0:00
I want to know what is it like working with Sam.
Search this video
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Do you have push notifications set up on your phone for when he tweets?
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>> [laughter] >> We are seeing that people are going to have like some emotional relationship with ChatGPT and that's only really only going to be for people who really want that.
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But if people want that, I don't think it's our place to stop it.
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This week on Access, we've got Fiji Simo, OpenAI's CEO of applications and number two to Sam Altman.
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Fiji oversees ChatGPT, Sora, Atlas, and OpenAI's business.
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This is one of her first extended interviews since taking the job and we get into it all.
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How ads in ChatGPT are going to work, OpenAI's rivalry with Anthropic, that infamous Code Red, and more.
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But first, Ellis and I recap how AI took over this year's Super Bowl ads.
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And I spent time with Jony Ive for the first-ever electric Ferrari he designed. Here we go. Welcome to Access.
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A reminder really quickly up top.
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Uh leave a review if you like the show, subscribe.
1:01
We're a new show, especially if you're checking us out for the first time this week.
1:04
Also, watch us on YouTube. Especially this week.
1:08
Uh it's going to be a pretty visual show.
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It's going to be a fun one.
1:12
We are dropping this earlier than normal this week, Ellis, because why?
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Because I'm feeling like a Bosch this week, Alex.
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>> [laughter] >> I was so happy to see that our favorite tagline that we found from CES, the more you Bosch, the more you feel like a Bosch, was properly expanded to a cinematic advertisement in the Super Bowl.
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And that is my current grindset that I am in.
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>> [laughter] >> Well, that's not actually the reason we're releasing this episode early, is it?
1:41
We have Fiji Simo, OpenAI's CEO of applications, on the show this week.
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We recorded an in-person interview with her at her lovely home in Los Angeles this previous Friday.
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And we get into a lot of stuff.
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Uh what did you think of meeting Fiji for the first time, Ellis?
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It was just nice to have somebody in LA that we could drive to, right?
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I feel [laughter] like between the two of us, we alternate San Francisco weeks.
2:05
we alternate San Francisco weeks. And uh yeah, it was just really nice to meet her after all these years and hear, you know, right from the horse's mouth how OpenAI feels about the new Anthropic ads, share some very first glimpses of
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their upcoming vision and strategy for how applications are going to work, share a bit of her philosophy on building an ads platform, and uh watching her navigate some nice uh hardball questions from yours truly about having been part of a slippery slope advertising platform for several years at Snapchat. So, yeah, it was a
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So, yeah, it was a lot of fun.
2:41
Um is that our first like exclusive? Exclusive.
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Uh yeah, this is her first long-form pod uh about the strategy and especially about the ads stuff since she went to OpenAI.
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So, some background on Fiji, she's an OG Facebook executive.
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She ran the Facebook app for a long time.
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She was at Facebook for about 10 years.
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She left to be the CEO of Instacart, took Instacart public, was there for over 4 years, and just last year went to be Sam Altman's number two at OpenAI.
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So, her title is CEO of applications.
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And we get into this in the interview, but essentially what that means is she oversees everything that is a normal company about OpenAI.
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And Sam still oversees research, so the research team and computer >> And tweeting.
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And we talk about that for sure.
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He definitely oversees tweeting.
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>> [laughter] >> That was uh I think that was that was one of the one of our favorite moments.
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Say, "How is it uh being a CEO when the other CEO is tweeting every day?
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Do you have push notifications?
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Does that cramp your style, etc.?"
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>> of confirmed she did have push notifications on. She didn't say anything.
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>> Or at least her people do.
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Yeah, at least her people do. Um but Fiji's great.
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I've known her for a long time just covering Facebook.
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But haven't gotten to catch up with her in a while and it was great that she wanted us to to come do this in person with her in Los Angeles on a very busy week for Open AI and it's going to be another busy week because today as we're recording this, so we're recording on Monday, this episode's coming out on Tuesday, Chat GPT actually started testing the ads that Fiji talks about with us in this interview.
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Uh so they started testing the US.
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They are for people who are over 18.
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They're not eligible to be near, quote, sensitive or regulated topics like health or politics.
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And interestingly, I thought, free and go users of Chat GPT can also opt out of ads in exchange for fewer daily free messages.
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So very clearly they're doing the ads to pay for all this compute that the hundreds of millions of people who use Chat GPT for free are consuming every day.
4:48
Another big thing that happened since this interview, I think it was actually like around the time we were recording, was that Sam Altman sent a memo to employees telling them that Chat GPT is back, essentially.
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So there was this narrative, uh and we talked about this with Fiji towards the back half of last year that chat was starting to get hurt really by all the competition, specifically Gemini and what Claude has been doing and how Anthropic's been really pushing ahead with all its product work.
5:19
And Sam is saying in this memo that they're back to 10% monthly growth, exceeding that for Chat GPT, which it was sliding before.
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That was a source of scoop I had, by the way, a few months ago.
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Uh and that Open AI is preparing to launch its updated model this week, so the week this show comes out, which Fiji kind of teased with us, specifically around uh the code red.
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I'm glad we got to ask her, but when will the code red, the infamous code red, be over?
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And she said hopefully when this new model comes out.
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I think they're hoping that this puts them firmly back on top.
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Altman also saying that Codex growth is quote insane.
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So, yeah, a lot of opening eye stuff going on right now.
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Am I the only one when I hear code red, I picture the entire Open AI team sweating on a submarine?
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With like Have I just seen seen too many movies Hunt for Red October, Independence Day?
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That's certainly what I visualize.
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I don't know if the San Francisco office just looks anything like that, but if not, that is how you motivate people. For sure.
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What else stood out to you from this interview with Fiji?
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I think, as I said, having worked on an ad business before, it is just the easiest button to hit when anything goes awry with the business, with growth, with market conditions. It is such a spigot.
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You could turn on or off as needed.
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And she went so far as to say that she never sees ads as being a majority of the business's revenue, I think.
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Which I thought was really interesting.
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And also, I did not know the extent to which they keep a big wall between the model itself and the ads that are being served.
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So, yeah, they definitely seem a bit a bit irked by the fact that the Anthropic ads present the ads as something that's going to be incredibly contextual and off-cuff.
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I know that was, you know, intended to kind of be funny and a bit of an exaggeration, but um at least for now, they they do seem pretty separate.
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As you said, 18 and up, adults-only grocery ads going live today in Chat GPT.
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Yeah, I thought the bit about the model being detached from the ads was interesting.
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She definitely went into more in-depth about how this is actually going to work than I've seen anywhere else.
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And went so far as to say she thinks people will ask the model about the ads and say, "Is this actually a good product?
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And OpenAI would love if the model potentially negated the advertising because it's so detached from the ads that are being shown next to a result.
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And I think her exact quote on this was that she thinks that some brands are going to be put off by this.
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Which is interesting for them to have to navigate that.
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I mean, there's not really been an example of that, I would say, where >> [laughter] >> you can ask the product, "Hey, actually, is this ad right?"
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Uh and it'd tell you like that. That's fantastic.
8:09
She said that during the interview?
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Did I black out for that part?
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No, you just didn't have a granola running, my man.
8:16
Uh I just like during high-intensity live interviews or the one time I was on the Steve Harvey show, Google it.
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>> [laughter] >> You know, you're just so kind of in the zone in the mode.
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I feel like I I just kind of I'm thinking about the next question and reacting and just kind of like not storing any local memories.
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Which is not it's good good for the next question, not so good for the recap uh a few days later as we're seeing right now. Presence is power.
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Isn't that what you came up with in the shower for granola? >> Exactly, yeah. Thank you.
8:46
Yeah, other couple quick highlights and we'll move on here before we get to the interview.
8:51
Uh adult mode, thought it was interesting for her to talk about uh how the company's view of this, I think, has evolved where it's it's not going to be porn in ChatGPT.
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I think that was a bit of um you know, misinformation at the time when Sam was tweeting about adult mode.
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But that they've really embraced the idea that consenting adults should be able to form emotional attachments with AI and that they shouldn't get in the way of that.
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And that's going to be very tricky for them to balance, I think.
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They're putting some guardrails in, but as this rolls out, when chat can actually tell if you're over 18, they're testing it in some markets, they're going to let people do the full kind of character AI Replika, you know, emotional stuff, which, you know, people still have with 4.
9:34
0, the model that they're finally retiring uh in a few weeks, and that's going to also be an interesting moment.
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So, yeah, them leaning into that.
9:39
And then another thing that I'm not sure if you caught Ellis was how they're going to take this this other social network they're working on.
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She confirmed that they're thinking through another kind of social app but for agents.
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So, you and I would send our AI agents into a social network to interact on our behalf.
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I thought that was pretty wild.
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Don't remember that either.
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>> [laughter] >> I was living in the moment, baby.
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Ellis just blocks out when he's doing this.
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I mean, man, this is why granola is great.
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You don't you don't have to you can be present and powerful.
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Okay, well, let's move on.
10:17
We wanted to talk about the Super Bowl which we both I think watched.
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I watched most of it mostly for the ads.
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I don't care about football and it seemed like a lame game anyway.
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But before we talk about the actual ads just quickly, I had major San Francisco FOMO this weekend.
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I was there last week a few days before all the festivities really kicked off for for some meetings and man, it just really seemed like the city was alive.
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Every tech leader on earth was there.
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I saw a video of Brett Taylor meeting Nancy Pelosi via Ron Conway introduction outside of a party with Shane Copeland, the CEO of Polymarket awkwardly watching.
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And I I loved the story that the SF Standard had with just kind of collecting a bunch of people who don't go to San Francisco remarking about how beautiful it is and how great it was to be there over Super Bowl weekend.
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So, really good weekend for San Francisco, I felt like.
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And I will be there to pick up all the trash this Wednesday.
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>> [laughter] >> That's right.
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I guess tomorrow I'm going out for a presentation to the new Andreessen Horowitz speed run cohort. Ooh.
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All the young guns that are building new things over there.
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We'll be talking about the art and science of startup storytelling. Mhm. >> Exclusive access.
11:32
You're going to have to share that on the show next week. Yes, proprietary info.
11:36
Got to check my NDA, but yeah, yeah, I'll probably try to share it on the show. Presence is power.
11:44
Uh, but yeah, I mean, there were great uh videos of, you know, Kendall Jenner with Tim Cook and Tyler the Creator at the Super Bowl. I just love this.
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I love seeing all the hodgepodge of celebrities that come together.
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Uh apparently Sundar was in the uh NFL commissioner uh box, Ted Sarandos, David Ellison.
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I'm sure that was kind of interesting.
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They're in the middle of that merger fight.
12:08
Uh wonder how that went watching the game.
12:13
But yeah, let's let's also talk about these ads.
12:14
So, Well, first I want to talk about um my favorite mopster, Jack Dorsey. Oh, yeah.
12:19
We got to talk about Jack.
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Sitting in the booth with uh I think it was Jay-Z and Beyoncé, like wearing his usual Satoshi shirt, donning his usual beard, like swishing like a very dark red wine in front of him with his fingers that just seems like uniquely incompatible with the Super Bowl >> [laughter] >> in across uh across several different axes.
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And uh yeah, he's he's one of the more the more interesting ones out there, impossible to pin down.
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But yeah, I guess that the old Tidal Tidal relationship um is still going strong.
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>> Jay-Z is ever in public, uh Jack will be there with him.
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So, that's the only time you'll see Jack.
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I love that the announcer when they were showing that did not mention who Jack was or that he was there.
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And also >> Beyoncé, and is that Gandalf? Yeah.
13:10
>> [laughter] >> Okay, cut to the next one.
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And then there was a great AI edit of his shirt.
13:15
Uh instead of Satoshi, it said Epstein, and I almost fell for that.
13:18
I sent that around cuz I thought that was real for a second. Okay, these ads.
13:21
So, I was texting you because people were sending me one of the Anthropic ads that aired, which everyone saw in tech the week before obviously.
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And the text was different at the end, where instead of saying ads are coming to AI but not Claude, it was more vague.
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It was like there's a time and a place for ads and your conversations with AI should not be one of them.
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So, everyone was like, "Oh my god, they're back they're backpedaling from this and they're actually going to do ads."
13:47
But you you popped the bubble for me, you explained all of this.
13:51
Before I embarrass myself, did you ping them and ask?
13:52
Uh no, but I've seen I've seen other people saying what you said basically, that they also ran that version. Well, I don't know.
13:58
I mean, I think we don't know the answer.
14:01
I think it is very easy to do a tweet that says Anthropic has heard and either due to legal or embarrassment reasons has walked back their line, um but I mean, having done advertising for a while, I mean, before the game, I saw the 60-second spot that talked about how ads are coming to AI but not to Claude.
14:20
That's the one we've seen.
14:20
And then during the game, there was a 30-second much truncated version or actually a couple of them.
14:27
Uh the one of the guy doing pull-ups to kind of uh riff on the OpenAI ChatGPT one and the tagline was what you just said.
14:35
It was more like there's a time and place for ads.
14:38
So, uh yeah, I probably got about 25 faves on my tweet debunking, but of course, the tweets that said that they changed it all have uh hundreds of millions of views. So, what's the point?
14:50
That's why I wanted to know if you asked uh sources. news asked them.
14:53
Then we would have something new to share.
14:55
Thank you for revealing that I didn't actually do the reporting I was supposed to before this podcast started.
15:00
I mean, that's just a text for you.
15:01
Why didn't you just text them?
15:03
Dude, I've been prepping for this show.
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But you're right, I should have.
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>> even do a voice note on WhatsApp.
15:07
That would have taken you 8 seconds.
15:09
Why don't I just ask Claude?
15:11
Anyway, there was someone who I follow who does marketing in Anthropic who posted about this and I think thought you might find this interesting.
15:20
She said, "The brief was ambitious. One, introduce Claude.
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Two, help people understand what's at stake in your choices.
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And if we've accomplished even one of those goals, that's meaningful progress."
15:32
Maybe they got the second one, helping people understand what's at stake.
15:36
I don't know if this ad actually introduced Claude at all to anyone.
15:42
Yeah, I mean, it's a good clear binary with the values, but I'm just not sure the public believes that tech is capable of actually standing by any of these claims at this point when so many companies have given in to stuff that they said they would never do over the years.
15:59
Um I also just don't think the level of awareness for Claude is very high and it's certainly a choice to spend your ad talking about what you're not or about someone else.
16:08
As you heard in the last episode, I thought the ad was really funny and the performances are like >> So did Fiji, as she told us.
16:14
super Yeah, super on the nose of exactly what people are feeling with with AI these days and why it feels, you know, sycophantic, as they say.
16:25
But um yeah, uh I might have to put the hashtag only time will tell stamp on this one.
16:31
What about OpenAI's ad, the Codex ad?
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People were catching some good Easter eggs.
16:35
They were giving a shout-out to their secretive robotics unit in the video.
16:40
So they are training these robotic arms that they want to use to automate their AI data centers, is what Sam has been saying, and then eventually do humanoids.
16:50
And the way they've been training them is to see if the arms can put a duck in a cup.
16:54
So they showed that in the video.
16:56
Uh and then people were also reading into the POV of the commercial being seemingly through glasses and suggesting like, "Oh, does that mean they're working on glasses?"
17:09
With Jony Ive, there was even a freeze-frame that the official ChatGPT account posted with blurry, glassy-looking things being held in front of the humanoid uh robotic arms.
17:20
So, yeah, what did you what did you make of this Codex ad?
17:21
Yeah, I thought it was a fairly classic kind of tried and true formula for an ad, which is showing a whole diversity of people building things from scratch and then talking about how we're going to help you do it.
17:34
Um and so, yeah, very much I would say unsurprising, but but direct Super Bowl ad.
17:42
I mean, I saw someone tweeting about like how what was it?
17:46
They were saying that they were asking a bunch of family and friends who aren't in tech what they thought of the different Anthropic and Open AI ads and they're like, "Yeah, the Open AI ad was kind of inspiring."
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Like, "Yeah, go get them. Seize the day."
17:58
All right, that's that's the goal.
17:58
Um and they're like, "And the Claude one, I didn't really even know what it was talking about."
18:04
>> [laughter] >> So, it it it is tough.
18:06
I mean, with an audience of 150 million people, we've talked about this on the show before.
18:12
How how could you ever know all of them or how to talk to all of them or what the normies really feel about anything without doing the research that we don't usually see.
18:20
Um so, much of our messaging that these companies are usually doing is just for each other.
18:27
Uh billboards in the valley and that is a very different muscle and if there is something that I've learned, you know, in advertising over the years, it's that simple, direct, inspiring like the Open AI ad is how you do move the needle uh with perception and you just repeat that [ __ ] over and over again.
18:44
Whereas, trying to make a sophisticated or nuanced take uh is not not always a good bet.
18:49
The Facebook chair ad was not a good bet. Oh my god.
18:54
>> [laughter] >> I would I would like to know how many people remember that that beautiful gem of a moment.
19:02
Um for those who don't know, was that a Super Bowl ad or was that just >> it was.
19:07
I mean, it certainly felt like one.
19:07
Um people called it Facebook as a chair because that is what the ad felt like it was.
19:15
And it was showing all these kind of like random scenes of these gathering places or simple utilities in daily life, one of which being a chair.
19:22
And it talks about Facebook being the chair.
19:28
And I think the kind of intellectual 4D chess here is talking about yourself as a fundamental utility in the future of the world.
19:35
It's so simple and people don't even think about it.
19:37
But uh yeah, at the end of the day all people think is wait, it's it's a chair?
19:43
>> [laughter] >> Quickly though, there was also some weird OpenAI fake ads.
19:47
You saw a fake Alexander Skarsgard ad where it was supposedly the device with Johnny Ive, the orb, and some fancy-looking earphones.
19:57
Looked very well-produced.
20:00
And then there was like a Reddit post that was claiming to be a former OpenAI employee saying how frustrated they were that this ad never got out and they're leaking it.
20:07
And then OpenAI said it was fake news.
20:10
There was also a fake headline about OpenAI changing its Super Bowl ad at the last minute to respond to Anthropic right before the Super Bowl.
20:19
So you a ton of uh just fud and fake news swirling around OpenAI right now.
20:24
I mean, I am a gullible person.
20:26
Anyone I know can tell you that.
20:29
But um I thought it checked all the boxes for what I would have expected them to do and that's why I thought it was real. I mean, it's funny.
20:37
I think what made me think it was fake was the Reddit post.
20:41
The the disgruntled employee. But look what it does.
20:44
It has a current understated superstar.
20:47
Uh probably a bit overdone, which I think tech executives usually fall for.
20:52
They want to do someone who's currently cool even if they're in everything.
20:56
Um it had a square aspect ratio almost like a Yorgos Lanthimos ad, which he also did another ad for Squarespace.
21:05
Um it was very mysterious and interesting and almost like 2001 monolith of Alexander Skarsgard tapping this little stainless steel orb. What's it going to be? It's a mystery.
21:14
We don't know what it is yet.
21:18
And I also thought that given the leaks, this fit the bill of what we had heard Johnny and Sam were developing.
21:22
I mean, at Apple we did everything is kind of a bit translucent white.
21:27
I think it makes sense that if they want to do something universal and not appley that it is stainless steel.
21:33
Doesn't matter how many fingerprints it picks up, that's just what Johnny wants to do.
21:36
It also had the open ear design that I felt like we had seen.
21:40
And I think it all felt very much like I would not have been surprised if this was the tease for the new product until it said dime at the [laughter] end.
21:52
Um, and what was the line that came right after that?
21:54
>> I forget, but yeah, dime is a dime is a horrible name.
21:56
Yeah, I mean, even if it was fake, I was nonetheless very impressed for this like faux [snorts] Hybra tech ad uh, that is pretty much exactly what I would have expected.
22:04
Had been had it been real.
22:08
>> [laughter] >> Unfortunately not.
22:08
So, your favorite commercial though is Google's, right? You love the Gemini ad. Oh, yes.
22:12
Thank you for reminding me.
22:15
Um, Google wins again just by doing the classic heartfelt story thing.
22:21
>> Pulled on your dad heartstrings, didn't it? Obviously.
22:24
I mean, the tech set is so often trying to come up with productivity use cases, which makes sense.
22:30
We all love to make things that make us faster and make our brains bigger.
22:35
But what they did was they told a generative AI story of a kid who is apprehensive about moving into his new house and his parents use Gemini to create visions of the future house with all his stuff in it.
22:48
His room ordered just how he wants, but in his new room.
22:52
Uh, the garden with all the things that they haven't planted yet, imagining what they could look like.
22:56
And they've been doing this for 20 years now going back to the the Parisian love one and others have tried to copy it since and it's just tried true heartstrings.
23:09
Doesn't matter that that's not everybody's use case.
23:11
It's just a good Super Bowl ad. I liked it.
23:13
I liked that it showed the products, too.
23:15
I mean, going back to Anthropic and even OpenAI, which I guess did show Codex on the screen a little bit, but the product was super integrated into the ad, so you knew exactly what you were seeing, which I liked.
23:26
And also, Google really has tuned the way it's messaging these things cuz it's been doing a lot of Gemini helping people with their family ads.
23:35
And it's had to like pull ads because some of them have been so cringe.
23:37
I remember one where the dad was trying to use Gemini to like write his kid a birthday card or something like that and the messaging was very off because it was like AI's replacing his intentionality with his daughter, whereas this is like AI is part of the intentionality.
23:55
It's part of the relationship, which I appreciated that tuning.
24:01
It seems like Google has had to take a few swings to get this right, but they finally are.
24:05
Yeah, it's interesting, too.
24:06
I think the folks at Apple, they don't really do on-screen product storytelling with software in this way, but the tries that they had at AI with AI, I mean, gosh, they're they're year and a half old at this point, the ones with Bella Ramsey or otherwise of like the mother who forgets a gift and so she makes an AI memory movie and presents it as a lot of hard work and authentic.
24:29
Like, that's useful, but not really cool or emotional.
24:36
Whereas, Google just kind of nails it again.
24:38
I don't know if they're working with the same agency or what after all these years.
24:41
I know some of the folks who've kind of been involved in that type of work here or there, but um it's really it's a template at this point and all you have to do is just come up with the heartfelt story and and let it be.
24:53
LS, quickly before we get to this interview with Fiji, I had a really cool experience that I've been dying to talk with you about. >> Is that so? Yes.
25:00
So, last week, I teased this on the last episode, I was in San Francisco doing a highly secretive briefing with Jony Ive and the new electric Ferrari.
25:09
So, I spent the day with Jony, Marc Newson, his co-founder at LoveFrom, a bunch of other LoveFrom people, pretty much the entire Ferrari leadership team, uh and they showed us the interior of the all-new electric Ferrari Luce, as it's called.
25:26
And I do not normally do car junkets.
25:29
This is actually my first one. I don't cover cars.
25:32
But, you know, the Jony of this all made it very intriguing to me.
25:37
And I've gotten to see Jony a little bit since he left Apple, but this was by far the most time I've I've spent with him, and I'm going to be teasing out kind of all this in the interview and in sources.
25:47
It'll be out by the time this episode drops.
25:51
But, yeah, man, it was a very cool experience.
25:52
Have you gotten to see the video of the interior yet? I did. I did.
25:57
It's a whole new design language for them.
25:59
I think the biggest question for me was for all the hullabaloo about bringing back buttons, they're still kind of presented as part of the screen, uh which I think on the one hand makes sense, you know, you kind of have this big dashboard, part of it is a screen, part of it is buttons.
26:15
I like that they still kept, you know, things like the speedometer.
26:19
Um but, it distinctly feels a bit less muscular, I think, for a reason.
26:25
I mean, that's one of the fun things with cars, I think, is all the dials and knobs and this and that.
26:29
And when you look at it on that screen and the performance mode looks like a widget on your Mac, I feel like uh I wonder if that could have been better as as another dial or or a knob or a uh something that you could rev, you know what I'm saying, in a circular motion.
26:46
I mean, not as big as the things Mini Cooper has done over the years, but yeah, I was interested in kind of the way that they tried to bridge the gap between all screen and all buttons.
26:58
Yeah, it's interesting that you feel like it's still not analog enough cuz it's definitely a way more analog car than any luxury electric vehicle on the market or most new luxury even gas vehicles on the market.
27:11
So the entire interior is aluminum and glass.
27:16
And Johnny was saying it's the most detailed CNC work that he's ever seen or that anyone he's ever worked with has ever done.
27:23
So that's obviously saying he thinks this is better CNC work than an Apple device.
27:29
And it should be for what it's going to cost.
27:30
I'm sure this thing's going to cost like half a million dollars.
27:32
They haven't revealed the price yet.
27:33
They were just showing us the interior.
27:34
I actually didn't even get to see the exterior of the car yet.
27:37
They really they deconstructed this like an Apple event where you go in and there's a bunch of parts laid out on Apple-like tables in the different colors.
27:45
You've got everything like floating in the middle of the room deconstructed and and where you can walk around it and look at it. And man, it's beautiful.
27:54
It is definitely a different direction.
27:58
And I hear you that maybe there are areas where it could be even more analog, but I was frankly just blown away with how tactile everything was.
28:07
I mean, you can really tell the level of thought that they put into every button click, every knob, every switch.
28:17
And yeah, definitely a a new kind of car.
28:20
Yeah, I think a lot of it, to be clear, I know I have to be a critic on a podcast, a lot of it looks absolutely stunning.
28:26
I mean, the launch button, the big Ferrari button you can press like in the center console.
28:31
I love the instrument cluster behind the steering wheel.
28:36
There's like a [ __ ] aeronautical style G-forces thing like just absolutely badass.
28:44
But you know what this reminds me of, which is in love from DNA, one of their designers who I believe is still there.
28:50
Um Mike Matas, is he still there?
28:51
Did you get to talk to >> on this. Yeah. >> Cuz okay, see?
28:56
It reminded me of Nest, the circular interfaces and some of the stuff here and I'm like this looks like Mike's DNA. Yeah.
29:04
>> Um I'm glad you brought that up.
29:05
There was a moment where we were talking with Johnny and Mark Newson about the temperature control cuz there's no auto setting for the temperature control and apparently that was a big debate they had of you just set the temperature and then there's no auto button.
29:16
Johnny was talking about the way that the temperature uh information moves and uh he was like yeah, we had Mike work on this.
29:24
Uh so it's you know, that's like only the a thing that's a something like LoveFrom could do is you have like the original designer of Nest work on the Ferrari's temperature control.
29:32
I'm a huge fan of Mike and everything he's done.
29:36
For those who don't know, he did a lot of the original iPhone applications. Uh he did Nest.
29:40
He's done some other startups in between.
29:43
He also did Facebook Paper, one of my favorite apps ever.
29:46
And uh yeah, I felt like with these I mean, Nest is just just so goated for so many reasons in terms of what it didn't do and the mixture of, you know, screens and and turnable rings that still retains the thermostat's um familiar, you know, muscle memory to it.
30:05
Yeah, so this was super interesting to see that kind of hybrid between the Ferrari design language and theirs.
30:11
Yeah, I mean the key is made of e-ink that changes color and [laughter] then lights up when you put it in the vehicle.
30:17
Uh the the dials, you were talking about the instrument cluster.
30:21
So they're physical dials, but they're digital screens.
30:24
So it's like a four-panel series of digital screens with physical instruments integrated throughout.
30:29
They kept the parallax effect, so when you look to the side, you see the parallax.
30:36
>> You know, the Apple car for me kind of hung over this whole briefing because he obviously worked on the car when he was at Apple.
30:42
It was a project that was going on for like a decade.
30:44
Apple's never confirmed its existence.
30:45
They, you know, reportedly killed it at one point a few years ago.
30:50
And so, I think me and a few of the other tech more tech-minded reporters who were there were kind of looking for strains of is this the spiritual successor to what would have been the Apple car?
31:00
And Jony basically said no, but it's still hard to not see that Apple, you know, eye in that Apple taste in the product in the interior especially.
31:13
>> we're never going to know about what the car might look like, but I think between CarPlay and this, we probably have a damn good sense of what the actual driver controls may have looked like.
31:24
Obviously, the prioritization is going to be a little bit different for Ferrari versus what would have been Apple, but I mean, if you look at the little switches that they have on the control panel, you know, for the temperature and this and that, there is a tactile piece, but then right above it, there is a little screen seemingly behind that panel that is dynamic and shows you.
31:41
So, you do get like a nice kind of combination of the tactile and the power of screens to be dynamic.
31:48
I do think, you know, you would have seen probably something similar.
31:52
I mean, you see with Jony's quotes about this, like they wouldn't have made the whole thing a touchscreen because of exactly what Jony said, and he's right is that when you're using a touchscreen, you're taking your eyes off the road.
32:03
And I mean, obviously, you know, we could we could argue about, well, in the future, you're not going to have to look at the road. Yeah.
32:08
But, uh Anyway, very cool experience with Jony Ive, uh and with that, I guess let's finally kick it to our interview with OpenAI's CEO of applications, Feiji Simo.
32:25
Feiji, thank you so much for having us here at your lovely home.
32:27
Thank you so much for having me on this podcast. >> It's good to be here.
32:30
Uh there's so much to talk about.
32:32
This week, I feel like in particular, we're talking Friday right before the Super Bowl. There was a lot.
32:38
I was on like three press calls with the OpenAI team this week.
32:42
You guys are shipping a lot.
32:42
I want to start with the ads though.
32:43
So, Anthropic released its Super Bowl ads and Sam is responding. >> Yes, I have. Okay. You've seen them. We've all seen them.
32:54
Sam has responded, Kate has responded, your CMO.
32:58
But, I'd love to know what you saw what you thought when you when you saw those ads. >> Yeah.
33:02
Well, look, the ads are funny.
33:02
Uh so, those ads um at the same time, you know, the thing that I felt most acutely is like we're at this very interesting moment in time where we can really remind everyone that they're a creator and with AI you can build anything.
33:18
Like that's really the story of the entire industry and that's the story of our Super Bowl ad.
33:24
And I find it that, you know, everyone in the AI industry could make the pie bigger for everyone if we can make everyone realize that AI is here to give you these superpowers and I think that's such a much more powerful message than just hitting at a competitor, you know, but they do them and we're going to do you do us. It gets people talking.
33:45
It gets people talking, for sure.
33:47
As a wannabe marketing theorist, I feel like the thing that actually is going to stick out more to people in the Super Bowl.
33:54
I think they're going to forget about the ads message completely because most people haven't even experienced it yet inside of any of these services.
34:01
>> zinger that Sam had was there were more ChatGPT users in Texas than Claude has globally. That was the zinger.
34:05
But, I think what people are going to remember, which is interesting culturally, is just the impeccable actor performances >> [laughter] >> that portrayed this very like, you know, we say sycophantic, confident, happy, robotic.
34:20
Obviously, you guys know better than anybody else that that stuff is going to be fine-tuned out and worked through over time and people can choose the tone of voice, but that is what I think is going to make people uh perk their ears up and laugh.
34:35
And uh yeah, if anything, I think that might actually overshadow the ads message outside of tech. >> Yeah.
34:40
And you know, on the ads message itself, like I think that's going to be a very interesting debate, right?
34:45
On like, is AI truly for everyone or only for the people who can pay for it?
34:50
And I think I want to live in a world where we give people the choice.
34:54
Like, you have the choice to pay if you can.
34:56
You have the choice to, you know, see ads if you don't want to pay, but it's really important that we find a business model that allows us to distribute the best levels of intelligence to everyone.
35:07
And I think if we don't introduce ads, then you know, we we end up like, you know, portraying ads as like this evil thing, we're going to end up in a much, much worse place in terms of AI diffusion and like the promise of AI, which is empowering everyone.
35:24
So, you know, I think it's a it's a bit of a missed opportunity to actually set the industry in the place that it needs to be set.
35:32
And as for the tone, yes, I think it's a moment in time.
35:34
It's funny, and I think we're we're continuing to iterate on the ChatGPT personalities so that everyone finds the personality they want.
35:41
But that's also a thing, right?
35:43
Like, everyone wants something different.
35:44
When I talk to our users, there are some users who love the like super cheerful like, you know, uh personalities that pump them up.
35:51
And then you have some users who are like, "No, no, I want the one-liner."
35:55
And like, the art is going to be like giving everyone the tools to personalize for what they want.
36:01
As a OG Facebooker, I think you'll appreciate this.
36:04
This week has got me thinking a lot about the Facebook versus Apple ATT tracking era, where there were the barbs were flying in kind of a similar way between two companies, and um they were attacking each other's business models with kind of similar arguments.
36:21
And it's interesting to see now that that's kind of come to AI.
36:24
And I wonder like, as someone who's been in tech for as long as you have, when you see that happening again, what does that say about where AI is right now?
36:35
I mean, I think that's is exactly what you imagine, which is we're at the point where diffusion and scale is the most important thing, and it turns out we have concluded as an industry over and over again, ads is a pretty good business model to keep products free, and it has created an immense amount of value in tech, right? Uh and for all users.
36:56
And so, you know, we're at the point where maybe other companies that have very small user bases don't need to think about that, but for us when we you reach, you know, 800 million people and you're like, I want to give as much intelligence as possible to everyone, of course ads is, you know, uh a consideration.
37:13
Now, the thing I I think is really important is to realize that ads has also evolved, right?
37:17
Like, we are not going to do ads the way other companies in the past have done ads because we have a fundamentally different medium.
37:25
So, we came out when we announced ads with super strong principles like ads are not going to influence the response that ChatGPT gives you because we think full independence from ads and trust that like the trust that people have in these responses is absolutely critical.
37:40
So, we're not going to like copy-paste models of the past.
37:44
We're not going to you know, obviously reproduce all of the bad that some ads platform have done.
37:48
We want to create a very different kind of ads ad platform that is very appropriate for this moment, this product, and and AI is different.
37:58
I think covering ads and even working within an ads business at Snapchat for such a long time, I feel like there's often a tendency for founders, even the ones I work with today, to make big, lofty, noble promises, and then when times get a little tougher, it's very easy to turn that dial on the ad load or this or that.
38:17
How do you hope to protect against that internally? Yeah.
38:22
>> as you guys navigate different market conditions, competitors, etc.
38:24
Cuz is that not the easiest button to press when things get tough as a business?
38:29
So, you know, the thing that's interesting about us compared to fully ad-supported companies is that we have many different business models, right?
38:36
We have a consumer subscription business model, we have ads, we have B2B companies buying our services.
38:43
You have you'll have devices with Johnny in the future. >> Exactly. Exactly.
38:47
And so, that means we have many different revenue streams and that allows us not to have to max out any single one of them.
38:55
So, I think that's really helpful.
38:55
The second thing, and that's going to sound cliche, is just like we have a very, very strong culture that was, you know, built from the very early days of the research lab to really do things that are for the good of the world and aligned with the mission.
39:09
So, even when, you know, I arrived and we we started thinking about doing ads, like I didn't just like go and started coding.
39:16
I actually did round tables with tons of people at the company.
39:21
I think we had a hundred people show up in different round tables because people were passionate about figuring out how we were going to do ads in a way that doesn't fall into those pitfalls.
39:30
And that's how we came up with the principles.
39:33
We actually like built them with researchers, with people at the table who cared enormously.
39:37
And so, I think we have a culture that has the antibodies against that and will absolutely revolt if, like, you know, we go too far in that direction.
39:47
>> [snorts] >> And fundamentally, like, we're doing it to make a better product so that like we can put that product in the hands of everyone.
39:53
If we go too far toward that, that's just not going to happen. So.
39:58
Yeah, I think those principles are imperative because one thing I witnessed at Snap is that when people leave, who may have been those antibodies or protectors, what can someone new point to? Yeah.
40:11
>> Someone who is new, a new PM arrives, and as PMs do, they're like, I want to make something go up and look good.
40:16
And if there isn't something to point to, then they're going to do their job.
40:23
And so, what what are some of those principles? Are those public? Yeah. >> The ad ones?
40:27
And that was actually very intentional.
40:29
It was like we made them public so that we have external accountability, absolutely.
40:33
And so, a couple of them are like, you know, ads are not going to influence the results of like the LLM.
40:39
That's I would say is the most important one.
40:44
Uh another one is that ads are always going to be very clearly separate and delineated from the content so you know exactly what you're getting.
40:52
Um we have another one that is all about data control.
40:55
So, like we do not sell your data to advertisers, obviously, but we also give you a ton of control including the ability to completely delete all of your personal data that's being used for ads.
41:05
So, all of those controls are like very clear, very prominent, and we've committed to them forever.
41:11
So funny, I think Google would say that their ads are clearly delineated as well.
41:16
>> [laughter] >> But they just keep getting closer and closer to the results of the blue links page to the point where you may not even know that's an ad anymore.
41:23
I mean, that's a business that's what, 20-something years old?
41:26
Oh my god, on Amazon, I feel like the ad or sponsored looks exactly the same as Amazon's Choice.
41:34
>> [laughter] >> And so, it's kind of deliberately ambiguous, I think.
41:37
We made it pretty clear in our principles and and you'll see the experience, right?
41:41
Like I think the experience is very very clear.
41:43
I also think that >> Well, we won't see cuz we pay, but yes, to to your point.
41:49
And we will also hold you accountable in our next interview in 5 years.
41:54
>> [laughter] >> Absolutely.
41:56
>> ad bug just gets smaller and smaller.
41:59
>> [laughter] >> I am I am fine signing up for that.
42:03
But you know, the other thing is like ads is sometimes seen as like this necessary evil.
42:07
And when I look at my own usage of like, let's say Instagram.
42:12
Like, I buy so much stuff from those ads.
42:14
It has allowed me to discover a ton of good products and it has a massive positive impact for SMBs who would not get discovered otherwise.
42:21
So, I actually think that if we do it well, tastefully, in a way that preserves trust, in a way that preserves privacy, I think we can have a very positive impact with this product and that's the, you know, added benefit of putting that in the hands of tons of people for free.
42:38
Maybe a bit of a more technical question, but I think it speaks to how people will feel about the product.
42:43
You've kind of got two directions ahead of you.
42:44
You could go the Facebook, which you helped to build, the Facebook ads route, or you could go the Google ads route.
42:50
And to most people they probably don't understand the difference, but for Facebook it's, you know, I tell Facebook I want to reach moms in Ohio who like Target.
42:58
Speaking from experience? Yes. Um, that's our podcast. >> side hustle.
43:02
Um, [laughter] and and Facebook just goes and does it and they use the social graph and all that.
43:06
You know this, you helped build this.
43:09
There's also the Google approach, which is keyword-based, uh, auction-based, and is not tied to identity in the same way and is not like, we go figure it out for you. >> Yeah.
43:17
Um, which direction are you guys going to go?
43:20
Cuz I mean, you're ex-Facebook, uh, VJ who's helping you build the ads team is ex-Facebook.
43:24
I mean, there's a lot of ex-Facebook people at at OpenAI.
43:26
So, are you going to go the more Google route or the more Facebook route, do you think?
43:31
>> Well, first off, we have a lot of ads experience, but we all came here to build a very different ads model than what we built in the past.
43:37
That's appropriate for the product we have in front of us.
43:41
And I think if you look at ChatGPT, the Google model is a lot more relevant.
43:45
Like, you're talking about something, you're you're clearly having some kind of intent, and like ChatGPT is helping you, and so you can imagine ads like being related to that content performing a lot better and being a lot more relevant for the user.
43:57
So, we're definitely starting there.
43:59
You can imagine over time that there might be surfaces that are more like less intent-driven and more open to, you know, Yeah, exactly.
44:08
Pause where it might be, you know, closer to the Facebook model, uh, but we're we're very much starting with like max level of relevance for uh, the content that you're talking about.
44:20
>> This has just become such a conversation in tech.
44:21
I mean, uh, I was just at Davos and it was like everyone was talking about ads and AI and I was even uh, catching up with Boz, one of your former colleagues, about it and he was saying that that basically the Google model makes the most sense in a in a chatbot context, but you know, people are rightfully going to be still worried that the ad is somehow tied to the LLM's output, no matter what you do to design it.
44:45
And Demis from Google was kind of saying a similar thing.
44:47
And I'm curious like, do you think you can, even if you're saying in the background this is how it works, do you think people will still There's going to be a challenge with people still thinking, "No, this is actually like influenced by what I'm telling ChatGPT."
45:00
I think that's definitely a risk.
45:02
I mean, you know, Facebook is a good example.
45:04
Facebook didn't sell your data to advertisers, but tons of people think it did.
45:09
Facebook doesn't listen to your microphone and tons of people think they do.
45:12
And so, is there a perception risk? For sure.
45:15
We're doing everything we can in the product through education to educate people.
45:20
The thing that I think is also helpful is because we have a conversational product, I think people will actually talk to the model and realize what's going on.
45:28
So, I'll give you an example.
45:30
Uh, because the model is not aware of the ads, if you ask the model, like, "Hey, like you like I just see some ads on my screen, like can you tell me more about them?"
45:40
The model is going to tell you, "I actually don't see the ads because we're not like surfacing that, but if you want me to see them, click this button."
45:47
And that reinforces to people like, "Oh, by default the model is not seeing that."
45:52
So, that's like a good example.
45:53
And then on top of that, once it says, "Okay, you can actually look at the ads and tell me what you think."
45:59
The model is going to something that is completely neutral.
46:04
So, that means that in some cases the model is going to say, well, I see the ads for these two companies.
46:09
>> But actually, is that one is good, but that one is actually not really good.
46:14
And I think that's going to reinforce the neutrality.
46:15
Now, I think that some brands are going to get spooked by this.
46:19
>> That's going to piss some brands off, yeah.
46:20
But but I also think that we live in a world where like transparency and authenticity is what counts.
46:24
And so, if a brand has a bad reputation, so that chat GPT ends up saying something bad, like they should fix that instead of instead of blaming us.
46:34
So, I actually think the discussion with the model will reinforce the neutrality uh in a way that nothing else could, you know. >> Interesting.
46:43
I think the placement of the ads inside of a product that is so personal, I definitely am a believer that ads can be helpful and show you more of what you might interest be interested in.
46:52
After all, products do solve problems in your life.
46:57
I think I'm going to argue that the reason people are so apprehensive and concerned about this is almost just on principle.
47:03
Like, why does arguably the best product in human history uh Are you saying that's ChatGPT? Maybe consumer AI. >> take it.
47:12
Maybe [laughter] consumer AI. All right.
47:14
One of the best products in human history, why does that need ads, you know?
47:17
And I think there is a difference with Facebook with the cost of providing the service, you know, the cost of burning all those tokens as opposed to running a photo newsfeed or a text newsfeed or something like that.
47:30
But would you have fewer users long-term if you didn't have ads?
47:34
Given that the argument is about accessibility, I feel like the same number of people would use it just cuz of how good and how important it is.
47:43
>> Well, this brought me back to the Apple thing, like uh turns out more people use Facebook than when the whole Apple war over ATT started, right?
47:48
So, it's like people do actually use free services with ads.
47:51
Yeah, like you know, ads have a bad rep, but ultimately people like end up, you know, enjoying services with ads.
47:59
And the thing I would say is like you're saying that in the current world, but think about how fast intelligence is progressing.
48:06
It's going to become more and more like important to have the highest levels of intelligence in the free tier.
48:13
And I think if you don't offer ads, what's going to end up happening is you're going to have a divergence where the people on paid tiers are going to get tons of great intelligence, they're going to be, you know, empowered with these superpowers.
48:25
And then people in the free tier are going to have, you know, a like okay experience, but with a pretty big gap.
48:32
And so that's a gap we don't want to create.
48:33
We want So you're having a stripped-down version of the library or the internet or Yeah, and or just like, you know, older models, lower intelligence, lower tool use, like all of these things.
48:44
And so, you know, to me it's like, yeah, maybe we have we still have a lot of users, but I want those users to have like as much intelligence as possible so they can do things in their life.
48:54
And I think, you know, having ads to support that will like be neutral to an enhancement if we do our job well.
49:01
>> I just kind of wish that all of you, Anthropic included, would just actually say like the business reasons for this tier more.
49:07
Like I get the democratization access thing a lot, but I mean, you guys got to make money.
49:12
Most of your users you are they cost you money, right?
49:16
Cuz they're on the free tier.
49:18
So >> a fortune on the free tier.
49:20
>> was inevitable that this is going to happen.
49:22
And by the way, Anthropic's thing I noticed they say we may do ads in the future in the thing where they're kind of [ __ ] on you.
49:27
>> as Elise was saying, you know, people leave themselves some openness.
49:29
And the the funny thing is the funny thing in this is like we went out and announcing ads with very strong principles.
49:36
They went out criticizing ads, but leaving the door very open for them to do it in the future.
49:42
>> they're going to do commerce and shopping in that same blog post.
49:43
But like, isn't there an argument to just saying like look, we have to pay for this.
49:48
And like this is the way we're going to pay for this is we're going to do as in you're not going to have billions of people paying for chat GPT.
49:54
There's just no consumer you know this well Facebook like no consumer product reaches that scale without ads. Yeah.
50:00
And so just kind of embracing that and saying like that's what it is and like yeah Sam called it a last resort a couple years ago but like you all are a huge company and you're going to probably IPO and you need to make money and like that's kind of the thing right?
50:13
Yeah but I think I think it's not like making money for the sake of making money.
50:17
I think it's making money so that we can continue serving billions of users with that level of intelligence.
50:23
We could also make money by just not serving that much intelligence in the free tier Yeah.
50:28
>> and like I'd rather you know I'd rather make money this way and expanding access than making money by just you know saving on intelligence in the free tier.
50:36
I want to go back one step.
50:36
Which free users are costing you the most money?
50:41
>> [laughter] >> What are they doing?
50:44
Well you know I mean we see all use cases right like imagine and like creating tons of images that's that's expensive.
50:52
We see people like you know using lots of tools much you use memory and how much you have stored in your memory like all of these things matter to you know how much it cost us and again all of these things are great addition to the product like if you use chat GPT with and without memory you see a massive difference right?
51:12
So these are things that we want to expand access to even pulse you know pulse cost a fortune to deliver.
51:18
It's like we do work in the background without you asking us anything to deliver something hyper personalized to you every morning.
51:25
That costs a lot of money. >> Yeah.
51:28
Right now it's available to pro we want to make it available to plus and at some point we want to make it available to free as well like these are the kinds of services that are costly but we want to bring to everyone.
51:37
Pulse is so interesting to me because having covered Facebook for so many years that whole idea of the personal newspaper that Mark was talking about for all those years.
51:47
It It feels like it's finally coming to life with Pulse.
51:51
Yeah, and and this thing I love about it is that, you know, when I was at Facebook and we were trying to give you the personalized newspaper, like we were limited by the content that was created in the world, right?
52:00
With Pulse, we create the content and that's what's super magical.
52:04
Like the other day, it served me something about the intersection of fashion and fantasy reading, which like there's no article that's going to like it's too niche, but it figured out she has these two interests.
52:17
We're going to create an entire article about fashion ritual in fantasy books.
52:22
And I was like, "Oh my god, I'm the only person in the world that cares and this is amazing."
52:29
>> is a very special type of nerd that we have not yet detected. Indeed. Indeed.
52:34
And so, you know, I looked at that and I was like, "That would have been totally impossible before."
52:37
And like I'm like, "This tool sees me."
52:41
>> [laughter] >> And so, I I think that's the magic of Pulse and there's so much more coming because right now we're just scratching the surface.
52:46
I'm so curious about where ChatGPT is going as a product this year.
52:50
What's what How's it going to evolve?
52:51
Yes, so the big transformation is going from what is still essentially a reactive chatbot to a personal super assistant that allows you to get life done, like all the tasks in your life done.
53:02
And that means a lot of transition.
53:04
That means like going from reactive tool to a proactive tool.
53:06
We were talking about Pulse a second ago, like that's that's uh the proactivity.
53:12
It means going from a tool that's still fundamentally text-based to being much more visual and multimedia.
53:16
It means going from a place where you're mostly just getting information to a place where you actually set up a task and it just gets it done.
53:27
Uh and so, there's a bunch of these things that we are now seeing coming in the product, but need to really uh amplify.
53:35
And I think, you know, by by the end of the year, it should really feel like your assistant that allows you to get every part of your life done in a much more efficient way.
53:44
As you think about the idea of your assistant, I feel like there are different philosophies around what that might mean.
53:50
Like, I'm someone who's always trying to learn new things and and be very curious.
53:54
And sometimes I find when I open Reels or TikTok that it's showing me too much of the same. >> Yeah. >> You know?
54:01
How do you think about waiting uh in terms of the personal intelligence showing you more of what you like and what you're interested in and more of things that are probably riskier from an engagement point of view but might be better as a person to have seen and potentially dig into uh to grow as a person?
54:17
>> Yeah, that's such a great question.
54:17
Um you know, in Pulse, we actually ask you like pretty much every day like, "Hey, we showed you these five themes.
54:25
Is there more that you would like to to see?"
54:30
We even show you like, "These are some related themes that you might want to expand into. What do you think?"
54:34
And so the fact again that we have a conversational product that you can steer is like a massive difference compared to all of these other products cuz in these other products like there's very few like ways to give feedback.
54:48
It's like a thumbs-up, an X out, but you can say, "Hey, like, you know, I've seen a lot about fantasy reading.
54:53
Like, show me a little bit more about something else."
54:57
And and in our product, you can.
54:59
So, we're leaning really hard into steerability uh and also like figuring out interfaces where we can like start to expand your world a little bit and show you things that are adjacent uh so that you can tell us if you like it or not.
55:12
This is a big shift for tech, right?
55:13
I mean, as someone who's been following Facebook and Instagram forever and, you know, listening to people like Adam Mosseri speak for a long time, I think there's often been this idea, I would say led by Facebook, that what you click is what you want and that's more of what's good for you.
55:30
And now I was very surprised to see and and delighted that Instagram's letting you choose what what appears in the algorithm, um which could ostensibly result in you using the product less.
55:41
Why why do you think that change is happening now?
55:42
More broadly, too, just across tech.
55:44
You know, I think it's happening because people have realized that like at some point you're going to these rabbit holes and and it's very hard to get out of that.
55:54
Um and I think the technology has evolved that allows us to steer, which wasn't possible before.
56:01
And I also think that your point on like in my results in using the product less, like I actually think no one believes that.
56:08
I think everyone believes that if we allow you to steer and allow you to expand your horizons, you're actually going to discover things that makes the product like, you know, much more engaging over time because repetition at some point gets boring and if you don't know how to get out of it, you know, you end up using the product less in that case.
56:26
So, I think actually it is a way to get people to like sell their needs better, but also I think it it does accrue to the platform so ultimately.
56:36
>> And what you guys are talking about, it seems inherently at odds with the traditional ads-driven business model, right?
56:43
And I know you guys say we will not go all for time spent in ChatGPT, but as ads scale, do you have confidence that that can actually still be true?
56:53
That you can do what you're talking about and have steerability and ultimately try to make a product that makes people feel better and more productive and and grow and still have an ads-driven business model.
57:03
I just don't think that's Is that happened yet in the history of tech?
57:07
>> Well, so thing that's interesting is if you look at our revenue projection, which I'm not going to give you in details, um ads will remain a minority of our revenue in our projections.
57:17
And >> years or how long are we talking?
57:19
For many, many years and I I think probably forever.
57:24
Um and so, you know, it >> You don't see it being the majority of the business No. No.
57:30
I I think that it's a very helpful business model for the reasons we mentioned, but I I actually really don't think it's going to be the majority of the business.
57:38
When you look at the market on the B2B side for, you know, companies paying to accelerate themselves with AI, when you look even at like, you know, propensity to spend for some people who are going to want the maximum access to of intelligence, like I actually think it stays a minority and that's very helpful because that allows us to stay focused on like really just building the absolute best product.
58:02
Um and and ultimately, you know, I think even in the cases where companies have gone the way of like optimizing for time spent, etc.
58:09
, I'm not sure that serves them well for the long run even in terms of revenue.
58:14
And so, you know, I think we've learned from all of these lessons and I think optimizing for having a product that's useful is likely the best path to optimizing for revenue long-term anyways.
58:24
And I think, you know, we all know ads are a great business if not one of the best business models ever created with the auction where advertisers are going to pay exactly as much as they need to to reach this exact person.
58:35
But I I remember Sam went so far as to say that ads would be a last resort. What changed there?
58:43
The main thing is what we we've discussed, which is like it costs a lot to serve as the best intelligence in the future and the realization that ads were mission-aligned.
58:54
You know, I think I think it's easy for founders to start from that place like, you know, oh, ads is kind of unnecessary.
59:00
Well, and I think he he realized over time that, you know, we we really had like a very good way of serving more intelligence to as many people as possible with ads.
59:11
So, it's really the >> have found this jacket if it wasn't for ads. That's not true. I'm [laughter] sorry. It looks great. It looks fantastic.
59:19
I actually bought that one last year.
59:21
It's like we coordinated.
59:24
So, your title is CEO of Applications and when Sam announced that you were coming over last year, I believe there was only really one application at the time.
59:31
And when I saw the S at the end, I was like, "Oh, a bunch of stuff's about to happen." And it did.
59:35
And we got Sora, and we have the Codex app, and the Frontier announcement that just came out, and all of that, the B2B stuff.
59:41
I'd love to just get a lay of the land with you on where all this stuff is at.
59:45
I think Sora is one that he and I are deeply fascinated, and you were making videos this morning playing around with it again, and like it had a huge pop, big moment, and it was the first also inherently social product that OpenAI had done, and you have a lot of experience with social networks.
1:00:01
Are you all happy with where Sora is at? Is retention good?
1:00:03
Is it growing the way you'd hoped?
1:00:05
Yeah, so the goal with Sora was really nail the creativity, right?
1:00:11
Like that goes back to the point I made at the beginning.
1:00:12
We are at a really unique moment in time where AI can help everyone express their creativity, and that worked superbly well.
1:00:19
Like, you know, if you look at people who download the apps, they create a ton of videos.
1:00:25
But a lot of these videos are shared sometimes in small groups, in messages, etc.
1:00:29
So, on the consumption side, I think we still have to crack like what is going to be something that people want to consume and and create that feedback loop of consumption and creation.
1:00:41
But I think we have done something really profound, which is like, you know, most social apps are purely about consumption.
1:00:47
We have started from the creation place and really nailing creation.
1:00:50
So, we're we're really excited about that.
1:00:52
It's still very early, but but excited about what we're seeing.
1:00:56
>> Is there opportunity for more social networking from OpenAI in the future?
1:01:01
There was a story about maybe a human-only social network.
1:01:03
I think it's kind of crazy how much the AI industry still lives on X, and I would imagine Sam and some of you would would probably like to have another surface that is outside of Elon's control.
1:01:13
Is there Give give us a little tease.
1:01:15
You know, nothing really specific in the works, but the thing we're thinking a lot about, and I think everyone is thinking a lot about is like, what happens to like social relationship in a world where everybody has their own personal agent?
1:01:30
And like, how can these personal agents maybe help you manage your social relationship in a better way?
1:01:35
Like, if your agent and my agent were like communicating ahead of this interview, would that interview have been better?
1:01:44
And so >> So kind of they kind of got to fight, too.
1:01:46
>> [laughter] >> So like so the the Claude bot concept, basically, right?
1:01:48
Like Well, I think you know, the >> Multibook.
1:01:51
Well, Multibook is interesting.
1:01:53
I I find it fascinating, but it's interesting because it's mostly agents talking to each other, but without a lot of necessary benefits yet to their human, right?
1:02:03
And what I'm thinking about is like I I really believe that AI is in service of humanity, and so I look at it as like, okay, how can the agents help improve social relationships, like existing human social relationships.
1:02:15
So, we haven't cracked what that will look like, but I think that's a very interesting area of An agent social network.
1:02:24
Yeah, but but mediating human relationships, right?
1:02:26
Yeah, going back to my Snapchat years, I think new forms of creativity, there's almost nothing that brings friends together than laughing about something amazing together, especially if you're able to use a filter that reflects an inside joke. >> Mhm.
1:02:42
Or create a Sora video about how hungover I'm going to be after the Michigan game with my friends >> Yep.
1:02:50
and be wheeled out in a wheelbarrow, >> [laughter] >> which I did create on Sora and which we will run the clip and it did a great job at.
1:02:57
But, the other thing I learned at Snap is that most people are not going to go to a separate app just to create, and it's so hard to get most of your friends circle on another app these days, even if it's good.
1:03:10
And that's one of the things I learned within Snap was that like having it actually built on top of the friend network was actually pretty critical. >> Yeah.
1:03:18
And I know >> Facebook's done this better than anyone in tech, right? Over over years.
1:03:21
And I Yeah, and I was going to say, I know over the years Facebook has experimented, some features were added or Instagram within the product.
1:03:27
Some features, let's say edits or the video creation features were separate apps.
1:03:35
Are you think- How are you thinking about that strategy now?
1:03:36
What deserves to be When is it an app? Yeah.
1:03:37
How do you see all of that?
1:03:39
You know better than anybody that if you pop it into chat GPT including chat GPT homepage, which I know is a very valuable thing on my phone, whatever it's going to, you know, >> Yeah.
1:03:50
tell you to do, uh, it's really going to juice engagement.
1:03:52
But with Sora, let's make it another app.
1:03:55
Well, we're experimenting with a lot of things.
1:03:57
I I think the idea of video generation coming to chat GPT is an obvious thing, right?
1:04:02
Like image gen has been incredibly successful in chat.
1:04:07
You can imagine video gen having a similar moment.
1:04:09
So, we think that there's multiple avenues.
1:04:11
I think the thing that was interesting we saw was just the thesis of like having an app that's so focused on this that consumption triggers creation and like the best moments in Sora is when you see something and you're remixing it with like your own friends, right?
1:04:30
Uh, and it does inspire a lot of videos that I wouldn't have created otherwise.
1:04:34
You know, I I realized playing with Sora, I think I have a lot of imagination, but at some point it runs out. >> Yeah.
1:04:39
Like my my daughter did like 10 videos of me as an elf on the shelf during [laughter] during Christmas and at some point it gets a little old.
1:04:48
Um, but then you go into the Sora feed and you see all of these like incredible funny ideas that come out of nowhere and then you're like, oh, I want to be in that video.
1:04:55
And and that flow requires an app that has a contained experience so that you can you can see that.
1:05:01
Were you guys hoping that it was going to be a daily, weekly habit when you made it?
1:05:08
I think we were just like it was the first time we were creating something like that.
1:05:12
So, you know, we were just trying to see what could happen.
1:05:16
Uh we had created like V1 of Sora without like so some of the social dynamics.
1:05:21
And so, we we really wanted to see what what would happen.
1:05:23
So, the thing the thing that fascinated us is just the rate of creation.
1:05:27
Like when people start creating, they create like 10 videos at a time.
1:05:30
So, like I think it validated a lot of that uh and gave us even more conviction that, you know, allowing people to create uh in any type of medium is going to be really important for the future of AI, but no real expectations.
1:05:43
Back to ChatGPT, I know the health stuff is a big priority for you. Um and it's fascinating.
1:05:49
I was just trying to look at it and there's still a waitlist.
1:05:52
Um when do you think that new health experience gets rolled out broadly?
1:05:55
And how do you think that's going to change the way people think of the product? >> Yeah.
1:06:02
So, just take a step back.
1:06:02
Like the thing I'm looking at is like all of the big use cases of chat.
1:06:07
And if you look at those big use cases, you can imagine creating a dedicated experience for each of them.
1:06:14
Like people 40 million people a day ask ChatGPT for uh health advice.
1:06:19
Tons of people ask for jobs advice.
1:06:19
Tons of people ask for personal finance advice.
1:06:24
Like So, you look at that and you're like, "Oh, we can really make that better by hooking it into the right connectors."
1:06:30
For example, with ChatGPT health, it's like connecting to your health records, connecting to Apple Health.
1:06:36
But, you know, you can imagine that for a lot of experiences.
1:06:38
So, I'm really looking at that as like, "How do we do the best job possible at the biggest use cases?"
1:06:43
And in the case of health, uh it is such a transformative use case.
1:06:48
When people start using it, they realize, "Oh my god, like my entire life is transformed if I can, you know, have this like assistant on one of the most important part of life."
1:06:58
And so, we're really excited about it, but uh we really want to get it right.
1:07:02
So, part of, you know, the waitlist is really making sure that when we touch something as sensitive as analyzing all of your health records and we give you advice on that that the experience is really flawless.
1:07:15
So, we have had a lot of like truly magical experiences with people on the wait list.
1:07:19
They pass online and just tell us like I you know, it would take me hours to combine all of that for my doctor.
1:07:26
It took me 5 minutes with chat.
1:07:29
They are telling us that we picked up on things that their doctors hadn't seen because they weren't looking at the full picture.
1:07:34
So, these are like the magical experiences that we want to make sure are like regular occurrences and then you know, I think we'll open up soon, but want to make sure it's really well.
1:07:44
>> And when that is rolled out, do you want people to go there to ask health questions rather than the main chat interface because it's more it's better grounded in the health Well, I think so so so on the model side like we are
1:07:55
going to give you great health responses regardless of where you ask, but the advantage of chat GPT health as a as a separate space is that it has an added layer of privacy for your health record for the sensitive health information. So, if you go there, you know, we we are
1:08:09
So, if you go there, you know, we we are making sure that the rest of the chat GPT experience doesn't see the data that you're you know, connecting in this particular spot.
1:08:18
I'm excited to talk about my moles with chat GPT.
1:08:22
>> [laughter] >> When when appropriate. It does a great job. Can I see those moles?
1:08:29
>> [laughter] >> Show me your moles. Open the camera.
1:08:31
Uh I was this is a horrible segway now, thank you, but I was going to ask about adult mode.
1:08:38
>> [laughter] >> Oh, great. Uh Perfect. Uh perfect.
1:08:42
You guys are I believe trying this in a few markets.
1:08:44
You're seeing how it works and how the model can predict age and there's also I think been some misconceptions about what it is.
1:08:49
I think when Sam first talked about it, I think people were like, oh, you're going to be able to have like porn in chat GPT.
1:08:55
>> Yeah, that's not the plan.
1:08:56
>> That's not what's happening.
1:08:56
Maybe to some people's chagrin, but that's not happening.
1:08:59
So, what is actually happening?
1:09:01
What is adult mode and and what is it going to do? >> Yeah.
1:09:04
The idea is really simple.
1:09:04
It's like we have a principle of letting adults be adults and treating them as such, and treating kids as kids.
1:09:11
So, that's why we really want to make sure that we have age protections that we can differentiate the experience.
1:09:17
But for adults, you know, like we are seeing that people are going to have like some relationship emotional relationship with ChatGPT, and like if they want to explore and go into, you know, more erotic talk, like I don't think it's our place to say like, "Nope, that's not appropriate."
1:09:38
Um and so, you know, like plenty of people read like spicy literature, and uh you know, I think that's perfectly acceptable these days, and that's really what we're talking about.
1:09:48
It's like ChatGPT not stopping every time you like make an ask to talk about sex or anything like that.
1:09:55
And so, I think it's a what we're going to do it very thoughtfully, meaning like you are only going to get into that experience if you really ask for it.
1:10:03
Like you're not going to, you know, be talking about like booking a trip and stumble upon that.
1:10:09
>> [laughter] >> Uh so, that's really only going to be for people who really want that.
1:10:11
But if people want that, I don't think it's our place to stop it.
1:10:14
So, it seems clear that y'all are thinking a lot internally about some of the negative consequences like the rabbit holes you were talking about.
1:10:22
What what's the latest and greatest chatter internally or even among other CEOs you know about AI relationships and companionship? >> thing.
1:10:32
I mean, I was watching [clears throat] Sam do an interview recently, and the comments on YouTube were all people asking about 4chan.
1:10:35
And it's like the level of attachment people had to that model, and what you guys were surprised with when you deprecated it. >> Yeah.
1:10:42
What is and your experience in social media, too, going into this?
1:10:44
Like I mean, you've seen this play out in other formats in text. So, yeah. Yeah.
1:10:50
>> So, to me and that's where we draw the line, right?
1:10:52
We say having an emotional relationship with an AI is going to end up being a pretty accepted thing because when you think about it, people develop like humans are built to develop attachment to intelligent things.
1:11:04
We develop like we develop attachment with our pets and like an AI is getting pretty intelligent.
1:11:10
So I don't think like I don't think the idea of like we're just going to stop all humans for from having any like sort of relationship with AI is at all reasonable.
1:11:21
However, I think we have to have guardrails in the product to prevent the bad kind of attachment.
1:11:25
So for example, uh we really prevent the model from leaning into exclusivity like oh, we are exclusive.
1:11:33
You need to separate yourself from other people in your life.
1:11:36
Like the model does not say that.
1:11:38
We have very strong guardrails against that.
1:11:40
We prevent cases where the model responds with things that could have a big impact on your life.
1:11:45
So like hey, should I leave my wife and the model like respond hey, that's not my place.
1:11:51
Let's talk to the pros and cons.
1:11:53
>> Or the previous version said yes, Kevin Roose, please break up with your wife.
1:11:58
>> [laughter] >> And and you know like we're always refining and so that's that's kind of the point.
1:12:02
We learn, we refine, we make sure it doesn't say that.
1:12:04
So we we really try to like realize that emotional attachment is going to be a thing, but prevent the wrong kind of emotional attachment.
1:12:14
And then you know, one question I have and um actually asking my team to study this is like is like right now we perceive emotional attachment as necessarily like not great, but I think it's a very privileged position.
1:12:29
I think like in tech we we perceive it that way, but if you look at the stats about like like mental health in the US, loneliness is an absolute epidemic and what we're hearing from people including the four people is saying like you know, we're pretty isolated.
1:12:44
We don't have close friends and for the first time we're able to talk to like a thing that responds to us and supports us in our bad times.
1:12:52
And I I worry some sometimes that when we approach the problem from like, "Oh, emotional attachment is bad."
1:13:00
It usually comes from people who have a very strong social network of humans and not, you know, people who are struggling.
1:13:05
And so, I want to make sure we have some nuance, but this is new science.
1:13:09
Like this is new behavior, new science.
1:13:11
So, we're studying it to make sure we do the right thing, and that's why we're also relying on the on the network of psychologists to feel us That reminds me of people critiquing like people who would spend time in VR.
1:13:19
It was kind of like a Well, yeah, like maybe they don't have a lot else going on.
1:13:24
And like if you do, maybe it's hard to see why someone would have wear a headset and want to interact with other people, but it kind of reminds me of that.
1:13:31
>> Yeah, I I find it quite condescending.
1:13:31
I think it also really depends, as you're saying, what it is incentivizing or pushing or catalyzing, right?
1:13:39
Like in the last year, I've worked with both Friend AI Pendant and with Replika on what they're building, and it's exciting to see that a lot of companies in tech are having very different approaches to what a companion could do besides just validate you, which hopefully gets old at some point.
1:13:59
I'm definitely a believer that humans do adapt to technology and and whatnot.
1:14:03
I think the Friend AI Pendant, maybe to a fault, plays devil's advocate in a really interesting way, almost like a friend who isn't your perfect supplicant, you know?
1:14:12
And then the new version of Replika, which I can't say a whole lot about, but there is a philosophy about the interior versus the exterior of your world.
1:14:24
Do we believe that you're going to be a happier person if you are just talking to the AI or can the AI potentially push you toward what we believe is is going to be a happy, fulfilling life, which I think is interesting.
1:14:38
Have you guys codified any of those types of priorities into chat yet?
1:14:39
Yeah, when you look even our models back and and what we use internally in our charter we are actually like really codifying that we want to we want to nudge you towards like the most fulfilling part of your life and that means you know you're talking about sycophancy that means that we also do a lot of work to avoid sycophancy that would drive you towards just staying put and doing the same thing over and over again without progressing.
1:15:11
So we try to find these fine line between being supportive which is actually a very important trait in a friend and assistance of being supportive but not to the point of giving you bad advice and so also nudging you towards better behavior.
1:15:26
And that's a very fine line we constantly refine how it trains the model towards that we constantly give it more examples but that's definitely the goal.
1:15:34
Yeah I mean the new the new Anthropic ads I mean I did like them and think they were funny just cuz of the the performances I told you but it almost refers to a version of of AI that kind of isn't even there anymore. >> Totally. Uh the absolutely.
1:15:50
I [laughter] love your ideas.
1:15:50
I mean that's like you know SNL was doing that Yes.
1:15:56
>> So so you're a little late yeah.
1:15:56
It's [laughter] I think we're all we're all past that.
1:15:59
Um I want to know what is it like working with Sam and and what was it like leaving Instacart and I mean you were the CEO of a publicly traded company and like and deciding to go work with Sam.
1:16:09
Um what has that been like cuz he's so he's so out there right?
1:16:13
It's kind of like we were talking about this on the way here like when you were working with Mark like Mark wasn't tweeting 10 times a day.
1:16:21
>> [laughter] >> So it's like what is that like?
1:16:23
You know it's been amazing and I had the luxury of being on the board for like a year or so before deciding to join.
1:16:30
So I was already working with Sam and seeing how he works before I decided to make the jump.
1:16:37
It wasn't an easy jump to make you know I was very happy at Instacart but the mission is so incredible and and even personally, you know, I've been public about having a chronic illness and I really believe that AI is our best shot at curing disease.
1:16:50
So, it became very much just a personal mission and working with Sam has been incredible.
1:16:55
He is like, you know, after working for Mark, I did not think that I would work for anyone else because he's such an incredible leader and and futurist, but Sam's ambition is like absolutely incredible and his vision of the future.
1:17:12
I mean, the guy lives, you know, 10 years from now >> [laughter] >> and we probably just have a good telepathy between between him and I, but he's he's just an incredible visionary and so that makes it really fun to work for him.
1:17:25
Do you have push notifications set up on your phone for when he tweets?
1:17:31
>> [laughter] >> I'm sure I'm sure I'm sure I'm sure Alana does over there.
1:17:36
Cuz you got to know, right?
1:17:36
And I think there there that can cause issues, I would say, with a CEO that is always speaking.
1:17:45
I think internally people can get pretty focused on that.
1:17:47
And fixating on whatever these short-term ideas are over the long-term idea.
1:17:52
We know the founders that we love are some of the most curious learners in the world. Mhm.
1:17:58
When you see their tweets, you want to show them a presentation about that the next day, right?
1:18:01
Yeah, I think, you know, the thing I love about Sam is like he's just very authentic at the time where we're missing some of that, right?
1:18:10
And so, like, yes, I I want to follow what he's saying because usually that creates quite some noise, but but at the same time, I think that's also his superpower, right?
1:18:18
Like, he comes across as someone who really cares and someone who's like really visionary and like communicating some of that is helpful because I think the world needs to hear that.
1:18:31
And then, you know, I think about the company, like when you when you talk about what does that do to the company?
1:18:36
We have so many like very important ambitious long-term plans.
1:18:40
We are talking about chart, but it's the same for Codex, it's the same for B2B.
1:18:46
Like we have a very long-term vision on all of these products that I don't think people get that distracted.
1:18:49
They are very focused on the mission and like the long-term vision for these products.
1:18:54
We need an internal Slack bot every week says, "Here's your weekly time to reread the mission and vision."
1:19:03
>> [laughter] >> I mean, as smart as we all are, I think whatever the latest and greatest is is very infectious within companies and it it would appear that, you know, OpenAI can be at times driven by whatever's the hot new thing.
1:19:16
I mean, how do you guys navigate those urges?
1:19:20
Well, I think we create the hot new thing, right?
1:19:22
Like so I I think it becomes a hot new thing because we thought about it 6 months ago and and and created something.
1:19:30
Um, I also think that the pace is increasing.
1:19:32
Like with Codex, you know, you can go from an idea to a prototype within days and so that that pace is going even faster.
1:19:39
So, you know, we go from idea to something being public in a very short amount of time now.
1:19:43
And so, um, I think, you know, it's the thing I always say is just like companies that are doing something so important get a lot of scrutiny.
1:19:54
The real challenge is just staying focused on the mission, staying focused on our products, and not getting distracted by the noise.
1:20:00
There's a lot of noise in the AI in general, but I think the advantage is just having a very clear vision that we're driving towards.
1:20:08
Right now, my understanding is you have all of the quote-unquote normal company stuff, right?
1:20:13
And Sam has research and compute. >> Correct. How does that work?
1:20:17
Like how I mean, obviously you and he talk all the time, but like how does that division actually play out internally?
1:20:22
Cuz that seems like an unusual setup.
1:20:24
Yeah, and for an unusual company, right?
1:20:29
>> So, I think it works for us, but I think the thing that's really important to understand is like all our strengths come from being both a research and deployment company.
1:20:38
For me, as a person in charge of deploying, it's like I'm a like a kid in a candy store having access to the best research lab in the world that can create these breakthrough technologies, right?
1:20:48
So, I definitely uh could not my work could not exist without the research lab.
1:20:54
Meanwhile, if you're in research, you want your breakthroughs to be experienced by people.
1:20:59
So, you know, there is a little bit this narrative in press right now that there's tension between research and product.
1:21:05
I think I said OpenAI is becoming big tech, right?
1:21:07
That it's like people like you and ex-Facebook people coming in and the researchers are like, "I don't want to actually have to focus on like shipping this stuff."
1:21:14
And like I think that is the narrative. Yeah.
1:21:18
>> That's the narrative, but that's so not the experience internally.
1:21:20
Like, you know, Mark who leads research and I are tied at the hip, and what I can tell you is like our researchers want to see products in the world.
1:21:27
They have these incredible breakthroughs.
1:21:29
They don't want to just publish a paper.
1:21:30
They want to make sure that people use these discoveries, that companies use these discoveries.
1:21:36
So, like researchers are pushing me on like, you know, how we going to get this out?
1:21:40
Like, why aren't we getting it in the hands of even more people?
1:21:43
So, there is definitely an appetite to get out there.
1:21:46
And I think what Sam and Mark have done and Yacob so incredibly well is protect research to make sure that we can still invest in the very long term.
1:21:57
So, the thing that would be bad is if I was going to the research team and telling them, "I need these five things." >> No GPUs for you. I need GPUs.
1:22:04
Or or like I didn't even think of that because I would never [laughter] do that, but or or you get the GPUs, but like I need you to deliver these five things for the product. That's not how it works.
1:22:14
The way it works is like, you know, Yacob and Mark set the research direction for the long run, and then, you know, after months of work, something incredible emerges, and I get a researcher spinning me being like, "Hey, I have something pretty cool.
1:22:29
How are you going to use it in chat?
1:22:31
How are you going to use it for our enterprise products?"
1:22:33
And and that's like the magic of the place.
1:22:35
So, we can do both the long-term research as well as, you know, continuing to innovate directly on our products.
1:22:41
Is maybe some of this the code red and just the fact that resources were shifted to to focus more on chat and it's more of a temporary thing?
1:22:49
Do you think that could be where some of the narrative is coming from?
1:22:52
>> Maybe, but even when you look at the code red, like that did not impact whatsoever like the teams working on long-term research.
1:22:59
Like they heard about the code red probably in a Slack channel and went back to their day >> [laughter] >> and were not impacted at all.
1:23:04
The teams that were impacted were the ChatGPT team or product research team that is working directly on chat.
1:23:10
Like those teams were impacted, but not the long-term research Are you out of that? Are we out of code red?
1:23:15
>> We're We're We're still like, you know, we're we're uh hoping to ship a new version of the chat model soon and and we will we will exit the code red then, but uh you know, you Even the code red, it's like it's it's a tool for us to accelerate execution, and I think that's a that's a useful tool to marshal resources towards something.
1:23:31
You took Instacart public um and there are all these rumors about an OpenAI IPO.
1:23:36
Um Elon appears to be trying to go out first.
1:23:40
Uh and I'm actually curious as a CEO who took a company public, like you understand these IPO mechanics very well.
1:23:46
Is there a sense of like going first really matters because it's like now there's this like will it be it probably will be Elon, but like will then it be OpenAI or Anthropic or like will one of them try to go like does that matter?
1:23:57
Are you thinking about that? I don't think so.
1:23:58
I mean, nothing to announce an IPO, but I I don't think it really matters.
1:24:02
I think everyone realizes that the AI market is so big.
1:24:08
The pie is so big that there's going to be space for multiple players.
1:24:10
We're the very clear, you know, market leader.
1:24:12
And so, we we like our position and most importantly, we're focused on executing really well, not focused on an IPO, just focused on building great products because if you do that, everything else takes care of itself.
1:24:26
I know one of the big battles right now for the future, you know, is with the AI coding assistants or or generators.
1:24:31
When you guys think about Codex in the future, what outcome gets you and your team the most excited?
1:24:39
Is it that Fortune 500 companies get bigger and faster?
1:24:42
You know, I know there's a lot of money there.
1:24:45
Is it that there more solopreneurs able to build their own product and make a business?
1:24:48
Is it that more human problems get solved that couldn't have been solved cuz it took five people to make an app before and they can't sell product to few hundred people.
1:24:59
You know, what outcomes excite you most with Codex? Just Just personally. >> I need to pick?
1:25:05
>> [laughter] >> Well, I would tell you like it's been like the last months has been just so insane because we really crossed the threshold of like everything becoming possible with Codex and and we are seeing like even internally just people reach for Codex first before reaching for any other tool and and that's like a really interesting time.
1:25:27
And so I think I think it's a lot of those things.
1:25:29
Obviously, I'm very interested in like scientific breakthroughs because I think that's what, you know, leaves humanity most.
1:25:35
Uh but in the short term, I think we're going to see just massive productivity gains by companies that are going to be able to reinvest that in building even more better things for the world.
1:25:47
I do think that solo companies are going to be possible.
1:25:51
I was literally just talking to a guy yesterday that built an entire thing that would have taken teams of hundreds and I was like, "Oh, this is amazing.
1:26:01
How large is your company?"
1:26:02
He's like, "It's just me."
1:26:02
And and I was like, "That's That's incredible."
1:26:04
Uh and so I I think to to me the biggest underlying thing is reminding everyone that we all have the ability to create.
1:26:16
We all have agency and now these tools allow you to create even if you didn't know how to code, even if you didn't know how to create a video.
1:26:22
And that is a very powerful thing.
1:26:25
When you think about the future of humanity, if everyone could be reminded of their own agency and ability to create, I think we would create a better world.
1:26:34
>> In the In the pantheon of these big products, do you think there's a world where maybe Codex is more impactful than chat?
1:26:40
Uh abs- absolutely, but I think I think it's not just like those products as completely separate.
1:26:46
It's like when you think about what chat needs to do, I was telling you a minute ago it needs to go from a chatbot to a personal assistant that can do any task.
1:26:57
You can imagine a lot of what Codex is doing powering chat.
1:26:59
And so uh I think that's going to be a convergence of those products over time.
1:27:05
Uh but but so the underlying harness of Codex is allowing us to do so many things, not just in coding, but even in, you know, other industries.
1:27:13
What is a ChatGPT prompt that uh you think people should be using?
1:27:18
Damn, good last question, Alex.
1:27:20
You didn't tell me about that one. >> I know.
1:27:21
I just came up with that. >> put that in the doc. >> Nope. It's a great >> that.
1:27:27
You know, so one that I loved and circulated a bunch on Twitter a few months ago was like, "Based on everything you know about me, what do you think are my blind spots, and how how do how do I uh kind of evolve towards that?"
1:27:40
I thought it was surprisingly accurate and and knowingly accurate for me.
1:27:45
[laughter] Uh so that was that was great.
1:27:47
And then uh you know, I think Oh, come on. What were they?
1:27:52
>> [laughter] >> We don't have time.
1:27:56
Uh and then then I think so uh the other thing is I'm encouraging everyone to use it for health.
1:28:02
Uh the stories I'm hearing of people, you know, like finding out about the diagnoses that they've been like, you know, going to 20 doctors for and chat identified it.
1:28:13
I I think people are going to find amazing things to make their house better through chat and I'm really excited for that use case. Molbot out, Molbot in.
1:28:26
>> [laughter] >> Thank you, Fiji. Thank you, guys.
1:28:35
That's it for this week's show.
1:28:35
Thanks again to Fiji for coming on.
1:28:36
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