OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has a very direct way to get his message across.
In a conversation with Stripe CEO Patrick Collison, Altman said that he messages “a few hundred” OpenAI employees a day between texts, Slack, and other media.
“Very quick, like one, two messages, whatever, not done by an agent,” Altman said during an appearance at Stripe Sessions. “I actually do it. And the context I get from that sometimes is very helpful in these diffuse ways.”
Asked about Altman’s habits, ChatGPT said, “That’s a lot—but not implausible for someone in his position.” Rough napkin math suggests that Altman is sending somewhere around 39,000 messages a year, and that’s limited to a five-day workweek. (Forbes reported earlier this year that Altman likes to spend his time at the Napa Valley ranch, which is out of cell service range.)
Altman has said repeatedly that he loathes Slack. He told Collison that it’s hard to imagine a world without such instant messaging.
“Like many other people, I hate Slack, but I can’t imagine having to still communicate via email or whatever we used to do,” he said.
As for his overall management style, Altman said that he’s “definitely not a hands-on manager.”
“I’m very much of this style that you get great people, kind of give them a very high-level thing to point at and try to let stuff just happen,” he said.
Altman said OpenAI is about to enter its third era, after going from a research lab chasing AGI to also developing consumer products.
“Now we have to, in addition to both of those two things, figure out how to build this like mega, mega scale token factory for the world,” he said.
This new, massive undertaking will require a different skill set.
“The thing that I didn’t really appreciate between the phase one, phase two shift was how much my management style had to change,” he said. “Running a research lab and running a product company are two extremely different things. And I suspect this third phase is going to be very different yet again.”
Altman said he’ll ultimately have to change or surround himself with more people — perhaps, AI could bridge the gap.
“I think it’s not going to be like a natural fit for my management style,” he said. “So I either have to find someone or a few people great to hire, or I have to figure out how to do things in a different way, or I have to build an AI that can manage this new thing.”
