Inside the Model Factory — Eiso Kant, Poolside AI

Latent Space · 3 months ago · 14 ● 4 sources

Poolside AI, co-founded by Eiso Kant, released smaller models like Laguna S 2.1 that outperform much larger competitors, backed by a systematic engineering approach called the Model Factory. The company completes model cycles in 8 weeks while running 10,000–20,000 experiments monthly across fewer than 70 researchers, using techniques like streaming data directly into training and low-precision compute. This efficiency enables Poolside to compete as an independent open-weights model company rather than consolidating into an AI oligopoly, shifting the focus from raw model scale to engineering rigor and data efficiency.