The AI Startup Going After Google Search

Perplexity is a next-gen search tool going after Google, with 1M Android app installs and 1M iOS installs within only 8 months of product launch. On this week’s episode of Unsupervised Learning, we sat down with the CEO and Co-Founder of Perplexity AI, Aravind Srinivas. Aravind shared with us the behind-the-scenes stories of how Perplexity AI was born (37:33), how he thinks about Perplexity being viewed as a "wrapper" (24:15), where search will be in 10 years (23:22), and where Perplexity is headed.

0:00 intro
1:02 the simplicity of Perplexity
5:30 how Perplexity allocates resources
7:23 don’t waste your time building your own models
11:53 being a “wrapper” for OpenAI
14:51 the future of Quora and Wikipedia
19:42 what does it take to compete with Google
23:22 what does search look like in 10 years
24:15 showing users that Perplexity is more than a “wrapper”
27:42 RAG solutions and solving hallucinations
30:27 guiding users’ questions
32:58 discover tab
35:02 attracting new users vs. pleasing “power users”
37:33 how Perplexity landed on search
53:15 should AI be regulated
55:10 what other company would Aravind work at
57:10 OpenAI
58:56 Jacob and Pat debrief

With your co-hosts:
@jacobeffron
- Partner at Redpoint, Former PM Flatiron Health
@patrickachase
- Partner at Redpoint, Former ML Engineer LinkedIn
@ericabrescia
- Former COO Github, Founder Bitnami (acq’d by VMWare)
@jordan_segall
- Partner at Redpoint