Ep 158: Nima Ghamsari on Blend's Comeback & the Power of AI Agents and Infinite Workforce

**Nima Ghamsari** (0:00)
I don't think there's a deep enough understanding of what agentic AI can and will do. Imagine a world where you have an infinitely scalable workforce. Every industry has to be re-architected.

**Joe Lonsdale** (0:10)
You famously showed up to Palantir as a new grad with an Aston Martin DB9.

**Nima Ghamsari** (0:14)
The reason I joined Palantir is because you're working with the smartest people in the world.

**Joe Lonsdale** (0:19)
In 2012, you launched Blend.

**Nima Ghamsari** (0:21)
We started this company with the idea that you could have a fully self-driving mortgage.

**Joe Lonsdale** (0:26)
Became one of the kind of hot SaaS companies in Silicon Valley, Valuing the billions of dollars. The mortgage industry crashed.

**Nima Ghamsari** (0:31)
It's like what Warren Buffett is saying about the tide goes down and you can see who's not wearing any pants.

**Joe Lonsdale** (0:36)
You launched two months ago your AI agent autopilot.

**Nima Ghamsari** (0:38)
We definitely have the most deployed agents in financial services right now. I think the 2030s are going to be the most booming decade in 100 years.

**SPEAKER_3** (0:52)
Before we begin, a quick disclosure. Joe Lonsdale has a long-standing personal and professional relationship with Blend and its CEO, including having been an early investor, advisor and board member. Joe is a principal of 8VC, and its managed funds currently hold shares of Blend. American Optimist is Joe's personal podcast. This episode reflects Joe's personal views and is not investment advice or a recommendation to buy, sell or hold any security.

**Joe Lonsdale** (1:12)
Nima Ghamsari was one of our stars from Palantir after graduating Stanford. I was the first investor in Blend 14 years ago. He's now in the middle of an Act Two. It's one of the Act Two's I'm really bullish on. Taking a great core company that already had a lot of success in its industry, in this case, the mortgage industry, adding in most advanced AI and AI agents and having it grow a lot faster and serve the industry better. Nima is also an optimist on AI and all that's possible now in America. He's an exciting entrepreneur to hear from. Welcome to the American Optimist. We're here with my friend Nima Ghamsari today. Nima, thanks for joining us.

**Nima Ghamsari** (1:45)
Thanks for having me.

**Joe Lonsdale** (1:46)
We're old friends. You studied computer science at Stanford right after me. And we worked together at Palantir for a long time. Some fun stories from there. Originally, I think your family immigrated to the US from Iran. Tell us about your upbringing.

**Nima Ghamsari** (1:58)
Yeah, I was born in Iran in the 80s right after the Revolution. And we came to America first to the Midwest, first to Michigan, and then to Ohio. And my parents were professors there.
I was in Ohio until I was 18 Then I went to Stanford and studied computer science.

**Joe Lonsdale** (2:15)
What were your parents professors of?

**Nima Ghamsari** (2:16)
My dad is a professor in math and physics. And my mom was a chemistry professor.

**Joe Lonsdale** (2:21)
Awesome.

**Nima Ghamsari** (2:21)
So all of the sciences.

**Joe Lonsdale** (2:23)
All the sciences. Did you always want to do computer science or does that come from your parents?

**Nima Ghamsari** (2:28)
You know, it's interesting. My parents are a little bit more old school. They wanted me to be reading books and doing math proofs. But I loved computers as a kid in the mid-90s when the computer boom was happening. I would be locked up in my room building computers, coding in BASIC and learning the latest and whatever the most cutting edge thing was. And it was super controversial because the Internet was getting going. And I would spend all my time then on the Internet playing these text-based games that I was trying to learn how to also code myself. And it was not the most alignment. You know, it's like they would came from a different generation where the Internet and computers were not a thing. And so they didn't understand what it was going to become.
And, you know, so it was a little bit controversial, but I enjoyed it ever since I was eight years old.

**Joe Lonsdale** (3:14)
And you were playing text-based games and building them. Also, I remember playing online poker and making a lot of money on that. Was that a college thing?

**Nima Ghamsari** (3:20)
That was a college thing.
The story there is, I remember this so vividly. I was a freshman at Stanford. I was in this dorm called Donner.
And I was getting ready. I was going interviewing. Even though Stanford is really good about financial aid for families who don't make a lot of money and they offered to cover our full tuition with financial aid. What they didn't cover though was room and board and books and those kinds of things. I had to go get a job and I was going to go get a job at Starbucks. And I went to interview to Starbucks and they're like, well, you had a job at Starbucks back in Cincinnati, so of course we'll hire you. And I had a job offer. I shouldn't say job offer, but yeah, a job offer from them. And I was talking with my dorm mates and he said, you're going to go work at Starbucks? You should try this online poker thing. You don't even need to be good. You just have to be good enough to play hands without losing money. And the poker sites were trying to garner up interest. And so they would just pay out monthly money to people who could play enough hands and keep the tables busy. Not a huge amount, like a couple of grand, but that's all I needed. And then that got me on the poker career. And I ended up, one other cool story about that, first week they gave you $25 to sign up. I had no money, I had literally no money in my bank account, like negative $6.