We only take on 4 clients per month. Join our October cohort. 1 spot left.
Conversation
Highlights
Welcome to another episode of Unicorn Builders. In today’s episode, we’re speaking with Robert Nishihara, Co-Founder of Anyscale, an AI compute platform that has raised over $250 Million in funding.
Here are the most interesting points from our conversation:
- Anyscale’s Origin Story: The company began as a commercialization effort for Ray, an open-source project tackling AI compute challenges.
- AI’s Early Days: In 2012, AI was still experimental until deep learning breakthroughs rapidly expanded the field, driving demand for scalable compute solutions.
- The ChatGPT Inflection Point: The release of ChatGPT in 2022 turned AI into a top priority for businesses, validating Anyscale’s bets on scalable AI infrastructure.
- Scaling AI for Business Impact: Many businesses are still in the experimentation phase of AI, needing rapid iteration and productionization to fully unlock AI’s potential.
- AI Flexibility Is Key: Companies seek platforms like Ray that can support diverse AI workloads, from deep learning to generative AI, to future-proof their infrastructure.
- Community-Driven Marketing: Anyscale’s marketing strategy revolves around growing its open-source community through events like Ray Summit, converting users into loyal customers.
Actionable
Takeaways
Invest in Developer Velocity:
Ensure your AI teams can rapidly iterate on models by minimizing friction in development-to-production handoffs. This reduces debugging cycles and accelerates time-to-value for AI initiatives.
Architect for Flexibility:
AI is evolving fast. Design your AI platforms to handle a variety of workloads—whether it’s traditional models or the latest generative models. This will future-proof your infrastructure and avoid costly migrations.
Embrace Scaling Laws:
Scaling AI isn’t just about more compute—leveraging larger datasets and scaling effectively can yield significant performance gains. Prioritize systems that can handle orders of magnitude increases in data and compute.
Focus on Technical Content for Marketing:
Highly educational, technical content resonates best with AI and machine learning communities. Create content that truly adds value, and it will attract the right audience and build trust.
Consolidate AI Workloads:
Businesses increasingly seek platforms that support multiple AI workloads on a single system. Offering flexibility across various AI use cases—like generative models, traditional machine learning, and AI-driven data processing—will give your platform an edge.
Recommended Founder
Interviews
Steffen Tjerrild
Co-Founder, CFO & COO of Synthesia
Steffen Tjerrild: The Story of Synthesia ($1 Billion Valuation)
Tom Jermoluk
CEO of Beyond Identity
Tom “TJ” Jermoluk: The GTM Storyteller of Beyond Identity ($1.1 Billion Valuation)
Jeff Denworth
Co-Founder of VAST Data
Jeff Denworth: The Story of VAST Data ($9.1 Billion Valuation)
Barr Moses
Co-Founder & CEO of Monte Carlo
Barr Moses: the GTM Story of Monte Carlo ($1.6 Billion Valuation)
Raj De Datta
CEO & Co-founder of Bloomreach
Raj De Datta: the GTM Story of Bloomreach ($2.2 Billion Valuation)
Dimitri Sirota
CEO & Co-Founder of BigID
Dimitri Sirota: The GTM Story of BigID ($1.25 Billion Valuation)
Marc-Alexander Christ
Co-Founder of SumUp
Marc-Alexander Christ: the Story of SumUp ($8.5 Billion Valuation)
Doron Myersdorf
CEO of StoreDot
Doron Myersdorf: the Story of StoreDot ($1.2 Billion Valuation)
Marcelo Lebre
President of Remote
Marcelo Lebre: the Story of Remote ($3 Billion+ Valuation)
Sean Duffy
Co-Founder & CEO of Omada Health
Sean Duffy: the Story of Omada Health ($1+ Billion Valuation)
Abhay Parasnis
Founder and CEO of Typeface
Abhay Parasnis: the Story of Typeface ($1 Billion Valuation)
Johanna Småros
Co-Founder & Chief Sustainability Officer of RELEX Solutions
Johanna Småros: the Story of RELEX Solutions ($5.7 Billion Valuation)
Michel Tricot
Co-Founder & CEO of Airbyte
Michel Tricot: the Story of Airbyte ($1.5 Billion Valuation)
Kevin Busque
CEO and Founder of Guideline
Kevin Busque: the Story of Guideline ($1.1B+ Valuation)
Oren Kaniel
CEO & Co-Founder of AppsFlyer
Oren Kaniel: The GTM Story of AppsFlyer ($2 Billion Valuation)
Harrison Rose
Co-Founder of Paddle
Harrison Rose: the Story of Paddle ($1.4 Billion Valuation)
Hari Ravichandran
CEO & Founder of Aura
Hari Ravichandran: the Story of Aura ($2.5 Billion Valuation)
Ajay Kulkarni
CEO of Timescale
Ajay Kulkarni: the Story of Timescale ($1+ Billion Valuation)
Karl Siebrecht
Co-Founder & CEO of Flexe
Karl Siebrecht: the Story of Flexe (1+ Billion Valuation)
Rodrigo Liang
Co-Founder and CEO of SambaNova
Rodrigo Liang: the Story of SambaNova ($5+ Billion Valuation)
Dave Wessinger
CEO and Co-Founder of PointClickCare
Dave Wessinger: the Story of PointClickCare ($5 Billion Valuation)
Spike Lipkin
CEO and Co-founder of Newfront
Spike Lipkin: the GTM Story of Newfront ($2.2 Billion Valuation)
Justin Borgman
CEO and Co-Founder of Starburst
Justin Borgman: the Story of Starburst ($3+ Billion Valuation)
Gary Hoberman
CEO & Founder of Unqork
Gary Hoberman: the GTM Story of Unqork ($2B+ Valuation)
Arif Nathoo
CEO and Co-Founder of Komodo Health
Arif Nathoo: the Story of Komodo Health ($3 Billion Valuation)
Martin Mao
CEO of Chronosphere
Martin Mao: The Story of Chronosphere ($1.6 Billion Valuation))
Henry Kim
CEO & Co-Founder of Swiftly
Henry Kim: The GTM Story of Swiftly ($1B+ Valuation)
John Kim
CEO & Co-Founder of Sendbird
John Kim: The GTM Story of Sendbird ($1+ Billion Valuation)
Doug Winter
CEO and Co-Founder of Seismic
Doug Winter: The GTM Story of Seismic ($3 Billion Valuation)
Kyle Clark
Team Member of Beta Technologies
Kyle Clark: the Story of Beta ($1.2 Billion Valuation)
Jason Zintak
CEO of 6sense
Jason Zintak: The GTM Story of 6sense ($5.2 Billion Valuation)
Michael Witte
CEO & Co-founder of Workrise
Michael Witte: Workrise: the GTM Story of Workrise ($3 Billion Valuation)
Jerome Ternynck
Founder and CEO of SmartRecruiters
Jerome Ternynck: the Story of SmartRecruiter ($1.5 Billion Valuation)
Jeremy Johnson
CEO & Co-Founder of Andela
Jeremy Johnson: the Story of Andela ($1.5 Billion Valuation)
Henrique Dubugras
Co-Founder and Co-CEO of Brex
Henrique Dubugras: the Story of Brex ($12 Billion+ Valuation)
Philip Cutler
CEO and Founder of Paper
Philip Cutler: The GTM Story of Paper ($1.5B Valuation)
Federico Larsen
CTO and Co-Founder of Copado
Federico Larsen: the Story of Copado ($1.2 Billion Valuation)
Jean Paul Chauvet
CEO of Lightspeed
Jean Paul Chauvet: the Story of Lightspeed ($2+ Billion Valuation)
Joseph DeSimone
Chairman and Co-Founder of Carbon
Joseph DeSimone: the Story of Carbon ($2.5 Billion Valuation)
