# Aidan Smith

Markdown copy of https://realalpha.app/builders/aidan-smith/ on Real Alpha, the best minutes from long interviews with the people building AI. Cite and link the page, not this copy.

Real Alpha has cut 6 moments of Aidan Smith (Co-founder, Flapping Airplanes) talking, from an interview on MTS published Oct 22, 2026.

- Role: Co-founder, Flapping Airplanes
- About: Co-founded Flapping Airplanes, a data-efficient AI lab that raised a $1B Series A; ex-Neuralink ML researcher.
- Company: [Flapping Airplanes](https://realalpha.app/companies/#flapping-airplanes)
- On X: https://x.com/aidanmantine

## What Aidan Smith said

- [Whole-brain emulation has two difficult bottlenecks](https://realalpha.app/s/whole-brain-emulation-has-two-difficult-bottlenecks/)
  MTS · Oct 22, 2026 · 3 min
  > “the first is how do you get the data of what the heck's going on in the brain” — Aidan Smith · [6:35](https://realalpha.app/v/D6vex2xnwD8/?t=395)
- [More efficient AI could unlock demand across the economy](https://realalpha.app/s/more-efficient-ai-could-unlock-demand-across-the-economy/)
  MTS · Oct 22, 2026 · 3 min
  > “we want to unlock this 90% of the economy, which is untouched right now.” — Aidan Smith · [11:38](https://realalpha.app/v/D6vex2xnwD8/?t=698)
- [Small labs attract talent by offering meaningful ownership](https://realalpha.app/s/small-labs-attract-talent-by-offering-meaningful-ownership/)
  MTS · Oct 22, 2026 · 3 min
  > “At Flapping Airplanes, oh, you own this thing that's really, really important.” — Aidan Smith · [21:08](https://realalpha.app/v/D6vex2xnwD8/?t=1268)
- [AI algorithms should be designed around their hardware](https://realalpha.app/s/ai-algorithms-should-be-designed-around-their-hardware/)
  MTS · Oct 22, 2026 · 3 min
  > “everything fits to the hardware that it's given everything is downstream of the primitives that you give it” — Aidan Smith · [5:48](https://realalpha.app/v/D6vex2xnwD8/?t=348)
- [A new AI lab can compete beyond verifiable code](https://realalpha.app/s/a-new-ai-lab-can-compete-beyond-verifiable-code/)
  MTS · Oct 22, 2026 · 3 min
  > “we do not have to focus on the same areas where everyone else is really having this dogged competition” — Aidan Smith · [14:29](https://realalpha.app/v/D6vex2xnwD8/?t=869)
- [Models cover far less real-world data than their scale suggests](https://realalpha.app/s/models-cover-far-less-real-world-data-than-their-scale/)
  MTS · Oct 22, 2026 · 2 min
  > “We think that we have 99% of data in the world in these models, but we really have under 1%, because there's so much individual knowledge” — Aidan Smith · [18:04](https://realalpha.app/v/D6vex2xnwD8/?t=1084)

## The episode

- [AI Models Will Tap the Whole Economy in 2 Years | Aidan Smith](https://realalpha.app/v/D6vex2xnwD8/) · MTS · Oct 22, 2026