Buy One Founder Summit Ticket, Get a Second for Free. Register now.
Founder Summit begins Nov. 4, 9:00 a.m. ET. Get your pass savings & deals before it starts. REGISTER HERE.
Building on open source AI? Hugging Face’s policy chief on the costs, risks, and trade-offs
Open source models are becoming more mainstream as enterprises, governments and startups alike rely on the promise of lower costs, more control, and more flexibility. But as increasingly capable models become more freely available, how do companies capture value? And with Chinese open models gaining ground, can American players keep up?
On this episode of TechCrunch’s Equity podcast, Rebecca Bellan caught up with Irene Solaiman , Chief Policy Officer and SVP of Strategy at Hugging Face, about what startups need to know before building on open models, from choosing the right tools and infrastructure to navigating the trade-offs shaping the future of open AI.
Listen to the full episode to hear about:
Why startups, enterprises, and governments are switching to open AI models to cut costs, and when it makes less sense to use the most powerful models.
Who makes money when the models are free to use, and whether the companies building them can capture the value they create.
Why the U.S. may need deep-pocketed players like Nvidia to build an open frontier model that can compete with China’s, and what’s at stake if Chinese models become the global default.
How recent attacks on open AI platforms are raising a difficult question: how do you keep an open ecosystem secure without closing it off?
Subscribe to Equity on YouTube , Apple Podcasts , Overcast , Spotify and all the casts. You also can follow Equity on X and Threads , at @EquityPod.
Theresa Loconsolo is an audio producer at TechCrunch focusing on Equity, the network’s flagship podcast. Before joining TechCrunch in 2022, she was one of 2 producers at a four-station conglomerate where she wrote, recorded, voiced and edited content, and engineered live performances and interviews from guests like lovelytheband. Theresa is based in New Jersey and holds a bachelors degree in Communication from Monmouth University. You can contact or verify outreach from Theresa by emailing [email protected] . View Bio Rebecca Bellan Senior Reporter
Rebecca Bellan is a senior reporter at TechCrunch where she covers the business, policy, and emerging trends shaping artificial intelligence. Her work has also appeared in Forbes, Bloomberg, The Atlantic, The Daily Beast, and other publications.
You can contact or verify outreach from Rebecca by emailing [email protected] or via encrypted message at rebeccabellan.491 on Signal.
Buy One Pass, Get a Second Free Cover more ground at TechCrunch’s ultimate founder bootcamp of the year by bringing your co-founder or partner for free Book before the BOGO deal expires
Most Popular
New York City’s Mamdani criticizes Madison Square Garden owner over surveillance tech Zack Whittaker
Anthropic warns that it’s very close to RSI capability, aka self-building AI Julie Bort
New York Times and other outlets sue web browser Brave over alleged content scraping Rebecca Bellan
Ninja’s first-ever microwave just replaced two of my kitchen appliances at once Lauren Forristal
Anthropic expected to receive high ‘junk’ rating from credit agencies following IPO, FT report says Lucas Ropek
Google’s first data center satellite is online and writing poetry Tim Fernholz
As search traffic dries up, Reddit announces it’s shifting to a logged-in experience Sarah Perez
Latest Equity Episodes
Startups Building on open source AI? Hugging Face’s policy chief on the costs, risks, and trade-offs Theresa Loconsolo
Startups The ‘Vulnpocalypse’ is coming for the internet’s aging code, says Wiz’s CTO Theresa Loconsolo
Venture The PHP Armageddon reminds us that the internet is held together by glue and dreams Theresa Loconsolo
Meta and Instinct are racing to build your AI assistant. Wabi has a different idea. Rebecca Bellan