Will smaller AI models win over large language models?

Sudarshan Kamath grew up in Mumbai, taught himself AI before most Indian companies were even hiring for it, and bought the domain "smallest.ai" for $100 in 2022, two years before the company existed. Today, he runs Smallest AI, a startup focused on real time voice AI.

He started with self-driving cars, training large models and compressing them to run on vehicle hardware in real time. That's where he first saw what small models could do: a hundredth of the size, almost no loss in accuracy.

Two years later he put in his own $150K, got some GPUs, and started training. Eighteen months later he had a seed round, a Series A, a seven-figure enterprise deal, and a $150M acquisition offer he turned down.

Most of the data that goes into large models is noise. Strip it out, train small, and you get a model that matches a giant at a fraction of the size and runs in real time. That insight is what Smallest AI is built on.

00:00 – Trailer
00:51 – Sudarshan's journey before Smallest AI
05:00 – Arjun Jain & Yann LeCun
08:20 – Why build in voice AI in 2024?
15:09 – Why move the company from India to the US?
17:25 – Hiring talent via LinkedIn and X
18:49 – What large US funds actually bring to startups
21:03 – Raising a seed round with zero revenue
26:06 – Strong intros from US VCs
28:23 – What the first enterprise customer teaches you
31:50 – Raising Series A with Seligman Ventures
32:19 – The $150M acquisition offer
34:32 – When should founders sell secondaries?
36:24 – Who are Smallest AI's customers?
38:28 – What are state space models?
40:16 – Are GEPA models closer to AGI?
41:23 – Growing 10× in three months
48:03 – This is not a winner-takes-all market
49:32 – Why this is a trillion-dollar market
50:08 – Why large AI labs are not building in voice
51:26 – What it takes to reach $100M ARR
54:21 – The biggest goal for 2026
57:11 – Voice costs 1000× more than text
01:02:04 – How Smallest AI cracked large enterprises

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This video is for informational purposes only. The views expressed are those of the individuals quoted and do not constitute professional advice.

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