High Bit

Integration is a dirty word in defense. The consultancy model that solved it for decades no longer works when you're dealing with hundreds of systems from dozens of vendors across land, sea, and airspace, all needing to work together within milliseconds.

In this episode of High Bit, Brett Gibson talks with Zane Mountcastle, cofounder and CEO of Picogrid, about how they built the hardware and software infrastructure layer that makes hundreds of defense systems work together.

Zane gets into what it actually looks like to deploy in the field, from detecting a quadcopter 50 feet off the ground, operating in GPS-denied environments with decades-old hardware and adversaries trying to trick your sensors.

Speed became their biggest differentiator. Their average integration time is measured in hours, and what used to take six to twelve months gets done over a weekend.

He also explains why trust is the biggest moat in defense, and how AI is now core to how they build, including training a model on every system they've ever connected so a first pass integration happens in seconds.

Chapters:

(00:00) "Integration is a dirty word"

(00:19) What Picogrid builds

(01:08) How Zane ended up working with the Pentagon

(03:11) The Last Supper: how defense consolidated

(05:01) Why hundreds of new defense vendors made integration worse

(07:22) Why the consultancy model no longer works

(09:41) Why speed is their biggest differentiator

(11:53) Each system has a language

(15:49) Four types of location data to find and track a drone

(19:54) Why Picogrid will never build a drone or sensor

(22:16) The military loves to buy widgets

(30:38) Trust is the biggest moat in defense

(34:20) Calibrating in the field: the camera that finds the sun

(37:36) First team in, last team out

(45:37) How AI is now part of everything they build

(47:00) $45M from Bessemer and what comes next

Follow Zane and Picogrid:

X: @zanemountcastle / @Picogrid

LinkedIn:

linkedin.com/in/zanemountcastle

linkedin.com/company/picogrid

Follow Brett and Initialized:

X: @brettdg / @Initialized

LinkedIn:

linkedin.com/in/brettdgibson

linkedin.com/company/initialized-capital

Code can be generated faster than ever. But getting that code to actually look good is a different problem entirely.

In this episode of High Bit, Initialized managing partner Brett Gibson sits down with Daniel Bulhosa Solórzano, cofounder and CTO of Variant, about what it takes to build AI that gets design right, not just code that runs.

Daniel started thinking about this problem in 2017 at Weebly, when the models weren't close to ready. After a stint in self-driving, he came back to it. Variant generates UI that's visually designed, not just technically correct, and shows you multiple options at once so you can find what you actually want instead of having to describe it upfront.

Topics include:

- Why AI struggles with visual quality even when the code works

- The difference between precision and recall in design generation

- Why showing people options beats asking them to describe what they want

- Why people will always want to stay in the loop on design

- How the role of designers changes as AI handles more of the execution

(00:00) What design AI could eventually do

(00:44) What Variant builds

(01:25) How Daniel got here: Weebly, self-driving, and an unsolved problem

(03:20) Why visual code generation is hard

(04:10) Precision vs. recall and why design is different

(06:55) What good design actually means

(09:04) Landing page vs. dashboard: how context shapes design choices

(11:31) What can be described vs. what has to be labeled

(13:10) Casting a wide net for what good design looks like

(15:25) Building the product around an imperfect model

(17:04) Why people react to designs faster than they can describe them

(19:29) Why people won't give up design to AI

(23:40) What AI does to the design learning curve

(25:06) Designers as design managers for agents

(37:42) The 50%/80% horizon and what it means for engineering teams

Follow Daniel and Variant:

Daniel Bulhosa Solórzano

X: https://x.com/bulhosa

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dbulhosa/

Variant

Website: https://variant.com/

X: https://x.com/variantui

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/variantui/posts/?feedView=all

High Bit

Watch more episodes: https://www.youtube.com/@InitializedCapital

Follow on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/36gTYrH1wlYzTZwLQywbIf

Code can be written faster than ever. But getting that code safely into production is where many engineering teams lose time.

As organizations grow, CI failures, flaky tests, and conflicting pull requests start to compound.

In this episode of High Bit, Initialized managing partner Brett Gibson sits down with Eli Schleifer, founder and CEO of Trunk, to talk about the systems that keep CI green and allow engineering teams to land code reliably as organizations grow.

Before starting Trunk, Eli built developer infrastructure at Microsoft, started a company that was acquired by Google, and later worked with hundreds of engineers at Uber ATG. At Google he saw how powerful internal developer tooling could be. At Uber he saw engineers spend days trying to land code because those systems did not exist. That gap led him to start Trunk.

Eli explains why engineering productivity slows once dozens or hundreds of engineers share the same repository, how flaky tests quietly waste engineering time, and how merge queues prevent broken builds and conflicting pull requests.

Topics include:

• Why CI becomes the bottleneck as engineering teams grow
• How merge queues keep builds reliable
• Why flaky tests waste engineering time
• The build vs buy decision for developer tooling
• How coding tools are increasing pull request volume
• How engineering workflows are changing

(00:00) AI fixing flaky tests

(00:40) What Trunk builds

(02:13) When CI becomes the bottleneck

(02:33) Eli’s background: Microsoft, Google, Uber

(04:29) Why dev tools must solve real pain

(05:09) The merge queue problem

(09:25) Build vs buy for developer tooling

(14:22) How merge queues handle large codebases

(18:58) How coding tools increase PR volume

(21:53) Flaky tests and engineering productivity

(25:24) Using CI and test history to debug failures

(27:37) How engineers prune the search space

(33:23) Engineers as conductors of automated systems

(37:49) What’s next for Trunk

Follow Eli and Trunk:

Eli Schleifer

X: https://x.com/elischleifer

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/elischleifer/

Trunk

Website: [https://trunk.io](https://trunk.io/)

X: https://x.com/trunkio

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/trunk-io/

High Bit

Hosted by Brett Gibson, managing partner, Initialized

https://open.spotify.com/show/36gTYrH1wlYzTZwLQywbIf

AI models keep getting better, but most AI systems still fail in production. Why?

In this episode of High Bit, Brett Gibson sits down with Ghita Houir Alami, cofounder and CEO of ZeroEntropy, to break down the real bottleneck holding AI agents back: retrieval.

Ghita explains why embeddings alone can’t reliably surface the right information, why tools like Slack search feel so frustrating, and how rerankers add a critical second pass that dramatically improves accuracy. She walks through ZeroEntropy’s approach to training rerankers using pairwise comparisons and Elo-style scoring, and why this method generalizes across domains like code, finance, and biology.

The conversation goes deep into:

• Why AI agents fail even when the data exists.
• How reranking fixes poor ordering from vector search.
• Why “accuracy” now includes helpful context, not just correct answers.
• What actually changes when retrieval becomes trustworthy enough to remove humans from the loop.

If you’re building AI agents, search systems, customer support bots, or internal knowledge tools, this episode explains what’s breaking today, and what has to change for AI to work reliably at scale.

(00:00) What changes when retrieval works

(00:39) What ZeroEntropy builds

(01:42) Why retrieval became the real problem

(03:12) Why search fails (Slack included)

(05:11) Why embeddings fall short

(07:11) Rerankers: the missing layer

(10:11) Why rerankers matter most

(12:44) Pairwise ranking vs scoring

(13:52) Elo scoring for documents

(16:33) Fast rerankers via distillation

(18:07) Why old training methods break

(21:29) Retrieval for AI agents

(24:20) Recency, memory, personalization

(32:06) What reliable retrieval unlocks

(33:42) What’s next for ZeroEntropy

Follow Ghita and ZeroEntropy for more:X@ghita__ha@ZeroEntropy_AILinkedInhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/ghita-houir-alami/https://www.linkedin.com/company/zeroentropy-inc

Electrification isn’t easy—and most people don’t see the chaos beneath the solar panels, batteries, EV chargers, and heat pumps going onto the grid. Coperniq cofounder and CTO Max Kazakov breaks down the hidden workflows behind distributed energy: legacy tools installers still rely on, hardware that doesn’t want to integrate, and why the next generation of “utilities” will look nothing like the last.

Coperniq is the workflow platform for contractors and energy companies to move from post-its and spreadsheets to a system that sells, permits, installs, and maintains distributed energy assets over decades.

Max also shares what it takes to build vertical SaaS for the physical world: curbside Figma demos during COVID, rebuilding their mobile app for 120°F rooftops with no cell service, designing a workflow engine that matches real-world permitting and interconnection, integrating a wild west of OEM hardware, and how AI is already reshaping their product and engineering culture.

Content:

(00:00) The Invisible Glue of the New Grid

(01:05) The Second Electrification Wave

(02:51) Cofounder Origins: Russia, Yemen, Berkeley

(06:12) Humans + Hardware Coordination Challenge

(08:10) Anti-MVP: Mini ERP on Day One

(11:56) Curbside Figma Demos during COVID

(14:47) Field Reality: 120° Rooftops, Zero Cell Service

(20:03) Stateful Workflows (Permits, Interconnection, Construction)

(24:56) Integrating OEM Hardware (Hitting Walls)

(28:41) The Dongle Question: Do we need software afterall?

(31:25) Rebuilding the Mobile App for an Offline-First World

(36:40) Hire Tinkerers, Not Pedigrees

(43:00) How AI Is Reshaping Coperniq

Subscribe to High Bit for more conversations with technical founders building the future.

Follow @Coperniq_AI for more.

Robots built like humans.

On High Bit, Dhanush Radhakrishnan, cofounder & CEO of Clone, explains how they’re letting biology set the blueprint for musculoskeletal, super-intelligent androids — synthetic humans straight out of sci-fi.

Powered by artificial muscles instead of motors and attached to anatomically accurate skeletons, Clone is building robots designed for human-level motion, durability, and full-body control.

Dhanush explains the early engineering choices that helped them move fast, their data strategy (motion capture, teleoperation, egocentric video), and his excitement about a future untethered biped.

Hosted by Brett Gibson, managing partner at Initialized.

Content:

(00:00) From Fragile to Durable

(00:37) Musculoskeletal Androids

(02:03) Why Artificial Muscles

(04:10) Starting Clone in Poland

(06:29) Removing Early Sensors

(10:14) The Durability Challenge

(14:10) Anatomy as Blueprint

(16:22) Building Custom Valves

(18:17) Hand to Full Body

(24:40) Prototyping with Pneumatics

(29:26) Delaying Tactile Skin

(32:39) Data: MOCAP + Teleop

(45:20) Toward an Untethered Biped

Subscribe to High Bit for more conversations with technical founders building the future.

In this episode, Brett Gibson talks with Lucas Young, cofounder and CEO of Deepnight about how they’re building AI-powered night vision that helps the military, law enforcement, and first responders see in near-total darkness. Deepnight combines AI with commodity digital sensors — the same kind used in smartphones — to replace expensive analog night-vision hardware that costs over $30,000 per unit and hasn’t kept pace with modern imaging technology.

Lucas explains how night vision has worked since World War II, why analog image intensifiers hit a ceiling, how smartphone photography paved the way for this breakthrough, and what it takes to bring military-grade low-light imaging into the field.

Chapters

(00:00) Why Night Vision Is Still Mostly Analog

(00:39) Deepnight’s Breakthrough: AI That Sees in the Dark

(01:44) How Their AI Reconstructs *Real* Scenes

(03:58) Lucas’s Path: Google Pixel → YC Founder

(05:26) Why Modern Cameras Rely on Software

(09:12) The Rise of AI-Enhanced Photography

(11:45) The Insight: AI Could Beat $30K Night-Vision Goggles

(13:03) How Traditional Night-Vision Tubes Work

(14:10) Starting Deepnight Without Knowing If It Would Work

(15:11) Early Prototypes: Offline → Real-Time Night Vision

(16:15) The Physics Challenge: Seeing in Moonless Starlight

(19:12) Running This on Smartphone-Class Chips

(22:27) Building a Custom Neural Network for Night Vision

(28:43) Can Cheap $50 Sensors Match Military Gear?

(48:06) What’s Next: Real Soldiers Using AI Night Vision

Subscribe to High Bit for more conversations with technical founders building what’s next, hosted by Brett Gibson of Initialized Capital.

Orbital Operations is building high-thrust, cryogenic spacecraft designed to move freely in orbit—reshaping how we think about mobility, defense, and logistics in space.

Cofounder & CEO Benjamin Schleuniger joins Initialized Managing Partner Brett Gibson on High Bit to talk about the next generation of spacecraft that will move, refuel, and think for themselves:

• Why satellites need to move — the rise of in-space mobility
• How cryogenic propulsion unlocks long-duration missions
• The refrigeration-cycle tech enabling propellant storage in orbit
• Military and logistics use cases driving demand
• Refueling with water to extend mission life
• The third age of space mobility and what it enables
• How AI and autonomy will power future spacecraft

Chapters

(00:00) Intro

(01:10) What Orbital Operations is building and why it matters

(01:26) Ben’s path: NASA → SpaceX → Relativity

(02:17) Why satellites need to move now

(04:30) Basics of propulsion and why mobility is limited in space

(05:55) Satellites vs rockets: propellant tradeoffs

(08:30) Choosing cryogenic propellants and rethinking storage

(10:15) The refrigeration-cycle system that makes it possible

(17:00) Thermal management and engineering challenges in orbit

(22:30) Military and logistics use cases for in-space mobility

(25:40) Refueling with water and the future of orbital logistics

(27:50) Engineering vs. business challenges of building in space

(30:50) Scaling missions and the path to commercial viability

(33:30) The third age of space mobility and what comes next

(35:20) AI tools in aerospace and autonomy in orbit

Subscribe to High Bit for more conversations with technical founders building what’s next, hosted by Brett Gibson of Initialized Capital.

Follow Orbital Operations and Benjamin Schleuniger on X for more:

@OrbitalOps_

@BenSchleuniger

“Robots are the only way my business survives, but it’s not viable for me.”

Formic founder and CEO Saman Farid joins Brett Gibson, managing partner at Initialized to unpack why that mindset keeps factories from adopting automation and how Formic closes the gap.

They cover: de-risking with financing, productizing complete robot work cells, and running fleets with teleoperation, intelligent error recovery, and careful staging to hit factory-grade uptime.

You’ll hear why palletizing is the ideal first beachhead, how the team cut deployment costs roughly in half, and why they say no to one-off requests until they can be productized.

Saman also shares how the company resists “fun” engineering in favor of scale, injects controlled chaos into his company, uses daily 8 a.m. meetings for problem solving, and bridges the culture gap between the manufacturing and software industries.

Subscribe for more builder-level deep dives from High Bit.

Follow Formic and Saman for more:

Formic: https://x.com/goformic

Saman: https://x.com/samanfarid

Content

(00:00) “It’s not viable for me”—closing the adoption gap

(00:44) What Formic does & where robots work today

(02:24) Engineer → VC → founder: why start Formic

(04:38) Adoption vs flashy demos. Solve one task well

(05:47) De-risking with financing; manual first, then automate

(08:23) The playbook: scope, build modules, deploy, operate1

(10:36) Work cells, not just arms

(13:38) 99.9% uptime15:01 Why palletizing was the first beachhead

(16:49) Cutting costs per deployment

(18:08) Saying “no” & expanding scope the right way

(21:15) Resisting “fun” engineering to serve more factories

(22:07) Injecting chaos into your company

(23:34) Daily 8am to crack hard problems

(25:40) Culture clash: manufacturing × software

(27:24) Evaluating new robots, regional rollouts

(31:24) Where AI helps across the org

(37:11) What’s next: more robots, more tasks, more factories

Brett Gibson hosts Sol’s Ben Chelf and John Boiles on the "High Bit" podcast to discuss their groundbreaking work on the Sol Reader, the world’s first wearable e-reader. They dive into the unique engineering challenges of integrating e-ink technology into a head-mounted format, the intricate development process of creating their own e-ink driver, and the importance of optimizing for user comfort and the reading experience.

Chapters:

00:00 - Introduction

02:16 - The Birth of Sol Reader: From Idea to Prototype
05:19 - Comparing Sol Reader to Other Wearable Technologies
09:59 - Technical Challenges and Innovations in E-Ink Displays
20:30 - Manufacturing and Quality Control Processes
23:12 - Software Development and Optimization
33:40 - Future Plans

Vince Chu, cofounder of HomeVision, joins the "High Bit" podcast to discuss how his team is automating real estate valuations at scale. From overcoming technical challenges to scaling AI-powered underwriting, Vince explains how HomeVision is changing the game for both lenders and appraisers.

On the latest episode of our podcast “High Bit,” Brett Gibson spoke with Pratap Ranade, CEO of Arena, about the intricacies of using AI to convert data into real-time simulations for optimizing sales, pricing, and marketing strategies. Pratap explained how Arena navigates the complexities of large-scale enterprises, including those in the consumer goods and advanced manufacturing industries. He also shared insights from his background in quantum physics and machine learning and discussed future partnerships and product developments for Arena.

00:00 Introduction

00:47 Meet Pratap Ranade, CEO of Arena

01:58 Understanding Arena’s core functionality

02:44 Challenges in building Arena

05:03 Consumer goods and advanced manufacturing

07:09 The importance of abstraction and metadata

13:50 Pratap's journey and vision

19:35 The future of Arena

In this episode of "High Bit," Initialized partner and Rent the Runway co-founder Jenny Fleiss discusses how she developed a proprietary logistics system for a consumer brand. Jenny opens up about the early challenges faced in starting Rent the Runway, the strategic decisions made in scaling a complex operation, and how she built an in-house logistics team.

CHAPTERS

00:00 Introduction

1:45 Jenny's transition to investing and current areas of investing interests at Initialized.

4:38 The initial logistics challenges at Rent the Runway.

6:36 Partnering with local dry cleaners and scaling operations.

9:01 Building a proprietary logistics system from scratch.

13:00 Key takeaways from managing and scaling a complex logistics operation.

In this episode of "High Bit," Automat founder and CTO Gautam Bose talked about the challenges of working with LLMs in robotic process automation, and the importance of rigorous testing procedures.

CHAPTERS

00:00 Introduction

01:30 What Automat Does and How They Started

03:06 Challenges in Building RPA

08:46 What the Future of RPA Looks Like

12:52 How Automat Ensures Reliability in Its LLMs

14:53 Automating Complex Workflows With Robust SOP Collections

20:17 Coming Up With Solutions to Complex Orders

23:41 Improving Ideas Through Iteration

In this episode of "High Bit," Peter Kieltyka discusses the dual challenge of maintaining decentralization and accessibility in blockchain technology, and the growing significance of APIs in building connected systems.

CHAPTERS

00:00 Introduction

01:38 What Horizon Does and the Challenges in Delivering the Crypto Gaming Platform

04:53 How Peter Came to the Decision of Working on Blockchains

07:07 How APIs Are Created for Modern Client Server Web Applications

12:25 All About GRPC

15:40 Chi: Peter’s Software That Lets You Write Microservices

21:15 Peter’s 2 Favorite Books He Recommends to Everyone He Works With

27:27 What Else to Look Forward To from Horizon

In this episode of "High Bit," host Brett Gibson interviews Rahul Raina, cofounder and CTO of TRM Labs. Rahul shares insights into TRM's mission of creating a safer financial system and discusses the launch of their innovative features. The conversation delves into Rahul's background, TRM's approach to tackling financial crimes, and the challenges of processing massive amounts of data in the ever-evolving world of crypto. 

00:00 Introduction

2:09 TRM’s mission to build a safer financial system

9:20 The question that started TRM

14:47 Breaking down their iteration process

20:21 The journey to pushing the state of the art

24:52 Proportionality as update strategy

In this episode of "High Bit," AJ Asver, CEO of Parcha, discusses the challenges of building AI agents for complex tasks. Parcha's AI agents automate operations and compliance, addressing the gap between proof of concept and production.

00:00 Introduction

01:51 Introducing Parcha and what they do

4:02 Breaking down how an AI agent relates to LLM

12:53 The challenges in scaling AI agents

17:15 Making the system as accurate as possible

28:51 Predicting the rise of verticalized agents

In this episode of High Bit, Jose walks us through the challenges of troubleshooting a complex problem encountered during the pre-launch testing of a space-bound asteroid mining refinery. Using a real-life example, he illustrates the application of a fishbone diagram and the necessity of methodical problem-solving, even under extreme time pressure.

Topics:

1:41 What is AstroForge?

7:13 How Jose Met His Cofounder Matt Gialich

13:18 Using a Fishbone Diagram to Find the Root Cause of a Problem

15:01 The "Holy Shit" Moment When a Launch Does Not Go According to Plan

20:37 Validating All the Points of Failure to Get to a Solution

26:25 Lessons Learned from Working Under Time Pressure

High Bit is a new podcast hosted by Initialized Capital managing partner Brett Gibson about the art of technical problem-solving.

A high bit is the most significant part of the binary representation of a number. In programming language, it is commonly referred to as the most important thing you need to understand about a problem.

We spoke with our first four guests about just that. In each episode, we’ll break down a gnarly engineering problem and hear how the builder’s ingenuity and inventiveness led to a successful outcome.

High Bit is produced by Initialized Capital and hosted by Brett Gibson. Our showrunner is Candy Cheng. Episodes were shot and edited by Jordan Berns. Production support by Kevin Heinz and BTB Video Production.

In this episode of High Bit, Ethan reveals the unique challenges of building a reliable and global crypto trading platform. “There’s no downtime because crypto trades 24/7,” he said. “So in that way, it’s a lot more like Google than the New York Stock Exchanges.”

Ethan also shared the art of balancing safety and speed in product development. “You need to adapt, and you need to change up your workflow as the market changes. We want to wrap that whole messy ecosystem in a layer that allows institutions to interact with crypto just like they would any other asset class.”

Topics:

02:26 From Broadway Technology to Talos

06:23 Crypto Trading is "More Like Google Than NYSE"

11:46 Examining the Various Failure Scenarios of Trading Crypto

15:56 The Importance of Getting Details Correct in Making a Successful Trading System Work

21:35 Client Communication as Part of the Engineering Effort

25:05 Building Safety Features into the Product

29:30 Adaptability Around Messiness

High Bit is a new podcast hosted by Initialized Capital managing partner Brett Gibson about the art of technical problem-solving.

A high bit is the most significant part of the binary representation of a number. In programming language, it is commonly referred to as the most important thing you need to understand about a problem.

We spoke with our first four guests about just that. In each episode, we’ll break down a gnarly engineering problem and hear how the builder’s ingenuity and inventiveness led to a successful outcome.

High Bit is produced by Initialized Capital and hosted by Brett Gibson. Our showrunner is Candy Cheng. Episodes were shot and edited by Jordan Berns. Production support by Kevin Heinz and BTB Video Production.

In this episode of High Bit, Renuka shares the evolution of Clockwork’s AI-powered nail-painting robot. She shares her insights into safe AI utilization and how she adopted software engineering principles into the hardware process.

Topics:

1:56: Renuka’s Background as a Systems Engineer at Nvidia

5:27: Using an Off-The-Shelf AI Model to Create the First Version of Clockwork

10:06: Discovering Pointillism in Nail Painting

14:46: Using AI in Safe Ways

18:29: A Very Humbling Lesson for a Software Engineer

22:55: Making Nail Painting as Easy as Grabbing a Cup of Coffee

High Bit is a new podcast hosted by Initialized Capital managing partner Brett Gibson about the art of technical problem-solving.

A high bit is the most significant part of the binary representation of a number. In programming language, it is commonly referred to as the most important thing you need to understand about a problem.

We spoke with our first four guests about just that. In each episode, we’ll break down a gnarly engineering problem and hear how the builder’s ingenuity and inventiveness led to a successful outcome.

High Bit is produced by Initialized Capital and hosted by Brett Gibson. Our showrunner is Candy Cheng. Episodes were shot and edited by Jordan Berns. Production support by Kevin Heinz and BTB Video Production.

Join Initialized’s Brett Gibson as he discusses thorny engineering problems with his guests on “High Bit,” a podcast about the art of technical problem-solving.