Masters of Scale
00:26:31 · Demis Hassabis
[00:26:31] S2: Yeah. Well, look, I think first of all, first thing to say is, it looks to me like there's going to be, you know, half a dozen, six to eight, if you include Chinese companies, company, you know, offerings at the frontier or near the frontier. Right? And it feels like there's gonna be leapfrogging and maybe something's, like, three to six months ahead, but it's gonna be relatively close. So there's a lot of options if... Depends if you're talking about an enterprise or a country. Right? So I think as an enterprise, you have a lot of options to arbitrage between these different things. Some of them are better at certain things, you know, multimodal understanding versus coding, or it's very hard to be better on all on all vectors of importance at once. So I think that's gonna happen. And then open source, which also has its risks because how do you... As we've discussed for many, many years, how do you restrict bad actor using that whilst enabling, of course, as many good actors, scientists, and others to use these fantastic tools. So that's an unresolved problem. But open sources, you know, maybe only lagging six months to a year behind. Obviously, we need kind of Western open source solutions. But I think at this point, if we're talking about countries as well, all companies that need their data to be private or they wanna fine tune further on their own, you know, sensitive data, again, be that enterprise data or or sovereign data, I think that's that's gonna be one solution. There's also looking at what are the downstream things that can be done with these tools, you know, big companies and big sectors that can benefit from these tools like health care that you can just use this, you know, almost like commodities and then build the value on top of it rather than, you know, I wouldn't recommend every country, for example, trying to build a a frontier model. That just doesn't make sense to me.
00:28:10 · Reid Hoffman, Demis Hassabis
[00:28:10] S3: So they're [00:28:11] S2: gonna have... They're gonna have to find some [00:28:12] S3: other way of shortcutting that. Yes. And one also collaborating and working out arrangements with multinational companies like your own. Yeah. I think one of the reasons I wanted to kind of end on that question is that part of the theme of of the summit is agency. And agency is not just a question of individual agency, like how do you take agency, but it's also a collective, how do we take agency. And I think part of the thing that's actually important in the AI age is that we take agency not just as any one country, but as countries together. And it's part of how we have a we are in this together and we are building for the benefit of humanity. And I think that's the kind of arc of... We started with Sarah Fryer, and thank you for joining us because ending... Demis has been with such intensity that I was so grateful that you set up the agenda for me thinking about how to help in this from our very first, you know, discussion at King's Cross. So let's give Demis a hand. [00:29:07] S2: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Reid. Thank you.
00:29:07 · Demis Hassabis, Jeff Berman
[00:29:07] S2: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Reid. Thank you. Ad[00:29:12] S0: Thanks again to Demis Hassabis for joining us at the twenty twenty six Masters of Scale Summit. This conversation was recorded live on stage in San Francisco at the amazing Presidio Theatre. I'm Jeff Berman. Thanks for listening. Global hiring is such a headache when you're building fast, but don't let payroll compliance or onboarding slow you down. Companies like ElevenLabs and are scaling globally and effortlessly with Deel. ElevenLabs quadrupled their headcount in 2025, and the Straub pays 364 employees across 15 countries all from one system. Build your global team with Deel. Visit deal.com/mos and start expanding your business today. That's deel.com/mos. Every business hits the same wall the moment your business outgrows the systems that got you here. Spreadsheets everywhere, five different logins, data scattered across entities that don't even talk to each other. If your finance team spends more time finding data than using it, that's when you need the Intuit ERP. Intuit Enterprise Suite is the AI native ERP solution that's powerful, painless, and proven, built for businesses scaling fast without the complexity that usually comes with it. From the makers of QuickBooks, learn more at intuit.com/erp.
00:30:53 · S5, Jeff Berman, Reid Hoffman, S1
Ad[00:30:53] S5: Hey, listeners. Bob here. If you listen to Rapid Response on Masters of Scale, you may be missing half the show because every Friday, we release a second Rapid Response exclusively in the Rapid Response feed. The guests and topics are just as compelling and timely from Ford's CEO to NASA's administrator to the lessons from The Devil Wears Prada. It takes about ten seconds to find. Just search rapid response wherever you listen to podcasts and hit follow to make sure you never miss an episode. I hope to see you there. [00:31:31] S0: Masters of Scale is a Wait What original. Our executive producer is Eve Tro. Senior supervising producer is Tricia Bobita. Associate producer is Masha Macatanina. Video editor is MG Frederick. Senior talent executive is Stephanie Stern. Mixing and mastering by the audio boys themselves, Aaron Bestinelli and Brian Pugh with original music by the remarkable Ryan Holiday. Visit mastersofscale.com to find the transcript for this episode and to subscribe to our newsletter. And be sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel. [00:32:14] S4: Humans will never be more intelligent than AI. [00:32:17] S0: There's gonna be two types of companies. Those are great at AI and those that went out of business because they weren't. [00:32:22] S1: How do we build a future that is human centered?
00:32:22 · S1, Reid Hoffman
[00:32:22] S1: How do we build a future that is human centered? [00:32:27] S4: I'm Rana el Kaliouby. And on my podcast, Pioneers of AI, we answer that question and so many more. As an AI scientist, entrepreneur, and investor, I know what it takes to build AI that works for everyone. Every week, I sit down with the pioneers shaping our future, and we take you behind the scenes of the AI that's transforming our lives. Find Pioneers of AI wherever you tune in.