This special crosspost features a16z General Partner Anjney Midha in conversation with Periodic Labs co-founders Liam Fedus (OpenAI, ChatGPT) and Ekin Doğuş Çubuk (Google DeepMind), who recently secured a $300M investment.

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This special crosspost features a16z General Partner Anjney Midha in conversation with Periodic Labs co-founders Liam Fedus (OpenAI, ChatGPT) and Ekin Doğuş Çubuk (Google DeepMind), who recently secured a $300M investment. They discuss their ambitious mission to build automated physical laboratories that connect AI-generated hypotheses directly to real-world experiments, aiming to teach AI scientific intuition and accelerate discovery, with a north star of finding a high-temperature superconductor. The conversation delves into the human and organizational strategies for building such an "AI for Science" company, emphasizing curiosity, cross-disciplinary learning, and a culture that prioritizes mission alignment over traditional credentials. Listeners will gain insights into how Periodic Labs plans to commercialize their advancements and foster broader scientific contributions, driving a future where AI deeply understands the physical world.

Read the full transcript here: https://storage.aipodcast.ing/...

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CHAPTERS:
(00:00) About the Episode
(03:55) Advancing Science With AI
(05:01) Founders' Origin Story
(07:48) Nature as Reward Function
(09:48) Training ChatGPT vs. Physics
(12:27) The Quantum Mechanics Lab
(16:31) Measuring Progress and Impact (Part 1)
(19:09) Sponsors: Linear | AGNTCY
(21:42) Measuring Progress and Impact (Part 2)
(21:42) Designing the Expert Team
(24:20) Scaling Laws and Distribution
(28:56) Superconductivity as North Star
(32:41) The Commercial Path (Part 1)
(32:46) Sponsors: Claude | Shopify
(36:48) The Commercial Path (Part 2)
(40:27) Uniting Diverse Teams
(47:15) Enterprise AI Strategy
(51:38) The Role of Mid-Training
(55:59) Collaborating with Academia
(01:00:27) Who Should Join Periodic
(01:02:29) Outro

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