

From Zero to YC to AI Scale: How to Build, Benchmark, and Raise.
AI is moving fast — but most of the noise doesn't translate into real business value. This private discussion cuts through it.
Join us for an honest conversation with two founders building the infrastructure that makes AI actually work:
Aaksha Meghawat, founder of Kashikoi (YC X25), who previously shipped 250+ enterprise-ready AI agents to Fortune 500 companies and federal agencies at Moveworks, conducted cutting-edge Transformer research at CMU, and shipped speech models running on over a billion iPhones.
Angela Steffens, CEO of Alternate Futures — a developer cloud unifying hosting, storage, and AI agent tooling to make DePIN as easy to ship as Vercel, at 30-80% lower cost. Two-time founder with prior exits, 25 years across ML, realtime, IoT, and blockchain, and a 13K+ developer community. Runs 16+ autonomous AI agents across the company. Previously led developer relations at Unlock Protocol.
We'll cover what AI tools are genuinely moving the needle for businesses today, what makes an AI startup a risky bet for investors and how to change that. What solid AI infrastructure actually looks like under the hood.
Whether you're building, raising, or deciding where to put your money, this is the room to be in.