Invest Like the Best with Patrick O'Shaughnessy
· Patrick O'Shaughnessy, Reed Hastings
[00:00:00] S0: What do you think we can do to speed that up the most? It could take decades because of the regulated nature of schools. Things move slowly. What could we do that could speed that up? [00:00:00] S1: It's focused on the apps that really help kids learn more. It's helping parents see that — they all wonder, hey, with AI coming, when my kid's six or sixteen, what's going to happen to them in the workplace? And they need more and better skills than ever. And, you know, every 16 year old is learning things on AI, anyway. So it's having them be more focused on that and less on traditional classrooms. When you think about classrooms, we use it in K-12, we use it in college. And then, like in the workplace, we never use it again. You did all this classroom learning and it has like, no bearing in your working life. And so again, it's really driving the percentage of kids' time that's not in classroom. And as Joe says, it's helping kids really love school because then they'll continue to love learning. And the classroom, and the boredom and frustration of that, is at the heart of it. [00:00:00] S0: I'm curious, as you think about the future, just broadly, across all your interests, you've got a cool purview on the world. What most worries you and what most excites you about the future?
· Patrick O'Shaughnessy, Reed Hastings
[00:00:00] S0: I'm curious, as you think about the future, just broadly, across all your interests, you've got a cool purview on the world. What most worries you and what most excites you about the future? [00:00:00] S1: I'm part of the Anthropic camp where it's good to talk about the negatives. It's not because we think they're going to happen, but because we'll lower the chance of them happening if we're honest and talk about them. So I don't think the AI boomer and doomer thing is that useful. I think we all want to acknowledge there's some pretty significant risks, but they're not dispositive. And then we humans may be able to capture tremendous benefit by harnessing AI for higher quality of life on a global basis. I'm on Team Human for making that happen. But I would say that's the biggest, you know, swing factor of the next 50 years, is how well we do that. [00:00:00] S0: What do you think the biggest risks are?
· Patrick O'Shaughnessy, Reed Hastings
[00:00:00] S0: What do you think the biggest risks are? [00:00:00] S1: Well, the near-term risks are, unemployment causes societal chaos and strife. So if you were to get a lot of unemployment, then you might get radical politicians promising to get rid of AI, and that destabilizes society. There's the long-term power competition between us and say, China. And then, you know, does war become, how many robots do you produce? And, you know, it'd be unfortunate if we both end up having to spend a bunch of money on that because of distrust. Kind of a new Cold War would soak up a lot of GDP growth. And the benefit side would be that we cure disease, we get nuclear fusion with huge amounts of low-cost energy. Humans don't have to work as much, maybe not at all. They get to do things like learn chess and learn how to play all kinds of games. You learn biology for fun, like you learn chess today. So there's tremendous upside to automating a lot of this and taking it to the next level. It's just keeping humans on top as the beneficiary of them. [00:00:00] S0: My traditional closing question for every interview is the same. What is the kindest thing that anyone's ever done for you?
· Patrick O'Shaughnessy, Reed Hastings
[00:00:00] S0: My traditional closing question for every interview is the same. What is the kindest thing that anyone's ever done for you? [00:00:00] S1: 30 years ago, I worked at a startup. I was a frontline engineer, 28, so I did all-nighters all the time. I used to have coffee cups spread around my desk and over a couple of days it would get kind of ugly and messy. And the janitor every now and then would clean them all. And I'd come in, they'd be cleaning mugs. And I didn't think about it that much. One morning, woke up early. And in those days, you had to go in the office because of the computers were there. You couldn't take them home. So I went into the office at 4:35 in the morning, walked in, went into the bathroom and there was my CEO washing coffee cups. And I looked at him and I was like, "Barry, are those my cups?" And he said yeah. And I said, "Have you been washing my cups all year?" And he said yeah. And I said, "why?" And he said, "You do so much for us, and this is the one thing I could do for you". And I was just very moved about his humility and his caring kindness in your question. And, so I felt like, God, I'll follow this guy to the ends of the earth. And so, simple gestures. [00:00:00] S0: Wow. Holy cow. Great story. Amazing place to close. Thank you so much for your time. [00:00:00] S1: Real pleasure, Patrick.