Issue No. 31Week ending Sunday, August 2, 2026436 episodes · 1837 articles
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The Best AI Companies Have Unique Data Acquisition Strategies | Simile Co-founder & CEO

With Harry Stebbings, Jun Song Park · Sunday, August 2, 2026

Jun Song Park, co-founder and CEO of Simily, discusses how their company creates a foundation model of human behavior through simulations. He explains Simily's unique data acquisition strategies focused on causal mechanisms and counterfactuals, rather than just predictions, to help clients shape the future. The episode also covers Simily's rapid product-market fit, its enterprise growth, Jun's team-building philosophy, and his vision for the future of AI simulation as a 'GPU of intelligence'.

Key takeaways

  • Simily, led by Jun Song Park, closed major enterprise deals within three months by solving acute customer pain points, challenging typical assumptions about corporate sales cycles. Read more →
  • Jun Song Park, co-founder and CEO of AI simulation company Simily, builds high-performing research and product teams by identifying specific, non-obvious traits. Read more →
  • Simily’s core insight is that large language models, trained on vast amounts of web data, can extract complex human behaviors, not just classify them. Jun Song Park noted, “if you poke at them sort of the right angle, you could actually extract a lot of realistic human behaviors out of them.” Read more →
  • Jun Song Park, CEO of Simily, argues modern AI companies need defensible data strategies that go beyond mere observation. Read more →

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