What Sam Altman Doesn't Want You To Know — Transcript

Full transcript

1. 0:25So why does Altman seem so upset here?
2. 0:27After all, this interviewer
3. 0:28was just pointing out a basic fact that OpenAI has committed to spend over $1
4. 0:33trillion on AI infrastructure over the next eight years, despite only
5. 0:36bringing in around $13 billion a year in recurring revenue,
6. 0:40less than 1% of what they're promising to spend.
7. 0:44I'm no money genius- and I'm personally terrible
8. 0:47at budgeting-but that doesn't seem great.
9. 0:50Most of the supposed growth in the American
10. 0:52economy in 2025 was caused by investment in AI.
11. 0:56That's all part of a promise being made by the industry, led by Sam Altman,
12. 1:00that once a certain level of machine learning intelligence is reached,
13. 1:04all of our problems will be solved.
14. 1:06The housing crisis,
15. 1:07cancer,
16. 1:07poverty,
17. 1:08climate change
18. 1:09mental health,
19. 1:09democracy,
20. 1:10universal basic income care, a bunch of diseases, this cancer
21. 1:12and that one, and heart disease
22. 1:14helping you try to accomplish your goals and be your best.
23. 1:16Very high quality health care.
24. 1:17The important new scientific discoveries
25. 1:19the marginal cost of energy are going to trend rapidly toward zero.
26. 1:22The more equal world universal extreme health for everybody.
27. 1:24In exchange for all that
28. 1:26Altman is asking all of society to put all of our eggs-our data,
29. 1:30our economy, our water and resources... everything-into one basket:
30. 1:35his. He's offering us one, massive,
31. 1:40So, should we trust Altman?
32. 1:42Should we accept his deal?
33. 1:43Is it even our choice?
34. 1:45Altman isn't a technologist or scientist,
35. 1:48He's an investor and dealmaker and really good at it... supposedly.
36. 1:52But his whole career is a series of 'just trust me, bro' moments.
37. 1:56So let's examine the deal
38. 1:58Altman is offering all of us.
39. 1:59Should we believe Sam Altman's promises?
40. 2:01And what's the cost to the rest of us if those promises
41. 2:05turn out to be... lies?
42. 2:10So let's go back and look closer
43. 2:11at Altman's early days in the tech industry.
44. 2:15Altman's first big deal was selling his first company,
45. 2:18Loopt a service for locating your friends.
46. 2:22That's something that inherently needs lots of users to work, or else you're just
47. 2:26locating yourself.
48. 2:27The operative idea seems to be ubiquity.
49. 2:29I mean, get get it out there in more ways than you can possibly imagine.
50. 2:37This whole time, Loopt refused to say how many users they had.
51. 2:40Altman just insisted there were "way
52. 2:42more users" than any other similar service.
53. 2:45It turns out, though, that towards the end, Loopt only had 500 users.
54. 2:51When Reuters reported this, Altman insisted it was "100 times"
55. 2:54more than that and that he'd provide evidence... He never did.
56. 2:58Just trust me, bro.
57. 3:00Loopt sold to the Green Dot Corporation,
58. 3:03who shut it down immediately and never used any of the tech.
59. 3:07Green Dot investors allege it was a dirty deal done to enrich
60. 3:10Sequoia Capital, a VC firm with a stake in Loopt
61. 3:14and two board members at Green Dot who helped approve the deal.
62. 3:19Altman left Green Dot as soon as he was legally able,
63. 3:21walking away with millions for building an app that no longer existed in any form.
64. 3:27And luckily for Altman, someone saw something in him.
65. 3:30Peter Thiel. Thiel, who once said that Altman should be treated as
66. 3:34"more of a messiah figure" gave Altman millions
67. 3:37to start his own VC firm, Hydrazine Capital.
68. 3:41And that's not all the capital Altman controlled.
69. 3:44He was also hired as president of Y Combinator, or YC,
70. 3:47an influential venture capital firm and startup incubator,
71. 3:51where Loopt got its original funding. "I think the president of YC
72. 3:55is sort of the unofficial leader of the startup movement."
73. 3:58And Altman personally traded on that influence.
74. 4:01The New Yorker reports that up to 75% of Hydrazine
75. 4:05Capital was invested in YC companies.
76. 4:08Altman used his inside view to get a cut of
77. 4:11YC's power.
78. 4:12Despite Altman promising he didn't cross invest in YC companies.
79. 4:16That's two big lies so far: the user base of LOOPT
80. 4:20that needed users to exist, and his investments.
81. 4:24In 2015, Altman leads YC into the investment you likely most know him for:
82. 4:29"Sort of a semi-company, semi-nonprofit, doing AI safety research."
83. 4:34OpenAI was launched as the supposed nonprofit OpenAI Foundation with a charter
84. 4:39with a lot of lofty goals, "a primary fiduciary duty to humanity"
85. 4:43and "avoiding enabling uses of AI or AGI
86. 4:47that harm humanity or unduly concentrate power," while
87. 4:50acting to "minimize conflicts of interest among our employees and stakeholders."
88. 4:54The evidence that they'd do that? "Just trust me, bro."
89. 4:58OpenAI's primary financial
90. 5:00backers were tech billionaires and millionaires like Altman
91. 5:03himself, Peter Thiel, Reid Hoffman and Elon Musk,
92. 5:07and tech companies like Amazon Web Services and Infosys.
93. 5:11We wanted to build this with humanity’s best interest at heart.
94. 5:14But in exchange, OpenAI is asking for a lot...
95. 5:17Putting all of society's eggs in one basket, if you will.
96. 5:20They want electricity, water, infrastructure...
97. 5:25Capital...
98. 5:26Your data... Your writing... Your art...
99. 5:29And for humanity to adjust to job
100. 5:32loss, deepfakes and everything else.
101. 5:35All in exchange for some future promise of technology that fixes everything.
102. 5:40So, can we trust him with all of this?
103. 5:43Let's look at some of his biggest statements
104. 5:45and promises to show how they tie to all the eggs in the basket.
105. 5:50Altman insists he doesn't own any of OpenAI
106. 5:53and he barely takes a salary.
107. 5:56I’m paid enough for health insurance. I have no equity in OpenAI.
108. 5:58I'm doing this because I love it.
109. 5:59But he doesn't hide that he's already rich
110. 6:02trying to do a rich-guy-using money-for-good Batman thing.
111. 6:05That Batman.
112. 6:07Such a wonderful person.
113. 6:09I don't deserve it.
114. 6:10But we millionaires decided that you do.
115. 6:13But let's look at how this is part of his honesty problem.
116. 6:16And it ties in to the eggs in the basket, because Altman is invested
117. 6:20in all the stuff necessary to build OpenAI.
118. 6:24One of the eggs OpenAI needs is a ton of data:
119. 6:27you can't build a large language model without examples of language
120. 6:31and content, and one source of that data is Reddit.
121. 6:35Altman owns
122. 6:35a big share of the social networking site and was on its board until 2022.
123. 6:40Reddit got its start in the same inaugural Y Combinator class as Loopt.
124. 6:45Here's Altman standing next to Reddit co-founder Aaron Swartz in 2005.
125. 6:50Swartz died by suicide in 2013 after being criminally charged
126. 6:54for reproducing academic articles online and breaking copyright law.
127. 7:00In 2015., Altman made a deal with Reddit, allowing OpenAI to "basically
128. 7:04aggressively scrape everything posted on the site" to feed into OpenAI's tech.
129. 7:08Reddit co-founder Alex Ohanian "felt in his bones" the deal was wrong.
130. 7:13It's a less noble version of what Reddit co-founder
131. 7:16Aaron Swartz was targeted by law enforcement for.
132. 7:19Swartz wanted to open the knowledge up to everyone.
133. 7:22Altman wanted to put it in his product.
134. 7:26In 2014, Altman promised that he and other investors
135. 7:29would give 10% of Reddit's value back to the Reddit community.
136. 7:33That never happened, due to "regulatory issues."
137. 7:37But just like Reddit's data going to OpenAI, a look at the areas
138. 7:41Altman's wealth is invested
139. 7:42in show a deep connection to other needs of the organization.
140. 7:46He's invested in AI networking equipment companies, thermal battery companies,
141. 7:51and even companies mining the rare earth metals that server farms require.
142. 7:56And once it's all built, Altman will profit off the problems AI creates.
143. 8:02We're going to focus on three: Rising energy demands and costs.
144. 8:06Misuse like fraud and deep fakes.
145. 8:08And job loss and economic collapse.
146. 8:12Altman says
147. 8:13again and again that OpenAI needs more power.
148. 8:17The, "audacious long term goal is to build
149. 8:20250GW of capacity by 2033."
150. 8:24That much compute will require as much electricity as 1.5
151. 8:28billion people, the equivalent of the entire population of India.
152. 8:32But Altman has a solution: since they first met in the early 2000s,
153. 8:36Peter Thiel and Sam Altman have had a shared interest
154. 8:39investing in nuclear power, which isn't inherently bad.
155. 8:42Of course, nuclear can be an extremely efficient
156. 8:45and clean form of energy, but Thiel and Altman want to own it.
157. 8:49Altman is invested in Helion and Oklo.
158. 8:51Helion is working to build the first ever nuclear fusion power plant,
159. 8:55a type of energy creation that many scientists say won't work
160. 9:00and Oklo is building
161. 9:01microreactors, literally truck sized nuclear reactors,
162. 9:05which is a bit concerning considering this investment strategy.
163. 9:09"Part of our model is make the cost of mistakes really low,
164. 9:13and then make a lot of mistakes."
165. 9:15But for now, Oklo hasn't figured their reactors out yet,
166. 9:18and they're just using gas to keep up the promises they made.
167. 9:21Nuclear startup Oklo and natural gas firm Liberty Energy today
168. 9:25announcing a partnership to provide energy to large scale customers.
169. 9:30Altman is also
170. 9:30invested in multiple companies offering protection against
171. 9:34AI bad actors, identity verification to prevent deep fakes, and even companies
172. 9:38offering insurance for losses due to AI scams and hacking.
173. 9:42That's like Batman not making any money off of crimefighting,
174. 9:46but then selling "Batmobile drove into my house" insurance
175. 9:50while also running the Uber for henchman startup that The Riddler uses,
176. 9:54and selling The Joker white makeup.
177. 10:00One other
178. 10:00big promise Altman makes is that when the AI he sees as inevitable
179. 10:04makes many jobs
180. 10:05obsolete, it'll create so much wealth that it can be shared with everyone.
181. 10:09just like his smaller scale Reddit promise that turned out to be bullshit.
182. 10:14And in 2024, he announced the product that would supposedly
183. 10:18offer that shared abundance.
184. 10:20Worldcoin.
185. 10:23Worldcoin is a technology company and cryptocurrency
186. 10:26funded by all the usual suspects of techno fascism.
187. 10:30Worldcoin's backers say it can be a way to give out some form
188. 10:33of universal basic income.
189. 10:35When AI starts replacing jobs,
190. 10:38I think this idea that we have a global currency
191. 10:42that is outside of the control of any government
192. 10:45is a super logical and important step on the tech tree.
193. 10:50But it also sells itself as a solution
194. 10:53to identity verification problems created by AI.
195. 10:57They want to use these orbs as a method of trusted identity check,
196. 11:02and you don't get your universal basic income
197. 11:05until you scan your eyes into the orb
198. 11:09and like many of Altman's other projects, from Loopt to ChatGPT
199. 11:12it requires universal adoption to be of any business use.
200. 11:17A currency and identification system are pretty useless if other people don't
201. 11:21use them. So again, Altman is making an offer.
202. 11:24Give us your identity and we'll give you cryptocurrency.
203. 11:27It's a classic Altman deal.
204. 11:29I'll fix everything if you sign over everything.
205. 11:32Just trust me, bro.
206. 11:34It's almost like Altman wants to build a whole other economy.
207. 11:38Just in case the one we have now falls apart.
208. 11:40Which, well, we'll get to that.
209. 11:41In 2019, OpenAI gave up any pretense
210. 11:45of being nonprofit and started a for-profit branch,
211. 11:49then spun the for-profit out into its own entity in 2024.
212. 11:54That for-profit organization has none of the same legal
213. 11:57responsibilities as the nonprofit did, and brought in new investors
214. 12:01like Microsoft, which invested $13 billion,
215. 12:05which OpenAI largely spent on Microsoft products.
216. 12:09And it's not just Microsoft, Nvidia has promised invest 100 billion
217. 12:13in OpenAI over the next few years, money that OpenAI will spend buying
218. 12:17Nvidia chips.
219. 12:19OpenAI has similar circular deals with AMD,
220. 12:22the Qatari government, and Larry Ellison's Oracle.
221. 12:26How about the 20 bucks you owe me? Well, I only got ten, so here's ten and I owe you ten.
222. 12:29Hey, Moe, you owe me 20.
223. 12:32Well, here's ten, I’ll owe you ten. You owe me 20.
224. 12:34Here's ten, I’ll owe you ten.
225. 12:35Here’s the ten I owe you.
226. 12:36Good. Now we're all even.
227. 12:39The entire
228. 12:39economy is tied to the success of Altman's project.
229. 12:43"We might screw it up, like this is the bet that we're making
230. 12:46and we're taking a risk along with that." who is the we taking the bet?
231. 12:50Here's OpenAI's CFO
232. 12:52Banks, private equity, maybe even,
233. 12:56governmental,
234. 12:59the ways governments can come to bear meaning like a federal subsidy or,
235. 13:03meaning like just first of all, the,
236. 13:05the backstop, the guarantee that allows the financing to happen.
237. 13:09Through all of that
238. 13:10stammering, the CFO of OpenAI is making a clear point:
239. 13:14The government, your tax dollars, are responsible for saving the AI project.
240. 13:20That's more eggs
241. 13:22in the basket.
242. 13:24And that basket is based on the promises of Sam Altman, who
243. 13:27as we've illustrated, lies and breaks promises a lot.
244. 13:32So if we really look
245. 13:34at the basket,
246. 13:36maybe we shouldn't have been putting all those eggs in there.
247. 13:39And it gets worse.
248. 13:40While we were editing this video, news broke that OpenAI is seeking a $750
249. 13:45billion valuation and is in talks
250. 13:48with Amazon for a $10 billion investment.
251. 13:52That's money that OpenAI would spend on
252. 13:54Amazon infrastructure. So
253. 13:58I'm going to need more eggs.