Straight Answers

“So this is a big question. How do we continue to own the application while leveraging increasing amount of automation?”

answered: “So are we already seeing them putting those tools to use in an attempt”

“But you said that when you worked in cyber, you saw CEOs using data to make decisions. So what type of decisions would you see them make?”

answered: “now with what we have built, you're able to pair that intuition”

“You're the head of Amazon Prime. What are tariffs doing right now to the Amazon marketplace and the Amazon first party sales?”

answered: “The current situation is super dynamic to say the least.”

“Like, it's popular to say that day traders tend to, like, 95% of day traders tend to lose money, where if you, like, park your money in passive ETFs, you're going to do well over time. I'm kind of curious what you think about that.”

answered: “There's really two things that I think distinguish us and make the products interesting”

“So, should we stick with Substack, guys, or is it time to go X only? Those are, that's where I'm starting.”

answered: “I don't know if I'm fully on board with what he's saying.”

“Yeah, yeah, I think, I think provenance matters, you know, because it's provenance. Is this like a sleeper spy?”

answered: “So this is my sort of crackpot theory of the case”

“Do you believe then in the concept of free will right now and in the future, will there be a free will as so much of our reality is intermediated by these machines that have a pretty good idea of where things are heading? Hmm.”

answered: “So in 1997 I wrote this paper, a computer scientist's view of life”

“And if you don't have AI in there, if you shut it out, then you're actually going to be declining, not thriving. Right.”

answered: “It's almost as if all interaction with all apps will happen. Through this interface.”

“So I just want to hear your perspective. When the model gets better, how does that translate into your ability to do more with a, with a customer?”

answered: “What we want is the ability to action and do our work”

“There must have been some Calculation within your group or your company to say, uh, is it worth it for us to be the one that goes out and builds this massive, massive footprint, you know, in partnership with them or somebody else? So I definitely understand there's, there's multiple stakeholders, but what made Microsoft pause on that front?”

answered: “we have a balanced view... and also recognize that we don't have to do it all”

“But do you think this is evidence for or against?”

answered: “I'm not gonna get in, in the middle of that one.”

“And then I had to agree with him. Um, and so if that happens, then how do you justify these massive valuations for the open AI and anthropics of the world?”

answered: “I agree with that sentiment. I actually think there's a bigger challenge for them.”

“Can you talk about that risk? Like where is the risk in the process?”

answered: “let me give a little bit about Okta and our perspective on this.”

“And something that we worry all the time on this show or wonder about really is Is that being overdone? So where do you stand on that question?”

answered: “I can't really speak to the macroeconomic investment of what's going into AI.”

“Uh, even we have, uh, AirPods with Siri in them today, but we have, there's echo earbuds. Um, so what does the future of the device look like to you when we get past these early days of the AI assistant and into where you really want to see the vision play out?”

answered: “first you focus on the devices that are available to you now, for me”

“Speak with a group that has something to market, understand their objectives, bring it to the creative agency with a brief, go back and forth, find a good midpoint. And then, ah, you think so?”

answered: “Well, look, I just, there's been some really cool things I've done.”

“Um, if the next iteration of the web, there's a chance that it might be, is through these chatbots, Could you see a world where Amazon, let's say, partners with OpenAI to bring Amazon shopping into ChatGPT? Or does Alexa Plus prevent you from doing something like that?”

answered: “I can't comment on what we would or wouldn't do, but you look at”

“Like, did you see something concerning enough inside the company to merit speaking out here? And if so, what was it?”

answered: “answering the second part of your question, what exactly did you see? Uh, is very difficult”

“Is that, if you, let's just play the hypothetical game, if you were there today, is that sort of what, I mean, yeah, seeing you smiling here, so I'm kind of curious. You know, I mean, is the, the focus thing, or what, what, yeah, what would be your plan for?”

answered: “Look, I'm not close enough to the problem. Look, at the end of the day”

“Um, but can models like really understand what's going on in these images to a much deeper level? Um, so there's large, uh, there's large vision models that are starting to incorporate language and images, but vision, there's no real all encompassing multitask vision model.”

answered: “So I have a couple of questions for you on this.”

“I, I, uh, yeah, I'm assuming you're not necessarily in EA. What was your sense of like, uh, were we assuming too many things in that conversation?”

answered: “I don't think I had enough grounding to be able to, um, to really answer”

“At what point does OpenAI reject the idea of, you know, adding more users to its platform for the sake of its mission? Um, I think that it is, I, my take about the SOAR app is I don't think that OpenAI is setting itself up for success with this because they are opening themselves up to, you know, the, the kind of incentives of a social media app.”

answered: “I think it's already there. So, uh, but anyway, we can leave that open”

“Like to the point of, you know, like you show up and there's aliens, uh, all of a sudden, if, if we're like, you know, human race says whatever, six or seven billion people, if there's all of a sudden a hundred billion bots on these, on these networks, like, what does that look like? Uh, and how do you, Possibly hope to control that.”

answered: “I don't know if you can. I really don't... So, uh, another big story”

“How do you change it? How do you make it enabled for non-human users as well?”

answered: “I want to talk about that. And first, let's just talk about detection.”

“Punishing Anthropic for bringing public scrutiny to the government's contracting position is classic illegal First Amendment retaliation. Did it have anything to do with the press, the press strategy?”

answered: “I shouldn't comment on a legal case, but I think the notion”

“And you've got it in production with these big companies that are trusting you with big actions. How have you gotten them to trust you with this stuff?”

answered: “you were implying some of the risks of AI, which I'll talk about, but”

“How do we know that humans are conscious? Like, isn't that a place we want to start with?”

answered: “the lack of a crisp definition is, is one thing that would be necessary”

“I mean, this is sort of the essential question for autonomous driving conversations. How far away are we from seeing this stuff be mainstreamed?”

answered: “It's, it's not, it's not a hundred percent there yet. It's a hard problem.”

“Oh, they did kill Sydney, right? Sydney was this very, I don't know, raunchy AI that tried to steal Kevin Roos' wife, so that's gone.”

answered: “they reduced what it could do, but, um, but they stuck with it”

“That's the real question. You think that's gonna happen?”

answered: “I haven't seen any indication that that's possible today.”

“hundred billion parameter models, like the one that you're developing and I think is scheduled for release this summer, do you ever like think like we don't want this to be able to be used by everyone because there are inevitably going to be bad actors that use it and We don't necessarily want to make it something that they can use. Like, where is your stance on open source?”

answered: “it's too early for me to comment on the 400, uh, plus, um, model”

“How much more does it cost to generate a generative AI answer versus a normal search answer?”

answered: “I don't know what the, what the real answer is. It's out there somewhere.”

“Maybe does that make it more human and effective at actually kind of translating into your ability to form human connection? Is self-aware erotic AI the solution to true loneliness?”

answered: “Maybe. I, I don't, I, I hope not.”

“How, how do you do this? When do you do it?”

answered: “I have a thought, and I'd love to check this by you”

“The things that I've heard is that these companies are making it so that when you plug into their systems, you're going to spend a lot of tokens and they don't really want you to be able to measure them. Are you finding that?”

answered: “the big counter to... the marketing and sales approach there is in the control plane”

“Visa's got your back. Does it have my back if an agent goes out and buys some stuff that I really didn't want?”

answered: “we are deeply, deeply focused on how do we make the, make sure that the vectors”

“And I think it's very interesting to see all these companies going through this moment of when is it time to flip that switch to generative AI? Because like you mentioned, you mentioned when we spoke last, a startup can do it quicker because they don't have to worry about their current customers.”

answered: “starting from hundreds of millions and, and handing it over. I think that's just reality.”

“Uh, that, that is not the case. What's it like?”

answered: “candidly here in the U S the longest Part of building a data center is getting permitting”

“And if you put restrictions on China from taking this core material being made in Taiwan, I think the US even believes Taiwan is, or says Taiwan is part of China, um, and says, you can, you tell China, you can't use these chips, the most important material and the most important technology moment. You don't think that China is gonna go invade Taiwan to get them?”

answered: “The first is that you asked how do we win or how do we”

“government spending. So, can you talk about this, this brand new consensus, I think, that is emerging in the business world about why all this deficit spending might not be wise?”

answered: “first thing I'm going to say is buy Bitcoin... this is a fixable thing.”

“But do we know that? I mean, you both wrote the book on this.”

answered: “It is not the main focus of the book. I would refer people”

“You've been following the news. What do you think about it?”

answered: “I haven't played around with it yet, but I don't know if you've done this. I learned that it's called vibe coding”

“Or did they copy my voice? I'm hoping it's the second one.”

answered: “It'll be interesting to see if people either get tired of hearing the same two”

“And so I'm curious, do you, do you agree that your vision of agents is maybe smaller than the broader vision of agents? And if so, why did you decide to go that route outside of maybe it was just convenient to do it as the company you are?”

answered: “Salesforce, you know, helps companies connect with their customers in new ways.”

“Kind of humorous place to be after all the speculation. So what do you think happens as these models get smarter in fields like science and coding and math?”

answered: “sentiment among their enterprise businesses in the rest of the world”

“Um, so like, what is it that actually gets people comfortable with it? Or is it just going to have to come with time and, and people using it in the world, not ending and people not losing their jobs or maybe losing their jobs, but AI helps them find new jobs, et cetera, that kind of stuff.”

answered: “getting back to the person, uh, side of, of this, and you spent a lot of time”

“What's an investment? Like these questions we've been asking, It ha everyone has kind of been asking, but have just, has just let it go because no one's had to actually really dig into the numbers here or actually kind of be, have their feet held to the fire on them.”

answered: “we question the economics and it would be one thing if the, you know”

“I, I think there's long-term damage that's gonna be tough to undo. What about you?”

answered: “Uh, but to me, I think one of the interesting things is”

“When I look at in the pocket, I saw so many cases coming back in how to reorganize our organization, how our governance looks like, and yet still at schools and universities, people are not taught about these principles. What, what's wrong?”

answered: “I wrote this book not for the tech giants... this stuff can most benefit, uh, government”

“That's the real question. You think that's gonna happen?”

answered: “I haven't seen any indication that that's possible today”

“Like, if you're not really serious, why mention it? Um, but like, I kind of think he, if he wanted to do this, which he clearly did, he should have just asked for it.”

answered: “I don't know, hold on, let me step back a second. My favorite part”

“I think this is, again, this is going to be the best year in Apple history. Uh, but of course, the AI story is something that, that is not really working in its favor.”

answered: “apprehension about Apple is related to just what's going on with memory chips”

“minute nuanced debate about, like, where is anthropic now compared to, like, their starting ideology, but if you zoom out, what's obviously important here is that The ideology is the powerful driving motivator at the beginning of these companies, right? And then it becomes a question of like, how does that ideology like morph and live on or evolve as companies get bigger and have to deal with bigg”

answered: “Here is, um, One of my favorite stories that I've read”

“Like, what do I do? What do I do with that junior person if I don't need them in the meeting and how are they going to learn to be an advisor if they're not needed in the meeting?”

answered: “we do have declining birth rate... you're just going to have much fewer”

“But they have to focus and I don't, I don't think they will, but. How do they see themselves?”

answered: “Here's a way I think that you can make the product better”