Speaker 1: All Zone Media.
Speaker 2: Hello and welcome to Better Offline. I'm your host ed
Speaker 2: ze tron. As I've discussed in the last episode, Sam
Speaker 2: Mortman has spent more than a decade accumulating power and
Speaker 2: wealth in Silicon Valley without ever having to actually build anything,
Speaker 2: using a network of tech industry all stars like LinkedIn
Speaker 2: co founder and investor Reid Hoffman and Airbnb CEO Brian
Speaker 2: Chesky to insulate himself from responsibility and accountability. Yet things
Speaker 2: are beginning to fall apart as years of half baked
Speaker 2: ideas and terrible, terrible product decisions have kind of made
Speaker 2: society sour on the tech industry, and the last month
Speaker 2: has been particularly difficult for Sam, starting with the chaos
Speaker 2: cause by open ai blatantly mimicking Scarlet Johansson's voice for
Speaker 2: the new version of chat GPT, followed by the resignation
Speaker 2: of researchers who claimed the open ai prioritized and I
Speaker 2: quote shiny products over AI safety. After the dissolution of
Speaker 2: open AI's safety team, I know, it's just it's almost cliche.
Speaker 2: Shortly thereafter, former open ai board member Helen Toner revealed
Speaker 2: that Sam Altman was fired from an open Ai because
Speaker 2: of a regular pattern of deception, one where Aortman would
Speaker 2: give inaccurate info about the company's safety processes on multiple occasions,
Speaker 2: and his de seat was so severe the open Aiyes
Speaker 2: Board only found out about the launch of chat GPT,
Speaker 2: which by the way, is open a eyes first product
Speaker 2: that really made money, arguably the biggest product in tech.
Speaker 2: Do you want to know how they found out about it, Well,
Speaker 2: they found out when they were browsing Twitter. They found
Speaker 2: out then, not from the CEO of open Ai, the
Speaker 2: company which they were the border very weird. Toner also
Speaker 2: noted that Ortmand was an aggressi political player with the board,
Speaker 2: correctly by the way, worrying the and I quote again
Speaker 2: that if Sam Ortman had any inkling that the board
Speaker 2: might do something that went against him, he'd pull out
Speaker 2: all the stops, do everything in his power to undermine
Speaker 2: the board and to prevent them from even getting to
Speaker 2: the point of being able to fire him. As a reminder,
Speaker 2: by the way, the board succeeded in firing Sam Mortman
Speaker 2: in November last year, but not for long, with Ortmand
Speaker 2: returning a CEO a few days later, kicking Helen Toner
Speaker 2: off of the board along with Ilia Sudskava, a technical
Speaker 2: co founder that Altman manipulated long enough to build chat
Speaker 2: GBT and announced it him the moment that he chose
Speaker 2: to complain. Sudskav, by the way, has resigned now He's
Speaker 2: also one of the biggest technical minds though it's so
Speaker 2: how is OPENAA going to continue anyway? Last week, a
Speaker 2: group of insiders at various AI companies published an open
Speaker 2: letter asking for their overlords, for the heads of these companies,
Speaker 2: for the right to warn about advanced artificial intelligence in
Speaker 2: a monument genuinely impressive monument to the bullshit machine that
Speaker 2: Sam Olman has created. While there are genuine safety concerns
Speaker 2: with AI, there really are, There are many of them
Speaker 2: to consider. These people are desperately afraid of the computer
Speaker 2: coming alive and killing them when they should fear. The
Speaker 2: non technical asshole manipulate are getting rich making egregious promises
Speaker 2: about what AI can do. AI researchers, you have to
Speaker 2: live up to sam Ulman's promises. Sam Molton doesn't. This
Speaker 2: is not your friend. The problem is not the boogeyman
Speaker 2: computer coming alive. That's not happening, man. What's happening is
Speaker 2: this guy is leading your industry to ruin, and the
Speaker 2: bigger concern that they should have should be about what
Speaker 2: Leo Ashenbrenner, a former safety researcher open ai, had to
Speaker 2: say on the Duaquesh Ptel podcast, where he claimed that
Speaker 2: security processes of open ai were and I quote egregiously
Speaker 2: insufficient and that the priorities that the company were focused
Speaker 2: on growth over stability of security. These people are afraid
Speaker 2: of open ai potentially creating a computer that can think
Speaker 2: for itself, that will come and kill them at a
Speaker 2: time where they should be far more concerned about this
Speaker 2: manipulative con artist that's running open ai. Sam Altman is
Speaker 2: dangerous to artificial intelligence. Not because he's building artificial general intelligence,
Speaker 2: which is a kind of AI that meets or surpasses
Speaker 2: human cove capabilities by the way, kind of like data
Speaker 2: from Star Trek. They're afraid of that happening when they
Speaker 2: should be afraid of Aortman's focus. What does Sam Moortman
Speaker 2: care about? Because the only thing I can find reading
Speaker 2: about what Sam Mortman cares about is Sam Bloody Aortman.
Speaker 2: And right now the progress attached to Sam Mortman actually
Speaker 2: isn't looking that great. Open AI's growth is stalling, with
Speaker 2: Alex Cantrewitz reporting that user growth has effectively come to
Speaker 2: a halt based on a recent release claiming that chat
Speaker 2: gpt had one hundred million users a couple of weeks ago,
Speaker 2: which is, by the way, the exact same number that
Speaker 2: the company claimed chat GPT had in November twenty twenty three.
Speaker 2: Chat GPT is also a goddamn expensive product to operate,
Speaker 2: with the company burning through capital at this insane rate.
Speaker 2: It's definitely more than seven hundred thousand dollars a day.
Speaker 2: It's got to be in the millions if not. What
Speaker 2: it's insane and what open Ai is aggressively monetizing chat gbt,
Speaker 2: both the customers and to businesses. It's so obviously far
Speaker 2: from crossing the break even rubicon. They keep leaking and
Speaker 2: they'll claim, oh, I didn't put that out there. They
Speaker 2: keep telling people, oh, it's making billions of revenue, but
Speaker 2: they never say profit. And eventually someone's going to turn
Speaker 2: to them and say, hey, man, you can't just do
Speaker 2: this for free or for negative. At some point, Sacha
Speaker 2: Nadella is going to call Sam Ortman and say, Sammy, Sammy,
Speaker 2: it's time, Sammy, it's got to be a real business.
Speaker 2: I assume he calls him that because the supernatural. But
Speaker 2: as things get desperate, Samuel was going to use the
Speaker 2: only approach he really has, sheer force of will. He's
Speaker 2: going to push open AI to grow and sell into
Speaker 2: as many industries as possible. And he's a specious hype man.
Speaker 2: He's going to be selling to other specious hype men.
Speaker 2: The Jim Kramers of the world are going to eat
Speaker 2: it up. And they're all all of them, the mock Bernioffs,
Speaker 2: the satch In, the dell As, the sun Dapashais. They're
Speaker 2: all desperate to connect themselves with the future and with
Speaker 2: generative AI and those that he's selling to the company's
Speaker 2: brokering deals, yes, even Apple. They're desperate to connect their
Speaker 2: companies to another company which is building a bubble, a
Speaker 2: bubble inflated by Sam Altman. And I'd argue that this
Speaker 2: is exceedingly dangerous for Silicon Valley and for the tech
Speaker 2: industry writ large, as executives that have become disconnected from
Speaker 2: the process of creating software and hardware follow yet another
Speaker 2: non technical founder hocking unprofitable, unsustainable, and hallucination prone software.
Speaker 2: It's just very frustrating. If there was a very technical
Speaker 2: mind at these companies, they might walk away. And I'm
Speaker 2: not going to give Tim Cook much credit, but looking
Speaker 2: into it, I can't find any evidence that Apple is
Speaker 2: buying a bunch of GPUs, the things that you use
Speaker 2: to power these generative AI models. I found some researcher
Speaker 2: and analysts suggesting that they would buy a lot. But
Speaker 2: now open Ai is doing a deal with Apple to
Speaker 2: power the next iOS, and it's interesting. It is interesting
Speaker 2: that Apple isn't doing this themselves. Apple a company with
Speaker 2: hundreds of billions of dollars in the bank. I believe
Speaker 2: that pretty much prints money. That alone makes me think
Speaker 2: it's a bubble. Now it might look like an asshole
Speaker 2: if it comes out they have. But also, why are
Speaker 2: they subcontracting this to open ai when they could build
Speaker 2: it themselves, as Apple has always done. Very strange. It's
Speaker 2: all so peculiar. But I wanted to get a little
Speaker 2: bit deeper into the Sam Mormon's story, And as I
Speaker 2: discussed last episode, Ellen Hue of Bloomberg, she's been doing
Speaker 2: this excellent reporting on the land and joins me today
Speaker 2: to talk about the subject of a recent podcast. Sam
Speaker 2: Olman's Rise to Power. So tell me a little bit
Speaker 2: about the show are you working on?
Speaker 1: The show is the new season of Foundering, which is
Speaker 1: a serialized podcast from Bloomberg Technology. So this is season five,
Speaker 1: and in every season we've told one story of a
Speaker 1: high stakes drama in Silicon Valley. I was also the
Speaker 1: host of season one, which came out several years ago,
Speaker 1: was about we Work, and we've done other companies since then,
Speaker 1: and season five is about Open AI and Sam Altman,
Speaker 1: and I think we really tried to cover the arc
Speaker 1: of the company's creation and where it is now. But
Speaker 1: in doing so, we really tried to do a character
Speaker 1: study of Sam Altman, like he's a very important person
Speaker 1: in the tech industry right now with a lot of power,
Speaker 1: and we really wanted to ask ourselves a question and
Speaker 1: to help listeners ask themselves a question. Should we trust him?
Speaker 1: Should we trust this person who is currently in a
Speaker 1: position of a lot of influence and about whom there
Speaker 1: have been very serious, you know, allegations and questions raised
Speaker 1: about you know, to put it in the words of
Speaker 1: the opening eyeboard, his not consistently candid behavior. And I
Speaker 1: think it's, you know, my hope is that we give
Speaker 1: listeners a chance to hear kind of the whole story,
Speaker 1: and it's like broader, you know, when there's news that's happening,
Speaker 1: it can happen so quickly it's hard to get a
Speaker 1: step back. And I think what the show really does
Speaker 1: is it collects a lot of information in one place,
Speaker 1: and we also have lots of new information that you
Speaker 1: won't hear anywhere else, and interviews with people who you know,
Speaker 1: have worked with Sam, who knew him when he was younger.
Speaker 1: We have an interview with Sam's sister Annie, from whom
Speaker 1: he is estranged, and there's a lot of material in there.
Speaker 1: I think that tries to get closer to this answer
Speaker 1: of like, what should we make of this person? How
Speaker 1: should we think about checks and balances of power when
Speaker 1: we have these companies that are, by all appearances, gathering
Speaker 1: a lot of power and there for the people who
Speaker 1: are running them have a lot of power as well.
Speaker 1: So we have it's a five episode arc, five episode season,
Speaker 1: and the first three episodes are out now to the
Speaker 1: general public, and the last two will come out on
Speaker 1: subsequent Thursdays, And if you would like to binge the
Speaker 1: whole season right away, The episodes are available early to
Speaker 1: Bloomberg dot Com subscribers.
Speaker 2: So you've just started this series about Sam Altman and
Speaker 2: his upbringing indoors, so the growth of open ai and
Speaker 2: looped and everything. Who are the people that have helped
Speaker 2: him get where he is today?
Speaker 1: Though, So the making of Sam Altman is really interesting
Speaker 1: part of the overall story of Sam Altman. You know,
Speaker 1: many people know him as the CEO of open Ai
Speaker 1: because that's the role he's been in when he has
Speaker 1: risen to prominence, you know, beyond Silicon Valley. Like I
Speaker 1: think for many years he was well known in Silicon Valley,
Speaker 1: but this is like now he's kind of a household name,
Speaker 1: and so it's important to understand where Sam came from.
Speaker 1: You know, he's been in the valley for you know,
Speaker 1: since two thousand and five, I think is when he
Speaker 1: started college two thousand and four, two thousand and five
Speaker 1: at Stanford. Then he dropped out, and then he joined
Speaker 1: y Combinator, the now famous startup accelerator. But he was
Speaker 1: actually part of the first cohort of founders ever in
Speaker 1: n YC. Along with which as well right yes, including
Speaker 1: the the co founders of Twitch and of Reddit and
Speaker 1: so Emmett Sheer, you know, for those who know Emmit
Speaker 1: Sheer has a like very short, seventy two hour cameo
Speaker 1: in the open AI very Sam been firing Saga. But yes,
Speaker 1: Emmett and Sam were both in the same y C batch.
Speaker 1: So when we think about Sam's early career in Silicon Valley,
Speaker 1: I think what's important to know is that he rose
Speaker 1: very quickly, in part because he was very successful in
Speaker 1: making these strategic, advantageous friendships and connections with already established
Speaker 1: people in the valley. The most important one is Paul Graham,
Speaker 1: who is the you know, one of the founders of
Speaker 1: y Combinator and you know basically like immediately took Sam
Speaker 1: under his wing when Sam joined this first batch of YC.
Speaker 1: And yeah, Paul's a really important mentor to Sam. He's
Speaker 1: kind of the first person who really sees in Sam
Speaker 1: this you know, ambition, this hunger for power, this like
Speaker 1: drive to really build bigger and bigger companies. Even when
Speaker 1: you know they met when Sam Altman was nineteen, so
Speaker 1: Paul like sees him as a teenager and sees this
Speaker 1: future potential. And so yes, you know, not only did
Speaker 1: Paul become a mentor to him and sort of helped
Speaker 1: build Sam's profile over those early years because he would
Speaker 1: you know, Paul Graham is very famous for writing these
Speaker 1: essays about how to build startups and how to build
Speaker 1: the best startups, and if you're at all interested in
Speaker 1: building startups, you've read many of them. They're kind of
Speaker 1: like almost like a startup bible. And in many of
Speaker 1: them he extols the virtues of Sam Altman. He talks
Speaker 1: about Sam's ambition, he talks about Sam's cunning, his ability
Speaker 1: to like you know, make deals and like think big
Speaker 1: and never.
Speaker 2: Actually think Sam Motman is done, is what I've found.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there are some interesting you know, I've read many
Speaker 1: of the things Paul has written about Sam. Some of
Speaker 1: my favorite ones include Paul writing that within three minutes
Speaker 1: of meeting Sam, this was when Sam was nineteen, Paul
Speaker 1: thought to himself, Ah, so this is what a young
Speaker 1: Bill Gates is like, or you know, this is what
Speaker 1: Bill Gates was like at nineteen, I think is the
Speaker 1: exact quote. So, you know, he really build him up
Speaker 1: in the way. And I do think Paul had like
Speaker 1: unique insight into Sam, like they were close. They in
Speaker 1: many ways I'm sure still are, but it is this
Speaker 1: interesting role where you know, Paul met Sam when he
Speaker 1: really didn't have much to his name, and he really
Speaker 1: elevated him early on through his writings as this like
Speaker 1: startup founder to emulate right that other founders should be
Speaker 1: emulating Sam. And then of course, as Sam progresses in
Speaker 1: the valley, he also starts to write these like startup
Speaker 1: wisdom essays in a similar style to Paul. And then,
Speaker 1: of course, the most important thing that happens is that
Speaker 1: in twenty fourteen, when Paul decides he no longer wants
Speaker 1: to run by Combinator, which at this point is a
Speaker 1: much bigger vehicle than it was when Sam first started.
Speaker 1: It has no longer just a few stops totally. It
Speaker 1: has produced Stripe, Dropbox, Airbnb. This is a big job, right,
Speaker 1: like running y Combinator. And when Paul wants to hand
Speaker 1: it off to someone, you know, he has said that
Speaker 1: the only person he considered giving this to was Sam.
Speaker 1: So in twenty fourteen, when Sam is I believe twenty
Speaker 1: eight years old, he becomes the president of Y Combinator,
Speaker 1: and this is you know, he had started a startup,
Speaker 1: it didn't really work, he sold it and was starting
Speaker 1: to tabble in angel investing, and at that point Paul
Speaker 1: really elevated Sam to this new position of power. And
Speaker 1: then he ran YC for a while and then started
Speaker 1: open Ai. And in starting open Ai, he also leveraged
Speaker 1: these like very useful connections with particularly powerful people who
Speaker 1: could help him, such as Elon Musk, who was able
Speaker 1: to give the vast majority of the pledged funding to
Speaker 1: start open Ai. Later, when Elon Musk splits from open Ai,
Speaker 1: Sam makes his very powerful partnership with Satya Nadella to
Speaker 1: help fund open Ai. Another important partnership that Sam has made,
Speaker 1: you know, much earlier on was his friendship with Peter
Speaker 1: Teel And one of the things Peter Teal does is
Speaker 1: also you know, gives him millions of dollars to start investing.
Speaker 1: This is like before Sam takes over at y Yeah.
Speaker 1: And you know another thing that Paul did that really
Speaker 1: Paul Graham did that really helped Sam was also he
Speaker 1: gave Paul had the opportunity to be one of the
Speaker 1: first investors in Stripe. He was offered the chance to
Speaker 1: invest thirty thousand dollars for four percent of Stripe, which,
Speaker 1: of course, now that Stripe is enormous we all know
Speaker 1: how valuable that was, and Paul split it with Sam.
Speaker 1: He was like, oh, I might as well share this
Speaker 1: with Sam. So Sam has said that that fifteen thousand
Speaker 1: dollars for a two percent of Stripe has been, you know,
Speaker 1: one of his best performing angel investments ever.
Speaker 2: That was something he question is always where he got
Speaker 2: fifteen grand from. He was still working on Looped at
Speaker 2: the time. It's funny how perfletrip anyway.
Speaker 1: Yeah, my guess is fifteen grand was I don't actually
Speaker 1: know this, but my guess is fifteen perllen was not
Speaker 1: hard for him to pull up. And it's one of
Speaker 1: those things where it's really is, you know, access to
Speaker 1: access and relationships are the sorts of things that can
Speaker 1: build a career and can lead to great wealth, right
Speaker 1: like Sam is now you know, by our own internal
Speaker 1: accounts and by other lists billionaire. And this money comes
Speaker 1: from you know, not from open AI, but from these
Speaker 1: angel investments that he's made early on that have been
Speaker 1: enormously successful.
Speaker 2: So you called him in one of the titles, the
Speaker 2: Most Silicon Valley Man Alive. Is this what you're getting at,
Speaker 2: this kind of power player mentality?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think it's it reflects a few things. One
Speaker 1: that even though he's you know, he's in his late thirties,
Speaker 1: he's been a player in Silicon Valley for such a
Speaker 1: long time, you know, close to two decades. And also
Speaker 1: that he's just someone who is extremely well connected. So
Speaker 1: even before he took over Y Combinator, which I think
Speaker 1: you could argue is like kind of king of the
Speaker 1: startup world in some sense, like Y Combinators, like you know,
Speaker 1: the topics totally, even before he took over I Y Comminator,
Speaker 1: I think he was extremely well connected. He's very social,
Speaker 1: he's very helpful, he's very efficient, Like many people have
Speaker 1: told me stories in which he, you know, calling Sam
Speaker 1: and talking for five minutes has saw their problem because
Speaker 1: he knows exactly the right person to call to fix it,
Speaker 1: or you know, he's really good at making deals. I
Speaker 1: think it's just clear he's extremely well integrated into this
Speaker 1: world and has very successfully moved up the Silicon Valley
Speaker 1: status ladder to the point where he is now, which
Speaker 1: is kind of you know, one of the you know,
Speaker 1: he's the CEO of the one of the arguably hottest
Speaker 1: companies in the valley right now, and I think that
Speaker 1: that's not luck right, Like he didn't just come up
Speaker 1: with He's not like a nobody who came up with
Speaker 1: an idea. It's like he has the connections and has
Speaker 1: parlayed his connections into power to bring him to the
Speaker 1: point he is now.
Speaker 2: So in your experience talking to people about Sam Altman,
Speaker 2: how technical is he? Do you think? What if you heard?
Speaker 2: Because you say, there he wasn't lucky, But he also
Speaker 2: does not appear to have successfully run a business because
Speaker 2: Luke shut down two people, well, two executives tried to
Speaker 2: get him fired from there. He got fired from y Combinator,
Speaker 2: which did very well. But at the same time, why
Speaker 2: he was basically a convey about for money at one point,
Speaker 2: not so much recently. Yeah, it just it feels weird
Speaker 2: that this completely non technical, semi non technical guy has
Speaker 2: ascended so far.
Speaker 1: My sense is that's not maybe the most fair description.
Speaker 1: Like I think Sam is incredibly smart, and people say
Speaker 1: this a lot, and you know, I believe them. I
Speaker 1: think his special skill, you know, he obviously knows how
Speaker 1: to like he's an engineer, he has training. I'm sure
Speaker 1: he can build a lot of stuff. It seems like
Speaker 1: his comparative advantage, his special skill is relationships, deal making,
Speaker 1: figuring out who exactly is the right person to help
Speaker 1: him in whatever he's really trying to get done, and
Speaker 1: figuring out the best way to get something to happen.
Speaker 1: You know, one of the people I spoke to is
Speaker 1: someone who knows Sam from when he was younger and
Speaker 1: knows him personally, and said that his superpower is figuring
Speaker 1: out who's in charge or figuring out who is in
Speaker 1: the best position to help him, and then charming them
Speaker 1: so that they help him with whatever goal he's trying
Speaker 1: to get done. And I think that, like, yeah, one
Speaker 1: could argue that that's actually a really good skill set
Speaker 1: if you want to build a very big company, which
Speaker 1: you know, I think at this current moment he has
Speaker 1: right like opening eyes. Really, you know, you can there's
Speaker 1: a lot that you can say about whether they're upholding
Speaker 1: their original mission or that. You know, that's up for debate,
Speaker 1: But I think that they've obviously been commercially successful so far, so.
Speaker 2: It feels like Silicon Valley on some level. And I
Speaker 2: just to give some thoughts here within the two episodes
Speaker 2: I'm doing here, the pattern I've seen with Sam Oltman
Speaker 2: is that everyone seems to want him to win, and
Speaker 2: there's almost a degree of they will make it. So
Speaker 2: have you seen anyone who's really a detractor or anyone
Speaker 2: who's not pro Sam Oltman, because it's interesting how few
Speaker 2: people are in tech.
Speaker 1: Well there is. I won't get too into it because
Speaker 1: this is in some of the future episodes which will
Speaker 1: drop in future weeks, but you know, I would say
Speaker 1: in in in some of the conversations that I've had
Speaker 1: off the record about people about in some of the
Speaker 1: conversations I've had off the record with people about Sam,
Speaker 1: I think, you know, my general impressions are people often
Speaker 1: do find him impressive in terms of what he has
Speaker 1: gotten done, you know, the size and scale of his
Speaker 1: ambitions and the way that he has generally been able
Speaker 1: to make that happen. I think there's also a lot
Speaker 1: of people who you know, are willing to privately share
Speaker 1: some gripes that they might have about him. Also, you know,
Speaker 1: in recent weeks we've seen people be a lot more
Speaker 1: public about some of those gripes. We have Helen Toner,
Speaker 1: a former former board member at open AI who voted
Speaker 1: to remove Sam last November, saying publicly in the last
Speaker 1: few weeks that Sam lied to her and the other
Speaker 1: former board members that his you know, misdirection made them
Speaker 1: feel like they couldn't do their jobs. And she has
Speaker 1: also said that people were intimidated to the point where
Speaker 1: they did not feel comfortable speaking more publicly about negative
Speaker 1: experiences they'd had about Sam, that they are afraid to
Speaker 1: speak more publicly about you know, times that he has
Speaker 1: not been honest with them or you know, has in
Speaker 1: which they've had challenging experiences. And that has also been
Speaker 1: reflected in some of the private conversations I've had in
Speaker 1: which people you know, they might have complaints or they
Speaker 1: might have had like challenging situations with him, and I
Speaker 1: think they just feel like the risk calculus is not
Speaker 1: worth it to come out and say something like that.
Speaker 1: But you know, there have been bits and pieces where
Speaker 1: people have come out and said things that you know,
Speaker 1: Sam has. You know. Another thing that the board members
Speaker 1: have said was that Sam had been deceptive and manipulative,
Speaker 1: and that's also followed up by or not followed up.
Speaker 1: There was also I think back in November, a former
Speaker 1: open ai employee who had tweeted something publicly about that
Speaker 1: you know, saying that Sam had lied to him on occasion,
Speaker 1: even though he had also always been nice to him,
Speaker 1: which I think is a very interesting combination of.
Speaker 2: That Silicon Valley though, I'm afraid of dealing with them,
Speaker 2: but they were so nice to me.
Speaker 1: And yeah, of course that you know that person has
Speaker 1: not elaborated more publicly about what they meant. But I
Speaker 1: think I think, you know, I think this is why
Speaker 1: people are asking themselves these questions, which is like, you know,
Speaker 1: the more that we hear about what the board uh
Speaker 1: was thinking before they decided to fire Sam, I think
Speaker 1: the more people are wondering about what are the patterns
Speaker 1: of behavior that he shows that you know that led
Speaker 1: to the board trying to make this drastic move.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's actually an interesting point. So when Samulton was
Speaker 2: fired from open AI, there was this very strange reaction
Speaker 2: from Silicon Valley, including some in the media, where it
Speaker 2: was almost like a tounga Games everyone doing the symbol
Speaker 2: thing where everyone's like, oh, we got to put sam
Speaker 2: otment back in, isn't it kind of strange? We still
Speaker 2: don't know why he was actually fired, though, I mean,
Speaker 2: Helen Tona has elaborated like I've never seen a have
Speaker 2: you seen anything like this? In your career.
Speaker 1: I think that it has been surprising that there has
Speaker 1: not been more of a clear answer. I think, you know,
Speaker 1: as as time has gone on, like we have heard
Speaker 1: a little bit more like I think Helen Toner has,
Speaker 1: you know, to her credit, tried to give more information
Speaker 1: in recent weeks about what happened. I think, you know,
Speaker 1: people were obviously asking this question six months ago, and
Speaker 1: so I think like there's been a little bit of
Speaker 1: a delay and trying to get this this answer, and
Speaker 1: I wonder if maybe there just isn't like a very
Speaker 1: neat answer to it, and so and then in that
Speaker 1: absence we get this kind of more of a like murky, multifaceted,
Speaker 1: multi voiced answer. But I yes, I agree that it
Speaker 1: is sort of surprising that there that there hasn't been
Speaker 1: more clarification on what exactly happened or a little bit
Speaker 1: more granular detail about what led up to it.
Speaker 2: So on today, I aihype in general said that a
Speaker 2: bit weird. I'll keep going, why do you think there's
Speaker 2: such a dolf between what Sam Altman says and what
Speaker 2: chat GPT can actually do?
Speaker 1: What Sam Altman says, what are you talking about specifically.
Speaker 2: As in he says it will be a super smart company. Yeah,
Speaker 2: yeh yeah, that he'll be all of these things.
Speaker 1: Well, this is something that we get into in episode three,
Speaker 1: which is a personal interest of mine, which is kind
Speaker 1: of the psychology of the AI industry right now. And
Speaker 1: you know, I what I find so interesting about this
Speaker 1: and what we try to delve into in episode three
Speaker 1: and kind of throughout the series is these kind of
Speaker 1: like extreme projections about AI and in the industry, you
Speaker 1: see both positive ones and negative ones, and I think,
Speaker 1: you know, the negative ones, that's what looks like AI dooomerism,
Speaker 1: AI existential risks, sometimes called AI safety depending on your
Speaker 1: point of view. But you know, it's these projections that
Speaker 1: you know, superintelligence might very quickly and very soon learn
Speaker 1: to self improve in a way that allows it to
Speaker 1: rapidly outstrip our control and our capabilities and could lead
Speaker 1: to the extinction of humanity. There are so many interesting
Speaker 1: things to say about the psychology of believing that our
Speaker 1: human race might either be wiped out or incredibly changed
Speaker 1: within our lifetimes, and we get into that in episode three.
Speaker 1: I think I really wanted to get into the psychology
Speaker 1: of someone who believes that AI doom is just around
Speaker 1: the corner. And so we talked to someone who sort
Speaker 1: of became convinced of this belief soon after the twenty
Speaker 1: sixteen alphag Matches in which the go playing AI beat
Speaker 1: the you know, the world's champion in Go and he
Speaker 1: talks about yeah, no longer, you know, deciding not to
Speaker 1: make a retirement account because he was like, what is
Speaker 1: the point by the time I reach retirement age, either
Speaker 1: the world will be dramatically different and money won't matter,
Speaker 1: or will all be dead? And and I think that
Speaker 1: even though some people might scoff at that, that's like
Speaker 1: a real belief that people believe that this, you know,
Speaker 1: these extreme possible scenarios are in our near future. And
Speaker 1: on the other hand, we also see extreme projections in
Speaker 1: a positive direction. You know, this idea that AI is
Speaker 1: going to unlock a whole new era of human flourishing,
Speaker 1: that we might expand beyond our planet, that we might
Speaker 1: be able to give say what abundant abundance right exactly?
Speaker 1: You know. One of the things we do I believe
Speaker 1: in episode three is is do a little bit of
Speaker 1: a supercut of Sam all been talking about abundance. It's
Speaker 1: it's pretty clear that This is a way that he
Speaker 1: likes to frame our AI future is going to be
Speaker 1: this future in which everyone has plenty, right, everyone has
Speaker 1: you know, access to intelligence, abundant energy, abundant access to
Speaker 1: superintelligence that can help us live kind of our best
Speaker 1: lives and beyond our wildest dreams. Right. And I you know,
Speaker 1: obviously Silicon Valley is a place where people like to
Speaker 1: make grandiose statements. But this is beyond that, right, This
Speaker 1: is not just this is not just like you know,
Speaker 1: we joked about we work, We works. Mission statement was
Speaker 1: to elevate the world's consciousness. Like well, galaxies of human
Speaker 1: flourishing for eons beyond us. Like that is on another scale, right,
Speaker 1: Like we're talking about something that is sort of at
Speaker 1: an unprecedented level of extreme rhetoric. And I think that's
Speaker 1: really interesting. I think it is a very powerful motivator,
Speaker 1: both in a you know, in the doumer sense and
Speaker 1: also in the abundance sense. People believing that what they're
Speaker 1: working on is the most important technological leap forward for humanity.
Speaker 1: Talk about a motivating reason to work on this technology, right,
Speaker 1: talk about a way to feel powerful, feel like you're
Speaker 1: making a huge difference. I think that's a really key
Speaker 1: part of what's driving a lot of work in AI
Speaker 1: right now.
Speaker 2: Striving a lot of work, sure, but with Aortman himself,
Speaker 2: there is this golf. It is a million mile golf
Speaker 2: between the things he says and what chat GBT is
Speaker 2: even even on the most basic level capable of doing
Speaker 2: and will be capable. And it just feels like it
Speaker 2: almost feels like he's become the propagandist for the tech industry.
Speaker 2: And it's very strange to me how far that distance is.
Speaker 2: Because you've got the AI doomers and the AI optimist
Speaker 2: I guess you'd call them. But Aortmand doesn't even feel
Speaker 2: like he's in with He's just kind of He'll say
Speaker 2: one day that he doesn't think it's a creature, the
Speaker 2: next one will say it's going to kill us, or
Speaker 2: all just feels like a pr campaign but for nothing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it has been interesting to try to answer the question,
Speaker 1: you know, one of the questions we tried to answer
Speaker 1: in the podcast is does Sam actually believe you know,
Speaker 1: because as you mentioned, there are some early clips of him,
Speaker 1: you know, And when I say early, I mean around
Speaker 1: the time of founding Open AI twenty fifteen. Or so,
Speaker 1: there's some clips of him talking about, you know, saying
Speaker 1: somewhat jokingly that AI might kill us all. But there's
Speaker 1: also this uh, you know, very famous blog post that
Speaker 1: he wrote in twenty fifteen in which he says that,
Speaker 1: you know, basically super intelligence is one of the most
Speaker 1: serious risks to humanity, you know, full stop. And so
Speaker 1: it's clear that at some point in his life he
Speaker 1: believed kind of what we might now call a more
Speaker 1: doom ory outlook. But as time has gone on, he
Speaker 1: has you know, offered views that are a little bit
Speaker 1: more measured and more positive. You know, he tends to
Speaker 1: you know, in his big media tour of twenty twenty three,
Speaker 1: he tended to talk about how AI was going to
Speaker 1: you know, his projection was that AI would radically transform society,
Speaker 1: but that it would be net good, right, that like,
Speaker 1: overall we would be glad that this happened, and that
Speaker 1: it would improve lives, even if in the short term
Speaker 1: or for some people it might prove to be bringing
Speaker 1: a lot of challenges as well. And so it is
Speaker 1: you know, I think one of the interesting things about
Speaker 1: is about him is it is a little hard to
Speaker 1: pin down exactly what he thinks. I think you're right
Speaker 1: that I wouldn't consider him like a gung ho effective accelerationist.
Speaker 1: I would not consider him a dumer. He is like
Speaker 1: somewhere in this large gulf in between there. But I
Speaker 1: think he's also smart enough to know that making grandiose
Speaker 1: projections about what AI could bring is a compelling story, right, Like,
Speaker 1: is a story that he can help sell by being
Speaker 1: like a spokesman for it. And often that is the
Speaker 1: role of a CEO, is to be a really good storyteller,
Speaker 1: to bring the pitch of the company to the public,
Speaker 1: to investors, to potential employees, to customers, to try to
Speaker 1: sell them on this vision of the future. And I
Speaker 1: do think Sam is good at that. There is an
Speaker 1: interesting tidbit in episode three in which we interview a
Speaker 1: fiction writer who was actually hired on contract by open
Speaker 1: Ai to write like a novella about AI futures and
Speaker 1: things like that. And yeah, he just talks a little
Speaker 1: bit about you know, the novella is not I think
Speaker 1: in active use within open Ai, but they did at
Speaker 1: some point, see they did, at some point see value
Speaker 1: in commissioning it. And I think you know something that
Speaker 1: the author, Patrick House explains to us, is you know
Speaker 1: that open Ai, just like many other startups, is really
Speaker 1: motivated by story, right, and that Sam Altman is inspired
Speaker 1: by fiction. You know, it's inspired by certain kinds of
Speaker 1: sci fi. I think this is not unique to Sam.
Speaker 1: Many founders in Silicon Valley, you know, Elon Musk has
Speaker 1: talked about this as well, are driven to create things
Speaker 1: in part because of what they read about when they
Speaker 1: were younger, that you know, these dreams of the future.
Speaker 1: And so it's just interesting to get his perspective on
Speaker 1: how motivating a story can be, and how motivating this
Speaker 1: compelling story of like, oh, we're building something that's going
Speaker 1: to change the course of human history. Like you just
Speaker 1: couldn't ask for a more powerful motivating force.
Speaker 2: So as Alman accumulates power and as he kind of
Speaker 2: sends the top of open Ai, do you think he's
Speaker 2: done there? Do you think there's going to be another
Speaker 2: thing he starts? Because it feels like you've discussed like
Speaker 2: UBI and all these other things. Do you think he
Speaker 2: has grander ideas that he wants to pursue.
Speaker 1: Well, obviously I can't speak to what's inside Sam's I
Speaker 1: don't know the man's mind, but I mean past indicators
Speaker 1: would suggest yes, Like I think he has proven pretty
Speaker 1: consistently that he's someone who you know, is you know,
Speaker 1: as much as he might focus on one project with
Speaker 1: a lot of effort, like he is cooking things on
Speaker 1: the side, Like this is a man. This is gonna
Speaker 1: be an extended metaphor, but this is a man working
Speaker 1: at a stove that has like six burners, not one.
Speaker 1: And you know he we already know that.
Speaker 2: What you say, sorry, he's got a big house.
Speaker 1: He's got multiple houses. The uh, the you know, we
Speaker 1: already know that. You know. In addition to running open AI,
Speaker 1: he has funded and or helped prompt the founding of,
Speaker 1: or has you know, been very involved in investing in
Speaker 1: or supporting other startups that you know, are part of
Speaker 1: this kind of ecosystem of businesses that are connected to
Speaker 1: an AI future or might benefit in an AI future.
Speaker 1: So for example, he Leon, which is a nuclear fusion
Speaker 1: company which he has invested a ton of money into.
Speaker 1: I think he has said publicly that you know, his
Speaker 1: vision is that this is a potential way to provide
Speaker 1: abundant energy that could then power the technology that we
Speaker 1: need to you know, improve AI to the level that
Speaker 1: we're hoping that it can get to, or that he's
Speaker 1: hoping that it can get to At the same time.
Speaker 1: You know, we've talked a little bit about universal basic income.
Speaker 1: This has been something that Sam has been a proponent
Speaker 1: of and an advocate of since at least twenty sixteen,
Speaker 1: when he was running y Combinator, and they started a
Speaker 1: side research project to study universal basic income by giving
Speaker 1: cash payments to families in Oakland of I believe a
Speaker 1: thousand dollars a month. That research project is still ongoing.
Speaker 1: It's now moved away from y Combinator and is associated
Speaker 1: with open Research, which is I believe funded by open Ai,
Speaker 1: and so it has kind of moved with Sam to
Speaker 1: his new role. And of course he also so co
Speaker 1: founded this company called world Coin, which used these silver
Speaker 1: orbs machines to scan to take pictures of your iris
Speaker 1: and give everyone register every individual human as like a
Speaker 1: unique human individual, and to create this eyeball registry in
Speaker 1: which by which one could in the future distribute a
Speaker 1: universal basic income. So he's funding these energy companies, He's
Speaker 1: involved in these sort of the sort of crypto eyeball
Speaker 1: registry project that will help distribute ebi in this future
Speaker 1: that he's imagining, Like, I think it's safe to say
Speaker 1: he's definitely thinking about things beyond just open AI for
Speaker 1: the future and imagining like, Okay, well, if we have
Speaker 1: this piece that's growing, what else would we need to
Speaker 1: support it? And I'm sure there are other things he's
Speaker 1: working on that we don't even know about, right, Like
Speaker 1: I know he has also funded some like longevity bioscience
Speaker 1: projects and things like that. He's I guarantee he's thinking
Speaker 1: about stuff beyond what we know about.
Speaker 2: Final question, why do you think the entire tech industry
Speaker 2: has become so fascinated with AI? Do you think it's
Speaker 2: just oldman or is it something more?
Speaker 1: I do think chat Gipt started heating up this interest
Speaker 1: that was already percolating a little bit in the tech industry.
Speaker 1: But it does seem like something about chatchipt capture the
Speaker 1: public imagination made people imagine very seriously for the first time,
Speaker 1: how AI could affect their lives, their lives individually. It
Speaker 1: used to be kind of this abstract thing that was
Speaker 1: a little farther away, or maybe you understood that like
Speaker 1: you were interacting with AI sometimes, like when you would
Speaker 1: look at like flight price predictors or yeah, exactly. But
Speaker 1: you know, I think as we you know, we talk
Speaker 1: about this in episode three, but you know, chat chipet
Speaker 1: wasn't even new technology. It was actually just a different
Speaker 1: user interface on a model that already existed GPT three
Speaker 1: point five.
Speaker 3: And so.
Speaker 1: To me, that actually speaks, I guess to the power
Speaker 1: of like making a technology accessible to everyone and in
Speaker 1: a way that was like easy to use and you know,
Speaker 1: for better or worse. That kind of got a lot
Speaker 1: of people in this like public momentum of people thinking
Speaker 1: about AI feeling you know, just feeling like it had
Speaker 1: rapidly increased its capabilities in a short period of time.
Speaker 1: And yeah, something about that really captured not just you know,
Speaker 1: the minds, but also the hearts of people and like
Speaker 1: like getting them really thinking about like what could a
Speaker 1: future like this look like. And I think while some
Speaker 1: people were excited, a lot of people also reacted with fear,
Speaker 1: right and like I think in the valley, like you
Speaker 1: will hear a lot of people more openly discussing their
Speaker 1: fears of uh, sort of like job loss or or
Speaker 1: just like dramatic social change that might come about in
Speaker 1: the next ten or twenty years. The feeling I get
Speaker 1: in conversations that I have in and around San Francisco
Speaker 1: is you know, even people who are pretty deep in
Speaker 1: this technology are uncertain about whether it's going to be
Speaker 1: overall good or bad. Like they're just uncertain of how
Speaker 1: to look back on this time, like whether it will
Speaker 1: have ended up being elite forward for humanity or something different.
Speaker 2: Aortman has taken advantage of the fact that the tech
Speaker 2: industry might not have any hypergrowth markets left, knowing that
Speaker 2: chat GPT is much like Sam Altman, incredibly adept at
Speaker 2: mimicking depth and experience by parroting the experiences of those
Speaker 2: that have actually done things. Like Sam Altman, chat GPT
Speaker 2: consumes information and feeds it back to the people using
Speaker 2: it in a way that feels superficially satisfying, and it's
Speaker 2: quite impressive to those who don't really care about creativity
Speaker 2: or depth. And like I've said, it takes advantage of
Speaker 2: the fact that the teche CoSystem has been dominated and
Speaker 2: funded by people who don't really build tech. As I've
Speaker 2: said before, generative AI things like chat GPT, anthropics Claude,
Speaker 2: Microsoft's co Pilot, which is also powered by chat GBT.
Speaker 2: It's not going to become the incredible supercomputer that Sam
Speaker 2: Moortman is promising. It will not be a virtual brain
Speaker 2: or imminently human like or a super smart person that
Speaker 2: knows everything about you, because it is, at its deepest complexity,
Speaker 2: a fundamentally different technology based on mathematics and the probabilistic
Speaker 2: answer to what you have asked it, rather than anything
Speaker 2: resembling how human beings think, or act or even know things.
Speaker 2: Generative AI does not know anything. How can a thing
Speaker 2: think when it doesn't know a anyone? I want to
Speaker 2: ask bradlight cap Miramarati Sam Ortmann of these questions just
Speaker 2: once hear what they fart out. No, a well CHATGBT
Speaker 2: isn't inherently useless. Allman realizes that it's impossible to generate
Speaker 2: the kind of funding and hype he needs based on
Speaker 2: its actual achievements, and that to continue to accumulate power
Speaker 2: and money, which is his only goal, he has the
Speaker 2: speciously hype it, and he has to hype it to
Speaker 2: wealthy and powerful people who also do not participate in
Speaker 2: the creation of anything. And that's who he is. I've
Speaker 2: been pretty mean about this guy, I really have, but
Speaker 2: he does have a skill. He knows a mark, he
Speaker 2: knows he knows how to say the right things and
Speaker 2: get in the right rooms with the people who aren't
Speaker 2: really touching the software or the hardware. He knows what
Speaker 2: they need to hear. He knows what the vcs need
Speaker 2: to hear. He knows quite aptly what this needs to
Speaker 2: sound like. But if he had to say what chat
Speaker 2: GBT does today, what would he say? Yeah, Yeah, it's
Speaker 2: really good at a generating a bunch of TEGs that's
Speaker 2: kind of shitty. Yeah, Sometimes it does math right and
Speaker 2: sometimes it does it really wrong. Sometimes you ask it
Speaker 2: to do. It can draw a picture, Hey, what do
Speaker 2: you think of that? These are all things, by the way,
Speaker 2: that if like a six year old told you'd be like, wow,
Speaker 2: that's really impressive, or like a ten year old perhaps,
Speaker 2: because that's a living being. Chat GPT does these things,
Speaker 2: and it does it. I know it's cheesy to say,
Speaker 2: but in a soulless way, but it really does that.
Speaker 2: Because and the reason all of this, the writing and
Speaker 2: the horrible video and the images, the reason it feels
Speaker 2: so empty is because even the most manure adjacent press
Speaker 2: release still has gone through someone's manure adjacent brain. Even
Speaker 2: the most pallid empty copy you've read has gone through someone.
Speaker 2: A person has put thought and intention in, even if
Speaker 2: they're not great with the English language. What chat GPT
Speaker 2: does is use math to generate the next thing, and
Speaker 2: sometimes it gets it pretty right. But pretty right is
Speaker 2: not enough to mimic human creation. But look at Sam Altman.
Speaker 2: Look who he is. What has he created other than
Speaker 2: wealth for him and other people? What about Sam Moltman
Speaker 2: is particularly exciting? Well, he's been rich before and his
Speaker 2: money made him even richer. That's pretty good. He was
Speaker 2: at y Combinator. Don't ask too much about what happened there.
Speaker 2: Just feels like sometimes Silicon Valley can't wipe its own ass.
Speaker 2: It can't see when there's a wolf amongst the sheep.
Speaker 2: It can't see when someone isn't really part of the
Speaker 2: system other than finding new ways to manipulate and extract
Speaker 2: value from him. And Sam Altman is a monster created
Speaker 2: by Silicon Valley's sin, and their sin, by the way,
Speaker 2: is empowering and elevating those who don't build software, which
Speaker 2: in turn has led to the greater sin of allowing
Speaker 2: the tech industry to drift away from fixing the problems
Speaker 2: of actual human beings. Sam Altman's manipulative little power plays
Speaker 2: have been so effective because so many of the power
Speaker 2: players in venture capital and the public markets and even
Speaker 2: tech companies are disconnected from the process of building things,
Speaker 2: of building software and hardware, and that makes them incapable
Speaker 2: or perhaps unwilling to understand that Sam Altman is leading
Speaker 2: them to a deeply desolate place. And on some level,
Speaker 2: it's kind of impressive how he succeeded in bending these
Speaker 2: fools to his whims, to the point that executives like
Speaker 2: sund up A Shai of Google are willing to break
Speaker 2: Google Search in pursuit of this next big hype cycle
Speaker 2: created by Sam Altman. He might not create anything, but
Speaker 2: he's excellent at spotting market opportunities, even if these opportunities
Speaker 2: involve him transparently lying about the technology he creates, all
Speaker 2: while having his nasty little boosters further propagate these bullshit,
Speaker 2: mostly because they don't know, or perhaps they don't care,
Speaker 2: if Sam Morton's full of shit. It doesn't matter to them.
Speaker 2: It doesn't matter that Google Search is still plagued with
Speaker 2: nonsensical AI answers that sometimes steal other people's work, or
Speaker 2: that AI in legal research has been proven to regularly hallucinate, which,
Speaker 2: by the way, is a problem that's impossible to fix.
Speaker 2: It's all happening because AI is the new thing that
Speaker 2: can be sold to the markets. And it's all happening
Speaker 2: because Sam Altman, intentionally or otherwise has created a totally
Speaker 2: hollow hype cycle. And all of this is thanks to
Speaker 2: Sam Altman and a tech industry that's lost its ability
Speaker 2: to create things worthy of an actual hype cycle to
Speaker 2: the point that this spacious, non technical manipulator can lead
Speaker 2: it down this nasty, ugly offensive anti tech path. The
Speaker 2: tech industry has spent years pissing off customers, with platforms
Speaker 2: like Facebook and Google actively making their products worse in
Speaker 2: the pursuit of perpetual growth and ashamedly turning their backs
Speaker 2: on the people that made them rich and acting with
Speaker 2: this horrifying contempt for their users. And I believe the
Speaker 2: result will be that tech is going to face a
Speaker 2: harsh reprimand from society. As I mentioned in the rock
Speaker 2: com bubble, things that are already falling apart WHEB traffic
Speaker 2: is already dropping. And what sucks is the people around
Speaker 2: Sam Moltman should have been able to see this, even
Speaker 2: putting aside his resume. I've listened to an alarming amount
Speaker 2: of Sam Moreman talk. And I'm a public relations person,
Speaker 2: Who the hell am I? I'm someone who's been around
Speaker 2: a lot of people who make shit up. I've been
Speaker 2: around a lot of people whose job it is to
Speaker 2: kind of obfuscate things, and quite frankly, almost really obvious.
Speaker 2: I'm not going to do any weird light to me
Speaker 2: esque ways of proving he's lying. He just doesn't ever
Speaker 2: get pushed into any depth. No one ever asks him
Speaker 2: really technical questions or even just a question like, Hey, Sam,
Speaker 2: did you work on any of the code at open
Speaker 2: AIY what did you work on? Yeah? I know you
Speaker 2: can't talk about the future, Sam, but how close are
Speaker 2: we actually to AGI? And if he says, ah, a
Speaker 2: few years, that's not specific enough, Sam, how about give
Speaker 2: me a ballpark? And then when he lies again, you say, okay, Sam,
Speaker 2: how do we get from generative AI to AGI? And
Speaker 2: when he starts waffling, say no, no, no, be specific, Sam.
Speaker 2: This is how you actually ask questions. And when you
Speaker 2: say things like this, by the way, to technical founders,
Speaker 2: they don't get worried. They don't offer skate. They may
Speaker 2: say I can't talk about this duty of legal things,
Speaker 2: which is fine, but they'll generally try and talk to you.
Speaker 2: Listen to any interview with any other technical AI person,
Speaker 2: Listen to them, and then listen to Sam Ortman. He's
Speaker 2: full of it. It's so obvious. And one deeply unfair
Speaker 2: thing with the value is there are people that get
Speaker 2: held to these standards. Early stage startups generally do the
Speaker 2: ones that aren't handed to people like Altman or Alexis
Speaker 2: Ohanian have read it, or Paul Graham or read Hoffman.
Speaker 2: They don't get those chances because they're not saying the
Speaker 2: things that need to be said to the venture capitalists.
Speaker 2: They're not in the circles. They're not doing the right
Speaker 2: things because the right things are no longer the right
Speaker 2: thing for the tech industry. And when all of this
Speaker 2: falls apart, Sam Almond's going to be fine. When this
Speaker 2: all collapses, he'll find something to blame it on market forces,
Speaker 2: a lack of energy, breakthroughs, unfortunate economic things. All are
Speaker 2: that nonsense, and he'll remain a billionaire, capable of doing
Speaker 2: anything he wants. The people that are going to suffer
Speaker 2: are the people working in Silicon Valley who aren't Sam Almon.
Speaker 2: The people that did not get born with a silver
Speaker 2: spoon in each hand and then handed further silver spoons
Speaker 2: as they walk the streets of San Francisco. People that
Speaker 2: don't live in nine and a half thousand square foot mansions.
Speaker 2: The people trying to raise money who can't right now
Speaker 2: because all the vcs are obsessed with AI. The people
Speaker 2: that will get fired from public tech companies when a
Speaker 2: depression hits, because the markets realize that the generative AI
Speaker 2: boom was a bubble, when they realized that the most
Speaker 2: famous people in tech have been making these promises for
Speaker 2: nobody other than the markets. Well, the markets need you
Speaker 2: to do something eventually, and I just don't think it's
Speaker 2: going to happen. And I think that we need to
Speaker 2: really think why was Sam Altman allowed to get to
Speaker 2: this point? Why did so many people like Paul Graham,
Speaker 2: like Reid Hoffman, like Brian Chesky, like Sachi Nadella. Back up,
Speaker 2: it's obvious con artists who has acted like this forever.
Speaker 2: And what sucks is I don't know if the value
Speaker 2: is going to learn anything unless it's really bad, and
Speaker 2: I don't want it to be. By the way, I
Speaker 2: would love to be wrong. I would love for all
Speaker 2: of this to just be like Sam Ortman's actually a genius.
Speaker 2: Turns out the whole thing is no, it's not going
Speaker 2: to happen. And I worry that there is no smooth
Speaker 2: way out of this, that there is no way to
Speaker 2: just casually integrate open Ai with Microsoft, because now there's
Speaker 2: an antitrust thing going in with Microsoft and acquiring Inflection Ai,
Speaker 2: another AI company, and that's the thing. It feels like
Speaker 2: we are approaching a press apiece here, and the only
Speaker 2: way to avoid it is for people to come clean,
Speaker 2: which is never going to happen, or of course, for
Speaker 2: Sam Wortman not to be lying, for AGI to actually
Speaker 2: come out of open Ai. And by the way, it's
Speaker 2: going to need to be in the next year. I
Speaker 2: don't think they've got even three quarters left. I think
Speaker 2: that once this falls apart, once the markets realize, oh shit,
Speaker 2: this is not profitable, this is not sustainable, they're going
Speaker 2: to walk away from it. When companies realize that Generative
Speaker 2: AI it's given him a couple percent profit, maybe they're
Speaker 2: going to be pissed because this is not a stock
Speaker 2: rally worthy boondoggle. This is not going to be pretty
Speaker 2: when things fall. Apart from for Nvidia, you're still over
Speaker 2: one thousand dollars when those orders stop coming in quite
Speaker 2: as fast. What do you think is going to happen
Speaker 2: to tech stocks? Startups are already having trouble raising money,
Speaker 2: and they're having trouble raising money because the people giving
Speaker 2: out the money are too disconnected from the creation of
Speaker 2: software and hardware. The only way to fix Silicon Valley
Speaker 2: perhaps is an apocalypse. Perhaps is people like Sam Ortman
Speaker 2: getting washed out. I don't want it to happen. I
Speaker 2: really must be bloody clear. But maybe it won't be apocalyptic.
Speaker 2: Maybe it would just be a brutal realignment. And maybe
Speaker 2: Silicon Valley needs that realignment because this industry desperately needs
Speaker 2: a big bathful of ice. I need to dunk the
Speaker 2: head in it aggressively and wake the hell up. Venture
Speaker 2: capital needs to put money back into real things. The
Speaker 2: largest tech companies need to realign and build for sustainability,
Speaker 2: so are not binging and purging staff with every boom,
Speaker 2: And if we really are at the end of the
Speaker 2: hypergrowth era, every tech company needs to be thinking profit
Speaker 2: and sustainability again. And that's a better silicon valley, because
Speaker 2: a better silicon valley builds things for people. It solves
Speaker 2: real problems. It doesn't have to lie about what the
Speaker 2: thing could do in the future so that it can
Speaker 2: sell a thing today. And I realize that sounds like
Speaker 2: the foundation of most venture capital. That's fine at the
Speaker 2: seed stage, that's fine at this moonshot stage where your
Speaker 2: early early days. It is not befitting the most famous
Speaker 2: company in tech. It is not befitting a multi billionaire.
Speaker 2: It is not befitting anyone, and it is insulting to
Speaker 2: the people actually building things, both in and outside of technology.
Speaker 2: The people I hear from after every episode, they are angry,
Speaker 2: They are frustrated because there are good people in tech.
Speaker 2: There are people building real things. There are people that
Speaker 2: remember a time when the tech industry was exciting, when
Speaker 2: people were talking about cool shit in the future, and
Speaker 2: then they'd actually do it. Returning to that is better
Speaker 2: for society and the tech industry. Just don't know when
Speaker 2: it's gonna happen. Thank you for listening to Better Offline.
Speaker 2: The editor and composer of the Better Offline theme song
Speaker 2: is Mattasowski. You can check out more of his music
Speaker 2: and audio projects at Mattasowski dot com m A T.
Speaker 3: T O.
Speaker 2: S O w Ski dot com. You can email me
Speaker 2: at easy at better offline dot com or visit better
Speaker 2: offline dot com to find more podcast links and of course,
Speaker 2: my newsletter. I also really recommend you go to chat
Speaker 2: dot Where's Youreed dot at to visit the discord, and
Speaker 2: go to our slash Better Offline to check out our reddit.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much much for listening.
Speaker 3: Better Offline is a production of cool Zone Media. For
Speaker 3: more from cool Zone Media, visit our website Coolzonemedia dot com,
Speaker 3: or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 3: or wherever you get your podcasts.