I’m Binge Watching Interviews with Sam Altman…

…so you don’t have to… and here are my takeaways. (Article 10)

4 min readApr 2, 2023

This is a continuation from a series of articles found HERE.

2023-Lex Fridman Interviews Sam Altman (120:00 to end)

Context:

The interview covered in this article was just released a few days ago. And it’s a doozy — over two hours. So I broke it up into 30 minute chunks, with one article per 30 minute chunk.

As always, I’ll pull out interesting tidbits below, adding in my personal commentary or relevant context sparingly.

Unless otherwise stated, all quotes belong to Sam Altman.

120:00 to end

“We believe in a very high bar for the people on the team. We work hard — which, you’re not even supposed to say anymore or something.”

Editor’s Note: That’s interesting! What does Sam mean by that?!

Sam says that OpenAI gives a ton of autonomy to its team/employees, and that is their “superpower” for shipping great AI product quickly.

“If most people in the company weren’t really excited to work on GPT4, there would be very little anyone could do to make it (great product) happen.”

“We care.”

Sam says that he spends 1/3 of his time on hiring.

“There’s no shortcut to putting a ton of effort into this.”

Editor’s Note: This is consistent with advice he has been giving for years, including previous interviews I’ve covered.

On Microsoft’s historic investment in OpenAI: “It’s not all perfect or easy, but on the whole, they have been amazing partners to us.”

Sam says that Satya and the team goes above and beyond for the partnership.

“I think most CEOs are either great leaders or great managers.”

Sam thinks that Satya Nadella is both of those things, and lists that he is super-visionary, makes great bets, is hands on and is both a great leader and manager.

“I’m a big Satya fan.”

On Silicon Valley Bank and the Fed / interest rates: “You really don’t want depositors to doubt the security of their deposits.”

Editor’s Note: I wonder if Lex and his guests do a halftime or 7th inning stretch or something. 2+ hours is such a long time to sit and talk with no break!

On interacting with ChatGPT: “I have never felt any pronoun other than ‘it’ toward any of our systems. But most other people say ‘him’ or ‘her.’ And I wonder why I am so different… I am curious where that difference comes from.”

“I think it’s really important that we educate people that this is a tool, and not a creature.”

“If something is a creature, I’m happy to have people talk about it as such. But I think it is dangerous to project creature-ness onto a tool.”

“There are companies now that offer, for lack of a bette work, romantic companionship A.I.s… I personally don’t feel any interest in that. But I understand why other people do.”

Sam says that there will be very interactive GPT4 powered pets, robots, companions: “And a lot of people seem really excited about that.”

Lex mentions a very popular blog post Sam wrote, How to be Successful: https://blog.samaltman.com/how-to-be-successful

“I think it’s way too tempting to take advice from other people. I think what works for me won’t work as well for other people… I think I mostly got what I wanted by ignoring advice.”

“I tell people not to listen to too much advice.”

Sam talks about how incredible it is, and like a culmination of all of the incredible things humans have worked on, A.I. is and will become.

Sam acknowledges that iterative deployment may not be the most popular way of building an A.I., but he says he and the team believe it’s the right thing to do.

My Biggest Takeaway from this Interview

That conversation at the end was bonkers. This sounds like a long, painful learning curve as the attraction to a low-maintenance (no biological function) partner (dog, girlfriend, husband, etc) is high, and downsides are not well understood.

I somehow see that as a fast track to a miserable life.

I guess I can’t knock it til I try it. Not sure I want to.

Also, I love this:

“I think it’s way too tempting to take advice from other people. I think what works for me won’t work as well for other people… I think I mostly got what I wanted by ignoring advice.”

Some of the biggest mis-steps of my life were having a plan, having someone disagree with me on it, and deviate off my plan — which was very well thought out and emotionally authentic — and integrating too much, if not just any of their advice. Stay humble, stay reflective, stay stubborn! Stay good.