Chief Marketing Officer at @LightspeedVP, previously Partner at @Redpoint and Chief Digital Officer at @Nasdaq
Greenwich Village, Manhattan
Joined July 2008
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today i'm joining @lightspeedvp as Chief Marketing Officer.
after doing thousands of IPOs at Nasdaq and building Redpoint's exceptional platform team, i've learned:
it's not just one launch video. it's the relentless drumbeat that get you heard.
and that's what i'm here to build for Lightspeed and our founders.
let's make some noise!
Josh Machiz retweeted
was a blast to chat about agent swarms, model interpretability, and why you should read “The Prize” right now with @Machiz!
With agents taking on more of the work, hackers could attempt more breaches at lower cost, including against systems that would otherwise be tedious to navigate.
Lightspeed Partner @theamberyang joins @Machiz to discuss what this means for cybersecurity in the age of agents.
More on Lightwork this week:
→ “Neural Networks Are Already Clean”: @nickcammarata (@GoodfireAI) argues that models are more interpretable than previously thought. Amber breaks down the working hypothesis and why it matters for AI safety.
→ The AI Cost Race: DeepSeek and MiniMax released updates focused on efficiency. Josh and Amber discuss how cost could influence US companies’ model choices and what that could mean for reliance on Chinese open models.
→ Always-on Agents: Claude Duet enters research preview. Josh and Amber discuss what they’re comfortable sharing with personal agents and whether the apps people already use give some companies a head start.
Full episode below.
0:00 Welcome to Lightwork
1:03 AI Agents Hack 100+ Websites
4:09 Hackers Sabotage Supermarket Refrigeration Systems
5:16 Using AI to Make Smart TVs Dumb Again
7:01 Goodfire: Are Neural Networks Easier to Read?
13:29 DeepSeek & MiniMax Race on Cost
18:00 The Personal Agent Race: Duet, Muse, Instinct
22:59 Amber Yang’s Request for Startups
we’re entering the era of the personal ai stack.
i already use different agents for different jobs. each has its own strengths, quirks, and use cases.
i’m more interested in what happens when these agents move from our work lives and into our personal lives. who is giving ai their calendars and dinner plans.
talked all about this on lightwork with @theamberyang.
she uses agents extensively for work, but is more hesitant about sharing personal data. that made me wonder whether other people would draw the line in the opposite place.
with Claude Duet entering research preview, does using Claude throughout your workday make you more comfortable letting it into your personal life, too?
tune in below.
With agents taking on more of the work, hackers could attempt more breaches at lower cost, including against systems that would otherwise be tedious to navigate.
Lightspeed Partner @theamberyang joins @Machiz to discuss what this means for cybersecurity in the age of agents.
More on Lightwork this week:
→ “Neural Networks Are Already Clean”: @nickcammarata (@GoodfireAI) argues that models are more interpretable than previously thought. Amber breaks down the working hypothesis and why it matters for AI safety.
→ The AI Cost Race: DeepSeek and MiniMax released updates focused on efficiency. Josh and Amber discuss how cost could influence US companies’ model choices and what that could mean for reliance on Chinese open models.
→ Always-on Agents: Claude Duet enters research preview. Josh and Amber discuss what they’re comfortable sharing with personal agents and whether the apps people already use give some companies a head start.
Full episode below.
0:00 Welcome to Lightwork
1:03 AI Agents Hack 100+ Websites
4:09 Hackers Sabotage Supermarket Refrigeration Systems
5:16 Using AI to Make Smart TVs Dumb Again
7:01 Goodfire: Are Neural Networks Easier to Read?
13:29 DeepSeek & MiniMax Race on Cost
18:00 The Personal Agent Race: Duet, Muse, Instinct
22:59 Amber Yang’s Request for Startups
AI can dream up thousands of new molecules. but who is actually going to make them?
that’s a major question for the future of drug discovery, and exactly what @warpsciences is tackling.
the team is building an automated chemistry lab in the US to make that process faster and smarter, helping biotech companies turn AI’s ideas into the molecules they need. it’s quite the business model.
@kevinweil and Sol (two of Warp’s co-founders) joined @guruchahal on the investment memo for a fascinating conversation about robots, physical sciences, AI, and how Warp aims to intertwine them.
the strides being made in AI and science continue to amaze me.
While AI has advanced in mathematics, we believe there’s still a major gap in the physical sciences.
@warpsciences co-founders @kevinweil and Solomon Reisberg joined Lightspeed Partner @guruchahal to discuss how their labs could generate the experimental data needed to advance scientific AI.
The company recently emerged from stealth and is building US chemistry labs to make research compounds for biotech and pharma companies.
“First be the hands, then build the nervous system, and then over time become the brain,” says Warp’s CEO Kevin.
The plan starts with expert chemists making molecules for customers. Cameras and sensors would record the work, helping Warp automate tasks and train models to improve how compounds are made.
More capable labs could let researchers pursue ideas for new medicines that time and cost currently put out of reach. The experiments could also produce more evidence for scientific AI to learn from.
Thank you to Kevin and Solomon for joining us!
Full episode below.
0:00 The Future Of Automated Labs
0:43 Introducing Warp Sciences And Founders
1:48 Kevin's Journey And Sol's Background
5:03 Building Warp's Founding Team
10:54 What Is A CRO And How Drug Discovery Works
13:24 The Pain Points: IP, Single Supplier And Geopolitical Risk
15:58 How Warp Is Taking On The Challenge
21:45 Threading The Needle On IP And Data Sharing
25:14 The Future Of Automated Labs, Business Plan And Funding
33:21 Closing Thoughts
i thought lightspeed already traveled at warp speed. guess there's always room for more
welcome to the family @kevinweil @dpatil @manohar_paluria and team!
💥 Introducing Warp Sciences, a new company applying AI and robotics to help the world develop new medicines faster.
We’ve raised a $215M Series A led by @lightspeedvp to bring frontier AI out of the browser and into the lab, and build scientific capacity here in America.
I co-founded Warp with my long-time friend @dpatil, FAIR co-founder @manohar_paluri, and drug hunter Sol Reisberg. The early team is full of incredible people like @bkspears9, who helped achieve Q>1 fusion at LLNL.
Josh Machiz retweeted
AI is knocking on your front door.
Apple unveiled HomeView, a smart display that recognizes household members and brings Siri AI into the home, alongside an updated Apple TV 4K and HomePod mini 2.
On Lightwork, @clairejyz describes trading privacy for more capable agents on her phone. At home, it’s a different story.
“I don’t know if I’m ready to let Instinct or Claude into my home… But am I ready for it to have 24/7 ambient access into my conversations at home and pick up on things?”
She sees Apple’s emphasis on privacy as a potential advantage in earning that invitation.
@Machiz calls HomeView “a wedge into a very old market.” He sees an opening for Apple as other AI companies focus on apps and give the home experience less attention.
Check out the full Lightwork episode below!
If labs set their own benchmarks, who defines the frontier?
We are seeing the top models sit within ~5 points of each other as labs often compete on specific benchmarks, how they sell, and price.
This week on Lightwork:
→ Gemini Argon vs. Muse Wonder: Optimizing for different workflows. Argon leans into legal, business, and finance. Wonder bets on long-horizon agent memory.
→ Apple HomeView: Privacy, personalization, and ambient intelligence could give Apple an opening in the AI-powered home.
→ SpaceX received FCC approval to launch 15,000 satellites in a push to becoming a major mobile carrier in the U.S.
0:00 Welcome to Lightwork
1:04 Meta Muse Wonder vs. Google Gemini 4
5:00 On AI Agent Memory and Focus
6:23 Gemini’s Advanced Reasoning and Task Automation
8:37 Apple HomeView: Siri Comes Home
11:33 AI Privacy and Smart Homes
16:52 SpaceX’s Plans To Be a Carrier
22:12 Updates from the Lightspeed Universe
@clairejyz @Machiz
Josh Machiz retweeted
Booking a flight doesn’t require superintelligence.
Meta and Google have introduced models they describe as frontier, highlighting different strengths.
Meta’s Muse Wonder emphasizes memory and sustained task completion, while Google’s Gemini 4 Argon combines visual understanding, coding, and reasoning.
On Lightwork, @clairejyz questions how those frontier claims are judged. “Everyone’s a frontier when they’re benchmarking against whatever they’re picking and choosing.”
“It does seem like everybody’s benchmaxxing,” @Machiz adds.
For everyday users, the practical test is whether an assistant can remember what they need and finish the task.
“Can you help me book a flight? Can you help me clean up my emails? Those don’t require superintelligence. It requires focus and memory,” says Claire.
Tune in to the full episode of Lightwork!
If labs set their own benchmarks, who defines the frontier?
We are seeing the top models sit within ~5 points of each other as labs often compete on specific benchmarks, how they sell, and price.
This week on Lightwork:
→ Gemini Argon vs. Muse Wonder: Optimizing for different workflows. Argon leans into legal, business, and finance. Wonder bets on long-horizon agent memory.
→ Apple HomeView: Privacy, personalization, and ambient intelligence could give Apple an opening in the AI-powered home.
→ SpaceX received FCC approval to launch 15,000 satellites in a push to becoming a major mobile carrier in the U.S.
0:00 Welcome to Lightwork
1:04 Meta Muse Wonder vs. Google Gemini 4
5:00 On AI Agent Memory and Focus
6:23 Gemini’s Advanced Reasoning and Task Automation
8:37 Apple HomeView: Siri Comes Home
11:33 AI Privacy and Smart Homes
16:52 SpaceX’s Plans To Be a Carrier
22:12 Updates from the Lightspeed Universe
@clairejyz @Machiz
Josh Machiz retweeted
Loved chatting with @alexrkonrad about tough times, running a moonshot in stealth for almost 5 years and what's next for Neko after NY
Neko CEO Hjalmar Nilsonne was licking his wounds after "crash landing" a climate startup. Then he got a fateful DM from Spotify's Daniel Ek
Together, @HjalmarNilsonne and @eldsjal co-founded @Neko, a $7B startup that calls itself "the most valuable hour you can spend on your health."
After years operating in Europe, Neko recently launched in NYC, where it's quickly built a waitlist of 50,000 people, and started work on 3 more locations. Miami, San Francisco and Washington, D.C. are next.
“People sometimes think that there’s some machine, and you go in, and you get a kind of paper receipt telling you if you’re gonna die or not,” Hjalmar tells me. “In reality, it’s the exact opposite.”
On The Upstarts Podcast, Nilsonne talks about the fateful Twitter DM from Ek that got Neko going; why the doctor visit hasn’t changed much in 100 years; and how to keep a startup team motivated while chasing a long-term “moonshot.”
Plus, he shares his Upstart Moment: a bet-the-company pivot driven by an internal memo he wrote, “Free Is Not Enough.”
A big thanks to this season's sponsors @Atlassian and @chargebee for supporting unfiltered founder interviews like this 🫡
CHAPTERS:
00:00 Introduction
01:48 Mapping Your Body In One Hour
03:54 Why The Doctor’s Visit Hasn’t Changed In 100 Years
07:31 Building Four Businesses In One: Devices, Hardware, Software, Clinics
09:22 Breaking Down A Neko Visit First-Hand
12:58 Why Half of Neko’s U.K. Members Never Had A Health Check
16:59 ‘Brutally Efficient With Your Time’: Why Every Second Counts
19:04 Helping Human Doctors, Not Replacing Them
22:40 Delivering Outcomes For the 92% Of Members Not At Risk
26:47 A Climate ‘Crash Landing’ And A DM From Daniel Ek
33:12 Motivating A Team To Chase A Moonshot
37:42 Neko’s Upstart Moment: The ‘Free Is Not Enough’ Memo And Pivot
41:30 Pricing Neko Accessibly For The 99.9%
45:44 What The Tesla Roadster Can Teach Founders About Change
48:33 Space-Age Scan, Old-School Advice: Cut The Coffee
Thanks for watching!
the smart home has been stuck for a decade.
my google home can't keep up with ai agents today, let alone chatgpt voice.
the labs all went after apps and assistants and left the home behind. HomeView is apple walking into that gap.
whether siri can deliver is the whole question. but if it works, the smart home finally gets smart.
If labs set their own benchmarks, who defines the frontier?
We are seeing the top models sit within ~5 points of each other as labs often compete on specific benchmarks, how they sell, and price.
This week on Lightwork:
→ Gemini Argon vs. Muse Wonder: Optimizing for different workflows. Argon leans into legal, business, and finance. Wonder bets on long-horizon agent memory.
→ Apple HomeView: Privacy, personalization, and ambient intelligence could give Apple an opening in the AI-powered home.
→ SpaceX received FCC approval to launch 15,000 satellites in a push to becoming a major mobile carrier in the U.S.
0:00 Welcome to Lightwork
1:04 Meta Muse Wonder vs. Google Gemini 4
5:00 On AI Agent Memory and Focus
6:23 Gemini’s Advanced Reasoning and Task Automation
8:37 Apple HomeView: Siri Comes Home
11:33 AI Privacy and Smart Homes
16:52 SpaceX’s Plans To Be a Carrier
22:12 Updates from the Lightspeed Universe
@clairejyz @Machiz
Josh Machiz retweeted
Neko CEO Hjalmar Nilsonne was licking his wounds after "crash landing" a climate startup. Then he got a fateful DM from Spotify's Daniel Ek
Together, @HjalmarNilsonne and @eldsjal co-founded @Neko, a $7B startup that calls itself "the most valuable hour you can spend on your health."
After years operating in Europe, Neko recently launched in NYC, where it's quickly built a waitlist of 50,000 people, and started work on 3 more locations. Miami, San Francisco and Washington, D.C. are next.
“People sometimes think that there’s some machine, and you go in, and you get a kind of paper receipt telling you if you’re gonna die or not,” Hjalmar tells me. “In reality, it’s the exact opposite.”
On The Upstarts Podcast, Nilsonne talks about the fateful Twitter DM from Ek that got Neko going; why the doctor visit hasn’t changed much in 100 years; and how to keep a startup team motivated while chasing a long-term “moonshot.”
Plus, he shares his Upstart Moment: a bet-the-company pivot driven by an internal memo he wrote, “Free Is Not Enough.”
A big thanks to this season's sponsors @Atlassian and @chargebee for supporting unfiltered founder interviews like this 🫡
CHAPTERS:
00:00 Introduction
01:48 Mapping Your Body In One Hour
03:54 Why The Doctor’s Visit Hasn’t Changed In 100 Years
07:31 Building Four Businesses In One: Devices, Hardware, Software, Clinics
09:22 Breaking Down A Neko Visit First-Hand
12:58 Why Half of Neko’s U.K. Members Never Had A Health Check
16:59 ‘Brutally Efficient With Your Time’: Why Every Second Counts
19:04 Helping Human Doctors, Not Replacing Them
22:40 Delivering Outcomes For the 92% Of Members Not At Risk
26:47 A Climate ‘Crash Landing’ And A DM From Daniel Ek
33:12 Motivating A Team To Chase A Moonshot
37:42 Neko’s Upstart Moment: The ‘Free Is Not Enough’ Memo And Pivot
41:30 Pricing Neko Accessibly For The 99.9%
45:44 What The Tesla Roadster Can Teach Founders About Change
48:33 Space-Age Scan, Old-School Advice: Cut The Coffee
Thanks for watching!
when the guest's bow tie matches the midcentury set, you know it's going to be a good conversation
@Farzad_MD with @BrentonFargnoli and @GalymImanbayev on Venture Doctors
Healthcare’s last technology revolution didn’t prevent patient strokes. New incentives might help.
@Farzad_MD has been working to improve health outcomes like reducing the stroke rate for much of his career in medicine and public health.
He believed that converting to electronic health records (EHR) would help, but after transitioning physicians over, the numbers didn’t change.
Farzad co-founded @aledadeaco to financially reward higher value care.
He joined Partners Dr. @BrentonFargnoli and Dr. @GalymImanbayev on Venture Doctors to discuss the company he’s building and his mission to help independent primary care physicians thrive.
Farzad dives into how Aledade is leveraging AI, why he thinks founders in their forties are underestimated, and why he believes the real differentiator in healthcare AI is trust rather than capability.
0:00 Why There's No Billing Code for Preventing a Stroke
7:52 Public Health Surveillance to the National EHR Rollout
15:01 Will AI Just Serve Fee for Service?
19:25 Inside Aledade and Its Three Flywheels
23:00 When AI Becomes a Commodity, Trust Is an Edge
30:59 Rapid Fire on Bow Ties and Overrated AI
$100m arr looks good in times square.
huge congrats to @skildai. thx @nasdaq team for giving this milestone the spotlight it deserves. xitter.cf/SkildAI/status/2110116…
Josh Machiz retweeted
It’s a bird. It’s a plane. It’s your DoorDash on a drone.
At Dash Forward, DoorDash unveiled its own delivery drone and opened a beta waitlist for an AI ordering experience over text.
“My lunch order from DoorDash is pretty much the same. I eat the same thing every day… Does making it conversational make you try new things?” @Machiz asks.
A personal AI agent could also change where the order goes: to DoorDash, Uber Eats, or directly to a restaurant.
“Being able to actually have the connection with the end user is so important,” says @AggShaurya.
Watch the full segment below.
Two new open-weight models in two days.
Lightspeed portfolio companies Reflection and Mistral unveiled Beam and Large 4, all striving to bring greater control, customization, and efficiency to enterprise AI.
More on Lightwork from @Machiz and guest co-host, Partner @AggShaurya:
→ DoorDash builds its own delivery drone and AI ordering agent.
→ Instinct brings agents into group chats as Meta and Sierra develop new rules for agent access.
→ Oura postpones its IPO despite reported strong demand.
00:00 Open Models, Drone Delivery, and AI Agents
01:08 Mistral's Le Chonk Meme and Naming Story
02:33 What Open-Weight Models Mean for the AI Race
03:56 When to Consider Open Models Over Frontier AI
05:30 Why Open Models Compete on Cost Efficiency
06:35 Mixture of Experts Explained
07:32 Is Reflection the DeepSeek of the West?
07:58 Why DoorDash Is Building Its Own Delivery Drones
09:38 DoorDash's Competitive Edge
12:28 DoorDash's Moat Against AI Agents
14:34 Personal AI Agents in Group Chats
16:08 How AI Agents Could Change Consumer Spending
17:26 Meta, Sierra, and the Future of Personal AI Agents
19:56 Oura Postpones Its IPO
22:13 Lightspeed Universe
Josh Machiz retweeted
What brings a doctor into venture capital?
Lightspeed Partners Dr. @BrentonFargnoli and Dr. @GalymImanbayev share what drew them to healthcare and how those experiences inform their work today.
Galym recalls following his father on rural medical trips to underserved communities in Kazakhstan.
Brenton explains how his clinical experience led him toward venture: “There’s got to be better technology to help these physicians. Seeing venture as a vehicle for that has been really, really exciting.”
Get to know the hosts of Venture Doctors below.
New episode this Thursday!
open weights: @reflection_ai’s Beam, @MistralAI’s Large 4
open skies: DoorDash drones
open question: if your agent orders your food, what is DoorDash’s moat?
fun having @AggShaurya in the co-host chair for this one
Two new open-weight models in two days.
Lightspeed portfolio companies Reflection and Mistral unveiled Beam and Large 4, all striving to bring greater control, customization, and efficiency to enterprise AI.
More on Lightwork from @Machiz and guest co-host, Partner @AggShaurya:
→ DoorDash builds its own delivery drone and AI ordering agent.
→ Instinct brings agents into group chats as Meta and Sierra develop new rules for agent access.
→ Oura postpones its IPO despite reported strong demand.
00:00 Open Models, Drone Delivery, and AI Agents
01:08 Mistral's Le Chonk Meme and Naming Story
02:33 What Open-Weight Models Mean for the AI Race
03:56 When to Consider Open Models Over Frontier AI
05:30 Why Open Models Compete on Cost Efficiency
06:35 Mixture of Experts Explained
07:32 Is Reflection the DeepSeek of the West?
07:58 Why DoorDash Is Building Its Own Delivery Drones
09:38 DoorDash's Competitive Edge
12:28 DoorDash's Moat Against AI Agents
14:34 Personal AI Agents in Group Chats
16:08 How AI Agents Could Change Consumer Spending
17:26 Meta, Sierra, and the Future of Personal AI Agents
19:56 Oura Postpones Its IPO
22:13 Lightspeed Universe
Josh Machiz retweeted
Huge milestone for @AmcaInc and American engineering!
Amca has secured a unique partnership with the U.S. Army to re-engineer and produce critical components. It’s the Army’s first Active Capability Gap award.
By tackling the engineering challenges behind critical supply chain bottlenecks, Amca is helping rebuild America’s industrial capabilities. The work will address missing engineering data and outdated designs to make essential parts easier to produce.
Congratulations to @jaimalik and the entire Amca team!
cc @ravi_lsvp, @lightspeedvp
Amca has been awarded a contract by the @USArmy, establishing an enterprise-wide partnership with Army Materiel Command for rapid engineering, qualification, and component production.
This is the first partnership of its kind, designed to increase readiness for a priority missile system by re-engineering and improving manufacturability of critical components and subsystems.
We're grateful for the Army’s trust, urgency, and leadership, and look forward to re-engineering American industry together.
welcome to lightspeed Adil 👋
So excited to welcome Adil Haque as Partner and Head of Capital Partnerships at Lightspeed.
We’ve spent most of 2026 getting to know Adil and came away more impressed each time we met. 20+ years at Apax and EQT, where AUM grew from $25B to $300B+ during his tenure. A builder with the rare gift of listening closely to what each LP partner needs.
Welcome aboard!
wsj.com/pro/venture-capital/…
meta needs to kill the meta ai app and fold the whole thing into muse. you don’t need two consumer ai apps competing for attention when one already has the cultural momentum.
it's incredible what @arena has built.
what started as a research experiment has become one of the most important benchmarks in AI.
today they announced a $200M Series B. loved having @istoica05 on Lightwork back in July to explain how it all works:
Today, we're announcing our Series B: $200M at a $3.1B valuation, and the release of Arena's Alignment Index.
AI is advancing faster than our ability to evaluate it. The world needs a neutral third party to measure how safe and aligned AI actually is once it's in the hands of real people. That's the role Arena is stepping into today.
The Alignment Index is built from real-world agent traces, starting with three signals: Unauthorized Action, False Attribution, and Deceptive Completion, with results for over 20 frontier models launching today.
Hear more from our CEO @ml_angelopoulos below, and read the full breakdown, and more details about our company growth in thread.
This funding will allow us to go further on safety signals, agentic capabilities, and modalities. It will also allow us to grow the company to match the scale of our mission. Today, we’re still a nimble team of 90, and we're looking for people to join us across research, product, engineering, and more. Come build with us.
As AI gets more capable and autonomous, understanding how well it can safely and effectively work for people only matters more. That's what Arena is built to measure and advance.
Thank you to our community, our investors, and everyone building with us!
Take a look at our open roles if you want to join us (link in bio).