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Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.

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Speaker 2: In late June of last year, the CEO of Open Ai,

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Speaker 2: Sam Altman, sat down for an interview with Bloomberg's Emily Chang.

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Speaker 2: She asked him a question I think a lot of

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Speaker 2: us may have had over the past few years about

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Speaker 2: Altman's role in the development of artificial intelligence.

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Speaker 3: You have an incredible amount of power at this moment

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Speaker 3: in time.

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Speaker 4: Why should we trust you?

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Speaker 5: You shouldn't if this really works. It's like quite a

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Speaker 5: powerful technology, and you should not trust one company and

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Speaker 5: certainly not one person with it.

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Speaker 2: It was an astonishing moment. You had the head of

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Speaker 2: the world's most prominent AI company saying we shouldn't take

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Speaker 2: him at his word. But I caught the attention of

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Speaker 2: Ellen Hewitt, a Bloomberg Features reporter.

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Speaker 6: I think that, you know, it's a really smart answer

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Speaker 6: because it strikes people as like candid and self effacing,

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Speaker 6: and it's also a way for Sam to push away

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Speaker 6: the actual question, which is should Sam Altman be trusted?

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Speaker 6: You know, is Sam Altman a trustworthy person? Like should

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Speaker 6: we trust what he says? We thought that that was

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Speaker 6: a worthy question to make kind of a focus of

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Speaker 6: the show. The show.

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Speaker 2: Ellen has spent months tracking down everything she could about

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Speaker 2: Sam Altman for the latest season of Bloomberg Technology's Foundering podcast,

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Speaker 2: which drops today.

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Speaker 6: We call Sam the most Silicon valley man alive, and

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Speaker 6: I don't think that's an overstatement. He has, since a

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Speaker 6: young age, become a really integral player in this startup

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Speaker 6: ecosystem that has powered the tech boom of the last

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Speaker 6: twenty years.

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Speaker 2: Ellen has spoken to a lot of people who know Aldman,

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Speaker 2: including some who knew him well before he became the

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Speaker 2: most Silicon valley Man alive.

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Speaker 6: I think some of the most surprising things that I

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Speaker 6: learned while reporting this season came from talking to Annie Altman,

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Speaker 6: who is Sam's sister. I think she you know, it's

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Speaker 6: a really sensitive and complicated and messy story. I think

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Speaker 6: Annie's story provides this very interesting counterbalance to some of

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Speaker 6: the promises that Sam makes publicly.

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Speaker 2: It's part of a complicated and messy story that's unspooled

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Speaker 2: over the season's five episodes. Ellen says there's a lot

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Speaker 2: even for people who think they know the open AI drama.

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Speaker 6: My hope is that by the end of the series,

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Speaker 6: the listener has a lot more material by which to

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Speaker 6: make you know. I want people to come to their

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Speaker 6: own conclusions about this, but I do think that there

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Speaker 6: is a pattern of times when Sam and by extension,

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Speaker 6: open Ai, have made promises that sound really good in

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Speaker 6: theory and then in practice are more complicated or are

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Speaker 6: not upheld in the same way that you might think

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Speaker 6: that they would be. We come to the conclusion that,

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Speaker 6: like when Sam says something, you can't be sure that

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Speaker 6: he really means it.

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Speaker 2: That wariness is shared by a lot of people, including

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Speaker 2: a group of current and former open ai employees who

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Speaker 2: released a letter on Tuesday warning that frontier AI companies

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Speaker 2: are not doing enough to inform the public about just

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Speaker 2: what it is they're building. Open Ai denies this, and

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Speaker 2: the company says it is taking the necessary precautions. But

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Speaker 2: all of these headlines, which we've covered here on The

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Speaker 2: Big Take, are adding to the need for all of

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Speaker 2: us to better understand just who is running these companies,

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Speaker 2: starting with Altman.

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Speaker 6: And so to me, this question is more urgent than ever.

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Speaker 2: I'm David Gurra today on The Big Take, Episode one

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Speaker 2: of Foundering the open Ai story, the most Silicon Valley

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Speaker 2: Man Alive.

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Speaker 6: It's a Wednesday in November twenty twenty three. I'm standing

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Speaker 6: in a dark restaurant in San Francisco. There are a

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Speaker 6: few dozen people. It's the after party for an AI conference.

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Speaker 6: People are standing and chatting in small circles. Waiters are

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Speaker 6: bringing trays of ardubs around. I'm biting into a tiny

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Speaker 6: Porcini mushroom doughnut when I hear a whisper. Sam Altman

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Speaker 6: has walked into the restaurant. I try to spot him

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Speaker 6: in the dim lighting. I've talked to Sam here and

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Speaker 6: there over the years. He's been around the startup scene

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Speaker 6: for more than a decade, and he's friendly to journalists

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Speaker 6: and over time, Sam Altman has become basically the most

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Speaker 6: Silicon Valley man alive. He's the CEO of open Ai,

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Speaker 6: which shot to tech startum a year ago with the

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Speaker 6: release of chat GPT. His company is worth eighty six

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Speaker 6: billion dollars. It's one of the most valuable startups in

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Speaker 6: the world. For the past six months, Sam had been everywhere.

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Speaker 6: It seemed like every major news outlet wanted to profile him,

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Speaker 6: and he was saying yes to each one. Headlines referred

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Speaker 6: to him as the Chat GPT King, the Oppenheimer of

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Speaker 6: our age, and an AI overlay lord. He was like

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Speaker 6: an ambassador for the AI future, zipping around the globe

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Speaker 6: meeting with world leaders. He testified in front of Congress

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Speaker 6: and amid all that, he decided to pop by this

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Speaker 6: AI conference party a little surprise visit. So I see

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Speaker 6: him standing in a corner of the restaurant. A few

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Speaker 6: people have already clustered around him. I decide to say hi.

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Speaker 6: He's wearing a suit and a tie, more dressed up

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Speaker 6: than usual, and he's shorter than I remember. We shake hands.

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Speaker 6: He eyes my conference badge and says, it's good to

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Speaker 6: see you. I'm surprised by how personable he is, how

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Speaker 6: friendly he comes across. He acts like he remembers me.

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Speaker 6: He already knows I'm working on this podcast. So I

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Speaker 6: say to him, I'm about to put in a request

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Speaker 6: to your comms team to see if we can find

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Speaker 6: a time to interview you. He's like, sure, sounds good.

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Speaker 6: Several people are hovering, hoping to get his attention for

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Speaker 6: a minute. So I step away, and after about ten

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Speaker 6: minutes at the party, he leaves too. The next day,

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Speaker 6: Sam continues his tour as the statesman of AI. He

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Speaker 6: speaks at Apec, a big conference that President Biden and

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Speaker 6: China's leader Shijinping both attended. Here's Sam at that conference

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Speaker 6: talking about AI.

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Speaker 5: I think this will be the most transformative and beneficial

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Speaker 5: technology humanity has yet invented. I think this is like

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Speaker 5: the greatest leap forward of any of the of the

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Speaker 5: big technological revolutions we've had so far. So I'm super excited.

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Speaker 5: I can't imagine anything more exciting to work on, and

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Speaker 5: getting to do that is like the professional honor of

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Speaker 5: a lifetime. It's so fun to get to work on.

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Speaker 6: That, the most transformative technology humanity has yet invented, the

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Speaker 6: professional honor of a lifetime. Sam clearly believes the world

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Speaker 6: is about to change dramatically and fast, and he's aware

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Speaker 6: that a lot of that change is connected to him.

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Speaker 6: And the day after that, less than forty eight hours

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Speaker 6: after I saw Sam at that party, less than twenty

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Speaker 6: four hours after he spoke at a major international gathering

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Speaker 6: of world leaders, he was fired.

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Speaker 4: Breaking news.

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Speaker 7: Sam Altman is out as CEO of Open AI.

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Speaker 6: This is a stunner. The tech world has been thrown

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Speaker 6: into chaos over the.

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Speaker 8: Weekend when the company that gave us chat GPT fired.

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Speaker 6: It's CEO. The move came as a complete surprise to everyone,

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Speaker 6: including open AI's biggest investor.

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Speaker 9: Microsoft board says it pushed Altman out after a review

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Speaker 9: found he was quote not consistently candid in his communications

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Speaker 9: with the board.

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Speaker 6: It's hard to emphasize enough how shocking this was. Sam

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Speaker 6: Altman got fired. It was the juiciest tech news of

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Speaker 6: the year and completely unexpected. The news came on a

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Speaker 6: Friday afternoon, and my colleagues and I all immediately knew

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Speaker 6: our weekends were out the window. The next few days

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Speaker 6: felt like a hurricane of news. The board implied Sam

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Speaker 6: had lied to them. They announced a new CEO. Then

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Speaker 6: came a regretful public apology by someone who had fired Sam.

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Speaker 6: There were pledges of loyalty, an employee revolt, and at

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Speaker 6: the same time something else was happening. It started to

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Speaker 6: seem like Sam was actually going to come back. He

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Speaker 6: was rallying the support of his employees and Microsoft. It

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Speaker 6: was looking like Sam could win. On Tuesday night, Sam

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Speaker 6: was reinstated as CEO at the company that just five

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Speaker 6: days earlier had basically tried to destroy him. Sam managed

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Speaker 6: to get the upper hand once again. It was high

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Speaker 6: drama a jaw dropping turn of events, but for those

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Speaker 6: who know Sam, it actually made perfect sense. One of

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Speaker 6: Sam's mentors is an investor named Paul Graham. He once

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Speaker 6: told a reporter Sam is extremely good at becoming powerful.

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Speaker 6: To me, this seems like Sam's defining characteristic. Often in

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Speaker 6: Silicon Valley we talk about tech visionaries who are programming

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Speaker 6: geniuses or obsessed with the details and design of the product.

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Speaker 6: That's not Sam. His strongest, most unique skill is wielding power,

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Speaker 6: and that might have consequences for all of us. You're

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Speaker 6: listening to Foundering, I'm Ellen Hewitt. In this season of Foundering,

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Speaker 6: we're going to chronicle the rise of Sam Allman, the

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Speaker 6: all out arms race to build the leading AI company,

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Speaker 6: the claim that this new technology could threaten to wipe

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Speaker 6: out all of humanity if we're not careful, and then

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Speaker 6: the coup that almost took down the guy at the

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Speaker 6: top of it all before he managed to claw his

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Speaker 6: way back. For this season, you'll hear reporting done by

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Speaker 6: me and my colleagues at Bloomberg who have been covering

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Speaker 6: AI during the boom of the last few years. He

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Speaker 6: interviewed some of the leading minds in AI to try

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Speaker 6: to cut through the hype and understand the debate about

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Speaker 6: whether AI will be a tool to improve human existence

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Speaker 6: or to extinguish it. But this is also the story

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Speaker 6: of Sam, the man at the center of it all,

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Speaker 6: and we spoke with Sam's friends, family, and collaborators to

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Speaker 6: demystify him and how he rose to power. This first

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Speaker 6: episode is all about how Sam got here. He's a

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Speaker 6: man who has always understood the importance of being in

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Speaker 6: the right room at the right time, with exactly the

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Speaker 6: right few people. The full story of Sam's rise is

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Speaker 6: important because understanding who he is and what he believes

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Speaker 6: will shed light on an urgent question, should we trust

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Speaker 6: this mam to oversee this technology. In the summer of

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Speaker 6: twenty twenty three, about five months before he was fired,

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Speaker 6: my colleague Emily Chang asked him this exactly question at

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Speaker 6: a Bloomberg conference.

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Speaker 3: You have an incredible amount of power at this moment

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Speaker 3: in time.

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Speaker 6: Why should we trust you?

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Speaker 5: You shouldn't have If this really works, it's like quite

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Speaker 5: a powerful technology, and you should not trust one company,

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Speaker 5: and certainly not one personalized.

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Speaker 6: You shouldn't trust me. If he believes that, then why

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Speaker 6: did Sam fight his way right back to the top

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Speaker 6: of open AI, back into that position of control, as

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Speaker 6: if to insist he should be the person to lead

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Speaker 6: this company as they develop AI as fast as possible.

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Speaker 6: To a lot of people, the stakes are terrifying. They're

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Speaker 6: higher than anything else really in the valley. Some people

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Speaker 6: refer to artificial general Intelligence or AGI as the last invention,

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Speaker 6: something so potent that everything that comes after will look

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Speaker 6: unrecognizable compared to everything leading up to it. Inside open AI,

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Speaker 6: some employees talk about how they are building God, We'll

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Speaker 6: be right back to get a better sense of the

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Speaker 6: kind of person Sam is and how he got where

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Speaker 6: he is now. I want to take you back to

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Speaker 6: his adolescence. Sam had a privileged upbringing in Saint Louis.

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Speaker 6: He's the oldest of four siblings. His mom was a

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Speaker 6: dermatologist and his dad was a real estate developer. He

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Speaker 6: attended a private high school called John Burrows. There's an

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Speaker 6: anecdote about him from that period that sticks out. When

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Speaker 6: some students wanted to boycott an assembly about sexuality, Sam

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Speaker 6: stood up in front of the whole school and announced

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Speaker 6: he was gay. It's a pretty gutsy move for a

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Speaker 6: teenager in the early two thousands and Unsurprisingly, Sam was smart.

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Speaker 9: And generally Sam was he was an exceptional student, He

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Speaker 9: was an exceptional writer, he was an exceptional a big personality.

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Speaker 6: That's Andy Abbott. He was one OF's English teachers and

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Speaker 6: he's now the head of schools. And this is a

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Speaker 6: pretty nerdy school where it's cool to get good grades

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Speaker 6: and be a high achiever. And even in that environment,

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Speaker 6: Sam stood out.

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Speaker 9: Sam's just a really natural leader, incredibly charismatic, curious guy.

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Speaker 9: He's a typical you know, he was the editor of

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Speaker 9: the yearbook and he represented the school in the Model

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Speaker 9: United Nations. He designed our website, you know, before we

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Speaker 9: hired people to do our website.

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Speaker 4: He could just do that stuff.

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Speaker 6: Sam even played water polo.

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Speaker 9: He was pretty good. I'm not a connoisseur, but I'm like,

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Speaker 9: he was pretty good.

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Speaker 6: He remembers Sam as being really confident, and apparently for

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Speaker 6: good reason. Sounds like Sam was just this exceptional kid.

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Speaker 9: Well, he's the smartest guy in the room, and he's charismatic.

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Speaker 9: I remember thinking, and I'm just this is just an

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Speaker 9: embarrassing confession. I hope he doesn't go into technology. He's

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Speaker 9: so creative and he's so he's such a good writer,

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Speaker 9: and I hoped he would be an author or something

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Speaker 9: like that. And I mean, nobody could have anticipated the

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Speaker 9: magnitude of open Ai, but everybody knew that this guy's

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Speaker 9: better at most things than most of us are.

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Speaker 6: This speaks to a pattern that'll become a crucial factor

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Speaker 6: in Sam's career. He's very good at impressing people, especially

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Speaker 6: the right people, older people, people with influence, people who

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Speaker 6: are in a position to help him. Someone who knows

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Speaker 6: Sam says his superpower is figuring out who's in charge

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Speaker 6: and charming them. So we have young Sam, even though

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Speaker 6: he was a teenager, he acted like someone older with

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Speaker 6: more agency and confidence. Found this quality of his admirable,

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Speaker 6: and he acted like this towards his three younger siblings too.

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Speaker 6: In a big New Yorker profile on Sam, his younger

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Speaker 6: brother said that as kids they used to play a

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Speaker 6: board game called Samurai, and Sam always won because he

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Speaker 6: declared himself the leader and said, I have to win

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Speaker 6: and I'm in charge of everything. When Sam's brother told

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Speaker 6: this story, it was a jocular exchange. But Annie, their

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Speaker 6: youngest sibling and only sister, sees it differently. These days,

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Speaker 6: she's estranged from Sam and the rest of her immediate family.

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Speaker 6: But when she was a kid, she remembered that same

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Speaker 6: quality of Sam's wanting to be in charge, and to her,

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Speaker 6: it wasn't funny, it was domineering.

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Speaker 8: From my perspective, with the nine year age difference, he

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Speaker 8: very much wanted to be and acted like the third

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Speaker 8: parent and liked being the older sibling in charge, in control.

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Speaker 6: For instance, even though the family was Jewish, they used

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Speaker 6: to get a Christmas tree until Sam put his foot down.

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Speaker 10: I don't have memories of a Christmas tree because when

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Speaker 10: Sam got farmits foot at thirteen, he decided that we

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Speaker 10: as a family unit were Jews and needed to no

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Speaker 10: longer celebrate Christmas.

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Speaker 6: There were no more Christmas trees. When their dad passed

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Speaker 6: away in twenty eighteen, Annie remembers that Sam dictated to

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Speaker 6: each of his younger siblings how many minutes they could

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Speaker 6: talk at the funeral.

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Speaker 1: To be at your dad's funeral, to be like, oh,

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Speaker 1: I'm the oldest sibling, so I get to choose how

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Speaker 1: long all the sibling which it is bizarre, and there's

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Speaker 1: a level of it that's so hilarious and so benign.

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Speaker 1: Surface level classic older sibling bullshit where it's like, all right,

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Speaker 1: older sibling wanting.

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Speaker 6: To like make up the rules to the game.

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Speaker 1: Like it's there's there's a level of it that's very

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Speaker 1: light and funny, and there's also a level of it

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Speaker 1: that's very dark and deeply unsettling of how does that

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Speaker 1: behavior come up in other place if you believe that

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Speaker 1: you get to be the authority on something that you

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Speaker 1: are not the authority on.

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Speaker 6: A spokeswoman for open Ai told us that Sam recalls

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Speaker 6: these incidents differently, but she declined to elaborate. And so

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Speaker 6: when Sam finished high school, he started down this path

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Speaker 6: that's pretty textbook for the tech industry, studying computer science

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Speaker 6: at Stanford, founding a startup, and dropping out of Stanford.

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Speaker 6: And he made one incredibly important decision he applied to

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Speaker 6: why Combinator. Why Combinator is a startup accelerator. It's basically

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Speaker 6: a boot camp for startups. You and your co founders

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Speaker 6: apply and if you're accepted, you spend three months hacking

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Speaker 6: away trying to build a company. At the end of

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Speaker 6: that period, you give a demo to investors and try

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Speaker 6: to raise venture capital. Sam was actually in the first

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Speaker 6: ever group of founders at y Combinator. Everyone calls it YC.

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Speaker 6: By the way, it was two thousand and five, so

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Speaker 6: YC was totally unknown, just a bunch of young guys

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Speaker 6: hanging out in Cambridge, Massachusetts for a summer writing code.

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Speaker 6: But YC would eventually become this enormously powerful network. Now

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Speaker 6: it's basically the number one elite program for startups. It's

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Speaker 6: really hard to get in, and the alumni network is

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Speaker 6: incredibly strong. Sam was nineteen years old when he joined YC,

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Speaker 6: and once again he impressed just the right person, Paul Graham,

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Speaker 6: the head of YC. The first batch included some other

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Speaker 6: really impressive people, like the founders of Reddit and Twitch,

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Speaker 6: but someone who knows Sam says that he was immediately

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Speaker 6: Paul's favorite. Paul later wrote, within about three minutes of

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Speaker 6: meeting him, I remember thinking, ah, so this is what

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Speaker 6: Bill Gates must have been like when he was nineteen.

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Speaker 6: The startup Sam was building was called Looped. Looped is

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Speaker 6: one of the forgotten apps of its time the early

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Speaker 6: two thousands, when people were really excited about having GPS

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Speaker 6: on their phones for the first time. It used location

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Speaker 6: data to connect people to their friends and local businesses,

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Speaker 6: kind of like a mix of Yelp, and four Square.

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Speaker 6: Here's Sam making the pitch at a developers conference.

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Speaker 11: Lup is about connecting with people on the go, which is,

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Speaker 11: after all, the main reason you have a phone. We

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Speaker 11: show you where people are, what they're doing, and what

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Speaker 11: cool places are around you.

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Speaker 6: Sam started building the startup in two thousand and five.

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Speaker 6: The iPhone didn't exist yet, so luped was trying to

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Speaker 6: do this for flip phones and it was kind of

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Speaker 6: hard to get traction. At one point early on, Sam's

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Speaker 6: company was in a desperate situation. They really needed to

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Speaker 6: get a deal with a mobile carrier. They learned that

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Speaker 6: Boost Mobile, which was part of Sprint, was looking to

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Speaker 6: add a location feature and needed a partner, but they

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Speaker 6: were about to sign with someone else, so Sam flew

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Speaker 6: down to Boost's headquarters in Irvine and southern California. When

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Speaker 6: he tells the story, he says that he just showed up,

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Speaker 6: waited outside the right executive's office, and asked for just

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Speaker 6: ten minutes. Here's how that executive remembers it.

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Speaker 3: As I recall, I got a phone call from Sam

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Speaker 3: when he was in Irvine, and he said that he

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Speaker 3: explained who he was and what Looped was somebody at

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Speaker 3: Sprint had told him to get in touch with us.

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Speaker 6: That's Lowell Winer. He was at the time the head

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Speaker 6: of business development for Boost. And he's going to tell

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Speaker 6: a story that has a few asides, but that I

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Speaker 6: think captures a lot about what Sam was like.

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Speaker 3: Early on, we were a day or two away from

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Speaker 3: signing a contract with another startup that was further along

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Speaker 3: than Looped. He asked to come by that day, you know,

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Speaker 3: which is incredibly unusual, but given the timing that, you know,

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Speaker 3: we were at the eleventh hour, we were about to

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Speaker 3: sign this contract. He had come, you know, referred to

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Speaker 3: us by our parent company, it was worth at least

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Speaker 3: a meeting. So Sam shows up the office with one

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Speaker 3: or two other guys from Looped. We go sit in

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Speaker 3: the conference room, you know, we share what we were

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Speaker 3: looking to do. Sam started to share about Looped. He

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Speaker 3: was I think nineteen at the time, you know, I

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Speaker 3: think maybe in cargo short sitting cross legged in a

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Speaker 3: in a chair in a conference room and just kind

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Speaker 3: of holding court.

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Speaker 6: I want to pause here for a second on this

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Speaker 6: cargo shorts detail. For a lot of Sam's young life,

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Speaker 6: he was a cargo shorts devotee wore them all the time.

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Speaker 6: People kind of poked fun at him for it, to

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Speaker 6: the point where he felt the need to address it

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Speaker 6: on a podcast called Masters of Scale.

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Speaker 5: Honestly, I don't think they're that ugly, and I find

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Speaker 5: them incredibly convenient. Like I I, you can like put

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Speaker 5: a lot of stuff like I like to. I'd still

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Speaker 5: read paperback books. I like paperback books. I like to

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Speaker 5: carry on around with me. I have like an iPhone

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Speaker 5: seven plus, which is kind of like works really well

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Speaker 5: on cargo pockets. I carry like computer chargers, cables. They're

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Speaker 5: just like, you know, efficient. Why people care about that so.

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Speaker 6: Much that I can't tell you that last comment. That's

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Speaker 6: very Sam to remark that the things normal people might

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Speaker 6: talk about don't make sense or aren't rational. It's like

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Speaker 6: he has no patience for the things most of us

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Speaker 6: might think are funny. He has more important things to

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Speaker 6: think about anyway. Here he is a nineteen year old

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Speaker 6: in a meeting with mobile network executives, wearing cargo shorts,

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Speaker 6: sitting cross legged in a conference room chair. Even though

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Speaker 6: this encounter was almost twenty years ago, Lowell remembers vividly

387
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Speaker 6: what Sam looked like in that moment because it was

388
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Speaker 6: such an odd picture.

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Speaker 3: He's a he was small in stature. I don't think

390
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Speaker 3: he's a big guy now, but he was. You know,

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Speaker 3: he was quite slim at the time. You know, it's

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Speaker 3: no easy feat to sit cross legged in a conference chair.

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Speaker 3: I mean, he looked like he could have still been

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Speaker 3: in high school.

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Speaker 6: I've heard other people describe Sam's weird way of sitting.

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Speaker 6: He's older now, so he doesn't do it as much,

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Speaker 6: but one person who knows him told me he used

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Speaker 6: to squat on the seat of a chair like a

399
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Speaker 6: perched bird, with his knees up toward his chin. Despite

400
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Speaker 6: this unconventional way of presenting himself or because of it,

401
00:23:13,840 --> 00:23:17,520
Speaker 6: he almost immediately convinced Lowell that boost Mobile should switch

402
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Speaker 6: plans at the eleventh hour and go with this other partner.

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Speaker 3: It was pretty clear within a half hour of this

404
00:23:23,160 --> 00:23:26,560
Speaker 3: meeting starting that Lukeed and Sam were the right partner

405
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Speaker 3: to do this. There was both excitement and like shit,

406
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Speaker 3: we have to go sell it internally. But I recall

407
00:23:35,600 --> 00:23:38,320
Speaker 3: stepping outside of the room with the colleague that I

408
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Speaker 3: was in the meeting with and saying to him, we

409
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Speaker 3: need to switch gears.

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Speaker 6: And Lowell still remembers this way that Sam looks unassuming,

411
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Speaker 6: but he's not.

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Speaker 3: On the one hand, visually he looked incredibly young, but

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Speaker 3: if you'd shut your eyes and were just listening to him,

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00:23:57,040 --> 00:23:59,119
Speaker 3: his command of material, in his ability to communicate and

415
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Speaker 3: engage was on par with anyone you know I had

416
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Speaker 3: met with over the course of my tech career. It Uh,

417
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Speaker 3: it was freakish. Yeah, it was freakish, and not his

418
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Speaker 3: appearance but his his poise and command for that.

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Speaker 6: Age, Sam's relentlessness paid off. He knew he had to

420
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Speaker 6: get that deal, and he did what he needed to

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Speaker 6: do to get it, including flying across the state to

422
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Speaker 6: surprise someone at their office. Sam later said he learned

423
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Speaker 6: an important lesson the way to get things done is

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Speaker 6: to just be really persistent. So he inks this deal

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Speaker 6: for Looped, it's going to power location sharing for boost Mobile.

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Speaker 6: It's the partnership that led to this two thousand and

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Speaker 6: six ad campaign.

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Speaker 1: Y Oh, you see where I meant here, But I

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Speaker 1: know where you at boos Looped the GPS.

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Speaker 2: Now you know what your friends.

431
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Speaker 6: At Sam's peers at YC were surprised that he pulled

432
00:24:57,920 --> 00:25:01,640
Speaker 6: this off. Loop's business model pretty wobbly, and the product

433
00:25:01,680 --> 00:25:05,639
Speaker 6: wasn't all that impressive, but Sam's particular strength was starting

434
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Speaker 6: to become clearer.

435
00:25:06,720 --> 00:25:08,840
Speaker 7: It was obvious Sam was an incredible deals guy.

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Speaker 6: That's a clip from a podcast interview with Emmett Sheer,

437
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Speaker 6: one of the other guys in that very first YC batch.

438
00:25:15,520 --> 00:25:18,399
Speaker 6: You can hear how impressed he was by Sam's particular talent.

439
00:25:19,000 --> 00:25:22,840
Speaker 7: He was somehow convincing the phone companies to give his

440
00:25:23,280 --> 00:25:26,800
Speaker 7: startup that like didn't really have a product like deals.

441
00:25:26,880 --> 00:25:29,399
Speaker 7: I still don't know how he did that, And like

442
00:25:29,600 --> 00:25:31,880
Speaker 7: that was the only obvious thing about Sam at the time,

443
00:25:32,040 --> 00:25:35,080
Speaker 7: was like that he was ambitious, but most of us

444
00:25:35,080 --> 00:25:38,080
Speaker 7: were pretty ambitious, and he was great at great great

445
00:25:38,119 --> 00:25:38,560
Speaker 7: deals guy.

446
00:25:39,200 --> 00:25:42,920
Speaker 6: For the next few years, Luke kept growing. Sam presented

447
00:25:42,920 --> 00:25:45,720
Speaker 6: at Apple's Developer Conference in two thousand and eight in

448
00:25:45,760 --> 00:25:49,480
Speaker 6: a very unique outfit. He wore two Polo shirts layered

449
00:25:49,520 --> 00:25:51,760
Speaker 6: on top of each other, so he's in a hot

450
00:25:51,800 --> 00:25:55,600
Speaker 6: pink polo with a second lime green collar poking out underneath.

451
00:25:55,840 --> 00:26:01,159
Speaker 7: I'd like to invite up, Sam Altman, Sam I.

452
00:26:01,200 --> 00:26:08,040
Speaker 11: Stept We are incredibly psyched about Luket on the iPhone.

453
00:26:08,160 --> 00:26:10,800
Speaker 11: Lup is about connecting with people and what cool places

454
00:26:10,800 --> 00:26:13,280
Speaker 11: are around you. The orange pin up there is where

455
00:26:13,320 --> 00:26:15,960
Speaker 11: I am right now, and the blue pins represent my friends.

456
00:26:16,720 --> 00:26:18,080
Speaker 11: We make serendipity happen.

457
00:26:18,520 --> 00:26:21,320
Speaker 6: And when you listen to Sam pitching LUT, you can

458
00:26:21,320 --> 00:26:25,920
Speaker 6: hear this other part of him, this earnestness and optimism.

459
00:26:26,240 --> 00:26:28,399
Speaker 6: I've listened to and read a lot of interviews with

460
00:26:28,480 --> 00:26:31,879
Speaker 6: Sam and he's always using the words super and excited,

461
00:26:32,280 --> 00:26:34,040
Speaker 6: sometimes super excited.

462
00:26:34,240 --> 00:26:37,000
Speaker 5: It's super cool, super easy to make, super important.

463
00:26:37,040 --> 00:26:37,920
Speaker 6: It's been super great.

464
00:26:38,000 --> 00:26:41,720
Speaker 5: I'm super excited to announce. I'm super excited, super excited

465
00:26:41,760 --> 00:26:41,960
Speaker 5: for that.

466
00:26:43,720 --> 00:26:47,280
Speaker 6: But he was not super excited about what happened next

467
00:26:47,280 --> 00:26:51,640
Speaker 6: at LUT. After several years, Looped fizzled out. Sam made

468
00:26:51,680 --> 00:26:53,960
Speaker 6: a deal to sell the company for a modest sum

469
00:26:54,040 --> 00:26:57,120
Speaker 6: in twenty twelve. He walked away with a reported five

470
00:26:57,200 --> 00:27:01,160
Speaker 6: million dollars. Most people would be pretty happy with this outcome,

471
00:27:01,440 --> 00:27:04,720
Speaker 6: but in Silicon Valley terms, Luptwa was kind of a failure.

472
00:27:05,760 --> 00:27:08,600
Speaker 6: But that's okay because by then Sam had won over

473
00:27:08,720 --> 00:27:12,119
Speaker 6: other people who could help him. One was Peter Teel,

474
00:27:12,480 --> 00:27:15,119
Speaker 6: who was a billionaire and investor and the co founder

475
00:27:15,160 --> 00:27:18,240
Speaker 6: of PayPal and Pallanteer. He's also one of the most

476
00:27:18,320 --> 00:27:21,080
Speaker 6: powerful gay men in Silicon Valley, which lent him and

477
00:27:21,119 --> 00:27:25,280
Speaker 6: Sam a sense of camaraderie. When Sam left Loop, Peter

478
00:27:25,440 --> 00:27:28,600
Speaker 6: gave him a bunch of money to invest. They were close,

479
00:27:29,040 --> 00:27:33,720
Speaker 6: and Sam's peers noticed because Peter Teel is notoriously pessimistic

480
00:27:33,800 --> 00:27:38,159
Speaker 6: and even nihilistic, and Sam's public image, by contrast, he's

481
00:27:38,200 --> 00:27:41,879
Speaker 6: pretty earnest and optimistic. At the same time, Sam was

482
00:27:41,920 --> 00:27:44,600
Speaker 6: deepening his relationship with Paul Graham, the head of YC,

483
00:27:45,640 --> 00:27:49,920
Speaker 6: and that closeness was giving Sam tangible benefits. When Paul

484
00:27:50,000 --> 00:27:52,360
Speaker 6: had the chance to invest very early on in Stripe

485
00:27:52,400 --> 00:27:56,840
Speaker 6: the Payments startup, he invited Sam to invest too. Sam

486
00:27:56,920 --> 00:27:59,840
Speaker 6: later said that that was by some measures, his most

487
00:28:00,080 --> 00:28:04,200
Speaker 6: profitable Angel investment ever, and he got it purely because

488
00:28:04,200 --> 00:28:07,640
Speaker 6: of this personal relationship he had built. Paul is known

489
00:28:07,680 --> 00:28:11,120
Speaker 6: for writing essays about how to build startups, essays filled

490
00:28:11,160 --> 00:28:15,840
Speaker 6: with blunt, quotable entrepreneurial wisdom. Often in those essays he

491
00:28:15,920 --> 00:28:20,000
Speaker 6: praised Sam. He advised young eager founders to emulate Sam,

492
00:28:20,560 --> 00:28:22,800
Speaker 6: and Paul is also responsible for one of the most

493
00:28:22,840 --> 00:28:27,239
Speaker 6: infamous quotes about Sam. You could parachute him into an

494
00:28:27,280 --> 00:28:30,399
Speaker 6: island full of cannibals and come back in five years

495
00:28:30,720 --> 00:28:37,480
Speaker 6: and he'd be the king. At first, this quote sounded

496
00:28:37,520 --> 00:28:40,800
Speaker 6: to me like a compliment, but lately I've wondered if

497
00:28:40,840 --> 00:28:45,400
Speaker 6: maybe it's not anyway. Around twenty twelve, YC had become

498
00:28:45,600 --> 00:28:49,360
Speaker 6: very influential. It had relocated its headquarters from Cambridge to

499
00:28:49,360 --> 00:28:52,080
Speaker 6: Silicon Valley and was now a breeding ground for some

500
00:28:52,120 --> 00:28:56,840
Speaker 6: of the most successful Internet businesses. Airbnb, Dropbox, and Stripe

501
00:28:56,920 --> 00:29:00,360
Speaker 6: all got their start at YC, and from the outlie

502
00:29:00,600 --> 00:29:03,320
Speaker 6: it looked as though Sam was beginning to mimic Paul

503
00:29:03,480 --> 00:29:08,720
Speaker 6: as a startup guru. He was also advising young founders

504
00:29:08,760 --> 00:29:12,280
Speaker 6: at YC, and just like Paul, he started writing essays

505
00:29:12,640 --> 00:29:17,360
Speaker 6: filled with mysterious, often perplexing advice for startup founders, such

506
00:29:17,400 --> 00:29:21,000
Speaker 6: as the most successful founders do not set out to

507
00:29:21,040 --> 00:29:24,120
Speaker 6: create companies. They are on a mission to create something

508
00:29:24,200 --> 00:29:29,320
Speaker 6: closer to a religion or here's another A big secret

509
00:29:29,440 --> 00:29:31,360
Speaker 6: is that you can bend the world to your will

510
00:29:31,440 --> 00:29:35,160
Speaker 6: a surprising percentage of the time, most people don't even try.

511
00:29:36,520 --> 00:29:39,880
Speaker 6: In a blog post called how to Be Successful, Sam

512
00:29:39,920 --> 00:29:43,480
Speaker 6: told founders that they should quote have almost too much

513
00:29:43,520 --> 00:29:47,000
Speaker 6: self belief. The most successful people I know believe in

514
00:29:47,040 --> 00:29:52,960
Speaker 6: themselves almost to the point of delusion. That last point

515
00:29:53,000 --> 00:29:55,920
Speaker 6: will sound familiar to people who know Sam. One of

516
00:29:55,960 --> 00:29:59,760
Speaker 6: them told me that Sam has complete self belief. That

517
00:30:00,000 --> 00:30:02,680
Speaker 6: Sam gives off the impression that he believes in himself

518
00:30:02,760 --> 00:30:06,640
Speaker 6: one hundred percent without that nagging feeling most of us have,

519
00:30:06,840 --> 00:30:10,520
Speaker 6: like a little voice of fear or uncertainty. And here's

520
00:30:10,560 --> 00:30:13,080
Speaker 6: Lowell again, the former boost Mobile executive.

521
00:30:14,360 --> 00:30:19,800
Speaker 3: He was extraordinarily self assured, and not in an egotistical way,

522
00:30:20,480 --> 00:30:27,400
Speaker 3: but just very comfortable with himself, with his capacity both

523
00:30:27,400 --> 00:30:28,880
Speaker 3: intellectually and relationally.

524
00:30:29,680 --> 00:30:33,040
Speaker 6: For years, Paul had built up Sam's image, made him

525
00:30:33,040 --> 00:30:36,920
Speaker 6: this kind of startup demigod. Then he decided to anoint

526
00:30:37,000 --> 00:30:40,960
Speaker 6: him fully. Paul stepped down in twenty fourteen and named

527
00:30:41,000 --> 00:30:45,240
Speaker 6: Sam President of YC. This was a big deal. YSE

528
00:30:45,480 --> 00:30:48,240
Speaker 6: is the center of Silicon Valley, and now Sam was

529
00:30:48,280 --> 00:30:52,160
Speaker 6: its leader. He was twenty eight years old. With both

530
00:30:52,240 --> 00:30:56,800
Speaker 6: Peter Teel and Paul Graham, Sam cultivated these close relationships

531
00:30:56,840 --> 00:30:59,800
Speaker 6: with people and positions of power. Then they gave him

532
00:31:00,320 --> 00:31:05,600
Speaker 6: like money, connections, influence titles. Essentially, they transferred some of

533
00:31:05,640 --> 00:31:09,800
Speaker 6: their power directly to him, and that in turn gave

534
00:31:09,880 --> 00:31:12,920
Speaker 6: Sam the ability to think big, even when he was

535
00:31:12,960 --> 00:31:16,400
Speaker 6: working on something pretty silly sounding like looped, Sam had

536
00:31:16,480 --> 00:31:21,120
Speaker 6: sky high ambitions. Paul noticed this. Here he is at

537
00:31:21,120 --> 00:31:23,800
Speaker 6: a conference explaining why he picked Sam to be his

538
00:31:23,880 --> 00:31:24,880
Speaker 6: successor at YC.

539
00:31:25,880 --> 00:31:28,320
Speaker 2: It's turned into this giant thing and I'm no good

540
00:31:28,320 --> 00:31:32,120
Speaker 2: at running giant things. Sam, however, is going to be

541
00:31:32,160 --> 00:31:33,320
Speaker 2: good at running a giant thing.

542
00:31:33,680 --> 00:31:36,040
Speaker 6: At this point, there was no evidence Sam could run

543
00:31:36,040 --> 00:31:39,040
Speaker 6: a giant thing or even a medium sized thing. But

544
00:31:39,080 --> 00:31:42,320
Speaker 6: once he took over, Sam did make YC much bigger

545
00:31:42,360 --> 00:31:46,719
Speaker 6: than before sprawling. He gave more money to more startups,

546
00:31:46,880 --> 00:31:48,360
Speaker 6: and he expanded overseas.

547
00:31:49,120 --> 00:31:53,520
Speaker 12: The Sam Altman era at YC was about expansion.

548
00:31:54,080 --> 00:31:57,080
Speaker 6: That's John Coogan. He's a startup founder who went through

549
00:31:57,200 --> 00:32:01,240
Speaker 6: YC twice, including once for his company Soilin, you know,

550
00:32:01,600 --> 00:32:03,800
Speaker 6: the one that made food powder for tech people.

551
00:32:05,160 --> 00:32:09,600
Speaker 12: Why CE went from you know, a summer program for

552
00:32:09,720 --> 00:32:13,560
Speaker 12: startups with just a couple companies to doing all sorts

553
00:32:13,600 --> 00:32:17,800
Speaker 12: of things venture investing with the Continuity Fund, nonprofit work

554
00:32:17,880 --> 00:32:23,400
Speaker 12: with YC research. There's definitely a there's a feeling of like, Okay,

555
00:32:24,000 --> 00:32:27,720
Speaker 12: how much should YC really be doing? Should this organization

556
00:32:28,120 --> 00:32:29,160
Speaker 12: be doing everything.

557
00:32:29,720 --> 00:32:32,120
Speaker 6: During his time at y C, John noticed a couple

558
00:32:32,200 --> 00:32:33,000
Speaker 6: things about Sam.

559
00:32:33,520 --> 00:32:39,600
Speaker 12: He's very good at switching gears and listening very intently.

560
00:32:39,920 --> 00:32:43,320
Speaker 12: I think that's what's really that's really like a superpower.

561
00:32:43,320 --> 00:32:46,000
Speaker 12: I heard someone describe him as the Michael Jordan of listening.

562
00:32:46,600 --> 00:32:49,120
Speaker 6: A lot of people have described this intensity of Sam's

563
00:32:49,120 --> 00:32:52,720
Speaker 6: to me. When he listens, he also stares. It can

564
00:32:52,760 --> 00:32:56,680
Speaker 6: almost feel unsettling. And now that Sam was running YC,

565
00:32:57,240 --> 00:33:00,280
Speaker 6: he could become kind of a covert operator. He had

566
00:33:00,320 --> 00:33:02,520
Speaker 6: all of his deal making skills from his Loop days,

567
00:33:02,880 --> 00:33:05,880
Speaker 6: and now his network and influence was way bigger. If

568
00:33:05,920 --> 00:33:07,800
Speaker 6: there was ever a problem, he could make a call

569
00:33:07,840 --> 00:33:09,600
Speaker 6: and fix it fast.

570
00:33:09,800 --> 00:33:11,760
Speaker 12: Early, very early in my business career, I had a

571
00:33:11,880 --> 00:33:16,880
Speaker 12: very tough negotiation going on, and I wrote Sam this

572
00:33:17,040 --> 00:33:21,360
Speaker 12: email saying like, Hey, I'm in this negotiation, I just

573
00:33:21,440 --> 00:33:24,480
Speaker 12: want to reality check some stuff with you, and he

574
00:33:24,840 --> 00:33:27,560
Speaker 12: called me immediately. We talked for like five minutes and

575
00:33:27,560 --> 00:33:29,840
Speaker 12: he completely solved my problem, and it was like one

576
00:33:29,880 --> 00:33:32,040
Speaker 12: of the best business deals in my life. It was like,

577
00:33:32,480 --> 00:33:35,880
Speaker 12: actually left a really really like big impact on me.

578
00:33:36,400 --> 00:33:40,120
Speaker 12: I've personally seen Sam resolve a one hundred million dollar

579
00:33:40,200 --> 00:33:44,000
Speaker 12: issue in a thirty minute phone call, fifteen minute phone call.

580
00:33:44,720 --> 00:33:47,120
Speaker 12: It's really remarkable, and I think Sam just thinks about

581
00:33:47,160 --> 00:33:49,680
Speaker 12: it in human terms. It's like, this person wants X,

582
00:33:49,720 --> 00:33:51,960
Speaker 12: this person wants why. How can we bring these two

583
00:33:51,960 --> 00:33:52,560
Speaker 12: people together.

584
00:33:53,400 --> 00:33:56,960
Speaker 6: Y SEE was growing, but Sam's ambitions were even larger.

585
00:33:58,560 --> 00:34:01,719
Speaker 6: When he became president, he starts taking on pet projects.

586
00:34:02,240 --> 00:34:05,719
Speaker 6: One of his interests was nuclear fusion. To encourage more

587
00:34:05,720 --> 00:34:09,320
Speaker 6: people to build startups in this area, he expanded yc's

588
00:34:09,360 --> 00:34:13,320
Speaker 6: scope to include hard tech startups, that is, companies building

589
00:34:13,360 --> 00:34:15,799
Speaker 6: tech where there's some doubt that it'll work at all.

590
00:34:16,640 --> 00:34:20,880
Speaker 6: Until that point, YC had been almost exclusively about Internet software.

591
00:34:22,200 --> 00:34:24,920
Speaker 6: He also spun up a research arm at YC and

592
00:34:24,960 --> 00:34:28,760
Speaker 6: assigned researchers to projects he wanted to explore. One example

593
00:34:28,880 --> 00:34:32,520
Speaker 6: was universal basic income. The idea is to give every

594
00:34:32,560 --> 00:34:36,360
Speaker 6: person a regular income, regardless of whether they work. So

595
00:34:36,560 --> 00:34:40,360
Speaker 6: under Sam's command, YC created a study to give money

596
00:34:40,600 --> 00:34:44,440
Speaker 6: no strings attached to families in Oakland. This move is

597
00:34:44,480 --> 00:34:47,440
Speaker 6: one that Sam turns to often. He'll have an idea

598
00:34:47,520 --> 00:34:50,120
Speaker 6: for something he thinks should exist, and then he pulls

599
00:34:50,120 --> 00:34:52,839
Speaker 6: in people and money to encourage someone to do it,

600
00:34:53,440 --> 00:34:55,759
Speaker 6: bending the world to his will As he wrote in

601
00:34:55,760 --> 00:34:59,280
Speaker 6: his blog, he's kind of like the maestro of an orchestra,

602
00:34:59,760 --> 00:35:05,160
Speaker 6: not playing the instruments himself, but conducting his symphony. And

603
00:35:05,239 --> 00:35:08,000
Speaker 6: in twenty fifteen he'll have the chance to do this again,

604
00:35:08,520 --> 00:35:12,120
Speaker 6: this pattern of finding an important topic, then arranging to

605
00:35:12,160 --> 00:35:14,360
Speaker 6: get the right people and the right money on board

606
00:35:14,440 --> 00:35:19,759
Speaker 6: to build it. This time the focus is AI. It'll

607
00:35:19,800 --> 00:35:23,240
Speaker 6: all take place at a dinner, a dinner that'll change everything.

608
00:35:24,160 --> 00:35:32,480
Speaker 6: We'll be right back. Okay, here's a bit of Silicon

609
00:35:32,560 --> 00:35:36,120
Speaker 6: Valley lore. It's often told that in twenty fifteen Elon

610
00:35:36,200 --> 00:35:39,320
Speaker 6: Musk was worried, or at least Elon was going around

611
00:35:39,360 --> 00:35:42,640
Speaker 6: telling everyone he was deeply distraught over the state of

612
00:35:42,840 --> 00:35:48,040
Speaker 6: artificial intelligence. Back then, the biggest powerhouse in AI was Google.

613
00:35:48,560 --> 00:35:50,879
Speaker 6: It had so much money, and it had hired all

614
00:35:50,960 --> 00:35:54,200
Speaker 6: the best researchers. They had Google Brain, and then they

615
00:35:54,239 --> 00:35:57,359
Speaker 6: acquired deep Mind. It's a British lab that was working

616
00:35:57,440 --> 00:35:59,520
Speaker 6: on some of the most exciting things in AI at

617
00:35:59,560 --> 00:36:02,840
Speaker 6: the time, AI that could be more fluid and self taught.

618
00:36:03,760 --> 00:36:07,919
Speaker 6: Google's early lead particularly disturbed Elon because he was worried

619
00:36:07,920 --> 00:36:10,640
Speaker 6: about the possibility that AI could start to grow too

620
00:36:10,800 --> 00:36:15,480
Speaker 6: powerful especially if an AI entity began to improve itself,

621
00:36:16,000 --> 00:36:18,080
Speaker 6: and he was really worried about the guy in charge

622
00:36:18,120 --> 00:36:18,480
Speaker 6: of it all.

623
00:36:18,880 --> 00:36:21,600
Speaker 13: So I used to be close friends with our page,

624
00:36:21,600 --> 00:36:22,840
Speaker 13: and I would say at his house and we'd have

625
00:36:22,920 --> 00:36:26,200
Speaker 13: these conversations long into long into the evening about AI,

626
00:36:26,400 --> 00:36:29,560
Speaker 13: and I would I would be constantly urging him to

627
00:36:29,760 --> 00:36:35,000
Speaker 13: be careful about the danger of AI, and and he

628
00:36:35,120 --> 00:36:38,000
Speaker 13: just he was really not concerned about the danger of

629
00:36:38,040 --> 00:36:40,359
Speaker 13: AI and was quite cavalier about it.

630
00:36:40,960 --> 00:36:45,000
Speaker 6: That's Elon on CNBC. I'm always surprised by how casual

631
00:36:45,040 --> 00:36:47,840
Speaker 6: he sounds when he's telling the story of basically ending

632
00:36:47,840 --> 00:36:51,000
Speaker 6: a friendship. But he loves his anecdote because it makes

633
00:36:51,040 --> 00:36:52,760
Speaker 6: him sound smart and forward thinking.

634
00:36:53,400 --> 00:36:56,719
Speaker 13: And at the time, Google, especially after their acquisition of

635
00:36:56,760 --> 00:36:59,200
Speaker 13: deep Mind, had three quarters of the world's AI talent.

636
00:36:59,200 --> 00:37:01,960
Speaker 4: They had a lot of computers and a lot of money.

637
00:37:02,239 --> 00:37:05,840
Speaker 13: But the person who controls that does not, or at

638
00:37:05,920 --> 00:37:09,160
Speaker 13: least that did not seem to be concerned about AI safety.

639
00:37:09,680 --> 00:37:11,520
Speaker 4: That sounded like a real problem.

640
00:37:11,600 --> 00:37:16,160
Speaker 13: So and then the final straw was Larry calling me

641
00:37:16,200 --> 00:37:21,800
Speaker 13: a specist for being pro human consciousness instead of machine consciousness.

642
00:37:21,800 --> 00:37:26,560
Speaker 13: And I'm like, well, yes, I guess I am.

643
00:37:26,719 --> 00:37:29,160
Speaker 6: At the time, a lot of experts thought the idea

644
00:37:29,239 --> 00:37:32,520
Speaker 6: of developing AI so powerful that it threatened the human

645
00:37:32,600 --> 00:37:37,319
Speaker 6: species was laughable because AI was still having trouble distinguishing

646
00:37:37,360 --> 00:37:40,040
Speaker 6: between a picture of a chihuahua and a picture of

647
00:37:40,080 --> 00:37:43,680
Speaker 6: a blueberry muffin. But to Elon, it was a real threat.

648
00:37:44,320 --> 00:37:46,960
Speaker 6: Here he is speaking with Walter Isaacson at a conference.

649
00:37:47,560 --> 00:37:49,360
Speaker 6: He sounds serious, even alarmed.

650
00:37:49,960 --> 00:37:53,680
Speaker 13: I don't think most people understand just how quickly machine

651
00:37:53,680 --> 00:37:57,760
Speaker 13: intelligence is advancing. It's much faster than almost anyone realizes.

652
00:37:57,880 --> 00:38:01,360
Speaker 13: Even within Silicon Valley, people really.

653
00:38:01,360 --> 00:38:03,400
Speaker 4: Have no idea why is that dangerous?

654
00:38:04,280 --> 00:38:09,080
Speaker 13: If there's some digital superintelligence, particularly if it's engaged in

655
00:38:09,120 --> 00:38:15,960
Speaker 13: recursive self improvement, and its optimization or utility function is

656
00:38:15,960 --> 00:38:19,640
Speaker 13: something that's detrimental to humanity, then it will have a.

657
00:38:19,680 --> 00:38:22,040
Speaker 4: Very bad effect. You know.

658
00:38:22,040 --> 00:38:25,000
Speaker 13: It could be just something like getting rid of spam

659
00:38:25,200 --> 00:38:27,399
Speaker 13: email or something, and it's like concludes, well, the best

660
00:38:27,400 --> 00:38:29,480
Speaker 13: way to get over spam is to get rid of humans,

661
00:38:30,400 --> 00:38:34,360
Speaker 13: you know, But why would we lose source of spam.

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00:38:34,680 --> 00:38:37,520
Speaker 3: I know we've all watched cal in two thousand and one.

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00:38:38,160 --> 00:38:40,960
Speaker 6: The audience actually laughed at him because what he was

664
00:38:41,000 --> 00:38:45,400
Speaker 6: saying sounded so outlandish at the time. So Elon was

665
00:38:45,440 --> 00:38:48,800
Speaker 6: increasingly feeling like he had to do something to dilute

666
00:38:48,800 --> 00:38:52,080
Speaker 6: Google's power, But he might have also been driven by

667
00:38:52,080 --> 00:38:55,759
Speaker 6: something else. Here's Ashley Vance, my colleague at Bloomberg, who

668
00:38:55,840 --> 00:38:58,640
Speaker 6: wrote a biography of Elon twenty thirteen.

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00:38:58,719 --> 00:39:03,240
Speaker 14: Elon was he was not the guy we know today.

670
00:39:03,320 --> 00:39:07,399
Speaker 14: I mean, he was doing okay, but Tesla was kind

671
00:39:07,400 --> 00:39:10,680
Speaker 14: of just barely starting a hitted stride. SpaceX was doing

672
00:39:10,680 --> 00:39:15,040
Speaker 14: pretty well. Elon was worth probably a few billion dollars.

673
00:39:15,080 --> 00:39:18,160
Speaker 14: Definitely not the richest person in the world.

674
00:39:18,760 --> 00:39:21,560
Speaker 6: Elon's friends at the time were among the richest people

675
00:39:21,600 --> 00:39:24,680
Speaker 6: in the world, Larry Page and Saragey Brinn, the co

676
00:39:24,760 --> 00:39:25,720
Speaker 6: founders of Google.

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00:39:26,400 --> 00:39:28,759
Speaker 14: I was interviewing Elon a lot that I was working

678
00:39:28,760 --> 00:39:32,080
Speaker 14: on a book about him, and it was clear to

679
00:39:32,120 --> 00:39:34,520
Speaker 14: me that he was looking over at his friends who

680
00:39:34,640 --> 00:39:37,279
Speaker 14: were doing really well and everything they did, and they

681
00:39:37,320 --> 00:39:42,319
Speaker 14: had these software empires and this growing AI empire. And

682
00:39:44,040 --> 00:39:49,200
Speaker 14: my sense of where Elon's thoughts about AI started to

683
00:39:49,800 --> 00:39:53,440
Speaker 14: originate was part jealousy. I thought he looked at Google

684
00:39:53,480 --> 00:39:56,840
Speaker 14: and all the success it was having, and the success

685
00:39:56,840 --> 00:39:59,759
Speaker 14: as friends were having, and he had nothing like that.

686
00:40:00,080 --> 00:40:02,040
Speaker 14: He would never admit this out loud that.

687
00:40:02,000 --> 00:40:02,880
Speaker 4: He was jealous.

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00:40:03,200 --> 00:40:06,480
Speaker 6: Okay, So AI was top of mind for Elon, and

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00:40:06,520 --> 00:40:10,560
Speaker 6: in twenty fifteen he attended this dinner at the Rosewood Hotel.

690
00:40:11,200 --> 00:40:14,280
Speaker 6: It's this swanky place on sand Hill Road in Menlo Park,

691
00:40:14,640 --> 00:40:16,759
Speaker 6: right near some of the biggest venture capital firms in

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00:40:16,800 --> 00:40:21,240
Speaker 6: the valley. There were about ten people at this dinner,

693
00:40:21,640 --> 00:40:24,920
Speaker 6: but for our purposes, here are the four most important ones.

694
00:40:25,400 --> 00:40:29,040
Speaker 6: There's Elon, There's Sam. Then there are two other people,

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00:40:29,600 --> 00:40:33,880
Speaker 6: Ilia Sitskiver and Greg Brockman. Ilia worked at Google and

696
00:40:33,960 --> 00:40:37,520
Speaker 6: was a really well respected researcher in AI, and Greg

697
00:40:37,600 --> 00:40:40,160
Speaker 6: had been one of the most important people at Stripe,

698
00:40:40,480 --> 00:40:42,480
Speaker 6: taking it from a team of five people to a

699
00:40:42,560 --> 00:40:46,279
Speaker 6: company worth billions of dollars. At dinner, they talked very

700
00:40:46,320 --> 00:40:49,160
Speaker 6: seriously about AI and the threat that it could be

701
00:40:49,200 --> 00:40:52,719
Speaker 6: misused or that it could lead to catastrophe. They talked

702
00:40:52,760 --> 00:40:54,919
Speaker 6: about what it might take to build something that could

703
00:40:54,960 --> 00:40:59,800
Speaker 6: compete with Google. They had the pieces there. Ilia's AI skills,

704
00:41:00,080 --> 00:41:04,920
Speaker 6: Greg's operational experience, Elon's money, and Sam was there to

705
00:41:05,040 --> 00:41:08,839
Speaker 6: orchestrate it all. At that dinner, Elon pledged to put

706
00:41:08,880 --> 00:41:11,920
Speaker 6: a billion dollars toward this project. He came up with

707
00:41:11,960 --> 00:41:14,759
Speaker 6: the name too. You can hear the pride in his

708
00:41:14,880 --> 00:41:17,160
Speaker 6: voice when he describes the idea on CNBC.

709
00:41:18,120 --> 00:41:21,320
Speaker 13: Open ai refers to open source, So the intent was,

710
00:41:21,400 --> 00:41:22,399
Speaker 13: what's the okay?

711
00:41:22,440 --> 00:41:26,400
Speaker 4: So what was the opposite? What's the opposite of Google?

712
00:41:26,640 --> 00:41:28,399
Speaker 4: Would be an.

713
00:41:27,880 --> 00:41:31,160
Speaker 13: Open source nonprofit because Google is closed sourced for profit,

714
00:41:32,760 --> 00:41:35,360
Speaker 13: and that profit motivation can be potentially dangerous.

715
00:41:36,400 --> 00:41:39,560
Speaker 6: So that's the birth of open Ai. They had an

716
00:41:39,600 --> 00:41:43,040
Speaker 6: initial vision open ai would be a research lab and

717
00:41:43,080 --> 00:41:46,080
Speaker 6: it would share its work openly with the public instead

718
00:41:46,080 --> 00:41:48,000
Speaker 6: of trying to keep it private for its own gain.

719
00:41:48,719 --> 00:41:51,760
Speaker 6: And it would be a nonprofit not focused on enriching

720
00:41:51,800 --> 00:41:54,760
Speaker 6: the company, but instead focused on building a safe AI

721
00:41:54,920 --> 00:41:58,799
Speaker 6: that would benefit humanity. It sounds good in theory, but

722
00:41:58,880 --> 00:42:03,240
Speaker 6: those nonprofit open source ideals we're about to get complicated fast.

723
00:42:04,200 --> 00:42:07,239
Speaker 6: Opening Eyes co founders soon found themselves locked in a

724
00:42:07,280 --> 00:42:11,920
Speaker 6: power struggle and then urgently racing to raise billions of dollars,

725
00:42:12,719 --> 00:42:15,600
Speaker 6: and Sam would come out on top again in a

726
00:42:15,640 --> 00:42:18,080
Speaker 6: way that cemented his power even further.

727
00:42:22,239 --> 00:42:26,040
Speaker 2: That was episode one of Foundering, hosted by Ellenhewitt Bloomberg

728
00:42:26,080 --> 00:42:28,719
Speaker 2: dot Com, subscribers can listen to the entire series of

729
00:42:28,760 --> 00:42:32,359
Speaker 2: Foundering right now. Just connect your subscription to Apple Podcasts

730
00:42:32,360 --> 00:42:35,160
Speaker 2: for early access. The second episode in the series is

731
00:42:35,160 --> 00:42:38,600
Speaker 2: available for free wherever you get your podcasts. Sean Wen

732
00:42:38,640 --> 00:42:42,360
Speaker 2: is Foundering's executive producer. Molly Nugent is the associate producer.

733
00:42:42,560 --> 00:42:46,280
Speaker 2: Blake Maples is the audio engineer. Mark Million and Vander

734
00:42:46,320 --> 00:42:49,360
Speaker 2: May Seth Fiegerman, Tom Giles and Molly Shoots are Foundering

735
00:42:49,480 --> 00:42:52,960
Speaker 2: story editors. Foundering had production help from Jessica Nix and

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00:42:52,960 --> 00:42:56,280
Speaker 2: Antonio Mufferetch. This is the Big Take from Bloomberg News.

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00:42:56,400 --> 00:42:59,120
Speaker 2: I'm David Gerre. Be sure to subscribe to Bloomberg for

738
00:42:59,239 --> 00:43:01,919
Speaker 2: all our great pots podcasts, and if you like our show,

739
00:43:02,120 --> 00:43:05,160
Speaker 2: leave a review. Most importantly, tell your friends.

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00:43:11,040 --> 00:43:11,080
Speaker 10: M