Sam Altman last read a line of code roughly 12 months ago. If he ever writes some again, he expects it to feel like a “Revolutionary War reenactment.”
Then he says the line that matters more: “we should be shooting more for a new renaissance than a new industrial revolution.” The standard AI pitch ends with a cure for cancer, and he hates it, because in his telling it quietly swaps human agency for material abundance.
Together with Outskill
Master AI agents and 15+ AI tools in one Saturday morning
Outskill’s free 4-hour AI Crash Course runs live this Saturday, Oct 31, at 10 AM EST. It’s a $395 session, free for the first 100 readers.
Build AI agents that take the repetitive work off your week
Cut presentation prep from 12 hours to 3
Get hands-on with 15+ AI tools, plus 3+ bonus sessions when you attend live
Altman, OpenAI’s CEO, sat down with Matthew Berman for a 45-minute interview, published on Oct 21. He covers a cure candidate he hopes for within a couple of years and the moats he still trusts once every lab has a great model.
I watched the full interview so you can skip it. Here are the 10 moments that matter, each with its clip.
The ground we covered earlier: