Why Diffusion Will Win AI Inference with Inception Co-Founder and CEO Stefano Ermon

More from No Priors: Artificial Intelligence | Technology | Startups

1. 

   2 Oct 2026 · 36 min

   Frontier Chips for Frontier AI Labs, with Walter Goodwin, Founder/CEO of Fractile

   Founder and CEO of full-stack AI chip company Fractile, Walter Goodwin, joins Sarah Guo to discuss the bets he’s made on the future of the chip market as other major players like Broadcom, NVIDIA, and AMD try to accelerate their workloads. They discuss the difference in Fractile’s newer approach on model architecture with a full-stack team in the current chip landscape and the technical bets they’re making in that direction. Walter also talks about compressing the gap between the chip design cycle and its payoff period, and making a generational leap in AI inference to realize the bet in…

2. 

   24 Sep 2026 · 43 min

   Re-Founding Incumbents for the AI Era with Sequence Holdings Co-Founder and CEO Michael Lee

   Can AI transform legacy incumbents rather than replacing them? Sequence Holdings co-founder and CEO Michael Lee joins Sarah Guo to discuss how holding company structures and engineering integrations are reshaping market leaders from the inside out. Michael details Sequence’s $7.7 billion take-private transaction of Baldwin alongside Dell Family Office (DFO), and shares his thesis on why traditional consulting models and software sales fall short for real enterprise AI transformations. They also talk about why permanent holding company structures are good for long-term compounding, real-world…

3. 

   S1 · E177 · 10 Sep 2026 · 45 min

   Coinbase’s Everything Exchange: Agentic Finance, Stablecoins, and Tokenization with CEO Brian Armstrong

   From the tokenization of real-world assets to funding research on anti-aging therapeutics, Coinbase co-founder and CEO Brian Armstrong is focused on solving meta-problems for the benefit of society. Brian joins Elad Gil this episode to discuss the intersections of artificial intelligence, crypto rails, and biotechnology. He details Coinbase’s vision for agentic finance, as well as how Coinbase is becoming the ‘Everything Exchange’, which includes tokenized real-world stocks, stablecoin payment adoption, and prediction markets. Brian also introduces his new venture, New Limit, a company…

4. 

   S1 · E176 · 3 Sep 2026 · 37 min

   Redefining Chip Architecture with Arm CEO Rene Haas

   From data center orchestrators to AGI and robotics, CPUs remain the heart of modern computing. Arm CEO Rene Haas joins Elad Gil and Sarah Guo to explore how Arm is positioned at the epicenter of AI-driven demands for compute. Rene explains Arm’s position in the chip supply chain, and how Arm transitioned from an IP licensing model to producing physical chips like the Arm AGI CPU for Meta. He also discusses bottlenecks in hardware supply chains, SoftBank’s ecosystem and capital strategy, why US semiconductor manufacturing independence is critical, the future of robotics, and why CPUs remain…

5. 

   S1 · E175 · 27 Aug 2026 · 35 min

   Rethinking Legacy Data Infrastructure with Eon Co-Founders Ofir Ehrlich and Gonen Stein

   Google’s purchase of Spirit Airlines’ data out of bankruptcy signaled a shift in how the tech world values real-world datasets. Although compute and models get much of the attention, in this landscape, it’s data that is a company’s protective moat. Eon CEO / Co-Founder Ofir Ehrlich and President / Co-Founder Gonen Stein join Elad Gil to talk about how Eon is redefining cloud backup into a secure data foundation designed to power and protect enterprise AI. Ofir and Gonen discuss why historical enterprise data is in demand by AI labs, and how Eon facilitates access to scattered and locked data…

6. 

   S1 · E174 · 20 Aug 2026 · 32 min

   From Restoring Sight to Reimagining the Brain, with Max Hodak

   Max Hodak, co-founder and CEO of Science Corporation, joins Sarah Guo to discuss the future of vision, brain-computer interfaces, and the human experience. Max explains how Science’s PRIMA retinal implant could restore functional vision for people who have lost their sight, and why treating the brain as a computational system could unlock new approaches to medicine. They explore the broader potential of neural devices, from restoring lost capabilities to expanding human potential, as well as deeper questions around identity, consciousness, and whether the human experience can persist as our…

7. 

   S1 · E173 · 13 Aug 2026 · 46 min

   What Chess.com Teaches US About Superhuman Capabilities, with CEO Erik Allebest

   In a world of infinite gaming and entertainment possibilities, how does a centuries-old game stay so popular? Chess.com co-founder and CEO Erik Allebest joins Sarah Guo to explain how the evolution of technology has kept people coming back to chess, even when machines can beat us at the game. Erik talks about how the desire to build a MySpace-like community for chess led to the purchase of a domain name from a bankruptcy sale back in 2005, and scaled into a community with 10 million daily active users and 250 million total registered members. He also discusses the growth of the cultural…

8. 

   S1 · E172 · 6 Aug 2026 · 39 min

   Chasing Trillion-Dollar Companies, Founder Ambition, Token Budgets, and Regulatory Capture with Sarah & Elad

   Is the tech industry moving too quickly, or are founders letting fear of AI labs stunt their ambitions? Sarah and Elad explore the current landscape of artificial intelligence, venture capital, and startup dynamics. They discuss the realities of building multi-trillion-dollar companies, shifting market sizes and outcome-based pricing models, and how founders are reacting to the rise of major AI labs. They also talk about what the framework for startup exits should look like, the potential for researcher burnouts in the next eighteen months as ASI looms on the horizon, bottlenecks for…

9. 

   S1 · E171 · 31 Jul 2026 · 34 min

   Building an Autonomous Enterprise for Real-World Services with Netic Founder Melisa Tokmak

   When your AC fails in a heatwave, you don’t want a busy signal; you need a solution. Netic founder and CEO Melisa Tokmak joins host Elad Gil to explain how Netic’s autonomous AI platform acts as an intermediary between companies and customers, deploying agents to instantly handle essential services, from emergency home repairs to hospitality to pet care. Melisa describes the complexity of these real-world workloads, which have traditionally relied on large human support teams, and how over 70% of Netic’s customers interact first with AI. She also talks about the reasoning behind building a…

10. 

    S1 · E170 · 23 Jul 2026 · 49 min

    Building an Autonomous Delivery Experience with DoorDash Co-Founders Andy Fang and Stanley Tang

    DoorDash is not just a delivery company. From its inception, co-founders Andy Fang and Stanley Tang operated it as a robotics and autonomy company. Andy and Stanley join Sarah Guo to explain how autonomous tech and AI are reshaping consumer habits, commerce, and delivery. Andy and Stanley talk about the rollout of Ask DoorDash, a natural-language interface that’s driving both restaurant discovery and larger grocery orders. They also discuss Dot, their in-house autonomous delivery robot that has operated in Phoenix for over two years, and how it highlights the operational and hardware…

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