Flagship Podcast Unlocking the Next Interface with Anthony Azrak, CEO & Co-Founder @ General Magic
Mar 4, 2026
Anthony Azrak, Co-founder and CEO of General Magic, builds language-first interfaces to let people work via natural language. He talks about his journey from building robots to founding startups. The conversation explores shifting from GUIs to natural-language workflows, embeddable agents and widgets, model strategy and integrating messy customer data, plus fundraising and product plans.
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Early Robot Builds Led To A One Person EHR Startup
- Anthony Azrak started building robots at age eight and launched a one-person EHR startup while finishing university.
- He shut it down after Quebec signed a $3B deal with Epic, learning enterprise sales and real-world software usage constraints.
Seven Hour Demo Forged The Cofounder Bond
- Anthony met cofounder Jay at Next36 and they built their first demo in seven hours after locking themselves in a meeting room.
- Their contrasting personalities (Anthony technical, Jay extroverted/sales) created a complementary founding team.
Natural Language As The Next Interface
- The GUI is a one-size-fits-all relic that leaves many users behind, and AI enables natural language to become the primary interaction layer.
- OpenSesame's thesis: convert language prompts into API/action chains and a dynamic Language User Interface (LUI).