Jacob Steeves
Person
Jacob Steeves, also known as Const, is the creator of Bittensor, a decentralized artificial intelligence network. He has appeared as a guest on the podcast 'This Week in Startups' to discuss topics such as Affine, dTAO, and mining reasoning.
What Jacob Steeves has said on podcasts
20 statements
Jacob assesses Bitcoin as possibly the most efficient market in history.
“Bitcoin is probably the most efficient market we've ever seen in history.”
Open the episode · Bittensor creator Const on Affine, dTAO, "mining reasoning," and more | E2326Listen at 7:24
Jacob says Bitcoin’s permissionless computational network continues growing.
“And so anyways, Bitcoin invented that first example and it still is growing day to day.”
Open the episode · Bittensor creator Const on Affine, dTAO, "mining reasoning," and more | E2326Listen at 13:07
Jacob positions Bittensor as connecting global computing power with artificial intelligence.
“How do we connect the most power powerful computer in the world to the most important computational problem in the world?”
Open the episode · Bittensor creator Const on Affine, dTAO, "mining reasoning," and more | E2326Listen at 13:46
Bittensor’s mining primitive can support machine-learning inference.
“We could inference machine learning models as example, which is, you know, when you call them and you get the outputs.”
Open the episode · Bittensor creator Const on Affine, dTAO, "mining reasoning," and more | E2326Listen at 16:55
Bittensor enables creation of specialized mining networks.
“Bittensor is a blockchain where you can produce a different type of mining network.”
Open the episode · Bittensor creator Const on Affine, dTAO, "mining reasoning," and more | E2326Listen at 20:42
TAO has a maximum supply of 21 million tokens.
“So Tao has a 21 million cap.”
Open the episode · Bittensor creator Const on Affine, dTAO, "mining reasoning," and more | E2326Listen at 21:50
Bittensor subnets aim to produce inference compute or models faster and better than competitors.
“The whole premise of one of these projects is that they're able to use this permissionless hyper competitive market to produce this digital commodity inference compute or models faster and better than anyone else in the world”
Open the episode · Bittensor creator Const on Affine, dTAO, "mining reasoning," and more | E2326Listen at 27:01
Permissionless excess compute can dramatically reduce inference costs.
“as a consequence we can dramatically reduce the cost of that commodity.”
Open the episode · Bittensor creator Const on Affine, dTAO, "mining reasoning," and more | E2326Listen at 29:31
An honest validator majority determines Bittensor network incentives.
“The majority, the honest majority, will determine the direction of the incentives in the network.”
Open the episode · Bittensor creator Const on Affine, dTAO, "mining reasoning," and more | E2326Listen at 33:53
Bittensor can enforce service levels through programmatic verification rather than contracts.
“Instead of a contractual sla, it's a programmatic sla.”
Open the episode · Bittensor creator Const on Affine, dTAO, "mining reasoning," and more | E2326Listen at 35:36
Bittensor subnet 51 developed GPU-attestation mechanisms without trusted-execution hardware.
“subnet 51 figured out GPU attestation, you know, trusted execution without trusted execution”
Open the episode · Bittensor creator Const on Affine, dTAO, "mining reasoning," and more | E2326Listen at 39:37
Tripling miner payments tripled subnet compute within two months.
“because they've tripled the amount of money they're paying miners, they've tripled their amount of compute in two months.”
Open the episode · Bittensor creator Const on Affine, dTAO, "mining reasoning," and more | E2326Listen at 47:46
Affine is developing a mechanism to measure intelligence as a commodity.
“we're building the, the code, the mechanism that can actually measure that pinnacle element. Like what does it mean to actually grasp in your hand intelligence as a, as a commodity?”
Open the episode · Bittensor creator Const on Affine, dTAO, "mining reasoning," and more | E2326Listen at 48:56
Affine miners produce models intended to generate reasoning.
“what we have the miners on the network do is we have them produce machine learning models that can produce reasoning”
Open the episode · Bittensor creator Const on Affine, dTAO, "mining reasoning," and more | E2326Listen at 57:05
Affine’s smaller model could augment GLM while operating roughly thirty times faster.
“you could run GLM and instead of GLM thinking, you would just talk to the smaller model and then be able to go like 30 times faster.”
Open the episode · Bittensor creator Const on Affine, dTAO, "mining reasoning," and more | E2326Listen at 58:11
Mining latent thought is expected to enable training highly capable models.
“the end goal is that we think that mining that latent space of thought is going to be the prerequisite for us training incredibly good models.”
Open the episode · Bittensor creator Const on Affine, dTAO, "mining reasoning," and more | E2326Listen at 58:19
A Bittensor network creates no value unless it resists adversarial gaming.
“if you can't solve the adversarial problem in the network, then the network produces no value.”
Open the episode · Bittensor creator Const on Affine, dTAO, "mining reasoning," and more | E2326Listen at 1:01:14
Decentralized collaboration is needed to compete with OpenAI’s compute resources.
“in order for the rest of us to organically self organize and to take on OpenAI, we need to come up with a way that we can work together.”
Open the episode · Bittensor creator Const on Affine, dTAO, "mining reasoning," and more | E2326Listen at 1:03:37
Bittensor cannot currently train trillion-scale models without solving distributed bandwidth constraints.
“training a trillion per hour model is sort of beyond what Bittensor can do until we can come up with an algorithm that stitches together all of the compute in a way that gets around this bandwidth problem.”
Open the episode · Bittensor creator Const on Affine, dTAO, "mining reasoning," and more | E2326Listen at 1:05:30
Jacob predicts Bittensor would continue operating without him.
“I think it would definitely continue if I went away.”
Open the episode · Bittensor creator Const on Affine, dTAO, "mining reasoning," and more | E2326Listen at 1:15:26
Statements are attributed to the speaker as said on the episode and reflect their view at the time, not PodLume's. They are not advice.
7 episodes featuring Jacob Steeves
This Week in Startups
Apple’s next big bet could span AI, robots, and sunlight
The episode tests whether Apple should make larger strategic acquisitions while examining how personalized UV data could turn a wearable into a research platform.
Sep 28, 2026 · 50 min
This Week in Startups
A $5,000 bounty tests whether annotation can become infrastructure
The episode links a hands-on product contest to a larger question about whether web annotations could power fact-checking, context, and valuable data for AI systems.
Sep 28, 2026 · 41 min
This Week in Startups
AI agents test the limits of oversight and startup ambition
The episode connects an Australian portal breach to a broader question about how much autonomy, access, and trust AI systems should receive.
Sep 25, 2026 · 1h 26m
This Week in Startups
Investors question AI valuations as models enter a price war
The panel connects frontier-model economics, inflated private valuations, and tighter venture discipline to the returns founders and investors can realistically expect.
Sep 23, 2026 · 1h 27m
This Week in Startups
Open robotics meets the fight over AI control
The episode connects open-source robotics and local models to a larger question: how should societies manage powerful AI without stifling useful innovation?
Sep 18, 2026 · 1h 34m
Prof G on Relationships
Everyday contempt can forecast a marriage’s collapse
The conversation connects small acts of disrespect, economic strain, and unresolved resentment to the larger question of whether long-term partnership can preserve both fairness and desire.
Sep 9, 2026 · 37 min
This Week in Startups
Bittensor co-founder Jacob Steeves outlines the future of decentralized artificial intelligence
This episode provides a deep dive into the mechanics and economic incentives of Bittensor, highlighting how blockchain technology can be used to decentralize artificial intelligence development.
Aug 17, 2026 · 1h 25m