Sam Altman on ChatGPT's rapid rise: 'We fumble through' as OpenAI...
When ChatGPT launched in late 2022, it sparked an unprecedented surge of popularity, thrusting OpenAI into the tech spotlight. Before this meteoric rise, OpenAI was primarily a research-focused entity, little known outside specialist circles. However, ChatGPT’s success quickly turned OpenAI and its CEO Sam Altman into household names.
Challenges of Scaling
Reflecting on this whirlwind journey, Altman recently discussed the immense challenges of scaling OpenAI in a conversation with The Twenty Minute VC (20VC) podcast. “The rate at which things changed was unusual,” he noted, explaining how OpenAI had to transition from a research lab to a large-scale, customer-facing company almost overnight. “You get time to go from zero to a million and then to a billion, but don’t have to do that in two years,” Altman added, alluding to the rapid growth trajectory most companies experience over several years.
Initially, OpenAI was not set up as a typical Silicon Valley startup designed to scale quickly. “We didn’t really have a company in the sense of a traditional startup that’s serving lots of customers,” Altman admitted. His team found themselves needing to build out infrastructure in real-time, often without any established guide to lead the way.
The fast pace presented a steep learning curve for Altman, who acknowledged that he had to learn much on the go. “There was a lot of stuff I was supposed to get more time to learn,” he said, adding, “There’s no playbook for this, and if there was one, nobody gave it to me. We’ve all sort of fumbled our way through.”
Industry Impact
Since ChatGPT’s launch, OpenAI has grown into a leader in the AI industry, paving the way for rivals like Google and Meta to develop their own chatbots. Reports even suggested a “code red” scenario within Google as it scrambled to respond to ChatGPT’s success. Meanwhile, Microsoft, a major investor in OpenAI, has also launched its own AI-powered tools, including the CoPilot (formerly Bing) chatbot.
