Samar Abbas on AI Shift Behind Temporal’s $5B Rise

Samar Abbas and Maxim Fateev are the time-co-founders that have worked on distributed systems-related problems since they joined Amazon, Microsoft, and Uber. However, the AI hype has led to the refinement of such systems by agents going to manufacturing. This problem is now steroidal according to Abbas. As a result, investors have begun to be more lenient of the infrastructure platform of the company.

Temporal recently raised a $300m Series D, with Andreessen Horowitz. Consequently, the financing made the value of the start up 5 billion, which is twice compared to the 2.5 billion in October. The high increase is a sign of the increasing investor trust in the AI infrastructure companies.

The temporal revenue was raised by more than 380 per cent every year. This growth underscores high demand by firms which deploy AI agents having maturing roles. The more an enterprise is automated, the more it relies on well-built and strong backend systems.

According to Abbas, this has been a massive shift in platforms. He emphasized that the new layer of infrastructure is being created to support AI-native applications. In other words, simple tools like Temporal are rapidly growing to be mission-critical in the expanding technologic stack.

AI Platform Shift Fuels Rapid Growth

Temporal promotes a concept it calls “durable execution.” Essentially, it provides developers with a simpler way to manage long-running, distributed workflows. Instead of stitching together queues, databases, and retry systems, engineers write standard code while Temporal ensures reliability behind the scenes.

Abbas and Fateev founded Temporal in 2019 after building the open-source orchestration engine Cadence at Uber. Notably, companies such as HashiCorp, LinkedIn, Airbnb, and Coinbase adopted the earlier system. Their experience laid the groundwork for Temporal’s commercial offering.

“Both of us have been obsessed about this problem space,” Abbas said. In fact, he described Temporal as the fourth or fifth iteration of a similar system they have built. Their long-term focus has helped refine the company’s core technology.

During the cloud era, Temporal evolved into what Abbas calls a “reliability backbone.” Now, as AI agents handle more complex tasks in production environments, demand has expanded dramatically. Consequently, the company finds itself at the center of the agentic AI movement.

Powering the AI Agentic Wave

“We are kind of becoming the core piece of infrastructure which is powering the AI agentic wave,” Abbas explained. Temporal’s customer base reflects that momentum. For example, OpenAI uses the platform for image generation workflows, while Replit relies on it to orchestrate long-running coding agents.

Investors at Andreessen Horowitz echoed this sentiment in a blog post. They noted that although Temporal was not built specifically for generative AI, the rise of intelligent agents has made its technology indispensable. As long-running agents generate enterprise value, the execution layer beneath them becomes critical.

 S. “Soma” Somasegar of Madrona shared a similar perspective. He highlighted that the founders built Temporal to solve a persistent systems problem rather than chase trends. Therefore, the company was well-positioned when the AI wave accelerated.

When asked about AI hype, Abbas pointed to real-world use cases such as healthcare startup Abridge. Doctors, for instance, can focus on patient care instead of documentation. Moreover, similar transformations are occurring in legal workflows, customer support, and research.

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Long-Term Vision and Seattle Roots

“There is real value being delivered to real users,” Abbas said. He believes software creation costs will continue to decline as AI tools advance. Eventually, he envisions a future where nearly anyone can function as a software developer.

Temporal operates as a remote-first company with around 375 employees. However, 62 team members are based in the Seattle area. Abbas and Fateev have long-standing ties to the region, and many early hires remain there.

Abbas noted that Seattle’s deep expertise in software infrastructure aligns well with Temporal’s mission. As a result, the company plans to expand further in the region. “Seattle has the right ingredients of talent,” he said.

 For founders riding the AI wave, Abbas offered straightforward advice. He stressed the importance of clarity around customer value and staying focused on core users. Temporal’s disciplined approach, he suggested, has been key to its rapid growth and $5 billion valuation.