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From Vibe Coding to Vibe Researching: OpenAI’s Mark Chen and Jakub Pachocki

From Vibe Coding to Vibe Researching: OpenAI’s Mark Chen and Jakub Pachocki

17 segments available

What comes after vibe coding? Maybe vibe researching. OpenAI’s Chief Scientist, Jakub Pachocki, and Chief Research Officer, Mark Chen, join a16z general partners Anjney Midha and Sarah Wang to go deep on GPT-5—how they fused fast replies with long-horizon reasoning, how they measure progress once benchmarks saturate, and why reinforcement learning keeps surprising skeptics. They explore agentic systems (and their stability tradeoffs), coding models that change how software gets made, and the bigger bet: an automated researcher that can generate new ideas with real economic impact. Plus: how they prioritize compute, hire “cave-dweller” talent, protect fundamental research inside a product company, and keep pace without chasing every shiny demo. Timecodes: 0:00 Introduction 0:25 The Launch of GPT-5 2:28 Evaluating Progress: Evals & Milestones 5:07 Surprising Capabilities of GPT-5 7:10 The Future of Automated Research 8:59 Agency, Reasoning, and Model Planning 10:18 Extending Progress Beyond Verifiable Domains 12:11 The Role and Success of Reinforcement Learning 14:44 Reward Modeling and Best Practices 15:54 The Evolution of Coding with AI 21:39 What Makes a Great Researcher? 27:20 Building and Sustaining a Winning Research Culture 31:40 Balancing Product and Fundamental Research 38:36 Prioritization, Compute, and Resource Allocation 41:19 The Intersection of Academia and Frontier AI 46:56 Maintaining Speed and Learning at Scale 48:52 Trust and Collaboration at OpenAI Resources: Find Jakub on X: https://x.com/merettm Find Mark on X: https://x.com/markchen90 Find Sarah on X: https://x.com/sarahdingwang Find Anjney on X: https://x.com/AnjneyMidha Stay Updated: If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to like, subscribe, and share with your friends! Find a16z on X: https://x.com/a16z Find a16z on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/a16z Listen to the a16z Podcast on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5bC65RDvs3oxnLyqqvkUYX Listen to the a16z Podcast on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/a16z-podcast/id842818711 Follow our host: https://x.com/eriktorenberg Please note that the content here is for informational purposes only; should NOT be taken as legal, business, tax, or investment advice or be used to evaluate any investment or security; and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any a16z fund. a16z and its affiliates may maintain investments in the companies discussed. For more details please see a16z.com/disclosures.

Segments Timeline

1
0:00 - 0:27
0:26 duration84 words

Introduction

"The big thing that we are targeting is producing an automated researcher. So automating the discovery of new ideas. The next set of evals and milestone that we're looking at will involve actual moveme..."

2
0:27 - 2:28
2:01 duration364 words

The Launch of GPT-5

"you're the chief scientist at OpenAI. Mark, you are the chief research officer at OpenAI and you guys have the both the uh the privilege and the stress of running probably one of the most high-profile..."

3
2:28 - 5:08
2:39 duration511 words

Evaluating Progress: Evals & Milestones

">> Can you say more about how you guys think about evals? I noticed even in that launch video there were a number of evals where you were inching up from you know 98 to 99% and that's kind of how you ..."

4
5:08 - 7:10
2:02 duration366 words

Surprising Capabilities of GPT-5

">> Which capability from GPD5 before the release? surprised you the most when you were working through the eval bench or using it internally? Were there any moments where you felt like this was starti..."

5
7:10 - 9:01
1:50 duration341 words

The Future of Automated Research

">> What is coming in the next one to five years it would be just at whatever level you're you're comfortable sharing what what does the research road map look like? So the big thing that we are target..."

6
9:01 - 10:18
1:16 duration274 words

Agency, Reasoning, and Model Planning

"is undertaking maybe the less likely the tenth step is to be accurate versus you ask it to do one thing it can do it very very well um and to have it keep doing that one thing better and better but mo..."

7
10:18 - 12:13
1:55 duration383 words

Extending Progress Beyond Verifiable Domains

"robustness >> we talked a lot about math and science um I I curious to get your take on do you think some of the progress that we've made can actually extend um similarly to domains that are less veri..."

8
12:13 - 14:44
2:31 duration450 words

The Role and Success of Reinforcement Learning

"because it seems like since 01 came out, RL has been the gift that keeps giving. You know, every every couple months Open puts out a release and everyone goes, "Oh, that's great, but this RL thing is ..."

9
14:44 - 15:54
1:09 duration238 words

Reward Modeling and Best Practices

"hardest things about RL for folks who are not practitioners of RL is the idea of crafting the right reward model. And so, especially if you're a business or an enterprise who wants to harness all this..."

10
15:54 - 21:39
5:45 duration1161 words

The Evolution of Coding with AI

">> Um so I want to bring the conversation back to coding. We would be remiss not to say congrats on GBT5 codecs. uh which just dropped today. Um can you guys say a little bit more about what's differe..."

11
21:39 - 27:20
5:41 duration1147 words

What Makes a Great Researcher?

">> Yeah. >> I that I have a question about that which is what makes a great researcher. Right. When you say vibe researching, there's um a big part of vibe coding is just having good taste in wanting ..."

12
27:20 - 31:40
4:19 duration799 words

Building and Sustaining a Winning Research Culture

"what it takes to keep the best talent on your team? And on the flip side, creating a very resilient org that doesn't crumble if a key person leaves. >> The biggest I think uh things that OpenAI has go..."

13
31:40 - 38:36
6:55 duration1326 words

Balancing Product and Fundamental Research

">> critical ingredients of a winning culture? >> So I I think actually the most important thing is just to make sure you protect fundamental research, right? Um, I think you can get into this world wi..."

14
38:36 - 41:21
2:44 duration536 words

Prioritization, Compute, and Resource Allocation

"does that translate and just to build on Andre's question into a concrete framework around resourcing like do you think about okay x% of compute resources will go to longer term you know very importan..."

15
41:21 - 46:56
5:35 duration1000 words

The Intersection of Academia and Frontier AI

"advancing fundamental research has historically been largely a mandate that universities have had partly for the compute reasons you just described. That hasn't been the case for Frontier AI. You guys..."

16
46:56 - 48:54
1:57 duration401 words

Maintaining Speed and Learning at Scale

">> very few startups can get to the scale that you have both from a you know employee perspective but also revenue count and maintain that break neck speed that you probably had I mean seven eight yea..."

17
48:54 - 52:50
3:56 duration730 words

Trust and Collaboration at OpenAI

"came up in our research um about things at OpenAI that have not changed through a lot of the change is the is the trust that the two of you guys have in each other cuz uh that I think there was an art..."