Transcript: OpenAI and Sam Altman’s superpowers

This is an audio transcript of the FT News Briefing podcast episode: ‘OpenAI and Sam Altman’s superpowers’

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Sonja Hutson
Good morning from the Financial Times. Today is Wednesday, November 22nd. And this is your FT News Briefing.

Israel and Hamas have reached a deal that would free some of the hostages held in Gaza. And voters in the Netherlands have a major decision to make today. Plus, what makes former OpenAI CEO Sam Altman so influential?

George Hammond
He is someone who thinks about the world a few years out, has a pretty clear vision of what that is gonna look like and has done a lot to articulate it more than most in the AI community.

Sonja Hutson
I’m Sonja Hutson, in for Marc Filippino. And here’s the news you need to start your day.

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Israel and Hamas have reached a deal for the release of hostages. It was brokered by Qatar and the US after weeks of negotiations. Under the agreement, Hamas will free 50 Israeli hostages that are being held in Gaza. In return, Israel will release about 150 Palestinian women and children held in its prisons. The deal also includes a four-day pause in fighting. It will be the longest since the conflict began in October. The hostages will be released a few at a time in order to test the strength of the deal. But even after their release, Hamas will still hold almost 200 hostages.

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For the first time in over a decade, the Netherlands will have a new prime minister. Voters in the country head to the polls today to elect a new parliament. The current PM, Mark Rutte, promised not to run for re-election after his government coalition fell apart over the summer. Here to explain is the FT’s Andy Bounds. He covers the EU. Hey, Andy.

Andy Bounds
Hi.

Sonja Hutson
So, Andy, it was not exactly a quiet summer for Dutch politicians. Remind us what led to these elections.

Andy Bounds
Yeah. So Rutte was heading a four-party coalition. It was the fourth coalition he’s run in 13 years. But he ran out of road when he tried to tighten migration policy, as in a lot of European countries there’s big debate about, you know, a surge in immigrants. And then he fell out with some of his coalition partners over that and then decided he wouldn’t run again. And so we have the elections.

Sonja Hutson
OK. So immigration seems to be a major issue for voters in today’s elections. What are some of the others?

Andy Bounds
So housing, which is — some would argue — linked to immigration. The Netherlands is a very small and densely packed country. And there’s a huge housing shortage and house prices and rents are rising very fast. So people feel they’re priced out. There’s also a lot of environmental issues. It’s a sort of countryside-versus-city debate really at the moment. Netherlands has a very big farming industry and it’s been emitting a lot of nitrogen. So that’s been a big part of the campaign as well.

Sonja Hutson
So, who then is looking to replace the outgoing prime minister?

Andy Bounds
Yeah. So there are four real possible candidates. The first is his successor as leader of the liberal VVD party, who is Dilan Yeşilgöz-Zegerius. She’s an interesting figure. She’s a Turkish immigrant who came as a child to the Netherlands. But again, cracking down on immigration is one of her big things. We then have Pieter Omtzigt who is a dissident, really. He left the centrist Christian Democrats and he’s now formed his own party, having been a lone MP for quite a few years. And in some polls they’re neck and neck for the lead. And then we have Frans Timmermans who’s a former European commissioner who is very big on environmental policy and led the EU’s green transition. So he’s come back to run a sort of combined Labour-Green alliance. And then a sort of outsider is Geert Wilders, the anti-Islamist populist who’s been around for more than 20 years now and still sort of polls in the mid-teens. And let’s remember the Netherlands, if you get about 20 per cent of the vote, you’re probably gonna be the biggest party. Obviously, the next stages, you then have to form a coalition with three or four other parties.

Sonja Hutson
And what sort of changes could a new government bring?

Andy Bounds
For the Netherlands, it will probably be a slightly less open society in the sense that, as I say, you know, immigration’s become an issue. Even the expats arriving has become an issue. So whoever wins, I think we’ll be turning away from the sort of globalist agenda, open economy that the Dutch have had since the second world war and which has helped them to become, you know, one of the richest countries in Europe. And I think for Europe, obviously it’s a point that we’ve got EU parliamentary elections in June. And if the Netherlands does move to the right, you know, that could be a precursor for other countries moving in that direction as well. We’re already seeing that, there’s a general view that European elections in June will bring a shift to the right and a reduction in Green vote in the European parliament and therefore different policies. And the Dutch could be a signal of that really. 

Sonja Hutson
Andy Bounds is an EU correspondent for the FT. Thanks, Andy.

Andy Bounds
Thanks very much.

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Sonja Hutson
The CEO of the crypto exchange Binance resigned and pleaded guilty yesterday to a US money laundering charge. Changpeng Zhao agreed to pay a $50mn fine as part of that. Binance also pleaded guilty and said it will pay more than $4bn in penalties. The US Treasury department said that the exchange failed to report tens of thousands of suspicious transactions that were linked to things like ransomware attacks, child sex abuse and terrorist groups. Binance did not respond to requests for comment. These charges are part of a wider crackdown on crypto in the US. The Department of Justice set up a new unit in 2021 focused on misuse of digital assets.

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It’s all still a bit of a mess over at OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT. Late last week, the board of directors fired CEO Sam Altman. That sent shockwaves through Silicon Valley. And after lots of back and forth, directors are now talking with him about rejoining. The vast majority of Altman’s former staff have pledged to quit their jobs unless he’s reinstated. And investors are lining up to fund any of his future ventures. So this begs the question: what kind of superpowers does Sam Altman have to rally that kind of support? Here to pull back the curtain on the person behind the saga is the FT’s George Hammond. Hey, George.

George Hammond
Hey, thank you for having me.

Sonja Hutson
So before we get into what makes so many people interested in following Altman, I just want to first get a better understanding of where he came from. What kind of role has Altman played in the AI industry?

George Hammond
So, Sam Altman is a fascinating character, partly because his background is a little atypical in this space. He is a company founder and then a venture capitalist who is in a crowd of people who are better known as research scientists and engineers. But he’s perhaps the person who has most clearly articulated a vision of a future in which artificial intelligence is increasingly sophisticated and comes to predominate. And having done so, he has increasingly put himself as the central character in a future which looks like that. So he is invested in nuclear fission, nuclear fusion, he has a cryptocurrency start-up which scans your eyeballs and then delivers you a universal basic income. He is someone who thinks about the world a few years out, has a pretty clear vision of what that is gonna look like and has done a lot to articulate it more than most in the AI community.

Sonja Hutson
OK. So Altman is clearly a big player in this industry. What do we know about why the staff at OpenAI is so loyal to their former boss?

George Hammond
So it’s hard to put your finger on a single thing about Sam that makes him such a compelling character. There are people who are massive acolytes. And there are people who think he’s deeply cynical. But they often use similar language to describe him. So he’s a mastermind. He is a visionary. He is someone who draws people in behind him and who can articulate a vision extremely clearly. And there are those who worked with him at earlier stages of his career, who basically say, look, you put this guy in any situation and he will come out on top.

Sonja Hutson
Well, given that he always comes out on top, how tied is the future of AI to Sam Altman himself?

George Hammond
So Altman has been the figurehead of this boom in AI over the last year. ChatGPT, the product that his company launched in November last year, has been emblematic of the boom. It started off the boom, and he’s really been the person who’s gone around the world, made the case that AI can be developed safely in the OpenAI, the company. To do that, he’s met President Joe Biden, Rishi Sunak in the UK, world leaders everywhere, and regulators, too. And he’s now been differentiated from his company. So this person who played a leading role is now gone in spectacular circumstances. So his future is now deeply uncertain at the least, which I think changes the trajectory of this boom in artificial intelligence, which seemed completely unstoppable. So there are huge question marks over where not only OpenAI goes next, but how the development of the technology is affected and who wins the race to develop artificial intelligence from here on out.

Sonja Hutson
George Hammond is the FT’s venture capital correspondent. Thanks, George.

George Hammond
Thank you very much.

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Sonja Hutson
You can read more on all these stories at FT.com for free when you click the links on our show notes. This has been your daily FT News Briefing. Make sure you check back tomorrow for the latest business news.

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