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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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
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!
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!
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!
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.
Josh Machiz retweeted
Choosing an AI assistant is starting to feel a little like choosing a pet.
@clairejyz calls it “the Tamagotchification of tech.”
OpenAI unveiled Dots, always-on agents with their own cloud computers that can use browsers and connected apps to complete tasks. As assistants learn your preferences and get things done, personality could become another reason to keep the same one around.
@Machiz asks, “Do you want the smartest intelligence or do you want the one that makes you want to give it a hug?”
Watch the full segment below.
AI could radically change how people access government resources. The US is starting with a chatbot.
This week on Lightwork:
→ America.gov is now live. Designed as a front door to the federal government, the chatbot aims to make information easier to find across 29,000+ government websites.
→ Leaders across technology and government gathered for lunch at the White House to discuss the state of AI and what “Superintelligence” could mean for the US public.
→ OpenAI launched over twenty features at DevDay, including a system of “always-on” agents called Dots. Is consumer tech headed toward personal background workers?
→ SpaceX’s Starship reached orbit on Flight 14 and deployed its first operational payload, twenty-six Starlink V3 satellites.
Full video below.
@clairejyz @Machiz
Josh Machiz retweeted
What if AI could handle the paperwork you’ve been putting off?
“Being able to file a passport online and have it be done through a chatbot just feels like the future,” says @Machiz.
That’s part of the longer-term ambition for America.gov, which adds an AI search-and-answer layer over roughly 29,000 government websites.
“That is the value of AI: it’s able to take a lot of information and make it navigable and searchable,” shares @clairejyz.
Meanwhile, AI leaders signed a voluntary safety accord at the White House as Congress weighs its next steps on AI oversight.
Watch the full segment below.
AI could radically change how people access government resources. The US is starting with a chatbot.
This week on Lightwork:
→ America.gov is now live. Designed as a front door to the federal government, the chatbot aims to make information easier to find across 29,000+ government websites.
→ Leaders across technology and government gathered for lunch at the White House to discuss the state of AI and what “Superintelligence” could mean for the US public.
→ OpenAI launched over twenty features at DevDay, including a system of “always-on” agents called Dots. Is consumer tech headed toward personal background workers?
→ SpaceX’s Starship reached orbit on Flight 14 and deployed its first operational payload, twenty-six Starlink V3 satellites.
Full video below.
@clairejyz @Machiz
Josh Machiz retweeted
Congrats to @reflection_ai on the launch of Beam: Reflection’s first open-weight model.
501B total parameters, 23B active, built for coding, reasoning, and agentic workloads.
We believe this is a meaningful step towards more accessible AI for enterprises, public sector, and developers. We’re incredibly proud to support @MishaLaskin, @real_ioannis and the team.
CC: @ravirajjain @JamesAlcorn94
Introducing Beam: a highly efficient agentic open model with 501B total parameters and 23B active.
- Frontier reasoning efficiency
- Advances the Western open frontier on coding & agentic tasks
- Trained end-to-end from scratch
Full weights release this month.
Learn more about Beam: reflection.ai/beam
Josh Machiz retweeted
Incredible milestone for the Western open-weight ecosystem!!!
@reflection_ai announced Beam - a 23b A / 501b MoE model that advances the Western open-weight frontier on coding and agentic tasks, competitive with GLM 5.2 and approaching Qwen 3.8 Max in capability with a 4x smaller size.
All this with 4x more efficiency at inference than open models with similar capability.
A strong pretrained base model and one of the largest sustained RL runs documented in open source.
And the team did all this in less than a year!
Congratulations to @MishaLaskin, @real_ioannis and the entire Reflection team
cc @lightspeedvp, @ravi_lsvp, @JamesAlcorn94
Introducing Beam: a highly efficient agentic open model with 501B total parameters and 23B active.
- Frontier reasoning efficiency
- Advances the Western open frontier on coding & agentic tasks
- Trained end-to-end from scratch
Full weights release this month.
Learn more about Beam: reflection.ai/beam
Josh Machiz retweeted
Today is the last day to submit nominations for the 2026-2027 Cyber 60 list.
Cyber 60 is an annual report presented by Lightspeed, in partnership with @FortuneMagazine and sponsor @AWScloud, spotlighting who we believe to be 60 of the most innovative and fastest-growing companies in cybersecurity.
Today, AI continues to reshape the rules of cybersecurity as more startups answer the opportunity.
Nominate your company today: fortune.com/form/cyber-60-20…
Josh Machiz retweeted
More than half of U.S. adults who have never used AI chatbots cite concerns about their personal data as a major reason.
For shopping agents, that raises a practical question: what information can an assistant access, and which purchases still need your approval?
“We've all given so much data to Meta, I feel like people are concerned about giving more of their data to the company.”
@clairejyz on Lightwork.
The newest AI model can’t text back.
TypeSafe released Jev, their “system one” model that doesn’t respond with paragraphs, only probabilities. While it can still be wrong, it can’t wander outside the answer schema the way a chat-based LLM can.
Will frontier labs take notice and start building their own?
More on Lightwork this week:
→ Amazon bans Meta Muse from their website to guardrail its $68B ads business, while storefront-style platforms like Shopify welcome agent use for traffic.
→ Skild AI trained its robots on 140 years of simulated self-play soccer, showing that physical self-play could enable robots to far exceed human capability.
Full video below.
00:00 Welcome to Lightwork
01:07 Jev: The AI Model That Doesn't Chat
06:39 Real-World Uses for Jev
9:56 Amazon Blocks Meta's Muse
13:23 Why Shopify Is Embracing AI Shopping Agents
21:22 Why Meta's Muse Took Off
23:07 Muse's Safety & Privacy Approach
26:15 Behind the Scenes at Meta Connect
27:24 Skild AI: Physical Self-Play
@clairejyz @Machiz
Josh Machiz retweeted
Nominations are now open for the 4th annual Cyber 60 list.
Cyber 60 is an annual report presented by Lightspeed, in partnership with @FortuneMagazine and sponsor @AWScloud, spotlighting some of the most innovative and fastest-growing companies in cybersecurity.
The list recognizes teams building to advance next-gen infrastructure, AI security, and how we approach threat detection. 60 teams across early, mid, and late stages.
Nominate your company today. Applications close on October 4th: fortune.com/form/cyber-60-20…
Josh Machiz retweeted
A cold DM from Daniel Ek and suddenly the thing you swore off becomes your life's work. Best founder stories almost never go according to plan. I'm proud to be an investor in @Neko
xitter.cf/HjalmarNilsonne/status…
In 2018, the absolute last thing I wanted to be working on was healthcare despite coming from a family of doctors.
Then I received a DM from Daniel Ek out of the blue to work on a company together, just as Spotify was getting ready to IPO and my previous startup was winding down.
This is the backstory of how @eldsjal convinced me to change my mind on healthcare and start Neko together.
Thanks for having me in the studio, @clairejyz & @Machiz!
Josh Machiz retweeted
Truly playing the long game….it’s been inspiring to see how deliberately and substantively you and @eldsjal have approached reimagining and building the future of healthcare; questioning everything and staying true to an innovation roadmap that is driven by an ideal end-state for improving everyone’s health, not by delivering superficial ‘quick wins’. What’s most exciting is that the scan is just the starting point!
Heyo! After 8 years of R&D and learnings from 100,000+ scans in Europe, @Neko is finally live in the US!
Our clinic in NYC features our new scan room, fitted out with the latest generation of our medical devices (FDA cleared) ✌️
The Neko Lab can now analyze 50+ blood biomarkers with every scan, with results delivered within the same 1 hour visit.
25,000+ people are already on the waitlist and we just started inviting our earliest supporters to book.
Josh Machiz retweeted
Today, we’re deepening our partnership with @MistralAI by participating in its Series D.
When we first partnered with @arthurmensch, @tlacroix6, and @GuillaumeLample for Mistral’s inception round, we believed open models could give enterprises more choice and control over how they use AI.
Fast forward to today, those needs now extend beyond the model. As AI moves into critical workflows, large enterprises and governments increasingly need to shape models around their own knowledge, deploy them within their security requirements, and control where and how they run.
Mistral now spans that full stack, pairing enterprise AI deployment with an AI cloud on owned infrastructure. Customers can train models around proprietary knowledge, run agents in production, and use Mistral’s infrastructure for training and inference. Its teams work directly alongside customers from the first use case through production.
Proud to have backed Arthur, Timothée, Guillaume, and the Mistral team in every round since inception as they build AI that the world’s largest organizations can make their own.
CC: James Ephrati, @ravi_lsvp, @antoine_moyroud
