Will OpenAI Kill All Startups?

**Michael Seibel** (0:00)
This is Michael Seibel with Dalton Caldwell, and today we're going to talk about how OpenAI is going to kill all startups. This is our last video.

**Dalton Caldwell** (0:08)
Might as well pack it in. OpenAI is going to do this, they're going to make the videos next week.

**Michael Seibel** (0:15)
Next week will be AI Dalton and AI Michael.

**Dalton Caldwell** (0:19)
Doing our video for us. And do a better job than us.

**Michael Seibel** (0:21)
Yes.
What do they call it? It's not a deep fake. It's like a complete AI recreation.

**Dalton Caldwell** (0:25)
Yes, we're done.

**Michael Seibel** (0:27)
Well, it's been fun. So, let's talk about how that happened, right? So, I think to start, people need to understand that companies like OpenAI, Anthropic, et cetera, they're actually trying to build AGI.
They're not trying to build the AI-powered CRM or better search or data. Like, they're trying to build AGI. And this is not a debate. We're not going to talk about whether they're going to succeed at building AGI.

**Dalton Caldwell** (0:54)
Yeah, there's plenty of videos and there's plenty of experts that are better experts than us to debate whether AGI is about to be created. And I kind of bring this up. Have you heard of Godwin's Law?

**Michael Seibel** (1:04)
Please.

**Dalton Caldwell** (1:05)
In an internet debate, when there's people arguing with each other and one person calls the other person a Nazi, the debate is over and no good is forcing money.

**Michael Seibel** (1:14)
There's nothing productive after.

**Dalton Caldwell** (1:16)
It just means it's over. And so where I'm going with this is, once we start talking about how AI could become God and we have Skynet and take over all the things and when we upload to the Matrix, I'm arguing nothing useful. Like that conversation is over without.

**Michael Seibel** (1:29)
We can't help you in this video about that.

**Dalton Caldwell** (1:32)
We don't know. This is outside, you know, whether or not Skynet is coming is outside the scope of this video.

**Michael Seibel** (1:38)
And we would love to talk about it, but we don't have the expertise.

**Dalton Caldwell** (1:40)
Yeah, we're not, they should listen. Someone else is the expert on that, not us.

**Michael Seibel** (1:44)
So what can we talk about then?

**Dalton Caldwell** (1:46)
I think it's this. There's a lot of history to learn from about when major technological changes have come out.
And to the extent this is a major technological change, as opposed to we're all going to get uploaded to the Matrix or whatever, there's a lot to learn from history. And so this is where when founders do ask us advice on what they should be thinking about with AI, or how will AI affect their startups, or is OpenAI going to kill all their startups? We have a lot to say about that, or we have a lot of suggestions to look from history. So why don't you list some of the...

**Michael Seibel** (2:18)
Yeah, so I mean, when you look at major innovations, right? Talk about farming or modern farming, you talk about electricity, you talk about the internet.
I think what's been so interesting as a trend is how many businesses it's enabled, right? Like, the number of businesses increased. And then the second trend is how startups were relatively advantaged versus incumbents.
Like, the greater the technology change and the shorter the period of time, the more the startups are advantaged. And the whole history of the internet is amazing. There's a whole industry around starting, about funding startups, because so many innovations happened so quickly and so many companies are disrupted so quickly. So there is clear, clear precedent to a major new technology trend creating opportunity for startups. If history repeats, as it tends to, somebody who's smart is looking at these tools today saying, holy crap, real problems can be solved right now that couldn't be solved 6 to 12 months ago. I think it's interesting, because you're seeing this in a lot of conversations with founders right now, right? Let's talk about who is choosing to start a company in this phase and what we can learn from them.

**Dalton Caldwell** (3:28)
Yeah, a couple of things. So one, there's a difference between cargo culting AI and actually using AI to build better features. And so let's talk about the difference. Cargo culting AI is to say, we have AI. And it's like tangential to what you're doing. You're just saying it to raise money. It doesn't help your customers. It doesn't improve your product, whatever. But we are seeing people add AI features that dramatically increase retention, that dramatically increase the quality of the product, that make it much easier to charge for it. And that stuff is real. And that is not hype. That's not bullshit. That's real. This is like when people first started launching apps.