Human creativity and AI are often characterized as being at odds with each other. But as the capabilities of AI grow, so too grow the possibilities for empowering humans in creative endeavors. This week on Generative Now, Lightspeed Partner and host Michael Mignano speaks with Etsy CEO Josh Silverman about the integration and impact of AI technologies in enhancing the consumer and seller experiences. He shares insights into his journey of scaling technology companies and the evolution of...

This week on Generative Now, Lightspeed Partner and host Michael Mignano talks to Lisha Li, Founder and CEO of Rosebud AI. Rosebud AI allows users to generate video with a few simple prompts by leveraging AI for every aspect of game design. Lisha shares her diverse background from academia to venture capital and acting, leading up to the inception of Rosebud. Michael and Lisha talk about lessons learned when developing consumer AI products and the different iterations of Rosebud AI and its...

One could argue that the model for the news business is broken. So can AI help fix it? This week on Generative Now, Lightspeed Partner and host Michael Mignano talks to Sara Beykpour, CEO and Co-founder of Particle. Particle is an AI-driven news platform designed to help people learn exactly what they want to know about what's going on in the world in the most efficient way possible. Michael and Sara talk about the central product role she played for groundbreaking products like Twitter,...

Cerebras recently announced the launch of The Wafer Scale Engine Three. This is the largest and fastest chip in the history of chips.  This week on Generative Now, Lightspeed Partner and host Michael Mignano talks to Andrew Feldman. Andrew is the CEO and cofounder of Cerebras, the hardware company that builds AI supercomputers known for its Wafer Scale Technology. The Wafer Scale Engine Three is about the size of a dinner plate and promises compute design for AI. Andrew and Michael talk...

When the world of AI feels so dramatically new, it’s hard to look anywhere except toward the future. But previous examples of technological innovation can teach us a lot about building public trust and collaboration.  This week on Generative Now, Lightspeed Partner and host Michael Mignano talks to Verity Harding, one of TIME magazine’s most influential people in AI. Her debut book is AI Needs You: How We Can Change AI's Future and Save Our Own. She points to moments like the Space Race, the...

What if AI could understand what we, humans, are feeling? This week on Generative Now, Lightspeed Partner and host Michael Mignano talks to Alan Cowen, CEO & Chief Scientist of Hume AI. Hume creates empathic AI that learns our preferences from our vocal and facial expressions. Their goal is to maximize our happiness and quality of life. Hume is now announcing their API for EVI, Hume’s Empathic Voice Interface.  The conversation covers Cowen's journey from being a researcher to founding...

AI news moves fast. But reporters covering AI move faster. This week on the podcast, Lightspeed Partner and host Michael Mignano talks to journalist Alex Heath about predictions for independent model companies, the conversation around training data, and how journalists are adapting to AI disruptions. Alex Heath is the Deputy Editor of The Verge and the author of Command Line, a weekly newsletter about the tech industry’s inside conversation. Episode Chapters (00:00) Introduction to Alex...

Imagination becomes a reality when building the design tools of the future. This week on Generative Now, we’re talking with someone who has been tinkering with AI and design for about ten years. Lightspeed Partner and host Michael Mignano talks to Jordan Singer, Product Designer at Figma, about how Figma acquired his startup Diagram, what it’s like building AI tools at Figma, and how the role of designers is evolving.  Episode Chapters (00:00) Introduction to Jordan Singer (01:19) Jordan...

Semil Shah, General Partner at Haystack and Venture Partner at Lightspeed, is known for at least two things: his insightful Twitter presence and his smart investments at Haystack VC. Semil joins Lightspeed Partner and host Michael Mignano to talk venture capital insights and the unpredictable nature of startup success. The conversation also covers the evolving landscape of AI investments, the unique nature of Reddit's IPO, and the future of unique user-generated content. Additionally, they...

What is the role of a human content creator in a world with AI generated content? It’s a critical piece of the puzzle, according to Scott Belsky, Chief Strategy Officer and EVP of Design and Emerging Products at Adobe. Lightspeed Partner and Host Michael Mignano for a conversation about the evolution of marketing with generative content, the future of personalization, and overlooked opportunities in the AI landscape.  This conversation took place at the Robin Hood Opportunity x AI Summit....

Since the beginning of cinema, movies have held to the same format - a linear narrative, told the same way each time. Filmmaker Gary Hustwit wants to change all that. With his new documentary Eno, he’s broken the mold on movies. Hustwit has harnessed the power of generative AI to produce a movie you can never see twice. Through careful editing and groundbreaking software development, Hustwit and his collaborators built an engine that assembles a one-of-a-kind movie for every viewing. Same...

Most of the hype around AI has revolved around its text capabilities, and the powers of LLMs like ChatGPT. But Suno is focusing on the unsung hero of AI - music. Suno is building a future where anyone can make good music - all you need to do is type in a prompt, and out will come a song that’s never existed before. Mikey Shulman, CEO and Co-Founder of Suno, joins Lightspeed Partner and host Michael Mignano to talk through the intricacies of programming for sound, and what this technology...

Spotify’s personalized recommendations have set it apart from the pack of music streaming platforms for years. Those curated recommendations have only gotten stronger with the onset of AI, with the ability to power things like your own personal AI DJ. In this episode, Spotify’s Co-President, CPO & CTO, Gustav Söderström, joins host and Lightspeed Partner Michael Mignano to talk about building UX that can power more efficient AI, the future of AGI, and what the technology could look live...

In this episode, long-time entrepreneur and startup investor Elad Gil and former Greylock General Partner and Conviction founder Sarah Guo join host and Lightspeed Partner Michael Mignano to take a look at the broadening world of AI investing. The three discuss the surprise of ChatGPT3, the future of AI consumer products, and the potential UI evolution AI platforms could bring. Episode Chapters (00:00) Sarah Guo and Elad Gil, investors extraordinaire  (03:45) 2023 was the year of AI -...

Generative AI took the world by storm with the launch of ChatGPT, and set companies worldwide scrambling to catch up to the possibilities. Navan, the only integrated business travel and expense solution, knew it had to run hard towards AI. Navan co-founder and CEO Ariel Cohen sat down with host and Lightspeed Partner Michael Mignano to discuss the mechanics of shifting a big company on the fly, and how Navan managed to pull it off. Episode Chapters (00:00) Introduction to Ariel Cohen and...

A collaborative digital whiteboard. Sounds simple, right? Steve Ruiz, founder of tldraw, found out the hard way that building this kind of tool was anything but easy. Steve joins host and Lightspeed Partner Michael Mignano to talk about iterating with an audience, following a problem through to its end, and his take on the future of open source software.  Episode Chapters [00:00] Introduction to Steve Ruiz, founder of tldraw [07:41] Building out an audience by building out the perfect...

Over the last year, AI and LLMs have experienced an explosion of use. But the tech isn’t foolproof - hedging and hallucinations are just a couple of the concerns. That’s where Arthur AI comes in. They’ve built out firewalls, validation tools, and benchmarks to make sure that an LLM’s answer is one you can trust, whether you’re a military contractor or investment broker. Arthur AI Co-Founder and CEO Adam Wenchel sat down with Lightspeed Partner and Host Michael Mignano to talk about just how...

In this last episode of 2023, Lightspeed Partner and host Michael Mignano takes a look back at the first ten episodes of Generative Now to share a few favorite moments. Episode Chapters(00:00) Introduction (00:41) Connor Zwick on sneaking into early Berkeley courses on AI (04:08) Max Child on being first to a new platform (07:49) Gaurav Misra on how product market fit and a surprise $500k changed their business plan (15:19) Hilary Mason on the nuanced definitions in AI (20:57) Victor...

Duolingo is a worldwide powerhouse for consumers looking to learn a language, with a reputation for being engaging and interactive. Less known? All that AI does to power it.  In this episode, Duolingo’s Head of AI sits down with Lightspeed Partner and host Michael Mignano to chat about AI’s exponential growth, the connection between AI and the human brain, and what comes next.  Episode Chapters (00:00) Klinton Bicknell at the Generative NYC Meet-Up (03:04) What separates the human mind...

Captions.AI is taking the world of video creation by storm. With features like AI-corrected eye contact and automatic captions in 28 languages, more creators than ever can bring their ideas to life. Captions.AI Co-Founder and CEO Gaurav Misra joined Lightspeed Partner and Host Michael Mignano for a conversation spanning from his days as a design engineer at Snap to finding a surprise $500k in his Apple account.  Episode Chapters (00:00) An intro to Gaurav Misra, co-founder and CEO of...

Kylan Gibbs got his start in social sciences, but after stumbling into startups via a winning pitch at a Singaporean business competition, he never looked back. He spent time as co-founder of FlowX, a consultant at Bain & Company, and Product Manager at Google.  Kylan talked with Lightspeed Partner and Host Michael Mignano about where he’s at today, and how Inworld AI is leveling up is changing the way people interact with games throughAI powered NPCs. Episode Chapters (00:00) Intro...

Pinecone is one of the preeminent companies building in the generative AI space. Pinecone is able to integrate AI models and vector search databases to ensure that AI applications are getting the most relevant and up to date information as quickly as possible. Lightspeed Partner and host Michael Mignano spoke with Pinecone Founder and CEO Edo Liberty at a Generative NYC meet-up in early 2023. Episode Chapters (00:00) An intro to Edo Liberty and Pinecone (04:02) “It’s either now or...

Rewind is a personalized AI powered by everything you’ve seen, said, or heard. Rewind’s co-founder and CEO Dan Siroker lived several lifetimes before starting the company: product manager at Google, Director of Analytics for the 2008 Obama campaign, and co-founder of Optimizely. Lightspeed Partner and host Michael Mignano spent some time with Dan talking about the roads that got him to Rewind, and where he sees things going next. Episode Chapters (00:00) Early days (06:32) How going deaf...

Hilary Mason was on the ground floor of data science research, and now she’s bringing that same pioneering spirit to generative AI. For this episode, Host and Partner at Lightspeed, Michael Mignano, talks with Hilary about how to safeguard probabilistic systems and how researchers and founders can form the most effective teams. Episode Chapters (00:00) - Intro (05:18) - A founder’s thoughts - NYC vs. Silicon Valley (09:50) - Why Hilary thinks non-linear storytelling was wrong (13:44) -...

In this episode of Generative Now, Lightspeed Partner and host Michael Mignano sits down with Max Child, CEO and Co-Founder of Volley. Volley led the charge of voice controlled gaming that uses Alexa as a platform. Max gives an inside look into what it was like to be a platform pioneer, and all the steps along the way. Episode Chapters (00:00) - Intro  (05:11) - Lessons from The Harvard Crimson (07:14) - How a failed dating app launched Max’s coding career (11:47) - From Infatuation...