The a16z Show · Wednesday, September 9, 2026
Rayan Krishnan, founder and CEO of Val's, discusses the critical need for independent testing and evaluation of AI models, arguing that public benchmarks can be insufficient and misleading. He highlights the challenges in accurately measuring model capabilities as AI advances rapidly.
“What's the limit of what you can achieve and then within that how are you going about it?”
“AI models keep getting better. But the tests we use to measure them can become obsolete almost as quickly.”
“We get into why public benchmarks can give a distorted picture of model capabilities. Why independent evaluation matters.”