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The Moonshots Podcast goes behind the scenes of the world's greatest superstars, thinkers and entrepreneurs to discover the secrets to their success. We deconstruct their success from mindset to daily habits so that we can apply it to our lives. Join us as we 'learn out loud' from Elon Musk, Brene Brown to emerging talents like David Goggins.
[Music]
hello and welcome to the moonshots
podcast it's episode
262 I'm your co-host mik Parsons and as
always I'm joined by the man himself Mr
Mark D frin good morning
Mark hey good morning Mike good morning
listeners subscribers viewers and
everybody who's dialing in to check out
one of the let's call it most uh
fascinating
imagination orientated but also very
very practical episodes today Mike that
we're going to be diving into as show
number
262 that's right I feel like this is
going to be an openminded and generative
discussion oh I like that little setup
and you're totally right Mike if that
sounds a little bit like the area that
our listeners want to lean into today is
the perfect opportunity to do so because
we are going to be leaning into and
learning from samman who as we might
know is a luminary in the tech industry
whose Journey as I'm reading from chat
GPT Mike actually wrote this for me his
journey to prominence began with
co-founding looped back in 20 in 2005
Mike so this guy samman we might be
aware is this you know President and
leader of open AI as we're going to lean
into on today's show he's pretty
prominent nowadays with artificial
intelligence he's actually an individual
who whose career began over nearly 20
years ago in founding new businesses
from there he then became president over
a little thing called why combinator so
he had a little bit of experience with
advising some of the biggest brands in
the world as well but now here we are
nowadays where he's this leading figure
within the open Ai and AGI space we
can't kind of go into a lot of the
advice that he's got for us now days
without taking a look at that past
without looking at those successes and
pieces of information that he gathered
along the way can we no he uh if if
doing open AI was not enough as a CEO
he's done a great Venture Capital firm
an accelerator he's had his own
successful exit of uh $43 million for
his first startup this guy has done it
all and he might be the next Elon so if
you want to figure out how the think
that led to open AI or you want to find
how somebody can win in venture capital
in their own startup in accelerating and
helping other startups Sam alman's done
it all you can too there's a clear line
of thinking here Mark where should we
start on this epic Sam Alman
Journey look I think as you've already
reference There's an opportunity for Sam
to become if he hasn't already the next
Elon Musk but another chap another
Visionary who is up in the echelon of
Elon Musk is just this little well-known
guy called Bill Gates and we've got this
fantastic opening clip today on our show
262 on Sam ultman who's gonna explain
and set up for us a little bit around
one of the applications of Sam alman's
business open Ai and that's chat gbt so
let's hear from Bill Gates and samman
two very impressive Visionaries hitting
us up and introducing us to this Con of
chat gbt you know I was privileged to
see your work as it evolved and I was
very skeptical like I did not
expect GPT to get so good and I'm still
it blows my mind and we don't really
understand the
encoding that you know we know the
numbers we can watch it multiply but the
idea of where is
Shakespearean encoded do you think we'll
gain an understanding of the
representation oh 100% okay you know
trying to do this in a human brain is
very hard you could say it's a similar
problem which is there are these neurons
they're
connected the connections are like
moving and we're not going to like slice
up your brain and watch How It's
evolving but this we can perfectly X-ray
and there has been some very good work
on interpretability and I think there
will be more over time so yeah I think
we will be able to understand these
Networks
but our current understanding is is low
the little bits we do understand have as
you'd expect been very helpful in
improving these things so we're all
motivated to really understand them
scientific curiosity aside but the scale
of these is so fast and it is you know
we could also say where in your brain is
Shakespeare encoded and how's that
represented we don't know we don't
really know um but it somehow feels like
even less satisfying to say we don't
know yet in in these like masses of
numbers that we're supposed to be able
to perfectly X-ray and watch and do any
test we want on yeah I'm pretty sure
within the next 5 years we'll understand
it and in terms of both training
efficiency and accuracy that
understanding would let us do far better
than we're able to do today 100% you
know you you see this in a lot of the
history of technology where someone
makes an empirical Discovery they have
no idea what's going on but it clearly
works and then as the scientific
understanding deepens they can make it
so much better yeah no that in physics
biology it's sometimes just messing
around and it's like whoa what well how
how does this actually uh uh come
together in our case we had you know
someone that was the guy that built gpt1
uh sort of did it off by himself and saw
this and it was somewhat impressive and
but you know no deep understanding of
how it worked or why it worked and and
then it was we got these scaling laws we
could predict how much better it was
going to be that was why when we told
you we could do that demo we were pretty
confident it was going to work we hadn't
trained the model but we were pretty
confident and that has led us to a bunch
of attempts and better and better
scientific understanding of what's going
on but it really came from a place of
empirical result first
so we can talk about continuous
Improvement or scaling up Improvement
but I think the headline here is what
open AI have with Chad
GPT one thing for certain they have only
just begun and what is crazy about this
concept Mark is chat GPT as a product is
being adopted at least as fast as
Facebook was in its first five years
they've already hit a 100 million
users and you would argue they have far
more utility value than Facebook so what
we have the great joy and curiosity of
seeing Mark is a startup that is
gamechanging I would argue at least
equivalent to that of Nvidia maybe you
could even say conceptually Nvidia and G
G PT products kind of go hand inand
because you need the compute you need
the processing power to power these
software solutions that we use so you
need that power to ingest data train the
model so it's fascinating for us to
actually just live in this moment Mark
where we go oh my gosh with both Nvidia
and open AI we're seeing two
transformative companies You could argue
they're just like Microsoft when they
were introduced when they really came to
bear in the
90s maybe apple with the iPhone maybe
Amazon with the
cloud I think we're at least seeing that
if not more and to me the interesting
parallel about what we heard there is
this a whole history of scientific
discoveries that have been made you know
Bill mentions you know biology and
physics for example where they
discovered this exponential
thing y they didn't quite understand it
took them some time to figure it out so
I think that's perhaps The Optimist view
you know not the skeptic view of of
generative AI I know there's a lot of
conversation around this but it is
possible to make that lip and say hey
well we can use you know generative AI
to help us understand generative Ai and
we're going to figure this out it has an
amazing power like I just think about
this Mark I uh I put a
spreadsheet that had 5,000 rows with all
this metadata in there and I threw it in
and I asked all of these
questions what they were all different
titles being listed right imagine 5,000
books or 5,000 movies in a list and I'm
like tell me which ones are really good
or which ones are good for this and what
meet this genre and like which ones are
more like this and it was taking this is
chat gbt was taking this list
and answering my
question in less than five
seconds wow to have answered this
question as
rigorously I would have required 5
hours and I not sure how good I'm not
sure how good my answer would have been
after the five hours Mark yeah that's
exactly it yeah it's a small vignette
but the point I want to make is
not only is chat
GPT groundbreaking now we've only just
begun that is the scope of this
discovery I find this so exciting don't
you mark look it's it's such an
interesting space and Sam as we're going
to find out later in the show has so
much to teach us from his experiences
you know a Founder um but before we even
get into that isn't it curious to how to
be able to cover a technology at its
infant infancy yes you know this calls
to mind some of the discoveries I'm not
going to claim you know Sam is
necessarily our generation's Einstein
but there will certainly be work that
Einstein was doing that was perhaps more
pivotal or important later down the line
you know yeah I I feel as though this is
the beginning of a topic like
electricity
that gets used oh decades down the
line yeah this ising a car this is the
Guttenberg
press yes exactly this is the the we're
right at the start of something
substantial yeah you're right it's not
necessarily fully comprehended how it's
going to be used but that's kind of the
beauty of it right and it's very much
led by certain individuals who have the
capacity to articulate but also bring to
life MH this concept and sometimes that
starts with having a really aligned
Vision sometimes it just starts with
being in the right place at the right
time whatever it might be Sam has led us
to this point already whereby 100
million plus users are using one of his
products as one of his applications of
AI already and as you just pointed out
Mike it saved you four hours five hours
St four hours 55 59 minutes 55 seconds
yeah exactly and and that is just um the
start yep you know it can be quite
easily applied to you know computers as
personal assistants and so on and a lot
of our listeners and viewers will
probably be utilizing the product
already as well but it reminds me very
much already of somebody like Elon who
leans into a space that maybe people are
a little bit nervous of or maybe people
don't want him to lean into much like
getting into space and having um other
astronauts you know saying that it
shouldn't be privatized and that he
shouldn't be able to create businesses
that kind of capitalize on such a a
broad
space I think it's always it always
requires somebody to be in that driving
seat to make it happen and Sam is
certainly in that seat right now isn't
he I would say like that the Curious
Thing here is look the Guttenberg press
fundamentally changed
things uh the the railway fundamentally
Chang things jumbo Jets all of these
Technologies like for
example um the Catholic Church really
freaked out about the printing press
originally
yeah but do we now think of books is a
bad
thing so of course we if we just admit
um like I'm
there's a little bit of research here
people uh resisted the introduction of
electricity um owners of horong
carriages were really scared of
automobiles well there you go right so
so my point is we just don't know the
scale is in intense the opportunity and
the threat is significant and but it's
natural we're change resistant we're
humans we like the status quo right look
remember we all got uncomfortable when
Reed Hastings was digitizing a lot of uh
movies yeah and a lot of businesses went
out with the rise of Netflix likewise
Steve Jobs brings out the iPod suddenly
you're condensing all these uh physical
products into your phone it's
uncomfortable when those big innovation
changes happen yeah and what generally
uh takes place is you know things become
more efficient they become more
controlled they become more um OD and I
think we're just at the start of of a
brand new um turning point there not
only with a real product that comes out
and has the ability to improve people's
lives but I think as you already C out
earlier this comparison to social media
it will impact behaviors decision making
yeah and the way that people probably
use all of those all of our different
products will probably change slightly
so I mean we're really at this uh
Innovation Point aren't we of of real
change being on the horizon but there's
one thing for sure there's one decision
that you can make and that is to be a
member of the moonshots
podcast oh you know what Mike I would
doesn't I don't even need to load up
chat gbt to ask answer that question
because I fully comprehend and believe
in the value that all of our members get
each and every week from the moonshot
show so please without further
Ado bring in the trumpets and let's
celebrate Bob Niles I tripon dietar
Maran Connor Lisa and Sid Mr bonjer Paul
Berg and cman Joe Christian Sam and
Barbara Deborah lass Steve Craig Ravi
evet R and nikara Ingram Durk Vata Marco
jet Roger Steph raw nimen and James
Diana Kristoff Denise Laura Smitty Corey
Daniela and Mike high five to you guys
for being plus annual members along with
Antonio Zachary Austin Fred Ola Andy
Diana and Margie Ron Jesper and our
latest member ban thank you guys so much
for your continued support of the
moonshots podcast as well as getting
access to all of our shows every week
you also get access as members into our
moonshots Master Series so thank you so
much guys for supporting the show yeah
big shout out um and respect we really
do appreciate your support that helps us
put the show together so thank you to
each and every one of you so now when we
think about what Sam Altman and open AI
are up to uh I mean this is quite
fortuitous this this next clip because
um Mark when I have a little look in my
news feed and I say what's happening
with open AI here we are we're in Late
July
and 10 hours ago there's a headline and
it's going to set this CP up beautifully
and check out this
open AI Test new search engine called
search
GPT it's happening guys I can tell you
that my Google activity is
plummeting because GPT so it's time to
think about when you do something
disruptive you do tend to upset the
apple cart and there's a big apple cart
called Google um so uh let's let's head
over to this topic how do you compete
with one of the biggest tech companies
on the planet I think Mike in answer
that question let's jump straight into
this clip with samman chatting to Lex
with exactly that concept how can you go
up against the bths when you are just a
little startup how do you under this
pressure that there's going to be a lot
of Open Source there's going to be a lot
of large language models under this
pressure how do you continue
prioritizing safety versus um I mean
there's several pressures so one of them
is a market driven pressure from uh
other companies uh Google Apple meta and
smaller companies how do you resist the
pressure from that or how do you
navigate that pressure you stick with
what you believe and you stick to your
mission you know I'm sure people will
get ahead of us in all sorts of ways and
take shortcuts we're not going to take
um and we just aren't going to do that
how do you uh compete them I think
there's going to be many agis in the
world so we don't have to like out
compete everyone we're going to
contribute one other people are going to
contribute some I think up I think
multiple agis in the world with some
differences and how they're built and
what they do and what they're focused on
I think that's good um we have a very
unusual structure so we don't have this
incentive to capture limited value I
worry about the people who do but you
know hopefully it's all going to work
out but we're a weird org and we're good
at resisting press like we have been a
misunderstood and badly mocked orc for a
long time like when we
[Music]
started we like announced the orc at the
end of
2015 and said we're going to work on AGI
like people thought we were batshit
insane yeah you know like I I remember
at the time a uh eminent AI science
scientist at
a large industrial AI lab was like dming
individual reporters being like you know
these people aren't very good and it's
ridiculous to talk about AGI and I can't
believe you're giving them time of day
and it's like that was the level of like
pettiness and ranker in the field at a
new group of people saying we're going
to try to build AGI so open Ai and Deep
Mind was a small collection of folks who
are brave enough to talk about
AGI um in the face of Moy we don't get
mocked as much now don't get mocked as
much
now so okay okay
so let's just kind of draw an analogy
here do you know the first person I
thought of was Elon and um buz Aldren
and the critique he got when he said I
will land a spaceship um back make it
reusable Reland the rocket and he was
facing all this criticism and what did
he do he stuck to the mission right yeah
that's right he did he didn't let that
adversity or that lack of belief uh put
him off you know arguably that bravery
that comes with creating a new product
or going into
space is is demonstrated by both of
those individuals musk as well as isn't
yeah so it's it's fascinating Mark where
do you where do you start like when you
when we're seeing this pattern that
these great founders are sticking to the
mission um facing competition and
criticism how how do
you how do you face that what would you
what would be your go-to list where do
you start when you want to kind of build
that that Armory and that Teflon so that
they don't take you down well it's funny
you you use the word just then which is
this idea of mission you know when
you've got a mission in place and a
clearly defined goal or a a vision that
is what drives I think your ability as a
business leader as a innovator as
somebody who's just trying to get up and
do the right thing each day it becomes
that little bit easier because whether
you're Elon Musk and you've got Buzz
Aldren your her your childhood hero y
saying to you look M you're never gonna
have you're never gonna make this work
or somebody like mman who is working
with preeminent you know artificial
intelligent um experts who's saying
these guys are insane they don't know
what they're talking about the only way
I think to level your confidence and be
able to stay true to what you're trying
to do is by having that really
established foundation and knowing oh
we're gonna stick to this because yes I
want to go out and create this open
business I want to go out and create a
um product that's orientated around
values and I think that only can come
when you've really understood and have
aligned your your reason why oh bingo I
think you just hit it so personally when
You Face criticism you have to like know
your Ricky guy right you have to know
what you're good at what you can be pay
for what you're passionate about what
the world needs as a company you can use
Simon cynic Golden Circle really comes
down to what are we doing how are we
doing it and why because that's people
buy now you can have those things Mar
but I think there's something that comes
after this and I I'm thinking of the
idea that Jeff Bezos talks about which
is be stubborn on
Vision but flexible on how you get there
because I do think something that we've
heard before is that when criticism
comes that's a great opportunity for
improvement right you can contemplate it
objectively and
and you can truly comp comp uh really
consider shall we say um what people
have to
say but that only really works if you've
got that clear what do we do how we do
it why do we do it and I particularly
see this as a fundamental requirement
for any business that's trying to
scale because you can have the driving
force of a founder and a small group of
10 or 20 people but they need to trans
transm MIT this to a much broader group
when you get to 50 and 100 and it will
not always be them it'll be the other
leaders in the organization so the key
Nuance here is you we talk about know
your why and know your values but it
cannot only be one person it must be
shared amongst the leadership of the
company it must be demonstrated by that
same group in order for the employees to
go hey we're copying criticism on the
outside but I know what we're about
that's fine or if we flip into an
individual
perspective if people are critical of
how you are doing
something then you can be like hey thank
you for the constructive feedback and
you can take it away and really think
about well can I configure my iyy model
a little bit and can I like fine-tune
how I'm going about things but maybe
sometimes it leads to Improvement maybe
it doesn't but I think I think it
shouldn't be a wound right like it
shouldn't be like a fatal
flaw but I I actually think that the big
thing here is that as we rush about in
life we sometimes forget to reflect on
our personal icky guy so we wake up one
day and we're like huh how did I end up
in this crazy situation and you're like
oh I'm off track man right as uh Sarah
Blakeley would say this is not the movie
I'm meant to be in right
yeah and what a great line that was you
know uh with with Sarah creating a brand
new product that would have also equally
come up with a lot of criticism y
likewise
creativity um as we heard from Elizabeth
gilberd as well as Austin Cleon you're
going to run into people that are
naysayers you know um haters GNA hate I
think is is that classic saying much
like we've seen with Elon much like
we've seen with other um uh substantial
innovators that we've covered on the
show and you're totally right you can
let all those naysayers put you off and
distract you and say actually you know
what maybe they're right maybe this
can't be done you know Jensen Wang
setting up a business and then it
becoming you know trillions of of value
again he probably was going up against
those big Brands yeah out of the garage
you know they spend the first couple of
months determining okay well where
should we put the fridge how much are we
going to spend on pizza you know all of
this led them to I think um creating
really established values that then help
them stay true in the long run to what
they were trying to go out and Achieve
didn't they because if you remind people
of those values they can adopt them um
maybe they can even improve them but the
point is when we flip from the
individual case to the business case
it's classically the transition from a
small to mediumsized business right yeah
from like a seed round to getting into
series A
right this is the point where you as an
agent as a Founder can no longer drag
everyone into a room say hey guys let's
fix this so you have to transmit this
Mission the values so others can you
know I would say you know when you get
like a Wi-Fi booster in your house so
you got the original Wi-Fi that pumps
out but then there's these extenders
like you need as many people being able
to ex end the mission the vision the the
why we're here and
often The Challenge in a in an
organization going through growth
transition is they relied on a Founder
one individual being the
beacon but when they transition to the
midsize organization they now need three
or four beacons carrying the
message so all of a sudden the person
that was used to like getting everyone
in room say hey guys is the vision they
have to lead the leaders in the business
and that is a different skill set and
that is
challenging and almost a hidden
challenge to facing the world is making
sure that the CEO has a CMO a CFO a COO
a CPO who all sign up and truly own the
mission and the vision just like they do
that's the challenge isn't it yeah I
think you're totally right you can't
can't uh always as we've spoken on the
show you can't always work in the
business you know there needs to be that
individual who fully comprehends the
direction of where it needs to go and
steadies that direction when you get
caught in the Wheats you know there's so
many startups and businesses that will
struggle getting through those early
stages and unless you're being able to
delegate to the right people and as we
know from somebody like Jim Collins get
the right people on the bus at the early
point then you're not going to be able
to write that ship and actually get that
exciting work done big time now we are
mentioning a lot of other people that
we've covered on the
show
if somebody is Keen to learn more about
them Mark I wonder could there be
someplace on this old school thing
called the Internet it's not really
generative AI but it's certainly on the
internet where could they go M well Mike
for those of us who are still in that
archaic way of using uh the internet as
I'm sure all of us do it's just a small
little destination with the hint being
the name of this podcast which is
moonshots
www.mon shots. will give all of our
members as well as all of our listeners
and viewers access to all of our
previous shows all
2602 if you can believe it I'm always
impressed every week when it keeps on
increasing along in that that uh
destination we can find transcriptions
of all of our previous shows you can
find show notes and also a plethora of
other innovators entrepreneurs and
business Superstars including Architects
including uh uh comedians even Mike all
of whom Inspire us to go out and be that
best version of ourselves each day
moonshots doio is the secret source to
uncovering new interesting tips to go
out and live a pretty f life I would
agree and and we we talked a lot about
inspiration if you are feeling inspired
to start something new maybe you're
going to do your own little Sam Elman
well good news is this next clip is
really going to give you a bit of the
Playbook the recipe for starting your
own
startup that's right as we mentioned
earlier in the show Sam is very well
known now for his work with open Ai and
the formerly mentioned chat gbt however
he had a an illustrious career prying to
getting into this artificial
intelligence space with why combinator
so we're going to hear a very quick
snapshot of one of the courses that Y
combinator and Sam who was president at
the time created which provided real
concrete habitual useful advice to other
startups so without further Ado let's
hear from uh the guys on YouTube with a
bit of an introduction to some of the
key elements from samman's why
kulminator class while he was President
why combinator came up with the idea of
creating a class at Stanford that taught
everything y combinator knew about how
to start a startup in this Stanford
class Sam Altman himself taught two of
the classes the rest of the classes were
taught by people who all were part of
starting multi-billion dollar companies
you can still find this class online on
YouTube it's called how to start a
startup for Sam Altman's classes he
talks about how to start a success
successful fast growing startup in it he
is honest in saying that startups are so
unique that probably 70% of starting a
startup cannot be taught because again
every startup is different but he
believes about 30% of starting a startup
can be taught so Sam focused on that 30%
in his classes here's a summary of what
he taught he focused in on seven main
ideas number one ideas and execution Sam
emphasized that a good idea alone isn't
enough successful startups require
excellent execution however Sam does
emphatically say the idea really does
matter he used to think that the idea
didn't matter that much he used to think
that a team could come together and just
start throwing things at the wall and
see what sticks but at that point he
said he's very convinced that the idea
really does matter you need a great idea
before you get started on a startup he
encourages students to focus on both the
qu quality of the idea and the ability
to execute it effectively number two
co-founders Sam mentions that almost all
of the most successful startups at y
combinator were co-founded while he does
say that it's better to be a solo
founder than to have a terrible
co-founder it's really really bad to
have a terrible co-founder because it
could kill your company but it's best to
find a really great co-founder one to
three other co-founders seems to be the
best he doesn't encourage you to have
more than three co-founders it's really
hard to start a successful startup if
you have a group of co-founders who are
all committed to the startup can help
encourage one another your startup is a
lot more likely to succeed number three
market and product Sam focuses a lot of
time talking about the market he thinks
it's best to focus on a small but
rapidly growing Market instead of going
after Giant Markets where there's
already already a ton of competition he
thinks it's best to try to find a small
Market that is growing really quickly so
you can get in at the earliest stages of
the Market's development these tend to
be the kind of startups that succeed
long term they get into a market when
it's really small they monopolize those
markets and then by the time the market
gets really big they're still the
biggest player in that market when he
talks about product he really emphasizes
how you should focus on getting a 100
users to absolutely love your product
instead of trying to get millions of
users to kind of like your product you
should focus on just getting 100 users
to love your product if you can get 100
users to love your product it will be a
lot easier to expand from there you're
going to need users who love your
product to be willing to give you money
and to stop using the related Services
they currently use you want customers to
really love your product Focus
completely at the beginning of your
startup on getting 100 active users who
absolutely love your product and tell
their friends about it naturally find
those first users yourself talk to your
friends any connections you have get
them to start using the product
constantly be talking to your users
iterating and making your product better
based on customer
feedback so three big steps I
mean Mark I'm like my brain is going
many different directions here maybe
what we should do is pick on I actually
think like let's go for the co-founder
topic and I tell you why I think like
ideas and execution go hand inand I
think you know that's something we've
covered a lot we did a whole product
series around that y uh starting small
on the market has been not quite as
popular theme but really common sense
like choose a little market you can
Dominate and expand from there but I
think the co-founder one for us is
perhaps the least discussed and most
important there and I think that my
takeout from what Sam is really talking
about
is I I almost go to this logic starting
a startup is really hard we all know
that the chances of actual
success meaning a sustain profitable
business is actually like a one in 10
kind of a chance at
best particularly if you say that it's
going to last three years and
consistently make a profit like that's
probably closer to one in 100
right yeah so we know it's really hard
and the burden as a single founder is
incredibly high if you're building a
team and I think what we all see is so
many Duos or
trios coming together Airbnb Netflix
yeah um the list goes on and on so I I I
want to kind of delve into this I think
a lot of
people
Rush going for and finding co-founders
and I think a lot of people here around
the co-founder topic I think choose to
make a huge huge life commitment to
co-found together with someone they
don't know very
well yeah so let's play a game Let's
imagine we were doing a startup right
now and we need a third
co-founder how could you and I do a
proper founder dating how can we com
properly get to know them to ensure a
better fit with a co-founder what are
your
ideas yeah I think you're totally right
I reckon there is definitely a case for
past successes and when I say the word
success I don't necessarily mean
successful businesses but establish
practices that they have learned from so
to explain it in a little bit more
detail I think what's valuable as a
co-founder is finding similarly um um
experienced people who have gone through
the process before maybe failed before
oh maybe struggled Y and being able to
still get through and maintain a level
head yeah so the value of having I think
experienced individuals on your team as
co-founders would benefit a business
whether it's in a blossoming industry
like op uh like AI but also smaller
product orientated business uh
categories as well benefits from teams
that have been through the process
before a little bit like getting you
know seasoned players onto the court to
go out and play your big game at the
Olympics or whatever it might be having
a little bit of experience probably
maintains a lot more balance don't you
say yeah so that's definitely like kind
of like criteria right like we only want
people that have actually had similar
experiences and I think that's very true
because a lot of people like the idea of
being a Founder but when faced with the
brutal truth of what it looks and feels
like they run for the hills yeah and
pretty uncomfortable sometimes but this
is really a thing like people don't
realize that if you join a startup not
all the processes are figured out this
idea that you're building the plane
while you fly it is actually a lot of
people
uncomfortable yeah yeah but they they
fail to see that they are romanced with
the
idea but then they completely come
undone in practice Yeah and and I
imagine exactly to your point if it is
one in 10 or one in 100 businesses that
do succeed or make a profit it's going
to be those who have weathered the storm
a little bit I think you're right
there's a lot of people as we spoke in
on the show the idea of overnight
success making a buck you know within a
week or making $100 uh online getting a
sixpack overnight I think a lot of
individuals and entrepreneurs will um
fool at the hurdle of hard work yeah
yeah or just the just the uncertainty or
things aren't all set in um yeah in the
in the business we're still figuring out
how we do it and some for some people
that's too stressy I I got I've got
another suggestion mark that I
love
okay is do a pilot project together
first now
that could be a pro bono thing
together that could be yeah
um why don't you we if if we were
recruiting another
founder we could say why don't you just
advise us for three months and we just
have a call once a week and we can talk
about the business and then you can
start to understand how they think about
it the other thing is they could consult
to us for a period as a way that if they
want to walk away after three months or
if we want to walk away
this would be really good because here's
the big Insight
map so we have this nice uh uh kind of
speed dating with our third founder they
sound good we call the references we
like everything checks out and then
within two weeks we realized they're
completely schizophrenic psychotic uh
dysfunctional uh but we just gave them a
third of the
company yeah exactly and and that would
be that would lead me on to to um my
next point which which would be and one
of the techniques that you would you
just breaking down there actually having
a kind of practice project enables us to
harness or sorry build uh trust you know
I think there's a lot to be said around
a past experience as well as their
reliability yeah but not only do you
need to try and get your co-founder or
co-founders uh all to be singing from
the same hym sheet yes you also need to
know that they will turn up they will
provide valuable points of view yes they
won't just take it and go and do their
own thing well won't just think about
this if we had a Founder we just said H
Tuesday at 10: a.m. we have a call if
they were late to half of the calls you
and I would probably go well we're not
going to offer you a Founder role
because you can't even turn up for a
call on time right or there's in their
work you know yeah that's it it so
there's there's a there's a behavior fit
yeah that I think is is a key one as
well as a mindset one you need to be
able yeah some businesses are going to
be moving it at a thousand miles an hour
and will require speed as well as
attention to detail there will be others
that can move it a slightly slower Pace
that needs to be uh built on trust you
know you need to be able to know that
they'll stick around for the Long Haul
yeah um you know it's interesting you
mentioned like behaviors and mindset
we've actually got one more clip where
Sam Alman is turning it up on mindset
and I would say I would say he's almost
getting a little Carol work growth
mindset on us here look there's no
episode on Founders
entrepreneurs that doesn't Mike have
this element of resilience and grit and
the idea of putting in the time and
getting it done and focus
and we can't do a show on something as
big as Ai and on somebody who we've
already pitched the idea of him being in
the echelon of Elon Musk without
demonstrating exactly that and how Sam
mman is singing from that same him she
so you're right we've got one more clip
today on show 262 that's going to
illustrate to us a little bit about
where samman comes from in terms of his
values he's talking to Craig Canon
specifically on focus and also how his
opinion of a deferred life structure or
life plan doesn't really work for him I
don't believe in the Deferred Life Plan
yeah um the like a a a common criticism
of people in Silicon Valley um who I
think have great Futures in their past
are people who say some version of the
following
sentence um my life's work is to build
Rockets So what I'm going to do is spend
um I'm going to make $100 million in the
next three maybe they say four in the
next four years trading cryptocurrency
with my crypto hedge fund um because I
don't want to think about the money
problem anymore and then I'm going to
build rockets and they never do either
um I believe if these people would just
pick one thing or the other you know I'm
I I'm obsessed with money so I'm going
to go make a $100 million however long
that takes but with a long enough time
Horizon that it's reasonable um or I'm
just going to build Rockets right now um
I believe they would succeed it either
but the problem one of the many problems
with the deferred life plan is everyone
can kind of tell that that's what you're
on mhm and you're not that serious about
you're not that committed to either uh
and it just never works I mean it must
work sometimes but I've seen it fail a
lot lot lot and uh I understand the
temptation of it and I understand the
degree to which people
feel
well they're never like I'm going to
make $1 million and then work on rockets
and just raise the capital right always
like I got they're people that tend to
be obsessed with like making a lot lot
of money MH um and I understand the
temptation to like figure out basic
Financial Security of course like I
needed that myself um but like I think
one of the things that's amazing about
Silicon Valley is you actually can raise
money as an unknown 22-year-old to go
make a rocket company it's happened
several times at YC yeah um and so if
that's what you want to do like just get
on with it the company will pay you a
salary like you'll be fine if if you can
raise money at all you'll be fine and if
you can't raise money like think about
something else but it
is I mean I could go on such a long rant
that I will just bore people and piss
people off but uh I would
say the Deferred Life Plan um
empirically usually does not work right
and you don't if what you want to work
on as like an ambitious company and you
are in Silicon Valley and you are
competent
um you very likely can figure out a way
to just work on that problem you know
maybe it means you have to go be an
employee at SpaceX instead of being Elon
Musk but like at least you're doing what
you want but that's fine and it's also
like listen dude if what you really want
is $100 million and you just go for
exact just like call Spade to spade and
make money and but be willing to like
agree that that takes a be accept that
takes a long time and you can't just
sort of say I'm going to compress this
into three or four years guarantee it
doesn't work totally you don't have to
hide behind wanting to make rockets you
make money yeah I think many people
actually do want to make the Rockets but
they also you have to like pick one kind
of you have to
like you can't say I'm going to do this
thing for the short period of time and
then do what I really want to do or
you'll never motivate people to like
join you and want you to win and work
with you
yeah H I'm in so much agreement mark I
want to briefly bring us back to a
framework that comes back so much this
is what he's talking about so oh yeah if
you are focusing mostly down the bottom
here on what you can be paid
for you know you're pursuing a
profession and your vocation but you're
going to find yourself lacking passion
and
Mission okay how would you know you
often see people who are comfortable but
feeling
empty
right so I think where he's going to
is when I transmit when I really process
this from my personal
experience the hard work is to find a
way where you can figure out your icky
guy in the middle that I can say what I
did today is something that I'm good at
it's something that I love the world
needs it and I can be paid for it
invariably if you are only doing your
career for the
money people will feel that emptiness in
your
mission for example Simon cynic says
people don't buy what you do they buy
why you do it yeah exactly so if you're
lacking a why and you're or your why is
completely self- serving it's not
contributing anything to what the world
needs in fact maybe you don't even love
it then you're going to find yourself
kind of feeling empty or maybe excited
about what you're doing but you haven't
quite aligned you know these other
components of your icky guy so the work
to do if you want to build
Rockets are you good at it you got to
get good at it but then you got to
figure out like how exactly does the
world need it Elon recognized it's the
reusability as a huge piece of that Ah
that's what the world really needs
because that's a massive one okay well I
can get paid for that because that means
I can drop the price of the average
rocket launch and NASA now gives lots of
projects to SpaceX and I love
engineering H oh icky guy I got it right
I believe like deferring what you love
deferring passion and mission is a very
dangerous path it's the classic midlife
burnout right it's the classic I've been
doing this for 10 years and I am empty I
think if you want health and if you want
energy you have to battle hard to get a
balance of iyy it doesn't mean that
everything you do throughout the day and
every day of the week is amazing and
exciting but you can trade it off you
can say every day there's a good part of
my day that I truly deeply feel
satisfied I don't really like the
bookkeeping I don't really like this or
that but the good news is most of my day
is not that it's when what you do all
day long doesn't light any fire for you
and it's just paying the mortgage that
that is that emptiness that comes and
gets you in your health your well-being
your attitude people are not drawn to
you cuz not like fighting for this
amazing Vision that's truly going to
help everyone you're just like I'm
paying my mortgage I'm really exciting
to hang out with I just want to pay the
mortgage and keep my job and not get
fired hi my name's Mike you know
like look I I think you're totally right
um I think again calling back Sarah
Blakeley and her setting up spanks she
had a career that was at the time
you know door too selling photocopies
fax machines which I'm sure was a
reputable business and there's probably
a lot of individuals who worked at that
business who did enjoy it and had a lot
of fun and Sarah explicitly you know
said this wasn't the life I signed up
for this isn't the movie I want to be in
yes and I think as we think about
somebody like car the work with grit as
we think about um knowing your why as a
business as well as your iy guy as an
individual that needs to come first
doesn't it you need to be able to say
this is uh what I want to do this is how
I'm going to feel satisfied so that when
you do start seeing the signs of as you
called it you know kind of midcareer
burnout you can look at it and
objectively say why do I feel burnt out
is it that I'm explicitly tired because
of a health reason okay well no is it
because of something that I'm doing with
my work that I'm not really feeling
satisfied about okay yes how curious let
me lean into this and find out a little
bit more and I think that really comes
down exactly as we were saying into
understanding that first of all yeah and
having an alignment into what gets you
up out of bed in the morning yeah and
that's so intrinsic I think to a lot of
the success stories we've seen with our
entrepreneurs uh including Elon as we've
called out facing criticism from you
know astronauts and of Heroes he still
got on with it and he still dug into the
The Depths and managed to make his way
through it and become very successful
likewise with Sam now facing a lot of
criticism for you know open Ai and also
AGI and artificial intelligence in
general he knows that this is where he
wants to lean into and and he's fully
aligned with the vision and the values
that he has in mind so that helps him
stay on track doesn't it it helps him
dig in and do that deferred uh sorry
that focused
effort so we can flip this around as
well right there's two sides to this we
talked about people not having passion
and Mission but we can also say people
that are full of passion and Mission but
haven't done the work to figure out how
they get paid so how many struggling
artists do we see because they're doing
something they love but they haven't
really figured out a way to get paid
this is the hard work right you can't
just be all passion and then the profits
just flow but you can't just be all
profits and no passion really icky guy
is finding the center of that what's
really powerful here is don't defer if
you really want to build the rocket
figure out your Ricky guy figure out
your hedgehog model as Jim Collins uh
says and get the balance between passion
and profit right and go out into the
world and build build that
thing what a lesson what a what a tip oh
yeah yeah M we have covered so much
ground because naturally Sam has done so
much there's been a ton of lessons as we
just kind of take a breath here like
what's the homework assignment for you I
mean look we had
substantial um habitual tips within
those three lessons that that certainly
deserve call out out some of which we've
uncovered before you know the idea of
having an idea as well as being able to
execute upon it however the thing that
stands out to me mik is that final clip
this idea of not deferring it and not
always putting it off putting off your
your dream or your ultimate goal in
order to go and pursue something else
instead I think this idea of not
deferring your life plan is is the key
call out to me when we hear from
samman what is your uh kind of homework
what is your key Insight that's going to
stick with you following Today's
Show I kind of like the idea of sticking
to the
mission right and sharing that with
others you know I see a lot of Founders
carrying a huge burden of the mission on
their own
shoulders and I don't think it's equally
distributed into the leadership so I I
think that one's a big one for me um
very very interesting um assignment yeah
but I'm going to take on I I want to
think about that a little bit more well
Mark I want to say a big thank you to
you my friend you are fresh back on
Australian soil you've been traveling
the world it's great to have you back in
the same time zone and thank you for
sharing all those clips from Mr Sam
Alman now importantly thank you to you
our listeners our viewers and Mark if
there's listeners there's viewers
there's one other
cohort all of our members who we
absolutely cherish every single week who
are keeping us I suppose Mike as our
extended co-founders are keeping the
moonshot ship afloat they are they
certainly are so a big thank you to you
all viewers listeners and members too
for show
262 uh where we dug into perhaps the
next Elon definitely the next uh
Jensen hang of Nvidia his name is Sam
Alman from open Ai and we studied four
big Ideas first of all the enormous
potential of chat GPT holy smoke things
have only just begun and as he is prone
to do he runs into a few angry and
grumpy competitors his advice is stick
to the mission so you're sticking to the
mission on your big bet on your big
dream there's many different pieces of
advice that he has for us we focused on
getting the right founder do just some
of those things sticking to the mission
finding the founder build something that
matters and as you go out there in the
world as an entrepreneur do not defer
life if you want to unlock your
potential get the passion and the profit
going at the same time don't defer do
that in fact you can do that right here
with us you can learn out loud and be
the best version of yourself because
that's what we're all about here on the
moonshots podcast that's s wrap