萨姆·阿尔特曼：“创业从未有过更好的时机”

萨姆，感谢你加入我们。

Sam, thanks for joining us.

这可非同一般。

This is something.

这可非同一般。

This is something.

比之前的创业学校规模大得多。

Bigger than the earlier startup schools.

是的。

Yeah.

我的意思是，现在的初创公司比以往任何时候都要大得多。

I mean, startups are a lot bigger now than they have ever been.

当然。

Sure.

这是因为你在AGI上的远见正在成为现实，所以公司规模才变得这么大。

I mean, they're bigger they're bigger than they've ever been because of the vision that you had for AGI, is nigh.

我觉得这会是历史上最好的创业时代

I think this is gonna be the best time in the world

而且未来一定会更加精彩

to do a startup, and it's gonna be

真值得期待

quite amazing to see.

我想先聊聊你创业的起点——2005年，你加入了YCombinator的第一批项目，当时做的是个叫Lubed的位置共享公司

So I wanna start with, you know, a time and place, which is you were in the very first batch of YCombinator in 2005 with location sharing company called Lubed.

那时候的回忆是什么？你和保罗·格雷厄姆之间最难忘的故事是什么？

What do you remember about that, and what was your best PG Paul Graham story?

如果要找一个和现在截然不同的时代，那就是当时了，创业根本一点都不酷

I think if it were possible to get as, like, far from this moment as, like, I can imagine, it was, you know, startups are not cool at all.

我们躲在一个剑桥的小楼里，偷偷摸摸地干

We were, like, hiding out in this little building in Cambridge.

保罗·格雷厄姆还亲自给我们做饭

PG was making us dinner.

那时候我们每家公司花三个月才能建好的东西，现在YC里的初创公司用编程代理七分钟就能搞定。

And, you know, what took three months to build at the time that we each company built over the whole YC Startup could now be done in like seven minutes by a coding agent.

要知道，这也就是二十年前的事。

And it was only, I mean, only twenty years ago.

我觉得现在初创公司能做到的事，以及它们能承担的任务，跟以前相比差别太大了。

And I think the difference in what's possible for a startup now, what a startup can take on.

你可能会觉得有点失落，心想‘哎呀，真惨’。

You know, it's I think you could either be sad and be like, oh, man.

打个比方，一个代码提示词就能撑起整个创业项目，或者你可以说，我能创办一家野心勃勃、疯狂的公司。

Like, a codex prompt is a whole startup, or you could be like, I can go start the world's most ambitious crazy company.

我能让各个领域的专家一起协作。

I can have, like, experts in every field working together.

我能完成那些曾经完全不可能实现的复杂技术任务，这简直太棒了。

I can do these very hard technological things that were just impossible, and it's gonna be amazing.

但当时完全不是那回事，想把事情做成非常困难。

But at the time, it felt nothing like that, and it was very difficult to get anything to work.

我觉得保罗·格雷厄姆是过去几十年里对创业影响最大的人。

I think Paul Graham is probably the most important force in startups of the last few decades.

毫无疑问。

Without question.

是的。

Yes.

一点不假。

No question.

我记忆中的保罗·格雷厄姆是，我们每周都会去他那儿。

And and my kinda Paul Graham memory is we would all, every week, come.

好像是星期二，他亲自下厨给我们做饭，我们每个人进去的时候都垂头丧气，觉得自己一无是处。

I think it was on Tuesdays, and he would like cook he himself would cook us dinner, and we would all walk in feeling like very hopeless and very dejected.

当时有八家公司，但每次吃完饭回家，他都能让我们每个人都相信，自己的创业项目马上就要改变世界，迟早会成为下一个谷歌，或者那时候的Facebook。

And we would there were eight companies, and then we would all go home at the end of it, and he had convinced like each of us that our startups were about to like take over the world, and we're gonna be, like, you know, the next Google or whatever, Facebook maybe at the time.

他那种能从零开始点燃希望、制造动力、让人真正相信的能力，真是保罗·格雷厄姆的独门绝技。

And that ability to sort of, like, create optimism and momentum and belief out of nothing was like a real PG special.

在YC刚起步的时候，大家觉得这个点子太荒唐了，创业本身也被看衰，尤其是那些年轻的技术创始人，连个懂商业的人都没有，简直没人看好——但PG硬是凭一己之力把它给做成了。

And in the early days when YC seemed like a terrible idea and startups seemed like a bad idea and certainly startups that were, like, young technical founders with no business people seemed like a terrible idea, PG just sort of, like, willed it into existence.

但这也需要像你这样的人，你可是出了名的主动型人才，早在‘主动型代理’这个词出现之前，你就已经是了。

But it also takes someone who actually I mean, you're sort of famously par excellence, an agentic person, like, even before we thought about agents, period.

我记得保罗曾经写过，就在两千年代末，他说你是他见过的前五名创业者之一，这话现在在X上又火起来了。

I mean, you just I remember Paul wrote I mean, the it's making the rounds on x today even that Paul wrote in the early in the late two thousands that you would be you were one of the top five entrepreneurs he'd ever met.

这话说得真让人感动。

That's very nice

他能这么说，真的很不容易。

of him to say.

我觉得像我这种二十岁出头的年轻人，总有使不完的劲儿和满脑子的抱负，但就是没方向，不知道该往哪儿走。

I I think like many 20 year olds, I had, like, a lot of energy and a lot of ambition, but it was sort of very not directed, and I wasn't sure what to do.

保罗常讲，一个优秀的初创企业投资人，其实更像一个老师，但不是我们通常理解的那种老师。

Paul had this thing he used to say of like, the the job of being a good startup investor is a teacher, but it's a kind of teacher we don't usually use.

我们一般觉得老师就是站在讲台上讲课，但光靠讲课，根本帮不了创业者多少。

Like, we usually think of teacher as someone who, like, gives a lecture, and you can't help someone that much by, like, giving a lecture about a startup.

还有一种老师，就像飞行教练，坐在你旁边告诉你：这么做，别那么做，这个有效，你漏掉了这一点，或者你总犯这些错，我就专门跟你聊聊这个。

There's another kind of teacher, which is like a flight instructor, the person who, like, sits next to you saying, like, do this, don't do this, that work, this is you missed that thing, or you're making these mistakes, and I'm just gonna talk to you about this one.

那种手把手指导的方式，帮你把这种四处乱撞的充沛精力引到正道上，对我而言特别重要。

And that very, like, hands on kind of, you know, here's where to, like, direct this sort of, like, Brownie in motion energy, that was very important to me.

是的。

Yeah.

后来你当上了YC的总裁，这些年你把同样的热情也传递给了无数YC的创始人。

I I guess later you came on to become president of YC, and you you sort of brought exactly the same energy to a great many YC founders over the years.

你有没有特别印象深刻的例子？就是看到某个特别聪明但方向不明的年轻人，怎么一步步被引导出主动性的？

Did you have anything like, did anything jump out at you from that time around, you know, taking this raw energy of someone really, really smart and maybe a little undirected and then driving them more towards agency?

对。

Yeah.

首先，我特别喜欢创业公司。

I so first of all, I love start ups.

不是每个人都适合，但我认为创业公司是商业世界里最酷的事。

I think not everyone they're not, like, for everyone, but I think startups are the coolest thing in all of business.

我觉得创业公司才是防止经济陷入停滞的关键。

I think startups are really, like, the main thing that keeps the economy from becoming stagnant.

公司很容易变得平庸，而创业公司会永远重要下去。

I think companies do just like drift towards suckiness and startups will continue to be important forever.

如果我们对人工智能将带来巨大变革的判断没错，那么创业公司对确保这项技术的影响力广泛渗透到经济和社会中、而不是只集中在少数几家公司或模型里，会变得更为关键。

In fact, if if we are right that AI is gonna be such a big change, startups will be much more important to making sure that the power of this technology gets widely distributed throughout the economy and society and is not just concentrated in a few companies or models.

我觉得创业公司简直太棒了，既有趣又充满挑战，过程痛苦艰难，但结果特别值得。

So I I think startups are just, like, unbelievably cool, fun, extremely painful and difficult, but wonderful thing.

我觉得，运营YC的一大职责，就是你实际上成了创业精神的非正式代言人。

And I think a big part of the job of running YC is you are kind of the, like, unofficial flag bearer for the startup movement.

现在创业公司多得是。

You know, like, there's lots of startups.

做创业公司的方式也千差万别。

There's lots of ways to do a startup.

当然，你不一定非得走YC这条路，但它一直以来对初创公司帮助巨大，影响力也非常深远。

You obviously don't need to do YC, but it has always been a huge help to companies and a very powerful force.

所以从PG开始，到我们所有人，我们都得让YC成功，但更重要的是，我们必须努力说明为什么初创公司重要，为什么人们该考虑创业，并帮助把更多权力交给创始人，鼓励更多人去创办公司。

And so starting with PG and then all of us, like, you we have to make YC successful, but I think we really have to fight for why startups are important and why people should consider startups and help put relatively more power in the hands of founders and encourage more people to start them.

这一点实际上做得非常成功。

And that's actually worked really well.

回想YC早期，那时候创始人能获得的资源和影响力，跟投资人相比简直微不足道。

I think thinking back to the early days of YC, it was like very little leverage in being a founder relative to an investor.

而这种转变，我觉得对投资人本身也是好事。

And that shift, you know, I think that's even been good for the investors.

我觉得这对整个创业生态来说，都好太多了。

I think it's just been like much better for the whole startup ecosystem.

所以我在YC主要想做的，就是推动更多人创业，鼓励大家认真看待初创公司，看看我们能做些什么来帮助创始人，把创业和整个生态做得更好。

So mostly what I tried to do at YC was just push for more startups and encourage people to think about startups and figure out what we could do to help founders and help make startups and the startup ecosystem as good as possible.

其中一部分确实是推动大家更有野心、敢做更大的事，但现在回头看，那时候简直就像小联盟比赛。

Definitely part of that was pushing people towards more ambition and bigger swings, but it feels like the minor leagues relative to now.

我觉得你确实是那个把硬科技大规模带进YC的关键人物之一，现在YC的项目里，硬科技的比例以前常年只有百分之五到十，现在已经涨到百分之十五、二十，甚至二十五了。

I mean, I think you were one of the people who really brought hard tech to YC in a really grand way, And then one of the things we're seeing at YC now is that number was maybe five or 10% for many years, and then now we're getting to fifteen, twenty, 25%.

我觉得这背后是因为现在用智能代理变得容易多了，成本也在下降。

I would argue on the back of how much easier it is to use agents and the costs coming down.

有抱负的初创公司总是很棒，硬科技创业对很多人很有吸引力，但它们一直很难做。

I think ambitious startups are always awesome, and hard tech startups are appealing to a lot of people, but they're hard or they've been hard.

未来还是会很难。

They still will be hard.

但如今，借助智能代理，你完全可以像当年我们花三个月没日没夜干出来的项目那样，用三个月时间加上大量代理，做出难以想象的成果。

But what you can do now to go take on a really ambitious project, like in the same way that you can make the startup that took us three months of nonstop work in seventeen seconds, with three months of work and a lot of agents, you can do unbelievable things.

所以我觉得，我们会迎来一个初创公司的黄金时代，人们会说：你知道吗？

So I think we will see a golden age of startups where people are like, you know what?

我要做些事情，这些事在一年前，甚至在YC的早期，根本不可能被初创公司想象得到。

I'm gonna do things that would have been completely impossible for a startup to even, like, dream at a year ago in in sort of, like, the YC time frame.

这其实是一个很大的视角转变。

I mean, that's actually a really big reframe.

可能在座的有些人会担心，既然算力触手可及，那自己的创业机会是不是被抢走了，觉得自己再也开不了公司了。

I mean, there are probably people even in this room who might be worried that, well, intelligence on tap means that they might be looking at a looped or my startup posturous, and they're like, well, I can't start that company anymore.

但说实话，那已经是很久以前的事了。

But guys, that was a long time ago, actually.

现在网上有个特别火的梗，说你要是不进前沿实验室，就会沦为永久底层，简直荒谬。

Man, there's this whole meme going around, which is you have to join a frontier lab or you're going to be a member of the permanent underclass because it's so dumb.

因为有人觉得创业时代结束了，根本创造不了经济价值。

Be because there's gonna be, like, you know, startups are over and there's, like, no economic value.

这根本不对。

I that's not true.

如果真像他们说的那样，那这个世界就彻底完蛋了，可我敢打赌，今天正在创办的初创公司里，肯定有人将来会成为万亿富翁，而且这些新公司创造的价值和影响力，一定会远超过去的创业公司。我觉得现在越来越多的人已经开始意识到这一点了。

I mean, if that were true, the world is, like, totally fucked and it's a very bad place, but it's I would bet that the average startups created today will be like, I bet there's some future trillionaire sitting in this room, and I would bet that the startups created today will be much more valuable, much more impactful than startups of the past, And I kind of think people see that a little bit more now.

以前确实有一阵子，大家都在担心人工智能会不会把整个经济体系搞垮。

I mean, there was this period where, like, are is AI just gonna break the whole economy?

但现在大多数人已经不再被这种震惊反应牵着走了。

And I I think people are, like, mostly over this sort of shock response of that.

不过，确实曾经有一段时间是这样。

But there was, like, yeah, definitely a time.

我每次参加Y Combinator的项目都会来，挺想知道大家的焦虑感和抱负感是怎么变化的。

I would, you know, come every YC batch, and I I'll be interested to see how the kind of, like, level of anxiety versus ambition was trending.

感觉曾经有一段低谷期，大家都觉得完了，没戏了。

And it feel like it went through this, like, big trough where people are like, you know, it's over.

模型会把所有东西都吞掉。

It's the models are just gonna eat everything.

现在又回过头来，大家又想干点实事了。

So now it's back towards, like, let's go do it.

那具体该怎么做呢？

What are some practical things here?

比如搞技术这块，我听说在休息的时候有人在问，我该不该去读博士？

I mean, part tech, for instance, I was hearing, you know, at one of the breaks, someone was asking, like, should I go get my PhD?

学历到底有多重要？

How important are credentials?

你怎么回答这个问题？尤其是那些想做硬核技术的人。

How would you answer that, especially people who wanna do these harder tech things?

嗯，

Well,

总的来说，我觉得当技术环境变化特别快、成本不断下降、开发周期缩短的时候，初创公司就更容易成功，而这些情况现在全都在发生。

as a general observation first, I think startups tend to win when the sort of, like, technology landscape is moving very quickly, when costs are coming down, when cycle times are short, and all of those things are happening right now.

如果你回看过去那些初创公司大量涌现的时期，比如互联网泡沫那会儿，大概是98、99年，那时候出现了很多以前不可能做到的新东西。

So if if you look at when there had been, like, the great clusters of startups in the past, you know, there was the Internet boom and whatever that was, like '99 '98, '99 when new things became possible.

后来又有一波小高潮，大家纷纷基于Facebook做应用。

There was another version of a mini version of people building on top of basically like Facebook apps.

再后来，当iPhone应用商店上线时，又迎来了一轮大爆发。

There was then another big version when the iPhone app store launched.

真正伟大的初创公司往往集中在生态系统发生剧变的时候——老牌企业失去优势，同时成本和开发周期也出现重大变化。

But the great startups tend to cluster when the ecosystem shifts and incumbents lose a lot of their advantage and then also when you have this, like, cost and cycle time change.

现在这个时刻，这些条件全都凑齐了，感觉特别强烈。

I this moment feels very big for those things.

而且还有你提到的另一点：过去那些很难获得的东西，比如专业人才、能干特定事情的顶尖员工，现在也变得容易多了。

It also has this other thing that you were talking about, which is a lot of the traditional things that were hard to get, expertise, you know, the ability to go like hire excellent people that were that could do specific things you needed, that's really shifted.

过去几个月，我看到很多从小就在用AI的人，他们说，我能用AI代理自动化整个创业公司，四个人就能搞定，算力也完全够用。

And in the last few months, I have seen a lot of people who just kinda grew up using AI the last few years who are like, I can kinda automate an entire startup of agents and four of us, four people, all this compute.

我觉得以后这种事会越来越多。

And I think we're gonna see much more of that.

我当然还是看重品味、主动性和对商业底层逻辑的理解——比如怎么打造一个真正有价值的生意，什么样的网络效应或护城河是真实的，什么样的只是假象。

I clearly like taste and agency and understanding of kind of like the physics of business, like where you can build up a valuable business, how to think what about a good network effect or sort of a good moat looks like versus a fake one.

但我敢打赌，总体来看，这会削弱多年经验的优势，转而青睐那些对工具极其熟练的人。

But I would bet that this generally will cut against many years of experience in favor of people who have a lot of fluency with the tools.

我想聊聊OpenAI的起点，它最初其实是YC Research的一部分，你们当时居然真打算全身心投入，去创造AGI——这想法听起来简直疯狂。

I guess I wanna get into the beginning of OpenAI and that it actually started as YC Research looking at this idea, I mean, kind of a crazy idea that you and a ragtag crew decided we were gonna dedicate our lives to this creation of AGI.

但今天回头看，这事儿好像顺理成章，天经地义。

But at you know, today, it it sounds fatal fatal complete.

是啊。

Right?

但当初刚开始的时候，完全不是这种感觉。

But that really wasn't how it felt when you started.

现在这事儿太难避开了，因为大家只愿意聊这个。

It's really hard because it now it, like, is the only thing people wanna talk about.

真的很难回想起来，以前是什么样子了。

It's really hard to remember what it was like.

就连我自己，要不是翻到十年前的笔记，都快忘了，那时候人人都说，不仅认为造出AGI根本不可能，还觉得这帮人单枪匹马会引发新一轮AI寒冬。

It's even hard for me to remember this without, like, finding notes from the time ten years ago when everyone was like, not only are they wrong about saying they think it might be possible to build AGI, but they're gonna they're single handedly gonna cause another AI winter.

他们错了，而且不负责任，太糟糕了。

It's they're wrong and irresponsible and bad.

我给各位最高的建议是：找到那些你有足够信心去坚持的事，哪怕别人都觉得你疯了，别人都说你错得离谱，也要能接受——这过程会很漫长，别人会一直不理解、很敷衍地否定你。

It and and maybe, like, my highest order or, like, my highest bit of advice to all of you is find the things that you can develop, like, reasonable conviction in that people decide, like, the conventional wisdom is they're just wrong and be okay with it taking a long time and having people be, very, you know, very frustratingly wrong and dismissive.

在OpenAI的那些年，我们总觉得掌握了世界上最大的秘密。

For years at OpenAI, I felt like we knew the biggest secret in the world.

人人都说我们是傻子，但我们手里的证据却越来越多，越来越确信我们没疯。

Everybody was calling us an idiot, and we had increasing data points to convince ourselves we weren't delusional.

那真是一段特别煎熬的时光。

And it was very frustrating.

那真的特别让人沮丧。

It was extremely frustrating.

但回头看看，这反而像一份天大的礼物，因为这意味着我们没有强大的竞争对手，有足够的时间做研究、开发产品、建立公司。

But looking back, it was like an incredible gift because it meant we didn't have this massive competitors and we had time to do our research and build our stuff and build our company.

后来我注意到，很多公司其实都是这样，只是方式不同罢了。

And I've since noticed that this is the case for, like, a lot of companies in different ways.

它们最终做的东西，恰恰是行业专家们一致认为根本行不通的。

They they end up doing something that other people that, like, experts in the field or the industry are convinced is a very bad idea.

反过来，如果你做的创业项目跟所有人都一样，那确实容易获得关注，也能融到很多钱，但这类项目往往很难成就真正重大的突破。

And on the other side of this, if you're starting the same startup as everybody else, it's like you get a lot of hype and you can raise a lot of money, but it's it's sort of like those are much less frequently the big option the big outcomes.

所以如果我是你们，我会去想：现在有什么全新的、几年前还根本不可能实现的大事？

So if I were you all, I would figure out what the really big brand new thing is that is possible now that wasn't possible a few years ago.

对我们来说，当时AI根本没起色，直到深度学习突然爆发，可世界却还没跟上节奏。

In our case, it was no AI had really been working, and then the deep learning magic moment happened, and the world didn't update enough.

这又是PG说的一个绝妙观点。

The world this is another great PG ism.

人们根本没法直观地理解指数增长，所以他们错过了这次机会。

The world does not understand how to intuit exponentials, and so they missed this one.

现在肯定正有新的指数级变化在悄然形成。

There's gotta be new exponentials forming right now.

我不确定那会是什么。

I don't know what they are.

但如果你能发现这些趋势，并且随着数据积累越来越坚定，那就该庆幸别人还没看明白。

But if you can figure those out and if you can develop continuing conviction based on more data, be grateful that the world doesn't understand.

他们迟早会明白的。

They will eventually.

这简直是一种巨大的超能力。

This is like a huge superpower.

听上去在你的经历里，有好几件事是层层叠加起来的。

It sounds like in your journey, there were like a few different things that stacked.

也许第一件就是意识到AGI真的可以被实现，然后找到同样相信这一点的人。

Maybe the first one was even that AGI was possible to be built and finding other people who believed that thing.

其实，很多人觉得不可能，这根本没关系。

You know, it didn't matter that lots of people didn't think it was possible.

关键是你找到了那些真正特别聪明、而且相信这件事的人。

It it mattered that you found really, really smart people who did believe that.

对。

Yeah.

我们以前常开玩笑说，全世界相信AGI能实现的人可能就五十个，但没关系，其中四十五个都在OpenAI。

We used to joke that only 50 people in the world believed that AGI was possible, but it was okay because 45 of them worked at OpenAI.

我觉得这话还真不假。

And I think that's kinda true.

你不需要太多人。

Like, you don't need a ton of people.

事实上，敢说这种反主流的话，可能正是让那些人愿意聚在一起的原因。

And in fact, saying the heretical thing was probably why those people wanted to, like, all be together.

所以再说一遍，真正搞清楚自己相信什么，愿意长期被误解，然后把那些同样相信的人聚成一支队伍——这事儿当年YC也是这么干的。

So so again, I think, like, really figuring out what you believe, being willing to be misunderstood for a long time, and bringing together the, like, crew of misfits that believes it, that's also what YC was like in the early days.

在场的人可能都在想：我相信这件事，但我还没找到和我想法一致的人。

One of the things that people in the room are probably thinking is like, well, I believe this thing, but I haven't found my people yet.

这算是一种妄想吗？

Like, is that delusion?

你是不是觉得，这其实是个门槛，大家得跨过去？

You know, what Is that actually maybe even a gate that you would propose people have?

你得找到至少五个人相信这件事，哪怕只有一个，比如共同创始人也好。

It's like, well, you need to find, you know, five people who might believe that or even one, like a cofounder.

这大概也是为什么我们在YC这么看重共同创始人的原因。

You know, people maybe that's one of the explanations for why we like cofounders at YC so much.

对。

Yeah.

如果你连一个认同你想法的人都找不到，那你就得认真想想了。

I think if you can't find anybody else that shares your belief, you should pay attention to that.

而且一个人单打独斗做创业，不仅特别难，还特别孤单。

And it's also very hard to do a startup on your own and very lonely.

但我觉得你不需要找很多人。

But I don't think you need to find a lot of people.

事实上，如果每个人都相信，那反而是个不好的信号。

And in fact, if everybody believes it, that's also like a bad a bad sign.

我不确定现在是不是还存在这样一个限制创业项目数量的因素。

The question I don't know if this is still what feels like the limiter on more start ups.

但五年前、十年前，真正限制YC能投资多少优质初创公司的，是如何解决联合创始人匹配的问题。

But five or ten years ago, what felt like was limiting the number of good startups YC could fund is figuring out how to solve the cofounder matching problem.

有很多特别优秀的人，但他们就是找不到志同道合的伙伴。

Like, lot of really talented people, and they just couldn't find their tribe.

他们找不到能一起干大事的人。

They couldn't find their people.

以前YC说必须搬到旧金山，这说法听起来简直离经叛道。

You know, it used to be very heretical that YC told people they had to move to San Francisco.

但现在回头看，那确实是正确的决定。

And looking back, it was clearly right.

我觉得，这在未来十年是否还成立，我也不确定。

And I think I don't know if this is still gonna be true for the next ten years.

但我猜应该还是会这样。

I suspect it will be.

如果你真想找到志同道合的人一起创业，最好的办法还是搬到湾区。

But the best thing you could do if you wanted to, like, find your people to do a startup with was to move to the Bay Area.

那时候，很多事情好像自然而然就发生了。

You just, like, magic happened.

你会碰到很多幸运的机遇和偶然的碰撞。

You got a lot of, like, lucky chances and collisions.

我觉得这建议现在依然靠谱，只是我自己对这一点的直觉没以前那么强了。

I still think that's probably good advice, although I feel like I have less of an an intuition for it now.

我还想说，这一点我可以说，但加里可能就不方便讲。

I also think that I I can say this, Garry probably can't.

我觉得现在参加YC的价值，比以往任何时候都更高。

I I think the premium on doing YC is bigger now than it's, like, ever been before.

YC和第二名之间的差距越拉越大，这再次说明了网络效应的强大。

The distance between, like, YC and second place has expanded, and this is a reminder of the power of network effects.

所以，找到那些能让你结识关键人物的圈子很重要。

And so finding networks that you can be part of that help you just meet those people.

我跟OpenAI的联合创始人，很多人其实早在创办之前很多年就认识了，是经过很长一段时间的交往才慢慢熟起来的。

Like, the people that I started OpenAI with, I met, like, many, many years in some cases before starting OpenAI, and I kinda, like, got to know them over the long like, a very long career journey.

这样的情况一再发生。

And this happens again and again.

所以，越早让自己进入一个能遇到未来合伙人——不管是这次创业还是下一次——的环境，就越有利。

And so the sooner you can put yourself just in a flow where you're gonna meet the people that will be your eventual cofounders for this startup or the next one or whatever, I I think the better.

这需要

It takes a

很长的时间才能积累起来。

long time to compound.

我刚才听你这么说，突然想到，你后来一起创业的那些人，当初你根本没想到他们会成为你网络里的重要部分。

I guess I'm keying off what you just said, which is like, some of the people you ended up starting all these different things with, you didn't necessarily know what that was for or that it would be useful in a sort of network setting at all.

你只是把一些很棒、有趣的人聚到了一起。

You just collected cool, interesting people.

我的意思是，我觉得你确实一直在这么做。

I mean, I think you're you do this.

我觉得彼得·基尔在这方面做得特别好。

I think Peter Kiel does this really, really well.

你会对一群刚起步、还在找自己圈子的人说什么呢？

What would you say to a room full of people who are just starting out and, like, figuring out who their people are?

最靠谱的建议就是，想办法去帮助很多人，哪怕只是帮一点小忙。

Just, like, yeah, highest confidence piece of advice here is just, like, find a way to be, like, mildly helpful to a lot of people.

这么做其实挺有意思的。

It's, like, fun to do.

你会看到很多有意思的事情。

You'll see a lot of interesting stuff.

能帮上忙，心里还挺有成就感的。

It's, like, kinda gratifying to be helpful.

但你知道吗？就拿你刚才说的那个例子，我认识Greg Brockman——我们OpenAI的联合创始人——是因为我当年才22岁左右，很早就投资了Stripe。

But, you know, even that example you were just talking about, I met Greg Brockman, my cofounder of OpenAI, because I was a very early investor in Stripe when I was, like, I don't 22 or something.

那时候他们还没什么真正能帮上忙的投资人。

And they were like this was before they had, you know, like, real investors that could really help them.

他们跟我说，我们正在找第一个员工，你能帮忙吗？

And they said, you know, we're trying to close our first hire.

你今晚能不能开车去帕洛阿尔托，跟这个人吃顿饭，劝他退学来加入Stripe？——结果他真去了，就是后来的Brockman。

Will you, like, drive down to Palo Alto tonight and have dinner with this guy to convince him he should, like, drop out of school and join Stripe, which is great Brockman.

八年之后，我们俩一起创办了公司。

And then, like, eight years later, we started a company together.

所以你看，你也可以做到，就像我这样。

So and I could, like you know, we you could too.

我们完全可以花剩下的时间，讲一堆类似的故事——当时完全没想到，却后来产生了巨大影响。

We could, like, spend the rest of this time just telling stories like that that was totally unpredicted but ended up being important in big ways.

所以，我确实这么觉得。

So I I have yeah.

做这件事本身就很有趣，我觉得你该为了它本身去做，而不是为了别的目的。

It's fun to do, and I think you should do it for its own reason or it's, like, its own sake.

但只要你真心帮很多人，以后这些事自然会慢慢串联起来，产生意想不到的效果。

But just, like, helping people a lot really goes a long way in terms of these things coming together later.

我觉得这其实是个特别重要的观点。

I mean, I think that's actually a really important message.

你明白吗？

You know?

所以有一件事情是

So one of

现在网上特别流行的一个梗，我在X上经常看到，就是真人角色扮演。

the things, one of the memes right now is, I see it on X, is live action role play.

这正是很多人在X上讨论的话题。

That's, like, one of the things that people have been saying on X.

说实话，我真搞不懂他们为啥要这么做，感觉完全不对劲。

I mean, I I can't tell why they're doing it because it just seems wrong to me.

比如，我们在YC特别看重真诚，还有言辞的重要性。

Like, I mean, one of the things that we really love at YC, for instance, is earnestness and also words matter.

所以，说我们做的事像在玩角色扮演，这让我觉得特别不舒服。

So, you know, this idea that what we're trying to do is a live action role play is, like, kind of deeply offensive to me,

确实如此。

actually.

非常。

Very

抱歉，各位。

Sorry, guys.

别这么讲了。

Please don't do that.

他们专门这么说YC吗？

They say that about YC specifically?

没有。

No.

房间里这些参会者一直在推特上这么说，我们希望他们别再这样了。

There people just attendees in this room have been tweeting that, and we'd like them to stop.

他们到底说我们是在玩什么角色扮演？

What are they claim what what what's the claimed LARP?

我觉得

I think

这其实是在讽刺，但讽刺恰恰跟我和你欣赏的东西相反。

it's just being a little sarcastic about and, you know, it's sarcasm is sort of the opposite of what I think you and I like.

我们更看重真诚。

It's just like we like earnestness.

我们是真的想做成一件事。

We're like, we're actually trying to do a thing here.

我再跟你说一件事。

I'll tell you another thing.

我能发个牢骚吗？

Can I go on a little rant?

请说吧。

Please.

好吧。

Okay.

说吧，尽情吐槽。

Rant away.

有一件特别烦人的事，我可以说出来，因为加里现在没法说，但以后他会替下一个人说的。

One of the annoying thing I I I can say these things for Garry because he can't say them right now, but, you know, he'll say them for the next guy.

运营YC最让人头疼的一点，就是你得时刻面对推特上那些喷子，简直没完没了。

One of the many annoying things about running YC is you just have to deal with these haters on Twitter all of the fucking time.

真让人抓狂。

It's so frustrating.

你得坐在那儿，装出一副政治家的样子。

You have to sit there and be like a statesman.

不过你在这方面更在行。

Well, you're better at it.

我以前老是上钩，特别想跟他们争个对错。

I kind of, like, took the bait a lot, and you just wanna argue with them.

我后来终于想明白了，不管你信不信，做YC、创业，或者真正为这个世界创造点有价值的东西，真的特别难。

And and the thing that I realized eventually, and take from this whatever you want, is it is very hard to run YC or run a startup or, you know, create like an actual thing of value in the world.

但在Twitter上随便讽刺几句，就能收获一堆点赞，觉得自己在干大事、反抗权威，还冲着加里喊‘我逮到你了，傻瓜’，这事儿太容易了。

It is very easy to go take shots on Twitter and make a sarcastic comment and get a lot of likes and feel like you're doing something really important and sticking it to the man and being like, Garry, I got you, you idiot.

这种事会腐蚀你的心灵。

And and it will poison your soul.

这本质上就是一种道德沦丧的行为。

It is a morally bankrupt thing to do.

它确实很坏，而且坏得悄无声息。

It is and it's like bad in a very insidious way.

我完全理解发泄情绪、图个乐子，但别把自己抬得比这高太多。

Like, I totally get blowing off steam and having fun, but don't, like, hold yourself to a higher bar than this.

别总去攻击那些在努力做难事、拼命创业的人。你可能会看到某个年轻人，创业点子一塌糊涂，却在Twitter上兴奋得不行。

Don't it's so easy to take shots at people that are trying to do hard things and trying to build companies, and you'll see some, like, you know, kid with a bad startup idea trying to get excited about what he's doing on Twitter.

发个讽刺评论就能收获上万点赞，感觉今天在互联网上赚足了分儿，太简单了。

It's so easy to, like, make a sarcastic comment and get the 10,000 likes and feel like, man, I really like I scored my Internet points today.

但这真的会影响你。

But it'll have an effect on you.

回想当年我运营YC时，那些在Twitter上骂我们、说我们坏话的喷子，我猜他们肯定有不少日子觉得自己真的赢了我。

And the when I, like, reflected on the years of, like, Twitter trolls that said mean things about YC and startups while I was running YC, I was like, I bet there were, like, a lot of days where they really felt like they got me.

但十年下来，他们一个都没赢过。

And, like, over the decade, none of them did.

你应该把全部精力都放在做事上，别去搭理那些容易的攻击。

And you should, like, put all of your energy into building stuff and, like, resist the easy shots.

我觉得这个观点特别有道理。

I mean, I really like this as a con seriously.

这跟你刚才讲的帮帕特里克和格雷格·布罗克曼的故事形成了鲜明对比。

I mean, I like this as a contrast to the story you just told about helping Patrick with Greg Brockman.

在座有些人会成为一辈子的朋友，彼此扶持，然后一些奇妙的联结就这样发生了。

I mean, you know, it like, there are people in this room who are gonna be lifelong friends, and they're gonna do that for one another, and then sort of these magical connections happen.

你知道，这里已经聚集了一群非常特别的人。

Like, you know, this already is the most rarefied set of people.

进了YC之后，这群人就更不一般了，外面还有另一批特别有抱负的人。

And then when you join YC, it's, like, even more rarified, and then there's just a set of people out there who they're ambitious.

在座的某个人，将来可能会遇到一个合作伙伴，一起创办公司；也可能遇到一个人，介绍你认识未来的伴侣。

Someone in this room is gonna meet someone else that you're gonna start a company with, you'll meet somebody that'll introduce you to your spouse.

这些事都会发生，还会有一些意想不到的事情，得花上十年甚至二十年才能慢慢看清。

All of these things will happen, and then there will be a bunch of non obvious things that take a decade or two to figure out in some way.

你们现在互相帮一把，将来可能会催生出一些了不起的新东西。

One of you will help each other now, which will turn into some amazing new thing.

我觉得，这正是YC能在整个创业生态中成功的关键原因之一。

I think this is a huge part of what has made YC work in the broader startup ecosystem.

尽管湾区的文化有不少负面的东西，但这种松散的互助网络、乐于助人的精神，还有这种长远的眼光，真的非常了不起。

I I think this is like a for all of the negatives of the culture of the Bay Area, this is the kind of, like, loose network and the spirit of helping each other, and this, like, very long term outlook has been an awesome thing.

是的。

Yeah.

好，咱们回到即将到来的AGI话题上。

Well, let's let's get back to the impending AGI.

好的。

Okay.

我想你们这周经历了不少事，毕竟Hugging Face那边动静挺大的。

I guess you had a I mean, we've all had a an eventful week with the hugging face.

是的。

Yeah.

我想听听你对此有什么看法。

I wonder what you can tell us about that.

我觉得这对很多人来说，包括我在内，都是一个非常重要的时刻。

And I think that's actually a really big moment for people, including me, who, you know, in the past, I've been known to

要知道，我以前对AI安全一直持怀疑态度。

be skeptical about safety and AI.

但另一方面，这确实是一个全新的阶段，前沿模型的发展正进入一个关键时期。

But on the other hand, like, this is a real mo like, we're entering a new moment in what's happening with these frontier models.

是的。

Yeah.

这是真家伙，任何不认真对待、至少有点害怕或敬畏的人，其实都没把这事当真。

This is the real deal, and I think anybody who's not taking it seriously and at least a little bit scared or humbled, or a lot of those things, but at least a little bit is not taking this seriously enough.

长期以来，这个领域一直在讨论类似这样的AI安全事件。

You know, for a long time the field has been talking about AI safety incidents of this kind of a shape.

但这不算特别严重，我也不想夸大其词，说这是彻底失控的事件，就是这么回事。

And this is not a big one, also don't wanna over blow it and say this is like a real loss of control incident and this is the thing.

如果你十年前刚起步时问大多数人，从无智能到超级智能这个谱系上，你觉得AI系统会突破沙盒、入侵其他公司、干出这种事吗？

But if you had asked most people when we started ten years ago, like, where on the spectrum of nothing to super intelligence do you have, like, an AI system breaking out of its sandbox and hacking into some other company and kind of, doing what this happened.

我想大多数人会说，那得靠近超级智能那一端才行。

I think people would have said pretty far towards the superintelligence point.

但现在标准变了，人们很容易说，哦，这事是怎么发生的，OpenAI犯了哪些错——当然，我们确实犯了不少大错。

Now the goalposts have moved, and it's easy to say, well, here's how this happened and are the mistakes that OpenAI made, and we did make some big ones, of course.

但这些系统的能力已经变得极其强大。

But these systems have gotten incredibly capable.

所以我觉得这是对齐失败。

So I think it's an alignment failure.

我觉得这也是安全漏洞。

I think it's a security failure.

尽管这还不是后果最严重的案例，但确实是非常严重的问题。

I think it's like a very serious thing even though it's not the biggest example of consequence.

这真正提醒了我们当前局势的严重性——失控事故并不是纯粹的理论风险。

And I think it's a real reminder of the stakes of what's happening and that loss of control accidents are not entirely theoretical things.

我相信整个领域、包括OpenAI，都会从这次事件中学到很多，并且能够加以改进。

I think we will learn, we the whole field, we open AI, will learn a lot from this one and be able to address it.

但除了网络安全和生物安全之外，还有一类问题一直处在公众讨论的边缘：我们绝对不能让AI发生失控事故。

But the things that I there there are all of the things about like cyber safety and biosafety, but this other category of things that have been maybe just outside the public's Overton window of it's really important we don't have a loss of control accident with AI.

我们更不能让权力过度集中在少数模型或公司手中，而应该让技术分布在整个经济体系中，让每个人都有能力保护自己。

It's really important we don't have power be too concentrated in a small number of models or companies, but diffuse throughout the economy so people can defend themselves.

归根结底，人类的价值观必须在每一个环节都引导着这些系统。

Like, I you know, it's really important that people, human values are guiding these systems every step of the way.

对。

Yeah.

我觉得我们现在算是真正进入实战阶段了。

I think we're, like, in the real the real deal phase of this.

我是说，你一直在思考集中化的问题，同时也把OpenAI看作一种公用事业，这个观点其实非常重要，因为并不是每个人都在传达这个信息。

I mean, really like how you've been thinking about both concentration but also thinking of OpenAI as a utility, which is actually a really important message because not everyone out there is saying that message.

你知道的，确实如此。

Like, you know, there's Yeah.

这里有很多值得

There's a lot to

担心权力集中的问题。

be worried about in terms of concentration of power.

我认为，在人类历史的各个阶段，权力集中几乎都带来了不同程度的负面影响。

I I think concentration of power has basically been bad in every moment of human history to varying degrees, of course.

但我有一种信念，这也是创业精神的一部分，即当权力广泛分散，任何有绝妙点子的人都能创办公司、创作优秀的艺术作品、竞选公职或做任何自己想做的事时，世界、经济和社会才会达到最佳状态。

But I have a real spirit, and I think this is part of the startup spirit of thinking that the world, the economy, society is the best off when power is very widely distributed and when anybody with a great idea can start a company or make a great art project or, you know, run for office or do whatever they want.

我完全可以想象，人工智能可能会带来人类历史上最广泛的权利分配，但同时也能想象出另一种情况——人工智能让权力前所未有地集中。

And I can totally imagine worlds where AI leads to the greatest distribution of power we've ever seen, and I can also imagine worlds where AI concentrates power to a degree we have never seen.

如果一家公司、一个人，或者一个模型拥有的权力超过了地球上所有其他个体和组织的总和，不管科幻故事怎么说，我都觉得这太可怕了，哪怕短期内能带来一些安全上的好处，长远来看也必然是灾难。

And one company or person or model having more power than everybody or everything else on earth put together, whatever the sci fi stories have said, I think that's terrible and would really you know, maybe we would get some short term safety benefit from that, but long term disaster.

我认为，我们任何人都不该被锁定在某一个人工智能、某个人或某家公司的道德观里。

I don't think any of us should wanna be locked into one AI's or one person's or one company's moral worldview.

我认为初创企业在这里扮演着非常重要的角色。

I think startups have a very important role to play here.

其中一种方式就是，权力过度集中在某一家公司或某一个人工智能模型身上。

Know, one way that that happens is too much economic concentration in one company or one AI model.

而我觉得，基于我们之前讨论的那些原因，初创企业天然最适合确保这种权力能够广泛分布。

And I think startups, because of the things we talked about earlier, will be naturally very well suited to make sure that this is widely distributed.

所以我们希望尽可能支持更多的初创公司、更多的企业、更多的人。

But we wanna enable as many startups, many companies, many people as possible.

这意味着我们必须保持谨慎，不要强加自己的世界观，不要武断地告诉别人该不该用人工智能，或者什么才是好点子，同时也要确保安全底线足够牢固，避免再出现类似 Hugging Face 那样的事件。

And that means that we have to, you know, be fairly quite reserved about not imposing our worldview about what we think people should or shouldn't do with AI or even what we think the good ideas are while still making sure that we can ensure enough of the safety bar that stuff like the Hugging Face incident is not happening.

这里坐的都是将来会做出惊人成就的人。

One of the things is this is a room full of people who will do really amazing things.

他们大多才刚起步，可能会觉得AI安全或权力集中这种事，自己根本插不上手。

They're often right at the beginning of their career, and they might look at AI safety or concentration of power and say, well, you know, I can't really do it.

觉得那一定是大公司该操心的事。

That that must be something the labs have to do.

但其实，他们还是能做点什么的。

Like, you know, there is something they can do, though.

你要想缓解权力集中的问题，最直接的办法就是创办一家成功的初创公司。

I mean, you can help on the concentration of power issues simply by starting a successful startup.

哪怕你只做这一件事，只要经济体系继续运转，资本市场的生态保持活力，这本身就已经是巨大的贡献了。

If that's the only thing you do and the economy keeps working in the kinda magic of capitalism and having this ecosystem that works together continuing, that alone would be a huge contribution.

但说实话，刚入行的时候怀疑自己、觉得做不了大事，这太正常了。

But look, I I think it's very natural at the beginning of a career to doubt yourself and not assume you can go do an amazing thing.

我当年也这么走过一遭。

I certainly went through that.

我肯定你也经历过这种阶段。

I'm sure you went through that.

你是在做事的过程中慢慢学会的。

You you kinda learn as you go on.

你能做的事情会越来越多。

You can do more and more.

我觉得确实如此：也许创造超级智能将是商业或人类社会历史上最重要的事，但即便如此，它可能还是比不上某个新的创业项目——希望将来你们当中有人能做出这样的事。

There will be far more, like, I think it is both true that, you know, maybe creating super intelligence will be the most important thing yet to happen in the history of business or human society, and also that it will pale in comparison to some new startup, something that hopefully one of you will do.

所以，这种认为‘历史已经到头了’的误区。

And so this whole this whole trap of like, this is the end of history.

说经济要终结了？这明显不对。

This is the end of the economy, like clearly wrong.

我觉得正确的做法是：现在你能在十七分钟内完成原本要三个月的工作，但你最好还是老老实实用三个月去完成它，只是现在对‘三个月工作’的标准已经不一样了。

And I think the right approach is you can now do three months of work in seventeen minutes, but you better just go do three months of work in three months of work with the whatever the new bar for that is.

我想我得问一句，你能透露一点Alpha League的最新进展吗？就是模型接下来还会有多大的提升，能说多少就说多少。

I guess I would be remiss in asking, you know, what Alpha League can you give us about what's the latest about what you know, how much more awesome are the models going to be to the extent you can say?

我觉得接下来六个月的进展，可能相当于过去两年模型发展的总和，差不多就是这种感觉。

I think there will I think it will feel like the next six months is, like, maybe equivalent to the last two years of model progress, something like that.

我们会经历一个非常陡峭的上升期，而此刻，正是创业最好的时机。

So I think we'll go through like a very steep we'll go through like a very steep period, which again, never a better time to do a startup than right now.

我希望从今以后每年都能这么说，但毫无疑问，现在比历史上任何时候都更值得行动。

I hope we can say that again every year from now on, but it's certainly true about this to any moment in history.

我们来看看。

Let's see.

如果在座的有人有个看起来太宏大的想法，你会怎么劝他？

If someone here has an idea that feels too ambitious, what would you tell them?

我真想听听这个点子。

I would love to hear that pitch.

是的。

Yeah.

我肯定会对这个想法很感兴趣。

I'd probably be very interested in that.

是的

Yeah.

给我发封邮件。

Send me an email.

对

Yeah.

听起来这和当初创建OpenAI很像，你得准备好面对别人的攻击和忽视吗？

It sounds like it would it would take a similar shape to creating OpenAI in that like, do you need to be ready for people to attack you or dismiss you?

当然。

Definitely.

只要你做的是真正重要的事，就一定会有很多人说你是傻子，或者干脆无视你。

I mean, if you do anything that matters in the world, you will have a lot of people call you an idiot or just dismiss you.

你做得越多、越出色，他们就越会攻击你。

The more you do, the more better you do, the more they'll attack you.

你越是对现有的世界格局构成威胁，情况就越会这样。

The more you kind of, like, threaten the existing state of the world.

这种情况只会继续升级。

It will just continue to escalate.

我注意到，很多了不起的点子，其愿景都很清晰。

One thing that I've noticed about many of the best ideas is the vision is clear.

比如，我们想打造通用人工智能，但最初的几步完全不清楚。

Like, we wanted to build AGI, but the the first steps were super unclear.

我们根本没想到会变成一家产品公司。

Like, we didn't know that we were gonna be a product company.

我们一开始成立这个非营利研究实验室，原因有很多，其中之一就是，我们压根没想过会做出能让用户付费的产品。

We started this nonprofit research lab for many reasons, but one of which was it it really didn't occur to us that we were gonna make a product that people would be able to pay for.

直到好几年后，我们才想到ChatGPT和API这个点子。

Like, this was you know, it was years till we came up with the idea of ChatGPT, the API.

所以我觉得，如果最高层的愿景很清晰，但最初的几步很模糊，这其实没什么问题。

And so I think if the the kind of, like, highest level vision is clear, but the first few steps are very unclear, that's not a bad thing.

很多雄心勃勃的创意都是这样，别因为这点不确定性就退缩。

That often happens with, like, very ambitious ideas, and I wouldn't let that cause you to lean out.