Sam Altman on Building OpenAI & Betting on the Impossible

**David Senra** (0:02)
I just brought up Tobi Lütke, and the fact that I recorded with him previously. Why do you say that you think he's one of the most interesting CEOs right now?

**Sam Altman** (0:10)
One of the things that struck me the most about Tobi is in the very early days of AI, and then at every moment along the curve of its developed, he has been the most forward leaning CEO. He's in there writing the software himself. He is experimenting with it. He sends us extremely detailed feedback on the product offering, on the capabilities of the models. He was before anybody else was saying this, he was like, we are not an NPC company, and thus we are going to adopt agents. Otherwise, we're totally screwed, we're going to build it ourselves. Every time I talked to him, he is at the edge of what anyone, CEO or not is doing. He builds himself, he understands, he has a great deep feel and he is always six, eight months ahead of any other CEO.

**David Senra** (0:56)
Do you remember when he wrote, it was probably like a year and a half ago, maybe 2024, he wrote that letter saying that like, the first thing you have to do is see if AI can solve your problem. And then even back then, it was, I don't know, 18 months, 24 months ago, people went crazy. They thought it was ridiculous.

**Sam Altman** (1:10)
That was ridiculous. This is my point, like he's just consistently been ahead. He has been correct, he's leaned in. He's very no bullshit, so there's like no hype. There's nothing other than like, here's what it can really do right now. Here's what I think it'll be able to do soon. Here's how I'm going to push the company here.
And just like, extremely deep understanding of where it's at.

**David Senra** (1:28)
I never even thought of that, how much of a benefit it has to be for somebody in your position, where you have somebody like that giving you intense and very direct and clear product feedback.

**Sam Altman** (1:37)
A lot of people send product feedback. He is the only person at the intersection of like CEO of a large company and extremely accurate, detailed on the cutting edge feedback.

**David Senra** (1:48)
Yeah, he told me, I don't know if it was on the episode, that if it was in the episode or if it was after, but he said, he was very adamant. He's like, we're going to look back in 2026 And I want to actually, your opinion on this. I didn't even think to talk to you about this. We're going to look back on 2026 as the year that every business was off for grabs. He said, somebody was going to build the AI native version of Shopify. And he said, and it's going to be me. And so at night, he is apparently trying to rebuild.
If you started from scratch, what would you do with the current technology?

**Sam Altman** (2:17)
That was the other thing I was going to say about him is he does it himself. Like he is using these tools himself. He's writing software himself. He's trying the models himself. He is trying to reimagine his work flows himself. Most CEOs, when you get to that level, have teams of people that are managing teams of people that are trying to implement the thing and they're trying to make you happy and they're trying to smooth the rough edges. I think it's very hard to get the feel if you're not actually doing the thing. He does it so hands on all night long, as far as I can tell.
I'm not sure if 2026 will be the year that every business feels up for grabs. I might disagree with him a little bit there, but I get the spirit of that and I do understand that it feels like that's happening.

**David Senra** (3:01)
Do you think that's even possible? Like whether it's 2026 or 2046?

**Sam Altman** (3:07)
I mean, obviously not literally every business. I think there are some things that are very anti-AI.
Like the better AI gets, the more some businesses that have nothing to do with AI, I think will be harder to compete with because we'll really want these like authentic non-technological experiences or we'll care more about sports teams or whatever. So no, not everything, but I think there will be many software businesses that are very up for grabs.

**David Senra** (3:34)
Would you disagree on the timeline then? What do you think?

**Sam Altman** (3:37)
Yeah, I disagree on the timeline. I think it's gonna take a little bit longer.