada’s efforts to build a responsible and ambitious AI future — one that reflects Canadian values and strengthens the country’s digital sovereignty.Mark Shulgan is the co-founder and Partner of Intrepid Growth Partners, a growth-stage investment fund. Previously, Mark founded and led OMERS Growth Equity, which he launched in 2018. During his time at OMERS, Mark invested $1 billion in private North American software and healthcare companies and served as the chairman of the investment committee. Prior to joining OMERS, Mark co-founded and then led the Thematic Investing team (now called Venture and Growth Equity) at CPP Investments.Adam Keating is a mechanical engineer who co-founded CoLab out of sheer frustration when he saw how engineers were being held back by inadequate tools for working together. He led development of one of the world’s first Hyperloop vehicles (taking home 2nd place internationally at SpaceX’s 2017 competition), he’s invented an electric propulsion system for large-scale aircraft, designed systems for biology-guided radiotherapy, and managed elements of multi-billion dollar energy projects—just to name a few achievements!NUGGETSEvan Solomon on Canada’s AI Problem (2001)Many Canadian tech companies struggle to gain recognition and funding at home, says Canada’s Minister of AI and Digital Innovation, Evan Solomon.Evan Solomon on Canada’s AI Potential (2002)Canada’s Minister of AI and Digital Innovation Evan Solomon says Canadian talent and innovation are the “lowest-hanging fruit” for global AI leadership.Canada’s Greatest AI Risk (2003)Intrepid co-founder and Derby Mill Series host Ajay Agrawal asks Canadian AI Minister Evan Solomon about the biggest risks AI poses for the country.DISCLAIMERThe content of this podcast is for informational and educational purposes only and should not be construed as marketing, solicitation, or an offer to buy or sell any securities or investments. The opinions expressed in this video are those of the participants and do not necessarily reflect the views of Intrepid Growth Partners or its affiliates. Any discussion of specific companies, technologies, or industries is for illustrative purposes and does not constitute investment advice. Viewers are encouraged to consult with their own financial, legal, and tax advisors before making any investment decisions. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit insights.intrepidgp.com

Engineering is growing more complex—but design reviews still drag through email screenshots and PowerPoints.In this episode of the Derby Mill Series we welcome Adam Keating, CEO & co-founder of CoLab, whose platform uses AI to accelerate and improve engineering design reviews. One client achieved a 40% reduction in the cost of poor quality in a single year.With 160 employees and clients like Ford, Hyundai, GE, Johnson Controls and Lockheed Martin, CoLab is headquartered in St. John’s, Newfoundland.This week we’re also proud to note that Intrepid Growth Partners, the Derby Mill Series’ parent firm, led a US$72 million Series C financing round in CoLab, marking a major step in scaling the company’s AI work for engineering.So what would that scaling look like? What’s the future of AI and engineering? And how can machine learning improve generative design? These topics and more are explored in today’s episode by our hosts Ajay Agrawal, Rich Sutton, Sendhil Mullainathan, and Niamh Gavin, along with special guest Suzanne Gildert. They ask: what if AI didn’t just assist engineers, but fundamentally changed how design decisions are made—faster, smarter, with fewer errors?GUESTS AND HOSTSAdam Keating, CEO & co-founderSuzanne Gildert, co-founder & CEO, Nirvanic Consciousness TechnologiesAjay Agrawal, co-founder and partner, Intrepid Growth PartnersRichard Sutton, senior advisor, Intrepid Growth Partners, 2024 Turing Award recipient, pioneer of reinforcement learning and professor, University of AlbertaSendhil Mullainathan, senior advisor, Intrepid Growth Partners, MacArthur Genius grant recipient and professor, MITNiamh Gavin, senior advisor, Intrepid Growth Partners, Applied AI scientist, CEO, Emergent PlatformsLINKSIntrepid leads the Series C investment in CoLabCoLab secured US$72 million in venture capital funding.Series C round press from Axios and The Globe and Mail.Adam Keating’s LinkedIn post announcing the Series C round, which features a cool video that provides some great contextCoLab website.Video explainer of what CoLab doesVideo explainer of CoLab AutoReview.Mentioned in the episode: genetic algorithms to design radio antennas.Derby Mill series website.Derby Mill is created by the team at Intrepid Growth Partners.Rich Sutton’s home page. Follow Rich on X.Sendhil Mullainathan’s website. Follow Sendhil on X.Be sure to catch every episode of The Derby Mill Series by subscribing on the following platforms:YouTube // Spotify // Apple Podcasts // SubstackDISCUSSION POINTS00:00 Cold open01:29 Context for episode02:59 About CoLab05:25 Niamh: ML techniques07:54 Suzanne: Training data11:25 Rich: Language & application18:30 Niamh: Open vs. closed foundations22:52 CoLab customer base24:34 Sendhil: ML similarity model30:49 Protein model for parts33:26 CoLab at the limit39:50 Rich: Value functions45:44 Feedback cycles52:35 Adam Keating responds56:05 Final remarksNUGGETSWhy Are People in the Loop At All? (1901)CoLab CEO and Co-founder Adam Keating talks about designing a waterbottle. MacArthur Genius Award recipient Sendhil Mullainathan responds with why are humans in the loop at all?The Future of Collaborative Design (1902)Why does Suzanne Gildert, CEO of Nirvanic, worry about the future of collaborative design?Automotive Design and AI (1903)Derby Mill host Ajay Agrawal and co-host Niamh Gavin debate the limitations of automotive design.DISCLAIMERThe content of this podcast is for informational and educational purposes only and should not be construed as marketing, solicitation, or an offer to buy or sell any securities or investments. The opinions expressed in this video are those of the participants and do not necessarily reflect the views of Intrepid Growth Partners or its affiliates. Any discussion of specific companies, technologies, or industries is for illustrative purposes and does not constitute investment advice. Viewers are encouraged to consult with their own financial, legal, and tax advisors before making any investment decisions. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit insights.intrepidgp.com

A trillion-dollar clash of ideas is roiling the artificial intelligence community. Today, in a special episode, our host Ajay Agrawal leads Rich Sutton, Sendhil Mullainathan and Niamh Gavin, and special guest Suzanne Gildert, in a fascinating exploration of the issue: Are Large Language Models (LLMs) sufficiently “bitter lesson pilled” to live up to their hype?“Bitter lesson pilled” is the AI community’s term of art for scaling with the constantly falling cost of compute (e.g., search and learning). The term arises from Rich Sutton’s 2019 essay, The Bitter Lesson.As he recently told independent journalist Dwarkesh Patel on the Dwarkesh Podcast, Rich Sutton does not believe that LLMs are sufficiently “bitter lesson pilled.” In other words, Rich believes LLMs suffer from a key vulnerability: A limit exists on their ability to improve – and it’s much closer than we’ve been led to believe.GUESTS AND HOSTSAjay Agrawal, co-founder and partner, Intrepid Growth PartnersRichard Sutton, senior advisor, Intrepid Growth Partners, 2024 Turing Award recipient, pioneer of reinforcement learning and professor, University of AlbertaSendhil Mullainathan, senior advisor, Intrepid Growth Partners, MacArthur Genius grant recipient and professor, MITNiamh Gavin, senior advisor, Intrepid Growth Partners, Applied AI scientist, CEO, Emergent PlatformsSuzanne Gildert, founder and CEO, Nirvanic Consciousness TechnologiesLINKSThe Dwarkesh Podcast episode featuring Rich Sutton. The computer scientist Andrej Karpathy’s take. Rich’s original Bitter Lesson essay.Meta machine-learning engineer Chris Hayduk’s tweet about the debate on X, retweeted by Rich and referenced in this episode by Sendhil.Good description of the train-fly problem that Sendhil mentioned, from Presh Talwalkar. Derby Mill series website. Derby Mill is created by the team at Intrepid Growth Partners.Rich Sutton’s home page. Follow Rich on X.Sendhil Mullainathan’s website. Follow Sendhil on X.Be sure to catch every episode of The Derby Mill Series by subscribing on the following platforms:YouTube // Spotify // Apple PodcastsDISCUSSION POINTS00:00 Cold open00:39 Context for episode01:39 The bitter Lesson02:49 Supervised learning04:30 Challenge of RL09:49 Discussing a Tweet13:30 Rich’s opinion on the big lesson21:28 Tension in the LLM space23:25 Behaviour and extrapolation25:27 What is considered AI26:05 Final remarksNUGGETSWhy Squirrels Still Outthink Supervised AI (1801)Derby Mill Series host Ajay Agrawal asks co-host Suzanne Gildert, why can’t AI learn like a squirrel?Addressing Rich’s Tweet (1802)MacArthur Genius Award recipient Sendhil Mullainathan responds to a tweet that underscores a key difference between LLMs and humans.What Happens if LLMs Don’t Pay Off Soon (1803)The Bitter Lesson says, “look out if you’re putting all your eggs into the basket of human knowledge,” according to Turing Award recipient Richard Sutton.DISCLAIMERThe content of this podcast is for informational and educational purposes only and should not be construed as marketing, solicitation, or an offer to buy or sell any securities or investments. The opinions expressed in this video are those of the participants and do not necessarily reflect the views of Intrepid Growth Partners or its affiliates. Any discussion of specific companies, technologies, or industries is for illustrative purposes and does not constitute investment advice. Viewers are encouraged to consult with their own financial, legal, and tax advisors before making any investment decisions. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit insights.intrepidgp.com

The Derby Mill Series hosts are back to kick off Season 2 with an episode about automating factories—an extension of a discussion we began in the series’ first-ever episode. Here, hosts Ajay Agrawal, Rich Sutton, Sendhil Mullainathan and Niamh Gavin sit down with Vention founder and CEO Etienne Lacroix and CTO Francois Giguere. Vention’s mission: to become the default operating system for factory automation, combining modular hardware, intuitive design software, and low/no-code programming tools to speed deployment and enhance performance. The team asks, What if AI could go beyond design assistance and run fully autonomous, self-optimizing factories from concept to deployment?About VentionVention is a vertically-integrated manufacturing automation platform. Its primary AI application today is predicting optimal component selection and system design. When a manufacturer specifies their automation needs, Vention’s AI recommends compatible parts, layouts, and configurations from its proprietary dataset of 400,000 labelled designs, with real-time pricing and compatibility checks. Vention serves more than 4,000 factories across more than industries, including facilities belonging to Tesla, L’Oréal, Amazon and Lockheed Martin.GUESTS AND HOSTSEtienne Lacroix, founder and CEO, VentionFrancois Giguere, CTO, VentionAjay Agrawal, co-founder and partner, Intrepid Growth PartnersRichard Sutton, senior advisor, Intrepid Growth Partners, 2024 Turing Award recipient, pioneer of reinforcement learning and professor, University of AlbertaSendhil Mullainathan, senior advisor, Intrepid Growth Partners, MacArthur Genius grant recipient and professor, MITNiamh Gavin, senior advisor, Intrepid Growth Partners, Applied AI scientist, CEO, Emergent PlatformsLINKSVention CEO Etienne Lacroix explains the mission at Nvidia GTC 2025Vention websiteVention’s video tutorials mini-siteDerby Mill series website. Derby Mill is created by the team at Intrepid Growth Partners.Rich Sutton’s home page. Follow Rich on XSendhil Mullainathan’s website. Follow Sendhil on XBe sure to catch every episode of The Derby Mill Series by subscribing on the following platforms:YouTube // Spotify // Apple Podcasts DISCUSSION POINTS00:00 Cold open01:52 Automating manufacturing with Vention03:45 Factory assembly tasks05:40 AI for design07:48 Faster and cheaper10:28 When automation reaches its limits10:43 Pragmatic control system design12:02 AI training datasets12:58 Vention’s end-to-end platform15:20 Hybrid AI model approaches17:47 AI spotting unmet needs21:28 Manual versus automated processes27:46 Full process of factory automation37:20 Customer interfaces40:59 Data feedback and improvement45:58 Distribution shift in AI1:00:17 Adaptive AI in factories1:04:59 Final thoughtsNUGGETSWhy Automating Factories Is Becoming Faster and Cheaper (1701)Intrepid’s Ajay Agrawal asks Vention founder and CEO Etienne Lacroix why automating factories is becoming faster to do, and cheaper to implement.Automating Automation (1702)Vention CTO Francois Giguere describes the future of AI-driven workflows, which he says includes the counterintuitive tagline of “automating automation.”ML Can Fix the Black Box Model Challenges (1703)Why MIT’s Sendhil Mullainathan believes machine learning can do what physical models can’t.DISCLAIMERThe content of this podcast is for informational and educational purposes only and should not be construed as marketing, solicitation, or an offer to buy or sell any securities or investments. The opinions expressed in this video are those of the participants and do not necessarily reflect the views of Intrepid Growth Partners or its affiliates. Any discussion of specific companies, technologies, or industries is for illustrative purposes and does not constitute investment advice. Viewers are encouraged to consult with their own financial, legal, and tax advisors before making any investment decisions. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit insights.intrepidgp.com

Our hosts chat with Liran Belenzon, CEO and co-founder of BenchSci. Based in Toronto, BenchSci has raised more than $215-million to date, and is backed by such funds as former U.S. vice-president Al Gore’s Generation Investment Management, private and public markets investment giant TCV, Google-backed Gradient Ventures and F-Prime Capital Partners. More than half of the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies are clients of BenchSci, which is officially known as Scinapsis Analytics Inc.The company’s mission is to accelerate the speed and quality of life-saving R&D to improve patient health. This episode touches on the challenges and potential of using AI in drug discovery, emphasizing the importance of understanding disease biology and the need for significant investment in data collection and analysis. The name, BenchSci, is a reference to “bench science,” the fundamental laboratory research that uncovers the biological mechanisms underlying diseases and forms the foundation for drug discovery.With machine intelligence, BenchSci seeks to automate hypothesis generation and experiment design by deeply analyzing scientific publications, preprints, and pharma data. Central to their approach is building a comprehensive knowledge graph that maps bio-entities such as genes, proteins, and diseases, along with their complex relationships.GUESTS AND HOSTSLiran Belenzon, co-founder and CEO, BenchSciAjay Agrawal, co-founder and partner, Intrepid Growth PartnersRichard Sutton, senior advisor, Intrepid Growth Partners, 2024 Turing Award recipient, pioneer of reinforcement learning and professor, University of AlbertaSendhil Mullainathan, senior advisor, Intrepid Growth Partners, MacArthur Genius grant recipient and professor, MITNiamh Gavin, senior advisor, Intrepid Growth Partners, Applied AI scientist, CEO, Emergent PlatformsLINKSBenchSci explanation videoBenchSci websiteBenchSci ranked #29 on Deloitte’s 2024 Technology Fast 500™BenchSci named to The Globe and Mail’s Canada’s Top Growing Companies 2024 listLiran’s 2023 TechTO talk about fundraisingMentioned by Sendhil in this episode: Don R. Swanson, a pioneer in information scienceDerby Mill show websiteRich Sutton’s home page. Follow Rich on XRead Sendhil’s co-written journal on Machine Learning as a Tool for Hypothesis GenerationSendhil Mullainathan’s website. Follow Sendhil on XBe sure to catch every episode of The Derby Mill Series by subscribing on the following platforms:YouTube // Spotify // Apple Podcasts DISCUSSION POINTS00:00 Cold open and introductions01:33 R&D for drug discovery and BenchSci02:07 A shocking number of drug trials fail04:33 What BenchSci does and doesn’t do09:50 What kind of feedback is sent to BenchSci?14:09 Where does BenchSci fall on these extremes?16:39 Is BenchSci too ambitious?21:20 Niamh’s take25:37 Rich’s take27:15 Hypothesis generation29:31 What Niamh loves about AI34:47 Final remarksNUGGETSSmall Changes in Drug Research Matter (1601)Intrepid's Sendhil Mullainathan explains why even a 1% improvement in drug trial success can be worth millions.AI for Discovery (1602)Intrepid's Niamh Gavin shares how AI’s "global sweep" could unlock science’s blind spots.AI’s Biggest Scientific Breakthrough (1603)Intrepid’s Sendhil Mullainathan explains the hidden obstacle holding back AI’s biggest scientific breakthroughs.DISCLAIMERThe content of this podcast is for informational and educational purposes only and should not be construed as marketing, solicitation, or an offer to buy or sell any securities or investments. The opinions expressed in this video are those of the participants and do not necessarily reflect the views of Intrepid Growth Partners or its affiliates. Any discussion of specific companies, technologies, or industries is for illustrative purposes and does not constitute investment advice. Viewers are encouraged to consult with their own financial, legal, and tax advisors before making any investment decisions. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit insights.intrepidgp.com

Joining the usual Derby Mill team of Ajay Agrawal, Rich Sutton, Sendhil Mullainathan and Niamh Gavin are two experts in the automation of business workflows: AppliedAI CEO and founder Arya Bolurfrushan, and member of the technical staff Phillip Kingston.AppliedAI closed a $55 million USD Series A round of financing in February 2025 led by G42 and with backing from Palantir and McKinsey, among others. With a pre-investment valuation of $300 million, the UK-founded, Abu Dhabi-based firm develops software to enhance the efficiency of businesses by automating their back-office processes, particularly in highly regulated industries such as healthcare, insurance, and pharmaceuticals. For example, AppliedAI processed more than four million pages of U.S. medical records in 2024. On its client list are such firms as Abu Dhabi’s M42 Healthcare Group, U.S. law firm Morgan & Morgan and UK-based drug safety firm Qinecsa.In this discussion, Arya and Phillip join the Derby Mill hosts to discuss the technicalities of automating workflows, such as medical coding for hospitals. They explore the challenges and opportunities of integrating AI and human intelligence to optimize things at the limit, and conclude by speculating how business could change when automation is fully integrated into every step of the process.GUESTS AND HOSTSArya Bolurfrushan, founder and CEO, AppliedAIPhillip Kingston, member of the technical staff, AppliedAI, and Visiting Professor at State University Kyiv Aviation Institute, Kyiv, UkraineAjay Agrawal, co-founder and partner, Intrepid Growth PartnersRichard Sutton, senior advisor, Intrepid Growth Partners, 2024 Turing Award recipient, pioneer of reinforcement learning and professor, University of AlbertaSendhil Mullainathan, senior advisor, Intrepid Growth Partners, MacArthur Genius grant recipient and professor, MITNiamh Gavin, senior advisor, Intrepid Growth Partners, Applied AI scientist, CEO, Emergent PlatformsLINKSAppliedAI’s Series A press releaseAppliedAI websiteArya Bolurfrushan on McKinsey’s Faces of DisruptionPhillip Kingston’s personal webpageRich Sutton’s home page. Follow Rich on XSendhil Mullainathan’s website. Follow Sendhil on XBe sure to catch every episode of The Derby Mill Series by subscribing on the following platforms:YouTube // Spotify // Apple Podcasts // SubstackThumbnail image is a detail from a mural by Diego Rivera, Man at the CrossroadsDISCUSSION POINTS00:00 Cold open and introductions01:10 Business productivity workflows and Applied AI02:37 How most workflows are 80% similar06:39 An example from the healthcare industry10:21 AppliedAI’s commercial approach12:50 Niamh asks Philip to get technical on their process16:32 What is "supervised automation"?25:21 Sendhil’s take32:56 Rich’s take40:15 How AppliedAI may change things at the limitNUGGETSHow Will AI Algorithms Change Human Workflows? (1501)MIT Economist Sendhil Mullainathan asks, if we knew there was an AI algorithm underneath most business processes, would the entire workflow be different?Fewer Human Hours Per Case (1502)AppliedAI’s Phillip Kingston describes how the company chooses which workflows to automate.Human Auditors, Not Processors (1503)AppliedAI’s Arya Bolurfrushan explains why the cost of auditing AI workflows may increase over time.DISCLAIMERThe content of this podcast is for informational and educational purposes only and should not be construed as marketing, solicitation, or an offer to buy or sell any securities or investments. The opinions expressed in this video are those of the participants and do not necessarily reflect the views of Intrepid Growth Partners or its affiliates. Any discussion of specific companies, technologies, or industries is for illustrative purposes and does not constitute investment advice. Viewers are encouraged to consult with their own financial, legal, and tax advisors before making any investment decisions. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit insights.intrepidgp.com

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang recently described physical AI, a category that includes robots that can perceive, understand and act in the real world, as the next wave in artificial intelligence. So in the last episode before Derby Mill’s summer break, and our first-ever in-person recording session, the team of Ajay Agrawal, Rich Sutton, Sendhil Mullainathan and Niamh Gavin welcome Suzanne Gildert, the CEO and founder of Nirvanic Consciousness Technologies in Vancouver, BC.Gildert is a pioneering figure in the humanoid robotics community. Here, she discusses with the Derby Mill team such questions as: Why now for humanoid robots? What are the advantages and disadvantages of the bipedal human form factor? What makes humanoid robots difficult to create? The episode concludes with Ajay asking the team what they want listeners to think about during our two-month summer break. See you in September!GUESTS AND HOSTSSuzanne Gildert, co-founder & CEO, Nirvanic Consciousness TechnologiesAjay Agrawal, co-founder and partner, Intrepid Growth PartnersRichard Sutton, senior advisor, Intrepid Growth Partners, 2024 Turing Award recipient, pioneer of reinforcement learning and professor, University of AlbertaSendhil Mullainathan, senior advisor, Intrepid Growth Partners, MacArthur Genius grant recipient and professor, MITNiamh Gavin, senior advisor, Intrepid Growth Partners, Applied AI scientist, CEO, Emergent PlatformsLINKSNirvanic Consciousness Technologies homepageThe Jenson Huang / NVIDIA presentation Ajay references early in the episode. Reuters storyBoth Sendhil and Rich love the sci-fi novels of Iain BanksDerby Mill show websiteRich Sutton’s home page. Follow Rich on XSendhil Mullainathan’s website. Follow Sendhil on XBe sure to catch every episode of The Derby Mill Series by subscribing on the following platforms:YouTube // Spotify // Apple Podcasts // SubstackDISCUSSION POINTS00:00 Cold open01:52 Welcome and intro to humanoid robots and Suzanne Gildert04:20 What’s so hard about building a humanoid robot?06:15 The complexity of the human body07:55 So why bother making a humanoid robot?09:30 Why are humanoid robots so hot right now?10:50 Why now: AI software15:49 Rich Sutton explains why humanoid robots are so intriguing17:05 Can we code robots the same way we approached LLMs?20:30 Teaching robots with reinforcement learning in simulation21:47 Sendhil: How important are humanoid robots?29:10 Niamh: Is the bipedal form factor the best all-around solution?37:15 Sendhil: What about hybrid human-robot creatures?41:15 Agent architecture and humanoid robots44:35 The idea that we explore by random action selection48:00 Suzanne on types of decision making52:13 Decision making as centrepiece of economics, and AI57:19 Quantum physics and self-aware AI1:00:50 Defining consciousness1:05:00 Lightning round: Niamh on cost of experimentation1:06:33 LR: Ajay on what’s RLable1:07:37 LR: Rich on AI disillusionment1:08:40 LR: Suzanne on AI consciousness1:10:20 LR: Sendhil on the “what is AI” turf war1:18:18 Ajay wraps up season 1NUGGETSNugget 1 - Cost of ExperimentationIntrepid's Ajay Agrawal asks AI scientist Niamh Gavin to name one topic for listeners to reflect on over Derby Mill's summer break.Nugget 2 - AI Disillusionment and Turf WarsIntrepid's Ajay Agrawal asks Turing Award winner Rich Sutton to name one topic for listeners to reflect on over Derby Mill's summer break.Nugget 3 - Consciousness and EmpathyIntrepid's Ajay Agrawal asks Nirvanic CEO Suzanne Gildert to name one topic for listeners to reflect on over Derby Mill's summer break. Her response is to appeal to viewers to question any fearful reaction they have to the notion of conscious AI.DISCLAIMERThe content of this podcast is for informational and educational purposes only and should not be construed as marketing, solicitation, or an offer to buy or sell any securities or investments. The opinions expressed in this video are those of the participants and do not necessarily reflect the views of Intrepid Growth Partners or its affiliates. Any discussion of specific companies, technologies, or industries is for illustrative purposes and does not constitute investment advice. Viewers are encouraged to consult with their own financial, legal, and tax advisors before making any investment decisions. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit insights.intrepidgp.com

Headquartered in Toronto, Private AI detects and removes personally identifiable information (PII) from data using large language models (LLMs), all without compromising individual or institutional privacy. In this episode, Private AI co-founder and CEO Patricia Thaine offers a behind-the-scenes look at the company’s technical strategy, including the scalability challenge inherent in protecting confidential company information, and the growing threat of re-identification. With more than 30,000 hours invested in building their PII detection system, Private AI now operates in seven countries and partners with organizations such as the Business Development Bank of Canada, MaRS, and the University of Toronto.This episode features the Intrepid team exploring such questions as:* How can organizations effectively protect personally identifiable information (PII) and confidential company information in large language models?* What are the risks of re-identification, even after attempting to anonymize data?* How can companies balance data utility with privacy preservation?* How can privacy protection be approached as a dynamic, evolving challenge rather than a static solution?* What role can technology play in helping organizations understand and control their data privacy?GUESTS AND HOSTSPatricia Thaine, co-founder & CEO, Private AIAjay Agrawal, co-founder and partner, Intrepid Growth PartnersRichard Sutton, senior advisor, Intrepid Growth Partners, 2024 Turing Award recipient, pioneer of reinforcement learning and professor, University of AlbertaSendhil Mullainathan, senior advisor, Intrepid Growth Partners, MacArthur Genius grant recipient and professor, MITNiamh Gavin, senior advisor, Intrepid Growth Partners, Applied AI scientist, CEO, Emergent PlatformsLINKSPrivate AI website, explainer videoPrivate AI demo, PrivateGPTRead the NYT article, A Face Is Exposed for AOL Searcher No. 4417749Pymetrics, a company that pioneered the use of AI and behavioural science to improve workforce decisions, was acquired by Harver.Rich Sutton’s home page. Follow Rich on XSendhil Mullainathan’s website. Follow Sendhil on XBe sure to catch every episode of The Derby Mill Series by subscribing on the following platforms:YouTube // Spotify // Apple Podcasts DISCUSSION POINTS00:00 Introduction01:22 Meet Patricia Thaine of Private AI01:41 About Private AI02:54 How Private AI redacts and protects data04:18 What would scalability look like for confidential company info?08:14 Deconstructing NYT’s article: A Face is Exposed for AOL Searcher No. 441774910:12 Can your digital footprint be an identifier?15:35 Solving the synthetic data problem19:15 How data minimization can help with privacy21:24 Mapping out the future of data privacy25:56 What would a reward function look like?27:12 Final commentsNUGGETSNugget 1 - The Challenge of De-Identification Concerning Data PrivacyPrivate AI CEO and co-founder Patricia Thaine describes the challenge of data privacy and de-identification.Nugget 2 - Consumer Market Demand and RegulationIntrepid’s Sendhil Mullainathan explores the challenge of creating a start-up in the “personally identifiable information” space. Nugget 3 - Different Types of CII and PIIPrivate AI’s Patricia Thaine discusses the nuances of removing personally identifiable information, as even a piece of jewellery in an X-ray can compromise anonymity. DISCLAIMERThe content of this podcast is for informational and educational purposes only and should not be construed as marketing, solicitation, or an offer to buy or sell any securities or investments. The opinions expressed in this video are those of the participants and do not necessarily reflect the views of Intrepid Growth Partners or its affiliates. Any discussion of specific companies, technologies, or industries is for illustrative purposes and does not constitute investment advice. Viewers are encouraged to consult with their own financial, legal, and tax advisors before making any investment decisions. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit insights.intrepidgp.com

Dr. Andrew Gostine, CEO of Artisight, and Tim Koby, the Chief Science Officer, share insights on AI's transformative role in healthcare. They discuss strategies for building 'smart hospitals' that leverage AI for real-time data analysis, enhancing patient safety, and preventing falls. The conversation highlights AI's potential in early sepsis prediction and its impact on hospital efficiency. They also address the ethical implications of AI in healthcare, emphasizing the importance of human oversight in navigating these advancements.