This podcast features an interview with Johnny Ho, co-founder and chief strategy officer of Perplexity, an answer engine. The conversation covers Ho's background as a competitive programmer, his decision to return to academia after working at Quora, and the development of Perplexity's unique approach to information retrieval. Ho explains Perplexity's technology, which combines traditional search with large language models to provide concise answers grounded in verifiable sources, aiming to improve upon traditional search engines. He also discusses Perplexity's business model, focusing on subscriptions and future advertising strategies that prioritize user experience and avoid biasing answers. The interview concludes with a discussion of Perplexity's publisher program, designed to fairly compensate content creators whose work is used to generate answers.
