How we built a 1000x Growth Product in 1 Year | Perplexity AI, Aravind Srinivas

Dive into the future of internet search with Perplexity AI! In just 18 months, this startup has reached 10 million Monthly Active Users and secured a $73.6 million Series B funding at a $520 million valuation, with backing from Jeff Bezos, Nvidia, and Tobi Lutke. CEO Aravind Srinivas shares the journey of building this groundbreaking product, the challenges faced, and the strategic decisions behind their success. Get an insider's perspective on how Perplexity AI is reshaping AI-driven search technology.
00:00 Intro
00:36 Academic to Startup Founder
03:03 Building the Next Gen Search Engine
07:29 How a 30-person startup challenges Big Tech
EO stands for Entrepreneurship & Opportunities. We're looking for more inspiring stories of entrepreneurs all over the world, so don't hesitate to contact us! :)
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Subtitles for this video were created using [XL8.ai](xl8.ai/) machine translation.

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[@user-tf8lw3vu1u]

Excellent

[@AaronFGC246]

"the best way to learn a new topic is to force yourself to teach it to others" very well said, what an amazing guy.

[@klikternak]

Good, thanks sir

[@curiousmindtvs]

feynman technique

[@CSgof___yourself]

Facts. Figured that out myself and its done wonders

[@sriramananthakrishnan138]

I love how he breaks down everything he says with the rationale behind his thoughts. A very clear thinker, kinda like Karpathy

[@jitendratiwari6886]

yes

[@IamKBPark]

The next google is here. Been using almost year and never go back to google to search since I can get instant answer from Perplexity. “Dont blame user for not having a good prompt. Blame AI” What a customer centric philosophy! Touching!

[@alphar9539]

What happens if you’re searching for a non-fact?

[@mouizimran1032]

3 Top points to be learnt 1. Best way to learn, teach it 2. Be a Professor or Entrepreneur to execute your vision, either make a research paper that someone in future will make a company out of it or make it yourself. Instead of doing job and making someone else vision 3. Every point should be backed with some truth or facts.

[@unrealgalaxy9669]

‘Doing job and making someone else’s vision’ is the only way you can improve your skills enough to make your own vision

[@inkmanworkshop]

That's one super enlightened gentleman. Wishing him all of the best, he's definitely destined for great things!

[@cerveauy8782]

These Indian dudes are geniuses!

[@joystonmendonca7284]

Not genius bro they are hard workers

[@imacarguy4065]

​@@joystonmendonca7284little bit of both. It helps that their culture have unique ways of doing math and logic.

[@amb999]

bro they are 1 billion they're not geniuses it's normal rate

[@anuragsuryawanshi4177]

​@@amb999agree

[@OCamlChad]

​@@amb999 wtf I just googled and it's 1.4B. Thats more than North America and Europe combined. Insane. I wonder how competition (like jobs, academics) is like in India with that many people

[@Spectre_96]

Indians are crushing the IT sector.. good job guys, keep growing and keep inspiring others ❤

[@SajalNagwanshi]

Its not IT. Its tech. IT is what tcs and infosys does

[@amb999]

because they are 1 billion and half

[@AJ-bt1mz]

Intelligent, confident, self assured, ambitious, having clarity of goals and loads of opportunities. Genius within is discovered through the iterative cycle of failing, learning and growing.

[@TonyStark-mm6qy]

​@@amb999 There are more muslims than that, why don't we see anything coming from them ?

[@Sanjogful]

​@@amb999this is were rest of the world gets it wrong

[@silverchairsg]

It's really cool how their academic background (specifically the citation habit) can be transferred into the field of AI search. Another example of interdisciplinarity at work!

[@tvm73836]

Super impressive guy! Started from a very academic background and pivoted into an entrepreneur. Normally academic guys have disdain for entrepreneurs without having any idea about what it involves. However Srinivas has learned the ropes from his Silicon Valley brethren. I wish him all the very best!

[@DrJohnnyJ]

Not true. Many academics become entrepreneurs and many entrepreneurs become academics. Most silicon valley firms are started by Ph.D.'s.

[@tvm73836]

@@DrJohnnyJ I'm a PhD but not an academic. There's a difference.

[@Av-fn5wx]

​@@tvm73836phD with few years professorship before business is usually considered academic turned Entrepreneur. Clearly this world has seen many notable ones.

[@TheJordanLeopold]

My go-to AI chat/search. Replaced ChatGPT and Bard for me super quickly when I found it, and Perplexity continues to generate better answers than the two giants.

[@mikel6237]

and we can use them both by selecting gemini pro and chatgpt 4 in the perplexity settings

[@asadm9522]

All of them are just copying and pasting from google search. Also biased is there.

[@eal1]

It's not copying it makes things up, if you challenge its incorrect facts it admits it made it up. For example ask it what some website is about and it invents some baloney story about products/services it offers that it doesn't and tells you that site links to things it doesn't, when you tell it to actually visit the site it says it can't access the web. Then you tell it it can and makes up more rubbish. Awful.

[@Dom-zy1qy]

Perplexity uses RAG and GPT4 to provide answers. It's an unfathomably large scale of a process to train a GPT4. No startup is able to compete with them without comparable funding (there's no real reason to train your own unless openai starts price hiking). It costs hundreds upon hundreds of millions to train a single model like GPT4. So the ai side of things is the same as ChatGPT, but it utilizes some "non-ai techniques" such as retrieval augmented generation to provide up to date info.

[@IsaMutlib]

This is such a fascinating listen. It reminds me of a quote: houses were not build on decoration but in single beam foundations. Strengthen the foundations of a startup first (first core offering) and build the best product around that"

[@ReflectionOcean]

Identify a niche market for your AI-based venture and target it effectively 0:00 Evaluate your programming and first-principles thinking to improve your skills 1:17 Leverage academic principles to build credibility and trust in the tech industry 3:49 Adapt your product's pricing strategy to ensure it reflects your true value proposition 6:25 Concentrate on a single core offering to maximize startup effectiveness and growth 7:32 Cultivate a culture of urgency and execution within your startup team 8:46 Distill complex information into one or two critical choices for better decision-making 9:24 Focus on constant improvement rather than aiming for perfection in your endeavors 10:21 Ensure that your startup's mission aligns with both your passion and the dynamic market 10:35 Prioritize product quality, user growth, and accuracy over short-term valuation increases 11:04 Recognize and embrace the fulfillment that comes with entrepreneurial challenges 11:27

[@KletoReese]

Terrific! Thank You!

[@nomnom112]

also, make sure to go back in time to 2018 and do what this guy did.

[@STROLLLS]

♥️

[@opeyimikaaremu5107]

I enjoyed listening to Aravind. Thanks, Aravind, for sharing your story of building Perplexity AI.

[@trading-university.]

Love Aravinds approach. Weighted Pros and Cons lists, so true.

[@blindyogi4997]

Whoever thinks this is accidental, dont be fooled, he is an exceptional mind and well reputed in silicon valley

[@steezy124]

Literally no one thinks this is accidental

[@amjads8971]

lol AI is not accidental that’s a common sense

[@1525boy]

Why didn’t he just stay in India 🇮🇳?

[@sourabh4033]

​@@1525boylow pay😅

[@Av-fn5wx]

No one thinks it's accident. Please don't hype up like he's Elon. I'm an Indian and I appreciate his work. But let's not exaggerate.

[@canceriansharp2407]

Arvind, way to go. You have already done IIT Madras proud. I am sure, you will reach greater heights in USA💐💐

[@williu02]

Perplexity is one of my favorite tools today with so much value. Very interesting!

[@MarinaAgliullina]

The problem with any AI software giving you the perfect answer is that there’s never one perfect answer, never a single best point of view. The way AI guys are trying to build it and the way general audience just takes it as it is have the potential to leave us all in our separate limited bubbles. The beauty of googling or surfing through even wikipedia is that you are constantly getting multiple answers and nuances, being able to choose what suits you and go beyond your current horizons. The UX of AI products should motivate people do more research, not look for getting a single best option from a machine

[@shawnvandever3917]

Perplexity lets you also browse topics like this as well. However if you are looking for an objective fact this is the best way forward,

[@nikolaybonapartov7379]

Perplexity does it. That's another reason I like it

[@eal1]

It invents answers that are simply not true then admits it and apologises 😅 how many people believe it is worrying, it's not even taking it off another page just entirely imagining some fictional answer it thinks might sound good while sounding very convincing if you don't catch and challenge it. Funny.

[@shawnvandever3917]

While there are subjective answers and some questions that do not have an answer yet, there is a great deal of objective information available. When answers are subjective, it's important that they do a good job of providing the known information without presenting a definitive answer, which is the appropriate approach. The biggest issue I observe is that the internet is saturated with information stemming from left-wing perspectives, with comparatively little representation of right-wing viewpoints. This leads to a significant amount of bias. For example, when asking an image generator to place a robot in a kitchen, it often defaults to depicting female robots, illustrating a type of bias in automated content generation.

[@krox477]

Don't you think they've thought about this

[@sharon77787]

im using it daily and heavily its the best

[@daudidembe7905]

He's one of the coolest people I really admire a lot, we will buy perplexity and work together, this will happen in the next 4 years.

[@aryankumar87771]

u'll buy perplexity ? bruh what

[@ivospironello6451]

​@@aryankumar87771 bro has a vision nobody can tell that's impossible

[@afrah8986]

​@aryankumar87771 lol entrepreneur wannabes be like 😂

[@aryankumar87771]

@@afrah8986 😂

[@StevenAkinyemi]

What's the name of your company?

[@EnglishBros]

An useful video. Thank you 0:00: 🚀 Revolutionizing information consumption with conversational search engine, achieving 1000x growth in one year. 2:33: 🔍 Revolutionizing search engines with Perplexity AI for conversational answer engine. 4:57: 🚀 Rapid growth of a new AI product, maintaining quality and overcoming challenges. 7:23: ⚙ Focus on providing high quality service, prioritize few tasks as a startup, earn user trust before shipping new features. 10:01: 📈 Importance of focusing on the most crucial aspects, embracing improvement, and pursuing passion in a dynamic world.

[@Flyingmachines350]

Great startup! Keep marching forward.

[@nadhasthirundhitan]

Just did a quick search for "who won the Australian open 2024" and it answered "Novak Djokovic" never knew this AI tool can predict the future.

[@VenkatPrasadvenba]

Amazing interview ! Love the clarity of the thought process.

[@Abhishek.Saini28]

Thanks, EO for this interview.

[@sreeharsharaveendra5197]

What an amazing guy! I cannot stop listening to him, really profound thinking and really wise.

[@AdithyaShakthiKumar]

ive been using this for the past year, its super sick

[@SathyamurthyRamanujamFun]

slick or sick?

[@thenitinkosuri]

How is this better than ChatGpt ?

[@safashaikh2894]

​​@@SathyamurthyRamanujamFun sick more like a piece of crap that needs a lot of work

[@sazztazz]

Great product!!

[@christiana.1204]

As a PhD researcher, Perplexity AI has helped me a lot. I still use the basic version, but I might save up money and consider subscribing for the annual subscription.

[@eal1]

I hope you fact check, it imagines answers and admits that it made the 'facts' up when challenged. 😅

[@jayeshchhabra5329]

@@eal1as does every LLM? This behavior is nothing new it's happened before and been happening forever. That's the benefit of having citations for statements; it's easier to spot hallucinated information and challenge it.

[@TheAnugupta]

thats called Hellucination and its a known issues with LLM requires more tuning @@eal1

[@saurabhb1041]

Revolutionary and dangerous. Imagine the next gen of kids - never have to research anything because a chatbot gives you pre-canned answers. How do you even develop the necessary critical skills to determine what’s right vs. what’s wrong?

[@durgadineshchintapalli9301]

This tool is very helpful and pretty intresting

[@zakaabdi]

golden. lately eo videos seems just or ask flawless and basic question to founders. this video is golden coz its ask about how they...?? instead of what they ....? thanks

[@lemon_cado]

wdym? explicate

[@karthik75975]

Great Clarity of thought!

[@talentsherpa]

I use both but after watching how simply he describes complex issues, I’ll use it more

[@obedientslave9032]

😮 this ai tool is amazing I never seen this kind of ai tool The next billion company loading...

[@p19shelt]

Perplexity is where its at. Everytime I search google i get recaptha super annoying(I have VPN). Cant wait to use more.

[@nonaligned293]

Quantum of Solace is underrated Bond movie. Maybe even my favorite. Respect.

[@Johnny_Savage]

it's one of the worst bond movies

[@jcruz6888]

Very upfront about the fact that it's hard & stressing for him but he finds it fulfilling.

[@bmejia220]

Aravind is a clear speaker and says inspirational words to listen to. The future belongs to those who believe in the potential of their dreams.

[@staminadaddy]

Phind is amazing but still try this later, great video

[@mahavakyas002]

people don't realize how hard it is to get into IIT. this dude WON a competition there. meaning he was one of the top students at IIT. his IQ is at least 140. probably > 150 which is redonkulous.

[@anurag01a]

this man is literally on fire for making such a cool product perplexity! They can literally make Google dance someday.

[@darceysinclair8929]

i actually love this product

[@karimzahid5878]

Very interesting talk, just 30 people with such amazing product.

[@Anthropocene81]

I have used it. Perplexity is brilliant

[@ghsense2626]

Why?

[@amjads8971]

I prefer perplexity over all other AIs, because it gives me opportunities to use chatgpt or Gemini or perplexity Ai all together in one platform instead of buying separate subscriptions

[@anyu8109]

very good content

[@ariihauu_mrs]

It works really well

[@stt.9433]

Btw perplexity is incredibly simple. It's an LLM hooked onto a search engine with some fine tuning here and there and some cloud infra to support the api. I don't see on what planet that's a billion dollar company. I guess the bubble is real.

[@rajgothi2633]

Inspirational video.. Just look at that how he introduced himself and told how he started the start-up, his vision and advice for others...

[@gilbertng945]

Has anyone compared results from Microsoft copilot vs perplexity?

[@kshitijgupta3272]

Same things were said about SBF. Please let the time decide, than putting someone on pedestal

[@SomeInfo-ib3wz]

It's a piggyback on the hype around ChatGPT. The question is whether they can actually deliver the value.

[@ogamaniuk]

Already delivering. I use it more than ChatGPT now, and replaced many of my Google requests.

[@muhammadasiffarooqi7672]

Eo getting attention woohoo

[@chetanrawatji]

Very Nice ❤

[@nikolaybonapartov7379]

I use paid version of Perplexity. Really cool engine, I like it a lot!

[@you-share]

Epic

[@subramanianchenniappan4059]

output of perplexity was better than chatgpt . last week i checked . i was not satisfied with perplexity . i am a java tech lead

[@procrastinatingrn3936]

idk man i was googling something and asked perplexity to summarise something about that topic and it was telling me it can’t find info while there were 2 forums,talking about what i needed

[@Nur_md]

This line was grat The World is Dinamic .

[@kevinnugent6530]

Wow I can't wait to see how this company does in the future. Oh never mind

[@Ved3sten]

I feel like Google can easily build and integrate this into their AI powered Search.

[@midhunr1716]

yes its already there

[@alancasas6954]

yup, but they didnt because they wanted you to click the sponsored blue links all this time. now, a lot of talent left and are no longer as much of ai gods as they were. i think theyve waken up and will probably resurge in 2024. gemini is cool once they have a real demo

[@user-dw5qw3hy1o]

He spoke about why Google would find it difficult to implement this…it’ll affect their ads sales a lot since they already have a system in place and this is very different

[@Ved3sten]

@@user-dw5qw3hy1o Interesting. But wouldn't this just be an improvement over their current implementation? Rn I think it does the same thing except without citations. Not exactly sure how providing citations changes their Ads model since users will still follow citation links for fact gathering for clarity and more information

[@sreeharsharaveendra5197]

@@user-dw5qw3hy1o that's true, google's business model is built mostly on ad revenue, whereas perplexity is focused on the product. It kind of reminds me about Steve Jobs, when he introduced the iphone, which mostly focused on the iPhone as a product.

[@abcd-fs7zf]

6:26 they use open ai gpt4 , maybe open ai should add these features

[@Aditya_khedekar]

openai is a API company i myself use it for my products not a search engine company

[@NanheeByrnesPhD]

Known to be very difficult to do.

[@suriyars4487]

See you in a few years bruh !!

[@npc9207]

Perplexity is my favorite ai chat along with You ai

[@UnsaltedCashew38]

How is this any different than Bing which does citations too?

[@balu3811]

So, do you pay websites for using their content. Like your product uses their content to show, so that user doesn’t open the website.

[@adeyemiowolabi6062]

I like him already 😊

[@alyanshaikh9313]

You know he is great if he is from iit

[@peachmango5347]

What do domain experts learn from using AI?

[@peachmango5347]

Domain experts play a crucial role in the development and application of AI. Their in-depth knowledge of specific fields, such as medicine, finance, or engineering, enables them to identify the most pressing problems that AI/ML technologies can address, define the scope and objectives of AI/ML tasks, and ensure that the problems tackled are relevant and impactful 1 3 . Additionally, domain experts can provide critical insights that make an AI system perform at its best, help in understanding the complex and regulated nature of various industries, and ensure that the data used to train an AI system is accurate and relevant to their field 3 5 . Furthermore, domain experts can contribute to the explainability of AI models and put the right limits to ensure the model's output can be understood and trusted 4 . Therefore, their expertise is essential for the successful development and deployment of AI solutions.

[@peachmango5347]

Didn't answer my question.

[@logohub1234]

This is not first bing chat (now copilot )launched before perplexity. Work in same way.

[@ahsin.shabbir]

They have high valuation but do they have any profit?

[@MrPrabakar007]

Idea looks good, please change company name as simple name.

[@bardhan.abhirup]

Suggestions?

[@Johnny_Savage]

@@bardhan.abhirup Bobo

[@crazyideas7542]

Ur search bar should show suggestions to complete sentence It sucks to type everything

[@sumeet3773]

Another proud Indian living in USA

[@Amoghavarsha.]

Usa have that tech support environment.... I mean not call centers but people who encourage tecnical advancement

[@Amoghavarsha.]

😅

[@p19shelt]

That last bit. Man is smart.

[@Thepoobooshow]

Even Google was an idea of Indian iit professor.

[@edaptlearningapp]

What would happen If OPEN AI decided to stop giving the access of chatGPT 4 in your model?

[@freetorunfree]

Yeah.. May be buy them out.

[@meriambenmustapha6251]

👏

[@michaelnneli5907]

You will help me build mine

[@emmanuelsichinga1255]

best words so far in 2024

[@gbtBob]

The end is near, fizzle.

[@user-mh3ii9iu6]

혹시 한글자막은 없나요? No korean subtitles?

[@HelloThere-fn2ps]

I guess you can use auto translate ,

[@abhilash0518]

During his visit to India, the fired OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said that he did not think that Indians would be able to compete with a company like OpenAI because they would not be able to create something like ChatGPT.20 Nov 2023

[@chathurangabasnayaka624]

This is totally different from ChatGpt. This is search engin

[@bucketlistjourney6125]

I wish he developed this idea in India but we know our politicians

[@dhanraj2900]

A brilliant mind !

[@venchingfu]

I dont understand how this is different from google searches? We dont want citations for our searches correct?

[@user-xn6wf4tz2d]

Transfer of wealth usually occur during market crash, so the more stocks drop, the more I buy, in the meanwhile I'm just focused on making better investments and earning more as recession fear increases, apparently there are strategies to 3x gains in this present market cos I read of someone that pulled a profit of $350k within 6months, and it would really help if you could make a video covering these strategies.

[@AlinaLopez-vz9qp]

The strategies are quite rigorous for the regular-Joe. As a matter of fact, they are mostly successfully carried out by pros who have had a great deal of skillset/knowledge to pull such trades off.

[@CollinJon]

well said, I actually signed for a few youtube courses but it didn't help much, a colleague suggested I use a proper financial advisor, how did you go about touching base with your adviser

[@Citizen2943]

So at some point, you have to be in usa for the technology development otherwise its not possible

[@NanheeByrnesPhD]

This could help prevent ai from getting dumber and dumber.

[@storagebox6925]

He grows up to become the old man from disney movie "UP"

[@melissagreye8445]

Why didn't Google buy his company? I'm surprised they didn't.

[@mlengineer101]

🎉

[@prestoX]

Doesn't Gpt 4 has all these features ?

[@neoquantum0712]

I put SSC CGL EXAM reasoning questions and the AI fails everytime. But Google gives Testbook answers so yes Google is still unbeatable.

[@goliathstark9142]

fulfill baby

[@amjads8971]

The key here is only BERKLEY , isn’t it obvious everyone goes there and gets in the lobby of startup entrepreneurs and start something new. There is nothing about his intelligence but the peer and network you get in Berkeley helps , same as Stanford

[@chi6168]

Yes and he studied AI, which is the easiest field to transfer to entrepreneurship, he exaggerated

[@rahulvats95]

Being there takes alot. Same was 30 years ago with internet and 20 years ago with social media. Being where all the action is.

[@rahulvats95]

Plus it takes a lot of work and pressure to go through learning, going from field to field. It can be intimidating at times.

[@Av-fn5wx]

How different is this to chatgpt?

[@KimetsuNoYaiba100]

ChatGPT doesn’t provide references like Microsoft copilot does. Also, perplexity is more user friendly and faster.

[@gonkong5638]

When their company come big is it gonna become bad like Google ? Google was very good. The best of it kind and still no 1 source that people using right now.