Building an AI Mathematician | Carina Hong, CEO of Axiom Math
Carina Hong is CEO of Axiom Math, where they're building a self-improving superintelligent reasoner, starting with an AI mathematician. She's a Rhodes Scholar, first-gen college grad and mathematics prodigy who earned dual degrees in mathematics and physics from MIT in 3 years. And a joint JD/PhD at Stanford. They just raised a $64M seed round from B Capital, Greycroft, Madrona, and Menlo Ventures. Carina's favorite books: Proofs from THE BOOK (Author: Martin Aigner, Günter M. Ziegler)(00:02) Intro(00:38) What self-improving mathematical superintelligence means(04:04) Proofs as programs: Lean and the data gap(06:36) How AI proves: human-style vs. Lean-style reasoning(10:43) Carina’s journey: from Olympiad problem-solver to theory-builder(14:47) The engine room: data, infra, and building a math knowledge graph(17:42) Verifying results: compile checks vs. LLM judges(18:56) Self-improvement loops: skills libraries, memory, and conjecture↔prover curricula(21:30) Synthetic data & auto-formalization strategy(24:00) Benchmarks that matter: miniF2F, CombiBench, miniCTX v2(26:24) Why combinatorics is uniquely hard for AI(31:13) Compute footprint & scaling philosophy(32:20) In-house Lean tooling and productization path(33:57) Early use cases: formal verification in hardware/software(36:19) Team blueprint: AI, programming languages, and math(37:35) Scaling laws, efficiency, and bottlenecks(38:26) If Axiom works: what becomes cheaper/faster for the world(40:22) Rapid Fire Round--------Where to find Carina Hong: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/carina-hong/--------Where to find Prateek Joshi: Research column: https://www.infrastartups.comNewsletter: https://prateekjoshi.substack.com Website: https://prateekj.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/prateek-joshi-infiniteX: https://x.com/prateekvjoshi
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From 0 to $15M ARR in 3 months | Mukund Jha, CEO of Emergent
Mukund Jha is CEO of Emergent, an agentic vibe-coding platform. They've raised $23M from Lightspeed, Y Combinator, Together Fund, and Prosus. He was previously the cofounder and CTO of Dunzo, a hugely popular ecommerce company in India.Mukund's favorite books: The Hard Thing About Hard Things (Author: Ben Horowitz)(00:01) Intro(00:07) State of vibe-coding and where we are today(01:42) Emergent in plain English: what the product delivers(03:07) From prototype to traction: the first 90 days(06:03) What changed in the last 24 months (models + infra)(08:13) Early infra bets that enabled speed(12:07) Precision vs. control: editing and debugging without code(14:21) One-click to production: the unglamorous infra behind it(15:55) Points of failure across prompt → plan → code → test → deploy(17:53) Models division of labor: planning, codegen, tests, commits(20:05) What “reasoning” means and how they evaluate it(22:13) Context & memory strategy (beyond naive RAG)(24:22) Representing large codebases so agents don’t hallucinate structure(27:03) Orchestration walkthrough: adding SSO end-to-end(29:40) Agent coordination protocols (how agents talk)(31:05) Debugging long-running agents and trace observability(32:37) Company-building lessons from Dunzo to Emergent(36:10) Philosophy: offloading decisions to models(36:57) Rapid Fire Round--------Where to find Mukund Jha: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mukund-jha-a1596413/--------Where to find Prateek Joshi: Newsletter: https://prateekjoshi.substack.com Website: https://prateekj.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/prateek-joshi-infiniteX: https://x.com/prateekvjoshi
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Diffusion LLMs - The Fastest LLMs Ever Built | Stefano Ermon, cofounder of Inception Labs
Stefano Ermon is the cofounder of Inception Labs and an associate professor at Stanford. Inception is developing a new type of AI models called Diffusion LLMs.Stefano's favorite book: If on a Winter's Night a Traveler (Author: Italo Calvino)(00:01) Introduction(00:38) What are autoregressive LLMs and how do they work(02:28) How diffusion LLMs rethink generation(04:02) The ceiling of autoregressive LLMs: cost, latency, reliability(06:19) Why diffusion LLMs are commercially viable now(09:12) Parallel refinement: how diffusion models generate text(12:05) Understanding diffusion steps and efficiency(13:49) Hardest engineering challenges at Inception(15:23) From research to production: the power of data(16:24) Where diffusion LLMs still lag behind(18:18) Evaluations and benchmarks for diffusion LLMs(20:20) Developer experience and OpenAI-compatible API(21:47) Economics and GPU efficiency(23:38) Hardware and runtime stack(24:58) Competition and the evolving diffusion LLM landscape(27:01) Where diffusion will win first — coding and agentic systems(30:13) How diffusion changes infra, serving, and hardware design(33:04) What’s next at Inception: reasoning and multimodality(35:20) Rapid Fire Round--------Where to find Stefano Ermon: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ermon/--------Where to find Prateek Joshi: Research column: https://www.infrastartups.comNewsletter: https://prateekjoshi.substack.com Website: https://prateekj.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/prateek-joshi-infiniteX: https://x.com/prateekvjoshi
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LLMs, Vibe Coding, and Security | Idan Plotnik, CEO of Apiiro
Idan Plotnik is the CEO of Apiiro, an application security platform built for the AI era. They've raised $135M in funding from investors like Greylock, Kleiner Perkins, and General Catalyst.Idan's favorite books: Zero to IPO (Author: Frederic Kerrest)(00:01) Introduction (00:07) How LLMs Generate Code(02:11) Rise of Vibe Coding: Opportunities and Risks(05:24) Debugging and Security in Vibe Coding(09:13) Vulnerabilities Introduced by AI Code Assistants(12:20) Security Basics for Builders Using AI and Cloud Platforms(15:44) Security by Design and Organizational Standards(18:08) Making Security Dead Simple: The Appiro Approach(22:28) Winning Developer Trust Through UX and Integration(26:59) Biggest Technical and GTM Challenges in Building Appiro(33:55) Rapid Fire Round--------Where to find Idan Plotnik: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/idanplotnik/--------Where to find Prateek Joshi: Newsletter: https://prateekjoshi.substack.com Website: https://prateekj.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/prateek-joshi-infiniteX: https://x.com/prateekvjoshi
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Infra Investing | Astasia Myers, GP at Felicis
Astasia Myers is a GP at Felicis, an iconic VC firm with investments in companies like Shopify, Canva, Adyen, Notion, Mercor, Plaid, Supabase, Flexport, and more. Astasia's favorite books: God's Bankers (Author: Gerald Posner)(00:01) Introduction(00:26) Astasia’s Infra Thesis(03:59) Golden Age of Infra & Innovators Network(06:22) RL Environments & AI Agents(08:57) Disruption Opportunities: Data & Observability(11:31) Where to Find Infra Founders(16:31) Early Signals & Thesis-Driven Investing(18:01) Picking & Decision-Making Process(20:11) Red Flags in Infra Investing(22:20) References & Diligence(24:35) Proof of Usage & Production Signals(26:24) Building Edge as an Investor(28:01) How Felicis Helps Founders Post-Investment(30:05) Consensus vs. Contrarian Views in Infra(32:09) Tourist Traps in Infra Investing(34:43) GTM & Sales Motion in Infra(37:25) Pricing Strategies for Infra Startups(40:09) Ecosystem vs. Core Product Focus(42:15) Lessons from Outlier vs. Good Companies(44:30) Infra Wedges to Fund Today(45:23) Commoditized but Promising Categories(47:06) Exciting AI Advancements(48:21) Rapid Fire Round--------Where to find Astasia Myers: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/astasiamyers/--------Where to find Prateek Joshi: Website: https://prateekj.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/prateek-joshi-infiniteX: https://x.com/prateekvjoshiResearch column: https://infrastartups.com
The best place to find out how AI builders build. The host Prateek Joshi interviews world-class AI founders and VCs on this podcast. You can visit prateekj.com to learn more about the host.
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