OpenAI Backed These Founders Before They Were Old Enough to Buy a Beer

Speaker A: Tl.

Speaker B: Dr.

Speaker A: The reason I'm doing it is for the pursuit of greatness.

Speaker C: A very, very small subset of people have the confidence and the delusion, the early stage delusion, to take the risk to start a company.

Speaker A: Because, uh, in essence what you're doing is you're trying to make something out of nothing. From a physics perspective, that's hard. And like, from a startup perspective, obviously it's even harder.

Speaker C: Starting a company is a little bit different in the sense of the commitment you take and working there full time, you have in your office, seeing it as your full time job.

Speaker A: You drain your battery every single day

Speaker C: when you're doing a startup.

Speaker A: Uh, that was like the driving factor here is like, what's the work I can do that will drain me to zero percent?

Speaker C: We're chasing a one in a million outcome here, but I think this one's more in your control than sports.

Speaker B: On today's episode of the first 10 podcasts, today's guests are the kind of people who make you wonder what exactly you were doing at their age. Alkis Tutsiaridis grew up in Athens, Greece, and before most of us had figured out how to study for finals, he'd already placed in the top six of Greece's National Economics Olympiad. Then he came to Berkeley for computer science, economics and electronic intelligence systems, where he spent his summers inside private equity, Investment Banking and AI Labs and along the way became co president of $100,000 student hedge fund. Even for a Berkeley student, I think that's a lot. Shashi Salavath was publishing clinical AI research at Northwestern's Feinberg School of Medicine while still in high school, before even graduating from the Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy. Shashi developed Careneck, a ah, revolutionary AI tool to help clinicians predict adverse effects in cancer patients undergoing immunotherapy. He also was the youngest person ever to present at, uh, the International Conference on on computational science at 17. Together they are building Tacit Intelligence, a, uh, stealth startup backed by Entrepreneurs First, Berkeley Skydeck and the OpenAI Startup Accelerator. And we're going to talk about what it actually takes to build a startup at this level of professional life. Alkashi, welcome to the FirstTent podcast.

Speaker A: Yep. Thank you, Boris.

Speaker B: Yeah. How are you guys doing?

Speaker A: Yep, doing pretty well. How about you?

Speaker C: I mean, yeah, it's been a busy week though. Like, you know, like, uh, uh, as with the, uh, SF startup culture, I don't think you can ever, like, you know, not be busy here.

Speaker B: Startups never sleep. That's a fact.

Speaker C: Exactly.

Speaker B: My first Question is for you, Akis. Akis. Uh, do you ever wonder about professional soccer and what could have been if you went down that path?

Speaker C: I mean, yeah, I mean, I guess when I was. I think any kid's dream is to play, like, especially until you're like 16 or like you know, 17 when reality hits you. But I think, you know, after that you realize that, hey, like, you know, uh, you know, it's a pretty much like a wanting, it's a, well, we're chasing a one in a million outcome here.

Speaker B: But yes you are. Uh, yes you are.

Speaker C: But I think this one's more in your control than sports.

Speaker B: Joshi. Uh, what was Shasha the Robot about?

Speaker A: Sasha the robot. Okay, so this was back in high school when I was doing. This is actually one of my first startups when I first started getting into entrepreneurship and this whole idea of, of using uh, technology to build really cool things. Um, it was a mental health startup and the idea was to use a humanoid robot as. And this was back when uh, LLMs first started coming out and uh, people started noticing the capacity for it to uh, relate to your emotions and you being able to talk to it, um, kind of in a back and forth way. And so the immediate application I saw, at least what my high school self saw was uh, putting and an LLM that was tuned towards mental health care inside a robot and having that be a proxy for like a therapist that you would go to. And so that was kind of my first um, foray into like using um, AI to, to, to have an impact on uh, on people.

Speaker B: I love that. And back in high school, this was just, just a few short years ago.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, this was my, this was my sophomore, junior ish year around that.

Speaker B: Catch us up. Let's start with August. August. Tell me your, the 32nd version of your story. How did you get to where you are, uh, today?

Speaker C: Yeah, I mean I grew up in Greece so, um, came to Berkeley for college. First time sort of. Well, not the first time being in the U.S. but my first time living there. Um, did my little Berkeley stint for three years. Was more of a finance person back then. Did software investing as you mentioned. Um, then from software investing, both Longshore Public investing and then private equity, um, got more into the software part of the software investing, uh, I guess, uh, theme. So, um, I worked for a few startups, worked for Basis Adventures where I was an AI fellow and built internal systems. Then from there transitioned on to Rosepace, which is a really cool company. Um, it was founded by the former CTO of Notion and CBO Binance and I was like an early employee there and then that got me into the whole startup craze of building initially in finance, um, but then I met Sashi through entrepreneurs. First we saw we had the same common denominator of um, data silos and fragmented data in large scale complex enterprises and we were like, okay, we complement each other's skills. This is what we're both passionate about. Let's work on the same problem. So that's basically the short version of how we ended up here.

Speaker B: Love it. What about your story Shashi? How did you get to where you are today?

Speaker A: Um, yeah, so I started programming uh, coding from a young age. Um, I really liked doing puzzles and stuff as a kid like Sudoku and did competitive chess for a while as well. Um, but since then I really liked the idea of just getting what was in my head out into the world and just that iteration speed was something that was really appealing to me. Um, but my background is more in kind uh, of on the research side as you were mentioning um, earlier and also on the enterprise um, side as well. Like I was working at State Farm since I was 16 and I first started in their R and D space and then kind of moved on to uh, looking at AI enablement kind of across the entire organization. Um, did that for a while and uh, thought it was fun. Recently I was also doing a bit of work for Deloitte and um, I was doing some like case stuff for them in an AI and data solutions role. Um, but you know, throughout all of this I realized that this whole fragmentation issue was very prevalent within enterprise and that became something that became more and more apparent to me um, in different settings, whether that was in research or in ah, an enterprise setting.

Speaker B: I love that. One of the coolest things. And congrats on everything that you guys have accomplished and congrats on making the decision uh, to start a company. Uh, it is certainly one in a million especially as you start to go up the trajectory of startup maturity and startup uh, success. Um, one of the things that I'm most fascinated about is the early stage of your guys professional life and then the decision that you made to start a startup. And especially making that decision in light of probably the many, many options that you all you know, had uh, available to you. Maybe walk me through, like why did you decide to start a company, you know, as compared to the many again options you probably had available to you?

Speaker C: Yeah, I mean I think, you know, I think it's a common recurring theme today. That um, when you imagine yourself in the next five years and you think about both, like where you want to be, both financially and in terms of what you're doing, I think it's becoming a lot more difficult to both see that, given the fact that I guess in five years you don't even know where this world is going to be. You don't even know what companies are going to be doing, what's going to be defined by the value that they provide. And also career wise, I think the standard, especially for us in San Francisco, um, of wealth and of being comfortable has become so high. And I think if you think about, you know, just earning a specific salary and a salary progression even in a really good industry, like think of investment banking for instance, I just think you end up realizing that, hey, you know, this is probably not even enough for me to buy a house in, in like 10 years. So you think of, you know, I think. And that's, I think that's everyone though. Like, I think most students now are like, hey, know, there must be another path where I could control my trajectory and have this um, exponential and sort of this, this like outlier outcome that will allow me to, to be around Wannabe. So I think, I think that's how I think about it. Uh, but yeah, I think it's been a common theme in more people wanting to do startups and their own thing.

Speaker B: That's so, that's so interesting. And Josh, I definitely want to hear your version of it. Um, but, um, it's really interesting because you're right from the lens of a graduating student, there is this kind of like lack of control. It's like, you know, like, what will the world look like in the future? Like, where am I employable? Where can I maximize my options? And so, uh, like founding something, running, starting your own company does kind of come with the most agency. So that means it does come with the most kind of quote, unquote, um, control. Uh, so that's a really, really interesting kind of perspective. Um, I want to spend a little bit of more time on, you know, the, the way graduates are thinking about their options these days. But before that, I'm curious to hear your, your version of that. Shashi.

Speaker A: Yeah, so I guess the best way I thought about it is, um, I think of it as like a battery. And in, in my previous like work, whether it was at State Farm or Deloitte or um, at Northwestern or with, you know, the, the MIT Research consortium that, that I was also at, I don't, I don't feel like, um, while it was like interesting work and it was hard, it's like my battery was maybe drained to like maybe like 20% or to 10% during that work. So what I think about when I'm, when I'm doing any type of work is what's the work I can do that will drain me to 0% on. When you think about it as a battery, and I think that startups is probably the closest thing to that because it's almost like you, you drain your battery every single day when you're doing a startup. And that was the um, that was like the driving factor here is like, how often can I drain my battery to get the results that I want? And that's the way that I thought about it. Um, and I guess like, another way to put it is like Jordan missed like thousands of shots in his career, but we all remember him, right? It's like I take maybe in an enterprise setting or like in a research setting, the speed of you taking shots is lower. In fact it's, it's many orders of magnitude lower than the shots you would take in a startup. Because we're taking hundreds of, if not like thousands of shots every day when we do a startup. And so to achieve that level of great, I guess like tldr, the reason I'm doing it is for the pursuit of greatness. It's like, how many days can I drain my battery? How many days can uh, I maximize the shots that I want to take?

Speaker B: Yeah, that's interesting. And I mean you must have figured out, um, you must have figured out at some age that ah, you're a high output person, you kind of exceed the kind of peer class of people around you, right? That's probably what's gotten you to kind of pursue some of the things that you've pursued. And, and even then you still feel like you're not maxing effort, right? And so the like doing a startup was like the way, the way to do that basically.

Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. And it's like whether it's like talking to customers or going out, meeting people in person and doing like development work, like there's many things that go into doing a startup, right? And it's like, because in essence what you're doing is you're trying to make something out of nothing, which is what a startup is. And that like, from a physics perspective that's hard. And like in, from a startup perspective, obviously it's even harder. And so like that is like the way I've been thinking about it for sure, that's cool.

Speaker B: Uh, just kind of like looking at your, at your peer class, right? Friends of yours, other people who you went to school with or around your guys age. How, how common is, how common is it to be a founder? How like surprised are your friends that you guys decided to do this? How many like uh, what, what percent of your friend group is also kind of doing this? Like how normalized is being a founder these uh, days?

Speaker C: I think it is like, I mean for me it's probably the worst, like the worst place to be as in like I think it's probably the most, the school with the biggest entrepreneurial like I guess background given how close it is to San Francisco. Uh, but I'd say, I'd say there's like, there's like a, there's like a difference. I think there are a lot of people that are, you know, that are um, that are looking into it and starting out new projects given also how accessible it's, it's become. Um, but I think still the number of people that take the sacrifice to make this from a project or like a startup to a company, I think that's a big, that's a big difference. I think starting a company is a little bit different in the sense of the commitment you take. You know, you being and working there full time, you have in your office, you seeing it as your full time job. I think that is a big difference. I think there are a lot of people that are making a startup or a project or trying out new things because it makes sense, because it's something where you learn a lot and also you have a chance to take a hit at this outsized outcome of a potential startup and all the money there is to be allocated to this. But also I do think that a very, very small subset of people eventually have the confidence and uh, the delusion, the early stage delusion to take the risk to start a company, which is not, it's totally fair. I think it's obviously something where most people are going to fail and the outcomes are stacked, the odds are stacked against you at the end of the day. So um, yeah, I think that's pretty much what I've seen um, from most of the people around.

Speaker B: Yeah. And uh, Berkeley's we work only with early stage startups. We see, I don't know to the most but we definitely see like a large number of startups out of Berkeley. So it definitely must be ingrained in the culture, the entrepreneurial nature of starting a company. Right. I think it's overtaken Stanford. At this point we see a lot out of Stanford. Yeah. How do you guys families feel about uh, what you guys are doing? You guys have family support. Is entrepreneurship in your, in your family? Are they fighting it?

Speaker A: Um, it's, it's uh, obviously like a conversation to have when you're talking about like, hey, where, um, you know, we're young kids who, who decided to take this path on to, to build something greater than ourselves. Right. And then to, and to do the, to commit to the insane amount of work that goes into making this a success, successful venture. Right. Um, uh, me personally, like I'm a child, I'm like a first generation immigrant here. I was, I like came here when I was like super young. Uh, my parents were also came here like to, in, in search of like a better life. And so I think that you know, from that perspective as well, it is kind of ingrained into um, our, our family culture, family values or whatever to be in the pursuit of, of opportunity. Right. And to be in the pursuit of your dreams. And I think that that is something that made the conversation a lot easier, especially for, you know, for my family personally.

Speaker B: Yeah, I think for me it's a little different.

Speaker C: I think my mom is a little scared, is a little too scared, but that's, you know, the motherly instinct of, you know, your mom being like, oh, like what are you gonna do? Like, she also doesn't seem to understand that much what I'm doing, which is scaring her. But like, I think overall, I mean, you know, there, I think at the end of the day, I think my parents view um, them feeling secure. Like, I guess the proxy for that is seeing me happy and seeing me work hard. So I think for them that's the only proxy they look at for, okay, you know, is my kid doing well and financially, you know, I guess obviously, you know, it's, it is a strain to be able to, you know, say, say, you know, I'm not going to do my internship, I'm not going to get my standard salary and all that. Um, but I think being lucky enough to be supported by an early stage accelerator that allows you at least from the early stages of your company to not have to put in that much time. The main cost is the opportunity cost of working elsewhere. But I think we're lucky enough to have this opportunity where at least we have a bedrock, uh, of security. But uh, yeah, I think at the end of the day to not present it as uh, I think you do need some financial security and a background of at Least your parents being able to support you early, early on or knowing that they will support you early, early on when you're starting this. Because if not then, you know, then it's a scary place to be of having a ticking bomb of, you know, I'm not going to have any money in the next few months, so if this doesn't go well. So I think you kind of need it for the good or for the bad, you know.

Speaker B: Yeah. Like, well, that's awesome. You guys both have that family support and I imagine the immigrant mindset and all the kind of like, lessons that come along with growing up in an immigrant, uh, family. I'm sure, uh, there's a lot written about the advantages that ah, that brings to uh, the founding, um, journey. So. Okay, so let's say you guys uh, figured out a way to see yourselves as standing out amongst your peer class and then you decide to join the accelerator, uh, program because now you're amongst many that are like you, right? So like walk, walk me through your decision to join the accelerators that you joined. What's the benefit of joining an accelerator versus doing it on your own? And then like, how do you kind of like see yourselves as compared to other founders, um, that you're, you know, peered up with?

Speaker A: Um, so I guess to answer the first part of your question is why we decided to join like an accelerator, right? And I think the main part is the community. We've gotten very close with other peers that are within our cohort. And it's also the idea of like, hey, like doing a startup, uh, another big part of it is like how fast you're failing, right? Because that is directly correlated to how much you're learning when you, when you're trying to pursue a goal or some certain objective. And being in a cohort and in an accelerator with, with this community is like we've scaled how much we learn because we're seeing how much people are failing, like maybe 20, 30x than if it was just us. And so that by itself is really helpful because we're about to like every day. We'll, we'll, we'll talk to the uh, some of the other people we met here and learn about how they're approaching, uh, maybe their, their outbound or like their, their sales or maybe how they're approaching development. Like we're able to learn these things without having to go through the often stressful process of trying it and then failing and then, you know, reflecting. We're able to bypass that and go straight to the learnings which is like the meat of what we want.

Speaker C: For me, I think it's simpler too. It's like, it's mostly that, like, um, that, you know, when you do all this, when you take this risk of like, you know, dropping everything and you go in the jungle of San Francisco, like, I think it's for a person that's that young, I think especially it's like incredibly difficult to like, you know, to just go there, be, you know, go to your office alone with your co founder every day, like, not have this interaction with other people. Like, I think most people would go crazy. Like, I think your like, mental stamina of doing this every day is so difficult that I think the most important reason why startups fail is that, you know, it's maybe it's patience, maybe it's, you know, giving it another try, but at the end of the day, it comes down to like, you know, how you feel as a founder and how confident you feel. And I think that this culture here, like, really solves that equation and it eventually, like, you know, it simplifies it down to the core element that you should be doing as a founder, which is, you know, finding product markets fit. Like, you don't care about housing because they provide it for you. You don't care about, um, the office because they provide it for you. In terms of advice and you know, directionally that I'm following the right steps. You have your advisors that are advising you two, three times a week. So I think at the end of the day, you focus all your energy on what matters and that increases your chance of succeeding exponentially. And that's ef, yc, all the top tier accelerators, um, they offer that kind of support. With ef, I think the cool thing is that there's a lot more international exposure because they have the entrepreneurs first is started in Europe, so they had a few cohorts from Europe, so they have a Bangalore cohort from India and a few ones from London or Spain. I think they've started a new one. So you see really like people working on literally everything from drone parts to medtech to um, like, like anything you can imagine. So I think that exposure is, is amazing. Every day is like, it's like, I genuinely love working here. Like, that's so cool.

Speaker A: Totally agree. It's almost like, to summarize, like, the difference is like, if you've seen the shows like Silicon Valley versus Mr. Robot, that's like, what the difference is is because like, if we're Mr. Robot, like huddled in a corner Hoodies on just like coding 24 7. There is a mental aspect that needs to be serviced to make this successful. Right. And that's the difference is like, that community is what allows us to be sustainable. Which I think answers the second part of your question, which is like, how do we set ourselves apart from our peer group? Is that we very much value the human and, you know, mental part of this entire journey. Um, meaning, um, we will not sacrifice sustainability over some short burst of productivity. Right. This is a long term journey. This is a marathon. And that seems to be, uh, something easily forgotten as you get into the flow of work. But, um, it is something that's super important. You're not going to be able. Unless you're David Goggins or something. You can't run on broken legs. We want to make sure we see the finish line or we want to make sure we reach that finish line. And that's another thing that's really important to us and how we've, uh, kind of thought about working, um, collectively as well.

Speaker B: Love it. And so where are you guys in your accelerator journey from, like, day one to, like, I don't know. When does the program spit you guys out?

Speaker C: Uh, I think basically the journey is, um, me and Sashi started working basically from zero in late March. So, like, that's when I, like, it was basically, Sashi joined a little bit earlier, just early enough to like, drop out of school, drop out of the semester, basically be on leave. And I was. Well, I was enrolled in Berkeley. So I, like, I was like, okay, listen, I'm. My classes can wait. I'm, uh, going to live in San Francisco, you know, four or five times a week. Like, you know, basically just come to Berkeley to get whatever I need and then come back and work. So, um, we've been working together for about a month and a half, two months now. Um, so think of it, I guess for the Sorrel people, I think we're more like a YC summer batch. So basically, uh, I think we have like two to three months until demo day. So we're at a stage where we're thinking of maybe raising before. We'll see, I guess, where our journey takes us. But like, I think we were basically, you know, our timeline is until like September, October, uh, we'd want to have raised money and exit basically this whole bubble of, of the accelerator.

Speaker B: Gotcha. Okay. And you guys met. You guys met during the accelerator program? You guys. Yeah, you guys met during the. So what, yeah. What. What was your vision going in? Were you did you go into the accelerator program looking for a co founder? Do you have, you know, your own startup idea? How, like, how does the, how does the co founding process kind of work?

Speaker A: So I think the mindset both of us had is that. And, and this is like a good analogy. It's like, when you're finding a co founder, this is going to be one of the most impactful relationships of your life. It's almost akin to, um, to marriage in, in a sense, right? It's like you are finding someone and you are making something together, and this, like, startup is your baby, right? And so going into it, um, with the thought of, like, hey, I need someone to make a baby with, I think is like the, the wrong thought process. The thought process we had was, let's find someone that has complementary strengths that will amplify the work that I already do. And that's the mindset we both had, and that's something we both discovered. And it's not something that, like, you immediately see, like, right off the jump. Right? It's something you see from, like, working together, whether, like, starting from a work trial, which is like, okay, let's set a really ambitious goal that we want to achieve in like, maybe a week or two weeks time and see how close we get to doing that or even if we do achieve that. And through the process of working, you get a lot of insight into which skills you guys are growing together and which skills are being amplified by virtue of you guys being together. And that's exactly how we thought about, um, this, this whole idea of a co founder. And the other thought of it is like, going through this with someone, like, sharing the problems and sharing the load, um, and the obstacles that eventually come up is also something really important. And having someone who's, um, strong enough to share that with you and be there for you is also, uh, really important as well. But that's overall how we thought about this.

Speaker B: And so Alkis, uh, tell me about the day you guys met and what compelled the bond who asked who to be co founder? Tell me how that worked.

Speaker C: I think it was more like, so Sashi joined two months before. So basically F has this thing called a cohort. They have a thing called the Fellows, which is like, they give you $10,000 for no equity and a house or something. And they have the investment where they invest in you as a part of a cohort. So Sasha gets the investment. Then I'm like, okay, I have my own. I was working back then, um, in my startup, doing software, um, for Private equity firms. Um, and then basically I'm about to join. And then basically, I'm stressed. I'm like, okay, what's my progress with, uh, this, where am I at in the process? And then, um, Sashi was super cool to call me right after. Hey, I heard after the meeting you did with, with the guys. And I think it just so happened that, uh, I heard these, um, good things and whatever. Here's the feedback. And I was like, oh, wait, this guy is super cool. This guy's being super helpful and super nice to me. And then they do these things called co founder chats. So when you're about to join, they put you on and you talk to a bunch of people already in the cohort. And then, um, yeah, it just so happened that I talked with Sashi. Then we're like, okay, we started seeing that we shared a lot of the underlying vision for the problems we're trying to solve. And then trait wise, obviously it's something that is compatible or can be worked with and, uh, yeah, spend more time. You do a thing called a co founder trial for a week and a half. So you're like, okay, a week and a half. We're working 247 together. We're seeing what we like, we're seeing what we don't like. And they decide, okay, do you want to be a co founder with you? They yes or no? And for us, it went well. And then we decided to extend this co founder trial, uh, indefinitely. Uh, um, um. So, yeah, so I, um, think that's basically the process, but I think it's. I like how they do it here,

Speaker B: where

Speaker C: the way they cycle these fellows, which are people that are not 200% committed on doing a startup, but they are committed enough to, like, you know, spend a lot of time and have some money to support themselves. These are the people that, you know, you meet like 30 people, you interact with so many people that have different interests. So you're bound to find. To find someone that, you know, shares some part of it. Um, so I think that's sort of an incredible model of creating these bonds and these companies and being this, you know, what it's supposed to be at the end of the day, Right? Like a super early stage incubator.

Speaker A: Yeah. And it was like I joined two weeks prior and that was when I met Alkis. I was like two weeks into this thing. Um, and I, I don't even think it was a co founder chat. It was just like, I was just talking to Alkas. I was like, oh, this Is like, let, like, let me, let's go. Like we were just talking and eventually it just like went, it just naturally like shifted to it. There was no like preconceived notion of us co founding. It was just like, we just like started talking. It was very serendipitous, honestly. Like I, um, I, I, I remember that morning, I was like debating even coming into the office that day. Cause I had another um, call. And I wonder sometimes like how different things would have been if I hadn't come into the office that day. And I think that's usually how it is. It's like the serendipity of these connections is like another thing as well. And I think that a lot of meaningful relationships also come from just like a serendipitous like decision that you made. And I'm so glad I came in that day. Right. Cause like everything worked out. So that's awesome.

Speaker B: It definitely, definitely. I mean, uh, I'm just getting through. You guys definitely feels like, uh, my impression is that you all have known each other for longer than you know what you, what you share, so you could tell you bonded. Uh, and um, uh, it seems like it's a good, seems like it's a good match. Um, so I definitely want to get into uh, what you guys are building. Um, but maybe like a context question, right? What was your view of the world that then obviously compelled you guys to build what you're building? Uh, a question in my mind is AI labs are building at an insane pace and they're growing to these crazy valuations and there's this world of startups that are building in the space of AI and they're on the one hand must be thinking that they're building something novel. On the other hand, they have to really be protective against what the lab's roadmap is. Uh, and at the same time everything is yet to be built, right? Greenfield for days. So what is your view of the world kind of in light of that statement? And then I'm going to later ask you guys, share what you can about Tacit.

Speaker C: I think my thesis is the really interesting part of it is that with all software, or actually I think nowadays even most companies, there's this thing called the collapse of the terminal value. So in finance, I guess you have this thing called when you model out how you're going to value a company or an idea more broadly, you value the next five years, how much money, how much cash flow it's going to generate, and then you have an additional part of the Valuation of it, which is the terminal value. So the terminal value oftentimes determines a lot of the valuation. And it's basically assuming that a company is going to grow indefinitely at some rate. So then it encompasses the life of a company. And almost all companies, all publicly traded companies especially have this part attached. The interesting part with AI now and the pace of technology is that you don't have the terminal value now because, well, you genuinely don't know how any company is going to be. Um, this certainty of cash flows is lost now that the pace of innovation is so fast. So I guess my view is that uh, and even with the large, the model, the AI labs, even the big ones, or even some new incumbents, I think um, there is room for software, there is room for companies, there is room for companies that innovate, that tackle a specific vertical. That's what we saw too is that um, even building a horizontal company, initially our vision for our company was to build the context layer for AI, to build a context layer for large scale enterprises. Even if we're focused on a specific vertical, which is healthcare compliance, still for us we were even more exposed because we were building horizontally. But you can always pick slices, um, and verticals where the domain specific knowledge and the actual harness around the agents and around these model providers is where all the value lies. So in a sense, obviously you can never know how the company is going to evolve. The market at the end of the day determines how the company evolves because every company is fully deployed nowadays. There's no company that's selling a canned software where, oh, um, I'm selling it to everybody. Like at least most early stage startups are like consultants. So in a sense I think that's how I view it. I view it as, okay, you are an AI consultant, you sell a very specific problem, knowing exactly your client needs and you sell exactly what they want by talking to as many people as possible. And then you solve the challenge day by day. Like I think every startup is working day by day. And um, there is this thing called this collapse of terminal value I think is really changing the way capital is allocated like anywhere, uh, and where money is flowing.

Speaker B: That's an interesting way to say that. So like on the one hand you have a collapse of terminal value, but then that could be reinterpreted as almost like limitless or like because it's unknown, uh, it can be limitless. Like is that kind of like the way the inverse version of that, the

Speaker C: money has to go somewhere, right?

Speaker B: Yeah. Shashi, what's Your take on um, on like what you guys, why don't you tell us like Shashi, what, what, what is tacit intelligence? I know you, I know you're in some bit of stealth, but tell, tell us, you know, what are you guys building to the extent you can.

Speaker A: Yeah, as Alkus uh, was saying earlier, so we are looking at basically creating a one source of truth knowledge base for enterprise. And right now we've narrowed down to healthcare compliance and we're looking at like okay, how do we um, create. Because data in the modern age now is very much um, something that can almost be considered as a resource, as something akin to maybe oil or gold, as something very valuable that um, uh, these companies want to manage and want to be able to keep track of. Um, and so the vision was okay, we need to give companies um, that visibility and the power to do things that they want to do with this data. Whether that's um, building any type of application facing layer on top of that. So um, for healthcare compliance that may mean, that may mean like a dashboard that gives you visibility into certain regulatory like authorities you have to um, answer to. But um, taking a step back, the overall vision for tacit is like another benefit of um, having a clean knowledge base for your data and everything is that we're able to unlock automation that previously was not um, available due to just how spread uh, out or how unclean these data sources were. And so because of this we hope to use AI as a tool that doesn't replace human jobs. I know that's something that's been out there a lot is like, oh, AI is going to steal all our jobs. What are humans going to do? Now we see it as a complementary tool to help you do your job faster and to help you do things that you actually want to do. Because humans are the best and they will always be the best at things that are creative. Right? And we want to enable that. We want any human to be able to do creative tasks and to do and to like really indulge in the creative part of their routines and of their experiences. And that is another um, kind of grand vision of what we hope to unlock is through automating the uh, boring things that no one really wants to do will unlock time and free up time for humans to do more creative things which will actually create more jobs and create more fulfillment in people's everyday lives.

Speaker B: I love that. Shashi for president. I mean we got to get you out there. I mean there's so much doom and gloom out there and I'm on Team Shashi, uh, because I also am a big optimist and I believe that every kind of, every wave of technology has just created only more opportunity. I think AI will be the biggest one that we see in robotics. Ah, kind of uh, usher in more there as well. Um, but yeah, it's a scary time for um, it's a scary time for the professional workforce. It's a scary time for college graduates. And I love that bit of optimism because you guys are on the kind of front lines of building, right? Your cohort is going to build the next set of know, unicorn companies, uh, and these, you know, incredible technologies. Um, and yeah, to be able to see it from, to be able to be able to from your lens see that the future is bright and it's going to be a compliment to job, uh, creation and job advancement is, is huge. Okay, so you guys, you guys are building task intelligence. You're very early. You're still somewhat in, in stealth. I assume it's just YouTube building for the time being. Right. Have you guys already added to your team or at what, at what stage do you start to think about adding to your, adding to your team?

Speaker C: So our thesis is that I think we're at a stage where probably we're going to start hiring soon, but we're at a stage where even if you think about what we need, do we need software engineers? Well, it's all dependent on as of now, if you're a founder, you want to have ownership of your product or even if you have, most startups usually hire go to market people, people that will sell your product. If you're a founder, you can't sell your product. And this is something that I wasn't convinced at first. Sashi convinced me that like uh, oh, like if you're a founder you can't sell your own product or you don't learn what's your go to market motion and structure, then who's going to do it? Like if you're not the one that has learned and has mastered the art and craft of like you know, selling and pitching your product and getting into people's hands, then how do you expect a guy that's new probably doesn't share the vision for your company like to do this? Well, uh, so for us we're at a stage of, let us master this for a few companies, um, which we're doing now and in a few weeks time, in a few days actually, in a few weeks time, let's document this sort of uh, make this um, tangible and let's pass on this knowledge then to the person that we're going to hire so that they can replicate and do it properly. So I think it's a mistake for founders to, you know, the first thing they do is just hire a bunch of people without knowing the exact vision, the exact structure, and without them as founders owning the actual process and knowing how to actually do it. Because if you're not going to evangelize your product, who will evangelize? Who will be the evangelist of your product if you're not. If you're not the one doing it?

Speaker B: Yeah. Sage advice, Shashi. Uh, definite, uh, uh, definite kind of best practice around selling first yourself, uh, being your best kind of first salesperson and then, and then documenting and starting to bring people into that fold. Same will go for hiring. Uh, by the way, don't, don't be too quick to outsource hiring to, you know, I'm a recruiter and you know, have to work with founders. But, uh, we always say like, uh, we could never hire better than the abilities of the founder. Uh, so you guys got to kind of be out there kind of showing, like setting the bar so to say, uh, about how product sold and then eventually, eventually, uh, hired. Um, question I just had, uh, I know we're starting to get close to time, but I have to know like, Shashi, how, how AI pilled are you guys from like a building perspective? Like, are you guys kind of like what percent of your code base is built using. Using AI?

Speaker A: We are very thoughtful about the way that we approach this. Um, there have been security concerns obviously with um, for example, I think it was called the Tapp from before, but it was like a vibe coded social, ah, app that I think someone made and it ended up leaking, um, many, like, I think thousands of users, personal information. Some people got their identities stolen and all that. And so what we, what we think about AI is like we use it as a complimentary tool to our existing knowledge. We make sure that we have the security foundations like thoroughly thought out and that we know what we're talking about. We do not outsource TLDRs. We don't outsource any of our thinking to AI. None of it. We outsource 0% of our thinking to AI. Anything we do is thoughtful. And I think that a lot of people are thinking it's like that one Kanye quote, like, who's going to be the Medici family and stand up and let me create. A lot of people think it's going to be like a swarm of um, AI agents or whatever that just do your bidding. Right? But there's a lot more thought that goes into it. Meaning like I can't have a hundred, which is very much plausible, like I could have 100 mindless drones. Code me something. And in this day and age it's like any line of code. A good way to think about it is any line of code you write won't be wrong from a syntax perspective or a compilation perspective. Ah, the days of any syntax errors or compilation errors are basically kind of gone. In this day and age, what is not gone is the repercussions of me doing that. Meaning if I leak someone's data, if I, if my app suddenly crashes in a very regulated, um, environment or an environment where I cannot have any type of downtime like healthcare, which is what we're um, trying to target. It's very important that we keep that type of um, thought in what we do. So I guess overall it's like we're using AI as a tool, as almost like um, I think Steve Jobs put the computer the same way. It's like a bicycle of the mind is how we're using it. We're using it as something that will take us to where we need to go, not something that drives everything.

Speaker B: Uh, in spirit of that, I'll give so one, one bold prediction for the rest of 2026. Then we'll get one from Shashi.

Speaker C: I think there are industries that uh, I think are really cool and it's going to be like a revolution in the next few months, which is like, I think personal medicine is a huge one. I don't know, I think if you're in sf, that's particularly pronounced. But peptides and personalized medicine and custom medicine to your like DNA and your problems and your exact, like, you know, I don't know, like, like I think personalized medicine will be the thing that will be the most immediate, huge impact to people's personal lives. And I think that's, you know, this exactly the area that kind of um, technology is like, you know, offering value, immediate value, at least right now. So um, I think that's going to be an incredible thing that's going to emerge slowly because healthcare had been incredibly slow and biotech had been notoriously known for being a very difficult area to invest in and to make progress in. So I think now, you know that that scale is sort of tipping and it's going to be like an incredible area to look at.

Speaker B: I love it, I love it. Shashi, what about you?

Speaker A: I think that there's going to be

Speaker B: a,

Speaker A: there's going to be a wider net around the way we look at robotics and what they can do. I, um, think there are a lot of advances being made in that space both in terms of um, the agility and the mobility of these robots on the hardware side, but also on the software side of making um, those judgment calls and those decisions maybe when it comes to manufacturing or hard labor, I think that's something we'll see a rise in in 2026. Um, I, and obviously it's come a long way. Like robotics has definitely come a long way. This may be like kind of like niche but uh, Honda used to have their own humanoid robot called Asimo, which was like the, it was like one of the best, like mobile. Like they were very focused on the idea of walking. And just when you think about how hard it was to get a humanoid robot, like a bipedal humanoid robot to walk and where we are at now, where we're seeing some viral footage of um, some robots doing backflips and stuff, the growth of uh, humanoid development has been really exponential and I think now we're going to get to the point where we see that the application is also going to be exponential now. So that's what I think is going to happen.

Speaker B: I love it. Uh, I want to give both of you guys just mad props. One for uh, just accomplishing everything you've accomplished in your, in your, in your uh, early lives so far, for starting a uh, startup and having the boldness to do that. Uh, and then for coming on the podcast to talk about, I'll tell you guys. So I kind of spend my time getting to know founders and there are some that like to tell their story as they're kind of developing their story. A lot of, a lot of founders like to wait until they've kind of, you know, shown something for what they build until they're public, until they've raised the big round, until they're kind of at some version of, of public. Um, but I think that those guys are missing out on like the kind of like really special moments that you guys are, uh, came on the podcast to share with us. I think a lot of people want to know what it's like to build at this early stage and at your guys age of stage of professional life. And uh, if there was like one word I could you know, take away from this whole podcast, it's like just mad optimism. Like you got, you guys are going to go build great things. I could just kind of see it. So thank you guys for coming on and uh, talking to us and our audience about that. So Aukfish and Shashi, who do you want to hear from? Uh, uh, where could those people reach you and what do you want to hear from them?

Speaker A: Um, yeah, so we'd be happy to hear from those who are managing um, their information at large scale enterprise. Uh, we're looking at those who um, see AI as a tool for their company and want to 10x their uh, workers productivity and what they do in their day to day. We want to hear from those people and we uh, are confident that we can get you guys up and running because we're seeing that a lot of these companies are very optimistic as well but don't quite know where to start or what the starting point is, um, for doing all the really cool stuff. And so we'd love to hear from those people. Um, we'd love to hear from uh, people in healthcare as well and uh, people specifically on the compliance side within healthcare would also um, be something we look forward to as well.

Speaker C: Awesome.

Speaker B: Okay, you heard it here. Uh, if you're managing large data sets in healthcare, uh, or in space, come talk to Shashi or August. Um, thank you guys again for coming on. It was so much fun to talk to you. Um, I'm already starting to think about uh, when we could have you guys back on at some future stage of your journey to come and share on your experiences. But yeah, sending you a ton of uh, positive vibes for the continuation of your accelerator, uh, experience and uh, excited to hear about how it all, how uh, it all unfolds.

Speaker C: Yep.

Speaker A: Thank you.