The Bay Area Founders Club was founded by&nbsp;<a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/paul-fang-ph-d-987b06108/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" style="color: var(--print_on_web_bg_color, var(--color-primary));">Dr. Paul Fang</a>&nbsp;in Silicon Valley in 2022. It has over 4000 members, including more than 120 startups and over 80 venture capital firms. Most startups have raised $1-5M, with some exceeding $20M. Our mission is to foster a strong and collaborative community of AI and Web3 entrepreneurs and investors, where we can all grow together.Follow us on&nbsp;<a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/paul-fang-ph-d-987b06108/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" style="color: var(--print_on_web_bg_color, var(--color-primary));">LinkedIn</a>&nbsp;or&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/PaulFangBayArea" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" style="color: var(--print_on_web_bg_color, var(--color-primary));">Twitter</a>&nbsp;to stay updated! Arvind Srinivas never imagined he would one day be the co-founder and CEO of a rapidly growing AI startup valued at $1 billion. But that’s exactly what happened when he and his co-founder Dennis launched Perplexity AI in December 2022. Arvind’s journey to founding Perplexity began in his native India, where he grew up with a deep fascination for algorithms and programming. After winning a machine learning contest, he decided to dive deeper into the field, eventually pursuing a PhD in AI and deep learning at UC Berkeley. It was during a summer internship at OpenAI in 2018 that Arvind had a pivotal realization. “I went to OpenAI and I felt like really bad because people were so much better than me,” he recalls. “It was a big reality check that, okay, I could improve a lot more in programming. I could improve a lot more in first principles thinking, my clarity of thoughts.” This experience motivated Arvind to double down on his AI research, working closely with his advisor to understand the emerging field of large language models (LLMs) like GPT-1, which had just been published. “We spent a lot of time holidays, weekends, just learning and coding and just understanding all these things,” he says. “And we did this for two years.” <a href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fee9f5667-1128-4682-95d9-8e52c2b4afff_700x368.jpeg" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" style="color: var(--print_on_web_bg_color, var(--color-primary));"><img src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fee9f5667-1128-4682-95d9-8e52c2b4afff_700x368.jpeg" height="368" width="700"></a>Image credit:&nbsp;<a href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&amp;url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.searchenginejournal.com%2Fperplexity-ai-seo%2F513039%2F&amp;psig=AOvVaw2K-Eig4qpJu0bzKPqeCHkZ&amp;ust=1719076345312000&amp;cd=vfe&amp;opi=89978449&amp;ved=0CBEQjRxqFwoTCJjIkdOY7YYDFQAAAAAdAAAAABAE" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" style="color: var(--print_on_web_bg_color, var(--color-primary));">Search Engine Journal</a> This deep dive into LLMs would ultimately lead Arvind and Dennis to found Perplexity AI, a conversational search engine that aims to revolutionize how people find information online. “Perplexity is trying to build a future where you don’t have to do this,” Arvind explains. “You can just come and ask a question, just like how you would ask a friend, and that AI replies to you with the answer, but not just the answer. Every sentence that it says also has a corresponding reference, or we call it a citation.” Perplexity’s unique approach, combining LLMs with robust search capabilities, has resonated with users. The company launched its product on December 7, 2022 and has since seen exponential growth, going from 2,000–3,000 queries per day to over 3–4 million queries per day in just one year. “It’s basically grown 1000X over a period of one year,” Arvind says. “Growth so far has been that somebody says ChatGPT doesn’t work for this particular thing, or like Bard sucks at this thing. And then like, people just tweet, oh, look at this perplexity thing. It just gets it.” Of course, building a product as technically complex as Perplexity has not been without its challenges. Arvind describes the process as “orchestrating” various components, from the language model to the search algorithms, to deliver a seamless user experience. “That’s why this is a hard thing to build. That’s why this is not something where, oh, because you’re a startup, you’re going to lose. Because even for a big company, playing the orchestra is hard.” Arvind’s approach to these challenges has been to relentlessly focus on execution and quality. “We are still a small team, around 30 people. When you have fewer people, you can only do fewer things. So therefore you spend a lot of time thinking about what to do. And once you’ve decided, you just do it.” This focus on doing a few things exceptionally well is a key part of Arvind’s startup philosophy. “The best strategy for startups is to focus on very few things, like literally even one thing, because there’s not much time. As a startup, you’re supposed to move fast, and as a startup you have very few shots at failure.” Arvind’s passion for Perplexity is palpable. He describes waking up earlier and going to bed later, driven by a constant desire to improve the product and serve the company’s mission. “When the day ends, I always feel like there’s more stuff I could have done, so that’s actually a privilege. I also feel stress, but the opposite wouldn’t make me feel any fulfillment, honestly.” It’s this relentless drive, combined with Arvind’s technical expertise and strategic focus, that has propelled Perplexity to such remarkable success in such a short time. As the company continues to grow and evolve, it’s clear that Arvind and his team are just getting started in their quest to revolutionize how we find and consume information online. Thanks for reading! You can follow the author here: Angelina<a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/meetangelina/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" style="color: var(--print_on_web_bg_color, var(--color-primary));">&nbsp;Linkedin&nbsp;</a>or&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/angelina_magr" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" style="color: var(--print_on_web_bg_color, var(--color-primary));">Twitter</a>&nbsp;or&nbsp;<a href="https://medium.com/@angelina-yang" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" style="color: var(--print_on_web_bg_color, var(--color-primary));">Medium</a>,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.transformaistudio.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" style="color: var(--print_on_web_bg_color, var(--color-primary));">Venture</a>.Source Content:&nbsp;<iframe class="ql-video" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="true" src="https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/FZieYYj0ImE?rel=0&amp;autoplay=0&amp;showinfo=0&amp;enablejsapi=0" height="409" width="728"></iframe> 📚 Also if you’d like to learn more about RAG systems, check out the author’s book on the RAG system:<a href="https://angelinamagr.gumroad.com/l/practical-approach-to-RAG-systems" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" style="color: var(--print_on_web_bg_color, var(--color-primary));">Order a copy!</a>

Qihang Fu

How Perplexity Founder Built a $1B Startup in 2 Years

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