Illia Polosukhin

I'm doing well.

Yeah, it's exciting times.

Yeah, that's a good question.

I think, I think there was like, the answer is, you know, yes and no, as always.

I think it was clear that there's like massive step function that transformers are bringing, but same time, it didn't feel, I mean, it wasn't clear that this is like the step function that they're not going to be another, like, you know, few of those before we get to, I mean, let's just call it AGI level.

Yeah.

I left Google in 2017 right after this work.

To me, I actually thought this rate of improvement continues because 2016, 2015, it felt like we're on exponential growth of AI back then.

Wow.

And so like what we're feeling now, like I kind of thought this is going to be happening in 2017, 2018.

So that's why I was like, hey, I want, you know, we effectively, we started Near actually as an AI company.

It was Near AI, as in AI is near.

And we were trying to build what now is called vibe coding.

So in 2017, we were effectively saying, hey, just describe what app you want to build and we'll generate it for you.

And, you know, it didn't really work very well because we didn't have enough, you know, GPU compute power.

But, you know, this is actually how we got to blockchain.

But I would just say, like, we expected Canada's growth to continue.

And actually...

It was more disappointing that it didn't.

And it took some time until 22 for that to pick up.