WEBVTT - OpenAI Part 1: The Most Silicon Valley Man Alive 0:00:00.320 --> 0:00:04.320 It's a Wednesday in November twenty twenty three. I'm standing 0:00:04.360 --> 0:00:08.440 in a dark restaurant in San Francisco. There are a 0:00:08.480 --> 0:00:12.160 few dozen people. It's the after party for an AI conference. 0:00:13.320 --> 0:00:17.119 People are standing and chatting in small circles. Waiters are 0:00:17.160 --> 0:00:21.280 bringing trays of arderubs around. I'm biting into a tiny 0:00:21.280 --> 0:00:25.280 Porcini mushroom doughnut when I hear a whisper. Sam Altman 0:00:25.360 --> 0:00:31.280 has walked into the restaurant. I try to spot him 0:00:31.320 --> 0:00:34.040 in the dim lighting. I've talked to Sam here and 0:00:34.080 --> 0:00:36.840 there over the years. He's been around the startup scene 0:00:36.840 --> 0:00:39.240 for more than a decade, and he's friendly to journalists 0:00:39.960 --> 0:00:43.680 and over time, Sam Altman has become basically the most 0:00:43.720 --> 0:00:47.600 Silicon Valley man alive. He's the CEO of open Ai, 0:00:48.080 --> 0:00:50.280 which shot to tech startum a year ago with the 0:00:50.320 --> 0:00:54.160 release of chat GPT. His company is worth eighty six 0:00:54.200 --> 0:00:57.040 billion dollars. It's one of the most valuable startups in 0:00:57.080 --> 0:01:01.040 the world. For the past six month months, Sam had 0:01:01.080 --> 0:01:05.200 been everywhere. It seemed like every major news outlet wanted 0:01:05.240 --> 0:01:07.640 to profile him, and he was saying yes to each one. 0:01:08.400 --> 0:01:12.119 Headlines referred to him as the chat GPT King, the 0:01:12.120 --> 0:01:16.600 Oppenheimer of our age, and an AI overlord. He was 0:01:16.640 --> 0:01:19.319 like an ambassador for the AI future, zipping around the. 0:01:19.280 --> 0:01:21.000 Globe meeting with world leaders. 0:01:21.520 --> 0:01:24.840 He testified in front of Congress and amid all that 0:01:25.400 --> 0:01:28.280 he decided to pop by this AI conference party a 0:01:28.280 --> 0:01:33.360 little surprise visit. So I see him standing in a 0:01:33.360 --> 0:01:36.399 corner of the restaurant. A few people have already clustered 0:01:36.440 --> 0:01:39.840 around him. I decide to say hi. He's wearing a 0:01:39.920 --> 0:01:42.800 suit and a tie, more dressed up than usual, and 0:01:42.840 --> 0:01:46.880 he's shorter than I remember. We shake hands. He eyes 0:01:46.920 --> 0:01:49.040 my conference badge and says, it's good to see you. 0:01:49.760 --> 0:01:52.720 I'm surprised by how personable he is, how friendly he 0:01:52.760 --> 0:01:57.320 comes across. He acts like he remembers me. He already 0:01:57.360 --> 0:01:59.720 knows I'm working on this podcast. So I say to him, 0:02:00.120 --> 0:02:01.840 I'm about to put in a request to your comms 0:02:01.840 --> 0:02:03.280 team to see if we can find a time to 0:02:03.280 --> 0:02:08.160 interview you. He's like, sure, sounds good. Several people are hovering, 0:02:08.280 --> 0:02:10.400 hoping to get his attention for a minute, so I 0:02:10.440 --> 0:02:13.400 step away, and after about ten minutes at the party, 0:02:13.639 --> 0:02:18.760 he leaves too. The next day, Sam continues his tour 0:02:18.840 --> 0:02:22.200 as the Statesman of AI. He speaks at APEC, a 0:02:22.240 --> 0:02:25.320 big conference at President Biden and China's leader Shijin being 0:02:25.400 --> 0:02:29.399 both attended. Here's Sam at that conference talking about AI. 0:02:29.880 --> 0:02:33.000 I think this will be the most transformative and beneficial 0:02:33.040 --> 0:02:36.640 technology humanity has yet invented. I think this is like 0:02:36.880 --> 0:02:39.360 the greatest weep forward of any of the of the 0:02:39.360 --> 0:02:43.280 big technological revolutions we've had so far. So I'm super excited. 0:02:43.760 --> 0:02:46.400 I can't imagine anything more exciting to work on, and 0:02:46.520 --> 0:02:48.720 getting to do that is like the professional honor of 0:02:48.760 --> 0:02:50.400 a lifetime. It's so fun to get. 0:02:50.320 --> 0:02:54.960 To work on that, the most transformative technology humanity has 0:02:55.080 --> 0:03:00.680 yet invented, the professional honor of a lifetime. Sam clearly 0:03:00.720 --> 0:03:04.480 believes the world is about to change dramatically and fast, 0:03:05.320 --> 0:03:08.160 and he's aware that a lot of that change is 0:03:08.160 --> 0:03:13.040 connected to him. And the day after that, less than 0:03:13.040 --> 0:03:15.600 forty eight hours after I saw Sam at that party, 0:03:16.040 --> 0:03:18.360 less than twenty four hours after he spoke at a 0:03:18.440 --> 0:03:22.760 major international gathering of world leaders, he was fired. 0:03:23.440 --> 0:03:28.080 Breaking news. Sam Altman is out as CEO of OpenAI. 0:03:28.280 --> 0:03:29.080 This is a stunner. 0:03:29.520 --> 0:03:31.920 The tech world has been thrown into chaos over the 0:03:31.919 --> 0:03:35.000 weekend when the company that gave us chat GPT fired 0:03:35.080 --> 0:03:39.400 it's CEO. The move came as a complete surprise to everyone, 0:03:39.520 --> 0:03:41.760 including open AI's biggest investor. 0:03:42.040 --> 0:03:46.000 Microsoft board says it pushed Altman out after a review 0:03:46.120 --> 0:03:49.520 found he was quote not consistently candid in his communications 0:03:49.520 --> 0:03:50.080 with the board. 0:03:52.480 --> 0:03:56.440 It's hard to emphasize enough how shocking this was. Sam 0:03:56.480 --> 0:04:00.080 Altman got fired. It was the juiciest tech news of 0:04:00.120 --> 0:04:03.560 the year and completely unexpected. The news came on a 0:04:03.600 --> 0:04:06.720 Friday afternoon, and my colleagues and I all immediately knew 0:04:06.760 --> 0:04:10.440 our weekends were out the window. The next few days 0:04:10.520 --> 0:04:14.280 felt like a hurricane of news. The board implied Sam 0:04:14.320 --> 0:04:18.160 had lied to them. They announced a new CEO. Then 0:04:18.279 --> 0:04:21.920 came a regretful public apology by someone who had fired Sam. 0:04:22.440 --> 0:04:27.160 There were pledges of loyalty, an employee revolt, and at 0:04:27.160 --> 0:04:30.880 the same time something else was happening. It started to 0:04:30.920 --> 0:04:34.200 seem like Sam was actually going to come back. He 0:04:34.320 --> 0:04:38.360 was rallying the support of his employees and Microsoft. It 0:04:38.400 --> 0:04:45.520 was looking like Sam could win. On Tuesday night, Sam 0:04:45.600 --> 0:04:49.239 was reinstated as CEO at the company that just five 0:04:49.320 --> 0:04:53.720 days earlier had basically tried to destroy him. Sam managed 0:04:53.720 --> 0:04:57.560 to get the upper hand once again. It was high drama, 0:04:58.000 --> 0:05:00.920 a jaw dropping turn of events, but for those who 0:05:00.920 --> 0:05:05.200 know Sam, it actually made perfect sense. One of Sam's 0:05:05.240 --> 0:05:08.640 mentors is an investor named Paul Graham. He once told 0:05:08.680 --> 0:05:14.520 a reporter Sam is extremely good at becoming powerful. To me, 0:05:15.000 --> 0:05:19.920 this seems like Sam's defining characteristic. Often in Silicon Valley 0:05:20.000 --> 0:05:23.839 we talk about tech visionaries who are programming geniuses or 0:05:23.960 --> 0:05:27.520 obsessed with the details and design of the product. That's 0:05:27.600 --> 0:05:32.480 not Sam. His strongest, most unique skill is wielding power, 0:05:33.320 --> 0:05:40.880 and that might have consequences for all of us. You're 0:05:40.960 --> 0:05:45.720 listening to Foundering, I'm Ellen Hewitt. In this season of Foundering, 0:05:45.880 --> 0:05:48.960 we're going to chronicle the rise of Sam Alman, the 0:05:49.120 --> 0:05:51.799 all out arms race to build the leading AI company, 0:05:52.360 --> 0:05:54.960 the claim that this new technology could threaten to wipe 0:05:54.960 --> 0:05:57.919 out all of humanity if we're not careful, and then 0:05:58.080 --> 0:06:00.680 the coup that almost took down the guy at the 0:06:00.720 --> 0:06:02.960 top of it all before he managed to. 0:06:02.960 --> 0:06:04.119 Claw his way back. 0:06:06.960 --> 0:06:09.560 For this season, you'll hear reporting done by me and 0:06:09.640 --> 0:06:12.680 my colleagues at Bloomberg who have been covering AI during 0:06:12.720 --> 0:06:15.840 the boom of the last few years. We interviewed some 0:06:15.880 --> 0:06:18.080 of the leading minds in AI to try to cut 0:06:18.080 --> 0:06:21.400 through the hype and understand the debate about whether AI 0:06:21.480 --> 0:06:24.599 will be a tool to improve human existence or to 0:06:24.680 --> 0:06:28.599 extinguish it. But this is also the story of Sam, 0:06:28.920 --> 0:06:31.039 the man at the center of it all, and we 0:06:31.080 --> 0:06:35.480 spoke with Sam's friends, family, and collaborators to demystify him 0:06:35.640 --> 0:06:41.200 and how he rose to power. This first episode is 0:06:41.279 --> 0:06:44.320 all about how Sam got here. He's a man who 0:06:44.360 --> 0:06:46.839 has always understood the importance of being in the right 0:06:46.920 --> 0:06:50.440 room at the right time, with exactly the right few people. 0:06:51.800 --> 0:06:55.840 The full story of Sam's rise is important because understanding 0:06:55.880 --> 0:06:59.440 who he is and what he believes will shed light 0:06:59.480 --> 0:07:03.760 on an earth question should we trust this man to 0:07:03.880 --> 0:07:10.000 oversee this technology? In the summer of twenty twenty three, 0:07:10.160 --> 0:07:13.480 about five months before he was fired, my colleague Emily 0:07:13.560 --> 0:07:17.040 Chang asked him this exact question at a Bloomberg conference. 0:07:18.000 --> 0:07:21.080 You have an incredible amount of power at this moment 0:07:21.120 --> 0:07:21.480 in time. 0:07:21.680 --> 0:07:24.200 Why should we trust you? 0:07:24.200 --> 0:07:27.560 You shouldn't If this really works, it's like quite a 0:07:27.560 --> 0:07:30.560 powerful technology, and you should not trust one company, and 0:07:30.640 --> 0:07:31.960 certainly not one personalize it. 0:07:33.800 --> 0:07:38.080 You shouldn't trust me. If he believes that, then why 0:07:38.120 --> 0:07:40.560 did Sam fight his way right back to the top 0:07:40.600 --> 0:07:44.320 of Open AI, back into that position of control, as 0:07:44.400 --> 0:07:46.960 if to insist he should be the person to lead 0:07:47.040 --> 0:07:50.280 this company as they develop AI as fast as possible. 0:07:51.560 --> 0:07:54.560 To a lot of people, the stakes are terrifying. They're 0:07:54.640 --> 0:07:58.200 higher than anything else really in the valley. Some people 0:07:58.240 --> 0:08:03.000 refer to Artificial General intelligen or AGI as the last invention, 0:08:03.760 --> 0:08:07.160 something so potent that everything that comes after will look 0:08:07.360 --> 0:08:11.640 unrecognizable compared to everything leading up to it. Inside Open AI, 0:08:11.920 --> 0:08:15.000 some employees talk about how they are building God. 0:08:16.560 --> 0:08:17.680 We'll be right back. 0:08:23.680 --> 0:08:25.600 To get a better sense of the kind of person 0:08:25.720 --> 0:08:28.160 Sam is and how he got where he is now. 0:08:28.640 --> 0:08:32.000 I want to take you back to his adolescence. Sam 0:08:32.040 --> 0:08:35.240 had a privileged upbringing in Saint Louis. He's the oldest 0:08:35.240 --> 0:08:38.440 of four siblings. His mom was a dermatologist and his 0:08:38.559 --> 0:08:41.720 dad was a real estate developer. He attended a private 0:08:41.760 --> 0:08:45.040 high school called John Burrows. There's an anecdote about him 0:08:45.040 --> 0:08:48.120 from that period that sticks out. When some students wanted 0:08:48.160 --> 0:08:51.640 to boycott an assembly about sexuality, Sam stood up in 0:08:51.640 --> 0:08:53.880 front of the whole school and announced he was gay. 0:08:54.520 --> 0:08:56.560 It's a pretty gutsy move for a teenager in the 0:08:56.559 --> 0:09:00.800 early two thousands, and unsurprisingly, Sam smart. 0:09:01.280 --> 0:09:06.120 And generally Sam he was. He was an exceptional student, 0:09:06.320 --> 0:09:12.360 He was an exceptional writer, he was an exceptional big personality. 0:09:13.160 --> 0:09:16.200 That's Andy Abbott. He was one of Sam's English teachers, 0:09:16.240 --> 0:09:18.800 and he's now the head of school. And this is 0:09:18.840 --> 0:09:21.600 a pretty nerdy school where it's cool to get good 0:09:21.640 --> 0:09:25.240 grades and be a high achiever. And even in that environment, 0:09:25.679 --> 0:09:26.600 Sam stood out. 0:09:26.880 --> 0:09:34.280 Sam's just a really natural leader, incredibly charismatic, curious guy. 0:09:34.520 --> 0:09:39.440 He's a typical you know. He was the editor of 0:09:39.480 --> 0:09:44.080 the yearbook and he represented the school in the Model 0:09:44.200 --> 0:09:48.080 United Nations. He designed our website, you know, before we 0:09:48.600 --> 0:09:51.440 hired people to do our website. He could just do 0:09:51.520 --> 0:09:52.120 that stuff. 0:09:52.559 --> 0:09:53.959 Sam even played water polow. 0:09:54.240 --> 0:09:58.760 He was pretty good. I'm not a connoisseur, but I'm like, 0:09:58.840 --> 0:09:59.720 he was pretty good. 0:10:00.360 --> 0:10:03.840 He remembers Sam as being really confident, and apparently for 0:10:03.920 --> 0:10:07.400 good reason. Sounds like Sam was just this exceptional kid. 0:10:07.800 --> 0:10:13.640 Well, he's the smartest guy in the room, and he's charismatic. 0:10:14.200 --> 0:10:17.199 I remember thinking, and I'm just this is just an 0:10:17.240 --> 0:10:22.400 embarrassing confession. I hope he doesn't go into technology. He's 0:10:22.440 --> 0:10:26.000 so creative and he's so, he's such a good writer, 0:10:26.160 --> 0:10:30.199 and I hoped he would be an author or something 0:10:30.320 --> 0:10:34.280 like that. And I mean, nobody could have anticipated the 0:10:34.320 --> 0:10:42.960 magnitude of open Ai, but everybody knew that this guy's 0:10:43.000 --> 0:10:45.320 better at most things than most of us are. 0:10:46.200 --> 0:10:49.160 This speaks to a pattern that'll become a crucial factor 0:10:49.200 --> 0:10:54.160 in Sam's career. He's very good at impressing people, especially 0:10:54.240 --> 0:10:58.360 the right people, older people, people with influence, people who 0:10:58.400 --> 0:11:01.440 are at a position to help him. Someone who knows 0:11:01.440 --> 0:11:05.240 Sam says his superpower is figuring out who's in charge 0:11:05.480 --> 0:11:10.199 and charming them. So we have young Sam. Even though 0:11:10.200 --> 0:11:12.719 he was a teenager, he acted like someone older with 0:11:12.760 --> 0:11:16.880 more agency and confidence. Adults found this quality of his admirable, 0:11:17.480 --> 0:11:21.280 and he acted like this toward his three younger siblings too. 0:11:21.520 --> 0:11:24.280 In a big New Yorker profile on Sam, his younger 0:11:24.320 --> 0:11:26.480 brother said that as kids, they used to play a 0:11:26.480 --> 0:11:30.120 board game called Samurai, and Sam always won because he 0:11:30.240 --> 0:11:33.160 declared himself the leader and said, I have to win 0:11:33.320 --> 0:11:37.040 and I'm in charge of everything. When Sam's brother told 0:11:37.040 --> 0:11:40.640 this story, it was a jocular exchange. But Annie, their 0:11:40.720 --> 0:11:44.960 youngest sibling and only sister, sees it differently. These days, 0:11:45.040 --> 0:11:47.800 she's estranged from Sam and the rest of her immediate family, 0:11:48.400 --> 0:11:51.000 but when she was a kid, she remembered that same 0:11:51.120 --> 0:11:54.640 quality of Sam's wanting to be in charge, and to 0:11:54.720 --> 0:11:57.240 her it wasn't funny, it was domineering. 0:11:58.559 --> 0:12:03.760 From my perspective, with nine year age difference, he very 0:12:03.840 --> 0:12:06.600 much wanted to be and acted like the third parent 0:12:07.960 --> 0:12:12.360 and like being the older sibling in charge, in control. 0:12:13.360 --> 0:12:16.240 For instance, even though the family was Jewish, they used 0:12:16.240 --> 0:12:19.600 to get a Christmas tree until Sam put his foot down. 0:12:20.360 --> 0:12:23.520 I don't have memories of Christmas tree because when Sam 0:12:23.600 --> 0:12:29.319 got farmits food at thirteen, he decided that we as 0:12:29.320 --> 0:12:32.360 a family unit were Jews and needed to no longer 0:12:32.400 --> 0:12:33.360 celebrate Christmas. 0:12:33.880 --> 0:12:35.280 There were no more Christmas trees. 0:12:36.080 --> 0:12:39.680 When their dad passed away in twenty eighteen, Annie remembers 0:12:39.720 --> 0:12:42.600 that Sam dictated to each of his younger siblings how 0:12:42.640 --> 0:12:44.600 many minutes they could talk at the funeral. 0:12:45.160 --> 0:12:47.600 To be at your dad's funeral, to be like, oh, 0:12:47.640 --> 0:12:49.679 I'm the oldest sibling, so I get to choose how 0:12:49.679 --> 0:12:52.080 long all the sibling which it is bizarre, and there's 0:12:52.120 --> 0:12:55.960 a level of it that's so hilarious and so benign. 0:12:56.200 --> 0:13:01.240 Surface level, classic older sibling bullshit where it's like, all right, 0:13:01.320 --> 0:13:03.160 older sibling wanting to make. 0:13:03.000 --> 0:13:04.040 Up the rules to the game. 0:13:04.280 --> 0:13:07.040 Like there's a level of it that's very light and funny, 0:13:07.720 --> 0:13:11.120 and there's also a level of it that's very dark 0:13:11.160 --> 0:13:14.719 and deeply unsettling of how does that behavior come up 0:13:14.760 --> 0:13:17.520 in other places if you believe that you get to 0:13:17.520 --> 0:13:20.880 be the authority on something that you are not the 0:13:20.960 --> 0:13:21.640 authority on. 0:13:22.600 --> 0:13:25.640 A spokeswoman for open Ai told us that Sam recalls 0:13:25.640 --> 0:13:31.400 these incidents differently, but she declined to elaborate. And so 0:13:31.720 --> 0:13:34.520 when Sam finished high school, he started down this path 0:13:34.559 --> 0:13:38.160 that's pretty textbook for the tech industry, studying computer science 0:13:38.160 --> 0:13:41.760 at Stanford, founding a startup, and dropping out of Stanford, 0:13:42.480 --> 0:13:46.200 and he made one incredibly important decision he applied to 0:13:46.280 --> 0:13:51.160 why Combinator. Why Combinator is a startup accelerator. It's basically 0:13:51.200 --> 0:13:54.079 a boot camp for startups. You and your co founders 0:13:54.080 --> 0:13:57.560 apply and if you're accepted, you spend three months hacking 0:13:57.600 --> 0:14:00.120 away trying to build a company. At the end of 0:14:00.160 --> 0:14:02.560 that period, you give a demo to investors and try 0:14:02.559 --> 0:14:06.000 to raise venture capital. Sam was actually in the first 0:14:06.080 --> 0:14:09.559 ever group of founders at y Combinator. Everyone calls it YC. 0:14:09.800 --> 0:14:12.560 By the way, it was two thousand and five, so 0:14:12.960 --> 0:14:15.720 YC was totally unknown, just a bunch of young guys 0:14:15.840 --> 0:14:19.120 hanging out in Cambridge, Massachusetts for a summer writing code. 0:14:19.680 --> 0:14:24.160 But WYC would eventually become this enormously powerful network. Now 0:14:24.200 --> 0:14:27.560 it's basically the number one elite program for startups. It's 0:14:27.680 --> 0:14:30.200 really hard to get in, and the alumni network is 0:14:30.320 --> 0:14:34.440 incredibly strong. Sam was nineteen years old when he joined YC, 0:14:35.200 --> 0:14:38.640 and once again he impressed just the right person, Paul Graham, 0:14:38.680 --> 0:14:42.040 the head of YC. The first batch included some other 0:14:42.120 --> 0:14:45.320 really impressive people, like the founders of Reddit and Twitch, 0:14:45.840 --> 0:14:49.000 but someone who knows Sam says that he was immediately 0:14:49.080 --> 0:14:53.920 Paul's favorite. Paul later wrote, within about three minutes of 0:14:53.960 --> 0:14:56.640 meeting him, I remember thinking, ah, so this is what 0:14:56.760 --> 0:14:58.920 Bill Gates must have been like when he was nineteen. 0:15:00.000 --> 0:15:03.480 The startup Sam was building was called Looped. Looped is 0:15:03.520 --> 0:15:06.000 one of the forgotten apps of its time the early 0:15:06.040 --> 0:15:10.040 two thousands, when people were really excited about having GPS 0:15:10.200 --> 0:15:13.040 on their phones for the first time. It used location 0:15:13.200 --> 0:15:15.800 data to connect people to their friends and local businesses, 0:15:16.400 --> 0:15:18.560 kind of like a mix of Yelp, and four Square. 0:15:19.560 --> 0:15:22.120 Here's Sam making the pitch at a developers conference. 0:15:22.520 --> 0:15:25.160 Luped is about connecting with people on the go, which is, 0:15:25.280 --> 0:15:27.360 after all, the main reason you have a phone. We 0:15:27.440 --> 0:15:30.000 show you where people are, what they're doing, and what 0:15:30.120 --> 0:15:31.200 cool places are around you. 0:15:32.080 --> 0:15:34.680 Sam started building the startup in two thousand and five. 0:15:35.240 --> 0:15:38.600 The iPhone didn't exist yet, so Looped was trying to 0:15:38.600 --> 0:15:41.600 do this for flip phones and it was kind of 0:15:41.600 --> 0:15:47.560 hard to get traction. At one point early on, Sam's 0:15:47.600 --> 0:15:50.760 company was in a desperate situation. They really needed to 0:15:50.760 --> 0:15:53.440 get a deal with a mobile carrier. They learned that 0:15:53.520 --> 0:15:56.240 Boost Mobile, which was part of Sprint, was looking to 0:15:56.240 --> 0:15:59.280 add a location feature and needed a partner, but they 0:15:59.280 --> 0:16:03.360 were about to sign with someone else, so Sam flew 0:16:03.400 --> 0:16:07.320 down to Boost's headquarters in Irvine in southern California. When 0:16:07.360 --> 0:16:09.880 he tells the story, he says that he just showed up, 0:16:10.160 --> 0:16:13.200 waited outside the right executive's office, and asked for just 0:16:13.280 --> 0:16:16.640 ten minutes. Here's how that executive remembers it. 0:16:16.640 --> 0:16:20.000 It's ever recall I got a phone call from Sam 0:16:20.520 --> 0:16:23.920 and he was in Irvine, and he said that he 0:16:24.000 --> 0:16:27.760 explained who he was and what Looped was somebody at 0:16:27.800 --> 0:16:31.080 Sprint had told him to get in touch with us. 0:16:31.360 --> 0:16:34.600 That's Lowell Winer. He was at the time the head 0:16:34.640 --> 0:16:37.400 of business development for Boost. And he's going to tell 0:16:37.440 --> 0:16:40.200 a story that has a few asides, but that I 0:16:40.200 --> 0:16:42.520 think captures a lot about what Sam was like. 0:16:42.640 --> 0:16:46.560 Early on, we were a day or two away from 0:16:46.640 --> 0:16:51.040 signing a contract with another startup that was further along 0:16:51.160 --> 0:16:54.360 than Looped. He asked to come by that day, you know, 0:16:54.400 --> 0:16:58.720 which is incredibly unusual, but given the timing that, you know, 0:16:58.720 --> 0:17:00.160 we were at the eleventh hour we were at to 0:17:00.200 --> 0:17:03.760 sign this contract. He had come, you know, referred to 0:17:03.840 --> 0:17:06.840 us by our parent company, it was worth at least 0:17:06.840 --> 0:17:11.000 a meeting. So Sam shows up at the office with 0:17:11.040 --> 0:17:13.800 one of one or two other guys from Looped. We 0:17:13.880 --> 0:17:16.560 go sit in the conference room, you know, we share 0:17:16.600 --> 0:17:18.880 what we were looking to do. Sam started to share 0:17:18.880 --> 0:17:22.480 about Looped. He was I think nineteen at the time, 0:17:23.840 --> 0:17:26.200 you know, I think maybe in cargo short sitting cross 0:17:26.280 --> 0:17:29.200 legged in a in a chair in the conference room 0:17:29.920 --> 0:17:32.000 and just kind of holding court. 0:17:32.280 --> 0:17:34.120 I want to pause here for a second on this 0:17:34.280 --> 0:17:38.200 cargo shorts detail. For a lot of Sam's young life, 0:17:38.280 --> 0:17:41.680 he was a cargo shorts. Devotee wore them all the time. 0:17:42.160 --> 0:17:44.399 People kind of poked fun at him for it, to 0:17:44.440 --> 0:17:46.639 the point where he felt the need to address it 0:17:46.760 --> 0:17:49.000 on a podcast called Masters of Scale. 0:17:49.520 --> 0:17:51.880 Honestly, I don't think they're that ugly, and I find 0:17:51.880 --> 0:17:55.840 them incredibly convenient. Like I I, you can like put 0:17:55.880 --> 0:17:57.320 a lot of stuff like I like to. I'd still 0:17:57.359 --> 0:17:59.960 read paperback books. I like paperback books. I like to 0:18:00.000 --> 0:18:03.680 carry on around with me. I have like an iPhone 0:18:04.119 --> 0:18:06.320 seven plus, which is kind of like works really well 0:18:06.320 --> 0:18:09.800 in cargo pockets. I carry like computer chargers, cables. They're 0:18:09.840 --> 0:18:14.280 just like, you know, efficient. Why people care about that 0:18:14.280 --> 0:18:15.160 so much that I can't. 0:18:15.000 --> 0:18:19.840 Tell you that last comment? That's very Sam to remark 0:18:19.880 --> 0:18:23.000 that the things normal people might talk about don't make 0:18:23.080 --> 0:18:27.040 sense or aren't rational. It's like he has no patience 0:18:27.080 --> 0:18:29.840 for the things most of us might think are funny. 0:18:29.880 --> 0:18:33.880 He has more important things to think about anyway. Here 0:18:33.920 --> 0:18:36.000 he is a nineteen year old in a meeting with 0:18:36.080 --> 0:18:40.280 mobile network executives wearing cargo shorts, sitting cross legged in 0:18:40.320 --> 0:18:43.680 a conference room chair. Even though this encounter was almost 0:18:43.760 --> 0:18:47.200 twenty years ago, Lowell remembers vividly what Sam looked like 0:18:47.240 --> 0:18:49.639 in that moment, because it was such an odd picture. 0:18:50.160 --> 0:18:56.639 He's a he was small in stature. I don't think 0:18:56.680 --> 0:18:59.159 he's a big guy now, but he was. You know, 0:18:59.240 --> 0:19:02.600 he was quite slim at the time. You know, it's 0:19:02.600 --> 0:19:05.760 no easy feat to sit cross legged in a conference chair. 0:19:05.880 --> 0:19:07.719 I mean, he looked like he could have still been 0:19:07.720 --> 0:19:08.359 in high school. 0:19:08.760 --> 0:19:11.680 I've heard other people describe Sam's weird way of sitting. 0:19:12.280 --> 0:19:14.160 He's older now, so he doesn't do it as much, 0:19:14.600 --> 0:19:17.000 but one person who knows him told me he used 0:19:17.040 --> 0:19:19.359 to squat on the seat of a chair like a 0:19:19.400 --> 0:19:25.040 perched bird, with his knees up toward his chin. Despite 0:19:25.040 --> 0:19:28.440 this unconventional way of presenting himself or because of it, 0:19:29.080 --> 0:19:32.720 he almost immediately convinced Lowell that boost Mobile should switch 0:19:32.760 --> 0:19:35.440 plans at the eleventh hour and go with this other partner. 0:19:35.840 --> 0:19:38.320 It was pretty clear within a half hour of this 0:19:38.400 --> 0:19:41.800 meeting starting that Luked and Sam were the right partner 0:19:41.880 --> 0:19:47.240 to do this. There was both excitement and like, shit, 0:19:47.560 --> 0:19:50.719 we have to go sell it internally. But I recall 0:19:50.840 --> 0:19:53.520 stepping outside of the room with the colleague that I 0:19:53.560 --> 0:19:55.960 was in the meeting with and saying to him, we 0:19:56.040 --> 0:19:57.200 need to switch gears. 0:19:57.440 --> 0:20:00.800 And Lowell still remembers this way that Sam looks unassuming, 0:20:01.400 --> 0:20:01.919 but he's not. 0:20:03.520 --> 0:20:09.000 On the one hand, visually he looked incredibly young, but 0:20:09.840 --> 0:20:12.080 if you'd shut your eyes and were just listening to him, 0:20:12.280 --> 0:20:14.359 his command of material and his ability to communicate and 0:20:14.359 --> 0:20:17.959 engage was on par with anyone you know I had 0:20:18.000 --> 0:20:21.680 met with over the course of my tech career. It Uh, 0:20:21.760 --> 0:20:26.879 it was freakish. Yeah, it was screakish, and not his appearance, 0:20:27.080 --> 0:20:30.840 but his his poise and command for. 0:20:30.840 --> 0:20:35.640 That age, Sam's relentlessness paid off. He knew he had 0:20:35.640 --> 0:20:37.879 to get that deal, and he did what he needed 0:20:37.880 --> 0:20:41.000 to do to get it, including flying across the state 0:20:41.160 --> 0:20:45.040 to surprise someone at their office. Sam later said he 0:20:45.119 --> 0:20:48.560 learned an important lesson the way to get things done 0:20:48.840 --> 0:20:54.639 is to just be really persistent. So he inks this 0:20:54.720 --> 0:20:57.720 deal for Looped, it's going to power location sharing for 0:20:57.800 --> 0:21:00.720 boost Mobile. It's the partnership that led to this two 0:21:00.720 --> 0:21:02.120 thousand and six ad campaign. 0:21:02.560 --> 0:21:04.679 Oh you see where I meant here, but I know 0:21:04.760 --> 0:21:08.000 where you at Poop Slooped the GPS. 0:21:08.040 --> 0:21:09.640 Now you know where your friends. 0:21:09.440 --> 0:21:13.160 At Sam's peers at YC were surprised that he pulled 0:21:13.160 --> 0:21:16.399 this off. Lup's business model was pretty wobbly and the 0:21:16.440 --> 0:21:20.520 product wasn't all that impressive, but Sam's particular strength was 0:21:20.560 --> 0:21:21.639 starting to become clearer. 0:21:21.960 --> 0:21:24.080 It was obvious Sam was an incredible deals guy. 0:21:24.440 --> 0:21:27.000 That's a clip from a podcast interview with Emmett Sheer, 0:21:27.320 --> 0:21:30.119 one of the other guys in that very first YC batch. 0:21:30.760 --> 0:21:33.639 You can hear how impressed he was by Sam's particular talent. 0:21:34.200 --> 0:21:38.040 He was somehow convincing the phone companies to give his 0:21:38.520 --> 0:21:42.040 startup that like didn't really have a product like deals. 0:21:42.160 --> 0:21:44.600 I still don't know how he did that, And like 0:21:44.840 --> 0:21:47.080 that was the only obvious thing about Sam at the time, 0:21:47.240 --> 0:21:50.280 was like that he was ambitious, but most of us 0:21:50.320 --> 0:21:53.320 were pretty ambitious, and he was great at great great 0:21:53.320 --> 0:21:53.760 deals guy. 0:21:54.400 --> 0:21:58.120 For the next few years, luped kept growing. Sam presented 0:21:58.160 --> 0:22:01.080 at Apple's Developer Conference into thousand and eight in a 0:22:01.200 --> 0:22:04.840 very unique outfit. He wore two polo shirts layered on 0:22:04.880 --> 0:22:07.280 top of each other, so he's in a hot pink 0:22:07.320 --> 0:22:10.840 polo with a second lime green collar poking out underneath. 0:22:11.040 --> 0:22:16.440 I'd like to invite up Sam Altman, Sam K. 0:22:16.440 --> 0:22:23.240 Scott, we are incredibly psyched about lupt on the iPhone. 0:22:23.400 --> 0:22:26.000 Luped is about connecting with people and what cool places 0:22:26.040 --> 0:22:28.520 are around you. The orange pin up there is where 0:22:28.520 --> 0:22:31.200 I am right now, and the blue pins represent my friends. 0:22:31.920 --> 0:22:33.280 We make serendipity happen. 0:22:33.760 --> 0:22:36.520 And when you listen to Sam pitching Loot, you can 0:22:36.560 --> 0:22:41.120 hear this other part of him, this earnestness and optimism. 0:22:41.480 --> 0:22:43.639 I've listened to and read a lot of interviews with 0:22:43.680 --> 0:22:47.080 Sam and he's always using the words super and excited, 0:22:47.520 --> 0:22:49.280 sometimes super excited. 0:22:49.480 --> 0:22:52.400 It's super cool, super easy to make, super important. It's 0:22:52.440 --> 0:22:53.160 been super great. 0:22:53.240 --> 0:22:54.640 I'm super excited to announce. 0:22:54.800 --> 0:22:57.159 I'm super excited, super excited for that. 0:22:58.960 --> 0:23:02.440 But he was not super excited about what happened next 0:23:02.520 --> 0:23:06.880 at lut. After several years, Looped fizzled out. Sam made 0:23:06.920 --> 0:23:09.160 a deal to sell the company for a modest sum 0:23:09.280 --> 0:23:12.359 in twenty twelve. He walked away with a reported five 0:23:12.400 --> 0:23:16.400