Sam Altman denies OpenAI’s Microsoft deal is falling apart, teases product launches
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman was interviewed today by Andrew Ross Sorkin at The New York Times’ DealBook Summit, and he said a few interesting things about his company’s relationship with partner Microsoft, Elon Musk’s new political influence, and the theoretical limits of AI scaling. Altman also teased an upcoming “12 Days of OpenAI” product launches.
Altman was asked about reports that OpenAI’s $13 billion deal with Microsoft is in danger of falling apart:
“I don’t think we’re disentangling. I will not pretend that there are no misalignments or challenges. Obviously there are some. But on the whole, I think it’s been a tremendously positive thing for both companies.”
Regarding the AI-computing arms race, Altman was asked if OpenAI needed to build out its own computing resources, rather than relying on partners (like Nvidia and Microsoft):
“No... I think we need to ensure that we get enough compute of the kind we want, that we can rely on and all of that. And there may be reasons we have some very crazy ideas about things we’d like to build that are, you know, like high risk, high reward. But we certainly don’t need to have OpenAI get really good at building computer like, massive-scale data centers.”
Sorkin asked Altman about the fact that he never received any equity in OpenAI, which is seeking to shift from a nonprofit entity to a primary for-profit business.
“Look, it is weird that I didn’t get equity... I didn’t want it... If I could go back in time, I would have taken it... just some little bit, just to never have to answer this question.”
Looking ahead to what the next year or two of AI progress will look like, Altman said:
“Agents are the thing everyone is talking about... you know, this idea that you can give an AI system a pretty complicated task, like a kind of task you give to a very smart human that takes a while to go off and do and use a bunch of tools and create something of value. That’s the kind of thing I’d expect next year... If that works as well as we hope it does, that can, that can really transform things.”
Some of the most interesting things Altman said were related to OpenAI cofounder Elon Musk and his xAI startup, which is in direct competition with ChatGPT. Referring to xAI, Altman said, “I assume they will be a really serious competitor... Tremendous respect for how quickly they built that data center,” referring to Colossus, xAI’s massive supercomputing cluster powered by 100,000 Nvidia H100 GPUs.
The conversation then turned to Elon Musk’s newfound political influence flowing from his close relationship with President-elect Donald Trump, and how Musk might use that leverage to benefit his empire and punish competitors:
“It would be profoundly un-American to use political power—to the degree that Elon has it— to hurt your competitors... I don’t think Elon would do it.”
Altman reflected on his personal relationship with Musk, which has soured: “I grew up with him as like a mega-hero... I’m still glad he exists.”
When asked if reports of AI’s scaling laws might be hitting a wall, Altman didn’t buy it:
“I’ve always been struck by how much people love to speculate on, is there a wall, is scaling going to keep on going? Rather than just like, look at the curve of progress and say, ‘Maybe I shouldn’t bet an exponential against an exponential like that.’”
Altman teased a flurry of daily OpenAI launches and demos that will be taking place over the next few weeks:
“We have a bunch of new, great stuff... We’re doing ‘12 Days of OpenAI’ starting tomorrow, but we’re gonna launch something or do a demo every day for the next, like, 12 weekdays.”
This post has been updated to clarify a quote form Sam Altman.
Altman was asked about reports that OpenAI’s $13 billion deal with Microsoft is in danger of falling apart:
“I don’t think we’re disentangling. I will not pretend that there are no misalignments or challenges. Obviously there are some. But on the whole, I think it’s been a tremendously positive thing for both companies.”
Regarding the AI-computing arms race, Altman was asked if OpenAI needed to build out its own computing resources, rather than relying on partners (like Nvidia and Microsoft):
“No... I think we need to ensure that we get enough compute of the kind we want, that we can rely on and all of that. And there may be reasons we have some very crazy ideas about things we’d like to build that are, you know, like high risk, high reward. But we certainly don’t need to have OpenAI get really good at building computer like, massive-scale data centers.”
Sorkin asked Altman about the fact that he never received any equity in OpenAI, which is seeking to shift from a nonprofit entity to a primary for-profit business.
“Look, it is weird that I didn’t get equity... I didn’t want it... If I could go back in time, I would have taken it... just some little bit, just to never have to answer this question.”
Looking ahead to what the next year or two of AI progress will look like, Altman said:
“Agents are the thing everyone is talking about... you know, this idea that you can give an AI system a pretty complicated task, like a kind of task you give to a very smart human that takes a while to go off and do and use a bunch of tools and create something of value. That’s the kind of thing I’d expect next year... If that works as well as we hope it does, that can, that can really transform things.”
Some of the most interesting things Altman said were related to OpenAI cofounder Elon Musk and his xAI startup, which is in direct competition with ChatGPT. Referring to xAI, Altman said, “I assume they will be a really serious competitor... Tremendous respect for how quickly they built that data center,” referring to Colossus, xAI’s massive supercomputing cluster powered by 100,000 Nvidia H100 GPUs.
The conversation then turned to Elon Musk’s newfound political influence flowing from his close relationship with President-elect Donald Trump, and how Musk might use that leverage to benefit his empire and punish competitors:
“It would be profoundly un-American to use political power—to the degree that Elon has it— to hurt your competitors... I don’t think Elon would do it.”
Altman reflected on his personal relationship with Musk, which has soured: “I grew up with him as like a mega-hero... I’m still glad he exists.”
When asked if reports of AI’s scaling laws might be hitting a wall, Altman didn’t buy it:
“I’ve always been struck by how much people love to speculate on, is there a wall, is scaling going to keep on going? Rather than just like, look at the curve of progress and say, ‘Maybe I shouldn’t bet an exponential against an exponential like that.’”
Altman teased a flurry of daily OpenAI launches and demos that will be taking place over the next few weeks:
“We have a bunch of new, great stuff... We’re doing ‘12 Days of OpenAI’ starting tomorrow, but we’re gonna launch something or do a demo every day for the next, like, 12 weekdays.”
This post has been updated to clarify a quote form Sam Altman.
