From innovators to investors, dive deep into the minds of top leaders shaping the future of AI, FinTech, Web3, and Crypto. Discover how artificial intelligence is transforming industries and driving the next wave of innovation.
This is Waves in the Finoverse – The Podcast.
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www.finoverse.com (http://www.finoverse.com/)
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This Man Visited the Best AI Labs in China. Here's What He Saw | Matt White
Matt White (https://www.linkedin.com/in/mdwdata/) is the AI CTO at the Linux Foundation. He just got back from visiting DeepSeek, Moonshot, Zhipu, Qwen, and Minimax in China.
In this episode:
- What he saw inside China's top AI labs that the West doesn't know
- 4 Chinese breakthroughs US labs are quietly building on
- Why export controls backfired and forced China to innovate faster
- 150 humanoid robot startups, China builds the body, America builds the brain
- The biggest mistake enterprises make with AI
- Where he'd put $1M in AI right now
Chapters
00:00 Intro
00:54 Inside China's AI Labs
09:43 DeepSeek's Culture & the Distillation Debate
17:03 Open Source Models vs Commercial APIs
27:28 How Startups Should Choose Their AI Stack
41:17 Agentic AI Safety & Multi-Agent Systems
53:08 Enterprise AI Mistakes & Where to Start
01:08:26 The Future of Agentic Commerce & One-Person Companies
Follow Matt White (https://www.linkedin.com/in/mdwdata/)
Follow Anthony Sar (https://www.linkedin.com/in/anthonysar/)
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28 May 2026
The real reason behind every AI layoff | Maxim Afanasyev, FSI Head for APAC and Japan, Google Cloud
Maxim Afanasyev (https://www.linkedin.com/in/maxim-afanasyev-phd/) has been coding large language models for over 20 years, long before the AI boom. He's an applied AI expert who's worked at McKinsey building AI transformations and now leads AI strategy at Alphabet.
Maxim and Anthony (https://www.linkedin.com/in/anthonysar/) discuss why 95% of AI applications don't deliver bottom-line impact, the global shortage of applied AI experts (only 200 mature professionals worldwide), and why banks are solving yesterday's problems instead of tomorrow's value propositions.
They cover why LLMs became persuasion machines by learning human biases, how customers are now smarter than banks because of AI agents, and why agentic payments will force financial institutions to rethink their entire business model. Maxim also explains why cutting 20% of your workforce signals that your CEO failed at transformation.
Timestamps
00:00 Intro
01:08 Coding LLMs 20 Years Ago in a Soviet-Era AI Lab
06:02 How RLHF Turned Neural Networks into Machines for Persuasion
10:48 From AI Winter to AI Hype: What Actually Changed
13:40 Why 95% of AI Applications Fail to Deliver Bottom-Line Impact
20:22 The 200 Applied AI Experts Problem
25:27 How to Nurture Applied AI Talent Through Experimentation
32:52 Why Bank Chatbots Create Dead Weight Loss
42:48 How AI-Smart Customers Are Breaking Legacy Banking Models
52:08 Asia's Lead in AI Adoption & Why Banks Must Rethink Value
01:04:14 Agentic Payments, Trust & the Renaissance of Physical Experience
01:16:25 Agents, Regulation & the Future of Human-AI Interaction
01:25:00 AI Deepfakes, Recruitment Fraud & the URL-to-IRL Shift
01:35:04 Why CEOs Who Cut Jobs for AI Are Really Admitting Failure
Follow Maxim Afanasyev (https://www.linkedin.com/in/maxim-afanasyev-phd/)
Follow Anthony Sar (https://www.linkedin.com/in/anthonysar/)
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16 Dec 2025
Where the Smartest AI Investors Are Putting Their Money
As this year sets a $200B record for AI funding, Esther Wong and Antoine Blondeau debate over the future of AI investing at Hong Kong FinTech Week x StartmeupHK Festival 2025.
Wong is a former SenseTime executive and one of Asia’s leading AI infrastructure investors, and Blondeau is an early OpenAI investor and a pioneer behind the foundational technology that became Siri.
The two investors sit down with Anthony Sar and tackle the biggest question shaping AI investing today: will the real returns come from AI infrastructure or AI applications?
It’s a rare, unfiltered look at how the smartest people in AI are thinking today.
Connect with us here:
Esther Wong (https://www.linkedin.com/in/esther-wong-76a6a410a/): https://www.linkedin.com/in/esther-wong-76a6a410a/
Antoine Blondeau (https://www.linkedin.com/in/antoineblondeau/): https://www.linkedin.com/in/antoineblondeau/
Anthony Sar (https://www.linkedin.com/in/anthonysar/): https://www.linkedin.com/in/anthonysar/
Finoverse (https://www.linkedin.com/company/finnovasia/): https://www.linkedin.com/company/finnovasia/
Timestamps
00:00 Trailer
00:55 Introduction
02:14 Current State of AI Investment
04:19 Infrastructure vs. Application Layer
06:38 Future of AI and Investment Strategies
19:03 Advice for New AI Investors
24:13 Final Thoughts and Advice for Founders
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