Speaker 1: My name is Lily Maddon and I'm a proud Arunda
Speaker 1: Bungelung Cargoton woman from Gadigol Country. The Daily oz acknowledges
Speaker 1: that this podcast is recorded on the lands of the
Speaker 1: Gadighl people and pays respect to all Aboriginal and Torres
Speaker 1: Strait Island and nations. We pay our respects to the
Speaker 1: first peoples of these countries, both past and present.
Speaker 2: Good morning and welcome to the Daily os It's Tuesday,
Speaker 2: the twenty first of November. I'm Sam, I'm Zarah. It's
Speaker 2: nice to be back on the podcast. Sarah. It is
Speaker 2: nice to be a week away. You and I are traversing
Speaker 2: across the world doing some.
Speaker 3: Interesting I look forward to this month being our next
Speaker 3: best month of podcast listeners, now that we also haven't
Speaker 3: been here for a week.
Speaker 2: Yes, the myth of listens going up when you and
Speaker 2: I are not here and a half years ago. Okay,
Speaker 2: what are we going to talk about today?
Speaker 3: So last week one of the biggest names in artificial intelligence,
Speaker 3: arguably the only name I know in artificial intelligence, Sam Altman.
Speaker 3: He was removed as CEO of open Ai, the tech
Speaker 3: company behind chat GPT.
Speaker 2: If this technology goes wrong. It can go quite wrong,
Speaker 2: and we want to be vocal about that. We want
Speaker 2: to work with the government to prevent that from happening. Now.
Speaker 2: Oltman co founded the company with Elon Musk. Might have
Speaker 2: heard of him, and news of the board's decision to
Speaker 2: dump him as CEO has taken many in tech and
Speaker 2: business by surprise.
Speaker 3: There are plenty of questions surrounding his departure. So in
Speaker 3: the deep Dive today, I want to take you through
Speaker 3: what we know about why Oltman was ousted. Before we
Speaker 3: get there, though, Sam, what is making headlines.
Speaker 2: The CEO of Optus, Kelly Bayo Rosemarin, has resigned after
Speaker 2: a mass network outage earlier this month, which left ten
Speaker 2: million Aussies without phone services. The outage occurred due to
Speaker 2: a software upgrade, and over two hundred and twenty calls
Speaker 2: to Triple zero failed to get through. During a Senate
Speaker 2: hearing on Friday, rosemarn denied rumors that she was down,
Speaker 2: but in a statement from Singtel, which is Optus's parent company, yesterday,
Speaker 2: she said, having now had time for some personal reflection,
Speaker 2: I have come to the decision that my resignation is
Speaker 2: in the best interests of optis moving.
Speaker 3: Forward, gender affirming procedures could be subsidized by Medicare. The
Speaker 3: Medical Services Advisory Committee is considering an application that would
Speaker 3: subsidize gender affirming surgery procedures, including facial and genital procedures,
Speaker 3: chess surgery, and voice surgery. That's in a bid to
Speaker 3: improve the quality of life of transgender people. The Committee
Speaker 3: is an independent body that assesses and advises the government
Speaker 3: on whether a new medical service should be publicly funded.
Speaker 2: Over three thousand fires have broken out in Brazil this month,
Speaker 2: destroying nearly seven hundred and seventy thousand hectares of the
Speaker 2: largest tropical wetlands in the world. In the same period
Speaker 2: last year, there were fewer than seventy fires in the area.
Speaker 2: Endangered jaguars and more than one hundred and fifty other
Speaker 2: mammal species are at risk from the destruction of habitat
Speaker 2: caused by the blazers.
Speaker 3: And the Good News. Gases produced by landfill in the
Speaker 3: Act will be used to power over ten thousand homes.
Speaker 3: The new gas expansion project at the Canberra Landfill Facility
Speaker 3: will reduce carbon emissions by using methane from landfill to
Speaker 3: then generate power. Once it's completed, the site should be
Speaker 3: able to generate fifty thousand megawatt hours of energy. All right, Sam,
Speaker 3: tell me, are you planning to set up a globally
Speaker 3: defining tech company in the future.
Speaker 2: No, globally defining media company would be nice. But it's
Speaker 2: nice to be talking about Sam again. However, I am
Speaker 2: noticing that every time there is a Sam on the podcast,
Speaker 2: it's not for great reasons.
Speaker 3: No, And I mean, if this is the first episode
Speaker 3: you've listened to, we did an episode a week before
Speaker 3: last about Sam Bankman free who was the founder of FTX,
Speaker 3: and he was a tech founder who is now in jail.
Speaker 3: This story is not following the same trajectory, but indeed
Speaker 3: is another story I guess of the uber powerful like
Speaker 3: very well known, very successful founder's named Sam, who are
Speaker 3: having a bit of a fall from grace.
Speaker 2: So why don't we start off with a bit more
Speaker 2: information about Sam Altman? What do we need to know
Speaker 2: about him as a founder?
Speaker 3: So? Sam Altman is a thirty eight year old co
Speaker 3: founder of the company that owns chat GPT. Now that
Speaker 3: parent company is called open Ai, And though we've only
Speaker 3: really been speaking about it recently, it actually was founded
Speaker 3: in twenty fifteen, I thought I would ask the product
Speaker 3: of Sam Altman's brain chat GPT exactly who Sam Altman is,
Speaker 3: and here's what it said. Sam Altman is a well
Speaker 3: known entrepreneur and investor and has been involved in various
Speaker 3: projects and organizations, including co chairing open Ai. So that's
Speaker 3: what the free version of chat GPT told me. But
Speaker 3: because we don't pay for it, we don't have any
Speaker 3: info past January twenty twenty two, so it doesn't actually
Speaker 3: involve any news of his sacking in that summary. But
Speaker 3: his backstory is I guess exactly what we've come to
Speaker 3: expect from a tech quiz. In an interview with a
Speaker 3: New Yorker, he said he disassembled a Macintosh computer when
Speaker 3: he was eight years old. Another Sam trade the most
Speaker 3: serifying MI is, I actually could see you doing that.
Speaker 2: I would love that. I think of it as like
Speaker 2: really complex lego.
Speaker 3: Yeah right, what all eight year olds are doing there? Definitely,
Speaker 3: And that was actually around the same time that he
Speaker 3: started to get into computer programming.
Speaker 2: Very cool.
Speaker 3: In two thousand and five, when he was at Stanford University,
Speaker 3: Altman turned to his friend and said, wouldn't it be
Speaker 3: great if I could open my mobile phone and see
Speaker 3: a map of where all my friends are. I know
Speaker 3: that that idea doesn't seem so wild now that iPhones
Speaker 3: and other tech we regularly engage with can do that,
Speaker 3: but in the early two thousands that was still a
Speaker 3: long way off. So Altman became inspired by the idea
Speaker 3: of launching an app with some and he ended up
Speaker 3: dropping out of UNI to do just that. Altman has
Speaker 3: also got his own cryptocurrency called world Coin, currently has
Speaker 3: millions of users around the world.
Speaker 2: So it does seem like, even from a tender age
Speaker 2: of age, he was destined for this career in tech.
Speaker 2: How did he end up though, not just being another
Speaker 2: tech whiz, but actually a really defining AI whiz.
Speaker 3: Well, Oltman was involved in what's now called as effective
Speaker 3: altruism for many years before he got into AI.
Speaker 2: What do you mean by that.
Speaker 3: Well, in the business world, it's basically all about building
Speaker 3: a company that's focused on improving the welfare of society.
Speaker 3: So investors like Altman wanted to put money into these
Speaker 3: sorts of businesses. And hang in here because it actually
Speaker 3: explains how we got to the point of a co
Speaker 3: founder being kicked out of his own company. So just
Speaker 3: put a pin in that we will come back to
Speaker 3: that later. Pin put in, Yeah, okay, but the whole
Speaker 3: point of effective altruism is to keep focused on promoting
Speaker 3: a vision rather than being purely focused on profit. In
Speaker 3: twenty fifteen, Altman launched open ai with Elon Musk who Yep,
Speaker 3: no background needed. But the company's mission was to quote
Speaker 3: advanced digital intelligence in the way that is most likely
Speaker 3: to benefit humanity as a whole, unconstrained by a need
Speaker 3: to generate a financial return. Very lofty ambition there, i'd say,
Speaker 3: and at the outset, which I think is really interesting.
Speaker 3: Open ai was actually listed as a non profit organization.
Speaker 2: Wow, so basically a charity pretty much.
Speaker 3: It was initially relying on donations to do its work
Speaker 3: and was governed by the same laws as charities would be.
Speaker 3: About three years later, though the company changed its structure.
Speaker 3: It kept the nonprofit side of things and then launched
Speaker 3: a subsidiary company called open ai Global, where it could
Speaker 3: raise some money and could hire world leading talent. Because unfortunately,
Speaker 3: Silicon Valley tech bros. Don't come for free.
Speaker 2: So they basically split off the company and made a
Speaker 2: nonprofit BIT and then a for profit.
Speaker 3: Bit exactly and They also got huge backing from investor
Speaker 3: The biggest one that we know of was from Microsoft,
Speaker 3: obviously tech giant. They announced a big partnership with open
Speaker 3: Ai earlier this year, and that was estimated to be
Speaker 3: worth around ten billion dollars. So what you end up
Speaker 3: with is quite an interesting company, and also a board
Speaker 3: that's made up of six people, none of them are
Speaker 3: investors in the company, which I'd say is pretty rare.
Speaker 2: Yeah, very rare.
Speaker 3: Yeah. What was also quite unusual was that Altman actually
Speaker 3: admitted he didn't have any shares in his own company.
Speaker 3: I have no equity in OPENINGI.
Speaker 2: You need a lawyer or an agent. I'm doing this
Speaker 2: because I love it. Interesting because he was really passionate
Speaker 2: about that not for profit bit, but it was the
Speaker 2: for profit bit that had the shareholders because they were
Speaker 2: the ones that put money into the company.
Speaker 3: It's so interesting and it's suddenly unorthodox. Under this new structure,
Speaker 3: Sam Altman was appointed CEO, and he was also made
Speaker 3: one of the six board members. Three of them worked
Speaker 3: for open Ai, and three of them were directors of
Speaker 3: other companies. And that brings us up to speed on
Speaker 3: open Ai. That is, until a board meeting last.
Speaker 2: Week really interesting situation. You have this company that's quite
Speaker 2: literally developing something with the whole world watching, and we're
Speaker 2: all tingering around with it.
Speaker 3: The only thing people were talking about it like the
Speaker 3: first six months of this year.
Speaker 2: It's very rare that a company comes across the world
Speaker 2: and changes the ways that we could work and we
Speaker 2: could live right. This one did it. But all of
Speaker 2: this is now for sam Oltman at least come crumbling down.
Speaker 3: What's happened, basically, sam Oltman was fired as CEO by
Speaker 3: his own company, so late last week, open AI released
Speaker 3: a statement saying that board members had lost confidence in
Speaker 3: Altman because he was not quote consistently candid with them.
Speaker 3: I don't fully know what that means, but it clearly
Speaker 3: has something to do with transparency or honesty or something
Speaker 3: of that nature. A statement from the board of directors
Speaker 3: said that open AI was grateful for Altman's contributions to
Speaker 3: the founding and the growth of the company. The chair
Speaker 3: of the board, Greg Brockman, was also removed and said
Speaker 3: he was excluded from the vote to oust Altman as CEO.
Speaker 3: A joint statement from Altman and Brockman said they were
Speaker 3: shocked and saddened by the decisions.
Speaker 2: So I have to reiterate, this is a really strange
Speaker 2: situation to have a founder being sacked by his own
Speaker 2: company but he doesn't even have shares in his own company.
Speaker 2: It's just a very odd structure.
Speaker 3: It is. But it's not the first time we've seen
Speaker 3: something like this.
Speaker 2: There have been some other high profile ones, right, Yeah.
Speaker 3: So Steve Jobs was fired by Apple in nineteen eighty
Speaker 3: five after he had a tiff with the company's board
Speaker 3: of directors. I remember when we were writing our book
Speaker 3: because we have a section on tech, I went really
Speaker 3: deep into this because I was so intrigued by it because.
Speaker 2: He returned, he got brought back to Yeah.
Speaker 3: And I just can't imagine the egos and what actually
Speaker 3: happens with like personality politics to be kicked out and
Speaker 3: then re enter. Anyway, that's an aside. So there was Apple,
Speaker 3: and then there was also Eduardo Saverron who was a
Speaker 3: co founder of Facebook. He had his shares diluted in
Speaker 3: an effort to reduce his power of the company, which
Speaker 3: you may remember from the pivotal scene in the Social network.
Speaker 2: I think we were going to let you parade around
Speaker 2: in your ridiculous suits, pretending you were running the.
Speaker 1: Summary my brothers at the cleaners, along with my honey
Speaker 1: and my fuck you flip flops.
Speaker 2: You pretentious douchebag securities here. You'll be leaving now.
Speaker 3: And recently, the board of directors of Uber forced co
Speaker 3: founder Travis Kalanik to resign in twenty seventeen after allegations
Speaker 3: of sexual harassment at the company.
Speaker 2: So that's clearly a different situation to what we have
Speaker 2: on our hands here, but nonetheless the same result. Altman
Speaker 2: is gone. What's going to happen with the company now?
Speaker 3: So the board announced an interim CEO, But there has
Speaker 3: been a lot of speculation over the weekend that Altman
Speaker 3: could actually somehow get.
Speaker 2: Back into the company Steve jobstyle.
Speaker 3: He posted on x saying I love the Open Ai
Speaker 3: team so much, and the new CEO shared it with
Speaker 3: a blue love heart emoji. This is truly a sign
Speaker 3: of the times when you know, major kaida well defining
Speaker 3: companies are having their through half heart energies. But there
Speaker 3: are reports in the media that Altmand went to open
Speaker 3: Ai headquarters over the weekend to have talks about returning
Speaker 3: as CEO, and he has the support of some big
Speaker 3: investors and senior figures at the company. We don't know
Speaker 3: for sure what the discussions with the board have been about,
Speaker 3: but Altman did leave us a clue. On social media.
Speaker 3: He posted a selfie wearing a guest lanyard that read
Speaker 3: first and last Home I ever wear one of these.
Speaker 2: This is a very odd It's all very odd, this situation.
Speaker 3: It's just like a TV show.
Speaker 2: But I just think it will be a TV show.
Speaker 3: But I think, you know, this is an interesting one
Speaker 3: of you know, we often speak about whether something is
Speaker 3: news or noise at the daily I was like, this
Speaker 3: is talking about this meaningful? Is it important that we
Speaker 3: talk about or is it just you know, big tech
Speaker 3: leaders and their ego. And I do think that this
Speaker 3: one especially is really important to discuss because at least
Speaker 3: in our industry, something like chatchipt has the power to
Speaker 3: literally change from the bottom up how this industry works.
Speaker 2: I agree, And I think who is leading chat ChiPT
Speaker 2: is news.
Speaker 3: Like whoever's hands that ends up in Yeah, Like, you know,
Speaker 3: just as we saw Elon Musk's ownership of X really
Speaker 3: changed the game, there is something to be said about
Speaker 3: who is taking the reins of these platforms, and especially
Speaker 3: with such little regulation because it's such a new thing.
Speaker 3: I do think this is a really interesting story in
Speaker 3: and of itself, but then also of course in the
Speaker 3: broader kind of pattern of these big tech leaders just
Speaker 3: falling like dominos.
Speaker 2: And just in the quick update to this story that
Speaker 2: only broke late last night here in Australia, Microsoft has
Speaker 2: hired Sam Altman to lead their advanced AI research team.
Speaker 2: They've actually hired him and Greg Brockman, and it's come
Speaker 2: almost immediately after the pair left Open AI. So Microsoft's
Speaker 2: chief executive announced the surprise move and basically said that
Speaker 2: they still believe in the products that Sam Moltman and
Speaker 2: Greg Brockman have to make and that they want them
Speaker 2: to do it at Microsoft instead. Has this interesting subplot
Speaker 2: of what is happening with the way that these founders
Speaker 2: are setting up their companies and how do you end
Speaker 2: up in a position where something like that being ousted
Speaker 2: is even possible. And surely, after some of the examples
Speaker 2: that we ran through, someone as smart you know, he
Speaker 2: was making computers at that years old, someone of the
Speaker 2: smartest Sam Moltman would have put some safeguards in place
Speaker 2: to not get kicked out. But turns out he didn't.
Speaker 2: That's all for today's episode of The Daily Os. We'll
Speaker 2: be back again tomorrow. If you enjoyed this episode, would
Speaker 2: love you to leave a rating on Spotify or even
Speaker 2: comment on Apple. It really helps us get in front
Speaker 2: of more people and helps us keep our job as founders.
Speaker 2: For now Thinking appealed to Don the peace and comment