Inside OpenAI | Logan Kilpatrick (head of developer relations)

Finding people who are high agency and work with urgency. If I was hiring five people today, like those are, like some of the top two characteristics that I would look for in people. Because you can take on the world if you have people who have high agency. And like, not needing to get 50 people's different consensus, they hear something from our customers about a challenge that they're having and like, they're already pushing on what the solution for them is and not waiting for all the other things to happen. That like, people just go and do it and solve the problem and I love that. It's so fun to be able to, to be a part of those situations.

(instrumental music) Today my guest is Logan Kilpatrick. Logan is head of developer relations at OpenAI where he supports developers building on OpenAI's APIs and ChatGPT. Before OpenAI, Logan was a machine learning engineer at Apple and advised NASA on their open source policy. If you can believe it, ChatGPT launched just over a year ago and transformed the way that we think about AI and what it means for our products and our lives. Logan has been at the front lines of this change and every day, is helping developers and companies figure out how to leverage these new AI superpowers. In our conversation, we dig into examples of how people are using ChatGPT and the new GPTs and other OpenAI APIs in their work and their life, Logan shares some really interesting advice on how to get better at prompt engineering. We also get into how OpenAI operates internally, how they ship so quickly, and the two key attributes they look for in the people that they hire, plus where Logan sees the biggest opportunities for new products and new startups building on their APIs. We also get a little bit into the very dramatic weekend that OpenAI had with the board and Sam Altman and all of that, and so much more. A huge thank you to Dan Schipper and Dennis Yang for some great question suggestions. With that, I bring you Logan Kilpatrick after a short word from our sponsors. This episode is brought to you by Hex. If you're a data person, you probably have to jump between different tools to run queries, build visualizations, write Python, and send around a lot of screenshots and CSV files. Hex brings everything together. Its powerful notebook UI lets you analyze data in SQL, Python, or no code, in any combination, and work together with live multiplayer and version control. And now, Hex's AI tools can generate queries and code, create visualizations, and even kickstart a whole analysis for you, all from natural language prompts. It's like having an analytics copilot built right into where you're already doing your work. Then when you're ready to share, you can use Hex's drag and drop app builder to configure beautiful reports or dashboards that anyone can use. Join the hundreds of data teams like Notion, AllTrails, Loom, Mixpanel, and Algolia using Hex every day to make their work more impactful. Sign up today at hex.tech/lenny to get a 60-day free trial of the Hex team plan. That's hex.tech/lenny. This episode is brought to you by Whimsical, the iterative product workspace. Whimsical helps product managers build clarity and shared understanding faster with tools designed for solving product challenges. With Whimsical, you can easily explore new concepts using drag and drop wireframe and diagram components, create rich product briefs that show and sell your thinking, and keep your team aligned with one source of truth for all of your build requirements. Whimsical also has a library of easy-to-use templates from product leaders like myself, including a project proposal one-pager and a go-to-market worksheet. Give them a try and see how fast and easy it is to build clarity with Whimsical. Sign up at whimsical.com/lenny for 20% off a Whimsical pro plan. That's whimsical.com/lenny. Logan, thank you so much for being here and welcome to the podcast.