In this special live panel episode of The Room Podcast from Inside Summit 2025, host Ash Kumra sits down with an all-star group of AI and product leaders: Noah MacCallum of OpenAI, Grant Lee of Gamma, Malte Ubl of Vercel, and Chris Messina, inventor of the hashtag and longtime product strategist. Together, they represent the cutting edge of applied AI, developer platforms, design tooling, and the social technologies that shaped how we communicate today.

Throughout the conversation, the panel digs into what ethical AI actually means in practice, how founders should think about scaling from early demos to real-world robustness, and why “iteration velocity” may matter more than perfection. From Noah’s breakdown of vibes-based iteration versus formal evals, to Chris’s framing of AI as a new expressive medium rather than just a technology, this episode is packed with perspective for builders navigating the next era of software. The discussion ultimately challenges founders to focus less on hype and more on clarity of vision, taste, and long-term impact.

(00:00) Introduction
(04:28) Who are the panelists and what is each of them building or focused on today?
(06:39) How does Noah define ethical AI, and where do the real risks show up in practice?
(08:02) How should early-stage AI companies think about trust, safety, and responsibility?
(11:26) What advice would the panel give founders trying to scale AI products from one to one hundred?
(12:21) How do founders balance intuition, taste, and formal evals when improving AI products?
(13:32) Why is long-term founder conviction more important than early AI traction?
(14:33) How should founders think about AI as a medium rather than just a technology?
(17:42) Which industries remain underexplored for AI, despite the current hype cycle?
(20:25) Which customer segments surprised Gamma as adoption scaled beyond early users?
(23:30) What unexpected user behaviors emerged during the early days of social media and AI?
(27:00) What specific product, feature, or workflow is each panelist most excited about building right now?

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