Ep 50: Fireworks CEO Lin Qiao on Why There Won’t be a Single Model, Will Hyperscalers Win Inference & AI Use-cases with PMF

Lin Qiao, the co-founder of Fireworks.ai, sits down for a deep dive into the future of AI. Lin ran the PyTorch team at Meta, which developed some of the most fundamental open-source AI software in use today. She’s got a riveting perspective on the AI landscape that is a must-listen.

 

[0:00] Intro

[1:06] Fireworks: Revolutionizing AI Inference

[2:12] Challenges in AI Model Development

[4:05] The Future of AI: Compound Systems

[4:32] Designing Effective AI Tools

[10:26] Customization and Fine-Tuning in AI

[14:06] Human-in-the-Loop Automation

[16:38] Evaluating AI Models

[19:18] Building Complex AI Systems

[21:18] Function Calling and AI Orchestration

[26:52] AI Infrastructure and Hardware

[31:08] Small Expert Models

[31:27] Hyperscalers and Resource Management

[32:14] Inference Systems and Scalability

[33:08] Running Models Locally: Cost and Privacy

[35:20] Open Source Models and Meta's Role

[36:41] The Evolution of AI Training and Inference

[38:04] Fireworks' Vision and Market Strategy

[40:46] The Impact of Generative AI

[45:18] AI Research and Future Trends

[46:58] Building for a Rapidly Changing AI Landscape

[49:36] Quickfire

 

With your co-hosts: 

@jacobeffron 

- Partner at Redpoint, Former PM Flatiron Health 

@patrickachase 

- Partner at Redpoint, Former ML Engineer LinkedIn 

@ericabrescia 

- Former COO Github, Founder Bitnami (acq’d by VMWare) 

@jordan_segall 

- Partner at Redpoint

Jacob is an AI investor at Redpoint Ventures. He's led Redpoint's investments in companies like Abridge, Physical Intelligence & Legora. Follow Jacob on Twitter (@jacobeffron).

On Unsupervised Learning we probe the sharpest minds in AI in search for the truth about what's real today, what will be real in the future and what it all means for businesses and the world. If you're a builder, researcher or investor navigating the AI world, this podcast will help you deconstruct and understand the most important breakthroughs and see a clearer picture of reality. Subscribe to this show to stay up to date on our latest episodes.