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The Story Behind Cerebras’ $63 Billion IPO with Founder and CEO Andrew Feldman

Shownote

Companies in Silicon Valley from Nvidia to AMD are racing to fuel the AI revolution with postage stamp-sized AI chips. Meanwhile, a chip the size of a dinner plate just fueled a $63 billion IPO for Cerebras. Elad Gil and Sarah Guo sit down with Cerebras founder and CEO Andrew Feldman to discuss the company’s journey to making one of the largest tech go-publics in history. Andrew details the multi-year journey of pioneering wafer-scale AI computing, including surviving a brutal period of being ahead of market demand. He also explains the engineering breakthroughs that led to delivering inference speeds at 20x that of standard GPUs. Andrew then shares how a remarkable $20 billion deal with OpenAI came together in only four weeks. Plus, Andrew’s thoughts on why architecting the future of AI requires the fortitude to be a “professional David” against the Goliaths of tech. Sign up for new podcasts every week. Email feedback to show@no-priors.com Follow us on Twitter: @NoPriorsPod | @Saranormous | @EladGil | @andrewdfeldman | @Cerebras Chapters: 00:00 – Cold Open 00:36 – Andrew Feldman Introduction 01:19 – Cerebras’ Evolution 02:48 – Wafer-Scale Bet Pays Off 06:38 – Challenges and Breakthroughs 08:37 – Crossing the Market Chasm 10:38 – Scaling Software and Hardware 12:03 – Relevance of AI-Generated Coding 13:31 – Leadership and Hiring Culture 17:16 – When to Quit vs. Persist 19:40 – Why Cerebras Went Public 22:57 – The OpenAI Deal 25:54 – Open Source and Post-Trained Workloads 27:37 – How Speed Opens Up New Business 30:33 – Conclusion

Highlights

In this episode, the CEO of Cerebras discusses the company's journey to a major IPO, focusing on its unique wafer-scale AI chips that deliver significantly faster inference speeds than standard GPUs. The conversation covers the company's evolution from a contrarian bet to a key player in the AI hardware space, including a landmark deal with OpenAI.
00:00
AI speed will enable new business models and productivity leaps
00:37
Faster than GPUs for AI inference
01:19
15-20x faster than GPUs across all models
02:48
Demand exploded when AI became useful for daily use.
06:41
Contrarian bet on new AI architecture
10:38
Crossed the chasm with a billion-dollar order from G42
10:44
Hardware scaling is harder than software scaling
12:03
Spending on tokens rose from zero to $25,000-$30,000 per engineer in eight months
16:17
Love the journey, not just the money.
17:50
It's time to quit when all hypotheses for success return negative.
19:41
Going public exchanges professional investors for a broader base.
23:00
Fast inference is the key to modern AI deals
25:55
Speed and ambition are key advantages.
27:37
Speed doesn't just improve existing processes but opens up entirely new opportunities

Chapters

Cold Open
00:00
Andrew Feldman Introduction
00:36
Cerebras’ Evolution
01:19
Wafer-Scale Bet Pays Off
02:48
Challenges and Breakthroughs
06:38
Crossing the Market Chasm
08:37
Scaling Software and Hardware
10:38
Relevance of AI-Generated Coding
12:03
Leadership and Hiring Culture
13:31
When to Quit vs. Persist
17:16
Why Cerebras Went Public
19:40
The OpenAI Deal
22:57
Open Source and Post-Trained Workloads
25:54
How Speed Opens Up New Business
27:37

Transcript

Andrew Feldman: Netflix used to deliver DVDs and envelopes, and when the internet got fast, they became a movie studio. It opened up an entirely new business, something fundamentally different. That's what happens with speed, and I think that's what fast A...