Latent Space: The AI Engineer Podcast
00:00:00 · Shawn Wang
[00:00:00] S0: This is a special podcast because it's about AIE Shanghai. AIE Shanghai is the first AIE in China. It's brought to us by Sana Partners, which is one of the local partners that we have. We have a few AIEs worldwide that my team doesn't run, and this is the first one in Shanghai. I've always wanted to bring AIE to China. I think there's a lot of East meets West and a lot of progress in China that needs to be shared and distributed among the global community. China's super interested in us. There has been many Chinese fans of the Latent Space, and I'll flash a few of them up on screen here on YouTube. And, primarily, I wanna recognize Meng Xiao, who is our primary fan, always translating basically every episode into Chinese, which I am super appreciative of. And in general, I think I wanna also congratulate and celebrate the progress that China has made, not just in open source models, but in robotics and a lot of other sort of startups. You know, who can remember Manus that was started this time last year and then moved to Singapore? And obviously, OpenClaw had a big run, and we talk a lot about what that's like in terms of the overall mood on the ground and how the scale of AI community is so different in China, and the type of things that get adopted, as well as the, I guess, the startup culture. People hear a lot about nine ninety six. We talk about the reality of that versus in a place like Cognition. And finally, we'll also talk a little bit about the origin story of Latent Space, which some of you may not have heard if you're newer to the podcast. Talk about when it was started and why it was started and how we think about running the multiple shows that we're running and a little bit about safety and alignment and all that other stuff. So there's a little bit here for everyone. It's basically for the fans if you've been following Latent Space for a while, and if you're interested in AIE Shanghai, it's not being livestreamed, but we're gonna post it up on the YouTube at some point, starts tomorrow. So anyone here in China who's watching this, I'm really looking forward to having it. And thanks to Mengyin and team for organizing all of this. I also have to shout out Hanhua and Leidu, who basically got this thing started.
00:02:13 · Shawn Wang, S1
It nearly did not happen a few times, but it's so, so exciting to have AIE in Shanghai and to bring Latent Space to China in general. So thanks for watching, and look forward to your interview. The models are very good at clicking through every screen of your software and then replicating it independently. Oh, yeah. Right? So the moment I have access to your software, I can clone it. So good luck. There's a lot of talking heads who have never quoted a single day in their lives. They're all like, oh, my timeline to AI is, like, two years away. All of you are gonna have... Not gonna have jobs in the future. You need to prepare for what's next. Conveniently, whatever is next looks like their job. I I have my own Calendly. I have my own Google Drive. I have my own GitHub. I'm serious. They're such good founders. [00:03:02] S1: Yes. They live in the [00:03:03] S0: wrong country. If they live in The US, they'll kill Amazon. They'll kill, like, Facebook. The only reason they're not richer is they live in China. AI doom. In all of human history, when a more advanced civilization comes along and meets a less advanced civilization, the less advanced civilization goes extinct. And this thing is evolving roughly 1,000 times faster than us.
00:03:03 · Shawn Wang, S1
[00:03:03] S0: wrong country. If they live in The US, they'll kill Amazon. They'll kill, like, Facebook. The only reason they're not richer is they live in China. AI doom. In all of human history, when a more advanced civilization comes along and meets a less advanced civilization, the less advanced civilization goes extinct. And this thing is evolving roughly 1,000 times faster than us. [00:03:28] S1: Hi, Sean. So thank you for joining me for this show. So I've been a good... Long time listener for the Latent Space Podcast. And I know that many founders in... AI engineers in China as well have already learned a lot from your work and conversations on the podcast as well. And also, I'm grateful that, you know, you are bringing the AIE, the AI Engineer Conference to Shanghai the first time this year. So I think also, like several months ago, read your piece actually on Drive Forth about your essay on, you know, your relationship with the Silicon Valley, you move back and forth from Singapore and here, I guess that's why, how you actually coined or invented the role of AI engineer the last time you moved to Silicon Valley. And also this just makes me feel like it's very special that this time you bring the AIE to Shanghai the first time. So tell us a little bit about your background and your relationship with Silicon Valley.
00:04:25 · Shawn Wang, S1
[00:04:25] S0: I should correct you on one thing. That's that's wrong. I did not bring AIE to Shanghai. Shanghai brought AIE to Shanghai. Okay. Right? It's like Hanwha and, like, Lei Du and Meng Ying and those those folks as data partners. So I'm very grateful for them because we... I always wanted to do something in China, but I'm not a Chinese citizen, and I have no contacts or relationships there. But I think that there's a lot of interest on both sides of the world, on US and China, and Chinese Chinese AI in general, you know, whatever we can do to to surface, like, high quality conversations, I think that AIE in China can help there. So my TLDR is I'm from Singapore, you know, fifth generation Singaporean. Oh, sorry. Fifth fifth generation Chinese. Right? Most Singaporeans majority Chinese. I think I am from... People ask me, like, Oh, [00:05:18] S1: Chinese.
00:05:18 · S1, Shawn Wang
[00:05:18] S1: Chinese. [00:05:21] S0: Oh, cool. And I don't know. And that's that's like how it feels like to be, like, Chinese diaspora. Right? Like, we don't know what our origins are because it's just mixed and nobody kept any records. Like, nobody even knows our birthdays, like, sometimes, you know? But fifth generation Singapore, and grew and raised up in Singapore, and I went to The US for university and did my first career in finance. I was in trading and investment banking and hedge funds for ten years... Sorry, eight years, and then switched to tech. So I worked in Amazon and a few startups. And then four years ago, became independent, wrote Latent Space, figured out that there was gonna be this AI engineer thing, and then I I started AIE. [00:06:12] S1: Cool. And I know that actually you have different roles right now. You're you're you're doing the Latent Space podcast, you're writing newsletters, and also I find out that you have different roles in several startups, like Cognition, etcetera. Yes. Yeah. Just wonder, you know, you know, what your current titles or roles in different different roles and...
00:06:33 · Shawn Wang
[00:06:33] S0: Yeah. So it's very funny because I recently had to go over my taxes, like, figure out, like, what money do I have. So Cognition is the biggest one is adviser. I'm still an adviser to Cognition. Nice. I was an employee for a long time... For for for a while. So, basically, the idea was I have three companies. I have AIE, I have Latent Space, and then I have Miscellaneous. It used to be Small AI, which is my personal sort of startup vehicle. Yeah. Basically, got acqui hired into Cognition, worked there for six months, and then stepped back to be an adviser because AIE is now, you know, a global conference conference organization, and I I had to be CEO. I couldn't be part time employee, time here. Cognition is very big. Fireworks is very big. Modal is very big. Supabase. So I think it's a very common thing if you're on a Silicon Valley influencer or you've been in developer relations circles for a long time. So that that is my specialty in... Which is that I am technical, but I also write and speak. And that is a good combination of skills to have for people because any startup will wanna pay you to, like, talk about their stuff. And I think, you know, then then you start working with a bunch of things. So, like, a lot of... This is not a normal career. I actually don't even recommend it for most people, but it is my role in life that I can advise a few different companies and work with them in exchange for stock, and that's the rough idea.