A question about a dying pet convinced Bill Gates that AI was real
About Bill
- Co-founded Microsoft in 1975; pivotal in the microcomputer revolution.
- Co-founder of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation—over $50B in global grants since 2000.
- Key architect of Windows, Office, and major computing software platforms.
- Drove global childhood death reduction—child mortality cut by 50% in 20 years.
- Pioneered philanthropic tech innovation—malaria, toilets, vaccine breakthroughs.
About Reid
- Founded LinkedIn
- Hosts Masters of Scale
- Founded Manas AI, a drug discovery company
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Reid Hoffman, co-founder of LinkedIn and Inflection AI, recounts how the team persuaded Bill Gates that AI was ready for prime time. A simple prompt about comforting a friend whose pet died moved Gates more than passing an AP Biology exam ever could.
Transcript
Note: Transcripts may be automatically generated and are not fully corrected for spelling, grammar, and formatting.
Because, you know, in the end, um, I like people. If you're here, you probably like people, but I'm curious. You helped co-found Inflection. There must be some stories for you too. So I was part of the crew that persuaded Bill Gates. The GPT revolution was real. We've gotten a challenge. Hey, I'll believe you have good general purpose functional technology. If without special training, you can pass the AP bio exam at a five. And so we arranged a whole meeting. We brought one of the bio Olympiads with us. She was a gold medalist. And that was all persuasive. That's okay. But what questions you want to ask? And I think it's because it happened with a friend of his. He said, say you had a friend who's treasured pet just died. How would you try to comfort them? And GPT-4 gave a pitch perfect answers like, well, you probably know your friend better than I do. So the specific thing for your friend, I'm not sure, but here's some things you could consider. You go be with them. You could offer to make their life a little easier. You could tell them that you're aware of how much their pet meant to them and how much it was part of the fabric of their life. And it had an incomplete, both practical, but also cognitive and emotional range. Literally at that moment, I saw Bill's face change. It was like, that's great.
