The $64M Bet on an AI That Has to Be Right | Carina Hong, CEO of Axiom

The $64M Bet on an AI That Has to Be Right | Carina Hong, CEO of Axiom

Author: Lukas Biewald February 5, 2026 Duration: 50:40

Formal verification already consumes years of human effort.

In this episode, Lukas Biewald talks with Carina Hong, Founder & CEO of Axiom, about why verification is becoming the real bottleneck in high stakes AI systems.

They discuss how Axiom uses AI to take on the tedious checking that stretches verification cycles across years, starting with formal mathematics and extending to hardware and software.

Carina also explains why Axiom’s approach to auto-formalization mirrors spec driven models like Kiro from AWS.

Connect with us here:

Carina Hong: https://www.linkedin.com/in/carina-hong/

Axiom: https://www.linkedin.com/company/axiommath/

Lukas Biewald: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lbiewald/

Weights & Biases: https://www.linkedin.com/company/wandb/


Lukas Biewald hosts Gradient Dissent: Conversations on AI, a series that moves beyond theoretical discussions to examine how artificial intelligence is actually built and deployed. Each episode features a direct, unscripted talk with a leading practitioner-you’ll hear from engineers and researchers at places like NVIDIA, Meta, Google, Lyft, and OpenAI. The focus is on the tangible challenges and breakthroughs they encounter, from initial research to the complex reality of putting models into production. This isn't about abstract futures; it's a grounded look at the decisions shaping the field right now. Biewald, bringing his perspective from Weights & Biases, steers conversations toward the practical trade-offs and collaborative efforts that define modern AI work. For anyone in technology or business who wants to understand the mechanics behind the headlines, this podcast offers a rare, candid window into the process. You’ll come away with a clearer sense of how ideas become functional systems and what it really takes to operate at the cutting edge.
Author: Language: English Episodes: 100

Gradient Dissent: Conversations on AI
Podcast Episodes
The Power of AI in Search with You.com's Richard Socher [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:08:26
In the latest episode of Gradient Dissent, Richard Socher, CEO of You.com, shares his insights on the power of AI in search. The episode focuses on how advanced language models like GPT-4 are transforming search engines…
AI’s Future: Investment & Impact with Sarah Guo and Elad Gil [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:04:14
Explore the Future of Investment & Impact in AI with Host Lukas Biewald and Guests Elad Gill and Sarah Guo of the No Priors podcast.Sarah is the founder of Conviction VC, an AI-centric $100 million venture fund. Elad, a…
Revolutionizing AI Data Management with Jerry Liu, CEO of LlamaIndex [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 57:35
In the latest episode of Gradient Dissent, we explore the innovative features and impact of LlamaIndex in AI data management with Jerry Liu, CEO of LlamaIndex. Jerry shares insights on how LlamaIndex integrates diverse d…
Enabling LLM-Powered Applications with Harrison Chase of LangChain [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 51:54
On this episode, we’re joined by Harrison Chase, Co-Founder and CEO of LangChain. Harrison and his team at LangChain are on a mission to make the process of creating applications powered by LLMs as easy as possible.We di…