Nextdoor CEO Nirav Tolia on bowling alone, AI bots, and why the heartland is happier than the coasts

Vlad Tenev (Robinhood co-founder/CEO) and Tudor Achim (former helm.ai CTO) are the founders of Harmonic, an AI lab pioneering the path toward mathematical superintelligence. Together, they developed Aristotle, a model that eliminates hallucinations by reasoning in Lean code rather than natural language. By shifting from probabilistic guesses to formal logic, Aristotle produces 100% verified mathematical outputs. The model recently demonstrated its breakthrough capabilities by achieving gold-medal performance at the International Math Olympiad. In this episode of Summation, Vlad, Tudor, and Auren discuss:Why AI models struggled at math for so long How Aristotle helped 10x the total corpus of formally verified Erdos problems in just a few months Why formal verification will make all software dramatically saferHow the first Millennium Prize problem will be solved by 2027-2028You can find Auren Hoffman on X at @auren, Vlad Tenev on X at @vladtenev, and Tudor Achim on X at @tachim

John Allen is a retired four-star Marine Corps general who commanded 150,000 US and NATO troops in Afghanistan and built a 65-nation coalition as Special Presidential Envoy to the Global Coalition Against ISIS. After retiring from the military, he led the Brookings Institution as its president. He co-invented the term "hyperwar," holds five AI patents, and co-authored Turning Point: Policymaking in the Era of Artificial Intelligence. He currently serves as a strategic advisor to Microsoft.In this episode of Summation, John and Auren discuss:Why Ukraine's battlefield is accelerating the autonomous weapons timeline faster than any defense department predictedThe single assumption that doomed Afghanistan and why 2,500 troops could have changed everythingWhat nobody is asking about the US operation in Iran How China's one-child military could be the most underappreciated deterrent against a Taiwan invasionYou can find Auren Hoffman on X at @auren and John R. Allen on LinkedIn

Adrian Aoun helped found Torch, a health data platform that was acquired by OpenAI earlier this year. He's also the co-founder of Seneca, which raised $60 million to build autonomous drones for wildfire suppression. Adrian previously founded Forward Health. He previously led special projects for Larry Page at Google, where he founded Sidewalk Labs and helped build Google's AI division.In this episode of Summation, Adrian and Auren discuss:Why curing all cancer adds only ~3 years of life but internet access for a billion people is massively more impactfulHow AI is turning healthcare from a service into a product -- and why the AMA is the new taxi medallion lobbyThe expert investor paradox: why deep expertise makes you a worse angel investorWhy GLP-1s are the closest thing to a miracle drug in our lifetimeYou can find Auren Hoffman on X at @auren and Adrian Aoun on X at @adrianaoun

Tod Sacerdoti is the CEO and co-founder of Pipedream, which recently sold to Workday. Tod is also a general partner at Flex Capital, where he's invested in over 400 companies including Chime, Vercel, Replit, CodeRabbit, Mercury, and many others. He previously founded BrightRoll, a programmatic video advertising platform that sold to Yahoo for $640 million in 2014. In this episode of Summation, Tod and Auren discuss:Why seed investing has the highest annualized returns of any venture asset classFirst-gen AI companies being the most vulnerable to AI disruptionQSBS and why it's the most important tax benefit nobody talks aboutThe founder code and what happens when people break itYou can find Auren Hoffman on X at @auren and Tod Sacerdoti on X at @tod

Nirav Tolia is the co-founder and CEO of Nextdoor (NYSE: NXDR), the neighborhood social network with over 105 million users across 350,000 communities worldwide. After stepping down as CEO in 2018, he returned to lead the company in 2024.In this episode of Summation, Nirav and Auren discuss:Why success kills innovationThe death of physical communityWhy Nextdoor had to change their stock tickerInsider vs Outsider entrepreneursYou can find Auren Hoffman on X at @auren and Nirav Tolia on X at @niravtolia.

Lieutenant General Mike Fenzel recently retired as a three-star Army General. He most recently served as the United States Security Coordinator for Israel and the Palestinian Authority, navigating one of the world’s most complex geopolitical landscapes. His career is defined by high-stakes leadership, ranging from the immediate aftermath of the September 11th attacks, where he was stationed in the bunker alongside Vice President Dick Cheney, to multiple deployments to Afghanistan, to commanding an airborne brigade of 5,500 paratroopers. Beyond the battlefield, Fenzel is a scholar of strategic decision-making. His book, No Miracles, analyzes the internal Soviet failures during their occupation of Afghanistan.In this episode of Summation, Mike and Auren discuss:Why the Soviets took four years to exit AfghanistanLessons from leading security cooperation in JerusalemIsrael's dominance in security techWhy US foreign policy experts keep failingYou can find Auren Hoffman on X at @auren and Mike Fenzel on LinkedIn.

Martin Shkreli is the co-founder of DL Software, the parent company of Godel Terminal, a Bloomberg competitor for financial data. He previously founded the biotech companies Retrophin and Turing Pharmaceuticals and the hedge fund MSMB Capital Management. In this episode of Summation, Martin and Auren discuss:The structural reasons fintech is less competitive than other industriesHow drug discovery actually works (and doing it from prison)Why AI labs are now out-recruiting hedge fundsWhat Martin learned from being "the most hated man in America"You can find Auren Hoffman on X at @auren and Martin Shkreli on X at @MartinShkreli

World of DaaS is now Summation with Auren Hoffman. While we’re proud of our roots in the data world, our conversations have evolved. Summation better reflects our obsession with finding the non-obvious ideas that shape our world.What’s changing? Just the name. You’ll still get the same insights from the world’s most influential founders, investors, and thinkers. If you’re already a subscriber, you’re all set. If you’re new here, welcome. Hit subscribe and join us! Our first episode as Summation drops this Wednesday.Thanks for the support, and welcome to the next chapter. Auren is CEO of NQB8, GP at Flex Capital, Chairman of Dialog; former CEO of SafeGraph and LiveRamp (NYSE: RAMP).

Jonathan Siddharth is the founder and CEO of Turing, a $2.2 billion AI company that provides coding and reasoning data to train frontier models for OpenAI, Google, Meta, Anthropic and more. Turing’s mission is to accelerate superintelligence to drive economic growth.In this episode of World of DaaS, Jonathan and Auren discuss:How Turing creates expert data for frontier modelsWhy SaaS is dying in the age of AI agentsDisrupting the $30 trillion market for digital knowledge workBuilding a stage five company cultureYou can find Auren Hoffman on X at @auren and Jonathan Siddharth on X at @jonsidd.Editing and post-production work for this episode was provided by The Podcast Consultant (https://thepodcastconsultant.com)

Cobi Blumenfeld-Gantz is the co-founder and CEO of Chapter, an AI-powered Medicare navigation platform valued at $1.5 billion that helps seniors navigate coverage and enrollment.In this episode of World of DaaS, Cobi and Auren discuss:Why medicare fraud costs over $100 billion annuallyHow 24,000 medicare plans create impossible choices for seniorsWhy government tech keeps failing with Accenture contractsProvider network data accuracy and AI solutionsYou can find Auren Hoffman on X at @auren and Cobi Blumenfeld-Gantz on X at @CobiBGantz.Editing and post-production work for this episode was provided by The Podcast Consultant (https://thepodcastconsultant.com)