Mehrab Momin from aiCTO

Mehrab Momin from aiCTO

Author: collide. February 3, 2026 Duration: 56:12

AI has been “old news” since the 1950s, but Mehrab Momin of aiCTO Services breaks down why it suddenly feels everywhere, how founders should actually think about AI (data first, buzzwords later), and why Houston’s physical-world industries might be the perfect playground for the next wave, from vision models to humanoid robots.

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 00:00 Show intro and guest setup
 01:10 Fractional AI CTO explained
 03:10 Early AI work and swarm intelligence
 05:10 AI “flavors” from ML to deep learning
 07:10 Transformers and the LLM leap
 09:10 Where AI shows up in industry
 12:00 Language, context, and why LLMs work
 18:00 Energy AI applications and examples
 19:30 Computer vision basics and VLMs
 23:30 Open source models and fine-tuning
 26:20 Houston vs Bay Area AI maturity
 29:20 Solar, drones, and practical vision AI
 31:00 Humanoid robots and physical AI
 33:20 Edge computing and model stacks
 36:00 Testing, validation, and “AI going rogue”
 37:20 Common startup mistakes with AI
 40:20 Human intuition vs machine intelligence
 48:00 Language preservation and climate tech link
 51:20 What’s next for Houston startups
 53:50 How to connect and wrap-up 

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They say everything's bigger in Texas, including the challenges and opportunities presented by climate change. That's precisely why Houston has become a surprising epicenter for the global energy transition. In H-Town, the fourth largest city in the United States, a new wave of entrepreneurs is converging, partnering with established industry titans to forge the technologies that will slash emissions and power a low-carbon future. This is the landscape explored in Energytech Startups, a podcast from collide. that goes straight to the source. Hosts Nada Ahmed and Jason Ethier sit down with the very people driving this change-the founders, investors, and innovators who are building companies at the intersection of energy and technology. Each conversation digs into the real work: the engineering breakthroughs, the complex business models, and the hard-won lessons from the front lines of a sector undergoing massive transformation. It’s a direct line to the strategies and stories shaping the future of energy, making this podcast an essential listen for anyone curious about the business and investment dynamics behind building a sustainable world. You’ll hear frank discussions about funding, scaling, and the practical realities of bringing a transformative idea to market, all set against the backdrop of a city historically known for oil and gas now betting big on its own reinvention.
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