The Nebius for Startups Podcast

Nebius

The Nebius for Startups Podcast explores what it takes to build and scale AI-native companies in today’s rapidly evolving technology landscape.

Featuring a rotating cast of hosts, the Nebius for Startups Podcast brings together founders, engineers, researchers, investors, and ecosystem builders shaping the future of artificial intelligence. Each episode explores the real challenges and opportunities of building AI-native startups—from model development and infrastructure to go-to-market strategy, fundraising, and scaling technical teams.

Whether you're an AI founder, developer, researcher, or investor, this podcast offers an inside look at the people, ideas, and technologies driving the next generation of AI companies.

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August 11 · 17 min
Higgsfield's Secret Was NOT the Engineers
Alex Mashrabov spent years at Snap building face filters, probably the most widely used media AI product ever made. Learn more at Nebius.com When he left to start Higgsfield, he thought the hard part would be the models. It turned out to be something else entirely. In this episode, Joshua Liss, Head of Media and Entertainment at Nebius, sits down with Alex, CEO & Founder at Higgsfield AI, to go deep on what it actually takes to build a platform at the center of a creator economy being remade by AI. Today, over 50% of creators on Higgsfield now produce content end to end with AI, a number that was unimaginable just 18 months ago. Alex shares the secret behind Higgsfield's growth that he has never talked about publicly before, why the company's 50-person creative team is the real competitive moat, how Higgsfield trained Soul 2.0 on Nebius B300s to deliver a model that is 20 times cheaper and 20 times faster than the leading alternative, and what he sees coming for the entertainment industry that most people aren't ready for. 0:00 - Intro teaser 0:50 - Higgsfield's thesis: why most social content will be AI-generated 2:22 - The rise of AI-native creators going end-to-end 4:07 - The secret: Higgsfield's 50-person creative feedback loop 5:45 - Democratizing high-end content and the Higgsfield contest 8:52 - From Snap face filters to Higgsfield 13:35 - 20x faster, 20x cheaper 16:55 - Prediction: AI-native IP and an AI-first Netflix What You'll Learn Why Higgsfield's real competitive moat isn't the research team but a 50-person creative feedback loop. The three stages of AI in entertainment and why stage three is closer than most think. How Higgsfield trained Soul 2.0 on Nebius B300s and cut inference costs 20x. Why the largest AI video competition in the world was won by names nobody had heard of. What it means to build like a seismologist, always hunting the next wave of creators before it breaks. Why any creator can now compete with what used to require a million-dollar production budget. Will the next Netflix will be AI first?
August 4 · 20 min
Why Robotics Data is 250,000 Years Behind LLMs
Lukas Ziegler, Robotics Evangelist, Investor, and Advisor, has spent the past 10 years working across robotics software, commercial roles, content, and investing. Now, he believes the industry is entering a new era. Learn more at: ⁠nebius.com In this episode, Evan Helda, Head of Physical AI at Nebius, sits down with Lukas to explore the shift from Robotics 1.0 to Robotics 2.0: a world where you don't program a robot, you just tell it what to do. They discuss why the humanoid debate has been asking the wrong question, why the data gap between LLMs and robotics is vastly misunderstood, and why the companies that will win are already co-building with end users rather than shipping to them. They also get into storytelling: why public exposure builds trust in robots faster than any marketing campaign ever could. 0:00 - Intro teaser 0:40 - Lukas Ziegler’s journey from engineer to robotics evangelist 2:40 - Robotics 2.0: the shift from programmed to general-purpose robots 4:45 - The biggest investment trends in physical AI 7:45 - Why robotics has a massive data problem 11:00 - Synthetic data, AI moats, and the future of RobotOps 17:00 - Why storytelling will determine robotics adoption 19:15 - Preparing for a future where robots free up our time 20:00 - Outro What You'll Learn What Robotics 2.0 means and why it's a fundamentally different paradigm from Robotics 1.0. Why specialized humanoids may have a clearer path to deployment than general-purpose systems. The massive data gap between LLMs and robotics, and why physical AI will scale gradually. The three investment theses: verticalized humanoids, RobotOps infrastructure, and data collection. Why robotics companies should involve end users from the earliest stages of development. Why exposure beats education when it comes to public trust in robots.
July 21 · 23 min
How Enterprise AI Moves from Chatbots to Real Work
What does it actually look like when enterprise AI moves from experimentation to real work? Learn more at: nebius.com In this episode, Markiesha Patrice, Head of Startup Platform & Community at Nebius, sits down with Debanjan Saha, CEO of DataRobot. They explore what the transition from AI pilots to production-ready agentic systems looks like from the inside. Debanjan has been at the forefront of three technology revolutions: the internet, the cloud, and now AI, and he brings a clear-eyed, optimistic framework to a moment he believes is an order of magnitude larger than anything that came before it. From navigating three major technology revolutions to leading one of AI’s pioneering companies, Debanjan shares his perspective on leadership, disruption, and the opportunities emerging as AI moves from experimentation to real-world impact. 0:00 - Intro teaser 0:50 - Hype or real? Why this revolution is different 4:20 - The two-timescale strategy for staying ahead 5:20 - What DataRobot builds: the agentic workforce 8:25 - Inside the platform: building and running agents 14:30 - Frontier agents: Chevron's oilfield safety 18:20 - The power of partnership: Nebius and NVIDIA 20:15 - Advice for builders: create 10X value 25:20 - The vision: building AI factories 26:50 - Outro What You'll Learn: -Why the AI revolution is an order of magnitude larger than the internet and cloud revolutions that preceded it. -How the enterprise AI market is evolving from chatbot experimentation to high-value agentic transformation. -The full build-to-run framework: testing, validation, identity management, governance, and real-time intervention. -The one-way door vs. two-way door decision making framework he learned from his time at Amazon. -Why startups must create 10x value to win enterprise customers.
July 14 · 18 min
The End of Monolithic AI and What Comes Next
What if AI’s next breakthrough isn’t a larger model, but a different way of thinking about intelligence? Learn more at: ⁠nebius.com In this episode, Markiesha Patrice, Head of Startup Platform & Community at Nebius, sits down with Sudip Roy, co-founder and CTO of Adaption. After helping build AI infrastructure during the scaling era at Google and Cohere, Sudip now argues that the industry’s future won’t be defined by ever-larger models alone. He explains why leading foundation models are converging, why enterprises should think in terms of AI systems instead of individual models, and how continuous adaptation could become the next major shift in artificial intelligence. 0:00 - Intro teaser: The days of monolithic AI are over 0:47 - Challenging scaling laws: how Adaption Labs started 3:18 - The three pillars: data, continual learning, interfaces 6:52 - Adaptation is all you need: the future of AI models 8:40 - Proportional compute and the AI energy gap 11:00 - Solving the 5% reliability gap for enterprises 11:57 - Advice for builders: take contrarian positions 14:36 - Adaptive Data: synthetic data in 240+ languages 15:19 - Outro What You'll Learn: -Why leading foundation models are beginning to converge and what that means for the future of AI. -Why thinking about tasks instead of models changes how enterprises should build AI systems. -Why enterprise data remains AI’s biggest untapped resource.-How continuous learning closes the 5% enterprise reliability gap caused by domain-specific organizational data. -Why challenging industry consensus can create breakthrough startup opportunities.
July 7 · 25 min
How to Build a Consumer AI App That 10 Million People Can't Put Down
Henry Wang built a consumer app that 10 million people use for 150 minutes a day. For most of that time, the assumption in the industry was that you needed a frontier model to deliver a great AI experience. Learn more at: nebius.com⁠ Henry found a different answer.In this episode, Joshua Liss, Head of Media and Entertainment at Nebius, sits down with Henry (Lifan) Wang, Co-founder of Kaon Labs, to get into how you actually scale a consumer AI product. Not just find product-market fit, but build the infrastructure that lets you serve tens of millions of users, test 100 models a week, and generate a trillion tokens a day without it costing you everything. Henry explains why personalization at consumer scale isn't a recommendation system anymore, how Kaon Labs replaced two-week A/B tests with Elo ranking that resolves in two hours, why entertainment is the right beachhead for consumer AI right now, and what in-experience advertising could look like. He also shares his contrarian take on what actually separates the consumer AI companies that break out from the ones that spike and die. 0:00 - Intro teaser: 10M users, 115 minutes a day & 1 trillion tokens 0:20 - How Kaon Labs built AI infrastructure for 10 million users 3:02 - Why AI roleplay is changing entertainment forever 5:10 - Hyper-personalization vs. recommendation algorithms 8:18 - Why scaling consumer AI is harder than enterprise AI 11:33 - Building and evaluating 100 AI models every week 16:08 - Monetizing AI with subscriptions & immersive advertising 19:43 - Rapid fire: The AI-native leaders every startup needs 22:08 - Lessons from building a 10 million user consumer AI company 25:22 - Outro What You'll Learn: -Why testing 100 models a week against real users is the core of Kaon Labs' competitive advantage. -How Elo ranking replaced A/B testing: evaluating models in hours, not weeks. -Why AI replaces recommendation systems with true personalization. -Why entertainment is the ideal proving ground for consumer AI. -Product Market Fit matters, but scale is what separates breakouts from blips. -What in-experience advertising looks like when it lives inside the story rather than interrupting it. -The three things to look for in every key hire.
June 30 · 26 min
How to Spot a $25 Billion Company Before It Has Revenue
Brian Zhan doesn't want your business plan. In fact, if you hand him one at the seed stage, that might raise some red flags. Learn more at: ⁠nebius.com⁠⁠ In this episode, Anu Maheshwari, Head of Venture Ecosystem at Nebius, sits down with Brian Zhan, partner at Striker Venture Partners. They unpack what it actually means to back people, not products, at the frontier of AI. From reinforcement learning's generalization advantages, to recursive self-improvement loops in chip design, Brian makes the case that the VC consensus is missing the most important early bets by waiting for revenue. Brian has been on the boards of Reflection, Skilled, and Periodic Labs. With a personal history in robotics research dating back to 2014, he maps out where the next trillion-dollar companies will emerge, why most VCs are too focused on revenue timelines to see them, and how Striker approaches seed investing with 10% of fund concentration per bet. 0:00 - Intro teaser: Why the best founders don't need a business plan 0:27 - Why Striker invests before there's a business plan 5:04 - Is AI in a bubble? Separating hype from opportunity 7:45 - How Brian identifies world-changing founders 9:24 - Reinforcement learning and the path to superintelligence 14:05 - Robotics, world models, and the future of physical AI 17:55 - Why most VCs think too small 20:18 - What Brian looks for in a founder pitch 23:37 - The OpenAI playbook & why compute partnerships matter 26:05 - Outro What You'll Learn: -Why a detailed business plan at seed is unnecessary. -The precision behind frontier AI investing and why it's fundamentally different from SaaS. -Why reinforcement learning underpins recursive self-improvement and why most investors don't actually understand it. -How world models and simulation will accelerate robotics toward its ChatGPT moment. -Solving energy supply by unlocking insight for everything else. -How Striker evaluates founder-market fit in practice.
June 23 · 22 min
How Tavily Got to 1M Users Without Sending One Cold Email
Tavily hit one million users without a single outbound cold email. Learn more at: ⁠nebius.com⁠⁠ Not because of a viral moment, but because the founder understood earlier than most that the unit economics of agentic search are fundamentally different. When you’re returning context to an AI agent rather than links to a human, token waste, latency, and information density become the variables that determine whether your product survives in production. Tavily built its architecture around that constraint from day one, and developers noticed. After being mentioned in 200+ research papers and 1,000+ YouTube videos, Fortune 500 enterprises were already running Tavily internally before a sales conversation ever happened. In this episode, Markiesha Patrice (Head of Startup Platform & Community at Nebius) sits down with Rotem Weiss, Founder and CEO of Tavily, to get into the technical and strategic decisions behind building the search layer for the agentic web. Rotem breaks down why optimizing for snippet retrieval over link retrieval changes the entire architecture of a search product, how Tavily's prediction engine pre-processes likely queries to cut latency without sacrificing accuracy, and why he believes the most important GTM decision an AI infrastructure company can make in 2026 is getting integrated into the coding assistants autonomously selecting tools on behalf of engineers. 0:00 - Intro teaser: the buyer isn't a human anymore 0:25 - Guest intro & what Tavily does 0:47 - Rotem's origin story & the first check 1:40 - The real-time data gap & launching GPT Researcher 4:30 - What is agentic search? Snippets, not links 6:55 - The prediction engine that kills latency 7:55 - Why 2026 is the year of token optimization 10:05 - Inside the Nebius acquisition 11:25 - The team & the "second CEO" 12:45 - "The buyer is the AI assistant" — winning coding tools 14:30 - GPUs as rocket fuel 16:30 - One million users, zero cold emails 19:20 - "I'm the worst at everything in the company" 20:30 - Israel vs. the US founder mindset What You'll Learn -Why returning the right snippet rather than the right link changes the entire architecture of a search product. -The prediction engine Tavily uses to pre-process likely queries at the website level, reducing processing overhead without sacrificing accuracy. -Why coding assistants autonomously selecting tools in a stack are becoming the real GTM lever for AI infrastructure companies. -The open-source to enterprise conversion motion Rotem actually used. -How the migration from large closed-source models to fine-tuned open-source models changes the token economics for AI companies trying to get to production. Learn more at: https://nebius.com/startups/podcast
June 16 · 20 min
Real-Time World Models, Explained by a Founder Building Them
In October 2024, Alberto Taiuti was trying to solve a 3D asset problem and ran into a wall. The labeled data didn't exist. What he realized next reshaped the trajectory of his company. Learn more at: ⁠nebius.com In this episode, Josh Liss (Head of Media & Entertainment at Nebius) sits down with Alberto Taiuti, CEO and Co-founder of Reactor, the developer platform for world models. They unpack what real-time world models actually are, why they're fundamentally different from the AI video tools most people have encountered, and why he believes the era of prompting is already winding down. Drawing on his background at Apple, where he worked on the Vision Pro, Alberto makes the case that interactive video changes what a developer platform has to be, why video models already understand 3D space (even though no one trained them to), and how shows, ads, and even software interfaces could be generated live, per user, in real time. 0:00 - Intro teaser: writing code, not prompts 0:25 - Guest intro & Reactor overview 0:47 - What is a world model? 2:19 - World models are regressive like LLMs 5:21 - Alberto's background & origin story 8:08 - The "aha" moment that changed everything 9:58 - How world models will impact media & entertainment 12:48 - "We only hire unreasonable people" — hiring philosophy 13:54 - Building in stealth: lessons from Apple 17:48 - GTA San Andreas shaped his entire career What You'll Learn What a world model is, in plain language, and how it differs from standard AI video generation. Alberto's philosophy for building in stealth mode and how that impacts his team Why Alberto believes interactive, real-time video brings code back to the center of AI development. The insight about video models and 3D that became the foundation of Reactor. Reactor's hiring philosophy and why "unreasonable" is the highest compliment at the company. Alberto's three-year prediction for how applications themselves get built.
April 7 · 18 min
Building Across Internet Eras with Scott Kveton, Serial Entrepreneur, CEO & Co-founder of CaseMark
🚀 Apply to Nebius for Startups: https://www.nebius.com/startups 🎧 Explore more episodes: https://www.nebius.com/startups/podcast In this episode, we sit down with Scott Kveton—serial entrepreneur, Co-founder and CEO of CaseMark, and Co-founder of the Association for AI in Legal (A4L)—to explore what it means to build across multiple generations of the internet. With over 20 years of experience spanning Web1, Web2, Web3, and now AI, Scott has built and scaled companies at internet scale, with three successful exits and just as many hard-earned failures. From an early career at Amazon to co-founding Urban Airship and contributing to foundational technologies like OpenID and OAuth, his journey offers a front-row seat to the evolution of modern software. Now, with CaseMark, Scott is focused on transforming the legal industry through AI—building a “litigation lifecycle” platform designed to help attorneys make sense of complex cases from intake to resolution. We dive into Scott’s philosophy on building high-performance teams, why he believes companies should operate like clockwork—not culture—and how founders can stay focused on execution and stakeholder value. Along the way, we explore lessons from decades of building, scaling, and adapting through every major wave of the internet. 👤 About the Guest LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kveton/ Twitter/X: https://x.com/kveton Company website: https://casemark.com/ 🚀 About Nebius for Startups Nebius for Startups partners with leading AI founders building for scale—providing GPU credits, hands-on engineering support, and a global ecosystem to accelerate growth. Reduce infrastructure bottlenecks, avoid scaling missteps, and move faster. 👉 Apply now: https://www.nebius.com/startups 🌐 About Nebius Website: https://www.nebius.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/nebius X: https://x.com/nebiusai
April 7 · 22 min
Making and Breaking Things: The Founder Mentality and Building in Emerging Markets with Nova and Postpay’s Tariq Sheikh
🚀 Apply to Nebius for Startups: https://www.nebius.com/startups 🎧 Explore more episodes: https://www.nebius.com/startups/podcast In this episode we sit down with Tariq Sheikh, Co-founder and CEO of Nova, a contract intelligence platform transforming how teams manage and analyze business documents. A self-described “third culture kid,” Tariq’s journey spans numerous countries across both Africa and Europe, stints in consulting, gold trading, and defense, and finally a series of successes scaling tech startups. He previously founded Postpay, the leading buy now, pay later provider in the Middle East, scaling the company from a handful of employees to over 100 in just six months and raising over $65M along the way. Tariq shares how a constant lack of stability shaped his founder mentality—driving him to keep building, breaking, and pushing forward without getting too comfortable. We dive into what it takes to build in emerging markets, the realities of hypergrowth, and the nonstop firefighting that defines the founder journey. Tariq also reflects on how having had little time to pause and celebrate the wins is shaping how he’s building today. 👤 About the Guest LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shkhtar/ Company website: https://nova-doc.com/ 🚀 About Nebius for Startups Nebius for Startups partners with leading AI founders building for scale—providing GPU credits, hands-on engineering support, and a global ecosystem to accelerate growth. Reduce infrastructure bottlenecks, avoid scaling missteps, and move faster. 👉 Apply now: https://www.nebius.com/startups 🌐 About Nebius Website: https://www.nebius.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/nebius X: https://x.com/nebiusai
April 7 · 27 min
From Operator to Investor: Going Deep on the AI Landscape with Accel’s Sam Fold
🚀 Apply to Nebius for Startups: https://www.nebius.com/startups 🎧 Explore more episodes: https://www.nebius.com/startups/podcast At Slush 2025 in Helsinki, we sat down with Accel’s Sam Folds to unpack the breakneck pace of today’s AI startup landscape. From identifying emerging investment opportunities to how his technical background in gaming with Blizzard and as VP of Engineering at Checkout.com contributes to his perspective in VC. Sam shares how founders can better anticipate where the market is heading and why the next wave of startups is going deeper—targeting niche, verticalized problems with AI and what’s ahead and the challenges facing compute-intensive startups in today’s AI era. 👤 About the Guest LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/samfold X (Twitter): https://x.com/SamFold Company website: https://www.accel.com/ 🚀 About Nebius for Startups Nebius for Startups partners with leading AI founders building for scale—providing GPU credits, hands-on engineering support, and a global ecosystem to accelerate growth. Reduce infrastructure bottlenecks, avoid scaling missteps, and move faster. 👉 Apply now: https://www.nebius.com/startups 🌐 About Nebius Website: https://www.nebius.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/nebius X: https://x.com/nebiusai
March 26 · 27 min
Revolutionizing Healthcare and Small Business Efficiency with AI: Insights from Abridge co-founder Zachary Lipton
🚀 Apply to Nebius for Startups: https://www.nebius.com/startups 🎧 Explore more episodes: https://www.nebius.com/startups/podcast In this episode, we explore cutting-edge technological advancements with leaders from Abridge. Zach, an AI researcher and co-founder of Abridge, shares the company's mission to enhance human connections in healthcare by developing AI solutions that alleviate doctors' administrative burdens. He elaborates on the innovative use of AI in clinical settings to streamline documentation, improve patient-doctor interactions, and optimize healthcare practices. Zach shed light on the importance of efficient AI integration, the future potential of their technologies, and the continual advancements happening in the AI space. 👤 About the Guest LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/zacharylipton X (Twitter): https://x.com/zacharylipton Personal Website: https://www.zacharylipton.com/ 🚀 About Nebius for Startups Nebius for Startups partners with leading AI founders building for scale—providing GPU credits, hands-on engineering support, and a global ecosystem to accelerate growth. Reduce infrastructure bottlenecks, avoid scaling missteps, and move faster. 👉 Apply now: https://www.nebius.com/startups 🌐 About Nebius Website: https://www.nebius.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/nebius X: https://x.com/nebiusai
March 26 · 12 min
Exploring the Future of AI Video Generation with HeyGen's CTO Rong Yan
🚀 Apply to Nebius for Startups: https://www.nebius.com/startups 🎧 Explore more episodes: https://www.nebius.com/startups/podcast In this insightful episode, Rong Yan, the CTO of HeyGen, discusses the groundbreaking technology behind AI video generation and its potential to revolutionize video storytelling. Rong shares insights on HeyGen’s aim to make video creation accessible without the need for cameras, the challenges in developing realistic AI avatars, and the company’s commitment to privacy and safety. Furthermore, he addresses how AI could enhance multimedia communication and make video a more interactive and personalized experience. The conversation also explores how HeyGen's innovations could shift content creation, making it easier for non-professionals to generate engaging video content. 👤 About the Guest LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rong-yan-2004692 X (Twitter): https://x.com/HeyGen Comapny Website: https://www.heygen.com/ 🚀 About Nebius for Startups Nebius for Startups partners with leading AI founders building for scale—providing GPU credits, hands-on engineering support, and a global ecosystem to accelerate growth. Reduce infrastructure bottlenecks, avoid scaling missteps, and move faster. 👉 Apply now: https://www.nebius.com/startups 🌐 About Nebius Website: https://www.nebius.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/nebius X: https://x.com/nebiusai
March 26 · 11 min
AI for Good: Breaking Language Barriers and the Hybrid Work Revolution with Xuedong Huang, CTO at Zoom
🚀 Apply to Nebius for Startups: https://www.nebius.com/startups 🎧 Explore more episodes: https://www.nebius.com/startups/podcast Xuedong Huang is the Chief Technology Officer at Zoom. A leader in the AI revolution, he is currently spearheading the development of the Zoom AI Companion and its mission to transform how the world gets work done. What happens when your meeting software starts acting like a high-level executive assistant? In this episode, Xuedong breaks down the evolution of AI Companion 3.0 and its shift toward "Conversation to Completion" (C2C), a philosophy focused on turning meeting notes into finished tasks. 👤 About the Guest X (Twitter): https://x.com/xdh (or @xdh) LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/xdhuang 🚀 About Nebius for Startups Nebius for Startups partners with leading AI founders building for scale—providing GPU credits, hands-on engineering support, and a global ecosystem to accelerate growth. Reduce infrastructure bottlenecks, avoid scaling missteps, and move faster. 👉 Apply now: https://www.nebius.com/startups 🌐 About Nebius Website: https://www.nebius.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/nebius X: https://x.com/nebiusai
March 26 · 8 min
Revolutionizing SMBs with AI-Powered Business Solutions | Motion CEO, Harry Qi
🚀 Apply to Nebius for Startups: https://www.nebius.com/startups 🎧 Explore more episodes: https://www.nebius.com/startups/podcast Join us as we dive into the transformative world of Motion, a company delivering 'AI and business in a box' solutions to SMBs and mid-market enterprises. In this episode, we discuss how Motion is automating workflows, bridging the gap between small businesses and Fortune 500 capabilities, and the journey behind their rapid scale-up. Learn from their founder about the importance of stability, future plans for new product launches, and the enduring role of human decision-making in the age of AI. 👤 About the Guest Find out more: Harry Qi is the Co-Founder and CEO of Motion (usemotion.com or motion.app), an AI-powered productivity platform. X (Twitter): https://x.com/harryqi666 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/harryqi/ Motion on X: https://x.com/useMotion 🚀 About Nebius for Startups Nebius for Startups partners with leading AI founders building for scale—providing GPU credits, hands-on engineering support, and a global ecosystem to accelerate growth. Reduce infrastructure bottlenecks, avoid scaling missteps, and move faster. 👉 Apply now: https://www.nebius.com/startups 🌐 About Nebius Website: https://www.nebius.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/nebius X: https://x.com/nebiusai
March 26 · 6 min
Death to the Slide Deck: Building the "Anti-PowerPoint" with Grant Lee, Founder of Gamma
🚀 Apply to Nebius for Startups: https://www.nebius.com/startups 🎧 Explore more episodes: https://www.nebius.com/startups/podcast Grant Lee is the founder of Gamma. A former consultant who started his career in the advisory world, Grant previously worked at the startup Optimizely before deciding to tackle the universal frustration of manual slide formatting. In this conversation, Grant dives into why the traditional way of building presentations felt "broken" and how he’s building an "anti-PowerPoint" to fix it. The discussion covers the launch of Gamma 3.0, including: The AI Design Agent, A new API and their collaborative business model. Grant also shares his vision for the future of visual communication, moving beyond standard slides into microsites, social media assets, and data visualization. Finally, we touch on the "magical" camaraderie of the Silicon Valley builder community and why no founder has to build alone. 👤 About the Guest LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/grantslee/ X (Twitter): https://x.com/thisisgrantlee Company website: https://gamma.app/ 🚀 About Nebius for Startups Nebius for Startups partners with leading AI founders building for scale—providing GPU credits, hands-on engineering support, and a global ecosystem to accelerate growth. Reduce infrastructure bottlenecks, avoid scaling missteps, and move faster. 👉 Apply now: https://www.nebius.com/startups 🌐 About Nebius Website: https://www.nebius.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/nebius X: https://x.com/nebiusai
March 26 · 13 min
Giving Ideas "Mass": The New Era of AI Storytelling with Alex Mashrabov Founder of Higgsfield AI
🚀 Apply to Nebius for Startups: https://www.nebius.com/startups 🎧 Explore more episodes: https://www.nebius.com/startups/podcast Alex is the founder of Higgsfield AI and a veteran of the social media space, having previously seen his company acquired by Snap. In this episode, we explore how Higgsfield AI is filling the gap between a creative idea and a finished video. Alex breaks down why they are moving away from simple text boxes to create more user-friendly interfaces that allow anyone to express themselves on platforms like TikTok and Instagram. We also discuss the technical "aha" moment behind world models and why Alex believes AI-generated personalities are the next frontier of art. 👤 About the Guest LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/amashrabov/ X (Twitter): https://x.com/alexmashrabov (or @alexmashrabov) Company website: https://higgsfield.ai/ 🚀 About Nebius for Startups Nebius for Startups partners with leading AI founders building for scale—providing GPU credits, hands-on engineering support, and a global ecosystem to accelerate growth. Reduce infrastructure bottlenecks, avoid scaling missteps, and move faster. 👉 Apply now: https://www.nebius.com/startups 🌐 About Nebius Website: https://www.nebius.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/nebius X: https://x.com/nebiusai
March 26 · 18 min
Overcoming Imposter Syndrome: Why Executives Have More FOMO Than You – with Marc Boroditsky, Chief Revenue Officer
🚀 Apply to Nebius for Startups: https://www.nebius.com/startups 🎧 Explore more episodes: https://www.nebius.com/startups/podcast Marc Boroditsky is a seasoned leader and ex-founder who has successfully built and scaled multiple companies. He currently holds a senior leadership position at Nebius, where he leverages his extensive background in enterprise sales and infrastructure to help the next generation of founders navigate the complexities of growth. In this episode, Marc dives deep into the mindset required to scale a startup in today’s competitive landscape. Marc also shares why founders should prioritize finding partners who invest in their success rather than just vendors who provide a service. The discussion explores: The Enterprise Shift: Why the sales cycle jumps from a single buyer to a dozen stakeholders, and how to navigate those "veto" risks. Knowledge as Currency: How founders can open doors to CTOs by offering their unique domain expertise instead of just a sales pitch. The FOMO Factor: A refreshing take on imposter syndrome, revealing that even top-tier tech executives are worried about what they might be missing. Whether you are in stealth mode or ready to hit growth mode, this conversation is packed with "words of wisdom" for mastering the human side of tech. 👤 About the Guest LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marcboroditsky 🚀 About Nebius for Startups Nebius for Startups partners with leading AI founders building for scale—providing GPU credits, hands-on engineering support, and a global ecosystem to accelerate growth. Reduce infrastructure bottlenecks, avoid scaling missteps, and move faster. 👉 Apply now: https://www.nebius.com/startups 🌐 About Nebius Website: https://www.nebius.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/nebius X: https://x.com/nebiusai
March 26 · 9 min
Amit's Vision: Integrating AI into ServiceNow's Ecosystem
🚀 Apply to Nebius for Startups: https://www.nebius.com/startups 🎧 Explore more episodes: https://www.nebius.com/startups/podcast In this episode, we sit down with Amit Zavery, the President, Chief Product Officer, and Chief Operating Officer at ServiceNow, who shares insights on the integration of AI into ServiceNow's platform. Amit discusses the importance of AI being a seamless part of the system, not a separate entity. He speaks on the strategic partnerships and the ecosystem-building approach ServiceNow adopts to ensure efficiency and scalability for enterprises and startups alike. Amit also highlights the need for integrated, secure, and customer-centric AI solutions, and he lays out a forward-looking perspective on how AI adoption can mature by 2026. The conversation touches upon infrastructure needs, inferencing, and compute efficiency, emphasizing how ServiceNow works to provide cost-effective solutions for its clients. 👤 About the Guest LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/amitzavery X: https://x.com/azavery Company Website: https://www.servicenow.com/ 🚀 About Nebius for Startups Nebius for Startups partners with leading AI founders building for scale—providing GPU credits, hands-on engineering support, and a global ecosystem to accelerate growth. Reduce infrastructure bottlenecks, avoid scaling missteps, and move faster. 👉 Apply now: https://www.nebius.com/startups 🌐 About Nebius Website: https://www.nebius.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/nebius X: https://x.com/nebiusai
March 26 · 10 min
Beyond Capital: The Fellowship VC Model with Alex Ren, Founding Partner of Fellows Fund
🚀 Apply to Nebius for Startups: https://www.nebius.com/startups 🎧 Explore more episodes: https://www.nebius.com/startups/podcast Alex Ren is the Founding Partner of Fellows Fund and the organizer of Fellows Forum. A former entrepreneur, Alex has spent the last decade building a high-quality community of AI leaders, researchers, and tech executives—bridging the gap between deep technology and venture capital. In this conversation, Alex explains how Fellows Fund is rethinking the traditional VC model through a “fellowship” of 36 AI leaders who provide hands-on support and industry access to startups. He shares his core investment philosophy—“traction is all you need”—and why founders must operate aggressively to stay ahead in today’s “Wild West” era of AI. We also dive into the three technologies Alex believes will be most disruptive in 2026: • AI-generated coding • Video generation • Physical AI in robotics 👤 About the Guest LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexchengmingren X: https://x.com/AlexFellowsFund Fellows Fund: https://www.fellowsfundvc.com/ Fellows Fund LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/fellows-fund 🚀 About Nebius for Startups Nebius for Startups partners with leading AI founders building for scale—providing GPU credits, hands-on engineering support, and a global ecosystem to accelerate growth. Reduce infrastructure bottlenecks, avoid scaling missteps, and move faster. 👉 Apply now: https://www.nebius.com/startups 🌐 About Nebius Website: https://www.nebius.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/nebius X: https://x.com/nebiusai

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