Benjamin F Spector

(1/5) Great to be at @sequoia to give a sneak peek of one of our research directions! TL;DR one path to data-efficiency may be to “abuse GPUs like they’ve never been abused before”

A conventional narrative you might come across is that AI is too far along for a new, research-focused startup to outcompete and outexecute the incumbents of AI. This is exactly the sentiment I listened to often when OpenAI started ("how could the few of you possibly compete with Google?") and 1) it was very wrong, and then 2) it was very wrong again with a whole another round of startups who are now challenging OpenAI in turn, and imo it still continues to be wrong today. Scaling and locally improving what works will continue to create incredible advances, but with so much progress unlocked so quickly, with so much dust thrown up in the air in the process, and with still a large gap between frontier LLMs and the example proof of the magic of a mind running on 20 watts, the probability of research breakthroughs that yield closer to 10X improvements (instead of 10%) imo still feels very high - plenty high to continue to bet on and look for. The tricky part ofc is creating the conditions where such breakthroughs may be discovered. I think such an environment comes together rarely, but @bfspector & @amspector100 are brilliant, with (rare) full-stack understanding of LLMs top (math/algorithms) to bottom (megakernels/related), they have a great eye for talent and I think will be able to build something very special. Congrats on the launch and I look forward to what you come up with!

The best part of my job is the privilege to partner with extraordinary founders. It’s especially rewarding when those founders are people you’ve long admired and respected. I’ve known @amspector100 since our college days, and I’ve gotten to know his brother, @bfspector, through the Prod community, where Ben helped shape a generation of founders and young talent. So when Asher mentioned to me on a walk that he and Ben were thinking about starting something together, I could barely contain my excitement. It felt like a moment that had been building for an eternity. Today, that conviction has taken shape as Flapping Airplanes, a new foundational AI research lab led by Ben, Asher, and @aidanmantine, exploring radically more data-efficient approaches to learning. We’re thrilled to co-lead this investment alongside @GVteam and @sequoia, and to partner with my dear friends Ben, Asher, Aidan and the rest of their all-star team.

@flappyairplanes @bfspector @amspector100 @aidanmantine Read more from GV Managing Partner @davemuni and watch the full conversation on our blog: gv.com/news/why-we-in…

@ebarschkis flapping airplane would be kinda cool

Today, I'm excited to announce our investment in Flapping Airplanes, and our partnership with @bfspector best known for being a founder of Prod, and @amspector100, a former debate champion and Stanford statistics PhD.

🔮 see the future 🔮 2026 prediction episode: Jensen Huang, @jainarvind, @winstonweinberg, @ScottWu46, @raizamrtn, @zackmziegler, @levie, @MishaLaskin, @polynoamial, @joshim5, @bryan_johnson, @_sholtodouglas, @bfspector @amspector100, @dylan522p (and your hosts Sarah and Elad)