Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas: How AI Challenges Google

Channel: Alex Kantrowitz

Published at: 2024-02-15

YouTube video id: ZCxPyFsOmNo

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZCxPyFsOmNo

the CEO of the hottest AI startup in the
world joins us to talk about Talent Tech
and his challenge to Google all that in
more coming up right after this welcome
to Big technology podcast a show for
cool-headed nuance conversation of the
tech world and Beyond let's go deep
today with the CEO of the one startup I
think that's really changing the way
that we think about Ai and how it can
have a role in challenging incumbents
and not surprisingly it's coming in the
world of search we're joined today by
arvan ser he's the CEO of perplexity and
he's here to talk to us all about his
company and also the state of the
industry Arvin welcome to the show thank
you for having me here Alex thanks for
being here so with your permission I'd
love to talk a little bit about the
industry and then go into your specific
challenge to Google because you have
some amazing experience you've been at
Google you've been in Deep Mind as an
intern and then also working at open AI
so I feel like in your position you're
probably one of the best people in the
world that can tell us you know what's
going on with these bigger companies the
race for talent all these things let me
start with this you are you have 10
million users last count uh your your
company is a search company so instead
of going to Google you go to perplexity
you type your question in you get a
paragraph or two in conversational AI
with some links at the top telling
people where to go and it's really
taking off when I look around thinking
about like what other generative AI
startups there are that have gained
traction it's not a very long list I
mean character AI is worth a billion
dollars but I don't hear anybody using
that but your your company people use
you're ranked above Google Calendar on
the App Store I think you were number
nine on the top charts last time I
checked is is this what what would you
attribute this struggle for startups to
take off in the generative AI space 2o
and and is my is my view of this kind of
close-minded or am I hitting on
something that's that's right here uh
it's mostly accurate there's some Nuance
for example
you don't hear people around you using
character AI because it's also not a
product that people would be very proud
of saying they use it uh it its use
cases are more uh meant for these lonely
uh people who are like you know looking
for companionship in their life um so
it's sort of more like a personal
activity and also it's more popular
among uh the the younger generation like
50 to 60% of their user base is under
the age of 20 uh because they're using
it to to imaginary anime characters and
things like that so it's a very
different uh sector of product more more
on the entertainment sector and less on
the productivity uh or utility sector so
we are in the productivity sector and
uh as for like you know in general for
any startup it's pretty hard to gain uh
wi Spirit
adoption first of all it's hard to
launch a good product right sure
technology supposed to change the world
people are talking about how it's going
to be the end of civilization for
something that powerful you would
imagine there would be
more yeah it takes time for example it
takes a lot of time for people to change
their habits um adopt a new new I mean
how many times do you adopt a new a app
like you know like it it took me
personally a very long time to start
using Instagram Twitter um even WhatsApp
even
like like I'm I'm only started using
Whatsapp a lot more recently and I used
to stick to like I I just want to stick
to FP messenger or like Google Chat so
it takes a while for you to like truly
change your habits uh and you know and
we are also facing this right like it's
all relative okay relative to other
products and gener startups we have more
adoption but then relative to chat GPT
or Google we are like way lower right so
uh it takes time and like you know I'm
I'm not very negative about about other
startups like uh I also think there are
pro products outside the the sector that
you're focusing on that are taking off
like Le Labs is a startup that has a lot
of adoption uh has a podcaster you might
be aware of it uh there like lot of uh
tools there to like you know edit stuff
and then um many other many other
interesting companies but for us the the
potential is a lot bigger than than any
of these others because the the quest
for knowledge and information is the
ultimate thing ever since like uh
Humanity has like started evolving as a
society right we've always sought more
information always sought more knowledge
uh sought a better understanding of the
world so I think that's why like this
product has no upper bound honestly uh
because it's upper bounded by the number
of people on the planet multiplied by
each individual's curiosity and
Curiosity has no upper bound either
right right so therefore by
mathematically The Tam of perplexity has
no upper bound right that's that's why
I'm very excited about this company and
you're also competing against Google so
and you've been inside Google can you
explain what's going on there culturally
because mhm they have been very slow to
SHP obviously they have this incumbent
problem right this they're they're like
yeah so entrenched in one form of search
they haven't been able to do the other
but they also I'm curious like if you
could just kind of talk about the
culture that
because they have gone from this company
that everybody like hailed as like the
you know the beacon of innovation 20%
time uh which was I think before your
time but to one that really can't get
its act together shipping is it is it
that they don't have the right Talent is
it the process there um is it leadership
what would you say is going on within
Google I certainly don't think it's
because of talent um I mean you have to
be insane to think you have more
talented people than Google I don't even
think open AI has that uh even though
like they have a massive concentration
of talent density today um I think it's
more to do with the
bureaucracy uh the culture and uh
leadership these are the three main
reasons why they're not able to do it
but in our case um the argument goes
even further which is probably the
fourth thing and the most important
thing is even if they wanted to do a
product like perplexity and roll it out
on on google.com that domain the
ultimate domain of the internet they
cannot do it that fast they cannot do it
even slowly it's very hard because
uh the Bedrock of their business model
is sending traffic to other people uh
send sending like link clicks link views
so that's why there's two terms in their
business model called cost per th000
views CPM and cost per click CP CPC and
as an Advertiser you're bidding on uh
certain keywords based on the CPM and
the CPC and there's an auction model and
like it arbit drives up and Google
analytics gives you like which keywords
are getting a high CPC and CPM and the
number of views and things like that so
it's
basically that is their business model
like the the the 10 Blue Links user
interface that's literally where they
built uh a trillion dollars in market
cap and now like someone else is coming
and saying hey I don't need that UI
anymore I I'm going to just give you
answers mhm and that you're still going
to get the sources as if it were a
citation but not in a way where they're
presented in a vertical
order and that basically disrupts the
whole business model it's not that they
cannot build a prodct like perplexity
they can very easily do that literally
today like like they probably already
have something internally like that but
they cannot roll it out to every Google
user right even okay think about it this
way right if
perplexity uh let's say only 10% of the
searches on perplexity lead to an
outgoing link
click that's like 90% of the searches
don't lead to outgoing traffic anymore
mhm even like half a percent reduction
in the CPC or c PM will cost Google a
lot in market cap you saw like what
happened in the last week's earnings
calls where they just missed ad Revenue
Expectations by a billion dollars just a
billion dollars and the stock went down
by 5% despite making Revenue go up in
other areas like Google cloud or
subscription revenues on YouTube Just
because they missed the ad Revenue
Expectations by a billion dollars their
stock went down by 5% now imagine if the
adress Revenue went down by 10%
10% I'm not even talking about like 10x
mhm it's going to create a pandemonium
there stock wall Street's going to get
mad and like uh stock start like
shorting them and buying stocks in like
Microsoft or because they the here's the
thing by the way at one point uh if you
wanted to invest in AI you could only
invest in
Google they were synonymous with AI
itself now if you want to invest in AI
you could invest in um Microsoft you
could invest in meta you could invest in
Nvidia there are like so many other
Alternatives that are positioning
themselves as like the leaders in AI
that you're if you're in Wall Street
you're like hey look there are only two
reasons to invest in this company one is
AI and the other is ads and ads is
shrinking and they're no longer the only
leader in AI so why am I holding their
stock I'm going to go and buy the other
ones right right so when that happens
employees es their actual compensation
just goes
down and they all start leaving and they
go Jo open a or other Alternatives have
you been able to recruit from Google
pretty
easily uh I have tried to uh there there
was one amazing candidate that I tried
to recruit from Google uh this candidate
used to work in the I mean he still
works there in the Google search team
like it's not some of the AI people and
um the moment he told them that he's
going to join us they quadrupled this
offer damn they quadrupled it like I've
never seen that like look I've also like
you know negotiated my offers and stuff
so I've never seen and I've heard of
friends who have done that I've never
ever seen anybody had say my offer got
Forex you know so what about these
people I mean Google's done Mass layoffs
recently are they cutting the people
that are you know who can handle AI work
um but just don't like fit on a certain
team or like are those people that you
feel like you could scoop up or are the
people that Google's cutting like are
they cutting smartly like are they
cutting the people who just can't handle
this new wave of technology or is it
even a different skill set honestly I
don't know who they are letting go of
that's crazy performance I would imagine
they'd be knocking on your door but yeah
is it based on performance or is it
based on uh something else I actually
don't have a clear
sense um I don't think even people
inside the company have a clear sense
yeah uh one thing I was told is they let
go of people who have very high
compensation but don't produce uh that
much so in Google you can be on vacation
and nobody
cares because the company is not really
affected by that right um but they began
caring recently at least so the people
that they're paying a lot they're like
okay look I'm going to look at my um um
spend on comp and see who are the major
people I'm paying most and I'm going to
see if they're really adding value if
not I'm going to let them go that's what
I was told that's how they designed the
whole layoff system that's what I was
told externally I don't know if this is
true by the
way yeah so let's talk a little bit
about the product because yeah if you're
so you're creating an AI search engine
you've created it yeah what is the
problem with search today that you're
trying to solve because it's one thing
to say hey we have this cool technology
let's just apply it in like a logical
way but you have to see a glaring issue
with this multi-trillion Dollar business
of search to be like okay we're actually
going to do something different right so
the fundamental problem with search
today is that you waste a lot of time
right like you're looking for something
you get a bunch of links uh these links
are sort of not exactly ordered in the
way that that should save your time but
order in the way that makes Google more
money uh you're getting the answer that
uh 10 sales people are trying to give
you at the same time not the answer that
a friend of yours who has used all these
different services or products comes and
tells you in a nice summarized way of
like what is good or bad let's say
you're like going and asking a friend of
yours like which car you should buy
they're not going to tell you what's the
best thing about each uh you know car or
like each of these cars are trying to
bid for
against one another to get your
attention what they're going to tell you
is like hey look I use all these things
I use all the other I use two or three
cars and this is the best thing about
this this is the best thing about that
and what do you want like what is it
that you're interested in there will be
a back and forth interaction with you uh
oh like I actually like mileage more or
like I'm looking for electric car
because I care about the environment
like there that sort of an interaction
that sort of personalization doesn't
happen today in search right um and
there is no incentive for Google to save
your time in searches by the way because
uh the whole point for them is that you
spend as much time opening like 10 tabs
on Chrome uh the browser they control
and give give the analytics to all of
these independent uh website Publishers
and like brands of like how much traffic
they driving to each of you uh based and
how many users they're driving to each
of you right so they're working for the
advertiser not for the not for the user
so there is an opportunity for a new
entrant here uh that can directly work
for the user uh and like build a
business model that's more aligned with
the user interest than with the
advertiser interest so that's what we're
trying to do yeah but it's interesting
because it is almost like a different
category of search right you've talked
about it already like it's curiosity
right like Google's almost like I need
to get to the facts right away like hit
me with them or like where's this what
is the answer to this question well I
guess you guys could do that too but you
actually inspire different queries right
like yeah you I saw in your Twitter feed
you were asking perplexity what's the
next trillion dollar company and it said
it was the OIC maker and it's like these
type of searches are completely I would
say incremental and new and different
than the actual searches we would do
with Google uhhuh uhhuh yeah I mean I I
generally think that uh you know
the there's like a new segment of
searches that these products like
perplexity or Chad are creating which is
like you know making people actually ask
well-informed questions um because we
were not asking questions until now we
were just entering
keywords like in Google Google kind of
spoiled us over two decades to just type
in keywords and we wouldn't even type
the full keyword they would autoc
complete it for us and like we would we
would just like click on that go and
read the links and waste time right so
the first time you have this unique
power to talk to a computer like a human
where you can just go and ask questions
now we all need to get used to that
power first we we set got it we we never
knew this was coming it was not
incrementally given to us it just
happened all of a sudden and then um
you're like okay what do I do with it
now you're like thinking about what to
do with it but the reality is this
should have been the way you interacted
with search engines all along like
you're not coming and talking to me Arin
and asking like you know Google
perplexity right you're like asking what
is perplexity doing that Google cannot
do like what is why is Google not able
to do this like these are actual
questions now you got the unique ability
to ask the same kind of questions in the
same conversational way to an AI but I'm
also wondering how big this can actually
be because it's interesting like Kevin
Roose wrote this story I'm sure I mean
you spoke to him for it can this AI
powered search engine replace Google it
has for me but it's not actually a full
replace he even writes later in the
article that he's not gotten rid of
Google and so I do Wonder like if this
this is something that can fully replace
Google or is it just going to be
something that you would use for a
subset of questions you might not type
into a traditional search engine yeah
let me let me give you a more nuanced
perspective here now there are two
points on a line um the left point is
navigational searches right point is
directly giving you an answer so the
left is traditional search engine right
is answer engine we are we are on the
right and Google can be considered on
the left except Google has done a lot of
work already to move more towards the
right mhm by preserving as much as
possible of the left uh by the way there
I don't want you to think about it like
left wi right wing here like yeah yeah
no no we're not going there um just like
mathematical um now Google is trying to
keep its link UI link interface but also
try to give you answers whenever
possible uh that could include weather
time um Sports election results all
sorts of things or like just getting to
a website really quickly uh the browser
navigation now perplexity is giving you
answers all the time but that's not the
only time only way you want to interact
with the web you sometimes just want the
like you're doing mathematic calcul
calculations times you're doing uh if
you want the time time in a particular
city um and then you want like uh NBA
scores and like you want um you know if
there's an ongoing election you want
track like you know how many seats each
part candidate is won so all that stuff
doesn't need a large language
model that can pull sources from
different parts of the web and summarize
these sources so we are approaching the
problem from a different uh end of the
line and Google's approaching problem
from different end of the line except we
don't have any business model to defend
right so we can actually create what I'm
trying to say is it's not it might not
actually be you versus Google it might
be you and Google possible you know uh I
I don't want to think about it as uh
them versus us either right um my sense
is that if we are the place for de facto
information and accurate information on
the internet mhm uh it will definitely
make a dent on them I'm not I'm not you
know clearly like uh they look their
whole image is that they are the only
place on the internet for
facts and is that really their image
well yeah like you go you you go ask
anybody they just say have you Googled
it right have you Googled it yeah yeah
you know that that means like I buy that
yeah yeah so that I think that that will
definitely change um there's going to be
more ways in which you can you can learn
about anything I mean the behavior is
also so different I mean so let's see
this is a stat that actually perplexity
pulled out for me so fact check it but
in October 2023 it said you had 4.35
million visits and the average session
duration and this is like the really
interesting thing 21 uh minutes and 58
seconds which you would imagine onside a
Google page it's just might be a minute
so so that's the thing right like I I
just feel like the idea in our product
is to make people more Curious and
engage and ask more questions in fact
our the whole idea of a followup
question was something we we innovated
on uh where we would suggest you what
follow-up question to ask uh you know
why we did that there's number one skill
is number one skill that actually is a
bottom neck for these products to really
take off is St ability to ask good
questions oh yeah because yeah go ahead
yeah your your human mind is not great
at articulating a question we are all
very curious we're all super curious
people uh but we not all of us have the
skill to translate that Curiosity into a
well-informed question definitely it's
like with Wikipedia no one goes to the
Wikipedia homepage and is like what am I
going to explore today you end up on
Wikipedia through search right so you
have that clear in mind but then you you
read the whole page you read the whole
page that's written for everybody but
not personalized to you you care about
only some parts of it and that's why
like we wanted to create an experience
of a dynamic personalized Wikipedia for
you like you just
just get an article on the Fly you know
have you spoken with Jimmy Wales over
there and are they going to build their
own GPT what's going on with Wikipedia
no they're not going to build their own
GPT I've spoken to him and he uses our
product and he likes our product a lot
and you know uh he used it when he was
in Amsterdam and was looking for museums
for his kids uh that was like within few
meters from his hotel and he said like
Google sucked at it's and CH
hallucinated and like we got the answer
right so he really liked that our
product I'm surprised I would think that
they would build one he wanted to do
some things like oh if I just wanted to
create a perplexity like experience but
just on Wikipedia articles alone mhm how
can I do that he he wanted to build
something of that nature which we
already had by the way like in in our
Focus searches uh you could just pick
one domain and ask questions I told him
about it but he's like I wanted to be on
wikipedia.com and I told them hey dude
like Wikipedia people go there only
through a certain and they don't go
there automatically and start exploring
but he's like okay what if I had this on
the Wikipedia domain then maybe people
do that so that was his idea at that
point I don't know what's the status of
that idea today okay
so you there's so many things that
you're going to come up against I mean
you're already coming up against in this
battle first is data right you have far
less users and we all know that Google
Microsoft Bing even use the data that
they have to refine their searches and
that feedback to help improve the
quality of results so what's your answer
to them on that
front I mean like answer to them in what
sense like you know how do you I mean I
how do you build with less data a
product that's going to be more
compell yeah so look the whole point um
the whole amazing part about this
generative AI is that
um it doesn't actually need as much user
data as you
think uh yeah share more about that cuz
that that's against the common thought
about it that's why open AI is a
disruption like why should a research
lab like open a be able to create a
better chatbot than Google that has like
so much more data or like meta that has
so much more chat data uh the reason is
that like um we were able to learn this
generic knowledge of of like language
itself Common Sense understanding just
by predicting the next word on the
internet that is the GPT model all it
does is take all the internet curate it
reasonably well so that you only train
on Signal instead of noise and try to
predict the next word from the previous
words but by doing that you get such a
good understanding of how the world
Works how language Works basic Common
Sense reasoning mathematical reasoning
and that enables you for the first time
in decades to be able to use little data
learn on the Fly and do a lot more
things right so somebody who has access
to such an amazing intelligence API
which has been exposed to all the
developers in the world through op and
AZ and things like that can
now uh program it in ways they want
program it for a search engine program
it for a companion board program it for
a coding assistant now all these things
are possible with one generic
intelligence layer and also companies
like mea have open source these ways so
you don't even the the flexibility in
the programming is even more than what
it started off with so the first time
for the first time we' have had
intelligence outside Google like a
artificial intelligence outside Google
that's of higher quality than what is
inside
Google which a new startup like us is
able to harness take advantage and get
it out to the users before Google can
that's really what has happened we
benefited a lot from open Ai and
meta all like making so much progress on
large language models and getting them
to the user base developers other other
smaller startups to build amazing
products that could never have been done
before with way less data because you
can just few shot prompted or like fine
tune it on a small subset of data that
you required so the advantages that the
incumbents had in terms of of having a
large volume of data has gone away I'm
not saying you don't need user data at
all all I'm saying is you need a
fraction of what was needed
earlier for the first time Arvin civas
is here with us he's the CEO of
perplexity we're going to keep up this
conversation right after the break and
we're back here on big technology
podcast with Arvin civas he's the CEO of
perplexity which is I would call it the
hottest AI startup in the world right
now it has 10 million users it's a
Search tool that a search engine that
you could use but it's more than search
and it's it's fascinating we're just
talking above uh before the break about
how you don't need as much data for
perplexity as you would for other
applications that is one of the the um
innovations that we're seeing in AI but
what you do need is news right and I do
you have a very interesting approach to
UI where you'll put four links not
always news sometimes it's a YouTube
video like when I searched you on
perplexity I found a couple of your
YouTu YouTube interviews and those go at
the Top If if you're not training on
vast amounts of data actually urgency
and being in the moment is crucial I
would imagine I you even look at some of
the suggested searches you have and
that's there I'm curious from your
perspective how do you think news and
information creators are going to factor
into this world they're already the
times is already suing open AI um I I go
back and forth cuz I run a Content
business about whether I should let
these Bots crawl or not talk a little
bit about what you think there and who
actually
benefits so our thinking here has been
to rely on our background as academics
first of all like when we launched in ch
launch one fundamental differences we
give people uh information on where the
answer is coming from the sources right
at the top which I love right at the top
the sources the citations right and uh
that I believe is a a way to attribute
the creator of the content okay you know
what I'm not stealing your content I'm
actually attributing it to you I'm I'm
telling the user exactly where it's
coming from and I'm going to drive
traffic to you if they actually want to
learn more about other stuff on that
website so in Academia this is a similar
concept as writing a citation mhm and if
someone's interested they go and read
the cited paper actually on their own
they you know we don't we don't have to
like tell them to go read it they read
it on their own because they think it's
important and um I think that's very uh
fair use of other people's content we're
not stealing it we're actually like just
being a middleman between them and the
end end reader and we're giving them
more visibility right so it's a
different kind of visibility until now
the internet econ economy has been built
around like how much traffic am I
getting now you're going to be like like
how much awareness am I getting how much
awareness am I getting like how many
times has some content on my site been
viewed by people it may not it it it can
be viewed in a different way too it can
be viewed through somebody else it can
be viewed directly on me as long as the
user knows it's from me it's enough
that's where that's where we differ from
Google or chpt uh sorry not Google I I
guess Google bar and chat GPT uh Google
itself is going to be pretty transparent
about the links and our sense is also
that
um the value of a link click on
perplexity will be more than then on
Google you know your someone has to be
way higher intent yeah to still leave
the site and go right your pitch is very
similar like to the one that Publishers
make to advertisers that like it's not
only about clicks it is about awareness
and you know when you get traffic from a
good publisher it's going to be high
quality traffic that being said like if
you don't have eyeballs on your site
it's very difficult to make money from
it
but we'll see how this plays out I think
it's still an open question it's an open
question that's that's I I'll clearly
establish that here that we don't have
complete answers to all this today how
are you thinking about making money I
mean you have a pro version that's $20 a
month you don't have ads yet but you
talk very eloquently about the idea that
you might eventually have ads and how
that could be even better than your
experience uh you know we just you
talked about Google earnings at the top
I mean they just added an incremental $6
billion dollar in advertising in the
quarter and incremental it six billion
that would be the 11th biggest
advertising business on the globe period
outside of China according Brian Weiser
from Madison and wall so people end up
spending what do we say like 30
something minutes 21 minutes and 58
seconds on perplexity and not just you
know zinging out to websites through
Google how are you going to make money
on on that and how does that change the
economics of the
internet I think that we just need to
rethink what advertising means right uh
you go to the first principle of what
advertising means advertising is a way
for the creator of the content or the
brand owner to maximize their awareness
to the end user or or or viewership now
uh tvel links is one way to connect the
reader and the Creator
but not the most efficient
way right the more efficient way is
actually answering parts of what exists
on your website to the end user
directly what exactly do you want them
uh the user to know about you which
you're putting on your site anyway you
don't have to tell us you don't have to
like pay us for that mhm in fact I I
believe it's fair if it's more fair to
The Advertiser to like not be the middle
guy telling I and I'll figure out how to
sort the order you you pay me money for
that but rather you you write about
yourself in the most honest transparent
way that you want the end user to know
about you and let the AI do the job of
taking that and reaching the end user
more more efficiently than before but
advertising interrupts though like so
it's very difficult very different to be
like a Blue Link on the side or above
versus like you're having a conversation
and then like perplexity ads come in and
like hey wait a second you should know
about this yeah yeah so so what I'm
trying to say here is advertising has to
be rethought from the perspective of oh
I just want traffic versus I just I want
more
awareness and what tools can I use to
increase that right how can I write the
content on my website even better to
reach the end user for certain kind of
questions and you are in charge of that
yourself as a Creator you don't have to
be under the mercy of someone creating
an auction system and exploiting you m
right by the way the internet can be
very fair we perplexity is not trying to
be uh creating a trillion dollar
economy on top of
ads uh or on top of all the searches
that we get and trying to take all of it
and not give away much to others like
nobody won only Google won in the past
year where you know the the the Telecom
providers did not win uh the the the
publishers did not win they took all the
Mula out for themselves you want to
change that and create a more fair world
and that's why I think like people will
be more willing to work with us and I
mean it also doesn't just change like
the traditional search model it can
change Commerce too I mean if think
about if you're on Amazon you could
search Amazon and just type a uh you
know conversationally into a a search
bar there and they're actually starting
to do this I think it's a product called
Rufus
and that obviously
their amount to make ads but it's also
how do you think yeah I'm curious how do
you think it's going to change
e-commerce pH it's I think it's all like
think think about it a short term and
long term right yep you may think it
minimizes your ads but what if people
just purchase more because they're able
to make better choices now yeah right uh
most of the time people don't end up
purchasing they end up shopping a lot
but they don't actually make a purchase
because they're not sure what to buy but
when you have a great shopping assistant
that directly gets to what the user
wanted the conversion to a transaction
could be much higher right and the
retention could be higher the number of
purchases cumulative number of purchases
could just get higher per user and uh
you don't have to rely on other people
anymore and you can just and and the
merchants are happier so they're willing
to pay you a little more for like being
displayed on your site so you can create
a different kind of economy right so by
the way for Amazon to do this hard
obviously because they do rely on
Advertising revenue on amazon.com to
keep amazon.com profitable so they have
like similar problems to Google there
but but but look they can they they are
such a massive company and have revenue
from AWS and like can definitely make up
for like any short-term hits here you
have Jeff Bezos as an investor yeah I do
have you made this argument to him no
yeah by the way I want to establish that
he doesn't you know he he he's not like
actively involved in Amazon and his
investment in us has but he's a chairman
there he's a chairman but he he his
investment in us has nothing to do with
uh us working with Amazon it's a it's a
independent investment how did you
recruit Bezos or did he just come in the
front door we I'm sure it's a great
story no he he I it's not it's not as
crazy as you think like we got connected
to his um you know bezos's Expeditions
fund and mhm um you know obviously in
his style they asked us for like like um
a memo memo and you know like that was
sort of the process and we we had a
pitch deck and all that and like demo
and all these things but yeah they made
a decision very fast and it definitely
changed our our Fortune um in terms of
being seen as a widely aware like the
awareness that we got through his
investment is
tremendous
interesting very quickly as we come into
a landing uh you worked at open AI you
know I guess like the fashionable thing
would be to ask you about their
governance troubles so if you want to
comment on that fine but what I'm
hearing about from them is they keep
signaling that huge stuff is coming down
uh the pike this year just like the way
that they're talking is that it sounds
like some serious advances are going to
happen this year do you have any senses
to what those might be and I don't
understand like what what could what
could inspire such talk is it a much I
mean if it's a slightly better GPT model
okay but it sounds like something
more I mean I don't know what has been
said publicly maybe you hear something
more privately but
uh I guess I'll just go by what Sam
Alman told Bill Gates I I was listening
to it like two days ago which is um
they'll have a lot more reliable models
so uh right now sometimes one in a 10 or
one in a 100 completions of a gp4 model
uh is hallucinatory can can say
arbitrary things it's not reliable it's
not deterministic programs so I think
they'll address that uh they'll also
address the fact of the models being
like more multimodal like right now it
supports images and input but the most
General version will support audio video
as inputs and also as outputs well
interfaced with
text I think they'll make some advances
there
I think the third thing they'll make
some advancements on is U
reasoning uh whatever reasoning gp4 is
able to exhibit today is already amazing
but it's still pretty limited and I
think they'll make some more progress
there in terms of multi-step reasoning
and like doing back and forth thinking
you want models to be able to like think
for a while and then come back and give
you some things right so they they
probably make more progress on those
things and I guess the fourth thing that
um Alman mentioned was like just
like reducing the cost oh sorry
increasing the personalization of all
these models so that people can program
all these things in a more reliable way
like for example why should G all the
products built on gp4 you know respond
in the same way with the same style of
like moralizing the user and like right
telling them what not to ask and like
same kind of like diplomatic positioning
of things you want to have like more
variety and diversity in the product
experiences created on top of GP P4 uh
and I think that is something they'll
probably address long context reasoning
things like that so these are all like
when I say these things it looks boring
to you right long contexts uh better
models better reasoning more more
reliability multimodo such boring
answers but when these actually happen
together when when when these all really
happen at the same time it look like
next Generation model
dropped with anthropic um what do what
do you think about about the uh the
Claude model and does it hold a candle
to
gpts so far not to be very honest but
I'll tell you one thing mhm they there
are people in the world who actually
like cla a lot more than
gbt in terms of response Styles and
eloquence they like Claude a lot more
it's more natural it feels more like
talking to a human than to an AI if you
talk to Claude so there are we have we
offer CLA as an option on the perplexity
product for pro users and I I know like
a lot of people who still use CLA
instead of
gp4 even though gp4 is a more capable
Reasoner because they like the way Cloud
responds so anthropic certainly has
something
now can they create a mod better than
gp4 I definitely think they can and if
they don't they are kind of doomed in
fact this year in 2024 if they don't
create a model better than gp4 all the
funding they like you know their race is
not being put to good use but I actually
think they will end up creating a model
better than gp4 this year like it it
it's sort of almost guaranteed to happen
so I believe it's going to happen with
CLA 3 now does that mean Open Eyes in
trouble I don't think so either I'm sure
there's a GPT 4.5 or five that will stay
ahead so it really is going to be a cad
and mouse game there where anthropic is
playing catch up and open AI ahead
through multimodal capability reasoning
capabilities and things things like
that now the question is like how long
can open keep on stay staying at the
lead if the Delta between them and their
competitors is slowly
reducing uh what what is the thing
that's going to keep them ahead that's I
they will be able to what do you think
and when llama 3 comes out and llama 3
is as good as CLA 3 or very close to
gp4 uh and the weights are just given
out to everybody it threatens the whole
economy that these companies are
creating with through apis it doesn't
demolish it because just because
somebody gave you the weights uh doesn't
mean you can take it and serve inference
yourself you still need someone to serve
inference for you in a more sufficient
way and like all the trickery to like
make an inference efficient is still not
like easy or open source but it
certainly reduces the Monopoly power of
like these um close Source model
providers and Google is also be going to
play in that market through Gemini and
API too right so it's going to be
interesting to see I think openi value
will Li in the chat gbt product
itself uh the n2n product and they're
going to face competition there too like
meta is going to have their own a
assistant that's barred there all sorts
of like Microsoft has Bing chat co-pilot
so it's it's it's a it's a market it's a
tough Market it's like there there are
few players and they're all going to
keep competing and like you know who's
really winning consumers yeah and Nvidia
and Nvidia exactly so everybody's using
Nvidia I mean of course Google doesn't
use Nvidia chips and um you know I guess
Sam Alman is trying to create his own
chip company and things like that so
we'll see yeah all Arvin I know you are
pressed for time um keep shipping and if
people want to check out perplexity
where can they find it Perle city. a
okay excellent thank you for joining I
hope it's not the last time really
Illuminating conversation great point to
end on thanks again for being here thank
you Al all right everybody thank you for
listening and we'll see you next time on
big technology
podcast