Today I'm sitting down with Sam Alman,

the co-founder of OpenAI. A long time

ago, you talked or did a talk at

Stanford focused on how to start a

startup. What is the biggest thing that

has kind of shifted over the past like

10 years since you initially did those

talks?

>> Clearly AI uh and what is possible to do

now with a small team of people has and

the speed with which you can do it. Uh

and also not only what's possible but

like what you have to do to be

competitive given how much the world has

shifted. uh feels totally different. Um

it is amazing to me what a 10-week old

startup now can look like. Um and also

if you look like a 10-week old startup

from 10 years ago, you sort of are in

bad shape.

>> If you think of the 10e old startup in

your mind today, what is the one that is

the best example of a startup that moved

extremely quickly?

>> I don't even know what they're called,

but I met a what will be a startup that

is like 2 weeks old, something like

that, that has an entirely redone um

sort of office productivity suite,

whatever. all made for like a world

where AI has got to be able to use

documents, presentations, spreadsheets,

whatever. As a first class consumer and

uh I don't know, I felt like it would

have been a year's worth of work for a

startup pretty recently.

>> I would assume that if the like barriers

to starting startups and the like tools

out there become more proliferated and

all this stuff, you would assume that

like harder startups are easier to

start. What it means to be a hard

startup is changing so incredibly

quickly

that I don't think I have a perfect

mental model for what over the many

years that it takes to build a very

successful company. what are going to be

the really hard and really valuable

things like you know I've heard a lot of

people say well anything in the physical

world is extra valuable right now

because software is going to become free

but you know like won't be that long

until robots get really good and a lot

of the expectations of you know it's

really difficult to make rockets or

whatever that may change like quite

dramatically I love times like this I

think startups are they have the biggest

edge when the ground is shifting the

most um and when costs are coming down

rapidly and cycle times are coming down

rapidly. That's when startups

really,

I think, just have a a massive inherent

advantage. And that's happening in so

many places at once right now that it

seems like a great time to be doing

startups. And yet most startups are

like, I'm going to go build AI agents

for enterprise vertical X. Now,

that actually will work in a lot of

cases. It'll be very competitive and it

may not be like in fact I'd say it

probably won't be like the most

successful

defining startups of that era. Um but it

will work. But but given how much the

landscape is in flux, I am surprised

there are not more people doing the like

I'm going to go take on the crazy the

crazy thing with this completely new set

of tools. and also being willing to

truly internalize the fact that scaling

laws are going to continue and planning

for the things that are not possible or

economical this month but will be

possible in 2 years, four years,

whatever. So, it seems like an

unbelievable time to be starting

startups and there's very fertile ground

but there's also and I no judgment if

this is what people go for. There's this

incredible temptation to just like go

apply today's agents to the easy wins

and I get it. One thing that you've said

throughout the years is you basically

try to whenever you meet someone new,

you try to like plot where they are on

your mental model of who they are as a

person and then the next time that you

meet them, you basically want to figure

out how far or how fast they progressed.

>> Did that sort of thing and like doing

this across maybe thousands of people

impact your ability to kind of say,

okay, the model is this intelligent

today, it's this intelligent 3 months

later. Suddenly you can like plot this

out and it makes it easy to believe in

the growth. I think there's like a

general thing behind both of those which

is I just like I developed a great trust

in exponentials in people or companies

or models. Um I don't I don't think that

subjectively at least it doesn't feel

like watching model progress is the same

as like watching a founder develop but I

think the underlying belief system about

the world is is the same. If I were

still advising startup founders, this is

the most important thing I would try to

get them to wrap their heads around. And

it is evidently hard for the same reason

that there's like free money left in the

market for betting on high growth young

founders. And it's like one of the

market has still not adapted enough for

that. Um I think the market has also

still not adapted enough for like the

exponential of model progress is going

to continue. And it is okay to start

working on things now that require

smarter or cheaper models.

>> This idea of constantly shifting chaos,

how do you get good at it? How do you

get good at operating in a chaotic

environment?

>> I think it's just practice. There are a

handful of things

that I think no matter how much you

intellectually understand take a lot of

reps to like emotionally be able to

handle and operating

in a lot of chaos and trusting that

you'll figure it out and it'll be okay

and like this is not going to be the

thing that kills you and you don't quite

yet know how you're going to solve it

but you're going to figure it out. This

seems to me to be something that you can

only learn by going through it. Um,

and I actually think this is a real

weakness of young founders is that they

have not had the career experience of

getting to emotional peace with this.

And so they have a very hard time with

it in the early days and then and then

they eventually learn it but at you know

great pain and cost and unforced errors.

You definitely will, if you end up in a

high stress sort of impactful job, you

will definitely learn how to deal with

chaos and function very well through it.

At least most people will, but I don't

think it's teachable. I think it's only

learnable. You had an interesting thing

that you said a long time ago, which is

basically like the first time that you

experience this company killing event,

uh, feels like the world's falling apart

and then you make it through and then by

the 10th time it's not nearly as bad and

you're like, well, I survived the first

nine, this one's probably not that bad.

You also had this other idea where you

said at some point, I think it was like

a year or two ago, you came to the

conclusion that was always going to

be going wrong and so you kind of had to

like internalize the enjoyment of

experiencing pain or like not great

things happening. Uh, how did you make

that transition? I was reflecting

earlier when you were saying this about

how when I would do office hours at YC,

I could always tell who the new founders

were

>> because of the way that they reacted to

stuff going horribly wrong versus the

founder because I often didn't know like

how new a company was, but I could tell

if it was like a founder in the batch

versus a founder that been doing this

for a couple of years by their like

emotional state when they talked about a

problem. Um, I think most people

think about the opposite of a bad

experience as a good experience and they

would rather have the good experience um

because seems like more fun or more

pleasant or whatever. But if you think

about like the opposite of a bad

experience is no experience and at some

point in the notistant future you'll be

in no experience land. uh then you know

you can be grateful for the bad

experience too. Naval Ravakant used to

say this thing that I loved which is if

you had like a fast forward button on a

remote for your life your life would be

over. And so like the boring parts, the

bad parts, it's like much better than no

experience. It's all part of the like

interestingness of and the kind of like

emotional depth and range. And I don't

know, I find it like fairly easy to be

grateful for the bad days. When you

think about like hard problems and like

what rallies people to get excited to go

work on hard problems, how do you decide

like internally at the company which

things to go tackle and when and like

when you want to like focus on just your

core competencies versus like expanding

the scope.

>> I think like a clear mission and then a

deep understanding of the problem

together

do a fairly good job of pointing to what

you should do. you won't get it all

right. You'll still like at some points

overly expand or not be ambitious

enough. Um, but we are we are like very

focused on

this is going to massively empower

people. It's going to be, you know,

choppy but wonderful and it's extremely

important to us that power in the world

get more decentralized and more spread

out. And in fact, like one of the

biggest AI risks I am worried right now

is like AI authoritarianism. And you

know, a small number of people or

companies thinking they need to control

the world. That'd be very, very bad. Um,

but given this mission, we feel like we

need to figure out how to make AI

extremely abundant, extremely cheap,

extremely powerful, put it in everyone's

hands, and like have a lot of it to get

to use. And as we look at what's in the

way of that, there's a whole bunch of

new constraints like chips and energy

and data centers and robots and all the

pieces that need to come together to

build this platform so that we can like

enable this mission. Now there's a bunch

of things you can build on top of that

platform like you can go build every

vertical, every startup. We have no

desire to do that like that. I think a

decentralized economy is important and

good and I would like us to just be

really great about producing these units

of intelligence and

make the world like man this is just you

know incredibly capable an incredibly

great deal and we're going to imbue it

in every product and service and so I

think that's very instructive to us

about what we have to go do my

interestingly the the kind of key inputs

to like extraordinarily abundant

highquality lowcost intelligence a lot

of those things like energy, like

robots, uh are also things that you

really want in a world of abundant

intelligence. If ideas are plentiful and

there's all this great stuff, we still

live like in a physical world and we

still want stuff to happen. So, you

know, we need to be able to make stuff

happen in that world. And I have

wondered if like the fact that energy

and robots are going to be so important

to staying on this this intelligence

infrastructure ramp and also the things

that you need immediately after it are

energy and robots. Um says anything deep

at all or is just like the most boring

[clears throat] obvious thing which is

like to produce anything intelligence

included you need to manipulate matter.

But it is kind of interesting that we

need these new areas so much for what

we're doing now and then so much more

immediately after.

>> What do you think your biggest

bottleneck is? Uh if you just say like

we want this to continue scaling

unabated. What is the biggest bottleneck

that you can see?

>> Transistors and then electrons in that

order.

>> So let's say you know you take someone

like Jensen where he's like incredibly

good at aligning all his suppliers

towards you know his vision for the

future. I think you're also extremely

good at this. Um, how do you kind of

think about not only keeping OpenAI on

the OpenAI timelines, but also keep the

rest of the world on OpenAI timelines as

well?

>> You talk to them a lot. You have to and

you don't just say like, I need you to

like deliver this turbine or this chip

on this date. Um, because you know

people will say, "Okay, whatever." And

they have a bunch of other priorities.

You really have to like show them here

is the upcoming model. Here's what it

enables. Here's our research. like we we

we for our core suppliers, we really

show them a lot about what we're doing,

why we believe what we believe, what

it's going to enable. Um, and you know,

you figure out I mean, the most

important thing is to like get them to

believe in the mission and why they need

to prioritize it, but you also try to

figure out how to align their incentives

with yours as much as you can.

>> Charlie Mer has this awesome line where

he's like, "Every time I've thought that

I understood the power of incentives,

I've like underestimated them." How do

you like successfully align all the

incentives of the different partners as

well as the people inside of OpenAI?

>> Well, companies are amazing vehicles for

this to start. Um the you know as a kid

I was like very fascinated by the

industrial revolution and I understood

it as a bunch of technologies that

happened to come around the same time

and for some puzzling reason happened to

scale at around the same time. Um, and

you know, I would like talk to my

friends or my parents or whatever about

whether it was like this technology was

the most important invention or this one

or that one. And my read of it from my

current lens as like someone who has now

spent more time think about business is

that the the important invention was the

joint stock corporation.

And before that was invented and you

know you had these like kind of family

businesses that ran on trust and you had

to know everyone and you didn't have the

idea of a corporation. You didn't have

the idea of like stockholders really.

And then all of a sudden this new thing

was invented. Countries like the

sovereigns of the world granted this

sort of a new kind of status really a

thing that didn't exist before. This

very powerful thing that we're going to

let these

new entities emerge and

not give them the power of a state but

give them like much more than the power

of a person. And fundamentally this was

about you know incentive alignment,

liability protection which is another

kind of incentive alignment. Um the

ability to like amass capital and all of

a sudden you could do things beyond what

a family business could do. And that

environment let people raise money to

develop technologies. Very speculative

nature. Uh pool capital figure out ways

to get different companies to sort of

specialize in different ways and

interact with each other. Serious

financial systems and new kinds of

instruments.

This was really an incredible thing. uh

and

and the idea of a company has done a

huge amount to align incentives of very

large groups of people. Now, you know,

millions of people can be shareholders

of a company. There's a bunch of other

things we do, but I don't want to

diminish what has been this incredible

invention and like the the just

ridiculous

overperformance of capitalism in human

society. Like a chart that I think

people should look at much more than

they do is the like fall of extreme

poverty over the last hundred years

>> like infant mortality and all the other

things

>> any of them that you want any of the

associated things. Um you know if you

like kind of look back at that that's

like the most zoomed in view of the last

hundred years. But if you look back at

kind of economic growth, quality of life

improvements, uh all of these things and

you just like drew out all of human

history and you put the line when like

the company was invented, you would see

like a really quite interesting change

in the shape of that curve after it.

Beyond that, uh I think we have a

mission that transcends any amount of

economic power anything else could ever

do. Uh, and that's probably more

important.

>> One of the things that I've thought is

the most interesting is have you ever

seen one of those stats where it's like

I don't know what percentage of like

CEOs are sociopaths and psychopaths?

It's like very very high.

>> People talk about this.

>> So I I wonder if capitalism is the first

system that allowed these people that

are like super kind of self- serving to

like their incentives are realigned with

societies and just create great products

and then suddenly you help society but

you also win.

Um, I definitely know a lot of

sociopathic CEOs, but I would say the

best ones I know I would not put in that

category. There's a lot of very high ego

CEOs, uh, people just like incredibly

high opinions of themselves on a way

that maybe like would have been just

like purely annoying, but now because

people can like, you know, buy their

shares, maybe you like tolerate their

annoyance and antics a little more. So,

there's definitely some aligning thing

there. I don't know. I think there are a

lot of CEOs of very large companies that

I would not put in the sociopath

category at all.

>> What do you think drives those people?

>> I mean, it's different for different

ones of them. Like

definitely seeing how good they can get

at the game or like how much they can

get better than themselves every year I

think is a huge part of it. You know,

it's like intellectually quite

stimulating.

>> Mhm.

>> Um for all of the other problems like

you're kind of playing the most

interesting strategic game and that can

be fun. If you had to think about the

way that you operate today versus the

way that you would have operated 10

years ago if placed in the exact same

position that you are currently what are

the biggest differences between those

two people? Well, on the to the previous

question, the thing that drives me the

most is like this is the most

interesting important thing I can

imagine doing and we are now like in the

singularity like this is the moment

>> for the la 10 years ago this was like a

kind of far off dream at best. Um

seemed very improbable and now we're

like actually in the moment that we used

to like talk about at the lunch table in

a very not serious way. Uh, and so the

thing that drives me is I've been

waiting for this my whole life and I

think it's going to be incredible,

hugely positive, awesome for the world.

Um, I'm excited to get to work on that.

I also think some of the alternative

visions painted by other companies are

like quite terrifying. I'm going to make

sure that gets pushed against and is not

what happens. Um, but the main thing of

what's different than 10 years ago is

like we're actually in it. like this is

the real I think it is both true that it

is all one crazy exponential and any one

moment is not like the tipping point and

also that we are somehow in another one

of those decisive periods where the

curve can go one way or another like it

was when we started 10 years ago.

>> What do you think the biggest impacts

are on getting this part of the curve

right?

I think like there are still major

AI alignment issues to solve and safety

issues and there are still major

economic issues, future of jobs, all of

that kind of stuff. But I think the

fight of the current moment is

are we going to head to a world of

AI authoritarianism or liberty? Are we

going to decide that because of the very

real safety issues and economic issues

that you know we want one single model

to be the machine god or the company

associated to do that or are we going to

say like you know what it's going to be

it may be a little messy but every time

that humanity has traded off its liberty

for safety it's been a long-term net

loss and so we are going to put this in

the hands of people we're going to

empower power them. We are going to let

society express its ideas and use this

technology in the way they want. Of

course, according to some guard rails

with some guardrails, but you know, with

a lot of power and potential. Uh, and I

really care that we do it that way.

>> When you were talking with Patrick

Hollson on stage, must have been like a

couple months ago, there was this

fascinating thing that you said, which

is basically like you will talk or text

with 3 to 400 people a day internally.

>> I text more people than anybody else I

know. I don't think this is like a good

thing. I think this is actually like a

bad habit.

>> Why?

>> Um because it takes up like most of my

time and I get like into I have a very

short attention span now.

>> Interesting. What does that enable you

to do that like otherwise?

>> Huge amount of context. I mean I'm like

a AI model that's not that smart but

just has like a huge amount like a

shortterm context on like whatever's

happening right now and then forget.

Does that enable you to make decisions

that other people wouldn't have? Like

what company decision better? I don't

know. I mean, it lets me make different

decisions on other people would.

>> What different decisions would you have

you made in the last like 12 months that

you wouldn't have made if you didn't

have so much context?

>> I don't know if I have like a specific

one I can share publicly, but there's

like a lot of things where, you know,

because I I know about some random

research breakthrough impending that is

going to like affect some customer or

some supplier or whatever, I can make a

slightly different decision in the

moment. And if I hadn't known it that

morning, I would have made a different

decision. It would have been worse. One

of the things that I think you are the

best at is kind of like long-term

thinking and yet it also seems like

things are moving so quickly and the

world is changing so fast that planning

20 years out and then like looking

backwards I don't even know if that

makes sense. Um how do you think about

this? How is like is your time pricing

shortening? I I actually don't try to

plan backwards. I try to have like a a

small number of strongly held

convictions about the future that are

like directions to head towards but then

I try to like plan forwards from the

current state about like what can we do

now what can we do this year and

sometimes you do have to like plan a few

things on a you know 5 or 10 year

horizon but I try to plan forward guided

to a small number of beliefs about the

future I think there are a lot of people

who have way too many beliefs about the

future and a kind of rigid worldview

that they try to fit and then but what

happens is they end up like chasing, you

know, you see like space companies turn

into AI companies or whatever. Um, and

like having just a small number of

things that you deeply believe about the

future and being very flexible on the

rest. Um, and staying very true to the

core is is helpful. One of the people

that I know the best, his top, you know,

company core value is just critical path

and just focusing on the critical path

and like staying focused on the key

drivers of whatever the biggest

roadblock is. just unfuck that and then

go to the next one and do that again.

How do you think about critical path in

your own life when you're kind of like

trying to make these decisions?

>> I mean, for so long now, I have felt

focused on this singular goal of

abundant intelligence and a belief that

like incredible human prosperity will

come from that as long as we don't have

a weird power concentration and kind of

a new kind of authoritarianism. It has

been fairly clear to me at any given

time what's on the critical path to get

there. And I have not been tempted by,

you know, should I reconsider the goal

or should I think about these other

things. I have been thinking about that

a little bit more recently of like,

okay, if we really are close to super

intelligence, what's next? But but it's

this that's kind of how I I subjectively

feel we are close is the first time in

like more than a decade I've thought

about what is the next thing.

>> And is it the ranch?

>> Uh I mean eventually there might be a

few more things on the way, but that is

yes, that is the eventual plan. If you

had to like try to guess what else does

Sam want to accomplish before he

ranches.

>> Um look AI super intelligence is going

to get built like that you know not done

but like going to we are we are on the

glide path

>> path to the get there is very

>> abundance and decentraliz and like wide

access to it and making sure that it

ends up with like broadly shared

prosperity. I would really like to

accomplish that. So maybe that that's

the thing that I've been like thinking

about as the next thing like how does

technologically we're going to

accomplish our mission. I think a lot of

our worldview and a lot of our beliefs

about

safety and the impact is going to have

have also we've gotten those things done

too. Um but you know very broadly shared

prosperity and uh a real focus on

enabling the world here. Um that seems

very important. I've heard you say again

and again uh this idea of get on planes

in marginal situations. I've done this a

huge number of times for you.

>> Uh so far it's working pretty well.

Good. I think

>> I think it's I think it's very solid

advice.

>> When was the last time that you got on a

plane in a marginal situation?

>> Well, I can't say what for, but very

recently and it worked out.

>> Congratulations.

>> Thank you.

>> And I really didn't want to. It was like

a very inconvenient two overnights.

Didn't want to do it. New baby, whole

mess, but I did.

>> Okay. actually take me into your like

mental process for deciding to do this

world tour. That is just I mean it again

it's like hard to rewind 3 years cuz now

like it feels like AI has been here

forever but 3 years ago we had just

launched GPT4. The world was melting

down. Everybody was freaking out. Um

everybody was just like oh man. And no

one knew what to think. And I could just

feel these like storm clouds brewing and

like

>> people just getting angry

>> or

>> it was like world leaders were like do

we need to like take control and shut

things down? Like is this thing waking

up and about it was it was a weird time

and because it had all happened so fast

people had not had time to like

wrap their head around it go through

this process whatever. Uh so

you know we were like getting all of

this escalating stuff and all these like

world leaders were like will you come

meet us we're like you know thinking

about doing this and that and I was like

uh I think if I or someone from the

company but at the time company was not

very big so I was like probably going to

have to be me does not go like show up

and talk to people. I had like a sense

it was about to go very badly and I was

thinking about doing like a bunch of

short trips but I hate long flights. I

hate jet lag. I had the whole thing. So,

I was like, I'm just going to like get

this over with in a short period of

time. Um, Brian Chesky advised me to do

it. He had done something for Airbnb,

similar for Airbnb, but he had done like

eight cities or something.

>> And you were like, "Fuck it, we ball.

Let's just do 30."

>> 20.

>> I think we did 28 countries,

>> 35 days. Uh, I like lived on an

airplane. It was a very strange.

>> Did you have a bed?

>> I had like a Yeah, I was comfortable,

but yeah, I had a bed.

>> Um,

>> I fly coach, so it's a little bit

different. This is better than that,

right? This is a lot better than that.

But like, you know, it's like travel

still sucks. Like you can make it as

comfortable as you want and you still

like miss your own bed and your own time

zone and your office and whatever.

>> One thing that I've learned is no matter

how many people have like these cures

for jet lag, they're all Like

it just sucks. Your brain doesn't like

it.

>> I never in because I went to so many

places. I think my biggest time zone

change was 4 hours the whole trip

>> and mostly it was like a 1 hour at a

time hop. So, I wasn't that jetlagged. I

was just like exhausted and it was very

strange. It was kind of cool to get to

see the world so quickly because you

really do get a sense for like cultural

differences that are very subtle when

you go from place to place. But by the

end of it, like the last few days, I

started, it was one of these like weird,

you know, half asleep, half awake kind

of somewhat dreams. But I started having

this like vision, feeling, whatever of

being in my childhood bed.

>> Interesting.

>> Which I never had before since. But I

would sort of like vaguely wake up and I

would think I was in my childhood bed in

my childhood room. And I was like,

"Okay, this is some like deep it's time

to go home thing."

>> You're like subconscious fighting back

or something.

>> Something like that.

>> Interesting. When you're in zombie mode

and you're kind of like trying to

function, I think uh or goblin mode,

whatever you prefer, how do you change?

Like what is different about you?

>> How do you decide to keep on going?

>> I definitely got to this point near the

end where I was like hunting down the

days till I could be home. Um I was just

like I cuz each day was like it was like

you know 14 hours of like nonstop and

I'm like not an extroverted person, you

you know, I was meeting like hundreds of

people a day in some cases. Um, and like

tensions lowered by the end of it, but

at the beginning like the world was like

very nervous and and then like you know,

I think once

it just like it did calm down. I I think

one thing that helped is it was clear

that like I knew when I was going to get

home and I knew I was going to have to

do it again for a while. Um, I've done

smaller ones since. I probably do like

something like that once or twice a

year. But I was going to say like a

thing I learned is that I would much

rather put

a bunch of international travel together

in like a 7 or 10 day chunk than a bunch

of one day trips spread out. So I always

do try to do it that way. Now I think a

lot of people overestimate the like risk

involved in making most actions. Like

there is a lot of risk if you're just,

you know, buying a bunch of call options

on Robin Hood, but there's probably a

lot less risk on getting on planes and

stuff. What have been the best examples

of times where you basically did

something that seemed really risky to

other people, but you knew wasn't or you

believed wasn't?

>> I guess the obvious example would be

like I I was always extremely high

conviction buying a lot of comput.

>> Have you ever seen the meme everything's

high risk if you're a

>> No. Good meme. Um, I spend a lot of time

trying to talk to people about why they

think a specific decision is high risk

or low risk. And I have found that just

getting people to speak about it out

loud will often at least get through

their intellectual blocks in either

direction because people are usually

wrong one way or the other. Not always

the emotional part of it, but sometimes

also. If you had to think through one of

these meetings where someone is like

firmly against some decision that you

want to do, what is the most effective

way to kind of help them see what you

see?

>> I don't think I'm very good at this to

be honest. I think like the right answer

is to spend a lot of time really trying

to explain it and get people there. And

I actually think I used to be better at

that. And as life has gotten so busy,

I'm more just like I get upset or

frustrated or say, "This is what we're

going to do." And I don't I don't think

it's like a positive trait. And I would

like to get back to more of the like

let's really talk it through.

>> You said that you used to be much harder

to work with, I don't know, 2008 910

somewhere around there than you are

today.

>> I I don't know if people would describe

me as fun to work with. I like

interesting to work with, like

effective, ambition raising, like very

mission focused, but like dayto-day like

really fun to work with. I don't think

I'm like a particularly fun person in

general.

>> I feel like if you are having a good

time, it's tends to be infectious. And I

think if you are generally working on

things that you want to work on, it is

having a good time.

>> Uh maybe I'm wrong.

I mean, you could go ask a bunch of

people I work with. I'm not I'm not I I

don't I don't think you would get like a

resounding fun to work with.

>> Maybe not that language.

>> I think people would say stuff like

creative solutions to problems, new

insights, like very high level of

ambition, like got me to do something I

didn't think I could do, that kind of

thing.

>> What does it typically look like when

you go into a meeting with someone and

you realize that they are not ambitious

enough and you need to try to help them

become more ambitious?

the the the version of this that came to

mind when you were saying that was like

first office hours I would have with new

YC founders and

you take average person who's worked in

corporate America you know at a big tech

company for a few years

and the level of ambition scaled

thinking self-belief whatever it's just

catastrophically low horrible horrible

and you realize that like

this person has never not had a boss in

their life. They have never not had a

parent or a teacher or a manager or

whatever that kind of would tell them

what to do or what they were allowed to

do or whatever. And they also kind of

got punished for being too creative or

wanting too much or thinking too big or

too ambitious, whatever. the

most

countries or cultures have some sort of

phrase for being too ambitious.

Basically,

>> tall poppy syndrome.

>> That's one. Um, and you realize like how

deep this is in people and that they

like heard it and their parents said it

to them, their teachers said them, and

friends said to them, whatever, from

when they were like quite little. and

getting people to just like not think

that way

takes some real time.

>> What's the most effective path to get

someone from not believing in themselves

to believing in themselves?

>> I think small repeated wins. Like you do

something you didn't think you could do

or you kind of try something that felt,

you know, too ambitious or too high

expectation and it works and you're say,

"Okay, try it again." Do you do anything

like Steve Jobs where he would like if

someone was worried he would like stare

into their eyes and get No, nothing like

that.

>> I don't think so.

>> It's like you can do it.

>> I I I don't I don't I'm not like an in I

don't do inspirational speeches. I don't

I don't do like the hards none of that.

>> What's your favorite strategy game?

>> I have not played a game other than like

my poker night with friends in so long.

Uh I wish I had. I guess I'll have to

say poker, but I uh

I miss like great board games. What was

your favorite board game?

>> There's like no one board game where I

be like, I want to play that like again

and again. I don't have like like I'm

not like someone who's like Katana is

the best board game of all time or

whatever. But they're all fun and

they're fun cuz they're like new and you

have to like figure out a new set of

challenges and rules and everything

else. When you're thinking about the

business world, I think you build your

company differently than almost anyone

else is able to build companies, is

willing to build companies. What allows

you to do that? I actually think every

big company is pretty different. I don't

think this is a unique thing. I think

just like if if you make a list of the

20 biggest tech companies or whatever,

they're all like shockingly different

from each other in terms of their

strategy and how they operate and their

culture.

I think we are quite different than

everybody else, but that's not a deep

insight. What do you think your like

superpower is?

I think we did a really good job of a

principled conviction on something that

no one else believed even though it was

the obvious thing one should believe and

then putting together all of the pieces

and the talent around that to sort of

make it happen.

>> What allowed you to kind of have that

conviction that where other people just

didn't?

Um, I have thought about this a lot. I

do not know. It seemed so clearly

obvious to all of us

that I was more worried that we were

drinking our own Kool-Aid than everybody

else was wrong.

But with the benefit of hindsight, we

were clearly right. And I don't

understand the like deep mental block

and lack of conviction from everybody

else. It's very strange. I I have

I have spent a lot of time trying to

understand this.

>> Did you find any explanation in your you

know man's search for why or no?

>> Um

I mean there's all the obvious stuff

about like group think and

like the big transformations just come

don't come along that often and

exponential curves don't stay powerful

for so long for so often. But like you

know maybe between

2016

and 2018

we had to get really lucky and it

required like a lot of great belief but

then by 2019 certainly by 2020 we

shouldn't have really gotten to exist.

Google should have just run away with

it. Yeah. I think Jeff Bezos called it

like a business miracle that they built

AWS and then didn't have any serious

competition for like seven years. And I

feel like OpenAI is like another

business miracle. There's clearly

something here about why big companies

get sclerotic and set in their ways and

it helps them in a lot of ways too. U

but this is like I mean this is

wonderful. I think it's great that the

big companies don't stay the only

dominant forces forever. That'd be

really bad. Um but there's clearly

something where these business miracles

happen and they shouldn't.

>> Is that right or should they?

>> Well, I think it's great for the world

that they do,

>> right? But to go back and explain in

2019 why OpenAI was like allowed by the

giants with huge amounts of capital and

talent and everything else to do what

we've done.

It's like hard to explain.

>> Why did Microsoft give you the money?

>> Um

that I think is easier to explain which

is Google had Deep Mind and Microsoft

did not have an AI bet and you know big

companies feel like they should have

something in play in all of the major

areas of technology. Was it kind of like

they think it's going to be big but then

underestimated how big it would be?

>> I think it's been like great for them. I

don't know if we've added1 trillion$2

trillion dollars or whatever of market

cap to Microsoft but I think it's been a

lot. Um and I think they have gotten

incredible technology and cloud growth

and will continue to. So yeah, I'm sure

it's bigger than they thought it was

going to be, but I think they made a

good bet and have done super well with

it and very happy about that.

>> There's been different versions of

OpenAI. The first one was the research

lab. Next one was the product company

and you kind of said that like you

bolted on the product company onto the

research lab which is the exact opposite

of what most companies do and now you're

basically going to be like a massive

infrastructure company and like almost

all the value from open is just going to

come from this like low margin

infrastructure. And then you also said

that basically in order to transition

into the next phase of this business

it's not necessarily something the way

that your brain works is naturally like

designed to operate in that kind of

model. What do you have to change and

like what is that next phase of the

business? I don't answer this because I

don't like I think this is now a getting

into like a like a direct

>> something we're not quite ready to talk

about but uh I am very excited for the

next phase and I think I have figured

out how to align something that I am

very good at and very passionate about

with what will be the next like 10 or

100x of our growth. So

>> how did the transition of Sam the

research lab head to Sam the product

company head like what was that what

were the biggest transitions for you on

that? I mean the whole thing was just

extremely different. Like it has felt

like two almost completely unrelated

jobs. And it's not quite to say like I

did one and now I do the other cuz I

also still am responsible for the

research lab. Um but they are almost

separate things and definitely running

the research lab did not prepare me for

running the product company in really

any way. Did the YC experience prepare

you

>> more? Um like I had watched a lot of

people have to scale big companies.

>> Was it fun to kind of like finally get

in the driver's seat?

>> No. Um I

>> the fifth day after Chad GBT launched

was the day we crossed a million users

and

I had like watched it go up the first

day and then come down in the afternoon

and then go up the second day to a

higher peak and then come down, go up

the third day to a higher peak and then

come down. And each of these days the

researchers were like, "Oh, that was

some crazy flash in the pan PR thing.

This is like over and you know that's

not going to happen." And I had seen

enough at YC that I knew that when

something was growing like that

completely organically,

it this had all of the spectral

signature to me of something that is

like was going to happen. And then on

the fifth day, it crossed a million

users

and I came home and that was when it

really hit me that like we were about to

become a company and it was going to go

very fast and it was going to be a crazy

like a like we were just going to turn

into like a big company real quick. And

I had watched what these founders went

through

and I came home

and Ollie was like, "Oh, I saw that you

crossed a million years.

Congratulations." I was like, "You have

no idea how bad this is. You have no

idea what's about to happen. It's not

just bad for me, it's bad for you, too.

Like we have this nice quiet life, you

know, it's really wonderful. It's about

to like kind of go through a cannon. And

that is what happened. But it was like a

very abrupt transition. I knew it was

going to come and I had watched other

people go through it and I knew that it

was like not a pleasant experience, but

I was like, well, we're being shot at

the cannon. Here we go. Were you like

subconsciously just like preparing

yourself for years if you know that this

is eventually going to happen and the

intelligence is going to get good enough

where like there will be a magical

product?

>> My take on it is that I

intellectually

knew it was going to happen at some

point. I had no idea when. And I didn't

know that was going to be the moment, of

course, um but that I had decided to

pretend to myself and I had successfully

deluded myself into a sort of acting

like it wasn't going to happen. Um truly

running the research lab was the

coolest, most fun, most amazing job and

lifestyle setup I could possibly have

imagined.

>> How so?

>> I mean, you were like it not stressful

at all. Uh, it was intellectually

incredibly satisfying. It was the

smartest group of people with probably

the most important work that has

happened in like the last century, maybe

longer, I don't know. And I had this

like front row seat. And like that was a

once- in many generations moment. It was

unbelievable. It was the coolest thing.

>> Are you guys experiencing that same kind

of growth? You know, I keep on seeing

Tibo post on Twitter that basically

here's another reset, here's another

reset. Are you seeing that same like

chat GBTesque experience again?

>> Totally. Um I think there have been two

giant form factors and associated growth

so far.

>> There was the sort of chat bots

>> and then the coding agents and the

coding agents are just going totally

nuts. There will be a third one soon, I

think, which will be this idea of the

sort of persistent agents, chiefs of

staff, co-workers, colleagues, whatever

we call them. And that'll and, you know,

I think that'll come pretty soon. So,

we're going to go through like the third

of these waves pretty fast.

>> So, a long time ago, apparently in

August last year, I saw you tweet

something and I thought to myself, this

is not going to help the reputation. Um,

>> let's see.

>> Why? [laughter]

Why did you do that?

Um,

>> well, first of all, I love that scene

from the movie. Like the Death Star is

coming out of hyperspace and there's

this dramatic music and it's like a

great it's like a great scene. Um, I

thought it was a funny like I was it was

like, you know, I was scrolling Twitter.

I think it was late at night. I don't

really remember.

>> This is where the conspiracy theories

happen. Like that you're you're like

you're feeding the fire here.

I just thought it was it amused me at

the time. There was like it was I don't

know. It was not a great tweet to be

honest to be clear.

>> Uh I actually thought it was great.

>> I thought it was funny.

>> I thought it was funny. I think

[laughter] I thought it was funny.

>> Yeah.

>> Um I do feel like this is more and more

what the world feels like. Uh

[gasps]

>> yes.

>> Uh yes.

>> Okay. Yes. That's a good That's a good

meme. The way that somebody explained

kind of the marketing challenge for

OpenAI and the industry in general is

number one, we are close to creating

what we need to explain to the world.

Number one, we are close to creating a

genie that can grant any wish. Number

two, we are going to make sure that our

first wishes broadly benefit humanity

and that we kind of get the world to a

place where a lot more people get to

have a lot more wishes wishes. And

number three, the space of what you can

wish for is incredibly big and creative

and it'll be quite exciting to like

figure that out with real sort of human

values and preferences. But but I think

there's a fourth thing too which is

exactly that. You start making these

wishes, the computer grants them, and

then you're like, I didn't think that

was going to work.

>> Yeah.

>> What now? It's a weird feeling.

>> Yeah. It's just like the problem where I

guess, you know, people spent like a

hundred years trying to disprove some

what was it? Jacobian. Yeah. This thing.

And then some guy just asked Claude and

it was like I don't know within a few

days or something like this. So, I'm I'm

I'm I think there's going to be lots of

great jobs in the future. I really do. I

think we're going to have lots of

intellectual fulfillment. And I think

most jobs are going to

adapt more than it seems like they

should. But math, I think, is a very

important example of something for us to

study very closely right now of

something that may not go that way. In

fact, I would say probably won't go that

way. It seems like even as the systems

get better and better, the people that I

know that like no one is less busy.

Everyone is more busy. Everyone's just

doing more stuff except for the people

that are like, "Oh, I spent a trillion

tokens." Uh, and like what have I love

this uh thing that I saw where someone

said like, "I spent, you know, ungodly

numbers of tokens." And then someone

said, "Why aren't you more successful?"

You know, technology for a long time has

been promising people that they're going

to work less and they're going to have

all this leisure. And

it has gone in that direction. Like I

think people do

have more time for leisure than they had

at many previous points in history and a

higher quality of life in many ways.

But somehow we never get the promise of

the 4-hour work week at mass scale in

society. And I don't expect AI to change

that. Uh

clearly society is not working for a lot

of people and

more productivity gains that actually

occur to people would be a great thing

and I suspect they will. I suspect that

will happen. But a thing that I really

admire about people is

our expectations go up. We always want

more. We think of new things to do to

create for each other to want for

ourselves and we, you know, it's like a

it's like a relative game. People are

like very focused on how they're doing

relative to other people. And so the

competition that drives the economy and

the kind of I think the the the very

wonderful desires about wanting to be

useful to other people and create

something and be of service and that

whole cluster. I expect that to keep

going and I think we're all going to be

much busier than we thought we were

supposed to be in a post super

intelligence world and we're still going

to complain about it but secretly we're

going to be happy.

>> How do you think the status games change

as less and less of our direct input is

correlated with like value creation?

I don't I don't think it will feel at

all like our direct like the things that

we value. I suspect will be things that

are like very

human.

>> Well, like one thing is like cooking for

people. You're not like creating a bunch

of value in the world, but it like shows

love.

>> You are creating value in that it's like

those are the experiences that you're

not creating like economic value in the

maybe traditional sense. Um, cooking for

people is a great example.

I suspect that people cooking and eating

together will remain important

long after robots can do a great job

cooking food. Do you think that a good

heristic would almost be like the

greatest works of the the the longest

surviving works? So let's say the Bible

for example, odds are it's still going

to be impactful like a thousand years

from now because it's been impactful for

the past 2,000 years so far. Do you

think that if you had to like

extrapolate out what are the things that

humans are still going to care about,

it's like what is the most primal

earliest thing? You know, we love

adventure, we love a good quest,

>> cooking. Betting against evolutionary

biology is like usually a bad bet.

>> Yeah.

>> And so I would I would assume those

things continue.

>> When was the last time that you realized

that you weren't like being ambitious

enough?

>> I mean, I definitely badly undersshot on

the compute investments. Could you have

known going in with the right mental

model?

>> Yes, but I got like psyched out by the

financial markets or something. I don't

know.

>> That was clearly a mistake.

>> How do you correct that in the future?

>> Uh well, I mean hopefully I'll learn

from it and I I'll make some new

mistakes, but I won't make that one

again.

>> On the compute side, this is kind of

like the biggest infrastructure project

of maybe all time or is about to be.

>> Yeah. Are you going to try and like

vertically integrate under OpenI's hood

everything from like power generation to

like token generation to you know

serving some person in chap or codeex or

something like that or are you going to

try and have a bunch of partners? We're

not literally going to try to do it all

inside of OpenAI obviously but we will

try to do a better job of a well

functioning supply chain than we have

done so far. like you know we we have

brought chip design and model design

together and that's been good. I don't

think we need to bring like electron

production together in the same way

because that's more of a commodity. Uh

however I am when you really think about

the whole

supply chain

that has to come together to produce

intelligence.

I would say there is relatively

too much focus on algorithms that create

better algorithms and not enough focus

on data centers that can create more

data centers, which in a world of robots

and a truly automated supply chain, you

can totally imagine doing. You can like

spend a data center's thinking power to

drive a fleet of robots to make more

copies of the data center. And that's

probably a very wonderful thing to do.

uh relative to other uses of that

compute if we're right about what that

additional compute will eventually

unlock. How much of your time is spent

thinking about how to like successfully

design that fully robot into end future

where intelligence can just produce more

>> intelligence spent thinking about almost

all goes into like execution like the

idea that's a very obvious idea it's

very easy you can like kind of

relatively quickly say here's the pieces

that need to come together

>> but then to like get that whole

machinery and all those companies

working together um that that you know

none of the glory of the big idea and

trying to like think the big thoughts

but like a lot of grinding

>> when you think of like execution ution.

What does that typically mean for you?

>> Not there's no typical there like the

I mean to the degree that there is it's

that you just like do whatever step is

required in the problem and figure out

how to make it happen. Mhm.

>> But you know, figuring out how to like

finance new fab build out is very

different than figuring out how to get a

great chip design team together and then

get them to work with the research team

and then actually get the supply chain

running. Well, like each of those is

like a very different approach. One

thing that I know that Brian Chesky does

uh is he talks about like shamelessly

trying to find whoever the expert is and

any given thing and then basically just

go ask them whatever question he has. as

if he's like trying to come come up to

speed on something. What is your process

for doing something like that if it's

something new that you need to become

good at in a very rapid period of time?

>> Definitely finding the experts and

talking to them, reading as much as I

can. Uh I don't have a lot of like great

str I don't have a lot of like novel

strategies here. I I've always been

really

grateful and pleasantly surprised by how

much experts are willing to help people

if they ask. Uh, it's like a very nice

thing about humanity.

>> One thing I've heard you say is you

should always ask for what you want.

>> Um, because not all the time you get it,

but sometimes you do.

>> Sometimes you do.

>> And when you do, amazing things can

happen.

>> When was the last time that you asked

for something that would seem absolutely

insane to someone else and you got it?

>> Actually, it was this recent time I got

on a plane that I still can't talk

about, but it

>> Okay, go back one more. Go back one more

that you can talk about.

>> [laughter]

>> I mean in some sense codeex was an

example of this like this is not the

most recent one but it was one that I

think it's instructive. Um,

we were way behind cloud code and it

seemed like a kind of crazy kamicazi

mission to try to beat them with a

coding app. And you know the like the

consensus is that this kind of thing

never works and you just move on to the

next one. But you know it's like a

fool's errand to try to like win when

someone else already has momentum in a

particular product category. But we

decided we thought it was really

important. We asked a team to do it.

They performed a legitimate like

unbelievable very rare in the history of

business thing and now it is the product

that most of end model that most of the

best coders that I know use. Um and that

felt like an impossible thing but if we

hadn't asked the team like hey we have a

really important but extremely hard

mission for you just wouldn't have

happened.

>> Why did you make that decision? Why

didn't you just give up? bec felt like

one of these few very strategic areas

that was going to happen very quickly

and

coding is so important to RSI to say

nothing of the economic value that we

just didn't it didn't feel like one we

could give up on YC you basically had

the mo most distilled version of what

the mission was is just trying to

increase the amount of innovation in the

world my hunch is that if you actually

like thought uh why did you decide to go

work on OpenAI instead of YC? You could

almost make the argument that you could

just have a bigger impact on increasing

the amount of innovation in the world

through working on

>> it wasn't that intellectualized at the

time. It was just like

I kind of knew that I mean my whole life

I wanted to work on AI

and I kind of knew that it would be the

most important thing I could ever touch.

Like for me it was like my passion. I

just and I did think it'd be really

important, but I just wanted to do it.

>> What were those first few weeks like? I

know that there was this I I don't know

if you describe it as a camp, but people

just basically like all got together on

some kind of retreat and it wasn't even

like meant to be a company at the time.

I think it was just like

>> like the first few weeks once we

started. No, we were we were in Greg

Brockman's apartment.

>> Yes.

>> Um and there were maybe like 10 of us,

12 of us.

>> And you know, it had been all of this

work to get it going and then we showed

up one day.

>> Mhm. The first day I was like,

>> you know, January 4th, something like

that.

>> And it was like, so here we are.

What are we going to do?

We should get a whiteboard. We should

start talking about ideas. Maybe we

should write papers. And I had this

like, oh what have we done? Like

it was like a really crazy moment. Um,

>> had you already like committed to the

world and a whole bunch of other people

like were doing it? It took it took a

couple of years to like really get our

groove and figure out what we're going

to do. It just it was not I mean we knew

that we wanted to like figure out how to

build AI,

>> but beyond that, man, really unclear.

When you're in the like stumbling

through the woods phase of this type of,

you know, Manhattan project, how do you

most efficiently just stumble through

the trees to rapidly figure out what not

to work on? I mean, if something's not

working and

you run out of ideas, you can kill it.

That's kind of easier. The really hard

thing is when something is working super

well, when do you decide to kill the

other things to make it work even

better?

>> So, there have been a lot of quite

important moments in OpenAI history

where one thing started to really work

and we killed other good things to make

the best thing work better.

So when GPT3 started to work, we shut

down things like robotics stuff that

we're really excited about to really

focus on this. And then when coding

agents started to work recently, we shut

down things like Sora that we were also

really excited about and the browser to

really work on this. And that is

difficult to do. Um let's say you invest

a billion dollars into some new business

like Sora. How do you decide whether or

not that business is going to like

become a you know OpenAI pillar?

>> Oh, no. It would have been super

successful. It was just like it was more

important to put the compute and the

energy into coding agents.

>> Take me into one of those meetings like

imagine you're in that meeting. I guess

maybe you were in that meeting where you

were saying we've spent a year plus on

this thing, huge amounts of money, huge

amounts of compute, lots of people and

resources, a lot of momentum into it,

people use it, they love it, and then

you decide we're going to pull the plug.

Like how do you make that call?

>> Yeah. It's not like a it's it's not a

one meeting thing. It's like a I think

it's a real it's like a somewhat gradual

realization that there is a more

important use of this compute

these people um you know this product

direction and

we're going to make a very painful

decision to get there.

>> How do you realign people once you do

have to like kind of kill their baby to

move them to another baby?

>> People kind of understand the mission

and the stakes and the need to reorient

to get there. So even if they're like

unhappy in the moment,

sometimes they're very happy, sometimes

they're like, "Yeah, this is the right

thing for the mission." But even if

they're unhappy in the moment, they're

like, "I get why we're doing this." And

the kind of continuing refocus towards

super intelligence is like a good thing.

Do you think that there's going to be

projects currently that are going to get

killed?

>> I assume harder to pursue.

>> Yeah. There's this amazing line from

John Collison where he said basically

everything in the world if you just look

around it's like so difficult to make

things happen even like getting park

bench built it's incredibly difficult

and so when you look around you can kind

of think of the world as like a universe

of passion projects

>> and I think that if you are in like

Steve Jobes's position where you're

going to like create something where a

billion people might interact with it

every single day for are like ours. You

have to like think deeply about how do I

like design something that people are

going to love and ideally not be unhappy

about. How do you think about design?

>> I feel super lucky to get to work with

Johnny IV on designing beautiful things.

Mhm.

>> And I have learned so much from him

about how he really studies a problem

before

trying to get to the solution and not

not even letting him think too much

about the solution until he really

designs really understands the problem.

And I think this is a key that I didn't

appreciate before. Like really great

design is way more about understanding

the problem than the flash of insight.

And if you try to rush towards the thing

or lock yourself too much into the

thing, um, you will not do as good of a

job. I think the iPhone is the greatest

piece of technology humanity has

collectively yet made. It is an

incredible thing, but I don't like love

my relationship with it anymore. I

turned off my notifications, so I

actually like it much better now.

>> Yeah, I keep myself on do not disturb.

>> That wasn't even enough. I just like I

turned off notifications for everything

except a very small number of things.

Um, and I never have them on because I

just, you know, I can like look at if I

want to look at it.

>> Even messages apps.

>> Even messages apps. That was like a big

life upgrade. And I deleted Tik Tok

because it was just like too powerful.

Uh,

>> you were addicted to Tik Tok.

>> You know, I uh, so here's a crazy thing

that happened. When we were building the

Sora app, I made myself get addicted to

Tik Tok cuz I wanted to just like learn.

I was like, you know, I I had never

really used it before. I mean, I like

people would send me a Tik Tok or

whatever, but I never got sucked into

it. And I was like, I really don't want

to build something that is going to have

that kind of thing,

>> absorb people's time, but not

>> and I loved it. I love Tik Tok. I really

thought it was great. Um,

>> and then I thought I could like control

it. I was like, "Oh, you know, it's

actually kind of fun, but I only use it

for like 10 minutes to wind down before

bed and I'm like totally in control of

it." And then it was like an hour one

night and then some Saturday afternoon I

was on the couch for like 3 hours and I

was like this is like really not what I

thought the iPhone was supposed to be

about. Now I'm really enjoying in the

moment like a drug but I can tell it's

bad for me. And then I like briefly got

it back under control and I was down to

like 5 10 minutes a night whatever you

know like a little wind down before bed.

Then I was just like enough. I think the

iPhone is amazing and yet I did not feel

like I had enough self-control to keep

that app or I did not feel like the

notifications on messaging apps were

like a net good thing for me. And I'm

sure we will make an incredible,

beautiful, like really helpful,

empowering set of devices. And I'm also

sure that people will misuse them and

it'll make people's lives worse in ways

we can't imagine. And we'll adapt. But

this is a thing about powerful

technology. you're inventing a new

device, what is that process of

exploration through the problem space?

Like if you're Johnny,

>> I don't answer on his behalf. Um, but

he's like talked about this before

somewhat, but it's like his process. You

know, when he's doing the car, he will

like go study all the history of

motorsport and then like the different

type faces that people use for the text

in the cabin of a car and the materials

and why and like the different sounds

that engines have made over time and why

some have appealed. I mean, he'll write

literal books of all of his explorations

of all of these like unbelievably

detailed small components.

>> Did you guys basically take those books

and like try to like use them as

training data to make like a Johnny

model?

>> Um, no. But that would be a great thing

to try there. Yeah, there is definitely

a part of his process that I don't

understand. Like I understand the

studying,

I understand the refinement of a very

new concept into something great. But

there is like a middle step, the

inspiration that comes from

understanding the problem really well to

the like very novel idea kind of that

seems to me to happen all at once and I

don't understand that.

>> When you're thinking about designing

something, how what goes through your

mind?

>> I'm not a designer in any way. I would I

would not I I uh I try to be like pretty

good about realizing what I'm not good

at and I wouldn't try to have a strong

opinion there.

>> What are you the worst at

on the business building side?

>> Maybe product.

>> Really?

>> Maybe.

>> Okay. How do you find great product

people if you're bad at product?

>> This is a thing that I've never quite

agreed with people on. There's there's

like a there's like a business meme that

you can only hire people in things that

you deeply understand. I think it know

if they're great. I think this is just

clearly not true. I don't understand

design either. I know Johnny's great

design. Like there's lots of things I

can point to when you talk to him for 30

minutes. It's very obvious.

>> Which things do you try to actively get

better at and then which things do you

just try to outsource and understand

that you're just never going to be one

of the best?

>> I I am a big believer in you should try

to get better at your strengths and the

whole like obsession with I'm going to

get better at the things that I'm just

not good at at all and never going to be

good at huge trap. Super good at your

strengths.

>> Okay. What are your biggest strengths if

you had to like force rank?

>> I I hate this question. Um I don't hate

this from a false modesty perspective. I

think it's like very hard to say

anything insightful about your own

strengths.

>> You're clearly good at really rallying

people around some objective.

>> Sure. Uh but I don't like I don't think

I could teach someone who isn't good at

that how to be good at that. I think the

things that come supernaturally to

someone are very hard to I don't know.

or at least in my own case, I don't like

deeply understand why I'm good at that

or what to do about it. Although I think

we talked about earlier like this

category of things that you can learn

but you can't teach.

>> Mhm.

>> Um I think this is quite important to

understand and like if you want to get

good at something like that, asking

someone to explain it to you in my

experience never works. Really studying

them and like sitting with them in

meetings and just trying to observe it

and learn it yourself that does work.

Um, but [clears throat] and like when

there has been something that I do want

to get better at, I have tried to just

be around someone who's great at it and

really deeply study it. But I don't

think they would have been able to

explain it to me. I don't think they

could have like taught it to me by

talking to me about it. I think that's

totally right. If you look at like the

way that the best people in the world

learn video games, if you're playing

like CS GO, you like play some CS GO, so

you have like the basic game dynamics

and then you just go watch a pro and

like see how they interact on the map at

different points in the game and stuff.

When you think about like organization

pace, you know, there's like ambition,

all these other things, but like you

ideally over time want your

organization, you obviously don't want

it to slow down, but ideally it even

moves faster. How do you like bake that

in? I think it's like 90% the people you

put in leadership roles. Okay. There's

like other things you can do. People

have all these different sort of

operating rhythms and how they try to

run the company and this management

technique and that one. And I think it's

I think mostly just comes down to the

people. Definitely something I think

about with everybody in a role like that

is like are they a fast mover or a slow

mover?

>> How do you measure that without actually

having worked with them in the past?

>> Well, ideally you have worked them in

the past. I I think most of the time

executives at a company should be

promoted internally, not hired

externally.

>> Okay.

>> Um

but it when you do need to hire someone

externally, you spend a lot of time

talking to them, spend a lot of time

reference checking, you try to like work

together in some kind of casual way.

slightly different note. What was the

most painful thing that happened in the

last 12 months?

>> Honestly, having kids and working really

hard at the same time is brutal. It's

just extremely painful. Like you like

know you're I I and I think I'm like a

very present dad

relative. Like I don't do anything but

work and hang out with my family really

at this point, but I still feel like I'm

missing so much of this like one-time

thing. It's very painful. When you think

of someone like Masa for example, what

about like his brain and the way that he

sees the world is so different? I think

he will end up being like one of the

wild successes of this decade.

>> Um,

>> incredible person.

>> Dear friend, incredible person, massive

conviction and belief and not afraid at

all of big numbers and scale and it's

great. Uh there are not many Masa like

people in the world and we should be

very grateful for them.

>> What made him like what what I I don't

know if you've like talked with him but

>> uh I mean as far as I can tell he was

like always like this.

>> Do you also have the same sort of just

like no con like no ceiling concept of

scale?

>> Not I I think Masa is like a N of one

character.

>> Do you kind of view open AI as a little

bit like the golden goose?

>> In what way? um spawning a bunch of very

valuable things over time and just

building like a core competency of

increasing intelligence in the world.

>> Not really how I think of it. I get I

get what you're saying, but it it

doesn't feel like we're just like

spitting out golden eggs. It feels like

we're building this kind of compounding

thing.

>> I think one of the my favorite mental

models that I've taken from you is this

idea of real trends versus fake trends.

And

>> oh yeah, this is a

>> this is an important thing. Like

whenever people talked about bubbles or

anything else, I was always kind of

confused. Like I'm, you know, I studied

Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger a

bunch and so they love to talk about

bubbles and things being overvalued. I

was trying to like decipher how do you

figure out whether or not something is

real or fake and whether or not it's

going to persist and continue or it's

just going to, you know, revert to the

mean.

>> And what did you figure out?

>> Well, it was I think your mental model

of basically if there's a small group of

people like what is a real trend versus

a fake trend? A fake trend is, you know,

the VR situation where someone there's a

lot of hype,

>> but then someone buys the thing, they