Best Josh Lott Podcasts (2025)

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The Hip-Hop Scholar: Reading the Bible Like an Ancient with guest Hakeem Bradley 1:04:40

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7d ago1:04:40

1:04:40

In this episode, Peter and Malissa chat with biblical scholar Hakeem Bradley about his journey from the Five Percent Nation to New Testament PhD studies and his recent work at Bible Project. Hakeem shares his passion for reading Genesis through ancient eyes, explaining how biblical authors "sampled" creation stories like hip-hop artists sample clas…

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Building the Internet of Agents with Vijoy Pandey - #737 56:13

13d ago56:13

56:13

Today, we're joined by Vijoy Pandey, SVP and general manager at Outshift by Cisco to discuss a foundational challenge for the enterprise: how do we make specialized agents from different vendors collaborate effectively? As companies like Salesforce, Workday, and Microsoft all develop their own agentic systems, integrating them creates a complex, pr…

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Sorrow and Joy: Community, Faith, and Life After Injury with guest Cameron Horner 56:12

14d ago56:12

56:12

In this powerful episode, host Peter Voorhees and co-host Malissa Bertella sit down with Cameron Horner, who shares his remarkable journey of faith following a life-altering spinal cord injury at age 18. With striking honesty and grace, Cameron recounts how God met him underwater during the accident that left him paralyzed, and how this moment of c…

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LLMs for Equities Feature Forecasting at Two Sigma with Ben Wellington - #736 59:31

20d ago59:31

59:31

Today, we're joined by Ben Wellington, deputy head of feature forecasting at Two Sigma. We dig into the team’s end-to-end approach to leveraging AI in equities feature forecasting, covering how they identify and create features, collect and quantify historical data, and build predictive models to forecast market behavior and asset prices for tradin…

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Red Bull Spritzers and Open Gates: The Messy Beauty of Real Community 55:17

21d ago55:17

55:17

What does it really take to build authentic community where people actually belong? In this honest conversation, Peter, Josh, and Malissa explore the beautiful mess of real relationships—from opening your gate to neighbors who don't look like you, to sharing Red Bull spritzers with guarded teenagers, to navigating church hurt and disagreements with…

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Zero-Shot Auto-Labeling: The End of Annotation for Computer Vision with Jason Corso - #735 56:45

27d ago56:45

56:45

Today, we're joined by Jason Corso, co-founder of Voxel51 and professor at the University of Michigan, to explore automated labeling in computer vision. Jason introduces FiftyOne, an open-source platform for visualizing datasets, analyzing models, and improving data quality. We focus on Voxel51’s recent research report, “Zero-shot auto-labeling riv…

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Finding Wholeness: Story, Leadership and Authentic Connection with guest Annie Horner 52:40

28d ago52:40

52:40

Join us for a compelling conversation with Annie Horner, a counseling associate who reveals how understanding our personal stories can transform leadership and relationships. Annie shares powerful insights on breaking free from isolation, bridging the gap between biblical wisdom and mental health, and finding authentic connection in a performance-d…

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Grokking, Generalization Collapse, and the Dynamics of Training Deep Neural Networks with Charles Martin - #734 1:25:21

1M ago1:25:21

1:25:21

Today, we're joined by Charles Martin, founder of Calculation Consulting, to discuss Weight Watcher, an open-source tool for analyzing and improving Deep Neural Networks (DNNs) based on principles from theoretical physics. We explore the foundations of the Heavy-Tailed Self-Regularization (HTSR) theory that underpins it, which combines random matri…

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From Acts 29 to Anglicanism with our guest Fr. Rob Steinbach 55:33

1M ago55:33

55:33

In this vulnerable and heartfelt conversation, Peter Voorhees sits down with Father Rob Steinbach, who shares his journey from Acts 29 church planter to founding Shalom Anglican in Silverdale, WA. Father Rob opens up about his spiritual dissatisfaction that led to more contemplative practices, his disconnect with personality-driven ministry, and th…

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Google I/O 2025 Special Edition - #733 26:21

1M ago26:21

26:21

Today, I’m excited to share a special crossover edition of the podcast recorded live from Google I/O 2025! In this episode, I join Shawn Wang aka Swyx from the Latent Space Podcast, to interview Logan Kilpatrick and Shrestha Basu Mallick, PMs at Google DeepMind working on AI Studio and the Gemini API, along with Kwindla Kramer, CEO of Daily and cre…

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Hope That Transforms Community: A reflection on our conversation with Dr. Chan Hellman 29:25

1M ago29:25

29:25

In this episode, hosts Peter, Josh, and Malissa discuss their conversation with Dr. Chan Hellman about the science of hope. They explore how hope requires goals, agency, and willpower—elements that can be shared within community. The hosts emphasize that the church is uniquely positioned to foster hope, especially for those in survival mode. They h…

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RAG Risks: Why Retrieval-Augmented LLMs are Not Safer with Sebastian Gehrmann - #732 57:09

2M ago57:09

57:09

Today, we're joined by Sebastian Gehrmann, head of responsible AI in the Office of the CTO at Bloomberg, to discuss AI safety in retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) systems and generative AI in high-stakes domains like financial services. We explore how RAG, contrary to some expectations, can inadvertently degrade model safety. We cover examples o…

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Hope as a Framework for Flourishing with guest Dr. Chan Hellman 1:01:40

2M ago1:01:40

1:01:40

In this powerful episode, host Peter Voorhees sits down with Dr. Chan Hellman, Director of The Hope Research Center at the University of Oklahoma, to explore the transformative science of hope. Dr. Hellman shares how hope functions not merely as a feeling but as a powerful framework that can be taught and cultivated, especially in the face of traum…

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From Prompts to Policies: How RL Builds Better AI Agents with Mahesh Sathiamoorthy - #731 1:01:25

2M ago1:01:25

1:01:25

Today, we're joined by Mahesh Sathiamoorthy, co-founder and CEO of Bespoke Labs, to discuss how reinforcement learning (RL) is reshaping the way we build custom agents on top of foundation models. Mahesh highlights the crucial role of data curation, evaluation, and error analysis in model performance, and explains why RL offers a more robust altern…

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The Wounded Healer: Finding Strength in Vulnerability 48:08

2M ago48:08

48:08

In this episode of "Old Paths New Steps," hosts Peter Voorhees, Josh Lott, and Malissa Bertella explore the powerful concept of the wounded healer. The conversation examines how our personal wounds and struggles can become sources of ministry and healing for others when properly integrated into our stories. The hosts share personal experiences of u…

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How OpenAI Builds AI Agents That Think and Act with Josh Tobin - #730 1:07:27

2M ago1:07:27

1:07:27

Today, we're joined by Josh Tobin, member of technical staff at OpenAI, to discuss the company’s approach to building AI agents. We cover OpenAI's three agentic offerings—Deep Research for comprehensive web research, Operator for website navigation, and Codex CLI for local code execution. We explore OpenAI’s shift from simple LLM workflows to reaso…

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Church History, Power, and Renewal: A reflection on our episode with Dr. Jerry Sittser 28:08

2M ago28:08

28:08

In this episode, hosts Peter, Josh, and Malissa discuss their conversation with theologian Dr. Jerry Sittser. They explore how monasteries historically served their communities rather than existing in isolation, examine the relationship between church and state, and discuss how the church's true power comes from the Holy Spirit rather than politica…

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CTIBench: Evaluating LLMs in Cyber Threat Intelligence with Nidhi Rastogi - #729 56:18

2M ago56:18

56:18

Today, we're joined by Nidhi Rastogi, assistant professor at Rochester Institute of Technology to discuss Cyber Threat Intelligence (CTI), focusing on her recent project CTIBench—a benchmark for evaluating LLMs on real-world CTI tasks. Nidhi explains the evolution of AI in cybersecurity, from rule-based systems to LLMs that accelerate analysis by p…

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The Role and the Gift of the Church in Challenging Times with guest Dr. Jerry Sittser 1:00:48

2M ago1:00:48

1:00:48

In this episode, hosts Peter and Malissa welcome distinguished theologian, scholar, and author Dr. Jerry Sittser to explore Christianity's resilience through history's darkest moments. Dr. Sittser shares how the Benedictine monastic movement emerged during societal collapse and natural disasters in the 6th century, quietly preserving knowledge and …

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Generative Benchmarking with Kelly Hong - #728 54:17

2M ago54:17

54:17

In this episode, Kelly Hong, a researcher at Chroma, joins us to discuss "Generative Benchmarking," a novel approach to evaluating retrieval systems, like RAG applications, using synthetic data. Kelly explains how traditional benchmarks like MTEB fail to represent real-world query patterns and how embedding models that perform well on public benchm…

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Sacred Spaces as Safe Places 58:53

3M ago58:53

58:53

In this episode of Old Paths, New Steps, hosts Josh, Pete, and Malissa explore the concept of sacred spaces as safe places. They journey from the Garden of Eden through biblical history to modern churches, examining what makes a space truly sacred. The conversation delves into how vulnerability, accountability, and cherishing others are essential e…

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Exploring the Biology of LLMs with Circuit Tracing with Emmanuel Ameisen - #727 1:34:06

3M ago1:34:06

1:34:06

In this episode, Emmanuel Ameisen, a research engineer at Anthropic, returns to discuss two recent papers: "Circuit Tracing: Revealing Language Model Computational Graphs" and "On the Biology of a Large Language Model." Emmanuel explains how his team developed mechanistic interpretability methods to understand the internal workings of Claude by rep…

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Finding Community as Misfits: Reflecting on our conversation with Dr. Gregory Coles 27:01

3M ago27:01

27:01

In this thoughtful follow-up conversation, hosts Peter Voorhees, Malissa Bertella, and Josh Lott unpack their interview with Dr. Gregory Coles, reflecting on the beauty of embracing our "misfittedness" within authentic Christian community. The hosts share personal stories of awkwardness and not fitting neatly into expected boxes, while celebrating …

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Teaching LLMs to Self-Reflect with Reinforcement Learning with Maohao Shen - #726 51:45

3M ago51:45

51:45

Today, we're joined by Maohao Shen, PhD student at MIT to discuss his paper, “Satori: Reinforcement Learning with Chain-of-Action-Thought Enhances LLM Reasoning via Autoregressive Search.” We dig into how Satori leverages reinforcement learning to improve language model reasoning—enabling model self-reflection, self-correction, and exploration of a…

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The Power of Resilience Through Community with guest Dr. Gregory Coles 1:03:16

3M ago1:03:16

1:03:16

In this episode of Old Paths, New Steps, host Peter Voorhees welcomes author and speaker Dr. Gregory Coles. They explore the power of resilience through community, discussing how genuine connections help us navigate life's challenges. Greg shares insights from his personal journey as a celibate gay Christian, reflecting on unexpected friendships an…

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Waymo's Foundation Model for Autonomous Driving with Drago Anguelov - #725 1:09:07

3M ago1:09:07

1:09:07

Today, we're joined by Drago Anguelov, head of AI foundations at Waymo, for a deep dive into the role of foundation models in autonomous driving. Drago shares how Waymo is leveraging large-scale machine learning, including vision-language models and generative AI techniques to improve perception, planning, and simulation for its self-driving vehicl…

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Embracing Trauma-Informed Ministry: Reflecting on our conversation with Andrea Corbridge 29:08

3M ago29:08

29:08

In this follow-up episode, hosts Peter Voorhees, Malissa Bertella, and Josh Lott discuss key insights from their conversation with Andrea Corbridge about implementing trauma-informed care in children's ministry. They explore the value of focusing on resilience over trauma, the importance of presence and connection before content, and how creating s…

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Dynamic Token Merging for Efficient Byte-level Language Models with Julie Kallini - #724 50:32

3M ago50:32

50:32

Today, we're joined by Julie Kallini, PhD student at Stanford University to discuss her recent papers, “MrT5: Dynamic Token Merging for Efficient Byte-level Language Models” and “Mission: Impossible Language Models.” For the MrT5 paper, we explore the importance and failings of tokenization in large language models—including inefficient compression…

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Beyond Behavior: Trauma-Informed Care in Faith Communities with guest Andrea Corbridge 51:22

3M ago51:22

51:22

In this illuminating conversation, host Peter Voorhees and co-host Malissa Bertella welcome Andrea Corbridge to explore how trauma-informed care has transformed children's ministry at City Chapel of Bremerton. Andrea shares powerful stories of moving from behavior-focused approaches to relationship-centered care that honors each child's dignity, in…

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Scaling Up Test-Time Compute with Latent Reasoning with Jonas Geiping - #723 58:38

4M ago58:38

58:38

Today, we're joined by Jonas Geiping, research group leader at Ellis Institute and the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems to discuss his recent paper, “Scaling up Test-Time Compute with Latent Reasoning: A Recurrent Depth Approach.” This paper proposes a novel language model architecture which uses recurrent depth to enable “thinking in l…

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Laughter, Limbic Lock, and the Science of Connection: Reflecting on our conversation with Dr. Luman Wing 28:54

4M ago28:54

28:54

In this episode of Old Paths, New Steps, hosts Peter, Josh, and Malissa reflect on their enlightening conversation with Dr. Lu Wing about the fascinating intersection of neuroscience, epigenetics, and human connection. They reflect how genuine laughter creates powerful neural bonds (what Dr. Wing calls "limbic lock") and share personal stories of d…

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Imagine while Reasoning in Space: Multimodal Visualization-of-Thought with Chengzu Li - #722 42:11

4M ago42:11

42:11

Today, we're joined by Chengzu Li, PhD student at the University of Cambridge to discuss his recent paper, “Imagine while Reasoning in Space: Multimodal Visualization-of-Thought.” We explore the motivations behind MVoT, its connection to prior work like TopViewRS, and its relation to cognitive science principles such as dual coding theory. We dig i…

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Neuroscience of faith and healing with guest Dr. Luman Wing 58:45

4M ago58:45

58:45

Join us for an enlightening conversation with Dr. Luman Wing, a biochemist, pastor, and chaplain. With his unique blend of scientific expertise and pastoral heart, Dr. Wing explores how our bodies respond to trauma and healing at the molecular level. Discover how the emerging science of epigenetics intersects with building authentic community and f…

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Inside s1: An o1-Style Reasoning Model That Cost Under $50 to Train with Niklas Muennighoff - #721 49:29

4M ago49:29

49:29

Today, we're joined by Niklas Muennighoff, a PhD student at Stanford University, to discuss his paper, “S1: Simple Test-Time Scaling.” We explore the motivations behind S1, as well as how it compares to OpenAI's O1 and DeepSeek's R1 models. We dig into the different approaches to test-time scaling, including parallel and sequential scaling, as well…

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Honest Lament as Worship 57:43

4M ago57:43

57:43

In Episode 5 of Old Paths New Steps, hosts Peter Voorhees, Josh Lott, and Malissa Bertella explore the profound practice of lament and its role in healing and faith. Drawing from the first recorded lament in Genesis to Jesus's expressions of grief, they unpack how lament isn't just about expressing pain—it's about discovering who God truly is in th…

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Accelerating AI Training and Inference with AWS Trainium2 with Ron Diamant - #720 1:07:05

4M ago1:07:05

1:07:05

Today, we're joined by Ron Diamant, chief architect for Trainium at Amazon Web Services, to discuss hardware acceleration for generative AI and the design and role of the recently released Trainium2 chip. We explore the architectural differences between Trainium and GPUs, highlighting its systolic array-based compute design, and how it balances per…

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Past Experiences, Present Grace: Creating Safe Spaces for Growth with guest Rick Griffin 1:02:13

4M ago1:02:13

1:02:13

Join us for a transformative conversation with Rick Griffin, founder of the Neuro Leadership Academy, as he reveals how understanding trauma and the brain's response to past experiences can revolutionize the way we build community. Through engaging examples, including a revealing game of Simon Says, Rick shares practical insights on moving from jud…

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π0: A Foundation Model for Robotics with Sergey Levine - #719 52:30

5M ago52:30

52:30

Today, we're joined by Sergey Levine, associate professor at UC Berkeley and co-founder of Physical Intelligence, to discuss π0 (pi-zero), a general-purpose robotic foundation model. We dig into the model architecture, which pairs a vision language model (VLM) with a diffusion-based action expert, and the model training "recipe," emphasizing the ro…

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Community as Healing: Building Resilient Faith Communities 1:05:55

5M ago1:05:55

1:05:55

In Episode 3 of Old Paths New Steps, hosts Peter Voorhees, Josh Lott, and Malissa Bertella explore the vital role of authentic community in healing. Drawing from Henri Nouwen's wisdom that "Christian community is a healing community not because wounds are cured, but because wounds become openings for a new vision," they unpack how true healing happ…

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AI Trends 2025: AI Agents and Multi-Agent Systems with Victor Dibia - #718 1:44:59

5M ago1:44:59

1:44:59

Today we’re joined by Victor Dibia, principal research software engineer at Microsoft Research, to explore the key trends and advancements in AI agents and multi-agent systems shaping 2025 and beyond. In this episode, we discuss the unique abilities that set AI agents apart from traditional software systems–reasoning, acting, communicating, and ada…

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Intro to Trauma from a Biblical Perspective 1:03:25

5M ago1:03:25

1:03:25

In Episode 2 of Old Paths New Steps, hosts Peter Voorhees, Josh Lott, and Malissa Bertella delve into understanding trauma through a biblical lens. While "trauma" has become a cultural buzzword, appearing in countless books and podcasts since Bessel van der Kolk's "The Body Keeps the Score" hit bestseller lists, the hosts explore its deeper meaning…

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Speculative Decoding and Efficient LLM Inference with Chris Lott - #717 1:16:30

5M ago1:16:30

1:16:30

Today, we're joined by Chris Lott, senior director of engineering at Qualcomm AI Research to discuss accelerating large language model inference. We explore the challenges presented by the LLM encoding and decoding (aka generation) and how these interact with various hardware constraints such as FLOPS, memory footprint and memory bandwidth to limit…

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Welcome to Old Paths New Steps! 47:04

5M ago47:04

47:04

In this debut episode of Old Paths New Steps, hosts Peter Voorhees, Josh Lott, and Malissa Bertella lay the foundation for a unique exploration of trauma, faith, and healing. Fresh from the holiday season and admittedly still finding their routines, the hosts share vulnerable insights from their collective decades of pastoral and personal experienc…

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Teaser- Sneak peek at our first episode 4:07

5M ago4:07

4:07

In this final teaser before our launch, get a sneak peek at what's ahead for Old Paths New Steps. Featuring select moments from our upcoming first episode, we share our vision for exploring timeless wisdom in today's world. Join us as we preview the conversations, insights, and journey ahead. Our full-length premiere episode launches Monday - don't…

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Ensuring Privacy for Any LLM with Patricia Thaine - #716 51:33

5M ago51:33

51:33

Today, we're joined by Patricia Thaine, co-founder and CEO of Private AI to discuss techniques for ensuring privacy, data minimization, and compliance when using 3rd-party large language models (LLMs) and other AI services. We explore the risks of data leakage from LLMs and embeddings, the complexities of identifying and redacting personal informat…

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AI Engineering Pitfalls with Chip Huyen - #715 57:37

6M ago57:37

57:37

Today, we're joined by Chip Huyen, independent researcher and writer to discuss her new book, “AI Engineering.” We dig into the definition of AI engineering, its key differences from traditional machine learning engineering, the common pitfalls encountered in engineering AI systems, and strategies to overcome them. We also explore how Chip defines …

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Teaser- Who are some of the people we'll learn from? 7:30

6M ago7:30

7:30

Meet some of the amazing people joining us on Old Paths New Steps! From Lu, who shows us how ancient wisdom literally transforms our DNA, to Greg, whose friendship grew through deep conversations about faith, sexuality, theology, and inclusivity. You'll hear from Rick, a master of workplace transformation with a passion for trauma-informed practice…

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Teaser- Meet Josh 2:06

6M ago2:06

2:06

Meet Josh, co-host of Old Paths New Steps. With a unique blend of humor and insight, Josh brings his diverse experience as a pastor, non-profit leader, and foster parent to the conversation. He understands firsthand how trauma-informed care is crucial in every setting - from churches to families to organizations. Josh's mission? To help us ask bett…

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Teaser- Meet Malissa 3:30

6M ago3:30

3:30

In this special teaser episode of Old Paths New Steps, meet Malissa, one of our compassionate co-hosts. She opens up about her transformative journey through trauma-informed care and her deep desire to understand people's stories. With authenticity and warmth, Malissa shares how her experiences have shaped her mission to love others better and crea…

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Evolving MLOps Platforms for Generative AI and Agents with Abhijit Bose - #714 58:08

6M ago58:08

58:08

Today, we're joined by Abhijit Bose, head of enterprise AI and ML platforms at Capital One to discuss the evolution of the company’s approach and insights on Generative AI and platform best practices. In this episode, we dig into the company’s platform-centric approach to AI, and how they’ve been evolving their existing MLOps and data platforms to …