He Turned $25K Into $1.9M, Lost It, Then Built AI That Protects Your Data | Yagub Rahimov

Yagub Rahimov left Azerbaijan as a teenager on a US cultural exchange program and became an award-winning trader before finishing school, turning 25,000 dollars into 1.9 million before losing most of it to greed. He rebuilt, co-founded a global fintech media group, and exited to private equity in 2020. Today he leads Polygraf AI, an Austin-based company pioneering small language models that run on-premise and on the edge, addressing data leakage, deepfakes, and shadow AI for highly regulated environments. In this episode, Robin and Yagub talk about the bicycle story that shaped his sense of responsibility, the discipline lessons learned from a major trading collapse, why small local AI models can outperform giant cloud models on sensitive tasks, how Polygraf catches deepfakes and AI-assisted interview cheating, the security risks hiding inside bring-your-own-LLM setups, and his vision for AI running privately on every device, from phones to defense systems. Connect with Yagub Rahimov: https://www.linkedin.com/in/yrahimov/ | https://polygraf.ai Connect with Robin Ayoub: https://www.linkedin.com/company/localization-fireside-chat | https://robinayoub.blog | https://n49networks.com Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/nxCZTk1Ld7U Book a podcast conversation: [email protected] CreditsHost: Robin Ayoub, Founder, Localization Fireside ChatConnect and watch moreWebsite: www.L10NFiresideChat.comSpotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5OoURgc29R31XPGzOWL9iXBe a guest: https://calendly.com/robin-ayoub/localization-fireside-chat-podcast-recordingLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robinayoub/Support the showShare the episode with a friend. Subscribe on YouTube and Spotify. Leave a short review.DisclaimerViews are for education and discussion. Apply judgment in your own context.Tags#L10NFiresideChat #localization #hiring #recruiting #leadership #ai Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.