The Superlearner: Investing in David Silver and Ineffable Intelligence

There are some rare moments in my work when something that sounds like science fiction suddenly becomes viscerally real. Sitting down with David Silver and hearing him describe his vision for Ineffable was one of those moments.

Ineffable is creating the world’s first “superlearner,” designed to discover all knowledge from its own experience, without relying on human data. If successful, it will endlessly discover knowledge and skills, ultimately rediscovering and transcending the greatest inventions in human history, from language and science to mathematics and technology.

It's a concept so novel, and such a step-change from how AI is built today, that it could only come from someone who has spent a career pushing at the edges of what machines can learn. David was part of DeepMind from day one, where he led the team that built AlphaGo and AlphaZero — systems that didn't just beat human champions at Go, but discovered ways of playing the game no human had ever conceived. That body of work earned him nearly 300,000 citations, a Royal Society fellowship, the ACM Prize in Computing, and the Marvin Minsky Award. But credentials only tell part of the story. What struck us was the clarity and weight with which David carries this next chapter.

We’ve known David by reputation for years, but actually sitting down and hearing him describe his vision for Ineffable, we were struck by both the scale of his ambition and the integrity with which he operates. We talked openly about what it means to build something this consequential, and what obligations that creates. We pushed hard on governance, on culture, on David’s long-term plans. His answers were those of someone who has spent a career thinking of almost nothing else. That shared sense of responsibility was essential to our decision to invest, and I believe it gave David confidence that we would be the right partner, not just as a source of capital, but as a firm that takes these questions as seriously as he does.

David’s integrity and transparency feel paramount right now, not just in terms of the scale of what he and his team are trying to build—a path toward superintelligence—but in the values that define purpose, attract talent, and ultimately determine success. AI is showing us that culture matters more than ever. The companies that endure will be those that stand for something and are consistent about it. David understands this instinctively, but he’s also put in the work to make it clear. Already, that commitment has translated into a remarkable team of people who are technically world-class and culturally aligned. As David put it to us, “This is a company that should be representing the best of humanity, for humanity.”

At Index, we like to say it’s all about the people. In some ways, this is the ultimate people bet—on someone so singularly credentialed, with ambitions so outsized, that it comes down to their ability to navigate toward something that can’t even be fully described. In a funny way, though, it goes beyond people altogether. Ineffable’s thesis is that the ceiling on intelligence is human knowledge itself. In a very literal sense, their vision is to create intelligence that surpasses what any person, or all people collectively, could achieve.

We’re thrilled to be on this journey with David and the team, and to partner alongside our friends at Sequoia and Lightspeed as we help Ineffable make first contact with superintelligence.