‘Most successful founders do not set out to create companies. They are on a mission to create something closer to a religion, and at some point it turns out that forming a company is the easiest way to do so’ - Sam Altman.
I’ve forced myself to re-read that quotation by Altman several times.
Do I disagree with it because I disrespect him?
Has he hit a fundamental truth about workplace culture, that merely sounds bad from the mouth of the oligarch who might destroy us?
I returned to it on the news that a safety leader had left the firm saying: ‘I quit OpenAI because its culture is broken.’ David Robinson’s own estimation is that there’s a fifty-fifty chance of artificial intelligence killing the human race and he felt Altman wasn’t interested in doing the right thing, if it was at the expense of his organisation.
There’s definitely some element of truth in what Altman says. In Built to Last, Jim Collins and Jerry Porras tried to decipher the approach of the companies that had outperformed their rivals over the long-term.
The authors talked about ‘Cult-Like Cultures’ saying the very best firms did have a sense of indoctrination and strong ideologies.
Ultimately it comes down to what cultures do with doubters.
A cult tends to throw them out, but the most effective organisations welcome debate and disagreement. Cultures need their sceptics, they need those willing to challenge the leaders’ voice. The best cultures are the ones where the noisy troublemakers are used both to keep the culture honest, and also constructively suggest a different way forwards.
Clearly at the cutting edge of AI how you deal with doubters is of existential importance.
Robinson isn’t the first safety researcher to leave OpenAI saying these things. It’s worrying if Altman is putting his desire to build a religion ahead of the safety of the rest of us.
Read more: The Atlantic / The Guardian / Altman’s original post
Man, did I hate ‘In Person’ the new book by Natalia Emanuel and Emma Harrington? It reads like the latest title in Darth Vader’s Reading Group, offering a very biased take on why remote work sucks. (And as far as my detective work could find out it was funded by a neo-conservative think tank). I ended up sharing my reservations with Natalia in a brilliant podcast discussion that’s out next week. In the meantime the authors share some of their case in this Atlantic article.
Best leader? Worst leader? I really like this survey about good leaders and bad leaders. It’s something of a socratic questionaire, taking you closer to understanding what the real secrets of leadership are.
From the same field of research, for World Mental Health Day a reminder of the Social Cure.
‘An oxymoron is the opposite of polarisation. An oxymoron is a concept that has as its constituent parts seemingly mutually exclusive... contradictory elements.' I could listen to architect Bjarke Ingels all day. (Archive Eat Sleep Work Repeat with him)
Last week I mentioned the AI job scam that targeted me. Journalist Victoria Turk describes exactly the same approach that came for her. The job seemed perfect, in fact maybe ‘too perfect – as if someone had put my CV into ChatGPT and asked it to create a job description based directly on my experience.’ Take care out there!
‘You are being watched… every word that you say and every time you utter something. It just feels really dystopian’. The Co-op has been subjecting call centre workers to an AI assessment of their work.
Andre Spicer, the Dean of Bayes Business School, shared a valuable post about a cultural change discussion at the school. What works when it comes to changing culture? Changing practices, cultivating internal influencers, building a movement… and lots more.
‘Bye for now, take care’ - someone sent an AI agent to his AI job interview.
I interviewed Professor Laura Empson about the culture inside professional services firms.
Where Creativity Lives - new video
What can Justin Bieber and The Beatles teach us about good ideas?
Last month the APG asked me to give a talk entitled ‘Where Creativity Lives’. It was pretty obvious that they wanted me to talk about pop music for half an hour but were scared to ask.
Armed with lessons from pop stars like Rosalía, Sabrina Carpenter and songwriters like Amy Allen I talked through what we can learn from the biggest marketplace for creative ideas in the world: the music charts.
I explain how:
Creativity is killed by stress
What we can learn from the Grammys songwriter of the year, who wrote 7 songs a week every week for 7 years, and ended up with just 7 hits
The lesson we can learn from George Harrison feeling disrespected in The Beatles
How being bored might be your secret doorway to creativity
How contemporary creativity is more about collaboration than being a lone wolf
The talk is here:
The slides (with links for further reading) are here.
APG is a wonderful membership organisation that promotes smarter thinking - especially in the marketing and communications fields.