The Aarthi and Sriram Show

The Aarthi and Sriram Show

A show on optimistic conversations with people building and creating new products and technologies, hosted by veteran technologists Aarthi Ramamurthy and Sriram Krishnan.

Episodes

January 30, 2025 65 mins

0:00 Intro
3:15 - State of AI at the beginning of 2024
12:30 - Valuations and fundraising landscape today
16:20 - Founder backgrounds for AI startups
19:15 - Are AI companies defensible? What moats do they have?
26:40 - Impact for large enterprise businesses
30 35 - Exit options and M&A
35:45 - What problems do they wish founders focused on? And not so much on?
42:35 - AI therapy - is it cringe?
48:55 - Stanford dropouts and starting AI co...

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Chapters:

0:00 Intro
1:50 Gokul Rajaram on Google and what makes a great CEO
14:30 Ishan Mukherjee on the State of LLMs
22:23 Mark Pincus on how to come up with good ideas and build great products
33:12 Anil Varanasi on how to spot great talent
36:18 Rio Ferdinand on Leadership and Young Prodigies
41:33 Hudzah on using Claude LLM to build products quickly
47:29 Mike Maples on patterns for successful startups
56:00 Career and life advice by ...

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Chapters:
0:00 Introduction to Aidan Gomez, CEO of Cohere
2:12 Childhood and growing up in Canada
5:50 Getting into computers and internet
10:30 Sending cold emails
14:20 How to work with Aidan
16:40 The AI paper - "Attention is all you need"
18:45 Starting Cohere
21:10 Why choose enterprise (vs consumer) as a market
24:45 AI strategy
28:20 Hallucinations in LLM models
30:10 Enterprise software and security implications
32:05 Deloitte, Accentu...

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Chapters:
0:00 Intro
1:30 The big political divide in the US
7:50 The new media election
19:55 Pre-Zynga: Mark's entrepreneurial origins
26:10 Being in the room where it happens
30:50 How to choose the right idea to work on
34:35 Meeting Mark Zuckerberg and investing in Facebook
40:20 Founder Mode
43:15 Zynga board and saving the company
49:30 Zynga 2.0: The Comeback
55:00 Zynga company culture
1:01:20 Building product at Zynga
1:08:30 How Zyng...

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0:01Intro
3:04 Ishan's Story
4:43 Inside IIT: India's Most Competitive Universities
6:50 How Quiz Championships Shaped a Tech Founder
11:45 Moving to the US
19:38 Building Kiva - The Early Days
24:45 The Amazon Acquisition
28:30 Immigration
34:55 What is ROX
37:00 Where are AI agents lacking/ State of LLMs
41:35 Reinventing CRMs
43:45 How ROX works
48:30 AI's Impact on Traditional Industries
53:45 The Launch: ROX Goes Public
57:00 Advice to Youn...

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The year is 2024 and it has been a few days since the remarkable US elections. Trump is now President elect. Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy (both former guests of our podcast!) are leading DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency). What does it all mean for tech, for startups and for skilled immigration? What is the future of journalism and media? Is this election a one of one, or is this the first of many podcast elections? We cov...
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Some helpful links
Meter - https://www.meter.com/
Meter command - https://command.meter.com/
Link to Tyler’s book on culture - https://www.amazon.com/Praise-Commercial-Culture-Tyler-Cowen/dp/0674001885
Sam Hinkie - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Hinkie

0:00 - Intro
3:48 - Anil’s early years and background
5:23 - Unconventional parenting
9:35 - Anil's journey to entrepreneurship
12:30 - Sleeping in factories in China
15:22 - China VS U.S.
1...

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0:00 - Intro
1:10 - Meet Gokul Rajaram, on the Mount Rushmore of Silicon Valley
2:19 - Gokul's relationship with Aarthi and Sriram
4:00 - What is Founder Mode? And Zuck's Micromanagement
6:33 - Founder Mode Vs Management Mode
8:26 - Why Gokul disagrees with Paul Graham
10:56 - Learnings from Google’s Larry and Sergey
15:58 - What were early days at Google like?
18:58 - What makes a great CEO?
20: 42 - How to engage with high performing exec...

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Rio Ferdinand is a football legend who spent over a decade playing for Manchester United and was a cornerstone of the England national team. With six Premier League titles, two League Cups, and a UEFA Champions League trophy under his belt, Rio is no stranger to the highs and pressures of elite football. He joined Sriram and Aarthi for a deep dive into the trials and tribulations of a career in competitive sports, the mental and ph...

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A math undergraduate from the University of Waterloo, Hudhayfa Nazoordeen, constructed a miniature fusion reactor, known as a fusor, in his bedroom. He completed the project over several weeks, utilizing the Claude 3.5 Sonnet AI assistant from Anthropic, which he provided with relevant data. In a series of tweets, he detailed the entire process of building the reactor from start to finish.

Show notes:

(00:00) This is an unusual episo...

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Follow Sriram: https://www.instagram.com/sriramk/ https://twitter.com/sriramk Follow Aarthi: https://www.instagram.com/aarthir/ https://twitter.com/aarthir Follow the podcast: https://www.instagram.com/aarthiandsriramshow/ https://twitter.com/aarthisrirampod
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Sriram and Aarthi are joined by Martin Casado, a general partner at Andreessen Horowitz, to discuss the future of the AI Safety Bill SB 1047. A bill that sets out to regulate AI at the model level, is now slated for a California Assembly vote in August. If passed, one signature from Governor Gavin Newsom could cement it into California law.

Show notes:

(00:00) Trailer and intro on SB1047

(00:43) Welcome Martin Casado of a16z

(2:30) Wha...

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A crash course for founders from Marc Andreesen, Vinod Khosla, Stephen Wolfram, Palmer Luckey, and Aravind Srinivas.

Show notes:

(0:00) Marc Andreessen’s idea maze breakdown

(5:29) Vinod Khosla wants you to be internally motivated

(6:42) Stephen Wolfram explains how to think

(8:47) Palmer Luckey’s three tips for young entrepreneurs

(13:02) Aravind Srinivas’ advice for students

Other episodes you might enjoy:

EP 76 - How To Fix Legal Imm...

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Kyla Scanlon⁠ ⁠is an economic commentator who joins Sriram and Aarthi to discuss the disconnect between the economy and consumer sentiment. Kyla is also the author of her brand new book 'In This Economy' which reveals the hidden forces driving key economic outcomes, the most common myths to steer clear of, and the dusty, outdated assumptions that constrain our political imagination, offering a bold new path to building a prosperous...

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Show Notes:

(0:00) Audio issue

(0:51) Introduction

(3:40) Deals are long-term relationships

(6:02) Facebook-WhatsApp acquisition story

(12:04) The most important part of deal-making

(16:44) Don’t come off as desperate

(19:35) Maintaining momentum during a deal

(25:53) Know everything about the person you’re dealing with

(33:37) How we closed our London home

(37:54) Mistakes we often see

(44:40) Managing emotions while deal-making

(50:19...

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Show notes:

(0:00) Intro

(0:56) Prioritize hiring yourself

(5:37) Always keep looking for talent

(8:10) Align incentives with your hire

(15:05) How to find the best hires

(19:15) How to run a good loop

(29:51) Reference checks are underrated

(37:25) How to close the hire

(45:45) Conclusion

Other episodes you might enjoy:

EP 76 - How To Fix Legal Immigration In America

EP 74 - How To Fix Google's WOKE AI Disaster

EP 63 - Lessons From Network...

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Show notes:

(0:00) Naveen’s background

(5:32) Where Generative AI is today

(8:00) ChatGPT-4o and Google I/O announcements were NOT fundamental shifts

(9:38) Has generative AI scaling hit a wall?

(16:34) AI pretraining difficulties

(22:49) General AI vs. specialized AI

(25:55) Biggest opportunities for generative AI startups

(29:15) AI hardware landscape

(33:23) How open source AI companies can compete with closed models like OpenAI?...

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Sriram and Aarthi break down popular audience questions about jobs, work-life balance, and more.

Show notes:

(0:00) Intro

(2:21) Advice for our younger selves

(13:20) Betting on yourself

(23:19) Benefits of taking more shots

(28:59) Work-life balance

(33:32) Aarthi’s hot take

(35:45) Time to switch jobs?

(47:21) Our unpopular opinions

Other episodes you might enjoy:

EP 76 - How To Fix Legal Immigration In America

EP 74 - How To Fix Google's ...

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Sriram and Aarthi respond to your reaction to the immigration episode.

Show notes:

(0:00) We’re on a billboard

(2:38) Our podcast journey

(4:39) Response to our skilled immigration episode

(11:07) Core issues hindering skilled immigration

(23:07) Remembering our immigration process

(29:01) Recapping WrestleMania 40

(49:21) Mark Zuckerberg’s personal rebrand

(54:00) Meta releases Llama 3

Other episodes you might enjoy:

EP 76 - How To Fix Legal...

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Debarghya 'Deedy' Das is an investor and he joins Aarthi and Sriram to break down the hurdles of immigration in America for skilled workers.

Show notes:

(0:00) Intro

(8:08) Immigration routes to the United States

(12:52) Cap for Chinese and Indian immigrants

(15:30) Aarthi and Sriram’s green card story

(17:48) Why should US citizens care about skilled immigration?

(22:31) Challenges legal immigrants face

(30:16) Aarthi and Sriram’s US c...

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