The Delphi Podcast

In this episode of The Delphi Podcast, Tommy sits down with Travis Good, co-founder of Ambient, to discuss why open-source AI may ultimately beat the closed labs and what that shift means for developers, businesses, and the broader AI economy.

Travis explains how Ambient is building a decentralized marketplace for AI inference, matching demand with underutilized GPU capacity while verifying that users receive the exact model quality they paid for. They also explore the risks of building on closed AI infrastructure, China’s growing advantage in open-source models, and why OpenAI and Anthropic may be creating long-term distrust among their own customers.

The conversation also goes deeper into what would happen if OpenAI achieved AGI first, why prompt injection remains one of AI’s most important unsolved problems, and how the current AI infrastructure spending boom could eventually trigger a broader funding shock or AI winter.

Timestamps

00:00 Intro
03:20 What Ambient Is and How It Works
18:40 Verified AI Inference
40:20 China and the Open-Source AI Race
49:00 Why Closed AI Is Making a Mistake
1:03:00 What Happens If OpenAI Reaches AGI?
1:17:10 The AI Bubble and a Possible AI Winter

Tommy: https://x.com/Shaughnessy119
Travis: https://x.com/IridiumEagle

🔗 Connect with Delphi

🌐 Portal: https://delphidigital.io/
🐦 Twitter: https://twitter.com/delphi_digital
💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/delphi-digital

📺 Watch on Youtube: https://thedelphipodcast.buzzsprout.com

DISCLAIMER
This podcast is strictly informational and educational and is not investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any tokens or securities or to make any financial decisions. Do not trade or invest in any project, tokens, or securities based upon this podcast episode. The host and members at Delphi Ventures may personally own tokens or art that are mentioned on the podcast. Our current show features paid sponsorships which may be featured at the start, middle, and/or the end of the episode. These sponsorships are for informational purposes only and are not a solicitation to use any product, service or token.

Join José as he hosts the first episode of the Emerging Manager series, sitting down with Jordan from Nomads—the fund-of-funds arm of the legendary VC firm Hummingbird. Together, they break down what truly separates elite venture investors from the rest of the market and how small, nimble emerging managers can outmaneuver multi-billion dollar tech funds.

They dive into the concept of "pre-consensus" versus non-consensus investing, the art of tracking down hidden talent pools, and the unique psychological traits of great capital allocators. From Lord of the Rings analogies to the mechanics of a total South African real estate wipeout, Jordan shares raw, unfiltered insights into the reality of picking the ultimate GPs

🎯 Key Highlights

▸ The Great Man vs. The Hobbit: Why Jordan favors a humble, distributed approach to venture over the over-indexed "will to power" archetype.
▸ Venture Beta vs. Outlier Exploitation: Questioning whether index venture returns justify the illiquidity premium, and why Nomads focuses strictly bottoms-up on outlier funds.
▸ Pre-Consensus vs. Non-Consensus: Defining how the best pre-seed funds spot massive paradigm shifts and outlier founders well before the consensus forms.
▸ How Emerging Managers Beat Giants: Why nimble, high-trust partnerships can act as a high-signal filter for multi-billion dollar funds like Andreessen and Sequoia.
▸ The Staging Strategy: How legendary founders utilize early angel tables and small pre-seed funds as structural signal boosters before demanding massive institutional valuations.
▸ Evaluating GPs via Decisional Taste: Moving away from static profile-matching to deeply mapping how a general partner makes decisions and who they spend their time with.
▸ The Venture Archetypes: Dissecting the "Bad Cop Meta-Thinker" vs. the "Charismatic Relationship Driver" and how they balance one another in a fund partnership.
▸ The Paradox of Curiosity: Balancing the driving emotion of raw curiosity with the essential risk management of market fear to avoid chasing every shiny new thing.

💡 Subscribe for more crypto & infrastructure insights! 🔔

🧠 Follow the Alpha

▸ Jose: @ZeMariaMacedo
▸ Jordan's Twitter: @jordsnel

🔗 Connect with Delphi

🌐 Portal: https://delphidigital.io/
🐦 Twitter: https://twitter.com/delphi_digital
💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/delphi-digital

🎧 Listen on

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/62PR1RigLG2YN5Pelq6UY9?si=18ac7ccf36ab4753
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-delphi-podcast/id1438148082
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9Yy99ZlQIX9-PdG_xHj43Q

Timestamps

00:00 — Introduction to the Emerging Manager series
02:40 — Challenging venture beta vs. public equities
04:50 — Deconstructing the source-pick-win scheme and identifying real edge
06:45 — How small managers out-discover the multi-billion dollar funds
09:20 — Bridging the gap: Storytelling, storytelling calibrators, and making founders legible
10:45 — From Bridget Mendler to Nigerian tech rebels
14:00 — The Bay Area talent cluster signal vs. picking in disinterested cycles
19:00 — How Nomads evaluates the decisional mechanics of a GP
22:30 — Avoiding the mid-curve trap of over-indexing on explicit thesis articulation
24:00 — Mapping the research ecosystems: Spotting early talent in tech-bio and frontier tech
27:15 — Dissecting intensity, spotting obsession, and separating LARPs
29:15 — The structural resonance between specific GP types and outlier founders
32:45 — The art of referencing general partners and mitigating competitive biases
34:30 — Good cop, bad cop, and the dynamic pairing of the meta-thinker with the executor
37:30 — Why venture edge requires constantly reinventing yourself
41:15 — The shift in price discipline from high ownership demands to unique structuring edge
43:10 — Hunting for investment signals in the world's most obscure markets
48:20 — Convexity, concentration rules, and strict asset selectivity
51:00 — The cutting process: Meritocratic arguments, structural hypotheses, and surface-level traps
56:00 — Why George Soros makes a far better venture proxy than Warren Buffett
01:00:30 — From South African public equities to joining the Hummingbird ecosystem
01:03:00 — Advice to a younger self: Taming the pendulum between fear and deep curiosity
01:06:00 — Moral frameworks in fantasy: Lord of the Rings, Dune, and the Great Man Theory
01:15:00 — Unreliability vs. the grind: Mapping oneself to Da Vinci, Michelangelo, or Raphael
01:17:40 — A lesson in debt covenants: Jordan's biggest early market wipeout scenario 

Disclaimer

This podcast is strictly informational and educational and is not investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any tokens or securities or to make any financial decisions. Do not trade or invest in any project, tokens, or securities based upon this podcast episode. The host and members at Delphi Ventures may personally own tokens or art that are mentioned on the podcast.

What makes a great founder?

Sandy Kory has spent decades trying to answer that question. As the founder of Horizon, he's backed companies like Palantir, BillionToOne, Canva, BaseTen, and SendCutSend long before they became breakout successes.

In this episode, Sandy shares the unconventional framework he uses to identify exceptional founders, why he ignores most pitch decks, why talent density matters more than almost anything else, and how he developed conviction in companies years before the market recognized them.

KEY HIGHLIGHTS
-Why Sandy invested in Palantir before the company had a clear business model
-The founder traits he looks for before reviewing a pitch deck
-How he discovered BillionToOne at a $4 million valuation
-Why talent density is the most important metric in a startup
-Missionary vs. mercenary founders
-The role of intellectual honesty in building great companies
-How Sandy evaluates founders in the first 20–60 minutes
-Why he believes early-stage investing remains highly inefficient
-The SendCutSend story and backing an overlooked manufacturing company
-How AI may change venture capital—and what won't change

TIMESTAMPS
00:00 Introduction
08:46 The Palantir Investment Story
23:22 Finding BillionToOne Early
36:00 Sandy's Founder Evaluation Framework
47:07 Missionaries vs. Mercenaries
53:18 Hiring, Talent Density & Red Flags
01:09:25 AI, Investing & The Future
01:19:29 The SendCutSend Story
01:34:03 Advice for Founders & Closing Thoughts

Follow Tommy: https://x.com/Shaughnessy119
Follow Sandy: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sandykory/

🔗 Connect with Delphi

🌐 Portal: https://delphidigital.io/
🐦 Twitter: https://twitter.com/delphi_digital
💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/delphi-digital

Watch on Youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/@Delphi_Digital

DISCLAIMER
This podcast is strictly informational and educational and is not investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any tokens or securities or to make any financial decisions. Do not trade or invest in any project, tokens, or securities based upon this podcast episode. The host and members at Delphi Ventures may personally own tokens or art that are mentioned on the podcast. Our current show features paid sponsorships which may be featured at the start, middle, and/or the end of the episode. These sponsorships are for informational purposes only and are not a solicitation to use any product, service or token.

Join Yan Liberman and Can Gurel as they speak with Samed Düzçay, founder of Tori, a yield protocol bringing institutional-grade delta-neutral strategies on-chain. Samed shares his journey from mining Bitcoin as a child to building and exiting a successful SaaS company, eventually identifying a massive gap in the stablecoin yield market. 

They dive into the mechanics of the "carry trade," exploring how Tori captures spreads in emerging markets while hedging out local currency risk. Samed explains the protocol's multi-layered security approach, its real-time auditability through ZK-proofs, and how tokenization unlocks yield-enhancing "loops" that were previously impossible in traditional finance. 

💡 Want to stay updated with the latest in crypto & AI? Hit subscribe and the notification bell! 🔔

🧠 Follow the Alpha

▸ Yan's Twitter: @YanLiberman
▸ Can's Twitter: @cannngurel
▸ Sam's Twitter: @eth_nox

🔗 Connect with Delphi

🌐 Portal: https://delphidigital.io/
🐦 Twitter: https://twitter.com/delphi_digital
💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/delphi-digital

Watch on youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/@Delphi_Digital

Timestamps

00:00 — Samed’s background: From mining BTC to SaaS exits 
03:00 — The yield gap: Why recycling crypto-native capital isn't enough
04:45 — Carry Trade 101: Borrowing low, lending high 
06:30 — Covered Interest Parity (CIP) and why spreads still exist 
09:30 — Security of the hedge: Counterparty risk and credit risk 
12:30 — Tail risk scenarios: How hedged positions survive 30% currency drops 
15:30 — Execution Mandates: Why Tori separates design from implementation 
20:30 — The "Access Edge": Why you need an 8-9 figure balance sheet to play 
23:45 — Tokenomics: The two-token model (T-R-U-S-T and receipt tokens)
26:30 — NAV Oracles vs. DEX Market Price: Preventing debt spirals 
31:30 — Transparency: Real-time on-chain balance sheets via Accountable
35:30 — Unwinding scenarios: Fixed yields vs. new capital risk 
41:30 — Lessons from Drift, Resolve, and AU hacks 
46:30 — Stress Tests: Handling mass exits and secondary market de-pegs
50:30 — The Drawdown Protocol: Reserve funds and redemption controls
53:30 — Roadmap: Ethereum mainnet launch and audits

Disclaimer

This podcast is strictly informational and educational and is not investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any tokens or securities or to make any financial decisions. Do not trade or invest in any project, tokens, or securities based upon this podcast episode. The host and members at Delphi Ventures may personally own tokens or art that are mentioned on the podcast. Our current show features paid sponsorships which may be featured at the start, middle, and/or the end of the episode. These sponsorships are for informational purposes only and are not a solicitation to use any product, service or token.

Join the Delphi team for an inside look at their Montenegro retreat as Anil Lulla, José Maria Macedo, Yan Liberman, Tommy Shaughnessy, and Kevin Kelly discuss the evolution of Delphi’s three main companies. From consulting and applied research to venture investments and AI acceleration, the team shares their strategic vision, recent wins, and how they're building competitive advantages across crypto and AI.

🎯 Key Highlights

▸ Retreat philosophy: building context and bonding across Research, Ventures & Labs
▸ Evolution from consulting 1.0 → applied research & economic design
▸ Labs’ journey post-Terra to new incubations like Legion & Metal X
▸ Ventures’ fund-to-fund strategy for AI deal flow & expertise
▸ Delphi Intelligence: bridging the crypto–AI knowledge gap
▸ 21 AI investments totaling $25M+ before major rounds
▸ SPV strategy for late-stage AI & deep tech opportunities
▸ “Hive mind” advantage: cross-company collaboration & shared insight
▸ From speculation → savings: crypto’s evolution via stablecoins & tokenized assets

💡 Subscribe for more crypto & infrastructure insights! 🔔

🧠 Follow the Alpha

▸ Anil's Twitter: @anildelphi
▸ José's Twitter: @ZeMariaMacedo
▸ Yan's Twitter: @YanLiberman
▸ Tommy's Twitter: @Shaughnessy119
▸ Kevin's Twitter: @Kevin_Kelly_II

🔗 Connect with Delphi

🌐 Portal: https://delphidigital.io/
🐦 Twitter: https://x.com/delphi_digital
💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/delphi-digital/
🧠 Intelligence: https://www.delphiintelligence.io

🎧 Listen on

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/62PR1RigLG2YN5Pelq6UY9?si=18ac7ccf36ab4753&nd=1&dlsi=50105fd66e6c4124
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-delphi-podcast/id1438148082
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9Yy99ZlQIX9-PdG_xHj43Q

Timestamps

00:00 — Intro: Montenegro retreat overview
01:00 — Retreat philosophy: context & bonding
02:00 — Research & Consulting: from subs → applied research
04:30 — Economic design & GTM strategy
06:00 — Design studio: from cost center → client services
07:00 — Labs origin & Terra lessons
09:15 — Incubation vs. acceleration models
10:30 — Highlights: Legion, Metal X & Oro
11:00 — Fabricio’s path: hackathon → founder
13:30 — Ventures: bootstrapping & concentrated bets
15:00 — Fund 1 → Fund 3 evolution
16:00 — SPV strategy revival
17:30 — Delphi Intelligence launch & monetization
18:15 — Crypto–AI convergence & learning
20:30 — From zero AI edge → advantage
21:45 — Tommy’s AI journey
22:30 — 21 AI investments (Nouse, Ambient, Grass & more)
24:00 — Internal AI tools: 6 Delphi bots
24:45 — The need for a US open-source AI lab
25:00 — Strongest company connectivity yet
27:00 — Next phase: maximizing collective impact
28:00 — Crypto’s shift: speculation → parallel finance
29:30 — Patience & perspective: beyond CT’s noise
31:00 — Ventures’ collaborative deal flow
32:00 — Backing emerging AI managers
33:30 — 200+ annual deal exposures
35:00 — Diversifying beyond crypto
36:30 — Finding the next “Magnificent Seven”
37:00 — Closing reflections

Disclaimer

This podcast is strictly informational and educational and is not investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any tokens or securities or to make any financial decisions. Do not trade or invest in any project, tokens, or securities based upon this podcast episode. The host and members at Delphi Ventures may personally own tokens or art that are mentioned on the podcast. Our current show features paid sponsorships which may be featured at the start, middle, and/or the end of the episode. These sponsorships are for informational purposes only and are not a solicitation to use any product, service or token.