The Derby Mill Series

• Are LLMs Bitter Lesson Pilled? (The Derby Mill Series ep 18)

  A trillion-dollar clash of ideas is roiling the artificial intelligence community. Today, in a special episode, our host Ajay Agrawal leads Rich Sutton, Sendhil Mullainathan and Niamh Gavin, and special guest Suzanne Gildert, in a fascinating exploration of the issue: Are Large Language Models (LLMs) sufficiently “bitter lesson pilled” to live up to their hype? “Bitter lesson pilled” is the AI community’s term of art for scaling with the constantly falling cost of compute (e.g., search and learning). The term arises from Rich Sutton’s 2019 essay, The Bitter Lesson.As he recently told independent journalist Dwarkesh Patel on the Dwarkesh Podcast, Rich Sutton does not believe that LLMs are sufficiently “bitter lesson pilled.” In other words, Rich believes LLMs suffer from a key vulnerability: A limit exists on their ability to improve – and it’s much closer than we’ve been led to believe. GUESTS AND HOSTSAjay Agrawal, co-founder and partner, Intrepid Growth PartnersRichard Sutton, senior advisor, Intrepid Growth Partners, 2024 Turing Award recipient, pioneer of reinforcement learning and professor, University of AlbertaSendhil Mullainathan, senior advisor, Intrepid Growth Partners, MacArthur Genius grant recipient and professor, MITNiamh Gavin, senior advisor, Intrepid Growth Partners, Applied AI scientist, CEO, Emergent PlatformsSuzanne Gildert, founder and CEO, Nirvanic Consciousness TechnologiesLINKSThe Dwarkesh Podcast episode featuring Rich Sutton. The computer scientist Andrej Karpathy’s take. Rich’s original Bitter Lesson essay.Meta machine-learning engineer Chris Hayduk’s tweet about the debate on X, retweeted by Rich and referenced in this episode by Sendhil.Good description of the train-fly problem that Sendhil mentioned, from Presh Talwalkar. Derby Mill series website. Derby Mill is created by the team at Intrepid Growth Partners.Rich Sutton’s home page. Follow Rich on XSendhil Mullainathan’s website. Follow Sendhil on XBe sure to catch every episode of The Derby Mill Series by subscribing on the following platforms:YouTube // Spotify // Apple PodcastsDISCUSSION POINTS00:00 Cold open00:39 Context for episode01:39 The bitter Lesson02:49 Supervised learning04:30 Challenge of RL09:49 Discussing a Tweet13:30 Rich’s opinion on the big lesson21:28 Tension in the LLM space23:25 Behaviour and extrapolation25:27 What is considered AI26:05 Final remarksNUGGETSWhy Squirrels Still Outthink Supervised AI (1801)Derby Mill Series host Ajay Agrawal asks co-host Suzanne Gildert, why can’t AI learn like a squirrel?Addressing Rich’s Tweet (1802)MacArthur Genius Award recipient Sendhil Mullainathan responds to a tweet that underscores a key difference between LLMs and humans. What Happens if LLMs Don’t Pay Off Soon (1803)The Bitter Lesson says, “look out if you’re putting all your eggs into the basket of human knowledge,” according to Turing Award recipient Richard Sutton. DISCLAIMERThe content of this podcast is for informational and educational purposes only and should not be construed as marketing, solicitation, or an offer to buy or sell any securities or investments. The opinions expressed in this video are those of the participants and do not necessarily reflect the views of Intrepid Growth Partners or its affiliates. Any discussion of specific companies, technologies, or industries is for illustrative purposes and does not constitute investment advice. Viewers are encouraged to consult with their own financial, legal, and tax advisors before making any investment decisions. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit insights.intrepidgp.com

  --------  

  29:28

  --------

  29:28
• Automating Manufacturing (The Derby Mill Series ep 17)

  The Derby Mill Series hosts are back to kick off Season 2 with an episode about automating factories—an extension of a discussion we began in the series’ first-ever episode. Here, hosts Ajay Agrawal, Rich Sutton, Sendhil Mullainathan and Niamh Gavin sit down with Vention founder and CEO Etienne Lacroix and CTO Francois Giguere. Vention’s mission: to become the default operating system for factory automation, combining modular hardware, intuitive design software, and low/no-code programming tools to speed deployment and enhance performance. The team asks, What if AI could go beyond design assistance and run fully autonomous, self-optimizing factories from concept to deployment?About VentionVention is a vertically-integrated manufacturing automation platform. Its primary AI application today is predicting optimal component selection and system design. When a manufacturer specifies their automation needs, Vention’s AI recommends compatible parts, layouts, and configurations from its proprietary dataset of 400,000 labelled designs, with real-time pricing and compatibility checks. Vention serves more than 4,000 factories across more than industries, including facilities belonging to Tesla, L’Oréal, Amazon and Lockheed Martin.GUESTS AND HOSTSEtienne Lacroix, founder and CEO, VentionFrancois Giguere, CTO, VentionAjay Agrawal, co-founder and partner, Intrepid Growth PartnersRichard Sutton, senior advisor, Intrepid Growth Partners, 2024 Turing Award recipient, pioneer of reinforcement learning and professor, University of AlbertaSendhil Mullainathan, senior advisor, Intrepid Growth Partners, MacArthur Genius grant recipient and professor, MITNiamh Gavin, senior advisor, Intrepid Growth Partners, Applied AI scientist, CEO, Emergent PlatformsLINKSVention CEO Etienne Lacroix explains the mission at Nvidia GTC 2025Vention websiteVention’s video tutorials mini-siteDerby Mill series website. Derby Mill is created by the team at Intrepid Growth Partners.Rich Sutton’s home page. Follow Rich on XSendhil Mullainathan’s website. Follow Sendhil on XBe sure to catch every episode of The Derby Mill Series by subscribing on the following platforms:YouTube // Spotify // Apple Podcasts DISCUSSION POINTS00:00 Cold open01:52 Automating manufacturing with Vention03:45 Factory assembly tasks05:40 AI for design07:48 Faster and cheaper10:28 When automation reaches its limits10:43 Pragmatic control system design12:02 AI training datasets12:58 Vention’s end-to-end platform15:20 Hybrid AI model approaches17:47 AI spotting unmet needs21:28 Manual versus automated processes27:46 Full process of factory automation37:20 Customer interfaces40:59 Data feedback and improvement45:58 Distribution shift in AI1:00:17 Adaptive AI in factories1:04:59 Final thoughtsNUGGETSWhy Automating Factories Is Becoming Faster and Cheaper (1701)Intrepid’s Ajay Agrawal asks Vention founder and CEO Etienne Lacroix why automating factories is becoming faster to do, and cheaper to implement.Automating Automation (1702)Vention CTO Francois Giguere describes the future of AI-driven workflows, which he says includes the counterintuitive tagline of “automating automation.”ML Can Fix the Black Box Model Challenges (1703)Why MIT’s Sendhil Mullainathan believes machine learning can do what physical models can’t.DISCLAIMERThe content of this podcast is for informational and educational purposes only and should not be construed as marketing, solicitation, or an offer to buy or sell any securities or investments. The opinions expressed in this video are those of the participants and do not necessarily reflect the views of Intrepid Growth Partners or its affiliates. Any discussion of specific companies, technologies, or industries is for illustrative purposes and does not constitute investment advice. Viewers are encouraged to consult with their own financial, legal, and tax advisors before making any investment decisions. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit insights.intrepidgp.com

  --------  

  1:16:34

  --------

  1:16:34
• Drug Discovery (The Derby Mill Series ep 16)

  Our hosts chat with Liran Belenzon, CEO and co-founder of BenchSci. Based in Toronto, BenchSci has raised more than $215-million to date, and is backed by such funds as former U.S. vice-president Al Gore’s Generation Investment Management, private and public markets investment giant TCV, Google-backed Gradient Ventures and F-Prime Capital Partners. More than half of the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies are clients of BenchSci, which is officially known as Scinapsis Analytics Inc.The company’s mission is to accelerate the speed and quality of life-saving R&D to improve patient health. This episode touches on the challenges and potential of using AI in drug discovery, emphasizing the importance of understanding disease biology and the need for significant investment in data collection and analysis. The name, BenchSci, is a reference to “bench science,” the fundamental laboratory research that uncovers the biological mechanisms underlying diseases and forms the foundation for drug discovery.With machine intelligence, BenchSci seeks to automate hypothesis generation and experiment design by deeply analyzing scientific publications, preprints, and pharma data. Central to their approach is building a comprehensive knowledge graph that maps bio-entities such as genes, proteins, and diseases, along with their complex relationships.GUESTS AND HOSTSLiran Belenzon, co-founder and CEO, BenchSciAjay Agrawal, co-founder and partner, Intrepid Growth PartnersRichard Sutton, senior advisor, Intrepid Growth Partners, 2024 Turing Award recipient, pioneer of reinforcement learning and professor, University of AlbertaSendhil Mullainathan, senior advisor, Intrepid Growth Partners, MacArthur Genius grant recipient and professor, MITNiamh Gavin, senior advisor, Intrepid Growth Partners, Applied AI scientist, CEO, Emergent PlatformsLINKSBenchSci explanation videoBenchSci websiteBenchSci ranked #29 on Deloitte’s 2024 Technology Fast 500™BenchSci named to The Globe and Mail’s Canada’s Top Growing Companies 2024 listLiran’s 2023 TechTO talk about fundraisingMentioned by Sendhil in this episode: Don R. Swanson, a pioneer in information scienceDerby Mill show websiteRich Sutton’s home page. Follow Rich on XRead Sendhil’s co-written journal on Machine Learning as a Tool for Hypothesis GenerationSendhil Mullainathan’s website. Follow Sendhil on XBe sure to catch every episode of The Derby Mill Series by subscribing on the following platforms:YouTube // Spotify // Apple Podcasts DISCUSSION POINTS00:00 Cold open and introductions01:33 R&D for drug discovery and BenchSci02:07 A shocking number of drug trials fail04:33 What BenchSci does and doesn’t do09:50 What kind of feedback is sent to BenchSci?14:09 Where does BenchSci fall on these extremes?16:39 Is BenchSci too ambitious?21:20 Niamh’s take25:37 Rich’s take27:15 Hypothesis generation29:31 What Niamh loves about AI34:47 Final remarksNUGGETSSmall Changes in Drug Research Matter (1601)Intrepid's Sendhil Mullainathan explains why even a 1% improvement in drug trial success can be worth millions.AI for Discovery (1602)Intrepid's Niamh Gavin shares how AI’s "global sweep" could unlock science’s blind spots.AI’s Biggest Scientific Breakthrough (1603)Intrepid’s Sendhil Mullainathan explains the hidden obstacle holding back AI’s biggest scientific breakthroughs.DISCLAIMERThe content of this podcast is for informational and educational purposes only and should not be construed as marketing, solicitation, or an offer to buy or sell any securities or investments. The opinions expressed in this video are those of the participants and do not necessarily reflect the views of Intrepid Growth Partners or its affiliates. Any discussion of specific companies, technologies, or industries is for illustrative purposes and does not constitute investment advice. Viewers are encouraged to consult with their own financial, legal, and tax advisors before making any investment decisions. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit insights.intrepidgp.com

  --------  

  39:02

  --------

  39:02
• Business Productivity (The Derby Mill Series ep 15)

  Joining the usual Derby Mill team of Ajay Agrawal, Rich Sutton, Sendhil Mullainathan and Niamh Gavin are two experts in the automation of business workflows: AppliedAI CEO and founder Arya Bolurfrushan, and member of the technical staff Phillip Kingston.AppliedAI closed a $55 million USD Series A round of financing in February 2025 led by G42 and with backing from Palantir and McKinsey, among others. With a pre-investment valuation of $300 million, the UK-founded, Abu Dhabi-based firm develops software to enhance the efficiency of businesses by automating their back-office processes, particularly in highly regulated industries such as healthcare, insurance, and pharmaceuticals. For example, AppliedAI processed more than four million pages of U.S. medical records in 2024. On its client list are such firms as Abu Dhabi’s M42 Healthcare Group, U.S. law firm Morgan & Morgan and UK-based drug safety firm Qinecsa.In this discussion, Arya and Phillip join the Derby Mill hosts to discuss the technicalities of automating workflows, such as medical coding for hospitals. They explore the challenges and opportunities of integrating AI and human intelligence to optimize things at the limit, and conclude by speculating how business could change when automation is fully integrated into every step of the process.GUESTS AND HOSTSArya Bolurfrushan, founder and CEO, AppliedAIPhillip Kingston, member of the technical staff, AppliedAI, and Visiting Professor at State University Kyiv Aviation Institute, Kyiv, UkraineAjay Agrawal, co-founder and partner, Intrepid Growth PartnersRichard Sutton, senior advisor, Intrepid Growth Partners, 2024 Turing Award recipient, pioneer of reinforcement learning and professor, University of AlbertaSendhil Mullainathan, senior advisor, Intrepid Growth Partners, MacArthur Genius grant recipient and professor, MITNiamh Gavin, senior advisor, Intrepid Growth Partners, Applied AI scientist, CEO, Emergent PlatformsLINKSAppliedAI’s Series A press releaseAppliedAI websiteArya Bolurfrushan on McKinsey’s Faces of DisruptionPhillip Kingston’s personal webpageRich Sutton’s home page. Follow Rich on XSendhil Mullainathan’s website. Follow Sendhil on XBe sure to catch every episode of The Derby Mill Series by subscribing on the following platforms:YouTube // Spotify // Apple Podcasts // SubstackThumbnail image is a detail from a mural by Diego Rivera, Man at the CrossroadsDISCUSSION POINTS00:00 Cold open and introductions01:10 Business productivity workflows and Applied AI02:37 How most workflows are 80% similar06:39 An example from the healthcare industry10:21 AppliedAI’s commercial approach12:50 Niamh asks Philip to get technical on their process16:32 What is "supervised automation"?25:21 Sendhil’s take32:56 Rich’s take40:15 How AppliedAI may change things at the limitNUGGETSHow Will AI Algorithms Change Human Workflows? (1501)MIT Economist Sendhil Mullainathan asks, if we knew there was an AI algorithm underneath most business processes, would the entire workflow be different?Fewer Human Hours Per Case (1502)AppliedAI’s Phillip Kingston describes how the company chooses which workflows to automate.Human Auditors, Not Processors (1503)AppliedAI’s Arya Bolurfrushan explains why the cost of auditing AI workflows may increase over time.DISCLAIMERThe content of this podcast is for informational and educational purposes only and should not be construed as marketing, solicitation, or an offer to buy or sell any securities or investments. The opinions expressed in this video are those of the participants and do not necessarily reflect the views of Intrepid Growth Partners or its affiliates. Any discussion of specific companies, technologies, or industries is for illustrative purposes and does not constitute investment advice. Viewers are encouraged to consult with their own financial, legal, and tax advisors before making any investment decisions. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit insights.intrepidgp.com

  --------  

  49:50

  --------

  49:50
• Humanoid Robots (The Derby Mill Series ep 14)

  Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang recently described physical AI, a category that includes robots that can perceive, understand and act in the real world, as the next wave in artificial intelligence. So in the last episode before Derby Mill’s summer break, and our first-ever in-person recording session, the team of Ajay Agrawal, Rich Sutton, Sendhil Mullainathan and Niamh Gavin welcome Suzanne Gildert, the CEO and founder of Nirvanic Consciousness Technologies in Vancouver, BC.Gildert is a pioneering figure in the humanoid robotics community. Here, she discusses with the Derby Mill team such questions as: Why now for humanoid robots? What are the advantages and disadvantages of the bipedal human form factor? What makes humanoid robots difficult to create? The episode concludes with Ajay asking the team what they want listeners to think about during our two-month summer break. See you in September!GUESTS AND HOSTSSuzanne Gildert, co-founder & CEO, Nirvanic Consciousness TechnologiesAjay Agrawal, co-founder and partner, Intrepid Growth PartnersRichard Sutton, senior advisor, Intrepid Growth Partners, 2024 Turing Award recipient, pioneer of reinforcement learning and professor, University of AlbertaSendhil Mullainathan, senior advisor, Intrepid Growth Partners, MacArthur Genius grant recipient and professor, MITNiamh Gavin, senior advisor, Intrepid Growth Partners, Applied AI scientist, CEO, Emergent PlatformsLINKSNirvanic Consciousness Technologies homepageThe Jenson Huang / NVIDIA presentation Ajay references early in the episode. Reuters storyBoth Sendhil and Rich love the sci-fi novels of Iain BanksDerby Mill show websiteRich Sutton’s home page. Follow Rich on XSendhil Mullainathan’s website. Follow Sendhil on XBe sure to catch every episode of The Derby Mill Series by subscribing on the following platforms:YouTube // Spotify // Apple Podcasts // SubstackDISCUSSION POINTS00:00 Cold open01:52 Welcome and intro to humanoid robots and Suzanne Gildert04:20 What’s so hard about building a humanoid robot?06:15 The complexity of the human body07:55 So why bother making a humanoid robot?09:30 Why are humanoid robots so hot right now?10:50 Why now: AI software15:49 Rich Sutton explains why humanoid robots are so intriguing17:05 Can we code robots the same way we approached LLMs?20:30 Teaching robots with reinforcement learning in simulation21:47 Sendhil: How important are humanoid robots?29:10 Niamh: Is the bipedal form factor the best all-around solution?37:15 Sendhil: What about hybrid human-robot creatures?41:15 Agent architecture and humanoid robots44:35 The idea that we explore by random action selection48:00 Suzanne on types of decision making52:13 Decision making as centrepiece of economics, and AI57:19 Quantum physics and self-aware AI1:00:50 Defining consciousness1:05:00 Lightning round: Niamh on cost of experimentation1:06:33 LR: Ajay on what’s RLable1:07:37 LR: Rich on AI disillusionment1:08:40 LR: Suzanne on AI consciousness1:10:20 LR: Sendhil on the “what is AI” turf war1:18:18 Ajay wraps up season 1NUGGETSNugget 1 - Cost of ExperimentationIntrepid's Ajay Agrawal asks AI scientist Niamh Gavin to name one topic for listeners to reflect on over Derby Mill's summer break.Nugget 2 - AI Disillusionment and Turf WarsIntrepid's Ajay Agrawal asks Turing Award winner Rich Sutton to name one topic for listeners to reflect on over Derby Mill's summer break.Nugget 3 - Consciousness and EmpathyIntrepid's Ajay Agrawal asks Nirvanic CEO Suzanne Gildert to name one topic for listeners to reflect on over Derby Mill's summer break. Her response is to appeal to viewers to question any fearful reaction they have to the notion of conscious AI.DISCLAIMERThe content of this podcast is for informational and educational purposes only and should not be construed as marketing, solicitation, or an offer to buy or sell any securities or investments. The opinions expressed in this video are those of the participants and do not necessarily reflect the views of Intrepid Growth Partners or its affiliates. Any discussion of specific companies, technologies, or industries is for illustrative purposes and does not constitute investment advice. Viewers are encouraged to consult with their own financial, legal, and tax advisors before making any investment decisions. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit insights.intrepidgp.com

  --------  

  1:18:53

  --------

  1:18:53

More Business podcasts

Trending Business podcasts

About The Derby Mill Series