“There are a lot of people that are going out there and saying things like, ‘all jobs are going away,’ or ‘we're going to automate everything,’ or this language about the permanent underclass. And it really upsets me because not only is it inaccurate, but it's really harmful to the psychology of a lot of people that I think have a very important role to play in the future of humanity.” – Matan Grinberg
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Matan Grinberg is the co-founder and CEO of Factory, an AI company valued at $1.5 billion that helps enterprises like Nvidia, Morgan Stanley, and Adobe automate software development through “Droids,” intelligent agents designed to streamline software engineering. Before Factory, Matan spent more than a decade in theoretical physics, studying string theory at Princeton and UC Berkeley. His work now centers on a different kind of complex system: how software gets built in an era of increasingly capable AI agents, open models, and shifting compute economics.
In our conversation, we explore:
How Emmy Noether’s theorem continues to shape Matan’s approach to technology, business, and AI
Why Matan believes there will always be more problems to solve, even as AI becomes more capable
The resource allocation problem facing CEOs as they balance headcount, compute, and token budgets
Why Factory is betting on model independence and Matan’s take on the SpaceX-Cursor deal
Why Matan pushes back on conflating open models with “Chinese models” and wants a stronger open-model ecosystem
The identity crisis that followed Matan’s decision to leave physics
Lessons from Factory’s first few years, including learning to push back and identify gaps in his own knowledge
Factory’s culture, values, and Matan’s partnership with co-founder Eno Reyes
Thank you to the partners who make this possible
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Explore the episode
Timestamps
(00:00) Intro
(03:50) Noether’s theorem explained
(06:45) How the search for what’s conserved informs Matan’s work
(10:53) Why there will always be more problems to solve
(11:58) The resource allocation problem of the AI era
(15:54) Factory’s mission: bringing autonomy to software engineering
(18:28) How Factory decides what to build next
(20:10) Why Factory abstracts away model choice
(22:07) How Factory wins enterprise customers
(23:15) Matan’s take on the SpaceX-Cursor deal
(27:48) Why open-weight models matter
(29:19) Anthropic’s Fable 5 release and the debate over AI guardrails
(35:33) How Matan got into string theory
(38:21) Working with Juan Maldacena
(41:53) Startup founders vs. theoretical physicists
(46:15) Rethinking physics and redefining his identity
(51:29) Discovering AI and code generation
(52:53) The origins of Factory
(55:52) Lessons from Factory’s first few years
(59:58) Learning to push back and finding the holes in his knowledge
(1:03:17) Factory’s culture and values
(1:08:11) Matan’s predictions for the future of AI and Factory
(1:10:49) Final meditations
Follow Matan Grinberg
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matan-grinberg
Website: https://factory.ai
Resources and episode mentions
Books
A Tale of Two Cities: https://www.amazon.com/Tale-Cities-Dover-Thrift-Editions/dp/0486406512
The Picture of Dorian Gray: https://www.amazon.com/Picture-Dorian-Gray-Oscar-Wilde/dp/0141439572
The Brothers Karamazov: https://www.amazon.com/Brothers-Karamazov-Fyodor-Dostoevsky/dp/1685781152
Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future: https://www.amazon.com/Zero-One-Notes-Startups-Future/dp/0804139296
Invisible Cities: https://www.amazon.com/Invisible-Cities-Italo-Calvino/dp/0156453800
Collected Fictions: https://www.amazon.com/Collected-Fictions-Jorge-Luis-Borges/dp/0140286802
People
Emmy Noether: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emmy_Noether
Juan Maldacena: https://www.ias.edu/scholars/maldacena
William Shakespeare: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Shakespeare
Shaun Maguire on X: https://x.com/shaunmmaguire
Frank Slootman on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/frankslootman
Sridhar Ramaswamy on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sridhar-ramaswamy
Eno Reyes on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/enoreyes
Other resources
Noether’s theorem: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noether%27s_theorem
Factory: https://factory.ai
Why One Superintelligence Is More Dangerous Than a Thousand (Vincent Weisser, CEO & Co-Founder of Prime Intellect): https://www.generalist.com/p/why-one-superintelligence-is-more
IMDb Top 250 movies: https://www.imdb.com/chart/top/
Harakiri: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0056058
La Grande Bellezza: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6155190
La Haine: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0113247
The Master: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1560747
Interstellar: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0816692
Proper Time to the Black Hole Singularity from Thermal One-Point Functions: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/345261524_Proper_time_to_the_black_hole_singularity_from_thermal_one-point_functions
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