{"url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=15ESPSRfNyc", "page_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=15ESPSRfNyc", "title": "Sam Altman: Social Change and Startups | 4-13-2017", "show_or_channel": "Commonwealth Club World Affairs of California", "date": "2017-04-13", "duration_s": 4095, "type": "talk", "speakers": ["Sam Altman"], "confidence": "high", "notes": "Commonwealth Club: social change and startups (UBI, tech and society).", "people": ["sam-altman"], "id": "2017-04-13_commonwealth-club-world-a-sam-altman-social-change-and-startups", "audio_duration_s": 4094.8041875, "worker": "jc-w14", "transcribe_s": 54.5, "model": "large-v3", "segments": [{"start": 8.91, "end": 35.1, "text": "So I've been trying to find out details about Y Combinator's social change initiatives for years to no avail. And Sam, I'm thrilled to have you trapped here on stage with me. All right. Welcome to tonight's program with Inforum at the Commonwealth Club. My name is Nellie Bowles. I am the Silicon Valley correspondent for Vice News Tonight. And this is Sam Altman, the president of Y Combinator. Thank you. I want to start just."}, {"start": 35.1, "end": 65.33, "text": "Super basic. Some folks here are in tech. Some folks here probably aren't in tech. What is it that you do? What's your job? I wonder about that. In some sense, it's very easy to explain. In some sense, it's really hard. We give people money and advice who are trying to start startups, and we try to help them as much as we can. And that sounds very simple, but in practice, it has turned out to be a much harder and more interesting job than I ever thought."}, {"start": 65.84, "end": 94.61, "text": "We basically have a platform where we can identify very talented people from around the world, or try to. We have tens of thousands of them apply to our program every year that have an idea for a company and want to make it a reality. And startups are often a great way to make an idea happen. They aren't always the best, and we try to be open when they aren't. And we're open to other ways of impacting the world, which maybe we can talk about later. But mostly, we take in about 125 companies twice a year."}, {"start": 94.61, "end": 123.9, "text": "And these are very early stage companies. They're certainly almost always at the stage where it sounds like a terrible idea. And, you know, it's two or three people and a little bit of software or hardware, as the case may be. And we try to help them get going. We try to build a community so that they have peers and founders and advisors, the partners that work at Y Combinator. We give them a little bit of money, a lot of advice. We work with them very intensively for the first three months of their company's life. But then we go on forever."}, {"start": 123.9, "end": 153.74, "text": "We still work with companies that we funded 10, 12 years ago. And we have been able to fund enough companies that we've now created a sort of a network. And so if you join our program, all the other founders that we funded in the past 12 years that feel loyalty to us will help them and advise those founders and buy their product and do whatever they can. Just briefly, what does your day look like? Give me a breakdown of a Sam Altman day. It's mostly email."}, {"start": 153.74, "end": 181.44, "text": "No, I spent a lot of my time, the majority of my time, meeting with the founders that we funded and helping them with whatever they need help with. And this can be really different. So I was, Boom is a company that we funded recently trying to make supersonic airplanes, and I was out visiting them yesterday, and their problems are not problems like I've had help with before. You know, it's the FAA is..."}, {"start": 181.44, "end": 208.19, "text": "Trying to stop supersonic flight because it's too loud at takeoff, and how do they get around that? I was talking to more recent companies that we funded that are just trying to find any user to use their product. Will someone please care what I'm doing? How do I find that person? So there's a hugely broad range of companies that we work with. We don't have any particular industry, and that's the challenge that every company faces."}, {"start": 208.19, "end": 236.53, "text": "are really different. And so a lot of my day is just spent helping people with whatever challenge they're facing. A lot of it is also meeting new entrepreneurs and hearing about new ideas. And then I try to spend a lot of time just learning about new technology and trying to understand the world. The most important thing we do is pick good founders and good ideas. And I think you have to go meet a lot of people, understand a lot of problems, understand where technology is going and what's possible this year that wasn't possible."}, {"start": 236.53, "end": 262.96, "text": "Last year, what is the new technology wave that's going to drive the next big cluster of companies in the same way that after we got smartphones, in the next few years we got Uber, Snapchat, WhatsApp, all these companies that weren't possible before. So I think a lot about that as well. How did you get interested in this? Tell me, you liked robots as a kid, but how did you... I did like robots. I still do. Do you play with robots?"}, {"start": 262.96, "end": 292.82, "text": "Yeah, I mean, like, at the OpenAI office, there are these sort of, like, crazy robots doing these things. You just, you're like, wow, the future's going to be really different. This is good or bad or something. I mean, tell me about how you got interested in tech in the first place. I mean, I was a nerd as a kid. I still am, but a little bit less of one, maybe. But I never wasn't, I don't remember ever not being interested in tech. And this was when tech was, like, deeply uncool, you know? Like, I was, like, sitting in my elementary school with this Apple IIgs, like, learning to type."}, {"start": 292.82, "end": 322.62, "text": "Learning QBasic. And that doesn't make you too popular. But I liked it. I had fun. And it was just like, I think like many other people who got into programming at a young age, it felt like magic. You know, I can type these characters into this thing and then it does whatever I want. And it can do these amazing things. And that really made me fall in love with tech. You know, like the two things I was really into in high school were computers and cars."}, {"start": 322.62, "end": 353.07, "text": "And that hasn't changed much. And I think this idea that we can, like, it wasn't that long ago that we were like, that humans were digging stuff out of the ground. And we had nothing. We had no tools. We had nothing. And if you just think about kind of the way we've bootstrapped up to this world now where we can create these amazing technologies from nothing not that long ago."}, {"start": 353.07, "end": 382.8, "text": "That's amazing to me. And I think it's just sort of it's always been what I'm most interested in. Yeah. And then how did you become kind of the Sam Altman that you are now? Like how you had Looped, which was not a super successful startup? No, it was fine, but definitely not super successful. Yeah, no. And then and then it's true. No, it's good. And but but but now you're running Y Combinator. So what did you learn from Looped that gave you the skills to run Y Combinator? Or how did that happen?"}, {"start": 385.46, "end": 414.11, "text": "So I was, although my startup didn't work out that well, I turned out to be better at investing. And I had started investing relatively early on. It was back in the days when you could still write a really small check and have it buy a meaningful percent of ownership before valuations went so crazy. So I was able to do that. It'd be harder today. But I turned out to be not that bad at it. What was your first investment? Stripe."}, {"start": 414.11, "end": 442.0, "text": "And I turned out to really like helping founders. The Stripe valuation when I invested was less than a million post. What is it now? I don't know. There's no startup. Someone walks out of class and says, I'm going to start a startup. Our valuation is $20 million. So it's gotten harder with small checks to do this. But back in the day, you could sort of do it as an individual."}, {"start": 442.0, "end": 472.18, "text": "And I turned out to really like helping startups. And I stayed really close to Y Combinator because I felt like something important was happening. It was this community that I had become part of and that I wanted to give back to. And I had become convinced that startups were going to be this secular shift in the world to how things got done. And that the world had changed in this fundamental way with"}, {"start": 472.21, "end": 498.43, "text": "Just the drastically lowered cost of starting a company that a lot of people would be able to do amazing things with startups. And I didn't think it was going to be just software. And so I started getting interested in biotech companies, in nuclear fusion companies, supersonic airplane companies, rocket companies. And I thought that this same model of start with low amounts of capital, iterate super quickly, and"}, {"start": 498.43, "end": 527.54, "text": "Have laser focus on building a great product was going to work. And so I got progressively more involved with Y Combinator. I had been investing more. I had raised a fund and kind of scaled that up. And I started talking to Paul Graham, who founded the organization for almost two years about taking it over. And, you know, I didn't really want to be a full time investor, but I sort of thought I had a plan for what I could do with Y Combinator that would be really impactful and interesting. And here I am."}, {"start": 527.54, "end": 557.55, "text": "Were there lessons from Looped? Were there things that you learned from it not working that made you able to select entrepreneurs better? I think it's always tempting to learn too many lessons from failure and not enough from success. So I did learn all of these things. I don't know how much they help. I mean, one thing that I learned that really matters is you can't create a market that doesn't want to exist. And I think we did a lot of things really well, but we had this one catastrophic problem, which is that we and a lot of other people thought,"}, {"start": 557.55, "end": 587.1, "text": "There was going to be this movement to people using location to sort of find their friends and hang out together. And that didn't turn out to be that true. We found a lot of other things. Only works for Tinder. Did kind of work. Yeah. Funnily enough, one of the most successful things we did was sort of like an early version of Tinder. But again, I think the thing, the lessons that I've learned that have helped me at Y Combinator have been the things that went really well."}, {"start": 587.1, "end": 616.45, "text": "The companies that I've been a part of since they were, you know, a couple of people that have now gone on to be huge. And I've watched that all the way through. What interests you right now? I mean, what you're doing sort of you're doing investing through Y Combinator, but you're also doing your own investing. What like what are you investing in right now? You personally, you know, I try to use you. You were really in cruise also driving car. Well, that was that. So in general, I try to use sort of my I don't do a lot of non YC investing just because it's like a pretty busy job."}, {"start": 616.45, "end": 646.06, "text": "And I try to use my capital for the things that I think are really important to a good future that if I don't invest in them, they won't happen. So what companies? Well, Cruise was one. I think self-driving cars, although they have some very negative societal impacts, are going to help solve the housing crisis. I think they will lead to drastically fewer deaths. And this was a company. People always retell the story. Cruise, you know, such a hot company, was going to be so successful. They couldn't raise money."}, {"start": 646.06, "end": 675.22, "text": "I sort of invested because I believed in them and the founder and they couldn't raise money. I didn't want to see them shut down. And it turned out to work out great. But everyone forgets the first part of that story. I was curious. This is kind of neither here nor there, but like when you say you believed in the founder, is it why? Like, did you just sort of get along? You guys are sort of friends. He was in he came into YC with nothing. He said, I'm going to build a self-driving car by the end of YC ten weeks. And I said, no, you're not. No one can do that."}, {"start": 675.22, "end": 705.41, "text": "And he did it. And so he went from nothing at the beginning of the program to an Audi, I think it was an S4, an A4, one of those two, that he had taken all of the plastic coverings off of, put servos into the steering column and onto the pedals, hooked up a camera on top of the car, and had a car 10 weeks to the day or whatever after he started that drove itself to YC. And I was like, well, I didn't think that was going to happen."}, {"start": 705.41, "end": 734.62, "text": "And he's an incredible engineer, obviously, to get that done. But also, he had such a clear strategic vision for the future and about why what he was doing the car companies weren't going to do, Google wasn't going to do, that I was really impressed. But Helion is a nuclear fusion company that I have invested a lot in and one I really believe in. I think if you could pick one thing to hugely impact the quality of life of a lot of people,"}, {"start": 734.62, "end": 758.96, "text": "Getting cheap, clean, safe energy to work would be huge. Do we want startups doing nuclear fusion? No one else is. Well, that's not true. Like the European government program is. Yes, I do think we want startups doing nuclear fusion. I think we forget that businesses used to do these amazing things."}, {"start": 758.96, "end": 788.85, "text": "We've been reminded recently, you know, like we have SpaceX taking us back to space when the government has sort of not been able to do that as well recently. But I want anyone to do fusion. If you could just like snap your fingers and pick one thing, I'd love it if it were the company I'm an investor in, but I would love for any company to figure this out. I think that would be transformative and super important to so many other problems. The energy just, energy is a factor for so many other,"}, {"start": 788.88, "end": 818.19, "text": "Problems that I think people don't even understand. You know, if we can get super cheap energy that doesn't negatively impact the environment, we can get clean water, we can get, you know, food, we can have people, we can have better transportation to help alleviate the housing crisis. But I try to pick companies like that, that I think I understand well, I can help. And if I don't invest, maybe they won't happen. I want to talk about some of YC's, obviously the social change."}, {"start": 818.19, "end": 846.82, "text": "Projects. And I want to talk about politics. Great. The last thing just for the sort of armchair investors, what are the trends that you would want to invest in now? Is virtual reality still hot? Like, is that is that still something that or what? What genres? I think you should always be skeptical about trends. I think by that there are some times when the crowd is right. But for every time, you know, investors sit around and say, we think mobile is going to be the next big thing."}, {"start": 846.82, "end": 875.76, "text": "You forget about all the times they say it's definitely podcasting, it's definitely Facebook apps, you know, whatever the hot thing of the of the day is. Podcasts are hot. Not when they not when everybody was trying to invest in them in 2008. So I think it's really important to try to think as independently as you can and not chase the trend unless it's one of these like absolute mega waves that is going to spawn a ton of companies. My candidate for that. So I don't give a total non-answer."}, {"start": 875.76, "end": 903.81, "text": "I think machine learning applied to every vertical is the easiest layup in all of startups right now. I think you can take this idea and apply it like farming, self-driving cars, radiology. And I think there is a new massive company to be built in every vertical. So that's to the degree that I'm excited about a trend."}, {"start": 903.81, "end": 925.9, "text": "That is one. I think even if we don't make any more research progress on machine learning, which we will, but even if we don't, and you just take what already works today, the papers that have been released in the last year, there are $100 billion companies waiting to be started just with what we already have working. The world is really different than it was two years ago there."}, {"start": 925.9, "end": 955.58, "text": "I mean, that leads me to I think the most interesting thing that you guys are doing right now, which is your universal basic income project. So for for those who don't know, it's Y Combinator is funding. You've got 100 families in Oakland getting around. It's going to be a thousand. It's just we're starting with a little pilot. Good to know. Getting around $1,500 a month. Tell me, what's the what is this project and why? So"}, {"start": 955.58, "end": 980.13, "text": "Before I say that, I don't think this is the only answer. I don't think universal basic income is the cure to all societal ills in the way that some people do. But I think that we are about to see a change in the economy on the order of the Industrial Revolution or the Agricultural Revolution, where you see a huge amount of human jobs change in a very short period of time."}, {"start": 980.13, "end": 1009.78, "text": "We'll find new jobs on the other side. I think human demand is limitless. I don't know what they'll be. Maybe we're all artists. I doubt that. I think it'll be something we don't think of today. But there will be some new jobs on the other side. In the meantime, we're going to have a real disruption. And I think for all the people talking about how machine learning technology is going to eliminate jobs, there aren't that many talking about what do we as the tech industry do."}, {"start": 1009.78, "end": 1038.34, "text": "To solve the problem that we're helping to create. So what are you doing in Oakland? So one idea is that at a minimum, this won't be the whole solution, but as a minimum, we should create a floor and we should make it so that no one is worrying about how they're going to pay for a place to live. No one has to worry about how they're going to have enough to eat health care, but just give people enough money to have a reasonable quality of life."}, {"start": 1038.34, "end": 1067.01, "text": "One thing that I think most people get wrong is that if the robots do come take all the jobs, then the cost of living will go down so much that we can afford to do this. And that's not what we're interested in studying. I'm not interested in the economic question because I'm so confident that if we do have mass technological unemployment, we'll have plenty of money to redistribute. The question is, what makes people happy? What makes people fulfilled? As much as people complain about their jobs,"}, {"start": 1067.01, "end": 1098.75, "text": "Most people get a lot of satisfaction. It feels good to be needed. It feels good to have a place to go and a team to contribute to. And what will the new society look like in a world where we do just give everyone enough money to live on, where we don't have this need to work to survive? And I think, again, we'll find answers to this, and people will find new things. It may look really different from work in the way we think of it today, where you work to sort of earn a wage."}, {"start": 1098.75, "end": 1126.66, "text": "I think it's really important we figure this out because people want to contribute. They want to have a say in the future. They want to have something to do. One of the things that I have found quite inspiring is I've talked to a lot of low-income people, people who are not traditionally part of the Silicon Valley elite in any way, is most of them don't want a handout. Most of them want to find meaningful work and a job. How did you pick those initial 500 families?"}, {"start": 1126.66, "end": 1155.79, "text": "It's a randomized controlled trial. I wasn't involved at all. There's a social scientist that leads the project, but randomly somehow. And how are they getting money? So is Y Combinator just sort of like sending a direct deposit to bank accounts? I think it's technically a debit card, but yes. So you get a Y Combinator debit card. It doesn't say Y Combinator on it, but yeah."}, {"start": 1155.79, "end": 1185.9, "text": "What are you how are you measuring success for this program? What? Because it sounds like you're spending a thousand and then potentially too many more. How what does success look like? Well, I hope it turns out to be a good program, but at a minimum, success would look like getting good data and running a good, thoughtful experiment where people can look at this and say this policy makes sense or it doesn't. But here's this experiment that leaders in the field agree is well designed and well run."}, {"start": 1185.9, "end": 1213.41, "text": "And here's what happened. People were not happier, not healthier, less happy. People were able to retrain themselves. People were able to find new work. Are folks going in for weekly tests or what kind of measurements? Keep it fairly hands off. But there's like a monthly sort of survey. Do they come into YC or do you go? I'm sorry, I'm just. They don't come into YC. So YC research is a nonprofit part of YC, but it's a separate office and."}, {"start": 1213.41, "end": 1243.74, "text": "It kind of has run very hands off from the rest of YC. Yeah. How have people been liking it? I have specifically been asked while the study is going on not to comment on it. These are like real people, right? And it's gotten much more press attention than we ever thought. And so we'll share a lot about it when when it's done. But we're specifically trying not to talk about how it's going while while the experiment is actually running. Yeah. Just sort of stepping back on it like there."}, {"start": 1243.74, "end": 1274.19, "text": "There are a lot of folks who think it's strange to have or maybe a little inappropriate to have a startup investors doing an experiment on families in Oakland. What would you say to that? Totally understand the criticism. I think it is strange not to be not to be thinking about these issues. I think it is strange not to be saying, all right, we're doing this thing. It's working really well, but it's going to cause this massive effect on everybody."}, {"start": 1274.19, "end": 1301.12, "text": "And how can we be sort of responsible citizens of the world? And, you know, universal basic income is not an idea that we're the only fans of. One of the things that has surprised me about the idea is how broad the support is from such different people. But, you know, we're in a place where we can actually study it. People have been talking about it for a long time. But it's sort of people arguing with each other about, well, this would happen or this would happen."}, {"start": 1301.12, "end": 1328.21, "text": "Rather than saying we tried it and this is what happened. So we thought we could contribute and we felt an obligation to contribute to the policy discussions with some actual data. Now, we talked to a number of mayors in different cities before picking Oakland and community groups. And we only wanted to do it in a place where we felt the community leaders supported it, were interested in it, wanted it in their community. And we also worked with the Stanford Review Board."}, {"start": 1328.21, "end": 1356.42, "text": "Since obviously we're working with people here. Ultimately, do you think that UBI is something that startups and investors should be leading or that the government will be leading? Well, I think the government will eventually do it if it turns out to be good policy, but not for a long time. And again, the issue for me is not not economically is it affordable? I believe if we need it, it will be. But this is a mega change to society, right? Like we have evolved to struggle to survive, basically."}, {"start": 1356.42, "end": 1384.5, "text": "For a long time in different ways. And if you take that away from people, if you take that sort of need or drive or whatever that is, what's going to happen? Again, I think it'll be great. I'm optimistic about it. But it is a big change. And I think it'd be good if we had some data about how it impacted people before we're in a situation where we have huge amounts of jobs eliminated in a very small number of years and have to make kind of an on-the-fly decision."}, {"start": 1384.5, "end": 1417.81, "text": "What jobs do you think are AI-proof? What jobs won't get replaced? I mean, that's a hard question because eventually it's hard to say which won't. But in the short term, I think all repetitive work that does not require a human emotional connection is likely going to be at least greatly supplemented by machine learning."}, {"start": 1417.81, "end": 1446.99, "text": "All is always hard to say. And again, I think there are a lot of jobs where you really want a human doing it. You know, if you're in the hospital, you really want a human there. If you're a student, you'd like to learn from a human teacher. So there will be some jobs that even though they're repetitive, people want a human connection. I think there'll be a lot that frankly aren't. And then over time, I expect the definition of repetitive work to keep."}, {"start": 1446.99, "end": 1477.33, "text": "Moving down the field. And I think unfortunately, we will find that a lot of what we do is actually quite repetitive or someone's done it before to some degree. Yeah. Yeah. Do you think it's partly to blame for the rise of populism or that sort of anxiety around work and inequality? I do. I do. You know, it's really interesting. When I went to go meet a bunch of Trump supporters and I grew up in the Midwest, I have a lot of friends who still live there."}, {"start": 1477.33, "end": 1508.98, "text": "I think it is striking to me how much San Francisco is an incredibly optimistic place in a way that most of the rest of the country isn't. It's also striking to me how much... So I think people talk about globalization and technology, and they think about them as the same force. Somehow, like, my job is at risk by this force. And I'm not sure if it's that it's going to go to China or that a computer is going to take it, but somehow this thing that I had..."}, {"start": 1508.98, "end": 1536.43, "text": "There's something that's trying to take it from me. And I think the thing that has surprised me about the current wave of populism, or at least the Trumpism version of it, is people really blame globalization because that was an easier enemy for Trump to talk about or something. It's at least clearer to say what to do about that. And automation is actually a completely orthogonal vector. None of the kind of..."}, {"start": 1536.43, "end": 1563.82, "text": "Nationalistic solutions work for that. What inspired you to go on this? So you went on a road trip and met you to meet 100 Trump supporters. Yeah, I didn't mean more than that. I so one thing I try to do is if I get data that my model of the world world is wrong, then I try to go update my model. And certainly Trump, the whole Trump phenomenon."}, {"start": 1563.82, "end": 1593.15, "text": "I had been paying quite a bit of attention to for the last couple of years, and clearly something about my model of the world was wrong. The fact that even before it was clear he was going to win, which I had been worried about for a while, this level of support, there was something I wasn't understanding. So you just got in your self-driving car and hit the road? So, well, I wasn't sure if it was that simple. I mean, I wasn't sure if it is. How did you find them? Like, were you just going into diners?"}, {"start": 1593.15, "end": 1622.72, "text": "Well, no, again, like I grew up in the Midwest. I spent a lot of time in very small towns. I did actually just go into some diners and some Starbucks because I wanted to make sure I met some people who I really had no connection to. And I asked a lot of friends for intros. And I also found out once I just talked to my dad like he can, you can. One of the things is when I said that I was doing this publicly, like a lot of my friends sort of would say, oh, you can just talk to my dad. There are a lot of people's dads who I did talk to."}, {"start": 1622.72, "end": 1647.98, "text": "And it turned out not to be that hard to find a lot of Trump voters that were sort of one hop away. But I was struck by how sort of, because I try not to fall into these insular traps, and I was struck by how when I first started this, I didn't know how to go find 100 Trump voters. And that alone seemed like deeply problematic."}, {"start": 1647.98, "end": 1679.14, "text": "Tell me about I want to get back to sort of open AI and smart cities and things. But sure. Tell me a little bit more about your work in politics, because I've heard a few things. I've heard that you are sort of in the background organizing tech power players to start some sort of movement or group. What are you up to right now? I'm trying to figure that out. Honestly, I want to do something. I certainly feel more politically motivated. You started organizing this group."}, {"start": 1679.14, "end": 1708.67, "text": "Yeah, but that's a small, I mean, we're trying to basically figure out, can we come up with a list of values that we want tech companies to agree to? We as in like the CEOs and VCs of Silicon Valley? Yeah, and these are things like... Do you guys have a name for the group? We don't. These are things like... Like a hoodie? A hoodie? I knew she was going to make fun of me for this. Come on! That's so nice. I almost dressed up."}, {"start": 1708.67, "end": 1737.78, "text": "You know, we're trying to figure out, like, are there a set of statements that we can ask a tech company to commit to? You know, won't turn over user data without due process. Will fight sort of unconstitutionally illegal orders for user data. Will protect its immigrant employees. Will provide money and assistance to people that are running into problems with immigration raids or at the borders. You know, committing to creating jobs, not just in San Francisco, but..."}, {"start": 1738.0, "end": 1766.16, "text": "Throughout the country committee to pay equity. Are there a number of issues relevant to the current political climate that we can get a bunch of tech companies to agree to? So but that's a small project. Like how many people are in this group? You know, it's been informal, like sometimes it's email. We've met in person a few times. We've had like two hosts. I've hosted some other people have hosted, but I'd say maybe a few hundred people have I've talked to about it in different ways."}, {"start": 1766.45, "end": 1791.82, "text": "And I think that's a good thing to do. I think a clear statement of values from tech companies about things that are at risk from current policy actions is good, but not enough, not sufficient. When are you planning to go public about the group, sort of share who is a member of it? Who is a member of it? Well, no one yet, because we don't have a group. We don't even have a shared statement yet. I'm not trying to hide anything. It's like there's a Google Doc."}, {"start": 1791.82, "end": 1822.0, "text": "That a lot of people have seen. You're welcome to see it, but we haven't figured out. I don't think we've yet figured out what the right thing to do is, or even what to call it. It's very hard. It's certainly not a tech union. It's more like a workers' council. I think you want this to come from tech employees, because the leverage here is that employees say, I won't work at a company that doesn't commit to support these values."}, {"start": 1822.35, "end": 1851.78, "text": "We just haven't quite figured out the exact right thing to do. I hope I hope we do soon. But again, I think this is like a small thing and we need to do we need to do big things. Why haven't more tech CEOs come out and been political in any way? I mean, you know, you've got a lot of them are they go to the sort of Trump tech advisory thing and then Elon Musk is is an advisor. I mean, what do you make of that? What do you what do you make of Elon being part of Trump's advisory board?"}, {"start": 1851.78, "end": 1880.0, "text": "Well, I'm really happy he is. I don't think I could stomach it myself. I think the people saying he shouldn't do that is ridiculous. This guy's our president. He's going to be our president for some time. And we should all root for his success, right? And we should all try to change his mind as much as we can. But the obstructionist thing where you just say, anyone who works with him, we're going to try to destroy."}, {"start": 1880.0, "end": 1908.11, "text": "I think it's just unrealistic. And I think it's not how we get we get back to a united country. And it's certainly not how we get the policy we all care about. Were you asked to be part of that or part of any? I was not. I don't I think I was. I don't think Trump likes people who are as vocally or as vocally opposed as I was, but I was not. Hmm. If they asked, would you say yes?"}, {"start": 1908.14, "end": 1938.0, "text": "That would have been a hard one. I mean, I would have felt like I should, but I'm not sure I could have gone and done it. I didn't have to think about it, but that would have been a hard one. Yeah. What about and this is maybe a strange question, but one of the most controversial figures in Silicon Valley today is Peter Thiel. He was an early Trump supporter financially. He sued to shut down the website Gawker, and he is one of your best friends."}, {"start": 1940.43, "end": 1972.4, "text": "What's the status of that relationship right now? First, I guess, is where I should begin that question. Look, I mean, I took a pretty, there was like all this like, you know, like, there was this, backlash is too strong of a word because I've seen actual backlashes and this wasn't one, but there was more sort of just like anti-Peter, like everyone needs to cut him out, protest outside of his house, like Peter's the devil. And like, this is, it struck me, like,"}, {"start": 1972.75, "end": 2000.21, "text": "This was one of the very few vocal prominent Trump supporters in Silicon Valley. And although I clearly disagree with his assessment of Trump, I don't think anyone deserves what happened to him. And I don't think it was effective for what most people who were opposing him care about. What happened to him? Just this constant..."}, {"start": 2000.21, "end": 2030.24, "text": "Barrage of negativity and people saying he needs to get fired from everything. We're going to protest outside of his house. Everyone needs to cut him off. But nothing actually happened to him. He's still on every board he was on. He's still... Goddard is still shut down. Sure, I just don't think anyone deserves... People should be able to support a political candidate and express the reasons they do, especially if they're unpopular, without someone ascribing all of that person's worst traits. So I don't think..."}, {"start": 2030.24, "end": 2059.76, "text": "Again, it's very hard for me to defend Trump, but there are things about him that I think are right. And, you know, Peter's support of those things, I don't think means people should say, well, you know, Peter hates immigrants. Peter hates Muslims. I like I just I don't think I think he was willfully mischaracterized there. What are those things that you think are right? Well, I think one big thing that he is right about is or Trump is right about is that a lot of Americans are being left behind."}, {"start": 2059.76, "end": 2088.98, "text": "And I think the tech industry has some responsibility for this. But I think we need an economy that has a lot more winners. I think if there's one graph that helped me understand the Trump phenomenon, it was one that shows productivity gains over the last 60 or 70 years, which is a relatively straight line. And then it shows real wage growth or average hourly wage."}, {"start": 2088.98, "end": 2117.74, "text": "You know, adjusted for inflation. And that graph tracks productivity until about 1973 or something. And then it's completely a flat line since. And so there's this sense that the system has gotten completely rigged and that normal people just don't get ahead anymore. And this was the thing that I heard a lot when I talked to Trump voters that I don't think the Trump voters are feeling, but that's not necessarily a Trump policy that he is right about. Like, you know what? What is he? Oh, I don't think he's right about how to solve it."}, {"start": 2117.74, "end": 2146.46, "text": "To be clear, I think he identified this thing in a way that other politicians hadn't. It really did speak to real pain people are feeling today. You go to some of these cities that are just falling apart. It's unusual if someone doesn't have a drug problem. There are very few jobs and absolute despair. It's clear something has really gone wrong."}, {"start": 2146.46, "end": 2174.24, "text": "And I think that Trump is even willing to talk about that. He was right. So the rhetoric in that part of the rhetoric was correct. Well, the idea that we need to figure out something to do for our citizens whose life is not going like this idea of the American dream seems comical, too. I think that was really right. Yeah. And I don't want to harp too much on Peter, but you see him."}, {"start": 2174.24, "end": 2211.34, "text": "Does he feel regret about this, or does he like the direction that this is going? I haven't seen him in a while, and we haven't talked about how this has been going. I don't know. You could ask him. Doesn't return my emails, but... I wonder why. Fair enough. How much of a threat, stepping back from this, how much of a threat is Trump to Silicon Valley? If at all."}, {"start": 2212.08, "end": 2243.89, "text": "I don't really know. I think it's very hard to say what Trump is actually going to do. It's very hard to say. The major campaign promises that he ran on that he was going to do in his first 100 days have generally not happened. I don't know how to separate campaign rhetoric from what he's likely to do. Is he really going to try to bust up the Silicon Valley companies under antitrust law? Maybe. I don't know."}, {"start": 2244.4, "end": 2275.1, "text": "I think if like less if we have a harder time bringing in immigrants into the tech industry, that will be out for Silicon Valley. But it's it's it's just really hard to say what he will actually do. Yeah. So more local government. You're doing some work around the governor's race. You're maybe trying to find someone and tell me if I'm wrong, but this I heard that you're trying to find someone to run for governor potentially. I tried to encourage."}, {"start": 2275.1, "end": 2306.0, "text": "A number of people. Who are you? Unsuccessfully. None of them want to. I would like. To run for governor. I would. Yeah. I mean, I think that the California governor is an interesting position in terms of someone that can oppose Trump. It's a very powerful counterweight. But it's, you know, there's like not a lot of people that want to get into politics right now. People watch this and say, I have this great job running this really successful tech company."}, {"start": 2306.0, "end": 2337.54, "text": "I must stay as far away from that as I can. Doesn't sound like those conversations are going well. I would say I would. I've thus far been unsuccessful convincing somebody. When did you decide that you wanted to find someone to run for governor? Again, this is like a few dinner conversations. This is not like I don't want to. I don't want to like characterize this is like this is something I was spending a lot of time trying to do. This is like, oh, I think you would be good at this. And I think, you know."}, {"start": 2337.54, "end": 2370.22, "text": "You seem kind of bored in your job. And but I think like I think if one thing that Trump showed us is that people are ready for outsiders, but I'd like to have a different kind of outsider. And I think we I agree with Trump's diagnosis of the problem, which is that the system is rigged and we don't have economic justice. I just don't think he has the right answers or any answers about how to fix that."}, {"start": 2370.22, "end": 2400.42, "text": "But if we could get somebody who has run a large, successful tech company and thought a lot about how we train people and create jobs, create wealth, and how we make a fairer system, I'm interested in that. I don't think it's in the cards, but, you know, I at least... Who are you approaching? You could say now. We could put some public pressure. I don't want to do that. I want to be sort of respectful of people's privacy. Yeah, I don't like it when people sort of say, oh, I tried to convince Sam to do this."}, {"start": 2400.42, "end": 2430.77, "text": "Go jump on him and convince him to fund my company or whatever that is. I told everyone to pitch you after that. I appreciate that. But look, I hope we will see more engagement and I hope we will see more people getting into politics. I don't. Would you ever run? I don't. You see me on stage right now. I don't think this is my. I don't. I don't. I don't. I don't think charisma is my strength. Let's say that."}, {"start": 2431.12, "end": 2464.02, "text": "I'm good at a lot of other things, but I think that is a politician's skill that would be a challenge for me. Do you think, what about sort of finding a Koch brother of Silicon Valley? Could there be that? I've been trying to find people for that, too. Also, thus far, unsuccessful. But I would love a progressive version of a Koch. I'd take even one Koch brother. Half a Koch? Yeah, sure. I mean, it could be you. Not quite enough money. Maybe someday. You know, the amount of..."}, {"start": 2464.02, "end": 2492.56, "text": "Resources that that organization deploys and has been deploying every year for decades is just unbelievable. So you really need someone with like many billions of cash that they're willing to commit to this over many years on the progressive side. Yeah. Tell me a little bit. So Jared Kushner right now is doing this innovation council trying to sort of remake the government like a startup or something. I'm not actually even sure what it is. You have a sense of what this is. I don't."}, {"start": 2492.56, "end": 2523.12, "text": "Is you've heard about it, but I don't know anything. Okay. Has he come to Silicon Valley? Is this is he the right person to be running the U.S. Innovation Council? We've never met in person. I've talked to him, I think, once or twice, but I don't I hope so. I mean, again, this whole like I hope for their success, like they are they are our executive branch of our federal government. And so I hope whatever they try works well for all of us and for everybody in the country. I hate the spirit."}, {"start": 2523.12, "end": 2554.4, "text": "In San Francisco and sort of in progressive communities of just like constant negativity and like hoping they feel like let's at least do something proactive rather than just complain all the time. Yeah. You think that's just around politics or or more broadly? Oh, it's mostly recently been around politics just because that's been what everybody's talking about. Yeah. Do you think that the Jared's Innovation Group is going to work? Like, well, I honestly don't even know what it is. Yeah."}, {"start": 2554.4, "end": 2583.47, "text": "I know that he has something called an innovation group, and that is the end of my knowledge on the topic. That's I think that's fair. The back to before we get too deep into politics, I want to ask you about you guys are building a city also. Not potentially. We are. We are. So so I think one of the biggest problems facing the country right now and certainly the Bay Area is the cost of housing. And I think it is like."}, {"start": 2583.47, "end": 2600.43, "text": "My friends feel like they will never be able to afford a home. They're not sure they're ever going to afford a family. And the cost of housing compounds into everything else. And we have seen, in my opinion, a complete failure of state and local governments to build enough housing to fill demand, and thus"}, {"start": 2600.43, "end": 2629.81, "text": "People are getting priced out of their homes, and I think it's completely unjust. So right now you're in the research phase. From what I've read, you're in the research phase and looking for a location to build a city from the ground up. No, specifically we're researching now is is there a way if we found land that we could build houses for like $100,000 so that a family, you know, on 2x the average national salary can afford to buy a house, which is what used to happen when the American dream still worked. That was how it used to go. You know, you used to be able to"}, {"start": 2630.67, "end": 2658.93, "text": "Come home from World War II as a young family and buy a house. And that seems comical now. People are laughing when I said that in the audience. And I think what we're interested in researching is, is there a way we can use technology and obviously some policy work to make housing affordable again? Because if we don't solve that, it's just like however much wealth we manage to create just flows to the existing landowners. And that is a real problem. So we're still in the stage of..."}, {"start": 2658.93, "end": 2689.58, "text": "Can we figure out a way to make housing super affordable? If we can figure that out, then we'll look for a place to do this. But it ought to be possible. Where I'm from in Missouri, there's still houses on the outskirts, brand new five-bedroom houses on half an acre that sell for like $99,000. So you're really just building a suburb? Or a more affordable suburb? We don't want to do that. The question is, can we somehow get to the same price point?"}, {"start": 2689.58, "end": 2717.87, "text": "But in a place where people are near their jobs, live in a city. So one of the crazy things to me about. Sorry, I just want to rant about. Yeah, yeah, please go for it. We were supposed to Q&A in like five minutes. The number of people in San Francisco who are pro environment and anti housing in cities is nuts to me. You know, if you want people to like stop emitting carbon, let them live near where they work. Don't make them drive an hour and a half. My worry, though, with this is the tech industry is not known for."}, {"start": 2717.87, "end": 2745.55, "text": "Being like great civic engagement folks like Google has shuttles rather than investing in trains like Twitter goes into mid-market, but they serve breakfast, lunch and dinner in the Twitter building. It's not a really enmeshed place. So how would you make a city run or built by tech folks that that has a sort of civic soul? I actually got a really interesting question on Twitter about this before a woman named Shannon tweeted at me."}, {"start": 2745.55, "end": 2774.74, "text": "What can we do in high tech to ensure all cities become smarter cities that we don't just accidentally build a smarter divide? It's a great question. Again, if we can figure out an answer to the technological questions, which I'm not sure we'll be able to, we would only want to do this in a city or existing community where we could engage with the people that already lived there. I do think tech has been pretty bad at this. I also think..."}, {"start": 2774.74, "end": 2799.33, "text": "The cities have been pretty bad at engaging with tech. I have seen people before try to build more buildings in San Francisco and get caught up in this multi-year moratorium on all development. Just get out of here. We don't want you. And so I think there's work to do on both sides. But I think it would only work if we were able to do it with really good engagement. And I think..."}, {"start": 2799.33, "end": 2828.5, "text": "The Oakland basic income thing was a good lesson for us. There were some cities who said, you know what, you tech people, we don't want you here. And there were a number of cities who said, this is great. We want to partner with you. We want to figure out a way for you to get access to our data. We want to do this together. And I think we'd look for something like that. This actually gets to another issue of what I think is going on in the political climate, which is anytime there's a two-party system of any sort, it becomes super tribal."}, {"start": 2828.5, "end": 2858.22, "text": "And so you see this in the current broken political system with the Democrats and the Republicans. And, you know, 50% of people would now object to their children marrying someone of the opposite party. That's the same number, incidentally, that it was for marrying someone of a different race 50 years ago. Now that number is below 20%. And political parties have gone from below 20% to 50%. And so this this super tribalistic"}, {"start": 2858.45, "end": 2880.7, "text": "The thing that I think sort of, you know, supports fringe behavior is bad. And I think there's a version of this which is tech or industry and cities where you have to get really far into one camp or the other rather than saying, you know, actually 80% of the people would probably like some sort of middle ground solution."}, {"start": 2880.7, "end": 2905.9, "text": "So we're supposed to go to questions in just a minute. Speaking of this, I can't not ask this. So speaking of tribal, you are a survivalist. You're a prepper, as the insiders call it. We can talk about this, but this is really what you'd rather talk about and not like OpenAI? Okay, okay. I mean, if this is what you want to hear about, we can do it. But there's things that matter in the world, and then there's my weird hobbies."}, {"start": 2906.03, "end": 2936.99, "text": "But your weird hobby is premised on the world maybe ending. No, my weird hobby is premised on a boyhood survivalist fantasy that I think a lot of other people have, and read survivalist books when I was a kid. That's it. I do think the world is a scary place, and I think it is pretty unstable, and it may turn out not to be as crazy as it sounds, but of all the things we could possibly talk about. I want more prepping. If you want."}, {"start": 2936.99, "end": 2967.7, "text": "I'd rather talk about OpenAI. We'll get it in the questions for sure. All right. We've got on the left in the orchestra. Thank you. Hey, Sam. I'm a big fan of YCOM. Glad to meet you here. Thank you. So since we casually talked about OpenAI, two quick questions for you. One is, what is your thought on the fully automatic, luxurious, gay space communism? The fully what? Fully automated, luxurious, gay space communism concept."}, {"start": 2967.95, "end": 2997.89, "text": "Sorry, I still didn't understand. Fully automated, luxurious, gay, space, communism. I'm sorry, I don't know what that means. I don't know. So move on to the second question. You've got two gays and we're not sure. We'll talk about that offline. What do you think is Silicon Valley's view towards the ancient..."}, {"start": 2997.89, "end": 3025.1, "text": "Cultural values that humanity has, be it religious or philosophical. Silicon Valley's view towards ancient cultural values. You know, there's this great book about sort of the values that seem to be shared by all cultures. And there's like a list of 30-something of them. And I read it a long time ago, and then I reread it more recently in the context of how do I think sort of..."}, {"start": 3025.1, "end": 3055.65, "text": "I was more thinking about how software engineers and specifically people working on AI think about this. And it is funny how AI takes on a lot of these ancient cultural values. And I think, you know, I always have said that when scientists sort of feel really superior to, sort of atheist scientists feel really superior to people who believe in whatever religion they believe in and then try to sort of defend that their beliefs about the Big Bang are any less crazy."}, {"start": 3055.65, "end": 3086.75, "text": "Are any less difficult to wrap your mind around than any other creation story? I think that's always a little bit silly. Sure, we can test ours, but it feels so disconnected from reality that I think people, no matter how smart they are, no matter how enlightened they think they are, and no matter how rigorous they are in how they try to think about science and technology, fall back to these very basic human,"}, {"start": 3086.75, "end": 3121.26, "text": "Cultural values and needs for explanation that cut across everything. Great. All right. We have a question up here on the right side of the balcony. Hello, Sam. Thank you for coming. I have a question about direct democracy. What do you think about direct democracy replacing representative democracy as a potential solution to regulatory culture, party polarization, and other political issues? I think direct democracy is an interesting concept worth testing. And I think there have been a number"}, {"start": 3121.46, "end": 3150.82, "text": "A number of people have come to see me recently that are planning to run for some level of office on a direct democracy platform and literally vote whatever their constituents vote on every issue. I don't think I know entirely how that's going to work. That's pretty far out of my area of expertise, but I'm interested in the experiment. I think there are these times, though, when the crowd is just wrong, and we've seen this many times in our nation's history."}, {"start": 3150.82, "end": 3181.49, "text": "But the fact that it wasn't that long ago women couldn't vote and it wasn't that long ago that interracial marriage wasn't allowed. And just because a majority of the people think something like that doesn't mean it's right. And so my worry about direct democracy would be what happens when people are just wrong? And we have sort of had this system where sometimes we do elect leaders who do something unpopular but right."}, {"start": 3181.52, "end": 3211.47, "text": "That feels important. We've got another question down in the orchestra, all the way on your far left. Hi, thank you so much for speaking today. I love your vision for the future. I think it would be great if you solved clean energy and housing. I think your concept of a basic income is really interesting. You seem like a really great person that cares about"}, {"start": 3211.47, "end": 3240.96, "text": "The well-being of others. But how do you ensure that that solution is as immune as possible to greed and corporate greed? I think this is where we get back to we the people, right? I mean, there are there are a lot of people and we have collectively a lot of power and we get to choose our leaders in the system. If we don't if we aren't civically engaged, if we all sort of say, you know what, that's somebody else's problem."}, {"start": 3240.96, "end": 3268.24, "text": "Then we won't get the future we sort of want and deserve. And I think if we have people saying, you know what, this system is not fair, we can get outsider leaders and that's how things will change. But the system will only be immune to corporate greed or individual greed or any other kind of greed if the principle of democracy of regular people engaging continues."}, {"start": 3270.16, "end": 3300.1, "text": "All right, we have another question up here in the balcony to your left. Hey, Sam. Glad I got to hear about your survivalist fantasy, but I really wanted to hear about OpenAI. Thank you. Could you just kind of give us a brief overview of what you wanted to talk about when you were here to talk about AI? Yeah, I would love to. So OpenAI is an organization that maybe eight or ten of us started a little over a year ago."}, {"start": 3300.1, "end": 3327.34, "text": "And the idea is that we are on the precipice of the most important technological development maybe ever, and the current path before we started was that it was going to be owned by a small number of corporations, and it was going to be used, as they are obligated to do, to enrich their shareholders. And this is the thing that, you know, depends how crazy you want to be about it, but maybe this is something that, like, is the children of humanity someday."}, {"start": 3327.34, "end": 3356.08, "text": "But at a minimum, it is technology that is going to generate huge amounts of wealth. And we felt like that deserved to be owned collectively. So we started a nonprofit and saying, you know, this this most important thing we're going to build with no obligation to enrich shareholders. And the team's only directive is to have this go maximally well for humanity, figure out how to democratize decisions about it and the benefits of it. We don't want we don't want one company to make all the money."}, {"start": 3356.08, "end": 3384.67, "text": "Basically all the money in the world. And also to make all the decisions about how this impacts all of us. So we wanted to build something that we could sort of give to the world as a whole, that we could all participate in, that we could all benefit from. And that is what we do. The other thing is that we worry that AI could go really badly. And that if we do actually succeed, or if anybody else succeeds, and we build something that is a billion times smarter and more powerful than the next..."}, {"start": 3384.67, "end": 3414.13, "text": "Smartest, most powerful agent, which would be the smartest, most powerful human. You really want to think about how that's going to go. And you really want to be careful that that doesn't end in the way that many bad sci-fi movies have ended. And we wanted an organization dedicated to thinking about how to have that happen safely and well. So that's what we do. We've got a question down in the orchestra on your right."}, {"start": 3415.28, "end": 3445.25, "text": "Hi, so in this future of universal automation where robots are going to be taking our jobs and houses are going to remain unaffordable, what are some actual problems that startups can tackle that are actually going to help people to cope with this and something that isn't just building an app? Again, I think startups can do a huge range of things. I mentioned a startup that's taking on nuclear fusion. We funded many companies that are working on solar energy."}, {"start": 3445.25, "end": 3474.78, "text": "Four or five different companies working on cures for cancer. I think we have funded three companies working directly on cheaper housing and then a whole bunch that are working indirectly on cheaper housing. Maybe autonomous cars are actually the secret to cheaper housing, autonomous electric cars, because then you can live further out of the city and the commute's not so bad. I think the list of problems in society, unfortunately, just keeps getting longer."}, {"start": 3474.78, "end": 3504.34, "text": "And so there are more things than ever before that we need startups to take on. And I think it's a mistake to think you can only build an app. One of the most important insights that I've had about startups is that it is easier to start a hard company than an easy company. If you start the 22,000th photo sharing app, no one will care about you. People will roll their eyes. It'll be hard to get the media to write about you, hard to hire, hard to just capture the attention of customers. And if you do something that really is important to the world,"}, {"start": 3504.34, "end": 3533.33, "text": "A lot of people want to help you. So if you say, hey, I'm trying to solve clean energy, a lot of people want to help you. A lot of people want to invest. The press wants to cover you. A lot of customers are interested in that problem. The government will be interested in trying to help you. And so people often think that it's too hard to start a hard company. I often think it's easier, and people don't try enough because it is sort of risky, and it sounds a little bit too ambitious, and some people will say,"}, {"start": 3533.33, "end": 3563.33, "text": "That's ridiculous. You can't do that. But I think startups are going to solve, I hope, a lot of the large problems that we face. And I think you can start a startup to try to fix education. Why do we spend three times as much on education in the state that we did in the 70s in real dollars and get worse results? Is throwing more money at the existing system going to make that any better? It hasn't yet. But maybe we can develop..."}, {"start": 3563.33, "end": 3595.97, "text": "And actually good use of technology for teaching, which we haven't done yet. And that would have a huge impact. All right, we have a question up in the balcony to your right. Hi, Sam. First, I love you. Thank you. Second, my question to you is, why do you think there are very few startups that focus on the Middle Eastern market or tap into it at all, or the Arab world in general? Well, Y Combinator funds quite a few."}, {"start": 3595.97, "end": 3619.81, "text": "A lot, they just aren't in Silicon Valley, and they haven't come to Silicon Valley as much. One company that I worked very closely with during Y Combinator a year ago was called Instabug, or is still called Instabug. They're doing really well. They went back to Egypt after Y Combinator, and one of the things I noticed when a partner of mine went there recently is that when you have one successful company come to Silicon Valley and come back..."}, {"start": 3619.81, "end": 3644.75, "text": "Then a lot more people say, oh, I can do that too. And maybe I'll apply to Y Combinator. And we saw a real uptick from that. So I think there are a lot. They're just many of them don't come to the valley. But I expect that to change over time. Got a question downstairs on your right. What's up, Sam? What's up? So question, when it comes to Y Combinator,"}, {"start": 3644.75, "end": 3678.3, "text": "What is your perspective on inclusion for minority founders getting an equal opportunity that don't come from Ivy League schools but from low income areas that have fantastic ideas? It's a great question and one that I am particularly proud to answer. We like the non-tracked founders the best. We like, I think one advantage that we have is that we are, I believe, the most diverse partnership and we fund the most diverse founders of any"}, {"start": 3678.3, "end": 3708.06, "text": "Any investing arm in Silicon Valley. This next part is more bad than good. We have five women at sort of the top level of our partnership, which is more than the other top 25 Silicon Valley venture firms put together. We have a black CEO of our core program. I'm gay, I run the whole thing. We have a very diverse set of people. And I think that is reflected in the founders that we fund. And I think this has been"}, {"start": 3708.06, "end": 3735.68, "text": "A significant edge that we've had over competitive programs and competitive investors. I think that if you don't get a really diverse group of founders, you will miss problems that a lot of the world faces. I spend a huge amount of my time traveling outside of Silicon Valley both so that I get a sense of problems that different people face and listen to them, but also to meet founders that I wouldn't normally interact with. I think one of the best innovations that Y Combinator ever had"}, {"start": 3735.68, "end": 3764.0, "text": "is that you don't need an introduction to talk to us, which you needed basically for every investor before we came along. But anyone can come to our website and apply, and we look at that application. And we look at everyone that applies to our program. And this idea that you need this networking, this intro, this warm intro, as they call it, I think is something that made Silicon Valley super insular. And the idea that we will look at anybody and we try to go speak to anybody has been really great."}, {"start": 3764.0, "end": 3797.23, "text": "And I think that is how you make a more inclusive Silicon Valley. And I think if you don't fund a more representative group of founders and also make them successful, then it'll be very hard to solve the broader diversity problem faced in the rest of Silicon Valley. I think these companies are so often a reflection of their founders and their founders' networks. We have a question up in the balcony to your right. Thank you. Thank you very much for your comments tonight. And this really builds on something that's..."}, {"start": 3797.23, "end": 3812.75, "text": "Just been answered in part by you and asked. And it's laudable the efforts that have been made towards diversity. But if you walk around San Francisco, you definitely see that it's not a very broad populace. And you said yourself, you travel out into the world. A lot of the..."}, {"start": 3812.75, "end": 3840.64, "text": "Problems that were identified as global problems, even housing, still feel like very middle class or problems of the affluent. And so I guess as you have your strategy of going out into the world and increasing diversity, what's the message that you leave this group of really eager people who want to, I presume, be part of change in the world and are interested in how startups play that role? What's the advice to actually go out and find..."}, {"start": 3840.64, "end": 3870.54, "text": "Not only diversity of people, but addressing the problems that really count to the most people and not necessarily just to those of us in the limited experiences that we've had in the room. It's a great point. Don't just go into a middle-class neighborhood and think that counts. Go visit slums in Africa and ask people what you could do that would help them or what technology they use and what they'd like to see invented."}, {"start": 3870.54, "end": 3899.82, "text": "I think it's very easy to get caught up in a reference frame problem where you sort of think about people a little bit less fortunate than the people who live in San Francisco. I think anything you can do that helps somebody else is valuable. And I think people are often too dismissive in saying this is not big enough, this doesn't help people who are really poor enough. But I do think it's important to think about"}, {"start": 3900.37, "end": 3930.11, "text": "What can I do that will really impact millions or billions of people's lives who are a lot less fortunate? I think it's easy to say that the world hasn't done enough and the technology industry hasn't done enough. And while I agree with that, I think it's important to also talk about the positive change that has happened. The graph that I look at when I'm really feeling depressed is the decrease in global poverty rate in the last 40 years."}, {"start": 3930.11, "end": 3960.58, "text": "We have made real progress there. And I think we can do a lot more. And I think we can... Another thing that we fund at YC Research is a project that's studying universal health care. And they're starting in a very small village in Africa and providing health care to that entire village. And they have a model to then, if that works, replicate it to larger and larger villages with, you know... I think there are ideas like that where you can say, you know what?"}, {"start": 3960.58, "end": 3990.18, "text": "We have this new problem. There's people in the world that are... We have this new idea. There's people in the world that are really desperate for a solution, and we can build something quick for them. And it won't be perfect in the first version, but there are people who desperately need help and need technology and need a better life. And I think anything you can do to help with that is a huge thing, no matter how small the scale is that it starts at. And so this is a company that's starting. They're just providing... Or it's a non-profit. They're just providing health care for 1,000 people."}, {"start": 3990.18, "end": 4021.49, "text": "But they're thinking about how they're going to do it for a billion people. And, you know, I think that's that's a great way to think about the world and having an impact. So you kind of just answered it there, but it's an important tradition to end every interview with the same question, which is what is your 60 second idea to change the world? Well, I think we kind of been talking about that for 60 minutes, but I'll try to answer. I think, you know, how can we make every person in the world"}, {"start": 4021.87, "end": 4047.25, "text": "Someone timing this. What? Do you time this? How can we make every person... Thinking about how can we use technology to make every person in the world happy and healthy and fulfilled and rich enough to be able to do what they want with their lives and to be able to live their lives the way they want. And that is energy and AI and biotechnology, the things we've been talking about. But basically, how can we..."}, {"start": 4047.89, "end": 4083.86, "text": "The way I think about this in my own life is I can use this lever of enabling a bunch of entrepreneurs to go do this, and I can have more of an impact than I could taking on any problem myself. So for me, it's how do I find, enable, inspire people to go use technology to solve these problems? Good answer. Thank you. Tim Altman, thank you so much. Thank you for coming. Thank you. I think everyone knows, but after this, there's drinks. There's a little bit of an after party. Thank you so much. Thank you."}]}