Bret Taylor: commitment

Transcript context

…There's all variations of this. You know, my view is that I really do view AI as a tool and AGI as a tool for humanity. And so my view is when we were talking about like. Is your job as a maker of software to author a code in an editor? I would argue no just like a generation ago. Your job wasn't to punch cards in a punch card That is not what your job is. Your job is to produce digital something, whatever it is, what is the purpose of the software that you're making? Your job is to produce that. And so I think that like our jobs will change rapidly and meaningfully, but I think the idea that like our job is to type in a. And an editor is, is an artifact of the tools that we have, not actually what we're hired to do, which is to produce a digital experience, to, you know, make firmware for a toaster or whatever, whatever it is we're [01:04:00] doing. Right. Like that's our job. Right. And. As a consequence, I think with things like AGI, I think the certainly software engineering will be one of the disciplines most impacted. And I think that it's very, so like, I think if you're in this industry and you define yourself by the tools that you use, like how many characters you can type into them every day, that's probably not like a long term stable place to be, because that's something that certainly AI can do better than you. But your judgment about what to build and how to build it still apply. And that will always be true. And one way to think about it's like a little bit reductive is like, you know, look at startups versus larger companies. Like companies like Google and Amazon have so many more engineers than a startup, but then some startups still win. Like, why was that? Well, they made better decisions, right? They didn't type faster or produce more code. They did the right thing in the right market, the right time. [01:05:00] And, and similarly. If you look at some of the great companies, it wasn't the lack of they had some unique idea. Sometimes that's a reason why a company succeeds, but it's often a lot of other things and a lot of other forms of execution. So like broadly, like the existence of a lot of intelligence will change a lot and it'll change our jobs more than any other industry, or maybe not, maybe it's exaggerated, but certainly as much as any other industry. But I don't think it like changes, like why the economy around digital technology exists. And as a consequence, I think I'm really bullish on like the future of, of the software industry. I just think that like some things that are really expensive today will become almost free. And but I think that, I mean, let's be honest, the half life of technology companies is not particularly long as it is. k that like some things that are really expensive today will become almost free. And but I think that, I mean, let's be honest, the half life of technology companies is not particularly long as it is. Yeah, I, I brought this anecdote in a recent conversation, but When I started at Google, we were in one building in Mountain View and then eventually moved into a campus, which was previously the Silicon Graphics campus. That was the first campus Google, I'm pretty sure it [01:06:00] still has that campus. I think it's got a billion now. SGI was a company that was like really, really big, big enough to have a campus and then went out of business. And it wasn't that old of a company, by the way, it's not like IBM, you know, it was like. Big enough to get a campus and go to business in my lifetime, you know, that type of thing. And then at Facebook, we had an office in pallets. I moved, I didn't go into the original office when I joined. It was the second office, this old HP building near Stanford. And then we got big enough to want to campus and we bought some microsystems campus. Sun Microsystem famously came out of Stanford, went high flying, was one of the. com darlings, and then eventually sort of like bought for pennies on the dollar by Oracle. And you know, like all those companies, like in my lifetime were big enough to like go public, have a campus and then go out of business. So I think a lot will change. I don't mean to say this is going to be easy or like no one's business model is under threat, but. Will digital technology remain important? Will entrepreneurs having good judgment about where to [01:07:00] apply this technology to create something of economic value still apply like a hundred percent. And I've always used the metaphor, like if you went back to 1980 and describe many of the jobs that we have, it would be hard for people to conceptualize. Like imagine. I'm a podcaster. You're like, what the hell does that mean? Imagine going back to like 1776 and describing to Ben Franklin, our economy today, like let alone the technology industry, just the services economy. It would be probably hard for him to conceptualize just like who grows the food, just because the idea that so few people in this country are necessary to produce the food for so many people would defy. So much of his conception of just like how food is grown, that it would just be like, it would probably take a couple hours of explaining. It's kind of like the same thing. It's like we, we have a view of like how this world works right now. That's based on just the constraints that exist, but there's gonna be a lot of other opportunities and other things like that. So I don't know. I mean, it's certainly [01:08:00] writing code is really valuable right now and it probably will change rapidly. I think people just need a lot of agility. I always use the metaphor where like a bunch of accountants and Microsoft Excel was just invented. Are you going to be the first person who sets down your HP calculator and says, I'm going to learn how to use this tool because it's just a better way of doing what I'm already doing. s just invented. Are you going to be the first person who sets down your HP calculator and says, I'm going to learn how to use this tool because it's just a better way of doing what I'm already doing. Or are you going to be the one who's like, you know, begrudgingly pulling out their slide rule and HP calculator and saying these kids these days, you know, their Excel, they don't understand, you know, it's been a little bit reductive, but I just feel like the, the probably the best thing all of us can do, not just in software industry, but I do think it's really. Kind of interesting just reflection that we're disrupting our own industry as much as anything else with this technology is to lean into the change, try the tools, like install the latest coding assistance, you know, when Oh three mini comes out, write some code with it that you don't want to be the last accountant to embrace Excel. You might not have your job anymore, so.…

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