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Why Every Agent needs Open Source Cloud Sandboxes

Shownote

Vasek Mlejnsky from E2B joins us today to talk about sandboxes for AI agents. In the last 2 years, E2B has grown from a handful of developers building on it to being used by ~50% of the Fortune 500 and generating millions of sandboxes each week for their customers. As the “death of chat completions” approaches, LLMs workflows and agents are relying more and more on tool usage and multi-modality. The most common use cases for their sandboxes: - Run data analysis and charting (like Perplexity) - Execute arbitrary code generated by the model (like Manus does) - Running evals on code generation (see LMArena Web) - Doing reinforcement learning for code capabilities (like HuggingFace) Timestamps: 00:00:00 Introductions 00:00:37 Origin of DevBook -> E2B 00:02:35 Early Experiments with GPT-3.5 and Building AI Agents 00:05:19 Building an Agent Cloud 00:07:27 Challenges of Building with Early LLMs 00:10:35 E2B Use Cases 00:13:52 E2B Growth vs Models Capabilities 00:15:03 The LLM Operating System (LLMOS) Landscape 00:20:12 Breakdown of JavaScript vs Python Usage on E2B 00:21:50 AI VMs vs Traditional Cloud 00:26:28 Technical Specifications of E2B Sandboxes 00:29:43 Usage-based billing infrastructure 00:34:08 Pricing AI on Value Delivered vs Token Usage 00:36:24 Forking, Checkpoints, and Parallel Execution in Sandboxes 00:39:18 Future Plans for Toolkit and Higher-Level Agent Frameworks 00:42:35 Limitations of Chat-Based Interfaces and the Future of Agents 00:44:00 MCPs and Remote Agent Capabilities 00:49:22 LLMs.txt, scrapers, and bad AI bots 00:53:00 Manus and Computer Use on E2B 00:55:03 E2B for RL with Hugging Face 00:56:58 E2B for Agent Evaluation on LMArena 00:58:12 Long-Term Vision: E2B as Full Lifecycle Infrastructure for LLMs 01:00:45 Future Plans for Hosting and Deployment of LLM-Generated Apps 01:01:15 Why E2B Moved to San Francisco 01:05:49 Open Roles and Hiring Plans at E2B

Highlights

Vasek Mlejnsky from E2B discusses the evolution and applications of sandbox environments for AI agents. The conversation explores how E2B has grown to support millions of sandboxes weekly, catering to Fortune 500 companies and various AI workflows. Key topics include the integration of multi-modality and tool usage in LLMs, as well as the platform's role in data analysis, code execution, and reinforcement learning.
00:03
Vasek prefers his name to be pronounced as 'Vasek'.
00:38
DevBook offered interactive playgrounds for developers, including one for Prisma still in use today.
02:40
They aimed to automate work by giving an agent tools to run code in a DevBook sandbox.
05:19
E2B was initially created to provide AI agents with a code-running environment.
07:27
The model became less capable over time despite initial promise.
10:35
Sandbox runtime for LLMs or agents is akin to a human using a laptop.
13:52
From 40,000 sandboxes in March 2024 to 15 million by March 2025
15:11
Deployment environments compared to Kubernetes for agents.
20:13
Python has nearly twice as many SDK downloads compared to JavaScript.
21:51
A story from Hugging Face demonstrates the importance of sandbox isolation.
26:28
E2B's Ubuntu sandboxes include a free tier with 2 CPUs and half a gig of RAM.
32:13
Hiring senior engineers for billing projects is extremely challenging.
34:08
Current agents' unreliability makes it difficult to price tasks in advance.
36:26
Forking and checkpointing can parallelize problem-solving and solve the local state problem.
41:57
A framework boom is expected as AI technology stabilizes.
42:35
Agent frameworks need to adjust to real-time, multimodal interactions and streaming.
46:47
DevTools companies must adopt an MCP strategy starting with APIs.
51:39
In reality, the world is messy, and clear distinctions between old and new entities are rare.
53:00
LLMs are likened to domain-name trends in the mobile era.
55:03
E2B sandboxes are integral to HuggingFace's reinforcement learning process.
56:58
E2B works with LMArena for comparing AI models in app generation
58:12
The GPU market is tough but offers new use-cases like faster data analysis and LLM training.
1:00:45
Aiming to build an AWS-like platform for LLMs
1:01:15
Building a DevTool company from Europe is possible but harder for fast iteration.
1:05:49
E2B is hiring for key roles to leverage market opportunities

Chapters

Introductions
00:00
Origin of DevBook -> E2B
00:37
Early Experiments with GPT-3.5 and Building AI Agents
02:35
Building an Agent Cloud
05:19
Challenges of Building with Early LLMs
07:27
E2B Use Cases
10:35
E2B Growth vs Models Capabilities
13:52
The LLM Operating System (LLMOS) Landscape
15:03
Breakdown of JavaScript vs Python Usage on E2B
20:12
AI VMs vs Traditional Cloud
21:50
Technical Specifications of E2B Sandboxes
26:28
Usage-based billing infrastructure
29:43
Pricing AI on Value Delivered vs Token Usage
34:08
Forking, Checkpoints, and Parallel Execution in Sandboxes
36:24
Future Plans for Toolkit and Higher-Level Agent Frameworks
39:18
Limitations of Chat-Based Interfaces and the Future of Agents
42:35
MCPs and Remote Agent Capabilities
44:00
LLMs.txt, scrapers, and bad AI bots
49:22
Manus and Computer Use on E2B
53:00
E2B for RL with Hugging Face
55:03
E2B for Agent Evaluation on LMArena
56:58
Long-Term Vision: E2B as Full Lifecycle Infrastructure for LLMs
58:12
Future Plans for Hosting and Deployment of LLM-Generated Apps
1:00:45
Why E2B Moved to San Francisco
1:01:15
Open Roles and Hiring Plans at E2B
1:05:49

Transcript

Alessio: Hey, everyone. Welcome to the Latent Space Podcast. This is Alessio, partner and CTO at Decibel, and I'm joined by my co-host, swyx, founder of SmallAI. swyx: Hey, and this is a little bit of a Latent Space Discord reunion because we have Vasek i...