History of Diffusion
Season 1
Sander Dieleman
Yang Song
by BCV
Research Scientist Sander Dieleman joins BCV Partner Slater Stich to unpack the core mechanics of diffusion models and explore why diffusion has become central to generative AI. https://baincapitalventures.com/ X: @BainCapVC @slaterstich
Before diffusion models powered tools like DALL·E and MidJourney, they were a niche research idea. In this episode, BCV partner Slater Stich talks with Yang Song about the early bets, surprising math, and big breakthroughs that made diffusion the backbone of generative AI—as well as what’s next. https://baincapitalventures.com/ X: @BainCapVC @slaterstich
Diffusion models now dominate generative AI, powering MidJourney, DALL·E, Ideogram, Stable Diffusion, and more—but just a few years ago, they were an obscure research idea. In this episode, BCV partner Slater Stich sits down with Jascha Sohl-Dickstein, the researcher behind the foundational 2015 paper that introduced diffusion as a generative model. BCV.com X: @BainCapVC @slaterstich