Episode #126: The State of AI with Nathan Benaich For the past eight years, @nathanbenaich has published the @stateofai, a year-long effort covering the biggest things happening in AI, across research, industry, politics, and safety. This conversation covers the biggest takeaways from the latest report, like the rise in reasoning, the surge in Chinese open source, where AI is actually working today, the rise of sovereign AI, why Nathan doesn't think AI is a bubble, where Nathan thinks value will accrue over the long-term, and how he’s investing in AI today at @airstreet. Thanks to @Numeral and @FlexSuperApp for supporting this episode. Full episode here + links below. Timestamps: 3:39 State of AI 2025 6:22 Takeaway #1: Reasoning & tool calling 13:01 Takeaway #2: Rise of Chinese open source 15:25 Open vs closed source models 26:46 Takeaway #3: AI revenue is real 27:51 Takeaway #4: Sovereign AI 36:44 Are we in an AI bubble? 59:23 Starting Air Street Capital 1:05:18 Raising Fund 1 1:16:20 Air Street portfolio strategy 1:25:15 When and who Nathan decides to invest 1:35:04 How important are AI benchmarks? 1:39:31 When to train your own models 1:45:56 Rise of European defense tech 2:01:43 Nathan’s personal AI stack 2:07:32 Is niching down too risky? 2:16:12 Nadal vs Federer