The Scaling Era

Tapa Ghosh on AI chips, studying your field, and collective self-belief

Jeson and I interview Tapa Ghosh [https://x.com/semiDL], an engineer, Thiel Fellow, and the founder of Volantis Semi, which raised $5M from Open AI’s Sam Altman to build photonic motherboards for AI chips. Tapa's journey began with crashed drones, leading him to a hardware deep dive and giving a talk Stanford on designing 3D ICs for deep learning as a teenager. We explore Volantis's approach to solving a key bottleneck in AI: latency and bandwidth in communication between chips. Tapa explains why using light instead of electricity could revolutionize AI infrastructure, and offers insights into the current landscape dominated by NVIDIA. His perspectives on self-learning, team building, and resurfacing old ideas to solve new problems reveal what it’s like to work on the foundational layer to our AI future. Please enjoy this wide-ranging conversation with Tapa Ghosh. Timestamps: (00:00:00) - Tapa’s origin story: How a crashed drone sparked an interest in chip design (00:05:45) - How to speedrun to the frontiers of knowledge (00:11:28) - Giving a talk at Stanford: Petascale Deep Learning on a Single Chip (00:13:27) - Differences between CPUs, GPUs, and ASICs (00:15:48) - How NVIDIA went from graphics to AI computing (00:17:37) - Why AI workloads today are communication-bound, not compute-bound (00:19:32) - Study the history of your field (00:21:48) - Why Volantis is building a photonic motherboard (00:25:48) - What he’s doing differently this time around vs. his last startup (00:32:21) - The landscape of AI chips: NVIDIA, AMD, challengers (00:38:10) - New problems as we continue to scale AI clusters for training & inference (00:39:51) - What Moore’s Law teaches us about human psychology & coordination (00:42:08) - The engineering marvel of semiconductor fabrication (00:43:56) - Getting ghosted by Intel vs. gifted pineapple cakes by TSMC (00:48:46) - Other promising opportunities in AI hardware / infra (00:52:44) - One of Tapa's unresolved rabbit holes

Jeson Lee on Ikigai, idle talent, and choosing good quests

Jeson Lee [https://x.com/Jesonlee1128]is a repeat founder now building Savant [https://www.joinsavant.com/] (joinsavant.com [http://joinsavant.com]), a program for technical talent to build frontier ideas. Joins us as we catch up and cover: 00:29 Growing up in Malaysia 02:31 Uber for propane gas? 05:59 Moving to Silicon Valley 08:04 Helpful concepts: the Zone of Genius, Ikigai, personality-market fit 15:38 Using writing to catch gaps in your own thinking & get feedback from others 17:53 Introducing Savant: An accelerator for technical talent 21:56 Why aren't the right people working on the right problems? 23:27 How will the world be different if Savant were to succeed? 25:59 One thing that has inspired us lately

Emile Riachi on dispute resolution, the art of travel, and political change in Lebanon

Emile Riachi is an aspiring lawyer, active Lebanese citizen, and curious traveller. Join us as we catch up and cover: * Field notes from Delhi, India * Emile’s unique travel style * Coming-of-age in Lebanon * Comparing higher ed systems in France vs. the US * International arbitration—what is it and why does it exists * What separates a great litigator from a merely good one * Lebanon’s current political landscape & a vision for the future * Reflections on early political activism, what it’d takes to enact change * Road safety & Ralph Nader’s legacy * What he’s learned from the leadership of Charles de Gaulle * Taking care of your mental health * …and more!

Stuart Baker on Singapore as a startup, the future of news, and near-death experience

Stuart Baker is the co-founder of Airvue, an AI news assistant. Our wide-ranging conversation covers: * Playing rugby * Singapore as a startup * How our cities can be better * His recent move to SF * Playing positive sum games * What’s wrong with the news today & why he's building Airvue * The business & tech sides of the news industry * How AI changes the news * His near-death experience * Risk vs. fear * The trap of the deferred life plan * Getting unblocked & out of your head * Keystone habits * ADHD * ...and much more!

Alex Gerrese on early iPhone apps, self-driving cars, and growing up everywhere

Interview with Alex Gerrese -- indie app maker, Apple fanboy, early riser.