Etched - Building AI Hardware to Make Inference Faster and Cheaper - [Invest Like the Best, EP.480]
My guests today are Gavin Uberti and Rob Wachen, the founders of Etched.
A few years ago, when they set out to build a better AI chip than the largest companies in the world, almost everyone I called told me it could not be done. They have since done it, taping out a working chip on their first attempt and becoming the first hardware company founded after ChatGPT to do so.
They already have more than a billion dollars of customer demand for their first product, and have raised eight hundred million dollars to build it.
Etched builds chips and systems designed to run AI models faster and at lower cost. They started the company in 2023, and that product is a complete rack for inference, the chip along with the boards, the power delivery, the interconnects, and the manufacturing to produce it all.
We talk about the technical bets behind their architecture, how they hired industry legends and paired them with elite 22 year-olds, and why they believe inference will become one of the largest markets in the world.
I think you will find the story of what they have built hard to forget.
Please enjoy my conversation with Gavin and Rob.
For the full show notes, transcript, and links to mentioned content, check out the episode page here.
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Editing and post-production work for this episode was provided by The Podcast Consultant.
Timestamps:
(00:00:00) Welcome to Invest Like The Best
(00:02:07) Gavin Uberti and Rob Wachen
(00:03:54) Two 21-Year-Olds Taking on NVIDIA
(00:07:52) The Two Technical Bets Behind Their Architecture
(00:14:15) Why Inference Becomes the Biggest Market
(00:20:23) Rob and Gavin's Origins Stories
(00:28:38) How They Recruit Industry Legends
(00:36:30) Moving a Dozen Engineers to Bangalore for Six Months
(00:38:01) Speed Wins
(00:43:58) Getting More Concurrency Out of Every Megawatt
(00:52:44) Vertical Integration
(00:57:43) Hardest Obstacles to Overcome
(01:01:09) Raising The Largest AI Chip Series A Ever
(01:06:29) TSMC
(01:13:20) Designing Gen 2 for Gigawatt-Scale Production
(01:16:42) Why Machines Don't Think Like People
(01:20:03) A Year of Compute Compressed Into a Month
(01:23:44) The Trillion-Dollar Data Center
(01:26:19) The Kindest Thing
23andMe BANKRUPT, Saylor Still Buying Bitcoin, + Founder Interviews | E2102
Today’s show: In this episode, Alex and Lon kick things off with the latest tech news — including 23andMe’s dramatic collapse, MicroStrategy’s half-million Bitcoin haul, and whether we’re finally seeing a rebound in startup M&A. Then they sit down with three standout founders building the future across AI chips, data privacy, and healthcare. First up, Etched CEO Gavin Uberti explains why they’re betting big on transformer-specific ASICs. Then, Skyflow co-founder Anshu Sharma breaks down how they’re helping enterprises use LLMs without leaking private data. Finally, MedServe’s team walks us through how they’re securing medications in outpatient clinics and staying on the right side of the DEA.
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Timestamps:
(0:00) Alex kicks off the show
(1:15) 23andMe bankruptcy and SPACs impact
(5:23) MicroStrategy's Bitcoin strategy
(8:58) Increase in M&A activity and market trends
(10:06) Northwest Registered Agent - Get a 60% discount on your next LLC at https://www.northwestregisteredagent.com/twist
(13:37) Browser use, agentic AI, and VC market insights
(19:28) Financial responsibility in startups
(20:28) Squarespace - Use offer code TWIST to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain at https://www.Squarespace.com/TWIST
(21:56) Interview with Gavin Uberti of Etched
(30:32) Fidelity Private Shares℠ - Visit https://www.fidelityprivateshares.com ! Mention our podcast and receive 20% off your first-year paid subscription.
(32:12) Economic and technical aspects of chip efficiency
(39:53) Etched's market demand, manufacturing, and AI scaling
(43:05) Founder insights and hardware startup potential
(45:43) Introduction to Skyflow and Anshu Sharma
(50:19) Skyflow's growth and customer acquisition strategies
(1:03:09) ServiceNow's new product and Skyflow's bullish outlook
(1:06:33) M&A interest and AI stack value creation
(1:12:06) Skyflow's funding and cybersecurity customer trust
(1:13:12) Introduction to MedServe and Milwaukee's startup ecosystem
(1:16:30) MedServ's solution to drug dispensing and diversion
(1:23:05) Economic challenges and solutions for smaller facilities
(1:26:50) MedServe cabinet features and use case demonstration
(1:29:51) Cybersecurity and physical security of MedServe systems
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Follow Etched:
Website: https://www.etched.com/
X: https://x.com/Etched
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/etched-ai/
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Follow MedServe:
Website: https://medserverx.com/
X: https://x.com/MedServeRX
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/medserverx/
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Follow Skyflow:
Website: https://www.skyflow.com/
X: https://x.com/SkyflowAPI
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/skyflow/
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Follow Alex:
X: https://x.com/alex
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexwilhelm
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Follow Lon:
X: https://x.com/Lons
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Thank you to our partners:
(10:06) Northwest Registered Agent - Get a 60% discount on your next LLC at https://www.northwestregisteredagent.com/twist
(20:28) Squarespace - Use offer code TWIST to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain at https://www.Squarespace.com/TWIST
(30:32) Fidelity Private Shares℠ - Visit https://www.fidelityprivateshares.com Mention our podcast and receive 20% off your first-year paid subscription.
Great TWIST interviews: Will Guidara, Eoghan McCabe, Steve Huffman, Brian Chesky, Bob Moesta, Aaron Levie, Sophia Amoruso, Reid Hoffman, Frank Slootman, Billy McFarland
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Found: Taking on Nvidia and betting on transformers with Gavin Uberti from Etched
We hope those of you in the U.S. had a Happy Thanksgiving! And as a holiday treat this week, Equity is bringing you an episode of our sister show, Found.
AI startups are everywhere, but there can't be any innovation without proper computing power. Found hosts Becca and Dom sat down with Gavin Uberti, co-founder and CEO of Etched, an AI chip startup focusing on developing specialized chips. Gavin shares the bold bet his startup is making on transformer models for AI chips, aiming to take on industry giant Nvidia. They discuss how Etched is developing specialized chips that they claim will be an order of magnitude faster than competitors, and Uberti shares his insights on the future of AI hardware as models continue to rapidly scale up in size and capability.
Found posts every Tuesday. Subscribe on Apple, Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts to be alerted when new episodes drop. Check out the other TechCrunch podcast: Equity . Subscribe to Found to hear more stories from founders each week.
Credits: Equity is produced by Theresa Loconsolo with editing by Kell. Bryce Durbin is our Illustrator. We'd also like to thank the audience development team and Henry Pickavet, who manages TechCrunch audio products.
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Gavin Uberti - Real-Time AI & The Future of AI Hardware - [Invest Like the Best, EP.356]
Today, my guest is 21-year-old Gavin Uberti, who dropped out of Harvard to build Etched, which is one of the most fascinating companies I’ve seen. The topic of our conversation is the ongoing revolution in artificial intelligence, and more specifically the chips and technology that powers these incredible models. To date, general-purpose AI chips like Nvidia GPUs have powered the revolution, but Gavin’s bet is that purpose-built chips, hard-coded for the underlying model architecture, will dramatically reduce the latency and cost of running models like GPT4. We’re about to embark on what Gavin calls the “largest infrastructure buildout since the industrial revolution”, and I won’t spoil what he thinks this will unlock for all of us. It is so uplifting to me that someone so young can be working on something so big. Please enjoy this great conversation with Gavin Uberti.
Check out Etched.AI
Listen to Founders Podcast
For the full show notes, transcript, and links to mentioned content, check out the episode page here.
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Show Notes:
(00:03:41) - (first question) - Born too late to explore the world, too early to explore the stars
(00:05:59) - Interpreting and defining superintelligence
(00:07:20) - Excitement we can have for an AI driven future
(00:09:25) - Overview and basic terminology of the transformers that power AI
(00:15:53) - What Q* is and the rumors around it
(00:20:41) - Robotics, machinery, and what’s interesting about them
(00:23:18) - The problem of latency and computing power
(00:8:55) - Needing to build physical infrastructure that doesn’t exist
(00:32:18) - Inference and training AI models
(00:36:00) - Major stages of chip design and the upper limits of speed
(00:45:56) - Customers for billion dollar generative AI models
(00:48:56) - A sci-fi-esque reality and the politicization of AI
(00:50:38) - The Bitter Lesson and the implications of powerful AI models
(00:56:27) - The most important companies in the AI space today
(00:61:52) - Strategically building a defensible AI product
(01:04:07) - Software development and why other AI companies fail
(01:06:51) - Specialization and chip performance improvement
(01:15:34) - Why the transformer remains the leading architecture
(01:17:26) - A proliferation of models beyond the major players and data access
(01:21:19) - The kindest thing anyone has ever done for Gavin