Handshake Pivots to AI Data Platform
Handshake founder Garrett Lord launched AI data division recruiting STEM talent for model training.
Entities: Handshake, Handshake AI
Handshake founder Garrett Lord launched Handshake AI after conversations with frontier AI lab researchers highlighted urgent needs for high-quality human data in model training. The new division recruits STEM talent to supply data for AI labs. It achieved rapid growth, reaching $1B ARR in 15 months according to generated headlines from posts by Garry Tan and Matt Mazzeo. The pivot is described as an epic move to massive product-market fit.
The Handshake story is one for the ages Most epic pivot to massive PMF @GarrettLord
"If you just compound and stack day after day after day and give it your best, great things will happen. That's been the story of my life and the story of this business." @GarrettLord. Founder & CEO of @joinHandshake. At a Christmas party in December 2024, Garrett met a researcher from a frontier AI lab who told him about the challenges of model training. Two weeks later, Garrett's company Handshake was recruiting STEM PhDs for that same lab. Fifteen months after that, Handshake AI had gone from zero to a billion dollars in gross annualized revenue, and now is the human data engine behind the frontier labs. This conversation is a dissection of the most audacious reinvention in tech. Knuckle Up ↓ -- 00:00 Who is Garrett Lord? 01:36 How did a Christmas party conversation spark Handshake AI? 11:59 How do you tell your execs and board you're refounding the company? 18:18 What keeps A players motivated in the core business? 22:22 Olympic Pace: why did around 100 team members leave Handshake? 27:02 What broke first going zero to a billion in a year? 31:45 How do you protect quality when 85% of the company is new? 39:36 Why hasn't Garrett upgraded a single exec? 49:00 What does the bear case on human data get wrong? 53:30 How do you make accounting verifiable enough for reinforcement learning? 1:00:08 Will enterprises leave the labs for open source? 1:07:13 What does all this mean for knowledge workers? 1:08:51 The inner game: how is Garrett holding it all together? 1:14:22 What's the mission in this new chapter? 1:18:27 Will vertical AI apps survive the frontier labs? 1:21:23 Quickfire: red flags, overrated advice, jobs of the future
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@garrytan @GarrettLord Truly incredible pivot. Hard to internalize how dynamic Garrett had to be to pull this off. The epitome of a great entrepreneur!
@garrytan @GarrettLord Insane. Handshake got me my first tech internship in college!!! Goated!