The Great Reset At OpenAI — EP 67 Sam Altman And Greg Brockman

**Sam Altman** (0:00)
One, two, three, one, two, three. Yeah.

**Ashlee Vance** (0:02)
Does that sound right?

**Sam Altman** (0:03)
We're going to do all that personal drama in 90 minutes.

**Ashlee Vance** (0:05)
Oh, yeah.

**Sam Altman** (0:05)
Oh, don't you worry. Don't you worry. Superintelligence. Is this part all going to be in the podcast?

**Ashlee Vance** (0:10)
No, maybe.
Bear with me through my slightly silly intro. But I think you guys are going to like it. It will be okay.
Welcome to the Fortress of Finance, the Capital of Capital. This is not that podcast. This is Core Memory, I am Ashlee Vance. And I'm Kylie Robinson. And I think we have a hell of an episode for you. Normally we do an introduction of people at this part, but that's perhaps unnecessary today. We have Sam Altman and Greg Brockman, the co-founders of OpenAI. You may have heard of it. Thank you guys for being here.

**Sam Altman** (1:01)
Thank you for having us. Thank you so much.

**Ashlee Vance** (1:04)
I think this is the first time you guys have ever done a podcast together.

**Sam Altman** (1:07)
And that is amazing, but I think that's true. Certainly in a long time.

**Ashlee Vance** (1:10)
In a long time.

**Sam Altman** (1:11)
I think maybe the first one.

**Ashlee Vance** (1:13)
And I will not fight you for doing it on our show, but you did buy a podcast. Is there, we just lucked out.

**Sam Altman** (1:19)
You lucked out.

**Ashlee Vance** (1:20)
Yeah. I'll take it. I was curious why you guys bought a podcast. It's not really, you don't have to go deep on it, but did you have quick thoughts on that?

**Sam Altman** (1:29)
I think that the people who do TBBN are incredible. I think they're just very creative thinkers. And I think that in this world that we're moving to of building these AI systems that are so useful for people and helping people understand why, why that's valuable for them in their personal lives and work lives. Like these are the kinds of people that I think could help tell that message.

**Ashlee Vance** (1:49)
I see you on it. Have you been on TBBN?

**Sam Altman** (1:51)
I have. Yeah.

**Ashlee Vance** (1:52)
Okay. Okay. I don't watch all the episodes.

**Sam Altman** (1:55)
It's a fun pod.

**Ashlee Vance** (1:57)
Well, I thought since you guys haven't done this together, at least in a while, I was going to go down the Stalja Lane just for a little bit at the beginning.
Kylie and I have gotten to know both of you over the years. We were reflecting as we were preparing for this. We're a little bit past the 10-year anniversary. You guys are two of the remaining co-founders, I think Vojchek is the third. So you're this constant line that's been running through the company. You started as an underdog, you ended up as the top dog. It's all through a lot of drama, undulations. I mean, I was genuinely curious at how your relationship through all this has changed and how you guys have played off each other and if it's morphed over time.

**Sam Altman** (2:46)
It is extremely nice in, look, we all wish there were less drama. We wish we just got to focus on the tech. But in a world of so much chaos and drama and tension and fighting and power struggles, it has been unbelievably nice to have a relationship with someone that's got the full context. We have all this history and really depend on each other in amazing times, very tough times. It has been one of the nicest things about all of OpenAI. In many ways, the very first moment of OpenAI was right after this dinner that we did in July of 2015
Sam and I were driving back to the city together, and we looked at each other and we were like, we have to do this. There had been all this conversation of, is it too late to start up the hub that could go after AGI and have a positive impact? That seems so ridiculous now that we were so worried about that. Yeah. But it was too late. Yeah. You missed it. You missed it.

**Ashlee Vance** (3:41)
I remember feeling like that when you guys started. I was like, no.

**Sam Altman** (3:44)
She finds it going to run away with this. Yeah.
The conclusion of dinner was, it wasn't obviously impossible. I think both of us just felt like, okay, this is just so important. We just have to do it. Yeah. I think that spirit continues. A lot of how we operated in the early days, I remember I was unemployed at the time, so I was full-time on it the next day. Sam actually had a day job, but we were constantly on the phone, probably like five times a day. Yeah. Exactly.