We back magic makers. Alloy, Alma, Etched, Vestwell, and more.
New York, NY
Joined September 2011
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Primary retweeted
Today’s guests are Barun Kar, CEO, and @rkhemani, Executive Chairman at @upscale_ai_inc.
Barun and Rajiv’s bet is that the AI era needs its own network: open, standards-based and built to connect AI chips to each other.
From switch silicon to supply chains, we discuss:
- How scale-up and scale-out networks work
- Where copper, optics and optical switches fit
- Why open standards matter for AI chips
- What a network operating system does
- How Upscale secures its supply chain
- Building culture while scaling to 300 people
Timestamps:
0:00 Introduction
1:05 Why AI needs a new network
5:21 Why cloud-era chips fall short for AI
9:05 Scale-up and scale-out inside an AI rack
16:09 The Auradine spin-out and Upscale’s founding story
20:52 Memory semantics versus packet switching
27:23 From Cavium and Palo Alto Networks to Upscale
32:23 Competition and the system-level advantage
35:55 What a network operating system does
37:01 Optics and optical switching
41:45 Selling to hyperscalers, new clouds and enterprises
47:40 How big AI networking could get
50:43 Securing supply across the chain
54:29 Building at the forefront of AI
57:40 Beyond networking: what comes next
1:03:38 Building culture in a fast-growing company
Listen to the show, and follow along for new episodes every Tuesday.
Primary retweeted
grateful to have @achterbrain on today’s episode of The Compute 100! our conversation with Jascha stretched from the philosophy and science behind “all roads lead to heterogeneity” to helping chipmakers understand where their product fits in market. thanks Jascha for joining!
Today’s guest is @achterbrain , co-founder and CTO of @CallosumAI .
Jascha’s bet is that the future of compute is heterogeneous: different chips working together on different parts of a problem.
Beyond the multichip future, we discuss:
- What neuroscience taught Jascha about designing computing systems
- How chipmakers discover what their hardware is best at
- Where thermodynamic, biological, and quantum computing could fit
- Hiring people who welcome having their ideas challenged
- Building an AI infrastructure company in London
Timestamps:
0:00 Introduction
2:55 What heterogeneous computing actually means
11:02 From PhD research to Callosum
18:36 Turning heterogeneous compute into a product
23:24 Sourcing compute and working with chipmakers
28:53 Matching workloads to the right hardware
34:24 What heterogeneous computing can do today
38:29 The next waves of chips
48:02 Building the team
51:33 Why build in London?
56:11 Helping enterprises upgrade their compute stacks
1:01:04 Fundraising and building momentum
1:03:40 Where specialization wins, and where it doesn’t
Listen to the show, and follow along for new episodes every Tuesday.
Primary retweeted
Today's guest is @austinsemis, the writer behind @chipstrat.
Austin started his career as an engineer at Intel before moving into startups and independent analysis. Today, he writes about semiconductors, optics, networking, and physical AI, bringing an engineer's perspective to what's happening across the compute stack.
We're thrilled to have him join us for a conversation on the state of the chip industry. Give it a listen!
Primary retweeted
Not many people writing about chips actually trained as semiconductor physicists. @austinsemis did — grad work at Illinois, years at Intel — and it shows in every issue of Chipstrat. New episode of The Compute 100.
Today's guest is @austinsemis, the writer behind @chipstrat.
Austin started his career as an engineer at Intel before moving into startups and independent analysis. Today, he writes about semiconductors, optics, networking, and physical AI, bringing an engineer's perspective to what's happening across the compute stack.
We're thrilled to have him join us for a conversation on the state of the chip industry. Give it a listen!
Primary retweeted
Big news! I’m heading west to SF with @PrimaryVC. And we're hiring three new roles for our compute team to work alongside @BSchech and me.
I believe compute is the most compelling, and challenging, market opportunity in my lifetime. Visionary founders are building toward a future they believe is inevitable, larger than we can imagine, and ripe for reinvention at every layer. I will echo Brian’s sentiment: something special is happening and a new generation is answering the call. It is our goal, and privilege, to support them on the path to doing so.
We are scaling our team to meet the moment. This is a fast-paced, high-agency, “take an idea and make it a reality” type of job. We have deep empathy for founders and understand the risks they are taking. We are humble about what we do not know, while being incredibly eager to learn from experts, founders, and teachers we meet along the way. We are students of the industry.
I started in venture just over three years ago. I was a data scientist who cold-applied to the job via LinkedIn. I absorbed “Venture Deals” before my first call with the Primary team just well enough to know what a SAFE was. I knew very little of the venture world. But, I felt I couldn’t sit idly by in one of the biggest technology transformations of our time, and believed that early-stage investing gives you a unique seat to watch the future unfold.
Our goal is to build something consequential here and we are just getting started. Come join us!
Primary retweeted
Did you know you can learn interesting things from computations in real rat neurons? I love what @AlexKsendzovsky and team are doing at @BioComputingCo are doing.
Primary retweeted
Today’s guest is @NaveenGRao, CEO and founder of @unconvAI. Naveen has been early to some of the biggest, most influential markets in technology, building Nervana and MosaicML ahead of his current venture: Unconventional AI. To Naveen, the future of compute means that systems will look much more similar to how the real world computes, as opposed to a paradigm we’ve all accepted as the best fit. Listen to the episode for an early look into what Unconventional AI is building and Naveen’s perspective on their journey ahead.
Primary retweeted
Three years ago, almost everyone said Etched couldn’t be built.
Today, they’re shipping production systems to Jane Street.
Huge congrats to the entire @Etched team, @UbertiGavin and @robertwachen for your stunning leadership. Thank you @sonyatweetybird for seeing from the outside what had become obvious on the inside, @stripesco_ for betting on the company at such a crucial moment, and @patrick_oshag for your steadfast championing of the mission.
A personal reflection on this milestone:
xitter.cf/BSchech/status/2089744…
Primary retweeted
@BSchech and @patrick_oshag were some of our earliest believers, and I'm humbled they have chosen to double down in every single subsequent round.
Primary retweeted
Big moment. Much much bigger ones coming soon.
Congrats to everyone at @Etched and a huge welcome to the incredible investors joining the team: @sonyatweetybird w/ @sequoia, @sarahdingwang w/ @a16z, @victoralazarte, and many more.
Buckle up everyone 🚀🚀🚀
We’ve raised $300M in Series C funding at a $10.3B valuation from Sequoia, Andreessen Horowitz, Jane Street, Argo, and SK Hynix.
Our mission is to run the world's inference. This round accelerates production of our inference clusters.
We've opened an 80,000-sqft, 10-MW facility 15 minutes from our office to expedite production and prototyping.
Primary retweeted
Hardware-enabled software sold visibility: dashboards, alerts and reports.
Hardware-activated agents sell completed work.
We believe that difference can unlock 10–40× more value per deployed unit by moving from software budgets into labor budgets.
If you are a Founder, Operator or Investor in the hardware ecosystem, check out our 49 slide thesis at the link below.
Primary retweeted
This week's guest on The Compute 100 podcast is @ChaseLochmiller, co-founder and CEO of @CrusoeAI.
Chase is building Crusoe, an energy-first AI company, deploying compute at gigawatt scale, and a key part of the biggest infrastructure buildout of all time. Link below.
Primary retweeted
Ten years ago, we made a bet: that seed-stage founders deserved more than capital. They deserved partners. People who would help them build from day one.
Today, I’m proud to share that we’ve raised Primary Fund V, a $625 million fund to back the next generation of founders who see what the world is missing and have the conviction to build it.
This video captures what we’ve learned from being in the trenches with iconic founders, and where we’re headed next.
Being a partner to early-stage founders has been the privilege of my career. If you're building something that matters, I’d love to hear from you.
Primary retweeted
Primary Ventures raises healthy $625M Fund V to focus on seed investing techcrunch.com/2026/02/10/pr…
Primary retweeted
@bradsvrluga has been a mentor and a close friend of mine for years. Watching him build @PrimaryVC - one of the most respected firms in the industry - has been a masterclass in itself, so sitting down with him for this episode was a highlight I've been looking forward to and a great way to kick off the year.
We went deep on an often overlooked topic in VC: How do you actually scale a firm's infrastructure?
Whether you're a GP or a founder, Brad’s perspective on building a modern, institutional-grade firm is unmatched.
Primary retweeted
Customer support is run by humans, and humans make mistakes.
But an AI agent might not.
@alexrlevin explains how Voice AI stays compliant and on-script far better than call-center teams, especially in industries like Medicare where mistakes aren’t an option.