Mar 11, 4:30 – 5:30 PM (UTC)
Silicon Valley, San Francisco Bay Area
Join Lin Qiao, Co-founder & CEO of Fireworks AI, and Sahir Azam of Index Ventures for a candid 30-minute conversation on building an AI infrastructure company from first principles. They’ll share lessons on mission clarity, rapid iteration, technical differentiation, and early signs your infrastructure bet is paying off.
A candid 30-minute conversation between Lin Qiao, Co-founder + CEO of Fireworks AI, and Sahir Azam of Index Ventures on what it takes to build an AI infrastructure company from first principles. They’ll cover how Fireworks defined its mission, how to iterate fast without losing conviction, and best practices for scaling engineering and cloud infrastructure in a rapidly shifting stack.
Takeaways will include:
· How to choose which AI problem is worth building infrastructure for
· When to hold the vision vs. when to aggressively iterate
· What “real” technical differentiation looks like before scale
· Early signals that your infrastructure bet is working
PS. Lin will also be speaking on the mainstage at the Startup Grind Conference (Building a Moat in the Age of AI Agents) - live in Silicon Valley April 28-29, 2026. Be sure to get tickets to learn more from her and 100+ others dominating the AI space.
Fireworks AI
CEO + Co-founder
Index Ventures
Partner @ Index Ventures; former CPO @ MongoDB
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