Unsupervised Learning with Jacob Effron

• Ep 78: Jordan Schneider, Host of China Talk, on AI Race, Key Policy Decisions & Unpacking Geopolitical Chip Tension

  This week on Unsupervised Learning, Jacob Effron is joined by Jordan Schneider, host of China Talk, who challenges widespread assumptions about US-China AI competition. China's AI development is driven by private capital and market competition—not central government planning—with companies like DeepSeek, Alibaba, and ByteDance operating more like Silicon Valley startups than state projects. The critical bottleneck is compute: the West maintains a 10-15x advantage in advanced chips, and US export controls implemented one month before ChatGPT created a structural edge favoring America for years. Chinese companies aggressively open-source models from strategic necessity—they couldn't establish a quality gap justifying paid access like OpenAI. Jordan explains why the "Goldilocks strategy" of controlled chip dependency fails, why expert consensus opposes selling advanced semiconductors to China despite Nvidia's lobbying, and how Taiwan's invasion risk is driven more by domestic politics than AGI scenarios. China's real advantage may emerge in robotics manufacturing at scale, where they're already deploying while the US debates strategy. Inside the Politburo's AI Study Session: https://www.chinatalk.media/p/xi-takes-an-ai-masterclassSubmit your questions to Jacob here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1vHBYv0bTT_EgFWTjbKnLr_sn3pZnFmcFGWYVTltKEco/edit (0:00) Intro(1:45) The Chinese AI Ecosystem: Pre and Post ChatGPT(3:45) Government Influence and Private Sector Dynamics(6:40) Venture Funding and Major Players(8:36) Talent and International Collaboration(11:25) Open Source Models and Market Dynamics(15:24) What Role Does The Chinese Government Play?(31:17) US-China AI Policy and Strategic Competition(36:18) The Argument for Selling AI Accelerators(37:02) Risks of Not Selling to China(43:34) Technological Constraints and Huawei's Challenges(51:18) US-China Relations and Taiwan(1:02:46) 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

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• Ep 77: Anthropic’s Dianne Na Penn on Opus 4.5, Rethinking Model Scaffolding & Safety as a Competitive Advantage

  This episode features Dianne Na Penn, a senior product leader at Anthropic, discussing the launch of Claude Opus 4.5 and the evolution of frontier AI models. The conversation explores how Anthropic approaches model development—balancing ambitious capability roadmaps with user feedback, making strategic bets on areas like agentic coding and computer use while deliberately avoiding others like image generation. Dianne shares insights on the shifting nature of AI evaluation (moving beyond saturated benchmarks like SWE-bench toward more open-ended measures), the evolution of scaffolding from "training wheels" to intelligence amplifiers, and why she believes we're closer to transformative long-running AI than most people think. She also discusses Anthropic's distinctive culture of authenticity, the under appreciated benefits of model alignment for producing independent-thinking AI, and why the real bottleneck to AI agents isn't model capability anymore but product innovation. (0:00) Intro(0:57) Starting the Work on Opus 4.5(2:04) Model Capabilities and Surprises(5:59) Computer Use and Practical Applications(7:21) Pricing and Positioning(10:02) Customer Feedback and Early Access(16:44) The Reality of Enterprise Agents(18:47) Future of AI and Long-Running Intelligence(28:06) Anthropic's Culture and Decision Making(30:31) Key Decisions and Fun Moments(33:45) 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

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• Ep 76: Sora Creators Bill Peebles, Rohan Sahai & Thomas Dimson on Their Unexpected Viral Success

  This episode features the core team behind Sora, OpenAI's groundbreaking video generation platform that became the #1 app in the App Store. Bill Peebles (research lead), Rohan Sahai (product lead), and Thomas Dimson (engineering/product lead with Instagram background) discuss the unexpected viral success of Sora's launch, the product journey that led to the breakthrough "cameo" feature (putting yourself in AI-generated videos), and their philosophy of building a creator-first social network that prioritizes human creativity over passive consumption. They reveal the technical milestones in video generation, their small team size (under 50 people total at launch), navigation of content moderation challenges, early monetization strategy, and their ambitious vision for video models as world simulators that could eventually contribute to scientific breakthroughs by 2028. The conversation captures both the tactical product decisions and strategic philosophy that made Sora a cultural phenomenon. (0:00) Intro(1:35) Unexpected Success of ChatGPT and Sora(3:55) Sora as an Independent App(5:38) Sora Prototypes and Evolution(8:07) User Creativity and Surprising Use Cases(14:46) Celebrity Engagement and Rights Management(17:58) Competition and Future of AI Video Models(25:42) Empowering Creators(31:21) The Evolution of Image Generation(33:36) How Do Models Need to Improve?(42:10) Monetization of Sora(45:54) Global Reach and Cultural Impact(48:38) Moderation and Safety Challenges(50:09) Integration with Other OpenAI Products(52:07) How do Models Learn Physics?(55:16) 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

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• AI Round Up: Ari Morcos from Datalogy AI and Rob Toews from Radical VC on Karpathy Reactions, OpenAI’s Dealmaking, & Bubble Reality Check

  This episode features Rob Toews from Radical Ventures and Ari Morcos, Head of Research at Datology AI, reacting to Andrej Karpathy's recent statement that AGI is at least a decade away and that current AI capabilities are "slop." The discussion explores whether we're in an AI bubble, with both guests pushing back on overly bearish narratives while acknowledging legitimate concerns about hype and excessive CapEx spending. They debate the sustainability of AI scaling, examining whether continued progress will come from massive compute increases or from efficiency gains through better data quality, architectural innovations, and post-training techniques like reinforcement learning. The conversation also tackles which companies truly need frontier models versus those that can succeed with slightly-behind-the-curve alternatives, the surprisingly static landscape of AI application categories (coding, healthcare, and legal remain dominant), and emerging opportunities from brain-computer interfaces to more efficient scaling methods. (0:00) Intro(1:04) Debating the AI Bubble(1:50) Over-Hyping AI: Realities and Misconceptions(3:21) Enterprise AI and Data Center Investments(7:46) Consumer Adoption and Monetization Challenges(8:55) AI in Browsers and the Future of Internet Use(14:37) Deepfakes and Ethical Concerns(26:29) AI's Impact on Job Markets and Training(31:38) Google and Anthropic: Strategic Partnerships(34:51) OpenAI's Strategic Deals and Future Prospects(37:12) The Evolution of Vibe Coding(44:35) AI Outside of San Francisco(48:09) Data Moats in AI Startups(50:38) Comparing AI to the Human Brain(56:07) The Role of Physical Infrastructure in AI(56:55) The Potential of Chinese AI Models(1:03:15) Apple's AI Strategy(1:12:35) The Future of AI Applications 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

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• AI Round Up: Ari Morcos from Datalogy AI and Rob Toews from Radical VC on AI Talent Wars, xAI’s $200B Valuation, & Google’s Comeback

  This episode features a deep dive into the current state of AI model progress with Ari Morcos (CEO of Datalogy AI and former DeepMind/Meta researcher) and Rob Toews (partner at Radical Ventures). The conversation tackles whether model progress is genuinely slowing down or simply shifting into new paradigms, exploring the role of reinforcement learning in scaling capabilities beyond traditional pre-training. They examine the talent wars reshaping AI labs, Google's resurgence with Gemini, the sustainability of massive valuations for companies like OpenAI and Anthropic, and the infrastructure ecosystem supporting this rapid evolution. The discussion weaves together technical insights on data quality, synthetic data generation, and RL environments with strategic perspectives on acquisitions, regulatory challenges, and the future intersection of AI with physical robotics and brain-computer interfaces. (0:00) Intro(2:59) Debate on Model Progress(8:03) Challenges in AI Generalization and RL Environments(15:44) Enterprise AI and Custom Models(20:27) Google's AI Ascent and Market Impact(24:30) Valuations and Future of AI Companies(27:55) Evaluating xAI's Position in the AI Landscape(30:31) The Talent War in AI Research(35:45) The Impact of Acquihires on Startups(42:35) The Future of AI Infrastructure(48:28) The Potential of Brain-Computer Interfaces(54:45) The Evolution of AI and Robotics(1:00:50) The Importance of Data in AI Research 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

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