Episodit

  • Uber and Meta have said no to toxenmaxxing. Make way for 'yieldmaxxing'

    Uber and Meta have said no to toxenmaxxing. Make way for 'yieldmaxxing'

    · Zero Shot

    If you have been paying attention, something has been happening within tech companies. And it has to do with tokens. But not what you think.

    After killing its AI leaderboard, Meta announced a new platform to track AI usage and spending. Microsoft has started cancelling the Claude Code licenses of its employees. Uber said it ran out of its token budget for 2026. And then came the latest news of Anthropic disabling Fable 5's access following the US government's directive.


    These four developments signal a shift underway. For the past year, the game was tokenmaxxing: use as much AI as possible, as often as possible, on everything. Enterprises are now asking whether this obsession was worth it. We are giving that question a name: "yieldmaxxing". Our thesis is simple. The big challenge now is this: how we will use AI safely and reliably without lock-ins and exploding bills, while remaining strategically nimble?


    To figure out what the token burn and its aftermath looks like, we have Gaurav Mishra on this episode of Zero Shot. Gaurav worked across many companies we are talking about. He was at Yahoo, Meta, and headed product for Uber AI. He is now the CEO of Proshort, an AI-powered contextual sales platform.

    Tune in!


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    This episode was produced by Vidhatri Rao and edited by Rajiv CN.
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    Zeus, the mascot of Zero Shot, was generated using AI. Everything else is made by humans, just like all articles, columns, newsletters, and other podcasts created by The Ken.

    Write to us at [email protected]. We are all ears!

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    Recommended Reading:

    https://finance.yahoo.com/markets/stocks/articles/meta-ai-costs-spike-company-225410935.html

    https://www.projectflux.ai/p/blown-by-april-why-uber-s-3-4-billion-r-d-budget-could-not-hold-the-line-on-ai-coding-spend

    https://www.thestreet.com/technology/microsoft-ceo-sends-shocking-message-to-employees

  • Physical AI is a Mexican standoff. Who walks away as the winner?

    Physical AI is a Mexican standoff. Who walks away as the winner?

    · Zero Shot

    Think of an action or crime film. At some point, when all of the different threads and plots converge, you witness a high-stakes scene. Three characters are locked in a fight. You don’t know who emerges a winner. This is what is loosely called a Mexican standoff.

    Apply this analogy to physical AI. There are currently three players in the game. America has BigTech and big models that only seem to be getting bigger. China has actual manufacturing capabilities and a sharp-minded executional focus on hardware. And then there are places like India and Nigeria that provide the data for some of these robots, especially “humanoids”.

    In this episode of Zero Shot, host Praveen Gopal Krishnan talks to The Ken reporter Sakshi Sadashiv who wrote about the mushrooming gig economy around data collection to create robots that perform human tasks. We are also joined by Pramod Ghadge, the co-founder of Unbox Robotics, an Indian company that has deployed 700 robots across nine countries for a specific use-case: warehouses.

    Each has a take on who wins. But more importantly, this episode takes you inside the growing Physical AI market. Tune in!

    Additional Material:

    AI product differentiation, living with robots, world models, and extreme leverage

    Tesla and Figure AI are building robots to act like humans. Indian workers are teaching them how

    The GPT Moment for Robotics Is Here

    https://unboxrobotics.com/

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  • Taking aim for 2026

    Taking aim for 2026

    · Zero Shot

    It’s the end of 2025, so we don’t have a full episode of Zero Shot for you today.

    This podcast launched in September, and we’ve produced 14 episodes for you so far. We’ve covered a wide range of topics, and our conversations—between Praveen, Rohin, and Brady—only work because you’re willing to sit with the complexities we wade into.

    We know artificial intelligence will move fast in 2026, so we’ll keep asking the questions that matter in this AI hype cycle. We’re glad you’re coming along with us.

    So, thank you, and we’ll be back next week.

    As always, if you’d like to get in touch with any or all of our hosts, please drop us a note at [email protected]. We respond to all messages.

    The cover art of Zero Shot is generated by AI. Everything else is made by humans, just like all articles, columns, newsletters, and other podcasts created by The Ken.

  • Introducing Zero Shot

    Introducing Zero Shot

    · Zero Shot

    Join Brady Ng, Praveen Gopal Krishnan, and Rohin Dharmakumar of The Ken as they discuss the big ideas in artificial intelligence. You’ll get the macro view, explore their experiments in practical applications, go deeper than the news coverage you’ve seen, and hear about the implications of the latest developments. Nothing is off the table.