Latest news with #JackAltman
Business Insider
15-07-2025
- Business
- Business Insider
Box CEO Aaron Levie has some advice for bosses: Hire AI native grads and they'll 'flip your company on its head'
"Hire a bunch of these people," he said in a Monday interview on the a16z podcast, "because they're going to flip your company on its head in terms of how much faster the organization can run." "If you're graduating, the thing I would be selling to any corporation some way or another is that if you're AI-native right now coming out of college, the amount you can teach at a company is unbelievable," Levie said. Levie, who cofounded Box in 2005 and now leads a company serving more than 65% of the Fortune 500, said AI-literate graduates are better positioned to boost organizational efficiency than traditional junior engineers, and can do it faster. "They will be able to show companies way faster ways of working," he said. "If you're a company, you should be prioritizing this talent that's just like: 'Why does it take you guys two weeks to research a market to enter? I can do that in deep research and get an answer to you in 30 minutes.'" With AI tools like ChatGPT, Cursor, and GitHub Copilot becoming standard in developer workflows, Levie said the newest generation of engineers will rely on them from day one. "The incoming class of engineers that you hire — they will literally not be able to code without AI assisting them," he said. "And it's not 100% obvious that's a bad thing." While some tech veterans worry that AI tools will undermine foundational programming skills, Levie took a more pragmatic view: AI can speed up development, make software engineering more accessible, and help young engineers make meaningful contributions earlier in their careers. The AI talent war Levie's push to hire AI-native grads comes amid a full-blown talent war among tech's biggest players — and tensions are rising. Last month, on his brother's podcast, "Uncapped with Jack Altman," OpenAI CEO Sam Altman accused Meta of trying to poach his top employees with signing bonuses of up to $100 million, calling the offers "crazy." Meta hasn't denied the claim. In fact, CEO Mark Zuckerberg is reportedly taking a hands-on role in recruitment, personally hosting top AI researchers at his home as he builds out Meta's new "superintelligence" unit, per Bloomberg. The rivalry is about more than talent — it's about who gets to define the next era of computing.
Yahoo
30-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Jack Altman says founding a company taught him a big lesson about picking the right board
Jack Altman advised early-stage founders to choose board members they enjoy spending time with. Altman said board members play a role in high-stakes decisions and long-term company impact. The Altman brothers are familiar with what can happen when founders and board members disagree. Jack Altman has a lesson for early-stage founders: Pick the right board. On an episode of the "Sourcery" podcast published on Saturday, Altman, a founder-turned-venture capitalist, said that if he were to launch a startup again, he would focus on bringing on the right board members. "You're really picking somebody who's going to be with you as a throughline through the company," he said. "It's hard to see it when it happens because you're just in a frenzied round." Altman founded and led Lattice, a human-resources software startup last valued at $3 billion, for over eight years before stepping down as its CEO last year. He has since launched Alt Capital, an early-stage venture firm that has invested in AI and nuclear energy companies. In February 2024, the firm raised a $150 million fund to invest in seed and Series A startups. Alt Capital did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider. On the podcast, Altman said that picking good board members is crucial because founders end up making "high-stakes" decisions together. "It turns out that what you're picking is somebody who's going to be there with you longer than most of your employees," he said. "You're going to talk to them about stuff that you're not going to talk to your employees about because you can't." Altman added that picking investors you like doesn't matter as much in the seed stage, but it becomes important once companies create boards of directors. According to PitchBook, he is on the boards of two startups: WorkRamp and Verifiable. Getting board composition right is a heavily discussed topic in Silicon Valley. Investors often find themselves being rated on "founder friendliness" — an approach that prioritizes the founder's vision and expertise. Meta's CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, has said a lack of technical chops in board leadership was one of the first things he noticed when he went to Silicon Valley, and it was among the things he wanted to do differently at Meta. "The CEO wasn't technical, the board of directors had no one technical on it, they had like one dude on the management team who was the head of engineering who was technical," he said of his early observations, in an interview last year. "Alright, if that's your team, then you're not a technology company." He added that he was careful about having an engineering and management balance on the board because it affects company culture and how it weighs decisions. The Altman brothers are intimately familiar with what can happen when founders and board members disagree. Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI and Jack Altman's older brother, has been vocal about problems he had with the ChatGPT maker's board. Earlier this year, the OpenAI chief said that the company's board left him with a "complete mess on my hands" after he was reinstated as CEO after a brief ousting in 2023. Read the original article on Business Insider Sign in to access your portfolio
Business Insider
30-06-2025
- Business
- Business Insider
Jack Altman says founding a company taught him a big lesson about picking the right board
Jack Altman has a lesson for early-stage founders: Pick the right board. On an episode of the "Sourcery" podcast published on Saturday, Altman, a founder-turned-venture capitalist, said that if he were to launch a startup again, he would focus on bringing on the right board members. "You're really picking somebody who's going to be with you as a throughline through the company," he said. "It's hard to see it when it happens because you're just in a frenzied round." Altman founded and led Lattice, a human-resources software startup last valued at $3 billion, for over eight years before stepping down as its CEO last year. He has since launched Alt Capital, an early-stage venture firm that has invested in AI and nuclear energy companies. In February 2024, the firm raised a $150 million fund to invest in seed and Series A startups. Alt Capital did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider. On the podcast, Altman said that picking good board members is crucial because founders end up making "high-stakes" decisions together. "It turns out that what you're picking is somebody who's going to be there with you longer than most of your employees," he said. "You're going to talk to them about stuff that you're not going to talk to your employees about because you can't." Altman added that picking investors you like doesn't matter as much in the seed stage, but it becomes important once companies create boards of directors. According to PitchBook, he is on the boards of two startups: WorkRamp and Verifiable. Getting board composition right is a heavily discussed topic in Silicon Valley. Investors often find themselves being rated on " founder friendliness" — an approach that prioritizes the founder's vision and expertise. Meta's CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, has said a lack of technical chops in board leadership was one of the first things he noticed when he went to Silicon Valley, and it was among the things he wanted to do differently at Meta. "The CEO wasn't technical, the board of directors had no one technical on it, they had like one dude on the management team who was the head of engineering who was technical," he said of his early observations, in an interview last year. "Alright, if that's your team, then you're not a technology company." He added that he was careful about having an engineering and management balance on the board because it affects company culture and how it weighs decisions. The Altman brothers are intimately familiar with what can happen when founders and board members disagree. Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI and Jack Altman's older brother, has been vocal about problems he had with the ChatGPT maker's board. Earlier this year, the OpenAI chief said that the company's board left him with a "complete mess on my hands" after he was reinstated as CEO after a brief ousting in 2023.
Yahoo
21-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Farming vs. podcast bros: Sam Altman predicts jobs will continue to evolve to look 'sillier and sillier'
Sam Altman isn't worried about how AI will change the workforce. On a podcast with his brother, the OpenAI CEO said that AI will lead to jobs that may seem silly now. But overall, Altman said that humans will meet whatever upheaval is to come. Subsistence farmers were just trying to survive. They weren't trying to make content. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman predicts that just as silly as a podcast bro would appear to our long-ago ancestors, current jobs will seem equally foreign after artificial intelligence upends the workforce. "Like, podcast bro was not a real job not that long ago, and you figured out how to monetize it and you're doing great and we're all happy for you," Altman told his brother Jack, teasing him during an interview on Jack Altman's "Uncapped" podcast. "But would like the subsistence farmer look at this this a job or is like you playing a game to entertain yourself?" "I think they would subscribe to this podcast," Jack said in response. Jack Altman, who runs his own VC firm, Alt Capital, quizzed his older brother about a wide range of topics, including the OpenAI CEO's thoughts on Meta's competition in the AI space (he doesn't think the tech giant is "good at innovation), what life will be like will robots roam the streets, and the gua sha lymphatic massage Jack received right before the interview. Data already shows that AI is taking jobs. Shopify and Duolingo's executives have asked their managers to justify why AI couldn't fill new roles. One economist found that the share of AI-doable tasks in online job postings has decreased by 19%. During their discussion, Jack Altman said that customer service-related jobs are already being replaced. Sam Altman says he's not afraid of this looming upheaval, because society has shown a limitless potential to adapt, even if "a lot of jobs go away" and their replacements appear "sillier and sillier looking from our current perspective." "We have always been really good at figuring out new things to do, and ways to occupy ourselves, and status games or ways to be useful to each other," Altman said, "And I'm like not a believer that that ever runs out." The changes, Altman said, will also be less dramatic for the next generation, which will grow up not knowing what life was like before. "It's not going to ever seem to weird to him," Altman said of his son. "He's just going to grow up in a world where, of course, computers are smarter than him. He'll just figure out how to use them incredibly fluently and do amazing stuff." Read the original article on Business Insider
San Francisco Chronicle
18-06-2025
- Business
- San Francisco Chronicle
Sam Altman says Meta tried to poach OpenAI staff with $100 million bonuses
Sam Altman says Meta is offering massive compensation packages — some reportedly topping $100 million — to lure top artificial intelligence talent from OpenAI. So far, the effort hasn't worked, he said. 'They started making these giant offers to a lot of people on our team,' Altman said Tuesday on the Uncapped podcast, hosted by his brother, Jack Altman. 'You know, like, $100 million signing bonuses.' 'None of our best people have decided to take them up on that,' he said. New episode of Uncapped with @sama. Enjoy 🤗 — Jack Altman (@jaltma) June 17, 2025 Meta has not publicly commented on the accusation. Altman said he believes Meta is aggressively hiring because 'their current AI efforts have not worked as well as they have hoped. He added, 'I respect being aggressive and continuing to try new things.' Still, he criticized the company's approach. 'There's many things I respect about Meta as a company, but I don't think they're a company that's great at innovation,' Altman said. 'I think we understand a lot of things they don't.' The comments come as Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg accelerates efforts to recruit for a new 'superintelligence' AI lab. Bloomberg and The New York Times have reported that Zuckerberg has been personally meeting with AI experts at his homes and reconfiguring Meta's Menlo Park headquarters to place the team near his office. Last week, Meta announced a $14.3 billion investment for a 49% stake in Scale AI, bringing founder Alexandr Wang and some of his employees to Meta. 'That basically never works,' he said. 'You're always going to where your competitor was, and you don't build up a culture of learning what it's like to innovate.'
