Sam Altman announces GPT Store at OpenAI DevDay

1. KSKara Swisher0:00

   It's been almost a year since OpenAI released ChatGPT to the public, kicking off an AI gold rush. The company shared what's coming next at their inaugural OpenAI developer conference this week. They always have these conferences when they get big. The announcements included introduction of custom GPTs, this was fascinating, for people to create their own, an upcoming app store, and a new turbo model of ChatGPT-4. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman spelled out the company's vision in his keynote. Let's listen to a bit.

2. SASam Altman0:28

   We're gonna launch the GPT store. You can list a GPT there and we'll be able to feature the best and the most popular GPTs. We believe that AI will be about individual empowerment and agency at a scale that we've never seen before, and that will elevate humanity to a scale that we've never seen before either. We're excited to see what you all will do with this technology and to discover the new future that we're all going to architect together.

3. KSKara Swisher0:47

   Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Love that, Sam Altman, but honestly, it sounds like the App Store on super, on, on steroids essentially. That's what's happening here. They're becoming a platform. Uh, that's what jumped out at me about this announcement. Um, a number of people on X were comparing Sam Altman to Steve Jobs after that presentation. I would agree. But it was the App Store, that's what it seemed to be, and they're becoming a platform. Um, what do you think?

4. SGScott Galloway1:09

   Uh, I th- I think you're right, but the App Store is arguably one of the most valuable businesses in the world.

5. KSKara Swisher1:14

   Exactly. Yeah, it's the new App Store.

6. SGScott Galloway1:16

   And as someone who spent... or my team spent a couple of months trying to figure out how to build a PropG.AI, and then basically now anyone (laughs) can do it by just going to the platform, I think we should have waited two or three months. Um, I... Look, i- i- it kind of... I- I was blown away by this, and it indicates why software continues and technology continues to every year grab more and more of the world's GDP. And that is they said, "Okay, we're massively upgrading the product. You can now upload enormous amounts of data for, for these LLMs to analyze. We have decided we're taking out fear. We're giving you umbrella protection liability from any copyright infringement," which I thought was extraordinary. I'm on the board... I'm on the board of, um, Maia Tech Startup section and the CEO uploaded the board deck to, to, uh, ChatGPT, uh, 4, 4.5 and said, "Act, uh, in the voice of an aggressive growth board member. Um, give me feedback and ask me questions." And the questions it came back with were, were chilling. They were so insightful and, uh, I mean, they kind of provoked an interesting conversation at the board level. It was like we had another board member in the room. And while they're doing all this, while they're offering custom, you know, chatbots, the ability to make these things more relevant, they've updated the input or the, the news up until April, they've updated the amount of data they're scraping up until, or current events up until April. They dramatically lowered the costs, and this is the key difference between technology and every other business. Businesses measure their power and their leverage by management's ability to raise prices. And since whatever you wanna call it, Moore's law, the gestalt in technology is let's massively upgrade the product and let's lower prices. If this had been a consumer company that said, "We've dramatically improved the quality of this car, this scarf, this soda, this streaming media platform," the immediate next sentence would be, "As a result, we're raising prices 15% 'cause we have the margin power." Instead these guys say, (sighs) "The product's incr- is just distinctly better and we're massively cutting costs." I was, I was totally blown away by this thing.

7. KSKara Swisher3:39

   I, I think the move to the platform is the power move. You know, uh, these, uh, uh, he, he is gonna have this chatbot app store. Um, it's a consumer business model. It's very, it's, it's, uh, it's Steve Jobs' playbook. Um, they will compete with Apple and Microsoft, although Satya Nadella... Um, by the way, Microsoft invested, uh, $13 billion in OpenAI, a smart investment by Satya Nadella. He made a surprise appearance at the conference, uh, very happy with that partnership, saying, "You guys have built something magical." The word magical is an Apple word.That's how you talk about Steve Jobs. Um, he... This copyright shield he talked about was also important, uh, which, or OpenAI would cover legal costs for copyright suits, which are, are, are common. Um, companies offer similar protection over IP claims, including IBM, Microsoft, Amazon, Getty Images, and Adobe. Uh, it'll be interesting. Um, Altman said in his keynote that the products the company is currently launching are gonna look very quaint compared to what's coming. Um, interesting thing to say, but you could see the directions these are going in. And he will repair the problems that the App Store had, which is dominance. He's, he's gonna have to be paying attention to where Apple went awry, including feeling like they're, they're, they're a monopoly. Um, he's certainly gonna have to deal with that. Um, but he's got, he's got a, uh, he's got a map of someone else's successful launch. Um, so this, to me, is the... It, it really is the App Store of this era that's, uh... I don't see there's any other way of looking at it.

8. SGScott Galloway5:07

   Yeah, and I'm hopeful that Sam Altman becomes the foil, and young, young men and women and stock analysts and the media start comparing him to Elon Musk and say, "You can be a visionary. You can come up with... You can change the world. And it doesn't necessarily mandate that you're an asshole." And I think we need that. I think, unfortunately, the, the legacy of Steve Jobs not being an especially kind person in certain moments-

9. KSKara Swisher5:30

   He wasn't a public asshole. He was not a pu- he was not. He was inspirational.

10. SGScott Galloway5:35

    I ag- I, I agree. Kara, he's, he, he comes ac- I kn- I know you were friends with him.

11. KSKara Swisher5:39

    I'm not friends with him. I knew him.

12. SGScott Galloway5:41

    Okay, but he comes off as warm and cuddly compared to Musk, but he also...Uh, anyways, I'm not gonna shitpost a dead man. I don't think he was a great role model for CEOs, and I speak from experience in that when I was growing up in tech in the '90s, we all thought that acting like an asshole and being harsh on your employees was an indication of genius, and that was largely because of our idolatry of Steve Jobs. And Elon Musk has now said, "You not only have to be an asshole to your coworkers, you need to be a mendacious, weird person accusing people of sex crimes, of not paying severance." I mean, he's taken it to an entirely different level, and that trend needs to be reversed. And I'm hopeful that Sam Altman will have the same type of credibility as a visionary, as someone who creates hundreds of billions of dollars in shareholder value, while being a thoughtful, kind person that cares about the commonwealth. We need a contrast here. We need a solvent, a foil, a zig when this guy, uh, Musk is zagging, and I hope that's Sam Altman.

13. KSKara Swisher6:38

    I would agree. I, I wouldn't compare Musk with Jobs ever. Not, not at all. Si- Similar but not the same. Uh, but we could, we could argue that-

14. SGScott Galloway6:45

    Look at the photograph on the cover of Walter Isaacson's books.

15. KSKara Swisher6:49

    Yes, I get that. He's trying, Musk is trying to do that. He is nothing like Steve Jobs, let me just say.

16. SGScott Galloway6:54

    Yep, I agree.

17. KSKara Swisher6:55

    But one of the things, um, that I would say is that there are pushbacks against, uh, Sam Altman and others, including Microsoft, Apple, everyone else, in that the, the, there's a real pushback from other VCs, from other startups, uh, that aren't, that don't get funded by the big companies, that a lot of this push for regulation, a lot of their dominance is to, is to preserve their, i- is to ring fence it, and so there can't... That these, these startups cannot compete, and I would say that's something they need to pay attention to.

18. SGScott Galloway7:25

    Is to ring fence it, yeah, yeah.

19. KSKara Swisher7:28

    They wanna win completely now versus in the, in the, in the marketplace of ideas. I think that is gonna be an increasing issue. The open source versus this, w- versus Sam being sort of the, the, the face of the establishment, I guess. And I think there's gonna be a lot of fighting over that, of where regulation is going. I think Sam has the upper hand and has endeared himself to regulators, and so I... Regulation is coming and should, but people are worried about that, and I think we have to pay attention to that, 'cause he's so appealing, um, that it's, he has an advantage.

20. SGScott Galloway8:02

    What AI apps would you like to see them develop?

21. KSKara Swisher8:04

    Oh, I don't know. Anything. I, the thing is how could you have thought up Uber? How could you have thought about, like, bad apps and good apps? I just couldn't have thought them up. I don't know. Everything. Everything. An app on, I don't know, if you like Succession, if you like, you know, everything about Succession, everything about... It's like a super search, it's super Google. I d- You know what I mean? Like, Google should've done this, essentially, but didn't for lots of reasons. Um, you could, but Google doesn't... You know, people who have content have an, have an advantage here like Professor GAI, right? Or Martha A., remember Martha Stewart when I interviewed her, talked about MarthAI. I think that makes sense. She has so much amazing content and you could turn it into, like... Who knows? I, I have no idea. People are gonna be very creative, I think. I'm excited. It's the next step. It's the absolute next step for this stuff, and there'll be a billion of 'em, so that's good. We'll see. We'll see who-

22. SGScott Galloway8:55

    Yeah, I, I think, I think there's a, um, a really big opportunity, and someone told me that Sam listens to this, uh, show. Uh, I think there's a huge opportunity if he really wants to show that he has concern about the commonwealth, I think, one, in healthcare.

23. KSKara Swisher9:10

    Yeah, he's interested in that, for sure.

24. SGScott Galloway9:12

    I'm convinced a third of America is so intimidated, underinsured, lacks knowledge that their lump in their breast turns into full metastatic breast cancer, that they end up with a, a melanoma that could've been treated-

25. KSKara Swisher9:25

    Yes.

26. SGScott Galloway9:26

    That they have, um, uh, you know, depression that is, uh, that is really starting to harm their lives. I think that putting out, in concert with the Nat- you know, uh, the National Institute for Health, the American Pediatric Association, medical journals, get doctors involved. I think this is a huge opportunity to pro- to push preventive healthcare out to the corners of the U... I mean, I'm wealthy and I'm, like, I think fairly educated. I have trouble accessing healthcare. (laughs) It's just... Can you imagine what it's like for a poor single mother to try and say, "I feel a lump in my breast."

27. KSKara Swisher9:58

    Yeah, everybody does.

28. SGScott Galloway10:00

    "Uh, okay, who do I call? How much it's gonna cost me? Should I be worried? Should I not be worried?" The amount of stress. "Uh, my child has diabetes. I don't..." I mean, i- it, there's such a big opportunity. I also think, um, around relationships, specifically around young men, but an opportunity to work with, um, psychiatrists, psychologists, adolescent psychologists, and offer... And then work with, uh, mentors and Big Brothers of America to try, to try and start pairing young men with the right resources and job training and, uh, reinforcing messaging and offline help to try and really attack, um, uh, suicidal ideation and self-harm among young boys and girls. There's just a ton of things that could be done here.

29. KSKara Swisher10:43

    It's gonna be a ton of things. This is gonna be a wellspring of creativity, well, I, I think. It's just, it, someone has to do it. I think there'll be a lot of pushback on them being the Apple version of this, the Apple Store of this. We'll see. We'll see where it goes. Um, there is certainly plenty of competition from the bigs, but, uh, let's hope there's a lot of competition everywhere and we don't, again, coalesce into single powerful organizations, which seems to be the way things work.

Episode duration: 11:11