ChatGPT may be the first AI that most of the 8 billion people on our planet use.
Some people don't understand why OpenAI took the risk of deprecating all previous models in favor of GPT-5.
It’s a full-throttle, no-looking-back blitzscale bet. And here’s why it may win:
1/ By opening GPT-5 to everyone immediately, OpenAI locks in massive network effects. New users flock in, existing users upgrade en masse, and ChatGPT’s market pull intensifies. Yes, they’ll spend more to service the use of their most powerful model.
2/ GPT‑5 is priced at $1.25 per million input tokens and $10 per million output tokens—about half the input cost of GPT‑4o. The upside, though, is that they’ll continue to grow the number of new users integrating ChatGPT into their daily lives.
3/ For context: ChatGPT reached 100 million monthly active users just two months after launch, the fastest consumer app ever to hit that mark. In August, it surged past 700 million WAU.
4/ By contrast, Facebook needed 53 months to reach its first 100 million users and 67 months to top 300 million.
5/ OpenAI realizes that the more people who build GPT-5 into their routines, the stronger the moat. Usage becomes habit, habit becomes infrastructure.
6/ So, not only do they have to continue scaling –– they plan to hit a billion WAU by year's end –– they have to build real user enjoyment.
7/ That means building for a wider audience and focusing on different things than just power benchmarks.
8/ This emphasis on user experience was clear throughout the GPT-5 launch event. In many ways, OpenAI prioritized showcasing user experience over raw model performance.
9/ In healthcare, they highlighted that they’d tailored GPT-5 to reflect how people are already using ChatGPT, while in coding, the focus was on interaction quality: making the experience feel frictionless.
10/ It felt like a product strategy designed to scale trust, usage, and ubiquity to a more consumer audience.
11/ GPT-5 is a tangible example of the coming abundance of intelligence. It's in your pocket. It meets you and your problems where you are. Wherever in the world you are, in whatever language you speak, at whatever level you want it to, with limitless patience.
12/ It will help farmers in India plan their crop cycles, solopreneurs scale small businesses, and educators teach students. It will help communities collaborate more efficiently, improving everyone’s quality of life.
13/ Now OpenAI’s job is to show ChatGPT to as many people as possible.
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It's not enough to have a firm grasp of the industry you're building in.
If your product doesn’t speak to core human impulses, it probably won’t scale.
Here's why builders need to have a strong theory of human nature:
Founders start with a good idea or a novel technology, but many haven't articulated how that idea aligns with what it means to be human.
If you're trying to create a mass-market consumer application, you have to ask yourself: "What are the parts of what it is to be human that I am triggering, responding to, surveying, etc?"
Some AI industry leaders are predicting white-collar bloodbaths.
Even the most inspirational advice to new graduates lands like a Band-Aid on a bullet wound.
Some thoughts on new grads, and finding a job in the AI wave:
2/ What you really want is a dynamic career path, not a static one. Would it have made sense to internet-proof one’s career in 1997? Or YouTube-proof it in 2008? When new technology starts cresting, the best move is to surf that wave.
This is where new grads can excel.
3/ College grads (and startups, for that matter) almost always enjoy an advantage over their senior leaders when it comes to adopting new technology.
If you’re a recent graduate, I urge you not to think in terms of AI-proofing your career. Instead, AI-optimize it.
What if, in the future, everything breaks humanity's way?
In my new podcast, Possible, my co-host @ariairene and I talk with some sharp minds to sketch out the brightest future and what it'll take to get there. We also invite another guest, GPT-4, to help us.
Here's a preview:
Here’s a little bit more on why @ariairene and I are so galvanized by Possible, our guests, and what humanity could possibly get right if we leverage technology—and our collective effort—effectively.
We’re honored to launch Possible with comedian, author & former Daily Show host @TrevorNoah. We talk the future of entertainment, but also capitalism, work, identity, misinformation & more. He did, however, only like one of GPT-4’s lightbulb jokes!💡
Last summer, I got access to GPT-4. It felt like I had a new kind of passport.
My pages were quickly filled with stamps: Over 1,000 prompts. 800+ pages of outputs. Just in the first few months.
With GPT-4, I traveled through light bulb jokes, epic poems, original sci fi plots, and musings on how AI might strengthen democracy, society and industries.
The goal, like in any good trip, was to learn as much about my traveling partner as the place I was exploring.
I believe that a guiding mission will take you farther than the success of any one product. And if you’re ever forced to choose between them, choose the mission every time.
Letting go is hard. It’s easy to fool yourself into thinking a product or service is on mission. Maybe it reaches a lot of people, or maybe the feedback is great, or it makes lots of money, or maybe you grew it from nothing and can’t bear to let it go.
I wanted to talk to @noom's @saejujeong because he’s never been afraid to choose mission over product.
In fact, he has made painful pivots in service of his guiding mission: to use technology to help as many people as possible live healthier lives.