Cohere's Aidan Gomez On Sovereign AI, Turning Down Big Tech Money, And An IPO

The Canadian co-author of the Transformer paper shares why he's building a frontier AI model lab outside Silicon Valley on The Upstarts Podcast.

A self-described "shy nerd" from rural Ontario, Aidan Gomez doesn't like to scream his startup’s name from the rooftops.

But the co-author of the landmark ‘Attention Is All You Need’ paper is quietly building one of AI's most important infrastructure companies — one focused on bringing its benefits to the wider world outside Silicon Valley.

Toronto-based Cohere works with major enterprises and G7 governments, providing secure models for them to build everything from email-summary apps to onboard ship telemetry on top. Revenue grew 6x last year, past a reported $240 million; with $1.7 billion in total funding, a $6.8 billion valuation, and an IPO is in its sights.

On The Upstarts Podcast, Gomez talks about his journey to co-developing the Transformer architecture that underpins modern AI; why he sees AI as the best shot at restoring global growth and democratic resilience; and why it’s so important that more nations than the world’s biggest benefit.

Plus, he shares his Upstart Moment: building on ‘hard mode’ by not taking money from Amazon, Google or Microsoft early on.

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This season of The Upstarts Podcast is presented by Mercury: banking, redesigned from the ground up.

Chapters:
00:00 Introduction
01:11 Cohere’s ‘takeoff phase’
05:09 Where vibe coding falls short
08:05 Smalltown Canada to AI epicenter
14:27 Co-authoring the Transformer paper
18:52 Starting up Cohere
25:22 Why AI sovereignty matters
30:25 Aidan’s Upstart Moment
32:56 Playing on ‘hard mode’
36:55 Ethical questions of AI
39:44 Why Cohere should IPO

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Just looking for the highlights? As always, we break down three startup lessons from the episode for paid subscribers below.

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1. Be more like Jensen

2. Control > hyperscaler funds

3. IPOs are a good forcing function

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