Inside Cursor: The future of AI coding with Co-founder Sualeh Asif

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1. 

   S1 · E130 · 16 Sep 2025 · 56 min

   The Startup Powering The Data Behind AGI

   In this episode of Gradient Dissent, Lukas Biewald talks with the CEO & founder of Surge AI, the billion-dollar company quietly powering the next generation of frontier LLMs. They discuss Surge's origin story, why traditional data labeling is broken, and how their research-focused approach is reshaping how models are trained. You’ll hear why inter-annotator agreement fails in high-complexity tasks like poetry and math, why synthetic data is often overrated, and how Surge builds rich RL environments to stress-test agentic reasoning. They also go deep on what kinds of data will be critical to…

2. 

   S1 · E129 · 5 Aug 2025 · 44 min

   Arvind Jain on Building Glean and the Future of Enterprise AI

   In this episode of Gradient Dissent, Lukas Biewald sits down with Arvind Jain, CEO and founder of Glean. They discuss Glean's evolution from solving enterprise search to building agentic AI tools that understand internal knowledge and workflows. Arvind shares how his early use of transformer models in 2019 laid the foundation for Glean’s success, well before the term "generative AI" was mainstream. They explore the technical and organizational challenges behind enterprise LLMs—including security, hallucination suppression—and when it makes sense to fine-tune models. Arvind also reflects on…

3. 

   S1 · E128 · 8 Jul 2025 · 43 min

   How DeepL Built a Translation Powerhouse with AI with CEO Jarek Kutylowski

   In this episode of Gradient Dissent, Lukas Biewald talks with Jarek Kutylowski, CEO and founder of DeepL, an AI-powered translation company. Jarek shares DeepL’s journey from launching neural machine translation in 2017 to building custom data centers and how small teams can not only take on big players like Google Translate but win. They dive into what makes translation so difficult for AI, why high-quality translations still require human context, and how DeepL tailors models for enterprise use cases. They also discuss the evolution of speech translation, compute infrastructure, training…

4. 

   S1 · E127 · 10 Jun 2025 · 1 hr 10 min

   GitHub CEO Thomas Dohmke on Copilot and the Future of Software Development

   In this episode of Gradient Dissent, Lukas Biewald sits down with Thomas Dohmke, CEO of GitHub, to talk about the future of software engineering in the age of AI. They discuss how GitHub Copilot was built, why agents are reshaping developer workflows, and what it takes to make tools that are not only powerful but also fun. Thomas shares his experience leading GitHub through its $7.5B acquisition by Microsoft, the unexpected ways it accelerated innovation, and why developer happiness is crucial to productivity. They explore what still makes human engineers irreplaceable and how the next…

5. 

   S1 · E126 · 20 May 2025 · 1 hr 30 min

   From Pharma to AGI Hype, and Developing AI in Finance: Martin Shkreli’s Journey

   In this episode of Gradient Dissent, Lukas Biewald talks with Martin Shkreli — the infamous "pharma bro" turned founder — about his path from hedge fund manager and pharma CEO to convicted felon and now software entrepreneur. Shkreli shares his side of the drug pricing controversy, reflects on his prison experience, and explains how he rebuilt his life and business after being "canceled." They dive deep into AI and drug discovery, where Shkreli delivers a strong critique of mainstream approaches. He also talks about his latest venture in finance software, building Godel Terminal “a Vim for…

6. 

   S1 · E124 · 8 Apr 2025 · 50 min

   Inside the Dark Web, AI and Cybersecurity with Christopher Ahlberg CEO of Recorded Future

   In this episode of Gradient Dissent, host Lukas Biewald talks with Christopher Ahlberg, CEO of Recorded Future, a pioneering cybersecurity company leveraging AI to provide intelligence insights. Christopher shares his fascinating journey from founding data visualization startup Spotfire to building Recorded Future into an industry leader, eventually leading to its acquisition by Mastercard. They dive into gripping stories of cyber espionage, including how Recorded Future intercepted a hacker selling access to the U.S. Electoral Assistance Commission. Christopher also explains why the…

7. 

   S1 · E123 · 25 Mar 2025 · 1 hr 2 min

   AI, autonomy, and the future of naval warfare with Captain Jon Haase, United States Navy

   In this episode of Gradient Dissent, host Lukas Biewald speaks with Captain Jon Haase, United States Navy about real-world applications of AI and autonomy in defense. From underwater mine detection with autonomous vehicles to the ethics of lethal AI systems, this conversation dives into how the U.S. military is integrating AI into mission-critical operations — and why humans will always be at the center of warfighting. They explore the challenges of underwater autonomy, multi-agent collaboration, cybersecurity, and the growing role of large language models like Gemini and Claude in the…

8. 

   S1 · E122 · 25 Feb 2025 · 49 min

   The rise of AI agents

   In this episode of Gradient Dissent, host Lukas Biewald sits down with João Moura, CEO & Founder of CrewAI, one of the leading platforms enabling AI agents for enterprise applications. Joe shares insights into how AI agents are being successfully deployed in over 40% of Fortune 500 companies, what tools these agents rely on, and how software companies are adapting to an agentic world. They also discuss: What defines a true AI agent versus simple automation How AI agents are transforming business processes in industries like finance, insurance, and software The evolving business models for…

9. 

   S1 · E121 · 4 Feb 2025 · 1 hr 12 min

   R1, OpenAI’s o3, and the ARC-AGI Benchmark: Insights from Mike Knoop

   In this episode of Gradient Dissent , host Lukas Biewald sits down with Mike Knoop , Co-founder and CEO of Ndea , a cutting-edge AI research lab. Mike shares his journey from building Zapier into a major automation platform to diving into the frontiers of AI research. They discuss DeepSeek’s R1, OpenAI’s O-series models, and the ARC Prize , a competition aimed at advancing AI’s reasoning capabilities. Mike explains how program synthesis and deep learning must merge to create true AGI , and why he believes AI reliability is the biggest hurdle for automation adoption. This conversation covers…

10. 

    S1 · E120 · 28 Jan 2025 · 58 min

    DeepSeek, Stargate and AI's $600 Billion Question with Sequoia's David Cahn

    In this episode of Gradient Dissent , host Lukas Biewald sits down with David Cahn, partner at Sequoia Capital, for a compelling discussion on the dynamic world of AI investments. They dive into recent developments, including DeepSeek and Stargate, exploring their implications for the AI industry. Drawing from his articles, "AI's $200 Billion Question" and "AI's $600 Billion Question," David unpacks the financial challenges and opportunities surrounding AI infrastructure spending and the staggering revenue required to sustain these investments. Together, they examine the competitive…