Episode Details
Back to EpisodesMeet the New Thiel Fellows, GPT 5.5, Thoma Bravo Loses Medallia | Victor Boyd, Alex Shieh, Nick Dobroshinsky, Ishan Gupta, Antoni Kiszka, Milan Lustig, Galen Mead, Aubrey Niederhoffer, Samuel Carvalho, Claire Wang
Episode 495
Published 3Ā weeks ago
Description
- (02:15) - Thoma Bravo Loses Medallia
- (10:28) - GPT 5.5 Released
- (11:32) - š¯•¸ Timeline Reactions
- (29:23) - Victor Boyd, co-founder and CTO of Cavalla Industries, discusses the development of autonomous forklifts aimed at delivering goods anywhere within hours. He explains the challenges faced with retrofitting existing forklifts due to their inconsistent internal designs, leading the company to build their own forklift to ensure reliability and scalability. Boyd also highlights the integration of teleoperation using Xbox controllers, allowing remote human intervention when necessary, and emphasizes the importance of delivering consistent results to customers, regardless of the level of autonomy achieved.
- (41:03) - Alex Shieh, a former Brown University student and co-founder of The Antifraud Company, discusses his firm's mission to utilize AI models for detecting government fraud and pursuing legal action against fraudsters, operating on a contingency basis where they earn a percentage of recovered funds. He explains the company's approach of combining open-source intelligence with AI to proactively identify fraudulent activities, emphasizing the importance of outbound investigations over waiting for insider tips. Shieh also highlights the significant impact of fraud on taxpayer dollars and the necessity of restoring trust in public institutions through efficient fraud detection and recovery efforts.
- (52:10) - Nick Dobroshinsky, the youngest-ever Thiel Fellow, has developed Every Ticker, a platform that utilizes large language models to generate high-quality research reports on all U.S. stocks, particularly focusing on small, mid, and micro-cap stocks often overlooked by Wall Street. He emphasizes that Every Ticker does not provide financial advice but instead aggregates and synthesizes research to help investors make informed decisions. Currently, the platform offers over 5,000 free reports, with plans to transition to a subscription model in the future.
- (01:00:59) - Spirit Airlines Eyes $500M Rescue
- (01:02:34) - Ishan Gupta is the Co-Founder and CTO of Juicebox, an AI-powered recruiting platform that leverages large language models to help companies identify and engage top talent. In the conversation, he discusses how Juicebox's AI agents analyze various data sources to find suitable candidates, reducing spam by targeting outreach more effectively. He also emphasizes the importance of job seekers showcasing their work through blogs, open-source contributions, and projects to enhance their visibility to AI-driven recruitment tools.
- (01:12:55) - Antoni Kiszka is the co-founder of Perpetual, a company aiming to create a derivatives exchange for a wide range of assets. He discusses their initial focus on meme coins to test their technology, with plans to expand into traditional finance markets, including assets like hydrogen, which currently lack derivatives. Kiszka also highlights the inspiration drawn from Kalshi's regulatory approach and emphasizes the need for derivatives that provide real value beyond speculative trading.
- (01:20:39) - Milan Lustig, co-founder of Opt32 and a Thiel Fellow, discusses his company's mission to develop modern full-stack compute infrastructure for physical autonomy, encompassing software and custom hardware solutions for devices like robots, drones, and autonomous vehicles. He explains their initial focus on the robotics sector, starting with software development and gradually progressing toward hardware integration, aiming to optimize machine learning models for deployment on resource-constrained devices. Lustig also highlights the importance of adapting computer science education to emphasize higher-level theoretical skills over low-level implementation, in response to advancements in artificial intelligence.
- (01:32:00) - Galen Mead, founder of a general research company focused on de