"To get something off the ground, it takes everything."

In 2014, Naveen Rao left his researcher job at Qualcomm to co-found machine intelligence platform Nervana. About two and a half years later, Nervana sold to Intel for more than $400 million.

After a few years at Intel, Naveen became CEO and co-founder of open source startup MosaicML, which helped companies build and train large AI models more efficiently and affordably.

Approximately two and a half years later, Databricks acquired that company for $1.3 billion and named him as VP of Generative AI.

Naveen is a neuroscientist with multiple exits, so we spent a lot of time talking about how he shifted from engineering into entrepreneurship. If you have a technical role and are considering starting up, he shares his perspective on balancing day-to-day responsibilities while validating your idea, the importance of challenging industry assumptions, and finding your market niche. 

We also talked about who should — and should not — start up in stealth and addressed some of the current challenges facing the generative AI startup ecosystem, such as FOMO-fueled investments and the rapid failure rates of companies grappling with high GPU costs.

“You don't read about it. No one talks about these things, but it comes across my desk as ‘potential acquisition opportunity,’ or something like that,” said Naveen. “So it's happening. I would call it once a week, minimum.”

Considering some of the irrational exuberance we’ve seen in this hype cycle, he seemed sanguine about the number of companies that are quietly throwing in the towel.

“It's okay. There was a lot of pipe. There was a big over investment that happened. It's not terribly surprising that this is happening. It's happening within two years, which I would argue is a good time frame. You know — you gave it a go.”

(2:54) “Evidence is always less than you want. At some point you kind of have to take a leap.”

(5:37) “My journey with Nervana was, it was immediately clear to me that the world needed this.”

(11:52) “Get in the head of someone who's going to exchange money for your services and products.”

(14:54) Why he’s not a big fan of remote work.

(18:35) “It is on you as an adult to find balance that you can work with. It is not the company's duty to do this.”

(20:31) Why product companies should “probably not” startup in stealth.

(23:11) “It wasn't the right time to sell. I didn't look at it like that at all.”

(26:32) Hiring and retaining generative AI talent is “a hard problem right now.”

(30:16) “Companies are failing pretty fast because the GPU spends are so big.”

(35:04) Interacting with Databricks’ developer community.

(43:11) Naveen on accelerators: “I think there are actually faster ways to learn.”

(45:05) When it comes to angel investing, “I'm looking for creativity, honestly.”

(47:34) If you were interviewing for a job with an early-stage startup, what's one question you'd have to ask the CEO? 

Thanks for listening!

– Walter.