The MAD Podcast with Matt Turck, is a series of conversations with leaders from across the Machine Learning, AI, & Data landscape hosted by leading AI & data in...
What You MUST Know About AI Engineering in 2025 | Chip Huyen, Author of “AI Engineering”
In this episode, we dive deep into the world of AI engineering with Chip Huyen, author of the excellent, newly released book "AI Engineering: Building Applications with Foundation Models".
We explore the nuances of AI engineering, distinguishing it from traditional machine learning, discuss how foundational models make it possible for anyone to build AI applications and cover many other topics including the challenges of AI evaluation, the intricacies of the generative AI stack, why prompt engineering is underrated, why the rumors of the death of RAG are greatly exaggerated, and the latest progress in AI agents.
Book: https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/ai-engineering/9781098166298/
Chip Huyen
Website - https://huyenchip.com
LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/chiphuyen
Twitter/X - https://x.com/chipro
FIRSTMARK
Website - https://firstmark.com
Twitter - https://twitter.com/FirstMarkCap
Matt Turck (Managing Director)
LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/turck/
Twitter - https://twitter.com/mattturck
(00:00) Intro
(02:45) What is new about AI engineering?
(06:11) The product-first approach to building AI applications
(07:38) Are AI engineering and ML engineering two separate professions?
(11:00) The Generative AI stack
(13:00) Why are language models able to scale?
(14:45) Auto-regressive vs. masked models
(16:46) Supervised vs. unsupervised vs. self-supervised
(18:56) Why does model scale matter?
(20:40) Mixture of Experts
(24:20) Pre-training vs. post-training
(28:43) Sampling
(32:14) Evaluation as a key to AI adoption
(36:03) Entropy
(40:05) Evaluating AI systems
(43:21) AI as a judge
(46:49) Why prompt engineering is underrated
(49:38) In-context learning
(51:46) Few-shot learning and zero-shot learning
(52:57) Defensive prompt engineering
(55:29) User prompt vs. system prompt
(57:07) Why RAG is here to stay
(01:00:31) Defining AI agents
(01:04:04) AI agent planning
(01:08:32) Training data as a bottleneck to agent planning
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1:12:35
Dataiku's Secret to Scaling AI in Global Enterprises | Florian Douetteau, CEO, Dataiku
In this episode, we sit down with Florian Douetteau, co-founder and CEO of Dataiku, a global category leader in enterprise AI and a fixture on the Forbes Cloud 100 list and in the Gartner Leader Quadrant.
Florian shares his journey from a Parisian student fascinated by functional programming to leading a global enterprise software company. We discuss how Dataiku bridges the gap between technical and business teams to democratize AI in the enterprise, the challenges of selling to enterprise clients, and how Dataiku acts as an orchestration layer for Generative AI, helping businesses manage complex data processes and control AI, so they can build more with AI.
Dataiku
Website - https://www.dataiku.com/
X/Twitter - https://twitter.com/dataiku
Florian Douetteau
LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/fdouetteau
X/Twitter - https://twitter.com/fdouetteau
FIRSTMARK
Website - https://firstmark.com
X/Twitter - https://twitter.com/FirstMarkCap
Matt Turck (Managing Director)
LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/turck/
X/Twitter - https://twitter.com/mattturck
(00:00) Intro
(02:08) Florian's life before Dataiku
(06:58) Creation of Dataiku
(12:08) Secret behind the Dataiku's name
(12:47) How does Dataiku stay insightful about the future?
(14:46) Building a platform, not just a tool
(17:26) How to sell to the enterprise from the beginning
(20:09) Dataiku platform today
(26:55) Data is always the problem
(28:50) LLM Mesh
(36:02) Will Gen AI replace ML?
(39:41) Managing Gen AI and traditional AI on one platform
(40:37) Gen AI deployment in the enterprise
(48:33) Dataiku's roadmap
(50:28) What has changed with the company's growth?
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53:06
Building the Easy Button for Generative AI | May Habib, CEO, Writer
In this episode, we dive into the world of generative AI with May Habib, co-founder of Writer, a platform transforming enterprise AI use. May shares her journey from Qordoba to Writer, emphasizing the impact of transformers in AI. We explore Writer's graph-based RAG approach, and their AI Studio for building custom applications.
We also discuss Writer's Autonomous Action functionality, set to revolutionize AI workflows by enabling systems to act autonomously, highlighting AI's potential to accelerate product development and market entry with significant increases in capacity and capability.
Writer
Website - https://writer.com
X/Twitter - https://x.com/get_writer
May Habib
LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/may-habib
X/Twitter - https://x.com/may_habib
FIRSTMARK
Website - https://firstmark.com
X/Twitter - https://twitter.com/FirstMarkCap
Matt Turck (Managing Director)
LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/turck/
X/Twitter - https://twitter.com/mattturck
This session was recorded live at a recent Data Driven NYC, our in-person, monthly event series, hosted at Ramp's beautiful HQ. If you are ever in New York, you can join the upcoming events here: https://www.eventbrite.com/o/firstmark-capital-2215570183
(00:00) Intro
(01:47) What is Writer?
(02:52) Writer's founding story
(06:54) Writer is a full-stack company. Why?
(07:57) Writer's enterprise use cases
(10:51) Knowledge Graph
(17:59) Guardrails
(20:17) AI Studio
(23:16) Palmyra X 004
(27:18) Current state of the AI adoption in enterprises
(28:57) Writer's sales approach
(31:25) What May Habib is excited about in AI
(33:14) Autonomous Action use cases
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35:52
State of AI 2024: Frontier Models, AI Geopolitics and The Robotics Renaissance | Nathan Benaich, Founder, Air Street Capital
Nathan Benaich, founder and GP at VC firm Air Street Capital, publishes every year "State of AI", one of the most widely-read and comprehensive reports on all things AI across research, industry, and policy. In this episode, we sit down with Nathan to discuss some of the highlights of the 2024 edition of the report, including the "vibes" shift in the industry from existential risk concerns last year to the current monetization race, the financial success of the foundation model labs, how a generative AI app could top the Apple Store charts in 2025, and the challenges facing humanoid robotics.
State of AI 2024 report: https://www.stateof.ai/2024-report-launch
State of AI 2024 video: https://youtu.be/EVMbnPOuUl0
Air Street Capital
Website - https://www.airstreet.com
X/Twitter - https://x.com/airstreet
Nathan Benaich
LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/nathanbenaich
X/Twitter - https://x.com/nathanbenaich
FirstMark
Website - https://firstmark.com
X/Twitter - https://twitter.com/FirstMarkCap
Matt Turck (Managing Director)
LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/turck/
X/Twitter - https://twitter.com/mattturck
(01:08) Who is Nathan Benaich?
(04:57) "Vibe" shift in AI
(09:13) Current state of the foundation models
(22:01) AI companies vs. SaaS
(23:31) AI consumer apps
(25:49) AI applications from a VC's perspective
(29:25) "You don't need to be an AI engineer to build an AI company"
(30:46) AI in robotics
(34:36) AI regulations in Europe
(40:55) Predictions on the future of AI
(49:30) Nathan Benaich's favorite sources of information
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51:39
Superintelligence, Bubbles And Big Bets: AI Investing in 2024 | Matt Turck & Aman Kabeer, FirstMark
In this special episode of the MAD Podcast, Matt Turck and Aman Kabeer from FirstMark delve into the AI market from a venture investor perspective, in the final weeks of an incredibly packed and exciting 2024. They comment on their favorite news stories, such as OpenAI's record-breaking $6.6 billion funding round and the massive $200B investments in AI infrastructure by Meta, Google, and Amazon. They tackle the latest trends in funding and valuations in both public and private markets, debate the critical question of whether we're in an AI bubble, examine the current state of AI demand, the potential of scaling laws, and the future of AI-driven innovation. They then discuss where they see opportunities for startups and investors across AI hardware, compute, foundation models, AI tooling, and both consumer and enterprise AI applications.
FIRSTMARK
Website - https://firstmark.com
X/Twitter - https://twitter.com/FirstMarkCap
Matt Turck (Managing Director)
LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/turck/
X/Twitter - https://twitter.com/mattturck
Aman Kabeer (Investor)
LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/aman-kabeer/
X/Twitter - https://x.com/AmanKabeer11
(00:00) Intro
(02:20) The Year of Record-Breaking Evaluations and Investments
(05:23) AI's Environmental Impact and Nuclear Revival
(06:48) AI Valuations and Market Dynamics
(17:01) Are We in an AI Bubble?
(25:01) AI Progress and Demand
(35:06) AI's Role in Consumer Applications
(41:02) AI's Influence on SaaS and Business Models
(50:55) AI's Role in Enterprise Transformation
(01:04:00) The Future of AI: Apps and Agents
The MAD Podcast with Matt Turck, is a series of conversations with leaders from across the Machine Learning, AI, & Data landscape hosted by leading AI & data investor and Partner at FirstMark Capital, Matt Turck.
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