Seeing The Future from AI Companions to Personal Software

Adam D’Angelo (Quora/Poe) thinks we're 5 years from automating remote work. Amjad Masad (Replit) thinks we're brute-forcing intelligence without understanding it. In this conversation, two technical founders who are building the AI future disagree on almost everything: whether LLMs are hitting limits, if we're anywhere close to AGI, and what happens when entry-level jobs disappear but experts remain irreplaceable. They dig into the uncomfortable reality that AI might create a "missing middle" in the job market, why everyone in SF is suddenly too focused on getting rich to do weird experiments, and whether consciousness research has been abandoned for prompt engineering. Plus: Why coding agents can now run for 20+ hours straight, the return of the "sovereign individual" thesis, and the surprising sophistication of everyday users juggling multiple AIs.

Priscilla Chan and Mark Zuckerberg join a16z’s Ben Horowitz, Erik Torenberg, and Vineeta Agarwala to share how the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative is building the computational tools that will accelerate the cure, prevention, and management of all disease by century's end. They explain why basic science needs $100 million-scale projects that traditional NIH grants can't fund, how their Cell Atlas became biology's missing periodic table with millions of cells catalogued in open-source format, and why their new virtual cell models will let scientists test high-risk hypotheses in silico before investing in expensive wet lab work. Plus: the organizational shift unifying the Biohub under AI leadership, what happens when biologists and engineers sit side-by-side, and why modern biology labs are expanding compute instead of square footage.

ElevenLabs CEO and co‑founder Mati Staniszewski joins Jennifer Li to explain how the team ships research‑grade AI at lightning speed—from text‑to‑speech and fully licensed AI music to real‑time voice agents—and why voice is the next interface for human‑computer interaction. He shares the small, autonomous team model, global hiring approach, and how the Voice Marketplace has paid creators over $10M while evolving into an enterprise platform.

David Sacks, White House AI and Crypto Czar, joins Marc, Ben, and Erik to explore what's really happening inside the Trump administration's AI and crypto strategy. They expose the regulatory capture playbook being pushed by certain AI companies, explain why open source is America's secret weapon, and detail the infrastructure crisis that could determine who wins the global AI race.

As global tensions rise, AI and autonomy are transforming how nations prepare for conflict. In this episode, Horacio Rozanski, CEO of Booz Allen Hamilton and Gary Shield, CEO of Shield AI join Erik Torenberg to discuss how technology, speed, and public–private partnerships are reshaping America’s defense strategy. They cover lessons from Ukraine and Taiwan, the rise of autonomous systems, and why the future of warfare will be defined by software, agility, and innovation.