20VC: Perplexity's Aravind Srinivas on Will Foundation Models Commoditise, Diminishing Returns in Model Performance, OpenAI vs Anthropic: Who Wins & Why the Next Breakthrough in Model Performance will be in Reasoning

Aravind Srinivas is the Co-Founder & CEO of Perplexity, the conversational "answer engine" that provides precise, user-focused answers to queries. Aravind co-founded the company in 2022 after working as a research scientist at OpenAI, Google, and DeepMind. To date, Perplexity has raised over $100 million from investors including Jeff Bezos, Nat Friedman, Elad Gil, and Susan Wojciki.

In Today’s Episode with Aravind Srinivas We Discuss: 1.

Biggest Lessons from DeepMind & OpenAI 2. •

What was the best career advice Sam Altman @ OpenAI gave Aravind? • •

What were Aravind’s biggest takeaways at DeepMind? • •

How did DeepMind shape how Aravind built Perplexity? • •

What did Aravind mean by “competition is for losers?” What did he learn about talent assembly at DeepMind? • 1.

The Next AI Breakthrough: Reasoning 2. •

Does Aravind think we are experiencing diminishing returns on compute & model performance? • •

Does Aravind agree reasoning will be the next big breakthrough for models? • •

What are the reasons Aravind thinks models suck at reasoning today? • •

What is the timeline for reasoning improvement according to Aravind? • •

What does Aravind think are the biggest misconceptions about AI today? • 1.

Will Foundation Models Commoditise? 2. •

Does Aravind think foundation models will commoditise? What will the end state of foundation models look like? • •

Why does Aravind think the second tier models will get commoditised? • •

Why does Aravind think the subscription model will not work for AI models with true reasoning? • •

Why does Aravind think the application layer companies will benefit from foundation models commoditising? • •

Why does Aravind think foundation models will not verticalize? • •

When does Aravind think is the right time to go enterprise? What is his strategy to differentiate Perplexity from its competitors? • 1.

AI Arms Race: Who Will Win? 2. •

Who does Aravind think will be the winners of foundation models? • •

What do AI companies need to do to win the model arms race? • •

How does Aravind think startups can compete against incumbents' infinite cash flow? • •

What are the reasons Aravind thinks Perplexity’s browsing is better than ChatGPT? • •

What is Aravind’s biggest challenge at Perplexity today? •