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2025 was the year AI stopped feeling chaotic and started feeling buildable. On the Lightcone Podcast, Garry Tan, Harj Taggar, Diana, and Jared Friedman break down the surprises of the year, from shifting model dominance to why the real opportunity is moving back to the application layer, and why...

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12,148 Aufrufe • vor 3 Monaten

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Since the start of the year, OpenCode (YC W21) — an open source alternative to Claude Code and Codex that works with any model — exploded to 4.6 million weekly active users, 13 million monthly actives, and roughly $40M in annualized revenue. In this episode of The Lightcone, Harj Taggar, Jared Friedman, and Diana talk with Jay V (Jay), OpenCode’s CEO, about what’s driving this wild growth, the Anthropic clampdown that inadvertently fueled it, and the almost 20 year founder journey that led him here. 00:44 — OpenCode’s Explosive Growth 01:16 — 20x Growth, 13M Users, and 7 Trillion Tokens 03:39 — The Anthropic Controversy That Changed Everything 05:43 — Bringing AI Coding Agents to the World 06:39 — When Open Source Models Became Good Enough 08:56 — What Millions of Developers Are Actually Using 13:31 — Why OpenCode Is Huge Outside the US 15:27 — Why Fortune 500 Companies Choose OpenCode 16:36 — The Economics of AI Tokens 20:02 — How Enterprises Are Using Coding Agents 22:58 — AI’s New Unit Economics 24:56 — Why Model Choice Matters 29:55 — The Product Decisions Behind OpenCode 34:21 — A 16-Year Overnight Success 41:16 — Why Jay Never Gave Up
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2:23:01

My interview with Helen Toner on firing Altman, AGI geopolitics in China & Middle East, and military use of AI. Toner co-founded and now leads the Center for Security and Emerging Technology at Georgetown in DC, maybe the leading think tank on natsec and AI. We discuss: • Is China actually racing to build AGI? [00:27:56] • Why you shouldn't say 'alignment' [01:45:11] • Is Congress starting to take superintelligence seriously? [01:47:42] • Are data centres in the UAE “good for democracy”? [00:52:41] • Sure China could steal AI model weights, but does it matter [00:39:13] • Is it good if the world uses US not Chinese AI models? [00:21:58] • Why non-proliferation is a misguided model for AI [01:30:20] • Helen thinks AI progress isn't slowing down [01:50:10] • Will AI inevitably concentrate power? [01:07:49] • Helen’s defence of how the board handled firing Altman [00:01:32] • Will the military be willing to defer to AI in decision-making? [01:38:23] Available any place you get podcasts on the '80,000 Hours Podcast'. Links below — enjoy!

Rob Wiblin

20,369 Aufrufe • vor 10 Monaten

.Alexandr Wang's advice to his 18-year-old self: develop your own internal compass for how the future will unfold, and hold conviction in it against the noise. At Startup School 2026, the Scale AI (YC S16) founder — now leading Meta’s Superintelligence Labs — talks with Garry Tan about rebuilding a frontier lab from scratch, why talent density compounds, and how to spot the exponential worth betting your twenties on. 00:07 — How Alexandr Wang Started Scale AI 03:25 — Pivoting to the Right Idea 06:23 — Conviction Before Consensus 09:06 — Why This Is the Best Time to Start a Company 11:27 — What Personal Superintelligence Looks Like 13:10 — Building a Frontier AI Lab 16:36 — Why AI Models Need to Be Cheap 20:01 — Vision Will Matter More Than Intelligence 24:06 — Systems Thinking in the AI Era 26:51 — The Biggest Opportunity in AI Today 29:25 — Advice to My 18-Year-Old Self
32:09

.Alexandr Wang's advice to his 18-year-old self: develop your own internal compass for how the future will unfold, and hold conviction in it against the noise. At Startup School 2026, the Scale AI (YC S16) founder — now leading Meta’s Superintelligence Labs — talks with Garry Tan about rebuilding a frontier lab from scratch, why talent density compounds, and how to spot the exponential worth betting your twenties on. 00:07 — How Alexandr Wang Started Scale AI 03:25 — Pivoting to the Right Idea 06:23 — Conviction Before Consensus 09:06 — Why This Is the Best Time to Start a Company 11:27 — What Personal Superintelligence Looks Like 13:10 — Building a Frontier AI Lab 16:36 — Why AI Models Need to Be Cheap 20:01 — Vision Will Matter More Than Intelligence 24:06 — Systems Thinking in the AI Era 26:51 — The Biggest Opportunity in AI Today 29:25 — Advice to My 18-Year-Old Self

Y Combinator

70,839 Aufrufe • vor 1 Monat

Open source AI just became the biggest policy fight in tech. Our full conversation with Ben Horowitz, where he tells Theo and Sofia why banning open source is nearly impossible, why it's historically the safer path, the risk of one company controlling AI and why distillation isn't the threat people claim. 01:21 The Nvidia-backed open letter on open-weight AI 01:49 The OpenAI–Hugging Face hacking incident 02:27 Why you can't actually ban open source 03:05 Historically, open source has been safer (Linux vs. Windows) 05:17 Jensen's Twitter account and the letter's significance 07:25 China, "sleeper agent" models, and national security risk 09:23 Anthropic defying the US government 15:18 The danger of building your business on Anthropic 18:51 BYD, EVs, and rebuilding US manufacturing 21:30 Why would a company ever release an open model? 23:58 The DeepSeek moment: why nothing actually changed 28:25 Paying 100x more for an AI researcher vs. a janitor 29:06 AI art, the "slop" problem, and a coming renaissance benahorowitz.eth Theo Jaffee sof 𓋹
33:01

Open source AI just became the biggest policy fight in tech. Our full conversation with Ben Horowitz, where he tells Theo and Sofia why banning open source is nearly impossible, why it's historically the safer path, the risk of one company controlling AI and why distillation isn't the threat people claim. 01:21 The Nvidia-backed open letter on open-weight AI 01:49 The OpenAI–Hugging Face hacking incident 02:27 Why you can't actually ban open source 03:05 Historically, open source has been safer (Linux vs. Windows) 05:17 Jensen's Twitter account and the letter's significance 07:25 China, "sleeper agent" models, and national security risk 09:23 Anthropic defying the US government 15:18 The danger of building your business on Anthropic 18:51 BYD, EVs, and rebuilding US manufacturing 21:30 Why would a company ever release an open model? 23:58 The DeepSeek moment: why nothing actually changed 28:25 Paying 100x more for an AI researcher vs. a janitor 29:06 AI art, the "slop" problem, and a coming renaissance benahorowitz.eth Theo Jaffee sof 𓋹

MTS

11,246 Aufrufe • vor 2 Monaten

In this episode of the Lightcone Podcast, we sat down with Mukund Jha and Madhav Jha, the founders of Emergent - an AI platform that lets anyone build and ship production-ready software. In just eight months, users have created more than 7 million apps on Emergent, with the number doubling in just the last 45 days. We discuss how they built one of the most powerful AI coding agents, why they focused on non-technical users and what it's like building for a global audience from India. 00:00 - Intro 01:06 - What Is Emergent? 01:18 - Founder Backstory 02:09 - From AI Testing to General Coding Agents 02:52 - Getting Ahead of the Market 04:18 - The Pivot to Non-Technical Users 05:22 - Why Second Movers Can Win in AI 09:04 - Building for Production, Not Just Prototypes 18:21 - Live Demo: Building Apps with Emergent 24:40 - How Emergent Hires and Runs a Lean Team 29:04 - Is SaaS Dead? The Rise of Personalized Software 34:04 - The Future: Niche Apps, Solo Builders and AI Agency
39:32

In this episode of the Lightcone Podcast, we sat down with Mukund Jha and Madhav Jha, the founders of Emergent - an AI platform that lets anyone build and ship production-ready software. In just eight months, users have created more than 7 million apps on Emergent, with the number doubling in just the last 45 days. We discuss how they built one of the most powerful AI coding agents, why they focused on non-technical users and what it's like building for a global audience from India. 00:00 - Intro 01:06 - What Is Emergent? 01:18 - Founder Backstory 02:09 - From AI Testing to General Coding Agents 02:52 - Getting Ahead of the Market 04:18 - The Pivot to Non-Technical Users 05:22 - Why Second Movers Can Win in AI 09:04 - Building for Production, Not Just Prototypes 18:21 - Live Demo: Building Apps with Emergent 24:40 - How Emergent Hires and Runs a Lean Team 29:04 - Is SaaS Dead? The Rise of Personalized Software 34:04 - The Future: Niche Apps, Solo Builders and AI Agency

Y Combinator

107,806 Aufrufe • vor 6 Monaten