The Exchanges

Q What's, could you explain more on the middle, like what is this middle ground that he's talking about?

A Well, I think basically what he's saying is there's, um, there's specialists, which either means that your special, you know, your specialty is a sector or a stage or a way that you help companies, and so you're like a boutique, you know, like this is like the Gucci and the way he described it, or you're hyperscale, you are resources and your power and your, you know, access to, You know, the world, your access to the government, et cetera, because you have all this institutional strength, which I buy that too. And I think what he's talking about is that, um, in the middle, you're trading off both the ability to be a specialist and you're not big enough to be, you know, institutionally powerful like that, which is, which is a believable, a believable description of the world.

AI assessment note: “in the middle, you're trading off both the ability to be a specialist”

Q In this competitive environment, we've been seeing big numbers toss around and strategies kind of, uh, shape and in pretty absurd ways. In particular, in this conversation, you guys were talking about the Meta deal and, um, how Meta's been trying to poach some of OpenAI's talent, and then also this Metascale AI scenario. So what were your takeaways from that?

A Um, the temperature on the whole market has definitely risen, both, you know, the numbers from, you know, VCs, what people are paying, the length people are going to, to compete now. Um, you know, in scales market in particular, um, I'll give a shout out to a, you know, portfolio company of ours, David AI, which is like, you know, um, voice data, and they've, that, that market in general has seen unbelievable, Just pull like the, the, the demand from the model companies to get good, clean data that they can use is like a huge competitive advantage and it's like super critical. And so, you know, seeing that market pull for companies like David and others does, it helps me understand why Meta was willing to, you know, go so hard at this problem. Obviously, there's also just like a big talent work component to everything. But in general, I think everything we're seeing now is sort of, um, gloves off. This is the most important thing. And so their regular rules don't apply type of energy.

AI assessment note: “temperature on the whole market has definitely risen, both, you know, the numbers”

Q So what have you learned from the founders?

A Yeah, and there was, um, and Castro had applied was amazing too. To me, talking to the founders is actually where I learn The most, most of the time. I, I really love talking to venture investors too, but it's sort of like, um, you know, there's this really great quote about like, um, you know, when artists get together, they talk about turpentine, when like art critics get together, they talk about like form and function and whatever. And I think that's very true. And I think there's a lot to learn from sort of both altitudes, but to me, the founders who are Running companies are the ones who are close to the metal and who really understand the market in like the much more nuanced ways, and they also go so much deeper in a particular area. So like Jordan from Antares, you know, talking about nuclear and unbelievable depth or adamant owner who is just like unbelievably obsessed with this one particular, you know, vertical, and he knows his customers at restaurants inside and out. Or Castro at Applied, who is just, you know, a total student of company building. Obviously, Sam knows about, you know, AI and, you know, he kind of is operating at both a high level and, you know, very, very close to the company, just given the shape of OpenAI. But for me, those, those conversations, I just learned so much because you're talking like a true expert.

AI assessment note: “founders who are Running companies are the ones who are close to the metal”

Q Um, do we go to UBI? And do we just start supporting people? So, based off those two things, like, one, what do you think's gonna happen if all of our skills are replaced? What are our new skills gonna be?

A Well, it's hard to guess. Um, you know, if you go back to, like, agriculture time, like, you know, there's a lot of people doing agriculture then, and, like, thinking forward to, like, what people are doing now is a sort of ridiculous exercise then. You know, it's like none of the jobs that, like, there's so many layers of abstraction that everything has been built on that most of the economy's doing now that, like, wouldn't have even computed then. You know, like, there weren't computers, there wasn't the internet, there wasn't all this stuff. Um, so there's, there's, It's, it's probably as hard to forecast as forecasting, you know, today's software engineering job was in agriculture times, which is just like, there's so many layers between what's getting done there. So I think it's very hard to guess. On the UBI thing, My hot take is there's already a reasonable amount of UBI, and it's just in the form of, you know, companies employing people that the job is either zero productive or counterproductive. And so like, that's actually like a form of it that, that already happens. I think it will be very difficult to get the government to go to national UBI. So I don't expect that to happen sort of like in time, relatively speaking. Imagine tomorrow that getting put in place. Like, it's like, good luck. Like, it's extremely hard, um, to make that kind of thing happen at a governme…

AI assessment note: “I think it will be very difficult to get the government to go to national UBI.”

Q cover more on the personal side. You're a high performer. Like, let's be real here. You've operated a billion dollar company, a multi-billion dollar company. You've raised hundreds of millions of dollars. You're now an investor and a podcaster. This is a lot to manage. You definitely have a type A personality. Um, high performers typically obsess over one thing or another, but what is something that you obsess over?

A You know, what's funny, and that's nice, so thank you, um, the, um, I, I think, um, one of my weaknesses actually is I seem like I would be somebody who is obsessed in tracking things, and I'm kind of a, I, I realized at some point that my nature is to sort of just like go about my day without much of a plan and just do what's in front of me and just like trust myself to like do the next thing. And I don't think that's a strength. It's just like a thing about me. And I, uh, I think I've basically just embraced that over time, but I'm like a not obsessive person in general. And, you know, that comes with some, I actually think that that leads me, uh, it makes investing a nicer fit in some ways. Um, but yeah, I'm not very obsessive.

AI assessment note: “I'm like a not obsessive person in general.”

Q So you're newer to venture. Max mentioned that he's also newer to venture. Shout out to Max. Thanks for some great questions. The cooler Altman brother. So you just kind of started back into this world of VC. How are you thinking about the transition between like founder to VC?

A Talking about the podcast, one of the things that has struck me talking to all these awesome people is that there's a lot of ways to do it. And for every great person who tells you that the right strategy is X, there's somebody who will tell you that the right strategy is the opposite of X. And so to me, that's actually pretty Liberating to realize that you can be really good or probably really bad at this job in any way that you want to do it. And so my sort of guiding principle on most professional things is to sort of go towards what interests me and what I like. And I think that like that'll end up making me become more likely to get good at it. So, you know, it's evolved even over the last 18 months, but like that's sort of my conclusion is there's like No right or wrong way to do it. And, um, as long as you, you know, find your path and hone something in, there ought to be a way to do well.

AI assessment note: “my sort of guiding principle on most professional things is to sort of go towards what interests me”