In this conversation with Chris Joannou at the inaugural HumanX conference, we discussed why AI inferencing could break the grid, the global race for sustainable AI infrastructure, and why DeepSeek completely enabled the rest of the world to catch up in the AI race.

Watch the full podcast here.

Episode Highlights with Timestamps

[00:00] Esther’s career risk: Green card fears and career advice that changed everything 

[01:20] Co-founding SenseTime: Raising $6B+ and building China’s largest AI platform 

[03:00] Betting on a ground-up, proprietary AI vision while pregnant — and taking a 90% pay cut 

[04:30] Lessons from startup life: Why 2 years in a startup taught more than 20 years in banking 

[05:50] The coming electricity crisis: Why inferencing will overwhelm today's grid 

[07:10] What is “sustainable AI”? — 4 buckets for making AI viable long-term 

[09:00] Why Esther is backing AI infrastructure over applications