YC
Alexandr Wang: Building Scale AI, Transforming Work With Agents & Competing With China
@ Y Combinator
06/18/25
Takeaways
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Y Combinator Cast
06/18/25
@ Y Combinator
Meta has agreed to invest over $14 billion in Scale AI, valuing the company at $29 billion.
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Y Combinator Cast
06/18/25
@ Y Combinator
I will lead Meta's new AI super intelligence lab.
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Y Combinator Cast
06/18/25
@ Y Combinator
The AI industry suffers from a lack of rigorous evaluations and tests that demonstrate the frontier of model capabilities.
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Y Combinator Cast
06/18/25
@ Y Combinator
You have to really care about your work to produce great results; you can tell who is genuinely invested in their work.
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Y Combinator Cast
06/18/25
@ Y Combinator
The future of work is changing, and we are at the beginning of a new era where humans will have a lot of agency and choice in how workflows are structured.
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Y Combinator Cast
06/18/25
@ Y Combinator
The initial business of Scale AI focused on generating data for self-driving car companies, which required us to stay ahead of AI trends.
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Y Combinator Cast
06/18/25
@ Y Combinator
We started working with OpenAI on language models in 2019 and with the Department of Defense on AI applications in 2020, well before the recent AI craze.
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Y Combinator Cast
06/18/25
@ Y Combinator
Our business evolved to include AI-based applications and agentic workflows for enterprises and government customers, moving beyond just data production.
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Y Combinator Cast
06/18/25
@ Y Combinator
The success of our operational data business created the momentum to explore building applications, which was a significant evolution for Scale AI.
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Alexandr Wang
06/18/25
@ Y Combinator
Amazon's creation of AWS in 2006 was initially seen as a terrible idea, but it turned out to be a pivotal moment in modern business history, demonstrating the potential of cloud computing.
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Alexandr Wang
06/18/25
@ Y Combinator
The key to AWS's success was the conviction that it would tap into an infinitely large and growing market for cloud computing, driven by exponential demand for computing power.
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Alexandr Wang
06/18/25
@ Y Combinator
Startups should initially focus on narrow markets to gain momentum, but eventually need to identify and build towards infinite markets to achieve significant growth.
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Alexandr Wang
06/18/25
@ Y Combinator
Every organization will need to reformat their business with AI-driven technology, which presents an infinite opportunity for building AI applications for enterprises and governments.
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Alexandr Wang
06/18/25
@ Y Combinator
Scale AI is evolving from a data labeling company to a leader in agent-driven technology, which is growing rapidly and is seen as an infinite market.
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Alexandr Wang
06/18/25
@ Y Combinator
Our strategy involves focusing on a small number of high-profile customers, including leading companies in pharmaceuticals, telecommunications, banking, and healthcare, as well as government agencies.
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Alexandr Wang
06/18/25
@ Y Combinator
The goal is to build differentiated AI capabilities by applying our expertise in data to solve unique problems for enterprises.
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Alexandr Wang
06/18/25
@ Y Combinator
The future of warfare will likely involve AI agents that can make decisions faster and more effectively than humans, transforming military operations.
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Alexandr Wang
06/18/25
@ Y Combinator
We're developing a system called Thunder Forge for the Indopacific Command, which uses AI to enhance military planning and operations by converting human workflows into agent-driven processes.
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Alexandr Wang
06/18/25
@ Y Combinator
High standards and a deep care for quality are essential for success in any organization, as they influence the entire culture and performance of the team.