Our guest today is Naveen Rao, the CEO and founder of Mosaic ML. The MosaicML Cloud makes it easy to train models of any size on any number of GPUs, helping teams achieve more accurate results faster and seamlessly scale workloads with distributed training methods. Naveen previously built the first AI-chip company Nervana Systems, which was acquired by Intel in 2016. He then joined Intel and started and ran Intel’s AI division.

What we discussed (with timestamps):

8.12 It really came down to, I want to find my purpose in life, in this world… - on returning to academia.

9.50 I came with a focus, I didn’t meander. - on completing a Ph.D. ahead of time while having one of the most amazing times of his life.

15:15 We started seeing hints that this was something much bigger than just a new toy. - on Neural Networks.

17.01 Entrepreneurs and founders are zealots. - on the difference between the founders and professional managers.

19.50 He made this company an AI company by his sheer will… - on Nvidia’s Jenson.

24.01 I was like, man… that’s having your back - on venture investors.

24.47 It hurt, it felt like I got dumped by my girlfriend… as a young engineer, when this stuff happens to you, it leaves a mark - on living through the dot-com bubble.

28.03 We came in and it was like, we’re on pause. - on building at Intel.

33.23 Oh shoot, they’re going to kill us - on Nvidia’s reaction on Nervana's acquisition by Intel.

35.44 I think they tried to reach too far… and couldn’t hit it. - on Intel vs. TSMC.

42.00 The H100 - it uses 2x the power, has 2x the performance and it costs 2x the price. We’re not seeing More’s Law. - Why focus on efficiency at Mosaic?

56.52 - You get something that performs way better - on training a model on PubMed and testing against the Medical Licensing Exam.

1.02.13 - Do I want to be in the foxhole with this person? - on partnering with a co-founder.

1.04.00 - I’m not doing anything, just thinking about this problem… - on getting a term sheet from LUX.

1.09.07 - You have to be irrational! - on building a team

1.17.26 - Trying your best to not have to fire someone should be what you really looking for… - on hiring execs.

1.23.36 - There will be a thing, where you generate stuff for various industries… and it’s completely untouched! - on opportunities in AI today.

1.33.46 - Building synthetic intelligences capable of processing vast amounts of data is how we’re going to make future scientific breakthroughs. - on the future of AI.

Links:

Twitter: @NaveenGRao

Twitter: @MosaicML

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/mosaicml/

The lottery ticket hypothesis https://arxiv.org/abs/1912.05671

Opensource composer https://github.com/mosaicml/composer

GPT-3 training https://www.mosaicml.com/blog/gpt-3-quality-for-500k

MLPerf Image Classification https://www.mosaicml.com/blog/mlperf-2022

MLPerf NLP https://www.mosaicml.com/blog/mlperf-nlp-nov2022

A newsletter with the AI papers summaries https://dblalock.substack.com/

Contact us at forward@dawnglobalventures.com

Improving health outcomes with data and AI - Dave DeCaprio, ClosedLoop.ai

ForwardBy DawnMar 21, 2023