Naveen Rao, CEO of Unconventional AI and former Databricks Chief AI Officer, discusses the scale and revenue trajectory of the MosaicML business inside Databricks.
“When I came there, we had about a twenty million dollar business, and it was, you know, seven or eight hundred million when I left, something like that. I think it's crossed well over a billion.”
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More from Naveen Rao
PredictionNot checkable as stated
Rao: Trillion-dollar GPU data centers are physically impossible to power
“None of this is physically realizable, right? That's what's really kind of annoying to me. I'm like, okay, you're talking about, you know, a trillion dollars of GPUs. Where the fuck are you gonna get the power for that? I'm sorry, right? Like you're just, you'…”
Naveen RaoFeb 7, 2026▶ 37:35Inside the $4.5B Startup Building Brain-Inspired Chips for AI · Sourcery with Molly O'Shea
Opinion
Rao: xAI's GPU clusters broke rules and are not repeatable
“And the things that have been realized I mean, like the XAI clusters and stuff like that, You know, valiant efforts. No doubt about it. And it's amazing to push through and get it done, but it broke a lot of rules and is doing a lot of stuff very inefficiently…”
Naveen RaoFeb 7, 2026▶ 37:47Inside the $4.5B Startup Building Brain-Inspired Chips for AI · Sourcery with Molly O'Shea
Opinion
Rao: Circular AI mega-deals are justified by coming demand
“I know we talk about it looks bad or whatever, but the bet is that the demand will come, and I think that's actually a good bet. So I see it as like, all right, fine, it looks, it doesn't look great in the short term, and I can see why people are irked by it b…”
Naveen RaoFeb 7, 2026▶ 45:16Inside the $4.5B Startup Building Brain-Inspired Chips for AI · Sourcery with Molly O'Shea
Opinion
Rao: True AI requires fundamental hardware substrate innovation
“My personal take is that we need innovation on the hardware substrate to actually build true intelligence. You're not going to get there with this sort of rudimentary thing that we have.”
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Opinion
Rao: Nervana Was Sold to Intel Too Early
“And so, you know, we sold too early. Sold to Intel too early.”
Naveen RaoFeb 7, 2026▶ 19:25Inside the $4.5B Startup Building Brain-Inspired Chips for AI · Sourcery with Molly O'Shea
PredictionNot checkable as stated
Rao: Unconventional AI Could Open a Computing Paradigm Lasting 80 Years
“I think we have the opportunity to completely open up a new paradigm that could exist for another 80 years.”
Naveen RaoFeb 7, 2026▶ 21:40Inside the $4.5B Startup Building Brain-Inspired Chips for AI · Sourcery with Molly O'Shea
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