Max Sebti: From a Near-Death Experience to Building Score on Bittensor

A near-death experience changed how Max Sebti sees time, people, and the kind of work worth building. That perspective now runs through his approach to crypto, leadership, and Score (SN44), his Bittensor subnet focused on computer vision.

"It's actually almost impossible to sound smart when you're kind."@MaxSebti on the near-death experience that changed how he builds, why a broadcast team at IBC picked up the phone mid-meeting, and what he'd say to anyone about to walk away from Bittensor. pic.twitter.com/1sfVycw3Fc

— Louise Beattie (@LouiseBeattie) September 26, 2026

In the latest episode of People of TAO, hosted by Louise Beattie, Sebti opened up about the experiences that shaped his journey. The conversation moved from surviving severe health complications to navigating crypto’s toxicity and taking decentralized AI toward real customers.

A Near-Death Experience Changed Everything

In 2017, Sebti went through severe health complications that brought him close to death. He keeps many details private, but the experience fundamentally changed how he approached the rest of his life.

“I shouldn’t be here with you today,” Sebti said while explaining the perspective that followed the experience. That realization gave him a different relationship with negativity and the people directing it toward him.

When someone attacks something he cares about, Sebti tries to remember that the reaction belongs to them. His responsibility is simply to decide how he responds and continue showing up with a good heart.

That philosophy has become particularly useful in crypto, where criticism and hostility can quickly become part of the culture.

Finding a Home in Bittensor

Sebti’s route to Bittensor included Bitcoin mining, Human Protocol, and CrunchDAO. Each experience offered something valuable, but none provided the alignment he was ultimately looking for.

Bittensor felt different because contribution could matter more than conventional credentials or institutional status. As a high school dropout, Sebti found meaning in an environment where useful work could speak for itself.

“If anything positive you can say about Bittensor is that it’s actually based on merits,” he said. That belief became central to Score (SN44) as the team experimented with computer vision and football annotation.

Score Started With Football

Score (SN44) initially focused on annotating football footage, but the first product was not good enough. The team could have treated that limitation as a reason to abandon the idea. Instead, they kept developing the technology, refining incentives, and speaking directly with potential customers.

Score Studio Goes Live, Bringing Bittensor’s Computer Vision to Builders

Those conversations gradually revealed that the underlying computer vision capabilities could extend well beyond football. Applications could reach environments such as shops, fuel stations, streets, and other places where visual information matters. The original football focus therefore became a testing ground for something much larger.

AVIA Partners with Score to Bring Vision AI to Europe’s Next Generation Petrol Stations

Bittensor was not simply hosting the product either, its incentive structure became part of how Score could develop, test, and improve the technology in public.

The IBC Wake Up Call

One of the biggest realizations came at IBC Amsterdam. Sebti and other vision subnet teams encountered broadcasters and enterprise technology groups operating far outside the usual Bittensor audience.

The reactions showed a surprising gap between what subnet builders considered impressive and what major businesses saw as impressive. Sebti recalled demonstrations where football game annotations could be completed in under two minutes at a price that surprised potential customers.

live from IBC Amsterdam (google it)

the asymmetry between what we consider “good” or “impressive” in our TAO world

and what massive companies are actually able to achieve with ai, let alone vision ai

is RIDICULOUS

and i mean in-house vision ai labs from Fortune 500…

— Max (@MaxSebti) September 14, 2026

For teams inside the Bittensor ecosystem, such capabilities can start feeling normal after months of building around them. For outside businesses, however, the same capabilities can represent a meaningful commercial advantage.

That realization changed how Sebti thinks subnet teams should approach the market.

Ship Before Everything Is Perfect

Subnet teams can spend enormous amounts of time improving technology before asking whether customers will pay for it. Sebti believes that approach can delay one of the most important sources of information available to builders.

Real customers reveal which problems matter, which features deserve investment, and where the technology can create economic value. A product does not need to solve every possible problem before it can solve one valuable problem well.

For Sebti, the better approach is to ship, generate revenue, and use that revenue and feedback to expand the product. That could give Bittensor subnets a faster route from experimental technology to businesses that have never heard of the network.

Success Does Not Have to Mean Leaving Bittensor

The prospect of successful subnet teams eventually abandoning Bittensor for centralized businesses remains a concern. Sebti sees the relationship differently. A builder who succeeds commercially can gain even more resources and motivation to develop the decentralized side of the ecosystem.

The two sides do not necessarily need to compete for the same outcome. A centralized business can create revenue, relationships, and experience that ultimately strengthen decentralized infrastructure.

The difference comes down to how builders define success. A short term mindset focuses on extracting a personal outcome, while a longer term mindset keeps expanding the system around it.

Sebti believes the latter approach can create stronger incentives for builders who want to see Bittensor grow.

The Advice Behind the Journey

Sebti also pointed to several people whose words influenced the direction of Score (SN44). Const and the broader community repeatedly pushed the team to think more ambitiously.

Mog offered personal encouragement that reinforced the belief that the team could make the idea work. Fish delivered a very different kind of motivation by calling what they were building “completely pointless.”

The criticism could have created resentment, but Sebti eventually treated it as fuel. He noted that being 38 instead of 25 gave him a different perspective on criticism and made it easier to turn negativity into motivation.

Together, those experiences reinforced a lesson that runs through much of his approach to building. The people who challenge a project can sometimes contribute as much as the people who encourage it.

Explaining Bittensor to the Outside World

Sebti also offered three ways to explain Bittensor depending on the audience. To business people, he describes it as an efficient and affordable way to train models. To researchers, he compares it with Kaggle, but with continuous participation and strong third party evaluation.

For everyone else, he reduces the idea to Bittensor being the Bitcoin for AI. The descriptions differ, but they all point toward the same challenge.

Bittensor needs to demonstrate its value to people who have no reason to care about crypto or decentralized networks. Score (SN44)’s experience suggests that opportunity may already be emerging.

Beyond the Bubble

The most important lesson from Sebti’s conversation with Louise Beattie may be that Bittensor does not need to remain an industry inside an industry. Its subnets can build technology for ordinary businesses, solve commercial problems, and generate value without requiring customers to understand the underlying network.

That transition could become one of the biggest tests for Bittensor as the ecosystem matures. The technology needs to work outside the bubble, where customers judge products by results, not by ideology.

For Sebti, the answer starts with genuine contribution, faster execution, and a willingness to listen. It also requires keeping the human side of ‘building’ intact.