Welcome to the Peel. I'm your host, Turner Novak, founder of Banana Capital.

Today's guest is Nathan Benich, founder of Air Street Capital, and author of the State of

of AI Report. Nathan has been writing the State of AI for eight years. It's a year-long effort

on the biggest things happening in AI every year across research, industry, politics, and safety.

We spend the next two hours talking about the biggest takeaways from his latest report,

including the rise of reasoning, the surge in China's open source models, where AI is working in

practice, the rise of sovereign AI, where he thinks value will actually accrue over the long term,

if for an AI bubble or not, and how he's

investing today at Air Street.

A quick thank you to Nico at Adjacent and Dan at the University of Michigan for helping

brainstorm topics for Nathan.

A reminder, I publish two episodes of the Peel every week, exploring the world's greatest startup

stories just like this one.

Check with the back catalog of over 100 episodes, including recent conversations

with Marcelo Lever, co-founder of European Unicorn Remote, and Kevin Hartz, co-founder of Eventbrite and Seed Investor in PayPal. Tune in over the next few weeks for guests like Gary Tan at YC, Chathen Poudin, Pouda, Benchmark, Jake Stotch at Serval, and DuoSec, and Duo GoSecurity co-founders, Doug Song and John Overhood.

Let's talk to Nathan after a quick word from numeral and flanks. Gix Dodge at Serval and Duo Security co-founders, Doug Song and John Overhood.

Let's talk to Nathan after a quick word from Numeril and Flex.

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