Flapping Airplanes
@flappyairplanes
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AI lab
San Francisco, CA
Joined December 2025
Announcing Flapping Airplanes! We’ve raised $180M from GV, Sequoia, and Index to assemble a new guard in AI: one that imagines a world where models can think at human level without ingesting half the internet.
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Flapping Airplanes co-founder @amspector100 explains why data efficiency is the greatest bottleneck to AI adoption: "To the extent that AI has been hard to integrate into the economy, I really think it's because models are much less data-efficient than humans. If you want it to
@tbpn very proud to have come onto the show to defend our two core principles: data efficiency and whole milk
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Also Sequoia got us 6 gallons of milk to celebrate 🥛 thank you @DavidCahn6 @ValSarnataro
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We are also truly honored to have @SuhailNimji @Jml_campbell as advisors. They are true company builders who know the valley inside and out but more importantly they know how to help young people believe in themselves
This isn’t just another Neo lab. @bfspector & @amspector100 are forces of nature. A dynamic duo defined by grit, drive, and authenticity—two of the most charismatic, thoughtful, and genuine individuals I’ve met. Honored to be an advisor - @flappyairplanes
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let's give the models a childhood ✈️
Current AI needs the whole internet to learn; humans just need a childhood. I’m joining Flapping Airplanes to help close that gap. We’re building models that think deeper by reading less. It’s time to fly over the data wall—excited to show you what’s next! ✈️
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I spent a bunch of time a year ago thinking about the data wall. A blackpill at the time for me was when I realized that the total stock of natural text data is depleting much faster than Chinchilla's infamous 20 tokens per param compute optimal ratio suggested. Here is a naive
A conventional narrative you might come across is that AI is too far along for a new, research-focused startup to outcompete and outexecute the incumbents of AI. This is exactly the sentiment I listened to often when OpenAI started ("how could the few of you possibly compete with
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Announcing Flapping Airplanes! We’ve raised $180M from GV, Sequoia, and Index to assemble a new guard in AI: one that imagines a world where models can think at human level without ingesting half the internet.
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it's mutual—there are just some partners who you know you have to work with. @IndexVentures is in that category (unmatched conviction, incredible execution) and we are psyched to fly alongside shardul and mark
Some founders you meet, and it doesn’t matter what they’re building. You just know you want to be part of it. We’re thrilled to co-lead this investment in @FlappyAirplanes, and to welcome Ben Spector, Asher Spector, Aidan Smith and their team into the Index family.
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appreciate this take. we're in a new era with a new way of building companies; it's very exciting, it's a serious responsibility, and we will deliver
excited to live in a world where capital gets fearlessly allocated to the most talented and hard working members of society might read like sarcasm given the $1.5B pre-seed for a team w a high schooler and goofy branding, but i mean it. make silicon valley more like silicon
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“I am very interested in today’s 22-year-old who’s going to spend the next 10 years trying to find AGI.” So are we @DavidCahn6!
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incredibly grateful to be in business with @GVteam and @davemuni. we are honored by their conviction and trust. they did cut the blooper reel but i'm optimistic they'll release it later
Progress in AI starts with asking better questions. Excited to back @FlappyAirplanes, founded by Ben Spector (@bfspector), Asher Spector (@amspector100) & Aidan Smith (@aidanmantine). The team is taking a principles-first approach in forging new paths to AI breakthroughs.
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@flappyairplanes finally a company name that actually makes sense
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There might be fast takeoff at SFO, but people are forgetting about it in AI. We're building Flapping Airplanes to train models radically differently and fly over the data wall. We can’t wait to show you what we’ve been working on soon.
Announcing Flapping Airplanes! We’ve raised $180M from GV, Sequoia, and Index to assemble a new guard in AI: one that imagines a world where models can think at human level without ingesting half the internet.
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so true @ebarschkis
An airplane doesn't need to flap its wings like a bird to fly. While LLMs might not achieve a human-like intelligence, for what it's worth, they don't necessarily need to.
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If you don't agree with anything we’ve said, we would be delighted to chat with you about our work! (Be warned that we employ two US debate champions.)
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We are incredibly grateful for investors at @GVteam, @sequoia, @IndexVentures, @xtxmarkets, @MenloVentures, @victoralazarte, @Lux_Capital, @conviction, @fundomo, and @jumptrading. Our advisors and angels include Chris Re, @karpathy, @JeffDean, and more.
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The name “Flapping Airplanes" embodies our culture. Who we are and what we do is out-of-distribution. Our team blends world-class researchers with rising stars who are the best at what they do (our team includes IMO, IOI, IPhO medalists and more).
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Our singular focus is doing good, paradigm-shifting research. Although we're not currently trying to commercialize, we think our work will ultimately unlock enormous value in enterprise settings, robotics, trading, scientific discovery, and much more.
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Flapping Airplanes is a foundational AI research lab devoted to solving the data efficiency problem, which involves exploring some weird, new ideas—from rethinking our loss functions to even gradient descent itself.
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