Relentless
00:38:40 · Sam Altman
[00:38:40] S1: No. No. The fifth day after ChatGPT launch was the day we crossed a million users. And I had, like, watched it go up the first day and then come down in the afternoon and then go up the second day to a higher peak and then come down, go up the third day to a higher peak and then come down. And each of these days, the researchers were like, oh, that was some crazy flash in the pan PR thing. This is, like, over, and, you know, that's not gonna happen. And I had seen enough at YC that I knew that when something was growing like that completely organically, it... This had all of the spectral signature to me of something that is, like, was gonna happen. And then on the fifth day, it crossed a million users, and I came home. And that was when it really hit me that, like, we were about to become a company, and it was gonna go very fast, and it was gonna be a crazy... Like, a... Like, we were just gonna turn into, like, a big company real quick. And I had watched what these founders went through. And I came home, and Ollie was like, Oh, I saw that you crossed a million years, so congratulations. I was like, You have no idea how bad this is. You have no idea what's about to happen. It's not just bad for me, it's bad for you too. Like, we have this nice, quiet life, you know, it's really wonderful. It's about to, like, kind of go through a canon. And that is what happened. But it was like a very abrupt transition. I knew it was going come, and I had watched other people go through it. And I knew that it was, like, not a pleasant experience. But I was like, well, we're being shot at the cannon. Here we go.
00:40:14 · Ty Morse, Sam Altman
[00:40:14] S0: Were you, like, subconsciously just, like, preparing yourself for years? If you know that this is eventually going to happen and the intelligence is gonna get good enough, where, like, there will be a magical product. [00:40:25] S1: My take on it is that I intellectually knew it was going to happen at some point. I had no idea when. Didn't know that was going to be the moment, of course. But that I had decided to pretend to myself. And I had successfully deluded myself into a sort of acting like it wasn't going to happen. Truly running the research lab was the coolest, most fun, most amazing job and lifestyle setup I could possibly have imagined. How so? I mean, you were like... It's not stressful at all. It was intellectually incredibly satisfying. It was the smartest group of people with probably the most important work that has happened in the last century, maybe longer. I don't know. And I had this front row seat. And like, that was a once in many generations moment. It was unbelievable. It was the coolest thing. [00:41:21] S0: Are you guys experiencing that same kind of growth? You know, I keep on seeing Thibault post on Twitter that basically, here's another reset. Here's another reset. Are you seeing that same, like, chat experience again? Totally.
00:41:21 · Ty Morse, Sam Altman
[00:41:21] S0: Are you guys experiencing that same kind of growth? You know, I keep on seeing Thibault post on Twitter that basically, here's another reset. Here's another reset. Are you seeing that same, like, chat experience again? Totally. [00:41:37] S1: I think there have been two giant form factors and associated growth so far. There was this sort of chatbots and then the coding agents, and the coding agents are just going totally nuts. There will be a third one soon, I think, which will be this idea of this sort of persistent agents, chiefs of staffs, coworkers, colleagues, whatever we call them. And that'll... And, you know, I think that'll come pretty soon. So we're gonna go through, like, the third of these waves pretty fast. [00:42:03] S0: So a long time ago, apparently in August last year, I saw you tweet something, and I thought to myself, this is not gonna help the reputation. Let's see. Why? Why did you do that? [00:42:20] S1: Well, first of all, I love that scene from the movie. Like, the Star is coming out of hyperspace, and there's this dramatic music, and it's like a great it's like a great scene. I thought it was a funny... Like, I was it was like, you know, I was scrolling Twitter. I think it was late at night. I don't really remember. [00:42:37] S0: This is where the conspiracy theories happen. Like, the... You're you're, like... You're feeding the fire here. [00:42:44] S1: I just thought it was... It amused me at the time. There was, like... It was... I don't know. It was not a great tweet, to be honest No. To be clear.
00:42:44 · Sam Altman, Ty Morse
[00:42:44] S1: I just thought it was... It amused me at the time. There was, like... It was... I don't know. It was not a great tweet, to be honest No. To be clear. [00:42:54] S0: No. I actually thought it was great. [00:42:55] S1: I thought it was funny. [00:42:56] S0: I thought it was funny. I think... [00:42:58] S1: I thought it was funny. Yeah. [00:43:00] S0: I do feel like this is more and more what the world feels like. Yes? Yes. Okay. [00:43:12] S1: Yes. That's a good that's a good meme. The way that somebody explained kind of the marketing challenge for OpenAI and the industry in general is, number one, we are close to creating... Well, we need to explain the world. Number one, we are close to creating a genie that can grant any wish. Number two, we are going to make sure that our first wishes broadly benefit humanity and that we kind of get the world to a place where a lot more people get to have a lot more wishes. And number three, the space of what you can wish for is incredibly big and creative, and it'll be quite exciting to, like, figure that out with real sort of human values and preferences. But I think there's a fourth thing too, which is exactly that. You start making these wishes, the computer grants them, and then you're like, I didn't think that was gonna work. Yeah. What now? It's a weird feeling.
00:43:12 · Sam Altman, Ty Morse
[00:43:12] S1: Yes. That's a good that's a good meme. The way that somebody explained kind of the marketing challenge for OpenAI and the industry in general is, number one, we are close to creating... Well, we need to explain the world. Number one, we are close to creating a genie that can grant any wish. Number two, we are going to make sure that our first wishes broadly benefit humanity and that we kind of get the world to a place where a lot more people get to have a lot more wishes. And number three, the space of what you can wish for is incredibly big and creative, and it'll be quite exciting to, like, figure that out with real sort of human values and preferences. But I think there's a fourth thing too, which is exactly that. You start making these wishes, the computer grants them, and then you're like, I didn't think that was gonna work. Yeah. What now? It's a weird feeling. [00:44:11] S0: Yeah. It's just like the problem where, I guess, you know, people spent, like, a hundred years trying to disprove some... What was it? Jacobian? Yeah. Yeah. This thing. Then some guy just asked Claude. And it was, like, I don't know, within a few days or something like this.
00:44:11 · Ty Morse, Sam Altman
[00:44:11] S0: Yeah. It's just like the problem where, I guess, you know, people spent, like, a hundred years trying to disprove some... What was it? Jacobian? Yeah. Yeah. This thing. Then some guy just asked Claude. And it was, like, I don't know, within a few days or something like this. [00:44:25] S1: So I'm I'm I'm... I think there's gonna be lots of great jobs in the future. I really do. I think we're gonna have lots of intellectual fulfillment, and I think most jobs are going to adapt more than it seems like they should. But math, I think, is a very important example of something for us to study very closely right now of something that may not go that way. In fact, would say probably won't go that way. [00:44:47] S0: It seems like even as the systems get better and better, the people that I know that... Like, no one is less busy. Everyone is more busy. Everyone's just doing more stuff except for the people that are like, oh, I spent a trillion tokens. And, like, what have... I love this thing that I saw where someone said, like, I spent, you know, ungodly numbers of tokens. And then someone said, why aren't you more successful?