· Alexandr Wang, David Senra
[00:00:00] S1: Yeah. I think this is one of the things that ended up being kind of fascinating, which is because it was clear that there was so much work to do, it really cleared the way for me to be able to kind of build a lot of stuff up from scratch, set up the right principles, build the right culture. It created the conditions for us to build something amazing. [00:00:00] S0: And is that how you and Mark discussed it? It's like, "Hey, we have to hit a reset here. Obviously, if we keep on this path, we're essentially going to throw out what we have and redo it with a completely different level of talent." Are these the conversations that are occurring between you and him? It didn't seem like he wanted a minor adjustment. You understand what I'm saying? He's just like, "Oh, this is not working at all. If it's not going to work, then let's rip it down to the foundation and rebuild." Correct?
· David Senra, Alexandr Wang
[00:00:00] S0: And is that how you and Mark discussed it? It's like, "Hey, we have to hit a reset here. Obviously, if we keep on this path, we're essentially going to throw out what we have and redo it with a completely different level of talent." Are these the conversations that are occurring between you and him? It didn't seem like he wanted a minor adjustment. You understand what I'm saying? He's just like, "Oh, this is not working at all. If it's not going to work, then let's rip it down to the foundation and rebuild." Correct? [00:00:00] S1: It was an evolving conversation where I think there were like... One of the things that I believe really strongly, I think Elon has demonstrated this in various times in his career, where you just have a small, incredibly cracked, highly technical team that's very flat. And if you do that, you can accomplish a lot very, very quickly. So, that was something that I had a lot of conviction in, and I believed in AI, that is the right approach, especially if you had to do what we had to do, which is move very, very quickly. And I think early on, that was one of the things that I talked to Mark a lot about, and I think he was excited about as well. That ended up becoming one of the tent poles of our overall strategies, like small, very flat, highly technical team, very high talent density. How quickly can you move if you have those ingredients? [00:00:00] S0: From an outside perspective, it just seems like Mark empties the clip, is the way I think about this, right? Have you ever read this book called "The Mind of Napoleon"?
· David Senra, Alexandr Wang
[00:00:00] S0: From an outside perspective, it just seems like Mark empties the clip, is the way I think about this, right? Have you ever read this book called "The Mind of Napoleon"? [00:00:00] S1: No. [00:00:00] S0: Okay, so "Mind of Napoleon" published in 1957. I found it because I saw this interview. I think Tyler Cowen interviewed Sam Altman, and it takes us to 2018, and he asked him, "What's the most important book that you read this year?" And he said, "The Mind of Napoleon." So it's very hard to find. I buy the book. It's 300 pages of just Napoleon, his own words, organized by topic. And in that, he talks about over and over again that hesitation is fatal. But he says, "Before you engage in a course of action, there's a lot of deliberation." He'll study from every angle, make sure he's making the right decision. I feel there's an echo with the way Mark operates. Does a lot of deliberation, make sure he's on the right path. But once he makes that decision, he just goes all in. He just empties the clip. And that's the way I felt about what was occurring right at this point where he comes and gets you, and then you guys start rebuilding this entire organization. [00:00:00] S1: I think he really has internalized that failure doesn't matter. It matters when you win, how big you win. And I think this overall concept, I think, enables him to operate, I think, truly without fear in a lot of circumstances, because I think he is just very comfortable taking lots of risk.
· Alexandr Wang, David Senra
[00:00:00] S1: I think he really has internalized that failure doesn't matter. It matters when you win, how big you win. And I think this overall concept, I think, enables him to operate, I think, truly without fear in a lot of circumstances, because I think he is just very comfortable taking lots of risk. [00:00:00] S0: He's got that great line where it's like, "In a world that's changing all the time, the biggest risk is not taking any." [00:00:00] S1: Yeah, exactly. I think he's internalized this quite deeply. There's certainly versions of the world where Meta looks a lot more like Google in some sense. It's just more slow-moving and more bureaucratic and just looks very different as a company. But I think he, because he's internalized some of these lessons so deeply, keeps the thing dynamic and moving and live. [00:00:00] S0: Talk me through the difference between how you were as... You're the founder, you're running Scale. Now you're refounding this lab, working with Mark. The different ways that you approach your work in those two environments.
· David Senra, Alexandr Wang
[00:00:00] S0: Talk me through the difference between how you were as... You're the founder, you're running Scale. Now you're refounding this lab, working with Mark. The different ways that you approach your work in those two environments. [00:00:00] S1: At Scale, one of the things I really internalized, and I don't even remember where this advice came from, but it was kind of one of these ideas that if you want to be a good founder, you have to be able to do every job. Had a very strong point of view about how every little thing at the company should happen and should work, and that resulted in a company that was very much so a product of my effort and my point of view, and it expressed itself in all sorts of ways throughout the company, but also made me the bottleneck in very big ways. There's pros and cons of that for a company. Definitely, I think that's if you were to start a company and it's your first time starting a company, you should definitely take that approach because it's much more likely to be successful than if you don't take that approach. [00:00:00] S0: Was Scale your first company? [00:00:00] S1: Scale was my first company, yeah. [00:00:00] S0: Incredible.
· David Senra, Alexandr Wang
[00:00:00] S0: Incredible. [00:00:00] S1: Yeah. But at Meta, it was a very different assignment because we had to accomplish so much in so little time. I didn't have the luxury of being able to, quote unquote, "do every job" within the lab. I certainly am not an AI researcher. I'm also not a product designer. I'm not all these things that are totally pivotal to the organization being successful. So at Meta, very much so, I adopted this philosophy around just how do we create an environment where we're going to hire incredible people? It was job number one, hire brilliant and incredible people who are at the top of their field across every discipline. [00:00:00] S0: Why do you think you're able to do that at Meta? It's just because you have more resources? Why can you do that?