From Conviction to Reality: Lessons from Building AI Infrastructure Early

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. 

Agenda

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Speakers

Lin Qiao - Fireworks AI (CEO + Co-founder)

Lin Qiao is the CEO and co-founder of global AI inference cloud and infrastructure platform Fireworks AI, which enables teams like Cursor, Uber, Doordash and Shopify to build, tune, and scale highly-optimized generative AI applications. Prior to founding Fireworks, Lin was the head of Meta’s PyTorch.

Sahir Azam - Index Ventures (Partner @ Index Ventures; former CPO @ MongoDB)

Partner at Index Ventures - investing across all stages and geographies. Previously, spent ~10 years at MongoDB as Chief Product Officer Former operating executive at high-growth SaaS/Enterprise software companies with broad experience in product management, marketing, sales, pre-sales engineering, and corporate strategy, with demonstrated success at both startups and established public corpor…

Hosted By

James Gee, Global Partnerships Manager

I recently relocated from the UK to Silicon Valley to expand Startup Grind's sales and partnership program, collaborating closely with Derek bringing fresh ideas and forge new connections that will fuel future growth.
I'm also an entrepreneur at heart, launching my own startup in 2015, experiencing the thrilling highs and challenging lows of being a founder firsthand. This unique perspective fuels my excitement for connecting with founders and partners at the 2024 Global Conference. Beyond the world of startups, I am an avid sports fan, whether it's playing or watching a game. If you're in the Bay Area, don't hesitate to reach out - as I’d be thrilled to join you for a game!

Derek Andersen, Chapter Organizer

For the past 15 years Derek has been building communities. He is the co-founder/CEO of Bevy, a SaaS product that helps companies like Salesforce, Atlassian, Google, Snowflake, and Adobe build virtual and in-person communities. Bevy has raised $60M from Accel, Upfront Ventures, and others. He co-founded Startup Grind, a community of 600 Chapters in 125 countries educating, inspiring, and connecting startup people. Since 2012 Startup Grind has hosted 20,000 events. In 2010 he co-founded Commonred which was acquired by Income.com. Derek also previously worked as a product manager at Electronic Arts. He currently lives in Palo Alto CA with his wife and four children.

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Global Partner

Carta (http://www.carta.com/launch?utm_campaign=20240423-nam-general-smb-startup_grind_partnership&utm_medium=social&utm_source=startup_grind)
Carta helps people manage equity, build businesses, and invest in the companies of tomorrow. Carta Launch is the only free cap table product, helping new founders get started. The company is trusted by more than 40,000 companies, over 7,000 funds and SPVs, and over two million equity holders to manage cap tables, compensation, valuations, liquidity, and more. For more information, visit carta.com.

Startup Grind is a global startup community designed to educate, inspire, and connect entrepreneurs. We host monthly events in more than 600 cities and 125+ countries featuring successful local founders, innovators, educators and investors who share personal stories and lessons learned on the road to building great companies. Our monthly fireside chat interviews, startup mixers and annual conferences provide ample opportunities to connect with amazing startups and the people behind them, tap into a strong support network, form meaningful connections and gain inspiration for the startup journey ahead. For more information visit StartupGrind.com or follow us on twitter @StartupGrind.

Complete your event RSVP here: https://www.startupgrind.com/events/details/startup-grind-silicon-valley-san-francisco-bay-area-presents-from-conviction-to-reality-lessons-from-building-ai-infrastructure-early/.