Jeff Seibert: Why OpenAI Will Become an Infrastructure Play | E1085

I think Google's by far the most vulnerable. They need to go all in on it. I don't think they have a choice. (instrumental music) I view OpenAI probably evolving more into an infrastructure company like AWS. The road ahead for OpenAI is not easy. What very few people, I think, are paying attention to is Apple, because again, they control the silicon. Imagine they're able to pioneer small models that run on-device, and then they do custom silicon to make 'em run. The performance could be outlandish.

Jeff, I am so excited for this. What people don't know is I will always remember, I remember being 18, maybe 19, and being in your office at Twitter in San Francisco. I was so nervous. I was like, "This is so cool. I'm with, like, the head of product at Twitter. This is so cool. Mom's not gonna believe this." Anyway, that was a while ago. So first, thank you so much for joining me today, Jeff.

Harry, no, it is so great to be here. Thanks for having me on. You know, the whole world only makes sense going backwards because, like, who would've guessed from that meeting you'd become one of my largest investors, like, five years later? Just incredible what you've done.

I mean, uh, yeah, definitely not me, to be honest. (laughs)

(laughs)

Everyone always thinks that things are so strategic and you're like, "Well, you know, sometimes you have to go to the party to meet cool people." Um, that's what I always say. But I wanna start, I find actually, like, one's childhood aspirations quite revealing. What did you wanna be when you were a child, when you pictured yourself growing up?

Oh, man. So I loved building things since I was little, and I was completely obsessed with LEGOs. And so my dream was honestly, literally to be a LEGO Master Builder, until my mom did some research, and she found out that actually, like, it's not that great of a career. They're paid something like minimum wage. And that was in middle school. And so I forget if it was that Christmas or the next year, but she gave me a programming book for Christmas, and I was, and that was the end of the story. I was like, "Okay, computers are next."

(laughs)

(laughs)

Dammit, I think you'd have made a magnificent Master LEGO Builder. Um, it's a little bit like journalism. It's like, oh, a wonderful creative pursuit and then you're like, "Really? That's the pay?"

Right, exactly.

Um, okay. So when I met you, you were at Twitter, and it is a incredibly formative experience, I think, being at Twitter, especially in the role that you were. How did it shape your operating mindset and approach today, do you think?

Yeah, the biggest lesson I learned was empathy, honestly. So when you're in consumer software, you can't possibly begin to understand how many different people, personas, use cases, mindsets, like the human experience all comes to bear on your product. And what I saw was actually a trap. So the product managers who were super data-driven started designing and building features for the average user, 'cause that's what the data told them. And they actually believed that there was something such as an average Twitter user. It's such a huge mistake, right? Like, you're conflating all of these different populations. You have sports fans who want a live, like, chronological timeline during the game. You have celebrities who want to maximize their reach. You have Japanese users who, by and large, want to remain anonymous. None of them is average. And so what I really learned is you have to deeply understand each population, and design and build a feature for them. Don't, like, let the data lie to you.