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I've always had a great respect for them and they're very unique.
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Nobody else has GPU sandboxes on the market really where you can on demand go and get, you know, rent a few seconds of a B200 time with incredibly fast startups and stops.
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Yeah, I just I very deeply believe in the product and in the people.
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And they have uh they have the a design sense and and principles that I really align with.
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Yeah, it just it just felt like it was time.
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Like it was such a unique opportunity.
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I was I'm very happy at NVIDIA.
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Like, you know, I feel like I'm in the best place at NVIDIA than I've ever been at.
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So it's weird for me to be leaving NVIDIA.
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Welcome to ADSP the podcast, episode 310, recorded on September 30th, 2026.
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My name is Connor, and today with my co-host Bryce, we chat about Bryce leaving NVIDIA to start the next chapter of his professional career.
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Stay tuned to find out where he's going.
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And that starts episode 307, which, I mean, you could call this, we're probably not gonna name the first one a new era, but if we were, this would aptly be named a new era part two.
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It may not be 37 later if we're gonna talk about the thing.
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Oh right, so last one will be 306.
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This might be 310, 311.
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Well, actually, let's do the math.
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Today is September 30th and November 2nd, and if I open up this little calendar window here.
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It could probably be it could probably be the last like Friday of October.
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Of course.
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I am taking a gap week, so there's the question of we could for the for the for the ratings, for the views, we could do it in two parts.
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We could do the prices.
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No, but see, I'm not gonna do that.
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I know I know that I'm not gonna say I'm leaving NVIDIA and then later say where I'm going.
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I hate it when people do that.
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It drives me nuts when people say I'm leaving, stay tuned for where I'm gonna be going.
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Even though it'd be better for the views, I'm just gonna say where I'm gonna be going.
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Well, there's a bug in Omachi, and I can't I can only click on the calendar and it pops up for like a tenth of a second.
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Yeah.
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Alright, so I can't check the calendar on uh my operating
Load full transcript
system.
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We'll fix that later, folks.
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We're now on my Android operating system, and so look at that.
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October 30th is a Friday.
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So maybe that'll be so if if to if two days from now is the episode 306, then we've got 7, 8, 9, 10.
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So this potentially is gonna be episode 310, which you just heard, or maybe I'll edit it so you didn't hear.
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What is I have big news that I had a kid, and now Bryce has big news as well.
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Is it that you have a kid too?
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No, no, it is not that I have a kid too.
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I am going to work at Modal.
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Yes.
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Well, first of all, congratulations.
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This is very exciting.
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And I actually didn't know the name of the company.
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I may or may not have known that you had been other company curious.
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And I think this was the one that, like, the last time I talked to you, I think I told you I was I don't think I said that this was the company I was going to.
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But yes, I am going to Modal, which is the cloud of the future, the cloud of the Agentia.
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And I think actually, ironically, the the what we just recorded, talking about sort of my experience as uh, you know, in HBC and sort of that I've always done my computing remotely, explains why I believe deeply in Modal's mission.
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That modal provides you with infrastructure as a service, but it's presented to you in a AI-first fashion.
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So it gives you the building blocks that you need to build software in the agentic era.
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That's to build like, you know, AI systems, to deploy inference, etc., to build evals, to do training, post-training, and just to get access to CPU and GPU sandboxes in the way that makes sense in this era.
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And I think when I look at the workflows that we have today, like the way that I work today, you know, I've been doing all this auto research, and there are so many pain points in the cloud resources that I'm using today.
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Pain points around like, you know, I spin up all these ephemeral agents, like how do I store their state?
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You know, how do I, I really only want to get like a GPU node for a few seconds at a time when I'm in this auto research loop.
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And I really only, there's only a few places where I need like a big CPU node for a few seconds at a time.
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But like the traditional cloud ecosystem doesn't really support this well.
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And modal, modal's a platform I've used in the past, both for their notebook product, which is very cool, and their uh their sandbox product.
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I've always had a great respect for them, and they're very unique.
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Nobody else has GPU sandboxes on the market, really, where you can on demand go and get, you know, rent a few seconds of a B200 time with incredibly fast startups and stops.
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Yeah, I just I very deeply believe in the product and in the people.
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And they have uh they have the a design sense and and principles that I really align with.
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Yeah, it just it just felt like it was time.
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Like it was such a unique opportunity.
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I was I'm very happy at NVIDIA.
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Like, you know, I feel like I'm in the best place at NVIDIA that I've ever been at.
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So it's weird for me to be leaving NVIDIA when like I I'm in the perfect role, I have an amazing VP that I report to now, the teams that I work with are all great, but yet I'm leaving.
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And I think partially one of the reasons that I'm leaving is that I feel like things are in such a great place at NVIDIA, and um, and I am so happy where I am at NVIDIA, and it's kind of like okay, I want to go find some new challenge now.
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Like I can leave now and not feel like the house is gonna burn down.
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So it's in no way because I'm unhappy with NVIDIA.
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I love NVIDIA, but uh I've always wanted to go try a startup.
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This is like the perfect time life-wise, you know, for me to go do that for a variety of reasons.
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My girlfriend now can't travel as much um as she used to, and uh, so that's changing our lifestyle a little bit.
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So uh I'll probably be at less conferences because of that.
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And uh just some other reasons that just made it like like I I came to the conclusion that if I was gonna go, I like I either needed to decide just stay at NVIDIA and like work at NVIDIA for the rest of your life, or go try something new.
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And I'm gonna go try something new.
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Alright, I have a thousand questions.
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Well, we don't have time for a thousand, but I'll ask the their priority queue sorted, or that doesn't even make any sense.
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They're just sorted in terms of the ones I'm I'm most curious, or maybe they're actually a little bit sorted by the ones that are easiest to answer.
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So I already looked it up while Bryce was chatting.
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So they're current, they're private
company, headquartered in New York.
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So did that play a role in the decision?
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Um less than you'd think I will be in the office more in my new role, which is both exciting and it's different, you know, it's both exciting and and something that you know makes me a little nervous.
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I think anytime you take a new job, even if it's a really exciting job, you're always nervous, right?
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Because it's like a new challenge.
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And to some degree, like I feel like the fact that I feel nervous is like a plus.
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Because if you want to grow as a person, you have to put yourself into situations that are uncomfortable.
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You have to put yourself into situations that challenge you, that where you you maybe don't know all the answers, where you you're in a different environment than you used to be in.
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Because like that's how you learn and grow.
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And so like that's part of the appeal to me, is like, oh, I'm gonna go do this thing where not only am I gonna be working in a different job, I'm gonna be working in a different type of environment than I had been.
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I've spent a lot of time at NVIDIA, and now I'm gonna go work at a smaller company and a company that has a lot more of an in-office culture.
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And I think that's I think that's gonna be good for me.
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It's gonna teach me to be more flexible.
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So I'm excited, I'm excited, and I am also nervous.
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Like, how am I gonna how am I gonna deal with that?
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You know?
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And uh I think I will adapt.
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I mean, I'm excited too, like, because I get to like vicariously live through you, you know.
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Like, I mean, everyone, regardless of how they're feeling at their company, always thinks about, you know, you know, is the grass greener, etc.
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etc.
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And don't get me wrong, I love working for NVIDIA.
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It's one of the best companies in the world.
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Like they do surveys by external companies, and it always gets ranked as an amazing place to work.
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I think it's the best company in the world.
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Yeah, well, you know, I uh the people are gonna say we're biased because we work here, but uh, not me not that's true.
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Oh, well, I was gonna say, like, that's awesome that you don't work here in a sense that now you can't be accused, but then I was like, ah no, you still get accused of being because you're still in the same the same uh industry.
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But to answer your question about like whether it being in New York played a role, I not not as much as I think people would think.
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Do you have an official title or is it so they convinced me that what I should do is I should come in and spend two to three months sort of getting the lay of the land, and then we could sort of make a decision about what problems would be best for me to go and tackle, you know, like where am I gonna, you know, have the greatest value.
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And I I was it's not something that occurred to me at first, but um I, you know, when somebody presents me with a good idea, I, you know, uh willing to admit I was wrong.
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So I think that's what I'm gonna do.
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I think that that's the thing that makes the most sense.
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So I think I'm gonna come in as a member of technical staff at first.
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And I like what my portfolio is, I don't think we have an answer yet.
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Probably, you know, given my background, probably gonna be working on the you know, an inference side of things, on uh optimization, on CUDA stuff.
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But there's actually, I think one of the nice things about modal, one of the things that's so attractive to me about modal is there's so many parts of the product that I could imagine contributing to.
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You know, the there's the the inference part of modal's business where I think I could contribute.
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There's the you know GPU as a platform, GPU sandbox is part of the product, and then there's the agentic part of the product, all of which are things that I I've spent a lot of time working on, these things, and I have a lot of thoughts about like how we could build the platform of the future for this agentic era.
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Yeah, it's very exciting.
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I'm I'm mocking back a little bit of our having guests on all the time now because I feel like we're gonna have to reserve a certain cadence of uh you just telling us, like taking us along the startup journey.
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Well, I mean, my question is how are you feeling?
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I'm feeling good.
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You know, I just had a chat with my boss at NVIDIA, and he was sad to see me go, but you know, supportive.
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And that's what that's one of the beautiful things about NVIDIA.
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You said Luis, is that the guy that came from October?
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Yeah, yeah.
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AI?
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I didn't realize you were reporting to him.
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Yeah, yeah.
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Uh yeah.
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Octoai, who was in
this space of like inference providers back in the day.
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Yeah, but no, he I mean, he's great, and uh he was uh he was very supportive.
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I feel good, you know.
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It was a tough decision to come to.
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I when I came to NVIDIA, the job before NVIDIA, I was not happy.
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I I I didn't feel like appreciated uh or understood, and the stuff I was working on was not necessarily the things that I that were like valued by the work.
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And um I I had a manager who I just didn't get or I had a project lead that I just didn't get like along with well.
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And it was very obvious that it was time for me to leave, and like NVIDIA just like 100% felt like the right place.
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So I didn't have any questions about you know the decision at the time.
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It was it was just a question of like do I like where do I go?
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In this case, it was really different because I'm very happy at NVIDIA, and so it wasn't just a question of like picking between options, it there weren't really options, it was just like this one, you know, do I go to this new company, take this very unique opportunity, take a risk, go try a startup for a while, see what that's like, or do I um stay at NVIDIA?
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And uh, you know, it I feel like I don't want to spend my entire career working at one company.
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As much as I love an Nvidia, I want to have a perspective of what other cultures are like, and I feel like that that will help me grow as a person in ways that I never could just being at one company.
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So this has not been a thing, it's a thing that I've always sort of wanted to be able to do to go to a startup, but there's not been a good time in my life to do it before now, and this is like the perfect time to do it.
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And so the timing just like happened to be right, and then this, you know, incredible opportunity came up, and I really believe in the product.
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I I really believe in the the design language of the company, and and I'll explain that in two ways.
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That was honestly the thing that sold me on modal.
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If you look at any material that modal puts out there, there is so much care and thought into how it is presented that I think is comparable only to two other companies that I deeply respect, which is NVIDIA and Apple.
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That there's just a lot of thought into the presentation of things.
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And fundamentally, I am a factory that spits out slide decks.
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I care a lot about the presentation of things.
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But like it says something to you about the culture of a company when you can see how much care goes into the way that the company presents itself to the public.
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It it it speaks to the culture of quality in all things that they do.
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And I think that's true both on the you know, the outward-facing presentation side of things, but also when you talk to people at Modal about the platform that they've built, they've built it as a series of composable building blocks that interoperate with each other.
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And I think that the the what's the word that I would be looking for here?
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The pr it's maybe about the principled nature, yeah.
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The principled nature of their design, I think is really a competitive advantage.
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Um I think it's very powerful that they put a lot of thought into how they build these building blocks and how things connect with each other and build on top of each other and how the platform composes.
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And, you know, as a as a programming language person, as a library design person, that deeply resonates with me.
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All right.
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And that's really the thing that makes me want to go there is I just think it's a really good platform.
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I I saw this talk at Ghost Em Paris where there was this fellow from what's the company that makes Minix?
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It's one of the Chinese labs, and he was giving a talk about the the latest minimax model, and one of the things he said is, one of the things I love about working here is I have unlimited tokens.
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I have all the tokens that I I could possibly want.
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And I my girlfriend uses the tokens, and I use the tokens for all the things, I never have to worry about it.
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And I was like, you know, that's actually like a very interesting.
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It's a very interesting like perspective.
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And, you know, like there's something nice about like being at the at a place that produces the product that you would want to use all the time, because then like you get to dog food a lot more.
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And like modal is a product that in my like day-to-day work on CUDA, like almost every day my life would be easier if I could just use modal for everything.
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And now I will just be able to use modal for everything.
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So it's great.
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Like, I'm sure like one of the first thing I'll do when I'm getting setting up there is I will set up all of the agentic stuff that I do, both personal and professional, like on Modal's ecosystem.
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And it will solve all of the current
challenges that I have with uh my like agentic workflows.
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I uh the the amount that I spend in tokens at NVIDIA is you know far higher than what I would use on Modal for just like raw compute, right?
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If I was.
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But you know, NVIDIA has its own internal inference, you know, ecosystem, its own internal access to compute, etc.
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And if I like that's the thing that I have to use if I want to go down the easy path.
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And if I wanted to use some external vendor, I'd have to go get approval for that.
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And so there's a nice thing about like if you're at the company, like you don't have to go and get approval to you to like use your own thing, right?
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Like there's sure there's some limit, but I'm sure that whatever the limit is, we'll be fine.
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That's very nice.
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What did uh what did everybody say?
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Um and my manager was I think saddened to see me uh leave, that he was really enjoying working with me.
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And honestly, I've really enjoyed working with him.
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And that is one of the things that makes me saddest about leaving NVIDIA is uh I wish we'd had more time to work together.
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But uh everybody was supportive.
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That's one of the great things about NVIDIA, is I think when people do decide to leave NVIDIA, we're very supportive of the growth of people who work at NVIDIA, you know.
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Like sometimes the the right move for somebody is to go somewhere else.
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And I think that the company's very good about, you know, if if some obviously if it's, you know, we would prefer people stay.
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If there's something that we can do, if somebody's unhappy, if there's some problem, you know, we we try to find a way to fix it.
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But if it's just that somebody's like, I've made this decision, you know, I think I want to go, I think we're pretty good about being supportive about that and celebrating the the growth of people even as they depart, NVIDIA.
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You know, there's like there's like a question, whenever you're like, you know, mentoring or advising someone, there's like two questions.
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There's like, what's the best thing to help this person personally grow?
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And what's the thing that you know helps the company the most?
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And I think NVIDIA does a really good job of striking a good balance there.
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Yeah, not a lot of companies do that, to be honest.
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Although probably the bigger the company, the better in general.
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Yeah, that's awesome, man.
00:18:19.279 --> 00:18:20.400
How's Ramona feel about it?
00:18:20.559 --> 00:18:21.279
Excited, worried?
00:18:21.599 --> 00:18:31.519
I think Ramona is glad that she no longer has to have me incessantly asking her for her opinion and showing her slide decks that I made on the topic.
00:18:31.599 --> 00:18:33.599
I did make slide decks on this.
00:18:34.799 --> 00:18:36.079
Is she the only one that saw them?
00:18:36.559 --> 00:18:38.880
No, my mother also my mother also saw the slide decks.
00:18:39.200 --> 00:18:39.680
What was it?
00:18:39.759 --> 00:18:43.599
Uh like uh a big life change soliciting feedback?
00:18:43.680 --> 00:18:44.400
Or yeah, yeah.
00:18:44.480 --> 00:18:45.839
It's just Is it more for yourself?
00:18:45.920 --> 00:18:47.519
Like you giving a presentation helps you.
00:18:48.000 --> 00:18:49.680
It was more it was more for myself, I think.
00:18:49.759 --> 00:19:07.680
I think it was more for myself, but it was also to like help understand like it's some there's sometimes some things that just like making a chart and like you know, a table or something, presenting it in a nice way is like the easiest way to to to express the information to people to get their input, which I did, and I think I I think it helped.
00:19:07.759 --> 00:19:22.000
I got sort of the the one of the questions that both my mother and Ramona asked me, without realizing that the other person had asked it, is would you take pride in representing this new company?
00:19:22.160 --> 00:19:33.680
Like, would you would you wear should they my mom specifically asked me, like, you know, if you go to this new company, if you go to modal and you and you you go to a conference and you're wearing a modal t-shirt, would you be proud of that?
00:19:33.839 --> 00:19:35.200
And my answer is yeah.
00:19:35.440 --> 00:19:58.640
And and it were it strikes me that when I first went to NVIDIA for my like pre-interview with Chris Lamb, I had lunch with Olivier afterwards, and I noticed that a large chunk of the employees, and this is in 2017, a large chunk of the employees on just some random Tuesday or whatever were wearing NVIDIA t-shirts around the office.
00:19:58.720 --> 00:20:00.319
It was almost like a uniform.
00:20:00.640 --> 00:20:03.119
And nobody had nobody required that.
00:20:03.279 --> 00:20:05.680
You know, it was just a choice that people made.
00:20:05.920 --> 00:20:11.039
And um, you know, NVIDIA never, we didn't have free lunch at NVIDIA, right?
00:20:11.200 --> 00:20:15.039
We didn't have candy bars, we didn't have snack bars, you know.
00:20:15.359 --> 00:20:26.480
People were there because they believed in the mission and they believed in the company, and the company took care of people, and people were proud to work there and were proud of the product.
00:20:26.720 --> 00:20:42.400
And uh, yeah, and my both my girlfriend and my mother recognized that I take a lot of pride
in where I work and in the prestige that comes with where I work, and they both like wanted to wanted to know would I feel the same prestige going to Modal?
00:20:42.480 --> 00:20:43.519
And the answer was yes.
00:20:43.759 --> 00:20:47.839
But you know, when I first started working at NVIDIA, nobody had heard of NVIDIA, you know?
00:20:48.079 --> 00:20:53.519
That did not change the level of pride that I felt in the work that I was doing.
00:20:53.680 --> 00:21:00.480
That I felt it was a unique company building a unique product that I could not really go anywhere else to do.
00:21:00.640 --> 00:21:02.640
And I feel the same way about Modal.
00:21:02.960 --> 00:21:09.920
That I think they have a unique set of technologies, and I don't think there's anywhere else I could go to do the things that I'm gonna do there.
00:21:10.240 --> 00:21:19.839
And Ramona was asking, like, you know, if you go to a conference and and people don't know, you know, the name of the company that you're working at, like, how are you gonna feel?
00:21:19.920 --> 00:21:22.240
And I was like, that actually could be relieving.
00:21:22.480 --> 00:21:34.400
I go to so many conferences, and people are always, you know, I say that I'm at at NVIDIA and um people ooh and ah or ask about a job, and it'll kind of be nice to be a little more anonymous.
00:21:34.720 --> 00:21:35.839
How was the interview process?
00:21:36.000 --> 00:21:39.119
Was it uh I gave it was like a present, it was a research presentation.
00:21:39.279 --> 00:21:42.480
So you you give it instead of like technical questions, you just give a talk.
00:21:42.640 --> 00:21:50.319
I gave my talk, my auto research talk, the Insight Factory talk, which will be my last talk at NVIDIA that I will give the week that I'm in HQ.
00:21:50.799 --> 00:21:51.279
When's that?
00:21:51.359 --> 00:21:52.000
October, I think?
00:21:52.160 --> 00:21:53.039
Yeah, yeah, October.
00:21:53.200 --> 00:21:57.920
So basically so I'm going to PyCon Taipei to Kia in a very Bryce style.
00:21:58.079 --> 00:22:00.559
My last week at NVIDIA, I will be traveling.
00:22:00.720 --> 00:22:02.720
So I'm going to PyCon Taipei.
00:22:02.799 --> 00:22:04.960
I'm visiting you on the way to PyCon Taipei.
00:22:05.039 --> 00:22:20.240
So I'm going New York, New York to Toronto, staying there for the day, Toronto to Hong Kong, Hong Kong to Taipei, and then I go Taipei to Vancouver, stay there for the night, Vancouver to SFO, and and then Wait, wait, say say this again?
00:22:20.319 --> 00:22:22.559
You go from what what's your flight schedule?
00:22:22.720 --> 00:22:25.200
You you're going to Vancouver from Toronto, or that's from the back from the world?
00:22:25.440 --> 00:22:26.400
That's that's that's from Taiwan.
00:22:26.559 --> 00:22:49.599
Taiwan to Vancouver, Vancouver to Cal to Silicon Valley, and then I'm gonna be there for the week for the colonels fa uh for the fast colonels face to face, and then and then from there I will like that'll be my last week, and then I'll go home and I might my my final day at NVIDIA may be a Monday, just so I have a little time to like do like my final expense report.
00:22:51.680 --> 00:22:52.240
Yeah.
00:22:52.480 --> 00:22:57.680
And then uh I'm gonna take a week to organize the house and I'll start at modal like November 2nd.
00:22:57.839 --> 00:23:00.240
Yeah, and they they um so I'm gonna start there.
00:23:00.319 --> 00:23:06.559
I'm gonna I'm reporting into the CTO um and co-founder, and um I'm gonna take it Is that someone I know or I don't think so.
00:23:06.640 --> 00:23:08.000
His name is Osh Akshot.
00:23:09.119 --> 00:23:09.839
Yes, Akshot.
00:23:10.079 --> 00:23:11.440
Um I think I'm saying that correctly.
00:23:11.599 --> 00:23:15.039
And um then I'm gonna figure out, you know, where I can come useful.
00:23:15.359 --> 00:23:21.680
But yeah, I'm really excited about the like leadership and mentorship opportunities there.
00:23:21.839 --> 00:23:22.000
Yeah.
00:23:22.319 --> 00:23:25.200
Yeah, I mean you've always been doing that at you know at every stage in your career.
00:23:25.279 --> 00:23:27.519
So it's also like it's fun to go to a company.
00:23:27.680 --> 00:23:35.200
Uh like one of the appeals of the of going to a startup to me is the employee count at NVIDIA is not gonna double, you know, in a year.
00:23:35.359 --> 00:23:39.599
The employee count at a startup like modal, it might double in a year and then it might double again.
00:23:39.680 --> 00:23:50.799
And like there's something fun about being at a company early, getting to like establish call the culture and get to influence the shape in the direction and like see it grow so rapidly like that.
00:23:50.960 --> 00:23:52.480
Like, I think that's gonna be a lot of fun.
00:23:52.720 --> 00:23:53.039
All right.
00:23:53.200 --> 00:23:55.599
Uh yeah, I gotta I gotta run later, man.
00:23:55.759 --> 00:23:56.000
All right.
00:23:56.160 --> 00:23:56.960
Congrats, buddy.
00:23:57.119 --> 00:23:57.519
Thank you.
00:23:57.759 --> 00:24:07.519
Be sure to check these show notes either in your podcast app or at adspthepodcast.com for links to anything we mentioned in today's episode, as well as a link to a GitHub discussion where you can leave thoughts, comments, and questions.
00:24:07.680 --> 00:24:08.319
Thanks for listening.
00:24:08.400 --> 00:24:10.400
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00:24:10.880 --> 00:24:13.599
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00:24:13.759 --> 00:24:16.079
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00:24:16.319 --> 00:24:17.279
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00:24:17.440 --> 00:24:20.240
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