a16z Podcast

Building an AI Physicist: ChatGPT Co-Creator’s Next Venture

Episode Summary

Scaling laws took us from GPT-1 to GPT-5 Pro. But in order to crack physics, we’ll need a different approach. In this episode, a16z General Partner Anjney Midha talks to Liam Fedus, former VP of post-training research and co-creator of ChatGPT at OpenAI, and Ekin Dogus Cubuk, former head of materials science and chemistry research at Google DeepMind, on their new startup Periodic Labs and their plan to automate discovery in the hard sciences.

Episode Notes

Scaling laws took us from GPT-1 to GPT-5 Pro. But in order to crack physics, we’ll need a different approach. 

In this episode, a16z General Partner Anjney Midha talks to Liam Fedus, former VP of post-training research and co-creator of ChatGPT at OpenAI, and Ekin Dogus Cubuk, former head of materials science and chemistry research at Google DeepMind, on their new startup Periodic Labs and their plan to automate discovery in the hard sciences.

Follow Liam on X: https://x.com/LiamFedus

Follow Dogus on X: https://x.com/ekindogus

Learn more about Periodic: https://periodic.com/