The Voice AI Platform Powering a Billion Calls a Year

Vapi (YC W21) is a platform for building and deploying voice AI agents. Today, it serves about a billion calls a year and works with companies like Amazon, Uber, and Intuit. In this episode of Founder Firesides, co-founders Jordan Dearsley and Nikhil Gupta sit down with YC’s Gustaf Alströmer to talk about years of pivots and burnout, the AI therapist prototype that became Vapi, and why OpenAI’s voice launch almost made them pivot again. They explain why turning powerful models into reliable voice agents is a business of its own, what it took to learn enterprise sales, and how coaching helped them build a stronger cofounder relationship. https://vapi.ai 00:00 — A Billion Voice AI Calls a Year 03:06 — Betting on Better, Faster Models 06:49 — Building a One-Click Zoom Button 10:44 — Walking Away From a Working Business 14:07 — Building an AI Therapist After a Breakup 17:56 — 300 Slack Channels and No Marketing 21:10 — Why One Founder Stopped Coding 24:34 — Why the AI Labs Didn’t Replace Vapi 27:44 — How They Handle Co-Founder Conflict Apply to Y Combinator: https://www.ycombinator.com/apply Work at a startup: https://www.ycombinator.com/jobs

Gustaf AlströmerhostJordan DearsleyguestNikhil Guptaguest

Sep 25, 202632mWatch on YouTube ↗

EPISODE INFO

Released: September 25, 2026
Duration: 32m
Channel: YC Root Access
Watch on YouTube: ▶ Open ↗

EPISODE DESCRIPTION

Vapi (YC W21) is a platform for building and deploying voice AI agents. Today, it serves about a billion calls a year and works with companies like Amazon, Uber, and Intuit. In this episode of Founder Firesides, co-founders Jordan Dearsley and Nikhil Gupta sit down with YC’s Gustaf Alströmer to talk about years of pivots and burnout, the AI therapist prototype that became Vapi, and why OpenAI’s voice launch almost made them pivot again. They explain why turning powerful models into reliable voice agents is a business of its own, what it took to learn enterprise sales, and how coaching helped them build a stronger cofounder relationship. https://vapi.ai 00:00 — A Billion Voice AI Calls a Year 03:06 — Betting on Better, Faster Models 06:49 — Building a One-Click Zoom Button 10:44 — Walking Away From a Working Business 14:07 — Building an AI Therapist After a Breakup 17:56 — 300 Slack Channels and No Marketing 21:10 — Why One Founder Stopped Coding 24:34 — Why the AI Labs Didn’t Replace Vapi 27:44 — How They Handle Co-Founder Conflict Apply to Y Combinator: https://www.ycombinator.com/apply Work at a startup: https://www.ycombinator.com/jobs

SPEAKERS

Gustaf Alströmer
host
Y Combinator partner and host on YC Root Access.
Jordan Dearsley
guest
Co-founder of Vapi, discussing product, pivots, and go-to-market for voice AI agents.
Nikhil Gupta
guest
Co-founder of Vapi, focused on engineering/product realities of deploying voice AI in production.

EPISODE SUMMARY

In this episode of YC Root Access, featuring Gustaf Alströmer and Jordan Dearsley, The Voice AI Platform Powering a Billion Calls a Year explores vapi’s founders built the infrastructure behind billion-call voice agents Vapi is a platform for deploying production voice agents and now serves roughly a billion calls per year for large customers like Amazon, Uber, and Intuit.

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