Inference Will Be $10TRN Market: What No One Sees | Software Investors are F***ed | Naveen Rao

Naveen Rao is the Founder and CEO of Unconventional AI, an AI hardware startup focused on rethinking how AI systems are built and powered. A serial entrepreneur, Naveen previously founded Nervana Systems, acquired by Intel, and co-founded MosaicML, acquired by Databricks for $1.3 billion. He later served as VP of AI at Databricks before launching Unconventional AI. ----------------------------------------------- Timestamps: 00:00 Intro 01:15 Why Energy Will Be the Biggest Bottleneck for AI 04:58 Why the US Could Run Out of Excess Power Capacity 09:00 What Compute Investors Still Get Wrong About Efficiency 14:55 Why AI Hardware Needs to Be Co-Designed With the Model 18:13 Does Chip Specialization Threaten Nvidia? 20:03 Why AI Chips Will Not Become Commoditized 24:30 Why AI Has Shifted the Bottleneck From Creation to Verification 30:16 Will We Trust AI Agents More Than Humans? 32:51 Why Data Companies Will Become More Specialized, Not Commoditized 35:01 Why Reinforcement Learning Is So Important 39:03 Why We Will Move Beyond Transformers 41:39 Which Parts of the AI Stack Actually Get Commoditized? 42:57 Will Inference Become a Commodity? 45:03 Why Pure Software Investors Are “F***ed” 46:10 Why SaaS Will Matter Far Less in 20 Years 51:25 Why AI Will Not Necessarily Destroy Developer Jobs 55:29 When Will Robotics Actually Become a Real Market? 56:47 Why Inference Will Be a $10TRN Market 57:42 Why Robotics Will Be 100x Bigger Than Coding Agents 59:14 Where Naveen Is Investing in Robotics Today 1:02:40 Why Traditional VC Metrics No Longer Work for Deep Tech 1:05:13 The Most Overrated AI Markets Today 1:06:20 Why 80% of AI Tokens Could Flow Through Open Models 1:09:40 Why Europe Produces Fewer Ambitious Startups 1:11:12 Why AI Could Unlock Entirely New Frontiers of Science ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subscribe on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3j2KMcZTtgTNBKwtZBMHvl?si=85bc9196860e4466 Subscribe on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-twenty-minute-vc-20vc-venture-capital-startup/id958230465 Follow Harry Stebbings on X: https://twitter.com/HarryStebbings Follow Naveen Rao on X: https://twitter.com/NaveenGRao Follow 20VC on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/20vchq Follow 20VC on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@20vc_tok Visit our Website: https://www.20vc.com Subscribe to our Newsletter: https://www.thetwentyminutevc.com/contact ----------------------------------------------- #20vc #harrystebbings #founder #ceo #ai