#10 - Iulian Serban: PhD to $14M Raised and Korbit AI, The Future of AI in Software Engineering

Meet Iulian Serban. From coding at 12 to raising $14M with Khosla and Bengio. Here's his crazy story: In 2014, he started his PhD at Mila under Yoshua Bengio In 2017, he co-founded Korbit AI. It was the first AI-powered tutor, before ChatGPT existed. 2 years later, they raised $2M+ and grew to 20,000+ users. But they hit a wall, they struggled with engagement. So Iulian pivoted: AI code reviews for engineers. And it clicked. In 2023, they raised $11.3M and are growing like crazy. I spoke with Iulian on his story, the future of education with AI, and the implications of agents in the workforce. Chapters: 0:00 The Power of Technology in Modern Times 1:31 The Journey of Iulian Serban 1:54 What is Korbit AI? 02:37 The Value of Learning to Code 05:47 Early Beginnings in Tech 11:43 Theoretical vs. Practical Knowledge 14:02 Transition from Research to Entrepreneurship 17:48 The Evolution of Korbit AI 25:13 Challenges and Opportunities in Education 27:32 The Role of Universities and Self-Learning 32:20 Corporate Learning and Employee Development 37:07 Pivoting to Code Management 37:49 Building and Testing POCs 38:48 Focusing on Bug Detection 40:14 Understanding User Feedback 43:51 Launching the Product 44:35 Targeting Engineering Managers 47:41 The Role of AI in Code Reviews 49:52 Future of AI and Product Management 58:50 Virtual Personas and AI Agents 01:12:42 Concluding Thoughts and Future Steps