Perplexity is an AIpowered search engine that answers user questions. Founded in 2022 and valued at over $1B, Perplexity recently crossed 10M monthly active users and is growing fast.

In this episode, Sandhya Hegde chats with Denis Yarats, cofounder and CTO of Perplexity.

Join us as we discuss:
00:00 Reactions to Perplexity’s prototype in 2022
1:33 How Arvind and Denis started working together
4:04 Building a texttoSQL tool initially
6:34 Launch of ChatGPT and pivot to general search
9:46 Focusing on user data, and not on the foundation model
14:43 Perplexity’s early adopters
16:42 Early customer feedback
18:44 Perplexity’s core technical competencies
22:44 Subscription pricing and future gross margins
25:12 Perplexity’s hardware partnerships 
29:49 Future product vision 
32:50 Advice for founders in the AI space

Sandhya Hegde is a General Partner at Unusual Ventures, leading investments in modern SaaS companies with a focus on AI. Previously an early executive at Amplitude, Sandhya is a productled growth (PLG) coach and mentor. She can be reached at ⁠[email protected]⁠.

Denis Yarats is the CTO and cofounder of Perplexity.

Unusual Ventures is a seedstage venture capital firm designed from the ground up to give a distinct advantage to founders building the next generation of software companies. Unusual has invested in categorydefining companies like Webflow, Arctic Wolf Networks, Carta, Robinhood, and Harness. Learn more about us at ⁠https://www.unusual.vc/⁠.