Is AI Killing Software? — With Bret Taylor, OpenAI's board chair and CEO of Sierra

Channel: Alex Kantrowitz

Published at: 2026-01-28

YouTube video id: UWIE0_PxMKE

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWIE0_PxMKE

OpenAI board chair and Sierra CEO Brett
Taylor joins us to talk about how AI is
changing software, whether the
technology can push past its limits, and
to share some lessons from the world's
top tech leaders. [music] That's coming
up right after this. Welcome to Big
Technology Podcast, a show for
Coolheaded and Nuance conversation of
the tech world and beyond. We have a
great show for you today. We're going to
talk about how AI is changing software
[music] with Brett Taylor, the CEO of
Sierra. Uh for those of you who don't
know Sierra, it was founded in 2023.
[music] It is an AI customer engagement
platform. It's doing 100 million in
annual recurring [music] revenue. 50% of
its customers have revenue of more than
1 billion and 20% of its customers
[music] have revenue of more than 10
billion. So it's right at the center of
everything happening in AI. And Brett is
the perfect guest to discuss with us
about how AI is changing software and
where it's all going to [music] lead,
what the future of the graphical user
interface is, what the future of user
interaction is, and of course, we're
here at Qualcomm Space at Davos to break
it all down. Brett, great to see you.
Welcome to the show.
>> Thanks for having me.
>> Okay, so I want to speak with you first
about the way that AI is changing
software, about uh vibe coding, and
whether we should buy into the hype. Let
me just talk to you about two stories
that came across my feed over the past
day. Uh Dave Clark, the former worldwide
uh consumer CEO at Amazon, uh just wrote
on LinkedIn, "Between last night and
today, I built a custom CRM uh that
actually fits how we sell. We tried
configuring an off-the-shelf CRM for our
sales cycle. There are too many fields
we don't need. We're missing the ones
that we do need. It forces a pipeline
flow that doesn't match reality and we
spend more time fighting the tool than
using it. So I built what we needed. It
took a night and a morning. We I had
another connection on LinkedIn tell me
over the past 2 months I rebuilt my
company's business uh the
non-engineering parts of of it the
processes uh using clawed code and I've
never felt more empowered. Uh I'm trying
to figure out whether all these stories
of people building their own custom
software uh actually will uh actually
will lead to the change that many of
them are promising or uh or whether
there's actual meat behind this. You
know, is Dave Clark's CRM going to fall
apart in a week and it was just a nice
post for LinkedIn engagement or is
something real actually happening here?
>> I'm quite optimistic about this trend.
Um, I actually think the term vibe
coding will be like information
superighway where it's a term we don't
use in the future because the idea that
your software is something that you can
change yourself will be something we
expect rather than a novel concept.
I have two things that sound
contradictory but I don't think they
are. So first is most of the the cost of
software is in maintaining it not
building it. Uh, and that's why most
people would prefer to buy a solution
off the shelf because you want to
amortize the cost of maintaining
software among thousands of clients and
not have everyone bear it. Just think
your ERP system and a new accounting
standard comes out. If every company in
the world has to go vibe code that new
accounting standard, someone's going to
get it wrong.
>> I've heard this before, but won't the AI
just be like, "Okay, I'm picking that
out of the internet. That's the new
standard. Now I put it in." It may. But
I think the bigger point I was going to
make is right now I think we're just
imagining vibe coding our existing
solutions. If you think of something
like a CRM, it's a bunch of forms and
fields in a web browser. I'm not sure
that's even the future of software. The
future of software is agents. So rather
than having a web browser with forms and
fields that we click on, we will
delegate tasks to agents that will
operate against a database somewhat
autonomously. So I think the interesting
thing is I think everyone's looking at
all the software use and say how fast
could I vibe code that I wonder if it's
the wrong question because I actually
think the more disruptive thing
happening to software is the software
used today will not be the software we
use tomorrow the form factor will be
different the business models will be
different the cons consumption patterns
will be different if you're generating
leads and opportunities for your sales
team an agent will do that if you're uh
you know essentially auditing your
financials in your ERP system an AI
agent will do at who's making those
agents is the question. And will you buy
those agents off the shelf or build them
yourself? And I think that's still an
open question. Whether you can vibe code
a CRUD app in a web browser, I think is
maybe an interesting question on
Twitter, but I don't think it's the most
interesting question in software.
>> All right, let's just unpack this a bit.
Um, so a CRM or customer relationship
management technology. Um, if you have
one of those software tools that goes
from the graphic user graphical user
interface to a chatbot, uh, what does
the interaction look like? And isn't it
valuable to have I mean, not to stand up
for dashboards, but isn't it valuable to
have those dashboards where you can
basically see what's going on as opposed
to like have to like type into a chatbot
what's going on? Well, how I I don't
fully see how chat and uh and agents can
replace the software stack that exists
today.
>> The word agent comes from agency and it
just means AI has some ability to
autonomously reason and make decisions.
And so it doesn't mean the concept of a
dashboard will go away, but perhaps
everyone at your organization will have
a different dashboard. Your head of
sales, your head of sales operations,
the CEO probably all very different
things they're interested in. So every
morning that agent might reach out to
you and give you just the information
you need. It's a new form of dashboard,
right? But it's custom for every
individual. And the form factor of the
software underneath is actually very
different because uh if you think about
what it means to craft a dashboard, it's
a lot of like database joins and things
like that. If you think about giving an
AI access all to all the information it
needs to give you personal insights,
it's very very very different. And I
think that's why whether it's the birth
of the web browser or the smartphone or
now large language models and AI, it's a
disruptive moment in technology because
the incumbent software players their
advantages all of a sudden start to look
a little bit like disadvantages and it
doesn't mean they won't all pivot by the
way but it opens the door for I'll say
AI native companies who are building
software sort of native to that form
factor. So I do think it will change. I
think the importance of dashboards will
go down. uh a point of a dashboard is so
a human can stare at it and derive some
insights. Uh I think that probably AI
can serve a very meaningful role in
deriving insights from your data. And if
staring at a bunch of colorful lines on
a screen is the best we have, I'm not
sure that's true. It doesn't mean all
dashboards are going away, but you have
to imagine that these AI agents are
becoming progressively more intelligent
than you. And if you're not relying on
it to help, you know, find insights in
that data that you were previously
staring at in a dashboard, your
competitors probably are. So I think a
lot is going to change. And I think the
interesting thing in Silicon Valley, you
as you said, I've been in this industry
for a couple decades, is it's a race. Uh
the incumbents need to transform
themselves. the disruptors or insurgents
or whatever term you want to le uh use
are trying to compete to create AI
native uh applications in each of these
areas will the you know insurgents and
and upstarts becoming the incumbents
before the incumbents you know transform
themselves and I don't think it's
foregone conclusion for any one of the
incumbents but I think it's a really fun
time to be in this industry
>> all right so as the words were coming
out of my mouth I was saying I can't
believe I'm standing up for dashboards
and just note to self when I'm doing
podcast. I'm not going to stop stand up
for dashboards anymore. Terrible
decision. I I I I hear you on that
front. Um but let's let's talk a little
bit then about about the disruptive
power to today's incumbents. Right. So
you talked a little bit about how
businesses might disrupt other
businesses. I think there's a a belief
now that it's individuals with these
tools are going to be able to build
their own instances. Uh and that will be
the threat to incumbent software
platforms. So reading between the lines
of what you just said, I don't think you
really believe that it is going to be an
individual building their own custom
technology. You still think that
companies need to be able to do this.
>> It may be true. You know, it's
interesting. I think it's very hard to
predict the second order effects of the
marginal cost of software development
going down um so dramatically. But it's
interesting. So, I was uh for our uh
first customer conference at Sierra, I
was doing research and I was looking up
in the wayback machine old wired
articles and I found one from I think it
was 1997 and the article was about banks
failing to launch websites with login
forms and spending tens of millions of
dollars with consulting companies and
how hard it was to go from read only to
enabling someone to log in to like check
their balance. It's trivial now. You
could vibe code that probably during the
course of this podcast. Yet, you know,
most people when they're starting a
commerce storefront don't start from
scratch. They go to Shopify. Why is
that? Well, you know, well, making a
website was incredibly difficult in
1994. Something like a Shopify just adds
more and more capabilities. Maybe it
helps you with fulfillment. Uh maybe it
integrates all the other systems you use
for delivery CRM. Uh maybe it helps you
acquire ads to drive uh traffic to each
of your listings. I think as AI becomes
easier to make, you just make software
that's more and more high leverage and
more and more valuable. And at the end
of the day, most companies aren't
software companies. Um Dave Clark, you
know, is one of the great technologists
of the world and grew up at Amazon and
understand software deeply. If you're a,
you know, CPG company, you know, do you
have that kind of skill at your
organization? Maybe you do, maybe you
don't. But I think at the end of the
day, most companies don't want to be
software companies. They want to buy
solutions to their problems. And if
there's an opportunity to do that, I
think it's actually smart. I don't think
you should be in the business of
maintaining software if that's not the
core of what you do. And I think that's
true of most businesses. Just to give
you an example, in tech, when I started
my first company, we built our own
servers and put them in a collocation
facility. Now we have no data centers.
We just use the cloud like every other
startup in the world. It's an entire
department that isn't at our company.
And it means we can be more
self-actualized in what we do. I think
the same should be true of most
companies. So I'm hopeful that actually
in the future the form factor of
acquiring software will be acquiring
agents. There will be I believe a
different business model which is
outcomesbased pricing rather than just
paying for the privilege of using that
software. Um and I think there will
still be software companies in the
future. I may be wrong. Uh I just think
right now we lack the imagination to
imagine what this software does and
we're just projecting all this
technology through the lens of what we
currently use which is not what we will
be using in the future. So the market
the if you look at the index funds the
market has dropped software like 10%
this year software bundles um is that
the market misunderstanding what's
happening because basically it's been in
reaction to claude code uh and claude
co-work uh so is it the market
misunderstanding what's happening or is
the market seeing the seed of something
which is that there's something big
changing in software and if people can
do this in their backyards or in their
basements as easily as it's taken uh you
know companies these years to build,
then there's going to be a shift
somewhere.
>> I think the stock market wonders. It's
sort of funny to talk about the stock
market as a person, but the market
>> we're talking about chatbots as people.
So, let's
>> Great. Well, let's anthropomorphize
both. I think the stock market doesn't
know which of those incumbents will make
the transition. And I think that's what
the market is unsure about. uh and you
know I think it's interesting if you
look at the multiples on AI AI stocks
and we can debate what that is versus
software stocks it's the halves and have
nots right and uh I think it's largely
the markets wondering which of these
companies will make the transition if
you look back at the transition from to
the cloud um you know Microsoft went
through fits and starts but it
eventually came out quite strong but it
wasn't obvious for a period that they
were uh companies like seable systems
which most of your listeners may not
even remember but that was the number
one CRM before Salesforce existed did
not make the transition and I think if
you look at all the incumbent platforms
out there uh my strong intuition is
people are saying yeah there's a there's
a play there uh these are strong
companies uh you know will they actually
pivot I think the interesting uh maybe
counterintuitive point that I would make
is I think business model transitions
are harder than technology transitions I
think it was harder for most on premises
software companies to move to ratible
subscription revenue than it was to
necessarily make something that ran in a
web browser. It's a very different
business model, revenue recognition,
even sales cycle from selling, you know,
Windows 95 and then Windows 98 to just
have a, you know, always on system. I
would argue that actually I think agents
will go the way of outcomesbased pricing
where, you know, for example, at Sierra
we charge per resolved case for our
customer service agents. I think if you
made an agent to audit your financials,
you should pay per audit. That's a very
different form factor as well. And I
think companies going through these
transitions have to disrupt their
technology stack to disrupt their
business model. Uh it may even mean that
the revenue dips for a period as they
come back out. And any public company
CEO will tell you that's easier said
than done. Uh and so I think that will
actually be one of the more interesting
stories in 10 years when we look back
and say who made the transition and who
didn't. All right, let's end this
talking about one of your former
employers. You were the co-CEO of
Salesforce. Uh we started talking about
CRM. So, let's end this segment uh
talking about CRM. Obviously, Salesforce
is a place where, you know, salespeople
log their their call information and
then, you know, their leaders can see
how they're doing and judge the pipeline
and, you know, make predictions on the
quarter. Um does Salesforce become a a
chatbot or what is the future of a
company like that? Well, Salesforce is
uh first of all, Mark's a great leader.
So, if you're going to pick like
companies who can make the transition,
founder, great leaders, so never count
him out at all. It's also a
multi-product company. Um, you know, the
largest product in Salesforce's
portfolio, at least when I was there,
was uh Salesforce Service Cloud. They
bought Slack, Tableau, Mulesoft. And so,
I think if you think about Salesforce is
just managing leads and opportunities,
it's probably too narrow. And so, you
know, Salesforce has all this these
assets. And the question is what is the
quote unquote agentic manifestation of
uh the value proposition they provide?
And you know I'm not close enough to
them anymore to really say black and
white but they have a lot of great
assets, great leadership to do it,
>> right? But that distance is valuable
because you can give us like some
perspective on what you think a company
like that will look like. Well, I mean
it's the same of all whether it's
Service Now, SAP, Salesforce, Adobe. You
have to say there's a framework from
Clayton Christensen. He wrote this book
competing against luck called jobs to be
done. What job does your customer hire
the software to do? Um, and it's not to
edit a field in a database. It's to
generate leads. It's to manage pipeline.
It's whatever it is. And if you imagine
that job through the lens of an AI
agent, what is the purest form of that
technology? Um, and I'm not sure I know
the answers to all those questions
because it hasn't been my job to think
about it anymore and I've been working
on Sierra, but that's the question is
can you make that transition as a value
proposition and then say what is the
business model for that new value
proposition and and as I said it's a
race because there's for each of
everything I said I guarantee there's
five startups trying to compete for that
right now as well. And uh it's a
question of uh it's the classic
innovator's dilemma. So taking a step
back, we've been talking about
enterprise, by the way, very interesting
what's happening to enterprise. So I
think it's worth spending the time
talking about it, but let's let's take a
step back and talk about consumer for a
moment. Um, if the internet was to just
start up today from scratch and knowing
that we have conversational AI and large
language models, what does it look like?
Like do we have a Facebook and an Amazon
and a Google or is it everything just
mediated by a chatbot? What does the
internet look like if it just starts
from zero today?
>> It's hard for me to imagine starting
from zero today because so much of what
we have in chat GBT was a byproduct of
the internet existing. Um
>> but we're for the sake of this thought
exercise we're just burning it down and
starting
>> burning it down and starting from
scratch. Um
so first I'll say I think when uh when I
was in college when I started college
the front door to the internet were
portals. So, Yahoo and Excite and the
like. And it [snorts] was sort of a
quaint time. You could list every
website that was worth reading in a
directory like the yellow pages. Very
quickly, I think Google launched in 1998
um and then sort of became took over on
Stanford campus and then, you know, by
the early 2000s, most people were
googling things and portals were uh
didn't go away uh but were no longer the
front door uh for most people's
experiences. I think chat GPT is already
the front door for the internet for many
people and I would say if you look at
like chat GPT Gemini and the like I
think your personal AI agent will be
your front door to the internet. Um and
I say that to answer your question
because I think it really changes the
way you use the internet. uh rather than
getting 10 blue links and clicking on
them, you might delegate some of that
responsibility to your agent to maybe I
when I planned my family vacation to
Copenhagen last year, uh ChachiBT did
almost all the research for me and so it
really changes your relationship because
it changed your relationship with all
the content that you know ChachiPT
looked at. I didn't end up booking
Airbnb, but I probably would have if it
if it had let me. So I think we're
moving from a world of you know just you
know uh clicking on links to uh
companies having agents. This is what
Sierra does. We help companies like
Sigma and Sirius XM Direct TV make AI
agents can talk to their customers and
consumers over the next three or four
years will have their own agents and
that's a very huge change because I
think it's quite personal but what will
you delegate to your agent? Um, uh, you
know, some things you'll probably care a
lot about. Some things you may say,
"Hey, just go book that hotel for me on
my business trip." If you're going on a
family vacation, you might spend a
little more of my time looking at the
listings. But in those moments where
you're delegating basically decision-m
to your agent, it really changes a lot
of the mechanics and economics of the
internet, SEO, SEM, all these things
that have been awesome optimized towards
persuasion of humans. All of a sudden,
we're in this brand new world. Um, so I
think the internet's going to change a
lot. Um, I think it's largely going to
be very consumer friendly just because
we can accomplish more with less thanks
to the prevalence of agents. But it will
change pricing strategies, marketing
strategies, discovery uh, in ways that I
can't candidly even as someone sort of
in the middle of it, I can't quite
predict right now. But you can sort of
see the change coming even if you don't
see the end of it.
>> So much of the web and so much of the
internet uh, is premised on us visiting
things uh, publications. if you have to
visit them, that's the way the economics
work. Uh a site like Amazon, right, that
you want, they want you to visit because
they get the data and then they can
tailor the experience to you. If you're
not visiting sites anymore, then does
the math fall apart? How does it work?
>> I think business models will change with
technology. uh you know I think the
advertising supported internet was a
byproduct of uh the distribution of the
internet where a lot of companies said
hey rather than having a payment as a
gate to content you know providing it
for free and providing ads as a better
business model not all publications made
that trade in fact somewhat interesting
enough many of the healthiest
publications didn't which is interesting
um I think uh certainly AI agents and
consumer agents will drive similar
changes to business models. Um, I'm not
sure what they are yet to be honest with
you. I still think fundamentally it's,
you know, a market where people, it's
like demand generation, demand
fulfillment. You know, it's essentially
finding people who might in the future
be interested in your product and making
sure they're aware of you. Um, this is
largely happening on like Tik Tok and
Instagram uh and Facebook today. Demand
fulfillment which is largely happening
on you know Google and Amazon today.
With the prevalence of agents, what is
the new world of demand generation? how
do you make your products known to you
but also maybe to your agent which is a
funny thing to say um and then when you
are actually transacting what is sort of
the paid equivalent of that and um I
think both of those are nent uh I don't
think we know what they are but I think
the the economy or like I'll say the
digital economy will be fine uh it's
it's going to change things it's just
going to make things that used to be
really profitable less so but I think
just like the whether it was the advent
of the internet or the newsfeed. You
know, this is not the even the fourth
time over the past decade that there has
been changes to that economy. And I
think entrepreneurs and innovators will
figure it out and it will um I think
we'll be great. I just don't know
exactly what we'll look like yet.
>> Yeah. I'm struck hearing your answers
that a you think a lot will change and b
it's still so uncertain what will
actually change.
>> We are in inning two of this nine inning
game. Yeah.
>> In my opinion. U so actually you've been
play well you've been playing let's say
it's a double header uh you were
definitely uh on the field for the first
nine innings of of the last the last
game because you know if you look
through internet history you've just
been at the center of so many of these
really important moments. Uh you know
it's amazing I keep seeing the name
Brett Taylor whenever there's a big news
story. So, it's great to be able to
speak with you. Just for our audience,
and I'm sure many of them know this, um,
you were the Twitter board chair during
the sale uh to Elon Musk. You became the
OpenAI board chair upon Sam Alman's
return after he was fired over that
weekend. Uh, you were the co-CEO of
Salesforce with Mark Beni off like we
spoke about. You're the Facebook CTO as
the company moved to mobile and you
built Google Maps. So, um, let's just
introduce you to our audience on this
one. How did you end up in the middle of
so much tech history?
>> Glutton for punishment. No, I'm just
kidding. Um,
I one of my favorite quotes is
attributed to Alan K and I I haven't
actually verified it from him. Alan K
was a researcher at Xerox Park and he
said the best way to predict the future
is to invent it. And uh I love it just
because I think it captures the mix of
optimism and uh I'd say this sort of
imperative I feel when there's a really
compelling new technology to get my
hands on it and help shape it as opposed
to observe it passively from the
sidelines. And it's interesting you talk
about those different trends because I
started my career at Google went through
both social and mobile at Facebook and
then you know learned enterprise
software at Salesforce. At Sierra, we
help companies build AI agents for their
customer experience. So, think not
having to wait on hold when you uh call
up Sirius XM or, you know, even helping
people refinance their home with with a
Rocket Mortgage agent. Part of our value
proposition is actually reflects that
history. We say if it were like 1994,
we'd be telling everyone why they needed
a website. And if it were 2015, I guess
I'd say here's why you should have a
mobile application. And now it's 2026.
And we say you need an AI agent and your
AI agent is going to be your digital
front door and most of your customer
interactions will happen via your AI
agent, not by from your mobile app or
your website, even if they exist in
those platforms. And I so it's really
interesting just because my own personal
history sort of tied up what I'm doing
now. But it's so interesting because if
you look at I love the history of
computers and you I think Microsoft's
mission at one point was to put a PC on
every desktop. I think we only reached
about two billion PCs. So, uh certainly
maybe reached that mission in the
western world, but certainly not in the
developed world. Then the internet was
developed and connected those PCs. And
then thanks to Steve Jobs and and then
obviously Android's uh evolution of that
technology, we have more smartphones
than people now. And they're all
connected to the internet. But they're
all building on top of one another. Like
the smartphone would not have been the
smartphone without the internet. And the
internet wouldn't have existed without
the PC. And now you have AI and it's
building on top of all of those. And so
what's so interesting about this like at
least the way you articulated my career
is it feels like this sense of
acceleration like each of these new
waves of technology is adopted
>> seemingly five or tens times faster than
the previous generation because they're
all compounding. Um and that's what's so
exciting about right now. We were
talking about before the show just I've
never felt a pace of change more rapid
than the moment right now
>> for you. I mean you've you've the timing
has been really impeccable. Do do you
have like I mean when something's
shifting like when the shift let's say
just from search to social happened. Um
a lot of people might have seen
something happening but there was still
I think in the general public a feeling
of like I don't know about social media.
I don't want to put my whole you know
life on the internet but you're like I
want to be the CTO of Facebook. What do
you think gave you that sort of gives
you that um sense of timing and the
decision to move and go all in on this
nent thing? Cuz you've been right about
it a lot of times.
>> I think some of it is just luck. There's
no doubt. I mean, I think it's arrogant
to say otherwise. Um I'll just actually
It's funny. I was reflecting on this.
Well, my first [snorts] job was at
Google, which has to be one of the best
first jobs of all time. Nice job.
>> Why the.com bubble had burst. So,
[laughter] the job fair was like a bunch
of tumble weed and like Microsoft and
Google. And I was like, I'd prefer
Google. And I knew Marissa Meyer had
gone to work there. So just, you know, I
say dumb luck, but it wasn't exactly I
always wonder if I had started my career
in 1999 would have been at Pets.com. You
know, [laughter] I hope not, but I don't
know. I did have the I just graduated at
the right time.
>> I just want to say we've done two shows
at this space and that's the second
Pets.com reference we've
>> I feel bad for them. They had the cool
sock puppet. Good for [laughter] them.
Um I uh I would say if there's one thing
that is uh you know I'm curious. I I
really am curious about new
technologies. I think it is hard to
embrace change in your own business or
change in technology if you immediately
are reflexively negative about anything
that you see. I encourage people who are
skeptical about a technology to find
someone whose opinion that you trust,
who has a different opinion than you.
have lunch or have dinner with them and
say, "Convince me that I'm wrong." Um,
and I've done this with a few different
technologies that I was skeptical about
and I'd find, you know, a fellow
entrepreneur that was really bullish on
it and I'd say, I just want to I want to
understand what you see. And I say that
just because I
not every hyped technology is, you know,
worth the hype. But there's usually if
smart people are interested in it,
there's usually something really
important that they see. And I think if
you have that curiosity, you'll be more
likely to be able to apply what's good
about it to your business or to your
life. And I definitely have that. I joke
I've never met a pessimistic
entrepreneur. And I'm definitely not one
either.
>> Yeah. So, it's interesting because we've
just talked about these big shifts in
technology. Search to social, uh,
desktop to mobile, and now all of it to
AI. Uh, there's some people that say AI
is the last invention, that there won't
be another shift after this. Do you
believe that? Not at all
>> really.
>> Um I
I I always I like to do the thought
exercise. So uh the United States was
found in 1776.
At the time I don't know what percentage
of our economy was agrarian, but I'm
guessing it was like 95% of the country
were farmers. And I always imagine
taking I don't know who the most
techsavvy founding father was, but
Benjamin Franklin maybe. I don't know.
And trying if he were teleported right
here in between us, first of all, that
would be a little cool. But secondly,
like how long would it take him just to
understand where all the food comes
from? Probably a really long time
because we've been automating
essentially agriculture, food
distribution for so long, we just take
it for granted right now. I think, you
know, we often see new technologies and
see what it displaces that we currently
do. Um, but we create an economy and a
culture around our technology, not the
other way around. And so in those past,
you know, [snorts]
300 years or something, we've made power
relatively abundant. We've made food
abundant. We've made transportation
relatively abundant. Um, and you know,
just think about the fact that both of
us flew here on airplanes, you know, 24
hours ago, and we're broadcasting over
the internet. It's mind-blowing,
[laughter]
right? We don't think of it as
mind-blowing, but it's mind-blowing.
>> I think we just lack the imagination. I
think that's delightful. I'm excited
that in my lifetime, hopefully 25 years
from now, there will be things that
today I wouldn't understand and jobs I
don't understand. Uh technologies that
were hopefully discovered by AI. And I
think a lot of people look at AI because
it can do things that we can't and it
somehow thinks it takes away from our
humanity. And I just disagree just like
the car didn't take away from the horse.
[laughter] It's just different. And I
think I'm just optimistic about it. I
don't mean there won't be meaningful
disruptions. Technology is hard and we
just talked about I selfidentify as a
software engineer and even over the past
four months that job has changed
dramatically. Uh the skills that made me
what I am are less valuable now than
they were you know uh four years ago.
But I'm excited for that because I'm
excited for the progress it means for
humanity.
>> All right, let's talk about Sierra. So
you're seven quarters in which is wild
because you're already doing 100 million
in annual recurring revenue. um you uh
have 50% of your co customers have more
than a billion in revenue and 20% of
your customers have more than 10 billion
in revenue. So you are selling in AI um
customer engagement you're selling into
very big companies and you're getting
very big deals. uh some of your
customers like SiriusXM will actually
have your your platform take action.
Right? So this is not chatbot. I think
this is important to say. This is not
chatbot. It's agentic. It's agents. It's
when my satellite radio isn't working,
the AI will reset it for me and I'll be
able to listen again where that
typically would have taken.
>> And by the way, that that AI agent's
sending a signal up to a satellite in
space which is communicating with your
car. How cool is that? No person
involved. AI agents talking to
satellites like and that's just a normal
thing that we do now in 2026. It's
pretty awesome.
>> And so my question because that is
that's a big deal, right? That requires
Sirius to say, "All right, Brett, go
ahead and let your AI technology, which
is probabilistic, right? Go ahead and
send a signal to our satellites and
we're going to trust everything is
good." And that to me is the big
question that I have about Sierra, which
is um there's been so much uh discussion
about this AI rollout and what's you
know gone right and wrong and and what's
taken the AI projects from pilot into
production and you've got it in
production with these big companies that
are trusting you with big actions. How
have you gotten them to trust you with
this stuff?
>> I think it all starts with the customer
and the consumer. Um, yeah, you were
implying some of the risks of AI, which
I'll talk about, but uh, if you were to
survey your listeners and survey their
sentiment about waiting on hold, it
would surprise me if you could find one
person who had a positive experience
with that. I think we spend
like years of our life waiting on hold.
And the reason for it is somewhat uh
like a mix of sort of business and
technical. Uh, until recently, the phone
line was analog. There was no way to
build a digital experience there. So if
someone did call you on the phone, you
had to staff a a call center to answer
it. And if you want to not wait on hold,
you had to overstaff that call center,
right? With people would be sitting
around most of the time doing nothing,
which just cost a lot of money. And if
you think of a consumer brand and let's
say your average revenue per customer
every month is $10,
that might be less than the cost of a
single phone call. So, you actually
can't afford for most businesses
literally can't afford to have a phone
conversation with your customers. But
now you can because you can actually
have an AI agent pick up the phone. You
don't need to wait on hold. It could be
multilingual. It can have perfect access
to your systems. Uh it can help you find
if you know the retailer next in the UK.
It can help you know find your order. Uh
if you uh if you order food in London
and deliver, it can help you whether
you're a driver or a consumer of that.
Um, Sigma Health Insurance. Uh, we went
live with them in less than two months
uh with Sierra and it can help you
understand your benefits, process
claims, all of these things are just
really useful and uh and I think because
consumers don't want to wait and they
would like an answer now. And because
you can do things with this technology
because we've essentially digitized the
last analog channel which is the
telephone, it's unlocking new business
models as well. One of my favorite
examples of this is Rocket Mortgage,
which for those of you not from the
states is I think the largest consumer
mortgage originator in the states. If
you go to redfin.com, you can use an AI
agent built on zero to find a home. You
can go to then rocket.com and finance
that home and get a mortgage and then
with their new Mr. Porter acquisition
service that loan all with AI agents.
It's amazing.
>> Right. Right. And this is this is the
pain, right, that you're solving. But I
want to hear a little bit more about the
the discussions that you have with them.
the fact that and and the persuasion
where you've said trust our technology.
They've looked at the technology. Is the
technology good enough now because there
was some doubts that it could handle uh
such complex things. So talk a little
bit about about that. How have you
gotten them to trust Sierra with these
actions because we we all agree that the
pain is real?
>> Yeah. Well, so I'll start with actually
an important thing to to ground
ourselves, no pun intended, and which is
uh we're humans make a lot of mistakes,
too. So, if you have an associate
talking to your customers, the odds that
every associate is going to do
everything perfectly is essentially
zero. Um, and I think we just have a
higher expectation of computers, which
is understandable, but you know, what
these AI agents are doing aren't
necessarily uh doing something that was
previously perfect. And I think a lot of
companies understand that. And uh if you
for anyone who has a large sales team or
customer service team, you know exactly
what I'm talking about because you've
gotten the phone calls from a client
where it didn't go well. So first I
would actually argue counterintuitively
AI agents are actually more reliable
than most of the systems that they
replace. It doesn't mean they're
perfect, by the way. They're just more
perfect than the very fallable
[laughter] uh human operation systems
that that preceded them. And the second
thing is essentially what we do at
Sierra is try to um essentially put more
robustness and determinism around these
inherently non-deterministic systems. Uh
[clears throat] one of the the best ways
we do that is through a technology
called simulations. So all of our
clients have a database of usually
hundreds or sometimes even thousands of
simulated conversations that they run
before every release of their agent that
simulates everything from an angry
customer to an unusual case to
background noise. Is it AIS talking to
AIS?
>> That's right. And it can simulate
languages, accents, background noise.
And it means that essentially before
your agent goes live, uh your customers
aren't finding all the flaws, your
simulations are. For those engineers
listening, you can think of it as almost
a regression test suite for your agent.
Uh we also use AI monitors. So how can
you use AI to monitor the AI to look for
things like hallucinations? Was it
saying something that wasn't in the data
presented to it? or even subtle things
like was the AI being frustrating to
your customer. Was it being repetitive?
Uh and it enables you to you know the
the joke that we say in the office is
the solution to every problem in AI is
more AI [laughter] and uh there's
probably a limit to that but we really
believe it and what's really fun about
that is you know with AI monitors you
can monitor all conversations so you can
go well beyond the scale of your
operations teams and even where you do
want people looking at the conversations
you can put the needles at the top of
the hay stack. So your operations teams
are just looking at the conversations
that have potential issues. And so
really creating a virtuous cycle of, you
know, testing, monitoring, and human
review um to create what we hope is a
virtuous cycle. So every day that your
agent is live, it's more robust than the
day before. It doesn't mean it's
perfect. Um but it's really, you know,
it's interesting. I'll just go back to
like the way software's evolved over my
career. In roughly, I think it was like
the early 2000s. There's the Outlook
worm that took over like everyone's
desktop and it was before there were
CISOs in most companies. Since then
we've developed the role of the CISO.
We've formalized the software
development life cycle which is
essentially a methodology to make
software robust. We've essentially in AI
agent development have this idea of an
agent development life cycle. the same
idea which is don't expect perfection
but with this methodology and the
product and the platform we've built you
can make a robust agent and you can make
it reliable and you can make it
something that becomes more trustworthy
over time. um is is what you're saying
then that with these AI agents uh it's
not like self-driving cars, right? So
self-driving for instance was it was I
don't want to say trivial but the
companies got it to 95% pretty fast and
getting from 95 to 100 has been very
difficult and we still don't have it
rolled out even though seems like
there's been progress that's been made
but if you make one mistake there you
know it's it's catastrophic whereas do
you think that there's much more of a
willingness to allow some errors with AI
agents and the type of solution that you
provide because you're your baseline is
these fallible human workers and if
you're if you make a couple fewer
mistakes with AI, you're you're still
doing a better job.
>> I'm not sure there's a black white
answer to that. I mean, certainly the
reason why Sierra has become one of the
fastest growing enterprise software
companies of all time is because the
technology is ready for many companies
and many applications. But it doesn't
mean it's ready for all. Um the you know
challenge with self-driving cars is that
the consequences of being wrong can be
human injury. So it's uh rightfully sort
of held to a very very high standard. I
might argue held to a higher standard
than human drivers which for sure it is.
>> I I we might be safer if if regulators
allowed it to roll out sooner but it's a
whole separate discussion. What's
interesting about the technology that we
make at Sira is it's not you don't have
to use it for all applications but if
you think about recovering your password
or finding your order or even finding a
health care provider in this the network
of your health insurance company AI
agents can do that now and that's what
our you know that's why we're being
pulled by the largest healthcare
financial services telecommunications
and uh consumer companies in the world
it doesn't mean it's ready for
everything yet but that's that's why we
exist you know if we were sitting here 3
or four years from now, I'll tell you
the more and more missionritical
applications that will be ready for it.
And just take going back to where we
started our conversation of vibe coding.
It's probably very safe for you to vibe
code your blog right now. Should you
vibe code the login system for a bank
right now? I probably wouldn't recommend
it. Um I mean if you want to stay in
business.
>> Yeah, exactly. I mean it's that's So it
doesn't. And could you ask is vibe
coding ready for production? What
production application? And I think
that's we're at that stage of innovation
right now where the technology is
immature. No one's claiming it's
perfect. But the idea that you should
wait until it's perfect to do anything I
think is a death sentence for companies
who have that that mentality. I think
the better question is what processes at
my company are ready for the current set
of technologies. Um recognizing by the
way that it's not a question of if it
will make a mistake, but when it does,
how do you detect it? How do you
mitigate it? All the controls that you
have in place. And I would make the
argument that actually for most
processes in most companies, the
technology is ready today. And put
another way, if we paused innovation at
the foundation model layer, we would
still have I think trillions of dollars
of value in the economy with current
technology. [clears throat]
>> Okay. Uh I want I have so many more
questions to ask. We have 20 minutes
left. So let's take a break and and
we're going to come back uh right after
this. And we're here with Brett Taylor.
He's the CEO of Sierra, chair of Open
AI. Um interesting thing you said before
the break Brett uh that Sigma I think
rolled out in what a couple of months
with you guys. Um there is a whole
industry of consultants that integrate
systems and are you know basically
connecting business processes and they
take a year and they usually do it like
50% uh effective. Uh what's going to
happen to consultants in this world?
>> Consultants is a broad category. you
know you have strategic management
consultants, you have systems
integrators, you have uh you know
outsourcing firms, you know that um
essentially can like build software on
your behalf. I think all of them will
have different impacts in this
technology. The first principles view I
have is software engineering agents are
bringing down the cost of developing
software. it's not going to go to zero,
but it's uh you know it's going from
extremely expensive to relatively
inexpensive and that's a huge change and
so where you had a dynamic where a
company was outsourcing software
development to save costs the cost of
the AI agent might be less than the cost
of the outsourced uh I'll say resource
even so it's somewhat a dehumanizing
term but often the term used in the
industry and that'll disrupt that part
of the industry but behind every
technology technology project is a
business transformation. Um, you know,
if you're uh digitizing part of your
business, the software is a means to the
end, not the end to itself. And I think
most consultants would say the change
management that they participate in, the
actual advice on how to do that and how
to be competitive has always been the
more valuable part of what they do. Um
so I think a lot of these consulting
firms will probably need to transition
away from um you know uh the billable
hours of the hands on the keyboard and
more towards change management strategic
consulting and I think that will have
some innate value. I think the having an
outside in perspective is inherently
valuable I think for a management team.
So I don't think it's going to go away
but [snorts] you know what is it that
you're buying for them and how they
provide it I think probably will change
uh a lot. Um, and by the way, as we
[snorts] also started, the software
industry is also changing a lot. And so
there's a lot of unknowns right now, but
I think it's going to skew towards
higher and higher leverage types of
consulting just given the
commoditization of of producing
software, which is which is obviously
happening with AI.
>> Okay. So, you're the chair of OpenAI.
Um, I want to talk a little bit about
OpenAI and also like the broader
foundational technology underneath. Um,
first of all, they just decided that
they're going to start showing ads. I
think the funniest tweet that I saw in
response to this was like AGI is nowhere
close uh because if OpenAI thinks that
they have to show you ads as opposed to
like you know redevelop the way the
world works then it's going to be a
while. What's your response to that? Uh
so if you look at OpenAI's business
model um kind of three pillars uh the
first is chat GPT uh monetize through
subscriptions today and this is where uh
Fiji announced sort of the ads
principles where where the plans are to
introduce some monetization component to
that. Then you have the API uh which uh
companies are using to essentially build
applications on top of these models. And
then you have agents which a lot
probably the most meaningful of that is
codeex which is a software engineering
agent. Um I'm excited about developing
all of those business models because I
mean as has been covered by many people
the cost of training these models and
the cost of inference is incredibly
high. And so to really make open AI
sustainable towards our mission to
ensure that artificial general
intelligence benefits humanity, we need
a sustainable business. And that really
means you know monetizing the incredibly
intelligent asset that we're producing
which is these models. Um I also having
been at a number of companies both
Google and Facebook that effectively
developed ads platforms. I think uh I
think it's quite complimentary to these
free offerings. Uh I yeah I was at
Google when we launched AdWords and the
before and after of the monetization for
the internet was it was strictly better
on the other side of it because the ads
were uh complemented what you searched
for and it actually you know provided
actually a lot of value to consumers. So
I think there's always an art form
because you just can't reduce trust. You
need the uh chatb agent acting on your
behalf and I'm confident the team can do
it in a way that you know complements
that experience rather than competes
with it. and I'm excited for the the
opportunity.
>> But the argument that if there were real
great economic value on the other side
of the rainbow that their ads would be
unnecessary,
>> I don't buy that just because uh it's
unclear like you know does just because
OpenAI is making this technology doesn't
mean we're like monetizing all the
benefits to the economy either. And so
you know I was just reading I don't know
if this is true but I just was reading
on axe that a mathematician proved one
of the unproven conjectures using GBT
5.2 too. I hope it's true. I haven't
personally verified it. That's that's
amazing. That is progress for humanity,
but it's not like, you know, send us the
commission. I don't think there was a
commission on it. And uh so I the
mission hasn't changed. And I think this
is just a way of uh you know, growing
the OpenAI business so we can continue
to finance what I think is the greatest
research lab in the world.
>> Okay. And let's talk about that
research. So OpenAI spending a lot of
money. Uh we won't get into the ROI
discussion. I feel like that's been
we've had that on this show a lot. Um
but I want to talk a little bit about
what the what the argument would be for
this technology starting to slow down.
Um a year ago there was a discussion
about whether the models were going to
hit a wall. Clearly they haven't hit a
wall but you could argue that they are
getting better through through tricks.
Uh for instance a model can learn
something by going to the internet and
searching for it. But that doesn't get
baked into the core of the model. So,
it's using these tricks or some people
call it scaffolding
um orchestration to get most of these
improvements and it's not like the
underlying technology is getting that
much faster. That's the argument. Um and
so then maybe eventually the tricks will
run out. What do you think about that?
>> Um first of all, I think all all crit
all criticism is important to listen to
if you're in science and you want to
make progress. My take first of all I
think there's a one of the nuanced
aspects of the progress we've seen
particularly this past year is um the
models have gotten a lot more
intelligent they may have been
sufficiently intelligent like a year ago
for most consumer applications like my
trip planning to Copenhagen I'm not sure
how much the reasoning capabilities of
GPT52
would have benefited that trip planning
we [snorts] were at peak travel agent
I'm being a little facicious here
>> but if you're using Yeah well but if
you're using um codecs to write software
for you. The difference between GPT5 and
GBT 5.2 was huge and you can see this
online just all the developers using it
because reasoning capabilities for
authoring complex software is incredibly
valuable. So I think one of the dynamics
that's sort of playing out um
particularly for people using uh chat
GBT and Gemini for I'll say casual
everyday use which most of us are at
this point is a lot of the model
improvements are are not necessarily
visible for those class of applications
but incredibly visible if you're using
it to say develop software or to prove
an unproven math conjecture. Um so
that's an interesting dynamic which is
and I think it's going to probably over
the next few years amplify which is for
a given task the models from last year
are sufficient and the new models will
be necessary to achieve some semblance
of super intelligence or artificial
general intelligence but we're actually
at sufficient intelligence for a lot of
different applications. Um, and I think
that's why it's really important when
we're judging progress and cost and all
these things that uh we'll actually
probably have to start looking at
through the lens of applications. If
you're doing pharmaceutical like therapy
discovery, you probably care a lot about
the reasoning capabilities. If you're
planning a trip a little less so to your
point on accessing tools, I actually
think this is strictly a positive. Uh I
think that one of the big breakthroughs
with AI agents will be longunning tasks
and uh and I think that using writing
code searching the internet um I think
is great. Uh I think it enables whenever
you whe whether or not whatever your
training process is the internet changes
on a second by second basis and having
an AI agent that can respond to that is
very important but more importantly it
can access a private database. that can
access, you know, a structured, you
know, can access a system that's looking
at a particular strand of DNA, whatever
you might want to do. So, Tulios is
incredibly um important. Probably the
the one thing that I think in AI circles
and and I'm not an AI researcher,
though, is to achieve true AGI, will we
need reinforcement learning from the
observations that this model makes,
which most of the mainstream models
don't do? I'm not sure about that and
there's a really healthy debate about
that but I I am I I don't characterize
those tool use as like a hack. I think
it's actually a structural input to
longunning [clears throat] agents which
will probably be uh what we need to to
to create something close to AGI.
>> Okay. Uh so we've talked a little bit
about your personal history. I just want
to end here with a bit of a lightning
round where we can talk about some of
the leaders in the tech world that
you've worked with. They're going to be
big names that a lot of our audience
will know. Uh just give us one thing
that you've learned from each and I want
to start with Mark Beni off.
>> Uh Mark uh was amazing amazing at
creating uh an ecosystem and a community
around a company. Uh I was really
inspired by my first Dream Force and
just seeing all the people that showed
up there and realizing there's a
difference between having customers and
having a community and some that's
definitely something I took away from
him. All right, Mark Zuckerberg.
>> Mark Zuckerberg was probably the longest
longest term thinker I ever worked with.
Uh we used to go on long walks around
Palo Alto talking about strategy and
every time I thought I was thinking long
term, he was thinking about two times
longer than me. Uh and I uh I've tried
to model that now. It's like how am I
thinking long term enough? And I think
you can see it in just Facebook and
Meta's performance over the past decade.
like he's always looking at the horizon
beyond the horizon which I deeply
admire.
>> Speaking of Zuckerberg's long-term
thinking, do you think this big bet that
they're making on artificial
intelligence, right? I mean, they've
poached many of uh the top engineers
from the company that you're the board
chair of. Do you think that's his belief
that we are going to stop communicating
with our human friends online and we'll
start communicating with our digital
friends instead?
>> Uh I think we're going to be
communicating with our friends for a
long time. I think this is just I mean
Mark has a lot of conviction and is
willing to put his money where his mouth
is and I think that's a real admirable
trait for a CEO. So I think that's all
it is. I don't think it's a indictment
on human relationships.
>> Oh okay. I I will take the other side of
that. I think we are we are many of us
are I mean we have this like isn't it
interesting we have this loneliness
crisis and into the void is coming these
bots that uh will tell you how great you
are. Remember everything about you look
out for your best interests. I actually
am worried about sickopantic AI. Um I
think it is uh some of the science I
guess has been partially debunked but I
I I like the anxious generation and it
resonated with me just the negative
impact of smartphones and social media
particular on young people and I think
with any of these new technologies
there's a risk of addictiveness and and
you know particularly the sort of
sickopantic nature of some of these
agents but I'm an optimist. I think
technology broadly moves uh society
forward and can unburden us from you
know repetitive and medial tasks and
enable us to be more selfaccul
actualized. So, uh, I do think it's
important to worry about, but I also
think it's wrong to think it's an
existential risk. And I think we should
worry about it, mitigate those risks.
Uh, be smart with our kids and, you
know, particularly kids in middle school
and secondary school about when they get
access to technology. But I'm really
optimistic for the benefits.
>> Um, Sam Alman, you've spent some time
with him as the board chair of OpenAI.
How how does he operate? What have you
learned from him?
Sam probably has the most ambitious
vision of any founder that I've worked
with and his superpower is aligning
people to that vision. Uh I was didn't
have the good fortune of really knowing
Steve Jobs but they always talked about
the reality distortion field and why so
many great engineers went and did great
things like creating the Macintosh or
creating the iPod and I see a lot of
that in Sam.
>> Then what is what is his grand plan for
OpenAI? what is the long-term potential
there
>> to uh build AGI and ensure that it
benefits humanity. Uh and it's always
been the mission of the foundation and
it still is and the but that sentence uh
offiscates a lot of the challenges of
doing so. Just look at the even the
capital requirements to do so which I
don't think anyone knew when it was
founded. So, uh, I think the hard part
Sam's doing now is taking that vision
and mapping out a decade long plan to
get there, which is, I think, one of the
most remarkable,
uh, technical achievements in human
history, and it's exciting to be a part
of it.
>> One interesting dynamic of that business
and Sam's challenge is it does seem that
everybody just catches up real quick,
>> you know. I It's absolutely right. I
mean that's just uh what I see going on
right now uh sort of maybe ending where
we started when I graduated from
university. I was in Stanford when the
dotcom bubble happened and then it burst
in the middle of my undergraduate
education.
If you look at that period of the
internet, most people knew that the
internet was going to be impactful and
most people even knew the key
applications like e-commerce and search
that would be impactful and it was this
cutthroat competition to decide who
would win in those markets. If you
remember Alta Vista, which sort of the
number one big user Yeah. And then you
had, you know, Yahoo and Excite as the
portals and you had uh um on
>> los.com
los you had buy.com and Amazon and every
country had their own.
>> I think we're just in a similar state
right now. Uh you don't need to be have
a PhD in artificial intelligence to
think and say wow this is going to have
a big impact on the economy and society.
So you have all of the capital all the
smart people in the world all focused on
the same thing. So this degree of
competition is completely
>> in my opinion expected. Um it means it's
super stressful for those of us in the
middle of it. It's great for the world
though. I mean competition drives
innovation. It lowers cost. So I think
it's just a great thing. Um if for those
of us in the middle we don't get a lot
of sleep because every day you wake up
there's new competition. Um, but that's
what's great about uh the like free
market technology economy is like on the
other side of this is I think we're
going to have some amazing tools that
benefit humanity and I'm excited to be a
part of it.
>> But a lot of those early pioneers fell
off
>> 100%. That's just the way it works. Uh I
think there'll be a period of
consolidation. Uh well, that's always my
joke. Your perspective on the dot bubble
is very different if you went all in on
buy.com versus Amazon.com.
And so you're going to have some
companies go out of business. I think
more likely sort of be consolidated. I
think there's probably
>> I don't say too much capital, but it's
sort of being applied blindly to
categories. Yeah, it's defin Oh, it's
absolutely a bubble, but I think it
doesn't mean that there's not truly
generational companies being created at
the same time. And I think both are true
at the same time. And
>> um you know, that's why uh you know,
venture capitalism for the weak of
heart. And [laughter] you're going to
see some people do very poorly and some
people writing their proverbial book
about the the great bets they made. And
uh you know that's the world I grew up
in and I think it's exciting though
mildly stressful at times.
>> Yeah. What about Marissa Meyer?
>> Uh Marissa was my first boss. Um I
probably learned the importance of
people and hiring. Uh I came in through
a program she made at Google called the
associate product manager program where
she hired new grads out of technical
degrees uh and who wanted to become
product managers. and she said rather
than getting an MBA, get an MBA at
Google.
>> And a lot of the young people she
recruited there ended up running big
parts of Google, running companies now.
Um, but she spent just a lot of her time
curating the people at Google. I think
was one of her greatest contributions to
that company. And um, I always remind
myself, you know, it's like eating your
vegetables. If you want your company to
be great two years from now, focusing on
the people you're bringing in now is
probably the smartest thing. And I
always think about her when I do that.
Cheryl Samberg.
>> Uh Cheryl, um this is going to sound
funny. Cheryl always gave me the like
harshest best feedback. [laughter]
[clears throat] Like he [snorts] was
like, "Whoa, well, we're not cut we're
not like cutting to the chase here, are
we?" Um [laughter] and I realized that
so much of my career hadn't been really
given feedback and and uh if someone
actually cares about you, the their
willingness to actually tell you what
you need to hear, not what you want to
hear, is a gift. And so, um, I think
it's very hard to give feedback because
you think you think about the way it
will make someone feel rather than
thinking about you want them to be
better at their career in the future.
So, uh, I learned that from her and
she's she's amazing at I think she's a
mentor to like half of Silicon Valley
for a reason.
>> Do we put Larry and Sergey together? I
feel like people just say Larry Sergey.
>> We'll put Larry and Sergey together. Um,
uh, Larry for me always focused on
long-term technology direction in a way
that was remarkable. When I got to
Google, I had no idea why we were
building our own data centers and it was
turned out to be an incredibly important
part of the cost to serve of Google when
we were making everything from Google
Maps to App Engine, which became Google
Cloud. his focus on like setting it up
architecturally to have sort of unfair
advantages of scale and and uh was
remarkable uh just incredibly long-term
technical view.
>> Um I have this for I'm just going to ask
it. What's your opinion of Elon Musk
after uh your interactions with him?
>> Um probably the greatest entrepreneur of
our time. I mean, you know, you he's a
company. He's created everything from
SpaceX and look at the impact of
Starlink, let alone Tesla and X. So, uh,
you know, had some complicated
interactions, but sort of the undisputed
leader uh in that respect.
>> Did he make a good choice buying X?
>> Um, I'm not very close to it, so I
haven't really followed it as much since
since the transaction went through. So,
I don't I don't have a strong opinion on
it.
>> Okay. I I've learned not to ask people
in your position to predict like the
next five years, but can you tell us
what's going to happen over the next
year?
>> I think uh we will see um a set of
things like that uh math conjecture
that's proven where society outside of
the realm of like my social circles
starts to acknowledge
uh the impact that AI is going to have
on science. And I think that will in a
good way change the positive perception
of AI when we realize this can help
perhaps over time discover cures to
unccured diseases uh make breakthroughs
in physics, clean energy, battery
storage where we'll get out of the
discussion of AI as a chatbot and the
discussion of AI as something that's
going to move society forward. I'm
really looking forward to that.
>> Well, Brett, it's great that you came
down here. This is our first
conversation. and I've been looking
forward to it for a long time and I hope
it's [music] not our last. So, thanks
again.
>> Thanks for having me.
>> All right, everybody. Thank you for
listening and watching and thank you to
Qualcomm for having us here at your
space at Davos. We'll see you next time
on Big Technology Podcast. Awesome.
Thank you.
>> Thank you so much. Great stuff.
>> Thanks everybody. [applause]