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Sam Altman: evaluation

18 Mar 2024 Lex Fridman Podcast #419 – Sam Altman: OpenAI, GPT-5, Sora, Board Saga, Elon Musk, Ilya, Power & AGI

“In fact, one of the things that I used to have and was super valuable was I used to have a good map of all or most of the frontiers in the tech industry. And I could sometimes see these connections or new things that were possible that if I were only deep in one area, I wouldn’t be able to have the idea for because I wouldn’t have all the data.”

— Sam Altman

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Speaker
Sam Altman
Attribution
Verified speaker
Claim type
evaluation
Recorded
18 Mar 2024
Publisher
Lex Fridman Podcast

Transcript context

…Oh, like the individual teams, individual contributors try to keep the bigger picture? At a high level, yeah. You don’t know exactly how every piece works, of course, but one thing I generally believe is that it’s sometimes useful to zoom out and look at the entire map. And I think this is true for a technical problem, I think this is true for innovating in business. But things come together in surprising ways, and having an understanding of that whole picture, even if most of the time you’re operating in the weeds in one area, pays off with surprising insights. In fact, one of the things that I used to have and was super valuable was I used to have a good map of all or most of the frontiers in the tech industry. And I could sometimes see these connections or new things that were possible that if I were only deep in one area, I wouldn’t be able to have the idea for because I wouldn’t have all the data. And I don’t really have that much anymore. I’m super deep now. But I know that it’s a valuable thing. You’re not the man you used to be, Sam.…

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